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Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Therefore many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘he said, “I am King of the Jews.” ’ ”
Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
John 19:19-22 sits inside this longer paragraph.
So then he delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away. He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called “The Place of a Skull”, which is called in Hebrew, “Golgotha”, where they crucified him, and with him two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the middle. Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Therefore many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘he said, “I am King of the Jews.” ’ ”
Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, “JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
Therefore many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.
The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘he said, “I am King of the Jews.” ’ ”
Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
And Pylate wrote his tytle and put it on the crosse. The writynge was Iesus of Nazareth kynge of the Iewes. This tytle reed many of the Iewes.
For the place where Iesus was crucified was nye to the cite. And it was written in Hebrue Greke and Latyn.
Then sayde the hye prestes of the Iewes to Pylate: wryte not kynge of the Iewes: but that he sayde I am kynge of the Iewes.
Pylate answered: what I have written that have I written.
And Pilate wrote also a title, and put it on the crosse, and it was written, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWES.
This title then read many of the Iewes: for the place where Iesus was crucified, was neere to the citie: and it was written in Hebrewe, Greeke and Latine.
Then saide the hie Priests of the Iewes to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Iewes, but that he sayd, I am King of the Iewes.
Pilate answered, What I haue written, I haue written.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv19, 21, 22 19. And Pilate wrote also a title. The Evangelist…
19. And Pilate wrote also a title. The Evangelist relates a memorable action of Pilate, after having pronounced the sentence. It is perhaps true that it was customary to affix titles, when malefactors were executed, that the cause of the punishment might be known to all, and might serve the purpose of an example. But in Christ there is this extraordinary circumstance, that the title which is affixed to him implies no disgrace; for Pilate’s intention was, to avenge himself indirectly on the Jews, (who, by their obstinacy, had extorted from him an unjust sentence of death on an innocent man,) and, in the person of Christ, to throw blame on the whole nation. Thus he does not brand Christ with the commission of any crime.
But the providence of God, which guided the pen of Pilate, had a higher object in view. It did not, indeed, occur to Pilate to celebrate Christ as the Author of salvation, and the Nazarene of God, and the King of a chosen people; but God dictated to him this commendation of the Gospel, though he knew not the meaning of what he wrote. It. was the same secret guidance of the Spirit that caused the title to be published in three languages; for it is not probable that this was an ordinary practice, but the Lord showed, by this preparatory arrangement, that the time was now at hand, when the name of his Son should be made known throughout the whole earth.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v19 Christ sitting upon the throne of the cross, is…
Christ sitting upon the throne of the cross, is openly written everlasting king of all people, with his own hand, whose mouth condemned him for usurping a kingdom.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv19–22 19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it…
19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Ver. 19. Jesus of Nazareth, &c.] To persuade the people to bow superstitiously at the name of Jesus, Papists commonly (but ridiculously) teach in their pulpits, that Christ himself on the cross bowed his head on the right side, to reverence his own name, which was written over it; as Sir Edwin Sands relates from his own experience.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv19–22 See Poole on "Mat 27:37".
See Poole on "Mat 27:37".
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v19 Observe here, 1. The inscription wrote by Pilate over…
Observe here, 1. The inscription wrote by Pilate over our suffering Saviour: This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. It was the manner of the Romans, when they crucified a malefactor, to publish the cause of his death in capital letters over his head, that so the equity of their proceedings might more clearly appear to the people.
Now it is observable how wonderfully the wisdom of God overruled the heart and pen of Pilate to draw this title, which was truly honourable, and fix it to his cross. Pilate, who before was his judge, and pronounced him innocent, is now his herald to proclaim his glory.
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Learn hence, that the regal dignity of Christ was openly proclaimed by an enemy, and that in the time of his greatest reproaches and sufferings. Pilate, without his own knowledge, did our Saviour an eminent piece of service; he did that for Christ, which none of his own disciples durst do: not designedly, but from the special overruling providence of God. No thanks to Pilate for all this; because the highest services performed to Christ undesignedly, shall neither be accepted nor rewarded by God.
Observe, 2. How the Jews endeavour to alter this: Write not, the king of the Jews: but that he said, I am the King of the Jews. The Jews thought it would be a disgrace to them, that Christ should be reported abroad to have been their king, therefore they desire an alteration of the writing. But Pilate, that wrote in honour of Christ, stiffly defends what he had done: to all their importunity he returns this resolute answer, what I have written, I have written.
Surely the constancy of Pilate, at this time, must be attributed to special divine providence. How wonderful was it, that he who before was as inconstant as a reed, should now be fixed as a pillar of brass!
Whence is this, but from the God of spirits moving upon his spirit to write, and to defend what was written! The providence of God hath a prospect beyond the understanding of all creatures.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v19 Here are some remarkable circumstances of Christ's dying more…
Here are some remarkable circumstances of Christ's dying more fully related than before, which those will take special notice of who covet to know Christ and him crucified.
I. The title set up over his head. Observe,
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1. The inscription itself which Pilate wrote, and ordered to be fixed to the top of the cross, declaring the cause for which he was crucified, Joh 19:19. Matthew called it, aitia - the accusation; Mark and Luke called it epigraphē - the inscription; John calls it by the proper Latin name, titlos - the title: and it was this, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, Pilate intended this for his reproach, that he, being Jesus of Nazareth, should pretend to be king of the Jews, and set up in competition with Caesar, to whom Pilate would thus recommend himself, as very jealous for his honour and interest, when he would treat but a titular king, a king in metaphor, as the worst of malefactors; but God overruled this matter, (1.) That it might be a further testimony to the innocency of our Lord Jesus; for here was an accusation which, as it was worded, contained no crime. If this be all they have to lay to his charge, surely he has done nothing worthy of death or of bonds. (2.) That it might show forth his dignity and honour. This is Jesus a Saviour, Nazōraios, the blessed Nazarite, sanctified to God; this is the king of the Jews, Messiah the prince, the sceptre that should rise out of Israel, as Balaam had foretold; dying for the good of his people, as Caiaphas had foretold. Thus all these three bad men witnessed to Christ, though they meant not so.
2. The notice taken of this inscription (Joh 19:20): Many of the Jews read it, not only those of Jerusalem, but those out of the country, and from other countries, strangers and proselytes, that came up to worship at the feast. Multitudes read it, and it occasioned a great variety of reflections and speculations, as men stood affected. Christ himself was set for a sign, a title. Here are two reasons why the title was so much read: - (1.) Because the place where Jesus was crucified, though without the gate, was yet nigh the city, which intimates that if it had been any great distance off they would not have been led, no not by their curiosity, to go and see it, and read it. It is an advantage to have the means of knowing Christ brought to our doors. (2.) Because it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, which made it legible by all; they all understood one or other of these languages, and none were more careful to bring up their children to read than the Jews generally were. It likewise made it the more considerable; everyone would be curious to enquire what it was which was so industriously published in the three most known languages. In the Hebrew the oracles of God were recorded; in Greek the learning of the philosophers; and in Latin the laws of the empire. In each of these Christ is proclaimed king, in whom are hid all the treasures of revelation, wisdom, and power. God so ordering it that this should be written in the three then most known tongues, it was intimated thereby that Jesus Christ should be a Saviour to all nations, and not to the Jews only; and also that every nation should hear in their own tongue the wonderful works of the Redeemer. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, were the vulgar languages at that time in this part of the world; so that this is so far from intimating (as the Papists would have it) that the scripture is still to be retained in these three languages, that on the contrary it teaches us that the knowledge of Christ ought to be diffused throughout every nation in their own tongue, as the proper vehicle of it, that people may converse as freely with the scriptures as they do with their neighbours.
3. The offence which the prosecutors took at it, Joh 19:21. They would not have it written, the king of the Jews; but that he said of himself, I am the king of the Jews. Here they show themselves, (1.) Very spiteful and malicious against Christ. It was not enough to have him crucified, but they must have his name crucified too. To justify themselves in giving him such bad treatment, they thought themselves concerned to give him a bad character, and to represent him as a usurper of honours and powers that he was not entitled to. (2.) Foolishly jealous of the honour of their nation. Though they were a conquered and enslaved people, yet they stood so much upon the punctilio of their reputation that they scorned to have it said that this was their king. (3.) Very impertinent and troublesome to Pilate. They could not but be sensible that they had forced him, against his mind, to condemn Christ, and yet, in such a trivial thing as this, they continue to tease him; and it was so much the worse in that, though they had charged him with pretending to be the king of the Jews, yet they had not proved it, nor had he ever said so.
4. The judge's resolution to adhere to it: "What I have written I have written, and will not alter it to humour them."
(1.) Hereby an affront was put upon the chief priests, who would still be dictating. It seems, by Pilate's manner of speaking, that he was uneasy in himself for yielding to them, and vexed at them for forcing him to it, and therefore he was resolved to be cross with them; and by this inscription he insinuates, [1.] That, notwithstanding their pretences, they were not sincere in their affections to Caesar and his government; they were willing enough to have a king of the Jews, if they could have one to their mind. [2.] That such a king as this, so mean and despicable, was good enough to be the king of the Jews; and this would be the fate of all that should dare to oppose the Roman power. [3.] That they had been very unjust and unreasonable in prosecuting this Jesus, when there was no fault to be found in him.
(2.) Hereby honour was done to the Lord Jesus. Pilate stuck to it with resolution, that he was the king of the Jews. What he had written was what God had first written, and therefore he could not alter it; for thus it was written, that Messiah the prince should be cut off, Dan 9:26. This therefore is the true cause of his death; he dies because the king of Israel must die, must thus die. When the Jews reject Christ, and will not have him for their king, Pilate, a Gentile, sticks to it that he is a king, which was an earnest of what came to pass soon after, when the Gentiles submitted to the kingdom of the Messiah, which the unbelieving Jews had rebelled against.
II. The dividing of his garments among the executioners, Joh 19:23, Joh 19:24. Four soldiers were employed, who, when they had crucified Jesus, had nailed him to the cross, and lifted it up, and him upon it, and nothing more was to be done than to wait his expiring through the extremity of pain, as, with us, when the prisoner is turned off, then they went to make a dividend of his clothes, each claiming an equal share, and so they made four parts, as nearly of the same value as they could, to every soldier a part; but his coat, or upper garment whether cloak or gown, being a pretty piece of curiosity, without seam, woven from the top throughout, they agreed to cast lots for it. Here observe, 1. The shame they put upon our Lord Jesus, in stripping him of his garments before they crucified him. The shame of nakedness came in with sin. He therefore who was made sin for us bore that shame, to roll away our reproach. He was stripped, that we might be clothed with white raiment (Rev 3:18), and that when we are unclothed we may not be found naked. 2. The wages with which these soldiers paid themselves for crucifying Christ. They were willing to do it for his old clothes. Nothing is to be done so bad, but there will be found men bad enough to do it for a trifle. Probably they hoped to make more than ordinary advantage of his clothes, having heard of cures wrought by the touch of the hem of his garment, or expecting that his admirers would give any money for them. 3. The sport they made about his seamless coat. We read not of any thing about him valuable or remarkable but this, and this not for the richness, but only the variety of it, for it was woven from the top throughout; there was no curiosity therefore in the shape, but a designed plainness. Tradition says, his mother wove it for him, and adds this further, that it was made for him when he was a child, and, like the Israelites' clothes in the wilderness, waxed not old; but this is a groundless fancy. The soldiers thought it a pity to rend it, for then it would unravel, and a piece of it would be good for nothing; they would therefore cast lots for it. While Christ was in his dying agonies, they were merrily dividing his spoils. The preserving of Christ's seamless coat is commonly alluded to to show the care all Christians ought to take that they rend not the church of Christ with strifes and divisions; yet some have observed that the reason why the soldiers would not rend Christ's coat was not out of any respect to Christ, but because each of them hoped to have it entire for himself. And so many cry out against schism, only that they may engross all the wealth and power to themselves. Those who opposed Luther's separation from the church of Rome urged much the tunica inconsutilis - the seamless coat; and some of them laid so much stress upon it that they were called the Inconsutilistae - The seamless. 4. The fulfilling of the scripture in this. David, in spirit, foretold this very circumstance of Christ's sufferings, in that passage, Psa 22:18. The event so exactly answering the prediction proves, (1.) That the scripture is the word of God, which foretold contingent events concerning Christ so long before, and they came to pass according to the prediction. (2.) That Jesus is the true Messiah; for in him all the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah had, and have, their full accomplishment. These things therefore the soldiers did.
III. The care that he took of his poor mother.
1. His mother attends him to his death (Joh 19:25): There stood by the cross, as near as they could get, his mother, and some of his relations and friends with her. At first, they stood near, as it is said here; but afterwards, it is probable, the soldiers forced them to stand afar off, as it is said in Matthew and Mark: or they themselves removed out of the ground. (1.) See here the tender affection of these pious women to our Lord Jesus in his sufferings. When all his disciples, except John, has forsaken him, they continued their attendance on him. Thus the feeble were as David (Zac 12:8): they were not deterred by the fury of the enemy nor the horror of the sight; they could not rescue him nor relieve him, yet they attended him, to show their good-will. It is an impious and blasphemous construction which some of the popish writers put upon the virgin Mary standing by the cross, that thereby she contributed to the satisfaction he made for sin no less than he did, and so became a joint-mediatrix and co-adjutrix in our salvation. (2.) We may easily suppose what an affliction it was to these poor women to see him thus abused, especially to the blessed virgin. Now was fulfilled Simeon's word, A sword shall pierce through thy own soul, Luk 2:35. His torments were her tortures; she was upon the rack, while he was upon the cross; and her heart bled with his wounds; and the reproaches wherewith they reproached him fell on those that attended him. (3.) We may justly admire the power of divine grace in supporting these women, especially the virgin Mary, under this heavy trial. We do not find his mother wringing her hands, or tearing her hair, or rending her clothes, or making an outcry; but, with a wonderful composure, standing by the cross, and her friends with her. Surely she and they were strengthened by a divine power to this degree of patience; and surely the virgin Mary had a fuller expectation of his resurrection than the rest had, which supported her thus. We know not what we can bear till we are tried, and then we know who has said, My grace is sufficient for thee.
2. He tenderly provides for his mother at his death. It is probable that Joseph, her husband, was long since dead, and that her son Jesus had supported her, and her relation to him had been her maintenance; and now that he was dying what would become of her? He saw her standing by, and knew her cares and griefs; and he saw John standing not far off, and so he settled a new relation between his beloved mother and his beloved disciple; for he said to her, "Woman, behold thy son, for whom henceforward thou must have a motherly affection;" and to him, "Behold thy mother, to whom thou must pay a filial duty." And so from that hour, that hour never to be forgotten, that disciple took her to his own home. See here,
(1.) The care Christ took of his dear mother. He was not so much taken up with a sense of his sufferings as to forget his friends, all whose concerns he bore upon his heart. His mother, perhaps, was so taken up with his sufferings that she thought not of what would become of her; but he admitted that thought. Silver and gold he had none to leave, no estate, real or personal; his clothes the soldiers had seized, and we hear no more of the bag since Judas, who had carried it, hanged himself. He had therefore no other way to provide for his mother than by his interest in a friend, which he does here. [1.] He calls her woman, not mother, not out of any disrespect to her, but because mother would have been a cutting word to her that was already wounded to the heart with grief; like Isaac saying to Abraham, My father. He speaks as one that was now no more in this world, but was already dead to those in it that were dearest to him. His speaking in this seemingly slight manner to his mother, as he had done formerly, was designed to obviate and give a check to the undue honours which he foresaw would be given to her in the Romish church, as if she were a joint purchaser with him in the honours of the Redeemer. [2.] He directs her to look upon John as her son: "Behold him as thy son, who stands there by thee, and be as a mother to him." See here, First, An instance of divine goodness, to be observed for our encouragement. Sometimes, when God removes one comfort from us, he raises up another for us, perhaps where we looked not for it. We read of children which the church shall have after she has lost the other, Isa 49:21. Let none therefore reckon all gone with one cistern dried up, for from the same fountain another may be filled. Secondly, An instance of filial duty, to be observed for our imitation. Christ has here taught children to provide, to the utmost of their power, for the comfort of their aged parents. When David was in distress, he took care of his parents, and found out a shelter for them (Sa1 22:3); so the Son of David here. Children at their death, according to their ability, should provide for their parents, if they survive them, and need their kindness.
(2.) The confidence he reposed in the beloved disciple. It is to him he says, Behold thy mother, that is, I recommend her to thy care, be thou as a son to her to guide her (Isa 51:18); and forsake her not when she is old, Pro 23:22. Now, [1.] This was an honour put upon John, and a testimony both to his prudence and to his fidelity. If he who knows all things had not known that John loved him, he would not have made him his mother's guardian. It is a great honour to be employed for Christ, and to be entrusted with any of his interest in the world. But, [2.] It would be a care and some charge to John; but he cheerfully accepted it, and took her to his own home, not objecting the trouble nor expense, nor his obligations to his own family, nor the ill-will he might contract by it. Note, Those that truly love Christ, and are beloved of him, will be glad of an opportunity to do any service to him or his. Nicephoras's Eccl. Hist. lib. 2 cap. 3, saith that the virgin Mary lived with John at Jerusalem eleven years, and then died. Others, that she lived to remove with him to Ephesus.
IV. The fulfilling of the scripture, in the giving of him vinegar to drink, Joh 19:28, Joh 19:29. Observe,
1. How much respect Christ showed to the scripture (Joh 19:28): Knowing that all things hitherto were accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, which spoke of his drinking in his sufferings, he saith, I thirst, that is, he called for drink.
(1.) It was not at all strange that he was thirsty; we find him thirsty in a journey (Joh 4:6, Joh 4:7), and now thirsty when he was just at his journey's end. Well might he thirst after all the toil and hurry which he had undergone, and being now in the agonies of death, ready to expire purely by the loss of blood and extremity of pain. The torments of hell are represented by a violent thirst in the complaint of the rich man that begged for a drop of water to cool his tongue. To that everlasting thirst we had been condemned, had not Christ suffered for us.
(2.) But the reason of his complaining of it is somewhat surprising; it is the only word he spoke that looked like complaint of his outward sufferings. When they scourged him, and crowned him with thorns, he did not cry, O my head! or, My back! But now he cried, I thirst. For, [1.] He would thus express the travail of his soul, Isa 53:11. He thirsted after the glorifying of God, and the accomplishment of the work of our redemption, and the happy issue of his undertaking. [2.] He would thus take care to see the scripture fulfilled. Hitherto, all had been accomplished, and he knew it, for this was the thing he had carefully observed all along; and now he called to mind one thing more, which this was the proper season for the performance of. By this it appears that he was the Messiah, in that not only the scripture was punctually fulfilled in him, but it was strictly eyed by him. By this it appears that God was with him of a truth - that in all he did he went exactly according to the word of God, taking care not to destroy, but to fulfil, the law and the prophets. Now, First, The scripture had foretold his thirst, and therefore he himself related it, because it could not otherwise be known, saying, I thirst; it was foretold that his tongue should cleave to his jaws, Psa 22:15. Samson, an eminent type of Christ, when he was laying the Philistines heaps upon heaps, was himself sore athirst (Jdg 15:18); so was Christ, when he was upon the cross, spoiling principalities and powers. Secondly, The scripture had foretold that in his thirst he should have vinegar given him to drink, Psa 69:21. They had given him vinegar to drink before they crucified him (Mat 27:34), but the prophecy was not exactly fulfilled in that, because that was not in his thirst; therefore now he said, I thirst, and called for it again: then he would not drink, but now he received it Christ would rather court an affront than see any prophecy unfulfilled. This should satisfy us under all our trials, that the will of God is done, and the word of God accomplished.
2. See how little respect his persecutors showed to him (Joh 19:29): There was set a vessel full of vinegar, probably according to the custom at all executions of this nature; or, as others think, it was now set designedly for an abuse to Christ, instead of the cup of wine which they used to give to those that were ready to perish; with this they filled a sponge, for they would not allow him a cup, and they put it upon hyssop, a hyssop-stalk, and with this heaved it to his mouth; hussōpō perithentes - they stuck it round with hyssop; so it may be taken; or, as others, they mingled it with hyssop-water, and this they gave him to drink when he was thirsty; a drop of water would have cooled his tongue better than a draught of vinegar: yet this he submitted to for us. We had taken the sour grapes, and thus his teeth were set on edge; we had forfeited all comforts and refreshments, and therefore they were withheld from him. When heaven denied him a beam of light earth denied him a drop of water, and put vinegar in the room of it.
V. The dying word wherewith he breathed out his soul (Joh 19:30): When he had received the vinegar, as much of it as he thought fit, he said, It is finished; and, with that, bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. Observe,
1. What he said, and we may suppose him to say it with triumph and exultation, Tetelestai - It is finished, a comprehensive word, and a comfortable one. (1.) It is finished, that is, the malice and enmity of his persecutors had now done their worst; when he had received that last indignity in the vinegar they gave him, he said, "This is the last; I am now going out of their reach, where the wicked cease from troubling." (2.) It is finished, that is, the counsel and commandment of his Father concerning his sufferings were now fulfilled; it was a determinate counsel, and he took care to see every iota and tittle of it exactly answered, Act 2:23. He had said, when he entered upon his sufferings, Father, thy will be done; and now he saith with pleasure, It is done. It was his meat and drink to finish his work (Joh 4:34), and the meat and drink refreshed him, when they gave him gall and vinegar. (3.) It is finished, that is, all the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, which pointed at the sufferings of the Messiah, were accomplished and answered. He speaks as if, now that they had given him the vinegar, he could not bethink himself of any word in the Old Testament that was to be fulfilled between him and his death but it had its accomplishment; such as, his being sold for thirty pieces of silver, his hands and feet being pierced, his garments divided, etc.; and now that this is done. It is finished. (4.) It is finished, that is, the ceremonial law is abolished, and a period put to the obligation of it. The substance is now come, and all the shadows are done away. Just now the veil is rent, the wall of partition is taken down, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, Eph 2:14, Eph 2:15. The Mosaic economy is dissolved, to make way for a better hope. (5.) It is finished, that is, sin is finished, and an end made of transgression, by the bringing in of an everlasting righteousness. It seems to refer to Dan 9:24. The Lamb of God was sacrificed to take away the sin of the world, and it is done, Heb 9:26. (6.) It is finished, that is, his sufferings were now finished, both those of his soul and those of his body. The storm is over, the worst is past; all his pains and agonies are at an end, and he is just going to paradise, entering upon the joy set before him. Let all that suffer for Christ, and with Christ, comfort themselves with this, that yet a little while and they also shall say, It is finished. (7.) It is finished, that is, his life was now finished, he was just ready to breathe his last, and now he is no more in this world, Joh 17:11. This is like that of blessed Paul (Ti2 4:7), I have finished my course, my race is run, my glass is out, mene, mene - numbered and finished. This we must all come to shortly. (8.) It is finished, that is, the work of man's redemption and salvation is now completed, at least the hardest part of the undertaking is over; a full satisfaction is made to the justice of God, a fatal blow given to the power of Satan, a fountain of grace opened that shall ever flow, a foundation of peace and happiness laid that shall never fail. Christ had now gone through with his work, and finished it, Joh 17:4. For, as for God, his work is perfect; when I begin, saith he, I will also make an end. And, as in the purchase, so in the application of the redemption, he that has begun a good work will perform it; the mystery of God shall be finished.
2. What he did: He bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. He was voluntary in dying; for he was not only the sacrifice, but the priest and the offerer; and the animus offerentis - the mind of the offerer, was all in all in the sacrifice. Christ showed his will in his sufferings, by which will we are sanctified. (1.) He gave up the ghost. His life was not forcibly extorted from him, but freely resigned. He had said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, thereby expressing the intention of this act. I give up myself as a ransom for many; and, accordingly, he did give up his spirit, paid down the price of pardon and life at his Father's hands. Father, glorify thy name. (2.) He bowed his head. Those that were crucified, in dying stretched up their heads to gasp for breath, and did not drop their heads till they had breathed their last; but Christ, to show himself active in dying, bowed his head first, composing himself, as it were, to fall asleep. God had laid upon him the iniquity of us all, putting it upon the head of this great sacrifice; and some think that by this bowing of his head he would intimate his sense of the weight upon him. See Psa 38:4; Psa 40:12. The bowing of his head shows his submission to his Father's will, and his obedience to death. He accommodated himself to his dying work, as Jacob, who gathered up his feet into the bed, and then yielded up the ghost.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv19–22 And Pilate wrote a title,.... Luke calls it a…
And Pilate wrote a title,.... Luke calls it a superscription, Mark, the superscription of his accusation, and Matthew, the accusation itself; it contained the substance of the charge against him, and was written upon a table or board, and nailed to the cross, as Nonnus suggests; to this is the allusion, Col 2:14. The form of it was drawn up by Pilate, his judge, who ordered it to be transcribed upon a proper instrument, and placed over him:
and put it on the cross; not with his own hands, but by his servants, who did it at his command; for others are said to do it, Mat 27:37. It was put upon "the top of the cross", as the Persic version reads it; "over him", or "over his head", as the other evangelists say; and may denote the rise of his kingdom, which is from above, the visibility of it, and the enlargement of it, through the cross:
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and the writing was; the words written in the title were,
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews: Jesus was his name, by which he was commonly called and known, and signifies a Saviour, as he is of all the elect of God; whom he saves from all their sins, by bearing them in his own body on the cross, and of whom he is the able and willing, the perfect and complete, the only and everlasting Saviour: he is said to be of Nazareth; this was the place of which he was an inhabitant; here Joseph and Mary lived before his conception; here he was conceived, though born in Bethlehem; where he did not abide long, but constantly in this place, till he was about thirty years of age; this title was sometimes given him as a term of reproach, though not always: "the King of the Jews"; which both expresses his accusation, and asserts him to be so.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 22 Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews -…
Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews - Undoubtedly these were the very words, although the other evangelists do not express them at large.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 22 Verse 19. Pilate wrote a title] See Clarke on…
Verse 19. Pilate wrote a title] See Clarke on Mt 27:37.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v19 Joh 19:19-22. And Pilate wrote a title, &c. —…
Joh 19:19-22. And Pilate wrote a title, &c. — The governor, as usual, put a title or writing on the cross, signifying the crime for which Jesus was condemned. This writing probably was in black characters on a whitened board. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS — Here, as Bengelius has observed, John gives us the very words ordered to be written by Pilate, (and without doubt the same in the three languages,) although the other evangelists do not express them at large. This title then read many of the Jews — Who came up to the feast of the passover; for the place was nigh to the city — Lying but just without the gates; and, that the inscription might be generally understood, it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin — So that it might easily be read by Jews, Romans, and most other foreigners. It was written in Latin, for the majesty of the Roman empire; in Greek, for the information of the Hellenists, who spoke that language, and came in great numbers to the feast; and, in Hebrew, because it was the language of the nation. The inscription set up in the temple, to prohibit strangers from coming within those sacred limits, was written in all these three languages. It is remarkable, that, by the influence of Providence, the cross of Christ bore an inscription in the languages of those nations which were soon to be subdued to the faith of it; for not only the Jewish religion was to give place to it, but likewise the Grecian learning, and the Roman strength. Then said the chief priests, Write not, The King of the Jews, &c. — “When the priests read this title, they were exceedingly displeased; because, as it represented the crime for which Jesus was condemned, it intimated that he had been acknowledged for the Messiah. Besides, being placed over the head of one who was dying by the most infamous punishment, it implied that all who attempted to deliver the Jews should come to the same end. Wherefore, the faith and hope of the nation being thus publicly ridiculed, the priests thought themselves highly affronted, and came to Pilate in great concern, begging that the writing might be altered. But he, having intended the affront, because they had constrained him to crucify Jesus, contrary both to his judgment and inclination, would not hear them, but rejected their application with some warmth, and with that inflexibility which historians represent as part of his character.” — Macknight.
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Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv19–20 He is the king, not of the Jews only,…
He is the king, not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also. But it is not without reason, that he is called king of the Jews. For they were the true olive (Romans xi.); and we, the wild olive, have been ingrafted, and made partakers of the virtue of the true olive. Christ, therefore, is the king of the Jews, circumcised, not in the flesh, but in the heart, not according to the letter, but the spirit. (St. Augustine, tract. 118. in Joan.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v19 Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the…
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.
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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!
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv19–22 19. Pilate wrote a title—Pilate (doubtless by the hand…
19. Pilate wrote a title—Pilate (doubtless by the hand of a writer) prepared this title, with the careful purpose of another and final sarcasm upon the Jews. It was probably borne upon the person of Jesus while going to execution, and then fastened upon the cross.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv19–22 19. a title] Better, a title also. It was…
19. a title] Better, a title also. It was common to put on the cross the name and crime of the person executed, after making him carry it round his neck to the place of execution. S. John alone tells us that Pilate wrote the title himself. The meaning of the ‘also’ is not quite clear; perhaps it looks back to Joh_19:16. S. John uses the Latin term, titulus, in a Greek form, titlos. S. Matthew has ‘His indictment’ (Mat_27:37); S. Mark, ‘the inscription of His indictment’ (Mar_15:26); S. Luke, ‘an inscription’ (Luk_23:38).
the writing was] Literally, there was written (see on Joh_2:17). The other three give the inscription thus;—S. Matthew, ‘This is Jesus the King of the Jews;’ S. Mark, ‘The King of the Jews;’ S. Luke, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’
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Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv19–21 (19) Comp. Notes on Mat_27:37; Mar_15:26; Luk_23:38. St. John…
(19) Comp. Notes on Mat_27:37; Mar_15:26; Luk_23:38. St. John speaks of the title placed over the cross. This was the common Roman name for an inscription of the kind, which was meant to give information of the crime for which the sentence of crucifixion had been given. St. Matthew calls it the “accusation;” St. Mark, “the superscription of the accusation;” St. Luke, “the superscription.” (Comp. Luk_23:38.) The inscription varies in word, though not in sense, in each of the narratives; i.e., the Evangelists, in dealing with a written inscription, in which there could have been neither doubt nor difficulty, have not been careful to give us the exact words. The fact is significant, as bearing upon the literary characteristics of the Gospels, and upon the value which the writers set upon exact accuracy in unimportant details. The reason of the variations may, of course, be traced to the fact that one or more of the accounts may be a translation from the Hebrew inscription.
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The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv19–22 Vers. 19-22. (b) The title on the cross
Vers. 19-22. (b) The title on the cross
The evangelist turns to an event of which the synoptists say little, and quietly attribute to the Jews themselves. John, from the special access which he had to information about the high priest and the court of Pilate, says, Now Pilate wrote a title also (the Latin technical word titlon is used in preference to the Greek word epigrafh , "superscription"), and he put it, by the hands of his own soldiers, on the cross. We cannot translate egraqe as a pluperfect, and therefore it becomes probable that after the procession had gone howling and cursing away to Golgotha, he had had the titlon , prepared. And there was written upon the parchment, or the tablet, in letters all could read, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS, thus Pilate resolved to sting these murderous Jews to the last point of exasperation, in harmony with the character given him by Philo-Judaeus; but perhaps this motive was also stimulated by another though he sought to punish their pride with scorn and scoff at their hypocritical charge, he may have had some strange irresistible conviction that there was reality in the royal supremacy of this marvelous Being, who throughout was conspicuously triumphant in his patient dignity. He seems muttering to himself, "Let him be Chief of malefactors, but he is and will be King of the Jews nevertheless, and I do not ignore the memories of either David or Solomon, Zerubbabel, Hyrcanus, or Idumaean Herod." The title differs slightly in its phrase in the four evangelists, yet they all preserve literatim the central fact of the change, "the King of the Jews." John alone mentions the circumstance, which may explain the minute differences (so Gresswell, "Diss.," 42.), viz. that it was written in three languages,
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(a) the vernacular, or "Hebrew;
(b) the official, or "Latin;
(c) the speech generally understood by all strangers, or "Greek.
The minute differences may be represented by Matthew using the Hebrew, Mark the Latin, and Luke and John the Greek, the latter simply adding the personal name of the crucified. Whether this hypothesis explaining the "this is" of Matthew, the "Rex Judaeorum" of Mark, the "this" of Luke, and the fuller statement of John, which gives what was contained in one of the languages, be verified or not, it should be observed that the four evangelists agree as to the verbatim form of the aitia , John more abundantly supplementing the information by recording the full titlov . Even Strauss does not regard these differences as discrepancies.
Vers. 19-22. The inscription on the cross.
"And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.
I PILATE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF A ROMAN CUSTOM TO INSULT THE JEWS BY REPRESENTING THIS MALEFACTOR AS THEIR KING. It was an act of revenge for all the humiliation the Jews had inflicted upon him.
II IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE LANGUAGES OF THE THREE PRINCIPAL PEOPLES OF THE WORLD. "Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
1. Hebrew was the national language of the Jews.
2. Greek was the language of common life.
3. Latin was the language of their Roman masters.
III HOW DO WE RECONCILE THE "VARIOUS FORMS OF THE INSCRIPTION WITH THE DOCTRINE OF VERBAL INSPIRATION
1. It is extremely probable that Pilate employed representatives of each language to draw up the title, which would therefore be variously framed according to a threefold idiom.
2. The title in John"s Gospel, "Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews," would be the Greek form. The title in Mark, "The King of the Jews," would be given with Roman brevity, "Rex Judaeorum." The title in Luke, "This is the King of the Jews? does not differ from that in Mark, for the introductory pronoun is Luke"s own. The title in Matthew, "This is Jesus the King of the Jews," would be the Hebrew form.
IV THE DISSATISFACTION OF THE JEWS AT THE FORM OF THE INSCRIPTION. "Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.
1. The title here given to the remonstrants suggests that they were the guardians of the theocratic honor of the Jews.
2. They wished to disconnect the name of Jesus from all their ideas of Messiahship, and represent him as a usurper.
3. Or, perhaps, they were anxious to adhere to the fatal admission, "We have no king but Caesar.
V THE INFLEXIBILITY OF PILATE. "What I have written I have written.
1. He is very resolute in his purpose now that all danger is past. Philo calls him "an inflexible man." Well had it been for him if his firmness of purpose had been manifested in the earlier hours of the day.
2. He was, after all, by his inscription, only representing the true fact unconsciously. Pilate is the herald to proclaim the Kingship of Jesus.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv19, 22 And Pilate wrote a title and put it on…
Joh_19:19-22
And Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross
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The superscription on the cross
I.
A GLORIOUS FACT UNCONSCIOUSLY PUBLISHED TO THE WORLD--the royalty of Jesus. This is one of the greatest truths of the Bible, although Pilate only meant it in scorn. How often the worst of men utter the highest truths I Some event strikes on the soul, and the truth flashes out like fire from flint. Hence the utterances of ungodly men may repay attention.
II. A REVENGEFUL PASSION GRATIFYING ITSELF BY FRAUD. The Jews compelled Pilate to violate his conscience. Now it is over, his passion finds vent in a falsehood such as would torment the instigators of his crime. He did not believe Jesus to be a king at all. No passion is more ravenous than revenge; and fraud in the form of slander is, in these days, its most potent weapon.
III. A WICKED TRANSACTION, BRINGING ITS OWN PUNISHMENT. The accusation was that Christ had made Himself a King, and now the Jews find over the cross a statement that the Crucified was their King. How intolerable to these descendents of illustrious patriarchs and monarchs! How bitterly they must have felt the haughty reply, What I have written, &c. I have been pliable in working out your designs, now I am inexorable.
I scorn you. Thus a small instalment of their retribution came at once. Be sure your sin will find you out.
IV. A MORAL OBLIQUITY WHICH ESTIMATES WHAT IS TRULY GLORIOUS A DISGRACE. Had the Jews seen things in a right light they would have gloried in this superscription. That Malefactor was the glory of His people Israel. As Sage, Saint, Hero, King, there never had been or would be one like Him. Depraved men are ever acting thus. Sinners see degradation when there is nobility. If men saw things as they are, they would often see ignominy on thrones, and royalty in the beggars hut. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The superscription on the cross
I. WHAT IT TESTIFIES--Of Jesus of Nazareth.
1. His Majesty.
2. His victory.
3. The foundation of His kingdom.
4. His jurisdiction and government.
II. IT WAS
1. Read of all.
2. Vexatious to many.
3. Obstinately defended by one.
III. LEARN
1. Wilt thou pass it unheeded?
2. Wouldst thou alter it?
3. Wilt thou not accept it? (J. P. Lange, D. D.)
The inscription on the cross
This was what Pilate wrote on the cross of Christ. Instead of mourning over your cross, write on it
I. JESUS, i.e., Saviour. If He has delivered you from sin and its consequences you need not be greatly concerned about the mere scratches of life.
II. NAZARETH. If you are poor, unknown, despised, remember that Christ your Redeemer came from Nazareth. Despite your present condition, you may yet do something in the world.
III. KING. Never forget that your Saviour is supreme. You, therefore, are safe.
IV. JEWS. We owe much to the Jews. By a Jew we are saved. Conclusion: Put this inscription on your cross and it will lighten it. On the cross of
1. Persecution. You are not alone; your Master bore this before you.
2. Public profession. Remember Christ, and you will find nothing to be ashamed of.
3. Temptation.
4. Poverty and pain. Jesus bore them all and will surely keep you. (C. Spurgeon, jun.)
The inscription on the cross
illustrates
I. THE UNCONSCIOUS TESTIMONY OF BAD MEN TO THE TRUTH. Pilate the vacillating, the superstitious, the cowardly, the civil, causes a statement to be written about Christ, than which no apostles argument, no angels song could be more truthful. The Kingship of the carpenters Son, the royalty of the peasant teacher of Nazareth. Similarly Balaam and Caiaphas, and they who cavilled at Christ because He received sinners, were all unconsciously testifying to great truths, e.g., Balaam to the moral fascination of a godly nation, Caiaphas to the necessity of vicarious sacrifice the cavillers to the mercy of the great philanthropist.
II. THE FAILURE OF MERE CULTURE TO EFFECT THE HIGHEST ENDS. These three languages the unlettered could not understand; but he who could read all used his knowledge in the service of the deadliest murder. Culture without religion is but civilized barbarism and disguised animalism. Not by might nor by power, &c.
III. THE OMNISCIENT ARRANGEMENTS OF GODS PROVIDENCE. The fact that these languages were employed reminds us of the historic marvel that this was just the epoch when most naturally Hebrew faith, Greek eloquence, and Latin empire, could combine to serve the propagation of the new evangel. Christ came in the fulness of time.
IV. THE UNIVERSAL AVAILABLENESS OF CALVARY. The fact float most concerns the peoples of all centuries and climes is not transcendental, but an event which all can understand--a death--1. The death of a Man. Its availableness is illustrated in its relation to the population of the city then. For it happened not at the distance of a long pilgrimage, but near the city. And it was explained in three languages, one or other of which the motley group that passed by could understand. So it is with the spiritual meaning of that fact--Say not in thy heart who shall ascend … the Word is nigh thee.
V. THE WORLD-WIDE VICTORIES OF THE CROSS. Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, have known, or is gradually knowing, the triumph of Christ. And His wondrous biography, infallible teaching, and redeeming power, is now proclaimed not in three, but in hundreds of languages, and every tongue shall confess that Christ is Lord. (U. R. Thomas.)
Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews
Jesus of Nazareth
(Preached at Nazareth on Good Friday):--What are the lessons of Good Friday?
I. THE UNIVERSAL LOVE OF GOD TO HIS CREATURES.
1. That is why it is so truly called Good Friday. It has its good news as much as Christmas or Easter Day. It was by His death, more even than by His life, that He showed how His sympathy extended far beyond His own nation, friends, family. I, if I be lifted up, &c.
2. This is a truth which comes home to us with a peculiar force in Palestine. What is it that has made this small country so famous; that has carried the names of Jerusalem and Nazareth to the uttermost parts of the earth? The death of Christ. Had He not died as He did, His religion, name, country, would never have broken through all the bonds of time and place as they have.
3. This universal love of God in Christs death is specially impressed upon us in Nazareth. What Christ was in His death, He was in His life. And if we wish to know the spirit which pervades both, we cannot do so better than consult His first sermon at Nazareth (Luk_4:18). The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him
(1) To preach the gospel to the poor, the glad tidings of Gods love to the humble, neglected, dangerous classes, the friendless, the oppressed, the unthought for, the uncared for.
(2) To heal the broken-hearted, as a good physician heals, not with one medicine, but with all the various medicines and remedies which Infinite
Wisdom possesses, all the fractures, and diseases, and infirmities of our poor human hearts. There is not a weakness, a sorrow, a grievance, for which the love of God, as seen in the life and death of Christ, does not offer some remedy.
(3) To preach deliverance to the captive. Whatever be the evil habit, inveterate prejudice, master passion, or the long indulgence, which weighs upon us like a bondage, He feels for us, and will set us free.
(4) To give sight to the blind. How few of us there are who know our own failings, who see into our own hearts, who know what is really good for us! That is the knowledge which the thought of Christs death is likely to give us. For every one of these conditions, He died. Not for those only who are professedly religious, but for those who are the least so. Christianity is the only religion of which the Teacher addressed Himself, not to the religious, the ecclesiastical, the learned world, but to the careless, the thoughtless, the rough publican, the wild prodigal, the heretical Samaritan, the heathen soldier, the thankless peasants of Nazareth, the swarming populations of Galilee.
II. WHATEVER GOOD IS TO BE DONE, IN THE WORLD, even though it is God Himself who does it, CANNOT BE DONE WITHOUT A SACRIFICE.
1. So it was especially in the death of Christ. So it was in His whole life, from the time when He grew up, as a tender plant, in the seclusion of this valley, to the hour when He died at Jerusalem, was one long struggle against misunderstanding, opposition, scorn, hatred, hardship, pain. He had doubtless His happier and gentler hours--we must not forget them: His friends at Bethany, His apostles, His mother. But here, amongst His own people, He met with angry opposition and jealousy. He had to bear the hardships of toil and labour, like any other Nazarene artisan. He had here, by a silent preparation of thirty years, to make Himself ready for the work which lay before Him. He had to endure the heat and the cold, the burning sun, and the stormy rain, of these hills and valleys. The foxes of the plain of Esdraelon have holes, the birds of the Galilean forests have their nests, but He had, often, not where to lay His head. And in Jerusalem, though there were momentary bursts of enthusiasm in His behalf, yet He came so directly across the interests, the fears, the pleasures, and the prejudices of those who there ruled and taught, that at last it cost Him His life. By no less a sacrifice could the world be redeemed and His work be finished.
2. In that work, in one sense, none but He can take part. He trod the winepress alone. But in another sense, often urged upon us in the Bible, we must all take part in it, if we would wish to do good to ourselves or to others. We cannot improve ourselves, we cannot assist others, except by exertion. We must, each of us, bear our cross with Him. When we bear it, it is lightened by thinking of Him. When we bear it, each day makes it easier to us. Once the name of Christian, of Nazarene, was an offence in the eyes of the world; now it is a glory. But we cannot have the glory without the labour which it involves. (Dean Stanley.)
Pilate preaching the gospel
Pilate knew that Jesus was thought to be a most despicable name; and that Nazareth with the Jews was a proverb of condensed contempt. But God held his hand while he did write. All unconscious, he was used as an instrument for publishing words of deep and mystic potency. First things are significant things, especially in the history of a dispensation. The first voice we hear speaking of Christ after His crucifixion is the voice of an angel, and the first title given to Him is Jesus of Nazareth. The first time that the Saviour was preached by man was under this title. Peter fell its infamy when one of the maids of the high priest said to him, Thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth. But soon as the Spirit was poured out, Peter rang out the name Jesus of Nazareth. The first time that Jesus Himself, after His enthronement, spoke, He made Himself known under these words (Act_22:8). Taking these things into consideration, we find that what was done by man only in contempt, has been turned by God into the most effectual means of exalting the Saviour and preaching the gospel.
I. THE CROSS, on which the writing was placed, first arrests our attention.
1. Was it like the thing sometimes looked at before the glass, put on admiringly, then taken off, then dropped among the tinkling trinkets? Like the thing that sparkles in the crown, or blows in the banner, or flames on the spire? We need have no superstitious fancy about this artistic device; only let us be careful not to allow the sight of it to deaden the sense of what Christs cross really was. It was a shame! And when it was lifted up, I should have thought that any man would look another way. Any dying man is a sacred being, any dying scene a sacred place; but Jesus was nailed upright in a crowd to die. And then it was that Pilate hammered over the dying head the mocking proclamation.
2. I would not make the physical cross a theme for merely descriptive or declamatory wards; nor do I make a venture into the sea of Gods deep thoughts about the atonement; but I know that Jesus on that cross, dying for sinners, did in some way suffer what is instead of His people dying. We may enter this scene, but not as artists, sculptors, poets, musicians, talkers with a hard, ready rattle of syllables, but as priests, with stilled hearts and reverential steps; we may pause, but with prayer; we may look, but through tears. Pilate was the instrument of the fulfilment of Christs words--I, if I be lifted up from the earth, &c.
II. THE NAME JESUS. Joshua, to which Jesus corresponds, means the Lords salvation, or, the Lord of salvation.
1. By the time of our Lords advent, the Jews had got to place the lowest possible construction on the predictions of a Saviour. They thought only of a political salvation; and every leader of an insurrection was tempted to call himself the Jesus of prophecy. There is some ground for the opinion that Barabbas played the part of a false Christ, taking the name of Jesus. The Roman governor of Judaea would know that the Jews looked upon the name Jesus as belonging to the coming man, who should save them from the Romans. This to his mind would make it a name of scorn. At this hour the Jews were also ashamed of it.
2. Never was greater mistake about a name than this. Its true interpretation had been given by the angel, For He shall save His people from their sins; and if the same angel was the one who announced His resurrection, it is no wonder that the first word of announcement was Jesus. He would triumph in that name. We share in this triumph. Some persons mainly think of Christ as a Saviour from penalty. We know indeed that by the cross the Saviour removes legal impediments in the way of pardon; but is that all? Is He simply like one who clears off old scores for us; wipes out the past as a child wipes off a false sum from his slate; who says, Let bygones be bygones; who holds the paper with the dreadful writing on it in the flame until it burns right away and says, There, I have nothing against you! Is that all? Not so. He will says me by setting me right, and not merely by setting right my relation to His law. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
III. THE APPELLATIVE OF NAZARETH. The Jews had objected to part of Pilates superscription, but not to this, for it expressed exactly what they were determined to affirm. According to His own account, He was Jesus of heaven (Joh_8:23; Joh_8:42). Just see what this implies.
1. A contradiction of Christs claims to be the Heavenly Witness. Yet it was overruled so as to be the means of their glorious vindication. Keep in mind the distinction between a teacher and a witness. A teacher is one who imparts knowledge; a witness is one who gives evidence. We expect him to tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from what has passed in his own personal presence. This is what Christ claimed to be. When Nicodemus said, We know that Thou art a Teacher sent from God, His answer meant, More than that, I am a Witness. We speak that we do, &c. So at last with Pilate, He claimed to be the Heavenly Witness. To this end was I born, &c. Of course no mere mortal could give evidence about anything that happened before He was born. God might say to any one of us (Job_38:4-7); but Christ, being the Witnessgiving the gospel revelation, had from the nature of the case to give evidence as to facts that belong to a place far above this world, and to a period far before it. Of course this claim includes the claim to be the Son of God. If a real Witness, it is plain that His birth was not the point of emergence from the blank of non-entity; but the arrival of a Traveller who said, I am crone forth from the Father, and am come into the world. Of course it is a mystery--the doctrine that Eternity should clothe itself in the garment of Time. But Mystery is the sign of the Infinite; and that which is not mysterious is not Divine. The animus of the inscription on the cross is endorsed by the Jews. He is only Jesus of Nazareth. But this most public contempt of Christs claims only led to their most public and irresistible vindication. The cross, which called attention to the one, calls attention to the other. The death on the cross led to the stupendous miracle of the Resurrection, by which He has been declared to be the Son of God with power.
2. To insinuate the charge of sin; but it has been overruled to call attention to His spotless holiness. Nazareth was looked upon as the very sink of Galilee. There have been such Nazareths in old England. London had one in a place called Alsatia; many a nest of wreckers by the seaside was a social Nazareth. There are Nazareths now, to be in which implies loss of character; places that are like hells on earth; but Jesus lived thirty years in Nazareth of Palestine. Even the candid Nathanael said, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? But the critics of Christ can find no spot in Christ even there. Christs pure life in polluted Nazareth was a great fact in the great gospel apparatus. It provided for the most searching chemistry of character; and after living so long under the action of such a test, He was found perfect. Such a human diamond found in filth, yet drinking in and flashing out again the pure light of God, could owe nothing to the filth in which it was discovered. Such holiness in Nazareth must be that before which all angels cry aloud, Holy, Holy, Holy!
3. This appellative pleased those who scorned Christ as the son of a carpenter, for as such He was well known at Nazareth; but it reminds us of the honour due to Him as the Friend of poor and working people. It was as much as to say, a carpenter is not a king; but, besides that, it was meant to suggest, Who would belong to a religion that has for its sacred central personage a carpenter? The same spell would work in the same way now, and thousands who now profess Christianity would not do so, if doing so would make them look so low, socially, as did the first followers of the Carpenter. Let us call to mind the significance of the fact that the man Christ Jesus was a carpenter, and trace afresh the reasons why we should glory in it. It helps to make Him very real and homely; to make us feel that our religion is not a thing that belongs to some mysterious world of its own; but a thing for use, for the work-day world, for the majority. It helps to make us feel that He belongs to us all. Human princes take territorial names for their own distinction; Jesus takes a territorial name. And what is it? Jesus of Paradise? Jesus of Glory? Jesus of Jerusalem the Golden? No! but Jesus of Nazareth, the place where He was only known as the Carpenter. He was insulted by that name in His last hour on earth, but, now, it is one of the names by which He is known in the heraldry of heaven.
IV. THE TITLE, The King of the Jews. In writing this, Pilate intended to express the most extreme contempt. Not contempt for the religion of Jesus. In matters of religion he had no bias one way or the other; in his opinion, one religion was as good as another. He was not conscious of any active contempt for the person of Jesus; but he thought to use Him as an instrument to mortify the Jews. It was as much as to say, There, you vile Jews! Your King is that! then what are you? Your own grand monarch is now nailed on His throne. Know yourselves! They would have made no objection if Pilate had written, He said, I am King of the Jews! At the time when Jesus was born, men were eagerly asking, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? No one, however, thought for a moment of looking for Him at Nazareth. As was shrewdly said in a London yard by one of its native evangelists, If the Prince of Wales had lived thirty years in Raymonds Yard, folks would not have believed that he was the Prince of Wales. I expect that Nazareth was a poor sort of place, like this; yet there He was. If you find a sovereign in the mud, you think it only a farthing till you come to change it; and so, because they found Jesus at Nazareth, they never thought that He could be a King! Even so. At the same time, it was not altogether the thought of Nazareth that made the Jews refuse to bend the knee. There was a time when that was no insuperable difficulty. The cause was in their own worldly nature, which He, by disappointing, had infuriated. They were mad because they thought He could break the Roman yoke for them, but would not. The priests thought they had got their revenge on Jesus for refusing to trample down the Romans. But when the cross was lifted, to their amazement, the truths they had tried to kill stood written over it, and the Crucified One was proclaimed their King! The wretched Pilate little knew that he had thus written one of the grandest truths. Appearances did seem to be against such a fact; yet, for God to be manifest in one place is no greater stoop of condescension than to be manifest in the other; and only our vulgar ideas of the majestic make us feel it to be a greater mystery there than anywhere else. The mystery was that He should appear as man anywhere.
V. THE NOTICE placed over the head of Jesus was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. In the East, in the old time, when a government issued a notice intended to be read by the different nations of a large empire, it was the custom to write it on a tablet in the different languages of that empire, so that if men speaking these different languages would be able to read the inscription. Like the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, showing one inscription in three dialects; like the inscribed rocks at Behistan, recording the fame of Darius Hystaspes in three forms of arrow-headed writing, so as to be understood by Assyrian, Median, and Persian readers--the inscription on the cross was written in three languages, and these were the three keys to unlock all the languages living in the world. So, without knowing what he was doing, Pilate thus began the publication of Christ to all the world; and all that evangelists at home and abroad have to do is to do by the Holy Ghost, and do thoroughly, what he began to do. Let the real meaning of what he wrote in these everlasting letters be brought out; and let all people in all languages read it or hear it, and Christs missionary law will be fulfilled. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
In Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin
I. THESE LANGUAGES REPRESENT IN THEIR STRUCTURE THREE ENTIRELY UNLIKE TYPES OF CHARACTER.
1. The Hebrew has grandeur, but no grace.
2. The Greek is spoken beauty, yet fit more for nymphs than angels.
3. The Latin is the language of command, resolute purpose and decisive action, whose very study is a tonic. These three tongues were all familiar to the Jewish ear in the time of Christ; the Hebrew as still the language of worship, the Greek as the language of educated men, the Latin as the official language of the Roman Government.
II. THESE LANGUAGES CORRESPOND TO THE FORMS OF CULTURE which were grouped together in every land; for the Hebrews had long been a migratory people; the Greeks were the preceptors of the world; while Roman soldiers and officials swarmed in all parts of the empire.
1. The Hebrews were pre-eminently a religious people. Even their idolatry was in sad earnest, and from the time of the Captivity their zeal for God and the law has no parallel. Their first temple, long anterior to Greek art, was the most magnificent edifice in the world, and their apparatus of worship the most organized and majestic that the world has known. Nor was Judaism in its earlier days a mere ritual--witness the psalms and prophets. But in the time of Christ it had lapsed into a punctilious formalism.
2. The Greek culture was distinguished by the sovereignty of beauty. It gave transcendent grace and charm to daily life. But it lacked the religious element; and the reverence of the worshipper who gave credence to the myths embodied in its art could only minister to his degradation. This culture eventually lapsed into a feeble sensualism, and Greek adventurers carried into every land with their art and philosophy, luxury, effeminacy, and the vices that follow in their train.
3. The Roman culture was that of unbending law, rigid discipline, and hardy self-control; in their better days their religion was sincere, and their standard of purity high. But their advancing knowledge soon outgrew their faith, and their religion became a nonentity to the enlightened, and a mere police force to the populace. Rude and averse to refining influences, they at first resisted the influence of Greeks, but eventually succumbed. At the Christian era moral corruption had replaced the robust virtues of the early Romans.
4. These were the effete forms of culture, whose signature was written over the cross. Each was ready to perish for lack of the others.
(1) Religion may exist alone in the individual soul; but as an element of social and national life it needs all the humanities, and can only live as a working force.
(2) Art needs religion for its purity, grandeur and influence as an educational agency, and requires the element of law to blend vigour with grace.
(3) Law demands a higher sanction than its own, and requires that its sternness be relieved by the humanizing influence of art.
III. JESUS COMBINES IN HIS PERSON THESE THREE FORMS OF CULTURE.
1. He is emphatically King of the Jews; for the intensity of the religious life is betrayed in His every utterance.
2. He is more than Grecian in the grace, amenity, and sweetness of His Spirit.
3. He is more than Roman in the perfectness with which He is the incarnate law of God, and alone finishes the work God gave Him to do.
IV. THESE ELEMENTS ARE BLENDED IN THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER WORTHY OF THE NAME.
1. It has the fervent religiousness of the Hebrew psalmists and Jews, only with less of the Sinai than of the Zion type.
2. However destitute of the wonted means of culture, it takers in a culture of its own, so that the grace of God assumes forms which man can recognize as graceful.
3. It is also a law-abiding Spirit, submitting not as to a hard yoke, but as to a loving service.
V. WE HAVE IN THE THREEFOLD CAPTION OF THE CROSS OUR OWN DIRECTORY OF DUTY.
1. Religion, the inmost consecration of the soul to God, is the main element.
2. But religion is a power which should diffuse itself; and this it can only do by alliance with whatever adorns, sweetens and elevates the life of man. There has been a religiousness destitute of grace, and even repulsive; but if those who seek to be Christians would only prize and cultivate the beauty of holiness, they would be much more efficiently missionaries for the faith.
3. We need equally the Roman element of law to make us Christians indeed. A thoroughly obedient life, pervaded by the spirit of service, is the result of nurture in the school of Christ. (A. P. Peabody, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v19 Joh_19:19-20. This was also one reason for the title…
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh_19:19-20. This was also one reason for the title written (τίτλος, titulus, the technical name) by Pilate for the cross of Jesus. His alone would need it. For people might be inclined to ask (those who were not mere tools of the Jewish rulers), “Why was this man, who had been declared innocent, and who during His life among the people had gone about doing good, thus treated?” But the title was also indicative of Pilate’s scorn of those Jews, and part of his revenge for their having forced him against his better judgment, his will, and his conscience to condemn Christ. The reason why the title was written in the three languages chiefly in use in Palestine at that period is evident; but it seems also to give an indication of Pilate’s eagerness to let the accusation be widely known. Hebrew.—No doubt the current Aramaic (Semitic) dialect. Greek.—The language of culture. Latin.—The language of imperial Rome.
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Joh_19:23-24. Took His garments, etc.—St. John’s is the more full account of this incident. Joh_19:23-24, explain why the soldiers cast lots. This is merely mentioned generally by the Synoptists, as if it applied to the garments as a whole.
Joh_19:25-27. Now there stood by the cross, etc.—Are three or four women mentioned here? The evidence on the whole seems to show that there were four—that the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is not “Mary of Clopas” (Alphæus, Mat_27:56; Mat_10:3), but Salome (Mar_15:40), “the mother of Zebedee’s children.” The reason why her name is not mentioned is that John in his Gospel does not mention his own name, or the names of his kindred, except by circumlocution. If this explanation be correct it throws a clear light on the incident of Joh_19:26-27. It would also explain in a measure why the mother of Zebedee’s children ventured to make so bold a request for her two sons on one occasion (Mat_20:21).
Joh_19:28-30. Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished (for accomplished read finished, τετέλεσται), that the Scripture might be (accomplished) τελειωθῇ.—These words are from the same root. By His life and death He had fulfilled the purpose for which divine revelation was given, the purpose to which it all pointed, i.e. the redemption of men. Therefore, knowing this, He called out, “I thirst” (thus fulfilling the prophetic words regarding the suffering Servant of Jehovah, Psa_69:21); and when His parched lips and tongue were moistened by the drops of sour wine, He was able to lift the cry of victory, It is finished (again τετέλεσται). Bowed His head.—All the narratives show clearly that our Lord’s death was a voluntary death.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_19:19-30
Joh_19:19. The “title on the cross.”—
I. We should have an interest in the details of the crucifixion.—
1. If we believe that the death on this cross was borne for our sakes, we cannot but take an interest in every detail connected with it.
2. A wonderful and well-known picture, at which many have loved to look, presents to us the mother of the Crucified being gently led away from the awesome scene by him who was now her “son,” broken-hearted, crushed by what she had gone through. The face is something to look at—so grief-stricken, so heart-pierced and yet with some strange, quaint ray of faith lighting it up! And the painter has given this “touch.” In the poor, feeble, quivering fingers is clasped—what? The “crown of thorns.” Unconsciously, instinctively, Mary had unfastened the cruel thorns from her holy child’s head. They were no more hurting then; but it was nature in a mother’s hand to tear it off. And now she clasps it, keeps it, dear, precious. It was with Him, part of Him, and it is sacred, not to be parted with now! But it will be said—and truly in a measure—that is merely natural sentiment.
3. Well, again there are those who think that could they but hold in their hand, while kneeling in prayer, or engaged in holy, devotional thought, a piece of the real, true wooden cross of Golgotha, how good, how happy that would make them. And now it will be said—in a measure truly—this is superstition.
4. But is there not solid ground on which Christians who are given neither to sentiment nor superstition may stand? We love Him who died for us (would we loved Him better!). We love to think of the death He endured. All our blessings, all our hopes, spring from it. The Bible has given the story of the cross in full detail. We wish to look at, think about, and understand everything, even the incidental details and circumstances, connected with the cross of Calvary.
II. Here, then, is what is called the title on the cross.—
1. We should neither in mere sentiment nor in superstition, but as common-sense and honest readers of the Bible, look at and think of this incident in the story of the cross.
2. There it hangs (nailed no doubt to the cross) in large, legible, official characters, telling in the three languages there in common use the name of Him who was put to death, where He came from, and His crime.
3. We know the name—a name dear to many a heart—to many who love it better still to-day beyond. And “Nazareth.” Ay! bless God, He lived, for our sakes, the common village life of poor Nazareth! And what about His crime? “King of the Jews.” A bitter taunt which the Roman governor, in writing it, flung at the priests and rulers and the Jewish mob they led. We know how this came about. They forged a story which Pilate no more believed than they—that this man had harboured claims of kingly dignity, dangerous to the Roman rule. So in one of the feeble efforts Pilate made to save the life of Jesus, he said, “This is your king: shall I crucify your king?” So anxious were priests and mob to have this man crucified that they were willing to renounce their very national history, as it were, and lay their necks under the foot of Rome: “We have no king but Cæsar.” And when Pilate still hesitated, the last touch that spurred him to the leap was the threat, “Let this man off, and it will be told at Rome, ‘thou art no true friend to Cæsar.’ ” And so, later in the day, Pilate sat down to write the official “title”; and one can fancy the bitter smile that crossed the Roman’s face as he said, “They shall have no king but Cæsar! And it shall be told at Rome that Pilate was so true to Cæsar and ruled the Jewish people with so stern a hand that he crucified before their very faces the man whom they dared to call their king.” The title was nailed up, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, that all men of all nations might read: “The King of the Jews.”
4. The priests and rulers read it, and gnashed their teeth when they saw themselves entrapped by the wily Roman. They would have him to soften or explain his phrase. But the haughty ruler said, “What I have written,” etc. Thus this title was just one more of the many words and tones of bitterness and hate and mockery with which men surrounded that day the cross of the Saviour.
5. They were all of a piece, these surroundings of His cross! The mocking of Herod’s men, Pilate’s soldiers, the robe and crown and sceptre, all in ribald scorn; the brutal scourging, and hellish hate of priests and Pharisees, and the yells of the fiendish mob! The mocking title with its bitter gibe between Rome and the Jews was quite in tone with all the rest.
6. Only from Him (the central figure of the throng) throughout the fearful scene came that day what was calm and true in tone, and tender. From Him comes the gentle prayer, “Father, forgive them,” etc., and the brief message, and the last look—the one word to His dearest earthly friend, and the one word to her and the last look to her! Even the weary sigh, as all was over, was of heaven and peace! All around was hate and mockery and hell.
7. It mattered little what they wrote above the drooping head, or what bitter scorn might pass between the Jews and Rome, or that it baffled them to say why He was put to death. Why He died was known in heaven, amidst the angels’ joy and wonder.
III. Application.—
1. We can take the Roman’s words of mockery and read them calmly, truly for ourselves. Little did Pilate dream how true were those words of his! He is King, Sovereign, Ruler in a higher, wider, greater realm than ever Rome or Israel dreamed of!
2. Let it be our prayer that He would make us true and loving subjects in His realm, to be owned in the new heavens and the new earth, as having followed His banner and upheld His kingdom.
2. And scattered Israel shall yet be gathered, and the land of His birth and lineage, whose tongue He spoke, whose homes He blessed, whose prophecies He fulfilled, will yet know Him as its “King.”
3. The mocking title may well remind us of many things concerning Him—the love He bears us still, His kingdom here, His kingdom coming.
4. To think of it may also help us, when we have to bear from others things hard to be borne, to remember the patient, silent Sufferer amidst all the insults that were around His cross, to breathe of His spirit and to be His followers.—Rev. Thomas Hardy.
Joh_19:23-24. The soldiers divide the garments of Jesus.—It was the custom among the Romans that the executioners at a crucifixion should divide among themselves the raiment of the criminals. The raiment was taken off before the sufferer was nailed to the cross. Jesus endured even this humiliation. There was not one drop of the bitter cup He did not drain. But this indignity too was foreseen. The action was retrospectively a fulfilment of the prophetic word: it told of the Saviour’s present condition; it pointed symbolically forward to one chief end of His redemptive work.
I. It fulfilled prophecy.—
1. It was done that an ancient scripture might be fulfilled (Psa_22:18). How wonderfully was this ancient psalm fulfilled on Calvary! The very words, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” etc., are those recorded. How graphically do such verses as 6 and 17 of the psalm describe the utter humiliation of the sufferings of the Saviour!
2. And in this incident the rude Romans were God’s agents in fulfilling His prophetic word. They knew nothing of it; the Jews would not urge them to do anything to connect Jesus with prophetic Scripture; and therefore all were used as unconscious instruments in carrying out the divine purpose.
3. As the whole of prophetic Scripture points to the Messiah and in Him finds its fulfilment, we should be careful of wresting its meaning lest we lose the divine instruction it is intended to convey.
II. It testified to the poverty of Jesus and His utter humiliation.—
1. “Though He was rich, for our sakes He became poor,” etc. We read of no money. (Judas kept the “bag.” He had made sure of securing it; and what was it to him now?) No gems or jewels bedecked His person. His garments were of a simple fashion. The headdress, sandals, outer robe, and sash were all probably of the simplest, and the large outer robe could readily be divided. But the tunic, fitting closely to the body, and probably finer than the rest, as it was seamless, etc. (Joh_19:23), the soldiers (there was a “quaternion” engaged at the actual crucifixion) did not divide.
2. All this shows how poor He was in earth’s possessions, and how great was His humiliation. The rude soldiers were unmoved by the silent majesty with which He suffered. They thought only of the spoils, and left Him naked and exposed to the burning sunshine of the late Syrian spring. He drank the cup of sorrow and shame to the bitter dregs.
III. It may be viewed symbolically.—
1. “For our sakes He became poor.” He was made naked that we might be clothed (Rev_3:18). The seamless garment—like the high-priestly robe (Rev_1:13)—He allowed to be taken off, that we might be clothed in garments made white in His precious blood (Rev_7:14). It was symbolical of His perfect obedience (Rom_5:18, etc.).
2. And on His cross, through His sufferings and death, another garment has been woven for His believing people. His suffering unto death satisfied and vindicated the broken law. Hence—
“Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress” (Isa_61:10).
3. The simple garments which He wore on earth the callous Roman legionaries divided and cast lots for. But the heavenly dress, glorious in everlasting beauty, which Jesus provides, is given to all who, feeling their nakedness, the insufficiency of their own poor moral rags to clothe the soul, come in faith to Him. Then He endues them with that which will protect them from the fiery heat of divine wrath against sin, and insure them a welcome entrance to the heavenly feast (Mat_22:12).
Joh_19:26-27. Mary at the cross.—It was eternal Love incarnate that hung on the cross on Calvary. And it is in accordance with the nature of that love unspeakable, which embraced all ages and races, that it should care especially for those most moulded to its likeness. And as at the death-bed of those dearest we treasure up the words spoken, so the loving friends of Jesus would treasure up the words they heard fall from His lips during those hours of suffering on the cross. To the writer of this Gospel especially none of those words would appeal more than those in which Jesus honoured him with the care of Mary. Notice:—
I. The bitter grief of Mary.—
1. Simeon’s words in the temple to Mary now received their utmost fulfilment. A sword truly pierced through her soul that day. Was this to be the end of all those hopes which she had treasured up in regard to her wonderful Son? Did the strange events which accompanied His birth, and which she kept, and pondered in her heart, lead to this and nothing more?
2. None can estimate the suffering of Mary as she stood with her weeping friends and John at the foot of the cross. She and they bad been prepared for struggle, for conflict, in His progress toward His Messianic throne. But what a throne was this blood-stained cross, what a crown was that which lacerated His brow!
3. Not only would the bitter grief of shattered hopes fill her breast; the pangs of maternal love would be more bitter still. What true mother could stand unmoved whilst seeing her son suffer untold agonies? And the maternal affection of the heart of her who was called “blessed among women” would not be less but more keen. How then must that heart have been rent during those awful hours!
II. The loving sympathy of Jesus.—
1. Even in that hour of unutterable agony, when dread portents were showing nature’s sympathy in the sufferings of the Son of God, Jesus showed that He was truly human—Emmanuel, God with us. In the midst of His terrible sufferings, in the conflict He was waging to bring redemption to our race, we could not have wondered if Jesus for the time had forgot all of earth.
2. Yet even in that awful hour He did not forget those nearest to Him as the Son of man. He saw the group of weeping followers, but His glance rested especially on two—on His mother and the beloved disciple. He remembered her widowed condition. He saw the traces of her bitter grief. He knew the desolation caused in her heart through the fading of hope in consequence of imperfect faith. And even in that hour when the awful sense of desolation was stealing in upon His own soul, which issued in the mysterious cry, “Eli, Eli,” etc., His filial heart flowed forth in sympathising love to her who bore Him.
3. Even in that hour of suffering He remembered her deep affection, her tender care and solicitude, the strong yet gentle bonds of a mother’s love. This we may believe was dear to the human heart of Jesus; and as He gazed on Mary, now standing with tear-bedewed countenance near the cross, waiting heart-broken for the inevitable end, His filial sympathy and love welled up and overflowed in thoughts and words of tenderness.
III. The filial care of Jesus for Mary.—
1. Whilst Mary and her friends stood weeping, wondering, the Saviour spoke to His mother, commending her to the care of the disciple whom He loved.
2. Why was this? Had faith in Jesus brought with it the inevitable division even into His mother’s home, so that harmony between her and His unbelieving brethren no longer existed, though it was afterward no doubt restored (Mat_10:36; Act_1:14)? But in any case nothing could be more appropriate than that those two, who loved the Saviour with the deepest, purest affection, should thenceforward occupy one home.
3. We are not to think that the term Jesus used in addressing Mary—“Woman,” i.e. “Lady”—implied any diminution of His filial affection. But it certainly does imply (as it did to a less extent in Joh_2:4) that the relationship cannot thenceforward rest on the same basis. Mary, too, must look to her Son as the Redeemer. And as the Saviour must now depart, His filial duty, so far as earth is concerned, must devolve on another; although we must believe that He had still a special interest in and care for her whom He called mother on earth.
4. The disciple to whose care Mary was confided proved himself worthy of so honourable a trust. “From that hour” Mary was tended with filial care and reverence, until she was called to see in His glory Him beside whose cross she had wept in the hour of His deepest humiliation.
Lessons.—
1. Our Redeemer is our example in the doing of relative duty. This is one of the laws of the Christian life (1Ti_5:8). Even the awful position in which He was placed did not make Jesus as the perfect man forget the duty of care and consolation toward His mother, even though that relationship was now to be merged in a higher.
2. The honour and dignity of being trusted by the Saviour with the care of His loved ones—His disciples (Mat_12:49). John entered most deeply into the Saviour’s thoughts, etc., and was rewarded with a special love, showing itself in this special trust committed to him. It is an honour to be thus trusted by kings and potentates; how infinitely greater is the honour when we are thus trusted by the King of kings, and His “needy brethren” committed for temporal or spiritual things to our care!
Joh_19:28-30. “I thirst.”—The hot Syrian spring day was waning toward afternoon. True, from the sixth to the ninth hour darkness had fallen over the face of nature. The sun had been eclipsed; but as an earthquake was near most likely the air would be still and heavy, oppressive and hot like the sirocco’s breath, as it frequently is before an earthquake. Jesus had stood on Calvary weak and faint, and hung on the cross through the hot morning hours from between the third and sixth. No refreshing draught had passed His lips since the last cup in the upper chamber. And now His exhausted physical frame, though of most perfect mould, craved for refreshment, and He cried out, “I thirst.”
I. In this word from the cross we have an expression of the true humanity of Jesus.—
1. It was a word uttered in order to gain an assuagement of the awful suffering of thirst. Dwellers in the East know well, either from personal experience, or the experience of those who have felt it, how awful it is under the burning sun to endure the agony of thirst, when there is no water near to slake it, whilst the mocking mirage, with vision of lakes and streams, maddens the tortured traveller.
2. And was it to be wondered at that He, who was “treading the wine-press alone,” etc., “travailing in the greatness of His strength” for humanity, should, in that hour of awful suffering, feel the pangs of thirst? How terrible were those sufferings on the cross, to which heart and soul anguish were added in incalculable degree! How racked with fever was that sacred body, whilst His tongue clave to the roof of His mouth, and all the dreadful pain of thirst added to the strain and torture!
3. Who will relieve Him? Not the Jew. He is ready with his taunts to the end. But now even the rude soldiers are being touched with the patient yet majestic bearing of the kingly Sufferer; for it was evidently from the supply of sour wine provided for them (Luk_23:36) that a sponge was filled and held to Jesus’ lips on the end of a stem of “hyssop”—it may be at the instigation of the centurion in command, on whom the whole scene had made a deep impression (Luk_23:47).
4. It was the last service rendered to Jesus in the period of His humiliation. It strengthened and revived Him for the final declaration, “It is finished,” which is the charter of our redemption. May not the hope be permitted that this last kindly act—if it were kindly meant, as it seems to have been—did not go without its reward?
II. This utterance of Jesus proclaims Him as the divinely predicted Messiah, to whom all prophecy bears witness.—
1. Though this word was the expression of a natural desire, yet in its utterance, and in the answer accorded, prophetic Scripture was fulfilled. This was foretold as part of the suffering of the Messiah (Psa_69:21).
2. The darkness and trouble that had encompassed His soul, resulting in the cry “Eli, Eli,” etc., had now passed away, as the shadow of eclipse from the face of nature, and Jesus knew that He had now endured to the uttermost all that had to be endured for humanity—even to this mysterious hiding of the Father’s face. But now when that face was again seen by Him radiant with love, He knew that His great work was ended, that He had done for men what men could not have done for themselves, and that the Father was well pleased (Rom_8:3). Then physical nature, which had been forgotten during the dreadful conflict—as men forget their wounds in the press of battle—reasserted itself, and the cry arose, “I thirst.” But in this very cry the last unfulfilled word of prophecy regarding the Saviour in His humiliation received its fulfilment. It had been predicted of the suffering Servant of Jehovah that in His thirst they should “give Him vinegar to drink.” Thus the whole prophetic picture of Messiah in His sufferings—through which He was made perfect (Heb_2:10; Heb_5:7)—was filled in; and all men might see that He was the fulfilment of law and prophecy—the divinely given, God-appointed Messiah.
III. This thirst of the Redeemer was endured for us.—
1. What He endured might be held to be symbolical of that despairing search after God and peace of humanity, that, longing and thirst after God, which was now to be satisfied. To the Redeemer the travail of His soul was now finished, and He desired to see the end of it and its blessed fruits. And as the wine-filled sponge was held to His lips He was physically refreshed and strengthened to proclaim that His soul-travail was past, His soul satisfied (Joh_17:4-5).
2. Now, too, that the work was accomplished that had been given Him to do, He longed for the presence of the Father, and for that blessed home where the sin and evil of earth could no more pain and torture His pure spirit (Joh_11:33; Joh_12:27).
3. He thirsted, He endured, that an ever-flowing fountain of the water of life might be opened for all who desire to have their soul-thirst quenched (Isa_55:1; Rev_22:17). And He shall be most satisfied, and the courts of heaven shall ring (Luk_15:10) with songs of joy, when men and women who have themselves drunk and been satisfied from those rivers of Life which He thirsted and died to send forth, shall lead others who are thirsting for the higher life—the life of Christ’s redeemed ones—to drink and thirst no more.
Joh_19:30. “It is finished.”—The life heralded by promises of peace is slowly ebbing in pain. He who was announced as king dies as a malefactor. His kingly crown is one of thorns, His high-priestly altar a cross, His sacrifice Himself. The world looked on coldly or mockingly. If His entrance into life was humble, what of His exit? Yet at His birth angels rejoiced, at His death nature trembled. What a life of holiness and heavenly beneficence was it which was thus closing! But this death was the most momentous event in the world’s history. The completion of a great work is matter of rejoicing. Yet never was a great undertaking ended in apparently less auspicious circumstances. These, however, were the concomitants of His victory. What is the meaning of this word?
I. In this word Jesus proclaimed the close of His state of humiliation.—
1. His earthly life, begun in lowliness, etc., misunderstood, etc., was ended. The suffering His soul endured in contact with sin, unbelief, etc.; His rejection by the Jews, the weakness of the disciples’ faith, the dark deed of Judas, Gethsemane and the cross, were now past.
2. His body for a time must lie in the grave, but it will see no corruption. His humiliation was past, and what we should remember is that it was endured for us.
II. This word shows that God’s preparatory discipline of the race had ended.—
1. Moses and the prophets take the position of witnesses to Christ. The educational régime of the law was no longer necessary; it had served its purpose of bringing home to men’s hearts the consciousness of sin, etc. Sacrifice was shown to be typical of this supreme sacrifice, and prophetic utterances ceased which pointed to a coming deliverance by a heaven-sent Redeemer.
2. The heathen world’s dreaming of a coming age fairer than the golden age of fable here became a reality; and even their false religions served an educational purpose, emphasising ever the need of cleansing. And what a training had theirs been—a wandering ever further from the true source of light! To what depths of iniquity had they sunk—all going in the same dreary track, with no true light to cheer them on the way!
3. But this voice from the cross proclaimed the end of this preparatory training. Every type and symbol of redemption must give place, for the antitype had come. Jew and Gentile were under tutelage till they had learned that no rites or ceremonies could bring reconciliation. “The times of this ignorance God winked at,” etc., but is now calling men to be saved without the deeds of the law, etc.
III. This utterance implies the final triumph of the people of God through Christ’s finished work.—
1. By His will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus, etc. (Rom_8:30); and when thus sanctified believers shall also be glorified (1Co_1:30). But notice: If we are His we must be justified and sanctified. There should be no mistake here.
2. The final triumph of the kingdom of God is here proclaimed. Christ died, but in this very fact is the potentiality of the world’s redemption. Even at that very moment Christ began to see the travail of His soul, the discomfiture of the enemies of His kingdom, and its final triumph. This cry is one of victory. It was the signal of the triumphant conclusion of His enduring for men.
3. “It is finished.” It is the voice of Emmanuel, the Captain of our salvation, who on the red battle-field lays aside the weapons of His warfare, and raises the shout of victory—a conqueror over sin and death and Satan, though seeming to be vanquished by His foes.
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh_19:23-30. Christ’s battle and victory on the cross.—“Let us also go, that we may die with Him,” Thomas had said to his fellow-disciples (Joh_11:16), when Jesus prepared to go the grave of Lazarus to awake him from the dead. In the case of Thomas this was more a kind of resignation which despaired of escape than faith which follows Jesus to death and yet fills the heart with hope of victory. On Good Friday it is well for us to accompany Jesus on the way of His sufferings and death, to pass through it all with Him in faith, so that going with Him we may be led to the cross, but also from the cross to the throne. It is well also to comprehend how the sufferings and death of Jesus effect our reconciliation with the Father, and how thereby are given to us comfort in life and in death. We consider the theme—
How Christ suffered and died on the cross.—We picture to ourselves in connection with His four last words:
1. His anguish of soul;
2. His physical anguish;
3. His cry of victory;
4. His closing prayer.
Joh_19:23-30. Christ’s conflict and victory on the cross.—We represent to ourselves:—
I. Christ’s bitter conflict.—
1. The earth was darkened, for even nature suffers through the sinfulness of men.
2. The cup of divine wrath was emptied out on the Son of man, so that He felt as if God had forsaken Him, and burning thirst increased the torture of His physical frame.
3. The unbelieving world requited the unspeakable love of the Crucified to humanity with mockery.
II. Christ’s glorious victory.—l. The crucified One remained in communion with His Father; He committed His spirit into the hands of the Father; consciously and freely He yielded up His life.
2. The ransom for man’s debt of guilt was paid; the Father who was angry with men’s sins is reconciled; God’s righteousness and God’s love are firmly established. The work of redemption is completed!—Translated from J. L. Sommer.
Joh_19:23-30. The death of Jesus.—It is no ordinary death which we are called to witness. The sun’s light is veiled, the earth quakes, and the veil of the temple is rent. Adam was pointed to Him who dies upon the cross, in that it was said to him that the woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head. Noah was occupied with Him when he recognised that the life was in the blood. Abraham saw Him in Isaac bound on the altar, and in the bleeding ram. Moses preached Him when he raised up the brazen serpent. Isaiah pointed Him out as He who was “wounded for our transgressions,” etc. And as men from afar had looked forward to the cross, so we look back from afar to the cross. They are eternal obsequies which are celebrated for Him who dies on Golgotha. It is with us as if to-day we stood beneath His cross, heard His latest voice, saw His blood-besprinkled face. Then we say, “O sorrow and mourning!” Yet also, “In Him we have redemption through His blood,” etc. No ordinary death is this which we are called to behold. We seek to find expression for:—
I. The astonishment which fills us.—The true God, the Creator, the King, the Life, eternal Love, the holy God, the Judge of the world, in deepest suffering and misery.
II. The grief to which this moves us.—
1. Over the unbelieving world, which mocks Him.
2. Over our own hearts, which so often forget Him.
III. The penitence which it preaches to us.—
1. We should remember God’s wrath against our sins.
2. Take care that we dishonour God no more by sinfulness.
IV. The comfort which it confirms to us.—
1. In the struggle with sin.
2. In the pains of death.—Appuhn, idem.
Joh_19:30. The sixth word of Jesus from the cross.—
I. Its meaning.—
1. The Messianic prophecies and types are fulfilled.
2. The Lord’s sufferings had come to an end.
3. Reconciliation between God and man is established, and peace reinstated.
II. The blessings for which we have to thank it.—
1. It calls us to repentance.
2. It assures us of salvation.
3. It serves to strengthen our faith.
4. It enlivens our hope in relation to enduring unto the end.—Dr. von Biarowsky.
Joh_19:30. The dominion of sin and death ended on the cross (Rom_5:12-14; Rom_5:19; 1Co_15:22).—The thought of the apostle in these and other passages circulates around Adam on the one hand and Christ on the other, as centres of spiritual influence. The state of man before Christ, and the state of man after—or of all who belong to Christ and share in His redeeming work—is strongly contrasted. Adam, as sinner, gives its character to the one; Christ, as Saviour and the righteous One, gives its character to the other. In the passage from the Epistle to the Romans sin and death are represented as the ruling powers in the world. Adam is the source through which they have entered into the world. Through his one act of sin Adam not only fell himself, but the line of spiritual integrity was broken in him. The flaw extended to the race. “Sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all, for that all have sinned.” In other words, sin passed to us from Adam, and death from sin. This is the simple meaning of the words as they stand in our version. They might seem at first to add little to the doctrine of hereditary corruption as generalised from the facts of experience. But on a closer view they will be found to add various features to this doctrine. They emphasise the position of Adam as not merely the first in a line of sinners, but as the type or representative of the whole line—one whose act was fatal not only for himself, but for all who followed him. All mankind fell with him into the death which he had incurred.
1. This typical character of Adam;
2. The descent of spiritual depravity from him; and
3. The fatal character of the results which followed, not only for himself, but for his posterity—in other words, the judicial character of these results in their downward passage—are all ideas more or less involved in the passage.—Dr. John Tulloch.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Joh_19:26. “Woman, behold thy son.”—It has been considered strange that the Saviour, in speaking to Mary, should have made use of the distant word “Woman,” instead of the tender name of “Mother.” In reply to this, it is certainly true that He did so, partly because He would not still more deeply wound her bleeding heart by the sweet title of mother, as well as that He might not excite within Himself a storm of human emotions; and likewise lest He should expose His mother to the rudeness of the surrounding crowd. But the chief reason why, instead of the maternal title, He used the more general term “Woman,” or lady, lies much deeper, both in this and the well-known scene at the marriage in Cana. He certainly meant His mother to understand that henceforward His earthly connection with her must give way to a superior one. As though He had said, “Thou, my mother, wilt from this time be as one of my daughters, and I thy Lord. Thou believest in Me, and shalt be blessed. Thou layest hold of the hem of My garment, and I appear in thy stead. Thou adorest Me, and I am thy High Priest and King. Mother, brother, and sister, henceforward are all who swear allegiance to My banner. The relationships according to the flesh and the manner of the world have an end; other and more spiritual and heavenly take their place.” It was this that the Lord intended to suggest to Mary’s mind; and hence the word “Woman,” which at first sounds strange, instead of the more tender and affectionate term “Mother.” Nay, it the less became Him to call her mother now, since this term in the Hebrew includes in it the idea of “Mistress,” whilst He was just preparing, as the Lord of lords, to ascend the throne of eternal Majesty. But whilst endeavouring to elevate Mary’s mind above the sphere of merely human conceptions, He does not forget either that He is her son, or that she is His dear and sorely-tried mother; and reflects at the same time that man in his weakness has need of man, and must, besides the heart of God, possess at least one heart upon earth into which he can confidingly pour out his own, and upon whose love and faithfulness he may firmly reckon under all circumstances. For these reasons, the Lord is desirous in His filial forethought, and as far as is practicable, to fill up for Mary, even in a human respect, the void which His decease would leave in her life, and give her, instead of Himself, a son to assist her, even in an earthly manner, in whom she might place entire confidence, and on whose shoulder she could lean in all her distresses, cares, and sorrows, and this new son He bequeaths to her is His favourite disciple, the faithful and feeling John. Is it not as if He intended to say?—“I well know, My mother, how solitary and dreary must be a widow’s path upon earth when the crown is removed from her head. But lo I here is the disciple that lay in My bosom, and is thus peculiarly prepared to become thy support and stay. He is ready to do all I desire of him; and since I have neither silver nor gold, I bequeath thee all My claim on this disciple’s love, gratitude, and faithfulness. Let him be thy son!” It was thus He loved to the end; thus delicately does He provide for all the necessities of those He loves. And as He formerly did, so He does still. He is to this hour the compassionate High Priest. He enters most feelingly into the wants of those who confide in Him, so that every one in his station, whether they be widows, orphans, poor and infirm, or to whatever class of the weary and heavy-laden they belong, may rely most peculiarly on His providential care. After saying to Mary, “Woman, behold,” etc., He says to John, “Behold thy mother.” Oh, what a proof does the Saviour here give His disciple of the affection and confidence which He reposes in him! He imposes a burden upon him, but He knows that John will regard it as the highest honour and felicity which could be bestowed upon him on earth. Nor is the Saviour mistaken in His disciple. John understands His Master’s wish, looks at Mary, and his whole soul says to her, “My mother!”—F. W. Krummacher, “Suffering Saviour.”
Joh_19:26-27. Self-renunciation at the Cross.—Thus the Redeemer endured. Although terror seized hold of His disciple’s heart and a sword went through His mother’s soul as He bled on the cross, yet no bands of blood, nor human friendship, could turn Him aside from His high emprise. And thus, too, His disciples endured. No Peter would have left all, no Paul would have borne the reproach of Christ, no missionary would have gone among the heathen, no Luther would have journeyed to Worms, had they conferred with flesh and blood merely—if women’s tears and friends’ entreaties had availed more than the call of the Lord. No, where the Lord’s work is in question the most beloved on earth must stand aside; when God commands, then we must be prepared to leave and part with what is dearest. Especially at critical moments it is needful to be armed with this spirit of self-denial. Then no sweetest heart-ties, no soft feeling, should hinder us from setting our face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. Men must renounce many a peaceful hour, many a lawful joy, many a pleasant custom, in the service of the Lord. Sometimes the husband must drag himself away from wife and child when duty calls him; and then the wife must become a heroine, and able to give up husband and child to the divine service, like that heroic mother of the times of the Maccabees who saw her seven sons die before her eyes, whilst she herself had exhorted them to die the martyr’s death.—Translated from Karl Gerok.
Joh_19:27. “Behold thy mother.”—He who was dying on the cross, whose name was Love, was the great philanthropist, whose charity embraced the whole human race. His last dying act was an act of individual attachment, tenderness toward a mother, fidelity toward a friend. Now, some well-meaning persons seem to think that the larger charities are incompatible with the indulgence of particular affections; and therefore, all that they do and aim at is on a large scale; they occupy themselves with the desire to emancipate the whole mass of mankind. But it not unfrequently happens that those who act in this manner are but selfish after all, and are quite inattentive to all the fidelities of friendship and the amenities of social life. It was not so, if we may venture to say it, that the spirit of the Redeemer grew, for as He progressed in wisdom and knowledge, He progressed also in love. First, we read of His tenderness and obedience to His parents, then the selection of twelve to be near Him from the rest of His disciples, and then the selection of one more especially as a friend. It was through this that, apparently, His human soul grew in grace and in love. And if it were not so with Him, at all events it must not be so with us. It is in vain for a man in his dying hour, who has loved no man individually, to attempt to love the human race; everything here must be done by degrees. Love is a habit. God has given to us the love of relations and friends, the love of father and mother, brother, sister, friend, to prepare us gradually for the love of God; if there be one stone of the foundation not securely laid, the superstructure will be Imperfect. The domestic affections are the alphabet of love.—F. W. Krummacher, “Suffering Saviour.”
Joh_19:28. The Redeemer drank the full cup of agony on the cross.—“I thirst”; in answer to this they gave Jesus vinegar to drink. Now upon first reading this we are often tempted to suppose, from the unnatural character of the draught, that an insult was intended, and therefore we rank this among the taunts and fearful sufferings which He endured at His crucifixion. But as we become acquainted with Oriental history, we discover that this vinegar was the common drink of the Roman army, their wine, and therefore was the most likely to be at hand when in the company of soldiers, as He then was. Let it be borne in mind that a draught was twice offered to Him; once it was accepted, once it was refused. That which was refused was the medicated potion, wine mingled with myrrh, the intention of which was to deaden pain, and therefore when it was presented to the Saviour it was rejected. And the reason commonly assigned for that seems to be the true one: the Son of man would not meet death in a state of stupefaction; He chose to meet His God awake. There are two modes in which pain may be struggled with—through the flesh, and through the spirit; the one is the office of the physician, the other that of the Christian. The physician’s care is at once to deaden pain, either by insensibility or specifics; the Christian’s object is to deaden pain by patience. We dispute not the value of the physician’s remedies—in their way they are permissible and valuable; but yet let it be observed that in these there is nothing moral; they may take away the venom of the serpent’s sting, but they do not give the courage to plant the foot upon the serpent’s head, and to bear the pain without flinching. Therefore the Redeemer refused, because it was not through the flesh, but through the Spirit, that He would conquer. To have accepted the anodyne would have been to escape from suffering, but not to conquer it. But the vinegar or sour wine was accepted as a refreshing draught, for it would seem that He did not look upon the value of the suffering as consisting in this, that He should make it as exquisite as possible, but rather that He should not suffer one drop of the cup of agony which His Father had put into His hand to trickle down the side untasted. Neither would He make to Himself one drop more of suffering than His Father had given.—F. W. Robertson.
Joh_19:28. Christ’s thirst on Calvary.—Indeed He did thirst: “The zeal of Thine house hath consumed Me.” He was parched with longing for the glory of God and the safety of man. “I thirst”: I thirst to see of the travail of My soul; I thirst for the effects of My anguish, the discomfiture of Satan, the vindication of My Father, the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Shall our last end be, in any measure, like this? Would that it might! Would that, when we come to die, we may thirst with the thirst of the Redeemer’s soul! “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” “My soul thirsteth for Thee,” is an exclamation of the psalmist, when declaring the ardency of his longings after God. And our Saviour endured thirst that our thirst might be quenched. His tongue clave to the roof of His mouth—“My heart,” saith He, in the midst of My body, is even like melting wax”—that we, inhabitants naturally of “a dry and barren land,” might have access to the river of life, which, clear as crystal, pours itself through the paradise of God. Who does not thirst for these waters? Ah! there is nothing required but that every one of us should be able, with perfect truth, to declare “I thirst,” and the Scripture shall be fulfilled in that man’s drawing water out of the wells of salvation. For the invitations of the Bible presuppose nothing but a sense of want and a wish for relief. “Ho! every one that thirsteth”—there is the summons, there the description. Oh that we may now thirst with a thirst for pardon, a thirst for reconciliation, a thirst for holiness! Then, when we come to die, we shall thirst for the joys of immortality, for the pleasures which are at God’s right hand; we shall thirst, even as Christ did, that the Scripture may be fulfilled. And the Scripture shall be fulfilled; for, bowing the head and giving up the ghost, we shall be in His presence with whom is “the fountain of life,” and every promise that has cheered us here shall be turned into performance to delight us for ever.—Henry Melvill.
Joh_19:30. Christ’s dying love embraces the race.—That satisfaction was not the mere payment of an obligation which man had incurred; it was not the rendering of a bare equivalent for human sin to the outraged justice of God. It was more than plenary; it was superabundant, since it was offered in a finite nature, but by an infinite Being. We may shrink, indeed, from saying that such a satisfaction must have exerted a peremptory claim on the justice of God. Needed it not, after all, to be accepted by infinite Mercy? Might it not have been dispensed with? Might not the almighty Father, infinite in His resources, have saved the world without exacting the death of His Son as the price of its salvation? Here revelation does not encourage conjecture. Enough that the satisfaction actually offered has been as really accepted. We may presume, without hardihood, that, if God might have saved us in other ways, He has chosen the way which was in itself the best. And the freedom of the Father’s gift of His blessed Son, the freedom of the Son’s self-oblation, are insisted on in Scripture, as if with the object of condemning by anticipation any mercantile estimate of infinite Love. There is a profusion of self-sacrifice which meets us everywhere in the history of the Passion. Throughout it is the history of a “plenteous redemption.” The bearing of the divine Victim is not that of one who is tendering an equivalent for a debt which had been incurred. He does not seek to undergo only the precise amount of ignominy and pain which was needed for the redemption. He has offered His human will without reserve; and His offering has been accepted. True, one blow from the soldier’s sword or hand, one lash from the scourge, one pang of Christ’s sacred soul, one drop of His precious blood, might have redeemed our world, or a thousand such worlds as ours. For each act of submission, each throb of pain, had infinite value in thesight of Heaven—not only as representing the perfect offering of our Lord’s will, but as being penetrated by the informing presence and boundless merits of His divinity. Yet Jesus, who might have saved us thus, was in truth enamoured of profuse self-sacrifice. “In His love and in His pity He redeemed us” (Isa_63:9), and His pity and His love knew no bounds. He had surrendered His throne on high, His angel-ministers, His earthly home; He had left His mother and His friends; and when His doctrine and His miracles had brought Him fair fame and popular ascendency, He chose to become “a worm, and no man; the very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people” (Psa_22:6). And so He gave His face to the smiters, and His cheeks to them that pulled off the hair. He gave His body to physical torture; He gave His soul to an unspeakable spiritual agony. He offered the long history of His suffering life, and of His death of shame and pain, to atone for the sins of us guilty men. He gave all to that will, in which we are sanctified, by the offering of His body (Heb_10:10). Less might have merited the Father’s grace; less might have satisfied His justice. But Jesus would display the range, the power, the prodigal generosity, of divine charity. The cross was to be not merely the instrument of His punishment, but the symbol of the throne of His conquering love. “I, when I am lifted up,” etc. (Joh_12:32). “He loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Each sinner, each saint, around His cross might have used the words of the apostle. For His blessed mother and St. John, for the Roman judge and for the Roman soldiers, for the chief priest and for the Pharisee, for the vilest and hardest of His executioners, and for the thieves who hung dying beside Him, our Lord gave Himself to death. For all who have been first and greatest, for all who have been least and last in human history, for all whom we have loved or seen, for our separate souls, He gave Himself. True, His creatures indeed are still free to accept and appropriate or to refuse His gift. But no lost soul shall murmur hereafter that the tender lovingkindness of God has not willed to save it. No saint in glory shall pretend that aught in him has been accepted and crowned, save the infinite merit, the priceless gifts, of his Redeemer. The dying love of Jesus embraces the race; and yet it concentrates itself with direct, as it seems to us, with exclusive intensity, upon each separate soul. He dies for all, and yet He dies for each, as if each soul were the solitary object of His incarnation and of His death.—H. P. Liddon.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv19, 20, 22
John
AN EYE-WITNESS’S ACCOUNT OF THE CRUCIFIXION
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THE TITLE ON THE CROSS
Joh 19:19.
This title is recorded by all four Evangelists, in words varying in form but alike in substance. It strikes them all as significant that, meaning only to fling a jeer at his unruly subjects, Pilate should have written it, and proclaimed this Nazarene visionary to be He for whom Israel had longed through weary ages. John’s account is the fullest, as indeed his narrative of all Pilate’s shufflings is the most complete. He alone records that the title was tri-lingual {for the similar statement in the Authorised Version of Luke is not part of the original text}. He alone gives the Jews’ request for an alteration of the title, and Pilate’s bitter answer. That angry reply betrays his motive in setting up such words over a crucified prisoner’s head. They were meant as a savage taunt of the Jews, not as an insult to Jesus, which would have been welcome to them. He seems to have regarded our Lord as a harmless enthusiast, to have had a certain liking for Him, and a languid curiosity as to Him, which came by degrees to be just tinged with awe as he felt that he could not quite make Him out. Throughout, he was convinced that His claim to be a king contained no menace for Caesar, and he would have let Jesus go but for fear of being misrepresented at Rome. He felt that the sacrifice of one more Jew was a small price to pay to avert his accusation to Caesar; he would have sacrificed a dozen such to keep his place. But he felt that he was being coerced to do injustice, and his anger and sense of humiliation find vent in that written taunt. It was a spurt of bad temper and a measure of his reluctance.
Besides the interest attaching to it as Pilate’s work, it seems to John significant of much that it should have been fastened on the Cross, and that it should have been in the three languages, Hebrew {Aramaic}, Greek, and Latin.
Let us deal with three points in succession.
I. The title as throwing light on the actors in the tragedy.
We may consider it, first, in its bearing on Jesus’ claims. He was condemned by the priests on the theocratic charge of blasphemy, because He made Himself the Son of God. He was sentenced by Pilate on the civil charge of rebellion, which the priests brought against Him as an inference necessarily resulting from His claim to be the Son of God. They drew the same conclusion as Nathanael did long before: ‘Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God,’ and therefore ‘Thou art the King of Israel.’ And they were so far right that if the former designation is correct, the latter inevitably follows.
Both charges, then, turned on His personal claims. To Pilate He explained the nature of His kingdom, so as to remove any suspicion that it would bring Him and His subjects into collision with Rome, but He asserted His kingship, and it was His own claim that gave Pilate the material for His gibe. It is worth notice, then, that these two claims from His own lips, made to the authorities who respectively took cognisance of the theocratic and of the civic life of the nation, and at the time when His life hung on the decision of the two, were the causes of His judicial sentence. The people who allege that Jesus never made the preposterous claims for Himself which Christians have made for Him, but was a simple Teacher of morality and lofty religion, have never fairly faced the simple question: ‘For what, then, was He crucified?’ It is easy for them to dilate on the hatred of the Jewish officials and the gross earthliness of the masses, as explaining the attitude of both, but it is not so easy to explain how material was found for judicial process. One can understand how Jesus was detested by rulers, and how they succeeded in stirring up popular feeling against Him, but not how an indictment that would hold water was framed against Him. Nor would even Pilate’s complaisance have gone so far as to have condemned a prisoner against whom all that could be said was that he was disliked because he taught wisely and well and was too good for his critics. The question is, not what made Jesus disliked, but what set the Law in motion against Him? And no plausible answer has ever been given except the one that was nailed above His head on the Cross. It was not His virtues or the sublimity of His teaching, but His twofold claim to be Son of God and King of Israel that haled Him to His death.
We may further ask why Jesus did not clear up the mistakes, if they were mistakes, that led to His condemnation. Surely He owed it to the two tribunals before which He stood, no less than to Himself and His followers, to disown the erroneous interpretations on which the charges against Him were based. Even a Caiaphas was entitled to be told, if it were so, that He meant no blasphemy and was not claiming anything too high for a reverent Israelite, when He claimed to be the Son of God. If Jesus let the Sanhedrim sentence Him under a mistake of what His words meant, He was guilty of His own death.
We note, further, the light thrown by the Title on Pilate’s action. It shows his sense of the unreality of the charge which he basely allowed himself to be forced into entertaining as a ground of condemning Jesus. If this enigmatical prisoner had had a sword, there would have been some substance in the charge against Him, but He was plainly an idea-monger, and therefore quite harmless, and His kingship only fit to be made a jest of and a means of girding at the rulers. ‘Practical men’ always under-estimate the power of ideas. The Title shows the same contempt for ‘mere theorisers’ as animated his question, ‘What is truth?’ How little he knew that this ‘King,’ at whom he thought that he could launch clumsy jests, had lodged in the heart of the Empire a power which would shatter and remould it!
In his blindness to the radiant truth that stood before him, in the tragedy of his condemnation of that to which he should have yielded himself, Pilate stands out as a beacon for all time, warning the world against looking for the forces that move the world among the powers that the world recognises and honours. If we would not commit Pilate’s fault over again, we must turn to ‘the base things of this world’ and the ‘things that are not’ and find in them the transforming powers destined to ‘bring to nought things that are.’
Pilate’s gibe was an unconscious prophecy. He thought it an exquisite jest, for it hurt. He was an instance of that strange irony that runs through history, and makes, at some crisis, men utter fateful words that seem put into their lips by some higher power. Caiaphas and he, the Jewish chief of the Sanhedrim and the Roman procurator, were foremost in Christ’s condemnation, and each of them spoke such words, profoundly true and far beyond the speaker’s thoughts. Was the Evangelist wrong in saying: ‘This spake he not of himself?’
II. The Title on the Cross as unveiling the ground of Christ’s dominion.
It seemed a ludicrous travesty of royalty that a criminal dying there, with a crowd of his ‘subjects’ gloating on his agonies and shooting arrowy words of scorn at him, should be a King. But His cross is His throne. It is so because His death is His great work for the world. It is so because in it we see, with melted hearts, the sublimest revelation of His love. Absolute authority belongs to utter self-sacrifice. He, and only He, who gives Himself wholly to and for me, thereby acquires the right of absolute command over me. He is the ‘Prince of all the kings of the earth,’ because He has died and become the ‘First-begotten from the dead.’ From the hour when He said, ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,’ down to the hour when the seer heard the storm of praise from ‘ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands’ breaking round the throne, every New Testament reference to Christ’s dominion is accompanied with a reference to His cross, and every reference to His cross merges in a reference to His throne. The crown of thorns was a revelation of the inmost nature of Christ’s rule. The famous Iron Crown of Milan is a hard, cold circlet within a golden covering blazing with jewels. Christ’s right to sway men, like His power to do so, rests on His sacrifice for men. A Christianity without a Cross is a Christianity without authority, as has been seen over and over again in the history of the Church, and as is being seen again today, if men would only look. A Christ without a Cross is a Christ without a Kingdom. The dominion of the world belongs to Him who can sway men’s inmost motives. Hearts are His who has bought them with His own.
III. The Title as prophesying Christ’s universal dominion.
The three tongues in which it was written were chosen simply to make it easy to read by the crowd from every part of the Empire assembled at the Passover. There were Palestinian Jews there who probably read Aramaic only, and representatives from the widely diffused Jewish emigration in Greek-speaking lands, as well as Roman officials and Jews from Italy who would be most familiar with Latin. Pilate wanted his shaft to reach them all. It was, in its tri-lingual character, a sign of Israel’s degradation and a flourishing of the whip in their faces, as a government order in English placarded in a Bengalee village might be, or a Russian ukase in Warsaw. Its very wording betrayed a foreign hand, for a Jew would have written ‘King of Israel,’ not ‘of the Jews.’
But John divined a deeper meaning in this Title, just as he found a similar prophecy of the universality of Christ’s death in the analogous word of Caiaphas. As in that saying he heard a faint prediction that Jesus should die ‘not for that people only, but that He might also gather into one the scattered children of God,’ so he feels that Pilate was wiser than he knew, and that his written words in their threefold garb symbolised the relation of Christ and His work to the three great types of civilisation which it found possessed of the field. It bent them all to its own purposes, absorbed them into itself, used their witness and was propagated by means of them, and finally sucked the life out of them and disintegrated them. The Jew contributed the morality and monotheism of the Old Testament; the Greek, culture and the perfected language that should contain the treasure, the fresh wine-skin for the new wine; the Roman made the diffusion of the kingdom possible by the pax Romana, and at first sheltered the young plant. All three, no doubt, marred as well as helped the development of Christianity, and infused into it deleterious elements, which cling to it to-day, but the prophecy of the Title was fulfilled and these three tongues became heralds of the Cross and with ‘loud, uplifted trumpets blew’ glad tidings to the ends of the world.
That Title thus became an unconscious prophecy of Christ’s universal dominion. The Psalmist that sang of Messiah’s world-wide rule was sure that ‘all nations shall serve Him,’ and the reason why he was certain of it was ‘for He shall deliver the needy when he crieth.’ We may be certain of it for the same reason. He who can deal with man’s primal needs, and is ready and able to meet every cry of the heart, will never want suppliants and subjects. He who can respond to our consciousness of sin and weakness, and can satisfy hungry hearts, will build His sway over the hearts whom He satisfies on foundations deep as life itself. The history of the past becomes a prophecy of the future. Jesus has drawn men of all sorts, of every stage of culture and layer of civilisation, and of every type of character to Him, and the power which has carried a peasant of Nazareth to be the acknowledged King of the civilised world is not exhausted, and will not be till He is throned as Saviour and Ruler of the whole earth. There is only one religion in the world that is obviously growing. The gods of Greece and Rome are only subjects for studies in Comparative Mythology, the labyrinthine pantheon of India makes no conquests, Buddhism is moribund. All other religions than Christianity are shut up within definite and comparatively narrow geographical and chronological limits. But in spite of premature jubilations of enemies and much hasty talk about the need for a re-statement {which generally means a negation} of Christian truth, we have a clear right to look forward with quiet confidence. Often in the past has the religion of Jesus seemed to be wearing or worn out, but it has a strange recuperative power, and is wont to startle its enemies’ paeans over its grave by rising again and winning renewed victories. The Title on the Cross is for ever true, and is written again in nobler fashion ‘on the vesture and on the thigh’ of Him who rides forth at last to rule the nations, ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv19, 21 Pilate also wrote a sign and put it on…
Pilate also wrote a sign and put it on the cross
Here "Pilate" is a synecdoche for the person who wrote on the sign. Here "on the cross" refers to Jesus' cross. AT: "Pilate also commanded someone to write on a sign and to attach it to Jesus' cross" (See: Synecdoche)
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There it was written: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "So that person wrote the words: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (See: Active or Passive)
the place where Jesus was crucified
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "the place where the soldiers crucified Jesus" (See: Active or Passive)
The sign was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek
You can translate this in an active form. AT: "The one who prepared the sign wrote the words in 3 languages: Hebrew, Latin, and Greek" (See: Active or Passive)
Latin
This was the language of the Roman government.
translationWords
Nazareth
King of the Jews
Hebrew
Greek
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v19 19:19-22 Pilate posted a sign on the cross: It…
19:19-22 Pilate posted a sign on the cross: It was customary for the Roman soldiers to provide a written public notice of the criminal’s name and crimes. Perhaps as a final act of revenge against the Jewish high council, Pilate ordered that the sign should identify Jesus of Nazareth as the King of the Jews. Jesus’ kingship was posted in three languages for the whole world to understand.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.