But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?
Ver. 54. But how then shall the Scriptures, &c.] Why dost thou not then pray (might they object) for an army of angels, to rescue thee out of these wicked hands, that now hold thee prisoner, and will let out thy life blood? How then should "the Scriptures be fulfilled," saith he, "that have foretold my death?" This was his constant care, even when he hung upon the cross, to fulfil the Scriptures; and so to assure us that he was the very Christ.
That thus it must be] Why must? but because it was, 1. So decreed by God. 2. Foretold by the prophets; every particular of Christ's sufferings, even to their very spitting in his face. 3. Prefigured in the daily morning and evening sacrifice; this Lamb of God was sacrificed from the beginning of the world. A necessity then there was of our Saviour's suffering. Not a necessity of coaction (for he died freely and voluntartly), but of immutability and infallibility, for the former reasons and respects.