The Crucifixion
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him, and with him two others – one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read the sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” John 19:16b-22
Jesus’ trial would have formally concluded with Pilate pronouncing the formula ‘Ibis ad crucem,’ “You will go to the cross.” He would then be given over to the execution squad of four Roman soldiers. The condemned man was forced to carry, not the whole cross, but the horizontal crossbeam (patibulum). The upright posts were probably permanently in place at the execution site just outside the city wall. As Jesus sets off, carrying the wooden beam on this final journey, we are seeing a re-enactment of the scene on Mount Moriah (the mount Jerusalem itself sat on) when another son carried the wood for an altar on which he was to be tied as the sacrificial victim (Genesis 22:6) two thousand years earlier.
Jesus carried the cross at least as far as the gate of the city where the Synoptic gospels tell us Simon of Cyrene, who was coming into the city at that time, was forced to carry it for him (Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). This gave rise to the tradition that Jesus collapsed under the weight of the cross because of weakness and loss of blood through the earlier flogging. The execution party made its way to ‘the place of the Skull,’ probably a small hill at the entrance to the city. ‘Here they crucified him.’
The victim was laid out on the crosspiece and iron nails driven through the top of the wrists. The crosspiece was then raised on a ladder or pulley and nailed or tied to the upright, and the feet, placed one over the other, were nailed below. The victim was then left to die. It could take days. Death was finally from suffocation as the victim could no longer lift himself to get breath because of the massive pain from the nail-pierced feet.
‘Here they crucified him, and with him two others – one on each side and Jesus in the middle.’ John says no more about the two others. The Synoptic gospels describe them as robbers/criminals (Matthew 27:38; Mark 15:27; Luke 25:32) being justly executed for their crimes (Luke 23:39-41).
‘Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS … and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.’ Pilate felt forced, under the implied threat from the chief priests that they would report him to the Emperor, to condemn a man he felt was innocent of any capital offence. He seems to have included the words ‘THE KING OF THE JEWS’ to show his disdain for everything these leaders had done to have Jesus put to death. And to make sure the sign was seen and read by as many people as possible Pilate had it carefully placed at a prominent point where those entering or leaving the city could see it, and he had it written in the three principal languages of the day – Aramaic, Latin (the Roman language) and Greek.
‘The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”’ The title incensed the Jewish leaders but the vacillating Pilate is this time immovable. The chief priests had rejected Jesus as any kind of king, declaring “We have no king but Caesar” (19:15). Pilate knew he had compromised enough and this time met their protests with a firm “What I have written, I have written.”
John draws special attention to the sign. It announces to the world in the main languages of the day that Jesus is Israel’s Messiah. This is what God had said would happen. The world doesn’t yet know that what it needs to rescue it from its desperate plight is the Messiah promised by the one true God to Israel. John wants the world to know that its Saviour has come; the Messiah has died that all who place their faith in that Messiah will live and live forever.
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