Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 19:41

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.

41. there was a garden ] Contrast Joh 18:1. S. John alone tells of the garden, which probably belonged to Joseph, for S. Matthew tells us that the sepulchre was his.

a new sepulcher ] S. Matthew also states that it was new, and S. Luke that no one had ever yet been laid in it. S. John states this fact in both ways with great emphasis. Not even in its contact with the grave did ‘His flesh see corruption.’

S. John omits what all the others note, that the sepulchre was hewn in the rock.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Joh 19:41-42

Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden

The sepulchre in the garden

I. THE PLACE WHERE HE WAS CRUCIFIED. He has conferred honour upon every place where He has been. The place where He was born. There belonged no distinction to Bethlehem Ephratah before, she was little among the thousands of Judah; too little to be represented in the Sanhedrim. But the fact that He was born there has conferred upon Bethlehem undying fame.

1. It was in this place that was manifested the greatest love towards God, on one side, and the greatest love towards men, the enemies of God, on the other side. We do not say that it was here that He loved God and men most; but it was here that He manifested His love most. His love towards the Father was always like the sun, but it was here that it reached the meridian. His love towards mankind was like the sea, but it was here that it attained its spring-tide. The wave will never lift itself higher than it did at Calvary.

2. It was in this place that Jesus suffered most from those to whom He manifested His love most.

3. It was in this place that the holiness of Christ shone brightest of all places, and yet it was in this place that He was treated most like a sinner. I do not say that it was here that He was most holy. The Holy and Righteous was He in all places. That holy thing He was when coming into the world. But it was here that His holiness shone brightest.

4. It was in this place, of all others, that He was most completely given over to the hands of His enemies, and yet it was in this place that He realized the completest victory over them. There was some intervening shelter throughout the journey that prevented His enemies attacking Him.

5. It was in this place that He was treated as the most unworthy–and yet it was here that He won the highest title to worthiness that He possesses.

II. IN THE PLACE WHERE HE WAS CRUCIFIED THERE WAS A GARDEN. We invite you to visit the garden with us.

1. It belonged to an honourable councillor. Jerusalem was surrounded by gardens as well as by hills. The night before, we have Jesus in a garden in another direction from this.

2. It was a garden in sight of Calvary. The last thing that was impressed on the retina of His eyes was a garden. He saw many sad sights while He was here, but He closes His eyes upon our earth in view of a garden. Almost would we say, Blessed art thou, O garden amongst gardens; thou hast been privileged to shed thy fragrance so as to counteract the offensive odours of the place of skulls, and to fan with thy sweet perfumes the Saviour of the world in the agonies of His death. Was it not something like a picture of what He would ultimately make the moral world to be? Since I have come to this place a garden there must be now; I will convert the world into a garden. The thorns and briars must yield to the fir and the myrtle

3. A garden with a grave in it! We scarcely expect to find a grave in a garden. But a grave is appropriate in every place in our world. There are some of you who are permitted to pursue their life journey amidst roses; I count no path too smooth for you; tread upon flowers, let perfumes be diffused with every step you take; but will you be pleased to remember one thing? There is a grave at the end of the walk. But when we consider it, a garden and a grave seem, after all, to be quite in harmony with each other. What is the garden in the time of winter but a burial-place. Where is there more life buried than there is in the garden? But yet she does not refuse to be comforted, because they are not. That great Sun will come like an archangel, with his trumpet, and with a loud call will say, Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, and then there will be a resurrection in power and in glory. In consequence of the garden and the grave in the text, every grave has been in a garden ever since. Before that, it was in some waste howling wilderness that the grave was, with no verdure around it, nor anything betokening life near to it. The burial of the dead is henceforward a sowing. The cemetery is a garden, and beyond the grave there awaits for us the everlasting spring. The Great Sun of Righteousness will come to shed His beams above the burial-places of the earth so that they shall be turned into gardens.

III. THE NEW GRAVE IN THE GARDEN. It is worth our while to look at this grave. There was never one like it. There have been angels in this grave. Yes, here, the life lay sleeping on the knees of Death.

1. There was great regard paid to this grave: the eye of the Eternal Purpose was upon it. The honourable owner intended it for himself. Neither he nor the workmen who prepared it had any intention but to have it ready as speedily as it was possible. But every detail was under the control of the

Eternal Purpose, It was necessary to have it ready against the Passover. The substance of the Passover was to spend the Passover in it.

2. It was a borrowed grave that Jesus had. This is the only One who was in our world who had no grave. Sin has conferred on us a charter to a grave. In going to the grave He can only say, With a great sum obtained I this freedom; while the sinner can say, But I was free born. We sinners are free among the dead. Through our sin we have received the freedom of the city in the Necropolis.

3. He gave the grave back, and paid for the use of it. It was Jesus habit to return everything that He had borrowed better than He had found it. I believe that the upper room which He borrowed to eat the Passover in with His disciples was a better room after that supper, and that the boat which He borrowed for a pulpit was a better boat after that service. And, indeed, He gave back his grave to Joseph a better grave, though second-hand, than when it was new.

4. Oh, wonderful grave! It was in this grave that the bottom of the grave was knocked out. This grave became a womb to give birth to the Heir of the resurrection of the dead. It is off this grave that we gather the flowers with which to adorn our mourning garment after our dead. This is a grave which reconciles us to our own graves.

(1) There is another grave in sight of Calvary–a grave in which to bury sin. Neither Justice nor Law would have consented to its being buried anywhere else. Oh that we had this burial now!

(2) That grave is in the place. I know not what distance there is from here to the graves in which these bodies of ours shall rest; perhaps there is a much shorter distance than many think. But however near these graves are, the grave for burying sin is nearer; it is in the place. May our sins be buried so as never to be seen any more! (David Roberts.)

The garden by the cross

I. THE DARKEST ACT IN THE TRAGEDY OF LIFE.

1. The Crucifixion does not stand alone. It is but the culmination of all that good has suffered at the hands of evil. Christ was the Man of Sorrows, but He was also the Head of the great brotherhood of sorrow. There has never been an age in which the men whom God sent into the world to serve and save it, have not been pierced with its shafts and crowned with thorns.

2. It is a dark tragedy which is played out here, and the bud of it is inevitably a death. Sin has entered into the world and death by sin. There could be in such a world as this no other fate for the Son of Man but a crucifixion.

3. But there is something deeper than mere human suffering in our Lords passion. It was emphatically the hour of the prince of darkness–his last. His victory broke his power for ever.

4. The nature of sin was never fully known till then when it slew the Lord. Then the Father gave full expression of His mind about transgression, and gave to all intelligent beings the measure to His abhorrence of it.

II. BUT IN THE PLACE WHERE HE WAS CRUCIFIED THERE WAS A GARDEN. It is a startling contrast.

1. Very dear to Him during His lonely life-course were the flowers that bloomed round His feet. None of the beauty of the world He had made was hidden from Him as He passed along its pathways.

2. It is a question of deep and curious interest how far the modern intense delight in the beauty of nature was shared by the ancients, and how far it is the gift of the advent of the Lord of nature to His world. I believe that that advent has placed the whole sphere of nature in a new and closer relation to man. Here and there are exquisite passages in the classics, which reveal a delicate and cultured observation. And yet it is hardly for its own sake that nature is delighted in. The Hindoos probably come nearest to the moderns, but always there is a strong tinge of melancholy dashing the delight of the heathen heart. The Christian observation of nature is set in a new and higher key. Through Christ, Christian peoples have a delight in their world, which before Christ was hardly known to the elect spirits of our race. The Jews had much of the Christian enjoyment of natural beauty, and for the same reason: they knew the mind and heart of their King. Davids psalms complete the chord struck in Deu 8:7-9;

11:12.

3. Men will come to see one day that it is the Fathers counsel which they are searching out when they fathom the depths of creation; it is the benignity of a Fathers smile that they are taking in when they bask in the sunlight, when they watch the shadows play in the upper air upon the snow peaks, or catch at even the last rosy kiss of the daylight, as it falls down the mountain slopes on a weary world. It was right that the flowers should bloom their bravest around Calvary.

4. But still the contrast stands out sharply, and we will gather some of its suggestions.

(1) Consider the impassive serenity of nature through all the struggle and anguish of life. There are times when this serenity becomes dreadful. It seems terrible that flowers should bloom when the Lord who made and rules the universe was dying the death of a slave; yet the flowers never lifted their heads more gaily in the sun than on that day. And it is ever thus. A mother who has watched night long the death struggles of her darling who in the morning has gone home, looks bitter reproach at the sun rising so calmly on her agony. The east flushes into rosy splendour, the birds carol their gayest strains, the air is musical with the hum of life, while her heart is breaking, and the night has settled over her inner world. We may blow thousands of earths best and bravest into fragments in the storm of battle; Nature buries them calmly, and next year she reaps her richest harvests from their graves.

(2) Let us thank God that it is so. The garden blooms on, the cross has vanished, while the tradition of it has become the most sacred and blessed possession of mankind. Pain and storm, strife and anguish, birth and death are for time: order, beauty, life are for eternity. The sun shines gaily on the morrow of our anguish, and we writhe under it; but the sun shines on, and we come to delight in it and to bless the constancy which brings it forth morning by morning to prophesy to us of the world where sunlight is eternal. And nature is right. She will not bewail our calamities as though they were irreparable. There is infinite solace in Christ for the most burdened sufferers. Our light affliction, &c. Why should nature weep and moan, and stay her benign and beautiful process when she knows that the stroke which we think is crushing us is a benediction.

(3) Consider of how much that garden around the cross was symbolic in relation to man and to the Lord. He was delivered into the hands of men. Alas! that this should mean to wounds and death. The first crime was one with the last–fratricide. His brethren they were who were raging around Him; but around and above, all was calm, nay, triumphant. The harps of heaven were swept to a more exulting strain. The great ones of the past put on their glorious forms, and pressed through the veil to meet Him. The very dead beneath the cross stirred as His footsteps pressed them, and bursting from their tombs prepared to join the train which He would lead up on high. There was joy, an awful joy, throughout the universe when that Cross was uplifted–I, if I be lifted up, &c. Should the flowers then droop? No. In the place there was a garden; and it spread forth all its brightness as the Lord made it His pathway to His throne. And it blooms still, and will bloom on till the death day of creation and paradise is restored. (J. Baldwin Brown, B. A.)

And in the garden a new sepulchre

The sepulchre in the garden

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Every event of our life, however minute and trivial, contains a purpose of Gods. Then we may surely assume that every fact in the life of the Perfect Man has its significance. The circumstances of our birth exert an immense influence over us: they are ordered of God; they were yet more manifestly ordered for His beloved Son. All the circumstances of our death, which is our second birth, have their influence on us, and speak eloquently to those who come after us; and these are ordered for us, and yet more manifestly for the Son. Think you it was a matter of indifference where Christs body was laid? We have a right then to look here for Divine thoughts, and there is one in particular. The first Adam fell from the garden into the wilderness; the Second Adam rose from the wilderness to the garden. Christ began where Adam ended, and ended where Adam began. Adam armed death with his sting; Christ has taken away the sting of death. Adam hewed the sepulchre, Christ consecrated it. Note

I. EVERYWHERE DEATH LURKS BENEATH THE BEAUTIFUL. In other words, every garden has its sepulchre.

1. The garden is the most express type of beauty. Children love flowers, as do all who retain the childlike heart. Flowers are the traditions of Paradise, and speak to us of a more perfect world and a higher blessedness. Mans career commenced and is to close in a garden. It is natural, then, for man to love the garden.

2. But in every garden there is a sepulchre. The brightest flower soonest fades.

(1) The whole world seems a huge tomb adorned outwardly with manifold forms of beauty. The rocks die slowly, crumbling through the ages to give life to herb and tree. Tree and herb feed animals, and animals man, and man is the prey of corruption.

(2) Death, moreover, has a refined taste. Loveliness has a fatal attraction. What is more lovely than light? And yet when it is fairest and fullest, it slays men with a stroke. What is more glorious in beauty than the sea? Yet its bed is lined with bleached bones. The beautiful birds are infested with murderous parasites. And have we not known one in every circle whose very loveliness of body and mind, like the gorgeous colouring of the fallen leaf, was the symbol of swift decay?

II. EVERY-THING, EVEN DEATH ITSELF, HAS BEEN MADE BEAUTIFUL BY CHRIST. Every sepulchre is in a garden–not in an untended desert. The grave still stands; but it stands in the open sunlight, and is adorned with flowers. The sting, the ugliness, the terror of death is sin; and this Christ has taken away. Christ has invested it with beauty in that He has taught us that it means

1. Sacrifice. The dying of the Lord Jesus has brought to light the vacarious element of death. The power and beauty of His death sprang from the fact that it was His submission to His Fathers will. So, in a lesser degree, with death everywhere. We see mountains tending to decay, herbs and grasses consumed by beasts, &c., and till we know the meaning of Christs death, the sight brings grief and fear. But looking from the cross we can trace this vicarious law through every province of creation and see beauty. The rocks decay, but it is that herbs may live; herbs are consumed–a sacrifice to the higher life of sheep and oxen. These also die that manmay live. Earthly homes are broken up that the mansions of the Fathers houses may be occupied. Civilization has its myriad victims that subsequentages may rise to purer life. The kingdoms of the world decay that the kingdom of Christ may come. All things tend to a better time. No suffering is superfluous. Eternal wisdom marshals the progress; infinite love appoints to each its place.

2. Glorification. Christ died to live. He could not be holden by the power of the grave. He rose into a higher region. Apply this to the general phenomena of death, and mark the beauty with which it invests them. The rocks crumble away into soil; but that is taken up into the higher vegetable kingdom, &c. In every case the soul of these several kingdoms passes through death into higher spheres. Mark, then, the perfect sympathy between the creation and the Christ whose it is and whom it serves. As His spirit returned to glorify His earthly frame, in the end the whole framework of creation will be restored and glorified; and those who are in Christ partake of the power of His death and Resurrection. Conclusion: We need not mourn that death is everywhere. We need not weep by the sepulchre as those who have no hope; it stands in a garden. To die is no more to venture on a lonely path; Christ has trod it before us, and will tread it with us. If the sepulchre still speaks of corruption, the garden speaks of the resurrection. Nor when those whom we love are summoned to depart should we indulge in hopeless sorrow. They have gone into the garden. Their flesh rests in hope; their spirits are in Paradise. (S. Cox, D. D.)

The sepulchre in the garden

I. SIN OBTRUDES ITSELF INTO THE FAIREST SCENES. You see around a cross a multitude come together to perform the foulest act ever perpetrated. The object of their hatred has never wronged them; but, on the contrary, has even blessed them. His character presented an assemblage of graces such as the world had never witnessed. And now He hangs on a cross in a garden I What a place for the perpetration of such a crime! A garden! where nature seems best fitted to exert a soothing influence on the angry passions! Surely nature cannot have her sanctuary violated by such an outrage. Thus the text contains a most emphatic refutation of the fancy that by giving them access to natural beauty you may restrain the wickedness, if not transform the character, of men. True, there is nothing in what is beautiful, whether in nature or art, unfavourable to religion–but very much by which religions feeling may be induced and fostered. And, certainly, they are not the worst Christians who have the most extensive and loving acquaintance with natures works. But nevertheless the influence which these things exert depends entirely on the state of mind with which they are surveyed. They may foster and strengthen feelings which already exist; they have no power to produce feelings which are not there. They have no power to change the heart, so as to make bad men good. One of the loveliest scenes in the world is the site of Pompeii, but it would seem that God has preserved her ruins that she might testify to the nineteenth century that she resembled Sodom in the depth of her wickedness before she resembled her in the terribleness of her overthrow. Man fell in Eden–angels sinned in heaven. In the place where He was crucified there was a garden.

II. SORROW MINGLES WITH ALL EARTHLY ENJOYMENT. In the garden a sepulchre. How emblematical of human life–in which every joy is marred by some sorrow, and the presence or the memory or the prospect of death casts its shadow over all. There is some fitness in the choice. A garden is the scene of beautiful life, where everything is fitted to minister pleasure. And to erect in such a scene the receptacle of death, might, without destroying the pleasure which the place afforded, serve as a useful monitor to remind men of the sorrows which lie so near and mingle with our joys, and of the termination which death brings to all earthly pursuits. It is a good thing, as moderating our present expectations and leading us to seek after a better inheritance, to be reminded that there is no such thing here as pleasure without drawback or alloy. Most people have a sepulchre in their garden; for have not they suffered loss here and disappointment there? But others whom they see–what sepulchre have they? Their life is all garden. It has neither desert bounding it nor sepulchre within its walls. But depend upon it you see not all. The heart knoweth its own bitterness. Could you look beneath the surface, you would see even in that lot which seems so enviable, not a little which might excite your pity or surprise. Of Naaman the Syrian, it is said, that he was captain of the host, &c.; but he was a leper. Of Haman we read how he told his wife and friends of his good fortune, and then add yet–yet all this availeth me nothing so long as I see Mordecai, &c. And so there is some but or yet to the most favoured condition, no rose without its thorn, in every garden a sepulchre.

III. THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST CONVERTS DEATH INTO LIFE, AND SORROW INTO JOY. It was meet that the sepulchre should be placed in a garden

1. Seeing it was to contain the body of our Lord. His presence there gave to the grave a significance which it had never possessed before. And it is meet also in the case of all who are His. I like the change from the crowded unattractive churchyard to the garden-like cemetery. I like, too, to see flowers growing around, or strewn upon the grave of the loved ones. The tomb in which Christ lies, in the person of His members, is a seed-plot of immortality, from which radiant and glorious forms shall spring; for that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.

2. Because of the change which the Saviours death is to produce in the aspect of the world. Reduced by sin to a desert, physically and morally, it shall yet be covered with garden-like beauty and fertility because Christ has died. It is a sufficient pledge of its renovation that it has contained His sepulchre. Men are said to take possession of a country when they have buried their dead in it. So the Saviour will never regard with indifference the world which contains His tomb. He will return living and glorious to the place where once He lay dead and dishonoured, and the same scene which witnessed the commencement shall witness the completion of His triumph over sin and hell–over death and the grave.

3. As symbolical of how the presence of Jesus tends to change our sorrow into joy. Christ in the sepulchre transforms the receptacle of death into the source of higher life. And therefore have no sepulchre without a Saviour in it–no trouble in which you do not seek to have the presence of your Lord. A life all pleasure would neither be so desirable nor so profitable as a life whose sorrows are sanctified by fellowship with Christ. Nor should you seek, as is sometimes done, to have the sepulchre of your own fashioning, saying, If I had only such-and-such trials, I could bear them well: I should not complain if I were only like so-and-so. No man ever yet had to choose his own trials. He who gives the garden gives the sepulchre with it; and determines at once its position and its form. All that you need is to have Christ in it. (W. Landells, D. D.)

Christ in a borrowed grave

I take it not to dishonour Christ, but to show that, as His sins were borrowed sins, so His burial was in a borrowed grave. Christ had no transgressions of His own; He took ours upon His head. He never committed a wrong, but He took all my sins, and all yours, if ye are believers. Concerning all His people, it is true He bore their griefs and carried their sorrows in His own body on the tree; therefore, as they were others sins, so He rested in anothers grave; as they were sins imputed, so that grave was only imputedly His. It was not His sepulchre; it was the tomb of Joseph. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The sepulchre in the garden

I. EACH MAN HAS A GARDEN. It may not be that where the outward sense is regaled with fruits and flowers and odorous airs, but a sacred enclosure of the heart. As on bleak hill-sides of splintered rock, green things and flowers here and there spring up, so there is something still bright where poverty and care exist. Very beautiful are some of these gardens, with dear friendships, the engaging interests of home, noble plans for self-culture and benevolence, generous trusts, and holy endearments, and the music and sunshine of dreams. All have their garden; BUT, guard and prize it as they may, it shall be the scene of tragedy; IT CONTAINS A SEPULCHRE.

1. The generous and aspiring youth seems to stand on the border of a land that will never lose its morning freshness; but this radiant landscape contains a tomb; the grave of glorious hopes that withered in the hot glare of an unsympathizing world.

2. In practical life there is no garden without a grave, and not merely in the case of the man who has fallen from prosperity to penury. There are tombs in the gardens of the rich, the gifted, and the great. Baffled purposes, alienated friendships, exhausted energy, the corpse of many a brave endeavour, the lost inspiration of eager manhood when the path to victorious light seemed garlanded with light–all this, and more, speaks of death.

3. But sadder still is the tomb in the garden of the affections. If anything on earth is sacred, it is home; yet the sepulchre is here; and it will not be empty long. There is a vacant place by the hearthstone. That home may be pleasant still, and the casual visitor may not think that it contains a place of burial. Yet, though the spot is sealed, it is not forgotten. The great world goes on as before. But bereaved hearts know it is there. In the garden is the sepulchre.

4. And it is well that it should be so; well that we learn our frailty, our ignorance, our sin, and be disciplined for our eternal home. For with mans sinful nature and tendencies, how fearful might be his career in transgression, and how reckless his presumption upon the forbearance of God, did he never suffer from the evil within and without him!

II. THE GRAVE IN THE GARDEN IS NOT A PLACE OF EVERLASTING STILLNESS AND DECAY. The stone shall be rolled away. If you have died unto sin, anti are buried with Christ in His death, you shall rejoice in the final resurrection of all that can contribute to the bliss of the soul in the eternal kingdom. There shall be no death there. There none shall bear the cross of secret trial. But how dark is your prospect if you do not believe upon His name, nor love His appearing! The sepulchre in the garden of your life is then the symbol of the death which awakens to no celestial fruition. (H. N. Powers.)

A sepulchre in every garden

You climb an eminence, and look on the underlying scene. The river flows gently through yellowing fields and woods that teem with life. The birds fill the air with song and gladness. The fish sport and leap in the waters. Cattle roam or recline in the meadows. Man goeth forth to labour with a cheerful heart. Unawares, you bless the earth and the great Giver of its goodliness. The eye fills with happy tears as you pronounce it a garden which the Lord hath blessed. And then the cold shadow comes creeping on; reflection stills the song of the heart; the trace of the spoiler, for a moment forgotten, stands once more revealed. You see or remember that the insects sporting in the air are the prey of birds; the birds flutter and scream beneath the pursuing hawk; the splash in the river tells of some eager little life swallowed up quick; the flowers close and wither as you gather them; the woodcutters axe fills the air with its resounding strokes; the sheep and oxen are led away to the slaughter; the funeral train winds along the white road, flecking it with blackness, while the passing bell reminds you that another of your flesh has seen corruption. The Skeleton Shadow broods over the entire scene, obscuring its brightness. The air grows stifling; and you feel as if suddenly immerged in the gloom of some monstrous grave. And yet you have but discovered the open secret–that death is the shadow of beauty: you have but passed through the garden into the sepulchre. So, too, with the varied human world. You think of the kindnesses and charities of home–the nobilities and patriotisms of national unity; the discoveries, utilities, refinements of civilization, and you bless God that you are a man of this clime and age. Again you are wakened from your pleasant dream. The veil is lifted from the home; you find mean anxieties, wearing toils, heartburnings, jealousies, despotisms; or where love abides, you find as its attendants sorrow and solicitude; Death has driven its chariot, armed with scythes, through the family array, leaving cruel gaps and innumerable wounds. The veil is lifted from the age, and beneath its high civilization you discern want, misery, vice, disease, war, with their kin–a terrible brotherhood, the offspring of death, doing the works of their father–preying on the foundations on which the social fabric is upreared. (S. Cox, D. D.)

The cemetery a garden–Christ the Gardener

(Text, and Joh 20:15):

I. THE SEED.

1. All seed does not germinate, and seeds, in themselves, are worthless unless they are fecundated. Cut open a seed-bearing flower, and in its axis you will find a seed-pod, from which grows an elongated stem called the pistil. On the end of this pistil is a little tongue, or stigma. This, of all the parts of the flower or plant, alone has no skin. About the pistil are the stamens, on the top of which are the anthers, or pollen-bearing organs of the flower. This pollen must fall upon the stigma which thus receives the fecundating principle, and transmits it to the seeds; and so they are quickened into life. In many trees this pollen is produced not on themselves, but on other trees belonging to the same species, and it is carried to the stigma of the blossoms to be fecundated by the wind or the bees.

2. The same principle, the Gardener tells us, prevails among His plants; there must be an extra-human quality imparted to every one of His seeds before they are planted or they cannot bloom immortally. That quality was produced by that which was planted in the dust of the earth in Josephs garden and became the first fruits from the dead. The reason why he Son of God was incarnated, died, was buried and rose again was that He might produce this Divine–pollen (may I term it?), so that His seeds might receive that fecundating principle which quickens to an immortal life. It is scattered like the natural pollen–broadcast on the breezes, so that all who will may receive it and live again; or it is carried about by the busyness of Christian workers.

3. But you cannot be planted, with a hope of the glorious resurrection, unless you have received this fecundating principle from Christ; otherwise you must there remain, sterile and dried, unable to rise in a new life. This is one of the fixed laws of nature. Why should we not expect the same in grace? He that believeth in Me, though he were dead yet shall he live. But believing is only receiving this Divine quality from Christ, as the stigma of the seed-pod receives the pollen, to quicken and give it life.

II. THE SOWING. For in the Lords garden what we call burying is only planting; for the Apostle says, If we be planted in the likeness of His death, &c.

III. THE BLOOMING.

1. Are we to be different? Hear the Apostle, It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is, &c. Our God doeth great things which we cannot comprehend. Who can understand the change wrought under ground which gives us a plant for our seed.

(1) Here we are, dried and shriveled. Sin has stripped us, yet is there great latent power for beauty, &c.

(2) Here there is no sweetness about us. Such is the wonderful alchemy of nature that the seed that rots sends up a flower rich in fragrance. More wonderful is the alchemy of grace, &c.

(3) Here there is no beauty about us, we are frost-marked. The Lord will not do half-work. He will not repair, but recreate, &c. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, &c. Who can guess by looking at the shriveled seed what the flower will be?

2. Shall we, then, fear to be planted in His garden, if we shall so soon rise to such life and beauty and sweetness? Conclusion: Let us walk with the Gardener while He points out to us some of His rarer plants. He points to this bed and says, There rests a precious seed, oh, how lovely will its blooming be! On earth it was called Bleeding Heart. It grew in great tribulation. And what lies here in this bed, Gardener? You would call that, in earths botany, a Heliotrope–the flower that ever turns toward the sun. And there lies the Lily of the Valley, &c. And there the Calla, whose roots had to be submerged in water, &c. But, we ask, Gardener, canst Thou care for all these? Will there be no confusion or neglect? Thy flowerbeds are so many, is there no possibility that some will be overlooked? Oh, no, He answers; their names are all graven on the palms of My hands, and are written also in the Book of Life. Oh blessed truth! What flowers shall spring up from these grassy mounds! (P. E.Kipp.)

The decorated grave

Mark well this tomb.

I. It is THE MOST CELEBRATED TOMB IN ALL THE AGES. Catacombs of Egypt, tomb of Napoleon, Mahal Taj of India, nothing compared with it. At the door of that mausoleum a fight took place which decides the question for all graveyards and cemeteries. Sword of lightning against sword of steel. Angel against military. That day the grave received such a shattering it can never be rebuilt. The King of Terrors retiring before the King of Grace. The Lord is risen.

II. See here POST-MORTEM HONOURS IN CONTRAST WITH ANTE-MORTEM INGNOMINIES. If they could have afforded Christ such a costly sepulchre, why could not they have given Him an earthly residence? He asked bread; they gave Him a stone. Christ, like most of the worlds benefactors, was appreciated better after He was dead. Poets Corner, in Westminster Abbey, attempts to pay for the sufferings of Grub Street. Go through that corner. There is Handel Think of the discords with which his fellow-musicians tried to destroy him. There John Dryden, who, at seventy, wrote a thousand verses at sixpence a line. There is Samuel Butler, who died in a garret. There the old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, whom Waller said, has just issued a tedious poem on the fall of man. If the length of it be no virtue, it has none. There is poor Sheridan. If he could have only discounted that monument for a mutton-chop! Oh! do justice to the living. All the justice you do them, you must do this side of the necropolis. Gentlemans mausoleum in the suburbs of Jerusalem cannot pay for Bethlehem manger, and Calvarian cross.

III. FLORAL DECORATIONS ARE APPROPRIATE FOR THE PLACE OF THE DEAD. Put them on the brow–it will suggest coronation; in their hand, it will mean victory. Christ was buried in a garden. Flowers mean resurrection. Death is sad enough anyhow. Let conservatory and arboretum contribute to its alleviation. The harebell will ring the victory. The passion-flower will express the sympathy. The daffodil will kindle its lamp and illume the darkness. The cluster of asters will be the constellation. Your little child loved flowers when she was living. Put them in her hand now that she can go forth no more to pluck them for herself. On sunshiny days take a fresh garland and put it over the still heart. Brooklyn has no grander glory than its Greenwood; but what shall we say of those country graveyards, with the vines broken down and the slabs aslant, and the mound caved in, and the grass the pasture-ground for the sextons cattle? Were your father and mother of so little worth that you cannot afford to take care of their ashes? Some day you will want to lie down to your last slumber. You cannot expect any respect for your bones if you have no deference for the bones of your ancestry.

IV. THE DIGNITY OF PRIVATE AND UNPRETENDING OBSEQUIES. Joseph was mourner, sexton, liveryman; had entire charge of every thing. Only four people at the burial of the King of the universe. Oh! let this be consolatory to those who through lack of means, or large acquaintance, have but little demonstration of grief at the graves of their loved ones. Not recognizing this idea, how many small properties are scattered, and widowhood and orphanage go forth into cold charity. That went for crape which ought to have gone for bread.

V. YOU CANNOT KEEP THE DEAD DOWN. Seal of Sanhedrim, regiment of soldiers, door of rock, cannot keep Christ in the crypts. Come out and come up He must. First-fruit of them that slept. Though all the granite of the mountains were piled on us we will rise. (T. de Witt Talmage, D. D.)

.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 41. There was a garden] It was an ancient custom for particular families to have burying places in their gardens. See 2Kg 21:18; 2Kg 21:26.

New sepulchre] See Clarke on Mt 27:60.

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

As all their gardens were out of the city, so also their burial places, which usually were vaults, or caves within the earth.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

41, 42. Now in the place where hewas crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a newsepulchreThe choice of this tomb was, on their part,dictated by the double circumstance that it was so near at hand, andby its belonging to a friend of the Lord; and as there was need ofhaste, even they would be struck with the providence which thussupplied it. “There laid they Jesus therefore, because of theJew’s preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.” Butthere was one recommendation of it which probably would not strikethem; but God had it in view. Not its being “hewn out of a rock”(Mr 15:46), accessible only atthe entrance, which doubtless would impress them with its securityand suitableness. But it was “a new sepulchre” (Joh19:41), “wherein never man before was laid” (Lu23:53): and Matthew (Mt 27:60)says that Joseph laid Him “in his own new tomb, which hehad hewn out in the rock”doubtless for his own use, thoughthe Lord had higher use for it. Thus as He rode into Jerusalem on anass “whereon never man before had sat” (Mr11:2), so now He shall lie in a tomb wherein never man beforehad lain, that from these specimens it may be seen that in allthings He was “SEPARATE FROMSINNERS” (Heb 7:26).

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

Now in the place where he was crucified,…. Which takes in all that spot of ground that lay on that side of the city where he was crucified; or near to the place of his crucifixion, for it was not a garden in which he was crucified:

there was a garden; all gardens, except rose gardens, were without the city, as has been observed, [See comments on Joh 18:1]. This, it seems, belonged to Joseph: rich men used to have their gardens without the city for their convenience and pleasure:

and in the garden a new sepulchre; they might not bury within the city. Some chose to make their sepulchres in their gardens, to put them in mind of their mortality, when they took their walks there; so R. Dustai, R. Janhal, and R. Nehurai, were buried, , “in a garden”, or orchard f; and so were Manasseh and Amon, kings of Judah, 2Ki 21:18. Here Joseph had one, hewn out in a rock, for himself and family, and was newly made. The Jews distinguish between an old, and a new sepulchre; they say g,

“vdx rbq, “a new sepulchre” may be measured and sold, and divided, but an old one might not be measured, nor sold, nor divided.”

Wherein was never man yet laid; this is not improperly, nor impertinently added, though the evangelist had before said, that it was a new sepulchre; for that it might be, and yet bodies have been lain in it; for according to the Jewish canons h,

“there is as a new sepulchre, which is an old one; and there is an old one, which is as a new one; an old sepulchre, in which lie ten dead bodies, which are not in the power of the owners, , “lo, this is as a new sepulchre”.”

Now Christ was laid in such an one, where no man had been laid, that it might appear certainly that it was he, and not another, that was risen from the dead.

f Jechus haabot, p. 43. Ed. Hottinger. g Massech. Sernacot, c. 24. fol. 16. 3. h Ib.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

A garden (). See John 18:1; John 18:26.

New (). Fresh, unused.

Was never yet laid ( ). Periphrastic past perfect passive of . It was Joseph’s mausoleum, a rock tomb hewn out of the mountain side (Mark 15:56; Matt 27:60; Luke 23:53), a custom common with the rich then and now. For royal tombs in gardens see 2Kgs 21:18; 2Kgs 21:26; Neh 3:16.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

A garden. Mentioned by John only.

New [] . See on Mt 26:29. John omits the detail of the tomb being hewn in the rock, which is common to all the Synoptists. ===Joh20

CHAPTER XX

1, 2. Compare Mt 28:1; Mr 16:2 – 4; Luk 24:1 – 3.

1 First day of the week [ ] . The Hebrew idiom, day one of the week. See on Luk 4:31; Act 20:7.

Dark. Matthew says, as it began to dawn; Mark, when the sun was risen; Luke, very early in the morning, or at deep dawn; see on Luk 24:1. Taken away [ ] . Lifted out of. All the Synoptists have rolled.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden;” (hen de en to topo hopou estaurothe kepos) “Now there was a garden in the location (area) where he was crucified,” well known, immediately outside the city wall, in that neighborhood. According to Mat 27:60 it must have belonged to Joseph of Arimathaea.

2) “And in the garden a new sepulchre,” (kai en to kepo mneimeion kainon) “And in the garden there was a new tomb,” new in the sense that no other body had ever been buried in it; It was hewn, new, and clean.

3) “Wherein was never man yet laid.” (en ho oudepo oudeis hen tetheimenos) “In which no one at all had ever been placed,” the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea, a rich man, Isa 53:9; Mat 27:57-60; Luk 23:53.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

41. Now, in the place where he was crucified there was a garden. This is the third point, as I have said, which ought to be observed in the history of the burial. It is related by the Evangelist for various reasons. In the first place, it did not happen by accident, but by an undoubted providence of God, that the body of Christ was buried in a new sepulchre; for although he died as all other men die, still, as he was to be the first-born from the dead, (Col 1:18,) and the first-fruits of them that rise, (1Co 15:20) he had a new sepulcher, in which no person had ever been laid True, Nicodemus and Joseph had a different object in view; for, in consequence of the short time that now remained till sunset, which was the commencement of the Sabbath, they looked to the convenience of the place, but, contrary to their intention God provided for his own Son a sepulchre which had not yet been used. The good men are merely gratified by the place being near at hand, that they might not violate the Sabbath; but God offers them what they did not seek, that the burial of his Son might have some token to distinguish him from the rank of other men. The local situation served also to prove the truth of his resurrection, and to throw no small light on the narrative which is contained in the following chapter.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE LAST UTTERANCE OF THE CHRIST

Joh 19:30; Joh 19:41-42.

IT is appropriate that we give ourselves to-day to the subject suggested by this text. If we were churchmen instead of plainer Christians, we would call this Palm Sunday, and the week just ahead, Passion Week, with next Sunday for Easter.

It is my purpose to address you on the coming Lords Day on the subject of Christs Victory Over the Grave, touching which I entertain convictions as positive, and, I believe, as Biblical as some of those which have recently occurred in print were skeptical and unscriptural.

What better preparation, therefore, for the consideration of Christs resurrection than to think this day upon His last words, and upon His act in laying down His life?

Cunningham Geikie, speaking of this text, says, With a loud voice, as if uttering His shout of eternal victory before entering into His glory, He cried, It is finished! And, indeed, I think we shall see that this cry was the shout of the conqueror. For, although He bowed His head and gave up the ghost, He had already informed His disciples that if He laid down His life, He would take it up again; and that He had power to lay it down, and that He had power to take it up again.

It is a significant thing that when this Gospel of John, which is a record of the life and labors of Jesus, ends, the Book succeeding it opens with these words, The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach (Act 1:1). The thirty and three years which He had lived upon earth were but the commencement of His immortal career; and this death, instead of being the end, was only an episode in His historyDivinely appointed, I grant youwith a magnificent purpose, as we shall see; compassing a splendid mission, as we understand; and yet, belonging not to the end of His life, but to the beginning instead.

I have selected this text to set before you the thoughts suggested by its language: First, The Sufferings of the Son; second, The Success of the Son; third, The Sepulcher of the Son.

THE SUFFERINGS OF THE SON

These involved the whole Manbody, soul, and spirit. His body was broken; His soul anguished, and His spirit was laden with the worlds sin. But His character shines under these circumstances of suffering as it never could have done in an experience wholly prosperous and peaceful.

His bodily afflictions were bravely borne. The context here brings out a notable fact. Matthew tells us, They gave Him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink (Mat 27:34), and we learn that the drink to which Matthew refers was a stupefying potion that Jesus refused. Had He received it, it would have deadened His pain and reduced His suffering by so much. But the Son of God never thought to escape suffering; He bore His bodily ills, not by drugging the intellect, but through bravery of spirit, and herein He set man an example. How many there are who, if they are sick, instead of looking to God for help, find the morphine habit a quicker way to overcome the affliction; and who, when they come into trouble, instead of conquering by faith, seek the saloon and drown their sorrow instead.

The second drink offered Jesus was nothing more nor less than soured watera refreshing draught which would slake His thirst. The Son of God who never sought to escape any suffering that He ought to bear, was equally rational in that He never needlessly endured or invited pain. Frederick W. Robertson says, He would not suffer one drop of the cup of agony which His Father had put into His hand to trickle down the side untasted. Neither would He make to Himself one drop more of suffering than His Father had given. If it is wicked for a man to render himself temporarily insensible to sorrow or pain by some stupefying potion, it is none the less iniquitous for him to needlessly inflict body, mind, or spirit. Self-martyrdom is nonspiritual and selfish! There are men who think to curry Divine favor by hanging with hooks in the flesh. Leave that to heathen!

His mental torture was met with equal courage. The state of Christs mind in the Garden of Gethsemane, who can imagine? Voltaire reports of Charles IX. that he died in his thirty-fifth year. His disorder was of a very remarkable kind; the blood oozed out of all his pores. We know that Charles came into this mental anguish in consequence of his heinous murder of the Huguenots, and with him it was a case of reproaching conscience, making mad. Christ, on the contrary, condemned by no guilt of His own, but so covered over with the load of the worlds sin that the last star of hope seemed for the moment extinguished, cried in agony, Let this cup pass from Me. And later, on the Cross, He exclaimed, My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?

Dr. Lorimer says, It was then that He poured out His soul unto death, and it was then and not until then that He tasted death for every man.* * By His love and sympathy He takes upon His heart all the pangs, pains and sorrows of the race from the time that Eve wept over the crime of her first-born to the day when the last tear shall be shed and the last sigh shall be breathed. He carries the afflictions of others just as we do, when, by our deep affections, we make the trials, disappointments, bereavements of our children or our friends our own. But we can only bear a part; He bore all. It was of this hour that the Psalmist wrote, All Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me. And it was in anticipation of this experience that Christ said to the ambitious James and John, Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with (Mar 10:38)? I am in perfect accord with the teaching that the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was not in consequence of the coming Cross, and that when He prayed, Let this cup pass from Me, it was not suffering that He was seeking to escape, but the fear of death before He should reach the Cross, that appalled and alarmed Him. Paul puts this very interpretation upon it when he spoke of Christ as One

who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears unto Him tPiat was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared (Heb 5:7).

Courage does not consist in keeping an imperturbed mind, but in rising to meet the Divine demand in spite of any mental despair that may be upon one. And with this definition, Christ in Gethsemane and Christ on the Cross becomes a copy, short of which even the best men fall.

The soul anguish was Divinely endured. If a single sin committed at the instigation of another could drive Charles IX. mad, and cause his blood to quit his heart and seek an exit through almost impassable pores, who could imagine what must have been the agony of Christ on the Cross who was bearing every transgression that had been committed, and every sin to come? Who can imagine what it must have meant?

Many of us have had sleepless nights and have been in utter despair touching a single transgression, or else a fixed habit, but that is only as a drop to the ocean when compared with what crimes were raised against Him when He hung on the Cross. It is only in recent years that I have seen the meaning of Isa 53:3-6,

He was despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isa 53:3-6, R. V.).

The iniquity of us all! Who can tell what it means to bear it? No wonder Mrs. Sigourney wrote:

Thou who hast power to look Thus at Gethsemane, be still, be still!What are thine insect woes compared with His Who agonizeth there? Count thy brief pains As the dust atom on lifes chariot wheels, And in a Saviours grief forget them all.

THE SUCCESS OF THE SON

It is voiced right in the midst of this death scene. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished (Joh 19:30). We have already suggested that it was the shout of the victor, and so I believe it was. He did not mean that His sufferings were over; the escape from suffering was not of such concern to Him. He did not mean that His eyes were closing forever from the ugly vision of fiendish persecution, for He was not finishing with them; they rage against Him still. He did mean that His life had come to a noble end. He did mean that His labor of love lacked in nothing; He did mean that His sacrificial mission to the world was complete.

His life had come to a noble end. The people who stood about the Cross that day, as Isaiah said, esteemed Him stricken, smitten and afflicted of God. The ignominious manner in which He died; the popular clamor that had nailed Him to the Cross, charges of felony, proof of infamy, seemed like condemnation. But we cannot tell what a life has been by listening to the judgment of those whose characters have been uncovered by comparison; whose sins have been excoriated by speech. The whole line of noble martyrs died in public disgrace. The mediaeval Pharisees supposed they had done Gods service when they burned Ridley and Latimer; supposed they had rid society of its chief sinners when they sent Huss to the stake and Savonarola to six days torture, and then to the gallows and to the flame. When Wyclif is reduced to ashes, it seems to many that only justice is meted out; and yet these men of such bad reputations are marvelous characters of their time, whose noble lives were in conflict with ignoble people and purposes, and whose deaths excite more note in Heaven than the falling of any king of earth from his throne.

It does not make so much difference, beloved, what the world thinks of you, as it does what you know yourself to be. They may say, He is stricken, afflicted of God, but if in ones own heart he knows that he is suffering for the sins of the people, then, with the Apostle, he can join in saying, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

John Watson has said many wonderful things in his volume, The Mind of the Master, and among them this: Without His Cross, Jesus had been poorer in the world this day and might have been unloved. It was suffering that wrought in Him that beauty of holiness, sweetness of patience, wealth of sympathy, and grace of compassion, which constitute His Divine attraction, and are seating Him on His throne. Once when the cloud fell on Him, He cried, Father, save Me from this hour; when the cloud lifted, Jesus saw of the travail of His soul I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. In the upper room, Jesus was cast down for an instant; then Iscariot went out to arrange for the arrest, and Jesus revived at the sight of the Cross. Now is the Son of Man glorified. Two disciples are speaking of the great tragedy as they walk to Emmaus, when the Risen Lord joins them and reads the riddle of His life. It was not a disaster; it was a design. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? The perfection of Jesus was the fruit of the Cross.

His labor lacked in nothing. When He said, It is finished, He meant, touching His own life work, what the contractor means when he turns over to the owner the keys to the completed house. He meant that there was not one thing that ought to have been done that was not done. Other men look back over a single day to see how many Divine calls they have refused; how many Spirit-appointed opportunities they have despised. Not so with the Son of God. He never slept a single night leaving one duty of the past day undone. Sometimes the waking hours did not suffice to meet all demands, and He wrought on, praying until the third watch, and then going out on the sea to calm the storm and bring His disciples safe to land. But when He did lie down to rest, there was nothing left undone.

I clipped and pasted into my scrapbook this statement from a writer: I attended a picture exhibit of the life of Jesus, and of the forty-five pictures, thirty-two dealt with His birth, childhood, trial, death and resurrection, while only eleven dealt with His life activities as a reformer, teacher, miracle worker. Of Tissots thirty-eight pictures of Christ, thirty-three deal with the former themes and only five with the latter. I am persuaded that these per cents represent the accents put by most preachers and Sunday School teachers on the life of Christ. On the other hand, the inspired writers give emphasis to the latter subjects. Matthew gives ten pages to the former subjects and fifty-two to the latterhis lifes activities; Mark, six to the former, and thirty-two to the latter; John, eleven to the former, and thirty-nine to the latter. What an appeal in these facts! No wonder the Psalmist, anticipating his labors, prophecies these words for His lips, Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God.

He meant His mission was complete. It is finished. At His birth, it was said, Thou shalt call His Name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins. He had seen the blood trickle from His hands and from His feet, and had felt it flowing from His face, and He knew that when He poured out His life unto death, He was compassing His ministry, for without shedding of blood is no remission. He knew that He was made a curse for us that we might be freed from the curse of the Law. He knew that He had become the end of the Law for righteousness to every man that believeth. He knew that He had suffered, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God; and He also knew that all that the Father gave to Him should come to Him, since He had put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

He did more than complete the plan of salvation, for He is not only the Author but the Finisher of our faith, and those who put their trust in Him will find that He who finished His own ministry on this Cross, having perfected the same, proffers to you and me aid in finishing ours, saying, My grace is sufficient for thee. Here is hope for hours of discouragement; here is inspiration for times when one is tempted to despair. Christ said, It is finished, and with His speech completed His own labors, and He is not dead but liveth, and works with the same power to help you to bring your ministry to the world to such shapeliness that the same may be said of it.

You have heard the story of one of the great masters, how after a long absence, he came back to see how the art students were coming on with their work. One of these had formed a noble conception, but had tried in vain to put it on canvas. This night, discouraged by his failure and wearied by his efforts, he went to his lodgings. The master walking through the studio, saw the unfinished work. The touch of genius was upon it, but it would require the master-stroke to fill out the ideal. Taking up the brush, he supplied what was wanting, and then went his way. Next morning the young painter paused before his picture, and seeing that his ideal had been completed, cried, Oh, the master has come! The master has come!

Beloved, when we shall have wearied with our endeavor to bring out of life whatever we ourselves see in it, attempting in vain to fill up the flaws, we do well to remember that the Christ of this Cross in crying, It is finished, spake not alone of His ministry in Galilee, Judea, and Samaria, but His ministry in you and in methe completion of whose lives, He, with His infinite wisdom and power, has volunteered.

THE SEPULCHER OF THE SON

Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.

There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand (Joh 19:41-42).

It was a good mans gift. Joseph of Arimathea was rich; he was also righteous. This is one of the marvelous combinations that sometimes occur, and in which the Christ finds joy. No man can do so much for the suffering Son of God as a prospered, yet consecrated man. In his hand are powers that can provide a place in which Jesus can rest; or a place from which He can rule. When I meet a man who is rich and increased with goods, and yet loves God, I find in him an ideal for admiration. A few days since, in another state, I was entertained by one such, and while my converse with Christian hosts is commonly sweet, seldom have I felt such spiritual uplift as I got from ten days association with this modern Joseph, who, believing in a Risen Christ, instead of providing a sepulcher for Him, has put His money into the sanctuary; and, through that sanctuary, has sent it to state, and nation, and suffering world. There are no other such tests of goodness as gifts to the Son of God provide.

This sepulcher represents Christs share in human suffering. He who tasted death for other men drank the dregs of the cup by going also into the grave. Had He stopped short of this, the man approaching burial would feel that the Son of God would only go with him to the last breath; and the mother, compelled to lay her babe in the cemetery, would question whether Jesus knew how deep and dark seemed the grave. When He gave His great commission to the disciples, sent to heathen darkness, He said, Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age. And when men enter Christian experience He says to them, everyone, Lo, I am with you alway, even to the limit of life, the utmost of death, including the experience of the grave. Therefore, we can say,

Oh, love Divine that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear.

But finally, this sepulcher stands for sins pardoned and souls absolved. The last drop of blood did not trickle from His veins merely to be swallowed up by Calvary; it was the day of atonement, the sepulcher receiving the dead Son of God, that spoke exactly the same lesson to a sin cursed world that the slain lamb uttered to Israel. Dr. Lorimer once said, I can picture to myself that solemn day which was set apart by Israel for reconciliation, and I can see the high priest in his white garments of humility, having slain the victim, entering into the holiest of all to sprinkle the blood of expiation before the mercy seat, while the people, moaning over their sins, are prostrate without. A hush rests on the assembly, broken only by the waitings of the penitent and the heart sobs of the contrite. What does it all mean? Why do the multitudes rise with so much joy when the priest reappears and extends his hands in benediction? What have they received? In what are they advantaged? Let us ask yonder smiling Hebrew as he is returning to his tent. Do you not understand? he inquires, and adds: This is the day of atonement; our sins have been put away through sacrifice, and the nation is once more at peace with God.

But Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh;

How much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God!

And for this cause He is the Mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance (Heb 9:11-15).

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

(41) Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden.Comp. Joh. 18:1. St. Johns account makes the choice of the sepulchre depend on its nearness to the place of crucifixion; the account in the earlier Gospels makes it depend on the fact that the sepulchre belonged to Joseph. The one account implies the other; and the burial, under the circumstances, required both that the sepulchre should be at hand, and that its owner should be willing that the body should be placed in it.

A new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.An emphatic combination of the two statements made in Mat. 27:60 and Luk. 23:53.

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

41. In the garden a new sepulchre John’s account here, had we no other, would appear not a little mysterious. By what right do the friends of this supposed malefactor take possession of the nearest new sepulchre? But from Matthew we learn (Mat 27:60) that it is Joseph’s own new tomb. We have thus one of those happy but undesigned coincidences which show that truth is the basis of the account. As the next verse shows, the time required haste, and the body was deposited in this sepulchre temporarily, in order, after the sabbath was passed, to give it an honourable tomb in the proper burial ground.

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

‘Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no man had ever yet been laid. There then, because of the Jews’ preparation, (for the tomb was nearby), they laid Jesus.’

The burial had to be accomplished quickly because of the coming Sabbath. But Joseph had this tomb conveniently near to the place of crucifixion. It had never been used (a Jewish tomb might be used to house a number of bodies of family members) and was in a garden. The mention of the unused tomb is to stress the importance of the One Who laid there. He was being treated as royalty. The thought may also be that it had not been defiled by death. Furthermore new, unused things were regularly used when God was seen as involved (compare 2Sa 6:3)

The fact that it was in a garden reminds us that when man first sinned that too was in a garden. Now a garden was seeing the death of the second Adam, He through Whose coming sacrifice the first Adam had been spared. We learn elsewhere that the tomb was cut out of the rock, that it had a low entrance and that a great stone was rolled across to cover the entrance. Many examples of such tombs are known.

That Jesus was buried was an important part of the New Testament message. It stressed that He was truly man in a human body and that He truly died. Paul could say, ‘He died, —- and was buried’ (1Co 15:3-4). But in His case it was not the end. It was in preparation for a new beginning.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Joh 19:41. And in the garden a new sepulchre, In the description of the sepulchre given by the evangelists, it is particularly remarked, that it was nigh to the place where Jesus was crucified, consequently nigh to Jerusalem. By this circumstance all the cavils are prevented, which might otherwise have been occasioned, in case the body had been removed further off. Moreover, it is observed, that the sepulchre was a new one, wherein never any man had been laid. This plainly proves, that it could be no other than Jesus who arose, and cuts off all suspicion that he was raised by touching the bones of some prophet or other, who had been buried there, as happened to the corpse which touched the bones of Elisha, 2Ki 13:21. The evangelist further observes, that it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, to shew that there was no passage by which the disciples could get into it, but the one at which the guards were placed, Mat 27:62; Mat 27:66 and, consequently, that it was not in their power to steal away the body while the guards remained there performing their duty.

As we are now just arrived at the end of the evangelical history, and the conclusion of the two subsequent chapters will be taken up with the great subject of them,our Lord’s resurrection, we shall here endeavour to give the reader a brief sketch of the character of our Lord Jesus Christ, which itself affords the most incontestable proof of the truth and divine authority of the scriptures.
FOR, THE CHARACTER OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, even considered only as it relates to his humanity, and as it may be collected from the plain narrations of the gospels, is manifestly superior to all other characters, fictitious or real; whether drawn by historians, orators, or poets. It is entirely different from that of all other men; for whereas they have the selfish passions deeply rooted in their breasts, and in their natural state are influenced by them in almost every thing they do, Jesus was so entirely free from them, that the narrowest scrutiny cannot furnish one single action in the whole course of his life, wherein he consulted his own interest only. The happiness of others was what he had chiefly at heart; and while his cotemporaries followed some one kind of occupation, some another, Jesus had no other business but that of promoting the welfare of men. He went about doing good. He did not wait till he was solicited; but sought opportunities of conferring benefits on such as stood in need of them, and always reckoned it more blessed to give than to receive.

In the next place, whereas it is common for persons, even of the most exalted faculties, on the one hand, to be elated with success and applause, and on the other, to be dejected with great disappointments, it was not so with Jesus. He was never more courageous than when he met with the greatest opposition, and the worst treatment; nor more humble than when men fell down and worshipped him. He came into the world inspired with infinitely the greater purpose that ever was formed, even that of saving, not a single nation, but the whole world; that is to say, all that would yield to be saved by his grace: and in the execution of it, went through the largest and heaviest train of labours that ever was sustained; and that with a constancy of resolution, on which no disadvantageous impression could be made by any incident whatever. In short, calumny, threatening, opposition, bad success, with the other evils befalling him, served only to quicken his endeavours in this glorious enterprise, which he pursued unweariedly, till he finished it by his glorious, though infamous death.
But again; whereas most men are prone to retaliate the injuries that are done them, and all seem to take a satisfaction in complaining of the cruelties of those who oppress them; the whole of Christ’s behaviour breathed nothing but meekness, patience, and forgiveness, even to his bitterest enemies, and in the most extreme sufferings. The words, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do! uttered by him when his enemies were nailing him to the cross, or when he hung thereupon, fitly expressed the temper which he maintained through the course of his life, even when assaulted with the heaviest provocations. The truth is, on no occasion did he ever signify the least resentment, by speech or by action, nor indeed any emotion of mind whatever, except such as flowed from pity and charity; consequently such only as expressed the deeper concern for the welfare of mankind.

The greatest and best men have had failings, which darken the lustre of their virtues, and shew them to have been but men. This was the case with Noah, Abraham, Moses, Job, David, Solomon, Paul, Peter, and the other heroes celebrated in sacred history. The same may be said of all the greater geniuses in the Heathen world, who undertook to instruct and inform mankind: for, omitting the narrowness of their knowledge, and the obscurity with which they spake upon the most important subjects, there was not one of them who did not fall into some gross error or other, which dishonoured his character as a teacher. The accounts that we have in history of the most renowned sages of antiquity, and the writings of the philosophers still remaining, are proofs of this.
It was otherwise with Jesus in every respect; for he was superior to all the men that ever lived, as well in the simplicity of his doctrine, and the purity of his manners, as in the perfection of his virtues. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners: he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.

His whole life was perfectly free from spot or weakness, at the same time that it was remarkable for the greatest and most extensive exercises of virtue: but never to have committed the least sin, in word or in deed; never to have uttered any sentiment that could be found fault with, upon the various topics of religion and morality which were the daily subjects of his discourses; and that through the course of a life filled with action, and led under the observation of many enemies, who had always access to converse with him, and who often came to find fault;this is such a pitch of perfection, as is plainly above the reach of humanity; and therefore he who possessed it, must certainly have been Divine. Accordingly, the evidence of this proof being undeniable, both as argument and as a matter of fact, Jesus himself publicly appealed to it before all the people in the temple, Ch. Joh 8:46. Which of you convinceth, or rather, convicteth me of sin? And if, in affirming that I am perfectly free from sin, I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?

Upon this character of our Lord, we may make the following observations: first, that admitting the present disorders of the moral world, and the necessity of the love of God and our neighbour, and of self-annihilation, in order to the pure and ultimate happiness of man; which all must admit, who know any thing of themselves or of the nature of true religion;there must be a necessity also for a suffering and atoning Saviour. Besides this, we may affirm, that the condescension of Christ, in leaving the glory which he had with the Father, before the foundation of the world, and in shewing himself a perfect pattern of obedience to the divine will, both in doing and suffering, has a most peculiar tendency, under divine grace, to rectify the present moral depravity of our natures, and to exalt us thereby to pure spiritual happiness. Now it is remarkable, that the evangelists and apostles have thus given to the world a character which all the great men among the antient heathens missed, and which, however clear it does, and ought now to appear to us, was a great stumbling-block to them, as well as to the Jews: the first, seeking, after wisdom, that is to say, human philosophy and eloquence; and the last, requiring a sign, or a glorious temporal Saviour. Nor can this be accounted for, but by admitting the reality of the character, that is to say, the divine mission of Christ, and the consequent divine inspiration of those who drew it up; that is to say, the truth and divine authority of the scriptures.

Secondly, It will be wonderfully difficult to reconcile so great a character, claiming divine authority, either with the moral attributes of God, or indeed with itself, upon the supposition of the falsehood of that claim. One can scarce suppose that God would permit a person apparently so innocent and excellent, so qualified to impose upon mankind, to make so impious and audacious a claim, without having some evident mark of imposture set upon him: nor can it be conceived how a person could be apparently so innocent and excellent, and yet really otherwise.

Thirdly, The manner in which the evangelists speak of Christ, shews that they drew after a real pattern, and demonstrates the genuineness and truth of the gospel history. There are no direct encomiums upon him, no laboured de-fences, or recommendations: his character arises from a careful and impartial examination of all that he did and said; and the evangelists appear to have drawn this greatest of all characters without any direct design to do it.

But it is evident that their view was to shew their Master to the persons to whom they preached, as the promised Messiah of the Jews, and the Saviour of mankind; and as they had been convinced of this themselves from his discourses, actions, sufferings, and resurrection, accompanied by the inspiration of his own divine Spirit, they knew nothing more was wanting to convince such others as were serious and impartial, but a simple narrative of what Jesus said and did, accompanied with the sacred influences of the same divine Spirit.
And indeed, if we compare the transcendent greatness of this character with the indirect manner in which it is delivered, and the illiterateness and low condition of the evangelists, it will appear impossible that they should have forged it; that they should not have had a real original before them; so that nothing was wanting for its authenticity, but to record it simply and faithfully under the infallible inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God.
How could mean and illiterate persons excel the greatest geniuses, ancient and modern, in drawing a character?How came they to draw it in an indirect manner?This is indeed a strong evidence of genuineness and truth: but then it is of so recluse and subtle a nature, and, agreeable to this, has been so little taken notice of by the defenders of the Christian religion, that one cannot conceive that the evangelists themselves were at all aware that it was an evidence. The character of Christ, as drawn by them, is therefore genuine and true, and consequently proves his Divine mission, both by its transcendent excellence, and by his laying claim to such a divine mission.
And here it ought to be particularly remarked, that our Saviour’s entire devotion to his heavenly Father, and sufferings for the sake of men in compliance with his will, is a pitch of perfection which was never proposed before his coming, unless as far as this is virtually included in the precepts for loving God above all, and our neighbours as ourselves, and other equivalent passages in the Old Testament.
To conclude, we may observe, that Jesus has, by his death, set open the gates of immortality to men; and by his great atonement, Spirit, word, and example, graciously offers to make them meet for, and to conduct them into the inheritance of the saints in light. Wherefore, being born under the dispensation of his gospel, we have through his grace enjoyed the best means of acquiring wisdom, holiness, virtue, and happiness, the lineaments of the image of God.
We have been called to aspire after an exaltation to the nature and felicity of God, set before our mortal eyes in the humanity of Jesus Christ, to fire us with the noblest ambition. His gospel teaches us, that we are made for eternity; and that our present life is to our after-existence, what childhood is to man’s estate: but as in childhood many things are to be learned, many hardships to be endured, many habits to be acquired, and that by a tedious course of exercises, which in themselves though painful, and, it may be, useless to the child, yet are necessary to fit him for the business and enjoyments of manhood: just so, while we remain in this infancy of human life, things are to be learned, hardships to be endured, and habits to be acquired through the grace of God, and by the influences of his Holy Spirit, and by a laborious course of discipline, which, however painful, must be cheerfully undergone, because necessary to fit us for the employment and pleasures of our riper existence above.
Our heavenly Father, in his infinite pity and love, has sent down his own eternal Son, the express image and character of his person, to initiate us by his grace and Spirit, and carry us through this course of education for eternity by the same Spirit. Inflamed therefore with the love of immortality and its joys, let us submit ourselves to our heavenly Teacher, and learn of him those graces which alone can make life pleasant, death desirable, and fill eternity with extatic joys.

REFLECTIONS.1st, Pilate having failed in his first attempt to release the innocent prisoner, bethought himself of another to move the people’s compassion.

1. He delivered him up to the officers to be publicly scourged, hoping probably, that after this ignominy and punishment their fury might be appeased. The soldiers to whose custody Jesus had been committed, added the most cruel mockery to his sufferings, and in derision of the dignity to which he pretended, platted a crown of thorns, and, put it on his head, arrayed him in robes of mock majesty, and bowing the knee, saluted him king of the Jews; while with their hands they smote him, and offered the vilest indignities. Note; (1.) By these stripes he fulfilled the prophetic word, and in part procured the healing of our guilty souls. (2.) Many now make a jest of things sacred, who will shortly prove them to their most serious realities. (3.) He who endured such pain and shame for us, has left us his example of patient suffering: how dare we then at any time complain, when we consider what he endured?

2. Thus arrayed, Pilate once more ordered him to be led forth, hoping that this would satisfy his persecutors, and that they might be prevailed upon to let him go; when he adds withal his solemn testimony, that he found no fault in him, and that he therefore regarded him as an object rather to be pitied than feared; and pointing to him as he stood, wearing the crown of thorns and purple robe, his face black with buffeting, and smeared with blood, he said, Behold the man! and let such an object of misery plead with you for mercy. Note; (1.) That man, once treated with such insult and contempt, should be for ever in our eyes the object of our admiration, love, and praise; for, as he humbled himself thus low, the more we see of his abasement, the more the riches of his grace should rise in our esteem. (2.) If we be hooted at, and made gazing-stocks by wicked men, we are only called to a fellowship in Christ’s sufferings, and should therein rejoice.

3. Far from being softened and melted by the misery of the innocent sufferer, the chief priests and their officers, more exasperated through the fear of losing their prey, instigated the people, and in a most tumultuous manner headed the mob, and led the cry, Crucify him, Crucify him. Pilate, shocked at their cruelty and injustice, or ironically reproaching them, who pretended to so much sanctity, with so wicked a deed, replies, Take ye him, and crucify him, if ye are so madly set upon it; I choose to have nothing to do with so base an action, for I find no fault in him. Fearing that Jesus should yet escape them, they produce a new accusation of a capital nature. At first they charged him as a traitor against the government, now as a blasphemer against God; pretending, that according to their law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God, and pretended to the incommunicable honours of the Godhead.

4. Pilate, more terrified at that saying, lest he should bring the divine vengeance more fearfully on his head, determined to examine farther into the matter; and therefore, taking Jesus into the judgment-hall, demanded whence he came, whether of human or divine extraction. But Jesus, knowing it was useless to reply, gave him no answer. Pilate, resenting his silence as a contempt of his authority, with haughtiness adds, Speakest thou not unto me? art thou mute, though a prisoner at my bar? knowest thou not, that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? He boasts of his authority as absolute, as able to save or to destroy: so apt are proud worms in office to magnify themselves, and to affect a display of their power.

5. Christ nobly checks his arrogance, and exposes the vanity of his boasts. Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above; as a magistrate, it was from heaven he received his authority, and should rule with justice; and in this particular case, had it not been permitted in the councils of God, not all the Roman powers combined could have prevailed in the minutest particular against him. Therefore he that delivered me unto thee, Caiaphas the high priest, hath the greater sin. Note; (1.) There is a difference in sins; some transgress with more aggravated guilt than others, as they act against greater light, and offend with greater malice.

6. Pilate, now more deeply stung in his conscience, sought earnestly to obtain the release of Jesus, but in vain. Had he acted as an upright magistrate, and according to the convictions of his conscience, he would have feared no popular resentment; but his corruptions overcame his convictions; and the fear of offending the people, and of endangering himself, at last prevailed. The Jews, perceiving how he was disposed, in order to compel him to consent, clamoured loud, and urged, that if he let this man go, he could not be Caesar’s friend; since whoever made himself a king, spoke against Caesar, and was a rebel against his government; though the fact was so notoriously false, Christ having never assumed the least temporal authority; he commanded, on the contrary, the tribute to be paid to Caesar; and when the people would have made him a king by force, he left them, and disappointed their designs. But this they craftily urge, as what must most powerfully influence Pilate, who might now be liable to an accusation before the emperor for betraying his trust, if he should let him go, whom they accused as a traitor. Thus they, who in heart abhorred the Roman government, now would appear the most zealous subjects of Caesar. Wicked men, to effect their purposes, can transform themselves into every shape.

7. Pilate, terrified into compliance with their request by this suggestion, and well apprized of the cruel and suspicious temper of Tiberius the Roman emperor, sat down on the judgment seat, in a place called Gabbatha, or the pavement, in order to pronounce sentence upon the prisoner. And it was the preparation day of the passover sabbath, a solemn season when very different subjects should have engaged their time and thoughts, and about the sixth hour. Once more to try if any thing would work upon them, Pilate bids them behold their king, and think a moment if such a miserable object could afford any real cause to fear his pretensions, even if he had affixed royalty. But they, impatient for his condemnation, shouted Away with him, away with him, crucify him; they will hear nothing in his favour, and are determined in their purpose. Pilate remonstrates with them hereupon, Shall I crucify your king? either meaning to excite their compassions, or ridiculing their hopes of a Messiah. They, who at other times ever testified their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, now eagerly embrace it, and with deep professions of loyalty cry, We have no king but Caesar. Pilate then, seeing it in vain to contend, pronounced sentence, and delivered up the innocent prisoner to them to be crucified. Thus was he arraigned and condemned for us, for a pretended crime, that the condemnation due to us for our real rebellions against God might be removed.

8. The sentence is immediately put in execution by his blood-thirsty persecutors, with every circumstance of ignominy. They drag him to the place where malefactors were executed without the city, bearing his own cross; and there nail him to the accursed tree, between two criminals, who were executed with him, to make him appear the vilest of the vile; thus fulfilling the scriptures, which foretold that he should be numbered with the transgressors, Isa 53:12. We cannot too frequently in our meditations come and see this great sight: calvary offers the noblest object to our view, God incarnate dying for our iniquities: with what anguish for our guilt, which brought the Saviour to the cross; with what love to him, who so freely consented to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, should we then look up to a crucified Jesus!

2nd, The circumstances of Christ’s death are here somewhat more fully related than by the other evangelists.
1. On a tablet at the top of his cross, Pilate wrote a superscription in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, containing the accusation laid against him, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Multitudes of the Jews then, who came from the city to the place of execution, read the superscription; and the chief priests, offended at the title given him, regarded it as a mark of infamy upon their nation, and therefore requested Pilate to alter the writing into another form, and not to call him absolutely King of the Jews, but that he said, I am King of the Jews; desiring to fix upon his memory this infamy of an impostor. But Pilate, indignant at the injustice they had driven him to commit, with displeasure rejects their request, saying, What I have written, I have written, and will not alter. Note; (1.) The very superscription proved the innocence of Jesus. No crime was charged upon him, but his asserting his real character as the King Messiah. (2.) God holds the hands and lips of wicked men, and can, when he pleases, make them write and speak in such a way, as shall bear testimony to his truth.

2. The soldiers who crucified him, as he hung on the tree, sat down to part his garments among them; and, unwilling to rend his seamless coat, determined rather to cast lots which of them should have it, fulfilling literally the scriptures, which had said, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. (Psa 22:18.) Those things therefore the soldiers did, with the utmost freedom as to themselves, and yet in a remarkable correspondence to the divine oracle and prescience.

3. In the midst of his agonies Jesus shewed the tenderest concern for his afflicted mother, who stood by his cross with the disciple whom he loved; and kindly addressing her, he recommends her to the care of his beloved John, desiring her to regard him henceforth as her son, and directing him to pay her the duty and affection due to a mother; and from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home, glad to obey the commands of his dying Master, and well pleased to have an opportunity of testifying his unfeigned love towards him. Note; (1.) Christ on the cross hath taught all children an eminent instance of filial duty towards their parents, whose wants to the utmost they are bound to provide for. (2.) When one friend fails, the Lord can raise us up another: if we trust him, we shall not be destitute. (3.) They who love the adored Jesus, will be happy to embrace every opportunity of testifying their regard for him.

4. Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, and his work of atonement nearly complete, that the scripture might be fulfilled (Psa 22:15; Psa 69:21.) saith, I thirst; and a vessel of vinegar being near, which was probably mixed with water, as drink for the Roman soldiers, they dipped a spunge in the liquor, and on a stalk of hyssop lifted it to his lips. Jesus felt that wrath of God, and thirsted, which had he not endured, we must for ever have lain down in everlasting burnings, without one drop of water to cool our tongues.

5. Jesus having received the vinegar, saith, It is finished, the victory is obtained over death and hell; the full atonement is made; all the types and prophesies fulfilled; the law magnified by a perfect obedience unto death, and the justice of God satisfied; and therefore now his sufferings end. He bowed his head and gave up the ghost; freely resigning his soul into his Father’s hands, and surrendering that life which otherwise none could have taken from him, as the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1Jn 2:2.)

3rdly, The indignity intended to be shewn to Jesus in the breaking of his bones, and that also shewn to him by the soldier in the piercing of his side, are recorded only by this evangelist.
1. The Jews, superstitiously observant of the sabbath, and hypocritically pretending reverence for that sacred institution, while their hands were red with the blood of him who was Lord of the sabbaththat the bodies might not hang on the trees till evening, when the sabbath began, which was a high day, and kept with great solemnity, they besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away; to kill them outright, if they were not dead before, and to bury them immediately. Note; Hypocrites often appear very scrupulous about the ceremonies of religion, while they are living in open violation of its most essential precepts.

2. Pilate granted their request; and the two malefactors, not being yet dead, had the dreadful operation performed on them: but when the soldiers came to Jesus, perceiving him already dead, they broke not his legs; but one of the soldiers, to put the matter past dispute, with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water; either the pericardium bring pierced, and thus the water it contained rushing out with the blood, or this separate discharge was miraculous, but typical at all events of the great blessings of justification and sanctification, obtained by Christ’s blood-shedding for us. And John, who was standing by, adds his attestation, as an eye-witness to this fact, as most indubitably true, that we might believe the certainty of Christ’s death, and receive the inestimable blessings which this blood and water signified. Note; (1.) We are by nature polluted with guilt, and defiled with corruption; but this is the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Jesus came by blood to make the atonement, by water to purge our consciences from dead works to serve the living God: whoever therefore cometh to him, shall find the mighty efficacy of his blood to pardon the most guilty, and of his grace to purify the most polluted soul. (2.) We have not followed cunningly devised fables in the gospel of our salvation, but believe on the evidences of facts, supported by the most unshaken authority, and attested by the most competent witnesses.

3. In this transaction particular notice is taken of the fulfilment of two scriptures: (1.) A bone of him shall not be broken (Exo 12:46.); which, though spoken of the paschal lamb, yet especially regarded him, who in the fulness of time, as our passover, should be sacrificed for us (1Co 5:7.). (2.) Another scripture said (Zec 12:10.) They shall look on him whom they pierced. Thus were the prophesies accomplished by those, who thought of nothing less in what they did, than the confirmation of our faith in Jesus as the true Messiah.

4thly, Though now Jesus seemed deserted of all, and his corpse ready to be laid with malefactors in a common grave, God raises up one who is appointed to give it a more honourable interment.
1. Joseph of Arimathea, who through fear of the Jews had concealed his sentiments, and, though secretly a disciple of Jesus, was afraid to profess it, now boldly appears, and begs of the governor the body of Jesus, which was granted. Note; (1.) The higher men are in the world, the greater temptation they are under to shun the reproach of the cross; and, though persuaded of the truth of the gospel, not to make bold and open profession of it. (2.) When some of the most courageous disciples are foiled, God can say to the fearful hearts, Be strong, and can enable them to appear boldly in the cause of truth.

2. Nicodemus, who at the first appearing of Jesus came to him by night, now joined Joseph in this pious work, and provided a large quantity of myrrh and aloes, in order to embalm the body of Jesus, as was often done to men of eminent reputation and dignity. No expence to serve him, will be grudged by those who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. They took down the body, and wrapped it in linen clothes, with the spices, as was the manner of the Jews to bury their great men: and as Joseph had a garden near the place where Jesus was crucified, in which he had prepared himself a new tomb, hewn out of a rock, where never man had lain before, there laid they the body of Jesus, it being very convenient, as they were straitened for time, the preparation-day being far advanced, and the sabbath approaching. Thus was our great Surety laid under the arrests of death, and consigned to the silent grave, that he might make the clods of the valley sweet to us, prepare our bed of dust perfumed with his own glorious body, and comfort us in the reviving hope of following him through the grave, the gate of death, unto a joyful immortality.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.

Ver. 41. A new sepulchre ] Fit for him that was the “first-born from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep.” Besides else it might have been said, that some other had risen, and not he (saith Theodoret), as Mahomet saith that Christ was not crucified, but another for him. , ..

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

41. ] See note on Mat 27:60 . The words are so far in favour of the traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre, that Calvary and the Sepulchre are close together, under the roof of the same church. And those who have found an objection in that circumstance have forgotten this testimony of John.

, and therefore given for the purpose so that the additional particular not here mentioned, that it belonged to Joseph , is almost implied. The newness of the tomb was important, that it should be seen “neminem prter Jesum, neque Jesum alterius virtute, ut olim circa sepulchrum Elisi acciderat, resurrexisse” (Lampe): so that (Luthardt) no room might be left for the evasions of unbelief.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 19:41 . , see Gen 50:1-3 . , “There was in the place,” i.e. , in that neighbourhood, , a garden, which, according to Mat 27:60 , must have belonged to Joseph. , a tomb, rock-hewn according to Synoptists, which had hitherto been unused, and which was therefore fresh and clean.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

John

THE GRAVE IN A GARDEN

Joh 19:41 .

This is possibly no more than a topographical note introduced merely for the sake of accuracy. But it is quite in John’s manner to attach importance to these apparent trifles and to give no express statement that he is doing so. There are several other instances in the Gospel where similar details are given which appear to have had in his eyes a symbolical meaning-e.g. ‘And it was night.’ There may have been such a thought in his mind, for all men in high excitement love and seize symbols, and I can scarcely doubt that the reason which induced Joseph to make his grave in a garden was the reason which induced John to mention so particularly its situation, and that they both discerned in that garden round the sepulchre, the expression of what was to the one a dim desire, to the other ‘a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’-that they who are laid to rest in the grave shall come forth again in new and fairer life, as ‘the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to bud.’

To us at all events on Easter morning, with nature rising on every hand from her winter death, and ‘life re-orient out of dust,’ that new sepulchre in the garden may well serve for the starting-point of the familiar but ever-precious lessons of the day.

I. A symbol of death and decay as interwoven with all nature and every joy.

We think of Eden and the first coming of death.

The grave was fittingly in the garden, because nature too is subject to the law of decay and death. The flowers fade and men die. Meditative souls have ever gathered lessons of mortality there, and invested death with an alien softness by likening it to falling leaves and withered blooms. But the contrast is greater than the resemblance, and painless dropping of petals is not a parallel to the rending of soul and body.

The garden’s careless wealth of beauty and joy continues unconcerned whatever befalls us. ‘One generation cometh and another goeth, but the earth abideth for ever.’

The grave is in the garden because all our joys and works have sooner or later death associated with them.

Every relationship.

Every occupation.

Every joy.

The grave in the garden bids us bring the wholesome contemplation of death into all life.

It may be a harm and weakening to think of it, but should be a strength.

II. The dim hopes with which men have fought against death.

To lay the dead amid blooming nature and fair flowers has been and is natural to men. The symbolism is most natural, deep, and beautiful, expressing the possibility of life and even of advance in the life after apparent decay. There is something very pathetic in so eager a grasping after some stay for hope.

All these natural symbols are insufficient. They are not proofs, they are only pretty analogies. But they are all that men have on which to build their hopes as to a future life apart from Christ. That future was vague, a region for hopes and wishes or fears, not for certainty, a region for poetic fancies. The thoughts of it were very faintly operative. Men asked, Shall we live again? Conscience seemed to answer, Yes! The instinct of immortality in men’s souls grasped at these things as proofs of what it believed without them, but there was no clear light.

III. The clear light of certain hope which Christ’s resurrection brings.

The grave in the garden reversed Adam’s bringing of death into Eden.

Christ’s resurrection as a fact bears on the belief in a future state as nothing else can.

It changes hope into certainty. It shows by actual example that death has nothing to do with the soul; that life is independent of the body; that a man after death is the same as before it. The risen Lord was the same in His relations to His disciples, the same in His love, in His memory, and in all else.

It changes shadowy hopes of continuous life into a solid certainty of resurrection life. The former is vague and powerless. It is impossible to conceive of the future with vividness unless as a bodily life. And this is the strength of the Christian conception of the future life, that corporeity is the end and goal of the redeemed man.

It changes terror and awe into joy, and opens up a future in which He is.

We shall be with Him.

We shall be like Him.

Now we can go back to all these incomplete analogies and use them confidently. Our faith does not rest upon them but upon what has actually been done on this earth.

Christ is ‘the First fruits of them that slept.’ What will the harvest be!

As the single little seed is poor and small by the side of the gorgeous flower that comes from it; so will be the change. ‘God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him.’

How then to think of death for ourselves and for those who are gone? Thankfully and hopefully.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

garden. Greek. kepos. See Joh 18:1.

new. Greek. kainos. See on Mat 9:17.

sepulchre = tomb. Greek. mnemeion. Before this in John translated “grave”, Joh 5:28; Joh 11:17, Joh 11:31, Joh 11:38; Joh 12:17.

wherein = in (Greek. en. App-104.) which.

never man yet = not yet any one. Greek. oudepo oudeis.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

41.] See note on Mat 27:60. The words are so far in favour of the traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre, that Calvary and the Sepulchre are close together, under the roof of the same church. And those who have found an objection in that circumstance have forgotten this testimony of John.

, and therefore given for the purpose-so that the additional particular not here mentioned, that it belonged to Joseph, is almost implied. The newness of the tomb was important, that it should be seen neminem prter Jesum, neque Jesum alterius virtute, ut olim circa sepulchrum Elisi acciderat, resurrexisse (Lampe): so that (Luthardt) no room might be left for the evasions of unbelief.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 19:41. , in the place) The cross itself was not in the garden.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 19:41

Joh 19:41

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid.-Joseph of Arimathea owned a garden close by the place of crucifixion. He had hewn out of rock what we call a vault rather than a grave. This vault was large enough to contain a number of bodies and for persons to pass out and in. This sepulchre or vault had never been used. The body of Jesus was laid in this vault. It was a convenient place to deposit the body, as the Sabbath was now at hand and other arrangements for his sepulchre had not been made. It is not probable that it was intended that his body would permanently remain in this vault.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

and in: Joh 20:15, 2Ki 23:30, Isa 22:16, Mat 27:60, Mat 27:64-66, Luk 23:53

Reciprocal: 2Ch 16:14 – his own sepulchres

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

1

A new sepulchre. This place had become the property of Joseph according to Mat 27:60. We are not informed when nor why Joseph had acquired this tomb, but having done so evidently for his own use whenever the occasion came that it would be needed, it was at this time unoccupied. That gave the occasion for the body of Jesus to be placed “wherein was never man yet laid” (stated here and in Luk 23:53).

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Joh 19:41. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. Nothing further is told by John of the garden and of the sepulchre thus referred to. We learn only from the other Evangelists that they belonged to Joseph, and that the sepulchre, as is common round Jerusalem, was hewn in the rock. It is not easy to say whether the Evangelist, in referring to the particulars he mentions, may have desired to prepare the way for the reality of the resurrection. They certainly tend to do so, because they help to show that, when the grave was found empty, none but Jesus could have risen from it. It seems more probable, however, that they are mentioned with the view of bringing out the honour paid to Jesus in His death. He was laid, not in the place of common burial, but in a garden, and in a new sepulchre, where no one had been laid before Him. Finally, we are informed why they laid Jesus there in the condition in which He was.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Joh 19:41-42. Now in the place where he was crucified In the same tract of land; there was a garden But the cross did not stand in the garden; and in the garden a sepulchre Which happened very commodiously for his immediate interment. By the circumstance of the sepulchres being nigh to the place where Jesus was crucified, and consequently nigh to Jerusalem, all the cavils are prevented, which might otherwise have been occasioned, in case the body had been removed farther off. Moreover, it is observed that the sepulchre was a new one, wherein never any man had been laid. This plainly proves that it could be no other than Jesus who arose; and cuts off all suspicion that he was raised by touching the bones of some prophet who had been buried there, as happened to the corpse which touched the bones of Elisha, 2Ki 13:21. Further, the evangelists take notice that it was a sepulchre hewn out of a rock, to show that there was no passage by which the disciples could get into it, but the one at which the guards were placed, Mat 27:60; and, consequently, that it was not in their power to steal away the body, while the guards remained there performing their duty. Macknight. There laid they Jesus, because of the Jews preparation That is, they chose the rather to lay him in that sepulchre, which was nigh, because it was the day before the sabbath, which also was drawing to an end, so they had no time to carry him far. The boldness of Joseph, and even of Nicodemus himself, deserves our notice on such an occasion. They are not ashamed of the infamy of the cross, but come with all holy reverence and affection to take down those sacred remains of Jesus; nor did they think the finest linen or the choicest spices too valuable on such an occasion. But who can describe their consternation and distress, when they saw him who they trusted should have delivered Israel, a cold and bloody corpse in their arms; and left him in the sepulchre of Joseph, whom they expected to have seen on the throne of David. We leave, for the present, his enemies in triumph, and his friends in tears, till his resurrection; which soon confounded the rage of the former, and revived the hopes of the latter; hopes which must otherwise have been for ever entombed under that stone with which they now covered him. But happy and comfortable is the thought, that this his transient visit to the grave has (as it were) left a perfume in the bed of dust, and reconciled the believer to dwelling a while in the place where the Lord lay. Doddridge.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Vv. 41, 42. Now there was in the place where he was crucified a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre wherein no one had ever yet been laid. 42. It was there that they laid Jesus, because of the Preparation of the Jews; for the sepulchre was near.

According to Matthew, the sepulchre belonged to Joseph himself, and this was the reason of the use which was made of it. According to John, this sepulchre was chosen because of its proximity to Golgotha, since the Sabbath was about to begin. These two reasons, far from contradicting, complete each other. What purpose would the proximity of the sepulchre have served, if it had not belonged to one of the Lord’s friends? And it was certainly the circumstance that Joseph owned this sepulchre near the place of crucifixion, which suggested to him the idea of asking for the body of Jesus.

John and Luke (Luk 23:53) remark that the sepulchre was new. Comp. Luk 19:30 : You shall find a colt tied whereon yet never man sat. These are providential facts, which belong to the royal glory of Jesus. When a king is received, objects which have not yet been used are consecrated to his service.

The expression . the Preparation of the Jews, signifies, according to those who hold that the death of Jesus took place, not on the 14th, but on the 15th: the Friday of the Jews. But what would be the object of so singular an expression? It was designed, answers Rotermund, to give us to understand how it happened that the day following a Sabbatic day (the 15th) was again a Sabbath (Saturday). By this means the first Sabbath became, as it were, the preparation for the second. But if the first of the two days was Sabbatic, like the following one, the carrying away of the body, which they did not wish to do on the next day, could not any more have been done on this day. The quite simple meaning is that it was the hour when the Jews (thus is the complement the Jews explained) prepared their great national and religious feast by sacrificing the lamb. They were obliged to hasten because, with the setting of the sun, this day of preparation, the 14th, a non-Sabbatic day, came to its close, and because the following day, the 15th, was in that year a doubly Sabbatic day (Joh 19:31); comp. Luk 23:56.

On the Day of Jesus’ Death.

Respecting the day of the week on which the death of Jesus took place, the agreement of the four evangelists is manifest; it was a Friday (Mat 27:62, Mar 15:42, Luk 23:54, Joh 19:31). But they appear to differ as to the question whether this Friday was the 14th or the 15th of the month Nisanan apparently insignificant difference, but yet one which implies a more considerable one. For on this depends the question whether Jesus had celebrated on the preceding evening the Paschal supper with all the rest of the Jewish people,in that case Jesus would have died on the 15th,or whether the people were to celebrate this supper later, on the evening of the day of His death,in this case the day of His death was the 14th. For the Paschal supper was celebrated on the evening which formed the transition from the 14th to the 15th.

I. The View of John.

According to Joh 13:1, Jesus celebrated His last supper before the feast of the Passover. Rotermund (in the article which is cited above) affirms, no doubt, with Langen, that the Passover feast began only on the 15th, and that, as a consequence, this supper, which took place before the feast, must be placed on the evening of the 14th, and must therefore be identified with the Paschal supper. But see on Joh 13:1. John would not have designated this supper simply by the words: A supper, or even, if one will have it so, the supper. For the benefit of his Greek readers, he could not have refrained from designating this supper as that of the Passover.

The passage Joh 18:28, notwithstanding all the efforts of some scholars (comp. also Kirchner, Die judische Passahfeier, 1870), plainly declares that the Jewish Paschal supper was not yet celebrated on the morning when Jesus was condemned, and consequently that Jesus was put to death on the 14th, and not on the 15th. The passages Joh 19:14; Joh 19:31; Joh 19:42 lead to the same result. Neither Kirchner nor Rotermund has succeeded in proving that expressions such as these: the Passover Friday, the Friday of the Jews, are natural. That it was a Friday is certain; that the word (preparation) may designate Friday, as the preparation for the Sabbath, is unquestionable. But that in John’s context this term paraskeue8, preparation, can have the technical sense of Friday, is inadmissible.

After the observations ofKirchner and Luthardt, I give up alleging Joh 13:19 as decisive, although one still asks oneself how a purchase could have been made during the Passover night, all families, whether rich or poor, being at that time gathered around the Paschal table, and all the shops being consequently closed.

II. The Apparent View of the Synoptics.

This view seems to follow evidently from the three parallels, Mat 26:17 : The first day of unleavened bread (the 14th of Nisan), the disciples of Jesus came to him saying, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee the Passover supper? Mar 14:12 : And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the Passover, the disciples said to him; Luk 22:7 : The day of unleavened bread came, when the Passover must be sacrificed, and he sent Peter and John. It seems altogether natural to place this question of the disciples, or (according to Luke) this commission which Jesus gives to two of them, on the morning of the 14th, when the preparations of the Paschal supper were made for the evening. And from this fact precisely it is that the apparent contradiction to the narrative of John arises; for, if Jesus gave this order on the 14th in the morning, the supper which the disciples were to prepare for the evening could only be the Paschal supper, from which it would follow that His last supper coincided with the Paschal supper of that year.

Now, according to John, as we have just proved, the Jewish Paschal supper must have taken place only on the evening which followed that of the last supper of Jesus, on the evening of the day of His death.

Here is one of the greatest differences between the Synoptics and John. Since the earliest times it has attracted the notice of all those who have closely studied the Scriptures. And already in the second century, as we shall see, we encounter numerous traces of the discussions which it has raised.

III. The Attempts at Solution.

From the time of St. Jerome, the view of the Synoptic narrative became prevalent in the Church; it continued so even until the Reformation: Jesus had celebrated the Passover with the whole people before He died. But at that epoch the revival of Biblical studies caused the need to be felt of giving a more exact account of the Gospel narratives; their apparent disagreement was obvious, and the attempt was made to resolve it. Calvin and Theodore Beza, then Scaliger and Casaubon, brought out the idea, already expressed by Eusebius and Chrysostom (seeTholuck, p. 41), that the Jews, in order that they might not have to celebrate two successive Sabbatic days (Friday, the 15th of Nisan, as the first day of the feast, and the next day, the 16th, which fell in this year on Saturday), had exceptionally delayed by one day the great day of the feast, while Jesus had, for Himself, kept the legal day. Thus would the fact be explained that He, at this time, celebrated the Passover a day sooner than the rest of the people. It appears that, at the present day also, when the 15th of Nisan falls on a Friday, the Jews transfer the feast from this day to Saturday. This solution is very simple and natural. Only we do not find either in the New Testament, or in Josephus, or in the Talmud, any trace of such a transposition, which would constitute a grave derogation from the law. Other reasons have been sought which might lead Jesus in this circumstance to deviate from the generally-received usage. Stier has thought that He attached Himself to the mode of action of some sects, like that of the Karaites, who had the custom of celebrating the Paschal supper, not on the evening of the 14th-15th, but on that of the 13th-14th. Ebrard has supposed that because of the great number of lambs to be slain in the temple (sometimes more than 250,000, according to Josephus) from three to six o’clock in the afternoon, the Galileans had been authorized to sacrifice and eat the lamb on the 13th instead of the 14th. Serno applies the same supposition to all the Jews of the dispersion. But these hypotheses have no historical basis, and are, in any case, much less probable than that of the Reformers. Rauch has affirmed that the Israelites in general celebrated the Paschal supper, legally and habitually, on the evening of the 13th-14th, and not that of the 14th-15th. But this opinion, which, even if adopted, would yet not resolve the difficulty, strikes against all the known Biblical and historical data.

Lutteroth, in his pamphlet, Le jour de la preparation, 1855, and in his Essai d’ interpretation de l’ Evangile de saint Matthieu, 1876, places the day of the conversation of Jesus with His disciples much earlier, on the 10th of Nisan, when the Jews set apart the lamb which was to be sacrificed on the 14th. It was, according to him, on the same 10th day that Jesus was crucified; He remained in the tomb on the 11th, 12th, and 13th; the 14th was the day of

His resurrection. This entirely new chronology is shattered by the first word of the conversation. How is it possible that the 10th of Nisan should be called by the evangelists the first day of unleavened bread, especially when this determination of the time is made still more precise, as it is in Mark, by the words: when the Passover is sacrificed. It is true that Lutteroth tries to make this when refer only to the idea of unleavened bread: the unleavened bread which is to be eaten when the Passover is sacrificed (!). The words of Luk 22:7 : The day of unleavened bread came, when the Passover must be sacrificed, are still more rudely handled: it is not an historical fact which Luke relates, it is a moral reflection by means of which the evangelist announces at the beginning that the Passion will have an end (!) (Essai, pp. 410, 411). After all these fruitless attempts, one can understand how a large number of critics limit themselves at the present day to establishing the disagreement and declaring it insoluble; this is what is done by Lucke, Neander, Bleek, de Wette, Steitz, J. Muller, Weiss, de Pressense, etc.

IV. The Truth of John’s Narrative.

But if the contradiction exists, it remains to determine which of the two narratives deserves the preference. Then it must be explained how so grave a difference can have arisen in the Gospel narrative.

The critics of the Tubingen school Baur, Hilgenfeld, Keim are not embarrassed: it is the Synoptics that have preserved the true historical tradition. As to John’s narrative, it is a deliberate alteration of the real history, intended, on the one hand, to make the death of Jesus, as the true Paschal lamb, coincide with the time of the sacrificing of the lamb in the temple, and, on the other hand, to throw into the shade the Jewish Paschal supper by making the last supper of Jesus a simple farewell meal. But neither the one nor the other of these ends required a means so compromising as that which is thus ascribed to pseudo-John. Such a disagreement with the first three Gospels, which were already received throughout the whole Church, and with the apostolic tradition, of which these writings were known to be the depositaries, exposed the work of the fourth evangelist to the danger of being greatly suspected, and that in a very useless way for him. For to present Jesus as the true Paschal lamb, there was no need of such a desperate expedient as that of misplacing the well-known day of His death; it was enough that this event should be placed in the Paschal week; there was, therefore, nothing to be changed in the tradition of the Church; comp. the words of Paul in 1Co 5:7 : Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us; those of Peter, 1Pe 1:19, and all the passages of the Apocalypse where Christ is called the Lamb. As to the Jewish Passover, there was no need in the second century to depreciate it; it was already replaced everywhere, both in the Church and in the sects, by the Christian supper (Schurer, pp. 29-34).

A second class of critics, as we have seen, try to interpret the texts of John so as to put them in accord with what they think to be the meaning of the Synoptic narrative. They are, for example, Lightfoot, Tholuck, Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Wieseler, Luthardt, Wichelhaus, Hofmann, Lichtenstein, Lange, Riggenbach, Ebrard, Baumlein, Langen, Keil. But all their efforts have been unsuccessful in bringing out from John’s text a sense contrary to that which is obvious on reading it.

As to the third class, which concedes a real difference between our Gospel narratives, the greater part give the preference to that of John; thus, among the moderns, Weiss, Pressense (see note on p. 400), Reuss himself (Theol . joh. pp. 59, 60). And, in fact, if the conflict is real, the choice cannot be doubtful. The witnesses in favor of the historical exactness of John’s narrative are the following:

1. The Synoptics themselves.These writings contain a series of facts, and a certain number of words, which are in complete accord with John’s narrative and in no less evident disagreement with the view which is attributed to them. If there was an hour sacred to the Jewish conscience, it was that of the Paschal supper; and yet it was at this hour that a multitude of officers and servants of the chief priests and elders had left their houses and their families, assembled around the Passover table, to go and arrest Jesus in Gethsemane! Still more, we know that everything which was reprehensible on the Sabbath, as, e.g., to climb a tree, to ride on horseback, to hold a session of a court, was also prohibited on the festival day (Traite Beza, 5.2); and yet there were held, on that Sabbatic night of the 14th-15th, at least two sessions of the court, in one of which the sentence of death for Jesus was pronounced; and then all those long negotiations with Pilate, as well as the sending to Herod, took place; all this, notwithstanding the festival and Sabbatic character of the 15th of Nisan! It is answered that a session of the court was nermitted on the festival day, provided that the sentence was not put in writing, and that, in general, the rule of the festival days was less rigorous than that of the Sabbaths properly so called. But, at the foundation, all the difference between these two kinds of days is limited to the authorization to prepare the necessary articles of food on the festival day, if even we are allowed to draw a general conclusion from Exo 12:16. Now would so slight a difference be sufficient to justify the use of such a day which is here implied?

That Simon of Cyrene, who is returning from the fields (Mat 27:32); that Joseph of Arimathea, who is going to purchase a linen cloth (Mar 15:46); those women who give up embalming the body, because the Sabbath is drawing near (Luk 23:56)is all this explicable on the supposition that the day when these things happened thus was itself a Sabbatic day, the 15th of Nisan? No doubt it is answered that Simon was returning from a simple walk in the country, or that he was a countryman who was going to the city; then, that purchases might be made on a festival day, provided they were not paid for on the same day. It is nevertheless true that the impression made by the narrative of the Synoptics is that the day of Jesus’ death was aworking day, entirely different from the Sabbatic day which was to follow; that it was, consequently, the 14th, and not the 15th of Nisan.

This is what appears also from a certain number of expressions scattered throughout the Synoptic narrative. Thus Mat 26:18 : My time is at hand; let me keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples. What is the logical connection which unites the two propositions of this message? The only satisfactory relation to be established between them is this: It is necessary for me to hasten; for to-morrow it will be too late; I shall be no longer here; act, then, so that I may be able to eat the Passover at thy house immediately with my disciples (, the present).

Mat 27:62 : The evangelist calls the Saturday during which the body of Jesus reposed in the tomb: the morrow which is after the preparation. In this phrase it is impossible that the word preparation should have the sense of Friday, as if Matthew had meant to say that the Sabbath during which Jesus was in the tomb was the next day after a Friday! We do not designate the more solemn day by that which is less so, but the reverse. If the day of the 15th is designated here from its relation to the less solemn day of the preparation which had preceded it, it is because this day of preparation had become much more important, as the day of Jesus’ death. From this singular phrase, therefore, it follows that Jesus was crucified on the 14th.

The same conclusion must be drawn from Mar 15:42 : Seeing it was the Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath. It is of the day of Jesus’ death that Mark thus speaks. Now, it is impossible that Mark, a Jew by birth, should have characterized a day like the 15th of Nisan as a simple Friday, preceding the Sabbath (Saturday), this 15th day being itself a Sabbath of the first rank. And if the expression: preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, can in the ordinary usage designate a Friday, this technical sense is inapplicable in a context where the reason is explained why a work was allowed which could not be done on the following day. The term preparationhas here its general sense according to which it is applied to any day of the week preceding a Sabbath. Mark explains thereby the act of Joseph of Arimathea in burying Jesus, after having bought a linen cloth. All this was possible, he says, because it was the preparation, the day before the Sabbath and not the Sabbath. This is what the expression in Luk 23:54 also signifies: That day was the preparation, and the Sabbath was about to dawn.

All these facts and words, no doubt, do not imply that the redactors of the Synoptic narratives fully understood the conclusion to be drawn from them as to the day of Jesus’ death. But they are indications, which are so much the more significant since they seem to be unconscious, of the real tradition relative to the day of this death and of the complete conformity of this tradition with the narrative of John.

2. The Talmud. Some passages of this monument of the Jewish memorials and usages declare expressly that Jesus was suspended on the cross on the evening of the Passover (beerev happesach), that is to say, in the Jewish language, the evening before the Passover. The erroneous details which are sometimes mingled in these passages with this fundamental statement do not at all diminish the value of the latter, because it is reproduced several times and identicallya fact which indicates an established tradition. If it is objected that the Jewish scholars derived this statement, not from their own tradition, but from our Gospels, this is to acknowledge that they understood the latter as we ourselves understand them.

3. St. Paul.Keim cites this apostle as a convincing witness in favor of the Synoptic view. We recognize, he says, in the institution of the Holy Supper (1 Corinthians 11), all the forms of the Jewish Paschal suppera fact which can be explained only if this last supper of Jesus coincided with the Passover, and if it consequently took place on the evening of the 14th-15th, and not on the evening of the 13th-14th. But Jesus may very well have used the forms of the Paschal supper on an evening before that on which that supper was celebrated; for, as He says Himself, his time was at hand, and He was forced to anticipate. From the expression of Paul in 1Co 11:23 : The Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed, it follows rather that that night was not the night of the Paschal supper; otherwise Paul would have characterized it in another way than by the betrayal of Judas.

All the witnesses whom we are able to consult, even the Synoptics, who are set in opposition to John, do homage, therefore, to the accuracy of his narrative.

V. The real Meaning of the Synoptic Narrative.

But, I would ask, is it indeed certain that the Synoptics really say what they are made to say? They say expressly that the first day of unleavened bread (Matt., Mark, Luke), when the Passover was sacrificed (Mark), came (Luke), and that the disciples asked Jesus (Matt., Mark), or that Jesus Himself, taking the initiative, sent John and Peter from Bethany to Jerusalem (Luke), with a view to seeking a place for celebrating the Passover. This conversation is unhesitatingly placed on the morning of the 14th of Nisan for the very simple reason that the days are reckoned, as we ourselves reckon them, making the official day coincide with the natural day. But, in calculating thus, it is forgotten that among the Jews the official day began at six o’clock in the evening, and that thus, when it is said: The day of unleavened bread came, this indication, properly understood, places us, not in the morning of the 14th, but in the evening of the 13th-14th. Taking the Synoptics literally, we are obliged to hold that the conversation between Jesus and the disciples of which they tell us took place, not on the 14th in the morning, but late in the afternoon of the 13th, between the two evenings, according to the customary expressionthat is, between the moment when the sun sinks to the horizon and that when it disappears, a moment which is the transition point between the civil day and the day following.

Rotermund asserts, no doubt, that, notwithstanding this official way of reckoning the days, it was always the beginning and the end of the natural day which determined the popular language. But the contrary follows from Luk 23:54, which designates the last moment of Friday evening by the words: It was the preparation, and the Sabbathwas about to dawn, as well as from the phrase which was customary among the Jews, according to which erev haschabbath, evening of the Sabbath, denotes the evening, not of Saturday, but of Friday. Moreover, we can cite a telling fact taken from Jewish life at the time of Jesus. On the 16th of Nisan, in the morning, the sacred sheaf was offered as the first-fruits of the entire harvest of the year. This sheaf was cut in a field near to Jerusalem, on the preceding day at evening, or, as we should say, on the 15th at evening. The messengers of the Sanhedrim arrived in the field followed by the people: Has the sun set? they asked.It has, answered the people.Am I to cut?Yes, cut.With this sickle? Yes.Into this basket?Yes.And why all these formalities? Because the 15th was a Sabbatic day, and because manual labor, like that of the reaper, must not be done until after it was established that the 15th was ended, and until the 16th, a working day, had begun. We see from this how deeply the way of reckoning days, which we attribute here to the Synoptics (from evening to evening, and not from morning to morning), had penetrated into the Jewish social life. There is also a circumstance which comes to the support of what we are here saying.

It was already alleged by Clement of Alexandria, and its importance has been acknowledged by Strauss. The crowd of pilgrims was so great in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, that no one waited until the morning of the 14th to secure for himself the place where he might celebrate the Paschal supper with his family in the evening. It was on the 13th that this search for a place was attended to. So Clement of Alexandria calls the 13th the , thepro-preparation; for the preparation itself was the day of the 14th. It was certainly, therefore, on the day of the 13th, and not that of the 14th, that the disciples spoke to the Lord, or He to them, with the purpose of procuring the place which they needed for the next day at evening. The conversation reported by the Synoptics must have taken place, therefore, at the latest, about five or six o’clock in the afternoon of the 13th, according to our mode of reckoning the days. Jesus, at that time, sent to Jerusalem the two disciples in whom He felt most confidence, charging them to secure a room. In the thought of all the disciples, it was for the next day at evening; but Jesus gives His two messengers to understand that it was for that same evening. This is what the terms of the message imply which He intrusted to them for the host whom He had in view: My time is at hand: I must hasten. And why this course of action, which was full of mystery? The reason for it is simple. Judas must not know in advance the house where Jesus would spend this last evening with His disciples.

From six to eight or nine o’clock, the disciples would have time enough for preparing the supper, even for killing and preparing the lamb, which was already set apart since the 10th of Nisan. Undoubtedly they did not sacrifice it in the temple. But could they have done this, even on the official day and at the official hourthey who must have been excommunicated as adherents of Jesus (Joh 9:22)? However this may be, according to the primitive institution of the Passover (Exo 12:6-7), it belonged to every Israelite to sacrifice his lamb in his own house; the sacrificing in the temple was a matter of human tradition. And at that time, when the Israelitish Passover was about to come to an end, to be replaced by the sacramental supper of the new covenant, it was altogether natural to return to the simplicity of the starting point. The priestly sacrificing was useless when the typical lamb had no longer any other part to fill than that of serving as the inauguration of the new supper which was to replace the old. It has been objected (Keim, Luthardt) that Jesus did not have the right to change the legal day of the Passover. But if He was the Lord of the Sabbath, the corner-stone of the whole ceremonial law (Mar 2:28), He was certainly the same also with respect to the Passover. The legal Paschal supper was no longer for Him, at that moment, anything but the calyx, withered henceforth, from the bosom of which the commemorative supper of the perfect Redemption was about to blossom.

Let us also observe an interesting coincidence between the well-known Jewish usages and the narrative of the Synoptics, as we have just explained it. On the evening of the 13th, about six o’clock, the lamps were lighted in order to search the most obscure corners of the houses and to remove every particle of leaven. Then, before the stars appeared, a man went from every house to draw the pure water with which the unleavened bread must be kneaded. Does not this usage very naturally explain the sign given to Peter and John when Jesus said to them: On entering the city, you will meet a man bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he shall enter (Luk 22:10)?

The solution which we here present is not new; it is at the foundation the same which was already set forth in the second century by the two writers who were especially occupied with this question at the time when it seems to have deeply engaged the attention of the Church, Apollinaris of Hierapolis and Clement of Alexandria. The first expresses himself thus: The day of the 14th is the true Passover of the Lord, the great sacrifice, in which the Son of God, put in the place of the lamb, was delivered up to be crucified. The second says, with still more precision: In the preceding years, Jesus had celebrated the feast by eating the Paschal lamb according as [on the day when] the Jews sacrificed it. But on the 13th, the day on which the disciples interrogated Him, He taught them the mystery [of the type of the lamb]….It was on this day (the 13th) that the consecration of the unleavened bread and the pro-preparation of the Passover took place;…and our Saviour suffered on the day following (the 14th): for He was Himself the true Passover….And this is the reason why the chief priests and scribes, when leading Him to Pilate, did not enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled and might eat the Passover in the evening without any hindrance.

In reality, therefore, we have only reproduced Clement’s solution in the most violent of the Paschal disputes of the second century, of which we shall soon speak. Weiss, who rejects every solution, yet acknowledges that, strictly speaking, Mar 14:12 is the only passage which is opposed to what we have just set forth. What seems to him incompatible with it is the remark: The first day of unleavened bread, when the Passover was sacrificed. But why could not these last words be applied to the evening of the 13th, if this evening, according to the Jewish manner of reckoning, belonged already to the 14th, on the afternoon of which the lamb was sacrificed? Weiss cannot himself refrain from adding that, in any case, the question of the disciples, if placed in the morning of the 14th, is improbable, for the people did not ever expect to occupy themselves at that time with the place of the supper. De Pressense has nothing else to object except the words of Mat 26:20 : And when the evening was come, he reclined at table with the Twelve, which implies, he says, that the preparations for the supper were made, not a few moments earlier in the evening, but during the course of the day. This remark would perhaps be well founded if the evangelist had had in view, in writing these lines, the question which occupies us. But Matthew does not seem, any more than the other two Synoptics, to have accounted for the problem which is raised by the traditional account; he simply meant to say that this last supper of Jesus took place, not in the daytime, but in the evening.

It is probable that two circumstances contributed to the want of clearness which prevails in the Synoptical narration: first, the very easy confounding of the civil and natural day, and then the fact that the institution of the Holy Supper had impressed on this last supper a character very similar to that of the Paschal feast.

Finally, let us recall to memory the lights which exegesis has asked from astronomy with respect to this question. The question being to determine whether, in the year of Jesus’ death, the great Sabbatic day of the 15th of Nisan fell on Friday, as the Synoptic narrative, or on Saturday, as the narrative of John implies, the calculation of the lunar phases might serve, it was thought, to decide the question. Two astronomers set themselves to the work,Wurm, of Gottingen (Bengel’s Archiv., 1816, II.), and Oudemann, Professor at Utrecht (Revue de theologie, 1863, p. 221).

But it is necessary to begin by determining the year of Jesus’ death, and scholars still differ on this point. Ideler and Zumpt place it in 29;Winer, Wieseler, Lichtens’ein, Caspari, Pressense, etc., in 30; Ewald, Renan, in 33; Keim, in 35; Hitzig, in 36. In this state of things, the two astronomers have extended their calculation to the whole series of years 29-36 of our era. The result, as to the year 30, which we think, with most of the critics, to be the year of the death, is the following: In this year, the 15th of Nisan fell on a Friday. This result would condemn our explanation; but Caspari, taking up anew the calculation of Wurm, starting from the same data as this astronomer, has arrived at the opposite result. According to him, in the year 30 the 15th of Nisan was Saturday, as it must be according to our explanation. The fact is, that we find ourselves here face to face with the incalculable uncertainties and subtleties of the Jewish calendar. Wurm himself declares that one can speak here only of probabilities, that there will ever remain an uncertainty of one or two days. Now, everything depends on a single day (Keim, III., p. 490-500). It is safer to work upon positive texts than upon such unsettled foundations. And as for ourselves, everything being carefully weighed, we think that the most probable date of Jesus’ death may be stated thus: Friday, the 14 th of Nisan (7 th of April), in the year 30.

We are happy to agree, on the question of the relation between John and the Synoptics, with some modern scholars: Krummel, Darmstadt Litteraturblatt, Feb., 1858; Baggesen, Der Apostel Johannes, 1869; Andreae, in the Beweis des Glaubens, Der Todestag Jesu, July to September, 1870. On the consequences of the historical superiority of John’s narrative, with reference to the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, see Introd., Vol. I., pp. 77-79.

VI. Glance at the History of the Paschal Controversies.

The fact which lies at the foundation of that long disagreement between the primitive churches is the following: The churches of Asia Minor celebrated the Paschal feast by fasting during the whole of the 14th of Nisan and by communicating on the evening of this day, at the time when the Jews were eating the lamb. The other churches of Christendom, Rome at their head, fasted, on the contrary, during the days which preceded the Passover Sunday, which was always the Sunday that followed the 14th; then they received the sacrament in the morning of this Passover Sunday.In both cases the communion terminated the fast.

First phase of the discussion. About 155, Polycarp, in a visit which he makes to Rome, has a conversation on this subject with Anicetus, the bishop of Rome. Each defends the rite of his own church in the name of an apostolic tradition of which it claimed to be the depositary (originating at Ephesus from John and Philip, at Rome from Paul and Peter). There is no proof that on this occasion they entered within the exegetical and dogmatic domain of the question. The ecclesiastical peace remained undisturbed. The diversity in the rite served rather, as Irenaeus says, to establish agreement in faith.

Second phase. Fifteen years later, in 170, there breaks out in the midst even of the churches of Asia, at Laodicea, a disagreement on the subject of the Passover. There are persons therewho are they? we shall have to examine this pointwho, like the Asiatics, celebrate the 14th in the evening, but resting upon this fact: that it was on the 14th in the evening that Jesus instituted the Supper, in conformity with the time prescribed by the law for the Paschal supper, and they rest upon the narrative of Matthew, according to which the Lord was crucified on the 15th. We see that from the domain of tradition the question is carried to that of exegesis. Melito is the first who writes on this subject, with what view we do not know. Then, on occasion ( ) of his booknot against him, as Schurer still claims Apollinaris and Clement of Alexandria also take up the pen. Both, according to the fragments quoted in the Chronicon Paschale, prove that Jesus celebrated His last supper on the 13th, and that He died on the 14th. They specially allege John’s narrative in favor of this view.

But who are the Laodicean adversaries whom these two writers oppose? Baur, Hilgenfeld, Schurer, Luthardt, answer: They are the churches of Asia themselves, with their celebration of the 14th. Apollinaris was even in Asia the adversary of the Asiatic rite. It is difficult to believe this. For, 1. Eusebius presents the churches of Asia before us as unanimous: The churches of the whole of Asia thought, according to an ancient tradition, that they must observe the 14th by the celebration of the Holy Supper. If this consensus of all the churches of Asia had been broken by so considerable a bishop and doctor as Apollinaris of Hierapolis, Eusebius, the pronounced adversary of the Asiatic rite, would not have failed to notice it. Baur alleges that a little later Polycrates, when enumerating in his letter to Victor, a bishop of Rome, all the illustrious personages who practised the Asiatic rite, does not mention Apollinaris. But he names only the dead. Apollinaris might also be found among the numerous bishops of whom Polycrates speaks without naming them, who surrounded him at the time when he was writing his letter, and who gave their assent to it. 2. If Apollinaris had made a division as related to his colleagues in Asia, the dispute would, no doubt, have broken out in his home, at Hierapolis, rather than at Laodicea. 3. The polemic of Apollinaris by no means implies opposition to the Asiatic rite and adhesion to the occidental rite. The adversaries justified their observance of the 14th by resting upon the fact that this was the evening on which Jesus had instituted the Supper. Apollinaris remarks that this view puts the first three Gospels in contradiction to that of John. But this does not prevent him from celebrating the 14th also only for another reason. In any case, it is impossible to understand how this view of Apollinaris, according to which Jesus died on the 14th, not the 15th, could have favored the Roman observance, according to which the Holy Passover Supper was celebrated on the following Sunday. 4. Schurer is embarrassed here by a manifest contradiction: According to him, the Asiatic rite did not rest on any fact of the Gospel history, neither on the time of the institution of the Supper nor on the day of Jesus’ death. It arose only from the fact that the 14th was the day of the Jewish Paschal supper, which had been simply transformed, in Asia, into the Christian Supper. But, on the other hand, in the presence of the polemics of Apollinaris, he is forced to acknowledge that his adversaries fixed the Supper on the 14th, in remembrance of the day of the institution of the Supper. These two grounds of the same observance not coinciding, he ought not to maintain that the Laodiceans combated by Apollinaris are no others than the churches of Asia in general.

It is with reason, therefore, that Weitzel and Steitz, with whom are associated Ritschl, Meyer, Reville, etc., have been led to see in the Laodiceans, contended against by Apollinaris, a Judaizing party which arose in the Church of Asia, and which had as its aim to preserve for the Holy Supper the character of a complete Jewish Passover supper, as they imagined that the Lord also had celebrated that supper before He died. Then the polemic of Apollinaris and Clement takes effect. These people said: We wish to do as the Lord did [celebrate the Paschal supper on the 14th], and this by eating the Paschal lamb as He did. The two Fathers answer: The Lord did not do this. He carried back the Paschal supper of the 14th to the 13th in the evening, and this by instituting the Supper. This opinion evidently did not prevent Apollinaris from remaining faithful to the rite of his Church, since, as Schurer himself acknowledges, if the churches of Asia celebrated the 14th, as did the Laodiceans, it was not as having been the day of the institution of the Supper.

I would differ in opinion from Weitzel and Steitz only on two points: 1. The Laodicean adversaries, against whom Apollinaris contends, do not seem to me to have been an Ebionite sect properly so called, but only a branch of the Church of Asia, with a more pronounced Judaizing tendency. 2. The rite of the churches of Asia did not arise, probably, as these scholars think, from the fact that, in their view, Jesus died on the 14th, but quite simply from the fact that in these churches the day of the Israelitish Paschal supper was maintained. This is what results from the following words of Eusebius: The churches of Asia thought they must celebrate the 14th, the day on which the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb; then more clearly still from those of Polycrates: And all my relatives (bishops before me) celebrated the day when the people removed the leaven. The Asiatic rite is expressly placed in connection with the day of Christ’s death only in two passages of the fourth and fifth centuriesone in Epiphanius, the other in Theodoret (see Schurer, pp. 57, 58)a fact which shows clearly that this point of view was not the prevailing one at the beginning of the discussion.

Third phase. Between 180 and 190 a certain Blastus (comp. the Adv. Haer. of the pseudo-Tertullian, c. 22) attempted to transplant the Asiatic rite to Rome. It was probably this circumstance which reawakened the dispute between the Churches of Rome and Asia, represented at this epoch, the one by Victor, the other by Polycrates. The latter, in his letter to Victor, no longer defends his cause by the traditional arguments, as Polycarp had done thirty years before. He went through all the Holy Scriptures before writing ( ). And he declares that his predecessors also observed the 14th according to the Gospel ( ). These words give rise to reflection. It has been sought to get rid of them by means of subtleties (see the embarrassment ofSchurer, p. 35).

They evidently prove, as do those which precede, that Polycrates and the bishops of Asia had succeeded in establishing an agreement between the Gospels, by means of which these writings not only did not contradict one another ( , the one Gospel in the four), but also were in accord with the law itself (all the Scriptures). Such expressions imply that Polycrates and his bishops had found the Asiatic rite confirmed first by the law (the question is of the Paschal institution, Exodus 12, fixing the Paschal supper on the 14th), then by the unanimity of the canonical Gospels, which has no meaning unless Polycrates harmonized the Synoptics with John by interpreting them as we ourselves have done. There is, therefore, a perfect equivalency between these words of Polycrates and that which Apollinaris had maintained against the Laodiceans, when he said: Not only is their opinion contrary to the law, which requires that the lamb should be sacrificed on the 14th (and consequently that Christ also should die on the 14th), but also there would be [according to the opinion which they defend] disagreement between the Gospels [since, according to them, Matthew fixed the death of Christ on the 15th, while John places it on the 14th]. This dispute was quieted by the efforts of Irenaeus and many others, who interposed with Victor and arrested him as he was proceeding to violent measures.

Fourth phase. It is marked by the decision of the Council of Nice, in 325, which enjoined upon the Orientals to fall in with the Occidental rite, which was now generally adopted. At the end of the matter, says Eusebius (in his , Schurer, p. 40), the Orientals yielded; and thus, adds the same historian, they broke finally with the murderers of the Lord, and united with their co-religionists (). In fact, the practical consequence of the Asiatic rite was that the Christians of Asia found themselves to be celebrating the Holy Paschal Supper at the same time as the Jews were celebrating their Passover supper, thus separating themselves from all the other Christians who celebrated the Supper on the following Sunday. This rite became in the view of the other Churches, as it were, the sign of a secret sympathy for the unbelieving Jews. This was what determined its defeat. There were, nevertheless, Christians who, like the Judaizers of Laodicea, persisted in the observance of the 14th for the reason that Jesus had instituted the Supper on that day at evening. They figure under the names of Audians, Quarto-decimans, in the lists of later heresies. Athanasius frankly confesses that they are not easily to be refuted when they allege these words of the Synoptics: On the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus (Schurer, p. 45). We here come upon the first symptom of the preponderance which the Synoptical narrative finally gained in the Church over that of John, and which it maintained through the middle ages and even to modern times. The Synoptics, more popular than John and apparently more clear, forming besides a group of three against one, and especially no longer encountering in the way of counterpoise the fear of a mingling of the Christian Supper and the Jewish Passover, carried the day in the general feeling. Jerome is the one of the Fathers who contributed most to this victory.

But how are we to explain the origin of the two observancesthe Asiatic and the Roman in the second century?Paul had no fear of bringing into the Church the celebration of the Jewish Passover feast (Act 20:6; comp. 1Co 5:7-8 with Joh 16:8). He transformed and spiritualized its ritesthis is beyond doubt; the Holy Supper was substituted for the Paschal supper of the lamb and unleavened bread; but the time of the celebration was the same; this seems to follow from Act 20:6. John certainly did not do otherwise; it was thus that the celebration of the Holy Supper on the evening of the 14th of Nisan was quite naturally introduced into Asia.

But the churches of the West, more estranged from Judaism, felt a certain repugnance to this unity in point of time which was established between the Jewish and the Christian feast, and to the kind of dependence in which the simultaneousness placed the second with relation to the first. They therefore threw off the yoke; and, instead of celebrating the Holy Passover Supper on the 14th at evening, as they already had the institution of the weekly Sunday, distinct from that of the Jewish Sabbath, they fixed this ceremony for the morning of the Sunday which in each year followed the 14th of Nisan, or, to speak more properly, the full moon of March. Thus, no doubt, the occidental observance grew up, which finally carried the day over the primitive observance. The Church is free in these matters.

The result of this long and complicated history, so far as relates to the subject which occupies our attention, seems to us to be this: From the time when the Church occupied itself with the exegetical side of the question, it attached itself to the Johannean narrative. It made use of it, on the one hand, to refute by the pen of Apollinaris the exegetical basis on which the Laodicean party rested the observance of the 14th (by making that day, according to Matthew, the day of the institution of the Supper); on the other hand, to defend against Rome, by the pen of Polycrates, the Asiatic celebration of the 14th, by presenting the Supper as the Jewish Passover spiritualizedthat is to say, as the feast of the Christian redemption, the counterpart of the deliverance from Egypt.

The matter in question, therefore, for the Church of Asia, was not that of celebrating the 14th of Nisan as the day of the institution of the Supper, nor even, properly speaking, as the day of Jesus’ death (against Steitz). It simply Christianized the Jewish Passover. The Asiatic observance, therefore, does not furnish, as Baur has claimed, an argument against the Johannean origin of the Fourth Gospel; quite the contrary, the polemic of Apollinaris against the Laodiceans, and that of Polycrates against Victor, are a striking testimony given to the narrative of the Fourth Gospel.

To sum up, the difference between John and the Synoptics may be stated and explained as follows:

In drawing up the oral tradition, the Synoptical writers contented themselves, as he did, with placing the last supper of Christ on the 14th of Nisan, the first day of unleavened bread, without expressly distinguishing between the first and the second evening of that day. Now, as Jesus had given to this last supper, celebrated on the evening of the 13th-14th, the forms of the Paschal supper, which took place on the evening of the 14th-15th, in order to substitute the Holy Supper for the Paschal feast for the future, a misunderstanding might easily arise; it might be imagined that this supper was itself the Paschal feast of the 14th, which necessarily had the effect of carrying over the day of the death of Jesus to the 15th. John (as he had done so many times in his work) desired to dissipate the sort of obscurity which prevailed in the Synoptics, and to rectify the misunderstanding to which their narrative might easily lead. He therefore intentionally and clearly re- established the real course of things to which, moreover, the Synoptic narrative bore testimony at all points.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

19:41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was {e} never man yet laid.

(e) That no man might frivolously object to his resurrection, as though someone else that had been buried there had risen; Theophylact.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

John is the only evangelist who recorded that there was a garden and an unused new tomb near the place of Jesus’ crucifixion. The tomb was probably an artificial cave in the limestone, several examples of which are observable in Palestine today. Matthew noted that the garden and its tomb belonged to Joseph (Mat 27:60). John’s mention of the garden prepares for his reference later to a gardener (Joh 20:15). His reference to the tomb being new and unused prepares for the Resurrection in which no other corpse was in the tomb (Joh 20:8; Joh 20:12).

"The fall of the first Adam took place in a garden; and it was in a garden that the second Adam redeemed mankind from the consequences of Adam’s transgression." [Note: Tasker, p. 219.]

The site was probably not the "Garden Tomb" near Gordon’s Calvary since Jesus’ tomb would have been closer to the crucifixion site that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher now covers. Jesus’ tomb could have been quite similar in appearance to this "Garden Tomb," however.

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