Oh, shame that men should find so much applause for Princes and none for the King of kings. But power is wanted to dash down those idols, to overcome the hosts of error; where is it to be found? The Geneva Series of Commentaries include historic commentaries on biblical books written by some of the great theologians in the history of the church. Even now to a large extent the true Christian is like a Pariah, lower than the lowest caste, in the judgment of some. And yet, though he was Lord of all he had so fully taken upon himself the form of a servant and was so perfectly made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that he cried with fainting voice, "I thirst." Universal manhood, left to itself, rejects, crucifies, and mocks the Christ of God. Nay more; he is banished from their society, as if he were a leper whose breath would be infectious whose presence would scatter plague. If we be true to our Master we shall soon lose the friendship of the world. If he was so poor that his garments were stripped from him, and he was hung up upon the tree, penniless and friendless, hungering and thirsting, will you henceforth groan and murmur because you bear the yoke of poverty and want? Ah, beloved, our Lord was so truly man that all our griefs remind us of him: the next time we are thirsty we may gaze upon him; and whenever we see a friend faint and thirsting while dying we may behold our Lord dimly, but truly, mirrored in his members. The world has in former days counted it God's service to kill the saints. Can they be compared to generous wine? Do not forget, also, that you bear this cross in partnership. I tell you, sirs, that yonder malefactor carried his cross and died on it; and you will carry your sorrows, and be damned with them, except you repent. How near akin the thirsty Saviour is to us; let us love him more and more. And said, Hail, King of the Jews!_ How they led him forth we do not know. You have, then, no true sympathy for Christ if you have not an earnest sympathy with those who would win souls for Christ. They put his own clothes upon him, because they were the perquisites of the executioner, as modern hangmen take the garments of those whom they execute, so did the four soldiers claim a right to his raiment. Let the sympathy of Christ, then, be fully believed in and deeply appreciated, since he said, "I thirst." It showed that he had laid down his life of himself. Come hither, ye lovers of Immanuel, and I will show you this great sight the King of sorrow marching to his throne of grief, the cross. Remember how Paul said, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. What if the bread be dry, what if the medicine be nauseous; yet for his thirst there was no relief but gall and vinegar, and dare we complain? The excitement of a great struggle makes men forget thirst and faintness; it is only when all is over that they come back to themselves and note the spending of their strength. He came to save, and man denied him hospitality: at the first there was no room for him at the inn, and at the last there was not one cool cup of water for him to drink; but when he thirsted they gave him vinegar to drink. The platted crown of thorns, the purple robe, the reed with which they smote him, and the spittle with which they disfigured him, all these marked the contempt in which they held the King of the Jews. Ray Stedman Others think that Simon carried the whole of the cross. It was one of Death's castles; here he stored his gloomiest trophies; he was the grim lord of that stronghold. This was the homage which the Son of God received from men; harmless and gentle, he came here with no purpose but that of doing good, and this is how mankind treated him. Jesus is therefore hunted out of the city, beyond the gate, with the will and force of his oven nation, but he journeys not against his own will; even as the lamb goeth as willingly to the shambles as to the meadow, so doth Christ cheerfully take up his cross and go without the camp. The Church must suffer, that the gospel may be spread by her means. How harshly grate the cruel syllables, "Crucify him! Will your Prince be decorated with honors? He saw its streets flowing like bloody rivers; he saw the temple naming up to heaven; he marked the walls loaded with Jewish captives crucified by command of Titus; he saw the city razed to the ground and sown with salt, and he said, "Weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your children, for the day shall come when ye shall say to the rocks, Hide us, and to the mountains, Fall upon us." O Lord Jesus, we love thee and we worship thee! There have been times, and the days may come again, when faithfulness to Christ has entailed exclusion from what is called "society." After our Lord Jesus Christ had been formally condemned by Pilate, our text tells us he was led away. Henceforth, also, let us cultivate the spirit of resignation, for we may well rejoice to carry a cross which his shoulders have borne before us. Beloved, can you say he carried your sin? A new edition of Spurgeon's classic devotional using the ESV. Then came, "Women, behold thy son!" Our sinful tongues, blistered by the fever of passion, must have burned for ever had not his tongue been tormented with thirst in our stead. Holy Scripture remains the basis of our faith, established by every word and act of our Redeemer. The high places of earth's worship and honor are not for us. See, it has been blackened with bruises, and stained with the shameful spittle of them that derided him. "I thirst," is his human body tormented by grievous pain. Fathers and confessors, preachers and divines have delighted to dwell upon every syllable of these matchless cries. IV. I wonder he has ever received them, as one marvels why he received this vinegar; and yet he has received them, and smiled upon us for presenting them. Barrabas may go free; the thief and the murderer may be spared; but for Christ there is no word, but "Away with such a fellow from the earth! This is a kind of sweet whereof if a man hath much he must have more, and when he hath more he is under a still greater necessity to receive more, and so on, his appetite for ever growing by that which it feeds upon, till he is filled with all the fulness of God. "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." John 1 19-51 Spurgeon's Bible Commentary John 1:19-51 John 1:19. Brother, thirst I pray you to have your workpeople saved. The voice of sympathy prevailed over the voice of scorn. you that are ashamed of Christ, how can you read that text, "He that is ashamed of me, and of my words, of him will I be ashamed when I come in the glory of my Father, and all my holy angels with me." (John 19:11) Jesus answered, . It seems to me very wonderful that this "I thirst" should be, as it were, the clearance of it all. The most careless eye discerns it. Whether a disciple then or not, we have every reason to believe that he became so afterwards; he was the father, we read, of Alexander and Rufus, two persons who appear to have been well known in the early Church; let us hope that salvation came to his house when he was compelled to bear the Savior's cross. Christians, will you refuse to be cross-bearers for Christ? We are to reckon upon all this, and should the worst befal us, it is to be no strange thing to us. Amen. 1. Separately or in connection our Master's words overflow with instruction to thoughtful minds: but of all save one I must say, "Of which we cannot now speak particularly." With "I thirst" the evil is destroyed and receives its expiation. Beloved, there is now upon our Master, and there always has been, a thirst after the love of his people. So numerous has the family of man now become, that there is a death every second; and when we know how very smell a proportion of the human race have even nominally received the cross and there is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved oh! Today! If not, may that picture of Christ fainting in the streets lead you to do so this morning. " And having said this, He breathed His last. We can never forget the painful scenes of which we have been witness, when we have watched the dissolving of the human frame. No, no; we must not make a cross of our own. His most fruitful years of ministry were at the New Park Street and later the Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit in London. The Church, the bride of Christ, was there conformed to the image of her Lord; she was there, I say, in Simon, bearing the cross, and in the women weeping and lamenting. By contrast, the Christian faith is built on the . Oh, wondrous substitution of the just for the unjust, of God for man, of the perfect Christ for us guilty, hell-deserving rebels. Did he not tell his disciples, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?" You may sit under a sermon, and feel a great deal, but your feeling is worthless unless it leads you to weep for yourselves and for your children. He is indeed "Immanuel, God with us" everywhere. Alas, my brethren, I cannot say much on the score of man's cruelty to our Lord without touching myself and you. _Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. Our Lord is the Maker of the ocean and the waters that are above the firmament: it is his hand that stays or opens the bottles of heaven, and sendeth rain upon the evil and upon the good. Yet his language teaches us not to worship her, for he calls her "woman," but to honor him in whom his direst agony thought of her needs and griefs, as he also thinks of all his people, for these are his mother and sister and brother. In your chamber let the gasp of your Lord as he said, "I thirst," go through your ears, and as you hear it let it touch your heart and cause you to gird up yourself and say, "Doth he say, 'I thirst'? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ. Romanists pretend to know; in fact they know the very spot where Veronica wiped the blessed face with her handkerchief, and found his likeness impressed upon it; we also know very well where that was not done; in fact they know the very spot where Jesus fainted, and if you go to Jerusalem you can see all these different places if you only carry enough credulity with you; but the fact is the city has been so razed, and burned, and ploughed, that there is little chance of distinguishing any of these positions, with the exception, it may be, of Mount Calvary, which being outside the walls may possibly still remain. Beware of rendering him homage and dishonouring his name at the same time. Every word, therefore, you see teaches us some grand fundamental doctrine of our blessed faith. See, brethren, here is a picture of what we may expect from men if we are faithful to our Master. John preached a sacrificial Saviour, a sin-bearing Saviour, a sin-atoning Saviour. Commentators like Thomas Manton and John Calvin are represented in this series. It was a confirmation of the Scripture testimony with regard to man's natural enmity to God. away with him." This is unfortunate, since his works contain priceless gems of information that are found nowhere except in the ancient writings of the Jews. There is a fulness of meaning in each utterance which no man shall be able fully to bring forth, and when combined they make up a vast deep of thought, which no human line can fathom. Our Lord in his death-cries, as in all else, was perfection itself. Fix your hearts upon some unsaved one, and thirst until he is saved. Though bitter to him in the speaking it will be sweet to us in the hearing, so sweet that all the bitterness of our trials shall be forgotten as we remember the vinegar and gall of which he drank. He also knew well the terrible joy that comes only through suffering as he lived quite afflicted (both by illness and slander). In that cry there is reconciliation to God. Beloved, if our Master said, "I thirst," do we expect every day to drink of streams from Lebanon? He ran and filled a sponge with vinegar: it was the best way he knew of putting a few drops of moisture to the lips of one who was suffering so much; but though he felt a degree of pity, it was such as one might show to a dog; he felt no reverence, but mocked as he relieved. Then the goat was led away by a fit man into the wilderness, and it carried away the sins of the people, so that if they were sought for, they could not be found. is the fourth cry, and it illustrates the penalty endured by our Substitute when he bore our sins, and so was forsaken of his God. We do not thirst after the old manner wherein we were bitterly afflicted, for he hath said, "He that drinketh of this water shall never thirst:" but now we covet a new thirst. Take up your cross daily and follow him. Believing this, let us tenderly feel how very near akin to us our Lord Jesus has become. This hint only. That is very possible; Christ may have carried the heavier end, against the transverse beam, and Simon may have borne the lighter end. Next Saturday all eyes will be fixed on a great Prince who shall ride through our streets with his Royal Bride. So then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him. Is not this a fertile field of thought? The last expiring word in which he commended his spirit to his Father, is the note of acceptance for himself and for us all. We read, "The soldiers also mocked him, offering him vinegar." God forbid! The last of his last words is also taken from the Scriptures, and shows where his mind was feeding. What knocks he for? Call to mind his complaint in the fifth chapter of Isaiah, "Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. To-day I invite your attention to another Prince, marching in another fashion through his metropolis. All nations gathered about my Lord, both great and mean men clustered around his person. John 19:1 Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. Have you repented of sin? I have heard sermons, and studied works by Romish writers upon the passion and agony, which have moved me to copious tears, but I am not clear that all the emotion was profitable. I cannot roll up into one word all the mass of sorrows which met upon the head of Christ who died for us, therefore it is impossible for me to tell you what streams, what oceans of grief must roll over your spirit if you die as you now are. Behold, my King is not without his crown alas, a crown of thorns set with ruby drops of blood! Borrowed from his lips it well suiteth my mouth. Among other things methinks he meant this "If I, the innocent substitute for sinners, suffer thus, what will be done when the sinner himself the dry tree whose sins are his own, and not merely imputed to him, shall fall into the hands of an angry God." It was a thirst such as none of us have ever known, for not yet has the death dew condensed upon our brows. My heart shall not be content till he is all in all to me, and I am altogether lost in him. The mind of man is like the daughters of the horseleech, which cry for ever, "Give, give." ", When a brother makes confession of his transgressions, when on his knees before God he humbles himself with many tears, I am sure the Lord thinks far more of the tears of repentance than he would do of the mere drops of human sympathy. Human body tormented by grievous pain them that derided him, established by every word and act of our.... All in all else, was perfection itself am altogether lost in him ancient writings of horseleech! S Bible Commentary john 1:19-51 john 1:19 I am altogether lost in him beloved, can you say he your. Human frame workpeople saved the clearance of it all behold thy son! itself, rejects crucifies. 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