but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was already dead, they didn’t break his legs. However one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. He who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, that you may believe. For these things happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “A bone of him will not be broken.”
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John 19:33-36 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Therefore the Jews, because it was the Preparation Day, so that the bodies wouldn’t remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a special one), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Therefore the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was already dead, they didn’t break his legs. However one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. He who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, that you may believe. For these things happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “A bone of him will not be broken.” Again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they pierced.”
Parallel Translations
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but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was already dead, they didn’t break his legs.
However one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
He who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, that you may believe.
For these things happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “A bone of him will not be broken.”
-
But when they came to Iesus and sawe that he was deed already they brake not his legges:
but one of the soudiers with a speare thrust him into the syde and forthwith came ther out bloud and water.
And he that sawe it bare recorde and his recorde is true. And he knoweth that he sayth true that ye myght beleve also.
These thinges were done that the scripture shuld be fulfilled: Ye shall not breake a boone of him.
Show all 3 translations
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But when they came to Iesus, and saw that he was dead alreadie, they brake not his legges.
But one of the souldiers with a speare pearced his side, and foorthwith came there out blood and water.
And he that sawe it, bare recorde, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might beleeue it.
For these things were done, that the Scripture shoulde be fulfilled, Not a bone of him shalbe broken.
Cross-references (43)
- Psalms 34:20 (v36) He protects all of his bones. Not one of them is broken.
- Numbers 9:12 (v36) They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break a bone of it. According to all the statute of the Passover they shall keep it.
- Exodus 12:46 (v36) It must be eaten in one house. You shall not carry any of the meat outside of the house. Do not break any of its bones.
- 1 John 5:6 (v34) This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. It is the Spirit who…
- Zechariah 12:10 (v34) I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom…
Show all 43 cross-references
- Zechariah 13:1 (v34) “In that day there will be a spring opened to David’s house and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.
- 1 John 5:8 (v34) the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three agree as one.
- John 21:24 (v35) This is the disciple who testifies about these things, and wrote these things. We know that his witness is true.
- Ezekiel 36:25 (v34) I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols.
- Titus 3:5-7 (v34) not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and…
- Psalms 22:14 (v36) I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.
- John 19:28 (v36) After this, Jesus, seeing that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I am thirsty.”
- Revelation 7:14 (v34) I told him, “My lord, you know.” He said to me, “These are those who came out of the great suffering.They washed their robes, and made them…
- John 15:27 (v35) You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
- Ephesians 5:26 (v34) that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,
- Hebrews 2:3-4 (v35) how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation—which at the first having been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those…
- 1 John 1:1-3 (v35) That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands…
- Revelation 1:5 (v34) and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and…
- Psalms 35:10 (v36) All my bones shall say, “Yahweh, who is like you, who delivers the poor from him who is too strong for him; yes, the poor and the needy…
- Psalms 51:7 (v34) Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
- Matthew 27:62 (v34) Now on the next day, which was the day after the Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together to Pilate,
- John 13:8-10 (v34) Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I don’t wash you, you have no part with me.” Simon Peter said to…
- John 20:31 (v35) but these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.
- Acts 10:39 (v35) We are witnesses of everything he did both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they also killed, hanging him on a tree.
- Romans 15:4 (v35) For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that through perseverance and through encouragement of the…
- 1 Corinthians 1:30 (v34) Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:
- 1 Corinthians 6:11 (v34) Some of you were such, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the…
- Titus 2:14 (v34) who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for…
- Hebrews 9:13 (v34) For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the…
- Hebrews 9:22 (v34) According to the law, nearly everything is cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission.
- Hebrews 10:19-22 (v34) Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and…
- 1 Peter 3:21 (v34) This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward…
- 1 Peter 5:1 (v35) Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and who will also share in the glory…
- 1 John 1:6-9 (v34) If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don’t tell the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he…
- Matthew 1:22 (v36) Now all this has happened that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying,
- John 11:15 (v35) I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.”
- John 11:42 (v35) I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.”
- John 14:29 (v35) Now I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe.
- John 17:20-21 (v35) Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father,…
- John 19:26 (v35) Therefore when Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
- 1 John 5:13 (v35) These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you…
- John 19:24 (v36) Then they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to decide whose it will be,” that the Scripture might be fulfilled,…
- Acts 22:16 (v34) Now why do you wait? Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv33, 34, 36 33. But when they came to Jesus, and saw…
33. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was already dead. That they break the legs of the two robbers, and after having done so, find that Christ is already dead, and therefore do not touch his body, appears to be a very extraordinary work of the providence of God. Ungodly men will, no doubt, say that it happens naturally that one man dies sooner than another; but, if we examine carefully the whole course of the narrative, we shall be constrained to ascribe it to the secret purpose of God, that the death of Christ was brought on much more rapidly than men could have at all expected, and that this prevented his legs from being broken.
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 v34 Christ being dead upon the cross, witnesseth by a…
Christ being dead upon the cross, witnesseth by a double sign, that he only is the true satisfaction, and the true washing for the believers.
This wound was a most manifest witness of the death of Christ: for the water that issued out by this wound, gave us plainly to understand, that the weapon pierced the very skin that compasseth the heart, which is the vessel that containeth that water, and that being once wounded, that creature which is so pierced and stricken, cannot choose but die.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv33–36 33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw…
33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:
Ver. 33. And saw that he was dead already] He took his own time to die; and therefore, Joh 19:30, it is said, "that he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost;" whereas other men bow not the head till they have given up the ghost. He also cried with a loud voice and died, which shows that he lacked not strength of nature to have lived longer if he had wished.
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 vv34–36 But one of the soldiers, to make sure of…
But one of the soldiers, to make sure of him, pierced his side, out of which it is said that there presently came forth blood and water. That there should come out blood is no wonder, nor yet that there should come forth water. Blood being congealed, it is ordinary to see water on the top of the vessel where it is. And besides, anatomists tell us, that in the hollow part of the breast there are watery as well as bloody humours in the membrane that encompasses the heart, which being pierced, and the water let out, the living creature dieth necessarily. But yet in regard of the next words,
He that saw it bare record, and he knoweth that he saith true, &c., most divines think, that there was some mystery in this water and blood which came out of Christ’s side pierced. Some would have the two sacraments of the gospel signifies by this water and blood. Christ is said to have come by water and blood, 1Jo 5:6; that is, say interpreters, he brought in a true expiation of sins by his blood, and the laver of regeneration, washing the soul from its filthiness: and thus be proved the true Antitype, answering the Jewish types in sacrifices and divers washings.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv33–36 But when they came to Jesus,.... Whom they passed…
But when they came to Jesus,.... Whom they passed by before, and now returned to; this they did not out of tenderness to him, but that he might be the longer in his torture, and whom they reserved till last, that they might use him with the greater cruelty and barbarity:
and saw that he was dead already; as they might, from the bowing down of his head, the ghastliness of his countenance, the falling of his jaws, and other signs:
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they brake not his legs; there being no occasion for it, nor would it have answered any end, were they ever so spiteful and malicious against him; though the true reason was, and which restrained them from it, divine providence would not suffer them to do it.
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 vv34–36 Forthwith there came out blood and water - It…
Forthwith there came out blood and water - It was strange, seeing he was dead, that blood should come out; more strange, that water also; and most strange of all, that both should come out immediately, at one time, and yet distinctly. It was pure and true water, as well as pure and true blood. The asseveration of the beholder and testifier of it, shows both the truth and greatness of the miracle and mystery.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv34–35 Verse 34. With a spear pierced his side] The…
Verse 34. With a spear pierced his side] The soldier who pierced our Lord's side has been called by the Roman Catholic writers Longinus, which seems to be a corruption of λογχη, lonche, a spear or dart, the word in the text. They moreover tell us that this man was converted-that it was he who said, Truly this was the Son of God-that he travelled into Cappadocia, and there preached the Gospel of Christ, and received the crown of martyrdom. But this deserves the same credit as the other legends of the Popish Church.
Whether it was the right or the left side of Christ that was pierced has been a matter of serious discussion among divines and physicians; and on this subject they are not yet agreed. That it is of no importance we are sure, because the Holy Ghost has not revealed it. Luke Cranache, a famous painter, whose piece of the crucifixion is at Augsburg, has put no wound on either side: when he was asked the reason of this-I will do it, said he, when I am informed WHICH side was pierced.
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Blood and water.] It may be naturally supposed that the spear went through the pericardium and pierced the heart; that the water proceeded from the former, and the blood from the latter. Ambrose, Augustin, and Chrysostom, make the blood an emblem of the eucharist, and the water an emblem of baptism. Others represent them as the emblems of the old and new covenants. Protestants have thought them the emblems of justification, which is through the blood of the Lamb, and sanctification, which is through the washing of regeneration; and it is in reference to the first notion that they mingle the wine with water in the sacrament of the Lord's supper. The piercing appears to have taken place because his legs were not broken; and, as the law in this case stated that the criminals were to continue on the cross till they died, the side of our Lord was pierced to secure the accomplishment of the law; and the issuing of the blood and water appears to be only a natural effect of the above cause, and probably nothing mystical or spiritual was intended by it. However, it affords the fullest proof that Jesus died for our sins. Dr. Lightfoot thinks that there is a reference here to the rock in the wilderness which Moses smote twice, and which, according to the Jews, Shemoth Rabba, fol. 122, "poured out blood at the first stroke, and water at the second." Now St. Paul says, 1Co 10:4, That rock was Christ; and here the evangelist says, the soldier pierced his side, and there came out blood and water. St. John therefore, in what he asserts in the 35th and 36th verses, Joh 19:35-36, wishes to call the attention of the Jews to this point, in order to show them that this Jesus was the true Messiah, who was typified by the rock in the wilderness. He knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv33–36 Saw that he was dead - Saw by the…
Saw that he was dead - Saw by the indications of death on his person, and perhaps by the testimony of the centurion, Mat 27:54. The death of Jesus was doubtless hastened by the intense agony of the garden, and the special sufferings endured as an atonement for sin on the cross. Compare Mat 27:46.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv34, 36 There came out blood and water, which naturally could…
There came out blood and water, which naturally could not come from a dead body. (Witham) --- Hence it is, that the sacred mysteries flow; as often, therefore, as thou approachest the awful cup, approach it as if thou wert going to drink from thy Saviour’s sacred side. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxxxiv. in Joan.) --- The holy Fathers say, that the spouse [i.e. the Church] of Jesus Christ was here taken out of his side, whilst sleeping on the cross, as Eve was from Adam’s side, when he was cast asleep in Paradise.
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 vv33–36 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that…
But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already--there being in His case elements of suffering, unknown to the malefactors, which might naturally hasten His death, lingering though it always was in such cases, not to speak of His previous sufferings.
they brake not his legs--a fact of vast importance, as showing that the reality of His death was visible to those whose business it was to see to it. The other divine purpose served by it will appear presently.
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 vv33–36 33. Jesus… dead already—Our Lord had been upon the…
33. Jesus… dead already—Our Lord had been upon the cross but some six hours, and malefactors have been known to endure the pains of crucifixion for two or three days. But the extraordinary sufferings of Jesus had speedily wrought their work upon his delicate though healthy frame. The question raised by modern sceptics, whether Jesus really died, or whether his present state was a swoon from which he may have recovered, was unknown to the ancient Church. That age as little doubted the reality of his death as those soldiers, who now examined and pronounced him dead already.
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 vv34–36 34. pierced] To make quite sure that He was…
34. pierced] To make quite sure that He was dead. The Greek word is not the same as that used in Joh_19:37; this means either to ‘prick’ or to ‘stab,’ that to ‘pierce deeply.’
blood and water] There has been very much discussion as to the physical cause of Christ’s death? and those who investigate this try to frame an hypothesis which will at the same time account for the effusion of blood and water. Two or three such hypotheses have been put forward. But it may be doubted whether they are not altogether out of place. It has been seen (Joh_19:30) how the Evangelists insist on the fact that the Lord’s death was a voluntary surrender of life, not a result forced upon Him. Of course it may be that the voluntariness consisted in welcoming causes which must prove fatal. But it is more simple to believe that He delivered up His life before natural causes became fatal. ‘No one,’ neither Jew nor Roman, ‘took it from Him’ by any means whatever: ‘He lays it down of Himself’ (Joh_10:18). And if we decline to investigate the physical cause of the Lord’s death, we need not ask for a physical explanation of what is recorded here. S. John assures us that he saw it with his own eyes, and he records it that we ‘may believe:’ i.e. he regards it as a ‘sign’ that the corpse was no ordinary one, but a Body that even in death was Divine.
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We can scarcely be wrong in supposing that the blood and water are symbolical. The order confirms this. Blood symbolizes the work of redemption which had just been completed by His death; and water symbolizes the ‘birth from above,’ with its cleansing from sin, which was the result of His death, and is the means by which we appropriate it. Thus the two great Sacraments are represented.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv33–36 (33) And saw that he was dead already, .…
(33) And saw that he was dead already, . . . The only explanation of their not breaking the legs of Jesus seems to be that the purpose of the crurifragium was to ensure death, or, in any case, prevent the possibility of escape. Crucifixion itself would not necessarily cause death for several days, nor, indeed, at all; but Jesus had by His own will committed His spirit to His Father.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv35–36 He that hath seen hath borne, and is now…
He that hath seen hath borne, and is now bearing, herein and hereby, witness, and his witness is veritable the highest and surest kind of witness, that of direct observation, staggering, confounding the ordinary sense, but proving that the Son of God died in his human bodyand he knoweth, by his own inward experience, that he saith true things, that ye also may believe. A vehement effort has been made to sever this testimony from the evangelist, and refer it to a third person ekeinov , and suppose that it took place during John"s absence from the cross (so Weisse, Schweizer, Hilgenfeld, and others); but, as Meyer, Godet, etc., affirm there is no necessity whatever for such an interpretation. Ekeinov is used of the subject of the sentence when it is clear from the context that the speaker himself is that subject. (see Joh_9:37) Concerning a third person, the writer could not have written, "He knoweth that he saith true things, that ye may believe," but rather, "We know that he saith true things, that we may believe." But John here speaks strongly of his own invincible conviction, and, as in Joh_21:24, it is here given to induce a stronger faith on the part of his readers not of himself and his readers in the supernatural death, in the signs that accompanied it, adapted to convince the bystanders of its marvel, and to fill up the prophetic picture, Hilgenfeld, with strange perversity, urges that the clever forger of the narrative "falls out of his part" and forgets himself (see Luthardt on "Authorship of the Fourth Gospel," p. 180). The symbolical and allegorical explanations are numerous. E.g. Toplady"s well-known hymn, "Rock of Ages," contains the words"Let the water and the blood, From thy riven side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
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 vv34–36 One of the soldiers with a spear pierced His…
Joh_19:34
One of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side
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The piercing of Christs side
I.
IT WAS AN ACT OF INSULT AND INDIGNITY TO HIS PERSON. To this, indeed, He was no stranger. In the hall of Pilate, and on the cross He encountered indignities of the cruellest kind. But, beyond the moment of death, the malice of His enemies pursued Him. We cannot behold the body, which the Holy Spirit had prepared, thus mangled, without the deepest sorrow and humiliation. We could not see the body of a convicted malefactor thus insulted without the deepest pity. He was wounded for our transgressions. Let us look to Him whom we pierced, and mourn because of Him. And let the believing contemplation of the wounds of Jesus teach us submission under the varied ills and sorrows of our own earthly lot.
II. IT ASCERTAINS, AND PLACES BEYOND QUESTION, THE REALITY OF HIS DEATH. On this some of the most important truths depend.
1. If He had not actually expired, there would have been no sacrifice at all. The true nature of a sacrifice is the actual dying of the victim. If, therefore, the death of Jesus were not put beyond all question, His doctrine might enlighten, and His example direct us, but we should have no assurance that an actual and efficient atonement had been made for sin.
2. The reality of our Lords death is essential to the confirmation of the hopes which are founded on His resurrection. If we could not show that death had actually taken place, our preaching would be vain, your faith would be vain, and you would be yet in your sins. The piercing of His side put His death beyond question. Believing that He both died, and rose, and revived, we look up to Him with sacred satisfaction and joy, and adore Him as Lord both of the dead and of the living.
III. IT WAS THE FULFILMENT OF ANCIENT PROPHECIES.
1. With respect to the first of these, it is obvious, that it is the prescription in reference to the Paschal Lamb that is pointed to. The executioner breaks the legs first of the one malefactor, and then of the other; but why does he stop short? Nobody interferes to arrest the fatal blow. But had it fallen the pretensions of Jesus to be the antitype of the Paschal Lamb, and consequently the Messiah of Israel, would have been for ever annulled. While, therefore, the executioner proceeds to do his work, an invisible Power interposed to restrain him. The honour of Gods Son was at stake--the comfort of the Church was in peril--the mission of Jesus must beestablished by the fulfilment of prophecy.
2. Nor is the piercing of His side a less remarkable fulfilment. In the accomplishing of the one, the soldier abstains from doing to Jesus what he had done to the others, and what he had been told to do to all; while, in accomplishing the other prophecy, another soldier does to him what he did not do to the others, and what he was not told to do. And by this opposite conduct of two Roman soldiers were two memorable predictions of Gods Word accomplished.
IV. IT WAS AN EMBLEM OF THE EXPIATORY AND PURIFYING VIRTUE OF HIS SACRIFICE. The piercing of his Masters side, and the issuing of blood and water from the wound, made a deep and abiding impression on the mind of John, and we find him recurring to it in his first Epistle (verse 6). This is He who came by water and blood. In all languages water has been employed as an emblem of moral cleansing, while the universal prevalence of sacrifice has made blood the proper symbol of expiation. (J. Johnston.)
The piercing of Christs side
I. THE OCCASION. The scrupulosity of the Jews, which teaches us
1. That superstition is fuller of ceremony than of mercy.
2. That the worst of men are usually very solicitous about external worship.
3. That malefactors are not to be taken out of the hands of justice, and left to the malice of the executioner or the fury of the multitude. They had to ask leave of Pilate for the additional punishment.
4. That when a man once gives himself up to please men there is no end to his compliance. Pilate who began by consenting to scourge Christ ends by signing an order for the breaking of His legs.
5. That Christ was willing to die for us, hence He died before the usual time. Had His legs been broken His death would have seemed the effect of violence rather than His own resignation (Joh_10:18).
II. THE CIRCUMSTANCE.
1. AS an act of Christs love and condescension, that He would expose His body to the malice and violence of wicked men. He might have dried up the soldiers arm as He did Jeroboams; but by this stroke Christ would have His heart opened to show how full of love He is to sinners. As at the beginning Adams side was opened and Eve was taken out of it; so is the Church out of Christs side. In this circumstance there is
(1) Hope for all wounded sinners. It is said of those converts (Act_2:37) that they were pricked to their hearts. Christs heart is wounded that they might be healed. This is the cleft of the rock in which guilty men may find refuge when wrath makes inquisition for sinners.
(2) Matter of thankfulness. Soldiers to endear themselves to their country are wont to show their scars received in public service: so Christ (Joh_20:27). In the sacrament these things are presented to faith.
2. As a certain pledge of Christs death. The flowing of blood and water shows that the pericardium was pierced. So His enemies could not say that He was half dead, and that His resurrection was but a reviving out of a swoon. Upon this is based the Resurrection and all its benefits, and the fulness of the expiation which Christ offered to justice.
3. As a Divine necessity. Christ was to die
(1) As a Surety. We deserved death, but our Surety was to pay our debt. This Christ did (1Pe_3:18; 1Ti_2:6).
(2) As a Testator or Maker of the New Testament. We could never have had the benefit of the Covenant if Christ had not died (Heb_9:16). (T. Manton, D. D.)
Forthwith came there out blood and water
Blood and water
In the water and the blood are represented the most essential elements of salvation. The water has a remote reference to baptism, but it chiefly symbolizes the moral purifying power of the word of Christ. The blood points out the ransom paid for our guilt, as well as the atoning sacrifice. The blood flowed separately from the water; justification must not be mingled with, much less substituted for, personal amendment. (F. Krummacher.)
The physical cause of the death of Christ
Since Dr. Stroud published his work on The Physical Causes of Christs Death, we have met with no doubt expressed as to the death of Christ having immediately resulted from rupture of the heart. Joy, or grief, or anger, suddenly or intensely excited, have often been known to produce this effect. The heart, which the universal language of mankind has spoken of as peculiarly affected by the play of the passions, has been found in such cases to have been rent or torn by the violence of its own action. The blood issuing from the fissure thus created has filled the pericardium, or sac, by which the heart is enclosed, and by its pressure has stopped the action of the heart (Dr. Hanna). Common sorrow can, in its sudden extremity, break hearts; why may not that sorrow, deep beyond all other sorrows, have broken His? We believe it did. Now, when blood escapes from its vessels, within a short time it coagulates, its watery part separating from the rest; and there would be, so science tells us, within an hour or two after death such a flow of blood and water from a piercing as that which John saw. The late Sir James Simpson has said on this matter: It has always appeared, to my medical mind at least, that this mode by which death was produced in the human body of Christ intensifies all our thoughts and ideas regarding the immensity of the astounding sacrifice which He made for our sinful race on the cross. Nothing can possibly be more striking and startling than the appalling and terrific passiveness with which God as man submitted, for our sakes, His incarnate body to all the horrors and tortures of the Crucifixion. But our wonderment at the stupendous sacrifice only increases when we reflect that, whilst enduring for our sins the most cruel and agonizing form of corporeal death, He was ultimately slain, not by the effects of the anguish of His corporeal frame, but by the effects of the mightier anguish of His mind; the fleshly walls of His heart, like the veil, as it were, in the Temple of His human body, becoming rent and riven, as for us He poured out His soul unto death. The travail of His soul in that awful hour thus standing out as unspeakably bitterer and more dreadful than the travail of His body. (C. Stanford,D.D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv34, 36 34. Pierced his side. Finding him lifeless, the soldiers…
34. Pierced his side. Finding him lifeless, the soldiers did not break his legs, but to make sure of death thrust a spear into his side. Came out blood and water. The water, with clots of blood, can be accounted for only the previous rupture of the heart and the flow of blood into the pericardium, or outer sack of the heart, where it would separate very rapidly into water and clots of blood. Hence, it seems certain that the immediate physical cause of the death of Christ was rupture of the heart.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v36
John
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER
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Joh 19:36.
The Evangelist, in the words of this text, points to the great Feast of the Passover and to the Paschal Lamb, as finding their highest fulfilment, as he calls it, in Jesus Christ. For this purpose of bringing out the correspondence between the shadow and the substance he avails himself of a singular coincidence concerning a perfectly unimportant matter-viz., the abnormally rapid sinking of Christ’s physical strength in the crucifixion, by which the final indignity of breaking the bones of the sufferers was avoided in His case. John sees, in that entirely insignificant thing, a kind of fingerpost pointing to far more important, deeper, and real correspondences. We are not to suppose that he was so purblind, and attached so much importance to externals, as that this outward coincidence exhausted in his conception the correspondence between the two. But It was a trifle that suggested a greater matter. It was a help aiding gross conceptions and common minds to grasp the inward relation between Jesus and that Passover rite. But just as our Lord would have fulfilled the prophecy about the King coming ‘meek, and having salvation,’ though He had never ridden on a literal ass into the literal Jerusalem, so our Lord would have ‘fulfilled’ the shadow of the Passover with the substance of His own sacrifice if there had never been this insignificant correspondence, in outward things, between the two.
But whilst my text is the Evangelist’s commentary, the question arises, How did he come to recognise that our Lord was all which that Passover signified? And the answer is, he recognised it through Christ’s own teaching. He does not record the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It did not fall into his scheme to deal with external events of that sort, and he knew that it had been sufficiently taught by the three earlier Gospels, to which his is a supplement. But though he did not narrate the institution, he takes it for granted in the words of my text, and his vindication of his seeing the fulfilment of ‘A bone of Him shall not be broken’ in the incident to which I have referred, lies in this, that Jesus Christ Himself swept away the Passover and substituted the memorial feast of the Lord’s Supper. ‘This do in remembrance of Me,’ said at the table where the Paschal lamb had been eaten, sufficiently warrants John’s allusion here.
So then, marking the fact that our Evangelist is but carrying out the lesson that he had learned in the upper room, we may fairly take the identification of the Paschal lamb with the crucified Christ as being the last instance in which our Lord Himself laid His hand upon Old Testament incidents and said, ‘They all mean Me.’ And it is from that point of view, and not merely for the purpose of dealing with the words that I have read as our starting-point, that I wish to speak now.
I. Now then, the first thing that strikes me is that in this substitution of Himself for the Passover we have a strange instance of Christ’s supreme authority.
Try to fling yourself back in imagination to that upper room, where Jesus and a handful of Galileans were sitting, and remember the sanctity which immemorial usage had cast round that centre and apex of the Jewish ritual, established at the Exodus by a solemn divine appointment, intended to commemorate the birth of the nation, venerable by antiquity and association with the most vehement pulsations of national feeling, the centre point of Jewish religion. Christ said: ‘Put it all away; do not think about the Exodus; do not think about the destroying Angel; do not think about the deliverance. Forget all the past; do this in remembrance of Me.’ Take into account that the Passover had a double sacredness, as a religious festival, and also as commemorating the birthday of the nation, and then estimate what a strange sense of His own importance the Man must have had who said: ‘That past is done with, and it is Me that you have to think of now.’ If I might venture to take a very modern illustration without vulgarising a great thing, suppose that on the other side of the Atlantic somebody were to stand up and say, ‘I abrogate the Fourth of July and Independence Day. Do not think about Washington and the establishment of the United States any more. Think about me!’ That is exactly what Jesus Christ did. Only instead of a century there were millenniums of observance which He thus laid aside. So I say that is a strange exercise of authority.
What does it imply? It implies two things, and I must say a word about each of them. It implies that Christ regarded the whole of the ancient system of Judaism, its history, its law, its rites of worship, as pointing onwards to Himself, that He recognised in it a system the whole raison d’etre of which was anticipatory and preparatory of Himself. For Him the Decalogue was given, for Him priests were consecrated, for Him kings were anointed, for Him prophets spake, for Him sacrifices smoked, for Him festivals were appointed, and the nation and its history were all one long proclamation: ‘The King cometh! go ye forth to meet Him.’ You cannot get less than that out of the way in which He handled, as is told in this Gospel, Jacob’s ladder, the Serpent in the wilderness, the Manna that fell from Heaven, the Pillar of Cloud that led the people, the Rock that gushed forth water, and now, last of all, the Passover, which was the very shining apex of the whole sacrificial and ritual system.
And remember, too, that this way of dealing with all the institutions of the nation as meaning, in their inmost purpose, Himself, is exactly parallel to His way of dealing with the sacred words of Mosaic commandment and prohibition in the Sermon on the Mount, where He set side by side as of equal-I was going to say, and I should have been right in saying, identical-authority what was ‘said to them of old time’ and what ‘I say unto you.’ Amidst the dust of our present controversies as to the processes by which, and the times at which, the Old Testament books assumed their present form, there is grave danger that the essential thing about the whole matter should be obscured. The way in which what is called Higher Criticism may finally locate the origins and dates of the various parts of that ancient record and that ancient system does not in the slightest degree affect the outstanding characteristic of the whole, that it is the product of the divine hand, working {if you will} through men who had more freedom of action whilst they were its organs than our grandfathers thought. Be it so; but still that divine Hand shaped the whole in order that, besides its educational effects upon the generations that received it, there should shine through it all the expectation of the coming King. And I venture to say that, however grateful we may be to modern investigation for light upon these other points to which I have referred, the ignorant reader that reads Jesus Christ into all the Old Testament may be very uncritical and mistaken in regard to details, but he has got hold of the root of the matter, and is nearer to the apprehension of the essence and spirit and purpose of the ancient Revelation than the most learned critic who does not see that it is the preparation for, and the prophecy of, Jesus Christ Himself. And the vindication of such a position lies in this, among other facts, that He in the upper room, in harmony with, and in completion of, all that He had previously spoken about His relation to the Old Testament, claimed the Passover as the prophecy of Himself, and said, ‘I am the Lamb of God.’
I need not dwell, I suppose, on the other consideration that is involved in this strange exercise of authority-viz., the naturalness, as without any sense of doing anything presumptuous or extraordinary, with which Christ assumes His right to handle divine appointments with the most perfect freedom, to modify them, to reshape them, to divert them from their first purpose, and to enjoin them with an authority equal to that with which the Lord said unto Moses, ‘Keep ye this day through your generations.’ There is only one supposition on which I, for my part, can understand that conduct-that He was the possessor of authority the same as the Authority that had originally instituted the rite.
And so, dear brethren! when our Lord said, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me,’ I pray you to ask yourselves, What did that involve in regard to His nature and the source of His authority over us? And what did it involve in regard to His relation to that ancient Revelation?
II. And now another point that I would suggest is-we have, in this substitution of the new rite for the old, our Lord’s clear declaration of what was the very heart of His work in the world.
‘This do in remembrance of Me.’ What is it, then, to which He points? Is it to the wisdom, the tenderness, the deep beauty, the flashing moral purity that gleamed and shone lambent in His words? No! Is it to the gracious self-oblivion, the gentle accessibility, the loving pity, the leisurely heart always ready to help, the eye ready to fill with tears, the hand ever outstretched and ever laden with blessings? No! It is the death on the Cross which He, if I might so say, isolates, at least which He underscores with red lines, and which He would have us remember, as we remember nothing else. Brethren, rites are insignificant in many aspects, but are often of enormous importance as witnesses to truths. And I point to the Lord’s Supper, the one rite of the Christian Church, which is to be repeated over and over and over again, and see in it the great barrier which has rendered it impossible, and will render it impossible, as I believe, for evermore, that a Christianity, which obscures the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, should ever pose as the full representation of the Master’s mind, or as the full expression of the Saviour’s word.
What do men and churches that falter in their allegiance to the truth of Christ’s redemptive death do with the Lord’s Supper? Nothing! For the most part they ignore it, or if they retain it, do not, for the life of them, know how to explain it, or why it should be there. The explanation of why it is there is the great truth, of which it is the clear utterance and the strong defence, the truth that ‘Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,’ and that ‘the Son of Man came. . . to give His life a ransom for the many.’
What did that Passover say? Two things it said, the blood that was sprinkled on the lintels and on the door-posts was the token to the destroying Angel, as with his broad, silent pinions he swept through the land, bringing a blacker night into Egyptian darkness, and leaving behind him no house ‘in which there was not one dead.’ All the houses of which the occupants had put the ruddy mark on the lintels and on the doorposts, and were wise enough not to go forth from behind the shelter of that mark on the door, were safe when the morning dawned. And so to us all who, by our sinfulness, have brought down upon our heads exposedness to that retribution, which, in a righteously governed universe, must needs follow sin, and to that death which the separation from God-the necessary result of sin-most surely is, there is proffered in that great Sacrifice shelter from the destroying sword.
But that is not all. Whilst the blood on the posts meant security, the Lamb on the table meant emancipation. So they who find in the dying Christ their exemption from the last consequences of transgression, find, in partaking of the Christ whose sacrifice is their pardon, the communication of a new power, which sets them free from a worse than Egyptian bondage, and enables them to shake from their emancipated limbs the fetters of the grimmest of the Pharaohs that have wielded a tyrannous dominion over them. Pardon and freedom, the creation of a nation subject only to the law of Jehovah Himself-these were the facts that the Passover festival and the Passover lamb signified, and these are the facts which, in nobler fashion, are brought to us by Jesus Christ. So, I beseech you, let Him teach you what His work in the world is, as He lays His own hand on that highest of the ancient festivals, and endorses the Baptist’s declaration, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!’
III. Now, lastly, let me ask you to notice how, in this regal and authoritative dealing by our Lord with that ancient festival, there lies a loving provision for our weakness.
Surely we may venture to say that Jesus Christ desired to be remembered, even by that handful of poor people, and by us, not only for our sakes, but because His heart, too, craved that He should not be forgotten by those whom He was leaving. As you may remember, the dying king turned to the bishop standing by him, with the enigmatical word which no one understood but the receiver of it-’Remember!’ so did Jesus Christ. He appeals to our thankfulness, He appeals to our affections, He lets us see that He wishes to live in our memories, because He delights in it, as well as because it is for our profit.
The Passover was purely and simply a rite of remembrance. I venture to believe that the Lord’s Supper is nothing more. I know how people talk about the bare, bald, Zwinglian ideas of the Communion. They do look very bald and bare by the side of modern notions and mediaeval notions resuscitated. Well, I had rather have the bareness than I would have it overlaid by coverings under which there is room for abundance of vermin to lurk. Christ puts the Lord’s Supper in the place of the Passover. The Passover was a purely memorial rite. You Christian people will understand the spirituality of the whole Gospel system, and the nature of the only bond which unites men to Jesus and brings spiritual blessings to them-viz. faith-all the better, the more you cling, in spite of all that is going on round us to-day, to that simple, intelligible, Scriptural notion that we commemorate the Sacrifice, not offer the Sacrifice. Jesus Christ said that the Lord’s Supper was to be observed ‘in remembrance of Me.’ That was His explanation of its purpose, and I for one am content to take as the expounder of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder.
Now one more word. In the Passover men fed on the Sacrifice. Jesus Christ presents Himself to each of us as at once the Sacrifice for our sins and the Food of our souls. If you will keep your minds in touch with the truth about Him, and with Him whom the truth about Him reveals to you, if you will keep your hearts in touch with that great and unspeakable sign of God’s love, if you will keep your wills in submission to His authority, if you will let His blood, ‘which is the life,’ or as you may otherwise word it, His Spirit, come into your lives, and be your spirit, your motive, then you will go out from the table, not like the disciples to flee, and deny, and forget, nor like the Israelites to wander in a wilderness, but strengthened for many a day of joyous service and true communion, and will come at last to what He has promised us: ‘Ye shall sit with Me at My table in My Kingdom,’ whence we shall go ‘no more out.’
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 vv34, 36 The one who saw this
The one who saw this
This sentence gives background information to the story. John is telling readers that he was there and that we can trust what he has written. (See: Background Information)
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has testified, and his testimony is true
To "testify" means to tell about something that one has seen. AT: "has told the truth about what he has seen" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
so that you would also believe
Here "believe" means to put one's trust in Jesus. AT: "so that you will also put your trust in Jesus" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
testimony
true
believe
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 vv34–36 19:34 To confirm that Jesus was dead, a Roman…
19:34 To confirm that Jesus was dead, a Roman soldier pierced his side with a spear. • blood and water flowed out: This has several levels of meaning: (1) The spear probably punctured Jesus’ pericardium, the sac around the heart, releasing these fluids. (2) John might have been thinking of more Passover symbolism. The Passover lamb’s blood had to flow as it died. (3) The water flowing from Jesus’ side reminds readers of the language of living water that Jesus had used earlier (see 4:10-14; 7:37-39).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.