For three hours had the Saviour hung on the Cross. It was midday. And now the Sun was craped in darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour. No purpose can be served by attempting to trace the source of this darkness. It could not have been an eclipse, since it was the time of full moon; nor can we place reliance on the later reports on this subject of ecclesiastical writers. [6133] It seems only in accordance with the Evangelic narrative to regard the occurrence of the event as supernatural, while the event itself might have been brought about by natural causes; and among these we must call special attention to the earthquake in which this darkness terminated. [6134] For, it is a well-known phenomenon that such darkness not unfrequently precedes earthquakes. On the other hand, it must be freely admitted, that the language of the Evangelists seems to imply that this darkness extended, not only over the land of Israel, but over the inhabited earth. The expression must, of course, not be pressed to its full literality, but explained as meaning that it extended far beyond Judæa and to other lands. No reasonable objection can be raised from the circumstance, that neither the earthquake nor the preceding darkness are mentioned by any profane writer whose works have been preserved, since it would surely not be maintained that an historical record must have been preserved of every earthquake that occurred, and of every darkness that may have preceded it. [6135] But the most unfair argument is that, which tries to establish the unhistorical character of this narrative by an appeal to what are described as Jewish sayings expressive of similar expectancy. [6136] It is quite true that in old Testament prophecy - whether figuratively or really - the darkening, though not only of the sun, but also of the moon and stars, is sometimes connected, not with the Coming of Messiah, still less with His Death, but with the final Judgement. [6137] But Jewish tradition never speaks of such an event in connection with Messiah, or even with the Messianic judgments, and the quotations from Rabbinic writings made by negative critics must be characterised as not only inapplicable but even unfair. [6138]
But to return from this painful digression. The three hours' darkness was such not only to Nature; Jesus, also, entered into darkness: Body, Soul, and Spirit. It was now, not as before, a contest - but suffering. Into this, to us, fathomless depth of the mystery of His Sufferings, we dare not, as indeed we cannot, enter. It was of the Body; yet not of the Body only, but of physical life. And it was of the Soul and Spirit; yet not of them alone, but in their conscious relation to man and to God. And it was not of the Human only in Christ, but in its indissolube connection with the Divine: of the Human, where it reached the utmost verge of humiliation to body, soul, and spirit - and in it of the Divine, to utmost self-exinanition. The increasing, nameless agonies of the Crucifixion [6139] were deepening into the bitterness of death. All nature shrinks from death, and there is a physical horror of the separation between body and soul which, as a purely natural phenomenon, is in every instance only overcome, and that only by a higher principle. And we conceive that the purer the being the greater the violence of the tearing asunder of the bond with which God Almighty originally bound together body and soul. In the Perfect Man this must have reached the highest degree. So, also, had in those dark hours the sense of man-forsakenness and His own isolation from man; so, also, had the intense silence of God, the withdrawal of God, the sense of His God-forsakenness and absolute loneliness. We dare not here speak of punitive suffering, but of forsakenness and loneliness. And yet as we ask ourselves how this forsakenness can be thought of as so complete in view of His Divine consciousness, which at least could not have been wholly extinguished by His Self-exinanition, we feel that yet another element must be taken into account. Christ on the Cross suffered for man; He offered Himself a sacrifice; He died for our sins, that, as death was the wages of sin, so He died as the Representative of man - for man and in room of man; He obtained for man eternal redemption,' [6140] having given His Life a ransom, [6141] for many.' For, men were redeemed' with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot;' [6142] and Christ gave Himself for us, that He might "redeem" us from all iniquity;' [6143] He gave Himself "a ransom" for all;' [6144] Christ died for all;' [6145] Him, Who knew no sin, God made sin for us;' Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us' - and this, with express reference to the Crucifixion. [6146] This sacrifice, vicarious, expiatory, and redemptive character of His Death, if it does not explain to us, yet helps us to understand, Christ's sense of God-forsakenness in the surpreme moment of the Cross; if one might so word it - the passive character of His activeness through the active character of His passiveness.