The Great Exchange

Luke reveals that Jesus' death was covered by darkness, "It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness covered the whole land until the ninth hour" [23:44]. The sixth hour was noon when the sun would be at its zenith...and darkness engulfed the landscape around the cross and hovered there for three hours until Jesus' died. The Old Testament often identified darkness as a sign of cosmic mourning [Amos 8:9, 10; Zeph. 1:15]. Darkness also likely signified the a literal/physical reign of evil that Jesus had prophesied at his arrest the night before when He said, "But this is your hour -- when darkness reigns." But what actually was happening in the spiritual realms during those three black, wretched hours??? We on this side of glory will never really know the full extent of what Christ endured as he had sin upon sin upon sin poured onto His soul until He literally became sin for us all: "...and the Lord laid on Him, the iniquity of us all" [Is. 53:6]. Paul described the cosmic transaction as "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" [2 Cor. 5:21].

So the perfect One, who had enjoyed unbroken fellowship with His Father for all eternity, was suddenly cut off from that sweet communion as wave upon wave of our hideous sin was poured over His sinless soul, which likely convulsed and recoiled as He was repeatedly broadsided with all our lies, idolatries, hatreds, jealousies, infidelities, pride, murders, slanders, lusts, etc. and the full weight of God's fury was unleashed on Him! And yet we remember that just three short years before, He was the very One God had spoken from Heaven about and said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased" [Matt. 3:17]. Those words must have been but a distant memory in Christ's soul as He agonized, truly alone, for the first time in eternity, yet in our place. I think if we could catch but a glimpse of the horrors He suffered that day, sin's allure for us would be greatly tempered.

At the very moment of Christ's death, the great curtain of the Holy of Holies was sundered: "And the curtain of the temple was torn in two" [v. 45]. It was the grandest of the 13 curtains in the temple and served to block all eyes from and keep all people out of the Holy of Holies save the high priest who once a year could enter to make sacrifice for both his sins and the sins of his people. But now it was as if the great curtain had been slashed in two by a great sword ... not only did this serve as a sign that God's people would now have unlimited access to the Father through our great high priest Jesus: "Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith" [Heb. 10:19-22]; but this also served as a sign that the judgment of God had begun on Israel, and history would show that the temple would ultimately be destroyed in less than 40 years...just as Christ had prophesied over the city before He entered and on the road to Calvary that very morning.

While under the cover of the oppressive darkness, the Gospels reveal that Christ uttered three phrases: 1) the cry of the abandoned soul in which Jesus quoted Ps. 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" [Mk. 15:34]; 2) the victorious shout "It is finished" [Jn. 19:30] and 3) Jesus' very last word from the cross [found only in Luke], "'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' And when He had said this, He breathed His last" [v. 46]. The phrase "into your hands I commit my spirit" was the traditional Jewish evening prayer that faithful Jews said prior to sleeping. It is a quote from Ps. 31:5 where David lists his many travails at the hands of his enemies, yet nevertheless asserts his confidence in God, asking that God preserve him from death. And yet when Jesus, the ultimate son of David, prayed this prayer, it was even more a prayer of trust in the Father because He prayed it at the very moment of His death.

Moreover, when Jesus prayed this prayer, He added the word Abba [Father] to the beginning ... a revolutionary ascription! No one had ever prayed like this before. R. Kent Hughes states that "Jesus' use of 'Father' [Abba] framed his public ministry. It was the signature of his soul from first to last. It is the one recorded word of his youth: 'Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house [Luke 2:49]?'" "Father" was the opening word of the prayer He taught His followers to pray. It was the word He used in Gethsemane to accept the cross: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me." It was the first word He spoke from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" and now it was the last statement He would make before dying. Hughes describes it as the sustaining lyric of His life and here at His death, it expressed His ineffable peace and trust in His Father.

This prayer was lifted and personalized by Jesus from Psalm 31 but the message will be missed unless we feel the force by which it came. Luke writes that "Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' When He said this, He breathed His last" [23:46]. Rather than the cry of defeat Satan was expecting to hear, he heard instead Jesus' shout of victory! It was just before this, that He had cried out "It is finished!" in the perfect tense ... it is and will always be finished! This is why we can say in faith and with great confidence that "Jesus saves!" Only the perfect God/man [Son of Man] could take the totality of our sins upon Himself and then give us His righteousness. This is the great exchange.