A Biblical Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 27:46
By M. L. Wilson
Continued from Page 1.
So to bring us back to the Garden, it is well known to most all within the Western world
that two human beings, Adam and Eve, chanced upon an angelic being in the Garden who had camouflaged himself in the form of
a serpent. This angel first discussed the plight of the human and the nature of god with the woman and then succeeded in
tempting Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. We then see that Adam was not seduced to eat, but rather made a
conscience decision to join Eve in eating this particular prohibited fruit. But why; why give up all of that perfection just
because some other creature in the garden said it was alright to do so? To delve into that answer would be its own
commentary. Regardless, the answer does have some bearing on the reason Christ winds up hanging on the cross several
thousand years later.
Getting back to those words Christ spoke as he hung upon the cross, it is important to understand just why He had to be on
that cross to begin with. I have always been left with less than satisfactory answers whenever I had asked why Jesus had to
die on the cross for us. The standard answer I was given is that he died in our place because we’re all sinners. “For the
wages of sin is death”, the Bible tells us, but I still didn’t get it. Who is paying this wage and why does it have to be
paid to us? Since this wage we’re being paid is our very lives, who is it that ultimately benefits from the remittance of
this type of wage? Is it God Himself? Why would God demand such a wage? What’s He supposed to do with it? After all, He
created us. If he wanted a bunch of human beings stacked like cordwood, it is reasonable to presume that He could have just
created us that way to begin with.
To understand why such a wage is paid, one needs to understand a bit more about the relationship between God, Man and His
spiritual messengers generically referred to as Angels. The Bible talks about spiritual or angelic entities far more than
some people might realize. Despite such mentions in the scriptures, we have still come away with a very different
understanding of just who and what these beings are. The reasons for this confusion are multi-fold and stretches back
almost as long as there have been human beings on the earth. Suffice to say that this confusion, whether intentional or not,
was created and then solidified in the minds of people through…tradition. More recent traditions play a role in buttressing
this image of spiritual entities more than anything else. Even those who are not students of history are somewhat familiar
with the works of Homer, Dante or Milton. They are hard to miss as much of the literary world and Hollywood live off such
stories and traditions.
Going back in time to ancient Greece, one would become familiar with the Greek tales of monsters, of hells, of other worlds
which Homer recounted in his poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. These poems and the concepts which were introduced found
their way into the works of later authors such as Dante in his epic work, “The Divine Comedy” and still later, John Milton’s
“Paradise Lost”. It is through these works that much of the imagery and mythos which makes up our understanding of heaven
and hell, angels and demons and lastly, God and Satan are birthed. The Satan with the red suit and the horns and pitchfork
is connoted through these writings as well as such hellish localities as the River Styx. That Dante in his poem was trying
to make what essentially amounted to a political statement and invoked TONS of irony. (For example, Dante is given a tour
of hell by Virgil, a first century BC Roman poet who was essentially an atheist.) To a people who couldn’t read a Bible that
was hard to find and then when found, existed only in the Latin language, Dante and Milton provided the much sought after
imagery of the after-life and the spiritual world which they craved. Interestingly enough, though today we now have the
Bible in the English language, the myths which these and other men created of heaven and hell and the beings that inhabit
them continue to thrive.
The truth is that such spiritual entities are not exactly as Dante or Milton portrayed them—not even close; neither are
there ever increasing levels of hell for those who are more wicked than others. These are concepts which were made up; it
is simple fiction. This begs the question of whether there is a hell and where it might be located. Where exactly was it
that Christ went when he died on the cross? Wasn’t that hell? Good questions all. The answer is that upon His death,
Christ’s Spirit descended to a place which in Hebrew is referred to as Sheol. It is also variously referred to as the grave
and as hell, though those last two designations can be somewhat misunderstood. The answer to the question as to whether
there is a hell is to quote from the Bible:
“…He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, through whom also He
went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the
ark was being built.”
1st Peter 3:19-20
“I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
Revelation 1:18
In the first quote, the Apostle Peter is explaining just where Jesus went when He breathed
his last on the cross. If you were unaware that Christ actually descended into this abode of the dead upon his earthly
death, now you know that His Spirit did in fact go there—just as all spirits did upon earthly death. Additionally you have
scripture reference to aid you in your own study. Christ went to the abode of the dead as prescribed covenantally; a place
called Sheol in Hebrew, Hades in Latin or Hell in the English. While He was there, He explained to those spirits imprisoned
there exactly who He was and that due to a particular sacrificial act on His part, He now possessed authority over the whole
world covenantally and offered them their freedom. Here is another scriptural quote:
““But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. That is why it
says: ‘When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.’What does ‘he ascended’ mean except
that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?
Ephesians 4:7-9
What Paul is saying here is that Christ has extended to us all His grace by freeing us from
the bonds of damnation. By dying and descending to Sheol, He pointed out the angel’s error. Christ wasn’t a sinner, yet the
angels conspired to kill Him as though He was. Those angels had no right covenantally to kill Christ; He had transgressed
no covenantal agreement with them. Yet when Christ was murdered and His Spirit descended down into the abode of the dead,
Paul says that,“…He made a public spectacle of them…” (Colossians 2:15), referring to those angels who had had sought to
expel God from their earthly midst. It was at that moment that the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel finally came true. The
era of angelic rule over mankind ended and the Kingdom of God now began. That is what Christ meant when he said, “It is
finished.”
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