THE CROSS OF JESUS.
John 19:17-37.
JOHN 19:17. “Went forth.” The ultimate sin-offering, outside the gate (cf. Hebrews 13:12-13).
JOHN 19:18. “Where they crucified Him.” Typology of the brass serpent (cf. John 3:14). A hanged man is cursed by God (cf. Deuteronomy 21:23), and Jesus became a curse for us to redeem us from the curse of the law (cf. Galatians 3:13). Others crucified with Him (cf. ‘numbered with transgressors,’ Isaiah 53:12).
JOHN 19:19. Jesus was crucified as “King.” This writing, and what (and who) it represented, ‘blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross’ (Colossians 2:14).
JOHN 19:20. The three languages proclaim the universality of His kingdom (cf. Matthew 2:2).
JOHN 19:21. “The chief priests of the Jews” versus “the king of the Jews.”
JOHN 19:22. “What I have written I have written.” Having yielded already to them, Pilate will yield no more. ‘Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain’ (cf. Psalm 76:10).
JOHN 19:23-24. The soldiers’ parting of His garments unintentionally serves to verify Scripture (cf. Psalm 22:18). “These things the soldiers did” is the Apostle John’s eyewitness testimony.
JOHN 19:25. The women at the cross. Their courage and perseverance (cf. Romans 12:12). Such hope rewarded later at the tomb.
JOHN 19:26-27. Jesus’ compassionate care for His grieving mother. “The disciple whom Jesus loved” is the Apostle John’s own signature (cf. John 13:23; John 20:2; John 21:7; John 21:20).
JOHN 19:28. After this, we read, Jesus knowing that all things, literally “have been finished.” (This is the same verb as the one word statement in John 19:30.) “That the Scripture might be fulfilled,” said, “I thirst” (cf. Psalm 69:3; Psalm 22:15). Everything about His death, you see, was ‘according to the Scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), both foretold in word of prophecy and prefigured in typology in the Old Testament.
JOHN 19:29. The use of a hyssop branch to reach a sponge full of vinegar to our Lord’s lips (cf. Psalm 69:21) reminds us of that used to apply the blood of the Passover lamb to the doorposts just before the exodus (Exodus 12:22). David’s famous prayer of repentance contains the words, ‘purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean’ (Psalm 51:7).
JOHN 19:30. “Finished!” translates as “It has been finished” (cf. John 17:4). His work for our salvation is completed, ‘to finish transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and the prophecy’ (cf. Daniel 9:24). Jesus was still in control, to His very last breath (cf. John 10:18), and now at last “bowed His head” and literally “delivered up the spirit.” Read John 10:11 and Philippians 2:8.
JOHN 19:31-33. The leaders of the Jews now requested of the Roman Governor, because it was the day of preparation before the Passover sabbath, that the legs of the executed men might be broken to smithereens in order to speed up death, and the bodies taken away from their crosses. But when the soldiers came to Jesus, they were surprised to find that He was already dead, and so had no need to break His legs.
JOHN 19:34. Instead, one pierced His side with a spear, but instead of a gush of blood alone, as they might have expected; there was a pouring forth of “blood and water,” medically explained as an efflux of blood clots and serum. In other words, Jesus’ heart was ruptured, broken. Symbolically, ‘a fountain is opened, for sin and uncleanness’ (cf. Zechariah 13:1). John refers to the water and blood elsewhere (cf. 1 John 5:6-8).
JOHN 19:35-37. John bears witness to what he has seen. These are facts of our faith, and he shares them that we might believe (cf. John 20:31). John quotes two more Scriptures in verification of the fact that “a bone of Him shall not be broken” (cf. Numbers 9:12), and “they shall look on Him whom they pierced” (cf. Zechariah 12:10).
