Mark 15:33-39

³³ Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

³⁴ And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

³⁵ Some of those who stood by, when they heard that, said, “Look, He is calling for Elijah!”

³⁶ Then someone ran and filled a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink, saying, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take Him down.”

³⁷ And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.

³⁸ Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

³⁹ So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”

Also found in Matthew 27:45-54, Luke 23:44-47, and John 19:28-30.

darkness (v.33) — A supernatural darkness since an eclipse is impossible during the time of Passover.

forsaken (v.34) — The word “forsaken” [means] “to leave down in,” the idea being that of deserting someone in a set of circumstances that are against him. The word means “to let one down, to desert, abandon, leave in the lurch, leave one helpless.” — Wuest, page 283.

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The sentence of death rested on man personally because of his sinful nature and because of his sinful actions. If Christ, therefore, would redeem him from this doom He must suffer it Himself, must load Himself with the sinners’ sins and Himself sinless, be constituted sin itself (2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13).

Because of sin and sins God justly doomed to perpetual banishment from His Presence, i.e., to death, guilty man (Romans 5:12). To delver man Christ became the sin-offering. As such He bore their sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). He abolished sin by the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9:26). He suffered the wrath of God due to disobedience (Ephesians 5:6); and the sword of that wrath awoke not only against the sins that were laid upon Him, but against Himself as being the Sinner, and yet the Fellow of Jehovah (Zechariah 13:7); and, therefore, He was accursed of God personally (Galatians 3:10), i.e., condemned to death, the mysterious death of separation from God and seclusion in hell. But He could not be holden of the abyss for He was sinless and He was God, so He carried away its gates, as Samson the gates of Gaza. 

Herein lies the mystery of Christ as the Burnt-Offering and the Sin-Offering of Leviticus 1 and 4. Never was He more perfect and more precious to the heart of God — more truly a sweet savour than when hanging on the tree; and yet, at the same moment, was He accursed as being the impersonation of sin itself. Hence He Himself declared (John 3:14) that the serpent on the pole, the similitude of the deadly stinging serpent, pre-figured Himself. — Williams, page 740.

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[Christ’s] unconsciousness of any reason for desertion disproves the old notion that He felt Himself a sinner, and “suffered infinite remorse, as being the chief sinner in the universe, all the sins of mankind being His.” One who felt thus could neither have addressed God as “My God,” nor asked why He was forsaken. …

The only explanation is in His own word, that His life is a ransom in exchange for many (Mark 10:45). The chastisement of our peace, not the remorse of our guiltiness, was upon Him. — Chadwick, pages 432-433.

Elijah (v.35) — Because Christ had called out “Eloi, Eloi,” (“God, God”), which sounds something like Elijah, although whether the person who said He was calling for Elijah was truly mistaken or making a joke is unknown.

Sour  wine (v.36) — oxos, a mixture of sour wine or vinegar with water. Roman soldiers often drank this and may have brought some along for their own use.

This [v.38] is recorded by all the Synoptists. It would be observed and reported by the priests, of whom afterwards many believed (Acts 6:7). Upon the Hebrew mind such a momentous happening must have made a tremendous impression after centuries of Tabernacle and Temple worship in which the Holy of Holies had been closed to all except the high priest on the Day of Atonement. Its meaning for us is clearly set out in Hebrews 10:19ff. — Guthrie, page 885.

temple (v.38) — Not the word for the entire temple with all its buildings, but the word for the inner sanctuary consisting of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The ripping of the curtain showed that Christ, by dying on the cross, had fulfilled all of the Levitical sacrifices and had abolished them.

There is no definite article before the word “Son” (v.39). What this soldier said was, “Truly, this man was a son of God.” The testimony which the Gospels attribute to the centurion is merely that of a man who was able to rise above the prejudices of the crowd and the thoughtless brutality of the soldiers, and to recognize in Jesus an innocent man (Luke), or possibly a supernatural person (Matthew, Mark). Son of God is certainly more than righteous, but the centurion who borrowed the words from the Jewish priests, could scarcely have understood them even in the Messianic sense: his idea is perhaps analogous to that ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3:25, where the Hebrew word refers to an extraordinary, superhuman being. — Wuest, page 284.