John Chapter 19

From The Open Bible Project

19:1 So Pilate then took Jesus, and flogged him.

• (1) The wisdom of the flesh chooses the least of two evils, but God curses that very wisdom.

19:2 The soldiers twisted thorns into a crown, and put it on his head, and dressed him in a purple garment.

19:3 They kept saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and they kept slapping him.

19:4 Then Pilate went out again, and said to them, "Behold, I bring him out to you, that you may know that I find no basis for a charge against him."

• (2) Christ is again acquitted by the same mouth with which he was afterwards condemned.

19:5 Jesus therefore came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. Pilate said to them, "Behold, the man!"

19:6 When therefore the chief priests and the officers saw him, they shouted, saying, "Crucify! Crucify!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves, and crucify him, for I find no basis for a charge against him."

• (a) They will have him crucified whom, by an old custom of theirs, they should have stoned and hanged up as convicted of blasphemy: but they desire to have him crucified after the manner of the Romans.

19:7 The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God."

19:8 When therefore Pilate heard this saying, he was more afraid.

• (3) Pilate’s conscience fights for Christ, but it immediately yields, because it is not upheld with the singular power of God.

19:9 He entered into the Praetorium again, and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave him no answer.

19:10 Pilate therefore said to him, "Aren't you speaking to me? Don't you know that I have power to release you, and have power to crucify you?"

19:11 Jesus answered, "You would have no power at all against me, unless it were given to you from above. Therefore he who delivered me to you has greater sin."

19:12 At this, Pilate was seeking to release him, but the Jews cried out, saying, "If you release this man, you aren't Caesar's friend! Everyone who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar!"

19:13 When Pilate therefore heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called "The Pavement," but in Hebrew, "Gabbatha."

• (4) Pilate condemns himself first, with the same mouth with which he afterwards condemns Christ.
• (b) "Gabbatha" signifies a high place, as judgment seats are.

19:14 Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, at about [56] the sixth hour. [See John Footnotes 56] He said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!"

19:15 They cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!"

19:16 So then he delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away.

• (5) Christ fastens Satan, sin, and death to the cross.

19:17 He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called "The Place of a Skull," which is called in Hebrew, "Golgotha,"

19:18 where they crucified him, and with him two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the middle.

19:19 Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS."

• (6) Christ, sitting upon the throne of the cross, is publicly proclaimed everlasting King of all people by the hand of him who condemned him for usurping a kingdom.

19:20 Therefore many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.

19:21 The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, "Don't write, 'The King of the Jews,' but, 'he said, I am King of the Jews.'"

19:22 Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."

19:23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also the coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.

• (7) Christ signifies by the division of his garments amongst the bloody butchers (except for his coat which had no seam) that it will come to pass, that he will shortly divide his benefits, and enrich his very enemies throughout the world: but in such a way that the treasure of his Church will remain whole.

19:24 Then they said to one another, "Let's not tear it, but cast lots for it to decide whose it will be," that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which says, "They parted my garments among them. For my cloak they cast lots."[57] Therefore the soldiers did these things.

19:25 But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

• (8) Christ is a perfect example of all righteousness, not only in the keeping of the first, but also of the second table of the ten commandments.

19:26 Therefore when Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold your son!"

19:27 Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour, the disciple took her to his own home.

19:28 After this, Jesus, [58] seeing [See John Footnotes 58] that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I am thirsty."

• (9) Christ when he has taken the vinegar, yields up the Spirit, indeed drinking up in our name that most bitter and severe cup of his Father’s wrath.

19:29 Now a vessel full of vinegar was set there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop, and held it at his mouth.

• (c) Galatinus witnesses out of the book called Sanhedrin that the Jews often gave those who were executed vinegar mixed with frankincense to drink, to make them somewhat delirious: so the Jews provided charitably for the poor men’s conscience who were executed.

19:30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished." He bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.

19:31 Therefore the Jews, because it was the Preparation Day, so that the bodies wouldn't remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a special one), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

• (10) The body of Christ which was dead for a season (because it so pleased him) is wounded, but not the least bone of it is broken: and such is the state of his resurrection body.

19:32 Therefore the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with him;

19:33 but when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was already dead, they didn't break his legs.

19:34 However one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

• (11) Christ, being dead upon the cross, witnesses by a double sign that he alone is the true satisfaction, and the true washing for the believers.
• (d) This wound was a most manifest witness of the death of Christ: for the water that issued out by this wound shows us plainly that the weapon pierced the very skin that encompasses the heart, and this skin is the vessel that contains the water; and once that is wounded, the creature which is so pierced and stricken has no choice but to die.

19:35 He who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, that you may believe.

19:36 For these things happened, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, "A bone of him will not be broken."[59]

19:37 Again another Scripture says, "They will look on him whom they pierced."[60]

19:38 After these things, Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away Jesus' body. Pilate gave him permission. He came therefore and took away his body.

• (12) Christ is openly buried, and in a famous place, Pilate permitting and allowing it, and buried by men who showed favour to Christ in doing this, men who had before that day never openly followed him: so that by his burial, no man can justly doubt either of his death, or resurrection.

19:39 Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about [61] a hundred Roman pounds. [See John Footnotes 61]

19:40 So they took Jesus' body, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.

19:41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden. In the garden was a new tomb in which no man had ever yet been laid.

• (e) That no man might frivolously object to his resurrection, as though someone else that had been buried there had risen; Theophylact.

19:42 Then because of the Jews' Preparation Day (for the tomb was near at hand) they laid Jesus there.