Or, An Unchangeable, Applicable Title
Scripture: John 19:16b-18
Date: June 8, 2014
Speaker: Sean Higgins
No symbol represents Christianity more than the cross. We live a long way from the first-century Roman Empire, so far away that it does not sicken us to see the cross as jewelry. It isn’t wrong to identify ourselves by the cross, though we probably wouldn’t have worn them if we’d seen them used. It isn’t wrong to identify ourselves by the cross, but it is wrong if we do not take it seriously. Crucifixion was cruel, tortuous, bloody, humiliating, and only used on the despised. No wonder that Paul said preaching the cross is folly, an offense to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:18, 23).
Yet there is no Christianity without the cross. There is no gospel, no forgiveness, no justification, no salvation apart from the crucifixion of Jesus. The cross shatters our hopes for a polite, easy, manageable story while also showering us with hope and peace and joy as good news.
There are many chapters in the story of redemption that are easier to read. Unbelievers struggle with the cross because it either infuriates them or convicts them. Believers struggle with the cross because, even though we know what happens next, it pains us to remember His pains.
How then should we preach? We must not only retell the facts, we must bear the weight. We must read the sentences with an eye to the Author, the plot, the distress, the climax, and the end. We must hold the history in our minds like it could change everything, because it has and it is and it will. The good in the gospel and the glory of our King cannot be seen without the cross. The heaviness of gold doesn’t diminish the value or our joy in holding it. So also the heaviness of the cross.
Jesus has been judged by the Jews and found guilty without reason. Jesus has been judged by Pilate, who represented the Roman government, and found innocent without release. Though He had been flogged, mocked, and presented as a pathetic figure to the chief priests, they desire His death with greater determination. So Pilate bends before their threats and delivers Jesus to be crucified.
John 19:16b-27 records the crucifixion of the king. I had thought I would be able to cover the three divisions of this passage but, instead, decided to spend all our time on the first section this morning. We’ll come back to consider the title Pilate gave to Jesus, the soldiers who took Jesus’ clothes, and the women who were at the cross next Lord’s day.
With surprising brevity, John records the single most glorious event in history.
So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. (John 19:16b–18, ESV)
They took Jesus means that the Jews took Jesus; the Jews are the last group named before both plural pronouns in verse 16 ( them and they). But the Jews worked through the hands of the soldiers, just as they used the power of Pilate. The soldiers..crucified Jesus (verse 23) at Pilate’s direction and the Jews’ demand.
Adding to the list of their hypocritical law-following, it was not permitted to execute anyone “within the camp” or, at this point since they were no longer living in tents, within the city. The soldiers took Jesus and he went out, even though it was near the city (verse 20). Being put out, like hanging on a tree, was symbolic. To bring a man outside the camp meant rejection by the nation (Numbers 15:35-36). It represented distancing by physical distance, keeping others from contamination. Jesus bore the reproach as He bore the cross.
He went out from Pilate’s headquarters bearing his own cross or “carrying the cross by himself.” He had been up all night. He had been flogged (19:1), crowned with thorns (verse 2), and struck in the face by a line of soldiers (verse 3). More than likely He had been beaten for a second time and now required to carry His own cross as was typical for those condemned to crucifixion.
A few historians argue that Jesus carried only the cross beam, the horizontal plank that would be attached to the vertical post already driven in the ground. But the world itself is σταυρὸν (stauron), a word that means “cross,” related to the verb σταυρόω (stauroō), “I crucify.” There’s insufficient evidence to say that this wasn’t the entire cross, two beams attached perpendicularly in the shape of a tau, the Greek letter “t.”
John doesn’t mention Simon the Cyrene. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record that Jesus could not bear the cross the entire way and that Simon was compelled to carry it for Jesus (Matthew 27:32, Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). The Romans were not showing pity on Jesus. It would be anticlimactic for a man to die on the way to his death (Borchert). Crucifixion itself was a punishment meant to take time. It was worth preserving a little life in Jesus in order to take it from Him the way they wanted.
Maybe John doesn’t mention Simon because the other writers did, or maybe because he wanted to stress the readiness of Jesus to go to His death. Regardless, it didn’t advance John’s burden to include it here.
Jesus went to the place called the Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. The Greek name is Κρανίου (craniou), from which we derive “cranium” in English. The Latin word for skull is calvoriae which is why we also call it Calvary. So skull, calvary, Golgotha, they all mean the same thing in different languages. The specific location is not agreed upon today, though in the first century it had the name due to the shape of the hill.
Three Greek words (four in English) condense eternal love and sacrifice and glory. There they crucified him. John’s readers knew what crucifixion included, just as we know enough about capital punishment by electric chair or lethal injection. We would have more to explain to someone unfamiliar with electric shock or hypodermic needles, and so we who are removed from crucifixion need a bit more explanation.
The Romans did not invent death by crucifixion; the Persians and Greeks used it before them. But the Romans did make the best use of its horror. It was so horrible that a Roman citizen could not be executed by this method apart from Caesar’s personal approval. It was reserved for despised peoples and, even then, on slaves, bandits, and revolutionaries. “Josephus terms it ‘the most pitiable of deaths’ [and] Cicero calls it ‘that cruel and disgusting penalty’” (Köstenberger, 543).
Once at the site, the convicted man would lay down on top of and across the cross. Large nails, or spikes, would be driven through the wrists or the upper palms of the hands. The feet would be nailed also, but probably nailed on the sides of the pole and not overlapping with one nail as almost all popular art shows (Borchert). After His resurrection Jesus told His disciples to look at His hands and feet (Luke 24:39). Also unlike many pictures, Jesus’ feet were probably only a few feet off the ground; it was not a tall cross.
Crucifixion killed by slow asphyxiation, heart failure and brain damage caused by lack of air. The only way that a man could breath would be by pulling himself up with his arms and pushing with his legs to expand his lungs for air. The muscles would spasm and burn from lack of oxygen. In order to make death come more quickly, the victim’s legs would be broken so that he could not push up to breath. Jesus was already dead, a surprise to the soldiers, when they came to break His legs (John 19:32-33).
Death by crucifixion could take up to four days, though in this instance it needed to be finished by sundown for sake of the Sabbath.
As we’ll see in the following verses, Jesus was stripped of His clothes and the soldiers divided them; John makes no mention of the soldiers leaving Jesus with even a loin cloth. The cross was outside the city but in a high traffic path for many to see. This method of public execution discouraged others, so the Romans wanted as much visibility as possible.
One more thing in verse 18: and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. It probably wasn’t a premeditated emphasis to place Jesus in the center. The emphasis was that Jesus was “numbered with the transgressors” as the suffering servant whom Isaiah prophesied about in Isaiah 53. Jesus was treated as a criminal and, as inappropriate as it was from the perspective of human justice, it was absolutely necessary for human justification. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV). Were He not numbered with transgressors than every transgressor would stand for his or her own self. Jesus suffered the punishment of the guilty for the guilty.
The other two men were guilty, and, as Luke tells us (23:40-43), one repented before he dies and Jesus promised him eternal life. John leaves out that part of the story in his account.
Next Lord’s day, Lord willing, we will finish the parts that belong with His crucifixion before we look at His death and burial. In particular we’ll consider more about the “Unchangeable, Applicable Title” that Pilate pronounced.
Earlier I said that the cross is the single most glorious event in history. Nothing else reveals God like the cross.
The crucifixion of Christ is heavy, and it is His glory and for our good.