Mark 15:37-38 And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Mark 15:37  And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last.  38  And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

How is the final moment of Jesus’ death described?

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last” (Mark 15:37).

·      How do the other Gospels describe the final moment?

o  Matt. 27:50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

o  Luke 23:46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”

And having said this he breathed his last.

§  What does David prophesy in Psalm 31:5?

    Psa. 31:5   Into your hand I commit my spirit;

                  you have redeemed me, O LORD,  faithful God.

o  John 19:30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said,  “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and  gave up his spirit.

·      Who does Jesus say had the authority to lay down His life and the authority to take it up again?

“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father” (John 10:17-18).

What does Jesus do after uttering a loud cry?

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last”

(Mark 15:37).

·      R. T. France observes:

“Mark does not specify the time of death, but leaves us to assume that it was soon after the ninth hour; it must in any case be before sunset (v. 42). All four gospels describe Jesus’ actual death in πνεῦμα [“spirit”] language, though in varying forms. ἐκπνέω [“breathe”], used by Mark and Luke, is the simplest, and offers even less scope than the πνεῦμα [“spirit”] phrases of Matthew and John for reading into the scene any reference to the Holy Spirit. It means simple to ‘breathe out’, and like our ‘expire’ is a natural euphemism for dying, used especially in more poetic or solemn contexts. άποθνῄσκω [“die”] would have conveyed the same sense, but perhaps was felt to be too ‘ordinary’ a verb to narrate so solemn a moment, though there was no hesitation in using it retrospectively of Jesus’ death in the epistles. We shall not in a moment (and reject) a suggestion of a further reason for Mark’s choice of ἐκπνέω [“breathe”] in relation to the temple curtain.”

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: a Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 655-656.

What happens after Jesus breathes His last?

“And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38).

·      How does Hebrews refer to the veil of the temple?

o  Heb. 6:19  This  hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which  enters  within the veil,

o  Heb. 9:3 Behind the second veil there was a  tabernacle which is called the  Holy of Holies,

o  Heb. 10:19   Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,  20 by  a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,

·      R. T. France observes:

“In describing the furnishings of the tabernacle the LXX uses καταπέτασμα to denote both the curtain through which one entered from the courtyard into the Holy Place, the place of offering incense (Ex. 26:37), and also the one inside the Holy Place setting off the innermost shrine, the Holy of Holies (Ex. 26:31). In Solomon’s temple the corresponding divisions were made by wooden doors, but in Herod’s temple Josephus again describes two καταπετά σματα in these two positions (Josephus, War 5.212, 219; cf. Ant. 8.75); he says that the huge outer curtain hung in front of and was the same height as the doors, which were fifty-five cubits high, but does not give the height of the inner one (though the hall which it divided was sixty cubits high). The outer curtain, which Josephus describes rapturously as a magnificent work of Babylonian tapestry in rich colours symbolising earth, sea, and sky (War 5.212–14), was the only one visible to anyone except the priests who served in the Holy Place. Mark does not say which curtain he means, and there is no evidence of the regular use of τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ in the singular to denote specifically either the one or the other. The tearing of the outer curtain would be more of a public event, but the symbolism of the violent opening of the Holy of Holies by the tearing of the inner curtain might be thought to be theologically more telling, and it was apparently in this sense that the tradition was understood by the writer of Hebrews, who refers to it as τὸ δεύτερον καταπέτασμα (Heb. 6:19; 9:3; 10:19–20). […]

     I have referred to the tearing of the curtain as a ‘divine riposte’ because in stating that the tear was made ἀπʼ ἄνωθεν ἕως κάτω Mark indicates that no human being could have torn it that way (especially if we are talking about the outer curtain, some twenty-five metres high). As Jesus dies, God acts to show what is to be the sequel to his death. This seems a more likely explanation of Mark’s language than the bizarre suggestion that he used ἐξέπνευσεν in v. 37 to describe a blast of wind (or the release of ‘the Spirit’) which (along with Jesus’ loud cry) tore the curtain, thus making Jesus himself directly responsible for the tearing.

     There is no historical record of this event outside the gospels (and in Luke it occurs before, not after, Jesus’ death), though a confused echo of it has been claimed in the statement of b. Yom. 39b that ‘during the last forty years before the destruction of the temple the doors of the sanctuary would open by themselves’. Less relevant are the similar stories told of events in a.d. 70: Josephus, War 6.293–96, tells how the east gate of the inner court of the temple opened of its own accord at Passover time in that year, and Tacitus, Hist. 5.13, says that the doors of the temple suddenly opened as a superhuman voice cried,   ‘The gods are departing’. But Mark’s reason for including this apparent digression is clearly not to record a fact interesting for its own sake, but to illuminate the significance of the death of Jesus. Many suggestions have been made as to just what its symbolism was,⁶⁷ and in the absence of any indication from Mark they are all necessarily speculative, but something along the lines suggested above seems best to fit into the ‘temple theology’ which we have seen developing throughout Act Three of Mark’s drama, and finds both patristic and modern support.”

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: a Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2002), 656-658.

 

Father,

You are rich in mercy. Because of Your great love with which You loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, You made us alive together with Christ (by grace we have been saved), and raised us up with You, and seated us with You in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come You might show the surpassing riches of Your grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace we have been saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is Your gift, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

In Christ we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. Father, may You grant us, according to the riches of Your glory, to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, and that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled up to all the fullness of You.

Now to You Who are able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to You be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.