Then follows the notice of Peter’s sad history with that other disciple which was known to the high priest. Next, our Lord is before the high priest, Caiaphas, as previously before his father-in-law Annas, and, finally, before Pilate. Suffice it to say, that the one point which meets us here, as distinct from the other Gospels, is His person. Not that He was not King of the Jews, but His kingdom is not of this world, not from hence, and He Himself is born and come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Here it is the Jews insist He ought by their law to die, because He made Himself the Son of God. (Chapter 19) Here, too, He answers Pilate, after scourging and mockery, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin” (vs. 11). It was the Jews, led on by Judas, that had this greater sin. The Jew ought to have known better than Pilate, and Judas better than the Jew. The glory of the Son was too bright for their eyes. Afterward there is another characteristic scene, the blending of the most perfect human affection with His divine glory—He confides His mother to the disciple whom He loved (vss. 25-27).
The Gospel which most of all shows Him to be God is careful to prove Him man. The word was made flesh.
“After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.” I know not a more sweet and wonderful proof of how completely He was divinely superior to all circumstances. He had before Him with perfect distinctness all the truth of God. Here was a scripture which He remembers as unaccomplished. It was a word in Psalm 69:2121They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Psalm 69:21). It was enough. “I thirst.” What absorption in His Father’s will! “Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished” (vss. 29-30.) Where could such a word as this be but in John? Who could say, “It is finished,” except Jesus in John? Matthew 27:4646And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) and Mark 15:3434And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Mark 15:34) both give our Lord saying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This could not be in John. Luke gives us, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” because there the perfect man never abandons His perfect reliance on God. God must, in the judgment of our sins, forsake Him, but He would never forsake God. The atonement would not have been what it is unless God had thus forsaken Him. But in Luke it is the sign of absolute trust in His Father, and not God’s abandonment. In John He says, “It is finished,” because He is the Son, by whom all worlds were made. Who but He could say it? Who but John could mention that He delivered up (παρέδωκε) His spirit? In every point of difference the fullest possible proof of divine glory and wisdom appears in these Gospels. Put to death no doubt He was, but at the same time it was His own voluntary will; and who could have this about death itself but a divine person? In a mere man it would be sin; in Him it was perfection. Then come the soldiers, breaking the legs of the others crucified with Him; but finding Jesus dead already, one pierces His side, “and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record.”
Thus a double scripture is fulfilled. The apostle John does not quote many scriptures; but when he does, the person of the Son is the great point. Accordingly this was the case now; for not a bone was—to be broken. It was true. Nevertheless, He was to be pierced. He was singled out from the others, even while dead between the dying thieves. He has a place even here that belonged to Him alone.
Joseph charges himself with the body too; and Nicodemus, who came first by night is here by day, honored by association with Jesus crucified, of whom he had been ashamed once, spite of the miracles He was doing.