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Thoughts on John 19:19-22

“This is Jesus, of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” This was the charge that was written on a placard and nailed to the cross of Jesus. Back in the day, when the Romans convicted someone of a capital crime, they would march them down the Via Dolorosa with a person carrying a tablet or scroll listing all the crimes this prisoner had committed. Our assumption, therefore, is that while the two thieves carried their crosses toward Golgotha someone walked before them shouting “Thief” and whatever other crimes they committed, with a tablet or placard listing the crime. Then when the prisoner was placed on the cross, the list of crimes would also be nailed to the top of the cross. Jesus was accused, but never officially charged and certainly never convicted of any crime. Reading between the lines, many commentators believe that Pilate wanted to get one last jab into the chief priests so he had this
list of charges written. He names the condemned: Jesus. He states where Jesus is from: Nazareth. This would have been a dig into the upper crust thinking of the chief priests. Nazareth was a rural, backwater town where God would never pick a prophet from. Lastly, Pilate has written “King of the Jews.” That’s right, chief priests, that is your king on that cross. The inscription was written in three languages: Hebrew (Aramaic), Greek and Latin. We read in John 19:20 that many came to read it because of the multiple translations and because Golgotha was close to the city. God was going to get Jesus on that cross, inspite of the ineptitude of Pilate and the blind ambitious hatred of the chief priests. James M. Boice says that crucifixion is the biggest showing of God’s sovereignty in all the gospels, perhaps the whole Bible.

Even though the inscription, the crucifixion, burial and of course, the resurrection is found in all four gospels, with varying details in each, today, we know little about the crucifixion or how it was done. This is because Rome was a killing machine. Crucifixion worked, no need to study it or improve upon it. Yet if we google crucifixion images, we get a variety of poses on the cross. Some say his arms were drapped over the cross arm, others have his legs bunched up with his knees sticking out, while some believe that cross was an X not a T. Because nothing is really known about ancient crucifixion, except what is in the Bible, people have built crucifixion labs where they put people up on huge pegboard, connected to all sorts of measuring devices and sensors. And for all those who are up for it, you can go to Manila in the Philippines every Easter and they will crucify you and give you the nails as a keepsake.

Even though we are still figuring out the mechanics of the crucifixion, we know from Scripture that it worked. Jesus died with the sins of the world on him. His blood was an atonement for sin and redemption occurred. The New Covenant was inaugurated and people are being saved. Of course we focus on the resurrection as the crown to the gospel message. We don’t know how the resurrection worked either, but it did and Christ rose from the dead, sinners are saved, and he’s coming back…hallelujah.

#Thoughts on the Bible#

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