27:45-50 During the three hours which the darkness continued, Jesus was in agony, wrestling with the powers of darkness, and suffering his Father's displeasure against the sin of man, for which he was now making his soul an offering. Never were there three such hours since the day God created man upon the earth, never such a dark and awful scene; it was the turning point of that great affair, man's redemption and salvation. Jesus uttered a complaint from Ps 22:1. Hereby he teaches of what use the word of God is to direct us in prayer, and recommends the use of Scripture expressions in prayer. The believer may have tasted some drops of bitterness, but he can only form a very feeble idea of the greatness of Christ's sufferings. Yet, hence he learns something of the Saviour's love to sinners; hence he gets deeper conviction of the vileness and evil of sin, and of what he owes to Christ, who delivers him from the wrath to come. His enemies wickedly ridiculed his complaint. Many of the reproaches cast upon the word of God and the people of God, arise, as here, from gross mistakes. Christ, just before he expired, spake in his full strength, to show that his life was not forced from him, but was freely delivered into his Father's hands. He had strength to bid defiance to the powers of death: and to show that by the eternal Spirit he offered himself, being the Priest as well as the Sacrifice, he cried with a loud voice. Then he yielded up the ghost. The Son of God upon the cross, did die by the violence of the pain he was put to. His soul was separated from his body, and so his body was left really and truly dead. It was certain that Christ did die, for it was needful that he should die. He had undertaken to make himself an offering for sin, and he did it when he willingly gave up his life.

Verse 50. - When he had cried again. He had cried aloud once before (ver. 46). But he does not repeat the former words; the horror of great darkness was past. Probably the cry here resolved itself into the words recorded by St. Luke, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." With a loud voice. This loud cry at the moment of death proved that he laid down his life voluntarily; no man could take it from him (John 10:17, 18); he himself willed to die; and this preternatural voice proceeded from one who died not altogether from physical exhaustion, but from determined purpose. Yielded up the ghost (a)fh = ke to\ pneu = ma); literally, dismissed his spirit; emisit spiritum). The phrase has been interpreted to signify that Christ exerted his power to anticipate the actual moment of dissolution; but there is no necessity of importing this idea into the expression. It is used ordinarily to denote the act of dying, as we say, "He expired." Perhaps the exertion of uttering this great cry ruptured some organ of the body. We know from the effect of the piercing of his side that his sacred heart was previously broken; and thus he verily and really died upon the cross. He, being in the form of God, and equal with God, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, suffered death forevery man. It is to be noted that the death of Christ occurred at 3 p.m., the very time when the Paschal lambs began to be slain in the temple courts. Thus the long prepared type was at last fulfilled, when "Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us."

Jesus, when he had cried again,.... "A second time", as the Persic version; for he had cried once before, and expressed the words he did, as in Matthew 27:46, what he now delivered were, "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit", Luke 23:46, and "it is finished", John 19:30, which he said

with a loud voice; which showed the vehemency of his affection, his strong confidence in God, and his being fearless of death; as also he thus spoke, that he might be heard, and his words attended to, since they contained things of the greatest importance and consequence: moreover, being able to express himself in such a manner, this declared him to be more than a mere man; for after such agonies in the garden, and so much fatigue in being hurried from place to place, and such loss of blood by being buffeted, scourged, crowned with thorns, and nailed to the accursed tree, where, being stretched, he had hung for some hours; to speak with so loud a voice was more than human, and was a conviction to the centurion, that he was a divine person: for when he saw that he so cried out, and "gave up the ghost", he said, "truly this man was the Son of God",

Mark 15:39, and likewise it shows, that he died freely and voluntarily, and not through force and necessity: it was not all that men had done, or could do to him, that could have forced his life from him: he died willingly, and when nature was in its full strength; and which is signified in the next phrase,

yielded up the ghost, or "dismissed the Spirit", as the Syriac version truly renders it; he sent it away. It was not taken from him, he laid down his life of himself, as the Lord of it, and gave himself freely to be an offering and sacrifice in the room of his people; which is a proof of his great love, and amazing grace unto them.

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