Luke 23:33

Luk_23:33

There they crucified Him

The crucifixion

I.

THE PLACE WHERE OUR LORD SUFFERED. Calvary, or Golgotha: a small eminence, half a mile from Jerusalem; the common place of execution, where the vilest offenders were put to death.

1. The place where Jesus suffered marks the malignant design of His enemies.

2. The place as mentioned by the evangelist marks His strong affection.

3. We may also add that this directs us to the place where we must look for mercy.

II. THE NATURE OF CHRISTS SUFFERINGS--THEY CRUCIFIED HIM.

1. The death of the cross, though selected by Jewish malignity, would be the fulfilment of prophecy.

2. In our Lords suffering the death of the cross there was something analogous to what we as sinners had deserved; and probably it was with a view to represent this that the Jews were suffered to crucify Him.

1. A lingering death.

2. A most painful death.

3. A death attended with reproach and infamy.

4. The death of the cross was an accursed death, both in the esteem of God and man (Gal_3:13).

III. THE COMPANY IN WHICH HE SUFFERED: THEY CRUCIFIED WITH HIM TWO MALEFACTORS, ONE ON THE RIGHT HAND, AND THE OTHER ON THE LEFT.

1. On the part of His enemies this was designed to render His death still more ignominious and shameful, and was no doubt contrived between Pilate and the chief priests.

2. But on the part of God we may see something of the wisdom of this appointment. Prophecy was hereby fulfilled, which said that He should be numbered with transgressors (Isa_53:11; Mar_15:27-28). (Theological Sketch-book.)

The cross a revelation of human sinfulness

There is a picture I have seen somewhere, painted by a celebrated artist, in which one aspect of the crucifixion is very significantly represented, or rather suggested. It is intended to bring before the mind the after scenes and the after hours of that memorable day, when the crowd had gone back again to pursue its wonted business in Jerusalem, when the thick gloom had been dispelled, and the clear light shone once more on that fatal spot called Calvary. The body of the Master had been conveyed to the sepulchre, the cross itself lies extended on the ground, and a band of little children, bright with the glow of childhoods innocence, led thither by curiosity or accident, are represented as bending over the signs left around of the bloody deed which has that day been accomplished. One of the children holds in his hand a nail, but a short time ago piercing the hand or the foot of the patient Sufferer, and stands, spell-bound with horror, gazing at it. And upon every face the painter has plainly depicted the verdict which innocence must ever give with regard to that dreadful tragedy. It is so we would desire to consider the subject and the scene. The heart, conceiving aright the amazing impiety culminating at the cross, may well take this attitude of wonder, surprise, horror. The cross comes to be Gods great indictment against man.

I. The first word of the text may be looked upon as furnishing us with the first count of this indictment against man. IT SUPPLIES LOCALITY, FIXES THE SCENE OF THE DREADFUL TRAGEDY AS HERE UPON EARTH. There they crucified Him. The place where the commonest criminals were led out to die a lingering death. Earth has her mysteries, and this is one of them. The mystery of iniquity culminates here. It has lifted up its impious hands against God.

II. The second word of the text furnishes us with a further point in the indictment, as indicating HUMAN AGENCY. There they crucified Him. The actors in this eventful drama were men, those among whom Christ had wrought His miracles and exercised His pure and beneficent ministry.. And it was a typical act--such an act as man perpetrates every day. Envy, hatred, indifference, nailed Christ to the tree; and while these exist in the heart, what spirit shall stand excused?

III. The third word of the text may be looked upon as enforcing the indictment, since it implies A DEFINITE AND DELIBERATE ACT. There they crucified Him. What hardness and callousness of heart was exhibited here! It was necessary that sin should show its exceeding sinfulness, once and for all, truly detestable that it might be detested, heinous and black as perdition, that even our sinful spirits might shrink back in awe and trembling. For this is what all sin is tending to: contempt and callousness at the sight of suffering worth, scorn of innocence, hatred of a purity which condemns our darker deeds, rejection of God Himself if His claims interfere with our selfish schemes.

IV. The final and hopeful word of the text sheds a light upon this indictment, as indicating A DIVINE REDEEMER WORKING AMID ALL. There they crucified Him. Strangely enough, it is the Victim Himself who invests all else with worth, and makes the contemplation of such a deed alone profitable to us. When Socrates entered into prison, they said of it that it was a prison no longer; the dishonour and the infamy had passed away in the presence of such resplendent worth. So, but more memorably, it is at the cross. The place is nothing; the actors sink into insignificance; and of the act itself we care nothing, save as it stands associated with Him. There is a law of compensation in all things. Bend the bough of the giant oak for a moment, and it springs back with a momentum proportionate to its strength. And so it is with this Divine One who has bent before the strong blast of the adversary, for of Him it is written, I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me. (Walter Baxendale.)

Christ lifted up

I. Remember that JESUS HAD THE CHANCE OF BEING LIFTED UP AS A MONARCH ALREADY, AND HAD DECLINED IT.

1. Men offered it to Him (Joh_6:15; Joh_12:13).

2. The devil offered to make Him a king also (Mat_4:9).

3. Jesus has been offered the true dominion of the whole world in this showy sort of way, over and over again in human history since.

II. Understand that JESUS WAS TO BE LIFTED UP AS A SACRIFICE FOR SIN; hence, lifted on a cross, not on a throne.

1. Consider the spectacle which is proposed for our imagination. Let us seem to see the Saviour already nailed in crucifixion. Christ was lifted up as an object of scorn and contumely (see Luk_10:35-36). Christ was lifted up as an object of pity and love. At the foot of the cross a faithful few still lingered: men and women who believed in Him, and clung to Him even in these fallen fortunes to the very last.

2. Consider, once more, the force exerted by this spectacle. In the announcement of our Lord already quoted, He says that if He be lifted up He will draw all men unto Him; but in our version the single word men is printed in italics. Some have wasted time in asserting that Jesus meant what they name as the elect; some have said that He meant all Jews; and others have declared that He intended to include all things whatsoever, as well as men, unto His uses and His sovereignty. He would gather all money; He would collect all commerce; He would subjugate all power; He would attract all art; He would receive the trophies of all science; He would bring in to Himself the gains of all enterprise. In a word, the kingdoms of a united world should become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ.

III. Recollect that THE FINAL GLORY OF JESUS CHRIST WILL BE TO BE LIFTED UP AS THE SON OF GOD AND THE PRINCE OF LIFE.

1. God raised Him up from the grave, having loosed the pains of death. This was the great argument of Simon Peter on the day of Pentecost. The raising of Jesus from the grave was the pledge of His exaltation to the throne of heaven (see Act_2:30-32).

2. The Lord has lifted Christ up to a place at His right hand (see Php_2:9-11). Satans kingdom is to be subdued (see Rev_12:10). All the realms of this world are to give their tribute to that of Christ (see Rev_11:15). The kings of the earth are to bring their honour in to beautify His capital city. The Church is to be the Lambs wife. The Kings daughter is all glorious within.

3. Believers must lift Him up as the one Saviour of lost souls. It is just Christ crucified who is the only Saviour. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

The crucifixion of Christ

I. WE PROPOSE TO NOTICE THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THE CRUCIFIXION OF OUR LORD JESUS WAS PERFORMED.

1. It will be observed that the place at which He suffered deserves our notice: The place which is called Calvary. This place appointed for the death of Jesus, to use the language of Bishop Taylor, was a place eminent for the publication of shame, a hill of death and of dead bones, polluted and impure. Nor must we account it to be a trifling, insignificant circumstance in the Redeemers humiliation that this was the spot upon which we find He passed His last moments, and that He was to bow the bead, and to give up the ghost.

2. You will observe that the mode of death which the Lord Jesus Christ endured at this place also deserves our notice: When they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him.

(1) A most painful death.

(2) An exceedingly ignominious death.

3. It must also be observed that the society in which our Redeemer at this place suffered deserves notice.

4. The conduct of the spectators who witnessed the sufferings of our Saviour also demands our notice.

II. THE CONNECTION WHICH THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE LORD JESUS HAS WITH THE COUNSELS OF DIVINE MERCY AND THE WELFARE OF THE HUMAN RACE. Here there are three important facts to be noticed.

1. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was the special result of the Divine foreknowledge and determination.

2. And more particularly, The crucifixion of our Lord Jesus, was a perfect and efficacious atonement for human sin.

3. The crucifixion of our Lord Jesus being clearly the result of the Divine foreknowledge and determination, and being a proper and efficacious atonement for human sin, it was at the foundation of the mighty mediatorial empire.

III. THE PRACTICAL VIEWS IN WHICH THE CRUCIFIXION OF OUR LORD JESUS SHOULD BE CONTEMPLATED.

1. We shall contemplate it as affording the most affecting exhibition of the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

2. We must contemplate our Lords crucifixion as being an astonishing display of the riches of Divine love.

3. We must contemplate the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus, as furnishing the grand theme for ministerial proclamation. (J. Parsons.)

Emphasis

Scripture depends more upon the power of facts than of figures and illustrations. In human literature big words are used to overlay small ideas.; verbiage is laid on as paint; the theme is smothered under the gaudy clothing; and sense is rendered tributary to sound. Not so here. When the sacred writers have anything to describe, they depend upon the force of the thing itself, and not upon the manner of its telling. All they seem to strive at is plainness; simply to chronicle the event, and let it speak for itself.

I. THERE they crucified Him. Where? What land contracted the disgrace of such an act as crucifying the Lord of glory? Surely some land where He had not become known; some foreign country where His holy words bad never fallen on the peoples ears; some distant principality where the music of His voice had never touched the echoes into sympathy. It must have been in some uncultured territory where no temples were erected; where civilization left no footprint, and where no god was known. Was it in some savage wild where barbarism revelled? and where untrained passion clamoured for a holocaust, and for drink-offerings of blood? No; it was not in such a land that they crucified Him. It was in the laud where He was best known--the land He had hallowed by His advent, and blessed with His ministry; the land of His labours, where His mightiest miracles had been done, and His tenderest teachings had been uttered. Not in a godless realm without a temple or a shrine; but where they bowed the knee, and built the altar, and burned the sacrifice. A realm where they cried, Lord, Lord; where, with broad phylactery, the Pharisee rehearsed the law; and where the temple lifted its golden vanes beneath the sky, as the tribes went up with offerings to the Lord. It was in no barbarous seclusion, but in a region where the borrowed arts of tutored Rome flourished, and where the legacies of Solomon were respected and enshrined. It was in Galilee, on whose soil He made His first alighting, and whose fields and lanes, gardens and mountain groves, He had hallowed with His public ministries and His private communions. In Jewry, whose coasts were consecrated by His labours, THERE. they crucified Him!

II. There THEY crucified Him. Who are they? Who did this deed? What wicked hands were red with this precious blood? Were they those of some hireling assassins from afar, who were running riot in Jerusalem for a time?. Had violence got the upper hand of law and order, and was Jesus the victim of a turbulent incursion of foreign marauders? Or had the Roman tyrant despatched some myrmidon to put to death a teacher of doctrines which wrapped up liberty in their articles, lest men should grow too free in mind to brook subserviency as citizens? No; neither hypothesis is right. The execution bore the imprimatur of the government. It was a State transaction. Preceded by a trial, and surrounded with all the pomps and formulas of law. It was the act of the people. What people? The Jews. The very men whom He had chosen as His own peculiar and anointed ones.

III. There they CRUCIFIED Him. Look at the deed. Crucified Him! In a place which should have for ever resounded with the praises of His name; and by a people who should have enshrined Him in their hearts, and handed down His worship to their childrens children, He was crucified. They did not decorate the land with sculptured memorials of His fame; they did not build altars to His praise; they did not wait upon Him, adore Him, love Him., No; they crucified Him.

IV. Once more we shift the emphasis from the deed to the victim. There they crucified HIM. O look at Him--Him who is thus pierced; look at Him, and mourn! Whom did they crucify? It was customary to wreak this punishment upon their greatest criminals. But here is Barabbas walking free; the notable robber, suspected of crimes untold, loose on the pavements of Jerusalem. Yet, He, this Jesus, is handed over to be crucified. What! then is He a greater robber than Barabbas, that He is to be crucified? Is this why He may not be released? He has stolen away that which Barabbas could not touch. He has taken from the law its curse. He has torn from death its sting. He has despoiled the grave of its terror and its victory. Is not this a notable robber? But, O unnatural retribution which clamours for the cross, for such an One as this! Yet so it is. They crucified Him--Him, the Lord of life and glory. The meek, the kind, the gentle, Man of Nazareth; they crucified Him--who goes about teaching good, spreading good, doing good; lifting the fallen, helping the needy, lighting the dark; they crucify Him. And, alas! brethren, Calvary is not merely at Jerusalem; the place of a skull is not only at Golgotha. Look over the arena you have crossed during the last week of your life, and you will traverse a Calvary there. You may see the place where the cross has been reared afresh there. You may trace the details of the drama there. Oh! think not, ye daily triflers with the grace of the loving God, that there is no place near you where Jesus is not crucified. Every spot you stain by sin; everywhere where you have trampled on the fair commands of God; everywhere where the Spirit has been quenched, and the restraint neglected--is a Calvary; and THERE, in that unwilling and listless heart of yours--THERE you crucify afresh the Lord of glory, and put Him to an open shame. (A. Mursell.)

The death of Jesus, and its effects

I. In meditating upon these words, I would direct your attention, first, to the MANNER of Jesus death, and then to its EFFECTS.

1. Jesus dies with a sense of inward freedom. The Bible speaks of the bondage of death. What a tad impression does a death-bed give of the bondage of man, how painfully does it bring home to us the fact that man is not free, that he is in servitude to death! Hence men have given Death a sceptre and a sword, have put a scythe into his hand and a crown upon his head. But in the death of our Lord we see nothing of all this. Very different is His death from ours. When death comes upon us, it generally takes us by surprise, and herein too does it prove its might, in that it makes men its captives and its prey, before ever they are aware of its approach. In most cases, Death administers a sleeping-draught before he deals the final blow; and it is in a state of sleep and of dreaminess that by far the greater proportion of the dying go their way into that long slumber. But when death came to Jesus, it found Him waking. How regal is the impression it conveys! And let me here remind you, to what an apparent chance it is we owe it, that we see Jesus die in such a kingly way.

2. Christ dies with the clearest consciousness. Would that the experience of each of you in that hour may be, that when all earthly lights have faded from your view, God, as a great sun, will fill the eye of your soul! What a genial warmth would then be shed upon the cold last hour! how would the thought of God bridge the gulf which separates time from eternity! Even Christ had thoughts of His own in the closing hours of His life; He thought on His people; He thought on all the past of His earthly history. But when the last moment came, the thought with which He bowed His head was the thought of God. He died with a clear consciousness of what lay before Him.

3. He dies with the fullest assurance. This is testified by His dying cry. He knows that it is into the hands of the Father that He is giving up His Spirit. We are not, God be praised! without instances of blessed death-beds among ourselves.

II. Such a death cannot be without effect upon those who witness it. It will quicken the pious and susceptible; it will awe the hard-hearted and ungodly. When the centurion of the Roman guard saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, Truly this was a righteous man, or Truly this was the Son of God. To die with perfect consciousness, like Jesus, is, indeed, a privilege which is not granted to every child of God; and it is this that makes death so sad, if not to him who suffers, at least to the relatives and friends who stand by. To witness a Christian die fully conscious and self-possessed, is such a sublime and elevating scene! And the full assurance on a bed of death with which Christ commended His spirit to His Father, He grants in mercy to His children too. (A. Tholuck.)

The Passion of our Lord

I. We should notice that these sufferings of our blessed Lord were most REAL; that He did indeed suffer all this, most truly; that in that body which was prepared for Him, He did bear every possible sting of physical agony; that He was held up in this fierce strife with pain, until He had explored all its secrets. His mind and human spirit were really the seat of every storm of deepest sorrow which the heart of man could know.

II. Next to it we should ever bear in mind, beneath the Cross, that all these sufferings were--FOR US. We must look on Him whom we have pierced.

III. That these sufferings were NEEDFUL. It becomes us to speak with the deepest reverence when we say that anything is rendered needful by the character of God. Rather is it the truest reverence to see that thus it must have been, if man wore to be redeemed at all; that there was, in the very perfection of Gods character--the one fixed centre of all being--a necessity for this infinite suffering; that the nature which had sinned must pay the price of sinning, must bear the wrath it had deserved; that without it there could not be, in the world of Gods holy and righteous love, forgiveness and restoration for the fallen and the separated; that Christ must needs have suffered. (Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.)

The crucifixion

I. THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST, AS ILLUSTRATING THE FEARFUL POSSIBILITIES OF THE HATRED OF MAN.

1. This is seen in the central act of this awful tragedy.

(1) The most painful of all forms of punishment.

(2) The most degrading. Not a Jewish, but heathen, punishment, and that on the worst of criminals.

2. This is shown in the scene.

(1) The place (Heb_13:11-13).

(2) The companionship.

(3) The insulting taunts.

II. THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST, AS ILLUSTRATING HIS ALL-POWERFUL LOVE.

1. AS seen in the infinite contrast between Christ and His taunting murderers.

(1) The nature of the contrast.

(2) The elevation and matchlessness of the spirit of this conquest of love.

2. As seen in Christs readiness and ability to save.

(1) The contrast in the spirit of the two thieves.

(2) The contrast in the eternal destiny of the thieves.

(3) The condition on which their respective destiny hung.

III. THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST, AS ILLUSTRATED IN ITS BEARING ON THE MATERIAL DESTINY OF THIS GLOBE, AND ON THE PRESENT SALVATION OF MEN.

1. The illustration which the darkness furnishes in respect to the changes which this earth is to undergo.

(1) The greatness of the change (2Pe_3:8-12).

(2) The purpose of the change (2Pe_3:13; Rom_8:19-22).

2. The illustration which the rending of the temples veil furnishes in respect to present salvation (Heb_10:19-20).

Lessons:

1. The ignorance of sinners of the possibilities of the evil nature within them.

2. The ignorance of sinners of the real enormity of their sins.

3. The ignorance of sinners of what God is doing for them, even when they are hating Him. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)

A look at the three crosses

Just look at the one on the right. Its victim dies scoffing. More tremendous than his physical anguish is his scorn and hatred of Him on the middle cross. If the scoffer could get one hand loose, and lie were within reach, he would smite the middle sufferer in the face lie hates Him with a perfect hatred. I think he wishes he were down on the ground, that he might spear Him. He envies the mechanics who, with their nails, have nailed Him fast. It was in some such hate that Voltaire, in his death hour, because he thought he saw Christ in his bedroom, got up on his elbow, and cried out: Crush that wretch! What had the middle cross done to arouse up this right-hand cross? Nothing. Oh, the enmity of the natural heart against Christ! The world likes a sentimental Christ or a philanthropic Christ; but a Christ who comes to snatch men from their sins, away with Hirer Men say: Back with Him from the heart. I will not let Him take my sins. If He will die, let Him die for Himself, not for me.

There has always been a war between this right hand cross and the middle cross, and wherever there is an unbelieving heart, there the fight goes on. Here from the right-hand cross I go to the left. Pass clear to the other side. That victim also twists himself upon the nails to look at the centre cross--yet not to scoff. It is to worship. He, too, would like to get his hand loose, not to smite, but to deliver the sufferer of the middle cross. He cries to the railer cursing on the other side: Silence! between us is innocence in agony. We suffer for our crimes. Silence ! Gather around this left-hand cross. O! ye people, be not afraid. Bitter herbs are sometimes a tonic for the body, and the bitter aloes that grow on this tree shall give strength and life to thy soul. This left-hand cross is a repenting cross. Likewise must we repent. You say: I have stolen nothing. I reply: We have all been guilty of the mightiest felony of the universe, for we have robbed God--robbed Him of our time, robbed Him of our talents, robbed Him of our services. This left-hand cross was a believing cross. There was no guess-work in that prayer; no if in that supplication. The left-hand cross flung itself at the foot of the middle cross, expecting mercy. Faith is only just opening the hand to take what Christ offers us. Tap not at the door of Gods mercy with the tip of your fingers, but as a warrior, with gauntleted fists, beats at the castle gate, so, with all the aroused energies of our souls, let us pound at the gate of heaven. That gate is locked. You go to it with a bunch of keys. You try philosophy: that will not open it. You try good works: that will not open it. A large door generally has a ponderous key. I take the Cross and place the foot of it in the socket of the lock, and by the two arms of the Cross I turn the lock and the door opens. Now come to the middle cross. We stood at the one and found it yielded poison. We stood at the other and found it yielded bitter aloes. Come now to the middle cross, and shake down apples of love. You never saw so tender a scene as this. You may have seen father, or mother, or companion, or child die, but never so affecting a scene as this. It was a suffering cross. It was a vicarious cross--the right-hand cross suffered for itself; the left-hand cross for itself; butthe middle cross for you. My hand is free now, because Christs was crushed. My brow is painless now, because Christs was torn. My soul escapes, because Christs was bound. When the Swiss were, many years ago, contending against their enemies they saw these enemies standing in solid phalanx, and knew not how to break their ranks; but one of their heroes rushed out in front of his regiment and shouted--Make way for liberty! The weapons of the enemy were plunged into his heart, but while they were slaying him of course their ranks were broken, and through that gap in the ranks the Swiss marched to victory. Christ saw all the powers of darkness assailing men. He cried out: Make way for the redemption of the world. All the weapons of infernal wrath struck Him, but as they struck Him our race marched out free. To this middle cross, my dying hearers, look, that your souls may live. (Dr. Talmage.)

The Cross

I. THE CRUCIFIXION. The horrible fact.

(1) This form of punishment was most painful, lingering, ignominious.

(2) In the case of our Lord, in every sense, unjust, unpardonable, and an exhibition of frenzied selfishness and cruelty.

2. The prophetic place--Calvary.

(1) Outside the city (Heb_13:11-12; Lev_16:27).

3. The wonderful prayer.

(1) The lovingness of its plea.

(2) The strength of its argument.

(3) A model for all Christians.

(4) A proof of Christs interest in all sinners.

4. The meanness of human nature (Luk_23:35-37; Luk_23:39).

5. The significant superscription.

(1) Significant in the title given to Jesus.

(2) Significant in the languages in which it was written.

II. LESSONS.

1. The crucifixion of Christ reveals the fearful prerogative of free agency.

2. The unfathomable depths of human depravity.

3. What horrible crimes may be perpetrated in name of holiest principles.

4. How Gods most gracious purposes may be wrought out by mans most heinous malevolence. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)

Who crucified Jesus?

He that says he did not crucify Christ is His greatest crucifier; he that will confess that they were his blasphemies which spat upon His face, his briberies that nailed His hands to the cross, his gluttony and drunkenness that gave Him gall to drink, his wrath and malice that pierced Him in the side, his disobedience against magistrates that bruised Him in the head, his wanton apparel that stripped Him of His robe, he that will not only die with Christ in his arms, as old Simeon did, but acknowledge that Christ died by his arms, he shall find peace at the last, and righteousness with the God of his salvation. What became of our Saviours reed, and of His robe, we find in holy Scripture--they were taken from Him by the soldiers; but it is not written whether any man took up the crown of thorns, as if that were our share, or any mans else who is goaded with true compunction. And to say truth, all the sins which we do commit, let us make the best of them, are but thorns and briers; but if we confess them in humility, and ask pardon in tears and contrition, then they are corona spinea, a crown of thorns. (Bishop Hacket.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 141.—TRANSACTIONS WHILE JESUS WAS ON THE CROSS UNTIL HE EXPIRED, Luk_23:33-46.

See notes on Mat_27:35-50; Mar_15:24-37; Joh_19:18-30.

34. Said Jesus, Father—The sacrifice is commenced, and at the same time the great INTERCESSION is inaugurated. The former renders the latter possible, and gives it prevalence. And the intercession is the voice which expresses the force and power of the

sacrifice. Father—It is as Son he both atones and intercedes with the Father.

Forgive—For the sacrifice which makes forgiveness possible is now being made.

For—He is about to give the reason why the forgiveness now made possible should be bestowed. It is not that the sinner is innocent; for then no forgiveness would be needed: but it is, that such is the palliation, that their sin is within the range of pardon. They know not what they do—Just in that proportion that this is the fact their case either reaches innocence, and so needs no pardon, or approaches it, and so is in reach of pardon. If a case exists, as, for instance, Caiaphas, of one who knows, without any ignorance, this is no prayer for him. If, like Pilate, any one knows not that he is killing the prince of life, but knows he is slaying an innocent man, his guilt, proportioned to his knowledge, is heinous but not beyond pardon upon repentance. And so they all perhaps knew not what they did to the full extent; but they knew too well what they did to some extent. The very crowd that cried Crucify him, and the soldiers that drove the nail, knew not all, but knew too much for their own innocence or for their own good.

And ignorance, to be an excuse, must be sincere and unavoidable; and it must be the ignorance of a will that would have done right had it known the truth. Error must not only be honest but honestly come by. And from all this we may well conclude, that our ignorance is so precarious an excuse that we do well not to look to our innocence for justification, but fling ourselves for pardon on the great sacrifice for sin.

It was argued by an acute Jew, that if Christ was truly Son of God his prayer would have been heard, and the Jews would not have been, as Christians admit they have been, punished for their sin. But this, like every other prayer, is offered on condition that its answer and fulfilment be in accordance with the divine order. (See notes on Mat_26:39; Mat_26:42.) It presents the sinner to God the Father as within the reach of pardon in view of Christ’s great sacrifice; it proffers that sacrifice in his death, and asks that pardon may be granted, in the resulting conditions of pardon. In order to that pardon, the sacrifice, the intercession, the Spirit of grace, and the sinner’s repentance and accepting faith, must all concur.

And this prayer from the human Jesus attains the utmost height of the moral sublime. If God were to become man, what could he do more godlike? If God were to blend in nature with man, to what purer, holier, higher manhood could he exalt our nature? Well did the French infidel, Rousseau, declare, “Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ died like a God.”

33. Place… called Calvary—See note on Mat_27:33.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luke

WORDS FROM THE CROSS

Luk 23:33 - Luk 23:46.

The calm tone of all the narratives of the Crucifixion is very remarkable. Each Evangelist limits himself to the bare recording of facts, without a trace of emotion. They felt too deeply to show feeling. It was fitting that the story which, till the end of time, was to move hearts to a passion of love and devotion, should be told without any colouring. Let us beware of reading it coldly! This passage is more adapted to be pondered in solitude, with the thought, ‘All this was borne for me,’ than to be commented on. But a reverent word or two is permissible.

Luke’s account is noticeably independent of the other three. The three sayings of Christ’s, round which his narrative is grouped, are preserved by him alone. We shall best grasp the dominant impression which the Evangelist unconsciously had himself received, and sought to convey, by gathering the whole round these three words from the Cross.

I. The first word sets Jesus forth as the all-merciful Intercessor and patient friend of sinners.

It is very significantly set in the centre of the paragraph {vs. 33-38} which recounts the heartless cruelty and mockery of soldiers and rulers. Surrounded by that whirlwind of abuse, contempt and ferocious glee at His sufferings, He gave back no taunt, nor uttered any cry of pain, nor was moved to the faintest anger, but let His heart go out in pity for all who took part in that wicked tragedy; and, while ‘He opened not His mouth’ in complaint or reviling, He did open it in intercession. But the wonderful prayer smote no heart with compunction, and, after it, the storm of mocking and savage triumph hurtled on as before.

Luke gathers all the details together in summary fashion, and piles them on one another without enlarging on any. The effect produced is like that of a succession of breakers beating on some lonely rock, or of blows struck by a battering-ram on a fortress.

‘They crucified Him,’-there is no need to say who ‘they’ were. Others than the soldiers, who did the work, did the deed. Contempt gave Him two malefactors for companions and hung the King of the Jews in the place of honour in the midst. Did John remember what his brother and he had asked? Matter-of-fact indifference as to a piece of military duty, and shameless greed, impelled the legionaries to cast lots for the clothes stripped from a living man. What did the crucifying of another Jew or two matter to them? Gaping curiosity, and the strange love of the horrible, so strong in the vulgar mind, led the people, who had been shouting Hosanna! less than a week ago, to stand gazing on the sight without pity but in a few hearts.

The bitter hatred of the rulers, and their inhuman glee at getting rid of a heretic, gave them bad preeminence in sin. Their scoff acknowledged that He had ‘saved others,’ and their hate had so blinded their eyes that they could not see how manifestly His refusal to use His power to save Himself proved Him the Son of God. He could not save Himself, just because He would save these scoffing Rabbis and all the world. The rough soldiers knew little about Him, but they followed suit, and thought it an excellent jest to bring the ‘vinegar,’ provided in kindness, to Jesus with a mockery of reverence as to a king. The gibe was double-barrelled, like the inscription over the Cross; for it was meant to hit both this Pretender to royalty and His alleged subjects.

And to all this Christ’s sole answer was the ever-memorable prayer. One of the women who bravely stood at the Cross must have caught the perhaps low-voiced supplication, and it breathed so much of the aspect of Christ’s character in which Luke especially delights that he could not leave it out. It opens many large questions which cannot be dealt with here. All sin has in it an element of ignorance, but it is not wholly ignorance as some modern teachers affirm. If the ignorance were complete, the sin would be nonexistent. The persons covered by the ample folds of this prayer were ignorant in very different degrees, and had had very different opportunities of changing ignorance for knowledge. The soldiers and the rulers were in different positions in that respect. But none were so entirely blind that they had no sin, and none were so entirely seeing that they were beyond the reach of Christ’s pity or the power of His intercession. In that prayer we learn, not only His infinite forgivingness for insults and unbelief levelled at Himself, but His exaltation as the Intercessor, whom the Father heareth always. The dying Christ prayed for His enemies; the glorified Christ lives to make intercession for us.

II. In the second saying Christ is revealed as having the keys of Hades, the invisible world of the dead.

How differently the same circumstances work on different natures! In the one malefactor, physical agony and despair found momentary relief in taunts, flung from lips dry with torture, at the fellow-sufferer whose very innocence provoked hatred from the guilty heart. The other had been led by his punishment to recognise in it the due reward of his deeds, and thus softened, had been moved by Christ’s prayer, and by his knowledge of Christ’s innocence, to hope that the same mercy which had been lavished on the inflicters of His sufferings, might stretch to enfold the partakers in it.

At that moment the dying thief had clearer faith in Christ’s coming in His kingdom than any of the disciples had. Their hopes were crumbling as they watched Him hanging unresisting and gradually dying. But this man looked beyond the death so near for both Jesus and himself, and believed that, after it, He would come to reign. We may call him the only disciple that Christ then had.

How pathetic is that petition, ‘Remember me’! It builds the hope of sharing in Christ’s royalty on the fact of having shared in His Cross. ‘Thou wilt not forget Thy companion in that black hour, which will then lie behind us.’ Such trust and clinging, joined with such penitence and submission, could not go unrewarded.

From His Cross Jesus speaks in royal style, as monarch of that dim world. His promise is sealed with His own sign-manual, ‘Verily, I say.’ It claims to have not only the clear vision of, but the authority to determine, the future. It declares the unbroken continuance of personal existence, and the reality of a state of conscious blessedness, in which men are aware of their union with Him, the Lord of the realm and the Life of its inhabitants. It graciously accepts the penitent’s petition, and assures him that the companionship, begun on the Cross, will be continued there. ‘With Me’ makes ‘Paradise’ wherever a soul is.

III. The third word from the Cross, as recorded by Luke, reveals Jesus as, in the act of dying, the Master of death, and its Transformer for all who trust Him into a peaceful surrender of themselves into the Father’s hands.

The circumstances grouped round the act of His death bring out various aspects of its significance. The darkness preceding had passed before He died, and it bore rather on His sense of desertion, expressed in the unfathomably profound and awful cry, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ The rent veil is generally taken to symbolise the unrestricted access into the presence of God, which we have through Christ’s death; but it is worth considering whether it does not rather indicate the divine leaving of the desecrated shrine, and so is the beginning of the fulfilment of the deep word, ‘Destroy this Temple.’

But the centre-point of the section is the last cry which, in its loudness, indicated physical strength quite incompatible with the exhaustion to which death by crucifixion was generally due. It thus confirms the view which sees, both in the words of Jesus and in the Evangelist’s expression for His death, clear indications that He died, not because His physical powers were unable to live longer, but by the exercise of His own volition. He died because He chose, and He chose because He loved and would save. As St. Bernard says, ‘Who is He who thus easily falls asleep when He wills? To die is indeed great weakness, but to die thus is immeasurable power. Truly the weakness of God is stronger than men.’

Nor let us forget that, in thus dying, Jesus gave us an imitable example, as well as revealed inimitable power. For, if we trust ourselves, living and dying, to Him, we shall not be dragged reluctantly, by an overmastering grasp against which we vainly struggle, out of a world where we would fain stay, but we may yield ourselves willingly, as to a Father’s hand, which draws His children gently to His own side, and blesses them, when there, with His fuller presence.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE CRUCIFIXION

Mat 27:35-38; Luk 23:33-38; Joh 19:18-24; Mar 15:24-28. “And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him.” Here you see the bloody work of death began at 9 A.M., and they remained on the cross till 3 P.M. “And they crucify along with Him two thieves; the one on His fight, and the one on His left. And the Scripture was fulfilled, saying, He was numbered with the transgressors.” Thus the high priests maneuvered to do their utmost to cover Him with ineffaceable disgrace, having Him crucified between two robbers. N.B. — If you would follow Him up to heaven, you must go with Him to Gethsemane, and there give up all the world, your will sinking away into the Divine. Then you must go with Him to Calvary, and be crucified between two robbers; i. e., if you would get sanctified, you may expect the people to pronounce you a thief robber, or some other vile reprobate. They will so misunderstand and misjudge you as to identify you with the worst people. All this you must bear patiently and unmurmuringly, like Jesus, if you are going up to live with Him in heaven.

Luk 23:34. “And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they are doing.” How true! If those preachers had known that they were killing their own Christ, they would not have done it for a million of worlds. They were so blinded by the devil that they did not know what they were doing. So have the people claiming to be God’s elect slaughtered about two hundred millions of God’s people. They killed them all under criminal charges, believing them to be bad people. What is the solution of this wonderful mystery? Satan, as in the case of the Jews when they crucified Jesus, had so deluded them as to make them follow him, thinking he is God. Amid these delusions, are the people inculpatory? Certainly they are. Having rejected the light and believed Satan’s lies, they have drifted into the awful dilemma where they call evil good, and good evil.

Joh 19:23-24. “Then the soldiers, when they crucified Jesus, took His garments, and divided them into four parts, a part for each soldier; also His tunic. For the tunic was seamless, woven from the top throughout. Then they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but gamble for it, whose it shall be; in order that the Scriptures may be fulfilled, saying, They parted My garments among themselves, and upon My vesture they did cast the lot. Indeed, then, the soldiers did these things.” Roman law gave the garments of the crucified to the quaternion, consisting of four soldiers, who took charge of each criminal and executed the bloody work. In that day, when there were no factories, clothing was not only very valuable, but quite scarce. The vesture or tunic was the inner garment, and, as you see here, it was seamless throughout, beautifully illustrating the absolute unity of the true Church, the body of Christ, the divisions all having been made by Satan, and, so far as they go, represent the Satanic phase of the true Church. The soldiers having divided all of His other garments, now recognized this seamless vesture, and concluded that it will spoil it to tear it into pieces; consequently they agreed to settle the ownership by a game of dice. O that all religious people could only have the gumption of these heathen barbarians, and see that they can not divide up the Church of Christ without serious detriment! Luk 23:38 : “And the superscription was written over Him in Greek, Roman, and Hebrew letters, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Roman law claimed pre-eminent justice in all things. Consequently the crime for which every culprit was crucified was written on the cross over his head, so the multitudes could all read it and know the reason why he suffered this awful death. Though the Jews had condemned Him for blasphemy, they could not use that charge against Him under Roman administration, as their law knew no such a crime. Though both Pilate and Herod had positively vetoed the charge of treason against Caesar which the Jews tried so hard to get them to recognize, yet in the finale, Pilate had it written over Him simply to fill a vacancy, as he had nothing else. As you pass by Roman Catholic cemeteries and churches, you frequently see a cross, superscribed I.N.R.I. This is an abbreviation of Jesus Nasarenus Rex Judaeorum, “Jesus of Nazereth, King of the Jews.”

These are the very words which were superscribed on the cross above the head of Jesus, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the language of religion, learning, and law, for the convenience of all the multitudes, as they could all find it out from these three languages.

Joh 19:20-21. “Then many of the Jews read this title; because the place was near the city where Jesus was crucified.” Calvary overlooks the city, the prominence rising only about one hundred yards from the north wall, the Jericho road running between, and then the hill about one hundred yards more to its summit, which is somewhat level on top, uniformly and gradually descending, actually resembling a human, skull, for which it is named, and is the most conspicuous place about Jerusalem, lying in the angle of the two most important roads — i. e., those leading to Damascus and Jericho — in harmony with the Roman policy of crucifying criminals in the most conspicuous places. I emphasize these, specifications because the Greek, Roman, and all other Oriental Churches, locate Calvary some distance within the present wall of the city, where there is no mountain, but rather a subsidence, between Zion and Akra, within the great Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which has stood there since the days of Constantine, the most magnetic pilgrim-resort in all the Holy Land, as they believe that Jesus there laid down His life to save a guilty world. I believe they are mistaken as to the location of Calvary; and this lonely hill, outside of the wall, for more than a thousand years a Moslem cemetery, is, beyond doubt, the true Calvary. You remember that the Romans utterly destroyed the city, A. D. 73, verifying the prophecy of Jesus, leaving it utterly desolate fifty years. Then the Emperor Adrian went there, and founded a Roman colony, using the ruins to rebuild the city, calling it Elia Capitolina, thus even burying the name “Jerusalem” in (as they supposed). hopeless oblivion. So two hundred years rolled away during the nonexistence of Jerusalem, this Roman city occupying the site. When the Emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity, A. D. 325, he and his royal mother, Queen Helena, came to this sacred spot, revived and rebuilt the city, and restored the heaven-born name, Jerusalem. During these three hundred years there were no people there who knew the sacred places. Hence the confusion with reference to the locations. For an exhaustive elucidation of this matter, see “Footprints of Jesus.”

“Then the high priest of the Jews said to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am the King of the Jews. Pilate responded, What I have written, I have written.” In Oriental dialect, this is the very strongest negative, bluntly and stubbornly muttered out by the impatient proconsul. The truth of the matter is, they had browbeaten Pilate from the beginning, and run over him like a dog. Fearful of official depreciation, deposition, arraignment before the emperor, and untold humiliation, with which the high priests and elders threatened him, despite all his protestation of the innocence of Jesus, and the diversity of stratagems to which he resorted for His release, they treated all his efforts with utter contempt; having yielded to their imperious clamors again and again, and finally, though with the utmost reluctance, signed His death-warrant, and, pursuant to the Roman custom, superscribed the only accusation they had brought against Him on the cross above His head, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” and still they are dissatisfied and clamored for a change, — his patience broke down, and he positively and abruptly refused. No wonder Pilate refused to change that writing. He could not change it; Jesus is King of tile Jews, and will be forever. In coming eternity, as well as through the bright millennial centuries, when God will honor the patriarch and prophets, the elect custodians of His Revealed Oracles, amid a world of darkness and sin, Jesus will be King of the Jews forever, encumbering and honoring the Theocratic throne of David.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

23:33 The Skull: Greek kranion; the Aramaic term is Golgotha (Matt 27:33; Mark 15:22). The location is uncertain, but it has traditionally been associated with the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A less likely location is Gordon’s Calvary, a rock outcrop near the Garden Tomb. • they nailed him to the cross: Victims were often tied to the cross or nailed through the wrists and ankles to hasten death—here, the bodies had to be buried before sunset due to the approaching Sabbath.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 23:33. Κράνιον, Calvary [“the place of a skull”]) In topographies the nomenclature is often derived from the parts of the human body.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_23:33-34. Κρανίον] A Greek translation of Γολγοθᾶ, a skull, so named from its form. See on Mat_27:33, and Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 485, who discovers in the name Golgotha the hill named Gareb in Jer_31:39.

Luk_23:34. In ἄφες αὐτοῖς Jesus refers to His enemies, who indeed were the sinning subjects, not to the Roman soldiers (Michaelis, Paulus, Kuinoel, Ewald, Wittichen, following older commentators, and as early as in Euthymius Zigabenus), who discharged the office of executioners only involuntarily and morally uninterested therein; so that in their case there could be no allusion either to imputation or to forgiveness. The mockery of the soldiers (Paulus, Kuinoel, Bleek also) is in respect of the crucifixion purely an invention. But in respect of the crucifixion (τί ποιοῦσι) is the prayer uttered in which from the innermost heart of Jesus breathes the deepest love which regards the crime in the mildest light, not indeed removing, but extenuating[264] the guilt, as a result of the want of knowledge of the nature of the deed (for they were slaying the Messiah of the people, whom they, however, had not recognised as such), and consequently the deed was capable of forgiveness. Even this prayer is a relic of the Crucified One, which Luke alone has preserved for us from a written or oral source. In Act_3:17; Act_7:60, its echo is heard. Comp. 1Co_2:8, and the same prayer of the dying James in Eusebius, Luk_2:23.

διαμεριζόμ.] at the division.

ΚΛΉΡΟΥς (see the critical remarks): lots. Comp. on Mar_15:24.

[264] Comp. J. Müller, v. d. Sünde, I. p. 285; Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 453 f. Against the opinion of Buttmann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1860, p. 353, see Graf in the same, 1861, p. 749 ff.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 23:33-38 . Crucifixion (Mat 27:35-38 , Mar 15:24-27 ). κρανίον , a skull, for the Hebrew Γολγοθά in Mt. and Mk.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2 d. Luk 23:33-38. Is the spot where Jesus was crucified that which is shown for it at the present day in the enclosure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre? The question does not seem yet decided. Though this place is now within the city enclosure, it might not have been so then.

The name place of the skull (skull, in Hebrew גֻּלְ‡ֹגּלֶת, H1653, in Aramaic גּוּלְגַּלְתָּא, from גָּלַל, H1670, to roll) does not come from the skulls of the condemned which remained lying there; this would require the plural: the place of skulls; besides, unburied bones would not have been left there. The name is rather to be traced to the bare rounded form of the hill.

Matthew and Mark relate here that Jesus refused the stupifying draught which was offered Him. According to Mark, it was aromatic wine; according to Matthew, vinegar mingled with gall.

Of the seven sayings which Jesus uttered on the cross, the first three refer to the persons surrounding Him

His enemies, His companion in punishment, and those whom He loves most tenderly, His mother and His friend; they are, as it were, His will. The three which follow: “My God, my God,...; I thirst; it is finished,” refer to His sufferings and the work which is being finished; the first two, to the sufferings of His soul and of His body; the third, to the result gained by this complete sacrifice. Finally, the seventh and last: “Father, into Thy hands...,” is the cry of perfect confidence from His expiring heart in its utmost weakness. Three of those seven sayings, all three words of grace and faith, are related by Luke, and by him only.

The prayer of Luk 23:34 is wanting in some MSS. This omission is probably the result of accident; for the oldest translations, as well as the great majority of MSS., guarantee its authenticity; and the appeal of the thief for the grace of Jesus, a few moments later, cannot be well explained, except by the impression produced on him by the hearing of this filial invocation.

The persons for whom this prayer is offered cannot be the Roman soldiers, who are blindly executing the orders which they have received; it is certainly the Jews, who, by rejecting and slaying their Messiah, are smiting themselves with a mortal blow (Joh 2:19). It is therefore literally true, that in acting thus they know not what they do. The prayer of Jesus was granted in the forty years’ respite during which they were permitted, before perishing, to hear the apostolic preaching. The wrath of God might have been discharged upon them at the very moment.

The casting of the lot for the garments of Jesus (Luk 23:34) belongs to the same class of derisivé actions as those related Luk 23:35 et seq. By this act the prisoner became the sport of his executioners. The garment of the cruciarii belonged to them, according to the Roman law. Every cross was kept by a detachment of four soldiers, a τετράδιον (Act 12:4). The plural κλήρους, lots, is taken from the parallels. The lot was twice drawn, first for the division of the four nearly equal parts into which the garments of Jesus were divided (cloak, cap, girdle, sandals), then for His robe or tunic, which was too valuable to be put into one of the four lots.

The word θεωρεῖν, beholding (Luk 23:35), does not seem to indicate a malevolent feeling; it rather forms a contrast with what follows. The words σὺν αὐτοῖς, with them, must be rejected from the text. The meaning of the term, the chosen of God, is, that the Christ is He on whose election rests that of the entire people.

The mockeries of the soldiers apply to Jewish royalty in itself, more than to Jesus personally (Joh 19:5; Joh 19:14-15). It has often been thought that the wine which the soldiers offered to Jesus was that which had been prepared for themselves (ὄξος, a common wine); but the sponge and the rod of hyssop which are on the spot leave no doubt that it was intended to allay the sufferings of the prisoners. It was perhaps the same draught which had been offered to them at the beginning of the crucifixion. The soldiers pretend to treat Jesus as a king, to whom the festive cup is presented. Thus this derisive homage is connected with the ironical inscription (not in regard to Jesus, but in regard to the people) placed on the cross (Luk 23:38). It is this connection of ideas which is expressed by the ἦν δὲ καί, there also was. By this inscription, so humbling to the Jews, Pilate took vengeance for the degrading constraint to which they had subjected him by forcing him to execute an innocent man. The mention of the three languages is an interpolation taken from John.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Christ became accursed for us upon the Cross, suffering the punishment which they deserved that would be God’s.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 33. The place - called Calvary] See Clarke on Mt 27:33.

They crucified him] See the nature of this punishment explained Mt 27:35.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(33) The place, which is called Calvary.—On the place and name, see Note on Mat_27:33. As a matter of translation, it would clearly have been better either to give the Greek form (Cranion), or its meaning (= “skull”) in English. The Vulgate, however, had given Calvarium, and that word had taken so strong a hold on men’s minds, that it was apparently thought better, as in all the English versions, to retain it here. It is not without interest to note that the name which more than any other is associated with Protestant hymns and meditations on the atonement, should come to us from the Vulgate of the Latin Church.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33-38. The Crucifixion and Mockery. The Title.

33. the place, which is called Calvary] It is nowhere in Scripture called ‘a hill,’ and it was certainly not in any sense a steep or lofty hill. The only grounds for speaking of it as a hill are (1) tradition; and (2) the name. Calvary is the Latin form of Golgotha, and means ‘a skull’ (as the same Greek word kranion is rendered in Mat_27:33). Like the French Chaumont, this name might describe a low rounded hill. Ewald identifies it with Gareb (Jer_31:39), and Kraft accordingly derives Golgotha from גל, ‘hill,’ and גועת, ‘death.’ The name has led to the legend about Adam’s skull lying at the foot of the Cross, which is so often introduced into pictures.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the people stood beholding,.... This dismal and affecting sight; insulting and reviling him, and wagging their heads at him, as did also those that passed by: and the rulers also with them derided him; the chief priests, Scribes, and elders, the members of the sanhedrim, whose characters should have restrained them from such an inhuman conduct. The phrase, "with them", is wanting in the Oriental versions, and in one of Beza's copies: saying,

he saved others; by healing their diseases, or raising them from the dead:

let him save himself; from death, by unnailing himself, and coming down from the cross; See Gill on Mat 27:42.

if he be Christ; the Messiah, he and his followers give out he is; even the chosen of God, referring to Isa 42:1. The Arabic version reads, "the chosen Son of God", very wrongly; for Christ was not chosen to be the Son of God; he was so by nature; but he was chosen to be a servant, as the text cited shows, to be a Mediator between God and man, and the Saviour of his people.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Ver. 33. Which is called Calvary] As sad a sight to our Saviour, as the bodies of his slain wife and children were to Mauricius the emperor, who was soon after to be slain also by the command of the traitor Phocas. Let us learn to consider the tyranny and deformity of sin as often as we pass through churchyards and charnelhouses. Historians tell us that the way whereby Christ went bearing his cross to Calvary is to this day called The Dolorous Way.

There they crucified him] Christ’s cross, with his naked and bloody body, being lift up on high, was let fall with violence into a mortise, that his joints were dissolved, said Origen to Alexander Severus the emperor.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Called Calvary. A place at a small distance from Jerusalem, where condemned malefactors were beheaded. So Christ, as a malefactor, dies on Calvary for the redemption of all: that where sin abounded, grace might more abound. (Ven. Bede) --- In this mountain, according to the Hebrew doctors, were interred the remains of our protoparent, Adam. (St. Athanasius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Vers. 33-49. The Crucifixion.

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary; literally, unto the place which is called the skull. The familiar name "Calvary" has its origin in the Vulgate translation, Calvarium, a skull. The name "Place of a skull," Golgotha (properly Gulgoltha, an Aramaic word atlgln, corresponding to the Hebrew Gulgoleth, tlglg, which in Jud_1:9:53 and 2Ki_9:35 is translated "skull"), does not come from the fact that the skulls of condemned persons remained lying there, but it is so called from being a bare rounded mound like a skull in form. Dean Plumptre suggests that the spot in question was chosen by the Jewish rulers as a deliberate insult to one of their own order, Joseph of Arima-thaea, whose garden, with its rock-sepulchre, lay hard by. A later legend derives the name from its being the burying-place of Adam, and that as the blood flowed from the sacred wounds on his skull, his soul was translated to Paradise. A tradition traceable to the fourth century has identified this spot with the building known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. St. Cyril of Jerusalem alludes to the spot repeatedly. In the time of Eusebius there was no doubt as to the site. The Bordeaux Pilgrim (A.D. 333) writes thus: "On the left side (of the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre) is the hillock (monticulus) Golgotha, where the Lord was crucified. Thence about a stone-throw distance is the crypt where his body was deposited." Recent research confirms this very ancient tradition, and scholars are generally now agreeing that the evidence in support of the traditional site is strong and seemingly conclusive. And the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. St. John adds, "and Jesus in the midst," as holding the position of preeminence in that scene of uttermost shame. Even in suffering Christ appears as a King. Westcott thus comments on the next detail recorded by St. John, (Joh_19:19) where the accurate rendering is, "And Pilate wrote a title also. " This title (see further, ver. 38) was drawn up by Pilate, who caused it to be placed on the cross. The words, "wrote a title also," perhaps imply that the placing of the Lord in the midst was done by Pilate"s direction.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And when

For order of events at the crucifixion, (See Scofield "Mat 26:20") See Scofield "Mat 27:33"

The first note refers to the events of the night preceding; the second, the day of the event.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When they came

The word "they" includes the soldiers, the criminals, and Jesus.

they crucified him

"the Roman soldiers crucified Jesus"

one on his right and one on his left

"they crucified one criminal on Jesus' right side and the other criminal on Jesus' left side"

Father, forgive them

The word "them" refers to those who were crucifying Jesus. Jesus speaks to his Father with compassion toward the men crucifying him.

Father

This is an important title for God. (See: Translating Son and Father)

for they do not know what they are doing

"because they do not understand what they are doing." The Roman soldiers did not understand that they were crucifying the Son of God. AT: "for they do not really know whom they are crucifying"

they cast lots

The soldiers participated in a type of gambling. AT: "they gambled"

cast lots, dividing up his garments

"cast lots to decide who among the soldiers would take home each piece of Jesus' clothing"

translationWords

crucify

Jesus

God the Father

forgive

lots

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

33–38. THE CRUCIFIXION AND MOCKERY. THE TITLE

33. τὸν τόπον. It is nowhere in Scripture called ‘a hill,’ and it was certainly not in any sense a steep or lofty hill. The only grounds for speaking of it as a hill are (1) tradition; and (2) the name.

Κρανίον. The word Calvary came into our A. V[406] from the Vulg[407] locum qui vocatur Calvariae. Calvaria is the Latin form of Golgotha, and means ‘a skull’ (as the same Greek word Κράνιον is rendered in Mat 27:33). Like the French Chaumont, this name might describe a low rounded hill. Ewald identifies it with Gareb (Jer 31:39), and Kraft accordingly derives Golgotha from גל, ‘hill,’ and גועת, ‘death.’ The name has led to the legend about Adam’s skull lying at the foot of the Cross, which is so often introduced into pictures. St Luke omitted the Hebrew name Golgotha, which would have been unintelligible to his Greek readers.

[406] A. V. Authorised Version.

[407] Vulg. Vulgate.

δν μὲν … ὃν δέ. The relative for the article, as often in late Greek in antithesis. 1Co 11:21, ὃς μὲν πεινᾷ, ὃς δὲ μεθύει; Mat 21:35, &c.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33-49.] The Crucifixion, mocking, last words, and death of Jesus. Mat 27:35-50. Mar 15:24-37. Joh 19:18-30; with however some particulars inserted which appear later in the other Gospels.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

33-38. The Crucifixion. The narrative is substantially the same as Mat 27:33-44 and Mar 15:22-32; but it has independent features.

33. τόπον. This word is used by all three. The precise place is still a matter of controversy, and must remain so until excavation has determined the position of the old walls, outside which it certainly was. See MacColl. Contemp. Rev., Feb. 1893, pp. 167-188; D. B.2 i. pp. 1205, 1652-1657.

τὸν καλούμενον Κρανίον. See on 6:15. It was so called on account of its shape, not because skulls were lying there unburied, which would have outraged Jewish feeling. Lk. omits the Hebrew name Golgotha (Mat 27:33; Mar 15:22; Joh 19:17), which would have conveyed in meaning to Greek readers, as he has already omitted (without Greek equivalent) Gethsemane and Gabbatha. It is from the Latin (locum qui vocatur Calvariæ) that the word “Calvary” has come into all English Versions prior to RV., which has, “the place which is called The Skull.”

The ancient explanation that the place was thus called because of the skull of Adam, who was buried there by Noah after the Flood, is rejected by Jerome (on Mat_27, Migne, xxv. 209), as interpretatio mulcens aurem populi, nee tamen vera. But he wrongly adopts the view that it was a plac in which truncantur capita damnata, a view which even Fritzsche (on Mat 27:33) has defended. No such place has ever existed in the East, least of all at Jerusalem: and such a place would be styled κρανίων τόπος not κρανίου. A rocky protrusion, resembling a skull in form, is no doubt the meaning. Thus Cyril of Jerusalem speaks of it as “rising on high and showing itself to this day, and displaying even yet how because of Christ the rocks were then riven” (Catech. Lect. xiii. 39).

For the attractive Adam legend compare Ambrose, ad loc.: Congruebat quippe ut ibi vitæ nostra primitia locarentur, ubi fuerant mortis exordia (Migne, xv. 1852). Chrys. and Euthym. do not o beyond tradition (φασί τινες), which they do not expressly accept. See Tisch. app. crit. ad Joh 19:17.

ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτόν. It will always remain disputable whether our Lord’s feet were nailed as well as His hands. Joh 20:25-27 proves that His hands were nailed: but it is not certain that Luk 24:39 has way reference to the nails. In the Gospel of Peter, before the burial, nails are taken from the hands only. Ewald refers to the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, i. 20, for evidence that in Palestine the mediæval tradition limited the nailing to the hands; but this is less probable.

ὃν μὲν … ὃν δέ … For this late use of the relative comp. Mat 21:35, Mat 21:22:15; 1Co 11:21; 2Ti 2:20; Rom 9:21.

34, a. As in we cases of 22:19b, 20 and of 43, 44, we have to consider whether this passage is part of the original text. For the evidence see the additional note at the end of the chapter. “Few verses of the Gospels bear in themselves a surer witness to the truth of what they record than this first of the Words from the Cross: but it need not therefore have belonged originally to the book in which it is now included. We cannot doubt that it comes from an extraneous source. Nevertheless, like 22:43f.; Mat 16:2 f., it has exceptional claims to be permanently retained, with the necessary safeguards, in its accustomed place” (WH. ii. App. p. 68).

ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἔλεγεν. The δέ and the imperf. refer back to ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτόν: while they crucified Him, He in contrast to them was saying.

ἄφες αὐτοῖς. This cannot refer to the Roman soldiers, who were doing no more than their duty in executing a sentence which had been pronounced by competent authority. It was the Jews, and especially the Jewish hierarchy, who were responsible for what was being done: and but for the pressure which they had put upon him, even Pilate would have remained guiltless in this matter. What follows shows that the petition refers to the act of crucifixion, not to their sins generally. In this way He “made intercession for the transgressors” (Isa 53:12); where, however, LXX has διὰ τὰς ἀνομίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθη.

οὐ γὰρ οἴδασιν τί ποιοῦσιν. This was true even of the rulers (Act 3:17), still more of the people, and most of all of Pilate. Their ignorance of what they were doing in crucifying the Christ mitigates their guilt. Comp. 12:48, and ποιοῦσιν in ver. 31: also the use of the words attributed to James the Just at his martyrdom (Hegesip. ap. Eus. H.E. ii. 23, 16).

34, b. Διαμεριζόμενοι … κλῆρον. The wording is very similar in all three, and is influenced by Psa 22:19, which Jn. (19:24, quotes verbatim from LXX. Some texts wrongly insert the quotation Mat 27:35; but the Synoptists use the wording of the Psalm without directly quoting it. Jn. tells us that it was a quaternion of soldiers (comp. Act 12:4) who were carrying out the procurator’s sentence, and thus came to share the clothes as their perquisite. And Jn. distinguishes, as does the Heb. of Psa 22:19, although LXX and the Synoptists do not, between the upper and under garments. This dividing of the clothes is one more detail in the treatment of Christ as a criminal, and a criminal whose career was closed.

The sing. κλῆρον (א B C D L, b c d Aeth.) has been altered in some texts to κλήρους (A X, a e f ff2 Vulg. codd. plur. Syr-Sin.) to harmonize with usage, e.g. 1Ch 25:8, 1Ch 25:26:13, 1Ch 25:14; Neh 10:34, Neh 11:1, etc.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Calvary [κρανιον] . The Greek word is the translation of the Hebrew Golgotha. See on Mt 27:33.

35 - 43. Compare Mt 27:39 - 44; Mr 14:29 - 32.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.