And by the way, this happened at three o’clock in the afternoon and that place would have been filled with hundreds of thousands of people, jammed with priests who were nothing more than butchers neck deep in blood, slaughtering one Passover lamb after another for everybody who was celebrating the Passover. There are numbers that indicate they would slaughter as many as a quarter of a million at a Passover. And in one moment there was no more priesthood, no more sacrifices, no more offering, no more Holy of Holies, no more holy place and no more temple. That corrupted den of thieves had seen its last day. The Old Covenant was for certain abrogated and the temple would soon be trampled by Gentiles. Top to bottom? Couldn’t have been done by men. High, ornate, inaccessible and God tore it from the top all the way down. In Hebrews 10, among other places in Hebrews, there is a wonderful statement in which we read, “Since therefore…verse 19…brethren, we have confidence to enter the Holy Place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is His flesh, by His flesh He opened up the way into the very presence of God.”
So the miracle of the ripping of the veil in the temple was another element of God’s commentary on the cross in which God made it abundantly clear that the way is now open into My presence through the blood of Jesus Christ. Supernatural darkness, separation, self-giving death, tearing of the veil, and now a fifth miracle. It’s described there in verse 51 as an earthquake, “And the earth shook and the rocks were split.”
Devastating earthquake. And God in the Old Testament often did things through earthquakes, as you well know. There are a number of indications of that in the Old Testament. And they always show God in His fury shaking the earth in judgment. And this shaking at the very death of Christ was a preview of coming attractions, folks. It was a preview of what was to come. If you were to go back, numbers of Old Testament passages would be adequate for you to read about this. The one that perhaps sums it up best is the twenty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, verse 19. Isaiah looks into the future at the day of the Lord, the time of judgment when the Lord lays the earth waste, when He devastates it, when He distorts its surface. And down in verse 19 of that chapter it says, “The earth is broken asunder, the earth is split through, the earth is shaken violently, the earth reels to and fro like a drunkard, totters like a shack for its transgression is heavy upon it. It will fall, never to rise again. So it will happen in that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven on high and the kings of the earth on earth and they will be gathered together like prisoners in the dungeon and be confined in prison and be punished.” And it goes on to talk about the Lord setting up His Kingdom and reigning all gloriously forever. That’s looking at the future.
You know what this was, this…this earthquake that came and this splitting of the rocks? It was simply an illustration of what was going to come. By the very death of Jesus Christ, He had verified, He had affirmed that one day He will come back as Judge. He will set His feet on the Mount of Olives. He will split the Mount of Olives wide. He will establish a great valley. He will judge the nations. He will set up His Kingdom. After that thousand-year reign, He will destroy the entire universe, as we know it, and replace it with a new heaven and a new earth. All of that devastation will lead to paradise regained. And here God affirms the reality of that future. The Christ is indeed the King of the earth. He may at that moment look like a victim, but God sends that fury, sends that earthquake, fractures the rocks and gives a taste of the fact that Christ who at that moment had bruised Satan’s head, crushed it literally, will come back one day to take the earth and destroy it and the elements eventually would melt with fervent heat and in its place would be a new heaven and a new earth which He would create, which righteousness would prevail forever.
In fact, the writer of Hebrews sees it. Hebrews 12:25, “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking…you better listen to the gospel preacher. For if those who didn’t escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised saying, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but the heavens.’” And he goes on to say, “Our God is a consuming fire.” He shook it at the death of Christ as a warning that some day He’s going to shake the entire universe and shake it right out of existence. Wow, what a comment. While everybody thinks this is the end of Christ, while everybody thinks He’s dying as some helpless victim, the fact of the matter is in that moment there is warning evidence that He having accomplished the perfect work of redemption is exalted by the Father as King and Lord and will come back to judge and to destroy.
There’s one final miracle. When the rocks were split, verse 52 says, “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.”
This final resurrection, the sixth one, is a capstone miracle. Graves opened up. Now an earthquake can open graves, but it couldn’t raise the dead. There’s no…there’s no physical phenomena to explain this. Many bodies, somata of the saints that slept were raised, came out of the graves. Slept referring to death, used mainly of death in the New Testament, it was a real resurrection, a resurrection of bodies, glorified bodies. This is…what is this? What does this signify? The final resurrection, the final, glorious resurrection. They were not spiritual, they were actual physical bodies. They were bodies coming out of the grave. Their souls were there, their soma was there, but they actually had bodies, bodily resurrection. This is a preview again of an actual, literal opening of the grave and the resurrection of the dead. Bodies coming out of the grave, spirits coming down from heaven joined those bodies and three days later they went in to Jerusalem. They had to wait three days in order that Christ would be the firstfruits of the resurrection. That’s 1 Corinthians 15:20.
This is amazing testimony God is giving. What is God saying? By darkness He is saying this is an expression of wrath against sin. By separation He is saying, “I am holy and this is holy judgment.” By the self-sacrifice of Christ, the miracle of literally giving up His life, we see God’s love and mercy and grace manifest in the incarnate one and His willing sacrifice. By the tearing of the veil we see the opening of heaven’s gates and the throne room of God and the welcome of God to those who come into His presence through Christ. In the earthquake we see the coming promise of a new universe with blessing forever. And in the resurrection we see the hope of our resurrection, the subduing of death and literal, physical living in the glories of the new world in the presence of our risen Christ.
All of that is God’s commentary on the cross before you ever get to any of the epistles. But how wonderfully do the epistles in the rest of the New Testament enrich our understanding of what God supernaturally said there without uttering a word. Bow with me in prayer.
Do you see it? Do you believe it? It doesn’t do any good for Jesus to die if you don’t repent of your sin and ask Him to forgive you and become your Lord and Redeemer. It doesn’t do any good for Him to die if you don’t turn from your wicked ways and realize that you cannot save yourself, you are an unworthy and wretched sinner. And the only hope that you will ever enter into heaven comes by faith in Jesus Christ and faith in Him alone apart from any work or any religious ceremony. If you have any doubt or question in your mind about your relationship to the living God, this would be the time to repent of sin, ask to be forgiven and to confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Redeemer.
Those of us who have received this glorious salvation, this is our time for a fresh and a new thanks. Father, we thank You for what You’ve shown us again in the glory of the cross. And we commit these truths to every heart that they might work their work by Your Spirit in Christ’s name. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
