The Seven Sayings from the Cross: #4 — "Father, Into Thy Hands I Commend My Spirit"

Welcome back to our series, “The Seven Sayings from the Cross.” In our last study, we discussed Christ’s promise to the thief on the cross: “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” Now, before Jesus gives up the ghost, we hear this:

“And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”
— Luke 23:46

After hours of suffering, darkness, and mockery, the final sound from the cross was not a whisper of exhaustion but a cry of confidence. Luke tells us that Jesus “cried with a loud voice.”

Even in death, His strength was unbroken. He did not fade into silence and had proclaimed victory. The One who had been condemned by men now commits Himself into God the Father’s hands.

In John 10:18, Jesus had foretold this moment:

“No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”

The cross was not the triumph of Rome or the failure of Heaven. It was the voluntary surrender of the Son to the will of the Father. This is important to understand because so many people diminish the cross. Jesus came into this world to go to the cross and to take our sins upon Himself, He wasn’t forced into it. Even when He was betrayed by Judas and given over to the Romans, He could have defeated them all.

Jesus did not die as a victim of circumstance; He died as the willing substitute for sinners. He “offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14). The Gospels are careful in their wording: “He gave up the ghost.” (Luke 23:46, John 19:30) Death did not claim Him. He, the Lord of life, chose the exact moment to die.

In His final words, Jesus teaches us where peace is found: in the hands of God.
Those hands had fashioned the heavens, formed Adam from the dust, and held the universe together. Now the Savior entrusts His very spirit to them.

Even while bearing sin’s weight, Jesus never ceased to trust His Father. The debt was paid. Fellowship was restored. The Father’s wrath was satisfied, and the Son returned to His embrace.

Christ’s final act becomes the model for how every believer should live and die: in surrender to the Father’s will.

David prayed long before, “Into thine hand I commit my spirit” (Psalm 31:5). Jesus fulfilled that prayer perfectly.

To “commend” our spirit to God is to live in constant dependence upon Him. It means resting every care, every fear, every unknown in His keeping.
When we can say, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” we are free from the fear of death, because the One who holds our spirit is faithful and strong.

“The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” — Deuteronomy 33:27