Why did Jesus say, "Into your hands I commit my spirit," on the cross?

"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.

(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).

p195 [Mr Jeffreys] MY DEAR BROTHER, - I agree much with what you say at the end, that one must find it in the whole as a revealed fact. Thus we need His blood-shedding, His death, His forsaking [on the part] of God; all together make up His work. But when He shed His blood, He did not suffer; He was already dead. And this was important. Had the soldiers killed Him He would not have laid down His own life, it would have been taken from Him. Had He not shed His blood, the great sign that His life was given would have been wanting. Now, I get what expiated and what purified in His death; but He laid down life Himself. Then being forsaken of God - none of us can fathom what it was to One who had dwelt in the bosom of the Father, to find His soul as a man forsaken of Him, and that as made sin. In the measure in which He knew holiness and love, and that was absolute, He felt what it was to be [made] sin before God and forsaken. And though the physical death came after, then He, morally speaking, drank the cup. It was necessary He should freely give up His own spirit, all being finished, in peace. John's word is not "He gave up the ghost," but "gave up his spirit" - a divine act when all was done - and in peace and confidence as a man, as in Luke, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." The use of the word Father is important here. He does not say "My God" in His life - not even in Gethsemane for He was in full communion with His Father. In the forsaking it is "My God," though in perfect submission, and saying "My." After His resurrection He uses both, in His message by Mary Magdalene; for now God was for us in righteousness and we children. But "Father into thy hands" is perfect peace in the enjoyment of sonship. But He must actually die, or nothing would have been done; but the sting and curse were gone out of it; and He laid down His life in communion with, and in obedience to, the Father. It is when really already dead, that His blood which had all the value of that death was shed (with the water) to cleanse from sin. It must have the value of death in it, yet death not be by it. Sin gives death its sting, and that must be borne - yet death have none but be the free giving up of His own spirit. All this was accomplished.

Now there is never, in any case, confusion in this respect. In the Psalms, the difference is of the deepest interest, and when understood greatly facilitates reading them with intelligence. It is equally true now. God I may seek as God, thirst after as God, bow to as such. With a Father I am in sweet and blessed relationship according to the terms of that name. It was not in vain that Christ said, "I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." During His life here below, He ever said "Father;" on the cross, "my God, my God" — perfect in faith, yet not enjoying the relationship. After His resurrection He uses both, according to the full perfectness in which He now stands in them according to accomplished redemption, and introduces His disciples in virtue of that into the same. Hence, too, when all was finished, even in the act of dying, He says, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

Christ never addressed His Father as God - never less than as Father. During His life as given in the Gospels, all His life through, it was always, "Father." When on the cross it was, "My God, my God," until all was finished, when He said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." In making the atonement, what was not against Him? There was one thing that could not be against any, and that was love; but there could be none as to the feeling and manifestation of it then. He was forsaken; and the more the love was known, the more terrible it was. He was dealt with according to the majesty of God, the righteousness of God, the truth of God, the holiness of God. All that God is was made good against Him. God was thus putting away sin, and Christ was glorifying God about the sin.

But this: "I commit my spirit" was a supreme act of faith in the Lord Jesus. It took its power from, and gave its character to death to us, for, while in all cases it passed the sentence of ruin on whatever stood in the place of the first Adam and all his living irremediable ruin, to which Jesus in infinite grace to us, and that His Father might be perfectly glorified in the full manifestation of this ruin, in righteous judgment, yet in His righteousness, obedience, and perfect expiation for us, and perfectness in faith in God His Father whatever weight and terror of death lay upon Him, and He entered into all the depths of it, and though this blow came from above, and to Him with the full sense that it came from above: "Thou hast brought me into the dust of death," yet He commends His Spirit in death to Him, to His Father, although death, the judgment of God, still rested on Him as to the fact externally. But, the expiation made, its natural horror was gone to faith, because the conscience unburdened, and Jesus bearing sin was more than that, the Father in love could be trusted in not to hinder, and to restore, but notwithstanding in the certainty of His love, for communion was restored, to guard and deal with that which was separated and dissolved - what had suffered, but which had perfectly glorified Him. As Jesus commended His Spirit to His Father leaving His body, part of a world He left behind Him condemned and rejected, for He placed Himself in all its circumstances (only His Spirit went on to His Father beyond it) yet indeed the providence and operation of God provided for this also, and as He was sinless, even as to the flesh, God, the righteous Judge, would not suffer His Holy One to see corruption. Also, now the suffering and expiation being made, He is to be with the rich in His death.

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!

This alone remained, that He should declare His unbroken confidence in His Father. He leaves all in His hands. It is in Luke's Gospel only that this last word is recorded for us, the same Gospel that records the first words of His that are recorded. "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business". The Father had committed all His work into the holy, dependent, obedient hands of the Man, Christ Jesus, for so Luke's Gospel presents Him to us. And now when all is done He commits His spirit into His Father's hands, commits to Him the work He has done and all the results of it, and so He gave up the Ghost.

Now, that is not noticed here; it is not what was required in Luke's presentation of the Lord. Of course, again I repeat, it was the same scene; but it is another side of it which is presented here, even the perfection of the confidence and trust that ever marked Him as a Man, and now in the presence of death. Death was but the occasion of the manifestation of such confidence in His Father and God; and thus it is He commends His spirit into His hands.

Then we find in this Psalm that the Lord is heard in His cry. He says, "Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns"; when the cup was drunk, and He had been, so to speak, transpierced by them, His resurrection was the public testimony that He was heard. But, even before He died, we find Him peacefully saying "Father — " "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." He did not die from weakness; He gave up His spirit. We have thus the whole question of sin finished and settled; and, if not settled then, never to be. It may be in eternal judgment, if this great salvation be despised, but no more settling the question of sin with God. If settled then, it is perfectly settled — settled according to the perfectness of the divine nature, according to the holiness of God, and settled for eternity. Christ, having cried out to God in the place where He drank the cup of wrath, was heard; and His resurrection is the testimony that He was.