EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
John 19:9. Whence … Jesus gave no answer.—The answer had already been given (John 18:36-37: see also John 8:25; John 10:24-25). Besides, what Pilate had to settle now was the justice of the charge for which Jesus was brought before him (Isaiah 53:7).
John 19:11. He that delivered He unto thee, etc.—The Jewish high priest claimed to represent a divinely ordered religion and system, and to be directed in his action by divine revelation and guidance. Therefore, as one who should have been in possession of clearer light, he was more guilty than a heathen judge, to whom the light and truth of God had not come.
John 19:12. Cæsar’s friend.—Amicus Cæsaris was a title of honour sometimes given to provincial governors. Those men well knew the jealous fears of Tiberius for his authority. The suspicion of treason brought almost inevitable ruin during his reign, and many were charged with that crime.
John 19:13. Therefore.—Pilate’s action is that of a man of the world, not of a just, impartial judge—of a man who puts self-interest before truth and righteousness.
John 19:14. The preparation (παρασκευή).—Of the passover, which was near at hand. Soon the passover lamb was to be slain, and even on that very day “Christ our passover was sacrificed for us.” The sixth hour.—See note, pp. 536, 537.
John 19:15. Shall I crucify your king?—Since those men would persist in the political charge against Christ, Pilate intends that the condemnation of the accused shall rest on that ground, as he clearly showed in the “title” written to be affixed on the cross (John 19:19). No king but Cæsar.—This cry, in which the leaders of the theocracy reject their rightful King, is sadly prophetic. They judged themselves “unworthy of everlasting life”; therefore the kingdom of God was taken from them (Acts 13:46; Matthew 21:43). And the world’s rule has been hard and bitter for them and their children.
John 19:16. Then delivered lie Him unto them, etc.—I.e. to the priests and rulers of the Jews. Not that Jesus was actually delivered into their hands, but He was delivered up, in order that their evil designs against Him might be carried out. The quaternion of Roman soldiers who carried out the actual crucifixion were only instruments of their wicked will (Acts 2:23; Acts 3:15).
John 19:17. Bearing His cross, etc.—He bore it until He appears to have sunk under it, and then Simon of Cyrene was compelled to help Jesus to bear it (Mark 15:21). Golgotha (from נָּלַלִ).—Probably so called from the rounded form of the mound, or hillock, on which crucifixion was usually carried out. The Vulgate translated the word Calvaria—a skull, or a place of burial. Hence our word Calvary. The question of the site of Calvary and the holy sepulchre need not be discussed here. It is a question that is not yet settled, if it ever can be. But no valid reason has yet been given to lead to a conclusive decision against the spot now covered by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
John 19:18. Two others.—The intention, no doubt, in crucifying these two malefactors, and Jesus in the midst as, on account of His alleged treason, more guilty than they, was to offer to the world an ostensible reason for His condemnation.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— John 19:7-18
John 19:7-16. Jesus innocent, yet condemned.—Pilate had done his utmost to deliver Jesus from those implacable foes, i.e. he had done his utmost to effect his purpose by policy. He hesitated to take a firm stand on the platform of even-handed justice. His unjust government of his province made him fear to do this. “Conscience makes cowards of us all”; and here it made Pilate weak and vacillating. The Jewish leaders were quick to see this, and pressed their advantage remorselessly until the divinely appointed end had been reached. Notice—
I. Pilate’s final examination of Jesus.—
1. The last word of Jewish malice made Pilate again hesitate and bethink himself before finally yielding (John 19:7).
2. The Son of God! This saying of the infuriated Jews, coupled with the remembrance of his wife’s message regarding her mysterious dream, made Pilate more than ever conscious that in Christ’s presence the eternal world was near. Little wonder that he feared, lest haply he might be found “fighting against God” (Acts 5:34-40). But he had neither the clear conscience nor the moral courage of a Gamaliel to make such a stand for truth and right as he should have made.
3. Perturbed in mind, this unbeliever (in whose mind the usual association of unbelief and superstition was found) returned to the judgment hall, and again stood before the silent, suffering Christ. Abruptly and with troubled countenance he asks the question, “Whence art Thou?” but he received no answer from our Lord.
4. It is plain why Jesus did not answer the Roman judge. All the materials for forming a judgment were before him, and on reviewing these Pilate had already pronounced Jesus innocent. Thus the Roman judge himself was indirectly condemned. But it was also in mercy for Pilate’s moral weakness which his heathen education could not change into strength. Therefore He spares him further sin.
5. But in answer to Pilate’s foolish boast about his power Jesus did reply in a fashion that made Pilate yet more uneasy (John 19:11). Jesus pointed out to him that his power and authority as judge and governor lay above and behind imperial Rome (Romans 13:1): that this power was given to be exercised justly, and that therefore he would be called to account for the use of it; but that those who knew better—the theocratic judge Caiaphas and the other Jewish leaders, who should have had more enlightenment, and who unjustly pressed Pilate to condemn Jesus—were the most guilty.
II. Pilate’s final declaration of the innocency of Jesus.—
1. This last conversation with the Saviour made Pilate more feverishly anxious than ever to release Jesus. The more he saw of the kingly Sufferer, the more unfathomable abysses of mystery and being seemed to open around Him.
2. In doing this he bore testimony again to his own word, “I find in Him no fault at all” (John 18:38). And well might Pilate do so; for Jesus here distinctly acknowledges Pilate’s right to judge derived from above, and thus proves that He is no stirrer-up of the people against properly constituted authority. He declares also the right of Heaven to order human affairs, and thus shows Himself to be no blasphemer.
3. Well then might Pilate seek to release Him. And we should rejoice to be able to accept this evidence of the blamelessness of our great High Priest. It was testimony dragged from an unwilling witness; and it shows us that Jesus in this was fitted for His great mediatorial work as the Redeemer of men.
III. Jesus, though innocent, is condemned.—
1. Pilate’s well-meant efforts to save Jesus from the uttermost penalty proved vain. A cry of wrath from the excited mob rent the air: “If thou let this man go,” etc. (John 19:12). The struggle between righteousness and apparent self-interest going on in Pilate’s breast, and which a moment ago seemed being decided on the side of righteousness, was suddenly ended in favour of self-interest.
2. If this accusation, however baseless, came to the ears of Tiberius, and it was proved that Christ had been released, then Pilate knew, or thought, there would be “short shrift” for him. “What was this Jew in comparison with his position and safety. Better the satisfaction of this unjust demand of the Jewish rulers than disgrace or worse at Rome.” Is it so certain, Pilate? and does a God of righteousness not reign? Had you remained firm that day your house might have been established in righteousness (Psalms 112). Unrighteousness will not serve you; the unrighteous shall perish.
3. Pilate therefore, with a heavy load upon his conscience, sat down in his judgment seat to stain his office by a crime. He was not a judge, but a slave in the high light of noon.
4. Strange were his words in pronouncing judgment: “Behold your King”; and as the people cried, “Away with Him, crucify Him,” again the scornful voice was heard: “Shall I crucify your King?” This was the plea on which they finally pressed Pilate to condemn Jesus, and they will not be spared the humiliation of the charge.
5. But if Pilate was a slave, what shall be said of those hypocritical men who boasted of their freedom as they cried out, “We have no king but Cæsar” (John 8:32-33)? Jesus is “delivered to be crucified,” and is led away to the cross. But as these men go we see gathering over them the storms of justice, summoned by their imprecation, “His blood be on us and on our children.” We see a subjugated people—a ruined city, the abode of hideous iniquity, round which the eagles gather for their prey—a blazing temple—“a people scattered and peeled”—until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled (Luke 21:24), and the descendants of those murderers shall say, “Blessed is He,” etc. (Matthew 23:39).
John 19:17-18. Golgotha.—A guard of Roman soldiers issue from one of the gates of Jerusalem escorting three prisoners, and accompanied by a varied crowd, many execrating or jeering, some, mostly of the gentler sex, weeping. The guard hold their way toward an open space near the highway, where, on a low mound, malefactors are wont to be executed. Two of the prisoners are known criminals; the third, who has aid in bearing the cross to which He is soon to be nailed, is Jesus, who was pronounced innocent by the Roman judge. As they come to the place of execution, the flower-scented airs of spring breathe around, and the bright spring sunshine, as yet undimmed, gleams down on this scene. The preliminaries of crucifixion are soon arranged. Jesus and the malefactors are nailed to the crosses they have been bearing, which are then set upright and fixed. Jesus occupies the central position; on either hand the malefactors are placed, and the weary hours begin to pass. We place ourselves in thought before the central cross on Golgotha, and ask the meaning of this scene.
I. The cross of Jesus is the symbol of the punishment of sin.—
1. Around it are marshalled the hosts of light and darkness. The crucial hour of conflict has come, when humanity shall be freed from the guilt of sin—when the darkness that covered the earth, and the gross darkness brooding over the peoples, shall begin to pass, and the true light to shine (1 John 2:8).
2. Jew and Gentile felt the burden of sin, and perceived that they were responsible for its committal and obnoxious to its punishment. The Hebrew with the divine revelation given to him apprehended this truth most deeply. He realised that sin springs “out of the depths of human personality in opposition to the divine,” that it is “in its nature destructive and leads to death,” and that by it misery comes upon men.
3. But the Gentile also had his idea of sin. It gave rise to the dualism of Persia, it meets us in the thought of the most cultured Gentile peoples; it is one of the foundations on which the loftiest heathen literature, Greek tragedy, has been built. “Behind all the activities of life, and all the play of dramatic passion, … there is a stern background of righteousness which will by no means clear the guilty. A shadowy terror overhangs all wrong-doing, and a curse which cannot be turned away pursues the offenders” (Dr. John Tulloch).
4. Sin and its punishment, then, were amongst the most engrossing thoughts of all men. How to escape its guilt and penalty—that was the cry of the ages.
5. And here on the cross of Jesus the prayers of the ages uttered, or unexpressed, have found an answer. “He was made sin for us who knew no sin.” On the cross He suffered the extreme penalty, even to the hiding for a moment of the Father’s face.
6. There, too, the dominion of evil is broken. The evil power in which sin inheres is vanquished. The head of Satan is bruised; and the kingdom of darkness begins to shrink as the kingdom of light expands.
II. The cross of Jesus is the symbol of divine love.—
1. When sinful men remember that they must stand before God they begin with fear to ask, “How shall I come before Him?” etc. And if they are honest their answer will be, “I cannot answer for one of a thousand transgressions.” I cannot pay the ten thousand talents which I owe. I have no way by which the debt might be cancelled. My own righteousness falls in ruins. The heaven that I would purchase with my good works becomes like an empty dream.
2. “What man could not do God did,” etc. (Romans 8:3). His love planned the way of escape for man. In the Son He lays a foundation on which men may build safely for eternity, “not having their own righteousness which is of the law,” etc. (Philippians 3:9).
3. And in the cross is seen the love of the Redeemer in His vicarious suffering and self-sacrifice for mankind, in obedience to the Father’s will, “who desires not the death of a sinner,” etc. (Ezekiel 18:32). The cross of shame thus becomes a visible manifestation and symbol of heavenly love toward fallen men.
III. The cross of Jesus on Golgotha is the meeting-point of the ages.—
1. (1) It was foreseen from eternity. Jesus is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
(2) It was concealed in the first promise of redemption after Eden’s fall.
(3) Abraham saw it afar off, “and was glad,” when Isaac was spared on Moriah (Genesis 22:12-14).
(4) Jacob waited for the salvation of God (Genesis 49:18).
(5) Isaiah and all the Old Testament saints and prophets sighed for and looked forward to that happy hour when Christ’s divine sorrow and suffering should bring joy to men. “Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down,” etc. (Isaiah 64:1). “Yea, many kings and prophets would fain have seen the things which Christ’s disciples saw,” etc. (Luke 10:24).
(6) The Gentile world also felt vague longings after peace and a higher life which no wisest philosophy, no effort, could help men to attain to,—when the love of God wrought redemption for humanity on the cross of shame.
2. (1) And toward this cross all succeeding ages have looked.
(2) Men still have tried in various ways to effect for themselves what the redeeming grace of our great High Priest alone can effect. They have sought through ritual, pilgrimages, etc., to escape the necessity of that full surrender to Christ which has made the cross of Christ “to the Jews a stumbling-block,” etc. (1 Corinthians 1:23). But however far men wander into the ways of unbelief or superstition, seeking thus to gain peace and promise of heaven, they have had to come back to the cross of Jesus.
(3) And now in ever-widening circles its influence is spreading. Men of all races, as the years pass on, are turning toward it, as the true centre of life—the true blessedness for time, the only hope for eternity.
Application.—Do we see in this scene on Golgotha divine love exhibited toward us? Do we see in it the wisdom and mercy of God working out through Christ our redemption? Then what joy and comfort should the view bring to our souls! On that cross the dominion of evil is broken, the guilt of sin removed, the sting of death taken away. Do our sins appal us with the thought of judgment? “Christ was delivered for our offences,” etc. (Romans 4:25; Colossians 1:14). Does death affright? The power has been taken from him (Romans 14:8). Does the law thunder condemnation?
“Free from the law, O happy condition,
Jesus hath bled, and there is remission.
Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall,
Christ hath redeemed us, ‘once for all.’ ”
What reason, then, to rejoice in the cross of Jesus! Thence flow eternal peace, heavenly joy, divine sonship and citizenship; there the darkness passes from our souls for time and eternity, and through the mists of sorrow and pain the morning of joy dawns, and the Sun of righteousness arises, bringing an endless day of truth and grace.
John 19:17-18. The cross of Christ.—It is in the mystery of the cross that God has made the glory of His wisdom most evident. The thoughts of men and those of God have been in opposition since men sinned. It is therefore no cause of astonishment that men should have dared sometimes to find fault with the works of God. That which should surprise us most is that men have been offended even at the grace of God. The mystery of a crucified God is foolishness to the worldling. Yet with the apostle we maintain that it is in a special degree the manifestation of divine wisdom. Two things were essential:
1. To satisfy an offended God; and
2. To elevate men, who had become perverted and corrupted. But these ends could not be attained to in any way more effectually than by the cross of the Saviour.
I. There is no other means by which an offended God can be satisfied than the cross of Jesus Christ.—
1. God could be satisfied only by the God-man. And what has this God-man done, or rather what was there that He did not do? Why was God alienated from man? Because man had sought to be as God. “Ye shall be as gods,” etc. (Genesis 3:1-5). And I, said the God-man, in order to satisfy My Father, I shall humiliate Myself more than any man: “I am a worm and no man,” etc. (Psalms 22:6). Men had rebelled against God. Therefore, said the God-man, shall I become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). Man in sinful concupiscence eats of the forbidden fruit; therefore I (said the God-man) will become a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). Can we conceive a more complete reparation?
2. But this is not all. The Saviour has revealed three great truths with which men should be chiefly concerned:
(1) What God is;
(2) what sin is; and
(3) what salvation is. The knowledge of these truths is essentially connected with the mystery of the cross. What is God? An exalted Being, for whose glory Emmanuel had to be humiliated, even to the death of the cross. The idea of the greatness of God which this gives surpasses all that can otherwise be conceived. And what is sin? An evil, for the expiation of which it was necessary that the God-man should become “a curse” (Galatians 3:13) and full of reproach. This is the mystery of the cross which we preach. And what is the salvation of man? It is a blessing to secure which for man the Son of God laid down His life. These are the great truths which this divine Master, dying on the cross, teaches us. Now, a truth which gives us such lofty ideas of God, which inspires us with a perfect horror and hatred of sin, which leads us to prize salvation above everything else, must be a mystery of divine wisdom.
II. There is no means more effectual than the cross of Christ for converting men perverted and corrupted by sin.—
1. There are three sources of sin according to St. John: “The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). The remedy for these our Lord brought when He came from heaven, and He shows us in His passion what they are. The despoilment of His garments teaches us not to love riches, the lust of the eye. The humiliations He underwent testify against ambition, the pride of life. His sufferings witness against sensuality, which is the lust of the flesh. “What would be the result,” said the learned Pic de la Mirande, “if men should agree universally to live according to the example of Jesus Christ, so that this crucified God should become practically the law according to which the world would be governed? To what a degree of perfection would the world speedily be raised which to-day is so corrupt!”
2. In the divine plan how beautifully is the excess of malice corrected by the excess of perfection in Christ, the excess of sinfulness by His superabounding holiness, the excess of base ingratitude by the abounding of His unspeakable love!
3. Behold, here is surely what is sufficient to confound our reason in view of the judgment of God; and may it please Him that this judgment, at which our reason must be convinced of its errors and put to confusion, may not already be begun for us. For from this time forth the dying Saviour has committed to Him the judgment of the world. “Now is the judgment of this world” (John 12:31). His cross will rise against us. It is the cross of Christ by which we shall be judged—this cross (so inimical to our passions), which we have honoured in our speculations, and which we have shrunk from in our practice, with it we shall be confronted. All that is not found to be conformable to it shall then bear the character and seal of reprobation. What resemblance is there between it and our fleshly lives? Let not that which should reconcile us to God only make us more worthy of condemnation; but let it be that in which we place all our confidence.—Abridged from Bourdaloue.
HOMILETIC NOTES
John 19:14. The time of the crucifixion.—Does John here use the Jewish mode of reckoning time? and if so, how is this statement to be reconciled with Mark 15:25, “And it was the third hour,” etc., and with the assertion of all the Synoptists that the darkness—not mentioned by St. John—lasted from the sixth to the ninth hour, i.e. twelve to three o’clock?
1. It must be remembered that the ancients had not the convenient means we have of determining the exact time. They had to go a good deal by guess-work, by noticing the position of the sun, etc. We are not therefore to think that the hour as given either by the Synoptists or by St. John was what we might call the exact moment in astronomical time. Then St. John expressly uses the word about. It is just as if he had said toward noon.
2. All the Synoptists give the hours when darkness fell on the scene of the crucifixion as the sixth to the ninth. This probably denoted the actual time of our Lord’s crucifixion; and in this way St. John’s general reference would not be at variance with St. Mark’s statement as above.
3. Probably the scourging was regarded by St. Mark as the beginning of the crucifixion. It was preliminary to it. Then would come the march to Golgotha, and the preparation for the crucifixion itself. Both would take time. And as Jesus would almost appear to have been the last of the three to be nailed on the cross, it might be well on toward noon when His cross was finally lifted up.
4. There are strong arguments, however, in favour of the idea that John used the Western mode of reckoning time (a day of twelve hours from midnight to noon and from noon to midnight) as best known in Roman Asia where he laboured. But this surely would only shift the difficulty, and not solve it; for 6 a.m. is not 9 a.m. The likelihood is that amid the events of that day, so awful to the disciples, neither St. John nor St. Peter (if he it was who dictated St. Mark’s Gospel) would have time or thought to inquire what the exact hour by sun-dial or clepsydra was, whilst both might think of somewhat different stages of the proceedings when they made their notes of time.
John 19:16-18. The presence of evil in human life.—When we turn to the highest form of life in man himself, the presence of evil haunts it everywhere in endless forms of general and individual experience in all relations of human society, all functions of human industry, and in the noblest energies of human progress. We cannot conceal its working when we look within our own hearts. Nay; here more than anywhere it shows its deepest power, and touches human experience with acutest misery. Different natures will apprehend differently the depth and power of evil in human life; but there are none, not even the more sentimental enthusiasts, can dispute its existence; and it requires only a slight degree of moral earnestness to be solemnly arrested by it. The highest natures have been most moved by its mystery; and those who have most realised the greatness of man, and done most for his good, have at the same time felt most pathetically the shadows of evil that rest upon his lot. So far there can hardly be any difference of opinion as to the fact which we call evil. Whatever men may make of the fact, its presence around them and in their own life admits of no denial. A fact so universal and so painful, touching human life at all points with such a sore pressure, has been necessarily a subject of much inquiry and reflection. Men have never ceased interrogating the mystery which lies around them and within them. The history of religion is in great part a history of the explanations which men have tried to give of it.—Dr. John Tulloch.
John 19:17-18. The law is no remedy for sin.—The moral law powerfully contributed to awaken the innersense of the Hebrew people and deepen their consciousness of sin. The divine is presented in it not merely as Sovereign and Lord—although this is the opening keynote (Exodus 20:2-3)—but as identified with every aspect of order, truth, righteousness, and purity in human life. A moral idea not only invests all life, but is carried up to Jahveh-Elohim, as the Source of this life and its highest Exemplar. It was impossible to dwell in the light of such an ideal and not to have had the spiritual sense quickened and made sensitive and the feeling of offence toward the divine called forth in many ways hitherto little understood or owned. This is what St. Paul means when he says that “the law entered that the offence might abound” (Romans 5:20), and again, that “without the law sin was dead” (Romans 7:8). He is speaking of his own experience, or of the experience of a devout Jew in his own time; but the experience of the religious nature is always so far the same—nay, the experience of the individual is typical of the race. When the law entered into the consciousness of humanity, and was added to the progressive force of divine revelation, the sense of sin was deepened alongside of it. Conscience became alive in front of the divine commandment, and spiritual life was touched to its depths by that sad undertone of sin which has never died out of it. Through ages the moral law has been the most powerful moral factor of humanity, restraining its chaotic tendencies, and binding it into harmonies of domestic, social, and religious well-being. It has lain not merely upon the human conscience, but entered into the human heart as one of its most living inward springs—bracing its weakness, rebuking its laxity, holding before it an inflexible rule of moral good. Words cannot measure the strength which it has been to all the higher qualities of the race, and the widespread moral education which it has diffused, discriminating and purifying the ideas alike of good and evil wherever it has prevailed, and clothing life with a reality and depth of meaning which it would never otherwise have possessed.—Dr. John Tulloch.
ILLUSTRATION
John 19:17-18. The preaching of the cross the power of God unto salvation.—Let me try then to point out to you what some of the effects will be in a man’s preaching from a true sense of the value of the human soul, by which I mean a high estimate of the capacity of the spiritual nature, a keen and constant appreciation of the attainments to which it may be brought. And first of all it helps to rescue the gospel which we preach from a sort of unnaturalness and incongruity which is very apt to cling to it; this is, I think, very important. Consider what it is that you are to declare week after week to the men and women who come to hear you. The mighty truths of Incarnation and Atonement are your themes. You tell them of the birth and life and death of Jesus Christ. You picture the adorable love and the mysterious sacrifice of the Saviour, and you bind all this to their lives. You tell them that in a true sense all this was certainly for them. I do not know what you are made of, if sometimes, as you preach, there does not come into your mind a thought of incongruity. What are you, you and these people to whom you preach, that for you the central affection of the universe should have been stirred? You know your own life. You know something of the lives they live. You look into their faces as you preach to them. Where is the end worthy of all this ministry of almighty grace which you have been describing? Is it possible that all this once took place, and by the operation of the Holy Spirit is a perpetual power in the world, merely that these machine-lives might run a little truer, or that a series of rules might be established by which the current workings of society might move more smoothly? That, which men sometimes make the purpose of it all, is too unworthy. The engine is too coarse to have so fine a fire under it. You must see something deeper. You must discern in all these men and women some inherent preciousness, for which even the marvel of the Incarnation and the agony of Calvary were not too great, or it is impossible that yon should keep your faith in those stupendous truths which Bethlehem and Calvary offer to us. Some source of fire from which these dimmed sparks come, some possible renewal of the fire which is in them still, some sight of the education through which each soul is passing, and some suggestion of the special personal perfectness to which each may attain, all this must brighten before you, as you look at them; and then the truths of your theology shall not be thrown into confusion nor faded into unreality by your ministry to men.—Dr. Phillips Brooks.