Lesson 21: It Is Finished

Opening questions:

1. How does the account of Jesus’ crucifixion increase your faith in the Son of God?
2. What questions do you have from the text?

Shortly after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus asked the Father to “glorify your name.” The Father immediately responded, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again” (John 12.28). Later, as Jesus was beginning His prayer for His current and future disciples, He proclaimed “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17.4). However, the work of the Son would not be fully complete until He endured the cross. Only then could He say, “It is finished” (John 19.30).

The Innocent Pronounced Guilty (Vss. 1-16; Matt 27.15-26; Mark 15.6-15; Luke 23.13-25).

• Vs. 1: “Jesus was beaten both before being sentenced (19:1) and after being sentenced to death (e.g., Matt. 27:26; Mark 15:15). Some interpreters think this first beating is the same as the severe “scourging” that Jesus received in Matt. 27:26 and Mark 15:15. However, it seems unlikely that Pilate would have administered so violent and severe a punishment to someone who had not yet been condemned to death (see John 19:16) and whom Pilate was still trying to release (see vv. 4, 10, 12). It seems more likely, therefore, that this flogging was what the Romans called fustigatio, the lightest form of flogging administered for minor crimes. Thus John 19:1 and Luke 23:16 use the verbs mastigoō and paideuō (respectively) to refer to this lighter flogging, whereas Matt. 27:26 and Mark 15:15 use a different word, phragelloō (“scourged”) to refer to the much more severe beating that Jesus received after Pilate pronounced the sentence of death” (ESV Study Bible).
• Vs. 2: significant that thorns, a result of man’s sin against the Creator (Genesis 3.18), would be used to inflict pain on and humiliate the One who came to redeem us from the curse (Genesis 3.15).
• Vs. 3: what the soldiers proclaimed in mockery, was in reality true (John 18.36).
• Vss. 4-5: Pilate “presents Jesus as a beaten, harmless and rather pathetic figure to make their choice of him as easy as possible. In his dramatic utterance Here is the man! (in Latin, Ecce homo!), Pilate is speaking with dripping irony: here is the man you find so dangerous and threatening: can you not see he is harmless and somewhat ridiculous?” (Carson)
• Vs. 7: see John 10.30-39.
• Vs. 8: “As cynical as many senior Roman officials were, many of them were also deeply superstitious. To a Jewish ear, the charge that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God would be taken as a messianic pretension, and perhaps also, in the light of the continuing debate between Jesus and Jewish officials, as a blasphemous excuse to claim prerogatives that belong to God alone; but to a Graeco-Roman ear, the charge sounded quite different. It had nothing to do with blasphemy, and presented no threat to the Roman Empire; rather, it placed Jesus in an ill-defined category of ‘divine men’, gifted individuals who were believed to enjoy certain ‘divine’ powers. If Jesus was a ‘son of God’ in this sense, Pilate might well feel a twinge of fear; he had just had Jesus whipped” (Carson). Note also the dream of Pilate’s wife (see Matthew 27.19).
• Vs. 11: a reference to Caiaphas, who handed Jesus over to Pilate (see John 18.28-30).
• Vs. 12: remember that the Jews had already reported Pilate to Caesar on a prior occasion. This was a true threat to Pilate. However, hypocritical of the Jews to fein reverence for Caesar at this time when they had just demanded the release of Barabbas, an insurrectionist (see John 18.40).
• Vs. 14: “Pilate is no fool. He is perfectly aware that the ostensible allegiance of the Jewish authorities to Caesar (v. 12) is no more than political hypocrisy deployed to ensure that he will condemn Jesus to the cross. By this acclamation of Jesus, he simultaneously throws up with bitter irony the spurious charge of sedition in their face, and mocks their vassal status by saying that this bloodied and helpless prisoner is the only king they are likely to have” (Carson).
• Vs. 15: again the Jews speak a truth they do not realize, for in rejecting Jesus they have rejected their true King (see 1Samuel 8.7).

The King Crucified (vss. 17-37; Matt 27.33-50; Mark 15.22-37; Luke 23.22-46).

• Vs. 17
  • went out: according to the Law, executions were to take place outside the camp or city (see Lev. 24.14,23).
  • Place of a Skull: in Latin, translated as “Calvary”.
• Vs. 18:
  • “In the ancient world, this most terrible of punishments is always associated with shame and horror. It was so brutal that no Roman citizen could be crucified without the sanction of the Emperor. Stripped naked and beaten to pulpy weakness the victim could hang in the hot sun for hours, even days. To breathe, it was necessary to push with the legs and pull with the arms to keep the chest cavity open and functioning. Terrible muscle spasm wracked the entire body; but since collapse meant asphyxiation, the strain went on and on. This is also why the sedecula prolonged life and agony: it partially supported the body’s weight, and therefore encouraged the victim to fight on” (Carson).
  • The other two victims were also referred to as “robbers” (see Matthew 27.38), i.e. insurrectionists like Barabbas.
• Vss. 19-22: Pilate spoke better than he knew. In writing the proclamation in three languages, Pilate was unknowingly testifying to the universal lordship of Jesus.
• Vss. 23-24: see Psalm 22.18.
• Vs. 25: Note the importance of the women in Jesus’ ministry (Luke 8:1-3). Also, Jesus’ disciples had forsaken Him (Mark 14:50)but these women came near the cross.
• Vss. 26-27: see Matthew 19.28-30.
• Vss. 28-29: see Psalm 69.21.
• Vs. 30: “The cry, τετέλεσται, ‘it is finished, was not the gasp of a worn-out life, but the deliberate utterance of a clear consciousness that His work was finished, and all God’s purpose accomplished (John 17:4), that all had now been done that could be done to make God known to men, and to identify Him with men” (EXGNT). Note Psalm 22.31.
• Vss. 31-32: “The normal Roman practice was to leave crucified men and women on the cross until they died—and this could take days—and then leave their rotting bodies hanging there to be devoured by vultures. If there were some reason to hasten their deaths, the soldiers would smash the legs of the victim with an iron mallet (a practice called, in Latin, crurifragium). Quite apart from the shock and additional loss of blood, this step prevented the victim from pushing with his legs to keep his chest cavity open. Strength in the arms was soon insufficient, and asphyxia followed. By contrast, the Mosaic law insisted that anyone hanged on a gibbet (usually after execution) should not remain there overnight (Dt. 21:22, 23). Such a person was under God’s curse, and to leave him exposed would be to ‘desecrate the land’. Presumably this would be viewed as doubly offensive if the day on which the desecration took place was a ‘special Sabbath’” (Carson).
• Vss. 34-35: “In tests performed on cadavers, it has been shown that where a chest has been severely injured but without penetration, hemorrhagic fluid, up to two litres of it, gathers between the pleura lining the rib cage and the lining of the lung. This separates, the clearer serum at the top, the deep red layer at the bottom. If the chest cavity were then pierced at the bottom, both layers would flow out” (Carson). See 1John 5.6-8.
• Vs. 36: Psalm 34.20; see Exodus 12.46.
• Vs. 37: Zechariah 12.10.

The Dead Buried (vss. 38-42; Matt 27.57-61; Mark 15.42-47; Luke 23.50-56).

• Vs. 38: Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15.43); rich (Matthew 27.57) and was looking for the Kingdom of God (Mark 15.43; Luke 23.51).
• Vs. 39: see John 3. “The Jews did not practice embalming, so these materials were used to cover the stench of decay and slow decomposition” (NET Notes).
• Vs. 41: the detail “in which no one had yet been laid” is significant, insuring that there was no mistaking the absence of Jesus’ body at the resurrection.