John 19

John 19:1

Of righteousness, because I go to my Father. Human tribunals convicted him of blasphemy, because he said he was the Son of God, and put him to death. God exalted him to a throne, thereby showing that the condemnation was wrong and that he was righteous. Of this the Holy Spirit bore witness in words and by miracles.

John 19:2

Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. In John 14:30, he declared, “The prince of this world cometh”. It was the prince of this world, the spirit of the world, Satan, as the ruler of the world, who slew him. When Christ rose from the dead, and all power was given into his hands, this was a judgment in the court of the universe against the prince of the world.

John 19:4

When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. He is about to go away and his own personal teachings will be ended, but those things that he desires them to know will be taught them still. The Spirit of truth will guide them into all truth.

John 19:5

He shall glorify me. “All things that the Father hath are mine”, and the Spirit “shall receive of mine and shew it to you”. “These three are one” (1 John 5:7); a striking illustration of the unity of the Godhead. They are so united that what proceeds from one proceeds from all.

John 19:7

A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me. On the morrow he would die, be buried, and for “a little while” they would not see him; then he would rise, and for another “little while”, a space of forty days before “he went to his Father”, they would see him while he remained on the earth. When he ascended to his Father, they, in a spiritual sense, would “see him coming in the kingdom of God” (Matthew 16:28).

John 19:11

Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice. How sad were the broken-hearted disciples, as they wept at the tomb! At the same time their enemies were gloating over their triumph. But your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Soon all was changed. The glad news came, “The Lord is risen”! (Lu 24:34). Then they heard that “all power was his” (Matthew 28:18), saw him ascend into heaven, and “returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Lu 24:52).

John 19:13

Ye now therefore have sorrow. Are in travail, but soon there shall be a birth, “the First Born of the new creation” (see Romans 8:29 Colossians 1:15-18) from the tomb.

John 19:14

In that day. After the Kingdom comes on Pentecost. Ask the Father in my name. We must come to God through him. His is “the only name” (see Acts 4:12).

John 19:15

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Before, when they prayed, he told them to say, “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9 Lu 11:2). Now they must pray in the name of the ascended Lord.

John 19:16

Spoken in proverbs. In figures.

John 19:22

Do ye now believe? The disciples had just asserted that they did, because they thought they understood him.

John 19:23

Behold, the hour cometh, etc. Before morning their faith would give way and, instead of clinging to him in the hour of trial, they would leave him alone.

John 19:24

I have overcome the world. In this world his disciples would be persecuted and have sorrow, but he bids them Be of good cheer. The world can only afflict for a season; it is a conquered world; Christ has overcome it.

John 19:26

The Lord’s Prayer for His Disciples SUMMARY OF JOHN 17: The Prayer of Christ That He May Be Glorified. The Disciples to Whom the Word Was Given. The Prayer, Not for the World, but for Them. That They May Be Sanctified. The Prayer for Saints in All Ages. That They May Be One. For Unity, That the World May Believe. These words spake Jesus. This prayer, so solemn and so tender, would never have been recorded had it not been intended for our study and profit, but I approach it with a feeling that it is almost too sacred for the usual verbal and textual criticism. It is the overflow of the full soul of the Lord in devotion to the Father, a fitting close to the wonderful discourses beginning in chapter 13; offered in the Upper Room, just before the Lord led his disciples out into the moonlit night, on the way to Gethsemane. This is the real “Lord’s Prayer” of the sacred Word; the prayer of is the “disciples’ prayer”, taught to them by the Lord (Matthew 6:9-13). In order to drink in its spirit, we must realize that the Lord stands at the foot of the cross, is about to suffer, and before the separation from his disciples and the agony and shame of the cross, he goes to the Father in their behalf and in his own. Father, the hour is come. “The hour” of the great sacrifice, of the tragedy of the cross, the hour for which Christ came into the world, had now come. Glorify thy Son. He was about to stoop to shame. Had he been left in the tomb, the shame would have been complete. Christ not only prays that he shall be “lifted up” (John 12:32)but that he may so “drink the cup” (Matthew 20:22 John 18:11) that the cross itself shall be a glory.

John 19:27

As thou hast given him power over all flesh. This shows how the Son is to be glorified. It is by “giving him all power in heaven and earth” (Matthew 28:18), and “committing all things” (John 3:35 13:3) to him, raising him from the dead so that “he should give eternal life”.

John 19:28

This life is eternal, that they might know thee, etc. The knowledge of God as manifested in Jesus Christ is the first requisite to salvation and life eternal. They key to that knowledge is faith and love.

John 19:29

I have glorified thee on the earth. He had done this because he could say, “I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do”.

John 19:31

I have revealed thy name to the men which thou gavest me, etc. In the first five verses he had prayed for himself. Now he prays for his disciples. The apostles are especially meant.

John 19:34

I pray for them. The apostles. The prayer of Joh 17:9-19 is for these. I pray not for the world. Not at this time; he came into the world to save it, and we are not to conclude that he would never pray for its conversion and welfare, Now, however, his petition is confined to the apostles, the little band who are hanging upon his words.

John 19:35

I am glorified in them. Christ’s glory here upon the earth is manifested by his disciples.

John 19:36

I am no more in the world, but these are in the world. He now goes to the Father; these are left behind to preach the gospel, establish his kingdom, manifest his glory. Hence, he pleads that he may “keep them through his name”, or power and love. He especially pleads that they may be kept “one”, united as the Father and the Son.

John 19:37

None of them is lost, but the son of perdition. God had given him twelve; he had kept them in the name of the Father, and only one was lost, Judas, the traitor, the son of perdition, which the Scripture had predicted. See Psalms 41:9.

John 19:40

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world. The world had hated the Master and was about to slay him, because he was not of the world. So it would hate the apostles, who were not of the world, and seek to slay them; he does not pray that they should be taken out of the world, for they have a work to do, but that the Father would keep them from the power of the evil one.

John 19:42

Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth. To sanctify is to render holy, or to consecrate. Those sanctified are saints. The means of canonization is not a Pope, but the “truth”; and, lest some should mistake, Christ adds, Thy word is truth. He prays for their consecration by the power of the word in their hearts. Every disciple should be thus consecrated, but the means is not a miraculous work of grace, but the reception of God’s word into our hearts and the complete surrender to his will spoken in his word.