{"id":944,"date":"2019-09-15T14:45:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-15T13:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/?page_id=944"},"modified":"2019-09-15T14:45:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-15T13:45:35","slug":"luke-2346-a-declaration-of-confidence","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/?page_id=944","title":{"rendered":"Luke 23:46 A declaration of confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you knew you were going to die\nwithin a few minutes and had the energy left to utter only one more sentence or\ntwo, what would you want to communicate to the world? Archimedes of Syracuse\n(298-212 BC), possibly the greatest mathematician of ancient Greece said; \u2018Wait\ntill I have finished my problem.\u2019 Peter Abelard (1079-1142AD), the greatest\nphilosopher in Europe in the early 12th<\/sup> C AD and lecturer at the\nUniversity of Paris declared; \u2018I don\u2019t know\u2019. Dominique Bouhars (1628-1702), a\nFrench Jesuit grammarian who spent his life persuading his fellow-countrymen to\nspeak their language correctly, (in French) was recorded as saying: \u2018I am about\nto\u2026or I am going to…die\u2026 either expression is correct.\u2019 Elizabeth I, Queen of\nEngland (1533-1603), was recorded as saying the following utterance: \u2018O my God!\nIt is over I have come to the end of it, the end, the end. To have only one\nlife and to have done with it; to have lived, loved and triumphed and now to\nknow it is over. One may defy anything else but this.\u2019 Lastly Joseph Addison, a\nwriter and literary figure in England\n(1672-1719) summoned his wayward stepson Lord Warwick to his bedside and in a\nfinal plea to the young man to trust Christ concluded with: \u2018See in what peace\na Christian can die\u2019. We have never met these people but can make an informed\nguess about what really mattered in their lives. What is your real passion and\nmine? Is it something that in the light of eternity is of real and abiding\nsignificance? This is the challenge with which we are to live our lives for the\nLord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       Jesus uttered His cry of triumph tetelestai<\/strong> finished<\/em> and then concluded with these words recorded by Luke in 23:46: Jesus called out with a loud voice\nFather into Your hands I commit My spirit. When He had said this, He breathed\nHis last. <\/em>Jesus was not hanging on to life. After His cry of triumph\ndeclaring the completion of the work the Father had given Him to do, He\nconfidently laid down His life and committed Himself into the arms of His\nFather in heaven. No fear of death, no regrets about His life, but it was recognition\nthat His work was accomplished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Jesus Died<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is stating the obvious but not\neveryone accepted it! The Docetists, a cult that claimed to be Christian and\nwas very popular for a time in the 2nd<\/sup> C AD, believed that Jesus\nonly appeared to be human. The perfect Son of God, they said, could not partake\nof human flesh and blood and be like sinful humanity. A person who could\nperform such miracles and live in such a remarkable manner had to be a heavenly\nbeing not one tainted with the limitations of a human body! However the Bible\nmakes plain that Jesus had a real human body and experienced all the kinds of\nthings that other human beings can encounter. He knew what it was to enjoy food\nbut also to go hungry; to enjoy the experience of a cup of cold water on a hot\nday as well as being thirsty; to wake up full of energy for the new day but\nalso to be exhausted after a hectic and stressful one. In the twenty-first century\nin which there are vocal critics of the faith who deny the deity of Christ we\nneed to remind ourselves that for the first two to three centuries after the\nstart of the Christian Church the huge battle the first Christians had to win\nwas the affirmation of His true humanity, in addition to His deity! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus died. This was a clinical fact. The Romans\nhad an objective procedure for confirming that a prisoner had died prior to his\nbody being handed over to relatives for burial. To release a prisoner while he\nwas still alive was a capital offence \u2013that solider could lose his own life. A\nRoman soldier was not stupid enough to take a chance on risking his career and\nhis life for a man who was doomed to die within forty-eight hours as a result\nof the injuries incurred through the process of crucifixion. The Jewish\nhistorian Josephus (37-101AD) had three friends who were crucified by mistake.\nThe Roman officials hurried to get them down from their crosses within a matter\nof minutes, but two died of their injuries within 24 hours and the other man\nwas an invalid for the rest of his days. In John 19:31-37 we have details of\nthe procedures carried out on this occasion. 31<\/sup><\/em> Now it was\nthe day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because\nthe Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they\nasked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32<\/sup>The soldiers therefore came and broke\nthe legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of\nthe other.33<\/sup> But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead<\/strong><\/em>, they did\nnot break his legs. 34<\/sup> Instead, one of the\nsoldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and\nwater. 35<\/sup> The man who saw it has given\ntestimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he\ntestifies so that you also may believe. 36<\/sup>\nThese things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: Not one of his\nbones will be broken, 37<\/sup> and, as another\nscripture says, They will look on the one they have pierced. <\/em>The\nJewish authorities (following the command given in Deuteronomy 21:22-23) wanted\nthe men dead prior to the Sabbath day which began at sundown \u2013the legs of the\nother two men crucified with Jesus were broken to stop them supporting their\nbodies by pushing with their legs and pulling with their arms to keep the chest\ncavity open and functioning. Without this action breathing was impossible and\ndeath would quickly and mercifully follow. Jesus\u2019 legs were not broken as He\nwas already dead. The brutal scourging which He had endured, which killed\nlesser men, would have weakened His body and made an early death more likely. John\n19: 34 -35 records the observation of an eyewitness who saw a soldier pierce\nthe chest cavity of Jesus and two distinct liquids flowed out. Without going\ninto the medical details tests on cadavers in the twentieth century have shown\nthat on bodies severely injured without penetration of the chest that up two\nlitres of haemorrhagic fluid gather between the pleura lining of the rib cage\nand the lining of the lung. This separates the clearer serum at the top, the\ndeep red layer at the bottom. If the chest cavity were pierced at the bottom\nthen both layers would flow out [D. Carson, John<\/em>, p. 623], confirming that\nthe victim had been dead for some time.                                                                                                                                                                         This has not\nstopped Muslims claiming that someone died in Jesus\u2019 place \u2013possibly Simon of\nCyrene [Quran Sura <\/em>4. 156: \u2018they did not kill him, neither did they crucify him,\nit only seemed to be so\u2019 \u2013 Mohammed got his \u2018evidence\u2019 from Docetic sources\nwritten in a later century.] However, the eyewitness account confirms\nthe fact that Jesus died!                       \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Jesus Died\nConfidently <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your\nhands I commit my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last. <\/em>He\ndied confidently because He had:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(a) The Father\u2019s Presence<\/strong> The quality of His relationship with\nthe First person of the Holy Trinity was one of perfect communion. Throughout\nHis earthly life Jesus had sought to do only that which pleased the Father and\nhad done everything He said He would do. His first, fourth and last cries from\nthe cross were addressed to the Father. We know from Luke\u2019s Gospel that by the\nage of twelve He was conscious of His calling. Didn\u2019t you know I had to be in My\nFather\u2019s House?<\/em> (Luke 2:49).\nOr in an alternative translation: Didn\u2019t you realise that I should be involved with my\nFather\u2019s affairs? <\/em>(Luke 2:49\nNLV mg) In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus used the word \u2018Father\u2019 fifteen times.\nLikewise in His Upper Room teaching in John\u2019s Gospel chapters fourteen to\nsixteen (43 times) and in the Lord\u2019s Prayer \u2013His Prayer in John 17 six times;\nHe talked about the Father many times because this was His most important\nrelationship bar none. This is why in His model prayer for His own disciples,\nrecorded in Matthew 6:9, He urged: This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven,\nhallowed by Your name\u2026<\/em> Jesus died confidently because of the\npresence of His Father with Him in death as in life, even if because of our sin\nthat presence was not felt as it had been prior to Calvary\nand would be so again for ever following His glorious resurrection.  American pastor John Drescher was once\nchallenged by a grieving father: \u2018where was God when my son died?\u2019 His reply:\nAt the same place He was when His own Son died.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(b) The Father\u2019s Promise <\/strong>Jesus died confidently in the light\nof the Father\u2019s promise recorded in Psalm 31. Psalm 31:5 reads: Into Your\nhands I commit My spirit; You have redeemed me<\/em> O Lord,\nfaithful God <\/em>[English Standard\nVersion]. David here uses the Hebrew perfect tense [Leupold Psalms<\/em>\np.259] a declaration of confidence in the action of God in the past,\neven though with respect to Jesus it concerned the immediate future. Old\nTestament prophets and Paul, for example (Romans 8:28-30) used past tenses prophetically to indicate their\ntotal confidence in God. Unfortunately the NIV [and some other modern versions]\nrendering of Psalm 31:5b: \u2026redeem me, O Lord, the God of truth <\/em>although\nlinguistically possible misses the point of the Psalmist. However in His use of\nthis verse from Psalm 31 Jesus adds the word Father <\/em>to indicate the special nature of His relationship with the\nfirst person of the blessed Trinity. With respect to the second part of the\nverse not cited by Jesus it was not necessary for Him to be redeemed.\nRedemption was what He obtained for us \u2013however He was released from the\nsuffering endured on the cross as he had paid in full on our behalf the price\nof our reconciliation with the Father. For Jesus His use of this O.T. promise\nwas a declaration of trust in the Word of God that His Father would take care\nof Him. Each of His prayers to the Father from the cross was tied to Scripture.\nHis request: Father\nforgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. <\/em>(Luke 23:34)\nwas a fulfilment of Isaiah 53:12: For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for\nthe transgressors.<\/em> The cry of\ndereliction in Mark 15:34: My God My God why have You forsaken Me? <\/em>is\ntaken from Psalm 22:1, which was a real personal experience of abandonment, yet\nit is followed in Psalm 22:4-5 by these words of confidence in God, in spite of\nhow the Psalmist feels in the harrowing circumstances he faces. In You our\nfathers put their trust; they trusted and You\ndelivered them<\/strong>. They cried to You and were\nsaved<\/strong>; in You they trusted and were\nnot disappointed<\/strong>.<\/em> The promises of the Father in His Word gave\nconfidence to Jesus in His time of trial and can do so for us in our dark hours\nof affliction and trials.     <\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(c) The Father\u2019s Protection <\/strong>supremely, these words speak of\nthe Father\u2019s protection. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your\nhands I commit my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last. <\/em>On\na number of occasions Jesus had warned His followers that He would be betrayed\nand delivered into the hands of sinners who would ill-treat Him and then\ncrucify Him. They put a crown of thorns on His brow; they mocked Him and beat\nHim; they ridiculed Him in Herod\u2019s presence; they shouted crucify Him; they\nnailed Him to a cross; they urged Him to come down from the cross and save\nHimself if they could\u2026but now <\/strong>Jesus\nwas no longer on the hands of sinners, that humiliation was over. Psalm 31 the\nPsalm quoted by Jesus has other treasures that would have been in His thoughts\nas He uttered these words. Psalm 31:8 declares: You have not handed me over to the\nenemy. <\/em>Satan had fought so hard to defeat the purposes of God, to\nprevent the redemption of the people of God- but Jesus had won the victory; the\nshout tetelestai <\/strong>finished <\/em>was still ringing in his ears.\nSatan was a defeated foe, living on borrowed time before he would end up bound\nto his eternal fate. Psalm 31:8 was now a fact of history for the person of\nJesus Christ for the eternal good of His people. David had further declared in\nPsalm 31:15-16: My times are in Your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those\nwho pursue me. Let Your face shine on Your servant; save me in Your unfailing\nlove. <\/em>For David it was a prayer for the present and the future. On\nthe cross of Calvary the deliverance for Jesus\nwas complete. His Father had brought Him through to victory!   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Jesus Died\nVoluntarily<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other men on the crosses on\neither side of Jesus had no choice life was drained from them through the most\ncruel form of death humanity has yet to devise. They was though a marked\ndifference with the death of Jesus. Sinful human beings were responsible for\nHis death. Peter declared to the large crowd in his Pentecost sermon in Acts\n2:23\u2026you,\nwith the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.<\/em>\nWe are always responsible for our actions. Yet this was not the whole truth. Peter\nin the first part of Acts 2:23 also makes another point: This man was handed over to you by God\u2019s\nset purpose and foreknowledge\u2026<\/em> Sinners were responsible for their\nactions yet in the ultimate sovereignty of God His will was done. However,\nthere was an even more amazing angle on the events of Calvary recorded in John\n10, a passage in which Jesus speaks about His death on the cross, He said these\namazing words in John 10:17-18: The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My\nlife \u2013only to take it up again. No-one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My\nown accord. I have the authority to lay it down and authority to take it up\nagain. <\/em>The death of Jesus was a voluntary action on His part,\nwillingly laying down His life as the Good Shepherd on behalf of His sheep\n(John 10:15). Thousands upon thousands of animal sacrifices had been offered on\nbehalf of the sins of the people at Passover for over thirteen centuries, yet\nnone of the victims was or could have been a willing sacrifice, yet Jesus\nwillingly forgave His enemies from the cross; provided salvation to a repentant\nthief on the cross and made arrangements for the care of His mother from the\ncross before voluntarily laying down His life as the victorious Saviour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Jesus Died\nVictoriously<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus called out with a loud voice<\/strong><\/em>, Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit. When He\nhad said this, He breathed his last. <\/em>In His thirties Jesus had completed the work God had\ngiven Him to do. Other believers such as Frances Ridley Havergal, the gifted\npoetess and hymn-writer and Dundee\u2019s own Robert Murray McCheyne of Free St\nPeters, are amongst those whose deaths appeared so premature \u2013 yet how much\nthey accomplished for the Lord. You and I may have many more years of life on\nearth \u2013but will we accomplish all that God has planned for us to do? The proof\nof the success of the mission of Jesus was in the miracles that took place\nfollowing His death. (a) The Torn\nCurtain<\/strong> (Matthew 27:50-51: And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His\nspirit.51 <\/sup><\/strong>At that\nmoment<\/strong> the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. <\/em>This is no\nlounge curtain. It was approximately 60-65 feet high around 30 feet wide and its\nthickness was \u2018the thickness of the palm of the hand\u2019 (Alfred Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah<\/em>\n(1971), p.611). God\nopened the way for us directly into His presence. No longer do we need to pray\nthrough an earthly priest or confess our sins to them. Hebrews 4:16 declares: Let us then approach the throne of grace with\nconfidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time\nof need. <\/em>(b) The Earthquake and its impact<\/strong> (Matthew 27:51-53: The earth shook, the rocks split 52 <\/sup><\/strong>and\nthe tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised\nto life. 53 <\/sup><\/strong>They came out of the tombs after Jesus\u2019\nresurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.<\/em>) There were graves opened \u2013the\nmiracle being what followed\u2026the bodies of\nmany holy people who had died were raised to life<\/em>! Jesus was victorious over sin and\ndeath. An American geologist in 2012, in a presentation on evidence for\nearthquakes in southern Israel in the year of Jesus\u2019 death and resurrection,\nmade reference to several earthquakes with the biggest taking place on the day\nof His death on 3 April 33AD.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stated: The persistent\n33 A.D. seismite indicates the biggest 33 A.D. earthquake was M~6.0. This\nbiggest earthquake was likely April 3, 33 A.D. that startled city residents and\ncaused moderate damage, especially to the western side of Temple Mount. Pivots\nof two, 20-m-high, metal doors of the Temple appear to have been damaged, and\nthe 20-m-high curtain in front of the doors was torn, likely by displacement of\nthe lintel of the Temple during the earthquake. (Steven Austin, Cedarville\nUniversity Ohio   Geological Society of\nAmerica Abstracts with Programs.<\/em> Vol. 44, No. 7, (2012)\np.559)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the giving of the law to Moses\nat Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:16-18 such seismic activity resulted in great fear:\neveryone in the camp trembled. <\/em>Here\nthe giving of the grace of God would bring joy and exultation. Paul in his\nmagnificent chapter on the resurrection in I Corinthians 15:51-58 declares: Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep,\nbut we will all be changed \u2014 52<\/sup>in a flash, in\nthe twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the\ndead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.53<\/sup>For\nthe perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with\nimmortality.54<\/sup> When the perishable has been\nclothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying\nthat is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory.55<\/sup>Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death,\nis your sting? 56<\/sup>The sting of death is\nsin, and the power of sin is the law. 57<\/sup>But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus\nChrist<\/strong><\/em>. 58<\/sup>Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let\nnothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because\nyou know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. <\/em>Jesus died victoriously His work\naccomplished salvation for His people. In those wonderful words in John 10:27-28\nJesus also said this: My\nsheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. 28<\/sup>I\ngive them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out\nof My hand. <\/em>In\nthe light of such a victory we too can rejoice in the declaration of confidence\nby Jesus in God, who in His final utterance from the cross declared: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. When He\nhad said this, He breathed His last. <\/em>Amen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction If you knew you were going to die within a few minutes and had the energy left to utter only one more sentence or two, what would you want to communicate to the world? Archimedes of Syracuse (298-212 BC), possibly the greatest mathematician of ancient Greece said; \u2018Wait till I have finished my problem.\u2019 … Continue reading Luke 23:46 A declaration of confidence<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-944","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":946,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/944\/revisions\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}