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“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost” (John 19:30).
John tells us that the Lord Jesus said those wonderful words, “It is finished,” and then voluntarily dismissed His spirit (called “the ghost”) and died. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that these words were said with a loud voice. Normally a man dying of crucifixion had become so weak that he could not speak in a loud voice, but the Lord Jesus did not die from weakness or loss of blood, as some people try to say. No, He was in full control of Himself, and cried with a loud voice when He had borne all the judgment that God laid upon Him. Then He dismissed His spirit — something no ordinary man could do.
All this had a strong effect on the soldiers, and on the centurion (a commander of 100 men) who was there. They had never seen a man die like that before, and the centurion said, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. 27:54). All the others who were watching ought to have realized this, too.
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