In Luke 24 we might generally observe that the Lord takes the scene into His own hands. We previously have seen, when He was taken to the garden, that He recognized that moment as the hour of the power of darkness. Man was the principal then; man took Him, and man nailed Him to the tree. This verified the word, “This is your hour.” Man was disposing of the scene as it pleased him.
And so it went on till the three hours of darkness. Then God took it into His hands. That was the time when God bruised Him and made His soul an offering for sin.
It is very desirable that we should see the special characteristic of that moment. All through life, His Father’s countenance was beaming on Him. Was He forsaken of His Father through life? Read His utterance in Psalm 16. But now, according to the prophetic voices, according to the premonitions of John the Baptist, there He was—God’s Lamb.
Then at once He became a conqueror. God did not wait for resurrection to sanction the death of Jesus. He sanctioned it by rending the veil. This was not the public seal, but ere the appointed third day had come for the public seal of resurrection, God put His private seal on it. And the rapidity of it is beautiful. We cannot measure the time between the giving up the ghost and the rending of the veil (Matt. 27:50-5150Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; (Matthew 27:50‑51)). That was the seal of the satisfaction of the throne.
In two ways He was doing the will of God here. Through life His business here, as at the well of Sychar, was turning darkness into light. That was the will of the Father when He was a living minister. As a dying victim He was doing the will of the throne. The throne where judgment was seated was satisfied when Jesus gave up the ghost. One was doing the will of the Father; the other was doing the will of God in judgment.
After that, having passed through man’s hour and God’s hour, we see Him in resurrection in His own hour. His own hour is eternity. How blessed to be in His company, to enter a bright and intimate eternity with Jesus.
J. G. Bellett (from Notes on the Gospel of Luke)