Introduction:
It is a strange thing, from every human point of view, that the boast of Christianity looks to a cross.
ESV Galatians 6:14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
The cross represents the very point at which the believer is now dead to world system out of which he has been saved.
ESV 1 Corinthians 2:2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
ESV 1 Corinthians 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Paul GLORIES in the cross.
Christianity GLORIES in the cross.
WHAT A STRANGE THING THAT A CROSS SHOULD BE THOUGHT GLORIOUS!
The cross is a symbol of judgment.
It is, by Scripture, identified with God’s curse.
ESV Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"--
ESV Deuteronomy 21:22 "And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.
It is, by any human estimation, a mark of shame.
It was a shameful, horrific, way to die. A cross was not a place where power or strength is displayed; it was a place of public humiliation — the one who was hung there was a public spectacle of rejection, helplessness, and weakness.
And yet, believers BOAST IN THE CROSS OF CHRIST.
Far from being ashamed of His cross, we glory in it.
Our salvation is traced there.
Our Savior rescued us there.
There was a substitutionary, atoning, sacrifice that was offered there.
The wisdom of God is displayed there.
God’s wrath and mercy met there.
And though our Savior was stripped bare and was humiliated, His majesty and His mercy were clearly on display at the cross.
EVEN MORE, GOD’S TESTIMONY TO HIS SON IS ON DISPLAY AT THE CROSS.
We saw, last Lord’s Day, that our God testified to His Son in a powerful, yet “quiet” way, as the Word of God was fulfilled, in Christ’s execution, through God’s providence.
God was doing something extraordinary, through ordinary means, and Scripture was being fulfilled.
But what we read in our verses this morning is different.
God now testifies to His Son in ways that were anything but normal.
He testified to His Son in miraculous ways that arrested the senses, that left even the most blinded, the most hardened, aware that something unusual was taking place.
Events were taking place that should have called forth immediate repentance.
GOD WORKED IN A WAY THAT PAGANS WERE SEIZED WITH FEAR.
Beginning this morning, we see FIVE WAYS THAT GOD TESTIFIED to Christ’s saving work at the cross. We see five ways that the Father was bearing testimony to His Son, while His Son was dying to save us from God’s wrath and to secure us as God’s people.
I. A SUPERNATURAL TESTIMONY OF JUDGMENT (vs.45-49) — Darkness
As we said last time, God’s work through providence is no less a demonstration of His sovereignty, and wisdom, and power, than miracles. But that doesn’t mean that God’s work through providence can’t be distinguished from the miraculous.
What Matthew describes in verse 45 is clearly supernatural — it is not able to be explained by anything ordinary.
Let me say a few things about this darkness.
First, the Bible makes no attempt to explain how it happened.
Luke simply says that the sun’s light “failed.”
ESV Luke 23:44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
Second, the darkness cannot be explained by a normal solar eclipse. The position of the moon at Passover doesn’t allow for it. In addition, it wasn’t darkness for 7 minutes, or 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, or even an hour, it was darkness for 3 hours.
The sixth hour is noon as the Jews accounted time.
The ninth hour is three in the afternoon.
From noon until three there was darkness over all the land. Indeed, the word γῆ can be translated earth.
Was this local to the land of Israel, or was it worldwide? The Bible doesn’t say, but regardless, it is a testimony to all mankind.
There are reports from sources outside Scripture that seem to refer to the darkness that occurred at this time.
Tertullian (writing approximately AD 197) — “But the Jews were so exasperated by His teaching, by which their rulers and chiefs were convicted of the truth, chiefly because so many turned aside to Him, that at last they brought Him before Pontius Pilate, at that time Roman governor of Syria; and, by the violence of their outcries against Him, extorted a sentence giving Him up to them to be crucified. He Himself had predicted this; which, however, would have signified little had not the prophets of old done it as well. And yet, nailed upon the cross, He exhibited many notable signs, by which His death was distinguished from all others. At His own free-will, He with a word dismissed from Him His spirit, anticipating the executioner’s work. In the same hour, too, the light of day was withdrawn, when the sun at the very time was in his meridian blaze. Those who were not aware that this had been predicted about Christ, no doubt thought it an eclipse. You yourselves have the account of the world-portent still in your archives.”[1]
So, Tertullian (a believer), in his “apology” — making his case for Christ — argues that that Romans have this time of darkness mentioned in their archives.
Paul Maier — “Phlegon, a Greek author from Caria writing a chronology soon after 137 a.d., reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (i.e., 33 a.d.) there was “the greatest eclipse of the sun,” and that “it became night in the sixth hour of the day [i.e., noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea.”[2]
NOTE AGAIN THAT GOD’S WORD SAYS THAT IT WAS DARK FOR THREE HOURS.
I read recently that the longest total solar eclipse on record was 7 minutes and 28 seconds on June 15, 743 B.C. according to calculations by NASA. I also read that the longest possible eclipse, according to mathematics, is just a few seconds over that number.[3]
ADD TO THAT, THE FACT OF EVERYTHING ELSE THAT OCCURRED AT THE SAME TIME (the earthquake etc.), TELLS US THAT THIS WAS GOD COMMUNICATING A MESSAGE THROUGH THE CREATION THAT HE CONTROLS.
[1] Tertullian, “The Apology,” in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 35.
[2] Paul L. Maier, Pontius Pilate: A Novel, Second edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2014), 377.
[3] https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/whats-the-longest-solar-eclipse-in-history-and-how-does-the-april-2024-total-eclipse-compare