Matthew 27
AEKMatthew 27:29-53
29 See Psalms 69:19-20; Isaiah 53:3. 30 See Isaiah 50:6. 31 See Isaiah 53:7-8; Philippians 2:9-10. 31 In mockery, our Lord went through the mimic ceremony of being invested with imperial dignity. The shining attire with which Herod clothed Him (Luke 23:11) may have been intended to mark Him as a candidate for royal honors. Pilate’s soldiers put on Him the scarlet mantle, a sign of His having attained the imperial throne, and add the crown of thorns and the reed for a scepter, and offer Him the homage due to such exalted rank. Little did they dream of His high honors as earth’s Suzerain and heaven’s supreme Head! And little do His saints discern that this is the essential ceremony of investiture for the King of kings and Lord of lords. He never could assume the place supreme unless He had descended to the depths.
Suffering and shame are the divine preliminaries to joy and honor. Those who suffer-they shall reign.
32 Compare Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26-31. See Hebrews 13:12-13. 33-34 Compare Mark 15:22-23; Luke 23:33-36; John 19:17. 34 See 48; Psalms 69:21. 35 Compare Psalms 22:18.
35 The crucifixion of Christ is a holy of holies, where speech seems sacrilegious, and silence sacred.
38 See Isaiah 53:12. 39-44 Compare Mark 15:29-32; Luke 23:35-43. See Psalms 22:7-8.
39 The whole scene is vibrant with the presence of God, not only in the Victim and the feeble few who followed, but in the very words of those who hated Him. They spoke great truths which they could not comprehend. They were demolishing the true Temple of God. They needed salvation. But it could never come if He saved Himself or descended from the cross. The chief priest could not have uttered a more pregnant or more precious truth. How gladly we echo their words! We only change the note of derision into a song of triumph. “ Others He saves: Himself He cannot save!” Surely they were inspired!
40 See Matthew 26:61-64; John 2:19.
44 There were four others crucified with Christ. Two were malefactors. Two were robbers. One of the malefactors believed on Him. The robbers reproached Him.
45- 53 Compare Mark 15:33-38 Luke 23:44-46; John 19:25-30.
45 The dread darkness was but an indication of the withdrawal of the divine Presence from the silent Sufferer. This was incomparably more awful than the opposition of His enemies or the desertion of His friends. Until this darkness enveloped Him, He had always lived in the light of God’s smile. Now He was hanging on a tree, and became accursed of God (Galatians 3:13). Sinless, He became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). Then it was that fire from above entered into His bones (Lamentations 1:13).
Then the Lord bruised Him (Isaiah 53:10), It was the travail of His soul in these dark hours which settled the question of sin. It is only as we see God against Him then that we can appreciate how much He is for us now. Crucified by man at the behest of Satan, and abandoned by God, He was the most forlorn and forsaken creature in the universe. Only after it is past and the light returns is He able to cry to God. And then He utters that most incomprehensible of all questions, unless, indeed, He suffered for the sins of others. For His own sake God would never have abandoned Him.
For my sake (and yours, beloved reader), He endured, not merely the physical pain, the mental torture, the moral degradation which men inflicted, but the deeper, direr despair of the awful enmity of God.
46 See Psalms 22:1. 48 See Psalms 69:21.
50 His death was different from all others. He did not linger until life ebbed away, but laid down His soul while still strong by committing His Spirit to God. His body was laid in the tomb. His soul went to the unseen. His work was done, and death was His portion until His resurrection.
51 See 2 Chronicles 3:14.
51 The flesh of Christ was figured by the curtain in the temple which hid the presence of God from the holy place. God was not manifest in His flesh, but in its rending. Our union with Christ does not commence until His crucifixion. We were crucified, entombed, raised, and are ascended and seated in Him.
Matthew 27:54-28
54-61 Compare Mark 15:39-47; Luke 23:47-56 John 19:38-42.
54 The kingdom proclamation closed with the acknowledgment of Peter that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16). His priestly ministry closes with the centurion’s declaration that He is the Son of God. Thus we are given a foretaste of the final effect of both of these ministries. In the day of His return, Israel will exultantly acclaim Him King and the nations of the earth will acknowledge Him their Lord.
55 See Luke 8:2-3. 56 See Matthew 13:55.
57 The shame and ignominy, as well as the sufferings, are now over. Though they appointed His grave with the lawless, God put Him in a rich man’s tomb. The Romans would have left His body till it wasted away or was devoured by birds of prey. The Jews would have put it in a felon’s grave. God indicated His mind by providing two honorable men, Joseph and Nicodemus (John 19:39), to attend to His entombment. Joseph of Arimarhea, translated, means “ He adds the heights.”
62 The morrow after the preparation was the great sabbath which began the festival of Unleavened Bread. But the religions leaders did not rest nor did they allow Pilate peace. They now realized that they had only fulfilled His own predictions, and that, should He rise from the dead, or even appear to do so, they would be in a worse predicament than ever. From the divine side it was important that they should have ample assurance of His resurrection. Nothing could be more convincing than the story of the guard. Their plan was an excellent one to prove, not disprove, His return to life.
63 See Matthew 16:21; Matthew 17:23; Matthew 20:19.
64 Twelve times we are told that He would rise “ the third day” . Why do they tell Pilate “ after three days” , and then set the guard hardly more than a day after His death? Pilate was a Roman. They used the Latin idiom. Mark, who wrote for Romans, also uses this form (Mark 8:31; Mark 9:31; Mark 10:34). In Greek it is literal, “ the third day” . In Latin it is idiomatic, “ after three days” . In Hebrew it is an idiom which accords with all their chronological computations, “ three days and three nights” .
66 The “ detail” of soldiers, was a small squad which, in Latin, was called a custodian. From this we get our word custody. Pilate uses the Latin military term for which the Greek had no exact equivalent. Hence it is transliterated, rather than translated in the sublinear rendering.
1 Compare Mark 16:1-4; Luke 24:1-2; John 20:1.
1 The enigmatical phrase, “ the evening of the sabbaths,” when the Roman watch was set, is the key to a problem which astute theologians have declared to be unsolvable. The Hebrew day, in starting at sundown, commenced in the middle of an “ evening” . The evening of one day lasted till sundown, after that it was counted as the evening of the next day. Thus each day had two evenings, one at its commencement and another at its close. Each evening was in two days. The evening when the watch was set was in two sabbaths.
One, the first day of Unleavened Bread, was a special sabbath, coming but once a year. The other was the usual weekly sabbath. The conjunction of these two at their common evening satisfies the phrase “ the evening of the sabbaths,” and furnishes the key to the chronology of the passion week.
1 “ One of the sabbaths” is the only correct translation of the phrase usually rendered “ the first day of the week” . The word first is not there. It is simply one, and is applied to the eleventh hour (Matthew 20:12), which, in that case, was last, not first. The word day is not in the text at all. The word “ week” is in the plural, and is precisely the same as the form in the preceding sentence. If it is rendered “ sabbaths” there it must also be “ sabbaths” here.
So there is no recourse but to translate “ one of the sabbaths.” The key to this expression lies in the law of the Firstfruits (Leviticus 23:9-14). Ending with the day before Pentecost there were seven sabbaths (Leviticus 23:15) from the day before the waving of the “ sheaf” . These are referred to in the phrase “ one of the sabbaths” . Every mention of this phrase places it between the Passover and Pentecost, (1 Corinthians 16:2 and Acts 20:1; Acts 20:6). And the other occurrences refer to our Lord’s resurrection (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1-19). He was raised on a sabbath, not the first day of the week, which would be our Sunday.
His resurrection on the sabbath is a token that His work was complete. Redemption is now a matter of entering into His stopping, not the beginning of a new week of toll and labor.