John 19:28-33
The Word of Perseverance
None of the wounds of Jesus were mortal wounds. Flogging could kill a man but care was taken to not prevent the people's choice (crucifixion or release) that was to follow. Similarly, the mockery of the crowning with thorns was intended to be more painful than the thorns themselves. The nails that pierced him had their utilitarian purpose to hold him to the tree and even the spear thrust that would have killed him if truly administered as a coup de grâce was applied after he was dead just to 'mak siccar.'
The idea of blood 'speaking' is a trope found in Scripture starting from the record of the first human death, that of Abel:
And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground." [Genesis 4:10]
we ought to make sure that we are listening. The spear thrust produced a copious flow of blood and water that might well have caused the soldier to curse but, as a sign that the curse was over and dealt with, that fountain opened cries out with the force of an echo of the dying words of Jesus, 'It is finished!'
We had better believe it!
John 19:28-33The Word of PerseveranceIf the will of God is done in spite of the best administrative efforts to contradict his Word
It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones. [Exodus 12:46]
or the best professional care to extenuate his dying in spite of Christ's intimate knowledge of what was (consequently upon God's determining to save) absolutely necessary, then we ought to qualify all our planning with a, most likely silently added, but heart-felt, 'Deo Volente!'
John 19:28-33
The Word of Perseverance
The declaration from the cross itself that salvation has been achieved by the dying of Christ on the cross is a declaration that is to be believed.
• It is to be believed that God planned it so, so that the dead body of Christ would lie in the tomb for part of the Friday, all of the Sabbath Saturday and until the early hours of the first Lord's day Sunday morning; technically three days.
• It is to be believed that Christ himself 'gave up the ghost' so that the spirit departed at his will and the body left behind was massively disrupted internally, as he breathed his last, to produce the evidence of death when the soldier's spear pierced his side.
• It is to be believed that Christ knew that the work of salvation was finished and that his cry from the cross is the Word of God to us, 'It is finished!'
John 19:32-33
32 • So the soldiers came and broke the legs
of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him.
33 • But when they came to Jesus
and saw that he was already dead,
they did not break his legs.
34 • But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear,
and at once there came out blood and water.
If the Jewish authorities had had as it were to fill in a form to get the crucifixions brought to an abrupt end, it was the soldiers who had to sign the death certificate. The preparations to bring about the end of the executions were made to protect the Sabbath day but the authentication of death was made with the view to the preservation of life. If one of these prisoners lived, then the soldiers' own lives would be forfeit so we can imagine how meticulous they were to make sure that this crucifixion really was finished.
Elsewhere in the Empire, crucifixions would last for days as the deterrent value of a long slow lingering death was brought home to all who witnessed it but here the most important thing was to get the chief prisoner dead and buried so everything would be neatly and tidily cleared up and by the next day there would be no evidence that any of these men had ever lived. The neat and tidy finish was ruled out by the inconvenient fact that one of the prisoners was already dead.
The purpose of breaking the legs was to induce swift asphyxiation as the arms would very quickly fail to pull the body up by themselves. To take the man on the centre cross down was to risk his reviving but there was no point in breaking the legs of one already dead. It must be proved that he was dead in spite of their previous precautions to keep the prisoners dying for as long as possible.
Very few doctors see traumatic death as frequently as soldiers in the Roman army did. These soldiers knew very well that dead bodies don't bleed so a spear was thrust into the side of Jesus with no expectation of any sign of life. An unnecessary coup de grâce, it might seem, but the continued life of the soldier was dependant on Jesus being dead. The stream of 'blood and water' that issued out of the wound showed that major disruption of the internal organs had taken place and that fluids had already pooled and separated within the cavities. This body was that of a man who had been dead for some time.
John 19:30b-31
• and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
31 • Since it was the day of Preparation,
and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross
on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day),
the Jews asked Pilate
that their legs might be broken
• and that they might be taken away.
Lest anyone should accuse the Jewish Authorities of euthanasia, they had a good religious excuse for bringing the crucifixion to an end in the onset of the Sabbath and a particularly cruel way of shortening the agony by breaking a prisoner's legs. Neither the crucifixion nor the leg-breaking were Jewish inventions of course and responsibility for the execution of Jesus ought always be seen as shared between all parties.
Cooperation between the Jewish council and the Roman procurator wasn't guaranteed of course so all the boxes on the form had to be ticked and the form rubber-stamped. It would have been no good just getting the execution over by leg-breaking to cause asphyxiation if the dead bodies had then been left to hang on their crosses until the Sabbath was over.
Asking for the crucifixion to be brought to an end and seeing it carried through was a perfectly normal use of a Friday, when they would always suspend some of their normal activities to prepare for the Sabbath. The Sabbath during the feast of Unleavened Bread required few if any extra preparations but just as a vigorous search would have taken place to make sure their houses had no yeast, no sight of this death should be allowed to leaven their Sabbath day.
This scheme to bring the dying of Christ to an untimely end was thwarted by his having died already. There would not be a tincture of doubt among the believers that men had brought his sacrifice of himself to an premature end. By giving up his spirit Jesus showed that the work was completed.
Truly, it is finished!
John 19:28-30a
28 • After this, Jesus,
knowing that all was now finished,
said (to fulfill the Scripture), "I thirst."
29 • A jar full of sour wine stood there,
so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch
and held it to his mouth.
30 • When Jesus had received the sour wine,
he said, "It is finished,"
Two sayings of Jesus from the cross stand very close together here and John, the only gospel to mention either, gives us the details of the one within the recounting of the other. It makes perfect sense if the 'I thirst.' saying is excluded:
Jesus,knowing that all was now finished,… said, "It is finished,"
so we ought to pick up on the 'I thirst' episode as having something to do with being finished.
The sour wine wasn't intended as a punishment and we're not told about it so that we might feel additional pangs of sorrow on Christ's behalf. Just because the wine was sour meant that its acidity was immediately detectable even to the most preoccupied palate. There is a clear contrast between Jesus just tasting and refusing to drink before and his taking time to drink after it was finished.
What was it that was finished? Strangely enough, since this is before his actual death, it was nevertheless the dying that was finished with. None of this sequence of events makes sense unless we take it at face value that Jesus was dying on the cross in order to put right what was wrong and it follows that what was finished was the work of putting right.
