6. ' It is finished.' — The conflict is over and the victory won. Christ from His cross announces to the world that all is finished. TerAeo-Tat. In one word He sums up the whole of man's redemp- tion. Finished was all that prophecy had fore- tokl and type foreshadowed. Finished was the work which His Father had given Him to do. He looks back on His life from the time when He said, 'Lo, I come to do thy will, O God' (He 10^), and is able to say with regard to every jot and tittle of His life's work, 'It is finished.' He has made a full, perfect, and suHicient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for tlie sins of the whole world. We enter into no theory of the Atonement, we accept it as a f.act ; we know that the chasm between God and man, formed by the sin of man, has been bridged over, and that the way to the Father is open, for ' when He had overcome the sharpness of death. He opened the Kingdom of heaven to all believers' (Tr Dcum).
7. ' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' — Tiifc two last words were spoken in rapid
succession. Tlie word of victory is followed by the word of rest — rest after the burden and heat of the day. It is a word of calm, l)eautiful trust, of perfect sympathy between the Father and Son, revealing to us what death was to Christ and what it is to all those who are united to Christ by a living faitli ; that it is not a leap in the dark, not a plunge into an unknown void, but a going home. ' Man goeth fortii unto his work and to his labour until the evening' (Ps 104-^), and then cometh rest — rest with Christ in Paradise. Death is the summing up of the life ; repeated acts form habits, habits form character, and character is the sum- total of the life, which we carry with us into the unseen world. To live the forgiven life, the life that is being formed and fashioned after the life of Christ, by tlie power of the Holy Ghost^this is the true preparation for death. This alone can rob death of its sting ; one with Christ in our life, we shall be one with Him in our death. ' To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain' (Ph l-^). ' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'
Literature.— The Lives of Christ, esp. Edersheim, Life and Times, ii. 593-610 ; Stier, Words of the Lord Jesus, in loc. ; Tholuck, Light from the Cross ; Stalker, Trial and Death of Jesus Christ ; F. W. Robertson, Sermons, iv. 307 ; Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, 324 ; C. Stanford, Voices from Calvary (1893); W. R. NicoU, Seven Words from the Cross (1895) ; M. Creighton, Lessmisfrom the Cross (1898), 75-132; W. Lowrie, Gaudium Crucis (,1905). ROWLAND ElLIS.
SEVENTY.— The mission of the Seventy,* re- corded in Lk 10, belongs to the third year of our Lord's public ministry. They were sent forth some time after the Transfiguration (10^), when the Gali- Igean ministry of Jesus had closed, and when He had ' set his face to go to Jerusalem ' (9^^). The mis- sion of the Twelve had taken place in the previous year {9^- '*').t Seventy was regarded by the Jews as a complete number of persons for any important work. J Our Lord may have had specially in view (1) the seventy elders under Moses, who was a type of Himself ; (2) the Hebrew tradition that the nations scattered at Babel were seventy in number (pseud. -Jon. Targ. on Gn 1P),§ just as the appoint- ment of the Twelve may have been suggested by the number of the tribes of Israel.
1. The office and mission of the Seventy resemble those of the Tivelve.—{\) A twofold commission is given in each case to preach and to heal, Mt 10^-*, Lk 10". (2) Instruction is given to both («) to go in pairs, tAvo and two, Mk 6^ Lk 10\ in order to .strengthen their testimony and to give mutual help and sympathy ; (6) to take with them neither purse (for the labourer is worthy of his entertain- ment), nor wallet (for needless encumbrance was to be avoided), nor shoes, i.e. in addition to the sandals which they wore (for sandals befitted the poor, shoes the well-to-do), Mt 10»- i», Mk &>, Lk 10^. II (3) In each case the burden of the message was 'Peace' and the 'Kingdom of God.' Peace was and still is the favourite Eastern salutation ;
* Some very ancient MSS (BDMR) read Seventy-two (e/SSo^vi- xovTot hOo) ; but NACLH, etc., omit hCo.
t Although only Luke mentions the Se^'enty, indications of Jesus having a wider circle of 'disciples' than the Twelve are found elsewhere, as in Jn ens, Ac lis, 1 Co 15S.
; The descendants of Jacob who entered Goshen were seventy (Gn 46'-"). Seventy elders assisted Moses in the work of judg- ment and instruction (Ex 1825 249, Nu llie. 25). The Sanliedrin consisted of seventy besides the president (Hastings, DB iv. 399). The LXX is so called from the tradition (first told in a literary fiction usually ascribed to about b.c. 200) that seventy or, more exactl.v, seventy-two elders executed the \ersion (Hastings' DB iv. 438). Josephus appointed seventy rulers of Galilee (B.7 ii. xx. .5).