In Last Words, a powerful, moving book by author Robert J. Nash explores a fresh perspective on a familiar event, guiding readers into the forgiveness, hope, comfort, and compassion of Christ's words in his final moments on earth.
While pivoting history, Jesus graciously offers encouragement for Christians today and hope for seekers looking for significance in his death. In this glimpse into the heart of Jesus, Nash helps men and women find historical truths about Jesus's love for the church in his death and resurrection.
(Read the full interview here.)
Q: Jesus knew what was going to happen and why it needed to happen. Why did he ask, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
First of all, Jesus’s word about forsaking was a quote from Psalm 22. I think Jesus was quoting the whole Psalm in his head. We think more than we speak. Psalm 22 was messianic from beginning to the end. It predicted so much of what was happening to Christ in those moments. Verse 8 described Jesus’s persecutors mocking him. Verse 15 described his dry mouth—verse 16 talked about them piercing him. Verse 18 says they gambled for his clothes. The end of the Psalm is victorious, looking forward to his resurrection. It even describes rescue, and the earth and future generations acknowledging and worshiping. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface was a heart that genuinely was wrestling with this work. We get Jesus’s battle the day before in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prayed there for God to remove this cup. The cup is God’s wrath.
Some of what happens at the moment Jesus asked why God had forsaken him was a mystery. How was the one God three? How did the Father forsake the Son? What was happening? We know that those who sin die. The scriptures say, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23). We know God took on his own wrath in this one death for all who would believe. In this forsaking, Jesus took on something far worse than nerve endings exploding in pain and choking. The spiritual suffering must have been unimaginable.
We come away from this even more comforted that Jesus did what we will never have to do. He bore God’s just fury for our redemption. We will never be forsaken. We will never face God’s wrath. God will never punish us for something Jesus has paid.
Q: How did saying, “I thirst,” express Jesus’s humanity?
Remember, the last time we know Jesus had a drink was the night before. It was a Passover meal. He had sweet wine. He must have been thirsty. As humans, 60% of our bodies are made of water. Without water, we die. Jesus knew this need. His thirst flowed from what we know about Jesus from other passages: he was fully human.
He was one of us. He relates. Another thing to remember in Jesus’s thirst is its prophetic connection. The Messiah needed to be fully human to take our place and pay the price for our sins. The exchange rate was a human for a human. Jesus redeemed us by taking our place.
When it comes to connecting with Christ, we all have longings. We crave, desire, wish for things. Jesus thirsted for water. His thirst gives us not only a theological reality to ponder but a connection with him as savior.
Q: What exactly was finished at the cross?
When I originally wrote this, I found some thirty different implications of the cross. They can overlap, so I boiled them down to seven: Jesus taking our sin, forgiving us, redeeming us, cleansing us, bringing us near, delivering us, and giving us a mission.
I found it so worshipful to read through scripture and see what Jesus accomplished at the cross. I sifted through scriptural descriptions of what Jesus did and mulled that over and over in my head. God has a “crazy love,” as Francis Chan has said.
We live such transactional lives. God offered a radically different love with the cross. At the cross, he took our sin. It is gone. He paid the consequence for our sins. It is paid for. He owns us. We are his. We have become sons and daughters of the King of Kings. With that change in status, we have an inheritance and present power.
Q: What were Christ’s very last words on the cross?
Jesus says a prayer to God his Father, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.” So, Jesus begins how he ends. He talks to God as the Father. He no longer is calling him God, who forsook him. Those words are intimate. He goes back to God.
I took this chapter to explore what the rest of the Bible talks about the Fatherhood of God. Jesus has a closeness to the Father that we dare not have. He is looking forward to meeting God. He calls him “Abba.” We, too, can be close to God because of what Jesus did there at the cross.
Not everyone is close to their biological dad. Some don’t have a living dad, and some don’t have a loving dad. God is eternal and loving. That is encouraging no matter who your father was or is.
Q: In the final pages of Last Words, you challenge your readers by asking them, “How do you sum up Jesus’s last words on the cross?” How do you answer that question?
The last words are about the gospel. In the end, I summarize it poetically with eight syllables and couplets rhyming without repeating a rhyme. It was enjoyable and worshipful.
I think you can summarize the event of that Friday with many mediums—music, art, or my daughter likes to dance. You could dance it out. (You don’t want me to do that. I dance like Will Ferrell. That wouldn’t be pretty or reverent.) Find a way to express your thoughts that works for you. In this chapter, I challenge the reader to take time to follow suit.
Learn more at robertjnash.com. He can also be found on Facebook (Robert J. Nash) and Twitter (@RobertJNash1).
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