Let us now gaze for awhile upon CHRIST CARRYING HIS CROSS. As for yourselves, thirst after perfection. They force him without the walls, and are not satisfied till they have rid themselves of his obnoxious presence. That impenitent thief went from the cross of his great agony and it was agony indeed to die on a cross he went to that place, to the flames of hell; and you, too, may go from the bed of sickness, and from the abode of poverty, to perdition, quite as readily as from the home of ease and the house of plenty. Grant me only thus much of likeness: we have here a Prince with his bride, bearing his banner, and wearing his royal robes, traversing the streets of his own city, surrounded by a throng who shout aloud, and a multitude who gaze with interest profound. Let all your love be his. Alas, my brethren, I cannot say much on the score of man's cruelty to our Lord without touching myself and you. What learn we here as we see Christ led forth? Some of those whom we loved very dearly we have seen quite unable to help themselves; the death sweat has been upon them, and this has been one of the marks of their approaching dissolution, that they have been parched with thirst, and could only mutter between their half-closed lips, "Give me to drink." There have been times, and the days may come again, when faithfulness to Christ has entailed exclusion from what is called "society." He hath traversed the mournful way before thee, and every footprint thou leavest in the sodden soil is stamped side by side with his footmarks. Oh, shame that men should find so much applause for Princes and none for the King of kings. It is a blow at the fable of purgatory which strikes it to the heart. The platted crown of thorns, the purple robe, the reed with which they smote him, and the spittle with which they disfigured him, all these marked the contempt in which they held the King of the Jews. And yet he placed himself for our sakes into a position of shame and suffering where none would wait upon him, but when he cried, "I thirst," they gave him vinegar to drink. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" here we see the Mediator interceding: Jesus standing before the Father pleading for the guilty. With "I thirst" the evil is destroyed and receives its expiation. They place the cross upon Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country. Cheerfully accept this burden, ye servants of the Lord. Oh! Even if I may not come at him, yet shall I be full of consolation, for it is heaven to thirst after him, and surely he will never deny a poor soul liberty to admire him, and adore him, and thirst after him." Bearing upon his back the sin of all his people, the offering goes without the camp. Are you lukewarm? Simon was an African; he came from Cyrene. Barrabas may go free; the thief and the murderer may be spared; but for Christ there is no word, but "Away with such a fellow from the earth! V. Lastly, the cry of "I thirst" is to us THE PATTERN OF OUR DEATH WITH HIM. He can receive vinegar, but not lukewarm love. January 1, 1970 A Plain Answer to an Important Enquiry "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." John vi. Mine is adorned with garments crimsoned with his own blood. 1. Dear friend, if you think that you suffer all that a Christian can suffer; if all God's billows roll over you, yet, remember, there is not one drop of wrath in all your sea of sorrow. What doth he say? Amid all the anguish of his spirit his last words prove him to have remained fully self-possessed, true to his forgiving nature, true to his kingly office, true to his filial relationship, true to his God, true to his love of the written word, true to his glorious work, and true to his faith in his Father. John 19 Commentary John chapter 19 commentary Bible study. I think, beloved friends, that the cry of "I thirst" was THE MYSTICAL EXPRESSION OF THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART "I thirst." "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" We thought sometimes that we loved him as we heard the story of his death, but we did not change our lives for his sake, nor put our trust in him, and so we gave him vinegar to drink. First, we shall look upon them as THE ENSIGN OF HIS TRUE HUMANITY. It is not sorrow over Rome, but Jerusalem. He thirsted for water doubtless, but his soul was thirsty in a higher sense; indeed, he seems only to have spoken that the Scriptures might be fulfilled as to the offering him vinegar. Let us magnify and bless our Redeemer's name. Henceforth, also, let us cultivate the spirit of resignation, for we may well rejoice to carry a cross which his shoulders have borne before us. Yet, dear friends, to some eyes there will be more attraction in the procession of sorrow, of shame, and of blood, than in you display of grandeur and joy. Will your Prince be sumptuously arrayed? Oh I raise the question, and be not satisfied unless you can answer it most positively in the affirmative. He is thirsty still, you see, for our poor love, and surely we cannot deny it to him. O souls, burdened with sin, rest ye here, and resting live. There are more unlikely things than that you will be dead before next Sunday. This added to his shame; but, methinks, in this, too, he draws the nearer to us, "He was numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Shall the servant be above his Master, or the disciple above his Lord? After our Lord Jesus Christ had been formally condemned by Pilate, our text tells us he was led away. He was innocent, and yet he thirsted; shall we marvel if guilty ones are now and then chastened? Thou wast still straightened till the last pang was felt and the last word spoken to complete to full redemption, and hence thy cry, "I thirst." July 2nd, 1882 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892) "I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:26 . Christ was always thirsty to save men, and to be loved of men; and we see a type of his life-long desire when, being weary, he sat thus on the well and said to the woman of Samaria, "Give me to drink." My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein." Then they said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they struck Him with their hands. Read Joo 15:7 bible commentary from Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible by Charles Haddon Spurgeon FREE on BiblePortal.com He said, "I thirst," in order that one might bring him drink, even as you have wished to have a cooling draught handed to you when you could not help yourself. "Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing." There was nothing behind in the price, but there is something behind in the manifested power, and we must continue to fill up that measure of revealed power, carrying each one of us the cross with Christ, till the last shame shall have been poured upon his cause, and he shall reign for ever and ever. John 19:16 . I will not say it is because we are unfaithful to our Master that the world is more kind to us, but I half suspect it is, and it is very possible that if we were more thoroughly Christians the world would more heartily detest us, and if we would cleave more closely to Christ we might expect to receive more slander, more abuse, less tolerance, and less favor from men. "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." He derived spiritual refreshment from the winning of that women's heart to himself. 1 So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. And what makes him love us so? Christ was spit upon with shame; sinner, what shame will be yours! This thirst had been on him from the earliest of his earthly days. From the sky the angels viewed him with wonder and amazement; the spirits of the just looked from the windows of heaven upon the scene, yea, the great God and Father watched each movement of his suffering Son. He pitied the sufferer, but he thought so little of him that he joined in the voice of scorn. Fix your hearts upon some unsaved one, and thirst until he is saved. You may die so, you may die now. "He that taketh not up his cross and followeth not after me," says Christ, "is not worthy of me." Did not the prophecies say that man would give to his incarnate God gall to eat and vinegar to drink? I am glad the world expects much from us, and watches us narrowly. Ray Stedman You may think that this remark is not needed; but I have met with one or two cases where it was required; and I have often said I would preach a sermon for even one person, and, therefore, I make this remark, even though it should rebuke but one. This very plainly sets forth the true and proper humanity of Christ, who to the end recognised his human relationship to Mary, of whom he was born. Brother, thirst I pray you to have your workpeople saved. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Perhaps they are your children, the objects of your fondest love, with no interest in Christ, without God and without hope in the world! "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." John 19:30. The Church, the bride of Christ, was there conformed to the image of her Lord; she was there, I say, in Simon, bearing the cross, and in the women weeping and lamenting. John 19:28 J.R. Thomson This is both the shortest of all the dying utterances of Jesus, and it is the one which is most closely related to himself. Shall it ever be a hardship to be denied the satisfying draught when he said, "I thirst." Even now to a large extent the true Christian is like a Pariah, lower than the lowest caste, in the judgment of some. We used to melt when we heard about his sufferings, but we did not turn from our sins. What if the bread be dry, what if the medicine be nauseous; yet for his thirst there was no relief but gall and vinegar, and dare we complain? Oh, wondrous substitution of the just for the unjust, of God for man, of the perfect Christ for us guilty, hell-deserving rebels. Like the steps of a ladder or the links of a golden chain, there is a mutual dependence and interlinking of each of the cries, so that one leads to another and that to a third. If he carried all the cross, yet he only carried the wood of it; he did not bear the sin which made it such a load. "His way was much rougher and darker than mine; Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?". The mind of man is like the daughters of the horseleech, which cry for ever, "Give, give." "Women, behold thy son!" wherein we see the Son of man in the gentleness of a son caring for his bereaved mother. How near akin the thirsty Saviour is to us; let us love him more and more. Jesus is formally condemned to crucifixion, but before he is led away he is given over to the Praetorian guards that those rough legionaries may insult him. Includes cross references, questions, verse by verse commentary, outline, and applications on John chapter 19 for small groups. In the former cry, as he opened Paradise, you saw the Son of God; now you see him who was verily and truly born of a women, made under the law; and under the law you see him still, for he honours his mother and cares for her in the last article of death. May we not be half ashamed of our pleasures when he says, "I thirst"? It is that he may eat and drink with you, for he promises that if we open to him he will enter in and sup with us and we with him. Will ye raise a clamor of tumultuous shouting? But my Prince is hated without a cause. May the Holy Spirit often lead us to glean therein. sinner, if God hides his face from Christ, how much less will he spare you! The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel, they cannot spare him the agonies of dying on the cross, they will therefore remit the labor of carrying it. The arrow which has lately pierced thee, my brother, was first stained with his blood. They take matters very gently; they think it unnecessary to be soldiers of the cross. There are some who in company hold their tongues, and never say a good word for Christ. Is not this a fertile field of thought? Do you not remember how that thirst of his was strong in the old days of the prophet? I claim for the procession of my Lord an interest superior to the pageant you are now so anxiously expecting. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid: It shows he was afraid all along the coward the vacillating coward and now a fresh superstition seizes upon him. Know ye not, beloved, for I speak to those who know the Lord, that ye are crucified together with Christ? The great agony of being forsaken by God was over, and he felt faint when the strain was withdrawn. And said, Hail, King of the Jews! This was intended at once to proclaim his guilt and intimate his doom. And they asked him, What then? In the Lord of Hosts, who shows his power in the sufferings of Christ and of his Church. Sister, thirst for the salvation of your class, thirst for the redemption of your family, thirst for the conversion of your husband. Next Saturday all eyes will be fixed on a great Prince who shall ride through our streets with his Royal Bride. Your heir of royalty is magnificently drawn along the streets in his stately chariot, sitting at his ease: my princely sufferer walks with weary feet, marking the road with crimson drops; not borne, but bearing; not carried, but carrying his cross. All nations gathered about my Lord, both great and mean men clustered around his person. Well, beloved, the cross we have to carry is only for a little while at most. We do not know what may have been the color of alimony face, but it was most likely black. The most careless eye discerns it. He believed, as a Roman in gods many. Romanists of all ages have wrought upon the feelings of the people in this manner, and to a degree the attempt is commendable, but if it shall all end in tears of pity, no good is done. Ah, beloved, our Lord was so truly man that all our griefs remind us of him: the next time we are thirsty we may gaze upon him; and whenever we see a friend faint and thirsting while dying we may behold our Lord dimly, but truly, mirrored in his members. A second mode of treating these seven cries is to view them as setting forth the person and offices of our Lord who uttered them. Come to him in prayer, come to him in fellowship, come to him by perfect consecration, come to him by surrendering your whole being to the sweet mysterious influences of his Spirit. Think, dear friends, there are some in this congregation who as yet have no interest in Jesu's blood, some sitting next to you, your nearest friends who, if they were now to close their eyes in death, would open them in hell! III. Will your Prince be decorated with honors? According to modern thought man is a very fine and noble creature, struggling to become better. the people saw him in the street, not arrayed in the purple robe, but wearing his garment without seam, woven from the top throughout, the common smock-frock, in fact, of the countrymen of Palestine, and they said at once, "Yes, 'tis he, the man who healed the sick, and raised the dead; the mighty teacher who was wont to sit upon the mountain-top, or stand in the temple courts and preach with authority, and not as the Scribes." The Via Dolorosa, as the Romanists call it, is a long street at the present time, but it may have been but a few yards. Christ must die a felon's death, and it must be upon the felon's gallows, in the place where horrid crimes had met their due reward. By contrast, the Christian faith is built on the . Our sinful tongues, blistered by the fever of passion, must have burned for ever had not his tongue been tormented with thirst in our stead. Christ does exempt you from sin, but not from sorrow; he does take the curse of the cross, but he does not take the cross of the curse away from you. "I thirst" meant that his heart was thirsting to save men. For his sake we may rejoice in self-denials, and accept Christ and a crust as all we desire between here and heaven. Christ did but transfer to Simon the outward frame, the mere tree; but the curse of the tree, which was our sin and its punishment, rested on Jesus' shoulders still. The voice of sympathy prevailed over the voice of scorn. The great Surety says, "I thirst," because he is placed in the sinner's stead, and he must therefore undergo the penalty of sin for the ungodly. Today! It was a confirmation of the Scripture testimony with regard to man's natural enmity to God. "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." Then the goat was led away by a fit man into the wilderness, and it carried away the sins of the people, so that if they were sought for, they could not be found. The whole universe shall hiss you; angels shall be ashamed of you; your own friends, yes, your sainted mother, shall say "Amen" to your condemnation; and those who loved you best shall sit as assessors with Christ to judge you and condemn you! But power is wanted to dash down those idols, to overcome the hosts of error; where is it to be found? This is unfortunate, since his works contain priceless gems of information that are found nowhere except in the ancient writings of the Jews. It is said that a German regiment was at that time stationed in Judea, and I should not wonder if they were the lineal ancestors of those German theologians of modern times who have mocked the Savior, tampered with revelation, and cast the vile spittle of their philosophy into the face of truth. Thoughtful men have drawn a wealth of meaning from them, and in so doing have arranged them into different groups, and placed them under several heads. He is greatly to be commended and admired, for his sin is said to be seeking after God, and his superstition is a struggling after light. Simon had to carry the cross but for a very little time, yet his name is in this Book for ever, and we may envy him his honor. We should love the cross, and count it very dear, because it works out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. The next time we are in pain or are suffering depression of spirit we will remember that our Lord understands it all, for he has had practical, personal experience of it. Do not forget, also, that you bear this cross in partnership. He came to save, and man denied him hospitality: at the first there was no room for him at the inn, and at the last there was not one cool cup of water for him to drink; but when he thirsted they gave him vinegar to drink. Some of them have no objection to worship with a poor congregation till they grow rich, and then, forsooth, they must go with the world's church, to mingle with fashion and gentility. Appetite was the door of sin, and therefore in that point our Lord was put to pain. Christians, will you refuse to be cross-bearers for Christ? Do not let us forget the infinite distance between the Lord of glory on his throne and the Crucified dried up with thirst. 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