Our dear Father, we pray that
you would be merciful to us and forgive us our many sins for
Christ's sake, receive our prayers for his sake, and have mercy
upon us and bless us from your word for Christ's sake. Lord,
we pray that you would teach us what our Savior did and what
he accomplished and all the blessings that you poured out in accord
with your promises and your word upon us because of what he has
done. Help us never, ever to fail to
appreciate and to adore and admire and worship our Lord Jesus Christ
for what he's done. Let us find ourselves as sinners
without strength ungodly, having no righteousness, and no hope
in ourselves, and finding all of our hope, all that you've
required of us in our Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray,
amen. In Luke chapter 23, the last
words Jesus spoke from the cross are uttered in verse 46, We saw last week Jesus cried,
it is finished. And now he cries the last thing.
When he said it is finished, he was dying. He was about to
die. And he had suffered indescribable
cruelty at the hands of the soldiers and the high priest and all their
servants. He had gone without water some
12 hours. They hung him on the cross and
all the beatings and the thorns and the mocking, all that, took
its toll on his body. And yet, when he cries out these
last words, it is finished, he doesn't cry as one who is who's
unable to speak strongly because his body is dying, but he cries
with a loud voice. And I like to think about that.
I like to think about how he spoke to all those people on
the hillside with a loud voice. And here, that final voice cries
out, loud enough for all of history and all of heaven and all of
hell to hear, it is finished. And then with that, we read in
verse 46 that In verse 46, when Jesus had cried
with a loud voice, he said these words, Father, into thy hands
I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost. Now this spirit that the Lord
Jesus gave up would be his human spirit. The Spirit of God is
eternal and although he had the Spirit of God, he didn't give
up the Spirit of God. He gave up his human spirit as
a man. And so when he cries out these
words, he's really saying to his father, here's my spirit.
Now, it says in Matthew that when he cried these words, it
uses another word for that. I believe there in Matthew it
says that he gave up his spirit. Let me see what I wrote down
here, because I recorded it. I wouldn't have to look it up,
and here I am having to scan for it. Let me just take you
there. Matthew 27, verse 50. He said in Matthew 27, same cry
recorded by Matthew, he says, Jesus, verse 50, Jesus, when
he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. So there
it says yielded. And the word according to Strong's,
you know Strong's Concordance. I don't know if you have a Strong's
Concordance. If you don't have one and you are interested in
the meaning behind some of the words in the Bible, it's very
highly recommended. But Mr. Strong says that this
word yielded really means that he dismissed his spirit. He gave it up as a king would
dismiss a servant. And that's consistent with Jesus
being the king. He dismissed his spirit. In Luke
though, he's a man and he cries into thy hands, I commend or
commit my spirit. He quotes, it actually quotes
from Psalm 31. We'll read that in a minute.
The word in Psalm 31 5 is, I commit my spirit. So here as a man,
he is entrusting his spirit to his father. And so, and then
in John, a different word is used. He says there that he delivered
up, he gave up his spirit. So as the son of God, he delivered
up his human spirit to God. And so it raises a lot of questions
in our mind about what this means, doesn't it? And the first thing
we see here is that He trusted His Father. He committed Himself,
He committed His Spirit to His Father. So that's the first thing
I want to look at with you. The other thing I want you to
see is that this cry followed His other cry, which said, It
is finished. And then He said, Father, into
Thy hands I commend, or commit, My Spirit. So in this sense,
it was a cry that meant he was finished, and now having finished
the work, he's committing himself to God. God gave him a work to
do, he's done, and he's committing himself to God. So that's the
second thing I want you to consider with me when we look at this.
And then the third thing is that the fact that this is a completed
work, and so in crying this, he's really uttering a cry of
satisfaction, a cry of completion and rest because He's crying
out to His Father. And all these things we want
to look at together. So, first of all, I want you
to see how the Lord Jesus cries this to His Father. He says,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Verse 46 of Luke 23. And then after that, having said
thus, it says he gave up the ghost. Or the word really means
he breathed out the spirit, his spirit. He breathed it out. He
breathed out his last. He didn't die. unwillingly. No one took his
life from him. When he cried with a loud voice,
it was clear he had strength. We know he had strength because
when he was in the garden and spoke to the soldiers who came
to get him, they all fell back. And he could have left them lying
there and walked away. He had strength when he stood
before Pilate and Pilate said, don't you know I have power over
you? And he said, you couldn't have any power at all, except
it were given you from above. So he had power. And it wasn't
a power that men could take from him. He was God, the Son of God. He gave up, he delivered up his
spirit. But no man took his life from
him, but when he said this, he commits himself to his father.
And this is a very intimate expression here. He says, Father, into thy
hands I commend, or commit, my spirit. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, so that's why He called Him Father. But
He also called Him Father as Man, because He was speaking
of His Father, not only as the Son of God, but as all of us
would do, because of our relation to God, because of what Christ
has done. We can call God our Father, too. Look at John, chapter 20, in
verse 17. This is what Jesus told those that he saw right after
the resurrection to tell his disciples. In John chapter 20,
and Mary had spoken to him, and then in verse 17, Jesus said
to her, John 20, 17, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended
to my father, but go to my brethren. and say unto them, I ascend unto
my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God." You
see how the Lord Jesus identifies Himself here with His people?
And He teaches them what their relation is to His God and to
His Father. I ascend to My Father and Your
Father, to My God and Your God. When we think about a father,
we should think many things about what we've been taught in our
earthly life. God doesn't by accident give
us a father. He gives us a father in order
to teach us, in some measure, I know it's dark in the sense
that there's not a good, fathers on earth are sinful fathers and
their role over us can sometimes be oppressive and other times
failures, but in all that we still see, at least in some measure,
our relationship to God as our father. I hope you had a father
on earth to learn that. to learn that from. It's a great
mercy to have a father that you grew up with. It teaches us about
our relationship to God our Father. When you think about your father,
I remember as a child I always thought my father provided everything. I didn't have any doubt about
it. My mom stayed home. Nowadays, moms and dads both
work a lot. And there's nothing wrong with
that, as long as the children are cared for. But in my case,
in our case, with nine kids, my mom was home our entire life,
always in the home. And my dad always went to work.
My dad provided for us, and we knew it. I never doubted that
I was going to have anything to eat, clothes to wear, place
to sleep. My dad was always taking care
of us. And it was hard for him. But
the first thing I learned as a child is that my dad was a
provider. And not only that, but he was
a protector. If someone attempted to hurt
or to speak against his children, he defended them vociferously. He was very defensive of his
family. And he put them forward when
he went somewhere as his children. He owned them as his children.
That's another thing you see about your father. He owns his
children. He protects them. He provides
for them. He defends for them. And our fathers care for us too. A lot of times we don't see that,
but when they discipline us, when they have to spank us or
when they have to lay a hard burden on us, require work of
us. When I was a kid, I remember
working and thinking, this is too hard, this is too hard. And
you think, well, your dad gives you that hard work knowing that
by learning to bear this burden of work in your youth, when you
grow up, it will serve you well, because you will have learned
many things to bear a hard load, because you can bear it. Your
dad will be there to help you. He'll show you how. And he'll
encourage you in order to do that. So the Lord disciplines
us, and He does it with a purpose in view to bring us to His expected
end. And He cares for us, doesn't
He? 1 Peter 5, 7 says, "...casting all your cares upon Him, for
He careth for you." When Jesus spoke to His disciples, He says,
Take no thought of your life. He pointed them to the lilies
of the field and the sparrows. He says, not one sparrow falls
without your father. He told his disciples, he spoke
to them, your father. Not one sparrow falls, therefore
you can trust yourself into his hand. Your father, your father
in heaven. He taught them to pray that way,
our father. Pray this way, our father. There's
no, there's no really understanding of the gospel
until we understand that in Christ we have been made the sons of
God. That God has been made to us
our Father. And we can come to Him as our
Father. One of the things you see in little children is they
run to their father. I remember recently sitting on
a plane, and the people behind us, there's a couple of girls
with their dad. Their mom wasn't with them in
that row. She was probably somewhere else
on the plane. But they were just jabbering and asking their dad
every question imaginable. Trivial questions, unanswerable
questions, everything. They would just go to say, dad,
what's that? Dad, why are we doing this? Is
the plane up yet? Dad, everything was dad, dad,
dad. And it was just a rapid, succession of questions. They
just asked him everything. And he patiently answered every
question that he could. And that's the way we're to come
to our Father. Father, Father, I don't even
know how to ask the question. Father, I don't understand this.
What does this mean? Father, coming to our God as
our Father, it's a most endearing, most endearing relationship.
The Apostle John in 1 John 3 says, Beloved O, he says, What manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God. It doesn't yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, Christ, we shall
be like Him. We'll see Him then as He is.
God the Father adopted His sons. He chose His sons. Our earthly
fathers didn't choose us. We were born and they said, oh
look, there's my son. They were proud. Or my daughter. They were proud. They were happy.
But God the Father chose us, and He chose us before we were
born. It says in Ephesians 1-4 that
He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. The
relation to which we were adopted was a relation of son to father,
but it was a relation of our Father in love to us. The love
of a Father. Almighty God, our Father, who
provides all things for us, who cares for us, who disciplines
and trains us and instructs us and even draws us to himself
by his grace, bringing us to the Lord Jesus Christ. No man,
Jesus said, can come to me except my Father, which hath sent me,
draw him. And Jesus said, it's not given
to all men to believe. It is given to those the Father
gives it to. No man knows a son but the Father.
And God, the Father of His own will, has begotten us by the
Word of Truth. These are all statements from
Scripture. God, our Father, we should be very, very comfortable
coming to God because He tells us to come as His children and
call Him, My Father. He sends forth the Spirit of
His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father, My Father. And Jesus speaks here, Father,
Into thy hands I commend my spirit. And when he speaks that, it's
an endearing, intimate communion with God the Father by the Son
of God, the eternal Son of God in human nature, body and soul
and spirit. And he speaks to his father,
Father, I commit my spirit into your hands. It was the last thing
he said on earth. And then he breathed out his
spirit. What is the Spirit? Have you
ever wondered that? It says in 1 Thessalonians 5.23
that Paul prays, he says, I pray that God would preserve your
whole spirit, soul, and body unto the day of Jesus Christ.
Spirit, soul, and body? All I see is my body, I think. What am I? What does God say
I am? He said you're a spirit, a soul,
and a body. But what is our spirit? Can we
distinguish between our body and our soul and our spirit?
God does. Look at Hebrews chapter 4. This
is what God knows and He tells us what we are. He says in Hebrews
chapter 4, That the Word of God, in verse 12, the Word of God
is quick. That means it's alive. It's living.
It's not dead. It's not just letters. It's a
living Word. Because the Spirit of God takes
the Word of God and accomplishes the will of God, it's alive.
He brings life from death. He says the Word of God is living
and powerful. sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirits. And spirit, I mean. The soul
and spirit. Who can even divide that? The
Word of God divides it. It means that God has an intimate
understanding of who we are. And He can search the hearts
and divide between things accurately. In minute detail. Even between
our soul and our spirit. Between what we think. He goes
on. He explains it in some sense. He gives at least a hint of it.
He says, "...between dividing asunder the soul and spirit,
and the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of..." what? "...the
thoughts and intents of the heart." In other words, what we think,
what our motives are. It turns out that in the Bible,
God considers our spirit something that we can see here in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. Take a look at, actually 2 Corinthians
chapter 2. It's very instructive here. He
says in, I'm sorry, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1, 2, it's the 1 Corinthians chapter
2. He says in verse 11, this helps us understand something
about our spirit because he compares us to God's own being. He says here in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2 verse 11, for what man knoweth knoweth the things
of a man. How do you know a man? You don't
know him. But it says, what man knoweth
the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him. So our spirit is what allows
us to understand. It's the part of us that has,
it's our mind and it's our understanding. He says, he goes on, he says,
Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, listen carefully, but
the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God knows God. He says, now we have received,
not the Spirit of the world, we who believe, we who have been
given life from the dead in Christ. He says, but we have received
the Spirit which is of God. God has given us a Spirit that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
How do we know the things of God? According to this verse,
in verse 12, it's by the Spirit God has given to us. His own
Spirit reveals it to our spirit. And then in verse 13, which things
also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but that which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
to him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth
all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath
known the mind of the Lord? Can we know the mind of God?
Not unless he makes his mind known. It says, Who has known
the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have
what? the mind of Christ. In other
words, God's Spirit, who searches the deep things of God, the Spirit
of God, is able to not only divide between our soul and spirit,
but He's able to search the infinite mind of eternal God and to its
depths. the Spirit of God. He therefore
is God. No man could do that unless he
was God. And He is not just an it or force,
but He is God, the Spirit of God. And we also have been given
the Spirit of God that we might know the things that are freely
given to us of God. And He's telling us that when
He gives us His truth, By His Word, by His Spirit giving it
to us, we then have a spirit that's alive to God. In fact,
He says we have the mind of Christ. That means that we can think
the very truth that Christ thinks. But the natural man, what we
are naturally, until the Lord raises us from the dead, because
we're dead in sins, we died in Adam, we're dead in sins, until
God, because of His great love wherewith He loved us, in mercy,
raises us from the dead, giving us a spirit that's alive to God,
we can't know the things that are of God. So God has given
us this spirit to know Him. And the difference between the
spirit and the soul, if you were to look in scripture, is not
easy to really perceive the difference. But I really believe that the
difference is, as far as I can tell, discerned from scripture
is that the soul is what desires. The soul is what senses God's
presence. For example, in the Psalms, when
he speaks of his soul, he says, Why art thou cast down, O my
soul? And why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God, for I will
yet praise him for the help of his countenance." It's almost
like his spirit, with the understanding God has given him, is speaking
to his soul and saying, you're downcast. You're suffering this
despair of your soul. Why? And he speaks to his soul
and he says, hope thou in God. And then it says that our soul
also thirsts. He says in Psalm 63 verse 1,
my soul, he says, O God, thou art my God, early will I seek
thee. My soul thirsteth for thee, my
flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where there's
no water. And then in Psalm 62 verse 1 he says, So the soul
in scripture describes what we feel, our sense of God's presence
and the lack of it. And it also describes our thirst
and desire for God, which is satisfied when God speaks to
us in our spirit and gives us His grace and our soul to see
that in Christ all of our salvation has been accomplished and we
have an inheritance in Him. And that's why it speaks of the
soul. He says in Psalm 63, 8, one more
thing, he says that the soul expresses our will. What we will
do, he says, my soul followeth hard after thee, my right hand,
thy right hand upholdeth me. So, God does divide these things
in his word. Our spirit understands the things
of God because the spirit of God makes them known to us. We
don't have a spirit alive to God unless we're born of God. Jesus told Nicodemus, unless
you're born again, you cannot see, you cannot enter the kingdom
of God. And then He speaks of our soul
as being that which desires God and that which feels a loss of
His presence and therefore thirst for Him. And then when we're
given the presence of God, that sense of His presence, we're
satisfied. And so our will follows hard
after Him. And these, I think, are in some
sense what the Scripture speaks about the difference between
our soul and body. But here the Lord Jesus Christ in Luke...
Chapter 23, he speaks and he says, Father, into thy hands
I commit, I commend my spirit. In fact, look back at Psalm 31,
where this was taken from. Psalm 31, he speaks about, this
is the very words in prophecy of what Jesus said on the cross
in Psalm 31. And it's a beautiful psalm, you should read the whole
thing, but I'll just pick it up at verse 5. He says, Into
thy hands, into thy hand, I commit my spirit." There's the words.
That's what Jesus said. Everything Jesus said on the
cross was a fulfillment of Scripture. Remember? When he prayed, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do. That was from Isaiah
53, 12, where it says he made intercession for the transgressors.
And then he spoke to Mary on the cross. He said, Behold thy
son. And that was fulfillment of what Simeon said in Luke chapter
2 where he said, A sword shall pierce through your own soul
also. So Mary was saddened and there the scripture was fulfilled.
And so everything Jesus said was a fulfillment of scripture.
And here when he said, Into thy hand I commit my spirit. It's
a fulfillment of Psalm 31 verse 5. The whole Psalm is a prayer
of Christ. And look at verse 5 again, because
it says a little bit more. He says, "...into thy hand I
commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord
God of truth." Thou hast redeemed me. This is a puzzling thing,
isn't it? When you read this as a prophecy
and prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, what does it mean when
the Lord Jesus says, into your hands I commit my spirit, thou
hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. What does it mean?
It's a great mystery, isn't it? But the Bible teaches us what
the Lord Jesus was doing on the cross. What he did there, he
did voluntarily. With the power of the Son of
God, he willingly gave himself for us. Paul said it in Galatians
2.22, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. In Galatians 1.4 he says, "...who
gave himself for our sins, that he might redeem us from this
present evil world." Deliver us from this evil world. In Titus
2.14 he says, "...that he gave himself for us, that he might
redeem us from all iniquities." In Hebrews chapter 9 he says,
"...he offered himself to God in sacrifice." And over and over
in Scripture, He offered Himself. He's the High Priest who gave
Himself. So He voluntarily did it. And
He did it also vicariously. That's a big word, isn't it?
I don't like using big words, but I like that word. Vicariously. What does that word mean? It
means that someone has done something in the place of another. What
they did or felt was in another one's place. And the Lord Jesus
Christ did all that he did in the place of his people. For
them. Christ died for us. For our sins. When we were yet
without strength, Christ died for us. The Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me. That's the word of vicarious
substitution. He suffered all that he suffered
because it was due to us, but he stood in our place. He interposed
himself between the wrath of God and the wrath we deserved. And he took it. He vicariously
died. So when He hung on the cross,
all that He suffered was for His people. When He died, it
was for His people. And when He spoke to God, He
spoke as our Redeemer. And He took our sins in His own
body, and He bore them up to the cross. He carried them there,
and He bore them in His own self. 1 Peter 2.24 Who? His own self! Bear our sins in His own body
on the tree. That we, being dead to sins,
how could we be dead if He died? Because He did it vicariously. He died in our place, therefore
we died with Him. He substituted Himself, not only
in our place, but He carried us, He carried our sins, and
us to the cross with Him. Now it's important that we understand
that. Because when Jesus says, into thy hand, or hands, I commend
or commit my spirit. As a man, He's not only committing
His spirit into God's hands and trusting His Father to take that
spirit given to Him as a man and returning it back to God.
But he's also committing the spirits of his people with him.
Because with his obedience, with his sufferings, and with his
death, he fulfilled and satisfied all that God demands for his
people. And so when he says, I commit my spirit, he was committing
all of his people with him. As if this prayer was theirs.
So that when Stephen prays in Acts chapter 7, and they're stoning
him, and he says, Lord Jesus, Receive my spirit. He could pray
that prayer because the Lord Jesus had prayed it. And he prayed
it to his father and our father, to his God and our God. And what
he did was receive. And because it was received by
God, he committed himself to God. And he says here in Psalm
31 5, he says, Into thy hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast
redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. And what does he mean that he
redeemed him? Well, God gave the Lord Jesus
this mandate, this commandment to do, to lay down your life
for the sheep. John 10 verse 15. It was a commandment,
John 17 and 18, that he lay down his life for the sheep. He laid
it down. And he laid it down in order
that he might give his life a ransom. To pay the price that God required
for our liberty. To redeem us. God gave him the
price to pay to redeem his people. But when He took our sins and
owned them as His, because look at Psalm 31 verse 10, He prays
this in His prayer. He says, "...for my life is spent
with grief, and my tears with sighing. My strength faileth..."
Why? Why does my strength fail? "...because
of mine iniquity." He owns our sins as our High Priest, as the
High Priest confessed the sins of Israel over the head of that
scapegoat, putting them upon the head of the goat. The Lord
Jesus Christ confessed our sins as His own, putting them on His
own head, the Lamb of God, and was slain. that the ransom price
might be paid so God would release us from all charges of our sin
and we might be given a perfect righteousness worked out by Him.
And so when the Lord Jesus prays this way in Psalm 31 5, He's
praying as our vicarious substitute. Our surety who stood before God
and paid with His blood in order to redeem us. But He had so identified
with us that our sins became His that now He's paying with
His own blood. And God must receive His blood
and His obedience in order to redeem His own spirit and soul
and body. And so the Lord Jesus prays with
us and He commits His Spirit to His Father. And He says, Father,
into Your hands I commit My Spirit. He's saying, all that I've done
is according to Your will. And now I'm entrusting You to
do as You have said. Lord God of truth, redeem me
and with me. Redeem my people from death,
from hell, from everything. receive this price and receive
it from my hand and receive all those you've given me with me.
I commit my spirit." So when we pray, when we are facing death,
what do we pray? We say, Father, into your hands
I commit my spirit." Because we know that Christ was heard.
Christ was heard. Why would God receive His Spirit?
Just before this, it had been dark. Just before this, there
had been three hours of darkness over the whole earth. And he
cried out of the darkness, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken
me? So he cried, My God. But here
he says, in almost sweet repose, My Father, into your hands I
commit my spirit." The work was now complete. Everything was
done. He looked back on it as a mother
laboring in birth to give birth to her son, to give birth to
her child, and laboring. And when the labor is done, she
looks back and she says, it's done. And he looks and he says,
he sees the travail of his own soul. And he is satisfied because
he sees his seed, those the Lord would give birth to because of
what he did. Those the Lord, the sons and
daughters, and he's satisfied. And he rests in satisfaction
and contemplation that his father's hand was the vault, the safe
haven into which he committed his own soul. And so, like a
man putting his treasures in the safe, He opens his father's
heart with his prayer, and he says, Father, into thy hand I
commend my spirit. And the father's hand, no one
can take out of his hand. Isn't that true? John 10, 29.
Those that the father gave me, I lost none. Because no one can
take them out of my hand, and no one can take them out of my
father's hand, he says. I'll read that to you. John chapter
10. So the Lord here is entrusting Himself into one who, there's
none greater, and never is our soul and our spirit more safe
than it is in God. He says, In verse 29 of John
10, My Father which gave them the sheep to Me is greater than
all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. That's the hand He commits His
Spirit and the spirits of His people to. Father, into Thy hand
I commit My Spirit, and with My Spirit all of My people. I'm
going to leave myself with you, because I know that's the safest
possible place. I'm not going to... I'm going
to breathe it out." And he breathed out his own spirit. When we die,
when our spirit dies, it goes to be with the Lord. Absent from
the body, present is to be present with the Lord. For me to live
is Christ, but to die is gain. When we die, we go to be. And
God the Father is the one who receives our spirit, and the
Lord Jesus also, because that's what Stephen prayed. He receives
us as he was received. Can you imagine the sympathy
of our high priest? Everything that he prayed for
us and on our behalf, he feels it in his own soul when he hears
us pray it too. And he gives us those prayers
that he might re-echo the desire of His heart for us. So He prays
this prayer, and God receives His Spirit. And the other thing
I want you to see here is that this was an accomplishment. This
was, as I said, is the end of the accomplishment. How did God
make the world? He spoke, but how did He get
the work done? He did it by His Son. Hebrews
1, chapter 2, He says that the Son has made the worlds by whom
He made the worlds. And Colossians 1.16, that He
made all things. All things were made by Him and
for Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
John 1.3 and Colossians 1.16, Hebrews 1.2. The Son of God made,
He did all of His Father's work. Whatever God the Father wanted
to have done, the Son did it. He did the work of His Father.
And what did He do to make the world? He spoke and it was done. He's the Word of God. His Word
is alive. It's powerful because He Himself
brings it to pass. But now, the Son of God hangs
on the cross. In six days, He made the world. And what did He do when He was
done? On the seventh day, He rested. Before He rested, He
looked at His work and He said, It's very good. It's very good. Everything's done and is perfect. In exactly the same way here
He hangs on the cross and He says, It is finished! And then
He says, Father, into thy hand I commend, I commit my spirit. It was the statement of rest
and satisfaction. It was the seventh day. How long
was Jesus on the cross? I was looking that up myself.
Look at the book of Mark. In Mark 15. And it was the third
hour and they crucified him. That's 9 AM. The sixth hour,
darkness fell upon the face of the earth. And on the ninth hour,
he cried out. Third, sixth, ninth. Subtract. Three from nine you
get six. Six hours. He was on the cross
six hours. Well that's interesting. Six
days he spoke and the world was created in six days. He did the
work in six days and on the seventh day he rested. Here in six hours
he's hanging on the cross and at the last hour he says, it's
finished. And then he says, into thy hands
I commit my spirit. Now look at Isaiah chapter 43.
I want to read this with you. Isaiah chapter 43. This was a statement of completion. It was a statement of satisfaction
and perfection of his work when he commits himself to God. He's
all done. As a servant he He commits Himself
to His Master. As the Son of God, He delivers
His Spirit to His Father. And as the King, He releases
His Spirit. He dismisses His Spirit. But
in Isaiah chapter 43, in verse 1, He says, "...but now, thus saith
the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine." And then look at verse 7. In verse 6 he says, I will say
to the north, give up! And to the south, keep not back!
Bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the
earth. Even every one that is called
by my name. For I have created him for my
glory. I have formed him, yea, I have
made him. Now look at Genesis chapter 2. Just take you to these verses
so you can see this, and then I'll draw the comparison. Genesis
chapter 2, he says... And it says in verse 18 of Genesis
2, "...and the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should
be alone. I will make him and help meet
for him." And help meet for him. This was speaking of Eve. God
saw Adam. It's not good for him to be alone.
I'll make him a wife. And then it says, after making
everything out of the ground, in verse 21, And the Lord God
caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took
one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And
the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman,
and brought her unto the man. And then Adam said, this is not
bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman
because she was taken out of man. So what happened here? God is showing in creation how
he's going to create the bride for his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But the work necessary in order
to form her and create her was done on the cross. And in six
hours, our Lord Jesus Christ, not by his word only, but by
his own blood, laid his life down and purchased the church
with his own blood. Not only purchased her, but out
of his side, remember that's where the spear was thrust into
his side, out of his wounded side, the church was formed. created the world in six days. Christ formed the church and
out of his side she was created in his six hours on the cross. And so his cry here is declaring
it all to be done. And he commits his spirit to
his father because the work is complete. He's satisfied. He
shall see... Look at this in Isaiah. I quote
it for you, but I want you to see it. Isaiah 53. Isaiah chapter
53. The Lord has formed his people.
He's thy maker, is thy husband, he says in Isaiah 54, 5. But
here he says, in Isaiah 53, in verse 11, he says, he, the
Lord Jesus Christ, shall see of the travail of his soul. That's
as a woman in pains of birth. And he shall be satisfied, because
he'll see the seed. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities."
That's what the Lord Jesus did. He labored on the cross. He gave
birth to his people, his bride, his children, and he called them
brethren. When the youngest son, the prodigal
son of the father, remember? When the youngest son, who was
the prodigal, he said, Father, give me what I have coming to
me. And I want to leave. His father gave him all that
he had. All that was coming to him. And he left and he wasted
his living on harlots and riotous living. He wasted his substance
on riotous living. And then he came to himself.
He was there in a faraway country. A man of that country had put
him to feeding the swine, which all pictures us being servants
under the law, trying to serve under the law and finding that
we can find no satisfaction in our souls for it. By our good
works, the works religion leaves us unsatisfied. He came to himself
and he said, wait a minute. They're servants of my father,
who have plenty to eat. I will arise, and I will go to
my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven and before you, and I'm no more worthy to be called your
son. Make me as one of your hired
servants. So he rose and he left and he went back to his father.
And his father saw him when he was yet a long way off. And his
father ran to him and he fell on his neck and kissed him. And he said to everyone around,
you know the story, he said, Bring forth the best robe, and
put it on him, and the ring for his finger, and shoes for his
feet. And let us kill the fatted calf and make merry, for this
my son was dead, and he's alive again. He was lost and he's found. And remember the oldest son?
He said, Father, what are you doing? I have served you all
these years. I never did this. You never gave
me anything. For all my service, this was
a boy who did only what he did in order to get from God. He
didn't know anything about grace. He only knew about what he could
get by his works. And he trusted his works. And
here the Lord Jesus forms his wife, brings her back to God,
restores her. He that just dies for the unjust
to bring us to God and forms us with his own life's blood,
his suffering, his work. You see, we were the youngest
son. It was our sin. It was our fault. We were estranged
from God, and rightly so, justly so, like the thief, we received
the due reward of our sins. But though it was our fault,
our Father took our oldest brother, and he killed him, laying our
sins on him. And with him, he cries now, Father,
our oldest brother, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And
he bowed his head and he breathed out his spirit because he had
finished the work, brought us to God. And can't you pray with
him? Father, receive me for Christ's
sake. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we pray
that you would look upon and think upon our Lord Jesus Christ. Think about his prayer. Think
about his blood. Think about his obedience. Think
about his love for us. Think how he left heaven and
made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of
a servant and was made in the likeness of men and obeyed even
unto death. And think how you received him
from the dead because he had satisfied everything. And you
subdue all his iniquities and now you bring your people his
wife to him and present her to him and say, son, this is your
wife and Lord we pray that you would receive us for Christ's
sake alone. Don't look at our sin, receive
Christ's blood for us. Don't look at our obedience,
receive his instead. And even our prayers, Lord, we
pray that you would forgive us the sin of our prayers and hear
the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ. Receive my spirit. In
Jesus' name we pray. Amen.