It Is Finished – John 19:16-30

In a really nice little article about Pilate’s inscription and the significance it had, SimplyBible.com writes, “It was customary to write and display the accusation against a man being crucified. Yet, when you look at what was written, it makes no specific accusation at all! Pilate had found no guilt in Jesus (John 19:6). This was why the “accusation” he wrote was really no accusation at all. It is fitting that Jesus was, at least officially, accused of no wrongdoing, because “he did no sin” (1Peter 2:22).”

So they took Jesus and he went out, carrying his own cross, to the place called Skull Place, in Aramaic called Golgotha, where he was crucified, and with him two others, one on either side and Jesus in the middle.  And Pilate wrote an inscription and put it on the cross.  And it read, “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.”  Many of the Jews read this inscription because this place where they crucified Jesus was near the city.  And it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.  So the chief priests of the Jews told Pilate, “Don’t write ‘king of the Jews’ but that ‘He said, I am king of the Jews.'”  But Pilate said, “What I have written, I have written.”

The soldiers, when they crucified Jesus, took his clothes and divided them into four parts, a part for each soldier, and his tunic.  It was a seamless tunic, woven from the top through the whole.  So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but let’s cast lots for it to see whose it will be,” in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which says, “They divided my garments among themselves and for my clothing they cast lots.”  So the soldiers did that.

And standing by the cross of Jesus was his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdelene.  When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold your son.”  He said to his disciple, “Behold your mother.”  And from that hour that disciple took her into his home.

After this, Jesus seeing that all things had already been completed, in order that the Scripture might be completed, said, “I am thirsty.”  There was a vessel full of sour wine, so they put a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and put it to his mouth.  When he got the sour wine Jesus said, “It is finished,” and bowing his head he gave up his spirit.  (John 19:16-30)

There is no grace for a condemned person.  Jesus had to carry the instrument of his torturous death himself to Golgotha, a place outside the city walls as per Jewish custom (Lev. 24:14, 23; Num. 15:35–36; Deut. 17:5; 21:19–21; 22:24; cf. Heb. 13:12).  Attached to the cross was the inscription, “King of the Jews” because Pilate was still frustrated with the Jews and wanted it in their faces.  There may have been many others being crucified that day, but we are only told of two others, between whom Jesus was crucified.  Psalm 22:16 says, “a company of evildoers encircles me,” and Isaiah 53:12 says, “He was numbered with the transgressors.”  Psalm 22 is David’s own experience but Jesus, as the ultimate David, recapitulates David’s experience in the most literal or advanced of ways.

John quotes Psalm 22:18 about David’s feeling that his enemies were divvying up his belongings in anticipation of his demise, but this is applied literally to Jesus.  Four soldiers are attending the execution and they apparently have first dibs on personal property, another humiliation not only of the condemned person but his family.  And a portion of his family is there, his mother Mary, his aunt, and his friends, Mary wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, along with John the apostle, to whom he commits his mother’s care.  This gives further evidence that Joseph is no longer alive and that, at least for the present, none of Jesus’ half brothers and sisters are yet believers.

Once again, an experience of David recorded in Psalm 69 about his enemies is applied to Jesus when he, too, thirsts (v.21, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”).  Death on the cross with arms stretched out and hanging from them, with your feet also attached to the cross so that you could occasionally stand up and breath, was a grueling form of death by asphyxiation and congestive heart failure.  Jesus needed the wine to enable him to speak more clearly in order to declare, “It is finished.”  His work of atonement for your and my sins was complete, so he willingly gave up his human spirit to death and to God.  Greater love has no man than this.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the most tired you’ve ever been?
2. Jesus was not in good shape after being flogged and beaten, yet had to carry his cross to Golgotha.  What purposes did this serve those in charge?
3. Can you describe the irony of the inscription Pilate had on Jesus’ cross?
4. Was Jesus completely naked?  How did this add to the suffering?
5. It seems as if Jesus purposely worked to fulfill one of what could be a prophetic aspect of Messiah’s death by saying he was thirsty.  But could he have manufactured that fulfillment?
6. What has the finished work of Christ done for you?