Well, we return this morning to our exposition of the Gospel of John. We have been engaged for a long time now in working our way through a series of sermons on the Gospel of John. And we come in this study to John 19. And our text this morning is verses 31 to 37. John 19. We come to verses 31 to 37, which we'll consider with the Lord's help. And let me just remind you of the opening of that text. The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath was an high day, besought Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. As we read reflectively, prayerfully, and meditatively through the Holy Scriptures, and in particular through the Gospels, and even more in particular with regards to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, we must come to the Bible very aware that every single minute detail that the Lord provides for us in His Word, every detail about Christ's atoning death supplied for us in the Gospels, is for the benefit of increasing and strengthening the faith of God's people. So there's nothing superfluous, there's no fluff, there's no details that are added just for no purpose. They're all aimed at strengthening our faith, and we have to seize upon them. We have to think and reflect upon what the Lord is conveying to us in these things. We come to this particular passage in verses 31 to 37, and John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is opening up a small window, if you will, And he's describing for us or showing us what happened in between Christ's death on the one side and his burial on the other. We tend to think of Christ crucified, dead, and buried, to use the language of the creed. And we jump over from death to burial. But the Lord's provided us with the text in front of us this morning to tell us what exactly transpired. during this small window. And as I said, it is not, clearly not, incidental filler. It is here to fortify the faith of God's people as we come to this passage gazing upon the Lamb of God who is taking away the sins of His people. We are coming as those who are looking by faith through the lens of scripture at the person of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And there are especially two details that are given to us in this text. And our sermon is organized this morning around those two details. First of all, Christ's bones were not broken. You see this in verses 31, 32, and 33. First of all, Christ's bones were not broken. And we're told in verse 36 that this is in fulfillment of the Scripture, that the Scripture should be fulfilled, the bone of him shall not be broken. Well, where in the Scripture do we read that? Well, if you go back and study the Passover, which pointed forward to Christ as the lamb who would be the sacrifice for his people, you'll find, for example, in Exodus 12, as well as in Numbers 9, that in the Passover, the lamb that was sacrificed, its bones were not to be broken. But the Lord has given us further material as well. So in Psalm 34, in his inspired hymn book, he includes this point as well. Psalm 34, verse 20, he keepeth all his bones. Not one of them is broken, pointing forward to the Lord Jesus. So Christ's bones were not broken. Beginning at verse 31, we see that there is this day of preparation. So the next day, the day that was about to begin, was a high day. So every Sabbath, of course, is precious, was precious in the Old Testament, is precious in the New Testament as well, but there were certain Sabbaths when the Old Testament sacramental feasts were observed. And these were considered extraordinary. They weren't the ordinary weekly Sabbath, but only took place at intervals throughout the year. And so here they are preparing for the feast of unleavened bread. And they tell Pilate, the bodies have to come down off the cross. They can't stay up over the Sabbath. Now, this isn't just the Jews coming up with things out of thin air. It's actually told in the law, in the book of Deuteronomy, that those who are hanged upon a tree are to be brought down. They're not to be left overnight. And there are a number of reasons why that might be the case. But in this instance, what is especially brought to the fore, I think, is the growing flagrancy of the hypocrisy of these Jewish Pharisees and scribes and other leaders. What do I mean by that? Well, here they are, about to celebrate the Passover while rejecting at the same time the true Passover lamb. Here they are crucifying the Lord Jesus Christ, but they will not have him hang on the cross over the Sabbath day. They spill innocent blood, but a short time later, they will not permit the price of that innocent blood, the money that they had paid for it, to be put into the treasury. There's something gross There is something flagrant about the hypocrisy of the Jews. They're very interested in some details while at the same time throwing overboard the sum and substance of all that God is doing here. in the midst of his people. And it's a warning to us. It's a warning about those who are merely, merely interested in the externals of religion. God speaks to the externals of religion. They're not A matter that is entirely indifferent. But those who seize upon, who fixate upon, who are consumed with merely the externals of religion, there's a warning that is to be issued here. Because after all, the externals are the easiest part. In the scheme of things, it's easy to get yourself to church and to sit down in a pew. It's easy to come forward and sit down at the Lord's table. It's easy to gather your family together and sing a psalm and read the Bible and pray together in family worship. Easy, that is, in comparison to all of the soul exercise that ought to accompany it. Whole nother matter, there are countless thousands who on this Lord's Day are gathered in places of worship in this country and throughout the world who are dead as doornails. who have got their physical bodies into the right location, but whose hearts are far away from the Lord. It's a whole other matter to come to the worship of God, the assembly of God's people, and to be exercising our souls, to be, as we're singing His Psalms, for our eyes to be fixed in heaven, for our souls to be stirred up with joy. In the reading of His Word, to hear that Word read, and to receive it, to drink it in with faith, to even tremble at it where that's appropriate. To sit under the preaching of God's Word and say, I'm not content for sound waves to hit my ears and for ideas to pass through my brain, but I want this Word to take root in my heart. I want to receive the engrafted Word with meekness. and to not only be a hearer of the word, but a doer also. Well, that's a whole nother matter. And those who are merely interested in external parts of religion are to be warned. We can draw near to the Lord with our mouth while our heart is far, far from him. There's a dead formalism, and we see it here. Here is the incarnate Word, here is the Son of God enfleshed, here is the one who has come to offer himself as a sacrifice for sin, and his own people look upon him and hold him in derision and will have nothing to do with him, will have him crucified, murdered before their very eyes, before they would receive him as their Lord and as their Savior. And so the Jews say, break their legs and rip their bodies down and put them out of sight. This was used to hasten the death of those who were crucified. And so the Roman soldiers would come along to the foot of a given cross and they would actually smash the shin bones with a mallet or with an iron bar and break their legs. And this would hasten death, one, because of the sheer shock of it upon an already weakened system. But furthermore, it would prevent the one who is crucified from being able to push themselves up with their legs to remove some of the pressure on their diaphragm. And so they would quickly suffocate. They would die of asphyxiation as a result of that. It was a means of hastening the onset of death. And so we're told in verse 32 that they came to the two soldiers on either side of Christ and they did this very thing. And they were brought to their end. It would be easy to pass over this fact, but let's remember there are two, one of which is believing. One of which the Lord Jesus promised would be with him in paradise that very day. Not the next day, right? Not into the next day, but that day. The Lord's words being fulfilled here. Here we have one of the believing, one is a believing thief and he has his legs broken as well. Isn't it? It's interesting. On the one hand, you think, well, here he is, he's trusted in Christ, he's looked to Christ and seen in him, even in his act of death upon the cross, he's seen the provision for the salvation of his soul. Yet that believing thief still died a horrible death. It wasn't as if all of those things were taken away. It's a reminder to us, the gospel doesn't remove. all of the temporal consequences for our sins, does it? Some of us have known that, have lived with that in our own lives. It does not wipe away all of the temporal consequences for some of our sins, but you also can reflect upon how he would have died. Having looked by faith upon Christ, and seen in him the righteous one, he would have had what the other thief didn't have. His body is nevertheless subjected to this horrible torment, but his soul is buoyed up in the consolation and the upholding grace that God would give to him. Well, after the two thieves, they come to the Lord Jesus Christ and discover, to their surprise, that he's already dead. Now, these legionnaires, the Romans, were actually, they were like morticians as well. They were expert judges at determining when a person was dead, and there's no way that a Roman soldier would risk his own life, which is what he would be doing by not obeying the order, No way that he would risk his own life if he wasn't dead certain that the Lord Jesus Christ was already dead. And this is also important for us. Christ is crucified, Christ is dead, as well as buried. And that is essential to the salvation of God's people. It's essential because it reinforces the fact that Jesus is truly man, I mean, he has true humanity, he has a true body and a reasonable soul, as our catechism says. He, in that body, suffered real suffering, and that physical body died, though he, of course, as fully God, could not die in his divine nature, but he had a true human nature. And so all of the vain philosophies that John himself ended up having to confront in his day, Gnosticism and Docetism and so on, which said, what is physical, what is material is evil, what is immaterial or spiritual is good. Therefore, Jesus couldn't have had a real body because he's too holy and wonderful, and therefore he just had the appearance of a body. All of that is shut down. It is heresy and should be rejected as heresy. Jesus had a true body. And as you see here, that body expired, it died. It's also important because of those who would deny the reality of the resurrection. Right, both in the days of John and until recent history, in our own days, those who say, well, Jesus didn't actually die. He almost died, and they took him down, and then they revived him. And then when he appeared, it wasn't because he was raised from the dead, but because he had never really died on the cross, what they call the swoon theory. He just swooned on the cross. Well, that's also shut down by this and many, many other passages, and rejected as well. But there's things that are even more important than this. We see in this detail, Christ's bones were not broken. What He told us early about His voluntary death, in John 10 verse 18, No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. Christ is not having something stripped from him. He's not being robbed of something. He's not being subjected by outward forces to something. Jesus is willingly, freely, voluntarily giving himself as a sacrifice on behalf of his people. And no one can claim, not even the soldiers at the foot of the cross, we're the ones who took his life ultimately from him. It is a voluntary death that he subjects himself to. It also reinforces the fact that he's dying as the surety of God's people. He is dying the just for the unjust. He is dying as a substitute on behalf of his people. This is not another crucifixion. Like all of the countless thousands of others that the Romans engaged in, here is something unique, here is something that is unlike anything else. Here is a great event, indeed the central event in all of history, where heavenly and eternal transactions are taking place. Where the Lord Jesus Christ is securing once for all the salvation, the complete and full salvation of his people. It also shows us, doesn't it, the severity of his sufferings, the two thieves. They endure to this hour. Their legs have to be broken. Christ is already gone. Because Christ wasn't suffering in the limited ways that they were, just physically, as crucified individuals. Jesus had the soul suffering. I mean, Jesus had the eternal wrath of the Father being poured out into His soul. And so, all of hell, as it were, that was due to His people as their punishment is instead being diverted and poured out upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and the justice and righteousness of God is being executed upon Him. And so all that He is bearing is exponentially more than when any other was bearing. And that too contributed to a more speedy death. But in all of this, we have peering through all of these words and all of the description that is given to us, the divine love of the Lord Jesus Christ, really the love of the Father and the love of the Son and the love of the Spirit. But the love of Christ to expose himself to all of this. He said that he would love his people to the end. And he did so, he who was harmless, he who was innocent, he who was sinless, willingly, lovingly giving himself in order to ensure that every one of his people would be fully saved and with him for all of eternity. The scripture is fulfilled in this. Everything is happening according to God's own plan. There is no chance here. There is no coincidence in anything that is taking place. Every single detail is unfolding as God has sovereignly determined it. and the Scriptures are fulfilled. Secondly, we see Christ's pierced side. Secondly, Christ's pierced side, verse 34, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water. You see in verse 37 that this too is a fulfillment of Scripture. Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 10, they shall look on him, whom they pierced. Here we have a double confirmation of death. The soldier had already concluded that he was dead. Now the pierced side, the sword, the spear piercing his side confirms it further. Perhaps it was a form of cruelty and disrespect as well. We're told that blood and water came out. Good reason to believe that probably the soldier's spear had pierced Christ's pericardium, the fluid sac around the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ, and both water and blood came out. But there's great significance to this, his pure side. You'll remember Thomas, when Jesus appears to Thomas in the next chapter, chapter 20, verse 27. Then saith he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing. This, even in the resurrected body of Christ, these marks which remained, were there as a testimony to direct the faith of God's people to Christ. He's saying to Thomas, this pure side is to strengthen your faith. Don't be unbelieving, but rather believe upon me. And it's the same for us as it was for Thomas. The significance of his pure side is a means of drawing out our faith. just as Adam's side was opened in order that Eve might be formed or taken out of it, so Christ's side is opened. And of course, through the whole work of his cross work, his bride, the church, is formed from it, the spiritual salvation of his people. So this is not an incidental detail, the water and the blood. Indeed, John, it appears especially important to John, let me just, we're short on time this morning, so let me just give you one example in 1 John 5. Verse six, he comes back to this, this is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ. Not by water only, but by water and blood. This is the spirit that beareth witness, because the spirit is truth. So we have these two witnesses to Christ's mediatorial office. And in them we see represented the double benefit of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, both blood and water. It's not as if The Bible leaves us without clarity on the significance of these two things. Blood on the one hand, water on the other. Blood representing the pardon. of sin, and water representing the purification from sin, or the blood representing the satisfaction, and the water representing the sanctifying of God's people, both justification and sanctification as twin graces. You'll know that the blood is often associated with the pardon, right? Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Blood is required for there to be forgiveness. No bloodshed, no forgiveness. If Christ's blood is not shed, there is no forgiveness for the sins of the Lord's people. It's atonement, his atoning work for our guilt. what we call the expiation, right, that aspect of Christ's atonement, the expiation or the canceling of the guilt of God's people. When I say guilt, I mean our law-breaking. We are guilty of having violated God's law, and that record stands to condemn those who are outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the other hand, we have water. And water is all through John, the gospel of John, but it's also all through the Old Testament. Think of all the Old Testament rites associated with purification or cleansing. The priests using the laver that they would use to bathe themselves, to pour water on themselves. And you have all of the sprinkling that was used to make them ceremonially unclean. All of these Old Testament washings. It signified purification. It's interesting that after the passage in Zechariah that we see quoted here, you also have, I think, the significance of the next verse in chapter 13, verse 1. In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness, pollution, filthiness, dirtiness. a fountain open to cleanse the Lord's people. He promises in Ezekiel that He will sprinkle us with clean water and we shall be made clean. Or you think of the people of God in the wilderness and Moses strikes the rock, which Hebrews tells us is Christ, and out of that having smitten the rock out of that flows living waters, waters that would sustain the Lord's people. And so in the cross, we're viewing God's atoning work to save His people. And in this piercing of His side, we have the double cure provided for our double problem. So we as sinners, have two problems, right? We have legal guilt on the one hand. We've broken God's law and we're condemned by that law. And on the other hand, sin doesn't just do something outside of us. Objectively, it does something inside of us. We also have, secondly, moral pollution, defilement. We're stained with sin. We're dirty by sin. And so both of these end up proving to be a problem for us, both our guilt as well as our pollution. And in the atonement of Christ, we have a double cure. We have both the forgiveness of our guilt and the cleansing of our sins. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. Listen, He is faithful and just, one, to forgive us our sins, and two, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. They're both there. And it's John who's writing. They're both there. We need both justification and sanctification. And while these two things must be distinguished, they must never be separated, right? Justification speaks to the fact that Christ's righteousness is credited to the account of God's people by faith. And we are therefore legally in the courtroom of heaven made acceptable before God. Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit causing us to die to sin and to live unto righteousness, to be made more like the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ-like. Both of these are necessary. And they have to be distinguished, because if you mix them, you'll end up in Roman Catholicism, and you'll lose the gospel. But on the other hand, if you separate them and think to yourself, well, I can be saved as a sinner and going to heaven, but not holy. and not bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit and not changed and being recreated after the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're fooling yourself. You're going to hell. There is no one who can say, I have Christ, And He saved me, He's my Savior, but not my Lord. Or He's saved me and forgiven my sins, but there's no work of God's grace in me to change me. I look like the world and I act like the world and think like the world, and I'm as dead as the rest of the world, right? They have to be kept together as well. And just as the water and blood float out separately yet together, justification and sanctification have to be distinguished and yet never separated. Here we have the Lord showing in the atonement itself this double blessing that the Lord gives us, the double benefit. And when we go to the Lord and beg pardon and confess our sins and ask for the forgiveness of our sins, we should be simultaneously studying sanctification, shouldn't we? Lord, forgive. but also kill, mortify the sin within me. Pardon and cleanse my sin for Jesus' sake and make me more like him by your grace through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Because without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. We're in dead earnest about both of these things. And it's important because when the Lord abolishes our guilt, and he does that in the forgiveness of sins, it's for our profit. But when he abolishes the corruption, it is for his glory especially, isn't it? It's making, he didn't come merely to save sinners. He came to save sinners in order to make them like himself. In order that they would be instruments of glorifying him. God's glory is the end of salvation. Our forgiveness and pardon and the atoning work of Christ is a means to that end. God's glory is the end. It's his glory that he is set to exalt. And so the Christian comes this morning and we stand before this passage or we sit before this passage and we are looking on one who is pierced. not with our physical anatomical eyes in the physical location outside of Jerusalem at Golgotha, but we are looking upon the one who is pierced by faith as he's revealed himself in his word. We too often detach ourselves. We think, well, here's something old from history. Now we take that information and we go to Christ. But do you not realize that we actually hold fellowship with Christ at present actively in the ministry of his word? Christ is the one who is coming to us in his word. Christ is the one who is present speaking to us through his word. And Christ is, as the present one, showing us himself. He's saying, look at me, here I am. Let me show you who I am. And we're invited to look ourselves upon the one who is pierced and to respond by mourning for our sin and rejoicing in His mercy. We come and look upon the one who is pierced and we, as we've seen over and over, ransack our own souls as we look at the price tag for our own wickedness and we see the horror that has taken place. do for our sins, all that is transpiring in the work of Christ on the cross. It is our sins who have brought this to pass. And that'll bring a broken heart and humble us before Him. But it also causes us to rejoice in His mercy. Here are the enduring mercies of which we sang at the beginning of this service. Here is the fountain that is opened up for uncleanness. Here is the Lord who is saying, rejoice with me in the salvation that I have procured for those who come to me by faith. The Lord calls upon us to look on Him who is pierced. Now, there are some among us this morning who cannot look because you are blind. Blind as bats. And though the Bible is opened and read, and though it is expounded and preached, you grope about in the darkness and see nothing. You see nothing in Him to find beauty, nothing attractive, nothing wooing, nothing that melts the heart, nothing that draws. Pray God that he would open your eyes. Pray God that he would enable you to see, that he'd give sight to the blind, that he'd give you a heart to throb with true life and faith in him, that he would give you a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the fact is, no one gets away with turning their faces from Christ. It is John, once again, in his last book, the book of Revelation, chapter one, who says, all, including the unbelieving, including the hardened, will look upon him. Revelation chapter one, verse seven. Behold, he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him. Every eye shall see him. And they also which pierced him. and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, amen. But the mourning for those who are unbelieving will not be mixed with the tears of joy, but rather they will be mourning over their own destruction. mourning over the fact that He whom they see as the pierced Lamb of God revealed in Revelation 4 and 5, seated upon a throne, the sacrificial Lamb, is not their Savior, nor their substitute. What He bore on behalf of His people, they will bear on behalf of themselves for all of eternity, shut out forever in outer darkness. And so we see the one, the Lord Jesus Christ's side pierced and all that is conveyed to us of gospel truth in this wonderful, wonderful sight. To quote again from John's first epistle, if we confess our sins, If we come believingly, if we come repentantly, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. So God keeps His promises and He does what is right. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, there's pardon, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. There's purification, both the blood and the water provided in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's stand together for prayer. O gracious God in heaven, we bow down our hearts before you, thankful that Christ crucified is still preached in this world. Thankful that you have opened up to us a revelation in your own word of your own self, that you've given to us the sight of the glory of the Redeemer, even in his dying love for his people. And we rejoice, O Lord, that he is crucified, dead, and buried, and that he rose again on the third day, and has ascended and is seated at your right hand, where he reigns as prophet, priest, and king. forever and ever. O Lord, grant to us a fresh sight of him this day. Give, increase our faith. Enable us to revel in him, to look with love upon him, to delight in him. May he be seen to be our all in all. We ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.