Charles Wesley wrote his brother, John, to report what a doctor told him: “Most people die for fear of dying, but I never met with such people as yours. None of them are afraid to die, but are calm, and patient, and resigned to the last.” John Wesley wore that statement as a badge of honor. When asked what set Methodists apart from other Christians, Wesley remarked, “Our people die well.” 

• We talk a lot about the Christian lifestyle. 
• We don’t talk about the Christian death style.

Warren Wiersbe wrote: “We are not really prepared to live unless we are prepared to die.” The final words of Jesus from the cross teach us how to live and die. 

The Gospels record the seven last words of Jesus from the cross. Luke records three of the seven words. Luke 23:34 is the word of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:43 is the word of salvation: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:46 is the word of committal: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

It is generally agreed that the words of our text were the last words of Jesus. These words were a prayer addressed to God the Father. Yet Jesus does not ask for anything in this prayer. It is a prayer of committal. After a funeral, the family gathers at the graveside for the internment. Standing over the open grave, a minister announced the committal: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” No one spoke a committal over Jesus. When the women came to perform proper burial rites on the body of Jesus, the tomb of empty. Before he died, Jesus announced his own committal: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” 

Many saints have faced death with these words on their lips. They offer help in life and hope in death. But this last word from the cross is not about us. The Son speaks to the Father about his spirit. The truth we should take from this text is this: Jesus died the way he lived. How did Jesus die? 

Jesus Died. Sacrificially.

Luke 23:46 records the death of Jesus on the cross. However, we are not left to interpret the meaning of his death for ourselves. The opening word of verse 46 connects the fact and truth of Jesus’ death: “Then.”Two miracles reveal the truth of Jesus’ sacrificial death.

The Dark Sky. Luke 23:44-45, “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed.”

• The sixth hour was noon. 
• The night hour was 3 PM. 

Jesus was crucified when the sun was at its brightest and hottest. Yet, suddenly, darkness covered the land. Midday became midnight. We do not know how far or wide the darkness extended. It is unlikely that it was a solar eclipse. This was the wrong time for an eclipse. An eclipse would not have lasted three hours. There is no logical explanation for his phenomenon. I take Luke’s words at face value. Verse 45 says: “The sun’s light failed.” The sun refused to shine. This darkness should be understood theologically, not scientifically. 

The wrath of God against sin was poured out on Jesus at the cross. 2 Corinthians 5:21 explains: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” As Jesus suffered the punishment we deserved, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” What Jesus endured to pay for our sins was so terrible that God turned the lights out at Calvary so no one would see the Father punish the Son for us. 

The Torn Veil. Verse 45 says, “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” This curtain was forty cubits in length and twenty cubits in width. It was “one handbreadth thick. This veil separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. This Holy of Holies represented the presence of God. No one could enter except the High Priest. He could only enter once a year on the Day of Atonement. It is said that they tied a rope around the high priest’s leg to drag him out if he died in the presence of God. The curtain symbolized how sin separated us from God. It might as well have had a sign on it that read: “No Trespassing.”

• The Holy can must be separated from the unholy.
• Righteousness has no dealings with unrighteousness.  
• The Light has no fellowship with the darkness. 

But when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Matthew 27:51 says, “And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” No man tore this curtain. God did it! The torn curtain was an omen of the eventual physical destruction of the temple. It was a testament to its immediate spiritual destruction. 

Hebrews 4:14-16 says, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Jesus Died Prayerfully.

Jesus was a man of prayer. Prayer characterized his life and his death. The crucified typically spent their dying breaths cursing and swearing. The God-Man spent his dying breaths praying. How did Jesus pray?

 A Bold Prayer. Verse 46 tells us how Jesus prayed: “calling out with a loud voice.” Crucifixion was a slow and painful death by suffocation. Jesus was beaten, weakened, and struggling to breathe. His response to the excruciating pain was to pray. He did not pray silently or secretly. The Lord did not whisper to conserve his strength. He called out with a voice for everyone to hear. With renewed strength, the crucified Savior called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” 

The religious leaders did not just want Jesus dead. They wanted him crucified. Galatians 3:13 says, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Jesus’ death on the cross was designed to be his enemies’ evidence that he was a messianic wannabe who blasphemously claimed to be the Son of God. Yet Jesus boldly prayed to his Father to receive his spirit. 

1 Corinthians 1:22-25 is right: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

A Biblical Prayer. From where did Jesus draw the words of his final prayer? He prayed biblical words. Scripture was on Jesus’ mind as he died on the cross.  The first word, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” fulfills Isaiah 53:12. The fourth word, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” quotes Psalm 22:1. John 19:28 records the fifth word, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.'” The seventh word, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” cites Psalm 31:5. There David prays, “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.” 

Jesus prayed David’s words with a notable addition and subtraction. Jesus added “Father” at the beginning of his prayer. David was “a man after God’s own heart.” Yet he did not address God in such intimate terms. Israel referred to God as Father corporately, not personally. Jesus had every right and reason to address God as Father. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Jesus subtracted David’s words, “you have redeemed me,” from his prayer. Jesus did not need to be redeemed. He is the Redeemer! Jesus took these biblical words and made them his own in prayer because the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Jesus Died Confidently.

Jesus had spent much of the previous night in agonizing prayer. After his betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, Jesus stood trial six times between Thursday night and Friday morning. He suffered verbal abuse, physical brutality, and psychological torture. He was too weak to carry his cross up Golgotha. The Lord was half-dead already when they nailed him to the cross. By the time Jesus uttered this final word from the cross, he had been crucified for six hours filled with physical suffering and spiritual agony. Yet this seventh word is not the cry of a defeated victim. Jesus died confidently, “calling out with a loud voice.” How did Jesus die confidently?

The Fatherhood of God. This seventh word is the third “Father” prayer of Jesus in Luke. Luke 22:42 says Jesus praying in the Gethsemane: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Luke 23:34 says Jesus prayed on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”Now Luke 23:46 says prayed before he died: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 record the fourth word from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This cry of dereliction is the only time Jesus addressed God as God. In the mystery of the atonement, the Father forsook his Son as he bore our sins on the cross. But Jesus did not die in the God-forsaken state. 

• After he suffered agony on the cross…
• After he drank the cup of God’s wrath…
• After he paid the penalty for our sins… 

Jesus again addresses God as Father. He prayed with confidence that their briefly interrupted communion had now been restored. John 19:30 says, “It is finished.” Jesus’ dying prayer affirmed he was the Father’s beloved Son in whom he was well pleased. 

 The Faithfulness of God. Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” “Into your hands” is an anthropomorphism that describes divine reality in physical terms. John 4:24 says, “God is spirit.” God does not have physical hands. Yet he who is “the image of the invisible God” commits his spirit into God’s hands at dying time. 

Robert Ireland asks, “Was there ever a deathbed like that of the Son of God?”“Commit” means “to set before” or “to place beside.” It refers to an act of trust. Picture a bank deposit. The customer does not engage in a tug-of-war over the money with the teller. You place the deposit in the teller’s hand, trusting that your hard-earned money is safe and secure. In a greater, deeper, and higher way, Jesus committed his spirit into the Father’s hands on the cross. Philip Graham Ryken said, “In his last prayer before dying, Jesus expressed full confidence in his Father’s love.” Jesus shows us how to live and die with confidence in the unwavering faithfulness of God. 

Lamentations 3:21-23 says, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” 

Jesus Died Willingly.

Luke 23:46 tells us how Jesus died: “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.” The most important lesson to be drawn from this verse is that Jesus died willingly. Augustine said, “He gave up his life because he willed it, when he willed it, as he willed it.” His final words were not a hoarse whisper. He called out with a loud voice. 

Acts 2:23 says he was “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Yet he died entrusting his spirit into his Father’s hands. Then Luke says, “He breathed his last.” When I was a boy, church got good when the preacher would say, “He died.” That’s not the language the Gospels use for the death of Christ. 

• Matthew 27:50 says he “yielded up his spirit.” 
• Mark 15:37 says he “breathed his last.” 
• Luke 23:46 says he “breathed his last.” 
• John 19:30 says he “gave up his spirit.” 

This will not be the language used when we expire. Whether we die suddenly or slowly, we are not in control. You may do or take something to cause your death. Yet suicide does not put you in control of your death. That’s not how it was with Jesus. John 10:17-18 says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” 

Jesus died on the cross voluntarily,vicariously, and victoriously. How should we respond to the death of Christ? Luke 23:47 says, “Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!”Praise God that the innocent died for the guilty that we may be saved!