²⁸… Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, “I am thirsty.”

The Son of God, deity in the flesh, was thirsty! How can that be? The psalm to which Jesus alluded when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” also describes His suffering in physical terms:

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You lay me in the dust of death. (Psalm 22:14–15)

One can almost taste the cloud of dry dust breathed in with all the commotion at the execution place. Jesus was so thirsty that His tongue was sticking like dried glue to His mouth, making it surprising that He could even talk clearly in His last moments alive on the cross.

But why did the gospel writer John (who alone records this comment of the Lord’s) include this detail of Jesus asking for a small relief from His suffering? Our passage explicitly says that Jesus said this as part of the bigger picture: he was thirsty “knowing that all things had already been accomplished.” He knew that His time had come (John 14:1) and that He had completed everything His Father had sent Him to do (John 17:4); all that was left to do was something passive, something He was about to allow to happen. This was not something He would “do” as though it was His to accomplish; He was subjecting Himself to something the Father would do. The Son’s role was to “humble Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). The Father’s role was to pour out His judgment on Jesus Christ—the ultimate and perfect act of righteousness in condemning sin in the flesh, Jesus’ body, as the sacrificial Lamb.

On the cross, God would enact His holy righteousness, bringing justice to the world of sin. As Jesus cried out about being thirsty, it was because He was about to be “… displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness … so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:25–26). From the very beginning of His early ministry, at the start of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaimed, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt. 5:6). On the cross, His physical thirst reflected and was symbolic of His desire for righteousness in His dying moments.

His message was consistent, whether He was speaking to a Samaritan woman at a well, a crowd, or the multitude concluding a great Jewish feast:

“[W]hoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)

“[He] who believes in Me will never thirst.” (John 6:35)

“Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37–38)

Therefore, when Jesus spoke of thirst, He meant much more than physical thirst. He was proclaiming His great desire for God’s justice against sin—the victory promised, albeit cryptically, in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:15) and now finally on the cross. Who would have ever thought this up except God?! This was the fulfillment of Scripture, God’s righteous judgment of sin.

The world thirsts for justice against all the wrongdoing, evil, oppression, envy, jealousy, hatred, racism, prejudice, selfishness, pride, arrogance, murder, etc. The world wants “justice now.” But nothing will satisfy this thirst except the justice of God, which He demonstrated at the cross—that was the cause of Jesus’ spiritual thirst, and is why I believe John included it in his account. Nothing could stop Jesus from His final submission to be the instrument by which God would bring complete and perfect justice to this world. He is the only hope for genuine righteousness.

Lord, I thirst for Your righteousness found in the gospel of the cross. You died to justify me and I can’t help but to praise and worship You. And I will make my life an act of worship by reflecting Your justice in the world around me. Thank You eternally.