“This Was The Son Of God”
“THIS WAS THE SON OF GOD”
MATTHEW 27:45-54
As you read these verses, ask God to grip you with an appreciation of your debt to Jesus.
Attempts (attested as early as the middle of the first century) to explain the midday darkness of 27:45 as due to a solar eclipse are put out of court by the fact that the Passover was celebrated at full moon.
The cry of dereliction from Psalm 22:1 is quoted in Aramaic (although a few texts replace sabachthani by the original Hebrew form). It is not for us to rush in with an answer to our Lord’s question, since he left it unanswered himself; but his use of this psalm established its recognition in the church as a principal Old Testament “testimony” of his passion and triumph (for the triumph cf. Hebrews 2:12). If Eli (“my God”) was pronounced like Eliya (a pronunciation for which some Qumran manuscripts provide evidence), the bystanders’ misunderstanding his utterance as a call for Elijah would be intelligible. It was popularly believed that Elijah, who had never died, could make himself available to help people in desperate trouble.
The vinegar (sour wine) may have been intended to alleviate his thirst or to enable him to speak more distinctly. The statement that he “yielded up (dismissed) his spirit” (27:50) suggests that he remained in control of events to the end.
The rending of the temple curtain (probably the curtain separating the inner shrine, the holy of holies, where the invisible presence of the God of Israel was enthroned, from the outer compartment) signifies that the hitherto hidden God is fully revealed in the death of Christ: its rending “from top to bottom” (27:51) indicates that this full revelation is God’s own act.
The statement of 27:51b-53 (made only by Matthew) is mysterious, and not only because of the time-lag between the first stirring of the Old Testament “saints” and their “coming out of the tombs after his resurrection” (they could not come out earlier because, as 1 Corinthians 15:20 affirms, Christ is “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”). There is a suggestion that the death of Christ caused a radical disturbance in the realm of the dead; his victorious supremacy is attested over the grave for “to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:9).
The centurion’s testimony (27:54) is impressive: Jesus’ death confirms his claim to be the Son of God.