“He Gave Up the Ghost”

S. Mark xv. 33–38

At this point a manifest change seems to pass over the scene of the Crucifixion. Up to this hour Jesus has borne all that was laid upon Him without a murmur or complaint of any kind; His only thoughts have been for others — for His murderers, for the penitent robber, for His desolate Mother; and so far not a word of sympathy has been uttered. But now the climax of the Agony is reached, and where the voice of man is silent, Nature speaks.

Darkness fell upon the whole land of Judaea. It was doubtless limited in its area, not widely dissimilar from that which happened at the Exodus, when “there was a darkness in all the land of Egypt three days,” while all “the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.” It is true that a great earthquake and noonday eclipse x did occur in this year, as we learn from the testimony of more than one ancient writer, but the extinction of light of which the Evangelists write cannot be scientifically accounted for on natural principles. And surely if a miraculous brightness had illumined the night to signalise the birth of God Incarnate, we need not wonder that the heavens should have gathered a supernatural blackness in token of His death.

Now it was out of this thick gloom, or perhaps just as the light broke out again to symbolise that His struggle with the powers of darkness was over, that He uttered that most mysterious cry, “My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake Me?” A cloud had passed between His human soul and His Father’s face: He had been driven like the scapegoat bearing the people’s sins into the very wilderness of desolation. It was a cry of immeasurable alienation, but in its very accents it implied that union had been restored. “Even from the remotest bound of a nature thus traversed in all the measures of its infirmity for man’s salvation, the Saviour cried unto God as His God, yea and He c was heard in that He feared.’”

Whether the language He used was the Hebrew “Eli” or the Aramaic “Eloi,” 2 there was something in the cry that recalled to the spectators the name of Elijah. If they were Jews, it may have been that in their bewilderment they caught only the first syllable, and with their superstitious fears quickened by the preternatural darkness, thought that “the great and dreadful day” was at hand.

If, on the other hand, they were Romans, they must have seen how the people regarded Elijah, the patron saint of the distressed, and lived in expectation that he would appear in every crisis of difficulty and danger. It was not unnatural then that they hastened to the conclusion that the Crucified was calling for His deliverer.

While they were waiting another cry was heard, “I thirst;” and, moved to pity, one of the soldiers took the sponge from the neck of the earthen jar, and, dipping it in the wine, which they had provided for the sentry, held it on a reed or stalk of hyssop to His dying lips. The penalty of sin had been fully paid, its curse had been borne in all its intolerable weight, death was imminent, and He accepted the draught.

Then followed the loud voice — an unwonted precursor of death, for Jesus died as none other died, and that cry was the last proof He could give of His power — the fulfilment of His Own declaration, “no man taketh My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.”

At that moment “the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.” The significance of this occurrence is full of interest, and worthy of the closest consideration. The whole structure of the Tabernacle, upon which the Temple was modelled, was one of a complex and profound symbolism, such as befitted a plan drawn by no human architect, but revealed by God. It was divided into three parts, — an Outer Court, the Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. The whole congregation of Israel were admitted into the first, the priests into the second, the High Priest alone into the third; and they represented in type respectively the World, the Church, and Heaven. Both the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies were entered through a veil or curtain called the outer and the inner, or sometimes the first and the second. Which of the two veils was it which was rent in twain, when Jesus gave up the ghost? The early Fathers, with the exceptions of two of the greatest, Origen and S. Jerome, and nearly every modern commentator, have concluded that it was the inner or second veil. From this view we dissent 2 upon the following grounds: It is commonly assumed that the rent signified that henceforward heaven was opened to all believers through the death of Christ. But is this true? Was not the effect of the Passion the unsealing of mysteries confined before to the Jewish nation? Was it not the breaking down of “the middle wall of partition” which excluded the Gentiles? Was it not, in short, the throwing open of the gates of the Church, so that there should no longer be any distinction between circumcision and uncircumcision, bond and free, male and female? “In Christ Jesus,” says the Apostle, “ye who were sometime afar off were made nigh by the blood of Christ.” The Church was henceforward to be composed not of one but of all nations; it was necessary therefore that this should be foreshadowed in type. It could only be done by destroying the curtain which concealed the chamber that represented the Church, i.e. the Holy Place, not the Holy of Holies.

But if the second or inner veil was not rent at the Crucifixion, what change was effected in respect to the Holy of Holies, which symbolised heaven? By the death of Christ apparently none. Whatever change passed over this resulted from His Ascension j but it was not so great that it deserved to be marked by the rending of that which precluded the general admission. Now what was the change? The inner veil shrouded the Presence of God from the common gaze; and when the High Priest entered, the mystical Shekinah might only be seen through a cloud of incense.

This obscuration of the Divine Glory was provided for in a remarkable manner. We learn from the Mishnah that the curtain was a double one, with a space between about a cubit in width. When the High Priest passed into this intervening space, before he drew aside that which hung next to the inner Chamber, he poured incense over the glowing brazier in his hand, and, entering with downcast eyes, waited to look up till the smoke had completely filled the place. It was a merciful provision, Moses says, to save the High Priest from death, which he must have incurred had he looked upon the full brightness of the Divine Presence.

But the vision of God is no longer veiled to our High Priest, for He sees It in all its undimmed glory, even face to face. This at once connects the symbolism of the Inner Veil with the Ascension, not with the Crucifixion. This veil was not rent, because the heaven which it typically concealed is not yet thrown open for all to enter. We are still waiting without — some on earth, some in Paradise. Our Forerunner has entered, and His entrance is the pledge by which we may have boldness to believe that we shall one day follow, even by that “new and living way which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh;” but as yet we may only do so by faith, for the road will be really trodden by no other feet till the Resurrection.

We can no more say that we are free to enter heaven than the Jewish nation could have claimed that they had access to the Holy of Holies. They could enter in the person of their representative High Priest, and so can we by ours, but only in Him, not with Him. We can be there in hope, not in reality. For the actual admission in our own persons we must wait till the veil is for ever rent or removed, as it will be at the general Resurrection.

It was, then, we believe, a rent in the outer veil, made as it were by the hand of God Himself, that must have terrified the Jewish worshippers as they flocked into the Temple at the hour when Christ expired upon the Cross. But, like all the other preternatural signs, it left the hardened Jews more obdurate than before.

It seems incredible to us that they could have withstood such irresistible evidence. “The heavens had rejoiced at Christ’s birth; a new star had sprung into light, and a company of angels filled the air with their song. The sea had acknowledged Him, and made itself a pathway for His footsteps; the earth trembled to its centre at His death; the sun knew Him, and withdrew its shining; but though the whole material world bowed down before Him, the unbelieving Jews refused Him His due, and, harder even than the rocks, showed no sign of repentance,” and they now reap the fruits of their unbelief.

Note: The expression” the whole land” is ambiguous. If it may not be strictly limited to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, it must be interpreted as an Orientalism common to Scriptural phraseology. Cf. S. Matt. iv. 9, S. Luke iv. 25, Acts ii. 5, S. James v. 17.

Note: This is on the evidence of Phlegon, a freedman, of Adrian. He says that” there was a greater eclipse than any yet known, and that the sixth hour of the day becajne night.” Strauss and others bring forward numerous parallels of darkness occurring simultaneously with the deaths of great men, and conclude that the Evangelists adopted a superstitious belief.

Note: S. Mark usually gives the exact form of our Lord’s words, so we may conclude that it was “Eloi,” though of course it makes it harder to understand how it could be mistaken for Elijah.

Note: S. John x. 17, 18. S. Augustine says, “non earn deseruit invitus, sed quia voluit, quando voluit, quomodo voluit.”

Note: Two modern writers agree more or less with the view here stated, viz., Douglas in” Jerusalem the Golden, “and Willis in” The Worship of the Old Covenant.” Hug also accepts this interpretation.

Note: In the Hebrew, different words are used for the two veils; and generally KaraTreraaixa, that here used, represents in the LXX. the inner, and KdXvfxfxa the outer, but by no means universally, as is too commonly asserted. Cf. Ex. xxvi. 37, xxxviii. 18, xl. 6, 8, 19; Numb. iii. 26, all cited by Willis. Further, it is KaraireTaafxa vaov, i.e. that part which contained both the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. If it were the veil of the latter only, we should have expected ayiuv ayiwv. Cf. Heb. ix. 3.