2019.10.18 Hopewell @Home ▫ John 19:31-37

Read John 19:31-37

Questions from the Scripture text: What day was it (John 19:31)? What special kind of Sabbath was the next day? Why weren’t Jesus’s legs broken (John 19:31-33)? What did they do to Him instead in John 19:34? What happens? Why did these things happen (John 19:36-37)? What is John’s purpose for testifying to these things (John 19:35)? 

The Lord wants you to believe in Jesus Christ. That is the great message of John 19:35. John will emphasize this point once again at the end of the next chapter (John 20:31). How does this faith come about? We can see it even in how Scripture tells us about the bodies’ being removed from the cross.

There are some who read this passage and get hung up upon what it might mean that blood and water both came out. Is it something medical—showing the asphyxiation by which Christ died? Is it something theological—a reference to the Supper and baptism, or the two kinds of birth that one must have to be saved?

Without other Scripture making something of the combination itself, we are left with John’s own emphasis in John 19:35. It is simply the kind of details that one would know if he were there—if he were standing with Mary, whom he had just been commanded to adopt as his mother, and watching as the soldiers came by to clean up before the special Sabbath of the Passover (the “high” day).

And what did John see? He saw two Scripture texts being fulfilled. Psalm 34:20 had prophesied, “not one of His bones shall be broken.” Psalm 22:16-17 had said, “they shall look on Him whom they pierced.”

Don’t you see, dear reader? This was a planned death. The crucifixion was intended by God and foretold by God so that we would do more than merely know that it happened—that, in fact, we would hope in what God planned to do here… that we would hope in Him who gave Himself as the substitute for those who deserved death and the wrath of God.

The Jews were ever so careful and desirous to participate in the Passover ritual. But Scripture here points us to Christ and says that it is Him in whom we should seek to have a part! Have you been careful to rest in Him and have a part in Him?

Why did God tell us about Christ’s death beforehand? Why did He tell us afterward?

Suggested songs: ARP22A “My God, My God” or TPH22A “My God, My God, O Why Have You”