The Cross Of Christ - [John 19]

The Cross at Golgotha and the Reading of John 19

If you would, please take your Bibles and open them up to the Gospel of John, the fourth Gospel. Gospel of John, if you have one of the pew Bibles, the blue ESV Bible, you'll be looking for page 905, 905.

I'd like to read a portion of John chapter 19. This morning is a little bit different of a service where we're going to not have a service this evening, but we're going to carry through this morning service and it all is pointing to the cross.

It is all Christ-centered, the message even so, and it will prepare us, Lord willing, for the communion table, which will follow the sermon. John chapter 19, beginning in verse 17. So they took Jesus and he went out, bearing his own cross to the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Verse 19. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the King of the Jews, but rather this man said I am King of the Jews.

Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven one piece from top to bottom.

So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but let us cast lots to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

So the soldiers did these things. Verse 25, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and his disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son.

And he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. After this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished, said, to fulfill the scripture, I thirst.

A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished, and he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.

May the Lord bless even the reading of the word of God to our ears this morning. I'd like to speak this morning concerning a portion of this text, but by way of introduction sometimes in the English language there are short phrases that make us stop and take notice.

In the military, you might hear, halt, who goes there, and I wonder if they even say that anymore. Law enforcement might say, license and registration, please. On the golf course, you might hear, through the trees, four, and you're going to respond, most likely by ducking or covering your head.

In the doctor's office, please sit down, I have something to tell you, gripping, serious words from a friend maybe, I have some good news and some bad news. And from your boss, you're fired. And on a construction site, look out below.

These types of phrases would cause us to react, to respond, and I believe that these are secular phrases or phrases from our earthly life, but there are gripping phrases in the Bible. The word of God is powerful, it's quick and it's alive, and many of you could think of some, especially in this setting of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, maybe on the cross you remember his words, those penetrating words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Or maybe recollect his words to the thief dying on his side, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Or even these unbelievable words from the lips of our loving Savior, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

My three favorite English words on the cross, it's in Greek, it's one, but in English, it's three, those three words are, it is finished. But this morning, I'd like to zero in on two words recorded by the Apostle John that are very astonishing, very telling, and I trust as we consider them, they will tell us more of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I hope that this message will be helpful in preparing us all, we who name the name of Christ, to be able to come to the communion table. What are these two words? Well, if you'll look, if you'll look in the text, we see in verse 28, it says that after this that Jesus knew that all things were accomplished, he said, so that the scriptures might be fulfilled, he says these two words, I thirst.

I thirst. And I believe that these, if we would consider these two words and consider this context, we could be encouraged, we could be brought to bow before the Lord to worship him even more and certainly we'll be prepared to come to the table.

The Humanity of Christ Revealed in "I Thirst"

First and foremost, I want to say that these two words, my first point, say of these two words that they speak of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know of Christ's deity. We know that there is a scripture like 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, which says without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.

And there you have it, God's word declaring that God himself came in the flesh and oh how we adore and worship and admire our Lord and his majesty and we bow before the truth even as we sang the songs that we sang this morning of his wonder and glory and splendor as being God, truly in his deity or being God, a very God, but also in the scriptures it brings out his humanity that he is fully man.

And the wonderful truth is that these two truths are perfectly joined in one person. Jesus is the son of man. Jesus is the son of God. The nature of God and the nature of man joined at Bethlehem and the apostle John put it this way in John chapter 1, verse 14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus became what he was not before, a man locked in time. Though he never ceased to be what he had always been before, for he had always been the eternal son of God who as Micah prophesied regarding Jesus in Micah 5 to Bethlehem out of thee shall come forth unto me, that is to be the ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from old and from everlasting.

Jesus' goings forth have been from everlasting. And here in our text we will survey a portion of the sufferings of Christ upon the cross and these two words I thirst, suffering, the Lord Jesus suffering in his human body and that is embodied in these two words I thirst.

There never is a question for many when it comes to the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ in the scriptures. Our Bibles have pretty remarkable records of Christ's divine abilities. Jesus reads men's minds.

He knows their words before they will speak them. He possesses all power over nature like wind and waves and plants and trees and fish and animals and food and water. He ruled over diseases like fevers and sicknesses and maladies.

He had complete power over demons and cast them out by his word. He was the king over death and hell and Satan and every created being. But also we have in the scriptures proof of his humanity and it was a sinless humanity.

Some biblical accounts of Christ's humanity are just the plain initial record of the actual birth of the Lord Jesus given us at the beginning of the gospels particularly in Matthew 1 and in verse 25 where it says that Mary brought forth her firstborn son and Joseph called his name Jesus.

There was a physical birth, a real birth, a real delivery of a human baby though this babe was God wrapped in human flesh. Later on in his life we see in Luke 2 .52 the child Jesus increased in wisdom and stature.

That means he grew physically and as a boy in the temple later on we see that he's sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions and actually confounding those teachers. And as a man he was to show his humanity he was wearied in body, John 4 .6 where he's at the well with the woman.

He became hungry, Matthew 4 .2. He slept, Mark 4 .38. He marveled, Mark 6 .6 and those two words, other two words in the Bible that are quite riveting in John 11 .35, Jesus wept. He prayed, Luke 10 .21.

He groaned, John 11 .30 and here in our text in John 19 and in verse 28 we are stricken by these two words, I thirst. Now why should these words arrest us? Why should they be so riveting to us? Because God does not thirst.

Angels in heaven do not thirst. The saints in glory do not thirst. But what a contrast we see here in our text, the son of man, Jesus enters this sin plagued world of sorrow and as the man of sorrow and acquainted with grief we see that it would be written of him wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren.

Meaning Jesus was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He endures the cross and on that cross in his human body and in his humanity he utters these two words. So first and foremost it is a remarkable thing to us as we see and consider these two words is that they speak to us of the humanity of Christ.

Here he is in a body agonizing upon the cross, suffering for our sins and he comes to the place where he utters those words, I thirst. If Jesus had not come as a man he could never have died for us. A man must die for men.

If there was no humanity of Christ that would mean there would be no taking away of our sin upon himself. If there was no body there would be no acceptable sacrifice. If there was no blood then there would be no forgiveness of our sins.

And all my friends we rejoice, don't we? And we bow this morning in our hearts. We are awestrucken that our God would send his son to take upon himself the form of man, live in a body, walk upon the earth, live a perfect life, die a substitutionary death and we see the humanity of Christ vividly portrayed in these two words, I thirst.

The Intensity of Christ's Sufferings on the Cross

But there's more than just this speaking to his humanity. Secondly, these two words tell us of the intensity of the sufferings of Christ. These two words, I thirst, tell us of the intensity of Christ's sufferings.

And my friends, the cross of Christ was no light matter. Even though Jesus was God who was clothed in flesh, this was not a skip in the park for him. It was a devastating means of death. A .W. Tozer wrote, quote, the old cross is a symbol of death.

It stands for the abrupt violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said goodbye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was not going out to have his life redirected.

He was not going out, but he was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise. It modified nothing. It spared nothing. It slew all of the man completely and for good. The cross did not try to keep on good terms with its victim.

It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more. Note the physical sufferings. If you consider the life of Christ and you read maybe the testimony and some of it we heard when we began reading this portion of the text where they took Jesus up to Golgotha to crucify him, what led up even to that point where Jesus would utter these two profound words?

Each event that I will list here will contribute its part to bring such a thirst and such a situation and such a condition upon the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember there was the Last Supper with his disciples and his lengthy message.

Some don't realize, but if you read John chapter 13 and 14 and 15 and 16, that's at the time of that last meal with his disciples, that lengthy discourse and that discourse with Judas as he's going and preparing to betray the Lord Jesus.

And then in John chapter 17, we have that tiring event, maybe somewhat discouraging event where the disciples were sleeping and Jesus asked them to stay awake while he prayed. And there, in John chapter 17, we have the true Lord's Prayer.

Then after that, it is on to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus passes through a period of excruciating agony. His soul is exceedingly sorrowful and Luke, being a medical doctor, tells us that Jesus' sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood.

Here I believe weighty thoughts regarding man's cursed sin was heavy upon Christ and particularly in mine was the Father's judgment, the inevitable cup of God's wrath upon our sin that Jesus would soon drink to rid us of sin's awful curse bearing down upon him.

Hereto in the Garden, his thirst begins to heighten. He is then confronted by Judas and the Roman soldiers in the Garden and is arrested and brought before Caiaphas in the middle of the night. Jesus is unjustly examined and condemned and he is held until early morning.

He is tired and thirsty. Most likely no one has extended any common courtesy. There's been no drink for Jesus. All hell is relentlessly pushing forward to do with Christ as God the Father had predetermined to be done and Jesus has done no wrong.

He is completely innocent. He is the spotless Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. From there, Jesus goes before Pilate and suffers the abuse of a lengthy trial. He is later scourged with a flesh-ripping whip and then led across to the city to Herod's judgment hall.

All the pushing and all the shoving and all the mistreatment adds to the physical and mental strain upon the Lord's body and Jesus' thirst grows. The brutal and heartless soldiers mock him. They beat him mercilessly.

They scourge him and then he is sent back to Pilate who passes the death sentence upon him and now with a lacerated back, a bruised and beaten body, his brow pierced, is pierced with a crown of thorns, his body is bleeding and his face is also bleeding from where they plucked out his beard with their bare hands.

He is then made to carry the cross in the heat of the sun up Golgotha's hill. He is stripped of his clothing and the soldiers throw his racked body down upon a rough wooden cross and meticulously and forcefully drive large nails through his hands and feet.

They lift and then drop the cross violently into the hole dug to receive it and the shock of that impact riddles Jesus' body with intense and unimaginable pain and for three hours he hangs naked in the heat of the sun with everybody looking on, some jeering and some mocking and some in shock and tears.

His body is out of sorts. His breathing is becoming labored. His heart is pounding. Jesus has a burning thirst. But he does not cry for mercy. You don't hear him reversing his decision and asking the Father to take away the agony.

No, Jesus bears the shame and endures the cross for he knows he must die so that we might live, so that we might be purchased by God. And as is recorded in Isaiah chapter 53, in majestic silence he is numbered with the transgressors and it pleases the Father to bruise him.

Sin is being dealt with upon this old rugged cross and the only way that is acceptable to God for without the shedding of blood, it says in Hebrews 9 .22, there is no remission of sins. No forgiveness if this precious blood is not shed.

The soul of Jesus is poured out in death and he bears the sin of his people. He is wounded for your transgressions in Mayan and by his stripes we will be healed. His soul has made an offering for our sin and the Lord is laying upon him the iniquity of us all.

He is bearing the awful load upon himself. For us brethren, for us and all the wonder of it all, like a sheep before her shearers is silent so the Lord Jesus did not open his mouth. And as the end draws near, this crucifixion being the most dreadful and agonizing death and it is accompanied with an excruciating thirst.

Hear what the commentator Albert Barnes wrote about this. Thirst was one of the most distressing circumstances attending the crucifixion. The wounds were highly inflamed and a raging fever was caused, usually by the suffering on the cross and this was accompanied by insupportable thirst.

Barnes went on later to describe an actual crucifixion of a Turkish officer which was recorded in Arabic manuscript where it stated, and I quote,. The man thus remained on the cross from Friday until Sunday when he died, this Turkish officer.

He was patient and silent without wailing, but looking around him to the right and left upon the people, he begged for water and none was given him. It flowed all around him. He gazed upon it and longed for one drop and he complained of thirst all the first day until someone was merciful and gave him a drink.

Jesus is at that point. He is dehydrated here upon the cross. He is bleeding profusely. He is exhausted. He is fevered. His wounds are inflamed. His joints are dislocated. There is extreme pressure upon his heart.

The wrath of God is falling upon him. The judgment of God is falling upon him. The Father's faith has been turned away from him. Jesus has already cried out those words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

As it says in 2 Corinthians 5 .21, he was made sin for us. At this point, this is taking place that Nuno sinned that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. There's extreme pressure upon his heart.

Life is escaping. He's about to die. The intense pain is shooting through his hands and feet as he pushes up on the metal nails so that he can catch his next breath and those nails are biting into his nervous system and the psalmist describes his agony in Psalm 22.

Hear these words as I read from verse one. These are messianic prophecies. This is a prophecy of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ hundreds of years before anyone ever invented this form of execution. Psalm 22 .1, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? And then down in verse six, but I am a worm and not a man scorned by mankind and despised by the people. Verse seven, all who see me mock me.

They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. Verse 11, be not far from me for trouble is near and there is none to help. Verse 12, many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion.

And then listen to these words as they describe the physical anguish of Christ's sufferings upon the cross. Again prophesied, foretold hundreds of years before Christ was to suffer and the record that we have here in John chapter 19.

It says in Psalm 22, 14, I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt. My tongue sticks to my jaws.

You lay me in the dust of death. Verse 16 for dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots.

And may I ask us all this morning, why is this taking place? I thought a crucifixion was a cruel method of capital punishment for thieves, for crooks, for the wretched outcasts of society. And here we see God's holy son, the Lord Jesus, dying out of love for sinners.

Why the cross? Why the suffering? Why these other phrases and these two words in particular, I thirst? Well it is not because men messed up God's plan A and this good teacher was misunderstood and rejected and framed and unjustly crucified.

And it's all a shame and it's just a waste of a good life. No, no, a million times no. This is God's foreordained means for the doing away of your sin and for the doing away of my sin. For the perfect payment to satisfy God's wrath and to bring salvation to everyone who would believe upon Jesus Christ to the saving of their souls.

Every detail we read here in the gospels is occurring exactly as God the Father had planned. Jesus was crucified because of our miserable, wretched, and rebellious, and hideous sins. All of the misery, the horrendous judgment of God falling upon him here on Calvary, and the giving of his life, it all came upon Christ because we have broken God's law.

We do not love God as we should and we live in rebellion and our guilt is being dealt with here in his sufferings. And I'll just take a little bit of an aside here because there are times in our lives when I don't think that we take sin seriously.

There was a hymn writer who wrote words that said, You who think of sin but lightly, here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed, and it's speaking of the sacrifice or the cross. Look at the cross.

If you take sin lightly or think of sin lightly, look at the cross and look what sin has done. When we survey the wondrous cross, and when you and I do that, do we realize what our sins have caused? And what in our lives we want to entertain and to play with sin?

We want to continue on in rebellion? Oh, we don't understand the weight of it all, the seriousness of how offensive our sin is to our holy God. And I ask, how many of us would jump into a pit of poisonous snakes and think nothing of it?

Certainly we wouldn't. And yet, some of us jump into the pit of sin and play with it. Even today, we play with sin and we think that we will not be bitten. You let your pride rise up in your breast. You fan the flame of passion and lust.

You let bitterness and anger fester. You take one more look. You take one more drink. One more horrible thought. One more bout of stealing. One more angry outburst at spouse or parent or neighbor or friend.

And we don't consider the evil, what evil that sin has done and the devastation upon our Savior. And specifically, and especially to the child of God purchased by the blood of Christ. Shouldn't sin be so exceedingly sinful for us that we turn and run from it?

Every one of them has contributed to the agonies that our Lord suffered which brought him to the place where he said, I thirst. Our miserable sins nailed our blessed Lord to that tree. Each transgression brought the hammer blow down upon those nails.

Each sin contributed to his death for us. And our attitude towards all sin should be a disgust and abhorrence. And it should promote an attitude of repentance and forsaking and fleeing from it. We sing a hymn, don't we, entitled, I gave my life for thee.

And some of the words go, speaking of the Lord Jesus, saying these words, I suffered much for thee, more than the tongue can tell, of bitterest agony to rescue thee from hell. I gave, I gave my life for thee, what hast thou given for me.

In there it says he suffered much, more than our tongue could ever tell, of bitterest agony. And oh, Christians, he did this for us. My brothers and sisters in Christ, do we want to open the door to unimaginable sins and shame?

And may it never be. We used to be the servants of sin, but now that we've been set free by the work of Christ, sin should never rule over us. The power of sin has been broken. What have we been looking at so far?

Well, first, we've seen, first of all, that in these two words, I thirst, we see the wonder of God having, dealing with our sin. The way that God did that was in his humanity, God coming in human flesh.

And here, in our Lord's body, being wracked with pain, at this point, we've come to the place where he is beyond being parched. And from his dried lips and swollen tongue, we hear these words, I thirst.

And what an extreme expression of agony. And oh, let us never read these two words again without considering what brought our Savior to speak them. Jesus thirsts. Unimaginable. This ought to stop us in our tracks.

The Lord who spoke, and water was created. Jesus thirsts. The one who brought the oceans and the seas and the rivers and streams and lakes into existence. He, the creator, thirsts in agony. The one who gave Israel water out of a rock for 40 years in the wilderness.

The one who turned water to wine. The one who controls every rain cloud. The one who makes the rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. He is thirsty. Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ, mark these two words well.

He is in this place undeservedly. We deserve to be executed. We deserve the just payment for our sins. But he dies in our place. And by coming to him, by believing upon the Lord Jesus Christ that he died and was buried and rose again, all to pay for our sins and make things right with God and to bring us into a right relationship with God the Father, he thirsted in physical agony and on to death so that we might never spiritually thirst again.

Men may deny it, yet we do live in a dry and thirsty land full of people who are hungry and thirsty and not able to find anything upon earth to satisfy the need of their thirsty souls. There are mad rushes for wealth and position and fame and worldly passion and pleasures and honor and status and wisdom and knowledge and exploration and philosophy, looking within, looking without, looking into outer space for the answer.

Why? Because God made us to be worshipers of God. There is an aching void in the soul of every lost sinner. And as a sinner, you will never be satisfied until that empty void of your soul is completely filled.

And man does not have the capacity within himself to fill it, nor does any man or religious organization or secular institution have the answer. Man cannot find the secret that brings peace to the soul and rest to the troubled spirit in anything here below.

No man has the means to rid themselves of their sin problem. Man will never be satisfied until he is satisfied in Christ. I think Piper said something along those lines. Man will never be satisfied until he is fully and completely satisfied in Christ.

The thirst of your soul will not be quenched with a religion that does not teach about the need to repent of your sin and come to Christ for salvation and forgiveness. Jesus told a woman at a well that if she drank of the physical water, that she could get out of that well, that she would be thirsty again.

And this is true of every religion which tells people that they must do religious works or reform their lives with hopes of gaining favor with God. That will never happen. And I tell you this morning that any religion that preaches another Christ or another way to get to God besides the finished work of the Lord Jesus, that that religion will leave you empty, your life will remain unchanged, and you will not be accepted by God, and you will be left spiritually thirsty in your soul.

Without Christ, you are separated from the life-giving water, the fountain of living waters, and you are drinking from a broken cistern or a means whereby they had carved out of stone in the Old Testament little reservoirs to hold water.

And you're drinking out of one of those. Without Christ, you're drinking out of one of those that has cracks and holes in it, and it will not hold water, and it cannot hold water. What should the sinner do who is in great need for their spiritual thirst to be met?

God has set the answer before you here in the cross of Christ that we have read of in John chapter 19. Here in this chapter, we see Jesus Christ upon the cross doing his divine work of redemption. Here upon the cross, we see our great, merciful, loving God, our God who is the Savior by nature.

Jesus has come. God manifests in the flesh. Didn't the angels tell the shepherds in Luke chapter 2 and in verse 11, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And on a hill far away truly stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame.

And we love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain, and the dearest and best is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He bears the awful load. He is our substitute.

He does for us what we could never do for ourselves. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. His body is beaten and crushed for us. And in these two words I thirst, first of all, we heard that it speaks of his humanity.

And secondly, it tells us of the intensity of Christ's sufferings. Which was an answer for man's most urgent need, his sin-sick, diseased soul. But thirdly, and hopefully quickly, these last two words that Jesus spoke here, these two words that Jesus spoke, speak of God's faithfulness to fulfill all prophecy concerning Jesus Christ the Messiah.

I was just absolutely thrilled when I saw this and I looked at this and studied this in this verse. Because if you'll notice, in this verse, it says, I'll read from the ESV, John 19, 28. After this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished, said, to fulfill the scripture, I thirst.

John MacArthur, quote, in his omniscience, in Jesus' omniscience, he knew there was only one remaining prophecy to be fulfilled. End quote. And that prophecy is a prophecy from Psalm, those taking notes, Psalm 69.

And in verse 21, where the Bible says, and it's a messianic prophecy, it speaks to Jesus, the life of Jesus, things hundreds of years ago written that would become true. There were hundreds of prophecies concerning Christ.

And this one in Psalm 69, and in verse 21, the Bible says, they gave me poison, or your translation might say gall, they gave me poison or gall for food or for my meat, and for my thirst, they gave me sour wine, or your version might say vinegar to drink.

They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst, they gave me sour wine to drink. Now, can you imagine what it would have taken for a group of people to try to get together? Let's say the disciples are going to try to get together and take all the Old Testament prophecies and figure out a way to make everything occur in the life of Christ so that all those prophecies would be fulfilled.

You see, this was written, the testimony of the Gospels is written after the fact. I mean, the disciples didn't know half the time what was going on, so they could not have orchestrated this. And the Roman soldiers who gave Jesus this to drink did not orchestrate this.

They were just doing what they were doing. They meant it for evil, but what God was doing is being meant for good. God's purposes are being unfolded here before us. And what's uncanny here, and what's so remarkable in this text, it says of Jesus, knowing that it's accomplished, Jesus knowing that his work is finished, it's coming to its climax, to its conclusion, the payment has been made, and we're going to see him right after this, he utters his very last words, it is finished.

But here, it says in this verse, and if you don't see this and you've ever read this before, you could just pass right by it, it says, after this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, Jesus said this to intentionally, I believe, fulfill Scripture.

Jesus said what he said, he said those words, I thirst to fulfill Scripture. Because there is just one last prophecy while Jesus is alive on the cross, there's one left, there's one more prophecy that must be fulfilled.