John 19 - The New International Commentary
19:1 While we are not told explicitly that Pilate “went back inside” (as in 18:33), this is implied by the notice that “then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged” (19:1).* In Matthew and in Mark, this happens just as Pilate “handed him over to be crucified” (Mt 27:26//Mk 15:15). In Luke, by contrast, it is not actually carried out. Rather, as a strategy or conciliatory gesture, Pilate twice offers to “have him flogged and release him” (Lk 23:16, 22), but the strategy proves futile. Here in John’s Gospel, it is evident that Pilate has not yet given in. He still has no intention of bending to the wishes of the chief priests (see vv. 4, 6, 12). Yet it is doubtful that he does this simply to conciliate “the Jews,” for his action is closely linked to what immediately follows (vv. 2–3), an elaborate mockery of “the Jews.”
2–3 That the “flogging” was carried out by Pilate’s soldiers is confirmed by the accompanying notice, “And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head and wrapped a purple robe around him, and they kept coming at him* and saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews,’ and giving him slaps in the face” (vv. 2–3). In Matthew and Mark, this takes place only after Jesus has been handed over to be crucified, and in the presence of “the whole cohort” (Mt 27:27//Mk 15:16), six hundred troops in all.* The “horseplay” described here is more private, and reminiscent of what was recorded a chapter earlier in the other Gospels, in connection with the trial before Caiaphas and the Jewish council—but with one important exception. There Jesus was mocked by Jews for his reputation as a prophet (Mt 26:68; Mk 14:65; Lk 22:64). Here the mockery is the work of the Romans, aimed as much at “the Jews” themselves as at Jesus. The soldiers—apparently at Pilate’s instigation—are acting out the governor’s obsession with the title “King of the Jews” (see 18:33, 39). The idea of this pitiful subject people having their own “king” is an absurdity to Pilate, and he allows his soldiers the sport of dressing up this pitiful, beaten figure as a ridiculous “King of the Jews.”* The “purple robe” proclaims his kingship, while the “crown of thorns,” the flogging, and the slaps in the face expose him as a “king” thoroughly humiliated and powerless, a fitting potentate for a despised and subjugated people.*
4–5 The elaborate mockery of Jesus by Pilate and the Roman soldiers is not simply a matter of private amusement, but turns out to be for the benefit of the Jewish leaders as well: “And Pilate again went outside, and says to them, ‘Look, I am leading him outside to you, so that you might know that I find in him no probable cause’ ” (v. 4). For the second time, he pronounces his verdict: “no probable cause” (as in 18:38), at least as far as the death penalty is concerned. “Look, I am leading him outside” probably means that Pilate has ordered his soldiers to bring Jesus out, not that he went back in and escorted Jesus out personally. Immediately, “Jesus came outside,* wearing the thorny crown and the purple robe. And he said to them, ‘Look, the man!’ ”* (v. 5). Given the way Jesus is clothed, we might have expected, “Look, your king!” (as in v. 14). Pilate is not ready to say that, and when he does say it he will make it far more of a production, formally installing Jesus (albeit ironically) as “the King of the Jews” (see v. 13). “Look” (
To the reader, the pronouncement evokes something quite different, Jesus’ characteristic self-identification as “the Son of man.” As we have seen, he himself has used “Son of man” conspicuously in connection with his impending death, whether by being “glorified” (12:23; 13:31) or “lifted up” (3:14, 8:28; 12:34), and now the moment of death is drawing near.* But the title “the Son of man” (literally, “the son of the man”)* would make no sense to a Roman Gentile. “The man” is about as close to the idiomatic Jewish expression “the Son of man” as Pontius Pilate could be expected to come. It is commonly agreed, in fact, that “a man,” or “the man,” is precisely what “the Son of man” means when translated back into Hebrew or Aramaic.* To the reader, therefore, Pilate—like Caiaphas before him (11:51–52)—is speaking more wisely than he knows, designating Jesus in much the same way Jesus designated himself, as “the Son of man,”* in Caiaphas’s words the “one man”* destined to “die for the people” (11:50).
So much for christological hints and allusions.* The more immediate question is, What response does Pilate expect from the Jewish leaders by showing them “the man,” crowned with thorns, beaten, and wearing a purple robe? According to Raymond Brown, all this is “arranged by Pilate as a ploy to win the sympathy of ‘the Jews’ for a Jesus thus pitiably disfigured.”* This is perhaps consistent with the fact that “Look, the man!” is framed by Pilate’s second and third announcements that “I find in him no probable clause” (vv. 4, 6), but it is hardly consistent with the cruel mockery that has just gone on inside the praetorium. Pilate is not trying to elicit compassion from the Jewish leaders, but only to dramatize his impression that Jesus is a pathetic and therefore harmless figure as far as the Roman government is concerned. The sight of him is calculated to evoke not so much pity as ridicule, and they can hardly be unaware that the ridicule is aimed as much at them as at Jesus. Ordinarily the kind of treatment to which Jesus has been subjected is preliminary to execution,* and the presentation of “the man” to the Jewish chief priests appears to be yet another invitation to them (as in 18:31) to “take him, and judge him according to your law.” Once more Pilate is offering to “release to you the King of the Jews” (18:39), that they might finish the job he has started for them and put the wretched prisoner to death.* In short, the battle of wills goes on. Jesus must die, but at whose hands, the Romans or the Jews?
6 It appears that the Jewish “chief priests and officers” themselves view the flogging and mockery as preliminary to execution, for at the sight of “the man” they “cried out,* saying, ‘Crucify, crucify!’ ”* Then “Pilate said to them, ‘You take him, and crucify, for I find in him no probable cause’ ” (v. 6). The scene is a virtual reenactment of 18:30–31, when they first brought Jesus to Pilate without naming a specific charge, and he told them, “You take him, and judge him according to your law” (18:31). This time he is more explicit: “You take him, and crucify,” that is, “you” rather than “I.” The conventional wisdom among modern commentators is that “Pilate is not serious,” but is simply “refusing to have anything to do with crucifying Jesus by telling them to do what both parties knew was impossible.”* But at this point conventional wisdom is sorely tested, for Pilate’s reply here (as in 18:31) implies just the opposite, that “the Jews” were perfectly free to put Jesus to death if they so chose. They had, after all, attempted to do just that, not once but twice (8:59; 10:31). On the other hand, Pilate probably does know that if “the Jews” were to put Jesus to death, it would not be by crucifixion.* He simply wants to throw their own words (“Crucify, crucify!”) back in their faces. All he is saying is, “You take him. I don’t care what you do with him! As for me, I find in him no probable cause” (this now for the third time).
7 The Jewish chief priests respond to Pilate’s emphatic pronouns* with an emphatic pronoun of their own: “We* have a law, and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (v. 7).* That is, “Even if your law does not condemn him, ours does.” And with this they reveal their real reason for wanting Jesus dead—not that he made himself “King of the Jews,” posing a threat to the Romans (as in Lk 23:2, for example), but that he “made himself the Son of God.”* This, of course, has been their charge against Jesus ever since that unnamed festival when they began by asking, “Who is the man?” (5:12), and ended by “seeking all the more to kill him, because he was … claiming God as his own Father, making himself equal to God” (5:18), and later at the Rededication when they tried to stone Jesus to death for “blasphemy, and because you, being a man, are making yourself God” (10:33, italics added). Here again, Pilate’s “Look, the man!” (v. 5) prompts them to forget their strategy with the governor, and recall again what this “man” has been “making himself” to be—nothing less than the Son of God! On the face of it, the notion that “according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” contradicts their earlier excuse that “It is not lawful for us to kill anyone” (18:31b). Once again the Gospel writer wants to expose their hypocrisy. They have told Pilate on the one hand that their law forbids the taking of life, and on the other that their law requires it in cases of blasphemy.* Why then do they not act on what their law requires? They have attempted to do so before (8:59 and 10:31), but now, whether because they do not have a formal conviction, or (more likely) because they lack support among the people, they are determined that Pilate will do it for them, even though he does not perceive Jesus as a political threat. In the heat of the moment they have inadvertently revealed their true reason for wanting Jesus dead, not that he claimed to be king, or posed a threat to the Romans or to the social order, but (just as before) that “he made himself the Son of God.”
8–9 The effect on Pilate is unexpected, as the scene changes again: “Then, when Pilate heard this word, he was all the more afraid,* and he went into the praetorium again, and he says to Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer” (vv. 8–9). “All the more” (v. 8) sounds strange because Pilate has shown no sign of fear thus far.* For this reason, some have proposed that the meaning is simply that he became “very afraid.”* More likely, “all the more” is used precisely because fear has not been mentioned before. That is, it is used to mean “rather,” introducing an alternative. The point is that Pilate’s demeanor was not what it had been before; rather, he became fearful.* Still the question remains, What was Pilate afraid of? His fear is said to be triggered by “this word” (v. 8), apparently the chief priests’ claim that Jesus “made himself the Son of God” (v. 7). He promptly breaks off the conversation and goes back again into the praetorium, evidently taking Jesus with him. The questioning that had broken off with Pilate’s dismissive “What is truth?” (18:38) now resumes. “Where are you from?”* (v. 9), he asks Jesus, a question that could be simply routine,* but more likely arises out of Pilate’s fear. If Jesus “made himself the Son of God,” what sort of being is he claiming to be? For the first time, Pilate seems to sense that he may be dealing with more than he bargained for. Has he scourged a god of some sort?*
The question of where Jesus is from* is not a new one.* The Jerusalemites at the Tent festival thought they knew (7:27), and Jesus agreed that, at least in a geographical sense, they did know, but quickly added, “I have not come on my own, but the One who sent me is true, whom you do not know” (7:28; see also 8:14, “I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I come from or where I am going”). Later, after the healing of the man born blind, they admitted that “as for this man, we don’t know where he is from”* (9:29), just as the wedding guests did not know where the good wine was from (2:9), and the Samaritan woman did not know where the living water came from (4:11; see also 3:8). Yet no one up to now has asked him in so many words, “Where are you from?”* It is the perfect opportunity for Jesus to say something like “You are from below, I am from above. You are from this world, I am not from this world” (8:23), or words to that effect. Instead he says nothing at all, confirming the tradition found in other Gospels that at some point Jesus was silent in the presence of Pontius Pilate, in the face of charges leveled by the Jewish chief priests (see Mt 27:12–14//Mk 15:3–5). But here, by contrast, only Pilate is present, and the reader knows why Jesus is silent. He already answered Pilate’s question when he said, “My kingship is not from this world,” and “my kingship is not from here” (18:36). If it is “not from this world,” it is, as we have seen, “from heaven,” and if it is not “from here,” it is “from above.” And if Jesus’ kingship is “from heaven” or “from above,” he himself is from there as well (as John told us, 3:31). Jesus does not answer because he has already done so—if Pilate would only listen.
10 In contrast to Matthew and Mark, where Jesus is unresponsive to the accusations of the Jewish priests, Pilate knows that the silence is directed at him, and him alone. “Are you not speaking to me?” he persists. “To me” is placed first in the sentence for emphasis (literally, “To me are you not speaking?”). And “Do you not know,” he adds “that I have authority* to release you, and I have authority to crucify you?” (v. 10). The sentence bears a striking resemblance to Jesus’ claim nine chapters earlier that “I lay down my life, that I might receive it back again.… I have authority* to lay it down, and I have authority to receive it back” (10:17–18). The redundant repetition of “I have authority” in both passages links them unmistakably together, as if on a collision course. Where does the “authority” to settle Jesus’ fate lie? With Jesus himself, as he has repeatedly claimed, or with the Roman governor? Without question, Pilate does have the legal right to have Jesus crucified, but as to his first claim, that “I have authority to release you,” it is conspicuously evident that he has so far been unable to do so. Even from the standpoint of raw political power, his claim is on shaky ground.
11 Jesus could have responded by throwing in Pilate’s face the earlier pronouncement, which Pilate of course has not heard: “No, you are wrong. I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to receive it back” (see 10:17–18). But he does not. Instead, avoiding the collision course, “Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority against me at all* if it were not given to you from above.* For this reason the one who handed me over to you has greater sin’ ” (v. 11). It is a very gentle response, for it applies to Pilate the same principle that applied to John, to Jesus himself, or indeed to anyone: “A person cannot receive anything unless it is given him from heaven” (3:27).* It is a response intended more for the reader of the Gospel than for Pilate, who would not have understood it. To him, “from above” would likely have meant from higher up in the imperial chain of command, ultimately from the emperor himself. But the reader is expected to understand that “from above”* means “from heaven,” the place where Jesus himself is from (see 3:31). Jesus had said, “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to receive it back,” yet he was quick to add, “This command I received from my Father” (10:18b). Even Jesus’ “authority” over his own life and death is not self-contained, but is contingent on his Father’s “command.” The same is true many times over of Pilate’s self-proclaimed “authority” in the political and legal sphere, for Pilate is but an unknowing instrument in God’s hands, while Jesus is, as he claimed, the very “Son of God,” the Father’s obedient messenger “from above.”
The more difficult pronouncement is the corollary, “For this reason the one who handed me over to you has greater sin.” Superficially, the pronouncement recalls the scene in Matthew where Pilate washes his hands and declares himself innocent of Jesus’ blood, and “all the people” reply, “His blood is on us and on our children” (Mt 27:24–25). But here “the one who handed over” Jesus is singular,* obviously not “all the people.”* Most immediately, the Jewish chief priests handed him over (see 18:30, 35), but the singular calls attention to Caiaphas in particular (see 18:28, “from Caiaphas”).* Here again Pilate’s understanding and that of the reader part company. Pilate could only have understood the reference to be to Caiaphas, for Caiaphas had in fact done the “handing over.” Yet the words, “You would have no authority against me at all if it were not given to you from above,” could just as easily have been said to Caiaphas as to Pilate. As “Chief Priest of that year,” and as someone able to “prophesy” (11:51), Caiaphas surely stood as much (or more) under the sovereignty of God as Pilate. Therefore, the reader will inevitably think of Judas as “the one who handed over” Jesus to the authorities, Jewish and then Roman, thus betraying him death.* This is in keeping with the way Judas has been designated quite consistently in the Gospel (see 6:64, 71; 12:4; 13:2, 11, 21). And yet even Judas’s act of betrayal was “so that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (13:18; 17:12), implying that it too was in some way decreed or given “from above.”
Quite possibly the reader is meant to go even a step further back, remembering that before the last meal and the footwashing, “the devil … put it into the heart so that Judas Iscariot of Simon might hand him over” (13:2). While Judas himself is called “the devil” for doing the devil’s work (6:70), and the Jewish leaders have been told, “You are from the father [who is] the devil, and you choose to do the desires of your father” (8:44), the one with “greater sin”* is perhaps best identified as the original devil of the Genesis story, “homicidal from the beginning,” both “the liar and the father of it” (8:44).* As we have seen, while Jesus never explicitly forgives sin in this Gospel, he does retain or convict of sin repeatedly (see 8:21, 24; 9:41; 15:22, 24), and now he does so again. “Greater sin” implies that Pilate too is guilty of sin (and Caiaphas and Judas all the more), but he places the ultimate guilt right where it belongs (see 1 Jn 3:8, “the devil sins from the beginning; for this the Son of God is revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil”). At this point, the stark dualism of the Gospel is evident, for Jesus is unwilling to say of the devil what he says of Pilate, that is, that anything about him is “from above” (see 14:30, “in me he has nothing”).
12 The conversation is over. We may assume that at this point Pilate went out again (alone) to address the Jewish chief priests, for we are told, “From this time, Pilate kept seeking to release him, but the Jews cried out,* saying, ‘If you release this one, you are not a friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar’ ” (v. 12). “From this”* could mean either “From this moment on,” or “As a result of this,” but in this case (as in 6:66) it is clearly the latter. Pilate has, after all, been trying to have Jesus released ever since he first questioned him (see 18:38, 39; 19:4, 6). The tense of the verb (“was seeking,” or “kept seeking”)* suggests that he simply continued what he was trying to do all along, either by saying yet again, “I find in him no probable cause,” or in other ways. But what is it that happened “as a result of this”? Not that he tried to have Jesus released, for he had done that already. Rather, that “the Jews” responded in the way they did, going over Pilate’s head as it were to invoke the power of the emperor: “If you release this one, you are not a friend of Caesar.”* Unfortunately for Pilate, the words of Jesus, “You would have no authority against me at all if it were not given to you from above” (v. 11) are still ringing in his ears, words which, as we have seen, he would have heard as a reference to Caesar and the Roman imperial authority. The Jewish priests, abruptly changing their tactics, are now invoking that very authority “from above” as a veiled threat against him.* Surely a coincidence, it seems, for “the Jews” were not privy to the conversation between Pilate and Jesus (vv. 8–11). And yet, we are told, their appeal to the higher authority arises “from this,” or “as a result of this.” Where is the connection? Possibly in the redemptive plan of God, although the Gospel writer does not press the point. But whether that is the case or not, the connection in Pilate’s mind is very real. That is, the threat that if he releases Jesus, he will lose favor with the emperor (v. 12) serves to reinforce his misunderstanding of Jesus’ warning that the only authority he has is “from above” (v. 11). Its inevitable effect will be to heighten his fears (see v. 8), and bring him finally to the point of handing Jesus over to death (see v. 16).
Yet why should the release of one fugitive cause Pilate to lose favor with the emperor? The Jewish priests explain themselves further, shifting their ground once more: “Everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar” (v. 12b). Previously, the charge had been that Jesus “made himself the Son of God” (v. 7), a religious charge which, as we have seen, was their real reason for wanting to kill Jesus (see 5:18; 10:33). Now they have changed it back to the political charge that was implied in bringing Jesus to Pilate in the first place (see 18:30; also Lk 23:2), the charge that Jesus “makes himself king.”* This means that he “opposes Caesar,”* and by implication that Pilate himself is “opposing Caesar” in refusing to prosecute such a person. The identification of “Son of God” and “King” is something the reader understands, for Nathanael paired the two titles right from the start (1:49), and the reader knows full well that Jesus is both “Son of God” and “King of Israel” (see also 10:36; 12:13). What is not true is that he has “made himself” either of those things. He is, on the contrary, One “whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world” (10:36), and “the One coming in the name of the Lord” (12:13), who speaks and acts not “on his own” (
13–14 Pilate’s action here is triggered (just as in v. 8) by a pronouncement of “the Jews.” In verse 8 they spoke of Jesus “making himself the Son of God,” and “when Pilate heard this word” he was afraid and went in to speak with Jesus. Here they have just spoken of Jesus “making himself king,” and “Pilate, when he heard these words,* led Jesus outside and sat down on the judge’s bench at a place called Stone Pavement, and in Hebrew
This location is now unknown. Tourists today are shown a very ancient pavement (over two thousand square yards in area!) at the site of the Fortress Antonia, but this is unlikely. Not only is the Antonia no longer believed to be the site of Pilate’s praetorium,* but the text seems to require a more specific location than the pavement shown today, which has the same general appearance that any large public square would have had, and in any event probably dates from no earlier than the second century. More likely, the “Stone Pavement” was a platform of some kind (possibly marked by a mosaic) on which the “judge’s bench”* stood. Moreover, “Gabbatha” is not the Hebrew translation of the Greek word for “Stone Pavement,” but rather an Aramaic word of uncertain meaning, possibly referring to a height or ridge of some kind (whether natural or man-made).* It seems to have been simply the name given by the Jews to the specific “place” known to Pilate and the Romans as “Stone Pavement.” It is doubtful that the Gospel writer actually expected his readers to know and visualize the location, any more than he expected them to know the location of the pool of Bethsaida (5:2), or Siloam (9:7), or the “portico of Solomon” (10:23), or for that matter “Golgotha” (19:17). The notice simply lends concreteness to the narrative, telling the reader that these were real events that happened at a particular time and place, not forgotten but known and remembered by the author and other witnesses.
To the same end the Gospel writer adds a narrative aside, “Now it was the preparation of the Passover;* it was about the sixth hour,” and, resuming the narrative, goes on to tell us that Pilate then “says to the Jews, ‘Look, your king!’ ”* (v. 14). The two designations of time (“preparation of the Passover,” and “the sixth hour”), closely linked to the presentation of Jesus as king, seem to carry more weight than the two designations of place (“Stone Pavement” and “
As for the notice that “it was about the sixth hour,”* any reader familiar with other Gospels will notice a conflict with the tradition that “It was the third hour when they crucified him” (Mk 15:25). It is commonly agreed that in the Gospels (as in the Mediterranean world generally) daytime was reckoned from 6:00 a.m. on,* so that “the third hour” would be 9:00 a.m. and “the sixth hour” noon.* A surprising number of commentators have theorized that “the sixth hour” is a Johannine invention designed to make the point that Jesus was crucified at the precise time the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the temple.* But the evidence for this is late and obscure (according to Exod 12:6, the lambs were to be slaughtered “at twilight”), and one would expect the Gospel writer to call attention to such a remarkable correspondence. It is better to content ourself with the recognition that while the text “does link Jesus’ death with the slaughter of the Passover lambs in the temple,” the link is “of the day rather than the hour.”* This means that “the sixth hour” as the approximate time of the presentation and crucifixion of Jesus is not merely a theological construction, but is to be taken seriously as a tradition independent of Mark. It should also be noted that all three synoptic Gospels testify to “the sixth hour” as the time when darkness began to “cover the whole earth” (Mt 27:45//Mk 15:33//Lk 23:44).*
In the interest of harmonization, some have proposed that in this instance, the new day began at midnight (as in Roman law),* so that “the sixth hour” would be 6:00 a.m., but besides being inconsistent with other time references in the Gospel of John (1:39; 4:6, 52), this expedient creates more problems than it solves. Too much has happened since “early morning” (18:28) for “the sixth hour” to be only 6:00 a.m. Moreover, if we are to have the crucifixion at 9:00 a.m. (as in Mark), the three hours that must still elapse between verse 14 and verse 17 (when Jesus is crucified) are left unaccounted for. And why would the Gospel writer fix the time of Jesus’ presentation as king so precisely and the time of his crucifixion not at all? It appears rather that the Gospel writer wants to call attention to two decisive events, close together in time—the presentation as king (vv. 13–14), and the crucifixion (vv. 17–18)—each linked to a specific place identified with both a Greek and a Semitic name (vv. 13, 17), with an approximate time designation in between, sufficient to locate both (“it was about the sixth hour”). If—as is generally agreed—the crucifixion is Jesus’ “lifting up” (as in 3:14; 8:28; 12:32), it is just as plausible to think of the presentation, “Look, your king!” as his “glorification” (as in 7:39; 11:4; 12:16, 23, 28; 13:31–32; 17:1, 5), for the one is no less ironic than the other. As far as the Gospel writer is concerned, whatever the shame of crucifixion, Jesus was in fact “lifted up” to the Father, and whatever Pilate’s motivation, “glorified” here as “Son of God” and “King” (see vv. 7, 12).
And what was Pilate’s motivation? It appears that “Look,* your king!” has a performative quality that “Look,* the man!” (v. 5) does not have. Jesus is obviously a man, but not so obviously a king, and, rhetorically at least, Pilate is making him a king. Clearly, the pronouncement is a direct response to the threat of “the Jews” that “If you release this one, you are not a friend of Caesar,” because “Everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar” (v. 12). The accent, therefore, in the words, “Look, your king!” falls on “your.”* Pilate is saying, in effect, “How dare you threaten me! He is your king after all!” The reader cannot help but recall his earlier words, whether to them (“You take him, and judge him according to your law,” 18:31, and “You take him, and crucify,” 19:6), or to Jesus (“Am I a Jew? Your nation and the chief priests handed you over to me,” 18:35). All along he has tried to dissociate himself from them and their grievances. Now that they have threatened to accuse him of disloyalty to Caesar, he throws the word “king” back in their faces. If Jesus is in any sense “King of the Jews” (18:33, 39; 19:3), then it is they, not he, who are disloyal to Caesar.
15 The drama continues: “They then cried out, ‘Take, take! Crucify him!’ Pilate says to them, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king except Caesar!’ ” (v. 15). Dodging for a moment the issue of their own loyalty, they once again “cried out,”* now for the fourth time (see 18:40; 19:6, 12), as the redoubled “Take, take! Crucify him!” picks up the redoubled “Crucify, crucify!” of verse 6. Again Pilate throws their own word back in their faces, this time (as in v. 6), the word “Crucify.” “Shall I crucify your king?” he asks, reminding them once again that the issue is not his loyalty to Caesar but rather, “Who is your king?”
On the positive side, Pilate’s question, “Shall I crucify your king?”* juxtaposes for the reader crucifixion and kingship, allowing two seemingly incompatible notions to illumine and interpret each other. Jesus will indeed reign as king in this Gospel—of the Jews, and of all people—not from a throne but from a cross, for his violent and shameful death will reveal once and forever his eternal kingship. But on the negative side, deliberately or not, Pilate’s question forces from the Jewish priests a pledge of allegiance to Rome: “We have no king except Caesar!” (v. 15b). It is the final irony. Not content with rejecting Jesus, “the Jews” reject their own Jewishness. Any discussion of the so-called anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism of the Gospel of John must take account of the fact that in the eyes of the Gospel writer those who crucify Jesus are no longer “Jews” in any meaningful way, but loyal subjects of Rome who acknowledge “no king except Caesar”—in that sense Romans! Their bold words, “We are Abraham’s seed, and have never been in slavery to anyone” (8:33), now ring more hollow than ever. In denying Jesus they have denied as well any hope of a messianic king, and beyond that even the kingship of their God, the God of Israel. While not as hurtful or anti-Semitic in its long-range effects, “no king except Caesar” in John’s Gospel is in its way no less disturbing than Matthew’s “His blood be on us and on our children” (Mt 27:25), for it presents a Judaism that—momentarily at least—denies its very existence.*
16–18 The account of the crucifixion begins with a startling reversal: “So then he [Pilate] handed him over to them* that he might be crucified” (v. 16a). Pilate’s involvement had begun when they first “handed over” Jesus to him (see 18:30) for crucifixion, and now, it seems, he returns the favor! “To them” can only refer to “the Jews” (v. 14,) or “the chief priests” (v. 15). In spite of the clear implication that crucifixion was a Roman and not a Jewish method of execution (see 18:32), we now learn that “the Jews” will crucify Jesus after all!* This is not totally unexpected, for Jesus told them long before at the Tent festival that they would one day “lift up the Son of man” (8:28), nor is it inconsistent with other early Christian narratives of Jesus’ death.* Here, moreover, it is qualified by the new reality that they are no longer “Jews” at all, but true Romans with allegiance to no one but Caesar (v. 15).
In any event, they are quick to carry out their assigned task: “Then they received Jesus, and bearing the cross for himself he went out to what is called Skull Place, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him, and with him two others on either side, Jesus in the middle” (vv. 16b–18). “The Jews” are clearly the subject of the verb “received”* and probably of the verb “crucified” as well. Alternatively, it is possible that the third person plural, “crucified,”* is impersonal, with an indefinite subject: that is, “they crucified him”—as in the old spiritual, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”—meaning simply that Jesus “was crucified” by someone.* Later, as we will see, Roman soldiers will be said to have “crucified” him (v. 23). But the more likely meaning here is that the Jewish chief priests “crucified” Jesus in the sense of having him crucified,* even though the Roman soldiers would finally drive the nails. There is no way to tell how much time elapses between the moment “they received Jesus” from Pilate, presumably “about the sixth hour” (v. 14), and the time of his actual crucifixion. However long it may have been in real time, it is very short in narrative time, and there is little doubt that “about the sixth hour” was intended to fix the approximate time of both.
There is no Simon of Cyrene to carry (or help carry) Jesus’ cross, as in the other Gospels (see Mt 27:32//Mk 15:21//Lk 23:26), and no
The crucifixion itself is told simply, with an economy of words: “they crucified him, and with him two others on either side, Jesus in the middle” (v. 18). The “two others,” identified more explicitly in Matthew (27:38) and in Mark (15:27) as “terrorists”* and in Luke (23:33) as “criminals,” are introduced abruptly, with no explanation as to why they are being crucified, or whether they too were “handed over” from Pilate to the Jews for execution. Presumably they were among those on “death row” from whom Barabbas had been chosen as the “one at the Passover” to be spared (see 18:39). Just as in the other three Gospels, the writer is careful to describe the scene so that readers can visualize it: Jesus in the center, with “two others on either side,”* each on his own cross. But in contrast to the synoptic Gospels (notably Lk 23:39–43, but see also Mt 27:44//Mk 15:32), we will hear nothing more of them until after Jesus has died. They are introduced here simply to set up the contrast between what is eventually done to them and what is done to Jesus (see vv. 31–33).
C. The Crucifixion and Burial (19:16–42)
So then he handed him over to them that he might be crucified. Then they received Jesus, and bearing the cross for himself, he went out to what is called Skull Place, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him, and with him two others on either side, Jesus in the middle. And Pilate wrote a title and placed it on the cross. And it was written, “Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.” Now many of the Jews read this title, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write ‘the King of the Jews,’ ” but that he said, “I am the King of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”
Then the soldiers, when they crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, a part for each soldier, and the tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven throughout from the top. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but let us gamble for it, whose it will be,” that the scripture might be fulfilled that says, “They divided my garments to themselves, and for my garment they cast lots.” So the soldiers did these things.
Now standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and the sister of his mother, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So Jesus, seeing the mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing by, says to the mother, “Woman, look, your son!” Then he says to the disciple, “Look, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things are already finished, so that the scripture might be completed, says, “I am thirsty.” A vessel full of sour wine was set there, so they put a sponge full of sour wine on a stalk of hyssop and brought it to this mouth. Then when he received the sour wine, Jesus said, “It is finished,” and he bowed the head and handed over the Spirit.
Now the Jews, because it was the preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath—for great was the day of that Sabbath—asked Pilate that their legs be broken and that they be taken away. So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, as they saw he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers punctured his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true, and that one knows that he tells the truth, so that you too might believe. For these things happened so that the scripture might be fulfilled, “No bone of him shall be broken,” and again, another scripture says, “They will see him whom they pierced.”
Now after these things, Joseph from Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave permission. So he came, and took away his body. And Nicodemus also came—he who at the first came to him at night—bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the custom of the Jews to bury. And there was in the place where he was crucified a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there, on account of the preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus.
Taking the Jewish chief priests at their word that they are loyal Romans, with “no king but Caesar” (v. 15), Pilate finally hands Jesus over to them to be crucified (v. 16). The implication is that even though crucifixion was a distinctly Roman method of execution, in the end “the Jews” crucified Jesus, as surely as if they drove the nails with their own hands. The crucifixion takes place almost immediately (vv. 16–18). Jesus carries his own cross to the place of execution, and four Roman soldiers quickly carry out the will of the Jewish chief priests. At the same time, the ironic title over the cross gives the lie to their insistence that Caesar is their only king (vv. 19–22). Then, in a series of brief vignettes, Jesus is stripped of his clothing (vv. 23–24), and gives up his closest human relationships (vv. 25–27) and finally life itself (vv. 28–30), the first and last of these in explicit fulfillment of scripture (vv. 24, 28).
The theme of fulfillment continues after his death, as the legs of two other prisoners are broken to hasten death (before the beginning of Sabbath), but his are not because he is already dead (vv. 31–33). Instead a spear is thrust into his side, blood and water come out (v. 34), and an anonymous witness is introduced, solemnly testifying to what has happened (v. 35). All this, we are told, was to fulfill two specific passages of scripture (vv. 36–37). The burial is carried out by Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple “secretly for fear of the Jews,” with the help of Nicodemus, “who first came to him at night” (see 3:2) and who brings now an enormous quantity of spices for embalming the body. Because the Passover festival is about to begin, Jesus is quickly buried in a new tomb, in a garden right near the place where he was crucified. The account of his arrest and execution ends, as it began (18:1), in a garden.
19 The reader’s attention is focused on the middle cross: “And Pilate wrote a title and placed it on the cross. And it was written, ‘Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews’ ” (v. 19). The “title”* or notice over Jesus’ cross is mentioned in all the Gospels,* but only here is Jesus called “Jesus the Nazorean,” drawing together the whole narrative from the moment the Jewish priests and Roman soldiers first announced that they were seeking “Jesus the Nazorean” (18:5, 7) up to the present. And only here is it Pilate himself who “wrote” it (that is, had it written) and had it fastened to the cross. Only here, consequently, does it become an issue between Pilate and “the Jews,” who are not satisfied with the wording.*
20 The issue arises because the site was so public, and the notice so plain for all to see: “Now many of the Jews read this title, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew,* Latin, and Greek” (v. 20). That it was “near the city” confirms the impression that it was outside the city wall (see v. 17), in keeping both with Jewish customs regarding executions (see Lev 24:14; Num 15:35; 1 Kgs 21:3; Acts 7:58),* and with other ancient traditions about Jesus’ death (see, for example, Heb 13:12; Mt 21:39//Mk 12:8//Lk 20:15). As for the notice itself, its implication that the Jews are a people whose miserable “king” hangs on a cross, offends them, and is made all the worse by being publicly accessible as well to Gentiles passing by who read only Greek or Latin. Pilate is rubbing salt in old wounds, the wounds that were opened when he repeatedly called Jesus “the King of the Jews” (see 18:33, 39; 19:3, 5), and finally presented him as “your king” (see vv. 14, 15).
21–22 Knowing that they cannot persuade Pilate to remove the notice altogether, “the chief priests of the Jews” urge him, “Do not write ‘the King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews’ ” (v. 21). In fact, Jesus had carefully avoided saying any such thing (see 18:34–37), even though the reader knows it is true (see 1:49; 12:13, 15), and the reader is vindicated by Pilate’s abrupt and dismissive answer, “What I have written I have written”* (v. 22). The repeated accent on “writing,” and what “was written” (vv. 19, 20), gives the notice an authoritative quality, almost comparable to the authority of Scripture (see 2:17; 6:31, 45; 8:17; 10:34; 12:14, 16; 15:25), or the Gospel of John itself (20:30, 31). What is “written” is fixed and not subject to change: Jesus is truly “the King of the Jews”! Regardless of Pilate’s intentions, the “title” over the cross takes its place alongside the other “titles” (in a rather different sense) given to Jesus in the classic confessions of faith found throughout the Gospel (such as 1:29, 49; 4:42; 6:69; 11:27). While this does not make Pilate what he becomes in later traditions (that is, a confessing Christian),* it does highlight the irony that the Jews recognize “no king except Caesar” (v. 15), and yet Pilate the Roman governor now publicly assigns them a king other than Caesar.*
23–24 The next sequence, looking back momentarily at the actual moment of crucifixion (v. 18), belatedly introduces the Roman soldiers (last heard from in v. 2), as those who literally crucified Jesus in the sense of nailing him to the cross: “Then the soldiers, when they crucified* Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, a part for each soldier, and the tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven throughout from the top. So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but let us gamble for it, whose it will be,’ that the scripture might be fulfilled that says, ‘They divided my garments to themselves, and for my garment they cast lots.’ So the soldiers did these things” (vv. 23–24).* Because Jesus was crucified naked, his clothing was available for the taking, but by whom? All the Gospels mention that “they” (implicitly the soldiers) divided his garments among themselves by lot (see Mt 27:35//Mk 15:24//Lk 23:34), but only here is the procedure described in detail, and only here is it said to be the fulfillment of a biblical text (specifically Ps 21[22]:19, LXX). The text from the Psalms, like those Jesus himself quoted at 13:18 and 15:25, has to do with a righteous sufferer who speaks in the first person, but in contrast to the two earlier ones,* the application here is to Jesus and to him alone, not to his disciples as well.
Clearly, the synoptic writers are also aware of the text. In fact they reproduce its actual vocabulary more closely than John’s Gospel does!* But here the Gospel writer goes to the trouble of actually quoting it in full: “They divided my garments* to themselves, and for my garment* they cast lots” (v. 24).* The text is a Hebrew parallelism, in which the two clauses are two different ways of saying the same thing. But the Gospel writer, ignoring the parallelism, anticipates the first clause (“They divided my garments to themselves”) by first describing how the soldiers “took his garments and made four parts, a part for each soldier.” This is done not by “lot” or chance, but simply by attempting to divide the four pieces of clothing (which are not specifically named) as equally as possible among the four soldiers (this is the first we learn that they are four in number). The “tunic,” however (evidently the grand prize),* poses a problem. Whoever gets the tunic gets more than his share, and it cannot be divided up without destroying it, for it is “seamless, woven throughout from the top” (v. 24). It is solely for the tunic, therefore, that the soldiers say, “let us gamble for it,* whose it will be,” anticipating the second clause in the psalm quotation. The tunic is the single “garment” in the psalm for which “they cast lots.”* This, we are told, is what the soldiers then did (v. 24b), though we are not told which of them acquired it. Ignoring Hebrew parallelism in order to draw added meaning from a biblical text handed down in Greek is far from unique in the New Testament. Matthew has done it in his account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mt 21:2–5, in relation to Zech 9:9), Luke has done it in his record of the prayer of early Christian believers in Jerusalem after warnings had been issued against Peter and John (Acts 4:25–27, in relation to Ps 2:1–2), and the Gospel of John has done it here. In none of these instances is it likely that the writer is ignorant of biblical poetry. More likely, each has seized an opportunity to draw an exact correspondence between the literal wording of a biblical text and events which he believes actually happened in the way he describes them (that is, in Matthew two animals at the triumphal entry, in Acts the involvement of both Jews and Gentiles in the death of Jesus, and here two distinct procedures in disposing of Jesus’ garments). Much has been written about the possible symbolic significance of the “seamless” tunic* (v. 23), whether representing the unity of those who belong to Jesus, or Jesus’ role as High Priest,* or both of these at once (see 17:17–19, 20–23). The reader may wonder if there is any connection between the untorn tunic and Jesus’ unbroken bones (see vv. 33, 36), or perhaps the unbroken net when Jesus’ disciples after the resurrection hauled in 153 large fish (see 21:11). But it is far too speculative. All such theories stumble on the simple fact that the tunic thought to be so rich in symbolism no longer belongs to Jesus, but is taken from him.*
If there is any significance here at all beyond the very literal fulfillment of a biblical text, it is that Jesus is now stripped of his material possessions, the last of these being his clothing. This begins the process of dying, as he gives up first his clothing (vv. 23–24), then his closest human relationships (vv. 25–27), and finally life itself (vv. 28–30). In that sense his passion corresponds to what he requires of his disciples—more conspicuously in synoptic traditions than in the Gospel of John itself. Consider, for example, such pronouncements as “from anyone who takes away your garment, do not withhold even your tunic” (Lk 6:29),* or “go sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Mt 19:21), or “everyone who has left households or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my name’s sake will receive hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life” (Mt 10:29), or “whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake and the gospel will save it” (Mk 8:35; see also Jn 12:25). Jesus in this Gospel exemplifies all these things. Now naked and poor, he is ready to sever old relationships (see vv. 25–27) and lay down his life, that he might receive it back again (see vv. 28–30).
25 The narrative continues, hinting at some of Jesus’ human relationships that must now end: “Now standing by the cross* of Jesus were his mother and the sister of his mother, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene” (v. 25). As every commentator notices, it is unclear how many women are in the picture here, two, three, or four. If the two named women, Mary of Clopas* and Mary Magdalene, are read in apposition to the two that are unnamed (that is, Jesus’ mother and his mother’s sister), then there are only two: Mary the mother of Jesus (with the understanding that Clopas is her second husband, Joseph having died) and Mary Magdalene. This is highly implausible, not only because it identifies Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ aunt (!), but because it requires that two sisters were both named Mary, which would have been very unlikely. It can be safely ruled out. If “Mary of Clopas” is understood to stand in apposition to “the sister of his mother,” then there are three women, Jesus’ mother, her sister Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene, who is not further identified. This is almost as difficult, for it leaves us with the same problem of imagining two sisters with the same name. Only if we theorize that so far as John’s Gospel is concerned Jesus’ mother was not named Mary (she is, after all, nowhere named in this Gospel) does it make any kind of sense, and the unanimous testimony of the other three Gospels that Mary was in fact her name tells mightily against it. It too has to be set aside. Consequently, we are to picture four women “standing by the cross of Jesus,” two of whom (his mother’s sister and Mary of Clopas) are mentioned nowhere else in the Gospel.* Mary Magdalene is also a new face, but we will hear much more of her in the following chapter (see 20:1–2, 11–18). The only one who actually plays a part in the present scene is “his mother,” whom we have encountered just once before, at the Cana wedding and shortly thereafter at Capernaum (see 2:3–5, 12; see also 6:42).
John’s is the only Gospel in which the mother of Jesus is explicitly said to have been present at the crucifixion. The key word here is “explicitly,” for a case can be made that she is implicitly present (or at least nearby) in two other Gospels as well. In the other Gospels, the women are not “standing by the cross,” but either “standing” (Luke) or “watching” (Matthew and Mark) “from a distance.”* Matthew and Mark agree that Mary Magdalene was one of them, but she is accompanied in Mark by “Mary, the mother of James the little and Joses,” and by “Salome” (Mk 15:40), and in Matthew by “Mary, the mother of James and Joseph” (later called “the other Mary,” Mt 27:61; 28:1), and by “the mother of the sons of Zebedee” (see Mt 27:56). In both Gospels, the three women are identified as those who had “followed him and ministered to him in Galilee” (Mk 15:41; Mt 27:55). In Luke, the women are anonymous, but described in much the same way (Lk 23:49). The enigma is the woman so elaborately named in Mark, “Mary, the mother of James the little and of Joses” (Mk 15:40), who shows up a little later as “Mary, the [mother] of Joses” (15:47) and as “Mary, the [mother] of James” (16:1).* Much earlier in Mark, both “James” and “Joses” are named (along with “Simon” and “Judas”) as brothers of Jesus, in the same breath in which Jesus is called “the son of Mary” (Mk 6:3). The parallel passage in Matthew (13:55) substitutes “Joseph” for “Joses,” just as Matthew does in the scene near the cross.
It is hard not to conclude from this that “Mary the mother of James and Joses [or Joseph]” is in fact “Mary the mother of Jesus”!* But if Mark meant that, why did he not say so? Possibly because of Mark 3:31–35, when Jesus’ mother and brothers stood at the door, and he asked, “Who is my mother and my brothers?” and, pointing to the disciples seated around him, said, “Look, my mother and my brothers!” adding, “For whoever does the will of God, this is my brother and sister and mother” (see also Mt 12:46–50). If Mark took this literally, it is not so surprising that when Jesus’ mother appears at the end of the story she is not acknowledged as his mother, but simply as “Mary, the mother of James the little and of Joses” (Mk 15:40).* She is important in the story not because of a blood relationship but because she had “followed him and ministered to him in Galilee” (15:41)—that is, she had “done the will of God.”* Whether Matthew does the same thing for the same reason, or whether he simply follows Mark by default, without reflecting on who “the other Mary” might have been, is uncertain.* In short, there is a tendency in all the Gospels except Luke to distance Jesus in certain respects from his birth family, and in particular from his mother.* There were hints of this at the Cana wedding, when Jesus addressed his mother as “Woman,” and made it clear to her that the agenda for what would happen was his, not hers (see 2:4). Here she makes her reappearance, being introduced again as “his mother,” but in a moment she will be identified rather as someone else’s mother, just as she appears to be in Mark and Matthew.
26–27 “So Jesus,” the narrative continues, “seeing the mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing by, says to the mother, ‘Woman, look, your son!’ Then he says to the disciple, ‘Look, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (vv. 26–27). Conspicuously, he calls his mother “Woman,” just as at the Cana wedding (2:4), and she is not called “his mother” (as in v. 25), but simply “the mother.” As for “the disciple whom he loved,” he appears as it were out of nowhere. We have just been told who was “standing by the cross” (v. 25): four women, corresponding perhaps to the four soldiers who had just divided up his garments, but no male disciples at all. Where then did “the disciple whom he loved” come from? He has not been heard from since that moment around the table when Jesus announced that someone would hand him over (see 13:21–25). Perhaps the best explanation of why he was not included in the snapshot of those present at the cross (v. 25) is that he was the one taking the picture. That is, the four women mentioned in the preceding verse are seen through his eyes, in much the same way that the departure of Judas (13:21–30) was seen through his eyes. By adopting again the strategy of changing a third-person narrative to the first-person,* it is possible to reconstruct (paraphrastically) how this disciple might have first handed down the story:
Now standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and the sister of his mother, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So Jesus, seeing his mother standing there, says to her, “Woman, look, your son!” Then he says to me, “Look, your mother!” And from that hour I took her to my own home.
The presence of “the disciple whom he loved” at the cross obviously stands as an exception to Jesus’ grim prediction earlier that “you will be scattered, each to his own home, and leave me all alone” (16:32). He goes “to his own home” indeed* (v. 27), but this is a good thing, for he takes the mother of Jesus with him, in obedience to Jesus’ implied command. This comes as no great surprise, for the prediction that the disciples would be scattered has already been qualified, first by Jesus’ long prayer for their unity and security (chapter 17) and then by his charge to the soldiers who came to arrest him, “if you are seeking me, let these go” (18:8), setting the disciples free. The unfaithfulness of the disciples after Jesus’ arrest—in any case more evident in the other Gospels than here—should not be exaggerated. Even Peter, after all (despite his subsequent denials), and at least one other, kept “following” Jesus after his arrest (18:15).* Therefore the presence of one male disciple at the cross is not as remarkable as it might seem. And if there is one, it is hardly surprising that it is he who reclined closest to Jesus at the table (13:23).
Does the scene tell us anything further about the identity of “the disciple whom he loved”? The analogy with Mark and Matthew, where a woman at the cross seems to have been identified as the mother of Jesus’ two brothers, James and Joses (or Joseph), could suggest that “the disciple whom he loved” is one of those brothers, allowed to remain anonymous just as Mary herself is anonymous in this Gospel. In this case, the pronouncements, “Woman, look, your son!” and “Look, your mother!” would be literally true!* Jesus would be committing his mother into the care of one whom we might logically expect to be her caregiver, one of her own sons. This is consistent with the book of Acts, where “Mary the mother of Jesus” is seen along with “his brothers” after the ascension, joining with eleven disciples and some women in constant prayer together (Acts 1:14).
It is an intriguing possibility, and one that has not received adequate attention, but difficulties remain. Most conspicuously, we were told just before Jesus went to the Tent festival in Jerusalem that “his brothers did not believe in him” (7:5). Even in Markan tradition, the notion that Jesus distanced himself from his mother is part of the larger tradition of distancing himself from his brothers and sisters as well (see Mk 3:31–35, and especially 6:4, “a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, and among his kin, and in his own household”). Is it possible that by the time he came to Jerusalem for the last Passover one of his unbelieving brothers had become not only his disciple, but his closest disciple, “reclining at Jesus’ side” at their last meal together (13:23)? Yes, it is possible, but it presupposes a considerable gap in the narrative, with much that the reader is not told. Certainly if one of his brothers did become a disciple (belatedly), it would not be surprising if he thought of himself as “one whom Jesus loved” as a brother, nor would it be surprising for Jesus to have assigned him a place of honor in the seating arrangement at the table.
Still, the identification remains speculative. For a short time, Jesus, his mother, his brothers, and his disciples were together at Capernaum (see 2:12), but since then he and his disciples have taken center stage. In the following chapter he will send Mary Magdalene to “my brothers,” with the news that “I am going up to my Father and your Father, even my God and your God,” and she goes straight to “the disciples,” not to his natural brothers (see 20:17–18). It appears that he has two kinds of brothers, those who have the same mother as he, and those who have the same (heavenly) Father, and it would be easy to conclude that the latter—his disciples, as in Mark 3:34–35—have displaced the former. Yet matters are not that simple. If his mother was a disciple—as her presence at the cross implies—then it is not impossible that one or more of his brothers were as well, perhaps even before his resurrection, and if so, the possibility that one of them was “the disciple whom he loved” cannot be ruled out (see
Whether “the disciple whom he loved” was one of Jesus’ brothers or not, the question remains as to the theological significance of the scene. Much has been written about its possible symbolic import. Specifically, if the beloved disciple is in some way a typical disciple or an example of what is true of every believer—such as being the object of Jesus’ love, or reclining “at Jesus’ side,” even as Jesus was “right beside the Father” (1:18)—then what does the scene imply about the believer’s relationship to Mary the mother of Jesus? Is she the spiritual mother of all believers? Is she whom Jesus twice addressed as “Woman” in some way the “the woman” in Jesus’ parable who, “when she gives birth, has grief because her hour has come. But when the child is born, she no longer remembers the distress, on account of the joy that a human being is born into the world” (16:21)? Is “that hour” (v. 27) in which the beloved disciple takes her home her “hour” of giving birth to a new community of faith? Is she even perhaps the “woman” in the book of Revelation, “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars,” who is pregnant and brings to birth a male child who will “shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron” (see Rev 12:1–6)?*
The answer is No, no, no, and no! None of those things are even hinted at in the text. First, Jesus addresses at least two and possibly three other women as “Woman” in this Gospel (see 4:21; 20:15; also 8:10, the only exceptions being Martha and Mary at Bethany; see also Mt 15:28 and Lk 13:12). Nothing more should be read into the designation than the same distancing tendency that is evident in 2:4. Second, it is the beloved disciple (whoever he may be)—not Peter or any other disciple, and not all believers generally—who takes Jesus’ mother to his home. He is present at the scene in all of his particularity and individuality, not as a representative of anyone else. Rather, the significance of the scene is to be found within the Gospel of John itself. As in the farewell discourses, Jesus is making preparation for his departure from the world. Implicit in the words, “Look, your son!” and “Look, your mother!” is a command, and the command is simply a particular instance of the “new command I give you, that you love each other, just as I loved you, that you too love each other” (13:34), a command that came right on the heels of the announcement that “Where I am going, you cannot come” (13:33). In short, he is saying to two of his disciples (for his mother too is a disciple), or, possibly, two of his family members, “Take care of each other, for I am going away!” Yes, perhaps even “Wash each other’s feet!” (see 13:14). The moment of departure now looms even nearer than before, and Jesus, divested of his clothing (vv. 23–24), takes the initiative to divest himself of family and loved ones (at least those within earshot), giving them into each other’s care. This is the second step in his—perhaps anyone’s—process of dying.*
Without hesitation, “the disciple whom he loved” obeys the implicit command: “And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (v. 27b). “That hour,” presumably still “about the sixth hour” (v. 14), is surely not the “hour” for the mother to give birth to a new community, but simply the “hour” Jesus told her about from the beginning (2:4), the hour of his crucifixion (see 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1). The prediction that “you will be scattered, each to his own home” (16:32) is fulfilled, not as we might have anticipated by the disobedience of the disciples, but precisely by one’s obedience as he took Jesus’ mother “to his own home,” wherever that might have been. It cannot have been far away, for the beloved disciple remains in the vicinity, and will be heard from again (see 20:2–10; 21:7, 20–24).
28–29 Whether the disciple and the mother left the scene immediately or whether they stayed at the cross until Jesus had died remains an open question. In any event, the third and last step in the process of dying comes after an unspecified interval, possibly bringing the time of Jesus’ actual death somewhat closer to what is stated in the other Gospels.* “After this,”* the narrative continues, “Jesus, knowing that all things are already finished, so that the scripture might be completed, says, ‘I am thirsty’ ” (v. 28). Yet again we are reminded of his knowledge of everything that was happening or would happen to him. “Knowing”* echoes 13:1 (“knowing that his hour had come that he should be taken out of this world to the Father”), 13:3 (“knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God”), and 18:4 (“knowing everything that was happening to him”). What he “knows” now is that “all things are already finished.”* The journey from the world back to the Father must now begin. It is time to go. In providing for the needs of his mother and his closest disciple (vv. 25–27), he has discharged his final responsibilities, or, as we have been told, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (13:1). Now at last he thinks of his own needs, but what are they? “I am thirsty,” he says, and we are told that this was “so that the scripture might be completed.”* The formula resembles the more common “so that the scripture might be fulfilled” (as in v. 24). “Completed” is perhaps occasioned by the preceding (and following) uses of “finished,” in the sense of “completed” (vv. 28, 30).*
The words “I am thirsty” recall an earlier scene (also “about the sixth hour,” 4:6) when Jesus was thirsty (although the word was not used), and said to a Samaritan woman, “Give me to drink” (4:7, 10). There we never learned whether or not he ever got his drink, but we did learn from him that “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never ever thirst” (4:14). Here he is not only thirsty again, and with a far more desperate thirst, but he puts it into words. The irony is evident. He who quenches all thirst cries out, “I am thirsty.”* But what is he thirsty for? Clearly, the thirst that he promises to quench forever is not a thirst for water (believers get just as thirsty as unbelievers!), but thirst for God, and for eternal life. The pronouncement here takes us again into the world of the Psalms, and of the righteous sufferer who speaks in the first person in many of those psalms (as in v. 24; see also 13:18; 15:25), yet it is not a precise quotation of any known biblical text. Several texts in the Psalms come close, most notably “As the deer longs for springs of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul was thirsty* for the living God! When shall I come and see the face of God?” (Ps 42:1–2 [41:2–3, LXX]), and “My God, my God, I seek you early. My soul was thirsty for you! How often my flesh has longed for you in a barren and trackless land without water!” (Ps 63:1 [62:2, LXX]). In both of these passages, thirst is not so much a literal reality as a metaphor. The suffering psalmist is thirsty for God, as one thirsts for water in an arid desert.* The same is true here. “I am thirsty” can be regarded as this Gospel’s equivalent of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk 15:34//Mt 27:46). Jesus may well have been literally thirsty, but, like the psalmist, he was really thirsty for God. The pronouncement is addressed, therefore, not to the Roman soldiers, but to God, signaling his intense longing to rejoin the Father by “drinking the cup” the Father has given him (see 18:11). As such, it brings to “completion” not a particular passage of scripture about “thirst,” but Scripture as a whole, for it triggers that to which all Scripture points, the death and resurrection of the Messiah. The accent is on the whole biblical testimony that (as Luke puts it), “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead the third day” (Lk 24:46; in John’s Gospel see 2:17, 22; 12:16; 20:9).
A less likely interpretation is that the specific “scripture” triggered by the pronouncement is Psalm 69:22, “And they gave gall for my food, and for my thirst they made me drink sour wine”* (Ps 69:22).* In that case, the actual citation comes in the following verse, “A vessel full of sour wine was set there, so they put a sponge full of sour wine* on a hyssop and brought it to this mouth” (v. 29). But this is by no means a quotation of Psalm 69:22, for that text mentions no “vessel,” no “sponge,” no “hyssop,”* and John’s Gospel mentions no “gall.”* The only word in common is the word for “sour wine” or vinegar.* Moreover, in the psalm the “gall” and the “sour wine” are part of the psalmist’s torment,* not (as the sour wine appears to be here)* a small act of mercy intended to lessen thirst and pain.* It is unlikely, therefore, that this text is in play.* The words “I am thirsty,” while addressed to God, are heard and (in characteristically Johannine fashion) misunderstood—that is, taken literally—by someone, an anonymous “they” (whether soldiers or women),* as Jesus is offered “sour wine” from a vessel that is handy (that is, “set there”). If “their” action is wrong, it is not because of hostility or mockery, but simply because it rests on a misunderstanding of what (or rather, Whom) Jesus is thirsty for. It is not so much wrong as beside the point. Jesus’ fate is in his own hands, not theirs and not Pilate’s. But whatever its motivation, the act of bringing to his mouth the sponge soaked in sour wine accomplishes one thing. It dramatizes the metaphor he had used earlier in telling Peter to put down his sword: “The cup the Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” (18:11).
30 Consequently, Jesus accepts the drink: “Then when he received* the sour wine, Jesus said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed the head and handed over the Spirit” (v. 30). His acceptance of “the cup” prompts him to say, “It is finished,”* putting into words what he knew in advance to be true (see v. 28, “that all things are already finished”). He stated almost from the beginning his intention to “do the will of the One who sent me and complete his work” (4:34), and reported to the Father that he had “finished the work you have given me that I should do” (17:4). Now the pronouncement, “It is finished,” encompasses all that and more, embracing as well “everything that was happening to him” (18:4) from the moment of the arrest in the garden up to the present.
Having said this, Jesus “bowed the head and handed over the Spirit.”* To “bow the head”* does not occur in any other Gospel account of the crucifixion, nor is it, as we might have expected, a customary expression for dying. It can evoke any number of associations, including physical weakness, submission or humility,* prayer, affirmation, or approval,* or simply pointing in a certain direction.* But what is it here? Its only other occurrence in the Bible is in the well-known saying of Jesus, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of man does not have anywhere to bow the head”* (Mt 8:20//Lk 9:58). There, “bow the head” (or “lay his head,” as it is normally translated) meant simply to sleep, or have a place to sleep—that is, a home. It is as if the Gospel writer here remembers just such a saying, and is reminding us that at last the Son of man, constantly on the move in all the Gospels, is home, and free to take his rest.* As for the expression, “handed over the Spirit,”* it is fairly close to what we find in the other Gospels,* but its interpretation in this Gospel is powerfully shaped by what has preceded it. The verb “handed over” comes as the last in a chain of occurrences of this verb. The devil, through Judas Iscariot (13:2), “handed over” Jesus to Caiaphas and the Jewish authorities (18:2), who “handed him over” to Pilate (18:30), who “handed him over” again to the Jews again for crucifixion (19:16).
Now, Jesus himself “hands over” himself—that is, his “Spirit”—to someone, but to whom? To the Father (as in Lk 23:46, and implicitly in Mt 27:50)? Or, as some have suggested, to the beloved disciple and the women gathered around the cross?* The latter will not work, for Jesus gives the Spirit to his disciples a chapter later, after his resurrection (see 20:22), and it is unlikely that there would be a special bestowal in advance on four women and one man simply because they were present at the crucifixion. As we have seen (v. 27), it is not even certain that his mother and the disciple whom he loved were still present. If they were not, why would the Spirit be given to Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas and no one else? And if the gift is somehow implicitly for the whole believing community, what is its relationship to the later “breathing” of the Spirit on the gathered disciples (20:22)? Quite clearly, Jesus “handed over the Spirit” to the Father, just as in the other Gospels. But why capitalize “Spirit” here and not in the other Gospels?* The answer lies back near the beginning of the story, when John testified, “I have watched the Spirit coming down as a dove out of the sky, and it remained on him” (1:32), confirming that the person “on whom you see the Spirit coming down and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes in Holy Spirit” (1:33). How long did “the Spirit,” evidently the “Holy Spirit” (v. 33), “remain” on Jesus? We are not told, but two chapters later John can still say, “the one God sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure” (3:34), and we are never told that the Spirit left Jesus—until now! That he “handed over the Spirit” means just what it does in the other three Gospels—that he stopped breathing—but his “breath” or “spirit” is the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God that was his “without measure,” not from birth but from the day John witnessed it “coming down as a dove out of the sky” (1:32), presumably at his baptism. Jesus dies willingly, not by his own hand yet clearly on his own initiative and at the moment he chooses. As he has said (10:18), no one takes his life from him, but he lays it down on his own, and the reader knows that if he has the authority to lay it down, he has the authority to receive it back.
31 The purpose of the next three verses is to verify that Jesus is in fact dead. Death by crucifixion would normally have been a long, slow process, and it appears that neither “the Jews,” wherever they might be, nor the Roman soldiers on the scene are aware that Jesus has just died. They seem not to have heard him say, “It is finished,” or seen him bow his head, nor could they know when he “handed over the Spirit.” Death by crucifixion was a long, slow process, and they did not have time for it: “Now the Jews, because it was the preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath—for great was the day of that Sabbath—asked Pilate that their legs be broken, and that they be taken away” (v. 31). According to biblical law, “If anyone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on a pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse” (Deut 21:22–23, TNIV). The only way to insure that the law was kept was to break the legs of the three who were crucified, hastening death so that the bodies could be removed.
Obviously “the Jews,” as a people subject to Roman authority, were in no position to enforce biblical law. It was the Roman custom to leave bodies hanging on crosses for extended periods of time as a warning to potential criminals, and a grim public reminder of imperial authority. But the circumstances here are exceptional. It is not just a matter of “overnight,” but of the “preparation” for the Sabbath, and not just any Sabbath but a “great,” or special, Sabbath,* probably in the sense that it would fall on the fifteenth day of Nisan, the first day of the Passover festival (see v. 14, “the preparation of the Passover”).* Even so, Pilate was under no obligation to accede to the request, yet certain concessions were customary at festival times (see 18:39).* Pilate evidently grants their request, for it is promptly carried out.
32–33 The request of the Jewish authorities “that they might break” the legs of the three condemned men could imply that they were asking permission to do it themselves, but this is of course not the case. Rather, just as the crucifixion itself was carried out by Romans soldiers, so is this final act of hastening death: “So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, as they saw he was already dead, they did not break his legs” (vv. 32–33). This is the point: Jesus was “already dead,”* and the attempt to break his legs to hasten death verified it. There is no particular reason why the soldiers would have come to him last. One would have expected them to go either from left to right or right to left, and so come to him second (see v. 18, “two others on either side, Jesus in the middle”), but he is mentioned last either for dramatic effect,* or perhaps because he was the last of the three to be given up for crucifixion. As we have seen, the other two are not identified in any way as “terrorists” or “criminals,” as in the synoptic Gospels, only as “two others.” Neither of them mocks him (as in the other three Gospels), and neither of them comes to faith (as in Lk 23:40–43). They are in the story only to have their legs broken and die, in contrast to Jesus, who dies on his own initiative and whose legs are not broken.
34 Instead of breaking his legs, “one of the soldiers punctured his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out” (v. 34). The action appears redundant if Jesus is in fact dead and his death verified, perhaps a gratuitous act of sheer meanness. Raymond Brown attributes it to “the illogic of ordinary life: Like the other soldiers he has seen that Jesus is dead, yet to make sure he probes the body for a telltale reaction by stabbing Jesus’ side.” Others, as he notes, view it as “a coup de grace aimed to pierce the heart” but this is less likely because the verb is “punctured,”* not “pierced” (as in v. 37).*
In another tradition, a variant reading in Matthew 27:49, the “puncturing” takes place before Jesus dies. According to this variant, two things happen just before he “dismisses the spirit” (Mt 27:50). First, “one of them, running and taking a sponge full of sour wine, put it on a reed and made him drink” (27:48). Then “another, taking* a spear, punctured his side, and water and blood came out” (27:49a). The added words are almost universally judged by editors, translators, and textual critics to be a harmonization to John’s Gospel, and for that reason discounted.* Yet a number of features favor their retention as part of Matthew’s text, or if not that at least an independent tradition, possibly known to the writer of John’s Gospel.* First, the manuscript evidence in favor of the longer reading in Matthew is strong.* Second, the variant is well integrated into the Matthean passion narrative, and in certain ways different from its parallel in the Gospel of John. For example, the one wielding the spear is not explicitly said to be a Roman soldier, but simply “another” bystander, in addition to “one of them” who offered Jesus the sponge full of sour wine on a reed. Also, what comes out of Jesus’ side is “water and blood,” the word order accenting “blood,” in contrast to John’s Gospel, which, as we will see, emphasizes “water.”* This is in keeping with a strong emphasis in Matthew’s passion narrative on the shedding of Jesus’ blood, whether for the forgiveness of sins (Mt 26:28), or as a sign of Jewish guilt (Mt 23:35; 27:4, 6, 8, 24, 25). And only in the variant reading do we see the literal shedding of Jesus’ blood in Matthew. Third, and most important, it comes before rather than after the death of Jesus, making it at least open to the interpretation that it is a mortal wound, the actual cause of Jesus’ death. This, of course, stands in sharp contrast to John’s Gospel, where every attempt to “kill” Jesus fails. No one takes his life, for he gives it freely, and on his own initiative. Matthew, to be sure, acknowledges this to the extent that Jesus then, “having cried out again with a great voice, dismissed the spirit” (Mt 27:50), yet in the variant reading the death cry is arguably the result of the spear thrust. If the author of John’s Gospel is aware of such a tradition, whether in Matthew or as an independent tradition, it is quite plausible that he might have wanted to correct it by placing the spear thrust after Jesus’ death so as to make it redundant.* This might in fact have been one reason—though probably not the only reason—for introducing an eyewitness (v. 35) to verify exactly what happened, and in what order.
What happens next is that “at once blood and water came out” (v. 34b). “Blood,” mentioned first, is what we expect; “water” is not, and consequently “water” is what seizes our attention. Yet the statement is remarkably simple and matter-of-fact, with no interest either in medical explanations on the one hand, or in asserting a miracle on the other.* Miracle or not, the event is fraught with “significance”—that is, it qualifies as a “sign” in the full Johannine sense of the word, no less than the “lifting up” in crucifixion (see 3:14; 12:33). “Water” from inside the body of Jesus evokes a number of thoughts First, it confirms that when Jesus said “I thirst” (v. 28), his real thirst was for God, not water, for he is the very Source of water. It confirms as well his two promises that “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never ever thirst,” but “the water I will give him will become in him a spring of water rushing to eternal life” (4:14), and that “Whoever believes in me, … from his insides will flow streams of living water” (7:38). What is true of those who drink of the Fountain of life is first of all true of him who is that Fountain. Last, and perhaps most important, “water” in this scene does not stand alone, but rather in close connection with “blood.” Jesus has spoken in very shocking language of drinking his blood as if it were water, and thereby gaining eternal life (6:53–56). Now the blood and the water appear together, as a graphic reminder that life (represented by water) emerges from death, the shedding of blood. As we have seen, “eat my flesh and drink my blood,” whatever else it means, presupposes first of all Jesus’ violent death, and now the “blood and water” from his side invites us again, “If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink” (7:37), an invitation never truly heard at the Tent festival, but now at last in effect because Jesus has been “glorified” (see 7:39).* As for the more “institutional” interpretation of the “blood and water”—that is, symbolizing the Eucharist and Baptism respectively—there is no more reason to look in that direction here than anywhere else in John’s Gospel. Nothing here corresponds to the eucharistic bread, and if there is a symbolic dimension to the water, it is the symbolism not of sprinkling or washing but of “drinking,” that is, simply “coming” to Jesus and believing in him (see 7:37–38), an act which might or might not have resulted in water baptism.
35 At this point an anonymous testimony is introduced, apparently the testimony of an eyewitness to what has just happened: “And he who has seen has testified,* and his testimony is true, and that one knows that he tells the truth, so that you too might believe” (v. 35). The notice strikingly echoes the words of John at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when he saw the dove coming down and remaining on Jesus: “And I have seen, and have testified* that this is the Son of God” (1:34). The two eyewitness testimonies stand like bookends framing the ministry of Jesus.* We know who John was, but who is this eyewitness to Jesus’ death on the cross? A near consensus identifies him as “the disciple whom he loved” (see v. 26), partly because he is the only male disciple said to be present at the scene (the participle and the pronouns being masculine), and partly because of the analogy with a notice at the end of the Gospel, “This is the disciple who testifies about these things and who wrote them, and we know that his testimony is true” (21:24). That final notice refers to the disciple whom Jesus loved (see 21:20–23), identifying him as the witness par excellence, whose “testimony is true,” and on whose authority the whole Gospel was written. In short, the author of the Gospel is pausing at a crucial point in the story to verify the details of Jesus’ death, assuring us that he writes what he himself has seen.
The argument is plausible, but far from conclusive. If the eyewitness is the beloved disciple, it is strange that he is not so identified, as he was in verse 26, and in 13:23 (and as he will be in 20:2 and in 21:7 and 20).* Moreover, we were told a few verses earlier, when Jesus committed his mother into that disciple’s care, that “from that hour* the disciple took her to his own home” (v. 27). If this was literally the case, then the disciple whom Jesus loved is no longer present to witness personally the death of Jesus, the spear thrust, and the flow of blood and water.* Jesus’ word to the disciple and his mother is, after all, separated from the account of his death by an unspecified period of time indicated by the phrase “after this” (v. 28). Quite possibly, therefore, the purpose of the reference is just the opposite of what is commonly assumed. That is, the writer of the Gospel (the beloved disciple himself, according to 21:24) wants to assure the reader that even though he himself had left the scene, nevertheless there was someone present who could—and did—verify what happened. C. H. Dodd, one of the few who does not identify the witness with the beloved disciple, concludes “that someone, not the author, had, to the author’s knowledge, witnessed the occurrence, and that it is here recorded on the testimony of that witness, whoever he may have been.”* If we do not join the prevailing consensus, must we leave it at that, or are there other clues to this person’s identity?
Two alternatives present themselves. One is that the eyewitness verification does not take place right here on the scene, but a chapter later, after the resurrection, when Jesus appeared to his disciples in a locked room and “showed them the hands and the side” (20:20), and finally said to Thomas, “Bring your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it in my side, and do not be faithless but faithful” (20:27). Thomas then said, “My Lord and my God!” and Jesus replied, “Because you have seen me,* you have believed. Blessed are they who did not see, and believed” (20:28–29). Is it possible that the writer, with the later passage already in mind, is thinking of Thomas as “he who has seen”* and “testified” to the wound in Jesus’ side? It is not as far-fetched as it sounds, for the notice here concludes with the intention “that you too might believe” (v. 35b, italics added), implying that the eyewitness himself “believed,” just as Thomas is said to have done (20:29). Yet there are major difficulties, even apart from the obvious one that the writer is bringing Thomas into the narrative prematurely. What the anonymous witness is said to have “seen” (v. 35) surely includes more than just the wound in Jesus’ side and the spear thrust that made it. It must include also the blood and water (of which Thomas shows no knowledge), possibly the order of events (that is, that the spear thrust and the blood and water came after Jesus had died and not before, as in another tradition), and beyond that perhaps all that transpired on the cross at least from 19:28 on: the thirst, the sour wine, the handing over of the Spirit, and the unbroken bones. All Thomas has “seen” is the wound verifying that the risen Jesus is indeed the crucified one, and it must be acknowledged that the other disciples saw that as well (20:20). This alternative, therefore, can be safely eliminated.*
The second alternative is more promising. If we press the parallel between this testimony near the end of the story and John’s testimony near the beginning, what stands out is that the actual content of John’s testimony was that “this is the Son of God” (1:34). The title “Son of God,” moreover, is conspicuous in the apparent echo in 1 John of these two passages. There the writer asks, “Who is it who overcomes the world except the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came through water and blood, Jesus Christ, not in the water alone but in the water and in the blood” (1 Jn 5:5–6), and finally concludes that “this is the testimony of God that he has testified concerning his Son. The person who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself” (5:9–10), and “the person who has the Son has life; the person who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (5:12). Here, however, the title “Son of God” does not appear in the testimony of our anonymous eyewitness. No actual content is given, only that he “has testified, and his testimony is true, and that one knows that he tells the truth, so that you too might believe.” Yet, as we have noticed, the words “so that you too might believe”* not only invite the reader to believe, but presuppose some kind of prior belief on the part of the anonymous witness—belief that presumably has content. The analogy with 20:31 suggests (once again) that the implied content of this belief is that Jesus is the Son of God, for there the writer concludes, “But these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name.”* These are the only two passages in the Gospel where the reader is explicitly invited to “believe,” and it is natural to conclude that what is to be believed is the same in both instances—that Jesus is the Son of God. If this is so, then it is also that which the anonymous eyewitness believed, and to which he testified.
Just such a testimony is found in Mark, where a Roman centurion present at the crucifixion, “when he saw that Jesus died thus, said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’ ” (Mk 15:39; see also Mt 27:54).* For this reason it is possible that “he who has seen” and “testified” is none other than one of the four Roman soldiers, possibly the one who punctured Jesus’ side with a spear.* Traces of such an identification linger in later traditions,* but the strongest argument for it comes two verses later, when the writer cites Zechariah 12:10, “They will see him whom they pierced” (v. 37). If attention is given to the verb “see” as well as to the verb “pierced,” the effect of the quotation is to draw together verses 34 and 35 in such a way that those who “see” and those who “pierce” are the same.* While the plural verbs for “see” and “pierce” might caution us against pinning down the identification to the one soldier who actually threw the spear, this is surely the strongest argument in favor of identifying the anonymous eyewitness at least with one of the four who were present on the scene. It should be noted that the centurion in Mark acknowledges Jesus as “Son of God” simply by observing how Jesus died (Mk 15:39), not on the basis of any visible miracle or accompanying event (unless blood from the body of a corpse qualifies as such), and the same is true here.*
If we must have an alternative to simply leaving the anonymous witness anonymous (like Peter’s anonymous companion in 18:15–17), this is the most plausible option, more plausible on balance than attributing the testimony to the beloved disciple. While it could be open to the charge of harmonization in that it seems to import something from Mark to explain what we find in John’s Gospel,* it does not necessarily presuppose John’s dependence on Mark. All it presupposes is a tradition (written or oral, and possibly pre-Markan) that one of the Roman soldiers at the cross publicly acknowledged Jesus as “Son of God” (whatever he might have meant by that), and it calls attention to the truth of that confession.
To this end, the Gospel writer adds, “and his testimony is true, and that one knows that he tells the truth, so that you too might believe” (v. 35b). Who is “that one”* who “knows” and vouches for the truth of the eyewitness testimony? While it is possible to make an argument that the pronoun refers to the disciple whom Jesus loved (v. 26), in that he is the witness underlying everything that is recorded in the Gospel (21:24), or even that it refers to God, or the living Christ, or the Holy Spirit (as if to say, “God knows he is telling the truth”), it is virtually certain that it refers to the anonymous eyewitness himself.* Grammatically, “he who has seen” is the nearest antecedent. Although it would tempting to introduce a second witness on the ground that “it is written that the testimony of two men is true” (see 8:17), it is presupposed in any event that the beloved disciple, not to mention the community to which he belongs (21:24), has already added his own testimony to that of the witness on the scene, quite explicitly in the words, “and his testimony is true.” The point of the added words, “and that one knows that he tells the truth,” is, as C. H. Dodd puts it, “that the witness himself spoke with full knowledge of the facts and was conscious of speaking the truth. His identity therefore must have been known to the evangelist, who had complete confidence in his credibility (as one who knew the facts) and his good faith.”* Such an interpretation might also seem to presuppose that the witness is still alive and presumably part of a Christian community known to the Gospel writer,* yet this is not absolutely certain. The precedent of John, who “testifies about him and has cried out,” even long after he has died (see 1:15–18), leaves open the possibility that the eyewitness (say, a Roman soldier at the cross) is, like John, by now long dead yet alive with God and aware of the truth of his memorable words, “This is the Son of God”—words to be echoed and reechoed in the Christian community, “so that you too might believe” (compare 20:31). The same possibility exists even if we do not identify the eyewitness with a Roman soldier, but leave him anonymous (as the Gospel writer has done). Nor should we forget that the beloved disciple himself still “testifies” (21:24) as if he were alive, even though he too may well have been dead by the time the Gospel’s concluding words were written (21:20–25).
36–37 The account of the crucifixion and death of Jesus concludes with two citations of scripture: “For these things happened so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘No bone of him shall be broken,’ and again, another scripture says, ‘They will see him whom they pierced’ ” (vv. 36–37). The first citation relates to verses 31–33, and the second to verse 34 and perhaps (as we have seen) verse 35. The words, “No bone of him will be broken,”* do not match exactly the vocabulary of the preceding narrative in which the “legs” (vv. 31, 32, 33) of the other two victims are “broken”* and Jesus’ “legs” are not. Yet the reference to what has just happened is unmistakable, just as the Scripture citation about gambling for Jesus’ clothing (v. 24) unmistakably mirrored the procedure that had just been described (v. 23) despite differences in terminology.* But what biblical text is in mind? Is it Exodus 12:10, 46, LXX, referring to the Passover lamb, “You shall not break a bone of it”?* Or is it Psalm 33(34):21, LXX, referring to the suffering righteous collectively, “The Lord guards all their bones; not one of them shall be broken”?* It is difficult to decide. The singular “bone” corresponds to the texts in Exodus and Numbers, while the future passive, “shall not be broken,” matches the terminology of the psalm. Those who accent the theme of Jesus as the Passover lamb in the Gospel of John naturally look to Exodus, pointing to John 1:29, and to the timing of the crucifixion on the day (and for some even the hour) of the slaughter of the Passover lambs. Yet as we have seen, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29) has little in common with the Passover lamb, and the Gospel writer gives no hint that his chronology of the passion is in any way intended to synchronize Jesus’ death with that of the sacrificial animals. Moreover, most other biblical quotations in connection with Jesus’ suffering and death in this Gospel are drawn from the Psalms, not from biblical narratives (see, for example, 2:17; 13:18; 15:25; 19:24, 28), and it is at least marginally more likely that this is the case here as well.
As for the second quotation, “They will see him whom they pierced”* (v. 37), its vocabulary is slightly closer to that of the preceding narrative, in that “They will see” corresponds grammatically (more or less) to “he who has seen” (v. 35). Yet “pierced” implies a more violent action than merely “punctured” (v. 34). Again the Gospel writer is more interested in quoting accurately the biblical text as he knows it than in conforming it to his own vocabulary in telling the story—or for that matter conforming his own vocabulary to the language of the biblical text.* This time the quotation is from Zechariah 12:10, and the form of the text is much closer to the Hebrew (“and they shall look at me whom they pierced”)* than to the Greek (“and they shall look toward me because they mockingly danced”).* The quotation seems to be based on someone’s (not necessarily the Gospel writer’s) fairly literal translation of the Hebrew.* The tendency of some commentators has been to assign significance only to the verb “pierced” with reference to the spear thrust (v. 34), not to the verb “will see” in relation to him who “has seen” and “testified” (v. 35).* Those who have already made up their minds that the anonymous eyewitness is “the disciple whom Jesus loved” are naturally puzzled by the apparent identification of those who “see” with those who “pierce” the side of Jesus.* Yet the Scripture fulfillments in John’s Gospel tend to be both simple and literal, referring to something mentioned in the immediate context, with few wasted words (this is evident in v. 36, but the best example is v. 24, where the two parts of a parallelism are assigned distinct meanings in relation to what has just happened). Even Raymond Brown, who identifies the anonymous eyewitness as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” candidly admits that “the only ‘seeing’ that takes place after the stabbing of Jesus’ side occurs in v. 35 in reference to the beloved disciple [sic] who has borne witness to the flow of blood and water.”* Thus the Zechariah quotation (v. 37) draws together verses 34 and 35 in much the same way that the psalm quotation (v. 36) draws together verses 31 to 33.
It is tempting to read more into the Zechariah quotation than is actually there. It says nothing, for example, about the flow of blood and water from Jesus’ side (v. 34), and some, therefore, have proposed linking it in some way with the words just preceding the Zechariah text (“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication,” Zech 12:10a), and the beginning of the following chapter (“On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity,” 13:1, NIV). Here on the cross, it appears, just such a fountain has been “opened” from the side of Jesus.* But if so, the Gospel writer shows no interest in the parallel, and the interpreter will be well advised to exercise comparable restraint. As we have suggested, what the anonymous eyewitness saw and testified to was not simply the flow of blood and water from Jesus’ side, but all that preceded it from the moment of his death, and perhaps even before. Somewhat more plausible is the notion that John’s Gospel shares with Zechariah an interest in the “mourning” of the people of Israel, with its implication of repentance and cleansing (see Zech 12:10–12). It is tempting to read such overtones into the Zechariah quotation here, in part because of Jesus’ prediction to “the Jews” at the Tent festival that “When you lift up the Son of man, then you will come to know that I am” (8:28), in part because of certain other citations of the same text in Zechariah (for example, Rev 1:7, “Look, he comes with the clouds, and every eye will see him, and those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him”),* and in part because of the faithfulness of two Jewish leaders, Joseph and Nicodemus, in the section that immediately follows (vv. 38–42). Yet if such hopes are implicit here, they are just that—implicit, not explicit—and the commentator’s wisest course is to leave them at that. What is certain in any event is that the point of the two Scripture citations (vv. 36–37) is simply to confirm the testimony of the anonymous eyewitness to the reality of Jesus’ death, and its meaning—that is, that he is the Son of God, and that the circumstances of his death, being foretold in Scripture, are in the plan of God—all for the reader’s sake, “so that you too might believe” (v. 35).
38 With this, Joseph of Arimathea,* known to all four Gospel writers, makes his appearance: “Now after these things, Joseph from Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave permission. So he came, and took away his body” (v. 38). Joseph is introduced in Mark (15:43) as “a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God,” in Matthew (27:57) as a “rich man” who had “become a disciple of Jesus,” and in Luke (23:50–51) as “a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action,” and who was “waiting for the kingdom of God” (NIV). Here he is described quite briefly, and in terms familiar to the reader of this Gospel, as “a disciple of Jesus secretly for fear of the Jews.” The phrase “for fear of the Jews”* recalls 7:13, where the very same words are used of the crowds at the Tent festival, and 9:22, where the former blind man’s parents are said to have “feared the Jews.” It also recalls the notice in 12:42 that “many, even some of the rulers” believed in Jesus, “but because of the Pharisees would not confess, lest they be put out of synagogue.” Of these it was said, “For they loved the glory of humans rather than the glory of God” (12:43). It is unclear whether that negative verdict was meant to apply to Joseph of Arimathea or not. Unlike Nicodemus (3:1), he is not explicitly identified as a “ruler” in this Gospel, although it can certainly be inferred from what is said about him in Mark and Luke (“member of the Council”). And in fairness to him it must be noted that in the following chapter we find a whole group of Jesus’ disciples gathered behind locked doors “for fear of the Jews”* (20:19, as presumably again in v. 26). If Joseph has been less than faithful, he is not the only one. And if he is a disciple “secretly,”* he is a disciple nonetheless. We have only to remember several instances in which even Jesus resorted to secrecy for his own protection until his appointed “hour” (see 7:10; 8:59; 12:36).
Now Joseph’s time has come. He makes almost the same request of Pilate that “the Jews” made earlier, when, in order to ensure that “the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath,” they “asked Pilate that their legs be broken and that they be taken away” (v. 31). The legs were broken (vv. 32–33), and even though no mention is made of the bodies being “taken away,” we would have presumed, given the concerns expressed by “the Jews,” that this was done, and that Jesus’ unbroken, though pierced, body was taken away as well. But this was apparently not the case as far as Jesus is concerned, for Joseph now weighs in with this own version of the same request. Quite possibly, Jesus and the two others are still on the cross because the breaking of the legs only hastened death. It did not bring it on immediately. In any event, we are told not only that Joseph “asked Pilate that he might take away* the body of Jesus,” but that “Pilate gave permission,” something we were not told explicitly in connection with the earlier request by “the Jews.”
One suspects that the two accounts (vv. 31–33 and v. 38) may, at some stage of the tradition, have been two versions of the same event, the latter (v. 38) common to all the Gospels, and the former (vv. 31–33) preserved only in the Gospel of John. This is supported, perhaps, by the fact that in Mark the issue of whether or not Jesus is “already dead” is raised in connection with Joseph’s request for the body (Mk 15:44), while in John’s Gospel, as we have seen, it comes up at the time the legs of the other two victims are broken (v. 33). John’s Gospel, instead of substituting the one for the other, has combined the two, resulting in a sharp contrast. “The Jews” (in vv. 31–33) are interested only in “the bodies”* (v. 31) as corpses to be disposed of before sundown, without particular concern for “the body of Jesus”* (v. 38), while Joseph’s attention is focused on Jesus’ body, and on that alone.* Consequently, with Pilate’s permission, Joseph “came, and took away his body” (v. 38b).* It was to the cross that Joseph came, presumably, not to “the Jews” or to soldiers who had already commandeered the body, for in that case he would have had to ask their permission as well.* For whatever reason, the body of Jesus seems to have remained on the cross until Joseph took it away.
39 Only John’s Gospel tells us that Joseph of Arimathea had a companion, someone we have met before: “And Nicodemus also came—he who first came to him at night—bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds” (v. 39). That Nicodemus “came” echoes what was just said of Joseph, and in case we have forgotten, he is further identified as “he who at the first came to him at night,” repeating almost verbatim the words used when Nicodemus was first introduced: “He came to him at night” (3:2). He who came “at the first” now comes again, also at night, presumably (see v. 42), but under very different circumstances. That early encounter, as we saw, was inconclusive, and Nicodemus surfaced only once since then, when he asked his fellow Pharisees at the Tent festival, “Does our law judge the man unless it hear from him first and learn what he is doing?” (7:51), and for his trouble was called a Galilean sympathizer (v. 52).* Now at last, with Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus makes his move, a move the two of them must have planned together. We can probably learn a little about each from the other. The designations of Nicodemus as “a ruler* of the Jews” (3:1) and as “one of them” (7:50) are consistent with the information in Mark (15:43) and Luke (23:50) that Joseph of Arimathea was “a member of the Council,” although we are not told whether or not Joseph, like Nicodemus, was a Pharisee. Conversely, the notice here that Joseph was “a disciple of Jesus secretly for fear of the Jews” (v. 38) is also consistent with what little we know of Nicodemus. In short, they were both “Jews” in the distinctly Johannine sense of being religious leaders, yet they also seem to have feared “the Jews” because of their secret allegiance to Jesus.
Nicodemus brings with him, evidently by prearrangement, “a mixture* of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds” (v. 39), evidently to help Joseph prepare the body for burial. The notice is remarkable in several ways. First, this is the only Gospel account in which Jesus’ body is embalmed or anointed prior to burial. In the other Gospels, Joseph simply takes the body and wraps it in a shroud before laying it in the tomb (see Mt 27:59–60//Mk 15:46//Lk 23:53). Second, it is the only account in which men carry out this preparation. According to Mark (16:1) and Luke (23:56), it was women who anointed Jesus’ body with spices, and they did so only after the body was in the tomb. Third, and far more remarkable, is the sheer quantity of the spices that Nicodemus brings, “about a hundred pounds,”* more like seventy-five by today’s measurement,* but still an enormous amount, “a burial fit for a king,” as Brown puts it, “that would correspond well to the solemn proclamation that on the cross he was truly ‘the King of the Jews.’ ”* That Joseph and Nicodemus are intentionally planning a royal burial is also consistent with the characterization of Joseph in Mark and Luke as one “waiting for the kingdom of God” (Mk 15:43//Lk 23:51), and perhaps with Nicodemus’s recollection of certain words of Jesus about “seeing” or “entering” that kingdom (3:3, 5). Whether or not their action is misguided, either in light of Jesus’ unwillingness to be made into a king (6:15), or because such an elaborate burial implies that the dead king is going to stay dead, is a question often asked, but one for which there is no clear answer. The Gospel writer passes no judgment on their action. It is what it is. The two men act according to their understanding, limited though it may be, and as the story unfolds it will become clear that not even Jesus’ closest disciples were expecting him to rise from the dead (see 20:9). Moreover, the huge quantity—and presumed cost—of the spices is hardly unexpected in John’s Gospel, given the hundred gallons (and more) of water turned into wine at Cana (2:6), the twelve baskets of fragments left over after the feeding of five thousand (6:13), or the 153 large fish that the disciples will catch in Galilee two chapters later (21:11).
Finally, there is an apparent redundancy in this narrative, in view of Jesus’ pronouncement seven chapters earlier, when Mary of Bethany “took a pound of expensive perfume of genuine nard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and dried his feet with her hair” (12:3), and he justified her action as something done “for the day of my burial” (12:7). As we saw in that passage, Mary’s “pound” was in its way just as extraordinary and extravagant as Nicodemus’s “hundred pounds,” given Mary’s circumstances and the cost of the “expensive perfume of genuine nard,” the fragrance of which filled the whole house.* The same question Judas asked about that extravagance (12:4–5) could have been asked of Nicodemus as well, and the answer (12:8) would surely have been the same. Mary’s action “six days before the Passover” (12:1) and the action of Nicodemus and Joseph on the very day of “preparation” (see v. 42) represent not so much redundancy as a deliberately matched pair, one before the fact and one after, each an overwhelming response of disciples to the overwhelming fact of the death of God’s Son, yet each the product of limited understanding. Like the unidentified woman who anointed Jesus in Mark, Joseph and Nicodemus, no less than Mary, “did what they could” (see Mk 14:8). Even though “the Son of man came not to be served but to serve” (Mk 10:45), he too is “served” in the hour of his death, and the promise that “If anyone would serve me, the Father will honor him” (12:26) is presumed to be still in effect. As we have seen, those who “serve” Jesus are characteristically women (Martha and Mary above all), and Nicodemus and Joseph are rare exceptions.
40 Once Joseph has been properly introduced, and Nicodemus reintroduced, the actual embalming procedure is described quickly and concisely. Now that Joseph has “taken away” (v. 38) the body from Golgotha, he and Nicodemus together “took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the custom of the Jews to bury” (v. 40). The reader will remember Lazarus emerging from his tomb “bound with bandages on his feet and hands, and his face wrapped in a cloth” (11:44), except that here “linen cloths”* take the place of “bandages.” The “linen cloths” will be seen again (20:6–7), and only then will we learn that Jesus’ face, like that of Lazarus, was wrapped in a “cloth”* (20:7). The body is bound in the linen cloths “with the spices,” that is, the hundred-pound “mixture of myrrh and aloes” that Nicodemus has brought. The writer reminds his (presumably Gentile) audience that the procedure was in keeping with “the custom of the Jews to bury,”* yet the enormous load of spices would have made it a formidable task, and certainly no ordinary burial.
41–42 None of what has just been described would have happened if Joseph had not already known of a burial place: “And there was in the place where he was crucified a garden,* and in the garden a new tomb* in which no one had yet been laid. So there, on account of the preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus” (vv. 41–42). Only Matthew supplies the information that Joseph actually owned the tomb (27:59),* but in all the Gospels it is immediately available, and in three of them “new,” as if waiting for the body of Jesus. The redundancy here (“a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid”) combines Matthew’s “new” with Luke’s “where no one had yet been laid” (see Mt 27:59; Lk 23:53). One cannot help but remember Mark and Luke’s colt at the triumphal entry, “on which no one has ever yet sat” (Mk 11:2//Lk 19:30). It appears that the tomb here, like the colt there, was meant for Jesus, and for him alone.
John’s Gospel is the sole source of the long-standing tradition that the site of the crucifixion and the site of the tomb of Jesus were almost side by side, and the sole canonical source of the tradition that the tomb stood within an enclosed “garden.” The “place where he was crucified” can only be “Skull Place,” or Golgotha (v. 17), suitable precisely because it was “nearby.” Haste was in order for the same reason the bones of the two victims were broken to hasten death (v. 31), “on account of the preparation of the Jews” (v. 42).* The “garden” is significant because it recalls that other “garden” (18:1) where “Jesus had often gathered” with his disciples (18:2), and where the account of his passion began. The two enclosed “gardens” frame the entire Johannine passion narrative, recalling the Shepherd’s enclosed “courtyard” (10:1, 16) and his care for the sheep. In the first, at his arrest, he protected them and kept them safe (18:8–9). In the second, in due course, he will meet one of them again, and call her by name (see 20:16). There Joseph and Nicodemus laid the body of Jesus. In contrast to the other three Gospels, nothing is said of the tomb being hewn from the rock or sealed with a stone.
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