John 19

Joh 19:1-16.

JESUS BEFORE

PILATE--SCOURGED--TREATED WITH

OTHER

SEVERITIES AND

INSULTS--DELIVERED

UP, AND

LED

AWAY TO

BE

CRUCIFIED.

1-3. Pilate took Jesus and scourged him--in hope of appeasing them.

(See

Mr 15:15).

"And the soldiers led Him away into the palace, and they call the whole

band"

(Mr 15:16)

--the body of the military cohort stationed there--to take part in the

mock coronation now to be enacted.

2. the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head--in

mockery of a regal crown.

and they put on him a purple robe--in mockery of the

imperial purple; first "stripping him"

(Mt 27:28)

of His own outer garment. The robe may have been the "gorgeous" one in

which Herod arrayed and sent Him back to Pilate

(Lu 23:11).

"And they put a reed into His right hand"

(Mt 27:29)

--in mockery of the regal scepter. "And they bowed the knee

before Him"

(Mt 27:29).

3. And said, Hail, King of the Jews!--doing Him derisive homage, in

the form used on approaching the emperors. "And they spit upon Him, and

took the reed and smote Him on the head"

(Mt 27:30).

The best comment on these affecting details is to cover the

face.

4, 5. Pilate . . . went forth again, and saith . . . Behold, I bring

him forth to you--am bringing, that is, going to bring him forth to

you.

that ye may know I find no fault in him--and, by scourging Him and

allowing the soldiers to make sport of Him, have gone as far to meet

your exasperation as can be expected from a judge.

5. Then Jesus came forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple

robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!--There is no reason

to think that contempt dictated this speech. There was clearly a

struggle in the breast of this wretched man. Not only was he reluctant

to surrender to mere clamor an innocent man, but a feeling of anxiety

about His mysterious claims, as is plain from what follows, was

beginning to rack his breast, and the object of his exclamation seems to

have been to move their pity. But, be his meaning what it may,

those three words have been eagerly appropriated by all Christendom, and

enshrined for ever in its heart as a sublime expression of its calm,

rapt admiration of its suffering Lord.

6, 7. When the chief priests . . . saw him, they cried out--their

fiendish rage kindling afresh at the sight of Him.

Crucify him, crucify him--(See

Mr 15:14).

Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him; for I find no

fault in him--as if this would relieve him of the responsibility

of the deed, who, by surrendering Him, incurred it all!

7. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by oar law he ought to

die, because he made himself the Son of God--Their criminal charges

having come to nothing, they give up that point, and as Pilate was

throwing the whole responsibility upon them, they retreat into their own

Jewish law, by which, as claiming equality with God (see

Joh 5:18

and Joh 8:59),

He ought to die; insinuating that it was Pilate's duty, even as civil

governor, to protect their law from such insult.

8-11. When Pilate . . . heard this saying, he was the more

afraid--the name "SON OF GOD," the lofty sense evidently attached to it by His

Jewish accusers, the dialogue he had already held with Him, and the

dream of his wife

(Mt 27:19),

all working together in the breast of the wretched man.

9. and went again into the judgment hall, and saith to Jesus, Whence

art thou?--beyond all doubt a question relating not to His mission but to His personal origin.

Jesus gave him no answer--He had said enough; the time for answering

such a question was past; the weak and wavering governor is already on

the point of giving way.

10. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not to me?--The "me" is

the emphatic word in the question. He falls back upon the

pride of office, which doubtless tended to blunt the workings of his

conscience.

knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to

release thee?--said to work upon Him at once by fear and by

hope.

11. Thou couldest--rather, "shouldst."

have no power at all against me--neither to crucify nor to release,

nor to do anything whatever against Me [BENGEL].

except it were--"unless it had been."

given thee from above--that is, "Thou thinkest too much of thy power,

Pilate: against Me that power is none, save what is meted out to thee by

special divine appointment, for a special end."

therefore he that delivered me unto thee--Caiaphas, too wit--but he

only as representing the Jewish authorities as a body.

hath the greater sin--as having better opportunities and more knowledge

of such matters.

12-16. And from thenceforth--particularly this speech, which seems to

have filled him with awe, and redoubled his anxiety.

Pilate sought to release him--that is, to gain their consent to

it, for he could have done it at once on his authority.

but the Jews cried--seeing their advantage, and not slow to profit by

it. If thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend, &c.--"This

was equivalent to a threat of impeachment, which we know was much

dreaded by such officers as the procurators, especially of the character

of Pilate or Felix. It also consummates the treachery and disgrace of

the Jewish rulers, who were willing, for the purpose of destroying

Jesus, to affect a zeal for the supremacy of a foreign prince"

[WEBSTER and

WILKINSON]. (See

Joh 19:15).

When Pilate . . . heard that, . . . he brought Jesus forth, and sat

down in--"upon"

the judgment seat--that he might pronounce sentence against the

Prisoner, on this charge, the more solemnly.

in a place called the Pavement--a tesselated pavement, much used by the

Romans.

in the Hebrew, Gabbatha--from its being raised.

14. It was the preparation--that is, the day before the Jewish

sabbath.

and about the sixth hour--The true reading here is probably, "the

third hour"--or nine A.M.--which agrees best with the whole series

of events, as well as with the other Evangelists.

he saith to the Jews, Behold your King!--Having now made up his mind

to yield to them, he takes a sort of quiet revenge on them by this

irony, which he knew would sting them. This only reawakens their cry to

despatch Him.

15. crucify your King? . . . We have no king but Cæsar--"Some of those

who thus cried died miserably in rebellion against Cæsar forty years

afterwards. But it suited their present purpose" [ALFORD].

16. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified,

&c.--(See

Mr 15:15).

Joh 19:17-30.

CRUCIFIXION AND

DEATH OF THE

LORD

JESUS.

17. And he bearing his cross--(See on

Lu 23:26).

went forth--Compare

Heb 13:11-13,

"without the camp"; "without the gate." On arriving at the place, "they

gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall [wine mingled with myrrh,

Mr 15:23],

and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink"

(Mt 27:34).

This potion was stupefying, and given to criminals just before

execution, to deaden the sense of pain.

Fill high the bowl, and spice it well, and pour

The dews oblivious: for the Cross is sharp,

The Cross is sharp, and He

Is tenderer than a lamb.

KEBLE.

But our Lord would die with every faculty clear, and in full

sensibility to all His sufferings.

Thou wilt feel all, that Thou may'st pity all;

And rather would'st Thou wrestle with strong pain

Than overcloud Thy soul,

So clear in agony,

Or lose one glimpse of Heaven before the time,

O most entire and perfect Sacrifice,

Renewed in every pulse.

KEBLE.

18. they crucified him, and two others with him--"malefactors"

(Lu 23:33),

"thieves" (rather "robbers,"

Mt 27:38;

Mr 15:27).

on either side one and Jesus in the midst--a hellish expedient, to

hold Him up as the worst of the three. But in this, as in many other of

their doings, "the scripture was fulfilled, which saith

(Isa 53:12),

And he was numbered with the transgressors"--

(Mr 15:28)

--though the prediction reaches deeper. "Then said Jesus"--["probably

while being nailed to the CROSS,"]

[OLSHAUSEN],

"FATHER, FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO"

(Lu 23:34)

--and again the Scripture was fulfilled which said, "And He made

intercession for the transgressors"

(Isa 53:12),

though this also reaches deeper. (See

Ac 3:17; 13:27;

and compare

1Ti 1:13).

Often have we occasion to observe how our Lord is the first to fulfil

His own precepts--thus furnishing the right interpretation and the

perfect Model of them. (See on

Mt 5:44).

How quickly was it seen in "His martyr Stephen," that though He had

left the earth in Person, His Spirit remained behind, and Himself

could, in some of His brightest lineaments, be reproduced in His

disciples!

(Ac 7:60).

And what does the world in every age owe to these few words, spoken

where and as they were spoken!

19-22. Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross . . . Jesus of

Nazareth, the King of the Jews . . . and it was written in Hebrew--or

Syro-Chaldaic, the language of the country.

and Greek--the current language.

and Latin--the official language. These were the chief languages of

the earth, and this secured that all spectators should be able to read

it. Stung by this, the Jewish ecclesiastics entreat that it may be so

altered as to express, not His real dignity, but His false claim to it.

But Pilate thought he had yielded quite enough to them; and having

intended expressly to spite and insult them by this title, for having

got him to act against his own sense of justice, he peremptorily refused

them. And thus, amidst the conflicting passions of men, was proclaimed,

in the chief tongues of mankind, from the Cross itself and in

circumstances which threw upon it a lurid yet grand light, the truth

which drew the Magi to His manger, and will yet be owned by all the

world!

23, 24. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his

garments, and made four parts; to every soldier--the four who nailed

Him to the cross, and whose perquisite they were.

a part, and also his coat--the Roman tunic, or close-fitting vest.

without seam, woven from the top throughout--"perhaps denoting

considerable skill and labor as necessary to produce such a garment, the

work probably of one or more of the women who ministered in such things

unto Him,

Lu 8:3"

[WEBSTER and WILKINSON].

24. Let us not rend it, but cast lots . . . whose it shall

be, that the scripture might be fulfilled which saith, They parted my

raiment among them; and for my vesture they did cast lots--

(Ps 22:18).

That a prediction so exceedingly specific--distinguishing one piece of

dress from others, and announcing that while those should be

parted amongst several, that should be given by lot to one

person--that such a prediction should not only be fulfilled to the

letter, but by a party of heathen military, without interference from

either the friends of the enemies of the Crucified One, is surely

worthy to be ranked among the wonders of this all-wonderful scene. Now

come the mockeries, and from four different quarters:--(1) "And

they that passed by reviled Him, wagging their heads" in

ridicule

(Ps 22:7; 109:25;

compare

Jer 18:16;

La 2:15).

"Ah!"--"Ha," an exclamation here of derision. "Thou that destroyest the

temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself and come down from

the cross"

(Mt 27:39, 40;

Mr 15:29, 30).

"It is evident that our Lord's saying, or rather this perversion

of it (for He claimed not to destroy, but to rebuild the

temple destroyed by them) had greatly exasperated the feeling which the

priests and Pharisees had contrived to excite against Him. It is

referred to as the principal fact brought out in evidence against Him

on the trial (compare

Ac 6:13, 14),

as an offense for which He deserved to suffer. And it is very

remarkable that now while it was receiving its real fulfilment,

it should be made more public and more impressive by the insulting

proclamation of His enemies. Hence the importance attached to it after

the resurrection,

Joh 2:22"

[WEBSTER and WILKINSON]. (2)

"Likewise also the chief priests, mocking Him, with the

scribes and elders, said, He saved others, Himself He cannot save"

(Mt 27:41, 42).

There was a deep truth in this, as in other taunts; for both He

could not do, having "come to give His life a ransom for

many"

(Mt 20:28;

Mr 10:45).

No doubt this added an unknown sting to the reproach. "If He be the

king of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will

believe Him"

(Mt 27:42).

No, they would not; for those who resisted the evidence from the

resurrection of Lazarus, and from His own resurrection, were beyond the

reach of any amount of merely external evidence. "He trusted in

God that He would deliver him; let Him deliver Him now if He will have

Him [or 'delight in Him,' compare

Ps 18:19;

De 21:14];

for He said, I am the Son of God"

(Mt 27:41-43).

We thank you, O ye chief priests, scribes, and elders, for this triple

testimony, unconsciously borne by you, to our Christ: first to His

habitual trust in God, as a feature in His character so marked and

palpable that even ye found upon it your impotent taunt; next, to

His identity with the Sufferer of the twenty-second Psalm, whose

very words

(Ps 22:8)

ye unwittingly appropriate, thus serving yourselves heirs to the

dark office and impotent malignity of Messiah's enemies; and again, to

the true sense of that august title which He took to Himself, "THE SON OF GOD," which He rightly interpreted at the very first (see

Joh 5:18)

as a claim to that oneness of nature with Him, and dearness

to Him, which a son has to his father. (3) "And the soldiers

also mocked Him, coming to Him and offering Him vinegar, and saying, If

thou be the king of the Jews, save Thyself"

(Lu 23:36, 37).

They insultingly offer to share with Him their own vinegar, or sour

wine, the usual drink of Roman soldiers, it being about the time of

their midday meal. In the taunt of the soldiers we have one of those

undesigned coincidences which so strikingly verify these

historical records. While the ecclesiastics deride Him for calling

Himself, "the Christ, the King of Israel, the

Chosen, the Son of God," the soldiers, to whom all such

phraseology was mere Jewish jargon, make sport of Him as a pretender to

royalty ("KING of the Jews"), an office and

dignity which it belonged to them to comprehend. "The thieves

also, which were crucified with Him, cast the same in His teeth"

(Mt 27:44;

Mr 15:32).

Not both of them, however, as some commentators unnaturally

think we must understand these words; as if some sudden change came

over the penitent one, which turned him from an unfeeling railer

into a trembling petitioner. The plural "thieves" need not denote more

than the quarter or class whence came this last and

cruelest taunt--that is, "Not only did scoffs proceed from the

passers-by, the ecclesiastics, the soldiery, but

even from His fellow-sufferers," a mode of speaking which no one

would think necessarily meant both of them. Compare

Mt 2:20,

"They are dead which sought the child's life," meaning

Herod; and

Mr 9:1,

"There be some standing here," where it is next to certain that

only John, the youngest and last survivor of the apostles, is meant.

And is it conceivable that this penitent thief should have first

himself reviled the Saviour, and then, on his views of Christ suddenly

changing, he should have turned upon his fellow sufferer and fellow

reviler, and rebuked him not only with dignified sharpness, but in the

language of astonishment that he should be capable of such

conduct? Besides, there is a deep calmness in all that he utters,

extremely unlike what we should expect from one who was the subject of

a mental revolution so sudden and total. On the scene itself, see on

Lu 23:29-43.

25-27. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his

mother's sister, Mary, wife of Cleophas--This should be read, as in

the Margin, "Clopas," the same as "Alpheus"

(Mt 10:3).

The "Cleopas" of

Lu 24:18

was a different person.

26, 27. When Jesus . . . saw his mother, and the disciple whom he

loved, standing by, he saith to his mother, WOMAN,

BEHOLD

THY

SON! Then

saith he to the disciple, BEHOLD

THY

MOTHER!--What forgetfulness of

self, what filial love, and to the "mother" and "son" what parting

words!

from that hour . . . took her to his own home--or,

home with him; for his father Zebedee and his mother Salome were both

alive, and the latter here present

(Mr 15:40).

See on

Mt 13:55.

Now occurred the supernatural darkness, recorded by all the

other Evangelists, but not here. "Now from the sixth hour (twelve

o'clock, noon) there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth

hour"

(Mt 27:45).

No ordinary eclipse of the sun could have occurred at this time, it

being then full moon, and this obscuration lasted about

twelve times the length of any ordinary eclipse. (Compare

Ex 10:21, 23).

Beyond doubt, the divine intention of the portent was to invest this

darkest of all tragedies with a gloom expressive of its real character.

"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried, ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI . . . My God, My God, why hast

Thou forsaken Me?"

(Mt 27:46).

As the darkness commenced at the sixth hour, the second of the Jewish

hours of prayer, so it continued till the ninth hour, the hour of

the evening sacrifice, increasing probably in depth, and

reaching its deepest gloom at the moment of this mysterious cry,

when the flame of the one great "Evening Sacrifice" was burning

fiercest. The words were made to His hand. They are the opening words

of a Psalm

(Ps 22:1)

full of the last "sufferings of Christ and the following glories"

(1Pe 1:11).

"FATHER," was the cry in the first prayer which He

uttered on the cross, for matters had not then come to the worst.

"Father" was the cry of His last prayer, for matters had then passed

their worst. But at this crisis of His sufferings, "Father" does not

issue from His lips, for the light of a Father's countenance was then

mysteriously eclipsed. He falls back, however, on a title expressive of

His official relation, which, though lower and more distant in

itself, yet when grasped in pure and naked faith was mighty in its

claims, and rich in psalmodic associations. And what deep earnestness

is conveyed by the redoubling of this title! But as for the cry itself,

it will never be fully comprehended. An absolute desertion is not

indeed to be thought of; but a total eclipse of the felt sense

of God's presence it certainly expresses. It expre'sses

surprise, as under the experience of something not only never

before known, but inexplicable on the footing which had till

then subsisted between Him and God. It is a question which the lost

cannot utter. They are forsaken, but they know why. Jesus is

forsaken, but does not know and demands to know why. It is thus

the cry of conscious innocence, but of innocence unavailing to

draw down, at that moment, the least token of approval from the unseen

Judge--innocence whose only recognition at that moment lay in the thick

surrounding gloom which but reflected the horror of great darkness that

invested His own spirit. There was indeed a cause for it, and He

knew it too--the "why" must not be pressed so far as to exclude this.

He must taste this bitterest of the wages of sin "who did no

sin"

(1Pe 2:22).

But that is not the point now. In Him there was no cause at all

(Joh 14:30)

and He takes refuge in the glorious fact. When no ray from above

shines in upon Him, He strikes a light out of His own breast. If God

will not own Him, He shall own Himself. On the rock of His unsullied

allegiance to Heaven He will stand, till the light of Heaven returns to

His spirit. And it is near to come. While He is yet speaking, the

fierceness of the flame is beginning to abate. One incident and insult

more, and the experience of one other predicted element of suffering,

and the victory is His. The incident, and the insult springing out of

it, is the misunderstanding of the cry, for we can hardly suppose that

it was anything else. "Some of them that stood there, when they heard

that, said, This man calleth for Elias"

(Mt 27:47).

28-30. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now

accomplished--that is, the moment for the fulfilment of the last of

them; for there was one other small particular, and the time was come

for that too, in consequence of the burning thirst which the fevered

state of His frame occasioned

(Ps 22:15).

that the scripture--

(Ps 69:21).

might be fulfilled saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full

of vinegar--on the offer of the soldiers' vinegar, see on

Joh 19:24.

and they--"one of them,"

(Mt 27:48).

29. filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon--a stalk of

hyssop, and put it to his mouth--Though a stalk of this plant does

not exceed eighteen inches in length, it would suffice, as the feet of

crucified persons were not raised high. "The rest said, Let be"--[that

is, as would seem, 'Stop that officious service'] "let us see whether

Elias will come to save Him"

(Mt 27:49).

This was the last cruelty He was to suffer, but it was one of the most

unfeeling. "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice"

(Lu 23:46).

This "loud voice," noticed by three of the Evangelists, does not

imply, as some able interpreters contend, that our Lord's strength was

so far from being exhausted that He needed not to die then, and

surrendered up His life sooner than Nature required, merely because it

was the appointed time. It was indeed the appointed time, but time

that He should be "crucified through weakness"

(1Co 13:4),

and Nature was now reaching its utmost exhaustion. But just as even His

own dying saints, particularly the martyrs of Jesus, have sometimes had

such gleams of coming glory immediately before breathing their last, as

to impart to them a strength to utter their feelings which has amazed

the by-standers, so this mighty voice of the expiring Redeemer

was nothing else but the exultant spirit of the Dying Victor, receiving

the fruit of His travail just about to be embraced, and nerving the

organs of utterance to an ecstatic expression of its sublime feelings

(not so much in the immediately following words of tranquil

surrender, in Luke, as in the final shout, recorded only by

John): "FATHER, INTO THY

HANDS I COMMEND MY

SPIRIT!"

(Lu 23:46).

Yes, the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. His soul has

emerged from its mysterious horrors; "My God" is heard no more,

but in unclouded light He yields sublime into His Father's hands

the infinitely precious spirit--using here also the words of those

matchless Psalms

(Ps 31:5)

which were ever on His lips. "As the Father receives the spirit of

Jesus, so Jesus receives those of the faithful"

(Ac 7:59)

[BENGEL]. And now comes the expiring mighty

shout.

30. It is finished! and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost--What

is finished? The Law is fulfilled as never before, nor since, in His

"obedience unto death, even the death of the cross"; Messianic prophecy

is accomplished; Redemption is completed; "He hath finished the

transgression, and made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in

everlasting righteousness, and sealed up the vision and prophecy, and

anointed a holy of holies"; He has inaugurated the kingdom of God and

given birth to a new world.

Joh 19:31-42.

BURIAL OF

CHRIST.

31-37. the preparation--sabbath eve.

that the bodies should not remain--over night, against the Mosaic law

(De 21:22, 23).

on the sabbath day, for that sabbath day was an high day--or "great"

day--the first day of unleavened bread, and, as concurring with an

ordinary sabbath, the most solemn season of the ecclesiastical year.

Hence their peculiar jealousy lest the law should be infringed.

besought Pilate that their legs might be broken--to hasten their

death, which was done in such cases with clubs.

33. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already--there being in His case elements of suffering,

unknown to the

malefactors, which might naturally hasten His death, lingering though it

always was in such cases, not to speak of His previous sufferings.

they brake not his legs--a fact of vast importance, as showing that

the reality of His death was visible to those whose business it was

to see to it. The other divine purpose served by it will appear

presently.

34. But one of the soldiers--to make assurance of the fact doubly

sure.

with a spear pierced his side--making a wound deep and wide, as indeed

is plain from

Joh 20:27, 29.

Had life still remained, it must have fled now.

and forthwith came thereout blood and water--"It is now well known that

the effect of long-continued and intense agony is frequently to produce

a secretion of a colorless lymph within the pericardium (the membrane

enveloping the heart), amounting in many cases to a very considerable

quantity" [WEBSTER and

WILKINSON].

35. And he that saw it bare record--hath borne witness.

and his witness is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye

might believe--This solemn way of referring to his own testimony in

this matter has no reference to what he says in his Epistle about

Christ's "coming by water and blood" (see on

1Jo 5:6),

but is intended to call attention both to the fulfilment of Scripture

in these particulars, and to the undeniable evidence he was thus

furnishing of the reality of Christ's death, and consequently of

His resurrection; perhaps also to meet the growing tendency, in the

Asiatic churches, to deny the reality of our Lord's body, or that

"Jesus Christ is come in the flesh"

(1Jo 4:1-3).

36. that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not

be broken--The reference is to the paschal lamb, as to which this

ordinance was stringent

(Ex 12:46;

Nu 9:12.

Compare

1Co 5:7).

But though we are to see here the fulfilment of a very definite typical

ordinance, we shall, on searching deeper, see in it

a remarkable divine interposition to protect the sacred body of Christ

from the last indignity after He had finished the work given Him to do.

Every

imaginable indignity had been permitted before that, up to the

moment of His death. But no sooner is that over than an Unseen hand is

found to have provided against the clubs of the rude soldiers coming in

contact with that temple of the Godhead. Very different from such

violence was that spear-thrust, for which not only doubting Thomas

would thank the soldier, but intelligent believers in every age, to

whom the certainty of their Lord's death and resurrection is the life

of their whole Christianity.

37. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they

pierced--The quotation is from

Zec 12:10;

not taken as usual from the Septuagint (the current Greek

version), which here is all wrong, but direct from the Hebrew.

And there is a remarkable nicety in the choice of the words employed

both by the prophet and the Evangelist for "piercing." The word in

Zechariah means to thrust through with spear, javelin, sword, or

any such weapon. In that sense it is used in all the ten places,

besides this, where it is found. How suitable this was to express the

action of the Roman soldier, is manifest; and our Evangelist uses the

exactly corresponding word, which the Septuagint certainly does

not. Very different is the other word for "pierce" in

Ps 22:16,

"They pierced my hands and my feet." The word there used is one

signifying to bore as with an awl or hammer. How striking are these

small niceties!

38-40. Joseph of Arimathea--"a rich man"

(Mt 27:57),

thus fulfilling

Isa 53:9;

"an honorable counsellor," a member of the Sanhedrim, and of good

condition, "which also waited for the kingdom of God"

(Mr 15:43),

a devout expectant of Messiah's kingdom; "a good man and a just, the

same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them"

(Lu 23:50, 51

--he had gone the length, perhaps, of dissenting and protesting in open

council against the condemnation of our Lord); "who also himself was

Jesus' disciple,"

(Mt 27:57).

being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews--"He

went in boldly unto Pilate"

(Mr 15:43)

--literally, "having taken courage went in," or "had the boldness to go

in." Mark alone, as his manner is, notices the boldness which

this required. The act would without doubt identify him for the

first time with the disciples of Christ. Marvellous it certainly

is, that one who while Jesus was yet alive merely refrained from

condemning Him, not having the courage to espouse His cause by one

positive act, should, now that He was dead, and His cause apparently

dead with Him, summon up courage to go in personally to the Roman

governor and ask permission to take down and inter the body. But if

this be the first instance, it is not the last, that a seemingly

dead Christ has wakened a sympathy which a living one had failed to

evoke. The heroism of faith is usually kindled by desperate

circumstances, and is not seldom displayed by those who before were the

most timid, and scarce known as disciples at all. "And Pilate

marvelled if he were already dead"

(Mr 15:44)

--rather "wondered that he was already dead." "And calling the

centurion, he asked him whether He had been any while dead"

(Mr 15:44)

--Pilate could hardly credit what Joseph had told him, that He had been

dead "some time," and, before giving up the body to His friends, would

learn how the fact stood from the centurion, whose business it was to

oversee the execution. "And when he knew it of the centurion"

(Mr 15:45),

that it was as Joseph had said, "he gave"--rather "made a gift of"--"the

body to Joseph"; struck, possibly, with the rank of the petitioner and

the dignified boldness of the petition, in contrast with the spirit of

the other party and the low rank to which he had been led to believe all

the followers of Christ belonged. Nor would he be unwilling to Show that

he was not going to carry this black affair any farther. But, whatever

were Pilate's motives, two most blessed objects were thus secured: (1)

The reality of our Lords death was attested by the party of all

others most competent to decide on it, and certainly free from all

bias--the officer in attendance--in full reliance on whose testimony

Pilate surrendered the body: (2) The dead Redeemer, thus delivered out

of the hands of His enemies, and committed by the supreme political

authority to the care of His friends, was thereby protected from all

further indignities; a thing most befitting indeed, now that His work

was done, but impossible, so far as we can see, if His enemies had been

at liberty to do with Him as they pleased. How wonderful are even the

minutest features of this matchless History!

39. also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night--"This

remark corresponds to the secrecy of Joseph's discipleship, just

noticed, and calls attention to the similarity of their previous

character and conduct, and the remarkable change which had now taken

place" [WEBSTER and

WILKINSON].

brought . . . myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pounds

weight--an immense quantity, betokening the greatness of their

love, but part of it probably intended as a layer for the spot on which

the body was to lie. (See

2Ch 16:14)

[MEYER].

40. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes

with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury--the mixed and

pulverized myrrh and aloes shaken into the folds, and the entire body,

thus swathed, wrapt in an outer covering of "clean linen cloth"

(Mt 27:59).

Had the Lord's own friends had the least reason to think that the spark

of life was still in Him, would they have done this? But even if

one could conceive them mistaken, could anyone have lain thus enveloped

for the period during which He was in the grave, and life still

remained? Impossible. When, therefore, He walked forth from the tomb,

we can say with the most absolute certainty, "Now is Christ risen

from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept"

(1Co 15:20).

No wonder that the learned and the barbarians alike were prepared to

die for the name of the Lord Jesus; for such evidence was to the

unsophisticated resistless. (No mention is made of anointing in

this operation. No doubt it was a hurried proceeding, for fear of

interruption, and because it was close on the sabbath, the women seem

to have set this as their proper task "as soon as the sabbath should be

past"

[Mr 16:1].

But as the Lord graciously held it as undesignedly anticipated by Mary

at Bethany

[Mr 14:8],

so this was probably all the anointing, in the strict sense of it,

which He received.)

41, 42. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden,

and in the garden a new sepulchre--The choice of this tomb was, on

their part, dictated by the double circumstance that it was so near

at hand, and by its belonging to a friend of the Lord; and as there was

need of haste, even they would be struck with the providence which thus

supplied it. "There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jew's

preparation day, for the sepulchre was nigh at hand." But there was one

recommendation of it which probably would not strike them; but God had

it in view. Not its being "hewn out of a rock"

(Mr 15:46),

accessible only at the entrance, which doubtless would impress them with

its security and suitableness. But it was "a new sepulchre"

(Joh 19:41),

"wherein never man before was laid"

(Lu 23:53):

and Matthew

(Mt 27:60)

says that Joseph laid Him "in his own new tomb, which he had

hewn out in the rock"--doubtless for his own use, though the Lord had

higher use for it. Thus as He rode into Jerusalem on an ass "whereon

never man before had sat"

(Mr 11:2),

so now He shall lie in a tomb wherein never man before had lain,

that from these specimens it may be seen that in all things He was

"SEPARATE FROM SINNERS"

(Heb 7:26).