Matthew 27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God… Keble tenderly sings - "Is it not strange, the darkest hour That ever dawned on sinful earth Should touch the heart with softer power For comfort, than an angel's mirth? That to the cross the mourner's eye should turn, Sooner than where the stars of Christmas burn?" The conflict of Calvary reaches its climax in this text. It brings before us the sublimest moment of our Saviour's life. It is the moment in which our Champion closed with the spiritual foe of evil in the last death struggle. He spent his bodily life in the effort. He gained the soul life of obedience and trust; that soul victory was his triumph for us. Watching with the Galilaean women, a little distance off, within sight of the cross, within sound of this great, this dying cry, what should be our first thought? I. MANIFESTLY THIS WAS THE DEATH OF A MAN. It is singular that, in the early Church, no evident effort was made to maintain the truth of our Lord's Divinity; early controversy dealt with the reality of our Lord's humanity. And an important part in the impression of that humanity was taken by the scenes of his death. These sufferings are a man's sufferings; these cries are a man's cries; this death is a man's death. The humanity is brought home to us by his dying a violent death, a death which was certified by a public officer. Our text, whatever else it may be, is certainly the cry of a dying man, the element of the flesh, the body, is now added to our Redeemer's struggle. Medical science tells us that the accounts of our Lord's dying accurately represent what occurs in a ease of ruptured or broken heart. The same spasm of dreadful pain, forcing a great cry, and the same flowing of mingled blood and water when the heart sac is pierced. There is a very striking thing, further bringing out to view the real humanness of the cry of the text. Our Lord did not make a new sentence, separating his experience from that of men, but he used words spoken by a psalmist as an utterance of his own distress (see Psalm 22:1). Our Lord evidently intended to identify his struggle with that of man. It may be said that this text embodies and expresses the effect of intense bodily suffering, and of approaching death, on a man's will. The will of Christ was set, not on submission only, but on active obedience to the will of the Father. In Gethsemane the resolve had no present actual pain to battle with, only the anticipation of it. At Calvary the will was borne upon by actual, intense, overwhelming, physical pain; it had to struggle to hold its own. The text represents a supreme moment, when intense pain seemed to force the will aside, and darken the soul with a moment's shade. Can we estimate what dying is in its influence on the will? What is dying when it comes consciously to a man in full health? No falling asleep, and passing away; but the soul in some awful way dropping down, losing everything - light, breath, God, all; passing under, and in that dread moment seeming to be left in utter desolation. If we could know what that means, we should begin to understand our Lord's great cry. It is a dying man's cry. II. MANIFESTLY THIS WAS THE DEATH OF THE SECOND MAN, THE LORD FROM HEAVEN. This is a Scripture term. It is the peculiar relation which Christ bears to us that gives his death scene its profounder significance. He has undertaken for man the removal of sin, and that undertaking of necessity brings him into contact with sin, and makes its consequences and its burdens rest on him. Christ undertook the work of saving men from sin; that is, of saving the life of love and obedience to God in their souls from being utterly crushed out by sin. Then he must come into conflict with it. Its burden of disabilities must lie on him. He must keep his own soul trust and obedience while all the burden, disability, agony, death of sin, buffet him. If he can keep his obedience and his love perfect under the worst that sin and Satan can do, then he breaks their power over man forever - he breaks that power for us. Sin so far succeeded as to kill the body, sin failed utterly to touch the soul; in the last moments the soul is full of affection and devotion - it cries, "My God, my God!" So the power of sin was broken. Man is freed, in Christ's triumph, from the soul bondage hitherto laid on by sin. Christ was made perfect, through his sufferings, to become the "Bringer-on of sons to glory." He is "able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto God through him." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? |
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