Aftermath of the Cross; John 19:31-42

We begin to examine the aftermath of the crucifixion. Jesus Christ has now been judged spiritually for our sins; He has now died physically. He has now committed His spirit to God the Father and there are several things that happened subsequent to His physical death. It was at 3 pm that he died physically and He has to be in the grave before nightfall because, as we are told in John 19:31, "it was the day of preparation."  

There are three miracles that take place and these are found in Matthew 27:51-53. The first is that the veil of the temple is split from top to bottom, v. 51 ^NASB "And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom…" In order to understand the significance of this we have to go back and understand the structure of the temple. The inner section of the temple itself had two compartments, holy place and the holy of holies. The holy of holies where was the ark of the covenant. This was where the high priest went in once a year on the Day of Atonement and placed blood upon the mercy seat which represented the work of Christ in propitiation. In the construction of the Herodian temple there was an enormous veil that hung down from the ceiling separating the holy place from the inner holy of holies. This veil represents the fact that man is excluded from the presence of God because salvation has not yet been accomplished. This veil was 60 feet long from top to bottom and 20 feet wide, and Josephus tells us that its thickness was the width of a palm. It was an intricately-woven tapestry of many different colours and on it was embroidered the emblem of the cherubim. It as about four to five inches thick, so it would be impossible to tear it. It would be very difficult to even cut it unless with an extremely powerful tool. So it is a miraculous event that the veil is torn from top to bottom, signifying that God is the one who is opening up the access to His presence because Jesus Christ has now paid the penalty in full.

The second miracle that took place is in the second part of Matthew 27:51: "and the earth shook and the rocks were split." There was an earthquake. So there is a clear supernatural phenomenon that accompanies the death of Christ on the cross. This indicates something that we don't pay enough attention to, and that is the physical dimensions to sin. We have seen that when Adam sinned that reverberated through the entire universe and changed its structure. There is a tremendous connection between the spiritual rebellion of man and the physical earth. Cf. Romans 8.

The third sign is the resuscitation of the most unusual evangelists in human history. Matthew 27:52 ^NASB "The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; [53] and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many." These were Old Testament believers who were temporarily resuscitated. They are not given resurrection bodies, they are made physically alive again but they still go back to the grave. They are not resurrected technically. Resurrection means being given a new resurrection body that is incorruptible and is not defiled and will live for eternity. But these are just given a mortal body and they come out of the tombs after Jesus' resurrection. So they enter into Jerusalem and witness to what has just taken place outside the city at Golgotha.

So Jesus' death was attested by three distinct miracles that took place. The second thing that happened was the evidence of Jesus' physical death. John 19:31 ^NASB "Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and {that} they might be taken away."

The word "preparation" is the Greek word paraskeuo [paraskeuw] and it is a technical term for the day prior to a Sabbath. For the Jews the Sabbath began at 6 pm and ran until 6 pm the next night. The day of preparation was the day prior to that and it was at this time that they would go through the house and remove any leaven and do all the preparations to be ready for the Sabbath. This is not a normal Sabbath, according to the text, it is a high Sabbath. The importance of that is that traditionally Jesus is said ti have died on Good Friday. But that can be challenged because you don't get three days and three nights in the grave between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. We believe that Jesus Christ was crucified on Wednesday. The day of preparation really began on Tuesday at 6 pm and extended until Wednesday at 6 pm, and it is not until 6 pm on Wednesday that the Passover begins, and that is the 4^th of the month Nisan on the Jewish calendar. Jesus is crucified between 12 noon and 3 pm, and it is at 3 pm in fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy and typology that the Passover lambs are slaughtered or sacrificed in the temple. At the same time that Jesus Christ was paying the penalty for sin the type, the slaying of the lambs without spot of blemish in the Passover, is being fulfilled by the antitype, Jesus Christ. Then He spent three days and three nights in the grave. (There are a lot of problems with chronology) But this Sabbath was a high day they couldn't leave the body on the cross, that would be defiling their law, so they had to get these criminals off the crosses and into the grave before sundown.  

John 19:32 ^NASB "So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him." In crucifixion the victim suffocates to death. The Jews went in and said break their legs, so the victims would not be able to push themselves up any more in order to breathe and they would suffocate. Then they could take them down off the cross and put them in the grave. [33] but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs." This is important fulfilment of prophecy. This is Passover and Jesus in every aspect of His death is fulfilling the symbolism called typology from the Old Testament sacrifices. One of the interesting things in the regulations for the Passover is that no bone of the lamb was to be broken. That portrayed the fact that the sacrificial Lamb of God would have no bone in His body broken, despite the fact that it was normal procedure for the Romans to go along at the end and break the legs of the victims on the cross. It was called in the Latin "crurifragium." John is making it very clear to us that Jesus had died physically. 

John 19:34 ^NASB "But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out." Because of the way the body is structured this piercing would come from the right side, according to medical experts, in order to produce this. Notice that when Jesus said "It is finished" He bowed His head. This is the aorist active indicative of the verb klino [klinw] which means to bow or push forward. It indicates that when Jesus died physically He lowered His head and pushed His body forward. That is necessary to cause the kind of event that takes place in verse 34. It is only when the body is at a certain angle that when the blood would drain from the head and the upper portion of the torso that it would collect at the diaphragm. The blood would collect there and begin to separate.  

John 19:35 ^NASB "And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe." He says this is an empirical fact: that he was there and saw this, and he knows that this was typical of a crucifixion, that this is what happens to demonstrate that the victim is physically dead. So this was accepted as evidence of physical death and therefore we know that John is making a point out of this to emphasise the fact that Jesus did indeed die physically on the cross. Now we know from Scripture and what Jesus said that He willingly died; He willed His own death, it would still be from the physiological cause of crucifixion, but that no man took His life from Him. We know that from passages like John 10:17, 18 ^NASB "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father." Jesus willed His own death because He had completed the payment for sin on the cross. He pushes His body forward, which speeds up the asphyxiation process and He dies, and then we have the evidence of that physical death in vv. 33-35 from an eye-witness account.

In reference to the swoon theory, seven arguments

1.  Jesus could not really have survived the crucifixion. Romans procedures were clear to eliminate that possibility. In fact, according to Roman law if the person survived, if that were somehow to happen, then the soldiers who were to guarantee the victim's death would be crucified for failing to carry out the crucifixion.

2.  The fact that the Roman soldier does not break Jesus' legs as he did the other crucified criminals means that the soldiers were sure that Jesus was dead.

3.  John is an eye-witness, so we have an eye-witness and there is no legitimate reason to dispute that. He certified that blood and water came from Jesus' pierced side.

4.  The body was totally encased in winding sheets and entombed. He was also loaded down with about 75 pounds of spices and in His weakened condition would not have the strength to remove them.

5.  The post-resurrection appearances took these scared, frightened disciples who had run away from Jesus, and convinced them that Jesus indeed had risen from the dead, and most of them died for that proposition.

6.  A weak and feeble Jesus could not have overpowered the contingent of Roman guards.

7.  Furthermore, the stone outside the tomb weighed about 5-600 lbs and so it is ridiculous to think He could have moved that out of the way.

John 19:36 ^NASB "For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, 'NOT A BONE OF HIM SHALL BE BROKEN'." This, as we have seen, is a fulfilment of an Old Testament type, as well as specific prophecy. Exodus 12:46, referring to the Passover lamb: ^NASB "It is to be eaten in a single house; you are not to bring forth any of the flesh outside of the house, nor are you to break any bone of it." Numbers 9:12 ^NASB "They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break a bone of it; according to all the statute of the Passover they shall observe it." Then the prophecy and the quote comes specifically from Psalm 34:20 ^NASB "He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken."

The second prophecy quoted in John 19:37 ^NASB "And again another Scripture says, 'THEY SHALL LOOK ON HIM WHOM THEY PIERCED'." This fulfils Zechariah 12:10 ^NASB "I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn." Then Revelation 1:7 ^NASB "BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen."

John 19:38 ^NASB "After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret {one} for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away His body." Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Sanhedrin, a Pharisee like Nicodemus, but they had kept their faith in Christ secret. They were not going to expose their faith in Him but were secret disciples. What happens here is that as a result of Christ's death on the cross it has an impact on the people watching. It has an impact on the centurion who says that this is the Son of God, this is a righteous man. He became a believer while watching the crucifixion. It had a reaction from Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.  They no longer held their trust in Christ secret but they came out of hiding and took care of the body.

We know from examining similar passages in the Synoptics that Joseph of Arimathea apparently had a private garden that he owned near the place where Jesus was crucified. In that garden he had prepared a tomb for himself, a rock-hewn tomb, so he decided that since time is of the essence here he would donate his tomb for that purpose. John 19:39 ^NASB "Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds {weight.}" According to the Roman way of figuring things, the pound, according to Josephus, weighed about 8 ounces, and according to other records about 12 ounces, so this would be somewhere between 50 and 70 lbs of spices. There are two different Greek terms for myrrh and both of them are used in burial accounts of Jesus. Luke uses the term muron [muron] which reefers to an ointment or oil that has been mixed with a fragrant substance and used in burial. This was wiped onto the linen that was wrapped around the body and it would harden around the body and help provide some perfuming during decomposition. Then there is a second term which John uses here, smurna [smurna], which refers to a dry powder that was made by pulverising the gummy resin that comes from a stubby plant which is a bush that grows in south Arabia. It was used in incense, cosmetics and perfume. Often they would put the oil in with the linen wrappings and then cover the body with the powdered perfume of the myrrh and the aloe. 

John 19:40 ^NASB "So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews." The Synoptic Gospels say they bound it in a cloth. But here the Greek word othonia [o)qonia] in the plural, which indicates strips of cloth. The other Gospels use verb which indicates just that a cloth was laid over the body. So apparently not only was there a cloth laid over the body but also strips of cloth with which they would tightly wrap up and bind the body, and then a cloth was laid over the face. 

John 19:41 ^NASB "Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. [42] Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there." So Jesus is dead, He is buried, His followers have scattered, but nevertheless from John's account we know that several prophecies have been fulfilled from the Old Testament and we are reminded that over 150 prophecies were literally fulfilled at the first advent and over 50 prophecies were fulfilled during the crucifixion.