THE sufferings of the blessed Savior were over. He had received the vinegar, and, with undiminished force, He said, "It is finished." The toil, the trial, the testimony were now complete. The cup had been drained, and not one word or act was now necessary to perfect His obedience, or accomplish atonement. He speaks in anticipation, but He affirms the close of His errand to earth. All is done. "And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost,"—placing, by the dismissal of His spirit, the seal of deity on His person, and the mark of eternal value on His work. He who thus died was God. He bowed His head in a triumphant acceptance of death, in a voluntary response to the claims of sin, the judgment of which He bore. Death had no power over Him, nor "could he be holden of it." He laid down His life of Himself. Such an act was purely voluntary on His part, and unnecessary but for the work of atonement. The bowing of His head indicated a surrender that was entirely unforced. No storm, however terrific, could do that. He dismissed His spirit in the calm omnipotence of One who could lay down His life.
He who could thus act was God. Man, the child of sin, and the subject of death, cannot retain his spirit; death dissolves for him the tie between it and the body, and death is monarch.
But not so with Christ. He laid down His life that He might take it again, and this truth places Him, at once, in a position quite distinct from fallen and guilty man. In order to save sinners, He must be sinless; and therefore “he who knew no sin was made sin for us." Blessed and perfect substitute! How His grace is enhanced, when we think of the depths into which He had to go, the waters of judgment through which He had to pass, in order to meet our case and bring us to God?
What grace do we see in the bowing of His head to the stroke? What eternal power in the giving up the ghost!
How remarkable, too, that in one verse (John 19:3030When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:30)) we should find both of these truths. It is John who alone mentions that He bowed His head; but then John views Him, more than the other evangelists, in His deity; and therefore we see here the blessed Word, who had become flesh, in the calm majesty of His person willingly accept the condition of death and judgment, in order that His work might be completed, sin atoned for, and meaning attached to His closing words, "It is finished.” What a work I and what a Workman! And so we read that “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)). Whose blood That of God's Son! How significant! That blood cleanseth from all sin How infinitely valuable!
Dear reader, may I ask you to lay these truths to heart. They lie at the foundation of Christianity, and it is this foundation that Satan is sapping. Satan is your adversary. J. W. S.