Matthew 27:45-53

It’s hard when we hear the account of these events to really understand Who this is all happening to, the very Creator of the universe and that He’s going through this torture willingly out of His love and pity for His created humans. It’s much easier for us today because we have the full account of all these things and the detailed reasons behind why they had to happen, which those people on that day did not have.

Of course, this doesn’t excuse them because as Jews they had much more insight and understanding into prophecy that we today and they had also witnessed the miraculous at the hands of Jesus, proving that He was much more than a man like all of them, He simply had to be from God!

 

Today we continue in this event of Jesus on the cross as we see the fulfilment of more prophecy as He willingly gives up His life.

 

Matthew 27:45,

Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.

The Lord Jesus was put on the Cross at the third hour, which would be nine o’clock in the morning. By twelve noon, mankind had done all humiliating, maiming and disfiguring it could do to the Son of God. Then at the noon hour, darkness settled down, and that cross became an altar on which the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world was offered.

This is the first of the six miracles of Calvary, the signs which separate the death of Jesus Christ from the death of any mere human.

 

The darkness was “over all the land.” No one knows if the darkness extended over the whole of the globe or was limited to Judea.

It didn’t result from an eclipse of the sun. The longest eclipse can only last a few minutes and besides, it occurred during the festival of the Passover, which always was observed on a full moon, when an eclipse of the sun is impossible.

This darkness was not just the absence of the sun’s light, like at night, it was darkness at midday, while the sun was where it should have been. The darkness of Calvary smothered the sun at midday displaying the power of almighty God!

It wasn’t a slow and gradual darkening because the text says the darkness was at both the beginning and the end of the three hours. It came and went suddenly, but at the same time, it seems that the darkness was connected with the sufferings of the cross and that the blackness grew as the hours passed, because of the cry of Jesus as the three hours ended. It was like His silence could be no longer maintained, as His sufferings grew more and more intense.

 

For three hours Jesus Christ had hung on that cross before this frightful darkness.

During that time, He interceded for His crucifiers, listened to the plea for mercy from the dying robber, and answered him with the assurance of salvation based on his realisation and belief of Who Jesus really was. he recognised the presence of His mother and the beloved disciple, John, and he executed His last will and testament concerning her and him.

The soldiers were watching and mocking Him, dividing His garments among them, and casting lots for His seamless coat.

The chief priests were criticising and venting their fury and resentment at Pilate’s inscription on the cross.

The scoffers, the priests, the rulers, and the multitudes passing by were wagging their heads and hurling insults and spitting hatred at the Lord.

 

But now at noonday, silence. Sudden, deep, sombre, silence, darkness. The time from twelve o’clock until three is not described in any of the accounts and gives a hint of how hushed the scene was.

It was in this darkness that The Son of God was Separated from God the Father for the first and last time in eternity.

No man has the means to really understand the depths of what those hours of darkness were like for both the Father and the Son, the incredible despair and pain that both would have suffered, probably a universe worse than the physical pain and humiliation of the cross.

 

At three o’clock, when the sun’s shining again, the action continues.

Jesus Himself speaks, and the multitude moves around, but during those three hours we see only darkness; we hear only silence and also silence from Jesus Himself.

It’s as if in that darkness some huge horror hung over His own soul. Taunts and insults stopped as the crowds are absorbed with fear and amazement with the suspense itself being frightful. There’s collective trembling at the mysterious fearfulness of this crucifixion.

Of course, the gospels don’t say all this, in fact, they say almost nothing of those three hours and yet so much is suggested in the one word, “darkness.” We can almost feel how awful this darkness was! As if to confirm it we’re told that the Roman centurion, having witnessed the things that were done, “feared greatly,” and many people “smote their breasts.”

 

Can we rely on the truth of this miracle? Yes, because it’s written for us in the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God and no Christian needs further natural proof that the darkness did come down on the earth, and we believe it as though we ourselves experienced and felt it.

 

How can we explain this darkness? What sort of an event was it? It was a miracle, a suspending of the order of nature. That darkness showed us God because only He can interfere with His own established natural laws and causes.

It was God who worked from outside of the dimensions of this universe and in so doing proves to us His presence throughout every moment of this incredible event, the crowning point of eternity.

There was no shock or disturbance of nature to make this event happen through natural causes. The Almighty Creator Himself put His hand on His own creation to bring about His purpose, which in this awful three hours was deep and dreadful darkness.

God had shown His presence within the event. Jesus, the Son of God was dying, and God the Father signified that He was present at the death of His Son, enduring a suffering Himself that we cannot know while He accepted the sacrifice of His Son once and for all for man’s sin.

 

Matthew 27:46,

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” 

Jesus’s words are again prophecy being acted out and we find the answer to the Lord’s question in Psalm 22 which is like Jesus’s personal account of the cross from His own perspective.

It opens with these words,

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning?”

Then we read the answer in verse Psalm 22:3,

But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel.

When Jesus became sin for us, God withdrew. He was still present through every moment of suffering, but He stepped back from the relationship that was an eternal bond far beyond our understanding.

Our Savior had to be executed if He were going to take my sin and yours, and as He became sin God the Father withdrew from the relationship.

As horrible as Jesus’s physical suffering was, it was this spiritual suffering, being judged for sin in our place, that was what Jesus really dreaded about the cross.

This was the cup, the cup of God’s righteous wrath, that He had shuddered at drinking.

On the cross, Jesus became an enemy of God who was judged and forced to drink the cup of the Father’s fury. He did it so you and I wouldn’t have to drink that cup.

 

Verses 47 and 48,

Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, “This Man is calling for Elijah!” 

Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink.

Jesus was misunderstood and mocked until the bitter end. As He hung on the cross, His listeners misunderstood Him again.

He said, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” and not only did they get wrong what they heard (Jesus said, “Eloi” not “Elijah”), but they also only heard one word of what He said.

Isn’t this the same today? So many hear just selected words of God instead of what Deuteronomy 8:3 states, that man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.

Why the sour wine? To fulfill the prophecy of Psalm 69 verse 21,

They also gave me gall for my food, And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. 

This act wasn’t to revive his spirits, or to somehow lessen the pain or speed up his death, as some think, but it was in contempt of him, and to mock him even more as he reveals that he was thirsty.

 

Now verses 49 and 50,

The rest said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.” 

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 

As we’ve seen, Jesus wasn’t calling for Elijah at all.

Notice how He died. He “yielded up His spirit”. The Lord simply dismissed, separated Himself His spirit from His body.

 

Matthew 27:51-53,

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. 

In these verses we see the next three of the six miracles that occurred at the cross. We’ve examined the first miracle, the three hours of deep darkness in the middle of the day.

Now let’s look at these three miracles in order so we can understand their significance.

 

The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Many say that it was the earthquake which caused the veil to split in two.

If that was the case, the earthquake would be the second of the miracles.

But how could the earthquake split a loose-hanging curtain, as heavy as it was, in two while not shaking and damaging in the slightest the building in which it hung?

According to the text, the ripping of the veil was separate from the earthquake and yet both the earthquake and the ripping of the veil in two were both consequences of one and the same event, the loud voice of Jesus Christ as He died.

That cry caused the earthquake, and the ripping of the veil.

 

The Temple took the place of the original Tabernacle given to the Israelites by God through Moses during their time in the wilderness after the exodus from the slavery of Egypt.

The veil of the Temple was a reproduction of the Tabernacle veil, and their purposes were the same.

The veil was a covering concealing the Holy of Holies, or The Most Holy Place.

 

There were three divisions of the Tabernacle and the Temple, the outer Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place.

The outer Court was where the congregation of Israel assembled, the Holy Place was where the priests entered daily to minister, and the Most Holy Place was where no man ever entered except the high priest just once a year with the blood of atonement and smoke of incense.

In the Most Holy Place, where only the high priest saw into, were the Ark of the Covenant with its golden cover, the mercy seat, the cherubim, and the Shekinah, the cloud of glory, symbols of the throne of God’s presence, power, and grace.

It was all God’s own symbolism of a sinner’s acceptable worship of Him.

And there were obstructions to that worship. As long as the Tabernacle dispensation, the dispensation of the law, lasted, approach to God was imperfect so there were these veils in the Tabernacle.

The people in the outer Court were shut off from the Holy Place by means of the first veil. The priests in the Holy Place were shut off from the Most Holy Place by the second veil. The purpose of each veil was the same, to conceal whatever lay behind it and to bar any further approach. The priest represented the people, mediating between them and God.

Only the priests could pass the first veil and go nearer to the symbols of fellowship with God, but only the one high priest could pass the second veil and go into the presence of God.

It was this second veil that was torn.

 

This veil was very impressive.

The “fine-twined linen” was blue, purple, and scarlet and was interwoven in one mass. It was a symbol of life and power, while at the same time exhibiting beauty and glory. It hung by hooks of gold from four pillars overlaid with gold. The Scripture calls it a “skilful work”, the skill of God, since it was copied from the pattern showed to Moses on mount Sinai as we’re told in Hebrews 8:5.

It must have been a wonder to behold in the sevenfold light of the golden candlestick, hiding from view the glory which was behind it. It was as if it were saying “This far, but no farther!”

 

But now the veil was split in two, no longer hiding what was beyond it!

Nothing else was disturbed through that magnificent building.

It wasn’t because of a natural process of decay that the veil was torn. It didn’t fall in tatters. It didn’t have a split here and a split there. It was torn in just two pieces “from the top to the bottom” in a straight line downwards. It wasn’t jerked apart by someone from below, but was cleanly cut by an invisible hand from above, a supernatural event.

 

When did it happen? Precisely when Jesus Christ actually died on the cross!

The burden of sin was gone. Jesus Christ died at three o’clock in the afternoon. This was the time of the beginning of the evening sacrifice, so that the priests were in the Holy Place, in front of the veil, actually engaged in their duties. God meant this event it to be seen and He meant it for instruction.

The fact that the gospel accounts of the tearing of the veil were never contradicted by Jesus’s enemies is proof of this event.

 

The sins of God’s chosen nation of Israel were many and great for fifteen hundred years, but violating the secrecy of that veil had never been one of them. As it split supernaturally in two, and considering when it happened, the effect it had on the witnesses would have been huge.

In Acts 6 verse 7 we read that quote, “a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith”. The tearing of the veil certainly would have helped in this.

The symbolism of the tearing of the veil is magnificent. We could say that it’s the gospel message in symbolic form, how that at the victorious death of Christ our Saviour, the presence and fellowship with God is now no longer closed to mankind because of man’s sin. Access to God is now free and easy for anyone who desires it because of the righteousness we have access to via God’s amazing grace in Christ’s death.

 

The ripping of the veil was also the destruction of the Tabernacle dispensation, taking the meaning out of it and putting an end to the rituals and the sacrifices of the Mosaic law and pulling down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile and threw open the presence-chamber of God to all mankind!

This is how Paul explains this in Ephesians 2:13-16,

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

 

You see, God screened off the chamber of His presence from men and none could approach Him except under the shelter of sacrificial blood, and this was because of sin. Sin was the obstruction! God and man were separated for an eternity because of damning curse of sin. There was enmity between God and man that no longer needs to be the case.

The tearing in two of the veil concealing God’s presence signified that sin was now taken out of the way. What was done in the veil was done in Jesus Christ. This was the victory of His death. He, the sinless One, battled for us with our sin, and He overcame it. He underwent the required suffering for sin.

 

Jesus Christ Himself, the real High Priest, was to carry His own blood, once and for all, not into the Holy of Holies of the temple, but into the real presence of God, into the Heaven of heavens! There He appeared in eternal life, as God’s righteousness for sinners through faith in His sin-atoning blood.

He settled forever, for every one who’ll draw near to God through faith in Him, the entire question of sin and removed every possible obstruction to intimate fellowship with God.

 

The torn veil was the torn humanity of the Son of God.

Jesus, the Perfect Man, all God and all Man, Who came to this earth, was the only kind of man whom God could permit to approach Him, but if it were only His coming to earth to display His perfection that we looked to, you and I would still be hopelessly lost in sin.

Just His coming to earth would’ve been of no use without His sacrificial death.

 

The veil was torn “from the top”. It was God who afflicted Jesus and tore Him “to the bottom”. That tearing of His perfect body means that now, we sinners can pass right into the presence of God! We look by faith into the Heaven of heavens.

 

Now, let’s look at the third miracle at Calvary, the earthquake.

 

We saw in Matthew 27:51, that “The earth quaked, and the rocks were split!”

This third miracle at Calvary is another link in a wonderful chain displaying great power. Along with the other miracles it was a supernatural act by which God showed the importance of the death of Jesus Christ.

Just like the tearing in two of the veil, the earthquake happened at the instant of Christ’s death and followed His voice of victory that John 19:30 tells us about,

So, when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

The strength of the quake is seen in that the rocks were split. This was no small earthquake.

We’re told this in Matthew 27:54, which we’ll get to soon,

Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

We don’t know how far the earthquake extended. It may’ve been limited to the land of Judea, or it could’ve been worldwide. However, it was certainly at Calvary, where the cause of it was centred.

 

Can we prove that the earthquake really happened? Not really, if we’re only looking to historians or geological evidence even though some say we actually can verify the quake through those sources.

Definitely yes if we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

Again, as in the 1st miracle of the deep darkness and the 2nd of the tearing of the veil, none of Christ’s enemies disputed that it happened.

What sort of an event was the earthquake? We’ve called it supernatural and miraculous, but earthquakes happen often in nature so why should we think this one’s any different?

 

Well, a supernatural event is one brought about by the hand of God. It’s caused solely by an act of His will, and by temporarily rearranging the normal laws of nature. However, this event was also miraculous in that the combined laws of nature didn’t cause it. It was solely an act of God’s will.

We can prove this for ourselves by looking at the great coincidences of the earthquake.

First, it coincided with the death of Jesus Christ.

Secondly, it coincided with the miraculous darkness and the miraculous tearing of the veil. It was one of a cluster of wonders that wasn’t separate to the others in the cluster.

Thirdly, it coincided with the shout of victory from the cross. It wasn’t the internal forces of the earth but a voice on the earth which caused the earth to quake.

Fourthly, it coincided with the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves that we’ll see shortly. And, as violent as it was, it disturbed no other thing!

It didn’t shake the Saviour’s cross, though Calvary itself was shaking. It opened graves and yet not all the graves, only selected graves. It didn’t destroy houses or buildings such as the temple.

It seems as if the earthquake was a living thing that sensed the meaning of that shout of victory from the cross and intelligently showed the signs of what that death on the cross signified, just as did the other miracles.

Clearly, the earthquake at Calvary was not simply a natural event.

 

What significance did the earthquake have to the death of Jesus Christ?

First, it was Calvary answering back to Mount Sinai. There’d been an earthquake on Sinai as we see in Exodus 19 verse 18, where it describes how Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. This event occurred as God was preparing to give the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites.

The quake on Sinai signified the giving of the law while the quake on Calvary signified that righteousness by the keeping of the law was now replaced by Mercy and Grace.

The law given at Sinai brought the recognition of sin. Human sin already existed but at Sinai, in the giving of the law, it clearly showed man just what he really was and is. The supernatural command over nature, that the people could both see and hear, was like God placing His huge exclamation mark on the law, signing that it was from Him.

The law showed man that so great was the burden of sin that it’s impossible for man to rid himself of it. He’s helpless and ruined and those terror’s at Sinai, and they were terrors as we see the people trembling in fear, were the sinner’s instruction, and warning, and for sparking in him a longing to be saved. They were a prophecy that God Himself would do for us what we’re helpless to do for ourselves.

In this sense, Sinai was the forerunner of Calvary as Galatians 4 verses 4 and 5 tells us,

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

You see, He bore in our place the overwhelming weight of our sins and endured those horrors which the curses of the law demanded for all who broke that law, which every man ever born has.

 

As the darkness of those three long hours on the cross from midday to 3pm passed, and the dreadful sufferings of Christ ended, the work of making it possible for God to remain perfectly just and yet still justify the sinner who believes in Jesus Christ also ended.

We could say that the greater horrors of Calvary had overtaken the ones of Mt Sinai which were now lost in the mercy made possible through the cross. We could also say that the shout of Calvary’s victory, the sound of Grace, was heard, instead of the sound of God’s wrath at Sinai.

 

When we remember what the Scriptures say about the coming regeneration of the earth in Christ’s earthly kingdom, we see that in the earthquake there was a sign of the fulfillment of those prophesies about the earth itself.

In Romans 8:21-22, Paul says,

…the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 

 

In Matthew 27:52 we saw that, the graves were opened

The opening of the graves is the fourth of the Calvary miracles.

 

It was because of the earthquake that the graves were opened.

Most likely these opened graves were situated at and around Calvary.

We can be certain that there was a graveyard at Calvary because Joseph’s tomb in which Jesus laid was near as we’re told in John 19 verses 41 and 42.

Also, if that event was meant as a testimony to the power of Christ’s death, then it’s most likely that the graves would be close to the cross.

In addition, when the saints rose from the graves, they went into the Holy City. So, we’re talking about an event that happened near the cross.

The graves, or the tombs as the King James version describes, were rocky sepulchres or excavations in the rocks with their entrances closed off by doors of stone. The text tells us that “the rocks split” and “the graves, or tombs, broke opened”.

 

What difference do we see in the opening of the tombs to the splitting of the rocks?

The splitting of the rocks was evidence of force and great power whereas the opening of the tombs was evidence of design. The split rocks didn’t give a prophesy of the future, but the opening of the tombs was a prophesy of the coming glory, resurrection.

 

The opening of the graves was part of the earthquake, and yet it had its own identity and value. It’s part of this chain of wonders we’ve already mentioned. It was the result of the earthquake, just as the earthquake was the result of the shout of victory from the cross. The moment Christ died, the tombs broke opened as part of this chain and yet a symbol all of its own.

 

These were the graves, or tombs of the saints alone, God’s children, Christ’s people. No other graves opened.

We should note well that while the graves were opened at the instant of Christ’s death, the bodies in them did not rise until after His own resurrection as we saw earlier in verse 53.

The fact shows that the opened tombs were meant for an exhibition.

Those graves were exposed for three days and nights before thousands of spectators. They couldn’t have even tried to close them on the high Sabbath.

 

Why were the graves opened at all? What sort of resurrections were they? Were they instances of the true resurrection body, spiritual and incorruptible, as Paul describes in 1^st Corinthians chapter 15? Or were they like Lazarus, where the dead body was just revived to die another day?

Scripture proves this event to be the latter, revived bodies that would one day die again.

The account of the opened graves itself implies this because the idea that grave-doors must be removed for spiritual bodies to get out is a huge contradiction.

A spiritual body has spiritual properties. Jesus later in His risen body entered into the room where the apostles were assembled though all the doors were shut, and His risen body, as we are told, is the model of the true resurrection bodies of His saints. After Jesus’s resurrection He was bodily beyond matter, energy, time and space.

Does this type of resurrection require an opened grave?

Well, no more so than the departure of the human spirit from the earth is dependent on the breaking down of the walls and the ceiling of the room that the body died in.

We’ll also see this later when we look at the body of Jesus Christ and His grave. A great stone was rolled over the door of His grave, but when He left that grave in His resurrected body, that stone hadn’t yet been rolled away.

It was only removed soon after He’d left the tomb! An angel came down from Heaven to do it, mainly to let the disciples in rather than let Christ out.

But at the moment of its being done, Christ wasn’t there.

This convinced the disciples of Jesus’s resurrection.

 

When Lazarus was raised, he was called back into his former natural body, and in John 11 verse 39 we’re told that before Lazarus was raised Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

So, the opening of those graves shows us that the resurrections out of them were only the natural bodies revived and not their final resurrection.

Even so, it was a monumental event and was an illustration or a shadow of the better resurrection and it certified the reality of that future resurrection.

 

Why were only a limited number of graves opened? It was enough for the purpose of displaying the power of the cross, and by those opened graves, that was taught to all of God’s people for all time.

 

What was it that was taught?

It signified that the better resurrection was now opened. Whatever had previously made it impossible for the bodies of the saints that were sown in corruption and to be raised in incorruption in the future, as 1  Corinthians 15:42 tells us, was now taken out of the way.

Death itself, the spirit’s separation from the body, as well as the body’s corruption and disintegration for ever, was now virtually abolished for the saints. Now only a question of God’s appointed time.

 

Hades, where God’s people went on death to await the resurrection of Christ, is now empty. Ever since the resurrection and ascension of Christ they’ve ascended to Him far above all heavens.

When Jesus rose, God’s dead, who had gone into Hades, were brought away with Him when He Himself returned from there, and He carried them all with Him above the heavens. The gates of Hades certainly did not prevail against His church.

 

The earthquake and the opened graves was a beautiful symbol of what every saint is waiting for. Resurrection!

Every obstruction to the full resurrection glory of the body was destroyed, and we saints only wait for the appointed time of it’s happening.

 

The symbolism is that Christ’s death opened the graves and destroyed the power of death. The power of death is sin. Death entered into the world by sin, and is the penalty of sin. Therefore, the dying of Jesus Christ, who had no sin of His own, was His bearing for His people the penalty of sin.

Death is mainly the separation of the soul from the life of God. The decaying body is just a shadow of the real death.

In dying and bearing for us the penalty of sin, Jesus Christ didn’t just die in His body, but also, and more terribly, in the awful torment of in His soul in that separation from God during the three hours of darkness on the cross.

He was made a curse for us, that we might be redeemed from the curse.

He expelled the penalty of sin in our behalf and made it possible for us to be free of all the condemnation of sin.

The opening of the graves at the instant of His death symbolised that the death-power of sin was broken by His death, and all obstructions to our attaining to the true life both of soul and body were entirely removed.

 

There’s nothing left for us to achieve for our pardon and acceptance with God. We can add nothing to the work of Christ. Our salvation from sin is in Him at this moment, and it’s perfect. We receive that awesome redemption from sin and death by simply believing His Word, the Gospel of Grace which Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 15: 3-4,

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. 

Next time friends, we finish Matthew chapter 27 where we see the burial of Jesus and a guard set on His tomb. The we’ll move to Matthew 28 and wonderful and incredible resurrection of the Lord along with the last 2 miracles of the cross. May God give us understanding of all that He’s done for us.