John 19 - The NIV Application Commentary on the Bible: One-Volume Edition

Jesus before Pilate (Episode 2) (19:1–16a). Roman law recognized three types of flogging: fustigatio, flagellatio, and verberatio, each representing ascending levels of severity, although it is uncertain if the Gospel’s original readers would have understood these differences. The lowest form (fustigatio) was reserved for troublemakers who simply needed to be punished and warned. In the present scene, Pilate chooses to employ fustigatio, not only to teach Jesus to be more prudent in the future but to satisfy the crowds who are demanding his death.

Since the task of flogging generally belonged to soldiers, the same soldiers also begin to mock Jesus and hurt him. The mock crown may have been a woven circular crown of twigs and thorns, pressed down to inflict pain. It may have been made of the thorny date palm, whose thorns can exceed twelve inches. These are woven together with some of the thorns sticking straight up around the entire crown. This made him look like a god-king with “radiating” beams coming from his head. The robe is likely a soldier’s robe thrown on him, completing the picture of mock royalty. With this costume, they jeer and strike Jesus.

When Pilate escorts Jesus outside, his clear intention is to display Jesus in cruel submission, bearing the marks of his punishment, and thereby to obtain his release. Rather than pitying Jesus, the leaders are calling for his crucifixion, and in disgust Pilate calls back to them. Pilate is trying to avoid responsibility for the death of an innocent man.

The Jewish leaders had earlier played their political card, telling Pilate that Jesus was a king. Now they have a religious accusation: if Pilate truly discharges his duties in the province, he will uphold local law (when it is irrelevant to imperial interests) and thereby keep the peace.

Pilate is unnerved. John says that he is more afraid than before, which gives us an insight into his previous state of mind during the morning. There is something about this inquiry he does not like. While Pilate may not possess spiritual insight, he undoubtedly is highly superstitious, and the idea that in some fashion gods could appear in the world was not uncommon.

When Pilate escorts Jesus back into his praetorium (v. 9), his first question is terse. The question follows naturally from his worries in verse 8. This is not a question about Jesus’s birthplace; it lies deeper. But Jesus supplies no answer, knowing that to fit himself into Pilate’s religious schema would be useless.

Jesus and Pilate talk past each other, responding to ideas on utterly different planes. Of course Pilate has the power to crucify Jesus, but Jesus’s retort explains the nature of true power. The real power above both Caesar and Pilate is God, and so Pilate has no grounds for boasting. Pilate is powerless before God’s plan in this hour.

The verb in verse 12a is imperfect, meaning ongoing action (“Pilate kept trying to free Jesus”), but it is fruitless. Suddenly something dramatic happens. The Jewish leaders know they have one more weapon, one more bit of leverage on this governor that will make him pliable, like putty in their hands. “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar” (v. 12b).

From this point, things proceed swiftly (vv. 13–16). Pilate returns to the porch outside with Jesus, where he occupies the governor’s judgment seat and prepares to render a decision. Pilate is now positioned to speak with the voice of his office.

The closing scene is filled with Pilate’s sarcasm. “Here is your king” (V 14b) echoes “here is the man” (v. 5), and Pilate now offers to crucify this royal Jewish monarch. The audience of chief priests supplies an acid tone to the conclusion and lays the groundwork for their own blasphemy. “We have no king but Caesar” (v. 15) is a direct contradiction of the injunction of the Bible that God alone is Israel’s king. By rejecting Jesus, they have rejected God himself, as Jesus predicted.

When Jesus is handed over for crucifixion (v. 16a), he is placed in the custody of the Roman garrison that ordinarily handled such matters. While Jesus had been given a remedial flogging by Pilate’s men, now the soldiers inflict the verberatio. He is bleeding profusely, his clothes are soaked in blood, his thorn-laced crown now digs deeply and painfully into his head, and he is nearly in shock. Jesus carries the cross himself for a good while (v. 17a), but according to the Synoptics his condition becomes so severe that he cannot carry it all the way to the site. A man named Simon, a visitor from North African Cyrene (in present-day Libya), must carry it for him. Visitors watching on the Via Dolorosa (“the way of suffering”) would have seen a stunning spectacle and a roadway running with blood.

Jesus Is Led to Golgotha (19:16b–24). When Jesus is led away from the praetorium, he is bleeding profusely and nearly in shock. Nevertheless it was the tradition that under Roman guard, the victim had to bear his own cross to the site of death. The crossbeam (Latin patibulum) was placed over the neck, like a yoke, while the person’s arms were pulled back and hooked around it.

John keeps the story to a bare minimum. The route of Jesus’s walk (traditionally Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa) would have taken him from the praetorium of Pilate to a location outside the city walls, where people passing by would see the spectacle and some would even speak to Jesus or jeer. Public executions were designed to shock and warn the populace, but no doubt John sees another meaning here: Jesus is being lifted up so that now Israel can see its king.

The victim was laid on the ground with his arms stretched across the beam. After he was either nailed or tied, he was hoisted up and mounted on the vertical post. Romans nailed the ankles together, forcing the feet to lay sideways on top of one another. The key is to remember that nailing was not the means of death on the cross. Many factors, such as hemorrhaging, asphyxia, and shock, played a role.

Each of the Gospels say that Jesus was crucified with “bandits” (Gk. lēstēs). This word is best translated “terrorist” and increases the irony of Jesus’s wrongful execution. Jesus is being aligned with terrorists, while another terrorist has gone free. Each of the Gospels also refer to Jesus’s position between them. This may refer to a place of prominence or it may echo Psalm 22:16.

It was customary for the Romans to provide a public, written notice of the criminal’s name and activity, and this was paraded before him. John is the only writer who notes that it came by Pilate’s order, and it may be that this is Pilate’s revenge on the Jewish high council.

It comes as no surprise that the chief priests understand that the sign implies a kind of sarcastic endorsement by Rome of Jesus’s royal identity, and they do not like it. Pilate for the first time in the story stands up to them. He refuses to publish a lie. Thus the scene ends, and Jesus’s kingship stands secure.

Roman guards take Jesus’s “clothes” and divide it into four parts (v. 23). These four “shares” have led to speculation as to what Jesus possessed. No doubt they include a head covering, a belt, possibly sandals, an outer cloak, and an undergarment or tunic. The soldiers gamble for the undergarment, which John sees as a fulfillment of Psalm 22:18. Josephus describes the high priests’ tunic as “seamless.” Josephus’s description seems to refer to a long outer robe decorated with gold thread and fringes. It is difficult to know if this is what John has in mind; if so, this may be an allusion to Jesus’s priestly work on the cross.

Jesus’s Final Deeds and Death (19:25–37). John records a number of people at the foot of the cross. These include his mother; his aunt (“his mother’s sister”); Mary, the “wife of Clopas”; Mary [from the village of] Magdala; and the Beloved Disciple (vv. 25–26). The Beloved Disciple is being called here to take Mary into his family, and he does this obediently.

Jesus’s second statement on the cross is a cry of thirst, which John alone records. Jesus speaks in order to fulfill Psalm 69:21, “They . . . gave me vinegar for my thirst.” In response, the soldiers provide him with a drink (Gk. oxos), diluted wine drunk by soldiers and peasants. We must not confuse this drink with the offer of wine mixed with drugs extended to him earlier. Jesus refused this earlier narcotic. The detail of hyssop is important here since the plant was used at the Passover to brush lamb’s blood on the lintels and doorposts of Israelite homes.

What Jesus knows about the finality of his work (v. 28) he now utters aloud (v. 30a). This confirms the sense we have seen throughout the passion story that here Jesus is accomplishing what he intends. He is not a victim but a servant doing God’s bidding. This is not a cry of desolation (“at last it is over!”) but an announcement of triumph (“it is accomplished”).

At this moment John says that Jesus bows his head and “handed over the spirit” (NIV “gave up his spirit,” v. 30). John uses an unusual verb here, which does not mean “give up.” The Greek paradidōmi means to “hand over,” and nowhere in Greek literature is paradidōmi to pneuma used as a reference to death. The expression may well be John’s characteristic double meaning at work, giving the subtle, general impression that the gift of the Spirit is active at the time of the cross. This coheres with what we learned earlier, that the Spirit is a fruit of Jesus’s death. Thus he bows his head, looking directly at those ideal disciples at the foot of the cross—and we recognize them as the recipients of his gift.

Symbolism may equally be at work in verse 28 in the images of water and thirst that run through these verses. A cry of thirst is remarkable from the one in whom rivers of living water run. The source of living water now thirsts! Elsewhere the language of “thirst” refers to his work as one who can satisfy all thirst. As his life escapes, as the Spirit is released, as this living water is poured out, Jesus is keenly aware of this emptying, which is felt sharply in his thirst.

John reminds us that it is the “day of Preparation” (v. 31), which most naturally refers to Sabbath preparation, not preparation for the Passover. The Jews wish to remove the bodies from the crosses because of the onset of dusk and the beginning of the Sabbath. We can assume that the same group of Jews who asked for a change to the title on the cross (v. 21) now wish to remove the three men from their crosses.

The squad of soldiers breaks the legs of the two men next to Jesus, but when they come to Jesus—and here John makes the point with absolute clarity—they do not break his legs since he is already dead. If they are confident of this, however, it seems odd that one of them takes a lance to test him further. But one does, and when Jesus’s side is pierced, blood and water flow from the wound (v. 34).

Exegetes and physicians have explored this phenomenon of blood and water at length, and we can only provide the barest summary of their work. Few today hold the view that Jesus’s heart “bursts,” despite the homiletic possibilities this offers. Two solid theories are available.

P. Barbet once argued that the spear may have penetrated Jesus’s heart, so that the blood from his heart as well as fluid from the pericardial sac were released simultaneously. Today many physician-interpreters favor this view. Yet the surgeon A. F. Sava objected to this theory since Barbet took his evidence from cadavers twenty-four hours old. His own experiments with four- to six-hour cadavers did not produce the same results. However, among victims of traumatic accidents (especially with chest injuries), massive fluids build up between the body lining and the lung, in some instances providing as much as two liters of fluid.

John’s primary intention is to let his readers know that Jesus is most certainly dead. Theologically this is important for a couple of reasons. John is working to affirm the full humanity of Jesus, whose life was dependent on his flesh. Moreover, already in John’s time false teachers were doubting the true incarnation of Christ, and it is likely that in 1 John 5:6–9 he may even be alluding to this event.

But just as with the many other events on this day, John no doubt sees symbolism that goes beyond the surface meaning of piercing. John may be making the point that the crucified Jesus qualifies as a Passover victim. He notes, for instance, that Jesus’s legs are not broken, likely because it was illegal for any Passover sacrifice to have broken bones (Exod 12:46). The lamb must be a perfect sacrifice.

But there are more theological allusions to Passover. One of the responsibilities of the temple during Passover sacrifices was to verify that the lamb was not already dead as it was brought forward for sacrifice. The blood must flow, the Talmud later argued, as water (or fluid). The image of Jesus on the cross evokes major Passover symbolism. His was a living sacrifice, a genuine life that had been taken.

As we discovered in John 7, the Feast of Tabernacles in the late autumn had as part of its celebrations a water festival, in which Israel remembered the miracle of water conducted by Moses when he struck the rock at Meribah. This struck rock became a vital part of the Jewish story. It was a rock that gave water and life, becoming a model for the eternal flowing that would spring from Jerusalem. When the rabbis were asked what this eternal water really represented, their answer was simple: it referred to the Holy Spirit. John 19:34 is then a symbolic fulfillment of 7:38, which Jesus gave at the Feast of Tabernacles.

We saw above how Exodus 12:46 helped interpret the failure to break Jesus’s legs, and so John here paraphrases the verse (19:36). But John also reflects on Zechariah 12:10, where the prophet describes how Israel will look on the prophet (or God? or the Messiah?) and lament Israel’s harmful lack of faith (John 19:37). As John stands at the foot of the cross—an eyewitness to Jesus’s remarkable work—he contemplates the symbolism of Israel now gazing at the very messenger, God’s Son, sent to redeem the world.

Jesus’s Burial (19:38–42). Joseph is one of Jesus’s disciples and comes secretly because he fears the Sanhedrin leadership (v. 38). This may be explained by his disagreement with the Sanhedrin’s prosecution of Jesus (Luke 23:51). John’s description of him, however, may be critical, given what he says in John 12:42–43 about secret followers of Jesus among these authorities, who out of fear refused to give a public witness. Nicodemus, another member of the Sanhedrin, joins Joseph. Joseph and Nicodemus redeem their images since in this final deed they make a public gesture that holds risk. Joseph risks ceremonial uncleanness from touching a dead body, not to mention challenges to his political and religious career. To place Jesus in a tomb of prestige implies some endorsement, some honor to this man the council has deemed a criminal.

Together these men bury Jesus in a garden tomb near the site of crucifixion “in accordance with Jewish burial customs” (v. 40). In the first century, bodies were prepared for burial by wrapping them tightly with cloth and spices. The powdered spice would either be fitted among the cloth wrappings or packed beneath the body. Coins were often placed on the eyes and a napkin covered the face. Nicodemus brings a considerable number of burial spices (v. 39), reminiscent of the excessive wine in Cana that marked Jesus’s first public appearance (2:1–10).

First-century Jews carved cave tombs in the limestone hills surrounding Jerusalem’s walls. The type of tomb described in the Gospels for Jesus was typically characterized by the following elements:

1. A rolling stone. The door of the tomb was a heavy, wheel-shaped stone placed in a shallow trough and held upright by a short wall on either side of the tomb opening. Rolling stones could be opened again for ongoing use but required great strength.

2. A burial chamber. Upon entering the tomb, one entered a square preparation room, encircled by a stone bench running along the room’s perimeter. Here the body was laid and prepared for burial.

3. Burial niches. The prepared body was then slipped into a small, six-foot tunnel (height about twenty-four inches) that was carved in the wall until it decomposed.

4. Bone boxes (or ossuaries). After decomposition, the bones would be gathered into a decorated limestone “bone box” and kept on the tomb floor. These tombs were costly and generally contained numerous niches and ossuaries.