BY ATHAL TOLHURST
The following was presented as a morning devotional at the General Conference. We have retained many of the elements of oral delivery.-Editors.
HEN I VISIT THE HOLOCAUST Museum, I never fail to be deeply moved by the human suffering revealed there in its displays, suffering so undeserved. When I see the film footage of the liberating soldiers who came to those death camps and set the surviving prisoners free-forcing the guards who had so badly mistreated the inmates to carry the lifeless bodies of their victims to the burial pits-I feel a sense of wicked satisfaction. That's the only way I can describe it-wicked satisfaction!
But how differently Jesus reacted. And He wasn't, like me, just a spectator. He was the undeserving victim of abuse. Yet in the face of such awful treatment He prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
I think the secret of Jesus' success in carrying this whole thing through was His great love-not just a sense of duty. From the very beginning of His ministry He had set His sails, as it were, taking the wind into them and heading straight for the goal before Him. His whole life moved toward those last few hours of His earthly ministry. Nothing could divert Him from it. Not pride, not flattery, not ambition. So that within a few short years He was able to say to His Father in prayer, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). A completed task. A finished work.
Now as He hung on the cross and drew His final breath, He cried out with a loud voice, "It is finished." "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (John 19:30; Luke 23:46). And having said thus, He bowed His head and died.
"It is finished." It's always a good feeling when one comes to the end of a task, isn't it?
The God Who Finishes
I think back to my graduation from college. What emotion swept over me at that time. Emotions of joy, because I'd passed my exams and was going to graduate. Emotions of relief, because the torture was finished. Emotions of sadness, because it meant leaving those familiar halls-and that special group of friends-and going out into the big, wide world. All kinds of emotions come over one at such a time.
It's well for us to remember that our God is a "finishing" God. In the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1, we read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And when you come to chapter 2, verse 1, it says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them." What God began He finished. And the Bible tells us that He never begins anything but what He finishes it. He carries it right through to its end point. In fact, the apostle Paul tells us that He is "the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb. 12:2).
So if He has begun a good work in you, He'll finish that as well. We need to trust Him to do that.
Having launched out on the plan of salvation, Jesus was destined to finish it. He's the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending," the Bible says (Rev. 1:8). When His lifework here on earth was completed, and He cried out on the cross, "It is finished," the watching crowd should have applauded, don't you think? The angels did. All heaven triumphed, says Ellen White, for the battle had been won (The Desire of Ages, p. 131).
Jesus Did Not Know!
Jesus came here to defeat the enemy, and by dying on the cross He assured that sin and Satan will be destroyed forever. He assured the salvation of humankind, the redemption of the race. He secured the universe for eternity. That's cause for rejoicing.
It seems to me, however, that when Jesus Himself cried out "It is finished" on the cross, it was with mixed feelings. For while He saw, no doubt with joy, "the travail of his soul" (Isa. 53:11) and was satisfied, it was really only by faith that He could be aware of this achievement. "The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb," says Ellen White. "Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father's acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal. Christ felt the anguish which the sinner will feel when mercy shall no longer plead for the guilty race. It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father's wrath upon Him as man's substitute, that made the cup He drank so bitter, and broke the heart of the Son of God" (The Desire of Ages, p. 753).
As I thought about that, I was impressed that Christ must have wondered what was coming. He couldn't see through the portals of the tomb. Would His death be enough, or would it take more than that to redeem humanity? Maybe He would never see His Father's face again. Was this the end? I'm sure these questions coursed through His mind.
And so He prayed, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Perfect trust. He knew the Father would do whatever was needed. And if that meant that He was never to see His face again, that was going to be all right, because He was in His Father's hands. "Whatever it takes, Father, I'm willing, I'm in Your hands. Do with Me as You see is necessary." Have you ever thought of it like that?
Of course, Jesus was always submissive to His Father's will. But it was on the cross that He reached a new pinnacle of trust. It was there, it seems to me, that He was willing to go out into oblivion, if that's what it would take. What a tremendous example to us of trust.
We need to learn that when we have placed ourselves in God's care, it's all right. No matter what experience comes to us, it's all right. It's OK. Health or sickness, prosperity or adversity, acclaim or false accusation-it doesn't matter if we are in God's care.
Job, the wonderful character of Old Testament times, took this whole thing to new heights for human beings when he said of God, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15). That was Jesus' attitude as well when He said, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit."
The wise man summed it up when he said, "Whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe" (Prov. 29:25). Safe. We need to learn that lesson of trust.
Who Killed Him?
When I was a little boy, I was fascinated by a certain story and wanted it told over and over. In it was the question "Who killed Cock Robin?" Any of you remember that story? We need to get to the bottom of the issue. To get the matter straight. Who was it that killed Cock Robin?
I've long since forgotten who killed Cock Robin. But I do know who killed my Lord. Was it the Jews that took the life of Jesus? No, I don't think so. As Adventists, we know that before the Jews got their hands on Him, Jesus had fallen dying to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane-and would have died right there if He hadn't been specially strengthened by an angel (see The Desire of Ages, p. 693). So it wasn't the Jews who killed Him. Was it the Romans? No, it wasn't the Romans, either. We're told that when they thrust a spear into Jesus' side, He was already dead. There flowed out blood and water, the text says (John 19:34).
Then who was it that killed my Lord? I know who it was. I did. And you did. The Bible tells us that He died of a broken heart. We all killed Him.
Some doctors have given an explanation that I find interesting. When a person suffers great grief and sadness, a system called the cardiac depressor nerve system goes into effect and causes the heart to beat slowly. Try it out sometime when you're going through grief; test the beat of your heart and see how slowly it's going. Here was Christ hanging there on the cross. He was heavy with grief and sadness, and the weight of the world's sin bore down upon Him. His heart beat slowly because of the cardiac depressor nerve.
But then the Bible tells us that the sun broke through and shone upon Him; and it also tells us in prophetic utterance that He saw the travail of His soul and was satisfied by it (Isa. 53:11). It seems to me that just before He died, Jesus realized that what He had been through, was going through, and what He yet faced would successfully provide salvation for humanity. The cardiac accelerator nerve system sprang into effect at this prospect, and His heart began a faster beat. He couldn't take it; and the extra pressure burst the blood vessel as it left the heart right there in the pericardium. The pericardium filled with blood, and He died-in a shout, says the original language: "Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost" (Mark 15:37). He had died of a broken heart.
Thus when the Romans thrust the spear into His side, there came out blood and water. I'm told that that's what happens when the heart ruptures into the pericardium. The red corpuscles separate from the serum and flow out as coagulated red corpuscles-blood and water in the serum. Jesus died of a broken heart. Because of your sins and mine.
We should rejoice today. We should break out in applause at what He was willing to go through in order to provide salvation for us.
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Athal Tolhurst recently retired as the undersecretary of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Silver Spring, Maryland. He now lives in Moss Vale, New South Wales, Australia.
