John 19:16-22 The King upon the skull

That was an absolute blessing, to be able to sing that song. Like I said, that was the first time that we've ever sung it, and I think it is absolutely beautiful. Thank you for all your guys' help with Shepard.

I can't bless him. I was looking back, and everybody was giving me thumbs up if he was doing it right or not. It takes a tribe, a village to raise a kid, and that's a fact. I think it might take three for him.

Anyway, it's a blessing, so thank you guys for that. Today, we're going to be in John 19, verses 16 -22. I would invite you to start turning that way. If you have your Bibles with you, or whatever device that you have with you that can do that, please turn that way.

The Sorrow and Glory of Christ's Crucifixion

John 19, verses 16 -22. Once again, church, this is a text that has a lot of solemnness, a lot of breathing, a lot of sadness, a lot of wickedness that we see in here. I just want to remind us, before we even start jumping into it, even before we begin praying, this story does not end at the death of Christ.

When we see these despairing things, and we see this wickedness and evil and sin, and almost what appears to be a defeat of Christ, when we see these things, we need to always remember that the resurrection is just a few days away from this text.

He triumphs over these things. He does these things. He has authority over them. He's decreed them to be the way that they are. We see that in His resurrection, that we take great confidence in what He did and claimed to be.

On that note, let us pray to God. Lord, we just thank You for this day. We thank You for children in this church, Lord. We thank You for parents and friends and family and those that would be willing to watch our children as they grow, Lord.

God, I would just pray that as we continue in our own personal growth, in knowing You and increasing in our love and dedication towards You, and truly having You increase in our life, Lord, that we would also help try to raise this next generation in a likewise manner, that they might know You, and that this next generation would be fearful of You.

God, I would just pray that You would be praised in each one of our individual walks. And Lord, I would just pray also that this text, it might help sanctify us here today. And so, God, we just say these things in Your name, Jesus Christ, Amen.

So, if you want to, like I said, please open up to John 19, verses 16 through 22. So, it's going to be our selected text for today. And I think it might be, not to go over some other really sad texts, but let's read a little bit, a couple of verses before, just to help us remind us where we're at in today's text.

Let's start in verse 12 and read through 15, and then we'll get into the selected text. It says in verse 12, Now, it was the day of preparation for the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. And He said to the Jews,.

Behold your king.

They therefore cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. I just want to, just let us help us remind us from last week's text that we looked through.

Verse 13 on to 15, we see Pilate looking down on Christ, looking down upon the crown of thorns, looking down upon the very stripes upon His back from the scourging that took place moments before. And we see Pilate give the sentence of, Behold your king.

Behold the king of the Jews. And so Pilate has delivered a sentence to Jesus in that text, that Jesus is a king. And he says, Behold your king, to the Jews themselves. So we need to remember this. And the Jews then cry out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

And that we have no king but Caesar. Those kind of words resonate in our minds when we approach this future text that we're about to read. So in our selected text for today, verses 16 through 22, let us read that.

So he then delivered him to them to be crucified. They took Jesus therefore, and he went out, bearing his own cross to the place called, or to the place called the place of the school, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.

There they crucified him, and with him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between. And Pilate wrote an inscription also, and put it on the cross, and it was written, Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.

Therefore this inscription many of the Jews read, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and in Greek. And so the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, Do not write the king of the Jews, but that he said, I am the king of the Jews.

Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.

Christ Delivered to Crucifixion and the Sovereignty of God

Let us pray over this text.

Lord God, what a privilege it is to come before you today, and worship, and studying, and an effort to understand this text better, Lord. God, with the weight of the cross on your shoulders, we want to have a similar weight upon our own backs as we examine this text, Lord.

God, let us continue to remember that you are our king, and that you are the king of kings, and Lord of lords, and God, let us not ever forget such a statement as that. Lord, you received this inscription above your head on a cross, and Lord, we just praise you for what you have done on the cross, and your death bearing on resurrection, and you have brought many men unto yourself.

So Lord, let us remember where our salvation is from, this hill of Calvary,.

And let us not ever forget that.

It is only on that hill that we are saved. And so Lord, we just say these things in your holy name, in Jesus Christ, Amen. So going back to verse 16, it says in here, So he then delivered him to them to be crucified.

And this statement comes right after, like we just read previously before we prayed. It comes after the fact that Jesus has already been given a sentence of not guilty three times by Pilate. It comes after Jesus has received the sentence of, Behold your king.

And the Pilates, or not the Pilates, the Jews, the Jews were not satisfied with even the punishment that Christ had already received for absolutely no reason. And so we see their absolute injustice, their wickedness, their sin, in saying away with him, away with him.

Crucify, crucify.

They keep on demanding of Pilate that that sentence is not enough. The crown of thorns, that was not enough. The beating, not enough. The scarlet robe, not enough. The scourging, not enough. Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

That rains out from their tongue as they hate who Christ is. And so, Pilate, this is where we see even more injustice coming from the judgment seat of Pilate in his day. He's already passed a judgment.

He's already done it. He should let Jesus go, but he doesn't. It says in verse 16,. So then he delivered them him, Christ, over to be crucified. Pilate has now, tired of hearing the cries of the Jews, tired of continuing to play this game of trying to satisfy what they want, has now given them him over to them.

He has given him over to their wishes. And church, this is unfathomable that this would even take place in the way that it does. We today would not even let a criminal, we wouldn't allow this kind of thing to take place in our own court system today.

It just doesn't happen like this. I want to read Acts 4, 27 -29 as we read that twice last week. I think it's very important that as we read what Pilate is doing in this text, and read what the Jews are doing in this text, we need to be continually reminded of what Acts 4, 27 -29 says.

Acts 4, 27 -29. And as you're turning there, I also want to remind you, church, that the amount of fulfillment that takes place in this prophecy, or not in this prophecy, but the amount of prophecy that takes place and is fulfilled in Christ in this time, we could take every verse here and break it up into several messages, and we would walk away after a year of going through this text of Christ's crucifixion account very, very knowledgeable and very, very well versed in this.

I don't think that's what we should do, though. I think we need to look at this and examine it and continue on to His resurrection. So we're continuing on taking these little bit larger abides of Scripture, and still examining them very thoroughly, but just know that we could, if we wanted to, we could be in this text of John 19 for over a year.

We really could be.

We could look at every gospel account. We could look at everything that Christ says. We could look at everything that was going on around Christ when this happens, but we're going to just be trying to focus on what John has recorded here for us.

But Acts chapter 4, verses 27 through 29, it says in here, "...for truly in this city there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint both Herod and Pontius Pilate...".

This is Peter speaking about what God has done. "...who has anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever thy hand and thy purpose predestined to occur.

And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that thy bondservants may speak thy word with all confidence.". And so Peter here is speaking in great confidence for these Jews that he's speaking of in this day, and he says in there to continue to grant himself the sovereign will of God, to grant that he continues to speak with this great confidence that we see in here.

And he says that even... so him in that moment, God is being sovereign over. In verse 28, he says that the whole Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the peoples of Israel, the Jews, it was all God's sovereignty that was taking place in here.

It was all God's predestined will that was taking place in here. And so we see that even though Pontius Pilate, and what we would say that, absolutely, that is injustice that Pontius Pilate has done that, and that is absolute wickedness, and there's no way that that would take place today, and there's no way it should have taken place back then.

We hear Jesus Christ in John three years before the crucifixion say, I must be lifted up. This was going to take place. This had to take place. And it's because God had predestined it to take place. And so do not think in here that there is any slightest chance of Jesus being released.

There isn't.

Every step that he takes to Calvary is of a sovereign design, and we need to remember this. And so back in John 19 now, we see in here, so he then delivered him to them to be crucified. So Peter has now said, enough is enough, you now get your wishes.

You get what you want, Jews.

And in verse 17 it says, they took Jesus, therefore, and by the they, who is the they in this text? If the Roman cohort, as we read from other gospel accounts, were the ones that scourged his back, there's no doubt that those are the same men that are leading Christ to Calvary.

So now that paints the picture even more vividly, that in this ascent to this hill of Calvary, this hill of Golgotha, the place of the school, he's being led by an army. And not only that, but he also has other evildoers with him that are walking with him.

And not only that, but he's being followed by the Jews. And not only that, but he's being followed by the common people. And so the they is a large, large number of people that we see in this text that are taking Christ to the cross.

And let's compare the they, that large number, with who follows Christ to that cross. Do we see the 11 apostles in this time? No, there's very few that actually follow him there. How many of the disciples, any of the followers that have been following Christ for the last three and a half years, are following Christ to his crucifixion?

Well, no, not that very many. We see in other accounts that he talks about a disciple being there, and his mother being there, and so on and so forth. But the difference that I want to paint in this picture for us, church, is seeing the amount of evil men that have been gathered against Christ, and the lack of those that followed him there.

They, therefore, took him, Jesus, therefore, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of the school, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. Now, what is taking place in here is, once again, a tremendous, prophetic fulfillment that we see all over the Old Testament.

There's something that we need to add in here that isn't recorded in the book of the Gospel of John, that we won't turn to the other Gospels, but I'm sure that you're familiar with. There's a gentleman named Simon, who helps Christ carry his cross.

And so, this gentleman named Simon that's not recorded here in the Gospel of John, he's talked about later in the Epistles that his whole family actually comes to have faith in Christ. And so, we even see in his ascent to Calvary that this man that was there, most likely there to celebrate the Passover, he was probably traveled, he was there to celebrate the Passover, was probably, no doubt, convicted when he saw this Messiah carrying a cross, and no doubt took that message back to his wife, and took that message back to his two children that is talked about, and I believe it's in Acts chapter 18, don't quote me on that, or Romans chapter 3.

It's there, I promise that his two children, they'll end up having faith in Christ, and it sounds like they become friends with the Apostles of Christ. And so, we see this sense of salvation that takes place here in John 17, or 8, 19, 17, it's not recorded here, but it's recorded in other Gospels.

And so, Jesus therefore goes out to this place called the Skull, and he's bearing upon his back this cross, and this needs to be remembered upon us, what has already happened to the back of Christ. Scourging, he's already received these terrible afflictions of wounds upon his back, and now he's having this pressure of a cross being placed upon his shoulders.

This, once again, the sense of pain that is talked about in this text is tremendous. Absolutely tremendous. And so, he's carrying it to the place called the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. I don't know if any of us know this in here, but that word, Golgotha, and the place of the Skull, in Latin, is translated into a word I can't say, but in English, the way we would pronounce it is Calvary.

And so, that's where we get the word Calvary, is that it literally means the place of the Skull. It's the hill upon which Christ died upon in Latin. And so, because we don't necessarily need to always say the place of the Skull is where Christ was crucified, we can say Christ was crucified on Calvary.

Or if you want to say it in Hebrew, you say it in Golgotha. That's however you would like to say it, but Christ is taken to Calvary. He's taken to Golgotha. He's taken to the place of the Skull. And there's a little bit of debate amongst scholars and archaeologists and theologians upon where exactly in Jerusalem today where Christ was crucified.

And there's a couple different theories about where it took place at. There's actually even some Jewish tradition, which to me doesn't explicitly say any of this in the text. And so, therefore, it's fun to think about these things, but don't hold a doctrine on any of these things.

It's Jewish tradition that this Mount Moriah that Abraham offered Isaac on is the exact same place where Christ was crucified. And not only that, but many Jewish traditions would also say that it's also the exact same dust that Adam was taken of to be created.

And so there's this sense of that taking place there. Don't hold doctrine to that. That's just tradition and has been speculated. Not talked about in the text. But this place of the Skull, once again, is debated.

There's different heels that are put out that if you look at it from above, it looks like a Skull. Or if you look at it from the side, this place looks like a Skull. Or maybe it was over here, because that's right outside the gate on this area.

It ultimately doesn't matter. What matters is the place that they called it. It was the place of the Skull. And there is, I think, much fulfillment that takes place in here. In Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, we won't necessarily have to turn there.

We read, though, from Genesis this same prophecy last week when we talked about, or maybe two weeks ago, when we talked about the thorns being put on Christ's head, and how that was a thorns that were meant for Adam and his descendants.

That for him to feel thorns and thistles would grow, but yet Christ received the thorns and thistles upon his head. That which was supposed to steam the man's foot is now on our King's head. And so now we also see in Genesis 3, verse 15, that to Eve it is said, or actually to the serpent it is said, that her seed you shall bruise his heel, but he shall crush your head to the serpent.

And so I don't think there is any chance that this place was called the place of Skull out of randomness. There is a direct meaning that that has in there. That this skull is representative of what? Death?

Fallenness? Evil? These type of pictures of darkness that we think of when we think of a skull. There is a reason why this place is called the place of the skull. And it's fitting that the most evil and wicked act of anything in all humanity, there is significance in that taking place on this place called the skull.

The crucifixion of Christ. There is significance in this. And so he is taken to this place. And also church, back then when they would do crucifixions, Pilate and anybody that would put capital punishment pipe across, they would put them in very public places.

And the reason they would do that was so that the common folks would be scared about breaking the law. They would go around in the cities and they would see a body hanging there that was in the process of dying or in the process of whatever it was.

But in the process of death, they would see this person hung there and they would see the inscription written upon their head and they would say, I probably ought not to murder them. Or I might not need a still and be a thief.

Or I shouldn't do X, Y, and Z because that's the inscription upon this person's head. It was a reminder of don't violate the law, which is very interesting when we look at this with Christ here. But they would put them in different places so that it was very obvious.

And so this place is outside the city. It's in an elevated place of some kind because it's a hill. And you remember that. And so that's where it's at. So Christ is walking, he's taking his cross to this place.

It says in verse 18, There they crucified him, and with him two other men, one on either side and Jesus in between. And this is where I'm talking about that we could take a long, long time in every single verse for many months to come because we could look at each one of the gospel accounts and see the recording of the two thieves that were crucified along with Christ.

And from Matthew and Mark's perspective, it says that both of them were hurling abuses and blasphemes at Jesus. They were both doing this. And Luke records a little bit extra of a piece in the sense that they were both absolutely doing this.

But at some point during the crucifixion, according to Luke in 23 verse 39 through 43, it says in there that one of the thieves were saying, Are you not the Christ? Get yourself down from this cross. If that's really who you are, do that, Christ.

He's hurling these type of abuses at Christ being crucified. And the other thief on the other side of him says, Do you not even fear God? For you are under the same condemnation.

He's speaking about Christ. Do you not fear God?

For you are under the same condemnation. This thief recognizes Jesus as God in that text. He says, Do you not even fear God? For you are under the same condemnation. And this man has done nothing amiss.

He recognizes him as both God and man in that text.

Isn't that beautiful?

This thief that has been blaspheming and hurling abuses at Christ has a change of heart and recognizes Christ as who he is. God and man at the same time.

And he's done nothing amiss.

And he goes on to say, as we all know, Remember me when you enter into your kingdom. And Christ gives him the assurance of salvation of saying, Today you shall be with me in paradise. It's absolutely a beautiful, beautiful message.

And we see it here recorded for us in this way in John 19, that they crucified him with two other men, one on either side and Jesus in between. And so that's the only mention of the thieves here in John in the way that he's described and recorded these events.

But it goes on to say in verse 19,.

It says,.

Christ is being consigned with two men that are thieves and are ultimately being held justly accountable for what they've done and being put to death in the way that Pilate has seen fit to put them to death, this capital punishment that they have done.

And this in itself fulfills prophecy in Psalm chapter 22. I'll turn to this one so I don't misquote it. Psalm chapter 22 is a very clear depiction of Christ being crucified hundreds of years before even crucifixion even was invented.

But in Psalm chapter 22, verse 16, it says some very interesting things in here. And maybe what we'll do is we'll read... I'm going to read from verse 12 to 16. And this is one of those great pictures that we see from the Old Testament that very clearly describe Christ and what is going on in John chapter 19.

Verse 12, it says,.

I am poured out. And isn't that interesting that Christ in this is saying that these people have encircled me like a lion and we see that the devil himself in 1 Peter 5 -8 is mentioned as a lion. Isn't that interesting?

Verse 14,.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joints. My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws. And thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

That picture of a skull that we see even there. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. This is the crucifixion in Psalm chapter 22.

But the fulfillment of the two thieves on the sides of Christ is in verse 16. For dogs have surrounded me, and a band of evildoers has encompassed me. In that day, dogs were referred to as thieves. And so we see that Christ was surrounded by dogs on his left and on his right.

And a band of evildoers have encompassed him, the thieves that were on his left and on his right. And we see then, they pierced my hands and my feet, which is Jesus Christ, is what this is speaking of.

We can go back to John 19. But in John 19 verse 18 now, it says that that inscription has been written, that Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews. Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews. This has been what Pilate has accused Christ of being.

Behold, you're a king.

He has written an inscription about it. The King of the Jews, he's written this inscription about it. And there's a, in my world, in my workplace, and this being a firefighter, there's these things called placards.

And some of us might have heard what those are. If you're ever driving on the road and you see a semi truck come by you that's carrying gasoline or some sort of material in it, you'll see a diamond-shaped plate on there.

It's called a placard.

And it helps us tell what those things are inside of it. In a sense, it's an inscription on the side of the thing that it's carrying so that you can tell what it is. In this day, with the crucifixion taking place, as the person was being walked to the place of their death, a Roman soldier would hold the inscription that would be placed above them as they walked, so that as they went through the crowds of the people, they could see what the thief had, or the murderer, or the child abuser, or whatever it is, what they had done, the inscription, the placard, the reasoning for their death as they walked there.

And so we see that in the same manner, it's absolutely true that the Roman soldiers, this cohort, would have been walking in front of Christ with this inscription, Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.

And so the Romans, interestingly enough, are announcing this to the common people as they're walking. They're announcing this to the Jews as they're walking. These evil wicked men are announcing Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.

It says then in verse 20, Therefore this inscription many of the Jews read, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. And I need you to pay attention to that word, near the city. It does not say it was in the city.

It was near the city. This is where the conflicting reports of where Christ was crucified was at, because they'll say, well, this was the boundary 2 ,000 years ago where the city was, so it had to have been here.

And then some people will say, no, this was the boundary, it had to be here. And this is where it gets kind of interesting, but the important part is that it was not in the city. And we're going to talk about this at the end of today's message, but it was not in the city.

It was near the city. It was outside the gate. And it says in here, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and in Greek. That same way I was telling you about semi-trucks driving by, there's been these big brain government officials that have come together and said, we need to make signs on the side of these trucks that are obvious and clear, and we'll give these people books to help understand what it means, right?

So it's very clear what's inside this container, because it could be dangerous, it could be not dangerous, and we just want to let people know what it is. And the same way we see Pilate and the Romans doing this exact similar thing to Jesus Christ, they write it out in three languages, Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews, so that no one in that day had an excuse for not knowing the reason that Christ was being crucified.

You couldn't say, well, I don't know Greek, because it was written in Greek. And you couldn't say, well, I don't know Hebrew, because it wasn't just written in Hebrew. It was written in every common language right then and there in that area of the world, so that everyone knew Jesus was being crucified, because He was Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.

And it says that the Jews, when they read this, it goes on to say, because they had to read it, it's obvious. Once again, that crucifixion was a picture of what you should not do to violate our law. It's that picture going on there.

And so we see that the Jews are reading this, this judgment that Pilate has done, this inscription that has been written for them. It says in verse 20, or in verse 21, and so the chief priests, so these high officials of the Jews, these chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, do not write the King of the Jews, but that he said, I am the King of the Jews.

We see that even when the Jews are getting exactly what they wanted, they are still mad at what God is doing with Jesus in this text. No, no, no, don't put that He is the King of the Jews. Put that He claimed to be the King of the Jews.

Remove that inscription, Pilate. Remove it, and change it, because we aren't okay with what you wrote about Him. And we see what Pilate says here, Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written, so he is refusing to do it.

Pilate wrote this, Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews, absolutely in a prophetic way without knowing what he was doing. This is fact, that when he wrote that out, that is 100 true. But the reason that Pilate wrote that out, other than God's sovereignty in this text, was because he was doing it in a way to mock the very Jews themselves.

He has already found Jesus to be free of guilt, not innocent, not deserving of what he has already done. He has said that three times. And the Jews now have accused him of not being fearful of Caesar.

No, Pilate, Caesar is going to be mad with you if you don't put this person to death, because anybody that claims to be a king is against Caesar. And so Pilate is being fed up with the Jews to this point, that here he's been feeding what they wanted, what they wanted, what they wanted, and he's had enough.

He says, no, I'm not going to change my inscription. You're getting what you want here. You're getting Christ crucified. That is what you've been wanting of me this whole time, and I didn't want to do it.

He didn't deserve it. I'm not going to change the inscription. I'm not going to listen to you anymore. This is, once again, God's sovereignty all throughout this text. For Pilate to adhere to them saying, away with him, away with him, crucify him, and being willing to change his decree of letting him go free, to let him die upon a cross, but then not willing to change the inscription.

Don't you see the back and forth that Pilate's doing here, trying to appease the Jews, but also not wanting to kill Christ in the way that they want, that he recognizes him as innocent? It's absolutely tremendous in this text, what takes place.

I want to read that once again, 21 through 22, and acknowledge, church, the absolute rejection of Christ by the Jews when they are saying this. And so the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, do not write the King of the Jews, but that he said, I am the King of the Jews.

The Jews are rejecting Christ continually, continually. They aren't stopping when they get what they want. They don't want to even remember Christ. This is factual and true today. If you talk with a Jewish rabbi, which I have had the pleasure to do, they reject Christ continually.

He is not the King of the Jews. He is not. They were doing it back then, they do it to the day, because they reject the Messiah, they reject who Jesus Christ is. Once again, Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written.

Christ Outside the Gate and the Reproach of His People

I want to turn to one final place in text today where we'll finish, but it's in Hebrews chapter 13. As we talk about this text in John 19, verses 16 through 22, this is what would be possibly called or known as the ascension to the Old Testament, the ascension of Christ to this place of the cross, this place of the skull.