Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 19:17

And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called [the place] of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:

17 22. The Crucifixion and the Title on the Cross

17. bearing his cross ] The better reading gives, bearing the cross for Himself. S. John omits the help which Simon the Cyrenian was soon compelled to render, as also (what seems to be implied by Mar 15:22) that at last they were obliged to carry Jesus Himself. Comp. the Lesson for Good Friday morning, Genesis 22, especially Joh 19:6.

went forth ] “The place of public execution appears to have been situated north of the city. It was outside the gate (Heb 13:12) and yet ‘nigh unto the city’ ( Joh 19:20). In the Mishna it is placed outside the city by a reference to Lev 24:14. It is said to have been ‘two men high’ (Sanh. vi. 1). The Jews still point out the site at the cliff, north of the Damascus gate, where is a cave now called ‘Jeremiah’s Grotto.’ This site has therefore some claim to be considered as that of the Crucifixion. It was within 200 yards of the wall of Agrippa, but was certainly outside the ancient city. It was also close to the gardens and the tombs of the old city, which stretch northwards from the cliff; and it was close to the main north road, in a conspicuous position, such as might naturally be selected for a place of public execution.” Conder, Handbook to the Bible, pp. 356, 7.

of a skull ] Probably on account of its shape. It would be contrary to Jewish law to leave skulls unburied; and if this were the meaning of the name we should expect ‘of skulls’ rather than ‘of a skull.’

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17 42. The Death and Burial

For what is peculiar to S. John’s narrative in this section see the introductory note to chap. 18. Besides this, the title on the cross, the Jews’ criticism of it, and the conduct of the four soldiers, are given with more exactness by S. John than by the Synoptists.

The section falls into four double parts of which the second and fourth contain a marked dramatic contrast, such as S. John loves to point out:

(1) The Crucifixion and the title on the cross (17 22).

(2) The four enemies and the four friends (23 27).

(3) The two words, ‘I thirst,’ ‘It is finished’ (28 30).

(4) The hostile and the friendly petitions (31 42).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Joh 19:17-25

And He bearing His cross went forth

The lonely Cross-bearer

I.

BEARING THE CROSS FOR HIMSELF (Isa 63:3).

1. An aggravation of His misery.

2. An intensifying of their sin.

3. A heightening of His love.

4. An enlargement of their hope.

II. BEARING THE CROSS FOR US.

1. As an expiation of our guilt (Col 1:20; Col 2:14).

2. As a pattern for our life (1Pe 2:21). (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

The great Cross-bearer and His followers

(Text, and Mar 15:20-21)

1. When our Lord had been condemned, the execution of His sentence was hurried. Every moment of delay was wearisome to the Jews. It was the day of the passover, and they wished to have this matter finished before they went with hypocritical piety to celebrate the festival. We do not wonder at their eagerness; but at Pilate we do wonder. In all civilized countries there is usually an interval between the sentence and the death. As the capital sentence is irreversible, it is well to have a little space in which possible evidence may be forthcoming, which may prevent the fatal stroke. With the Romans it was usual to allow the reasonable respite of ten days. Now Pilate might have pleaded this; and he was culpable, as he was all along, in thus yielding to the clamour for an immediate execution. When once we begin to make the wishes of other men our law we know not to what extremity of criminality we may be led.

2. Being given over to death, our Saviour was led away outside the city.

(1) Because by the Jews He was treated as a flagrant offender who must be executed at the Tyburn of the day. Alas! Jerusalem, thou didst cast out thy last hope.

(2) Because He was to be consumed as a sin-offering. The sweet-savour offerings were presented upon the altar, and were accepted of God, but sin-offerings were burnt without the camp or gate, because God can have no fellowship with sin.

(3) Because He died, not for Jerusalem, nor Israel alone, but for the race. Out in the open He must die, to show that He reconciled both Jews and Gentiles unto God.

(4) That we might go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. Come ye out from among them, &c.

3. Let us draw near our Lord for awhile, and carefully observe each instructive detail.

I. HIS DRESS.

1. The crown of thorns. Jesus died a crowned monarch. The Man by whom we are redeemed is crowned with that product of the earth which came of the curse.

2. He was bound. By Roman custom criminals were bound with cords to the cross which they were doomed to carry. Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.

3. Jesus wore His own clothes

(1) For identification, that all who looked on might know that it was the same person who had preached in their streets and had healed their sick.

(2) That there might be a fulfilment of prophecy. They parted My garments among them, &c. Other raiment could readily have been rent and divided.

(3) To indicate that our Lords passion was a true and natural part of His life; He died as He lived. His death was not a new departure, but the completion of a life of self-sacrifice, and so He goes to die in His ordinary everyday garments. Does not it almost seem as if people put on their Sunday clothes because they regard religion as something quite distinct from their common life? Can we not wear our own clothes, habits, characteristics, and peculiarities and serve the Lord? Is there not some suspicion of unnaturalness in services which require men to put on a strange, outlandish dress? It is ill for a man when he cannot lead his fellows in prayer till he has gone to the wardrobe.

II. HIS COMPANY.

1. The rough Roman soldiers, strong, muscular, unfeeling men, ready to shed blood at any moment. I do but bid you look at them to remind you that from beneath their eagle our Saviour won a trophy; for their centurion confessed, Certainly this was the Son of God.

2. Two malefactors. He must not be separated from the basest of men. I mention them because our Lord won a trophy by the conversion of one of them.

3. The scribes and Pharisees and high priests. Their hate was insatiable, but it was accompanied with fear, and that night it was seen that Christ had conquered them, for they begged a guard to prevent their victim from leaving the tomb.

4. A great rabble. The same, who a week ago shouted, Hosanna! The Lord endured the popular scorn as He had once received the popular acclamation. He lived above it all.

5. Kindly women.

6. We must now leave the company, but not till we have asked, Where are His disciples? Where is Peter? Did he not say, I will go with Thee to prison and to death? Where is John? Holy women are gathering, but where are the men? Though the women act like men, the men act as women.

III. HIS BURDEN. Our Lord carried His own cross at the commencement of the sorrowful pilgrimage. This

1. Increased His shame. It was a custom of the Romans to make felons bear their own gibbet. Furcifer, gallows bearer, was hissed at men in contempt, just as gallows-bird is now.

2. Note next its weight.

3. There was a typical evidence about this. If Simon had carried Christs cross all the way, we should have missed the type of Isaac, who carried the wood for his own sacrifice.

4. The spiritual meaning of it was that Christ in perfect obedience was then carrying the load of our disobedience.

5. It also has a prophetic meaning; that cross which He carried through Jerusalem shall go through Jerusalem again. It is His great weapon with which He conquers and wins the world. The government shall be upon His shoulder; that which He bore on His shoulder shall win obedience, and they that take His yoke upon them shall find rest unto their souls.

IV. HIS CROSS-BEARER.

1. He was pressed into this duty. The word used signifies that the person is impressed into the royal service, How often has a burden of sorrow been the means of bringing men to the faith of Jesus!

2. His name was Simon; and where was that other Simon? What a silent but strong rebuke this would be to him, Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Simon Peter lost a crown here, and another head wore it.

3. Simon was a Cyrenian–an African–I wonder if he was a black man. In Act 13:1-52., we find mention of a Simeon that was called Niger, or black. Surely the African has had his full share of cross-bearing for many an age. Blessed be he, whether African or Englishman, that has the honour of bearing the cross after Christ.

4. He was coming in from the country. How often the Lord takes into His service the unsophisticated country people, who as yet are untainted by the cunning and the vice of the city.

5. He was the Father of Alexander and Rufus. Which is the greater honour to a man, to have a good father, or to be the father of good sons? Under the Old Testament rule we usually read of a man that he is the son of such a one, but here we come to another style. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Christ bearing His cross

Our Lord, when a workman in the carpenters shop at Nazareth, had willingly carried pieces of timber in the service of His foster-father. Here, with no less cheerfulness, He bears to Golgotha the timber of the cross, in order to raise the altar on which He is to be sacrificed, and to do the will of His Father in heaven. (R. Besser, D. D.)

The crucifixion of Christ

I. THE CROSS IS THE POWER OF GOD FOR EXPOSING SIN AND FOR SUBDUING THE SINFUL HEART. What will sin do? Show us this and you give us the best exposition of sin. This gospel story tells us that sin crucified the Son of God. But the Cross, as we have said, is Gods power for subduing the sinful heart. The subduing power of the fact that we crucified Christ, our best Friend, may be illustrated by an incident which Bronson Alcott relates as having taken place in his school. He made it a law that all offences should be punished in order that the authority of the school might be kept inviolate. The punishment of offences he decreed should be borne by himself He intended to put every offending scholar under the power of this thought, I made my friend and teacher suffer. So much for the law of the school; let us see how it worked. Mr. Alcott gives us this instance: One day I called before me a pupil, eight or ten years of age, who had violated an important regulation of the school. All the pupils were looking on, and they knew what the rule of the school was. I put the ruler into the hand of the offending pupil and extended my hand. I bade him strike. The instant the boy saw my extended hand and heard my command, I saw a struggle begin in his face. A light sprang up in his countenance. A new set of shuttles seemed to be weaving a new nature within him. I kept my hand extended. The school was in tears. The boy struck once, and he himself burst into tears. I constantly watched his face, and he seemed in a bath of fire which was giving him a new nature. He had a different mood toward the school and toward the violated law. The boy seemed transformed by the idea that I should take chastisement in the place of his punishment.

II. THE CROSS GIVES US A STANDING EXHIBITION OF THE WAY IN WHICH SOME MEN TREAT CHRIST. I wish to speak especially of the soldiers at the cross, who are an ancient type of a modern class. They gamble for tim seamless robe of Christ. To them the garments of Christ were everything, but Christ Himself was nothing. They prize the garments but despise Christ. When Christ was within the robe, it had healing virtue; but when Christ was crucified it had no healing, life-giving power whatever. There are multitudes to-day who are like these soldiers. For example, there are crowds of citizens in this republic who glory in the civil rights which our national fathers bequeathed, but they hate and crucify the Christ of our fathers. It was under the inspiration of Christ that our fathers sacrificed and fought for the rights which they bequeathed. If there had been no Christ, there would have been no Plymouth Rock Pilgrims in Massachusetts. There is no fact more patent in history than this: American freedom owes its origin to Christ. Yet there are Americans by the thousand who would take the freedom and crucify the Christ. But what is freedom disassociated from Christ? What is it worth in comparison with the freedom which throbs with the life of Christ? Freedom, when it is a robe with the living Christ in it, will cure and keep in life the nations which touch its hem; but freedom, when it is a robe torn from Christ, will let the nations die even while they handle it, own it, and boast about it. We needed Christ to procure our liberty and we need Christ to secure our liberty.

III. THE CROSS WITH ITS SACRIFICE FOR SIN OPENS UP TO US THE ONLY WAY OF SALVATION. (David Gregg.)

Bearing the cross

The Rev. C. Simeon, in conversation with a friend, once said, Many years ago, when I was an object of much derision in this university, I strolled forth one day afflicted, with my little testament in my hand. I prayed earnestly to my God that He would comfort me with some cordial from His Word, and that on opening the book I might find some text which should sustain me. The first text which caught my eye was this, They found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, &c. You know Simon is the same as Simeon. What a world of instruction was here! What a blessed hint for my encouragement! To have the cross laid upon me that I might bear it after Jesus. What a privilege! It was enough. Now I could leap and sing for joy as one whom Jesus was honouring with a participation in His sufferings. (W. Baxendale.)

Cross-bearing for Christ

At a large Sunday-school anniversary it was found that the speakers expected had failed, and none were ready to take their places. After some singing the meeting became dull, and the interest seemed to be dying out. The superintendent, who had set his heart on success, was anxious, and at a loss to know what to do, but finally gave a general invitation to the scholars to repeat any texts or hymns they had learned. He was pleasantly answered, but only for a short time. Eventually a boy of Jewish caste, with piercing eyes, in the midst of deep silence rose and repeated: Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee, &c., in a voice so thrilling as to move the whole audience. Many eyes were moist, for the story of the young Jew was known. His father had told him he must either leave the Sunday-school or quit home for ever; and the hymn showed what he had given up to follow Christ. The meeting was inspired with new life. Friends gathered round him at the close, and business men united in securing him a situation by which he could earn his own living. (Christian at Work.)

The cross of Christ

I. UNDER THE CROSS (Joh 19:17).

1. The weary pilgrim–Jesus.

(1) Exhausted by the agony and the subsequent excitement.

(2) Suffering through the scourging.

(3) Burdened with the weight of the cross, the upright lying along His back, the transverse fastened to His fettered hands.

(4) Degraded by the white tablet borne before Him, or suspended from His neck, proclaiming His alleged crime.

2. The varied attendance–robbers, soldiers, &c.

3. The sorrowful way.

II. UPON THE CROSS. Jesus in the midst, numbered with transgressors (Joh 19:18), arrived at Golgotha. The cross was

1. Furnished with its victim. As it lay upon the sward, with nails driven through His hands and feet (Psa 22:16; Luk 24:40), He prayed Luk 23:34).

2. Upraised to its position. Suspended by His hands and feet, His body resting on an upright peg, our Lord was exhibited a spectacle of woe–the priests and people mocking His misery.

3. Set in the midst. On either side a crucified robber proclaimed Him the worst of the three.

III. ABOVE THE CROSS. The title (verse 19).

1. Its conspicuous position–seen by all.

2. Its threefold language–to be read by all.

3. Its providential use–to attest

(1) Christs true humanity, Jesus of Nazareth.

(2) His Messianic dignity: King of the Jews.

(3) Israels sin: they had crucified their Sovereign.

(4) The worlds hope: Israels rejected Messiah was the Saviour of men.

IV. BENEATH THE CROSS. Gambling for the Saviours clothes, the soldiers fulfilled prophecy (verses 23, 24).

1. Heartless cruelty.

2. Moral insensibility.

3. Appalling criminality.

4. Unconscious instrumentality.

V. NEAR THE CROSS. The Galilean women: the post of love (verse 25).

1. Their names.

(1) Mary, the mother of Jesus. True to her motherhood she was there to be pierced (Luk 2:35).

(2) Marys sister, Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and mother of the Evangelist, who was thus Christs cousin, which may account for the mental and spiritual affinity between them.

(3) Mary, the wife of Clopas, or Alphaeus, the mother of James the less and Joses.

(4) Mary Magdalene.

1. Their position by the cross, marking

(1) Their courage–not afraid of crowd or soldiers.

(2) Their fidelity in contrast to the male disciples.

(3) Their affection.

(4) Their sympathy–intending to console Him, as they doubtless did.

(5) Their privilege–a gracious opportunity of hearing His last words.

Lessons:

1. The completeness of Christs obedience (Php 2:8).

2. The depth of His humiliation (Isa 53:12).

3. The reality of His atoning work (2Co 5:21).

4. The certainty of His Messiahship, proved by the title.

5. The moral insensibility to which depraved natures may sink Eph 4:19).

6. The heroism of women when inspired by faith and love Dan 11:32).

7. The startling contrasts of life–the soldiers and the women.

8. The power which still lies in the Cross to reveal human hearts. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

A place called the place of a skull, which is in Hebrew Golgotha.

Two explanations of the term are given.

1. That it was the spot where executions ordinarily took place, and therefore abounded in skulls; but according to the Jewish law, these must have been buried, and therefore were no more likely to confer a name on the spot than any other part of the skeleton. In this case, too, the language would have to be plural instead of singular.

2. That the form of the spot was bold, round, and skull-like, and therefore a mound or hillock in accordance with the common phrase, for which there is no direct authority, Mount Calvary. Whichever of these is the correct explanation, Golgotha seems to have been a known spot–outside the Heb 13:12), but close to the city (verse 20); apparently near a thoroughfare on which there were passers by. This road or path led out of the country, and was probably the ordinary spot for executions. Why should it have been otherwise? To those who carried the sentence into effect Christ was but an ordinary criminal, and there is not a word to indicate that the soldiers in leading Him away went to any other than the usual place for what must have been a common operation. A tradition at one time prevailed that Adam was buried in Golgotha, and that from his skull it derived its name, and that at the crucifixion the drops of Christs blood fell on the skull and raised Adam to life. The skull commonly introduced in early pictures of the Crucifixion refers to this. (Sir G. Grove.)

The traditional site of Golgotha

is consecrated by three chapels of different sects. An opening, faced with silver, shows the spot where the cross is said to have been sunk in the rock, and less than five feet from it is a long brass open-work slide over a cleft in the rock which is about six inches deep, but is supposed by the pilgrims to reach to the centre of the earth. This is said to mark the rending of the rocks at the Crucifixion. But there is an air of unreality over the whole scene, with its gorgeous decorations of lamps, mosaics, pictures, and gilding; nor could I feel more than the gratification of my curiosity in the midst of such a monstrous aggregation of wonders. Faith evaporates when it finds so many demands made upon it. When it is assured that within a few yards of each other are the scene of Abrahams sacrifice of Isaac; that of the appearance of Christ to Mary; the stone of anointing; the place where the angels stood at the Resurrection; the tombs of our Lord, Joseph, and Nicodemus; the column to which our Lord was bound; His prison; the burial place of Adam; the tree in which the goat offered instead of Isaac was caught, and much else. (Cunningham Geikie, D. D.)

The probable site of Golgotha

There is little in the New Testament to fix its exact position, though Heb 13:12 is enough to prove that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is not on the true site. The name Golgotha may well have referred to the shape of the ground, and, if this be so, a spot reminding one of a skull must be sought outside the city. It must, besides, be near one of the great roads (Mar 15:29). That Joseph carried the body to his own tomb, hewn out in the rock, and standing in the midst of the garden, requires further that Calvary should be found near the great Jewish cemetery of the time. This lay on the north side of Jerusalem. Now, just here, outside the Damascus gate is a knoll or swell which fulfils all these conditions. Rising gently towards the north its slowly rounded top might easily have obtained, from its shape, the name of a skull. This spot has been associated from the earliest times with the martyrdom of Stephen, who could only have been stoned at the usual place of public execution. And this is fixed by local tradition as the Place of Stoning where offenders were not only put to death, but hung up by the hands till sunset after execution. As if to make the identification still more complete, the busy road, which has led to the north in all ages, passes close by the knoll, branching off, a little further on, to Gibeon, Damascus, and Rameh. It was the custom of the Romans to crucify transgressors at the sides of the busiest public roads. Here then, apparently, on this bare rounded knoll, rising shoat thirty feet above the ground, the low yellow cliff of Jeremiah looking out from its southern end, the Saviour of the world was crucified. (Cunningham Geilkie, D. D.)

Where they crucified Him

Crucifixion

The common mode of inflicting it, in all probability, was to strip the criminal–to lay him on the cross on his back–to nail his hands to the two extremities of the cross-piece, or fork of the cross–to nail his feet to the upright piece, or principal stem of the cross-then to raise the cross on end, and drop it into a hole prepared for it–and then to leave the sufferer to a lingering and painful death. It was a death which combined the maximum of pain with the least immediate destruction of life. The agony of having nails driven through parts so full of nerves and sinews as the hands and feet must have been intense. Yet wounds of the hands and feet are not mortal, and do not injure any great leading blood-vessel. Hence a crucified person, even in an eastern climate, exposed to the sun, might live two or three days, enduring extreme pain, without being relieved by death, if he was naturally a very strong man and in vigorous health. To a sensitive, delicate-minded person, it is hard to imagine any punishment more distressing. Whether the person crucified was bound to the cross with ropes, to prevent the possibility of his breaking off from the nails in convulsive struggling–whether he was stripped completely naked, or had a cloth round his loins–whether each foot had a separate nail, or one nail was driven through both feet–are disputed points which we have no means of settling. Of one thing, however, we may be sure. The feet of a crucified person were much nearer the ground than is commonly supposed, and very likely not more than a foot or two from the earth. In this, as in other points, most pictures of the Crucifixion are grossly incorrect, and the cross is made out to be a piece of timber so long and so thick that no one mortal man could ever have carried it. Concerning the precise amount of physical suffering, and the precise effect on the human body in a crucifixion, the following medical account by a German physician, named Richter, says

1. The unnatural position and violent tension of the body caused a painful sensation from the least motion.

2. The nails driven through parts of the hands and feet, which are full of nerves and tendons, and yet at a distance from the heart, created the most exquisite anguish.

3. The exposure of so many wounds and lacerations brought on inflammation, which tended to become gangrene, and every moment increased the poignancy of suffering.

4. In the distended parts of the body more blood flowed through the arteries than could be carried back into the veins: and hence too much blood found its way from the aorta into the head and stomach, and the blood vessels of the head became pressed and swollen. The general obstruction of circulation caused an internal excitement, exertion, and anxiety, more intolerable than death itself.

5. There was the inexpressible misery of gradually increasing and lingering anguish.

6. To all this we may add burning and raging thirst. When we remember, beside all this, that our Lords head was crowned with thorns, His back torn with savage scourging, and His whole system weighed down by the mental and bodily agony of the sleepless night following the Lords Supper, we may have some faint idea of the intensity of His sufferings. (Bp. Ryle.)

Natures testimony to the Crucifixion

A person who travelled through Palestine told me that an ingenious person, his fellow-traveller, who was a Deist, used to make merry with all the stories that the Romish priest entertained them with as to the sacred places and relics they went to see, and particularly when they first showed him the clefts of Mount Calvary, which is now included within the great dome that was built over it by Constantine the Great. But when he began to examine the clefts more narrowly and critically, he told his fellow-travellers that now he began to be a Christian; for, said he, I have long been a student of nature and the mathematics, and I am sure these clefts and rents in this rock were never made by a natural or ordinary earthquake, for by such a concussion the rock must have been split according to the veins, and where it was weakest in the adhesion of the parts; for thus, said he, I have observed it to have been done in other rocks, when separated or broken after an earthquake, and reason tells me it must always be so. But it is quite otherwise here, for the rock is split athwart and across the veins in a most strange and supernatural manner. This, therefore, I can easily and plainly see to be effect of a real miracle, which neither nature nor art could have effected; and therefore I thank God that I came hither to see this standing monument of a miraculous power by which God gives evidence, to this day, of the divinity of Christ. (J. Fleming.)

The crucifixion realized

A little girl in a mission-school sat on the front seat; and, when the superintendent was telling about how they hanged Jesus on the cross, the tears came to her eyes, and she had to get up and go out. In the afternoon she came back smiling; and the superintendent asked her, Mary, where did you go this morning? And she said, Oh, teacher! I could not stand it when you Spoke to us about Jesus being nailed on the cross; for I felt just as if I helped to pound the nails in; and I went off a little piece from the school, and got down on my knees, and told Jesus that my sins helped to hang Him on the cross; and I asked Him to please forgive me for helping to kill Him; that I was so sorry! but now I feel so happy!

Impression of the Crucifixion

Colossians Gardiner was won from a life of worldly pleasure by a dream in which he saw the Saviour hanging on the cross, and saying, I have suffered this for thee, and is this thy return? The deep conviction of his ingratitude led him to repentance and a life of piety.

Christs cross

Krummacher describes the mysterious cross as a rock, against which the very waves of the curse break; as a lightning-conductor, by which the destroying fluid descends, which would have otherwise crushed the world. Jesus, who mercifully engaged to direct the thunderbolt against Himself, does so while hanging yonder in profound darkness upon the cross. There He is, as the connecting link between heaven and earth; His bleeding arms extended wide, stretched out to every sinner; hands pointed to the east and west, indicating the gathering-in of the world of man to His fold. The cross is directed to the sky, as the place of the final triumph of His work in redemption; and its foot fixed in the earth like a tree, from whose wondrous branches we gather the fruit of an eternal reconciliation to God the Father. (J. Caughey.)

Prizing the cross

Tacitus reports that though the amber-ring among the Romans was of no value, yet, after the emperor began to wear it, it began to be in great esteem: it was the only fashion amongst them. So our Saviour has borne His cross, and was borne upon it. We should esteem it more highly than many of us do, and bear it daily in remembrance of Him. (W. Baxendale.)

Love in the cross

Do not be afraid to bow before Jesus. That cross is the enfranchisement of theology. It stands up against heaven to say, God, with His infinite power, is not cruel. God is the sufferer, and not one that makes suffering. The Divine nature is not one that oppresses races, as the cluster is pressed, that the wine may flow out into the vintners cup. The testimony of Christs life, and the mission of Christs death, and that everlasting love that streams from the cross of Christ is, God so loved the world. Loved it? No mother ever loved her child half so much. And yet, what mother is there that did not, in her small, feeble way, symbolize the whole atonement of Christ? What mother is there that did not bring forth her child with pangs, and strong crying and tears? What mother is there that did not take the utter helplessness of the little babe for weeks and months, and give her life for it? How she gives up her sleep; how she gives up her hearts desires; how she foregoes pleasure; how she withdraws herself from society; how she gives the whole royalty of her rich nature to that little child that can neither speak nor think, nor know what helps it!
And then, through what sickness does she watch! And with what labour and pain does she develop the child! And how does she bring it finally to intelligence and virtue and manhood, all the way through a living sacrifice of love for the child! (H. W. Beecher.)

The cross our safety

There is an affecting passage in Roman history which records the death of Manlius. At night, and on the Capitol, fighting hand to hand, he had repelled the Gauls and saved the city when all seemed lost. Afterwards he was accused, but the Capitol towered in sight of the Forum where he was tried, and as he was about to be condemned he stretched out his hands and pointed, weeping, to that arena of his triumph. At this the people burst into tears, and the judges could not pronounce sentence. Again the trial proceeded, but was again defeated; nor could he be convicted till they had removed him to a low spot, from which the Capitol was invisible. What the Capitol was to Manlius the cross of Christ is to the Christian. (Preachers Lantern.)

The cross the souls haven

While your bark is tossed about at sea, it is very likely that she wants a new copper bottom, or the deck requires holystoning, or the rigging is out of repair, or the sails want overhauling, or fifty other things may be necessary; but if the wind is blowing great guns, and the vessel is drifting towards those white-crested breakers, the first business of the mariner is to make for the haven at once, to avoid the hurricane. When he is all snug in port, he can attend to hull and rigging, and all the odds and ends besides. So with you, child of God, one thing you must do, and I beseech you do it. Do not be looking to this, or to that, or to the other out of a thousand things that may be amiss, but steer straight for the cross of Christ, which is the haven for distressed spirits; fly at once to the wounds of Jesus, as the dove flies to her nest in the cleft of the rock. (C. H.Spurgeon.)

Plea from the cross

A clergyman in Germany, who had exercised the ministerial office for twelve years, while destitute of faith in and love to the Redeemer, one day, after baptizing the child of a wealthy citizen, one of the members of his congregation was invited, with some other guests, to a collation at this persons house. Directly opposite to him, on the wall, hung a picture of Christ on the cross, with two lines written under it:–I did this for thee; what hast thou done for Me? The picture caught his attention; as he read the lines they seemed to pierce him, and he was involuntarily seized with a feeling he never experienced before. Tears rushed into his eyes; he said little to the company, and took his leave as soon as he could. On the way home these lines constantly sounded in his ears–Divine grace prevented all philosophical doubts and explanations from entering his soul–he could do nothing but give himself up entirely to the overpowering feeling; even during the night, in his dreams, the question stood always before his mind, What hast thou done for Me? He died in about three months after this remarkable and happy change in his temper and views, triumphing in the Saviour, and expressing his admiration of His redeeming love. (J. Whitecross.)

The three crosses

I. THAT OF JESUS; dying for sin–redemption.

II. THAT OF THE IMPENITENT ROBBER; dying in sin–perdition.

III. THAT OF THE PENITENT ROBBER; dying out of sin–salvation. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

There were three hanging there. The first was the Saviour; the second to be saved; the third to be damned. The pain of all three was one; but the cause diverse. (Augustine.)

Jesus in the midst

On the cross, between earth and heaven; in the grave, between the living and the dead; on the throne, as separating between the saved and the lost. Everywhere, in all time, in whatever aspect or relation, men shall contemplate the Saviour, the same central object shall meet them–Jesus in the midst. We cannot look upon Christ as lifted up without seeing

I. THE JUNCTION POINT BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. The sacrifice of the Cross constitutes that crisis in all dispensational history, at which shadows were to become substances, outlines perfect forms, and the pale lamps, which had shed light on the ancient sanctuary, to give place to the Bright and Morning Star. The veil of the Temple was rent, and it told of a covenant waxed old; of the superseding of the blood of bulls and goats by the blood of Him who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God. Christ was the end of the law for righteousness; the end of the prophecies for fulfilment; the end of devout anticipation as of a surety the Lords anointed; the end of all expected revelation, as God speaking to us by His Son. And He was especially in the midst of the two systems, as He hung upon the cross. For He felt all the terrors of the law, while His lips were dispensing all the tender charities of the gospel. And He saw, in marked contrast, the effect of the two systems the chief priests and rulers hurling the mockery on the one side, and the great company of people lamenting Him on the other. And yet all are looking to Him; all are drawn towards Him. Whether to revile or to pity, to blaspheme or to pray, none could turn their eyes to any other object. He who in heaven has a throne which is above every throne, seemed to have a cross which was above every cross.

II. CHRIST OCCUPYING SOME MYSTERIOUS ISTHMUS BETWEEN CONDEMNATION AND FORGIVENESS–a place where the two seas meet–that of infinite justice, unable to clear the guilty; and that of the infinite mercy, cleansing from all spot of sin. Here mercy triumphs, for wrath is done away; and yet justice is honoured, for the victim dies. Both these attributes put in their claims. Neither of them, without dishonour to the Divine character, could endure to have them set aside. But the meeting here was not hostile. These attributes met to embrace, to unite, to shed, each on the other, new glory; to vindicate, each for the other, its prescriptive and everlasting claims. It seemed as if in the whole universe there was but one spot, where, in a posture of reconciliation, God and man could meet. Thither the Eternal Father would repair to make sublime demonstration of His holiness; thither the penitent child was to go to lay down the burden of his sin. And over that cross they were to be made one.

III. A REPRESENTATION OF CHRIST AS HE IS IN THE WORLD NOW.

1. The cross is set up in the midst of condemned men. Men dying, with the means of life before them–lost, while a look would save them. One, like Pilate, sees no fault in Christianity, but will not yield to it; another, like Herod, is curious to see what Christianity is, and mocks it; and a third, like Judas, sells it.

2. The circumstance shows how very near two people may be to the same outward Christ, ordinances, truth, influences for good–and yet the one to be subdued to penitence, and the other hardened.

3. Especially is the scene emblematical of the different effect produced on two persons by affliction and Divine chastisement. Jesus is in the midst–having emptied a cup more bitter far than any of which they have tasted–and that too in order that any bitterness in their cup might be mitigated or pass away. And both these afflicted ones will look to Him. But how? One is chafed, and stubborn, and rebellious. The other is subdued, and tender, and heart-stricken. And therefore his looking to Jesus is one of humble, loving faith.

IV. AN EMBLEM OF THE SOLEMN ADJUDICATIONS OF THE LAST DAY. That cross, says Augustine, was the tribunal of Christ, for the judge was placed in the middle; and whilst one thief who believed was set free, the other who reviled was condemned. They who on earth were divided by the cross, are they who in heaven will be divided by the throne. The impenitent here will be the lost there; the railing here will be the accursed there–on the left hand both, whether at the cross or before the throne. But the humble and the trusting shall be on the right hand. And their life in heaven will be a continuation of their life on earth–a looking to Jesus in the midst–in the midst of His saints, to be glorified; in the midst of His angels, to be worshipped; in the midst of the upper paradise, a tree of life; and in the midst of the throne of God, a Lamb as it had been slain. (D. Moore, M. A.)

Jesus in the midst

It is to this position that our Lord owes His glorious title of Mediator. He is the Days-man who stands between the perfection of a holy Creator and the imperfections of His creatures. And it is in virtue of this office that He is entitled to His position as the central object in the economies of grace and of judgment. Very interesting and instructive it is to notice how frequently this position–in the midst–is assigned to our Lord. He is represented as

I. In the midst OF HEAVEN (Rev 5:6; Rev 7:17). Twice the expression is employed of the mystical tree of life–the type of Christ Rev 2:7; Rev 22:2). His maintenance in this position is the secret of heavens harmony. Just as in the solar system the planets observe a fixed relation to each other because they all have a common relation to the sun, just as their motions are the very embodiment of order and harmony because of this common relationship, so the countless intelligences of heaven all fall into their own proper relationships to each other because of their common relation to the central object.

II. In the midst OF THE CHURCH He was in the midst of that embryo Church, the simple peasants whom He gathered around His person Luk 22:27). Where two or three, &c. Here we have a description of the first component elements of the Christian Church. In keeping with this, we notice that He takes His rightful place at the moment when He greets His Church after His resurrection. Jesus Himself stood in the midst. Once again we are permitted to gaze upon the risen Lord, now no longer visibly present, yet still in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, i.e., of the Church as she exercises her office of light-bearer.

She shines by reflecting the light shed upon her by the Master, just as the moon reflects the light of the sun. Or, once again, He is represented as in the midst of the Church in her worship, inhabiting the praises of Israel Heb 2:12). But, alas! the great sin of the outward Church has ever been to put Christ on one side. How often has the Church placed a hierarchy, a system, a party, a creed, a superstition, &c., in the place that belongs to Him. Hence our unhappy and disastrous divisions. If Christians are to draw nearer to each other, it must be by a determined attempt to restore the Lord Jesus to His proper position. Then we shall find it possible to make some progress towards the enjoyment of that harmony in our relations with each other which ought to characterize the sons of God on earth, and which must bind all together in heaven.

III. As with the Christian Church at large, so with THE INDIVIDUAL HEART. Know ye not that Christ is within you? &c., not as a distinct part of our being, but as a power pervading and supreme over all. This is what St. Paul meant when he exclaimed, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Let us not think of assigning Him a corner in the palace. Christ will not accept such a subordinate position.

IV. When Christ is in the heart, He will also be in the midst of OUR HOME. Of how many of us may it be said, as it was said of Martha, that she received Him into her house? How many of us can fill in our name where the word Martha stands? If we would really have Him abiding with us, it must not be so much as a mere guest, a wayfaring man turning aside to tarry for a night, but as the true though invisible Head of the house, just as He is the true though invisible Head of the Church. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. In our domestic arrangements, it is His will that must be consulted. We cannot keep Him in our closet, and deny Him the right of access to our scenes of social intercourse and pleasure. We cannot place Him at the head of our family on Sunday, and bid Him go into retirement for the remainder of the week.

V. In the midst of our WORLDLY BUSINESS. Ah, this fatal distinction between sacred and secular! how much it has done to drive religion out of our lives! Surely everything becomes sacred that is done with Jesus in the midst. Our offices are consecrated as actually as our churches; holiness to the Lord is written upon the very bells of the horses; upon our ledgers and cash-books.

VI. In the midst OF ALL CHRISTIAN ENTERPRISE. They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, &c. How possible it is to work for Christ, and yet in our very work to deny Christ His proper place in relation to the work; to be guilty of self-seeking even while we seem to be endeavouring to further His cause (Jer 45:5). It is when we see Jesus in the midst that self loses its tyrant power, and worldly motives cease to influence us. Conclusion: How are we to ensure the presence of Jesus in the midst of our hearts, and therefore in the midst of our lives? By accepting Him as the Mediator between God and man. (W. Hay-Aitken, M. A.)

The centre of the universe–Jesus in the midst

1. All men have looked up to the heavenly bodies. This fact invests them with additional interest. We have not seen the men of past ages; we cannot see those of distant continents; but we can look at the same objects as they all have looked at.

2. In a higher degree, when we look into the pages of the Word of God, and consider how many eyes have looked at the same words–wondering, weeping, inquiring, praying, and scoffing; and how many hearts have beat over the same book, do we feel that this great light of time has been uniting the generations.

3. In a still higher degree do we feel the uniting power of one great central object–Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. As we look, our gaze is drawn to Calvary and its three crosses–resting at last upon the middle cross. On one cross the physical suffering is doubly darkened by the gloom of despair; on another it is lighted up by hope and faith; on the middle cross it is crowned and glorified by the infinite and unutterable love of God. Many executions took place on Golgotha. Why then should these three have remained, burning like beacons in the night of time? It is because Jesus is in the midst. And, as around that central cross there were all kinds of lookers at the time, so has it been in every time. There fell on that cross the look of hate, and of love, of indifference, and of interest.

I. JESUS IN THE MIDST OF THE VISIBLE WORLD.

1. Jerusalem was in the middle of Palestine, and Palestine in the middle of the civilized world. The cross, then, was literally in the midst of the visible world: and its position there is symbolical of Christs position, for His life was lived between the two great continents of history–the ancient and the modern. A new civilization dates from His birth–the old civilization died in His death. And thus, in relation to human history, as developed in place and time, it is a simple geographical and chronological fact that Jesus is in the midst.

2. Nature is a part of the visible world, and Christ is the centre of nature, for He is its Creator. All thing were made by Him, &c., and by Him all things consist–the whole material universe is held together by Him.

3. The Hebrew Theocracy was a part of the visible world, and Christ Jesus was in the midst of it.

(1) The Tribes went up to Jerusalem as their centre. The centre of Jerusalem was the Temple. The centre of the Temple was the Holy of Holies, and the centre of the Holy of Holies was the mercy-seat, sprinkled with blood, containing the Law, of which the shed blood was the satisfaction; all of which represented our Saviours mediatorial work.

(2) This was His position in relation to the whole life and history of the Jews. In so far as they were children of God, they were moulded after the image of the Son of God. His Spirit inspired the prophets. In the dark house of bondage, and at the bitterest hour of their history, Jesus is found in the midst, making a fourth in the furnace of Babylon.

4. Heathendom is a part of the visible world, and Jesus is in the midst of it. For what mean those victims slain in sacrifice all over the world? Jesus is the desire of all nations, and is in their midst–if only in this negative sense, that the void at the heart of humanity can be filled only by Him.

5. Coming to Christendom, Christ is the visible centre of it. Europe embraces the highest life in the world, and the centre of that highest life is Christ. The great Church in the middle of every capital city is called a Christian Church. Jesus is acknowledged to be the source of all our moral and spiritual activities. And if we enter the world of thought, most emphatically is Jesus in the midst here. His Person includes the inmost and ultimate question in every sphere. Do we try to form a science of theology? The foundation must be our doctrine of the Person of Christ. The view we take of that will determine our view of God, man, sin, atonement. Jesus very soon became the central figure in the schools. At twelve years of age He was found in the Temple. If we take any ultimate question, we find Jesus the living and practical solution of it, Do we take the question, How can finite man ever know the infinite God? Jesus is the Man who knows

God fully. Hence the variety of forms in which the account of His life is ever appearing in modern times.

6. The political world is a part of the visible world; and the rightful place of Christ is in the midst of it, too. If any one rules a nation in the name of any one but Christ, he is a usurper. Christs cross has been the centre of the past; His crown will be the centre of the future. All kings shall fall down before Him, &c.

II. JESUS IN THE MIDST OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD.

1. The true Church on earth is a part of the invisible world; and Jesus is in the midst of it. In the midst of

(1) The individual life. He is the most intimate Counsellor, Friend, and Companion of every Christian soul.

(2) The Christian family. His presence is the bond of its perfectness.

(3) The little prayer-meeting. Where two or three, &c.

(4) The Christian Church on earth viewed as a whole. Lo! I am with you alway, &c. In the midst of the candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man. All true lights are fed by the hand of Christ.

2. Lifting our eyes to the Church in heaven, it is still the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne. The throne itself is in the midst; the first position of dignity and power in the universe, and Christ sits upon it. He must, therefore, be God–King of kings, and Lord of lords. Further, it is as the Lamb that He is on the throne–showing that the centre of His work is His sacrifice of Himself. His highest value to the world is not that He is a pattern of virtue merely, or a moral Reformer. The Apostle conducts us from company to company until we come to Him who is in the midst. Ye are come unto Mount Sion, &c.

3. But, higher still, Jesus is in the midst of the Godhead. In the threefold name, Jesus is in the midst; and in the manifestation of the three-one God, He occupies the same position. In the First Dispensation there was the revelation of the Unity or first Person of the Godhead. Our dispensation is that of the Holy Spirit, for in it we have a revelation of the work of the third Person. But in the midst of the two, there is the manifestation of the second Person.

4. Jesus is in the midst: of all the Divine attributes. They have their harmonious meeting-place in Him. He is love, and love is the bond of the Divine perfectness as well as of human. In Him the problem has been solved, how God can be just and yet the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus.

III. JESUS IN THE MIDST BETWEEN THE TWO WORLDS.

1. He descended into the visible that He might translate us into the invisible. He is the only Door between the two worlds. Through that, ministering angels, and all Divine and saving influences, come forth to enlighten and enliven this lower world; and through it there pours in return the multitude of sinners saved by grace. He is the spiritual reality symbolized in Jacobs ladder. He has this position became He is in the midst–between God and man. In the translation of sinners from the: kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, Jesus is in the midst. He was lifted up on the cross between the two worlds that He might draw all men unto Him.

2. At the moment of death Jesus stands on the dark frontier, to receive the soul of the believer. There are weeping friends on the one side, and rejoicing angels on the other; and the Saviour is between the two.

3. And, last of all, who is this sitting on the great white throne–the holy angels with Him? The Son of man; Jesus is in the midst! In conclusion: Is all this true of Jesus of Nazareth?

Then

1. He is indeed the Wonderful, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.

2. What sort of a universe would this be without Christ? It would not be a universe–a cosmos, or a well-ordered system of thing; but a chaos. Yea, if there were no Christ, evil would triumph.

3. Consider what the life and heart of the individual man is without Christ. It has no centre. All its pursuits, however refined, are worse than useless. All its pleasures are short-lived and false. Apart from Christ, there can be no aim in a human life adequate to the worth of that life. (F. Ferguson, D. D.)

Salvation no failure

Now, away among the mountains, I know a place, where once three shepherds, brothers, were to leap, as they had often done, from rock to rock, across the narrow chasm through which the swollen waters rushed onward to their fall. Bold mountaineers, and looking with careless eye on a sight which had turned others dizzy, one bounded over like a red deer; another followed–but, alas, his foot slipping on the smoothly treacherous ledge, he staggered, reeled, and falling back, rolled over with a sullen plunge into the jaws of the abyss. Quick as lightning, his brother sprang forward–down to a point where the waters issue into a more open space, just above the crag over which they throw themselves into the black, rock-girdled, boiling cavern. There, standing on the verge of death, he eyes the body coming; he bends–his arm is out–thank God, he has him in his powerful grasp. Bravely, brotherly done! Alas! it is done in vain. The third brother, sad spectator of the scene, saw him swept from his slippery footing: and, in their death not divided, as of old they had lain in their childhood, locked in each others arms they went over, horribly whelmed in the depths of the swirling pool. Not so perished our elder Brother, and the thief He stretched out His hand to save. He plucked him from the brink of hell; He saved him on the dizzy edge of the dreadful pit. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 17. Bearing his cross] He bore it all alone first; when he could no longer carry the whole through weakness, occasioned by the ill usage he had received, Simon, a Cyrenian, helped him to carry it: See Clarke on Mt 27:32.

Golgotha] See Clarke on Mt 27:33.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

See Poole on “Mat 27:31“, and following verses to Mat 27:33, where whatsoever needs expounding in this verse may be found, and this text is reconciled to that, which telleth us, that one Simon, a man of Cyrene, bore his cross. Their places of execution (as usually with us) were without their cities.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

17. And he bearing his cross(Seeon Lu 23:26).

went forthCompare Heb13:11-13, “without the camp”; “without the gate.”On arriving at the place, “they gave Him vinegar to drinkmingled with gall [wine mingled with myrrh, Mr15:23], and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink”(Mt 27:34). This potion wasstupefying, and given to criminals just before execution, to deadenthe sense of pain.

Fill high the bowl,and spice it well, and pour

The dews oblivious: forthe Cross is sharp,

The Cross is sharp, andHe

Is tenderer than a lamb.

KEBLE.

But our Lord would die with everyfaculty clear, and in full sensibility to all His sufferings.

Thou wilt feel all,that Thou may’st pity all;

And rather would’st Thouwrestle with strong pain

Than overcloudThy soul,

So clear inagony,

Or lose one glimpse ofHeaven before the time,

O most entire and perfectSacrifice,

Renewed in everypulse.

KEBLE.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And he bearing his cross,…. Which was usual for malefactors to do, as Lipsius i shows out of Artemidorus, and Plutarch; the former says,

“the cross is like to death, and he that is to be fixed to it, first bears it;”

and the latter says,

“and everyone of the malefactors that are punished in body, “carries out his own cross”.”

So Christ, when he first went out to be crucified, carried his cross himself, until the Jews, meeting with Simon the Cyrenian, obliged him to bear it after him; that is, one part of it; for still Christ continued to bear a part himself: of this Isaac was a type, in carrying the wood on his shoulders for the burnt offering; and this showed that Christ was made sin, and a curse for us, and that our sins, and the punishment which belonged to us, were laid on him, and bore by him; and in this he has left us an example to go forth without the camp, bearing his reproach:

went forth in a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew, Golgotha: and signifies a man’s skull: it seems, that as they executed malefactors here, so they buried them here; and in process of time, their bones being dug up to make room for others, their skulls, with other bones, lay up and down in this place; from whence it had its name in the Syriac dialect, which the Jews then usually spake: here some say Adam’s skull was found, and that it had its name from thence. This was an ancient tradition, as has been observed in the notes on [See comments on Mt 27:33], and

[See comments on Lu 23:33] the Syriac writers have it k, who say,

“when Noah went out of the ark there was made a distribution of the bones of Adam; to Shem, his head was given, and the place in which he was buried is called “Karkaphta”: where likewise Christ was crucified;”

which word signifies a skull, as Golgotha does: and so likewise the Arabic writers l; who affirm that Shem said these words to Melchizedek,

“Noah commanded that thou shouldst take the body of Adam, and bury it in the middle of the earth; therefore let us go, I and thou, and bury it; wherefore Shem and Melchizedek went to take the body of Adam, and the angel of the Lord appeared to them and went before them, till they came to the place Calvary, where they buried him, as the angel of the Lord commanded them:”

the same also had the ancient fathers of the Christian church; Cyprian m says, that it is a tradition of the ancients, that Adam was buried in Calvary under the place where the cross of Christ was fixed; and Jerom makes mention of it more than once; so Paula and Eustochium, in an epistle supposed to be dictated by him, or in which he was assisting, say n, in this city, meaning Jerusalem, yea in this place, Adam is said to dwell, and to die; from whence the place where our Lord was crucified is called Calvary, because there the skull of the ancient man was buried: and in another place he himself says o, that he heard one disputing in the church and explaining, Eph 5:14 of Adam buried in Calvary, where the Lord was crucified, and therefore was so called. Ambrose p also takes notice of it; the place of the cross, says he, is either in the midst of the land, that it might be conspicuous to all, or over the grave of Adam, as the Hebrews dispute: others say that the hill itself was in the form of a man’s skull, and therefore was so called; it was situated, as Jerom says q, on the north of Mount Zion, and is thought by some to be the same with the hill Gareb, in Jer 31:39. It was usual to crucify on high hills, so Polycrates was crucified upon the highest top of Mount Mycale r.

i De Cruce, l. 2. c. 5. p. 76. k Bar Bahluli apud Castel. Lexic. Polyglot. col. 3466. l Elmacinus, p. 13. Patricides, p. 12. apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 257. m De Resurrectione Christi, p. 479. n Epist. Marcellae, fol. 42. L. Tom. I. o Comment. in Eph. v. 14. p Comment. in Luc. xx. 33. q De locis Hebraicis, fol. 92. F. r Valer. Maxim. l. 6. c. ult.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

They took (). Second aorist active indicative of , they took Jesus from Pilate. Cf. John 1:11; John 14:3. This is after the shameful scourging between 6 A.M. and 9 A.M. when the soldiers insult Jesus ad libitum (Mark 15:16-19; Matt 27:27-30).

Bearing the cross for himself ( ). Cf. Lu 14:27 for this very picture in the words of Jesus. The dative case of the reflexive pronoun “for himself” is in strict accord with Roman custom. “A criminal condemned to be crucified was required to carry his own cross” (Bernard). But apparently Jesus under the strain of the night before and the anguish of heart within him gave out so that Simon of Cyrene was impressed to carry it for Jesus (Mark 15:21; Matt 27:32; Luke 23:26). See Mark 15:22; Matt 27:33; Luke 23:33 for the meaning of “place of a skull” or Calvary and Golgotha in Hebrew (Aramaic). Luke has simply (Skull), a skull-looking place.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Bearing [] . See on 12 6; Joh 10:31.

His cross [ ] . The best texts read auJtw or eJautw, “bearing the cross for Himself.” John does not mention the impressment of Simon of Cyrene for this service. Compare Mt 27:32; Mr 14:21; Luk 23:26.

Skull. See on Mt 27:33.

18 – 24. Compare Mt 27:35 – 38; Mr 14:24 – 28; Luk 23:33, 34, 38.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And he bearing his cross,” (kai bastazon heauto ton stauron) “And he himself carrying the cross,” carrying his cross, as He went out of and away from Pilate’s hall, for a short way, after which it was placed on Simon of Cyrene, Mat 27:32; Mar 15:21; Luk 23:26.

2) “Went forth into a place called the place of a skull,” (ekselthen eis ton legomenon kraniou topon) “He went out and way to a place called the skull,” Num 15:36; Mat 27:33; Mar 15:22; also described as being “without the gate,” outside the walled city of Jerusalem, Heb 13:12.

3) “Which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:” (ho legetai hebraisti Golgotha) “Which is called Golgotha, in the Hebrew,” Mat 27:33 a; Mar 15:22; also called Calvary, Luk 23:33. The place is located on the north side of the city wall of Jerusalem, as a bare knoll with two holes in it, facing Jerusalem, that has for more than 2,000 years resembled the face of a skull. The name is Aramaic in origin and is derived from the Hebrew word “Gulgoleth,” meaning “skull,” found in 2Ki 9:35.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

17. He went forth to a place. The circumstances which are here related contribute greatly, not only to show the truth of the narrative, but likewise to build up our faith. We must look for righteousness through the satisfaction made by Christ. To prove that he is the sacrifice for our sins, he wished both to be led out of the city, and to be hanged on a tree; for the custom was, in compliance with the injunction of the Law, that the sacrifices, the blood of which was shed for sin, were carried out of the camp, (Lev 6:30😉 and the same Law declares that

he who hangeth on a tree is accursed, (Deu 21:23.)

Both were fulfilled in Christ, that we might be fully convinced that atonement has been made for our sins by the sacrifice of his death; that

he was made subject to the curse, in order that he might redeem us from the curse of the law, (Gal 3:13😉

that

he was made sin, in order that we might be the righteousness of God in him, (2Co 5:21😉

that he was led out of the city, in order that he might carry with him, and take away, our defilements which were laid on him, (Heb 12:12.) To the same purpose is the statement about the robbers, which immediately follows: —

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(17) For the way of the cross, comp. Mat. 27:31-34; Mar. 15:20-23; Luk. 23:26-33. For the present passage, comp. especially Note on the parallel words in Mat. 27:33.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

140. LEADING FORTH AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS, Joh 19:17 .

Mat 27:32-34; Mar 15:21-23; Luk 23:26-33. See notes on the parallel sections.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Joh 19:17-18 . The subject of , which is correlative to , Joh 19:16 , and of , is necessarily, according to Joh 19:16 , the , not the soldiers (De Wette, B. Crusius, Hengstenberg, Baeumlein, and older expositors). The former are the persons [242] who act, which does not exclude the service and co-operation of the soldiers (Joh 19:23 ).

. . (see critical notes): Himself bearing the cross . [243] See on Mat 26:32 , and Charit. iv. 2; and on Golgotha , on Mat 27:33 .

. . .] Comp. LXX. Dan 12:5 ; , Herod. iv. 175; Soph. Aj . 725; Xen. Cyr . vi. 3. 3; 1Ma 6:38 ; 1Ma 9:45 ; 3Ma 2:22 , not Rev 22:2 . On the thing itself, comp. Luk 23:33 . John gives peculiar prominence to the circumstance, adding further, . . Whether, and how far, the Jews thus acted intentionally , is undetermined. That, perhaps, they scornfully assign to their “king” the place of honour! That Pilate desired thereby to deride them, in allusion to 1Ki 22:19 (B. Crusius, Brckner, Lange), we are not to suppose, since the subject of . is the Jews, under whose direction the crucifixion of the principal person takes place, and, at the same time, the two subordinate individuals are put to death along with Him. Pilate first appears, Joh 19:19 . Of special divine conceptions in the intermediate position assigned to the cross of Christ (see Steinmeyer, p. 176), John gives no indication.

[242] By which also the fact is confirmed that John had not in his mind the first feast-day, which certainly possessed the authority of the Sabbath.

[243] The assistance of Simon in this, John, who here gives only a compendious account, has passed over as a subordinate circumstance, not, as Scholten thinks, in conformity with the idea that the Son of God needed no human help.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

IV

CHRIST ON GOLGOTHA THE LIGHT OF SALVATION, OR THE GLORIFICATION OF THE CURSE OF THE OLD WORLD. CHRIST THE CROSS-BEARER. THE CRUCIFIED IN THE MIDST OF THE CRUCIFIED. THE SUPERSCRIPTION: THE KING OF THE JEWS, A WRITING OF DISGRACE CHANGING INTO A WRITING OF HONOR. THE BOOTY OF THE SOLDIERS, ALSO A FULFILMENT OF SCRIPTURE. THE INSTITUTION OF DEPARTING LOVE. THE LAST DRAUGHT. THE WORD OF VICTORY: IT IS FINISHED!

Joh 19:17-30

(Mat 27:32-56; Mar 15:20-41; Luk 23:26-49)

And they [They therefore, ] took Jesus and led him away.8 17And he bearing his [own]9 cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull [the so called Place of a Skull, ] which is called in the [omit the] Hebrew Golgotha:10 18Where they crucified him, and two others with him, on either side one [and with him two others, one on each side], and Jesus in the midst.

19And Pilate wrote [also, ] a title [or, an inscription], and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH [THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20This title then read many of the Jews; for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written 21in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin [in Hebrew, Roman, Greek].11 Then [Therefore] said the chief-priest of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. 22Pilate answered, What I have written I 23have written.

23Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his [upper] garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat [the inner garment, tunic, ]: now the coat was without seam [but the tunic was seamless, , woven from the top throughout. 24They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment [garments] among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. [Psa 22:18.] These things therefore the soldiers did.

25Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mothers sister [Salome, Johns mother, see the Exeg.], Mary the wife of Cleophas [Clopas, ], and Mary [the, ] Magdalene. 26When Jesus therefore saw [Jesus therefore seeing] his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he [omit he] saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! 27Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that [the, ] disciple took her unto his own home.

28After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished [finished, , as Joh 19:30], that the Scripture might be fulfilled [accomplished, ] 29saith, I thirst. Now [omit Now]12 there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth [so putting a sponge filled with the vinegar upon a stalk of hyssop, they raised it to his mouth]. 30When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost [yielded up his spirit].

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

[Johns account of the crucifixion is brief and comprehensive, yet with several original details of the deepest import. On his relation to the Synoptists in this section, see the full analysis of Dr. Lange in Doctr. & Ethic, below, No. 1.P. S.]

Joh 19:17. And bearing His own cross, etc. [for Himself] emphasized. [See Text. Note, As conquerors bear their own trophies, so Christ bears the symbol of His own victory.P. S.] Thus He went forth []. Out of the city, Heb 13:12.

Golgotha. See Comm. on Mat 27:33.

[On the words Golgotha, Cranion, Calvaria, Calvary, Mount (?) Calvary, see my Textual Note 3. The vexed question of locality is fully discussed by Dr. Lange and myself in the Commentary on Matthew, pp. 520, 521, with reference to the principal arguments for and against the traditional site of the crucifixion, i.e., the spot where now stands the Constantinian or, perhaps, post-Constantinian Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which lies within the walls of the present city and in the north-western quarter, not far from the Damascus Gate. Robinson is the chief authority in opposition, G. Williams in defense, of the popular tradition. The former has still the best of the argument.13 The other writers on the subject, Ritter, Raumer, Tobler, Winer, Schubert, Bergren, Arnold, Kraft, Friedlieb, Furrer, Lange, etc., among the Germans, Wilson, Barclay, Finley, Olin, Lewin, Tristram, Stanley, Fergusson, etc., among English and Americans, are divided in opinion or leave the matter doubtful. James Fergusson (art. Jerusalem in Smiths Bible Dictionary, and also in a special pamphlet On the Site of the Holy Sepulchre, in answer to the Edinb. Rev.) has recently propounded the startling theory that the place of crucifixion was Mount Moriah, on the very spot where now stands the Mosque of Omar, or as the Moslems call it, the Dome of the Rock; and, further, that this building is the identical church of the Holy Sepulchre which Constantine erected over the rocky tomb of Christ. But this theory, besides leaving the disappearance of Constantines church and the substitution of the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre unexplained, is set aside by the extreme improbability that the temple area was outside of the city and a place of execution. Lange is disposed to identify Golgotha with the hill Goath, Jer 31:39, which was outside of the city, east of the Sheep Gate. My colleague, Prof. Dr. Hitchcock, informs me that by personal examination in 1870 he came independently to the same conclusion. Perhaps it is best that the real locality of crucifixion should be unknown: it is too holy to be desecrated by idolatrous superstitions and monkish impostures and quarrels such as, from the age of Constantine to this day, have disgraced the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to the delight of Mohammedan Turks, and to the shame and grief of Christians. The apostles and evangelists barely allude to the places of our Lords birth, death, and resurrection: they fixed their eyes of faith and love upon the great facts themselves, and upon the ever-living Christ in heaven. Only this is more or less certain from the Gospels, viz.: that the place of the crucifixion was out of the city (Joh 19:17; Mat 28:11; comp. Heb 13:12, ); yet near the city (Joh 19:20); apparently near a thoroughfare and exposed to the gaze of the passing multitude (as may be inferred from Mar 15:29 and Joh 19:20); probably on a little conical elevation (hence probably the name: Skull, or Place of a Skull), but not on a mountain or hill (as the popular term Mount Calvary would imply); and that it was near the Lords sepulchre (Joh 19:41), which was in a garden and hewn in a rock (Mat 27:60).P. S.]

Joh 19:18. But Jesus in the midst. [ ]. This was Pilates arrangement, and designed to mock the Jews (see 1Ki 22:19). Meyer maintains that it was an arrangement of the Jews, the Jews being the crucifiers. Against this view we have to observe: 1. That the two thieves were not executed as Jewish heretics; 2. that the consummating of the crucifixion, as a Roman punitory act, must have been left to the Romans 3. that it further reads: Pilate wrote alsonamely, to complete the mockery of the Jews.

[Christ was crucified between the two robbers who represent the two classes of the human family: both guilty before God and justly condemned to death, but the one repenting, and saved by faith in the crucified Redeemer, the other impenitent, and rushing to ruin by unbelief. On the archology of crucifixion, see the Notes on Matthew, pp. 522 f. Crucifixion was one of the most painful and disgraceful modes of death. It was unusual among the Jews, and applied among the Greeks and Romans (till the fourth century) only to slaves and gross criminals, as rebels and highway-robbers. Cicero calls it the most cruel and abominable punishment (crudelissimum teterrimumque supplicium). The cross consisted of two pieces of wood, generally put together transversely at right angles in the form of a T. The longer beam was planted in the earth, and provided with a projecting bar like a horn in the middle for the body to rest upon, which somewhat relieved the sufferings, and prevented the hands from being torn through. There were, however, various forms of the cross (crux commissa, cr. immissa, cr. decussata). The victim was first undressed, the arms tied with ropes to the cross-beam, the hands fastened with iron nails, the feet tied or nailed to the upright post. In this unnatural and immovable position of the body, he suffered intensely from thirst, hunger, inflammation of the wounds, and deep anguish in consequence of the rushing of the blood towards the head. Death followed slowly from loss of blood, thirst, and hunger, gradual exhaustion, and stiffening of the muscles, veins, and nerves. The loss of blood, however, was small, since the wounds in the hands and feet did not lacerate any large vessels, and were nearly closed by the nails. The sufferers lingered generally twelve hours,sometimes, according to the strength of their constitution, to the second or third day. The bodies were left hanging on the cross until they decayed or were devoured by ravenous beasts and birds. But the Jews were accustomed to take them down and bury them. Constantine the Great, from motives of humanity, and especially from respect to the cross of Christ as the sign of victory (Hoc signo vinces), abolished crucifixion in the Roman empire, and since that time it has almost disappeared from Europe. What a wonderful change! Through the death of Christ the cross has been transformed from a symbol of shame into a symbol of glory and victory, and one of the richest themes of poetry. Well may we exclaim with Venantius Fortunatus, in his famous Passion-hymn, Pange, lingua:

Crux fidelis, inter omnes
Arbor una nobilis!
Nulla talem silva profert
Fronde, flore, germine:
Dulce lignum, dulces clavi,
Dulce pondus sustinens.

Faithful cross! above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be:
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,

Sweetest weight is hung on thee.P. S.]

Joh 19:19. Pilate wrote also [or, Moreover Pilate wrote, ].After sentence was pronounced, and as a formulation of the same. On this account, however, it is as little the Pluperfect (Tholuck) as it is a formula manufactured during the crucifixion only. In a word, Pilate first arranged the manner of the executionbetween two thievesand then wrote the superscription. See Comm. on Matthew. [=, from the Latin titulus, inscription], the customary Roman term for such superscriptions (Wetstein).

Jesus the Nazarene [. , Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judorum. All the four Evangelists give the inscription on the cross, but with slight variations, on which see Wordsworth in loc.P. S.] The manifest double meaning of the superscription was the final expression of the suit. In the sense of the man Pilate, it meant: Jesus, the King of the Jewish fanatics, crucified in the midst of Jews, who should all thus be executed; in the sense of the Jews: Jesus, the seditionary, the King of rebels [and pseudo-prophets]; in the sense of the political judge: Jesus, for whose execution the Jews, with their ambiguous accusation, may answer; in the sense of the divine irony which ruled over the expression: Jesus, the Messiah, by the crucifixion become in very truth the King of the people of God.

Joh 19:20. Was read by many of the Jews.Whereby they were forced to reflect upon that treason to the Messianic idea, of which the high-priests were guilty.

The place was near the city.On Sunday afternoon the populace are fond of walking out of the city, particularly in the direction of new suburbs. So the Jews on their festivals. Towards Golgotha the beginnings of the new city were forming,Bezetha. Leben Jesu, 2. p. 1573.

In Hebrew, etc.Here also the Evangelist has in view the triumph of the Divine Spirit over human sin and malice. The inscription, in this threefold form, must symbolize the preaching concerning the Crucified One in the three principal languages of the world: in the language of religion [Hebrew], of culture [Greek], and of the State [Latinthe language of law and government].14

Joh 19:21. Then said the high-priests to Pilate.A proposal to alter the title. They feel the sting of the inscription, and therefore prosecute their calumny. Jesus was to be more definitely characterized as a seditionary in the Roman sense, one whom Pilate himself had sentenced.

Joh 19:22. What I have written, etc. [, . The first perfect denotes the past action, the second that it is complete and unchangeable.P. S.]. Pilate feels secure again, and once more assumes the air of unshakeable authority and of the firm Roman. His declaration, however, contains at the same time the continuation of the idea that he lays the dark riddle of this crucifixion upon their consciences, that he does not acknowledge Jesus to be guilty in their sense, and that they need reckon upon no forbearance on his part. Analogous formul from Rabbins, see in Lightfoot. Meyer. Agreeably to his character , as Philo calls him, Pilate adheres to his resolution. Tholuck.

Joh 19:23. Took His upper garments.The only earthly leavings of the Redeemer do not fall to the share of His people, but, in accordance with Roman law, to the executors of the death-sentence. By the may be understood the upper garment, the girdle, the sandals, perhaps the linen shirt; these are divided amongst the Roman guard, consisting of four men (Act 12:4). Tholuck.

But the tunic, etc. [ ].According to lsidor. Pelusiota, the like was worn by the lower classes in Galilee. This statement, however, might readily be abstracted from our passage. The Evangelist seems to see in this body-vest a homely work of art, wrought by loving hands. [], tunica, is an inner garment, worn to the skin like a shirt, mostly without sleeves, fastened round the neck with a clasp, and usually reaching to the knees. Sometimes two were worn for ornament or comfort. It was worn also by the Jewish high-priest and priests (but as an outer tunic, a broidered coat, chethoneth thashpez), and is described by Josephus, Antiq. lII. 7, 4. The fathers (as also Roman commentators and Bishop Wordsworth) see in the seamless coat of Christ a symbol of the unity of the church.P. S.]

Joh 19:24. In order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Psa 22:19 (18), according to the Septuagint. A typical prophecy. See Comm. on Matthew. The apparent identicalness in the parallelismus membrorum of the Psalmist does not preclude our Evangelists right to make the distinction he doesit being a question of the interpretation of an unconsciously prophetic, a typical, speech.

These things therefore the soldiers did. As the soldiers knew nothing of those words of the Psalmist, their fulfilment of them is the more strikingly a divine inspiration. The same idea as Joh 12:16.

[Joh 19:25-27. Peculiar to John. A scene of unique delicacy, tenderness and sublimity. A type of those pure and spiritual relationships (the sacred Wahlverwandtschaften) which have their origin in heaven and are deeper and stronger than those of blood and interest. The cross is the place where the holiest ties are formed, and where they are guarded against the disturbing influences of sin.

Das kreuz ist es, das Herzen zicht und bindet,

Wo Tiefverwandtes wunderbar sich findet

A few simple touches reveal a world of mingled emotions of grief and comfort. The mother pierced in her soul by the sword (Luk 2:35), the beloved disciple gazing at the cross, the dying Son and Lord uniting them in the tenderest relation! The first words furnished the keynote to that marvellous Stabat Mater dolorosa of Jaeopne (1306), which, though disfigured by Mariolatry, describes with overpowering effect the intense sympathy with Marys grief, and is the most pathetic, as the Dies Ir is the most sublime, product of Latin hymnology. It is the text for some of the noblest musical compositions, which will never cease to stir the hearts of men.P. S.]

Joh 19:25. Now there stood by the cross [ , in the Vulgate: Stabat juxta crucem mater ejus, from which the Stabat Mater took its rise, as the Dies ir from the Vulgates rendering of Zep 1:15.P. S.].According to the Synoptists (Matthew, Mark), the women mentioned stand afar off. According to Lcke and Olshausen, they were there previously; according to Meyer, there is a difference which must be settled in Johns favor. But it is manifestly necessary to distinguish two stages in the proceedings attendant upon the crucifixion: the tumult of the crucifixion itself, amidst which no friends could approach, and the subsequent sufferings on the cross. See Comm. on Matthew [p. 529].

We read with Wieseler (Studien u. Kritiken, 1840, p. 648): His mother (Mary) and His mothers sister (Salome); then Marythe wife of Clopasand Mary Magdalene. Leben Jesu; Introduction to this Comm. [p. 4]. So also Lcke, Ewald [Meyer and Alford]; in old times, the Syrian, Ethiopian and Persian translations,15 as also the texts of Lachmann, editio minor, Tischendorf,16 Muralt. [Also Westcott and Hort, who punctuate without a comma after , thus: , , . .P. S.]. The opposite side is taken by Luthardt, Ebrard [Hengstenberg, Godet] and others.

[Thus we have not three women (Mary, her sister Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene), as is usually assumed, but four, arranged in two pairs: Mary and her sister (viz. Salome), Mary of Clopas and Mary the Magdalene. See the list of the apostles, Mat 10:2 ff.; Luk 6:16 ff. Consequently John, the son of Salome, was a cousin of Jesus and a nephew of His earthly mother. This double relationship explains the more readily the fact that Jesus intrusted her to John rather than to His half-brothers, who at the time were yet unbelieving. Apocryphal traditions make Salome now a daughter, now a sister, now a former wife, of Joseph.P. S.]

Wieselers hypothesis is upheld by the following facts:
1. It is not supposable that two sisters had the same name. [Some conjecture that Mary was only a step-sister. But I know of no example even of step-sisters or step-brothers bearing precisely the same name without an additional one to distinguish, them. Hengstenberg escapes the difficulty by the arbitrary assumption that sister here denotes sister-in-law.P. S.]

2. In a precisely similar manner John elsewhere paraphrases his own name. [Nor does he introduce his brother James by name.P. S.]

3. According to Mat 27:56; Mar 15:40, Salome really was among those women [who stood by the cross; and it is not likely that John should have omitted his own mother, the less so as he introduced himself.P. S.]

The wife of Clopas [ ].Clopas=Alpheus, Mat 10:3. The mother of the so-called brethren of Jesus, i.e. His cousins.

[The identity of (which sounds like an abridgement of ) with the Hebrew name , (Mat 10:3), is by no means so certain as Dr. Lange with most commentators (also Meyer) assumes, but quite doubtful on account of the difference, of letters, and the improbability that John should use the Aramaic, and Matthew and Mark the Hellenistic form. sounds rather like an abridgement of and maybe the same with the , mentioned Luk 14:18. But even in case of the identity of Clopas and Alpheus, it does not follow that James and Joses, the sons of Alpheus and a certain Mary (Mat 27:56; Mar 15:40; Mar 16:1; Luk 24:10), were cousins of Jesus, unless we identify this Mary with the sister of the mother of Jesus, which Lange does not. Nor is it certain that means the wife of; it may also mean the daughter of, the Klopas mentioned Luk 24:18 (as Ewald).P. S.]

Joh 19:26. Woman, behold thy son [ , ]Woman instead of mother. See Joh 2:4. The word here denotes particularly the character of woman in her helplessness and need of comfort. It must be remembered, however, that Mary deserved the name of woman in the ideal sense also. As Christ was the Son of Man, or the Man, so she, though approximately only, not in the perfection of sinlessness, was the ideal woman. [The second Eve, the Woman, whose Seed here bruised the serpents head, Genesis 3P. S.]. Thus the name woman, the greeting of the woman who in spirit shares His crucial agony, is likewise a title of dignity. But besides this, Christ has sufficient reason for not exposing Mary to the mockery or persecution of the enemy by saluting her with the name pf mother.

The explanation recently (for instance in Pipers Jahrbuch, article Maria) enlarged upon with ever-increasing grotesqueness, and which claims that with this saying Christ renounced His mother at the cross, goes, in its gradual development, from Luthardt, who is more precisely the author of it, back to Hofmann.17 It is expressive of a Monophysite view which takes the bold flight of afterward annulling even the historical fact. People holding this view apparently conceive of the status majestaticus not as the centre of the glorification of the human life, but as a sort of Oriental court raised to heaven. In connection with this view it would be better to represent the Logos in His birth as born not of Mary, but merely through her, in accordance with some of the ancients.

That it is the desire of Jesus to give Mary a son in His stead in a special sense, results from the fact that the Alphides also were her sons.18 And what sons! Nevertheless, Mary was to have a still richer compensation after the departure of Jesus than could be given by the Alphides; John was destined to make this compensation. And he indeed stood alone by her in this moment, as her support; thus should he stand by her from this time forth. The thing, the unique adoptive relationship, already existed de facto, being born beneath the cross of Christ; consciousness, a name, and the sanction of Christ must be added to it. According to Tholuck, the were as yet unbelieving. In regard to this, see Joh 7:5 [and my counter-notes, p. 241.P. S.]. According to others, they were not so well off as John. But had there been question of a mere pecuniary provision for His mother, Christ would not have deferred its settlement until now. Mary needed a son in the sense of the higher soul-life, just as Jesus had Himself been refreshed by a friend. The friend of Jesus was fitted to be the son of Mary.

Behold thy mother [ ]!We may primarily understand both sayings of Jesus in such a manner as to make them express the same idea: ye shall henceforth cleave together as mother and son. But not in vain are they divided into two sayings. If we apprehend them as consolations, the word: Behold thy son! signifies: in him shall be thy support; the word: thy mother: thou shalt become a sharer in her maternal blessing. If we apprehend them as admonitions, commands, the case presents a different aspect: the mother is enjoined to live for the son, the son for the mother. The one signification, however, is inseparable from the other. On both sides love and blessing are one in personal relationship.

[Alford: The solemn and affecting commendation of her to John is doubly made,and thus bound by the strongest injunctions on both. The Romanist idea, that the Lord commended all His disciples as represented by the beloved one, to the patronage of His mother, is simply absurd. The converse is true: He did solemnly commend the care of her, especially indeed to the beloved disciple, but in him to the whole cycle of disciples, among whom we find her, Act 4:14. No certain conclusion can be drawn from this commendation, as to the brethren of the Lord believing on Him or not at this time. The reasons which influenced Him in His selection must ever be far beyond our penetration:and whatever relations to Him we suppose those brethren to have been, it will remain equally mysterious why He passed them over, who wore so closely connected with His mother. Still the presumption, that they did not then believe on Him, is one of which it is not easy to divest ones self; and at least may enter as an element into the consideration of the whole subject, beset as it is with uncertainty. Johns relation to Mary as established beneath the Cross, was that of a sacred friendship and spiritual communion (comp. Mat 12:47-50), and interfered neither with Johns relation and duty to his natural mother Salome, nor with Marys relation to the brethren of Jesus, whatever view we may take of them. I have so often discussed this vexed question, especially in this vol. p. 241 and in the Com. on Matthew, pp. 456460, that it is unnecessary to say more.P. S.]

Took her unto his own home [ ],John gladly apprehended the word of Christ in that meaning also which carried an obligation with it. The expression: from that hour, cannot be weakened. Yet it is neither necessary to infer that John had a house of his own in Jerusalem, nor that he kept house for himself alone. If he received Mary into his dwelling, into his family circleconsisting of Salome and perchance his brother, would be perfectly correct. Meyer. [So also Alford. Ewald well observes: It was for the Apostle in his later years a sweet reward to recall vividly every such minute detail,and for his readers it is, without his intention, a sign that he alone could have written all this (dass nur er diess alles geschrieben haben knne). Against the misunderstanding of this most touching scene by such men as Scholten and Weisse, see the just remarks of Meyer, p. 630.P. S.]

Joh 19:28. I thirst [ , , ].Different views:

1. Prevailing ancient interpretation: . is referable to . Since He knew that all things were accomplished, He said, in order to fulfil the Scripture in that particular also: I thirst (Chrysostom, Theophylact and others). Beza: Vehementissima quidem siti pressus, sed tamen de implendis singulis prophetiis nostraque salute potius quam de ulla siti sollicitus. This manner of fulfilling the Scripture is in accordance neither with the view of the Lord nor the delineation of John (see Joh 19:24). Then, too, it would have to read thus: As He knew that the Scripture was fulfilled, with the exception of one particular, He saidin order that this one thing also might be fulfilled, etc.,irrespective of the fact that in Joh 19:32 ff. additional unfulfilled particulars Nos. 2 and 3 would present themselves.

2. Intensified apprehension of the foregoing explanation: as vinegar was given Him to drink, the drink was demanded as ultima pars passionum, with reference to Psa 69:22, which passage, as others also suppose, is here had in mind (Theodorus of Heraclea, Gerhard, Marheineke).

3. Christ did not drink for the sake of fulfilling the Scripture, but the Evangelist interprets His drinking as a fulfilment of Scripture; is therefore a parenthesis, containing the explanation of the Evangelist (Piscator, Grotius, Lcke).

4. The final sentence (, etc.) is not parenthetic, nor is it to be applied to what follows, but to that which precedes it: in the consciousness that His passion is finished, i.e. finished unto the accomplishment of the Scripture, He now says: I thirst (Michaelis, Semler, Knapp, Tholuck, Meyer and others). This interpretation seems to us the correct one. Hitherto Jesus has passed through one temptation and anxiety after another and, absorbed in the hot conflict in which He saw the fulfilment of the divine decree in accordance with the Scripture, has forgotten the burning thirst that has preyed upon Him since His last draught at the Supper. Now, with the presentiment of victory, His thirst makes itself felt, and He, being no legal ascetic, nor despising a service rendered by the hand of sinners, requests and partakes of the last, sorry refreshment. The expression: that the Scripture might be accomplished, does not mean: for the bare fulfilling of the Scripture hath He passed through all these things,but: in the fulfilling of Scripture as the expression of the divine counsel, He found that which was His perfect tranquillization and exaltation in view of all these things, Luk 22:22, Mat 26:54. According to Hofmann, Jesus demanded a refreshment conducive to the prolongation of life, in order thus to demonstrate the freedom of His departure. This would be drinking for a theologico-apologetic purpose. Tholuck more pertinently remarks that the of the divine was but the very (likewise the very) of the ,hence instead of .

Joh 19:29. A vessel therefore was standing there [ sour wine, or vinegar and water].The Evangelists might here mean: Jesus glance had fallen upon the vessel containing the beverage and had suggested to Him the prospect of refreshment. From a strict interpretation of the word, however, a higher signification results. Christs complaint, His last craving, must not fail of satisfaction. It was necessary, therefore, that provision should have been made before-hand; it was to be expected that satisfaction was nigh at hand. The stupefying draught that was offered Him at the beginning of His suffering (Mat 27:34; Mar 15:23), Jesus had rejected. See Comm. on Matthew. But the pure, sour soldiers wine, vinegar-wine, He now receives to His refreshment. The most distressing thirst torments the crucified. The soldiers give Him some of the beverage [] which they are wont to drink (posca, vinum acidum); saturating a sponge with it, they put the sponge upon a hyssopstalk (which in the East attains a height of from one to one and a half feet. , that is , see Mat 27:48), and thus convey it to His mouth as He hangs upon the slightly elevated cross. Mat 27:48 is a parallel passage. The touch in Luk 23:36 really seems indicative of a third, derisive presentation of vinegar-wine on the part of the soldiers, situate between the first and the last. See Meyer on the passage, and Comm. on Luk 23:26 [p. 373. Am. Ed.].

Joh 19:30. It is finished.. The expression of the consciousness, Joh 19:28. Bengel: Hoc verbum in corde Jesu erat Joh 19:28, nunc ore profertur. It is possible that He required the reviving refreshment to aid Him in pronouncing the last words. The sublime word, finished, refers to His work, as commanded Him according to the counsel of God (delineated in the Scripture).

And yielded up the (or His) spirit [ ].Expressive of a free dying. The characteristic word for this exode is itself preserved by the Evangelist Luke: Father, into Thy hands. Comp. Joh 10:18. Gerhard and the older Lutheran exegetes declared that the death of Jesus was not a suffering, but a deed. Tholuck: This can be said only in the ethical sense,in which sense it can be predicated of all His sufferingnot in the physical sense (comp. Thomasius, Christol. Dogmatics, II., p. 225 with 218); in itself it is merely the expression of self-surrender, trusting in God, as Psa 31:6, whence the expression is derived. But of a certainty, also the expression of a thoroughly unique, free dying which was at once suffering and deed in the ethico-physical sense. See Joh 10:18. [The was strictly a voluntary and determinate actno coming on of death, which had no power over Him. (Alford.) On the physical cause of Christs death, comp. the remarks in Comm. on Matthew, p. 523, and the treatise of William Stroud, M. D., on the Physical Cause of Christs Death and its Relation to the Principles and Practice of Christianity. Second ed. with Appendix by Sir James Y. Simpson, London, 1871 (504 pp.). Dr. Stroud endeavors to demonstrate that the immediate cause of the Saviours death must be traced neither to the ordinary effects of crucifixion, nor the wound inflicted by the soldiers spear, nor an unusual degree of weakness, nor the interposition of supernatural influence, but to the vicarious agony of His mind culminating in the exclamation, My God, My God, etc., and producing rupture of the heart, which is intimated by a discharge of blood and water from His side, when it was afterwards pierced with a spear. It was the death of a pure and perfect human being sustaining and discharging the penalty due to human depravity, and thereby acquiring an equitable claim to see the travail of His soul and to be satisfied, by becoming the author of eternal salvation to all that obey Him. See more of this below on Joh 19:34, p. 597.P. S.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. In the history of the crucifixion of Jesus, as subsequently in that of His burial, John gives special prominence to the considerations of the fulfilment of Biblical prophecies and types. In correspondence with Scripture, Pilate was constrained to make the superscription: The King of the Jews; in accordance with Scripture, the division of the clothing took place, accompanied by the casting of lots for the body-vest; in further accordance, Jesus, at the approach of His death, felt that all things were accomplished, to the fulfilling of the Scripture; and thus the manner of His taking down from the cross must itself have reference to two passages of Scripture. But not for the sake of the fulfilment of the Scripture did all these things happen, but because in the providence of God they must happen, they were preceded by the presages and fore-glimpses of Scripture. The reference to Scripture, however, is designed to be expressive of two things: the objective veracity of God, who, in the ordering of the crucial sufferings, is consistent with Himself, and the unconditional trust of Christ and His people, that above all human arbitrariness and malice in the crucifixion, the providence and faithfulness of God were ruling.

Many items in the history of the crucifixion, the Evangelist assumes to be already familiar,especially the history of Simon of Cyrene, the presentation of the intoxicating myrrh-wine, the mockings of the Crucified One, the conduct of the thieves, the darkening of the land, the earthquake, the rending of the vail in the temple, the testimony of the Gentile captain, Matthews indication of extraordinary occurrences in the spirit-world, the agitation of the people, as recorded by Luke, as also the majority of the seven last words.
With pleasure, however, he dwellsfirst upon the trait of Christs bravely and resolutely taking His cross on His own shoulders (), upon the contest which Pilate and the Jews continued over the Crucified One, upon the significant superscription, and similar features. But for him there lay special preciousness in the recollection that Jesus, in His last hour, instituted filial relations between him, His friend, and His mother.

2. The word: The King of the Jews, was a fulfilment of the entire Old Testamenthence there are no particular citations here. According to the original accusation of the Jews, it was designed to denote His mortal offence. It then, in accordance with Pilates meaning, denoted the occasion of His death, being intended as a mockery of, and sarcasm upon, the Jews. In the sense of the Scripture, however, it denotes His divinely appointed destiny of death, and in the sense of the Spirit, the eternal gloriousness and fruit of His death. Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews: the word of the cross, glorified by the Spirit into a word about the cross. Pilate did not suspect that his writing, like his saying, Ecce Homo, did, under the providence of God, take significance, when he wrote, in the three most important languages of the world, this sermon over the cross.

3. The references to the fulfilments of Scripture in Christs suffering are nought but celestial lights shining into the darkness of the crucial passion. All is spiritualized, or transillumined by the Spirit, in order to be by the Spirit glorified, as Gods counsel, foreknowledge, ordinance, disposition, and judgment upon the blindness of the world,glorified, I say, unto salvation.

4. If Mary is meant to be a symbol of the Church, then Christ, with His institution of this adoption, hath made His bosom-friends the veriest sons of the Church, and the Church their mother. Hence a form of the Church which is at extreme variance with the Johannean mind, cannot be the true one. Mary may, however, far rather be called a symbol of the Theocracy, which has been finally comprehended in her heart. In that sense the institution would mean: the Theocracy, i.e. the theocratic side of the Church, is always to have a spiritual son,children of the Spirit; the children of the Spirit are always to have a motherly authority over them in the ecclesiastical communion.

5. As Peter, who recognized in Christ the Renewer of the old Theocracy, the King of the Divine Kingdom, was pre-eminently entrusted with the foundation and care of the Church of Christ, so to John, who in Christ saw pre-eminently the manifestation of the personal God, the portrait of eternal love, was confided the foundation and care of a holy family of the friends of God as the innermost vital focus within the Church.

6. The thirst of Jesus, His last suffering. A sign (1) that He has passed through all His sufferings and may now receive the draught of refreshment; (2) that He departs from earth and from those who have crucified Him, not proudly and coldly, but humbly, warmly and lovingly; (3) that He would be no pattern in self-chosen torments and penances; (4) that He still speaks in the consciousness of His divine spiritual power, as if it were at once a begging and a commanding; (5) that He is making preparation for the end.

7. It is finished. See the Homiletical Hints. Heb 10:14. The word as (1) a prophetic word (all scripture fulfilled); (2) a high-priestly word (the expiatory sacrifice completed); (3) a kingly word (the kingdom of heaven founded); (4) a unitous word (the work of redemption accomplished as the founding of the new creation, the world of the eternal Spirit).

8. The share of John in the account of the seven last words of Jesus.
9. The three languages on the cross, the three ground-tongues of theology.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the Synoptists.The grand fulfilments of the divine counsel in the Passion of Christ, attested by the most significant fulfilments of Scripture (Joh 19:31-37 must be considered in this connection).Christs suffering in its fundamental features: 1. As an act of suffering: the bearing of His cross and going forth (without the gate, Heb 13:13; out of the old communion) unto Calvary; 2. as an experience of sufferingwith the thieves, in the midst of the thieves; 3. as a glorification of suffering: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews (the King of sufferers, of the people of God, of kings), in all the languages of the world.The superscription of Pilate: 1. As the word of Pilate: Continuation of his mockery of the Jews;the Jews a robber-folk, whose Head is already crucified. 2. As a word of the Spirit, unconsciously to the writer: The Messiah, the King of the people of God. Or, 1. As an assumed title of guilt, the property of malefactors in the old world; 2. as a personal title of honor, the property of the King of righteousness in the new world. Or as the explanation and glorification [Erklrung und Verklrung) of the cross of Christ.This superscription read many of the Jews, for the place was nigh unto the city: 1. The word concerning Christ is still read by many legal men; 2. for the place where He is testified of is nigh to the city. [The evangelical Church by the side of the Church of legality].How the priests would fain alter the writing concerning Christ.The demand of the priests and the declaration of Pilate.Pilate and the soldiers are compelled to work together for the fulfilment of the Scripture.Soldiers, also, are under the providence of God, even in slaying, and dividing spoil.

Contrast of Christs adversaries and His friends at His crucifixion.How they must glorify Him together; those unconsciously, these in grateful love.Founding of the spiritual house of the mother and son beneath the cross.The rich legacy of the poor Jesus.
The blissful presentiment of the dying Jesus that His days work is accomplished in accordance with the Scripture (or in accordance with the counsel of God): 1. Expressed in the evening draught which the great Laborer taketh as He quitteth work; 2. expressed in His evening song before He goeth to sleep: It is finished.

It is finished: 1. It, not this and that: all that lays the foundation of the new, eternal world of God. 2. It is, not it is being (Heb 10:14). 3. Finished. As a spiritual act, as a vital conflict, as a mortal suffering, as a triumph of Christ and the salvation of Godconducted to the goal ).The word, It is finished: 1. As the Evangel of Christ; 2. as the confession of the Church; 3. as the jubilation of the believing heart; 4. as an excitation to every work of faith; 5. as a prophecy of the Last Day.

Starke: Christians must make many a painful pilgrimage out of the city, out of the land,nay, even to the gallows and the stake, for the sake of their faithbut courage! press onward! ye have a noble Predecessor.Take comfort, thou pious man, if thou art accounted godless; Jesus was numbered with the transgressors that thou mightest be declared the child of God and righteous, Isa 53:12.The vain lust of titles must be renounced in following the crucified Jesus. Though the world should crucify our honor and our good name; though she should nail above our head the superscription: this is a fool, a dreamer, an odd fellow, a heretic, etc., we must be satisfied with being called the children of God and having our names written in heaven.Christians, read the Holy Scriptures diligently; there ye find your King, and His nature, will, and benefits. Joh 5:39,Zeisius: The science of divers kinds of tongues, especially of the Hebrew and Greek, is to be recognized as a particular benefit of God, and is exceedingly useful for the investigation of Holy Scripture, that having been written in these two languages, 1Co 12:10.Pilate may have diligently framed the superscription in ambiguity, knowing Jesus to be innocent. Underlying this fact, however, was a special providence of God, who took care that His Son should have the right superscription, since He suffered the death of the cross as the Messiah or anointed King of Israel.Behold Gods rule over the hearts of men; in this His sway over them He hath employed even His own enemies for the furtherance of His glory: yea, His foes must sometimes promote the glory of His children with the very things wherewith they have striven to dishonor them, Psa 110:2.If the writing of an earthly judge cannot be altered, how much less shall that be erased which God Himself has written in a Testament and Word.Cramer: Christ is poor in the beginning, middle, and end of His life, that through His poverty He might make us rich.Zeisius: The nearer Christ, the nearer the cross, and the heavier our afflictions.Osiander: Fervent love to God and the Lord Jesus regardeth no danger.With this speech on the cross, the Lord Jesus (1) intended to show how He beareth on His heart a care even for our bodily circumstances, and considereth such care a part of His mediatorial office; He therewith (2) designed to confirm the fifth commandment and to set all children a good example, as to how they should care for their poor and forsaken parents; He hath therewith (3) shown that it is not contrary to the sense of the fifth commandment if we extend its limits somewhat farther than the letter of it seemeth to require; He hath (4) designed to hallow the natural love existing between friends and relatives; He hath (5) sanctioned guardianships; He hath (6) approved of testaments; He hath (7) taught thereby how every one ought to strive to make this painful life more endurable to his neighbor by rendering him loving aid; He hath (8), particularly in the person of John, enjoined it upon the hearts of all the teachers of His Church to have a care for poor and destitute persons; He hath (9) shown how we should seek to accomplish through others the good that we ourselves are unable to perform; He hath (10) assured all whom He recognizeth as His mother and His brethren that He will not forsake or neglect them either.Christs eyes, amid the turmoil, are fixed upon believers, Psa 33:18.No man deriveth harm, but rather profit, from entering into the fellowship of Christs shame and suffering.Hedinger: God provideth physically and spiritually for them that belong to Him.Cramer: A Christian should settle well his household affairs before he dieth.Canstein: It is loves way to interest itself for those it leaves destitute, and to endeavor to bring about by means of others such things as it cannot do itself.Lampe: It is right that those who are preparing themselves for death, should not forget to care for their families.Happy is he that espouseth the cause of the widows and orphans and doeth them good; he doeth Gods will and shall inherit the blessing, Psa 41:1 ff.; Exo 22:22 ff.Hear, dear Christian! that Jesus hath thirsted, and let it cause thee to guard the more vigilantly against all excess in drinking.Hall: Christian mine, if thou too art tried with hunger and thirst in this world, comfort thyself with the thought that thy Saviour did also complain of the same on the cross. Ah, what a refreshment will this be to thee!; In this one word everything appertaining to the purchase of our salvation is expressed and concluded. By this we see that the Master with the tongue of the learned, Isa 50:4, is before us,He who can bring all things into one word, and yet it is plena enuntiatio, a complete declaration, a word above all words, a regular aphorism (as they call a concise saying, briefly and wittily expressed), short and yet intelligible: a true apophthegm (a momentous and pregnant saying). Upon hearing this declaration, it is finished, we are constrained to ask: what is finished? This question is easily answered if we do but consider the Person who made the declaration. It is accomplishedall that Christ was bound to do and to accomplishand thus this word refers us to the whole course of His life. In consideration of the preceding 28th ver., the word may be complemented after this fashion: herewith is the Scripture, in that which it hath prophesied concerning Me, fulfilled, Luk 18:31; Luk 22:37. If we take into account the passages Heb 5:9; Heb 10:7, it may also be thus paraphrased: Herewith is the counsel and will of God concerning our salvation accomplished, namely, as regards the purchase of it; and in consideration of the declaration of Christ, Mat 5:17, means as much as: Now is the law fulfilled.He now, as it were, nodded unto Death, bidding him come on; yea, He asserted by this bowing of His head, that He would become obedient to His Father unto death, Php 2:8.Cramer: Hath Christ finished it?then we need not achieve it.Zeisius: Christs consummatum, it is finished, hath been a blessed thing for us.Osiander: Christs death is our life; in dying we enter into true life, Heb 2:14.

Gerlach: The most horrible of all torments, the most burning thirst,a circumstance expressly predicted of the suffering Messiah, Psa 22:15; comp. Psa 69:21.Lisco: Pilate indignantly refuses the request of the Jews that Jesus should be characterized in the inscription as a deceiver.The faithful love of those who clave to Jesus shunneth not that pain of deepest sympathy which is occasioned by the spectacle of His sufferings, Luk 2:35.

Braune: Conscious of his injustice and of the innocence of Jesus, angry with those who had driven him to commit that injustice, he says: what I have written, I have written; this is the formula of deciding magistrates:With this decree the matter rests.It was written in RomanLatin, the judicial tongue; in Hebrew, the popular tongue; in Greek, the tongue in general use.Duties, those, even, that are apparently of the least account, must be fulfilled up to the very last breath. The Christian should die like a general, upon his feet, fighting, giving orders, 1Ti 5:8.Thus the gap that death makes, is best filled. For love is strong as death (Son 8:6).Think you, it would have been stronger, greater, worthier of His love, to repress the need He felt of quenching His burning thirst? Here we see how free His heart is from pride and rancor, passions by which many another apparently grows great and strong.Whoso bindeth his soul and his souls life to Christs life, ways, walks, sufferings, can say, when faint in death: it is finished! What soul hath been converted unto God from its sins and is reconciled to Him, can exclaim: it is finished!This word, it is finished! was uttered by Jesus, not at the close of His activity, in the high-priestly prayer, in Gethsemane, but at the end of His suffering.But was He already risen for our justification? He had not yet sent the Comforter into the hearts of His people. But in the holy instant of death, by the light of eternity, His eye beheld the finished work of redemption, in its readiness for prosecution and spiritualization. Thus through suffering and tribulation is attained the triumph of the kingdom of God.

Gossner: What a procession! What a cross-walk! What a march! Gods Only-begotten One, under the burden of the cross, the tree whereon the curse lay, marcheth to the bitterest death. Thus do men send Him back to His Father from whom He proceededladen with cross, curse and shame; as a malefactor. What a journey, followed by consequences most rich in blessing!And He bare His cross! Why that was our cross, and He appropriated it to Himself, as though it were His own; He embraced it with such love and patience as it had been His life, and it brought Him deathbut to us life.Neither can the coat of Christs righteousness be divided and cut into piecesevery soul must have it whole.His nakedness on the cross is an evidence that He shunned no kind of humiliation for us.The pagan Roman soldiers did not divide the coat of Christ, but Christians have made many rents and divisions over Christs coat, that they might establish their own opinions and their own righteousness.Those under the cross composed the family of the Saviour; it had melted away to so few; that was His little Church whereunto He reckoneth Himself, wherewith He abideth, with which His Spirit resteth on earth. His bowed head lifteth up the head of each one of us. He Himself inclined His head with the consciousness that He should soon raise it again, as He had foretold.

Heubner: God, whose hand guided the finger of Pilate, meant this superscription to be a challenge to all unbelieving Jews and all mankind to acknowledge this Jesus of Nazareth as their King. All languages, all tongues, are to resound with His praise and confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.Pilates firm determination is indicative of Gods irrevocable decree. If all the world remonstrate against Christs royal dignityGod hath willed it, and there is an end of it, Psalms 2Christ hung naked on the cross. This is very significant; He hung thus (1) In order to show how thoroughly the world had stripped Him of all that He owned, and covered Him with shame; (2) in order to present Himself to all as the Innocent and Pure One who can support the glances of all.Mary, the mother of Jesus, stood beneath the cross: Now was fulfilled the prophecy of Simeon, Luk 2:35.What feelings must have pierced her maternal heart! This was the origin of the ancient church-hymn: Stabat mater dolorosa.Of such strength is womanly nature capable. An example for all Christian men and women, admonishing them not to be ashamed of Jesus, often to go beneath His cross, that they may become worthy of those women who went before them. Rambach, in loc., p. 1063, compares Mary and Eve. Eve stood in Paradise beside the pleasant tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Mary stands beside the ignominious tree of the cross. The former looked upon the forbidden tree, and its fruit conduced to her death; the latter looks upon the promised tree of life, and is refreshed by its fruit in her mortal anguish.Our death too, when God calleth, must be voluntary. It is the Christians art to die willingly.

[Craven: From Ambrose: Joh 19:26. Mary, as became the Mother of our Lord, stood before the cross, when the Apostles fled, and with pitiful eyes beheld the wounds of her Son.From Augustine: Joh 19:17. Great spectacle! to the profane a laughing-stock, to the pious a mystery. Profaneness sees a King bearing a cross instead of a sceptre; piety sees a King bearing a cross, thereon to nail Himself, and afterwards to nail it on the foreheads of kings.

Joh 19:18. Even the cross was a judgment seat; for the Judge being the middle, one thief, who believed, was pardoned, the other, who mocked, was damned: a sign of what He would once do to the quick and dead,place the one on His right hand, the other on His left.

Joh 19:20. These three were the languages most known there: the Hebrew, on account of being used in the worship of the Jews; the Greek in consequence of the spread of Greek philosophy; the Latin, from the Roman empire being established everywhere.

Joh 19:22. O ineffable working of Divine power, even in the hearts of ignorant men! Did not some hidden voice sound from within, and, if we may say so, with clamorous silence,saying to Pilate in the prophetic words of the Psalm, Alter not the inscription of the title?

Joh 19:26-27. This truly is that hour of the which Jesus, when about to change the water into wine, said, Mother [Woman], what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Then, about to act divinely, He repelled the Mother of His humanity, of His infirmity, as if He knew her not: now, suffering humanly, He commands with humane affection, her of whom he was made Man. Here is a moral lesson. The good Teacher shows us by His example that pious sons should take care of their parents. The cross of the Sufferer is the chair of the Master.

Joh 19:28. He who appeared Man, suffered all these things; He who was God, ordered them.From Chrysostom: Joh 19:17. He carried the badge of victory on His shoulders, as conquerors do.

Joh 19:18. And two others with Him; What they did in wickedness was a gain to the truth. To convert a thief on the cross, and bring him into paradise, was no less a miracle than the rending of the rocks.

Joh 19:23-24. Behold the sureness of prophecy. The prophet foretold not only what they would part, but what they would not. They parted the raiment, but cast lots for the vesture.

Joh 19:25. Observe how the weaker sex is the stronger; standing by the cross when the disciples fly.

Joh 19:26. Though there were other women by, He makes no mention of any of them, but only of His Mother, to show us that we should specially honor our mothers.

Joh 19:26-30. Observe how imperturbable He is during His crucifixion, talking to the disciple of His Mother, fulfilling prophecies, giving good hope to the thief; whereas, before His crucifixion, He seemed in fear. The weakness of His nature was shown there, the exceeding greatness of His power here. He teaches us too, herein, not to turn back, because we may feel disturbed at the difficulties before us; for when we are once actually under the trial, all will be light and easy for us.

[From Burkitt: Joh 19:17. Why could not Christ bear His own cross, who was able to bear the sins of the whole world, when hanging upon the cross? 1. Probably, the Jews malice provided Him a cross of an extraordinary greatness; 2. He was much debilitated and weakened, with His long watching and sweating the night before; 3. The sharp edges of the cross grating His late whipped and galled shoulders, might occasion the fresh bleeding of His wounds; 4. Thereby He gave the world a demonstration of the truth of His humanity, that He was in all things like unto us.

Joh 19:18. It had been a sufficient disparagement to our blessed Redeemer to be sorted with the best of men, but to be numbered with the scum of mankind is such an indignity as confounds our thoughts.

Joh 19:19. Pilate, who before was His judge, and pronounced Him innocent, is now His herald to proclaim His glory.Pilate did that for Christ which none of His own disciples durst do. No thanks to him for this; because the highest services performed to Christ undesignedly shall neither be accepted nor rewarded by God.

Joh 19:22. Surely the constancy of Pilate at this time must be attributed to special divine Providence. How wonderful was it that he who before was as inconstant as a reed, should now be fixed as a pillar of brass! [His so called constancy was nothing but the natural outworking of the fear excited by the threat to accuse him before Csar; his persistence in retaining the inscription would not only gall the Jews but be an effectual bar to any charge of his having neglected the Imperial interests. The true homiletical inferences from this passage are that 1. Those who attempt to accomplish their ends by improper influences, brought to bear on rulers, generally over-reach themselves; 2. God over-rules the arts of the wicked for their own punishment and His glory. E. R. C.]

Joh 19:26. He calls her woman, and not mother: not that He was ashamed of, or unwilling to own her as His mother, but either 1. Fearing that calling her by that name should augment and increase her grief and trouble, or, 2. To intimate His change of state and condition, that, being ready to die and return to His Father in heaven, He was above all earthly relations.

Joh 19:26-27. The Lord never removes one comfort, and takes away the means of subsistence from His people, but He raises up another in the room of it.Such as are beloved of Christ, shall be peculiarly honored by Him, and be employed in the highest services for Him.

Joh 19:30. It is finished: 1. My Fathers eternal counsel concerning Me is accomplished; 2. The scriptures are now fulfilled; 3. My sufferings are now ended; 4. The fury and malice of My enemies are now ended; 5. The work of mans redemption and salvation is perfected.He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost: Christ was a volunteer in dying.

[From M. Henry: Joh 19:17. Whatever cross He calls us out to bear at any time, we must remember that He bore the cross first, and by bearing it for us, bears it off from us in a great measure, for thus He hath made His yoke easy, and His burden light.

Joh 19:18. Observe what death Christ died; 1. The death of the cross, a bloody, painful, shameful, cruel death; 2. He was nailed to the cross, as a sacrifice bound to the altar; 3. He was lifted up, as the brazen serpent, hung between heaven and earth, because we were unworthy of either, and abandoned by both; 4. His hands were stretched out to invite and embrace us; 5. He hung upon the tree some hours, dying gradually in the full use of reason and speech, that He might actually resign Himself a sacrifice. See Him bleeding, see Him struggling, see Him dying, see Him and love Him, love Him and live to Him, and study what we shall render.

Joh 19:19-20. God so ordered it that this (title) should be written in the three then most known tongues; intimating thereby that Jesus Christ should be a Saviour to all nations, and not to the Jews only; and also that every nation should hear in their own tongue the wonderful works of the Redeemer.

Joh 19:21-22. An earnest of what came to pass soon after, when the Gentiles submitted to the kingdom of the Messiah, which the unbelieving Jews had rebelled against.

Joh 19:23. While Christ was in His dying agonies, the soldiers were merrily dividing His spoils.

Joh 19:26. His speaking to her in this seemingly slight manner was designed to give check to the undue honors which He foresaw would be given her in the Romish Church.

Joh 19:27. Those that truly love Christ, and are loved of Him, will be glad of an opportunity to do any service to Him, or His.

Joh 19:29. To everlasting thirst we had been condemned, had not Christ suffered [thirsted] for us.Christ would rather court an affront than see any prophecy unfulfilled. This should satisfy us under all our trials,that the will of God is done, and the word of God accomplished.

Joh 19:30. It is finished; that Isaiah 1. The malice of His persecutors; 2. The counsel and commandment of His Father; 3. The types and prophecies of the Old Testament; 4. The ceremonial law; 5. Sin; 6. His suffering; 7. His life; 8. The work of mans redemption.

[From Scott: Joh 19:17-30. He was wounded and scourged that we might be healed; He was arrayed with scorn in the purple robe, that He might procure for us the robe of righteousness; He was crowned with thorns, that we might be crowned with honor and immortality; He stood speechless, that we might have an all-prevailing plea; He endured torture that we might have a strong consolation; He thirsted that we might drink of the waters of life; He bore the wrath of the Father, that we might enjoy His favor; He was numbered with transgressors, that we might be made equal to angels; He died, that we might live forever!

Joh 19:26. The surest interest in His love will not secure our exemption from the sharpest temporal sufferings.

Joh 19:27. We ought to act as though we heard Jesus say from His cross concerning this and the other believer, Behold My mother, My brother, My sister.From A Plain Commentary (Oxford): Joh 19:17. And He bearing His cross went forth; The Jews themselves have referred this type (of Isaac) unto that custom: for upon the words, And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son, they have this note,as a man carries his cross upon his shoulders. (Pearson.)

Joh 19:19-22. It was not for nothing that Pilate suddenly wrote, and resolutely maintained what he had written. That title on the cross did signify no less than that His royal power was active even there; for having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it; and through His death, destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. (Pearson.)

Joh 19:23. And thus at the very foot of the cross of Christ was enacted the emblem of that triumph over our Saviour which the Powers of Darkness, it may well be supposed, by this time thought secure! They had slain their great enemy (the devils will have already assumed); and their wicked agents may now be instigated to divide the spoil.Because Christs people cannot be rent and torn by divisions, His tunic, seamless and woven throughout, was not rent by them into whose hands it fell. Single,united,connected,it shows the concord which should subsist among as many of ourselves as put on Christ. That vest of His declares to us, in a sacrament, the Unity of the Church. (Cyprian.)

Joh 19:24. Christ, like Joseph, was about to flee from this evil and adulterous world; and leave His garment in its hands. (Williams.)

Joh 19:26-27. O amazing privilege! thus to have been appointed by the Incarnate Word Himself to supply His place towards His bereaved mother! How stupendous a legacy was this for Divine Piety to bequeath, and for adoring love to inherit!The presence of the Godhead in our Lords person did not efface and outshine the essential feelings of a human heart. It did but quicken and strengthen all those affections and sympathies which are still left as remnants of the heavenly image, and the groundwork of its renewal within us. (Hobhouse.) As God, our Saviour might have removed His human mother to the best of those many mansions which are prepared for those that love Him. But it was as God He willed that she should stay awhile on earth: while as Man, He both provided a home for her such as He could never give her while He lived; and called the human feelings of a friend into play on her behalf, while He did so. (Hobhouse.)

Joh 19:30. He was reclining His head as on His Fathers bosom. (Origen.)

[From Krummacher: Joh 19:17. And He bearing His cross, etc. It is thus the unhappy world repels the Man who entered upon it heralded by angels!It is thus she rewards Him for the unwearied love with which He poured upon her the abundance of all conceivable benefits and mercies.Oh, who that is still inclined to doubt whether mankind was worthy of eternal perdition without the intervention of a Mediator, let him cast a look at this path of suffering and convince himself of the contrary! For why is the Holy One thus dragged along, unless it be that we loved sin too ardently not to hate a man, even to the death, who made Himself known as the deliverer from it.Had He shrunk back from this fatal path, His road to suffering would have represented to us that on which, when dying, we should have quitted the world. Instead of soldiers, the emissaries of Satan would have escorted us; instead of the accursed tree, the curse of the law itself; instead of the fetters, the bands of eternal wrath would have encircled us, and despair have lashed us with its fiery scourge.It may be that during our earthly pilgrimage we are led on similar paths to that on which we see Jesus, our Head, proceeding; but Christ has deprived our fearful path of its horrors, our burdens of their overpowering weight, our disgrace and need of their deadly stings, and placed us in a situation to say Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.GolgothaCalvaryhorrifying namethe appellation of the most momentous and awful spot upon the whole earth. Behold a naked and barren eminence, enriched only by the blood of criminals, and covered with the bones of executed rebels, incendiaries, prisoners, and other offscouring of the human race. An accursed spot, where love never rules, but where naked justice alone sits enthroned, with scales and sword, and from which every passer-by turns with abhorrence, a nocturnal rendezvous of jackals and hyenas. Only think, this place so full of horrors, becomes transformed into the hill from whence cometh our help, and whose mysteries many kings and prophets desired to see and did not see them. Yes, upon this awful hill our roses shall blossom, and our springs of peace and salvation burst forth. The pillar of our refuge towers upon this height. The Bethany of our repose and eternal refreshment here displays itself to our view.On that awful mount ends the earthly career of the Lord of Glory. Behold Him, the only green, sound, and fruitful tree upon earth, and at the root of this tree the axe is laid, What a testimony against the world, and what an annihilating contradiction to every thing that bears the name of God and Divine Providence, if the latter did not find its solution in the mystery of the representative atonement.

Joh 19:18. They crucified Him; O what a dying bed for the King of kings! As often as we repose on the downy cushions of peace, or blissfully assemble in social brotherly circles, singing hymns of hope, let us not forget that the cause of the happiness we enjoy is solely to be found in the fact, that the Lord of Glory once extended Himself on the fatal tree for us.The earth rejects the Prince of Life from its surface, and, as it seems, heaven also refuses Him: Though rejected by heaven and earth, yet He forms, as such, the connecting link between them both, and the Mediator of their eternal and renewed amity.The moment the cross is elevated to its height, a purple stream falls from the wounds of the crucified Jesus, and bedews the place of torture and the sinful crowd which surrounds it. This is His legacy to His Church. This rosy dew works wonders. It falls upon spiritual deserts, and they blossom as the rose. We sprinkle it upon the door-posts of our hearts, and are secure against destroyers and avenging angels. This dew falls on the ice of the north pole, and the accumulated frozen mass of ages thaws beneath it. It streams down on the torrid zone, and the air becomes cool and pleasant. Where this rain falls, the gardens of God spring up, lilies bloom, and what was black becomes white in the purifying stream, and what was polluted becomes pure as the light of the sun.For our justification nothing more is requisite than that, in the consciousness of our utter helplessness we lay hold on the horns of that altar, which is sprinkled with blood that speaketh better things than that of Abel.I am crucified with Christ, exclaims the Apostle, and by these words points out the entire fruit which the cross bears for all believers. His meaning is, They are not His sins for which the curse is there endured, but mine; for He who thus expires on the cross dies for me: Christ pays and suffers in my stead.The life of the world springs only from the death of the Just One.

Joh 19:19. What sayest thou, Is this a King? Do not shake thy head, but know that thou art wanting in discernment, not He in majesty.Dost thou inquire where is the majesty of this King? Truly it exists, although for the time hidden, like the glittering gold of the ark beneath the rams skins that covered it.Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews: Yes, it is He. Thou mayest recognize Him (as King) by the victories He achieves even on the fatal tree, the first of which is of a glorious twofold characterover Himself and over the infernal tempter. 1. Over Himself; 2. Over Satan; He suffers Himself to be wounded in the heel, but at the same time breaks the head of the old Serpent. 3. The greatest and most wonderful of allthe victory of the Lawgiver over the Law. There was no want of wish or will in heaven to save us; but the right to undertake the great work was wantingthe law put in its protest to our redemption. The curse had to be endured; He submitted to this and drank the cup of wrathand when the voice of mercy was heard from heaven, the law had nothing to object.Yes, He is a King! But where is His kingdom? He is founding it while hanging on the cross. The drops of blood which trickle down, are the price He paid to ransom His people, and the dying groans which issue from His breast, the joyful peal which announces the birthday of His Zion.In His crown of thorns He governs the world of spirits and of hearts; and the greatest marvels by which He glorifies Himself on earth He performs with His pierced hands.

Joh 19:20. The title was written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, the three theological languages, that all the world may read and understand.

Joh 19:23-24. A dying bed presents itself to our viewan individual at the point of deatha legacy and the heirs; let us direct our attention first to the Testator, and then to His legacy, and heirs: 1. The Testator; Jesus of Nazareth(1) the poorest of the poor, (2) the King of the Jewsthe King of kingsthe Son of the Living Godthe Alpha and Omega, God blessed forever; 2. The Legacy; His clothing(1) the upper garment which symbolizes the outwardly operating fullness of the Saviours power and life, and in a second signification, the spiritual endowment intended for usthis is divisible; (2) the vesture or body-coat of the Man of sorrows which He used to wear under the mantle; beneath the resplendent robe of His wonderful and active life, the Saviour wore another, the garment of a perfect obedienceit is the robe of righteousness of the Son of God, which is symbolized by the coat without a seam (indivisible) for which the lot is cast at the foot of the cross; 3. The heirs; (1) the executioners, (2) one of the murderers inherits the costly robe,this circumstance tells us that no wickedness, however great, excludes unconditionally from the inheritance; it only depends upon this, that the symbolical position of those executioners, with respect to the body should be essentially fulfilled in us1. They know how to value the preciousness of the seamless vestment: 2. They perceive that only in its undivided whole it was of value; 3. They are satisfied to obtain possession gratuitouslywithout any merit of their own.

Joh 19:25-26. In the midst of rage and fury, love stands near Jesus in His dying moments and lifts up to Him its tearful and affectionate eyebehold a lovely little company in the midst of the bands of Belial, a hidden rosebud under wild and tangled bramble-bushes, a splendid wreath of lilies around the death-bed of the Redeemer.In that mourning group you see only the first divinely quickened germs of the future kingdom of the Divine Sufferer.Strange enough, with one exception, all of them are females: the strong are fledthe weak maintain their ground; the heroes despairthe timid, who did not presume to promise anything, overcome the world. If the mans is the splendid deedthe womans is enduring patience; if to the former belongs the heroism which cuts the knotto the latter (which is the greater of the two) belongs the silent self-sacrifice which is faithful unto death.The disciple whom He loved; In these words the Apostle indicates what was his pride, his crown, and his highest boast. At the same time they point out the source whence he derived all his consolation, hope, and strength; this source was lovenot the love with which he embraced the Lord, but that with, which the Lord embraced him.He who can sign himself the disciple whom Jesus loves has a sure guaranty for all that he needs, and for all that his heart can desire; he may call himself the man that is tossed with tempests, yet if he is the disciple whom Jesus loves what more will he have?Woman; It becomes Him not to call her Mother now since this term in the Hebrew includes the idea of Mistress, while He was just preparing, as the Lord of lords, to ascend the throne of eternal majesty.

Joh 19:26-27. Behold thy SonBehold thy Mother; These words contain the record of the institution of a new family relationship; in this fellowship Christ is the Head, and all His believing people form one great, closely-connected family: Let him who would envy John the pleasing task of being a support to the Mother of Jesus know that the way to the same honor lies open to himJesus has said, Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My Mother and sister and brother, Mat 12:50.

Joh 19:28. I thirst: What was the nature of the distress expressed by the cry?1. Physical; 2. Does it not remind of the awful representation of the invisible world portrayed in the parable of Lazarus and Dives?For what did He thirst? Not only for earthly water, but after the full restoration of His Fathers countenance.These words also solicited from mankind a charitable act.That for which He chiefly thirsts is that He may gain us over to Himselfthat transgressors may be freed from sin; those under the curse, absolved; those that are bound, liberated.O that you could weep as Peter wept, and like David! Such tears are the drink-offering for which the Saviour still thirsts.

Joh 19:30. It is finished: At the very moment when, for the Hero of Judah, all seems lost, His words declare that all is won and accomplished. Listen! at these words you hear fetters burst, and prison walls falling down; barriers as high as heaven are overthrown, and gates which had been closed for, thousands of years again move on their hinges.Every condition of the work of human redemption has been completed with the exception of one which was included in them.If He has paid the ransom, how can a righteous God demand payment a second time?With the heraldic and conquering cry, It is finished, He turned once more to the world. It was His farewell to eartha farewell such as beseemed the Conqueror of Death, the Prince of Life, the Governor of all things. He then withdrew Himself entirely into connection with His God, and turned His face to Him alone. [From Jacobus: Joh 19:26-27. What a Son was this, true to His Father in Heaven, and to His mother on earth.From Owen: Joh 19:18. Jesus in the midstdisgraceful eminence.

Joh 19:26-27. The burden of the worlds redemption with all its increasing horror of sin, lies upon His soul; boundless anticipations, now gradually receding and passing away, of the glory to be obtained had filled His spirit, yet He has room for the exercise of the minutest care. (Stier.)

Joh 19:28. Jesus was conscious that He was fulfilling a pre-determined series of sufferings, and manifested no impatient haste, that they should be endured other than in their allotted place and time.

Joh 19:30. It is finished; All things were done which the law required, all things established which prophecy predicted, all things abolished which were to be abrogated, all things obtained in order to be bestowed which had been the subject of promise. All thingsdown to the last drops of scornful compassion, and compassionate scorn, after receiving which Christs lips uttered this great wordwere suffered which were to be suffered; but therein, at the same time, all things were done and accomplished, nothing was left wanting. The theology of ages, has striven to embrace this all and to develop it; and strives to this day in vain to express it perfectly. (Stier.)

[Joh 19:25-26. Now there stood by the cross, etc. Is not this symbolic of the great Apostasy (2Th 2:3; Luk 18:8, etc.) when only a few shall remain faithful?

Joh 19:26. Woman; She was The Woman whose Seed here bruises the serpents head. What title, then, so fitting at the present juncture, as thiswith its twofold weight of shame and glory? Woman, Satans instrument in bringing sin and death into the worldthereby rendering this cross necessary: Woman, Gods instrument in bringing Him into the world who is the Righteousness and Life thereof, whose cross shall be changed into a crown of rejoicing for Himself and his redeemed. Surely, it is no marvel if now, whilst the promise made to Eve is fulfilled to Mary, the same old word that meets us in the story of the fall, resounds from the lips of the Restorer, the suffering yet victorious Seed (E. M.)Woman! Thy Saviour spake thy name in His last agonynot harshly, condemningly, as He in justice might have done, but lovingly, compassionately, with fostering care. (E. M.)]

Footnotes:

[8]Joh 19:16.[The words after are doubtful. See the Text. Note on Joh 19:16 in the preceding section, with which Dr. Lange connects this clause.P. S.]

[9]Joh 19:17.The reading , in accordance with B. L. X. Sin., Vulgate, Itala, Origen in Lachmann, Tischendorf. [ is dat. commodi, carrying the cross for Himself or His own cross. The text. rec. reads His cross.P. S.]

[10]Joh 19:17.[Different spellings: (Alford, Tischendorf), (West cottand Hort), , , etc. See Tischendorf. In Chaldee , Glgotha, in Hebrew Glgoleth, in Greek i. e., Skull. The Vulgato translates the word in all cases Calvaria (fem. i. e., skull), from which our Calvary is derived. Comp. Jerome in Mat 27:33 : Golgotha, quod est Calvari locus. The E. V., following the Vulgate, uses Calvary only once, Luk 23:33. for the Greek (a diminutive of ), a skull. In the three places where the term Golgotha occurs, viz., Mat 27:33; Mar 15:22; Joh 19:17, the E. V. retains the Hebrew form, which, in our passage, is necessary on account of the . The popular expression Mount Calvary, is probably of monastic origin and has no foundation in the Evangelists, where Golgotha is simply called two?, a place, or the Place of Skull. It was probably only a small, round and barren elevation in the shape of a skull, and derived its name from its globular form. Jerome (on Mat 27:33) informs us of the tradition that the place derived its name from Adam, the head (skull!) of the human family (hence, probably the skull introduced in early pictures of the crucifixion), but he himself discredits it, and conjectures that it was so called as a place of execution, on account of the capita damnatorum. But in this case the corresponding Greek name would have been , place of skulls, instead of row. . pl. of a skull, still less a skull, as in Hebrew and in the Greek of Luk 23:33.P. S.]

[11]Joh 19:20.Meyer: The probabilities are in favor of the sequence , , (thus Tischendorf, in accordance with B. L. X., Minuscules, etc.), from Pilates standpoint. This very consideration may have given an exegetical rise to it. The Sin. supports it. [Treg., Alf., Westc. and 2., adopt the same order. Lange, with Lachmann, retains the order of the text, rec, which is supported by A. D. Vulg. Syr.P. S.]

[12]Joh 19:29.The is here omitted by Lachmann, in accordance with A. B. L. X. Lachmann, supported by B. L. X., etc., gives an , instead of after .

[13][The traditional site has been defended quite recently again by Furrer (art. Golgotha in Schenkels Bibel-Lexikon, 2, 508).P. S.]

[14][Hamann ingeniously applied the inscription on the cross to the language of the New Testament which implies the three national elements, as it was written in Greek by Jews in a Jewish land, under the dominion of the Romans.V. S.]

[15][These translations insert and () between sister of his mother and Mary, thus making them two distinct persons. P. S.]

[16][In ed. 8., Tischendorf makes a comma after . So does Alford, yet he adopts Wieselers view.P. S]

[17][The original reads Hoffmann, evidently a printing error. Prof. Hofmann of Erlangen is not to be confounded with Dr. Hoffmann, General Superintendent and Court Preacher at Berlin. Steinmeyer (as quoted and opposed by Meyer, p. 630, note) adopts the view of Luthardt and asserts that the death of the Redeemer of all men solved the bonds of His earthly relationship. Of English commentators Alford says in the same sense: The relationship in the flesh between the Lord and His mother was about to close; hence He commends her to another son who should care for and protect her.P. S.]

[18][According to Dr. Langes peculiar theory on the adoption of the family of Marys sister or sister-in-law into her own familya view which I have frequently had occasion to oppose in connection with the cousin-theory concerning the brothers of Christ. Comp. pp. 115,241, Matthew, pp. 456460.P. S.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

17 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha:

Ver. 17. And he, bearing his cross, &c. ] This was the Roman fashion (as Plutarch relates it), that every condemned person should bear that cross that anon should bear him. a Hence grew that expression of our Saviour, “He that will be my disciple must take up his cross,” and so “fill up that which is behind,”Col 1:24Col 1:24 .

Into a place called the place of a skull ] Where his tender heart was pierced with grief, no doubt, at the sad sight of such a slaughter of men made by sin; like as it could not but be a sore cut and corrosive to Mauritius, to see his wife and children slain before him, when himself was also to be next stewed in his own broth. St John is exact in setting down our Saviour’s sufferings, and this for one.

a . Plut.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

17 22. ] His Crucifixion .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

17. ] See on Mat 27:33 .

is dat. commodi: ‘carrying the cross for himself.’

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 19:17-30 . The crucifixion .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Joh 19:17 . The Jewish authorities on their part “received” Jesus, . . “And carrying the cross for Himself, He went out to the place called Kraniou (of a skull), which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.” The condemned man carried at least part of the cross, and sometimes the whole. , Artemid., Oneir. , ii. 56. Other passages in Keim, vi. 124. Since Tertullian ( adv. Jud 1:10 ) a type of this has been found in Isaac’s carrying the wood for the sacrifice. , it was usual both in Jewish and Roman communities to execute criminals outside the city. In Athens the gate through which they passed to the place of punishment was called . Cf. Bynaeus, De Morte Christi , 220; Pearson, On the Creed (Art. iv.); Heb 13:12 ; Lev 24:14 . The place of execution at Jerusalem was a small knoll just beyond the northern wall, which, from its bare top and two hollow caves in its face, bears a rough resemblance to a skull, and was therefore called , Calvaria, Skull. “Golgotha” is the Aramaic form of Gulgoleth, which is found in 2Ki 9:35 . It is described in Conder’s Handbook , p. 355; Henderson’s Palestine , pp. 163, 164.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

John

AN EYE-WITNESS’S ACCOUNT OF THE CRUCIFIXION

Joh 19:17 – Joh 19:30 .

In great and small matters John’s account adds much to the narrative of the crucifixion. He alone tells of the attempt to have the title on the Cross altered, of the tender entrusting of the Virgin to his care, and of the two ‘words’ ‘I thirst’ and ‘It is finished.’ He gives details which had been burned into his memory, such as Christ’s position ‘in the midst’ of the two robbers, and the jar of ‘vinegar’ standing by the crosses. He says little about the act of fixing Jesus to the Cross, but enlarges what the other Evangelists tell as to the soldiers ‘casting lots.’ He had heard what they said to one another. He alone distinctly tells that when He went forth, Jesus was bearing the Cross which afterwards Simon of Cyrene had to carry, probably because our Lord’s strength failed.

Who appointed the two robbers to be crucified at the same time? Not the rulers, who had no such power but probably Pilate, as one more shaft of sarcasm which was all the sharper both because it seemed to put Jesus in the same class as they, and because they were of the same class as the man of the Jews’ choice, Barabbas, and possibly were two of his gang. Jesus was ‘in the midst,’ where He always is, completely identified with the transgressors, but central to all things and all men. As He was in the midst on the Cross, with a penitent on one hand and a rejecter on the other, He is still in the midst of humanity, and His judgment-seat will be as central as His Cross was.

All the Evangelists give the title written over the Cross, but John alone tells that it was Pilate’s malicious invention. He thought that he was having a final fling at the priests, and little knew how truly his title, which was meant as a bitter jest, was a fact. He had it put into the three tongues in use-’Hebrew,’ the national tongue; ‘Greek,’ the common medium of intercourse between varying nationalities; and ‘Latin’ the official language. He did not know that he was proclaiming the universal dominion of Jesus, and prophesying that wisdom as represented by Greece, law and imperial power as represented by Rome, and all previous revelation as represented by Israel, would yet bow before the Crucified, and recognise that His Cross was His throne.

The ‘high-priests’ winced, and would fain have had the title altered. Their wish once more denied Jesus, and added to their condemnation, but it did not move Pilate. It would have been well for him if he had been as firm in carrying out his convictions of justice as in abiding by his bitter jest. He was obstinate in the wrong place, partly because he was angry with the rulers, and partly to recover his self-respect, which had been damaged by his vacillation. But his stiff-necked speech had a more tragic meaning than he knew, for ‘what he had written’ on his own life-page on that day could never be erased, and will confront him. We are all writing an imperishable record, and we shall have to read it out hereafter, and acknowledge our handwriting.

John next sets in strong contrast the two groups round the Cross-the stolid soldiers and the sad friends. The four legionaries went through their work as a very ordinary piece of military duty. They were well accustomed to crucify rebel Jews, and saw no difference between these three and former prisoners. They watched the pangs without a touch of pity, and only wished that death might come soon, and let them get back to their barracks. How blind men may be to what they are gazing at! If knowledge measures guilt, how slight the culpability of the soldiers! They were scarcely more guilty than the mallet and nails which they used. The Sufferer’s clothes were their perquisite, and their division was conducted on cool business principles, and with utter disregard of the solemn nearness of death. Could callous indifference go further than to cast lots for the robe at the very foot of the Cross?

But the thing that most concerns us here is that Jesus submitted to that extremity of shame and humiliation, and hung there naked for all these hours, gazed on, while the light lasted, by a mocking crowd. He had set the perfect Pattern of lowly self-abnegation when, amid the disciples in the upper room, He had ‘laid aside His garments,’ but now He humbles Himself yet more, being clothed only ‘with shame.’ Therefore should we clothe Him with hearts’ love. Therefore God has clothed Him with the robes of imperial majesty.

Another point emphasised by John is the fulfilment of prophecy in this act. The seamless robe, probably woven by loving hands, perhaps by some of the weeping women who stood there, was too valuable to divide, and it would be a moment’s pastime to cast lots for it. John saw, in the expedient naturally suggested to four rough men, who all wanted the robe but did not want to quarrel over it, a fulfilment of the cry of the ancient sufferer, who had lamented that his enemies made so sure of his death that they divided his garments and cast lots for his vesture. But he was ‘wiser than he knew,’ and, while his words were to his own apprehension but a vivid metaphor expressing his desperate condition, ‘the Spirit which was in’ him ‘did signify’ by them ‘the sufferings of Christ.’ Theories of prophecy or sacrifice which deny the correctness of John’s interpretation have the New Testament against them, and assume to know more about the workings of inspiration than is either modest or scientific.

What a contrast the other group presents! John’s enumeration of the women may be read so as to mention four or three, according as ‘His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas,’ is taken to mean one woman or two. The latter is the more probable supposition, and it is also probable that the unnamed sister of our Lord’s mother was no other than Salome, John’s own mother. If so, entrusting Mary to John’s care would be the more natural. Tender care, joined with consciousness that henceforth the relation of son and mother was to be supplanted, not merely by Death’s separating fingers, but by faith’s uniting bond, breathed through the word, so loving yet so removing, ‘Woman, behold thy son!’ Dying trust in the humble friend, which would go far to make the friend worthy of it, breathed in the charge, to which no form of address corresponding to ‘Woman’ is prefixed. Jesus had nothing else to give as a parting gift, but He gave these two to each other, and enriched both. He showed His own loving heart, and implied His faithful discharge of all filial duties hitherto. And He taught us the lesson, which many of us have proved to be true, that losses are best made up when we hear Him pointing us by them to new offices of help to others, and that, if we will let Him, He will point us too to what will fill empty places in our hearts and homes.

The second of the words on the Cross which we owe to John is that pathetic expression, ‘I thirst.’ Most significant is the insight into our Lord’s consciousness which John, here as elsewhere, ventures to give. Not till He knew ‘that all things were accomplished’ did He give heed to the pangs of thirst, which made so terrible a part of the torture of crucifixion. The strong will kept back the bodily cravings so long as any unfulfilled duty remained. Now Jesus had nothing to do but to die, and before He died He let flesh have one little alleviation. He had refused the stupefying draught which would have lessened suffering by dulling consciousness, but He asked for the draught which would momentarily slake the agony of parched lips and burning throat.

The words of Joh 19:28 are not to be taken as meaning that Jesus said ‘I thirst’ with the mere intention of fulfilling the Scripture. His utterance was the plaint of a real need, not a performance to fill a part. But it is John who sees in that wholly natural cry the fulfilment of the psalm Psa 69:21. All Christ’s bodily sufferings may be said to be summed up in this one word, the only one in which they found utterance. The same lips that said, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink,’ said this. Infinitely pathetic in itself, that cry becomes almost awful in its appeal to us when we remember who uttered it, and why He bore these pangs. The very ‘Fountain of living water’ knew the pang of thirst that every one that thirsteth might come to the waters, and might drink, not water only, but ‘wine and milk, without money or price.’

John’s last contribution to our knowledge of our Lord’s words on the Cross is that triumphant ‘It is finished,’ wherein there spoke, not only the common dying consciousness of life being ended, but the certitude, which He alone of all who have died, or will die, had the right to feel and utter, that every task was completed, that all God’s will was accomplished, all Messiah’s work done, all prophecy fulfilled, redemption secured, God and man reconciled. He looked back over all His life and saw no failure, no falling below the demands of the occasion, nothing that could have been bettered, nothing that should not have been there. He looked upwards, and even at that moment He heard in His soul the voice of the Father saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!’

Christ’s work is finished. It needs no supplement. It can never be repeated or imitated while the world lasts, and will not lose its power through the ages. Let us trust to it as complete for all our needs, and not seek to strengthen ‘the sure foundation’ which it has laid by any shifting, uncertain additions of our own. But we may remember, too, that while Christ’s work is, in one aspect, finished, when He bowed His head, and by His own will ‘gave up the ghost,’ in another aspect His work is not finished, nor will be, until the whole benefits of His incarnation and death are diffused through, and appropriated by, the world. He is working to-day, and long ages have yet to pass, in all probability, before the voice of Him that sitteth on the throne shall say ‘It is done!’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Joh 19:17-22

17They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. 18There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between. 19Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.” 20Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. 21So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.'” 22Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

Joh 19:17 ” bearing His own cross” The shape of the cross in first century Palestine is uncertain; it could have been a capital T, a small t, or an X. Sometimes several prisoners were crucified on one scaffolding. Whatever the shape the condemned prisoner, who had just been scourged, had to carry part of the wooden apparatus to the crucifixion site (cf. Mat 27:32; Mar 15:21; Luk 14:27; Luk 23:26).

“the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha” The exact meaning of this phrase is uncertain. The Hebrew/Aramaic term did not refer to a hill that looked like a full skull, but to a low bald hill situated on a major thoroughfare into Jerusalem. The Romans crucified as a deterrent to rebellion. Modern archaeology is uncertain as to the exact location of the ancient walls of the city. Jesus was killed outside the city’s wall in a well known public place of executions!

Joh 19:18 “There they crucified Him” None of the Gospels goes into the physical details of Roman crucifixion. The Romans learned it from the Carthaginians, who learned it from the Persians. Even the exact shape of the cross is uncertain. We know, however, that it was a brutal, lingering death! It had been developed to keep a person alive and in pain for several days. Death usually occurred by asphyxiation. It was meant to be a deterrent to rebellion against Rome.

“two other men” This fulfilled the prophecy of Isa 53:9, recorded in Mat 27:38; Mar 15:27; and Luk 23:33.

Joh 19:19 “Pilate also wrote an inscription” Pilate may have hand-written this title (titlon) which someone else wrote on a wooden placard. Matthew calls it “the charge” (aitian, cf. Mat 27:37), while Mark and Luke call it the inscription (epigraph, cf. Mar 15:26; Luk 23:38).

Joh 19:20 “and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and in Greek” “Hebrew” refers to Aramaic (cf. Joh 5:2; Joh 19:13; Joh 19:17; Joh 20:16; Josephus, Antiq. 2.13.1). It is interesting to note the variety among the Gospels as to the exact wording of the charge placed over Jesus’ head on the cross.

1. Mat 27:37 – “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”

2. Mar 15:26 – “The King of the Jews”

3. Luk 23:38 – “This is the King of the Jews”

4. Joh 19:19 – “Jesus, the Nazarene, the King of the Jews”

Each one is different, but basically the same. This is true of most of the variety of historical detail among the Gospels. Each writer recorded his memories in slightly different ways, but they are still the same eye witness accounts.

Pilate meant to irritate the Jewish leaders by putting the very title they feared on Jesus’ cross (cf. Joh 19:21-22).

Joh 19:22 “What I have written , I have written” These are two perfect tense verbs which emphasize the completion and finality of what had been written.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

cross. Greek. stauros. See App-162.

skull. Greek. kranion. See Mat 27:33.

Golgotha. Aramaic. App-94.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

17-22.] His Crucifixion.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 19:17

Joh 19:17

They took Jesus therefore: and he went out, bearing the cross for himself,-They went forward in the work with all haste, wishing to get through with it before the Passover. Jesus started to the place of crucifixion without the gate, bearing his own cross. From some cause, supposed to be exhaustion on the part of Jesus, before he reached the place, Simon of Cyrene coming along was compelled to bear it for him.

unto the place called The place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha:-The location of this place is not known. Some think it was the common place for executing criminals.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Joh 19:17-30

And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mothers sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

It is very interesting to note the way in which the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ is set forth in each of the four Gospels. In the Old Testament ritual there were four bloody offerings that the people of Israel were commanded to bring to God, and each of these presented the work of the cross from a different standpoint. When you turn to the opening chapters of Leviticus you read of the burnt offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering. There is also the meal offering, but the meal offering was not a blood offering. It consisted of the presentation of certain cakes of fine flour and oil before God. It typified the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ and, of course, that comes out in all the four Gospels. As you trace the footsteps of the blessed Lord through this scene, as pictured for us by the four different writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you see in Jesus absolute perfection. He was the only Man who ever trod this earth who never had one word to take back, never had one sin to confess. His was a life in which there was nothing to be repented of-the Man Christ Jesus, Gods perfect, spotless Son, of whom He could say, This is My beloved Son, in whom I have found all My delight.

The meal offering tells of the character of Jesus, and emphasizes the fact that He had to be who He was in order to do what He did. No other could have taken His place, no other could have made atonement of our sins, but the offerings in which blood was shed pictured the work of the cross in four different aspects. The burnt offering presented the Lord Jesus dying to glorify God in the scene where He had been so terribly dishonored.

In Johns gospel we get this thought in His words as He was going out to die: But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence (Joh 14:31). He took the way to the cross, and in the cross through His sacrificial death God has received more glory than He ever lost by Adams fall and by all the sin that has come into the world since. So that we may say that if not one human soul were ever saved as a result of the death of the Lord Jesus, still Gods character has been vindicated, Gods majesty has been sustained, God has been fully glorified.

But in the other three Gospels we have the offerings that have to do more particularly with man and his sin. The peace offering presents Christ making peace by the blood of His cross. That is the way Christ is shown in Lukes gospel. The sin offering presents the Lord Jesus Christ as being made sin for us, who died not simply for what we have done but for what we are. Our doings only manifest our true character as sinners. As has been said often, I am not a sinner because I sin, but I sin because I am a sinner. Therefore, the sin offering is not merely for the acts that I have done, but because of an evil, corrupt nature that unfits me for fellowship with God. So, he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin (2Co 5:21). That is the way the work of the cross is presented in Marks gospel. But there is something more.

The Lord Jesus not only died for our sin, but He died for our sins. Our actual guilt had to be atoned for. He had to make up to the divine majesty for the wrong that we have done, and that is the trespass offering. It is that which is set forth in Matthews gospel.

So, then, here in the record given us by John it is particularly the burnt offering of our Lord, dying to glorify the Father, that is set forth, and that explains why the three hours of darkness are not mentioned here. Gods Word is written with marvelous precision. In the other Gospels we have those three dark hours in which the soul of the Lord Jesus was made an offering for sin, and we hear His awful cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Mat 27:46; Mar 15:34). The answer to that cry is that He was forsaken that we might not be forsaken. He took my place,

For man-oh, miracle of grace!-

For man the Saviour died.

But that cry of anguish is not recorded in Johns gospel. We simply see the blessed Lord in perfect subjection to the will of His Father yielding Himself without spot to God in His death upon the tree.

And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull (Joh 19:17). Many think that to be the little skull-shaped hill outside the Damascus Gate. Those of us who have been in Jerusalem and have stood on or beside that hill have found our hearts more deeply moved perhaps than by any other scene, unless it be indeed the Garden tomb on the side of the knoll. It was on that skull-shaped hill that, as many Protestant scholars believe, our Lord Jesus Christ died for us. The place of a skull, where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst (vv. 17-18). It had been written in Isa 53:12: He was numbered with the transgressors, and so we see Him on that central cross in the midst of transgressors. Two thieves crucified with Him-He in the center, as though of them all He was the worst! That is the chief sinners place.

And Pilate wrote a title, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS (Joh 19:19). The charge that the high priests of Jerusalem had made against Him was that He declared Himself to be King of the Jews. Pilate had asked Him, Art thou the King of the Jews? (Mat 27:11; Mar 15:2; Luk 23:3; Joh 18:33). It was necessary that Pilate, as the one who condemned Jesus to die, should make out a placard that should indicate the crime of which the crucified one was guilty. And so he wrote on this placard, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. He wrote it in Hebrew, the language of religion; in Greek, the language of culture; and in Latin, the language of government. The charge against Jesus was: This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. That was meant to say, He is being crucified as a rebel, as an insurrectionist against the Roman Government. Pilate did not believe that for one moment, as we saw very clearly in the previous chapter, but on his part it was an ironical, sardonic thing. He wanted to taunt these chief priests and scribes who had hounded him until at last he had condemned an innocent Man to death.

It is remarkable how the cross of Christ brings out all that is in the heart of man, shows men up as they really are. In the light of that cross Pilate comes before us in all his cynicism and his lack of conscience. In the light of that cross the chief priests were manifested in all their hypocrisy and bitterness and hatred of the holy, spotless Son of God. And as we follow the story in the light of that cross, we see the callousness, indifference, greed, and covetousness of the soldiers who were gambling for the clothing of the crucified One at the foot of the cross. But, thank God, we see brought out in beautiful relief the loyalty, the faithfulness, the tender love of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the other women, her companions, who had been blessed through the ministry of Christ, and also the fealty of his devoted follower, the apostle John, the author of this book. Where were the other apostles? They had fulfilled the Word that said, They all forsook him, and fled (Mar 14:50). But John was there at the cross. Mary, the mother, was there, and Mary Magdalene and Mary the wife of Cleophas, were there, looking on with loving eyes and breaking hearts as they saw the Savior dying on that tree to glorify the Father and to save a guilty world.

And so Pilate designates Him as King of the Jews, and some day it will be found that the title Pilate put over the cross was more true than he or the world realized. For this One who has gone to His Fathers throne in heaven will return again. When He returns He will be welcomed by some from that very people who rejected Him, for a remnant in Jerusalem will be found whose hearts will be won for Him, the Messiah. We are told that they shall look upon [him] whom they have pierced (Zec 12:10). They will recognize Him when He comes again as the true King of the Jews, great Davids greater Son, who will fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies and bring in that righteous kingdom so long predicted.

But when Pilate wrote this title-THE KING OF THE JEWS-it stirred the chief priests to indignation, and they came to him and said, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am the King of the Jews (Joh 19:21). But Pilate, looking at them with a hard, sardonic kind of smile, says, What I have written I have written (v. 22). As much as to say, You forced me long enough, Ill go no further with you. That placard remains just as I have written it.

So He died, a King crucified,

To save a poor sinner like me.

But notice, though Pilate put over His head the placard that designated His supposed crime-that He made Himself the King of the Jews-actually God saw another placard over that cross. That other placard was unseen by mortal eyes. It is referred to in Col 2:13-17: And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

What is the apostle Paul telling us here? Man was guilty before God, violating that holy law that He gave at Sinai, For it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them (Gal 3:10). But there upon that cross Jesus is seen taking the lawbreakers place, and God sees, nailed on that cross, those ten ordinances given at Sinai-the law that God gave upon that mount, the law that was just and good, but which man had violated. Because of the transgression of that law Jesus died. But had He violated it? No! That law was against us because we were the lawbreakers, but Jesus upon that cross died under the judgment of that broken law. Because of what He endured when He took my place in judgment, God can now say to me: You go free, and through faith in His blessed Son I am justified from all things. And so we who believe are

Free from the law! Oh, happy condition!

Jesus hath bled, and there is remission,

Cursd by the law and bruised by the fall,

Christ hath redeemed us once for all.

But now we pass on with this most wonderful story that ever was written. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his [tunic]: now the [tunic] was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be (Joh 19:23-24). They had no idea when they said this, when they gambled for His clothing, when they determined not to tear the tunic in four places that every one should have a part, that they were actually fulfilling a prophetic utterance made a thousand years before in Psa 22:18: They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. These things therefore the soldiers did (Joh 19:24).

Psalm 22 is a prophecy of the sufferings of our Savior on that cross and of the glories that should follow. When we turn back to it we see it begins with His cry of distress, and it closes with a shout of triumph. It pictures the Savior suspended on that cross-I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture (Psa 22:17-18). And then in that hour of darkness He cries, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Psa 22:1; see also Mat 27:46; Mar 15:34), for with these words the psalm begins. Then it goes on, But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people (Psa 22:3; Psa 22:6). It tells of the place He took in lowly grace for our redemption.

The figure He uses is a very striking thing! A worm, was the tola, a little insect like the cochineal found in Mexico. From the blood of the crushed cochineal we get a beautiful crimson dye. In the same way, from the tola was made a scarlet dye with which the great ones of this world colored their garments. Jesus was practically saying, I am like the tola. I am to be crushed to death that others may be robed in glory. So we see Him on that cross, bleeding and dying for our sins. But as we read on in Psalm 22 we come to the last verse where, in our Authorized Version, we get this, They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this (v. 31). But in a more literal translation you find it reads, They shall declare that it is finished. So the psalm begins with the cry of distress, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? and ends with the cry of triumph, It is finished.

Continuing in our chapter, we read: Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mothers sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home (Joh 19:25-27). We scarcely know which to admire most- the faithfulness, the devotedness of these dear women, and the beloved young disciple, or the tender, compassionate love of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ and His consideration for the dear mother that bore Him. He recalls the prophecy, Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also (Luk 2:35). He knows that sword is indeed piercing her mother heart as she sees her Son suffering in such awful agony hanging there upon the nails, and He would have her know that He is concerned about her and anxious to relieve her agonies. So He points her to John and says, Behold thy son! and to John He says, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. During the last of her sojourn here on earth, John became to her as a tender, loving son, and she to him as a loving mother.

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst (v. 28). He knew that all things up to that present moment had been accomplished, but there was one Scripture yet to be fulfilled. That was found in Psa 69:21: They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. That Sixty-ninth Psalm also portrays Him as the Sufferer upon the cross, and so that that prophecy might not go unfulfilled, Jesus cried, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth (Joh 19:29). That vinegar told out all the malice and hatred of mans heart, but Jesus took the vinegar at the hand of the soldier and drank it. A little earlier He had refused the wormwood and gall, for that typified the wrath of God, and He would take that only from the hand of His Father. Man had no right to press that cup to His lips.

When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost (v. 30). It is finished!-three words in our English Bible, only one in the Greek Testament. Tetelestai!-that was His cry of triumph. He had finished the work the Father gave Him to do. He had glorified God to the full in the place where He had been so terribly dishonored, and now because of that finished work God can be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Rom 3:26).

And so the message of the gospel that goes out to all men everywhere today is this: The work that saves is finished! Jesus did it all upon the cross.

Have you met with God at the foot of that cross where full settlement was made for sin? When Jesus cried, It is finished, He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. He did not die from exhaustion. He dismissed His spirit. We cannot do that. How many suffering ones have wished that they might. But when Jesus settled the sin question, when He had drunk the cup of judgment, when He had glorified God in the putting away of sin, He cried, It is finished, and He dismissed His spirit. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit (Luk 23:46). His spirit went to Paradise. The precious body of the Redeemer hung there upon the cross, soon to be quickened into new life on the day of His glorious resurrection.

Do you know this blessed Savior? Have you trusted Him for yourself? Oh, if you have not trusted Him, I plead with you, bow now at the foot of that cross, confess yourself a sinner, tell Him that you will put your hearts confidence in Him who died to redeem you, and go forth to own Him henceforth as your Lord and Master as well as your Savior.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

he: Mat 10:38, Mat 16:24, Mat 27:31-33, Mar 8:34, Mar 10:21, Mar 15:21, Mar 15:22, Luk 9:23, Luk 14:27, Luk 23:26, Luk 23:33

went: Lev 16:21, Lev 16:22, Lev 24:14, Num 15:35, Num 15:36, 1Ki 21:13, Luk 23:33, Act 7:58, Heb 13:11-13

Golgotha: Golgotha, of which [Strong’s G2898] and Calvaria are merely translations, is supposed to have been a hill, or a rising on a greater hill, on the north-west of Jerusalem. Mat 27:33, Mat 27:34, Mar 15:21, Mar 15:22, Luk 23:33

Reciprocal: Gen 22:6 – laid it Joh 12:32 – if Act 21:40 – Hebrew Heb 13:12 – suffered Rev 16:16 – the Hebrew

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

7

Bearing his cross. According to Luk 23:26, Simon was compelled to help Jesus bear the cross. There was a rule that if a victim condemned to the cross was unable physically to carry it alone, someone would be made to take up the rear part and help carry it, walking after the other to the place of execution. Place of a skull. There is a long note on this phrase at Mat 27:33, containing information gleaned from the lexicons and other authentic works of reference.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

He that can read a passage like this without a deep sense of man’s debt to Christ, must have a very cold, or a very thoughtless heart. Great must be the love of the Lord Jesus to sinners, when He could voluntarily endure such sufferings for their salvation. Great must be the sinfulness of sin, when such an amount of vicarious suffering was needed in order to provide redemption.

We should observe, first, in this passage, how our Lord had to bear His cross when He went forth from the city to Golgotha.

We need not doubt that there was a deep meaning in all this circumstance. For one thing, it was part of that depth of humiliation to which our Lord submitted as our substitute. One portion of the punishment imposed on the vilest criminals, was that they should carry their own cross when they went to execution; and this portion was laid upon our Lord. In the fullest sense He was reckoned a sinner, and counted a curse for our sakes.-For another thing, it was a fulfillment of the great type of the sin-offering of the Mosaic law. It is written, that “the bullock for the sin-offering, and the goat for the sin-offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall one carry forth without the camp.” (Lev 16:27.) Little did the blinded Jews imagine, when they madly hounded on the Romans to crucify Jesus outside the gates, that they were unconsciously perfecting the mightiest sin-offering that was ever seen. It is written, “Jesus, that He might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.” (Heb 13:12.)

The practical lesson which all true Christians should gather from the fact before us, is one that should be kept in continual remembrance. Like our Master, we must be content to go forth “without the camp,” bearing His reproach. We must come out from the world and be separate, and be willing, if need be, to stand alone. Like our Master, we must be willing to take up our cross daily, and to be persecuted both for our doctrine and our practice. Well would it be for the Church if there was more of the true cross to be seen among Christians! To wear material crosses as an ornament, to place material crosses on churches and tombs, all this is cheap and easy work, and entails no trouble. But to have Christ’s cross in our hearts, to carry Christ’s cross in our daily walk, to know the fellowship of His sufferings, to be made conformable to His death, to have crucified affections, and live crucified lives,-all this needs self-denial; and Christians of this stamp are few and far between. Yet, this, we may be sure, is the only cross-bearing and cross-carrying that does good in the world. The times require less of the cross outwardly and more of the cross within.

We should observe, secondly, in this passage, how our Lord was crucified as a King.

The title placed over our Lord’s head made this plain and unmistakable. The reader of Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, could not fail to see that He who hung on the central cross of the three on Golgotha, had a royal title over His head. The overruling hand of God so ordered matters, that the strong will of Pilate overrode for once the wishes of the malicious Jews. In spite of the chief priests, our Lord was crucified as “the King of the Jews.”

It was meet and right that so it should be. Even before our Lord was born, the angel Gabriel declared to the virgin Mary, “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” (Luk 1:32-33.) Almost as soon as He was born, there came wise men from the East, saying, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” (Mat 2:2.) The very week before the crucifixion, the multitude who accompanied our Lord at His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, had cried, “Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Joh 12:13.) The current belief of all godly Jews was, that when Messiah, the Son of David came, He would come as a King. A kingdom of heaven and a kingdom of God was continually proclaimed by our Lord throughout His ministry. A King indeed He was, as He told Pilate, of a kingdom utterly unlike the kingdoms of this world, but for all that a true King of a true kingdom, and a Ruler of true subjects. As such He was born. As such He lived. As such He was crucified. And as such He will come again, and reign over the whole earth, King of kings and Lord of lords.

Let us take care that we ourselves know Christ as our King, and that His kingdom is set up within our hearts. They only will find Him their Savior at the last day, who have obeyed Him as King in this world. Let us cheerfully pay Him that tribute of faith, and love, and obedience, which He prizes far above gold. Above all, let us never be afraid to own ourselves His faithful subjects, soldiers, servants and followers, however much He may be despised by the world. A day will soon come when the despised Nazarene who hung on the cross, shall take to Himself His great power and reign, and put down every enemy under His feet. The kingdoms of this world, as Daniel foretold, shall be swept aside, and become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. And at last every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

We should observe, lastly, in these verses, how tenderly our Lord took thought for Mary, His mother.

We are told that even in the awful agonies of body and mind which our Lord endured, He did not forget her of whom He was born. He mercifully remembered her desolate condition, and the crushing effect of the sorrowful sight before her. He knew that, holy as she was, she was only a woman, and that, as a woman, she must deeply feel the death of such a Son. He therefore commended her to the protection of His best-loved and best-loving disciple, in brief and touching words: “Woman,” He said, “behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”

We surely need no stronger proof than we have here, that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was never meant to be honored as divine, or to be prayed to, worshiped, and trusted in, as the friend and patroness of sinners. Common sense points out that she who needed the care and protection of another, was never likely to help men and women to heaven, or to be in any sense a mediator between God and man! It is not too much to say, however painful the assertion, that of all the inventions of the Church of Rome, there never was one more utterly devoid of foundation, both in Scripture and reason, than the doctrine of Mary-worship.

Let us turn from points of controversy to a subject of far more practical importance. Let us take comfort in the thought that we have in Jesus a Savior of matchless tenderness, matchless sympathy, matchless consideration for the condition of His believing people. Let us never forget His words, “Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.” (Mar 3:35.) The heart that even on the cross felt for Mary, is a heart that never changes. Jesus never forgets any that love Him, and even in their worst estate remembers their need. No wonder that Peter says, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.” (1Pe 5:7.)

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Notes-

v17.-[And He bearing His cross.] It was the Roman custom to compel criminals, sentenced to crucifixion, to carry their own cross. Our Lord was thus treated like the vilest felon. “Furcifer,” was the Latin name of ignominy and contempt given to the worst criminals. It means, literally, “cross-bearer.”

Besser observes that our Lord, when a workman in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth, had willingly carried pieces of timber in the service of His foster-father. Here, with no less cheerfulness, He bears to Golgotha the timber of the cross, in order to raise the altar on which He is to be sacrificed, and to do the will of his Father in heaven.

Whether the “cross” that our Lord bore, was a straight piece of timber, with another transverse piece fixed across it, for the hands of the criminal to be nailed to,-or whether it was a tree with two forked arms, admits perhaps of some little doubt. The almost universal tradition of the Churches is that it was the former: viz., a cross made of two pieces. Yet it is worth remembering that it was very common to crucify on a tree such as I have described,-that the Latin word for “cross-bearer,” means, literally, “forked-tree-bearer,”-and that our Bible translators have four times spoken of the “wood” on which our Lord was crucified as “the tree.” (Act 5:30; Act 10:39; Act 13:29; 1Pe 2:24.) The matter therefore is not quite so clear as some may think, though of course it is one of no consequence. The cross of two pieces at right angles, is certainly more picturesque than a common tree shaped like the letter Y, and the habitual use of the cross in Christian art, and the general tradition of ecclesiastical history, have combined to make most people regard the question as a settled one. Yet the undeniable use of forked trees in crucifying criminals, and the equally undeniable difficulty of carrying a cross of two transverse pieces, compared with a forked tree, are points that really ought not to be overlooked. The matter, after all, is one of pure conjecture. But, to say the least, it is quite a disputable point whether the cross with which Christendom is so familiar, on the gable ends of churches, on tombs, in painted windows, in crucifixes, or in the simple ornamental form which ladies are so fond of wearing,-the cross, I say, of two transverse pieces at right angles, is really and truly the kind of cross on which Christ was crucified! There is no proof positive that the whole of Christendom is not mistaken. Of course, if the cross itself had been preserved and found, it would settle the dispute. But there is not the slightest reason to suppose that it was preserved, or treated with any respect, either by Jews, Romans, or disciples. The famous story of the “discovery or invention of the cross” by the Empress Helena in 326 A.D., is a mere apocryphal legend invented by man, and deserves no more attention than the many pretended pieces of the true cross, which are exhibited in Romish churches as sacred relics.

Ambrose says, quaintly enough, that the form of the cross is that of a sword with the point downward; above is the hilt toward heaven, as if in the hand of God; below is the point toward earth, as if thrust through the head of the old serpent the devil.

One thing only is very certain. Whatever was the shape of the cross on which Jesus was crucified, it could not have been the huge, tall, heavy thing which painters and sculptors have continually represented it to be. To suppose that any man could carry such an enormous weight of timber, as the cross is made to be in Rubens’ famous picture of the “Descent from the Cross,” is preposterous and absurd. A cross was manifestly not a larger thing than could be lifted and borne on the shoulders of one person. Some get over the difficulty by maintaining the theory that the transverse piece was the only part of the cross which the criminal carried. But there is no sufficient evidence that this was the case.

It is noteworthy that John is the only Evangelist who says that our Lord bore His own cross. Matthew, Mark and Luke, all say that Simon the Cyrenian was compelled to bear it. The explanation is probably this. Our Lord bore the cross for a short part of the way from the judgment-seat to Golgotha. Weakness and physical exhaustion, after all the mental and bodily suffering of the last night, rendered it impossible for Him to carry it all the way. Just at the moment when His strength failed, perhaps at the city gate, the soldiers saw Simon coming into the city, and pressed him into the service. As on other occasions, John records a fact which the other Evangelists for wise reasons passed over. It is interesting to remember that the circumstance is one which John must have seen in all probability with his own eyes.

That our blessed Lord, who had a body like our own, and not a body of superhuman vigour, should have been unable to carry the cross more than a little way, need not surprise us at all, if we consider all that He had gone through to try His physical strength, and tax His nervous system to the uttermost, in the eighteen hours preceding His crucifixion.

It is hardly necessary to remark that the type of Isaac bearing the wood for the sacrifice on Moriah, in which he himself was to be the victim, was here fulfilled by our Lord. It is moreover a curious circumstance, mentioned by Bishop Pearson, that a Jewish commentator on Gen 22:6, speaks of Isaac carrying the wood for the burnt offering, “as a man carries his cross upon his shoulders.”

[Went forth.] That expression show’s clearly that our Lord went out of the city to be crucified. He was condemned in the open air, and “went forth” cannot mean out of Pilate’s house, but went outside of Jerusalem, without the gates. Trifling as this incident may seem to a careless reader, it was a striking fulfilment of one of the great types of the Mosaic law. The sin offering on the great day of atonement was to be carried forth “without the camp.” (Lev 16:27.) Our Lord came to be the true sin offering, to give His soul an offering for our sins. Therefore it was divinely overruled of God, that, in order to fulfil the type perfectly, He should suffer outside the city. (See also Lev 4:12-21.) Paul specially refers to this when he tells the Hebrew Christians, who were familiar with the law of Moses, that “Jesus suffered without the gate.” (Heb 13:12.) The minutest details of our Lord’s passion have a deep meaning.

[Into a place…skull…Golgotha.] The precise position of this place is not known certainly, and can only be conjectured. We only know (from Joh 19:20) that it was “nigh to the city,” that it was “outside” the walls of Jerusalem at the time of our Lord’s crucifixion, and that it was near some public road, as there is mention in one Gospel of them “that passed by.” (Mat 27:39.) So many changes have taken place, during the long period of 1800 years, in the boundary walls and the soil of Jerusalem, that no wise man will speak positively as to the exact whereabouts of Golgotha at this day. Though outside the walls 1800 years ago, it is far from unlikely that it is within the walls at this time.

(a) Some maintain, as most probable, that Golgotha was a place between the then existing wall of Jerusalem, and the descent into the valley of the Kidron, on the east side of the city, near the road leading to Bethany. In this case the cross must have been in full view of any one standing on the tower of Antonia, in the temple courts, on the Mount of Olives, or upon the eastern wall of the city. If this is correct, the crucifixion might have been seen by hundreds of thousands of people at once with perfect ease; and from the sufferer being lifted up, as it were, in the air, must have been an event of extraordinary publicity. According to the advocates of this theory, the traditional site now assigned to the Holy Sepulchre is the true one.

(b) Others, however, who have carefully examined the topography of Jerusalem, and are extremely likely to be wise and impartial judges, are decidedly of [the] opinion that Golgotha was on the north side of Jerusalem, near the Damascus gate; and they repudiate altogether the site commonly assigned to the holy sepulchre at the present time. An old and valued friend, who has walked repeatedly over this “debatable land,” says, “I think the crucifixion took place on the north side of the city, near the present Damascus gate, on a platform of rock, just above a valley which runs on in endless tombs nearly two miles. Beneath this platform is a garden of olives still, full of excavations. In one of these, I think, was the sepulchre.”

(c) Others, and among them another friend, who has travelled much in Palestine, and published the results of his travels, inclines to think that Golgotha was on the west side of Jerusalem, near the Jaffa gate. The friend I refer to says, in a letter to me on this subject, “When I was first in Jerusalem in 1857, I visited some extraordinary fissures and cracks in the rocks west of the city, reminding me of the expression, the rocks rent. (Mat 27:51.) These fissures are now all filled up.” Much, he adds, depends on the question whether Pilate resided in the tower of Antonia, and had his judgment hall there, or in the tower of Hippicus. This, however, we have no means of ascertaining.

In the face of such conflicting opinions I dare not speak positively, and I must leave my readers to judge for themselves. The question is one about which no one, it is clear, has any right to be heard, unless he has actually seen Jerusalem.

Why the place was called “the place of a skull” we are not told, and are left entirely to conjecture.

(a) Some think, as Gualter, Bullinger, Musculus, Gerhard, Burgon, Alford, Besser, and others, that the verse points to the bones, skeletons, and skulls, of executed criminals, which were lying about on Golgotha, as the common place of execution. This theory, however, is open to the grave objection, that it is most unlikely that dead men’s bones would be left lying above ground, so near the city, when, according to the Mosaic law, they made any Jew unclean who touched them. The Pharisees, with their excessive scrupulosity about externals, were not likely to tolerate such a source of defilement close to the holy city!-Moreover, John expressly says, that in the place were Jesus was crucified “there was a garden.” (Joh 19:41.) This does not look like a place where dead men’s bones and the skulls of criminals would be left lying about! The very mention of this “garden” would suggest the idea that the place was not ordinarily used for execution, and that the Pharisees chose it only for its singular publicity. If it was on the east side, we can well believe that they felt a diabolical pleasure in tormenting our Lord to the last, by making Him die with the temple, the Mount of Olives, and His favourite Gethsemane before His eyes.

(b) Some think, as Lampe, Ellicott, and others, that the name, “place of a skull,” arose from the shape of the small rising ground, like a skull, on which the cross was fixed. That such small elevations of limestone rock are to be found in that vicinity, is asserted by some travellers. To me there seems more probability in this theory than in the other. The name “Calvary,” we should remember, is never used in the Greek; and the marginal reading in Luk 23:33 ought certainly to be in the text.

One thing alone is very certain. There is not the slightest authority for the common idea, that the place where our Lord was crucified was a hill, or mountain. The common expression in hymns and religious poetry, “Mount Calvary,” is utterly incorrect and unwarrantable, and the favourite antithesis, or comparison between Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary, is so completely destitute of any Scriptural basis, that it is almost profane. Anything more unlike, as a matter of fact, than Sinai and Golgotha, cannot be conceived.

Origen, Cyprian, Epiphanius, Augustine, Jerome, and Theophylact, all mention an old tradition, that Golgotha was the place where the first Adam, our forefather, was buried, and that the second Adam was buried near the first! This of course is a ridiculous, lying fable, as Noah’s flood must have swept away all certainty about Adam’s grave.

v18.-[Where they crucified Him.] This famous mode of execution is so well known to every one that little need be said of it. The common mode of inflicting it, in all probability, was to strip the criminal,-to lay him on the cross on his back,-to nail his hands to the two extremities of the cross-piece, or fork of the cross,-to nail his feet to the upright piece, or principal stem of the cross,-then to raise the cross on end, and drop it into a hole prepared for it,-and then to leave the sufferer to a lingering and painful death. It was a death which combined the maximum of pain with the least immediate destruction of life. The agony of having nails driven through parts so full of nerves and sinews as the hands and feet, must have been intense. Yet wounds of the hands and feet are not mortal, and do not injure any great leading blood-vessel. Hence a crucified person, even in an eastern climate, exposed to the sun, might live two or three days, enduring extreme pain, without being relieved by death, if he was naturally a very strong man and in vigorous health. This is what we must remember our blessed Lord went through, when we read “they crucified Him.” To a sensitive, delicate-minded person, it is hard to imagine any capital punishment more distressing. This is what Jesus endured willingly for us sinners. Hanging, as it were, between earth and heaven, He exactly fulfilled the type of the brazen serpent, which Moses lifted up in the wilderness. (Joh 3:14.)

Whether the person crucified was bound to the cross with ropes, to prevent the possibility of his breaking off from the nails in convulsive struggling,-whether He was stripped completely naked, or had a cloth round His loins,-whether each foot had a separate nail, or one nail was driven through both feet,-are disputed points which we have no means of settling.-Some think, following Irenus, Tertullian, and Justin Martyr, that there was a kind of seat or projection in the middle of the stem of the cross, to bear up the weight of the body, and also a place for the feet to rest on. Jeremy Taylor thinks, in support of this view, that the body of a crucified person could not rest only on the four wounds of hands and feet. Bishop Pearson also quotes a passage from Seneca, which seems to favour the idea.-As to the nails, Nonnus and Gregory Nazianzen say there were only three, and that one was driven through both feet at once. Cyprian says there were four.-But these are matters about which we really know nothing, and it is useless to guess and speculate about them. Of one thing however we may be very sure. The feet of a crucified person were much nearer the ground than is commonly supposed, and very likely not more than a foot or two from the earth. In this, as in other points, most pictures of the crucifixion are grossly incorrect, and the cross is made out to be a piece of timber so long and so thick that no one mortal man could ever have carried it.

Concerning the precise amount of physical suffering, and the precise effect on the human body in a crucifixion, the following medical account by a German physician, named Richter, quoted in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, can hardly fail to interest a Bible reader. He says, “(1) The unnatural position and violent tension of the body caused a painful sensation from the least motion. (2) The nails being driven through parts of the hands and feet which are full of nerves and tendons, and yet at a distance from the heart, created the most exquisite anguish. (3) The exposure of so many wounds and lacerations brought on inflammation, which tended to become gangrene, and every moment increased the poignancy of suffering. (4) In the distended parts of the body more blood flowed through the arteries than could be carried back into the veins: and hence too much blood found its way from the aorta into the head and stomach, and the blood vessels of the head became pressed and swollen. The general obstruction of circulation caused an internal excitement, exertion, and anxiety, more intolerable than death itself. (5) There was the inexpressible misery of gradually increasing and lingering anguish. (6) To all this we may add burning and raging thirst.” (Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible: article, Crucifixion.) On the whole subject of the cross, and the sufferings connected with crucifixion, “Lipsius de Cruce” (published in 1595) is a most exhaustive book.

When we remember, beside all this, that our Lord’s head was crowned with thorns, His back torn with savage scourging, and His whole system weighed down by the mental and bodily agony of the sleepless night following the Lord’s Supper, we may have some faint idea of the intensity of His sufferings.

When we read “they” crucified, we are left to conjecture who it can refer to. It cannot be the Jews, because they could only stand by, and superintend at the most, as the Roman soldiers would certainly not let the punishment be inflicted by any other hands than their own. It must either be the four soldiers who were the executioners, or else it must be interpreted generally after the manner of other places, for “He was crucified.” Thus, in Joh 16:2, “They shall put you out of the synagogues.” In that sentence “they” cannot refer to any person in particular. The simplest plan is to refer it generally to the whole party,-Jews and Gentiles together.

[And two others with Him, etc.] We know from the other Gospels that these other two were malefactors and thieves. The object of crucifying our Lord between them is plain. It was intended as a last indignity and injury. It was a public declaration that He was counted no better than the vilest criminals.

Little as our Lord’s enemies meant it, this very crucifixion between two thieves did two great things. One was, that it precisely fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy about Messiah: “He was numbered with the transgressors.” (Isa 53:12.) The other was, that it gave our Lord the opportunity of working one more mighty miracle, even in His last hours,-the miracle of converting the penitent thief, forgiving his sins, and opening to him paradise. If His enemies had been content to crucify Him alone, this last trophy could not have been won, and our Lord’s power over sin and the devil would not have been exhibited. So easy is it for God to bring good out of evil, and to make the malice of His enemies work round to His praise.

Augustine remarks, that three very different persons hung together on the three crosses on Golgotha. One was the Saviour of sinners. One was a sinner about to be saved. One was a sinner about to be damned. (On Psa 34:1-22.)

Cyril sees in the two malefactors a type of the Jewish and Gentile Churches: the one rejected, impenitent, and lost; the other believing at the eleventh hour, and saved.

Many pious commentators remark, that even on the cross our Lord gave an emblem of His kingly power. On His right hand was a saved soul whom He admits into His kingdom; on His left hand, a lost soul whom He leaves to reap the fruit of his own ways. There was right and left on the cross, even as there will be right and left, saved and unsaved, when He sits on the judgment-seat, wearing the crown at the last day.

It only remains to add that the cruel punishment of crucifixion was formally abolished by the Emperor Constantine, towards the end of his reign. It is an awful historical fact that when Jerusalem was taken by Titus, he crucified so many Jews around the city, that Josephus says that space and room failed for crosses, and crosses could not be found in sufficient number for bodies! Reland well remarks, “They who had nothing but ‘crucify’ in their mouths, were therewith paid home in their bodies.”

v19.-[And Pilate wrote a title…cross.] To fix a board with an inscription over the head of the person crucified, appears to have been a well-known custom, and is mentioned as such by classical writers. Some say it was a board covered with white gypsum, with letters of black, and others say that the letters were red. Pilate therefore did nothing unusual. In our Lord’s case it served two ends, whether Pilate meant them or not. For one thing, it proclaimed to all passers-by, and all who saw the crucifixion, that Jesus did really suffer, that He was not at the last moment released and another punished in His stead, and that He was not taken away by miraculous interference from His enemies’ hands. For another thing, it drew attention of all witnesses and passers-by to our Lord, and made it quite certain on which of the three crosses He hung. Without this, a person looking at three naked figures hanging on their crosses, from a little distance off, might well have doubted which of the three was Jesus. The title made it plain. That our Lord was regarded as no common every-day criminal, and that it was thought right to call special attention to Him, is evident from this title being put on His cross.

[Jesus…Nazareth…King…Jews.] Pilate’s reasons for choosing to place this description of our Lord over His cross, we are left to conjecture. My own decided opinion is that he worded the title as he did, in anger and vexation, and with an intention to annoy and insult the Jews. He publicly held up to scorn their King, as a poor criminal from a mean village in Galilee, a fitting king for such a people!-Whatever his motive may have been, it was curiously overruled by God that even on the cross our Lord should be styled a “King.” He came to be a King, and as a King He lived and suffered and died, though not acknowledged and honoured by His subjects. “Nazarene” identified our Lord as the well-known Teacher from Galilee, who for three years had stirred the Jewish mind. “King” identified Him as the Person accused by the chief priests for claiming a kingdom, and formally rejected by them, on the plea that they had no king but Csar. It was a very full and significant title.

A careful reader of the Gospels will not fail to observe, that each Gospel writer gives this title in a slightly different form, and that there are in fact four versions of it. The question naturally arises, Which is correct? The versions do not at all contradict one another; but that of Mark, “the King of the Jews,” is much shorter than that of John. No two, in a word, are exactly like.-In reply, it is fair to remind the reader, that the inscription was written in three languages; and that it is far from unlikely that it was in one form in one language, and in another form in another. The one common point in all the four versions is, “the King of the Jews,” and this was probably the only point that Mark, in his brief and condensed history, was taught to record. John gives the whole inscription, because he alone narrates the dispute between the priests and Pilate about it. If I may venture a conjecture, I should guess that Mark gives the Latin inscription, Luke the Greek, and Matthew and John the Hebrew one. But why it seemed good to the Holy Ghost that Matthew should omit the expression, “of Nazareth,” which John mentions, I do not pretend to say. It is precisely one of those things in which it is wisest to confess our ignorance, and to be willing to wait for more light.

John alone records that Pilate “wrote” and “put” on the cross this title. We are not obliged to suppose that he did both with his own hands. The writing was almost certainly his own act. The putting the title on the cross he probably left to the soldiers.

The common pictures of the crucifixion, showing a kind of scroll, or parchment, over our Lord’s head on the cross, are most probably in this, as in other details, most incorrect representations of the real facts. Moreover most painters seem to forget that it was written three times over, being in three languages!

v20.-[This title then read many, etc.] This seems to be one of John’s parenthetical comments. It also reads like the report of an eyewitness; and this we know John was. He stood by and saw all that happened. It is as though he said, “I can testify that many of the Jews saw and read this title,-some as they passed along the road which ran by,-some from the walls of the city, for the place was near the walls. It was an inscription moreover so contrived, that hardly any one in Jerusalem could fail to understand it; for it was written in the three languages most likely to be known,-in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.”

It is almost needless to say that the title was in Hebrew, because every Jew would know it, the oldest language in the world, and the language of the Old Testament,-in Greek, because this was the language most known in all eastern countries, and the language of all literary and educated people,-in Latin, because this was the language of the Romans, the ruling nation in the world. The Roman soldiers would all understand the Latin; the Greek proselytes and Hellenistic Jews would all understand the Greek; and the pure Jews from Galilee and Juda, and every part of the earth, assembled for the passover, would all understand the Hebrew. All would go away to spread the tidings that one Jesus, the King of the Jews, had been put to death by crucifixion at the passover feast.

Henry remarks, “In the Hebrew, the oracles of God were recorded; in Greek, the learning of the philosophers; and in Latin, the laws of the empire. In each of these languages Christ is proclaimed King, in whom are hid all the treasures of revelation, wisdom, and power.”

To this very day it is certain that no three languages can be more useful for a Christian minister to know, if he would be familiar with his Bible, than Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

The last day alone, perhaps, will disclose the effect this title had on those who read it. When the priests and their companions saw it, they mocked and scoffed: “King indeed! Let Christ the King of Israel descend from the cross, and we will believe.” (Mar 15:32.) But there was one man who saw the title probably with very different eyes. The penitent thief perhaps grasped at the word “King,” and believed. Who can tell that this was not the root of his cry, “Lord remember me, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” (Luk 23:42.) Perhaps Pilate’s title helped to save a soul!

Brentius remarks, that when we think of the cross of Christ, and the title on it, which so many read, we should remember there was another handwriting nailed to that cross spiritually, which no mortal could read. Jesus Christ, by His vicarious death for us, “Blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” (Col 2:14.)

v21.-[Then said the chief priests, etc.] This verse brings out the feeling which the sight of Pilate’s title excited in the minds of the chief priests. They were annoyed and angry. They did not like the idea of this crucified criminal being publicly declared “the King of the Jews.” They detected the latent scorn and irony which guided Pilate’s hands, and lay at the bottom of his mind. They did not like so public an announcement that they had crucified their own King, and wanted “no King but Csar.” They were vexed at the implied reflection on themselves. Besides this, they were probably uncomfortable in conscience. Hardened and wicked as they were, they had, many of them, we may be sure, a secret conviction which they vainly tried to keep down, that they were doing a wrong thing, and a thing which by and by they would find it hard to defend either to themselves or others. Hence they tried to get Pilate to alter the title, and to make it appear that our Lord was only a pretended King,-an impostor who “said that He was King.” This, they doubtless thought, would shift some of the guilt off their shoulders, and make it appear that our Lord was crucified for usurping a title to which He was legally proved to have no claim.

When and where the chief priests said this to Pilate does not appear. It must either have been when the whole party was leaving the judgment-seat for Golgotha, or after our Lord was nailed to the tree, or while the soldiers were nailing Him. Looking at John’s account, one might fancy that the centurion sent word to Pilate that the prisoner was being nailed to the cross, and asked for a title to put over His head, before the cross was reared. If we do not suppose this, we must believe that Pilate actually accompanied the party outside the walls, and was only at a little distance off during the last horrible preparations. In that case he might easily write a title, and the priests might easily be standing by. The difficulty is to understand where the parties could be, when the priests said “write not;” and it is one which must be left unsettled. It seems, however, certain that once put over our Lord’s head, the title was not expected to be taken down; and the request was not to alter it, after being put up, but to write a different title before it was put up.

Bengel observes, that this is the only place in John’s Gospel where the chief priests are called “the chief priests of the Jews.” He thinks it is intended to mark emphatically the bitter hatred with which the priests of the Jews regarded the King of the Jews.

We may well believe that even the wickedest men at their worst, are often more sore and uncomfortable inwardly than they appear outwardly. This it was that probably lay at the bottom of the chief priests’ remonstrance about the title. Herod’s cry, “It is John the Baptist,” after John was dead, is another case in point.

v22.-[Pilate answered…I have written.] The hard, haughty, imperious character of the wicked Roman Governor comes out forcibly in these words. They show his contempt for the Jews:-“Trouble me not about the title: I have written it, and I shall not alter it to please you.”-They suggest the idea that he was willing enough to be revenged on them for their obstinate refusal to meet his wishes, and consent to our Lord’s release. He was glad to hold them up to scorn and contempt, as a people who crucified their own king. It is likely enough that between his wife and his own conscience and the chief priests, the Roman Governor was vexed, worried, and irritated, and savagely resolved not to gratify the Jews any further in any matter. He had gone as far as he chose, in allowing them to murder an innocent and just person. He would not go an inch further. He now made a stand, and showed that he could be firm and unyielding and unbending when he liked. It is no uncommon thing to see a wicked man, when he has given way to the devil and trampled on his conscience in one direction, trying to make up for it by being firm in another.

Calvin observes that Pilate, by publishing in three languages Christ’s title, was “by a secret guidance made a herald of the Gospel.” He contrasts his conduct with that of the Papists who prohibit the reading of the Gospel and the Scriptures by the common people. Gualter says much the same.

Bullinger remarks that Pilate acted like Caiaphas when he said, “It is expedient that one die for the people, not knowing what he said.” Just so Pilate little knew what testimony he was bearing to Christ’s kingly office.

Leigh quotes a saying of Augustine: “If a man like Pilate can say, what I have written I have written, and will not alter, can we think that God doth write any in His book and blot him out again?”

v23.-[Then the soldiers, etc.] The soldiers having now finished their bloody work, having nailed our Lord to the cross, put the title over His head and reared the cross on end, proceeded to do what they probably always did,-to divide the clothes of the crucified criminal among themselves. In most countries the clothes of a person put to death by the law are the perquisite of the executioner. So it was with our Lord’s clothes. They had most likely first stripped our Lord naked, before nailing his hands and feet to the cross, and had laid his clothes on one side till they had finished their work. They now turned to the clothes, and, as they had done many a time on such occasions, proceeded to divide them. All four Evangelists particularly mention this, and evidently call our special attention to it.

The division into four portions shows clearly that there were four soldiers employed, beside the centurion, in the work of crucifixion. Many commentators see in them emblems of the four quarters of the Gentile world. This, however, seems to me fanciful. A quaternion, a small party of four, was a common division of soldiers in those days, just as “a file” of men is among ourselves. (See Act 12:4.)

What the four portions of garments were we are left to conjecture. Hengstenberg thinks that they consisted of the covering of the head, the girdle, the shoes, and the under garment fitting to the body. Matthew’s report of the Sermon on the Mount contains a clear distinction between a coat and a cloak. (Mat 5:40.) For these four portions the soldiers probably cast lots, in order that each one might have his part decided, and to prevent wrangling about the unequal value of the portions.

Others think that the language of John about the coat which was “not rent,” is strong evidence that all the rest of our Lord’s clothes were rent into four pieces, and that Hengstenberg’s division of them will not stand. It must be admitted that there is much probability in this. It seems very unlikely that so much should be said about this seamless garment being not rent, if the other garments had not been torn in dividing them.

Concerning the “coat” here mentioned, it is not easy to say positively what part of our Lord’s dress it was.

(a) Most commentators say that it was the long inner tunic, girt about the waist, and reaching almost to the feet, which was the principal garment of an inhabitant of the East,-a kind of loose smock-frock with sleeves, such as any one may see a pattern of, in Leonardo da Vinci’s famous picture of the Lord’s Supper. The objection to this view, to my mind, is the grave difficulty of explaining how such a garment could be seamless and woven throughout,-though I doubt not our Lord wore it, and it was the hem of such a garment the woman touched.

(b) Some few commentators think it was the outer garment, a loose mantle or cape, thrown over the shoulders, which many wore above the tunic. Such a garment, having no sleeves, might easily be made in one piece without any seam, and perhaps was only drawn together or clasped about the shoulders. It is fair, nevertheless, to say that the Greek word here rendered “coat,” ordinarily means the inward garment or tunic. (See Suicer and Parkhurst.) Becker’s Charicles, however, on this Greek word, shows some reason for thinking it sometimes means the outward coat.

The reader must judge for himself. The question is one which cannot be settled positively either way, and happily is not of any moment. To my own mind, the objection to the first and common view is very serious indeed, if not insuperable; but it may not appear so to others. The only thing we know for certain is that one portion of our Lord’s dress was not rent, but made the subject of casting lots as to who should have it. As to the ancient fable that our Lord’s coat was woven by his mother Mary when He was a child, grew with His growth, and never waxed old or wore out, it is a foolish apocryphal legend.

Bengel observes that we never read of our Lord “rending” His own garments in desperate sorrow, like Job, Jacob, Joshua, Caleb, Jepthah, Hezekiah, Mordecai, Ezra, Paul, and Barnabas. (See Gen 37:34; Num 14:6; Jdg 11:35; 2Ki 19:1; Est 4:1; Ezr 9:3; Job 1:20; Act 14:14.)

On the incident recorded in this verse, Luther remarks, “This distribution of garments served for a sign that everything was done with Christ, just as with one who was abandoned, lost, and to be forgotten for ever.” Even among ourselves, the division, sale, or giving away of a man’s clothes, is a plain indication of his being dead, or given up for lost; just as among soldiers and sailors, when dead or missing, the effects are sold or distributed.

Henry thinks that “the soldiers hoped to make something more than ordinary out of our Lord’s clothes, having heard of cures wrought by the touch of the hem of His garment, or expecting that His admirers would give any money for them.” But this seems unlikely and fanciful.

Our Lord was treated, we should observe, just like all common criminals,-stripped naked, and His clothes sold under His eyes, as one dead already and cast off by man.

It is noteworthy that in this, as in many other things, our Lord was, in a striking manner, our substitute. He was stripped naked, and reckoned, and dealt with as a guilty sinner, in order that we might be clothed with the garment of His perfect righteousness and reckoned innocent.

v24.-[They said therefore among themselves, etc.] In this verse we are told that the conduct of the soldiers was a precise fulfilment of a prophecy delivered a thousand years before. (Psa 22:18.) That prophecy foretold not only that Messiah’s garments should be parted and distributed, but that men should “cast lots for His vesture.” Little did the four rough Roman soldiers think that they were actually supplying evidence of the truth of the Scriptures! They only saw that our Lord’s “coat” was a good and serviceable garment, which it was a pity to rend or tear, and therefore they agreed to cast lots who should have it. And yet, in so doing, they added to the great cloud of witnesses who prove the divine authority of the Bible. Men little consider that they are all instruments in God’s hand for accomplishing His purposes.

The importance of interpreting prophecy literally, and not figuratively, is strongly shown in this verse. The system of interpretation which unhappily prevails among many Christians-I mean the system of spiritualizing away all the plain statements of the prophets, and accommodating them to the Church of Christ-can never be reconciled with such a verse as this. The plain, literal meaning of words should evidently be the meaning placed on all the statements of Old Testament prophecy. This remark of course does not apply to symbolical prophecies, such as those of the seals, trumpets, and vials in Revelation.

The typical meaning of this seamless and unrent coat of our Lord is a point on which fanciful theological writers have loved to dwell in every age of the Church of Christ. It represented, we are told by Augustine and many others, the unity of the Church, and it was an allusion to the priesthood of the Divine wearer! I frankly confess that I am unable to believe such notions, and I doubt extremely whether they were intended by the Holy Ghost. But it is a fact mentioned by Henry, that “those who opposed Luther’s separation from the Church of Rome, urged much this seamless coat as an argument, and laid so much stress on it, that they were called Inconsutilist,-the seamless ones!”

As to the lying legend that this seamless coat was preserved and handed down to the Church as a precious relic, it is scarcely worth while to mention it, except as a melancholy illustration of the corruption of man, and the apostacy of the Church of Rome. The holy coat of Trves, and its exhibition, are a scandal and disgrace to Christianity. Suffice it to say, that any one who can seriously believe that our Lord’s seamless coat, after falling into the hands of a heathen Romish soldier, was finally treasured up as a relic, or that the cross itself was kept safe and escaped destruction, must be so credulous a person that argument is thrown away on him.

It is worth remembering, that when the first Adam fell by sin and was cast out of Eden, God mercifully clothed him and covered his nakedness. When the second Adam died as our substitute, and was counted “a curse” for us on the cross, He was stripped naked and His clothes sold.

The object for which John concludes the verse with the words, “These things therefore the soldiers did,” is not very apparent. Burgon suggests it may mean, “Such was the part which the soldiers played in this terrible tragedy. Uninfluenced by the Jews, without any direction from Pilate, these things the soldiers did.” This however seems hardly satisfactory, because this was not all that the soldiers did.-I prefer thinking that John means to say, that he was actually an eye-witness of the soldiers unconsciously fulfilling an ancient prophecy: “I myself saw, with mine own eyes, the four soldiers casting lots on my Lord’s coat; and I can testify that I saw the words of the Psalmist literally fulfilled.”

Lampe thinks that John makes this remark, in order to show how literally Scripture was fulfilled by men who were totally ignorant of Scripture. The Roman soldiers of course knew nothing of the Psalms, yet did the very things predicted in the Psalms.

v25.-[Now there stood by the cross, etc.] A wonderfully striking incident is recorded in this and the two following verses, which is not found in the other three Gospels. John tells us that at this awful moment, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women, two if not three, stood by the cross on which our Lord hung. “Love is strong as death;” and even amidst the crowd of taunting Jews and rough Roman soldiers, these holy women were determined to stand by our Lord to the last, and to show their unceasing affection to Him. When we remember that our Lord was a condemned criminal, peculiarly hated by the chief priests, and executed by Roman soldiers, the faithfulness and courage of these holy women can never be sufficiently admired. As long as the world stands they supply a glorious proof of what grace can do for the weak, and of the strength that love to Christ can supply. When all men but one forsook our Lord, more than one woman boldly confessed Him. Women, in short, were the last at the cross and the first at the tomb.

It is interesting to consider who and what they were, that stood by our Lord’s cross as He hung upon it. John, the beloved disciple, was there, we know; though with characteristic modesty he does not directly name it. But Joh 19:26 shows clearly that he was one of the party. He might well be the one that “Jesus loved.” No Apostle seems to have had such deep feeling towards our Lord as John.-Mary, the mother of our Lord (never called the Virgin Mary in Scripture) was there. We must suppose that she had come up from Galilee to the feast of the passover, in company with the other women who ministered to our Lord. She must now have been comparatively old, at least forty-eight years old. To represent her in pictures as a beautiful young woman at the time of the crucifixion is absurd. Who can doubt that when she saw her Son hanging on the cross, she must have realized the truth of old Simeon’s prophecy, “A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.” (Luk 2:35.) Very striking and instructive is it to observe how very rarely she is named in the Gospel history.-Mary, the wife of Cleophas, or Alpheus, was there. The Greek leaves it uncertain whether it means daughter or wife; but nearly all think it must be wife. She seems to have been the mother of James and Jude the Apostles, and to have been related in some way to Mary, either as sister or sister-in-law. Hence James is called the “Lord’s brother.” She too must have been nearly as old as Mary, if we may judge by her having two sons who were Apostles.-Mary of Magdala, in Galilee, commonly called Mary Magdalene, was also there. Of her we only know that Jesus had cast out of her seven devils, and that none of all the women who ministered to our Lord, seem to have felt such deep gratitude to our Saviour, and to have demonstrated such deep affection. The common doctrine that she had once been a notorious breaker of the seventh commandment has no foundation in Scripture. She probably was the youngest of all the party, and as such had to risk more, and sacrifice her own feelings more than any, in pressing through a crowd of enemies to the foot of the cross.

But were there only three women at the cross? This is a disputed question, and one which will probably never be settled, since the Greek wording of the verse before us leaves the point open either way.

(a) Most commentators think that the words, “His mother’s sister,” belong to “Mary the wife of Cleophas,” and are meant to define the relationship between that Mary and Mary the mother of our Lord.

(b) Others, as Pearce, Bengel, and Alford, think that “His mother’s sister” means a fourth woman, and that this woman was Salome the mother of James and John. The strongest argument in favour of this view is the distinct statement in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion, that many women beheld the sight, “among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children,”-that is, Salome. (Mat 27:56.) If she stood with Mary Magdalene looking on, why should we doubt that she stood with her at the cross? The suppression of her name is quite characteristic of John. She was his own mother, and he modestly keeps back her name, as he keeps back his own. In what way she was the “sister” to the mother of our Lord we do not know. But there is no reason against it, that I know of. According to this view, the women at the foot of the cross were four: viz., (1) Mary, the mother of Jesus. (2) The sister of our Lord’s mother: i.e., Salome, the mother of John, who wrote this Gospel. (3) Mary, the wife of Alpheus and mother of two Apostles. (4) Mary Magdalene.

The reader must decide for himself. The question happily is not one affecting our salvation. For myself I must frankly declare my belief that the second view is the right one, and that there were four women, and not three only, at the foot of the cross. The objection that the word “and” is omitted before “Mary the wife of Cleophas” is worthless. In almost every catalogue of the Apostles the same omission may be noticed. (See Act 1:13; Mat 10:2; Luk 6:14.)

Whether all Christian women should always come forward and put themselves in such public and prominent positions as these holy women took up, is a grave question, about which each Christian woman must judge for herself. Considerations of physical strength and nervous self-command must not be overlooked. The four women who stood by the cross neither fainted nor went into hysterics, but were self-controlled, and calm. Let every one be persuaded in their own minds. Some women can do what others cannot.

Why the fierce enemies of our Lord among the Jews, and the rough Roman soldiers, permitted these holy women to stand undisturbed by the cross, is a question we have no means of deciding. Possibly the Romans may have thought it only fair and reasonable to let a criminal’s relatives and friends stand by him, when he could do the State no more harm, and they could not rescue him from death. Possibly the centurion who superintended the execution, may have felt some pity for the little weeping company of weak women. Who can tell but his kindness was a cup of cold water which was repaid him a hundred-fold? He said before the day ended, “Truly this was the Son of God.” (Mat 27:54.) Possibly John’s acquaintance with the high priest, already mentioned, may have procured him and his companions some favour. All these, however, are only conjectures, and we cannot settle the point

The Greek word rendered “stood” is literally “had stood.” Does not this mean from the beginning of the crucifixion?

v26, v27.-[When Jesus therefore saw His mother, etc.] The incident recorded in these two verses is wonderfully touching and affecting. Even in this trying season of bodily and mental agony, our blessed Lord did not forget others.-He had not forgotten His brutal murderers; but had prayed for them: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”-He had not forgotten his fellow-sufferers by His side. When one of the crucified malefactors cried to him, “Lord, remember me,” He had at once answered him, and promised him a speedy entrance into Paradise.-And now He did not forget His mother. He saw her standing by the cross, and knew well her distress, and felt tenderly for her desolate condition, left alone in a wicked world, after having lost such a Son. He therefore commended her to the care of John, His most loving and tenderhearted and faithful disciple. He told John to look on her as his mother, and told His mother to look on John as her son. No better and wiser arrangement could have been made in every way. None would care so much for the mother of Jesus as the disciple whom Jesus loved, and who lay in His bosom at the last supper. No home could be so suitable to Mary, as the home of one who was, according to the view maintained above, son to her own sister Salome.

The lessons of the whole transaction are deeply instructive.

(a) We should mark the depth and width of our Lord’s sympathies and affections. The Saviour on whom we are bid to repose the weight of our sinful souls is one whose love passeth knowledge. Shallow, skin-deep feelings in others, we all know, continually chill and disappoint us on every side in this world. But there is one whose mighty heart-affection knows no bottom. That one is Christ.

(b) We should mark the high honour our Lord puts on the fifth commandment. Even in His last hour He magnifies it, and makes it honourable, by providing for His mother according to the flesh. The Christian who does not lay himself out to honour father and mother-both one and the other parent, is a very ignorant religionist.

(c) We should mark that when Jesus died Joseph was probably dead, and that Mary had no other children beside our Lord. It is absurd to suppose that our Lord would have commended Mary to John, if she had had a husband or son to support her. The theory of some few writers, that Mary had other children by Joseph after Jesus was born, is very untenable, and grossly improbable.

(d) We should mark what a strong condemnation the passage supplies to the whole system of Mary-worship, as held by the Roman Catholic Church. There is not here a trace of the doctrine that Mary is patroness of the saints, protectress of the Church, and one who can help others. On the contrary, we see her requiring protection herself, and commended to the care and protection of a disciple! Hengstenberg remarks, “Our Lord’s design was not to provide for John, but to provide for His mother.” Alford observes, “The Romanist idea that the Lord commended all His disciples, as represented by the beloved one, to the patronage of His mother, is simply absurd.”

(e) Finally, we should mark how Jesus honours those who honour and boldly confess Him. To John, who alone of all the eleven stood by the cross, He gives the high privilege of taking charge of His mother. As Henry pleasantly remarks, it is a sign of great confidence, and a mark of great honour, to be made a trustee and a guardian by a great person, for those he leaves behind at his death. To the women Jesus gives the honour of being specially named and recorded for their faithfulness and love, in a Gospel which is read all over the world in 200 languages.

The Greek words rendered “his own home,” mean literally, “his own things.” It is a thoroughly indefinite expression. We can only suppose it means, that in [the] future, from that day, wherever John abode the mother of our Lord abode also. His home, in a word, became her home. There is no evidence whatever that John had any home in Jerusalem. If he had any home at all, it must have been in Galilee, near the lake of Gennesaret.

Bengel, Besser, Ellicott, and Alford, from the phrase “hour,” suggest that John took Mary home immediately, so that she did not see our Lord die, and then returned to the cross. This, however, seems to me very improbable. The mother of our Lord would surely stay by the cross to the last, if any woman did. John would not leave the cross, in my opinion, for a minute. His narrative of the crucifixion reads like that of an eye-witness from first to last.

Hengstenberg takes the same view that I do.

The word “woman,” in the twenty-sixth verse, is noteworthy. It must not be pressed too far as implying the slightest disrespect or want of affection. The whole transaction here narrated overthrows such an idea. But I think it is remarkable that our Lord does not say, “Mother.” And I cannot help thinking that, even at this awful moment, He would remind her that she must never suffer herself or others to presume on the relationship between her and Him, or claim any supernatural honour on the ground of being His mother. Henceforth she must daily remember, that her first aim must be to live the life of faith as a believing woman, like all other Christian women. Her blessedness did not consist in being related to Christ according to the flesh, but in believing and keeping Christ’s Word. I firmly believe that, even on the cross, Jesus foresaw the future heresy of “Mary-worship.” Therefore He said “Woman,” and did not say “Mother.”

Besser remarks, “Some old writers, as Bonaventura, say that Christ perhaps avoided the sweet name of mother, that He might not lacerate Mary’s heart with such a tender word of farewell. Others see in Christ’s manner of speaking a reference to the seed of the woman who was to bruise the serpent’s head. The most obvious view is, that the Lord, through this name woman, would direct His mother into that love which knows Christ no more after the flesh (2Co 5:16), and would also declare to us that in the midst of His work of atonement He felt Himself equally bound close to all sinners, and that He was not nearer to His mother than He was to thee and me.”

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Joh 19:17. And bearing the cross for himself he went forth unto the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. It is a trace of the accuracy of John both in observing and relating facts, that he is the only Evangelist who mentions the circumstance. Nor is there any contradiction betwixt this statement and that of the three earlier Gospels which tells us that they compelled Simon of Cyrene to bear the cross after Jesus. Jesus had borne it at first, but had afterwards been compelled through fatigue to resign it. On went forth comp. on chap. Joh 18:1. The place was called Golgotha, the place of a skull, probably as being a small round hillock. The most interesting point to be noticed is the manner in which John dwells upon the meaning of the name. The place of a skull is the emblem to him of the sad transaction about to be completed there. The Evangelist adds,

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. That it was a custom among the Romans to cause the person condemned to crucifying, to carry his own cross; accordingly our Saviour bare his own cross part of the way, till fainting under the burden of it they laid it upon another, not out of mercy, but malice, reserving him for a more public death; they were loath he should go away in a fainting fit. But why could not Christ bear his own cross, who was able to bear the sins of the whole world, when hanging upon the cross?

Answer, 1. Probably the Jews’ malice provided him a cross of an extraordinary greatness, proportionable to the crimes they charged him with.

2. He was much debilitated and weakened with his long watching and sweating the night before.

3. The sharp edges of the cross grating his late whipped and galled shoulders, might occasion the fresh bleeding of his wounds, and his weakening thereby.

4. Hereby he gave the world a demonstration of the truth of his humanity, that he was in all things like unto us, with respect to his human nature and the common infirmities of that nature.

Herein, like Isaac, Christ cheerfully carried the wood on which he was to be offered up a sacrifice to divine justice.

Observe, 2. The infamous company which our holy Lord suffered with, two thieves; on either side one, and himself in the midst: it had been a sufficient disparagement to our blessed Redeemer, to be sorted with the best of men; but to be numbered with the scum of mankind, is such an indignity as confounds our thoughts. This was designed by the Jews to dishonour and disgrace our Saviour the more, and to persuade the world that he was the greatest of offenders. But God overruled this, for fulfilling an ancient prophecy concerning the Messias, And he was numbered with the transgressors. Isa 53:12

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

CXXXIII.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

Subdivision A.

ON THE WAY TO THE CROSS.

(Within and without Jerusalem. Friday morning.)

aMATT. XXVII. 31-34; bMARK XV. 20-23; cLUKE XXIII. 26-33; dJOHN XIX. 17.

a31 And when they had mocked him, they took off from him the bpurple, arobe, and put on him his garments [This ended the mockery, which seems to have been begun in a state of levity, but which ended in gross indecency and violence. When we think of him who endured it all, we can not contemplate the scene without a shudder. Who can measure the grace of God or the depravity of man?], d17 They took Jesus therefore: bAnd they lead him out to crucify him. aand led [722] him away to crucify him. dand he went out, bearing the cross for himself, a32 And as they came out, cwhen they led him away, athey found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: bone passing by, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, ahim they claid hold upon {bcompel acompelled} to go with them, that he might bear his cross. cand laid on him the cross, to bear it after Jesus. [Cyrene was a flourishing city in the north of Africa, having in it a large Jewish population, and Simon shows by his name that he was a Jew. The Cyreneans had one or more synagogues in Jerusalem ( Act 2:10, Act 6:9, Act 11:20). There were many Cyreneans afterwards engaged in spreading the gospel ( Act 13:1), and since the sons of this man are spoken of as well known to Mark’s readers it is altogether likely that Simon was one of them. This Rufus may be the one mentioned by Paul ( Rom 16:13). The Roman soldiers found Simon entering the city, and because he was a stranger and they needed a man just then, they impressed him after the manner mentioned on Luk 19:43, Mat 24:15), Jesus refers to the sorrows which the Romans were to bring upon the Jews, and the meaning may be, If the fiery persecution of Rome is so consuming that my innocence, though again and again pronounced by the governor himself, is no protection against it, what will that fire do when it envelopes the dry, guilty, rebellious city of Jerusalem? Or we may make the present and the future grief of the women the point of comparison, and interpret thus: If they cause such sorrow to the women while the city is like a green tree, how much more when, like a dry, dead tree, it is about to fall.] 32 And there were also two others, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. b22 And they bring him unto the place dwhich is called in Hebrew, Golgotha: bwhich is, being interpreted, {athat is to say,} The place of a skull [Where this place was, or why it was so called, are matters of conjecture. All that we know certainly is that it was outside of, yet near, the city– Heb 13:12, Joh 19:20], c33 And when they came unto the place which is called The skull, a34 they gave {boffered} him wine ato drink mingled with gall: {bmyrrh:} but {aand} when he had tasted it, he would not drink. bhe received it not. [This mixture of sour wine mingled with gall and myrrh was intended to dull the sense of pain of those being crucified or otherwise severely punished. The custom is said to have originated with the Jews and not with the Romans. Jesus declined it because it was the Father’s will that he should suffer. He would not go upon the cross in a drugged, semi-conscious condition.] [724]

[FFG 722-724]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Joh 19:17-30. The Crucifixion.The statement that Jesus bears His own cross corrects, or at least supplements, the Synoptic story of Simon of Cyrene. It may have been added to show that the Johannine Christ needs no help, or to deprive the Gnostics of support for their theory that it was Simon who really suffered on the Cross. In itself it is in accordance with Roman custom (cf. Plutarch, Every malefactor carries his own cross). The incident of the title is certainly effective as depicting the obstinacy of a weak man who has given way on the main point, but it is difficult to see how it promotes the dogmatic aims of the author. Joh 19:23 f. suggests a very natural way of dealing with the clothes of the condemned malefactors, even if it suits the exact wording of the quotation from Psa 22:18*. It is very natural to identify his mothers sister with the mother of Zebedees children (Mt.) and Marks Salome. It makes the following commendation of His mother to her sisters son a fitting arrangement, especially as the Lords brethren, even if they were Marys sons, did not believe on Him. It should, however, be remembered that the identification of the Beloved Disciple with the son of Zebedee, though probably intended, is never actually made in this gospel. The statement that Joh 19:26 f. is inconsistent with Act 1:14, where Mary is represented as being in Jerusalem with her sons, is, to say the least, exaggerated. What we read there is that the apostles continued steadfastly in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. The incident can be allegorically interpreted, as intended to exhort the Gentile Church to treat Jewish Christianity with all consideration. But the desire to teach this is not an adequate explanation of the origin of a story without foundation in fact. In the saying, I thirst, the author sees the fulfilment of Psa 22:15, or an incident which led to the fulfilment of Psa 69:21. But it is far more reasonable to suppose that the fact led to the discovery of the prophecy rather than that the prophecy caused the invention of the fact. The saying, It is finished, means, It is brought to a successful issue (cf. Luk 12:50). It is a cry of confidence, if not of victory, and accords with the authors presentation of the Passion.

[Joh 19:29. hyssop: we should probably read javelin, as proposed by Camerarius, and accepted by such scholars as Beza, Cobet, and Field. It is read by Bentley, but whether independently or not does not appear from his note (Bentleii Critica Sacra, p. 21). It is read by Baljon and Blass in their texts, and by Moffatt in his translation. Hyssop is quite unsuitable for the purpose. The emendation (huss for hussp) simply involves the recognition that the letters p have been mistakenly written twice. The fullest discussion may be seen in Fields Notes on the Translation of the NT, pp. 106108. He regards this as perhaps the very best of the few tenable conjectural emendations of the text of the NT.A. S. P.]

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

D. Jesus’ crucifixion 19:17-30

The unique material in John’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion includes the controversy about the superscription over Jesus’ cross (Joh 19:19-22) and several references to the fulfillment of prophecy (Joh 19:24; Joh 19:28-29; cf. Joh 19:36-37). John was also the only Gospel writer to record Jesus’ care for His mother (Joh 19:25-27), His sixth cry before His death (Joh 19:30), and the piercing of His side (Joh 19:34).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. Jesus’ journey to Golgotha 19:17 (cf. Matthew 27:31-34; Mark 15:20-23; Luke 23:26-33a)

John omitted the detail that Simon carried Jesus’ cross (Mat 27:32; Mar 15:21; Luk 23:26), which might have detracted from John’s presentation of Jesus as the divine Savior. He also made no reference to Jesus’ sufferings on the way to Calvary that Luke, who had a special interest in Jesus’ humanity, stressed (Luk 23:27-32).

The soldiers led Jesus from Pilate’s judgment seat to Golgotha. Normally an execution squad consisted of four legionnaires plus a centurion (cf. 27:23). [Note: Tenney, "John," p. 180.] John did not comment on Jesus’ painful journey to the cross, probably because He wanted to stress His deity. He did mention the fact that Jesus bore His own cross, however, probably for the same reason (cf. Gen 22:6; Heb 13:11-13).

Criminals condemned to crucifixion, such as Jesus, normally carried all or only the crosspiece (Lat. patibulum) of their cross. [Note: Morris, p. 711.] This was common procedure in crucifixions, as John’s original readers undoubtedly knew. Jesus evidently carried the crosspiece.

All the Gospel writers identified the place of Jesus’ crucifixion as "the place of the skull." All but Luke gave its Aramaic title, namely, golgolta ("skull") the transliteration of which is Golgotha. "Calvary" is the transliteration of the Latin calvaria meaning "place of a skull." Why the place bore this name remains a mystery, though it may have been a common place for executions. Most modern scholars believe that the site was the traditional one over which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now stands. There is little support for the fairly recent suggestion that Gordon’s Calvary was the correct location. The idea that Golgotha was on a hill came more from hymns than from Scripture.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

XX. MARY AT THE CROSS.

“They took Jesus therefore: and He went out, bearing the cross for Himself, unto the place called The place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified Him, and with Him two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. And there was written, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title therefore read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and in Latin, and in Greek. The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but, that He said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also the coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be; that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted My garments among them, And upon My vesture did they cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. But there were standing by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith He to the disciple, Behold, thy mother! And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own home.”– Joh 19:17-27.

If we ask on what charge our Lord was condemned to die, the answer must be complex, not simple. Pilate indeed, in accordance with the usual custom, painted on a board the name and crime of the Prisoner, that all who could understand any of the three current languages might know who this was and why He was crucified. But in the case of Jesus the inscription was merely a ghastly jest on Pilate’s part. It was the coarse retaliation of a proud man who found himself helpless in the hands of people he despised and hated. There was some relish to him in the crucifixion of Jesus when by his inscription he had turned it into an insult to the nation. A gleam of savage satisfaction for a moment lit up his gloomy face when he found that his taunt had told, and the chief priests came begging him to change what he had written.

Pilate from the first look he got of his Prisoner understood that he had before him quite another kind of person than the ordinary zealot, or spurious Messiah, or turbulent Galilean. Pilate knew enough of the Jews to feel sure that if Jesus had been plotting rebellion against Rome He would not have been informed against by the chief priests. Possibly he knew enough of what had been going on in his province to understand that it was precisely because Jesus would not allow Himself to be made a king in opposition to Rome that the Jews detested and accused Him. Possibly he saw enough of the relations of Jesus to the authorities to despise the abandoned malignity and baseness which could bring an innocent man to his bar and charge Him with what in their eyes was no crime at all and make the charge precisely because He was innocent of it.

Nominally, but only nominally, Jesus was crucified for sedition. If we pass, in search of the real charge, from Pilate’s judgment-seat to the Sanhedrim, we get nearer to the truth. The charge on which He was in this court condemned was the charge of blasphemy. He was indeed examined as to His claims to be the Messiah, but it does not appear that they had any law on which He could have been condemned for such claims. They did not expect that the Messiah would be Divine in the proper sense. Had they done so, then any one falsely claiming to be the Messiah would thereby have falsely claimed to be Divine, and would therefore have been guilty of blasphemy. But it was not for claiming to be the Christ that Jesus was condemned; it was when He declared Himself to be the Son of God that the high priest rent His garments and declared Him guilty of blasphemy.

Now, of course it was very possible that many members of the Sanhedrim should sincerely believe that blasphemy had been uttered. The unity of God was the distinctive creed of the Jew, that which had made his nation, and for any human lips to claim equality with the one infinite God was not to be thought of. It must have fallen upon their ears like a thunder-clap; they must have fallen back on their seats or started from them in horror when so awful a claim was made by the human figure standing bound before them. There were men among them who would have advocated His claim to be the Messiah, who believed Him to be a man sent from God; but not a voice could be raised in His defence when the claim to be Son of God in a Divine sense passed His lips. His best friends must have doubted and been disappointed, must have supposed He was confused by the events of the night, and could only await the issue in sorrow and wonder.

Was the Sanhedrim, then, to blame for condemning Jesus? They sincerely believed Him to be a blasphemer, and their law attached to the crime of blasphemy the punishment of death. It was in ignorance they did it; and knowing only what they knew, they could not have acted otherwise. Yes, that is true. But they were responsible for their ignorance. Jesus had given abundant opportunity to the nation to understand Him and to consider His claims. He did not burst upon the public with an uncertified demand to be accepted as Divine. He lived among those who were instructed in such matters; and though in some respects He was very different from the Messiah they had looked for, a little openness of mind and a little careful inquiry would have convinced them He was sent from God. And had they acknowledged this, had they allowed themselves to obey their instincts and say, This is a true man, a man who has a message for us–had they not sophisticated their minds with quibbling literalities, they would have owned His superiority and been willing to learn from Him. And had they shown any disposition to learn, Jesus was too wise a teacher to hurry them and overleap needed steps in conviction and experience. He would have been slow to extort from any a confession of His divinity until they had reached the belief of it by the working of their own minds. Enough for Him that they were willing to see the truth about Him and to declare it as they saw it. The great charge He brought against His accusers was that they did violence to their own convictions. The uneasy suspicions they had about His dignity they suppressed; the attraction they at times felt to His goodness they resisted; the duty to inquire patiently into His claims they refused. And thus their darkness deepened, until in their culpable ignorance they committed the greatest of crimes.

From all this, then, two things are apparent. First, that Jesus was condemned on the charge of blasphemy–condemned because He made Himself equal with God. His own words, pronounced upon oath, administered in the most solemn manner, were understood by the Sanhedrim to be an explicit claim to be the Son of God in a sense in which no man could without blasphemy claim to be so. He made no explanation of His words when He saw how they were understood. And yet, were He not truly Divine, there was no one who could have been more shocked than Himself by such a claim. He understood, if any man did, the majesty of God; He knew better than any other the difference between the Holy One and His sinful creatures; His whole life was devoted to the purpose of revealing to men the unseen God. What could have seemed to Him more monstrous, what could more effectually have stultified the work and aim of His life, than that He, being a man, should allow Himself to be taken for God? When Pilate told Him that He was charged with claiming to be a king, He explained to Pilate in what sense He did so, and removed from Pilate’s mind the erroneous supposition this claim had given birth to. Had the Sanhedrim cherished an erroneous idea of what was involved in His claim to be the Son of God, He must also have explained to them in what sense He made it, and have removed from their minds the impression that He was claiming to be properly Divine. He did not make any explanation; He allowed them to suppose He claimed to be the Son of God in a sense which would be blasphemous in a mere man. So that if any one gathers from this that Jesus was Divine in a sense in which it were blasphemy for any other man to claim to be, he gathers a legitimate, even a necessary, inference.

Another reflection which is forced upon the reader of this narrative is, that disaster waits upon stifled inquiry. The Jews honestly convicted Christ as a blasphemer because they had dishonestly denied Him to be a good man. The little spark which would have grown into a blazing light they put their heel upon. Had they at the first candidly considered Him as He went about doing good and making no claims, they would have become attached to Him as His disciples did, and, like them, would have been led on to a fuller knowledge of the meaning of His person and work. It is these beginnings of conviction we are so apt to abuse. It seems so much smaller a crime to kill an infant that has but once drawn breath than to kill a man of lusty life and busy in his prime; but the one, if fairly dealt with, will grow to be the other. And while we think very little of stifling the scarcely breathed whisperings in our own heart and mind, we should consider that it is only such whisperings that can bring us to the loudly proclaimed truth. If we do not follow up suggestions, if we do not push inquiry to discovery, if we do not value the smallest grain of truth as a seed of unknown worth and count it wicked to kill even the smallest truth in our souls, we can scarcely hope at any time to stand in the full light of reality and rejoice in it. To accept Christ as Divine may be at present beyond us; to acknowledge Him as such would simply be to perjure ourselves; but can we not acknowledge Him to be a true man, a good man, a teacher certainly sent from God? If we do know Him to be all that and more, then have we thought this out to its results? Knowing Him to be a unique figure among men, have we perceived what this involves? Admitting Him to be the best of men, do we love Him, imitate Him, ponder His words, long for His company? Let us not treat Him as if He were non-existent because He is not as yet to us all that He is to some. Let us beware of dismissing all conviction about Him because there are some convictions spoken of by other people which we do not feel. It is better to deny Christ than to deny our own convictions; for to do so is to extinguish the only light we have, and to expose ourselves to all disaster. The man who has put out his own eyes cannot plead blindness in extenuation of his not seeing the lights and running the richly laden ship on the rocks.

Guided by the perfect taste which reverence gives, John says very little about the actual crucifixion. He shows us indeed the soldiers sitting down beside the little heap of clothes they had stripped off our Lord, parcelling them out, perhaps already assuming them as their own wear. For the clothes by which our Lord had been known these soldiers would now carry into unknown haunts of drunkenness and sin, emblems of our ruthless, thoughtless desecration of our Lord’s name with which we outwardly clothe ourselves and yet carry into scenes the most uncongenial. John, writing long after the event, seems to have no heart to record the poor taunts with which the crowd sought to increase the suffering of the Crucified, and force home upon His spirit a sense of the desolation and ignominy of the cross. Gradually the crowd wearies and scatters, and only here and there a little whispering group remains. The day waxes to its greatest heat; the soldiers lie or stand silent; the centurion sits motionless on his motionless, statue-like horse; the stillness of death falls upon the scene, only broken at intervals by a groan from one or other of the crosses. Suddenly through this silence there sound the words, “Woman, behold thy son: son, behold thy mother.”–words which remind us that all this dreadful scene which makes the heart of the stranger bleed has been witnessed by the mother of the Crucified. As the crowd had broken up from around the crosses, the little group of women whom John had brought to the spot edged their way nearer and nearer till they were quite close to Him they loved, though their lips apparently were sealed by their helplessness to minister consolation.

These hours of suffering, as the sword was slowly driven through Mary’s soul, according to Simeon’s word, who shall measure? Hers was not a hysterical, noisy sorrow, but quiet and silent. There was nothing wild, nothing extravagant, in it. There was no sign of feminine weakness, no outcry, no fainting, no wild gesture of uncontrollable anguish, nothing to show that she was the exceptional mourner and that there was no sorrow like unto her sorrow. Her reverence for the Lord saved her from disturbing His last moments. She stood and saw the end. She saw His head lifted in anguish and falling on His breast in weakness, and she could not gently take it in her hands and wipe the sweat of death from His brow. She saw His pierced hands and feet become numbed and livid, and might not chafe them. She saw Him gasp with pain as cramp seized part after part of His outstretched body, and she could not change His posture nor give liberty to so much as one of His hands. And she had to suffer this in profound desolation of spirit. Her life seemed to be buried at the cross. To the mourning there often seems nothing left but to die with the dying. One heart has been the light of life, and now that light is quenched. What significance, what motive, can life have any more?[28] We valued no past where that heart was not; we had no future which was not concentrated upon it or in which it had no part. But the absorption of common love must have been far surpassed in Mary’s case. None had been blessed with such a love as hers. And now none estimated as she did the spotless innocence of the Victim; none could know as she knew the depth of His goodness, the unfathomable and unconquerable love He had for all; and none could estimate as she the ingratitude of those whom He had healed and fed and taught and comforted with such unselfish devotedness. She knew that there was none like Him, and that if any could have brought blessing to this earth it was He, and there she saw Him nailed to the cross, the end actually reached. We know not if in that hour she thought of the trial of Abraham; we know not whether she allowed herself to think at all, whether she did not merely suffer as a mother losing her son; but certainly it must have been with intensest eagerness she heard herself once more addressed by Him.

Mary was commended to John as the closest friend of Jesus. These two would be in fullest sympathy, both being devoted to Him. It was perhaps an indication to those who were present, and through them to all, that nothing is so true a bond between human hearts as sympathy with Christ. We may admire nature, and yet have many points of antipathy to those who also admire nature. We may like the sea, and yet feel no drawing to some persons who also like the sea. We may be fond of mathematics, and yet find that this brings us into a very partial and limited sympathy with mathematicians. Nay, we may even admire and love the same person as others do, and yet disagree about other matters. But if Christ is chosen and loved as He ought to be, that love is a determining affection which rules all else within us, and brings us into abiding sympathy with all who are similarly governed and moulded by that love. That love indicates a certain past experience and guarantees a special type of character. It is the characteristic of the subjects of the kingdom of God.

This care for His mother in His last moments is of a piece with all the conduct of Jesus. Throughout His life there is an entire absence of anything pompous or excited. Everything is simple. The greatest acts in human history He does on the highway, in the cottage, among a group of beggars in an entry. The words which have thrilled the hearts and mended the lives of myriads were spoken casually as He walked with a few friends. Rarely did He even gather a crowd. There was no advertising, no admission by ticket, no elaborate arrangements for a set speech at a set hour. Those who know human nature will know what to think of this unstudied ease and simplicity, and will appreciate it. The same characteristic appears here. He speaks as if He were not an object of contemplation; there is an entire absence of self-consciousness, of ostentatious suggestion that He is now making atonement for the sins of the world. He speaks to His mother and cares for her as He might have done had they been in the home at Nazareth together. One despairs of ever learning such a lesson, or indeed of seeing others learn it. How like an ant-hill is the world of men! What a fever and excitement! what a fuss and fret! what an ado! what a sending of messengers, and calling of meetings, and raising of troops, and magnifying of little things! what an absence of calmness and simplicity! But this at least we may learn–that no duties, however important, can excuse us for not caring for our relatives. They are deceived people who spend all their charity and sweetness out of doors, who have a reputation for godliness, and are to be seen in the forefront of this or that Christian work, but who are sullen or imperious or quick-tempered or indifferent at home. If while saving a world Jesus had leisure to care for His mother, there are no duties so important as to prevent a man from being considerate and dutiful at home.

Those who witnessed the hurried events of the morning when Christ was crucified might be pardoned if their minds were filled with what their eyes saw, and if little but the outward objects were discernible to them. We are in different circumstances, and may be expected to look more deeply into what was happening. To see only the mean scheming and wicked passions of men, to see nothing but the pathetic suffering of an innocent and misjudged person, to take our interpretation of these rapid and disorderly events from the casual spectators without striving to discover God’s meaning in them, would indeed be a flagrant instance of what has been called “reading God in a prose translation,” rendering His clearest and most touching utterance to this world in the language of callous Jews or barbarous Roman soldiers. Let us open our ear to God’s own meaning in these events, and we hear Him uttering to us all His Divine love, and in the most forcible and touching tones. These are the events in which His deepest purposes and tenderest love find utterance. How He is striving to win His way to us to convince us of the reality of sin and of salvation! To be mere spectators of these things is to convict ourselves of being superficial or strangely callous. Scarcely any criminal is executed but we all have our opinion on the justice or injustice of his condemnation. We may well be expected to form our judgment in this case, and to take action upon it. If Jesus was unjustly condemned, then we as well as His contemporaries have to do with His claims. If these claims were true, we have something more to do than merely to say so.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] See Faber’s Bethlehem.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary