19:30 When
Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his
head and gave up his spirit.
When this indignity had been added to the rest, the
Savior said, “It is finished,” that is, the measure of the Jews’ godlessness
and their furious rage against him were completed. What had the Jews not
already done? What extreme inhumanity had they not already practiced? What kind
of outrage was omitted, and what extreme insult did they pass over? He was
right, then, to say, “It is finished.” Indeed, the hour now summoned him to
preach to the spirits in Hades. [96]
He visited them that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. He
entered death itself for us and endured this experience that is common to our
nature (namely, death according to the flesh), even though as God he was life
by nature, in order to despoil Hades and to return human nature to life. Thus
he became the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” and the
“firstborn from the dead,”108 according to the Scriptures. Then he
“bowed his head.” This usually happens to the dying because the tautness of the
flesh slackens when the spirit (or the soul), which holds the flesh together
and maintains its tension, departs. That is why the Evangelist used this
expression. And the statement “He gave up his spirit” does not lie outside our
customary usage. That is how the common people say, “He was extinguished, and
he died.” Now it seems intentional and appropriate that the holy Evangelist did
not simply say, “He died,” but, “He gave up his spirit,” that is, into the
hands of God the Father, in accordance with his statement, “Father, into your
hands I commend my spirit.” For us the meaning of these words lays a foundation
and a beginning of good hope. I think that we should believe, and for good
reason, that when the souls of the saints depart their earthly bodies, by the
mercy and compassion of God they are practically placed into the hands, as it
were, of the most loving Father. They do not, as some unbelievers have
conjectured, haunt their tombs waiting for funeral libations, and neither, like
the souls of sinners, are they brought down to the place of limitless
punishment, that is, Hades. Rather they hurry into the hands of the Father of
all, and Christ our Savior opened up the way for us. He “gave up” his soul into
the hands of his Father [97] so that
we too, starting in and through his soul, may have the glorious hope, firmly
established in this belief, that when we undergo the death of the flesh, we
will be in the hands of God, and that is a far better condition than we had in
the flesh. That is also why the wise Paul writes to us that it is better to
“depart and be with Christ.” (Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on
John, 2 vols. [trans. David R. Maxwell; Ancient Christian Texts; Downers
Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2015], 2:350-51)
Further Reading
Full
Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30
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