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.