The last four of the seven utterances the Lord Jesus says from the cross seem to follow in quick succession. We learn this about His cry of forsakenness and expression of thirst from comparing the gospels of Matthew and Mark with the record of John. Matthew writes that when some of those who stood there heard the cry of forsakenness they said, “This man calls for Elias. And immediately one of them running and getting a sponge, having filled it with vinegar and fixed it on a reed, gave Him to drink” (Matt. 27:47-4847Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. 48And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. (Matthew 27:47‑48) JND).
Mark’s account is very similar, but neither record refers to the Lord’s words: “I thirst.” This is left to John who then goes on to confirm: “There was a vessel therefore full of vinegar, and having filled a sponge with vinegar, and putting hyssop round it, they put it up to His mouth” (John 19:2929Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. (John 19:29) JND). It thus appears that the Lord must have expressed His thirst very soon after His cry of forsakenness and this shows us that the two are intimately connected. One is to do with Him as the man who suffers at the hand of God as the trespass and sin offering. The other is in keeping with John’s presentation of Him as the Son of God, for He says it knowing that all things are now finished, and with the purpose that Scripture might be fulfilled, and as the burnt offering.
My Strength is Dried up
It is true that the words “I thirst” speak of extreme physical thirst. The spirit of the Lord Jesus in the Psalms anticipates this: “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue cleaveth to My palate” (Psa. 22:1515My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. (Psalm 22:15) JND). Thirst is one of the terrible physical sufferings that belong to crucifixion, and man’s response is to offer a vessel “full of vinegar.” The Lord’s experience of thirst is therefore another moving glimpse in John’s gospel of feelings connected with His manhood. But the meaning of what He says about His thirst is first a spiritual one. It is the yearning the Holy Spirit leads the psalmist to describe when he writes: “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God (Psa. 42:2 JnD). This is intensely personal to the Lord Jesus (this utterance is the only one of the seven that refers to Himself alone). It is imbued with a desire that is exclusively for God.
Till then tears are His bread day and night. The ungodly say to Him all the day, “Where is Thy God?” He pours out His soul within Him. He is delivered up by the multitude when His desire is to lead them into God’s presence and blessing. And, oh, how His soul is cast down! But despite it all His confidence is in God, and He remembers Him from the land of the Jordan which means “descender” and speaks of death, from the Hermons which suggest seclusion, even aloneness, and from Mizar or “smallness”. No doubt the remnant who flee to these geographical locations in the time of Jacob’s trouble will experience something of the same moral condition. However, they will wait for their God in safety in the clefts of the rock and the covert of the precipice. In contrast the Lord Jesus is exposed to all the horror of the three hours of darkness. Trouble is near, and there is none to help.
The Scapegoat
He is the scapegoat bearing upon Him all our iniquities to a land apart from men. He is a worm, and no man and “all Thy breakers and Thy billows are gone over Me.” It is His desire for God and His dedication to His will expressed in the words “I thirst” that give His part in all that happens here in its beautiful burnt offering aspect (Psa. 42:1-7,1<<To the chief Musician, Maschil, for the sons of Korah.>> As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? 3My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 4When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. 5Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. 6O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar. 7Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. (Psalm 42:1‑7) Song of Sol. 2:14,14O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. (Song of Solomon 2:14) Psa. 22:6, 11,6But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. (Psalm 22:6)
11Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. (Psalm 22:11) Lev. 16:21-22, 1:7-9 JND).
But the part men take is so different. Towards the end of Psalm 42 There is a repetition of the reproachful words: “Where is Thy God?” This reflects what happened at the cross. In the first three hours the Lord Jesus hung there, the chief priests mocking, with the scribes and elders, said, “He trusted upon God; let Him save Him now if He will have Him. For He said, ‘I am Son of God’” (Matt. 27:41-43 JnD).
His Cry Is to God
They say, “This man calls for Elias.” They cannot believe there is any connection between Him and God. He is a crucified and, therefore, a cursed man. In their view He can only be crying to God’s long-promised representative, Elijah, to deliver Him. This shows the extent to which they hold Him in contempt, for it is unmistakable that His cry is to God. Perhaps they are startled by the loudness of it. In their experience of crucifixions no one who has hung on a cross for so long has cried out with such strength. There seems to be a feeling that this is so special that it may actually presage Elijah’s intervention. One (no doubt one who heard the words “I thirst”) fetches the vinegar and the rest allow it to be given to Him in view of this visitation. So at best it is a gift borne of callous curiosity, and really amounts to derision and reproach upon reproach for Him. His spirit in the Psalms says “for Thy sake I have borne reproach ... the reproaches of them that reproach Thee have fallen upon Me. And I wept, My soul was fasting: that also was to My reproach ... .Thou knowest My reproach, and My shame ... reproach hath broken My heart, and I am overwhelmed” (Psa. 69:7, 9-10, 19-207Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face. (Psalm 69:7)
9For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me. 10When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. (Psalm 69:9‑10)
19Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before thee. 20Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. (Psalm 69:19‑20) JND).
The vinegar of those days was a thin sour wine more likely to set the teeth on edge than quench thirst (Prov. 10:2626As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him. (Proverbs 10:26) JND). Some six hours earlier, when He came to Golgotha, the soldiers “gave to Him to drink vinegar mingled with gall” but having tasted it He would not drink (Matt. 27:3434They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. (Matthew 27:34)), no doubt because the gall (or myrrh in Mark) was a kind of primitive drug and He would enter into all that God allowed and laid upon Him. Subsequently they “made game of Him, coming up offering Him vinegar, and saying, ‘If Thou be the King of the Jews, save Thyself’” (Luke 23:36-3736And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, 37And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. (Luke 23:36‑37) JND). But He does not save Himself in the least degree. He is doing the will of the One who sent Him. Men cannot assuage His thirst but their actions, introduced by His words, serve to fulfill the poignant commentary of His Spirit in the Psalms: “Yea, they gave Me also gall for My food, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink” (Psa. 69:22I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. (Psalm 69:2)1 JnD).
He Freely Gave Water to Drink
In His life He had delighted to give men and women to drink freely of His grace, and still does today. “Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst forever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life eternal” (John 4:1414But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14) JND). “If any one thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He that believes on Me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:3737In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. (John 7:37) JND), and “And let him that is athirst come; he that will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:1717And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17) JND).
May it be our desire and resolution, as those who have received of His fullness, to return to Ephesian first love for Him, and never be like that Laodicean lukewarmness He will spue out of His mouth after the assembly has been raptured. It should surely move us that when He departed His life here His last remembrance of the behavior of men towards Him was the bitter taste of the drink of vinegar they gave Him when He said, “I thirst.” We have only a very limited conception of what this meant to His holy and gracious sensibilities, but we can be assured that He delights to receive refreshment now in the form of love from overflowing hearts. Let us then render our drink offerings of worship and dedication to Him while we wait for Him to take us to be with Himself in His Father’s house above.
E. L. Ferguson