John 19

CHAPTER XIX

4. The Final Attempt to Release Jesus, 19:1–16

John 19:1

1 Each of the synoptists mentions in one breath the release of Barabbas and the sentencing of Jesus to the cross. Matthew and Mark insert the scourging by means of only one word, the participle φραγελλώσας. This compactness of narration leads some to think that Pilate ordered the three acts simultaneously: the release, the crucifixion, and the scourging. They substantiate this view by a mass of evidence which shows that scourging always preceded crucifixion. Yet the point to be established is the opposite: in the case of Jesus we must be shown that crucifixion always followed scourging. This, of course, none attempt to show.

It is John who clears up this matter, as he does so many others. He records the events in detail. From him we learn that Jesus was not scourged in order to be crucified but in order to escape crucifixion.

After briefly telling us that Pilate’s attempt to save Jesus through Barabbas saved only Barabbas through Jesus, John tells us, not that Pilate ordered Jesus to be crucified, but to be scourged. From Luke 23:16 we learn that before the attempt to save Jesus through Barabbas failed, Pilate had offered to scourge Jesus and then to let him go free. After this failure Pilate, without agreement with the Jews and solely on his own initiative, orders the scourging of which he had already thought. He even lets his soldiers stage a mockery of this King of the Jews. Why this strange procedure? In order to satisfy the Jews so that they may turn away from the wretched figure, a man who is too helpless and too ridiculous to give another thought to.

But this time Pilate’s effort to save Jesus more than fails. At sight of Jesus, scourged and dressed as a mock king, the Jews find the word that forces Pilate to complete surrender (v. 12). Thus at last Pilate is driven to order the crucifixion (v. 16). And John solemnly notes both the place where the order was given and the hour when the fatal word was spoken.

Barabbas was released. Then Pilate, therefore, took Jesus and scourged him. By means of οὗν, as well as by means of τότε John connects the scourging of Jesus with the release of Barabbas; we now see why John had to make at least brief mention of Barabbas. We cannot suppose that already now the order for the crucifixion was issued. That would have been the main order, if this procedure had been usual, and John could not have taken it for granted as merely accompanying the scourging. He might have recorded the order to crucify, taking for granted that this included scourging; he could not do the reverse. Not until the object of the scourging and the mockery failed did Pilate consent to crucify Jesus.

Whereas Matthew and Mark devote only one word to the scourging, John writes a complete sentence although it is necessarily brief. He adds a circumstantial verb, “took,” thereby lending more weight to the main verb “scourged,” which it also most certainly deserves. Both verbs are causative, R. 801: “had him taken and had him scourged,” Pilate issuing the order. The two synoptists use φραγελλοῦν, the Latin flagellare; John has the original Greek term μαστιγοῦν. Stripped of clothes, the body was bent forward across a low pillar, the back stretched and exposed to the blows. To hold the body in position the victim’s hands must have been tied to rings in the floor or at the base of the pillar in front and the feet to rings behind.

We cannot agree that the hands were tied behind the man’s back, for this would place them across the small of the back where some of the blows were to fall and would shield the ribs where the whipends were to lacerate the flesh. The Romans did not use rods, as the Jews did, each rod making only one stripe, cutting only the back; they used short-handled whips, each provided with several leather lashes, ugly acorn-shaped pieces of lead or lumps of bone being fastened to the end of each short lash. The strokes were laid on with full force, and when the executioners tired, the officers shouted: Adde virgas! (Livy 26, 16), or: Firme! (Suetonius, Caligula 26), demanding more force. The effect was horrible. The skin and the flesh of the back were gashed to the very bone, and where the armed ends of the lashes struck, deep, bloody holes were torn. When Jesus, the son of Ananus, who cried woe over Jerusalem, was scourged by the procurator Albinus, “he was whipped until his bones were laid bare,” Josephus, Wars, 6, 6, 3.

In Smyrna just before Polycarp’s martyrdom a number of other martyrs were scourged until, as Eusebius 4, 15 reports, the deepest veins and the arteries were exposed, and even the inner organs of the body were seen.

None of the evangelists gives a description of the scourging of Jesus. We do not know how many blows he received. In trying to visualize this ordeal we are left to such outside data as we are able to secure, and then we know that the details we imagine are only probability and no more. One detail seems certain, namely that the scourging took place outside of the Praetorium before the eyes of Pilate and in full view of the Jews; for in reporting the mockery that followed both Matthew and Mark state that for this ordeal Jesus was taken into the Praetorium, Mark specifying the αὑλή or courtyard which was roomy enough to accomodate the entire cohort. To the scourging must be attributed the fact that Jesus died after being only six hours on the cross; also his breaking down under the weight of the cross on the way to Calvary.

John 19:2

2 Matthew and Mark narrate the mockery as a separate event; by the way in which he combines the scourging and the mockery John informs us that these two acts go together, the one not merely following the other, but the two constituting a whole. No sooner has the scourging been completed when the mockery begins. This answers the question as to how an act such as this mockery of Jesus came to be staged. The attempt is not made to show that it was a proceeding that was customary in the case of men who were scourged, for it certainly was not. It is so exceptional in every way that no counterpart for it has ever been found. Those who think that Jesus was scourged as one who was already condemned to the cross suppose that the mockery was undertaken merely to fill in the time until the cross and the other paraphernalia for the execution had been made ready.

But even then, why was the time filled in with such an exceptional proceeding? If Jesus was scourged merely in preparation for crucifixion, this mockery is inexplicable. Those who note that Jesus had not as yet been condemned to the cross, make the mockery an inspiration of the soldiers who guarded Jesus. We are told that Pilate left them to their own devices, allowed events to take their own course, paid no attention to the commotion going on inside of the Praetorium. These are unsatisfactory explanations. When Matthew and Mark report that the soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the Praetorium, this can mean only that they did so on an order from Pilate.

In his presence they could not move the prisoner about as they might please. In v. 4 we see that Pilate himself was in the Praetorium during the mockery, for it is he who comes out with Jesus after the mockery, with Jesus dressed as a mock king. All this has but one solution: Jesus was scourged and mocked on Pilate’s order. His plan was to show these Jews what this man really was about whom they were making such a violent demonstration: “king,” indeed, “the king of the Jews,” a joke of a king! let them see for themselves! Crucify him? act as though this dreamer about the truth amounted to anything? The very idea was ridiculous.

And the soldiers, having plaited a crown out of thorny twigs, set it on his head and threw around him a purple cloak. They dress Jesus as a king. John mentions the crown first which was roughly plaited or twisted together of thorn-bearing twigs, a kind of circlet to go around the head. Many guesses have been offered as to the nature of the shrub from which the ἄκανθαι were cut, but the real name for it is not definitely known. On some coins emperors are represented with a laurel wreath encircling the head, and kings have always been distinguished by wearing crowns. So a crown is improvised for Jesus.

How the soldiers hit upon the idea of a crown of thorny twigs, and where they found the plant from which they cut them, who will say? The presence of the plant, perhaps twining upon the wall of the courtyard, may have caught the eye of one of the men and suggested to him a chaplet, one wound of these ugly thorny twigs instead of noble laurel. Two purposes were thereby served: to make this king ridiculous and to do this with cruelty by forcing the crown with its lacerating thorns onto his head. The soldiers certainly considered their procedure as a perfect joke. Everybody would recognize the circlet as a crown, and what a bloody crown it was! Little trickles of blood disfigured the victim’s face, not with the artistic elegance of so many of our painters, but with the stark hideousness of cruel reality.

Secondly John mentions the purple ἱμάτιον which Matthew calls a scarlet χλαμύς. The former color is lighter than the latter, but the ancients often failed to make a distinction between them, and this sagum paludamentum, or soldier’s cloak, was old and worn, a cast-off mantle, its color darkened with age. This figured as the royal robe, for at least the color resembled the purple of kings. John abbreviates and thus does not mention the scepter. As to Jesus’ own clothes, we take it that they were left where they had been thrown outside of the Praetorium; for Matthew tells us that he was stripped when the soldiers dressed him up as a king, and we cannot think that after the scourging outside they dressed him there only again to strip him in the courtyard. After Pilate led Jesus out and then finally sent him to the cross, his own clothes were restored to him.

John 19:3

3 Dressed for the part, the mockery begins. And they kept coming to him and kept saying, Hail, King of the Jews! and kept giving him blows. The entire cohort had been called into the courtyard for the mockery. The imperfect tenses are descriptive of the scene as it progressed; ἐδίδοσαν, where it is found instead of ἐδίδουν, is also imperfect, R. 1214. The soldiers stage a mock royal reception. “They kept coming to him” means that they filed past Jesus. John omits the genuflection and worshipful bowing.

Each man greets Jesus with, “Hail, King of the Jews!” This greeting, using Pilate’s own word (18:33), which, therefore, had not been spoken in complete privacy, is the key to the entire mockery. Jesus is formally acclaimed king of the Jews. We shall see (v. 19) that to the last Pilate adheres to this designation although Jesus had told him the kind of king he is. Weak Pilate cannot let go of the verbal insult to the Jews he despises. This persistence on his part helps to convince us that the mockery of the soldiers is due to some order which he gave in connection with the command to scourge Jesus. The greeting χαῖρε, “be glad,” “be happy,” coupled, as here, with a vocative, is like our, “Hail!” A nominative with the article is frequently used as a vocative, R. 769.

Of the further abuse, the spitting, the smiting with the rod, etc., John mentions only the fact that each man as he came to Jesus gave him an ugly blow with the hand; ῥαπίσματα is the same word used in 18:22, which see. The marvel is that Jesus did not collapse under this mass of horrible abuse. How long did it last?

John 19:4

4 The other two evangelists who record this mockery tell us only that finally, again dressed in his own clothes, Jesus was led away to be executed. John brings the full details. And Pilate went out again outside and says to them, Behold, I am bringing him out to you in order that you may realize that I find no indictment in his case. Jesus, therefore, came out outside, wearing the thorny crown and the purple cloak. And he said to them, Behold, the man! Pilate had had Jesus scourged and mocked in order to effect his release; and only when this final effort failed, was the order to crucify issued. John alone narrates this final effort of Pilate’s, materially augmenting the reports of the synoptists.

Since Pilate went out again he must previously have gone in. This cannot have occurred, as some think, after releasing Barabbas, 18:40. It was Pilate who ordered Jesus scourged (v. 1). We have seen that the scourging took place outside in the presence of Pilate and of the Jews. Not until after the scourging was Jesus taken inside on Pilate’s own order. Then Pilate went in.

He went in to witness the mockery of Jesus. When enough had been done to suit his purpose, he called a halt and ordered Jesus to be brought out again, Pilate himself preceding Jesus as they went out. The proposed alternative is unacceptable: that Pilate withdrew to some room in the Praetorium because he was disgusted and in a huff; that the horseplay of the soldiers with Jesus was their idea which Pilate merely suffered to be carried out, in his room listening to the gales of laughter in the open courtyard; that not until now he conceived the thought of making one more effort to free Jesus. The unlikeliness of all this is increased when we are told to add that Jesus had already been remanded to the cross and was scourged only for this reason; that of their own accord the soldiers mocked Jesus as a man who had lost all legal rights, the mockery only filling in the time until the paraphernalia for the execution had been assembled; that in remanding Jesus to the cross Pilate had neglected to pronounce the formal verdict and, bethinking himself of this, utilized the neglect for making another effort at release, that, when this effort failed, the formal sentencing took place in v. 16.

Pilate strides out first and, before Jesus is led out, announces to the Jews what he is now doing and to what intent he is doing this. Pilate is presenting a significant spectacle to the Jews, “Behold, I am bringing him out to you!” The Jews had certainly often seen Jesus; Pilate means that they will now see him as they had never seen him before. This means also that Pilate had seen how Jesus looked during the mockery—it was the way he wanted him to look. The soldiers had not on their own account taken liberties with Jesus, so that now, when Pilate ordered him brought out again, they would hastily remove the royal trappings and lead him out naked as they had brought him in; for his own clothes lay outside where he had been scourged. The soldiers had merely done Pilate’s will in making Jesus a mock king, a figure of utter wretchedness and shame.

This figure Pilate puts on display in order to convince the Jews that he finds absolutely no indictment against Jesus. He uses the same legal formula as in 18:38; in fact, he repeats it a third time in v. 6. It is the verdict of the examining judge, much like that of our grand juries, when the evidence offered fails to support the crime charged: “No indictment!” We must note, however, that οὑδεμίαναἰτίαν refers only to the crime charged, the one for which the Jews demanded the death penalty for Jesus. Hence Pilate also says, “not a single αἰτία,” not a single count on which to draw an indictment such as the Jews demand. The aorist γνῶτε means that the Jews are actually to realize what Pilate tells them in his verdict. His purpose is to convince these persistent accusers.

This is a proceeding that is wholly unjudicial, and it is that for any examining judge, not to say for Pilate, the great Roman procurator himself. Since when must the judge obtain the consent of the accuser to the verdict he has found? Since when does a judge treat his own finding and verdict as non-final until the accuser gives it his approval? Since when has the accuser the power to make the judge alter his verdict if that verdict does not satisfy the accuser? If Pilate haggles about his own verdict and fails to see what this implies on his part the Jews see it only too clearly and use the advantage Pilate grants them to the fullest extent. Pilate defeats himself before his effort gets under way.

John 19:5

5 Immediately after this announcement on the part of Pilate Jesus came out. Soldiers guarded him and marched him to a place beside the governor. All eyes were riveted upon the spectacle, men in the rear crowding up to get a look. John describes the figure but, after the manner of all evangelists, with utmost restraint: “wearing the thorny crown and the purple cloak.” They all saw what Pilate intended them to see. John has φορῶν, bearing or wearing continuously, and thus this is stronger than φέρων. The moment grows tenser as the spectacle is taken in.

At its climax Pilate, turning his eyes from Jesus to the Jews, utters what sounds like an involuntary exclamation, “Behold, the man!” That word has gone on, ringing down the centuries: Ecce homo! It has well been said that each of us puts into that word exactly what he really thinks of Jesus. But we must think only of Pilate and of the Jews, what he meant, and what they understand. “Behold,” ἴδε, or as some write ἰδού, merely exclaims; for ὁἄνθρωπος is vocative, the article with the nominative indicating this, as in v. 3, R. 769.

All honor to the many commentators who read pity into Pilate’s proceeding and give him credit for assuming that the hearts of the Jews will be moved just as his own heart is. Luther may speak for them all: “Pilate is a heathen and a regular bloodhound. For the heathen who knew nothing of God dealt with men as we do with swine. Nevertheless, this heathen and bloodhound is moved.” Some would add a touch of mockery and contempt to Pilate’s word of pity. The greatest support for this view would be Pilate’s conviction of the innocence of Jesus, but few base Pilate’s pity on this ground. What overthrows this conception, however it may be varied, is the fact that it was no one but Pilate himself who deliberately made Jesus this object of pity.

Pilate had had Jesus scourged; Pilate had had Jesus mocked. Even if we should say, as some do, that Pilate only permitted the mockery, his case is not thereby altered. One word on the part of Pilate would have prevented the latter outrage. This supposed pity on Pilate’s part comes entirely too late. No man with a heart that pities allows a fellow-creature to be converted into a sad and pitiful object and then starts to pity that object and calls upon others to do the same. Bloodhounds, as Luther terms them, are beyond the noble feeling of pity.

To put pity into Pilate’s word is to substitute our own feeling for his.

Pilate, indeed, regards Jesus as innocent. But it is less his sense of justice as a judge that prompts his motive in the case of Jesus or at any time, than his pride which refuses to be bowed into the dust before these despicable Jews. He, the great Roman procurator, will not let these Jews dictate his verdict. The fact that justice is on his side in the present case helps to stiffen his pride, but justice is only an adjunct. Since he has twice failed to win out with his pride he once more tries to win. He uses desperate means.

If pride had not clouded his good judgment, he should have seen in advance that these last desperate means would also prove futile. In order to save his pride against the Jews Pilate gives Jesus over to the scourge and the mockery. These are only means to gain his end, the triumph of his will over that of the Jews. They want Jesus crucified for claiming to be a king. Well, Pilate shows them in a demonstratio ad oculos that as the Roman governor he cannot entertain this charge. “Look!” he cries dramatically; “take in the man!” “King?”—why a ridiculous king! “King, dangerous to Caesar, calling for the procurator’s power to destroy him?”—why, he is absolutely powerless, abjectly helpless! Look and see for yourselves!

This is the sense of Pilate’s act and his word. Who could think of insisting that the procurator should crucify a man such as this? Yet, invincible as the case thus put by Pilate seems at first glance, it shows a fatal psychological flaw when it is carefully examined. By making the charge against Jesus appear ridiculous and pointless Pilate made also the Jews appear as men foolish enough to press such a charge with all the power at their command. This was bound to react in a way to defeat Pilate, the more so since the Jews saw that he lacked the courage to force the issue against them.

John 19:6

6 When, therefore, the high priest and the underlings saw him they shouted, Crucify, crucify! Whereas John otherwise writes “the Jews,” he now writes “the high priests and the underlings,” the police force of the Sanhedrin. The moment these leaders take in the situation that Pilate had created, before a voice could be raised in favor of Jesus among the crowd of common people before the Praetorium, these leaders with their immediate subordinates again raise the shout to crucify. When Barabbas was put beside Jesus, the leaders had time to belabor the crowd; Pilate’s new move leaves them no time. So they do not argue with Pilate. They simply leap in with frantic yells, “Crucify!” They intend to sweep the crowd along to join in the cry, at least to drown out any voice that might be raised in behalf of Jesus.

What the common crowd did is left unsaid. We read of no one who dared to contradict. The issue is squarely drawn. Let Pilate demonstrate all he pleases that the Jewish charge is baseless and even ridiculous, the leaders insist on their will nonetheless. Pilate dare not triumph. They cry him down.

They will force him to yield to their will. If he will use un-judicial means, so will they. They yell for what they want. This judge shall not judge—they never intended that he should—he shall simply do what they demand. It has been well said that a wild beast cannot be placated by showing it blood; to do so only enrages it the more. Too late Pilate sees that his calculation has again miscarried; his dramatic presentation of Jesus has only inflamed the temper of the Jews still more.

Finally the yelling subsides. Pilate says to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him; for I on my part do not find an indictment in his case. The governor keeps his dignity, he does not shout in return. He meets the frantic outbursts of the Jewish leaders with biting scorn. Very well, if they are so determined to have Jesus crucified, let them take him themselves and crucify him! This is not consent on Pilate’s part, turning Jesus over to the Jews for the purpose of crucifixion.

The Jewish mode of execution was not by crucifixion but by stoning; and Pilate says, “Crucify him.” Note also the emphatic ὑμεῖς, “you yourselves,” over against which Pilate then sets his emphatic ἐγώ. Pilate taunts the Jews. They have lost the right to put a criminal to death; the governor alone can send a man to death. By his ironical order to go ahead and to do the crucifying themselves Pilate strikes back viciously at these Jews who try him so sorely, pressing their advantage to the limit. The Jews understand perfectly what Pilate means; they make no move to take Jesus and to crucify him, for once using the Roman way of execution.

Pilate’s vicious thrust is only a sign of his weakness. To jab the beast only makes it snarl the more. In the midst of the yelling Pilate should have raised his hand to the commander of the cohort in an order to clear the place before the Praetorium. With drawn swords the cohort should have charged the mob, and all would have been over. Pilate’s past crimes had made him a coward. He was afraid of the Jews whom he taunted.

Proudly enough he asserts for the third time that he for his part has no indictment (see v. 4) against Jesus. In the strong ἐγώ there speaks the consciousness of the Roman governor who alone has the power of life and death. Alas, it did not speak loud enough! Note the variation in the negation: in v. 4 “no indictment,” now, however, I “do not find.” Pilate means that it is his finding alone not that of the Jews which decides on crucifixion. We must read γάρ, not as illative, but as merely explanatory, R. 1190.

Too much is made of Pilate’s conscience, of how hard it was for him to act against his conscience in condemning an innocent man to death. He did hold out for a long time, and at the end he washed his hands of the guilt and tried to shift it to the Jews (Matt. 27:24). But this is all that his conscience accomplished. In estimating the part Pilate’s conscience played we must note his past record of cruel and conscienceless acts. The innocence of Jesus did not deter Pilate from scourging this innocent prisoner and then submitting this innocent man, thus scourged, to the most brutal mockery. The washing of his hands was a theatrical act like his display of the mock king not a genuine act of conscience, not real dread of the judicial murder to which he at last gave consent.

Whatever conscience functioned in Pilate was pitifully weak. His scorn of the Jews, his Roman pride as governor, challenged by the brazen demand of these same Jews and scorning to bow before them, actuated him much more than the voice of his conscience.

John 19:7

7 The Jews answered him, We on our part have a law, and according to that law he ought to die; because he made himself God’s Son. The emphatic and contrasting ὑμεῖς and ἐγώ in Pilate’s taunt produce an equally emphatic ἡμεῖς in the reply of the Jews. For the third time they hear Pilate’s verdict: the indictment they want not found!. All their violent accusations, centering in the alleged kingship of Jesus and thus intended to appeal to Pilate on the score of the Roman law, he answers again and again, “I, according to my law, find no charge!” This drives the Jews to assert the authority of their law to which Pilate had made slighting reference when they first came to him (18:31). “We have a law,” they tell him, “we Jews over against you Romans.” With νόμον, though it is without the article, they refer to the Torah or Old Testament which is often called “the Law” for short. And when they say, “we have,” they mean more than that they as Jews are bound by this their law; when the Romans conquered the Jews, they followed their usual policy and left the law of this nation in force; gave it the sanction of the Roman authority except on one point—capital punishment was placed in the hands of the Roman governor.

It is thus that the Jews inform Pilate that what they so insistently demand of him is “according to that law,” the article being used in a specific sense. According to their law Jesus “ought to die,” he has committed a capital offense, he has been tried under their law, to which as a Jew he is subject, and the verdict of death has been pronounced against him. What is demanded and must be demanded of Pilate is that he seal that verdict by ordering the execution. Thus they set their ἡμεῖς against his ἐγώ. Not, however, that they would permit Pilate to retry Jesus under their law, or even let him review the case, for which they would consider him incompetent, being a Roman. The specific paragraph of their law under which Jesus is guilty of death is undoubtedly in their minds, Lev. 24:16, the law against blasphemy.

Provoked by Pilate’s insistence on his finding and in order to pit their finding against his they blurt out the actual αἰτία on which they have found a verdict against Jesus: “he ought to die because he made himself God’s Son.” They say “to die” without naming the mode of execution since this is different for Jews and for Romans. Until this moment the Jews have kept hidden from Pilate the real crime on which they sentenced Jesus. This was a crime that was strictly religious, which they knew Pilate would disregard as being no crime at all. They instead trumped up everything possible in the way of crime that they imagined would impress Pilate but now saw that they had not at all impressed him. So at last the truth comes out. It was false that Jesus had gone about in the land proclaiming himself a secular king; what he had done was to declare himself “God’s son.” Here we meet a most remarkable fact.

Divine providence so controlled and so guided everything at the Jewish and now also at the Gentile trial of Jesus that he was condemned to death, not on some false, trumped-up charge, but on the true fact, on the actual reality, on his divine Sonship, which was turned into a charge. The Jews say, “he made himself” God’s Son; but he was God’s Son, the Only-begotten from the Father, and had manifested and proved his divine Sonship to the Jews in countless ways. The Jews condemned God’s Son because he was God’s Son.

Here John shows that, although he omits the Jewish trial from his record, all its details are known to him, and his very omission only corroborates the records of the synoptists. In the trial before Pilate the humanity of Jesus is made prominent in the fullest possible manner. It is John alone who reports Pilate’s exclamation, “Behold, the man!” The synoptists bring out the divine Sonship in the Jewish trial; John only adds that also in the trial before Pilate this Sonship was attested, and that not by Jesus but by the Jews themselves. All who today deny that Sonship either in an outright manner or by manipulating or reducing the concept, range themselves alongside of the Jews and consent to their verdict that Jesus was not in reality what under oath he declared himself to be, “the Christ, the Son of God,” Matt. 26:63.

John 19:8

8 When, therefore, Pilate heard this word he was the more afraid. Here we learn that in the complex of motives actuating Pilate there was a degree of fear, inspired by Jesus himself, his entire personality, his words to Pilate, his bearing throughout the agony heaped upon him. The warning sent him by his wife (Matt. 27:19) fostered that mysterious fear. And now came “this word,” and not from Jesus but from the Jews themselves that this strange man whom Pilate had dressed up as a mock king made himself “God’s Son.” Actual fear gripped Pilate. The indefinite feeling that he had all along now received definite support. Turning, his eyes searched the face and the figure at his side, and the thought shot through his mind: What if “this word” of the Jews were true?

Like a flash it shot through Pilate’s mind that “this word” might, indeed, be the key to everything. Too late the Jews see that their ardor in pitting their law against Pilate’s law had made them reveal too much. They had made a false move—they had stiffened Pilate’s reluctance.

As a pagan of the Roman world Pilate took “God’s Son” in a pagan sense, namely that in Jesus one of the gods or of the demigods had appeared among men. The mythologies of the pagan faith contained stories enough of this type. We see their effects cropping out in Acts 14:11, etc., and in 28:6. Skeptic though Pilate was, laughing at the old mythological stories with the rest of the educated and sophisticated Roman world, like all men of this type his skepticism was no armor against secret superstition. This thin armor was now pierced. Pilate had had Jesus scourged and mocked—what vengeance of the gods would strike him if it were true that this man was in reality a god?

John 19:9

9 And he went into the Praetorium again and says to Jesus, Whence art thou? Jesus, however, gave him no answer. Once more, now under the spur of superstitious fear, Pilate orders that Jesus be conducted into the Praetorium for questioning, away from the presence of the Jews. Uneasiness because of their palpable mistake must have filled them as they waited and talked with each other outside. This second private examination is like the first (18:33, etc.), not completely private between Pilate and Jesus alone, but with at least the soldier guards present. All Pilate’s fears are concentrated in the one question, “Whence art thou?” “Whence” is to reveal who Jesus really is.

For if he is a god in human form, his origin must be supermundane. But we must add as explaining this question the former word of Jesus himself that his kingship is “not of this world.” That answer of Jesus helps to prompt the question “whence” against “who.”

Jesus returns no answer. Calmly his eyes look into those of Pilate, but his lips remain sealed. This is the only silence of Jesus during his trials which John reports. Each of these silences has its own reason. What is the reason here? Is it that Pilate’s question is not that of a judge but a personal question coming from Pilate’s own frightened heart?

How could Jesus stand on a technical distinction like that? In the other silences we see that Jesus seals his lips even when his judges demand an answer as judges. Moreover, as we know Jesus, the very fact that a question comes from the heart would induce him the more to answer that heart. Did Jesus fear that by telling Pilate whence he really was he would so frighten Pilate that he would never order his crucifixion? Was it that Pilate’s fear should not block the will of God that Jesus should be crucified? Such hypothetical constructions are precarious.

How de we know that Pilate’s fears would have been increased to that point? Had Jesus not already told Pilate of his heavenly origin? Yet Pilate had given him over to the scourge and the mockery. But the objectionable feature of this solution is the fact that the silence of Jesus is thought to contribute to Pilate’s sin of sending Jesus to the cross. We should have Jesus himself justifying the means by the end. No consideration such as this keeps the lips of Jesus closed.

Refuge is sought in the intellectual or in the ethical disability of Pilate. He would not understand if Jesus did tell him what he asked. Or he would not have the moral courage to act on what Jesus would tell him even if he should understand. We deny the first statement. Jesus is always able to make men understand what he wants them to understand. The blindest and most obdurate Jews were made to understand.

Jesus has already made Pilate understand (18:36, 37). This answers also the second statement. The power that works obedience to the truth lies not in men but in the truth they are made to hear. But whether they allow that power to work obedience in them or not, the truth with its power is brought to them nevertheless. Nor is Pilate treated as an exception. By not accepting these solutions of the silence of Jesus the true solution has already been touched.

Luther has it: “The cause is this: he had already given Pilate answer which was abundant enough, 18:37; but Pilate replied mockingly, ‘What is truth?’ The silence of Jesus means that his former answer stands, ‘My kingship is not of this world, etc. I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end have I come into the world, that I testify to the truth,’” etc. We must add that when Jesus gave this answer to Pilate, the circumstances were far more favorable for Pilate’s acceptance than they are now. Pilate had made no wrong move, had not yet sent Jesus to Herod to shift responsibility, had not yet paired Barabbas with Jesus, had not yet scourged and mocked Jesus to make his kingship seem ridiculous and harmless. These acts had been Pilate’s reply to the mighty and clear testimony regarding who Jesus was and whence he had come.

Why repeat that testimony? Silence now was also an answer, and it spoke louder and more effectively than words.

John 19:10

10 Pilate, therefore, says to him, To me thou dost not speak? Dost thou not know that I have power to release thee and have power to crucify thee? Here Pilate reveals himself more fully than at any other point. Here Pilate justifies the previous silence of Jesus. His was no anxious heart, fearful lest he offend one of the several gods, ready now at least to yield to the truth at which he had scoffed at the start. His first question is not one of surprise, for the emphatic ἐμοί reveals that he is angered that Jesus dares to treat him and his question with silence: “To me thou offerest silence?” This the second question corroborates in which he boasts with all his pride as Roman procurator over against this Jew Jesus what tremendous authority and power (ἐξουσία) he wields.

He alone has this power. He is the man before whom to stoop, to whom humbly to appeal. Note how he repeats, “I have power.” Is not Jesus aware of the greatness of the man before whom he stands? The supreme motive which actuated Pilate here bursts into view: his overweening pride which considers the silence of Jesus a covert insult. He is so filled with pride that his tongue overdoes the good thing. He talks as though he could bestow life or death at will with the turn of the hand, exactly as he pleases.

He really does himself injustice—he is not a man who is as bad as that.

Pilate is pitiful, thinking himself so great and mighty and yet being swayed like an unstable reed. Caiaphas has been compared to a rock, unyielding, unscrupulous, unhesitating, having a will that conquers all the rest; Pilate to a reed, his head very high but swung by every wind. Euthymius is right, “Now he is frightened, now he frightens.” First “God’s Son” unnerves-him, next he thunders as though he were a god, and Jesus, God’s Son, a beggar. Extremes meet. Why objection should be raised against mentioning the power to release in the first place with the power to crucify in the second, is hard to see; yet some prefer a transposition against the strongest textual authority. To say that the course of the trial suggests the reverse order fails to see the situation as it was.

In Pilate’s mind release was uppermost not crucifixion, and it is Pilate who speaks. Moreover, there is a climax when release is placed first and crucifixion second. Release is often conceived as a covert promise to Jesus seeking to attract him, and crucifixion as a threat seeking to cow him. It is nearer to the thought of Pilate to conceive the two alternatives, life on the one hand and death on the other, as the great extent of his power to which this Jew Jesus is wholly subject. Pilate tells Jesus that he has Jesus entirely in his hand.

John 19:11

11 With this the answer of Jesus accords, which refers to neither promise nor threat but only to Pilate’s power. Jesus answered him: Thou hast no power at all over me except it had been given thee from above. For this reason he that did deliver me up to thee has greater sin. Silent before, Jesus now answers. For silence would mean that Jesus knows that Pilate has the power over him which he proudly claims. Jesus pricks that proud assertion with the direct contradiction, “Thou hast no power over me at all.” Pilate dilates on his power: “power to release and power to crucify”; Jesus combines the two: “power over me.” Because Jesus uses ἐξουσία only once, some think that in his reply Jesus thinks only of Pilate’s power to crucify and not also of his power to release.

Hence they translate κατά, “against me.” But why should Jesus deny to Pilate only the one power—does he admit the other? The root meaning of κατά is “down,” which becomes “against” only in certain contexts (R. 606, etc.); here the preposition means “over me,” as from a superior down upon an inferior, and thus includes both functions, release and condemnation. The assured reading is ἔχεις, “thou hast,” and not εἶχες with ἄν omitted, “thou wouldest have.” The denial is direct not merely conditional; and οὑδεμίαν, “not a single,” refers to power in either direction. It may offend this proud procurator to have his boast denied; but his dream that he has the double power he thinks he has must be shattered by this lowly prisoner who ever testifies to the truth (18:37).

Yet in a certain sense he has power: it has been given to him from above. Jesus is not thinking of Caesar as having invested Pilate with power but of God whose providence had allowed a man of Pilate’s stamp to be placed in the procurator’s office at this time. For Pilate’s boast was not that he was sovereign, independent of Caesar. It is unusual to attach a conditional clause of past unreality to a simple declarative sentence of present time, but the sense is perfectly plain. With the neuter ἦνδεδομένον the subject cannot be the feminine ἐξουσία but must be the infinitive ἐξουσίανἔχειν; “to have power” had been given to Pilate. This is far better than to make the subject the last infinitive which Pilate used: “to crucify me,” again omitting the other infinitive: “to release me.” The purpose of Jesus in answering Pilate thus is not to impress upon this pagan governor the right conception of his exalted governmental office, that he should think of it as held under God with constant responsibility to God.

Pilate was not the man to be receptive to such teaching, nor is the present acute situation such that a moral reminder of this kind would be in place. The interest of Jesus is to testify to Pilate and to those present that no human power whatever, whether that of Pilate or of any other ruler, is able to pass on whether God’s Son shall live or shall die. Jesus alone has the ἐξουσία to lay down his life if he so wills, or to refuse to lay it down (10:18). The fact that he is in his present position, suffering these agonies, and on his way to death, is due to his own volition. Pilate is to know that it is not he who holds Jesus in his hand; a higher hand holds Pilate.

It was God’s punitive justice which had to remove the scepter from Israel and make Israel subject to Rome, thus transferring the power of life and death from the Jews to the Romans. This usually seems simpler to us than the next step, that at this very time God’s providence should place men like Caiaphas and Pilate in control of the government; yet it is all of a piece with the other. The world produced such men, it would have them as its rulers, one as unscrupulous and as hard as Caiaphas; and one as unscrupulous and as weak as Pilate. God took them in their wickedness and used them for his good and gracious ends. It was he who placed his Son into their hands, and his Son of his own will yielded himself to his Father’s gracious will. The one, Caiaphas, with his relentless hardness would force the other, Pilate, with his haughty weakness to kill Jesus, who would thus die, not by stoning, but by crucifixion.

As in the ancient case of Pharaoh and his abusing of Israel, God and his Son did not use their almighty power to nullify the wickedness of these men, but they did warn these men with the full power of grace against the dreadful acts to which their wickedness was driving them. Thus their full responsibility remained upon them when in spite of all moral deter rents they let their wickedness fill the measure of their guilt by actually carrying out their desperate deeds. What is true of these wicked men is endlessly repeated in all others who make themselves the devil’s tools. The problem is the same in each case, even as the solution is the same.

So also the guilt is proportionate, that of Pilate is less than that of Caiaphas though in itself it is great enough: “He that did deliver me up to thee has greater sin.” The thought is concentrated, for it is not the mere formal act of bringing Jesus before Pilate’s tribunal that constitutes the greater sin but this act with all that goes with it, the relentless will of Caiaphas to crucify Jesus. Between the two men the guilt of Pilate is less. We see no gain in making the singular “he that did deliver me up” one of category, hence applying not to Caiaphas alone but also to all who were associated with him in his deed. Even then Caiaphas remains the moving spirit in whose guilt all the rest only shared. “He that did deliver me up to thee” cannot refer to Judas, for he had nothing to do with Pilate, he betrayed but did not deliver up Jesus. This word of Jesus’ must have struck home more deeply in Pilate’s mind than even the outright denial of Pilate’s ἐξουσία. He was told that even if he crucified Jesus he would not have the chief guilt; for he was not the prime actor in this drama, his pose to that effect was hollow, another wicked man outranked him.

Even at this critical stage when the question had turned to one about the judges instead of one about the prisoner, Jesus compels Pilate to see the truth. Jesus’ word, however, has a deeper object. It reminds Pilate that he and his power are on trial before the divine tribunal itself, the judge whom none can deceive. More than that. Jesus here pronounces the divine verdict upon all his wicked judges. Pilate, the judge, is now judged by a greater judge.

Another than Pilate has “greater sin,” and that means that Pilate’s sin is next in greatness. Here stands Jesus, the King indeed, travestied in most cruel fashion by this governor, and from his royal lips Pilate hears his sentence. Jesus strikes home in the callous conscience of Pilate. It is the last warning to Pilate. Yet Jesus speaks as though Pilate had already remanded him to the cross. This King’s knowledge is infallible.

The verdict pronounced by Jesus is the last word Pilate heard from those holy lips.

John 19:12

12 As a result of this Pilate was seeking to release him. John has used ἐκτούτου only here and in 6:66 (which see). In neither instance is the phrase temporal: “from thence,” “from that moment,” because no antecedent of time can be supplied for the demonstrative pronoun. The phrase means that as a result of what Jesus said to Pilate the latter tried to release him. The imperfect ἐζήτει already indicates that Pilate’s effort failed. John writes only “he was seeking” and adds no μᾶλλον, as might be expected, since Pilate had sought to free Jesus before this: “he was seeking the more.” Why is such a reference to Pilate’s previous efforts absent?

In order to convey the thought that now at last Pilate made the real effort, one that was so strong that his previous efforts do not count in comparison. We, therefore, decline to make ἐζήτει a conative imperfect (R. 885): “he began to seek”; it is simply durative and marks the tenacity of Pilate’s effort. The impression Jesus had made upon Pilate’s conscience was so powerful that this was the result. Pilate was determined to free Jesus, do what the Jews might.

John is all too brief and compels us to read between the lines. But the Jews were shouting, saying: If thou releasest this one thout art not a friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar. So Pilate, though not Jesus (v. 13), is again outside of the Praetorium confronting the Jews. The Jews yell in frantic rage. Pilate must have addressed them.

What did he say? Undoubtedly much more than he had said at any time hitherto. So far he had declared only his inability to find an indictment against Jesus. He had stopped short with that. From the answering yells of the Jews we gather that now at last Pilate declared the release of Jesus exactly as John informs us Pilate was determined to do. Whether the altercation between Pilate and the Jews included more exchanges of words we are unable to say.

It matters little. Whether at once or after a little, the Jews now find the word that brings Pilate to his knees. If he releases τοῦτον, “this fellow,” he is not a friend of Caesar. Again it is Pilate who is put on trial and this time before a judge whom he dreads more than any god, namely Caesar. Diabolic cunning drove home this deadly thrust. The title φίλοςτοῦΚαίσαρος was in a formal way granted to Roman courtiers and officials who distinguished themselves in loyal service to the emperor, and these constituted a kind of cohors amicorum for the throne.

Yet we have no information that Pilate had received this distinction from the emperor. The term is used by the Jews more like a litotes: “not a friend of Caesar” in the sense “in reality an enemy of Caesar.” Cunningly this is put in the negative form, “not a friend,” not loyal, not true to Caesar. This negative leaves open a wide range of possible charges against Pilate. Its very indefiniteness was intended to frighten cowardly Pilate. All his past misdeeds could be brought against him in addition to his present act of releasing an alleged pretender to the Jewish throne. Pilate and the Jews were fully aware of the suspiciousness of the emperor who never hesitated to sacrifice an official concerning whose loyalty he had the least doubt.

Pilate is not left in doubt as to his own danger: “Everyone who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.” The proposition is put forth as self-evident. The fact that Jesus had never made himself a secular king and had never even by one word proclaimed himself such a king, goes for naught. The lie of this intimation is as rank as all the other lies of the Jews and as flagrant as their attempt to suborn perjured witnesses against Jesus at their own trial. The Jews count on their own insistence, false though it is, that Jesus claims to be a king. Any man who in any way can be charged with calling himself a king thereby “speaks against Caesar.” We need not take ἀντιλέγει in the sense of “opposes,” which would involve overt acts; the very proclamation of kingship is overt act enough. Pilate is crushed.

The very thought that Caesar may get to hear what these Jews now shout into his ears completely unmans him. He sees ruin opening at his feet like a gulf—his position, his liberty, his very life are at stake. He faces the alternative: either he sacrifices Jesus or he sacrifices himself. Here, writes Luther, is “a picture of all the saints who are holy before the world and have not God’s Word, faith, and Christ.” Resolve they ever so earnestly to do right, down they go before the devil’s onslaught!

What a frightful snarl of lies and hypocrisy! Jesus, who bids the Jews give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, is made an enemy of Caesar’s by those who know the contrary and is allowed to stand as such an enemy by the judge who also knows the contrary. Pilate, loyal enough to Caesar, is made to face the charge of disloyalty by the Jews who, disloyal to the core, play the role of loyalty; and this while both Pilate and the Jews know that he is loyal and that they are traitorously disloyal. The scene was a devil’s masterpiece in lying.

John 19:13

13 Pilate, therefore, having heard these words, brought Jesus out and sat down on the tribunal in a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Pilate had left Jesus inside the Praetorium when he had gone out to announce the release. This is noteworthy, for this act shows that Jesus was to be kept under the protection of the governor in the Praetorium. When Pilate now heard “these words” of the Jews, and his courage gave way utterly, he ordered Jesus to be brought out once more and sat down on the βῆμα, a movable platform with several steps, on which was placed the judge’s chair (or several chairs if more than one judge held court, or if notable persons were invited to sit with the judge). The plural “these words” is in place because of the two statements of the Jews referred to. Pilate now ascends the “tribunal” to pronounce sentence on Jesus.

John is quite circumstantial in relating this climax of the trial. When he says that the governor now ascended and took his seat, we must not suppose that he had not done this at other moments during the trial; for he certainly was seated as the judge in 18:29–31, and again in 18:38–40. These, however, were only incidents in the trial, hence Pilate’s seating himself is not mentioned in particular. Now the fateful moment had come, and now we must know that Pilate is seated for the final judicial act.

John mentions even the place: “in a place called The Pavement,” Λιθόστρωτον, the Greek name, the neuter adjective made a proper noun: a mosaic pavement of stone. John adds also the Hebrew, i.e., Aramaic name of which, however, the Greek was not a translation: “Gabbatha,” a word of uncertain derivation, usually taken to mean a raised place.

John 19:14

14 Now it was the Passover Preparation; the hour was about the sixth. The first statement should cause no trouble whatever. Luke 23:53 writes, “it was the day of the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on”; compare Matt. 27:62. Mark 15:42 has, “the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath,” προσάββατον, “the pro-Sabbath.” And John himself repeats παρασκευή, “the Preparation,” in v. 31 and 42. All this means that the day of the condemnation and the crucifixion of Jesus is Friday. Because it preceded the Sabbath it was called “the Preparation” in the sense that this was its regular and common name.

When John uses the exceptional combination παρασκευὴτοῦπάσχα, “Preparation of the Passover,” he simply has in mind the Friday of the Passover festival, the one that occurs during the festival week. The Sabbath of this great week was considered especially holy, and preparation was made accordingly. The παρασκευή refers to all the cooking and the other work that had to be done before the Sabbath set in and in preparation for the Sabbath. R. 501 lists τοῦπάσχα among the genitives of “looser relation,” which are objective, and writes regarding our passage that John’s expression “probably already means the day ‘before’ the Sabbath (Friday).”

Yet some regard “Preparation of the Passover” as referring to the day on which the preparation was made for the Passover feast proper, for the eating of the lamb. They hold that this Passover meal had not yet been eaten when Jesus was condemned to the cross, that it was to take place after sunset of this Friday when the Sabbath began. The fact that this makes John clash with the synoptists seems rather welcome, and no attempt is made to find an agreement. Jesus, then, never celebrated this last Passover; the scene in the upper room was an ordinary meal. All that the synoptists record about Jesus’ eating the Passover on Thursday evening must be set aside as a mistake. We need not follow the argument in detail.

The data cited from the four evangelists are decisive. Equally decisive is the fact that παρασκευή is never used in the sense of “the preparation” or of “the day of preparation” for a festival but only in the sense of the preparation for the Sabbath. The law provided complete rest from work only on the Sabbath (Exod. 16:5); all preparation of food had to be made on the day before; but the law provided nothing of the kind for the great festival days, for on these days (save as one might occur on a Sabbath) food could be cooked as on any other day. The attempt to show that the festival days also had a παρασκευή has failed completely.

John was especially concerned to fix the day of the week on which Jesus died. When he wrote his Gospel, the entire congregational life was determined by the day on which Jesus died and thus also the day on which he arose. The former was a Friday, the latter a Sunday. The church had selected Sunday for its weekly day of worship because this day brought to mind the Lord’s resurrection. The church, therefore, always celebrated its Easter on a Sunday, irrespective of the calendar date of the month, and thus emancipated itself from the Jewish Passover date. John, therefore, also in his Gospel, lends full support to the synoptists and to the Sunday and the Easter observance of the church. He, too, fixes these days: Friday and Sunday.

He also fixes the hour as about the sixth. He writes so many details that we conclude that he must have been present. On the whole subject of the “hour” in John see the comment on 1:39, also on 4:6 and 52. According to Mark 15:25 Jesus was crucified at the third hour, our 9 A. M. With this Matthew and Luke agree who speak of Jesus as having hung upon the cross for some time when the miraculous darkness set in at noon.

All the synoptists, as no one disputes, reckon the hours in the Jewish fashion, namely twelve for the period of daylight, starting with the dawn and ending with sunset. If John reckons in the same way, he would say that Pilate did not sentence Jesus until about noon. Besides this ordinary way of reckoning the hours, which was generally used also by the Romans, the legal way of reckoning had twelve hours from midnight until noon, and another twelve from noon until midnight, just as we do now. If John reckons in this fashion he would say that Pilate sentenced Jesus at 6 A. M. Neither of these alternatives can possibly be correct.

Both conflict hopelessly not only with the hours mentioned in the synoptists but equally with the whole course of events as recorded by all four of the evangelists. It is impossible to concentrate all that preceded the sentencing by Pilate into the time before 6 A. M., and again impossible to find time for what happened after the sentencing if this is placed at noon.

To attack the reading ἕκτη, “sixth,” seems hopeless in the face of the textual evidence; for only a few texts have the reading τρίτη, “third,” (9 A. M.). To assert that John corrects the synoptists and to place the sentencing at noon is an unwarranted solution, in fact, no solution at all. Attempts to make much of ὡς as used by both John and Mark, even when “about” is stretched to the utmost, from 6 A. M. upward and from 9 A. M. downward, prove insufficient. We must add the difficulties regarding the way of reckoning the hours in the other passages in John’s Gospel. No solution has as yet been found. As to the facts, these are certain: Jesus was crucified at 9 A. M., and therefore was sentenced before 8:30 A. M.

Pilate seats himself to pronounce judgment against Jesus but inwardly he rages because he has been forced to yield to these despicable, lying Jews. And he says to the Jews, Behold, your king! All the scorn and the sarcasm of which he is capable is put into the exclamation. If he must yield he will sting and lash them while he is yielding. “King, king,” they have shouted to the last—well, let them look, this is their king. Did they expect the coveted verdict from Pilate’s lips? An insult is hurled into their faces.

Here the character of the man comes out. He is too weak for courageous mastery, he is strong in vicious verbal thrusts. Those who think that Pilate still had in mind to force Jesus’ release overlook the fact that he took the judge’s seat in order to remand Jesus to the cross. It is thus beside the mark to call Pilate’s exlamation unwise and to point out that bitterness only produces bitterness. Pilate deliberately keeps the Jews in suspense the while he seeks the satisfaction of little souls by enraging his opponents with insults.

John 19:15

15 He gets what he wants: still more frantic outcries. They, therefore, shouted, Away, away with him, crucify him! Note ἐκεῖνοι, which points emphatically to the antecedent, “the Jews.” As Jews Pilate insulted them by pointing to Jesus as their king, and as Jews, John wants us to understand, they repudiate this their king. The three aorist imperatives are highly peremptory, each is shouted out by itself, hence there are no connectives. These, too, are words, but words backed by an implacable will. They are the more frantic because Pilate still holds out, and the Jews are not yet certain that his will is broken.

The chance is good, and Pilate gives them another vicious thrust. He will sentence Jesus but he will take his time in doing so, aggravating the Jews to the utmost. Pilate says to them, Your king shall I crucify? This feigned tone of surprise cuts to the quick. What, do they mean to say that they want their own king, their supreme hope, to be crucified by a Roman like a slave. Pilate is speaking from the Jewish standpoint not from his own.

All the hopes of the Jews for breaking the Roman yoke centered in the rise of a Jewish Messianic King. Here he is, Pilate says, and now you want the Roman power to give him this worst death of shame? Pilate acts as though he cannot believe his ears. He intimates that they should beg for Jesus’ release in order to rally against Rome beneath his banner. He is staging a farce in order to get what revenge he can.

The high priests answered, We have no king except Caesar. Driven to the limit, this fatal word escapes the high priests. John writes, “the high priests,” whereas before he writes, “the Jews.” This cannot mean that the few persons who bore this title made this declaration while the rest of the Sanhedrists refused to do so, and while the populace dissented. They were all of one mind, no dissent arose at any time. Where the leaders went all the rest followed. Some followed because of fear, but whatever their low motives, they followed. John names “the high priests” in order to inform us that this declaration came, not from irresponsible persons in the crowd, but from the very heads of the Jewish nation, from the most responsible of all, the most highly representative, whose very position entitled them to speak for all.

These heads of the nation are not content to disown Jesus alone. They do not cry, “This is not our king!” They disown any and every king of their own and pledge themselves only and wholly to the pagan Caesar. These high priests, to whom the highest spiritual hopes of Israel were committed, here reveal themselves as traitors to those hopes and to the nation that should cherish them. They stand as apostates to the entire Old Testament faith. Only pagan Caesar is the king they acknowledge. They lie worse than pagans, for they hate Caesar.

They demonstrate that they deserve no other king. Their word was another thrust at Pilate on the subject of loyalty to Caesar, a thrust to drive him to crucify this man whom they lyingly charged with making himself a secular king. John does not say so, but here again we have a word like that of the high priest Caiaphas in 11:50, a word of unconscious prophecy. Since the day of Christ’s death the Jews have never had any king of their own but only Gentile rulers. Scattered all over the world, divine judgment has followed them like a shadow. Repudiating their one divine King, they remain kingless forever.

As a nation they are cast off without hope of return. Only a remnant shall be saved and only by repudiating Judaism and by amalgamating with the Christian Church. The high priests spoke as true representatives of the Jewish nation; their nation has stood with them to the present day.

John 19:16

16 Then, therefore, he delivered him up to them that he be crucified. Pilate’s own words are not recorded, the fact as such suffices for John. Yet he states the substance of Pilate’s verdict. It must have been given in briefest form and without specifying any crime. After three times saying in so many words that he finds no indictment against Jesus, Pilate cannot now allow an indictment and base his verdict on that. God saw to it that his Son was sent to the cross not merely in innocence but even without a false charge against him.

He delivered him up “to them” means “to the high priests,” yet, as the sequel shows, not that they and their police force should execute Jesus by crucifixion but that they should have their will. Pilate’s soldiers were to crucify Jesus for the Jews. The Jews went with the detachment of soldiers and saw the sentence carried out.

Pilate washed his hands in water but he could not remove the stain of guilt. His name is covered with infamy to this day. In the year 36 he was deposed, sent to Rome to face charges, and then seems to have been banished and to have committed suicide. Matthew and Mark report that immediately after the sentence the soldiers took off the purple cloak Jesus had worn until now and put on him his own clothes. Nothing is said about the crown of thorns. Some say that it too, after having served its purpose, was removed.

But had it completely served its purpose? The superscription on the cross calls Jesus a king in three languages. To leave the crown on Jesus’ head would differentiate Jesus as a king from the malefactors at his right and his left. Pilate wanted Jesus marked as a king to the last. The crown of thorns is so exceptional in every way that, when the two evangelists mention the removal of the purple cloak, two or three words more would have sufficed to note that also the crown was removed if, indeed, it too was taken off. The crown remained on Jesus’ head.

5. “Crucified, Dead, and Buried,” 19:17–42

John 19:17

17 They, therefore, took Jesus over, παρέλαβον, namely, the Jews from Pilate’s hand. No change of subject is indicated, not even in v. 18, “they crucified him.” John wants us to see that these are Jewish acts, although they are carried out by the Roman soldiers under Pilate’s command.

From the events that follow John makes his own selection, adding materially to what the synoptists report. Each section is full of detail, and each is distinct in itself.

And bearing the cross for himself he went out to the place called that of the Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. Immediately after the sentence had been pronounced Jesus was led to the place of execution. The law did not require a delay. In the provinces of the empire no such law existed. The imperial laws on this point applied only to Roman citizens. The general practice compelled the condemned man to carry his own cross to the place of execution, and no exception was made in the case of Jesus.

John omits a statement regarding the transfer of the cross to Simon of Cyrene. To attack his Gospel on that account, or to deny the synoptic report on the ground of John’s silence is unwarranted. Executions took place outside of the city, and this was true in the case of the Jews (Num. 15:35; Acts 7:58; Heb. 13:12) as well as in the case of the Romans. Generally, the prisoners were led through the most populous streets, and the place of execution was near a highway where many people would congregate. The traditional via dolorosa, which is now shown in Jerusalem as the street over which Jesus passed, is of late construction: the city was completely destroyed several times. Pilate could not delay the execution because of the nature of the Jewish charge, and the Jews wanted it rushed to completion because of their hate and also because of the nature of the day.

Much has been written on the shape of the cross; see Nebe, Leidensgeschichte, II, 169, etc. It was neither an X nor a T, but an upright post with a crossbeam a little beneath the top †. The two beams were fastened together at the start. All the evidence shows that Jesus was burdened with the entire cross and not merely with the upper crosspiece or patibulum. Jesus’ own act in literally bearing the cross on which he died lends powerful effect to his word about our taking up the cross to bear it after him, Matt. 10:38; 16:24. The place of execution bore the name Κρανίον in the Greek and “Golgotha” in the Aramaic, both of which signify “Cranium,” hence “Skull,” or, latinized, “Calvary,” undoubtedly because the hill had the shape of a cranium, the top of a skull.

The site has long been in dispute. It is only too certain that the site now shown in Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is spurious. Far more acceptable is the skull-like hill, now a Mohammedan cemetery, which rises above the recently discovered “Garden Tomb,” the rock-hewn sepulcher which bears so many marks of being the actual tomb in which the body of Jesus rested. The author was deeply impressed with these sites, the cranial elevation and the secluded garden with its tomb corresponding in such detail to the Gospel accounts.

John 19:18

18 John records the actual crucifixion only with a subordinate clause: where they crucified him and with him other two, on this side and on that, and in the middle Jesus. Among the astounding things in the Scriptures are these records of the supreme events in all history—one word for the scourging, one word for the crucifixion, one word for the resurrection. Events so tremendous, words so brief and so restrained! Who guided the mind and the heart of these writers to write in this astonishing manner? Here is one of the plain marks of the divine inspiration in the product itself. “They crucified him,” ἐσταύρωσαν, that is all! The Jews did this by means of the soldiers’ hands.

They were the real agents who had only forced Pilate to do their will. From the great mass of evidence that has been collected we gather that, first of all, the cross itself was erected. Only in very exceptional cases was the cross high. That on which Jesus was suspended elevated his feet not more than three feet from the ground, for the short stalk of hyssop was sufficient to reach his mouth. A block or heavy peg was fastened to the beam, and on this the victim sat straddle. The victim either climbed up himself, assisted, perhaps, by the executioners, or he was raised up to the seat, and then his body, legs, and arms were tied with ropes, and the great nails (of which the ancient writers speak especially) were driven through the hands and the feet.

A hundred years ago everybody was certain that the feet of Jesus were not nailed to the cross. Exhaustive research has convinced everybody who has seen the evidence that the feet were also nailed, and not with only one nail through both feet. The central seat or peg kept the body from sagging to one side after the ropes were removed. No mention is made of a loin cloth. The agony of crucifixion needs no description; we refer only to the hot sun, the raging thirst, the slowness of death, which at times did not set in until three or four days had passed. It was a great relief for the malefactor to learn that he was to die that very day.

How the two malefactors came to be crucified with Jesus is not known. Their crucifixion fulfilled Isa. 53:12. Only Pilate himself could have issued the order. Perhaps Barabbas would have been one of the two if the Jews had not effected his release. The very release of this man may have put the thought into Pilate’s mind of sending two others like him to death together with Jesus. Pilate’s intent is evident: further insult to the Jews who demanded that their king be crucified.

The fact that this insult reacted also upon Jesus made no difference to Pilate who had made a spectacle of Jesus by having him scourged and mocked and exhibited to the Jews. The fact that Jesus was placed between the two criminals was hardly due to an order from Pilate; more likely it was the thought of the Jewish leaders themselves who directed the crucifixion in person, possibly only the thought of the soldiers. Already the fact that these three were crucified together means that they were to be considered as being of a kind. The Jews had asked that Jesus die a base criminal’s death; Pilate grants them their wish, sending two actual criminals to die with Jesus.

John 19:19

19 Now Pilate wrote also a title and placed it on the cross. And there had been written, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. John amplifies the record of the synoptists on the subject of the superscription. Pilate, we learn from John, wrote that title, placed it on the cross, and refused to alter it at the bidding of the Jews. Pilate insists on having Jesus crucified as the King of the Jews. On this John brings the full details.

The two aorists ἔγραψε and ἔθηκεν merely state the historical facts that Pilate did this, of course, not with his own hand but by means of his orders. These aorists are not past perfects and do not allow us to conclude that the inscription had been attached to the cross already at the Praetorium; the placing occurred on Golgotha. Inscriptions stating why a man was crucified were common. These were also carried and displayed on the way out to the place of execution although they were not hung from the culprit’s neck, for which latter claim no evidence has been found. We read nothing about inscriptions for the two malefactors. The mind of Pilate seems to have been taken up chiefly with Jesus.

Not until Jesus was crucified did the soldiers put the inscription in place, and not until that time did the Jews read the words it contained. It is possible that the inscription was an afterthought of Pilate’s, and that he sent it to the centurion by means of a messenger after Jesus already hung upon the cross; it seems more probable that it was at once delivered to the centurion, not for display on the way out, but to be affixed after the execution had begun.

The past perfect “there had been written” merely refers back to the aorist “he wrote.” When the inscription was affixed, all were able to see what “had been written.” The legend was, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Since the writing was drawn up in three languages, the slight variations in the reports of the evangelists are easily explained. John alone has ὁΝαζωραῖος, so that we may conclude that this word appeared only in one of the languages. It is impossible to determine just which language each evangelist has in mind. The same is true regarding the order of the languages.

John 19:20

20 This title, therefore, many of the Jews read, for the place was near to the city, where Jesus was crucified; and it had been written in Hebrew, in Latin, in Greek, in the Aramaic vernacular, in the Latin of the Roman government, showing that the inscription was official, coming from Pilate himself, and in the Greek as the great world language of the time, thus offering the greatest possible publicity. John mentions “in Hebrew” first, not in order to indicate the prominence of this language but because he is emphasizing the fact that the Jews read the inscription, the very people whom the high priests least of all desired to read it. Crowds of Jews read it, for the place was not only near the city, but the city itself overflowed with Passover pilgrims. We need not hesitate about construing together “near to the city” instead of “the place of the city,” for Golgotha was outside of the city. The city was surrounded by massive walls, marking its limits most decidedly; Jerusalem did not spread out and straggle as our American cities and towns do.

John 19:21

21 The high priests of the Jews were therefore saying to Pilate: Write not, The King of the Jews, but that he said, King am I of the Jews. We are right, then, in concluding that the high priests did not see the superscription until it was affixed to the cross. If they had seen it before that they certainly would have made an attempt to secure a change. What enraged the high priests was the publicity of the inscription among the Jewish crowds. It is John who calls it a τίτλος or “title,” and, in fact, it merely gave Jesus a title. That is the remarkable thing about Pilate’s superscription: it names no crime whatever, it only records a most significant title.

In three languages and thus to all the world it shouts out the great title of Jesus. No implication of secular kingship appears in Pilate’s title. That is completely shut out by “of Nazareth,” which John would not have us overlook and on which we may well compare 1:46. The old Jewish kings did not claim origin from Nazareth. Pilate is having his last revenge on “the high priests of the Jews.” Only here does John call them thus; and though it has been denied, John certainly has in mind the contrast: “the king of the Jews” and “the high priests of the Jews.” To the very last these high priests have hurled at Pilate the charge, “King, king!” which he knew was false and which he knew they knew was false. They had forced Pilate to crucify Jesus as a king.

Very well then, they should have him on the cross but only as a king, their King! Let all the world read, “The King of the Jews”! By simply giving Jesus this title without an added allegation Pilate proclaims the innocence of Jesus, of which he was completely certain. Jesus had told Pilate what kind of kingship he held; and now that all was over, that statement was prominent in Pilate’s mind together with the other about Jesus being God’s Son, and Pilate sets it down that Jesus is King of the Jews.

Forthwith the high priests hurry from Golgotha to the Praetorium to have this title changed. Whether they succeeded only in sending in word to Pilate, or whether he actually came out to them, is left to surmise. Cunningly they ask for only a slight change, that the article be dropped, and the εἰμί be inserted, thus making the title read, “King am I of the Jews.” Instead of a title they want an assertion; instead of a title given by Pilate they want an assertion coming from Jesus. This sounds as though the high priests knew all that passed between Jesus and Pilate when the governor questioned Jesus within the Praetorium. They must have had someone there who reported to them. This, too, answers the question as to how John knew so exactly what was said. He encountered no difficulty whatever.

John 19:22

22 Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. John does not say that he answered “them.” He may never have come out of the Praetorium but may only have sent his answer to them. The high priests reckoned without their host when they thought that Pilate would again yield to their will. Sore at his defeat, he was immovable. The Jews find him a changed man. Curt, decisive is his answer, no discussion, no parleying whatever.

The two perfects are interesting, one being punctiliar-durative, the other durative-punctiliar, R. 895; he wrote, and what he wrote remained written, and what thus remained stands as final. Formally Pilate was correct. The sentence, already executed, could not be legally altered even by a word. The men who commit great crimes often stickle for exact legal rights in minor matters. More than this, the very presence and the indignation of the high priests were exceedingly sweet to Pilate—his taunt had gone home. It showed that the drop of gall which he had cast into their cup of joy in obtaining Jesus’ death thoroughly spoiled all its sweetness.

They had made him miserable enough, let them now be miserable in turn. And back of all this clash of human passions was the serene hand of God. Jesus was, indeed, the true spiritual King of the Jews. What was written was written.

John 19:23

23 As John recounts the full details concerning the superscription on the cross, so he does also with regard to the division of Jesus’ clothes. But the main point of this episode is the remarkable fulfillment of prophecy. John alone adds this detail, for in Matt. 27:35 the fulfillment is interpolated from John, as all the older codices show. The soldiers, therefore, when they crucified Jesus, took his clothes, and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and the tunic. Now the tunic was seamless, woven from the top throughout. With the resumptive οὗν and the temporal clause John takes us back to v. 18.

After the execution the executioners divide the spoils. Incidentally we learn that four soldiers were detailed to crucify Jesus. Nothing is said about the soldiers and the division of the clothes of the two malefactors. We conclude that for the crucifixion of each of the malefactors two other quaternions had been given orders. Soldiers were constantly used for this purpose as various old records show, and not only in times of war but also in times of peace. A quaternion was the regular detail of soldiers (Acts 12:4).

This need not imply that only twelve soldiers were ordered out on the present occasion; a detachment of some size must have been sent by Pilate because of the great crowd present at the Praetorium and sure to be present on Golgotha.

What is meant by τὰἱμάτιααὑτοῦ, “his garments”? And how were the four parts made, with the tunic as a fifth? Our question is easily answered. The synoptists say that the clothes were divided, which fact John explains by saying that the soldiers made four parts of them, to each man a part; then the synoptists say that lots were cast for the clothes. This shuts out the supposition that Jesus wore only two garments, an outer robe, the ἱμάτιον, and a tunic next to the body, the χιτών; and that the four parts were made by slashing the outer robe into four pieces. R. 408 also leans toward this view when he suggests that the plural ἱμάτια may be used only in the sense of the singular ἱμάτιον.

Why cast lots when the four pieces were of equal value? Moreover, the loose outer robe could not be worn without a girdle; and Jesus could not have carried his cross unless his robe was bound tightly at the waist by a girdle, for he would have tripped after taking the first steps. Did Jesus go barefooted? To say that his sandals were cast aside as worthless, or that he had none, is without the least warrant. Had Jesus no turban or headcloth? He must have had; a headcovering had to be worn in that climate because of the sun.

We still see it today, with the loose folds protecting the neck, throat, and shoulders. Those who think that the thorny crown was removed at the Praetorium when the procession started for Golgotha, have no reason to assume that Jesus had no headcovering. We think the crown was left on Jesus’ head—who cared to remove it for him?—and it still left him marked as the king designed by Pilate’s inscription. The headcloth was thrown onto the thorn-crowned head and still belonged to Jesus until one of the soldiers secured it on Golgotha. Robe, girdle, sandals, headcovering, four unequal parts, one for each soldier, but to be divided by casting lots.

John alone mentions the χιτών or tunic, for this helped to fulfill the ancient prophecy in the most striking way, and Matthew, who records so many fulfilled prophecies, had left out this one. “And the tunic,” as John writes, puts this into a class by itself. A parenthetical δέ explains: this garment was seamless, woven from the top on through, all as one piece. A tunic woven in such an exceptional way would be made of the best material and thus be quite valuable; no cheap goods would be worked into such a garment. Those who think the outer robe was cut into pieces to make sufficient parts must tell us why the tunic was not considered as one of the four parts, thus cutting the robe into only enough pieces to make up four, one for each soldier. The likelihood points to five pieces of wearing apparel, among which the tunic stood out as being exceptional and especially valuable. The denial that a seamless garment could be produced at this time is untenable, for Josephus, Ant. 3. 7, 2 and 4 tells us that the high priest wore such a garment.

Other authorities substantiate this statement. The probability is that the ordinary priests also wore seamless tunics (Winer, also Nebe). A seamless tunic, however, possessed no sacerdotal character. Hence we cannot follow those who regard it as fitting that our High Priest Jesus wore a seamless tunic. Jesus never resembled the clerics—among them we found the Jewish rabbis in Jerusalem—who advertise their office by their daily dress.

John 19:24

24 They said, therefore, to each other, Let us not cut it but let us draw lots for it, whose it shall be; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which says:

They apportioned my garments among themselves,

And for my vestment they cast lot.

The soldiers, therefore, did these things. Those who think that the outer robe was cut into pieces seem to draw this idea from the remark of the soldiers not to cut up the seamless tunic. But John makes no mention of the outer robe; besides mentioning the tunic he speaks only of “the garments,” τὰἱμάτια. Nor do the soldiers say, “Let us not cut this,” as though they had already cut something else; for αὑτόν is without emphasis. They had already made four parts exclusive of the tunic. Its exceptional nature made them withhold the tunic and decide about that separately.

And their decision lies between two alternatives: letting each man again have a part, or allowing one man to have the entire garment. They decide quite sensibly on the latter, for to cut up the tunic would give nothing worth-while to any man. The subjunctives are volitive R. 943. How these men cast or drew lots is not indicated. A common way was to place lots in a helmet and to shake them until one flew out; another way was to reach in and to draw a lot. If the former procedure was followed, one man would be designated, and the first lot that flew out would be his, the lot being marked with a certain portion of the four that had been made, and in the case of the tunic, three lots were blank, and one lot was marked to win.

All this was a common proceeding to the casual observer. The clothes of the crucified belonged to the executioners as a perquisite. The crucified man was treated as one who was dead. The soldiers were great gamblers. For them to gamble for the clothes of Jesus was nothing exceptional. The soldiers who crucified the malefactors probably did the same.

John himself was near enough to see and to hear what transpired. The astonishing thing is that the action of these soldiers with regard to the clothes of Jesus fulfilled to the very letter the prophecy of Ps. 22:18, which John quotes from the LXX, a correct rendering of the Hebrew. This fact, indeed, deserves record in the Gospels. The Davidic authorship of Ps. 22 has been violently assailed, and in place of it we are offered a variety of conjectures, the one intent of which is to place the date of the Psalm as far away as possible from David’s time. Yet the competent commentator on the Psalms, Rudolf Kittel, while not explicitly admitting David’s authorship, prefers to pass by this question in silence. Delitzsch has answered the radical critics quite thoroughly: “Already one consideration nullifies all these notions.

No man in pre-Christian times, also no prophet, could combine with the prospect of his deliverance the prospect of the conversion of the Gentiles and the salvation of men through the gospel of this deliverance—no man except the theocratic king faithful in his calling, who, since 2 Sam. 7, dared to apply to himself what the patriarchal promise of the seed of Abraham declares, that they who bless him shall be blessed, and they who curse him shall be stricken with a curse; and who had to appear to himself not only with a sacred but with a central worldwide significance.” With this view all other evidence of the Davidic authorship agrees. “We do not doubt the truth of the heading ‘by David.’”

The interpretation is another matter. See the author’s Eisenach Old Testament Selections, 428, etc., which shows that this is not a typical Psalm but one that is entirely prophetic. David is not describing his own sufferings in such a manner that these picture Christ’s sufferings. “As Isaiah in chapter 53 simply prophesied, so David does here. Isaiah wrote poetry, too, only he wrote description; David’s poem is drama. Isaiah’s verses picture the Redeemer in his suffering and in his glorification; David’s verses let us hear the Redeemer himself speak in his agony and in his triumph. There are similar dramatizations in the writings of the prophets.

Here the entire poem is of that character. And that, let us frankly confess, is about as far as we dare to go; what lies beyond is behind the veil of the Spirit of revelation and inspiration.”

The two lines quoted by John refer to the same act, the portioning out of the clothes of Jesus by lot. In the parallelism of Hebrew verse the second line repeats the thought of the first, but such synonymous lines always add new features. It is, therefore, unwarranted to identify begadim and lebush, “garments” and “vesture,” as though both referred to clothes. This “vesture” is one garment, the tunic Jesus wore. The Psalm does not say how the other ἱμάτια or “clothes” were divided; we may infer that this was also done by casting lots. But the Psalm pointedly says that for the single tunic a lot was cast, using the singular κλῆρος, one lot, so that one man obtained this special garment.

The prophecy, so unobtrusive in this detail, was fulfilled to the letter before the very eyes of John. He adds, “The soldiers therefore did these things.” John’s mind lingers on them and on their action and bids us do the same: common, coarse, ignorant pagan soldiers, gambling again, as so often, but doing precisely what divine foreknowledge and prophecy had recorded hundreds of years ago.

John 19:25

25 The entire incident next recorded has been preserved by John alone, who also is concerned about it in the most intimate way. Jesus spoke seven words from the cross, and in the first four he attends to his earthly obligations, in the last three to his affairs with God. The words addressed to Mary and to John Jerome aptly calls the testamentum domesticum by which Jesus set his earthly house in order, while in the Lord’s Supper, his testamentum publicum, he made his great bequest to all his followers. Now there were standing beside the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother’s sister Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. No contrast is intended by δέ but merely continuation. When John tells us that these women stood “beside the cross,” we recall that the other evangelists also mention these women but say that they stood “afar off.” The two statements are not identical; yet they in no way conflict.

For no one would suppose that this little group of women with the disciple John stood close by his side during the entire time that Jesus hung upon the cross. Only by waiting for an opportune moment could they have moved up so close; perhaps this occurred when the scoffing high priests and the others had withdrawn. After Jesus had spoken to them, after, as it were, he had bidden them farewell, and the strange darkness fell over the land, the soldiers, becoming alarmed, cleared the space about the cross, and John with the women and the other friends of Jesus (Luke 23:49) could stand only “afar off,” watching for the end. This final watching “afar off” the other evangelists note in their records.

How many women does John mention? One answer is three, another answer is four. Those who say that there were three point to the two καί, which add to the mother of Jesus two other women; if three others were intended another καί would have been added. Exegetically this is convincing over against the proposition that there were four women, grouped in two pairs, one unnamed pair being connected with καί, and another named pair also being connected with καί. The trouble with this view is that any reader, when more designations are added after the first καί, looks for the next καί, and the idea that pairs are intended to be mentioned does not enter his mind unless something appears that indicates that pairs are being spoken about, which the mere absence of a καί between the pairs fails to do. To say that, if only three women are referred to, John should have written, “and Mary, the sister of his mother, of Clopas,” placing her name “Mary” first, is extreme, for this leaves the final genitive “of Clopas” in an ambiguous position.

We are able to find only three women mentioned in John’s words. Mark 15:40 and Matt. 27:56 name the second Mary as the mother of James and Joses; this agrees with John who adds the information that she was the Virgin’s sister, and that her husband’s name was Clopas.

Matthew and Mark, for some reason that we do not know, omit mention of the mother of Jesus. She is not mentioned even in connection with the burial of Jesus. But these two evangelists tell us that John’s mother Salome was present. Those who find four women take Salome to be “the sister of his mother,” whom John is said to designate only in this way. This close relationship, however, is nowhere indicated in the Gospels. With the mention of only three women John would omit his mother, which accords even more with his constant practice of effacing himself and his relatives as much as possible from his record.

He would not mention himself in this narrative if he were not compelled to do so on account of the part he has in it. He either had to omit the incident altogether or had to indicate his own presence, and we are glad that he chose the latter course.

John writes only “his mother” and does not add the name “Mary” as one might well expect; he did the same in 2:1, etc., and in 6:42. This omission seems significant as in a silent way indicating some relationship between the family of John and that of Jesus. Many think that Mary and Salome were sisters, but no further evidence to this effect is at hand. “His mother” is properly placed first in this incident because it deals with her. The second woman is Mary’s sister, also called Mary, but she is distinguished from her as the wife of Clopas. One cannot make ἡἀδελφή mean sister-in-law, although this is suggested in order to escape the strange fact of having two sisters with the same name. Yet the two women may not have had the same father and mother, both being brought into the family from former marriages.

Besides, many ancient texts have “Miriam” as the name for the mother of Jesus, and “Maria” as the name for her “sister.” Speaking in general, the Greek genitive “of Clopas” may mean according to the connection “wife,” “mother,” or “daughter” of Clopas; here the latter two are excluded (R. 767). We know the names of her children (Matt. 27:56), and a woman of her age would not be designated by a reference to her father. The Greek genitive is constantly used where “wife” is the meaning. Eusebius reports from Hegesippus that Clopas was a brother of Joseph, the husband of the Virgin. A marginal note in one of the Syriac versions states in so many words that these two brothers married two sisters. We may shake our heads at this, but two brothers have not infrequently married two sisters.

Clopas is identical with the Alpheus of the synoptists, for they make him the father of the same sons. A reason is demanded as to why this second Mary is designated so fully when she seems to have had no special prominence. But that is the very reason, and also because we have several Marys. Thus each needs clear identification. Matthew and Mark identify her by reference to her children, John by reference to her husband. John also indicates the reason for her presence when he says that she was “the sister of his mother.” In this desperate hour this Mary stood by her suffering sister.

Matthew and Mark, who omit mention of the mother of Jesus, consider Mary Magdalene the leader of the women, much as Peter appears as the leader among the men, and therefore place her first among the women that stood “afar off.” John properly places Jesus’ mother first, and her sister next, and Mary Magdalene last. Other women, such as his own mother, he could pass over in silence, but hardly Mary Magdalene, of whom he will also soon tell us how Jesus appeared to her after his resurrection. She has often been identified with the prostitute in the Pharisee Simon’s house, Luke 7:37, etc., but contrary to all evidence. Asylums for fallen girls have been called “Magdalene Homes,” but such naming casts a disgrace on this woman, which fact one can only deplore. The distinctive term “Magdalene” is usually derived from her original home, the town Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, Matt. 15:39; no other explanation has been found. We need not puzzle about the incompleteness of John’s short list, for we repeatedly meet this phenomenon in the Gospel narratives.

John permits only the narrative itself to indicate his own presence. From Luke 22:49 we learn that “all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things.” We are unable to say who they were. There must have been a few men among the number, one being John, but no one else of the Twelve was present. We have no hint that they drew close to the cross when John and Jesus’ mother and a few other women made the venture.

Stricken and crushed with terrible grief, these few loving hearts, made bold in their timidity by their bleeding love, huddle beside the cross. Those painters err who make the cross high. The Savior’s feet were easily embraced, being less than three feet from the ground. Jesus did not need to raise his voice in speaking to his mother and to John. The little group at the cross could hear him perfectly while those farther away did not need to understand.

John 19:26

26 Jesus, therefore, when he saw his mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved, says to his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then he says to the disciple, Behold, thy mother! Jesus is fully conscious in spite of all that his body and his soul had endured. He forgets, he omits nothing. It was, of course, God’s own providence that provided this opportunity for Jesus to attend to this last filial duty and thus to fulfill to the uttermost the Fourth Commandment. As God shaped all things even in the midst of his enemies, so he also arranged this, that the mother of Jesus and a few others with John could come close to the cross at this important moment.

He who is here bearing the sins of the whole world amid the most unspeakable personal suffering is, nevertheless, fully aware of what God is now providing for him. Amid severe suffering another person might have his whole mind turned in on himself; not so Jesus. Another, enduring great agony, might overlook an opportunity such as God presented to Jesus and too late think of how he might have used it; not so Jesus. Not with a desire for pity because of his own suffering does this son turn to his mother but in filial, sonlike care for her in her lonely state and suffering. Even now as he dies she is in his heart. Nothing more tender and touching is found in the Gospel story than this love of Jesus for his mother.

Usually mother love is rated as the purest and strongest type of human love. The love of Jesus for his mother exceeds even all mother love. It is not true that John’s Gospel describes Jesus only as the Son of God; it is full of the humanity of Jesus as well, a humanity that draws our hearts with its truth and its tenderness.

The present tense λέγει, used for greater vividness, is in effect an aorist and thus is to be construed with the aorist participle ἰδών, “having seen.” Of course, Jesus saw the entire little group before him. When John writes that Jesus saw “his mother and the disciple standing by, whom he loved,” we are to note, not only that Jesus saw these two in particular but that his mind at once turned to what he wanted these two to do. Note well: “his mother … the disciple whom he loved,” the two who in human relationship were nearest to his heart. A holy, human tenderness lies in these two names: she who once bore him under her heart and ever bore him in love within her heart—he whose head had lain next to his heart and on his loving breast. On John’s way of designating himself, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” see 13:23.

The perfect participle παρεστῶτα, “standing by,” is always used with a present meaning. This does not mean merely that John stood beside the cross. Why should that be said only with regard to John and not equally with regard to Jesus’ mother? Was not, in fact, the entire little group standing by the cross? and has this not already been stated in v. 25? “His mother, and the disciple standing by” means that John was standing by Jesus’ mother. This is an intimate touch in the narrative. Not beside any of the other grief-stricken women was this beloved disciple standing but beside his beloved Master’s mother.

Why beside her? Surely, not merely by accident as though the persons in the group just happened to have placed themselves thus. We have every reason to think that Mary’s sister helped to support her in this terrible moment; and that the participle, which is used only with regard to John, tells us that he, the only man in the group, likewise supported the stricken mother in her overwhelming grief.

The suffering of John was like that of Mary. These two belonged together because in the death of Jesus these two were losing something more than the rest. Mary was losing her son, John the Master who loved him beyond the rest. Neither Mary nor John would ever have Jesus again as they once had had him in tender, familiar, loving intercourse. Never would Mary again embrace her son and lay her head upon his breast; never would John again recline beside him on the same couch at table and be able to lay his head on Jesus’ breast. Yes, John supported Mary, but as one who himself needed support just as she did. These two belonged together. In love nearest to Jesus, now that he dies, both are joined before him. And Jesus saw it, and his heart understood.

Alas, what has Roman Catholicism made of this scene! Some of it is like blasphemy of Christ in the very hour of his atoning death. Catholic books are full of this derogation of Christ and the exaltation of Mary. We are told that with her passion Mary comes to the aid of her son on the cross. Alone he could not have accomplished the task; he could never have borne the sins of the world and made atonement for them by himself. “The Mother of God” had to cooperate with the Son of God. This summarizes the Catholic teaching.

It invents two mediators where God had only one. It robs Christ in order to deify and to glorify Mary. In doing this blasphemous thing it destroys the real atonement and invents another which does not atone. Simply to state these facts is to abhor them. There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, 1 Tim. 2:5, 6.

No interval or hesitation ensue. The eyes of Jesus and of his mother meet, and these words come from her son’s lips, “Woman, behold, thy son!” Wonderful brevity yet full sufficiency. In Jesus’ death Mary loses an earthly son and gains another. In the highest filial love Jesus provides for the last days of his mother. He commits his mother to the care of one whom Jesus so loved that he could entrust to him this dearest charge.

That word “woman” has disturbed many. They hurry to assure us that the word means nothing disrespectful on Jesus’ part, which, of course, is altogether true. Yet when all has been said on this point, “woman” is not identical with the inexpressibly tender title “mother.” And Jesus does not here, even as he did not in Cana, say “mother.” The marked difference remains and is fully intended by Jesus. The reason for his saying “woman” and not “mother” is certainly not that he wished to avoid paining his mother by using the tender name. Nor is it that he wished to avoid making known the presence of his mother to the soldier guards; for they certainly guessed that his words applied only to the woman who was his mother. The reason lies deeper.

Ever since Jesus took up his work of redemption a new relation to his mother took precedence over the old relation of mere mother and son. Jesus was still Mary’s son, but now she was to see in him also and above all her Lord and Savior. Once she had him merely as her son to direct and to command him as a mother, to obey her mother wishes, dependent on her parental position. This yielded to a far higher, holier, and more blessed relation when that son of hers began his mediatorial work to win eternal salvation for her as well as for us all. It was then that Jesus said to her γύναι instead of μῆτερ. Now on Calvary he is completing that heavenly work.

And in that work, not as a mere human son providing for his mother, but as God’s Son, her Lord and her Redeemer, fulfilling for her and for us all the Fourth Commandment, he is making this last filial provision. That is why he again says “woman” and not “mother.” And she who had all along understood understands now. We hear no outcry from her, no heart-rending call, “O my son, my son!” 2 Sam. 18:33. She is silent in her grief—the true mother of this divine Son.

“Behold, thy son!” has been misunderstood to mean, “Behold, me, thy son!” Mary has enough to bear; Jesus is not harrowing her feelings with such a word. This interpretation mars the entire act, for it makes the word of Jesus to John rather senseless. Nor do we have the accusative, “behold thy son,” for ἱ, υἱός is nominative. While ἴδε would be an imperative, ἰδέ or ἰδού is an interjection. The entire weight falls on “thy son” in the sense, “this is now thy son.” Jesus leaves John as a substitute son to care for Mary. This is his last filial gift to his mother. John was even now doing a son’s part for Mary; he is to go on doing that as long as Mary may need a son’s care.

What has Roman Catholicism made of this word of the dying Savior? Like Pius IX., Jesus, too, we are told, by this word of his makes Mary the patroness of all Christians who are here represented by the disciple John. It was not Mary who needed John, but John and with him and in him all other Christians who needed Mary. One of these Mary worshippers writes that “in the person of John Mary receives all Christians as her children. And this capacity of Mary entitles us to the right and the trust, that we place all our interest in her hands.” What a reversal of the facts! Had Jesus been dependent on Mary, and not she on him?

Had she during his ministry provided for him, and not he for her? And since when is all Christendom represented in John? No; Jesus is not adding to the burdens of Mary, least of all a world-burden no human being can possibly bear. He is not deifying this “woman,” nor making her do what he alone can do and does for us all. He is comforting his mother, unburdening her, providing for her the support she needs. This sacred word of Jesus cannot be wrested to convey self-conceived ideas.

Its sense is crystal clear, and no man shall ever change it.

The word to John is the exact counterpart of the one to Mary; it conveys nothing new. Yet that is why it has been asked, why Jesus added this word. Was not the word to Mary enough? Did not John as well as Mary understand what the will of Jesus was? Would not John without the second word have obeyed the first word with alacrity? Already by his first word Jesus made John his adopted brother, his substitute, his administrator.

Yet Jesus had good reason for adding his second word to John. Jesus is making his personal will and testament. Despite all its brevity that will and testament should mention each person to whom a bequest is made. Jesus is not merely by indirection or by an inference asking John to take charge of his mother. Jesus does not treat his beloved disciple in such a way. Therefore he speaks to John just as he has spoken to his mother.

All are to know that it is John and John alone to whom this bequest of his mother is made.

Why did Jesus select John? Why could some of Mary’s other relatives not have taken charge of her? This was altogether a matter for Jesus to decide, not for us to decide for him. These are highly personal matters, and Jesus made the best possible provision for his mother. John was nearest to Jesus’ heart, and so the trust was laid upon him. But how about John’s own mother and John’s duty toward her? Those who raise this question can scarcely mean that Jesus had overlooked this point and that, while he acted filially toward his own mother, he was inducing John to act unfilially toward his mother. To think this would be to charge a fault against Jesus in this most sacred hour. No; love is not halved by thus adding objects of love. No child loves either parent less for being blessed with two.

John 19:27

27 Willingly John accepts his great Master’s last will and testament. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. In the Greek the word ὥρα does not always mean “hour,” a period of sixty minutes. In Matt. 24:36, “of that day and hour knoweth no man,” day is the date, and hour is time in general. John intends to say that from that time onward he took care of Mary. So we need not assume that John at once took Mary away from Golgotha, as some think, in order to spare her, so that she might not witness the last agony and the actual death. Mary was not that kind of a mother. As the Lord’s handmaiden she was strong in spirit to bear whatever load he laid upon her. By remaining she surely was much as other mothers are.

What must we understand by εἰςτὰἴδια Evidently in domum suam, “to his own home,” R. 691. It is reported that John had a house at the foot of Zion hill in Jerusalem, and that Mary lived there for eleven years, and that only after her death did John go to preach in the whole world. But another tradition tells us that Mary died and was buried in Ephesus where John afterward labored. Of course, for John to have property of his own in Jerusalem would not conflict with the practice of the first congregation in sharing earthly possessions when this was needed. But all the property of the Zebedee family seems to have been located in Galilee. It is simplest and best to assume that John took Mary to the home where he, his mother, and his brother lived in Jerusalem, whether he owned the home or not.

When John left the city he took the mother of Jesus with him. How long she lived and where she died, no one knows. John perfectly fulfilled the personal trust laid upon him by Jesus.

John 19:28

28 John now tells his readers exactly how Jesus died. After this Jesus, knowing that all things have already been finished, in order that the Scripture might be accomplished, says, I thirst. Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus was given a drink, but John alone informs us that Jesus asked for a drink and thust received it; he also relates why he asked, namely in order to die with a victorious shout. The sketch of the two synoptists is thus made a complete picture by John.

The phrase “after this” intends only to mark the fact that an interval occurred between what John has just narrated and what he now narrates. It is exactly like other phrases of this kind, all indicating the expiration of an interval. We thus decline to make the phrase mean, that after Jesus provided for Mary he knew that he had done everything to fulfill the Scripture prophecies concerning what he was to do. Providing for Mary was not the last work Jesus had to do to fulfill the Scriptures. More than three hours had passed since the word to Mary and to John had been spoken, during which time the hardest part of Jesus’ task was accomplished. After this is over, Jesus asks for a drink. It is now that he knows that all is done, for εἰδώς is used as a present participle and thus is to be construed with the present λέγει.

What is it that Jesus now knows? This, that all things have now been finished or brought to a close in order that the Scriptures might be accomplished or brought to their goal. The keystone had been placed into the arch; that was the last act, and that act completed everything. This last act consisted of the bitter agony during the three hours of darkness when Jesus, covered with our guilt, experienced that even God turned his face from him. When that was over, the final act was finished, and by that final act all was accomplished that the Scripture had foretold concerning the earthly work of Jesus. Nothing more was needed, and thus nothing more had been foretold.

Now Jesus could lie down to rest in death. We must see the difference between the synonymous verbs τελέω and τελειόω. The former means to bring to a to a close; to finish by adding the last stroke with nothing more to be added. The latter means to bring to a goal, to reach successfully the mark that was set. The former refers only to the last thing; the latter to everything including the last, as constituting a successful accomplishment, a long, great work completely done. The R.

V. marks the difference well: “to finish,” “to accomplish.” The A. V. is too inexact in translating, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” The expression: ἵναπληρωθῇ, is the common one, used again and again when some special prophecy is fulfilled. “In order that the Scripture might be accomplished” is used only here and means something far grander, namely that the entire Scriptures in all that they present concerning the earthly work of Jesus have now been turned into actuality, the work mapped out by Scripture is now a work actually accomplished. Nor can we say, as some do, that at least one more thing must be added, namely the actual death of Jesus; for death is now here, it is included in the finish and in the accomplishment—Jesus is even now dying. John tells us that Jesus knows that he is at the point of death, and describes this last act. Death does not imply only the instant when body and soul are sundered, it includes the whole act of sundering, most certainly those last moments when the dying man feels his soul slipping out of its mortal tenement. This wrong idea lies back of R. 898 who regards τετέλεσται as a futuristic present perfect equal to a future perfect, “shall have been finished.” Here this is the perfect of a completed state (R. 895), exactly as in v. 30.

We cannot divide the sentence so as to read: that Jesus knows that all things have been finished, and then he says, “I thirst” in order that the Scriptures might be accomplished. This would be a contradiction —the last thing has been done, and yet one more needs to be done, one more prophecy needs to be fulfilled. And why say regarding this last prophecy that by it the Scripture is “accomplished”? The word would be out of place; it is entirely too vast. This also makes the ἵνα clause, placed as it is before λέγει, decidedly emphatic. Why such an emphasis?

The defenders of this construction have no answer. And how is this prophecy fulfilled (we shall not say “accomplished”) by Jesus’ saying, “I thirst”? Psalms 22:15 calls for no cry from Jesus’ lips. The fact that Jesus suffered dire thirst for many hours we know apart from his last cry, for nothing had passed his lips since the late evening before. Psalms 69:21 is out of the question, for it speaks of gall and vinegar, and Jesus received sour wine and no gall. This passage refers to the stupefying drink offered to Jesus when he was to be nailed to the cross; it was not intended to quench thirst but to help to dull the pain when the nails were driven through the hands and the feet.

Men who were to be crucified were generally doped in this way in order to quiet their struggles during the ordeal. Every prophecy which can be referred to thirst has already been fulfilled by the fact of Jesus’ thirsting, and yet the construction here called for places the fulfillment in the word of Jesus, “I thirst.” This is so evident that some make this prophecy, which they say still requires fulfillment, the actual death of Jesus. This violates the words of John, for he wrote that Jesus said, “I thirst,” not that he said, “I die.”

Jesus says, “I thirst.” Thirst was one of the excruciating agonies of the crucified. Jesus must have thirsted long before Golgotha was reached, and this cry of his body for moisture to slake its burning must have become terribly intensified after he hung upon the cross. Silently he had endured these pangs until now. Why had he not asked for drink ere this? And why does he ask now? In order to fulfill the prophecy, we are told.

Yet no such prophecy exists. Others offer strange suggestions. The word “I thirst” is made allegorical: the physical thirst becomes a thirst of the soul of Jesus for the souls of men. Our reaction to this view is that in this solemn moment all allegorical fancies are absolutely out of place. Next is the symbolical interpretation. The vinegar offered to Jesus is made symbolic of the world’s treatment of Jesus.

Thus ungratefully, with nothing but miserable vinegar (some add the gall mentioned in the Psalm), were his burning lips moistened when in dying he asked for drink! No such symbolical meaning lies in the word “I thirst.” If at this moment Jesus had desired to show the ungratefulness of the world toward him why should he have left out the gratitude of all his true followers and given us no final symbol of that? Symbolism is as much out of place as allegory.

Nor did Jesus wish to hasten his end by drinking vinegar. On the other hand, he was not asking for vinegar to lengthen his life. A few drops of this liquid upon scalded lips and a burning throat cannot possibly produce either of these effects. Some are greatly surprised that at this supreme moment Jesus should have indicated a physical desire—he who had set all such desires aside this long while! It is this surprise which leads to the so-called deeper interpretations. Those are right who agree that “I thirst” voices a purely physical desire.

It is, indeed, true that now all is finished, the work is done, the battle over, the victory won. Think of some great general who never thought of hunger or of thirst during the long battle hours, but who, when at last the victory is won, again feels the natural cravings. But even this interpretation comes short. It is true that Jesus feels himself sinking into unconsciousness and therefore wishes to have his lips wetted. But he desires far more than merely to die in full consciousness up to the last moment. “I thirst” is a request. Jesus actually asks for drink.

He wanted the vinegar. He is rallying his last strength. He does not cry aloud, “I thirst”; he says this with what strength he has. He wants his lips and his throat moistened in order that he may do just what the synoptists report that he does, namely utter a loud shout and thus die. Even the centurion was astonished at this mode of death. This clears up the synoptists who omit to state how Jesus came to be offered that drink—he himself had asked for it.

John also makes plain that this request and the actual death were separated by only a few moments. Two more words followed, loud and strong, and Jesus was dead.

John 19:29

29 A vessel was lying there full of vinegar. Having, therefore, placed a sponge full of vinegar around a hyssop, they brought it to his mouth. The request of Jesus is fulfilled; he receives the drink for which he asks. The Jews (οἱλοιποί, Matt. 27:49) try to stop the soldier who hurries to serve Jesus, but he answers them almost with their own words (Mark 15:36) and refuses to be stopped. We need not trouble ourselves about the strange ideas which some have attached to the presence of the vinegar, the sponge, and the hyssop on Golgotha. They were there for just what was now done with them.

In their raging thirst, men who were crucified cried for drink, and the executioners used a sponge of vinegar on a short rod to give them enough to moisten their lips. The fact that this might prolong their lives need not trouble us, for crucifixion was intended to be a long, drawn-out torture. The ὄξος is the cheapest kind of sour wine, commonly served to soldiers; and it was entirely serviceable for the purpose here indicated, for it does allay thirst. We need not doubt that Jesus knew that this sour wine was there and there for this purpose, and so made his want known. We have no reason whatever for special reflections in regard to the “vinegar.”

Matthew and Mark report that one man gave Jesus the drink, while John uses the plural endings in the participle and in the main verb. Naturally one man performed the act; that others repeated it is unlikely and even unnecessary. This man must have been one of the four soldiers, for the vinegar, etc., belonged to them. John’s plural is explained when we note that this soldier acted with the centurion’s consent, who may even have bidden one of his men to act. The indefinite plural thus conveys the idea that the drink came from the soldiers; it was not merely the deed of one who was more tenderhearted than the rest. What the two synoptists call a reed John calls a hyssop, indicating, as in so many other instances, his presence as an eyewitness.

This plant has stems about 18 inches in length, which proves the claim that the cross held the victim’s body only as high as this stalk indicates. Symbolical ideas have been connected with this word “hyssop”; no symbolism is indicated but only the exactness of one who saw with his own eyes.

John 19:30

30 When, therefore, Jesus took the vinegar he said, It is finished! and, having bowed his head, he gave up the spirit. Jesus received the sour wine, which fact shows that “I thirst” was intended as a request. Then, without a pause he said, “It is finished!” From Matthew and from Mark we learn that Jesus cried with a loud voice. To aid him in this he had asked for the wine. These two evangelists record no words, but Luke reports that Jesus cried aloud, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!” and, having said this, died. We need not question that Luke records the last word uttered by Jesus.

From John we learn that Jesus uttered another word just before the last one. He thus again adds to the older records. While John does not repeat what Luke reports, John’s statement that Jesus gave up the spirit in a manner implies the last word as recorded by Luke, for Jesus gave up his spirit into his Father’s hands even as his last word declared. It is natural, too, that one should commend his spirit to the hands of God only after he could truly say that his entire task had been finished. Thus the Son went home to the Father after doing that Father’s will. No wonder his voice rose to its loudest pitch.

“It is finished!” Τετέλεσται, exactly as in v. 28, the perfect of a completed state, denotes an action brought to its termination, it is like a line that ends in a point————— Jesus speaks this word to his Father. He makes his report to the Father who sent him. Uttered with a loud voice, it is also intended for all men to hear. Recorded now in Scripture, it still rings out to all the world. Since the whole passion and death of Jesus were intended for us, why set up the contention that this conclusion is intended only for him and not also for us? The verb has no subject.

What is it that is here brought to an end? Some think that Jesus has in mind his suffering, which, of course, in a way is true and quite obvious. But this cry cannot mean that Jesus is thinking only of himself and is glad that his pain now ceases. Some think of the ancient prophecies and their fulfillment, which, of course, in a way is also true (v. 28). This is better than the previous view, yet it still is indefinite, and other prophecies are still unfulfilled, namely the resurrection and the exaltation. Many are satisfied to say that the work or task of Jesus is concluded, or even that no further duty holds Jesus to life; this is equally indefinite.

A word so important cannot be explained by so general an interpretation. The death of Jesus finishes his redemptive work, the work of reconciliation and atonement. This specific work is now brought to a close. The Lamb of God has made his great sacrifice for the world. It is this that is now done. Our great Substitute has paid the great price of ransom, paid it to the uttermost farthing. “It is finished” indeed!

Others will yet preach and teach, and Jesus will work through them; as the King on David’s throne his regal work will continue forever; but the redemptive shedding of his blood, done once for all, is finished and stands as finished forever. Heb. 7:27; 9:12 and 26; Rom. 6:10.

John is satisfied with Luke’s record of the final word of Jesus and so now adds nothing more than a record of the death itself: “and he bowed his head.” Until the last moment Jesus held his head erect; now the muscles relax, the head drops forward upon the chest. Some advance the symbolic fancy that the head of Jesus inclined toward the side on which the penitent malefactor hung; but this is fancy and nothing more. The dropping forward of the head indicates death. We have no right to assume an interval, a slow, painful struggle, a gradual lessening of the breathing; the spirit fled the instant the head dropped forward.

Luke has the single word ἐξέπνευσεν, for which John writes παρέδωκετὸπνεῦμα, the exact counterpart of our English translation, “he gave up his spirit” and a reminder of the final word of Jesus with which he commends his spirit into his Father’s hands. All of the evangelists use choice expressions for stating the death of Jesus; none is content to say only that “he died.” They also refer to the spirit or πνεῦμα, none only to the ψυχή, although dying can also be expressed by using the latter. Jesus is true man and thus had what is called ψυχή and πνεῦμα. These two are the immaterial part of our being. This part may be called by either term when nothing further is intended. But quite a difference may be made when ψυχή is used to designate our immaterial part in so far as it animates our material body and receives impressions from this body, while πνεῦμα is then reserved to indicate this same immaterial part in so far as it is open to a higher world and able to receive impressions from the Spirit of God.

This distinction in the Greek terms is largely lost in the English where “soul” and “spirit” are more nearly alike. We at once see this when we note that the Greek derives its adjective ψυχικός from ψυχή, which adjective we are constrained to translate “carnal,” for “soul” furnishes us no adjective to express the thought that our immaterial part is moved by the low influences of the body.

Man’s personality resides in this immaterial part; his ἐγώ is in the soul or spirit. In Jesus this personality or ἐγώ was the Logos. The death of Jesus dare not be regarded as a separation of the Logos from the human nature of Jesus or from any part of that nature. The union of the Logos with the human nature, once entered into, remains absolutely intact and undisturbed ever after. That union was not made with only one part of the human nature, with only the human soul or spirit; it was a most wonderful and complete union with the entire human nature. In the death of Jesus his human soul or spirit was separated from his body just as this separation takes place in our death.

The death of Jesus took place entirely in his human nature and in no way affected the union of the Logos with his human nature. In the sinless person of Jesus the spirit ruled absolutely; thus it is eminently fitting that John and the synoptists use Jesus’ own words when they say that in dying he gave up his “spirit.”

Certain older medical authorities have held the view that the death of Jesus was induced by a rupture of the walls of his heart, so that we might satisfy our sentimental feelings by saying that Jesus died of “a broken heart.” Our latest and best authorities inform us that this is quite impossible. A lesion such as that could result only from a degeneration of the heart, and this occurs only in older persons where disease has left its effects. This covers also the tentative suggestion that perhaps some artery burst and caused death. Again John 10:17, 18 has been used to maintain the view that Jesus died, not from physical causes, but by a mere volition of his will. It requires but little reflection to see the untenableness of this conclusion. That passage deals with the entire action of Jesus in giving himself into death for us.

This volition of his is apparent all along when he announces his passion and when he finally enters that passion and endures all its agonies. The death of Jesus is due to the physical effects of his suffering and his crucifixion. This alone is the cause assigned by the Scriptures. When the spirit left the body, Jesus died. Yet we must always conceive his actual death as one full of peace and joy. With the hard and bitter work done, Jesus goes to the Father.

Like a tired child he lays his head to rest in his Father’s arms.

The spirit of Jesus did not enter Sheol or hades, an intermediate place between heaven and hell, the fabled place of the dead, and remain there until the resurrection. This notion is comparable to the idea of certain older theologians that the soul of Jesus went down into hell and there suffered the tortures of the damned. Jesus himself tells us that his spirit went into his Father’s hands, and this is heaven. John 17:5 calls it the glory which the Son had from eternity. The paradise into which the penitent malefactor’s soul passed to be with Jesus is heaven, the eternal abode of God and his blessed angels and saints.

John 19:31

31 The Jews, therefore, since it was Preparation Day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for great was the day of that Sabbath, requested Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be removed. Again John contributes an episode that is in no way touched upon by the synoptists and one that is noteworthy in every way. “The Jews” are, of course, the Sanhedrists, probably a delegation of them. The natural way in which to read οὗν is to have it introduce an inference from what precedes: Jesus having died, the Jews take steps to have all the bodies removed from the crosses before sundown. The view that the Jews had left Golgotha some time before Jesus died, and that they thus hoped to have the legs of Jesus, too, broken, but that John tells us that they were frustrated in this by the sudden nature of Jesus’ death, is incompatible with οὗν. So also is the view that the request of the Jews was made when the procession first started for Golgotha from the Praetorium. Jesus died about three o’clock.

The Jews had gained their great end. And now they think of the approaching Sabbath. They do not want the bodies to remain upon the crosses on the Sabbath day, namely the dead body of Jesus and the still living bodies of the malefactors, no matter when death should come to these. Ordinarily the Romans left the bodies of criminals on the cross until they rotted, although under Tiberius, the present emperor, the relatives might obtain them for burial. The Jews were actuated by their law, Deut. 21:22, etc., which directed that such bodies should be taken down on the day of execution because they were accursed and were not to defile the land. This referred to men who were hung and thus were already dead.

But the Jews would certainly apply this law also to men who had been crucified in the Roman fashion; and here was one who was already dead, and two others, both accursed although not as yet dead.

In the present instance, however, the Jews had a still more potent reason. This was Friday, hence “Preparation Day,” i.e., the day before the Sabbath, called παρασκευή because everything had to be prepared in advance before the Sabbath began in the evening when no more work like buying, cooking food, cleaning, etc., could be performed. This was one consideration. It was augmented by another, namely that the approaching Sabbath was a day that was “great” beyond an ordinary Sabbath. This was the Sabbath of the Passover week, which was thereby lifted into a sacredness that was above all other Sabbath days. On the question as to whether this great Sabbath was the first day of the Passover, the day on which the Passover lamb was eaten, see the discussion on 18:28, “might eat the Passover.” Thus once more the Jews find themselves compelled to make a request (ἠρώτησαν, with all due respect) of Pilate.

Non-final ἷνα states what they ask: “that their legs might be broken, and that they might be removed.” The

breaking of the legs is the so-called crurifragium, a cruel hastening of death, by its very brutality in no way lessening the original punishment. The form κατεαγῶσιν, although it is a subjunctive (second passive from κατάγνυμι) has an augment, R. 1212, also 365. The breaking of the legs might not at once induce death, but the Jews, no doubt, hoped that the sight of the suspended bodies would at least not meet the eyes of beholders when the Sabbath dawned. From Mark 15:43, etc., we gather that the Jews had not informed Pilate of the early death of Jesus. This implies that Pilate thought that he was ordering the breaking of Jesus’ legs.

John 19:32

32 The soldiers, therefore, came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him. But having come upon Jesus, when they saw that he was dead already, they did not break his legs; on the contrary, one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and immediately there came out blood and water. In this most remarkable manner the body of Jesus is preserved from mutilation. Pilate seems to have issued the order without hesitation. His messenger informs the centurion, and the soldiers do their awful work. John saw it performed, first on the one, then on the other malefactor. “They came” is only circumstantial, as an eyewitness would tell the details: “they came” cannot mean that new men had been sent by Pilate, who carried clubs for this work.

For “the soldiers” are the ones we have met throughout the preceding narrative. John tells the facts as he saw them. Why, since Jesus’ cross stood between those of the malefactors, did the soldiers pass by his cross and go from the one malefactor to the other? Why do they leave Jesus as the last one? Already this is strange. These soldiers do not seem to be so eager to carry out their orders upon this strange man on the central cross.

Various surmises are offered. We think that the centurion directed the soldiers; he was deeply impressed (Luke 23:47), and under his direction Jesus was to be last.

John 19:33

33 John describes how they now came “upon Jesus,” (ἐπί), paused, examined him, and “saw that he was dead already,” the perfect participle modifying αὑτόν after a verb of seeing: “him having died,” R. 1041, etc.; ὡς is almost causal, “since,” R. 963. A brief consultation ensued. Usually subalterns use no discretion of their own. Orders are orders, and thus, whether he were dead or alive, the blows would have crushed the legs of Jesus, too. But matters did not proceed so in this case. We cannot think, as has been suggested, that the soldiers desisted because the work was hard and they wished to spare themselves.

These men were not tired even if they had crushed the legs of the malefactors completely. The centurion must have stayed their hands. And so the legs of Jesus were not broken. God watched over his Son. At this point he called a halt.

John 19:34

34 Remarkable as already this is, the next act is still more remarkable, and the two combined, transpiring before the very eyes of John, are overwhelming in their significance. Without orders from Pilate, on their own volition, the soldiers pierce the side of Jesus instead of breaking his legs. An act as unusual as this must have been performed by one of the four soldiers who crucified Jesus upon the order of the centurion. A spear was used because this was the more suitable weapon for such a thrust. The verb νύσσειν is strong; Homer often uses it to indicate stabbing to death. While John does not say which side was pierced, we cannot but think that it was the left side, and that not merely because of the position of the soldier handling the lance but because of the intention to pierce the heart.

For most certainly the thrust was made, not in order to see whether there was still life in the body, but in order to place death beyond the least possible doubt. The supposition that also the malefactors were pierced through the heart, on the assumption that crushing their legs with clubs would not promptly kill them, must be rejected. John relates all the details, that first one malefactor and then the other had his legs crushed; in their case this was all. There is a strong impression that Jesus was treated in a way that was altogether exceptional, both in escaping the crushing and in receiving the spear thrust. Here something occurred that no man could have anticipated or even thought possible. John, however, saw it with his own eyes.

“Immediately there came out blood and water.” The history of the exegesis of this brief statement would fill many pages. Blood and water afford an opportunity for bringing in symbolism of one kind or the other, and the opportunity has been used to the full. Medical authority also steps in with its declaration that blood and water could not flow forth from a wound such as this after death had set in. This makes many certain that John intends to report a sign or miracle. Then comes the debate about whether blood and water came out together at the same time, or first blood and then water, and whether this was real water or a colorless fluid, and whether it gushed out in a stream or was small in quantity. A study of the text reveals that as far as John in concerned he treats as significant the fulfillment of two prophecies, the one that no bone of the body of Jesus was broken, the other that Jesus was pierced—and that is all.

Say what we will regarding the blood and the water, John mentions only this effect of the spear thrust. What he thought this phenomenon implied or proved he does not say. We have no right to shift the emphasis of his account to the blood and the water, he does not place it there. This is certain, the spear thrust, followed by the issue of blood and water, establishes also in John’s mind the fact of Jesus’ death. By this thrust all doubt is removed that Jesus was merely unconscious, that life could still remain in his body, and that he did not actually and truly arise from the dead on Sunday morning. Jesus was dead beyond question.

The reason for John’s emphasis on this fact is found in the heretical teaching against which already 1:14 is directed, the Docetic notion that Jesus had not become flesh, that, therefore, he had not already died and had not actually arisen from the dead. The form of this teaching as represented by Cerinthus, as well as the Judaistic form reported by Ignatius, or any other such form of doctrine, is here squarely denied by reporting the actual facts, which settle the matter that Jesus was dead beyond all question. As far as present medical conclusions are concerned, these are quite useless regarding the point of the water and the blood. We know from Acts 2:27 that no form of corruption touched the body of the God-man. The ordinary processes of decay never appeared in that holy body. Deductions drawn from observations of our dead bodies cannot be applied to the fluids of the dead body of him who knew no sin.

John 19:35

35 And he that has seen has borne testimony; and genuine is his testimony. And that one knows that he says things true, in order that you, too, may believe. So weighty is what John reports that he, too, now does something entirely exceptional. No evangelist, and not even John in the rest of his Gospel, breaks the narrative to address his readers personally and to assure them in regard to his testimony. Yet John now does this. It ought to go without saying that he refers to himself when he writes, “he that has seen.” John loves these perfects which carry the past acts down to their present effects.

This perfect means that what John once saw is still, as it were, vividly before his eyes although many years have passed. With this perfect the next accords: “he has borne testimony,” namely right here in this record, and this testimony, once borne, now stands indefinitely and speaks on and on. We know that John never mentions himself or any member of his family or wider relationship by name. He always uses the third person and even this only when literally compelled to do so. Yet critics have used the present passage in their efforts to deny John’s authorship of this Gospel. Here the supposed writer forgets himself in an impersonation of John and speaks of John without detecting that his impersonation is thus betrayed.

Those who will may believe in such a forger. We cannot, of course, share their views.

“Genuine is his testimony,” ἀληθινή, the adjective being emphatic. His testimony is competent, based on personal vision, not on what others have seen and told him. Any court would accept his testimony.

The battle about the next statement will, no doubt, continue indefinitely: “and that one knows that he says things true,” ἀληθῆ, things really so, not mere imaginings or falsifications. Who is referred to by ἐκεῖνος? Is it John himself or a second witness corroborating John? The word itself can be understood in either way. Sometimes it implies a contrast with another, yet often it does not. A case in point for the latter Isaiah 9:37; R. 707 presents his personal opinion as far as the language is concerned.

B.-D. 291, 6 falls back on textual criticism, as though this makes it uncertain whether John wrote v. 35; but the textual evidence is solid for the genuineness of v. 35, the only variant reading of the verse amounts to nothing. This means that no one has really been able to glean anything decisive from the words as they stand. We must fall back on other considerations. John has made the matter one of testimony and has shown that his testimony is competent. If by ἐκεῖνος he refers to himself, he would appeal for the truth of his testimony only to his own consciousness that he is indeed stating the truth. But this would add nothing whatever to his testimony, for who would think of charging him with something that he feels is not true, or that, to say the least, is doubtful to his own mind?

He has shown us that in the case of Jesus himself, when it comes to testimony, Jesus offered more than his own word although he knew his own testimony to be true. Jesus appeals to the corroborating testimony of the Baptist (5:32, etc.), of his works (5:36; 14:10), and of his Father in the Scriptures (5:37, etc., 8:18). Can John do less when he appears as a witness? Can he exempt himself from this essential requirement in regard to testimony, that whatever he testifies must be corroborated and supported by another witness in order to evoke credence?

It is thus that ἐκεῖνος comes to refer to a second witness, who indeed knows that what John has here testified is true and a statement of the facts. John might have in mind the thought that this other is God himself, and an appeal to him would be proper; for John at once quotes two Scripture passages which might be regarded as God’s corroborating testimony. Yet thus far in the narrative God has not been mentioned in any way while, on the other hand, Jesus has appeared as the supreme person. In addition, ἐκεῖνος is repeatedly used by John without an antecedent as an emphatic designation for Jesus: “HE” (1 John 2:6; 3:3, 5, 7, 16; 4:17), much as others used the word during the lifetime of Jesus (17:11; 9:28; 19:21). So it is Jesus to whom John appeals as corroborating his witness as being true. Even in 3 John 12 Demetrius has testimony from more than one source; and when John there says “we, too, testify,” he even adds to this, “thou knowest that our testimony is true.”

The purpose clause, “in order that you, too, may believe,” is best construed with the verb “says”; the verb “has borne testimony” is too far away. The aorist subjunctive πιστεύσητε (not the present, which some texts have) implies definite and final believing. The present πιστεύητε would speak of only continued believing which goes on without disturbance. John is writing to those who already believe; he addresses them personally, “you, too.” They are to believe just as John himself does. The verb, however, has no object but is used in a broad way regarding faith in general and is not restricted to the exceptional facts John has just stated. His genuine and truthful testimony regarding the death of Jesus and regarding what occurred with his body has as its purpose the enduring faith of the entire church.

As John writes he thinks of himself as being present in the congregation of believers who hear these words read, and thus the personal note creeps in. He does the same in 20:31, where his purpose is more fully stated: “in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” etc.

John 19:36

36 For these things occurred in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be shattered. And again another Scripture says, They shall look on him whom they did pierce through. So many hinge the solemn assurance of v. 35 on the blood and the water as though this is the thing John wants us to believe above all else. Yet beyond the mere mention of blood and water John has nothing further to say about blood and water. “These things,” he tells us, refer to the literal fulfillment of two Scripture passages, one regarding the fact that not a bone of Jesus’ body should be shattered, the other regarding the piercing of his body. John employs the regular formula for introducing Scripture quotations: “in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” This remarkable fulfillment of Scripture is to lend abiding support to our faith.

“A bone of him shall not be shattered,” Exod. 12:46; also Num. 9:12. In the case of the typical paschal lamb no bone was to be broken. It was not to be treated as an ordinary animal that was slaughtered for ordinary food and thus cut up and portioned out. No part of it was to be carried from one house to another, nor was any portion that might be left over to be eaten later like other meat; it was to be burnt before morning. All these directions, in particular the one to leave the lamb entire and thus to roast it on a spit, not to cut, boil, or prepare it in ways that required sundering, disjoining, or breaking the bones, lifted the paschal lamb above all other sacrifices, and this was done in order that it might in a special manner serve as a type of Jesus. How strikingly the antitype matched the type appears at the critical moment when all ordinary expectations would lead us to expect the legs of Jesus to be broken—but they were left unbroken. John places the type and the antitype side by side in order that, seeing what he saw, we, too, may believe.

In the face of 1:29, and 1 Cor. 5:7 it is in vain to reject the references to Exodus and to Numbers and to point to Ps. 34:20, or even to add the passage from the Psalm. The Psalm refers to the godly man who is still in this life not to Jesus who has already been slain by violence. The Psalm also lacks the words ὀστοῦν and αὑτοῦ. And no reason can be assigned why the Mosaic references are not the correct ones.

John 19:37

37 The second prophecy, Zech. 12:10, John translates from the Hebrew, discarding the inexact LXX which has “pierced through” mean only mistreat or insult. The Hebrew daqar means to stab to death. In the words of the prophet it is Yahweh himself who is pierced, and the piercing is mortal, for those who pierced Yahweh shall mourn as one mourns for an only son, and that his firstborn. Jesus, as Jahweh or God’s Son, was thus pierced, actually pierced through the heart with a spear. While this gashing with a spear did not in itself cause Jesus’ death, he being already dead, it was certainly part of the death tragedy, an absolutely deadly wound. The prophet does not mention the weapon, but this does not entitle us to call the wound made by the weapon only an individualizing feature; on the contrary, this mortal wound was the exact and specific fulfillment of the prophecy.

Those who had only the prophecy might wonder how Yahweh could be stabbed to death; they might, following their reason alone, consider this only an extravagant figure of speech for most painfully hurting the feelings of Yahweh. This seems to be the thought of the LXX when they translated the Hebrew verb κατορχεῖσθαι, “to insult.” But the moment the fulfillment appears beside the prophecy, all is clear: the incarnate Son of God was pierced to death at the instance of the Jews themselves. The Roman hand that wielded the spear is really the hand of the Jews who brought Jesus to the cross and wanted his body taken down from the cross that very day. Even then every ordinary expectation would have been that Jesus would suffer on the cross for at least a couple of days, or that he would have been killed like the malefactors by the shattering of his legs and his thighs. Instead of that he dies after only six hours, no bone is broken, and a spear pierces his side!

John’s interest is centered on the piercing of Jesus’ side, and this as a support for our faith. He is here not concerned with the other verb, “they shall look,” and with the fulfillment which this shall attain. Generally, however, this point is also discussed. Seeing they have pierced Yahweh, Zechariah says, the nation in all its parts shall mourn with the most bitter mourning as at the death of one’s firstborn. When shall this be, and what is the nature of this mourning? The fulfillment appears in Matt. 24:30 and in Rev. 1:7.

The mourning which the prophet describes is hopeless—with the death of an only son, the firstborn, all is lost. This the Jews shall realize too late, namely when the Son returns to judgment. “They shall look on him whom they pierced through” means that they shall do this too late. Many, however, hold the view that this look and its resultant mourning signify repentance. They see the fulfillment beginning already in Luke 23:48, in the 3, 000 believers at Pentecost, and in all the further conversions of Jews on through the centuries. Millennialists, of course, add the final conversion of the Jews as a nation when the expected millennium arrives. Often this repentant mourning is combined with the mourning of unbelief at the time of the final judgment.

The author formerly presented this view in The New Gospel Selections, 473. Some even refer to the blood and the water as streams of grace. The Scriptures, however, do not thus combine two opposite types of mourning, one progressing through the ages, the other confined to the judgment. Matt. 24:30 and Rev. 1:7 seem to be quite decisive. As far as repentance is concerned, Zechariah 13:8, 9 restricts this to a remnant of the Jews. In 13:1 he reveals the “fountain” of grace that shall be opened for repentance.

And this deliverance of the remnant is not in any sense described as a mourning.

John 19:38

38 John now proceeds to narrate the burial of Jesus, which the synoptists had also done quite fully. But John adds the part which Nicodemus played, and he explains how the body came to be placed into Joseph’s tomb, this being quite near to Golgotha. Now after these things Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, yet having kept himself hidden on account of the fear of the Jews, requested Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave permission. Joseph was rich (Matt. 27:57), a noble, godly man (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50), a Sanhedrist, opposed to the action of the body to which he belonged (Luke 23:51). He is named according to his home town in order to distinguish him from other Josephs: “of Arimathaea,” which is Rama. The section in which it is located was originally a part of Samaria but was transferred to Judea, which explains Luke’s: “a city of the Jews.” Like Matthew, John describes this man as “a disciple of Jesus,” yet as one who up to this moment had hidden his discipleship, κεκρυμμένος, “having kept himself hidden” as to his inner conviction. And this “on account of the fear of the Jews,” the fear which they inspired (7:13; 9:22; 20:19) with their hostility to Jesus and their threat of expulsion from the synagogue of any who confessed Jesus.

This man now does an astounding thing: he suddenly casts his fear and cowardice to the winds, boldly goes in to Pilate, and asks to be permitted to take and to bury the body of Jesus. And this bold and courageous confession of his is now made after Jesus has died on the cross of shame! When all the eleven but John had fled, when all who had believed and confessed were giving up their faith (Luke 24:21), this man’s faith rises out of its secrecy with full power and heroism! Jesus dies, but the malefactor believes and confesses, the very centurion under the cross does the same, and this rich, high, noble Sanhedrist joins them. His action is his confession, speaking more loudly than words. Joseph thus becomes God’s instrument in preserving the body of his Son from being cast into a felon’s grave, in giving it fitting burial, and in thus preparing for the resurrection of that body. “With the rich in his death,” Isa. 53:9, is now being fulfilled.

The Jews had already secured an order from Pilate regarding the removal of the bodies from Golgotha. But this pertained to the coming Sabbath. The order had reached the centurion who also had begun its execution. When Matthew and Luke tell us that Joseph went to Pilate (προσελθών), he must have gone from Golgotha. We may take it that the Jews went to Pilate when Jesus dropped his head forward and died; and that Joseph hurried to Pilate after the soldiers had broken the legs of the malefactors and plunged the spear into Jesus’ side. Some think that a delay ensued at this point because the soldiers would wait until the two malefactors actually died, since they could not be taken down before that time.

Yet Jesus was dead, and one may suppose that the soldiers would begin with him, take his body down and carry it to the pit to be put out of sight. So we assume as being most likely that Joseph spoke to the centurion of his intention to secure the body of Jesus for burial, and thus the soldiers waited in regard to Jesus until Joseph returned. The soldiers had time enough. A man of such prominence as Joseph would easily gain their consent. We even know what the centurion thought of Jesus (Luke 23:47); he would be only too glad to accede to Joseph’s request. The selfish motive that the soldiers would be relieved of removing Jesus’ body may be left out of consideration.

Joseph actually enters the Praetorium and makes his request of Pilate. It is usually assumed that by this act, which was so different from that of the high priests who feared the ceremonial pollution of entering a Gentile abode, Joseph broke completely with his Jewish religion, but this deduction is too strong. The Jews avoided this pollution only in order to be able to eat the Chagiga on Friday afternoon; see 18:28. Joseph intended to bury Jesus, would thus not eat this sacrificial meal this afternoon, and would be made unclean by helping to handle the dead body of Jesus, if, indeed, his request should be granted. Pilate was ready enough to grant Joseph’s request. It was no exceptional favor, for the Romans quite generally allowed the relatives and the friends of men who had been executed to bury their bodies if they so desired.

But Pilate was surprised to hear from Joseph that Jesus was already dead. He had not heard it from the high priests who also would not have told him. Pilate makes certain of the fact (Mark 15:44) and then gives the body of Jesus to Joseph. The ἵνα clause is non-final and simply states what Joseph requested. When Mark writes (15:43) that Joseph “dared” (τολμήσας) to go in to Pilate, he refers, not to the pollution this entailed, nor to any danger from Pilate, but to the hatred this act of one of their number would arouse among the Sanhedrists. But God sustained Joseph and did not let his courage fail.

From the Praetorium Joseph does not at once hurry out to Golgotha. Mark tells us that he bought linen for the body and so came again to Golgotha. This was easy to do, for he may not even have had to go out of his way to make the purchase, readily finding a shop where linen strips for burial purposes were always on sale. Let us note that Joseph bought only the linen. Accordingly he came and took away his body. This means that on Joseph’s return to Golgotha it was he who took charge of affairs.

This is most likely the reason why all the synoptists report at length who Joseph was and what he did and omit mention of Nicodemus. He must have been a masterful person. Joseph was not alone. The synoptists speak of the women, and Matthew and Mark name some of them. Enough friendly hands were present to take the body down. How this was done we have no means of knowing.

It was done as gently as possible. Perhaps the cross was raised from its socket in the rocky soil, gently lowered to the ground, and then the body removed from the cross. Did the soldiers help? Some think they did. The centurion was certainly ready to assist. Perhaps the cross was left in place while the body was removed.

Then means must have been at hand to reach the crosspiece, and tools, with which to draw the nails that held the hands. We are left to surmise.

John 19:39

39 And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him at night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. The sequence in the narrative would indicate that Nicodemus arrived on the scene when the body had already been removed from the cross. John 3 has already introduced Nicodemus, and 7:50 has again done so. As in 7:50, so now again Nicodemus is identified as the man who at the first came to Jesus at night. Here is a duplicate to Joseph, another Sanhedrist, made bold by the death of Jesus to show his true color at last. Now when all seems forever lost he, too, reveals himself.

He came with a supply of myrrh and aloes. We cannot think that he turned up entirely unexpectedly with just these burial requirements. The picture so often drawn of him and of Joseph, the two now meeting with mutual surprise on Golgotha, each now discovering the other’s secret, cannot be correct. Joseph bought only the linen, Nicodemus brought only the spices. This indicates a mutual understanding: the two had arranged what each should bring, otherwise either or both would have provided all that was to be used. The linen would have been considered insufficient without the spices, and the spices would have been useless without the linen.

The mutual surprise must be dated earlier. Nicodemus was present on Golgotha hours before this; he left with Joseph after Jesus had died, each with the understanding as to what he was to buy.

Myrrh was used in liquid as well as in powdered form. Mary has the liquid (see 12:3), Nicodemus the powder. It was made of the aromatic gum resin, exuding from the gray odorous bark of the Balsamodendron myrrha; it was also used extensively by the Egyptians for burial purposes. Mixed with the myrrh was aloe, the Hebrew ahalim, a powdered wood, most highly prized for the delightful odor which it releases when the wood decays. The most valuable variety of aloe is grown in India. The astounding thing is the quantity of this mixture brought by Nicodemus, about a hundred pounds.

Judas should have been there to estimate the price. It has been well said that Jesus received a royal burial. How did Nicodemus carry such a load that distance, he being an old man? But we have so many questions to which answers are denied. Perhaps the merchant who sold that expensive quantity of spices to Nicodemus sent bearers to deliver the load to Golgotha.

John 19:40

40 They, therefore, took the body of Jesus and bound it with linen bands, together with the spices, as the custom is for the Jews to bury. Compare the remarks on Lazarus, 11:44. It was impossible to wash and to anoint the body under the circumstances on Golgotha. Perhaps some of the sour wine of the soldiers was secured for removing the blood and for cleansing the wounds. At Bethany Mary had anointed Jesus beforehand for his burial (Mark 14:8), having grasped the fact that his enemies would slay him, and that then anointing would be impossible. With the body itself prepared as well as this could be done, the friends of Jesus—John now uses plural verbs—now wrap it with the ὀθόνια, the bands of fine linen brought by Joseph.

As the bands of linen were passed around the limbs and around the body again and again, the powdered mixture of myrrh and aloes was strewn in with generous hand. Some think that a portion remained to be strewn in the tomb where the body was laid, but no one can possibly know. For the sake of his Gentile readers John adds the remark that the method pursued was that customary to the Jews.

John 19:41

41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one was yet laid. There, then, because of the Preparation of the Jews, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus. The body was ready for burial, but where should it be laid? Close to Golgotha, in a garden—as John alone reports—in a quiet, secluded place, a tomb was waiting, than which none better could have been found. It was entirely new, so new that no dead body had ever occupied it. Matthew informs us that this tomb belonged to Joseph.

He must have constructed it for his own family. Eagerly he now offers it for the body of Jesus. John does not say that the tomb belonged to Joseph; what he emphasizes is its nearness to Golgotha. The friends of Jesus were pressed for time; the burial had to be completed before sundown; the body could not be taken a great distance. So this tomb was chosen. The fact that John omits mention of the ownership and remarks only on the nearness of the tomb, has been termed a contradiction with Matthew who does the reverse.

We are told that if Joseph owned the tomb, it would have been improper for John to omit a statement of this fact. So Matthew must be wrong. Some other friend of Jesus owned this tomb in the garden; who this may have been we are left to guess. But are we to imagine that these friends of Jesus simply appropriated a tomb without the owner’s consent, friend of Jesus though he might be? John evidently intends to supplement the record of Matthew by telling us that Joseph’s tomb was chosen for Jesus, not because it was Joseph’s, but because it was nearby. Here was consent, availability, and much besides, leaving no question of choice.

A new tomb, “in which no one was laid” (ἐτέθη; some read τεθειμένος), where no decay or odor of death has yet entered—this was a fitting place for the body of Jesus which no corruption or decomposition dared to touch. Here his holy body could have sweet rest, all its dreadful, painful work done. In a garden man lost life, in a garden life would be restored to man, life and immortality. Jesus borrows a tomb. Sinful men construct tombs or graves for themselves; they must have them for their bodies. Jesus was not intended for a tomb.

He needs one only on our account, and only until the third day. Luther writes: “As he has no grave, for the reason that he will not remain in death and the grave; so we, too, are to be raised up from the grave at the last day through his resurrection and are to live with him in eternity.”

John 19:42

42 “The Preparation of the Jews” signifies Friday; compare v. 31, and v. 14. The μνημεῖον (Mark: μνῆμα), sepulcher or tomb, is often misconceived. The recently discovered “Garden Tomb,” now to be seen just outside of the walls of the present Jerusalem in a secluded spot below a skull-shaped hill, corresponds in every detail to the data furnished by the Gospels. It is as an ample chamber, hewn out of the solid cliff of rock, the face of which is smooth and perpendicular. The floor is not sunken, does not need to be. It is a rich man’s tomb, for the door admits one to an antechamber, and the main part has only three places for bodies, on the floor, along the three sides, the fourth side fronting the vestibule.

Ample space was used; the owner could afford to have all this space hewn out. The tomb is new. Only one place for a body is finished, the one toward the cliff itself. This is a box-like place, and on its floor the stone is hewn out a little lower, thus outlining the form of the body, head and all. This is finished and might receive a body today. Strange to say, the other two places for bodies are not yet completely hewn out.

The tomb is so new that it is not yet finished. If, indeed, this is Joseph’s tomb, he never used it after he gave it for the burial of the body of Jesus. At the footend of the boxlike finished place and likewise at the headend where the next boxlike place is situated opposite the vestibule, the stone is left thick enough to afford a seat, so that an angel could sit, “one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain” (20:12), and the latter would even be “sitting on the right side” (Mark 16:5) as one enters the vestibule. These heavier rock sections across the footend and on the left of the headend are still intact, while the thinner wall between them, shutting in the body, is broken down. One feels compelled to say: if this is not the actual tomb in which Jesus was laid, it duplicates it in every respect. So many fake sites are shown in the Holy Land that to view a site like this leaves an unforgettable impression.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.