Why did Jesus say, "I thirst," from the cross?

We find now the divine end reached, and as it only could be, by the divine way; the Lord Himself here declares the perfect accomplishment of all that Scripture has foretold, save one thing only, and in death, as in life, Scripture is for Him the authoritative word of the living God. As in the temptation He had refused to minister to His own need, apart from that by every word of which, He declared, man lives, so now, on the same principle, He makes known that need, not that it might be ministered to, but that Scripture might be fulfilled. He does not Himself fulfil it; God can be trusted to take care for that; but He gives utterance to the distress which will as uttered occasion the fulfilment. The terrible thirst of crucifixion is upon Him; but that is not enough to force the parched lips to speech; but it is written, "In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink:" this opens them. He will show Himself, as ever, in active obedience to the will of God, which He came to accomplish. He simply says, "I thirst:" and by the unsympathetic hands of those around His cross, the vinegar is tendered, and the prophecy fulfilled.

All is finished: and His own lips declare it. The very smallness, apparently, of this last matter cared for is absolute proof that no scripture whatever could be left as of no importance. The entire body of Old Testament prophecy is confirmed and certified with all the weight of Christ's authority. He had said before, "Scripture cannot be broken:" and we know exactly what for Him was "Scripture." Here, amid the intense sufferings of the cross, we see how completely He owned and was guided by it. That will of God which He came to do was here marked out for Him. The Law was in His heart; and in the very replacing of the Old Testament sacrifices by His one supreme sacrifice, (of which the psalm referred to speaks,) every part of this was honored and upheld. The Antitype necessarily confirmed the type He was displacing, and we have seen this in all the detail given us in the Gospels.

We have a most beautiful illustration of our Lord's jealous care for the fulfilment of the very smallest statement of Scripture at the close of His life. He is hanging upon the cross. Competent authorities tell us that death by crucifixion was not only excruciating, but that intense thirst was one of its most painful features. Without doubt, our Lord had this thirst in all its intensity, for He had refused any stupefying draught. He says, "I thirst" — just what any sufferer in a similar position would have said; but why does He say it? Was it to relieve His own sufferings? "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst" (John 19:28). In the 69th Psalm, the Spirit of God had prophetically declared for Him: "In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (verse 21). Everything had been accomplished — His betrayal, trial, rejection by His own people, His disciples scattered, the mocking of the Gentiles, the scorn and railing — He is about to yield up His Spirit to His Father; but one small prediction remained, and for that reason He permits His intense suffering to be known. Blessed Jesus! "That the Scriptures might be fulfilled."

In verse 28 we get another of those flashes of omniscience which characterize this Gospel. A few verses earlier we saw the soldiers fulfilling Scripture, though utterly unconscious that they were doing so. We now see Jesus Himself in that dark hour surveying the whole field of prophecy, and well aware that of all the predictions centring on His death only one remained to be fulfilled. In Psalm 69 David had written, "In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." A small thing in itself, but every word of God must be verified in its season, and we are informed that in that hour of suffering He was able to rise above His circumstances and not only discern the one thing lacking but also utter words that at once brought it to pass. No mere man could have done either the one or the other.

The remarkable thing is also that just before He was crucified the soldiers gave Him vinegar mixed with gall and myrrh, but He would not accept it, as recorded in Matthew and Mark. This was doubtless because He would have nothing of any human device to lessen the physical suffering involved, and also because at that moment there was no thirst on His part. Divine predictions must be fulfilled with exactitude and precision.

The End. — The Lord had interceded for His murderers (Luke 23:34). He had assured the penitent thief of being with Him that day in Paradise, granting more than the man had asked (43). He had commended His mother to the care of John the son of Zebedee (John 19:26-27). The awful cry, recorded by Matthew (27:46) and by Mark (15:34), had been heard proceeding from His lips. The three hours of darkness were, we presume, now passed. All, too, that He had to suffer at the hands of His creatures, short of actual death, He had patiently endured. So writes John: "Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, says, I thirst" (19:28). It is questioned, whether the clause "that the Scripture might be fulfilled" is to be connected with "all things are now finished," or with "I thirst." Many names may be cited for the one and for the other. We would rather connect it with "I thirst." All that the Lord had to suffer of indignity from man and the forsaking of God was over. But a scripture had spoken of giving Him to drink vinegar, or sour wine (Ps. 69:21). Was that to be left unfulfilled? No. So thirsty, the common effect of crucifixion, the Lord said, "I thirst." Really a man, the natural feelings of a man He experienced. And provision had been made to meet such a want. A vessel with the sour wine, the drink of common soldiers, was there. A sponge was at hand, and a stalk of hyssop was in readiness. To His utterance attention was given, and one of the soldiers proceeded to administer to the want. Just when crucified He had been offered wine mingled with myrrh to deaden the pain. He refused that. Then Luke informs us (23:36), that the soldiers in mockery offered Him of their sour wine to drink. But now it was not in mockery, but to relieve His thirst, that one ran, we elsewhere read, dipped the sponge in the wine, and gave Him to drink. He received it, and said, "It is finished." No Scripture now remained unfulfilled of all that had been written of Him ere He should die; hence His word, but one word in the Greek, "It is finished." And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit.

"After this Jesus, knowing that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be accomplished, saith, I thirst. (Ps. 69:21.) A vessel (therefore) was standing there full of vinegar; and they, having filled a sponge with vinegar and put hyssop round (it), put (it) up to His mouth. When, therefore, Jesus received the vinegar, He said, It is finished, and, bowing His head, delivered up His spirit." It is not only that in human tenderness He provides for all left behind in that supreme moment, but He thinks of Scripture in spirit or in terms not yet fulfilled. No doubt there is the distressing physical effect expressed of all that mind and heart and body had endured till then; but His last request is here bound up, not with His want only, but with His undying zeal for the word if only a single thing lacked to make it honourable. Every word that proceeds through God's mouth must be fulfilled; and had He not said of Messiah, "My tongue cleaveth to my jaws," and "In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink"? Then, having drunk, the Saviour says, "It is finished," with a Divine calm as perfect here as His expression is given elsewhere of His unfathomable suffering.

The gospel of John it is, as already said, that gives us this side of the glory of the cross. First, He delivers Himself up, when those who came to take Him had all fallen on the ground before Him: it is the Father's cup He takes, and no man taketh His life from Him. The word that is written of Him, this is what is supreme in His heart: at the entrance upon His ministry, when tempted in the wilderness, unmoved by bodily need to put forth the power which He had to make bread of stones, He proclaims the principle of His life, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live." On the cross He proclaimed His thirst, using indeed no miraculous power to release it, but yet as if to invite the compassion of the hostile throng around Him? No; it is not so: the principle of His life it is that prompts and sustains Him to the end. In the midst of concentrated sufferings He is master of Himself and of the circumstances; conscious that the predicted course is just at its end, but that there remains one thing yet unaccomplished, Jesus, "that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, 'I thirst.'" Then when He has received the vinegar He says, "It is finished." The glorious work is fulfilled: triumphant in the conviction, He has but to bow His head and render up His spirit.

This is the spirit in which He goes forth to service: the close of it on earth, closing with the deepest humiliation and dreadest shadow of all, affords so beautiful an example of this principle, (even while at first sight it might seem at conflict with it), that one cannot forbear to speak of it here. One of the physical distresses of the agony of the cross is the great thirst produced by it. Almost the last words of the Lord there had reference to this, and gave it expression. His words, "I thirst" are answered by the sponge filled with vinegar, of which He tasted: and they were such as naturally to call forth such an answer. Was this, then; really any seeking of relief in His extremity, even from the hands that had nailed Him there? No: we are carefully guarded from such a thought. There was one Scripture, we are told, that remained to be fulfilled; and of this it was, in all the agony of that hour, that He was thinking: "Jesus, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." This leads to what had been predicted: "in my thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink." Thus the glorious obedience shines here without a cloud upon it, nay, in surpassing lustre. "Lo, I come to do Thy will" is the principle of His life.

I think sometimes we forget that the Lord suffered physically, probably as no other could suffer. He never used His Godhead power to alleviate His human suffering, and when He cried, "I thirst," we see the suffering Man, the suffering Man in His perfection expressing the fact that He suffered. Was there any relenting in His foes who heard that cry? That cry of distress? Was there any pity, any mercy in any of them? He tells us in the 69th Psalm, that they gave Him gall for His meat and in His thirst they gave Him vinegar to drink; and that that Scripture might be fulfilled, though they did not know they were fulfilling Scripture, the sponge was pressed to His mouth. There was no pity, no mercy for a suffering Saviour.

We consider Him now in those closing moments. He is reaching the end of His mighty undertaking, and knowing that all things were now accomplished He speaks of His bodily suffering for the first and only time; and this only serves to bring out the perfection of His human nature. He is no stoic boasting indifference to pain, He suffers and He declares it. His strength is dried up like a potsherd and His tongue cleaves to His jaws (Ps. 22) and He says, "I thirst." In this same Gospel He had appealed to a Samaritan woman for water, now His cry is to whosoever will hear it; is that cry more than an expression of need? Is there not in it a final test for His foes? They had shown Him no pity, who had always pitied them, but will they relent at last in answer to that poignant cry? They answer Him with vinegar, the sourest thing the earth can yield, and they fulfil the Scripture which says "They gave Me also gall for My meat and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink" (Ps. 69).

After the three hours of darkness, knowing that all was perfectly accomplished, the Lord Jesus said, in fulfillment of scripture, “I thirst.” He who gives the water of eternal life has Himself, in accomplishing the will of God, deeply thirsted. But men gave Him not water, rather vinegar, with the intention of adding bitterness to His sufferings. Previously they had mingled gall with vinegar, but He would not drink, for this was stupefying (Matt. 27:34).