Transcript

One of the most magnificent 19th-century military expeditions conquered no new lands.

You won’t find it mentioned in many history books, but because of the monumental logistics, military historians compare the landing in Ethiopia in 1868 to the Allies’ invasion of France in 1944.

For four years Emperor Theodore III of Ethiopia had held a group of 53 European captives (30 adults and 23 children), including some missionaries and a British consul, in a remote 9,000-foot-high bastion deep in the interior.

By letter, Queen Victoria pleaded in vain with Theodore to release the captives. Finally, the government ordered a full-scale military expedition from India to march into Ethiopia, not to conquer the country and make it a British colony, but simply to rescue a tiny band of civilians.

The invasion force included 32,000 men, heavy artillery, and 44 elephants to carry the guns. Provisions included 50,000 tons of beef and pork. Engineers built landing piers, water treatment plants, a railroad, and telegraph line to the interior, plus many bridges.

All of this to fight one decisive battle, after which the prisoners were released, and set free. The British expended much time, effort, and millions of pounds to rescue these captives.

For us, captives, to be rescued and set free from the bondage of our sins an infinitely great price was paid, as the Son of God willingly and humbly left heaven’s glory to become a man and to be the sinner’s Savior, and in infinite love and grace, He died for us.

The next major event of the Bible that we will look at is the Cross.

Matthew 27:45-49: “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

“Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.”

The gospel accounts divide the six hours of Christ’s crucifixion into two parts, the first three hours and the second three hours. Christ was crucified at the “third hour”, or 9:00 am. So Christ’s crucifixion is divided between 9:00 am and noon, and noon to 3:00 pm.

Christ had been on the Cross for three hours when “darkness” came over all the land from the sixth hour, or noon, until the ninth hour, or 3:00 pm.

Our Lord was born at night, under the cover of darkness. Yet when the angels announced His birth to the shepherds, a supernatural light broke the darkness, “and the glory of the Lord shone round about them” (Luke 2:9), because the Light had come into the dark world.

Just as a supernatural light pierced the darkness of the night at His birth, a supernatural darkness overshadowed the light of day at His death.

And at noon, when the sun is at its zenith, an astounding miracle is done by God, which was God’s commentary on the events.

One moment, the sun was shining overhead; the next moment, everything went dark. This was a heaven-sent, sudden, and sustained darkness.

It became as dark as midnight in the middle of the day, without any hint of light from the sun, and it stayed that way for three hours.

In Scripture, this was not something unusual for God to do to interfere with the sun. He had done it on several other occasions. It showed that as God, He could do what He wanted with the sun, and that, as Creator, He is infinitely greater than the sun.

In Joshua’s time, the Lord made the sun stand still for a whole 24-hour period so Israel could complete a victory in battle over the Amorites (Joshua 10:12-14).

In Hezekiah’s day, God caused the sun to move backwards so that it moved backward on the sundial 10 degrees (2 Kings 20:9-11).

On another occasion, in Egypt, God blackened the sun as one of the plagues, and created a darkness in Egypt that Exodus describes as a “darkness which may be felt” (Ex. 10:21).

Here at the Cross, at noon, Luke 23:45 says “the sun was darkened.” In other words, it’s like God turned the sun off. This was supernatural darkness. It was a divine miracle. And the whole earth was darkened.

Darkness in the Bible is a symbol of judgment and wrath. God’s salvation is referred to as light, but God’s judgment is symbolized by darkness.

For example, the time of God’s judgment being poured out on the earth in the Tribulation period is described as a time of “thick darkness” (Zeph. 1:14-15).

And during those 7 years, the sun will be darkened. At the 4th Trumpet in the Tribulation, 1/3 of the sun’s light will be removed. Later, at the 5th Bowl Judgment, God completely darkens the sun, and there will be total, worldwide darkness.

And the lake of fire is a place of eternal judgment, and thus it is darkness. It is called “outer darkness” (Matt. 8:12) and “the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 1:13).

Here at the Cross, the darkness teaches that God was judging our sins in Christ during these three hours.

All our sins were placed upon Him, our Substitute, as He was made sin for us. And then God poured out His divine wrath on Him, and He took the judgment we deserved.

In those three hours were compressed the full measure of God’s righteous wrath against all our sins; and in those three hours, Christ paid the price, settled the debt, and the Father was completely and eternally satisfied by His Son’s perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Our Savior took all our judgment in that utter darkness, so that we might “be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” and be “light in the Lord.”

At the end of this three-hour period of darkness, the Lord “cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

As Christ bore the weight of the sin of the world, He experienced separation from the Father for the only time in all of eternity. And He cried out these words of abandonment, forsakenness, and separation, in His anguish, as He felt and experienced the awful, terrifying forsakenness by God that we deserved for our sins.

Verse 47 says that some of those who were standing there, when they heard Him say “Eli, Eli,” began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah.” But they knew better than that. The Jews knew the name of God, Elohim, or Eli.

They likely did not know that the Lord was quoting Scripture in Psalm 22:1 by His words, but hearing Him cry out “Eli, Eli,” they pretended to understand that He meant Elijah and they made a joke about it.

This was sarcasm, mockery, and jeering. And cruelly they say, “He’s calling for Elijah, ha-ha” is the idea. Three hours earlier they had mocked and said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” Here, after the darkness, they mock Him that because He cannot save Himself; He called out to the old prophet to come to rescue Him.

At this point, according to the Gospel of John, the Lord said, “I thirst.”

Thus, verse 48 says that one of them ran, a sponge was then filled with vinegar, or cheap sour wine, from a jug that was near the Cross. The sponge was placed on a branch from a hyssop bush and lifted to the Lord. And thus, a prophecy of the Cross was fulfilled from Psalm 69:21: “and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.”

The request for the drink was not for the purpose of quenching the Lord’s thirst, but instead for the purpose that He might say two more things.

In verse 49, we see those around the cross, kept up the mockery. The Lord was mocked until the bitter end. They were keeping the Elijah joke going. They told the one who gave the Lord the drink from the branch to “Let be,” or leave Him be, stand back, and wait.

And they said, “let us see whether Elias will come to save Him.” These wicked observers joked, saying they should all stand back and watch to see if Elijah would actually come. And they anticipated that after He took this drink, He might again cry out to Elijah.

Our Lord did speak after taking this drink, and He let loose the victory shout of our salvation: “It is finished!”

Matthew 27:50-51 reads, “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.”

After taking that sour wine, the Lord cried out again with a loud voice: “It is finished!” The work of redemption was complete; the price was paid in full, the once-for-all sacrifice and payment for sin were finished and it will always will be finished.

Following the victory cry, He “yielded up the ghost.” Christ life did not slip away from Him as He grew weaker and weaker on the cross. He did not die with a whimper but in strength and with a loud voice.

With the Father no longer turned away, the Son again addressed Him as “Father” and said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Christ then “bowed His head,” the gospel of John tells us, which means He slowly and calmly lowered and bowed His head. And unlike how we die, as God in flesh, Christ yielded up the ghost, or He dismissed His spirit.

And at this moment, “behold,” or boom! “the veil of the temple” tore in two, and the earth shook violently.

When the tearing of the veil occurred, the Temple was packed with worshipers who were there for the killing of their Passover lambs at the 3:00 evening sacrifice.

But by God’s design, it was in the very hour that those lambs were being slain that the true Passover Lamb died. Christ was the true Passover Lamb whom all the others just foreshadowed. And when we trust Him as our Savior, because God’s judgment was fully poured out on His Son for our sins, His judgment of eternal death “passes over” us.

The veil of the Temple was a curtain that separated the two main rooms of the temple, the Holy place from the Holy of holies, which was the dwelling place of God.

Now don’t imagine a little, sheer curtain for this veil. It was a very heavy, woven, thick curtain, 30 feet in height and 30 feet in width, covering the entrance into the cube-shaped Holy of Holies. The veil was a barrier so that no one could go into the Holy of Holies.

Only the high priest once a year on the Day of Atonement could go into the Holy of holies, where the ark of the covenant was and where God’s presence resided in the Temple.

Leviticus 16 spells out the details for that high and holy day: Before entering the tabernacle, the high priest was to bathe and put on special garments (v. 4), then sacrifice a bull for a sin offering for himself and his family (vv. 6,11). The blood of the bull was to be sprinkled on the ark of the covenant.

Then Aaron was to sacrifice a goat “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins” (v. 16), and its blood was also sprinkled on the ark of the covenant.

If anyone else besides the High Priest ever entered the Most Holy Place, he would die. If the High Priest entered on any day other than the Day of Atonement, he would be struck dead. If the High Priest came in without the blood, he would have perished.

Everything about the Mosaic system and the Holy of Holies screamed, “Stop! Stay away. Don’t come near. You are not qualified to come on your own.” The veil was a giant roadblock, making sure that no one came into God’s presence.

The thick veil was symbolic of the fact that people were shut out of God’s presence and a constant reminder that sin renders humanity unfit for the presence of God and that there was a separation from God because of our sins.

But the moment Christ died, showing God was completely satisfied with Christ’s shed blood and payment for sin forever, God Himself ripped that veil from top to bottom.

It was as though a large sword from heaven had been dropped upon it. The torn veil, torn from top to bottom, was from the living God to sinful men.

That veil didn’t tear a little bit at a time, it was instantaneous and immediate when Christ died. God ripped that thick veil wide open at that moment.

God the Father was declaring and preaching a sermon to mankind, without words, when he tore the curtain in two from the top to the bottom.

The tearing of that veil symbolized the permanent opening of access to God through Christ’s shed blood, and that the barrier to Him had been removed.

He was showing that He was pleased with Christ’s sacrifice, agreeing with Christ’s words that “It is finished,” and that the way of access into His presence was now available to all.

Ephesians 2:18 and 3:12 tell us, “For through Him [Christ] we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father,” and “In Whom we have boldness and access with confidence….”

By God tearing the veil, it shows that HE made the way to come directly to Him. We don’t get there by our weak efforts or good works or supposed good life that’s filled with sin.

We get there by the power and might of God’s provision for sin through His Son at the Cross, which takes all our sins away as far as the east is from the west the moment we trust Him as our personal Savior.

That veil was a symbol of the body of the Savior. Hebrews 10:19,20 says, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.”

When Christ gave His body in death and His body was torn by His sacrifice on the Cross, the veil was torn and the way was forever opened into the presence of God.

Through His death and shed blood, now all believers can enter God’s presence in prayer and praise at any time with direct access to the throne of grace.

Hebrews 4:16 says “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

Free and unobstructed access to God is always open to every believer in Christ. And when we pass from this life at death, we KNOW we are welcome in His presence, and that torn veil is an assurance of that fact.

At the same time as the tearing of the veil, a great earthquake took place, an earthquake the force of which split rocks in two. The death of Christ was a miraculous, powerful, earthshaking event. God shook the earth the moment his Son died.

The strength of the quake was such that rocks were split. They were not cracked or had hairline fractures, instead, boulders and rocks split apart in two and fell apart in pieces.

The power of the earthquake was in response to the Savior’s final shout of victory, in line with the magnitude and power and significance of the death to which it testified. Christ death was victory and the earthquake bore testimony to how monumental this event was.

It also reminds us that at the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai, Exodus 19:18 tells us that “the whole mountain quaked greatly.”

But now Christ blotted “out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross” (Col. 2:14).

The earthquake at Mt. Calvary signified that the demands of that Law given at Mt. Sinai had been met and the curse of the Law, which was judgment and death, was taken away.

The broken Law, which rightly accused, indicted, and condemned us, was nailed to His Cross, and Christ paid our sin debt in full. He took away the Law’s power to condemn us.

The significance of the Cross and its ramifications are such that it deserved for the earth to move and shake when Christ died. The Cross changed everything.

Anytime you have an earthquake, everything stops. It stops people in their tracks. The earthquake at Christ’s death was God’s way of saying to the world, “Stop! Look! Listen! My Son died for you. Look to the Cross and you will find My salvation.”

Matthew 27:52-54: “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

“Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.”

Here we further learn that the great earthquake caused the stones in front of the tombs of many saints around Jerusalem to break in half and move, so the interior of these rocky graves were opened and there was an unobstructed view inside.

For three days these tombs remained open. And because of the Sabbaths which followed the day Christ died, those in Jerusalem couldn’t do anything about closing them up again.

Then, verse 53 tells us that “after” the resurrection of Christ, the occupants of these tombs were raised and they then went into Jerusalem where they appeared to many.

We are not told who these people were, but just that they were “saints” or believers who had died. “Many” saints were raised, but not all were. These were select representatives of the saints buried in and around Jerusalem.

But can you imagine those knocks at doors around Jerusalem on resurrection morning when they opened their door to find their formerly deceased loved one greeting them? There was a lot of shock and awe on that day!

The saints gave testimony to the death-destroying, life-giving power of Jesus Christ. John Owens once spoke about the death of death in the death of Christ. And these saints demonstrated that.

Christ is the firstfruits of the dead and all others follow Him. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept…For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.”

John Walvoord wrote this of these resurrections, “This event was a fulfillment of the Feast of the Firstfruits of harvest mentioned in Leviticus 23. On that occasion, as a token of the coming harvest, the people would bring a handful of grain to the priest. The resurrection of these saints, occurring after Jesus Himself was raised is a token of the coming harvest when all the saints will be raised.”

Their staggering appearances and resurrections after Christ’s resurrection proved that Christ had conquered death for the saints. And it prefigured how one day, as John 5:28 says, “all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth.”

The torn veil shows Christ conquered sin; the earthquake shows He paid for the broken Law, and the resurrections prove that He triumphed over death.

There were many miracles on the day Christ died: the darkness, the tearing of the veil, the earthquake, and another significant miracle was the reaction of the centurion and the other Roman soldiers at the Cross.

A Roman centurion was the commander of a century, or a hundred-man division of soldiers. He was a proven leader of men. Because this officer was with the soldiers guarding Christ, it seems clear he had been given charge of overseeing and carrying out the crucifixion of Christ and the crucifixions of the two thieves as well.

Christ’s death was unlike any crucifixion they had ever witnessed. Notice it says they were “watching Jesus” (v. 54).

They heard Him pray for forgiveness for those who had Him crucified. They saw the noble way He suffered, and how He did not retaliate toward those who mocked Him.

They heard His kindness to one of the thieves crucified with Him and toward His mother.

They experienced the three hours of eerie, thick darkness. They heard when He cried out “Eli, Eli, lama sabachtnani” and “It is finished.”

And when He slowly bowed His head and died and they experienced the powerful earthquake took place that split rocks and opened graves,

And verse 54 says that all the soldiers “feared greatly.” They could no longer ignore the fact that Christ was indeed the Son of God.

And thus, the centurion, as well as all the other soldiers began saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!” “Truly this was the Son of God!” And thus, another miracle of the cross was that those who started the day abusing Him finished the day praising Him.

The Father gave testimony to His Son in these miracles, and these soldiers who saw and experienced it firsthand were fully convinced and believed it.

God touched the sun, and darkness came over the earth. God touched the temple, and the veil was torn. God touched the earth, and it quaked and rocks split apart. God touched the graves, and the saints were raised. God touched the soldiers, and they gave a testimony to His Son.

God punctuated the Cross with miracles that showed that this was indeed the Son of God. And, as God’s Son, He was more than able to pay for all our sins, and it shows that He alone is the only Savior, the only way to God.

In the miracles of Calvary, we see the miracle of salvation that Christ accomplished for us out of His amazing love, grace, and mercy.

The following poem by F.W. Pitt reminds us of the significance of the Cross.

“The Maker of the Universe, As Man for man was made a curse; The claims of the Law which He had made, Unto the uttermost He paid.

“His holy fingers made the bough, Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow. The nails that pierced His hands were mined, In secret places He designed;

“He made the forests whence there sprung, The tree on which His body hung. He died upon a cross of wood, Yet made the hill on which it stood.

“The sky that darkened over His head, By Him above the earth that sky was spread; The sun that hid from Him its face, By His decree was poised in space;

“The spear that spilled His precious blood, Was tempered in the fires of God. The grave in which His form was laid, Was hewn in rock His hands had made;

“The throne on which He now appears, Was His from everlasting years; But a new glory crowns His brow, And one day every knee to Him shall bow.”