John Chapter 19
Verses 1-5
If Jesus was innocent, He should have been set free.
If Jesus was guilty, He should have been crucified; but to scourge Jesus was unlawful.
Pilate ordered Jesus to be scourged because he thought this would please the Jews.
The soldiers took this opportunity to have fun with Jesus before they crucified Him.
The soldiers could mutilate Jesus and do anything they wished with Him.
One of the games the Roman soldiers often played with their prisoner was to blindfold the prisoner and all but one soldier would hit the prisoner as hard as he could.
Then they would remove the blindfold, and if the prisoner was still conscious, he was to guess which soldier did not hit him.
We can assume that Jesus was beaten within an inch of His life.
“Here is the man!” should be translated, “Behold, the man.”
Jesus is more than a man; He is the Son of God; He is the Savior of the world; and John has written these things that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name (John 20:31).
Verses 6-16
Pilate is not satisfied, so he takes Jesus inside again to question Him (verse 9).
Perhaps those who delivered Jesus over to Pilate were guilty of the greater sin, but Pilate is not exonerated either, even though we can be assured that Pilate believed Jesus was an innocent man.
The Jewish religious leaders had Pilate over a barrel, for they were ready to report Pilate to Rome, accusing him of permitting subversion.
Pilate didn’t want any negative charge against his political record with Rome, so he let his political position overrule his justice and good reasoning.
The “Stone Pavement” or as it is pronounced in Hebrew “Gabbatha” is an actual place in Jerusalem that still stands today and is about 15 feet below the present level of the "Ecce Homo Street."
The "Stone Pavement" is a place where Julius Caesar pronounced his judgments.
Notice in verse 14 it was about the 6th hour, which is the number for man, when the religious leaders were forced to make a choice.
They made their dreadful choice for man in verse 15, saying, “We have no king except Caesar.”
Then Pilate delivered Jesus to them that Jesus should be crucified.
Let’s take a quick look at 5 different viewpoints of the crucifixion of Jesus.
1. From the viewpoint of God:
From God’s viewpoint, the cross is the mercy seat where God can extend mercy to you and to me.
The cross is the place where full satisfaction was made, so that a holy, righteous God can reach down and save sinners.
The very throne of God, the place of judgment, the cross; is transformed into the place of mercy where you and I can find mercy instead of the eternal judgment we so rightly deserve.
At the cross, from the viewpoint of God, Jesus Christ bore our guilt, and God is completely satisfied!
2. From the viewpoint of Jesus Christ:
From the viewpoint of Jesus, the cross is the ultimate sacrifice.
Jesus is the Savior, and He makes Himself an offering for sin.
At the cross, Jesus “humbled Himself becoming obedient until death, and death of a cross” (Philippians 2:8, Greek).
3. From the viewpoint of you and me:
From the viewpoint of you and me, Jesus was our substitution, taking my place and your place upon the cross.
Jesus was the sinless One suffering for sinners, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep gone astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (I Peter 2:24, 25).
4. From the viewpoint of Satan:
From the viewpoint of Satan, the cross was both a triumph as well as a defeat.
It was a triumph for Satan to bruise the heel of the woman’s seed as it had been foretold back in Genesis Chapter 3.
It was a defeat for Satan because the head of Satan is yet to be crushed, “…so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil… (Hebrews 2:14).
5. From the viewpoint of the world:
From the viewpoint of the world, the cross is nothing but another human death.
The world sees only Jesus the man, Jesus the Nazarene; the world cannot see Jesus the God-man.
Therefore, the world led Him away to be crucified, which fulfilled the prophecy in Psalm 94:20, 21:
“…they band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.”
Verses 17-27
John does not give us a detail picture of the crucifixion.
It was outside the city limits.
The chief priests of the Jews asked Pilate to write: “King I am of the Jews” but Pilate said, “What I have written, I have written”; so the sign above Jesus’ head was not changed as the Jews asked, but remained as Pilate had it written: “The King of the Jews.”
It was written in Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament religion.
It was written in Greek, the language of culture and education.
It was written in Latin, the language of law and order.
Therefore, it was written in these three languages as a divine sign (the number 3 is a divine number) for the whole world to see that Jesus died for all people, which is the Gospel that is to be preached to all the world.
No Gospel writer describes in detail the death of Christ.
God has pulled a veil over these details and hidden them from us like the darkness that covered the land, so the people could not see.
God is not going to give us all the morbid details just to satisfy our curiosity.
We can be assured; however, that the cross was a private transaction between the Father and the Son, and this transaction was for the sins of the world, which is far beyond our comprehension.
In verse 26, Jesus calls Mary, “woman” as He had done in John Chapter 2 at the wedding at Cana.
To Mary, as well as to us, Jesus is to be the glorified Christ, but Mary must come to Christ in faith as every other believer must come.
Jesus is perfect in every way, for even from the cross He does not neglect His mother, giving her care over to John, the writer of this Gospel, who kept her in His home, and cared for her as Jesus asked him to do.
Verses 28-37
In verse 30, Jesus said, “It has been finished.”
What was finished?
Our redemption work was finished, for Jesus had said, “I have finished the work which you gave me to do” (John 17:4).
The first prophecy, which John mentions, was fulfilled.
It says, “…they did not break of him the legs…” verse 33.
The reason the legs were broken was so the victim could not crawl off the garbage pile, near the edge of the city, where they were thrown after being crucified.
Had the soldiers not broken the victim’s legs, they may have in time, regained strength to crawl off the garbage pile, and recover from their wounds.
The soldiers saw that Jesus was already dead when they pierced His side, so they did not break His legs.
Notice the other two men who were crucified had their legs broken, so we can assume they were probably taken down from their crosses while still alive, and thrown on the city garbage pile at the edge of town.
The reasoning behind all this was so that the soldiers could go home and rest after their day’s work, feeling assured that the victim would not recover.
What a laughing stock the Roman soldiers would have been if one of their victims has recovered from crucifixion!
Verses 38-42
The two men who handle the body of Jesus were both prominent men.
Joseph of Arimathaea is a rich man, and Nicodemus is the religious sinner who is the ruler of the Jews who came to Jesus by night.
They were both secret disciples, and now they are out in the open with their faith for the first time.
These two men felt they had to come forward because all the Lord’s disciples, except John have been scattered like sheep and gone under cover.
John is busy comforting Mary, who is grieving over the loss of her son.
Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus wrap the body of Jesus like a mummy, and John mentions specifically that they wrapped the body in the linen cloths using the spices, because this is a very important detail for John.
On the resurrection morning, when John saw the linen cloths lying there, and the body of Jesus was not in it, he understood that the Resurrection had taken place, and immediately John, the writer of this Gospel, believed.
Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus had to hurry in preparing Jesus for burial because of the approaching Passover, and apparently they didn’t get the embalming process completely finished.
This explains why the women brought more spices, and planned to come to care for the body of Jesus after the Feast of the Passover.
Please continue in your reading of this Bible study series as you read Chapter 20.
Rev. Jimmy Davis
Bayview Baptist Church
5300 Two Notch Road
Columbia, SC 29204
Telephone: 803-754-8690
Email: BayviewBaptist@aol.com
