April 20

When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.—Luke 23:46.

It was of the utmost importance that Christ's death should be voluntary. Had his life been forced from him, then would it not have been an acceptable sacrifice for a guilty world. It behoved him freely to lay down his life, and thus, as our cheerful surety, to free us from the dreadful penalty of our sins. Our text is the grand proof that

Christ thus freely gave himself. Notwithstanding all the accumulated weight of sorrows he had borne, yet he was not exhausted—he did not gradually become more weak and faint, and then fall gently into the hands of death: he had still full power over his spirit; he could easily have come down from the cross and saved himself—hence, when the moment arrived that Divine Justice demanded his spirit he was ready with the offering; and having cried with a loud voice—a proof of the vigorous energies he still possessed—he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” But not only do we see the voluntariness of Christ’s death, but also the piety and the resignation, and the composure with which his life terminated. He knew that his Father would receive the precious deposit—he knew that in dying he was to be the example of his saints—hence he sanctified death with prayer, and by his unshaken confidence, by his calmness, and by his dying composure, he has taught us our only refuge in a dying hour. By faith we are the children of God, and joint heirs with Christ, and therefore when we expire, we may adopt his dying words, relying upon it, that our immortal spirits will be received into his heavenly hands.