What is the significance of Jesus saying, “Into your hands I commit my spirit”?

from the old testament

• Psalm 31 is David expressing his trust that God would save him from the enemies that surround him (Psalm 31:9–13). In Psalm 31:5, the verse Jesus quotes, he cries, “Into your hands I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.”
• By referring to his “spirit,” David was talking about his life. He was giving up control over his life, leaving his protection and salvation in God’s hands.
• Though things looked bleak, Psalm 31 ends with David expressing confidence that God would vindicate him for the injustices done (Psalm 31:1924).

from the new testament

• Luke 23:46 records Jesus’ final cry: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” This was a direct quote from Psalm 31:5, meaning Jesus was applying Psalm 31 to His current situation.
• Like David, Jesus was surrounded by enemies, enemies who appeared to be winning. They had finally accomplished what they had tried to do for so long: kill Jesus (cf. John 5:18; 7:1). Yet even though death was imminent, Jesus clung to the Father by committing His spirit, His life, into the Father’s hands. Though Jesus was the Son of God and could have removed Himself from the cross at any moment (cf. Matthew 26:53), He “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). He did not preserve His life but obeyed the Father by letting His enemies kill Him.
• This final cry gives substance to Jesus’ earlier prayer that, though He did not want to die, He trusted the Father by saying, “not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). As He died, the Father’s will, not Jesus’ will, was accomplished. Facing His death, He continued to express the idea of “your will be done” by saying, “into your hands I commit my spirit.”
• Jesus trusted the Father’s goodness, knowing, like David, that He would be vindicated. This indeed happened three days later when “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). The Father did not abandon Jesus in death. Rather, because He trusted the Father all the way to death, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9–11).

implications for today

Because Jesus is the Son of God, we can mistakenly think that He got through life by trusting in Himself and His divine power. However, from His birth through His death, He relied on the Father to sustain Him, not His abilities. He was very much human like us and, in His humanity, modeled how we can trust the Father even in the face of death.

Not many of us will ever die as horrid a death as Jesus, but if we are being honest, we spend much of our lives trying either not to think about death or fearfully dwelling on how we might die. Either way, we are displaying a distrust in the Father.

We can trust God. He is faithful. He is in control. He loves us. John noted that perfect love casts out our fear (1 John 4:17–18), referring not to fear of death but to fear of judgment after death (Hebrews 9:27). We spend so much time worrying about how we’ll die, we forget that it’s what comes after it that we need to fear! Before we can trust God with our deaths, we must trust Him with our whole lives. That happens when we repent of our sin and confess Jesus as our Lord (Romans 10:9–10).

After we know we are saved, we can deal with thoughts of death. Admittedly, death is an uncomfortable idea, an experience we will only have once. However, because Jesus died and then rose again, He has conquered death (Revelation 1:18). This means that, as believers, we can leave this life confident of where we are going and confident that He will resurrect us into eternal life with Him because that is what He has promised (John 6:39–40).

Jesus faced death as fully human and in great agony, trusting His Father all the way. Let us also face death with confidence in the one who conquered it.