For many Christians, the passion, or the events surrounding the crucifixion of Christ, are very familiar. We’ve heard countless messages on the crucifixion and even possibly seen movies or plays depicting it. Not to mention, there are four gospel accounts in the New Testament. However, not all the gospels offer the exact same details. One might include some things which others leave out. In John’s gospel, he includes some details which others have not, but at the same time, he has left out some events that others included. So the tendency among preachers and expositors is to fill in the blanks, so to speak, as if to make up for what John was lacking.
Now in the case of the other gospel writers, Matthew, Mark and Luke, that could be considered an appropriate method of exposition, since you could make the case that those three writers were not actually in attendance. However, that’s not the case with John. He makes it clear that He was there. He is the disciple whom Jesus loved mentioned in vs.26 and 35 who was there and witnessed himself the proceedings.
So then the question is, why did John include some things and not others? Well, the answer is that John is not writing a biography, but a gospel. He is telling and emphasizing certain events to present the gospel of Jesus Christ which leads to salvation. That’s what he says in chapter 20:30, 31, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
My dilemma then is to figure out exactly how to present this gospel message that John is endeavoring to give us. And as I prayed and studied this text, I came to a very simple conclusion; John is presenting the fact that Jesus gave His life to accomplish salvation, not focusing on the morbid aspects of the crucifixion, but on the aspects which teach principles of Christ’s atonement for us. So as someone said, Christ gave His life not to engender sentimentality but spirituality. Not that we might be mortified by the physical torture and bloody gore of the crucifixion, but that it teach us the knowledge leading to salvation. As another writer said, Salvation is based on believing. Believing is based on truth. And truth is revealed in Scripture. That believing we might have life in His name.
So then, we will examine this principle of Christ giving His life to accomplish salvation through four vignettes which John presents to us. The first is He gave up His clothes, then He gave up His mother, then He gave up His Spirit, and finally He gave out water and blood.
Now, I also want to add at the beginning that John correlates some of these events with Old Testament prophesies, showing that they were fulfilled in Jesus’s crucifixion. And I believe three of the references he mentions are found in Psalm 22, and one in Psalm 34. And I just want to point out that the Psalms was written 1000 years before Christ. There is absolute proof of that. It is indisputable. In fact, the enemies of Christ, the Jews, would have been very familiar with these Psalms. They probably did not consider these references as Messianic prophesies. So they would not have connived to correlate Christ’s crucifixion with the prophesies even if they had wanted to. The Romans did what Roman soldiers did, irregardless of what the Jews wanted. And those Jews would not have wanted to confirm Christ’s Messiahship. So these prophetic fulfillments are very important to John to point out, so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ. And I don’t want to gloss over that. But now let’s focus on the four vignettes of how Jesus gave His life to accomplish our salvation.
First. Jesus gave up His clothes. We’ve all heard the phrase, “he didn’t own anything but the clothes on his back.” Well, that was especially true of Jesus. He had no possessions, no home, nothing of any value. All that He had were the clothes on His back. And we see in vs 23, that the soldiers took those clothes and divided them up between themselves. When Jesus came down from heaven’s glory to earth, He came all the way down to the bottom to accomplish our salvation. He let go of all His pride, all His clothes, becoming completely poor for us, so that we might become rich in Him. He became naked, bearing all the shame which that brings. It’s the same shame that Adam and Eve felt in the garden of Eden when they realized they were naked and hid from God. Christ became naked for us, bearing the shame, the scoffing, the stares, so that He might be our substitute for sin.
2 Cor. 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” Now how does this incident illustrate that we became rich? Because these four soldiers each received a part of His clothing. There were no more vile sinners than these soldiers who stripped Jesus’s clothes from Him and nailed Him to a cross. And yet we know that even as they did so, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
What John pictures here is that the clothes of Christ were made available at the cross for the covering of sinners. Just as God skinned animals to make clothing for Adam and Eve, so also He skinned Jesus to make clothing for you and me. Isaiah 61:10 says, “For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness.”
The hymn we sing, The Solid Rock, says, “dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.” 2 Cor. 5:21 says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” There is no better picture of our sin situation than that we are naked and ashamed before God. Christ took that upon Himself, that we might become clothed in His righteousness.
But John adds that there is another piece of clothing there, which was not divided, because it was made in one piece. It was a tunic, worn under the outer clothing. And I find two pictures in this; first it is the inner garment, signifying the spiritual. And secondly, it was without seams. It’s not in part, it’s complete. The Spirit of Christ is not given piecemeal. Then thirdly, it is the garment of the High Priest, according to Exodus 28:31-31. Christ as our High Priest is described in Romans 8:34 saying, “who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.”
Now as we see this dividing of His clothing played out by the soldiers, it may seem that Jesus has no control over these events. Yet John informs us that the invisible hand of God guides all things, so that specific prophecy is specifically fulfilled. The fact that it was foreordained indicates that Jesus gave His clothing willingly, even as He gave His life willingly.
The picture teaches us that we need to be clothed in His righteousness if we are to be saved. It is the means of our justification; Christ’s righteousness given to us in exchange for our sin. And when we are saved, then we receive the spiritual covering of His Spirit, so that we might be like Christ. Then in response to Christ’s likeness we also are willing give up our possessions for the sake of the kingdom. Matthew 5:40 “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also.” 45, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Secondly, Christ gave up His mother. I know that heading sounds awkward. Maybe it would be more palatable to say, He gave up His family associations. But all we have presented here is His mother. There are indications from this text and others that Joseph was long dead and Jesus had, as the eldest son, taken on the responsibility of His mother and His brothers. His brothers at this point had not believed in Him. There is no evidence that they were there at the crucifixion. In fact, all his disciples had fled except for John and these four women.
Jesus would have been very aware of the pain that His crucifixion was causing to Mary. She was the only one out of His family that believed in Him. And now as Simeon prophesied to her 33 years earlier, a sword would pierce her soul. I’m sure in His humanness, Jesus would have loved to have used His divine power to come down from the cross and spare His mother this grief. But He was obedient even unto death to the will of the Father, knowing that in His death He would spare not only her soul, but millions more.
So John records here that Jesus gave up His mother, His family, and He gave over her care to John. He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” Not only was Jesus concerned about her physical care, but He was emphasizing also the nature of family in the kingdom of God. There is a new family dimension in the Kingdom of God. Our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers are those in the kingdom. In Luke 8:21 Jesus said, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”
He not only gave up His earthly family, He gave up His friendships. Note that John is always described as the one that He loved. This attitude of Christ also must be our attitude. This principle of consecration to God is stated by Christ in Matt. 10:37, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”
Thirdly, He gave up His Spirit. Phil. 2:8 says, “And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Giving up His Spirit means first of all, that He gave up His life. That is a tremendous thing. It was not an act of suicide. His hands are nailed to a cross. He can’t take His life by violence against Himself. But what He does is an act of divinity. He gives up His life willingly, of His own volition.
But before He acts in divinity, John shows His humanity. Jesus became thirsty and asks for a drink. So they give Him vinegar to drink. He suffered as all mankind would suffer the pangs of the cross. His divinity did not prevent His suffering. As a man, He thirsted. As God, He had the power over His life.
He gave up His life, voluntarily. As Jesus said, “I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (John 10:17-18)
The gospels record 7 statements or words of Jesus on the cross. John only gives us three. One was the statement to John and His mother. The second was He was thirsty. And now John records another statement that Jesus made as He gives up His Spirit. He cries, “Tetelistai!” it is finished. Tetelistai means it is complete, perfect. His life on earth as a man was complete. He lived from the first moment to the last, sinless, perfect. By the death of His perfect life He paid in full the debt of mankind who could never live a perfect life. And by dying, He paid the complete price which we owed; a life of perfection, righteousness, that God might place upon Him our sins as a substitute for the world.
1Peter 3:18 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison.” Not only did He give up His life, but He surrendered up His Spirit to death, to the abode of the spirits. Very little in scripture is given to us concerning the three days Christ spent in the grave. But according to both Peter and Paul, though His body was in the tomb, His Spirit was alive in the abode of the dead. I don’t want to speculate where the Bible does not indicate, but I cannot help but wonder if there was not an element of the punishment He bore for sins which was accomplished in the Spirit while He was in Hades. For it is certain, as the Apostle’s Creed confirms, that “He descended into Hell.” Though we are not privy to all that means, one thing is certain, He went to Hell, that He might triumph over death and Hell, that we who have faith in Him might never experience it.
The human body is spirit, soul and body. Our spirit is the spiritual part of our being that is connected to God, which then rules over the mind and the body. That is what it means to be born again. We must be born of the Spirit, if we are to be spiritual. And then we must give up our self rule to the rule of the Spirit if we are going to live as God would have us live, to be obedient to death, even as Christ.
Finally, the last vignette John presents for us is He gave up water and blood. The soldiers, in order to hurry the death of the crucified, broke their legs, which would cause them to suffocate. But coming to Jesus, these executioners realize that He is already dead. So one took his spear and stabbed Him in the side, presumably to prove He was dead, and John tells us that blood and water comes out. Now doctors have said that this clear liquid was from the pericardium surrounding the heart and partly coagulated blood. That’s the physical explanation. Other, more sentimental explanations have said it was a sign of a broken heart. I’m not sure that such a thing has been established as physically possible. But there is no doubt that there is a symbolic reference in the blood and water coming out of His side. And perhaps it is best stated in the old hymn, Rock of Ages, which says, “Let the water and the blood, from thy wounded side which flowed, be of sin the double cure, save from death and make me pure.” The blood therefore representing justification from sin, and the water being purification from sin.
Matthew Henry, the great theologian said it like this; “The blood and water that flowed out, signified those two great benefits which all believers partake of through Christ, justification and sanctification; blood for atonement, water for purification. They both flow from the pierced side of our Redeemer. To Christ crucified we owe merit for our justification, and Spirit and grace for our sanctification.”
Therefore, we can say that He gave His life to save us not only from the penalty of sin, but the power of it. As I have said numerous times, there are three phases in salvation. All must be accomplished for salvation to be complete. Justification is deliverance from the penalty of sin. Sanctification is the deliverance from the power of sin. And glorification is the deliverance from the presence of sin. The last phase will not happen until the resurrection when we will be given a glorified body. But all three phases are necessary in our salvation.
John has given us these vignettes of salvation tucked into the greater story of the cross, so that we might get a better understanding of what Christ gave His life for. Salvation must be more than just believing intellectually in Christ’s existence, otherwise everyone attending the crucifixion would have been saved that night. But we know that is not the case. Salvation is more than just some sort of superficial belief in the historicity of the events. And I will add something else that you may find disconcerting; salvation is more than just what Christ did on the cross. If salvation was accomplished for men by what Christ did on the cross, then all men have been saved. There is no need to evangelize. Christ has done everything. We do nothing. Well, we must do something, we must believe. But we must believe with saving faith. And faith is not merely intellectual, but it is also a matter of the will. Romans 10:10 says, “with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Faith is a matter of both the intellect and the will. And in those two aspects of faith are couched justification and sanctification. So that James may rightly say, “show me your faith by your works. Faith without works is dead.”
Listen, the water and the blood streaming from the cross of Christ destroyed the enslavement to sin that the devil has held all of mankind in for all who believe. The symbolism of the blood and the water is the crux of the gospel, it is powerful for the destruction of fortresses. And it provides complete salvation. It is able to justify us, to deliver from the penalty of sin, but it is also powerful to sanctify us, to deliver us from the power of sin. Sin no longer needs have dominion over us. The truth will make us free when we embrace the whole truth of the gospel. Let us take up our cross and follow Christ, dressed in His righteousness, our justification. And being made free from the penalty of sin, let us live as free from the power of sin as we yield to the Spirit who lives in us and rules over our will.
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