James Jacques Tissot (d. 1902)
Wikimedia Commons public domain
Compare Luke 23:36
1.
Jesus’ cry that God had “forsaken” him tells us something very important about the Atonement — that it involved not merely physical death (many people had experienced, and would yet experience, the agony of crucifixion) but spiritual death. And for the perfect Son of God, who had never been alienated from God, this was a completely new and utterly horrible sensation.
2.
It strikes me as significant that, at a certain point (according to John 19:28), Jesus knew that the atonement was finished (“that all was now finished [τετέλεσται]”). And then, having said (in John 19:30) “It is finished [τετέλεσται],” “he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
There’s a sense of deliberateness to this. He knew how long he had to hold out in order to finish his mission, and he did it.
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