Darkness!

In the beginning all was dark when the Spirit brooded upon the face of the deep. And God said, “Let there be light,” and light was. He is the God who causes the light to stand out from the darkness, for he is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Thus the state of things in the beginning is but a picture of our salvation. For man is darkness. He became darkness in Adam. Such is the depth of that darkness that the Light of the world shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not. There must be a miracle to bring light out of the darkness that man became in Adam. God must enter into the darkness, so that by the wonder of grace he brings light out of darkness.

But what shall we say about the darkness at the cross of Calvary?

There is the darkness of night, but it is punctuated by the twinkling stars and the soft shimmer of the moon. The eyes can become accustomed to even the deepest night, and the animals of the night carry on their activities as though it were day.

There is the darkness of the bedroom of the little child at night. The darkness terrifies him, and the little child has the sense that there is something foreboding about the darkness. But a little light drives away the fear, and the child sleeps soundly in the delicate glow of his nightlight.

There is the darkness of the deep and desolate caverns of the earth. That darkness is but a sign of the darkness at the cross.

There is the cold, silent darkness of the grave. That is but an entrance into the darkness at the cross.

But that darkness…

A form of that darkness came on the world once, when the day of Jehovah fell on Egypt. Then for three days and three nights, the darkness of the Lord terrified the Egyptians. God was in that darkness in his wrath and hot displeasure. Hell had come on Egypt. Hell is outer darkness, in which there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die, an eternal wasteland swept desolate with the winds of the wrath of God.

So hell came to Golgotha that Friday afternoon, and hell swallowed up the cross of Christ and the whole universe with it.

And from the darkness came the cry of the agonizing Christ, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

A terrifying darkness!

The Son of God was terrified of it.

What shall we say of these verses?

Often the words of Christ are used as but a dramatic interjection in a sermon by those who have not thought long on their meaning. But these words are so deep, as deep as the darkness about which they speak. They contain so much that they hardly can be used as a mere interjection. They must be meditated upon by those who were saved in that darkness of Calvary.

The mystery of the cross of the Son of God is contained in these verses. The depth of his agony, the reality of the cross, the power of God’s anger, the perfection of his justice, the spotlessness of his holiness, the wickedness of man’s sins, and the wonder of God’s grace—all are contained in these short sentences. So Matthew records that from the sixth to the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.

That darkness ultimately expressed the meaning of Christ’s whole life. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary for the purpose of entering that darkness. The world entered into darkness in Adam. Yet as it is true of creation, so it is true of our salvation: the darkness is deepest before the coming of the dawn. At the cross the night was far spent and the day was at hand and the darkness of the world entered its deepest point. To enter into that darkness, he who is the light of life and of the world came in the likeness of our sinful flesh. From the moment of his incarnation, he lived in the shadow of that darkness. All his life he walked with steady and unfailing purpose to endure that darkness. He would enter into that darkness to bring a new day, a new age, a new creation, upon the world.

But especially at the end of his life, the darkness overshadowed him. All the events at the end of his life led up to those few hours. He ate the last supper with that darkness looming before him. From the garden onward he entered into the agony of the cross and that darkness. In the garden the weight of that darkness pressed out of him a bloody sweat as the Son of God staggered under its weight. And as he looked into the cup that he had to drink, he saw that darkness swirling, and he was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, and descended into the darkness!

From the sixth to the ninth hour, a terrible darkness passed over the earth, and the Son of God hung in his suffering from the wooden beam.

Abruptly and without warning, the darkness came. As abruptly as the text begins, so abruptly the darkness of Golgotha came.

The hours of the cross were sharply divided by the darkness. There were two parts to the suffering of the cross: before the darkness and after the darkness.

Even from the perspective of Christ himself, there were two halves to his suffering on the cross. In the first part he was busy. He was concerned with those around him. He prayed that his Father would forgive those of his own who crucified him. He lovingly committed his mother to his disciple and charged his disciple to care for his mother. He comforted one of his own who was facing the fact of death with the promise that he would be with Christ in paradise.

From the perspective of his tormentors before the darkness, the cross seemed to be very much the work of man and the triumph of man. The cross seemed to be the tragic end of the ministry of Jesus Christ. It appeared as though it was the hour of the powers of darkness when they had their victory over the Christ. The chief priests and elders had worked their evil work. And with the help of the people, they had compelled Pilate to crucify Christ and to release to them the murderer Barabbas. The soldiers as well had had their fun with Jesus with their worn, purple robe of mockery; their flimsy, reed scepter of ridicule; and their painful, thorny crown that bloodied Jesus’ skull. The soldiers had beaten, whipped, and ridiculed him as expressions of their contempt of that delusional Jew. And to the place of the skull, they had led him to be crucified in the midst of thieves and malefactors. The soldiers took Christ’s clothes and divided them among themselves. They cast lots for his coveted vesture and stared at him as they gambled.

And as he hung, those who passed by reviled the dying Christ. There the human race was at its most disinterested and evil, merely passing by the most important scene in history to hurry on to finish the carnal business of the day. The cross was none of their business. But even in their disinterest, they could not help but stop and revile the dying Christ, blaspheme him, or hurl some gratuitous abuse to add to his suffering.

And likewise did the chief priests, mocking with the scribes and the elders and the leaders of the people. The church of Jesus’ day hated him and had no use for him. The leaders of the church rejected the crucified Christ. He did not serve their carnal interests and opposed their carnal theology, and besides, they envied him. Even the thieves who were crucified with Jesus and were about to die in the clutches of a horrible condemnation—but justly for their crimes—cast the same wicked blasphemies in his teeth.

Very evident at the cross was the wickedness of men, of the human race, and of the nations. Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Gentiles, the Jews, and the leaders of the people all were represented there, and they all were gathered against the Lord and against his holy child, Jesus. And what became clear at the cross was that he had no place among men. He was despised and rejected of men. There was no place for him in the church, and there was no place for him in the world. And it seemed to all—both church and world—that there was no place for him in heaven, for he hung on a cross. Thus they challenged him that if he was the Son of God, he should come down from the cross.

And with that first half of the cross—from the third hour to the sixth hour—the cross seemed to be very much the work of men and the powers of darkness.

Then the darkness came.

From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

That was no natural darkness!

It was no solar eclipse. The darkness was no gradual dimming of the sun, by which an eclipse is universally recognized. For the darkness came suddenly. At the sixth hour there was darkness. And at the ninth hour, as suddenly as the darkness came, it lifted. That darkness of the cross was no eclipse of the sun, for even then there is some light.

That was darkness.

All darkness.

That darkness was no localized darkness either. It was not dark merely at the place of the skull. It was not dark merely in Judea. It was not dark merely in Palestine or over the Roman world.

For Matthew tells us that it was dark over all the land, and the Greek word for land in the text means earth. At the sixth hour and until the ninth hour, the sphere of the earth was plunged into outer darkness. The whole world was enveloped in darkness.

Universal darkness.

It was a thick, formidable, palpable darkness, darkness with a terrifying heaviness to it, darkness of calamity and of impending doom. It was a darkness with which the darkness of the grave cannot be compared. It was the darkness of hell, yet deeper and darker than hell.

A terrifying sign!

A sign of what?

Of that darkness all the law, the prophets, and the psalms had spoken.

That darkness had appeared once before in Egypt on the day of Jehovah’s visitation in judgment upon that land of the devil. For three days Jehovah had been present in his terrifying darkness. No one so much as moved.

The psalmist speaks that when Jehovah appears for judgment, then “clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne” (Ps. 97:2).

Amos said to apostate Israel, “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?” (Amos 5:18, 20).

Joel warned Judah, “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness” (Joel 2:1–2).

When the darkness comes, God himself has entered the scene as judge. He whose hand was operating through all those wicked men and in the blaspheming crowds and who was hidden behind the instrumentation of men came personally in the darkness at the cross.

When God comes in darkness, with his coming the day of Jehovah has come, a day of judgment. Isaiah saw that day and spoke of it:

9. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

10. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

11. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

12. I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

13. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. (Isa. 13:9–13)

The judge came to visit the iniquities of Israel. Jehovah came to judge the world in righteousness. He would destroy sinners out of the earth. On the fifteenth of Nisan, from the sixth to the ninth hour, in the year of our Lord thirty-three, at the hill of the skull, at the cross in the center of three, the day of Jehovah happened, and Jehovah visited the iniquities of his people.

That darkness was the word of God. It was not a mere sign of what would happen, of what will happen, but it was a sign of what was happening then and there. It was the very presence of God himself! God was in the darkness. God came to judge his people in righteousness.

In his agonizing cry out of the outer darkness, the Son of God himself gave expression to the meaning of that darkness and to what was happening in that darkness. He shouted out to God with a loud voice for all to hear, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

To be forsaken of God?

What does that mean?

What was the terror and agony in that statement of the forsaken Christ?

How did God in heaven forsake God in the flesh at the cross?

Who made that cry?

God in the flesh made that cry. He is personally the Word, the Son, Light of Light, and God of God. In his divine person he is united with the flesh of the virgin Mary. In his person there is the most intimate union between God and man that cannot be broken. He is both very God and very man. As a man, he is the obedient servant of Jehovah. He is the one faithful man. He is the delight of God. Eternally he is in God’s bosom as the Son. As the Son of man, he is the one whom God loved and in whom God determined to glorify himself. He is the one in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. On earth he was God’s singular joy and pleasure, so that God spoke from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him!”

Listen then as he cries out from the darkness!

Why so publicly does he issue his agonizing cry?

Does he not know the answer?

Is he not the willing mediator?

Had he not come to the cross knowing that he would meet his judge?

Christ asked the question not because he did not know, but that we might consider the darkness of Golgotha.

That Christ was forsaken of God is the meaning of the darkness. The Lord himself, hanging on the cross, gave public expression to the darkness when no eye could see. He revealed to us in that cry the terror of the darkness.

He was abandoned, left utterly destitute, and brought down into complete desolation. He was rejected of men. That would be tolerable if Jehovah would take him, if he could say like the psalmist that though father and mother forsake, Jehovah will take me up. But Christ found no acceptance from heaven. The reality of the darkness of the cross Christ gave expression to in the psalms:

4. I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

5. Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

6. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

7. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves.

15. I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.

16. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. (Ps. 88:4–7, 15–16)

Sabachthani!

Thou hast forsaken me!

Oh, do not think that to be forsaken of God means that God leaves you in the strict sense of the word. Do not suppose that he is not near and does not surround the forsaken one with the whole of his divine being. That is an utter impossibility. The fool may will it so. The sinner wants it so. But God is present. He is present to all. God is God. He is present in all the instant and constant fullness of his divine being at every point of the universe and to every creature of the universe. He is present also to every person. Even the damned of hell cannot have their longed-for separation from God. He upholds everyone in their existence even there. Hell would have no terror, it would not be the place of eternal fire, and it would not be filled with the sounds of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth were it not for the presence of the eternal God.

The issue is not whether God is present. But the question for the forsaken one is, how is God present? He is present either in his grace, favor, and covenant fellowship, or he is present in the darkness of his fierce anger, avenging wrath, and destroying holiness.

When Jesus cried out that he was forsaken, we must not suppose that the meaning is that God was not present at the cross. It is impossible to escape him. God was present at Golgotha. The darkness was his. It was his presence that gave the darkness its terror because by means of that darkness God spoke. The darkness was the expression of a verdict, and the verdict was that Jesus was guilty. The darkness was the expression of the sentence, and the sentence was that Jesus must go to hell. God was present in his holiness and righteousness, which avenged his majesty that was offended by our sin.

Christ on the cross descended into hell.

On the cross he experienced the wrath of hell, the utter abandonment and yet terrible presence of the righteous God.

Yet more than that…

There was no descent into the darkness of hell like his! Not one was forsaken as he was. The wicked are forsaken. They experience the terrible presence of God. But they deserve it, and they receive it as the eternal objects of his hatred for their own personal sins. God never loved them.

Yet with Jesus, God was never displeased personally. Jesus had no personal sin. God was well pleased with his Son. He was the eternal object of God’s good pleasure. And then in the three terrible hours of darkness, Christ was forsaken. In that he experienced not only one hell, but also the innumerable hells and eternities in hell that all the sins of all his people deserved. He did not experience being forsaken by his enemy but by his Father and friend. There God spared not his own Son but made him responsible for the sins of his people and punished him for their wickedness.

Silent was Christ through all the darkness. That darkness penetrated to his very heart and soul. In that darkness God was speaking loudly to Jesus Christ: “For the sins, for the guilt, for the iniquity of all your people…” The darkness was the very means along with the cross to work in him the word of God’s curse.

Only at the end does Christ speak: “Why has thou forsaken me?”

My God! My God!

Yes, his God and the God of his people had forsaken him.

The gospel of these two words is clear. At the moment of his deepest desolation, out of the blackness he gives expression to the reason that he had to be forsaken in the darkness.

That darkness God willed eternally in love for his people. To suffer that darkness, Christ came as the mediator of God’s covenant in perfect love for God and for his brethren whom God had given to him.

Christ came because God had made an eternal promise to his elect people never to leave them nor forsake them. Christ came because God would not impute their sins to them and hold them responsible for their sins, but he imputed their sins to his Son and made him responsible for those sins. He came because the love of God determined that he would be their God and they should be his people. This people were guilty of forsaking him. They forsook him in Adam, and they forsake him all their lives by all their sins. They are guilty! Christ is responsible!

In that forsaking presence of God, Christ made the perfect sacrifice of obedience. He loved God in the darkness as God forsook him and poured out his wrath upon him. God was his God all through the darkness. Christ was forsaken so that he and his people might be received everlastingly because of God’s everlasting mercy, the steadfast covenant love of God, in faithfulness to his promise that the sons of Jacob are not consumed.

What explains that darkness and that agonizing cry from the utter darkness is the mercy of God!

His everlasting, electing love for his Jacob.

Because of which he spared not his own Son but delivered him over to the darkness.

Until the ninth hour!

There was an end!

There was an end to the infinite wrath of God at the cross. The infinite was compressed into a few short hours, a wonder like Christ’s incarnation when all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in him.

The power of that little word until! Darkness until!

From the sixth to the ninth hour.

The servant of Jehovah had his answer from heaven in the return of the light. In him the wrath of God came to an end. The mystery of the cross: the infinite wrath of God came to an end. God was satisfied. Sin was covered. His church was justified and reconciled. Salvation was accomplished. Heaven was opened, and a new and living way to God was consecrated.

And ultimately the answer to Christ’s question came with the rising of the morning sun and the resurrection of the Lord of glory for our justification. Out of the darkness he brought to light life and immortality.

And you were either forsaken with him, or you will be forsaken without him.

All who are in him by faith shall never be forsaken. In that darkness the salvation of God’s people was accomplished, and the promise of the covenant was realized and established. From heaven Christ causes the light of the knowledge of God to shine in our hearts through the gospel of his cross and resurrection. He calls us out of darkness into his marvelous light. In his light we see light!

And he comforts us! Because God forsook his Son for us and in our place, he will never leave us nor forsake us even in the darkest moments as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. All who believe on him may be assured, absolutely assured, that he is with them in their greatest trials and temptations and that in those God works their eternal salvation. Thanks be to God that he is with us and that he is for us.

And when the sun is darkened one more time and thick darkness comes again over all the land, when the day of Jehovah descends on the earth with the coming of the Son of man, when the judge once more takes his place on his great white throne in the person of Jesus Christ, then you were either judged with him at Golgotha, or you will be judged without him there before his throne.

All those and only those who are in him by faith will be safe in that day of Jehovah. All who are outside him will be doomed to that darkness, where there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth and the terrifying presence of the holy God—eternally. All who are in him will enter into the city of light, whose doors never shut and where darkness never comes and where there is no need for the sun and moon, for the Son of God himself is the light of it.