The Accomplishments of Christ’s Death: Propitiation; Stages of the Cross, Matthew 27:50-56

In the tradition of Christianity today is the start of what is called holy week. It is that week that precedes the cross. It is that week that precedes the resurrection of Christ is celebrated on resurrection day. That is some often wrongly referred to as Easter, which come has a pagan derivation; but it is a celebration of that which gives us true life, and that life comes from the cross. There, Jesus died for our sins in our place as our sacrifice.

This day is called Palm Sunday it. It commemorates that time that is often referred to as the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem. I don't know if anybody here remembers when we studied that in our study of Matthew that was almost 2 years ago it was in May 2016 so you think wow, that took so long just to cover one week, but if you think about what the Scripture teaches this began at Matthew 21 and we are now towards the end of Matthew 27. That's is almost 7 full chapters. And these are not short chapters; these are long chapters.

I went back to the study I did in the Gospel of John and 98 through 2000 and discovered that as I went through John, which is a totally different approach to that last period of time—it starts at the beginning of John 12 and goes through John 20—and in those chapters, you have one of the lengthiest discourses of the Lord, called the upper room discourse—John 13-16—and then concludes with the Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17.

If you were to combine the year it took to go through that and the two years to go through this, you can understand the importance that Scripture puts on this. If you put all that together you take the harmony of the Gospels, and you look at how much is there that comes from just this last week alone, you realize from the proportion—in Bible study there's this law of proportionality that if God gives fifty per cent of His attention to one issue, then you know that's an important issue. And in this case, about one third of what is revealed about our Lord's life on this earth comes from that last week that He is in Jerusalem. And a lot of that is related to His trials, the events leading up to the crucifixion, His crucifixion, and then of course the resurrection.

As we have been working our way, verse by verse through the gospel of Matthew, and once we hit the these last events and the trials of Jesus, then we moved from the end of the trials of Jesus when He was found to be guilty and condemned by Pilate, and He was sent to the cross. From that instant to the ceiling of the tomb, there are 36 distinct events that take place. We been working our way through that and we came to the 25th state, which was His physical death, and at that point we had a bit of a pause where we were dealing with the accomplishments of Christ's death on the cross. Today we will come to the fifth one, the last one, and that is propitiation, which is not a user-friendly word in today's society. The more user-friendly word is the word satisfaction because it is the righteousness and justice of God that is satisfied at the cross. We will look at that and then we will go from there into the next five stages in the crucifixion, leading up to the preparation for the burial. That will conclude it. That's timely because next Sunday is resurrection day and we will conclude with His resurrection next Sunday.

What we have seen in this interlude is that there are five areas of what Christ accomplished, five what we call doctrines, what the Scripture teaches about what was accomplished by Jesus on the cross. First, there is substitution: He died in our place; He died for us. There is redemption. The key word there was the payment of a price, so that substitution was designed to pay a price. What the payment of that price accomplished was the cancellation of the debt against us, which was our sin. That is known by the theological term "expiation". That results in God's forgiveness of all mankind at the cross. That doesn't mean were going to go to heaven automatically, what it means is the sin penalty has been paid for by Christ on the cross, and what is left is for man to accept that, because only when he accepts it is the problem of his own spiritual condition, his spiritual death and his lack of righteousness, solved.

At the instant we trust in Christ, at that point God makes us alive in Him, and that is referred to as being born again or regenerate. And God imputes to us or credits to us His perfect righteousness, which is the basis for God declaring us to be righteous—not because we are more moral or we done better things, but because we now have the righteousness of Christ so that we are, as it were, clothed with Christ's righteousness—and God doesn't look on our sin, which we continue to produce, He looks on Christ's righteousness.

And because of Christ's work that leads to this fifth area, the satisfaction of God's righteousness and justice known as propitiation. We looked at what the Bible teaches about substitutionary atonement. That lies underneath, and behind everything. When a sacrifice in the Old Testament was brought to God, the sinner would place his hand on that innocent animal and would recite his sins to God. That is a transference of those sins to the animal, and then the animal would then be slaughtered, killed in order to be that visual picture of the horrific consequences of sin—thinking that every time you sinned that it had to be paid for by the life of an animal that had done nothing wrong. And that was probably going to cost you something because it was one of your animals or one you bought. So it's an object lesson for understanding the substitutionary nature of Christ's death.

That is also what underlies the teaching on propitiation. The study of propitiation focuses on that aspect of God's saving work on the cross, whereby God's justice and righteousness are satisfied concerning the payment of sin. He accepts that payment for us. So when we looked at as we looked at each one of these. There's a keyword in the keyword to understand propitiation and the word is satisfaction: that God's righteous demands that a legal penalty is paid for is satisfied, because when man sinned, he immediately incurred a legal penalty—spiritual death. The instant Adam ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he died spiritually, and all of his descendents would die. So Scripture teaches that in Adam all die. Because of Adam's original sin we all have died spiritually; we are born spiritually dead, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:1. That penalty has to be paid in a way that God's justice and righteousness is fully and totally satisfied.

The problem that man has is that the sin of Adam created a barrier between God and man.

The problem of sin was solved by unlimited substitutionary atonement, the penalty is paid for by redemption, and then the character of God is dealt with through propitiation. I have used "expiation" there because there is a close connection in the meaning of the words that are used for propitiation and expiation.

There are many verses, but the key one is first John 2:2, "and he himself", meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, "is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only …" That "ours", that first person plural, refers to believers in Jesus Christ, to Christians. So this is a verse that emphasizes the universality of the payment of the sin penalty. "… not for ours only but also for those of the whole world." That is a term that emphasizes the unlimited nature of Christ's payment as directed toward God. These different aspects that we are talking about are all God-ward; the man-ward issue relates to our faith in Christ, our regeneration and our justification.

In the Old Testament we have a great object lesson. If go back about four lessons I talked about the promises and prophecies, the way in which Christ's death is foreshadowed from the Old Testament. We talked about the Ark of the Covenant. The top of the Ark of the Covenant was called the mercy seat. The ark is just another word for a box. This was a wooden box made out of acacia wood, an extremely dense wood and one that doesn't rot or are get corrupted easily; insects can't penetrate it very easily. It's a picture of the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ: that His humanity was without sin. He was, not corrupted; He was sinless. That's the core of it. Then it was covered in gold that represents the deity of Christ. The mercy seat itself was solid gold, and the mercy seat is where the action takes place, as it were. Inside the box there was the 10 Commandments, the broken tablets that represented Israel's breaking of the law and their sinfulness. What takes place on that top, which is the mercy seat, has to do with dealing with the sin that is inside the box.

It's described there, "You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold 2-1/2 cubits long and 1-1/2 cubits wide. Two cubits would be 3 feet, so it was about 4 feet long and about a little over 2 feet wide. "You shall make two cherubim …" The cherub is not a little baby that has wings, that's fat and happy; a cherub would be pictured as a mighty warrior. They had four faces. They were of the throne of God, so they are mighty warriors. "… make two cherubs of gold; make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat …" The word for mercy seat is the word kapporeth, which means mercy seat (from the root kaphar, the verb which relates to atonement).

Atonement is a made-up English word to try to describe the work of Christ on the cross—at-one-ment, atonement. It sort of summarized all the Christ did. But this route verb kaphar is frequently translated in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, with a verb KATHARIZO, which means to cleanse. The basic core idea is we are cleansed of sin by what happens at the cross. So this mercy seat is going to portray cleansing of sin. When the Greek word is translated into the Septuagint they translated it with the Greek word HILASTERION. It's important to understand that because that word shows up several times in the New Testament, and it connects the dots between the Old Testament picture in the ritual of the Day of atonement and what happens at the cross.

Exodus 25:19 says, "Make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim {of one piece} with the mercy seat at its two ends."

Everything is united and of one on the mercy seat, and they will have their wings spread upward covering the mercy seat with the wings and facing one another the faces of the cherubim are to be turned toward the mercy seat. The idea is that they are looking at what's going to happen between them on the mercy seat. This is the place where God is said to be enthroned in many passages in the Old Testament, and on the Day of Atonement the high priest is going to come in and put blood on the mercy seat. That blood comes from a goat that he has just sacrificed. On the Day of Atonement two goats were taken. They were without spot or blemish. The high priest would then draw lots to determine which one would die, which one would be God's. He would take that one goat and sacrifice it, and then he would take the blood from that goat and he place that on the mercy seat—that a death was necessary to cover sin or to pay for sin. That's the picture that's there, and it has elements that remind us of redemption, that remind us of the cancellation of sin, and of forgiveness. And of course all is based on substitution. The same words kapporeth and HILASTERION are used there.

The Ark of the Covenant was not to be carried directly. There were polls that ran through the rings on the side so that the priests, and only priests, could carry it. Inside the box were the broken 10 Commandments. On the top were the lid and the cover, and then there were the gold cherubs.

The New Testament picks up on this as Paul is explaining our salvation in Romans 3:25 where we read, "whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith …" So God is publicly displaying Him as a sacrifice on the cross—that God is doing something significant at Golgotha and that He is displaying the son of God, as that propitiatory sacrifice that was pictured in the Old Testament. "… whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation by his blood through faith …" This was to demonstrate His righteousness. "… because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed". Even though He did not enact direct payment for sin in the Old Testament the sacrifices look forward to the cross, and it was at the cross, then that all the sins of mankind were paid for.

The word propitiation is the Greek word HILASTERION and in the new International dictionary of New Testament Theology, which is an extended dictionary of Greek terms and their usage, it defines the word as not only propitiation and the place of forgiveness, but also expiation. It relates to expiation. That is that technical term that refers to canceling a debt. So it begins to tie all those five things together here in this last one. We have substitution; we have redemption; we have the canceling of the sin or expiation; we have forgiveness, and now we have propitiation: that God's justice accepts that payment for sin and He is satisfied.

Hebrews 2:17 "Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people". Jesus had to be fully human, like every one of us, to be our substitute. Only like could substitute for like.

These five things I've talked about are all God-ward. Christ is paying the penalty for sin to God in terms of His righteousness and justice in order to be able then on the basis of faith alone in Christ alone to provide regeneration and righteousness.

Now, how far does this extend? 1 John 2:2, "and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins [believers]; and not for ours only, but also for {those of} the whole world". It is unlimited. These aspects that are directed toward God are unlimited. That doesn't mean everybody is saved. You don't have universal salvation because the limiting factor is volition. Those who believe in Jesus Christ and trust in Him for their salvation, receive the imputation of righteousness. They are justified; they receive eternal life; they are new creatures in Christ, and therefore they have eternal salvation. Those who reject the gospel do not; they remain under condemnation, according to John 3:18 "because they have not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God".

1 John 4:10 "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son {to be} the propitiation for our sins"—the satisfactory payment for sins.

So we have these five things completed. Here we have substitution where Christ takes our place; redemption, he pays our price for us. That results in the cancellation of the debt; that's expiation. Because the debt is canceled we can be forgiven. In fact, everybody is forgiven. Every human being is forgiven of sin because Christ paid for their sin. It doesn't mean they go to heaven because are still spiritually dead and righteous, but that means that sin is not the issue in gospel presentation. We are not there to beat people over the head with all their failures. Christ paid for that. They need to understand they are spiritually dead; they need to understand why they are spiritually dead—it's not their sin, it is Adam's original sin—so that they can understand why Christ had to pay the pay the penalty, why they are forgiven, and that the issue now is only belief in Him.

So the forgiveness blots out the debt, and because that payment was perfect God's righteousness and justice are satisfied, and we have a complete salvation. That is why Jesus says TETELESTAI, which is a financial term indicating the payment has been completed in full. And what a tremendous image that gives us of this transaction on the cross, and the suffering that our Lord went through on the cross.

Now that completes our study of this interlude: what was accomplished by Christ on the cross. Now we go back to our 36 stages of the crucifixion. This is a review of what we looked at. In the beginning there was the procession to Golgotha, from the Praetorium to the execution site where Jesus would be crucified. Those were the first five stages.

Part of that was that Jesus had been so tortured, so whipped, and flagellated and beaten, and was so physically weakened by this point that someone else had to carry His cross to the execution site. That was Simon of Cyrene. When they arrived they began to nail Jesus to the cross. First they nailed His wrists, not the hand. The Hebrew and Greek words define the whole forearm to the fingers. They are nailed to the cross so that that nail comes in just at the wrist, and then they nailed His feet. How do you think that felt? How do you think it felt when the nails driven through his hands on top of all His other suffering? And Scripture says that He was like a lamb before shearers and He uttered not a sound.

This was such a contrast because in typical executions what would happen is that there would be a tremendous amount of noise coming from the criminal. They were yelling insults at the Roman guards. They were protesting their innocence. They were screaming they were crying. All sorts of dramatics were going on, and yet we have this non-verbal testimony of a Man who was in complete control and was relaxed. He's calm, He doesn't scream, He doesn't insult his captors. In fact, when He begins to speak, as we get to that second stage in the wrath of man, where four different groups or are ridiculing Him and making fun of him and blaspheming him his statements, the first three statements all reflect His grace. He says first, "Father forgive them because they don't know what they're doing". He is calm and relaxed. He is going to tell the thief on the cross, "Today you'll see me in Paradise". All of the things that He says, up to where He tells John to take care of His mother Mary, indicate that He's in control. He is relaxed. He's taking care of responsibilities, and then He goes into that dark period: the wrath of God, when darkness came on the face of the earth and the sins of the world were imputed to him.

I talked about four different things that were accomplished by that darkness, mostly to shroud what was going on: the pain everything that was happening as the Lamb of God was made sin for us. But one thing occurred to me when I was teaching on this last week. Another reason that there was darkness is because the Light of the world was being extinguished on the cross. There is this darkness, which demonstrates God's justice. It's a picture of God's justice throughout the Old Testament for their rejection of the Light of the world.

Then we see how God imputes our sins to Jesus, and Jesus is the one who bears our sins on the cross. And when that was completed—we have one word used twice for emphasis in John 19: when it was TETELESTAI, when it was completed—it was all over with. Jesus says to TETELESTAI, it's completed before He died physically, and everything necessary to pay the penalty for sin was completed. It was that spiritual transaction where Christ died spiritually by bearing our sins on the cross that He paid the penalty. It was not His physical death, but His spiritual death.

Then we concluded that with the 25th stage, which was His physical death, and then I stop for the interlude to talk about what was accomplished on the cross. The next stage is the confirming signs, stages 26 to 30, and there are some fascinating things to learn and to understand about what is happening here, especially in stages 26, 27 and 28.

In stage 25 we saw that Jesus died and that He screamed out so all could hear, "It is finished", bowed His head and gave up His spirit. His immaterial nature separated from His physical body and He is face-to-face with God the Father.

This leads to the next section, the attesting signs that are described in Matthew 27:51-56. This first part is primarily revealed in that section.

Matthew 27:51-54, "And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

This is a passage that has created a measure of controversy because this is all that is said about it. We are not told who, exactly, the saints were, we are not told how long this happened, we are not told what happened to them subsequently to this, we are not even told very much about what they said or what they did. So we need to probe it just a little bit to at least understand the parameters of what took place.

At the cross there are six creation phenomena, we might say, that occur. First of all, there is the darkness. That is distinct from what were reading in verses 51 and following; this began at 12 noon. There is darkness that covers the face of the earth. Then at the time of Jesus' physical death when it is completed, the veil in the temple is torn from top to bottom. Third in the list, we have an earthquake that takes place. Fourth, were told that the graves opened, or certain grades opened. They are tombs actually. Fifth, that there will be saints that are resurrected, who on Sunday will come out from the tombs.

A note should be made here that in recent years this is been the focus of a lot of controversy. There is a Southern Baptist scholar by the name of Michael Latona now teaching at Houston Baptist, who denies the historicity and the truthfulness of this passage. This has brought us made us aware that we are in a second battle for the Bible. The first battle for the Bible was in the 70s. The second battle for the Bible is going on now. Most evangelicals aren't even aware of this because people aren't taught anymore. They are not made aware of what's going on. Back in the 70s it was quite well known among churches that inerrancy was under assault in many evangelical schools. Last year, if you want to come to understand this, we had a speaker named David [xxxxx] who the teaches New Testament. He got his PhD from Dallas seminary, and he teaches at the Master seminary, and he gave an outstanding explanation of the importance of inerrancy and infallibility, what's going on today, and so you can listen to that. But Michael Latona wrote about a 600-page book a couple of years ago that was designed to affirm the veracity of Christ's resurrection. But in the middle of all of that when he came to this passage, he says this didn't actually happen.

This is what is known as sort of martyrdom rhetoric, that when someone died a great hero died in the legendary literature of Rome and Greece would have these kinds of supernatural things going on, so we don't have to believe that this actually happened. That is a direct assault on inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. And what we have here is a description of something that happened when Christ died, when He paid for our sins, is a cosmic event. It doesn't just affect our sins, it affected all of God's creation, such that there is darkness and there is an earthquake, and then there is a foretaste of what will come in this resurrection of some saints from the grave; and Matthew brings this out. Remember he's writing the Jews and so he is using illustrations that will resonate from the Old Testament—talking about the kinds of things that will take place or said or predicted to take place at the beginning of the kingdom. This is in the beginning of the kingdom; it doesn't begin until Jesus returns. But these signs indicate and they confirm who Jesus is and what He has accomplished on the cross.

The first thing that happens, which is stage 26, is that the veil of the temple is torn. Mark confirms that just simply says, "And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom". Luke says just, "The veil of the temple was torn". So Matthew is the best passage for looking at this.

Actually were two veils. There's some debate about among scholars as to which veil was torn, the outer veil going into the holy place, or the inner veil that separated the holy place from the holy of holies. I've run across several times recently where there are some scholars who make a statement that because of what is said about the centurion, that when he saw these things he then said that this must be the Son of God.

The problem with that is if you understand the geography of Jerusalem the temple on the Temple Mount is facing east. There is a wall around the temple mount. There is another wall around the old city of Jerusalem, which was Josephus's the second wall, and Jesus was crucified outside that wall to the west. So he's due west of the temple here and the temple is facing east, so if you're standing at the base of the wall where the execution took place, you can't see through that wall. You can't see through the wall that surrounded the Temple Mount and you certainly can see through the temple to see what's happening inside the temple, or the outer veil that was facing east, the opposite direction. The centurion could not have seen that take place. Very few people would have seen it or even known about it, other than other than the priests.

The priests must have been somewhat panicky as somewhat out of nowhere the veil is ripped from top to bottom. What this symbolizes is that the way to God is now open because of the sacrifice of Christ.

We get some information about the size of the veil from the Mishnah. Rabban, Simeon, the son of Gamaliel, says, "In the name of Rabbi Simeon, the son of the chief that the veil was a handwritten thickness". That is 4 inches thick. It's 60 feet high and it is 30 feet wide, and it's woven together very tightly so that it would be impossible for human beings just to grab it and tear it, and if they did, it would be from the bottom. So this is a supernatural event of God ripping the veil from top to bottom.

Hebrews talks about this as a symbol of the fact that our way to God is now open because the veil which is analogous to Christ's flesh has opened the door, opened the way for us, as He has become now our high priest.

At the same time that this happens there is an earthquake. Some people try to make a connection that the earthquake and the veil rent are cause-and-effect. But Matthew really doesn't present it that way. Some try to combine these is as if it's all one event. This was what A.T. Robertson does in his harmony of the Gospels. Arnold Fruchtenbaum follows that, but the grammar of the text is interesting. There are four independent clauses here. In each clause you have a KIA, or the word and, and then you have the subject, "and the veil was rent". Then you have the next phrase, "and the earthquake", and then the third phrase, "and the rocks were split". Each has a conjunction, an article, and a noun, so it's very clear that that Matthew is presenting these as four distinct events even though they happen somewhat simultaneously. And there may be some correlation. For example, when the rocks are split of course that would open up some of the tombs. The earth quakes and this has would have been felt all through Jerusalem.

Dr. Steve Austin who I've been corresponding with this last week because as you know he loves seismic events. He's a geologist. He has his PhD in geology from Penn State and he has been working for several years on projects in Israel where he is digging around in the layers of mud—they are solid now—by the Dead Sea because seismic activity would leave evidence in the strata along the Dead Sea. And he has confirmed there is evidence of an earthquake that occurred in 31. You can tell where that centered by looking at the data, and it's centered down by the Dead Sea. But there is another one that occurs after that, probably 33, that shows this great seismic activity, but it wasn't centered at the Dead Sea, it centered in Jerusalem, and this is this quake at the crucifixion that Matthew describes.

As a result of that earthquake the rocks are split. This term is a word from which we get our word schism and it indicates a violent tearing apart our fracturing. So this was a well-felt earthquake. All of Jerusalem shook. It got everybody's attention, including the guards. The guards are there at the cross and they're seeing that the fact that this guy hasn't said anything. He doesn't scream out, He is not vitriolic with insults to the guards; He doesn't revile those who are reviling Him, as Peter tells us. When He does speak He's calm, He's relaxed, He's very gracious and kind. Now they have seen the darkness that occurred, they haven't seen that before, and these are experienced executioners. And now that there's this earthquake they know something is radically different at this event from any other crucifixion that they have been involved in.

Then we read that the graves were opened in stage 29, and many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. This is interesting. First of all we need to recognize that when we look at Matthew 27:52 and it talks about graves, these would have been the tombs. There is a difference in Israel. Usually poor people are buried in a grave, which is what were familiar with, where they are buried underground. If you are brought back to life and you're in a grave whether, your wrapped in cloth or whether you're in a coffin, there is not a whole lot of air to breathe. According to the grammar of the text, it appears that they are resurrected on Friday afternoon at 3 pm and they don't come out until Sunday morning. But if you're in a tomb—tombs are above ground— they are usually in caves and there were two or three rooms where they had different shelves where the bodies were stored. Because for the first year there would be a decomposition so that there would be nothing left of the flesh or the organs or any of that, and then the bones would be collected and they would be put in an ossuary, which is a bone box, where they were kept. So if you are resurrected in a tomb, you can move around. You can do a few stretching exercises you have plenty of oxygen to breathe and you can just relax for a couple of days until you are permitted by God to leave the tomb.

So we have to understand the picture of what is being presented here in terms of the graves. The tombs open, the stones would be rolled back so that air could get in, the graves are open and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

The saints here describe Old Testament believers in a broad sense. But we are not going back, this isn't Abraham and David, or the prophets. Why? They are bodies were well beyond decomposition, and if they had been collected, the bones been put in an ossuary, that doesn't apply to them. This would apply to believers who had died physically in the previous year, probably those who had not been dead that long, maybe two or three months. We can think of Jairus's daughter whom Jesus raised from the dead. We can think of Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead. They were resuscitated into a mortal body; they weren't brought back in a resurrection body.

How do we know that? Because that would have happened before the resurrection of Christ on Sunday, and Christ is the firstfruits; He is the first one to receive a resurrection body. So they are resuscitated back to life and they would have gone on to live a normal life, although they would have been something of a celebrity. I don't think this was a huge number, but it was a significant number who gave testimony to the grace and the power of God's Savior, and resurrection after the resurrection of Christ had taken place. We are told they went out of the graves after His resurrection; they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

You would also think about the fact that if your dear departed husband had gone to the grave five years ago and since then you remarried this might cause some problems. Since the period of mourning was a year, the same period that you have the body in the tomb waiting for decomposition to take place so that those bones could be put into the ossuary, this would not cause a lot of social problems by their resurrection from the dead. So I think that if we think through the customs and the issues than this makes a lot more sense.

There were there were a lot of things that happened as a result of this. You would think that there would be some sort of historical record of that: that somebody would write about the darkness, and somebody would write about the veil being torn. However, that's not true. There are some who have suggested that there was a darkness. But when it comes to these other events there are some legends of some things that happen that are recorded in rabbinical literature. The reason I called them legends is because we really don't have any surviving eyewitness accounts. But these are recorded in the Mishnah, they are recorded in the Talmud as things that happened. They are believed to have happened by the rabbis. They are treated as historical fact and I believe that they were they were accurate, that these things did happen, even though the Bible doesn't talk about them.

The first legend was mentioned in the Jerusalem town mud in tractate Yoma 63: "It has been taught 40 years before the destruction of the temple, the western light went out". That's the light in the temple; that's darkness. It could refer to darkness in the temple, that the menorah went out, which is how is usually understood, that the menorah went out in the temple. That's recorded that it was 40 years before the destruction of the temple. The temple was destroyed in AD 70, so this light goes out in the early 30s. Christ died on April 3 of 33. I think we're more documentation for that today than we did maybe 40 years ago.

A second legend is recorded by both Josephus and the Talmud. Josephus later he became a historian, but he was a general who surrender to the Romans during the Jewish revolt from 66 to 70. He says, "The second legend is recorded by both Josephus and the sound of the heavy temple doors usually took several men to open but they swung open of their own accord". This happened 40 years earlier.

There's a third legend that I think connects to that, and that is about the lintel of the temple doorway. At the entry to the temple there are the two pillars on each side, there is this huge heavy door, and across the top of the doorway there's a lintel. There is earthquake and the lintel breaks in half, the doors fly open, and the lintel comes crashing to the ground. This is recorded in the Talmud and in the Mishnah.

But what really intrigues me is the fourth one. We talked about the Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement there were the two goats: the one goat that is sacrificed and his blood is put on the mercy seat; the other goat is called [xxxxxxx], and that refers to the fact of departure, and he is the one who carries the sins of the people out into the wilderness, picturing the fact that God removes our sins far from us.

According to rabbinic legend, they would tie a scarlet ribbon—some say to the horns of the scapegoat; some say to the entry to the temple—and when the goat went out into the wilderness and was released then the scarlet ribbon turned white. Isaiah were told that though your sins be as scarlet, they will be turned white, but what's fascinating is approximately 40 years before the destruction of the temple the ribbon no longer turned white. Why would that be? They never answered that; they didn't know the answer. The answer is because the final payment for sin was accomplished and the ritual was no longer necessary.

I can't say for sure that that happened. Rabbis who didn't believe in Jesus recorded that as what had transpired 40 years before the destruction of the temple. I just find that fascinating.

Rabbi Ishmael and the Mishnah says they had another sign to. A thread of crimson will was tied to the door of the temple and when the he goat reached the wilderness the thread turned white, as it is written, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." For 40 years before the destruction of the temple the thread of scarlet never turned white, but it remained red. Isn't that interesting.

The 30th stage is that we see the bystanders reaction. First, there's the centurion and those with him. This is the guard that was there; the executioners who had seen so many executions but never one like this. They were guarding Jesus when they saw the earthquake and the things that had happened.

Many people saw the veil split, but you couldn't do it; physically impossible. "They feared greatly saying, 'Truly this was the son of God'". Luke says, "So when centurion saw what had happened he glorified God, saying, "Certainly this was a righteous man". He said both; he was impressed. He realizes that Jesus must be who He has claimed to be. He's heard it all; he's watched it, and at this point the centurion becomes a believer in Jesus Christ.

The people who have witnessed all of this are now struck with guilt. They have, they know, caused the execution of a man who is guiltless. "And the whole crowd who came together to that site seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned home". They were remorseful but not repentant yet.

And then there's a third group, those who knew Jesus. Luke 23:49 says, "And all His acquaintances and the women who accompanied Him from Galilee were standing at a distance, seeing these things".

Literally in the Greek it says those who knew Him, all His friends and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things. So you have three responses here. The person who understands who Jesus is and believes on him is the centurion, the people who realize that an injustice was done and they recognize their guilt, but they go home just remorseful, not repentant; they don't change their mind about Jesus. Then the third group is those who are already saved and who watch, like us. They go back and study and reflect upon who Jesus is, and what He did on the cross, so that they may have a greater understanding of their salvation.

This is this tells us that the issue in salvation is Christ. It's not what you've done, it's not what I've done; it's not whatever we as happen to us that may embarrass us, or shame us. All sin has been paid for objectively by Christ on the cross, the only thing that remains if you have never trusted in Christ, is to believe on him. That's a mental act. The instant that you listen to this message and you say, that's true, that's belief. You have believed you don't have to say I believe it. You don't have to think, "I believe"; if you just say, "that's true", you believed it. You don't have to do anything else. God the father, in his omniscience knows exactly what you believe, and in that instant that you believe He will regenerate you, give you eternal life, give you Christ's righteousness, and declare you righteous. And that can never be taken away. That is the good news of our forgiveness of sin and our gift of eternal life.

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