John 19

Subdivision 2. (John 19:16-42.)Humbling Himself to the cross. We have come now to the last step in this unequalled humiliation, -to the death of the Cross. We have seen the character of this in this Gospel to be that of the burnt-offering, which emphasizes on the one side His free obedience, on the other, our acceptance in the value of this. Both these will be found accordingly in what is before us now.

John 19:16-30

Section 1. (John 19:16-30.)Obedience perfected. The first section shows us then His obedience unto death completed. John’s presentation of all this is unique, both in what he gives and in what he omits. Details are little dwelt upon: a few points are brought into prominence, every one of which has its manifest bearing upon the general presentation. The simplicity and depth that everywhere pervade the Gospel are nowhere more conspicuous than they are here.

1. First, He comes, bearing His cross, to Golgotha, the place of a skull, -the place of the kingdom of death. This is plainly what the world is because of sin, -death being the stamp of the government of God upon it. For this the Lord sought it: here His love to men brought Him; only He could lift this burden from them, and for this He must come Himself under it. Those two others whom we well know, to whom death is clearly such a penalty, are on either side of Him, and He in the midst. Penalty it is He is taking; Himself on the division line between the saved and the unsaved, the Transformer of death into that which effects the transition from penalty to Paradise.
2. He comes thus into death as King, -“King of the Jews,” indeed, but which in its full rendering implies so much. It faces the Jew, the Greek, the Roman, affirming to each in his own language, with a positiveness which His enemies vainly strive to set aside, a meaning for each one. Here is indeed God’s King, -King in death as in life, -here in a peculiar way affirmed; His Cross henceforth to be the very sign of His power, the sceptre under which they bow, in adoring homage.
3. Now we see what indeed recalls the burnt-offering. This was flayed, that all beneath might be exposed, and its perfection seen. So now they strip the Lord, and expose Him. Here, in this Gospel alone, His seamless robe is spoken of, in figure that robe of righteousness which in Him was indeed seamless, but which now human hands have stripped from off Him, giving Him the malefactor’s place instead. But how fully is He displayed by it in a righteousness which glorifies the righteousness of God itself, by penalty owned and taken in grace for others!

It is not relaxed or modified, as many would teach, but taken in its full intensity of suffering; which alone would maintain the perfect righteousness of it. But thus He has a righteousness acquired as Man, which as Man He needs not. It is not His personal obedience in life, but in stooping to that which, because of His righteous life, could be no due of His. Thus it remains for the lot (which refers the whole disposal of it to the Lord) to decide whose it shall be. God has decided that it shall belong to the man of faith; and so the best robe in the Father’s house is reserved for the returning prodigal; keeping nearer to what is before us here, let us say, to those who pierced His hands and feet, or drove the spear into His blessed side. 4. Amid it all, He has still the human tenderness which shows unchanged the Man Christ Jesus. His mother, standing by His cross, He commends to the care of His beloved disciple, the spiritual link being more than the natural, even while the natural is being recognized. Here, with one exception in the first chapter of Acts, we part with Mary; she is not mentioned in the after-books. In all the doctrine of the epistles she has no place. Blessed among women as she is surely by her connection with the human nature of our Lord, the entire silence of Scripture as to her in that fulness of Christian truth which it was the office of the Spirit of truth to communicate is the decisive overthrow of the whole Babel-structure of Mariolatry which Romanism has built up upon a mere sand-foundation.

She remains for us in the word of God, a simple woman rejoicing in God her Saviour, -a stone in the temple to His praise, and with no temple of her own. To use the grace of the Redeemer in taking flesh among us by her means to exalt the mother to the dishonor of Christ her Lord is truly a refined wickedness worthy of the arch-deceiver of mankind. 5. We find now the divine end reached, and as it only could be, by the divine way; the Lord Himself here declares the perfect accomplishment of all that Scripture has foretold, save one thing only, and in death, as in life, Scripture is for Him the authoritative word of the living God. As in the temptation He had refused to minister to His own need, apart from that by every word of which, He declared, man lives, so now, on the same principle, He makes known that need, not that it might be ministered to, but that Scripture might be fulfilled. He does not Himself fulfil it; God can be trusted to take care for that; but He gives utterance to the distress which will as uttered occasion the fulfilment. The terrible thirst of crucifixion is upon Him; but that is not enough to force the parched lips to speech; but it is written, “In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink:” this opens them. He will show Himself, as ever, in active obedience to the will of God, which He came to accomplish. He simply says, “I thirst:” and by the unsympathetic hands of those around His cross, the vinegar is tendered, and the prophecy fulfilled. All is finished: and His own lips declare it. The very smallness, apparently, of this last matter cared for is absolute proof that no scripture whatever could be left as of no importance. The entire body of Old Testament prophecy is confirmed and certified with all the weight of Christ’s authority. He had said before, “Scripture cannot be broken:” and we know exactly what for Him was “Scripture.” Here, amid the intense sufferings of the cross, we see how completely He owned and was guided by it. That will of God which He came to do was here marked out for Him. The Law was in His heart; and in the very replacing of the Old Testament sacrifices by His one supreme sacrifice, (of which the psalm referred to speaks,) every part of this was honored and upheld. The Antitype necessarily confirmed the type He was displacing, and we have seen this in all the detail given us in the Gospels. It is to His sacrificial work that the Lord undoubtedly has reference here. All scripture as to Himself was certainly not yet fulfilled; but the work of propitiation was accomplished, His words, of course, anticipating (as we have seen to be so much the character of the Gospel of John) the death which was now just before Him. The cup of wrath was, in fact, already drained, as the comparison of Mark and Luke fully assures us. The awful cry of forsaken sorrow which we find in the former has been already exchanged for the cry of “Father,” with which the enjoyment of all that this endeared relationship implies has returned also. Death remains yet, before full atonement is completed; for death and judgment are the double penalty upon man. Death, however, is governmental, not the necessary expression of divine holiness as against sin.

Men may, therefore, die in the full favor of God; while the wrath of God would be impossible to be felt by one enjoying it. Death and the cup of wrath were both taken by the Lord; the latter first, -death following to complete the work; and thus now, at the moment of death, the Victor’s cry, “It is finished.” (See Introduction pp. 26-28.) So He delivers up His spirit to the Father. We do not find Him, as in Luke, actually saying, “Father;” and this would seem more suited an utterance in the Gospel of the Manhood, than here, where (though not exclusively) the Only-begotten is set before us. Yet it is, as we know, to the Father that He commends it. Here He does not commend it, but delivers it up; He has power over it, as mere man has not; and the expression is stronger in this respect than that in Matthew, where the proper rendering is that “He dismissed” it. The expression in each Gospel is in the most perfect accordance with the character of each.

John 19:31-42

Section 2. (John 19:31-42.)The Witness of Salvation. In the second section we have immediate witness to the salvation wrought; not the witness of men, as in the centurion in the other Gospels, but that of the divine word, that is, God’s own testimony. This is what best suits John, as should be evident; the witness of the Spirit also being given in a special way: the Spirit, the water, and the blood unite together to declare that God hath given us eternal life: and this life is in His Son."

1. First, we have the testimony of His perfect righteousness: He is the One fulfilling absolutely the Psalmist’s words as to the righteous (Psalms 34:20), that Jehovah “keepeth all his bones; not one of them is broken.” The shield thrown over Him is made more manifest by the commandment given as to those crucified here, that their legs should be broken, and they should be taken away. This is carried out as to the two malefactors; but with the Lord, His work accomplished, men have no more power over Him; there must be now no marring of even the outward form that has enshrined the symmetry of the spirit within. But this connects also with the paschal ordinance concerning the lamb, that “they shall not break a bone of it.” Here the rough, untutored hands of lawless men religiously respect the legal ordinance, and declare the Christ they know not the Fulfiller of this redemption type. It is a testimony to His Person, as the next to come before us is a testimony to His work. It is the unblemished lamb that can alone be offered, and therefore the order is perfect here as elsewhere.
2. That which is bidden is not done; while that which is not bidden is done: for all is under higher government than man’s. The word of God rules everywhere among and by means of those ignorant and those hostile. The thrust of the soldier’s spear certifies the death so necessary to us against all docetism, while the act of hatred brings forth the answer of divine love, -the certification of redemption wrought. Out of Christ, as the riven Rock, flow the streams of spiritual healing; not water alone, as the apostle comments for us, but water and blood. The miraculous nature of the flow is clear from the way that it is insisted on, -the positive truth of it reiterated, the observation of the beloved disciple certified to us in his epistle afterwards as the witness of the Spirit of God.

We want, therefore, no naturalistic explanations of a divine work on our behalf, “that ye might believe.” Cleansing as well as expiation for men requires the death of Christ. The fulness of spiritual meaning we must seek where the apostle develops it, in his first epistle. Israel are yet to look upon Him whom they have pierced, as the evangelist reminds us; and then a fountain will be opened to them for sin and for uncleanness. When they find the rift in the Rock, they will find the stream that flows from it: for them as for us, out of the heart of Christ. 3. No wonder that His body is wrapped in the spices now. Soon to rise, as He is, yet His death abides ever in the remembrance of His own in sweet and sacred significance. Blessed it is to see the timid becoming bold under its influence. Nicodemus is here with his hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, to rival Joseph in his testimony of honor and affection for Him who has transformed death by His subjection to it. Only John mentions the great amount of spices, and that it is a garden in which is sown this seed of immortal life. While He is in the tomb, the Jews have their “preparation day,” and a mockery of sabbath-rest. Of the reality of rest that has been wrought out for them, they are ignorant altogether.