27:45–50 The darkness that comes over the land during Jesus’ crucifixion is supernatural (v. 45). No storm is mentioned, and solar eclipse is impossible at Passover: the feast is at full moon, and the workings of the solar system preclude a solar eclipse at full moon. Both Jews and Greeks regarded unnatural darkness as an omen. In the exodus, darkness was the ninth plague (Ex. 10:21–23). In the Prophets, darkness is an element of judgment day (Isa. 13:1–11; Amos 8:9–10). The judgment might represent God’s wrath on Israel for slaying his Son, or it might represent God’s wrath on sin, borne that day by Jesus, the suffering servant. Following events certainly point in this direction.
After three hours of darkness Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). The observers nearby think Jesus is calling someone to help or save him (vv. 47–49), but Matthew’s readers know Jesus has come to save, not to be saved; to serve, not to be served (1:21; 20:28). Why, then, does he utter this “cry of dereliction”? Jesus has always addressed God as “Father” or “My Father.” Why the anguish? Answers vary. Skeptics say Jesus despairs, never expecting to die on the cross. Or perhaps the pain blinds Jesus momentarily. He feels abandoned, but God could not abandon his Son.
The cry quotes Psalm 22:1, a Davidic psalm of lament. That psalm ends in vindication, joy, and worship. Does Jesus quote Psalm 22:1 to invoke the whole psalm, suggesting that he knows all will end well? But that suggestion reduces Jesus’ agony to a heuristic device. No, his cry is genuine (so was David’s). Jesus truly feels and rightly says that his Father has forsaken him, even if he gropes for the reason. He faces the uncertainty and sense of abandonment that sorely tests mankind. Jesus is forsaken on the cross; let no one tame it. But why?
For an answer, we look to the first symbolic event following Jesus’ death: the tearing of the temple veil. If this signifies that the death of Christ ends the separation of God and man (cf. comment on 27:51–53), then Jesus says, “Why have you forsaken me?” because he is forsaken at that moment, the moment theologians call “the great exchange,” when Jesus bears our sin and grants us his righteousness. When he takes our sin upon himself, he accepts the punishment for sin—above all, the separation from God that sin brings. Paul says God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). When, in Paul’s words, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13), the Father, in his holiness, looked away (Hab. 1:13). Sadly, mankind is all too familiar with separation from God. Jesus’ separation from his Father must have felt far more acute due to the heretofore perfect fellowship of the Father and the Son.
This means that the cry of dereliction is an element of Jesus’ faithfulness. In the agony of separation, he still calls out and says, “My God.” As he calls out, Jesus expresses the consequences of his full obedience. To paraphrase the English Puritan Richard Sibbes, Jesus is never more obedient, never pleases the Father more, than when he utters these words on the cross. Further, Jesus rightly asks, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” so that no believer can ever rightly say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The agony lasts only for a season. In Luke 23:46, Jesus ends his life with harmony restored, saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” “Father” hints that fellowship is restored. Both Matthew and Luke note that Jesus gives up his life when he chooses to do so. This point answers questions about the appropriateness of the phrase “he descended into hell” in the Apostles’ Creed. In light of Luke 23:43, it seems that Jesus does not descend into hell after he dies. But if the essence of hell is separation from God, then Jesus descends into hell while on the cross, and the Apostles’ Creed is true.
How could the Trinitarian unity suffer this separation? We might also ask how Jesus, the God-man, could die? Because these are mysteries in the life of the Trinity, one may assert what we know and then say no more, lest speculation lead to error. For example, one theologian divided the person of Christ by proposing that Jesus’ suffering merely touched his human nature, so that during his torment “we may picture his divine nature . . . looking down upon His human nature calmly and serenely as the moon in its majesty looks down upon the troubled sea.” Separating the deity from the humanity of Jesus is not the way forward.
Returning to Matthew, we see that perhaps exhaustion and dehydration compromise the clarity of Jesus’ speech, so that bystanders think he is summoning Elijah’s aid. Someone offers sour wine to drink, while others wait for Elijah, who never comes, because Jesus does not call him (Matt. 27:47–49). Then Jesus loudly cries again and releases his spirit (v. 50). We can hardly guess at Jesus’ agony, physical or spiritual, on the cross. Still, when he gives up his spirit, he relinquishes his life at the moment of his choice.
27:51–53 Three symbolic events follow Jesus’ death and partially explain it. First, the temple veil is torn in two—from top to bottom, as a sign that God rends the fabric. There were two temple curtains. One blocked entrance to the Most Holy Place, which the high priest entered once per year, bearing a sacrifice. A second curtain separated the courts of Jews from the courts of Gentiles. Paul teaches that the atonement ends racial and ethnic divisions, which that curtain partially reflected. But Matthew almost certainly means the curtain, the inner curtain separating the Most Holy Place from other parts of the temple. First, his term katapetasma normally refers to the inner curtain (cf. Ex. 26:31–35 LXX). Second, subsequent NT uses of katapetasma have the inner curtain in view (Heb. 6:19–20; 9:3–8; 10:19–22). One could read the torn veil as a sign that God’s presence leaves the temple, as it did at the exile. If so, God departs because the judicial murder of Jesus severs the covenant between God and Israel.
But the NT takes another position. Jesus’ atoning death abolishes the need for sacrifices for sins and ends the separation of God and humanity that the temple veil represented. The veil restricted access to God. None but the high priest could enter, and he but once a year to atone for the sins of Israel. But Jesus offers himself, perfect and complete on the cross, granting believers immediate, unrestricted access to God’s presence. Hebrews develops this in 6:19; 7:26–28; 9:7–14; 10:11–14, 19–22, as does Ephesians 2:18; 3:12. For instance, Hebrews 10:19–22 says, “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, . . . and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.”
So the curtain was a grace, since sinners had no right to enter God’s holy presence. But now that Jesus has offered his sacrifice, complete and final, nothing more is needed except the faith to rest in his substitutionary sacrifice. So the temple system is obsolete, as the torn veil shows.
The second and third signs, the earthquake and the resuscitation of certain saints, take less explanation (Matt. 27:51b–53). The earthquake echoes the shaking of the earth at Sinai when the Lord delivered the law to Israel. It led Moses to cry, “I tremble with fear” (Heb. 12:21). But if the law came with an earthquake, so does grace. “The earth shook, and the rocks were split” (Matt. 27:51b) because Jesus’ death is an earthshaking event.
The risen saints show that the death of Jesus opens the door to eternal life. These people, about whom we know nothing, appear after the resurrection, not when Jesus dies. Matthew jumps ahead chronologically to show the theological connection: Jesus’ resurrection brings resurrection to the saints (Ezek. 37:13–14). His death crushes death. For centuries, people honored past saints by visiting their graves. Jesus honors the saints by raising them.