Pilate (chap. 19) gives way to his usual inhumanity. In the account,
however, given in this Gospel, the Jews are prominent, as the real authors
(as far as man was concerned) of the Lord's death. Jealous for their
ceremonial purity, but indifferent to justice, they are not content to
judge Him according to their own law;
[see note #66]
they choose to have Him put to death by the Romans, for the whole counsel
of God must needs be accomplished.
It is on the repeated demands of the Jews that Pilate delivers Jesus into
their hands-thoroughly guilty in so doing, for he had openly avowed His
innocence, and had had his conscience decidedly touched and alarmed by the
evident proofs there were that he had some extraordinary person before him.
He will not shew that he is touched, but he is so (chap. 19: 8). The divine
glory that pierced through the humiliation of Christ acts upon him, and
gives force to the declaration of the Jews that Jesus had made Himself the
Son of God. Pilate had scourged Him and given Him up to the insults of the
soldiers; and here he would have stopped. Perhaps he hoped also that the
Jews would be satisfied with this, and he presents Jesus to them crowned
with thorns. Perhaps he hoped that their jealousy with regard to these
national insults would induce them to ask for His deliverance. But,
ruthlessly pursuing their malicious purpose, they cry out, "Crucify him,
crucify him!" Pilate objects to this for himself, while giving them liberty
to do it, saying that he finds no fault in Him. Upon this they plead their
Jewish law. They had a law of their own, say they, and by this law He ought
to die, because He made Himself the Son of God. Pilate, already struck and
exercised in mind, is the more alarmed; and, going back to the judgment
hall again, questions Jesus. He makes no reply. The pride of Pilate awakes,
and he asks if Jesus does not know that he has power to condemn or to
release Him. The Lord maintains, in replying, the full dignity of His
Person. Pilate had no power over Him, were it not the will of God-to this
He submitted. It heightened the sin of those who had delivered Him up, to
suppose that man could do anything against Him, were it not that the will
of God was thus to be accomplished. The knowledge of His Person formed the
measure of the sin committed against Him. The not perceiving it caused
everything to be falsely judged, and, in the case of Judas, shewed the most
absolute moral blindness. He knew His Master's power. What was the meaning
of delivering Him up to man, if it were not that His hour was come? But,
this being the case, what was the betrayer's position?
But Jesus always speaks according to the glory of His Person, and as being
thereby entirely above the circumstances through which He was passing in
grace, and in obedience to His Father's will. Pilate is thoroughly
disturbed by the Lord's reply, yet his feeling is not strong enough to
counteract the motive with which the Jews press him, but it has sufficient
power to make him throw back upon the Jews all that there was of will in
His condemnation, and to make them fully guilty of the Lord's rejection.
Pilate sought to withdraw Him from their fury. At last, fearing to be
accused of infidelity to Caesar, he turns with contempt to the Jews,
saying, "Behold your King"; acting-although unconsciously-under the hand of
God, to bring out that memorable word from their lips, their condemnation,
and their calamity even to this day, "We have no king but Caesar." They
denied their Messiah. The fatal word, which called down the judgment of
God, was now pronounced; and Pilate delivers up Jesus to them.
Jesus, humbled and bearing His cross, takes His place with the
transgressors. Nevertheless He who would that all should be fulfilled
ordained that a testimony should be rendered to His dignity; and Pilate
(perhaps to vex the Jews, certainly to accomplish the purposes of God)
affixes to the cross as the Lord's title, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
the Jews": the twofold truth-the despised Nazarene is the true Messiah.
Here, then, as throughout this Gospel, the Jews take their place as cast
off by God.
At the same time the apostle shews-here, as elsewhere-that Jesus was the
true Messiah, by quoting the prophecies which speak of that which happened
to Him in general, with regard to His rejection and His sufferings, so that
He is proved to be the Messiah by the very circumstances in which He was
rejected of the people.
After the history of His crucifixion, as the act of man, we have that which
characterises it in respect to what Jesus was upon the cross. The blood and
water flow from His pierced side.
The devotedness of the women who followed Him, less important perhaps on
the side of action, shines out in its own way nevertheless in that
perseverance of love which brought them nigh to the cross. The more
responsible position of the apostles as men scarcely allowed it to them,
circumstanced as they were; but this takes nothing from the privilege which
grace attaches to woman when faithful to Jesus. But it was the occasion for
Christ to give us fresh instruction, by shewing Himself such as He was, and
by setting His work before us, above all mere circumstances, as the effect
and the expression of a spiritual energy which consecrated Him, as man,
entirely to God, offering Himself also to God by the eternal Spirit. His
work was done. He had offered Himself up. He returns, so to speak, into His
personal relationships. Nature, in His human feelings, is seen in its
perfection; and, at the same time, His divine superiority, personally, to
the circumstances through which He passed in grace as the obedient man. The
expression of His filial feelings shews, that the consecration to God,
which removed Him from all those affections that are alike the necessity
and the duty of the man according to nature, was not the want of human
feeling, but the power of the Spirit of God. Seeing the women, He speaks to
them no longer as Teacher and Saviour, the resurrection and the life; it is
Jesus, a man, individually, in His human relationship.
"Woman," He says, "behold thy son!"-committing His mother to the care of
John, the disciple whom Jesus loved-and to the disciple, "Behold thy
mother!" and thenceforth that disciple took her to his own home. Sweet and
precious commission! A confidence which spoke that which he who was thus
loved could alone appreciate, as being its immediate object. This shews us
also that His love for John had a character of human affection and
attachment, according to God, but not essentially divine, although full of
divine grace-a grace which gave it all its value, but which clothed itself
with the reality of the human heart. It was this, evidently, which bound
Peter and John together. Jesus was their only and common object. Of very
different characters-and so much the more united on that account-they
thought but of one thing. Absolute consecration to Jesus is the strongest
bond between human hearts. It strips them of self, and they have but one
soul in thought, intent, and settled purpose, because they have only one
object. But in Jesus this was perfect, and it was grace. It is not said,
"the disciple who loved Jesus"; that would have been quite out of season.
It would have been to take Jesus entirely out of His place, and His
dignity, His personal glory, and to destroy the value of His love to John.
Nevertheless John loved Christ, and consequently appreciated thus his
Master's love; and, his heart attached to Him by grace, he devoted himself
to the execution of this sweet commission, which he takes pleasure in
relating here. It is indeed love that tells it, although it does not speak
of itself.
I believe that we again see this feeling (used by the Spirit of God, not
evidently as the foundation, but to give its colour to the expression of
that which he had seen and known) in the beginning of John's first epistle.
We also see here that this Gospel does not shew us Christ under the weight
of His sufferings, but acting in accordance with the glory of His Person as
above all things, and fulfilling all things in grace. In perfect calmness
He provides for His mother; having done this, He knows that all is
finished. He has, according to human language, entire self-possession.
There is yet one prophecy to be fulfilled. He says, "I thirst," and, as God
had foretold, they give Him vinegar. He knows that now there is not one
detail left of all that was to be accomplished. He bows His head, and
Himself gives
[see note #67] up His spirit.
Thus, when the whole divine work is accomplished the divine man giving up
His spirit, that spirit leaves the body which had been its organ and its
vessel. The time was come for so doing; and by doing it, He secured the
accomplishment of another divine word-"Not one of his bones shall be
broken." But everything bore its part in the fulfilment of those words, and
the purposes of Him who had pronounced them beforehand.
A soldier pierces His side with a spear. It is from a dead Saviour that
flow forth the tokens of an eternal and perfect salvation-the water and the
blood; the one to cleanse the sinner, the other to expiate his sins. The
evangelist saw it. His love for the Lord makes him like to remember that he
saw Him thus unto the end; he tells it in order that we may believe. But if
we see in the beloved disciples the vessel that the Holy Ghost uses (and
very sweet it is to see it, and according to the will of God), we see
plainly who it is that uses it. How many things John witnessed which he did
not relate! The cry of grief and of abandonment-the earthquake-the
centurion's confession-the history of the thief: all these things took
place before his eyes, which were fixed upon his Master; yet he does not
mention them. He speaks of that which his Beloved was in the midst of all
this. The Holy Ghost causes him to relate that which belonged to the
personal glory of Jesus. His affections made him find it a sweet and easy
task. The Holy Ghost attached him to it, employing him in that which he was
well suited to perform. Through grace the instrument lent itself readily to
the work for which the Holy Ghost set it apart. His memory and his heart
were under the dominant and exclusive influence of the Spirit of God. That
Spirit employed them in His work. One sympathises with the instrument; one
believes in that which the Holy Ghost relates by his means, for the words
are those of the Holy Ghost.
Nothing can be more touching, more deeply interesting, than divine grace
thus expressing itself in human tenderness and taking its form. While
possessing the entire reality of human affection, it had all the power and
depth of divine grace. It was divine grace that Jesus should have such
affections. On the other hand, nothing could be farther from the
appreciation of this sovereign source of divine love, flowing through the
perfect channel which it made for itself by its own power, than the
pretension to express our love as reciprocal; it would be, on the contrary,
to fail entirely in that appreciation. True saints among the Moravians have
called Jesus "brother," and others have borrowed their hymns or the
expression; the word never says so. "He is not ashamed to call us
brethren," but it is quite another thing for us to call Him so. The
personal dignity of Christ is never lost in the intensity and tenderness of
His love.
But the rejected Saviour was to be with the rich and the honourable in His
death, however despised He may previously have been; and two, who dared not
confess Him while He lived, awakened now by the greatness of the sin of
their nation, and by the event itself of His death-which the grace of God,
who had reserved them for this work, made them feel-occupy themselves with
the attentions due to His dead body. Joseph, himself a counsellor, comes to
ask Pilate for the body of Jesus, Nicodemus joining with him to render the
last honours to Him whom they had never followed during His life. We can
understand this. To follow Jesus constantly under reproach, and compromise
oneself for ever on His account, is a very different thing from acting when
some great occasion happens in which there is no longer room for the
former, and when the extent of the evil compels us to separate from it; and
when the good, rejected because it is perfect in testimony, and perfected
in its rejection, forced us to take a part, if through grace any moral
sense exists in us. God thus fulfilled His words of truth. Joseph and
Nicodemus place the Lord's body in a new sepulchre in a garden near the
cross; for, on account of it being the Jews' preparation, they could do no
more at that moment.