Notes on John 19:1-15

Narrator: Chris Genthree
John 19:1‑15  •  15 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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Hard-heartedness and insult took their course, for His hour was come. Pilate took and scourged Jesus the. Lord of glory; the soldiers treated their meek prisoner with the unfeeling scorn, natural in such towards One who resisted not; yet we must look to the Jews for extreme and unrelenting hatred.
“Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged [him]. And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns and put [it] on his head, and clothed him with a purple garment, and were coming to him and saying, Hail, King of the Jews! and gave him slaps on the face. And Pilate went out again and saith to them, See! I bring him out to you, that ye may know that I find no fault [in him]. Jesus therefore came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment, and he saith to them, Behold the man!” ( Vers. 1-8.)
The Roman saw through the baseness of the people, through the craft and deadly malice of the religions chiefs; and he seems to have resorted to the unjust policy of scourging the Lord, followed up by the allowed, if not prescribed, derision of the soldiers, as a means of satisfying the Jews and letting Jesus go. Contrary to truth and righteousness he would humor their feelings against Jesus, but he would save an innocent man if possible without loss to himself. Such is man in authority here below-at least where Christ is concerned, or even those that are Christ's. It was the place of judgment, but wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, but iniquity was there. There was not one spark of conscience in the judge, any more than in the accusers, or the crowd now quite carried away. There was man deceived by Satan; and God was in none of their thoughts. Pilate probably hoped that the uncomplaining endurance of such cruel mockery and scourging in their sight might perchance move the multitude and its leaders to compassion, whilst the exposed futility of the royal claims of Jesus would naturally awaken their contempt, and so in both ways further his own desire to dismiss the captive in whom he avowedly saw no guilt whatever. But, no! all must come out in their true colors, priests and people, learned and unlearned, civilians and soldiers, judge and prisoner. It was their hour and the power of darkness. But if man and Satan were there, so was God, morally judging them all by the One they misjudged.
Still in that blind and hardened throng the Roman, unjust as he was, shines in comparison with the Jews of all ranks; and as the difficulty grew of delivering the Guiltless from their will set on destruction, we see a man in spite of himself growingly impressed with the unaccountable dignity of Him who appeared to be at his mercy. Elsewhere indeed we read of his wife's dream sent to warn him on the judgment-seat; but here it is His person, His silence and His words alike, which increased the desire to extricate Him, from unscrupulous and murderous adversaries, always despised in Pilate's eyes, never so despicable as now.
Pilate's effort however was vain. “Behold the man!” had for its effect neither the pity nor the contempt intended to divert the crowd from their fell purpose, but rather to whet their rage afresh in clamoring for the Lord's death. In the ways of God He will not allow iniquity to prosper, least of all where Christ is in question. The unjust judge might abuse and insult the Lord, hoping to gratify the Jews thus far and turn them from an aim from which even his stern and callous mind revolted as useless crime; but God, who abhorred the horrible iniquity of them all, lets Satan ensnare them all in the consequences of their utter unbelief, and their habitually evil state-deaf to every warning and blind to the fullest testimony of moral goodness and divine glory, and perfect grace in the holy Sufferer before them. As the judge acknowledged His innocence, yet would risk nothing on His behalf, so all commit and condemn themselves to their own ruin, stumbling over that precious Cornerstone and sure foundation as a stone disallowed by the builders.
“When then the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried, Crucify, crucify. Pilate saith to them, Take ye him, and crucify; for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered, We have a law, and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard this word, he was the more afraid, and entered into the pretorium again, and saith to Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate saith to him, Speakest thou not to me? Knowest thou not that I have authority to release thee, and I have authority to crucify thee? Jesus answered, Thou hadst no authority at all against me except it were given thee from above: on this account he that delivered me up to thee hath greater sin.” (Vers. 6-12.)
The charge failing against the Lord as hostile to the powers of the world, His accusers now betake them selves to the still more solemn cry, He ought to die because He made Himself Son of God. And Pilate was the more afraid, but not more ready to fall in with their design, though he were a heathen and they the blasphemers of the Hope of Israel, the Holy One of God! Yes, He is going to die, but not for the lies some swore falsely against Him, but for the truth of God, the capital troth for man, the object of faith and one source of eternal life. He emptied Himself, and humbled Himself; but Son of God He was and is from all eternity to all eternity. Not more sure is it that matt is a sinner dead to God, than that Jesus is His Son, and eternal life is in Him only, but for every soul that believes in Him. He that believeth hath everlasting life; nor is there salvation in any other, nor is there another name under heaven which is given among men whereby we must be saved. But those who ought most to have welcomed Him, and most to have set forth His glory, were those who feared not to say, According to our law He ought to die, because He made Himself Son of God! O how real, how darkening the power of Satan, when Jews blasphemed Him boldly, and the heathen procurator “was afraid” before Him!
Fear however is not faith; and in Pilate it was not more than undefined, dread of the mysterious Man then on His trial, and a strong sense that the enmity to Him was without a cause. So entering his palace again he inquires, Whence art Thou? and, mortified at receiving no answer, he vaunts his authority to release or to crucify Him. The Lord did not answer the one query which had no better motive than curiosity apart from the fear of God or His love-but He replied to the second in terms worthy of His person, in fullness of grace and truth. Truly the hour was come that the Son of man should be glorified, and God be glorified in Him. What was the authority of a Roman governor without the will of God to sanction it? His ways, His nature must be made good; the words were now, for the deepest of purposes, just about to be accomplished to His own glory forever; and Jesus bowed absolutely to all.
Nevertheless, the accomplishing of divine counsels in Christ does not consecrate the will of man that cast Him out and slew Him; and God is righteous in judging of the evil. “On this account he that delivered me to thee hath greater sin.” The Gentile was wicked, the Jew worse: if Pontius Pilate were inexcusably unrighteous, how much more awful the position of Caiaphas or Judas Iscariot and of all they represented that day! If God sent His Son in infinite grace, He did not fail to present adequate proofs of who and what He is, to leave all inexcusable for not perceiving and receiving Him, not only those who had God's outward authority in this world, but yet more those who had His living oracles that testified of His Son, and of Himself their center and object, with such works and words and ways as never had been known on earth, proportionately measuring the guilt of those who after such grace rejected One so glorious.
“From this time Pilate sought to release him; but the Jews kept crying, saying, If thou wilt release this [man], thou art not a friend of Caesar: every one that maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. Pilate then, having heard these words, led Jesus out and sat down on [the] judgment seat at a place called Pavement,1 but in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was [the] preparation2 of the passover it was about sixth3 hour. And he saith to the Jews, See! your King. They cried therefore, Away with [him], away with [him]; crucify him, Pilate saith to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.” (Vers. 12-15.)
How powerless is the struggle to do right, where the world is loved and one's sins unjudged, and grace unknown! The Jews saw through Pilate as he through them. How wretched not to have Christ for eternal life! Pilate preferred the friendship of the world to the Son of God, as the Jews saw no beauty in Him that they should admire Him; and both played their part in crucifying Him. Pilate may seek to release Jesus, may go in and out, may speak to Jesus and pour scorn on the Jews. But the last word of apostate unbelief passes their lips and closes Pilate's mouth, who will not be behind the Jews in allegiance to Caesar. All is over now. The prince of the world comes, and though he has nothing in Christ, Christ dies rejected of man, forsaken of God, the Righteous One for our sins; never such hatred and unrighteousness as on the world's part toward Him; never such love and righteousness as on God's part toward the world in Him.
 
1. In later Greek τὸ λιθόστρωτον was used for tessellated work or mosaic used for the floors of buildings public or domestic, and very particularly for the tribunal of a Roman in the execution of his office. So Julius Caesar on his military expeditions regularly carried such a mosaic with him, as Suetonius tells us—(cap. 46). The Chaldee word àÈúàÌáÇÌâ seems to be from a Hebrew root, äÇÌáÈÌâ “to be high": cf. Geba, Gibeah, Gibson, &c. The one apparently refers to, the flooring, the other to the elevated platform, unless
Lightfoot's idea be well founded who derives G. from áÇÌâ “a surface,” and hence regarding Greek and Hebrew words as equivalent.
2. No matter of fact in the Gospel has been debated more keenly or with wider difference; among men of piety and learning than this of παρασκευὴ in connection with chapter 18:28, which doubtless dispose a modern or Gentile reader at first sight to conceive that the Lord must have observed the passover and instituted His own supper on the day before the time followed by the Jews. On the other hand, it is no less plain that according to the three synoptic Gospels the Lord partook of the passover with the disciples at the regular season, 14th Nisan. Hence there have not been wanting those who have dared to reject the narrative of John, whilst a still greater number have fallen into the opposite error and treated the earlier evangelists as confounding the meal with the passover. Not a few, like the late Dean of Canterbury, give up the question in despair, as to us insoluble. The truth is, that all these contending parties start with the error of forgetting the obvious and certain fact that the Jews reckon the day from evening to evening, and that hence it is all a mistake to suppose that the Lord took the passover with the disciples on one day and suffered the next. So it would be to our western habit of thought, but not so according to the Jews nurtured in the law. It was on our Thursday they ate, and on our Friday He suffered; but to the Jews it was one and the same day. Hence there was still time for such Jews as had been too much occupied with the mock trial and condemnation of our Lord to eat the passover if they did not legally defile themselves meanwhile. The preparation of the passover does not mean the 13th but the 14th Nisan. It was the day before the paschal sabbath, which was on this occasion a double one, and do of peculiar sanctity. Hence Matthew speaking of this sabbath says, ἥτις ἐστὶν μετὰ τὴν παρασκευήν, as Mark explains παρασκευὴ ὅ ‘δστιν προσάββατοω, or sabbath eve. This seems conclusive in reconciling the statements of the fourth Gospel with those of the other three. The painful fact is the unbelief that exposed so many persons eminent for erudition and even for godliness to such hasty and careless discussion of scripture. Had they held firmly the inspired character of the holy writings, they would at least have avoided error and irreverence if they could not clear up the difficulty.
3. It is well known that not Nonnus only in his poetical paraphrase of our Gospel gives “third” hour, but also five uncials and four cursives, either in the original text or in a correction, not to speak of less direct authorities. Still the weight of witnesses is overwhelming for Fawn, “sixth.” It would seem that our evangelist may have adopted a different reckoning of hours, from midnight to noon, as we do. Certainly the Romans did for their civil day: see Plin. N. Hint. ii. 77; Censorinns de Nat. Die xxiii.; Aul. Gell. N. Att. M. 2; and Macrob. Sat. i. 8. And it suits all the mentions of hours in the Gospel of John excellently, besides falling in with Mark's, 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours of the natural day. But I do not venture to speak positively.
It is singular as showing the perplexity in minds of old as now that Jerome says in his breviary on Psa. 77: “Sic scriptum eat in Matthaeo et loanne good Dominus floater hora sexta crudHaus sit. Rureus scriptum eat in Marco: quid hora tertia cruelfixus sit. Error acriptorum fuit; sed multi episemum Graecum putaverunt esse γ: about et ibi error fuit acriptorum: ut pro Asaph, balm scriberent.” (Hier. Opp. vii. 1046, ed. Migne.) Jerome's remedy was thus to correct the text, not of John but of Mark; a correction of but one known cursive manuscript of the eleventh century, the margin of the later Syriac, and the Aeth. on which last says Bede (Pseudocrit. Millio-Beng. 26k), “Habet minim Aeth. sexta hora, idque ex Io. 19, 14. Nimirum Interpres Ioanni contradicere noluit.” But it is the just retribution of these tamperings with scripture that they do not satisfy the desired aim; for John connects his sixth hour with what was before, possibly hours before, the hours specified by Mark, be it sixth or third. Thus the violence done to the surest authority in Mark would no more reconcile the statements than the similar violence offered to the witnesses of John 19:14; for Mark specifies the time when our Lord was crucified as the third hour, John speaks of the time when Pilate took his seat on the tribunal to give sentence as about the sixth hour. To change the latter to the third, or the former to the sixth, if admissible in the face of the gravest adverse evidence, would not clear the truth but only give birth to fresh confusion. The true state of the readings also thoroughly overthrows the efforts of some eminent Greeks and Latins, who try to explain the earlier hour as applicable to the Jewish outcry for the crucifixion, the later hour as the actual moment when the soldiers carried it into effect. But this is only neglect of scripture; for John predicates “about the sixth hour” of the outcry, Mark “the third hour” of the actual crucifixion. As there is no sufficient reason to doubt the accuracy of the seemingly conflicting texts of the second and fourth Gospels (in itself no mean evidence that the apparent discrepancy exhibits the genuine readings of both), and as the very slight variation of readings is easily accounted for by the desire thus to reduce them to harmony, the natural solution is that John's reckoning of time differs from that of the other evangelists. It will be found by comparing the various hours named in John 1:39; 4:6, 52, that the hours of the civil day suit as well after all as those of the natural (the last occasion apparently better), so as to confirm the different computation of John throughout. John 11:9 in no way opposes this, as being a general way of describing a working day, whatever the mode of computation; as for instance we can say so, who follow the style of the civil day.