THE DEAD CHRIST
It was not usual to remove bodies from the cross immediately after
their death. They were allowed to hang, exposed to the weather, till
they rotted and fell to pieces; or they might be torn by birds or
beasts; and at last a fire was perhaps kindled beneath the cross to rid
the place of the remains. Such was the Roman custom; but among the
Jews there was more scrupulosity. In their law there stood this
provision: "If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be
put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain
all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day
(for he that is hanged is accursed of God); that thy land be not
defiled which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." [1]
Whether or not the Jews always tried to get this provision observed in
executions carried out in their midst by their Roman masters, we cannot
tell; but it was natural that they should do so in reference to
executions carried out in the neighbourhood of the holy city and at
Passover time. In the present instance there was the additional
reason, that the morrow of the execution of Jesus was a high day--it
was the Sabbath of the Passover--a kind of double Sabbath, which would
have been desecrated by any unclean thing, like an unburied corpse,
exposed to view. The Jews were extremely sensitive about such points.
At any time they regarded themselves as unclean if they touched a dead
body, and they had to go through a process of purgation before their
sense of sanctity was restored. But on the occasion of a Passover
Sabbath they would have felt it to be a desecration if any dead thing
had even met their eyes or rested uncovered on the soil of their city.
Therefore their representatives went to the Roman governor and begged
that the three crucified men should be put to death by clubbing and
their bodies buried before the Sabbath commenced.
The suggestion has often been made that, behind this pretended
scrupulosity, their real aim was to inflict additional pain and
indignity on Jesus. The breaking of the bones of the body, by smashing
them with clubs, was a peculiarly horrible form of punishment sometimes
inflicted by the Romans.[2] It was nearly as cruel and degrading as
crucifixion itself; and it was an independent punishment, not conjoined
with crucifixion. But the Jews in this case attempted to get them
united, that Jesus, besides being crucified, might, so to speak, die
yet another death of the most revolting description. The Evangelist,
however, throws no doubt on the motive which they put forward--namely,
that the Passover Sabbath might be saved from desecration--and,
although their insatiable hatred may have made them suggest clubbing as
the mode by which His death should be hastened, we need not question
that their scruples were genuine. It is an extraordinary instance of
the game of self-deception which the human conscience can play. Here
were people fresh from the greatest crime ever committed--their hands
still reeking, one might say, with the blood of the Innocent--and their
consciences, while utterly untouched with remorse for this crime, are
anxious about the observance of the Sabbath and the ceremonial
defilement of the soil. It is the most extraordinary illustration
which history records of how zeal for what may be called the body of
religion may be utterly destitute of any connection with its spirit.
It is surely a solemn warning to make sure that every outward religious
act is accompanied by the genuine outgoing of the heart to God, and a
warning that, if we love not our brother, whom we have seen, neither
can we be lovers of God, whom we have not seen.
Pilate hearkened to the request of the Jews, and orders were given to
the soldiers to act accordingly. Then the ghastly work began. They
broke the legs of the malefactor on the one side of Jesus, and then
those of the other on the opposite side. The penitent thief was not
spared; but what a difference his penitence made! To his companion
this was nothing but an additional indignity; to him it was the
knocking-off of the fetters, that his spirit might the sooner wing its
way to Paradise, where Christ had trysted to meet him.
Then came the turn of Jesus. But, when the soldiers looked at Him,
they saw that their work was unnecessary: death had been before them;
the drooping head and pallid frame were those of a dead man. Only, to
make assurance doubly sure, one of them thrust his spear into the body,
making a wound so large that Jesus, when He was risen, could invite the
doubting Thomas to thrust his hand into it; and, as the weapon was
drawn forth again, there came out after it blood and water.
St. John, who was on the spot and saw all this taking place, seems to
have perceived in the scene an unusual importance; for he adds to his
report these words of confirmation, as if he were sealing an official
document, "And he that saw it bare record; and his record is true; and
he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe." Why should he
interrupt the flow of his narrative to add these words of assurance?
Some have thought that he was moved to do so by a heresy which sprang
up in the early Church to the effect that Christ was not really human:
His body, it was said, was only a phantom body, and therefore His death
was only an apparent death. In opposition to such a notion St. John
directs attention to the realistic details, which prove so conclusively
that this was a real man and that He died a real death. Of course that
ancient heresy has long ceased to trouble; there are none now who deny
that Jesus was a man. Yet it is curious how the tendency ever and anon
reappears to evaporate the facts of His life. At the present hour
there are eminent Christian teachers in Europe who are treating the
resurrection of the Lord in very much the same way as these early
Docetae treated His death--as a kind of figure of speech, not to be
understood too literally. Against such the Church must lift up the
crude facts of the resurrection as St. John did those of the death of
the Saviour.[3] In our generation teachers of every kind are appealing
to Christ and putting Him in the centre of theology; but we must ask
them, What Christ? Is it the Christ of the Scriptures: the Christ who
in the beginning was with God; who was incarnated; who died for the
sins of the world; who was raised from the dead and reigns for
evermore? We must not delude ourselves with words: only the Christ of
the Scriptures could have brought us the salvation of the Scriptures.
What excited the wonder of St. John is supposed by others to have been
the fulfilment of two passages of the Old Testament Scripture which he
quotes. It appeared to be a matter of mere chance that the soldiers,
contrary to the intention of the Jews, refrained from breaking the
bones of Jesus; yet a sacred word, of which they knew nothing, written
hundreds of years before, had said, "A bone of Him shall not be
broken." It seemed the most casual circumstance that the soldier
plunged the spear into the side of Jesus, to make sure that He was
dead; yet an ancient oracle, of which he knew nothing, had said, "They
shall look on Him whom they pierced." Thus, by the overruling
providence of God, the soldiers, going with rude unconcern about their
work, were unconsciously fulfilling the Scriptures; and those who both
saw what they had done and knew the Scriptures recognised the Divine
finger pointing out Jesus as the Sent of God.
The first of these texts is generally supposed[4] to be taken from the
account in Exodus of the institution of the Passover, and originally it
refers to the paschal lamb, which was to be eaten whole, the breaking
of its bones being forbidden. St. John's idea is that Christ was to be
the paschal lamb of the New Dispensation, and that therefore Providence
took care that nothing should be done to destroy His resemblance to the
type, as would have happened if His bones had been broken. The
Passover was the great event of the year in all the generations of
Jewish history. It was intended to carry the minds of God's people
back to the wonderful scenes of divine grace and power in which their
existence as a nation had begun, when God liberated them from their
bondage and led them out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The centre of
the solemnity was the slaying and eating of the paschal lamb. This
reminded them of how in Egypt the blood of this lamb, sprinkled on the
lintels and doorposts of their huts, saved them from the visit of the
destroying angel, who was passing through the land; and how, at the
same time, the flesh of the lamb was eaten by the people, with their
loins girt and staves in their hands, and supplied them with strength
for their adventurous journey. Thus through all ages it impressed on
them two things--that the sins of the past required to be expiated, and
that strength had to be obtained from above for the new stage of their
history on which at the annual Passover they might be supposed to be
entering. In the same way, in the New Dispensation, are our minds ever
to revert to the marvellous revelation of the grace and saving power of
God in which Christianity originated; and in the very midst is the Lamb
slain, who is both the expiation of the sins that are past and the
strength requisite for the conflict and the pilgrimage. "If we walk in
the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."
The other words of prophecy which appeared to St. John to be fulfilled
on this occasion were, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced."
They are from a passage in Zechariah, which is so remarkable that it
may be quoted in full--"And I will pour out on the house of David and
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of
supplications, and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and
they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall
be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his
firstborn." Jehovah speaks figuratively of the opposition shown to
Himself and His servants as piercing Him with pain, just as we say of
an insult that it cuts to the heart. But in the death of Jesus the
figure became a fact: against the sacred person of the Son of God the
spear was lifted up, and it was driven home without compunction.
Evidently St. John thinks of this rather as the act of the Jewish
people than of the Roman soldier. But the prophecy speaks not only of
the people piercing God, but of their looking at their own work with
shame and tears. At Pentecost this began to be fulfilled; and in every
age since there have been members of the Jewish race who have
acknowledged their guilt in the transaction. The full acknowledgment,
however, still lingers; but the conversion of God's ancient people,
when it comes, must begin with this. Indeed, every human being to whom
his own true relation to Christ is revealed must make the same
acknowledgment. It was the heart not of a few soldiers or of the
representatives of a single people, but of the human race, that
hardened itself against Him. It was the sin of the world that nailed
Him to the tree and shed His blood. Every sinner may therefore feel
that he had a hand in it; and it is only when we see our own sin as
aiming at the very existence of God in the death of His Son that we
comprehend it in all its enormity.
There have been many who have found the reason for St. John's wonder in
the fact that out of the wounded side there flowed blood and water.
From a corpse, when it is pierced--at least, if it has been some time
dead--it is not usual for anything to flow. But whether St. John
reflected on this or not we cannot tell. What fascinated him was
simply the fact that the piercing of the body of the Saviour made it a
fountain out of which sprang this double outflow. When the rock in the
wilderness was smitten with the rod of Moses, there issued from it a
stream which was life to the perishing multitude; but in the double
stream coming from the side of Jesus St. John saw something better even
than that; because to him the blood symbolized the atonement, and the
water the Spirit of Christ; and in these two all our salvation lies.[5]
So we sing in the most precious of all our hymns,--
Let the water and the blood
From Thy living side which flowed
Be of sin the double cure--
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Although, however, St. John did not perhaps speculate on the reason why
this double outflow took place from the wounded side, others have
occupied themselves with the question.
Some[6] have considered the phenomenon altogether abnormal, and
endeavoured to explain it from the peculiarity of our Lord's humanity.
Though He died. He was not, like other men, to see corruption; His
body was to escape in a few hours, transfigured and glorious, from the
grasp of death. This transforming process, which issued in His
resurrection, began as soon as He was dead; and the spear-thrust,
breaking in on it, so to speak, revealed something altogether unique in
the constitution of His body.
Others, keeping within the limits of ascertained fact, have given a
totally different yet a peculiarly interesting explanation. They have
directed attention to the suddenness of Christ's death. It was usual
for crucified persons to linger for days; but He did not survive more
than six hours. Yet immediately before dying He again and again cried
with a loud voice, as if His bodily force were by no means exhausted.
Suddenly, however, with a loud cry His life terminated. To what could
this be due? It is said that sometimes, under the pressure of intense
mental and physical agony, the heart bursts; there is a shriek, and of
course death is instantaneous. We speak of people dying of a broken
heart--using the phrase only figuratively--but sometimes it can be used
literally: the heart is actually ruptured with grief. Now, it is said
that, when this takes place, the blood contained in the heart is poured
into a sac by which it is surrounded; and there it separates into two
substances--a clotty substance of the colour of blood and a pure,
colourless substance like water. And, if the sac, when in this
condition, were pierced by a spear or any other instrument, there would
flow out a large quantity of both substances, which would by an
unscientific spectator be described as blood and water.
It was by an English medical man that this theory was first propounded
fifty years ago,[7] and it has been adopted by other medical men,
equally famous for their scientific eminence and Christian character,
such as the late Professor Begbie and Sir James Simpson. The latter
well brings out the point and the pathos of this view of the Saviour's
death in these words:[8] "It has always appeared--to my medical mind at
least--that this view of the mode by which death was produced in the
human body of Christ intensifies all our thoughts and ideas regarding
the immensity of the sacrifice which He made for our sinful race upon
the cross. Nothing can be more striking and startling than the
passiveness with which, for our sakes, God as man submitted His
incarnate body to the horrors and tortures of the crucifixion. But our
wonderment at the stupendous sacrifice increases when we reflect that,
whilst thus enduring for our sins the most cruel and agonising form of
corporeal death, He was ultimately slain, not by the effects of the
anguish of His corporeal frame, but by the effects of the mightier
anguish of His mind; the fleshly walls of His heart--like the veil, as
it were, in the temple of His body--becoming rent and riven, as for us
He poured out His soul unto death--the travail of His soul in that
awful hour thus standing out as unspeakably more bitter and dreadful
than even the travail of His body."
In this chapter we have been moving somewhat in the region of
speculation and conjecture, and we have not rigidly ascertained what is
logically tenable and what is not. This is a place of mystery, where
dim yet imposing meanings peep out on us in whatever direction we turn.
We have called the scene the Dead Christ. But who does not see that
the dead Christ is so interesting and wonderful because He is also the
living Christ? He lives; He is here; He is with us now. Yet the
converse is also true--that the living Christ is to us so wonderful and
adorable because He was dead. The fact that He is alive inspires us
with strength and hope; but it is by the memory of His death that He is
commended to the trust of our burdened consciences and the love of our
sympathetic hearts.
[1] Deut. xxi. 22, 23.
[2] "_Crurifragium_, as it was called, consisted in striking the legs
of the sufferer with a heavy mallet"--FARRAR, _Life of Christ_, ii.,
423.
[3] The words that follow in this paragraph are a reminiscence of a
singularly eloquent and powerful passage in a speech of Dr. Maclaren,
of Manchester, delivered last year in Edinburgh.
[4] Weiss, however, supposes Psalm xxxiv. 20 to be the reference.
[5] On the symbolism of this phenomenon see the excursus in Westcott's
_Gospel of St. John_, pp. 284-86.
[6] _E.g._, Lange, characteristically.
[7] Stroud in his treatise _On the Physical Cause of the Death of
Christ_.
[8] Given in Hanna's _The Last Day of our Lord's Passion_.