When I Survey the Wondrous Cross—“Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast / Save in the death of Christ, my God.” Why do we sing of a cross this way? Such a song would’ve been repulsive to most in the first century. Cicero said the cross was “a most cruel and disgusting punishment.” “There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed.”[i] The Jews knew that a person on a cross was cursed. Criminals hung publicly till their half-naked bodies suffocated. It was Rome’s version of the gallows.  

So, most people would’ve questioned your mental well-being had you written music about a cross. Yet, for centuries now, the church writes song after song about the cross of Jesus. Why? Paul said, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14). Why? Because it’s not merely a cross that causes us to sing. It’s the meaning of Jesus’ cross that causes us to sing.

The Gospel of Matthew not only recounts historical facts surrounding Jesus’ death. It also reveals the theological meaning of Jesus’ death; and when you grasp that meaning truly, you too will sing about Jesus’ cross. Today, we survey the wondrous cross again as we look at the death of Jesus in Matthew 27. We’ll begin in verse 45. If you’re using a pew Bible you can find that on page 834. Let’s read together from verse 45…

⁴⁵ Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶ And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ⁴⁷ And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” ⁴⁸ And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. ⁴⁹ But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” ⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. ⁵¹ And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. ⁵² The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, ⁵³ and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. ⁵⁴ When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Darkness, a curtain torn in two, rocks splitting, dead people rising—some have said that Matthew breaks here from history and resorts to poetry, mere symbols. But quite the opposite occurs. Notice the time markers: the sixth hour, the ninth hour. Notice also the eyewitness reports. The bystanders hear. The soldiers saw. Later he names a few of the women looking on from a distance. Matthew recounts the events as they happened.

At the same time, they are not bare events. They are packed with significance. They belong to a larger storyline in the Scriptures. These events match several Old Testament passages that help us understand Jesus’ death. Also, God stands behind the darkness in verse 45, the earth shaking in verse 51, the dead rising in verse 52. And did you notice how the curtain is torn? Not from bottom to top (a work of man), but from top to bottom (a work of God). What is God teaching us about Jesus’ death?

God’s Judgment against Sin

The first thing we should see in Jesus’ death is God’s judgment against sin. Verse 45 says, “From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” That’s our noon to 3:00. Three hours of darkness over the land. Some have explained this as a solar eclipse. But solar eclipses happen with a new moon, and Passover falls on a full moon. Perhaps God used something else in nature.

At the same time, in Matthew’s Gospel God worked before in ways contrary to what we’d expect in the natural order. In 1:18 God causes a virgin to bear a child. In 2:9 he moves a star for wise men to find Jesus. In 8:26 he calms the storm as Jesus’ rebuke. In 14:25 he makes the sea firm beneath Jesus’ feet. It’s not hard to imagine God working a supernatural darkness at midday. He tells the lights what to do.

But beyond that, God has caused darkness over a specific land before. He did it to Egypt in Exodus 10:21-22. It was the sign of God’s judgment falling on a people. Later, God would also threaten Israel with severe darkness. Amos 5:18, “Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD…It is darkness, and not light.” Amos 8:9, “On that day…I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.” Joel 2:1-2, “The day of the LORD is coming…a day of darkness and gloom!”

Supernatural darkness was a sign of God’s judgment. That same sign appears here to tell us what the cross truly is. The skies grew dark, because in those three hours God’s judgment was falling on Jesus in our place. All people deserve God’s judgment because of sin. But in mercy God saves many and causes their judgment to fall on Jesus at the cross. He takes our place beneath the wrath of God.

Imagine standing at the bottom of a dam. The top of that dam, you can’t make very well because it’s so high. Behind that dam stands billions upon billions acre-feet of water. Imagine that damn broke with all the water rushing to consume you. But just before the water hits you, the ground opens and swallows every bit of water. When Jesus died on the cross, the damn of God’s wrath broke on Jesus. God poured out his cup, and Jesus drank it all. You deserved it. He did not. But in love, he stood in your place.

By calling on Jesus to save you, your end-time judgment is taken away. The judgment you deserved at the end of history already fell on Jesus within history. It doesn’t matter if you’re a prim and proper religious prude or an ashamed serial adulterer. It doesn’t matter your background, ethnicity, age, sex, or social status. If you trust in Jesus, he will deliver you from the wrath to come.

You don’t need to hide your sins any longer. You don’t need to fear what others think of you because of your sins. At the cross, the worst that could be said about you has already been said. God exposed our sin for what it really is; and then he dealt the judgment it deserved. Only, that judgment fell on Jesus in our place.

Just consider your sins alone—how offensive they are to God, how numerous they are, how repeated they are, how much judgment they deserve. It’s a weight none of us can bear. None of us could satisfy the punishment we owe. But Jesus was qualified to bear it. He alone was able to satisfy justice. 1 John 2:2 says that “[Jesus] is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

When you survey the wondrous cross, is this what you see? Your judgment taken away. God’s wrath averted. Your total pardon. The death of Christ was a day of darkness as God’s judgment fell on Jesus in your place.

God’s King Suffering Faithfully

No wonder he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That brings us to the next thing we see about Jesus’ death. We see God’s king suffering faithfully for us. In verse 46, Jesus cries with a loud voice. Matthew gives us the Aramaic, which helps us understand why the bystanders think he’s crying for Elijah. But then Matthew explains what he said: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

How should we take that? We shouldn’t take it to mean that a separation occurs between the persons of the Godhead—as if the Father is suddenly displeased with his Son, or as if the Father and Son are no longer one. We also shouldn’t say that God is totally absent from what Jesus suffers in his human nature. In John 16:33, Jesus had the assurance that the Father would not abandon him. Also, in Luke 23:46, when Jesus breathes his last, he commits his spirit into his Father’s hands.

What, then, is Jesus saying? Well, we get some help from Psalm 22. We’ve heard this Psalm before. Last week, Joshua showed us two places where the sufferings of David in Psalm 22 anticipated the sufferings of Jesus. In verse 35, the soldiers divided Jesus’ garments by casting lots. In verse 43, the elders mocked Jesus by saying, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now.” Psalm 22 anticipated both moments of suffering.

With these connections still fresh in our minds, Jesus now utters a cry that’s also found in Psalm 22:1. By reading this Psalm, we learn more of the nature of Jesus’ cry. Psalm 22 is a lament. Mark Vroegop defines lament as “a prayer in pain that leads to trust.” When David utters these words, he’s in great pain. People despise him. They wag their heads and mock him. Enemies come at him like roaring lions. He’s even on the brink of death: “I’m poured out like water,” he says, “and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it’s melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; [Lord] you lay me in the dust of death.”

In context, we must understand—David is God’s anointed king. God put David on the throne. God gave David the promises. David represents the people and the kingdom. If he goes down, everybody goes down. This isn’t good.

But likely the worst part of the pain is the seeming absence of God. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.” David doesn’t doubt God’s ability. His prayer turns in verse 3, “Yet you are holy.” Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. We find the same lament on Jesus’ lips. He is offering a prayer in pain that leads to trust.

I wonder, have you’ve ever cried like this? “Where are you, God?! Why aren’t you acting yet?! Why have you forsaken me?! I cry to you by night and get nothing—are you even there, Lord?!” You are not alone in those cries. Christianity is not a religion that seeks to suppress the pain and pretend it’s not there. No, the saints of old knew the same types of pain we experience in the path of obedience.

But even more, our Savior made such cries. Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isa 53:3). He sympathizes with your cries. But the grief he endured on the cross is far greater than anything David endured (or that you or I will endure). In his humanity, Jesus willingly endured the full brunt of God’s judgment. He experienced in his soul the full assault of darkness and loneliness and curse and death. More than any, he knew what it was like for God not to answer.

Without a word from heaven, Jesus willingly enters the pangs of death. He trusts the Father even in and through death. Here’s what that means for you, Christian: if God sustained Jesus through those sorrows, then God can sustain you in your sorrows.

But the news is even better. You see, David represented his people in suffering; so also, Jesus represents you. He suffered as your representative, but not simply to suffer. He stayed faithful through suffering and death, that he might come out the other side victorious. In Psalm 22, God vindicates the King for his faithfulness in suffering; and that vindication leads to him spreading joy and worship among God’s people.

In his human experience, Jesus entered death without hearing God’s answer. But God did answer three days later when he raised Jesus from the dead. Psalm 22 pictures the king rejoicing with his people: “I will tell of your name to my brothers! In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you!” (Hebrews 2 quotes that about Jesus in his resurrection victory). Verse 27 also celebrates: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.”

That’s where Jesus is heading—ultimate victory for him and his people, but first in and through death. Which means your laments not only have legitimacy (after all, Jesus prayed this way); they also have mega assurance. They can be full of hope because the King went through the greatest of sorrows, the greatest of laments, and he came out the other side alive and victorious. As goes the King, so goes his people. If you’re in Christ, all your laments find their answer in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus made this cry to give you the assurance that God will never abandon you, no matter how dark it gets. In our pain, we can rest assured that he suffered faithfully to bring us out the other side with him. That’s why he went to the cross! That’s why we sing about surveying the wondrous cross! The King suffered faithfully and won the battle over sin and death—the greatest of our enemies.

But I’m getting ahead of Matthew, aren’t I? Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t come till the next chapter. But I can’t help but draw these connections for you now, so that when you get to the resurrection, all the pieces start coming together.

In fact, here’s some homework for you. Psalm 22 isn’t the only Psalm that Matthew has in mind. In verses 46-50, Matthew groups together several events; and these events recall three different Psalms. First is Jesus’ cry from Psalm 22. Then we get some soldiers offering Jesus sour wine in verse 48. That was anticipated in Psalm 69:21, “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” Then in verse 50, Jesus cries out with a loud voice and yields up his spirit. That alludes to Psalm 31:5, “You are my refuge [Lord]. Into your hand I commit my spirit” (cf. Luke 23:46).

Read Psalm 22, Psalm 69, and Psalm 31 and you will find that all three have these six components. One, all of them are Psalms of David. That’s important because Jesus has identified himself as the new and better David. The Psalms of David were always pointing forward to Jesus. The way David represents the nation, the way David prays and suffers and triumphs—these aspects of David’s life anticipated Jesus.

Two, in all three Psalms the king is surrounded by enemies. Three, the king cries to God in the face of suffering. Four, the king remains faithful to God in suffering, trusting God to deliver him. Five, God answers the king’s prayer and vindicates him along with the people he represents. Six, the king then leads those people to worship God and celebrate his great salvation.

By grouping these allusions together, Matthew wants us to see Jesus as the true king in David’s line. His sufferings and death are not a defeat, but part of the story God has been telling about his King for a long, long time. Jesus is fulfilling the Scriptures and bringing to pass God’s purpose for the world.

God’s Promised New Age Dawning

Speaking of God’s purpose for the world, something else we see about Jesus’ cross is God’s promised new age dawning. You can’t see it as well in the ESV, but the verbs in verses 51-53 are all joined by the word “and” in Greek: “the curtain was torn…and the rocks were split, and the tombs were opened, and many bodies…were raised, and coming out of the tombs”—it reads like it’s all one thing, part of one event.

Matthew even clarifies how those who rise from their tombs don’t enter the holy city and appear until after Jesus’ resurrection—which Matthew hasn’t gotten to yet. So, on the one hand, it anticipates Jesus’ resurrection. On the other, he still lumps together the opening of their tombs with the death of Jesus. You can’t hardly pull these two events apart. They’re part of one thing. Jesus’ death and resurrection together to create some remarkable new realities. What are those?

Well, one involves the old age of the temple system ending. We’ve had hints this was coming. In 5:17, Jesus came to fulfill the Law. In 12:6, he told the Pharisees, “Something greater than the temple is here.” In 24:1, Jesus says of the temple, “there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” Now, God himself tears the temple curtain in two. Was this the outer curtain separating the Holy Place from the court of the Gentiles? Or was it the “second curtain” inside, separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place? Either way, the point is the same: God has opened the way for all to enter his presence, for all to enter his courts.

Jesus is the fulfillment of these older pictures. The temple-system was no longer needed. Jesus offered the ultimate sacrifice. He’s the better high priest. He’s the true atonement. Access to God would no longer come by the blood of bulls and goats in Jerusalem; it comes through the new and better temple, Jesus Christ.

Whether you’re in the grocery store with kids, or you’re out of sorts with folks at work, or you’re wrestling against sin, or you’re needing a comforter in grief, or you’re trying to make your marriage work—wherever you are, you have access to God simply by coming to Jesus. You don’t need a priest, a mosque, a temple, a religious pilgrimage; you only need Jesus for access to God. Jesus is the true meeting place with God.

So, the old system was going down. But also, the new age of God’s restoration was beginning. Now, there’s a lot Matthew doesn’t answer in verses 52-53. Like, which “saints” get raised? Old Testament saints? The prophets, whose tombs the Pharisees built in 23:29? Also, how public was their appearance? Who saw them? Or what about the nature of their bodily resurrection? If we pieced this together with 1 Corinthians 15, we’d say it can’t be the general resurrection of all. So, maybe they were raised only to die again—much like the girl who’s restored to life in 9:24.

We don’t know. Matthew doesn’t address all our questions. But the way he brings things together, it seems like he’s pointing to Ezekiel 37.[ii] In Ezekiel 37, God gives Ezekiel a vision: a valley of dry bones. The dry bones represent Israel. As a nation, they were dead. “Our bones are dried up,” they say. “Our hope is lost; we are cut off.”

But God promises mercy. One day, God would raise up a new Israel; and he’d bring that new Israel under the rule of a new David. That new David would also establish a new covenant. But Ezekiel first describes that same day with “an earthquake” in Ezekiel 37:7—some translations have “Behold, a rattling” when the bones came together. But as the ESV notes, it can also mean “earthquake.” Ezekiel 37:7 has “Behold, an earthquake” just like Matthew has “Behold…the earth shook.”

Then Ezekiel 37:12 says, “Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people.” This is the only place (besides Matthew 27) where there’s an earthquake, people exit their tombs, and enter the land. What does God want us to see about Jesus?

He’s showing us that Jesus is the anticipated new David who will give life to a new Israel under a new covenant. Jesus’ death (and resurrection) inaugurates the new age of God restoring his people. Not all of Ezekiel 37 is fulfilled in this moment. Just like not all of Isaiah’s prophecies of a new earth are fulfilled when Jesus heals people earlier in the gospel. Even as he dies on the cross, God is whetting our appetite for the age to come. He’s revealing the true power of Jesus’ cross to set us free from death.

God’s Son Revealed to the Nations

But you know what else is part of that new age? God revealing his Son to the nations—that’s the next thing we see about Jesus’ death. In verse 54, Matthew mentions a centurion and few others. They were keeping watch over Jesus. “When they saw the earthquake and what took place (presumably the rocks splitting, the tombs opening, and so on), they were filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’”

In 26:63 the Jewish council asked Jesus, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Then, in 27:40, the Jews who passed by Jesus’ cross were mocking him, “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” The leaders mocked him in 27:43 saying, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him, if he desires. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” The people of Israel rejected Jesus as Son of God. But when these Gentiles see the events surrounding Jesus’ death, their eyes are opened to his true identity: “Truly this was the Son of God.”

The cross is folly to Gentiles. It’s a stumbling block for Jews. But to those who have been called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:23-24). What do you think when you look on his cross? Who do you say that Jesus is? Do you believe he’s the Son of God? What greater testimony do you need? God covered the land in darkness. He shook the earth and split the rocks. He broke open the tombs and raised the dead to life. And all of it to say, “Jesus is the Son of God. I gave him up to take away your judgment. I gave him up to fulfill my promises to David. I gave him up to give you access to me and begin the day of restoring all things.”

Is this what you see in Jesus’ cross? Do you see that he’s the Son of God? God means for you to answer that question for yourself. Through the cross, God has opened the way for mission to the nations. These soldiers are some of the first who get it. If you want others to get it, tell them about Jesus’ cross. Tell them about what Jesus’ cross means. It’s in and through the message of the cross that God opens the eyes of sinners to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

I mentioned the hymn we sang earlier, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. For several weeks, we’ve surveyed the wondrous cross. How has it changed you? Has the cross become your only boast, your only hope? What have you made your meditation as you look at his heads, his hands, his feet? Do you see in his wounds sorrow and love flowing mingled down? Maybe the final words of that hymn are a fitting way to end today: Were the whole realm of nature mine / That were a present far too small / Love so amazing so divine / Demands my soul, my life, my all.

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[i] As cited in John Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), 30.

[ii] For textual connections to Ezekiel 37, see Charles L. Quarles, “Matthew 27:51-53: Meaning, Genre, Intertextuality, and Reception History,” JETS 59/2 (2016): 278-82.