John 19

Joh 19:1-16. Jesus before Pilate--Scourged--Treated with Other Severities and Insults--Delivered Up, and Led Away to Be Crucified.

1-3. Pilate took Jesus and scourged him--in hope of appeasing them. (See Mr 15:15). "And the soldiers led Him away into the palace, and they call the whole band" (Mr 15:16)--the body of the military cohort stationed there--to take part in the mock coronation now to be enacted.

4-5. Pilate ... went forth again, and saith ... Behold, I bring him forth to you--am bringing, that is, going to bring him forth to you.

that ye may know I find no fault in him--and, by scourging Him and allowing the soldiers to make sport of Him, have gone as far to meet your exasperation as can be expected from a judge.

6-7. When the chief priests ... saw him, they cried out--their fiendish rage kindling afresh at the sight of Him.

Crucify him, crucify him--(See Mr 15:14).

Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him; for I find no fault in him--as if this would relieve him of the responsibility of the deed, who, by surrendering Him, incurred it all!

8-11. When Pilate ... heard this saying, he was the more afraid--the name "Son of God," the lofty sense evidently attached to it by His Jewish accusers, the dialogue he had already held with Him, and the dream of his wife (Mt 27:19), all working together in the breast of the wretched man.

12-16. And from thenceforth--particularly this speech, which seems to have filled him with awe, and redoubled his anxiety.

Pilate sought to release him--that is, to gain their consent to it, for he could have done it at once on his authority.

but the Jews cried--seeing their advantage, and not slow to profit by it. If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend, &c.--"This was equivalent to a threat of impeachment, which we know was much dreaded by such officers as the procurators, especially of the character of Pilate or Felix. It also consummates the treachery and disgrace of the Jewish rulers, who were willing, for the purpose of destroying Jesus, to affect a zeal for the supremacy of a foreign prince" [Webster and Wilkinson]. (See Joh 19:15).

When Pilate ... heard that, ... he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in--"upon"

the judgment seat--that he might pronounce sentence against the Prisoner, on this charge, the more solemnly.

in a place called the Pavement--a tesselated pavement, much used by the Romans.

in the Hebrew, Gabbatha--from its being raised.

Joh 19:17-30. Crucifixion and Death of the Lord Jesus.

17. And he bearing his cross--(See on Lu 23:26).

went forth--Compare He 13:11-13, "without the camp"; "without the gate." On arriving at the place, "they gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall [wine mingled with myrrh, Mr 15:23], and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink" (Mt 27:34). This potion was stupefying, and given to criminals just before execution, to deaden the sense of pain.

Fill high the bowl, and spice it well, and pour

The dews oblivious: for the Cross is sharp,

The Cross is sharp, and He

Is tenderer than a lamb.

Keble.

But our Lord would die with every faculty clear, and in full sensibility to all His sufferings.

Thou wilt feel all, that Thou may'st pity all;

And rather would'st Thou wrestle with strong pain

Than overcloud Thy soul,

So clear in agony,

Or lose one glimpse of Heaven before the time,

O most entire and perfect Sacrifice,

Renewed in every pulse.

Keble.

18. they crucified him, and two others with him--"malefactors" (Lu 23:33), "thieves" (rather "robbers," Mt 27:38; Mr 15:27).

on either side one and Jesus in the midst--a hellish expedient, to hold Him up as the worst of the three. But in this, as in many other of their doings, "the scripture was fulfilled, which saith (Is 53:12), And he was numbered with the transgressors"--(Mr 15:28)--though the prediction reaches deeper. "Then said Jesus"--["probably while being nailed to the Cross,"] [Olshausen], "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Lu 23:34)--and again the Scripture was fulfilled which said, "And He made intercession for the transgressors" (Is 53:12), though this also reaches deeper. (See Ac 3:17; 13:27; and compare 1Ti 1:13). Often have we occasion to observe how our Lord is the first to fulfil His own precepts--thus furnishing the right interpretation and the perfect Model of them. (See on Mt 5:44). How quickly was it seen in "His martyr Stephen," that though He had left the earth in Person, His Spirit remained behind, and Himself could, in some of His brightest lineaments, be reproduced in His disciples! (Ac 7:60). And what does the world in every age owe to these few words, spoken where and as they were spoken!

19-22. Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross ... Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews ... and it was written in Hebrew--or Syro-Chaldaic, the language of the country.

and Greek--the current language.

and Latin--the official language. These were the chief languages of the earth, and this secured that all spectators should be able to read it. Stung by this, the Jewish ecclesiastics entreat that it may be so altered as to express, not His real dignity, but His false claim to it. But Pilate thought he had yielded quite enough to them; and having intended expressly to spite and insult them by this title, for having got him to act against his own sense of justice, he peremptorily refused them. And thus, amidst the conflicting passions of men, was proclaimed, in the chief tongues of mankind, from the Cross itself and in circumstances which threw upon it a lurid yet grand light, the truth which drew the Magi to His manger, and will yet be owned by all the world!

23-24. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts; to every soldier--the four who nailed Him to the cross, and whose perquisite they were.

a part, and also his coat--the Roman tunic, or close-fitting vest.

without seam, woven from the top throughout--"perhaps denoting considerable skill and labor as necessary to produce such a garment, the work probably of one or more of the women who ministered in such things unto Him, Lu 8:3" [Webster and Wilkinson].

25-27. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary, wife of Cleophas--This should be read, as in the Margin, "Clopas," the same as "Alpheus" (Mt 10:3). The "Cleopas" of Lu 24:18 was a different person.

28-30. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished--that is, the moment for the fulfilment of the last of them; for there was one other small particular, and the time was come for that too, in consequence of the burning thirst which the fevered state of His frame occasioned (Psa 22:15).

that the scripture--(Psa 69:21).

might be fulfilled saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar--on the offer of the soldiers' vinegar, see on Joh 19:24.

and they--"one of them," (Mt 27:48).

Joh 19:31-42. Burial of Christ.

31-37. the preparation--sabbath eve.

that the bodies should not remain--over night, against the Mosaic law (De 21:22, 23).

on the sabbath day, for that sabbath day was an high day--or "great" day--the first day of unleavened bread, and, as concurring with an ordinary sabbath, the most solemn season of the ecclesiastical year. Hence their peculiar jealousy lest the law should be infringed.

besought Pilate that their legs might be broken--to hasten their death, which was done in such cases with clubs.

38-40. Joseph of Arimathea--"a rich man" (Mt 27:57), thus fulfilling Is 53:9; "an honorable counsellor," a member of the Sanhedrim, and of good condition, "which also waited for the kingdom of God" (Mr 15:43), a devout expectant of Messiah's kingdom; "a good man and a just, the same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them" (Lu 23:50, 51--he had gone the length, perhaps, of dissenting and protesting in open council against the condemnation of our Lord); "who also himself was Jesus' disciple," (Mt 27:57).

being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews--"He went in boldly unto Pilate" (Mr 15:43)--literally, "having taken courage went in," or "had the boldness to go in." Mark alone, as his manner is, notices the boldness which this required. The act would without doubt identify him for the first time with the disciples of Christ. Marvellous it certainly is, that one who while Jesus was yet alive merely refrained from condemning Him, not having the courage to espouse His cause by one positive act, should, now that He was dead, and His cause apparently dead with Him, summon up courage to go in personally to the Roman governor and ask permission to take down and inter the body. But if this be the first instance, it is not the last, that a seemingly dead Christ has wakened a sympathy which a living one had failed to evoke. The heroism of faith is usually kindled by desperate circumstances, and is not seldom displayed by those who before were the most timid, and scarce known as disciples at all. "And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead" (Mr 15:44)--rather "wondered that he was already dead." "And calling the centurion, he asked him whether He had been any while dead" (Mr 15:44)--Pilate could hardly credit what Joseph had told him, that He had been dead "some time," and, before giving up the body to His friends, would learn how the fact stood from the centurion, whose business it was to oversee the execution. "And when he knew it of the centurion" (Mr 15:45), that it was as Joseph had said, "he gave"--rather "made a gift of"--"the body to Joseph"; struck, possibly, with the rank of the petitioner and the dignified boldness of the petition, in contrast with the spirit of the other party and the low rank to which he had been led to believe all the followers of Christ belonged. Nor would he be unwilling to Show that he was not going to carry this black affair any farther. But, whatever were Pilate's motives, two most blessed objects were thus secured: (1) The reality of our Lords death was attested by the party of all others most competent to decide on it, and certainly free from all bias--the officer in attendance--in full reliance on whose testimony Pilate surrendered the body: (2) The dead Redeemer, thus delivered out of the hands of His enemies, and committed by the supreme political authority to the care of His friends, was thereby protected from all further indignities; a thing most befitting indeed, now that His work was done, but impossible, so far as we can see, if His enemies had been at liberty to do with Him as they pleased. How wonderful are even the minutest features of this matchless History!

41-42. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre--The choice of this tomb was, on their part, dictated by the double circumstance that it was so near at hand, and by its belonging to a friend of the Lord; and as there was need of haste, even they would be struck with the providence which thus supplied it. "There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jew's preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at hand." But there was one recommendation of it which probably would not strike them; but God had it in view. Not its being "hewn out of a rock" (Mr 15:46), accessible only at the entrance, which doubtless would impress them with its security and suitableness. But it was "a new sepulchre" (Joh 19:41), "wherein never man before was laid" (Lu 23:53): and Matthew (Mt 27:60) says that Joseph laid Him "in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock"--doubtless for his own use, though the Lord had higher use for it. Thus as He rode into Jerusalem on an ass "whereon never man before had sat" (Mr 11:2), so now He shall lie in a tomb wherein never man before had lain, that from these specimens it may be seen that in all things He was "SEPARATE FROM SINNERS" (He 7:26).