The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross-49

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"

1. Here we see the Saviour back again in communion with the Father.

This is exceedingly precious. For a while that communion was broken - broken outwardly - as the light of God’s holy countenance was hidden from the Sin-Bearer, but now the darkness had passed and was ended for ever. Up to the cross there had been perfect and unbroken communion between the Father and the Son. It is exquisitely lovely to mark how the awful "Cup" itself had been accepted from the Father’s hand:

"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11). On the cross, at the beginning, the Lord Jesus is still found in communion with the Father, for had he not cried, "Father, forgive them!" His first cross-utterance then, was "Father forgive" and now his last word is, "Father into thy hands I commend my spirit". But between those utterances he had hung there for six hours: three spent in sufferings at the hands of man and Satan; three spent in suffering at the hand of God, as the sword of divine justice was "awakened" to smite Jehovah’s Fellow. During those last three hours, God had withdrawn from the Saviour, evoking that terrible cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But now all is done. The cup is drained: the storm of wrath has spent itself: the darkness is past, and the Saviour is seen once more in communion with the Father - never more to be broken.

"Father." How often this word was upon the Saviour’s lips! His first recorded utterance was, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?" In what was probably his first formal discourse - the "sermon on the mount" - he speaks of the "Father" seventeen times. While in his final discourse to the disciples, the "paschal discourse" found in John 14-16, the word "Father" is found no less than forty-five times! In the next chapter, John 17, which contains what is known as Christ’s great high-priestly prayer, he speaks to and of the Father six times more. And now the last time he speaks ere he lays down his life, he says again. "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

And how blessed it is that his Father is our Father! Ours because his. How wonderful this is! How unspeakably precious that I can look up to the great and living God and say, "Father," my Father! What comfort is contained in this title! What assurance is conveyed! God is my Father, then he loves me, loves me as he loves Christ himself! (John 17:23). God is my Father and loves me, then he careth for me. God is my Father and careth for me, then he will "supply all my need" (Phil. 4:19). God is my Father, then he will see to it that no harm shall betide me, yea, that all things shall be made to work together for my good. O that his children entered more deeply and practically into the blessedness of this relationship, then would they joyfully exclaim with the apostle, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God" (1 John 3:1)!