The four Gospels variously record Christ’s final act on the cross as: “yielded up His spirit” (Matthew), “breathed His last” (Mark and Luke), and “gave up His spirit” (John). The words referring to spirit and breath are synonymous, as the Greek behind both words literally means “breath.” I take the distinction between spirit and breath as two sides of the same reality where “spirit” refers to the life essence within a living being and “breath” refers to the physical expression of that life.
Like me, you may have thought of this moment, His death, as the mere consequence of Christ’s torments and wounds. And He truly did die in His humanity, but may I suggest that His death was not merely the natural result of crucifixion but rather an intentional divine act? Here are three reasons I think so, two that are frequently expressed and one that’s new to me although I make no claim to have originated it.
First, the agonizing six or so hours Jesus spent on the cross were exceptionally brief for a torture that was intended to last for days; “Pilate marveled that He was already dead” (Mark 15:44a). This leads one to suspect that His relatively quick death may not have been the result of crucifixion.
Second, consider what Jesus said in John 10:18: “No one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” Quite plainly, Jesus declares it His unique and sovereign right to lay down and pick up His life at will, a right which no one can snatch away, not even with a Roman cross. This asserts that His dying was enacted rather than suffered. Thus, when Jesus spoke his last words, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46), it was not a mere recognition of the end but his declaration of a purposeful final act.
Third, the part that I have not seen expressed elsewhere, comes from Genesis 2:7; “. . . then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” In this divine means of giving life, the “breathed into,” I see a link between the creation of man and the death of Christ, the breathing out, revealing the latter as a divine mirror of the former, a link which I believe other Scripture affirms.
When God created man, He breathed life into Adam by His will. According to John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 this was done through God the Son, crediting Christ as the actor in Genesis. At Calvary, God the Son saved sinners by laying down His life through willfully breathing out His last. In this light Christ’s last breath appears as the mirror image of Adam’s first breath; the second Adam yielding the breath of life back to the Father to open “the new and living way” into the holy place (Heb. 10:20). Therefore, just as there was One who breathed life into man, the same One divinely breathed out His life to redeem us from our sins.
Further, when Christ took up His life again in the tomb He inhaled the breath of life anew to conquer death once for all. As Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:45, “The first Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Thus the first breath into Adam’s nostrils, Christ’s last breath on the cross, and His first breath in the tomb are all steps in the Divine plan of salvation to make a people for Himself and, along with every breath that we receive from God, all point to the source of life, God the Father through God the Son, reminding that Jesus has stolen death’s victory once for all. As He has power and authority to give the first breath of life He has the power and authority to grant the “breath” of eternal life.
Truly the hymn says it profoundly, “He gave His life on Calvary to save a wretch like me.”