And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
About midday a supernatural darkness with no natural cause settled over the land and all the earth for three hours until midafternoon, as complete as midnight without moon or stars with the sun's bright rays blotted out. Inanimate nature thus expressed sympathy with its suffering Creator, with the darkened sun refusing to look on the scene while holy angels veiled their faces from the sight. In that thick darkness God the Father with holy angels was beside the cross, yet He made darkness His pavilion and concealed His glory lest beholders be destroyed, so Christ trod the winepress alone without comfort from the Father's presence. The gloom was the emblem of His soul-agony in bearing the world's sin, marking the hour when the Father's sustaining presence and approving smile were withdrawn and He felt forsaken under the weight of sin's penalty. The darkened sun, heaving earth and rent rocks hushed mocking into grave-like terror, causing the throng to grope back to the city smiting their breasts as convinced an innocent person, even the Son of God, was dying.
Setting and Darkened Hours
This belongs to what happened after condemnation, when Jesus was led from Pilate's judgment hall to Calvary to be crucified, after news of His condemnation spread through Jerusalem and a vast multitude followed Him. The cross prepared for Barabbas was laid upon His bruised and bleeding shoulders when He was weak from taking neither food nor drink since the Passover supper, from Gethsemane, betrayal, desertion by the disciples, trials before Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod, insult, mockery and twice being scourged, until human nature could bear no more and He fell fainting beneath the burden. It belongs to the account of Jesus brought to Calvary and crucified outside the boundaries of Jerusalem where felons and murderers were executed. There He suffered as substitute without the gate to sanctify the people with His own blood and to redeem them from the curse of the law by being made a curse for the transgression that banished Adam and Eve from Eden.
It belongs also to the taking away of the Bridegroom from the disciples. They saw Him in whom their hopes of eternal life were centered in the hands of wicked men, with His own nation clamoring for His blood, mocked by Herod and his soldiers with a crown of thorns for His brow, clad in the purple robe, bowed before and struck with the reed placed in His hand, scourged as the worst of criminals while the murderous Barabbas was chosen in place of their beloved Teacher, and lifted up on the cross dying as a malefactor instead of taking His place on David's throne. That hour gave them cause to mourn and fast, tried their faith, and made their hope and courage fail.
The darkness covered the cross and its surroundings, the land and all the earth at midday, from about the sixth hour until the ninth hour, lasting three hours until midafternoon. It had no eclipse or other natural cause but was supernatural and miraculous, given as a testimony that the faith of after-generations might be confirmed. It was complete like a funeral pall and like midnight without moon or stars, even blackest midnight, with the sun's full bright rays suddenly blotted out.
The darkness lifted from the people at the ninth hour but still surrounded Jesus. When the sun shone again darkness still enveloped the cross as a dense cloud over Jerusalem and the plains of Judah and Judea. Light then encircled the cross and His face shone with glory like the sun as He cried in clear trumpet tones seeming to resound through creation and bowed His head and died, leaving spectators paralyzed and gazing with bated breath, after which darkness settled again over the earth. The darkness was accompanied by violent shaking and heaving of the earth, with rumbling like heavy thunder, rocks splitting asunder in the mountains and falling and tumbling to the plains, tombs breaking open and casting out the dead, the temple veil tearing, and lightning flashes revealing the cross and the crucified Redeemer.
Meaning of the Darkness
Inanimate nature expressed sympathy with its insulted, suffering, bleeding and dying Author and Creator, feeling the awful gloom and groaning while the darkened and veiled sun refused to look on the scene. The shaking earth and rent rocks joined that testimony that the Son of God was dying. Holy angels veiled and hid their faces from the sight, and the angelic host witnessing His death were hidden while the sun was veiled to conceal His final agonies as He struggled for victory over a rebellious world. In the thick darkness God's presence was hidden, for He makes darkness His pavilion and conceals His glory from human eyes. God the Father with holy angels was beside the cross, yet His presence was not revealed lest every beholder be destroyed, so Christ received no comfort from the Father's presence but trod the winepress alone, while God mercifully veiled His Son's last human agony from the jeering multitude that had gazed through long hours.
The darkness was an emblem of the soul-agony and horror surrounding Christ as He bore sin, symbolizing the agony weighing on His heart and the deeper gloom of His suffering soul. The darkness marked the hour when He felt the Father's displeasure toward sin and the withdrawal of the Father's sustaining presence and approving smile under the terrible weight of the world's sin. It accompanied His cry that God had forsaken Him and His cry that His work was finished, with the tearing of the veil and the shaking of the earth and splitting of rocks. For Christ the gloom meant the assurance of approbation and acceptance was removed, leaving no clear bright rays of hope on right or left and no confidence in the triumph soon to be His.
So He had by faith alone to trust Him whom it had been His joy to obey, relying on past evidences that the Father accepted His labors and acquainted with His justice, mercy and great love. In that gloom He drained the mysterious cup to its dregs before commending His spirit to His Father and crying it is finished. His death came not from bodily suffering alone but from bearing sin and its penalty, whose penalty is death. Despair and temptation to believe the Father had forever left Him pressed upon Him, and He felt the woe of a soul cut off from God and feared death might forever shut Him from His Father's face, yet even in that gloom by faith He rested in God and yielded Himself to Him.
The withdrawal of light from Jerusalem and the dense cloud settling over the city and the plains of Judah and Judea with fierce lightnings directed against it marked God's wrath against the doomed city and the withdrawal of the Sun of righteousness's light.
Terror and Belief
The darkened sun, the heaving earth and the rent rocks proclaimed that the Son of God was dying. That testimony from nature filled executioners, soldiers, priests, rulers and spectators with terror. The mocking and jeering of the chief priests and elders was hushed, His enemies were troubled, and His murderers trembled. The astonished throng groped their way through the darkness back to the city, smiting their breasts and whispering that an innocent person had been murdered and that He might indeed be the Son of God as He had asserted.
The midday darkness brought a grave-like silence and a nameless terror upon the crowd. Cursing and reviling stopped in the midst of half-uttered sentences, and men, women and children fell prostrate on the earth. Vivid lightnings flashing at times from the cloud revealed the cross and the crucified Redeemer, so that priests, rulers, scribes, executioners and the mob all thought their time of retribution had come. After a while some whispered that Jesus would now come down from the cross, while others tried to grope their way back to the city beating their breasts and wailing in fear.
The mysterious darkness enshrouded the earth and passed away at the very moment Jesus died. He died then, earlier than was usual, since crucified men frequently lingered for days upon the cross. Conflicting reports of these strange events had reached Pilate, from whom the knowledge that Jesus was really dead had been purposely kept. When he learned that the death coincided with the lifting of the darkness he was surprised that Jesus had died so soon, was strangely agitated, more firmly believed Jesus was no ordinary man, and most keenly regretted the part he had taken in condemning Him.
The hidden sun and darkness, with the shaking earth, the splitting rocks and the tearing of the temple veil, came in an awful hour. Those signs brought Nicodemus to remember the teaching that the Son of man must be lifted up. They helped turn his doubt into faith in the crucified Saviour.
About midday a supernatural darkness with no natural cause settled over the land and all the earth for three hours until midafternoon, as complete as midnight without moon or stars with the sun's bright rays blotted out.
Inanimate nature thus expressed sympathy with its suffering Creator, with the darkened sun refusing to look on the scene while holy angels veiled their faces from the sight.
In that thick darkness God the Father with holy angels was beside the cross, yet He made darkness His pavilion and concealed His glory lest beholders be destroyed, so Christ trod the winepress alone without comfort from the Father's presence.
The gloom was the emblem of His soul-agony in bearing the world's sin, marking the hour when the Father's sustaining presence and approving smile were withdrawn and He felt forsaken under the weight of sin's penalty.
The darkened sun, heaving earth and rent rocks hushed mocking into grave-like terror, causing the throng to grope back to the city smiting their breasts as convinced an innocent person, even the Son of God, was dying.
Setting and Darkened Hours
This belongs to what happened after condemnation, when Jesus was led from Pilate's judgment hall to Calvary to be crucified, after news of His condemnation spread through Jerusalem and a vast multitude followed Him. The cross prepared for Barabbas was laid upon His bruised and bleeding shoulders when He was weak from taking neither food nor drink since the Passover supper, from Gethsemane, betrayal, desertion by the disciples, trials before Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod, insult, mockery and twice being scourged, until human nature could bear no more and He fell fainting beneath the burden. It belongs to the account of Jesus brought to Calvary and crucified outside the boundaries of Jerusalem where felons and murderers were executed. There He suffered as substitute without the gate to sanctify the people with His own blood and to redeem them from the curse of the law by being made a curse for the transgression that banished Adam and Eve from Eden.
It belongs also to the taking away of the Bridegroom from the disciples. They saw Him in whom their hopes of eternal life were centered in the hands of wicked men, with His own nation clamoring for His blood, mocked by Herod and his soldiers with a crown of thorns for His brow, clad in the purple robe, bowed before and struck with the reed placed in His hand, scourged as the worst of criminals while the murderous Barabbas was chosen in place of their beloved Teacher, and lifted up on the cross dying as a malefactor instead of taking His place on David's throne. That hour gave them cause to mourn and fast, tried their faith, and made their hope and courage fail.
The darkness covered the cross and its surroundings, the land and all the earth at midday, from about the sixth hour until the ninth hour, lasting three hours until midafternoon. It had no eclipse or other natural cause but was supernatural and miraculous, given as a testimony that the faith of after-generations might be confirmed. It was complete like a funeral pall and like midnight without moon or stars, even blackest midnight, with the sun's full bright rays suddenly blotted out.
The darkness lifted from the people at the ninth hour but still surrounded Jesus. When the sun shone again darkness still enveloped the cross as a dense cloud over Jerusalem and the plains of Judah and Judea. Light then encircled the cross and His face shone with glory like the sun as He cried in clear trumpet tones seeming to resound through creation and bowed His head and died, leaving spectators paralyzed and gazing with bated breath, after which darkness settled again over the earth. The darkness was accompanied by violent shaking and heaving of the earth, with rumbling like heavy thunder, rocks splitting asunder in the mountains and falling and tumbling to the plains, tombs breaking open and casting out the dead, the temple veil tearing, and lightning flashes revealing the cross and the crucified Redeemer.
Meaning of the Darkness
Inanimate nature expressed sympathy with its insulted, suffering, bleeding and dying Author and Creator, feeling the awful gloom and groaning while the darkened and veiled sun refused to look on the scene. The shaking earth and rent rocks joined that testimony that the Son of God was dying. Holy angels veiled and hid their faces from the sight, and the angelic host witnessing His death were hidden while the sun was veiled to conceal His final agonies as He struggled for victory over a rebellious world. In the thick darkness God's presence was hidden, for He makes darkness His pavilion and conceals His glory from human eyes. God the Father with holy angels was beside the cross, yet His presence was not revealed lest every beholder be destroyed, so Christ received no comfort from the Father's presence but trod the winepress alone, while God mercifully veiled His Son's last human agony from the jeering multitude that had gazed through long hours.
The darkness was an emblem of the soul-agony and horror surrounding Christ as He bore sin, symbolizing the agony weighing on His heart and the deeper gloom of His suffering soul. The darkness marked the hour when He felt the Father's displeasure toward sin and the withdrawal of the Father's sustaining presence and approving smile under the terrible weight of the world's sin. It accompanied His cry that God had forsaken Him and His cry that His work was finished, with the tearing of the veil and the shaking of the earth and splitting of rocks. For Christ the gloom meant the assurance of approbation and acceptance was removed, leaving no clear bright rays of hope on right or left and no confidence in the triumph soon to be His.
So He had by faith alone to trust Him whom it had been His joy to obey, relying on past evidences that the Father accepted His labors and acquainted with His justice, mercy and great love. In that gloom He drained the mysterious cup to its dregs before commending His spirit to His Father and crying it is finished. His death came not from bodily suffering alone but from bearing sin and its penalty, whose penalty is death. Despair and temptation to believe the Father had forever left Him pressed upon Him, and He felt the woe of a soul cut off from God and feared death might forever shut Him from His Father's face, yet even in that gloom by faith He rested in God and yielded Himself to Him.
The withdrawal of light from Jerusalem and the dense cloud settling over the city and the plains of Judah and Judea with fierce lightnings directed against it marked God's wrath against the doomed city and the withdrawal of the Sun of righteousness's light.
Terror and Belief
The darkened sun, the heaving earth and the rent rocks proclaimed that the Son of God was dying. That testimony from nature filled executioners, soldiers, priests, rulers and spectators with terror. The mocking and jeering of the chief priests and elders was hushed, His enemies were troubled, and His murderers trembled. The astonished throng groped their way through the darkness back to the city, smiting their breasts and whispering that an innocent person had been murdered and that He might indeed be the Son of God as He had asserted.
The midday darkness brought a grave-like silence and a nameless terror upon the crowd. Cursing and reviling stopped in the midst of half-uttered sentences, and men, women and children fell prostrate on the earth. Vivid lightnings flashing at times from the cloud revealed the cross and the crucified Redeemer, so that priests, rulers, scribes, executioners and the mob all thought their time of retribution had come. After a while some whispered that Jesus would now come down from the cross, while others tried to grope their way back to the city beating their breasts and wailing in fear.
The mysterious darkness enshrouded the earth and passed away at the very moment Jesus died. He died then, earlier than was usual, since crucified men frequently lingered for days upon the cross. Conflicting reports of these strange events had reached Pilate, from whom the knowledge that Jesus was really dead had been purposely kept. When he learned that the death coincided with the lifting of the darkness he was surprised that Jesus had died so soon, was strangely agitated, more firmly believed Jesus was no ordinary man, and most keenly regretted the part he had taken in condemning Him.
The hidden sun and darkness, with the shaking earth, the splitting rocks and the tearing of the temple veil, came in an awful hour. Those signs brought Nicodemus to remember the teaching that the Son of man must be lifted up. They helped turn his doubt into faith in the crucified Saviour.