Into Your Hands
"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
LUKE 23:44-49
44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.
44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. 47 Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” 48 And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. 49 And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.
Relationship Regained
Luke tells us Jesus spoke one more word from the cross before breathing his last: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” What does this seventh word teach us?
Throughout Luke, Jesus has enjoyed an intimate relationship with God as his Father. At age twelve, he had an overwhelming desire to be near his Father: in his Father’s house, about his Father’s business (Luke 2:49). At his baptism, the Father told Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22) During his ministry, Jesus regularly slipped off to pour out his heart to the Father—his prayers were so familiar and earnest that his disciples asked him to teach them to talk to God as he did. (Luke 11:1–13) Jesus’ greatest joy is his knowledge of God as his loving heavenly Father.
The cross violently disrupted Jesus’ fellowship with the Father. When Jesus “became sin for us,” the warm sunshine of God’s favor was eclipsed by the dark clouds of God’s judgment. The storm of God’s wrath came down on Jesus our Substitute, and he knew the total abandonment of the Father. It was so wrenching for Jesus that he cried out in pain, though not, as he usually did, as “Father.” God seemed far too distant for that. As Jesus bore our curse, he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This is why Jesus’ seventh word from the cross is precious! In his sixth word, “It is finished!” Jesus declared that God’s wrath had been totally satisfied. Justice had been perfectly served, sin’s penalty fully paid. So when Jesus addresses God here, he again calls on him as “Father.” It’s still dark on Calvary, but Jesus’ relationship with God has already been restored. Never again will Jesus be separated from the love of God. And if we place our trust in Jesus, we never will be either (Rom 8:37–39). In Christ’s death, God was reconciling us to himself, repairing the relationship we had broken in our sin (2 Cor 5:16). Jesus was treated like God’s enemy in our place, so that we—God’s enemies—can be adopted as God’s beloved children, always calling him “my Father.”
Throughout Luke, Jesus has enjoyed an intimate relationship with God as his Father. At age twelve, he had an overwhelming desire to be near his Father: in his Father’s house, about his Father’s business (Luke 2:49). At his baptism, the Father told Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22) During his ministry, Jesus regularly slipped off to pour out his heart to the Father—his prayers were so familiar and earnest that his disciples asked him to teach them to talk to God as he did. (Luke 11:1–13) Jesus’ greatest joy is his knowledge of God as his loving heavenly Father.
The cross violently disrupted Jesus’ fellowship with the Father. When Jesus “became sin for us,” the warm sunshine of God’s favor was eclipsed by the dark clouds of God’s judgment. The storm of God’s wrath came down on Jesus our Substitute, and he knew the total abandonment of the Father. It was so wrenching for Jesus that he cried out in pain, though not, as he usually did, as “Father.” God seemed far too distant for that. As Jesus bore our curse, he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This is why Jesus’ seventh word from the cross is precious! In his sixth word, “It is finished!” Jesus declared that God’s wrath had been totally satisfied. Justice had been perfectly served, sin’s penalty fully paid. So when Jesus addresses God here, he again calls on him as “Father.” It’s still dark on Calvary, but Jesus’ relationship with God has already been restored. Never again will Jesus be separated from the love of God. And if we place our trust in Jesus, we never will be either (Rom 8:37–39). In Christ’s death, God was reconciling us to himself, repairing the relationship we had broken in our sin (2 Cor 5:16). Jesus was treated like God’s enemy in our place, so that we—God’s enemies—can be adopted as God’s beloved children, always calling him “my Father.”
Sustained by Scripture
The rest of Jesus’ prayer, “into your hands I commit my spirit,” is a quotation of Psalm 31:5. You may remember from earlier this week how Jesus quoted Psalm 22 from the cross, also. Some have speculated that Jesus prayed straight through psalms 22–31 as he died. We can’t prove this, but Jesus easily could have done it—he likely had the entire Old Testament memorized. In any case, it is a powerful devotional exercise to read Psalms 22–31, thinking of Jesus praying these words as he bore our sin. Stripped and beaten, forsaken by his friends, surrounded by enemies, drenched in the darkness of God’s judgment, Jesus may have prayed…“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want (Psalm 23:1)" … "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation (Psalm 24:4–5)" … "To you O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me (Psalm 25:1)" … "For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning (Psalm 30:5)."
We can’t know for sure if Jesus prayed through Psalms 22–31, but we do know that the Scriptures sustained him on the cross, just as they did when Satan tempted in the desert (Luke 4:1–12). When Jesus was pressed beyond the limits of human endurance, the Word of God he had loved so long was the anchor for his soul. Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of the Psalm 1 and Psalm 119 man, storing up God’s Word in his heart, meditating on it day and night. He is the True and Faithful Israel, who lived not by bread alone, "but by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God (Deut 8:3)." Adam rejected God’s Word at the tree and brought us death; Jesus clings to his Father’s Word at the tree and brings us life. What a Savior! Jesus’ perfect reliance on God’s Word in our place wins our redemption, but it also teaches his followers how we can live by faith. If intense testing crashed into your life this week, is God’s Word in your heart to sustain you?
We can’t know for sure if Jesus prayed through Psalms 22–31, but we do know that the Scriptures sustained him on the cross, just as they did when Satan tempted in the desert (Luke 4:1–12). When Jesus was pressed beyond the limits of human endurance, the Word of God he had loved so long was the anchor for his soul. Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of the Psalm 1 and Psalm 119 man, storing up God’s Word in his heart, meditating on it day and night. He is the True and Faithful Israel, who lived not by bread alone, "but by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God (Deut 8:3)." Adam rejected God’s Word at the tree and brought us death; Jesus clings to his Father’s Word at the tree and brings us life. What a Savior! Jesus’ perfect reliance on God’s Word in our place wins our redemption, but it also teaches his followers how we can live by faith. If intense testing crashed into your life this week, is God’s Word in your heart to sustain you?
Resting in the Promises
The specific psalm Jesus chooses as his last word is significant. In Psalm 31, David is surrounded, “besieged,” by “adversaries.” (Psalm 31:11, 21) They slander and lie about him. They scheme against him. They seek to kill him. “I am in distress;” David cries, “my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.” (Psalm 31:9) Worst of all, David feels he has been “cut off from God’s sight.” (Psalm 31:22) But despite this pain, David knows God will not forsake him. David is God’s anointed king; God promised to rescue his life and vindicate his character. David can’t see how God will do this at the moment. But David knows God always keeps his promises. So, up to his neck in trouble, David declares: “Into your hands I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” (Psalm 31:5) These words reflect such simple, total trust in God’s care that Jewish parents taught them to to their children as a bedtime prayer, the way we might pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”
At the cross, Jesus enters a deeper distress than David ever imagined: surrounded by enemies, slandered viciously, and truly cut off from God’s sight. And unlike David, who escaped death at the time he wrote Psalm 31, Jesus really is about to die. God’s wrath has been satisfied, but as the “Last Adam,” Jesus still must endure the full scope of sin’s curse if he is to break its power over us (1 Cor 15:20–28; Heb 2:12–18). And so Jesus will soon speak no more from the cross. His heart will stop beating. His body will go still. He will be taken down, bound in grave clothes, and laid in a tomb. But even on the precipice of death, Jesus believes God will keep his promises to him: God will rescue his life; God will vindicate his character; God will enthrone him as the world’s rightful King! When you read the earliest Christian sermons in the book of Acts, this is how they talk about the resurrection: it is God’s response to all the lies and slander about Jesus. When God raises up Jesus, he announces: “I have not abandoned him! He really is innocent! He is the world’s True King! He has authority to forgive sin and open heaven’s door for all who trust in him. He is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased!” This is what God has promised Jesus. But first, Jesus must trust him in death.
And Jesus does. He trusts his Father so completely, with such simple, childlike faith, he offers the bedtime prayer Mary and Joseph may have taught him as a little boy: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” On the edge of death on Good Friday, Jesus is as safe in his Father’s care as he had been in Nazareth. And if you belong to Jesus, the same is true for you (Phil 1: 18–26; 1 Thes 4:13–18, 5:9–11; 1 Cor 15:20–58). We can trust him even at the hour of death, because we know we are simply “falling asleep in Jesus”: our spirits immediately come more alive than ever in his presence, and our physical bodies are temporarily laid to rest to await the final resurrection.
There is great comfort in belonging to a Savior who—like most of us will—once had to fall into the sleep of death, clinging to the promises of God. A Savior who spent that long, quiet Saturday, resting in the silence and stillness of a grave. And there is unspeakable comfort in knowing that on Sunday morning, resurrection life came rushing into our Savior’s tomb, just like God promised. And as Jesus’ heart began to beat again, as his lungs filled up with air and his eyes snapped open…it was time to wake up.
And if we belong to this Savior, then whether we are awake or asleep, in life and in death, we can trust our lives into the care of God. Like Jesus, we will find him faithful.
At the cross, Jesus enters a deeper distress than David ever imagined: surrounded by enemies, slandered viciously, and truly cut off from God’s sight. And unlike David, who escaped death at the time he wrote Psalm 31, Jesus really is about to die. God’s wrath has been satisfied, but as the “Last Adam,” Jesus still must endure the full scope of sin’s curse if he is to break its power over us (1 Cor 15:20–28; Heb 2:12–18). And so Jesus will soon speak no more from the cross. His heart will stop beating. His body will go still. He will be taken down, bound in grave clothes, and laid in a tomb. But even on the precipice of death, Jesus believes God will keep his promises to him: God will rescue his life; God will vindicate his character; God will enthrone him as the world’s rightful King! When you read the earliest Christian sermons in the book of Acts, this is how they talk about the resurrection: it is God’s response to all the lies and slander about Jesus. When God raises up Jesus, he announces: “I have not abandoned him! He really is innocent! He is the world’s True King! He has authority to forgive sin and open heaven’s door for all who trust in him. He is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased!” This is what God has promised Jesus. But first, Jesus must trust him in death.
And Jesus does. He trusts his Father so completely, with such simple, childlike faith, he offers the bedtime prayer Mary and Joseph may have taught him as a little boy: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” On the edge of death on Good Friday, Jesus is as safe in his Father’s care as he had been in Nazareth. And if you belong to Jesus, the same is true for you (Phil 1: 18–26; 1 Thes 4:13–18, 5:9–11; 1 Cor 15:20–58). We can trust him even at the hour of death, because we know we are simply “falling asleep in Jesus”: our spirits immediately come more alive than ever in his presence, and our physical bodies are temporarily laid to rest to await the final resurrection.
There is great comfort in belonging to a Savior who—like most of us will—once had to fall into the sleep of death, clinging to the promises of God. A Savior who spent that long, quiet Saturday, resting in the silence and stillness of a grave. And there is unspeakable comfort in knowing that on Sunday morning, resurrection life came rushing into our Savior’s tomb, just like God promised. And as Jesus’ heart began to beat again, as his lungs filled up with air and his eyes snapped open…it was time to wake up.
And if we belong to this Savior, then whether we are awake or asleep, in life and in death, we can trust our lives into the care of God. Like Jesus, we will find him faithful.
Article by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church
Posted in Holy Week, Good Friday, Easter, Crucifixion, cross, Restoration, Reconciliation, Adoption, Father, Word, Scripture, Scripture Memory, Reliance, Security, Safety, Death, Trust, Resurrection, Luke 23
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