Volume IV

Incidents at the Crucifixion

Vol. IV, p. xviii

The incidents of the Great Sacrifice may be classified under the heads of manner, place and time. Our contemplation of the awful scene may be made more affecting by viewing these in order, while our gratitude and love may be rendered more heartfelt and fervid. It was a Roman execution, conducted in the usual form, with certain variations arising from incidental circumstances.

§The Place—Calvary.

The place was necessarily without the city (Acts vii. 58; Heb. xiii. 11-13; comp. Ex. xxix. 14; Lev. iv. 11, 12, 21; vi. 30; ix. 11; xvi. 27; Num. xix. 3); but the exact locality is unknown. It was near one of the gates, and beside a public road, but there is no mention of its being on a “hill” or “mount.” The name of Calvary, which occurs in Luke, is the Latin translation of the Greek word (kranion), by which all four Evangelists explain the Hebrew term Golgotha (Matt. xxvii. 33, 34; Mark xv. 22, 23; Luke xxiii. 33; John xix. 17). As a mark of shame and ignominy, the criminal had to carry his cross to the place of execution, and CHRIST was thus led forth with two culprits, who were “justly in the same condemnation” (Luke xxiii. 26, 32, 41; comp. Isa. liii. 12). Everlasting honor was laid on Simon, a man of Cyrene, whom the soldiers seized as he was entering the city, and on whom they laid the load under which JESUS had sunk. It was then that He told the women, who had followed Him, weeping, to mourn rather for the judgments which were coming on the land (Matt. xxvii. 31, 32; Mark xv. 20, 21; Luke xxiii. 26-32; John xix. 17).

§The Crucifixion—The Prayer for His Murderers.

The condemned were stripped at the place of crucifixion and fastened to the cross, which was usually of the form known by the name of the “Roman Cross,” but not nearly so high as is commonly represented. Usually, the feet of the sufferer were only about a foot or two above the ground, so that, instead of being raised aloft and looking downward, JESUS suffered in the midst of His persecutors. The body was either nailed or bound by cords to the cross, and sometimes both modes were adopted. Our LORD was nailed both by the hands and the feet, as had been foretold (Ps. xxii. 16; Zech. xii. 10; John xx. 25, 27; comp. Rev. i. 7), a method exquisitely painful, though tending perhaps to shorten the torture. As in our SAVIOUR'S case, when the cross was not already fixed and standing, the sufferer was fastened to the wood as it lay on the ground, and the shock must have been agonizing when the cross was dropped into its place in the ground. Usually some drug was given to deaden the sense of these tortures, but our LORD refused the mixture of wine and myrrh that was offered to Him. He bore the agony of death in meekness and silence, as had been predicted of Him by Isaiah, and thus between two malefactors He died, the Just for the unjust, being “numbered with the transgressors” (Matt. xxvii. 38; Mark xv. 27, 28; Luke xxiii. 33; John xix. 18). While suspended on the cross His first saying—an utterance never to be forgotten—was a prayer for His murderers: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke xxiii. 34).

§The Time—The Guard.

The time of our LORD'S crucifixion was the third hour (or 9 o'clock A. M.), the very time when the morning sacrifice was offered (Mark xv. 25); and His death was at the ninth hour, which was the time of the evening sacrifice; and the space of the intervening six hours was divided at noon by the commencement of the miraculous darkness. The cross was watched by a centurion and a guard of four Roman soldiers. The garments of the sufferers were their perquisites, and the raiment of our LORD was divided among them, except the upper robe, which was without a seam; the soldiers cast lots for it, thus unconsciously fulfilling another prophecy: “They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots” (Matt. xxvii. 35; Luke xiii. 34; John xix. 23; Ps. xxii. 18).

§The Inscription on the Cross.

Pilate was enabled again to insult the Jews by the inscription which, according to custom, was placed over the culprit's head to indicate his crime. Hebrew, Greek and Latin were now understood and spoken by the people in Jerusalem, and therefore he wrote the label in these tongues. This fact in some measure explains the various readings of the Evangelists, who aimed only at giving the substance of the inscription, without noting the differences of expression in the three languages.

This is Jesus the King of the Jews (Matthew).

The King of the Jews (Mark).

This is the King of the Jews (Luke).

Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews (John).

The chief priests felt the insult, and desired a change in the inscription, but Pilate contemptuously refused, saying, “What I have written, I have written” (Matt. xxvii. 31-38; Mark xv. 20-28; Luke xxiii. 26-34, 38; John xix. 17-24).

§The Gracious Promise to the Penitent Robber.

For three hours (9-12 A. M.) JESUS hung on the cross, exposed to the insults of the rulers and of the fickle rabble, who had changed when they saw Him apparently helpless in the hands of His enemies. Some stood to enjoy the sight, others, passing in and out of the city gate wagging their heads, taunted Him with the very prophecy which was being fulfilled—the destruction of the temple of His body that it might be raised again in three days. The chief priests even professed that they would believe on Him if He would establish His Divine power by coming down from the cross; and one of the culprits beside Him joined in railing at Him, asking as a proof of His mission that they might be delivered from the cross. The other, confessing the justice of their sentence, reproved his comrade, and uttered the memorable prayer, “LORD, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” For the second time JESUS spoke, and assured the dying penitent: “Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Matt. xxvii. 39-44; Mark xv. 29-32; Luke xxiii. 35-37, 39-43).

§The Women at the Cross.

Three women, together with John, had lingered at the cross, His mother, her sister and Mary of Magdala—the three Marys. In the hour of His agony He bade His mother to look on John as her son, and John to receive her as his mother; “and from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home” (John xix. 25).

§The Miraculous Darkness.

It was now noon, yet a supernatural darkness covered all the land from the sixth to the ninth hour. The Jewish months were lunar, and the Passover was in the middle of the month when the moon was full; therefore this obscuration could not be an eclipse. Deeper far than this darkness was the gloom that rested on the SAVIOUR'S soul, as He bore the burden of Divine wrath for the sins of men. At the ninth hour, He exclaimed, “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” Catching at the word “Eli,” His utterance was misunderstood by those around Him as an appeal to the prophet Elijah. At this moment the Sufferer's mortal frame endured its last agony of intense thirst, and He fulfilled another prophecy by the exclamation, “I thirst.” One of the spectators filled a sponge with the acid wine and water that the Roman soldiers ordinarily drank, and raised it to His mouth on the end of a stalk of hyssop. JESUS refused it, while the others said, “Let us see if Elijah will come to help Him” (Matt. xxvii. 45-49; Mark xv. 33-36; Luke xxiii. 44, 45; John xix. 28, 29).

§The Death of Jesus.

All that the LAMB OF GOD could do for man had been endured; and now the end of His agony and the completion of His great redemption work are announced by the utterance, “It is finished,” and yielding His soul to God, He exclaims, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;” and bowing His head on His breast, He expired (Matt. xxvii. 50; Mark xv. 37; Luke xxiii. 46; John xix. 30).

§Portents at Christ's Death—Conversion of the Centurion.

The priest who entered the holy place with the blood of the evening sacrifice at the very hour of His death saw that the veil was rent from the top to the bottom, thus intimating that “a new and living way was consecrated for us to enter into the holiest of all, by the blood of JESUS, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb. x. 19, foll.). The rocks around Jerusalem were rent by an earthquake, the graves were opened and many of the saints arose and were seen in the city after his resurrection. All these wonders and evidences did not suffice to subdue the hardened spirit of the Jews, but in the death of JESUS the Roman centurion saw enough to satisfy his mind that “this was the Son of God!”

§His Death Made Certain—The Water and the Blood.

At sunset the Sabbath would begin. “That Sabbath-day was a high day,” being the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when the first-fruits of the harvest were offered in the Temple, and whence the fifty days were reckoned to the Day of Pentecost. For that Sabbath this day was “the preparation.” Now they would put away all defilements and all signs of mourning. They had just enacted a deed which would have profaned any day, but they could not endure its defilement by the consequences of their judicial murder. Their request that the sufferings of those on the cross might be ended was granted by Pilate, who consented that the soldiers might break their legs, and so hasten their death. The two malefactors were thus treated, but CHRIST was found to be dead already, hence His limbs were not broken. To be sure, however, that He was really dead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and from the wound there flowed blood and water. Thus, in the death of Him, the true Paschal Lamb, two prophecies were fulfilled—“A bone of him shall not be broken,” and, “They shall look on him whom they pierced” (John xix. 31-42; comp. Ex. xii. 46; Ps. xxxiv. 20; Zech. xii. 10; Ps. xxii. 16, 17; Rev. i. 7). Thus is the death of CHRIST attested, and even Pilate procures additional testimony from the centurion (Mark xv. 44, 45), because of his surprise at the briefness of the Sufferer's agony. Knowing the relation of these facts to the subsequent resurrection, John, who was a witness of the scene, gives in detail all the incidents as they passed before his eyes.

§Jesus Laid in the Tomb.

Joseph of Arimathæa, a rich man and a member of the Sanhedrim, and who was secretly a disciple of JESUS, applied to Pilate for the body, who, when he was satisfied that JESUS was really dead, complied with his request. The conduct of Joseph encouraged Nicodemus, who brought myrrh and aloes to anoint the corpse. They took the body down from the cross, rolled it in linen with the spices, and, because the Sabbath was at hand, they laid it hastily in a newly-made sepulchre, which Joseph had prepared for himself, in an adjoining garden. To secure the body until the Sabbath was past, they rolled a great stone against the door and departed. Thus was the prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled (liii. 9), that He should “make his grave with the rich.” The chief priests remembered with anxiety the prediction that JESUS had uttered respecting His resurrection, and therefore, to guard against any devices of His followers, they obtained from Pilate a guard of soldiers, who sealed the stone and watched at the tomb (Matt. xxvii. 62-66).