The Crucifixion of Jesus

Crucifixion

Matthew 27:32-56 and parallel passages
(Mark 15:21-41; Luke 23:26-49; John 19:16-37)

Trek to the cross

After being tried and sentenced to death by Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, Jesus was escorted by soldiers to His place of execution near the city of Jerusalem. At the beginning of this short but difficult journey, He bore a cross, the device that would be employed to end His life (John 19:17). Soldiers had laid this cross on His shoulders and probably had tied it to His outstretched arms before He departed from Pilate’s praetorium. But what they forced Him to carry was not the whole device, which would have been far too heavy. Evidence from ancient literary sources establishes that a condemned man walking to his place of crucifixion carried only the horizontal portion known as the patibulum,¹ a stout beam such as they used to bar the door of a fortress.² The Gospel writers refer to this crosspiece as simply "the cross." Scholars estimate that it weighed from fifty pounds³ to more than a hundred pounds,⁴ quite a burden for someone who had just been scourged. Indeed, as Jesus walked through the winding streets of Jerusalem, He apparently could not stand up under the weight that was rubbing against the raw flesh of His back. Attempting to carry such a burden after His torture by Pilate’s soldiers must have caused a sharp drop in blood pressure. Despite His unusual fortitude, the result might have been dizziness, lightheadedness, or a even a brief loss of consciousness, causing Him to fall forward onto the ground.⁵

Seeing that Jesus was unable to continue, the soldiers looked around for another man who could do the work of carrying His cross. They spotted a certain Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming into the city from the country, and they pressed him into service (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). No one could refuse to do the bidding of a Roman soldier. Church tradition connects this Simon with the Simon who was later prominent in the church at Antioch (Acts 13:1).⁶ Three considerations support this identification and make it highly probable.

1. The church at Antioch first added gentile members when missionaries came from Cyprus and Cyrene (Acts 11:19-20). The list in Acts 13:1 mentions Lucius of Cyrene. Perhaps Simon was another of these missionaries.
2. Mark tells us that the man who carried the cross was the father of Alexander and Rufus. It is evident that the whole family was well known to the early church. We surmise that they were all Christians.
3. In Acts 13:1, this Simon is called Niger, which means that he was a black man.⁷ In other words, the first gentile church was integrated, and a black man held a position of leadership. It is evident why the Roman soldiers picked him to carry Jesus’ cross. Black slaves were common in the Roman world, as they have been in other times and places. When the soldiers saw a strong black man coming into the city, they forced him to do heavy work because they assumed that he was somebody’s slave. Whether he was a slave then or during his years in Antioch, we do not know. What we do know is that many first-century churches included both slaves and masters, who, within the church, treated each other as brothers.

After the heavy patibulum was taken off the raw wounds on the back of Jesus, He was able to walk under His own power, and He completed the journey to the outskirts of Jerusalem. After Him came a large company of people including many women, who raised their voices in loud mourning for Jesus (Luke 23:27). Who were these people? Mark’s Gospel tells us that among the observers of Jesus’ death on the cross were many women who had accompanied Him on His last journey to Jerusalem (Mark 15:40–41). They included His own mother. But when Jesus turned and spoke to the women following Him to the cross, He addressed them as daughters of Jerusalem.

28 Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

29 For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.

30 Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.

31 For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?

Luke 23:28–31

It seems that news of Jewish leaders bringing Jesus before the governor and demanding His crucifixion must have spread throughout the city while His trial was underway. There were many in the city who loved Him and wanted Him to be their Messiah. By midmorning, a throng of His supporters must have gathered along the ascent to the cross, and after He passed by, they must have followed Him to His place of execution. With the loud crying customary at times of mourning in the Middle East, they expressed their grief and horror at the cruel death befalling this good man, this teacher from God. Jesus responded in love, telling them to look at the coming years in their lives rather than at the coming hours in His life. He knew that very soon, right after His ordeal was over, He would be glorified, yet He knew also that the whole city was in peril of great judgment, and that the mourners following Him would be crushed by it unless they became part of the church arising after His death. Jesus implied that the coming catastrophe would strike the next generation of Jews, for He gave children of the present daughters of Jerusalem a prominent place among its victims. Indeed, the horror He foresaw came to pass in AD 70, when the Romans demolished Jerusalem and virtually exterminated the nation of Israel. It was a tragedy they could have avoided by acknowledging Jesus as their king sent from God.

What Jesus said on His way to the cross is one of many occasions when He warned Jews about the dire consequences that would follow from rejecting their Messiah. God would abandon them to their enemies. But these Jews were not alone in ignoring the warnings of God. We live in a day when few pay any attention to the Bible, which is God’s Word. The Bible warns that every man will stand in judgment before God and afterward suffer the penalty for his sins unless he has gained forgiveness for them by accepting Jesus as his Savior.

The time God has appointed for accepting Jesus is now, during your life in this world. When you stand before God, it will be too late (2 Cor. 6:2). During this coming month, how many will die among all those people who patronize your local grocery stores? A few dozen perhaps? Most will be advanced in years. Some will not. How do you know that your name will not be listed among the deceased? You have no certainty of life tomorrow. Therefore, you had better go into tomorrow with the question of your eternal destiny settled. Make sure that you will spend eternity in heaven, not in hell—not in painful isolation forever but in the company of God and all the saints. And if you will hear the warnings of God’s Word, also hear the solution that it provides. Understand that your only Savior from hell is Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). You may think that whatever heaven requires, you’re good enough. But don’t be so foolish as to argue with God. He has said clearly that every man is a sinner unworthy of heaven; moreover, that no man will be admitted to that perfect world unless he confesses to being a sinner and accepts Christ as his Savior from sin’s penalty. Therefore, be wise enough to obey God and receive the protection that He has provided through Christ.

Being lifted onto the cross

The soldiers conducted Jesus and two other condemned men to a place outside the city gate known in Latin as Calvary and in Hebrew as Golgotha (Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22; Luke 23:32–33a; John 19:17). Both terms mean the place of the skull.⁸ The exact location of Calvary has been a matter of great controversy. The site many tourists visit today is the hill known as Gordon’s Calvary because it was made famous in the nineteenth century by the British soldier Charles Gordon.⁹ The bare rock face of the hillside does bear some resemblance to a skull,¹⁰ but many experts doubt that it had the same appearance two thousand years ago.¹¹

The true site of Golgotha is probably where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is now located.¹² In the Middle Ages, this church replaced a pagan temple built by the Roman emperor Hadrian in about AD 130. His purpose was to combat the growth of Christianity by seizing and desecrating the place where Christians believed that Jesus was crucified and resurrected.¹³ The distance from Pilate’s praetorium to Golgotha was therefore only about a quarter of a mile,¹⁴ but walking even that far was difficult for a man recently scourged.

The law of Moses required that a blasphemer be executed outside the camp (Lev. 24:14–16), and Jewish authorities in Jesus’ day applied this law by conducting executions outside the city.¹⁵ John affirms that it was indeed outside the city where they hanged Jesus on a cross (John 19:20; cf. Heb. 13:12). On the basis of credible evidence, many modern scholars who accept the traditional site of Golgotha believe that in Jesus' day it was located outside the city even though it was not far from the place of Jesus’ trial.¹⁶

It appears that when Jesus arrived at Calvary, He and the other condemned criminals were met by some Jewish women who, in kindness and mercy, wished to alleviate their suffering. Perhaps they belonged to a society of women devoted to giving help to such men.¹⁷ The Babylonian Talmud states that "when one is led out to execution, he is given a goblet of wine containing a grain of frankincense, in order to benumb his senses, for it is written, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul [quotation of Prov. 31:6]. And it has also been taught; The noble women in Jerusalem used to donate and bring it."¹⁸ The compassionate women who came to Golgotha offered Jesus a potion containing vinegar blended with myrrh, which Matthew calls "gall" (Matt. 27:34; Mark 15:23), a term used to describe anything with an unpleasant taste.¹⁹ Since myrrh has a calming effect,²⁰ the concoction offered Jesus would have increased His pain tolerance, but He refused to drink it. Just as He kept Himself conscious throughout His scourging, so He did not wish to lessen His pain while hanging on a cross. Since His purpose to pay the full penalty for our sins, He could not allow Himself to die until this transaction was completed. Thus, to diminish the agony of crucifixion would only have prolonged the ordeal. His suffering would have lasted many more hours before He could cry out, "It is finished."

The soldiers proceeded to crucify Jesus and the other two men condemned to die, placing one on His right side, the other on His left (Matt. 27:35a; Mark 15:24a; Luke 23:33b; John 19:18). What exactly does the Gospel text mean when it says that they crucified Jesus? Modern scholarship and archaeology have brought to light much new information about this practice, and many traditional conceptions have proved to be inaccurate. We now know that Roman crucifixion was far more brutal and hideous than Christians in centuries after Roman times have ever imagined. The victim suffered harrowing pain for hours, even days, before the rigors of the cross finally snuffed out his life.

In its most common form, the cross consisted of two pieces of wood. The upright, called the stipes, was permanently fixed in the ground.²¹ As we noted earlier, the crosspiece, called the patibulum, was carried to the site of execution by the condemned man. As we will see, a removable patibulum made it much easier both to lift someone onto a cross and also to lower him following his death. After a crucifixion, the patibulum which had been used was probably carried back to the judgment hall as a precaution against thievery. For lower-class Jews, such lumber was useful but hard to obtain, so they would have been tempted to take it. Although the stipes was left at the site, it was safe from being stolen because it was firmly implanted in the ground and common thieves rarely had access to shovels. Only the wealthier class was able to obtain these expensive tools for construction projects.²²

The familiar picture of Jesus’ cross is probably erroneous. The reason is that early Christians and others living in antiquity left future generations no clear drawings of a cross.²³ But recent scholars have shown that in most executions, the crosspiece must have rested on the upright instead of being fastened to it at some distance below the top.²⁴ The ancient writer Lucian compared the shape of the cross to a capital tau, the Greek letter identical to our capital letter "T."²⁵ How were the two pieces put together? One modern guess is that the top of the upright was sharpened to a point, tapered to fit perfectly into a conical hole cut into the bottom of the crosspiece.²⁶ But then the crosspiece would have had a tendency to swivel. It is more likely that the joint was firm. Perhaps the easiest solution was to chisel the top of the stipes to a sharp edge that would slip into a wedge-shaped hole in the patibulum.²⁷ The overall height of the cross was probably about seven and a half feet.²⁸

Some ancient sources suggest that a typical cross granted the victim a partial seat, called the sedile, which was nailed to the upright.²⁹ For example, the Roman philosopher Seneca (4 BC? to AD 65) described the victim as a man seated.³⁰ The clear testimony of several early Christian writers leaves no doubt that, at least in the second century, providing the victim with a seat was standard procedure. The earliest of these sources is Justin Martyr (AD 100? to AD 165?). In his commentary on Deuteronomy 33:17, which he understood as prefiguring the crucifixion, he spoke of the victim being supported by a hornlike structure jutting out from the face of the stipes.³¹ Other church fathers who referred to a seat projecting outward from the vertical beam include Irenaeus (AD 120 to AD 202?) and Tertullian (AD 160? to AD 230).³² All this testimony comes from men who must have witnessed crucifixions.

When the Romans prepared crosses for Jesus and the two thieves who were crucified alongside Him, they may have omitted a sedile, because, by affording some rest to the victim, it had the effect of prolonging life.³³ These executioners viewed it as imperative to finish off the condemned men before evening, marking the beginning of a new day. The next day after Jesus was put on the cross was not only a Sabbath, but also the beginning of a feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Romans did not like to offend Jewish sensibilities to the extent of conducting an execution on a day considered holy.

Yet we must consider that Jesus was scourged before He was brought to Calvary. The two others executed at the same time were likely scourged as well. Without a sedile, survival on the cross for enough hours to make the crucifixion as horrible as the Romans desired may have exceeded the viability of a man recently beaten almost to death. Also, nailing the feet was probably easier when the victim was seated. Our best guess therefore is that a sedile was provided for Jesus.

It is impossible to be dogmatic about how Jesus was fastened to His cross because the Romans had many different ways of crucifying victims. Sometimes executioners used strange or novel procedures just as a sadistic sport. In his account of the horrors suffered by the Jews when the Romans overthrew Jerusalem in AD 70, Josephus said that the besiegers caught as many as 500 per day trying to escape and that "the soldiers, out of the wrath and hatred they bore the Jews, nailed those they caught, one after one way, and another after another [that is, in different postures], to the crosses, by way of jest."³⁴

Yet Scripture leaves no doubt concerning certain details in Jesus’ case. We can be sure, for example, that although some people condemned to crucifixion were tied to a cross, Jesus was fastened to His by nails (Luke 24:39; John 20: 20, 25, 27). The wounds He suffered as a result were in fulfillment of words in Psalm 22. The whole psalm is a prophetic account of Jesus’ crucifixion far in the future and of its critical impact on the history of the human race. The speaker throughout is Jesus Himself, and He says when describing His suffering, "They pierced my hands and my feet" (Ps. 22:16).

But we may not immediately conclude that the two upper nails penetrated His palms. Again, we have no helpful picture from antiquity. None clearly shows us where some victim of crucifixion had nails driven through his body. A possible exception is the mysterious Shroud of Turin, which many, on the basis of inconclusive evidence, regard as the actual burial cloth of Jesus. Impressions seemingly left on the cloth by His body appear to show on each side a bleeding wound at the wrist or at the bottom of His hand.³⁵ Scripture itself does not give the precise location of the upper nails. Yad, the Hebrew word translated "hands" in Psalm 22³⁶ is distinct from the Hebrew word for someone’s palm, which is kaph.³⁷ The difference of reference is evident in the phrases "palm of . . . hand" (Lev. 14:15)³⁸ and "palms of hands" (2 Kings 9:35; Dan. 10:10; etc.).³⁹ It appears, therefore, that "hand" is a more general term. In fact, since Hebrew has no word for either wrist or forearm,⁴⁰ "wrist" appears to be what yad actually signifies in several Old Testament texts. For example, Abraham’s servant gave Rebekah bracelets for her "hands" (Gen. 24:22, 30, 47).⁴¹ Likewise a scarlet thread was tied onto the "hand" of Zarah when he emerged from the womb (Gen. 38:28),⁴² and Samson was bound fast with cords described both as upon his "arms" and upon his "hands" (Judg. 15:14).⁴³ In Greek also there is no word for either wrist or forearm.⁴⁴ The word for hand, cheir,⁴⁵ is therefore the only recourse when "wrist" is the intended meaning. For example, Luke says that Peter’s chains fell off his "hands" (Acts 12:7).⁴⁶

So we must admit in all honesty that we are not sure where nails were driven into the upper body of Jesus. Any proposed answer to this question must reckon with the following considerations.

1. The soldiers knew how to provide a secure hold for the victim, however great his bodily weight might be. If nails were placed too close to the fingers, the downward pull of gravity as the victim was raised to his position on the cross, or even afterward as he hung on the cross, might have torn his hands away from the nails, leaving his fingers ripped apart.
2. In one of the psalms of David, he declares, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken" (Ps. 34:19–20). The reference is evidently to Jesus, the only man who has ever lived who, by virtue of His own character, may be identified as "the righteous." David foresees that Jesus would be killed in such a way that none of His bones would be broken. So, we may be sure that wherever the upper nails were inserted, their worst possible effect upon any bone would have been to drive it further away from other bones. No bone would have been split or fractured. That all of His bones were in fact spared from damage was so indisputable that John could, with no fear of contradiction, say that David’s prophecy had been fulfilled (John 19:36).

What about the nails through His feet? In 1968, archaeologists discovered the remains of a Jew who had been crucified during the era of Christ. A crude iron spike 11.5 cm long still penetrated one heel.⁴⁷ One uncontested finding was that before the executioner drove the nail through the heel, he drove it through a board.⁴⁸ There were still traces of wood under the head of the nail. The most plausible interpretation of the evidence is that by means of two nails, one through each heel, the executioners fastened the victim’s feet separately to opposite sides of the cross. Thus, the victim’s body faced forward with his feet straddling the upright.⁴⁹

Yet if Jesus did not suffer any broken bones, and if all witnesses to His crucifixion agreed that He had none, His feet must have been attached in a different manner, for if they were indeed fastened to the sides of the cross by a nail through each heel, the result would have been massive injury to the heel bones. The one surviving heel in the remains discovered by archaeologists has a gaping hole in the middle.⁵⁰ To escape similar injury, Jesus’ feet could not have been held in place by nails through His heels, whether His feet were fixed to the side of the cross or twisted laterally in front. Rather, the nails must been driven through the upper sides of the feet. A spike entering through the top could readily pass between two metatarsals without breaking them. The best reconstruction of the scene therefore supposes that after Jesus was raised into position, His feet were flattened against the face of the cross and attached by nails. Some have imagined that one nail was driven through both feet, with one foot covering the other, but it is unlikely that the soldiers would have gone to so much trouble. The easier way to secure a victim was to hold and nail his feet separately.

What then were the exact steps followed when Jesus’ body was lifted onto a cross? Here we are reduced in some degree to mere speculation. But a reasonable scenario imagines that first, after setting the patibulum on the ground, the soldiers laid Jesus on His back so that His head lay near the center of the patibulum and His body stretched out perpendicular to it. Next, they brought His arms out to the side and draped His wrists over the patibulum. Then they hammered a spike through each wrist into the wood.

After fastening Jesus’ arms to the cross, the soldiers hoisted the patibulum to the top of the stipes. The pain as the whole body was dragged upward by nails through the upper arm must have been indescribable. After the patibulum settled into place, the soldiers must have pushed Jesus’ torso upward until He was able to support Himself on the sedile. Then they bent His knees to flatten His soles against the upright, and they nailed both feet to the cross.

As Jesus was going through this horrible experience, it is likely that He uttered the first of His last seven sayings: "Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34a). It is appropriate that we consider this saying after we have learned how horrific it was just to be nailed to a cross. Jesus knew what He would endure before He died. He had already gone through more pain than most of us have ever known. Yet He bore no malice at all against His tormentors. His view of the soldiers was not clouded by even one speck of desire that they would suffer punishment for what they were doing. His only prayer was that God would forgive them, so that they would not lose any future opportunity to believe the gospel and gain a life of joy forever. He wanted them to receive God’s mercy, not His frightful judgment. Would any of us be so kindhearted toward an enemy who has been deluded into thinking that a Christian deserves to come under cruel attack?

Yet we must be careful not to limit or minimize the full generosity of Jesus’ prayer. He was not seeking forgiveness only for the Roman soldiers who were crucifying Him. Because He spoke of those who did not understand what they were doing, we might suppose that He was excluding the Jewish rulers. But to place anyone outside the scope of Jesus’ prayer is a mistake caused by blindness to the compassionate heart of God. Jesus’ divine love was so great that it was boundless. Even such men as the Jewish rulers fell within its vast outreach. But how could He say of them that they were ignorant of their crime? It is true that they had no excuse for failing to see that Jesus was the Messiah, yet in fact they failed to see it. Out of pride and self-protection, they turned away from the shining evidence of who Jesus was and embraced the darkness of unbelief. As a result of falling into self-deception on a scale perhaps without precedent in the sordid history of mankind, the Jewish rulers did not really know what they were doing. In extending love to these men, Jesus was practicing what He preached. He was illustrating the kind of love that He commanded in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:44). His prayer on the cross shows how we should pray for our enemies. We should ask God not to judge them, but to forgive them.

Did the Father hear Jesus’ prayer? Yes, He did. But to see how He answered it, we must first grasp the full significance in what Jesus was asking. For a correct perspective, we must start with the question, "Who in fact killed Jesus?" The blame cannot be restricted to the handful of men who engineered or performed His crucifixion. Jesus put Himself under their power only because He intended to take upon Himself God's punishment for the sins of the whole world. He died only because He wanted to save us from eternal damnation. Everyone who is a sinner is therefore responsible for His death. That is, the answer to the question, "Who killed Jesus?" is this; you did and I did. The "them" in Jesus’ request that the Father forgive "them; for they know not what they do" is us.

What was Jesus really asking? He was asking the Father to accept His sufferings as payment for our sins so that we might be forgiven. The Father was under no obligation to look on Jesus as our substitute. Despite what Jesus did, He still might have required us to pay for our own sins. We see therefore that the Father granted Jesus’ request. The gospel assures us that we can be forgiven if we merely believe in Jesus as our Savior. Notice that Jesus did not set anyone outside the possibility of salvation. The forgiveness He sought was for all men, none excluded. By expressing universal good will toward the human race, He demonstrated that indeed God desires all men to be saved (2 Pet. 3:9). God the Father gave His Son to die on a cross because He so loved the whole "world" (John 3:16). The world encompasses every man who has ever lived.

The upright where they chose to fasten Jesus was the middle one in a group of three (Matt. 27:38; Mark 15:27; John 19:18). On His left and on His right they crucified two other men described as "thieves" (Matt. 27:38; Mark 15:27) and also as "malefactors" (Luke 23:33b), which means "criminals." The Greek language distinguishes between a thief who plunders secretly and a thief who resorts to violence.⁵¹ The latter is the kind signified by the word used here.⁵² Very likely these men were murderers who deserved capital punishment even by the standards of modern law. The placement of Jesus’ cross in the center showed that the authorities viewed Him as most important. They wanted His death to be a vivid example of what would happen to anyone who challenged the religious authority of the high priest and the Sanhedrin. Yet by so displaying Jesus as the most prominent archcriminal in a group of archcriminals, they provided a dramatic fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy concerning the coming Messiah: "And he was numbered with the transgressors" (Isa. 53:12; cf. Mark 15:28).

When the Romans executed a man by crucifixion, their custom was to place a sign on the cross stating the criminal’s name and offense (John 19:19-20; cf. Matt. 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38). The sign bearing this inscription was a wooden board known as a titulus.⁵³ As a condemned man walked to the place where he would be lifted onto a cross, a titulus was draped about his neck or displayed by a soldier accompanying him. After arrival, it was nailed to the patibulum over his head.⁵⁴ The chief purpose of this sign was obviously to deter all observers from committing the same crime. The superscription that Pilate placed above Jesus stated, "Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews." To make sure that every passerby could read it, Pilate had it rendered in all three languages widely used in Jerusalem: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Many scholars believe that when the Gospel writers list Hebrew among them, they are referring not to Old Testament Hebrew, but to Aramaic, the most common language throughout first-century Judea.⁵⁵

The wording of the superscription made the Jewish leaders furious. Probably in voices of vehement protest, they told Pilate that it should say not that Jesus was king of the Jews, but that He claimed to be king of the Jews (John 19:21). Pilate, in no mood for further quarreling with these men, rebuffed them. He said in essence that the wording was his deliberate choice and that he had no intention of changing it (John 19:22). He implied that in fact he meant to identify Jesus as the real king of the Jews. What was Pilate’s motive for placing words on the cross that unmistakably paid tribute to Jesus? He had long felt contempt for the Jewish leaders. In the past they had complained over his head to Caesar and, in the dispute over Jesus, they had virtually threatened to do so again. Now that they had forced him to condemn a man against his better judgment, his contempt for them was seeking a way to express itself. A proud man forced to yield then looks for openings to retaliate. The sign on Jesus’ cross gave him the opportunity he was seeking. By declaring that Jesus was the rightful king of the Jews, he was taking a slap at the men currently serving as Jewish rulers. He was implying that Caiaphas and his cronies were illegitimate. The wording of the superscription accomplished several other purposes as well. As it should have done, it stated the reason that Jesus was dying. He was dying solely because the present Jewish rulers feared Him as a rival. Also, the wording gave Pilate an indirect way of affirming his judgment that Jesus was innocent of any crime deserving of death, for to be a king of the Jews was a criminal offense only if the man claiming this title intended to rebel against Rome, but Jesus had assured Pilate that His servants would not fight (John 18:36).

Before nailing Jesus to a cross, the soldiers removed His clothing, thereby magnifying the shame He would bear as His body hung in public display on a cross (Matt. 27:35b; Mark 15:24b; Luke 23:34b; John 19:23–24). Here was another fulfillment of prophecy. According to Psalm 22, "I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me" (Ps. 22:17). Why did the Romans deprive their victims of the simple dignity that clothing affords? It was another touch of cruelty. Yet there was also a more down-to-earth motive behind it. People in the ancient world did not have closets full of clothes. Clothes were much more costly than they are today. Executioners regarded the clothes of a victim as their wages, so to speak—as valuable plunder that their work entitled them to seize. In Jesus’ case, they removed His garments with the intent of dividing them among four men. But the task proved harder than usual. Evidently these garments included an outer robe, a girdle (a cloth belt), and sandals (no doubt viewed as a single piece) as well as a "coat" (in Greek, xiton, a long inner garment⁵⁶)—four pieces altogether.⁵⁷His coat, which had no doubt been the gift of some devoted follower, was His most valuable garment by far, and all of the soldiers wanted it. To determine who would become its owner, they cast lots. As a result, it became the property of the winner, while the three less desirable pieces of clothing were divided among the losers. What these soldiers did with entire freedom of choice was exactly what prophecy said they would do. We read in Psalm 22, "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture" (Ps. 22:18).

The onlookers

When the grisly work of hanging three men on crosses was done, the soldiers sat down to keep vigil for the next several hours (Matt. 27:36). There were others near Jesus’ cross as well (John 19:25-26a). Two were standing close enough to hear Jesus speak. These were His mother and His beloved disciple, John. All the rest of the original twelve were absent. Judas had betrayed Jesus and probably by now had committed suicide. Nine others had, in obedience to their Master, fled when He was arrested (John 18:8-9). At the time of the crucifixion they must have been hiding somewhere east of the city, perhaps at the home of Mary and Martha in Bethany. Peter had followed Jesus into the city to watch His trial, but after denying Jesus three times, he too went into hiding. Wherever he was, he was lost in an agony of grief at what he had done. Only John stayed as close as possible to the Lord until the end. Although he did not fear the authorities because he enjoyed a special standing with them that the Gospels do not explain except to say that he "was known unto the high priest" (John 18:15), he knew that remaining by Jesus’ side as He hung on a cross was still a hazardous choice, because the authorities were fickle, and because others who hated Jesus’ message could have been easily provoked by Satan to attack John. Yet he counted his own safety as nothing compared with his duty to support his friend and master when He became the focal point of the decisive battle between good and evil.

After Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, about 120 of His followers went to an upper room in Jerusalem and waited for the descent of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:15). We infer that besides the Twelve, perhaps dozens of other people accompanied Jesus on His last journey to Jerusalem, including many women. All these women watched His crucifixion and bewailed His suffering unto death (Matt. 27:55–56; Mark 15:40–41; Luke 23:49). Yet all except Mary stood at a great distance out of respect, so as not to behold Jesus’ shame in being unclothed. Although John places two of these women "by the cross" (John 19:25), he is merely identifying them as observers. He is not denying that they "were looking on afar off" (Mark 15:40). The only followers of Jesus who felt free to come near the cross were Mary and John (John 19:26–27). It was not shameful for His nakedness to be seen by His mother or by others whose normal duties might include taking care of Him during sickness or death.

When Jesus saw John and His mother standing near His cross, He uttered His second saying on the cross. He said to her, "Woman, behold thy son!" (John 19:26b), and He said to John, "Behold thy mother!" (John 19:27). He was giving John the responsibility to take care of Mary in the future. When women in Jewish society reached old age, they depended on male relatives to provide any financial support or other assistance that they needed. Jesus’ choice of John to assume this role strongly suggests that John was the closest male relative faithful to Christ. Perhaps he was Jesus’ cousin. At this time, Jesus’ own brothers still declined to be His followers.

Jesus’ words to His mother might, to some readers, seem a little harsh and out of place. He just calls her a "woman." Why did He not use some term of affection, or give her some consoling words? But He did both, and she understood what He meant. Jesus was reminding His mother of her special place in the plan of God. What was coming upon her had been foreordained from the beginning of the world. Her immeasurable pain in beholding her dear son upon a cross was in fulfillment of the most ancient oracle known to man—the oracle that the Lord pronounced when our first parents, Adam and Eve, fell into sin. Soon afterward, when the Lord passed judgment on them as well as on their tempter, Satan, He declared to Satan, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. 3:15). Satan was guilty of enticing "the woman," Eve, into disobeying the Lord’s command against eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a fitting punishment from God’s hand of justice, Satan would someday be crushed and thereby utterly defeated by the seed of the woman.

A more literal translation provides further insight. It says, "He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel."⁵⁸ Therefore, the coming conqueror of Satan would be a single man. He would Himself suffer injury, like a painful but nonfatal injury to the heel, but the injury He would inflict on Satan would be like a crushing blow to the head. The clear idea is that the deliverer would incur His injury while He was stepping on the serpent. The prophecy foresees Christ’s full and irreversible defeat of Satan while He hung on the cross.

But why is Christ called the seed of a woman? Only a man is capable of producing the seed necessary for conception of a new human life. The striking and unnatural character of the expression "her seed" therefore suggests that it is a uniquely fitting name for the victor over Satan. Unlike other men, He would not be a man’s seed.⁵⁹ The only physical source of His humanity would be a woman’s body. A virgin would conceive Him without losing her virginity.

We see, then, why Jesus referred to Mary as "woman." He was asking her to remember that she was the woman of Genesis 3:15. In two ways this prophecy should have brought her comfort. The thought that she was performing a necessary role in a cosmic plan to benefit all mankind helped to lift her out of absorption in her own grief. Also, the prophecy spoke not only of suffering, but also of victory. Although her seed would sustain a bruised heel, He would crush Satan’s head. No doubt she understood that her son’s victory would not be complete unless He rose from the grave. Therefore, even as He was dying, she knew that she would see Him again within a few days.

As we ponder the terribly painful death that Christ suffered for our sake, we too find comfort in the certainty that His death was not final. The gruesome and grim crushing of His earthly life was just the prelude to new life unending. One message in the story of Jesus is that for us as well, death can be merely a prelude to resurrection. How can we be sure that we too will enjoy victory over the grave? We can have that assurance only if we have accepted Jesus as our Savior. In return for our faith in Jesus, the Father credits to our account Jesus’ suffering for sin, so that we are debt free. If you have not yet chosen to have the faith that God requires, let this be the day when you escape condemnation and gain eternal life.

Jesus’ loved ones who kept vigil during His ordeal were a small number compared with all "that passed by" and hurled taunting words at Him (Matt. 27:39-40; Mark 15:29–30). His cross was evidently positioned near a road or roads that people followed as they entered or left the city. The obvious reason why Roman authorities often chose to crucify a rebel or criminal in a highly visible place was to warn people of the consequences if they resisted Roman authority. Many who were walking by Calvary must have heard that one of the men being crucified was the famous religious teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, and among these must have been many who had resisted His teaching because it brought conviction of sin to their hearts. So, when they saw this annoying preacher of righteousness being executed, their response was not sympathy, but inner satisfaction at what seemed like proof that He was no messenger from God; rather, that He was a false teacher who deserved scorn. From self-satisfied hearts they lashed out at Him. At His hearing before Caiaphas, He was falsely accused of predicting that He would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days (Matt. 26:60–63; Mark 14:57–61). This distortion of His actual words early in His career had become common knowledge and had been seized upon by His enemies as proof that He was a pretender, not a prophet. So, when some passersby saw Him dying on a cross, they expressed their hatred for Him by throwing this false accusation in His face. Their twofold intent was to torment Him and to salve their own consciences. They also shouted that if He were the Son of God, He would come down from the cross. From their twisted souls and hardened hearts came empty proofs that Jesus was not the Christ. They did not comprehend that He stayed on the cross precisely because He was the Christ who, according to prophecy, would die for our sins. Nor did they realize that soon afterward He would demonstrate the true meaning of His prediction that He would raise up "this Temple" within three days after its destruction (John 2:18–21). He was pointing to His resurrection.

The onlookers at the cross included the chief priests themselves, as well as many of their followers (Matt. 27:41–43; Mark 15:31–32a). All these who mocked Jesus allowed themselves to act as instruments of Satan. Early in Jesus’ career, Satan had tempted Jesus but found no point of weakness in His divine character. Then he departed from Jesus "for a season," resolving to return and take up the contest again when Jesus was more vulnerable (Luke 4:13). On the day when Jesus hung on a cross, Satan mounted His final attack. He had long been preparing for it. He had taken control of Judas and provoked him to betray Jesus (Luke 22:3). He had maneuvered the Jewish leaders into arresting and condemning Jesus for selfish reasons contrary to justice. He had goaded the mob outside Pilate’s judgment hall into shouting, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Now he had Jesus where he wanted Him. His body was stretched out grotesquely on a cross. Every fiber of His being was in the throes of unbearable pain. In His own human power, He was helpless to escape. Besides His physical suffering, He underwent even greater suffering in His soul. The cross led Jesus into the depths of three kinds of horror.

1. He took the entire sin of the human race upon Himself. When bearing all the sin of mankind, He could not avoid assuming the identity of all sinners. He in essence became Hitler when he bore Hitler’s sins. In those terrible moments when the world’s sin descended on the sinless One, He became the very person of every wicked blackguard who has lived on the earth, every cruel tyrant, every bloody warrior, every depraved killer, every whore and whoremonger, every blasphemer, every pervert, as well as every common sinner like you and me. No man’s degeneracy has been so deep that Jesus declined to pay for his sins. He suffered until all sins were brought under His blood. Yet imagine what Jesus felt in becoming every sinner. For a being so lofty in holiness, such an intimacy with sinful ways and motives must have given Him a loathing for Himself. He must have become abominable in His own eyes.
2. The second horror that Jesus endured was to go through hell for every man. All the torments that each sinner in hell would undergo, if justice ran its course, became His own experience. His sufferings were therefore equal to one man’s hell multiplied by many billions. Only a Being who was infinite in His essence was capable of bearing punishment of such incredible magnitude.
3. The third horror was perhaps the worst. When the Father beheld the Son drawing all the moral blackness of the universe to His own bosom, He turned away in revulsion. For the first time in forever, the Father broke off His closeness to the Son and left Him alone. As we will see, the Son felt forsaken.

After Jesus had been reduced to utter pain and weakness in His body, even to the point of death, and an infinite despair had settled upon His heart, the devil struck like a serpent. He was in fact the original serpent who tempted Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15). Christ’s ordeal had already inflicted the injury foretold by prophecy—the bruising of His heel. But Satan wanted total victory. What strategy did he adopt? He had one last temptation to try in this ultimate showdown between good and evil, between God and Satan. Through his many mouthpieces near the suffering Savior, he called upon Jesus to save Himself. If He was the king of the Jews (Matt. 27:42; Mark 15:32; Luke 23:37), if He was Christ the chosen of God (Mark 15:32; Luke 23:35;)—indeed, if He was no less than the Son of God (Matt. 27:40, 43)—let Him prove it by coming down from the cross.

We must remember that although Jesus did not set aside His divine attributes when He became a man, He voluntarily suspended His use of omniscience and omnipotence. The supernatural power and knowledge that He often displayed came from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, His knowledge that He was the Son of God was a matter of faith. He believed what the Father and the Spirit told Him about His identity. While Jesus hung on a cross, the devil sought to undermine this faith by casting doubt on who He was. He had taken the same tack when he tempted Jesus years earlier by challenging Him, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread" (Matt. 4:3). At Calvary, the devil adopted a similar strategy. He calculated that Jesus would wrestle with a desire to come down. Had Jesus not prayed in the garden to be excused from this ordeal (Matt. 26:39)? Therefore, in the taunts flung at Jesus by the devil's spokesmen, they railed Him with the idea that He needed to come down in order to prove His deity. No doubt Satan was also hoping that even if Jesus could not be persuaded to doubt who He was, He would decide that future believers in Christ were not worth all the suffering He had to endure for their salvation.

Yet what would have been the result if Jesus had left the cross? All men would still be lost in their sins. God would be a liar, for He had promised a Savior. The love of the Trinity would be broken, for the Son could have escaped His suffering only by disobeying the Father. You see what was at stake? If the Son had not stayed on the cross, the victor in the cosmic war between God and Satan would have been Satan. But Christ did not yield to temptation, and never again will the devil have a chance to attack the unity and integrity of the Godhead. Never again will he mount any serious threat to the kingdom of God. By enduring the cross, Jesus crushed Satan’s head. He is now a defeated foe (Col. 2:14-15).

The repentant thief

So far we have noticed two of Jesus’ sayings on the cross. He said at the outset, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Then He spoke to His mother and John, saying to John, "Behold thy mother," and to His mother, "Behold thy son" (John 19:26, 27). We will now consider His third saying. One of the criminals being executed alongside Him attacked Jesus with sarcastic words. "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us" (Luke 23:39). The other criminal responded with words of rebuke. "Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss" (Luke 23:40–41). Then the same condemned man spoke to Jesus directly, expressing faith that He was truly the Messiah. He said, "Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom" (Luke 23:42). Jesus’ response was His third saying on the cross. "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).

When promising that they would soon enter paradise together, He was not referring to heaven. Although heaven is indeed called a paradise (2 Cor. 12:4), this is merely a general name for any place that offers perfect joy. In various Scriptural passages and especially in Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-26), we learn that until the time of Christ, the abode of all the dead was under the earth in the huge cavern known as Sheol (the Hebrew name) or Hades (the Greek name), which was divided into two regions, one reserved for the souls of the righteous dead, the other for the souls of the unrighteous dead.⁶⁰ When speaking of the region where the righteous dead waited for the resurrection of their bodies, Jesus called it Abraham’s bosom. Here is where Lazarus resided. The rich man was confined to the other region, a place of fiery torment. The two regions were close enough that the rich man could see the other place, yet passage from one to the other was impossible because of a great gulf fixed between them, and on either side was a completely different world. The rich man’s side was truly what we would call hell. The side of Lazarus was a place of rest and bliss. It was a paradise.

After Jesus’ death, His soul shared the normal destiny of all righteous souls by going to this paradise under the earth, and His soul was accompanied by the soul of the thief who put his faith in Jesus before he died. The ancient belief of the church that Jesus spent the hours of His death in Hades derives from the clear teaching of the Bible. In Psalm 16, David declares that when the coming Messiah anticipates His coming death for the salvation of mankind, He will be able to say, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [Sheol⁶¹]; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Ps. 16:10–11). When Peter preached to multitudes on the Day of Pentecost marking the beginning of the Church Age, he presented David’s words as a prophecy of what would happen to the Messiah after He died. His "soul" would not remain in "hell" (Hades⁶²), for His body would be restored to life before it could undergo any decay (Acts 2:25-28).

Like the first two sayings of Jesus on the cross, the third has a larger significance than at first appears. The first sought the Father’s forgiveness for Jesus’ killers. But when we considered that He died for our sins, we discovered that we are all responsible for His death. His killers include us all. So, what Jesus wanted was that the Father would not view our complicity in killing Jesus as an unpardonable sin. The Father granted His request to the extent of granting forgiveness to as many as believe on Jesus as their Savior.

Jesus’ second saying gave John responsibility for the care of Mary, His mother. He said to Mary, "Woman, behold thy son!" When we considered why He addressed her as "woman," a name that seems impersonal and cold, we learned that He was reminding her of who she was. She was the person known in prophecy as "the woman," whose son would achieve decisive victory over the serpent. Jesus knew that she was familiar with Genesis 3:15 and would take comfort from it. Thus, the larger significance in the second saying was to remind us all of the purpose in His death. He was dying to deliver a crushing blow to sin and Satan.

What then was the larger significance of the third saying? Whereas the second revealed that His death would bring salvation, the third revealed who was eligible to receive it. Notice that the repentant thief had, in the moments before, joined in the mockery of Jesus (Matt. 27:44). His heart did not turn toward Jesus until he heard death’s footsteps drawing near. By granting paradise to this exceedingly unworthy man, Jesus showed that salvation is open to all. The thief was a man of such wickedness that his fellowmen adjudged him so much worse than themselves that they put him to death. Yet the full measure of his wickedness was even greater, for in his previous hours on the cross he had hurled contempt at Jesus the Savior. Also, who could postpone repentance longer than a man who sought forgiveness just moments before he died? If Jesus could forgive a dying thief and murderer with sins so great that men could not forgive him, with terrible blasphemy among his recent sins, and with no life remaining to serve God, who cannot be forgiven? The lesson for you is that you should not despair if you are a sinner bound for hell.  In your record of offenses against divine law, you are probably no worse than that criminal on a cross. Also, you probably have a life before you that you can dedicate to God. You can therefore be sure that if God forgave the dying thief, He will forgive you.

The blanket of darkness

About noon on the day Jesus died, a strange darkness descended and continued three hours (Matt. 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44-45a). Luke’s wording leaves no doubt that this darkness settled upon the whole world, not just the land of Palestine. The claim of Christians that the darkness was supernatural apparently provoked their enemies to find other explanations. One hostile writer, a gentile named Thallus, said in the third book of his History, written not long after AD 50, that the darkness at the crucifixion of Christ was due to a solar eclipse.⁶⁰ Phlegon, a Greek historian writing after AD 137, stated that during one day in AD 33, "It became night in the sixth hour. . . so that the stars even appeared in the heavens." He described the event as the "greatest eclipse of the sun."⁶¹ Yet the simple rebuttal to any claim that the darkness was due to a solar eclipse is that Jesus died on the fourteenth day of Nisan. The months on the Jewish calendar like many ancient calendars were lunar—that is, they began at the sighting of a new moon. A solar eclipse on the fourteenth day of a lunar month was therefore impossible, because at that time, when the moon was full, the moon was on the far side of the earth.

Notice that Phlegon’s account agrees with Scripture in two details. First, the time he specifies is the sixth hour, which is noon, exactly when the Gospels place the beginning of the darkness that fell during the Crucifixion. Second, by saying that the stars were still visible, Phlegon implies that the sun was the only light source in the sky that ceased to shine. We draw the same conclusion from the Gospel of Luke, which also attributes the darkness solely to the removal of sunlight (Luke 23:44–45a).

The darkness that fell on the world signified the departure of the Father’s presence from the place where His son was dying on a cross. Scripture says of the Father that He is light (1 John 1:5). The lake of fire where the wicked will be forever deprived of the Father’s presence will be a place without light, in utter darkness (Matt. 22:13). The darkness that fell on the cross assured that Jesus’ experience of hell would be complete.

The death of Jesus

Jesus’ anguish at His separation from the Father drove Him to the words of despair known as His fourth saying on the cross (Mark 15:34; cf. Matt. 27:46). "Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This saying came at the ninth hour, about 3:00 in the afternoon, shortly before Jesus’ death.

Although Jesus strongly projected His voice, some who stood near the cross drew the wrong meaning from His words. They thought that He was calling for help from Elias (Matt. 27:47; Mark 15:35); that is, Elijah.⁶² Their misunderstanding was only natural, since Elijah’s name in Hebrew is Eliyah, whose first syllable refers to God,⁶³ the very person that Jesus was addressing as Eli or Eloi.

Then Jesus, realizing that His work of redemption had now been accomplished, prepared for His death. His last moments would be marked by two pronouncements of incomprehensively supreme importance, both affirming divine victory on a scale both cosmic and eternal. Yet His voice was now afflicted by a severe dryness that diminished its strength, so His next saying, His fifth, merely called out for someone to give Him a drink. He said, "I thirst" (John 19:28). Among those near the cross, one responded by running away to a vessel full of vinegar (Matt. 27:48; Mark 15:36a; John 19:29). There he took a sponge and soaked it in the vessel. Then after pushing the sponge onto a reed of hyssop, he ran to Jesus’ cross and lifted the sponge to His mouth. When the text says that he "put it on his mouth," the likely meaning is that he squeezed it against Jesus’ open lips so that vinegar would flow through them. Some people nearby responded by chiding the man who was trying to be helpful. They called out, no doubt in scornful voices, that he should let Jesus alone—that if this condemned criminal wanted Elijah’s help, they should wait and see whether Elijah came to His rescue (Matt. 27:49; Mark 15:36b). They were putting a veneer of laughter on hearts that must have been quaking at all the evidence that Jesus was no ordinary man.

Jesus was now ready to proclaim His final two sayings on the cross, which He was able to state with a loud, commanding voice that no doubt struck fear into the hearts of all who stood nearby (Matt. 27:50a; Mark 15:37a; Luke 23:46a). The first of these, His sixth saying altogether, was, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46b). He was affirming the universal principle that life after death depends wholly on God the Father, the Being who originally authorized the creation of all life through the agencies of God the Son, also known as the Word (John 1:1-3), and God the Holy Spirit (Gen. 1:2).

Then right before His death came Jesus’ seventh and last saying, "It is finished" (John 19:30a). The surface meaning referred narrowly to the finishing of His life on earth—to His death. But the deeper meaning, a source of immeasurable comfort to all readers who are believers in Christ, was that the work of our salvation was now finished. At this precise moment in the overall history of mankind, God provided a perfectly effective and eternally lasting remedy for the sins of all who would choose to accept Jesus as their Savior.

After uttering His seventh saying on the cross, Jesus died (Matt. 27:50b; Mark 15:37b; Luke 23:46c; John 19:30b). Earlier we pointed out that He could live or die as He willed (John 10:17–18). Even when His body reached a condition that would have been fatal to other men, He had the power to go on living. That He died only when He chose to die is one implication of His words, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). Matthew affirms the same truth by declaring that His death came when He "yielded up the ghost" (Matt. 27:50; cf. John 19:30). Although it was impossible for God Incarnate to die apart from His own consent, He did not cling to life when His body could no longer function without supernatural help. Instead, He willingly commended His spirit to the Father and breathed no more (Luke 23:46).

The wording used by all the Gospel writers to specify what happened was that He "gave up [or yielded up] the ghost." For modern readers, a better translation instead of "ghost" would be "spirit."⁶⁴ For all mankind, life is a union of body and spirit, whereas death is the departure of a person’s spirit from his body. At Jesus’ death, His spirit, having been commended into the hands of the Father, was instantly transported from Jesus’ body to its temporary resting place in Hades, but His body instantly shut down and began to decay. It became no more than an inoperative system of biochemicals.

The writers of the three Synoptic Gospels agree that Jesus died at the sixth hour by Jewish reckoning; in other words, at about 3 PM (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; Luke 23:44). John does not specify the time, probably because he assumed that his readers would be familiar with the other Gospels. As we pointed out earlier, Jesus was lifted onto His cross during the previous morning, perhaps around 9 or 10 AM (Mark 15:25). It therefore appears that Jesus’ ordeal afterward lasted more than five hours.

Rending of the veil

The events immediately following Jesus’ death were so extraordinary that all observers who still refused to believe in Christ were left without excuse. First, "the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom" (Mark 15:38; cf. Matt. 27:51a; Luke 23:45b). The profound significance in this event is based on the rich symbolism achieved by the ingenious design of the Temple. It contained two chambers, the outer chamber next to the door of the building and the inner chamber on the opposite side. Placed within the outer chamber, known as the Holy Place, was an altar of incense. In the Temple built by Solomon, the inner chamber, known as the Holy of Holies, held the ark of the covenant. The very glory of God rested upon the Mercy Seat above the ark. Even in the Temple that existed in Jesus’ day, it was supposed, and no doubt correctly, that the Holy of Holies still housed the divine presence, although the cloud of His visible glory (known as the Shechinah⁶⁵) was absent. The only time during the year when anyone stood within the inner chamber was on the Day of Atonement. Then the high priest entered it more than once to burn incense and to sprinkle the blood of sacrifices on the ground. Between the two chambers there hung a heavy, ornate veil directly behind the altar of incense. Approaching the altar along each side of the outer chamber was a row of five candlesticks and five tables of showbread.

What was the larger meaning in the design of the Temple? The inner chamber was the earthly space lifting our eyes to the throne room of heaven. The outer chamber represented how men in this world normally communicate with God. It was like a prayer closet. The bread on the tables and the light shining from the candlesticks pictured our fellowship with Christ, who is both the light of the world (John 8:12) and the bread of life (John 6:35). The burning incense whose smoke wafted upward from the altar illustrated the prayers of God’s people.

At Christ’s death, the veil was rent from top to bottom (Matt. 27:50-51). This divine stroke signified that the way to heaven is now open to us. In fact, we are there already as members of Christ’s body (Eph. 2:6). It also signified that we can now communicate with God directly, without recourse to priests at a Temple.

In the Book of Acts we learn that after the Day of Pentecost, the new church in Jerusalem grew rapidly, and among the new members were many priests (Acts 6:7). Why would priests flock to a religious movement that offered forgiveness of sins through one man’s sacrifice already accomplished, ending any further need of priestly sacrifices? Perhaps their hearts had been turned toward Jesus by the great sign seen in the Temple some months before, at the very time when He died on a cross. Although it is likely that none of the priests at first comprehended the sign, they could not deny that something strange and supernatural had occurred in connection with His death. Many evidently explored the significance of this event by listening to the apostles, and as a result, many were converted to Christ.

Repercussions in land and sky

Immediately after Jesus' crucifixion, rising tensions between adjoining underground rocks that were being pushed in different directions suddenly produced an earthquake that likely had an impact throughout Judea (Matt. 27:51).

In Phlegon’s account of the darkness that once fell on the earth, he gives further information of great interest. He states that on the same day "there was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea."⁶⁶ Nicaea was a city in Bithynia, which was a province in northwest Asia Minor.⁶⁷ Perhaps this earthquake in Bithynia was also the one mentioned by Pliny, the famous Roman historian, who said, "The greatest earthquake in human memory occurred when Tiberius Caesar was emperor, twelve Asiatic cities being overturned in one night."⁶⁸

Nicaea was roughly 700 miles from Jerusalem.⁶⁹ If the earthquake in Jerusalem on the day of Jesus’ death was the same one that Pliny placed during the reign of Tiberius and described as the greatest in history, it might have had a magnitude well over 8.0. Thus, it could have been felt as far away as Jerusalem.⁷⁰ The darkness falling upon the whole world and the earthquake radiating its effects throughout the Eastern Roman Empire while Jesus hung on a cross no doubt had the purpose of enhancing the credibility of the gospel message that would soon be preached throughout these regions. The apostles and other evangelists likely pointed to these ominous signs in nature as proof that the death of Christ was an event of cosmic importance.

Yet the Gospel accounts do not suggest any significant damage in Jerusalem itself after the earthquake. This shaking of the ground did, however, coincide with the opening of many graves. God was assuring that all the saints who would rise from the dead on the following Sunday morning would be able to walk out unhindered and visit places nearby (Matt. 27:52–53). No more would they reside in Abraham’s bosom. When Jesus departed from Hades at the moment He conquered death, He took with Him all righteous souls.  We will show later that after the risen Jesus appeared to some living Jews who were strong in faith and before He appeared to others who were weak in faith, He ushered all Old Testament saints to heaven. Some would remain disembodied until their resurrection in the Last Days, whereas others received new bodies before they ascended to their eternal home.

The darkness and the earthquake striking Jerusalem as Jesus hung on a cross were not the only extraordinary natural phenomena that God used to waken observers to the overarching significance of Jesus’ death. Scientists have demonstrated that on the day of His crucifixion—that is, on April 3, AD 33—a lunar eclipse was visible in Jerusalem from 6:20 P.M. until 7:11 P.M. As the moon rose over the Mount of Olives, the shaded portion was nearer the top, and overall the moon was distinctly red in color, as if it were smeared with blood. No other lunar eclipse was visible from Jerusalem at Passover time during the whole span of years from AD 26 to 36.⁷¹

On the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus' crucifixion, Peter quoted the following words of Joel, the Old Testament prophet (Acts 2:17–21).

28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.

32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: . . . .

Joel 2:28–32

Earlier on the day of Peter’s sermon, Jesus’ followers had emerged from a house in Jerusalem and witnessed boldly for their Lord by speaking to visitors at the feast in all of their native languages. This obviously supernatural feat by a small group of Galileans drew thousands of people seeking an explanation, and Peter rose to address them (Acts 2:1–16). He reminded them from Joel’s prophecy that God had promised to pour out His Spirit upon His servants and handmaids. He pointed out also that according to Joel, the Spirit’s descent would come at the same historical moment as two dramatic celestial signs. "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood."

Although the Synoptic Gospels inform us about the darkness that descended upon the land when Jesus was dying, they do not speak of the moon turning to blood. Yet Peter’s quotation of Joel leaves little doubt that this somber image in the evening sky had also been generally observed on the day of Jesus’ death. Use of Joel’s vision to prove that the disciples were now Spirit-filled was very effective because everyone in the audience was still awestruck after seeing both celestial signs just a few weeks earlier.

Reaction of observers near the cross

The Roman soldiers overseeing the crucifixion of the three men including Jesus were astounded by His otherworldly presence and by the soul-stirring echoes of His suffering that were coming from both earth and sky. Their participation in events far removed from the ordinary experience of mankind had such an impact on their leader, an officer with the rank of centurion, that he declared after Jesus’ death, "Certainly this was a righteous man" (Luke 23:47). Also, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mark 15:39; cf. Matt. 27:54). His claim to be the Son of God had evidently come not only to Pilate’s attention, but also to the attention of many Roman soldiers. The centurion probably did not have a theologically correct understanding of this title. Rather, like all Greeks and Romans immersed in pagan mythology, he believed that a god could father children with a human mother. Yet it seems unlikely that Gospel writers would have recorded his testimony if he never escaped from heathenism. Indeed, probably the only followers of Christ near the centurion when he spoke these words were Mary and John, and their attention was fixed on Jesus. So, it is very possible that church leaders learned what the centurion said from the centurion himself after he became a follower of Christ. The New Testament often presents centurions in a very positive light. Many holding this rank came from humble backgrounds and displayed high character, especially evident in their loyalty, courage, hard work, and practical wisdom—qualities that made them more receptive to the grace of God. During Jesus’ earthly ministry, one gentile who acknowledged Him as Lord was a centurion living in Capernaum (Matt. 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10). A few years after Jesus’ death, a centurion and his family were the first gentiles that the church in Jerusalem recognized as members of the body of Christ (Acts 10:1–11:18).

The women who had accompanied Jesus and His mother when they recently traveled from Galilee to Jerusalem were still standing afar off as observers when Jesus died (Matt. 27:55–56; Mark 15:40–41; Luke 23:49). When they saw that He was no longer alive, they sank into deep mourning, which they expressed by beating upon their breasts (Luke 23:48) and probably also by loud wailing, which was customary among the Jews. It was a common practice at funerals to hire people just for the purpose of adding their voices to all the other loud cries of grief.⁷²

Confirmation of His death

Jesus was crucified on a Friday, which in the year of His death was also the day when Passover sacrifices were offered in the Temple. The date was Nisan the fourteenth. The following Saturday, the fifteenth, was the first in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It would not only be a Sabbath, but because it inaugurated a major festival, it would also be a high Sabbath, and it was considered sacrilegious to crucify anyone, even a dangerous criminal, while the nation was celebrating a holy day.⁷³ Also, the law of Moses explicitly stated, "And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;)" (Deut. 22–23). The Jewish leaders therefore went to Pilate and asked him to hasten the deaths of all the men still hanging on crosses so that they could be taken down before sunset, the beginning of the next day (John 19:31).

Apparently a common way to hasten anyone’s death on a cross was to break his legs. Why this stroke of violence quickly had a fatal result is a matter of speculation that we will address later. After Pilate decided to cooperate with the Jewish leaders, he sent soldiers to finish executing the three men hanging on crosses at Mt. Calvary (John 19:32–33). When the soldiers arrived, they broke the legs of the criminals beside Jesus, but they spared Him from any hard blows because they saw that He was dead already. Yet to make sure that He was dead, one of the soldiers pierced His side, likely with the intent of stabbing His heart (John 19:34). If He was not dead, such a blow would have killed Him instantaneously. Why both blood and water issued from such a penetration of His chest is a matter we will also address later. That John is the only Gospel writer who speaks of this postmortem measure is consistent with all the evidence that he was the only disciple who stood next to Jesus’ cross throughout His ordeal.

The soldiers’ quick decision to leave Jesus’ legs intact but to thrust a spear into His side was not the work of mere chance. No, it was an outcome controlled by divine Providence to assure fulfillment of two prophecies (John 19:35–37). That His side was pierced verified the words of Zechariah, "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced" (Zech. 12:10). That His legs were not broken verified that He was the antitype of the Passover lamb, for God set down as a requirement for the people of Israel when they ate this lamb, "Neither shall ye break a bone thereof" (Exod. 12:46).⁷⁴

Late in the afternoon, the centurion overseeing Jesus' execution was summoned by Pilate, who asked whether the condemned man was dead (Mark 15:44–45). The centurion testified that He was. Pilate then granted Joseph of Arimathaea possession of Jesus’ body.