‘They therefore took Jesus, and he went out bearing the cross for himself, to the place called the Place of the Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha., where they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus in the middle.'
Jesus, His back in tatters, His clothes covered in blood, was now made to bear the means of His execution. The heavy timber which would form the crosspiece of His cross was laid across His back. (The upright would be found on site). We learn elsewhere that in the end all this proved too much for Him in His weakened state so that He had to have assistance (Luke 23:26). He Who was bearing the sins of the world could not even carry His crosspiece.
‘The Place of the Skull'. This was possibly some well known natural formation in nature depicting a skull. Such a place can be seen today but it is not necessarily the identical one. Such things come and go. Nature's work often produces shapes which are identified as one thing or another, and equally often erodes them away. Alternately it may have been a place which had become connected with a particular skull of some famous or infamous person. We really do not know. But John saw the name as fitting the current situation. It was the place of death.
‘Where they crucified him.' Every angel in Heaven must have stood in readiness, every sword must have been unsheathed, awaiting the Father's expected command, a thousand legions of them and more. But no word came and in perplexity they sheathed them again. They could not understand it. The One Who was the outshining of the Father's glory, the One Whom they had worshipped through the ages, was being nailed ignominiously to a cross, and they were forced to stand by and do nothing.
But on earth the scene was more simplistic. The timber was laid down on the ground, the bleeding figure was roughly thrust on it, the hammer thudded as the nails were driven home, and the whole was lifted up as a spectacle for the world to behold its bleeding king.
He was not alone. Two brigands were crucified with Him, one on either side, and He in the middle. He was being ‘numbered with the transgressors' (Isaiah 53:12; Luke 22:37). They represented God's sentence of death on the world for which He died. He was the sacrifice made on their behalf. They bore their own curse. He bore our curse that we may not have to bear it if we come to Him. For by this act of crucifixion He had become accursed in the eyes of men on our behalf (Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:23).