Matthew 27:50

Matthew 27:50. Cried again with a loud voice. The last words were those recorded in Luke 23:46: ‘Father, into thy hands,' etc., immediately preceded by the triumphant cry: ‘It is finished' (John 19:30). The order of the Seven Words (as they are called) is: Before the darkness: 1. The prayer of Christ for His enemies. 2. The promise to the penitent robber. 3. The charge to Mary and John. At the close of the darkness: 4. The cry of distress to His God. Just before His death: 5. The exclamation: ‘‘I thirst.' 6. ‘It is finished.' 7. The final commendation of His Spirit to God.

And yielded up his spirit. Actually died. The form implying, though perhaps not alluding to, the dying exclamation. The interval between the agonized cry: ‘My God,' etc., and the actual death in triumph and confidence, was very brief. The intervening expression of human want (‘I thirst ‘) seems to have been uttered, to show that one of our race was suffering there, and at the same time to obtain the physical support needed to proclaim the victory won by that One of our race for us. After the victory came the Spirit's rest in the Eternal Father. More than victory is rest in God. It has been urged with much force that the physical cause of our Lord's death was ‘a broken heart.' This view accounts for the discharge of water and blood mentioned by John (John 19:34). Rupture of the heart is followed by an effusion of blood into the pericardium, where it quickly separates into its solid and liquid constituents, technically termed crassamentum and serum, but in ordinary language ‘blood and water.'