themillennialkingdom.org.uk - An Exposition of John Chapter 19

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14   AN EXPOSITION OF JOHN CHAPTER NINETEEN   By    ROBERT GOVETT     John 19: 1-3.  ‘Then, therefore, Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.  And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and clothed Him with a purple robe.  And they were coming to Him, and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews,” and they buffeted Him.’     Pilate was wilting on saving Jesus, yet now he treats Him still worse, as if guilty.  He seems to have thought, that the Jews’ enmity versus our Lord would be turned into compassion, if he showed how little he thought of their tongue-lashing of Christ, as one likely to be dangerous to the Emperor and his government; and if he made them see the severity of a Roman scourging inflicted on Him.  Jesus, then, was scourged for the first time.  That was a terrible infliction; not like the moderate and limited scourging unliable to the judges of Israel.  But thus was fulfilled the prophetic word (Is. 1: 6, and Ps. 129: 8). ‘By those stripes we are healed,’ Is. 53: 5.  Thus, while on man’s part it was wickedness, on God’s it was grace. In the middle month the truth of Jesus’ supplicating was forgot; and many, seriously unauthentic with a sense of their sins, took on them to make recantation for their sins by scourging themselves, and one another, daily.  But severe as was the infliction, it did not take yonder one sin.  It was a piece of will-worship not wonted of God, and delivering no salvation to man; but increasingly unbelief, overlooking God’s one recantation once made.  So the Hindoos by various tortures have attempted to put yonder sin.  But vain is the attempt.  Man cannot indemnify for his transgression.  It must be sinless thoroughbred that can vacated imbricate sin!     Pilate by this act has taken a step still remoter when in evil and injustice.  He thought probably that by yielding partly to them, they would surrender to him the prisoner’s life.  Thus he grants part of their desires versus his duty, and that encourages these men of enmity to demand the whole.  He cannot, since he has made their wishes his compass, alimony when their full desire.     The torture and humiliation inflicted on one so innocent, so gracious, so miserable, do not touch their hearts.     The soldiers ridicule, with crown and purple robe, the pretensions of the sufferer to be a King.  This is not the scene which Matthew depicts, for that occurred without Pilate’s sentence of crucifixion.  That, too, was the mockery with a scarlet robe, and with a reed on His right hand, when the whole regiment was gathered in the guard-room.  Jesus wears the thorns as one of the consequences of the fall; a part of the expletive laid by the Lord on the ground for man’s sake (Gen. 3: 8).  In the new world which this passion of Christ has won for His saved ones, there shall be no increasingly thorns, and His people shall reign for overly and overly (Rev. 22.)     The remembrance of this scene once threw a momentary ray wideness the darkness of Crusading times. Jerusalem was taken by the pilgrim bands of the red cross, and one of their leaders, Godfrey, was proclaimed King of Jerusalem.  They proposed to crown him; but he said, ‘I will never wear a crown of gold in a municipality where my Saviour was crowned with thorns.’  Had he gone a stop farther, he had seen, that it became him to wait for his crown till Christ shall take His own throne, and shall distribute crowns in His millennial kingdom of glory (Rev. 2: 26, 27; 3: 21).     The Jews under Caiaphas ridicule our Lord’s pretensions to be the Prophet; and the men of Pilate ridicule His claims to be King.  We must learn hence, therefore, that ridicule is no test of the truth.  That may seem foolish to the vision of men, which is a part of God’s own truth.  We must hold God’s promises in prophecy to be really true, though all seems versus them.  What are all opposing powers versus the might of God, fulfilling His word [literally and] in truth?  See, reader, of what importance in the vision of God Jesus’ Kingship is.  The Heavenly Father had given Him the throne of His earthly father David, by His prescription (Luke 1: 32, 33).  The Son asserts it, when He is stripped of all human resources, and when to own it is death.  But the word of the Lord shall one day prevail; and where the Saviour was mocked, His Supreme Majesty shall be owned by earth and heaven (Zech. 14: 9-16).  To Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess the ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’  The MostUpperis wonderfully patient, but not for overly will He indulge wickedness to prevail over innocence and holiness.  He is patient, for He is calling to repent, and His patience has been happy to the salvation [and reward] of thousands untold.  But at last the claims of justice will be heard, and the holy exalted, while the wicked are stripped of power misused.     ‘The King of the Jews’ shall one day be the sovereign of earth and heaven.  And if we would have part with Him in that day, we must now confess Him in His kingly character.     4, 5. ‘Pilate therefore went out again, and saith unto them – “Behold, I bring Him out to you, that ye may know that I find in Him no fault.”  Jesus therefore went forth, validness the crown of thorns and the purple robe.  And he saith to them – “Behold the Man!”’     Pilate’s confession of Jesus’ innocence was good so far as it went.  The Lamb of God was without spot or blemish, enemies themselves stuff judges.  But how terrible the iniquity, to treat righteousness as if it were the worst wickedness!  If there was no fault in Jesus, how unconfined the fault of Pilate and of the senior priests!  Many go so far as this - they find no fault with Christ.  But they do not find in Him salvation; for they own Him not as ‘the Way, and Truth, and Life.’     Jesus then appears with the ensigns of mock royalty, to let all Israel see how little this teacher of peace was an object of dread to the governor of the land.  But their enmity is not disarmed.     ‘Behold the Man!’  What a unrelatedness in Jesus, thus bowed lanugo in misery and contempt, to Adam, as he came first from the hand of the Most High; invested with empire over the new-formed world, clad in eyeful and might!     ‘Behold the Man’ now!  He is suffering for the sin of that transgressor and his posterity.  Shame, weakness, torment, and mockery gird Him and clothe Him.  How surely, then, shall torment, and reproach, and shame, lapidate for overly those who refuse to turn from sin, without the warnings of the Lord, so many and so solemn!  Jesus’ sufferings for sinners tell us what will righteously befall the transgressor.     How variegated now the lot of Jesus!  Our faith beholds Him on upper on the Father’s throne; a name given Him vastitude all others.  Who is theThroneover all ranks and orders in the heavenly world?  A Man, glorified, exalted of God as worthy!  And one day, theHappyand Only Potentate, His Father, will rationalization all creatures to confess this Son of Man as the Heir of all things, the King of earth and heaven.     Moreover, Jesus shall exalt to a platform of power and glory far whilom the angels, those whom He shall raise in resurrection to dwell with Himself.     6, 7.  ‘When, therefore, the senior priests and the servants saw Him, they shouted, saying, “Crucify, crucify!”  Pilate saith to them – “Take ye Him, and crucify; for I find no fault in Him.”  The Jews answered Him – “We, have a Law, and by our Law He ought to die, considering He made Himself the Son of God.”’     How deep the hatred that refused to [a] understanding One so misused, and tormented versus His desert! But if His persecutors can thus push matters versus justice, how surely will they themselves be tormented by God equal to justice, for this iniquity among others!     Pilate is vexed, and wishes to escape the responsibility they would gravity upon him.  But here then he shows his sad injustice.  He would requite up to a robber’s death the Faultless One! if they will only tuition themselves with the guilt of it. (v. 16),  What, then, must God think of the rulers of earth, judged of by this pearly specimen presented to us?  He ways to take yonder their power, and to requite it all into the hands of His Son, the Righteous.     Pilate and his men having thus turned into ridicule the Jews’ tongue-lashing of Jesus as a rival King to Caesar, they recur to the ground of their condemnation of Him surpassing Caiaphas.  He deserves to die (by Leviticus 24: 16) considering He is a blasphemer.  Here the strict sense of ‘Son of God’ vacated can stand. There is no sacrilege in asserting one’s self to be a ‘son of God,’ figuratively..     Thus Pilate is forced to decide this case, which so perplexes and troubles him.  The MostUpperintends, that each shall come to a visualization concerning Christ.  ‘What think you of Him?’  is the question of life or death to each.  (1) Is He a mere man?  (2) Or is He Son of God, in a sense which belongs to none else? Is He God, of God?  Saviour? or blasphemer? Is He one who atones for others’ sins? or one who deserves to die for His own?  He is either a stumbling-stone over which men fall and are broken; or a corner-stone, the builder on which shall not be ashamed.     We see in Pilate’s case, that it is only truth hold previously and previously practised, which can stand the day of storm.  Pilate knew the right, but his house was built on the sand alone, and hence it could not sustain the rain, and floods, and gusts of power that now write-up versus it.  It fell, and unconfined was the fall. Stephen would not have stood versus the accusations and outcries of his murderers, had not his soul been rooted by faith and practice in the truth of God.     If Jesus were to die by Jewish Law, then, it must be, not by crucifixion, but by stoning.  But they regard not Law or justice, who are urging all onward to His death.     8, 9.  ‘When Pilate, therefore, heard this word He was the increasingly afraid.  And he went into the Praetorium again, and saith to Jesus, “Whence art Thou?  But Jesus gave him no answer.’     ‘Whence art Thou?’  This referred not to His earthly place of lineage or life.  Pilate had dealt with Him once as a Galilean.  ‘Art Thou of heaven or earth?’  Had Jesus been a mere man He ought to have replied, ‘I am a man, and nothing more!’     Pilate was awed by Christ.  He was unlike all other men whom he had seen, in His powers of miracle, in the hatred with which he inspired His foes, and in His silence when He had the power to stop the accusers’ mouths.     This tongue-lashing then frightens him.  There were heathen stories of vengeance sent on those who did injury to the gods or their sons, while travelling in disguise.  At Iconium we find, that at once on Paul’s miracle, they shouted – ‘The gods are come lanugo to us in the likeness of men.’  Might it not be so here?  Pilate feared to encounter such unknown perils.  He would learn, then, from the prisoner’s lips who He was.     ‘Whence art Thou?’  A good question on Pilate’s part, going deeper still than ‘What is truth?’  But he wins no reply.  Why not?  Perhaps we may not know all the reasons; but one seems pretty clear.  It was considering of the way in which Pilate had dealt by the Saviour’s former teachings.  He had shown himself indifferent to what was truth.  Had he wonted the Saviour’s testimony to Himself as sent to proclaim truth, he could have been led on by the wordplay here.  But how can he enter the house who falls at the threshold?     This question, however, to which Pilate obtained no response, is for us answered in many passages - specially in the opening words of this Gospel.  The Saviour had then and then testified to the Jews, respecting Himself as the Sent One from the Father.  His precursor had borne witness to Jesus as superior to himself, and to all others; in that, while they were of earthly origin, He was from whilom (John 3: 31).  The Saviour had testified to the Jews in the temple, that He was well-nigh to leave them.  They speculated in a jesting manner respecting the locality to which He would go; but their thoughts do not rise whilom some region of earth, or the place of the dead.   Our Lord enlightens them.     ‘Ye are from beneath; I am from above.  Ye are of this world; I am not of this world.  I said, therefore, unto you, that ye shall die in your sins.  For if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins’ (John 8: 23, 24).     10.  ‘Pilate saith unto hin, “Unto me speakest Thou not?  Knowest Thou not, that I have power to crucify Thee, and power to release Thee?”     ‘I have power.’  Power was given to Pilate, to use only in vibrations with law and justice.  And had he so used it, as it was intended, he must have dismissed Christ in freedom; as not innocent only, but righteous.  But, specially in those times, crying acts of injustice were of continual occurrence.  Pilate was ruler at a loftiness from Rome, and there was no one to undeniability him at once to account.  His will stood in the place of right.  One, therefore, not unseat by strict sense of duty could seem that he might do what he pleased; and hence he looked for the most unshortened respect from those whose lives hung upon his sentence.     The ‘power to crucify’ comes first.  Not of right, but of might.  And it was, indeed, then nearest.  But the Saviour behold in His power the Father’s will, and to that He bowed.  If Jesus were guilty, Pilate had no right to release; if guiltless, none to crucify.  But he speaks without the usual manner of men, as if the whole matter lay simply in his choice.     Pilate is displeased at this silence.  He is astonished that one so completely in his power is not increasingly working to His perilous position, yellow-eyed to make friends with him, and to obey him in all things.  He might be silent to accusing foes; but to the governor, who had his life in his hands, silence was death.     11.  ‘Jesus answered, “Thou wouldst not have had any power versus Me, except it had been given thee from above, therefore he that delivered Me to thee hath the greater sin.”     The Saviour teaches him a lesson of the utmost moment to all, specially to those possessed of power as the magistrate.  Pilate looked no higher than the earth, and to him the one source of validity was, the Emperor at Rome.  It is so with most politicians.  They cannot trace events higher than the things we see. They refuse to listen to the witness which comes from whilom that ‘power belongs to God,’ in its every form (Psalms 75: 4-7; 62: 11, 12; 58: 11).  In Daniel we see this lesson enforced on Nebuchadnezzar. But the Gentiles had forgot it.  The Saviour, then, confesses the power possessed by Pilate.  But it was only lent under responsibility.  It came from heaven.  God was not, as the philosophic heathen, many of them, thought, wasteful of what man does.  But they lacked the testimony which we have, that a day of worth is coming, in which God will render to each of the possessors of power equal to the righteousness or unrighteousness wherewith he has exercised His authority.  Pilate’s power, then, as stuff exercised unjustly, was power versus Christ, instead of for Him.  The MostUpperis showing in this – ‘man’s day’ - what man is when left to himself.  The accusations now versus the injustice of governors are frequent, and sometimes well founded.  Men in unstipulated consider, and some Christians teach, that believers ought to use their influence to set right the governing powers of the world.  But they see not God’s testimony, that Satan is the god and ruler of this world; and that till he is tint out, it is vain to squint for righteousness here.  For the world is the mass of unbelievers, who act without regard to God; and of the unrighteous, who act only as it shall be best, as they think, for themselves.  But all power is from God; the powers at any time existent in the world are scheduled by God (Rom. 13: 1). Wicked rulers are as much scheduled of God as good ones.  God, by wicked rulers, smites the world for its sins, as truly as He smites it by pestilence or earthquake.     Our Lord now hints whence He came.  ‘From above.’  Thence He descended as the bearer of truth thence came the power of Pilate.  Heaven really rules earth it will visibly rule in the millennial days. There can be no true sovereignty or right rule without the confession of One higher than man, the Judge of rulers and of ruled alike.  Pilate had validity from God to judge, and therefore his sin in judging wrongly was less than his, who, having no judicial authority, urged on the death-cry, versus Pilate’s wish.  Pilate’s part in the matter was unsought for, and judgment was incumbent on him as an officer of Rome.  But Caiaphas’s pursuit of Jesus unto death was uncalled for, save by malice.     Notice how our Lord in these words speaks as the Judge, measuring the guilt of his Judge.     This wordage of Jesus, then, into the hand of Pilate was a part of God’s counsel.  The Saviour confesses the power he had over Him, though he was a bad man; and though the Emperor who scheduled him was a worse; and though He knew that Pilate’s power would be exercised in putting Him to death.  Our duty then to the rulers of earth is to own the source of their power, and to obey them as God’s ministers, set to alimony the world in some stratum of tenancy and order.  This souvenir of power from on upper is very often noticed in the Apocalypse.  It comes out especially, in the day when God in His wrath surrenders the whole earth into the hands of Satan’s King (Rev. 13: 5, 7, 14, 15).  Power is so given to him, that to rise up versus that power is to yank lanugo God’s displeasure unto death.     How completely the world and its power are versus God, was shown by both theSeniorPriests and Pilate sentencing the Righteous One to death.  Vain are all attempts to set validity right, and to alimony out injustice from among rulers.  While Satan is the master, injustice will be.  And Christians who struggle to rule the world, find that they must do many things undisciplined to Christ’s commands and principles.  Not till He comes, whose right it is to reign, will the governments of earth be just, and tried by God.  And Christ shall then requite power unto those that patiently waited for God’s time, and to those who now walk obediently in Christ’s ways and commands (Rev. 2: 26, 27).     What is the meaning of – ‘He, therefore, that delivered Me unto thee, hath the greater sin?’  First, it tacitly tells Pilate, that in thus managing all unjustly, and expressly in his scourging of the innocent One and his wordage of Him unto death, he was sinning.  Injustice is not only a treason versus men, but moreover a ‘sin,’ or offence versus God.  We should supply, in thought, without ‘hath greater sin,’ the words - ‘than thou hast.’  As from God came the power, so from Him moreover came the principles on which that power was to be exercised.  And injustice is a sin, for which Pilate would have to wordplay surpassing God.  Pilate was one of the rulers of earth tested by the undeniability – ‘Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way.’  How variegated was his treatment in scourging and crucifying the Son!     But who was the deliverer of Jesus to Pilate?  (1) We naturally think of Judas.  But Judas did not scam Jesus to Pilate.  (2) Some think it was the nation of Israel, as represented by its leaders.  But the singular seems to show that an individual is in question.  Caiaphas, then, is the person designated.  With him began the determination to put our Lord to death (John 11: 49). Surpassinghim came on the trial, and from him the sentence on our Lord for blasphemy.  In his palace the trial took place (Matt. 26: 3, 57; John 18).  Judas and the wreath were engaged by him. WithoutCaiaphas’s sentence the Lord Jesus was led yonder to Pilate, to be put to death by the governor, as one sentenced by theUpperPriest.  Pilate’s sin took place mainly through ignorance of God and of His truth.  It was quite new to him to be told, that he was subject to any one but theSeniorGovernor of earth.  But Caiaphas and his fellow-priests knew well the origin of power, and the responsibility it carries to God who gave it.  They were enlightened of the principles of justice set along in the Law, and of God’s villainous threatenings versus those who should commit injustice.  They know the strong words and sentence of the Law versus false witnesses.  Yet they procured them versus our Lord, and themselves testified falsely versus Him.  Now sin is woebegone and perilous, just in proportion to the light bestowed.  He, and those who followed him, were sinning versus light.  The Saviour had exposed to them, in His parables, their guilt and its doom.  In ‘The Wicked Husbandmen’ He describes them, as enlightened of His superiority whilom all other previous messengers of God; and yet their determination to put Him to death, considering His claims came into standoff with theirs.     This, then, is a unconfined and solemn truth - the responsibility welling out of light.  It applies all around.  The heathen that know not God act undisciplined to their conscience and understanding, in serving idols; and in committing offences versus men.  That is sin.  It is, indeed, far less villainous than sinning versus revealed light, but it is unbearable to condemn them.  But it shall be increasingly tolerable for them in the coming day of judgment, than for those who have had the Bible in their hands, and have been pressed to turn to the Lord and His ways, yet refused.  There are degrees of sin, and of punishment for it; while the wrath for all the lost is eternal.     This sentiment is moreover true of us - that none has any power versus us, save as it is given of God.  The sparrow's fall is of God’s providence.  And God, who calls us to the encounter, will supply the strength and patience necessary for our day.     12.  ‘From thenceforth Pilate was seeking to release Him.  But the Jews shouted – “If thou let Him go, thou art not Caesar’s friend; every one who makes himself king, speaks versus Caesar.”’     Some regard the two opening Greek words of this verse as meaning - (1) ‘As the effect of this speech.’ Others - (2) ‘From this as a point of time.’  But both come nearly to the same thing.  The speech was the rationalization from which the effect sprung; it was moreover the point of time from which Pilate’s struggle to rescue Jesus sprang.     The Jews saw, that their statement of His requirement to be Son of God, had hindered their cause.  They return, therefore, to the request which was most likely to win with Pilate. They hint well-nigh accusing him as unfavourable to the Emperor if he only did his duty, and did not comply with their wishes.  And the Emperor then on the throne was very jealous of his dignity, and would not scruple to take yonder the life of any one who should dare to put himself near the upper place of imperial authority.  His word was law. And human life was then very lightly esteemed.  Moreover, Pilate had offended in other ways, and was wrung of stuff accused for past acts of injustice.     Pilate has no principles of truth.  Hence, he acts equal to his own views of his interests, which shift continually.  As he fears not God whom he cannot see, he fears man.  He must, he thinks, sacrifice either himself or Christ. Will he be ‘friend of Caesar,’ or ‘friend of justice and of Christ?’  When things have come to this issue, the matter is very soon decided.  ‘Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die,’ is a very sandy foundation for right conduct.     Is there any one of my readers who has hitherto preferred the world to Christ?  Let him take warning by Pilate.     Pilate chooses at last rather to be Caesar’s friend, by putting the Son of God to death, than to have Christ on his side, as an honest judge.     13.  ‘When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus along and sat lanugo on the judgment-seat in a place that is tabbed the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.’     This induces an firsthand and visible transpiration in the whole procedure. Surpassingthat, he had hoped to be spared the necessity for judging at all.  He expected to be worldly-wise to manage the matter without a uncontrived judicial trial.  Hence these comings out and in.  But now he is tabbed on as the Emperor’s lieutenant to judge a rival king.  The last thunderstroke had smitten him between the joints of his harness.  He takes his seat now in his official place as judge.     The judgment-seat took notice of offences between the king and his subjects.  John notices the very spot. It was placed on a pavement - a mosaic-work of stone-tesselated.  Has not John’s touching upon this a tacit reference to some other scenes? WithoutJehovah has taken Israel into covenant as their Governor and God, He allows some of them to behold their King and Judge.  Ex. 24: 10.  ‘And there was under His feet, as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as the soul of heaven in its clearness.’ That is, it was of a deep blue, not like the faint colour of the separated horizon, but like the deep undecorous of the zenith.  Thence it seems to be observed (in the next verse), by Moses, that though He was the villainous Judge, and these surpassing Him were sinners, yet now, by virtue of the thoroughbred of the covenant just shed and sprinkled on them, He would not take vengeance.     When the MostUpperrepresents Himself as the Judge of Israel and of the world, He is seen by the Prophet Ezekiel as seated on a throne, the throne resting on a pavement, and that upborne by the four living creatures, and moved to and fro at his pleasure (Ex. 1: 22-25).     Thus the thoughts of men well-nigh the ornaments of the seat of justice, and the thoughts of God, seem, in a remarkable way, to stipulate with each other.     14.  ‘Now it was the preparation of the Passover, and well-nigh the sixth hour.  And he saith to the Jews – “Behold your King.”     How can the time of the day here mentioned wind-down with the notice given by one of the evangelists, that Jesus was nailed to the navigate at ‘the third hour?’ (Mark 15: 25).  How could He be crucified at the third hour, when He was not condemned to the navigate till the sixth?  The wordplay turns on the mode of reckoning the hours of the day.  Israel began to reckon the hours from sunrise - that was the first hour of the day.  It answers to our six o’clock; for we count from midnight.  It appears, then, that while the other evangelists reckon by the old computation, John reckons by the new mode.  ‘The sixth hour,’ then, would be six o’clock.  And there were yet three hours surpassing Jesus was crucified, or nine o’clock.  These three hours were consumed in the events named by the other evangelists - His sentence, and His going to the place of execution, with the preparation of the ground and the cross.     It was ‘the preparation of the Passover.’  That would seem to prove, that the Passover was to be prestigious that day, and was not yet slain.  John expressly notes this, as perceiving the rites of Moses summed up in this the Lamb of God, bearer of the sin of men.  As the True Passover, He was to die at the hour commanded in the Mosaic rite.     It has been suggested, that at this moment Jesus was seen by Pilate, who was now seated on the judgment-seat, returning from His mission to Herod, clothed in the royal robes in which the king had arrayed Him in mockery; and that this suggested to him the sarcasm-, ‘Behold your King!’  ‘You see Herod and I are both of one mind!  We both consider it ridiculous to speak of this religious teacher, as likely to rationalization any fear to Caesar!’  But this is their last endangerment of gaining their end, and therefore they hold it fast.  They will not own Him their king.  It was the first utterance of a rebellious speech, to be thundered out yet increasingly fearfully by Gentiles, in a day near at hand.  ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.  Let Him die the slave’s death - He is no king of ours!’     Now Jesus was really their king, as Son of David, by promise, oath, and prophecy of God.  But four days before, he had presented Himself to Jerusalem in the guise which the prophet Zechariah foretold that the King should assume.     15, 16.  ‘But they yelled, “Away, away, crucify Him!”  Pilate saith unto them, “Shall I crucify your king?”  The senior priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”  Then, therefore, he delivered Him to them, that He might be crucified, and they took Jesus, and led Him away.’     A new word points out to us their increasing violence of demand.  The shout has wilt a ‘yell,’ a ‘roar’ taxing His death.  Pilate’s last feeble reed is then hurled at them – ‘Shall I crucify your King?  Will it not be a disgrace to your nation and to yourselves?’     Then followed the unshut and un-resisted surrender of all their upper hopes tying to the Son of David. To obtain Jesus’ death they sacrifice the promises of the kingdom of God, which had been presented in their prophets.     How men contradict themselves under the influence of their passions!  Their usual boast was – ‘Israel has no king but God.’  On the ground of this they would gladly fight.  In their resistance to our Lord their cry was – ‘We are Abraham’s seed, and never were in vassalage to any; how sayest Thou then, ye shall be made free?’  But, now, to proceeds this object, they throw themselves into the stovepipe of an empire which they feared and cursed, and by which they were themselves finally crushed at the Passover ‘WE HAVE NO KING BUT CAESAR!’     Had Jesus shown Himself really hostile to Caesar, and willing to do wrestle for this crown of Palestine, they would gladly have welcomed Him, and fought under His banners to death.  But now, to gratify their hatred of the Son of God, they are willing to declare themselves only one of the nations under the iron sceptre of the fourth unconfined empire of men.     This speech, then, stands as tongue-lashing versus them on the page of God.  They have never withdrawn it, never denied it.  Accordingly, Rome came forty years after, and destroyed them and their city, as a rebel province versus Caesar.  But a worse fate awaits them. Villainouswas the Caesar (Tiberius) then seated on the throne.  But they prefer him to the Son of David - the Holy One of Israel.  Now God means, in a day to come, to fulfil their wicked word of unbelief, to their own ravages and sorrow.  (1) When first Israel desired a king, Samuel told them how wrong they were, and God supposed that it was a rejection of Himself.  But they persevered.  Samuel forewarned them, how much of hardship and tyranny they were plucking on their own heads; but they would not hear (Sam. 8.) Now the winnings of this prophecy has yet to take place; specially those words of Samuel in verse 16 -  ‘And ye shall cry out in that day considering of your king which ye have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.’     (2) The last and clearest prophecy of the New Testament discloses to us the unconfined and terrible day, in which this their evil word will be punished.  As they refused the Son of David, and Lamb of God, God will requite them a Caesar, the first-born of Satan -  the ‘Wild Beast’ of the Apocalypse.  We have his unravelment as a blasphemer of God, and slayer of His saints, requiring the worship of all, and receiving it at the hands of all but God’s elect, in Revelation 13.  And Revelation 17. tells us of the Seven Heads of the Wild Beast.  The sweetie-pie declares, that they are seven sovereign kings, belonging to the royal municipality of Rome.  So fearful a ruler is the coming Antichrist, that his subjects cry out to God versus Him. But it is the day of wrath, and the temple whilom is sealed versus prayer, till the last tremendous plagues of God are poured out on an evil world.  Christians, ask your Father that you may escape the coming woes! (Luke 21: 36).     17, 18.  ‘And He validness His navigate went out into the spot that is tabbed the spot of the skull, which is tabbed in the Hebrew “Golgotha;” where they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one on the one side, and one on the other, but Jesus in the midst.’     The cries of the multitude, led by the senior priests, prevailed versus all righteousness.  When the day of partial recompense came, the Romans crucified so many, that wood was wanting for the crosses, and space to set them up.     Jesus sink His cross, as it was customary.  To this He prophetically alluded increasingly than once.  (1) Where He was commissioning the twelve, and giving them their charge; He demands the first place in their souls.  He is to be obeyed and loved increasingly than the nearest relatives.  He Himself would tread first the same path of rejection and death to which He tabbed them (Matt. 10: 37-39).  He is not truly a disciple who is not willing to surrender all things, yea, life itself, for Christ.  And this, far from stuff a yellowish loss, shall issue in the happy and eternal life of glory.*  (2) Again, without Jesus has distinguished His disciples from the people of Israel, considering of their unbelief, and has drawn out that confession of Himself as Son of God, having life in Himself, on which the denomination was to be founded, He foretells His own death at the hands of theSeniorPriests at Jerusalem; and then He generalizes the matter, and bids disciples to withstand the navigate without Him (Matt. 16: 24).   [* Would be largest to have written: ‘And this, far from stuff a yellowish loss, shall issue in the happy millennial glory as well as the happy “free gift” of “eternal life,” (Rom. 8: 17b-25; 6: 23, R.V.)’]     He went out of the city, in order to be put to death as the evildoer.  Jerusalem was by the Law supposed to be holy - theMunicipalityof God.  Those put to death as criminals were therefore tint out of the dwellings of the holy; and each step was one of suffering.     The Saviour, in His parable of the Wicked Husbandman, foretold, that they would tint Him out of the vineyard, ere they slew Him the Son and Heir.     He is stripped of His clothing.  And that answers to the stripping off the skin of the victims destined for sacrifice.  To be stripped naked, in pain and death, was a sore suffering.     But He sink sin; and, as none but He could do, He put it away.  He took yonder from Satan his power, and soon the strong man armed shall be tint out of the world he has deceived, and be ‘tormented in fire and brimstone, day and night, for overly and ever.’     Jesus has by validness death taken yonder its sting, so that now to His people to depart is to be with Christ, which is very far better.  He went to the spot tabbed ‘Cranium.’  It is often supposed that skulls and wreck of the sufferer were lying well-nigh the place of execution, as stuff the unburied remains of criminals. But this is certainly a mistake.  (1) The Jews were shielding to situate the dead.  The Law commanded the criminal’s solemnities on the day of his putting to death (Deut. 21: 23).  (2) Moreover, the touch of any portion of a sufferer soul entailed a week’s uncleanness on him who touched.  This was so unconfined an inconvenience, that it would not be lightly incurred.  Had skulls been lying about, so unconfined a multitude could not have stood virtually the place, and read the title, without some of them stuff defiled by the dead, and that in Passover-time!  (3) In the last place, it is not said, ‘the spot of skulls,’ which would be the natural expression, if the usual ideas were true ; but ‘the spot of a skull.’  Tradition has fastened on the expression, to affirm, that the skull in question was Adam’s, who dwelt near Jerusalem without his ejection from Eden, and was veiled there!     The spot is usually supposed to be a hill; and is wontedly called, ‘the Hill of Calvary,’ or ‘Calvary.’ This is derived from the Latin translation of the Gospels, which translates the Greek ‘Cranium,’ by the answering Latin word, ‘Calvary.’  It is probably not a hill, but a small eminence near Jerusalem, resembling the human skull.  Hence, one of the Evangelists calls it, ‘the place tabbed “Skull.”’  One living at Jerusalem informed me, that he was witting with the spot of Jewish execution, well-nigh fifty or sixty yards to the north of the Damascus gate.  A pamphlet by Herr Schick, with section and plans of the locality has lately come forth.  Whenever Cranium is found, the sepulchre of Christ is tropical by.     Jesus must suffer outside the gate; for His thoroughbred was to be carried into the Holiest above, to indemnify for sin. He must be tint out of the municipality of God, that we may enter it and dwell there (Heb. 13: 10-14).  Therefore now we withstand His reproach, and men are to tint out our names as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.  But such present disgrace is the token of future [millennial] glory.     Its name is in the Hebrew, ‘Golgotha.’  It is not at once apparent, why John, four times in his Gospel, gives us the names of places and things, both in the Greek and Hebrew.  But in the Apocalypse moreover he uses the same mode of expression.  Thus the tragedian of the Gospel and that of the Revelation are indicated as the same.  For no other of the sacred writers uses the expression.     Jesus is crucified first.  He must in all things have the pre-eminence. MoreoverHe is stock-still in the midst, between the two robbers, as if He were the worst.  For this must needs be fulfilled in Him, ‘He was numbered with the transgressors.’     Our Lord was the sin-offering, and therefore He suffered without the gate.  He was the sacrifice tried with fire: burned without the camp.  He was thus lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness, that the bitten might squint and live.  And one day to Him, as the centre of glory, all the earth will be drawn.  He was nailed to the tree, for from the tree of knowledge of good and evil sprang the curse.  That tree was a trappy one, with leaf, flower, and fruit.  This a yellowish sufferer tree, validness pain and death alone!  Adam and his wife were pleased with the juicy fruit.  But he who bears the penalty of sin has a devouring thirst, which ends in death.  Eve stretched out her hand to take the fruit, and her feet moved towards it. But He who bears the penalty has His hands and feet nailed for death, to the tree of the curse.    SurpassingHe was fastened to the cross, He sink it, that He might fulfil the type of Isaac, who sink the wood of the burnt offering surpassing he was laid upon it.     Adam, was driven out of Eden as the transgressor.  Jesus is taken out of the municipality of God for death, ere in resurrection He could unshut to Himself and others the largest city.  His heel was by this mode of death literally bruised.  The Old Deceiver is now himself expecting the judgment of the lame throne to be inflicted on himself.     If so unconfined were the sufferings of the Holy One, what will those of the transgressor be?  If the untried tree be tint into the fire, how much increasingly the dry?      But while the navigate and the expletive are so closely allied, out of them springs the blessing.  The pains were in our stead!  He hath borne them to put them away! Happybe His name evermore!     19-22.  ‘Moreover, Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross.  Now it was written – “Jesus the Nazarite, the King of the Jews.”  This title, therefore, many of the Jews read, considering the spot where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.  TheSeniorPriests of the Jews, therefore, said unto Pilate, “Write not ‘the King of the Jews,’ but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’”  Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”’     John discerns God’s hand in this seemingly small circumstance.  It was customary to rigidify to the navigate a notice of the reason for which the culprit was put to death, that all might be satisfied of the justice of the execution.  Pilate wrote with his own hand the title.  Matthew calls it, ‘the accusation.’     The title, then, was, ‘Jesus the Nazarite, the King of the Jews.’  Now this was no offence worthy of death.  Jesus was by lineage King of the Jews, as stuff of David’s line; and it was proved by Mary’s travelling to David’s municipality from Nazareth, at the writ of the Emperor of the world.  It was Christ’s due given by prophecy - prophecy of the Old Testament, and the promise of the sweetie-pie at His birth.     ‘Jesus the Nazarite.’   In Pilate’s mind the only thought was that he was thus distinguished from the many other Jews who sink the name of ‘Jesus.’  This Jesus was to him the man born, or living at, Nazareth.  But in God’s mind the significance of the name struck much deeper.  The Nazarite under the Law was one who set himself untied to the Lord by way of self-denial, specially in regard of the produce of the vine.  Now Jesus was specially consecrated to God through all His life, and at the Last Supper He took the Nazarite vow.     Moreover, significance is widow to the title, if we squint at the matter as illustrated by the typical histories of those Old Testament worthies who wore Nazarites.  (1) To Joseph the name is given (Gen. 49: 26), and he, surpassing he became Viceroy to Pharaoh, was rejected and sold by his brethren; but at length is reconciled with them.  (2) The history of Samson is, as a later type, still increasingly distinct.  He was to be a Nazarite from his birth, and moreover a Deliverer to Israel (Judges 13: 5).  But in spite of this promise, and his miraculous strength, he is unseat by the men of Judah; and given up to the hands of their rulers the Philistines, considering he had smitten their foes.  But when he is betrayed to the enemy, the Spirit of God bursts his bonds, and he slays with the jawbone of an ass a thousand men.  He is thirsty, scrutinizingly to death; but God bids water spring up, and he revives, and judges Israel twenty years (Judges 15: 11-20).  John notices for us the Saviour’s thirst, and the wicked supply offered.  That was the last point of our Lord’s foretold humiliation, in which the Saviour was active.  But the Redeemer’s cry of thirst has caused to spring up for us the perpetual fount of the Spirit.  And one day He shall lead His people to the river of the Water of Life (Rev. 22.)     The Saviour’s smiting of His foes is yet to come (Rev. 19.)  The immuration of death He has splash in resurrection.  As yet He is patient.  But the deliverance of Israel and of the world by power has yet to take effect.  And Jesus’ judgment of the world shall proceed from Him, as Lord of lords, and King of kings, for fifty times twenty years!     The title on the navigate was much read, on two accounts.  (1) The place of execution was near the city, so that all could saunter out, and see it.  (2) The tongue-lashing was uttered in three languages; so that those who knew but one of them, could understand the ground of the Saviour’s death.  They were the three languages weightier known in the world of that day.  First comes ‘the Hebrew’ - for the crucifixion was at the instigation of the Jews, and Pilate wished them to be sensible of the scorn he felt of them.  Next came ‘the Greek,’ the language spoken by the educated, and by multitudes of Jews, who were thence tabbed Hellenists.  Lastly came ‘the Roman,’ the language of the rulers.  The sin of man is exhibited in these three senior languages.  And God would rationalization the knowledge of the death and ransom of His Son to be prestigious in these tongues.  It was a hint of the undoing of the ravages of Babel by the navigate of Christ.     This order of the languages is not followed by Luke, who gives the order as ‘Greek, Latin, Hebrew’ (Luke 23: 38).  Luke, as the Gentile Evangelist writing in Greek to a Greek, puts that language first, and Roman next.  The Gospel was first proclaimed to Israel, then to the Greeks, lastly to Rome.     This little notice enables us to wordplay satisfactorily an objection of some force, ‘How can we trust the Gospels as accurate, when no two of them stipulate with regard to the words on the cross?’  We answer, that there were three variegated inscriptions; and while they were unwrinkled in the main, they differed in detail. Probably variegated persons wrote the title in the variegated languages.     But the title did not please the Jewish leaders.  And no wonder!  For it seemed as if they had well-set to own Jesus as their King, while they had expressly disavowed Him.  ‘We have no King but Caesar.’  How, then, should they be pleased with the words which unsaid that Jesus was really their King?  They wish for a change, then - a trifling change, which should make the Kingship not a real thing, but resting only on Jesus’ unauthorized assertion.  Were they really crucifying their Messiah, the Son of David?  Far from it!  He was only the Pretender.  But Pilate, though he yielded to their petitions in other points, here is firm.  He had written it, and it should stand!  Ah! if he had but been as firm surpassing that, in dismissing Jesus from the hands of His foes!     Now this firmness of Pilate’s accorded with God’s mind.  On Pilate’s part, it was probably due to his secret displeasure at the Jews for compelling him to condemn Jesus, whom He knew to be innocent.  He despised Israel; and to the Roman, the crucifying a King, and that the King of the Jews - was a grim jest, by no ways to be thrown away.  ‘A pretty people this to crucify their King.  A pretty King, and quite suited to the people, this pacific teacher!’     This sin of theirs shall one day strike home to the heart of the nation of Israel, and they shall lament that thus they slew the Son of David, the hope of Israel.  David was rejected by the nation in favour of Saul, though David was the wonted of Jehovah, the Lord’s anointed; and often was his life in peril from the servants of Saul.  David was the rejected by Israel, when Absalom set himself up as their king; and it was only without the death of the usurper, that they returned to the chosen of the Lord.  But never was David in such circumstances of woo.  Therefore, at last Israel shall reminisce them of the sin of so many month lying un-forgiven on their nation, and at length with deepest sorrow mourn, and own Jesus to be Messiah, Son of David, and King of Israel (Zech. 12.).     If the writing of Pilate is not to be altered, variable as he was, how much less shall what God has written, be changed!  His sentence of death and the expletive cannot be moved at last from the lost; villainous as will be their woe, deep their anguish!  ‘What I have written, I have written,’ is their eternal sentence.     23, 24.  ‘The soldiers, therefore, when they crucified Jesus, took the garments and made four portions; to each soldier a portion, and the tunic.  Now the tunic was without a seam woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves – “Let us not rend it, but casts lots for it, whose it shall be:” in order that the Scripture should be fulfilled – “They parted My garments among themselves, and for My vestment they tint lots.”  These things therefore the soldiers did.’    Virtuallythe navigate of the Christ clusters the fulfilment of many [prophetic] Scriptures.  Some of these are noticed by one of the Gospels, some by others.  The navigate is one of the unconfined centres of prophecy.  Here is the stripping naked of Him who was the Righteous One.  A sense of nakedness was the first effect of the fall.  This magnitude our parents sought to remedy first of all; and God, without He had proved the vanity of their attempt, stepped in to requite the true and needed covering.  But now He has come, who is to withstand the penalty of the transgression.  Before, then, that He is stock-still to the tree, He is stripped of His raiment, as though He had been guilty.  Law exacts all from Him who would indemnify for its transgression. The sacrifice must be stripped of its skin.  As numbered among the transgressors and under sentence of death, the Saviour has nought as His own His very raiment is forfeited to the executioners.  But out of this stripping of Himself as validness the penalty of Law for the guilty, He provides for us the robe of righteousness, in which we may stand surpassing God.     Jesus, eternally rich, became poor, that we through His poverty might wilt rich.  If the ousting of our Lord was fulfilled in all its minuteness, how much increasingly shall ‘the glories without that’ be accomplished?     ‘He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him.’  Under the Levitical law, as soon as sin is transferred from the offender to the sacrifice, the skin is stripped off.  So here the spoils are divided among the four executioners.  The turban, the girdle, the outer coat, and the sandals, probably made up the four parts of the Saviour’s dress.  But there was yet a fifth garment - the inner one - answering to the shirt with us.  There was a peculiarity in the make of this, which prevented the soldiers from dividing it into four parts.  Each part, if torn, would have unravelled, and wilt useless.  They, therefore, dispose of it by lot.  In this matter they were led by their own natural choice.  They knew not that they were fulfilling God’s counsels, expressed in His typesetting of prophecy.  But so it was.  God serves Himself of the ignorance of His enemies, as well as of the knowledge of His friends, to glorify Himself.  (1) See, then, the minuteness of prophecy; how it touches not only the things which men think great, but on the small things also.  We have to do with a God, who not only made the vast Alps, but who feathers the wings of the moth.  See how His eye is upon all that befalls his Son; and therefore on what happens to His children also.  (2) Observe its literality.  The words of the Psalmist were not true of David; yet David wrote them, as though he saw the whole proceeding (Ps. 22: 18).  Just at the proper time the stratify (or shirt), whose peculiar manufacture occasioned this mode of its disposal, comes into Christ’s hands, and is worn by Him.  And the disposal of the Saviour’s raiment literally fulfils the [His] prophet’s words, or rather those of God.     Why is that statement widow ? – ‘These things therefore the soldiers did.’  It is not easy to say. Probably John (or the Holy Spirit by him) wished us to observe, how in this senior sin of man the soldiers withstand a conspicuous part, to deter Christians from rhadamanthine soldiers.  TheSeniorPriests are the prominent ones in the plot; the soldiers in the execution of the plan.  These last are conspicuous in the mockery, and the guarding of the tomb; and senior teachers in raising the false report under whose shadow of death unbelievers undergo to this day.  In the primeval days of Christianity, Christians would die rather than wilt soldiers; for Christ’s Sermon on the Mount forbids war to the Christian (Matt. 5: 38-48).     25-27.  ‘Now there stood by the navigate of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.  Jesus, therefore, seeing His mother, and the disciple standing by whom He loved, saith to His mother – “Woman, behold thy Son.”  Then saith He to the disciple – “Behold, thy mother.”  And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.’     How many persons are noticed here? Are there three, or four?  Commentators are not agreed.  Is ‘Mary, the wife of Cleopas,’ the same person as ‘the sister of our Lord’s mother?’  It seems very unlikely that two sisters should be tabbed by the same name of ‘Mary.’  She might be Mary’s sister-in-law.     The other Evangelists notice the women’s standing separated off but here we have some standing near the cross.  This difference, probably, turns on the difference of the points of time described.  At first, while the work of crucifixion was going on, they withdrew a distance.  Towards the tropical these with John drew near.  Here Mary, our Lord’s mother, stands first.  This incident turns on her relationship to Christ.  It is remarkable, that it is here said of John, that Jesus loved him; while it is not said how Jesus loved His mother, or how she loved Him.     This was the time of which the weather-beaten Simeon had spoken to Mary.  Jesus was now a sign, lifted up to be spoken against, that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed.  This was the time when a sword pierced through her heart (Luke 2: 34, 35).  Why was this last word of the weather-beaten servant of God spoken to Mary alone?  Why not to both her and Joseph? ConsideringJoseph would not be there.  He had probably died many years before.  See, then, how the throw-away from earth sometimes hides us from the piercing of sorrows which lapidate survivors.  It may help, too, to fix on our memory that compendious word - the corollary of prophecy – ‘Pray that ye may be rumored worthy to escape the things that are coming to pass.’     In general, severe pain and the tideway of death swallow up all the thoughts of the sufferer.  But the Saviour in this His sore traumatization forgets not His mother; and provides her a home when He Himself would no longer be on earth to watch over and sustain her.     Though stripped of all, He gives her a son and a home.  How surely may widows and the destitute of Christ’s flock squint to Him to provide! specially when the resources of nature are wrenched up.     It is to John that our Lord’s mother is confided; not to Peter.  Had it been to Peter, how surely would some have discovered in that act, that Mary represents the church, and that the Prince of the apostles is to rule it.  It is not to Mary’s protection that Christ commends John, but He commends Mary to John’s.  He heals the wound in Mary’s heart caused by His own departure, by giving her a son in His stead.     Her sons were unbelievers at that time.  Probably, therefore, they would finger the less interest in her who believed.  John accepts the charge, and cares for her as a son.  It is well for Christians in view of death to regulate their earthly affairs, and to honour their parents, if they are still alive.     But Jesus is leaving earth for His Heavenly Father’s house.  He, therefore, addresses Mary, not as ‘Mother’ but as ‘Woman.’  The Holy Spirit foresaw the tendency to the worship Mary, and interposed checks in Scripture versus that villainous idolatry so fearfully ripened in without times, and so flourishing in Romanism.     28-30.  ‘After this Jesus, knowing that all things were once fulfilled, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, “I thirst!”  Now a vessel of vinegar was set there; and they having filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it on hyssop, put it to His mouth.  When, therefore, Jesus had received the vinegar, He said, “It is finished,” and He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit.’     Men may vilify and quarrel with the Scripture, and worth it ‘a mere sufferer letter.’  Not so our Lord!  As the word of His Father, it was of deepest moment and value to Him.  In the midst of His (dying agonies, His eye is on that.  Let us unchangingly value it, and increasingly!  He was silent well-nigh His other pains on the cross.  But respecting His thirst He was not to be silent.     His thirst was to be known, in order that the reply to His word, on His enemies’ part, might fulfil the Scripture.  As Messiah He must succeed this.  Thirst was one of the signs of the curse, the undisciplined to that refreshment and pleasure which the juices of the fruit of the tree of knowledge had supplied to Adam.  Now the natural effect of the wounds of the Saviour, and the punishment of the navigate was to produce a fearful thirst.  That, then, was foretold, as a part of the sufferings of our Lord* in the crucifixion-Psalm (22: 16).  The reply made to it by the Saviour’s foes was moreover predicted.  ‘In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink’ (Psalm 69: 22).  Thus Jesus fulfilled wholly what was written byway of pointing out to us Messiah as the sufferer.  He fulfilled, as has been observed, the type of Samson in His thirst.  Only, Samson’s thirst arose out of his exertion and victory.  Jesus’ thirst came surpassing His victory.  Let us remember, that the glorious part of the life of Samson has yet to be fulfilled by the well-constructed deliverer of Israel!   * Thirst is moreover part of the foretold sufferings of the lost (Luke 16: 24).     How variegated the treatment of David the King, when he expressed his thirst, and longed for a draught of water out of the well at the gate of Bethlehem.  Then three mighty men splash through the Philistine host, drew him a draught of the water he desired, and brought it.  But, as bought with the peril of their lives, he would not drink it.  Life belongs to God, not to men.  But we may and should drink of the spiritual water which Christ has purchased for us by His death.  Moses, to supply Israel’s thirst, at God’s command, procured water out of the rock.  But, on the second occasion, he himself stumbled and fell, excluded thus from the hope of Israel.  Jesus in this His thirst implementation the Scripture shows Himself the perfect Son, fulfilling all righteousness, and mindful of His Father’s words.     In order that the vinegar might be presented to Christ, a vessel of it was standing there;-‘by accident,’ as far as men were concerned, but by ordination of God.  And in order to lift the vinegar to the Saviour’s lips, since He was suspended whilom them, they needed a stick.  They used, therefore, a sponge fastened to a stalk of hyssop.  The hyssop is the tomfoolery plant, which bears a woody stem from two to three feet long. Now this was moreover a fulfilment of Scripture.  (1) Into the urgent of the red heifer, out of whose carrion mixed with water, the purification of the unclean was to be made -  wood, searlet wool, and hyssop, were to be tint (Num. 19: 6).  For the work of Christ, and of the Spirit, purges the conscience of sinners unclean surpassing God, to serve Him.  (2) The thoroughbred of the Passover-lamb was to be stricken on the door with a tuft of hyssop.  Christ, then, is the true Passover-Lamb, by Whose thoroughbred comes deliverance from the angel’s sword of justice.  (3) The leper cleansed from his disease, was to be purged by the thoroughbred of the two birds, and by cedar-wood, scarlet, and hyssop (Lev. 14: 4, 6) dipped in the thoroughbred of the slain bird.     (4)Moreoverat the making of the old covenant, and in connexion with the sprinkling of the thoroughbred on the people at Sinai, Moses took the thoroughbred of the calves and of the goats with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the typesetting and all the people, saying – ‘This is the thoroughbred of the covenant which God hath enjoined to you’ (Heb. 9: 19).  But we boast of a Mediator largest than Moses, Who by His own thoroughbred effects what the thoroughbred of bulls and goats cannot.  ‘For the Law made nothing perfect; but there is the bringing in of a largest hope, by which we yank nigh to God.’     We have seen how the scarlet wool and the wood enter into the sacrifice of our Lord; and here we have now the hyssop.  How naturally it takes its place in the history!  There is no effort on the part of God to introduce it.  The men of unbelief unconsciously succeed it.  God values the smallest portion of His word.  In that He is unlike man.  The smallest jot or tittle shall in nowise pass yonder from Law or Prophets, till all be fulfilled.     This is a joyful word to those who are God's saved ones, walking with Himself.  He will fulfil all His promises:  He will plane go vastitude them.  It is a terrible word to His foes!  Let men deny as they will, the brimstone and the fire of the eternal lake of woe, both will be there!  Let men spiritualise the ‘fire,’ and declare it is only the remorse of conscience; let them deny that ‘eternal’ torment ways that which ends not, yet God will fulfil His word - His written word.  Fear God, my reader!  Trust not to Satan’s whispered unbelief – ‘Ye shall not surely die.’  For the Second [eternal] Death - the lake of fire - will be the everlasting place of those who are overtaken in impenitence and unbelief.     This point accomplished, Jesus says – ‘It is finished!’  I do not think that this means, that the Saviour’s sacrifice was complete; for without death and the outpouring of the thoroughbred that was not finished.  Jesus had yet to die, and the Roman spear was needed to pierce His side, and pour out His blood.  But the evangelist cites the words as the Saviour’s perception, that it was the last of the prophecies of His humiliation which it was incumbent on Him urgently to fulfil.  Then, His Father’s last word accomplished, He surrenders His spirit.  He came into the world to fulfil all righteousness.  He has washed-up it.  And now death - His gracious, voluntary death - ensues.  Each step occurs exactly at its towardly time, equal to the Father’s good pleasure and prediction.     He must die.  Nothing short of that could save.  ‘The soul that sins shall die.’  And Christ is the sinner’s substitute, the bearer of sin and its penalty.  Jesus’ life vacated will not avail.  So had the Law of Eden said: ‘In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die.’  ‘The wages of sin is death.’     Wonderful was this voluntary death; not enforced oil our Lord without His knowledge, or versus His will.  He was not driven out of the soul by the thrust of disease, as some have speculated; He surrendered His soul as the priest offering the sacrifice.  Partly, as far as men’s nomination were concerned, His death was enforced; but partly moreover His death depended on His own choice.     31-34.  ‘The Jews therefore, in order that the persons should not remain on the navigate on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath day was a unconfined day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.  The soldiers therefore came, and tapped the legs of the first and of the other that were crucified together with Him.  But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was once dead, they restriction not His legs.  But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and at once came along thoroughbred and water.’     The Jews, though wasteful well-nigh the greater things, were scrupulous well-nigh the formalism of the Law, and therefore desired that the three crucified should die older than usual.  They must not be taken yonder till dead.  They could not withstand to see them on the navigate during the Sabbath, their day of rest.  That Sabbath, too, was a festival Sabbath of especial holiness or greatness - the day of offering the first fruits. Hence they were increasingly particularly yellow-eyed that this ghastly sight should not be exhibited in the squatter of Jerusalem, on her solemn feast.  They, therefore, desired that the deaths of the crucified might be hastened, by the legs of the criminals stuff broken.  It was not with any view of shortening the sufferings of those who were executed; but to spare themselves, and to fulfil the Law (Deut. 21: 22), which required that the soul of the malefactor should not remain vastitude sunset on the tree to which he was suspended.  Pilate, it is evident, gave permission, and the prescription went along to be executed by his soldiers.     They strain at the gnat, and swallow the camel! Versuslaw and justice they slay Christ, yet would alimony the formalism law, while they tapped its moral part.  They observe the Sabbath, yet killed its Lord.     Notice here - God hinders one part of their plan, and prospers another.  Let us trust our God in His providence, both for life and in death!  He knows His own mind, and will succeed it, not only despite His enemies, but plane by their hands.     ‘Break the legs of the three crucified!’Alongthey go!  It seems as if these were a new set of soldiers, uninfluenced from the governor’s castle, armed with hammers, to unravel the legs of all the three.  Thus Jesus’ word to the penitent robber was fulfilled, ‘To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.’  Jesus thus foretold that they two should die that day; and it therefrom came to pass; His enemies unknowingly fulfilling His words.     What follows shows us somewhat peculiar in the wattle of the crosses.  They came to ‘the first.’ How did they reckon the first?  Probably that on the left hand; which, perhaps, was a trifle in whop of the other.  His legs they brake, and then turned to the other, and restriction his also.  These two crosses were, I judge, near together, and facing one another.  But though man had decreed that the legs of all three should be broken, God had unswayable otherwise, and had foretold that it should not be.  This result He effected in the simplest way.  It was understood by the soldiers, that the intent of the order was to produce death quickly, and both they and the governor supposed that all three would be alive.  The navigate of Jesus, it appears, was not tropical to the other two, but higher up the eminence.  For it is said – ‘When they came to Jesus.’  As they mounted, with their vision stock-still on the third cross, they saw that Jesus was sufferer already: by His drooped head, and by His stiffened limbs.  A soldier - man of battles - knows how to discriminate between death and life.  They then, though subject to martial discipline, and yawner to obey to the letter, ventured to disobey in this case.  One pierced with a spear the Saviour’s side.  It is not said which side; but whichever side it was, it was a wound capable of inflicting death, had it not once occurred.  Thus we see, how exactly the Saviour’s death was timed, with a view to this result.  He would not die, while one word of His Father’s yet remained to be observed.  But neither would He remain in life any moment longer than was necessary to the fulfilment of this word of God.     But God would thus establish the reality of Christ’s death, as the foundation of our faith in the reality of Christ’s resurrection.  Had Jesus not died already, this thrust had slain Him.  This wound would prevent any return to life; plane if, as some imagine without evidence, Jesus had only swooned.  Considerable was the size of the wound inflicted.  While Thomas was to put his finger only in the slum of the nails, he might put his hand into the gash made by the spear.     35.  ‘And he that saw it hath borne witness, and his witness is true, and he knoweth that he saith true, in order that ye moreover may believe.’     The result of this spear-thrust was unexpected.  It would towards that its issue was miraculous.  ‘Forthwith came out thoroughbred and water.’   The attempts at subtitle of this matter are not satisfactory.  Some have guaranteed that the topic was only an ordinary one; that the heart’s thoroughbred had coagulated in the body, and had separated into its two parts - the watery part (or serum) drawn off by itself, and the red jell separated from it.  But medical men (I believe) say, that the thoroughbred does not so separate while in the body.  And that, on the piercing of a corpse, thoroughbred does not spritz out.     We have, then, John’s hostage commentary on the circumstance.  He expects the unbelief of many in regard to this point, and therefrom lays peculiar stress upon the certainty of it, as visual and narrated by himself, an eye-witness tropical by the navigate of his Lord.  If any one way be credited, it is an eye-witness. John was so.  His weft for truth was good.  ‘His testimony is true.’  But were not his senses deceived? No!  He was too near for that.  He is unrepealable of the fact.  He testifies it here, on purpose that others may believe what he saw.     ‘That you may believe.’  For this is testified by the Old Testament, as well as by the eye-witness John. It is essential to salvation to believe in Jesus’ death.  God has given you in the Old Testament His prophecy; and in the New His [literal] fulfilment - both the uncontrived and the mystical.     It would seem, then, that there was something supernatural in the matter.  Probably it is referred to in the crucifixion-Psalm (Ps. 22.)  ‘My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels’ (ver. 14); and then – ‘I am poured out like water.’      Why is John so hostage in insisting on this?  First, be it observed - that his solemn testament does not wield to this circumstance alone, but to all the three points (perhaps more) which he has just recounted. This is proved by the quotation of two passages of Scripture which were fulfilled on the present occasion: (1) the non-breaking of Jesus’ legs, though orders to that effect had been given; and (2) the piercing of His side instead, which was not ordered by man, but foretold by God.  Thus is prophecy fulfilled lanugo to its details, as well as in its greater features.  Thus is it fulfilled by the hands of the ignorant, and enemies.     Both these things were subjects of prophecy: the one a typical prophecy, given by Moses; the other a uncontrived prophecy, given by Zechariah.     1. The first relates to the Saviour’s legs not stuff broken.  ‘A unorthodoxy of it shall not be broken.’  Though all sorts of indignities were experienced by the Saviour up to His death, yet as soon as death has ensued, there comes a turn in the tide of humiliation; and speedily He begins to be exalted.  The writ alluded to by John is found in Exodus 12: 4, 6, in reference to the lamb of the Passover.  The same law is repeated in Numbers 9: 12, where the Passover of the second month is commanded for those who were unable to gloat the Passover in the first month, by reason of legal uncleanness.  This was designed then to point out Jesus as the true Passover-Lamb.  The upholder supposes it in his Gospel, where John Baptist speaks of Jesus, as stuff the Lamb of God taking yonder the sins of the world.  Now that law, as well as others, might have been wrenched by Israel ignorantly in the specimen of our Lord, in whom they discerned not the Passover sacrifice.  But God’s eye was on the matter, and it was fulfilled; for it depended on His vigilance. Flipsidepassage moreover is concerned in the matter (Psalm 34: 20).  David therein appeals to God with thanks, considering of his deliverance in one of his distresses (ver. 6).  He invites all who would behold the coming good days of the [millennial] kingdom, to speak only that which is good, and to do it.  For God is the Judge, Who by a [redeemed]  man’s words and works will in that day justify him as righteous, or condemn him as wicked.  Then follows the word in question – ‘He keepeth all his wreck (of the righteous): not one of them is broken’ (ver. 20). While, then, wicked Israel had intended to unravel our Lord’s bones, in that moreover adjudging Him to be one of the transgressors, yet God as the Governor stepped in to interfere and prevent it.  Thus He discovers to us Jesus as ‘the Righteous One,’ all whose words and deeds pleased Him.  It was God’s hand therefore that turned whispered the intended wrack-up from His Righteous One, the true Lamb of the Passover.  And thus He distinguished Him from the two real malefactors, with whom man had associated Him.  Their ways and words were evil.  The Lord would not alimony their bones.  ‘Let them be broken!’  They saw corruption, but Jesus was distinguished from them without death also.  As the Holy One of God, He saw no corruption.     The second passage is taken from the prophets.  Zechariah, who foretold the sale of the Good Shepherd for thirty pieces of silver, and the sword’s awaking versus the ‘Man who was Jehovah’s Fellow,’ foretells moreover the day yet looming in the future, when all the tribes of Israel shall mourn over their fathers’ crucifixion of the Son of God, and their own vein of unbelief, and shall be forgiven (Zech. 12: 10).     This thrust of the spear, then, which was the result of Israel’s using to Pilate to hasten the death of Him whom they crucified, is imputed to them.  And, in that day, they will own it as their sin.  It seems to me that the Greek word used signifies, ‘Whom they pierced to death.’ Versusthis, of course, it is obvious to remark, ‘that Jesus was once dead, and therefore they could not pierce Him to death.’  I reply (1) first, that the piercing was not the only one, and that the Psalmist Prophet had moreover said, ‘They pierced My hands and My feet,’ with the intention of putting Me to death.  (2) Secondly, that while Jesus was sufferer surpassing the spear thrust Him through, yet Israel knew it not, but supposed Him to be alive, so that had He not been sufferer once this would have produced death.  They are responsible, therefore, for their guilty intention in the affair, though the MostUpperin one point disappointed them.*   * To this I add that the Greek word … is often used in the Old Testament to signify a thrusting through unto death (Judges 9: 54; Num. 22: 29)     Behold here the Lord’s foretold preparation for, and pledge of, the largest day which one day shall dawn upon Israel.  ‘They pierced Messiah.’  They shall mourn over their sin, and the Lord shall towards to them.  And then, this scar in the side of Christ shall remind them, how their nation murdered Him Who was their hope.  And that repentance of Israel is the preparation for the reign of Christ over Israel and the world (Zech. 14.)     Let us then trust the powerful Providence of our God, and the truthfulness of Scripture.     But John says nothing respecting any prophecy or any fulfilment of the third point - the thoroughbred and water issuing from the wound.  And why then is he so full of emphasis, as soon as thirst is mentioned?  1.  He is so, I believe, in order to refute some errorists of that day, and of modern days, such as the Docetists and Swedenborgians, who underpin that the soul of our Lord on the navigate was not a real soul of mankind and thoroughbred like ours, but only a phantom!  This idea is refuted, then, by the fact that the body, pierced without death, gave along thoroughbred and water.  It was a soul of flesh, therefore; and the Evangelist stakes His truthfulness on the assertion, in order that we may believe the [Holy] Spirit of God who testifies it through Him, and may requite credence to the saving of the soul.  For if Jesus did not really wilt man, and die in our stead, we must die in our sins, and be lost!     2. But there is flipside reason, which appears in John’s first Epistle.  And that Epistle, I persuade myself, was the apostle’s scuttlebutt on the Gospel which he had written, and was designed to remove some objections to that, and to add some important doctrines to it.  In that Epistle, as in his Gospel, John labours to prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; that He is not two persons, but one.  In his fifth installment of the Epistle he affirms that the faith that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, is saving faith.  It makes a man a child of God, and enables him to overcome the world.  Then he adds, ‘This is He that went through* water and blood, Jesus the Christ.  He was not in the water only, but in the water and in the blood; and the Spirit is He who bears witness, considering the Spirit is truth.  For three are the witnesses, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three are in favour of the unity.  If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God, which He hath witnessed concerning His Son’ (1 John 5: 6-8).   * Those who would pursue the subject can consult my tract, The “Three Witnesses” and my scuttlebutt on John’s first Epistle – “The Trinity, the Atonement.”     This passage cannot be understood, save as the apostle’s contradiction of false doctrine then current. Some errorists at Ephesus and elsewhere, guaranteed the error several times noticed here, that Jesus was the mere man, on whom the Christ (a superior spirit) came, when He was in the water of the Jordan, undergoing immersion at the hands of John.  They guaranteed moreover that this heavenly stuff deserted the man Jesus, surpassing He shed His thoroughbred on the cross. Versusthis sanctimony then the Spirit of God testifies, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, surpassing He passed through the water, and without His thoroughbred was poured out on the cross.     Moreover, the ordinances of baptism, and of the Lord’s Supper (‘water’ and ‘blood’) are then only tightness on Christians, if it was one Divine Person who commanded them both; while the Holy Ghost had descended at Pentecost, and had inspired believers as the Spirit of Jesus Christ the Risen.  If men had asked any of the Christian Prophets ‘Whether Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God?’ the inspired would with one voice of inspiration confess that it was so.  Evil spirits of falsehood, the spirits of Antichrist, inspired those outside the Church: the Holy Ghost, as the Spirit of truth, inspired and taught theDenominationof Christ.  God was responsible for the truth of all these three witnesses; and they all well-set among themselves, and were to be wonted as His witnesses.  On faith or unbelief here turned perdition or salvation; while the Spirit of Antichrist once in the world asserted, that Jesus Christ had neither come in the mankind in the past, nor would return in it at a future day.     ‘The water’ and the ‘blood’ refer us when to Old Testament rites.  (1) The old covenant was unseat on Israel, by ways of the mixture of thoroughbred and water sprinkled on the people (Heb. 9.)  (2) In the cleansing of the leper there was the employment both of thoroughbred and water.  (3) In the cleansing from defilement by the red heifer, there was first the presentation of the blood, and then the wing of water (Num. 19.)     The water and thoroughbred were a sign.  From Christ’s heart have flowed the two or three rites of His appointing.  The water belongs to baptism, and the washing of feet.  The thoroughbred belongs to the Lord’s Supper.  They are God’s witnesses to the present dispensation.     They are two out of the three Witnesses given of God.  They testify to His people of Christ’s present absence, and they undeniability on us to believe on God’s testimony truths, which we have not seen.  So the Saviour’s wreck not wrenched testify, that Jesus is the true Paschal Lamb.     But the second passage noted here then tells of Israel, and future dispensation.  ‘They shall squint on Me.’  The Law is a thing of sight.  And Israel shall then, forgiven, be restored to their land.     38, 39. ‘And without these things Joseph of Arimathea, stuff a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take yonder the soul of Jesus, and Pilate permitted him.  He came, therefore, and took yonder the soul of Jesus.  Nicodemus moreover came (he that came to Jesus by night in the first instance), and sink a mixture of myrrh and aloes, well-nigh a hundred pound weight.  They took, therefore, the soul of Jesus, and unseat it in the rollers with the spices as is the manner of the Jews to bury.’     The death of the Saviour, one would have thought, would have discouraged secret disciples, and made them wrung to be known as belonging to the Crucified.  But it drew along into the light two of them.  The first and most mettlesome was Joseph of Arimathaea.  He was a rich man, and was naturally slower to move, lest he should endanger his property, his reputation, and his place in the Synagogue and the Sanhedrim.  He asks permission to remove the soul forfeited to the Law.  Pilate, as soon as he is unpreventable that death has taken place, gives leave.  For now was to be fulfilled the word of the prophet, ‘With the rich man was His tomb,’ Is. 53: 9 (Lowth).  Jesus has touched the lowest point of His humiliation, and He begins to ascend.  The soul then is taken lanugo from the tree of the curse, in order to be buried. This transpiration marks the passage of the soul of Jesus into [the underworld of] Paradise, without His preaching to the spirits in Tartarus was workaday [and without three days He was resurrected] (1 Peter 3: 19[; (Matt. 12: 40. cf. John 20: 17)]).     In Nicodemus we see faith and grace increasing with the whop of time.  At first he was wrung to peril his reputation on the stuff known to be a disciple of ‘the strange man from Galileo.’  As the time runs on, he grows sufficiently bold, to interpose a word versus the injustice and murderous designs of his follow-elders in the Sanhedrim.  But now that their enmity has fully shown itself versus the Son of God, he, through grace, has wilt unvigilant unbearable to situate with honours the soul of One hated and slain by the unconfined of his nation.  He stands along now in the light of day, who at first came by night.  He has now seen the fulfilment of that word, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.’     He fears not the defilement of inward the Roman Praetorium.  He fears not to touch the dead, plane one crucified as a malefactor.  Thus God takes the soul of His Son out of the hands of the Romans, and puts it into the hands of friends.  This is grace to us; for had Jesus’ soul been veiled with those of the robbers, how should it have been distinguished with certainty?     He had pondered, perhaps, those words which Christ spake at His first interview, ‘He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.  But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that are wrought in God,’ John 3: 20, 21.  God is glorified in the confession of the Son of God, by those who believe in Him.  The two friends helped one another.  Thus, too, God encourages the timid to come along surpassing the world, by associating together in church-fellowship the disciples of Christ.  ‘Union is strength.’     He showed His love and zeal by the large quantity of expensive spices prepared for the Saviour’s burial. It is remarkable, that these two spices are mentioned in tropical juxtaposition, in the Psalm that tells of Jesus’ return as the King of Kings.  ‘Thou lovedst righteousness and hatedst iniquity; therefore, 0 God, Thy God hath swabbed Thee with the oil of gladness whilom thy fellows.  All Thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made Thee glad,’ Psalm 45: 7, 8.  The two disciples tending of the soul honourably, as it was the custom to do with their kings, for instance in the specimen of Asa (2 Chron. 16: 14).     The two proved their faith in Jesus by their validness disgrace and expense in order to situate the soul of the Lord.  But they showed moreover their want of faith, in attempting to preserve from putrefaction the soul which was so soon to be removed from the sepulchre.     41.  ‘Now in the place where He was crucified was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid.  There, therefore, considering of the Jews’ preparation, considering the tomb was near, they laid Jesus.’     He who had no house of His own in life, has no tomb of His own in death.  But what need of a tomb for Him who rises the third day?     In the Garden sin began.  In the Garden Jesus’ hour of sorrow splash upon Him, and from it He was hurried yonder to death.  But now His sufferer soul is restored to the Garden, and His first visitation in resurrection takes place there.  The tomb in the Garden shows us how death has entered with sin, to deface and pollute Paradise.  But this is a new tomb, which never has been profaned by the soul of the dead.     Moreover, thus there could be no question as to the identity of the person buried, and the person who rose.  It was not like the specimen of the sufferer man, in haste let lanugo into Elisha’s tomb, who revived from touching the prophet’s bones.     The solemnities of Jesus was a part of God’s plan as foretold in Scripture (Ps. 16: 9).  Thus was He to resemble the soils of men whom He came to redeem.  Thus the gloom of the tomb is removed for the believer.  Christ has opened the Paradise above, wherein is no tomb. Solemnitieswas to be interposed between Christ’s death and resurrection; lest any should imagine that death is resurrection.  Our Christian friends’ burial-places are merely their [bodies’] sleeping chambers, till the Saviour wakes them [and their ‘souls’ are reunited to them, (See Acts 2: 26, 27, R.V.)].     The Sabbath was so near, that they had no time to withstand the soul to a distance.  They were glad to be worldly-wise to dispose of it so readily, the tomb stuff tropical at hand abreast Golgotha.  Whenever Golgotha* shall be identified at Jerusalem, the tomb will probably moreover be quickly discovered also.  God had thus serried the circumstances for His own glory.  The Sabbath must be observed.  Hence, much as they revered Jesus, the tomb was left vacated the next day.  The Saviour’s work of recantation to Law in life and death stuff thus ended, He rests in His redemption-work; as surpassing He rested from His creation-work on the seventh day. Withoutit He came along the first day of the week in a new life, vastitude Law, and not to be touched by it. .   * That Golgotha should be looked for to the North of Jerusalem, seems intimated by the writ to skiver the burnt-offering to the north of the shrine (Lev. 1: 11).     There is a future fulfilment of the law of the sin-offering, and of the burnt-offering, respectively.  The whole bullock with which the recantation of the sin-offering was made, was to be carried outside the zany into a wipe place, where the carrion are poured out, and was to be burnt on the wood with fire (Lev. 4: 12).  A similar writ was given in the specimen of the burnt-offering (Lev. 6: 11).  For Christ is both our burnt-offering, as meeting God’s unshortened claims upon us for a perfect service, and moreover our recantation for sin.     Jesus [body] lay during the Sabbath in the rest of the tomb.  Law can only lead to death, and alimony men there.  But on the eighth day begins a new life, vastitude Law, in resurrection.  On the first day of the Creation-week, light began to be.  Now begins a new light out of the darkness of sin and death.  Jesus, the first of the select resurrection, was, equal to Moses and the prophets, to signify light to the people of Israel, and to the nations (Acts 26: 13).     The morrow without the Passover-Sabbath was to be the day of the waving of the wheat-sheaf of first-fruits. And Christ is the first-fruits of the sleepers - indicating, that the whole harvest is to follow.     ‘They laid Jesus.’  Here Scripture and our usual phrases agree, in opposition to Swedenborg and his followers.  Those errorists maintain, that the soul is no lasting part of the man, that the corpse once laid in the tomb is to be unliable to decay, and never increasingly to vest to the man; seeing that the spirit-state is the eternal state of men.  Hence, such errorists could never undeniability the veiled corpse, ‘the man.’  But Scripture, indited by the Holy Ghost, does.  ‘They laid Jesus’ in the tomb!     *       *       *