Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Turn with me in your Bibles to John 19.

We continue our series in the book of John this morning, with the darkest moment in all of history—Jesus’ death and burial.

FCF: We have all sinned and transgressed God’s Law.

The punishment for that sin is death and eternal separation from God—from all that is good in this universe.

Main Idea: But God himself, through Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, has made a way for us to be reconciled to him.

Prayer for Illumination

Transition: I have just one point this morning—Look to the cross

Our faith is rooted in historical facts.

Jesus really was crucified by the Romans around AD 30.

Apparent discrepancies between the gospels in the ordering of Jesus’ flogging are easily reconciled—Jesus was flogged twice.

this flogging was what the Romans called fustigatio, the lightest form of flogging administered for minor crimes.

Thus John 19:1 and Luke 23:16 use the verbs mastigoō and paideuō (respectively) to refer to this lighter flogging, whereas Matt.

27:26 and Mark 15:15 use a different word, phragelloō (“scourged”) to refer to the much more severe beating that Jesus received after Pilate pronounced the sentence of death (the Roman verberatio, which was the most horrible kind of beating, administered in connection with capital punishments, including crucifixion).

The charge leveled against the criminal was usually inscribed upon a titulus (Ltn.), a piece of wood which was nailed to the cross for all to see.

It’s widely known and recognized by modern scholars that Aramaic was the language spoken by most Jews in first century AD, Latin by the Romans, and Greek was the lingua franca for the Roman Empire.

Roman law designated the executed’s clothing to be divided up amongst the executioners, as we see in v. 23.

Jewish customs—Jesus designated a provider and protector for his widowed mother.

Roman soldiers typically drank ‘sour wine’ or ‘wine vinegar’ because it was a lot cheaper than nicer wine

Roman practice of breaking the legs of the crucified so they would die quicker is attested in archaeological discoveries.

That Jesus’ bones were not broken is attested by the Roman practice of nailing criminals in the wrist, not in the hand.

The Greek word for hand can refer to the wrist as well.

The blood and water that came out of Jesus’ side attests to his physical death.

Doctors have proposed at least two very viable causes of the water and blood which came from Christ’s side, both of which attest to catastrophic heart failure.

“The water probably represented serous pleural and pericardial fluid, and would have preceded the flow of blood and been smaller in volume than the blood.

Perhaps in the setting of hypovolemia and impending acute heart failure, pleural and pericardial effusions may have developed and would have added to the volume of apparent water.

The blood, in contrast, may have originated from the right atrium or the right ventricle or perhaps from a hemopericardium” (1463).

A. F. Sava, however, in an article not cited by these writers (“The Wound in the Side of Christ,” CBQ 19, 343–46) objects to the idea that the blood came from within the heart and the water from the pericardial sac: “Any fluid that leaves the pericardial sac cannot skip across the space between the lining of the lung and the outer surface of the pericardial sac.

Because of this, a fluid thus evacuated from the pericardium as well as from inside the heart, will flood the space around the lung rather than ooze its way slowly across the pierced lung.

This is what I observed in my experiments with fresh cadavers.”

He similarly doubts that a spontaneous rupture of the heart, followed by decomposition of the blood, evacuated into the heart of Jesus (contrary to a well-known work by W. Stroud: Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ and Its Relation to the Principles and Practice of Christianity, [London: Hamilton & Adams, 21971]).

Sava’s own proposal is that the blood and water were present just inside the rib cage between the pleura lining the chest and that lining the lung.

Severe chest injuries show that nonpenetrating injuries of the chest are capable of producing an accumulation of hemorrhagic fluid in the space between the ribs and the lung—it may amount to as much as two liters.

Sava relates that he has collected into glass cylinders blood from different cadavers from two to four hours after death; on standing, the contents separated into a lower (half by volume) layer of deep red, while over it the serum appeared clear, pale straw-colored.

“I submit, therefore, that the brutal scourging of Christ several hours before his death upon the cross, was sufficient to produce a bloody accumulation within the chest, so that the settling by this fluid into layers and its ultimate evacuation by opening the chest below the level of separation must inevitably result in the ‘immediate’ flow of blood followed by water” (344–45).

Jesus’ death fulfilled Scripture

Isaiah 53 Suffering servant

Jesus as our Passover Lamb

Day of preparation—at the temple, hundreds of sheep were being slaughtered to atone for the sins of the people, while the true lamb of God was making his offering once and for all.

Look what Christ has done for you!

He was rejected so that you could be accepted.

He suffered and died so that you wouldn’t have to suffer in hell.

He bore your sins so that you could be free from sin.