This is marked throughout.  At the arrest He walks frankly out to meet those seeking Him, and restrains them in that strangely powerful way till He was quite ready.  He makes the personal plea to Pilate for Pilate’s sake, impressing him so greatly, but interposing nothing to change the purpose of His accusers.  When Pilate’s final decision is given John notes that Jesus “went out bearing the cross for Himself,” though provision had been made for this.[123] His influence upon Pilate is seen in the accuracy of the kingly inscription that hangs over the cross.  In the midst of the excruciating bodily pain He thinks of His mother, and with marvellous self-control speaks the quiet word to her and to John that insures her future under his filial care.

And then John significantly adds, “Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished."[124] With masterly forethought, and self-control and deliberation He had done the thing He had set Himself to do.  Never was yielding so masterful.  Never was a great plan carried out so fully through the set purpose of one’s enemies.  His every action bears out the word He had spoken, “No man taketh My life away from Me, I lay it down of Myself."[125]

So now His great work is done, and thoroughly done.  His lips speak the tremendous word, “It is finished.”  And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.  It was His own act.  The self-restraint was strong upon Him till all was done that was needed for the great purpose in hand.  Then His head is bowed, His great heart broke under the terrific strain on His spirit as He allowed His life to go out.

From that moment no indignity touches His body.  The Jews with their wearisome insistence on empty technicalities would have added further indignity to crucifixion.  But that body is sacredly guarded from their profane hand by unseen restraint.  John with solemn simplicity points to the unmistakable physical evidence, in the separation of blood and water, that Jesus had actually died; no swooning, but death.  And reverently he finds the confirmation of Scripture.

Only tender love touches that body now.  Two gentlemen of highest official and social standing and of large wealth, brothers in their faith in Jesus, and also in their timidity, now take steps at once to have the precious body of their dear friend tenderly cared for without regard to expense.  So He is laid away in a new tomb in a garden among the flowers of the spring time.  The last touch is one of tender love.  So His greatest wooing was done, and begun; the great act done, its tremendous wooing influence only just begun.

Jesus died deliberately.  This is quite clear.  It was done of love aforethought.  It was His own act fitted into the circumstances surrounding Him.  This makes His death mean just what He meant it to mean.  Run back through His teachings rather carefully and that meaning stands clearly out.

He was the Father’s messenger; simply this; but all of this.  The ideals of right so insistently and incessantly held up and pressed were the Father’s ideals.  His mere presence told the Father’s great love for men.  They two were so knit that when the one suffered the other suffered, too.