"father Into Thy Hands" Series

"Father into Thy Hands"

Luke 23:46

The cross of Jesus Christ is the center of everything.

Early in the Gospels we hear Christ declaring that He set His face steadfastly toward Jerusalem and the cross. His entire life was spent in the shadow of the cross. Isaiah 50:4–11 speaks of the suffering of the Messiah. In verse 7, the Servant expresses His complete confidence in God, declaring that He will not shrink back from His mission, despite severe suffering, opposition, and humiliation: “Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame” (Isaiah 50:7).

Flint, a very hard, dark rock, is used figuratively in the Bible to express hardness, as in the firmness of horses’ hoofs (Isaiah 5:28), the toughness of an impossible task (Deuteronomy 8:15; Psalm 114:80), and the inflexibility of unwavering determination (Ezekiel 3:8–9).

Set your face like flint is the figure of speech the prophet uses to describe the Messiah’s unwavering determination to persevere in the excruciating task set before Him. Christ would endure humiliation on His journey to the cross to die for our sins. Nearly 800 years before it happened, Isaiah foretold the suffering of the Lord’s Servant: “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (Isaiah 50:6; cf. Matthew 26:67; 27:26; Mark 15:19; Luke 22:63).

Luke echoes this resolute image of Christ set on saving His people: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51, ESV). In Jerusalem Jesus would face arrest, torture, and agonizing death. With trust in God the Father to help and defend Him before His enemies, Jesus set off firmly and unflinchingly committed to finish His mission. There would be no backing out, and no enemy or accuser could deter Him from accomplishing His purpose. He had set His face like flint.

He was ever eager to go to the cross because apart from that He could not fulfill His divine mission.

The cross was perpetually present to the mind of Christ. It was always in His heart and on His lips after Peter’s great confession of Him as the Messiah, the Son of the living God. He was always moving toward that cross as a Victor, not a victim. He was always moving toward the ultimate final victory over sin and death

It was on His mind as He spoke to Nicodemus, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life" (John 3:14). The cross was the only way Jesus could fulfill His mission. His death was a vicarious, substitutionary sinner’s death even though He never experienced sin. He was the sinners’ representative dying in his place.

Let’s examine for a few moments the circumstances around the death of Christ.

Luke's arrangement of the events at Calvary the day Christ died is topical, not chronological. We get the whole picture when we examine the death of Christ in all four of the Gospels. Each writer has selected events that helped him to explain the message of salvation.

There were many miracles at Calvary. (1) A miraculous darkness enveloped the scene for three hours,(2) and the thick curtain in the Temple was torn from top to bottom like gigantic hands took hold of it at the top and ripped it apart.(3) An earthquake rocked Jerusalem and split open rocks. (4) People came out of their graves after Jesus' resurrection and entered the city of Jerusalem.

"It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour" (Luke 23:44; cf. Matt. 27:45; Mk. 15:33).

The very fact that this darkness is mentioned shows it must have stood out in memory as having been of great intensity and an unforgettable experience. It occurred when least expected, at high noon, and lasted three hours, not a few minutes like an eclipse.

Besides it was the time of the full moon at Passover when the darkness covered the whole land. No one can say the darkness did not extend over the whole of the daylight half of the globe. This darkness was in the presence of the full sun and covered the sun at noonday. All at once the darkness covered the land and it seems to have departed just as suddenly. It was not late afternoon as the sun normally goes down quietly, but it was a frightful darkness that suddenly dropped like a thick curtain. It was very extensive and concentrated like the three days darkness in Egypt during the plagues preceding the first Passover. Like that event there is only one explanation––God. It was a special act of God. It was as if God put His hand over the sun and blocked its light for three hours.