The Secret Codes in Matthew: Examining Israel’s Messiah, Part 22: Matthew 27:27-28:20, by Kevin M. Williams

The final chapter in this unique commentary on the Gospel to the Hebrews. Messianic teacher Kevin Williams discusses the Roman execution of Messiah, the forsakenness of the sacrifice, changing the Sabbath, the Great Commission and other insights in this closing chapter.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him (Matthew 27:27).

It is important to note the lack of Jewish names and perpetrators in this verse, or those that follow. Those who cling onto the obscene notions of the Jewish population as “Christ killers,” and therefore worthy of not only God’s scorn but Christian oppression as well, should carefully note these violent and insufferable acts of the Gentiles.

As noted in part 21, the trail of Yeshua was a mockery, conducted by a handful of spiritually blinded Jewish leaders. They certainly passed a false sentence, but it was the Roman cohort that stripped, mocked, spat on, beat, and crucified Him. The horrific scenes made so vivid in Mel Gibson’s 2004 production of The Passion of the Christ, are guilts all mankind shares.

They gave Him wine to drink mingled with gall; and after tasting it, He was unwilling to drink (Matthew 27:34).

For some, this might contradict an earlier promise by Yeshua at the Passover: “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). If the Messiah said he would not drink of the “fruit of the vine,” that is to say, wine, then why did he drink this wine/gall mixture?

First of all, Yeshua did not “drink,” He tasted. Once He tasted it, “He was unwilling to drink.” If there is an exact explanation to settle any disparity, this should suffice.

There may be a deeper spiritual significance beyond the words on the page, however. Proverbs 31:6 reads, “Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter.” Within the Israeli religious culture of the day, that verse was interpreted thusly, “When a person is lead out to be executed he is given a glass of wine containing a grain of frankincense, in order to numb the senses, as it is written, ‘Give strong drink unto him who is perishing, wine to those bitter of soul.’” (Sanhedrin 43a).

For those witnesses there, the religious theology of Sanhedrin 43a may well have been the filter through which they processed the crucifixion. Yeshua had been offered the prescribed drink to “numb his senses” and to deaden a “bitter soul.” But Yeshua’s soul was not bitter, and from His perspective, death was not permanent. He wanted his senses to be as sharp as possible, for He was about the business of fulfilling God’s Plan.

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).

It should not be missed that this was “about the ninth hour” a very significant moment in the Temple, as well as throughout the Scripture: often referred to as the ninth hour, eventide, the evening oblation, or the evening sacrifice (see Joshua 7:6-10, I Kings 18:36, 38, Daniel 9:21, Ezra 9:5-6, and Acts 10:30-31. Editor’s Note: read Kevin William’s article “The Ninth Hour” from the Summer 2000 issue of the Pneuma Review). In the Hebrew it is known as the minchah as is still commemorated every day by observant Hebrews through the “evening” prayers at 3:00 p.m.

Our modern minds think of “evening” as occurring after sundown, but not so in the Temple period. There was “lila” which was nighttime when stars shone in the sky, and there was “erev,” the hours just before sunset (between 2:00-4:00)—before three stars could be seen in the approaching night. According to temple tradition, the evening sacrifices had to be accomplished before the sunset, as many of God’s instructions required separation until after sunset. This period was the ninth hour.

The minchah offering, the evening sacrifice, was made at the ninth hour and this is where our Matthew account and the goings on in the temple converge with symbolic significance.

While minchah signifies the time, it does not signify the type. There were many “types” of sacrifices, from sin offerings to fellowship offerings in the temple ritual, as commanded by the Torah. Each held a different significance; some were eaten while others were burned entirely, some required this type of animal while others needed a different beast—or perhaps grain instead. The instructions were varied depending on the need, but for minchah, the final sacrifice of the day was always an asham offering: the sin (or guilt) offering.

As the High Priest was taking the life of an innocent lamb in the Holy Temple, Yeshua who was the Temple Incarnate and the Lamb of God was having his own blood spilt. There are strong parallels here worth noting. One of the attributes of the asham offering is to atone for the sins the people do not even know they have committed, an Old Testament picture of unmerited grace.

Luke’s gospel drives this point home even more clearly, as our asham prayed to God, “But Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing’” (Luke 23:34).

How mighty a prayer, and through His identification with the Passover sacrifice, Yeshua causes death to pass-over and for those who believe, redeems Adam’s curse. But equally as important, by becoming the asham offering, the sins we have committed in ignorance are washed clean as prophesied: “But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt (asham) offering” (Isaiah 53:10, parenthesis mine).

In this Matthew account, centuries of preparation and symbolism converged at the appointed time, the ninth hour.

Yeshua cried out in the common Arabic, “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?” and some believe from this singular call that the Redeemer was now forsaken by God, meaning that the Lord was suddenly displeased and had turned his face away from Yeshua in rejection.

Yes, the words translate as, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Within the entirety of Scripture, however, there is no precedence for God to forsake a sacrifice He ordained. Time and again in the Torah, though the slain animal took on the sins of the guilty—even the sins of an entire nation—the offerings were a “soothing aroma to the Lord” and were accepted willingly.

The only evidence we might find of sacrifices being rejected is when they were offered legalistically, without a contrite heart: these were an abomination. Because Yeshua laid down His life willingly as the wholly innocent offering, certainly His execution as the asham and paschal sacrifices were as God had ordained and gave the Almighty no cause to “forsake” His Son.

Yeshua’s cry is a familiar one. The words were first uttered by King David, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning” (Psalm 22:1). However, we need to consider both the culture and the context.

In Judaism, when a Bible verse is cited its entire context is implied (David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary, [Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1992], p. 84).

If you hear the words, “Oh say can you see,” and you are a citizen of the United States of America, your mind immediately fills in the rest, “by the dawn’s early light.” You instantly understand the reference in its entirety as the National Anthem. In Judaism then and now, to refer to any portion of the Bible is to infer the entire context. Yeshua’s use of Psalm 22 was no coincidence, and in its entire context is quite revealing.

The Redeemer—though nailed to a tree—was likely still teaching, making certain that the prophetic aspects of Psalm 22 were not overlooked . .

• “I am a worm, and not a man, A reproach of men, and despised by the people” (v.6).
• “I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint” (v.14).
• “They pierced my hands and my feet” (v. 16).
• “They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots” (v. 18).

Many recognize these Davidic utterances as prophetic pictures of the One that came to hang on a tree. Yet David’s prophecy was not doom only, but littered with hope: “For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Neither has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard” (v. 24).

The Psalm Yeshua cried held ominous overtones, without question, but it also promised an ultimate deliverance. Man may have rejected David and Yeshua, but the entire context states that God did not, “For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.”

Did God reject Yeshua and “forsake” Him? This author says, “no.”

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook; and the rocks were split (Matthew 27:50-51).

As already noted, it was about the ninth hour. Immediately following the minchah offering, the High Priest would make his way into the Holy Place, the innermost court of the Temple where the golden menorah and table of shewbread were. His next function according to God’s Torah was to light the ketoret, the incense upon the holy incense altar. This small, golden altar stood directly in front of the “veil” or parokhet.

Imagine the High Priest, likely the very man who condemned Yeshua the night before for blasphemy, bending down with the coals required to light the incense. As he leaned over and the aroma of the incense began to waft upward, he heard a terrible noise as the barrier between his world and the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant rested was suddenly exposed! I have no doubt that he fell on his face and quaked.

More symbolic meanings are found in this miracle. The veil was remarkably huge, woven with threads of red, blue, and purple and being entirely made as a work of embroidery. It would not easily tear. The curtain also had two cherubim on them, symbolic of the two angels God had posted at the entrance of Eden, barring Adam and Eve from ever returning to paradise and access to the Tree of Life. This curtain was the reminder that mankind was forbidden to cross Eden’s threshold.

The Holy of Holies, separated from the rest of the world by this veil, had two other names of consequence: Paradise and the Tree of Life.

The way that had been shut, but by the sacrifice of God’s only Son the curse that had expelled all mankind from Eden had been removed. The barrier had been startlingly and awesomely cleared and the path of redemption opened once again.

There was a centurion standing there who said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54). The Tree of Life was now open to him.

One of the thieves who hung alongside Yeshua had promised, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43), and the veil fell away, opening Paradise.

“Since therefore, 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” (Hebrews 10:19).

And when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given over to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth” (Matthew 27:57-59).

Arimathea, Ramatayim in the Hebrew, meaning a man from Ramah, the land of the tribe of Simeon, and the birthplace of the prophet Samuel. We read in Mark 15:43 That Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin, and in Luke 23:51 that he had not voted to condemn Yeshua.

It should be noted that as a Pharisee, and man of great prominence in Israeli and Roman society, taking possession of an unclean, dead body during the weeklong Feast of Unleavened Bread would have ramifications for this “secret disciple” (John 19:38). Joseph would himself become ritually unclean, and disallowed from his own home under the instructions of the Torah: “And when anyone touches anything unclean, whether human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or any unclean detestable thing … that person shall be cut off from his people” (Leviticus 7:21). Joseph would not be able to participate in the Feast of Unleavened Bread with is family. He put his beloved Messiah first, risking both his reputation and fortunes.

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Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave (Matthew 28:1).

This verse is one of the most solid biblical testimonies of God’s ordained Sabbath—Saturday.

Sunday (or as it is put here, the “first day of the week”) is important because in God’s calendar during this season of Passover, it is known as the “Day of Firstfruits.”

“Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord for you to be accepted; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it” (Leviticus 23:10-11).

The Sadducees held that the “day after the Sabbath” of the week after Passover, that is the first Sunday within the week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, was this day of Yom HaBikkurim, the Day of Firstfruits (not to be confused with the Feast of Firstfruits, 50 days later).

Today, amidst Easter lilies, pretty dresses, chicks and eggs, sunrise services, and ham dinners, it has become all too easy to forget that this was a significant day in God’s calendar, a spiritually symbolic predecessor of what was to come through the Messiah, as Paul rightly notes, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). It was a day to bring tithes into God’s house with thanksgiving for all He had provided and was going to provide. How much more so then, by the power of the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah!

Before leaving the topic of the Sabbath entirely, there are few theologians who do not recognize that the biblical Sabbath is indeed Saturday, and that Sunday-is-Sabbath is nothing more than a long-held religious tradition born out of the Church of Rome.

Thomas Aquinas, from the 13th Century wrote, “The observance of the Lord’s day took the place of the observance of the Sabbath not by virtue of the biblical precept but by the institution of the church.”¹

Eusebius, a 4^th Century church historian notes these words of Roman Emperor Constantine: “On that day of light, the first day, day of the real sun, when we gather together at intervals of six days … we then accomplish, following the spiritual law, that which had been ordained by the law for the priests to do during the Sabbath … all that which had to be accomplished during the Sabbath we have brought over to the Lord’s Day, inasmuch as it is the most important, the dominant, the first, and it has more value than the Sabbath.”²

The intent here is not to inflame or offend, but rather, to point out biblical truth. It is presented with no other obligations or encumbrances. In fact, it was Constantine who placed obligations what to do on Saturdays: “Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day.”³

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

These words, commonly known as the “Great Commission,” must have amazed and dismayed the disciples. The very thought of making disciples of the nations—the gentiles—would have rubbed against the very bedrock of the Judaism they had been taught since childhood. For them, the Messiah was for Israel and Israelis, not the nations. For them, the Messiah was to establish Israel as the seat of world government, as noted in Acts 1:6, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

How amazing it is to consider that today’s Christianity is largely waiting for the Messiah to establish his kingdom for Christians, and Jewish people have been relegated to the back seat. Yes, there are some Jewish missions, but the vast majority of evangelism is pointed away from Israel, not toward her. Yeshua has been so “de-Hebrewed” so much that the Jewish people have a very difficult time recognizing Him as Jewish. Even His name has been changed to “Jesus.”

“For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:25, 26). The hardening is partial, the obligation clear: Israel will be saved, but it requires Gentile participation. This too, is a commission.

And so we end this series on Matthew much as we began, discussing immersions: “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” In the Israeli tradition, this immersion was known as the mikvah: the ritual transformation from spiritual impurity to spiritual purity, from uncleanness to cleanness, from being outside the community of the redeemed to being accepted into the community of the redeemed. For a Gentile, undergoing the mikvah meant spiritually being “born again,” to use the Jewish idiom, dead to one’s former life and alive to the Bible and the God of Israel. Being immersed “in the name of” signified full identification with the unified Godhead, the composite unity so well known in the holy prayer of Israel, the Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One God.” “One” here is the Hebrew word echad, a unity made up of many parts, but a unified whole.

Paul looks at the burgeoning results of the Great Commission as: “Therefore remember, that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called ‘Uncircumcision’ by the so-called ‘Circumcision,’ which is performed in the flesh by human hands—remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one” (Ephesians 2:11-14).

Gentiles who claim the Jewish Messiah as their own have become circumcised in the spirit, included in the commonwealth of Israel, partakers in the covenants (plural), given hope, and become part of “one” body. What does all of that mean? Well, that is work for a different commentary.

Thank you for joining me on this long journey through the pages of the Gospel of Matthew. It is my prayer that you have been encouraged, enlightened, and emboldened to grow in your identity in Yeshua as one of His precious, chosen few.

PR

Notes

¹ The Sabbath Rest, © 1995, First Fruits of Zion, Littleton, CO, p. 14.
² Drinking at the Sources, Jacque Doukhan, © 1981, Pacific Press Pub Assoc, p. 127-28.
³ ibid.
Unless otherwise noted, the New American Standard Bible is used with permission.