Text -- John 19:1-7 (NET)

Pilate Tries to Release Jesus

19:1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged severely. 19:2 The soldiers braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they clothed him in a purple robe. 19:3 They came up to him again and again and said, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly in the face. 19:4 Again Pilate went out and said to the Jewish leaders, “Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no reason for an accusation against him.” 19:5 So Jesus came outside, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Look, here is the man!” 19:6 When the chief priests and their officers saw him, they shouted out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said, “You take him and crucify him! Certainly I find no reason for an accusation against him!” 19:7 The Jewish leaders replied, “We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die, because he claimed to be the Son of God!”

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Robertson: Joh 19:1

Took and scourged ( elaben kai emastigōsen ).

First aorist active indicative of lambanō and mastigoō (from mastix , whip). For this redundant use of lambanō see also Joh 19:6. It is the causative use of mastigoō , for Pilate did not actually scourge Jesus. He simply ordered it done, perhaps to see if the mob would be satisfied with this penalty on the alleged pretender to royalty (Luk 23:22) whom Pilate had pronounced innocent (Joh 18:38), an illegal act therefore. It was a preliminary to crucifixion, but Jesus was not yet condemned. The Sanhedrin had previously mocked Jesus (Mar 14:65; Mat 26:67.; Luk 22:63.) as the soldiers will do later (Mar 15:16-19; Mat 27:27-30). This later mock coronation (Mark and Matthew) was after the condemnation.

Robertson: Joh 19:1

Plaited a crown of thorns ( plexantes stephanon ex akanthōn ).

Old verb plekō , to weave, in the N.T. only here, Mar 15:17; Mat 27:19. Not impossible for the mock coronation to be repeated.

Robertson: Joh 19:1

Arrayed him ( periebalon auton ).

"Placed around him"(second aorist active indicative of periballō ).

Robertson: Joh 19:1

In a purple garment ( himation porphuroun ).

Old adjective porphureos from porphura , purple cloth (Mar 15:17, Mar 15:20), dyed in purple, in the N.T. only here and Rev 18:16. Jesus had been stripped of his outer garment himation (Mat 27:28) and the scarlet cloak of one of the soldiers may have been put on him (Mat 27:28).

Robertson: Joh 19:3

They came ( ērchonto ).

Imperfect middle of repeated action, "they kept coming and saying"(elegon ) in derision and mock reverence with Ave (chaire , Hail!) as if to Caesar. Note ho basileus (the king) in address.

Robertson: Joh 19:3

They struck him with their hands ( edidosan autōi rapismata ).

Imperfect of didōmi , repetition, "they kept on giving him slaps with their hands."See note on Joh 18:22 for this use of rapisma .

Robertson: Joh 19:4

I bring him out to you ( agō humin auton exō ).

Vividly pictures Pilate leading Jesus out of the palace before the mob in front.

Robertson: Joh 19:4

That ye may know ( hina gnōte ).

Final clause with hina and the second aorist active subjunctive of ginōskō , "that ye may come to know,"by this mockery the sincerity of Pilate’ s decision that Jesus is innocent (Joh 18:38). It is a travesty on justice and dignity, but Pilate is trying by a bit of humour to turn the mob from the grip of the Sanhedrin.

Robertson: Joh 19:5

Wearing ( phorōn ).

Present active participle of phoreō , an early frequentative of pherō , denoting a continual wearing, though not true here (only temporary). Jesus bore the mockery with kingly dignity as part of the shame of the Cross (Heb 12:2).

Robertson: Joh 19:5

Behold, the man ( Idou ho anthrōpos ).

Ecce Homo! by Pilate. This exclamatory introduction of Jesus in mock coronation robes to the mob was clearly intended to excite pity and to show how absurd the charge of the Sanhedrin was that such a pitiable figure should be guilty of treason. Pilate failed utterly in this effort and did not dream that he was calling attention to the greatest figure of history, the Man of the ages.

Robertson: Joh 19:6

Crucify him, crucify him ( staurōson ,staurōson ).

First aorist active imperative of stauroō for which verb see Mat 20:19, etc. Here the note of urgency (aorist imperative) with no word for "him,"as they were led by the chief priests and the temple police till the whole mob takes it up (Mat 27:22).

Robertson: Joh 19:6

For I find no crime in him ( egō gar ouch heuriskō ).

This is the third time Pilate has rendered his opinion of Christ’ s innocence (Joh 18:38; Joh 19:4). And here he surrenders in a fret to the mob and gives as his reason (gar , for) for his surrender the innocence of Jesus (the strangest judicial decision ever rendered). Perhaps Pilate was only franker than some judges!

Robertson: Joh 19:7

Because he made himself the Son of God ( hoti huion theou heauton epoiēsen ).

Here at last the Sanhedrin give the real ground for their hostility to Jesus, one of long standing for probably three years (Joh 5:18) and the one on which the Sanhedrin voted the condemnation of Jesus (Mar 14:61-64; Matt 27:23-66), but even now they do not mention their own decision to Pilate, for they had no legal right to vote Christ’ s death before Pilate’ s consent which they now have secured.

Vincent: Joh 19:1

Scourged ( ἐμαστίγωσεν )

Matthew and Mark use the Greek form of the Latin word flagellare , φραγελλόω , which occurs only in those two instances in the New Testament. John uses the more common Greek word, though he has φραγελλίον ( flagellum ), scourge , at Joh 2:15. Matthew and Mark, however, both use μαστιγόω elsewhere (Mat 10:17; Mat 20:29; Mar 10:34). Its kindred noun, μάστιξ , occurs several times in the metaphorical sense of a plague . See on Mar 3:10, and compare Mar 5:29, Mar 5:34; Luk 7:21. The verb is used metaphorically only once, Heb 12:6. Scourging was the legal preliminary to crucifixion, but, in this case, was inflicted illegally before the sentence of crucifixion was pronounced, with a view of averting the extreme punishment, and of satisfying the Jews. (Luk 23:22). The punishment was horrible, the victim being bound to a low pillar or stake, and beaten, either with rods, or, in the case of slaves and provincials, with scourges, called scorpions , leather thongs tipped with leaden balls or sharp spikes. The severity of the infliction in Jesus' case is evident from His inability to bear His cross.

Vincent: Joh 19:2

Crown ( στέφανον )

So Matthew and Mark. Luke does not mention the crown of thorns. See on 1Pe 5:4.

Vincent: Joh 19:2

Of thorns ( ἐξ ἀκανθῶν )

So Matthew. Mark has ἀκάνθινον , the adjective, made of thorns , which John also uses in Joh 19:5. All attempts to define the botanical character of the thorns used for Christ's crown are guesses. The word for thorns used here is the only one that occurs in the New Testament; the σκόλοψ ( thorn in the flesh) of 2Co 12:7, being properly an impaling-stake .

Both the crowning with thorns and the flagellation are favorite subjects in Christian art. Some of the earliest representations of the latter depict the figure of the Lord as fully draped, and standing unbound at the column, thus illustrating the voluntariness of His sacrifice. In a MS. of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum, He stands, wholly clothed, holding a book in one hand, and blessing with the other. The more devout feeling which predominated in such representations was gradually overpowered by the sense of physical suffering. The earlier paintings represented the back turned toward the spectator, and the face, turned in a forced attitude, exhibited in profile. Later, the face and figure are turned full to the front, and the strokes fall upon the chest. Hence Jerome, in his commentary on Matthew, says that the capacious chest of God ( ! ) was torn with strokes. The standing position is the accepted one, but instances occur in which the Savior is on the ground attached to the column by one hand. Such is the revolting picture by L. Caracci in the Bologna gallery, in which the soldier clutches Jesus by the hair as he plies the bundle of twigs. In a Psalter of the fifteenth century the Savior stands in front of the column, covering His face with His hands.

According to the later type, the moment chosen is when the execution of the sentence is just beginning. One man is binding the hands to the pillar, another is binding together a bundle of loose switches. The German representations are coarser than the Italian, but with more incident. They lack the spiritual feeling which appears in the best Italian specimens.

A field for a higher feeling and for more subtle treatment is opened in the moments succeeding the scourging. One of the very finest examples of this is the picture of Velasquez, " Christ at the Column," in the National Gallery of London. The real grandeur and pathos of the conception assert themselves above certain prosaic and realistic details. The Savior sits upon the ground, His arms extended, and leaning backward to the full stretch of the cord which binds His crossed hands. The face is turned over the left shoulder full upon the spectator. Rods, ropes, and broken twigs lie upon the ground, and slender streams of blood appear upon the body. A guardian angel behind the figure of the Lord, stands bending slightly over a child kneeling with clasped hands, and points to the sufferer, from whose head a ray of light passes to the child's heart. The angel is a Spanish nursery-maid with wings, and the face of the child is of the lower Spanish type, and is in striking contrast with the exquisite countenance of Murillo's Christ-child, which hangs next to this picture, and which is of the sweetest type of Andalusian beauty. The Savior's face is of a thoroughly manly, indeed, of a robust type, expressing intense suffering, but without contortion. The large, dark eyes are ineffably sad. The strong light on the right arm merges into the deep shadow of the bound hands, and the same shadow falls with startling effect across the full light on the left arm, marked at the wrist by a slight bloody line.

In the portrayal of the crowning with thorns, in a few instances, the moment is chosen after the crown has been placed, the action being in the mock-worship; but the prevailing conception is that of the act of crowning, which consists in pressing the crown upon the brow by means of two long staves. A magnificent specimen is Luini's fresco in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. Christ sits upon a tribune, clad in a scarlet robe, His face wearing an expression of infinite sweetness and dignity, while a soldier on either side crowds down the crown with a staff. The Italian artists represent the crown as consisting of pliable twigs with small thorns; but the northern artists " have conceived," to quote Mrs. Jameson, " an awful structure of the most unbending, knotted boughs, with tremendous spikes half a foot long, which no human hands could have forced into such a form." In a few later instances the staves are omitted, and the crown is placed on the head by the mailed hand of a soldier.

Vincent: Joh 19:2

Put on ( περιέβαλον )

Literally, threw about . Rev., arrayed .

Vincent: Joh 19:2

Purple ( πορφυροῦν )

An adjective. Found only here, Joh 19:5, and Rev 18:16. Mark uses the noun πορφύρα , purple , which also occurs in Rev 17:4; Rev 18:12. See on Luk 16:19. Matthew has κοκκίνην , scarlet .

Vincent: Joh 19:2

Robe ( ἱμάτιον )

Better, as Rev., garment , since robe gives the impression of a trailing garment. See on Mat 5:40. Matthew has χλαμύδα , a short military cloak (Mat 27:28). Luke describes the garment as λαμπρὰν , gorgeous , bright or brilliant (Luk 23:11).

Vincent: Joh 19:3

And said

Add καὶ ἤρχοντο πρὸς αὐτόν , and kept coming unto Him , before and said or kept saying . The imperfect denotes the successive acts of homage of the soldiers as they came up one after the other.

Vincent: Joh 19:3

They smote Him with their hands ( ἐδίδουν αὐτῷ ῥαπίσματα ).

Literally, kept giving Him blows with their hands . See on Joh 18:22.

Vincent: Joh 19:5

Came Jesus forth

From the Praetorium.

Vincent: Joh 19:5

Wearing ( φορῶν )

Not φέρων , bearing , but the frequentative form of that verb, denoting an habitual or continuous bearing; hence, wearing , as though it were His natural dress.

Vincent: Joh 19:6

They cried out

See on Joh 18:40.

Vincent: Joh 19:6

Crucify

The best texts omit Him .

Vincent: Joh 19:6

Take ye Him ( λάβετε αὐτὸν ὑμεῖς )

According to the Greek order, " take Him ye ." Rev., take Him yourselves . See on Joh 18:31.

Vincent: Joh 19:7

We have a law

We , emphatic. Whatever your decision may be, we have a law, etc.

Vincent: Joh 19:7

By our law

The best texts omit our: Read by that law , as Rev.

Wesley: Joh 19:1

Mat 27:26; Mar 15:15.

Wesley: Joh 19:7

Which they understood in the highest sense, and therefore accounted blasphemy.

JFB: Joh 19:1-3

In hope of appeasing them. (See Mar 15:15). "And the soldiers led Him away into the palace, and they call the whole band" (Mar 15:16) --the body of the military cohort stationed there--to take part in the mock coronation now to be enacted.

JFB: Joh 19:2

In mockery of a regal crown.

JFB: Joh 19:2

In mockery of the imperial purple; first "stripping him" (Mat 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 (Luk 23:11). "And they put a reed into His right hand" (Mat 27:29) --in mockery of the regal scepter. "And they bowed the knee before Him" (Mat 27:29).

JFB: Joh 19:3

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" (Mat 27:30). The best comment on these affecting details is to cover the face.

JFB: Joh 19:4-5

Am bringing, that is, going to bring him forth to you.

JFB: Joh 19:4-5

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.

JFB: Joh 19:5

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.

JFB: Joh 19:6-7

Their fiendish rage kindling afresh at the sight of Him.

JFB: Joh 19:6-7

(See Mar 15:14).

JFB: Joh 19:6-7

As if this would relieve him of the responsibility of the deed, who, by surrendering Him, incurred it all!

JFB: Joh 19:7

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.

Clarke: Joh 19:1

Pilate took Jesus, and scourged him - That is, caused him to be scourged: for we cannot with Bede suppose that he scourged him with his own hand

As our Lord was scourged by order of Pilate, it is probable he was scourged in the Roman manner, which was much more severe than that of the Jews. The latter never gave more than thirty-nine blows; for the law had absolutely forbidden a man to be abused, or his flesh cut in this chastisement, Deu 25:3. The common method of whipping or flogging in some places, especially that of a military kind, is a disgrace to the nation where it is done, to the laws, and to humanity. See Mat 27:26, and the note there. Though it was customary to scourge the person who was to be crucified, yet it appears that Pilate had another end in view by scourging our Lord. He hoped that this would have satisfied the Jews, and that he might then have dismissed Jesus. This appears from Luk 23:16.

Clarke: Joh 19:2

Platted a crown of thorns - See on Mat 27:29 (note).

Clarke: Joh 19:5

And Pilate saith - The word Pilate, which we supply in our version, is added by one MS., the later Syriac, later Arabic, and the Coptic

Clarke: Joh 19:5

Behold the man! - The man who, according to you, affects the government, and threatens to take away the empire from the Romans. Behold the man whom ye have brought unto me as an enemy to Caesar, and as a sower of the seeds of sedition in the land! In him I find no guilt; and from him ye have no occasion to fear any evil.

Clarke: Joh 19:6

Crucify Him - Αυτον, which is necessary to the text, and which is wanting in the common editions, and is supplied by our version in Italics, is added here on the authority of almost every MS. and version of importance. As it is omitted in the common editions, it affords another proof, that they were not taken from the best MSS.

Clarke: Joh 19:7

We have a law - In Lev 24:14-16, we find that blasphemers of God were to be put to death; and the chief priests having charged Jesus with blasphemy, they therefore voted that he deserved to die. See Mat 26:65, Mat 26:66. They might refer also to the law against false prophets, Deu 18:20

Clarke: Joh 19:7

The Son of God - It is certain that the Jews understood this in a very peculiar sense. When Christ called himself the Son of God, they understood it to imply positive equality to the Supreme Being: and, if they were wrong, our Lord never attempted to correct them.

Calvin: Joh 19:1

1.Then Pilate therefore took Jesus Pilate adheres to his original intention; but to the former ignominy he adds a second, hoping that, when Christ shall have been scourged, the Jews will be satisfied with this light chastisement. When he labors so earnestly, and without any success, we ought to recognize in this the decree of Heaven, by which Christ was appointed to death. Yet his innocence is frequently attested by the testimony of the judge, in order to assure us that he was free from all sin, and that he was substituted as a guilty person in the room of others, and bore the punishment due to the sins of others. We see also in Pilate a remarkable example of a trembling conscience. He acquits Christ with his mouth, and acknowledges that there is no guilt in him, and yet inflicts punishment on him, as if he were guilty. Thus, they who have not so much courage as to defend, with unshaken constancy, what is right, must be driven hither and thither, and led to adopt opposite and conflicting opinions.

We all condemn Pilate; and yet, it is shameful to relate that there are so many Pilates ¹⁵⁷ in the world, who scourge Christ, not only in his members, but also in his doctrine. There are many who, for the purpose of saving the life of those who are persecuted for the sake of the Gospel, constrain them wickedly to deny Christ. What is this, but to expose Christ to ridicule, that he may lead a dishonorable life? Others select and approve of certain parts of the Gospel, and yet tear the whole Gospel to pieces. They think that they have done exceedingly well, if they have corrected a few gross abuses. It would be better that the doctrine should be buried for a time, than that it should be scourged in this manner, for it would spring up again ill spite of the devil and of tyrants; but nothing is more difficult than to restore it to its purity after having been once corrupted.

Calvin: Joh 19:2

2.And the soldiers, platting a crown of thorns This was unquestionably done by the authority of Pilate, in order to affix a mark of infamy on the Son of God, for having made himself a king; and that in order to satisfy the rage of the Jews, as if he had been convinced that the accusations which they brought against Christ were well founded. Yet the wickedness and insolence of the soldiers is indulged more freely than had been ordered by the judge; as ungodly men eagerly seize on the opportunity of doing evil whenever it is offered to them. But we see here the amazing cruelty of the Jewish nation, ¹⁵⁸ whose minds are not moved to compassion by so piteous a spectacle; but all this is directed by God, in order to reconcile the world to himself by the death of his Son.

Calvin: Joh 19:6

6.Take you him He did not wish to deliver Christ into their hands, or to abandon him to their fury; only he declares that he will not be their executioner. This is evident from the reason immediately added, when he says that he finds no guilt in him; as if he had said, that he will never be persuaded to shed innocent blood for their gratification. That it is only the priests and officers who demand that he shall be crucified, is evident from the circumstance that the madness of the people was not so great, except so far as those bellows contributed afterwards to kindle it.

Calvin: Joh 19:7

7.We have a law They mean that, in proceeding against Christ, they do what is right, and are not actuated by hatred or sinful passion; for they perceived that Pilate had indirectly reproved them. Now, they speak as in the presence of a man who was ignorant of the law; as if they had said, “We are permitted to live after our own manner, and our religion does not suffer any man to boast of being the Son of God. ” Besides, this accusation was not altogether void of plausibility, but they erred grievously in the application of it. The general doctrine was undoubtedly true, that it was not lawful for men to assume any honor which is due to God, and that they who claimed for themselves what is peculiar to God alone deserved to be put to death. But the source of their error related to the person of Christ, because they did not consider what are the titles given by Scripture to the Messiah, from which they might easily have learned that he was the Son of God, and did not even deign to inquire whether or not Jesus was the Messiah whom God had formerly promised.

We see, then, how they drew a false conclusion from a true principle, for they reason badly. This example warns us to distinguish carefully between a general doctrine and the application of it, ¹⁵⁹ for there are many ignorant and unsteady persons who reject the very principles of Scripture, if they have once been deceived by the semblance of truth; and such licentiousness makes too great progress in the world every day. Let us, therefore, remember that we ought to guard against imposition, so that principles which are true may remain in all their force, and that the authority of Scripture may not be diminished.

On the other hand, we may easily find a reply to wicked men, who falsely and improperly allege the testimony of Scripture, and the principles which they draw from it, to support their bad designs; just as the Papists, when they extol in lofty terms the authority of the Church, bring forward nothing about which all the children of God are not agreed. They maintain that the Church is the mother of believers, that she is the pillar of truth, that she ought to be heard, that she is guided by the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶⁰ All this we ought to admit, but when they wish to appropriate to themselves all the authority that is due to the Church, they wickedly, and with sacrilegious presumption, seize what does not at all belong to them. For we must inquire into the grounds of what they assume as true, that they deserve the title of The Church; and here they utterly fail. In like manner, when they exercise furious cruelty against all the godly, they do so on this pretence, that they have been ordained to defend the faith and peace of the Church. But when we examine the matter more closely, we plainly see that there is nothing which they have less at heart than the defense of true doctrine, that nothing affects them less than a care about peace and harmony, but that they only fight to uphold their own tyranny. They who are satisfied with general principles, and do not attend to the circumstances, imagine that the Papists do right in attacking us; but the investigation of the matter quickly dissipates that smoke by which they deceive the simple. ¹⁶¹

Defender: Joh 19:1

The Roman scourge, customarily used on criminals prior to crucifixion, was a whip with several thongs, each with several pieces of bone or metal attached, and its use inflicted extremely painful stripes. At first, Pilate hoped to satisfy the accusers with the scourging of Jesus (Luk 23:22), but they insisted on His execution. However, in so doing, they were merely fulfilling prophecy: "he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" (Isa 53:5)."

Defender: Joh 19:3

Jesus had never claimed such a title, and Pilate had tried without success to get Him to acknowledge it (Joh 18:33). Perhaps Pilate gave him this title in a sarcastic put-down of the hateful Jewish leaders (Joh 18:39). The soldiers mocked Jesus with it by nailing it to the cross (Joh 19:19)."

Defender: Joh 19:4

Scourging was sometimes used to extract a confession from a criminal, but Jesus still did not acknowledge that He had assumed the role of King of the Jews, so Pilate again judged Him guiltless and tried to persuade the crowd that He should be released. But they chose the murderer and seditionist Barabbas instead."

Defender: Joh 19:5

Pilate, evidently trying to show the crowd that Jesus was a pitiable shell rather than a king (thus, demonstrating the absurdity of their charge), urged them to behold Him in this forlorn state and ridiculous caricature of kingly apparel, thinking thereby to displace their hatred with pity. But when he said, "Behold the man," he was unwittingly using prophetic language. Through the prophet Isaiah, God had said concerning the coming Messiah, "Behold your God!" and "Behold my servant" (Isa 40:9; Isa 42:1). Through the prophet Zechariah, God said concerning Him, "Behold the man" and "behold thy King" (Zec 6:12; Zec 9:9). Note how these four scenes we are urged to behold correspond to the respective pictures of Christ in the four gospels - "King" in Matthew, "Servant" in Mark, "Man" in Luke, "God" in John. Pilate sarcastically used two of these titles: "Behold the man" in Joh 19:5, "behold your King" in Joh 19:14."

Defender: Joh 19:6

For the third time, Pilate insisted there was no fault in Jesus (Joh 18:38; Joh 19:4), but the Jews were determined to see Him crucified."

TSK: Joh 19:1

Pilate : Mat 27:26-31; Mar 15:15-20; Luk 23:16, Luk 23:23

scourged : Psa 129:3; Isa 50:6, Isa 53:5; Mat 20:19, Mat 23:34; Mar 10:33, Mar 10:34; Luk 18:33; Act 16:22, Act 16:23, Act 22:24, Act 22:25; 2Co 11:24; Heb 11:36; 1Pe 2:24

TSK: Joh 19:2

the soldiers : Joh 19:5; Psa 22:6; Isa 49:7, Isa 53:3; Mat 27:27-31; Mar 15:17-20; Luk 23:11

TSK: Joh 19:3

Hail : Mat 26:49, Mat 27:29; Luk 1:28

King : Joh 19:19-22, Joh 18:33

TSK: Joh 19:4

that ye : Joh 19:6, Joh 18:38; Mat 27:4, Mat 27:19, Mat 27:24, Mat 27:54; Luk 23:41, Luk 23:47; 2Co 5:21; Heb 7:26; 1Pe 1:19; 1Pe 2:22, 1Pe 3:18; 1Jo 3:5

TSK: Joh 19:5

Behold : Joh 1:29; Isa 7:14, Isa 40:9, Isa 43:1; Lam 1:12; Heb 12:2

TSK: Joh 19:6

the chief priests : Joh 19:15; Mat 27:22; Mar 15:12-15; Luk 22:21-23; Act 2:23, Act 3:13-15, Act 7:52; Act 13:27-29

Take : Pilate neither did nor could say this seriously; for crucifixion was not a Jewish but a Roman mode of punishment. The cross was made of two beams, either crossing at the top, at right angles, like a T, or in the middle of their length like an X; with a piece on the centre of the transverse beam for the accusation, and another piece projecting from the middle, on which the person sat. The cross on which our Lord suffered was of the former kind, being thus represented on all old monuments, coins, and crosses. The body was usually fastened to the upright beam by nailing the feet to it, and on the transverse piece by nailing the hands; and the person was frequently permitted to hang in this situation till he perished through agony and lack of food. This horrible punishment was usually inflicted only on slaves for the worst of crimes. Joh 18:31; Mat 27:24

TSK: Joh 19:7

We have : Lev 24:16; Deu 18:20

because : Joh 5:18, Joh 8:58, Joh 8:59, Joh 10:30-33, Joh 10:36-38; Mat 26:63-66, Mat 27:42, Mat 27:43; Mar 14:61-64; Mar 15:39; Rom 1:4

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Joh 19:1-3

See the notes at Mat 27:26-30.

Barnes: Joh 19:4

Behold, I bring him forth ... - Pilate, after examining Jesus, had gone forth and declared to the Jews that he found no fault in him, Joh 18:38. At that time Jesus remained in the judgment hall. The Jews were not satisfied with that, but demanded still that he should be put to death, Joh 19:39-40. Pilate, disposed to gratify the Jews, returned to Jesus and ordered him to be scourged, as if preparatory to death, Joh 19:1. The patience and meekness with which Jesus bore this seem to have convinced him still more that he was innocent, and he again went forth to declare his conviction of this; and, to do it more effectually, he said, "Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know,"etc. - that they might themselves see, and be satisfied, as he had been, of his innocence. All this shows his anxiety to release him, and also shows that the meekness, purity, and sincerity of Jesus had power to convince a Roman governor that he was not guilty. Thus, the highest evidence was given that the charges were false, even when he was condemned to die.

Barnes: Joh 19:5

Behold the man! - It is probable that Pilate pointed to the Saviour, and his object evidently was to move them to compassion, and to convince them, by a sight of the Saviour himself, that he was innocent. Hence, he brought him forth with the crown of thorns, and the purple robe, and with the marks of scourging. Amid all this Jesus was meek, patient, and calm, giving evident proofs of innocence. The conduct of Pilate was as if he had said, "See! The man whom you accuse is arrayed in a gorgeous robe, as if a king. He has been scourged and mocked. All this he has borne with patience. Look! How calm and peaceful! Behold his countenance! How mild! His body scourged, his head pierced with thorns! Yet in all this he is meek and patient. This is the man that you accuse; and he is now brought forth, that you may see that he is not guilty."

Barnes: Joh 19:6

They cried out, saying, Crucify him ... - The view of the Saviour’ s meekness only exasperated them the more. They had resolved on his death; and as they saw Pilate disposed to acquit him, they redoubled their cries, and endeavored to gain by tumult, and clamor, and terror, what they saw they could not obtain by justice. When men are determined on evil, they cannot be reasoned with. Every argument tends to defeat their plans, and they press on in iniquity with the more earnestness in proportion as sound reasons are urged to stay their course. Thus sinners go in the way of wickedness down to death. They make up in firmness of purpose what they lack in reason. They are more fixed in their plans in proportion as God faithfully warns them and their friends admonish them.

Take ye him ... - These are evidently the words of a man weary with their importunity and with the subject, and yet resolved not to sanction their conduct. It was not the act of a judge delivering him up according to the forms of the law, for they did not understand it so. It was equivalent to this: "I am satisfied of his innocence, and shall not pronounce the sentence of death. If you are bent on his ruin - if you are determined to put to death an innocent man - if my judgment does not satisfy you - take him and put him to death on your own responsibility, and take the consequences. It cannot be done with my consent, nor in the due form of law; and if done, it must be by you, without authority, and in the face of justice."See Mat 27:24.

Barnes: Joh 19:7

We have a law - The law respecting blasphemy, Lev 24:16; Deu 13:1-5. They had arraigned Jesus on that charge before the Sanhedrin, and condemned him for it, Mat 26:63-65. But this was not the charge on which they had arraigned him before Pilate. They had accused him of sedition, Luk 23:2. On this charge they were now convinced that they could not get Pilate to condemn him. He declared him innocent. Still bent on his ruin, and resolved to gain their purpose, they now, contrary to their first intention, adduced the original accusation on which they had already pronounced him guilty. If they could not obtain his condemnation as a rebel, they now sought it as a blasphemer, and they appealed to Pilate to sanction what they believed was required in their law. Thus, to Pilate himself it became more manifest that he was innocent, that they had attempted to deceive him, and that the charge on which they had arraigned him was a mere pretence to obtain his sanction to their wicked design.

Made himself - Declared himself, or claimed to be.

The Son of God - The law did not forbid this, but it forbade blasphemy, and they considered the assumption of this title as the same as blasphemy Joh 10:30, Joh 10:33, Joh 10:36, and therefore condemned him.

Poole: Joh 19:1

Joh 19:1-4 Jesus is scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked, and

buffeted by the soldiers.

Joh 19:5-7 Pilate declareth his innocence: the Jews charge him

with assuming the title of the Son of God.

Joh 19:8-16 Pilate upon further examination is more desirous to

release him, but, overcome with the clamours of the

Jews, delivereth him to be crucified.

Joh 19:17,18 He is led to Golgotha, and crucified between two

malefactors.

Joh 19:19-22 Pilate’ s inscription on his cross.

Joh 19:23,24 The soldiers part his garments.

Joh 19:25-27 He commendeth his mother to John,

Joh 19:28-30 receiveth vinegar to drink, and dieth.

Joh 19:31-37 The legs of the others are broken, and the side of

Jesus pierced.

Joh 19:38-42 Joseph of Arimathea begs his body, and, assisted

by Nicodemus, buries it.

It was the custom of the Romans, when any one was to be crucified, first to scourge him; but (as it appears) Pilate ordered it, hoping that, though he could not prevail by any other art with them, yet by this he might; and they might possibly be satisfied with this lighter punishment; for it appeareth by Joh 19:4,12 , that Pilate had a mind to release him, if he could have satisfied the Jews; though he had not courage enough to oppose the stream, and to do what himself thought was just, in despite of their opposition.

Poole: Joh 19:2

The other evangelists also mention a reed put into his right hand. The crown, and the purple robe, and a sceptre, are all regal ensigns; they give them to Christ in derision of his pretence to a kingdom, and in the mean time themselves proclaim what he had said, that his kingdom was not of this world; for though earthly kings wear crowns, yet they use to be of gold, not of thorns; and their sceptres use to be gold, not reeds.

Poole: Joh 19:3

They mocked him when they said, Hail, King of the Jews! But yet spake a great truth, though not in their sense. The other evangelists speak of more indignities offered him: See Poole on "Mar 15:19" .

Poole: Joh 19:4

Pilate appeareth convinced in his own conscience that Christ had done nothing worthy either of death or bonds, and a great while resisted that strong temptation which he was under to please the people, and to secure his own station, lest any complaint made to the Roman emperor against him should have prejudiced him.

Poole: Joh 19:5

He therefore, after Jesus had been scourged, and dressed up in this mock dress, brings him out again to the people to move their pity.

Poole: Joh 19:6

Our Lord finds more compassion from Pilate, though a heathen, than he found from those of his own nation; yea, those that pretended highest to religion amongst them: Pilate would have saved him; they cry out for his blood. Pilate leaves another testimony behind him, that what he did, at last overborne with a great temptation, he did contrary to the conviction of his own conscience, and as yet declineth the guilt of innocent blood.

Poole: Joh 19:7

The law they mean, is the law for putting false prophets to death, Deu 18:20 . By

the Son of God here they mean the eternal Son of God, in all things equal with his Father; otherwise it was a term applicable to themselves, whom God calls his son, his firstborn, &c. Now for any in this sense to arrogate to himself this title who indeed was not so, was blasphemy, and that in the highest degree, and brought him under the notion of a false prophet of the deepest dye: but this was injuriously applied to Christ, who thought it no robbery to be equal with the Father, and who was so declared by God himself at his baptism and transfiguration; and who had made his Divine power appear by such works as no mere man ever did.

Lightfoot: Joh 19:2

And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe,   

[Platted a crown of thorns, etc.] a most unquestionable token this, that Christ's kingdom was not of this world, when he was crowned only with thorns and briers; which were the curse of this earth, Gen 3:18. Herod had put upon him a purple robe, Luk 23:11; and the soldiers added this crown. It is likewise said, that they also clothed him with this robe, that is, after he had been stripped, in order to be scourged.

Haydock: Joh 19:1

Pilate's motive, for ordering our Saviour to be scourged, was no other than this; that the Jews might be satisfied with these his numerous sufferings, and might no longer seek his death. For the same reason, likewise, he permitted his soldiers to inflict those unheard of cruelties, related in the sequel. (St. Augustine, tract. 110. in Joan.)

Gill: Joh 19:1

Then Pilate therefore took Jesus,.... Finding that the Jews would not agree to his release, but that Barabbas was the person they chose, and being very desirous, if possible, to save his life, thought of this method: he ordered Jesus to be taken by the proper officers,

and scourged him; that is, commanded him to be scourged by them; which was done by having him to a certain place, where being stripped naked, and fastened to a pillar, he was severely whipped: and this he did, hoping the Jews would be satisfied therewith, and agree to his release; but though he did this with such a view, yet it was a very unjust action in him to scourge a man that he himself could find no fault in: however, it was what was foretold by Christ himself, and was an emblem of those strokes and scourges of divine justice he endured, as the surety of his people, in his soul, in their stead; and his being scourged, though innocent, shows, that it was not for his own, but the sins of others; and expresses the vile nature of sin, the strictness of justice, and the grace, condescension, and patience of Christ: and this may teach us not to think it strange that any of the saints should endure scourgings, in a literal sense; and to bear patiently the scourgings and chastisements of our heavenly Father, and not to fear the overflowing scourge or wrath of God, since Christ has bore this in our room.

Gill: Joh 19:2

And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns,.... This was an emblem of his being surrounded by wicked men, sons of Belial, comparable to thorns, whilst he hung suffering on the cross; and of the sins of his people compassing him about, which were as thorns, very grievous to him; and of his various troubles in life, and of his being made a curse for us at death; thorns being the produce of the curse upon the earth.

And put it on his head: not only by way of derision, as mocking at his character, the King of the Jews, but in order to afflict and distress him.

And they put on him a purple robe: Matthew calls it a scarlet robe; and the Arabic and Persic versions here, "a red" one: it very probably was one of the soldiers' coats, which are usually red: this was still in derision of him as a king, and was an emblem of his being clothed with our purple and scarlet sins, and of the bloody sufferings of his human nature for them, and through which we come to have a purple covering, or to be justified by his blood, and even to be made truly kings, as well as priests, unto God.

Gill: Joh 19:3

And said, hail, King of the Jews!.... Some copies before this clause read, "and they came unto him"; and so read the Vulgate Latin, Arabic, Coptic, and Ethiopic versions; that is, they came and prostrated themselves before him; bowed the knee unto him, and addressed him in a mock way, as if he was an earthly monarch just come to his crown, and whom they wished long to live; thus mocking at his kingly office, and despising him under that character, as many do now: some will not have him to reign over them, but reject him as King; and others, though in words they own him to be King, yet disregard his commands, and act no better part than these scoffing soldiers did:

and they smote him with their hands: upon his cheeks, as the Syriac version reads it. These, and many other affronts they gave him; in all which they were indulged by Pilate, and was a pleasing scene to the wicked Jews, whose relentless hearts were not in the least moved hereby, though Pilate hoped they would; and which was his view in allowing the soldiers to use such incivilities and indecencies to him.

Gill: Joh 19:4

Pilate therefore went forth again,.... When all this was done to Jesus, Pilate went again out of the judgment hall, or however from the place where Jesus had been scourged, and ill used in the manner he was: he went a little before him unto the Jews that stood without,

and saith unto them, behold I bring him forth unto you; that is, he had ordered him to be brought forth by the soldiers, and they were just bringing him in the sad miserable condition in which he was, that the Jews might see, with their own eyes, how he had been used:

that ye may know that I find no fault in him; for by seeing what was done to him, how severely he had been scourged, and in what derision and contempt he had been had, and what barbarity had been exercised on him, they might know and believe, that if Pilate did all this, or allowed of it to be done to a man whom he judged innocent, purely to gratify the Jews; that had he found anything in him worthy of death, he would not have stopped here, but would have ordered the execution of him; of this they might assure themselves by his present conduct. Pilate, by his own confession, in treating, or suffering to be treated in so cruel and ignominious a manner, one that he himself could find no fault in, or cause of accusation against, was guilty of great injustice.

Gill: Joh 19:5

Then came Jesus forth,.... Out of the judgment hall, or place where he had been scourged, as soon as Pilate had said these words:

wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe; with his temples scratched and torn with the thorny crown, and the blood running down from thence, and his face and eyes swollen with the blows he had received from their closed fists, and all besmeared with his own blood, and the soldiers' spittle; his body appearing to be almost of the same colour with the purple or scarlet robe, through the stripes and lashes he had received, when that was thrown back.

And Pilate saith unto them, behold the man; not their king, that would have provoked them; though he did say so afterwards, when he found he could not prevail upon them to agree to his release; but the man, to move their compassion; signifying, that he was a man as they were, and that they ought to use him as such, and treat him with humanity and pity; and that he was a poor despicable man, as the condition he was in showed; and that it was a weak thing in them to fear anything with respect to any change of, or influence in, civil government from one that made such a figure; and therefore should be satisfied with what had been done to him, and dismiss him.

Gill: Joh 19:6

When the chief priests therefore, and officers, saw him,.... In this piteous condition, in his mock dress, and having on him all the marks of cruel usage, enough to have moved an heart of stone: and though they were the principal men of the priesthood, and who made great pretensions to religion and piety, and the officers were their servants and attendants, and all of them used to sacred employments; which might have been thought would have at least influenced them to the exercise of humanity and compassion to fellow creatures; yet instead of being affected with this sight, and wrought upon by it, to have agreed to his release, as Pilate hoped,

they cried out, saying, Crucify him, Crucify him; which was done in a very noisy and clamorous way; and the repetition of their request shows their malignity, vehemence, and impatience; and remarkable it is, that they should call for, and desire that kind of death the Scriptures had pointed out, that the Messiah should die, and which was predicted by Christ himself.

Pilate saith unto them, take ye him, and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. This was not leave to do it, as appears from the reason he gives, in which the innocence of Christ is again asserted; nor did the Jews take it in this light, as is evident from their reply; and it is clear, that after this Pilate thought he had a power either to release or crucify him; and he did afterwards seek to release him; and the Jews made a fresh request to crucify him; upon which he was delivered to be crucified: but this was said in a way of indignation, and as abhorring the action; and is an ironical concession, and a bitter sarcasm upon them, that men that professed so much religion and sanctity, could be guilty of such iniquity, as to desire the death of one that no fault could be found in; and therefore, if such were their consciences, for his part, he desired to have no concern in so unrighteous an action; but if they would, they must even do it themselves.

Gill: Joh 19:7

The Jews answered him,.... Finding they could make nothing of the charge of sedition against him, and that Pilate could not be prevailed upon to condemn him to death upon that score, they try another method, and charge him with blasphemy; which, if the other had succeeded, they would have concealed; because this, if proved, according to their law, would not have brought on him the kind of death they were desirous of:

we have a law; meaning the law of Moses, which they had received by his hands from God:

and by our law he ought to die; referring either to the law concerning blasphemy in general, or concerning the false prophet, or to the having and asserting of other gods, and enticing to the worship of them; in either of which cases death by stoning was enjoined:

because he made himself the Son of God; the natural and essential Son of God; not by adoption, or on account of his incarnation and mediatorial office; but as being one with the Father, of the same nature with him, and equal to him in all his perfections and glory. This he had often asserted in his ministry, or what was equivalent to it, and which they so understood; and indeed had said that very morning, before the high priest in his palace, what amounted thereunto, and which he so interpreted; upon which he rent his garments, and charged him with blasphemy: for that God has a son, is denied by the Jews, since Jesus asserted himself to be so, though formerly believed by them; nor was it now denied that there was a Son of God, or that he was expected; but the blasphemy with them was, that Jesus set up himself to be he: but now it is vehemently opposed by them, that God has a son; so from Ecc 4:8 they endeavour to prove ^q, that God has neither a brother, ולא בן, "nor a son"; but, "hear, O Israel, they observe, the Lord our God is one Lord". And elsewhere ^r,

""there is one"; this is the holy blessed God; "and not a second"; for he has no partner or equal in his world; "yea, he hath neither child nor brother"; he hath no brother, nor hath he a son; but the holy blessed God loves Israel, and calls them his children, and his brethren.''

All which is opposed to the Christian doctrine, relating to the sonship of Christ. The conduct of these men, at this time, deserves notice, as their craft in imposing on Pilate's ignorance of their laws; and the little regard that they themselves had to them, in calling for crucifixion instead of stoning; and their inconsistency with themselves, pretending before it was not lawful for them to put any man to death; and now they have a law, and by that law, in their judgment, he ought to die.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Joh 19:1

¹ tn Or “had him flogged,” or (traditional), “scourged him.” The verb should be read as causative. Pilate ordered Jesus to be flogged. A Roman governor would not carry out such a sentence in person. BDAG 620 s.v. μαστιγόω 1. states, “If J refers to the ‘verberatio’ given those condemned to death (TMommsen, Röm. Strafrecht 1899, 938f; Jos., Bell. 2, 308; 5, 449), it is odd that Pilate subsequently claims no cause for action (vs. 6); but if the latter statement refers only to the penalty of crucifixion, μ. vs. 1 may be equivalent to παιδεύω (q.v. 2bγ) in Lk 23:16, 22 (for μ. of a non-capital offense PFlor I, 61, 61 [85ad]=Mitt-Wilck. II/2, 80 II, 61).”

sn This severe flogging was not administered by Pilate himself but his officers, who took Jesus at Pilate’s order and scourged him. The author’s choice of wording here may constitute an allusion to Isa 50:6, “I gave my back to those who scourge me.” Three forms of corporal punishment were employed by the Romans, in increasing degree of severity: (1) fustigatio (beating), (2) flagellatio (flogging), and (3) verberatio (severe flogging, scourging). The first could be on occasion a punishment in itself, but the more severe forms were part of the capital sentence as a prelude to crucifixion. The most severe, verberatio, is what is indicated here by the Greek verb translated flogged severely (μαστιγόω, mastigow). People died on occasion while being flogged this way; frequently it was severe enough to rip a person’s body open or cut muscle and sinew to the bone. It was carried out with a whip that had fragments of bone or pieces of metal bound into the tips.

NET Notes: Joh 19:2

¹ tn Grk “And the soldiers.” The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

² tn Or “wove.”

³ sn The crown of thorns was a crown plaited of some thorny material, intended as a mockery of Jesus’ “kingship.” Traditionally it has been regarded as an additional instrument of torture, but it seems more probable the purpose of the thorns was not necessarily to inflict more physical suffering but to imitate the spikes of the “radiant corona,” a type of crown portrayed on ruler’s heads on many coins of the period; the spikes on this type of crown represented rays of light pointing outward (the best contemporary illustration is the crown on the head of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor).

⁴ sn The purple color of the robe indicated royal status. This was further mockery of Jesus, along with the crown of thorns.

NET Notes: Joh 19:3

¹ tn Grk “And they.” The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

² tn The words “again and again” are implied by the (iterative) imperfect verb ἤρχοντο (hrconto).

³ tn Or “Long live the King of the Jews!”

sn The greeting used by the soldiers, “Hail, King of the Jews!”, is a mockery based on the standard salutation for the Roman emperor, “Ave, Caesar!” (“Hail to Caesar!”).

⁴ tn The word “repeatedly” is implied by the (iterative) imperfect verb ἐδιδοσαν (edidosan).

NET Notes: Joh 19:4

¹ tn Grk “to them.” The words “the Jewish leaders” are supplied from John 18:38 for clarity.

² tn Or “find no basis for an accusation”; Grk “find no cause.”

NET Notes: Joh 19:5

¹ sn See the note on the purple robe in 19:2.

² tn Grk “He”; the referent (Pilate) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ sn Look, here is the man! Pilate may have meant no more than something like “Here is the accused!” or in a contemptuous way, “Here is your king!” Others have taken Pilate’s statement as intended to evoke pity from Jesus’ accusers: “Look at this poor fellow!” (Jesus would certainly not have looked very impressive after the scourging). For the author, however, Pilate’s words constituted an unconscious allusion to Zech 6:12, “Look, here is the man whose name is the Branch.” In this case Pilate (unknowingly and ironically) presented Jesus to the nation under a messianic title.

NET Notes: Joh 19:6

¹ sn Crucifixion was the cruelest form of punishment practiced by the Romans. Roman citizens could not normally undergo it. It was reserved for the worst crimes, like treason and evasion of due process in a capital case. The Roman statesman and orator Cicero (106-43 b.c.) called it “a cruel and disgusting penalty” (Against Verres 2.5.63-66 §§163-70); Josephus (J. W. 7.6.4 [7.203]) called it the worst of deaths.

² tn The word “him” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from context.

³ tn Grk “said to them.” The words “to them” are not translated because they are unnecessary in contemporary English style.

⁴ sn How are Pilate’s words “You take him and crucify him” to be understood? Was he offering a serious alternative to the priests who wanted Jesus crucified? Was he offering them an exception to the statement in 18:31 that the Jewish authorities did not have the power to carry out a death penalty? Although a few scholars have suggested that the situation was at this point so far out of Pilate’s control that he really was telling the high priests they could go ahead and crucify a man he had found to be innocent, this seems unlikely. It is far more likely that Pilate’s statement should be understood as one of frustration and perhaps sarcasm. This seems to be supported by the context, for the Jewish authorities make no attempt at this point to seize Jesus and crucify him. Rather they continue to pester Pilate to order the crucifixion.

⁵ tn On this use of γάρ (gar) used in exclamations and strong affirmations, see BDAG 190 s.v. γάρ 3.

⁶ tn Or “find no basis for an accusation”; Grk “find no cause.”

NET Notes: Joh 19:7

¹ tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory, the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9.) Here the phrase refers to the Jewish leaders, especially members of the Sanhedrin, and their servants (mentioned specifically as “the chief priests and their servants” in John 19:6).

² tn Grk “answered him.”

³ sn This law is not the entire Pentateuch, but Lev 24:16.

⁴ tn Grk “because he made himself out to be the Son of God.”

Geneva Bible: Joh 19:1

Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and ^{( 1 )} scourged [him].

^{( 1 )} The wisdom of the flesh chooses the least of two evils, but God curses that very wisdom.

Geneva Bible: Joh 19:4

^{( 2 )} Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.

^{( 2 )} Christ is again acquitted by the same mouth with which he was afterwards condemned.

Geneva Bible: Joh 19:6

When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, ^{( a )} Crucify [him], crucify [him]. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify [him]: for I find no fault in him.

^{( a )} They will have him crucified whom, by an old custom of theirs, they should have stoned and hanged up as convicted of blasphemy: but they desire to have him crucified after the manner of the Romans.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Joh 19:1-42

1 Christ is scourged, crowned with thorns, and beaten.

4 Pilate is desirous to release him, but being overcome with the outrage of the Jews, he delivers him to be crucified.

23 They cast lots for his garments.

25 He commends his mother to John.

28 He dies.

31 His side is pierced.

38 He is buried by Joseph and Nicodemus.

Combined Bible: Joh 19:1-11

of the Gospel of John   

CHAPTER 64   

Christ Before Pilate (Concluded)   

John 19:1-11   

Below is an Analysis of the passage which is to be before us:—   

1. Christ scourged and mocked, verses 1-3.  

2. Pilate re-affirms His innocency, verse 4.  

3. Pilate appeals to the Jews’ sympathies, verse 5.  

4. The Jews’ response, verses 6, 7.  

5. Pilate’ s fear, verses 8, 9.  

6. Pilate’ s boast, verse 10.  

7. Christ’ s reprimand, verse 11.  

Nowhere in Scripture, perhaps, is there a more striking and vivid demonstration of the sovereignty of God than Pilate’ s treatment of the Lord Jesus. First, Pilate was assured of His innocency, acknowledging, no less than seven times, "I find no fault in him." Second, Pilate desired to release Him: "Pilate therefore willing to release Jesus" (Luke 23:20); "I will let him go" (Luke 23:22); "Pilate sought to release him" (John 19:12); "Pilate was determined to let him go" (Acts 3:13), all prove that unmistakably. Third, Pilate was urged, most earnestly by none other than his own wife, not to sentence Him (Matthew 27:19.). Fourth, he actually endeavored to bring about His acquittal: he bade the Jews themselves judge Christ (John 18:31); he sent Him to Herod, only for Christ to be returned (Luke 23:7); he sought to induce the Jews to have him convict Barabbas in His stead (John 18:39,40).Yet in spite of all, Pilate did give sentence that Christ should be crucified!  

What does man’ s will amount to when it runs counter to the will of God? Absolutely nothing. Here was Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, determined to release the Savior, yet prevented from doing so. From all eternity God had decreed that Pilate should sentence His Son to death, and all earth and hell combined could not thwart the purpose of the Almighty— He would not be all-mighty if they could! Christ was "delivered up (Greek) by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). As God’ s servant fearlessly announced, Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done" (Acts 4:27, 28). This is not simply "Calvinism," it is the explicit declaration of Holy Writ, and, woe be unto the one who dares to deny it. Christ had to be sentenced by Pilate because the eternal counsels of Deity had foreordained it. Moreover, Christ was dying for sinners both of the Jews and of the Gentiles, therefore Divine wisdom deemed it fitting that both Jews and Gentiles should have a direct hand in His death.  

But, it will at once be objected, This reduces Pilate to a mere machine! Our first answer is, What of that?— better far to reduce him to a non-entity than to deny the Word of the living God! Away with the deductions of reason; our initial and never-ceasing duty is to bow in absolute submission to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Our second answer is, The deduction drawn by the objector is manifestly erroneous. An honest mind is forced to acknowledge that the Gospel records present Pilate to us as a responsible agent. Christ addressed Himself to Pilate’ s conscience: "Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice" (John 18:37); God faithfully warned him that Christ was a just Man and to have nothing to do with Him (Matthew 27:19). Should it be asked, How could God consistently warn him when He had decreed that he should sentence Christ to death? Our reply is, His decree was a part of His own sovereign counsels; whereas the warning was addressed to Pilate’ s responsibility, and he will be justly held accountable for disregarding it. Christ announced that Peter would deny Him, yet a few minutes later said to him, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation"! Finally, the Savior Himself told Pilate that he was sinning in holding Him: "he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin" (John 19:11)— therefore it follows that Pilate’ s failure to release Him was a great sin!  

"Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him" (John 19:1). We believe that the real explanation of this awful act of the Roman governor is intimated in verse 4— "Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him." It was a desperate move, made against his better judgment, and, also made, we fully believe, against the strivings of his conscience. It was his third and last effort at a compromise. First, he had asked the Jews to judge Christ for themselves (John 18:31). Second, he had pitted against Him a notable outlaw, Barabbas, and made them take their choice. That having failed, he made a final effort to escape from that which he feared to do. He hesitated to speak the irrevocable word, and so scourged the Lord Jesus instead, and suffered the soldiers to brutally mistreat Him. We believe Pilate hoped that when he should present to the gaze of the Jews their suffering and bleeding king, their rage would be appeased. Luke 23:16 bears this out: "I will chastise him and release him." How entirely this wretched device failed we shall see by and by.  

"Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him." "The cruel injury inflicted on our Lord’ s body, in this verse, was probably far more severe than an English reader might suppose. It was a punishment which among the Romans generally preceded crucifixion, and was sometimes so painful that the sufferer died under it. It was often a scourging with rods, and not always with cords, as painters and sculptors represent. Josephus, the Jewish historian, in his ‘ Antiquities,’ particularly mentions that malefactors were scourged and tormented in every way before they were put to death. Smith’ s Dictionary of the Bible says that under the Roman mode of scourging, ‘ The culprit was stripped, stretched with cords or thongs on a frame, and beaten with rods’ " (Bishop Rile).  

"And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, king of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands" (John 19:2, 3). "One question springs from the heart on reading this— How could it be! Where is the lauded Roman justice in this scourging of a bound prisoner of whom the judge says, ‘ I find no fault in him!’ Why is an uncondemned one given into the rude hands of Roman soldiers for them to mock and smite at their pleasure? Where is the cool judgment of Pilate, that a little while ago refused to take action lest injustice be done? Why is Jesus treated in a way wholly unparalleled so far as we know? What is the secret of it all?" (Mr. M. Taylor). Difficult as it would be, impossible perhaps, for unaided reason to answer these questions, the light which Scripture throws on them removes all difficulty.  

First, who was this One so brutally, so unrighteously treated? He was Immanuel, "God manifest in flesh," and fallen man hates God. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9). "The carnal mind is enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7). "Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways" (Rom. 3:13-16). Never before or since did these awful facts receive such exemplification. Never were the desperate wickedness of the human heart, the fearful enmity of the carnal mind, and the unspeakable vileness of sin’ s ways, so unmistakably evidenced as when the Son of God was "delivered into the hands of men" (Mark 9:31). All Divine restraint was withdrawn, and human depravity was allowed to show itself in all its naked hideousness.  

Second, this was Satan’ s hour. Said the Savior to those who came to arrest Him in the Garden, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness" (Luke 22:53). On the day when sin entered the world, Jehovah announced that He would put enmity between the serpent and the woman, and between his seed and her seed (Gen. 3:15). That enmity was manifested when Christ became incarnate, for we are told, "And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born" (Rev. 12:4), and he it was who moved Herod to slay all the young children in Bethlehem. But God interposed and the dragon was foiled. But now God hindered no longer. The hour had arrived when the serpent was to bruise the Savior’ s heel, and fully did he now avail himself of his opportunity. Jews and Gentiles alike were "of their father, the devil." and his lusts (desires) they now carried out with a will.  

Third, Christ was on the point of making atonement for sin, therefore sin must be revealed in all its enormity. Sin is lawlessness, therefore did Pilate scourge the innocent One. Sin is transgression, therefore did Pilate set aside all the principles and statutes of Roman jurisprudence. Sin is iniquity (injustice), therefore did these soldiers smite that One who had never harmed a living creature. Sin is rebellion against God, therefore did Jew and Gentile alike maltreat the Son of God. Sin is an offense, therefore did they outrage every dictate of conscience and propriety. Sin is coming short of the glory of God, therefore did they heap ignominy upon His Son. Sin is defilement, uncleanness, therefore did they cover His face with vile spittle.  

Fourth, Christ was to die in the stead of sinners, therefore must it be shown what was righteously due them. The Law required "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," a quid pro quo. All sin is a revolt against God, a treating of Him with contumacy, a virtual smiting of Him; therefore was Christ scourged by sinners. Again, when man became a sinner the righteous curse of the thrice holy God fell upon him, hence Christ will yet say to the wicked. "Depart from me ye cursed"! Unto Adam God declared, "cursed is the ground for thy sake... thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee" (Gen. 3:17, 18); therefore the last Adam, as the Head of those He came to deliver from the curse, was crowned with thorns! Again, by nature and practice we are defiled: our iniquities cover us from head to toot— sins which are "scarlet" and "crimson" (Isa. 1:18); therefore was the Savior enveloped in "a purple robe"— Matthew actually terms it "a scarlet robe" (Matthew 27:28), and Mark says "they clothed him with purple" (Mark 15:17). Finally, they mocked Him as "king of the Jews," for "sin hath reigned unto death" (Rom. 5:21). Here then is the Gospel of our salvation: the Savior was scourged, that we might go free; He was crowned with thorns, that we might be crowned with blessing and glory; He was clothed with a robe of contempt, that we might receive the robe of righteousness; He was rejected as king, that we might be made kings and priests unto God.  

"Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you that ye may know that I find no fault in him" (John 19:4). The private interview which Pilate had had with Christ at least convinced him that He had done nothing worthy of death; he therefore returned to the Jews and re-affirmed His innocence. The "therefore" points back to what is recorded in John 19:1-3: he had gone as far as he meant to. "I bring him forth to you": there is nothing more that I intend to do. "I find no fault in him": how striking that the very one who shortly after sentenced Him to death, should give this repeated witness that the Lamb was "without blemish!" More striking still is it to observe that at the very time the Lord Jesus was apprehended and crucified as a criminal, God raised up one after another to testify of His guiltlessness. Of old the prophet had asked, "And who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living" (Isa. 53:8). A sevenfold answer is supplied in the Gospels. First, Judas declared "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood" (Matthew 27:4) Second, Pilate declared, "I find no fault in him" (John 19:4). Third, of Herod Pilate said, "No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him" (Luke 23:15). Fourth, Pilate’ s wife entreated, "Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." (Matthew 27:19). Fifth, the dying thief affirmed, "We receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss" (Luke 23:41). Sixth, the Roman centurion who glorified God, said, "Certainly this was a righteous man" (Luke 23:47). Seventh, those who stood with the centurion acknowledged, "Truly this was the son of God" (Matthew 27:54)!  

"Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe" (John 19:5). "That our blessed Lord, the eternal Word, should have meekly submitted to be led out after this fashion, as a gazing-stock and an object of scorn, with an old purple robe on His shoulders, a crown of thorns on His head, His back bleeding from scourging, and His head from thorns, to feast the eyes of a taunting, howling, blood-thirsty crowd, is indeed a wondrous thought! Truly such love ‘ passeth knowledge’ " (Bishop Ryle).  

"And Pilate saith unto them, ‘ Behold the man!’ " (John 19:5). We fully believe that Pilate was here appealing to the Jews’ pity. See, saith he, what He has already suffered! He had no need to say more. The shame, the bleeding wounds, were tongues sufficiently moving if only they had ears to hear. Pilate hoped that their wrath would now be appeased. Is He not already punished enough! It is surely striking that the Governor said not, "Behold this man," but, "Behold the man." It was the ungrudging testimony of an unprejudiced witness. Never before had any other who had stood before his bar carried himself as this One. Never before had Pilate seen such quiet dignity, intrepid courage, noble majesty. He was deeply impressed, and avowed the Lord’ s uniqueness.  

"When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify, crucify" (John 19:6). Pilate’ s scheming failed here as completely as had his previous attempts to avoid condemning our Lord; nothing short of His death would satisfy the Jews. The pitiful sight of the bleeding Savior softened them not a whir. Like beasts of prey that have tasted blood, they thirsted for more. The humiliating figure of their Messiah crowned with thorns by these heathen, instead of humbling, only infuriated them. They were "past feeling." Solemn it is to observe that the chief priests were to the fore in demanding His crucifixion— the "officers" were the personal followers and servants of the priests, and would naturally take up the cry of their masters; the word for "cried out" signifies a boisterous shout. It is a painful fact that all through this dispensation the most cruel, relentless, and blood-thirsty persecutors of God’ s saints have been the religious leaders— in a hundred different instances the "bishops" (?) and "cardinals" of Rome. Nor is it otherwise to-day. The form of persecution may have changed, yet is the opposition which comes from those who profess to be the servants of Christ the most relentless and cruel which God’ s children have to endure. It is to be noted that the cry was not "Crucify him," but "Crucify, crucify"— refusing Him the "the man" of Pilate! It was Israel, all through, who hounded Him to His death: how wondrous then that God shall yet have mercy upon them.  

"Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify: for I find no fault in him" (John 19:6). Pilate was disgusted at their lawless clamor, indignant at their challenging his decision, angry at their insistence. "Take ye him," if you want; "and crucify" if you dare. They had had the effrontery to appeal against the findings of his court, now he mocks them in regard to the impotency of their court, for according to their own admission, they were powerless (John 18:31). The Jews were insisting that Pilate should commit a judicial murder, now he challenges them to defy the Roman law. His "For I find no fault in him" was his challenge for them to continue opposing Caesar’ s authority.  

"The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God" (John 19:7). Their words here show plainly that they discerned the satire in Pilate’ s offer: had he really given them permission to crucify Christ, they would have acted promptly. They knew that he had not spoken seriously; they felt his biting irony, and stung by his sarcasm they now attempted some defense of their outrageous conduct. "We have a law" they insisted, much as you scorn us for wanting to act lawlessly. We have a law as well as you! "By our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God"— their reference was to Leviticus 24:16. Instead of re treating before Pilate’ s outburst of indignation, they continued to press their demands upon him. We charge your prisoner with having broken our law, the punishment for which is death. Their aim was to make out Christ to be a dangerous impostor as well as a seditious person, opposed both to Jewish religion and Roman law. Pilate had challenged them; now they challenge him. You have dared us to defy the Roman law; we now dare you to refuse to maintain the Jewish law.  

"We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." It is indeed remarkable that as soon as Pilate said "Behold the man," they proceeded to charge Him with "making himself the Son of God"! Their motive was an evil one, but how evident that a higher power was overruling! Finding the charge of sedition had broken down, and that Pilate could not be induced to sentence Him to death on that score, they now accused Christ of blasphemy. But how their hypocrisy was manifested: they appealed to their own "law," yet had no respect for it, for their law called for stoning not crucifixion, as the penalty for blasphemy! A careful comparison of the Gospel records reveals the fact that the Jews preferred just seven indictments against Christ. First, they charged Him with threatening to destroy the temple (Matthew 26:61); second, with being a "malefactor" (John 18:30); third, with "perverting the nation" (Luke 23:2); fourth, with "forbidding to give tribute to Caesar" (Luke 23:2); fifth, with stirring up all the people (Luke 23:5); sixth, with being king" (Luke 23:2); seventh, with making Himself the Son of God (John 19:7). This sevenfold indictment witnessed to the completeness of their rejection of Him!  

"When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid" (John 19:8). The meaning of this is evident, yet, strange to say, many of the commentators have missed it. Some have supposed that fear of the Jews is what is intended; others, that Pilate was fearful lest it should now prove impossible to save Christ; others, lest he should take a false step. But the "therefore" is sufficient to show the error of these views: it was the declaration that Christ "made himself the Son of God" which alarmed the Roman Governor. Moreover, the "he was the more afraid" shows it was not an emotion which he now felt for the first time. The person of the Lord Jesus was what occasioned his fear. We believe that from the beginning there was a conscious uneasiness in his soul, deepened by an awe which the bearing and words of Christ had inspired. He had seen many malefactors, some guilty, some innocent, but never one like this. His "Ecce Homo" (John 19:5) witnesses to his estimate of Christ. The warning which he had received from his wife must also have impressed him deeply; and now that he is reminded his Prisoner called Himself the Son of God, he was the more afraid.  

"And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer" (John 19:9). This was the sixth question Pilate asked Christ, and it is deeply interesting to follow his changing moods as he put them. First, he had asked "Art thou the king of the Jews?" (John 18:33)— asked, most probably, in the spirit of sarcasm. Second, "Am I a Jew?" (John 18:35)— asked in the spirit of haughty contempt. Third, "What hast thou done?" (John 18:35)— a pompous display of his authority. Fourth, "Art thou a king then?" (John 18:37)— indicating his growing perplexity. Fifth, "What is truth?" (John 18:38)— asked out of contemptuous pity. Sixth, "Whence art thou?" In what spirit did he ask this question? Much turns upon the right answer, for otherwise we shall be at a loss to understand our Lord’ s refusal to reply.  

"Whence art thou?" Not "Whom art thou?" nor, "Art thou the Son of God then?" but "Whence art thou?" Yet it is clear that Pilate was not asking about His human origin, for he had already sent Christ as a "Galilean" to Herod (Luke 23:6). Was it then simply a question of idle curiosity? No, the "mote afraid" of the previous verse shows otherwise. Was it that Pilate was now deeply exercised and anxiously seeking for light? No, for his outburst of scornful pride in the verse that follows conflicts with such a view. What, then? First, we think that Pilate was genuinely puzzled and perplexed. A man altogether unique he clearly perceived Christ to be. But was He more than man? The deepening fear of his conscience made him uneasy. Suppose that after all, this One were from Heaven! That such a thought crossed his mind at this stage we fully believe, and this leads to the second motive which prompted his question:— Pilate hoped that here was a way out of his difficulty. If Christ were really from Heaven, then obviously he could not think of crucifying Him. He therefore has Christ led back again into the judgment hall, and says, Tell me privately your real origin and history so that I may know what line to take up with thine enemies. "We may well believe that Pilate caught at this secret hope that Jesus might tell him something about Himself which would enable him to make a firm stand and deliver Him from the Jews. In this hope, again, the Roman Governor was destined to be disappointed" (Bishop Ryle).  

"But Jesus gave him no answer." Ominous "but"; perplexing silence. Hitherto He had replied to Pilate’ s questions; now He declined to speak. At first our Lord’ s silence surprises and puzzles us, but reflection shows that He could not have acted otherwise. First, the fact that in John 19:11 we do find Christ speaking to Pilate, shows that His silence here in John 19:9 was no arbitrary determination to say no more. "With us, when we would patiently suffer in silence, there may be some such arbitrary purpose of our own; or, to put a better construction upon it, we cannot actually speak and at the same time suffer in patience, for we have inwardly too much to do with our own spirits, in order to maintain our proper posture of mind. But Christ is in His profoundest humanity elevated above this human imperfection; in His lips (as we shall hear from the Cross) the Word of God is never bound" (Stier). Second, Christ’ s silence here makes evident the spirit in which Pilate had put his question: it was not the cry of an earnest soul, honestly seeking light, for our Lord never closed the door against any such! Third, Pilate was not entitled to a reply. He had acted in grossest injustice when he refused to release One whom he declared was innocent; he had despised God’ s warning through his wife; he had declined to wait for an answer to his "What is truth"; he had, against his own conscience, scourged the Savior and suffered his soldiers to mock and maltreat Him. Why then should Christ reveal to him the mystery of His person!  

"Pilate had forfeited his right to any further revelation about his Prisoner. He had been told plainly the nature of our Lord’ s kingdom, and the purpose of our Lord’ s coming into the world, and been obliged to confess publicly His innocence. And yet, with all this light and knowledge, he had treated our Lord with flagrant injustice, scourged Him, allowed Him to be treated with the vilest indignities by his soldiers, knowing in his own mind all the time that He was a guiltless person. He had, in short, sinned away his opportunities, forsaken his own mercies, and turned a deaf ear to the cries of his own conscience.  

"‘ He gave him no answer.’ Most men, like Pilate, have a day of grace, and an open door put before them. If they refuse to enter in, and choose their own sinful way, the door is often shut, and never opened again. There is such a thing as a ‘ day of visitation,’ when Christ speaks to men. If they will not hear His voice, and open the door of their hearts, they are often let alone, given over to a reprobate mind, and left to reap the fruit of their own sins. It was so with Pharaoh, and Saul, and Ahab; and Pilate’ s case was like theirs. He had his opportunity, and did not choose to use it, but preferred to please the Jews at the expense of his conscience, and to do what he knew was wrong. We see the consequence—‘ Jesus gave him no answer’ " (Bishop Ryle).  

In addition to what has been pointed out above, may we not say, that as it had been Divinely appointed Christ should suffer for the sins of His people, He declined to say anything which was calculated to hinder it! True, Pilate was morally incapable of receiving the truth: to make him a definite answer would simply have been casting pearls before swine, and this the Savior refused to do. Moreover, had He affirmed His Deity, it would have afforded Pilate the very handle he sought for releasing Him. Thus we may say with Bishop Ryle "Our Lord’ s silence was just and well merited, but it was also part of God’ s counsels about man’ s salvation." Finally, let us learn from Christ’ s example here that there is "a time to be silent," as well as "a time to speak" (Eccl. 3:7)!  

"Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" (John 19:10). Here the haughty, fierce, and imperious spirit of the Roman was manifested; the authoritative I asserting itself. We doubt not that all the emphasis was thrown upon the personal pronouns— Thou mayest keep silence before the Jews, the soldiers and before Herod; but me also? What lack of respect is this! It was the proud authority of an official politician displaying itself. Knowest Thou not in whose presence Thou standest! You are no longer before Annas and Caiaphas— mere figure-heads. I am the Governor of Judea, the representative of Caesar Augustus. "Speakest thou not unto me?" It was his seventh and last question to our Lord, asked in the spirit of sarcasm and resentment combined. Accustomed to seeing prisoners cringing before him, willing to do anything to obtain his favor, he could not understand our Lord’ s silence. He was both perplexed and angered: his official pride was mortified.  

"Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee!" How he condemned himself. How he revealed his true character. Here was one on the bench talking about his power to commit a judicial murder! Here was one who had, over and over again, affirmed the innocency of his Prisoner, now owning his power to release Him, and yet shortly after condemned Him to death. And this from a man holding high office, who belonged to the nation which prided itself in its impartial justice! Mark also his consummate folly. Here was a worm of the earth so puffed up with a sense of his own importance, so obsessed with the idea of his own absolute freewill that he has the effrontery to say that the Son of the Highest was entirely at his disposal! Mark too his utter inconsistency. He was boasting of his legal authority: but if the Lord were innocent he had no judicial power to "crucify" Him; if He were guilty, he had no judicial power to "release" Him! Out of his own mouth he stands condemned. Carefully analyzed his words can only mean— I am above the law: innocent or guilty, I can do with you as I please.  

"This high-handed claim to absolute power is one which ungodly great men are fond of making. It is written of Nebuchadnezzar, ‘ Whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down’ (Dan. 5:19). Yet even when such men boast of power, they are often, like Pilate, mere slaves, and afraid of resisting popular opinion. Pilate talked of ‘ power to release,’ but he knew in his own mind that he was afraid, and so unable to exercise it" (Bishop Ryle).  

"Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). For His Father’ s honor and as a rebuke to Pilate, the Lord once more spake, giving His last official testimony before He was crucified. Blessed it is to mark carefully the words of grace and truth which now proceeded from His lips. How easy for Him to have given the lie to Pilate’ s boast by paralyzing the tongue which had just uttered such blasphemy! How easy for Him to have made a display of His power before this haughty heathen similar to what He had done in the Garden! But, instead, He returns a calm and measured answer, equally expressive of His glory, though in another way. A careful study of His words here will reveal both His voluntary lowliness and His Divine majesty— how wonderful that both should be combined in one brief sentence!  

"Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above." The Lord acknowledged that Pilate did have "power" but of quite a different kind, from quite a different source, and under different restrictions from what he supposed. Pilate had boasted of an arbitrary discretion, of a sovereign choice of his own, of a lawless right to do as he pleased. Christ referred him to a power which came from above, delegated to men, limited according to the pleasure of the One who bestowed it. Thus Christ, first, denied that Pilate had the "power" to do with Him as he pleased. Second, He maintained His Father’ s honor by insisting that He alone is absolute Sovereign. Even so temperate a writer as Bishop Ryle says on this verse: "Thou talkest of power: thou dost not know that both thou and the Jews are only tools in the hands of a higher Being: you are both, unconsciously, mere instruments in the hands of God"!  

"Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivereth me unto thee hath the greater sin." Our Lord conceded that Pilate did have power: He acknowledged the authority of the human courts. To the very last Christ respected the law, nor did He dispute the power of the Romans over the Jews. But He insisted that Pilate’ s power came from above, for, "There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13:1) and compare Proverbs 8:15, 16. Christ acknowledged that Pilate’ s power, extended over Himself— "no power against me except," etc.— so thoroughly had He made Himself of no reputation. But it was because Pilate’ s "power," both personal and official, was "from above," that the Savior bowed to it. In His "he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin," the Lord, as in Luke 22:22, shows us that God’ s counsels do not abolish the guilt of the men who execute them. And mark here, for it is most striking, that the same One who meekly bows to Pilate’ s (God-given) authority, manifests Himself as the Judge of men, apportioning the comparative guilt of Pilate and the Jews. Thus did He maintain His Divine dignity to the end. This, then, was our Lord’ s reply to Pilate’ s "Knowest thou not?" I know, first, that all the power you have is from above; second, I know the precise measure both of your guilt and of him who delivered Me to thee! This, we take it, is the force of the rather difficult "therefore." Mark how, out of respect for Pilate’ s official personage, the Lord did not actually say "he that delivered me unto thee hath greater sin than thee"!— though plainly that was implied. Here, as in Luke 12:47, 48 Christ teaches degrees of sin and guilt, and therefore degrees of future punishment. The "he who delivered me up" refers not to Judas (his was the "greatest sin") but Caiaphas, acting as the representative of the nation. Finally observe that the last word which Pilate heard from the lips of Christ was "sin"!— the next, in all probability, will be the sentence of his eternal doom.  

Below are the questions for our next study:—   

1. Why did the "chief priests" take the lead, verse 15?  

2. Why was Christ "delivered to them," verse 16?  

3. Why "in the Hebrew," verse 17?  

4. Why were two others crucified with Him, verse 18?  

5. Why the inscription, verse 19?  

6. Why in three languages, verse 20?  

7. What is the meaning of verse 23?  

  

Maclaren: Joh 19:1-16

Jesus Sentenced

Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe, And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote Him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring Him forth to you. that ye may know that I find no fault in Him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them. Behold the Man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye Him, and crucify Him: for I find no fault in Him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto Him, Speakest Thou not unto me? knowest Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee, and have power to release Thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him! Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led Him away.'--John 19:1-16.

THE struggle between the vacillation of Pilate and the fixed malignity of the rulers is the principal theme of this fragment of Christ's judicial trial. He Himself is passive and all but silent, speaking only one sentence of calm rebuke. The frequent changes of scene from within to without the praetorium indicate the steps in the struggle, and vividly reflect the irresolution of Pilate. These changes may help to mark the stages in the narrative.

I. The Cruelties And Indignities.

The cruelties and indignities in John 19:1-3 were inflicted within the palace,' to which Pilate, with his prisoner, had returned after the popular vote for Barabbas. John makes that choice of the robber the reason for the scourging of Jesus. His thought seems to be that Pilate, having failed in his attempt to get rid of the whole difficulty by releasing Jesus, according to the custom,' ordered the scourging, in hope that the lighter punishment might satisfy the turbulent crowd, whom he wished to humour, while, if possible, saving their victim. It was the expedient of a weak and cynical nature, and, like all weak attempts at compromise between right and wrong, only emboldened the hatred which it was meant to appease. If by clamour the rulers had succeeded in getting Pilate to scourge a man whom he thought innocent, they might well hope to get him to crucify, if they clamoured loudly and long enough.

One attitude only befitted Pilate, since he did not in the least believe that Jesus threatened the Roman supremacy; namely, to set Him at liberty, and let the disappointed rulers growl like wild beasts robbed of their prey. But he did not care enough about a single half-crazy Jewish peasant to imperil his standing well with his awkward subjects, for the sake of righteousness. The one good which Rome could give to its vassal nations was inflexible justice and a sovereign law; but in Pilate's action there was not even the pretence of legality. Tricks and expedients run through it all, and never once does he say, This is the law, this is justice, and by it I stand or fall.

The cruel scourging, which, in Roman hands, was a much more severe punishment than the Jewish' heating with rods,' and often ended in death, was inflicted on the silent, unresisting Christ, not because His judge thought that it was deserved, but to please accusers whose charge he knew to be absurd. The underlings naturally followed their betters' example, and after they had executed Pilate's orders to scourge, covered the bleeding wounds with some robe, perhaps ragged, but of the royal colour, and crushed the twisted wreath of thorn-branch down on the brows, to make fresh wounds there. The jest of crowning such a poor, helpless creature as Jesus seemed to them, was exactly on the level of such rude natures, and would be the more exquisite to them because it was double-barrelled, and insulted the nation as well as the King.' They came in a string, as the tense of the original word suggests, and offered their mock reverence. But that sport became tame after a little, and mockery passed into violence, as it always does in such natures. These rough legionaries were cruel and brutal, and they were unconscious witnesses to His Kingship as founded on suffering; but they were innocent as compared with the polished gentleman on the judgment-seat who prostituted justice, and the learned Pharisees outside who were howling for blood.

II. Pilate Tries Another Expedient, Equally In Vain.

In John 19:4-8 the scene changes again to without the palace, and shows us Pilate trying another expedient, equally in vain. The hesitating governor has no chance with the resolute, rooted hate of the rulers. Jesus silently and unresistingly follows Pilate from the hall, still wearing the mockery of royal pomp. Pilate had calculated that the sight of Him in such guise, and bleeding from the lash, might turn hate into contempt, and perhaps give a touch of pity. Behold the man! as he meant it, was as if he had said, Is this poor, bruised, spiritless sufferer worth hate or fear? Does He look like a King or a dangerous enemy?' Pilate for once drops the scoff of calling Him their King, and seeks to conciliate and move to pity. The profound meanings which later ages have delighted to find in his words, however warrantable, are no part of their design as spoken, and we gain a better lesson from the scene by keeping close to the thoughts of the actors. What a contrast between the vacillation of the governor, on the one hand, afraid to do right and reluctant to do wrong, and the dogged malignity of the rulers and their tools on the other, and the calm, meek endurance of the silent Christ, knowing all their thoughts, pitying all, and fixed in loving resolve, even firmer than the rulers' hate, to bear the utmost, that He might save a world!

Some pity may have stirred in the crowd, but the priests and their immediate dependants silenced it by their yell of fresh hate at the sight of the prisoner. Note how John gives the very impression of the fierce, brief roar, like that of wild beasts for their prey, by his Crucify, crucify!' without addition of the person. Pilate lost patience at last, and angrily and half seriously gives permission to them to take the law into their own bands. He really means, I will not be your tool, and if my conviction of "the Man's" innocence is to be of no account, you must punish Him; for I will not.' How far he meant to abdicate authority, and how far he was launching sarcasms, it is difficult to say. Throughout he is sarcastic, and thereby indicates his weakness, indemnifying himself for being thwarted by sneers which sit so ill on authority.

But the offer, or sarcasm, whichever it was, missed fire, as the appeal to pity had done, and only led to the production of a new weapon. In their frantic determination to compass Jesus' death, the rulers hesitate at no degradation; and now they adduced the charge of blasphemy, and were ready to make a heathen the judge. To ask a Roman governor to execute their law on a religious offender, was to drag their national prerogative in the mud. But formal religionists, inflamed by religious animosity, are often the degraders of religion for the gratification of their hatred. They are poor preservers of the Church who call on the secular arm to execute their laws.' Rome went a long way in letting subject peoples keep their institutions; but it was too much to expect Pilate to be the hangman for these furious priests, on a charge scarcely intelligible to him.

What was Jesus doing while all this hell of wickedness . and fury boiled round Him? Standing there, passive and dumb, as a sheep before her shearers.' Himself is the least conspicuous figure in the history of His own trial. In silent communion with the Father, in silent submission to His murderers, in silent pity for us, in silent contemplation of the joy that was set before Him,' He waits on their will.

III. Once More The Scene Changes To The Interior Of The Praetorium (John 19:9-11).

The rulers' words stirred a deepened awe in Pilate. He was the more afraid'; then he had been already afraid. His wife's dream, the impression already produced by the person of Jesus, had touched him more deeply than probably he himself was aware of; and now this charge that Jesus had made Himself the Son of God' shook him. What if this strange man were in some sense a messenger of the gods? Had he been scourging one sent from them? Sceptical he probably was, and therefore superstitious; and half-forgotten and disbelieved stories of gods who had come down in the likeness of men' would swim up in his memory. If this Man were such, His strange demeanour would be explained. Therefore he carried Jesus in again, and, not now as judge, sought to hear from His own lips His version of the alleged claim.

Why did not Jesus answer such a question? His silence was answer; but, besides that, Pilate had not received as he ought what Jesus had already declared to him as to His kingdom and His relation to the truth,' and careless turning away from Christ's earlier words is righteously and necessarily punished by subsequent silence, if the same disposition remains. That it did remain, Christ's silence is proof. Had there been any use in answering, Pilate would not have asked in vain. If Jesus was silent, we may be sure that He who sees all hearts and responds to all true desires was so, because He knew that it was best to say nothing. The question of His origin had nothing to do with Pilate's duty then, which turned, not on whence Jesus had come, but on what Pilate believed Him to have done, or not to have done. He who will not do the plain duty of the moment has little chance of an answer to his questions about such high matters.

The shallow character of the governor's awe and interest is clearly seen from the immediate change of tone to arrogant reminder of his absolute authority.

To me dost Thou not speak?' The pride of offended dignity peeps out there. He has forgotten that a moment since he half suspected that the prisoner, whom he now seeks to terrify with the cross, and to allure with deliverance, was perhaps come from some misty heaven. Was that a temper which would have received Christ's answer to his question?

But one thing he might be made to perceive, and therefore Jesus broke silence for the only time in this section, and almost the only time before Pilate. He reads the arrogant Roman the lesson which he and all his tribe in all lands and ages need--that their power is derived from God, therefore in its foundation legitimate, and in its exercise to be guided by His will and used for His purposes. It was God who had brought the Roman eagles, with their ravening beaks and strong claws, to the Holy City. Pilate was right in exercising jurisdiction over Jesus. Let him see that he exercised justice, and let him remember that the power which he boasted that he had' was given.' The truth as to the source of power made the guilt of Caiaphas or of the rulers the greater, inasmuch as they had neglected the duties to which they had been appointed, and by handing over Jesus on a charge which they themselves should have searched out, had been guilty of theocratic felony.' This sudden flash of bold rebuke, reminding Pilate of his dependence, and charging him with the lesser but yet real sin,' went deeper than any answer to his question would have done, and spurred him to more earnest effort, as John points out. He sought to release Him,' as if formerly he had been rather simply unwilling to condemn than anxious to deliver.

IV. The Final Irresistible Weapon Which The Rulers Had Kept In Reserve.

So the scene changes again to outside. Pilate went out alone, leaving Jesus within, and was met before he had time, as would appear, to speak, by the final irresistible weapon which the rulers had kept in reserve. An accusation of treason was only too certain to be listened to by the suspicious tyrant who was then Emperor, especially if brought by the authorities of a subject nation. Many a provincial governor had had but a short shrift in such a case, and Pilate knew that he was a ruined man if these implacable zealots howling before him went to Tiberius with such a charge. So the die was cast. With rage in his heart, no doubt, and knowing that he was sacrificing innocent blood' to save himself, he turned away from the victorious mob, apparently in silence, and brought Jesus out once more. He had no more words to say to his prisoner. Nothing remained but the formal act of sentence, for which he seated himself, with a poor assumption of dignity, yet feeling all the while, no doubt, what a contemptible surrender he was making.

Judgment-seats and mosaic pavements do not go far to secure reverence for a judge who is no better than an assassin, killing an innocent man to secure his own ends. Pilate's sentence fell most heavily on himself. If the judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted,' he is tenfold condemned when the innocent is sentenced.

Pilate returned to his sarcastic mood when he returned to his injustice, and found some satisfaction in his old jeer, your King.' But the passion of hatred was too much in earnest to be turned or even affected by such poor scoffs, and the only answer was the renewed roar of the mob, which had murder in its tone. The repetition of the governor's taunt, Shall I crucify your King?' brought out the answer in which the rulers of the nation in their fury blindly flung away their prerogative. It is no accident that it was the chief priests' who answered, We have no king but Caesar.' Driven by hate, they deliberately disown their Messianic hope, and repudiate their national glory. They who will not have Christ have to bow to a tyrant. Rebellion against Him brings slavery.

MHCC: Joh 19:1-18

Little did Pilate think with what holy regard these sufferings of Christ would, in after-ages, be thought upon and spoken of by the best and greatest of men. Our Lord Jesus came forth, willing to be exposed to their scorn. It is good for every one with faith, to behold Christ Jesus in his sufferings. Behold him, and love him; be still looking unto Jesus. Did their hatred sharpen their endeavours against him? and shall not our love for him quicken our endeavours for him and his kingdom? Pilate seems to have thought that Jesus might be some person above the common order. Even natural conscience makes men afraid of being found fighting against God. As our Lord suffered for the sins both of Jews and Gentiles, it was a special part of the counsel of Divine Wisdom, that the Jews should first purpose his death, and the Gentiles carry that purpose into effect. Had not Christ been thus rejected of men, we had been for ever rejected of God. Now was the Son of man delivered into the hands of wicked and unreasonable men. He was led forth for us, that we might escape. He was nailed to the cross, as a Sacrifice bound to the altar. The Scripture was fulfilled; he did not die at the altar among the sacrifices, but among criminals sacrificed to public justice. And now let us pause, and with faith look upon Jesus. Was ever sorrow like unto his sorrow? See him bleeding, see him dying, see him and love him! love him, and live to him!

Matthew Henry: Joh 19:1-15

Here is a further account of the unfair trial which they gave to our Lord Jesus. The prosecutors carrying it on with great confusion among the people, and the judge with great confusion in his own breast, between both the narrative is such as is not easily reduced to method; we must therefore take the parts of it as they lie.

I. The judge abuses the prisoner, though he declares him innocent, and hopes therewith to pacify the prosecutors; wherein his intention, if indeed it was good, will by no means justify his proceedings, which were palpably unjust.

1. He ordered him to be whipped as a criminal, Joh 19:1. Pilate, seeing the people so outrageous, and being disappointed in his project of releasing him upon the people's choice, took Jesus, and scourged him, that is, appointed the lictors that attended him to do it. Bede is of opinion that Pilate scourged Jesus himself with his own hands, because it is said, He took him and scourged him, that it might be done favourably. Matthew and Mark mention his scourging after his condemnation, but here it appears to have been before. Luke speaks of Pilate's offering to chastise him, and let him go, which must be before sentence. This scourging of him was designed only to pacify the Jews, and in it Pilate put a compliment upon them, that he would take their word against his own sentiments so far. The Roman scourgings were ordinarily very severe, not limited, as among the Jews, to forty stripes; yet this pain and shame Christ submitted to for our sakes. (1.) That the scripture might be fulfilled, which spoke of his being stricken, smitten, and afflicted, and the chastisement of our peace being upon him (Isa 53:5), of his giving his back to the smiters (Isa 50:6), of the ploughers ploughing upon his back, Psa 129:3. He himself likewise had foretold it, Mat 20:19; Mar 10:34; Luk 18:33. (2.) That by his stripes we might be healed, 1Pe 2:4. We deserved to have been chastised with whips and scorpions, and beaten with many stripes, having known our Lord's will and not done it; but Christ underwent the stripes for us, bearing the rod of his Father's wrath, Lam 3:1. Pilate's design in scourging him was that he might not be condemned, which did not take effect, but intimated what was God's design, that his being scourged might prevent our being condemned, we having fellowship in his sufferings, and this did take effect: the physician scourged, and so the patient healed. (3.) That stripes, for his sake, might be sanctified and made easy to his followers; and they might, as they did, rejoice in that shame (Act 5:41; Act 16:22, Act 16:25), as Paul did, who was in stripes above measure, 2Co 11:23. Christ's stripes take out the sting of theirs, and alter the property of them. We are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world, 1Co 11:32.

2. He turned him over to his soldiers, to be ridiculed and made sport with as a fool (Joh 19:2, Joh 19:3): The soldiers, who were the governor's life-guard, put a crown of thorns upon his head; such a crown they thought fittest for such a king; they put on him a purple robe, some old threadbare coat of that colour, which they thought good enough to be the badge of his royalty; and they complemented him with, Hail, king of the Jews (like people like king), and then smote him with their hands.

(1.) See here the baseness and injustice of Pilate, that he would suffer one whom he believed an innocent person, and if so an excellent person, to be thus abused and trampled on by his own servants. Those who are under the arrest of the law ought to be under the protection of it; and their being secured is to be their security. But Pilate did this, [1.] To oblige his soldiers' merry humour, and perhaps his own too, notwithstanding the gravity one might have expected in a judge. Herod, as well as his men of war, had just before done the same, Luk 23:11. It was as good as a stage-play to them, now that it was a festival time; as the Philistines made sport with Samson. [2.] To oblige the Jews' malicious humour, and to gratify them, who desired that all possible disgrace might be done to Christ, and the utmost indignities put upon him.

(2.) See here the rudeness and insolence of the soldiers, how perfectly lost they were to all justice and humanity, who could thus triumph over a man in misery, and one that had been in reputation for wisdom and honour, and never did any thing to forfeit it. But thus hath Christ's holy religion been basely misrepresented, dressed up by bad men at their pleasure, and so exposed to contempt and ridicule, as Christ was here. [1.] They clothe him with a mock-robe, as if it were a sham and a jest, and nothing but the product of a heated fancy and a crazed imagination. And as Christ is here represented as a king in conceit only, so is his religion as a concern in conceit only, and God and the soul, sin and duty, heaven and hell, are with many all chimeras. [2.] They crown him with thorns; as if the religion of Christ were a perfect penance, and the greatest pain and hardship in the world; as if to submit to the control of God and conscience were to thrust one's head into a thicket of thorns; but this is an unjust imputation; thorns and snares are in the way of the froward, but roses and laurels in religion's ways.

(3.) See here the wonderful condescension of our Lord Jesus in his sufferings for us. Great and generous minds can bear any thing better than ignominy, any toil, any pain, any loss, rather than reproach; yet this the great and holy Jesus submitted to for us. See and admire, [1.] The invincible patience of a sufferer, leaving us an example of contentment and courage, evenness, and easiness of spirit, under the greatest hardships we may meet with in the way of duty. [2.] The invincible love and kindness of a Saviour, who not only cheerfuly and resolutely went through all this, but voluntarily undertook it for us and for our salvation. Herein he commended his love, that he would not only die for us, but die as a fool dies. First, He endured the pain; not the pangs of death only, though in the death of the cross these were most exquisite; but, as if these were too little, he submitted to those previous pains. Shall we complain of a thorn in the flesh, and of being buffeted by affliction, because we need it to hide pride from us, when Christ humbled himself to bear those thorns in the head, and those buffetings, to save and teach us? 2Co 12:7. Secondly, He despised the shame, the shame of a fool's coat, and the mock-respect paid him, with, Hail, king of the Jews. If we be at any time ridiculed for well-doing, let us not be ashamed, but glorify God, for thus we are partakers of Christ's sufferings. He that bore these sham honours was recompensed with real honours, and so shall we, if we patiently suffer shame for him.

II. Pilate, having thus abused the prisoner, presents him to the prosecutors, in hope that they would now be satisfied, and drop the prosecution, Joh 19:4, Joh 19:5. Here he proposes two things to their consideration: -

1. That he had not found any thing in him which made him obnoxious to the Roman government (Joh 19:4): I find no fault in him; oudemian aitian heuriskō - I do not find in him the least fault, or cause of accusation. Upon further enquiry, he repeats the declaration he had made, Joh 18:38. Hereby he condemns himself; if he found no fault in him, why did he scourge him, why did he suffer him to be abused? None ought to suffer ill but those that do ill; yet thus many banter and abuse religion, who yet, if they be serious, cannot but own they find no fault in it. If he found no fault in him, why did he bring him out to his prosecutors, and not immediately release him, as he ought to have done? If Pilate had consulted his own conscience only, he would neither have scourged Christ nor crucified him; but, thinking to trim the matter, to please the people by scourging Christ, and save his conscience by not crucifying him, behold he does both; whereas, if he had at first resolved to crucify him, he need not have scourged him. It is common for those who think to keep themselves from greater sins by venturing upon less sins to run into both.

2. That he had done that to him which would make him the less dangerous to them and to their government, Joh 19:5. He brought him out to them, wearing the crown of thorns, his head and face all bloody, and said, " Behold the man whom you are so jealous of,"intimating that though his having been so popular might have given them some cause to fear that his interest in the country would lessen theirs, yet he had taken an effectual course to prevent it, by treating him as a slave, and exposing him to contempt, after which he supposed the people would never look upon him with any respect, nor could he ever retrieve his reputation again. Little did Pilate think with what veneration even these sufferings of Christ would in after ages be commemorated by the best and greatest of men, who would glory in that cross and those stripes which he thought would have been to him and his followers a perpetual and indelible reproach. (1.) Observe here our Lord Jesus shows himself dressed up in all the marks of ignominy. He came forth, willing to be made a spectacle, and to be hooted at, as no doubt he was when he came forth in this garb, knowing that he was set for a sign that should be spoken against, Luk 2:34. Did he go forth thus bearing our reproach? Let us go forth to him bearing his reproach, Heb 13:13. (2.) How Pilate shows him: Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man. He saith unto them: so the original is; and, the immediate antecedent being Jesus, I see no inconvenience in supposing these to be Christ's own words; he said, " Behold the man against whom you are so exasperated."But some of the Greek copies, and the generality of the translators, supply it as we do, Pilate saith unto them, with a design to appease them, Behold the man; not so much to move their pity, Behold a man worthy your compassion, as to silence their jealousies, Behold a man not worthy your suspicion, a man from whom you can henceforth fear no danger; his crown is profaned, and cast to the ground, and now all mankind will make a jest of him. The word however is very affecting: Behold the man. It is good for every one of us, with an eye of faith, to behold the man Christ Jesus in his sufferings. Behold this king with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him, the crown of thorns, Son 3:11. "Behold him, and be suitably affected with the sight. Behold him, and mourn because of him. Behold him, and love him; be still looking unto Jesus. "

III. The prosecutors, instead of being pacified, were but the more exasperated, Joh 19:6, Joh 19:7.

1. Observe here their clamour and outrage. The chief priests, who headed the mob, cried out with fury and indignation, and their officers, or servants, who must say as they said, joined with them in crying, Crucify him, crucify him. The common people perhaps would have acquiesced in Pilate's declaration of his innocency, but their leaders, the priests, caused them to err. Now by this it appears that their malice against Christ was, (1.) Unreasonable and most absurd, in that they offer not to make good their charges against him, nor to object against the judgment of Pilate concerning him; but, though he be innocent, he must be crucified. (2.) It was insatiable and very cruel. Neither the extremity of his scourging, nor his patience under it, nor the tender expostulations of the judge, could mollify them in the least; no, nor could the jest into which Pilate had turned the cause, put them into a pleasant humour. (3.) It was violent and exceedingly resolute; they will have it their own way, and hazard the governor's favour, the peace of the city, and their own safety, rather than abate of the utmost of their demands. Were they so violent in running down our Lord Jesus, and in crying, Crucify him, crucify him? and shall not we be vigorous and zealous in advancing his name, and in crying, Crown him, Crown him? Did their hatred of him sharpen their endeavours against him? and shall not our love to him quicken our endeavours for him and his kingdom?

2. The check Pilate gave to their fury, still insisting upon the prisoner's innocency: " Take you him and crucify him, if he must be crucified."This is spoken ironically; he knew they could not, they durst not, crucify him; but it is as if he should say, "You shall not make me a drudge to your malice; I cannot with a safe conscience crucify him."A good resolve, if he would but have stuck to it. He found no fault in him, and therefore should not have continued to parley with the prosecutors. Those that would be safe from sin should be deaf to temptation. Nay, he should have secured the prisoner from their insults. What was he armed with power for, but to protect the injured? The guards of governors ought to be the guards of justice. But Pilate had not courage enough to act according to his conscience; and his cowardice betrayed him into a snare.

3. The further colour which the prosecutors gave to their demand (Joh 19:7): We have a law, and by our law, if it were but in our power to execute it, he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. Now here observe, (1.) They made their boast of the law, even when through breaking the law they dishonoured God, as is charged upon the Jews, Rom 2:23. They had indeed an excellent law, far exceeding the statutes and judgments of other nations; but in vain did they boast of their law, when they abused it to such bad purposes. (2.) They discover a restless and inveterate malice against our Lord Jesus. When they could not incense Pilate against him by alleging that he pretended himself a king, they urged this, that he pretended himself a God. Thus they turn every stone to take him off. (3.) They pervert the law, and make that the instrument of their malice. Some think they refer to a law made particularly against Christ, as if, being a law, it must be executed, right or wrong; whereas there is a woe to them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write the grievousness which they have prescribed, Isa 10:1. See Mic 6:16. But it should seem they rather refer to the law of Moses; and if so, [1.] It was true that blasphemers, idolaters, and false prophets, were to be put to death by that law. Whoever falsely pretended to be the Son of God was guilty of blasphemy, Lev 24:16. But then, [2.] It was false that Christ pretended to be the Son of God, for he really was so; and they ought to have enquired into the proofs he produced of his being so. If he said that he was the Son of God, and the scope and tendency of his doctrine were not to draw people from God, but to bring them to him, and if he confirmed his mission and doctrine by miracles, as undoubtedly he did, beyond contradiction, by their law they ought to hearken to him (Deu 18:18, Deu 18:19), and, if they did not, they were to be cut off. That which was his honour, and might have been their happiness, if they had not stood in their own light, they impute to him as a crime, for which he ought not to be crucified, for this was no death inflicted by their law.

IV. The judge brings the prisoner again to his trial, upon this new suggestion. Observe,

1. The concern Pilate was in, when he heard this alleged (Joh 19:8): When he heard that his prisoner pretended not to royalty only, but to deity, he was the more afraid. This embarrassed him more than ever, and made the case more difficult both ways; for, (1.) There was the more danger of offending the people if he should acquit him, for he knew how jealous that people were for the unity of the Godhead, and what aversion they now had to other gods; and therefore, though he might hope to pacify their rage against a pretended king, he could never reconcile them to a pretended God. "If this be at the bottom of the tumult,"thinks Pilate, "it will not be turned off with a jest."(2.) There was the more danger of offending his own conscience if he should condemn him. "Is he one"(thinks Pilate) "that makes himself the Son of God? and what if it should prove that he is so? What will become of me then?"Even natural conscience makes men afraid of being found fighting against God. The heathen had some fabulous traditions of incarnate deities appearing sometimes in mean circumstances, and treated ill by some that paid dearly for their so doing. Pilate fears lest he should thus run himself into a premunire.

2. His further examination of our Lord Jesus thereupon, Joh 19:9. That he might give the prosecutors all the fair play they could desire, he resumed the debate, went into the judgment-hall, and asked Christ, Whence art thou? Observe,

(1.) The place he chose for this examination: He went into the judgment-hall for privacy, that he might be out of the noise and clamour of the crowd, and might examine the thing the more closely. Those that would find out the truth as it is in Jesus must get out of the noise of prejudice, and retire as it were into the judgment-hall, to converse with Christ alone.

(2.) The question he put to him: Whence art thou? Art thou from men or from heaven? From beneath or from above? He had before asked directly, Art thou a King? But here he does not directly ask, Art thou the Son of God? lest he should seem to meddle with divine things too boldly. But in general, " Whence art thou? Where wast thou, and in what world hadst thou a being, before thy coming into this world?"

(3.) The silence of our Lord Jesus when he was examined upon this head; but Jesus gave him no answer. This was not a sullen silence, in contempt of the court, nor was it because he knew not what to say; but, [1.] It was a patient silence, that the scripture might be fulfilled, as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth, Isa 53:7. This silence loudly bespoke his submission to his Father's will in his present sufferings, which he thus accommodated himself to, and composed himself to bear. He was silent, because he would say nothing to hinder his sufferings. If Christ had avowed himself a God as plainly as he avowed himself a king, it is probable that Pilate would not have condemned him (for he was afraid at the mention of it by the prosecutors); and the Romans, though they triumphed over the kings of the nations they conquered, yet stood in awe of their gods. See 1Co 2:8. If they had known him to be the Lord of glory, they would not have crucified him; and how then could we have been saved? [2.] It was a prudent silence. When the chief priests asked him, Art thou the Son of the Blessed? he answered, I am, for he knew they went upon the scriptures of the Old Testament which spoke of the Messiah; but when Pilate asked him he knew he did not understand his own question, having no notion of the Messiah, and of his being the Son of God, and therefore to what purpose should he reply to him whose head was filled with the pagan theology, to which he would have turned his answer?

(4.) The haughty check which Pilate gave him for his silence (Joh 19:10): " Speakest thou not unto me? Dost thou put such an affront upon me as to stand mute? What knowest thou not that, as president of the province, I have power, if I think fit, to crucify thee, and have power, if I think fit, to release thee? "Observe here, [1.] How Pilate magnified himself, and boasts of his own authority, as not inferior to that of Nebuchadnezzar, of whom it is said that whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive. Dan 5:19. Men in power are apt to be puffed up with their power, and the more absolute and arbitrary it is the more it gratifies and humours their pride. But he magnifies his power to an exorbitant degree when he boasts that he has power to crucify one whom he had declared innocent, for no prince or potentate has authority to do wrong. Id possumus, quod jure possumus - We can do that only which we can do justly. [2.] How he tramples upon our blessed Saviour: Speakest thou not unto me? He reflects upon him, First, As if he were undutiful and disrespectful to those in authority, not speaking when he was spoken to. Secondly, As if he were ungrateful to one that had been tender of him: "Speakest thou not to me who have laboured to secure thy release?" Thirdly, As if he were unwise for himself: "Wilt thou not speak to clear thyself to one that is willing to clear thee?"If Christ had indeed sought to save his life, now had been his time to have spoken; but that which he had to do was to lay down his life.

(5.) Christ's pertinent answer to this check, Joh 19:11, where,

[1.] He boldly rebukes his arrogance, and rectifies his mistake: "Big as thou lookest and talkest, thou couldest have no power at all against me, no power to scourge, no power to crucify, except it were given thee from above. "Though Christ did not think fit to answer him when he was impertinent (then answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like him ), yet he did think fit to answer him when he was imperious; then answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit, Pro 26:4, Pro 26:5. When Pilate used his power, Christ silently submitted to it; but, when he grew proud of it, he made him know himself: "All the power thou hast is given thee from above,"which may be taken two ways: - First, As reminding him that his power in general, as a magistrate, was a limited power, and he could do no more than God would suffer him to do. God is the fountain of power; and the powers that are, as they are ordained by him and derived from him, so they are subject to him. They ought to go no further than his law directs them; they can go no further than his providence permits them. They are God's hand and his sword, Psa 17:13, Psa 17:14. Though the axe may boast itself against him that heweth therewith, yet still it is but a tool, Isa 10:5, Isa 10:15. Let the proud oppressors know that there is a higher than they, to whom they are accountable, Ecc 5:8. And let this silence the murmurings of the oppressed, It is the Lord. God has bidden Shimei curse David; and let it comfort them that their persecutors can do no more than God will let them. See Isa 51:12, Isa 51:13. Secondly, As informing him that his power against him in particular, and all the efforts of that power, were by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Act 2:23. Pilate never fancied himself to look so great as now, when he sat in judgment upon such a prisoner as this, who was looked upon by many as the Son of God and king of Israel, and had the fate of so great a man at his disposal; but Christ lets him know that he was herein but an instrument in God's hand, and could no nothing against him, but by the appointment of Heaven, Act 4:27, Act 4:28.

[2.] He mildly excuses and extenuates his sin, in comparison with the sin of the ringleaders: " Therefore he that delivered me unto thee lies under greater guilt; for thou as a magistrate hast power from above, and art in thy place, thy sin is less than theirs who, from envy and malice, urge thee to abuse thy power."

First, It is plainly intimated that what Pilate did was sin, a great sin, and that the force which the Jews put upon him, and which he put upon himself in it, would not justify him. Christ hereby intended a hint for the awakening of his conscience and the increase of the fear he was now under. The guilt of others will not acquit us, nor will it avail in the great day to say that others were worse than we, for we are not to be judged by comparison, but must bear our own burden.

Secondly, Yet theirs that delivered him to Pilate was the greater sin. By this it appears that all sins are not equal, but some more heinous than others; some comparatively as gnats, others as camels; some as motes in the eyes, others as beams; some as pence, others as pounds. He that delivered Christ to Pilate was either, 1. The people of the Jews, who cried out, Crucify him, crucify him. They had seen Christ's miracles, which Pilate had not; to them the Messiah was first sent; they were his own; and to them, who were now enslaved, a Redeemer should have been most welcome, and therefore it was much worse in them to appear against him than in Pilate. 2. Or rather he means Caiaphas in particular, who was at the head of the conspiracy against Christ, and first advised his death, Joh 11:49, Joh 11:50. The sin of Caiaphas was abundantly greater than the sin of Pilate. Caiaphas prosecuted Christ from pure enmity to him and his doctrine, deliberately and of malice prepense. Pilate condemned him purely for fear of the people, and it was a hasty resolution which he had not time to cool upon. 3. Some think Christ means Judas; for, though he did not immediately deliver him into the hands of Pilate, yet he betrayed him to those that did. The sin of Judas was, upon many accounts, greater than the sin of Pilate. Pilate was a stranger to Christ; Judas was his friend and follower. Pilate found no fault in him, but Judas knew a great deal of good of him. Pilate, though biassed, was not bribed, but Judas took a reward against the innocent; the sin of Judas was a leading sin, and let in all that followed. He was a guide to them that took Jesus. So great was the sin of Judas that vengeance suffered him not to live; but when Christ said this, or soon after, he was gone to his own place.

V. Pilate struggles with the Jews to deliver Jesus out of their hands, but in vain. We hear no more after this of any thing that passed between Pilate and the prisoner; what remains lay between him and the prosecutors.

1. Pilate seems more zealous than before to get Jesus discharged (Joh 19:12): Thenceforth, from this time, and for this reason, because Christ had given him that answer (Joh 19:11), which, though it had a rebuke in it, yet he took kindly; and, though Christ found fault with him, he still continued to find no fault in Christ, but sought to release him, desired it, endeavoured it. He sought to release him; he contrived how to do it handsomely and safely, and so as not to disoblige the priests. It never does well when our resolutions to do our duty are swallowed up in projects how to do it plausibly and conveniently. If Pilate's policy had not prevailed above his justice, he would not have been long seeking to release him, but would have done it. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum - Let justice be done, though heaven itself should fall.

2. The Jews were more furious than ever, and more violent to get Jesus crucified. Still they carry on their design with noise and clamour as before; so now they cried out. They would have it thought that the commonalty was against him, and therefore laboured to get him cried down by a multitude, and it is no hard matter to pack a mob; whereas, if a fair poll had been granted, I doubt not but it would have been carried by a great majority for the releasing of him. A few madmen may out-shout many wise men, and then fancy themselves to speak the sense (when it is but the nonsense) of a nation, or of all mankind; but it is not so easy a thing to change the sense of the people as it is to misrepresent it, and to change their cry. Now that Christ was in the hands of his enemies his friends were shy and silent, and disappeared, and those that were against him were forward to show themselves so; and this gave the chief priests an opportunity to represent it as the concurring vote of all the Jews that he should be crucified. In this outcry they sought two things: - (1.) To blacken the prisoner as an enemy to Caesar. He had refused the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, had declared his kingdom not to be of this world, and yet they will have it that he speaks against Caesar; antilegei - he opposed Caesar, invades his dignity and sovereignty. It has always been the artifice of the enemies of religion to represent it as hurtful to kings and provinces, when it would be highly beneficial to both. (2.) To frighten the judge, as no friend to Caesar: "If thou let this man go unpunished, and let him go on, thou art not Caesar's friend, and therefore false to thy trust and the duty of thy place, obnoxious to the emperor's displeasure, and liable to be turned out."They intimate a threatening that they would inform against him, and get him displaced; and here they touched him in a sensible and very tender part. But, of all people, these Jews should not have pretended a concern for Caesar, who were themselves so ill affected to him and his government. They should not talk of being friends to Caesar, who were themselves such back friends to him; yet thus a pretended zeal for that which is good often serves to cover a real malice against that which is better.

3. When other expedients had been tried in vain, Pilate slightly endeavoured to banter them out of their fury, and yet, in doing this, betrayed himself to them, and yielded to the rapid stream, Joh 19:13-15. After he had stood it out a great while, and seemed now as if he would have made a vigorous resistance upon this attack (Joh 19:12), he basely surrendered. Observe here,

(1.) What it was that shocked Pilate (Joh 19:13): When he heard that saying, that he could not be true to Caesar's honour, nor sure of Caesar's favour, if he did not put Jesus to death, then he thought it was time to look about him. All they had said to prove Christ a malefactor, and that therefore it was Pilate's duty to condemn him, did not move him, but he still kept to his conviction of Christ's innocency; but, when they urged that it was his interest to condemn him, then he began to yield. Note, Those that bind up their happiness in the favour of men make themselves an easy prey to the temptations of Satan.

(2.) What preparation was made for a definitive sentence upon this matter: Pilate brought Jesus forth, and he himself in great state took the chair. We may suppose that he called for his robes, that he might look big, and then sat down in the judgment-seat.

[1.] Christ was condemned with all the ceremony that could be. First, To bring us off at God's bar, and that all believers through Christ, being judged here, might be acquitted in the court of heaven. Secondly, To take off the terror of pompous trials, which his followers would be brought to for his sake. Paul might the better stand at Caesar's judgment-seat when his Master had stood there before him.

[2.] Notice is here taken of the place and time.

First, The place where Christ was condemned: in a place called the Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha, probably the place where he used to sit to try causes or criminals. Some make Gabbatha to signify an enclosed place, fenced against the insults of the people, whom therefore he did the less need to fear; others an elevated place, raised that all might see him.

Secondly, The time, Joh 19:14. It was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour. Observe, 1. The day: It was the preparation of the passover, that is, for the passover-sabbath, and the solemnities of that and the rest of the days of the feast of unleavened bread. This is plain from Luk 23:54, It was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. So that this preparation was for the sabbath. Note, Before the passover there ought to be preparation. This is mentioned as an aggravation of their sin, in persecuting Christ with so much malice and fury, that it was when they should have been purging out the old leaven, to get ready for the passover; but the better the day the worse the deed. 2. The hour: It was about the sixth hour. Some ancient Greek and Latin manuscripts read it about the third hour, which agrees with Mar 15:25. And it appears by Mat 27:45 that he was upon the cross before the sixth hour. But it should seem to come in here, not as a precise determination of the time, but as an additional aggravation of the sin of his prosecutors, that they were pushing on the prosecution, not only on a solemn day, the day of the preparation, but, from the third to the sixth hour (which was, as we call it, church-time) on that day, they were employed in this wickedness; so that for this day, though they were priests, they dropped the temple-service, for they did not leave Christ till the sixth hour, when the darkness began, which frightened them away. Some think that the sixth hour, with this evangelist, is, according to the Roman reckoning and ours, six of the clock in the morning, answering to the Jews' first hour of the day; this is very probable, that Christ's trial before Pilate was at the height about six in the morning, which was then a little after sun-rising.

(3.) The rencounter Pilate had with the Jews, both priests and people, before he proceeded to give judgment, endeavouring in vain to stem the tide of their rage.

[1.] He saith unto the Jews, Behold your king. This is a reproof to them for the absurdity and malice of their insinuating that this Jesus made himself a king: " Behold your king, that is, him whom you accuse as a pretender to the crown. Is this a man likely to be dangerous to the government? I am satisfied he is not, and you may be so too, and let him alone."Some think he hereby upbraids them with their secret disaffection to Caesar: "You would have this man to be your king, if he would but have headed a rebellion against Caesar."But Pilate, though he was far from meaning so, seems as if he were the voice of God to them. Christ, now crowned with thorns, is, as a king at his coronation, offered to the people: " Behold your king, the king whom God hath set upon his holy hill of Zion;"but they, instead of entering into it with acclamations of joyful consent, protest against him; they will not have a king of God's choosing.

[2.] They cried out with the greatest indignation, Away with him, away with him, which speaks disdain as well as malice, aron , aron - " Take him, he is none of ours; we disown him for our kinsman, much more for our king; we have not only no veneration for him, but no compassion; away with him out of our sight:"for so it was written of him, he is one whom the nation abhors (Isa 49:7), and they hid as it were their faces from him Isa 53:2, Isa 53:3. Away with him from the earth, Act 22:22. This shows, First, How we deserved to have been treated at God's tribunal. We were by sin become odious to God's holiness, which cried, Away with them, away with them, for God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. We were also become obnoxious to God's justice, which cried against us, " Crucify them, crucify them, let the sentence of the law be executed."Had not Christ interposed, and been thus rejected of men, we had been for ever rejected of God. Secondly, It shows how we ought to treat our sins. We are often in scripture said to crucify sin, in conformity to Christ's death. Now they that crucified Christ did it with detestation. With a pious indignation we should run down sin in us, as they with an impious indignation ran him down who was made sin for us. The true penitent casts away from him his transgressions, Away with them, away with them (Isa 2:20; Isa 30:22), crucify them, crucify them; it is not fit that they should live in my soul, Hos 14:8.

[3.] Pilate, willing to have Jesus released, and yet that it should be their doing, asks them, Shall I crucify your king? In saying this, he designed either, First, To stop their mouths, by showing them how absurd it was for them to reject one who offered himself to them to be their king at a time when they needed one more than ever. Have they no sense of slavery? No desire of liberty? No value for a deliverer? Though he saw no cause to fear him, they might see cause to hope for something from him; since crushed and sinking interests are ready to catch at any thing. Or, Secondly, To stop the mouth of his own conscience. "If this Jesus be a king"(thinks Pilate), "he is only kin of the Jews, and therefore I have nothing to do but to make a fair tender of him to them; if they refuse him, and will have their king crucified, what is that to me?"He banters them for their folly in expecting a Messiah, and yet running down one that bade so fair to be he.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

This is the most dramatic account of the trial of Jesus in the New Testament, and to have cut it into small sections would have been to lose the drama. It has to be read as one; but now that we have read it as one, we shall take several days to study it. The drama of this passage lies in the clash and interplay of personalities. It will therefore be best to study it, not section by section, but in the light of the actors within it.

We begin by looking at the Jews. In the time of Jesus the Jews were subject to the Romans. The Romans allowed them a good deal of self-government, but they had not the right to carry out the death penalty. The ius gladii, as it was called, the right of the sword, belonged only to the Romans. As the Talmud records: "Forty years before the destruction of the Temple, judgment in matters of life and death was taken away from Israel." The first Roman governor of Palestine was named Coponius, and Josephus, telling of his appointment as governor, says that he was sent as procurator "having the power of life and death put into his hands by Caesar." (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 2, 8, 1). Josephus also tells of a certain priest called Ananus who determined to execute certain of his enemies. Jews of more prudent mind protested against his decision on the grounds that he had no right either to take it or carry it out. Ananus was not allowed to carry his decision into practice and was deposed from office for even thinking of doing so. (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 20, 9, 1). It is true that sometimes, as, for instance, in the case of Stephen, the Jews did take the law into their own hands; but legally they had no right to inflict the death penalty on anyone. That was why they had to bring Jesus to Pilate before he could be crucified.

If the Jews had themselves been able to carry out the death penalty, it would have been by stoning. The Law lays it down: "And he who blasphemes the name of the Lord, shall be put to death, all the congregation shall stone him" (Lev 24:16). in such a case the witnesses whose word proved the crime had to be the first to fling the stones. "The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people" (Deu 17:7). That is the point of Joh 18:32. That verse says that all this was happening that there might be fulfilled the word of Jesus in indication of the kind of death he was going to die. He had said that when he was lifted up, that is, when he was crucified, he would draw all men to him (Joh 12:32). If that prophecy of Jesus was to be fulfilled, he must be crucified, not stoned; and therefore, even apart from the fact that Roman law would not allow the Jews to carry out the death penalty, Jesus had to die a Roman death, because he had to be lifted up.

The Jews from start to finish were seeking to use Pilate for their purposes. They could not kill Jesus themselves, so they were determined that the Romans would kill him for them.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

But there were more things about the Jews than that.

(i) They began by hating Jesus; but they finished in a very hysteria of hatred, howling like wolves, with faces twisted in bitterness: "Crucify him! Crucify him!" In the end they reached such an insanity of hatred that they were impervious to reason and to mercy and even to the claims of common humanity. Nothing in this world warps a man's judgment as hatred does. Once a man allows himself to hate, he can neither think nor see straight, nor listen without distortion. Hatred is a terrible thing because it takes a man's senses away.

(ii) The hatred of the Jews made them lose all sense of proportion. They were so careful of ceremonial and ritual cleanness that they would not enter Pilate's headquarters, and yet they were busy doing everything possible to crucify the Son of God. To eat the Passover, a Jew had to be absolutely ceremonially clean. Now, if they had gone into Pilate's headquarters, they would have incurred uncleanness in a double way. First, the scribal law said: "The dwelling-places of Gentiles are unclean." Second, the Passover was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Part of the preparation for it was a ceremonial search for leaven, and the banishing of every particle of leaven from every house because it was the symbol of evil. To go into Pilate's headquarters would have been to go into a place where leaven might be found; and to go into such a place when the Passover was being prepared was to render oneself unclean. But even if the Jews had entered a Gentile house which contained leaven, they would have been unclean only until evening. Then they would have had to undergo ceremonial bathing after which they would have been clean.

Now see what the Jews were doing. They were carrying out the details of the ceremonial law with meticulous care; and at the same time they were hounding to the Cross the Son of God. That is just the kind of thing that men are always liable to do. Many a church member fusses about the sheerest trifles, and breaks God's law of love and of forgiveness and of service every day. There is even many a church in which the details of vestments, furnishings, ritual, ceremonial are attended to with the most detailed care, and where the spirit of love and fellowship are conspicuous only by their absence. One of the most tragic things in the world is how the human mind can lose its sense of proportion and its ability to put first things first.

(ii) The Jews did not hesitate to twist their charge against Jesus. In their own private examination the charge they had formulated was one of blasphemy (Mat 26:65). They knew well that Pilate would not proceed on a charge like that. He would have said it was their own private religious quarrel and they could settle is as they liked without coming to him. In the end what the Jews produced was a charge of rebellion and political insurrection. They accused Jesus of claiming to be a king, although they knew that their accusation was a lie. Hatred is a terrible thing and does not hesitate to twist the truth.

(iv) In order to compass the death of Jesus the Jews denied every principle they had. The most astonishing thing they said that day was: "We have no king but Caesar." Samuel's word to the people was that God alone was their king (1Sa 12:12). When the crown was offered to Gideon, his answer was: "I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you: the Lord will rule over you" (Jdg 8:23). When the Romans had first come into Palestine, they had taken a census in order to arrange the normal taxation to which subject people were liable. And there had been the most bloody rebellion, because the Jews insisted that God alone was their king, and to him alone they would pay tribute. When the Jewish leader said: "We have no king but Caesar." it was the most astonishing volte-face in history. The very statement must have taken Pilate's breath away, and he must have looked at them in half-bewildered, half-cynical amusement. The Jews were prepared to abandon every principle they had in order to eliminate Jesus.

It is a terrible picture. The hatred of the Jews turned them into a maddened mob of shrieking, frenzied fanatics. In their hatred they forgot all mercy, all sense of proportion, all justice, all their principles, even God. Never in history was the insanity of hatred so vividly shown.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

Now we turn to the second personality in this story--Pilate. Throughout the trial his conduct is well-nigh incomprehensible. It is abundantly clear, it could not be clearer, that Pilate knew that the charges of the Jews were a series of lies, that he knew that Jesus was completely innocent, that he was deeply impressed with him, and that he did not wish to condemn him to death--and yet he did. First, he tried to refuse to deal with the case; then he tried to release Jesus on the grounds that at the Passover a criminal was always released; then he tried to compromise by scourging Jesus; then he made a last appeal. But he refused all through to put his foot down and tell the Jews that he would have nothing to do with their evil machinations. We will never even begin to understand Pilate unless we understand his history, which is set out for us partly in the writings of Josephus and partly in the writings of Philo.

To understand the part that Pilate played in this drama we must go back a long way. To begin with, what was a Roman governor doing in Judaea at all?

In 4 B.C. Herod the Great died. He had been king of the whole of Palestine. For all his faults he was in many ways a good king, and he had been very friendly with the Romans. In his will he divided up his kingdom between three of his sons. Antipas received Galilee and Peraea; Philip received Batanea, Auranitis and Trachonitis, the wild unpopulated regions of the north-east; and Archelaus, who at the time was only eighteen years old, received Idumaea, Judaea and Samaria. The Romans approved this distribution of the kingdom, and ratified it.

Antipas and Philip governed quietly and well; but Archelaus governed with such extortion and tyranny that the Jews themselves requested the Romans to remove him, and to appoint a governor. The likelihood is that they expected to be incorporated into the large province of Syria; and had that been so, the province was so large that they would very probably have been left pretty much to carry on the way they were. All Roman provinces were divided into two classes. Those which required troops stationed in them were in the direct control of the Emperor and were imperial provinces; those which did not require troops but were peaceful and trouble-free, were in the direct control of the senate and were senatorial provinces.

Palestine was obviously a troubled land; it needed troops and therefore it was in the control of the Emperor. Really great provinces were governed either by a proconsul or a legate; Syria was like that. Smaller provinces of the second class, were governed by a procurator. He was in full control of the military and judicial administration of the province. He visited every part of the province at least once a year and heard cases and complaints. He superintended the ingathering of taxes but had no authority to increase them. He was paid a salary from the treasury and was strictly forbidden to accept either presents or bribes; and, if he exceeded his duties, the people of his province had power to report him to the Emperor.

It was a procurator that Augustus appointed to control the affairs of Palestine, and the first one took over in A.D. 6. Pilate took over in A.D. 26 and remained in office until A.D. 35. Palestine was a province bristling with problems, one which required a firm and a strong and a wise hand. We do not know Pilate's previous history, but we do know that he must have had the reputation of being a good administrator or he would never have been given the responsible position of governing Palestine. It had to be kept in order, for, as a glance at the map will show, it was the bridge between Egypt and Syria.

But as governor Pilate was a failure. He seemed to begin with a complete contempt and a complete lack of sympathy for the Jews. Three famous, or infamous, incidents marked his career.

The first occurred on his first visit to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was not the capital of the province; its headquarters were at Caesarea. But the procurator paid many visits to Jerusalem, and, when he did, he stayed in the old palace of the Herods in the west part of the city. When he came to Jerusalem, he always came with a detachment of soldiers. The soldiers had their standards; and on the top of the standard there was a little bust in metal of the reigning Emperor. The Emperor was regarded as a god, and to the Jew that little bust on the standards was a graven image.

All previous Roman governors, in deference to the religious scruples of the Jews, had removed that image before they entered the city. Pilate refused to do so. The Jews besought him to do so. Pilate was adamant; he would not pander to the superstitions of the Jews. He went back to Caesarea. The Jews followed him. They dogged his footsteps for five days. They were humble, but determined in their requests. Finally he told them to meet him in the amphitheatre. He surrounded them with armed soldiers, and informed them that if they did not stop their requests they would be killed there and then. The Jews bared their necks and bade the soldiers strike. Not even Pilate could massacre defenceless men like that. He was beaten and compelled to agree that the images should thereafter be removed from the standards. That was how Pilate began, and it was a bad beginning.

The second incident was this. The Jerusalem water supply was inadequate. Pilate determined to build a new aqueduct. Where was the money to come from? He raided the Temple treasury which contained millions. It is very unlikely that Pilate took money that was deposited for the sacrifices and the Temple service. Much more likely, he took money which was entitled Korban, and which came from sources which made it impossible to use for sacred purposes. His aqueduct was much needed; it was a worthy and a great undertaking; the water supply would even be of great benefit to the Temple which needed much cleansing with its continual sacrifices. But the people resented it; they rioted and surged through the streets. Pilate mingled his soldiers with them in plain clothes, with concealed weapons. At a given signal they attacked the mob and many a Jew was clubbed or stabbed to death. Once again Pilate was unpopular--and he was rendered liable to be reported to the Emperor.

The third incident turned out even worse for Pilate. As we have seen, when he was in Jerusalem, he stayed in the ancient palace of the Herods. He had certain shields made; and on them he had inscribed the name of Tiberius the Emperor. These shields were what is known as votive shields; they were devoted to the honour and the memory of the Emperor. Now the Emperor was regarded as a god; so here was the name of a strange god inscribed and displayed for reverence in the holy city. The people were enraged; the greatest men, even his closest supporters, besought Pilate to remove them. He refused. The Jews reported the matter to Tiberius the Emperor, and he ordered Pilate to remove them.

It is relevant to note how Pilate ended up. This last incident happened after Jesus had been crucified, in the year A.D. 35. There was a revolt in Samaria. It was not very serious but Pilate crushed it with sadistic ferocity and a plethora of executions. The Samaritans had always been regarded as loyal citizens of Rome and the legate of Syria intervened. Tiberius ordered Pilate back to Rome. When he was on the way, Tiberius died; so far as we know, Pilate never came to judgment; and from that moment he vanishes from history.

It is clear why Pilate acted as he did. The Jews blackmailed him into crucifying Jesus. They said: "If you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend." This was, in effect: "Your record is not too good; you were reported once before; if you do not give us our way, we will report you again to the Emperor, and you will be dismissed." On that day in Jerusalem, Pilate's past rose up and haunted him. He was blackmailed into assenting to the death of Christ, because his previous mistakes had made it impossible for him both to defy the Jews and to keep his post. Somehow one cannot help being sorry for Pilate. He wanted to do the right thing; but he had not the courage to defy the Jews and do it. He crucified Jesus in order to keep his job.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

We have seen Pilate's history; let us now look at his conduct during his trial of Jesus. He did not wish to condemn Jesus, because he knew that he was innocent; and yet he was caught in the mesh of his own past.

(i) Pilate began by trying to put the responsibility on to someone else. He said to the Jews: "You take this man and judge him according to your laws." He tried to evade the responsibility of dealing with Jesus; but that is precisely what no one can do. No one can deal with Jesus for us; we must deal with him ourselves.

(ii) Pilate went on to try to find a way of escape from the entanglement in which he found himself. He tried to use the custom of releasing a prisoner at the Passover in order to engineer the release of Jesus. He tried to evade dealing directly with Jesus himself; but again that is precisely what no one can do. There is no escape from a personal decision in regard to Jesus; we must ourselves decide what we will do with him, accept him or reject him.

(iii) Pilate went on to see what compromise could do. He ordered Jesus to be scourged. It must have been in Pilate's mind that a scourging might satisfy, or at least blunt the edge of, Jewish hostility. He felt that he might avoid having to give the verdict of the cross by giving the verdict of scourging. Once again, that is what no man can do. No man can compromise with Jesus; no man can serve two masters. We are either for Jesus or against him.

(iv) Pilate went on to try what appeal could do. He led Jesus out broken by the scourging and showed him to the people. He asked them: "Shall I crucify your king?" He tried to swing the balance by this appeal to emotion and to pity. But no man can hope that appeal to others can take the place of his own personal decision; and it was Pilate's place to make his own decision. No man can evade a personal verdict and a personal decision in regard to Jesus Christ.

In the end Pilate admitted defeat. He abandoned Jesus to the mob, because he had not the courage to take the right decision and to do the right thing.

But there are still more side-lights here on the character of Pilate.

(i) There is a hint of Pilate's ingrained attitude of contempt. he asked Jesus if he was a king. Jesus asked whether he asked this on the basis of what he himself had discovered, or on the basis of information indirectly received. Pilate's answer was: "Am I a Jew? How do you expect me to know anything about Jewish affairs?" He was too proud to involve himself in what he regarded as Jewish squabbles and superstitions. And that pride was exactly what made him a bad governor. No one can govern a people if he makes no attempt to understand them and to enter into their thoughts and minds.

(ii) There is a kind of superstitious curiosity about Pilate. He wished to know whence Jesus came--and it was more than Jesus' native place that he was thinking of. When he heard that Jesus had claimed to be the Son of God, he was still more disturbed. Pilate was superstitious rather than religious, fearing that there might be something in it. He was afraid to come to a decision in Jesus' favour because of the Jews; he was equally afraid to come to a decision against him, because he had the lurking suspicion that God might be in this.

(iii) But at the heart of Pilate was a wistful longing. When Jesus said that he had come to witness to the truth, Pilate's answer was: "What is truth?" There are many ways in which a man might ask that question. He might ask it in cynical and sardonic humour. Bacon immortalized Pilate's answer, when he wrote: "What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer." But it was not in cynical humour that Pilate asked this question; nor was it the question of a man who did not care. Here was the chink in his armour. He asked the question wistfully and wearily.

Pilate by this world's standards was a successful man. He had come almost to the top of the Roman civil service; he was governor-general of a Roman province; but there was something missing. Here in the presence of this simple, disturbing hated Galilaean, Pilate felt that for him the truth was still a mystery--and that now he had got himself into a situation where there was no chance to learn it. It may be he jested, but it was the jest of despair. Philip Gibbs somewhere tells of listening to a debate between T. S. Eliot, Margaret Irwin, C. Day Lewis and other distinguished people on the subject, "Is this life worth living?" "True, they jested," he said, "but they jested like jesters knocking at the door of death."

Pilate was like that. Into his life there came Jesus, and suddenly he saw what he had missed. That day he might have found all that he had missed; but he had not the courage to defy the world in spite of his past, and to take his stand with Christ and a future which was glorious.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

We have thought of the picture of the crowd in this trial of Jesus and we have thought of the picture of Pilate. Now we must come to the central character in the drama--Jesus himself. He is depicted before us with a series of master-strokes.

(i) First and foremost, no one can read this story without seeing the sheer majesty of Jesus. There is no sense that he is on trial. When a man faces him, it is not Jesus who is on trial; it is the man. Pilate may have treated many Jewish things with arrogant contempt, but he did not so treat Jesus. We cannot help feeling that it is Jesus who is in control and Pilate who is bewildered and floundering in a situation which he cannot understand. The majesty of Jesus never shone more radiantly than in the hour when he was on trial before men.

(ii) Jesus speaks with utter directness to us of his kingdom; it is not, he says, of this earth. The atmosphere in Jerusalem was always explosive; during the Passover it was sheer dynamite. The Romans well knew that, and during the Passover time they always drafted extra troops into Jerusalem. But Pilate never at any time had more than three thousand men under his command. Some would be in Caesarea, his headquarters; some would be on garrison duty in Samaria; there cannot really have been more than a few hundred on duty in Jerusalem. If Jesus had wished to raise the standard of rebellion and to fight it out, he could have done it easily enough. But he makes it quite clear that he claims to be a king and equally clear that his kingdom is not based on force but is a kingdom in the hearts of men. He would never deny that he aimed at conquest, but it was the conquest of love.

(iii) Jesus tells us why he came into the world. He came to witness to the truth; he came to tell men the truth about God, the truth about themselves, and the truth about life. As Emerson had it:

"When half-gods go,

The gods arrive."

The days of guessings and gropings and half-truths were gone. He came to tell men the truth. That is one of the great reasons why we must either accept or refuse Christ. There is no half-way house about the truth. A man either accepts it, or rejects it; and Christ is the truth.

(iv) We see the physical courage of Jesus. Pilate had him scourged. When a man was scourged he was tied to a whipping-post in such a way that his back was fully exposed. The lash was a long leathern thong, studded at intervals with pellets of lead and sharpened pieces of bone. It literally tore a man's back into strips. Few remained conscious throughout the ordeal; some died; and many went raving mad. Jesus stood that. And after it, Pilate led him out to the crowd and said: "See! The man!" Here is one of John's double meanings. It must have been Pilate's first intention to awaken the pity of the Jews. "Look!" he said. "Look at this poor, bruised, bleeding creature! Look at this wretchedness! Can you possibly wish to hound a creature like this to an utterly unnecessary death?" But we can almost hear the tone of his voice change as he says it, and see the wonder dawn in his eyes. And instead of saying it half-contemptuously, to awaken pity, he says it with an admiration that will not be repressed. The word that Pilate used is ho (3588) anthropos (444), which is the normal Greek for a human being; but not so long afterwards the Greek thinkers were using that very term for the heavenly man, the ideal man, the pattern of manhood. It is always true that whatever else we say or do not say about Jesus, his sheer heroism is without parallel. Here indeed is a man.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

(v) Once again we see here in the trial of Jesus the spontaneousness of his death and the supreme control of God. Pilate warned Jesus that he had power to release him or to crucify him. Jesus answered that Pilate had no power at all, except what had been given him by God. The crucifixion of Jesus never, from beginning to end, reads like the story of a man caught up in an inexorable web of circumstances over which he had no control; it never reads like the story of a man who was hounded to his death; it is the story of a man whose last days were a triumphant procession towards the goal of the Cross.

(vi) And here also is the terrible picture of the silence of Jesus. There was a time when he had no answer to give to Pilate. There were other times when Jesus was silent. He was silent before the High Priest (Mat 26:63; Mar 14:61). He was silent before Herod (Luk 23:9). He was silent when the charges against him were made to Pilate by the Jewish authorities (Mat 27:14; Mar 15:5). We have sometimes the experience, when talking to other people, of finding that argument and discussion are no longer possible, because we and they have no common ground. It is almost as if we spoke another language. That happens when men do in fact speak another mental and spiritual language. It is a terrible day when Jesus is silent to a man. There can be nothing more terrible than for a man's mind to be so shut by his pride and his self-will, that there is nothing Jesus can say to him that will make any difference.

(vii) Finally, it is just possible that in this trial scene there is a strange, dramatic climax, which is a magnificent example of John's dramatic irony.

The scene comes to an end by saying that Pilate brought Jesus out; as we have translated it, and as the King James Version and Revised Standard translate it, Pilate came out to the place that was called the Pavement of Gabbatha--which may mean the tessellated pavement of marble mosaic--and sat upon the judgment seat. This was the bema (968), on which the magistrate sat to give his official decisions. Now the verb for to sit is kathizein (2523), and that may be either intransitive or transitive; it may mean either to sit down oneself, or to seat another. Just possibly it means here that Pilate with one last mocking gesture brought Jesus out, clad in the terrible finery of the old purple robe and with his forehead girt with the crown of thorns and the drops of blood the thorns had wakened, and set him in the judgment seat, and with a wave of his hand said: "Am I to crucify your king?" The apocryphal Gospel of Peter says that in the mockery, they set Jesus on the seat of judgment and said: "Judge justly, King of Israel." Justin Martyr too says that "they set Jesus on the judgment seat, and said, 'Give judgment for us'." It may be that Pilate jestingly caricatured Jesus as judge. If that is so, what dramatic irony is there. That which was a mockery was the truth; and one day those who had mocked Jesus as judge would meet him as judge--and would remember.

So in this dramatic trial scene we see the immutable majesty, the undaunted courage and the serene acceptance of the Cross of Jesus. Never was he so regal as when men did their worst to humiliate him.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

We have looked at the main personalities in the trial of Jesus--the Jews with their hatred, Pilate with his haunting past, and Jesus in the serenity of his regal majesty. But certain other people were on the outskirts of the scene.

(i) There were the soldiers. When Jesus was given into their hands to be scourged, they amused themselves with their crude horse-play. He was a king? Well then, let him have a robe and crown. So they put an old purple robe on him and a crown of thorns round his brow; and they slapped him on the face. They were playing a game that ancient people commonly played. Philo in his work On Flaccus tells of a very similar thing that the mob at Alexandria did. "There was a madman named Carabas, afflicted not with the savage and beastlike sort of madness--for this form is undisguisable both for sufferers and bystanders--but with the quiet and milder kind. He used to spend his days and nights naked in the streets, sheltering from neither heat nor frost, a plaything of children and idle lads. They joined in driving the wretch to the gymnasium, and, setting him aloft so that he could be seen by everyone, they flattened a strip of bark for a fillet and put it on his head, and wrapped a floor-rug round his body for a mantle, and for sceptre someone catching sight of a small piece of the native papyrus that had been thrown on the road handed it to him. And when he had assumed the insignia of kingship as in theatrical mimes, and had been arrayed in the character of king, young men bearing staffs on their shoulders took their stance on either side in place of spearmen, mimic lancers. Then others approached, some as if to greet him, others as though to plead their causes, others as though to petition him about public matters. Then from the surrounding multitudes rang forth an outlandish shout of 'Marin,' the name by which it is said that kings are called in Syria." It is a poignant thing that the soldiers treated Jesus as a ribald crowd might treat an idiot boy.

And yet of all the people involved in the trial of Jesus, the soldiers were least to blame, for they did not know what they were doing. Most likely they had come up from Caesarea and did not know what it was all about. Jesus to them was only a chance criminal.

Here is another example of the dramatic irony of John. The soldiers made a caricature of Jesus as king, while in actual fact he was the only king. Beneath the jest there was eternal truth.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

(ii) Last of all there was Barabbas whose episode John tells very briefly indeed. Of the custom of freeing a prisoner at Passover we know nothing more than the gospels tell us. The other gospels to some extent fill out John's brief picture and when we put all our information together we find that Barabbas was a notable prisoner, a brigand, who had taken part in a certain insurrection in the city and had committed murder (Mat 27:15-26; Mar 15:6-15; Luk 23:17-25; Act 3:14).

The name Barabbas is interesting. There are two possibilities as to its derivation. It may be compounded of Bar Abba which would mean "son of the father," or it may be compounded of Bar Rabban, which would mean "son of the Rabbi." It is not impossible that Barabbas was the son of some Rabbi, a scion of some noble family who had gone wrong; and it may well be that, criminal though he was, he was popular with the people as a kind of Robin Hood character. It is certainly true that we must not think of Barabbas as a sneak thief, or a petty pilferer, or a burglar. He was a lestes (3027), which means a brigand. Either he was one of the warrior brigands who infested the Jericho road, the kind of man into whose hands the traveller in the parable fell; or, perhaps even more probable, he was one of the Zealots who had sworn to rid Palestine of the Romans, even if it meant a career of murder, robbery, assassination and crime. Barabbas was no petty criminal. A man of violence he might be, but his violence was the kind which might well have a romance and a glamour about it and make him the popular hero of the crowd and the despair of the law at one and the same time.

There is a still more interesting thing about Barabbas. It is a second name and there must have been a first name, just as, for instance, Peter had been Simon bar-Jonah, Simon the son of Jonah. Now there are certain ancient Greek manuscripts, and certain Syrian and Armenian translations of the New Testament which actually give the name of Barabbas as Jesus. That is by no means impossible, because in those days Jesus was a common name, being the Greek form of Joshua. If so, the choice of the crowd was even more dramatic, for they were shouting: "Not Jesus the Nazarene, but Jesus Barabbas."

The choice of the mob has been the eternal choice. Barabbas was the man of force and blood, the man who chose to reach his end by violent means. Jesus was the man of love and of gentleness, whose kingdom was in the hearts of men. It is the tragic fact of history that all through the ages men have chosen the way of Barabbas and refused the way of Jesus.

What happened to Barabbas no man knows; but John Oxenham in one of his books has an imaginary picture of him. At first Barabbas could think of nothing but his freedom; then he began to look at the man who had died that he might live. Something about Jesus fascinated him and he followed him out to see the end. As he saw Jesus bearing his Cross, one thought burned into his mind: "I should have been carrying that Cross, not he. He saved me!" And as he saw Jesus hanging on Calvary, the only thing of which he could think was: "I should have been hanging there, not he. He saved me!" It may be so, or it may not be so; but certainly Barabbas was one of the sinners Jesus died to save.

Barclay: Joh 19:1-16

There is one great problem in the fourth gospel which we did not take note of at all when we were studying it. Here we can note it only very briefly, for it is really an unsolved problem on which the literature is immense.

It is quite certain that the fourth gospel and the other three give different dates for the Crucifixion, and take different views of what the last meal together was.

In the Synoptic gospels it is clear that the Last Supper was the Passover and that Jesus was crucified on Passover Day. It must be remembered that the Jewish day began at 6 p.m. on what to us is the day before. The Passover fell on 15th Nisan; but 15th Nisan began on what to us is 14th Nisan at 6 p.m. Mark seems to be quite clear; he says: "And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the passover?" Jesus gives them instructions. Then Mark goes on: "And they prepared the passover, and when it was evening he came with the twelve." (Mar 14:12-17) Undoubtedly Mark wished to show the Last Supper as a Passover meal and that Jesus was crucified on Passover day; and Matthew and Luke follow Mark.

On the other hand John is quite clear that Jesus was crucified on the day before the passover. He begins his story of the last meal: "Now before the feast of the Passover..." (Joh 13:1). When Judas left the upper room, they thought he had gone to prepare for the Passover (Joh 13:29). The Jews would not enter the judgment hall lest they should become unclean and be prevented from eating the Passover (Joh 18:28). The judgment is during the preparation for the Passover (Joh 19:14).

There is here a contradiction for which there is no compromise solution. Either the Synoptic gospels are correct or John is. Scholars are much divided. But it seems most likely that the Synoptics are correct. John was always looking for hidden meanings. In his story Jesus is crucified as somewhere near the sixth hour (Joh 19:14). It was just then that in the Temple the Passover lambs were being killed. By far the likeliest thing is that John dated things in order that Jesus would be crucified at exactly the same time as the Passover lambs were being killed, so that he might be seen as the great Passover Lamb who saved his people and took away the sins of the world. It seems that the Synoptic gospels are right intact, while John is right in truth; and John was always more interested in eternal truth than in mere historic fact.

There is no full explanation of this obvious discrepancy; but this seems to us the best.

Constable: Joh 18:1--20:31

IV. Jesus' passion ministry chs. 18--20

There are several features that distinguish John's account of Jesus' passion from the ones in the Synoptic Gospels. First, the Romans feature slightly more prominently in John's Gospel, but they do not constitute such a large presence that they overpower the other characters who opposed Jesus. Second, John pictured Jesus as more obviously in control of His destiny. For example, John did not record Jesus' agony in Gethsemane. This is in harmony with His emphasis on Jesus as God's divine Son. Third, John included material that the Synoptics omitted. This, too, reflects emphases that John wanted to make in view of his purposes for writing. What these emphases were will become clearer as we consider what he included.

"Man will do his worst, and God will respond with His very best. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound' (Rom. 5:20)."⁵³⁰

Constable: Joh 18:28--19:17

C. Jesus' civil trial 18:28-19:16

John reported much more about Jesus' trial before Pilate than did any of the other Gospel writers. He omitted referring to Jesus' appearance before Herod Antipas, which only Luke recorded (Luke 23:6-12). He stressed Jesus' authority, particularly His authority as Israel's King (cf. v. 36; 19:11, 14). John seems to have assumed that his readers knew of the other Gospel accounts of Jesus' passion. This supposition supports the view that this was the last Gospel written. The other Gospels stress the legal aspects of this trial. John presented it more as an interview between Jesus and Pilate similar to His interviews with Nicodemus (ch. 3), the Samaritan woman (ch. 4), and the blind man (ch. 9).⁵⁴² It proceeded as Pilate asked four questions: "What accusation do you bring against this man?" (18:29), "Are you the King of the Jews?" (18:33), "Do you want me to release the King of the Jews?" (18:39), and "Where are you from?" (19:9).

Constable: Joh 19:1-16

4. The sentencing of Jesus 19:1-16 (cf. Matt. 27:22-26; Mark 15:12-15; Luke 23:20-25)

There is quite a bit of unique material in this pericope. This includes the details of the Roman soldiers' abuse of Jesus (vv. 1-5) and the situation that Pilate's learning that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God instigated (vv. 7-14). John omitted Pilate's washing of his hands (Matt. 27:24) and the Jews' taking the responsibility for Jesus' death (Matt. 27:25). He also did not mention the release of Barabbas (Matt. 27:26; Mark 15:15; Luke 23:24-25) and Jesus' most severe scourging (Matt. 27:26; Mark 15:15).

19:1 Pilate incorrectly hoped that if He flogged (Gr. emastigosen) Jesus this would satisfy the Jews (cf. vv. 4-6; Luke 23:16). Perhaps he thought that this action would increase popular support for Jesus against the chief priests, and then Pilate could release Him.

"From him [John] we learn that Jesus was not scourged in order to be crucified but in order to escape crucifixion."⁵⁶⁰

There were three forms of flogging that the Romans administered. The lightest of these, the fustigatio, was a light beating that only hooligans experienced. The second, the flagellatio, was a severe beating that criminals who were guilty of more serious crimes received. The third, the verberatio, was the most brutal. The worst criminals including those sentenced to crucifixion underwent it.⁵⁶¹ Evidently Jesus received the first or second of these beatings at this time, namely before His sentencing. He received the third type after His sentencing (v. 16; cf. Matt. 27:26; Mark 15:15).

19:2-3 The crown of thorns that the Roman soldiers wove and placed on Jesus' head probably came from a local date palm tree.⁵⁶² Some Roman coins pictured various emperors wearing such crowns that appeared to radiate glory from their heads.⁵⁶³ However the palm fronds when turned inward instead of outward on such crowns proved to be painful spikes. Perhaps John wanted his readers to connect these thorns with the symbol of the consequences of sin (Gen. 3:18).

Likewise the reddish purple garment, perhaps a trooper's coat, that the soldiers placed over Jesus' shoulders was an obvious attempt to mock His claim of being a king (cf. Matt. 27:28; Mark 15:17). Vassal kings wore purple in Jesus' day.⁵⁶⁴ The soldiers also struck Jesus in the face with their open hands (cf. 18:22) contradicting their feigned verbal respect with violent hostility.

The Roman soldiers viewed Jesus as a pretender to the throne of Israel and despised Him as a loser. The Sanhedrin members would have been equally happy to see Jesus ridiculed and beaten for what they considered to be His pretense. The Jews who followed Jesus would have felt outraged and hurt by Jesus' treatment. The believing reader sees the irony in the situation because Jesus was really the King of the Jews (cf. Isa. 50:6; 52:14-53:6).

19:4-5 Jesus received the abuse that John just described inside the Praetorium. Now Pilate brought Him out so the Jews could see their King in His humiliation. First, he announced that he had found Jesus not guilty.

Undoubtedly guffaws of laughter mingled with gasps of horror as the Jews beheld the man who had done them nothing but good. Pilate called the Jewish leaders to behold the man (Lat. Ecce homo) whom they feared so much but who was now a beaten and pathetic figure. The governor meant, Look at this poor fellow whom you regard as a rival king! John called his readers to behold Him whom God had predicted would die voluntarily as a sacrifice for humankind's sins as the Lamb of God.

19:6 If Pilate had thought that the sight of Jesus bruised and bleeding would satisfy Israel's rulers, he was wrong. The sight of His blood stirred their appetites for even greater revenge. They cried out repeatedly for the ultimate punishment, crucifixion.

"Well-meaning preachers have often said that the crowd that on Palm Sunday shouted Hosannah!' turned right around and shouted Crucify Him!' on Good Friday. However, it was two different crowds. The Palm Sunday crowd came primarily from Galilee where Jesus was very popular. The crowd at Pilate's hall was from Judea and Jerusalem where the religious leaders where very much in control."⁵⁶⁵

Pilate's reply reflected his disgust with the Jewish leaders. It was really an expression of frustration with them. They had brought Jesus to him for a decision, he had given it, and now they refused to accept it. Pilate knew that the Jews could not crucify Jesus without his authorization.

19:7 The Jewish leaders' objections to Jesus were both political and religious. Until now, they had been stressing the political implications of Jesus' claims to Pilate. Sensing that they were not going to receive the desired sentence against Jesus with this approach, they shifted their emphasis to the religious claims that Jesus had made.

Jesus had claimed to be the Son of God, they admitted, which constituted blasphemy under normal circumstances. The penalty for blasphemy under the Mosaic Law was death (Lev. 24:16). This charge of blaspheming had been the major issue in Jesus' religious trial (cf. Matt. 26:59-66; Mark 14:55-64). John noted a growing conviction among the Jews that Jesus was blaspheming (cf. 5:18; 8:58-59; 10:33, 36). Their rejection of Jesus was an intelligent and deliberate denial of the evidence that He was deity, not just a political Messiah.

19:8 John did not say specifically that Pilate was fearful before this verse. It seems obvious, however, that the predicament in which he found himself would have given him reason to fear. He had compromised his position as Rome's representative by considering freeing a convicted insurrectionist named Barabbas. He had displeased the Jewish rulers by failing to hand down a guilty verdict, and he had alienated many of the Jewish people by abusing and ridiculing one of their popular heroes.

The Romans viewed certain people as demigods. They believed that their gods were super-humans. Pilate evidently understood Jesus' claim to being God's Son as a claim to being one of these creatures who wielded supernatural powers. If He had heard much about Jesus, He would have heard that Jesus had powers that the Greeks and Romans attributed to these divine beings. Consequently he may have begun now to fear that Jesus would take some type of revenge on him for the unjust treatment that Pilate had given Him (cf. Matt. 27:19). Jesus' uncommon poise probably unnerved Pilate further.

"In pagan mythology the Olympian deities frequently consorted with men and women, and their semi-divine offspring, such as Hercules, had appeared on the earth and performed miraculous deeds. Hardened as he was, Pilate feared lest he should offend one of these visitors. . . . If Jesus really was a supernatural being, Pilate did not wish to be responsible for mistreating him. Divine judgment would certainly be the inevitable consequence."⁵⁶⁶

19:9 This explains why Pilate asked Jesus where He had come from. Jesus did not answer him. Jesus' silence undoubtedly increased Pilate's fear. Jesus had earlier refused to answer questions from Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod (Matt. 26:63; 27:14; Mark 14:61; 15:5; Luke 23:9; cf. Isa. 53:7). He probably did not respond here because Pilate had already showed that he had no real interest in the truth. He only wanted to do what was personally expedient.

Moreover the answer to this question in Jesus' case was quite complex. Pilate had shown little patience with Jesus' explanation about His otherworldly kingdom. He would hardly have been more receptive to what Jesus might say about His otherworldly origin. The decision Pilate faced was clear-cut. Should he release this innocent man or not? The question of Jesus' origin was irrelevant.

19:10 Pilate did not appreciate Jesus' silence and the superior attitude that it implied. Consequently Pilate threatened Him by reminding Him of his power (Gr. exousia) to take or spare Jesus' life.

19:11 Jesus reminded the bullying governor that there was a higher authority than his. Pilate only had authority because God had given it to him (cf. Rom. 13:1). Apparently the authority over him that came to Pilate's mind was Caesar. He immediately sought to set this just man free and thereby avoid trouble with the Emperor over a breach of justice (v. 12).

"Typical of biblical compatibilism, even the worst evil cannot escape the outer boundaries of God's sovereignty--yet God's sovereignty never mitigates the responsibility and guilt of moral agents who operate under divine sovereignty, while their voluntary decisions and their evil rebellion never render God utterly contingent (e.g. Gn. 50:19-20; Is. 5:10ff.; Acts 4:27-28)"⁵⁶⁷

Who did Jesus have in mind when He spoke of the one who had handed Him over to Pilate? Some interpreters believe that Jesus meant Caiaphas.⁵⁶⁸ This seems most probable since it was Caiaphas who had sent Jesus bound to Pilate (18:28). Another possibility is Judas Iscariot (cf. 6:71; 13:21; 18:2). However, Judas did not hand Jesus over directly to Pilate but to the Jewish authorities. Obviously Jesus did not mean that God was responsible since He viewed the act of handing Him over as a culpable sin. Satan might be in view, but Jesus was apparently speaking of another human being. The Jewish rulers do not qualify because Jesus spoke of one other person delivering Him to Pilate.

Both Pilate and Caiaphas were guilty because they treated Jesus as they did. However, Caiaphas was guilty of a worse sin since Caiaphas had received greater power from God than Pilate had. God had given Caiaphas the authority to lead God's people as Israel's high priest. Pilate had only received power (Gr. exousia) to govern politically. Specifically Jesus seems to have been referring to Pilate's power to judge Him. Thus the reason for the greater sin of Caiaphas was his abuse of the greater privilege and power that God had given him.

19:12 Jesus' reminder of the authority over Pilate moved the governor to press for Jesus' release. However the Jewish leaders reminded Pilate that anyone who set someone who claimed to be a king free would not receive Tiberius Caesar's approval. They placed Pilate on the horns of a dilemma. It seemed that whatever decision he made he could get into trouble with Caesar. The solution to Pilate's problem, of course, was to do what was right, but Pilate was too much a man of the world to settle for that. He wanted to assure his own future with his boss. He cared less about his relationship with God.

The title "friend of Caesar" (Lat. amicus Caesaris) later became an official designation of an intimate friend of the emperor. At the time of Jesus' trial, it was probably at least a semi-technical term that denoted the same thing. Pilate had been the protégé of Aelius Sejanus, a highly influential prefect in Rome. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote, "The closer a man is with Sejanus, the stronger his claim to the emperor's friendship."⁵⁶⁹ Thus it is possible that the Jewish leaders were implying that if word of Jesus' release reached Tiberius, Pilate would lose his privileged relationship with the emperor. Bad reports about Pilate had already arrived in Rome, and another one might end his career and possibly his life.⁵⁷⁰

The Jewish leaders presented themselves as loyal subjects of Caesar, which was far from the truth. However ironically they were slaves of Rome and of sin (cf. 8:33-34). They appeared to be a greater threat to Pilate and to Rome than Jesus was.

19:13 It was evidently the "friend of Caesar" threat that moved Pilate to decide to execute Jesus. Again self-interest rather than commitment to justice determined his decision (cf. v. 1). He brought Jesus out where the Jews could see Him again and took his seat for Jesus' formal sentencing.

The judgment seat (Gr. bema, cf. 2 Cor. 5:10) was the place where a powerful ruler pronounced his official verdicts in Roman culture.

Pilate had his chair of judgment placed on a piece of courtyard called "the pavement" (Gr. lithostrotos). Archaeologists have unearthed what many of them believe was this site in the area of the Antonia Fortress. Some of the pavement stones in this approximately 3,000 square foot area have markings on them that indicate that soldiers played games there.⁵⁷¹ John gave the Aramaic (popular Hebrew) name of "the pavement" as gabbatha meaning "height" or probably "open space." He may have done so because it may have been a site in Jerusalem that was well-known to his Gentile readers by its Aramaic name when he wrote.

The irony of the scene again stands out. Here was a corrupt Roman official sitting in judgment on the Person into whose hands God the Father had committed all judgment (cf. 5:22).

19:14 John has appeared to many readers of his Gospel to be contradicting the Synoptics and his own account of Jesus' observance of the Passover meal with His disciples (cf. 13:1, 27). However the phrase "the day of preparation" normally described the day before the Sabbath.⁵⁷² The day in view then would be Friday. Likewise "the Passover" can refer to the whole eight-day feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread as well as the Passover day (cf. 18:28; Luke 22:1).⁵⁷³ The day of preparation for the Passover, therefore, evidently refers to the Friday of the eight-day feast. This harmonizes with the other chronological references to the passion week.

Why did John make this chronological reference here? Apparently he did so to encourage the reader to connect Jesus with the Passover lamb. Secondarily, this reference helps to explain why the Jews wanted the body of Jesus removed from the cross prematurely (vv. 31-37). It was the day before the Sabbath, and a special Sabbath at that, since it fell during Passover week.⁵⁷⁴

Mark wrote that the soldiers placed Jesus on the cross "about the third hour" (i.e., 9:00 a.m., Mark 15:25). Here John wrote that Pilate sentenced Jesus about "the sixth hour." Obviously Jesus' sentencing preceded His crucifixion. What is the solution to this apparent contradiction?

One explanation is that John used the Roman method of reckoning time whereas Mark and the other Synoptic writers used the Jewish method.⁵⁷⁵ In the Roman method, the sixth hour would be 6:00 a.m. The problem with this view is that apparently this Roman system of reckoning time was not common. The only documentary evidence that the Romans used it appears in a few legal documents.⁵⁷⁶ Nevertheless this seems to be the best explanation. Another explanation is that a scribe miscopied the Greek numerals and inadvertently substituted "six" for "three."⁵⁷⁷ However there is no manuscript evidence to support this theory. A third view is that both evangelists intended only approximate time references and did not expect their readers to be too fussy about the differences.⁵⁷⁸ Nevertheless time references as well as other factual statements are usually capable of harmonization in the Bible. A high view of inspiration has led most conservative interpreters to conclude that Mark and John meant just what they said. A fourth view is that the Synoptic writers used a Galilean method of reckoning time that began the day with sunrise while John used a Judean method that began it with sunset.⁵⁷⁹ However according to this scheme John's sixth hour would have been about midnight.

Before passing sentence on Jesus, Pilate presented Him to the Jews as though this was a mock coronation ceremony. He knew that the Jews did not acknowledge Caesar as their king even though they had just professed to do so (v. 12). His announcement was therefore an expression of contempt for both Jesus and the Jews. Ironically Jesus was their King. Pilate spoke more truly than he knew.

19:15 The Jewish mob led by their leaders shouted their rejection of their King. They went farther than that and called for His crucifixion. They also hypocritically professed their allegiance to Caesar as their only king (Gr. basilea). This was going way beyond merely rejecting Jesus. They were now repudiating Israel's messianic hope, including the messianic kingdom, and rejecting Yahweh's sovereignty over their nation (cf. Judg. 8:23; 1 Sam. 8:7). The chief priests probably went this far to encourage Pilate to grant their request and to crucify Jesus (cf. Matt. 27:25).

The Jewish hierarchy had accused Jesus of blaspheming, but now these men were guilty of blasphemy themselves (cf. 1:11). Such firm rejection helps us understand why God turned from Israel temporarily to continue His dealings with humankind primarily through the church (cf. Rom. 9-11).

"On this occasion they spoke in terms of cynical expediency. But they expressed the real truth. Their lives showed that they gave no homage to God."⁵⁸⁰

19:16 Pilate's action constituted his sentence against Jesus. Evidently John meant that Pilate handed Jesus over to the Roman soldiers to satisfy the demands of the Jews. He omitted any reference to the severe flogging (the verberatio) that the Roman soldiers then gave Jesus as preliminary punishment before His crucifixion (cf. Matt. 27:27-30; Mark 15:15-19).

"He was slapped in the face before Annas (John 18:22), and spat on and beaten before Caiaphas and the council (Matt. 26:67). Pilate scourged Him and the soldiers smote Him (John 19:1-3); and before they led Him to Calvary, the soldiers mocked Him and beat Him with a rod (Mark 15:19). How much He suffered of Us!"⁵⁸¹

The NASB and NIV translators divided the material in verses 16 and 17 differently, but the content is the same.

In his account of Jesus' civil trial, John stressed the divine kingship of Jesus and the Jews' rejection of Him. The Gentiles also rejected Him in the person of their leader, Pilate.

"From the human standpoint, the trial of Jesus was the greatest crime and tragedy in history. From the divine viewpoint, it was the fulfillment of prophecy and the accomplishment of the will of God. The fact that God had planned all of this did not absolve the participants of their responsibility. In fact, at Pentecost, Peter put both ideas together in one statement! (Acts 2:23)"⁵⁸²

College: Joh 19:1-42

JOHN 19

The Flogging of Jesus and Delivering Over of Him to the Jews by Pilate (19:1-16)

¹ Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. ² The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe ³ and went up to him again and again, saying, " Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.

⁴ Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, " Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him." ⁵ When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, " Here is the man!"

⁶ As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, " Crucify! Crucify!"

But Pilate answered, " You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him."

⁷ The Jews insisted, " We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."

⁸ When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, ⁹ and he went back inside the palace. " Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. ¹⁰" Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. " Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"

¹¹ Jesus answered, " You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."

¹² From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, " If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."

¹³ When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). ¹⁴ It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.

" Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.

¹⁵ But they shouted, " Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"

" Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked.

" We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.

¹⁶ Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.

Although there is nothing like a formal trial in this section (although Pilate does occupy the " judge's seat" in 19:13), it continues with some of the same dynamics of the last chapter. The reader knows that Jesus' death is coming, but there is a delay. John pictures the cowardly but stubborn Pilate pitted against the fanatically driven Jewish leaders, with the quiet but defiant Jesus caught in the middle. The underlying acrimonious relationship between Pilate and the Jewish leaders is near the breaking point. John adds to the intensity and drama by using sharp, choppy dialog to move the story along, a stark contrast to the extended monologues of the Farewell Discourses. From a legal standpoint, John's account emphasizes the innocence of Jesus of any sort of crime (see 18:23,38; 19:4,6,12).

19:1-3. Rather than give in to the demands of the Jewish leaders, Pilate continues to seek some type of compromise that is short of executing Jesus. Since the Barabbas ploy failed, Pilate now has him flogged . John gives no explanation for the flogging, and we are left to assume that it is a brutal expression of Pilate's frustration. The actions of the soldiers are to make Jesus a mocking parody of a king, probably intended to insult the Jews as much as to torment Jesus. It is not stated that Pilate has suggested this jeering farce, but he does use it to insult the Jews further (19:5,14).

Flogging (KJV, " scourged" ) was a regular preparation for Roman crucifixion, but could be a punishment by itself. It was practiced by the Jews of the first century as a part of extreme synagogue discipline (see Matt 10:17; 23:34). Flogging would be done by stripping the victim naked, and then tying him to a post, backside out. The flogger used a short whip with many thongs, called a " flagrum ." These thongs were knotted with sharp pieces of bone or iron. The whipper or " lictor" stood at the side of the victim and struck him with sweeping horizontal strokes. This was done from each side, sometimes by two different lictors. Blows were struck on the back, the buttocks, and legs; the thongs wrapping around to abuse the front of the body also. The flagrum would cut through the skin and well into the deeper muscles, leaving " quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh." While Jewish law limited flogging to 40 strokes (Deut 25:3), there is no reason the Roman soldiers would feel bound by this limit, so the number of blows to Jesus is unknown. The horrible severity of flogging was such that Peter could later comment of Jesus that by his " stripes" (KJV) we are healed (1 Pet 2:24). That Jesus is able to survive this torture and continue to converse intelligibly with Pilate is a testimony to a strong constitution and iron willpower.

The Roman soldiers charged with the flogging go far beyond the minimum duty. They also weave a small wreath out of thorny vines or branches and jam it on his head as a cruel and mocking crown . Exactly which plant these thorns come from is unspecified. The Greek term for thorns used here is a[kanqa ( akantha ), which may be related to the plant name acacia . There are several varieties of acacia shrubs native to Israel, some with 1-2 long thorns, but this Greek word is not specific enough to be sure that John has the acacia plant in mind. It should be noted, however, that it is somewhat unlikely that there were any wild thorn bushes within the Praetorium compound. This means that one of the Roman soldiers hatched the idea of a barbarous crown, and sent a servant or underling out to find some thorn branches. Therefore, we may conclude that the flogging torture of Jesus was done in a leisurely manner rather than quickly.

The sadistic crown of thorns is accompanied by a purple robe , another way of lampooning the Jews and their " king." John does not tell us the source of the robe, although Luke seems to say that it came from Herod Antipas (Luke 23:11). The tormenters even act out false obeisance to Jesus, chanting, " Hail, king of the Jews." The final insult of the soldiers is to beat the defenseless Jesus with slaps or punches to the face (about the only part of his body that did not have lacerations). Such slaps were a sign of utter contempt.

19:4-5. Now Pilate displays Jesus to the mob, but a shattered Jesus dressed as a bogus king. He announces Jesus with the fateful words, " Here is the man" (Latin: " Ecce homo" ). It is a striking picture of the frail humanity of Jesus, dressed like a clown, beaten badly, and bleeding profusely. Pilate's words have the force of " here is your man, and see, I can do anything I like with him."

It is difficult to tell if Pilate is trying to appease the Jews or infuriate them. He appears to have a desire to occupy the high moral ground of an advocate for Jesus' innocence, but the sick game he is playing with Jesus as the game piece seems calculated to enrage the Jewish leaders even more. To suggest that this beaten, crushed man is their king is a jolting reminder of their national impotence in the face of Roman might.

19:6. Now, for the first time, the method of execution is shouted: Roman crucifixion (for comments on crucifixion see below, 19:17-18). Even though Jesus may have been gone from sight for an hour or more, the chief priests (Annas and Caiaphas, perhaps leading Sadducees) and their officials (the temple police) are still there. Pilate persists in toying with them. He flaunts the innocence of Jesus again, and challenges them, " Go crucify him yourselves." Even this go-ahead-and-do-it approval is an obvious taunt, for they have already admitted their lack of power to execute, and the Jewish way of execution was not crucifixion anyway.

19:7. Pilate's theatrics have not dampened the determination of the Jewish leaders in the slightest. Now a new charge is verbalized. Jesus must die, not because he has claimed to be a political king (and therefore a threat to Rome), but because he has claimed to be the Son of God . Pilate has forced the true motive from the Jewish leaders. Yes, it is true that Jesus is not a genuine menace to the government, but he has violated an important religious taboo, and for that he must die. The irony for the reader is very thick at this point. Jesus is dying for his claim to be the Son of God, and proving that claim is the central reason for the existence of the book of John (1:34,49; 11:27; cf. 20:31).

The real complaint of the Jewish leaders, then, is that Jesus has committed blasphemy. He has encroached upon the sacred territory of God in a way that cannot be permitted. The probable " law" they are referring to is Leviticus 24:16. The high priests are actually justified in their pursuit except for one thing: they have never fairly considered that this charge might be true, that Jesus is the Son of God . As the author has commented earlier, this is not entirely a matter of logical decision. They have the hard heart, and this obduracy will not allow them to believe. Their hard, unbelieving hearts are being used by God to cause the death of Jesus and therefore enact the plan for saving the world (12:37-41).

19:8-10. The religious note has been sounded and now the superstitious Pilate retreats again, this time in fear. The Romans had a grudging respect for the religion of the Jews, partly because of its great antiquity. Pilate now realizes that he may have gotten himself into something he had not fully understood. If, as I have argued in the discussion of chapter 18, Pilate had collaborated with the Jewish leaders in the arrest of Jesus, it was as a political expediency, not a religious matter.

In the privacy of an inner room of the Praetorium, Pilate asks Jesus a surprisingly perceptive question, " Where do you come from?" The reader should be able to quickly supply an answer to this question, for it is a theological key to understanding Jesus and his purpose. The believer knows that Jesus " came from God" (16:27) and is " going back" to God (16:28). A sign of the faith of the disciples was their recognition that Jesus " came from God" (16:30). But this is not the time or place for such information. For Jesus the hour of his death has come, and he makes no such claims to Pilate. Therefore, the fearful yet exasperated Pilate resorts to threats, and reminds Jesus, " I have the power either to free you or to crucify you."

19:11. Pilate's arrogant assertion of authority does get a response from Jesus. These are Jesus' last recorded words in the Fourth Gospel until he is hanging from the cross. Despite his weakened condition, he gives Pilate a small reminder of how authority works. All human authority is derivative in nature, not absolute. Pilate rules in Palestine, but is accountable to higher Roman authorities. He would have been answerable to the Roman legate in Antioch, and to the Emperor and the Senate in Rome. Ultimately, however, human authority comes from above , i.e., from God (cf. 3:31).

Jesus' words here have the sense of exonerating Pilate to some degree. Jesus is saying, " You are a pawn in this, not a player." The one with true culpability is the one who handed [Jesus] over to Pilate. It is difficult to know if this is a generalization for the violent mob outside, or if Jesus has an individual in mind. If an individual, a choice must be made between the traitor, Judas, and the one who actually brings Jesus to Pilate, Caiaphas. In this context it seems likely that Jesus has the high priestly group in mind. Pilate acts from arrogance and expediency, the Jewish leaders act from unbelief and jealousy. Therefore, they are guilty of a greater sin . Literally this reads, " they have greater sin," but in this context sin = guilt.

19:12. Pilate's latest conversation with Jesus terrifies him to the point that he continues to seek a way to have Jesus released, but every attempt is shouted down. Talk of Jesus as a blasphemer has now disappeared, and the political charges have reappeared. The latest outcry has the taint of blackmail, that the Jewish leaders might have reason to question Pilate's loyalty to the Roman State. To allow a potential revolutionary to escape would make Pilate no friend of Caesar . These are potentially career-ruining accusations for Pilate, for the reigning Caesar, Tiberius, was an old military general with no tolerance for disloyalty.

19:13-15. Preliminaries are over, and there is no easy way out for Pilate. Now he is forced to convene court and assume his role as the high judge of Palestine. Pilate does this by sitting in the judge's seat . This is the bh'ma (bçma ), the traditional elevated bench of judgment used for public pronouncements in the Roman system. When Pilate occupies the bçma, his verdicts have binding legal force. The author includes the detail that this is at a place called the Stone Pavement , probably a well-known feature of ancient Jerusalem. John also records the Aramaic name for this place, Gabbatha , although the meaning of this term is disputed. This is likely a semipublic area of the Praetorium precinct, somewhat akin to the steps of a state capitol building or the courtyard of a city hall.

When things are in place for the official judgment, Pilate begins by giving the Jewish leaders one last chance to relent. " Here is your king!" he sneers, implying, " Does this look like a dangerous rebel leader to you?" But the shouts continue, demanding that Jesus be condemned and crucified. Pilate takes a final shot at his adversaries by sarcastically asking, " Shall I crucify your king?" This is a no-win question for the Jewish leaders. To answer " Yes" makes them acknowledge Jesus as some type of king, which they have steadfastly refused to do. To answer " No" allows Pilate to release Jesus, and forces them to back down from their demand for his death. So rather than answer " Yes" or " No," the high priests themselves give a remarkable response, " We have no king but Caesar." For a first century Jew this statement is utterly outrageous, so outrageous that some have seen it as a polemical fabrication of the author. It would be like a patriotic American declaring, " Yes, I think we ought to let the United Nations control our tax money and our armed forces." Yet the splendid outrageousness of the statement is a strong argument in favor of its authenticity.

The Jewish population was among the most troublesome of all the peoples of the Roman Empire, mainly because of its general refusal to submit fully to Roman rule. These anti-Roman and nationalistic attitudes were to boil over twice in the next 100 years, resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, and the utter annihilation of Palestinian Judaism after the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132-135. To say, " We have no king but Caesar" was to relinquish any future hope of an independent Jewish state, and to deny a theological foundation of the Jewish people: the sovereign Kingship of God himself. The people of Israel saw the LORD their God as the ultimate, eternal " King" (Ps 10:16; 98:6). He was the " King" over the gods of other nations (Ps 95:3), and the " King" over all the earth (Ps 47:7), even the " Great King" (Mal 1:14). Just as one could describe the LORD as " my God," it was also possible to remember Him as " my King" (e.g., Ps 68:24). How bitter these words must have tasted on the lips of the high priests!

The author also gives a time-frame reference. It is about the sixth hour (about noon by our reckoning) on the day of Preparation of Passover Week . Exactly what John means by this day has been hotly disputed. A literal translation of this phrase is " it was the preparation of Passover." I believe it is Friday, the preparation day for the Sabbath of Passover week.

19:16. Pilate's bluster ends without a whimper. When the Caesar card is played for the second time, he can no longer oppose the Jewish leaders, so he gives the order for Jesus to be crucified . We are left with this impression of Pilate: a man who knows right from wrong, yet who allows his own self-interest to dictate his actions.

7. The Crucifixion of Jesus (19:17-30)

¹⁷ Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). ¹⁸ Here they crucified him, and with him two others - one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

¹⁹ Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁰ Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. ²¹ The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, " Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

²² Pilate answered, " What I have written, I have written."

²³ When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

²⁴" Let's not tear it," they said to one another. " Let's decide by lot who will get it."

This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said,

" They divided my garments among them

and cast lots for my clothing." ^a

So this is what the soldiers did.

²⁵ Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, " Dear woman, here is your son," ²⁷ and to the disciple, " Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

²⁸ Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, " I am thirsty." ²⁹ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. ³⁰ When he had received the drink, Jesus said, " It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

^a 24 Psalm 22:18

When it comes to the crucifixion, there are many points of contact between John's account and that of the Synoptic Gospels, but John has some significant additions. This unique material includes the controversy over the " title" attached to Jesus' cross, a much fuller explanation of the soldiers' casting lots for Jesus' tunic, the touching story of Jesus' entrusting the care of his mother to the " beloved disciple," and the details about Jesus' corpse not having the legs broken, but being pierced in the side.

19:17-18. Although ancient crucifixion practices varied from place to place, the usual Roman method of this time required the victim to carry his cross out to the site of execution, as recorded by John. This probably refers to the heavy cross-beam or patibulum , weighing as much as 100-125 pounds. The upright post (called the stipes ) to which the patibulum would attach was permanently planted at the site of execution. All four Gospel accounts record the name of this place as the Skull (kranivon, kranion ), or Golgotha (the Hebrew/Aramaic word meaning " skull" ). The Latin version of this place name is Calvariae , from which we get the traditional name, " Calvary." The exact location of Golgotha is uncertain today, but the best evidence points to the traditional hill now covered by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem. This church building dates back to the fifth century, and is built on a location that was outside the city walls in Jesus' time (see 19:20, cf. Heb 13:12).

Here Jesus is crucified , meaning he is affixed to the patibulum and it is lifted in place to the stipes . John does not mention the method of fastening here (none of the Gospels do). The tradition that Jesus was nailed to the cross is dependent upon words of Thomas in 20:25 and early Christian tradition (cf. Luke 24:40). For example, the second or third century " Gospel of Peter" describes the removal of Jesus from the cross, including this statement, " And then they pulled the nails from the Lord's hands and set him on the ground." John mentions the two other men being crucified without comment, except to say that they flanked Jesus, who occupies the middle stipes .

19:19-22. John's version of the " titulus" or sign (Greek: tivtlo", titlos ) attached to the cross includes a continuation of the wrangling between Pilate and the Jewish leaders. The high priests object to the wording, which is a continuation of Pilate's insulting behavior toward them. This time, however, Pilate will not be bullied, and the sign remains unchanged: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS . The titulus was a legal instrument. Mark describes it as a " written notice of the charge against him" (Mark 15:26). This confirms that Jesus was not crucified for blasphemy, but for sedition, even though Pilate found the charge ludicrous. John notes that the notice is trilingual, in Aramaic (the spoken language of Jewish Palestine), in Latin (the official language of the Roman Empire), and Greek (the common language of trade and literature).

19:23-24. By custom the execution detail was entitled to any clothes or possessions left by the crucified victims. John's mention of four shares indicates there were four soldiers. They are able to divide Jesus' outer garments evenly, but pause before tearing his undergarment or " tunic" into four pieces. This is a valuable piece of merchandise, woven in one piece from top to bottom . To tear it would result in little more than rags, so they elect to cast lots for it. This would have been done by tossing dice or something like dice.

John's purpose in adding this detail is not to conform to an age-old stereotype of soldiers, though. He sees it as a fulfillment of prophecy, specifically Psalm 22:18. For John the fulfillment of prophecy is a confirmation of the divine plan of God at work. Even a small detail like this is important, for it shows the contempt with which Jesus was treated. To have one's clothes divided by dice tosses shows that one is in dire straits, a helpless victim of the strong and brutal. This contempt for God's anointed is not accidental, but an element of the plan of God for human redemption. Jesus does not die a " noble death" by drinking poison, nor a " glorious death" by falling in the heat of battle. He dies a degrading death without honor or mercy.

19:25-27. In contrast to the boisterous soldiers, John portrays another group standing nearby. This groups consists of at least five individuals: Mary the mother of Jesus (who has not appeared as a character in the narrative since chapter 2), Mary's unnamed sister (Jesus' aunt), Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and the beloved disciple (probably John himself). Mary Magdalene appears for the first time in John as if the readers already know who she is, and she will play a crucial role in the resurrection narrative of the next chapter.

In a terribly poignant and touching scene, Jesus performs the final duties of the oldest son while hanging from the cross. He entrusts the beloved disciple (John) with the care of his mother. This man was suffering the excruciating result of his obedient submission to God, and " bearing the sins of the world" within his soul. Yet he does not cease to be a son who loves and cares for his mother to the best of his ability. This may have been intended as a temporary measure, until John could deliver Mary to Jesus' younger brothers, but tradition has seen this as the beginning of a long-standing relationship between John and Mary. John says it this way, from that time on, this disciple took her into his house .

19:28-30. This section pictures Jesus in his last minutes of physical life. John's key words here are the Greek verb televw (teleô), and its near synonym, the cognate verb teleivow (teleioô). Both of these verbs have the sense of " to complete" or " to finish." The idea of future completion was mentioned by Jesus very early in the book. In 4:34 he informed his disciples that his " food" was " to do the will of him who sent me and to finish [teleioô] the work." In the high priestly prayer Jesus verbalized that he glorifies the Father by " completing [teleioô] the work" given to him (17:4). Now the author/narrator tells the reader that Jesus understands all of this work to be completed or " finished" (teleô). This means that the Father's plan for human salvation has run its course, and its strategy has been successful. The perfect sacrifice has been offered to atone for human sins. Only one relatively minor item remains, a last Scripture to be fulfilled (teleioô) before his death. When this is done, Jesus announces to all the world, " It is finished" ( tetelestai , from teleô), meaning " it is completed," or " it is brought to an end." The work he had been assigned in God's redemptive plan has been finished. His work being done, Jesus drops his head and gives up his spirit. To " give up one's spirit" or " breathe one's last breath" (cf. Luke 23:46) reflects the ancient way of saying, " he died." Ancients believed that the human spirit left the body with the last exhalation of breath.

The final Scripture fulfillment before death involves Jesus' quenching his thirst with a bit of wine vinegar . Although John does not specify the exact Old Testament passage he has in mind, we are probably to understand Psalm 69:21, " They . . . gave me vinegar for my thirst." Why this choice of beverage (probably better translated " vinegary wine" )? Was this a last act of cruelty by the notoriously heartless soldiers? This is possible, but more likely the jar of vinegary wine was handy to quench the thirst of the soldiers on guard, and they are simply acting out of duty or even compassion or respect. This was not wine drugged with myrrh offered to Jesus before the crucifixion to dull his pain (Mark 15:23). Jesus' call for something to drink was a normal response to what was an understandably great thirst.

8. Piercing Jesus' Side (19:31-37)

³¹ Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. ³² The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. ³³ But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴ Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. ³⁵ The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. ³⁶ These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: " Not one of his bones will be broken," ^{a 37} and, as another scripture says, " They will look on the one they have pierced." ^b

^a 36 Exodus 12:46; Num. 9:12; Psalm 34:20 ^b 37 Zech. 12:10

19:31-33. John's language again identifies this day as the day of Preparation for the Sabbath, i.e., Friday. For religious reasons the Jewish leaders petition Pilate to have the crucifixion victims' bodies removed before this holy day. This means that the process of death by crucifixion needed to be accelerated, for a person could often hang on the cross for several days before dying. Pilate agrees, probably out of a willingness to get the distasteful episode behind him as quickly as possible. The method of quickening death is to break the legs of those on the crosses, probably using heavy clubs. This would have been terribly painful, and the trauma it brought to the body would have quickly exhausted any remaining strength or will to live. In Jesus' case, however, there is no need to break legs because he is already dead. The soldiers have no interest in needless desecration of a corpse.

The relatively quick death of Jesus (he may have been on the cross as little as 3 hours) is somewhat surprising to the soldiers, but should not be so to us. Jesus has already suffered enormous physical abuse in the flogging, and the terrible spiritual agony of betrayal and the bearing of human sins. As Paul writes, " God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21).

19:34. Before leaving Jesus' body, however, the soldiers perform a simple test to confirm death. They slip a spear point through his ribs and into his inner chest cavity. The resulting flow of blood and water is sufficient evidence for them to verify that he is dead. The exact physical explanation for the water and blood has been debated over the centuries. If the heart is pierced, the blood is readily understood, but where does " water" come from? One should keep in mind that word order in the Greek language has a different value than it does in English. We tend to think sequentially, they thought more often in degrees of importance. Therefore, for John to write " blood and water" does not mean " blood first, then water." It is more likely that he means " lots of blood and some water." We may assume, then, the spear first pierces the pericardial sac around the heart, which releases a clear, water-like fluid. Then the spear pierces the heart itself, with a flow of red blood.

19:35-37. There are two reasons that the author relates the gory details of the punctured corpse. First, he uses it to give the account eyewitness credibility. John is challenging the reader to reject any explanation of Jesus' resurrection that would say that Jesus did not really die. Some gnostic teachers of the late first century may already have been denying Jesus' death because of their denial of his true humanity. For some of these false teachers, Jesus was a divine figure who only " seemed" to be human in order to act out the drama of salvation. Such an immortal person was not capable of dying, so the death was an illusion. Elsewhere John warns against those who do not " acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" (1 John 4:2). The doctrine of Christ's full humanity must not be compromised. The author of Hebrews understood the importance of this for his own theological presentation. If Christ had not been human, he could not have died, and it is his death that destroys " him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free[s] those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:14-15). Without the death of Jesus there is no atonement. Without a human Jesus there is no death. John's eyewitness testimony leaves no room for doubt about the actual death of Jesus at the hands of professional Roman executioners.

A second reason for including the side-piercing incident is that it fulfills Scripture. John is able to see two sorts of Scripture fulfillment in this. The avoidance of broken legs allows Jesus to serve as a perfect sacrificial victim. The Passover lamb was to have no broken bones (Exod 12:46; Num 9:12). Furthermore, Scripture is also fulfilled in the piercing itself. John finds this language applied to the Davidic Messiah in Zechariah 12:10, and applies it to Jesus. This " piercing" is an eternal reminder of the rejection of Jesus by his own people, and reappears as a factor in the description of the eschatological Jesus of the Second Coming (Revelation 1:7). This future reckoning is implied in John's choice of the phrase, " They will look on the one they have pierced" = " They will be accountable to the one they rejected."

9. Jesus' Burial (19:38-42)

³⁸ Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹ He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. ^{a 40} Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. ⁴¹ At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴² Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

^a 39 Greek a hundred litrai (about 34 kilograms)

John's account of the burial of Jesus is in basic harmony with that of the Synoptic Gospels, but includes a number of additional details.

19:38. Joseph of Arimathea is known to all four Gospel authors. In John he is presented as a secret disciple of Jesus and a man of considerable influence and wealth. His influence is shown in his access to Pilate for permission to take the body of Jesus. His wealth is shown by his ability to commandeer quickly a nearby tomb for the burial. What John means by portraying him as a " secret disciple" is less clear. Does this mean that Joseph participated in the activities of Jesus and his disciples when they were in Jerusalem, but clandestinely lest his association become known? Or does he mean something more like that Joseph was a " secret admirer" of Jesus, a " fan from afar" ? This would make him one who had heard Jesus teach publicly and agreed with him, but had never had direct contact. The second scenario is more likely, because Joseph is contrasted with Nicodemus who did set up a nighttime meeting with Jesus in order to have personal contact (John 3:1ff).

19:39-40. Joseph's partner in the retrieval and burial of Jesus' body is Nicodemus, who has already appeared twice in the narrative (3:1ff.; 7:50-51). Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin (7:50), as is Joseph (Mark 15:23), so we may be sure that the plot against Jesus was not unanimously endorsed by the leading Jews (see Luke 23:51). The spicy mixture they apply to the body is literally given as " 100 pounds," but this is referring to the Roman pound of 12 ounces. Therefore the NIV is correct in saying seventy-five pounds , assuming our modern 16-ounce pounds.

The Jews of this period did not practice any type of embalming or mummification of corpses. The usual method of burial would be to wash the body thoroughly (quite a task for the bloody Jesus), to rub it with oil, and to wrap it tightly with a linen shroud that would hold spices within its folds. The amount of spices used would have been very expensive, probably worth thousands of dollars. The ability of Nicodemus to produce such amounts on short notice speaks to both his resourcefulness and his wealth.

19:41-42. As mentioned above (18:1), John's Passion Narrative begins and ends in a garden. The ending garden is nearby Golgotha and contains a new tomb . John presents this as a matter of convenience, that the tomb was nearby , without giving any details as to why it was available. The Synoptic Gospels describe this as Joseph's own tomb, newly carved out of a hillside (see Matt 27:60). We should understand that this is nothing like a modern grave plot in a cemetery. This was intended to be a family tomb for the Joseph clan, and to be used for many generations. For Joseph to give it up to Jesus was an act of great extravagance and powerful respect.

The actions of Joseph and Nicodemus are extraordinary in several respects. First, they are making public their allegiance to Jesus, whereas before Joseph had maintained secrecy " because he feared the Jews" (v. 38). This is a bold and potentially dangerous move. After all, Jesus has just been killed. What is to stop the Jewish leaders from rounding up his disciples for execution next? Second, this is not the usual treatment for the corpse of a crucifixion victim. Part of the reason for crucifixion was to keep the corpse on public display for some time after death as a deterrent to the general public. Such corpses would be dishonored by general rotting and by the pecking of birds and the gnawing of wild animals. Joseph and Nicodemus refuse to allow this. They use what political power they have to secure the body of Jesus and to give it a decent and honorable burial. Third, and perhaps most extraordinary of all for these prominent Pharisees, their handling of a corpse would defile them and make them ceremonially unclean (Num 19:11). Thus, they were sacrificing their opportunity to participate in the coming Sabbath activities, and perhaps even celebrations of the following week for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

McGarvey: Joh 19:1-16

CXXXI.
THIRD STAGE OF THE ROMAN TRIAL. PILATE
RELUCTANTLY SENTENCES HIM TO CRUCIFIXION.
(Friday. Toward sunrise.)
^aMATT. XXVII. 15-30; ^bMARK XV. 6-19; ^cLUKE XXIII. 13-25; ^dJOHN XVIII. 39-XIX 16.

   ^a15 Now at the feast [the passover and unleavened bread] the governor was wont {bused to} release unto them athe multitude one prisoner, whom they would. {bwhom they asked of him.} [No one knows when or by whom this custom was introduced, but similar customs were not unknown elsewhere, both the Greeks and Romans being wont to bestow special honor upon certain occasions by releasing prisoners.]  ^a16 And they had then  ^b7 And there was aa notable prisoner, bone called Barabbas, lying bound with them that had made insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder. [710] [Josephus tells us that there had been an insurrection against Pilate's government about that time caused by his taking money from the temple treasury for the construction of an aqueduct. This may have been the affair here referred to, for in it many lost their lives.]  8 And the multitude went up and began to ask him to do as he was wont to do unto them. [It was still early in the morning, and the vast majority of the city of Jerusalem did not know what was transpiring at Pilate's palace. But they came thither in throngs, demanding their annual gift of a prisoner. Pilate welcomed the demand as a possible escape from his difficulties.]  ^c13 And Pilate called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people [He did not wish to seem to take advantage of our Lord's accusers by releasing him during their absence. Possibly he knew of the triumphal entry the Sunday previous, and thought that the popularity of Jesus would be such that his release would be overwhelmingly demanded, and so called the rulers that they might see that he had released Jesus in answer to popular clamor. If he had such expectations, they were misplaced],  ^b9 And  ^a17 When therefore they were gathered together, ^bPilate answered them, saying, {^c14 and said} unto them, ^bWill ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews? ^cYe brought unto me this man, as one that perverteth the people: and behold, I having examined him before you, found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:  15 no, nor yet Herod: for he sent him back unto us; and behold, nothing worthy of death hath been done by him.  ^d39 But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover:  ^c16 I will therefore chastise him, and release him. ^dWill ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? ^aWhom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?  18 For he knew {bperceived} athat for envy they bthe chief priests had delivered him up. [Though Jesus had been declared innocent on the joint finding of himself and Herod, [711] Pilate did not have the courage to deliberately release him. He sought to please the rulers by scourging him, and the multitude by delivering him to them as a popular favorite, and himself by an adroit escape from an unpleasant situation. But he pleased nobody.]  ^c18 But they cried out all together, saying, Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas: --  19 one who for a certain insurrection made in the city, and for murder, was cast into prison. [We see from Matthew's account that though the people had a right to name their prisoner, Pilate took upon himself the liberty of choosing which one of two it should be. By doing so he complicated matters for the Jewish rulers, asking them to choose between Jesus, who was held on an unfounded charge of insurrection, and Barabbas, who was notoriously an insurrectionist and a murderer and a robber as well. But the rulers were not to be caught in so flimsy a net. Without regard to consistency, they raised their voice in full chorus for the release of Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus.]  ^a19 And while he was sitting on the judgment-seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that righteous man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. [This message of Pilate's wife suggests that the name and face of Jesus were not unknown to Pilate's household. Pilate would be much influenced by such a message. The Romans generally were influenced by all presages, and Suetonius tells us that both Julius and Augustus Cæsar attached much importance to dreams.]  ^b11 But  ^a20 Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded {bstirred up} the multitude, {amultitudes} bthat he should rather release Barabbas unto them. athat they should ask for Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.  21 But the governor answered and said unto them, Which of the two will ye that I release unto you? And they said, Barabbas.  ^d40 They cried out therefore again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.  ^c20 And Pilate spake unto them again, desiring to release Jesus; [712]  ^b12 And Pilate again answered and said {asaith} unto them, What then shall I do unto Jesus who is called Christ? bhim whom ye call the King of the Jews?  ^c21 but {^b13 and} they cried out {cshouted} bagain, csaying, Crucify, crucify him. ^aThey all say, Let him be crucified.  ^b14 And Pilate said unto them, cthe third time, Why, what evil hath this man {ahe} done? ^cI have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him and release him. ^aBut they cried out exceedingly, saying, ^bCrucify him. ^aLet him be be crucified. [Finding the mob cruelly persistent, Pilate boldly declines to do its will and turns back into the Prætorium declaring his intention to release Jesus. But he retires with the demands of the multitude ringing in his ears.]  ^d1 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. [Carrying out the program which he proposed, Pilate had Jesus removed from the Prætorium to the place of scourging, and inflicted that punishment upon him. We learn from Josephus and others that the law required that those about to be crucified should first be scourged. But Pilate hoped that scourging would suffice. He believed that the more moderate would take pity upon Jesus when they viewed his scourged body, for scourging was so cruel a punishment that the condemned person often died under its infliction. The scourge was made of thongs loaded at the extremity with pieces of bone or metal. The condemned person was stripped and fastened to a low post, this bending the back so as to stretch the skin. Blood spurted at the first blow.]  2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple garment;  3 and they came unto him, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they struck him with their hands. [The soldiers had no special malice against Jesus, but the Roman military system made men hard of heart. The occasion gave to these foreign legionaries a much-enjoyed opportunity to show their contempt for the Jews by mocking Jesus as their King. It is not known which one of the many thorny plants of Palestine [713] was used to form the Lord's crown. See Act 22:24). If Pilate had found Jesus guilty, he would have condemned him at once. As it was, he sought to return Jesus to the Sanhedrin as having committed no crime of which the Roman law could take note.]  5 Jesus therefore came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold, the man! [It was Pilate's original proposition to scourge Jesus and let him go (Luk 23:16). Having already scourged him, he now hoped to effect his release. Presenting our Lord in this state of abject humiliation, he feels that he has removed him from every suspicion of royalty. He speaks of Jesus as no longer a king, but a mere man. Pilate's words, however, have a prophetic color, somewhat like those uttered by Caiaphas. All those of subsequent ages have looked and must continue to look to Jesus as the ideal of manhood. The "Ecce Homo" of Pilate is in some sense an echo of the words of the Father when he said, "This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him." In Jesus we behold the true man, the second Adam.]  6 When therefore the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him! [Thus Pilate's expectation came to naught, for not one of the Jewish rulers ever wavered in their demand for crucifixion.] Pilate saith unto them, Take him yourselves, and crucify him: for I find no [714] crime in him. [In this sentence, "ye" and "I" are both emphatic; for Pilate wishes to draw a contrast between himself and the Jewish rulers. His words are not a permission to crucify, but a bit of taunting irony, as if he said: "I the judge have found him innocent, but ye seem to lack the wit to see that the case is ended. If ye are so much superior to the judge that ye can ignore his decision, proceed without him; crucify him yourselves."]  7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. [Perceiving that Pilate was taunting them, and practically accusing them of attempting to put an innocent man to death, they defended themselves by revealing the fact that in addition to the charges that they had preferred against Jesus, they had found him clearly guilty and worthy of death on another charge; viz.: that of blasphemy (Lev 24:16). They had made no mention of this fact because Pilate was under no obligation to enforce their law; but they mentioned it now to justify their course. They probably felt sure that Jesus himself would convince Pilate of the truth of this latter accusation if Pilate questioned him.]  8 When Pilate therefore heard this saying, he was the more afraid [The words of Jesus at John xviii. 37 (see Joh 18:2, Joh 18:5 (the same word being translated both "betrayed" and "delivered"), but Judas did not deliver to Pilate, so Caiaphas as the representative of the Sanhedrin is here meant; and Pilate's sin is contrasted with that of the rulers. Both of them sinned in abusing their office (the power derived from above -- Psa 75:6, Psa 75:7, Isa 44:28, Rom 13:1); but Pilate's sin stopped here. He had no acquaintance with Jesus to give him the possibility of other powers -- those of love or hatred, worship or rejection. The members of the Sanhedrin had these powers which arose from a personal knowledge of Jesus, and they abused them by hating and rejecting him, thereby adding to their guilt. Pilate condemned the innocent when brought before him, but the Sanhedrin searched out and arrested the innocent that they might enjoy condemning him.]  12 Upon this Pilate sought to release him [As we have seen, Pilate had before this tried to win the consent of the rulers that Jesus be released, but that which John here indicates was probably an actual attempt to set Jesus free. He may have begun by unloosing the hands of Jesus, or some such demonstration]: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar's friend: every one that maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. [716] [Whatever Pilate's demonstration was it was immediately met by a counter one on the part of the rulers. They raise a cry which the politic Pilate can not ignore. Taking up the political accusation (which they had never abandoned), they give it a new turn by prompting Pilate to view it from Cæsar's standpoint. Knowing the unreasoning jealousy, suspicion and cruelty of the emperor, Pilate saw at once that these unscrupulous Jews could make out of the present occasion a charge against him which would cost him his position, if not his life.]  13 When Pilate therefore heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment-seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. [Pilate had already again and again declared Jesus innocent. He now mounts the judgment-seat that he may formally reverse himself and condemn him. The apostle as an eye-witness fixes by its two names the exact spot where this awful decision was rendered.]  14 Now it was the Preparation of the passover [see 1Sa 12:12), their faithful prophet, Samuel, warned them what the king of their choice would do, and what they should suffer under him. Thus Jesus also foretold what this Cæsar of their choice would do to them (Luk 19:41-44, Luk 23:27-31). They committed themselves to the [717] tender mercies of Rome, and one generation later Rome trod them in the wine-press of her wrath.]  ^c23 But they were urgent with loud voices, asking that he might be crucified. And their voices prevailed. [They overcame Pilate's weak resistance by their clamor.]  ^a24 So when Pilate saw that he prevailed nothing, but rather that a tumult was arising, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man; see ye to it.  25 And all the people answered and said, His blood be on us, and on our children. [Pilate's act was symbolic, intended to show that he regarded the crucifixion of Jesus as a murder, and therefore meant to wash his hands of the guilt thereof. The Jewish law made the act perfectly familiar to the Jews (Deu 21:1-9). Had the Jewish rulers not been frenzied by hatred, the sight of Pilate washing his hands would have checked them; but in their rage they take upon themselves and their children all the responsibility. At the siege of Jerusalem they answer in part for the blood of Christ, but God alone determines the extent of their responsibility, and he alone can say when their punishment shall end. But we know that it ends for all when they repentantly seek his forgiveness. The punishments of God are not vindictive, they are the awards of Justice meted out by a merciful hand.]  ^b15 And Pilate, wishing to content the multitude, cgave sentence that what they asked for should be done.  ^a26 Then released he unto them Barabbas; chim that for insurrection and murder had been cast into prison, whom they asked for; but Jesus he delivered up to their will.  ^d16 Then therefore ^bJesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified [Mark mentions the scourging to show that it preceded the crucifixion, but we see from John's account that the scourging took place somewhat earlier in the proceeding], bhe delivered him unto them to be crucified. [Pilate delivered Jesus to their punishment, but not into their hands; he was led forth and crucified by Pilate's soldiers, who first mocked him, as the next paragraph shows.]  ^b16 And [718]  ^a27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus, bled him away within {ainto} the court, which is the Praetorium; and they called together aand gathered unto him the whole band.  28 And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.  ^b17 And they clothe him with purple,  ^a29 And they platted {bplatting} a crown of thorns, [and] they put it on him; aupon his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they kneeled down before him, and mocked him,  ^b18 and they began to salute him, asaying, Hail, King of the Jews!  30 And they spat upon him, and took the reed  ^b19 And they smote his head {aand smote him on the head.} bwith a reed, and spat upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped him. [After the sentence of death the soldiers take Jesus back into the Prætorium, and renew the mockeries and indignities which had been interrupted that Pilate might exhibit Jesus to the people, as John shows us. Moreover, the whole band, or cohort, are now gathered, where at first but a few took part. It is likely that the mock robe and crown were removed when Jesus was brought before Pilate to be sentenced, for it is highly improbable that a Roman judge would pronounce the death sentence while the prisoner was clothed in such a manner.]

[FFG 710-719]

Lapide: Joh 19:1-42

CHAPTER 19

Ver. 1.— Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him. That is after he had said (Luk 23:22), "I will chastise Him and let Him go." The tradition is that He was first scourged with thick ropes, then with knotted ropes and iron scorpions, then with chains, and lastly with rods of thorns. But Ribera says that these traditions are of little account, as the inhabitants of the country have so often charged, and the old traditions were not kept up.

Ver. 2.— And they put on Him a purple robe.—See notes on S. Mat 27:30, also [Pseudo] Athanasius, de Cruce, who says that Christ bore in the purple robe the blood of men (because the devil had polluted the earth with murders), in the thorns their sins, in the reed the hand-writing with which the devil had enrolled us as his own; for all these Christ took away by His Passion. He adds that when Christ took the reed, the devil armed him with a weapon against himself, for the reed is said to be fatal to serpents, and that Christ took the reed to deliver us from the serpent's subtilty.

Ver. 7.— He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God. As being a blasphemer, sacrilegious, and opposed to God. S. Augustine says, "See here a greater charge. It seemed but a light thing that He had aimed at sovereign power: and yet He did not falsely claim anything; for He is the Only Begotten Son of God, and is King placed by Him on the hill of Sion, and He would now give proof of both, unless, the more powerful He was, the more patient did He choose to be."

Ver. 11.— Thou wouldest have no power against Me, unless it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater sin. The best explanation of this passage is that of Jansenius, Cajetan, and Ribera. Thou couldest have no power over Me, both because I am innocent, and because I could deliver Myself, if I so willed; But My Father willed that I should submit to thee, in order to the work of redemption, and accordingly permitted thee to give way to the Jews in this matter, and to exercise thy power over Me. But this thou wouldest not have done, unless they had accused Me. Their sin is therefore greater than thine.

Ver. 12.— And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release Him. He had sought to do so before. But he now more especially did so, after he had heard that He was the Son of God; fearing to incur the vengeance of God on condemning Him. The fear of Cæsar, however, prevailed over the fear of God. The Gentiles reckoned many sons of the gods, whom they worshipped as demigods. See S. Cyril in loc.

Ver. 13.— In a place that was called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew Gabbatha. That is a High Place, the seat of judgment, being raised on many steps. These steps were sent to Rome, and placed near the Church of S. John Lateran. They are much reverenced by the faithful.

Ver. 14.— It was the preparation of the Passover. That is of the Paschal Sabbath, the Sabbath which fell in the octave. On this day great preparations were made for the following Sabbath, on which no work could be done. This was the only Sabbath which had its preparation-day. The Greeks explain it as being the day before the offering of the Paschal Lamb. But according to the other Evangelists Christ was crucified on the day after the Passover, which S. John terms the day before the Paschal Sabbath.

About the sixth hour. That is, says the Arabic version, six hours after sunrise.  S. Mark says it was the third hour. Some consider that S. John should here be corrected by S. Mark. But all the MS. and versions read "the sixth hour."

2. S. Jerome (on Ps. 77.) thinks that S. Mark should be corrected by S. John. But here all the MS. of S. Mark agree in reading the third hour.

3. Euthymius (on Mark xv.) thinks that S. Mark mentions the third hour, because it was at that hour that the Jews demanded His death. But to demand His death, and actually to crucify Him, are very different things.

4. S. Augustine says that it was the sixth hour from the time that Jesus was preparing for death, i.e., the ninth of the previous night. But this is a somewhat "violent" mode of solving the difficulty ( see S. Aug. in loc. in Ps. lxiii. and de Consens. Evang. iii. 13); and he says himself—

5. That it was in the third hour in the Jewish language, but at the sixth hour in the Latin tongue, and in Pilate's sentence.

6. It was at the end of the third hour, and at the beginning of the sixth, the Roman and Jewish hours or watches being three of ours.

7. Ribera thinks it probable that at the third hour Pilate yielded to the clamour of the Jews, but that at the sixth hour the formal sentence was passed.  S. Mark indicates the preparation for crucifixion, S. John the completion and carrying out of the sentence.

Ver. 15.— We have no king but Cæsar. "They rejected the Lamb, they preferred the fox," to be their king, says Cassiodorus, See Luk 13:32, "Go ye and tell that fox."

Ver. 17.— Bearing His cross. After the Roman custom. Augustine writes, "A noble spectacle: a great jest for the ungodly, but a great mystery to the godly; a great mark of disgrace to the wicked, a great evidence of faith to the godly; ungodliness, as it looks on, laughs at a King bearing His cross of punishment instead of His sceptre: while the godly behold a King bearing the cross on which He was to be nailed, and which He would afterwards fix on the brows of kings; scorned in the eyes of the ungodly for that very thing in which the hearts of the saints would thereafter glory." Gal 6:14.

Ver. 23.— But His coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. Euthymius says it was said to have been woven by the Blessed Virgin.

Allegorically. This was a type of Christ's Church, which it is not lawful to rend, and thus cause a schism.

Tropologically. S. Bernard regards it as the Divine image, so implanted and impressed on nature that it cannot be torn asunder.

Ver. 25.— But there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother's sister (cousin), Mary the wife of Cleophas (and the mother of S. James the Less and Jude), and Mary Magdalene, who was the more enkindled with love for Jesus, when she saw Him washing away with His Blood those very sins which she had just washed away with her tears. Christ wished it so to be, that He might suffer the more by witnessing the sorrows of His mother, and that she by sharing His sufferings might give us a perfect example of patience and charity: as Damascene says (Lib. iv. 13), "The pangs of child-birth which she escaped she suffered at the time of His Passion, by her motherly compassion, bearing Him afresh in beholding His wounds." For the holier she was, and the nearer to Christ, the larger was the cup of suffering which He offered her. Euthymius states that she stood quite close to the cross, her ardent love overmastering her fear of the Jews. She stood therefore firm and erect in her body, more erect in her mind, looking and wondering at this great mystery of godliness, God hanging on the cross. Hence Sophronius ( S. Jerome. Serm. de Assump. ) calls the Blessed Virgin a martyr; nay, more than a martyr, "Because," he says, "she suffered in her mind. Her love indeed was stronger than death, because she made the death of Christ her own." And S. Ildephonsus ( Serm. ii. de Assumpt. ), "She was more than a martyr, because there was in her no less love than sorrow. She was wounded with a sword within, for she stood prepared, though the hand to smite her was wanting. And she was rightly more than a martyr, for, wounded with overpowering love, she witnessed His death, and in her inward grief she bare the torture of the Passion."

S. Anselm ( de Excell. Virg. cap. v.) says, "Whatever cruelty was inflicted on the bodies of the martyrs, was light or rather nothing in comparison with thy suffering, which in its very immensity pierced through to the inmost parts of thy most tender heart And I could not believe that thou couldest endure such cruel tortures without losing thy life, unless the spirit of life itself, the spirit of consolation, the spirit of thy most loving Son, for whose death thou wast then in torture, taught thee within that it was not death that was destroying Him, but rather a triumph which was bringing all things under Him, which thou didst behold when He was dying in thy sight."

S. Bernard ( Lamen. B. Maria ) says , " No tongue can speak, nor mind imagine, how the tender feelings of the Virgin were affected with sorrow. Now, 0 Virgin, thou payest with interest that natural suffering which thou hadst not in childbirth. Thou didst not feel pain at thy Son's birth, but thou sufferedst a thousand-fold more at His death." S. Mechtildis relates a vision in which she saw a seraph saluting the Blessed Virgin on account of the great love she had to God above all other creatures, which was especially manifested in the Passion of her Son, when she kept down all her human feelings, and rejoiced that He was willing to die for the salvation of the world.

John Gerson ( in Magnif.) says that she manifested the highest obedience in offering up her Son to the Father, conforming herself therein to the Divine will. He compares her to the mother of the Maccabees, to S. Felicitas, and to S. Symphorosa, who encouraged their sons to suffer martyrdom for the faith.

S. Bridget describes the intense grief of the Virgin ( Revel. i. cap. 10, 27, 25 and iv. cap. 23 and 70). His "sorrow was my sorrow," she said, "for His heart was my heart."

Adrichomius ( Descript. Jerusalem ) mentions the exact spot where she stood near the cross, a spot now much honoured (he says) by the pious veneration of the faithful.

A question is here discussed whether the Blessed Virgin reasoned at seeing her Son on the cross. Authorities are given on both sides, the greater part maintaining that she did not, grounding their opinion on her entire conformity to the Divine will, and her own constancy and resolution, suffering rather in her mind than in her senses and feelings.

Salmeron ( Lib. x. tract. 41) thinks that she swooned at first, and then recovered and stood by the cross: and that her swoon did not deprive her of her reason, but took away her senses for a while. He adds that she suffered thus of her own accord, to testify to men her exceeding love for Him, and her exceeding sorrow. Just as Christ voluntarily underwent His agony in the garden. Both had perfect control over their feelings, just as Adam had before he fell.

S. Ambrose ( de Instit. Virginum, cap. vii.) thus writes, "The mother stood before the cross, and when men fled she remained intrepid. See whether the mother of Jesus could put off her modesty, who put not aside her courage. She looked with loving eyes on the wounds of her Son, through whom she knew that the Redemption of all men would come. She stood, no ignoble spectacle, since she feared not the murderer. The Son was hanging on the Cross, the mother offered herself to the persecutors, as not being ignorant of the mystery, that she had borne one who would rise again." And S. Athanasius: "Mary stood most firmly and most patiently in her faith in Jesus. For when the disciples fled, and all men held aloof from Him, to the glory of the whole of her sex, amidst the countless sufferings of her Son, she alone remained firm and constant in her faith, and indeed was a beauteous sight, as became her Virgin modesty. She did not disfigure herself in the great and bitter sorrow. She reviled not, she murmured not, she asked not from God for vengeance on her enemies. But she stood as a well-disciplined modest virgin, most patiently, full of tears, immersed in grief."

She was indeed so strengthened on beholding the blessed wounds of her Son as to be ready, says S. Ambrose ( in Luke xxiii.) herself to die for the salvation of the world. For in faith, strength, and warmth of charity she was not inferior to Abraham, who was willing at God's command to offer up his son Isaac with his own hand. Besides this, her sure belief in His resurrection alleviated her sorrow and strengthened her resolution. She knew that He would rise on the third day.

Ver. 26.— When Jesus therefore saw His Mother, and His disciple standing by whom He loved, He saith unto His Mother, Woman, behold thy son! Christ pierced her heart with the wound both of love and sorrow, for He meant, Mother, I am, as thou seest, dying on the Cross: I shall not be able to be with thee, to attend to thee, to provide for thee, and assist thee as I have hitherto done. I assign to thee, in my place, John to be thy son; a man in the place of God, a disciple for a master, an adopted son instead of thine own by nature; in order that he, as a virgin, and most beloved by thee as the Virgin Mother of God, may bestow on thee all the solace, and all the devotion, which both thy dignity and thy advancing age demand, and which the zeal and love of John promises and assures to thee. Christ therefore here teaches that children should care for their parents even to the last, says Theophylact from S. Chrysostom. Hear S. Augustine: "Here is a passage of moral teaching. Our good Teacher instructed His own by His own example, that pious children should have a care for their parents; as if that wood on which His limbs were fastened when He was dying, were also the chair of the teacher." For, as S. Cyril says, "We ought to learn from Him, and through Him, first of all, that parents must not be neglected, even when intolerable sufferings are hanging over us." "But wonder, with Theophylact, at the calmness with which He does everything on the cross; caring for His mother, fulfilling prophecies, promising paradise to the thief; but before He came to it, how burdened was He, pouring forth His sweat, and full of trouble." For, as Euthymius says, "in the one case the weakness of nature was seen, in the other His great power of endurance." Christ commends His mother to S. John, whom at the same time He put in His own place as her son, that thus they might have a mutual care for each other. [Pseudo]-Cyprian (De Passione Christi) gives the reasons for this. First, to provide for His mother, who was now waxing old, the care and kind offices of a son. As if He said, "I am dying. I cannot care for thee any more, I resign thee into the hands of John."

Secondly, that He might commend a Virgin to a Virgin. "The pure is entrusted to the pure," says Theophylact. As Nonnus paraphrases it: "0 Mother, thou lover of virginity, behold thy virgin son; and on the other hand He said to His disciple, 0 thou lover of virginity, Behold a virgin who is thy parent, without giving thee birth." And S. Ambrose ( de Instit. Virgin ) says , "But with whom should the Virgin dwell, rather than with him, whom she knew to be the heir of her Son, and the guardian of her chastity?" And in this matter Jesus, as anxious for her purity, wished that her continuance in this state (as a mother and yet a Virgin) should be fully proved. As S. Ambrose writes ( ibid.), "that no one should cast on her the reproach of having lost her purity."

Thirdly, To show that Joseph was not His father, He set him aside, and put John in his place. Hear [Pseudo]-Cyprian: "Thou carefully providest for her who was Blessed among women, the protection of an Apostle, and Thou deliverest the care of the Virgin to a Virgin-disciple; in order that Joseph might be no longer burdened with the charge of so great a mystery, but that John should bear it. For reason now demanded that he should no longer be regarded as her husband, nor be counted the father of Christ, who had hitherto held the place of father and husband." He then meets a tacit objection. "Joseph would have had good reason to object to this arrangement of Christ had he regarded himself as a husband in the flesh. But because the mystery of that union was spiritual, he allowed John to be preferred to himself in this office, as being more worthy, and more especially because the Master's choice had so ordered it."

This rests on the supposition that Joseph was then alive. But most commentators, and with greater probability, think otherwise. For no mention whatever is made of him, and Christ seems to have commended His mother to the care of John, because Joseph was dead. For had he been alive, Christ would certainly have committed His mother to his care, as He had done at His Incarnation and Nativity, and as having had experience of his fidelity and care in the flight into Egypt, and at other times.

Fourthly, John alone remained fearlessly and firmly with Mary at the cross, amidst all the insolence and reviling of the Jews. He therefore deserved to be adopted by Jesus as His brother, and to be put in His room as the son of the Virgin Mother. Moreover, Christ commended, in the person of S. John, the rest of the Apostles, nay all the faithful, to His mother, especially those who are chaste and virgins, and follow most closely Christ on His Cross, and thus become most beloved and most closely joined to Christ, just as was S. John, who was called by [Pseudo]-Cyprian His chamber-fellow.

Whom He loved. To whom He exhibited greater external tokens of love, as being younger than the other Apostles, more modest and chaste, and loving Him more than did the rest.

Woman, behold Thy Son! He calls her woman, not mother, "lest that loved name should wound the mother's heart," as Baptist of Mantua says: not to rouse the Scribes and Pharisees against her; to show that He had put off all human affections, that He resigned all human relationships, and wished to teach their abandonment; and lastly, to arouse her courage and strength of mind to bear all these things with fortitude, and to remind her of that resolute woman whom Solomon had foretold (Prov. xxxi. 1). For the Blessed Virgin suffered for a longer time than Christ. His suffering ceased at His death. Her suffering and compassion increased more and more. For she received His body when taken down from the cross, thus reviving her grief; and for the three days He lay in the tomb, His sufferings on the cross, which she had witnessed close at hand, remained vividly impressed on her mind, and gave it pain, till Christ rose again, and removed them all by the consolations and glory of His appearing. Again, the Blessed Virgin was left behind Him, to be the mother of the Apostles and the faithful, to gather them together again, to comfort the afflicted, to support the stumbling, to advise the doubting and anxious, and through all trials direct, instruct, and animate them.

This Cornelius illustrates from various ecclesiastical writers. He quotes also the very strong expressions used towards B.V.M. in the Litanies of the Church. And much stronger language of S. Bernard ( Serm. iv . de Assumptione, and Hom. iv. on the text "Missus est" (Luke i. 26), and Hom. ii . on Pentecost, and several other passages of the like character).

Ver. 27. — Then saith He to His disciple, Behold thy mother! Love her, attend to her, help her, as thy mother. And, on the other hand, betake thyself to her, as thy mother in every difficulty, temptation, persecution, and affliction. She will cherish thee with motherly affection, will console and protect thee, and ask help for thee from her Son. And, these words of Christ are not mere lip words, and without effect, like those of men: but as the words of God they are real and efficacious, and effect that which they declare. And accordingly they impressed on S. John a filial affection and spirit towards the Blessed Virgin, as though she were his mother. Theophylact exclaims, "How wonderful! how doth He honour His disciple, in making him His brother? How good is it to stand by the cross, and to abide close to Christ in His sufferings!" And S. Chrysostom: "What honour does He confer on His disciple! For when He was about to depart He left the care of His mother to His disciple. For when it was natural for her to sorrow as His mother, and to seek for protection, He most fitly commends her to His beloved disciple, to whom He says, 'Behold thy mother!' that so they might be bound together in love."

Behold thy mother! And the mother also of thy fellow-Apostles. Accordingly all the faithful (as S. Bernard teaches) should betake themselves to her with full confidence and love. She is the Eve of the faithful, the mother of all living, to whom the wise and Saints of every age betake themselves.

Hear S. Augustine: "When He said these words, these two beloved ones ceased not to shed tears; they were both silent, for they could not speak for excessive grief; these two virgins heard Christ speaking, and saw Him gradually dying: they wept bitterly, for they sorrowed bitterly, for the sword of His sorrow pierced through both their hearts."

And ( i.e., therefore, because Jesus had ordered it) that disciple took her unto his own (sua). Some read suam, his own house, as Nonnus. paraphrases it. Bede suggests, for his own mother, or better still, into his own charge. As S. Augustine says, "not into his own hands, but into those kind offices, which he undertook to dispense." S. John accordingly took her with him to Ephesus, and the Council of Ephesus (cap. xxvi. Synodical Epistle) says that they both for a time lived at Ephesus. ( See Christopher Castro in Hist. Deiparæ.)

This then was Christ's testament, and John was the executor. As S. Ambrose says on Luke 23, "He executed His testament on the cross and John witnesses to it, a fitting witness for so great a testator." Gather from this also that Joseph was dead. As S. Ambrose says ( ibid.), "The wife would not be devorced from her husband, but she who veiled the mystery under the guise of marriage, now, when this mystery was finished, no longer had need of wedlock." And Epiphanius ( Her. lxxviii.) says, "if she had had a husband, or a home or children of her own, she would have retired to them, and not to a stranger." See then how poor the Blessed Virgin was, and how devoted to poverty.

Ver. 28.— After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. After about three hours. It was at the beginning of the crucifixion that He commended His mother to S. John. The scripture was Psa 69:22. He said this that He might suffer the further torment of being offered the vinegar. As S. Augustine says, "Ye have not yet done this. Give Me that which ye are yourselves—for ye are full of acidity and bitterness; give Me vinegar, and not wine."

Christ thirsted, because He had neither eaten nor drunken since His supper the night before, and He had moreover poured forth all the moisture and blood in His body, by His scourging and crucifixion. And His most bitter pains also caused Him great thirst; for, as S. Cyril says, "Sorrows enkindle the heat within us, dry up our moisture from its very depths, and burn us up with fiery heat." Hence our jaws are dried up, and are parched with thirst. The words of the Psalmist (Psa 22:6) were fulfilled in Christ's person. The Chancellor of Louvain, when he was dying forty years ago, said in my presence, that he never fully understood those words, as he did when he was himself suffering from like drought and thirst, and thence learned how great the thirst of Christ was. Mystically, Christ thirsted for the salvation of souls. See Bellarmine on "The seven words of Christ on the cross." "God thirsteth to be thirsted for," says Nazianzen in Tetrastichisis, in order that we may insatiably love and desire Him, and say with the Psalmist, "My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God: when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?" Psa 42:2.

Ver. 30.— When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost. All the suffering, and all the mysteries which the Father decreed from all eternity that I should suffer and carry out, as He ordered from My very birth, and willed, moreover, that the prophets should foretell concerning Me. There remains only the final issue of death, to complete My course of suffering, to expiate thereby the penalty of death, which Adam incurred by sin, and to restore mankind to life. I therefore embrace it, and resign My spirit into the hands of My Father. (Matt. xxvii. 48, seq.)

Christ spake seven words on the cross, three recorded by S. John, the four others by the other Evangelists.

Ver. 31.— The Jews therefore (because it was the preparation) that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the sabbath day (for that sabbath-day was an high day) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. See Deut. xxi. 22. This was done, in order that they might not pollute and make gloomy this most solemn festival, by the horror of their sufferings, as St. Augustine says. It was necessary therefore that they should die and be buried before sunset, at which time the sabbath began. "That," as Theophylact says, "the sun might not set on their sufferings."

For this was the sabbath within the octave of the Passover, and for this reason a more solemn day than other sabbaths.

Their legs were to be broken with the strong blows of a mallet or iron bar, to make them die the sooner, from the intensity of the pain, or the loss of blood, or because the vital force resides in the knees and legs. (See Pliny, N. H. xi. 45.)

But why did they not pierce their hearts with a spear or sword, which would have been an easier and a quicker death? They preferred to break the legs of criminals, in order to increase their sufferings, as even now notorious criminals are put on the rack. Probably the Jews wished to do this to Christ, out of bitter hatred, and Baronius thinks that they gave Him vinegar to keep Him alive for this further torture. But He was already dead, not because He dreaded this further suffering, but on account of the mystery (of which more presently), but also because His strength was worn out by all He had already undergone. (See Lipsius, de Cruce, ii. 14.)

These Jews seemed to urge their being taken down from the cross, not so much from any regard for the sabbath, as from dread, shame, and consciousness of guilt. For they saw the sun darkened, the veil of the temple rent, the earthquake, &c., all which condemned their treatment of Christ. And they therefore feared either that God would punish them, or the people rise up against them as the murderers of Christ. They ordered Him therefore to be taken down from His seat of triumph, and to be buried. See F. Lucas.

Ver. 33. — But when they came to Jesus (evidently to break His legs. Euthymius says, "They came to Him last, as wishing to please the Jews by treating Him with greater insult) and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs. He did not wish His legs to be broken, for He wished to rise again with an unmutilated body." As Lactantius says (iv. 26), "His body is taken down from the cross entire, and carefully laid in the tomb, lest by the loss of any limb it might be rendered less seemly for resurrection."

Instead, then, of His legs being broken, His side was pierced with the spear. This was after He was dead, not while He was alive as some have thought. This error was condemned in the Council of Vienne. For as Christ, while alive, gave up His whole Body for us, so did He in His death wish to give us His heart. For this it was that was pierced by the spear, and blood and water flowed forth from it, so that He gave Himself entirely to us.

You will say that Christ was already dead, and that therefore He merited nothing by this piercing of His heart. But I reply that when alive He knew this wound would be inflicted, and that He offered it to the Father for us, and thus merited and effected our salvation. Thou wilt say next, We see that blood flows from the body of a slain person, if the murderer is present. This then is a natural effect. I say that it is not natural, but very nearly miraculous; to point out and confound the murderer. And much more was it miraculous in the case of Christ, as I will presently show.

Ver. 34.— But one of the soldiers opened His side. As somewhat doubting, says S. Cyril, whether He were really dead; and if He were not, to hasten His death. For it was the duty of these soldiers to carry out the sentence, and to see that criminals were not taken away before it was certain that they were dead. S. Chrysostom adds, "To please the Jews, they lay open His side and insult Him when dead. 0 most evil and most atrocious wish." Some suppose that this soldier was the centurion, who cried out "Truly this was the Son of God!" (Matthew xxvii. 54.) But it is not likely that he who so cried out would dare to commit such an act. Nazianzen in his "Christus Patiens" suggests that he was blind, and that he then regained his sight. Many stories on this matter were collected by Barradius, which Baronius rejects as apocryphal. Here note—1. That the soldier was one of the guuard who brake the legs of the two malefactors, and would have broken Christ's also had he been alive. But they pierced His side, to show that He was dead, and this was why they brake not His legs. 2. Some say it was a spear, others a sword which was used. 3. The Vulgate seems to have read, ήνοιξε, but the Greek is ένυξε. 4. This wound was so large that a hand could have been thrust into it. See Joh 20:27.5. It was on the right side, as represented by painters. Some think it was so foretold by Ezekiel 17:2.  S. Francis also received his wound on the right side. See S. Bonaventura, Ribadeaeira, &c. 6. Christ therefore received six wounds. 7. This wound seems to have pierced through both sides, as Prudentius says in several passages. As, e.g.,

As struck the cruel spear through either side,

Water and Blood poured forth in mingled tide:

For victory this, and that to cleanse applied.

De Pass. Christi [apud Diptych, num. xlii.]; Peristeph. Hymn viii. [151; and Cathomer, Hymn ix. [85]; [Pseudo]-Cyprian also (de Pass.) says the same. Theophylact speaks of this wound in the plural number, Prudentius seems to imply that the larger wound emitted blood, and the smaller wound on the left side water. But this wound on the left slide was so small as not to be taken into account. Hence there were only five wounds.  S. Bridget's Revel. iv. 40, vii. 15, and ii. 21, are also referred to.

And forthwith came thereout blood and water. Both together (not separately, as Nonnus paraphrases), but yet not mixed, but so that they could be distinguished from each other. But this could not be the case naturally, because the blood of a dead body congeals, and pure blood cannot flow from it. And this was pure blood, not serum, as Innoc. III. lays it down ( Lib. iii. Decret. tit. 41 , de Celebr. Miss. cap. viii.) Calvin is therefore wrong in saying that water is contained in the pericardium. Therefore this flowing forth of blood and water was miraculous, as S. Ambrose on Luke xxiii., Euthymius, and Theophylact say. The latter remarks, "The contumely is changed into a miracle, and wonderful it was that blood flowed forth from a dead body. But a caviller might say that some vital force might probably remain in the body. But the water which flowed forth puts the matter beyond all dispute." He says afterwards, "Confounded be the Armenians, who in the Mysteries mix not water with the wine. For, as it seems, they do not believe that water flowed forth from the side (which would be more wonderful), but blood only. And in this passage they do away with a mighty miracle. The blood then is the symbol of a crucified man, but the water of one who is above man, that is, of God." See Adam Coutzen and Francis Lucas on this passage.

But this took place by way of mystery. But what mystery? (1.) To show the reality of Christ's human nature. See 1Jo 5:7. (2.) To signify that the Church was formed as the Spouse of Christ out of the side of the second Adam dying on the Cross. Symbolically, i.e. and figuratively, as meaning that the Church was purchased, founded, and sanctified by the Blood of Christ. As S. Ambrose (on Luke 23) says, "Life flowed forth from that dead body. For water and blood flowed forth, the one to cleanse, the other to redeem;" and as S. Cyril and Chrysostom say, that the water signifies baptism, which is the first beginning, of the Church and the other sacraments, and the blood represents the Eucharist, which is the end and completion of the sacraments, to which they all refer as to their beginning and their end. Whence S. Augustine says ( in loc.), that all sacraments flowed forth from the side of Christ, in mystery, as I said. His words are, "It is not said that he 'struck' or 'wounded,' but that he 'opened' the side of Christ, that the door of life might thus, as it were, be opened, from whence the sacraments of the Church flowed forth, without which there is no entrance to true life." And S. Chrysostom. "Because the sacred mysteries take their rise from thence, when thou approachest the awful Chalice, thou shouldest approach it as if thou wert about to drink from the very side of Christ;" and the reason is, as S. Chrysostom and Theophylact say, "The Church exists and consists by means of the sacraments." For it is born by Baptism, strengthened by Confirmation, fed and perfected by the Eucharist, healed by Penance, fortified by Extreme Unction, governed by Holy Orders, and continued and extended by Matrimony.

As a symbol of this, Cyprian and others say that water must be mixed with the wine in the consecration of the Chalice.

Tropologically. Tertullian says ( de Baptismo ), that Christ by this effusion of Blood and Water indicated the two kinds of Baptism, by water and by martyrdom.

Anagogically. This opening of Christ's side shadowed forth that heaven, which had been closed for 4000 years, was opened by His death. Ruffinus adds, In Expos. Symb., "He poured forth water to cleanse believers, and blood to condemn unbelievers." See Suarez, Par. iii . Quæst. li Disput. xli . § 1, where, however, he thinks that only the left side of Christ was pierced, and that the blood first ran forth, and afterwards the water, both which are equally probable.

Ver. 35. — And he that saw it bare record. Probably John himself, who speaks of himself unassumingly in the third person.

Ver. 36. — For these things where done that the scripture should be fulfilled (allegorically, not literally), A bone of Him shall not be broken. A bone, i.e., of the Paschal Lamb (Exo 12:46). The literal reason was, that they had to eat it in haste, and had not time to break the bones and extract the marrow. The allegorical reason was, because that lamb was a type of Christ, and God willed that a bone of Him should not be broken, in order that His sacred Body, which was to rise again, should remain complete in every limb. Symbolically, it signified—(1.) That the Godhead of Christ, which was (as it were) the bone which supported His Body, remained entire and uninjured in His Passion (see Rupertus on Ex. xii.)

(2.) That the strength and vigour of Christ as man (of which the bones were a symbol) were not diminished, but rather increased, by His Passion. For His mind was steadfastly fixed on God, and His will remained firmly and constantly united to the Divine Will. So the Martyr Hippolytus says. See Theodoret, Dialog. iii .

Allegorically, This signifies that the Holy Apostles, who were the bones of the Church, were not to be broken. (See, S. Augustine on Ps. xxxiv.; S. Jerome on Ps. xxi.; and S. Gregory, Mor. xxiv. 30.)

And S. Hilary, on Ps. xl., says, the bones of Christ were not broken, because the Church, which was formed of His bones, ought not to be weakened by their being broken.

Tropologically. See S. Bernard ( Serm. de cute, &c. animæ ). He says that the skin is good thoughts, the flesh pious affections, the bones holy intentions, which, even when godly thoughts and affections fail, must still be kept unbroken and strong: or else a man bursts asunder, and falls to pieces.

Ver. 37.— And again another scripture saith, They shall look on Him whom they pierced. See Zec 12:10.

Ver. 38.— But after this Joseph of Arimathæa (being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews) besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. See notes on Matt. xxvii. 58. He took away the Body of Jesus to be buried (says S. Chrysostom), "not as that of a criminal, but of a great and wonderful prophet. For he did not believe that He was God, and that He would rise again on the third day. He had faith in Jesus, but yet an imperfect faith." But see here, how God exalts the humble. For the more ignominious was His Passion and death, the more glorious was His sepulchre. See Is. xi. 10. "His sepulchre will be glorious." (See Vulg.)

Ver. 39.— And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night. He came first by night, but afterwards to hear Him, and become His disciple. (See S. Augustine in loc.)

Bearing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds' weight. To embalm and bury nobly so great a prophet. He wished not only to pour the ointment over the whole body, but to embalm, and cover it over with it. He probably did not use the whole of it, but only what was necessary. Nicodemus obtained an ample reward for this kind office to Christ, for by His grace he became not only a Christian, but a Confessor.

Lucian, in his epistle De Invent. Corp. S. Stephen [in the appendix to the 7th volume of S. Augustine], thus tells the story. "The Jews, learning that he was a Christian, removed him from his office, excommunicated and banished him. Then I, Gamaliel, brought him into my own place, fed and clothed him, and buried him honourably near to S. Stephen" [see also S. Augustine, Serm. 316-324]. In the martyrology he is enrolled with S. Stephen among the saints.

Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it with linen cloths (now preserved at Turin), as the manner of the Jews is to bury. See on Mat 26:59.

This mode of burial the early Christians imitated, who incurred lavish expense in their burial and embalming. See Tertullian in Apolog.; Prudentius in Hymno de Exequiis; Nyssen , Orat. in fun. Meletti; Nazianzen , Epist. xviii .

The Christians adopted this practice from the Jews, the Jews from the Egyptians. See S. Augustine, Serm. cxx . de diversis [nunc. ccclxi. § 12].

Ver. 41 . — Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden (for where could Jesus, the Author of all verdure and vigour, be buried, except in a garden?) See notes on Mat 27:60. And in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid ; as S. Augustine says, "As no one before or after Him was conceived in a virgin's womb, so no one either before or after Him was buried in that tomb."

Ver. 42. — There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews' preparation day, for the coming sabbath, in which it was not lawful to work, or to bury any one (so S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius), for the sepulchre was nigh at hand. "They wished," said Euthymius, "to lay Jesus in another and more fitting tomb, at a greater distance from the city." But God wished Him to be buried near Golgotha and Jerusalem. S. Chrysostom gives the reason: "That the disciples might the more readily betake themselves thither, and observe what was going on thereabouts, and also that not only they, but their enemies also, might be witnesses of His burial. The seal also, and the guards who were placed over the sepulchre, were witnesses to the same. Christ wished that His death should be witnessed no less than His Resurrection, for if His death had been a matter of doubt, the proof of His Resurrection would not hold good. And not only did He wish, for these reasons, to be buried nigh at hand, but also that no one might falsely allege that His Body had been stolen away."

Commentary -- Other

Critics Ask: Joh 19:4

MARK 15:25 (cf. John 19:14 )—Was Jesus crucified in the third hour or the sixth hour?

PROBLEM: Mark’s Gospel account says that it was the third hour (9 a.m. Jewish time) when Christ was crucified ( 15:25 ). John’s Gospel says that it was about the sixth hour (12 noon Jewish time) when Jesus was still on trial ( 19:14 ). This would make His crucifixion much later than specified by Mark. Which Gospel is correct?

SOLUTION: Both Gospel writers are correct in their assertions. The difficulty is answered when we realize that each Gospel writer used a different time system. John follows the Roman time system while Mark follows the Jewish time system.

According to Roman time, the day ran from midnight to midnight. The Jewish 24 hour period began in the evening at 6 p.m. and the morning of that day began at 6 a.m. Therefore, when Mark asserts that at the third hour Christ was crucified, this was about 9 a.m. John stated that Christ’s trial was about the sixth hour. This would place the trial before the crucifixion and this would not negate any testimony of the Gospel writers. This fits with John’s other references to time. For example, he speaks about Jesus being weary from His journey from His trip from Judea to Samaria at the “sixth hour” and asking for water from the woman at the well. Considering the length of His trip, His weariness, and the normal evening time when people come to the well to drink and to water their animals, this fits better with 6 p.m., which is “the sixth hour” of the night by Roman time reckoning. The same is true of John’s reference to the tenth hour in John 1:39 , which would be 10 a.m., a more likely time to be out preaching than 4 a.m.   

Evidence: Joh 19:1

It was plain that the direction this Pilate was taking was not a good one, and he knew it. He could see that it was going to land him on ground he preferred not to touch. He tried vainly to alter his course by having Jesus scourged, in the hope that it would appease the Jews. After the whipping, the twisted soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on His head. This was perhaps symbolic of the Messiah taking upon Himself the curse placed upon creation when Adam sinned ( Gen 3:18 ).

Introduction / Outline

Robertson: John (Book Introduction)

THE Fourth Gospel

By Way of Introduction

Greatest of Books

The test of time has given the palm to the Fourth Gospel over all the books of the world. If Luke’s Gospel is the most beautiful, John’s Gospel is supreme in its height and depth and reach of thought. The picture of Christ here given is the one that has captured the mind and heart of mankind. It is not possible for a believer in Jesus Christ as the Son of God to be indifferent to modern critical views concerning the authorship and historical value of this Holy of Holies of the New Testament. Here we find The Heart of Christ (E. H. Sears), especially in chapters John 14-17. If Jesus did not do or say these things, it is small consolation to be told that the book at least has symbolic and artistic value for the believer. The language of the Fourth Gospel has the clarity of a spring, but we are not able to sound the bottom of the depths. Lucidity and profundity challenge and charm us as we linger over it.

The Beloved Disciple

The book claims to be written by " the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Joh_21:20) who is pointedly identified by a group of believers (apparently in Ephesus) as the writer: " This is the disciple which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true" (Joh_21:24). This is the first criticism of the Fourth Gospel of which we have any record, made at the time when the book was first sent forth, made in a postscript to the epilogue or appendix. Possibly the book closed first with Joh_20:31, but chapter 21 is in precisely the same style and was probably added before publication by the author. The natural and obvious meaning of the language in Joh_21:24 is that the Beloved Disciple wrote the whole book. He is apparently still alive when this testimony to his authorship is given. There are scholars who interpret it to mean that the Beloved Disciple is responsible for the facts in the book and not the actual writer, but that is a manifest straining of the language. There is in this verse no provision made for a redactor as distinct from the witness as is plausibly set forth by Dr. A. E. Garvie in The Beloved Disciple (1922).

A Personal Witness

It is manifest all through the book that the writer is the witness who is making the contribution of his personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry. In Joh_1:14 he plainly says that " the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory" ( etheasametha tēn doxan autou ). He here associates others with him in this witness to the glory of the Word, but in Joh_21:25 he employs the singular " I suppose" ( oimai ) in sharp distinction from the plural " we know" ( oidamen ) just before. The writer is present in nearly all the scenes described. The word witness ( marturě , marturia ) so common in this Gospel (Joh_1:7, Joh_1:8, Joh_1:19; Joh_3:11, Joh_3:26, Joh_3:33; Joh_5:31; Joh_12:17; Joh_21:24, etc.) illustrates well this point of view. In the Gospel of Luke we have the work of one who was not a personal witness of Christ (Luk_1:1-4). In the Gospel of Matthew we possess either the whole work of a personal follower and apostle or at least the Logia of Matthew according to Papias preserved in it. In Mark’s Gospel we have as the basis the preaching of Simon Peter as preserved by his interpreter John Mark. John’s Gospel claims to be the personal witness of " the disciple whom Jesus loved" and as such deserves and has received exceptional esteem. One may note all through the book evidences of an eyewitness in the vivid details.

With a Home in Jerusalem

It is not only that the writer was a Jew who knew accurately places and events in Palestine, once denied though now universally admitted. The Beloved Disciple took the mother of Jesus " to his own home" ( eis ta idia , Joh_19:27) from the Cross when Jesus commended his mother to his care. But this Beloved Disciple had access to the palace of the high priest (Joh_18:15.). Delff ( Das vierte Evangelium wiederhergestellt , 1890) argues that this fact shows that the Beloved Disciple was not one of the twelve apostles, one of a priestly family of wealth in Jerusalem. He does seem to have had special information concerning what took place in the Sanhedrin (Joh_7:45-52; Joh_11:47-53; Joh_12:10.). But at once we are confronted with the difficulty of supposing one outside of the circle of the twelve on even more intimate terms with Jesus than the twelve themselves and who was even present at the last passover meal and reclined on the bosom of Jesus (Joh_13:23). Nor is this all, for he was one of the seven disciples by the Sea of Galilee (Joh_21:1.) when Peter speaks to Jesus about the " Beloved Disciple" (Joh_21:20).

Only One John of Ephesus

It is true that an ambiguous statement of Papias (circa a.d. 120) is contained in Eusebius where the phrase " the Elder John " ( ho presbuteros Iōannēs ) occurs. The most natural way to understand Papias is that he is referring to the Apostle John by this phrase as he describes the teachings of the apostles by " the words of the elders" just before. This interpretation of the allusion of Papias has been rendered almost certain by the work of Dom John Chapman, John the Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel (1911). Not before Eusebius is the error found of two Johns in Ephesus, one the apostle, the other the so-called Presbyter. " Papias is no witness for the admission of two Johns of Asia Minor. Irenaeus, too, in any case, knows of but one John of Asia Minor. And this John was an eye-witness of our Lord’s Life" (Bousset, Die Offenbarumg des Joh. , p. 38, translation of Nolloth, The Fourth Evangelist , p. 63, note). Let this be admitted and much becomes clear.

No Early Martyrdom for the Apostle John

In 1862 a fragment of the Chronicle of Georgius Hamartolus, a Byzantine monk of the ninth century, was published. It is the Codex Coislinianus , Paris, 305, which differs from the other manuscripts of this author in saying that John according to Papias was slain by the Jews ( hupo Ioudaiōn anēirethē ) while the other manuscripts say that John rested in peace ( en eirēnēi anepausato ). The passage also quotes Eusebius to the effect that John received Asia as his sphere of work and lived and died in Ephesus. This same George the Sinner misquotes Origen about the death of John for Origen really says that the Roman king condemned him to the Isle of Patmos, not to death. Another fragment of Philip of Side, apparently used by Georgius, makes the same erroneous reference to Papias. It is therefore a worthless legend growing out of the martyrdom promised James and John by Jesus (Mar_10:39; Mat_20:23) and realized by James first of all (Act_12:1.). John drank the cup in the exile to Patmos. The correction to Peter in Joh_21:20-23 would have no meaning if the Apostle John had already been put to death.

The Author the Apostle John

Loisy ( Le Quatr. Evangile , p. 132) says that if one takes literally what is given in the body of the Gospel of the Beloved Disciple he is bound to be one of the twelve. Loisy does not take it " literally." But why not? Are we to assume that the author of this greatest of books is playing a part or using a deliberate artifice to deceive? It may be asked why John does not use his own name instead of a nom de plume . Reference can be made to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, no one of which gives the author’s name. One can see a reason for the turn here given since the book consists so largely of personal experiences of the author with Christ. He thus avoids the too frequent use of the personal pronoun and preserves the element of witness which marks the whole book. One by one the other twelve apostles disappear if we test their claims for the authorship. In the list of seven in chapter John 21 it is easy to drop the names of Simon Peter, Thomas, and Nathanael. There are left two unnamed disciples and the sons of Zebedee (here alone mentioned, not even named, in the book). John in this Gospel always means the Baptist. Why does the author so uniformly slight the sons of Zebedee if not one of them himself? In the Acts Luke does not mention his own name nor that of Titus his brother, though so many other friends of Paul are named. If the Beloved Disciple is John the Apostle, the silence about James and himself is easily understood. James is ruled out because of his early death (Act_12:1). The evidence in the Gospel points directly to the Apostle John as the author.

Early and Clear Witness to the Apostle John

Ignatius ( ad Philad . vii. 1) about a.d. 110 says of the Spirit that " he knows whence he comes and whither he is going," a clear allusion to Joh_3:8. Polycarp ( ad Phil . S 7) quotes 1Jo_4:2, 1Jo_4:3. Eusebius states that Papias quoted First John. Irenaeus is quoted by Eusebius (H.E. V, 20) as saying that he used as a boy to hear Polycarp tell " of his intercourse with John and the others who had seen the Lord." Irenaeus accepted all our Four Gospels. Tatian made his Diatessaron out of the Four Gospels alone. Theophilus of Antioch ( ad Autol . ii. 22) calls John the author of the Fourth Gospel. This was about a.d. 180. The Muratorian Canon near the close of the second century names John as the author of the Fourth Gospel. Till after the time of Origen no opposition to the Johannine authorship appears outside of Marcion and the Alogi. No other New Testament book has stronger external evidence.

The Use of the Synoptic Gospels

As the latest of the Gospels and by the oldest living apostle, it is only natural that there should be an infrequent use of the Synoptic Gospels. Outside of the events of Passion Week and the Resurrection period the Fourth Gospel touches the Synoptic narrative in only one incident, that of the Feeding of the Five Thousand and the walking on the water. The author supplements the Synoptic record in various ways. He mentions two passovers not given by the other Gospels (Joh_2:23; Joh_6:4) and another (Joh_5:1) may be implied. Otherwise we could not know certainly that the ministry of Jesus was more than a year in length. He adds greatly to our knowledge of the first year of our Lord’s public ministry (" the year of obscurity," Stalker) without which we should know little of this beginning (John 1:19-4:45). The Synoptics give mainly the Galilean and Perean and Judean ministry, but John adds a considerable Jerusalem ministry which is really demanded by allusions in the Synoptics. The Prologue (John 1:1-18) relates the Incarnation to God’s eternal purpose as in Col_1:14-20 and Heb_1:1-3 and employs the language of the intellectuals of the time ( Logos - Word) to interpret Christ as the Incarnate Son of God.

A Different Style of Teaching

So different is it in fact that some men bluntly assert that Jesus could not have spoken in the same fashion as presented in the Synoptics and in the Fourth Gospel. Such critics need to recall the Socrates of Xenophon’s Memorabilia and of Plato’s Dialogues . There is a difference beyond a doubt, but there is also some difference in the reports in the Synoptics. Jesus for the most part spoke in Aramaic, sometimes in Greek, as to the great crowds from around Palestine (the Sermon on the Mount, for instance). There is the Logia of Jesus (Q of criticism) preserved in the non-Markan portions of Matthew and Luke besides Mark, and the rest of Matthew and Luke. Certain natural individualities are preserved. The difference is greater in the Fourth Gospel, because John writes in the ripeness of age and in the richness of his long experience. He gives his reminiscences mellowed by long reflection and yet with rare dramatic power. The simplicity of the language leads many to think that they understand this Gospel when they fail to see the graphic pictures as in chapters John 7-11. The book fairly throbs with life. There is, no doubt, a Johannine style here, but curiously enough there exists in the Logia (Q) a genuine Johannine passage written long before the Fourth Gospel (Mat_11:25-30; Luk_10:21-24). The use of " the Father" and " the Son" is thoroughly Johannine. It is clear that Jesus used the Johannine type of teaching also. Perhaps critics do not make enough allowance for the versatility and variety in Jesus.

The Same Style in the Discourses

It is further objected that there is no difference in style between the discourses of Jesus in John’s Gospel and his own narrative style. There is an element of truth in this criticism. There are passages where it is not easy to tell where discourse ends and narrative begins. See, for instance, Joh_3:16-21. Does the discourse of Jesus end with Joh_3:15, Joh_3:16, or Joh_3:21? So in Joh_12:44-50. Does John give here a resumé of Christ’s teaching or a separate discourse? It is true also that John preserves in a vivid way the conversational style of Christ as in chapters 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. In the Synoptic Gospels this element is not so striking, but we do not have to say that John has done as Shakespeare did with his characters. Each Gospel to a certain extent has the colouring of the author in reporting the words of Jesus. An element of this is inevitable unless men are mere automata, phonographs, or radios. But each Gospel preserves an accurate and vivid picture of Christ. We need all four pictures including that of John’s Gospel for the whole view of Christ.

Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel

It is just here that the chief attack is made on the Fourth Gospel even by some who admit the Johannine authorship. It is now assumed by some that the Fourth Gospel is not on a par with the Synoptics in historical reliability and some harmonies omit it entirely or place it separately at the close, though certainly Tatian used it with the Synoptics in his Diatessaron , the first harmony of the Gospels. Some even follow Schmiedel in seeing only a symbolic or parabolic character in the miracles in the Fourth Gospel, particularly in the narrative of the raising of Lazarus in chapter John 11 which occurs here alone. But John makes this miracle play quite an important part in the culmination of events at the end. Clearly the author professes to be giving actual data largely out of his own experience and knowledge. It is objected by some that the Fourth Gospel gives an unnatural picture of Christ with Messianic claims at the very start. But the Synoptics give that same claim at the baptism and temptation, not to mention Luke’s account of the Boy Jesus in the temple. The picture of the Jews as hostile to Jesus is said to be overdrawn in the Fourth Gospel. The answer to that appears in the Sermon on the Mount, the Sabbath miracles, the efforts of the Pharisees and lawyers to catch Jesus in his talk, the final denunciation in Matt 23, all in the Synoptics. The opposition to Jesus grew steadily as he revealed himself more clearly. Some of the difficulties raised are gratuitous as in the early cleansing of the temple as if it could not have happened twice, confounding the draught of fishes in chapter John 21 with that in Luke 5, making Mary of Bethany at the feast of a Simon in chapter John 12 the same as the sinful woman at the feast of another Simon in Luke 7, making John’s Gospel locate the last passover meal a day ahead instead of at the regular time as the Synoptics have it. Rightly interpreted these difficulties disappear. In simple truth, if one takes the Fourth Gospel at its face value, the personal recollections of the aged John phrased in his own way to supplement the narratives in the Synoptics, there is little left to give serious trouble. The Jerusalem ministry with the feasts is a case in point. The narrative of the call of the first disciples in chapter John 1 is another. The author followed Simon in bringing also his own brother James to Jesus. John was present in the appearance of Christ before Annas, and Pilate. He was at the Cross when no other apostles were there. He took the mother of Jesus to his home and then returned to the Cross. He saw the piercing of the side of Jesus. He knew and saw the deed of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. E. H. Askwith has a most helpful discussion of this whole problem in The Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel (1910).

Like the Johannine Epistles

Critics of all classes agree that, whoever was the author of the Fourth Gospel, the same man wrote the First Epistle of John. There is the same inimitable style, the same vocabulary, the same theological outlook. Undoubtedly the same author wrote also Second and Third John, for, brief as they are, they exhibit the same characteristics. In Second and Third John the author describes himself as " the Elder" ( ho presbuteros ), which fact has led some to argue for the mythical " Presbyter John" as the author in place of the Apostle John and so of First John and the Fourth Gospel. It is argued that the Apostle John would have termed himself " the Apostle John" after the fashion of Paul. But the example of the Apostle Peter disposes of that argument, for in addressing the elders (1Pe_5:1) he calls himself " your fellow-elder" ( ho sunpresbuteros ). In the Epistles John opposes Gnosticism both of the Docetic type which denied the actual humanity of Jesus as in 1Jo_1:1-4 and the Cerinthian type which denied the identity of the man Jesus and the aeon Christ which came on Jesus at his baptism and left him at his death on the Cross as in 1Jo_2:22. One of the many stories told about John is his abhorrence of Cerinthus when found in the same public bath with him. As Westcott shows, the Epistles of John prove his actual humanity while assuming his deity, whereas the Fourth Gospel proves his deity while assuming his humanity.

But Different from the Apocalypse

It should be said at once that the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel does not depend on that of the Apocalypse. In fact, some men hold to the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse who deny that of the Gospel while some hold directly the opposite view. Some deny the Johannine authorship of both Gospel and Apocalypse, while the majority hold to the Johannine authorship of Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse as was the general rule till after the time of Origen. The author of the Apocalypse claims to be John (Rev_1:4, Rev_1:9; Rev_22:8), though what John he does not say. Denial of the existence of a " Presbyter John" naturally leads one to think of the Apostle John. Origen says that John, the brother of James, was banished to the Isle of Patmos where he saw the Apocalypse. There is undoubted radical difference in language between the Apocalypse and the other Johannine books which will receive discussion when the Apocalypse is reached. Westcott explained these differences as due to the early date of the Apocalypse in the reign of Vespasian before John had become master of the Greek language. Even J. H. Moulton ( Prolegomena , p. 9, note 4) says bluntly: " If its date was 95 a.d., the author cannot have written the fourth Gospel only a short time after." Or before, he would say. But the date of the Apocalypse seems definitely to belong to the reign of Domitian. So one ventures to call attention to the statement in Act_4:13 where Peter and John are described as agrammatoi kai idiōtai (unlettered and private or unschooled men). It is curious also that it is precisely in 2Peter and the Apocalypse that we have so many grammatical solecisms and peculiarities. We know that the Fourth Gospel was reviewed by a group of John’s friends in Ephesus, while he was apparently alone in the Isle of Patmos. The excitement of the visions would naturally increase the uncouth vernacular of the Apocalypse so much like that in the Greek papyri as seen in Milligan’s Greek Papyri , for instance. This being true, one is able, in spite of Moulton’s dictum, to hold to the Johannine authorship of both Gospel and Apocalypse and not far apart in date.

The Unity of the Gospel

This has been attacked in various ways in spite of the identity of style throughout. There are clearly three parts in the Gospel: the Prologue, John 1:1-18, the Body of the Book, John 1:19-20:31, the Epilogue, John 21. But there is no evidence that the Prologue was added by another hand, even though the use of Logos (Word) for Christ does not occur thereafter. This high conception of Christ dominates the whole book. Some argue that the Epilogue was added by some one else than John, but here again there is no proof and no real reason for the supposition. It is possible, as already stated, that John stopped at Joh_20:31 and then added John 21 before sending the book forth after his friends added Joh_21:24 as their endorsement of the volume. Some scholars claim that they detect various displacements in the arrangement of the material, but such subjective criticism is never convincing. There are undoubtedly long gaps in the narrative as between chapters 5 and 6, but John is not giving a continuous narrative, but only a supplementary account assuming knowledge of the Synoptics. It is held that editorial comments by redactors can be detected here and there. Perhaps, and perhaps not. The unity of this great book stands even if that be true.

Original Language of the Book

The late Dr. C. F. Burney of Oxford wrote a volume called, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (1922) in which he tried to prove that the Fourth Gospel is really the first in time and was originally written in Aramaic. The theory excited some interest, but did not convince either Aramaic or Greek scholars to an appreciable extent. Some of the examples cited are plausible and some quite fanciful. This theory cannot be appealed to in any serious interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. The author was beyond doubt a Jew, but he wrote in the Koiné Greek of his time that is comparatively free from crude Semiticisms, perhaps due in part to the help of the friends in Ephesus.

The Purpose of the Book

He tells us himself in Joh_20:30. He has made a selection of the many signs wrought by Jesus for an obvious purpose: " But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name." This is the high and noble purpose plainly stated by the author. The book is thus confessedly apologetic and this fact ruins it with the critics who demand a dull and dry chronicle of events without plan or purpose in a book of history. Such a book would not be read and would be of little value if written. Each of the Synoptics is written with a purpose and every history or biography worth reading is written with a purpose. It is one thing to have a purpose in writing, but quite another to suppress or distort facts in order to create the impression that one wishes. This John did not do. He has given us his deliberate, mature, tested view of Jesus Christ as shown to him while alive and as proven since his resurrection. He writes to win others to like faith in Christ.

John’s Portrait of Christ

No one questions that the Fourth Gospel asserts the deity of Christ. It is in the Prologue at the very start: " And the Word was God" (Joh_1:1) and in the correct text of Joh_1:18, " God only begotten" ( theos monogenēs ). It occurs repeatedly in the book as in the witness of the Baptist: " This is the Son of God" (Joh_1:34). It is in the charge of the Pharisees (Joh_5:18) and the claim of Christ himself (Joh_5:20-23; Joh_6:48; Joh_8:12, Joh_8:58; Joh_11:25; Joh_14:9; Joh_17:5) with the full and frank conviction of the author in Joh_20:31. He has made good his purpose. He has proven that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. With some critics this purpose has vitiated the entire book. The effort has been made to show that Paul, Peter, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Synoptics give a lower view of Christ without the term theos applied to him. In particular it was once argued that Q, the Logia of Jesus, used by Matthew and Luke (the non-Markan portions in both Matthew and Luke), gives a reduced picture of Jesus as on a lower plane than God, the Arian or Ritschlian view at any rate as answering for God to us though not God in actual nature. But in the Logia of Jesus we find the same essential picture of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Son of Man as I have shown in my The Christ of the Logia (1924). The only way to get rid of the deity of Christ in the New Testament is to throw overboard all the books in it as legendary or reflections of late theological development away from the original picture. The very earliest picture drawn of Christ that has been preserved to us, that in the Logia of Jesus (drawn W. M. Ramsay believes before Christ’s crucifixion), is in essential agreement with the fully drawn portrait in the Fourth Gospel. Each picture in the Four Gospels adds touches of its own, but the features are the same, those of the God-Man Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. The brilliant blind preacher of Edinburgh, George Matheson, sees this clearly ( Studies in the Portrait of the Messiah , 1900; St. John’s Portrait of Christ , 1910).

JFB: John (Book Introduction)

THE author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her imperfections (Mat 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants; who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but, on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee, appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired servants (Mar 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first interview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mat 4:21-22), and again on a memorable occasion (Luk 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mat 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve--the "Benjamin," as DA COSTA calls him--and he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart, "Boanerges," which the Evangelist Mark (Mar 3:17) explains to mean "Sons of thunder"; no doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select triumvirate of whom see on Luk 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Joh 13:23; Joh 20:2; Joh 21:7, Joh 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer the care of His mother (Joh 19:26-27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love, surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.

After the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anecdotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) he was banished to "the isle that is called Patmos" (a small rocky and then almost uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev 1:9). IRENÆUS and EUSEBIUS say that this took place about the end of Domitian's reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one of those legends which, though reported by TERTULLIAN and JEROME, is entitled to no credit. His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety, according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, according to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest to the truth.

As to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, "there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool," &c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the prediction in Joh 21:18 --a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banishment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to the truth.

As to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.

No doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack upon it till BRETSCHNEIDER, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of VAN OOSTERZEE regarding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, "Behold, the feet of them that shall carry it out dead are already at the door" (Act 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpassing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands, it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?

Of the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective character. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, "pauses, as it were, at every turn," as DA COSTA says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], "at one time to give a reason, at another to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance to the language of praise." See Joh 2:20-21, Joh 2:23-25; Joh 4:1-2; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 11:12-13, Joh 11:49-52; Joh 21:18-19, Joh 21:22-23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which occurred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem, without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect conception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. "We find," to use again the words of DA COSTA [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, "only six of our Lord's miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only one in the other three Gospels--the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion (John 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought--the changing of water into wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one--of the man impotent for thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only--of the man born blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter, nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four days, and there sinking into corruption (John 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations, alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew forth."

Other illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points connected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary.

JFB: John (Outline)

• THE WORD MADE FLESH. (Joh 1:1-14)
• A SAYING OF THE BAPTIST CONFIRMATORY OF THIS. (Joh 1:15)
• SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. (Joh 1:16-18)
• THE BAPTIST'S TESTIMONY TO CHRIST. (John 1:19-36)
• FIRST GATHERING OF DISCIPLES--JOHN ANDREW, SIMON, PHILIP, NATHANAEL. (Joh 1:37-51)
• FIRST MIRACLE, WATER MADE WINE--BRIEF VISIT TO CAPERNAUM. (Joh 2:1-12)
• CHRIST'S FIRST PASSOVER--FIRST CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE. (Joh 2:13-25)
• NIGHT INTERVIEW OF NICODEMUS WITH JESUS. (John 3:1-21)
• JESUS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE BAPTIST--HIS NOBLE TESTIMONY TO HIS MASTER. (John 3:22-36)
• CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA--THE SAMARITANS OF SYCHAR. (John 4:1-42)
• SECOND GALILEAN MIRACLE--HEALING OF THE COURTIER'S SON. (Joh 4:43-54)
• THE IMPOTENT MAN HEALED--DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE PERSECUTION ARISING THEREUPON. (John 5:1-47)
• FIVE THOUSAND MIRACULOUSLY FED. (Joh 6:1-13)
• JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA. (Joh 6:14-21)
• JESUS FOLLOWED BY THE MULTITUDES TO CAPERNAUM, DISCOURSES TO THEM IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF THE BREAD OF LIFE--EFFECT OF THIS ON TWO CLASSES OF THE DISCIPLES. (John 6:22-71) These verses are a little involved, from the Evangelist's desire to mention every circumstance, however minute, that might call up the scene as vividly to the reader as it stood before his own view.
• CHRIST AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. (John 7:1-53)
• THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. (Joh 8:1-11)
• FURTHER DISCOURSES OF JESUS--ATTEMPT TO STONE HIM. (John 8:12-59)
• THE OPENING OF THE EYES OF ONE BORN BLIND, AND WHAT FOLLOWED ON IT. (John 9:1-41)
• THE GOOD SHEPHERD. (John 10:1-21)
• DISCOURSE AT THE FEAST OF DEDICATION--FROM THE FURY OF HIS ENEMIES JESUS ESCAPES BEYOND JORDAN, WHERE MANY BELIEVE ON HIM. (John 10:22-42)
• LAZARUS RAISED FROM THE DEAD--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS. (John 11:1-46)
• THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY. (Joh 12:1-11)
• CHRIST'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. (Joh 12:12-19)
• SOME GREEKS DESIRE TO SEE JESUS--THE DISCOURSE AND SCENE THEREUPON. (John 12:20-36)
• AT THE LAST SUPPER JESUS WASHES THE DISCIPLES' FEET--THE DISCOURSE ARISING THEREUPON. (John 13:1-20)
• THE TRAITOR INDICATED--HE LEAVES THE SUPPER ROOM. (Joh 13:21-30)
• DISCOURSE AFTER THE TRAITOR'S DEPARTURE--PETER'S SELF-CONFIDENCE--HIS FALL PREDICTED. (Joh 13:31-38)
• DISCOURSE AT THE TABLE, AFTER SUPPER. (John 14:1-31)
• DISCOURSE AT THE SUPPER TABLE CONTINUED. (John 15:1-27) The spiritual oneness of Christ and His people, and His relation to them as the Source of all their spiritual life and fruitfulness, are here beautifully set forth by a figure familiar to Jewish ears (Isa 5:1, &c.).
• DISCOURSE AT THE SUPPER TABLE CONCLUDED. (John 16:1-33)
• THE INTERCESSORY PRAYER. (John 17:1-26)
• BETRAYAL AND APPREHENSION OF JESUS. (Joh 18:1-13)
• JESUS BEFORE PILATE. (Joh 18:28-40)
• JESUS BEFORE PILATE--SCOURGED--TREATED WITH OTHER SEVERITIES AND INSULTS--DELIVERED UP, AND LED AWAY TO BE CRUCIFIED. (John 19:1-16)
• CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS. (Joh 19:17-30)
• BURIAL OF CHRIST. (Joh 19:31-42)
• MARY'S VISIT TO THE SEPULCHRE, AND RETURN TO IT WITH PETER AND JOHN--HER RISEN LORD APPEARS TO HER. (John 20:1-18)
• JESUS APPEARS TO THE ASSEMBLED DISCIPLES. (Joh 20:19-23)
• JESUS AGAIN APPEARS TO THE ASSEMBLED DISCIPLES. (Joh 20:24-29)
• FIRST CLOSE OF THIS GOSPEL. (Joh 20:30-31)
• SUPPLEMENTARY PARTICULARS. (John 21:1-23)
• FINAL CLOSE OF THIS GOSPEL. (Joh 21:24-25)
• JESUS BEFORE ANNAS AND CAIAPHAS--FALL OF PETER. (Joh 18:13-27)

TSK: John (Book Introduction)

John, who, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient fathers and ecclesiastical writers, was the author of this Gospel, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, by Salome his wife (compare Mat 10:2, with Mat 27:55, Mat 27:56 and Mar 15:40), and brother of James the elder, whom " Herod killed with the sword," (Act 12:2). Theophylact says that Salome was the daughter of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by a former wife; and that consequently she was our Lord’s sister, and John was his nephew. He followed the occupation of his father till his call to the apostleship (Mat 4:21, Mat 4:22, Mar 1:19, Mar 1:20, Luk 5:1-10), which is supposed to have been when he was about twenty five years of age; after which he was a constant eye-witness of our Lord’s labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. After the ascension of our Lord he returned with the other apostles to Jerusalem, and with the rest partook of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, by which he was eminently qualified for the office of an Evangelist and Apostle. After the death of Mary, the mother of Christ, which is supposed to have taken place about fifteen years after the crucifixion, and probably after the council held in Jerusalem about ad 49 or 50 (Acts 15), at which he was present, he is said by ecclesiastical writers to have proceeded to Asia Minor, where he formed and presided over seven churches in as many cities, but chiefly resided at Ephesus. Thence he was banished by the emperor Domitian, in the fifteenth year of his reign, ad 95, to the isle of Patmos in the Agean sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse (Rev 1:9). On the accession of Nerva the following year, he was recalled from exile and returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, and died in the hundredth year of his age, about ad 100, and in the third year of the emperor Trajan. It is generally believed that St. John was the youngest of the twelve apostles, and that he survived all the rest. Jerome, in his comment on Gal VI., says that he continued preaching when so enfeebled with age as to be obliged to be carried into the assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long discourse, his custom was to say in every meeting, My dear children, love one another. The general current of ancient writers declares that the apostle wrote his Gospel at an advanced period of life, with which the internal evidence perfectly agrees; and we may safely refer it, with Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Mill, Lev. Clerc, and others, to the year 97. The design of St. John in writing his Gospel is said by some to have been to supply those important events which the other Evangelists had omitted, and to refute the notions of the Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, or according to others, to refute the heresy of the Gnostics and Sabians. But, though many parts of his Gospel may be successfully quoted against the strange doctrines held by those sects, yet the apostle had evidently a more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies. His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive and design in writing this Gospel: " These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name" (Joh 20:31). Learned men are not wholly agreed concerning the language in which this Gospel was originally written. Salmasius, Grotius, and other writers, have imagined that St. John wrote it in his own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was afterwards translated into Greek. This opinion is not supported by any strong arguments, and is contradicted by the unanimous voice of antiquity, which affirms that he wrote it in Greek, which is the general and most probable opinion. The style of this Gospel indicates a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education; but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths. One thing very remarkable is an attempt to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of his readers, by employing in the expression of them both an affirmative proposition and a negative. It is manifestly not without design that he commonly passes over those passages of our Lord’s history and teaching which had been treated at large by other Evangelists, or if he touches them at all, he touches them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the incarnation of the Word, the great ends of His mission, and the blessings of His purchase.

TSK: John 19 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Joh 19:1, Christ is scourged, crowned with thorns, and beaten; Joh 19:4, Pilate is desirous to release him, but being overcome with the outrage of the Jews, he delivers him to be crucified; Joh 19:23, They cast lots for his garments; Joh 19:25, He commends his mother to John; Joh 19:28, He dies; Joh 19:31, His side is pierced; Joh 19:38, He is buried by Joseph and Nicodemus.

Poole: John 19 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 19

MHCC: John (Book Introduction)

The apostle and evangelist, John, seems to have been the youngest of the twelve. He was especially favoured with our Lord's regard and confidence, so as to be spoken of as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He was very sincerely attached to his Master. He exercised his ministry at Jerusalem with much success, and outlived the destruction of that city, agreeably to Christ's prediction, Joh 21:22. History relates that after the death of Christ's mother, John resided chiefly at Ephesus. Towards the close of Domitian's reign he was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote his Revelation. On the accession of Nerva, he was set at liberty, and returned to Ephesus, where it is thought he wrote his Gospel and Epistles, about A. D. 97, and died soon after. The design of this Gospel appears to be to convey to the Christian world, just notions of the real nature, office, and character of that Divine Teacher, who came to instruct and to redeem mankind. For this purpose, John was directed to select for his narrative, those passages of our Saviour's life, which most clearly displayed his Divine power and authority; and those of his discourses, in which he spake most plainly of his own nature, and of the power of his death, as an atonement for the sins of the world. By omitting, or only briefly mentioning, the events recorded by the other evangelists, John gave testimony that their narratives are true, and left room for the doctrinal statements already mentioned, and for particulars omitted in the other Gospels, many of which are exceedingly important.

MHCC: John 19 (Chapter Introduction)

(v. 1-18) Christ condemned and crucified.

(Joh 19:19-30) Christ on the cross.

(Joh 19:31-37) His side pierced.

(Joh 19:38-42) The burial of Jesus.

Matthew Henry: John (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Gospel According to St. John

It is not material to enquire when and where this gospel was written; we are sure that it was given by inspiration of God to John, the brother of James, one of the twelve apostles, distinguished by the honourable character of that disciple whom Jesus loved, one of the first three of the worthies of the Son of David, whom he took to be the witnesses of his retirements, particularly of his transfiguration and his agony. The ancients tell us that John lived longest of all the twelve apostles, and was the only one of them that died a natural death, all the rest suffering martyrdom; and some of them say that he wrote this gospel at Ephesus, at the request of the ministers of the several churches of Asia, in opposition to the heresy of Corinthus and the Ebionites, who held that our Lord was a mere man. It seems most probable that he wrote it before his banishment into the isle of Patmos, for there he wrote his Apocalypse, the close of which seems designed for the closing up of the canon of scripture; and, if so, this gospel was not written after. I cannot therefore give credit to those later fathers, who say that he wrote it in his banishment, or after his return from it, many years after the destruction of Jerusalem; when he was ninety years old, saith one of them; when he was a hundred, saith another of them. However, it is clear that he wrote last of the four evangelists, and, comparing his gospel with theirs, we may observe, 1. That he relates what they had omitted; he brings up the rear, and his gospel is as the rearward or gathering host; it gleans up what they has passed by. Thus there was a later collection of Solomon's wise sayings (Pro 25:1), and yet far short of what he delivered, 1Ki 4:32. 2. That he gives us more of the mystery of that of which the other evangelists gave us only the history. It was necessary that the matters of fact should be first settled, which was done in their declarations of those things which Jesus began both to do and teach, Luk 1:1; Act 1:1. But, this being done out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, John goes on to perfection (Heb 6:1), not laying again the foundation, but building upon it, leading us more within the veil. Some of the ancients observe that the other evangelists wrote more of the ta sōmatika - the bodily things of Christ; but John writes of the ta pneumatika - the spiritual things of the gospel, the life and soul of it; therefore some have called this gospel the key of the evangelists. Here is it that a door is opened in heaven, and the first voice we hear is, Come up hither, come up higher. Some of the ancients, that supposed the four living creatures in John's vision to represent the for evangelists, make John himself to be the flying eagle, so high does he soar, and so clearly does he see into divine and heavenly things.

Matthew Henry: John 19 (Chapter Introduction)

Though in the history hitherto this evangelist seems industriously to have declined the recording of such passages as had been related by the other evangelists, yet, when he comes to the sufferings and death of Christ, instead of passing them over, as one ashamed of his Master's chain and cross, and looking upon them as the blemishes of his story, he repeats what had been before related, with considerable enlargements, as one that desired to know nothing but Christ and him crucified, to glory in nothing save in the cross of Christ. In the story of this chapter we have, I. he remainder of Christ's trial before Pilate, which was tumultuous and confused (Joh 19:1-15). II. Sentence given, and execution done upon it (Joh 19:16-18). III. The title over his head (Joh 19:19-22). IV. The parting of his garment (Joh 19:23, Joh 19:24). V. The care he took of his mother (Joh 19:25-27). VI. The giving him vinegar to drink (Joh 19:28, Joh 19:29). VII. His dying word (Joh 19:30). VIII. The piercing of his side (Joh 19:31-37). IX. The burial of his body (Joh 19:38-42). O that in meditating on these things we may experimentally know the power of Christ's death, and the fellowship of his sufferings!

Barclay: John (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT JOHN

The Gospel Of The EagleEye

For many Christian people the Gospel according to St. John is the most precious book in the New Testament. It is the book on which above all they feed their minds and nourish their hearts, and in which they rest their souls. Very often on stained glass windows and the like the gospel writers are represented in symbol by the figures of the four beasts whom the writer of the Revelation saw around the throne (Rev_4:7 ). The emblems are variously distributed among the gospel writers, but a common allocation is that the man stands for Mark, which is the plainest, the most straightforward and the most human of the gospels; the lion stands for Matthew, for he specially saw Jesus as the Messiah and the Lion of the tribe of Judah; the ox stands for Luke, because it is the animal of service and sacrifice, and Luke saw Jesus as the great servant of men and the universal sacrifice for all mankind; the eagle stands for John, because it alone of all living creatures can look straight into the sun and not be dazzled, and John has the most penetrating gaze of all the New Testament writers into the eternal mysteries and the eternal truths and the very mind of God. Many people find themselves closer to God and to Jesus Christ in John than in any other book in the world.

The Gospel That Is Different

But we have only to read the Fourth Gospel in the most cursory way to see that it is quite different from the other three. It omits so many things that they include. The Fourth Gospel has no account of the Birth of Jesus, of his baptism, of his temptations; it tells us nothing of the Last Supper, nothing of Gethsemane, and nothing of the Ascension. It has no word of the healing of any people possessed by devils and evil spirits. And, perhaps most surprising of all, it has none of the parable stories Jesus told which are so priceless a part of the other three gospels. In these other three gospels Jesus speaks either in these wonderful stories or in short, epigrammatic, vivid sentences which stick in the memory. But in the Fourth Gospel the speeches of Jesus are often a whole chapter long; and are often involved, argumentative pronouncements quite unlike the pithy, unforgettable sayings of the other three.

Even more surprising, the account in the Fourth Gospel of the facts of the life and ministry of Jesus is often different from that in the other three.

(i) John has a different account of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. In the other three gospels it is quite definitely stated that Jesus did not emerge as a preacher until after John the Baptist had been imprisoned. "Now after John was arrested Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God" (Mar_1:14 ; Luk_3:18 , Luk_3:20 ; Mat_4:12 ). But in John there is a quite considerable period during which the ministry of Jesus over-lapped with the activity of John the Baptist (Joh_3:22-30 ; Joh_4:1-2 ).

(ii) John has a different account of the scene of Jesusinistry. In the other three gospels the main scene of the ministry is Galilee and Jesus does not reach Jerusalem until the last week of his life. In John the main scene of the ministry is Jerusalem and Judaea, with only occasional withdrawals to Galilee (Joh_2:1-13 ; Joh_4:35 through Joh_5:1 ; Joh_6:1 through Joh_7:14 ). In John, Jesus is in Jerusalem for a Passover which occurred at the same time as the cleansing of the Temple, as John tells the story (Joh_2:13 ); he is in Jerusalem at the time of an unnamed feast (Joh_5:1 ); he is there for the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:2 , Joh_7:10 ); he is there at the Feast of Dedication in the winter-time (Joh_10:22 ). In fact according to the Fourth Gospel Jesus never left Jerusalem after that feast; after Jn 10 he is in Jerusalem all the time, which would mean a stay of months, from the winter-time of the Feast of the Dedication to the spring-time of the Passover at which he was crucified.

In point of fact in this particular matter John is surely right. The other gospels show us Jesus mourning over Jerusalem as the last week came on. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Mat_23:37 ; Luk_13:34 ). It is clear that Jesus could not have said that unless he had paid repeated visits to Jerusalem and made repeated appeals to it. It was impossible for him to say that on a first visit. In this John is unquestionably right.

It was in fact this difference of scene which provided Eusebius with one of the earliest explanations of the difference between the Fourth Gospel and the other three. He said that in his day (about A.D. 300) many people who were scholars held the following view. Matthew at first preached to the Hebrew people. The day came when he had to leave them and to go to other nations. Before he went he set down his story of the life of Jesus in Hebrew, "and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence." After Mark and Luke had published their gospels, John was still preaching the story of Jesus orally. "Finally he proceeded to write for the following reason. The three gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his hands too, they say that he fully accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry.... They therefore say that John, being asked to do it for this reason, gave in his gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Saviour during that period; that is, of the deeds done before the imprisonment of John the Baptist.... John therefore records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time.... The Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life." (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 5: 24.)

So then according to Eusebius there is no contradiction at all between the Fourth Gospel and the other three; the difference is due to the fact that the Fourth Gospel is describing a ministry in Jerusalem, at least in its earlier chapters, which preceded the ministry in Galilee, and which took place while John the Baptist was still at liberty. It may well be that this explanation of Eusebius is at least in part correct.

(iii) John has a different account of the duration of Jesusinistry. The other three gospels, on the face of it, imply that it lasted only one year. Within the ministry there is only one Passover Feast. In John there are three Passovers, one at the Cleansing of the Temple (Joh_2:13 ); one near the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Joh_6:4 ); and the final Passover at which Jesus went to the Cross. According to John the ministry of Jesus would take a minimum of two years, and probably a period nearer three years, to cover its events. Again John is unquestionably right. If we read the other three gospels closely and carefully we can see that he is right. When the disciples plucked the ears of corn (Mar_2:23 ) it must have been spring-time. When the five thousand were fed, they sat down on the green grass (Mar_6:39 ); therefore it was spring-time again, and there must have been a year between the two events. There follows the tour through Tyre and Sidon, and the Transfiguration. At the Transfiguration Peter wished to build three booths and to stay there. It is most natural to think that it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths and that that is why Peter made the suggestion (Mar_9:5 ). That would make the date early in October. There follows the space between that and the last Passover in April. Therefore, behind the narrative of the other three gospels lies the fact that Jesusinistry actually did last for at least three years, as John represents it.

(iv) It sometimes even happens that John differs in matters of fact from the other three. There are two outstanding examples. First, John puts the Cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesusinistry (Joh_2:13-22 ), the others put it at the end (Mar_11:15-17 ; Mat_21:12-13 ; Luk_19:45-46 ). Second, when we come to study the narratives in detail, we will see that John dates the crucifixion of Jesus on the day before the Passover, while the other gospels date it on the day of the Passover.

We can never shut our eyes to the obvious differences between John and the other gospels.

JohnSpecial Knowledge

One thing is certain--if John differs from the other three gospels, it is not because of ignorance and lack of information. The plain fact is that, if he omits much that they tell us, he also tells us much that they do not mention. John alone tells of the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee (Joh_2:1-11 ); of the coming of Nicodemus to Jesus (Joh_3:1-15 ); of the woman of Samaria Jn 4 ; of the raising of Lazarus (Jn 11 ); of the way in which Jesus washed his discipleseet (Joh_13:1-17 ); of Jesusonderful teaching about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which is scattered through Jn 14 Jn 15 Jn 16 and Jn 17 . It is only in John that some of the disciples really come alive. It is in John alone that Thomas speaks (Joh_11:16 ; Joh_14:5 ; Joh_20:24-29 ); that Andrew becomes a real personality (Joh_1:40-41 ; Joh_6:8-9 ; Joh_12:22 ); that we get a glimpse of the character of Philip (Joh_6:5-7 ; Joh_14:8-9 ); that we hear the carping protest of Judas at the anointing at Bethany (Joh_12:4-5 ). And the strange thing is that these little extra touches are intensely revealing. Johnpictures of Thomas and Andrew and Philip are like little cameos or vignettes in which the character of each man is etched in a way we cannot forget.

Further, again and again John has little extra details which read like the memories of one who was there. The loaves which the lad brought to Jesus were barley loaves (Joh_6:9 ); when Jesus came to the disciples as they crossed the lake in the storm they had rowed between three and four miles (Joh_6:19 ); there were six stone waterpots at Cana of Galilee (Joh_2:6 ); it is only John who tells of the four soldiers gambling for the seamless robe as Jesus died (Joh_19:23 ); he knows the exact weight of the myrrh and aloes which were used to anoint the dead body of Jesus (Joh_19:39 ); he remembers how the perfume of the ointment filled the house at the anointing at Bethany (Joh_12:3 ). Many of these things are such apparently unimportant details that they are inexplicable unless they are the memories of a man who was there.

However much John may differ from the other three gospels, that difference is not to be explained by ignorance but rather by the fact that he had more knowledge or better sources or a more vivid memory than the others.

Further evidence of the specialised information of the writer of the Fourth Gospel is his detailed knowledge of Palestine and of Jerusalem. He knows how long it took to build the Temple (Joh_2:20 ); that the Jews and the Samaritans had a permanent quarrel (Joh_4:9 ); the low Jewish view of women (Joh_4:9 ); the way in which the Jews regard the Sabbath (Joh_5:10 ; Joh_7:21-23 ; Joh_9:14 ). His knowledge of the geography of Palestine is intimate. He knows of two Bethanys, one of which is beyond Jordan (Joh_1:28 ; Joh_12:1 ); he knows that Bethsaida was the home of some of the disciples (Joh_1:44 ; Joh_12:21 ); that Cana is in Galilee (Joh_2:1 ; Joh_4:46 ; Joh_21:2 ); that Sychar is near Shechem (Joh_4:5 ). He has what one might call a street by street knowledge of Jerusalem. He knows the sheep-gate and the pool near it (Joh_5:2 ); the pool of Siloam (Joh_9:7 ); SolomonPorch (Joh_10:23 ); the brook Kidron (Joh_18:1 ); the pavement which is called Gabbatha (Joh_19:13 ); Golgotha, which is like a skull (Joh_19:17 ). It must be remembered that Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 and that John did not write until A.D. 100 or thereby; and yet from his memory he knows Jerusalem like the back of his hand.

The Circumstances In Which John Wrote

We have seen that there are very real differences between the Fourth and the other three gospels; and we have seen that, whatever the reason, it was not lack of knowledge on Johnpart. We must now go on to ask, What was the aim with which John wrote? If we can discover this we will discover why he selected and treated his facts as he did.

The Fourth Gospel was written in Ephesus about the year A.D. 100. By that time two special features had emerged in the situation of the Christian church. First, Christianity had gone out into the Gentile world. By that time the Christian church was no longer predominantly Jewish; it was in fact overwhelmingly gentile. The vast majority of its members now came, not from a Jewish, but an Hellenistic background. That being so, Christianity had to be restated. It was not that the truth of Christianity had changed; but the terms and the categories in which it found expression had to be changed.

Take but one instance. A Greek might take up the Gospel according to St. Matthew. No sooner had he opened it than he was confronted with a long genealogy. Genealogies were familiar enough to the Jew but quite unintelligible to the Greek. He would read on. He would be confronted with a Jesus who was the Son of David, a king of whom the Greeks had never heard, and the symbol of a racial and nationalist ambition which was nothing to the Greek. He would be faced with the picture of Jesus as Messiah, a term of which the Greek had never heard. Must the Greek who wished to become a Christian be compelled to reorganize his whole thinking into Jewish categories? Must he learn a good deal about Jewish history and Jewish apocalyptic literature (which told about the coming of the Messiah) before he could become a Christian? As E. J. Goodspeed phrased it: "Was there no way in which he might be introduced directly to the values of Christian salvation without being for ever routed, we might even say, detoured, through Judaism?" The Greek was one of the worldgreat thinkers. Had he to abandon all his own great intellectual heritage in order to think entirely in Jewish terms and categories of thought?

John faced that problem fairly and squarely. And he found one of the greatest solutions which ever entered the mind of man. Later on, in the commentary, we shall deal much more fully with Johngreat solution. At the moment we touch on it briefly. The Greeks had two great conceptions.

(a) They had the conception of the Logos. In Greek logos (G3056) means two things--it means word and it means reason. The Jew was entirely familiar with the all-powerful word of God. "God said, Let there be light; and there was light" (Gen_1:3 ). The Greek was entirely familiar with the thought of reason. He looked at this world; he saw a magnificent and dependable order. Night and day came with unfailing regularity; the year kept its seasons in unvarying course; the stars and the planets moved in their unaltering path; nature had her unvarying laws. What produced this order? The Greek answered unhesitatingly, The Logos (G3056), the mind of God, is responsible for the majestic order of the world. He went on, What is it that gives man power to think, to reason and to know? Again he answered unhesitatingly, The Logos (G3056), the mind of God, dwelling within a man makes him a thinking rational being.

John seized on this. It was in this way that he thought of Jesus. He said to the Greeks, "All your lives you have been fascinated by this great, guiding, controlling mind of God. The mind of God has come to earth in the man Jesus. Look at him and you see what the mind and thought of God are like." John had discovered a new category in which the Greek might think of Jesus, a category in which Jesus was presented as nothing less than God acting in the form of a man.

(b) They had the conception of two worlds. The Greek always conceived of two worlds. The one was the world in which we live. It was a wonderful world in its way but a world of shadows and copies and unrealities. The other was the real world, in which the great realities, of which our earthly things are only poor, pale copies, stand for ever. To the Greek the unseen world was the real one; the seen world was only shadowy unreality.

Plato systematized this way of thinking in his doctrine of forms or ideas. He held that in the unseen world there was the perfect pattern of everything, and the things of this world were shadowy copies of these eternal patterns. To put it simply, Plato held that somewhere there was a perfect pattern of a table of which all earthly tables are inadequate copies; somewhere there was the perfect pattern of the good and the beautiful of which all earthly goodness and earthly beauty are imperfect copies. And the great reality, the supreme idea, the pattern of all patterns and the form of all forms was God. The great problem was how to get into this world of reality, how to get out of our shadows into the eternal truths.

John declares that that is what Jesus enables us to do. He is reality come to earth. The Greek word for real in this sense is alethinos (G228); it is very closely connected with the word alethes (G227), which means true, and aletheia (G225), which means "the truth." The King James and Revised Standard Versions translate alethinos (G228) true; they would be far better to translate it "real." Jesus is the real light (Joh_1:9 ); Jesus is the real bread (Joh_6:32 ); Jesus is the real vine (Joh_15:1 ); to Jesus belongs the real judgment (Joh_8:16 ). Jesus alone has reality in our world of shadows and imperfections.

Something follows from that. Every action that Jesus did was, therefore, not only an act in time but a window which allows us to see into reality. That is what John means when he talks of Jesusiracles as signs (semeia - G4592). The wonderful works of Jesus were not simply wonderful; they were windows opening onto the reality which is God. This explains why John tells the miracle stories in a quite different way from the other three gospel writers. There are two differences.

(a) In the Fourth Gospel we miss the note of compassion which is in the miracle stories of the others. In the others Jesus is moved with compassion for the leper (Mar_1:41 ); his sympathy goes out to Jairus (Mar_5:22 ); he is sorry for the father of the epileptic boy (Mar_9:14 ); when he raises to life the son of the widow of Nain, Luke says with an infinite tenderness, "He gave him to his mother" (Luk_7:15 ). But in John the miracles are not so much deeds of compassion as deeds which demonstrate the glory of Christ. After the miracle at Cana of Galilee, John comments: "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory" (Joh_2:11 ). The raising of Lazarus happens "for the glory of God" (Joh_11:4 ). The blind manblindness existed to allow a demonstration of the glory of the works of God (Joh_9:3 ). To John it was not that there was no love and compassion in the miracles; but in every one of them he saw the glory of the reality of God breaking into time and into human affairs.

(b) Often the miracles of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are accompanied by a long discourse. The feeding of the five thousand is followed by the long discourse on the bread of life (Jn 6 ); the healing of the blind man springs from the saying that Jesus is the light of the world (Jn 9 ); the raising of Lazarus leads up to the saying that Jesus is the resurrection and the life (Jn 11 ). To John the miracles were not simply single events in time; they were insights into what God is always doing and what Jesus always is; they were windows into the reality of God. Jesus did not merely once feed five thousand people; that was an illustration that he is for ever the real bread of life. Jesus did not merely once open the eyes of a blind man; he is for ever the light of the world. Jesus did not merely once raise Lazarus from the dead; he is for ever and for all men the resurrection and the life. To John a miracle was never an isolated act; it was always a window into the reality of what Jesus always was and always is and always did and always does.

It was with this in mind that that great scholar Clement of Alexandria (about A.D. 230) arrived at one of the most famous and true of all verdicts about the origin and aim of the Fourth Gospel. It was his view that the gospels containing the genealogies had been written first--that is, Luke and Matthew; that then Mark at the request of many who had heard Peter preach composed his gospel, which embodied the preaching material of Peter; and that then "last of all, John, perceiving that what had reference to the bodily things of Jesusinistry had been sufficiently related, and encouraged by his friends, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote a spiritual gospel" (quoted in Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 6 : 14). What Clement meant was that John was not so much interested in the mere facts as in the meaning of the facts, that it was not facts he was after but truth. John did not see the events of Jesusife simply as events in time; he saw them as windows looking into eternity, and he pressed towards the spiritual meaning of the events and the words of Jesusife in a way that the other three gospels did not attempt.

That is still one of the truest verdicts on the Fourth Gospel ever reached. John did write, not an historical, but a spiritual gospel.

So then, first of all, John presented Jesus as the mind of God in a person come to earth, and as the one person who possesses reality instead of shadows and able to lead men out of the shadows into the real world of which Plato and the great Greeks had dreamed. The Christianity which had once been clothed in Jewish categories had taken to itself the greatness of the thought of the Greeks.

The Rise Of The Heresies

The second of the great facts confronting the church when the Fourth Gospel was written was the rise of heresy. It was now seventy years since Jesus had been crucified. By this time the church was an organisation and an institution. Theologies and creeds were being thought out and stated; and inevitably the thoughts of some people went down mistaken ways and heresies resulted. A heresy is seldom a complete untruth; it usually results when one facet of the truth is unduly emphasised. We can see at least two of the heresies which the writer of the Fourth Gospel sought to combat.

(a) There were certain Christians, especially Jewish Christians, who gave too high a place to John the Baptist. There was something about him which had an inevitable appeal to the Jews. He walked in the prophetic succession and talked with the prophetic voice. We know that in later times there was an accepted sect of John the Baptist within the orthodox Jewish faith. In Act_19:1-7 we come upon a little group of twelve men on the fringe of the Christian church who had never gotten beyond the baptism of John.

Over and over again the Fourth Gospel quietly, but definitely, relegates John to his proper place. Over and over again John himself denies that he has ever claimed or possessed the highest place, and without qualification yields that place to Jesus. We have already seen that in the other gospels the ministry of Jesus did not begin until John the Baptist had been put into prison, but that in the Fourth Gospel their ministries overlap. The writer of the Fourth Gospel may well have used that arrangement to show John and Jesus in actual meeting and to show that John used these meetings to admit, and to urge others to admit, the supremacy of Jesus. It is carefully pointed out that John is not that light (Joh_1:8 ). He is shown as quite definitely disclaiming all Messianic aspirations (Joh_1:20 ; Joh_3:28 ; Joh_4:1 ; Joh_10:41 ). It is not even permissible to think of him as the highest witness (Joh_5:36 ). There is no criticism at all of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel; but there is a rebuke to those who would give him a place which ought to belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone.

(b) A certain type of heresy which was very widely spread in the days when the Fourth Gospel was written is called by the general name of Gnosticism. Without some understanding of it much of Johngreatness and much of his aim will be missed. The basic doctrine of Gnosticism was that matter is essentially evil and spirit is essentially good. The Gnostics went on to argue that on that basis God himself cannot touch matter and therefore did not create the world. What he did was to put out a series of emanations. Each of these emanations was further from him, until at last there was one so distant from him that it could touch matter. That emanation was the creator of the world.

By itself that idea is bad enough, but it was made worse by an addition. The Gnostics held that each emanation knew less and less about God, until there was a stage when the emanations were not only ignorant of God but actually hostile to him. So they finally came to the conclusion that the creator god was not only different from the real God, but was also quite ignorant of and actively hostile to him. Cerinthus, one of the leaders of the Gnostics, said that "the world was created, not by God, but by a certain power far separate from him, and far distant from that Power who is over the universe, and ignorant of the God who is over all."

The Gnostics believed that God had nothing to do with the creating of the world. That is why John begins his gospel with the ringing statement: "All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that was made" (Joh_1:3 ). That is why John insists that "God so loved the world" (Joh_3:16 ). In face of the Gnostics who so mistakenly spiritualized God into a being who could not possibly have anything to do with the world, John presented the Christian doctrine of the God who made the world and whose presence fills the world that he has made.

The beliefs of the Gnostics impinged on their ideas of Jesus.

(a) Some of the Gnostics held that Jesus was one of the emanations which had proceeded from God. They held that he was not in any real sense divine; that he was only a kind of demigod who was more or less distant from the real God; that he was simply one of a chain of lesser beings between God and the world.

(b) Some of the Gnostics held that Jesus had no real body. A body is matter and God could not touch matter; therefore Jesus was a kind of phantom without real flesh and blood. They held, for instance, that when he stepped on the ground he left no footprint, for his body had neither weight nor substance. They could never have said: "The Word became flesh" (Joh_1:14 ). Augustine tells how he had read much in the work of the philosophers of his day; he had found much that was very like what was in the New Testament, but, he said: "e Word was made flesh and dwelt among us did not read there." That is why John in his First Letter insists that Jesus came in the flesh, and declares that any one who denies that fact is moved by the spirit of antichrist (1Jo_4:3 ). This particular heresy is known as Docetism. Docetism comes from the Greek word dokein (G1380) which means to seem ; and the heresy is so called because it held that Jesus only seemed to be a man.

(c) Some Gnostics held a variation of that heresy. They held that Jesus was a man into whom the Spirit of God came at his baptism; that Spirit remained with him throughout his life until the end; but since the Spirit of God could never suffer and die, it left him before he was crucified. They gave Jesusry on the Cross as : "My power, my power, why hast thou forsaken me?" And in their books they told of people talking on the Mount of Olives to a form which looked exactly like Jesus while the man Jesus died on the Cross.

So then the Gnostic heresies issued in one of two beliefs. They believed either that Jesus was not really divine but simply one of a series of emanations from God, or that he was not in any sense human but a kind of phantom in the shape of a man. The Gnostic beliefs at one and the same time destroyed the real godhead and the real manhood of Jesus.

The Humanity Of Jesus

The fact that John is out to correct both these Gnostic tendencies explains a curious paradoxical double emphasis in his gospel. On the one hand, there is no gospel which so uncompromisingly stresses the real humanity of Jesus. Jesus was angry with those who bought and sold in the Temple courts (Joh_2:15 ); he was physically tired as he sat by the well which was near Sychar in Samaria (Joh_4:6 ); his disciples offered him food in the way in which they would offer it to any hungry man (Joh_4:31 ); he had sympathy with those who were hungry and with those who were afraid (Joh_6:5 , Joh_6:20 ); he knew grief and he wept tears as any mourner might do (Joh_11:33 , Joh_11:35 , Joh_11:38 ); in the agony of the Cross the cry of his parched lips was: "I thirst" (Joh_19:28 ). The Fourth Gospel shows us a Jesus who was no shadowy, docetic figure; it shows us one who knew the weariness of an exhausted body and the wounds of a distressed mind and heart. It is the truly human Jesus whom the Fourth Gospel sets before us.

The Deity Of Jesus

On the other hand, there is no gospel which sets before us such a view of the deity of Jesus.

(a) John stresses the preexistence of Jesus. "Before Abraham was," said Jesus, "I am" (Joh_8:58 ). He talks of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was made (Joh_17:5 ). Again and again he speaks of his coming down from heaven (Joh_6:33-38 ). John saw in Jesus one who had always been, even before the world began.

(b) The Fourth Gospel stresses more than any of the others the omniscience of Jesus. It is Johnview that apparently miraculously Jesus knew the past record of the woman of Samaria (Joh_4:16-17 ); apparently without anyone telling him he knew how long the man beside the healing pool had been ill (Joh_5:6 ); before he asked it, he knew the answer to the question he put to Philip (Joh_6:6 ); he knew that Judas would betray him (Joh_6:61-64 ); he knew of the death of Lazarus before anyone told him of it (Joh_11:14 ). John saw in Jesus one who had a special and miraculous knowledge independent of anything which any man might tell him. He needed to ask no questions because he knew all the answers.

(c) The Fourth Gospel stresses the fact, as John saw it, that Jesus always acted entirely on his own initiative and uninfluenced by anyone else. It was not his motherrequest which moved him to the miracle at Cana of Galilee; it was his own personal decision (Joh_2:4 ); the urging of his brothers had nothing to do with the visit which he paid to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (Joh_7:10 ); no man took his life from him--no man could; he laid it down purely voluntarily (Joh_10:18 ; Joh_19:11 ). As John saw it, Jesus had a divine independence from all human influence. He was self-determined.

To meet the Gnostics and their strange beliefs John presents us with a Jesus who was undeniably human and who yet was undeniably divine.

The Author Of The Fourth Gospel

We have seen that the aim of the writer of the Fourth Gospel was to present the Christian faith in such a way that it would commend itself to the Greek world to which Christianity had gone out, and also to combat the heresies and mistaken ideas which had arisen within the church. We go on to ask, Who is that writer? Tradition answers unanimously that the author was John the apostle. We shall see that beyond doubt the authority of John lies behind the gospel, although it may well be that its actual form and penmanship did not come from his hand. Let us, then, collect what we know about him.

He was the younger son of Zebedee, who possessed a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee and was well enough off to be able to employ hired servants to help him with his work (Mar_1:19-20 ). His mother was Salome, and it seems likely that she was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus (Mat_27:56 ; Mar_16:1 ). With his brother James he obeyed the call of Jesus (Mar_1:20 ). It would seem that James and John were in partnership with Peter in the fishing trade (Luk_5:7-10 ). He was one of the inner circle of the disciples, for the lists of the disciples always begin with the names of Peter, James and John, and there were certain great occasions when Jesus took these three specially with him (Mar_3:17 ; Mar_5:37 ; Mar_9:2 ; Mar_14:33 ).

In character he was clearly a turbulent and ambitious man. Jesus gave to him and to his brother the name Boanerges, which the gospel writers take to mean Sons of Thunder. John and his brother James were completely exclusive and intolerant (Mar_9:38 ; Luk_9:49 ). So violent was their temper that they were prepared to blast a Samaritan village out of existence because it would not give them hospitality when they were on their journey to Jerusalem (Luk_9:54 ). Either they or their mother Salome had the ambition that when Jesus came into his kingdom, they might be his principal ministers of state (Mar_10:35 ; Mat_20:20 ). In the other three gospels John appears as a leader of the apostolic band, one of the inner circle, and yet a turbulent ambitious and intolerant character.

In the Book of Acts John always appears as the companion of Peter, and he himself never speaks at all. His name is still one of the three names at the head of the apostolic list (Acts 1:13). He is with Peter when the lame man is healed at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple (Act_3:1 ). With Peter he is brought before the Sanhedrin and faces the Jewish leaders with a courage and a boldness that astonished them (Act_4:1-13 ). With Peter he goes from Jerusalem to Samaria to survey the work done by Philip (Act_8:14 ).

In Paulletters he appears only once. In Galatians 2:9 he is named as one of the pillars of the church along with Peter and James, and with them is depicted as giving his approval to the work of Paul.

John was a strange mixture. He was one of the leaders of the Twelve; he was one of the inner circle of Jesuslosest friends; at the same time he was a man of temper and ambition and intolerance, and yet of courage.

We may follow John into the stories told of him in the early church. Eusebius tells us that he was banished to Patmos in the reign of Domitian (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History 3 : 23). In the same passage Eusebius tells a characteristic story about John, a story which he received from Clement of Alexandria. John became a kind of bishop of Asia Minor and was visiting one of his churches near Ephesus. In the congregation he saw a tall and exceptionally fine-looking young man. He turned to the elder in charge of the congregation and said to him: "I commit that young man into your charge and into your care, and I call this congregation to witness that I do so." The elder took the young man into his own house and cared for him and instructed him, and the day came when he was baptized and received into the church. But very soon afterwards he fell in with evil friends and embarked on such a career of crime that he ended up by becoming the leader of a band of murdering and pillaging brigands. Some time afterwards John returned to the congregation. He said to the elder: "Restore to me the trust which I and the Lord committed to you and to the church of which you are in charge." At first the elder did not understand of what John was speaking. "I mean," said John, "that I am asking you for the soul of the young man whom I entrusted to you." "Alas!" said the elder, "he is dead." "Dead?" said John. "He is dead to God," said the elder. "He fell from grace; he was forced to flee from the city for his crimes and now he is a brigand in the mountains." Straightway John went to the mountains. Deliberately he allowed himself to be captured by the robber band. They brought him before the young man who was now the chief of the band and, in his shame, the young man tried to run away from him. John, though an old man, pursued him. "My son," he cried, "are you running away from your father? I am feeble and far advanced in age; have pity on me, my son; fear not; there is yet hope of salvation for you. I will stand for you before the Lord Christ. If need be I will gladly die for you as he died for me. Stop, stay, believe! It is Christ who has sent me to you." The appeal broke the heart of the young man. He stopped, threw away his weapons, and wept. Together he and John came down the mountainside and he was brought back into the church and into the Christian way. There we see the love and the courage of John still in operation.

Eusebius (3 : 28) tells another story of John which he got from the works of Irenaeus. We have seen that one of the leaders of the Gnostic heresy was a man called Cerinthus. "The apostle John once entered a bath to bathe; but, when he learned that Cerinthus was within, he sprang from his place and rushed out of the door, for he could not bear to remain under the same roof with him. He advised those who were with him to do the same. t us flee,e said, st the bath fall, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within."here we have another glimpse of the temper of John. Boanerges was not quite dead.

Cassian tells another famous story about John. One day he was found playing with a tame partridge. A narrower and more rigid brother rebuked him for thus wasting his time, and John answered: "The bow that is always bent will soon cease to shoot straight."

It is Jerome who tells the story of the last words of John. When he was dying, his disciples asked him if he had any last message to leave them. "Little children," he said, "love one another." Again and again he repeated it; and they asked him if that was all he had to say. "It is enough," he said, "for it is the Lordcommand."

Such then is our information about John; and he emerges a figure of fiery temper, of wide ambition, of undoubted courage, and, in the end, of gentle love.

The Beloved Disciple

If we have been following our references closely we will have noticed one thing. All our information about John comes from the first three gospels. It is the astonishing fact that the Fourth Gospel never mentions the apostle John from beginning to end. But it does mention two other people.

First, it speaks of the disciple whom Jesus loved. There are four mentions of him. He was leaning on Jesusreast at the Last Supper (Joh_13:23-25 ); it is into his care that Jesus committed Mary as he died upon his Cross (Joh_19:25-27 ); it was Peter and he whom Mary Magdalene met on her return from the empty tomb on the first Easter morning (Joh_20:2 ); he was present at the last resurrection appearance of Jesus by the lake-side (Joh_21:20 ).

Second, the Fourth Gospel has a kind of character whom we might call the witness. As the Fourth Gospel tells of the spear thrust into the side of Jesus and the issue of the water and the blood, there comes the comment: "He who saw it has borne witness--his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth--that you also may believe" (Joh_19:35 ). At the end of the gospel comes the statement that it was the beloved disciple who testified of these things "and we know that his testimony is true" (Joh_21:24 ).

Here we are faced with rather a strange thing. In the Fourth Gospel John is never mentioned, but the beloved disciple is and in addition there is a witness of some kind to the whole story. It has never really been doubted in tradition that the beloved disciple is John. A few have tried to identify him with Lazarus, for Jesus is said to have loved Lazarus (Joh_11:3 , Joh_11:5 ), or with the Rich Young Ruler, of whom it is said that Jesus, looking on him, loved him (Mar_10:21 ). But although the gospel never says so in so many words, tradition has always identified the beloved disciple with John, and there is no real need to doubt the identification.

But a very real point arises--suppose John himself actually did the writing of the gospel, would he really be likely to speak of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved? Would he really be likely to pick himself out like this, and, as it were, to say: "I was his favourite; he loved me best of all"? It is surely very unlikely that John would confer such a title on himself. If it was conferred by others, it is a lovely title; if it was conferred by himself, it comes perilously near to an almost incredible self-conceit.

Is there any way then that the gospel can be Johnown eye-witness story, and yet at the same time have been actually written down by someone else?

The Production Of The Church

In our search for the truth we begin by noting one of the outstanding and unique features of the Fourth Gospel. The most remarkable thing about it is the long speeches of Jesus. Often they are whole chapters long, and are entirely unlike the way in which Jesus is portrayed as speaking in the other three gospels. The Fourth Gospel, as we have seen, was written about the year A.D. 100, that is, about seventy years after the crucifixion. Is it possible after these seventy years to look on these speeches as word for word reports of what Jesus said? Or can we explain them in some way that is perhaps even greater than that? We must begin by holding in our minds the fact of the speeches and the question which they inevitably raise.

And we have something to add to that. It so happens that in the writings of the early church we have a whole series of accounts of the way in which the Fourth Gospel came to be written. The earliest is that of Irenaeus who was bishop of Lyons about A.D. 177; and Irenaeus was himself a pupil of Polycarp, who in turn had actually been a pupil of John. There is therefore a direct link between Irenaeus and John. Irenaeus writes:

"John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leant upon his breast,

himself also published the gospel in Ephesus, when he was living

in Asia."

The suggestive thing there is that Irenaeus does not merely say that John wrote the gospel; he says that John published (exedoke) it in Ephesus. The word that Irenaeus uses makes it sound, not like the private publication of some personal memoir, but like the public issue of some almost official document.

The next account is that of Clement who was head of the great school of Alexandria about A.D. 230. He writes:

"Last of all, John perceiving that the bodily facts had been made

plain in the gospel, being urged by his friends, composed a

spiritual gospel."

The important thing here is the phrase being urged by his friends. It begins to become clear that the Fourth Gospel is far more than one manpersonal production and that there is a group, a community, a church behind it. On the same lines, a tenth-century manuscript called the Codex Toletanus, which prefaces the New Testament books with short descriptions, prefaces the Fourth Gospel thus:

The apostle John, whom the Lord Jesus loved most, last of all

wrote this gospel, at the request of the bishops of Asia, against

Cerinthus and other heretics."

Again we have the idea that behind the Fourth Gospel there is the authority of a group and of a church.

We now turn to a very important document, known as the Muratorian Canon. It is so called after a scholar Muratori who discovered it. It is the first list of New Testament books which the church ever issued and was compiled in Rome about A.D. 170. Not only does it list the New Testament books, it also gives short accounts of the origin and nature and contents of each of them. Its account of the way in which the Fourth Gospel came to be written is extremely important and illuminating.

"At the request of his fellow-disciples and of his bishops, John,

one of the disciples, said: úst with me for three days from

this time and whatsoever shall be revealed to each of us, whether

it be favourable to my writing or not, let us relate it to one

another.n the same night it was revealed to Andrew that John

should relate all things, aided by the revision of all."

We cannot accept all that statement, because it is not possible that Andrew, the apostle, was in Ephesus in A.D. 100; but the point is that it is stated as clearly as possible that, while the authority and the mind and the memory behind the Fourth Gospel are that of John, it is clearly and definitely the product, not of one man, but of a group and a community.

Now we can see something of what happened. About the year A.D. 100 there was a group of men in Ephesus whose leader was John. They revered him as a saint and they loved him as a father. He must have been almost a hundred years old. Before he died, they thought most wisely that it would be a great thing if the aged apostle set down his memories of the years when he had been with Jesus. But in the end they did far more than that. We can think of them sitting down and reliving the old days. One would say: "Do you remember how Jesus said ... ?" And John would say: "Yes, and now we know that he meant..."

In other words this group was not only writing down what Jesus said; that would have been a mere feat of memory. They were writing down what Jesus meant; that was the guidance of the Holy Spirit. John had thought about every word that Jesus had said; and he had thought under the guidance of the Holy Spirit who was so real to him. W. M. Macgregor has a sermon entitled: "What Jesus becomes to a man who has known him long." That is a perfect description of the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel. A. H. N. Green Armytage puts the thing perfectly in his book John who saw. Mark, he says, suits the missionary with his clear-cut account of the facts of Jesusife; Matthew suits the teacher with his systematic account of the teaching of Jesus; Luke suits the parish minister or priest with his wide sympathy and his picture of Jesus as the friend of all; but John is the gospel of the contemplative.

He goes on to speak of the apparent contrast between Mark and John. "The two gospels are in a sense the same gospel. Only, where Mark saw things plainly, bluntly, literally, John saw them subtly, profoundly, spiritually. We might say that John lit Markpages by the lantern of a lifetimemeditation." Wordsworth defined poetry as "Emotion recollected in tranquillity ". That is a perfect description of the Fourth Gospel. That is why John is unquestionably the greatest of all the gospels. Its aim is, not to give us what Jesus said like a newspaper report, but to give us what Jesus meant. In it the Risen Christ still speaks. John is not so much The Gospel according to St. John; it is rather The Gospel according to the Holy Spirit. It was not John of Ephesus who wrote the Fourth Gospel; it was the Holy Spirit who wrote it through John.

The Penman Of The Gospel

We have one question still to ask. We can be quite sure that the mind and the memory behind the Fourth Gospel is that of John the apostle; but we have also seen that behind it is a witness who was the writer, in the sense that he was the actual penman. Can we find out who he was? We know from what the early church writers tell us that there were actually two Johns in Ephesus at the same time. There was John the apostle, but there was another John, who was known as John the elder.

Papias, who loved to collect all that he could find about the history of the New Testament and the story of Jesus, gives us some very interesting information. He was Bishop of Hierapolis, which is quite near Ephesus, and his dates are from about A.D. 70 to about A.D. 145. That is to say, he was actually a contemporary of John. He writes how he tried to find out "what Andrew said or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord; and what things Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say." In Ephesus there was the apostle John, and the elder John; and the elder John was so well-loved a figure that he was actually known as The Elder. He clearly had a unique place in the church. Both Eusebius and Dionysius the Great tell us that even to their own days in Ephesus there were two famous tombs, the one of John the apostle, and the other of John the elder.

Now let us turn to the two little letters, Second John and Third John. The letters come from the same hand as the gospel, and how do they begin? The second letter begins: "The elder unto the elect lady and her children" (2Jo_1:1 ). The third letter begins: "The elder unto the beloved Gaius" (3Jo_1:1 ). Here we have our solution. The actual penman of the letters was John the elder; the mind and memory behind them was the aged John the apostle, the master whom John the elder always described as "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

The Precious Gospel

The more we know about the Fourth Gospel the more precious it becomes. For seventy years John had thought of Jesus. Day by day the Holy Spirit had opened out to him the meaning of what Jesus said. So when John was near the century of life and his days were numbered, he and his friends sat down to remember. John the elder held the pen to write for his master, John the apostle; and the last of the apostles set down, not only what he had heard Jesus say, but also what he now knew Jesus had meant. He remembered how Jesus had said: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (Joh_16:12-13 ). There were many things which seventy years ago he had not understood; there were many things which in these seventy years the Spirit of Truth had revealed to him. These things John set down even as the eternal glory was dawning upon him. When we read this gospel let us remember that we are reading the gospel which of all the gospels is most the work of the Holy Spirit, speaking to us of the things which Jesus meant, speaking through the mind and memory of John the apostle and by the pen of John the elder. Behind this gospel is the whole church at Ephesus, the whole company of the saints, the last of the apostles, the Holy Spirit, the Risen Christ himself.

FURTHER READING

John

C. Kingsley Barrett, The Gospel According to Saint John (G)

J. H. Bernahrd, St. John (ICC; G)

E. C. Hoskyns (ed. F. M. Davey), The Fourth Gospel (E)

R. H. Lightfoot, St. JohnGospel: A Commentary (E)

G. H. C. Macgregor, The Gospel of John (MC; E)

J. N. Saunders (ed. B. A. Mastin), The Gospel According to Saint John (ACB; E)

R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to Saint John (TC; E)

B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to Saint John (E)

The SpeakerCommentary (MmC; G)

Abbreviations

ACB: A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary

ICC: International Critical Commentary

MC: Moffatt Commentary

MmC: Macmillan Commentary

TC: Tyndale Commentary

E: English Text G: Greek Text

Barclay: John 19 (Chapter Introduction)

Note On The Date Of The Crucifixion (Joh_19:14)

The Way To The Cross (Joh_19:17-22)

The Way To The Cross (Joh_19:17-22 Continued)

The Gamblers At The Cross (Joh_19:23-24)

A Son's Love (Joh_19:25-27)

The Triumphant Ending (Joh_19:28-30)

The Water And The Blood (Joh_19:31-37)

The Last Gifts To Jesus (Joh_19:38-42)

Constable: John (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Writer

The writer of this Gospel did not identify himself as such in the text. This is true of all the Gospel evangelists. Nevertheless there is evidence within this Gospel as well as in the writings of the church fathers that the writer was the Apostle John.

The internal evidence from the Gospel itself is as follows. In 21:24 the writer of "these things" (i.e., the whole Gospel) was the same person as the disciple whom Jesus loved (21:7). That disciple was one of the seven disciples mentioned in 21:2. He was also the disciple who sat beside Jesus in the upper room when He instituted the Lord's Supper and to whom Peter motioned (13:23-24). This means that he was one of the Twelve since only they were present in the upper room (Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14). The disciple whom Jesus loved was also one of the inner circle of three disciples, namely Peter, James, and John (Mark 5:37-38; 9:2-3; 14:33; John 20:2-10). James died in the early history of the church, probably in the early 40s (Acts 12:2). There is good evidence that whoever wrote this Gospel did so after then. The writer was also not Peter (21:20-24). This evidence points to John as the disciple whom Jesus loved who was also the writer of this Gospel. The writer claimed to have seen Jesus' glory (1:14; cf. 1:1-4), which John did at the Transfiguration. There are several Johns in the New Testament. This one was one of Zebedee's sons who was a fisherman before Jesus called him to leave his nets and follow Him.

"To a certain extent each of the Gospels reflects the personality of its author, but in none of them is there a more distinctive individuality manifested than in John."¹

The external evidence also points to the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons (c. 130-200 A.D.), wrote that he had heard Polycarp (c. 69-155 A.D.), a disciple of John. It was apparently from Polycarp that Irenaeus learned that, "John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, had himself published a Gospel during his residence in Ephesus in Asia."² Other later church fathers supported this tradition including Theophilus of Antioch (c. 180 A.D.), Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, and Tatian.³ Eusebius (fourth century) also specifically mentioned that Matthew and John among the apostles wrote the Gospels that bear their names.⁴

Some scholars have rejected this seemingly clear evidence and have refused to accept Johannine authorship. This criticism comes from those who hold a lower view of Scripture generally. Answering their objections lies outside the purpose of these notes.⁵

Place of Writing

Eusebius wrote that John ministered to the church in Ephesus, which Paul had founded (Acts 19:1-20), for many years.⁶ The Isle of Patmos where John spent some time in exile is close to Ephesus (cf. Rev. 1:9-11). As previously noted, Eusebius wrote that John composed his Gospel when he was at Ephesus.⁷ During the first century, that city was one of the largest centers of Christian activity in the Gentile world.⁸

Date

A few scholars believe John could have written this book as early as 45 A.D., the date when Saul of Tarsus' persecutions drove many Christians out of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 8:1-4).⁹ There are two main problems with such an early date. First, John seems to have assumed that the Synoptic Gospels were available to the Christian public. There is some doubt about this since it assumes an assumption, but most scholars believe, on the basis of content, that John selected his material to supplement material in the Synoptics. This would put the fourth Gospel later than the Synoptics. Second, according to early church tradition the Apostle John lived long into the first century. This would make a later date possible even though it does not prove a later date. Some students of the book believe that John 21:18-22 implies that Peter would die before John did, and Peter died about 67 A.D. In general, most authorities reject a date this early for these and other reasons.

Some conservatives date the Gospel slightly before 70 A.D. because John described Palestine and Jerusalem as they were before the Roman destruction (cf. 5:2).¹⁰ This may be a weak argument since John frequently used the Greek present tense to describe things in the past.¹¹ Some who hold this date note the absence of any reference to Jerusalem's destruction in John. However there could have been many reasons John chose not to mention the destruction of Jerusalem if he wrote after that event. A date of writing before the destruction of Jerusalem is also a minority opinion among scholars.

Many conservative scholars believe that John wrote his Gospel between 85 and 95 A.D.¹² Early church tradition was that John wrote it when he was an older man. Moreover even the early Christians regarded this as the fourth Gospel and believed that John wrote it after the Synoptics. It is not clear if John had access to the Synoptic Gospels. He did not quote from any of them. However, his choice of material for his own Gospel suggests that he probably read them and chose to include other material from Jesus' ministry in his account to supplement them.¹³

The latest possible date would be about 100 A.D. Some liberal scholars date this Gospel in the second century. The Egerton papyrus that dates from early in the second century contains unmistakable allusions to John's Gospel.¹⁴ This seems to rule out a second century date.

It seems impossible to identify the date of writing very exactly, as evidenced by the difference of opinion that exists between excellent conservative scholars. A date sometime between 65 and 95 A.D. is probable.

Characteristic features and purpose

John's presentation of Jesus in his Gospel has been a problem to many modern students of the New Testament. Some regard it as the greatest problem in current New Testament studies.¹⁵ Compared to the Synoptics that present Jesus as a historical figure, John stressed the deity of Jesus. Obviously the Synoptics present Jesus as divine also, but the emphasis in the fourth Gospel is more strongly on Jesus' full deity. This emphasis runs from the beginning, with the Word becoming flesh (1:1, 14), to the end, were Thomas confessed Jesus as his Lord and God (20:28). John's purpose statement (20:30-31) explains why he stressed Jesus' deity. It was so his readers would believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and thereby have eternal life.

The key word in the book is the verb "believe" (Gr. pisteuo), which appears 98 times. The noun form of the word (Gr. pistis, "faith") does not occur at all. This phenomenon shows that John wanted to stress the importance of active vital trust in Jesus. Other key words are witness, love, abide, the Counselor (i.e., the Holy Spirit), light, life, darkness, Word, glorify, true, and real.¹⁶ These words identify important themes in the Gospel.

John's unique purpose accounted for his selection of material, as was true of every biblical writer. He omitted Jesus' genealogy, birth, baptism, temptation, exorcizing demons, parables, transfiguration, institution of the Lord's Supper, agony in Gethsemane, and ascension. He focused on Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, the Jewish feasts, Jesus' private conversations with individuals, and His preparation of His disciples (chs. 13-17). John selected seven signs or miracles that demonstrate that Jesus was the divine Messiah (chs. 2-12). He also recorded the discourses that Jesus gave following these signs that explained their significance. Moreover he stressed Jesus' claims that occur in the unique "I am" statements (6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1, 5).

About 93% of the material in John's Gospel does not appear in the Synoptics.¹⁷ This fact indicates the uniqueness of this Gospel compared with the other three and explains why they bear the title "Synoptic" and John does not. All four Gospels are quite similar, though each of them has its own distinctive features. John, on the other hand, is considerably different from the others. Specifically it stresses Jesus' deity stronger than the others do. It is, I believe, impossible to determine for certain whether or not John used or even knew of the Synoptic Gospels.¹⁸ I suspect that he did.

Another difference between the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel is the writers' view of eschatology. They all share the same basic view, namely that the Jews' rejection of their Messiah resulted in the postponement of the messianic kingdom. However the Synoptic writers stressed the future aspects of eschatology more than John who put more emphasis on the present or realized aspects of eschatology. This is not to say that John presented the kingdom as having begun during Jesus' first advent. He did not. He did stress, however, the aspects of kingdom life that Christians currently enjoy as benefits of the new covenant, which Jesus ratified by His death. These include especially the Holy Spirit's ministries of indwelling and illuminating the believer. Such a shift in emphasis is understandable if John wrote later than the other Gospel evangelists. By then it was clear that God had postponed the messianic kingdom, and believers' interest was more on life in the church than it was on life in the messianic kingdom (cf. chs. 13-17).

"It is . . . quite possible that one of John's aims was to combat false teaching of a docetic type. The Docetists held that the Christ never became incarnate; everything was seeming.'¹⁹ That the docetic heresy did not appear in the first century seems clear, but certain elements that later were to be embodied in this heresy seem to have been quite early."²⁰

"We have suggested that the Fourth Gospel was addressed to two groups within the Johannine community, each of which represented an extreme interpretation of the nature of Jesus: one which did not accept him as God, and the other which did not accept him as man (see the introduction, xxiii; also Smalley, John, 145-48). The perfectly balanced christology of the Fourth Gospel was intended, we believe, to provide a resolution of this theological crisis: to remind the ex-Jewish members of the group, with their strong emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, that the Christ was divine; and to insist, for the benefit of the ex-pagan members (with their docetic outlook), that Jesus was truly human."²¹

The context of Jesus' ministry accounts for the strong Jewish flavor that marks all four Gospels. Yet John's Gospel is more theological and cosmopolitan than the others.

"It has . . . a wider appeal to growing Christian experience and to an enlarging Gentile constituency than the others.

"The Synoptics present him for a generation in process of being evangelized; John presents him as the Lord of the maturing and questioning believer."²²

As a piece of literature, John's Gospel has a symphonic structure.

"A symphony is a musical composition having several movements related in subject, but varying in form and execution. It usually begins with a dominant theme, into which variations are introduced at intervals. The variations seem to be developed independently, but as the music is played, they modulate into each other until finally all are brought to a climax. The apparent disunity is really part of a design which is not evident at first, but which appears in the progress of the composition."²³

Tasker described the fourth Gospel as "the simplest and yet the most profound of the Christian Gospels."²⁴

Original recipients

The preceding quotation implies that John wrote primarily for Christians. This implication may seem to be contrary to John's stated purpose (20:30-31). Probably John wrote both to convince unbelievers that Jesus was the Son of God and to give Christians who faced persecution confidence in their Savior. The word "believe" in 20:31 may be in the present tense implying that Christian readers should continue believing. It could be in the aorist tense suggesting that pagan readers should believe initially. An evangelistic purpose does not exclude an edification purpose. Indeed all 66 books of the Bible have edifying value for God's people (2 Tim. 3:16-17). John's purpose for unbelievers is that they might obtain eternal life, and his purpose for believers is that we might experience abundant eternal life (10:10).

John explained Jewish customs, translated Jewish names, and located Palestinian sites. These facts suggest that he was writing for Gentile readers outside Palestine. Furthermore the prologue seems addressed to readers who thought in Greek categories. John's inclusion of the Greeks who showed interest in seeing Jesus (12:20-22) may also suggest that he wrote with them in view. Because of John's general purposes it seems best to conclude that the original readers were primarily Gentile Christians and Gentile unbelievers.²⁵

"By the use of personal reminiscences interpreted in the light of a long life of devotion to Christ and by numerous episodes that generally had not been used in the Gospel tradition, whether written or oral, John created a new and different approach to understanding Jesus' person. John's readers were primarily second-generation Christians he was familiar with and to whom he seemed patriarchal."²⁶

The writer did not indicate the geographical location of the original recipients of his Gospel. This was undoubtedly intentional since the message of John has universal appeal. Perhaps its first readers lived in the Roman province of Asia the capital of which was Ephesus.

Summary of Gospel Introductions
Gospel	Matthew	Mark	Luke	John
Date	40-70probably 40s	63-70probably 60s	57-59probably 50s	65-95probably 90s
Origin	Palestine	Rome	Caesarea	Ephesus
Audience	Jews	Romans	Greeks	Gentiles
Emphasis	King	Servant	Man	God

Message²⁷

In one sense the Gospel of John is more profound than the Synoptics. It is the most difficult Gospel for most expositors to preach and to teach for reasons that will become evident as we study it. In another sense, however, the fourth Gospel is the easiest Gospel to understand. Leon Morris wrote that it is a pool in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim.²⁸ It is both simple and profound. It clarifies some things that the Synoptics leave as mysteries.

What are these mysteries? Matthew presents Jesus as the King, but it does not articulate the reason for Jesus' great authority. John does. Mark presents Jesus as the Servant, but it does not account for His depth of consecration to God. John does. Luke presents Jesus as the perfect Man, but it does not explain His uniqueness from the rest of humankind. John does.

The Gospel of John reveals answers to the mysteries about Jesus that the Synoptics leave hidden. It is therefore an apocalypse, an unveiling similar to the Book of Revelation in this respect. The Book of Revelation is the climax of biblical Christology. The Gospel of John plays that part among the Gospels. It is a revelation of the person of Jesus Christ more than any of the others. John told us that it would be this in his prologue (1:1-18).

The statement of the message of this Gospel occurs in 1:18: "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him." John claimed that Jesus was the explanation of God the Father. This Gospel presents Jesus as the One who manifested God to humankind. This book then stresses the revelation of the truth about God.

Mankind has constantly sought to represent God in some way. We want to know what God is like. Ideas about God that do not come from the revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ are idolatrous. They create a false view of God. Typically human beings without divine revelation have imagined God as being an immense version of themselves, a projection of human personality into cosmic proportions. God's revelation of Himself, however, involved the limitation of Himself to humanity, the exact opposite approach. This is what God did in the Incarnation. God's revelations are often the exact opposite of what one would expect.

John presented Jesus as the Son of God. He wanted his readers to view Jesus and to see God. In the tears of Jesus, we should see what causes God sorrow. In the compassion of Jesus, we should see how God cares for His own. In the anger of Jesus, we should see what God hates.

What do we learn about God from Jesus in John? The prologue gives us the essential answer, and the body of the book explains this answer with various illustrations from Jesus' ministry. The prologue tells us that Jesus has manifested the glory of God by revealing two things about Him: His grace and His truth (1:14). All that Jesus revealed about God that this Gospel narrates is contractible into these two words. Notice first the revelation of grace in this Gospel.

The Gospel of John presents God as a gracious person. Behind His gracious dealings lies a heart of love. There are probably hundreds of evidences of God's love resulting in gracious action in this book. Let us note just the evidence of these qualities in the seven signs that John chose to record.

The miracle of changing water into wine (ch. 2) shows God's concern for marital joy. The healing of the official's son (ch. 4) shows God's desire that people experience family unity. The healing of the paralytic (ch. 5) shows God's grace in providing physical restoration. The feeding of the 5000 (ch. 6) shows God's love in providing material needs. The miracle of Jesus walking on the water (ch. 6) shows God's desire that people enjoy supernatural peace. The healing of the man born blind (ch. 9) illustrates God's desire that we have true understanding. The raising of Lazarus (ch. 11) shows God's grace in providing new life. All these miracles are revelations of God's love manifesting itself in gracious behavior toward us in our various needs. These are only the most obvious manifestations of God's grace in this book.

This Gospel also reveals that God is a God of truth. Another one of God's attributes that we see revealed in this Gospel lies behind the truth that we see revealed in this Gospel. That attribute is His holiness. The figure that John used to describe God's holiness is light. Light is a common figure for God's holiness in the Old Testament too. The principle of God's holiness governs the passion of His love.

Jesus' great works in John reveal God's love and His great words reveal God's truth. Let us select seven of the great "I am" claims of Jesus as illustrations of the various aspects of the truth that Jesus revealed about God. All these claims point to God as the source and to Jesus as the mediator of things having to do with truth.

The bread of life claim (ch. 6) points to God as the source of true sustenance. The light of the world claim (ch. 9) points to God as the source of true illumination. The door claim (ch. 10) points to God as the source of true security. The good shepherd claim (ch. 10) points to God as the source of true care. The resurrection and the life claim (ch. 11) points to God as the source of true life. The way, the truth, and the life claim (ch. 14) points to God as the source of true authority. The vine claim (ch. 15) points to God as the source of true fruitfulness. All of these claims pointed directly to Jesus as the mediator, but they also pointed beyond Him to God the Father. They were revelations of the truth concerning God.

These are all further revelations of the character of God introduced first in Exodus 3 where God began to reveal Himself as "I am." The Law of Moses was an initial revelation about God. The revelation that Jesus Christ brought was a further, fuller, and final revelation of the grace and truth that characterize God (1:17). These revelations find their most comprehensive expression in the fourth Gospel.

What are the implications of the revelation in this Gospel? First, such a revelation calls for worship.

In the Old Testament, God revealed Himself and dwelt among His people through the tabernacle. In the Incarnation, God revealed Himself and dwelt among His people through His Son (1:14). The tabernacle was the place where God revealed Himself and around which His people congregated to worship Him in response. The Son of God is the person through whom God has now given the greatest and fullest revelation of Himself and around whom we now bow in worship.

Second, such a revelation calls for service. Under the old Mosaic economy, worship prepared God's people to serve Him. Their service consisted of carrying out His mission for them in the world. The revelation of God should always result in service as well as worship (cf. Isa. 6:1-8). When we learn who God is as we study this Gospel, our reaction should not only be worship but service. This is true of the church as a whole and of every individual believer in it. Thomas' ascription of worship (20:28) was only preliminary to his fulfilling God's mission for him (20:21-23). Worship should never be an end in itself. Even in heaven we will serve as well as worship God (Rev. 22:3).

As recipients of this revelation of God, our lives too should be notable for grace and truth. These qualities should not only be the themes of our worship. They should also be the trademarks of our service. Truth and holiness should mark our words and motives. Graciousness should stamp our works as we deal with people. If they do not, we have not yet comprehended the revelation of God that Jesus came to bring to His own. Sloppy graciousness jeopardizes truthfulness, and rigid truthfulness endangers graciousness. Jesus illustrated the balance.

This Gospel has a strong appeal to the unsaved as well. John wrote it specifically to bring the light of revelation about Jesus' true identity to those who sit in spiritual darkness (20:30-31). The knowledge of who Jesus really is is the key to the knowledge of who God really is. Therefore our service must not only bear the marks of certain characteristics, namely grace and truth, but it must also communicate a specific content: who Jesus is. People need to consider who Jesus is. There is no better way for them to do this than by reading this Gospel. Remember the stated purpose of this book (20:30-31). Use it as an evangelistic tool.

Constable: John (Outline)

Outline

I. Prologue 1:1-18

A. The preincarnate Word 1:1-5

B. The witness of John the Baptist 1:6-8

C. The appearance of the Light 1:9-13

D. The incarnation of the Word 1:14-18

II. Jesus' public ministry 1:19-12:50

A. The prelude to Jesus' public ministry 1:19-51

1. John the Baptist's veiled testimony to Jesus 1:19-28

2. John the Baptist's open identification of Jesus 1:29-34

3. The response to John the Baptist's witness 1:35-42

4. The witness of Philip and Andrew 1:43-51

B. Jesus' early Galilean ministry 2:1-12

1. The first sign: changing water to wine 2:1-11

2. Jesus' initial stay in Capernaum 2:12

C. Jesus' first visit to Jerusalem 2:13-3:36

1. The first cleansing of the temple 2:13-22

2. Initial response to Jesus in Jerusalem 2:23-25

3. Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus 3:1-21

4. John the Baptist's reaction to Jesus' ministry 3:22-30

5. The explanation of Jesus' preeminence 3:31-36

D. Jesus' ministry in Samaria 4:1-42

1. The interview with the Samaritan woman 4:1-26

2. Jesus' explanation of evangelistic ministry 4:27-38

3. The response to Jesus in Samaria 4:39-42

E. Jesus' resumption of His Galilean ministry 4:43-54

1. Jesus' return to Galilee 4:43-45

2. The second sign: healing the official's son 4:46-54

F. Jesus' second visit to Jerusalem ch. 5

1. The third sign: healing the paralytic 5:1-9

2. The antagonism of the Jewish authorities 5:10-18

3. The Son's equality with the Father 5:19-29

4. The Father's witness to the Son 5:30-47

G. Jesus' later Galilean ministry 6:1-7:9

1. The fourth sign: feeding the 5,000 6:1-15

2. The fifth sign: walking on the water 6:16-21

3. The bread of life discourse 6:22-59

4. The responses to the bread of life discourse 6:60-7:9

H. Jesus' third visit to Jerusalem 7:10-10:42

1. The controversy surrounding Jesus 7:10-13

2. Jesus' ministry at the feast of Tabernacles 7:14-44

3. The unbelief of the Jewish leaders 7:45-52

[4. The woman caught in adultery 7:53-8:11]

5. The light of the world discourse 8:12-59

6. The sixth sign: healing a man born blind ch. 9

7. The good shepherd discourse 10:1-21

8. The confrontation at the feast of Dedication 10:22-42

I. The conclusion of Jesus' public ministry chs. 11-12

1. The seventh sign: raising Lazarus 11:1-44

2. The responses to the raising of Lazarus 11:45-57

3. Mary's anointing of Jesus 12:1-8

4. The official antagonism toward Lazarus 12:9-11

5. Jesus' triumphal entry 12:12-19

6. Jesus' announcement of His death 12:20-36

7. The unbelief of Israel 12:37-50

III. Jesus' private ministry chs. 13-17

A. The Last Supper 13:1-30

1. Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet 13:1-20

2. Jesus' announcement of His betrayal 13:21-30

B. The Upper Room Discourse 13:31-16:33

1. The new commandment 13:31-35

2. Peter's profession of loyalty 13:36-38

3. Jesus' comforting revelation in view of His departure 14:1-24

4. The promise of future understanding 14:25-31

5. The importance of abiding in Jesus 15:1-16

6. The warning about opposition from the world 15:17-27

7. The clarification of the future 16:1-24

8. The clarification of Jesus' destination 16:25-33

C. Jesus' high priestly prayer ch. 17

1. Jesus' requests for Himself 17:1-5

2. Jesus' requests for the Eleven 17:6-19

3. Jesus' requests for future believers 17:20-26

IV. Jesus' passion ministry chs. 18-20

A. Jesus' presentation of Himself to His enemies 18:1-11

B. Jesus' religious trial 18:12-27

1. The arrest of Jesus and the identification of the high priests 18:12-14

2. The entrance of two disciples into the high priests' courtyard and Peter's first denial 18:15-18

3. Annas' interrogation of Jesus 18:19-24

4. Peter's second and third denials of Jesus 18:25-27

C. Jesus' civil trial 18:28-19:16

1. The Jews' charge against Jesus 18:28-32

2. The question of Jesus' kingship 18:33-38a

3. The Jews' request for Barabbas 18:38b-40

4. The sentencing of Jesus 19:1-16

D. Jesus' crucifixion 19:17-30

1. Jesus' journey to Golgotha 19:17

2. The men crucified with Jesus 19:18

3. The inscription over Jesus' cross 19:19-22

4. The distribution of Jesus' garments 19:23-24

5. Jesus' provision for His mother 19:25-27

6. The death of Jesus 19:28-30

E. The treatment of Jesus' body 19:31-42

1. The removal of Jesus' body from the cross 19:31-37

2. The burial of Jesus 19:38-42

F. Jesus' resurrection 20:1-29

1. The discovery of Peter and John 20:1-9

2. The discovery of Mary Magdalene 20:10-18

3. The appearance to the Eleven minus Thomas on Easter evening 20:19-23

4. The transformed faith of Thomas 20:24-29

G. The purpose of this Gospel 20:30-31

V. Epilogue ch. 21

A. Jesus' appearance to seven disciples in Galilee 21:1-14

B. Jesus' teachings about motivation for service 21:15-23

C. The writer's postscript 21:24-25

Constable: John

John

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Yamauchi, Edwin M. "Cultural Aspects of Marriage in the Ancient World." Bibliotheca Sacra 135:539 (July-September 1978):241-52.

Zerwick, Maximilian. Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples. Translated by Joseph Smith. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963.

Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Edited by Merrill C. Tenney. S.v. "Jacob's Well," by R. L. Alden.

_____. S.v. "Spikenard," by W. E. Shewell-Cooper.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: John (Book Introduction)

THE

HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST,

ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.

INTRODUCTION

St. John, the evangelist, a native of Bathsaida, in Galilee, was the son of Zebedee and Salome. He was by profession a fisherman. Our Lord gave to John, and to James, his brother, the surname of Boanerges, or, sons of thunder; most probably for their great zeal, and for their soliciting permission to call fire from heaven to destroy the city of the Samaritans, who refused to receive their Master. St. John is supposed to have been called to the apostleship younger than any of the other apostles, not being more than twenty-five or twenty-six years old. The Fathers teach that he never married. Our Lord had for him a particular regard, of which he gave the most marked proofs at the moment of his expiring on the cross, by intrusting to his care his virgin Mother. He is the only one of the apostles that did not leave his divine Master in his passion and death. In the reign of Domitian, he was conveyed to Rome, and thrown into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he came out unhurt. He was afterwards banished to the island of Patmos, where he wrote his book of Revelations; and, according to some, his Gospel. Tota antiquitas in eo abunde consentit, quod Domitianus exilii Joannis auctor fuerit. (Lampe. Proleg. lib. i. cap. 4.) --- In his gospel, St. John omits very many leading facts and circumstances mentioned by the other three evangelists, supposing his readers sufficiently instructed in points which his silence approved. It is universally agreed, that St. John had seen and approved of the other three gospels. (St. Hier. [St. Jerome,] de vir. illust. Eusebius, lib. iii, chap. 24.) --- St. Luke, says a learned author, seems to have had more learning than any other of the evangelists, and his language is more varied, copious, and pure. This superiority in style may perhaps be owing to his longer residence in Greece, and greater acquaintance with Gentiles of good education. --- St. Denis, of Alexandria, found in the gospel of St. John, elegance and precision of language, not only in the choice and arrangement of expressions, but also in his mode of reasoning and construction. We find here, says this saint, nothing barbarous and improper, nothing even low and vulgar; insomuch, that God not only seems to have given him light and knowledge, but also the means of well clothing his conceptions. (Dion. Alex. [Denis of Alexandria] apud Euseb. lib. vii, chap. 25.) --- Our critics do not join with St. Denis. They generally conceive St. John, with respect to language, as the least correct of the writers of the New Testament. His style argues a great want of those advantages which result from a learned education: but this defect is amply compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses the sublimest truths, by the supernatural lights, by the depth of the mysteries, by the superexcellency of the matter, by the solidity of his thoughts, and importance of his instructions. The Holy Ghost, who made choice of him, and filled him with infused wisdom, is much above human philosophy and the art of rhetoric. He possesses, in a most sovereign degree, the talent of carrying light and conviction to the mind, and warmth to the heart. He instructs, convinces, and persuades, without the aid of art or eloquence. --- St. John is properly compared to the eagle, because in his first flight he ascends above all sublunary objects, and does not stop till he meets the throne of the Almighty. He is so sententious, says St. Ambrose, that he gives us as many mysteries as words. (De Sacram. lib. iii, chap. 2) --- From Patmos our saint returned to Ephesus, where he died. (Euseb. lib. iii. hist. eccles.) --- It is said that the original gospel was preserved in the church of Ephesus till the seventh age [century], at least till the fourth; for St. Peter, of Alexandria, cites it. See Chron. Alex. and manuscript fragment. de paschate apud Petav. et Usher. --- Besides the gospel, we have of St. John three epistles and the Book of Revelations; and though other productions have been palmed on the world under the name of our evangelist, the Catholic Church only approves of those above specified. Ancient Fathers have given him the name of the Theologian: a title his gospel, and particularly the first chapter, deserves. Polycratus, bishop of Ephesus, tells us that St. John carried on his forehead a plate of gold, as priest of Jesus Christ, to honour the priesthood of the new law, in imitation of the high priests of the Jews. (Polycr. apud Euseb. liv. v, chap. 24.) --- This gospel was written in Greek, about the end of the first hundred years from Christ's nativity, at the request of the bishops of the Lesser Asia [Asia Minor], against the Cerinthians and the Ebionites, and those heretics, or Antichrists, as St. John calls them, (1 John iv. 3.) who pretended that Jesus was a mere man, who had no being or existence before he was born of Joseph and Mary. The blasphemies of these heretics had divers abettors in the first three ages [centuries], as Carpocrates, Artemon, the two Theodotus, Paul of Samosata, Sabellius, and some others; on whom, see St. Irenæus, St. Epiphanius, St. Augustine, &c. To these succeeded, in the beginning of the fourth century, Arius, of Alexandria, and the different branches of the blasphemous Arian sect. They allowed that Jesus Christ had a being before he was born of Mary; that he was made and created before all other creatures, and was more perfect than any of them; but still that he was no more than a creature: that he had a beginning, and that there was a time when he was not: that he was not properly God, or the God, not the same God, nor had the same substance and nature, with the eternal Father and Creator of all things. This heresy was condemned by the Church in the first General Council, at Nice, ann. 325. --- After the Arians rose up the Macedonians, who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost; and afterwards the Nestorians, Eutychians, &c. In every age pride and ignorance have produced some heresies; for, as the Apostle says, (1 Corinthians xi. 19.) there must be heresies. Towards the beginning of the sixteenth age [century] Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, &c. set themselves up for reformers, even of that general and Catholic faith which they found every where taught, and believed in all Christian Churches. Luther owns that he was then alone, the only one of his communion, (if so it may be called); yet none of these called in question the mysteries of the Trinity, or of the Incarnation. --- But not many years after, came the blasphemous sect of the Socinians, so called from Lælius and Faustus Socini. These, and their followers, renewed the condemned errors of the Arians. We scarce find any thing new in the systems of these men, who would pass for somebody, like Theodas, Acts v. 36.; or who, like Simon, the magician, and first heretic, would be looked upon as great men, and great wits, by daring to be free-thinkers, and thereby bold blasphemers. --- To do justice to Calvin, he did not think these Socinians fit to live in any Christian society: and therefore he got Michael Servetus burnt alive at Geneva, ann. 1553; and Valentinus Gentilis, one of the same sect, was beheaded at Berne, ann. 1565. I must needs say, it seems an easier matter to excuse the warm sharp zeal of Calvin, and his Swiss brethren, in persecuting to death these Socinians with sword and faggot, than to shew with what justice and equity these men could be put to death, who followed the very same principle, and the only rule of faith; i.e. Scriptures expounded by every man's private reason, or private spirit; which the pretended Reformers, all of them, maintain with as much warmth as ever, to the very day. --- Heretics in all ages have wrested the sense of the Scriptures, to make them seem to favour their errors: and by what we see so frequently happen, it is no hard matter for men who have but a moderate share of wit and sophistry, by their licentious fancies and arbitrary expositions, to turn, change, and pervert Scripture texts, and to transform almost any thing into any thing, says Dr. Hammond, on the second chapter of St. John's Revelation. But I need not fear to say, this never appeared so visibly as in these last two hundred years; the truth of which no one can doubt, who reads the History of the Variations, written by the learned bishop of Meaux. --- These late Reformers seem to make a great part of their religion consist in reading, or having at least the Bible in their mother-tongue. The number of translations into vulgar languages, with many considerable differences, is strangely multiplied. Every one rashly claims a right to expound them according to his private judgment, or his private spirit. And what is the consequence of this; but that as men's judgments and their private interpretations are different, so in a great measure are the articles of their creed and belief? --- The Scriptures, in which are contained the revealed mysteries of divine faith, are, without all doubt, the most excellent of all writings: these divers volumes, written by men inspired from God, contained not the words of men, but the word of God, which can save our souls: (1 Thessalonians ii. 13. and James i. 21.) but then they ought to be read, even by the learned, with the spirit of humility; with a fear of mistaking the true sense, as so many have done; with a due submission to the Catholic Church, which Christ himself commanded us to hear and obey. This we might learn from the Scripture itself. The apostle told the Corinthians, that even in those days there were many who corrupted and adulterated the word of God. (2 Corinthians ii. 17.) St. Peter gives us this admonition: that in the Epistles of St. Paul, are some things hard to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. --- It was merely to prevent and remedy this abuse of the best of books, that it was judged necessary to forbid the ignorant to read the Scriptures in vulgar languages, without the advice and permission of their pastors and spiritual guides, whom Christ appointed to govern his Church. (Acts xx. 28.) The learned University of Paris, 1525, at that time, and in those circumstances, judged the said prohibition necessary: and whosoever hath had any discourses with persons of different religions and persuasions in our kingdom, especially with Anabaptists, Quakers, and such as pretend to expound the Scriptures, either by their private reason or by the private spirit, will, I am confident, be fully convinced that the just motives of the said prohibition subsist to this very day. Ignorant men and women turn Scripture texts to the errors of their private sects, and wrest them to their own perdition; as the very best of remedies prove pernicious and fatal to those who know not their virtues, nor how to use them, and apply them. --- They might learn from the Acts of the Apostles, (Chap. xv.) that as soon as a doubt and dispute was raised, whether the Gentiles converted by the apostles, were obliged to observe any of the ceremonies of the law of Moses, this first controversy about religion was not decided by the private judgment, or private spirit, even of those apostolical preachers, but by an assembly or council of the apostles and bishops, held at Jerusalem; as appears by the letter of the council sent to the Christians at Antioch. It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, &c. to us, whom Christ promised to direct by the Spirit of truth; with whom, he assured us, he would remain to the end of the world. --- The very same method, as it is evident by the annals of Church history, hath been practised to the very time, and will be to the end of the world. It is the rule grounded on the command and promises of Christ, when he founded and established the Christian Church. All disputes about the sense of the Scriptures, and about points of the Christian belief, have been always decided by the successors of St. Peter, and the other apostles; even by general councils, when judged necessary: and they who, like Arius, obstinately refused to submit their private judgment to that of the Catholic Church, were always condemned, excommunicated, and cut off from the communion of the Church of Christ. --- Nor is this rule and this submission to be understood of the ignorant and unlearned only, but also of men accomplished in all kind of learning. The ignorant fall into errors for want of knowledge, and the learned are many times blinded by their pride and self-conceit. The sublime and profound mysteries, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation of the eternal Son of God, the manner of Christ's presence in the holy sacrament, are certainly above the reach of man's weak reason and capacity; much less are they the object of our senses, which are so often deceived. Let every reader of the sacred volumes, who pretends to be a competent judge of the sense, and of the truths revealed in them, reflect on the words which he finds in Isaias: (Chap. lv. 8, 9) For my thoughts are not your thoughts; nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts. How then shall any one, by his private reason, pretend to judge, to know, to demonstrate, what is possible or impossible to the incomprehensible power of God? --- A self-conceited Socinian, big with the opinion he has of his own wit and knowledge, will boldly tell us, that to say or believe that three distinct persons are one and the same God, is a manifest contradiction. Must we believe him? Or the Christian Catholic Church, in all ages? That is, against the greatest authority upon earth: whether we consider the Church as the most illustrious society and body of men; or whether we consider the same Church as under the protection of Christ and his divine promises, to teach them all truth to the end of the world. Besides this, experience itself should make the said Socinian distrust his own judgment as to such a pretended contradiction, when he finds that the brightest wits, and most subtle philosophers, after all their study and search of natural causes and effects, for so many hundred years, by the light of their reason could never yet account for the most common and obvious things in nature, such as are the parts of matter, and extension, local motion, and the production of numberless vegetables and animals, which we see happen, but know not how. See the author of a short answer to the late Dr. Clark and Mr. Whiston, concerning the divinity of the Son of God, and of the Holy Ghost. An. 1729. --- The latest writers among the pretended Reformers hesitate not to tell us, that what the Church and its councils have declared, as to Christ's real presence in the holy sacrament, is contradicted by all our senses; as if our senses, which are so often mistaken, were the supreme and only judges of such hidden mysteries. Another tells us, that for Christ to be truly and really present in many places, in ten thousand places at once, is a thing impossible in nature and reason; and his demonstrative proof is, that he knows it to be impossible. With this vain presumption, he runs on to this length of extravagant rashness, and boldly pronounces, that should he find such a proposition in the Bible, nay, though with his eyes he should see a man raise the dead, and declare that proposition true, he could not believe it: and merely because he knows it impossible: which is no more than to say, that it does not seem possible to his weak reason. I do not find that he offers to bring any other proof, but that it is contrary to his senses, and that God cannot assert a contradiction. And why must we take it for a contradiction, only because he tells us, he knows it to be so? It was certainly the safest way for him, to bring no reasons to shew it impossible to the infinite and incomprehensible power of the Almighty: this vain attempt would only have given new occasions to his learned antagonist, the author of the Single Combat, to expose his weakness even more than he has done. --- May not every Unitarian, every Arian, every Socinian, every Latitudinarian, every Free-thinker, tell us the same? And if this be a sufficient plea, none of them can be condemned of heresy or error. Calvin could never silence Servetus, (unless it were by lighting faggots round him) if he did but say, I know that three distinct persons cannot be one and the same God. It is a contradiction, and God cannot assert a contradiction. I know that the Son cannot be the same God with the Father. It is a contradiction, and therefore impossible. So that though I find clear texts in the Scriptures, that three give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one: though Christ, the Son of God, tells us, that he and the Father are one, or one thing; nay, though I should with my own eyes, see men raise the dead to confirm these mysteries, (as many are recorded to have done) and declare them to be revealed divine truths, I cannot believe them, because I know them to be false, to be nonsense, to be contradictions to reason and nature. The like the Free-thinker may tell us, with the Pelagians, as to the existence of original sin, that all men should become liable to eternal death for Adam's sinning; with the Manicheans, that men cannot have free will to do, or abstain from, sinful actions, and yet God know infallibly from eternity what they will do; with the Origenists, that God, who is infinite goodness itself, will not punish sinners eternally, for yielding to what the inclinations of their corrupt nature prompt them. They have the same right to tell all Christendom, that they know these pretended revealed mysteries to be nonsense, impossibilities, and contradictions. And every man's private judgment, when, with an air of confidence, he says, I know it, must pass for infallible; though he will not hear of the Catholic Church being infallible, under the promises of our Saviour, Christ. --- But to conclude this preface, already much longer than I designed, reason itself, as well as the experience we have of our own weak understanding, from the little we know even of natural things, might preserve every sober thinking man from such extravagant presumption, pride and self-conceited rashness, as to pretend to measure God's almighty and incomprehensible power by the narrow and shallow capacity of human understanding, or to know what is possible or impossible for Him that made all things out of nothing. In fine, let not human understanding exalt itself against the knowledge of God, but bring into a rational captivity and submission every thought to the obedience of Christ. Let every one humbly acknowledge with the great St. Augustine, whose learning and capacity, modestly speaking, were not inferior to those of any of those bold and rash pretenders to knowledge, that God can certainly do more than we can understand. Let us reflect with St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. xxxvii. p. 597. C.) that if we know not the things under our feet, we must not pretend to fathom the profound mysteries of God. [1] --- And, in the mean time, let us pray for those who are thus tossed to and fro with every wind and blast of different doctrines, (Ephesians iv. 14.) that God, of his infinite mercy, would enlighten their weak and blinded understanding with the light of the one true faith, and bring them to the one fold of his Catholic Church. (Witham)

____________________

[1] Naz. Orat. xxxvii. Greek: Mede ta en posin eidenai dunamenoi ... me theou bathesin embateuein.

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Gill: John (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOHN

The author of this Gospel is John, the son of Zebedee and Salome, the brother of James the greater; he outlived the rest of the disciples, and wrote this Gospel after the other evangelists; and in it many things are recorded, which are not in the other Gospels; as various discourses of Christ, and miracles done by him; several incidents in his life, and circumstances that attended his sufferings and death: the occasion of it is generally thought to be the errors of Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied the divinity of Christ, asserted he was a mere man, and that he did not exist before his incarnation; and the design of it is to confute them: and it is easy to observe, that he begins his Gospel with the divinity of Christ; asserts him to be God, and proves him to be truly and properly so, by the works of creation, which were wrought by him, as well as shows that he was really man. Clemens ^a calls this Gospel of John, pneumatikon euaggelion "a spiritual Gospel", as indeed it is; consisting of the spiritual discourses of our Lord, on various occasions, both at the beginning, and in the course of his ministry, and especially a little before his sufferings and death: and the same writer observes, that John, the last of the evangelists, considering that in the other Gospels were declared the things relating to the body of Christ, that is, to him, as he was after the flesh; to his genealogy and birth as man; to what was done to him, or by him, in his infancy; to his baptism, temptations, journeys, &c. at the request of his familiar friends, and moved by the Spirit of God, composed this Gospel. Moreover, it is observed by some ^b, that the other three evangelists only record what was done by Christ, in one year after John the Baptist was cast into prison, as appears from Mat 4:12 wherefore John, at the entreaty of his friends, put these things into his Gospel, which were done or said by Christ, before John was cast into prison. He was called very early by Christ, though young; and was with him throughout the whole of his ministry, and was an eye and ear witness of what he here relates, and his testimony is to be received; he was the beloved disciple, he leaned on the bosom of Jesus, and had great intimacy with him; and might be privy to some things, which others were not acquainted with; and though he was a Galilean, and an unlearned man, Act 4:13 yet being endowed with the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, he was abundantly qualified to write this book: for what some ancient writers ^c say of him, that he was a priest, and wore a plate, that is, of gold upon his forehead, cannot be true, since he was not of the tribe of Levi; and besides, only the high priest wore that upon his mitre; unless they mean, as seems most likely, that he was a Christian bishop: perhaps the mistake may arise from John the Baptist, who was of the priestly order, and is called by some Jewish writers ^d, John the high priest. When and where this Gospel was written, is not certain; some say in ^e Asia, after he had wrote his Revelation in Patmos; and others say particularly, that it was wrote at Ephesus; the title of it in the Syriac version, signifies much, which runs thus;

"the holy Gospel, the preaching of John, which he spoke and published in Greek at Ephesus.''

And to the same purpose is the title of it in the Persic version;

"the Gospel of John, one of the twelve apostles, which was spoken in the city of Ephesus, in the Greek Roman tongue.''

College: John (Book Introduction)

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Even the casual reader of the New Testament will notice that the first three accounts of Jesus' life are generally similar in their overall story line, whereas the fourth Gospel (John) is quite different. Scholars refer to Matthew, Mark, and Luke as the Synoptic Gospels (Synoptic = "seen together" or "as parallel") because of their similarities, but John is called, well . . . John (no special name). It is part of the New Testament collection known as the Johannine Writings (John, 1, 2, 3 John, and Revelation).

The differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John are readily apparent to the alert reader. For example the Synoptics all present one major trip of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, whereas John portrays Jesus as being in Judea and Jerusalem often. Indeed, for John the primary ministry of Jesus seems to be in Judea rather than the Galilean setting of the Synoptics. Another difference is seen in John's lack of true parables in his recorded teachings of Jesus. In the Synoptics, parables are the characteristic form of Jesus' teaching, with the often repeated introduction, "Jesus told them a parable, saying, 'the kingdom of God is like this . . . .'" John is also loaded with characters we do not find in the Synoptics: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, and Lazarus, just to name a few. Furthermore, some of our most memorable Gospel phrases are not found in the Synoptics, but only in John: "In the beginning was the Word." "Behold the Lamb of God!" "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the vine." "What is truth?" "It is finished!" "So send I you." By some estimates about 90% of the material found in John is not found in the Synoptic Gospels.

Christian scholars have noticed these differences from ancient times. Clement of Alexandria, writing approximately AD 185, called John the "spiritual Gospel." By this, Clement did not mean that John was nonhistorical, but that John was more concerned with internal, spiritual matters. In the more recent past overly critical scholars have pronounced the differences between John and the Synoptics to be irreconcilable and concluded that John is, in effect, the first commentary on the Gospels. This assumption (that John is historical fiction) exists in many commentaries of previous generations and is still held by some today. In general, though, current scholarship is much less certain about the nonhistorical character of John. In this commentary we assume that John relates a historically reliable version of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, albeit quite different from that of the Synoptic Gospels. These differences are part of what makes the study of this book so fascinating and will be discussed at the appropriate places through the commentary.

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

We have been writing as if we knew for sure that John was the author of this Gospel. But this begs the question, how do we know for sure that John wrote it, and if so, which John was this? To answer the first question in complete honesty, we do not know for sure who wrote this book, for it was published anonymously in line with the publishing standards of the ancient world. We do have some very early witnesses to John as the author, however. The so-called "Muratorian Canon" (date disputed, but probably AD 150-200) says, "John, one of the disciples, wrote the fourth book of the Gospel." An early church leader by the name of Irenaeus (AD 185) is also an important witness. Tradition claims that Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp of Smyrna, and that Polycarp was a student of John himself. This means that Irenaeus is only one generation of believers removed from John, which gives added weight to what he writes. Irenaeus states in no uncertain terms that John was the author of the Fourth Gospel (in his book Against Heresies 3.1.1).

Some scholars have suggested, however, that the author of the Fourth Gospel was indeed a man named John, but not John the Apostle. It is true that there were other early Christian leaders named John, and it is possible that one of them is the true author of the Fourth Gospel. This issue may be addressed by determining the identity of the so-called "beloved disciple" within the book of John.

In John 21:20-24 the "disciple whom Jesus loved" is said to be the author of the book. If we work backwards through the book, we encounter the beloved disciple in other places. He is the one who recognizes Jesus after the resurrection during the miraculous catch of fish (21:7). Jesus entrusts the care for his mother, Mary, to this disciple while hanging on the cross (19:26-27). This disciple reclines next to Jesus at the Last Supper (13:23, 25). The beloved disciple is intended to be seen in some places where he is simply called the "other disciple." He is the one who races Peter to the tomb on Easter morning, and arrives first (20:3-5, probably indicating that he was younger than Peter). It is the "other disciple" who gains entrance for Peter and himself into the high priest's courtyard during the interrogation of Jesus (18:15-16). The "other disciple" may also be the unnamed disciple of John the Baptist who, along with Andrew, is pointed to Jesus by the Baptist himself (1:35-40).

The intimacy the beloved disciple has with Jesus points to one of the inner circle of disciples. In the Synoptic Gospels, this "inner circle" is pictured as Peter, James, and John. Peter is clearly not the author of the Fourth Gospel, because he is often portrayed as being with the "beloved disciple." James is an unlikely candidate, because he suffers early martyrdom at the hands of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2). This leaves only John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James. This case is somewhat strengthened by the fact that the Apostle John is named nowhere in the Fourth Gospel (nor is James, the only reference being to the "sons of Zebedee" at 21:2). It is not easy to understand why any other early Christian writer would have omitted the name of such a prominent Apostle. The solution to the mystery is that we are intended to see John himself as the author, and that he does not mention himself except as the "beloved disciple" or the "other disciple." We should also note that this is not an expression of pride (he "loved me best"). It is an expression of deep humility, wonderment, and thankfulness on the part of the author: Jesus loved me, even me?!

WHEN AND WHERE WAS IT WRITTEN?

Many locations have been suggested as the place of composition for the Gospel of John, but the traditional site is the city of Ephesus. The ruins of Ephesus are in southwestern Turkey, near the modern city of Kusadasi. Ephesus was one of the largest and most important cities of the Roman Empire in the first century. Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis (sometimes incorrectly called the Temple of Diana, see Acts 19:28). This temple was recognized as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world according to the Greek geographer, Strabo. This large city (perhaps as many as 500,000 inhabitants) had a very mixed population. There was a strong Christian community in Ephesus, for Paul had a three-year ministry there in the AD 50s. The presence of the Temple of Artemis shows that there was also a strong pagan community, dedicated to the worship of the ancient Greek gods. Overall it was a large, cosmopolitan city, with a well-developed Greek culture. The common language of the city would have been Greek, the language of the New Testament.

Although it cannot be proven, there is strong tradition that the Apostle John, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, made his way to Ephesus sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. John, at least, was probably in Ephesus during the reign of Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96). After a few years, Domitian seems to have actively persecuted the Christian community, and this atmosphere of persecution probably forms the background for the Fourth Gospel, written sometime between AD 85-95. Also, by this time, the Jewish synagogue community had solidified in its opposition to the Christians, and Jews had to make a choice between the two. Jews who chose to believe in Jesus were "thrown out of the synagogue," a circumstance mentioned by John (9:22; 16:2).

This makes John one of the last books of the New Testament to be written, and certainly the last of the Gospels. If we theorize that John was about 20 when Jesus was crucified (AD 30), then he would have been 75-85 years old when this book was written, a very old man in the ancient world. For this and other reasons, it is likely that John had quite a bit of help in writing this book. Some scholars want to speak of the "Johannine community" or the "community of the beloved disciple" as the author, and there is some merit to this (cf. 21:24, "we know his testimony in true"). For our purposes, however, we will assume that the Apostle John, an eyewitness to many of the Gospel events, is the primary author of this book.

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN?

First, we would say that the style of John's writing is simple, but its thought is profound. John is written in some of the simplest Greek in the New Testament, although this does not mean it is "bad" Greek. It uses many common words, many monosyllabic words, and relatively short sentences. Yet the message of the book is profound. Fred Craddock notes that this is a Gospel in which "a child can wade and an elephant can swim."

A second characteristic of John is that he has laid out the bulk of the book as a series of lengthy accounts of works followed by words. We can characterize these combinations as miraculous signs followed by discourses or sermons of Jesus. John has only seven miracles, five of which are not found in the Synoptic Gospels. The story of each of these miracles is told at some length, and the material of the sermon that follows is primarily material not found in the Synoptics.

A third characteristic of the Fourth Gospel is the emphasis upon the personal ministry of Jesus. John relates several one-on-one situations (e.g., Jesus with Nicodemus, chapter 3), which teach us that Jesus had an active private ministry. It was not all public preaching, although this was important, too. In John we see a Jesus who cares for people and has time for them. This has another side, however. Sometimes it emphasizes the aloneness of Jesus. He often seems to be by himself without the support of the disciples or anyone else, a solitary figure.

Fourthly, John has a highly developed theological interest. He is particularly concerned with the matter of Christology, explaining who Jesus is in relation to God. John lays stress on the divinity of Jesus, often referring to him as the Son or the Son of God. He also stresses the humanity of Jesus: he is thirsty at Sychar and weeps at the tomb of Lazarus. John develops the theme of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, the one God sent to his people.

John also explores the nature of God the Father, particularly through the Father-Son relationship between Jesus and God. John emphasizes that faith for the Christian must be in both the Father and in the Son. And John also has a great deal of discussion about the Holy Spirit. This is found throughout the book, but particularly in the Farewell Discourses of chapters 13-17. Here the Holy Spirit is portrayed as the coming Paraclete or Advocate for the community of believers.

A fifth characteristic might also be called the purpose of John. This purpose is strongly evangelistic, to bring the readers to faith. There is a constant contrast in the Fourth Gospel between believers and unbelievers, between faith and unfaith. Toward the end of the book John lays out his purpose in very straightforward language, "These [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (20:31).

HOW WILL THE STUDY OF JOHN

BE APPROACHED?

There are many possible ways to study John, but it is helpful to know what the primary emphasis will be in this commentary. Our main focus will be to listen carefully to what John is saying to us, to understand his intended message. This is not as easy as it may seem at first glance, for John is far removed from twentieth century English speakers. We want to know the general story, to pick up on the nuances, to be sensitive to the theological implications John is drawing out. For the most part we will not be concerned with evaluating the historical nature of John's account. When we bring historical data into the mix, it will be to help the reader understand the background of John's story, not to judge his accuracy. This is a modified narrative approach, an attempt to understand John's story as it is intended to be understood. While some may find this intolerably naïve, it is certainly the first and necessary step to a full appreciation of this marvelous book. If we can get you to listen to John carefully and hear his message, we will have succeeded in what we set out to do.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Note: There are many, many commentaries and other books related to the study of John. Dr. Bryant's favorites were the ones by Rudolf Bultmann, Barnabas Lindars, and Raymond Brown (even though he had sharp disagreements with all of them). Bultmann has a great deal of excellent material, although his theological bent makes him difficult for less advanced students. Lindars is excellent in technical discussion, but spiritually dry. Brown is wordy, but often gives great insights. I think the finest commentary on John is that of D.A. Carson. While Carson may be too conservative for some, he never avoids the hard questions and takes the time necessary to do thorough exegesis. Other outstanding choices for the more advanced student include the commentary of C.K. Barrett and George Beasley-Murray's commentary in the Word Biblical Commentary series. For the less advanced student the commentary by Paul Butler contains a wealth of accessible material, although written for an earlier generation.

Abbot, Ezra, Andrew P. Peabody, and J.B. Lightfoot. The Fourth Gospel: Evidences External and Internal of Its Johannean Authorship . London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1892.

Ashton, John. Understanding the Fourth Gospel . Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.

Bacon, Benjamin W. The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate: A Series of Essays on Problems Concerning the Origin and Value of the Anonymous Writings Attributed to the Apostle John . New York: Moffatt, 1910.

. The Gospel of the Hellenists . New York: Holt, n.d., c.1933.

Barclay, William. The Gospel of John . The Daily Study Bible Series. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956.

Barrett, C.K. The Gospel according to St. John . Second Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978.

. The Gospel of John and Judaism . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975.

Bauer, Walter. Das Johannesevangelium . Tübingen: Mohr, 1925.

Beasley-Murray, George R. John . Word Biblical Commentary 36. Waco: Word, 1987.

Bernard, John H. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John. 2 volumes. International Critical Commentary. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928.

Blomberg, Craig L. Jesus and the Gospels. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997.

Boice, James M. Witness and Revelation in the Gospel of John . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

Borchert, Gerald L. John 1-11 . The New American Commentary 25A. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996.

Bowman, John. The Fourth Gospel and the Jews: A Study in R. Akiba, Esther, and the Gospel of John . Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1975.

Brown, Raymond E. The Community of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist, 1979.

. The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave . 2 volumes. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

. The Gospel according to John . 2 volumes. The Anchor Bible 29A-B. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966-70.

Bruce, F.F. The Gospel of John . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983.

Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971.

Burney, Charles F. The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel . Oxford: Clarendon, 1922.

Butler, Paul. The Gospel of John . 2 volumes in 1. Bible Study Textbook Series. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1961.

Carpenter, Joseph E. The Johannine Writings: A Study of the Apocalypse and the Fourth Gospel. London: Constable, 1927.

Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Charlesworth, James H., editor. John and Qumran . London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972.

Colwell, Ernest C., The Greek of the Fourth Gospel: A Study of Its Aramaisms in the Light of Hellenistic Greek . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, n.d., c. 1931.

Craddock, Fred B. John . Knox Preaching Guides. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982.

Cullmann, Oscar. The Johannine Circle . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975.

Culpepper, R. Alan. The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

. The Gospel and Letters of John . Interpreting Biblical Texts Series. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998.

Dodd, C.H. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.

Drummond, James. An Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel. New York: Scribner, 1904.

Eisler, Robert. The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel . London: Methuen, 1938.

Erdman, Charles R. The Gospel of John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1917.

Fortna, Robert T. The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Foster, R.C. Studies in the Life of Christ . Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985. Reprint, Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996.

Gardner-Smith, Percival. St. John and the Synoptic Gospels . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938.

Gnilka, J. Johannesevangelium . Neue Echter Bibel. Würzburg: Echter, 1983.

Godet, Frederic. Commentary on the Gospel of John . Translated by Timothy Dwight. 2 volumes. New York: Funk & Wagnall, 1886.

Haenchen, Ernst. A Commentary on the Gospel of John . Hermeneia Series. 2 volumes. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. (German ed., 1980.)

Hendriksen, William. Exposition of the Gospel according to John . 2 volumes. New Testament Commentary Series. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1954.

Hengel, Martin. The Johannine Question . Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989.

Higgins, A.J.B. The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel . London: Lutterworth, 1960.

Hoskyns, Edwyn C. The Fourth Gospel. 2 volumes. London: Faber, 1940. Revised. ed. in one vol., 1947.

Howard, Wilbert F. Christianity According to St. John . Philadelphia: Westminster, 1946.

. The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation . London: Epworth, 1931.

Howard, Wilbert F., and Arthur J. Gossip. "The Gospel According to St. John." In Interpreter's Bible 7:437-811. Nashville: Abingdon/ Cokesbury, 1952.

Hunter, Archibald M. According to John . The Cambridge Bible Commentary. London: SCM Press, 1968.

. The Gospel According to John . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.

Jauncey, James H. The Compelling Indwelling [Studies on John 15]. Chicago: Moody, 1972.

Jeremias, Joachim. New Testament Theology. Old Tappan, NJ: Scribners Reference, 1977.

Jervell, Jacob. Jesus in the Gospel of John . Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984.

Kysar, Robert. The Fourth Evangelist and His Gospel . Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1975.

. John . Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986.

. John's Story of Jesus . Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.

. John, the Maverick Gospel . Atlanta: John Knox, 1976. Reprinted Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.

Lee, Edwin Kenneth. The Religious Thought of St. John . London: S.P.C.K., 1950.

Lenski, R.C.H. Interpretation of John's Gospel . Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1936.

Leon-Dufour, Xavier. Dictionary of the New Testament . New York: Harper & Row, 1980.

Lightfoot, Robert H. St. John's Gospel . Edited by C.F. Evans. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956.

Lindars, Barnabas. The Gospel of John . New Century Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

MacGregor, George H.C. The Gospel of John . The Moffatt New Testament Commentary. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928.

MacGregor, George H.C., and A.Q. Morton. The Structure of the Fourth Gospel. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1961.

Maier G. Johannes-Evangelium . BKNT 6. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1984.

Marsh, John. The Gospel of St. John . Westminster Pelican Commentaries. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968.

Martyn, J. Louis. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel . New York: Harper & Row, 1968.

. The Gospel of John in Christian History: Essays for Interpreters . New York: Paulist, 1979.

McGarvey, J.W., and P.Y. Pendleton. The Fourfold Gospel or a Harmony of the Four Gospels . Cincinnati: Standard, 1914.

Michaels, J.R. John . San Francisco: Harper, 1984.

Moloney, Francis J. The Gospel of John. Sacra Pagina. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.

Montefiore, C.G., and H. Loewe. A Rabbinic Anthology. New York: Schocken Books, 1974.

Morris, Leon. The Gospel according to St. John . The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.

. Reflections on the Gospel of John . 4 volumes. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986.

. Studies in the Fourth Gospel . Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1969.

Murray, John O.F. Jesus according to St. John . London: Longmans, 1936.

Nicol, W. Semeia in the Fourth Gospel . Leiden: Brill, 1972.

Nolloth, Charles F. The Fourth Evangelist: His Place in the Development of Religious Thought. London: J. Murray, 1925.

O'Neill, J.C. Who Did Jesus Think He Was? Leiden: Brill, 1995.

Odeberg, Hugo. The Fourth Gospel: Interpreted in Its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World . Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 1968.

Pack, Frank. The Gospel according to John . Living Word Commentaries. Austin: Sweet, 1975.

Palmer, Earl F. The Intimate Gospel . Waco: Word, 1978.

Plummer, Alfred. The Gospel according to St. John. Cambridge Greek Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1890.

Rainsford, Marcus. Our Lord Prays: Thoughts on John XVII . London: 1873; reprint Chicago: Moody, 1950.

Redlich, Edwin B. An Introduction to the Fourth Gospel . London: Longmans, 1939.

Ridderbos, Herman N. The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Rigg, William Harrison. The Fourth Gospel and Its Message for Today . London: Lutterworth, 1952.

Robinson, John A.T. The Priority of John . London: SCM Press, 1985.

Sanday, William. The Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel . London: Macmillan, 1872.

. The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel . New York: Scribner, 1905.

Sanders, J.N. The Fourth Gospel in the Early Church . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943.

Sanders, J.N., and B.A. Mastin. The Gospel according to St. John . Black's New Testament Commentaries. London: A.& C. Black, 1968.

Schlatter, Adolf. Der Evangelist Johannes . Stuttgart: Calwer, 1948.

Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Gospel according to St John . 3 volumes. Translated by Cecily Hastings, et al. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Sidebottom, E.M. The Christ of the Fourth Gospel . London: SPCK, 1961.

Sloyan, Gerard S. John . Interpretation Commentary Series. Atlanta: John Knox, 1988.

Smith, D. Moody. The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965.

. John . Proclamation Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

Smith, D. Moody, C. Clifton Black, and R. Alan Culpepper, eds. Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith . Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1996.

Smith, Jonathan R. The Teaching of the Gospel of John . New York: Revell, 1903.

Stevens, George B. The Johannine Theology: A Study of the Doctrinal Contents of the Gospel and Epistles of the Apostle John . New York: Scribner, 1894.

Strachan, Robert H. The Fourth Evangelist: Dramatist or Historian? London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925.

. The Fourth Gospel: Its Significance and Environment . 3rd Revised Edition. London, S.C.M. Press, 1941.

Tasker, Randolph V.G. The Gospel according to St. John . Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. London: Tyndale, 1960.

Temple, William. Readings in St. John's Gospel . 2 volumes. London: Macmillan, 1939-40; one volume edition, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1955.

Tenney, Merrill C. "The Gospel of John." In The Expositor's Bible Commentary , 93-203. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981.

. John: the Gospel of Belief . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans (1948), 1954.

Turner, George A., and Julius R. Mantey. The Gospel according to John . The Evangelical Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.

Wead, David. The Literary Devices in John's Gospel . Basel: Komm. Friedrich Reinhardt, 1970.

Weber, Gerard P. and Robert Miller. Breaking Open the Gospel of John . Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1995.

Westcott, Brooke F. The Gospel according to St .John . London: John Murray, 1882.

. The Gospel according to St. John; the Greek Text with Introduction and Notes . 2 volumes. London: John Murray, 1908. Reprinted in 1 volume, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980.

Wiles, Maurice F. The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.

Witherington, Ben, III. John's Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1995.

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

ABBREVIATIONS

BAGD A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker

BDB A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver and Briggs

BDF A Greek Grammar of the New Testament by Blass, Debrunner and Funk

BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly

DNT Dictionary of the New Testament

HTR Harvard Theological Review

ICC International Critical Commentary

IDB Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible

JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

KJV King James Version

LSJ Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell, Scott and Jones

NASB New American Standard Bible

LXX Septuagint

NIV New International Version

NLT New Living Translation

NovT Novum Testamentum

NRSV New Revised Standard Version

NT New Testament

OT Old Testament

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel and Friedrich

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

College: John (Outline)

OUTLINE

A good outline is more than half the battle in one's understanding and remembering the contents of any book. There is more than one way to break up and organize the materials in the Gospel according to John. Most students have observed two large divisions in its structure: (1) chapters 1-12 and (2) chapters 13-21. These larger units include a prologue (1:1-18) and an epilogue (chapter 21). Perhaps the easiest way to organize the materials of the book for commentary purposes might be to number the larger units of thought in the book (over fifty such units) and comment successively on these from the beginning of the book to the end. One may endeavor, however, to organize the materials of the Fourth Gospel in some kind of elaborate outline, structured under the two large divisions noted above. We follow this latter procedure below:

I. JESUS MANIFESTS HIMSELF TO THE WORLD - 1:1-12:50

A. The Prologue - 1:1-18

1. The Logos before Time - 1:1-4

a. His Relationship to Deity - 1:1-2

b. His Relationship to the World - 1:3-4

2. The Logos Manifested in History - 1:5-18

a. John the Baptist's Initial Testimony to the Logos - 1:5-13

b. The Logos in Flesh - 1:14-18

B. The Testimony of John the Baptist and of Jesus' First Disciples - 1:19-51

1. The Testimony of John the Baptist - 1:19-34

a. The Testimony of John to the Jewish Leaders - 1:19-28

b. The Testimony of John to the Jewish People - 1:29-34

2. Jesus' Calling and the Testifying of His First Disciples - 1:35-51

a. John the Baptist's Disciples Follow Jesus - 1:35-42

b. Jesus' Calling of Philip and Nathanael - 1:43-51

C. Jesus' First Signs - 2:1-25

1. Jesus Changes Water into Wine - 2:1-12

2. Jesus Cleanses the Temple - 2:13-22

3. Summary of Response to Jesus - 2:23-25

D. Jesus and Nicodemus - 3:1-36

1. The New Birth - 3:1-10

2. The Son of Man - 3:11-21

3. The Further Testimony of John the Baptist - 3:22-30

4. The Son's Testimony - 3:31-36

E. Jesus and the Samaritans - 4:1-42

1. Introduction - 4:1-4

2. Jesus and the Woman of Samaria - 4:5-30

a. The Setting - 4:5-6

b. Jesus' Request for Water - 4:7-9

c. Living Water - 4:10-15

d. The Woman Revealed - 4:16-19

e. Jesus Reveals Himself - 4:20-26

f. Reactions to Jesus - 4:27-30

3. Jesus and the Samaritans - 4:31-42

a. Jesus and the Testifying of His disciples - 4:31-38

b. Firsthand and Secondhand Testimony - 4:39-42

F. Jesus' Healing of the Nobleman's Son, the Second Sign at Cana - 4:43-54

1. Introduction - 4:43-45

2. The Healing of the Nobleman's Son - 4:46-54

G. Jesus and the Major Jewish Festivals - 5:1-12:50

1. A Feast, the Sabbath, and Jesus' Healing at the Pool in Jerusalem - 5:1-47

a. The Healing on the Sabbath - 5:1-9a

b. Violations of the Sabbath and the Healed Man's Defense - 5:9b-15

c. Violations of the Sabbath and Jesus' Defense - 5:16-18

d. Jesus' Discourse on the Sabbath and His Work - 5:19-29

e. Jesus' Defense and the Four Witnesses - 5:30-47

2. The Passover and Jesus' Explanation of the Exodus - 6:1-71

a. The Background - 6:1-4

b. Jesus' Feeding of the Five Thousand - 6:5-13

c. Jesus, Not That Kind of King - 6:14-15

d. Jesus' Walking on the Sea of Galilee - 6:16-21

e. The Crowds' Search for Jesus - 6:22-25

f. Two Discourses on the Bread of Life - 6:26-34, 35-40

g. Conflict Concerning Bread from Heaven and Flesh and Blood - 6:41-59

h. Rejection and Acceptance of Jesus - 6:60-71

3. Jesus at Tabernacles - 7:1-52

a. Introduction: Question If Jesus Would Go to This Feast - 7:1-13

b. Jesus' Discourses Spoken during the Feast - 7:14-36

c. Jesus' Discourses Spoken on the Last Day of the Feast and the Audience's Response to it - 7:37-52

d. Textual Parenthesis: The Woman Taken in Adultery - 7:53-8:11

4. The Light of Tabernacles and Jesus' Great Confrontation with the Jews - 8:12-59

a. Jesus Discourse at the Temple Treasury: Jesus the Light of the World and the Authority of His Testimony to Himself - 8:12-20

b. Jesus' Attack on the Jews Who Disbelieved and the Origin of His Testimony and the Problem of Who He Is - 8:21-30

c. Truth, Sin, Freedom, and the Children of Abraham - 8:31-59

5. Healing of the Man Born Blind - 9:1-41

a. The Setting - 9:1-5

b. The Healing - 9:6-7

c. Interrogations of the Man - 9:8-34

(1) Questions Posed by the Neighbors and Friends - 9:8-12

(2) Preliminary Quizzing by Some Pharisees - 9:13-17

(3) The Man's Parents Questioned by the Jews - 9:18-23

(4) The Man Questioned a Second Time by the Jews, and Excommunicated - 9:24-34

d. Who Sees and Who Is Blind? Jesus' Answer - 9:35-41

6. The Feast of Dedication and the Shepherd Analogy - 10:1-42

a. Jesus, the Sheepgate, and the Shepherd - 10:1-21

(1) Figures from Shepherd Life - 10:1-6

(2) Explaining the Figure - 10:7-18

(a) Jesus is the Sheepgate - 10:7-10

(b) Jesus is the Good (or Model) Shepherd - 10:11-18

(3) Response to Jesus' Explanation: Rejection of Jesus by the Jews - 10:19-21

b. Jesus at the Feast of Dedication - 10:22-39

(1) Jesus the Messiah - 10:22-31

(a) Setting and Questions: "Is Jesus the Messiah?" - 10:22-24

(b) Jesus' Reply - 10:25-30

(c) Reaction: Attempt to Stone Jesus - 10:31

(2) Jesus the Son of God - 10:32-39

(a) The Question: Is Jesus Making Himself Equal with God - 10:32-33

(b) Jesus' Response - 10:34-38

(c) Reaction: Attempt to Arrest Jesus - 10:39

c. Jesus in Retrogression and Progression Simultaneously - 10:40-42

7. Lazarus and the Passover Plot - 11:1-57

a. Lazarus - 11:1-44

(1) Setting - 11:1-6

(2) Jesus' Discussion with the Disciples - 11:7-16

(3) Jesus and Martha: Jesus the Resurrection and the Life - 11:17-27

(4) Jesus and Mary and the Grieved - 11:28-37

(5) Jesus' Raising of Lazarus - 11:38-44

b. The Passover Plot to Kill Jesus - 11:45-53

c. Retreat of Jesus - 11:54-57

8. Preparation for Passover and Death - 12:1-50

a. Mary's Anointing of Jesus - 12:1-11

b. Jesus' Triumphal Entry - 12:12-19

c. Gentiles Prompt Jesus' Announcement of His Hour - 12:20-36

d. The Tragedy of Unbelief, Past and Present - 12:37-43

e. The Call to Faith Still Stands - 12:44-50

II. JESUS' MANIFESTATION OF HIMSELF IN HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION - 13:1-21:25

A. Jesus' Manifestation of Himself to His Disciples in His Farewell Discourses - 13:1-17:26

1. At the Last Supper - 13:1-38

a. Jesus' Washing of His Disciples' Feet - 13:1-17

b. Jesus' Prediction of Judas' Betrayal - 13:18-30

c. Jesus' Prediction of Peter's Denial; The New Commandment (13:34) - 13:31-38

2. Promises of Jesus - 14:1-31

a. Promises of an Abode where Jesus Is Going - 14:1-4

b. Jesus the Way to the Father - 14:5-12

c. Doing Greater Works than Jesus; Asking in Jesus' Name - 14:13-14

d. Jesus' Departure and the Spirit's Coming - 14:15-31

3. More Commands and Promises of Jesus - 15:1-27

a. Jesus, the Vine; the Disciples, the Branches; The New Commandment Given (15:13) - 15:1-17

b. Hatred from the World - 15:18-25

c. The Spirit's Mission Like That of the Disciples: to Bear Witness to Jesus - 15:26-27

4. Still More Promises and Commands - 16:1-33

a. The Works of Disbelief - 16:1-4

b. The Works of the Spirit - 16:5-15

c. Joy Greater than Trouble - 16:16-33

5. Jesus' Prayer - 17:1-26

a. For His Glorification - 17:1-5

b. For His Disciples - 17:6-19

c. For Those Who Will Believe - 17:20-26

(1) For Unity - 17:20-23

(2) For Seeing Jesus' Glory - 17:24-26

B. Jesus' Trial and Crucifixion - 18:1-19:42

1. Jesus' Arrest - 18:1-11

2. Jesus' Trial before Annas - 18:12-14

3. Peter's First Denial of Jesus - 18:15-18

4. Jesus Interrogated before Annas - 18:19-24

5. Peter's Second and Third Denials of Jesus - 18:25-27

6. Jesus' Trial before Pilate - 18:28-19:16

a. Pilate Doubtful of the Prosecution - 18:28-32

b. Pilate Examines Jesus - 18:33-38a

c. Barabbas - 18:38b-40

d. The Flogging of Jesus and Delivering Over of Him to the Jews by Pilate - 19:1-16

7. The Crucifixion of Jesus - 19:17-30

8. Piercing Jesus' Side - 19:31-37

9. Jesus' Burial - 19:38-42

C. The Resurrection of Jesus - 20:1-21:25

1. Peter and John at the Empty Tomb - 20:1-9

2. Jesus' Appearance to Mary - 20:10-18

3. Jesus' Appearance to the Disciples with Thomas Absent - 20:19-23

4. Jesus' Appearance to his Disciples with Thomas Present - 20:24-29

5. The Purpose of this Gospel - 20:30-31

6. Jesus' Appearance to Seven Disciples and the Great Haul of Fish - 21:1-14

7. Jesus' Admonition to Peter about Peter - 21:15-19

8. Jesus' Admonition to Peter about John - 21:20-23

9. Testimony to the Truthfulness of the Contents of the Fourth Gospel - 21:24

10. The Selective Nature of the Contents of the Fourth Gospel - 21:25

-College Press New Testament Commentary: with the NIV

Lapide: John (Book Introduction)

NOTICE TO THE READER.

Gospel of John Intro

——o——

AS it has been found impossible to compress the Translation of the Commentary upon S. John's Gospel into one volume, it is now given in two, of which this is the first. The second volume comprises the remainder of the Gospel, and the Commentary of À Lapide upon S. John's Epistles.

It is with great pleasure I present this portion of this great Commentary to the English reader. Admirable as Cornelius à Lapide almost invariably is in his exposition of Holy Scripture, on the Gospel of S. John he seems to me to surpass himself. Beginning from the Incarnation of the Divine Word, nothing can be more masterly, nothing more magnificent, than the way in which he shows that the whole sacramental system of the Catholic Church of Christ is the necessary consequence and complement, as well as the extension of the Incarnation, Divinely planned and ordained for the eternal salvation of the whole human race. Granted the truth of the Incarnation as an objective fact, dealing with realities both in the spiritual and immaterial universe, and also in the material and physical universe, in this world of time and sense, as we call it, I do not see how it is possible to dispute our author's conclusions, taken as a whole.

The translation of Vol. 1. is by myself as far as the end of the 6th chapter. From the 27th verse of 6th chapter to the end, I have translated practically without any abridgment or omission, and also with greater literalness than I sometimes do, on account of the surpassing importance of the doctrine treated of, and the controversies resulting from it. Chapters vii.-x. are by the Rev. James Bliss, Rector of Manningford Bruce. For the last chapter, the 11th, I am indebted to the Rev. S. J. Eales, M.A., D.C.L., lately Principal of S. Boniface's College, Warminster, and now Principal of the Grove College, Addlestone, Surrey.

In Volume II. the Translation of chap. xiii. is by a young scholar, Mr. Macpherson. The remainder of the Gospel is by my most kind friend, Mr. Bliss, and myself.

Of S. John's Epistles, the first three chapters of the First Epistle are by Mr. Bliss, the remaining two chapters, and the Second and Third Epistles, are by myself.

T. W. Mossman.

THE PREFACE

TO

S. JOHN'S GOSPEL

——o——

S. JOHN the Apostle, the son of Zebedee and Salome, wrote this Gospel in Asia in the Greek language, towards the end of his life, after his return from Patmos, where he wrote the Apocalypse.

His reasons for writing were two. The first was that he might confute the heretics Ebion and Cerinthus, who denied Christ's Divinity, and taught that He was a mere man. The second was to supply the omissions of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Hence S. John records at length what Christ did during the first year of His ministry, which the other three had for the most part passed over.

Listen to S. Jerome in his preface to S. Matthew. "Last was John, the Apostle and Evangelist, whom Jesus loved the best, who lay on the Lord's bosom, and drank of the purest streams of His doctrines. When he was in Asia, at a time when the seeds of the heresies of Cerinthus, Ebion and the rest, who denied that Christ had come in the flesh, those whom in his Epistle he calls Antichrists, and whom the Apostle Paul frequently refutes, he was constrained by well nigh all the bishops who were at that time in Asia, and by the deputies of many other Churches, to write of the deep things of the Divinity of our Saviour, and to 'break through,'^* as it were, to the Word of God by a kind of happy temerity. Whence also we are told in ecclesiastical history that when he was urged by the brethren to write, he agreed to do so, on condition that they should all fast, and pray to God in common. When the fast was ended, being filled with the power of revelation, he burst forth with the preface coming straight from above, In the beginning was the Word , and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. "

Others add that S. John's beginning to write was preceded by lightnings and thunderings, as though he had been another Moses, who thus received the Law of God (Exod. xix.)

Baronius shows that S. John wrote his Gospel in the year of Christ 99, or sixty-six years after the Ascension. This was the first year of the reign of Nerva, and the twenty-seventh after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

As then Isaiah surpassed all the rest of the Prophets in sublimity, so did John the other Evangelists. Last in time, he is first in dignity and perfection. Thus in the first chapter of Ezekiel he is compared to an eagle flying above all other birds. Thus his dignity and special excellence, as well as his consequent obscurity, may be considered under three heads.

First, his matter and scope.  S. John alone of set purpose treats of the Divinity of Christ, of the origin, eternity, and generation of the Word, of the spiration of the Holy Spirit, of the unity of the Godhead, and of the Divine relations and attributes. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are concerned with the actions of Christ's humanity. This is why the Fathers derive almost all their arguments against the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians and such like heretics from S. John.

The second is the order of time. We know that the Church, like the dawning of the day, advanced by the succession of time to the perfect day of the knowledge of the mysteries of the faith. Thus the sacred writers of the New Testament, the Apostles and Evangelists, write far more clearly concerning them than do Moses and the Prophets of the Old Testament. John was the last of all, and his Gospel was his last work. He composed it therefore as a sort of crown of all the sacred books.

The third is the author.  S. John alone was counted worthy to win the laurels of all saints. For he is in very deed a theologian, or rather the prince of theologians. The same is an apostle, a prophet and an evangelist. The same is a priest, a bishop, a high priest, a virgin, and a martyr. That S. John always remained a virgin is asserted by all the ancient writers, expressly by Tertullian ( Lib. de monogam .) and S. Jerome ( Lib. 1 contra. Jovin .). To him therefore as a virgin Christ from His cross commended His Virgin Mother. For "blessed are the clean in heart, for they shall see God," as the Truth Itself declares.

The Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, made known to this His most chaste and beloved friend, who reclined upon His breast, the hidden things and sacraments of the Divinity, which had been kept-secret from the foundation of the world. John hath declared the same to us, as a son of thunder, thundering and lightening the whole world with the Deity of the Word. As with a flaming thunderbolt "he hath given shine to the world;" and with the fire of love he hath inflamed it. Let that speech of Christ, His longest and His last, bear witness, which He made after supper (S. John xiii. &c.), which breathes of nothing but the ardour of Divine love.

See more to the same effect in S. Cyril, S. Augustine, and S. Chrysostom ( Præm. in Joan .). Indeed, S. Chrysostom dares to say that S. John in his Gospel hath taught the angels the secrets of the Incarnate Word, such as before they knew not, and that therefore he is the Doctor of the cherubim and the seraphim. He proves this from the passage of S. Paul in Ephesians iii., "that there might be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places by the Church the multiform wisdom of God." "If," he says, "the principalities and powers, the cherubim and seraphim, have learned these things through the Church, it is very evident that the angels listen to him with the deepest attention. Not slight therefore is the honour which we gain in that the angels are our fellow-disciples in the things that they knew not.

CANONS THROWING LIGHT

upon the

INTERPRETATION OF S. JOHN'S GOSPEL.

——o——

JOHN has a style peculiar to himself, entirely different from that of the other Evangelists and sacred writers. For as an eagle at one time he raises himself above all, at another time he stoops down to the earth, as it were for his prey, that with the rusticity of his style he may capture the simple. At one time he is as wise as the cherubim, at another time he burns as do the seraphim. The reason is because John was most like Christ, and most dear to Him; and he in turn loved Christ supremely. Therefore at His Last Supper he reclined upon His breast. From this source, therefore, he sucked in, as it were, the mind, the wisdom, and the burning love of Christ. Wherefore, when thou readest and hearest John, think that thou readest and hearest Christ. For Christ hath transfused His own spirit and His own love into S. John.

2. Although John by the consent of all wrote his Gospel in Greek for Greeks, yet because he himself was a Hebrew, and from love of this primeval language, which was his native tongue, he abounds above the rest in Hebrew phrases and idioms. Hence to understand him we require a knowledge of two, or indeed of three languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Thus he Hebraizes in his frequent use of and for like as ( sicut ) as Solomon does in Proverbs, where he compares like with like by means of the conjunction and .   And in such instances is a mark of similitude, and has the same meaning as like as ( sicut ). On the other hand, he Grecizes in his use of perchance ( forsitan ) for surely . In John viii. 19 the Greek particle άν expresses affirmation, not uncertainty. So also in viii. 43 ού δύνασθε, ye are not able, is put for ye are not willing. He likewise constantly duplicates the Hebrew Amen , when the other Evangelists only express it once. The reasons for this diversity are examined in chap. iii. 2.

3. John abounds more in the discourses and disputations of Christ with the Jews than in the things that were done by Him. Not that he relates all the discourses and disputations of Christ, but such as were of greater importance. Especially he gives a compendious account of those in which Christ proved that He was God as well as man.

4. In S. John Christ speaks sometimes as God, and sometimes as man. There is need therefore of a careful examination of contexts to distinguish one from the other.

5. When Christ says, as He often does in S. John, that He "does, or says nothing of Himself," or that "not He, but the Father, does, or says this, or that" there must be understood "originally" and "alone." As thus, "neither alone, nor as man perform I these things: nor yet as God am I the first originator of them; but it is God the Father, who together with His Divine essence communicates to Me omniscience and omnipotence, even the power of doing all things."

6. Although the Apostles and other saints wrought miracles, yet Christ in S. John's Gospel often proves that He is the Messiah and God by the miracles which were done by Him. This proof is a true and effectual one; first, because He Himself made direct use of it. For a miracle as the work of God, and the Voice of the prime Verity, is an infallible proof of that which it is brought forward to confirm. Second, because Christ wrought them by His own power and authority, which He could not have done unless He had been God of God. Thus then He did them that they might appear to proceed from Him as from God, the original source of miracles. For the saints do not work miracles by their own authority, but by the invocation of the name of God, or Christ. Let us add that the miracles which were done by Christ were foretold by Isaiah and the other prophets, that they might be indices and marks of the Messiah, as will appear in chap. xi. 4.

7. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record for the most part the acts of the last year, and the last but one of Christ's ministry, that is to say, what He did after the imprisonment of S. John the Baptist. But S. John's Gospel for the most part gives an account of the two preceding years. This consideration will solve many seeming discrepancies between S. John and the other Evangelists. So S. Augustine in his preface.

8. There is frequently in S. John both great force as well as obscurity in the adverbs and conjunctions of causation, influence, connection, and so on, in such a manner that a single particle will often include and point out the entire meaning of a passage. Hence these particles must be most carefully examined and weighed, as I shall show in each place.

9. The particles that , wherefore , on account of which , and the like do not always signify the cause, or the end intended, but often only a consequence or result. This is especially the case if an event has been certainly foreseen, and therefore could not happen otherwise. This is plain from chap. xii. 38, 39, where it said, They believed not on Him , that the saying of Isaias might be fulfilled : and shortly afterwards, Wherefore they could not believe , because Isaias said again , He hath blinded their eyes. For the reason why the Jews would not believe in Christ was not the prediction of Isaiah foretelling that they would not believe ( non credituros ), but the hardness of heart and malice of the Jews, which as a sort of objective cause preceded Isaiah's prophecy. For Isaiah foretold that the Jews were not about to believe, because in truth they themselves through their own malice and obstinacy were not going to do so. So S. Chryostom and others.

10. By the Jews S. John sometimes means the rulers only, sometimes the people only. Thus he represents the Jews at one time as opposing, at another time as favouring Christ. For the people were His friends, the rulers were His adversaries.

11. By a He braism the present tense often signifies not an action issuing in a result, but a force, or power of nature, or the act (in the sense of will or intention, Trans .) of the agent, even in cases where the effect is opposed by the subject, or in some other way. Thus in i. 9 it is said that Christ by His advent gave light to the world. That means, so far as He was concerned. For many, like the Jews, refused to receive this light, as he immediately adds, and continued in the darkness of their unbelief.

12. The particles as if , so as , and the like, because they correspond to the Hebrew caph , do not always signify likeness, but the truth of a fact, or assertion. Thus in i. 14, we have seen His glory , as of the Only Begotten , means, "we have seen the glory of the Only Begotten to be truly such, and so great as became Him who was indeed the Only Begotten Son of God the Father." So S. Chrysostom and others.

13. John, following the Hebrew idiom, sometimes takes words of inceptive action to signify the beginning of something that is done; but sometimes to signify continuation, that a work is in progress; and sometimes, that a work has been perfected and accomplished. Thus we must not be surprised, if sometimes that which increases, or is being perfected, is spoken of as if it were just commencing, and vice versa. An example of inceptive action is to be found in xvi. 6, where Peter, resisting Christ desiring to wash his feet, says, Lord , dost Thou wash my feet ? Dost Thou wash ? that is, "Dost Thou wish, prepare, begin to wash?" There is an example of continued action in ii. 11 , where, after the miracle of the conversion of water into wine, it is added, And His disciples believed in Him : that is, they went on believing, they increased, and were confirmed in faith. For they had already before this believed in Christ, for if they had not believed in Him, they would not have followed Him as His disciples. There is an example of a perfected action in xi 15, where Christ, when about, at the close of His life, to raise up Lazarus, said, I am glad for your sakes , that ye may believe. That is, " that by means of this My last and greatest miracle ye may be altogether made perfect in your belief in Me." Again, in xx. 17, Jesus appearing after His resurrection to Mary Magdalene, who had fallen at His feet, said, Touch Me not . That is, "Do not delay, and waste time in touching My feet, but go quickly, and tell the Apostles, who are very sorrowful because of My death, that I have risen again."

14. John, after the Hebrew idiom, asserts and confirms over again what he had already asserted, by a denial of the contrary. This is especially the case when the subject matter is of importance, and is doubted about by many, so that it requires strong confirmation. Thus in i. 20 , when John the Baptist is asked by the Jews if he were the Christ, he confessed , and denied not , but confessed , I am not the Christ. And in i. 3, All things were made by Him , and without Him was not anything made that was made.

15. John delights in calling Christ the Life , and the Light , for reasons which I will give hereafter. He has several other similar and peculiar expressions. For instance, he often uses the word judgment for condemnation which takes place in judgement. In other places he uses judgment for the secret judgments and decrees of God, because they are just. Sins he calls darkness. The saints he calls sons of light. That which is true and just he calls the truth. In vi. 27, for procure food , or labour for food he has ε̉ζγάεσθα βζω̃σιν. In the 9th chap., when Jesus is asked by the Jews, Who art Thou? He answers, The Beginning, who also am speaking unto you.

16. John relates that Christ said previously certain things, the when and the where of His saying which He had not previously mentioned. For studying brevity, he considered it sufficient to relate them once. Thus in the 11th chap. he says that Martha said to her sister Mary, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. Yet he had not previously related that Christ bade Martha to call Magdalene; for his mentioning that Martha, by Christ's command, called her sister was sufficient to show that Christ had so commanded. In the same chapter Christ saith to Martha, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou wouldest see the glory of God? Yet there is no previous account of Christ saying this. Also in vi. 36, Christ says, But I said unto you, that ye also have seen Me and believe not. Yet we nowhere recall that Christ previously so said.

17. The miracles of Christ which John alone records are as follows:- The conversion of water into wine, chap. ii. The first expulsion of the sellers from the Temple, in the same chapter. The healing of the sick child of the nobleman, iv. 47. The healing of the paralytic at the pool in the sheep-market, chap. v. Giving sight to the man born blind, chap. ix. Raising Lazarus from the dead, chap. xi. The falling of Judas and the servants to the earth, when they came to take Jesus, xviii. 6. The flow of blood and water from the side of Christ after He was dead, xix. 34. The multiplication of the fishes, xxi. 6.

COMMENTATORS

Very many persons have written commentaries upon the Gospel of S. John, and among them the principal Greek and Latin Fathers. Among the Greeks, after Origen, who composed thirty-two tomes, or books, upon this Gospel, were S. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who has written a learned and very excellent commentary. He has written a didactic work, and is especially able and skilful in expounding the literal sense.  S. Cyril's commentary on S. John's Gospel consisted originally of twelve books. But of these the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth have perished. Their loss has been supplied, by Clictovæus, a doctor of Paris, whose work has been mistaken by many learned men for the original of S. Cyril.

A second commentator is S. Chrysostom, who seems to have been imbued with the very spirit of S. John himself. He wrote eighty seven homilies on this Gospel.

A third is Theophylact, and a fourth Euthymius. They, as is usual with them, follow S. Chrysostom. Theophylact is the more diffuse of the two.

A fifth commentator is Nonnus Panopolitanus, an Egyptian, and a very eloquent writer, who, as Suidas says, explained the virgin theologian, that is, John the Evangelist, in heroic verses. Although the commentary of Nonnus can properly only be called a paraphrase, nevertheless in many places he points out and illustrates the meaning of the Evangelist in pithy sentences.

Among the Latins the first and chief commentator is S. Augustine, who has written systematically upon the whole Gospel in one hundred and twenty-four tractates.

The second is Venerable Bede, who follows S. Augustine passim, and often word for word.

A third commentary is what is called the Gloss. Where observe that the Gloss is tripartite. The first is the Interlinear Gloss, so called because written between the lines of the sacred text. For that reason it is brief, but pithy, and treats many things in the Gospel learnedly and usefully. The second is the Marginal Gloss, because written on the margin of the text. To this is subjoined the Gloss of Nicolas Lyra. This Nicolas was called Lyra from a village in Normandy. He was a Jew by birth, and was converted to Christianity. He entered the Franciscan Order, and taught scholastic theology, A.D. 1320. He was a learned man, and skilled in Hebrew. He wrote his Gloss upon S. John and the other sacred writers, expounding them literally, and became so celebrated that it has passed into a proverb—

"If Lyra's hand had erst not swept his lyre,

  Our theologians had not danced in choir."

However, we must keep this in mind, that he is too credulous with regard to Jewish fables and puerilities, giving too much heed to writers of his own nation, to the Rabbin, and especially to R. Salomon, who is a great retailer of fables.

In later ages, and especially in our own day, many commentaries have been written upon this Gospel. Pre-eminent among them are Maldonatus, of the Society of Jesus, who is copious, acute, elegant, and learned: Cornelius Jansen, who is exact, solid, and to be depended upon: Frank Toletus, who displays a sound judgment, especially in the application of metaphors and similitudes. Sebastian Barradi has written a good literal commentary, mingling with it moral reflections. He is useful to preachers in affording materials for sermons, and showing how to treat them. Frank Ribera is brief, but as usual excellent and learned. Frank Lucas is entirely literal, but he uses the letter to draw the reader to pious affections.

Among the heretics, Martin Bucer, Wolfgang Musculus, Bullinger, Brentius, Calvin, and Beza have written upon S. John's Gospel. Of all these authors Augustinus Marloratus has made a catena, which I read through and refuted when I was in Belgium.

^* (Cf. Exod. xix. 21, Trans.) Return to the place.