A Real Man Vs. Counterfeit Men (John 19:1-42)

John 19:1-42; Key Verse: Jn 19:5b, 14b

"Behold the man!" "Behold your king!" (ESV)

What is a real man like? Why and for whom did Jesus die? This sober text that covers Jesus' trial, crucifixion, death and burial can be divided into three parts:

1. Who Jesus is (Jn 19:1-16, 19-22): Man and King.
2. How Jesus died and Why (Jn 19:17-42): The King crucified, pierced and buried. He died for God.
3. What Jesus accomplished: Life through his death (Jn 1:4; 6:35; 11:25; 14:6).

Who is your king? Is your heart aligned toward Jesus' kingdom or the kingdom of the world? Last week, from Jn 18:1-40, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (Jn 18:36). This means that Jesus is a king whose kingdom is not of this world, which suggests that at present we are in the kingdom of this world. Thus, we need to ask ourselves, "Who is my king? Whose kingdom is my heart aligned toward?" In Jn 19:1-42, we want to think about Jesus the king, who is also a man.

A difference between John's gospel and the three synoptic gospels. Indeed, Jesus is the King of kings (Rev 17:14; 19:16). But John's gospel does not feature the kingdom of God, nor focus on Christ's claim to be the king—until chap 18 and 19. Matthew, Mark and Luke from the very beginning of their gospels describe Jesus proclaiming the kingdom of God, with the miracles of Christ as signs of the kingdom breaking-in to history, and the parables (absent from John's gospel) as parables of the kingdom. The kingdom of God are declared boldly over the first three gospels. But John mentions the words "king" and "kingdom" only six times before chap 18. Then the words "king" and "kingdom" explode on the page 16 times in two chapters. The arrest and trial of Jesus before Pilate is full of regal language: "my kingdom is not of this world" (18:36); "so you are a king?" (18:37); "shall I crucify your king?" (19:15); "we have no king but Caesar" (19:15). Jn 19:1-42 continues the theme of Jesus' kingship that began in Jn 18:1-40.

A real man vs. counterfeit men. Just what kind of man is Jesus? Pilate says, "Here is the man!" (Jn 19:5b) Jesus is the man who symbolizes what a man should be. When King David blessed his son Solomon, he said, "Be strong, and show yourself a man" (1 Ki 2:2, ESV). In this chapter, let us consider what a real man is like, and what counterfeit men, such as Pilate, the religious leaders and the soldiers, are like. Reading through John 19, the following is observed:

1. Humility. Jesus did not retaliate when abused and humiliated (Jn 19:1-7; Isa 53:7).
2. Abnegation of power. Jesus did not use his power to manipulate the situation (Jn 19:8-16; Mt 26:53).
3. Obedient. Jesus obeyed unto death, even death on a cross (Jn 19:17-24; 10:17-18; Phil 2:8).
4. Love. Jesus cared for others in spite of his personal agony (Jn 19:25-27).
5. Purpose. Jesus completed his life mission (Jn 19:28-30; 17:4).
6. Transcendent. Jesus' entire life and death fulfilled Scripture (Jn 19:31-37).
7. Empowering. Jesus inspired, transformed, emboldened others with his death (Jn 19:38-42).

In contrast to Jesus the man, counterfeit men (and women) are the opposite.

1. Hubris. Counterfeit men, like the soldiers, put others down. They are violent. They mock, humiliate, hurt others.
2. Abuse of power. Counterfeit men, like both Pilate and the religious leaders, use their God assigned authority to achieve their own political and religious agenda.
3. Disobedient. Counterfeit men live in rebellion against God and against the truth.
4. Selfish. Counterfeit men care for themselves.
5. Selfish. Counterfeit men live for their own agenda, like both Pilate and the Jews.
6. Selfish. Counterfeit men live in denial and in opposition to Scripture.
7. Dis-empowering. In death, counterfeit men brings relief to others because they can no longer do 1-6 above.

I. Who Jesus is (Jn 19:1-16, 19-22): Man and King.

1. Humility vs. hubris. A true man is humble. A counterfeit man has to stick his nose in the air while looking down on others. Though Jesus is the King above all kings, yet he is the humblest among all men. Humility is not to think less of yourself. It is to think of yourself less--or not at all. Every man's sinful default is to process all of our emotions and experiences through our ego. The meaning of hubris in Greek was precisely the refusal to be humbled by what should have been humbling. Some have commented that no American president can fully admit that his war or his policies are wrong...ever. That is in the secular world of politics. But Popes or Protestant clergy have also not been known for apologizing.

The center of pride and sin is "I." No matter how long we have been Christians, or how much we have prayed, repented, read the Bible, prepared Bible studies, preached sermons, taught the Bible, our sinful default is still gravitating toward pride. Jesus the true Man did not need to stick out his ego; he knew who he was and who his Father is who loved him. He did not need to retaliate against counterfeit men in order to prove himself. In contrast, counterfeit men, like the soldiers (Jn 19:1-3), need to put others down in order to feel good about themselves.

2. Abuse of power vs. abnegation of power. Pilate and the Jewish leaders blatantly abused their positions of power, both in politics and religion. After he was flogged, Pilate presented Jesus to the people and said to them, "Here is the man!" (Jn 19:5) Jesus looked weak, helpless, pathetic and completely worn and broken. Why did Pilate do this? It was his deliberate attempt to mock and ridicule the Jewish leaders for accusing Jesus of sedition and insurrection against Rome. It is Pilate's jab at the Jews, as though he was saying, "You're saying that this guy is capable of challenging the power of Rome?" The Jews retorted, "he claimed to be the Son of God" (Jn 19:7). Pilate became afraid, likely because he had just flogged the Son of God. Though he was a powerful man, any little thing brought fear to him. Still he lived with the illusion of his own power and said, "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" (Jn 19:10) Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above" (Jn 19:11). Pilate had the illusion of power and abused it. Jesus had ultimate power but abnegated it. A real man does not have to display his power, while counterfeit men abuse their power over others.

Those who think they have power live in fear. Pilate thought he could use his political skills and his position of authority as governor to do the right thing and have Jesus released (Jn 19:13-15). But the Jews won the day when they manipulated Pilate by accusing him of no friend of Caesar if he let Jesus go (Jn 19:12b). This scared Pilate for he did not want Caesar to think that he let a terrorist go. Counterfeit men who use their power over others, are invariably afraid of those above them in power.

Those who abuse their power deny God himself. The Jews who were determined to use any available means to have Jesus crucified uttered the worst possible blasphemy a Jew could utter. When Pilate asked, "Shall I crucify your king?" the chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar" (Jn 19:15). They not only reject Jesus' messianic claims, the also abandon Israel's messianic hope as a matter of principle and ultimately disown the kingship of God himself. It is like saying, "We have no God but money (or family or career, etc)."

Living in the illusion of their own control. Pilate, the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers all acted as though they were in control of what was happening when Pilate handed Jesus over to the soldiers in accordance with the Jewish leader's manipulation, and to satisfy their demands (Jn 19:16). It seemed that they had the power, authority and determinative control to do what they wanted. Yet in doing so, they were fulfilling the very purpose of God, foreordained from eternity (Acts 4:27-28). They lived in the illusion of their own power and control. Though the single true man was seemingly at the mercy of the many counterfeit men, yet they were but pawns in fulfilling his purpose.

II. How Jesus died and Why (Jn 19:17-42): Crucified, Pierced and Buried, Jesus died for God

Dying in the worst possible way. The crucifixion and death of Jesus is the climax of the greatest of all human injustices and tragedies in the attempt of man to eliminate the light and perpetuate the darkness. The horrific excruciating torture of crucifixion is the most terrible of punishments that always leads to a slow death (Jn 19:17-18).

Two godless men unwittingly serve as prophets of the King they execute. In the back and forth childish banter between Pilate and the Jewish religious leaders, Pilate had the final say and "won" (Jn 19:19-22).

1. The charge on which Jesus was eventually found guilty was sedition (Jn 18:33).
2. The wording is Pilate's last act of revenge on the Jews. He had already taunted the Jews with Jesus' kingship (Jn 19:14-15). Here at the crucifixion of Jesus he does so again by snickering at their powerless status before the might of Rome by declaring this wretched victim as their king. Pilate's prior powerlessness before their manipulation (Jn 19:12), surely contributed to his unyielding insistence that the wording remain as he prepared it. The Jews felt the sting of Pilate's savage irony and wanted to change the sign, which Pilate refused. Pilate's firmness is not motivated by principle and strength of character, but by the hurt obstinacy and bitter rage of a man who felt manipulated by others to do what he knew was wrong, which was to condemn an innocent man to death. His motivation was simply to humiliate those who humiliated him. Though Pilate seemed like a powerful man, he was nothing but a petty counterfeit man.
3. Pilate's malice served God's ends. The two men most actively and immediately responsible for Jesus' death were Caiaphas (Jn 11:49-52) and Pilate. They thought they were acting autonomously according to their own power and authority. But they were unwittingly furthering God's redemptive purposes by unwittingly serving as prophets of the King they execute (Jn 11:50; 19:19, 22).
   

The King is declared to the world. "The Crucified One is the true king, the kingliest king of all; because it is he who is stretched on the cross, he turns an obscene instrument of torture into a throne of glory and 'reigns from the tree.'" (Bruce, F.F.) "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS" was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek (Jn 19:19-20). Aramaic was the language most widely understood by the Jewish population of Palestine; Latin was the official language of the Roman occupying force; and Greek was the “international language” of the empire, understood by both Jews and Gentiles. The trilingual nature of the inscription thus ensured the widest possible awareness of the official reason why Jesus was being crucified.
Mundane men value money above life. Jn 19:23-24 fulfills Ps 22:18.

A true man loves others in death. There is a contrast between the soldiers who carry out their barbaric task and cooly profit from the exercise (Jn 19:24) with the women (Jn 19:25) who wait in faithful devotion to the one whose death they can still understand only as tragedy. As he was dying, Jesus displays his care for his mother as both she and the beloved disciple are passing through their darkest hour (Jn 19:26-27), on their way to full Christian faith. Even in death, Jesus kept the biblical injunction to honor one's parents (Ex 20:12; Dt 5:16)); he made provision for his mother, who was almost certainly widowed and probably in her late 40s or early 50s, with little or no personal income.

Finishing well. Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” ²⁹ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. ³⁰ When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (Jn 19:18-20). Jesus' knowledge that "all was now completed/finished" is the awareness that all the steps that had brought him to this point of pain and impending death were in the design of his heavenly Father, and death itself was imminent. The drink offered Jesus is not the "wine mixed with myrrh" (Mk 15:23). That was a sedative designed to dull the agony and Jesus refused it. Here, far from being a sedative it would prolong life and therefore prolong pain. This Jesus received, so that he might have enough strength to utter his final words, “It is finished.”

Fulfilling Scripture to the very end. Jesus saying "I am thirsty" is regarded as fulfilling Ps 69:21, which says, "They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst." John wants to make his readers understand that every part of Jesus' passion was not only in the Father's plan of redemption but a consequence of the Son's direct obedience to it (Jn 10:17-18). How would Jesus complete/finish his work? The completion of Jesus' work is necessarily the fulfillment of Scripture and the performance of the Father's will. Jesus' cry, “I am thirsty” is the final instance of his active, self-conscious obedience that is tied to “It is finished.” Jesus' perfect obedience unto death in all its intricate detail is the perfect completion of the whole Scripture.

Jesus destroyed death by his death. The cry “It is finished” denotes carrying out of a task and bears the overtones of fulfilling one's religious obligations. Jesus completed his task on earth in order to bring his Father glory (Jn 17:4). With that Jesus bowed his head and "gave up his spirit" (Jn 19:30b; Lk 23:46). This suggests the voluntary nature of his self-sacrifice. No one took his life from him; he had the authority to lay it down of his own accord (Jn 10:17,18), the culminating act of filial obedience (Jn 8:29; 14:31). S.W. Gandy wrote one of the best summaries of the significance of Jesus' death, which is here paraphrased:

Jesus in hell laid low;
Jesus made sin, he sin overthrew;
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death, by dying, slew.

One day all will look upon the One who was pierced. Breaking the legs was done to hasten the death of the one crucified (Jn 19:31-32). But since Jesus was already dead the soldiers did not break his legs (Jn 19:33; Ps 34:20; Exo 12:46; Num 9:12). Instead, a soldier pierced Jesus' side with a spear which brought forth a sudden flow of blood and water (Jn 19:34; Zech 12:10). John recorded these events to testify how the death of Jesus fulfilled Scripture (Jn 19:35-37). One day, every eye will look upon the One who was pierced (Rev 1:7), either in deep contrition or grim despair.


Jesus was buried by two rich notable men. Jn 19:38-42 records that Jesus was buried by two wealthy and notable members of the Sanhedrin: Joseph of Arimathea (Lk 23:50-51) and Nicodemus (Jn 3:1-15; 7:50-52, which fulfilled another Scripture, Isa 53:9: "He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death."

Dying well is to die for others. Henri Nouwen wrote a short reflection on dying well:

"We will all die one day. That is one of the few things we can be sure of. But will we die well? That is less certain. Dying well means dying for others, making our lives fruitful for those we leave behind. The big question, therefore, is not "What can I still do in the years I have left to live?" but "How can I prepare myself for my death so that my life can continue to bear fruit in the generations that will follow me?"

Jesus died well because through dying he sent his Spirit of Love to his friends, who with that Holy Spirit could live better lives. Can we also send the Spirit of Love to our friends when we leave them? Or are we too worried about what we can still do? Dying can become our greatest gift if we prepare ourselves to die well."

Jesus died for God. Why did Jesus die? Yes, Jesus died for our sins (1 Cor 15:3; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:3; 1 Pet 3:18). But ultimately Jesus died for God. Jesus was able to die well because he had the joy of his Father set before his mind's eye (Heb 12:2). Jesus said, "I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me" (Jn 14:31), and "I always do what pleases him" (Jn 8:29). The fact that Jesus died for God has tremendous and far-reaching consequences and implications. If we love people for people, we will soon become disappointed. But if we love people out of love for Jesus, it will not matter if others spit at us in response to us loving them. So much wounding happens in the church because when Christians love others they expect some kind of adequate reciprocation. At the very least they expect faithfulness, loyalty and gratitude from those they loved. Yes, people should respond in faithfulness, loyalty and gratitude. But if we are upset when they do not respond according to our expectations, we have sinned by failing to display the unchanging love of God for sinners. Thus, we eventually hurt those we love, because our love was motivated and conditioned by them. However, when Jesus loved and obeyed unto death, he did so 100% out of love for God. So Jesus could love when he was spit at, struck on the head again and again, flogged until his flesh became minced meat, crucified and cursed both by men and by God. Appreciating that Jesus died for God will transform our lives and the way we love others, including our own family. God will enable and empower us to love, even when faced with disappointment, wounding, even betrayal.


III. What Jesus accomplished: Life through his death (Jn 1:4; 6:35; 11:25; 14:6).

Jesus is life (Jn 1:4), the bread of life (Jn 6:35), the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25) and Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (Jn 14:6). Briefly, Jesus died to give life to those who are dead. The "painful" paradoxical principle of life is stated in all four Gospels; it is that life always comes through death (Mt 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25). By dying, we live. When we try our best to live, we die a slow death. By trying to rise up, we fall down. By falling, we rise. By ascending, we descend. By descending, we ascend. Jesus fell to the lowest depths and rose to the highest heights. Only in Christ and through his death of death, does any man experience the abundant life that is truly life (Jn 10:10).

Are you a true man? Or are you still influenced by "smart" counterfeit men like Pilate and the religious leaders? Do you know and experience within the very depth of your soul why Jesus died? If you do, God will enable you to be a true man and a true woman, who lives and experiences the transcendent life that God intended for you to live.

Questions:

1. Why did Pilate have Jesus flogged (Jn 19:1, 4-6, 10, 12a, 14; 18:38)? [Mt 27:26; Mk 15:15] Why did the soldiers abuse Jesus (Jn 19:2-3)? Why did Pilate say, "Here is the man! Here is your king" (Jn 19:5, 14)? What is the irony of his words? [Jn 1:14; 17:5]
   
2. Why was Pilate afraid (Jn 19:7-8)? [Mt 27:19] Why was Jesus silent (Jn 19:9; Isa 53:7; 1 Pet 2:22-23)? [Mk 14:61; 15:5] What did Jesus teach Pilate about power, sovereignty and responsibility (Jn 19:10-11; Gen 50:20; Ac 4:27-28)? Who is "more" guilty (Jn 11:49-52; 18:2, 14, 28)? Is Pilate exonerated?
3. How did the Jewish leader's manipulate Pilate to their will (Jn 19:6, 7, 12b, 15-16; 18:30-31, 33, 39-40)? How were they blaspheming (Jn 19;15b)? [Jdg 8:23; 1 Sam 8:7] What does this show about them (Jn 18:28; 19:31)? How did Pilate have the last word (Jn 19:19-22)?
4. What was crucifixion like (Jn 19:16-18, 23-24)? [Isa 53:12] How did the Jews and Pilate inadvertently fulfill God's will (Jn 19:19-20)? [Mt 27:37; Mk 15:26; Lk 23:38] What do you learn from Jesus on the cross (Jn 19:23-24, 25-27, 28-30; 4:34; 9:4; 10:17-18)? [Ps 22:15-18; Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34; Heb 1:3; 9:11-12, 25-28] Who killed Jesus (Jn 19:15, 16, 18, 33-34; 1:10-11; 3:19; 9:29; 10:17-18; 14:31)?
5. What is significant about Jesus being pierced (Jn 19:32-37; Zech 12:10)? Buried by Joseph and Nicodemus (Jn 19:38-42; Isa 53:9)?

References:

Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1991. IV. Jesus' Self-Disclosure in His Cross and Exaltation (Jn 13:1-20:31), D. The Trial and Passion of Jesus (Jn 18:1-19:42). 596-631.