John 19:17-30

Order of Service

• Hymn — Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
• Call to Worship — 1 Samuel 2:8-9
• Hymn — Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Sin
• Assurance of Pardon — Romans 5:6-8
• Scripture Reading — Joshua 10:16-28
• Hymn — A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted
• Sermon
• Hymn — When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
• Benediction

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Sermon Title: The Suffering, Obedience, and Triumph of the Cross

Scripture: John 19:17-30

I. The Suffering of the Cross

A. Crucifixion was universally regarded as the most brutal and degrading form of execution

1. The condemned was forced to carry his own crossbar to the place of execution
2. Hands were nailed to the crossbar, feet nailed to the upright post with legs bent
3. A footrest prolonged suffering by allowing the victim to breathe — death often came by asphyxiation

B. Jesus suffered the fullest humiliation

1. He had been scourged twice; his back was torn open; a crown of thorns drew blood from his head
2. Following ancient military custom, he was stripped naked — exposed before his fellow image-bearers and a holy God
3. Adam hid because he was naked after sin; Christ as the sin-bearer bore that full nakedness and shame (Genesis 3)

C. The Scriptures were fulfilled in his suffering

1. The soldiers divided his garments and cast lots, fulfilling Psalm 22:18
2. He was crucified between two criminals, fulfilling Isaiah 53:12 — numbered with the transgressors
3. Placed in the middle, he was the spectacle — the sinner of sinners bearing all sin: 2 Corinthians 5:21
4. Martin Luther: Christ became the greatest sinner, bearing the sin of all

D. Golgotha itself — the place of the skull — dramatized the ugliness of sin and the depths to which the Son of God descended

1. Donald Macleod: the barbaric site and horrific procedure proclaimed the Son of God a despised, cursed nobody
2. The Gospel of John's theme: Christ descended from the heights of heaven's glory to the pit — voluntarily and willingly

II. The Obedience of the Cross

A. Distinction between Christ's active and passive obedience

1. Active obedience: his positive fulfillment of every requirement of the law of God (Matthew 5:18)
2. Passive obedience: his suffering and death, taking the penalty for sin

B. Even in the agony of the cross, Christ remained actively obedient to the law

1. He honored his mother Mary by entrusting her care to the disciple John — fulfilling the fifth commandment
2. Joseph had likely died; Jesus as the firstborn son provided for his widowed mother even from the cross

C. Christ as the true fulfillment of the Isaac typology (Genesis 22)

1. Isaac carried the wood unknowingly; Jesus carried his cross fully aware that the knife of his Father would fall upon him
2. John the Baptist had declared him the Lamb of God (John 1); he is the ram provided on Mount Moriah
3. Unlike Isaac, no one stops the knife — Christ is the sacrifice

D. No one took Christ's life — he laid it down of his own accord

1. John 10:17-18: I lay down my life of my own accord; I have authority to lay it down and to take it up again
2. The soldiers were surprised to find him already dead — he died when he chose to die
3. Augustine: such power in dying should cause us to marvel at what power he holds as judge
4. Every jot and tittle of the moral, civil, and ceremonial law was fulfilled before he gave up his spirit

III. The Triumph of the Cross

A. Pilate's inscription — Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews — proclaimed unwittingly by an enemy of Christ

1. Written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek — the languages of all the known world
2. Calvin: by the secret moving of the Spirit, the title was proclaimed in three languages, a prelude to the name of the Son being made known everywhere
3. Pilate refused to change it: what I have written I have written — another instance of the thick irony running through John's Gospel

B. The final word: tetelestai — It is finished (John 19:30)

1. The same word used in verse 28 when Jesus knew that all was now finished
2. First meaning — a legal term: stamped on documents to indicate a debt had been paid in full; the debt of humanity's sin is now fully satisfied
3. Jesus refused the wine mixed with myrrh (a sedative offered on the way to the cross, Mark 15) but received the sour wine — drinking the cup of the Father's wrath and man's cruelty to the last drop, fulfilling Psalm 69:21
4. Second meaning — telos (the goal or purpose): all of Scripture, all of redemptive history, all the types and shadows of the Old Covenant reach their telos at the cross
5. All of Scripture had been marching toward this moment — the Son giving up his spirit as the sacrifice for sin atop Mount Moriah

C. Call to contemplation

1. J.C. Ryle: no greater proof of depravity than seeing nothing lovely in the cross
2. Isaac Watts: love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all
3. Brothers and sisters: sit often, meditate often, contemplate often at the cross — there the heart of God is most fully revealed