Matthew 27:45–50

The sixth hour of which Matthew speaks would correspond to our midday, and the ninth hour in that verse to our three o'clock in the afternoon.

John states that Christ stood before Pilate's court "about the sixth hour" (John 19:14), while Matthew, Mark and Luke record that He was on the cross at the sixth hour. There is no real discrepancy here, for John counted hours the Roman way, and the other three counted the Jewish way. So the sixth hour was 6 a.m. for John; for them it was noon.

It was certainly supernatural. The moon was full, so no eclipse of the sun could account for it. But it fit perfectly 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 actually happen when the Creator, who upholds everything by the word of His power, was dying on the cross! 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.

Now comes the moment when His position, His relation with God, must pass before our eyes… Even by outward circumstances, God separated His Son from insults and outrages that were purely human, in order that He should be alone with Him and entirely for His solemn work. He was alone with God, made sin; nothing to turn aside the cup of justice; nothing to deaden it.

How fitting that it should be so! God and Christ were alone there. This scene had been pictured long before in these words: "No one may be in the tent of meeting from the time he enters to make atonement in the Holy Place" (Lev. 16:17)… God intended to withdraw His Son in that hour, so that no eye should see what passed between Him and Christ when the Blessed One bore the judgment of God against sin.

Scripture would have us know that a change took place at the sixth hour, when there was darkness over all the land to the ninth hour. His cry then shows what that change was. Up to it He had through the eternal Spirit offered Himself up to be the victim. Then sins were laid on Him. He who knew no sin was made sin, and so God's face was hidden — He was forsaken by God. All that He had suffered up to this point from man's hand — and Psalm 22 shows how He felt it — is left immeasurably far behind by what He suffered from God's hand.

Did the darkness cover the entire earth? Hardly — in part of the world it was night already. No doubt it covered the whole land, and perhaps the whole Roman world. It hid the cross and the great sufferer from the guards and the onlookers… His cry explains the meaning of the darkness, and the darkness gives us the meaning of His bitter cry. God had turned from Him, left Him, who had taken the sinner's place.

The three hours of darkness were to Him the measure of what to anyone else would have been an infinite, hopeless distance… The veil torn from top to bottom proclaimed that it had been crossed and removed.

For those saved by it, the darkness of distance from God who is light has passed away with the darkness on the cross… The veil meant darkness — the darkness in which God dwelt, as far as man was concerned. Its tearing means that "God is in the light" (1 John 1:7).

An Aramaic word meaning "My God." Matthew 27:46. It seems strange that anyone heard this as a call for "Elijah." Perhaps some who did not know the language made the mistake.

Eloi is the Aramaic form. Eli in Matthew 27:46 is the Hebrew. Wellhausen supposed the Hebrew form was the one the Lord used, since it sounds more like Elijah. As he says, the Jews could not have misunderstood Eloi, their own everyday speech.

It was likely Romans who thought He called for Elijah. The Jews would know their own language better than that.

Who were those who said, "This man is calling Elijah"? Most assume they were some of the soldiers. They knew little Hebrew, it is said, and mistook the word "Eli," My God, for Elijah. But against this we must say that they knew just as little about Elijah. We think instead that these were mocking Jews. They understood the words and used them for fresh mockery.

There was a general feeling in Israel that Elijah would come back. Malachi 4:5 was ample authority for this expectation. Among the questions put to John the Baptist was, "Are you Elijah?" And he says, "I am not" (John 1:21). When the Lord Jesus asked His disciples what people were saying about Him, they replied, "Some say you are Elijah" (Matthew 16:13-14).

The poor crowd knew nothing of the Scripture they were fulfilling, and nothing of the place Elijah held. He was calling on the Lord God of Elijah, not on His servant.

To those standing by the cross, the Lord's words sound like a call for Elijah. This was a misunderstanding, likely by the soldiers rather than the Jews. But these were men who had picked up some of the common Jewish beliefs they would have heard around them. Would Elijah come and take Him down? Their conscience stirs. They quiet it with feeble mockery, aimed at the man who offers vinegar for the agonising thirst of crucifixion: "Let Him be; let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him."

He Himself announced this dreadful experience aloud. Anyone who wished could hear it: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" As so often, those who heard did not understand what He said. That this crucified One should speak to God in heaven this way was beyond their grasp. Yet in it lies the central truth of the propitiation Christ made for our sins and for the whole world.

At the cross "they gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall" (v. 34). We must not confuse this with what is mentioned in John, where the Lord says, "I thirst." In Matthew's account it was the drink given to prisoners before they suffered, to dull their senses. This the Lord would not drink. Whereas in John, the Lord, while on the cross, fulfils a Scripture... He did drink the vinegar then. But here in Matthew, on the contrary, "when He had tasted it, He would not drink" (v. 34) — He wished for no relief from man.

In John's account we get another of those flashes of omniscience which mark this Gospel. A few verses earlier we saw the soldiers fulfil Scripture without knowing it. We now see Jesus Himself in that dark hour, surveying the whole field of prophecy. He knew well that of all the predictions centring on His death, only one still remained to be fulfilled. In Psalm 69 David had written, "In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." A small thing in itself, but every word of God must be verified in its season. In that hour of suffering He was able to rise above His circumstances. He could both see the one thing still lacking and speak the words that at once brought it to pass. No mere man could have done either the one or the other.

The vinegar was a kind of drink the soldiers had. Some have thought it mockery, but this is not the way it is presented here.

His words, "I thirst," seem like a challenge to those who stood around. Had the sight of His sorrow melted their hearts?... Listen to the Lord's own answer to these questions. "Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness; and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink" (Ps. 69:20-21). Here was brought to light what men are; utterly, altogether sinful. No sentiment of pity moved their evil hearts when they stood in the presence of absolute goodness in the extremity of suffering.

To those standing by the cross the Lord's words are a call for Elijah. This was a misunderstanding, probably by the soldiers rather than the Jews. They had picked up some of the common Jewish beliefs they would have heard around them. Would Elijah come and take Him down? Their conscience is roused, and they quiet it with faint mockery. It is aimed at the man who gives the vinegar to the agonising thirst of crucifixion: "Let be: let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him."

A plant used in the Jewish observances. It is often associated with cedar wood and scarlet, and was used in sprinkling the unclean. It springs out of the wall, which shows how small it is. Yet some of its stems may have been long enough to serve as the reed that held the sponge, which gave the Lord vinegar when He was on the cross... The hyssop is in contrast to the stately cedar, and is symbolical of man's littleness.

To those standing by the cross the Lord's words are a call for Elijah. This was probably a mistake by the soldiers rather than the Jews. They had picked up some of the common Jewish beliefs they would have heard around them. Would Elijah come and take Him down? Their conscience was stirring, and they quieted it with a faint mockery. They aimed it at the man who holds out the vinegar to a thirst made agonising by crucifixion: "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him."

Who were those who said, This man calls for Elijah? Most people assume they were some of the soldiers. They perhaps knew little Hebrew, it is said, and mistook the word "Eli," My God, for Elijah. But against this we must say that they equally knew little or nothing of Elijah. We think rather that the people were mocking Jews, who understood the words and made them the occasion of new mockery.

As so often, those who heard did not understand His speech. They said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him." They could not understand how this crucified One could speak to God in heaven like that. Yet that is where the central truth lies: the propitiation Christ made for our sins and for the whole world.

Man understands nothing of it; they say, He calls for Elias!

Was there any relenting in His foes who heard that cry of distress? Was there any pity, any mercy in any of them? He tells us in Psalm 69 that they gave Him gall for His food, and in His thirst they gave Him vinegar to drink. They pressed the sponge to His mouth so that this Scripture would be fulfilled, though they did not know they were fulfilling Scripture. There was no pity, no mercy for a suffering Saviour.

Others had cried to God, and every one of them was delivered; He was not. For the suffering had to go all the way, and sin be atoned for in righteousness — and this not by power, but by suffering.

If it were only a question of power, He might step in. The holy Sufferer could easily have come down from the cross. It was even part of His suffering at that moment to hear a dying criminal challenge Him to do it — for what did He not suffer? But we must see that no act of power could atone.

He was dying — and dying of thirst, as they thought. One man, more tender than the others, would have given Him something to drink. But the rest said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him." Seeing Him suffer, they say, "Let Him suffer; give Him nothing to ease His burning thirst." And He died! And does God at once take vengeance for the murder of His Son? No; God takes that moment, as it were, to say, I will put away everything that could come between you and Me. He tears the veil of the temple from top to bottom.

But here in our Gospel we read, "And Jesus, having cried again with a loud voice, dismissed His spirit." It is significant that twice we read of His loud voice. There was no sign or evidence of exhaustion. His life was not taken from Him; He gave His life. He laid it down Himself. The King Himself, when the moment had come, dismissed His spirit.

Still master of Himself, He was not conquered by death. He yielded Himself to it. He cries with the loud voice of unexhausted strength, and dismisses His spirit. The expression belongs to Matthew alone, the royal Gospel. It is a great pity that the older English translation hides it. At the moment of death it states plainly what He had declared before: "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again" (John 10:18). Here it is the plain expression of authority, and so exactly in place in the Gospel of Matthew… But what a testimony to Him whose royal title was proclaimed on a cross, whose sceptre was a reed, whose crown was of thorns.

It was about the ninth hour (Matthew 27:46) that "Jesus cried out with a loud voice… My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Then verse 50 of the same chapter says, "Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit." Turning again to Luke we read, "Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!' And having said this he breathed his last" (23:46). So this cry to the "Father" came right at the close of the blessed Lord's hours of suffering on the cross.

Matthew and Mark both give our Lord saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This could not be in John. Luke gives us, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit," because there the perfect man never abandons His perfect reliance on God. God must, in judging our sins, forsake Him, but He would never forsake God. The atonement would not be what it is unless God had forsaken Him in this way. But in Luke it is the sign of absolute trust in His Father, not of God's abandonment. In John He says, "It is finished," because He is the Son, by whom all worlds were made… He was put to death, no doubt, but at the same time it was His own voluntary will. Who but a divine person could have such a will about death itself? In a mere man it would be sin; in Him it was perfection.

The wise man of the Old Testament wrote, "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… When God calls a man's spirit, go he must. But this One had full command over His spirit. He delivered it up to His Father, and so He laid down His life.

The veil was torn the moment our Lord died (Matthew 27:50-51) — one more proof that propitiation was made on the cross.

He noticed two things peculiar to the death of Jesus: first, that He "cried out in that way" — there was no failing of physical strength. Second, that He "yielded up His spirit" — He dismissed it by His own choice. These two supernatural acts convinced this soldier that the central figure at Calvary was more than man — He was the Son of God.