What did Jesus say to God on the cross?

But what must it have been to His holy nature to be made sin? Coming into the world He was spoken of as that "Holy Thing": going out of it He was "made sin." The One who was the Object of the Father's delight from all eternity is forsaken. From the Twenty second Psalm, we learn that the One who utters the cry, "My God, my God why hast Thou forsaken me?" alone can give the answer, "Thou art holy, O Thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel." If the purpose of the heart of God, to dwell in the midst of a praising people, is to be fulfilled, then the holiness of God must first be met. Nothing can meet the holy requirements of a holy God in respect of sin except the offering of Christ without spot.

(v. 3) That God should forsake a perfectly righteous man in his distress is entirely contrary to the ways of God with men. Yet we are assured there can be no unrighteousness with God. Thus we learn from the lips of Christ Himself that on this solemn and unique occasion, God was perfectly righteous in forsaking the absolutely righteous One; for the Lord can say, “But thou art holy.” Thus the One who is forsaken by God is the One who entirely vindicates God. These words, however, do more than assure us of the holiness of God in forsaking Christ on the cross. They tell us of the deep necessity for Christ to be forsaken when bearing sins, if God's holiness is to be met, and man to be blessed.

"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" What mortal mind can understand that cry, or mortal words explain it? It is the central cry of the seven, and rightly so, for upon its deep mysterious meaning there depends all the glory of God and our salvation. Why was it? The Lord Himself answers the question. "But Thou art holy" (Ps. 22:3). But was not Jesus holy? Yes, He was as holy in His perfect Manhood as in the Godhead glory; just as holy in His own Person when He hung upon that cross as when He created the angels. Then why was He forsaken? I answer for myself — It was for me. That which we were, He was made. Sin, which is eternally and infinitely abhorrent to God, He became, that God's love might reach us in absolute righteousness. The inflexibility of God's justice and the greatness of His love were revealed when that cry broke forth from the darkness and woe of Calvary. He was forsaken that we might be saved. Oh may we ever be preserved from thinking superficial thoughts of our salvation! I admit the mystery of that cry. No creature mind will ever fathom the depths of it. Father, Son and Holy Ghost alone understand it; but throughout eternity it will be the wonder of our hearts and the theme of our song. Jesus our Saviour, who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The first word I will read is in 23rd Luke, verse 34. This prayer did not break from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ when He began His ministry amongst men and when they first of all wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth and then, moved with anger when He applied the truth, led Him to the brow of the hill upon which the city was built to cast Him down headlong. It was not then that He prayed this prayer, but after He had ministered among them for three and a half years; after He had told out His most wonderful love to them in unsurpassable words; when He had blessed their children and fed them when they were hungry, and healed the sick and cleansed the leper, opened the eyes of the blind and raised the dead. When He had gone about amongst them doing good "for God was with Him"; and when, in answer to all that heavenly grace that had been poured out without reserve amongst them, they cried, "Away with Him! Crucify Him!" When they had spat on His scarred face and seamed His back with the scourge and crowned His head with thorns and nailed Him to a gibbet and, not satisfied with that, had sat down to watch His sufferings, to gloat over His anguish and to mock Him, it was then, when the tide of man's hatred rolled upon Him, wave upon wave, that His voice was heard above the storm praying, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do." He might have prayed another prayer. When one of His disciples drew a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane to protect his Master, as he thought, the Lord said, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" He did not pray that prayer, if He had it would have meant damnation, it would have meant the blackness of darkness for ever for them and for us. He did not pray that prayer, He waited until they had done their worst and then He prayed, "Father forgive them; for they know not what they do." It was the answer of invincible love to implacable hate, it was the answer of absolute goodness to incorrigible badness, and it was a prayer that was not only made but heard and answered, and the gospel as it goes forth in this world today is the answer to that prayer. In this He expressed His will. I would speak of some of these words at least as the last will and testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in this prayer He expresses His will to God — His will for mankind at large. For not only was the Jew there at that Cross, but the Gentile was there as well. Mankind was represented there. The thoughts of many hearts were revealed there and the heart of man in its enmity, against God, in its determination to be rid of God was fully declared, and when it had declared itself so absolutely, so conclusively the voice of Jesus answered in divine, heart moving love, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." When the Lord prayed that prayer He not only looked upon that seething mass of godless men that surged about Him, He looked down through the ages upon mankind to the very uttermost bounds of the earth and He prayed for mercy, for the salvation of men, and the gospel is going forth today as the result of that prayer. And if we have believed it and if we know God as our Father and Jesus as our Saviour and the Spirit of God as our abiding Comforter we owe it to that prayer that Jesus prayed when men had done their worst to Him.

The first words we hear Him utter are, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’ (23:34). The perpetrators crucifying Him were in the process of committing the greatest crime ever. They had had abundant testimony of who the Lord Jesus was but knowingly rejected Him. They were fully responsible for what they did. But the Lord Jesus, in infinite grace, utters the words ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’. In their hatred they were blind and did not see the full extent of their guilt and the full implication of their actions. The Lord uses this to treat them as ignorant and, therefore, as manslayers instead of murderers. In other words, through this prayer He was opening the city of refuge to them (Numbers 35). This was the only basis on which they could be brought to fellowship with God.

Luke gives us more of the sufferings of Christ in Gethsemane than any other gospel. Being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly. The more He felt the depths of the dreadful cup, the more earnestly He prayed. The sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. It drew out His soul as man to God. But on the cross we find no trace in this gospel of the agony and sorrow. He had already passed through it all in spirit with God, so that He is above it all. We see, pre-eminently in Luke, the perfectness of Christ as Man. So entirely is He above the circumstances that He is occupied with others. His first word on the Cross is, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Then He can turn to the poor thief by His side, and say, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." And His last word is, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." It is the perfect unclouded consciousness of the perfect Man giving up His spirit to His Father.

(v. 21 B) Thus every form of suffering has been endured — the enmity of the Jews, the shameless opposition of the Gentiles, the malice of Satan, and above all the forsaking of God when making atonement. Then when all is over, when the great work of atonement is accomplished, and the extreme point of suffering is reached, set forth by the horns of the buffaloes, the cry of the Sufferer is heard, and the answer comes. Christ can say, “Thou hast heard me.” The resurrection was the proof to man that Christ was heard, and the work accepted. Nevertheless, Christ Himself was conscious of being heard and accepted directly the atoning work was completed. Therefore at once, we learn from the Gospels, the language of perfect communion was used by the Lord. No longer does He say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” but, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

"And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." Here there is no cry to God in the sense of being forsaken, when His soul was made an offering for sin. This was given appropriately by Matthew and Mark. Nor is it as the consciously divine person, the Son, pronouncing the work finished for which He had come. It is the ever perfect man, Christ Jesus, with unwavering confidence committing His spirit into His Father's keeping. (Compare Psalm 16, and Psalm 31) It was the atoning One. On the cross, and nowhere else, was expiation effected; there was His blood shed; there His death, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet knew what it was to have the face of God hid from Him in judgment of sin — our sin. But the words here are no expression of His suffering, as thus abandoned and atoning, but of the peaceful departure of His spirit, as man, into the hands of God the Father. He is drinking the cup in Matthew and Mark; He, the true, but rejected Messiah, the faithful servant, now suffering for sin, who had laboured in grace here below. But here the Saviour is viewed in His absolute dependence and trust in Him, whom He had set before Him, as in life always, so with equal affiance of heart in death. It was the province of John to show Him even then above all circumstances in personal glory. It is beyond all controversy, that here the human side of Christ's death is more vividly portrayed than in any of the Gospels — perfect, but human; just as in John it is the divine side, though care is taken to prove particularly there its reality, as well as the witness of its efficacy for sinful man. The consistency of this with all we have seen in Luke, from first to last, is unquestionable: Son of God — of the Highest, as of David also; but He is emphatically, and in every detail, the Son of man.

One thing more, which is also characteristic of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus cried with a "loud voice." Why is that recorded? Why does the Spirit of God dwell upon that here? In order to show that our Lord Jesus Christ retained the full, undiminished, unchanged strength of His manhood; that, in the full possession of all His powers as a Man; not wasted, not worn out with suffering; His strength in no sense deteriorated by what He had gone through; but in the full vigour of perfect humanity He cried with a "loud voice," and said, "Father." What a beautiful word! Perfect communion, perfect repose, perfect subjection of spirit in all the rest of the heart, even though death was there; but a death that truly was only the occasion of His commending His spirit into His Father's hands. How beautiful and blessed to dwell upon this!

His first word was "Father." His last word is "Father"; and between the two the darkness and tempest. "Father into Thy hands I commend My spirit." It is only in Luke's gospel that this cry is recorded, the Gospel that gives His first recorded words, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" That business was finished now, not a jot of it left undone, and in the serenity and calm of that knowledge He commends His spirit to His Father and bows His head in death.