Mark 15:37 Commentary and Bible Study

He cries in a loud voice. John and Luke tell us what he said; Mark and Matthew do not say. John writes that after receiving the vinegar he said, ‘It is finished’ and then bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. Crucifixion, they tell us, could take days before death came. This was why they went round breaking the legs to hasten death by making breathing impossible and to end the life in asphyxiation. Crucifixion was a terrible torture. But Christ died in six hours, and when he died he surrendered his own soul. ‘It is finished.’ He knew he had accomplished the atonement. He had suffered for every one of your sins, if you trust in him, and every one of mine. He had taken it all and he surrendered his soul, at his own command, to the Father. Luke gives us the Lord’s dying words, also spoken with a loud voice: ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.’ His strength was not exhausted, and we are told this to seal the fact that his death was voluntary. He himself laid down his life, even in this final act. He chose to die in that moment. No one took his life from him against his will. None of those things that were done to him actually killed him. Even the punishment handed out did not kill him, because he was God as well as man. His death came when he yielded up the ghost and gave his life freely. He persevered through this wall of hostility; his love carried him through it all. There was never a transaction like this.