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CHAP. XIX.]

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and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.

30 When Jesus therefore had received the vine

a Matt, xxvii. 48.

29. "They filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop." So A. (D. supp.), later Uncials, most Cursives, and Syriac; but N (later correction), B., L., Old Latin, "So they put a spunge full of vinegar upon the hyssop." So Revisers.

spunge full of vinegar upon the hyssop' (Vulg., Revisers)] and put it to his mouth." The ancients suppose that this was done in mockery, the taste of the vinegar being bitter and nauseous. Thus Augustine: "He said, I thirst: as much as to say, This ye have left undone, give what ye are (i.e., bitterness). For indeed the Jews themselves were the vinegar, in their degeneracy from the wine of the patriarchs and prophets." And Chrysostom: "Consider, I pray, the accursed nature of the bystanders. Though we have ten thousand enemies, and have suffered intolerable things at their hands, yet when we see them perishing we relent; but they did not even so make peace with Him, nor were tamed by what they saw, but rather became more savage, and increased their irony; and having brought to Him vinegar on a spunge, as men bring it to the condemned, thus they gave Him to drink." Most modern commentators, on the contrary, suppose that the vinegar was the thin sour wine which the soldiers usually drank, and that it was offered to the Lord out of some slight feeling of pity for His agonies. The words of the Psalm (lxix. 21) seem to imply the truth of the older view.

The Synoptics-St. Matthew and St. Mark-say that the spunge was put on a reed, St. John that it was put on hyssop; but the stalks of hyssop might be of sufficient length and firmness to hold a small piece of wet spunge. Probably they found such a stalk growing near the spot.

30. "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished." "In one human word did our Lord gather into one all which He had willed, and wrought, and suffered for man's salvation." "Finished" was the determinate counsel of God: "finished" all that prophecy had foretold and type foreshadowed, and patriarchs and righteous men had longed to see, and angels desired to look into; "finished" the work which His Father gave Him to do, and the deliverance He had wrought in the earth; "finished" were all the sufferings which the malice of man or of Satan could

gar, he said, "It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

b ch. xvii. 4.

c ver. 42. Mark xv. 42. d Deut. xxi. 23.

c

31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon

d

inflict, and the cup of His Father's wrath; "finished" the transgression, and an end made to sin; "finished" the one Sacrifice for sin, and the mortal Life of God made man, the victory over Satan, his rule, and our enthralment." (Pusey.) But a perverse use has been made of these most precious words to deprive the Eucharist of its sacrificial character. The Sacrifice for sin was finished, so far as its expiatory pains were concerned, for "a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction had been made for the sins of the whole world." But the great work of applying that Sacrifice to men, and representing it before God, had not yet begun, and could not till the High Priest had ascended and taken His seat at the right Hand of God. The expiatory Sacrifice must be followed by the eucharistic Oblation, in which we "show forth the Lord's death till He come." The Lamb of God, once for all slain, must be seen at the right Hand of God, standing as slain. The Divine Victim must be fed upon by the faithful.

"And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost," or delivered up His Spirit. The giving up the ghost, or the delivering up of His Spirit, was a voluntary act on His part. His natural strength was not exhausted, for it was as He cried with a loud voice that He commended His Spirit into His Father's Hands. "When the flesh was failing," says St. Jerome, "the Divine voice was strong. While we who are of the earth die with lowest voice, or with no voice at all, He Who was from heaven expired with an exalted cry." "He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost." Who so sleeps when he will, as Jesus died when He would? Who so lays aside his clothing when he will, as He put off the flesh when He would ? Who so departs from a place when he will, as He departed this life when He would? What must we hope or fear to find His power when He judgeth, as it was seen to be so great when He died ? " (Augustine.)

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31. "The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation," &c. In the law of God (Deut. xxi. 22) it is written, "If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and

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CHAP. XIX.]

THEY BRAKE NOT HIS LEGS.

463

the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

32 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.

33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:

31. "For that sabbath day was an high day." More literally, "For great was the day of that sabbath."

thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day, for he that is hanged is accursed of God, that thy land be not defiled." The Jews not only having regard to this law, but also to the fact that the Sabbath, which began at six o'clock that evening, was one of peculiar solemnity (being at once the weekly Sabbath and in that year the day on which the passover was eaten, and so no work of any sort, more particularly so defiling a work as the taking down and burying of dead bodies, should be done upon it), came to Pilate and besought him that the three bodies should be taken down, having first, according to the cruel custom, had their legs broken, to make death the more certain; so that, when cast alive, it may be, into the grave, they should not escape. Some, however, suppose that the breaking of their legs immediately produced gangrene, and so death, but this seems unlikely.

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. . . which was cruci32. "Then came the soldiers, and brake fied with him." To account for the mention of the two separately, it has been suggested that the soldiers, four in number, came to the bodies in pairs, two doing the cruel work on each of the outside bodies; but may there not be a hint of the essential difference in character between the two? the one, the nobler, here called "the first," and "the other," the impenitent one who was crucified with his believing comrade.

33. "But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs." It is important to note this, as it seems to tell us that the Lord was dead before the soldiers came up to the bodies. It is hardly possible to suppose that He could have cried with the loud voice, and surrendered His Spirit whilst they were breaking the legs of those crucified with Him.

34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, • 1 John v. 6, 8. and forthwith came there out blood and water.

34. "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side." If this soldier had been the centurion, it is most probable that the fact would have been mentioned; or, at least, such an one having been so astonished at the signs which accompanied the Lord's death as to exclaim, "Truly this man was the Son of God," was not likely to have thus insulted the Body of the Lord. That it was done as a last and crowning indignity was believed by the Fathers, one of whom (Chrysostom) writes: "Yet these (soldiers) to gratify the Jews, pierced His Side with a spear, and now insulted the dead Body."

"And forthwith came there out blood and water." It is perfectly clear from the next verse in what light (natural or supernatural) we are to regard this coming forth of blood and water from the side of the Saviour. For the Apostle vouches for the truth of the fact in one of the most solemn asseverations to be found in the whole compass of the Scriptures. "He that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye may believe." It is absurd to suppose that he would have made so reiterated a declaration, if the phenomenon was one which would or might have occurred in the case of any other dead body similarly suspended. For it appears from many authorities that in such a case, even if the heart were pierced, there would flow forth a very. little blood and a still less quantity of a fluid which could not properly be called "water"; and unless by a special interposition, amounting in fact to a miracle, these would flow forth mingled together, and undistinguishable from one another-the red particles of the blood giving their colour to all that came forth from the wound. For the thrust of the spear, before reaching the heart, would pierce part of the lungs and many smaller vessels, and after passing through the pericardium, in which there would be a little colourless fluid, would penetrate the larger blood-vessels, and the blood of both these would naturally mingle with and discolour any other fluid before it could begin to flow from the wound. Such a stream could not possibly flow forth so as to be distinguished by a bystander as two separate liquids, and dwell in his memory as one of the most remarkable facts of a day such as had never been known before in the history of the world.

CHAP. XIX.] HE THAT SAW IT BARE RECORD.

465 35 And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true:

Considering, then, the impossibility, on any natural hypothesis, of any such flow of blood and water so distinguishable from one another, as to command attention as something unique, and require, as if it were something incredible, a very solemn twofold assertion on the part of the narrator to enable it to be received, there can be no doubt but that he intended it to be regarded as a fact at once supernatural and typical. And to those who believe that that Body was the Body which the Eternal Son of God had assumed, that its Pains and Death had redeemed the world, and that it was destined within three days to rise again to be the fountain of Life to the world, it seems only likely so to be. What the natural explanation of such a phenomenon connected with such a Body is it seems profane to inquire. Not so with its typical or mystical significance. This we are bound reverently and devoutly to look into, for the Apostle sets it forth as a matter of faith. "He knoweth that he saith true, that ye may believe." We seem to have the key to such meaning in the 1st Epistle of this Evangelist, when, with evident reference to what he had seen at the foot of the Cross, he wrote, "This is he that came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and blood." Now, why should he contrast "coming by water only," and "coming by water and blood"? Evidently because he had in his mind the contrast between the mission of the Baptist and the mission of Christ. The mission of the Baptist was in water only: "I baptize with water." The mission of the Lord is with "water and Blood." What is the significance of water? Evidently cleansing. What is the significance of the Blood? Evidently Life-" the blood is the life." The Lord comes not with cleansing only, but with cleansing and life, and

'Godet has a very good remark: "The Apostle, therefore, establishes, as we have said, the exceptional state of the Body of Jesus, which was manifested at this time by an unexampled evidence. The Holy One of God was not to see corruption (Ps. xvi), and this promise must be fulfilled perfectly in the case of the perfect Holy One. Now, it implied the beginning of the work of Resurrection at the very moment when, in the case of every other death, the crisis of dissolution begins."

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