Gospel of John

By Joyce Webb 2013

Chapter 19

Vs. 1-3 Pilate took Jesus and whipped him. The Romans used a whip that had 9 strips of leather tied to a handle. On these strips of leather were little pieces of metal or bone. So that when the whip hit the person, the little pieces of metal and bone would tear out of little bit of skin. After hitting a person with this whip many times the person’s back would be torn and bleeding.

Then the soldiers took thorns. Some kinds of bushes have long woody thorns on the branches. The soldiers took these branches and bended them into a circle with the thorns sticking out. They pushed this “crown” on Jesus. The thorns were long and sharp and they cut into his head. It made the skin on his head bleed.

The soldiers got a purple robe (the color king’s wear) and put it on Jesus.

The soldiers then bowed down and said, “Hail, Kings of the Jews!” They were making fun of him. Then they hit Jesus with their hands. Matthew 26:67,68 says that one would stand behind Jesus and he would hit him and then say. “Prophecy, or tell us, who hit you.” (They did this because the people had called Jesus a prophet.) (And maybe also, because Jesus said he was God.)

Vs. 4

Pilate went outside the building again and said to the Jewish leaders “I do not find any wrong or fault in this man.” “Let me bring him out to you.”

But the Jewish leaders said, “No, Crucify him.” Pilate said, “You take him and crucify him. I do not find any fault in him.”

Vs. 7 The Jewish leaders said, “By our Jewish laws, this man should die because he called himself God. He said he was the Son of God.”

Vs. 8 When Pilate heard that he was afraid. (Remember, the Roman people worshipped idols, gods of many kinds. So to hear that Jesus was a “god”, made Pilate nervous. He was not sure what to think.”

Matthew 27:19

So Pilate went back in the building to talk to Jesus. He asked Jesus. “Who are you? Where are you from?” Jesus did not answer him.

This made Pilate angry. He said, “You will not answer. I am the king I have the power to kill you.” Jesus said to Pilate, “You would not have any power at all unless it came from above (heaven–God) , but the men who brought me here to you are more guilty than you.”

 

This made Pilate even more nervous. He did not want to have anything to do with Jesus.

Pilate tried again to let Jesus go and to get the Jewish leaders to drop the charges against Jesus.

Matthew 27:19 tells us: that Pilate’s wife had a dream about Jesus and she warned her husband not to have anything to do with Jesus. So Pilate is worried and nervous.

But the Jewish leaders were not going to let Jesus go. They told Pilate if he let Jesus go that he was no friend of Caesar. Because any man who would call himself a “king” was a danger to Caesar. (Caesar was the high king in Rome. Pilate was like a governor “king” in Jerusalem. Pilate was under Caesar. Caesar was his “boss”.)

Jesus was no danger to Caesar because Jesus’ kingdom was not on earth. It was a heavenly kingdom—-a spiritual kingdom.

Pilate thought about what the Jews said. He did not want trouble with Caesar. He did not want the Jewish men to send reports to Caesar.

So Pilate gave in. He said to the Jewish men, “Look at your king!”. But the Jewish men said, “He is not our king. We have no king but Caesar.” (That must have hurt them to say that because the Jewish people did not like Caesar!)

Pilate then gave them permission to crucify Jesus. So that meant that Pilate let the Roman soldiers go with them to crucify Jesus. The Jews were not allowed to crucify people on their own. Only the Romans had the authority to crucify someone.

Vs. 17 So they took him to a place called Golgotha, meaning “the place of the skull”.

For many years, Bible teachers have said that this was a place where the face of the rocky mountain/hill looked like a face of a skull with holes in the side of the mountain that looked like a skull face.

Perry Stone, a preacher on TV, has studied a lot about Jewish history and he gave a talk about this one time on TV. He said that the old Jewish stories tell that this “Golgotha” and “place of a skull” was where Goliath’s head was buried after David killed him. Because David took Goliath’s head to Jerusalem to bury it there. I Samuel 17:54

And that this is the reason the place was called “Golgotha” after Goliath and the “place of the skull” because that is where his head is buried.

This sounds like a reasonable thing to me.

Vs. 18 Jesus was crucified between 2 other men. (The Romans crucified hundreds of men. It was common to see men being crucified.)

Vs. 19 Pilate had a sign made to put at the top of the cross. It said: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. It was written in 3 languages: Latin, Hebrew and Greek.

The Jewish leaders were upset when they saw the sign. They wanted Pilate to change it.

They wanted the sign to say: He said he was the king of the Jews.

But Pilate would not change it.

Why were the Jews upset by the sign? There were 4 Hebrew words in the sign:

Yashua Ha’Netzvarium V’melech HaYehudium If you take the first letter of each of these words YHVH you have the word/symbol for the holy name of God “I Am”.

Just like United Parcel Service=UPS YHVH was used by the Jews as the holy name of God “I AM”

So when the Jewish leaders saw how the Hebrew letters spelled out the Holy Name of God over Jesus saying; “I Am” over him they were upset.

It was like God playing a joke on them. Using a Roman king who did not believe in the God of heaven but wrote a sign to hang over Jesus and by accident it said who Jesus really was the “I Am” Holy God.

Vs. 23 They took Jesus’ clothing and shared it among the 4 soldiers. But Jesus’ outer robe or coat was special. It was woven all of one piece. They did not want to tear it. So they decided to throw dice for it to see who would win it. In the Old Testament In Psalms 22:18 there is a prophecy that says that men would throw “lots” to see who would get the robe.

Vs. 25 Jesus saw his mother standing there and the disciple whom he loved (that was John) and he said to his mother to think of John as her son and to John he said think of her as your mother.

We are not sure why Jesus did this, because Jesus had brothers who could have looked out for their mother. Jesus was the oldest so it was his responsibility to care for his mother. (So we can guess that his “father” Joseph has died.) Now that Jesus was going to die—-and later go to heaven. He wanted his mother taken care of. So, he chose John. John did what he asked and took Mary into his home.

Vs. 28 Jesus knew that all the things that had been prophesied about his death had happened. So now, a few more things would happen to fulfill prophecy. Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” They gave him “gall” or sour wine to drink. This was prophesied: Psalm 69: 21.

Then Jesus said, “It is finished!” He bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (Remember, Jesus said, “No man takes my life from me. I give it up and I will take it again.” John 10:18

When Jesus said, “It is finished!” He was saying what the High Priest said once a year when he came out of the Holy of Holies. When the sacrifice was complete and offered before God and was accepted. The High Priest came out and said to everyone: “It is finished!”

Vs. 31 It was time to start doing the preparing for the Passover. The Jews did not want the men to be hanging on the crosses during the Passover. They wanted them down off the crosses for their holy celebration time.

So they asked for the soldiers to break their legs to make them die faster. It takes a long time to die on a cross. If they broke their legs, the pain and suffering would make them die sooner.

When they came to Jesus, he was already dead. So they did not break his legs. That was a prophecy, too, that they would not break his legs. Psalm 34:20 This was also in keeping with the Passover lamb that they should not break its bones. Exodus 12:46 Jesus represented the Passover lamb—the Lamb of God.

The soldier decided to use his sword and cut into the side of Jesus’ body. This was prophecy, too: Psalms 22:16,17 and Zechariah 12:10

Vs. 38, 39 Joseph, of Arimathaea, and Nicodemus asked permission to take down Jesus body (since he was already dead) and they made a quick wrapping of his body and put Jesus in Joseph’s tomb. This is a prophecy, too, that he would be buried with the rich. Joseph was a rich man. Isaiah 53:9 They used 100 pounds of spices, but it seemed that more spices were often used, because the women came to the tomb later after the Passover to wrap the body and put spices on in in a proper way. Of course, by then, Jesus was no longer in the tomb.