THE 'SEVEN WORDS' from the Cross are recorded as follows in the New Testament: Luke 23: 34; John 19: 26, 27; Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; John 19:28 and Luke 23: 46. The fact that there are seven is indicative of their sacredness and importance as comprising all that our Lord willed to say in the supreme crisis of His own and all human history. The words themselves are familiar to all Christians, yet always there is fresh inspiration and new meaning to those who come in humble, worshipful faith, dependent on the Holy Spirit of God.
It may be useful to point out that in the first and last of the seven, that is, at the beginning and the end, our Lord addresses God as 'Father'. The first and last sayings thus provide a beautiful commentary on the fact that this was pre-eminently the aspect of God that He came to reveal. He who dwelt 'in the bosom of the Father' came to reveal Him as such to all who believe in Him as the Eternal Son. He hath given us 'the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father'.
Coming to the sayings themselves we find:
'Father, forgive them'
1. The first is in St. Luke's Gospel, spoken immediately after the soldiers had nailed our Lord to the Cross. What was it? It was a prayer for those who nailed Him there. 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.' What better commentary on the Gospel could there be than this? Christ's first thought in the crisis of the Cross was for those who nailed Him there, and included an extenuation of their crime. Thus 'God commendeth' His love toward us. Christ died for us and He opened His mouth first on the Cross to pray for those who crucified Him and for us all whose sins lie at the root of all His sufferings. 'He died that we might be forgiven, He died to make us good, That we might go at last to heaven, Saved by His precious blood.'
The First Forgiven Sinner
2. The next saying was a beautiful sequel to the first. It reveals the first-fruits of His dying agony, the first forgiven sinner this side of the Cross. With amazing spiritual insight the dying thief leaped the centuries to the coming of Christ's Kingdom, and received the immediate reward, 'To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' Thus God's mercy outstrips our faith, and while the ultimate reward is sure, gives to the departing spirits of His chosen the foretaste of final bliss. 'Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.'
'Woman, Behold Thy Son ...'
3. The third saying of our Lord, 'Woman, behold thy son' . . . 'Behold thy mother', is a specially compassionate one, and this particularly at the moment when it was uttered. Its true significance lies just there. It was just before the three hours of darkness that bisected the long process of the drama; that three hours of darkness which ended in the bitter cry of agony, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' which gave terrible expression to the central truth of the Divine sacrifice. It was just before, that the words were uttered to mother and disciple. 'From that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.' 'From that hour', and there were stilt three hours to go. Is there not something peculiarly tender in that fact?
When we examine John's record we see that it was even so. He records nothing of the final agony, he did not hear the bitter cry. So Mary was taken away immediately and Jesus so provided that it should be so. Mary was spared the worst agony of that awful day and the anguished cry of pain, the actual moment of His spiritual eclipse and physical death. The iron had already entered into His soul, but our adorable Lord first provided for the safety and welfare of the one who bore Him: the perfect Son of Mary as He was the perfect Son of God.
'Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani'
4. Now we come to that central saying of the seven, the true crisis, the moment of the actual consummation of the sacrifice. For here, during those three hours of darkness and in the awful cry that marked its close, Christ died for our sins, not merely in the physical death of the body. Before that came He had already announced its accomplishment. His mission was to die 'for our sins according to the scriptures'. We may remark here that this is the only one recorded by both Matthew and Mark, and it is the only one they do record. It is not recorded by Luke and John, who between them record all the others. And it is the only one recorded in two Gospels; all the rest have only one apiece. This surely marks it out for special emphasis, inviting our attention that here is the one saying that vitally touches and concerns us all as sinners in the sight of God: that now, in this moment, our redemption is accomplished.
Further, it is to be noted that this is the only one of all the sayings that is a direct quotation from the Old Testament (Psa. 22: 1), and that it is given in the very words in which it was spoken: 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.'
Only then is the translation given, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' So we have the very words which Jesus uttered in the central moment of the whole crisis, the moment in which He plumbed the deepest depths of spiritual suffering, drank the last dregs of the bitter cup, descended into the bottomless abyss of agony, died. For this was 'the death of a sinner', the forsaking of God. 'Why hast thou forsaken me?'
However that may be, it was 'here that the full penalty of sin was borne; there He 'who knew no sin' was made 'to be sin for us . . . that we might be made the righteousness of God in him'. These words, 'My God, my God' (not 'Father' now) must have fallen on the ear like the bitter cry of a lost soul. So terrible were the words and the marring of His visage that accompanied them, that someone in very pity immediately took vinegar, or sour wine, and offered it to Him to quench His thirst. He refused it and someone more callous than the rest. and mistaking the words which His pain-wrought lips had uttered, cried, 'Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.'
The Veil Was Rent
What did it all mean? What is the full import of that terrible cry from the stricken Son of God? It meant just this, that what Jesus suffered then and in the three hours of darkness that proceeded this culminating moment, is just what Jesus died to save us from.
This was death. And Jesus suffered this alive as to His body. This was 'outer darkness'. During that whole period of indescribable, inconceivable tragedy the Son of God was bearing 'our sins in his own body on the tree'. For when at the end of that three hours of agony Jesus uttered those portentous words that revealed that the breaking-point had come, and the heart of the Son of Man was broken, immediately the darkness lifted, and the veil of the Temple was rent in the midst from the top to the bottom-a Divine act.
Christ had entered and passed through the realm of death and has come back, bringing with Him the keys of death and of hell, leading captivity captive. At last, 'he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, a new and living way'. We, too, may now pass through and into the sanctuary and presence of God. 'He died that we might be forgiven. He died to make us good, That we might go at last to heaven, Saved by His precious blood.'
'It is Finished'
5, 6, 7. There is little more to add. The last three sayings follow in quick succession. They are but the gathering up of the last fragments of the prophetic word. 'Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, said, I thirst.' There was no need now to refuse the vinegar as at its first offering. Jesus is now the human sufferer and as such receives material relief. Also it was needed, for He was to gather renewed strength, for the final word of triumph. 'Love's redeeming work is done.' So 'Jesus cried with a loud voice, It is finished'. It was His last official utterance and the seal on His ministry. It was the answer to that first official utterance in the Temple, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?' That business was now accomplished. 'Lifted up was He to die, "It is finished", was His cry.'
With a last word of perfect confidence and trust, the word of a beloved Son as He commended His spirit to His Father, Whom He had so fully and perfectly obeyed, He said, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' Note that once again it is 'Father', as at the beginning, His first saying. In between those two utterances of 'Father' He has been down in the depths of unutterable darkness, 'My God, my God.' But now He is back in the sunshine, 'Father, into thy hands . . .' With those words the body of Jesus became a lifeless corpse. It was committed to the grave which could not retain it, anticipating the victory by which He overcame every other grave that bears and will bear the fruit of His triumph. So we say in humble yet glad abandonment, 'Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small: Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.' |
