We're in Matthew chapter 27 and
verse 45. And we're speaking about the crucifixion
of the Lord. Now from the sixth hour, there
was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about
the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli,
lama sabachthani? which, 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 sponge, 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. 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. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. I'm with you now, I can hear
you. Good, good, good. I thought that we would use the
opportunity of the run-up to Good Friday and Easter Monday
to break off from our series in Luke and share a few thoughts
on these verses from Matthew concerning the Lord's crucifixion
and death. Not that we need a reason to
return to this, the most momentous event in the history of the world,
and certainly the most precious in the history of the Church. But it does us good to go back
and think about the cross and the death of the Saviour with
some frequency. So here we are. Matthew tells
us in this little passage that we've read together, Matthew
tells us that there was darkness over all the land for three hours
and that was from the 6th to the 9th, or we would say from
noon until three in the afternoon. So the time when you would expect
it to be brightest and perhaps even warmest, we find that the
sun was cut off. And whatever caused this phenomenon
to take place, it was a strange and awesome darkness. that appears
to some degree at least to have hidden Christ's suffering from
the prying eyes of those around. Now we know that our Saviour's
death was principally a transaction between Him and the Father. So the Saviour's death was principally
a transaction between Him, our Saviour, our Substitute, and
the Father. And sure it is that it was the
Romans who crucified Christ. And sure it is it was the Jews
that had rejected Him and delivered Him up to be crucified. But make no mistake, Christ was
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. And Christ's dying was the crucial
and necessary element in the eternal plan of salvation. And I feel that there's another
little lesson that we can draw from these hours of darkness. I feel that there's a very proper
solemnity and even we might say dignity maintained in the narrative
of the Lord's crucifixion by these three hours of darkness.
It was a time when God the Father and God the Son were interacting,
certainly, but There was no need for men to look on and relish what was happening
with Christ at that time. And this darkness shrouds the
minute-by-minute anguish of the Saviour from the eyes of merely
curious men. The sun's light was hid from
the world and Christ's suffering in these three hours was largely
hidden from the eyes of men. But what the Gospel writers do
tell us is that our Saviour spoke at the end of these hours. And he uttered one of the seven
sayings, likely this is the fourth saying of that set of seven. He uttered one of the seven sayings
recorded from the lips of the Lord while he was on the cross. those seven statements, three
of them are directed to God the Father, and four of them to those
that were present around the cross with him. But here in Matthew,
in these verses that we've looked at today, we learn that Christ
cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama, sabbath, thanai. So much was Christ sustained
in body and soul in order to fully, and we might
imagine consciously, to expiate and atone for the sins of his
people. But so much was Christ sustained
in body and soul that even after three hours of suffering, in
which he had endured silently great pain in body and soul,
his voice remained strong. And Matthew tells us here that
he cried, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And this is a very powerful statement,
it's a very significant statement, I'm sure. Obviously one of the
statements of the Lord while on the cross, while engaging
in this amazing, this wonderful, this
transcendent activity, transaction of atoning for the sins of his
people and redeeming his people out from under the curse of the
law. The statements that the Lord makes are all important. And there is perhaps no need
for us to try and rank them in any way, that would be foolish.
But this is a very significant statement. The words that are
used, they're a mix of Hebrew and Chaldean words, and they
direct us back to Psalm 22 in the Old Testament, in the book
of Psalms, the Psalms of David. And the psalmist there uses the
same words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, as he
anticipates the suffering of the Messiah And as he has, the
psalmist has revealed to him some of the spiritual implications
of Christ's suffering and death to propitiate God's wrath and
reconcile him to sinners. In uttering these words, the
Lord Jesus fulfilled this prophecy from Psalm 22. But as I often
say at times like these, we ought not to think that the Saviour
spoke these words in order to fulfil the Old Testament prophecy. Rather, The Old Testament writers
wrote as they did because these were the words that Christ would
use, because this is what Christ would say, and to indicate and
identify the true Messiah, leaving us in no doubt who they were
speaking of when they testified of him. And so today what I want us to
do is just pause in these words and consider what they mean and
to the extent that we're able also to establish what they don't
mean. What they don't mean, first of
all, is that when the Lord said, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? What they don't mean is that
there was any breach in the union of Christ's divine nature and
his human nature. There was no breach in the God-man,
if you like. The one who died on the cross
was both God and man. He was, he is, and he everlastingly
remains the God-man forever. Christ's death did not involve
the divine nature separating from the human nature. or the
divine nature, as it were, upholding the human nature only so long
as to bear all the sins of the elect before leaving Christ to
die in his human nature as an ordinary man. That's not what
happened at all. Paul tells us the fullness of
the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily. And Jesus was always and forever,
inseparably, God and man in one person. Nor did the Lord Jesus Christ
lose the love and favour of his father while he was on the cross. So again, this phrase, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me, should not be construed to
suggest that the Lord Jesus lost the love and favour, the love
and pleasure of his father while he was on the cross. It is true
that the father laid on him the iniquity of us all. It is true
that he who knew no sin became sin for us, and that God is of
purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Nevertheless, while God's wrath
against our sin was being propitiated as Christ died in our place,
The love of the Father for the Son never waned. The pleasure
of the Father never diminished. In fact, we are explicitly told
that Christ was obedient unto death. Now, we could say that
that means that he was obedient to death and that he died, or
it could equally mean that he was obedient to his father right
up to the point of his death. And so perfect obedience characterised
the Saviour's sacrifice and death, and the pleasure of the Lord
prospered in his hand. Jehovah God, in the everlasting
covenant, Father, Son and Spirit were always in agreement, always
of one heart, one mind and purpose, in perfect union for the redemption
of the elect. So having said what it doesn't
mean, Let us think about what it does mean. What is the Lord
saying when he cries out at the end of these three hours, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I think this, I think that
for a time on the cross, during these hours of darkness, the
Lord Jesus had lost his sense of God's favour. though not the
reality of it. Part of the pain of suffering
for sin is separation from God. And this separation, this abandonment,
will be experienced by all who persist and die in their sins. And it seems likely that this
separation and abandonment or the sense of it, the feeling
of it, is what the Lord Jesus Christ now encountered as he
was enduring the weight and the burden of sin for his people. He felt what our sins deserve
and was for a time, perhaps literally these three hours of darkness,
as one deprived of the light of the Father's presence and
the joy and the pleasure of the Lord Jehovah, whom he had enjoyed,
whose presence he had enjoyed the whole of his earthly life.
So who can tell what fearful terrors will everlastingly grip
and fill and hold the souls of men and women separated from
God in hell. And if this was the cry of the
God-man as he lost sight of the Father's presence, what will
it be like for those who go into eternity without a saviour? Nor should we imagine that Christ,
in asking this question, did not know why God had dealt with
him thus. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
ask this question, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In ignorance, he did not ask
that question because he did not know the answer, or indeed,
He did not ask that question to indicate that he felt that
he had suffered enough and that it should come to an end and
that the cup of suffering should now be withdrawn. The Lord Jesus
knew that he must drink that cup dry. He must drink it to
the dregs. And as soon as he had, it passed
from him. The Saviour of the elect knew
exactly why he was there on the cross and what he was accomplishing
by his suffering and his pain. And actually, he was pleased
He delighted in himself to be about this business of redemption
and he was doing his father's business as he always had done. He was the sacrificial lamb and
he knew it. He was the representative man
and he knew it. He was the sinner's substitute
and he was eager to do what must be done and to accomplish complete
deliverance and reconciliation for his beloved bride. There
was a price to be paid for our sin and our saviour and our surety
was willing, able and pleased to pay it for the love He holds
for us. The Saviour asked this question
of His Father, to show you and me what it cost Him to save us
and to show how real and thorough and genuine His suffering was
for our salvation. Anne Steele, the hymn writer,
she wrote these words. And did the holy and the just,
the sovereign of the skies, stoop down to wretchedness and dust
that guilty worms might rise? Yes, the Redeemer left his throne,
his radiant throne on high, surprising mercy, love unknown, to suffer,
bleed and die. He took the dying traitor's place
and suffered in his stead. For man, O miracle of grace,
for man the Saviour bled. Dear Lord, what heavenly wonders
dwell in thy atoning blood? By this are sinners snatched
from hell and rebels brought to God. What glad return can
I impart for favours so divine? O take my all, this worthless
heart, and make it wholly thine. In verse 50, in our passage,
we read this. Jesus, when he had cried again
with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. He had cried once,
Eli, Eli, Lamas, Abanthanai, which is to say, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Then he cried again with a loud
voice. This final cry, Also with a loud
voice showing that the Saviour was not completely exhausted
even with all that he had endured. It was a cry of victory and it
was a cry of reassurance. He declared in this cry, it is
finished. And he said, Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit. And he gave up the ghost. He
had finished the work he had been given to do and now rest
and glory awaited. In the coming hours the Saviour's
body would be taken from the cross and laid in a new sepulchre
hewn from the rock. But he would not remain there
long. And that is a story for another day. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us today. Amen.