To the objection of some persons, that all things were not completely finished and accomplished, until Jesus rose again and ascended into heaven, Calvin replies that Jesus knew that all things were now practically accomplished, and that noth- ing now remained to hinder His finishing the work He came to do.
{^And He bowed His head.] This is the action of one dying. When the will ceases to exercise power over muscles and nerves, at once those parts of the body which are not rigid like the bones, collapse and fall in any direction to which their centre of gravity inclines them. The head of a crucified person would naturally in death droop forward on the breast, the neck being no longer kept stiff by the will. This is what seems to have happened in the case of our Lord.
May we not gather from this expression, that our Lord up to this moment held up His head erect, firm, steady, and unmov- ed, even under extreme pain ?
Alford remarks how this little incident was evidently record- ed by an eye-witness. The miraculous darkness must have now passed away, in order to let this movement of the head be seen.
[And gave up the ghost. 1 These words mean, literally, " de- livered up the spirit." It is an expression never used of any dying person in the Bible except our Lord, It is an expression denoting voluntary action. He delivered up His spirit of His own free will, because the hour was come when He chose to do it. He had just said, after using the phrase, " It is finished,'* — " Father into Thy hands I commend my spirit," — and then He proceeded to deliver up His spirit into the hands of God the Father. It is the Father, and none else, to whom the words, " He delivered up," must apply.
Augustine observes, " Not against His will did the Saviour's spirit leave His flesh, but because He would, and when He would, and how He would. Who is there that can even go to sleep when He will, as Jesus died when He would ? Who thus puts off his clothes when he will, as Jesus unclothed Himself of His flesh when He would ? Who goes thus out of his door when he will, as Jesus, when He would, went out of this world ? "
In death, as well as in life, our Lord has left us an example. Of course we cannot, like Him, choose the moment of our death, and in this, as in everything else, we must be content to follow Him at an enormous distance. The best of saints is a miserable copy of his Master. Nevertheless, we too, as Cyril observes, must endeavor to put our souls into God's hands, if God is really our Father, when the last hour of our lives comes ; and like Jesus, to place them by faith in our Father's keeping and trust our Father to take care of them.