John XIX. 17-22.
1. On Pilate's judgment and condemnation before the tribunal, they took
the Lord Jesus Christ, about the sixth hour, and led Him away. "And He,
bearing His cross, went forth into the place that is called Calvary, but
in Hebrew, Golgotha; where they crucified Him." What else, then, is the
meaning of the evangelist Mark saying, "And it was the third hour, and
they crucified Him," but this, that the Lord was crucified at the third
hour by the tongues of the Jews, at the sixth hour by the hands of the
soldiers? That we may understand that the fifth hour was now completed,
and there was some beginning made of the sixth, when Pilate took his seat
before the tribunal, which is expressed by John as "about the sixth hour;"
and when He was led forth, and nailed to the tree with the two robbers,
and the events recorded were enacted beside His cross, the completion of
the sixth hour was fully reached, being the hour from which, on to the
ninth, the sun was obscured, and the darkness took place, we have it jointly
attested on the authority of the three evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and
Luke. But as the Jews attempted to transfer the crime of slaying Christ
from themselves to the Romans, that is to say, to Pilate and his soldiers,
therefore Mark suppresses the hourat which Christ was crucified by the
soldiers,and which then began to enter upon the sixth, and remembers rather
to give an express place to the third hour, at which they are understood
to have cried out before Pilate, "Crucify, crucify him" (verse 6), that
it not only may be seen that the former crucified Jesus, namely, the soldiers
who hung Him on the tree at the sixth hour, but the Jews also, who at the
third hour cried out to have Him crucified.
2. There is also another solution of this question, that we should not
here understand the sixth hour of the day, because John says not, And it
was about the sixth hour of the day, or about the sixth hour, but says,
"And it was the parasceve of the passover, about the sixth hour" (ver.
14). And parasceve is in Latin praeparatio (preparation); but the Jews
are fonder of using the Greek words in observances of this sort, even those
of them who speak Latin rather than Greek. It was therefore the preparation
of the passover. But "our passover, Christ," as the apostle says, "has
been sacrificed;" and if we reckon the preparation of this passover from
the ninth hour of the night (for then the chief priests seem to have given
their verdict for the sacrifice of the Lord, when they said, "He is guilty
of death," and when the hearing of His case was still proceeding in the
high priest's house: whence there is a kind of harmony in understanding
that therewith began the preparation of the true passover, whose shadow
was the passover of the Jews, that is, of the sacrificing of Christ, when
the priests gave their sentence that He was to be sacrificed), certainly
from that hour of the night, which is conjectured to have been then the
ninth, on to the third hour of the day, when the evangelist Mark testifies
that Christ was crucified, there are six hours, three of the night, and
three of the day. Hence in the case of this parasceve of the passover,
that is, the preparation of the sacrifice of Christ, which began with the
ninth hour of the night, it was about the sixth hour; that is to say, the
fifth hour was completed, and the sixth had already begun to run, when
Pilate ascended the tribunal: for that same preparation, which had begun
with the ninth hour of the night, still continued till the sacrifice of
Christ, which was the event in course of preparation, was completed, which
took place at the third hour, according to Mark, not of the preparation,
but of the day; while it was also the sixth hour, not of the day, but of
the preparation, by reckoning, of course, six hours from the ninth hour
of the night to the third of the day. Of these two solutions of this difficult
question let each choose the one that pleases him. But one will judge better
what to choose who reads the very elaborate discussions on "The Harmony
of the Evangelists." And if other solutions of it can also be found, the
stability of gospel truth will have a more cumulative defense against the
calumnies of unbelieving and profane vanity. And now, after these brief
discussions, let us return to the narrative of the evangelist John.
3. "And they took Jesus," he says, "and led Him away; and He, bearing
His cross, went forth unto the place that is called Calvary, in the Hebrew,
Golgotha; where they crucified Him." Jesus, therefore, went to the place
where He was to be crucified, bearing His cross. A grand spectacle! but
if it be impiety that is the onlooker, a grand laughing-stock; if piety,
a grand mystery: if impiety be the onlooker, a grand demonstration of ignominy;
if piety, a grand bulwark of faith: if it is impiety that looketh on, it
laughs at the King bearing, in place of His kingly rod, the tree of His
punishment; if it is piety, it sees the King bearing the tree for His own
crucifixion, which He was yet to affix even on the foreheads of kings,
exposed to the contemptuous glances of the impious in connection with that
wherein the hearts of saints were thereafter to glory. For to Paul, who
was yet to say, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ," He was commending that same cross of His by
carrying it on His own shoulders, and bearing the candelabrum of that light
that was yet to burn, and not to be placed under a bushel. "Bearing," therefore,
"His cross, He went forth into the place that is called Calvary, in the
Hebrew, Golgotha; where they crucified Him, and two others with. Him on
either side one, and Jesus in the midst." These two, as we have learned
in the narrative of the other evangelists, were thieves with whom He was
crucified, and between whom He was fixed, whereof the prophecy sent before
had declared, "And He was numbered among the transgressors."
4. "And Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross, and the
writing was, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. This title then read
many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the
city: and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, The King of the Jews."
For these three languages were conspicuous in that place beyond all others:
the Hebrew on account of the Jews, who gloried in the law of God; the Greek,
because of the wise men among the Gentiles; and the Latin, on account of
the Romans, who at that very time were exercising sovereign power over
many and almost all countries.
5. "Then said the chief priests of the Jews unto Pilate Write not, The
King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered,
What I have written I have written." Oh the ineffable power of the working
of God, even in the hearts of the ignorant! Was there not some hidden voice
that sounded through Pilate's inner man with a kind, if one may so say,
of loud-toned silence, the words that had been prophesied so long before
in the very letter of the Psalms, "Corrupt not the inscription of the title"?
Here, then, you see, he corrupted it not; what he has written he has written.
But the high priests, who wished it to be corrupted, what did they say?
"Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews."
What is it, madmen, that you say? Why do you oppose the doing of that which
you are utterly unable to alter? Will it by any such means become the less
true that Jesus said, "I am King of the Jews"? If that cannot be tampered
with which Pilate has written, can that be tampered with which the truth
has uttered? But is Christ king only of the Jews, or of the Gentiles also?
Yes, of the Gentiles also. For when He said in prophecy, "I am set king
by Him upon His holy hill of Zion, declaring the decree of the Lord," that
no one might say, because of the hill of Zion, that He was set king over
the Jews alone, He immediately added, "The Lord said unto me, Thou art
my Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of me, and I will give Thee
the Gentiles for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth
for Thy poossession." Whence He Himself, speaking now with His own lips
among the Jews, said, "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one
flock and one Shepherd." Why then would we have some great mystery to be
understood in this superscription, wherein it was written, "King of the
Jews," if Christ is king also of the Gentiles? For this reason, because
it was the wild olive tree that was made partaker of the fatness of the
olive tree, and not the olive tree that was made partaker of the bitterness
of the wild olive tree. For inasmuch as the title, "King of the Jews,"
was truthfully written regarding Christ, who are they that are to be understood
as the Jews but the seed of Abraham, the children of the promise, who are
also the children of God? For "they," saith the apostle, "who are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the
promise are counted for the seed." And the Gentiles were those to whom
he said, "But if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs
according to the promise." Christ therefore is king of the Jews, but of
those who are Jews by the circumcision of the heart, in the spirit, and
not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God; who belong to
the Jerusalem thatis free, our eternal mother in heaven, the spiritual
Sarah, who casteth out the bond maid and her children from the house of
liberty. And therefore what Pilate wrote he wrote, because what the Lord
said He said.
