Now from [the] sixth hour there was darkness over the whole land until [the] ninth hour;
Noon should be the brightest part of the day, but at the cross the light failed for three full hours. Commentators read this darkness as God's own act — a curtain drawn over what passed between God and His Son.
The hours in this verse are not the ones on our clocks.
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's Gospel puts the "sixth hour" at another point in the day.
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.
An eclipse is the obvious explanation. It is the wrong one.
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.
Until this moment men had been free to stare and jeer. The darkness ended that.
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.
Israel's law of atonement had a rule about who could be present.
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.
Noon marks a dividing line. What He suffered before it and what He suffered inside it are not the same.
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.
How far did the darkness reach, and what did it mean?
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 had a limit. What followed announced the result.
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.
The same writer applies the torn veil to believers today.
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).
- Noon. The sixth hour is midday, the ninth is three in the afternoon. John counts Roman hours, so his figures differ without any error.
- Supernatural. A full moon rules out an eclipse. This was God's first visible answer since the arrest, and it showed He was not indifferent.
- Screened. God shut human eyes out so His Son could be alone with Him, just as no one could stay in the tent during atonement.
- Changed. Before noon He suffered from men. Inside the darkness He was made sin and forsaken by God — a suffering far beyond the first.
- Ended. The darkness had a limit. The torn veil announced that the distance was crossed, and God is now in the light.
but about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And some of those who stood there, when they heard [it], said, This [man] calls for Elias.
On the cross the Lord cries out to God, and the people standing near mishear Him. They turn a word spoken to God into a rumour about a returning prophet, and the mistake tells us more about them than about Him.
The word they misheard was "Eli." It opens a cry to God and is not a call for help from a man.
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.
Matthew and Mark record the cry in different forms, and commentators label those forms differently. The sound is what matters: Matthew's form is close to the name Elijah, and Mark's is not.
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.
Commentators differ on who spoke. One view takes them for Roman soldiers, since local people would have known their own language.
It was likely Romans who thought He called for Elijah. The Jews would know their own language better than that.
Others answer that soldiers who knew no Hebrew would know little about Elijah either. They read the remark as deliberate mockery.
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.
The name did not come out of nowhere. Israel had been watching for Elijah for a long time, and Scripture gave them reason to.
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 mistake put the wrong person in the sentence. They waited for a prophet to arrive, but the cry went to the God that prophet served.
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.
What follows is not concern but a wait-and-see game. The others tell the man with the sponge to hold off.
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 spoke that cry aloud for everyone to hear. The hearers caught every word and still missed what was happening in front of them.
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.
- Misheard. "Eli" means "My God" — a cry to God, mistaken for a call to a prophet whose name sounds like it.
- Misattributed. Commentators differ over who spoke. Some say soldiers who did not know the language. Others say Jews who understood the words and mocked.
- Misplaced. They really did expect Elijah to return. But they put the servant where only the Lord God of Elijah belonged.
- Mishandled. They calmed a stirred conscience with a spectator's dare: wait and see if rescue comes. Vinegar was all they offered His thirst.
- Missed. The cry they could not understand is the very moment Christ made propitiation — the sacrifice for our sins and for the sins of the whole world.
And immediately one of them running and getting a sponge, having filled [it] with vinegar and fixed [it] on a reed, gave him to drink.
One man runs for a sponge in the moments before Jesus gives up His spirit. The rest stand back and watch. The small act raises two questions. What was in that sponge? And why did the One who had refused a drink hours earlier take this one?
Earlier in the same chapter men offered Jesus a drink and He refused it. Writers are careful not to blur the two moments.
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.
(Where older translations read "vinegar," the ESV has "sour wine.")
The sponge answers two words that John's Gospel records at this point: "I thirst." Jesus spoke them on purpose.
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.
Commentators differ over the motive of the man who ran. Some take the act at face value: a soldier sharing his own drink.
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.
Others hear in His cry a last appeal to human feeling. The answer showed what was in men's hearts.
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.
The verses on either side frame this one. The bystanders had misheard His cry to God as a call for Elijah. Now they turn even the offered drink into a spectacle.
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."
Matthew says they put the sponge on a reed. John names hyssop, a plant with a fixed place in Israel's ceremonies.
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.
- Refused. Before the crucifixion He tasted the drugged wine and would not drink it. He wanted no relief from man.
- Requested. He asked for this drink. One prediction about His death still stood unfulfilled, and He alone could see it and bring it to pass.
- Received. He took the sour wine, and the last prediction about His death was fulfilled. Nothing of God's word was left owing.
- Refused again. The crowd met a dying man's thirst with mockery. They calmed a stirred conscience by waiting to see if Elijah would come.
- Revealed. Perfect goodness hung before them in the worst of suffering, and no pity moved them. That is what the human heart is: utterly sinful.
But the rest said, Let be; let us see if Elias comes to save him.
Jesus cried out to God from the darkness, and the crowd heard the name of a prophet instead. One man ran for a drink; the rest told him to wait and watch, as if the death of Jesus were a show that might still end in a rescue.
The bystanders take "Eli, Eli" for a call to Elijah, the prophet Israel expected to return. Writers differ on who made the mistake. Some say it was the Roman soldiers. They had picked up Jewish hopes they only half understood, and they aim their taunt at the man holding out the sponge:
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."
Others reject that reading. If the soldiers knew too little Hebrew to catch the word for God, they would have known nothing of Elijah either:
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.
Whoever spoke, the meaning of the moment went past them. They stood in front of the deepest truth ever spoken and made a joke about a prophet. What they missed has a name — propitiation, the death of Christ dealing with sin:
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.
The same blankness struck another writer as the point of the whole scene — the work being done was beyond the reach of every onlooker.
Man understands nothing of it; they say, He calls for Elias!
The sponge was no kindness. It answered His thirst with sour wine, and by doing so it filled out words written centuries earlier:
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.
They waited, and no rescue came. There was a reason this Sufferer was the one exception:
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.
He could have ended it at any second, which is what makes the taunt so pointed — and so useless:
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.
They asked to see what God would do. He did something none of them expected — not vengeance, but an open door:
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.
- The cry — Jesus called out to God, and the crowd heard the name of a prophet. Commentators differ on who got it wrong: Roman soldiers, or Jews turning it into fresh mockery.
- The misunderstanding — they stood in front of propitiation and saw nothing. So the moment produced a joke instead of worship.
- The mockery — the sponge of vinegar met His thirst with no pity, and fulfilled Psalm 69 without anyone meaning to.
- The silence — God delivered every other sufferer who cried to Him. He did not deliver His Son, because only suffering could atone for sin.
- The answer — the crowd waited to see what God would do. He answered not with vengeance, but by tearing the temple veil open from the top.
And Jesus, having again cried with a loud voice, gave up the ghost.
Matthew closes his account of the crucifixion with a single sentence: a loud cry, and then the end. The darkness, the mockery, the cry of abandonment — all of it narrows to this one moment. And the way Matthew tells it raises a question: did Jesus die as other men die?
The word "again" points back to the earlier cry from the darkness. Both times His voice was strong.
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.
The older English "yielded up the ghost" hides something. Matthew's phrase describes an act, not something that happened to Him.
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.
Matthew records the cry but not the words. The other Gospels supply them, and set the order of events.
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.
Each writer keeps the words that fit what he is showing us about Christ.
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.
Scripture elsewhere says no one holds his own life in his hand. That makes this death stand apart.
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 next verse describes the temple curtain torn in two. The timing matters.
The veil was torn the moment our Lord died (Matthew 27:50-51) — one more proof that propitiation was made on the cross.
The soldier on guard drew his own conclusion from the way Jesus died.
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.
- Strength. The loud cry shows no exhaustion. Twice His voice rang out at full power, and the second time He died.
- Authority. Matthew's word is "dismissed His spirit" — the act of One with authority to lay down His life and take it up again.
- Words. Matthew names the cry but not its content. Luke supplies "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." John supplies "It is finished."
- Uniqueness. No one else holds power over his own spirit or the day of his death; He alone commanded both.
- Proof. The curtain tore at that instant, and the watching soldier concluded he had seen the Son of God.
And lo, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom, and the earth was shaken, and the rocks were rent,
The moment Jesus died, God acted. Matthew records three signs at once: a torn curtain, shaking ground, split rocks. Who tore that curtain? And what does it mean for how God now deals with people?
The direction of the tear is the whole point. One commentator rejected the idea that the earthquake did it:
Some say a shock of the earthquake tore the veil of the temple apart. In my judgment that comment on this passage is both inadequate and unjustified. Simply reading the passage ought to show how much importance is attached to the tearing of the veil. That tearing was in truth the end of the Jewish ritual priesthood and system. Matthew names it separately from the earthquake and its effects, and before them. It may also bear on this point that the veil was torn not from below but from above, "from top to bottom."
The curtain shut off the temple's innermost room. Its message changed the moment it tore:
The veil separated the holy place from the holy of holies. It spoke, indeed, of the presence of God, but of man shut out from God. Such was the character of the time of law. God present, but man unable to draw near to God. The tearing of the veil proclaimed that all was over with Judaism. But it tells us more. God can now in righteousness come out in grace with the good news of forgiveness for man, and man can draw near to God on the ground of the precious blood.
One writer ties the curtain to Christ's own body, and to why His life alone could not open the way:
The tearing of the veil in two, from top to bottom, is most significant. The veil is a picture of "His flesh" (Heb. 10:20). As soon as His flesh was torn in death, God bore witness to the value of this matchless death, and the tearing came from above. While He was still living, His flesh, as the veil, barred the way into the holiest for anyone else. Only His death could open that way. Through that veil, now torn, believers are invited to enter with boldness today (Heb. 10:19-20). Without that tearing, they could not dare to do this.
For the temple itself, the torn curtain was a closing notice:
There was no longer anyone behind the veil. The Jewish house was left to them desolate (Matt. 23:38). God was no longer there! The Jew was left with an empty house! The tearing of the veil was the work of God's own hand — so we read, "from top to bottom."
The act that ended one system opened the way in:
God had always been hidden behind the veil. Through the death of Jesus He revealed Himself completely. The entrance into the holy place is now open — a new and living way which God has consecrated for us through the veil. The entire Jewish system fell with the tearing of the veil — its priesthood, and the whole relationship between man and God under its rule. Everyone now stood in the presence of God with no veil between. But that same act dealt with the sin that would have made it impossible for us to stand there. For the believer, God has put that sin away completely from before Himself.
The signs did not stop at the curtain:
Next the earth shook, the rocks were split, and the tombs opened. Matthew alone records this; we do not find it in the other Gospels. The death of the King shook the earth and split the rocks. The opened tombs declared the glorious news that His death has broken the chains of death forever. Through death He destroyed the one who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. 2:14).
The timing and the manner both matter:
No one can say there was a gap between Christ's precious death and that meaningful tearing of the veil. He dies; the veil is torn. The two happen at one and the same time. Mark it well: God tore the veil. He did not remove it, or draw it back, or roll it up from the bottom, or lower it from the top: it was torn in two. Much of professed Christianity today is really putting the veil back up. How solemn to return to what was done away in the death of Jesus!
- The hand — the tear starts at the top because God did it, not the earthquake and not any human hand.
- The cause — the curtain pictured Christ's flesh; while He lived it barred the way, and only His death could open it.
- The gift — what had shut man out is gone, and sin that would have kept the believer out is put away.
- The reach — the shaking earth and split rocks say the King's death broke the power of death itself.
- The result — God tore the curtain; He did not draw it aside. Returning to what His death set aside is a solemn thing.
and the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints fallen asleep arose,
Jesus dies, and the signs come fast: the temple curtain tears, the earth shakes, rocks split, tombs open. Readers still ask why graves opened at a death, why these saints did not rise until later, and what became of them.
One writer hears in the open tombs a word spoken to death itself:
"The earth shook, and the rocks were split" — every sphere felt the touch of the victor. He made His touch felt in heaven and on earth. "And the tombs also were opened," as if it were said to death, Until now you have had a right to hold, but no more.
Another writer notes what Matthew adds next, and who now holds the keys of death:
The first Gospel mentions the earth shaken, the rocks split, and the tombs opened. It takes care to add that after Christ's resurrection many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, left the tombs, entered the holy city, and appeared to many. This is a bright testimony to the victory after His atoning death. By that death He annulled the devil's might, and He Himself has the keys of death and of Hades.
The tombs open at the death, but the bodies come out only after His rising. One writer explains the order:
They do not come out of their graves till "after His resurrection." They do not rise till then. The reason is plain: Christ is the "firstfruits" of those who have fallen asleep, the "firstborn from the dead," and no one could go before Him. Yet the graves open when the Lord dies. His death is what opens them. We are meant to see the link between that death and the appearing of living men brought up out of death. These were no ghosts, we are assured. "Bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep" rose — not to take up their place among men again, but as those who belong to another sphere.
Matthew records this beside the death, though it happened three days later. One writer asks why:
Why is it mentioned here and not in the next chapter in connection with His own resurrection? It belongs there historically. The Holy Spirit puts it here to show the effect of the great work finished on the cross, the power of our Saviour's death. Death is now to be swallowed up in victory... His death has finished the great work of deliverance, and this makes resurrection possible.
One writer ties this to the torn curtain three days earlier:
So three days passed between the tearing of the curtain and the resurrection of the saints. The Holy Spirit has still joined the two, because both alike are the fruits of the death of Christ. The tearing of the curtain speaks of the power of His precious blood. The raising of these saints tells just as clearly of Him who is the resurrection and the life.
Matthew's words settle what "sleep" means in Scripture:
Resurrection teaches that what is dead is raised. It must therefore apply to the body, for it is the body that dies, not the soul. We read, "many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised."
Commentators differ here. One argues these saints were not like Lazarus, who came back to normal life and died again:
There would be no point in saying "after His resurrection," seeing that He is the firstfruits, if these saints were like Lazarus and died again. They had risen bodies. They did not go on living here again like Lazarus. I take it these belong to the company of those who have part in the first resurrection.
Another calls the question itself idle curiosity:
It is a question of the bodies of saints — a precious anticipation of the first resurrection, when death will be swallowed up in victory. Someone may ask, "What became of them?" No one knows, because God has not said. The fact itself is a testimony rendered to the efficacy of the death of Jesus. The question comes only from man's empty curiosity, and God does not reveal things to satisfy it.
- Cause — The tombs open the moment Jesus dies; His death, not merely His rising, is what breaks the grave's claim.
- Order — No one may go before the firstfruits, so the bodies wait and come out only after His resurrection.
- Placement — Matthew reports it beside the cross to show what the cross achieved. The torn curtain and the open tombs are twin fruits of one death.
- Reach — They entered the city and appeared to many. On the ground where He was condemned, His death broke the devil's might.
- Result — A foretaste of the first resurrection. What happened to them next, Scripture does not say.
and going out of the tombs after his arising, entered into the holy city and appeared unto many.
The graves near Jerusalem opened at the moment Jesus died, yet the bodies inside did not walk out until the third day. Matthew alone records this. The gap between those two moments — the opened tomb and the raised body — carries the meaning of the whole scene.
The order is deliberate. Death broke the graves open, but no one left them ahead of Christ.
Notice the unusual way Matthew here ties this resurrection of the saints to the work of atonement. They do not come out of their graves till "after His resurrection." They do not actually rise till then. The reason is plain: Christ is the "firstfruits" of those who sleep, the "Firstborn from the dead," so no one could go before Him. On the other hand, it is when the Lord dies that the graves open: it is this that opens them. We are meant to see the connection between this death and the appearing of living men brought up out of death. This was no mere phantom, we are assured. "Bodies of the saints that slept" were rising — not to take their place among men again, but as those who belong to another sphere, glowing with its light.
In time this happened after the resurrection. Matthew still reports it beside the cross.
Historically it was only after the resurrection of Jesus that the dead rose and appeared to many in Jerusalem, as a witness to what had been done. Yet the fact stands here connected with the death of Jesus. By this death Christ accomplished the work of deliverance, and that work made resurrection possible. This event bore witness to that work in an extraordinary way. It is a question of the bodies of saints — a precious anticipation of the first resurrection, when death will be swallowed up in victory.
Only some graves gave up their dead.
All around Jerusalem lay the graves of those who had died. But Christ, the Firstfruits, rose from among the dead. He was the "Firstborn among many brothers" (Rom. 8:29). He was the "Firstborn from among the dead" (Col. 1:18; the ESV reads "the firstborn from the dead"). And with Him, after His resurrection, many bodies of the saints rose also. But not one grave of an unbeliever was stirred to let him rise.
One writer traces this back to God's purpose for His own people.
Why did the bodies of these saints come forth? Because God would not separate His people from Him in resurrection. His own people should first be raised up in blessing. He would not have it hidden that He was raised from the dead. "Ah, Satan, you can do nothing! You cannot keep the prisoners. The prison door bursts open, and they escape." Looking at these bodies of the saints, we may see their rising as a stamp put by God on the resurrection of His Son. He would not let Him come up from the grave alone.
The words "appeared to many" do real work as evidence.
Such wonderful testimony as "many saints coming out of their graves" after Christ's resurrection was certainly not useless. It showed that death was then overcome. To give such testimony they had to appear. They appeared "to many." That ruled out one person's overheated imagination. It also ruled out an invented story from a few supporters of Jesus' claims.
Jerusalem had just crucified its Messiah, yet Matthew still gives it this title.
Some may wonder why Scripture calls Jerusalem the "holy city." Even at the time of the crucifixion Matthew calls it "the holy city" (Matt. 4:5; Matt. 27:53). But the word "holy" has two different meanings. Sometimes it means holy in nature, as God is holy. But it also means "set apart," or devoted — as the temple, the city, the land are holy because chosen by Him.
Matthew names none of them. Commentators differ on how far the wording lets us go. One draws what he can from it:
They must have been people of that generation, who had been known, and so this was a striking testimony to the value of the death of Christ. What happened to them after that is not stated, but the language does not sound as if they remained.
Another writer stops the question at the door:
Perhaps someone will ask, "What became of them?" No one knows, because God has not said. The fact itself is a testimony to the power of the death of Jesus. The question only comes from the empty curiosity of man, and God does not make revelations to satisfy that curiosity.
- Cause — His death opened the graves. The bodies came out after His resurrection. Both halves of the verse trace back to the cross.
- Order — No one could rise ahead of the Firstfruits. Christ keeps first place in the world of resurrection.
- Selection — Only saints rose. No unbeliever's grave stirred. This is an anticipation of the first resurrection.
- Witness — They "appeared to many." Many people saw them, so this was not one person's imagination or a small group's invention.
- Silence — Scripture does not say where they went. The fact itself testifies to the power of Christ's death, and God does not answer mere curiosity.
But the centurion, and they who were with him on guard over Jesus, seeing the earthquake and the things that took place, feared greatly, saying, Truly this [man] was Son of God.
Roman soldiers came to that hill to carry out an execution. Yet they are the ones who name the dying man as the Son of God, and their words raise two questions: what convinced them, and how much did they understand?
The Gospels give different triggers for the same confession, and the difference is worth noticing. One writer sets Matthew's account beside Mark's:
Here the reasons for the centurion's confession are clear. In Matthew it was the severe earthquake, the splitting of the rocks and the opening of the tombs. In Mark it was the Lord's shout with a loud voice just before He gave up His spirit. That struck the centurion, who had no doubt seen many such executions. A man crucified gets weaker and weaker until he cannot speak above a whisper. Here was One who could shout with a loud voice just before He died, showing supernatural strength.
Matthew says they were "filled with awe." Older translations read "they feared greatly." That fear is the turning point of the scene, and it stands against the mood of those who had demanded His death:
The Roman officer on guard, and the soldiers with him, seeing the earthquake and all that had happened, are seized with fear, and acknowledge that Jesus is indeed "the Son of God." … These poor pagan hearts were under the influence of the events passing before their eyes, and they could not refuse this testimony. Meanwhile the hardened hearts of the Jews — "His own," those to whom He had come — were rejoicing in His death. Nothing hardens like religion when the heart is not changed.
One writer counts three signs together — the torn curtain in the temple, the shaken earth with its opened graves, and the raised saints — then notes who responded:
There was plenty of witness to the wonder of that hour, yet we read of no one who was impressed except the centurion on duty and those with him. In his heart the conviction took hold that here was the Son of God — the very thing that His own people denied, and still deny.
A Roman soldier had no worked-out teaching about who Jesus is. One writer weighs what the man himself could have meant against what the Spirit made his words say:
He was most likely a pagan, and meant no more than to admit that Christ was not just a man. He meant that He was somehow what the king of Babylon heard and spoke of in Daniel 2 and 4. … He felt that, though He lived in flesh, yet He was a Divine being, and not just the Son of man. … At the same time, the Spirit of God could well give the centurion's or the king's words a shape beyond what either knew.
The confession comes from outside Israel. Writers read it as the opening of something far wider:
Here is another special testimony to the mighty power of His death, and to the meaning of His words: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." Trembling, the centurion confesses the glory of His Person. Stranger to Israel as he is, he gives the first testimony of faith among Gentiles.
Matthew alone adds "those who were with him," and that detail carries weight:
All they have seen and heard has convinced the Gentile centurion and those with him. They confess Him to be, not just the King of the Jews, but the Son of God. So the Roman soldier takes his place with Peter the apostle in proclaiming what Israel has denied. … Mark and Luke give this as the centurion's own faith; here it is shared by "those that were with him." It is the general faith of a Gentile company.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. Darby says of the soldiers, "As to the result in themselves, no one can know anything of it." Others read the words as real faith, and draw a lesson from what the centurion refused to listen to:
Reason might have said, "These leaders of the Jews should know, and they have challenged Him to prove that He is the Son of God, the Christ, the King of Israel, by coming down from the cross…" But if the centurion had listened to that reasoning — and it was logical enough — he would have gone home at the end of his day's work still a pagan. But faith, not reason, moved him. … And it is here that all true faith finds its birth. We must begin with Christ crucified.
- Signs — Matthew traces the confession to the earthquake, split rocks and opened tombs. Mark traces it to the loud cry of a dying man who should have had no strength left.
- Fear — the same events that struck fear into pagan soldiers left the religious leaders rejoicing. Nothing hardens like religion when the heart does not change.
- Confession — the soldier likely meant only that this was no ordinary man. Yet the Spirit gave his words a shape beyond what he knew.
- Reach — the first voice of faith from outside Israel, and in Matthew a whole Gentile company, confessing the very thing His own nation denied.
- Heart — writers differ on whether these men were saved. All agree where faith begins — at Christ crucified.