A great multitude of the people followed him, including women who also mourned and lamented him. But Jesus, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?”
There were also others, two criminals, led with him to be put to death. When they came to the place that is called “The Skull”, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Dividing his garments among them, they cast lots.
The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!”
The soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
An inscription was also written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!”
But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Don’t you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. The sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Having said this, he breathed his last.
When the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, “Certainly this was a righteous man.” All the multitudes that came together to see this, when they saw the things that were done, returned home beating their breasts. All his acquaintances and the women who followed with him from Galilee stood at a distance, watching these things.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 49 The triumph of the wicked hath a most horrible…
The triumph of the wicked hath a most horrible end.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv27–49 27 And there followed him a great company of…
27 And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.
Ver. 27. Which also bewailed] This was all they could do, and it was much they dared do it in so evil a time. In the reign of Tiberius, one Vitia was punished with death for that she had lamented Geminus her son, executed as friend to Sejanus. And because they could not accuse women for attempting against the State, their tears were criminal, saith Tacitus.
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 vv27, 32, 34, 47 What is in these verses is only found in…
What is in these verses is only found in this evangelist; but being part of what happened in the way, while our Saviour was leading to his cross, we have before opened what is here in Mat 27:32-34. They are another prophecy of the dreadful calamities which happened about forty years after this, at the destruction of Jerusalem.
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 vv27, 32, 34, 35, 39, 43, 44 There were four sorts of persons which attended our…
There were four sorts of persons which attended our Saviour at his crucifixion; the executioners that tormented him, the Jews that mocked him, the spectators and lookers on, that marked him, and sympathizing friends which lamented him: these last Christ bespoke, Weep not for me, but for yourselves; that is, "Weep rather upon your own account than mine: reserve your sorrows for the calamities coming upon yourselves and your children." It is very probable, that the tears and lamentations of many of these mourners were but the fruits of tender nature, not the effects of faith, and flowing from a principle of grace.
Learn thence, that melting affections and sorrows, even from the sense of Christ’s sufferings, are not infalible marks of grace. The history of Christ’s sufferings are very tragical and pathetical, and may melt ingenuous nature, where there is no renewed principle of grace. These motions of the affections may rather be a fit and mood, than the very frame and temper of the soul.
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There are times and seasons when the roughest and most obdurate heart may be pensive and tender; but that is not is temper and frame, but only a fit, a pang, a transient passion. There is no inferring or concluding then a work of grace upon the heart, simply and barely from the movings or meltings of the affections. Nature will have its good moods, but grace is steady: Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, says Christ.
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 vv32, 44 In these verses we have,
In these verses we have,
I. Divers passages which we had before in Matthew and Mark concerning Christ's sufferings. 1. That there were two others, malefactors, led with him to the place of execution, who, it is probable, had been for some time under sentence of death, and were designed to be executed on this day, which was probably the pretence for making such haste in the prosecution of Christ, that he and these two malefactors might be executed together, and one solemnity might serve. 2. That he was crucified at a place called Calvary, Kranion, the Greek name for Golgotha - the place of a skull: an ignominious place, to add to the reproach of his sufferings, but significant, for there he triumphed over death as it were upon his own dunghill. He was crucified. His hands and feet were nailed to the cross as it lay upon the ground, and it was then lifted up, and fastened into the earth, or into some socket made to receive it. This was a painful and shameful death above any other. 3. That he was crucified in the midst between two thieves, as if he had been the worst of the three. Thus he was not only treated as a transgressor, but numbered with them, the worst of them. 4. That the soldiers who were employed in the execution seized his garments as their fee, and divided them among themselves by lot: They parted his raiment, and cast lots; it was worth so little that, if divided, it would come to next to nothing, and therefore they cast lots for it. 5. That he was reviled and reproached, and treated with all the scorn and contempt imaginable, when he was lifted up upon the cross. It was strange that so much barbarity should be found in the human nature: The people stood beholding, not at all concerned, but rather pleasing themselves with the spectacle; and the rulers, whom from their office one would take to be men of sense and men of honour, stood among the rabble, and derided him, to set those on that were about them to do so too; and they said, He saved others, let him save himself. Thus was he upbraided for the good works he had done, as if it were indeed for these that they crucified him. They triumphed over him as if they had conquered him, whereas he was himself then more than a conqueror; they challenged him to save himself from the cross, when he was saving others by the cross: If he be the Christ, the chosen of God, let him save himself. They knew that the Christ was the chosen of God, designed by him, and dear to him. "If he, as the Christ, would deliver our nation from the Romans (and they could not form any other idea than that of the Messiah), let him deliver himself from the Romans that have him now in their hands." Thus the Jewish rulers jeered him as subdued by the Romans, instead of subduing them. The Roman soldiers jeered him as the King of the Jews: "A people good enough for such a prince, and a prince good enough for such a people." They mocked him (Luk 23:36, Luk 23:37); they made sport with him, and made a jest of his sufferings; and when they were drinking sharp sour wine themselves, such as was generally allotted them, they triumphantly asked him if he would pledge them, or drink with them. And they said, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself; for, as the Jews prosecuted him under the notion of a pretended Messiah, so the Romans under the notion of a pretended king. 6. That the superscription over his head, setting forth his crime, was, This is the King of the Jews, Luk 23:38. He is put to death for pretending to be the king of the Jews; so they meant it; but God intended it to be a declaration of what he really was, notwithstanding his present disgrace: he is the king of the Jews, the king of the church, and his cross is the way to his crown. This was written in those that were called the three learned languages, Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, for those are best learned that have learned Christ. It was written in these three languages that it might be known and read of all men; but God designed by it to signify that the gospel of Christ should be preached to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and be read in all languages. The Gentile philosophy made the Greek tongue famous, the Roman laws and government made the Latin tongue so, and the Hebrew excelled them all for the sake of the Old Testament. In these three languages is Jesus Christ proclaimed king. Young scholars, that are taking pains at school to make themselves masters of these three languages, should aim at this, that in the use of them they may increase their acquaintance with Christ.
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II. Here are two passages which we had not before, and they are very remarkable ones.
1. Christ's prayer for his enemies (Luk 23:34): Father, forgive them. Seven remarkable words Christ spoke after he was nailed to the cross, and before he died, and this is the first. One reason why he died the death of the cross was that he might have liberty of speech to the last, and so might glorify his Father and edify those about him. As soon as ever he was fastened to the cross, or while they were nailing him, he prayed this prayer, in which observe,
(1.) The petition: Father, forgive them. One would think that he should have prayed, "Father, consume them; the Lord look upon it, and requite it." The sin they were now guilty of might justly have been made unpardonable, and justly might they have been excepted by name out of the act of indemnity. No, these are particularly prayed for. Now he made intercession for transgressors, as was foretold (Isa 53:12), and it is to be added to his prayer (Jn. 17), to complete the specimen he gave of his intercession within the veil: that for saints, this for sinners. Now the sayings of Christ upon the cross as well as his sufferings had a further intention than they seemed to have. This was a mediatorial word, and explicatory of the intent and meaning of his death: "Father, forgive them, not only these, but all that shall repent, and believe the gospel;" and he did not intend that these should be forgiven upon any other terms. "Father, that which I am now suffering and dying for is in order to this, that poor sinners may be pardoned." Note, [1.] The great thing which Christ died to purchase and procure for us is the forgiveness of sin. [2.] This is that for which Christ intercedes for all that repent and believe in the virtue of his satisfaction; his blood speaks this: Father, forgive them. [3.] The greatest sinners may, through Christ, upon their repentance, hope to find mercy. Though they were his persecutors and murderers, he prayed, Father, forgive them.
(2.) The plea: For they know not what they do; for, if they had known, they would not have crucified him, Co1 2:8. There was a veil upon his glory and upon their understandings; and how could they see through two veils? They wished his blood on them and their children: but, had they known what they did, they would have unwished it again. Note, [1.] The crucifiers of Christ know not what they do. They that speak ill or religion speak ill of that which they know not, and it is because they will not know it. [2.] There is a kind of ignorance that does in part excuse sin: ignorance through want of the means of knowledge or of a capacity to receive instruction, through the infelicities of education, or inadvertency. The crucifiers of Christ were kept in ignorance by their rulers, and had prejudices against him instilled into them, so that in what they did against Christ and his doctrine they thought they did God service, Joh 16:2. Such as to be pitied and prayed for. This prayer of Christ was answered not long after, when many of those that had a hand in his death were converted by Peter's preaching. This is written also for example to us. First, We must in prayer call God Father, and come to him with reverence and confidence, as children to a father. Secondly, The great thing we must beg of God, both for ourselves and others, is the forgiveness of sins. Thirdly, We must pray for our enemies, and those that hate and persecute us, must extenuate their offences, and not aggravate them as we must our own (They know not what they do; peradventure it was an oversight); and we must be earnest with God in prayer for the forgiveness of their sins, their sins against us. This is Christ's example to his own rule (Mat 5:44, Mat 5:45, Love your enemies); and it very much strengthens the rule, for, if Christ loved and prayed for such enemies, what enemies can we have that we are not obliged to love and pray for?
2. The conversion of the thief upon the cross, which is an illustrious instance of Christ's triumphing over principalities and powers even when he seemed to be triumphed over by them. Christ was crucified between two thieves, and in them were represented the different effects which the cross of Christ would have upon the children of men, to whom it would be brought near in the preaching of the gospel. They were all malefactors, all guilty before God. Now the cross of Christ is to some a savour of life unto life, to others of death unto death. To them that perish it is foolishness, but to them that are saved it is the wisdom of God and the power of God.
(1.) Here was one of these malefactors that was hardened to the last. Near to the cross of Christ, he railed on him, as others did (Luk 23:39): he said, If thou be the Christ, as they say thou art, save thyself and us. Though he was now in pain and agony, and in the valley of the shadow of death, yet this did not humble his proud spirit, nor teach him to give good language, no, not to his fellow-sufferer. Though thou bray a fool in a mortar, yet will not his foolishness depart from him. No troubles will of themselves work a change in a wicked heart, but sometimes they irritate the corruption which one would think they should mortify. He challenges Christ to save both himself and them. Note, There are some that have the impudence to rail at Christ, and yet the confidence to expect to be saved by him; nay, and to conclude that, if he do not save them, he is not to be looked upon as the Saviour.
(2.) Here was the other of them that was softened at the last. It as said in Matthew and Mark that the thieves, even they that were crucified with him, reviled him, which some think is by a figure put for one of them, but others think that they both reviled him at first, till the heart of one of them was wonderfully changed, and with it his language on a sudden. This malefactor, when just ready to fall into the hands of Satan, was snatched as a brand out of the burning, and made a monument of divine mercy and grace, and Satan was left to roar as a lion disappointed of his prey. This gives no encouragement to any to put off their repentance to their death-bed, or to hope that then they shall find mercy; for, though it is certain that true repentance is never too late, it is as certain that late repentance is seldom true. None can be sure that they shall have time to repent at death, but every man may be sure that he cannot have the advantages that this penitent thief had, whose case was altogether extraordinary. He never had any offer of Christ, nor day of grace, before how: he was designed to be made a singular instance of the power of Christ's grace now at a time when he was crucified in weakness. Christ, having conquered Satan in the destruction of Judas and the preservation of Peter, erects this further trophy of his victory over him in the conversion of this malefactor, as a specimen of what he would do. We shall see the case to be extraordinary if we observe,
[1.] The extraordinary operations of God's grace upon him, which appeared in what he said. Here were so many evidences given in a short time of a blessed change wrought in him that more could not have been given in so little a compass.
First, See what he said to the other malefactor, Luk 23:40, Luk 23:41. 1. He reproved him for railing at Christ, as destitute of the fear of God, and having no sense at all of religion: Dost not thou fear God? This implies that it was the fear of God which restrained him from following the multitude to do this evil. "I fear God, and therefore dare not do it; and dost not thou?" All that have their eyes opened see this to be at the bottom of the wickedness of the wicked, that they have not the fear of God before their eyes. "If thou hadst any humanity in thee, thou wouldest not insult over one that is thy fellow-sufferer; thou art in the same condition; thou art a dying man too, and therefore, whatever these wicked people do, it ill becomes thee to abuse a dying man." 2. He owns that he deserves what was done to him: We indeed justly. It is probable that they both suffered for one and the same crime, and therefore he spoke with the more assurance, We received the due reward of our deeds. This magnifies divine grace, as acting in a distinguishing way. These two have been comrades in sin and suffering, and yet one is saved and the other perishes; two that had gone together all along hitherto, and yet now one taken and the other left. He does not say, Thou indeed justly, but We. Note, True penitents acknowledge the justice of God in all the punishments of their sin. God has done right, but we have done wickedly. 3. He believes Christ to have suffered wrongfully. Though he was condemned in two courts, and run upon as if he had been the worst of malefactors, yet this penitent thief is convinced, by his conduct in his sufferings, that he has done nothing amiss, ouden atopon - nothing absurd, or unbecoming his character. The chief priests would have him crucified between the malefactors, as one of them; but this thief has more sense than they, and owns he is not one of them. Whether he had before heard of Christ and of his wonderous works does not appear, but the Spirit of grace enlightened him with this knowledge, and enabled him to say, This man has done nothing amiss.
Secondly, See what he said to our Lord Jesus: Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom, Luk 23:42. This is the prayer of a dying sinner to a dying Saviour. It was the honour of Christ to be thus prayed to, though he was upon the cross reproached and reviled. It was the happiness of the thief thus to pray; perhaps he never prayed before, and yet now was heard, and saved at the last gasp. While there is life there is hope, and while there is hope there is room for prayer. 1. Observe his faith in this prayer. In his confession of sin (Luk 23:41) he discovered repentance towards God. In this petition he discovered faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. He owns him to be Lord, and to have a kingdom, and that he was going to that kingdom, that he should have authority in that kingdom, and that those should be happy whom he favoured; and to believe and confess all this was a great thing at this time of day. Christ was now in the depth of disgrace, deserted by his own disciples, reviled by his own nation, suffering as a pretender, and not delivered by his Father He made this profession before those prodigies happened which put honour upon his sufferings, and which startled the centurion; yet verily we have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. He believed another life after this, and desired to be happy in that life, not as the other thief, to be saved from the cross, but to be well provided for when the cross had done its worst. 2. Observe his humility in this prayer. All his request is, Lord, remember me. He does not pray, Lord, prefer me (as they did, Mat 20:21), though, having the honour as none of the disciples had to drink of Christ's cup and to be baptized with his baptism either on his right hand or on his left in his sufferings when his own disciples had deserted him he might have had some colour to ask as they did to sit on his right hand and on his left in his kingdom. Acquaintance in sufferings has sometimes gained such a point, Jer 52:31, Jer 52:32. But he is far from the thought of it. All he begs is, Lord, remember me, referring himself to Christ in what way to remember him. It is a request like that of Joseph to the chief butler, Think on me (Gen 40:14), and it sped better; the chief butler forgot Joseph, but Christ remembered this thief. 3. There is an air of importunity and fervency in this prayer. He does, as it were, breathe out his soul in it: "Lord, remember me, and I have enough; I desire no more; into thy hands I commit my case." Note, To be remembered by Christ, now that he is in his kingdom, is what we should earnestly desire and pray for, and it will be enough to secure our welfare living and dying. Christ is in his kingdom, interceding. "Lord, remember me, and intercede for me." He is there ruling. "Lord, remember me, and rule in me by thy Spirit." He is there preparing places for those that are his. "Lord, remember me, and prepare a place for me; remember me at death, remember me in the resurrection." See Job 14:13.
[2.] The extraordinary grants of Christ's favour to him: Jesus said unto him, in answer to his prayer, "Verily I say unto thee, I the Amen, the faithful Witness, I say Amen to this prayer, put my fiat to it: nay, thou shalt have more than thou didst ask, This day thou shalt be with me in paradise," Luk 23:43. Observe,
First, To whom this was spoken: to the penitent thief, to him, and not to his companion. Christ upon the cross is like Christ upon the throne; for now is the judgment of this world: one departs with a curse, the other with a blessing. Though Christ himself was now in the greatest struggle and agony, yet he had a word of comfort to speak to a poor penitent that committed himself to him. Note, Even great sinners, if they be true penitents, shall, through Christ, obtain not only the pardon of their sins, but a place in the paradise of God, Heb 9:15. This magnifies the riches of free grace, that rebels and traitors shall not only be pardoned, but preferred, thus preferred.
Secondly, By whom this was spoken. This was another mediatorial word which Christ spoke, though upon a particular occasion, yet with a general intention to explain the true intent and meaning of his sufferings; as he died to purchase the forgiveness of sins for us (Luk 23:34), so also to purchase eternal life for us. By this word we are given to understand that Jesus Christ died to open the kingdom of heaven to all penitent obedient believers. 1. Christ here lets us know that he was going to paradise himself, to hades - the invisible world. His human soul was removing to the place of separate souls; not to the place of the damned, but to paradise, the place of the blessed. By this he assures us that his satisfaction was accepted, and the Father was well pleased in him, else he had not gone to paradise; that was the beginning of the joy set before him, with the prospect of which he comforted himself. He went by the cross to the crown, and we must not think of going any other way, or of being perfected but by sufferings. 2. He lets all penitent believers know that when they die they shall go to be with him there. He was now, as a priest, purchasing this happiness for them, and is ready, as a king, to confer it upon them when they are prepared and made ready for it. See here how the happiness of heaven is set forth to us. (1.) It is paradise, a garden of pleasure, the paradise of God (Rev 2:7), alluding to the garden of Eden, in which our first parents were placed when they were innocent. In the second Adam we are restored to all we lost in the first Adam, and more, to a heavenly paradise instead of an earthly one. (2.) It is being with Christ there. That is the happiness of heaven, to see Christ, and sit with him, and share in his glory, Joh 17:24. (3.) It is immediate upon death: This day shalt thou be with me, tonight, before tomorrow. Thou souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, immediately are in joy and felicity; the spirits of just men are immediately made perfect. Lazarus departs, and is immediately comforted; Paul departs, and is immediately with Christ, Phi 1:23.
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 vv27–49 But Jesus turning unto them,.... These women being behind…
But Jesus turning unto them,.... These women being behind Christ, at the back of him; and he knowing who they were, and what they were doing, turns himself to them, and addressed them in the following manner: and said,
daughters of Jerusalem; or ye Jerusalem women; just as the inhabitants of Jerusalem are called daughters of Zion in Isa 3:16
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weep not for me; signifying, that they need not be under any concern on his account, for he was very willing to die; he desired nothing more; this was that he came into the world about; nor was he afraid to die; death was no king of terrors to him; he went to the cross with the greatest courage and intrepidity: besides, his sufferings, though he knew they would be very great and painful, yet that they would be soon over; nor could he be long held in the power of death, but would be raised again, and go to his Father, and be exalted at his right hand, and which should be matter of joy: to which might be added, that hereby his Father's counsels and covenant, purposes and promises, would have their accomplishment, the law would be fulfilled, justice satisfied, and all the perfections of God glorified, and the salvation of his chosen people effected; which, as it was the joy set before him, is a ground of rejoicing to believers: not that weeping on account of his sufferings and death was sinful; for he had offered prayers to God with cries and tears himself on this head; nor that it was altogether unreasonable, stupid, and preposterous; but Christ's meaning is, that when things were rightly considered, there would be great reason to assuage their grief, on this account, and rather express it on another;
but weep for yourselves, and for your children; not themselves personally, but their nation and posterity; and either for sin, their own, and others; the sins of professors, and of the profane; particularly the sin of crucifying him, which would be more injurious to that people than to him, and do them more hurt than him, since they had imprecated his blood upon them, and their children; or rather, and chiefly on account of those distresses and calamities, that would come upon them, in a short time, for their rejection and crucifixion of him; on account of which he himself had wept over Jerusalem, and its inhabitants, Luk 19:41.
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 vv30, 31, 34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 Hosea x, 8.
Hosea x, 8.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48 Verse 27. Bewailed and lamented him.] εκοπτοντο, Beat their…
Verse 27. Bewailed and lamented him.] εκοπτοντο, Beat their breasts. See Clarke on Mt 11:17.
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 vv28, 30, 32, 35, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 46 Luk 23:28-29. But Jesus turning, said, &c. — Jesus,…
Luk 23:28-29. But Jesus turning, said, &c. — Jesus, who ever felt the woes of others more than he did his own, forgetting his distress at the very time that it lay heaviest upon him, turned about, and with a benevolence and tenderness truly divine, said to them, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, &c. — Not that they were to be blamed for weeping for him, but commended rather: those hearts were hard indeed, that were not affected with such sufferings of such a person; but he bids them weep not only for him, but also and especially for themselves, and for their children, namely, because of the destruction that was coming upon Jerusalem, which some of them would probably live to see, and share in the calamities thereof; or at least their children would, for whom it behooved them to be solicitous. For the days are coming in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, &c. — As if he had said, “The calamities about to fall on you and your children are most terrible, and call for the bitterest lamentations; for in those days of vengeance you will vehemently wish that you had not given birth to a generation whose wickedness has rendered them objects of the divine wrath to a degree that never was experienced in the world before. And the thoughts of those calamities afflict my soul far more than the feeling of my own sufferings.” These words sufficiently imply that the days of distress and misery were coming, and would fall on them and on their children; which indeed they did in a most awful manner; though at that time there was not any appearance of such an immediate ruin: nor would the wisest politician have inferred it from the present state of affairs. The prediction was especially fulfilled during that grievous famine which so miserably afflicted Jerusalem during the siege. For, as Josephus reports, (Bell., Luk 5:10,) mothers snatched the food from their infants out of their very mouths: and again, in another place, (Bell., Luk 5:12,) the houses were full of women and children, who perished by famine. But Josephus relates a still more horrid story, which our Lord, with his spirit of prophecy, had probably in view. He says, (Bell., Luk 6:3,) “There was one Mary, the daughter of Eleazer, illustrious for her family and riches. She, having been stripped and plundered of all her substance and provisions by the soldiers, out of necessity and fury killed her own sucking child, and having boiled him, devoured half of him, and covering up the rest, preserved it for another time. The soldiers soon came, allured by the smell of victuals, and threatened to kill her immediately if she would not produce what she had dressed. But she replied, that she had preserved a good part for them, and uncovered the relict of her son. Dread and astonishment seized them, and they stood stupified at the sight. ‘But this,’ said she, ‘is my own son, and this my work. Eat, for even I have eaten. Be not you more tender than a woman, nor more compassionate than a mother. But, if you have a religious abhorrence of my victim, I truly have eaten half; and let the rest remain for me.’ They went away trembling, fearful to do this one thing; and hardly left this food for the mother. The whole city was struck with horrors” says the historian, “at this wickedness; and they were pronounced blessed, who died before they had heard or seen such great evils.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47 Daughters of Jerusalem - Women of Jerusalem. This was…
Daughters of Jerusalem - Women of Jerusalem. This was a common mode of speaking among the Hebrews.
Weep for yourselves ... - This refers to the calamities that were about to come upon them in the desolation of their city by the Romans.
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 vv28, 31, 33, 43 Weep not over me. If you knew the evils…
Weep not over me. If you knew the evils that threaten and must soon fall upon your city, upon yourselves, and upon you children, you would preserve your tears to deplore your own misfortunes. My death is for the good of mankind; but it will be fatal to your nation because you have been pleased to make it so. In the ruin of Jerusalem, which is at hand, happy shall they be who have no children. They shall save themselves the grief of seeing their sons and daughters perish miserably, and in some sort of suffering as many deaths as they have children to die. (Calmet)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv32, 39, 44, 47 b. JESUS ON THE CROSS (Luk_23:32-38)
b. JESUS ON THE CROSS (Luk_23:32-38)
(Parallel with Mat_27:33-44; Mar_15:22-32; Joh_19:18-24.)
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32And there were also two others, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. 33And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary [A skull], there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. 34Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.11 And they parted his raiment [clothing], and cast lots. 35And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them [om., with them12] derided [ἐξεμυκτήριζον] him, saying, He 36saved others; let him save himself, if he [if this] be Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, 37And saying, If thou be the King of the Jews, save thyself. 38And a superscription also was written over him [And there was also a superscription over him13] in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew [om., in … Hebrew, V. O.14], THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Calvary, κρανίον, Greek translation of the Hebrew Golgotha. Respecting the probable ground of this appellation, as well as respecting the whole locality, see Lange, Matthew, p. 520, where, moreover, respecting the Crucifixion itself, the necessary information is found. As respects the question about the nailing of the feet, there is, without doubt, not a little to be brought forward for it as well as against it that is worthy of serious consideration; yet the grounds for it appear to us to be by far the stronger. The first rank here is taken by the testimony of Justin Martyr, c. Tryph., Luke 97, and Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iii.19. As to the latter, especially, we can scarcely conceive how he, after the interpretation of the words, Psa_22:16, as applying to our Lord’s death on the cross, should have written: quœ propria atrocitas crucis, if he had not found the peculiar cruelty of this capital punishment in this very particular, that both the hands and the feet were pierced. The well-known drama, Χριστὸς πάσχων, also, which is ascribed to Gregory of Nazianzen, represents it so, and retains its value as proof, even if its spuriousness were demonstrated. In the common Martyrologies, the nailing of the feet as well as the hands is always either presupposed or described, and is at the same time strongly supported by the testimony of Cyprian, Hilary, Eusebius, Athanasius, and others. That the familiar passage in Plautus, Mostellaria, ii. 1, 13, concerning one condemned to crucifixion: bis affigantur pedes, bis brachia, indicates an unusual cruelty, has been indeed said, but not yet proved. That, moreover, the conception of feet nailed through lies at the basis of Luk_24:39 can hardly be disputed. But especially the declaration of Thomas must also be brought into consideration, Joh_20:25, “Except I shall see the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails,” &c. Unless we will assume that Thomas wished a double certainty in respect to the same marks of the nails, so that he wished first to see them, and then, besides that, to touch them, we shall, it seems, be obliged to explain his words thus: that he first wishes to see in the hands of our Lord the marks of the nails, and after that, bending himself to the earth, wishes to lay his finger in the nail prints of the feet, and, finally, lay his whole hand in the side; so vanishes at the same time every appearance of a tautology and of an incorrigible unbelief, and it then appears that Thomas also may be reckoned among the witnesses for the nailing of the feet.
Luk_23:34. Father, forgive them.—The first of the seven words on the cross, of which Luke alone has preserved three for us. The genuineness of this prayer is, it is true, not beyond all controversy, but yet it is above every reasonable doubt. It is lacking in B., D.1, 38, Sahid., It., &c. [found in Cod. Sin.], while other manuscripts also have individual variations. Since, however, the words themselves bear an indelible stamp of genuineness and inward sublimity, it seems that the omission of them must be explained from an exaggerated craving to establish the harmony of the Synoptics at any cost. As respects the sense of the words, it is undoubtedly a question whom the Lord meant by the ἄφες αὐτοῖς, and in reply to this question, it is certainly not admissible to say (Gerlach): “This intercession Jesus made not for the soldiers who fastened Him to the cross,” but yet more arbitrary is it to limit the reference of this prayer exclusively to the four men who carried out the sentence of death (Euthymius, Paulus, Kuinoel, and others), since our Lord may indeed primarily, but can by no means exclusively, have had these in mind. Without doubt He comprehends here both the executioners and the authors of His death, the heathen, with their Procurator, the Jews, with their High-priest, in one prayer together. Of all these, even of the most implacable among them, it could in a certain sense be said, as indeed the first witnesses of Jesus afterwards said (Act_3:17; 1Co_2:8), that with their wickedness there was united a high degree of blindness, but this blindness, which a strict righteousness might have been able to reckon to them as their own guilt, since it had by no means arisen without their concurrence (Joh_15:22-25), the inventiveness of love makes the very ground of the intercession for grace to the guilty. Nay, inasmuch as our Lord, in the Jews who caused His death, beheld merely the representatives of the whole of sinful mankind, we may say that He with these words, by implication, commended this race of men itself, which was the author of His Passion on the cross, to the Father’s compassion. To-day He does what He in His intercessory prayer had not expressly done, Joh_17:9. How such a prayer, which was probably uttered during the terrible act of the affixing to the cross (τί ποιοῦσιν), is most peculiarly in the spirit of the third, the Pauline, gospel scarcely needs remark.
And cast lots.—The partition of the garments Luke mentions only with a single word, as he also passes over, as well as Mark, the remarkable citation from Psalms 22 which Matthew and John have added to their account. It is as though he, instead of this, wished to bring into view a feature which is also in the same Psalm so powerfully set forth (Psa_22:17), namely, the unfeeling staring upon the incomparable Sufferer by an indifferent and hostile crowd.—And the people stood beholding.—A contrast to the just uttered prayer of the Lord, which is so great and terrible that it could only appear in the unexampled reality of the Passion; Luke therewith does not deny that the people scoffed (Meyer), but he only passes over this in order to direct attention to the scoffing of the rulers, who appear somewhat later, but in connection with the people. It appears that the standing and beholding must be limited to the moment of the affixing to the cross and the one immediately subsequent. It lies, however, in the nature of the case that such a status quo in so great a throng at such a moment could not possibly have lasted long. Perhaps it was the ἄρχοντες. whom Luke specially mentions, that led on the crowd with evil example. Our gospel, however, here also takes less strict account of the sequence of the different stages than Matthew and Mark.
Luk_23:35. And the rulers also.—If καί is genuine (see Meyer, ad loc.), then there is indirectly implied in this itself, that the rulers in this respect were by no means alone.—Divided.—Comp. Luk_16:14. In Luke also they speak of our Lord in the third person, while the passers-by (Matthew and Mark), calling out to Him with their mocking speeches, address Him directly in the second person. Here also they involuntarily proclaim the Saviour’s eulogy, inasmuch as they acknowledge, “He saved others”; but, at the same time, tempt our Lord therewith, inasmuch as they will seduce Him to leave the ignominious tree. Might it be possible that even yet a trace of earthly-minded expectation expresses itself in their words? Could it be possible that even yet some one might have conceived the possibility that the Crucified One might even yet reveal His miraculous might for His own deliverance? After He is now gone so far, and has silently endured all, we can scarcely suppose that they wished and expected the realization of a condition, upon the fulfilment of which they pretend that even now they are willing to believe in Him. As little does it admit of proof that they here designedly took the words of the 22d Psalm into their mouths. That which awakens astonishment in this one great spectacle is precisely this, that they themselves, without wishing or willing it, must attest the greatness of Him whom they are most deeply outraging. The insolence of one sharpens the biting wit of others, and there arises a contest which of them can utter the most outrageous words of blasphemy. Luke is the only one who communicates to us the fact that the soldiers also took part in the mocking, which the example of the chief priests had excited. They leave their previous composed demeanor, drink to Him in soldier’s style, and while they appropriate to themselves the words of the chief priests quite as eagerly and willingly as they had previously done the garments of the Condemned, they exclaim, not without bitterness towards despised Judaism: If thou, &c. This psychologically probable account could be called a misunderstanding of Mat_27:48 (De Wette) only if we read that they at the same time had refreshed our Lord, and, therefore, more or less mitigated His suffering. But of a reed, by means of which the draught would have been really brought to the lips of Jesus, the narrative says nothing, but we have rather to conceive the case thus: that they, holding forth to Him the vinegar at a certain distance (προςφέροντες), jestingly drink to Him, and, therefore, even by the exhibition of the scanty refreshment, increase His bodily suffering.
Luk_23:38. A superscription.—That Luke reckons this also among the mockeries (De Wette) we could hardly assert. We are rather disposed to conjecture that this superscription, as to which he, perhaps, would otherwise have kept silence, is here given by him subsequently, in order therewith to give the reason for which the soldiers also, and that in such a way, took part in the scoffings. The superscription itself gave them occasion to throw now with ignominy before the feet of our Lord the royal name which they so pompously displayed above His head. Respecting the custom itself of putting such a superscription over crosses, see Wetstein and Lange on Mat_27:37. The diversity in the statements of the superscription is sufficiently explained from the fact that in the original languages it had a somewhat different form. In the Latin, for instance, Rex Judœorum, which Mark renders literally for his readers in Rome, In Greek, ΟΥΤΟΣ ΕΣΤΙΝ Ο ΒΑΣΙΛ. ΤΩΝ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΩΝ, which is reported almost without alteration by Matthew and Luke. In John, finally, the literal translation of the original Hebrew superscription appears to be communicated to us. According to all, it contains no accusation, but simply a title, the purpose of which is not so much to insult the Crucified Himself, as in particular the Jewish nation, as is clear at the first glance.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The sublime simplicity with which all the Evangelists delineate the unexampled fact of the crucifixion of Jesus, without in any way mingling with it their subjective experiences and feelings, is one of the most striking proofs of the credibility of this part, also, of the sacred history; the farther we press into the sanctuary the more impossible does it become to us to utter the word “Invention” or “Myth” even in thought. From the very beginning of the statement of the coming to Calvary, everything is avoided that could have even the least appearance of the romantic or tragic. Much genius has been shown in endeavoring to fill up this seeming hiatus with legends of Veronica, of the Wandering Jew, &c.
2. The crucifixion of our Lord is the realization of that obscure presentiment of heathenism which Plato had already uttered, De Republica, ii., when he makes Glaucus say to Socrates that the perfectly righteous man, if he appeared among men, would certainly be beaten, scourged, tortured, and when he should have endured all this, would be crucified (ἀνασχινδυλευθήσεται). Also the end and the crown of the Typics of the Old Covenant, and of the prophecy of the Messianic Passion, Isaiah 53; Psalms 22, which last is no direct prophecy of that which went into fulfilment upon Calvary, but a typical symbolical picture, in which David describes his own sufferings, yet, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in exactly such forms and colors as, although to him entirely unconsciously, yet, a posteriori, became a perfectly exact description of that one whole unique and unexampled event, which took place upon and around Calvary.
3. Not without reason have the words of our Lord on the cross been reckoned among His most precious legacies. The first, preserved to us by Luke exclusively, is, at the same time, the most generally loved. In itself indescribably striking, it is so yet more through the circumstances of the time at which it was uttered, and through the contrast with the demeanor of the people who stood there beholding. It is, at the same time, the best commentary on the sublimest precept of the Evangelical ethics, and an unequivocal proof of the majesty of our Lord in the midst of His deepest humiliation; the worthy conclusion of His earthly, and the striking symbol of His heavenly, life [“There for sinners Thou art pleading,” &c.] Even before Him there was no lack of saints who prayed for the wicked, nay, for their enemies (Abraham, Jeremiah, and others), and after Him His example has not seldom been followed in the most surprising degree (Stephen, James the Just, Huss, H. V. Zütphen, and others). Of His predecessors, however, no one has reached the ideal height to which His love has here raised itself, and it is only through His might that His followers have learned so to pray and forgive. The enforcing of this prayer by reference to the ignorance of His enemies would only have arisen in His loving heart But more strongly yet than through this pathetic “They know not what they do,” was the prayer, without doubt, supported in the Father’s view by the blood which in the utterance of this prayer was drunk by the earth on Calvary, a blood that spoke better things than the blood of Abel. And it was, moreover, heard, as is plainly attested by the renewed preaching of the gospel to the Jews at Jerusalem, the conversion of so many thousands, and the continuous work of grace on Israel. For us who read it, it is a new proof of His love and greatness, a proof of such kind as does not occur again, even in our Lord’s own history, and, at the same time, a reminder of that feature of the prophetic portraiture of the Passion which we read, Isa_53:12 : “He made intercession for the transgressors.” Compare, respecting this and the following words on the cross, Dr. G. J. Vinke, Dissert. Theol. de Christi e cruce pendentis vocibus, Traj. ad Rhen. 1846.
4. From a doctrinal point of view, the first word on the cross is peculiarly important, because it points us to the natural connection that exists between the pardonableness of a sin and the ignorance of the sinner. It is here plainly expressed that if one knows perfectly what he does, all hope of forgiveness falls away, since the capability of receiving it, remorse and repentance, is lacking. On the other hand, we are not to forget that in almost every sin there is a minimum of ignorance present, which may be accounted as a lessening of the guilt, nay, that the blindness, however self-caused, becomes the greater in the degree in which the bondage of sin increases in duration and obstinacy. However, here, before all, it must not be forgotten that all which must be weighed and brought up for the diminution of the guilt of others cannot, on that account, serve as a mantle with which we can cover and excuse our own sins. With entire justice, therefore, does J. Muller, Lehre von der Sünde, i. p. 239, say, in reference to the sin of the first rejectors of our Lord: “If their not knowing removed their guilt, they did not need forgiveness; if it did not diminish their guilt, the prayer for forgiveness could not have used it as a motive for forgiveness.”
5. The mocking on the cross by four different classes of men was not only a dreadful revelation of the might of darkness, but for our Lord, at the same time, the last return of the Temptation in the Wilderness, Luk_4:9-11.
6. In the midst of the deepest humiliation, God provides that the royal dignity of His Son shall be proclaimed by the superscription over the cross. Notwithstanding the urgent entreaties of the Jews, not a jot nor a tittle may be altered therein; in three different languages—in the language of the empire, of culture, of nationality—there stands there on the cross for thousands to read, the shame of Israel and the glory of Jesus. In view of such a concurrence of circumstances, it is easy to comprehend that some fathers of the church were of the view that Pilate had ordered and maintained this superscription divinitus inspiratus, in order in this way to help fulfil the prophetic word, Psa_2:6. To us, at all events, this little trait of the history of the Passion remains a palpable proof of the truth of the other prophetic word, Isa_46:10.
7. The sacred narrative in the account of the Partition of the Garments might well have deserved a better fate than to have given occasion for the most wretched superstition and priestcraft of later ages. The legends about the garments, especially about the seamless coat, of our Lord, cannot be here all given, but only be rejected with a word. Compare the writings of Dr. J. Gildemeister and H. V. Seibel, “The holy coat of Treves and the twenty other holy seamless coats,” Düsseldorf, 1844; and “The advocates of the coat of Treves brought to silence,” 1845.
8. We can also indicate with only a word what the poetry and painting of the church have done for the glorifying of this bloody scene of the Passion. Compare the beautiful hymn: Vexilla regis prodeunt; the Stabat Mater [Exquisite in poetry, but so unhappily and deeply defiled by Mariolatry.—C. C. S.], the Impropera, the Miserere of Allegri, the famous paintings of Poussin, Gué, and innumerable others. Comp. Staudenmeyer, l. c. p. 440 seq.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Jesus has, as the true Sin-offering, suffered without the gate, Heb_13:11-12.—Jesus reckoned among the transgressors; this word considered in the light of the history of the Crucifixion of our Lord, points us: 1. To Israel’s shame; 2. to Jesus, glory; 3. to the Father’s counsel; 4. to the Christian’s boast; 5. to the world’s hope.—To whom do we in our own eyes belong—to the transgressor who deserved what He suffered, or to those justified through His blood and reconciled with God?—The Lord of glory upon the summit of shame, the Prince of life among the murderers.—The high value of our Lord’s words on the cross for His dearly-purchased church.—How each single word of the first utterance on the cross is a new pearl in the shining crown of our Lord: 1. He prays in the hour of crucifixion; 2. He prays to God as to His Father; 3. He prays in this hour for others; 4. for enemies; 5. with most urgent importunity; 6. with the richest result.—Not the murder of the Messiah in itself, but the continued and obstinate rejection of the apostolical preaching, the ultimate cause why Israel has obtained not pardon but punishment.—Here is more than Elijah, 2Ki_1:10.—Oravit misericordia, ut oraret miseria, Augustine.—The first prayer of our Lord on the cross an entirely unique prayer: 1. Unique in its sublimity, a. For whom prays He? b. When? c. What? 2. unique in its significance; this prayer is, a. the crown of His earthly life, b. the consecration of His cross, c. the image of His heavenly activity; 3. unique in its power, it serves, a. to our humiliation, b. to our consolation, c. to our sanctification.—Jesus on the cross the Intercessor for His enemies and the example for His friends.—The glorified Jesus the object: 1. Of frivolous covetousness (the lot-casting soldiers); 2. of cold indifference (the beholding people); 3. of cowardly mocking (the insulting rulers).—The mocking upon Calvary the crucifixion of the heart of Jesus.—How with the mocking at the cross everything reaches the highest culmination: 1. The sin; 2. the suffering; 3. the grace of God who surrenders His Son into the extreme of misery.—Jesus foes, even when they curse, are involuntarily constrained to bless.—God’s way in the sanctuary, Hab_2:20. We see upon Calvary a God: 1. Who keeps silence; 2. who rules; 3. who thus reconciles the world unto Himself.—Jesus on the cross tempted once again, yet without sin, Heb_4:15.—The Christian crucified with Christ must also often yet hear this tempting voice and repel it.—“The world loves to blacken that which shines” [Es liebt die Welt, das Strahlende zu schwärzen].—The different degrees of wickedness in those who mock alike.—The superscription on the cross a speaking proof of the adorable providence of God. It proclaims: 1. The innocence; 2. the dignity; 3. the destiny of the crucified Christ.—This superscription: 1. Written in three languages; 2. read by the Jews; 3. unchanged and unchangeable.—What does the superscription on the cross testify: 1. Concerning God; 2. concerning man; 3. concerning Christ; 4. concerning the way of redemption; 5. concerning the hope of the future.—This superscription: 1. Was read by all; thou surely wilt not go unheeding by? 2. it was offensive to many; thou surely wouldst for all that not alter anything therein? 3. one man has stubbornly maintained it (Pilate); thou surely wilt not let it be taken from thee?
Starke:—Osiander:—Christ has been willing to be reckoned among the transgressors, that we might come into the number of the children of God.—This is, so to speak, the supreme masterpiece of the Mediator, that He knows how to make an intercession out of that of which others would have made an accusation.—The best we can entreat for ourselves and others is forgiveness of sins.—It is equitable to have more compassion on those that sin ignorantly than on those that sin maliciously.—Nova Bibl. Tub.:—The crucified Jesus to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness, but to us, &c., 1Co_1:23-24.—It is a terrible sin to give occasion for the name of God and Jesus to be blasphemed among the heathen, Rom_2:24.—All languages and tongues have a share in Jesus the King.—Heubner:—Christ prays for all the authors of all His sufferings.—The most glorious hearing of the prayer of Jesus is yet reserved in the future conversion of Israel.—If Jesus then prayed for His enemies, He will now continue to pray also for penitents and believers.—Arndt:—The superscription over the cross.—The partition of the garments:—Krummacher:—The Crucifixion: 1. Jesus’ arrival at His death-mount; 2. the act of crucifixion: 3. the erected cross. The Partition: 1. The Testator; 2. His bequest; 3. the heirs. The Superscription: Jesus on the cross a King: 1. His majesty: 2. His victory; 3. the founding of His kingdom; 4. His judgments; 5. His government.—“Father, forgive”: 1. Contents of the prayer; 2. grounds justifying it; 3. limits within which it finds acceptance.—Van Oosterzee:—The crucifixion a union without compare: 1. Of triumph and baseness; 2. of ignominy and majesty: 3. of caprice and providence; 4. of condemnation and acquittal; 5. of earth and heaven. In conclusion, the double question: Belongest thou to those who crucify Christ afresh, or to those who in truth are crucified with Christ?—Vinet:—Les complices de la crucification du Seigneur.—J. Saurin:—Nouv. Disc. i. p. 365, sur la prière de Jésus Christ pour ses bourreaux.—W. Hofacker, l. c. p. Luke 311:—The magnificent sunset of the life of Jesus Christ on Calvary.—The world-atoning death of Christ in its mighty working.—The words on the cross: Septem folia semper viventia, quœ vitis nostra, cum in crucem elevata fuit, emisit. Bernard. The first: res miranda, Judœi clamant: crucifige, Christus clamat: ignosce. Magna illorum iniquitas, sed major tua, o Domine, pietas. Idem.—Schleiermacher, Pred. ii. p. 436 seq.:—The mystery of redemption in connection with sin and ignorance: 1. The redeeming suffering of Jesus was a work of ignorance; 2. but the redemption which proceeds from Him, the farther it goes, abolishes so much more the excuse: “They know not what they do.”—Tholuck:—The intercession: 1. The thought of the Redeemer at this word; 2. the thoughts which it must call forth in us.—Nitzsch:—The execution of Jesus in its connection with other works of the world and of the temper of the world.—Palmer:—Christ between the malefactors.—For further citations, see Lange on the parallels.
[11]Luk_23:34.—See Exegetical and Critical remarks.
[12]Luk_23:35.—The σὺν αὐτοῖς of the Recepta is wanting in B., C., D., [Cod. sin.,] L., Q., X., &c., and is therefore rightly rejected by Tischendorf. [Received again in his 7th ed.—C.C.S.] It appears to have been added to avoid its seeming as if the rulers alone had mocked, since, according to the parallels, the people mocked also. [Lachmann brackets the words. Meyer, Tregelles, Alford omit them.—C. C. S.]
[13]Luk_23:38.—The Γεγραμμένη of the Recepta is in all probability spurious, as well as superfluous. See Tischendorf, ad locum. [Om., B., L., Cod. Sin.—C. C. S.]
[14]Luk_23:38.—Van Oosterzee in omitting the clause, “in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew,” follows Tischendorf, with whom Meyer, Tregelles also agree. Lachmann, followed by Alford, brackets it. The omission rests upon the authority of B., C.1, L., some Versions. Cod. Sin. has it with the rest of the uncials, and apparently all the Cursives. Tischendorf and Meyer regard it as a very ancient interpolation from Joh_19:19-20. But Alford pertinently asks why it should not have been equally interpolated into Matthew and Mark, and why the interpolation should vary so much in language from its source. There are some variations in the copies of Luke, but only such as can be naturally accounted for.—C. C. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv27, 28, 30, 31, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 women--not the precious Galilean women (Luk 23:49), but part…
women--not the precious Galilean women (Luk 23:49), but part of the crowd.
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 vv27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46 § 140.—LEADING FORTH OF JESUS TO THE CRUCIFIXION, Luk_23:26-33.
§ 140.—LEADING FORTH OF JESUS TO THE CRUCIFIXION, Luk_23:26-33.
See notes on Mat_27:32-34; Mar_15:21-23; Joh_19:17.
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27-31. The touching incident here given is furnished by Luke alone.
27. Company of… women—From the strong terms of sorrow used by Luke, bewailed and lamented him, it is evident that there was in this company much more than the vagabond sympathy of a crowd at an ordinary execution. They wept deeply for the sorrowful fate of the Just One. When Jesus made his triumphal entry a few days before, large crowds joined to form the honouring procession. During the subsequent trial at Jerusalem great had been the excitement in regard to him. The authorities, Jewish, Roman, and Galilean—the Sanhedrim, Pilate, and Herod—had been engaged in deciding his fate. Jesus, therefore, could have been no obscure character, and his crucifixion no obscure event. And there is reason to suppose that this company was largely composed of his true friends, many of whom may have shared in his triumphal entrance.
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 vv27–49 27. of women] Some of them may have come…
27. of women] Some of them may have come to offer the anodynes which were supposed to be demanded by the Rabbinic interpretation of Pro_31:6. This is the only other recorded incident of the procession to Calvary, and it is mentioned by St Luke alone. It is a sad fact that no man—not even His Apostles—seems to have come forward to support these His last hours.
bewailed] Rather, were beating their breasts for Him. Comp. Luk_8:52, Luk_18:13.
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 vv27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49 (27) A great company of people, and of women.—Here,…
(27) A great company of people, and of women.—Here, again, we come across a characteristic incident peculiar to St. Luke, and obviously derived from the devout women to whom we have traced so many facts which he alone records. (See Introduction.) “Daughters of Jerusalem” were there, as our Lord’s words show—perhaps one of the sisterhoods which were formed in that city for mitigating the sufferings of condemned criminals by narcotic drinks (Deutsch. Remains, p. 38)—and among these may have been Mary and Martha, but Luk_23:49 implies the presence of women from Galilee also. The wailing was loud and bitter, for they, we may believe, had cherished, even more fondly than the disciples, the thought that “the kingdom of God should immediately appear” (Luk_19:11).
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 vv27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 And there followed him a great company of people,…
And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. The great company was made up of the usual concourse of curious lookers-on, of disciples, and others who had heard him in past days, and now came, with much horror, to see the end. The women specially noticed consisted mostly, no doubt, of holy women of his own company, such as the "Maries," together with some of those kindly Jerusalem ladies who were in the habit of soothing the last hours of these condemned ones unhappily in those sad days so numerous with narcotics and anodynes. These kindly offices were apparently not forbidden by the Roman authorities. This recital respecting the women is peculiar to St. Luke.
Vers. 27-31. Sympathy and solicitude.
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Before reaching Calvary an interesting and instructive incident occurred. Among the tumultuous crowd that surged round the soldiers and their victims were many women. These were better away, we are disposed to think, from a scene so brutal and so harrowing as this. But we will believe that something better than curiosity, that gratitude, that affection, that womanly pity, drew them, spite of their natural shrinking, to this last sad ending. By whatever motives impelled, they were certainly moved to strong compassion as they saw the Prophet of Nazareth, the great Healer and Teacher, led forth to die. Their loud laments did not fall on the ear of One too occupied with his own impending doom to hear and heed them. Our Lord made to these weeping women the reply which is here recorded, longer and fuller than we should have supposed the circumstances would allow. It suggests to us
I THAT HUMAN DISTRESS NEVER FAILS TO REACH AND TOUCH HIM. If there were any moments in his life when he might have been preoccupied, and might not have noticed the sounds of sorrow, it was this hour of his agony, this hour when the weight of the world"s sin rested on his soul, when the great sacrifice was in the very act of being offered. Yet even then he heard and stopped to console the troubled. An appeal to Jesus Christ in circumstances of sorrow is never ill-timed.
II THAT SUCH SYMPATHY WITH JESUS CHRIST IS ENTIRELY OUT OF PLACE. "Weep not for me." Some men speak and act as if it were appropriate to express sympathy with the Savior on account of his sufferings. It is, indeed, impossible to read the story of his last hours, and realize what it all meant, without having our sympathetic feeling very keenly quickened; but Jesus Christ does not ask that we should express to him, or to one another, our sympathy with him as One that then suffered. These sufferings are past; they have placed him upon the throne of the world; they have made brighter than ever his celestial crown, deeper than ever his heavenly joy. So far as we are concerned, and so far as they speak of our sin, they may well humble us; in so far as he is concerned, we rejoice with him that he "was perfected through suffering.
III THAT A HOLY SOLICITUDE FOR OURSELVES AND OURS IS OFTEN THE MOST APPROPRIATE SENTIMENT. "Weep for yourselves, and for your children." We know well what reason these Jewish women had, both as patriots and as mothers, to be concerned for the fate that threatened their country and their homes. Our Lord certainly would not condemn, would not disparage, an unselfish sympathy. He who wept at Bethany, and whose law of love was the law that covered and inspired a gracious burden-bearing, (Gal_6:2) could not possibly do that. Indeed, we seldom stand nearer to his side than when we "weep with them that weep." But there are many times when we are tempted to be troubled by our brother"s smaller difficulty instead of being concerned about our own much greater one. Do not be blind to the bodily pains or the circumstantial struggles of your neighbor; but look eagerly and earnestly to the rent which is opening in your own reputation, to the gap that is increasingly visible in your own consistency, to the fact that you are palpably descending the slope which leads down to spiritual ruin.
IV THAT THERE ARE SAD EXTREMITIES OF EVIL WHEN NOTHING IS LEFT BUT A HOPELESS CRY. (Ver. 30)
V THAT SIN AND PUNISHMENT BECOME DEEPER AND NEARER AS TIME GOES ON. The green tree is exposed to the consuming fire; but the green tree in time becomes the dry, and how much more certain and more fierce then will be the devouring flame! The nation goes from bad to worse, from the worse to the worst; from dark to darker guilt, from condemnation to calamity. So does a human soul, unguided by heavenly truth and unguarded by holy principle. At any and every time in danger, its peril becomes continually greater as its guilt becomes constantly deeper. Go not one step further in the course of sin, in the way of worldliness, into the "far country" of forgetfullness. Each step is an approach to a precipice. Return on thy way without a moment"s lingering. C.
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 vv27, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 Daughters of Jerusalem
Luk_23:27-31
Daughters of Jerusalem
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The daughters of Jerusalem
I.
WHY DID THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM WEEP?
1. He was innocent. All they had heard about Him was favourable.
2. He was benevolent. His gifts were uncommon and priceless. Wherever He went, He left behind Him the footprint of mercy.
3. He was the hope of the people. The glory had departed; the land was under a curse, and the people groaned under the Roman yoke. But Jesus, although opposed to every public demonstration in His favour, had, by His teaching and example, aroused the public aspiration.
II. WHY DID JESUS REFUSE THEIR SYMPATHY?--Weep not for Me.
1. Weep not, My death is a necessity. It is not an accident, or the effect of unrestrained animosity, but the fulfilment of an old covenant, older than the earth or the heaven. Justice demands it before the prisoners of hope can come forth.
2. Weep not, I can bear it all. Hard as it may seem to bear the reproach as an evil-doer, and to suffer the enmity of those whom I have not offended, yet, my hearts desire is to suffer in the sinners room.
3. Weep not, tears will avail nothing now. The plea of the tear is the most effective. Had the appeal of the tear been made before Pilate, humanly speaking, the evidence might have been taken, and the prisoner acquitted, but then it was too late. Weeping did not make the cross lighter, or the pains of death any the less.
4. Weep not, the course I am to take will ultimately wipe away all tears. The sorrow of to-day will be exchanged for peace and joy hereafter. The death on the cross will remove sorrow from the heart of the penitent, and tears will cease to flow.
III. WHICH, THEN, IS THE RIGHT CHANNEL OF TEARS? Weep for yourselves and for your children. Sin is the cause of sorrow. (The Weekly Pulpit.)
Weep not for Me
I. Let us consider them as addressed to that part of the multitude WHO HAD BELIEVED IN HIS DIVINE MISSION, and submitted to His authority. Their sorrow for our Lord did not spring from the proper source. His truest disciples partook of the common misapprehensions of their countrymen about the nature of Messiahs kingdom. Yet sorrow was their proper mood of feeling. And why, my friends, should they have wept for themselves and their children, in looking upon the sufferings of their Lord?
1. We reply, because their sins occasioned Christs sufferings. It were well for us oftener to weep thus for ourselves.
2. They should have wept for themselves and their children, because they should no more hear Christs instructions.
II. ANOTHER CLASS, BESIDES TRUE BELIEVERS, MINGLED IN THE CROWD, WHICH ATTENDED CHRIST TOWARDS CALVARY. Let us consider the application of our text to them. It was the natural feelings, which prompt us to take part in any circumstances with the distressed, and which are pained, when innocence, or, at least, benevolence is oppressed, that caused their tears to pour down. Bight and worthy were these emotions, so far as they went; but they had deeper cause for sorrow than anything they thought of when they wept. They should have wept for themselves and for their children.
1. Because away from them were about to be taken the word of salvation, the admonitions and warnings of the Lord.
2. They should have wept for themselves and for their children, because this act by which Christ was taken away would speedily bring judgment upon their nation. To this our Lord had most express reference, as He showed by the language which follows the text. (S. Martin.)
Wherefore should I weep?
These words are especially noteworthy, because they constitute the last connected discourse of the Saviour before He died. All that He said afterwards was fragmentary and mainly of the nature of prayer. A sentence to John, and to His mother, and to the dying thief: just a word or two looking downward, but for the most part He uttered broken sentences, which flew upwards on the wings of strong desire.
I. He said to the weeping women, WEEP NOT. There are some cold, calculating expositors who make it out that our Lord reproved these women for weeping, and that there was something wrong in their sorrow--I think they call it the sentimental sympathy of these kind souls.Blame these women! No, bless them again and again. It was the one redeeming trait in the dread march along the Via Dolorosa; let it not be dreamed that Jesus could have censured those who wept for Him. These gentle women appear in a happy contrast to the chief priests, with their savage malice, and to the thoughtless multitude with their fierce cry of Crucify Him, crucify Him! They seem to me to have shown a noble courage in daring to express their sympathy with one whom everybody else hunted to death.
1. There can be nothing ill about the weeping of these women, and therefore let us proceed to say, first, that their sorrow was legitimate and well founded. It is little marvel that they should weep and bewail when they saw the innocent one about to die.
2. I think, too, that this weeping on the part of the women was a very hopeful emotion. It showed some tenderness of heart, and tenderness of heart, though it be but natural, may often serve as a groundwork upon which better and holier and more spiritual feelings may be placed.
3. Having said this much, we now add that on our Lords part such sorrow was fitly repressed; because after all, though naturally good, it is not more than natural, and falls short of spiritual excellence. It is no proof that you are truly saved, because you are moved to great emotions whenever you hear the details of the crucifixion, for the Bulgarian atrocities excited you equally as much. I think it good that you should be moved, as I have said before, but it is only naturally and not spiritually good. This feeling, too, may stand in the way of something a great deal better. Jesus would not have these women weep for one thing, because they were to weep for another thing which far more seriously demanded their weeping. Ye need not weep because Christ died one-tenth so much as because your sins rendered it necessary that He should die. To weep over a dying Saviour is to lament the remedy; it were wiser to bewail the disease.
II. Now we pass on from Weep not to WEEP. Though Jesus stops one channel for tears, He opens another and a wider one. Let us look to it.
1. First, when He said, Weep for yourselves He meant that they were to lament and bewail the sin which had brought Him where He was, seeing He had come to suffer for it; and He would have them weep because that sin would bring them and their children into yet deeper woe.
2. I beg you now to look again into the reason why our Lord bade them weep. It was, first, for their sin, but it was next for the impending punishment of their sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Weep for yourselves
One who knew Whitefield well, and attended his preaching more frequently, perhaps, than any other person, said he hardly ever knew him go through a sermon without weeping: his voice was often interrupted by his tears, which sometimes were so excessive as to stop him from proceeding for a few moments. You blame me for weeping, he would say; but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction, and for aught you know, you are hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ offered to you? (J. R. Andrews.)
The grace of tears
When Christ was bearing His cross, He saw some women with their children in their arms, and He said to them, Weep not for Me, weep for yourselves. Am I wrong in saying He is looking down at this congregation now and saying, Weep for yourselves? Yes, we will and must compassionate ourselves. The further from the heart religion is for some of you the better; and I dont wonder at it. I can apologize for you, for I know something of the disenchantment, humiliation, and bewildering experience which comes to a man when he is sent to pity himself. Let our prayer, believing brothers and sisters, be the prayer of St. Agustine: Lord Jesus give me the grace of tears. Those are the tears God will one day wipe away from our eyes--£1,000 for one of them! (W. Whyte.)
What shall be done in the dry?
The green tree and the dry
A word in explanation. The green tree is Christ; the dry tree in the first judgment is the Jewish nation; and the dry tree in the last judgment is the unconverted world. By a green tree Christ does not mean a young and tender tree, but rather one full grown and flourishing. By the dry, He means a tree withered, worthless, and dead. With respect to the first judgment He may mean this: If the Romans so treat the innocent Jesus, how will they treat the guilty Jerusalem? or He may mean, If the Jews so punish Me, how will God punish them? With respect to the second judgment, He surely means--If God so bruise the innocent for the transgressions of others, how will He punish the guilty for their own iniquities? I will now, with Gods help, try to open up to you this solemn text. We bare here two trees: one green--the other dry. I will show you, first, the glory and destruction of the green tree; and then, the shame and end of the dry.
I. THE GLORY AND DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEN TREE. In meditating upon the glory of the green tree, we had better keep the substance of it and the shadow of it apart from each other. To do so, we will look first at the natural tree, and next at the Saviour, who is represented by it. In the midst of yonder wilderness, overrun with all manner of weeds and poisonous plants, there lies an humble patch of dry, bare ground. From the midst of the dry, barren ground, where nothing ever grew before, there rises up a young tree, tall and fair to look upon. Higher and higher it grows, until its shadow falls upon the tops of the loftiest trees around it; higher and higher, until all the trees in the wilderness are but weeds when compared with it. Now turn to the reality. Christ is that tree of God. In his birth, He grew out of ground that was barren. As a man, He grew in stature, and wisdom, and favour, and glory, until there was none such upon the face of the earth; until tie stood alone as the great tree of life in the midst of the perishing; until He bid fair to stretch forth His branches to the uttermost ends of the world. Look back to the green tree. How beautiful it is! It has no crooked boughs, or twisted branches. There are no worm eaten or withered leaves: every leaf is as fresh as when first unfolded from the bud. There are no weather-beaten, time-stained flowers: every flower is perfect. There are no bitter or rotten fruits: all its fruits are ripe and uninjured. From the lowest root to the highest leaf, it is without a fault. Behold in this some faint picture of Jesus. His birth was as pure as the creation of an angel. His childhood was as spotless as sunshine. His thoughts were as clear as the river of God. His heart was a well of love. His soul was a great deep of light. His life was unstained by the shadow of evil. He was the admiration of angels. He was the joy of God! Look back again to the green tree. Mark its promise. Leave that tree untouched, and what will it become? Will it not reach up to heaven, and spread till it overshadows the world? Who will it leave without a shelter? What diseases will it not cure? What hunger will it not satisfy? Will it not grow into a universal blessing? Behold in this the shadow of Jesus! Had He dwelt upon earth until now, what would He not have done for mankind! If in three years He healed such crowds of diseased persons, what multitudes would He have cured in eighteen centuries! Oh, when we think of it, the glory of that green tree of God! Wonderful, wonderful Jesus! how can we now turn from the brightness of Thy glory, to the gloom of Thy sorrow? Oh! who shall tell the tale of destruction? The axe and the flame from beneath, and the glittering arrows from above, stripped and rent, and levelled all Thy glory. Thou wast slain and buried off the face of the earth!
II. And now I pause; and turn from Christs cross to CHRISTS QUESTION--What shall be done in the dry? We have looked for a few moments atthe glory and destruction of the green tree. We turn to the shame and end of the dry. Look then, O unconverted man or woman, at that dry tree. It is springtime: thousands of plants around are putting forth green leaves; but not a leaf appears upon it. It is summer: the gardens are white, and many-coloured with flowers; but it stands as bare as it stood in spring. It is autumn: the orchards are golden and red with fruit; but it remains black and dead. Sinner I thou art that dry tree. Thousands around you are fruitful trees in the garden of God; they bring forth ripe faith, and tender love, and sweet hope, and mellow peace, and the fruits of joy and humility. God gathers their fruit in its season, and rewards them an hundredfold. But you are barren, without faith, without love, without hope, without peace, without joy, without humility; you stand unmindful alike of Gods commands, of Gods warnings, and of Gods forbearance--a withered cumberer of the ground. But the evil is still worse. You are taking up the room which others might occupy with advantage to the world, were you but removed. Look again, O unconverted man or woman, at that dry tree. The showers that soften the folded buds, and spread open the tender leaves of living trees in springtime, rain down upon it in abundance; but, alas; it only rots the more. The sunshine that ripens many a flower into fruit, and sweetens many a fruit into maturity, beams down upon it from day to day; but, alas! it only decays the faster. Sinner! thou art that dry tree. The gospel, which has softened many hard hearts, has made yours more callous. Gods mercies help to make you worse. Like the cross, the chief of all His gifts to you, they are the savour of death unto death. Before I conclude, I would give you all a word of warning, and a word of encouragement. Remember, O unconverted man or woman, that this fearful question, What shall be done in the dry? remains still unanswered. As certain as I see the sufferings of Jesus, I see the sufferings of the lost. I can doubt no more. Penitent, a word to thee. In my bitter text there is some sweetness for thee. Penitent, if they have done these things in the green tree, why should you die? If Jesus died, why should net you live? What if He died for you! (H. G. Guinness.)
The miseries of lost souls exceed those of Christ
I suppose He meant, If I, who am no rebel against Caesar, suffer so, how will those suffer whom the Romans take in actual rebellion at the siege of Jerusalem? And He meant next to say, If I who am perfectly innocent, must nevertheless be put to such a death as this, what will become of the guilty? If when fires are raging in the forest, the green trees full of sap and moisture crackle like stubble in the flame, how will the old dry trees burn, which are already rotten to the core and turned to touch-wood, and so prepared as fuel for the furnace. If Jesus suffers who hath no sin, but is full of the life of innocence, and the sap of holiness, how will they suffer who have long been dead in sin, and are rotten with iniquity? As Peter puts it in another place, For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be sayed, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Note well that the sufferings of our Lord, though in some respects far beyond all conceivable woes, have yet some points about them in which they differ with advantage from the miseries of lost souls. For, first, our Lord knew that He was innocent, and therefore His righteousness upheld Him. Whatever He suffered He knew that He deserved none of it: He had no stings of conscience, nor agonies of remorse. Now, the sting of future punishment will lie in the indisputable conviction that it is well deserved. The finally impenitent will be tormented by their own passions, which will rage within them like an inward hell; but our Lord had none of this. There was no evil in Him, no lusting after evil, no self-seeking, no rebellion of heart, no anger, or discontent. Pride, ambition, greed, malice, revenge, these are the fuel of hells fire. Mens selves, not devils, are their tormentors; their inward lusts are worms that never die, and fires that never can be quenched: there could be none of this in our Divine Lord. Again, lost souls hate God and love sin, but Christ ever loved God and hated sin. Now, to love evil is misery; when undisguised and rightly understood sin is hell. Our Lord Jesus knew that every pang He suffered was for the good of others: He endured cheerfully, because He saw that He was redeeming a multitude that no man can number from going down to the pit: but there is no redeeming power about the sufferings of the lost, they are not helping any one, nor achieving a benevolent design. The great God has good designs in their punishment, but they are strangers to any such a purpose. Our Lord had a reward before Him, because of which He endured the cross, despising the shame; but the finally condemned have no prospect of reward nor hope of rising from their doom. How can they expect either? He was full of hope, they are full of despair. It is finished was for Him, but there is no It is finished for them. Their sufferings, moreover, are self-caused, their sin was their own tie endured agonies because others had transgressed, and He willed to save them. They torment themselves with sin, to which they cleave, but it pleased the Father to bruise the Son, and the necessity for His bruising lay not in Himself, but in others. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
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 v47 47, 48. See notes on Matt. 27:54–56.
47, 48. See notes on Matt. 27:54–56.
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.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v32 Luk_23:32.—Malefactors.—Called by St. Matthew and St. Mark “robbers.” Probably…
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk_23:32.—Malefactors.—Called by St. Matthew and St. Mark “robbers.” Probably they were insurgents against Roman rule, who had been more like brigands than patriots.
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Luk_23:33. Calvary.—Rather, “The Skull.” The Greek word is simply “kranion,” a rendering of the Hebrew “Golgotha”; our A.V. adopts the Latin word for the same thing. There is no reason for speaking of the place as a mount; it was probably a knoll of ground somewhat like a skull in shape. The idea that it derived its name from the skulls of persons who had been executed, lying on the ground, is erroneous. The Jews scrupulously buried the dead.
Luk_23:34. Then said Jesus.—Probably during the act of crucifixion; and the words referred primarily to the Roman soldiers who nailed Him to the cross. St. Luke records three of the seven sayings from the cross—Luk_23:34; Luk_23:43; Luk_23:46. This saying is strangely omitted in some very ancient MSS., but there can be no doubt of its genuineness. Parted His raiment.—The clothes of the criminal in most countries being appropriated by the executioners.
Luk_23:35. Stood beholding.—Though the attitude tells nothing of their state of mind, there is no reason to believe that any reaction in popular feeling had set in, or that those who demanded His death now abstained from deriding Him. With them.—Omit these words: omitted in R.V. If He be Christ.—Rather, “if this is the Christ of God, His chosen” (R.V.). The word translated “this” implies contempt.
Luk_23:36. Soldiers.—Four in number (Joh_19:23), with a centurion. Vinegar.—I.e., sour wine; probably forming part of their midday meal.
Luk_23:38. A superscription.—“A titulus” written in black letters on a board smeared with white gypsum. It was usual to put such a board over the head of a crucified person. In letters of Greek, etc.—Omitted in R.V. Perhaps the words are taken from the parallel passage in Joh_19:20. This the King, etc.—The title on the cross is variously given, probably because of the varying forms of expression in the three languages used. One evangelist may have in his mind the Hebrew rendering, another the Greek, another the Latin, and another may give us the general substance of all three.
Luk_23:39. One of the malefactors.—St. Matthew and St. Mark say that those crucified with Jesus reviled Him; but they evidently speak of classes of persons who did so—those that passed by, chief priests, scribes, elders—even the robbers; though, of course, it is possible that both of His companions in death at first joined in the derision, and that after a time one of them repented of having done so. If Thou be Christ.—Rather, “Art not Thou the Christ?” (R.V.).
Luk_23:40. Dost not thou? etc.—Rather, “Dost thou not even fear God?” (R.V.).
Luk_23:41. For we receive, etc.—Lit., “for we are receiving back things worthy of what we did.”
Luk_23:42. Into Thy kingdom.—More correctly, “in Thy kingdom”—a consummation in the far-distant future.
Luk_23:43. To-day.—This is the emphatic word: immediate instead of far-off reward, Paradise.—“This is a Persian word for park, or garden; used in LXX. of Eden (Gen_2:8). In 2Co_12:4 it is used as equivalent to “the third heaven”; in Rev_2:7 it is the same as the restored Eden figured in Revelation 21, 22 as the New Jerusalem. The language is figurative, but no doubt in accordance with the truth concerning the unseen world” (Speaker’s Commentary).
Luk_23:44. Sixth hour.—I.e., midday. All the earth.—R.V. “the whole land.” This darkness could not have been an eclipse, as it was now (Passover) full moon.
Luk_23:45. The sun was darkened.—R.V. follows the reading, “the sun’s light failing”; which seems more like a gloss to explain the darkness than the original text. Veil of the Temple.—I.e., the veil that divided the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place.
Luk_23:46.—Father, into Thy hands, etc.—From Psa_31:5. Gave up the ghost.—None of the evangelists use the words “He died,” but say “He breathed forth,” or “gave up His spirit.”
Luk_23:47. Glorified God.—“A notice characteristic of St. Luke (Luk_2:20, Luk_5:25, Luk_7:16, Luk_13:13, Luk_17:15, Luk_18:43)” (Farrar). A righteous man.—I.e., innocent, just; and as Jesus had, in his hearing, twice spoken of God as His Father (Luk_23:34; Luk_23:46), he was persuaded He must be a Son of God. The latter is given as the saying of the centurion in St. Matthew and St. Mark.
Luk_23:48. Smote their breasts.—I.e., in token of penitence. They were now, to some extent, repentant for the actions into which they had been goaded by the priests.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_23:32-49
Three Words from the Cross.—Seven words, in all, Christ spoke from the cross; St. Luke records only the prayer He offered for His murderers, His promise to the penitent, and the last cry in which He commended His spirit into the hands of His Father.
I. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”—Notice:
1. The invocation. The first utterance of Jesus was a prayer, and His first word “Father.” Was it not an unintentional condemnation of those who had affixed Him there? It was in the name of religion they had acted, and, in the name of God; but which of them was thus impregated through and through with religion? Which of them could pretend to a communion with God so close and habitual? It is a suspicious case when, in any trial, especially an ecclesiastical one, the condemned is obviously a better man than the judges. The word “Father,” further, proved that the faith of Jesus was unshaken by all through which He had passed, and by that which He was now enduring. Great saints have been driven, by the pressure of pain and disappointment, to challenge God’s righteousness in words which it is not lawful for a man to utter. But when the fortunes of Jesus were at the blackest He still said “Father.”
2. The petition. Our hearts burn with indignation at the treatment to which He was subjected. The comment of Jesus on it all was, “Father, forgive them.” Long ago, indeed, He had taught men, “Love your enemies, … and pray for them which despitefully use you.” And here He practised what He taught. He is the one teacher of mankind in whom the sentiment and the act completely coincide. His doctrine was the very highest; too high, it often seems, for this world But He proved that it can be realised on earth when He offered this prayer. Perhaps nothing is more difficult than to forgive. Even saints in the Old Testament curse those who have persecuted and wronged them, in terms of uncompromising severity. Had Jesus followed these, who would have ventured to find fault with Him? Even in that there might have been a revelation of God, because in the Divine nature there is a fire of wrath against sin. But how poor would such a revelation have been in comparison with the one which He now made! It told that God is love.
3. The argument. This allows us to see further still into the Divine depths of His love. The injured are generally alive only to their own side of the case, and they see only those circumstances which tend to place the conduct of the opposite party in the worst light. But at the moment when the pain inflicted by His enemies was at the worst Jesus was seeking excuses for their conduct. It is true of every sinner, in some measure, that he knows not what he does. And to a true penitent, as he approaches the throne of mercy, it is a great consolation to be assured that this plea will be allowed. God knows all our weakness and blindness; men will not make allowance for it, or even understand it, but He will understand it all, if we come to hide our guilty head in His bosom.
II. “To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.”—There was probably malice in the arrangement by which Jesus was hung between the two thieves. Yet there was a Divine purpose behind the wrath of man. Jesus came to the world to identify Himself with sinners; He had lived among them, and it was meet that He should die among them. It gave Him, too, an opportunity of illustrating, at the very last moment, both the magnanimity of His own character and the nature of His mission. As the parable of the Prodigal Son is an epitome of the whole teaching of Christ, so is the salvation of the thief on the cross the life of Christ in miniature. There is no reason to doubt either that this thief was a great sinner or that he was suddenly changed. And therefore his example will always be an encouragement to the worst of sinners when they repent. It is common for penitents to be afraid to come to God, because their sins have been too great to be forgiven; but those who are encouraging them can point to cases like Manasseh, and Mary Magdalene, and this, and assure them that the mercy which sufficed for these is sufficient for all: “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” How complete the revolution was in the penitent is shown by his own words. St. Paul, in one place, sums up Christianity in two things: repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And both of these we see in this penitent’s words. It is worth noting that it was not by words that Jesus converted this man. He did not address the penitent thief at all till the thief spoke to Him. The work of conviction was done before He uttered a word. Yet it was His work. It was by the impression of His patience, His innocence, His peace, and His magnanimity, that Jesus converted the man. Yet His words, when He did speak, added immensely to the impression. He accepted the homage of His petitioner; He spoke of the world unseen as of a place native and familiar. He gave him to understand that He possessed as much influence there as he attributed to Him. This great sinner laid on Christ the weight of his soul, the weight of his sins, the weight of his eternity; and Christ accepted the burden.
III. “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”—
1. The final words of the dying Saviour was a prayer. It was not by chance that this was so, for the currents within Him were all flowing Godward. While prayer is appropriate for all times, there are occasions when it is singularly appropriate—at the close of day, in moments of mortal peril, at the Communion Table, and before death. On this last occasion it is more in its place than anywhere else. Then we are, perforce, parting with all that is earthly. How natural to lay hold of what alone we can keep hold of! And this is what prayer does; for it lays hold of God. Yet, natural as prayer is at that time, it is only so to those who have learned to pray before. It had long been to Jesus the language of life, and it was only the bias of the life asserting itself in death when, as He breathed His last, He turned to God.
2. The last word of the dying Saviour was a quotation from Scripture. If prayer is natural to the lips of the dying, so is Scripture. In the most sacred moments and transactions of life there is no language like that of the Bible. Especially is this the case in everything connected with death. In this supreme moment Jesus turned to the Psalms. This is undoubtedly the most precious of all the books of the Old Testament. It is a book penned as with the life-blood of its author; it is the record of humanity’s profoundest sorrows and sublimest ecstasies; it is the most perfect expression which has ever been given to experience; it has been the vade-mecum of all the saints; and to know and to love it is one of the best signs of spirituality.
3. It was about His spirit that the dying Saviour prayed. Dying persons are sometimes much taken up with their bodies, or with their worldly concerns. Nor did Jesus altogether refrain from bestowing attention on these things, for one of his sayings on the cross had reference to His bodily necessities, and another to His mother’s future comfort. But His supreme concern was His spirit, to the interests of which He devoted His final prayer. He placed it in the hands of God. There it was safe. Strong and secure are the hands of the Eternal. They are soft and loving too. With what a passion of tenderness must they have received the spirit of Jesus.
4. His last word revealed His view of death. The word used by Jesus in commending His spirit to God implies that He was giving it away in the hope of finding it again. He was making a deposit in a safe place, to which, after the crisis of death was over, He would come and recover it (cf. 2Ti_1:12). Death is a disruption of the parts of which human nature is composed. But Jesus was looking forward to a reunion of the separated parts, when they would again find each other, and the integrity of the personal life be restored. His dying word proves that He believed for Himself what He taught to others. Not only, however, has He, by His teaching, brought life and immortality to light; He is Himself the guarantee of the doctrine; for He is our immortal life. “Because I live,” He has said, “ye shall live also.”—Stalker.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_23:32-49
Luk_23:32. “Two others.”—Probably these had been former associates of Barabbas, in whose place Jesus was crucified. They were, as it were, assigned as subjects to “the King of the Jews,” in order to mock His claims. Yet one of them did actually become His subject. God added fresh glory to His Son by causing the wrath of men to turn to His praise.
Luk_23:33. “One on the right hand.”—The very cross was the tribunal of Christ, for the Judge was placed in the middle; one thief, who believed, was set free; the other, who reviled, was condemned: which signified what He was already about to do with the quick and dead, being about to set some on His right hand, and some on the left.”—Hall.
Christ Crucified.
I. There they crucified Him.
II. There they crucified Him.
III. There they crucified Him.
IV. There they crucified Him.—Young.
The Three Crosses.
I. We shall look at the two crosses upon which the malefactors suffered.—
1. We consider the crucifixion of the malefactors as the protest of human society against rebellion, in the vindication of its own life, and of the sacredness of its own laws. This was a terrible punishment, even to malefactors, who were evidently men of the lowest type. They were looked upon as the recognised enemies of human society. The worst punishment civilisation could inflict upon, and the most terrible weapon it could use toward, those who, by their desperate conduct, had forfeited existence, was the cross. We know of what type these malefactors were—not thieves, as the A.V. gives it, but robbers or brigands; men who never considered aught binding in their war with their fellows. These men belonged to that terrible class which becomes the pest of oppressive governments or ill-regulated human communities, just as epidemics are the outcome of bad sanitation, or the neglect of the first laws of health. These belonged to a class of men who represent all the desperation of which grinding poverty is capable, and all the degradation which irresponsibility can produce. Thus in these two crosses—losing sight for the present of the great central Cross—we have human society’s vindication of its own life and its own laws.
2. We also find here the triumph of justice over rule and rebellious force. This is so far gratifying. Thus the crosses upon which the malefactors were crucified were the safety of society and the vindication of law. In those crosses we see the due reward of human criminality, the last weapons that society, and the justice of the community, could use. Justice, having failed to restore, can only destroy. Justice can do no more. Thus in these two cases we have the triumph of human society and human government over men who otherwise would lay the earth waste, and make countries a devastation.
II. We next view the central cross, upon which Christ died.—That cross taught a very different lesson from that which was taught by the other crosses. The other crosses revealed the criminality of those who suffered, but
(1) That central cross revealed the sinfulness and criminality of those who crucified the Innocent One.
2. This cross bears a relationship with every man. Since He who died upon it died not as a criminal, not even as one who was falsely condemned, or as a martyr only, but as one who was vindicated by His own judge, who found “no fault in Him,” and vindicated by the very man who betrayed Him, and who exclaimed, “I have betrayed innocent blood.” One who did no crime against man—yea, no sin against God: “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.”
3. This, too, was a death which He voluntarily accepted, though He had the power to escape it. It was not the infliction of death upon one who could not withstand the power that inflicted it. It was the death of One who beforehand said, and gave this as the clue to His disciples of the nature of His Cross and passion, “I lay down My life, that I might take it again.” I accept, then, that central Cross, as telling of sin; but as telling of it in a very different way from the other crosses.
4. In the Cross of Christ I find the greatest condemnation of sin. I find there the greatest and most awful revelation of the possibilities of human sinfulness.
5. But it also tells of more than that. As the Cross was the condemnation of man and the revelation of human guilt, so was it the revelation of a Divine love that triumphed over all the guilt, ingratitude, and hatred, of men in a sacrifice that knew of no reserve, even the death of the Lord’s Anointed One.
III. And now let us look at the relationship between that cross and the two other crosses.—There was one man who died impenitent—one man who sank deeper and deeper into the iniquity in which he had already sunk so low, and defied every sacred influence; one, moreover, who was not overcome by those things that overcame the centurion who presided over the execution; and, finally, one who was not touched by the protest of that fellow-sufferer who, though as sinful as himself, could no longer resist, but pleaded with him in the earnestness of a fresh conviction—pleaded in tones which quivered alike with the agony of suffering and with the earnestness of a new belief, but died an impenitent and hardened sinner. There was another cross, upon which was to be seen the penitent one, who at first found expression in the blasphemy which came from both malefactors, but who at length paused as he felt the drawing power of Him who died on that central Cross, and then at every risk became the first vindicator of that great Sufferer in the presence of the chief priests and scribes who mocked, and an angry multitude who beat like a furious storm around those crosses. He became the first to rebuke blasphemy in the presence of the Cross, and then in the additional light that comes to every man who acts up to the light that he has already received, turned to the crucified Christ and exclaimed, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.” Thus, there are exhibited here two typical attitudes towards Jesus Christ. Now, the world to-day is represented by the one or the other—the impenitent, who is still untouched; and the penitent, who breaks down in the presence of the Cross. There is no third class.—Davies.
Luk_23:34. “Father.”—With this name both the first and the last (seventh) saying upon the cross opens.
“Father, forgive.”—A model prayer.
I. God addressed as Father.
II. Forgiveness of sin the chiefest benefit to be asked for.
III. Inspired by love, even for enemies.
“Know not what they do.”—This suggests a motive for forgiveness—that of pity—and not the ground of forgiveness. Ignorance may be a palliation of guilt, but does not remove it, or else no prayer for forgiveness would be needed.
Ignorance is
(1) a plea for forgiveness;
(2) yet is culpable and needs forgiveness.
The First Word.
I. Sin needs forgiveness.
II. Forgiveness is obtainable.
III. The great Intercessor pleads for it.—Ireland.
I. His first word was no cry of pain.
II. His first word pleads for His murderers.
III. His first word was the beginning of an intercession that is still going on.
IV. His first word teaches us a great lesson on Christian forgiveness.—Miller.
Ignorance in Doing Wrong.—“Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” These words, so full of pathos and Christian spirit, are the words of our Christ while He was being fastened to the cross, or while in agony upon it. They breathe the noble spirit of love to man, even to bitterest enemies, whose cruel acts spoke the hatred of their hearts. “Forgive them!” How deep must have been the love of that noble heart! “They know not what they do.” How clear was the spiritual vision of that great soul! That heart knew sorrow, but not hatred. That soul saw the right, and knew that no temporal eclipse could put wrong on the everlasting throne. It has been well said that “the brave only know how to forgive.” The power of forgiving flows only from a strength and greatness of soul. These words may apply to the people—the unthinking mass, easily led for good or bad. They may apply to the obedient tools of power—the Roman soldiers—those who were His immediate crucifiers. Or Pilate may have been most prominent in Jesus’ mind,—poor, weak creature, with the semblance of greatness, but without the real thing. His outward exterior belied the weak soul within. Perhaps it is Caiaphas who needs the prayer—the man who ought to speak the word of truth and justice; the really strong man, with a fixed purpose, and with means to attain that purpose. Jesus meant all. All were men in error and sin. But did not these, one and all, know what they were doing? How far the people knew it is difficult to say. They gave little time to any careful thought over the matter. Their leaders demanded the life of this Jesus. Right or wrong, they followed their leaders. Small aims, little policies, poor, superficial reasons, satisfied them. The immediate present was all they saw. The Roman soldiers were trained to obey: this was their first duty. Not for them to reason why, but to do. They were, as are all soldiers, mere instruments of higher powers. They were the brute and blind means by which the higher powers maintained themselves. But, for all this prayer, these people and soldiers knew better than they acted; they did not live up to what little Divine light they had. They must stand in judgment, and receive their well-merited stripes. Pilate did know what he was doing. He knew he was twisting, in his weakness, the Roman law (which had some bit of justice in it) to please the Jews, whose governor he was. He trembled before the cry of the priests: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar’s friend.” He sought outside, not inside, approval. He thought more of public opinion, of the opinion of the great, than of the opinion he could have of himself. He sacrificed moral integrity on the altar of power. Let Pilate be Cæsar’s friend at all cost, though to be so he violated Cæsar’s law. Pilate thus far knew what he was doing, He was thinking of his own hold on the governorship of Judæa. Those in power know what they are doing. We need waste no pity on them. They know that the one thought is not the benefit of man or country, but how to maintain themselves in powerful places. There is no need to ransack history—to tell of the deeds of tyrants, of their trampling down by their soldiers the mass of human kind, of their courts and judgments. History is full until it flows over with examples. We must get power, we must hold on to power, by all means. Let God and man, and country and justice, and truth and integrity, go. Let all that is held to be principle be crucified. You cannot pray, “Forgive them: they know not what they do.” They do know. And that is the worst of it. Caiaphas and the hierarchy knew what they were doing. This gentle rabbi, Jesus, who would get at the spirit under the ceremony, who laid so little stress on form, who would have men come direct to God as children, was really a destroyer of the Temple worship and of priestly power. He represented the new, larger, freer thought; they, the old, outgrown thought. He stood for progress, they for stagnation. They were wise men; they would use the enactments of men to thwart the laws of God. If they did not enforce these ordinances, the Temple would go, the service would go, the people would no longer worship the God of their fathers, Moses would be dishonoured, the prophets despised, and holy Judaism, purchased at fearful cost, would be a thing forgotten. Let, therefore, this young man be silenced, and, if it must be, by death. Let the old crush this destroying new. They knew well what they were doing. In the same sense the men who, all along our trail of blood called history, have sent their fellows to death, knew what they were doing. They knew what they were doing, or, to be more exact, they thought they knew. But did they know, after all? Let us see. In the broad sweep of the question, did they know? Of course, the blind mass did not know. Nor do they know now; and, in their ignorance, they commit crime and do acts of folly. Those who do know suffer through the ignorance of the ignorant. When one stops and thinks that he is the product of his age—his age with all its blindness, folly, and sin; when he thinks that his soul and its everlasting destiny is being moulded by his surroundings, and that his surroundings include the besotted, the knaves, the brutish, and the brutal,—he may bestir himself to improve these surroundings, to make better his age. He feels the great solemnity of the prayer of Jesus when applied to these darkened masses. “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” They know not the real nature of sin or the majesty of Divine justice. Nor did the soldiers know what they were doing. They thought they were carrying out the law, whereas they were the blind instruments of cruelty and injustice. It is a sad picture, this yielding up of will and moral responsibility to a supposed superior. It is a most dangerous thing, and it has ever, in the end, proved a terrible thing to the weak. It is something to make one pause when one really takes in the thought of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of men yielding up to another will their wills and consciences. It gives food for reflection when these thousands practically say, “Think for me. Be responsible to humanity and God for me. I will act. I will dye my hands in blood, guilty and innocent. Only be thou responsible.” They did not know that, no matter what may be the customs and ordinances of nations, no man can shift to another his responsibility to man and God. Pilate—did he really know what he was doing? In one way, yes; but, in a deeper way, no. He fancied he was upholding Roman power. The majesty of human law asserted itself in him. He thought that human ordinances were final. He knew not that at the back of these arose, as clouds of threatening darkness and as clouds of approving light, the everlasting principles of justice. Pilate was a lawyer, and most naturally confounded the judgments of men with the wisdom of God. He thought that to apply human ordinances was the only way to order and good government. He forgot, or never knew, that government is a means, not an end. In the interest of his earthly empire he was blinded to the deeper interest of the kingdom of God. He saw the Roman army, the Roman power, the Roman law. He did not see higher powers and Diviner principles than had then or have now found their way into human ordinances. Poor, blinded man. And Caiaphas! Oh, we pity him! His name and memory have suffered. His deed has brought down upon the heads of noble men, pure women, and innocent children the curses and cruelties of the ignorant and bigoted. Poor priest, of a once great religion, the one who was to lead to hope, to faith, to duty, leads to hate, death, and destruction. He fancied that religion was a thing of the outer man, not the living principle of the soul. He did not see that God can uphold His own cause. He needs no man’s crime to assist Him. He called for the death of one greater than the Temple, greater than all the Temple’s ritual, greater than Moses,—a new man, with a new, large word from the God in heaven and the God in the human soul. He knew not what he did. When we think of Pilate and Caiaphas, the men in power, on whose will the lives of their fellows depended; when we think of their dense ignorance;—we pity our humanity, and them with it. Men find it a most difficult lesson to learn that you may slay men, but you cannot thus take the life of God out of those deep, fundamental principles on which all life rests, and by which all life is sustained,—those fundamentals that make thought possible, that regulate the moral universe. These are as eternal as God is eternal. Men may come, men may go; but these abide for ever. So runs the law of God, Oh, how real, then, the prayer, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”! These men, one and all—people, soldiers, governor and priests—knew and did not know. They knew better than they lived up to, but they were ignorant of the great fact that God’s laws are eternal. Their ignorance is their excuse. It is also their crime. God pities man’s ignorance, but God’s law punishes that same ignorance. We do not know. Let Him forgive. But we ought to know. Ignorance is often our own fault as well as our only excuse. But, ignorant or wise, there is mercy. Beneath and above the blindness of the people, the submissive obedience of the soldiers, the folly of the governor, and the bigotry of the priest, is the Divine pity. Oh, the mighty heart which, with its flowing blood, cried out for this forgiveness to its enemies! From it we may gather, not all its grandeur, but a small portion of its power of love to man.—Walkley.
The Calmness and Justice of Christ upon the Cross.—Dying is just a part of living—sometimes a long part, often a hard part. With Christ, life and death were all of a piece—simple and calm. Even on the cross He took up things in order, and gently. His first word was about His enemies.
I. Forgiveness is His first thought in death.—The ruling thought of His mission, men’s need of it, and how they could have it.
II. Pain shakes the sense of justice.—Christ suffered agony unspeakable. But His sense of justice was unaffected. He judged as scrupulously as He will from His white throne. He apportioned degrees of guilt.
III. The men who nailed Him had little knowledge of Him.—They were nearly as much instruments, we might say, as the nails they hammered. But even the smallest knowledge of Christ brings responsibility. How much more a full knowledge! With what measure shall those be judged who claim a true and just acquaintance with Christ?—Nicoll.
The Unselfish Christ.—His voice is heard—not of anger or resentment, but of pleading intercession.
I. He finds an excuse for those who pierced Him.—The most glorious instance of a Divine unselfishness—of an absolute self-sacrifice. His self-sacrifice rises into the sublimer region of a literal self-forgetfulness: enough, surely, of itself, to explain how Jesus Christ, coming to minister to all the diseases of humanity, has a right to undertake the treatment and cure of this particular disease of selfishness.
II. How does He heal us of this malady of selfishness?—Is not the question half answered in the asking? He was unselfishness. Selfishness and He cannot co-exist. In the heavenly glory He still forgets Himself in the sorrows of His “brethren.”
III. To see Him, to be united to Him, to be one with Him—this is to be a Christian.—This is to be like Him in His unselfishness. When Christ came to bear our sins, He not only took away by His cross the mid-wall of guilt between each man and his God; He also took away the mid-wall of selfishness between each man and his brother. He made that possible in all cases to Christian love which was impossible before in any case to the natural. Selfishness is done away with by the introduction of a new self which embraces and comprehends us all.—Vaughan.
The Forgiveness of the Cross.—
I. One thing is not said here, nor anywhere else, by the Saviour.—There is no confession of sin, and no cry for personal forgiveness. He neither did, nor could, pray for His own forgiveness. He did pray for the pardon of others.
II. We are taught here the simple and primary duty of the forgiveness of injuries.—Christ seems to be almost more exacting in relation to forgiveness than in relation to purity.
III. A limit is affixed to Christ’s prayer.—Who come within the scope of the word, within the embrace of this appeal? The prayer included the executioners and the Jewish chiefs and rulers. And perhaps it reaches out to a wider area. But there is no charter of universalism in the prayer—no assurance that all sin will be remitted and every sinner forgiven. No doubt, however, ignorance lessens the guilt of sin, but it does not obliterate it. If the sinner could always say boldly, “I knew not,” then there would have been no need for this intercession of the Mediator.—Alexander.
Luk_23:34; Luk_23:43; Luk_23:46. Luke’s Record of the Words from the Cross.—
I. The beauty of forgiving tenderness.
II. The beauty of pardoning power.
III. The beauty of perfect peace—Ibid.
Luk_23:35. “Cast lots.”—Lots would be cast for the division among the four soldiers of the robe, the turban, the girdle, and the sandals of Jesus, and then again for disposing of His tunic which, as the other gospels tell us, was of some special value.
“He saved others.”—This may be ironical, or it is a recognition of His miracles of mercy, to taunt Him with a supposed loss of His power just when He needed it most for Himself. His very mercy is used in mockery.
“The chosen of God.”—The epithet describes Christ as appointed beforehand by God for the realisation of His plans for Israel and for the world. Cf. Luk_9:35.
Luk_23:37-38. “The soldiers also mocked Him,” etc.—In deriding the claim of Christ to be a king, probably both the soldiers, who offered Him a mock homage, and Pilate, who drew up the title upon the cross, desired rather to give expression to their contempt for the Jewish people than to insult the Saviour.
Luk_23:39-43. The Experience of the Malefactor.
I. As a convert.—
1. The previous character of the penitent enhances the greatness of his conversion.
2. The unlikelihood of his conversion in the special circumstances of the case.
3. The suddenness with which it was produced.
4. The completeness and maturity by which it was marked.
5. The scantiness of the means by which it was effected.
II. As a witness.
III. As a suppliant.—Cairns.
The Penitent and Christ.—
I. The penitent
(1) humbly acknowledges his guilt;
(2) eagerly seeks for salvation; and
(3) courageously confesses His Saviour.
II. The Saviour
(1) pardons the guilt;
(2) hears the prayer; and
(3) bestows a reward far in excess of the penitent’s hopes or expectations.
Despair and Faith.—Compare the despairing cry “Save Thyself and us” with the humble petition, “Lord, remember me.”
Abundant Teaching of This in Advent.—We have here
(1) a most wonderful illustration of the glory and grace of the Saviour;
(2) a striking example of the efficacy of prayer;
(3) an antidote to despair;
(4) a proof of nearness and reality of the spiritual world.
Encouragement and Warning.
I. The case of the penitent thief shows that conversion is possible, even at the last hour.
II. The case of the impenitent thief shows the danger of postponing conversion to the last hour.
All the Elements of Genuine Conversion Present.—Brief as the utterance of the penitent thief was, yet there is nothing lacking to it that belongs to the unalterable requirements of a genuine conversion: sense of guilt, confession of sin, simple faith, active love, supplicating hope—all these fruits of the tree of the new life we see here ripen during a few moments.—Van Oosterzee.
No Encouragement to Delay Repentance.—His case affords no encouragement to any one to put off repentance to a death-bed. Our faith cannot come up to that of this penitent, for our condition is very different from his. We have seen Christ’s glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven. We have received the Holy Ghost from heaven. He had none of these benefits. He saw Christ deserted by His disciples and dying on the cross, and yet He confessed Him as a King, and prayed to Him as his Lord.—Wordsworth.
A Witness for Christ Raised Up.—This is a comfortable symbol and example for all Christendom, that God will never let faith in Christ, and the confession of His name, go down. If the disciples as a body, and those who were otherwise related to Jesus, confess not and lose their faith, deny Him in fear, are offended, and forsake Him—a malefactor or murderer must come forward to confess Him, to preach Him to others, and teach all men who He is, and what consolation all may find in Him.—Luther.
Luk_23:40-43.
1. The penitent malefactor.—
1. His expostulation with his companion in suffering.
2. His confession of guilt.
3. His recognition of Christ’s innocence.
4. The faith, humility, and earnestness, manifested in his prayer to Christ.
II. The gracious Redeemer.—
1. He has sympathy for others in the midst of His own dire sufferings.
2. He anticipates entrance upon a state of blessedness.
3. He is conscious of power to open the gate of Paradise to others,
4. He gives far more than was asked from Him.
Luk_23:40. “Dost not thou fear God?”—The thought of the Divine justice before which he was so shortly to appear might well cause him to refrain from mocking his fellow-sufferer: the thoughtless crowd were under no such restraint.
Luk_23:41. “Hath done nothing amiss.”—Even had the robber said nothing more than this, yet he would awaken our deepest astonishment, that God—in a moment wherein literally all voices are raised against Jesus, and not a friendly word is heard in His favour—causes a witness for the spotless innocence of the Saviour to appear on one of the crosses beside Him.—Van Oosterzee.
Luk_23:42-43. The Absolution of the Cross.
I. The assurance.—There is absolute certainty in it. Christ’s especial utterance is, not “I think,” but “I say.”
II. The promise.—It is twofold:
1. A gracious promise of the abridgment of suffering.
2. The better part. More than the penitent thief thought of or asked for. Not possibly, in some remote future and vaguely, but verily, to-day, and close to Himself.
III. The revelation.—This is one of Luke’s words of revelation, unveiling. It is the great dictum probans for the rest of the saints in Paradise. To say “in heaven” would be inaccurate. Oh the preciousness of the hope which enfolds our dead in Christ, ever since the dying Lord said to the dying penitent “to-day in Paradise”! What speed, what rest, what companionship!—Alexander.
“With Me in Paradise.”
I. What did the robber expect?—That they two would die. That the long trance would come; that the wrong would be righted at last; and that when it was, Jesus would be Lord. And then, “Have a thought of me.”
II. What was the answer?—“When I go to My kingdom, thou shalt keep Me company, and that before the setting of the sun.” The prayer was great, but the answer was greater still. We may suppose that the robber did not understand much of the word “Paradise,” but he understood the word “with Me,” and it was enough. If the prayer was like a river, the answer was as a great sea.—Nicoll.
I. The word of the dying thief.
II. The word of the dying Lord.—Ireland.
Luk_23:42. The Dying Thief.
I. We see here an illustration of the cross, in its power of drawing men to itself.
II. We have here the cross, as pointing to and foretelling the kingdom.
III. Here is the cross as revealing and opening the true Paradise.—Maclaren.
The Penitent Thief.
I. What he thought of himself.
II. What he thought of Christ.
III. What Christ thought of him.
Luk_23:43. “To-day.”—The penitent thief could scarcely have expected death on that day, for those crucified often lingered several days upon the cross. The breaking of the legs of the two who suffered with Christ secured the fulfilment of this prophecy and promise. Thus the enemies of Christ unconsciously brought about the fulfilment of Christ’s words.
I. A place in Paradise.
II. The presence of Christ with Him in Paradise.
III. An entrance with Him into Paradise that very day.
Luk_23:44. “There was a darkness,” etc.—There is evidently something extraordinary in these phenomena, whether their exceptional character is to be ascribed to a supernatural cause, or simply to a providential coincidence. It is impossible to ignore the profound relation which exists, on the one hand, between man and nature, and, on the other, between humanity and Christ. For man is the soul of the world, as Christ is the soul of humanity.—Godet.
Luk_23:45. “The veil of the temple was rent.”—
1. This was a type of the violent rending of Christ’s body on the cross (Heb_10:20).
2. It typified our Lord’s own entrance into heaven (Heb_9:24).
3. It intimated that the ceremonies of the Law were abolished.
4. That the distinction between Jew and Gentile was at an end.
5. That there was freedom of access to the throne of grace.
6. That Christ had opened up, by His death, an entrance into heaven for all His followers (Heb_9:7).—Foote.
The Temple no longer the Abode of God.—Was not this sign meant to show that the Temple was no longer the abode of God? As the high priest rent his robe in the presence of a great scandal, so God rent the veil which covers the Holy of Holies, where formerly He had manifested Himself. It implied a desecration of the most holy place, and consequently of the Temple, with its courts and altar and sacrifices. The Temple is profaned, abolished by God Himself. The efficacy of sacrifice has henceforth passed to another blood, another altar, and a new order of priesthood. This fact is implied in the declaration of Jesus: “Slay Me, and you will thereby have destroyed this Temple.”—Godet.
Luk_23:46. Last Words.
I. Christ’s work as Redeemer was done.—His previous word, “It is finished” marked its completion. Now He is ready to return to His Father. Before Him lies the mystery of death.
II. Here we see His calm, trustful faith.—The terrible struggle is over, and He is at perfect peace. His use of the word “Father” shows that His soul has recovered its serenity. The darkness is gone. The Father’s face beams upon His in loving approval.
III. A picture of Christian dying.—It was but a breathing of the spirit into the hands of the heavenly Father. It is natural to regard death as a strange experience. What is it? Where shall we be when we escape from the body? Will it be dark or light? Shall we be alone or accompanied? Here comes this word of our Lord, and we learn that the soul, when it leaves the body, passes at once into the Father’s hands. Surely that is enough for us to know. We shall be perfectly and eternally safe if we are in our Father’s keeping. If we think thus of death, it will have no terrors for us.—Miller.
The Peace of the Cross.
I. The view of death taken by the Lord Jesus.—Not fate: irresistible and irrevocable necessity. Not impersonal absorption into the universal life, or positivist immortality of a subjective character. His death comes as from a Father’s love. He has the assurance of life in definite personality, the true life of the spirit after the body has gone down into the grave. It is free, spontaneous, unhesitating surrender. The deposit must be safe that is lodged with such a Depository.
II. The use to be made of Scripture during the approach of death.—One chief employment of Scripture is for the dying. Scripture is not only a rule of life. How much of it is of use for the spirit in dying!
III. This word supplies an answer to an objection not seldom made to the Atonement.—How the Atonement effects its object we are not told. But this last word attests how willingly Jesus died. There was no reluctance, no repugnance, no shrinking, no compulsion. His dying word shows how true was His own repeated declaration, “I lay down My life.”—Alexander.
I. The work of the Dying One.
II. The attitude of the Dying One.
1. Making satisfaction for sin.
2. Alone with the Father.
III. The spirit of the Dying One.—
1. Voluntary surrender.
2. Obedient love and holy peace.
IV. Our interest in the death and dying word of Jesus.—A lesson
(1) for dying,
(2) for living.—Ireland.
“Into Thy hands.”—The Father receives the spirit of Jesus; Jesus receives the spirits of the faithful (Act_7:59).
“I commend My spirit.”—At the moment when He is about to lose self-consciousness, and feels that His spirit is passing away, He commits it in trust to His Father.
Luk_23:47-49. The Effects Produced upon Spectators by the Death of Christ.—
1. Upon the Roman centurion.
2. Upon the people.
3. Upon His adherents.
Luk_23:47. “A righteous man.”—More than mere innocence of the charge on which He suffered is implied in this testimony. Jesus had claimed to be the Son of God, and if He were righteous He must be more than man. Hence the form in which St. Luke gives this testimony is in virtual agreement with that in which it is reported by St. Matthew and St. Mark: “Truly this was the Son of God.”
Luk_23:48. “That sight.”—They came, from motives of curiosity, to look on that spectacle, but they depart with feelings of awe and alarm.
“Smote their breasts.”—As the exclamation of the centurion is an anticipation of the conversion of the pagan world, so also the consternation which seizes upon the Jews, who witness this scene, is an anticipation of the penitence and final conversion of that nation (Zec_12:10-14).—Godet.
Luk_23:49. “All His acquaintance.”—In what mood they now stood there, after they were now no longer hindered by the scoffings of the people from coming near, may be better felt than described. With the deepest sorrow over this irrevocable loss, which was not yet softened by the joyful hope of the resurrection, there is united melancholy joy that now at last the agonising conflict is ended, and the heart-felt longing to render now the last honours to the inaminate corpse.—Van Oosterzee.
The Ministering Women.
I. These were the earliest of a great and noble army of Christian women, attached to Christ by deep personal love, following and ministering unto Him.
II. Woman has always been grateful, to Christ, and has served Him with great devotion.
III. There is a field everywhere for woman’s ministry.
IV. Let every woman imitate this company, by following Christ.—Miller.
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.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv33, 35, 44, 45 Mat 27:35-38; Luk 23:33-38; Joh 19:18-24; Mar 15:24-28. “And…
THE CRUCIFIXION
Mat 27:35-38; Luk 23:33-38; Joh 19:18-24; Mar 15:24-28. “And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him.” Here you see the bloody work of death began at 9 A.M., and they remained on the cross till 3 P.M. “And they crucify along with Him two thieves; the one on His fight, and the one on His left. And the Scripture was fulfilled, saying, He was numbered with the transgressors.” Thus the high priests maneuvered to do their utmost to cover Him with ineffaceable disgrace, having Him crucified between two robbers. N.B. — If you would follow Him up to heaven, you must go with Him to Gethsemane, and there give up all the world, your will sinking away into the Divine. Then you must go with Him to Calvary, and be crucified between two robbers; i. e., if you would get sanctified, you may expect the people to pronounce you a thief robber, or some other vile reprobate. They will so misunderstand and misjudge you as to identify you with the worst people. All this you must bear patiently and unmurmuringly, like Jesus, if you are going up to live with Him in heaven.
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Luk 23:34. “And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they are doing.” How true! If those preachers had known that they were killing their own Christ, they would not have done it for a million of worlds. They were so blinded by the devil that they did not know what they were doing. So have the people claiming to be God’s elect slaughtered about two hundred millions of God’s people. They killed them all under criminal charges, believing them to be bad people. What is the solution of this wonderful mystery? Satan, as in the case of the Jews when they crucified Jesus, had so deluded them as to make them follow him, thinking he is God. Amid these delusions, are the people inculpatory? Certainly they are. Having rejected the light and believed Satan’s lies, they have drifted into the awful dilemma where they call evil good, and good evil.
Joh 19:23-24. “Then the soldiers, when they crucified Jesus, took His garments, and divided them into four parts, a part for each soldier; also His tunic. For the tunic was seamless, woven from the top throughout. Then they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but gamble for it, whose it shall be; in order that the Scriptures may be fulfilled, saying, They parted My garments among themselves, and upon My vesture they did cast the lot. Indeed, then, the soldiers did these things.” Roman law gave the garments of the crucified to the quaternion, consisting of four soldiers, who took charge of each criminal and executed the bloody work. In that day, when there were no factories, clothing was not only very valuable, but quite scarce. The vesture or tunic was the inner garment, and, as you see here, it was seamless throughout, beautifully illustrating the absolute unity of the true Church, the body of Christ, the divisions all having been made by Satan, and, so far as they go, represent the Satanic phase of the true Church. The soldiers having divided all of His other garments, now recognized this seamless vesture, and concluded that it will spoil it to tear it into pieces; consequently they agreed to settle the ownership by a game of dice. O that all religious people could only have the gumption of these heathen barbarians, and see that they can not divide up the Church of Christ without serious detriment! Luk 23:38 : “And the superscription was written over Him in Greek, Roman, and Hebrew letters, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Roman law claimed pre-eminent justice in all things. Consequently the crime for which every culprit was crucified was written on the cross over his head, so the multitudes could all read it and know the reason why he suffered this awful death. Though the Jews had condemned Him for blasphemy, they could not use that charge against Him under Roman administration, as their law knew no such a crime. Though both Pilate and Herod had positively vetoed the charge of treason against Caesar which the Jews tried so hard to get them to recognize, yet in the finale, Pilate had it written over Him simply to fill a vacancy, as he had nothing else. As you pass by Roman Catholic cemeteries and churches, you frequently see a cross, superscribed I.N.R.I. This is an abbreviation of Jesus Nasarenus Rex Judaeorum, “Jesus of Nazereth, King of the Jews.”
These are the very words which were superscribed on the cross above the head of Jesus, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the language of religion, learning, and law, for the convenience of all the multitudes, as they could all find it out from these three languages.
Joh 19:20-21. “Then many of the Jews read this title; because the place was near the city where Jesus was crucified.” Calvary overlooks the city, the prominence rising only about one hundred yards from the north wall, the Jericho road running between, and then the hill about one hundred yards more to its summit, which is somewhat level on top, uniformly and gradually descending, actually resembling a human, skull, for which it is named, and is the most conspicuous place about Jerusalem, lying in the angle of the two most important roads — i. e., those leading to Damascus and Jericho — in harmony with the Roman policy of crucifying criminals in the most conspicuous places. I emphasize these, specifications because the Greek, Roman, and all other Oriental Churches, locate Calvary some distance within the present wall of the city, where there is no mountain, but rather a subsidence, between Zion and Akra, within the great Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which has stood there since the days of Constantine, the most magnetic pilgrim-resort in all the Holy Land, as they believe that Jesus there laid down His life to save a guilty world. I believe they are mistaken as to the location of Calvary; and this lonely hill, outside of the wall, for more than a thousand years a Moslem cemetery, is, beyond doubt, the true Calvary. You remember that the Romans utterly destroyed the city, A. D. 73, verifying the prophecy of Jesus, leaving it utterly desolate fifty years. Then the Emperor Adrian went there, and founded a Roman colony, using the ruins to rebuild the city, calling it Elia Capitolina, thus even burying the name “Jerusalem” in (as they supposed). hopeless oblivion. So two hundred years rolled away during the nonexistence of Jerusalem, this Roman city occupying the site. When the Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity, A. D. 325, he and his royal mother, Queen Helena, came to this sacred spot, revived and rebuilt the city, and restored the heaven-born name, Jerusalem. During these three hundred years there were no people there who knew the sacred places. Hence the confusion with reference to the locations. For an exhaustive elucidation of this matter, see “Footprints of Jesus.”
“Then the high priest of the Jews said to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am the King of the Jews. Pilate responded, What I have written, I have written.” In Oriental dialect, this is the very strongest negative, bluntly and stubbornly muttered out by the impatient proconsul. The truth of the matter is, they had browbeaten Pilate from the beginning, and run over him like a dog. Fearful of official depreciation, deposition, arraignment before the emperor, and untold humiliation, with which the high priests and elders threatened him, despite all his protestation of the innocence of Jesus, and the diversity of stratagems to which he resorted for His release, they treated all his efforts with utter contempt; having yielded to their imperious clamors again and again, and finally, though with the utmost reluctance, signed His death-warrant, and, pursuant to the Roman custom, superscribed the only accusation they had brought against Him on the cross above His head, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” and still they are dissatisfied and clamored for a change, — his patience broke down, and he positively and abruptly refused. No wonder Pilate refused to change that writing. He could not change it; Jesus is King of tile Jews, and will be forever. In coming eternity, as well as through the bright millennial centuries, when God will honor the patriarch and prophets, the elect custodians of His Revealed Oracles, amid a world of darkness and sin, Jesus will be King of the Jews forever, encumbering and honoring the Theocratic throne of David.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv33, 42, 43 Luk 23:33 - Luk 23:46.
Luke
WORDS FROM THE CROSS
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Luk 23:33 - Luk 23:46.
The calm tone of all the narratives of the Crucifixion is very remarkable. Each Evangelist limits himself to the bare recording of facts, without a trace of emotion. They felt too deeply to show feeling. It was fitting that the story which, till the end of time, was to move hearts to a passion of love and devotion, should be told without any colouring. Let us beware of reading it coldly! This passage is more adapted to be pondered in solitude, with the thought, ‘All this was borne for me,’ than to be commented on. But a reverent word or two is permissible.
Luke’s account is noticeably independent of the other three. The three sayings of Christ’s, round which his narrative is grouped, are preserved by him alone. We shall best grasp the dominant impression which the Evangelist unconsciously had himself received, and sought to convey, by gathering the whole round these three words from the Cross.
I. The first word sets Jesus forth as the all-merciful Intercessor and patient friend of sinners.
It is very significantly set in the centre of the paragraph {vs. 33-38} which recounts the heartless cruelty and mockery of soldiers and rulers. Surrounded by that whirlwind of abuse, contempt and ferocious glee at His sufferings, He gave back no taunt, nor uttered any cry of pain, nor was moved to the faintest anger, but let His heart go out in pity for all who took part in that wicked tragedy; and, while ‘He opened not His mouth’ in complaint or reviling, He did open it in intercession. But the wonderful prayer smote no heart with compunction, and, after it, the storm of mocking and savage triumph hurtled on as before.
Luke gathers all the details together in summary fashion, and piles them on one another without enlarging on any. The effect produced is like that of a succession of breakers beating on some lonely rock, or of blows struck by a battering-ram on a fortress.
‘They crucified Him,’-there is no need to say who ‘they’ were. Others than the soldiers, who did the work, did the deed. Contempt gave Him two malefactors for companions and hung the King of the Jews in the place of honour in the midst. Did John remember what his brother and he had asked? Matter-of-fact indifference as to a piece of military duty, and shameless greed, impelled the legionaries to cast lots for the clothes stripped from a living man. What did the crucifying of another Jew or two matter to them? Gaping curiosity, and the strange love of the horrible, so strong in the vulgar mind, led the people, who had been shouting Hosanna! less than a week ago, to stand gazing on the sight without pity but in a few hearts.
The bitter hatred of the rulers, and their inhuman glee at getting rid of a heretic, gave them bad preeminence in sin. Their scoff acknowledged that He had ‘saved others,’ and their hate had so blinded their eyes that they could not see how manifestly His refusal to use His power to save Himself proved Him the Son of God. He could not save Himself, just because He would save these scoffing Rabbis and all the world. The rough soldiers knew little about Him, but they followed suit, and thought it an excellent jest to bring the ‘vinegar,’ provided in kindness, to Jesus with a mockery of reverence as to a king. The gibe was double-barrelled, like the inscription over the Cross; for it was meant to hit both this Pretender to royalty and His alleged subjects.
And to all this Christ’s sole answer was the ever-memorable prayer. One of the women who bravely stood at the Cross must have caught the perhaps low-voiced supplication, and it breathed so much of the aspect of Christ’s character in which Luke especially delights that he could not leave it out. It opens many large questions which cannot be dealt with here. All sin has in it an element of ignorance, but it is not wholly ignorance as some modern teachers affirm. If the ignorance were complete, the sin would be nonexistent. The persons covered by the ample folds of this prayer were ignorant in very different degrees, and had had very different opportunities of changing ignorance for knowledge. The soldiers and the rulers were in different positions in that respect. But none were so entirely blind that they had no sin, and none were so entirely seeing that they were beyond the reach of Christ’s pity or the power of His intercession. In that prayer we learn, not only His infinite forgivingness for insults and unbelief levelled at Himself, but His exaltation as the Intercessor, whom the Father heareth always. The dying Christ prayed for His enemies; the glorified Christ lives to make intercession for us.
II. In the second saying Christ is revealed as having the keys of Hades, the invisible world of the dead.
How differently the same circumstances work on different natures! In the one malefactor, physical agony and despair found momentary relief in taunts, flung from lips dry with torture, at the fellow-sufferer whose very innocence provoked hatred from the guilty heart. The other had been led by his punishment to recognise in it the due reward of his deeds, and thus softened, had been moved by Christ’s prayer, and by his knowledge of Christ’s innocence, to hope that the same mercy which had been lavished on the inflicters of His sufferings, might stretch to enfold the partakers in it.
At that moment the dying thief had clearer faith in Christ’s coming in His kingdom than any of the disciples had. Their hopes were crumbling as they watched Him hanging unresisting and gradually dying. But this man looked beyond the death so near for both Jesus and himself, and believed that, after it, He would come to reign. We may call him the only disciple that Christ then had.
How pathetic is that petition, ‘Remember me’! It builds the hope of sharing in Christ’s royalty on the fact of having shared in His Cross. ‘Thou wilt not forget Thy companion in that black hour, which will then lie behind us.’ Such trust and clinging, joined with such penitence and submission, could not go unrewarded.
From His Cross Jesus speaks in royal style, as monarch of that dim world. His promise is sealed with His own sign-manual, ‘Verily, I say.’ It claims to have not only the clear vision of, but the authority to determine, the future. It declares the unbroken continuance of personal existence, and the reality of a state of conscious blessedness, in which men are aware of their union with Him, the Lord of the realm and the Life of its inhabitants. It graciously accepts the penitent’s petition, and assures him that the companionship, begun on the Cross, will be continued there. ‘With Me’ makes ‘Paradise’ wherever a soul is.
III. The third word from the Cross, as recorded by Luke, reveals Jesus as, in the act of dying, the Master of death, and its Transformer for all who trust Him into a peaceful surrender of themselves into the Father’s hands.
The circumstances grouped round the act of His death bring out various aspects of its significance. The darkness preceding had passed before He died, and it bore rather on His sense of desertion, expressed in the unfathomably profound and awful cry, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ The rent veil is generally taken to symbolise the unrestricted access into the presence of God, which we have through Christ’s death; but it is worth considering whether it does not rather indicate the divine leaving of the desecrated shrine, and so is the beginning of the fulfilment of the deep word, ‘Destroy this Temple.’
But the centre-point of the section is the last cry which, in its loudness, indicated physical strength quite incompatible with the exhaustion to which death by crucifixion was generally due. It thus confirms the view which sees, both in the words of Jesus and in the Evangelist’s expression for His death, clear indications that He died, not because His physical powers were unable to live longer, but by the exercise of His own volition. He died because He chose, and He chose because He loved and would save. As St. Bernard says, ‘Who is He who thus easily falls asleep when He wills? To die is indeed great weakness, but to die thus is immeasurable power. Truly the weakness of God is stronger than men.’
Nor let us forget that, in thus dying, Jesus gave us an imitable example, as well as revealed inimitable power. For, if we trust ourselves, living and dying, to Him, we shall not be dragged reluctantly, by an overmastering grasp against which we vainly struggle, out of a world where we would fain stay, but we may yield ourselves willingly, as to a Father’s hand, which draws His children gently to His own side, and blesses them, when there, with His fuller presence.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv34, 44 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXXIII. B. Jesus…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CXXXIII. B. Jesus Crucified and Reviled].
CXXXIII. THE CRUCIFIXION. Subdivision B. JESUS CRUCIFIED AND REVILED. HIS THREE \line SAYINGS DURING FIRST THREE HOURS. (Friday morning from 9 o'clock till noon.) aMATT. XXVII. 35-44; bMARK XV. 24-32; cLUKE XXIII. 33-43; dJOHN XIX. 18-27.
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b25 And it was the third hour, and cthere d18 where cthey crucified him. b27 And a38 Then are there crucified bthey crucify awith him dtwo others, cthe malefactors, arobbers, one on the right hand, and one cthe other on the bhis left. don either side one, and Jesus in the midst. [These were doubtless robbers of the class of Barabbas. They were those who, led on by fanatical patriotism, had become insurrectionists and then outlaws. Large numbers of them were crucified during the Jewish wars (Jos. Wars, xiii. 2. 3). These two may have been crucified at this time for convenience' sake, but the fact that Jesus was placed between them suggests that they were crucified with him to heighten his shame and indignity. For, though Pilate had no personal ill will toward Jesus, he wished to show contempt for Judah's King.] c34 And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. [Our Lord's prayer here reminds us of the word at Isa_53:12. It accords with his own teachings ( Mat_5:44), and it was echoed by Stephen ( Act_7:59, Act_7:60). Peter and Paul both speak of the Jewish ignorance ( Act_3:17, 1Co_2:8). Ignorance mitigates, but does not excuse, crime.] b24 And they crucify him, d23 The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part [A quaternion or band of four soldiers did the work of the actual crucifixion. The Roman law awarded them the garments of the condemned as their perquisites]; band part aparted cparting bhis garments among them, casting cthey cast lots. [725] bupon them, what each should take. [The sandals, girdle, outer robe, head-dress, etc., of Jesus were divided into four parts and lots were cast of the parts.] dand also the coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. [This was the tunic or undergarment. It reached from the shoulders to the knees. Ordinarily it was in two pieces, which were fastened at the shoulders by clasps; but Josephus tells us that the tunic of the high priest was an exception to this rule, being woven without seam (Ant. iii. 7. 4). Thus in dividing the Lord's garments, they found a suggestion of his high priesthood.] 24 They said therefore one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my garments among them, And upon my vesture did they cast lots. [See Psa_22:18.] 25 These things therefore the soldiers did. [Even their small part was the subject of minute prophecy.] a36 and they sat and watched him there. [They were on guard to prevent any attempt at rescue.] d19 And Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. cover him, a37 And they set up over his head bthe ca superscription bof his accusation written, aAnd there was written, cTHIS IS aJESUS dOF NAZARETH, bTHE KING OF THE JEWS. [It was a well-established Roman custom to thus place a writing above the heads of the crucified to indicate the cause for which they died. Pilate writes the accusation so as to clear his own skirts before Cæsar and so as to show his contempt for the Jewish people. They had forced him to crucify an innocent man, and he retaliates by giving to that man the title which his enemies accused him of professing.] d20 This title therefore read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city; and it was written in Hebrew, and in Latin, and in Greek. [These three languages were respectively those of religion, law and philosophy; but Pilate made use of them because all three were spoken by people then in Jerusalem.] 21 The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to [726] Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. 22 Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. [The rulers smarted under this title which Pilate had tauntingly written. They had insisted that Jesus' kingship was dangerous enough to justify his crucifixion; but now (if politically and temporally interpreted) they admit that his kingship was an idle claim, a mere matter of words.] c35 And the people stood beholding. [The scene had an awful fascination which they could not resist.] a39 And they that passed by [Jesus was evidently crucified near the highway] railed on him, wagging their heads, 40 and saying, bHa! Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, 30 save thyself, aif thou art the Son of God, band come down from the cross. 31 In like manner also the chief priests cAnd the rulers also scoffed at him, bmocking him among themselves with the scribes aand elders, said, csaying, He saved others; bhimself he cannot save. clet him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen. aHe is the King of Israel; let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe on him. b32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. a43 He trusteth on God; let him deliver him now, if he desireth him: for he said, I am the Son of God. c36 And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, offering him vinegar, 37 and saying, If thou art the King of the Jews, save thyself. [Thus one and all unite in mocking Jesus, using both word and gesture. They bring forth echoes from the trial of Jesus and take other incidents from his life, little dreaming the deep significance of what they utter. They reminded Jesus of his words about destroying the temple, when they were committing that very act. They speak of his building it again when Jesus was about to die that he might rise. They taunt him with saving others, yet being unable to save himself, which is the great truth of the atonement which the Lord [727] was then making. They promised to believe if he will come down from the cross, yet his being lifted upon the cross was the very act which would convince them-- Joh_8:28.] a44 And the robbers also that were crucified with him breproached him. acast upon him the same reproach. c39 And one of the malefactors that were hanged railed on him, saying, Art not thou the Christ? save thyself and us. 40 But the other answered, and rebuking him said, Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42 And he said, Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom. 43 And he said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. [It seems that at first both robbers reviled Christ, but one repenting spoke in his favor and prayed to him. It is not likely that this robber had any conception of the spiritual kingdom of Jesus, but he somehow arrived at the conclusion that Jesus was the Messiah, and would come into his kingdom despite his crucifixion. Jesus answered his prayer by a solemn promise that they would, that day, be together in that portion of the invisible world where those who are accepted of God await the resurrection. Many thoughtlessly make this dying robber the model of death-bed repentance, arguing that others may also be saved in this irregular manner. But Christ had not yet died, and the new testament or covenant was not sealed. Jesus then could change its terms to suit the occasion. It is therefore no evidence whatever that after his death and in his present glorified state our Lord will in any way change the covenant so as to do away with a single one of the terms required for obtaining remission of sins ( Heb_9:15-18). Moreover, the example of the penitent robber is a difficult one to follow; he professed faith in Christ and his kingdom when there was no other voice in the whole wide world willing to do such a thing. Any one having such a faith in Christ will not put off his confession until the hour of [728] death.] dBut there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. [For comment on these four women, see note on Joh_2:4). Thus he cut her off from all parental authority over him. In this last hour our Lord bestows upon his helpless mother the disciple whom he loved, who was then in the flower of his manhood. All of Christ's disciples are thus appointed by him protectors of the helpless, but few recognize the behest as John did.]
[FFG 725-729]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv33, 35, 42, 43, 46, 47 And when
And when
For order of events at the crucifixion, (See Scofield "Mat 26:20") See Scofield "Mat 27:33"
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The first note refers to the events of the night preceding; the second, the day of the event.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv32, 35, 39, 44 The crucifixion:
The crucifixion:
v. 32. And there were also two other, malefactors, led with Him to be put to death.
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v. 33. And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
v. 34. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted His raiment and cast lots.
At the same time that Jesus was led out of the city to be crucified, and in accordance with the word of prophecy, two other men were taken to the same place. But these men were really malefactors, they had done something wicked, which merited death. They were to be lifted up at the same time with Him, they were also to suffer death by crucifixion. Jesus was placed on the same level with them, Isa 53:12. They came to the place which was called Calvary, the place of the skull, very probably from the shape of the hill, which resembled the upper part of a skull. There they crucified the Lord in the midst between the two malefactors; they stretched out His arms on the cross-pieces, pierced His hands and feet with nails to hold His body in place. Thus did Christ suffer the punishment for our sins, thus did He bear our sins in His own body on the cross, 1Pe 2:24; Isa 53:5. The cross was a wood of cursing and shame, Heb 12:2; Gal 3:13. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, Isa 53:5. And still, there was no bitterness, no resentment in the heart of Jesus, not even against those that were carrying out the sentence, none too gently, if the usual cruelty was practiced. With His Savior’s heart going out to them in the blindness of their crime, Jesus calls out over the heads of His tormentors: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing! He prayed for the criminals, for His enemies that caused His death. They did not know the Lord of Glory, for His glory was hidden under the guise of a lowly servant. But they did it in ignorance, Act 3:17. And therefore the Lord prayed for them all here, and He had patience with them once more afterwards. He had His apostles go and preach the Gospel of His resurrection to them. And it was only after they had rejected this Gospel absolutely and finally that He carried into execution upon them the sentence of destruction. This first word of Christ from the cross is full of comfort for all sinners. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, Eph 1:7. But of all these wonderful facts the Roman soldiers at that moment knew nothing. For them such occurrences were all in the day’s work. They calmly sat down under the cross, where some of them remained as guards, and divided the Lord’s garments by casting lots; they passed the time away in gambling. In the same way the children of the world, that are daily crucifying Christ anew, sit in the shadow of Christian churches, and play and gamble away the time of grace until, in many cases, it is too late for repentance.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv27, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48 A great crowd
A great crowd
"A large crowd"
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great crowd of the people, and of women
The woman were part of the large crowd, and not a separate crowd.
mourned for him
"mourned for Jesus"
were following him
This does not mean that they were Jesus' disciples. It simply means they were walking along behind him.
turning to them
This indicates that Jesus turned to face the women and address them directly.
Daughters of Jerusalem
The "daughter" of a city means the women of the city. This was not rude. It was a normal form of address to a group of women from one location. AT: "You women who are from Jerusalem"
do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children
The person is a metonym for what happens to the person. AT: "do not weep about the bad things that will happen to me. Instead, weep because worse things will happen to you and to your children" or "you are weeping because bad things are happening to me, but you will weep even more when worse things happen to you and your children" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
mourn
Jerusalem
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 vv28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 23:28 Jesus warned of the horrors that would come…
23:28 Jesus warned of the horrors that would come to Jerusalem during its siege and destruction in AD 70.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.