From The Incomparable Christ by J. Oswald Sanders—
With awe and reverence we now approach the watershed of the eternities. “When Jesus had cried a 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). The body that had housed the Christ was about to be laid in Joseph’s tomb, but before He took leave of the earth, Jesus uttered His last word from the throne of His cross, and not in subdued tones, but with a loud, triumphant voice.
The bitterest ingredient in the cup of His suffering had been the midnight gloom that enveloped o only His body but also His soul, when His Father made the iniquity of us all to meet on Him (Isaiah 53:6). Three hours of torture at the hands of His creatures were succeeded by the infinitely darker three hours into which an eternity of suffering was compressed.
He does not now cry, "My God, my God!" but, Father." The communion He had enjoyed from eternity is restored, never again to be interrupted. Small wonder that He cried with a loud and triumphant voice.
Transcendent joy must have flooded Him as His spirit rose from the miasmas of earth's sin to the warmth and crystal purity of the celestial air. His was no reluctant farewell to the scene of His suffering and humiliation.
