they gave him sour wine to drink mixed with gall. When he had tasted it, he would not drink. When they had crucified him, they divided his clothing among them, casting lots, and they sat and watched him there. They set up over his head the accusation against him written, “THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
Then there were two robbers crucified with him, one on his right hand and one on the left. Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying, “You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”
Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he wants him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” The robbers also who were crucified with him cast on him the same reproach.
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Some of them who stood there, when they heard it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.”
Immediately one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him a drink. The rest said, “Let him be. Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”
Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52 Christ found no comfort anywhere, that in him we…
Christ found no comfort anywhere, that in him we might be filled with all comfort.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv34–53 34 They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with…
34 They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.
Ver. 34. They gave him vinegar, &c.] Cold comfort to a dying man; but they did it in derision, q.d. Thou art a King, and must have generous wines. Here’s for thee therefore. {See Trapp on "Joh 19:29"} It were happy if this vinegar given our Saviour might melt our adamantine hearts into sorrow.
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 vv35, 38, 45, 51 Mark saith, Mar 15:24-28, When they had crucified him,…
Mark saith, Mar 15:24-28, When they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. And the superscription of his accusation was written over, The King of the Jews. And with him they crucified two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.
Luke saith, Luk 23:33,34, 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. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.
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John telleth us some further circumstances, Joh 19:18-24 Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, 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 raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. And they crucified him; that is, four soldiers, as we learn from John’s narration of this matter of fact; it seemeth this business was assigned to four more especially.
This crucifying was a bitter and shameful kind of death, not in use amongst the Jews, but amongst the Romans. The manner of it is not particularly known to us: but, as it is described by writers, a piece of wood was erected which was crossed with a bar upon the top. The body of the person being fastened to the main piece of wood, his arms were extended, and nailed to the cross bar, or piece of timber, and his hands and feet were nailed. Mark saith, it was the third hour, which with us was about nine of the clock: so hasty they were in destroying this just person, that between midnight and nine of the clock in the morning, they apprehended him, tried and condemned him in the sanhedrim, or at least in a court of high priests and elders, and then before Pilate the Roman governor, and led him to be crucified, and nailed him to his cross. The evangelists tell us, he was crucified in the middle between two thieves, of whom we shall read more afterward. Several scriptures of the Old Testament were fulfilled in this crucifixion of Christ. They pierced my hands and my feet, Psa 22:16, was fulfilled in his nailing to the cross. In his being crucified betwixt two thieves was fulfilled that, Isa 53:12, He was numbered with the transgressors. That of the psalmist, Psa 22:18, They parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture, was fulfilled in the soldiers’ parting of our Saviour’s garments, as their fee. But how could they part them, and yet not rend them? Possibly they parted his other garments, and only did cast lots for his coat, or upper garment. Or, it may be, they valued it, and agreed each man’s share, and then cast lots for the whole. I see no ground for their assertion, who say, that in such cases they only stripped the condemned person of his upper garment. John’s relation seemeth to oppose it; he saith, and also his coat. Matthew, Mark, and John all agree in the inscription which Pilate drew to be put upon his cross, signifying the crime for which he died; only John puts in those words, of Nazareth. Thus Christ died in the attestation of his kingly office. This inscription angered the Jews; they solicit Pilate to alter it, and that it might be, Who said he was the King of the Jews. But Pilate refused, saying, What I have written I have written. There was nothing more pleasing to Pilate than this, (as he thought), to deride the Jews, as having such a despicable person (as he judged him) their King. In the mean time the counsels of God have their effect; Christ in his death is declared to be the King of the Jews. Luke saith, that Christ said, Father, forgive them; for they know what they do. Whether these words were spoken when our Lord was first nailed to the cross, or afterward, is not much material. Luke relates them before the soldiers’ parting his garments. Our Saviour by them declares himself a true Pastor and Shepherd of souls, teaching his disciples no more than he himself did practise. Mat 5:44, he had taught his disciples to pray for them who despitefully used and persecuted them. Himself here practises it. The malice of men ought not to quench in Christians the grace of God. Let us now consider the passage that happened from the time he was nailed to the cross until the time of his expiration, which was more than three entire hours.
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 vv37, 38, 45, 51 It was the manner of the Romans, when they…
It was the manner of the Romans, when they crucified any man, to publish the cause of his death in capital letters, placed over the head of the person. Now see how the wisdom and providence of God powerfully over-ruled the heart and pen of Pilate to draw his title, which was truly honourable; and fix it to his cross: Pilate is Christ’s herald, and proclaims him, King of the Jews.
Learn hence, That the regal dignity of Christ was proclaimed by an enemy, and that in a time of his greatest sufferings and reproaches. Pilate did Christ a special honour, and an eminent piece of service. He did that for Christ which none of his own disciples durst do; but he did it not designedly for his glory, but from the special over-ruling power of divine Providence: but the highest services performed to Christ undesignedly, shall never be accepted or rewarded by God.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv34–53 And they crucified him,.... That is, the soldiers: they…
And they crucified him,.... That is, the soldiers: they laid the cross upon the ground, and stretched Christ upon it; they extended his two arms as far as they could, to the transverse part of it, and nailed his hands unto it: his two feet they fixed by each other on a basis, in the body of the cross, through which they also drove nails; and then raising it up, fixed it in the earth, and left him hanging on it till he expired. This death was not only painful and cruel, but exceedingly shameful and ignominious: it was what was inflicted on the meanest of persons, as servants, whose form Christ had taken; and upon the worst of men, as murderers, cut-throats, thieves, and the vilest of men (r) among whom Christ was now numbered:
and parted his garments, casting lots: for they stripped him of his clothes before they fixed him to the cross, and crucified him naked, as was the custom of the Romans (s); as it was of the Jews to stone and hang persons naked: their canons run thus (t),
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"when he is four cubits off of the place of stoning, they strip off his garments; a man they cover before, a woman both behind and before; the words of Judah: but the wise men say, a man is stoned naked, and a woman is not stoned naked: a man, they hang him with his face to the people; a woman, with her face to the tree. R. Eliezer, and the wise men say, a man is hanged, but a woman is not hanged.
On which the Gemara (u) says,
"what is the sense of the Rabbins? the Scripture says, "thou shalt hang him"; him, and not her: and, says R. Eliezer, him, , "without his clothes".
So our Lord was crucified; his clothes were a perquisite of the soldiers; there were four of them, as we learn from Joh 19:23, and they parted them into four parts, and then cast lots whose each part should be; or rather, they divided his garments into four parts, and each took his part; but his vesture, or coat, being seamless, and woven from top to bottom, they did not choose to tear it into pieces, but cast lots for it, who should have it:
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, by David, in Psa 22:18,
they parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. All this, Beza says, is not in any of the ancient copies; nor is it in the Syriac, Arabic, Persic, and Ethiopic versions, but stands in the Vulgate Latin, and in Munster's Hebrew Gospel,
See Gill on Joh 19:24.
(r) Lipsius de Cruce, l. 1. c. 12. & 13. (s) Lipsius de Cruce, l. 2. c. 7. (t) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 6. sect. 3, 4. (u) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 46. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv34, 35, 38, 44, 45, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52 They gave him vinegar mingled with gall - Out…
They gave him vinegar mingled with gall - Out of derision: which, however nauseous, he received and tasted of. St. Mark mentions also a different mixture which was given him, Wine mingled with myrrh: such as it was customary to give to dying criminals, to make them less sensible of their sufferings: but this our Lord refused to taste, determining to bear the full force of his pains.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv34–53 Verse 34. They gave him vinegar - mingled with…
Verse 34. They gave him vinegar - mingled with gall] Perhaps χολη, commonly translated gall, signifies no more than bitters of any kind. It was a common custom to administer a stupefying potion compounded of sour wine, which is the same as vinegar, from the French vinaigre, frankincense, and myrrh, to condemned persons, to help to alleviate their sufferings, or so disturb their intellect that they might not be sensible of them. The rabbins say that they put a grain of frankincense into a cup of strong wine; and they ground this on Pr 31:6: Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, i.e. who is condemned to death. Some person, out of kindness, appears to have administered this to our blessed Lord; but he, as in all other cases, determining to endure the fulness of pain, refused to take what was thus offered to him, choosing to tread the winepress alone. Instead of οξος, vinegar, several excellent MSS. and versions have οινον, wine; but as sour wine is said to have been a general drink of the common people and Roman soldiers, it being the same as vinegar, it is of little consequence which reading is here adopted. This custom of giving stupefying potions to condemned malefactors is alluded to in Pr 31:6: Give strong drink, שקר shekar, inebriating drink, to him who is ready to PERISH, and wine to him who is BITTER of soul - because he is just going to suffer the punishment of death. And thus the rabbins, as we have seen above, understand it. See Lightfoot and Schoettgen.
Michaelis offers an ingenious exposition of this place: "Immediately after Christ was fastened to the cross, they gave him, according to Mt 27:34, vinegar mingled with gall; but, according to Mark, they offered him wine mingled with myrrh. That St. Mark's account is the right one is probable from this circumstance, that Christ refused to drink what was offered him, as appears from both evangelists. Wine mixed with myrrh was given to malefactors at the place of execution, to intoxicate them, and make them less sensible to pain. Christ, therefore, with great propriety, refused the aid of such remedies. But if vinegar was offered him, which was taken merely to assuage thirst, there could be no reason for his rejecting it. Besides, he tasted it before he rejected it; and therefore he must have found it different from that which, if offered to him, he was ready to receive. To solve this difficulty, we must suppose that the words used in the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew were such as agreed with the account given by St. Mark, and at the same time were capable of the construction which was put on them by St. Matthew's Greek translator. Suppose St. Matthew wrote חליא במרירא (chaleea bemireera) which signifies, sweet wine with bitters, or sweet wine and myrrh, as we find it in Mark; and Matthew's translator overlooked the yod י in חליא (chaleea) he took it for חלא (chala) which signifies vinegar; and bitter, he translated by χολη, as it is often used in the Septuagint. Nay, St. Matthew may have written חלא, and have still meant to express sweet wine; if so, the difference only consisted in the points; for the same word which, when pronounced chale, signifies sweet, denotes vinegar, as soon as it is pronounced chala."
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With this conjecture Dr. Marsh (Michaelis's translator) is not satisfied; and therefore finds a Chaldee word for οινος wine, which may easily be mistaken for one that denotes οξος vinegar; and likewise a Chaldee word, which signifies σμυρνα, (myrrh,) which may be easily mistaken for one that denotes χολη, (gall.) "Now," says he, "חמר (chamar) or חמרא (chamera) really denotes οινος (wine,) and חמץ (chamets) or חמצא (charnetsa) really denotes οξος (vinegar.) Again, מורא (mura) really signifies σμυρνα (myrrh,) and מררא (murera) really signifies χολη (gall.) If, then, we suppose that the original Chaldee text was חמרא הליט במורא (chamera heleet bemura) wine mingled with myrrh, which is not at all improbable, as it is the reading of the Syriac version, at Mr 15:23, it might easily have been mistaken for חמצא הליט במררא (chametsa haleet bemurera) vinegar mingled with gall." This is a more ingenious conjecture than that of Michaelis. See Marsh's notes to Michaelis, vol. iii., part 2d. p. 127-28. But as that kind of sour wine, which was used by the Roman soldiers and common people, appears to have been termed οινος, and vin aigre is sour wine, it is not difficult to reconcile the two accounts, in what is most material to the facts here recorded.
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 vv35, 37, 39, 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52 Mat 27:35-36. And they crucified him — The person…
Mat 27:35-36. And they crucified him — The person crucified was nailed to the cross as it lay on the ground, through each hand, extended to the utmost stretch, and through both the feet together. Then the cross was raised up, and the foot of it thrust with a violent shock into a hole in the ground prepared for it. This shock disjointed the body, whose whole weight hung upon the nails, till the person expired through mere dint of pain. This kind of death was used only by the Romans, and by them inflicted only on slaves and the vilest criminals. With regard to Jesus, therefore, as soon as he refused the liquor offered him, the soldiers, according to custom, stripped him quite naked, and in that condition began to fasten him to the tree. But while they were piercing his hands and his feet with the nails, instead of crying out through the acuteness of his pain according to Luk 23:34, he calmly, though fervently prayed for them, and for all who had any hand in his death, beseeching God to forgive them, and excusing them by the only circumstance that could alleviate their guilt — their ignorance. Saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This was infinite meekness and goodness, truly worthy of God’s only-begotten Son; an example of forgiveness which, though it never can be equalled by any, is fit to be imitated by all. Dr. Heylin (Theolog. Lect, p. 103) has well described our Lord’s passion, as follows: “The appointed soldiers dig the hole in which the cross was to be erected. The nails and the hammer are ready. The cross is placed on the ground, and Jesus lies down upon the bed of sorrows. They nail him to it. They erect it. His nerves crack. His blood distils. He hangs upon his wounds,” naked, “a spectacle to heaven and earth.” Thus was the only-begotten Son of God, who came down to save the world, crucified by his own creatures! Hear, O heavens!
O earth, earth, earth, hear! The Lord hath nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against him!
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And parted his garments, casting lots — When the soldiers had nailed his naked body to the cross, and raised him up upon it, they divided his garments into four parts, Joh 19:23, and cast lots for the shares. This was according to the Roman custom; among whom soldiers performed the office of executioners, and divided among them the spoils of the criminals. His coat was excepted out of this division, because, as it was without seam, they agreed to cast lots for it by itself. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, &c. — This clause, though wanting in many valuable copies of this gospel, and in several early versions, is, however, found in the parallel place of John’s gospel, to the text of which it unquestionably belongs, not being omitted by one MS. or version, or ancient commentator. As it was a practice with some transcribers to correct, and, as they imagined, improve one gospel by another, Dr. Campbell thinks it probable, that it was at first copied by some one out of John’s gospel, and inserted in this. The prophet here referred to is David, who, Psalms 22., foretold this, and several other circumstances of the Messiah’s sufferings, upward of a thousand years before they took place. And sitting down, they watched him — The Romans used also to appoint a guard to stay by the crucified persons, that none might come and take them away. And the chief priests, doubtless, would take care that this guard was set, lest any of the people, of whom they were still jealous, should rise and rescue Jesus. But Providence so ordered it, that those who were appointed to watch him, became thereby unexceptionable witnesses for him; having the opportunity to see and hear those things which extorted from them that noble confession, Mat 27:54, Truly this was the Son of God.
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 vv34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 They gave him vinegar ... - Mark says that,…
They gave him vinegar ... - Mark says that, “they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh.” The two evangelists mean the same thing. Vinegar was made of light wine rendered acid, and was the common drink of the Roman soldiers, and this might be called either vinegar or wine in common language. “Myrrh” is a bitter substance produced in Arabia, but is used often to denote anything bitter. The meaning of the name is “bitterness.” See the notes at Mat 2:11. “Gall” is properly a bitter secretion from the liver, but the word is also used to denote anything exceedingly “bitter,” as wormwood, etc. The drink, therefore, was vinegar or sour wine, rendered “bitter” by the infusion of wormwood or some other very bitter substance. The effect of this, it is said, was to stupefy the senses. It was often given to those who were crucified, to render them insensible to the pains of death. Our Lord, knowing this, when he bad tasted it refused to drink. He was unwilling to blunt the pains of dying. The “cup” which his “Father” gave him he rather chose to drink. He came to suffer. His sorrows were necessary for the work of the atonement, and he gave himself up to the unmitigated sufferings of the cross. This was presented to him in the early part of his sufferings, or when he was about to be suspended on the cross. “Afterward,” when he was on the cross and just before his death, vinegar was offered to him “without the myrrh” - the vinegar which the soldiers usually drank - and of this he drank. See Mat 27:49, and Joh 19:28-30. When Matthew and Mark say that he “would not drink,” they refer to a different thing and a different time from John, and there is no contradiction.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51 Wine ... mingled with gall.[4] The Protestants from the…
Wine ... mingled with gall.[4] The Protestants from the ordinary Greek copies, translate vinegar; but the other Greek copies have wine, which St. Jerome and St. Hilary follow. And in St. Mark all copies, without exception, have wine mixed with myrrh: perhaps myrrh, from its bitterness, is here called gall. It is also observed that wine, with a mixture of myrrh, was often given to those that were to die a violent death, to comfort them, or stupefy them. Our Saviour tasted it, but would not drink it. He refused not to taste the bitterness, but would not take what might lessen his torments. (Witham) --- St. Mark says, mingled with myrrh; perhaps it was mixed with both, to render it as bitter as possible. (St. Augustine) --- What St. Mark relates, he took it not, is thus explained: the took it not, so as to drink it; which St. Matthew confirms, by saying: and when he had tasted, he would not drink; (St. Augustine,) so as to receive the support and comfort which a strengthening draft might afford.
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Vinum cum felle mixtum. The ordinary Greek copies have, Greek: oxos meta choles; but several copies have, Greek: oinon: and all of them in St. Mark, Greek: esmurnismenon oinon. Lamy says Greek: oxos is also used for made wines.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv51–52 SIGNS AND CIRCUMSTANCES FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF THE LORD…
SIGNS AND CIRCUMSTANCES FOLLOWING THE DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS--HE IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS, AND BURIED--THE SEPULCHRE IS GUARDED. ( = Mar 15:38-47; Luk 23:47-56; Joh 19:31-42). (Mat. 27:51-66)
And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom--This was the thick and gorgeously wrought veil which was hung between the "holy place" and the "holiest of all," shutting out all access to the presence of God as manifested "from above the mercy seat and from between the cherubim"--"the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest" (Heb 9:8). Into this holiest of all none might enter, not even the high priest, save once a year, on the great day of atonement, and then only with the blood of atonement in his hands, which he sprinkled "upon and before the mercy seat seven times" (Lev 16:14) --to signify that access for sinners to a holy God is only through atoning blood. But as they had only the blood of bulls and of goats, which could not take away sins (Heb 10:4), during all the long ages that preceded the death of Christ the thick veil remained; the blood of bulls and of goats continued to be shed and sprinkled; and once a year access to God through an atoning sacrifice was vouchsafed--in a picture, or rather, was dramatically represented, in those symbolical actions--nothing more. But now, the one atoning Sacrifice being provided in the precious blood of Christ, access to this holy God could no longer be denied; and so the moment the Victim expired on the altar, that thick veil which for so many ages had been the dread symbol of separation between God and guilty men was, without a hand touching it, mysteriously "rent in twain from top to bottom"--"the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was NOW made manifest!" How emphatic the statement, from top to bottom; as if to say, Come boldly now to the Throne of Grace; the veil is clean gone; the mercy seat stands open to the gaze of sinners, and the way to it is sprinkled with the blood of Him--"who through the eternal Spirit hath offered Himself without spot to God!" Before, it was death to go in, now it is death to stay out. See more on this glorious subject on Heb 10:19-22.
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An Earthquake--The Rocks Rent--The Graves Opened, that the Saints Which Slept in Them Might Come Forth after Their Lord's Resurrection (Mat 27:51-53).
and the earth did quake--From what follows it would seem that this earthquake was local, having for its object the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves.
and the rocks rent--"were rent"--the physical creation thus sublimely proclaiming, at the bidding of its Maker, the concussion which at that moment was taking place in the moral world at the most critical moment of its history. Extraordinary rents and fissures have been observed in the rocks near this spot.
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 vv34–53 34. Vinegar to drink — The fainting prisoner was…
34. Vinegar to drink — The fainting prisoner was brought to the place of execution, and the cross was taken from the shoulder of the bearer preparatory to driving the nails into his limbs; and they offer a stupefying potion to him, according to custom, to deaden the sense of pain. Jesus tastes it, as if to accept the insulting mercy; but declines to drink it, as it would obscure the clearness of his faculties. The vinegar mingled with gall is the same as the wine mingled with myrrh, mentioned by Mark; for the wine was so sour as to be truly a vinegar, and the word for gall would stand for anything bitter, as myrrh.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv34–51 34. vinegar … mingled with gall] “Wine mingled with…
34. vinegar … mingled with gall] “Wine mingled with myrrh” (Mark). Vinegar = “sour wine” (vinaigre), or posca, such as was ordinarily drunk by the Roman soldiers. The potion was a stupefying draught given to criminals to deaden the sense of pain. “Some of the wealthy ladies of Jerusalem charged themselves with this office of mercy.” (Lightfoot, ad loc.) Jesus refuses this alleviation of His sufferings.
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 vv34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 (34) Vinegar to drink mingled with gall.—In Mar_15:23, “wine…
(34) Vinegar to drink mingled with gall.—In Mar_15:23, “wine mingled with myrrh.” The animal secretion known as “gall” is clearly out of the question, and the meaning of the word is determined by its use in the Greek version of the Old Testament, where it stands for the “wormwood” of Pro_5:4, for the poisonous herb joined with “wormwood” in Deu_29:18. It was clearly something at once nauseous and narcotic, given by the merciful to dull the pain of execution, and mixed with the sour wine of the country and with myrrh to make it drinkable. It may have been hemlock, or even poppy-juice, but there are no materials for deciding. It is probable that the offer came from the more pitiful of the women mentioned by St. Luke (Luk_23:27) as following our Lord and lamenting. Such acts were among the received “works of mercy” of the time and place. The “tasting” implied a recognition of the kindly purpose of the act, but a recognition only. In the refusal to do more than taste we trace the resolute purpose to drink the cup which His Father had given Him to the last drop, and not to dull either the sense of suffering nor the clearness of His communion with His Father with the slumberous potion. The same draught was, we may believe, offered to the two criminals who were crucified with Him.
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 vv34–53 Vers. 34-44. The Crucifixion and the mockery. (Mar_15:23-32 Luk…
Vers. 34-44. The Crucifixion and the mockery. (Mar_15:23-32 Luk 23:32-43Jo Luk_19:18-24)
Vinegar...mingled with gall (colhv). Instead of "vinegar" (oxov) very many manuscripts, followed by Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and others, read here, as in Mark, "wine" (oinon). Dederunt ei viaum bibere (Vulgate). Doubtless the two words represent the same fluid, a wine of a sharp and acrid taste. The received reading in our text is supposed to be derived from Psa_69:21, "They gave me gall for my meats, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." "Gall" here signifies some bitter ingredient (St. Mark calls it "myrrh"), which was infused in the wine to impart a narcotic quality. It was the custom to offer this draught to criminals about to undergo crucifixion, either as an anodyne or to give them adventitious strength to bear their sufferings. The beverage is said to have been prepared by some benevolent ladies in Jerusalem, and to have been owed to a gloss on Pro_31:6, Pro_31:7, "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul; let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more." This was not an additional insult offered to Jesus, as some have opined, but a usual act of kindliness. When he had tasted thereof, he would not (ouk hyele) drink. He accepted the kindly offer so far as to put his lips to the cup, but, recognizing its stupefying qualities, he refused to drink it. He willed to endure all the coming pains without mitigation; he would meet all with the powers of mind and body undarkened; he would have his senses and his self-consciousness unimpaired to the end.
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Christ refusing an opiate.
The charitable ladies of Jerusalem are said to have provided some stupefying drug for the use of condemned criminals, in order to alleviate the intolerable torments of death by crucifixion. Apparently it was this drug that some people offered to Jesus; but he refused to take it. The taste of it revealed its benumbing influence, and he would not submit to this.
I CHRIST WOULD NOT SHRINK FROM HIS ALLOTTED SUFFERING. This scene is strangely contrasted with the scene in Gethsemane but a few hours earlier. In the garden Jesus had besought God, with tears and in agony, that if possible the cup of his Passion and death might pass from him. Now he will not take the cup that brings alleviation to his sufferings. How shall we account for this difference of mental attitude? The answer is that Christ knew that it was God"s will that he should suffer. Before he had only prayed that the cup of his sufferings might pass, if it had been God"s will to release him. But he discovered that it was not God"s will. Then there was not a moment"s hesitation. Christ was human in his shrinking from pain and insult and death. But he was strong and absolutely brave in facing whatever he might have to meet in doing or in bearing the will of God. He was no weak, effeminate sufferer, as pictures of the Correggio school represent him. His courage was perfect. Manly and strong in soul, he faced death and its accompanying torments without flinching, when he saw his way led him through those horrors.
II CHRIST HAD A WORK YET TO FINISH. We are thankful for the anodyne which medical science is now able to apply to great suffering. The chloroform that renders the patient unconscious during a surgical operation, and the morphia that relieves acute pain, are welcomed as gifts of God. Surely it cannot be wrong to employ such things. There is no merit in the mere endurance of pain. But in our Lord"s case there was much more to be considered than the suffering of a painful death. He had a testimony to bear. His words from the cross are among the most precious memorials of his earthly ministry. He could not say, "It is finished!" until he was about to bow his head and give up the ghost. Therefore he felt it necessary to preserve his consciousness to the last. Then his suffering was itself a part of his work. The way in which he endured what was laid upon him entered into the very process of his atoning sacrifice. As our great High Priest, he was made perfect through suffering. (Heb_5:8, Heb_5:9) Would he have been the perfect Christ he was if he had left one drop of the bitter cup? If he had taken the opiate which would have allayed his pains at the expense of his consciousness, would he have made the complete atonement for sin? If it is too much to say "Yes" to these questions, at least we may see that his great and awful work could only have been accomplished by the willing and conscious surrender of himself, and this surrender would have been obscured to our view if he had accepted the offered relief. Thus we see how to the very last he would not care for himself, how he gave himself utterly in suffering and death for the world"s redemption. W.F.A.
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 vv38, 39, 45, 46, 48, 50, 51 Two thieves crucified with Him.
Mat_27:38
Two thieves crucified with Him.
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Jesus between two robbers
I. The moral condition of these men before crucifixion-Robbers. They are also called malefactors. At the earlier stage of the proceedings these two men were equally depraved.
II. The moral condition of these men after they were affixed to the cross. In the case of one-
1. There was a beholding of the crucified Jesus.
2. There was a perception of his own sinfulness and of the purity of Christ.
3. There is a prayer for a participation in all that Christ has to offer.
4. His acceptance promised by Jesus. The other sinner mocks our Lord. The men the same at first, but now how changed the condition of one.
III. The position these two robbers occupied in respect to Christ.
1. Christ is placed on the central cross. He was first suspended on the cross by the cruel malignity of men.
2. That Christs sufferings were for all men. He was crucified between two, not on one side.
3. These robbers were the representative men of the world.
4. You may perish with Christ close beside you. (G. Venables.)
The three crosses
I. There may be the same outward circumstances where there is the greatest inward diversity.
II. We have no choice as to the fact of suffering: our choice refers only to its nature. Each has his own cross: Christ was not without one. The wicked have their woes.
1. The sufferings of the good are consoled.
2. The sufferings of the good are limited-For a season.
III. The means used for Christs disgrace promote His glory. Satan was wounded by his own weapon: and the robber designed to insult our Lord was saved. Thus temptation is turned to good ends. (T. R. Stevenson.)
Christ dying amid thieves
There then are the two stories (of the thieves and of Jesus). See how far apart they begin. One in the innocence of perfect holiness; the other in the blackest wickedness. And then see how they meet at last. As when a black and turbid stream goes hurrying towards a caverns gloom, into which it is destined to plunge itself oat of sight, and just before it reaches its dark doom, a pure fresh river that was born among the snows in the sunlight on the mountains top, and has sung its way down through flowers, drops its quiet, transparent waters down into the tumultuous current, and shares its plunge, so the pure holiness of Christ fell into the stream of human wickedness, and shared its fate. (Phillips Brooks.)
The penitent thief
The different effects the judgments of God have upon the minds of men. The wisdom of God in setting the examples of His justice and mercy so near together, and has taught us to fear without despair, and to hope without presumption. What would the dying sinner give to have his Saviour so near him in his last moments.
I. Let us see the circumstances which distinguish it from that of the dying Christian.
1. In all this there may be nothing resembling a death-bed repentance. The dying thief seems to have heard and known much about the character of Christ: he had elsewhere learnt His dignity and was persuaded of the truth of His mission. And what is this to them who have no desire to lie down Christians upon their death-beds, though they would willingly go off penitents.
2. Suppose this great work were begun and finished on the cross, yet it cannot be drawn into example by Christian sinners; because the conversion of a Jew or a heathen is one thing, and the repentance of a Christian another.
3. The profligate life of this unconverted sinner was not attended with such aggravated circumstances as the sins of Christians are. He sinned against the light of nature and reason only. The greater his weakness was, the fitter object for mercy was he. Not the same excuses for Christians.
II. But there are other circumstances fit to be observed which render a death-bed repentance very insecure and dangerous, though we should allow it all the hopes which have been raised from the case before us.
1. He that sins in hopes of repentance at last, may sin so far as to grow hardened and obdurate, and imcapable of repentance when the time cosines. Nor is it in your own power to sin to what degree you please; habits grow insensibly. There is more reason to fear that sin indulged will get the better of you, than you of it.
2. Could you preserve your resolutions of repentance, yet still it is not in your own power to secure an opportunity to execute them. The thief on the cross died by the hand of justice, knew how long he had to live; he had no pretence to defer his repentance.
3. His death not being the effect of disease, but of the judges sentence, he brought with him to the cross, which you may call his death-bed, a sound body and mind. He had his senses perfectly, his reason fresh, and was capable of faith and acts of devotion. How different is the case of the languishing sinner. How can one know His Saviour who cannot know even his own luther at such a time. (T. Sherlock, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 34. They gave him wine to drink mingled with…
34. They gave him wine to drink mingled with gall. A stupefying drink, intended to lessen suffering. He would not drink. The “tasting” implied a recognition of the kindly purpose of the act, but a recognition only. In the refusal to do more than taste, we trace the resolute purpose to drink the cup which his Father had given him to the last drop.
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 vv35, 45 Mat_27:35. That it might be fulfilled, etc.—Omitted in R.V.…
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat_27:35. That it might be fulfilled, etc.—Omitted in R.V. It ought not to be questioned that the words were interpolated by the copyists, from Joh_19:24 (Scrivener).
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Mat_27:36. They watched Him there.—See R.V. They remained on guard over Him.
Mat_27:37. His accusation—This was what was technically known as the titulus—the bill, or placard, showing who the condemned person was, and why he was punished (Plumptre).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_27:35-44
On the cross.—After a long approach to the cross, we stand, in this passage, as it were, at its foot. What is the real nature—what was the supposed nature—of the Sight we see there?
I. Its true nature and force.—On the one side, this is almost too plain. The cross itself, for example, tells of nothing but shame. It was the death of the outlaw, the villain, the slave. No Roman citizen, do what he might, could be put to death in that way. Every one recognised it as involving a “curse” (Gal_3:13). What was seen in front of the cross also testified the same thing. The garments belonging to a crucified man were the usual perquisites of those who put him to death. This mark of shame also was not omitted in the case of our Lord. As prophecy had noted of Him beforehand in this particular as in so many others, so it was done (Mat_27:35). Nor was there wanting testimony of the same kind on each side of His cross. On either side of Him there hung those who were known to be guilty of crime (Mat_27:38); and guilty of such crime, moreover, as made them fully worthy even of that infamous death (Luk_23:41). So plain was it so far that He was being treated then as one of the worst of mankind. On the other side, however, there was that in this sight which was correspondingly dark and occult. What was the meaning, e.g., of that conspicuous “title” which stood over His head? The usual purport of such inscriptions was an affirmation of guilt. They set forth in plain language the particular enormity for which the culprit beneath them had been condemned to that death. In this case, however, there was in reality (Mat_27:37) no “accusation” at all. The chief priests, we are told (Joh_19:21), had noted this with no little concern. They had even besought Pilate in consequence—but besought him in vain—to have that “title” changed in some way (ibid., Mat_27:22). So significant did this peculiarity seem as well in his eyes as in theirs. It was simply repeating what he had said all along (Mat_27:23-24). That is why he kept to it still. Nor does it seem to have been less important, it is to be noticed next, in the eyes of all who tell us the tale. The precise words objected to and yet retained, are put down as these: “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” It is worthy of note that all the four Evangelists, comparatively brief as all their accounts are, tell us of this title. It is as worthy of note that no two of them do so in quite the same words. It is more worthy of note that, notwithstanding these obvious dissimilarities between them, they all agree in comprising in their descriptions of the title, the above-specified words. In all these ways, therefore, we are pointed to them as specially worthy of note. And we can see, also, for ourselves, that they are so in a kind of mysterious way, when we compare them with those other plain points which we noted before. Taken in combination with these, how surprising indeed is the language spoken by this virtual acquittal of Christ! How extraordinary and perplexing the announcement it makes! An acknowledged King numbered with malefactors! Perfect innocence dying as guilt! God’s Holy One in the position of the worst of mankind!
II. Its supposed nature, as seen at the time.—What was thought of it, in the first place, by the ordinary observer? Such would be those mere “passers-by” of whom we read in Mat_27:39—men who had taken no special part in bringing about the crucifixion of Jesus, but had heard something of the particulars of the case from common report, and had connected these with what they now saw. To them the contrast would be so violent as to be even a matter of jest (see Mat_27:40). That is all that they would see in that sight; a pretentious career, brought to an ignominious—not to say a ridiculous—end. Not unlike this were the thoughts of those who were most accountable for that sight. To them what they saw was only convincing proof of what they had all along said. A complete answer, e.g., to all the miracles which were said to have been wrought by His power. Even if such things were true, they were fully disposed of as proofs of His mission by this total absence of miraculous power at a time like the present, which clearly called for it most. So also of His recent pretension (ch. 21, etc.) to be King of the Jews. That was equally disposed of by His present inability to come down from the cross. And so, finally, even of the very piety that had been heard in His words. If that were a real thing, why did God now let Him remain on that cross (see Mat_27:42-43)? All that they saw, in short, was, in their judgment, simply condemnation of Him! And even those, lastly, who were suffering with Him saw nothing more in that sight; nothing more, at first, although one of the two saw much more indeed in the end (Luk_23:39-43). But, for the time present, in the eyes of both of them, there was nothing but despair in that “sight.” Even these miscreants only saw in it evidence that He was as bad as themselves! Did they not imply, indeed, by the “reproaches” they “cast on Him,” that He was even worse than themselves?
The story furnishes us with illustrations:—
1. Of the utter blindness of sin.—Two vivid truths, as we have seen, were inscribed on that cross: innocence, on the one hand; guilt, on the other. All the eyes of all the sinners who gazed on it, saw only the latter. The light of the former was but darkness to them.
2. Of the partial blindness, even of faith.—How many Christians there are who do not see to this day the full “guilt” of the cross! The guilt implied in the fact that Christ ever came to that cross! And that, being there, He was allowed to remain there, both by God and Himself? Why else was it that He did not reply to His enemies by coming down from the cross? Surely it was sin, though not His own sin, which kept Him up there!
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_27:35. Christ’s sufferings unique.—The unique character of Christ’s sufferings lies—
1. In the contrast between His heavenly healthiness and sensibility and this hellish torture.
2. In the contrast between His holiness, innocence, philanthropy and Divine dignity, and this experiencing of human contempt, rejection, and of apparent abandonment by God. Above all,
3. In His sympathy with humanity, which changes this judgment to which the world was surrendered into His own, and so transforms it into a vicarious suffering.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
Crucifixion.—Dr. Christian F. G. Richter, a pious physician of the Orphan House in Halle, who died in 1711, thus describes the physical sufferings of the crucifixion:
1. On account of the unnatural and immovable position of the body and the violent extension of the arms, the least motion produced the most painful sensation all over the body, but especially on the lacerated back and the pierced members.
2. The nails caused constantly increasing pain on the most sensitive parts of the hands and feet.
3. Inflammation set in at the pierced members and wherever the circulation of the blood was obstructed by the violent tension of the body, and increased the agony and an intolerable thirst.
4. The blood rushed to the head and produced the most violent headache.
5. The blood in the lungs accumulated, pressing the heart, swelling all the veins, and caused nameless anguish. Loss of blood through the open wounds would have shortened the pain; but the blood clotted and ceased flowing. Death generally set in slowly, the muscles, veins, and nerves gradually growing stiff, and the vital powers shrinking from exhaustion.
Gambling.—Look upon the picture presented in this verse, and endeavour to realise its frightful significance. There is nothing that can subdue the passion of the hardened gambler. Never, perhaps, did the hideousness of the gambling mania receive a more tragic illustration. We are apt to think that the more frantic forms of gambling are past incidents in the world’s history. Whenever we wish to glorify the nineteenth century we choose the eighteenth as a convenient preface. The picture of gambling in the eighteenth century is as bad as it is possible to conceive. It was the century in which Charles James Fox ruined himself with gambling debts, the century in which family after family with historic names were dishonoured, broken up, destroyed, by gambling follies. Gambling, no doubt, at the present day is more decorously conducted, but it is even more universally practised now than in the eighteenth century. But what is gambling? Here is the definition of it which is given us by the first philosopher of our time; and you who do not respect the Bible will at least respect, perhaps, the intellectual thoughts of Herbert Spencer. “Gambling is a kind of action by which pleasure is obtained at the cost of pain to another. It affords no equivalent to the general good; the happiness of the winner implies the misery of the loser.” The desire to possess money is a natural and not necessarily a pernicious desire. But two things must be remembered: first, to get money by honourable means; and second, that any possession of money which does not contribute to the common social good is infamous and evil. This is the indictment that I would bring against gambling:—
I. It renders men morally callous.—hardens them as no other vice does; it shuts their eyes to almost all the things that are beautiful in life; it fills them with a frantic passion for gain.
II. It destroys the very radical principles of honour and honesty.—There is a form of business—if it may be called by that honoured name—on the Stock Exchange, which is nothing but gambling.
III. It excites the fatal passion of cupidity.
Conclusion.—To get money without work is always a perilous thing. You see it in the spendthrift who inherits money from a penurious father, and who gets rid of it with all the rapidity he can. There is a proverb in Lancashire that “From shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves is only three generations,” and it is a proverb which applies to many places besides Lancashire. But it is far worse to get money by gambling. All sense of pleasure or value in the possession of money is lost when it is got by gambling, when a man finds by a little craft and cunning it is possible for him to float like scum on the surface of society and to have no root down in anything. It unsettles the mind, it destroys intellectual taste. I defy any youth who has once acquired a passion for gambling to apply his mind to any study, any hard task that will better him in mind and which will raise him in society. It destroys self-respect. It renders you, sooner or later, morally callous, spiritually deaf. And it is not surprising that it does all this when we recollect that in the light of the teaching of Jesus Christ it is a profoundly immoral act; for the teaching of Jesus Christ is that money is a stewardship.—W. J. Dawson.
The degradation of gambling.—Charles Dickens was not a Puritanical or Pharisaical writer, was he? Read what he has to say upon Doncaster races as he saw them. George Eliot was not a Puritanical or a Pharisaical writer. Read her description of the gambling tables which you will find in Daniel Deronda. Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Hardy are novelists who have not yet been accused of being Puritanical or Pharisaical. Two of the most extraordinary chapters in the greatest books of these artists are chapters which describe what Stevenson calls “the disgusting vice of gambling.” And the daily papers are not over Puritanical or Pharisaical; they simply chronicle the time. But even the Press has become frightened at last with the horrible growth of cupidity which is being fostered at the present hour by those who ought to know better, for they profess to provide journals which elevate and instruct and amuse. Or, if you do not care to take evidence of this kind, go and see for yourselves. Look at the sort of faces that one sees on the racecourse—the bestial, the foxy, the degraded. Travel in the same railway-carriage with habitual gamblers and hear what their talk is like. I stayed, some time ago, in one of the fairest of English cathedral cities. My friend, who is certainly not a Puritan, looking at the broad stretch beyond the city wall, said, “In a few weeks that green turf will be covered with the scum of the earth, with faces which haunt you afterwards like a dream of hell.” Is that strong language? No stronger than the language which Charles Dickens used about Doncaster racecourse. I have known such mad debauches after races, such diabolical impurities, that they are unnameable; they are all but unutterable. The gambling passion is the most insensate of all passions; it does more to render the heart callous than any other; it does not end with itself, but incites into diabolical activity every lust and passion of depravity; and the soldiers gambling at the feet of the dying Christ afford us just the type of moral deformity to which the lust of unearned gain reduces men.—Ibid.
Mat_27:34-35. The inhumanity of man.—The Roman soldiers sat down at the foot of the cross. Some one of them took the dice out of his pocket, which was carried commonly by all Romans of that class. Another produced a bottle of cheap sour wine. There, beneath the shadow of the cross, with the blood trickling down from the burning arms and feet of the Crucified, they drank and gambled for the garments of the One that died to save them. I know not where you will find in history a more striking illustration of the inhumanity of man than in that scene—the drinking and the gambling at the foot of Christ’s cross.—L. Abbott, D.D.
Mat_27:36. The Roman soldiers on guard.—They were a little tired with their march and their work, and they had to stop there on guard for an indefinite time, with nothing to do but two more prisoners to crucify; so they take a rest, and idly keep watch over Him till He shall die. How possible it is to look at Christ’s sufferings, and see nothing! These rude legionaries gazed for hours on what has touched the world ever since, and what angels desired to look into, and saw nothing but a dying Jew. They thought about the worth of the clothes, or about how long they would have to stop there, and, in the presence of the most stupendous fact in the world’s history, were all unmoved. We, too, may gaze on the cross, and see nothing.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mat_27:37. The inscription on the cross.—A better inscription for the cross the Apostles themselves could not have devised. “This is Jesus,” the Saviour—the Name above every name. How it must have cheered the Saviour’s heart to know that it was there! “This is Jesus, the King,” never more truly King than when this writing was His only crown. “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,” despised and rejected of them now, but Son of David none the less, and yet to be claimed and crowned and rejoiced in, when at last “all Israel shall be saved.”—J. M. Gibson, D.D.
Mat_27:39-43. The scoffing wayfarers.—The passers-by were representative men.—
I. Reason of their conduct.—
1. Christ was unpopular—they went with the stream.
2. It gratified their vanity—“we are wise, open-eyed men.”
3. They felt the bitterest hatred—practical Christianity always repulsive.
II. The heinousness of their conduct.—
1. They misrepresented His words.
2. They derided His claims.
3. They jested at His agonies.
III. The folly of their conduct.—
1. Thought there was force in their argument.
2. Imagined themselves secure.
3. What did they gain?
IV. Treatment their conduct received.—Silence.
1. The disciples did not denounce them.
2. Nor did the crowd protest.
3. Nor did Jesus speak—His public sayings were ended; He is silent, but observant (see Mat_12:36.)—Stems and Twigs.
Mat_27:39. Running with the stream!—How many of these scoffers, to whom death cast no shield round the Object of their poor taunts, had shouted themselves hoarse on the Monday, and waved palm branches that were not withered yet! What had made the change? There was no change. They were running with the stream in both their hosannas and their jeers, and the one were worth as much as the other. They had been tutored to cry, “Blessed is He that cometh!” and now they were tutored to repeat what had been said at the trial about destroying the temple. The worshippers of success are true to themselves when they mock at failure.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mat_27:40. The first prayer to the Crucified One.—I. Think of the speech as spoken by those who were passing by.—Their complete phrase was, “If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” It was no easy thing for these men to believe that Christ was the Son of God.
II. Think of this challenge as spoken by the leaders of the people.—It is plain that their minds were not easy. The mental questions would arise: “Have we gone too far? Is it possible that we have made a tremendous mistake? What if, after all, this should be the Christ of God, the King of Israel?” To keep down their doubts, to keep up their courage, they drew together in close conference, and talked one to another in answer to unspoken language of horrible misgiving and surmise. “Is that the Saviour? He cannot save Himself—that the King! He is not even King over that cross.”
III. Think of the cry as spoken by the soldiers.—For them the word “Christ” was jargon; the word “Israel” had no meaning; but the word “King” roused them to a rough and terrible play. To them it was rare sport to make believe that this was a coronation day, and grimly ridiculous to speak of a king crowned with thorns, and nailed upon his throne; and they, therefore, caught up the banter, and joined in the chorus of infamy.
IV. Think of this cry as joined in by one, if not both, of the malefactors.—It is at least certain that one of the dying men struck in with the cruel cry.
A storm of voices rang out the call, “Come down from the cross.” The only answer to this exasperating demand was a kingly, expressive silence.
1. It was the silence of power.
2. The silence of intensity in resistance of temptation.
3. He was silent because it was a moral impossibility that He should have come down from the cross.
4. It was the silence of One who was doing a great work, and who would not stop to answer trivial words about it.—C. Stanford, D.D.
Mat_27:42. Christ’s enemies condemned out of their own mouth.—
I. Their affirmation.—Sublimely true, and it condemns them. “He saved others.” This testimony condemns them:—
1. For their base ingratitude.
2. For their daring impiety.
II. Their denial.—Gloriously true, and it condemns them. “Himself He cannot save.” In the Divinest sense He could not save Himself. His moral weakness here is His glory. He could not, because He had undertaken to die, and He could not break His word. He could not, because the salvation of the world depended upon His death. The greatest man on earth is the man who cannot be unkind, etc. The glory of the omnipotent God is that He cannot lie. Learn:
1. The worst men may give utterance to the greatest truths. These murderers of Christ here proclaim
(1) Christ as a Saviour: “He saved others “;
(2) Christ as a Sacrifice: “Himself He cannot save.” Not a coerced sacrifice, but a voluntary one.
2. The best men are often most glorious in their weakness. “Himself He cannot save.” Godly tradesmen are too weak to make fortunes at the expense of honesty, etc. The grandest man on earth is the man who is too weak to be untrue, ungenerous, and self-seeking.—Homilist.
The cross a throne.—O blind leaders of the blind! that death which seemed to them to shatter His royalty really established it. His cross is His throne of saving power, by which He sways hearts and wills, and because of it He receives from the Father universal dominion, and every knee shall bow to Him. It is just because He did not come down from it that we believe on Him. On His head are many crowns; but, however many they be, they all grow out of the crown of thorns. The true kingship is absolute command over willingly submitted spirits; and it is His death which bows us before Him in raptures of glad love; which counts submission, liberty, and sacrifice blessed. He has the right to command because He has given Himself for us, and His death wakes all-surrendering and all-expecting faith.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
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 vv35, 39, 45, 51 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 vv36, 41, 44, 51
Matthew
THE CRUCIFIXION
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THE BLIND WATCHERS AT THE CROSS
Mat 27:36.
Our thoughts are, rightly, so absorbed by the central Figure in this great chapter that we pass by almost unnoticed the groups round the cross. And yet there are large lessons to be learned from each of them. These rude soldiers, four in number, as we infer from John’s Gospel, had no doubt joined with their comrades in the coarse mockery which preceded the sad procession to Calvary; and then they had to do the rough work of the executioners, fastening the sufferers to the rude wooden crosses, lifting these, with their burden, filing them into the ground, then parting the raiment. And when all that is done they sit stolidly down to take their ease at the foot of the cross, and idly to wait, with eyes that look and see nothing, until the sufferers die. A strange picture; and a strange thing to think of, how they were so close to the great event in the world’s history, and had to stare at it for three or four hours, and never saw anything!
The lessons that the incident teaches us may be very simply gathered together.
I. First we infer from this the old truth of how ignorant men are of the real meaning and outcome of what they do.
These four Roman soldiers were foreigners; I suppose that they could not speak a word to a man in that crowd. They had no means of communication with them. They had had plenty of practice in crucifying Jews. It was part of their ordinary work in these troublesome times, and this was just one more. Think of what a corporal’s guard of rough English soldiers, out in Northern India, would think if they were bidden to hang a native who was charged with rebellion against the British Government. So much, and not one whit more, did these men know of what they were doing; and they went back to their barracks, stolid and unconcerned, and utterly ignorant of what they had been about.
But in part it is so with us all, though in less extreme fashion. None of us know the real meaning, and none of us know the possible issues and outcome of a great deal of our lives. We are like people sowing seed in the dark; it is put into our hands and we sow. We do the deed; this end of it is in our power, but where it runs out to, and what will come of it, lie far beyond our ken. We are compassed about, wherever we go, by this atmosphere of mystery, and enclosed within a great ring of blackness.
And so the simple lesson to be drawn from that clear fact, about all our conduct, is this-let results alone. Never mind about what you cannot get hold of; you cannot see to the other end, and you have nothing to do with it. You can see this end; make that right. Be sure that the motive is right, and then into whatever unlooked-for consequences your act may run out at the further end, you will be right. Never mind what kind of harvest is coming out of your deeds, you cannot forecast it. ‘Thou soweth not that body that shall be, but bare grain. . .. God giveth it a body as it pleaseth Him.’ Let alone that profitless investigation, the attempt to fashion and understand either the significance or the issues of your conduct, and stick fast by this-look after your motive for doing it, and your temper in doing it; and then be quite sure, ‘Thou shalt find it after many days,’ and the fruit will be ‘unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.’
II. Take another very simple and equally plain lesson from this incident, viz., the limitation of responsibility by knowledge.
These men, as I said, were ignorant of what they were doing, and, therefore, they were guiltless. Christ Himself said so: ‘They know not what they do.’ But it is marvellous to observe that whilst the people who stood round the cross, and were associated in the act that led Jesus there, had all degrees of responsibility, the least guilty of the whole were the men who did the actual work of nailing Him to the cross, and lifting it with Him upon it. These soldiers were not half as much to blame as were many of the men that stood by; and just in the measure in which the knowledge or the possibility of knowledge increased, just in that measure did the responsibility increase. The high priest was a great deal more to blame than the Roman soldiers. The rude tool that nailed Christ to the cross, the hammer that was held in the hand of the legionary, was almost as much to blame as the hand that wielded it. For the hand that wielded it had very little more knowledge than it had.
In so far as it was possible that these men might have known something of what they were doing, in so far were they to blame; but remember what a very, very little light could possibly have shone upon these souls. If there is no light there cannot be any shadow; and if these men were, as certainly they were, all but absolutely ignorant, and never could have been anything else, of what they were doing, then they were all but absolutely guiltless. And so you come to this, which is only a paradox to superficial thinkers, that the men that did the greatest crime in the whole history of the world, did it with all but clean hands; and the people that were to be condemned were those who delivered ‘the Just One’ into the hands of more lawless, and therefore less responsible, men.
So here is the general principle, that as knowledge and light rise and fall, so responsibility rises and falls along with them. And therefore let us be thankful that we have not to judge one another, but that we have all to stand before that merciful and loving tribunal of the God who is a God of knowledge, and by whom actions are weighed, as the Old Book has it-not counted, but weighed. And let us be thankful, too, that we may extend our charity to all round us, and refrain from thinking of any man or woman that we can pronounce upon their criminality, because we do not know the light in which they walk.
III. And now the last lesson, and the one that I most desire to lay upon your hearts, is this, how possible it is to look at Christ on the cross, and see nothing.
For half a day there they sat, and it was but a dying Jew that they saw, one of three. A touch of pity came into their hearts once or twice, alternating to mockery, which was not savage because it was simply brutal; but when it was all over, and they had pierced His side, and gone away back to their barracks, they had not the least notion that they, with their dim, purblind eyes, had been looking at the most stupendous miracle in the whole world’s history, had been gazing at the thing into which angels desired to look; and had seen that to which the hearts and the gratitude of unconverted millions would turn for all eternity. They laid their heads down on their pillows that night and did not know what had passed before their eyes, and they shut the eyes that had served them so ill, and went to sleep, unconscious that they had seen the pivot on which the whole history of humanity had turned; and been the unmoved witnesses of ‘God manifest in the flesh,’ dying on the cross for the whole world, and for them. What should they have seen if they had seen the reality? They should have seen not a dying rebel but a dying Christ; they should have looked with emotion, they should have looked with faith, they should have looked with thankfulness.
Any one who looks at that cross, and sees nothing but a pure and perfect man dying upon it, is very nearly as blind as the Roman legionaries. Any one to whom it is only an example of perfect innocence and patient suffering has only seem an inch into the Infinite; and the depths of it are as much concealed from him as they were from them. Any one who looks with an unmoved heart, without one thrill of gratitude, is nearly as blind as the rough soldiers. He that looks and does not say-
‘My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of Thine;
While like a penitent I stand
And there confess my sin,’
has not learned more of the meaning of the Cross than they did. And any one who looks to it, and then turns away and forgets, or who looks at it and fails to recognise in it the law of his own life and pattern for his own conduct, has yet to see more deeply into it before he sees even such portion of its meaning as here we can apprehend.
Oh! dear friends, we all of us, as the apostle says in one of his letters, have had this Christ ‘manifestly set forth before us as if painted upon a placard upon a wall’ {for that is the meaning of the picturesque words that he employs}. And if we look with calm, unmoved hearts; if we look without personal appropriation of that Cross and dying love to ourselves, and if we look without our hearts going out in thankfulness and laying themselves at His feet in a calm rapture of life-long devotion, then we need not wonder that four ignorant heathen men sat and looked at Him for four long hours and saw nothing, for we are as blind as ever they were.
You say, ‘We see.’ Do you see? Do you look? Does the look touch your hearts? Have you fathomed the meaning of the fact? Is it to you the sacrifice of the living Christ for your salvation? Is it to you the death on which all your hopes rest? You say that you see. Do you see that in it? Do you see your only ground of confidence and peace? And do you so see that, like a man who has looked at the sun for a moment or two, when you turn away your head you carry the image of what you beheld still stamped on your eyeball, and have it both as a memory and a present impression? So is the cross photographed on your heart; and is it true about us that every day, and all days, we behold our Saviour, and beholding Him are being changed into His likeness? Is it true about us that we thus bear about with us in the body ‘the dying of the Lord Jesus’? If we look to Him with faith and love, and make His Cross our own, and keep it ever in our memory, ever before us as an inspiration and a hope and a joy and a pattern, then we see. If not, ‘for judgment am I come into the world, that they which see not may see, and that they which see might be made blind.’ For what men are so blind to the infinite pathos and tenderness, power, mystery, and miracle of the Cross, as the men and women who all their lives long have heard a Gospel which has been held up before their lack-lustre eyes, and have looked at it so long that they cannot see it any more?
Let us pray that our eyes may be purged, that we may see, and seeing may copy, that dying love of the ever-loving Lord.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv35, 45 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 vv37, 46, 50, 51, 52 This is
This is
Cf Mar 15:26; Luk 23:38; Joh 19:19 These accounts supplement, but do not contradict one another. No one of the Evangelists quotes the entire inscription. All have "The King of the Jews." Luke adds to this the further words, "This is"; Matthew quotes the name, "Jesus"; whilst John gives the additional words "of Nazareth." The narratives combined give the entire inscription: "This is Matthew, Luke Jesus Matthew,John of Nazareth John the King of the Jews" all.
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 vv38, 45, 50 The taunts of the people:
The taunts of the people:
v. 38. Then were there two thieves crucified with Him, one on the right hand and another on the left.
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v. 39. And they that passed by Revelation led Him, wagging their heads
v. 40. and saying, Thou that destroyest the Temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself.
If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.
v. 41. Likewise also the chief priests mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said,
v. 42. He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.
v. 43. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him, for He said, I am the Son of God.
v. 44. The thieves also which were crucified with Him cast the same in His teeth.
Christ was numbered with the criminals, with the transgressors. Isa 53:12. On either side of Him were suspended men that had committed crimes worthy of death. And here the sinless Son of God, by His obedience to the will of the Father for the redemption of the world, was guilty with them, yea, a thousand, a millionfold more guilty than they. The pains of the cross were intensified by the taunting remarks of the people that thronged out from the city to see the spectacle, most of them still in a bloodthirsty mood, some brought by morbid curiosity, some few in a feeling of sincere affection and sympathy. The large majority improved the occasion after the manner of similar mobs the world over: They shook their heads, not merely in disapproval or in malignant joy, Psa 22:7; Job 16:4; Psa 109:25; Isa 37:22, but as over one whose sound intelligence one is inclined to doubt; they quoted His prophecy concerning the temple of His body, in its garbled form, a prophecy which was even then being fulfilled before their eyes, and urged Him to save Himself and to step down from the cross. To this blasphemy of the members of the mob was added the mockery of the leaders of the Jewish Church, who on this occasion so far forgot their dignity and fear of pollution as to come out and enjoy their supposed triumph, the tortures of Him whom they foolishly considered their victim. They concede that He saved others, they blasphemously conclude that He cannot save Himself. Let Him prove His claim of being the Messiah by stepping down from the cross, whereupon they would gladly believe on Him. They were totally blind in not understanding that such an attempt, if undertaken by Jesus, would utterly frustrate the entire work of redemption. It was necessary for Him to suffer to the end, if full atonement should be made. Even the criminals, the murderers on the other crosses, joined in the maledictions heaped upon Christ, until one of them was led to repentance by the influence of the Lord’s patience, Luk 23:40-43.
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 vv35, 38, 41, 43, 45, 48, 51 his garments
his garments
These were the clothes Jesus had been wearing. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
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the charge against him
"a written explanation of why he was being crucified"
translationWords
crucify
lots
King of the Jews
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv34, 35, 37, 38, 40, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52 27:34 Giving Jesus wine mixed with bitter gall was…
27:34 Giving Jesus wine mixed with bitter gall was probably intended for ridicule (see Ps 69:21). It was also a sedative—Jesus probably rejected it in order to suffer fully for our sins (see Isa 53:10). • Gall, otherwise known as wormwood, is a bitter narcotic made from the oil of Artemisia (cp. Mark 15:23).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.