CHAPTER 19

(A.D. 33)

CROWN OF THORNS

¹Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him (Pilate seemed to hope that the scourging would satisfy their blood lust! he was again to be disappointed).

²And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns (Victors thorns), and put it on His Head, and they put on Him a purple robe (probably the one placed on Him by Herod),

³And said, Hail, King of the Jews! (This was meant to insult not only Christ, but the Nation of Israel as well!) and they smote Him with their hands (means that they continued hitting Him in the face with their open palms or doubled-up fists).

CRUCIFY HIM

⁴Pilate therefore went forth again, and said unto them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him (proclaims another fruitless appeal to the perverted humanity and justice of the maddened mob).

⁵Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns (again, the Governor hoped to mitigate their ferocity), and the purple robe. And Pilate said unto them, Behold the Man! (His appeal was in vain; not a voice in Jesus favor broke the silence.)

⁶When the Chief Priests therefore and officers saw Him (this Pagan, who knows not God, is moved to pity by this sight, but the religious leadership of Israel showed no pity at all; such is religion!), they cried out, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him (registers the most hideous words that ever came out of the mouths of any human beings at any time). Pilate said unto them, Take ye Him, and crucify Him: for I find no fault in Him (proclaims the Governor once again attempting to absolve himself of blame).

⁷The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die (spoke of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Ruling Body of Israel, both Civil and Religious), because He made Himself the Son of God (He did not make Himself the Son of God, but, in fact, was the Son of God).

PILATE

⁸When Pilate therefore heard that saying, He was the more afraid (in the Greek, it means to be exceedingly afraid);

⁹And went again into the judgment hall (he will question Jesus further), and said unto Jesus, Who are You? (Pilate was asking Jesus if He was God.)But Jesus gave him no answer (this fulfilled Isa. 53:7).

¹⁰Then said Pilate unto Him, Do You refuse to speak unto Me? (The Governor was irritated that Jesus did not answer him.) Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and have power to release You?

¹¹Jesus answered, You could have no power at all against Me, except it were given you from above (tells us the degree of control exercised by God): therefore he who delivered Me unto you has the greater sin (we learn from this that some sins are worse than others, thereby we learn that the Jews were held by God as more culpable than the Romans).

¹²And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him (he has just said that he has the power to do so, but he is a spineless man): but the Jews cried out, saying, If you let this man go, you are not Caesars friend (ironical! they hated Caesar; however, they hated their own Messiah more!): whosoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar (hits at Pilates weakest spot; the slightest hint of disloyalty to the Emperor would bring serious consequences).

FINAL REJECTION

¹³When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth (presents Jesus brought out of the Judgment Hall to stand before the mob), and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha (was a stone platform in the open Court in front of the praetorium, the place of final sentence).

¹⁴And it was the preparation of the Passover (was actually a Wednesday instead of Friday, as supposed by most), and about the sixth hour (6 a.m.): and he said unto the Jews, Behold your King! (This sounds like resignation on the part of Pilate, recognizing his tepid efforts to save Christ will not be realized.)

¹⁵But they cried out, Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him (only Rome could crucify! they want Jesus crucified, hoping this would disprove that He was actually the Son of God; they were taking their cue from Deut. 21:22-23). Pilate said unto them, Shall I crucify your King? (This was exactly what they wanted.) The Chief Priests answered, We have no king but Caesar (they elected Caesar to be their king; by Caesar they were destroyed).

THE CRUCIFIXION

¹⁶Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified (he acquiesced to their wishes). And they took Jesus, and led Him away (proclaims that which they wanted and they got).

¹⁷And He bearing His Cross (this is the answer of humanity to the only good Man Who ever lived) went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha (undoubtedly speaks of that which is referred to presently as Gordons Calvary, named for the British General who discovered the place of Crucifixion and the Tomb):

¹⁸Where they crucified Him (Crucifixion was one of the most hideous forms of death that the tortured mind of man could ever begin to conceive), and two other with Him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst (proclaims such being designed purposely, placing Him between two criminals; however, in this His enemies fulfilled Isa. 53:9).

¹⁹And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the Cross (it was done by Pilate, despite the Jews). And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS (although intended as sarcasm, nevertheless it was the Truth, and so was engineered by the Holy Spirit).

²⁰This title then read many of the Jews (served its purpose exactly as Pilate hoped it would): for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city (means it was immediately outside the city limits and alongside a major highway): and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.

²¹Then said the Chief Priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am King of the Jews.

²²Pilate answered, What I have written I have written (in effect, he was saying, You have falsely charged Him with rebelling against Caesar, and you know that you have lied to my face).

²³Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus (pertains to the gruesome work being completed of nailing Him to the Cross), took His garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part (means that four soldiers were employed in the Crucifixion; this was their extra pay for so gruesome a detail); and also His coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout (the value of this particular garment was that it was without seam, meaning it was all one piece of cloth).

²⁴They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be (presents that which John evidently saw and heard with his own eyes and ears; actually it seems he was the only Disciple to stand near the Cross at this time): that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which said, They parted My raiment among them, and for My vesture they did cast lots (Ps. 22:18). These things therefore the soldiers did (little did they realize they were fulfilling Scripture).

²⁵Now there stood by the Cross of Jesus His Mother (the suffering she must have endured as she watched this spectacle is, no doubt, beyond comprehension!), and His Mothers sister, Mary (Maria) the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.

²⁶When Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and the Disciple standing by, whom He loved (John, the author of this Gospel), He said unto His Mother, Woman, behold your son! (Due to His Own half-brothers not believing in Him, Jesus would place the care of Mary into the hands of John the Beloved; however, the Resurrection would cure this.)

²⁷Then said He to the Disciple, Behold your mother! (Jesus told John that from that moment on, he was to look at Mary exactly as his own Mother.)And from that hour that Disciple took her unto his own home (proclaims John speaking of himself in the third person; tradition says that John carried out the Masters Command in totality).

DEATH

²⁸After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished (speaks of the last minutes before His Death), that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst (Ps. 69:21).

²⁹Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar (presents a type of wine, which was not an intoxicant): and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His Mouth (it was hyssop, which was also used to put the blood on the doorpost in Egypt at the First Passover; in a sense, it is symbolic of the Humanity of Christ).

³⁰When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar (pertained to the moistening of the lips and tongue, which had dried up because of the loss of body fluid; most probably He asked for this in order that He might speak the last words), He said, It is finished (proclaims the greatest Words, albeit at great price, that any sinner could ever hear; in effect, the worlds debt was paid; every iota of the Law had been fulfilled): and He bowed His Head, and gave up the ghost (Jesus did not die from His Wounds; He freely gave up His Life, in fact, dying when the Holy Spirit told Him to die [Heb. 9:14]).

³¹The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation (concerned the preparation of the Passover meal, carried out the day before the actual Passover), that the bodies should not remain upon the Cross on the Sabbath Day, (for that Sabbath Day was an high day,) (does not speak of the regular Jewish Sabbath of Saturday, but rather the High Day of the Passover, also called a Sabbath, which took place on a Thursday) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away (the shock of the broken legs would kill the victims on the Cross, in order that they might be taken down, thereby not being left on the Cross on the Sabbath).

³²Then came the soldiers, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with Him (speaking of the two thieves).

³³But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already (presents something unusual, because the victims usually hung on the Cross for days before expiring), they broke not His Legs:

³⁴But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His Side (along with the remainder of the Verses of this Chapter, is fundamentally valuable as affirming beyond controversy the actual Death of Jesus Christ), and forthwith came there out blood and water (is proclaimed by some to be the result of a broken or ruptured heart).

³⁵And he that saw it bear record, and his record is true: and he knows what he says is true, that you might believe (refers to John speaking of himself as an eyewitness).

³⁶For these things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A Bone of Him shall not be broken (Ex. 12:46; Num. 9:12; Ps. 34:20; at this moment, the Jews were hurrying to eat their Paschal Lamb, not a bone of which could be legally broken, which was a Type of Christ).

³⁷And again another Scripture said, They shall look on Him Whom they pierced (Ps. 22:16-17; Zech. 12:10; Rev. 1:7).

THE BURIAL

³⁸And after this Joseph of Arimathaea (he was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, along with Nicodemus), being a Disciple of Jesus (a follower of Christ), but secretly for fear of the Jews (speaks of fear of what others would say, and what they would do the problem with millions presently), besought Pilate that he might take away the Body of Jesus (it took the Cross to bring Joseph of Arimathaea to the place that he would now boldly and openly take a stand for Christ): and Pilate gave him leave (allowed him to do so). He came therefore, and took the Body of Jesus (foiled the plans of the Jews to remove the corpse to the Valley of Hinnom, which in reality was a garbage dump).

³⁹And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night (as well, the Cross changed him), and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight (this pertained to the embalming process as it was then done by wealthy Jews; this would have been very costly! at the same time, it shows that they did not at all expect Jesus to be raised from the dead).

⁴⁰Then took they the Body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury (whatever their thoughts concerning the Resurrection, both Joseph and Nicodemus were making the statement by their actions that they were friends of Christ).

⁴¹Now in the place where He was Crucified there was a garden (John alone mentions the garden); and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid (among other things, this prevented the possibility of any confusion or the Lords Sacred Body coming into contact with corruption).

⁴²There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews preparation day (spoke of the Passover, which would commence at sundown); for the sepulchre was near at hand (was close to the place of Crucifixion).