Salome (Mark 15:40), the wife of Zebedee and the mother of James and John (Matt. 27:56).

This was not of the soldiers but of God's sovereignty.

A shirt-like undergarment.

In His crucifixion, the Lord's right to be clothed (vv. 23-24) and to drink (vv. 28-30) was stripped from Him, along with His life.

What Pilate wrote was not of himself but of God's sovereignty.

Hebrew here represents the Hebrew religion, Latin represents Roman politics, and Greek represents Greek culture. These three together represent the entire world, all of mankind. This signifies that the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God was killed by and for all mankind.

This unjust, joint sentence exposed the blindness of religion and the darkness of politics.

I.e., 6:00 a.m.

See note Matt. 27:62¹.

An Aramaic term from Hebrew, meaning a raised place. This must have been an elevated place, like a raised platform, paved with beautiful stones, as indicated by the Greek word for Pavement, mentioned earlier in the verse.

The governor's official residence.

See note Matt. 27:29².

In Luke 23:43 the Lord said to one of the two thieves crucified with Him, "Today you shall be with Me in Paradise." That word was in regard to salvation, since Luke's Gospel proves that the Lord is the sinner's Savior. Here, in vv. 26-27, the Lord said to His mother, "Behold, your son," and to the disciple whom He loved, "Behold, your mother." These words indicate a life-union, since this Gospel testifies that the Lord is life imparted into His believers. It is by this life that His beloved disciple could be one with Him and become the son of His mother, and that she could become the mother of His beloved disciple.

See note John 19:26¹.

Thirst is a taste of death (Luke 16:24; Rev. 21:8). The Lord Jesus suffered this for us on the cross (Heb. 2:9).

In Matt. 27:34 and Mark 15:23, wine mingled with gall and myrrh was offered to the Lord as a stupefying drink before His crucifixion, but He would not drink it. In this verse vinegar was offered to Him in a mocking way at the end of His crucifixion (Luke 23:36).

In His crucifixion the Lord was still working, and through His crucifixion He finished the work of His all-inclusive death, by which He accomplished redemption, terminated the old creation, and released His resurrection life to bring forth the new creation to fulfill God's purpose. In the process of death He proved to His opposers and His believers, by the way He behaved, that He was life. The dreadful environment of death did not frighten Him in the least; rather, it provided a contrast that proved strongly that He, as life, was versus death and could not be affected by death in any way. Therefore, the work that the Lord finished here included the accomplishing of redemption, the termination of the old creation, the release of His resurrection life, and the displaying of Himself as the life that cannot be affected by death.

Two substances came out of the Lord's pierced side: blood and water. Blood is for redemption, to deal with sins (John 1:29; Heb. 9:22) for the purchasing of the church (Acts 20:28). Water is for imparting life, to deal with death (John 12:24; 3:14-15) for the producing of the church (Eph. 5:29-30). The Lord's death, on the negative side, takes away our sins, and on the positive side, imparts life into us. Hence, it has two aspects: the redemptive aspect and the life-imparting aspect. The redemptive aspect is for the life-imparting aspect. The record of the other three Gospels portrays only the redemptive aspect of the Lord's death; John's record portrays not only the redemptive aspect but also the life-imparting aspect. In Matt. 27:45, 51, Mark 15:33, and Luke 23:44-45, darkness, a symbol of sin, appeared, and the veil of the temple, which separated man from God, was rent. These signs are related to the redemptive aspect of the Lord's death. The words spoken by the Lord on the cross in Luke 23:34, "Father, forgive them," and in Matt. 27:46, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (because He bore our sin at that time), also depict the redemptive aspect of His death. But the flowing water and the unbroken bone mentioned by John in vv. 34, 36 are signs that relate to the life-imparting aspect of the Lord's death (see note John 19:26¹). This death that imparts life released the Lord's divine life from within Him for the producing of the church, which is composed of all His believers, into whom His divine life has been imparted. This life-imparting death of the Lord's is typified by Adam's sleep, out from which Eve was produced (Gen. 2:21-23), and is signified by the death of the one grain of wheat that fell into the ground for the bringing forth of many grains (John 12:24) to make the one bread — the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). Hence, it is also the life-propagating, life-multiplying death, the generating and reproducing death.

The Lord's pierced side was prefigured by Adam's opened side, out from which Eve was produced (Gen. 2:21-23). The blood was typified by the blood of the Passover lamb (Exo. 12:7, 22; Rev. 12:11), and the water was typified by the water that flowed out of the smitten rock (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4). The blood formed a fountain for the washing away of sin (Zech. 13:1), and the water became the fountain of life (Psa. 36:9; Rev. 21:6).

It was absolutely of God's sovereignty that these things happened in such a meaningful and wonderful way. This is further proof that the Lord's death was not accidental but had been planned by God before the foundation of the world (1 Pet. 1:19-20).

In the Scripture the first mention of a bone is in Gen. 2:21-23 there it was a rib taken out of Adam for the producing and building of Eve as a match for Adam. Eve was a type of the church, which is produced and built with the Lord's resurrection life released out of Him. Hence, the bone is a symbol, a figure, of the Lord's resurrection life, which nothing can break. The Lord's side was pierced, but not one of His bones was broken. This signifies that although the Lord's physical life was terminated, His resurrection life, the very divine life, could not be hurt or damaged by anything. This is the life with which the church is produced and built; it is also the eternal life, which we have obtained by believing into Him (John 3:36).

After the Lord accomplished His redemptive and life-imparting death, His situation of suffering immediately changed into a situation of honor. Joseph, a rich man (Matt. 27:57), and Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews (John 3:1), came to take care of His burial, binding His body with myrrh and aloes and burying it in a new tomb with the rich (Isa. 53:9). In human honor of a high standard, the Lord rested on the Sabbath day (Luke 23:55-56), waiting for the time to rise from the dead.

See note John 12:3¹.