PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO JOHN 19.
Last Sunday we read of the events that took place in the life of Jesus on Palm Sunday, a week prior to the crucifixion. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, many acclaimed Him to be the King: but many had a false or incomplete understanding of the kind of King He is.
Jesus sought to reveal the kind of King He is by riding on a donkey. Pilate asked Jesus if He was the king of the Jews because Jesus enemies accused Him of being a rival king to the Roman king. Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world and that people of truth seek Him.
Roman soldiers mocked Jesus, placing a crown of thorns on His head. When Pilate asked the chief priests and the mob if they wanted him to crucify their king, they claimed to have no king but Caesar.
Four times Pilate declared Jesus innocent but was finally frightened by the threat of the religious leaders. Pilate realized that he had been beaten, so he delivered Jesus to be crucified. John 19: 17-18 says, “And He (Jesus), bearing His cross went out to a place called the place of the skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him and two others, one on either side, and Jesus in the center.”
The passages for study in today’s lesson tell us both the historical act of Jesus’ death and the meaning of His death. Jesus did not die as a victim of circumstances or as a mere example to follow. He died as the perfect sacrifice for sins.
Jesus was humanity’s Substitute who died so sinners could be saved by faith. Anyone who accepts the work that Jesus did on his or her behalf by repenting of sins and trusting in Jesus alone for salvation will be saved from an eternity in hell.
PLEASE READ JOHN 19: 28-30.
John’s Gospel catalogs the indignities and injustices that Jesus endured during His trial, flogging, and crucifixion. Ch. 19 is particularly heartrending because it chronicles the way Jesus was mocked and despised. About the only thing Jesus owned was His seamless robe, but the soldiers took it and callously gambled for it.
Mary, Jesus mother----along with several other women---watched in horror as these events and then the crucifixion occurred before their eyes. John goes out of his way to stress the real humanity and the real suffering of Jesus.
Jesus came as the promised King and as the Suffering Servant. Some were willing to accept Him as King, but they balked at the idea that the King needed to suffer and die to complete His mission.
John’s account of Jesus’ trials and death present Him as both King and Servant. John shows how Jesus ruled from the cross. The sign over His head identified Jesus as King of the Jews. His enemies objected and demanded that Pilate change the sign, but Pilate refused.
John recorded three of Jesus seven sayings from the cross. Jesus spoke to Mary (His mother) and to the beloved disciple (John) in John 19: 25-27.The other two sayings are in vs. 28-30.
The words after this do not say how long after the words of vs. 25-27.
Mark, who probably used the Jewish way of measuring time, shows in Mark 15: 25 that Jesus was crucified about the third hour or 9:00 A.M.
Darkness came at the sixth hour, noon, and lasted until His death at the ninth hour, 3:00 P.M. The sayings in John 19: 25-27 probably took place in the morning and the other two sayings John recorded came near the end.
This is confirmed by the statement that Jesus knew that all things were now accomplished or completed. He had endured the terrible suffering of bearing the sins of the world. Being crucified was a torturous death for anyone, but the pain of bearing the weight of sin made Jesus’ death unique. He was confident that what He was doing fulfilled Scripture.
Earlier Jesus had been offered wine that contained something to help endure the torment of crucifixion. Jesus had refused that after tasting it. He realized that it would ease some of the physical pain, but He was determined to suffer what was His to do.
Even in death Jesus did everything according to God’s plan and purpose. Jesus spoke seven times from the cross, and John records three of them. In the preceding verses 26-27 Jesus admonished John the apostle to care for His mother. Then in vs. 18 further insights, into the mind and heart of Jesus is revealed in His dying hour. Jesus’ cry, “I’m thirsty,” was a natural reaction. He had been tried and beaten during the night and the early hours of the morning. It is doubtful that the soldiers had provided Jesus anything to drink during the long ordeal, and He had likely lost many body fluids. He perspired while carrying the cross and bled profusely from His head, His hands, and His feet.
Hours had passed, yet Jesus did not mention His own feeling of thirst until He knew that everything God had sent Him to do was now accomplished. Only after Jesus had met the needs of others did He cry out about His own need.
Jesus spoke of His thirst so that the Scripture might be fulfilled. He had already quoted from Psalm 22 when He cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” The cry of thirst fulfilled Ps. 22: 15: “My strength is dried up like baked clay; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You put Me into the dust of death.” John recorded these precise details to demonstrate that Jesus never deviated from God’s plan or compromised His character.
He had endured the full fury of bearing the sins of the world; therefore, He asked for a drink. He had been drained of much of the moisture in His body. His mouth was totally dry. He managed to say simply I thirst. The request was not just for Himself. He had a final word of victory to announce so that all who were there would hear. In order to cry out loudly, He needed to have His mouth and tongue moistened.
This request reveals several things about Jesus. He was not too proud to ask for help, even from unfriendly people. He had asked the Samaritan woman for a drink of water in John 4:7. Jesus cry reveals His true humanity. The words also show the reality of His sufferings. Many brave people had endured the physical torment of being crucified. Jesus was no less brave, but as the bearer of our sin He faced more suffering than anyone who had been crucified.
Strictly speaking, Jesus did not ask for a drink on the cross. He stated a fact knowing that only the soldiers could meet His need. In essence, He asked those who crucified Him for some liquid, and someone responded to His need.
Jesus did not merely bear the sin of the world; the Bible says in 2 Cor. 5:21 that God actually made Him “to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In other words, all of God’s wrath and anger at sin was poured out on Jesus so that all who would believe in Him would not have to face that wrath themselves.
Since Jesus’ sufferings on the cross were the result of the sins of the world, His agony was part of God’s redemptive plan. When Jesus cried out in thirst, the soldiers who were executing Him did not seriously attempt to comfort Him. They saw a jar full of sour wine sitting there, soaked the wine in a sponge, attached the sponge to a long stalk of hyssop, and held it up to His mouth.
Jesus found no satisfaction in drinking the wine, only bitterness and sourness that that must have inflamed the cuts in His beaten and parched lips, and mouth. His load was not lightened: His grief was not taken away. Jesus experienced the full force of God’s wrath poured out on Him.
After drinking the sour wine, Jesus knew that He had completed the work of redemption. True to His word that no one could take His life from Him, He said, “It is finished!” Jesus’ statement is just one word in the original Greek. The word signifies not only that a task has been completed but also that a debt has been paid in full. Shopkeepers often wrote this word on a bill or an invoice to note that a customer had brought his account up to date and paid the debt in its entirety.
When Jesus declared that His work of redemption was finished, He affirmed that He had paid the debt of sin completely. No one can add anything to His work.
Jesus work was perfect and complete. He did not fail to accomplish a single thing that He set out to do. Jesus fulfilled God’s purpose and redeemed His people, all the while perfectly obeying His Father in everything. So after bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. In Greek spirit is the same word as “breath.” Either way, the meaning is that Jesus did not die as an unwilling victim but as a willing sacrifice.
Because He was and is the infinite God-Man, Jesus was able to experience an eternity of suffering in those hours of torture and crucifixion. What an unrepentant sinner must experience in eternity Jesus experienced in His infinite person. Far greater agony than the physical suffering He endured was the pain from the Father’s wrath and hatred against sin. Never in all eternity had the son and the Father had anything other than perfect communion, yet on the cross the Father’s anger against sin was focused on the Second Person of the Trinity; Jesus the Christ.
The cry, It is finished was not a cry of defeat but of victory. Jesus did not die saying, “I am finished.” He did not mean, “My cause is lost.” He meant to communicate by speaking loudly that He had successfully completed the mission for which He had come. At the time everyone else saw His death as defeat. Only after His resurrection from the dead were His disciples aware that His death was a great victory.
To what does the word it in vs. 30 refer? Jesus often spoke of His mission. He stated His mission in a variety of ways. He said in Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” In John 10:10 He said, “I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” Jesus had insisted repeatedly in Matt. 16:21 and Luke 9:22 that order to fulfill His mission He must be rejected, suffer, be killed, and be raised again.
The word “finished” also means “completed.” In a book of sermons on the seen sayings on the dross, Russell Bradley Jones entitled his sermon on this saying, “Done!” Commenting on the meaning and verb tense of tetelestai, Jones said: “Its full meaning is “It was finished and as a result it is forever done.” A good translation would be: “it stands finished.” It might well be expressed by the exclamation, “Done!” if the idea of perfection is held in connection.”
Jones illustrated this truth by telling an incident from the life of a somewhat eccentric evangelist named Ebenezer Wooten. A young man asked the evangelist, “What must I do to be saved?” The evangelist said, “Too late, my friend, too late.” The man said, “Oh, don’t say that, Mr. Wooten! Surely it isn’t too late just because the meetings are over?” The evangelist replied: “Yes, my fired, it’s too late! You want to know what you must DO to be saved, and I tell you that you’re hundreds of years too late! The work of salvation was done, completed, finished! It was finished on the Cross: Jesus said so with the last breath that He drew!”
It is remarkable how the cross of Christ brings out all that is in the heart of man, shows men up as they really are. In the light of that cross Pilate comes before us in all his cynicism and his lack of conscience. In the light of that cross the chief priests were manifested in all their hypocrisy and bitterness and their hatred of the holy, spotless Son of God.
And as we follow the story, in the light of that cross we see the callousness, indifference, greed and covetousness of the soldiers who were gambling for the clothing of the crucified One at the foot of the cross; but, thank God, we see brought out in beautiful relief the loyalty, the faithfulness, the tender love of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the other women, her companions, who had been blest through the ministry of Christ, and also the fealty of His devoted follower, the apostle John, the author of this book.
Where were the other apostles? They had fulfilled the Word that said, ”They all forsook Him and fled.” But John was there at the cross. Mary, the mother was there, and Mary Magdalene and Mary the wife of Cleophas, were there, looking on with loving eyes and breaking hearts as they saw the Savior dying on that tree, to glorify the Father and to save a guilty world.
And so Pilate designates Him as King of the Jews, and some day it will be found that the title Pilate put over the cross was more true than he or the world realized. For this One who has gone to His Father’s throne in heaven will return again, and when He returns He will be welcomed by some from that very people who rejected Him, for a remnant in Jerusalem will be found whose hearts will be won for Him the Messiah, and we are told that “they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced.” They will recognize Him, when He comes again, as the true King of the Jews, “great David’s greater Son,” who will fulfill all the O.T. prophecies and bring in that righteous kingdom so long predicted.
PLEASE READ JOHN 19: 31-33.
Vs. 31 clearly identifies the day of Jesus’ death. The Jewish name for Friday was the preparation. This was the day they prepared for the Sabbath. This was a special Friday: that Sabbath day was a high day. This was the Sabbath during Passover. Jesus had made a point of coming to Jerusalem at that time. He was the Lamb of God to whom John the Baptist pointed at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
As the day lengthened, the Jews who had clamored for Jesus’ death so shamelessly began to worry about the propriety of leaving Him and the other two victims on the crosses. After all, it was the preparation day, the day before the Sabbath. Sunset would commence one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar when families were to eat the Passover meal and recount the story of the exodus from Egypt. The Jewish leaders did not want the bodies to remain on the cross on the Sabbath because that would violate Sabbath law.
The Jewish leaders had a ready solution. They requested that Pilate have the men’s legs broken so their bodies would be taken away.
In at least one way the Jewish leaders showed more human consideration than the Romans. The Jewish law would not allow bodies to hang on crosses past sundown. The Romans often allowed victims to suffer for days and sometimes let the corpses hang there long after they were dead. Nor did the Romans bury crucified criminals. They simply took them down and let the vultures, and the crows and the dogs feed upon them.
The Jewish law was different. It laid down in Deut. 21: 22-23 “If a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall bury him the same day.”
Breaking the legs of crucified victims removed the one way they had of avoiding suffocation. Their legs were nailed to the cross. This enabled them to push upward and keep the heavy body from sagging and cutting off their ability to breathe. When a prisoner’s legs were broken, he was no longer able to push upward and keep breathing. Because heavy mallets were used to break the legs, the blows alone could be so traumatic that the prisoner sometimes died from shock.
The two thieves were still alive when the soldiers came. Therefore the soldiers broke the legs of these two. However, when they came to Jesus, they saw that He was dead already. Therefore they did not break his legs. In order to be sure Jesus was dead, one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side. Jesus showed no sign of life, but blood and water came out of His side. John, who bore witness of what he saw, witnessed this phenomenon. And his record is true reminds us of 1 John 1: 1-4 where John stated that his testimony was based on what he witnessed.
John found this event to be an important point to record lest anyone think that Jesus’ life was taken from Him or that He did not really die. Unlike the offenders on the crosses beside Him, Jesus died with a divine and redemptive purpose. When that purpose was fulfilled, Jesus had the ability to lay down His life---just as three days later He would demonstrate that He had the power to take it up again.
There are many theories about the cause and meaning of the blood and water. One popular view is that Jesus’ heart ruptured. If so, He literally died of a broken heart. Whatever its physical reason, John typically looked for the meaning of such an event. One strong possibility was that the blood and the water signify salvation. The use of these two words by John relates to forgiveness and new life. In 1 John 1:7 he wrote, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” When Jesus offered living water to the Samaritan woman in John 4: 10-14, He was offering her salvation and new life.
PLEASE READ JOHN 19: 34-35.
John wrote his Gospel about 50 years after these events took place. By that time, many false theories, and accusations about Jesus, had been circulated by the enemies of the gospel. John wanted to fill his book with eye-witness details so that readers would know the trustworthiness of the account. These two verses are intended to demonstrate that Jesus really was dead and that the author of the book actually saw it. Eyewitness accounts were considered more reliable than second hand knowledge, and this is true today in American courts.
The sense of urgency with which John wrote vs. 35 is reflective of the author’s overall stated purpose in John 20:31: “But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.”
John wrote his Gospel to instill faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the sinless and perfect Lamb of God. John wrote from a heart of conviction and confidence that faith in Jesus is the way to have eternal life. He testified so that you also may believe. John gave his audience the full assurance that his testimony is completely trustworthy. He added that he knows he is telling the truth.
PLEASE READ JOHN 19: 36-37.
Nothing about the death of Christ was by chance or as a result of circumstances beyond God’s control. John confirmed that even what the soldiers did had happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.
Casual observes may have seen nothing significant in the fact that Jesus legs were not broken, but through the eyes of faith and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit John realized that God had orchestrated this in fulfillment of two passages of Scripture. John could have been referring to Psalm 34:20 when he wrote, “Not one of His bones will be broken,” but more likely he had the laws regarding the Passover lamb in mind.
The soldiers were not following a script. They were just doing what the circumstances called for. Although they were unaware of fulfilling Jewish Scriptures, they did just that.
Both Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12 prohibit the breaking of any of the Passover lamb’s bones, and both the Passover and Jesus as the Lamb of God are prominent themes in John’s Gospel. John took special care to demonstrate that Jesus is God’s perfect Passover Lamb.
He alone is without spot or blemish. No one else could fulfill all the demands of the law and be qualified to bear the sins of the world.
Hanging there on the cross of Calvary, Jesus was the ultimate display of the purpose of the Passover. Just as in Egypt the Lord had passed over those families whose homes displayed the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorposts, so now the Lord passes over all those to whose hearts the blood of Jesus, the perfect Lamb, has been applied.
John also quoted Zechariah 12: 10: “They will look at the One they pierced.” John applied this prophecy about the Messiah to Jesus. This prophesy in Zechariah 12: 10 was directed specifically at the people of Jerusalem, but it promised them “a spirit of grace and prayer.”
PLEASE TURN IN YOUR BIBLE TO THE BOOK OF HEBREWS.
PLEASE READ HEBREWS 9: 22-24.
The Book of Hebrews is probably the least read of the longer N.T. letters. One reason is that it deals with priests and animal sacrifices. Since we do not live in such a times, we are unfamiliar with these subjects. The theme of Hebrews is the superiority of Jesus and the new covenant to the priests and sacrifices of the old covenant. This was a crucial question for Jewish Christians of the first century. The writer of Hebrews emphasized how Jesus is the great High Priest who replaced the Levitical priesthood and how Jesus is the once-for-all, all-sufficient sacrifice who made animal sacrifices obsolete.
The features of the old covenant were important in their day, but Christ is the reality of which these were only shadows. Hebrews 9 teaches that the earthly tabernacle was a heavenly counterpart. The people and things of the old covenant were sprinkled with blood. This was to cleanse and set them apart. This applies to almost all things. Under the law, blood sacrifices were offered in order to signify atonement for sin. On the Day of Atonement the high priest had to offer sacrifices for his own sins before he offered sacrifices for the sins of the people. All of this shedding of blood was to establish the truth that “without shedding of blood there is no remission or forgiveness of sin.”
The last part of vs. 22 states a principle that is fully seen in the blood of Christ. “There are far more references to the blood of Christ in the N.T. than to the cross or death of Christ.”
Each of the main people in the N.T. spoke of the blood of Christ. At the last supper in Matt. 26:28 Jesus spoke of the blood of the new covenant. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:19 that “believers are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.” Paul wrote in Eph. 1:7 of “redemption through His blood.” John wrote of the cleansing power of His blood in 1 John 1: 7. Hebrews used the word over 20 times, 10 of which are in chapter 9. Some of these refer to blood in the O.T., but these references point to the blood of Jesus as their fulfillment. William Cowper said it correctly: “There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.”
When Adam and Eve first sinned in the Garden of Eden, God Himself offered the first sacrifice. The guilt pair tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves, but God clothed them with skins of animals. How strange and sad that must have appeared to the first man and woman, to know that God killed an animal Adam had named. In that moment they got a glimpse of the awful consequences of sin. Prior to their sin they had not known death at all, but in Romans 5: 12 Paul wrote, “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men.”
Abraham also knew that sacrifice was the only way to have access to God. He offered sacrifices to establish the covenant. When God delivered Israel from Egypt, He did it at the same time He established the Passover. Later Moses gave the law that prescribed ways God’s people could enjoy fellowship with Him through rituals of purification and sacrifice. The principle that emerged was clear: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
The most solemn way God maintained fellowship with His people was through the Day of Atonement. Once a year the high priest would enter the holy of holies to sprinkle blood from a spotless lamb on the mercy seat, which was the lid for the Ark of the Covenant. In this way the high pries was making atonement for the sins of God’s people for that year.
In other rituals priests would sprinkle or smear blood on things such as sacred utensils and the priests’ garments. The author of Hebrews summarized all these acts by writing that according to the law almost everything is purified with blood.
The Bible emphasizes in Lev. 17:11 that the only way for God to deal with human sin is through the shedding of blood. This is why Paul wrote in Rom. 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death.” The law not only defined offenses but it also prescribed the penalties. The ultimate penalty for sin is death—eternal separation from God---so God’s holiness demands a blood sacrifice before He can forgive sins.
When God told Moses to build the tabernacle, He told him to build it like the pattern that He would show him. In other words God did not merely describe the tabernacle: God showed Moses a heavenly pattern for an earthly place where He would dwell with His people. Apparently, God showed Moses the place of worship in heaven, which served as a model for an earthly structure. The author of Hebrews called the earthly tabernacle and its’ furnishing the copies of the things in the heavens. This theme resurfaces in Revelation where John described heaven by using language related to the tabernacle or the temple.
When Moses and the craftsmen constructed the pieces of furniture for the tabernacle and the tabernacle itself, they built it with their own sinful hands. Those items had to be purified, and this required that blood be sprinkled on them. The earthly tabernacle had to be dedicated with blood not only as purification but also as a type of the offering of blood that would be offered in the heavenly tabernacle.
The earthly tabernacle was purified with earthly blood, providing sacrifices whose purification only lasted for a brief time. The priests would eventually have to offer another sacrifice and do the process over again.
The animals such as bulls and goats and lambs would not work in heaven. Only the blood of the Son of God heavenly tabernacle, however, needed better sacrifices than those on earth. The blood of ---Jesus, the Lamb of God---would be sufficient.
In vs. 24 when Jesus the Messiah was crucified, He offered His own blood as the atonement for sins. He did not enter a sanctuary made with hands---referring to the temple in Jerusalem---to make atonement because that was only a model of the true one and thus was inferior. Instead, Jesus entered into heaven itself and there in the presence of God He poured His own blood on the mercy seat for us. Jesus has sprinkled His blood on the heavenly mercy seat once and for all, so God sees us through the atoning blood of Christ and our sins are forgiven.
God’s Son is both priest and sacrifice. He entered with His life given as the all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. He acted as a priest presenting Himself as the sacrifice. He continues His priestly ministry as our intercessor.
PLEASE READ HEBREWS 9: 25-26.
Jesus’ sacrifice for sin is infinitely superior to the old covenant’s sacrifices that had to be repeated. Jesus did not have to offer Himself many times like the high priest who had to go into the sanctuary yearly. Most of all, the priest never took his own blood but the blood of another. When Jesus made atonement for sin, He was both the priest and the lamb. He offered His own blood because that was the only sacrifice sufficient to pay sin’s penalty once and for all time. His was he only sacrifice that God would accept.
If Jesus’ sacrifice were imperfect in any way---if He had to enter an earthly temple or if His blood were not sufficient to save for all time----He would have had to suffer many times. But His blood was perfect as were His life and the manner of His death.
Since Jesus is God Himself, the spotless and perfect Lamb of God, then He was and remains the perfect sacrifice for those who trust in Him. For this reason He only appeared one time to offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin.
Jesus did His work at the end of the ages, when the time was right for His atoning work. He accomplished the removal of sin for all who trust in Him. God could not merely ignore sin: He had to punish it. By the sacrifice of Himself Jesus became our sacrifice so we can have eternal life by faith in Him.
The weakness of the old covenant is seen by the repetition every year. Animal sacrifices were “a shadow of good things to come”. The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins. The repetition of the sacrifices showed their inability to take away sin. The animal sacrifices were to point the way toward the One whose work would take away sin.
The end of the world in vs. 26 does not mean what it would mean in today’s world. The author was writing of the age of prophetic fulfillment. Here it is called “the end of the ages.” This period is also called the “last days,” “the fullness of the time” and “the last time.” The beginning of the age of prophetic fulfillment was the incarnate work of Jesus Christ.
Heb. 9:27-28 refer to the third appearing in these verses. Vs. 26 refers to Jesus’ appearance one time at the end of the age of prophetic predictions and the beginning of a new age. During that appearance Jesus offered Himself as the once-for-all sacrifice for sin on the cross. The next appearance in sequence in vs. 24 was His appearance in the presence of God in heaven. The third appearance, and the second to humans, will be His second coming in vs. 27-28. This is the one we are now waiting for.
The Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. We sing, “The first time He came; He came for Calvary. The next time He comes He will be coming back for me.”
We have now seen Jesus as more than a prophet (The Messiah); as our King and Sacrifice, so next Sunday we close this series with Jesus as our Risen Lord and High Priest in Heaven. I am looking forward to the April series titled “Real Faith for a Real World.”
A.V. DAUGHERTY altav@swbell.net http://www.theweeks.org/av/