Word Studies in John 19

Just some thoughts in John's Gospel, Chapter 19, and just for some connection and context, perhaps just from Chapter 18 onwards. John Chapter 18 and verse 29. Pilate then went out unto them and said, What accusation bring ye against this man? They answered and said unto him, If you were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.

Verse 35. Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world.

If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from hands. Chapter 19.

And verse number 10. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.

Verse number 16. Then delivered him therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus and led him away. And verse number 23.

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part, and also his coat and his tunic. Now the coat or the tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rent it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture, they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by, whom he loved, He saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son. Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother. And from that hour, that disciple took her unto his own house.

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith I this. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar, and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished.

And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, for that sabbath day was a high day, they sought pilot that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. And you know the rest of the story.

And for the sake of time, I won't read them all. Trust the Lord will bless to us the reading of his precious word. We're just going to do a little bit of word study.

I don't want to frighten you. It's not something too heavy, but I trust that it might help us to appreciate a little bit, and try to bring alive the text of this chapter before us. Just a few words here and there.

One of the words that you might notice is this word, deliver. Deliver. It's the same word use of Judas Iscariot when he betrayed the Lord Jesus, at least in John's gospel.

When he betrayed him, he delivered him. That's the word. But not only that Judas Iscariot delivered the Lord Jesus, we find this word occurring in chapter 18, and throughout to chapter 19.

The people delivered him. They delivered him to Pilate. And eventually in chapter 19 and verse 16, then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified.

So Pilate delivered him. The people delivered him. And sorry, Judas Iscariot delivered him.

The people delivered him to Pilate, and ultimately he was delivered to be crucified. Now this word ultimately really appears again, finally in verse number 30. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished.

Then he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. That's the word. He delivered up the ghost.

Now it's just interesting to think that Judas Iscariot delivered him. As we have been thinking about that, he was betrayed with 30 pieces of silver. The people, they delivered him.

And ultimately they delivered him to the cross. In all these actions that they performed, they thought that they were the one who determined and decided where the Lord Jesus would be. Judas Iscariot, he thought that he could do what he want.

The people delivered him to Pilate. They thought that he was in his hands. And even Pilate said, Pilate said, well, you know, I have power to crucify thee and power to release thee.

And the answer of the Lord Jesus to him was this, thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greatest sin. Pilate says, don't you know that I have power? I have authority to release you or to crucify you.

You remember the Lord Jesus said in another place, concerning his death, his life, I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. It was all in his power, not in the power of Pilate.

And they delivered and they delivered and they delivered. And they thought that they were the one in power and they the one in control. But I think what John is trying to tell us by the Spirit is this, eventually when he was on the cross, he cried, it is finished.

He bowed his head. He was really the one. The one who had the power.

He delivered up the ghost, his spirit. He was only one who had control of his own life. He was the only one who had control of the last breath.

He was the only one who had control and how all the circumstances would eventually work out that they might die on the cross. So while they all thought that they had power, John tells us, he was the one who delivered up his own spirit. I don't want you to think that the Lord Jesus died much like the way we die.

I think the censure is interesting and unique. He delivered up his own ghost or his spirit. You see, if we die, if it's the will of the Lord, we could die by illness.

We could die by an accident. We could die by a fall. There are many ways we might.

There's one thing that we cannot do. We cannot sit on our seat there and I can't tell a brother William, he says, well, see you in heaven, goodbye. And I just bow my head and I die.

I can't do that. I probably have to take a knife to stick it into my heart or take a pill or do something. I can't just bow my head and say, this is now my moment and I'm going to end my life.

But the Lord Jesus, when he was on the cross, he did not die a natural death in that sense. His life and his last breath was in his own control. So when he bowed his head, he delivered up his spirit.

He was the one who determined the very exact minute and second and moment that he would die. And so this is the one who in all his power, all his omniscience, as we see, he knew the scriptures. And now in his omnipotence, that was even seen on the cross when he delivered up his own spirit and he died.

There's another interesting word just before this. It says he bowed his head and gave up the goods. Well, this word, when it was in connection with the Lord Jesus the last time, not so much in John, but we know this verse.

Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man had nowhere to lay his head. The son of man had nowhere to bow his head. That was the life of the Lord Jesus in humility and service.

When he came from the heights of heaven, he could have demanded the highest palace, could have demanded the most luxurious accommodation. But his humbleness, his lowliness, that caused them to wonder whether he really was the Messiah. But he came to serve and ultimately he came to die.

And he moved in such a way and serve in such a way that there was no fixed place, permanent place of lodging for him. He had nowhere to lay his head. But by the Spirit of God, we are told that there was an opportunity for him to lay his head.

There came a time where he really could lay down his head. It was on the cross. Nowhere to lay his head while he moved, but that place on the cross, he laid his head.

And delivered up his spirit. We think very much of our own comfort. We think very much of our own conveniences.

Service for God often involves a lot of inconveniences and difficulties. There was no one who knew this principle more than the Lord Himself. And that so-called comfort finally, which was not a comfort, was when he laid his head and bowed on the cross.

He said, it is finished. This is an interesting word, actually. This word, finish, finish, accomplish, accomplish, and they're all connected words.

But he says, it is finished. They ducked up a receipt somewhere in Israel. An archaeological item.

And it was a receipt that was written. Someone who made a transaction and paid something. And they found on that archaeological discovery of that piece of receipt, it wrote across, Tetelestai, it is finished.

So it was used in a sense of a payment done or a debt settled. And therefore, when the Lord Jesus cried, it is finished, there are two senses of what this word would mean in the context of the chapter. Number one, it meant that all that the Father had given to do, he had finished, he had fulfilled the scriptures.

And therefore, over and over again, it is said that the scripture might be fulfilled. The work given to him was done. But on another sense, it is true that the debt was paid as well.

Our debt of sin settled on the cross through the finished work of Christ. So he cried, it is finished. There's another word here that is quite interesting.

And there over in verse number 23, it says, Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, took every soldier apart, and also his tunic, his coat. And that word in the original is the keton, a keton. It's not very different from the Hebrew word which is ketoneth.

And they sound the same, they come from about the same origin. But this word keton, his coat, it says, Now the coat was without seam woven from the top throughout. This keton, this tunic, this coat of the Lord Jesus, the same word, the first time it appears really is in relation to Adam.

Remember, they covered themselves with fake leaves, and the Lord made them coat of skin. So that word is the word related to this word, a coat. Coat for Adam and his wife.

The next time this word appears again, it was in relation to Joseph, the coat of many colours. I'm not too sure it was really many colours. I think it's a matter of translation.

But if ever that was in your mind of a young man that wore this beautiful rainbow coloured coat, I don't want to destroy that imagination, so let it be there, but I have my doubts. But it was called the coat of many colours, at least in English. That word is the same word coat, and that time a coat was applied to a sun.

The next time that word comes up again, it is in Exodus 28, and it's connected with Aaron's garment for glory and for beauty. He had a coat. And now we see this word again, the coat, likely that was made woven by his mother, Mary, given to him.

But here is the Lord Jesus perhaps identifying himself with a man, identifying himself with a son, identifying himself with a priest. From Adam, to Joseph, to Aaron, and now he himself has a coat. Isn't it beautiful to think that this man, who is the son, learned of him of being a priest, the priest, the great high priest eventually, and now he has a coat.

What did they do with the coat? Well, they did cast lots, they divided the garment, the other garments among themselves. It is likely that at the foot of the cross, there were four soldiers that were involved in the procedure of the crucifixion, and it is said that when they came to that one piece of coat, the coat was without seam and woven from the top throughout, and they cast lots for it. Interestingly, the description of the coat, it says it was without seam woven from the top throughout.

As you might know already, that nothing in John's gospel is broken. No cracks, no broken lines, everything was whole. But I want you to think about this word from the top throughout.

It might not be apparent in the English Bible, but you remember the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. And that word born again means from above. It's the same word here.

Quite often in John's gospel, this word from above appears. The Lord Jesus said, I am from above, came from above, and that's the word. It describes a source of heaven or where he came from.

But now, John interestingly and strangely uses this word to describe the coat. Says the coat was woven without seam from top, from above, as if there was a touch of heaven on this coat. They would have cast the coat on the floor, perhaps casting lots for it, treating it with the utmost disrespect, thinking of just as an item of exchange, an item to be possessed.

But John would not have us think of this coat in such disrespect that they're done with it. He says this coat was woven from above so that the sense of it is this, even his coat, even the last piece they took from him, even the very piece that they had cast the disrespect and disdain upon, had the reminder of where he came from. He came from heaven and even his coat had a touch of heaven.

Finally, the mother was there and it says there in verse number 25, now there stood by the cross Jesus, Jesus, his mother stood by. The grammatical sense of that word is that it's what we will call a perfect tense. Now, John wrote John's gospel much later and when written this gospel, he said Jesus stood by.

The grammatical sense of that word meant that not only was Mary standing in the past in history, it would seem to John that he was or she was still standing at the point when she was writing. Now, of course, literally Mary was no longer standing there. Mary was likely with John in his house.

Why did John use such form of grammatical verb? Mary was standing and is still standing by the cross of Jesus. I think he wants us to see that a scene of the cross had never left Mary's eyes and mind. It was as good as she was still standing there.

What a blessing for John to be having Mary in his house. Why do you think that it was John who wrote the story of the marriage at the Feast of Cana? There are things that the other disciples did not have the privilege to hear. You could imagine John and Mary the mother of Jesus and they're just having a meal one of those evenings and Mary says, I just want to tell you something that I've not told anyone before.

And she would tell some of those things. It was John's privilege and he said something. Some of those things that are written in John's gospel just shown out as something that only Mary would have known.

Here, every now and then, he would have heard Mary telling him about his son, the one from heaven. And John could tell that as far as the death and the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was concerned, Mary was still standing by the cross. She must have wept, which mother wouldn't? She stood by the cross looking at her own son and she must have wept.

I wonder, and we apply a little bit of sanctified imagination. I wondered the Lord Jesus there on the cross suffering and now looking down and beholding his own mother crying her eyes out and weeping and then he said, woman, behold thy son. And said to the disciple, behold thy mother.

And so in the moment of despair and grief, the suffering one who cared nothing much for his own suffering, he provided at that moment for the care of his mother. Dear children, there are many children here, dear younger men and younger women, honor your father and your mother. We live in a time in a society where that value is gone.

Show respect to the older ones, give them the worth, show them the respect because if the Lord Jesus cared for his mother, what more us to care for our parents? Finally, just the last point, our brother Phil will quickly come in. It says there in verse number 31 that they might be taken away. You see, the feast day was coming.

They wanted to quickly break the legs of those on the cross to hasten the death that they might be taken away. And when they came to see the Lord Jesus, he was already there. They did not break his legs.

The scripture might be fulfilled, a bone of him was not broken, but this word that they might be taken away. It is use of the soldiers of the other malefactors. But this take away, that's the same word in John 1 29.

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away, beareth away the sin of the world. You see how genius as John, he uses all these word plays to bring out, bring a life to text. Behold the Lamb of God, which beareth away the sin of the world.

They wanted to take him away, but he was the one who took away the sin of the world. And so I trust that we just appreciate a little. Just if we encourage younger men, if we dig a bit deeper into the text of the scripture and do a bit of homework, you'll find some amazing, wonderful things that will bring the scripture to life and deepen our appreciation of him.

May the Lord bless his word.