John 19 – 21

Verse 19:6 shows the ultimate pressure:

Chief Priests and Officers (shouting): ⁶ Crucify, crucify!

Pilate: You take Him and crucify Him; I have declared Him not guilty of any punishable crime!

Here Pilate is trying not to kill Jesus yet all around him the Jewish leaders are trying to force him. It’s actually a sick and twisted that these people would force another to do their bidding. Where his blood is on Pilate’s hands, it is also on the leaders of the Jews trying to have him sentenced to death.

Verse 19:24 reveals some very disturbing prophecies of Jesus:

So they said, Soldier (to other soldiers): Don’t tear it. Let’s cast lots, and the winner will take the whole thing.

This happened in keeping with the Hebrew Scriptures, which said, “They divided My outer garments and cast lots for My clothes.” These soldiers did exactly what was foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures. 

When you go back to Psalm 22:19 you see this prophecy, but you look at the whole Psalm and see much of Jesus’ story written well before He walked this earth. Each section reveals Jesus’ death on the cross with verse 16 showing his pierced hands and feet. Things like this show that God inspired the scripture and had known what was going to have to be done in order to save the world.

Verse 20:7 is an interesting illustration that is missed today:

 the cloth that covered His face appeared to have been folded carefully and placed, not with the linen cloths, but to the side. 

Jesus was a carpenter in His early life. That trade was displayed on His death in this image. When a carpenter was finished with his work, he would neatly fold his cloth and lay it over the piece. In this image the burial cloth was neatly folded indicating that Jesus’ work was finished. Today we miss that since the tradition has long been lost in history and unfortunately it’s overlooked today.

Verse 21:25 is the final verse in John and makes one wonder:

There are so many other things that Jesus said and did; and if these accounts were also written down, the books could not be contained in the entire cosmos.

What other accounts were there? Are there other gospels not included in the “canonization” of the Christian Bible that give us a deeper understanding? Are there lost works that were burned in the fire a Alexandria that are lost to history? Or is this really all we need? Based on how much I personally pick up each read, I can’t imagine having even more stuff explaining God’s love for us. Rather I believe it would only be redundant and while something new may be found, it will not change that Jesus was real, He died on the cross for our sins, believing in HIM is the path to salvation with God and just accepting this with confession of one’s sins is all it takes for that E-Ticket.