Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

Trans:

What is the gospel?

There are a lot of themes in the Bible, we are at the heart of the gospel in our passage today...

Context:

Three forms of corporal punishment were employed by the Romans, in increasing degree of severity: (1) fustigatio (beating), (2) flagellatio (flogging), and (3) verberatio (severe flogging, scourging).

The first could be on occasion a punishment in itself, but the more severe forms were part of the capital sentence as a prelude to crucifixion.

The most severe, verberatio, is what is indicated here by the Greek verb translated flogged severely (μαστιγόω, mastigoō).

People died on occasion while being flogged this way; frequently it was severe enough to rip a person’s body open or cut muscle and sinew to the bone.

It was carried out with a whip that had fragments of bone or pieces of metal bound into the tips.

The soldiers broke the legs of the living victims to hasten death.

The only way a crucified man could obtain a full breath of air was to raise himself by means of his legs to ease the tension on his arms and chest muscles.

If the legs were broken, he could not possibly do so; and death would follow shortly because of lack of oxygen.

He connected it with OT prophecy.

The bones of the Passover lamb Were left unbroken (Exod 12:46), and the divine protection of a righteous man guarantees that God “protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken” (Ps 34:20.

The prophetic significance of the pierced side is referred to in Zechariah 12:10,

Jesus was never more sovereign than when he submitted to death on the cross.

This is why the refrain “to fulfill the Scripture” runs through the entire crucifixion story (vv.

24, 28, 36).

Nothing was left to chance.

No enemies—even as they acted according to their own volition—did anything that was unanticipated or outside the purpose of God’s sovereign providence and redemptive plan (; ).

This was the climax of all of human history.

Jesus is not only the main character in this doxological drama of redemptive history; he is its writer, director, and producer.

Smith, S. (2013).

John.

In B. Chapell & D. Ortlund (Eds.),

Gospel Transformation Bible: English Standard Version (p.

1442).

Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Because Jesus cried, “It is finished,” and gave up his spirit, we now shout, “Hallelujah!” and receive his Spirit.

Everything promised—everything needful for our redemption and for the coming “new world” (Matt.

19:28), was accomplished.

Nothing was left undone.

19:18 crucified Him.

Jesus was made to lie on the ground while his arms were stretched out and nailed to the horizontal beam that he carried.

The beam was then hoisted up, along with the victim, and fastened to the vertical beam.

His feet were nailed to the vertical beam to which sometimes was attached a piece of wood that served as a kind of seat that partially supported the weight of the body.

The latter, however, was designed to prolong and increase the agony, not relieve it.

Having been stripped naked and beaten, Jesus could hang in the hot sun for hours if not days.

To breathe, it was necessary to push with the legs and pull with the arms, creating excruciating pain.

Terrible muscle spasms wracked the entire body; but since collapse meant asphyxiation, the struggle for life continued (see note on Matt.

27:31).

two others.

Matthew (27:38) and Luke (23:33) use the same word for these two as John used for Barabbas, i.e., guerrilla fighters.

See note on 18:40.

Read v.1-16

PHYSICAL SUFFERING:

The delinquent was stripped, bound to a post or a pillar, or sometimes simply thrown on the ground, and beaten by a number of torturers until the latter grew tired and the flesh of the delinquent hung in bleeding shreds.

In the provinces this was the task of the soldiers.

Three kinds of implements were customary.

Rods were used on freemen; military punishments were inflected with sticks, but for slaves scourges or whips were used, the leather thongs of these being often fitted with a spike or with several pieces of bone or lead joined to form a chain.

The scourging of Jesus was carried out with these last-named instruments.

It is not surprising to hear that delinquents frequently collapsed and died under this procedure which only in exceptional cases was prescribed as a death sentence.

Josephus records that he himself had some of his opponents in the Galilean Tarichae scourged until their entrails were visible.

The case of Jesus bar Hanan, the prophet of woe, whom the procurator Albinus had scourged until his bones lay bare … also makes one realize what the little word phragellosas [to scourge] in Mark 15:15 means.

While this is a dreadful and chilling description, it correctly portrays the dire condition Jesus is in as he is prepared for his walk to Golgotha (19:17).

He is bleeding profusely, his clothes are soaked in blood, his thorn-laced crown now digs deeply and painfully into his head, and he is nearly in shock.

Jesus carries the cross himself for a good while (19:17a), but according to the Synoptics, his condition becomes so severe that he cannot carry it all the way to the site.

A man named Simon, a visitor from North African Cyrene (in present-day Libya), must carry it for him.

Visitors watching on the Via Dolorosa (“The Way of Suffering”) would have seen a stunning spectacle and a roadway running with blood.

Scourging was terrible.

Many died from it, and others went mad.

Ancient authorities as diverse as Eusebius, Josephus, and Cicero relate that scourging normally meant a flaying to the bone.

Some ribs were exposed.

Add to this the prophetic words of Isaiah 52:14: “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.”

The soldiers had hit him in the face with the mock scepter until his features were unrecognizable.

the help of the Roman soldiers, took Jesus to be crucified.

“It was the most cruel and shameful of all punishments,” said the Roman statesman-philosopher Cicero.

“Let it never come near the body of a Roman citizen; nay, not even near his thoughts or eyes or ears.”

Jesus began the mile-long walk carrying His cross, but He was relieved by Simon of Cyrene whom the Roman soldiers “drafted” to do the job.

Jesus began the mile-long walk carrying His cross, but He was relieved by Simon of Cyrene whom the Roman soldiers “drafted” to do the job.

Modern executions are usually carried out in almost clinical privacy, but Jesus was nailed to a cross and hung up for everyone to see.

It was Passover season and there were thousands of visitors in the city.

The place of execution was outside the city where many people would pass.

Jesus was a well-known figure, so His arrest and condemnation would be topics for discussion.

It was natural for people to gather and watch the grim scene.

Crucifixion probably had its origin among the Persians and Phoenicians, but it was the Romans who made special use of it.

No Roman citizen could be crucified, though there were exceptions.

This mode of capital punishment was reserved for the lowest kind of criminals, particularly those who promoted insurrection.

Today, we think of the cross as a symbol of glory and victory; but in Pilate’s day, the cross stood for the basest kind of rejection, shame, and suffering.

It was Jesus who made the difference

In the provinces, soldiers normally administered this punishment.

Free Romans were beaten with rods, soldiers with sticks, but slaves and probably despised non-Romans with whips whose leather thongs enclosed sharp pieces of metal or bone.

Jewish law allowed only thirty-nine lashes; Roman law allowed scourging till the soldier grew tired, and texts report that bones or entrails were sometimes bared.

The “purple robe” that the soldiers put on Jesus may have been a faded scarlet lictor’s robe or an old rug.

Condemned criminals normally carried their own cross (the horizontal beam, the patibulum, not the upright stake) to the site of the execution; the victim was usually stripped naked for the procession and execution as well, although this full nakedness must have offended some Jewish sensibilities in Palestine.

it was customary to execute the condemned man naked.

19:31–33.

Those bound with ropes often survived on the cross several days.

The dying man could rest himself on a wooden seat (Latin sedile) in the middle of the cross.

This support allowed him to breathe—and prolonged the agony of his death.

When the soldiers needed to hasten death by asphyxiation, they would break the legs of the victims with iron clubs so they could no longer push themselves up; the skeleton of a crucified Jewish man recovered in 1968 confirms this practice attested in ancient literature.

Romans would have allowed the bodies to rot on the cross, but Deuteronomy 21:23 and Jewish sensitivities about the sabbath require that these executions be speeded up, and Romans accommodated Jewish wishes particularly during the crowded festivals.

(Josephus declares that Jewish people always buried crucifixion victims before sunset.)

Jewish tradition required certification that a person was dead before the person could be treated as dead, but Jewish observers would not treat the body as disrespectfully as this Roman does.

A foot soldier was armed with a short sword and a pilum, or lance; the pilum was of light wood with an iron head, and was about three and a half feet long.

Such a lance could easily penetrate the pericardial sac which surrounds and protects the heart and contains watery fluid.

A Greek might read this description as referring to a demigod, because Greek gods had ichor (which looked like water) instead of blood.

But the person who has read the Gospel from start to finish would see in it a symbol rooted in Old Testament and Jewish hopes; see comment on 7:37–39.

Scourging was a horribly cruel act in which the victim was stripped, tied to a post and beaten by several torturers, i.e., soldiers who alternated when exhausted.

For victims who were not Roman citizens, the preferred instrument was a short wooden handle to which several leather thongs were attached.

Each leather thong had pieces of bones or metal on the end.

The beatings were so savage that sometimes victims died.

The body could be torn or lacerated to such an extent that muscles, veins or bones were exposed.