Dennis Tuuri

That is a most wonderful song and it’s a most wonderful song for what we’re going to be starting today continuing for another five or six weeks an examination of John chapter 19:17-42 in which this wondrous victory that we just sang of is portrayed for us in some very delightful awesome ways.

Please stand for the reading of God’s word beginning at John chapter 19 verse 17.

And he bearing his cross went out to a place called the place of the skull which is called in Hebrew Golgotha where they crucified him and two others with him one on either side and Jesus in the center.

Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews. Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Therefore, the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write the king of the Jews.” But he said, “I am the king of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to each soldier apart, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top, in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Therefore, the soldiers did these things.

Now, there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, standing by, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.” And then he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.

After this Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst.” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it in his mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.

Therefore, because it was the preparation day that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his leg. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear. And immediately blood and water came out.

And he who has seen has testified and his testimony is true. And he knows that he is telling the truth so that you may believe. For these things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled. Not one of his bones shall be broken. Yet again another scripture says, “They shall look on him whom they pierced.”

After this, Joseph of Arimathea being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is, to bury.

Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there they laid Jesus because of the Jews’ preparation day for the tomb was nearby.

Let’s pray. Father, we pray that radiant beams of light from your Holy Spirit ministering this text to us would shine upon us today that we might rejoice. Help us to believe, Father, your scriptures and your word. Help us to be transformed by them. Help our lives to be changed by them. Help us most of all in response to the gospel that’s so clearly portrayed for us here. The glorious news of the exaltation of the Savior King to your right hand. Help us, Father, to praise you now and forever. To that end, we pray that the spirit would illuminate this text for understanding. In Christ’s name, we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. We shall linger over this text. As I said before I read the scriptures, this is a most remarkable piece of scripture. This is, as we’ve said now for the last few sermons, a kind of the third discrete unit of this narrative that follows the upper room discourse. Jesus is arrested and taken to the high priest to be tried. We looked at that and then we looked at Jesus before Pilate and now we look at the crucifixion and burial of Jesus.

So there is this clear marking off of these units and this particular section is filled with details. Now, John did not in his version of the gospel include all the details that are in the other accounts. Remember that John’s gospel is the capstone, right? The synoptics have built us up to an understanding of things. We’ve read through Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John is the last in the progression. He’s showing us a heavenly perspective. He’s showing us a new creation. He’s the capstone gospel.

And just as John did with the signs, the miracles of Jesus, so he does also with the events of the crucifixion and burial. Remember that while the synoptics have lots of miracles, John has boiled his use of miracles down to seven, maybe eight if we include Jesus’s raising himself up as the eighth, which I have done in my sermons on John. He’s boiled them down to just eight miracles chosen for particular purposes.

Well, here there’s much that comports with the synoptic gospels in terms of the details. There’s a lot of things omitted, however, and one or two new things thrown in. It was beautiful hearing the prelude music, the great song by Augustus Toplady that refers to this verse in John where water and blood comes out of the Savior’s side. That’s different in John from the other gospels. There’s a few differences but mostly this is the same material as the synoptics but his selection of it and his placement of these details the way he has done is to a particular purpose just like the selection and placing of the signs or the miracles.

Remember what we saw last week and the last couple of weeks: this view of Jesus’s trial where really what clearly is being portrayed if we study this portion of scripture out is the trial and evaluation mostly of the Jewish nation with their great apostasy and showing their demonic bent. “We have no king but Caesar.” This reversal of Jesus, you know, his ruling, his being enthroned, shows us that John’s intent in all these things is not so much to focus on the passion of Christ without understanding the lifting up of Christ being his enthronement. So from John’s perspective, his selection of details is taken to show us so much that Christ is in control still.

And if we structure this text the way I’ve structured it, we see right at the very center of it the words of Jesus, the declarative performative utterances of Jesus that have tremendous significance. So in John’s account of the crucifixion and death and burial, we don’t see Simon of Cyrene helping to carry the cross. We see Jesus bearing his cross. We don’t see women mourning along the way, right? We don’t see people making fun of Jesus on the cross because all of those are not part of what John is intending to portray in this capstone gospel.

All those things have their place in the other gospels. But when we get right down to what this crucifixion was all about, the capstone of the understanding of it, it is the enthronement of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is John’s passion. That’s what this text is all about. And the details are chosen to tell us the wondrous thing. The gospel message is clearly portrayed in all of these details.

So what I want to do today is just give an overview of this text which we’ll be spending, you know, a month and a half on and then go to one of these details: Whose skull is this? This is the place of the skull. Well whose skull? Commentators have been divided about that and I won’t answer the question definitively for you today. But I think that this detail is given once more for us to meditate on the big picture of what’s happening here. And that’s what we want to give God thanks for today. That’s what we want to examine a little bit.

We will be spending lots of time on the various details of this text. But I wanted to explain here at the beginning that the way these details have been constructed is to in very large letters write forth that Jesus Christ is Lord and King not just of the Jews but of all of creation and that his crucifixion is his enthronement. This is the hour of glory, not the hour of shame.

So now what I’m going to do is just go through the text. You have outlines. Hopefully, you picked up one of the outlines. The translation I read a few minutes ago was the New King James Version. The outline I’ve given you is from the English Standard Version, and there really are not any substantive differences in translation between those two. So, I thought it might be easier for the children particularly to follow and the adults to follow the ESV version.

Now, most commentators do not do what I do with this text. Last week and the last couple of Sundays I did what most commentators do with that section. The structure is very obvious and to me this structure is clearly within the scriptures what I’ve given to you. But I wanted to tell you that most commentators take a series of seven specific events here and I have kind of taken some of those and split them up into a little broader categories. And you know one of the reasons I do this is to look at how the narrative is pointing us to particular associations which we may not glean otherwise.

Another reason I do this is to assist my own meditation on the text. If I can come up with a structure for the text early in the week, I can meditate on that text quite easily. To try to remember a series of nine or ten or eleven specific events without connection between them is near impossible. You know, we have ten-digit phone numbers, but it’s three, three, and four because it’s very difficult to memorize a set of seven discrete numbers in a unit like that without some kind of order to it.

And so to look at a text like this and develop this sort of structure is an easy way to teach the actual content and the details of what is happening which aids memorization and meditation on the text as well.

So what I’ve done with the text is kind of a basic mirror structure. Again we begin with a place reference Golgotha and we end with a place reference garden. Now, if you think about it, you know, as a summary of the text, that works very nicely. We go from the place of the skull and death. Skulls are dead things. And we go to the garden, the place of life.

Now, the garden is at Golgotha. It says that in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden and a tomb within the garden. There’s a series of concentric circles being drawn for us here. But in any event, the movement of the text is from Golgotha to garden. That’s what the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is all about.

You see, it’s moving from the outside, the wilderness and death and the skull to the garden again with God. So that’s easy. And at that place of Golgotha, he’s crucified. And he’s crucified in the center of two men. You know, so you got two guys on either side of him. And the text wants us to understand that he’s the center, the center of everything in life. Certainly the center of these three guys. And interestingly enough, at the end of the text, it’s two men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who end up taking his body away and putting it in that tomb in the garden.

Two men on the cross, two men here. The conversion of these men, one of the men at least on the cross is not given to us by John. Why? Well, you know, we’re going from skull to garden. We’re going from Golgotha to garden. We’re going from two reprobates, probably part of Barabbas’ gang, two reprobates to two men who are devoted to Christ with some degree of fear, both of them, but nonetheless disciples who then care for him even in his death.

So, we have this sort of structure going on. We have two men. Then we have Pilate with his interesting inscription. And at the end of the text, before the two men can take the body away, Joseph has to receive permission from Pilate. And Pilate grants permission. So references to Pilate as we move into the center of the text.

After this, soldiers fulfill prophecy. After Pilate writes the inscription very explicitly, there’s a fairly lengthy set of verses about the soldiers gambling for Jesus’s clothes. And then it says this is to fulfill prophecy. And then after Jesus speaks at the end of that it says the soldiers pierce his side, water and blood come out and very explicitly it says this is to fulfill prophecy. So that puts us right at the center of the text with the actual words of Jesus from the cross.

Three words basically or three distinct things that he says. He says “Woman behold your son.” Now that is—every one of these things that I’m mentioning here is absolutely pregnant with meaning. We are seeing the culmination of all of the word of God here displayed before us in John’s artistic putting together of this crucifixion narrative under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and that’s—you know, we want to spend a Sunday talking about what that means “Woman behold thy son” and its relationship back to Cana. But in any event Jesus speaks that word and then you know “Behold your mother” and she then is cared for by John and then the second thing Jesus says is that he thirsts and there’s a three-fold repetition of sour wine, right?

What a contrast. We’ve got the mother, right? Sour wine. Back in Cana, Jesus talked to his mother and he addresses her as “woman.” And here he says to her as a woman, “Woman, behold your son.” And in Cana, of course, we have the best of wine. And here we have sour wine. Three-fold repetition for emphasis.

Again, second saying of Christ from the cross: “I thirst.” For what? We’ll talk about that when we get there in a few weeks.

And then finally, the Lord Jesus Christ says, “It is finished.” And what a wonderful capstone to the words of our Savior from the cross. And he then delivers over his spirit, gives up the ghost is how it’s phrased in the synoptics, but not in John. The language is a little different again for his particular emphasis.

So, it’s quite easy to recall these details. From Golgotha: There’s two men crucified with Christ. We have, you know, Pilate with his description given. Then the soldiers fulfilling prophecy. Then the words of Christ from the cross back to the soldiers fulfilling prophecy. Pilate being requested permission. Two men carrying away the body not to go but to the garden. You see, and it’s a beautiful structure and a device that we can use to meditate on this structure is by looking at these details, how they’re mirrored one to the other. And then we can remember four or five things that then mirror themselves down on the last half.

So let’s go over them in a little bit more detail. We’ll spin out the tale a little broader. Now we give a little tiny little overview of it. Now, let’s do a little bit more of an overview, then we’ll return to the place of the skull, have a few closing comments about it, and then we’ll be done for today.

All right. So, Golgotha in verse 17 and the place near the place he’s crucified in verse 41 is the garden. And so, there is this movement of Jesus. Now, notice some details here in verse 17. He went out bearing his own cross. And as I said, the detail of his having to be helped with that that the other one of the other gospel writers uses John omits for his purposes. Jesus is bearing his own cross language again, right? Bearing the iniquity of us all he’s bearing the sins of many.

Commentators have noticed here—can you think you know your Bibles well enough? Jesus is bearing out his—now this is not the whole cross this is the cross piece and actually we don’t know for sure. And there’s reasons to doubt that the cross looked like that. Various places in the scriptures—Acts 5:30, we read of this cross is a tree. “Of course, the God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree,” not a cross.

Acts 10:39: “We are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree,” not a piece of wood, not a cross.

Acts 13:29: “Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.”

Galatians 3:13: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, now this is according to the Old Testament, curses everyone who hangs on a tree,” not who hangs on a cross.

So if this is fulfillment of Old Testament curse, he’s taking the curse of us upon himself. He’s hanging on a tree is how the Old Testament and New Testament wants us to think of that.

1 Peter 2:24: “who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree.” You see? So, this is a cross member that at least by way of picture or metaphor is going to be nailed to a tree. And really, I don’t see any particular reason to doubt that it was an actual tree. You know, all commentators don’t agree on that. I can’t say that with the authority that I know that this is the case. But what I can say with authority is the scriptures want us to contemplate even if it looked like that—wanted us to identify that with a tree and see what’s going on.

Well, we’re going from Golgotha to a garden and we’re already kind of in the garden at Golgotha. We’re at a tree and we don’t have time to go into today, but it appears that this was the Mount of Olives and this is an olive tree with all the associations to the temple and the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit that all that brings into the text. So Jesus will have this cross member that he carries nailed to a tree for us.

Again, garden imagery. If we kind of look a little behind Golgotha in that verse, we see really garden imagery. And this is confirmed at the end of the story as he’s laid to rest in a garden in the tomb that is specifically identified as being part of the garden at Golgotha.

Now, Jesus bears this cross piece and other men have noticed that this is of course the instrument of his death, the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s carrying on his back to the place where it will be used to kill him.

Can we think of any association? Children, can you think of a story from the Old Testament where someone carried on his back the instrument of his sacrificial death? Isaac, right? Abraham takes Isaac and Isaac bears the wood for the fire upon his back and he makes the journey to the place where he is going to be offered up on that fire on that altar.

You see, so here if we have Jesus carrying that, he’s the greater Isaac. His death on the cross should be seen in terms of altar, the fire of God, all the offerings that we talk about so often in our worship service. All these things find fruition, how they find their completion, the unity of it all happens in the context of the crucifixion narrative and Jesus is portrayed as the greater Isaac here in his trek to his hill at Golgotha.

Now, we have to think of this too in terms of the association of the crucifixion that’s going to happen. He’s going to bear the curse for us. Golgotha is outside of the camp. That’s where Jesus goes to—outside of the city. He’s going to bear our sins for us on that cross. He’s already bearing the sins of the people by way of the instrument of death upon his back as he bears this cross member and he takes it to this place.

And all these things come into the text. Jesus Christ will make full atonement for our sins. He’s become the cursed one who hangs on the tree to the end that the curse might be rolled away from us. All these things are true. And it’s important to meditate upon the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ for each of us.

Crucifixion, which has this reference here to this cross member, was a horrible death. It was the worst of all deaths. I mean, men would typically stay up there for days. There would be, of course, the inability to breathe, a pushing up on the feet that are nailed to the cross to accomplish breath. But that brings tremendous pain because of the difficulty with the circulation of all the wounds that are going on. Usually people are flogged before they’re crucified. Jesus was beaten nearly to death before he was crucified.

We have all these wounds. We have bleeding going on. We have a loss of circulation because of the upright stature for days upon end and the circulation difficulties. The head would begin to have various difficulties, tremendous pain because of the lack of circulation. I’m sure some of you have read detailed descriptions of this. Horrific picture. Open wounds that go untreated for days on end. Putrefaction of wounds, gangrene setting in. You know, just really a horrible picture of how to die, the worst of all deaths. This was described at the time as, you know, the true torture of tortures.

You know, depending on how long you’re there, the birds start to come down and gather and pluck out various pieces of you to be part of the death. Now, this text doesn’t focus on all those. But we do need to talk about it in passing because this is why you’re here today. This is why you’re able to come into the presence of God. This is why you’re not burning right now in the fires of hell. This is why we can say to whoever leaves us tonight, this afternoon in our time of sharing, you know, “How are you doing?” “Better than we deserve.”

The reason you can say that is because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s here pictured before us. And we must preach the atonement for sins when we come to this text. And we must assure people of the forgiveness of their sins through the merits of Jesus Christ alone. That’s all here. Personal salvation affected by our Savior.

But there is much more to this. Personal salvation in John’s narrative is a subset of a much bigger picture. And that bigger picture is Jesus Christ affecting the new creation by his enthronement on the tree. This movement from Golgotha to the garden.

Yes, it’s personal for us. We’ve been restored to right relationship with God who places us back in the garden. We’re moved away from Golgotha and wilderness into garden, into Eden, into the beautiful song we sang about the Lord’s day being the place where the rivers of paradise intersect today. See, that’s where we’re restored through the work of our Savior. This general movement is talked about individually but it’s talked about in terms of the history of the world as well. We have this movement from Golgotha to garden beginning and end of this particular section of narrative, this picture of Jesus as the greater Isaac rolling back the effects of the curse given to mankind because of his sin in that very garden.

Right? The center of the narrative is Jesus thirsting for wine in the context of a garden, restoring man to garden. At the center of our lives is the sin of Adam in the garden having to do with fruit and then the restoration to right standing with God as we drink the wine that culminates our worship day together. Because Jesus drank the sour wine, drank the curse due to us. We drink the wonderful wine of salvation and all that is pictured in this text here before us in the opening and closing of Golgotha and then the garden.

So the text opens and closes that way. It opens and closes with a reference to our salvation personally and the movement of the cosmos as well. And this should motivate us to a tremendous love for our Savior who suffered all the pains of death and hell on that cross that we might be delivered from it and restored to the table of God. Christ died for sinners, the just for the unjust to bring us to God. He gave his life, a ransom for many. He paid the debt of our sins and canceled that debt. He became a curse for us.

We can find nothing but a response of love and adoration to the Savior on a simple contemplation of the movement of us personally from Golgotha, the place of death and bones to the place of the garden of life and blessing.

Now moving in from that in the context of this particular outline, we have the two men. And I’ve talked about this already a little bit. And you might have said, “Well, gee, I don’t know. You got two thieves here, and then you got two good guys down here, but do they really belong together in the narrative?” Well, I think they do. I think the narrative structure points that out. And I’ve got a verse that I think is important that ties these two aspects together as well.

And that’s Isaiah 53:9. Many of you know this text, I’m sure, by memory. We are now in Isaiah 53 country in John’s gospel. This is the picture of the suffering Savior. Verse 9 says this: “And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.” They made his grave with the wicked and a rich man in his death. Interesting how that’s structured, is it not?

The wicked are clearly a reference to the two men. The insurrectionists. The word that’s used in the synoptics to describe them is the same word used to describe Barabbas. Barabbas was probably the gang leader here of these three men. They were insurrectionist rebels. Remember Barabbas, the name, you know, “son of the father.” He’s son of Adam, the rebel against God. He’s the picture of rebellion and insurrection. Not a good guy, not to be thought well of.

And Jesus Christ is taking Barabbas’ place in the center of his gang there, right? He’s dying for us. He’s dying for the Adamic, the men of Adam, that we might become sons of the new Adam, relate to the second Adam, as it were. So, he’s identified the wicked men. Surely these are the men on either side of him. Although one does come to repentance in one of the other gospel narratives, not here. Because this gospel narrative wants us to go through the words of Jesus Christ and see that it is this—the work of Jesus on the cross, his statements, his performative utterances that moves us from Golgotha to the garden that moves us from men of wickedness to men who are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Joseph of Arimathea is a rich man. Now you older ones—you young children don’t know that. But the other gospel accounts identify Joseph specifically as a rich man. So who is the rich man in his death that he’s associated with in Isaiah 53:9? Joseph of Arimathea. So what happens then? Isaiah 53:9 puts these two ends of our account in John 19 these two brackets together for us in one verse. And notice the way it does it.

It doesn’t say that he made his grave that he died with the wicked and his grave was with the rich. No. It says they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death. It changes it, doesn’t it? We know that the literal statement would be that his death is with the wicked and his grave is with the rich. You see the rich man’s grave. Joseph of Arimathea has that new tomb. He’s a rich guy. He’s got that burial place, the grave, and it’s that rich man’s grave that Jesus has placed in.

Again, the text wants us to see these things together so that when we get down to when it actually occurs, when we get the eyewitness account from John of real life events, historical realities, we understand this text and we understand that what Jesus is affecting is a movement from you and me from being insurrectionists followed by you know the gang leader of us, Adam, who sinned against God in his fall. Fallen man is pictured for us. It’s been pictured already in Pilate. It’s been pictured in the Jews. Now, it’s pictured by Jesus replacing Barabbas in the middle of wicked men. It’s us. It’s us who are beside Jesus on the cross who are the wicked ones. And it’s us who are transformed by that event to being his disciples who care for him in his death and meditate on that death and enter into union with him in his death and serve and use the rest of our lives to serve him.

This movement is portrayed for us here in these brackets of two men at the beginning and at the end.

Other commentators have talked about the fact that you’ve got two men. Jesus in the synoptic accounts prays from the cross, right? “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” He’s praying from the cross. His hands are uplifted, right? This is the posture of prayer. So often in the Psalms, other places of scripture, Jesus’s hands are uplifted. And on either side of those hands are two criminals, right? Whose hands are also uplifted.

And if they’re close, you can see from angles, one hand going over the other. And here we have the picture of the defeat of the Amalekites. Joshua is going to be strong and go and follow Moses’ lead. Moses lifts up his hands against the Amalekites. And as long as his hands are up, victory prevails. And when he drops his hands, the battle starts to go the other way and Joshua starts to lose. And he’s got two men, Aaron and Hur, either side to hold up those hands. And commentators have seen in this visual imagery of Jesus explicitly stated to be in the center of these men, the defeat of the greater Amalekites, the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ that will go on forever in terms of his people, him being the exalted one who prays for and affects change in the context of the world.

We have this tremendous movement in our account here from fallen man to resurrected man from insurrectionists to disciples by this portrayal of these events.

I wanted to mention—I want to come back to this a little bit later but before we conclude here when it says I should have mentioned this a minute ago. When it says that the name of the place is Golgotha, you’ve heard the word Calvary, right? One of the synoptic gospels records the place as Calvary. Calvary is a transliteration of a Latin term Calvaria, which means cranium or skull. You probably didn’t know that, but Calvary probably isn’t a good translation. It really should—again, in each of the gospels, each of the four gospel accounts records Jesus’ death as taking place at the cranium, the place of the skull, Golgotha. And that’s how it all works together. We’ll talk more about that at the end.

But now we go to the third set of brackets that I’ve got in your outline. Pilate with his inscription and then Pilate granting permission at the end. I mentioned last week and this is just preparation for when we get to this text in a few weeks. But you know, we have here a significant event again that we don’t want to just blow through or blow by. We have Pilate putting this inscription on the cross, right? And this inscription would be normally what his crime was. And what Pilate writes is that this is Jesus of Nazareth, historical personage, who is the king of the Jews. They say, “No, no, no. Say that he said that.” He says, “What I’ve written, I’ve written.”

Again, we see Pilate doing the will of God. Pilate, who is a man with a sword, that’s what the name literally means. The man of coercion, the man who thinks he’s in control, is himself being used by God to make the declaration that Jesus of Nazareth—the historical events are important in this narrative structure. But these historical events are affecting the fact that Jesus is the king of the Jews.

Now, the language in which the text is written is three-fold: Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. And we’ll get to this in more detail in a few weeks. But understand that these three languages aren’t just, you know, well, that’s who was in the town at the time, guys who knew these languages. No, these are three official languages. This is the language of the Hebrew religion, the cult, the church as it were in Jerusalem—Aramaic. This is the language of the Greek Hellenistic culture—Greek. Okay? And the Hellenistic culture is what was in place culturally and socially. The Romans really just brought in all this Hellenistic culture. Didn’t change it at all. They imposed empire over Hellenistic culture. And that’s the third language of course is Latin. And Latin is the official language of the empire.

So we have the official language of the church, the official language of Hellenistic culture and the official language of the Roman Empire. These are the three perspectives on Paul that I mentioned last week. Paul sees Jesus as the fulfillment of the Hebrew Old Testament. And based upon that, Paul attacks, addresses, interacts with Hellenistic culture on the one hand and with the Roman Empire on the other. He challenges them both—Mars Hill going to Rome and all three of those aspects of the importance of the gospel of Christ and its implications for church, culture and state are all wrapped up here in this little piece of narrative that we would just blow by and just say, “Yeah, that means the king of all kings, nation, he’s head of all nations.” Yes. But it means more than that.

And we’ll—that’s why we want to spend a little bit of time on it in a few weeks just preaching a sermon on that particular part of the text. And as I said, I think that’s balanced out by Pilate giving permission to take away the body of Jesus at the end of that narrative.

And then we have the two sets of soldier narratives. For the soldiers first divide his garments. You know, the garments of Christ are important to John here, but in other verses we’ll see as well the next couple of chapters. What Jesus wears is important. That there’s a distinguishment between his outer clothes and his linen tunic, which is seamless. That’s important as we go through this detailed set of narrative instruction for us put together for John’s purposes to tell us again that Jesus is the fulfillment of all things of the Old Testament.

And we’ll see a correlation to the priestly garment as well in the Old Testament when we get to this part of the text and spend a week considering this divying up. Four soldiers was the normal group of men who would take away a prisoner to crucifixion. But in this text, it wants us very explicitly to note the fact that there are four soldiers. They divide his garments in four pieces. And we’ll draw correlations back to the Old Testament imagery that the four corners of the world are pictured here by these four soldiers, the four pieces of garment.

And so again, the completeness of the reign of Jesus Christ and its meaning for a new world being born as a result of his efforts here is pictured for us in this casting of lots for the garments. And of course over and over again the sovereignty of God is you know just shouted forth from every text in this post-upper room discourse section of John’s gospel and here as well obviously the sovereignty of God over the casting of lots but then again that these soldiers are actually doing something that ends up fulfilling what God said would be done in his holy word.

And the soldiers again are the particular group that God uses to stress again God’s fulfillment of his prophecy at the other end of the narrative as well. When they—the Jews want the bodies taken down before Passover and it represents curse as we said earlier—they break the legs so that they can’t push themselves up to achieve breath. You know as you’re slumping down your lungs start to collapse and you can’t breathe. And so you’d push up—excruciating pain to your feet with nails through them, of course—and to accomplish quicker death, they would break the legs.

Jesus is already dead. He gives up his hands over his spirit, as it were, prior to this. He’s already dead. So, they don’t need to do anything. But they do, for some reason, cast his spear into the side to prove that he’s dead. And out comes water and blood.

And Toplady, as we mentioned earlier, “Rock of Ages Cleft for Me”—here, the great picture of that and all the symbolic freight that is brought into that from the Old Testament and from the rest of the New Testament. The birth of a new bride from the side of Jesus Christ, right? This side is pierced and out comes water and blood. The two elements of birth that typically accompany childbirth. And here the bringing forth of the bride of Jesus Christ from the side of the greater Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is pictured for us in the water and the blood pouring out. And we see all kinds of imageries of course of the Old Testament where the water from the temple will flow out and flood the earth. And so we have this great effect going to be happening on the face of all the world. This water goes forth from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all that stuff comes into that picture of the fulfillment of prophecy by these soldiers.

And then the important truth that I’ve mentioned time and again: that they’ll look on him who they have pierced. And we know that the end result of that looking, as we’ll see in the book of Revelation when we get to this text later on, the end result of that looking is to bring people to repentance. The blood of the martyrs becomes the seed of the church because people see obedience to God to the point of death and honoring God in one’s death and they look upon us whom they pierce at times and God affects his great blessings.

Then as people come to repentance for their sins and all that is brought into the text and you know again in the providence of God the narrative wants us to meditate that not once but twice these Roman soldiers who are doing their own thing, who are men of force and coercion, are under the mighty hand of God who is directing them to fulfill his word in every one of their actions that are recorded here in the context of this narrative.

And that brings us what I think down to the heart of the matter. And we’ll spend at least a couple of sermons talking about the heart of this particular narrative structure. And these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks these three sets of sayings. And I suppose we could just see them as a unit maybe. I’ve broken them out, kind of looked at the middle one of the sayings as being kind of the focal point. That as he says he thirsts and the wine is given to him that seems to inform everything else. It brings the wine into contact with the mother, his mother, whom he addresses as woman in the text. It brings the wine also in contact with the dispersing of the Holy Spirit in that saying after he says “It is finished,” you see.

When he says “It is finished” and then the text says he delivered up the spirit—how is that translated? The ESV “gave up his spirit” and that’s an important term and we’ll spend more time on this later but understand that the particular word used there is to deliver something over, okay? And this is the same word that’s used in the various accounts of Christ. He is delivered over after his arrest. He’s delivered over to Pilate from Caiaphas and he’s delivered over to them for his crucifixion. So the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and its movement in time here—it’s being delivered over—is what forms the string that all these beads of details are on. And then as that body has done its work on the cross Jesus delivers over the Holy Spirit.

Now we know that this is an indication of his death. We associate that normally. He delivers his spirit up to God. But it’s a voluntary action on his part of course is what’s being stressed. “No one takes my life from me. I give it up,” he says again. Jesus is reigning from the cross. Again, the whole picture is not one of suffering to the end of just gnostic suffering and pain and suffering and somehow that’s all good. No, Jesus is reigning in this process.

John’s purpose is not to get us to focus so much on the pains of the Lord Jesus Christ, but to rather to focus upon him reigning from the cross, his universal reign being affected by his work on the cross. So yes, he dies, but the indication is that we’re supposed to see as well in connection with what’s going to happen in just a minute, the piercing of his side, the delivering over of the Holy Spirit.

Water will flow from the innermost parts of our being with Jesus’s resurrection and glorification. The spirit is given on Pentecost and it’s given in small form here. It’s given again later in John’s gospel as he breathes his spirit. He breathes on the disciples rather and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

The picture of Jesus here is one at the center of our narrative. Jesus is not, you know, he is not the helpless victim. Jesus as the conquering hero is dispersing gifts to his people from the cross. He restores community between mother and son. He says, “Mother, woman, behold your son.” Jesus lives through John, you see, behold the son, the Lord Jesus Christ in each of us. And Jesus gives gift of restored family, restored community in the context of his taking upon himself the sour wine of God’s wrath.

And Jesus gives the gift of delivering over the spirit to us now in very small muted tones that these tones will become larger as he breathes the disciples and they’ll come to a torrent or a gushing forth of the spirit on the day of Pentecost, the other side of the cross. And all these things are here at the center of the narrative to show us the beauty and the glory of what’s transpiring before our eyes—this wonderful structure, this wonderful portrayal of Jesus Christ reigning from the cross dispensing gifts to his people.

This is the gospel of Christ. This is the gospel. The gospel is not “you can be saved from your sins and go to heaven”—that’s an element of the gospel, a very necessary element. But the gospel being portrayed for us by John here as his gospel comes to its crescendo, its great chorus that’s being sung here at the end of the gospel is: Jesus Christ is Lord, King of all the earth. He has affected this new creation. We’re back in the garden and there’ll be a brand new world as a result of what he does. And he reigns from that cross and distributes gifts to his people.

Now, that’s at the center of the gospel of John. And that’s why we want to spend some time. Even if we didn’t need to spend time exegetically, which we do, I’d probably still spend five or six weeks here because I delight in this passage. It has been a delight to me to meditate on this wonderful section of scripture this week and I want you to think about this text over the next three or four or five weeks. I want you to think about it in your family worship. I want you to chew it over. I want you to delight in it.

I want the light of God to shine forth in our homes and in this church as to what Jesus actually accomplished on this cross. I want us to delight in it. And then because I want us to delight in it, let’s try to think just a little bit about what this skull is all about. Whose skull is it?

Now, some people say that the skull, the place of the skull is the place where there was this hill and it sort of looked like a skull or a cranium. Nobody can find that place. And it seems like this is being designated as a place of the skull, at least in John’s gospel, not just skulls in general. It doesn’t seem particularly satisfactory to us.

Now, we know that this is outside of the city, that this is outside of the gates of Jerusalem, but very close to it because people can see the inscription. We know that Hebrews tells us explicitly in chapter 13 that Jesus Christ has gone outside of the camp like the purification offering—not the offering itself, but the rest of the animal would be taken and burned outside the camp.

Hebrews 13:11-13 says: “The bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin. So the blood is brought in, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. Let us take up our cross and follow him.”

So, it’s outside and Golgotha references that.

Other commentators have thought that this is actually the place of Adam’s skull. They see the obvious linkage between Golgotha and the garden that this text and many others make. And they say, well, here we see the removal of the curse of Adam, Adam’s skull. We see here some say the great fulfillment of the text in Genesis that it was the seed of the serpent whose head would be bruised by the seed of the woman while his foot is being bruised. We got a head, we’ve got a foot, we got bruising going back and forth.

Now, which would you rather have bruised? Well, we’d rather have our foot bruised because that’s not deadly. But the head wound is deadly. And throughout the Old Testament, we’ve talked about this. There are skulls referred to. Abimelech’s skull is crushed by a woman by an implement of work. We talked about that in terms of vocation and conquest. The skull, the crushing of the skull in the Old Testament by the woman—picture of the church—is given to us.

We know in the New Testament, Romans says that God will shortly crush Satan under our feet. Well, here’s the great picture of that fulfillment. Here is what that great protoevangelistic statement, the beginning of the gospel, its first declaration made to the serpent, interestingly enough, in his curse, not to mankind. This great first statement of the gospel is that this head foot action would go on. And so here we have Jesus standing on Adam’s skull. He’s standing on the implications of Adam’s sin, which was his death. Death conquers Adam because of sin. And Jesus Christ conquers that death because of his death on the cross. Death is eaten up with death. And now, as we sang with Luther’s song, “Christ has gained this victory.”

So this great struggle—or not so great in terms of its difficulty, but great in terms of its importance—that Luther captures so well in the song we sang earlier. It’s all right here as a picture. Christ is on the cross. He’s reigning from the cross. He’s standing on the head of Adam. And by representing that, we’re represented as well. Indeed this is the Lord Jesus Christ bringing Adam and all his race, you know, those that are chosen in Christ into new life and into the new creation.

So that may be what’s going on here. Others have suggested, however, that our problem is we just try to get too deep and so difficult. I saw a question, you know, you see these things, kids give the stupidest answers. And the answer to this child had to do with Golgotha. And the child somehow said, well, Golgotha is Goliath, the big guy that, you know, killed tried to kill David and was killed by David. And that’s what the child knew about Golgotha.

Why did the child make that mistake? Because Golgotha sounds like Goliath. And actually, if you take the full name of Goliath—Goliath of Gath—Galgath. Now you have Golgotha. So this word that is tied to the place of the skull in our text, which nobody really knows a whole lot about this word, seems like it might simply be a contraction of Goliath of Gath.

In which case, the place of the skull would be the skull of Goliath. But how would the skull of Goliath end up in Jerusalem? Because the scriptures clearly tell us that is exactly what David did. After David defeats Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, we’re very explicitly told that David takes Goliath’s own sword, cuts off his head, picks up the head, and carries it back to Jerusalem.

Now, he couldn’t put it in the city itself because that, you know, it’s like a corpse. It’s like a dead unclean thing—a head. Goliath, the unclean Philistine’s head of all things. So, it seems like David would want to put this head somewhere where it’s prominent. He brought it back for a reason. He brought it back so that people would see it and remember that in Christ, in the greater David, we can accomplish all things and we can defeat whatever enemies are raised up against us. A simple man with no sword but you know a rock in his hand can wreak God’s judgment and vengeance upon his enemies.

And David wants to teach the people. That’s why he brings the head back. He places it in a prominent place. Where would it be? Well, maybe here. This is right outside the gates, close. The rest of the people walking by can see the inscription. And if the skull of Goliath is there—Goliath of Gath, Galgatha—well then the imagery is quite plain to see and we don’t know that.

But if we have to try to decide whose skull is it, my money is on Goliath because ultimately what Jesus Christ is accomplishing on the cross is certainly the birth of a second humanity in Adam, but ultimately it’s the crushing of the head of the serpent and that’s not really shown by Adam. He’s brought through forgiveness and repentance into relationship with God. But Goliath, now that’s another story. He is a 666. He is the image of Antichrist. He is the image of the rebellious ones like Barabbas.

And Jesus Christ standing on the head of Goliath is a picture of standing on the head of the great serpent or snake. We’ve got a picture, you know, down at the Oregon Territory Museum where Joanna and Jonathan had their reception of John McLoughlin. You see it when you went there? He’s standing on the head of a serpent, too. He’s in crusader clothes. George the Dragon Slayer is kind of pictured as John McLoughlin who came and civilized Oregon and extended grace and mercy. That’s much of how he got fame, you know, is through his deeds of love and kindness to help others. Not a not a kind man necessarily, but his deeds, you see. Personality types may differ, but his deeds of love and kindness.

And he was associated with George the Dragon Slayer because we know that’s what Christians are—those who crush the head of the serpent in the power of Jesus Christ. And here with the description of the place being the place of the skull, we have Jesus crushing the head of the serpent.

So I don’t know whose skull. Maybe Adam’s, maybe Goliath’s. But another association that’s well worth thinking about is that in the book of Ezekiel, we all are dead men. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean last night. This text is one that we can use to discuss that movie. We have dead men. Now, it’s not a meaningful movie. It’s a piece of entertainment. It can be seen as quite entertaining. But what we have is men under a curse from God who in reality are nothing but walking bones. And they need to be brought back to human existence and have their bodies restored. How? By the redemption, the paying back of what they have stolen from God and the shedding of their blood over these coins that they had not from God, from the gods in the movie, but by redemption and paying back what they had stolen and by the shedding of their blood.

And because of that, they become whole men. The book of Ezekiel portrays Israel in its exiled state as dry bones. Very dusty dry bones. Skulls doesn’t use the term skull, but a skull is the head bone, right? The head of the bones. And these skulls, these bones are spoken to by the spirit of God. And they grow up. They come together. And then God puts muscles and sinews over them. And they become walking living things again.

But they’re still not ready. God then breathes his spirit upon them and they become an army for God and they’re restored back to the land.

You see, the Lord Jesus Christ goes to the garden, drinks the sour wine, pays for the sins of Adam, restores and redeems us by his precious blood. He pays for us, and his blood brings us back to life. Whether it’s Adam or Goliath or whatever it is, it’s us in a sense as well.

We’re dead bones apart from Christ. We think we’re real people. You go to Oregon City and it’s like Pirates of the Caribbean. People think they’re alive, but they’re the walking dead. But the beautiful reality is that the whole world is being brought back to restored humanity. The bones are being fleshed out. Sinews and muscles and flesh are being put on them. God’s spirit is being put into the world. And he is redeeming and restoring humanity to follow him, to praise him, and to walk in the context of the power of that Holy Spirit.

That’s the picture of the gospel for us here. Great personal relevance. Our curse has been removed. We’re restored back to rightness with God. But tremendous universal significance. As Jesus reigns from the cross, he does so to move us from the place of a dry, dusty set of bones to the garden of God. He comes to breathe his spirit into us.

The spirit of his word is an assurance today that no matter what you’re in the middle of, the Lord God is at work. I needed this text today. I didn’t know I would. I met it midlife. You look back, you know what you should have done and could have done. And you know what you did. Sometimes, some mornings, those things become more obvious to you than others.

I don’t know how your home was this morning. Mine wasn’t as ordered or as peaceable or as pastoral as I would like it to have been. I mean, nothing horrible happened. Nobody shot anybody else, but it wasn’t what I want. And I know there are those of you that in your homes, it’s not what you want. Your mate is not what you want. Your job is not what you want. Your vocation. But God says, “Take up your cross and follow me.”

And so often we think of that with a meditation just on all the sufferings of Jesus and our sufferings that we go through. And that’s okay. That’s all right. But the capstone gospel wants you to know not just that you should bear up. The capstone gospel wants you to know that as you bear up, as you carry your cross, as you carry your difficulties, whatever they may be, as you do it faithfully in the power of that restored humanity, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the power of the garden and the new creation in Christ, as you do that, God is affecting reign and rule and authority and blessing through you.

It’s not disconnected. “No cross, no crown.” But sometimes we think of them as two discrete events, but here at the capstone gospel, they’re layered right on top of each other. The gospel is proclaimed from the cross. Now, there’ll be a couple of chapters left in which we’ll glory and delight in what’s being proclaimed here, but here is where the gospel is proclaimed. In the midst of suffering, in the midst of difficulty, Christ reigns.

And so do you, dear brother and sister. So do I. Troubles are real. The difficulties are frequently of our own making. Our job is to suffer them well. To carry our cross in faith, believing this very story that it is in suffering that Christ is affecting his rule and his authority and rolling back the effects of the curse.

Believe that today. Believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And particularly believe it when you suffer and have to carry your cross this week.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this marvelous text of scripture. We thank you for the wonderful gospel of our Savior that’s pictured for us here and we just are in awe of what it portrays to us. Help us, Father, to this week not to forget what we saw today, not to forget the way you moved upon our hearts. Help us to consecrate ourselves afresh in coming to you and bringing forth our tributes, our tithes, and our offerings.

Help us, Father, to consecrate ourselves anew to following the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the spirit. Not to doubt that even our sufferings are part of the way that you’re affecting your renewal of the earth. We ask this through his mighty and powerful name and for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.