Sermon: Final Words of Jesus on the Cross
#1700A
Clyde Finklea
Given 01-Apr-23; 34 minutes
description: This year, the calendar configuration is identical to the final Passover that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ experienced as a human in AD 31, an event in which 28 prophecies were fulfilled. The number seven appears as a kind of watermark of Almighty God, placing significance to completion, such as the weekly Sabbath completing the seven days of creation, the seven days of Unleavened Bread, the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, the seven churches in Revelation, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven last statements on the cross, all determined well before the creation of the earth (II Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2, Ephesians 1:4-6). The seven last sayings of Christ were: 1.) "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23: 34), exemplifying the depth of His love for mankind, 2.) "Today you shall be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:39), forgiving the repentant thief on the cross to His right, a representative of all repentant sinners (Matthew 25:31), 3.) "Woman, behold your son! Behold, your mother!" John 19: 26-27 (consigning His mother into John's care), 4.) "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" ( Matthew 27:46 , Luke 15: 24, reprise of Psalm 22) illustrating that Jesus had become sin in our stead, 5.) " I thirst" (John 19:28), having been extended vinegar at the end of a hyssop branch, symbolizing the Passover sacrifice, 6.) "It is finished" (John 19:30), indicating His redemptive work has paid the note in full, and 7.) "Father into Your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). When His blood poured out on the ground, it purified all things (Hebrews 9:22).
transcript:
I was thinking, with the Passover just a few days away, that I wanted to kind of keep our focus on our Lord and our Savior Jesus. If you will recall, you know the Passover this year is going to fall exactly like His last Passover in AD 31 when Christ was crucified. It falls exactly the same way. I thought that was pretty interesting. But anyway, during that Passover before, during, and right after the day of the crucifixion, did you know that there were 28 prophecies that had been fulfilled? And that is almost amazing, almost unheard of. That is just for the proof that Jesus was our God, our Savior.
Now, I do not have the time, nor is it my intent to cover these 28 prophecies, but I do recommend that if you get an opportunity before the Passover, that you might go through and try to find these 28 prophecies in there that were fulfilled. I will be touching on some of them because what I want to do today is I want to cover the final words that Jesus spoke while He was nailed to the cross. With this in mind, let us move on here.
The number seven is an important number we know in Scripture and it is associated with completion, fulfillment, and perfection (as we pretty much all of us know and understand that) and all the way from Genesis through Revelation the number seven is used.
In the creation week, God rested on the seventh day and He sanctified it, and that gave us a pattern for the Sabbath of mankind to rest from work every seven days and to have an appointment with our Lord. The Feast of Unleavened Bread that we are fixing to celebrate is a seven-day feast. And also the Feast of Tabernacles will also be for seven days. John addresses seven churches in the book of Revelation, where there are seven golden candlesticks and seven stars representing the seven churches and the seven angels. There is also a scroll with seven seals. The seventh seal has seven trumpets, the seventh trumpet introduces seven bowl plagues and I could just go on and on and on with the sevens. It is absolutely amazing.
The reason I tell you this and the reason I mentioned this about the sevens is that it should come as no surprise that Jesus made seven statements while hanging on the cross. So before we get to these final words of Jesus though, let us take a look at a little bit of the stuff that He had to suffer leading up to being actually nailed to the cross. And we know from Revelation 13:8 that He was the Lamb that was slain from the beginning of the world. When I was looking at this—this is really something. I ran across something here that I do not know why it did not shake me before, but it did this time. It is in II Timothy 1.
II Timothy 1:9 who [God] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
Before there was an earth, before anything existed, I guess, that needed to be controlled by time as we know it, He had already planned all this out. Titus 1:2 is similar. It says, and I will just read that to you. "In the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised [again, he says] before time began."
Think about that a minute. God Himself through Jesus Christ has called each and every one of us with a holy calling. Think about how awesome that really is. That is simply amazing. I do not know, it just kind of shook me a little bit and I just thought before the ages of time He just had it all planned out, probably from beginning to end.
Anyway, Jesus went through six illegal trials: three of them were from the Jews and the Pharisees and them, and the other three were from the Romans. He had been illegally condemned and He was turned over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified between two thieves. But before He was nailed to the cross at the third hour (9:00 AM) when He was nailed to the cross is actually the time of the morning sacrifice, by the way. But if you will turn with me now to Isaiah 52, let us just take a peek at something right here before we get into His final words
Isaiah 52:14 Just as many were astonished at You, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men. . .
He had been beaten, He had had a crown of thorns stuck on His head. They hit Him over the head with a rod, jamming those thorns down into the top of His head. They spit on Him, slapped Him, punched Him; they scourged Him and ripped the skin off His bones. Because He was so disfigured, He was almost unrecognizable as a human. And at the time they did nail Him to the cross, they were partying or casting lots. As we know that is one of the prophecies also that was fulfilled. And the whole time they were mocking Him, shaking their heads at Him, hurling abusive language at Him as He hung on the cross for their sins and the sins of the whole world. That was our God.
Though suffering horribly at the hands of these men, I want you to see as we go through that, His focus was on others rather than Himself. It was in these first three hours of light, from 9 to 12, that He had daylight hours (and you are going to see later as we will see that from 12 to 3 o'clock it was total darkness), but in these first three hours of light, at the time that He uttered His first three sayings.
Luke 23:34 Then Jesus said [notice what He says], "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."
This first statement here reveals His perfect character, which is love. Does not John say God is love? When we are under pressure what is on the inside is what comes out. He proved Himself to be pure love; when squeezed, only love came out. Now, one of the things I want to ask you is how do we know if we are full of that goodness, if we have that love in us, for example? Just think a minute about a water saturated sponge. If we put even the slightest pressure on that sponge, water runs out, so immediately we know what fills the sponge. Well, the same is true with us. We can tell what fills us on the inside by what comes out under pressure. He was just put through, as I mentioned earlier, six illegal trials, beaten, mocked, given that crown of thorns. I mentioned He had to carry His cross.
(I am going to be using this term cross throughout this. I know some people will say it was a stake or a tree or whatever, but it was most likely a cross that He carried and they probably nailed Him to it and hung Him up on the tree somehow. Because Peter was the one that said He was hanging on a tree.)
Anyway, He had to carry His cross through a jeering crowd of people who cried for His death in place of a murderer. It is just almost amazing that these people could do that. When finally His hands and His feet were nailed to a cross and He was lifted up in great agony by these cruel soldiers, and in all the suffering, He did not lose faith in His Father. In His love for those He came to die for, He forgot Himself. And He prayed for those who were hurting Him. And as He had taught us to do in Matthew 5:44, He said, "Love your enemies, bless, do good, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."
Now, He put it into practice in the most extreme case and fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah 53:12.
Isaiah 53:12 Because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors [two thieves, one on His right, one on His left], and He bore the sin of many, and He made intercession for the transgressors.
He asked God to forgive them. And we are going to see He is going to intervene for another one in His second statement or His second set of words in Luke 23.
Luke 23:39-43 Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, "If you are the Christ, save Yourself and us." But the other, answering, rebuked him [In the beginning, it was both of them. He was saying bad things about Him too. But this one here had a change of heart right here.] saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done noting wrong." Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."
I mean, what a special love for those who just turned to him in faith right there at that moment. This man will live eternal life. Again, fulfilling that verse we just read in Isaiah 53:12 that He bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
Now, I mentioned earlier that one of the robbers was on his right hand and the other one was on His left. But you know, I am going to have to say this, I believe the one who turned to him in faith was on His right. Obviously, I cannot prove that, but neither can you disprove it. And the reason I suggest that is from the parable in Matthew 25.
Matthew 25:31-34 "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He sit will on the throne of His glory. And the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as the shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep at His right hand [the believers], but He the goats at His left [the unbelievers]. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!'"
These two robbers, I guess we could say, in a way represent like the whole world divided into two groups. Sheep, that is, the believers, on the right, and the goats, the unbelievers, on the left. And that is why I say that I believe that robber that asked the Lord to remember him was on His right.
The third thing, the third statement. It is still daylight. Again, Jesus Christ demonstrating that love is squeezed out of Him. He says in
John 19:25-27 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. [I believe John's mother was also there but John does not mention that.] When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother [Now notice what He says, He does not say mom or mother. He says] "Woman, behold your son." Then He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her into his own home.
Now, it seems kind of strange that He would just say "woman" to His mother, but seeing His sorrow, Jesus actually honored His mother by consigning her into the care of John, the disciple that it says that He loved. However, He uses "mother" for her new relationship with John the apostle. And as the eldest son, it was His duty to ensure that she would be provided for when He would be gone. She was the mother of His humanity (of course she gave birth to Him), but as she stood before Him while on the cross, she was just a woman who, as with anyone else, had to believe in Him for salvation.
Anyway, at noon, the darkness then begins to cover the land. This is 12:00 and then it goes on to 3:00.
Luke 23:44 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
The first three hours were hours of hate, rejection, mockery, cruelty on one hand, but then on the other hand, that demonstrated the hours of love and intercession and mercy that come from our Lord, proving that He truly was the Son of God.
I want to quote something here from a commentary according to Hampton Keathley III. He was a Hebrew and Greek scholar. I said "he was" because he has been dead for quite a while. He said, "We are told that at the brightest time of the day, darkness fell" I am reading out of the Faithful Version translation by Fred Coulter but I think maybe in the New King James or something it says that darkness actually fell. And he used this word fell. He says it is the aorist tense of the verb of a Greek word meaning "to happen" or "come to be." And this tense combined with this verb suggests the suddenness of this. There was darkness was just like bam! It was just sudden, not a gradual darkness coming over the land. It was like someone had just reached over there and just shut the light off, the sun went black. It was just total and complete darkness, suddenly.
And it says "upon all the land [earth]." I continue to quote, "Whether the darkness was over the entire daylight portion of the globe, we do not know but we do know it was at least over the entire land of Palestine." And he goes on to say, "Can you imagine the scene? What must have become of the mood at the moment?" You know there was no abusive language now, no wagging of the heads, no more jeering, only horror, amazement, shock, fear, suspense, and the anxious whispering of the onlookers.
Turn with me real quick. I want to show you something here in I Samuel the second chapter. In verse 9 it says,
I Samuel 2:9-10 He will guard the feet of His saints, but the wicked shall be silent in darkness. "For by strength no man shall prevail. The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces; from heaven He will thunder against them. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to His king, and exalt the horn of His anointed."
Now we get into the fourth statement on the words that He said.
Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
Remember? He is in total darkness at this time. Jesus actually was quoting from Psalm 22. Come with me if you would and let us take a look at this in Psalm 22. I would like to read some of this to see here that Jesus was fulfilling Psalm 22.
Psalm 22:1-8 [David says] My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are you so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning? Oh My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear, and in the night season, and am not silent. But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; they trusted in You and were not ashamed. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, despised by the people. All who see Me, ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, "He trusted in the Lord, let Him deliver Him; let Him rescue Him; since He delights in Him!"
Remember, right after Jesus said that they started mocking Him saying, "He calls on Elijah" or that is what they thought. They said, "Let us see if God comes to His rescue." But anyway, in verse 15 of the psalm, he said,
Psalm 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws.
Right after He said that brings us right into the next statement that He made. This is number five. And we see that in John the 19th chapter.
John 19:28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!"
Again, fulfilling a prophecy. The wording indicated that Jesus was actually fully conscious and was aware of fulfilling the details of the prophecy. He knew that He was getting close to the end at this time because of the darkness and the fact that He was there seemingly all alone and all the sins of all the world was poured and dumped on Him. So fulfilling this prophecy, the soldiers give Him plain vinegar on a sponge via a hyssop plant stock, which He drank.
John 19:29 Now a vessel of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth.
But in this vinegar-soaked sponge on the end of a hyssop plant stalk is also another indication that Jesus died as the true Lamb at Passover. Hyssop, did you know that it was used in the Passover ceremony? You can read that back in Leviticus. He symbolically drank the cup here of God's wrath for all of us sinners.
II Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
He is our representative. He is our Mediator. In this covenant of death He took on all the punishment. He paid the price; the penalty for sin is death. But it was not just that. Sin also creates a lot of pain and suffering and He had to take on all that pain and suffering all the way to His death; and He had to do it all alone, all by Himself. It was laid on Him, and this leads us to the sixth statement.
John 19:30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!"
You see, one thing you have to do is put the gospels, tie them together to get the full story here. So right after the vinegar, He says, "It is finished!" Oh, this is going to be an interesting statement here.
John 19:30 And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
But He ain't dead yet! After He said, "It is finished!" because He has got one more set of statements to make. So the sixth word that Jesus spoke from the cross was from a single Greek word. It is not three words, it is finished. It comes from a single Greek word. And I am probably going to have to just spell it for you because I do not know how it is pronounced, tetelestai. It actually means "it is finished,' but it is still more than that. And the reason we know is because on the papyrus receipts for taxes were actually recovered. And this word was written across them and what it actually means is "paid in full."
When He said "it is finished" He meant His redemptive work that the Father had sent Him to do was completed. It was paid in full because He knew His death was close. He had been made sin for people and suffered the penalty of God's justice which sin deserves. Even in the moment of His death, Jesus remained the one who gave up His life. Remember in John 10, He said, "No one takes My life. I lay it down and I can take it back and that I received from the Father." Everything He did, He did according to what the Father had told Him and given Him to do.
That leads us to the seventh statement because we have to tie this together with Luke 23:46 because, remember, John just said, after He said that he died.
Luke 23:46 And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, Father, 'into Your hands, I commit My spirit.'" Having said this, He breathed His last.
So when He cried out with a loud voice was most likely when that soldier rammed that spear up His side, piercing His heart and the blood and the water come gushing out.
Luke 23:47-49 So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, "Certainly, this was a righteous Man!" And the whole crowed who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned. But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
Luke says He bowed His head and then dismissed His spirit. The mentioning of Him bowing His head means that He hung on the cross with His head kind of held up, right? And at that moment of death, His head slumped down because all of the blood had to come out of Him. Now, I know that there are some that believe that, as John gives us, they are going to break His legs and then it said something about the soldiers had stuck a spear in Him, He was dead already.
Now, if you stick a spear in a dead man (I have read articles and heard ministers over the years so many times on the subject and I read an article somewhere from one of the evangelists from a medical point of view), if you cut somebody after they are dead, their heart is not beating, you will get a little blood but you will not get it all. So it is my understanding, and I certainly see it this way, that He was alive at that last moment. When He said it had finished, a soldier put that spear up and He cried out with a loud voice and said, "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit," and then He died, expired.
There His blood was poured out on our behalf. When Jesus was crucified, they pierced His side and out flowed blood and water. So His heart had to be pumping at the time this happened for it to flow out. And this water mixed with blood when they pierced His side would prove that His heart had ruptured to make sure that every drop of blood was spilled on the ground as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Now, I want you to think about the blood went on the ground, the dust of the ground; and what we made of? The dust of the ground! Dust you are and to dust you shall return. This shows that His blood and sacrifice covers the sin of all those who are willing to repent.
John 19:34-37 But one of the solders pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, "Not one of His bones shall be broken." [because the soldier killed Him with a spear] And again, the Scripture says, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced."
I am going to read another set of scriptures and then I am going to end here.
Hebrews 9:22-28 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]. Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the heavenly things should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but rather He has entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, even as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with the blood of another—He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of man. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
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