Jesus Still Speaks: The Seven Last Words of Jesus from the Cross

By Larry L. Long

No single person has affected the history of our world more than Jesus Christ. His real-world teachings, moral example, and incarnate life surpass those of any philosopher, guru, or spiritual leader (or all of them combined). Yet it is his death and resurrection that make his teachings worthy of obedience and his person worthy of worship. Jesus Still Speaks invites the reader to encounter anew Jesus’s seven last sayings as he died in atoning sacrifice for our sins. All of Jesus’s words are important, but his seven last words from the cross still speak with power from the very crux of human history. Many witnessed the event. Several heard his words and recorded them. In this book, the reader will hear them again in an analysis that stirs the imagination and inspires faith.

I am grateful for this scholarly account of Jesus’ final hours, and the way in which Larry places us in the mind and heart of our Lord, and all those around Him. While sharing Jesus in all His humanity, we are also reminded He is first and foremost our sovereign Lord. I am thankful for this powerful account of what Jesus did for me.

Brian McCoy
CEO
McCoy’s Building Supply

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664247710

Larry L. Long

Larry Long served as a full-time, licensed and ordained senior pastor with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) for 30 years in Oklahoma, South Louisiana, and West Texas. Born and raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Larry graduated with a BA in History from Crown College in Minnesota and an M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. Having retired from full-time ministry, Larry now works at McCoy’s Building Supply in Midland, Texas, where he assists customers and contractors in making purchases needed to complete their building, remodeling, and repair work. Fulfilling his passion for writing, Larry has published three books. The first, Dare to Be Dogmatic, and Other Essays to Help You Think and Live Like a Christian (2020), is a collection of essays that speak from a biblical perspective to many of the issues we wrestle with in day-to-day dialogue and living. Forty-nine essays cover a wide range of topics that touch on social issues, politics, ecumenism, and some of the nonsense that goes on in our churches today. Larry’s second book, Jesus Still Speaks: The Seven Last Words of Jesus From the Cross (2021), is an examination of Jesus’s seven last words spoken from the cross when he died for our sins. In this second book, Larry reflects not only on the meaning of each of these sayings when first spoken, but how they still speak to us today. Jesus Still Speaks is the basis for this Lenten devotional that shares a similar title. Larry and Don hope it will serve as something of a companion volume. Larry has been married to his wife, Melissa, for 36 years. They have two adult daughters, Jozlyn and Morgan Long, and one big dog named Penelope. When he was a young man, Larry enjoyed hunting and backpacking in the Snow Range Mountains of Wyoming. Hunting and fishing are still Larry’s favorite pastimes. Larry remains active in ministry by serving as a part-time teaching pastor at The Gathering Church of the Nazarene (myGathering.church) in Midland, Texas. Sermons and teachings by Larry can be accessed on the church’s website.

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Copyright © 2021 Larry L. Long.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

Scripture marked (KJV) taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked UBS are from the 3rd edition of The Greek New Testament, United Bible Societies, © 1966, 1968, 1975

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4770-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4772-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4771-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021921476

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/30/2021

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

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Father, Forgive Them, for They Know Not What They Do

Woman, Behold, Your Son!

Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise

I Thirst

My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Father, Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit

It Is Finished

The Lord Has Risen Indeed!

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About the Author

Acknowledgements

T his book exists because of the encouragement and support of the following individuals:

My parents, Lloyd and Ruth Long, are still living a going strong in their mid-80s. They have always been a great encouragement to me, and I apologize for not calling more often. My heart rejoices in the knowledge that they know Jesus personally, and I want to encourage them to continue pursuing intimacy with Christ in these latter years of their lives. Glory awaits!

Don Bouchard PhD., professor of Teacher Education at Crown College, St. Bonifacius, Minnesota, proofread my manuscript and made many helpful suggestions. Alas, though I adopted most of his corrections, I ignored some of his recommended changes that likely would have improved the quality of this book. Please believe me when I say that all poorly written sentences, errors in grammar, and blunders of punctuation are not Dr. Bouchard’s fault. They exist because my heart is stubborn and prideful.

Mrs. Shanna Iverson also proofed this book and made several more helpful recommendations to improve its grammar, style, and syntax. Again, I adopted most of her corrections but probably ignored many of the good ones. Shanna worked as a professional newspaper journalist for most of her adult life, so it was fun having her journalistic viewpoint mixed with Dr. Bouchard’s academic perspective to sharpen my writing. Shanna’s accidental friendship (with God there are no accidents) has been a blessing to both my wife and me.

I am also appreciative of my friend and senior pastor, Reverend Jorge Romero, Pastor of The Gathering Church of the Nazarene in Midland, Texas. Jorge invited me to present the content of this book as a teaching series during the 2021 Lenten Season, where it was kindly and well received. His friendship and ministry partnership have long been a blessing. Our long friendship has brought me back into pastoral ministry on a part-time basis at the Gathering as its Teaching Pastor. I was raised in a Church of the Nazarene in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I was born-again in 1968. I served as a senior pastor for 30 years in a like-minded denomination called the C&MA. I have now come back full circle. God works in mysterious ways.

Of course, I must acknowledge and show appreciation to my wife of 35 years. Many evenings were spent apart as I wrote in one room while Melissa worked or spent time in another. Because I trust my ear more than my eye, I tend, with annoying repetition, to read aloud to myself what I have written. Melissa often thought (perhaps hoped) I was talking to her, only to realize I was lost in my own thoughts and the sound of my own voice. Thank you, Melissa, for loving and putting up with your too often inattentive, absent-minded, rambling husband.

Finally, I must mention my two daughters, Jozlyn and Morgan. While I hope my books find a ready and wide audience generally, I mainly write for them. I want them to know my heart, my faith, and my mind. I want them to know Jesus, not just as I have known and loved him all these years, but better than I have known and loved him. They already know how their flesh, this world, and the devil will always work to pull them away from God, just as this same evil triumvirate has pulled at me; but I pray my daughters will always know and trust our loving, gracious, and merciful Savior. Let us all walk with Jesus so that our family will remain complete in heaven.

May God alone be glorified.

Larry L. Long

Midland, Texas, 2021

Preface

O ver forty years have passed since Larry Long and I began our collegiate studies at a small Christian college on the outskirts of Minneapolis, and time has seen many changes in both of our lives.

We began our journeys coming from two western states—Montana and Wyoming. At the time, we were acquaintances if not close friends. At that juncture in our lives, we answered different but related calls: I to teach and he to preach, and both to lives of what I term, practical scholarship. During those years, we both continued walks of faith, married, raised children, and watched them grow to have families of their own.

One day, quite unexpectedly, Larry contacted me to say that he had been reading some of my poetry and thought there might be a place for it in a devotional he hoped would supplement this book. The long hiatus in our friendship ended, and we have become collaborators, though I must defer to his depths of understanding and clear exposition of Biblical truth.

I have found his writings and cogitations to be solidly, unashamedly orthodox in the sense that he is not ashamed to take dogmatic positions whenever he is sure of the Scriptural stances regarding any issue. In this book, the reader will experience a re-living and re-telling of events that continue to shape life, both on planet Earth, and in the life hereafter. May the Lord use this text to educate, edify, and strengthen the Church.

Don D. Bouchard, PhD.

Crown College, Minnesota

2021

Introduction

R arely do the gospels indicate the time of day for the events and teachings of Jesus’s life. The clock was seldom important to their telling for obvious reasons.

Exceptions are interesting, the most noteworthy being the hours leading to Jesus’s crucifixion and the times specified at key moments in its unfolding. This should not surprise us; all four gospels give both weight and focus to the events of Jesus’s last week. The time of day becomes important only when the gospel writers want us to enter more fully and directly into the event.

Weigh against the telling of the rest of his life the space filled and ink spilled in the unfolding of Jesus’s final week, and you will quickly see how important these last days were in the writing of the gospels and the revealing of their climax. Except for a detailed look at several occurrences that happened in the nativity or a three-day episode when Jesus was twelve, the evangelists give only occasional but important glimpses into the life and teachings of Jesus during his approximately three year itinerant ministry.¹ Some stories recount only a few short moments or conversations, others a few hours. A day devoted to ministry here, a night spent sailing or fishing or praying there. These intermittent pictures tell more of the life lived and ministries conducted than longer narratives might otherwise have provided. They are more than mere biography or a simple telling of history. A thread of theology weaves them together to give both depth and color that the simple telling of history or biography could never accomplish.

Mark’s gospel (c. AD 60–70) is the shortest of the four, comprising only 16 chapters. It was probably written first, although some think Matthew has primacy of order. It begins not with Jesus’s birth, but with the start of his public life and ministry, covering his ministry-years in ten chapters. Chapter eleven begins the Holy Week. This means the final six chapters of Mark’s gospel describe the events, teachings, and miracles of Jesus’s final week that include the Last Supper, the Garden Prayer, Jesus’s arrest and trial, his crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and appearances. Mark’s gospel has a rather abrupt ending. This leads many to wonder if the final page of the original is missing. Regardless, more than a third of Mark’s gospel focuses on the last week of Jesus’s life and teachings.

Matthew’s gospel (c. AD 70–90) comprises 28 chapters, making it nearly twice the length of Mark’s gospel. Its first two chapters describe events surrounding Jesus’s birth, which include a hint of the first several years of his infant life as the family traveled to Egypt and then back again to escape King Herod’s murderous maniacal megalomania. Eighteen chapters—chapters three through twenty—sporadically cover his more than two but probably not quite three years of ministry that lead up to the triumphal entry. The donkey ride into Jerusalem (chapter 21) begins his last week of life. This means eight chapters, nearly a third of the book, recount the events and teachings of the Holy Week, with the final three chapters focusing on his death, resurrection appearances, and the commissioning of his apostles.

Luke’s gospel (c. AD 75–85) comprises 24 chapters. It was written last of the first three gospels. Because it gives a view of Jesus’s life and teachings similar to both Matthew and Mark, these first three gospels are often called synoptics. Luke’s first two chapters contain birth narratives that describe events different from those told by Matthew. The next sixteen chapters cover the span of Jesus’s life, ministry, and miracles. Holy Week, followed by several resurrection appearances, comprise the final six chapters. This means about a quarter of Luke’s gospel is dedicated to telling the story of the week leading up to Jesus’s death and resurrection. Again, because it seems as though both Luke and Matthew used Mark’s gospel as a source, even though they also included material not found in the other two, these three gospels are often referred to as the synoptic gospels.

John’s gospel, which was written last (c. AD 90–100), differs significantly from the three synoptics. It is twenty-one chapters long, has no birth narrative, and the Triumphal Entry that begins Holy Week starts as early as chapter twelve. This means almost half of the book is taken up with the final week of Jesus’s life and teachings, including especially the events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection.

So all four gospels have as their primary focus the death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah. They detail the last week and last hours of Jesus’s life in such a way that each moment becomes wrought with equal measures of passion and promise. It should therefore not surprise us that the last approximately 24 hours of Jesus’s life should unfold with an almost hour-by-hour, moment-by-moment telling.²

The final evening and night leading up to Jesus’s arrest offer only hints to the timing of events, but the actual day of crucifixion provides three indicators of time as specific as an age without clocks can afford. In Mark 15:25, we are told that Jesus was crucified at the third hour (ESV), which is equivalent to 9 a.m. our time. Both Matthew (27:45) and Mark (15:33) tell us that, at the sixth hour, which was noon, darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, which corresponds to our 3 p.m. Death occurred at this ninth hour.

Exactly when within this six-hour time frame Jesus spoke his seven last words from the cross is somewhat unclear, except to say that his first saying probably started when he was being nailed to the cross, while his last four statements clearly occurred in quick succession at the end of the six hours of torture. Jesus’s giving of his mother to the care of John and his promise to the criminal were probably spoken in the first three hours; although which was first of the two, we cannot say for sure.

Unless Jesus spoke from the cross more than is recorded in the four gospels, there must have been long hours of silence as he pushed himself up in great pain to breathe. Medical doctors who have studied the physiology of crucifixion say that breathing in would have been the easy part. To breathe out the victim would have to pull himself up to exhale, which would cause great pain and exhaustion in feet, hands, arm, and legs. We can also assume that Jesus had to painfully push himself up to speak each of the seven last sayings, since vocalizations are made while exhaling.

The exact order of Jesus’s seven last sayings—especially the order of the last four—is difficult to say. This is because not one of the four gospels contain them all, and two of the gospels only contain three sayings that are not found in any of the others, while the other two only contain the same word.

Matthew and Mark only report Jesus’s cry of dereliction.

Luke begins with Jesus’s request for his executioners to be forgiven,