15:34 And at the {7} ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

(7) Christ striving mightily with Satan, sin and death, all three armed with the horrible curse of God, grievously tormented in body hanging upon the cross, and in soul plunged into the depth of hell, yet he clears himself, crying with a mighty voice: and notwithstanding the wound which he received from death, in that he died, yet by smiting both things above and things beneath, by the renting of the veil of the temple, and by the testimony wrung out of those who murdered him, he shows evidently unto the rest of his enemies who are as yet obstinate, and mock at him, that he will be known without delay to be conqueror and Lord of all.

15:21-41 They compel one Simon... to bear his cross. See notes on Mt 27:32-56. Mark's account is almost parallel. Compare Lu 23:26-49 Joh 19:17-30. Only Mark declares that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. See Ro 16:13 1Ti 1:20 Ac 19:33. Simon, while a native of Cyrene in North Africa, was a Jew.

15:34 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me - Thereby claiming God as his God; and yet lamenting his Father's withdrawing the tokens of his love, and treating him as an enemy, while he bare our sins.

15:33-41 There was a thick darkness over the land, from noon until three in the afternoon. The Jews were doing their utmost to extinguish the Sun of Righteousness. The darkness signified the cloud which the human soul of Christ was under, when he was making it an offering for sin. He did not complain that his disciples forsook him, but that his Father forsook him. In this especially he was made sin for us. When Paul was to be offered as a sacrifice for the service saints, he could joy and rejoice, Php 2:17; but it is another thing to be offered as a sacrifice for the sin of sinners. At the same instant that Jesus died, the veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom. This spake terror to the unbelieving Jews, and was a sign of the destruction of their church and nation. It speaks comfort to all believing Christians, for it signified the laying open a new and living way into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The confidence with which Christ had openly addressed God as his Father, and committed his soul into his hands, seems greatly to have affected the centurion. Right views of Christ crucified will reconcile the believer to the thought of death; he longs to behold, love, and praise, as he ought, that Saviour who was wounded and pierced to save him from the wrath to come.



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