Focus: Six Hours On The Cross

Text: Mk.15:21,33,34; Lk.23:44

"And it was the THIRD hour, and they crucified him. And when the SIXTH hour was come, there was DARKNESS over the whole land until the NINTH hour. And at the NINTH hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 

"And it was about the SIXTH hour, and there was a DARKNESS over all the earth until the NINTH hour."

Jesus lasted for six hours on the cross. Mark tells us that He was crucified on the third hour of the day, and that was 9 am. On the sixth hour, which was 12 noon, there was darkness that lasted till the ninth hour, which was 3 pm, and that is a space of three hours. The first three hours started from the third hour and ended on the sixth, and then the last three hours were from the sixth to the ninth hour, making a total of six hours that Jesus Christ spent or invested on the cross.

*The darkness of the cross

Let us read what God says of the number six in Ex.20:9. It says, "SIX DAYS shalt thou LABOUR, and DO all thy WORK." So six signifies work or labor. All of creation took place in six days. The first six days of Genesis 1, were creative days. God formed the universe in six days. In the course of creation, there was darkness over the earth. Also, on the cross, there was darkness over all the earth. It's the darkness of mystery. The whole creation emerged from that darkness. I remember Isaiah and Paul saying separately, "And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places…" "In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Isa.45:3; Col.2:3). It was in those three hours of darkness that Christ atoned for our sins. In those three hours His agony reached its peak, and He cried out with severe pain in His voice. He bore our sin alone and atoned for it. And it was a time of great darkness. He was completely covered in the darkness. As our high priest He had gone into the most holy place and could not be seen until He was done. Yes, the darkness cleared after three hours. And don't forget that it was a strange darkness, because it occurred at noon. I like calling it, 'the darkness of God.' There was infinite wealth in that darkness, and in that darkness of mystery Christ dealt with our misery and produced our riches, known as "the unsearchable riches of Christ." You know that black or raw gold and mineral resources are found in the depths of the earth. Miners dig deep to find them.

*The work of the cross

As God created the earth in six days, so Christ labored for six solid hours to create a new humanity. Those six hours were creative hours. John reports, "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is FINISHED..." (Jh.19:30). This was the sixth word that Jesus uttered on the cross, showing that in six hours and by the sixth word he had completed the salvation project. He was done. Transaction was completed. 

*The word of the cross

Remember that Christ spoke seven words on the cross before He took His last breath. As God created with words in Genesis, so did Christ on the cross. Paul calls it "the preaching of the cross" in 1Cor.1:18. The word 'preaching' here is 'logos' in the Greek. So the proper translation would be, "the word of the cross." The cross speaks, and from it, the Living Word spoke creative words. The logos or the message of the cross. The cross is God saying something. The cross is Christ creating a new world of mankind, so that whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The cross signals the end of the old man and the genesis of the new man. The resurrection of Christ signaled the emergence and manifestation of a brand new creation.

*The words and blood of Christ

Can you see the amazing link between work and word? God works through words, and His word works. By the sixth word on the cross, Christ had finalized the whole matter of our redemption.

The cross was the end of the first Adam and the beginning of the second or last Adam, Jesus Christ Himself. Christ worked with words, not with hands. His hands were nailed to the cross, but His mouth was doing the work. With His words and blood He was forming a new world. By His word and His death He crafted the new man. His word was the seed that produced the new life of God in man. Jesus says, "The seed is the word of God" (Lk.8:11), and Christ is the seed sown for a new world to be born. "It is finished" was His sixth word. It's a commercial term, referring to a perfected transaction. It's used in the perfect tense, meaning that it is a done deal that cannot be improved upon, and the result of it is forever continuous. Man as a divine work of art was perfectly crafted.

*The new creation in six hours

As the creation was completed on the sixth day, so was our redemption fulfilled and finished in six hours and upon the sixth word. You can call it, perfect transaction!

The last three words after the darkness came one after the other in a matter of split seconds. As soon as Christ uttered the seventh word, He rested in His Father's hands. Luke says, "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost" (Lk.23:46). He did not bleed to death. He handed His spirit over to His Father for safekeeping. He gave up His spirit and rested in His Father's hands. That is the divine finality! With the sixth word Christ was done with work, and with the seventh word He rested His spirit in the hands of His Father. The work was done and the soul had to rest. As God rested on the seventh day, so Christ rested on the seventh word. What a word! What a work! And what a God! Thank you, Jesus Christ, my Lord!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter