And it was about [the] sixth hour, and there came darkness over the whole land until [the] ninth hour.
Darkness covers the land for three hours at the brightest part of the day, while Jesus hangs on the cross. Two questions follow. What could cause it? And what was God saying by it?
The "sixth hour" sounds odd today because Luke counts the hours from six in the morning. Set against a modern clock, the day falls into place.
It is important to see that John (as throughout his Gospel) gives Roman time. He counts from midday and midnight, as we do. The other Gospels give Jewish time, counted from six o'clock. So we have these times connected with the crucifixion: 6 a.m. — Pilate sits down "on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement" (John 19:13). 9 a.m. — (the "third hour," Mark 15:25) the Lord was crucified. 12 midday to 3 p.m. — (the "sixth" to the "ninth" hour) the three hours of darkness. 3 p.m. — Jesus died.
It was the time of full moon, and at full moon a solar eclipse is impossible. That one fact rules out the natural explanation.
Supernatural it certainly was, for it being the time of full moon, there was no eclipse of the sun to account for it. It was, however, in perfect keeping with what was taking place. At the fall of the king of Egypt God declared, "I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light" (Ezek. 32:7). How much more might that literally happen when the Creator was dying on the cross! He is the One who upholds all things by the word of His power. For three hours that mysterious darkness continued. It was the first sign since the Lord's arrest that God was not indifferent to all that was going on. During that time men seem to have been mostly quiet, probably overawed by what was happening.
One writer links this darkness with a rule in the law about making atonement.
At the last stage of this great transaction there is darkness over all the earth. How fitting that it should be so! God and Christ were alone there. Long before, these words pictured this scene: "No one may be in the tent of meeting from the time he enters to make atonement in the Holy Place" (Lev. 16:17). In one sense that darkness pictured the darkness resting on the mind and heart of the nation at that moment. It was the terrible moral darkness that lay on Israel. Yet God surely meant to withdraw His Son in that hour. No eye was to see what passed between Him and Christ when the Blessed One bore the judgment of God against sin.
The lost sunlight was a picture. Something far darker was happening to the One on the cross.
From the sixth hour (noon), with the sun in mid-heaven, to the ninth, there was darkness over all the land. Three full hours — this suggests the full measure of the cup of wrath poured out to Him. "God is light," and from our sin-Bearer the light is absolutely withdrawn. The eclipsing of the sun was only a figure of a more awful eclipse upon the soul of the holy Son of God.
The death of God's Son was too great an event to leave the world as it was.
God would not let so great an event as the death of His Son leave the world unaffected. He had made that world. Nor would He leave untouched the legal system He had set up through Moses among His earthly people.
In the temple a heavy curtain shut off the inner room, called the holiest. What closed over Christ opened for everyone else.
The three brightest hours of the day were darkened, as the sun was veiled. There was something very fitting in this, for the true "Sun of Righteousness" was bearing our sin at that time. A divine hand also tore the veil of the temple. This showed that the day of the visible temple system was now over, and that the way into the holiest was about to be made known — see Hebrews 9:8. Our true "Sun" was veiled for a moment, enduring our judgment, so that there might be no veil between us and God.
- Hour — Luke counts from sunrise. The sixth hour is noon and the ninth is three in the afternoon. The brightest stretch of the day turned darkest.
- Cause — No eclipse is possible at full moon. This darkness was God's own act, the first sign since the arrest that He was not indifferent.
- Cover — No one could be in the tent of meeting while atonement was made. So God screened the cross. No eye saw what passed between Him and His Son.
- Cost — The lost sunlight pictured a deeper loss. God's light was withdrawn from the One bearing our sin, and three hours measured the full cup.
- Consequence — The true Sun was veiled for a moment and the temple curtain tore. Now no veil stands between us and God.
And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple rent in the midst.
Two signs stand together in this verse. The sun's light fails at midday. The curtain that shut off the innermost room of the temple is torn. Both come from God's hand, and both say something about the death of Jesus.
The date of the crucifixion rules out any natural cause, as one writer explains.
He was crucified at the third hour. Everything we have read of happened before the sixth hour, which is noon. Then a supernatural darkness covered the land — the sunlight failed, as some translations render it. It certainly was supernatural. It was the time of full moon, so no eclipse of the sun could explain it. That mysterious darkness lasted three hours. It was the first sign since the Lord's arrest that God was not indifferent to all that was going on.
The darkening and the tearing belong together. One writer shows the exchange between them.
The three brightest hours of the day went dark, because the sun was veiled. There was something very fitting in this, for the true "Sun of Righteousness" was bearing our sin at that time. God's own hand also tore the veil of the temple. This showed that the day of the visible temple system was now over, and that the way into the holiest place was about to be made known — see Hebrews 9:8. Our true "Sun" was veiled for a moment, enduring our judgment, so that there might be no veil between us and God.
No falling masonry or shaking ground tore the curtain. What it stood for ended with it.
The veil of the temple, which marked out the whole system of the Jewish religion, was also torn from top to bottom. No earthquake did this, and no other physical cause. The natural light disappeared, and Judaism vanished, so that a new and true light might shine, giving anyone who saw it free entry into the holiest place of all.
Luke's wording is not quite the same as Matthew's and Mark's. Where the ESV has "torn in two," older translations read "in the midst." Matthew and Mark add "from top to bottom." One writer finds meaning in the difference.
Matthew and Mark both write that the veil was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38). That speaks of God coming out to meet man as a Saviour God. But in Luke 23:45 the veil is said to be torn "in the midst." This surely means that the legal system of Judaism, in which there was no access to God, had been set aside in the death of Christ, so that by that same death men might have access to God in an entirely new system.
Who tore it matters, and so does what people have tried to do since.
God had said that He would dwell in thick darkness. But He dwells in it no longer. Before, God was hidden, though He acted. He stayed hidden behind the veil. But now He reveals Himself in the death of Jesus, and by means of that death. The veil of the temple separated God in His holiness from man, and shut man in his sins out from God. It was torn in two from the top to the bottom — that is, from God to man. The veil was torn in two as soon as Jesus died. But people in our day want to put it up again, to put God in the darkness and man at a distance from Him.
Luke names the tearing before he reports the death. One writer answers carefully, without forcing the point.
Luke often leaves the strict order of time. He loves to give us the moral setting or the results of the ways, words or work of the Lord Jesus. But here none of the three Gospels seems to give clear marks that let us say for certain whether the tearing came before or after our Lord's death. In the four Gospels we have God's full and complete account of Christ's atoning work.
Others are firmer. One holds that the tearing happened only after the Lord had died, and that Luke groups the two wonders together and then goes back to tell of the death (C E Stuart). Commentators differ here.
- Darkness. No eclipse can happen at full moon, so the failing sunlight was God's own doing. It was the first sign since the arrest that heaven was not indifferent.
- Exchange. The true Sun was veiled while bearing our judgment, so that no veil would remain between us and God.
- End. A divine hand tore the curtain that stood for the whole Jewish system, and that system passed away with it.
- Access. Luke's "in the midst" marks a legal order with no way in, set aside so that men could approach God in an entirely new way.
- Direction. The tear ran from God to man, not man to God. So every effort to hang that curtain back up puts God in the darkness and man at a distance again.