John 19:16b-42
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According to Plan
According to Plan
John 19:16-42
Big Idea: Jesus, the True King and Sacrificial Lamb, was crucified, died, and was buried according to the scriptures so that you might believe in Him.
Intro
Intro
A lot of times my plans don’t work out as I expect them too.
Recount construction projects (Youtube looks easy).
John’s audience (Jews) may have been confused why he was heralding a dead king, for it could seem that Jesus’ plans failed when he was killed.
But it turns out how Jesus died and was buried was all according to plan.
It was all clearly laid down in the scriptures.
John has shown us that Jesus life and ministry fulfilled scripture but now as we come to His passion he wants us to be really be sure this part of the plan.
As we consider how Jesus was crucified, died and was buried according to the father’s plan as it was laid out in scripture we will take as our headings those phrases from the apostles creed: Was Crucified, died, and was buried.
Was Crucified (according to the Scriptures)
Was Crucified (according to the Scriptures)
vv. 16b-27
John is light on details of crucifixion.
[Describe death by crucifixion]
He went out (of the city) to the place of the skull (17).
He was numbered amongst transgressors (Is. 53:12) (18).
Pilates final charge: sedition, is also to mock the Jews (19).
Jews offended: please say allegedly (21).
Pilate refuses and instead preaches the gospel to the nations (Hebrew, Latin, and Greek).
But John uses irony, for the truth is Jesus is king.
The Cross is Jesus’ enthronement; His exaltation and glory.
John focuses uniquely on the soldiers behavior over Jesus clothes (23-24).
they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
They divide his outer garments but cast lots for His inner (23-24).
Torn garment in OT is symbolic for divided kingdom (Saul and Samuel; Jeroboam and Ahijah).
They may kill Jesus but His kingdom remains intact.
In contrast to 4 soldiers John gives 4 {faithful} women (and John) (25-27).
“woman” connects with Jn. 2:4 as His “hour” has finally come(26).
Jesus transfers her to John to signify a change in her relationship to Him which would now go through the apostolic eyewitness (John)(27).
Mary is in the church, not over the church.
Died (according to the scriptures).
Died (according to the scriptures).
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”
This is a curious note: “I thirst.”
Matt. & Mark mention giving Jesus sour wine. Scripture he fulfills:
They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
But I think John is showing us something else:
my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.
Jesus and the (Samaritan) woman at the well (Jn. 4)
Jesus the living waters thirsts? Right when he has fulfilled His work?
Signifies being forsaken by the Father.
Water symbolic for filling of the Spirit—“‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (30).
Here Jesus who has become sin for you, faces the dereliction of being alienated from God, albeit temporary and relatively.
Now, this dereliction is not a separation of divine and human nature, that would be heretical.
Once the Son of God took on flesh he would never be separated from His body.
It is his experience of that communion bond the Son shared with the Father, by His Spirit that was disrupted, not the union itself which would be impossible.
Nor was the Father ever displeased with the Son.
For the Son has accomplished what the Father has sent him to complete.
“It is finished” is not a cry of defeat but of victory.
Notice that again John shows us that Jesus is in control, choosing the very moment of His death when the work is completed.
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
The six-days of work Jesus set out to accomplish is now finished and he can enter into his rest.
His work of suffering for sin is complete, now he can rest.
The Jews who were so eager to see Jesus killed are also eager to make sure he is dead and then remove His body before the high Holy Sabbath of Passover.
They petition Pilate to break the legs of the men who were crucified, which the soldier did of the two others.
[explain why this hastens death]
But Jesus was already dead, so they did not break His legs.
John again is keen to show that this also was part of the plan.
It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.
Or perhaps John had Psalm 34:20 in mind.
He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.
God preserves His righteous suffering servant.
Instead of breaking his legs, the soldier pierces His side, also in fulfillment of scripture.
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
Did you notice the strange use of pronouns: “on me, on Him.”
“God is ‘pierced’ when his representative, the shepherd is pierced.” (Carson, 627).
When John’s hearer’s heard this quote from Zechariah they would have thought of Jesus teaching that he is the good shepherd (Jn. 10).
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
When the soldier pierced his side blood and water came out (34).
First, notice in this that Jesus was dead dead, his heart is pierced. (did not faint or swoon).
Without a real death their could be no sacrifice, and without a sacrifice there could be no satisfaction.
No doubt there is deeper significance to the blood and water, but there is not agreement as to what that might be.
I think the asnwer should be sought in Zechariah.
“On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.
Jesus has opened a fountain for cleansing through His death on the cross.
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains: (William Cowper).
And buried (according to the scriptures) (38-42).
And buried (according to the scriptures) (38-42).
There is no doubt that Jesus died, and consider none of His disciples remain there to care for His body.
At least not the ones we expect (secret disciples)
Joseph is wealthy enough to have a tomb of His own and influential enough to have access to Pilate to ask for the body and expect to receive it.
Normally those guilty of sedition were left on the cross to be eaten by vultures.
Nicodemus joins Joseph, he who previously came to Jesus at night, now takes a vested interest in caring for Jesus’ body.
The Gospel according to John 9. The Burial of Jesus (19:38–42)
Nicodemus shows he is stepping out of the darkness and emerging into the light.
They place him in a nearby new tomb, and he is the first to rest there.
Jesus reaches the lowest point in his estate of humiliation as he rests in the grave.
Excursus: Did Jesus descend to Hell?
The apostles creed says “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, he descended to Hell”
None of the Gospel writers mention this.
From his burial we move right to the events of the first day of the week and the resurrection.
The Catholic believe that he went to hell to free the souls of the saints trapped in limbo.
Again, this is not found in scripture anywhere.
The Westminster Larger Catechism Question 50
Wherein consisted Christ’ s humiliation after his death?
Christ’ s humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, (
The reformed theologians have always taught that Jesus suffering on the cross, especilly the anguish of His soul as he propitiates the wrath of God was a hellish ordeal.
By descent into hell all that the creed means is the lowest place of His humiliation, which was his resting in the grave.
Heidelberg asks:
Question 44.
Why is it added: He descended into Hades?
Answer.
That in my greatest temptations I may be assured that Christ, my Lord, by His inexpressible anguish, pains, and terrors which He suffered in His soul on the cross and before, has redeemed me from the anguish and torment of hell.
Application
Not just any old death would do.
It must be according to plan, it must fulfill scripture.
Everything about the death of Jesus was planned, predicted, and prefigured in the scriptures.
We search them daily to know him.
Jesus is hung on a tree as one cursed for sin.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—
Jesus is striped naked so you could be clothed.
Jesus died to finish the work the Father gave him.
For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Jesus suffered immense physical pain but even more agony to His soul.
Jesus was forsaken by his Father so that you wouldn’t have to be. (experience of God was interrupted).
We also see that this work, Jesus did willingly, he is in control of when he dies.
Our faith rests not in an institution, but in a person and the work he accomplished.
Faith unites you to His suffering, death, and burial, so that you participate with Him, by giving Him your sin and receiving the righteousness of His finished work.
Here we also see the heinousness of sin and what it cost our savior to overcome it.
Jesus, the True King and Sacrificial Lamb, was crucified, died, and was buried according to the scriptures so that you might believe in Him.
