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.
And Jesus, having cried with a loud voice, said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he expired.
The final words from the cross in Luke are not a cry of abandonment but an address to a Father. Luke alone records them. They raise two questions. What changed between the darkness and this moment? And how could a dying man still speak with full strength and place His own spirit where He chose?
Earlier the other Gospels record a different cry: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" One writer links the change of address to the finish of the atoning work:
Then when all is over, when the great work of atonement is done, and the suffering reaches its furthest point... God hears the cry of the Sufferer, and the answer comes. Christ can say, "You have heard me." The resurrection proved to man that God had heard Christ and accepted the work. Still, Christ Himself knew He was heard and accepted the moment the atoning work was finished. So at once, we learn from the Gospels, the Lord spoke the language of perfect communion.
These are not the words of the atonement itself. One writer marks what they are, and what they are not:
Here there is no cry to God as the forsaken One, when His soul became an offering for sin... Nor does He speak here as the Son, conscious of His own deity, declaring the work finished for which He had come. This is the ever perfect man, Christ Jesus, committing His spirit into His Father's keeping with unwavering confidence... The words here do not express His suffering as the forsaken One making atonement. They express the peaceful departure of His spirit, as man, into the hands of God the Father.
The sentence is not new. Psalm 31:5 says, "Into your hand I commit my spirit." There the sufferer speaks to the LORD — Jehovah, in older translations. One writer notes the one word Jesus changed, and what it opens for believers:
The Lord did not hesitate to take its words for Himself at that moment (Luke 23:46). He only put "Father" in place of "Jehovah," as fitted Him. And now, risen from the dead, He gives us the right to do the same, in the faith of His redemption.
Luke notes that Jesus cried out loudly before speaking. One writer asks why that detail is recorded:
Jesus cried with a "loud voice." Why is that recorded? Why does the Spirit of God dwell on it here? To show that our Lord Jesus Christ kept the full, undiminished, unchanged strength of His manhood. He still had all His powers as a Man. He was not wasted, not worn out with suffering. What He had gone through had not weakened His strength in any way. In the full vigour of perfect humanity He cried with a "loud voice," and said, "Father."
Because His strength was unbroken, His death was not something that happened to Him. One writer sets this against a line from Ecclesiastes:
The wise man of the Old Testament has told us, "No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death" (Ecclesiastes 8:8). But here is One who had that power. He is able at one moment to lift up His voice with unimpaired strength, and the next moment to deliver up His spirit... Here is One who has full command over His spirit; He delivered it up to His Father, and so He laid down His life.
Luke also records the first words Jesus ever spoke. One writer sets the first beside the last:
His first word was "Father." His last word is "Father"; and between the two the darkness and tempest... Only Luke's gospel records this cry. Luke is also the Gospel that gives His first recorded words, "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Older translations read "about my Father's business," which is the sense that follows.) That business was finished now, not one bit of it left undone. In the serenity and calm of that knowledge He commends His spirit to His Father and bows His head in death.
Stephen died with almost the same sentence, but not the same verb:
Jesus could say, and He alone could say it rightly, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."... He could lay down His life and take it up again, so He could speak this way to the Father. But the servant of the Lord could say, rightly and with blessing, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
- Finished — Christ completed the atoning work before He spoke this word. That is why the address changes from "My God" to "Father."
- Father — The psalm gave the sentence. Jesus gave the name. Risen, He gives believers the right to use it too.
- Strength — The loud voice proves He did not die of exhaustion; He was in the full vigour of His manhood.
- Command — No one else has power over his own spirit in the day of death; He handed His up as His own act.
- Echo — Stephen could only ask to be received; Christ alone could commit. The dying believer borrows the confidence, not the authority.