Click here for the Luke 23:44-46 PODCAST
44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. ~ Luke 23:44-46
The Lord Jesus was crucified at 9:00am on the Friday of Passover week. For the first three hours, the scene was dominated by the lesser characters in the story. At noon all of this changed. The most significant event in the history of this world took place when God split into time and paid the penalty for the sin of mankind.
In v.44 we read, "It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon." The Jewish day began at approximately 6:00 a.m. Since they didn’t have clocks or watches, they didn’t tell time in hours and minutes and seconds, the hour varied in length at different seasons of the year, but the sixth hour was always when the sun was at its highest point in the sky.
At the beginning of v.45 we read, "for the sun stopped shining." Those three hours of darkness was not an eclipse, because that would have been impossible during the Passover season when there is a full moon. It was a God-sent darkness that shrouded the cross as the Son of God was made sin for all who would ever chose to believe that His death on the cross paid the debt for the sinfulness of mankind. It was reminiscent of when Israel was in Egypt, three days of darkness preceded the first Passover. When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, three hours of darkness preceded His death.
Both Matthew 27:45–46 and Mark 15:33–34 record the Lord Jesus' cry at the close of the darkness. This was a quotation from Psalm 22:1, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The second law of thermodynamics in a relational sense came upon the humanity of Christ in that moment. He was left in isolation, separated from His Father and all that is substantive and good as He who had never sinned took sin squarely on.
According to John 19:30, the Lord Jesus cried with a loud voice, “It is finished!” This was the sixth of His seven sayings while on the cross and it was a declaration of victory. He had finished the work the Father gave Him to do. His work of redeeming mankind from the stronghold of sin was complete. The types and prophecies of the Old Testament were all sustained and fulfilled.
Then, according to v.46, "Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last."
Of the seven statements of the Lord Jesus while on the cross, two of them were heartfelt prayers. In each of them, he addressed God as Father. His words from the cross began and ended with a prayer to the Father. He started by praying to the Father for the sake of those who were killing Him. He ended by praying to the Father in a radical statement of trust.
When the Lord Jesus breathed His last, the veil of the temple, according to Mark 15:38, was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The tearing of the veil announced the way into God’s presence was and is open for all who would come to God by faith through the Lord Jesus Christ. No more do sinners need earthly temples, altars, sacrifices, or priests, for all of God's requirements have now been fulfilled in the finished work of the Son of God.
The ninth plague of Egypt was a plague of darkness for three days on the land. According to the Jewish Talmud darkness is a judgment reserved by God for human wickedness. This darkness was pregnant with meaning: it was a darkness of secrecy, wickedness, and judgment. The veil was sixty feet tall, thirty feet wide, and the thickness of a man's palm. Another gospel tells us it was ripped in two from top to bottom, not from bottom to top. No man could have tore such a veil.
The saddest part of it all is that many will spend FOREVER in hell. They will do so because they have refused God's free gift of salvation through His Son who in just three hours, paid in full all the sins of everyone who have and will have existed on this earth. In just three hours an infinite amount of wrath was absorbed by the only infinite man.
