The Gospel of John 19:16-30

We are in John 19, 16 through 30. We're coming to the edge of and the beginning of the crucifixion here. We pointed out in last week's study, we saw that Pilate, after many attempts to set Jesus free, finally responded to crowd pressure and sentenced Jesus to crucifixion. It wasn't by any finding that he had. The reason for Jesus getting the crucifixion sentence was not on the basis of anything that Pilate found, but simply because of crowd pressure.

The Roman law allowed people to, the judges, governors and what not, to take the temperature of the crowd and so that was permitted and that's what he finally kind of threw himself to. When the threat came that Pilate might be in trouble for not standing by the Caesar, by Rome, and that ultimately was the thing that pressed him. He was in increasing fear as this process went on, and that ultimately put him over the top. I might lose my governorship and even be killed because someone who was an alternate king to Rome was let go by me. And so with that threat, he became not just afraid, not just more afraid, but very afraid.

OK, we will address what John's Gospel records with some reference to the other three Gospels today and next Sunday. We are at the end of the seven trials as outlined in the previous two weeks. What we're going to do is look at specifically what does John say about the crucifixion, and then we'll kind of open it wide open to John and the other Gospels and look at the full picture of the crucifixion next week.

To clarify the pronouns, he handed him over to them. Pilate pronounced sentence of crucifixion which the soldiers would carry out. The Jewish leaders got their wish. The plan initiated by Caiaphas had succeeded. Jesus was going to be crucified just as he had told the twelve disciples would happen. So here is Matthew 20, 17-19, As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way he said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him. On the third day he will be raised up. So that's what he told them is recorded in Matthew 20 here.

Let's take a look at some of these slides, just because that will give us some good perspective. Friday is the traditional day of the crucifixion and burial, and I think examining that stands up under examination and scrutiny. Here we have the Hasmonean Palace, where it is most likely that this trial in front of Pilate took place. And here is the traditional Golgotha here in this location. This map shows another possible Golgotha. I think the evidence stands pretty strongly in favor of that traditional location being the correct one. Here is an aerial view of the Temple Mountain vicinity and that traditional location as shown in here.

So what was at the time outside the city gate is now very heavily developed. One of the other problems you come to with biblical sites, some reason these crazy people have this inclination, if it was a biblical site, you'd build a church on it. I have no idea why that makes any sense at all. To me, you leave it untouched, but they would build a church on it. Here is Layne Rittmeyer's drawing of the temple site. This is the back side of the temple. The Hasmonean Palace would be off to the right, right here. And here would be the wall at the time.

And then there would be, this would be a quarry, a place where they would get rock for a lot of the construction around the temple site. Some of those stones were as much as 50 tons. around the temple site, so you can imagine, you don't want to get a quarry that's far away. 50 tons, you don't want one that's far away. Golgotha, the place where the crosses would be located, was a place of poor quality stone, so you'd just leave it rather than try to draw stones off of it, and use it for a crucifixion site.

Off to the side here were some tombs, and that may well be the location of the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Because it's a quarry site, fairly recently used, the tomb would be a fresh tomb, which is what the Bible describes, right nearby, and it wouldn't be some major project to take Jesus' body from here over to here.

Right? Yeah. So were there any roads close to there? Because usually they did crucifixion next to roads, right? So people could see. Yeah, what you see is roadways right off here, just in front. Okay. So there would be that. There was a kind of a bridge crossing right in here. Okay.

So it'd be, if you're going up into the temple, you would see here, if you're going along the roadway that goes along here, Right in front of what you see as Golgotha, you'd see it there. So you'd have multiple possibilities for people seeing the crucifixion site. This is Dr. William Rittmeyer. He's, I would say, the foremost expert and authority on the Temple Mount and vicinity. He's the one who's put together this drawing. This would be a dramatic depiction.

A couple of things I would comment about this, and we're going to look at this. What they typically would do is not have them carry the entire cross, but the cross piece, the petibulum. So that part of it would be something I would say is not likely the correct depiction. The other thing is the helmets that they have them with here are not likely correct either, quite correct. This would be a dramatic presentation of Jesus carrying the patibulum, which is the crosspiece, and more likely what would take place. As we hear Roman authors particularly describing what would happen, they would carry this patibulum, the crosspiece, to the site and not the entire cross. The vertical piece was, by the time you put that on the top of the cross, it was just overwhelmingly heavy. This would be another depiction.

Some of the comments I would have is, This, they show the nails going in the middle of the palm, that's not going to work. The tension, by the time you have arms out like this in workouts for trigonometry, you're looking at hundreds and hundreds of pounds of tension on each hand. And what you'd have is the flesh would tear out. That just wouldn't work. So you're looking more at the wrist. at the base of the hand is the likely location, not this. So at any rate, that would be just one comment I would have. The other thing is that Jesus' body is too clean and whole-looking in this picture. But nonetheless, let's go back to the handout here, top of page two.

So crucifixion was an exceedingly painful, horrific, and shameful way to die. It was reserved for the worst of criminals, slaves, prisoners of war, and revolutionaries. It was like a billboard that everyone could see that said, don't mess with Rome. It's like, in those days they didn't have billboards, right? But what would you have? Here's this crucifixion. What happened to that guy? Oh, he was da-da-da-da-da. Oh boy, I don't want to end up like that. Don't mess with Rome. But Jesus was not headed to crucifixion just so that he could feel the pain and the shame. Jesus had multiple spiritual purposes for going to the cross.

Motivated from the past by love, Galatians 2.20, Ephesians 5.2 and 25. He loved and he gave, he loved and he gave, he loved and he gave. Those same words and that sequence is in those three passages.

We can add to that John 3.16, only it says God loved and gave. and motivated from the future by anticipating the joy, this is Hebrews 12.2, for the joy set before him.

So John 19, 17 and 18, they took Jesus therefore and he went out bearing his own cross, and I would say that that means his petibulum, his cross piece, to the place called the place of the skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. And so the Latin is anglicized as Calvary. So, there they crucified him and with him two other men, one on either side and Jesus in between. John's account minimizes the details about the time just before Jesus' crucifixion, which are conveyed in other Gospels. And one of the things we found in here, early Pilate had Jesus flogged.

But that was the light flogging. See, they had two levels of flogging. One was a light flogging that was just sort of, you know, an interrogation technique. And it was with a flagrum and you had kind of lead pellets that you were whipping them with. And it was fairly short.

It was traditional to have, before being crucified, a heavy flogging. In fact, some didn't survive the heavy flogging. For some, that just killed them right there. You didn't have to go crucify them because they didn't survive the flogging. There was, in either case, for the light flogging or the heavy flogging, no legal limit on how much you could shame or abuse the one being flogged. The soldiers were free to do anything they liked.

So, John doesn't detail Jesus collapsing, the carrying of the crosspiece, the petibulum by Simon and Cyrene. Those are not detailed in the Gospel of John, but we'll look at that next week as we kind of look at a broader view of the crucifixion. The typical portion of the cross that the criminal would carry was just the crossbar, and that's what we call the patibulum here, rather than the entire cross, as is often shown in artistic and dramatic presentations. The most likely location for Jesus' crucifixion is the traditional location, which shows that in the drawing here, shown on the map on the previous page. That would be the location of a mound of lower quality rock in an ancient quarry. John's Gospel states that there are two other men who were crucified on either side of Jesus, but how they behaved and what they said to Jesus and what he said to them is recorded in the other Gospels. Welcome home.

So, John 19, 19-22, Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews. Therefore, many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, but that he said, I am the king of the Jews.

Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written. I'm not changing that. Some things to point out there. It's most likely that Pilate did not personally write the inscription. In other words, what he would do is write down an order. So he says, what I have written, I have written. Not the inscription, but he writes down an order. You put this sign above his head and it contains this. And why would they have it in three languages? Why in three languages? Why not just write it in one?

Yeah, people from many places. Jerusalem was a place that would draw people from a lot of different locations. And everyone. Any other reasons you can think of? Yeah. Well, it's Passover, so there's a lot of people coming to. Yeah. Remember at the Day of Pentecost, have you ever seen a map of all the different locations that people came from? So people coming from way far away. Day of Pentecost, I plotted those locations out that they list, and you're talking over near Babylon and Persia, all the way up to Rome and North Africa and different places. So people from a lot of different backgrounds and places.

And why would it be important that you want to put three different languages up there? What would be the purpose for having three different languages up there? This was a problem that could be a lot of aggressive, maybe, but to be sure, nobody crossed the line. Yeah, and remember we said that crucifixion was like a billboard that said, don't mess with Rome. And by putting different languages up there, you got the message across as far and as wide as you could.

And let's think about this. Here are the Jews after we have no king but Caesar, right? Which is bogus. So we have no king but Caesar and now they're coming up with, well, you need to change it so that it says he said, you know, he was king of the Jews. And so what would be Pilate's purpose in saying, nah, I want it to say what it says?

What would be his purpose in doing that? Yeah, you see, this is a jab back. You know, you guys made me crucify this guy. Yeah, I did it, but I've got the power to jab back at you, and this is what I'm doing. And the other thing, too, is to keep the Jews suppressed.

You guys want a king of the Jews? This is what happens to the king of the Jews. So in part it was his way of communicating far and wide with three different languages, far and wide. You want somebody to try to be king of the Jews? This is going to cost you and it's not going to look good. Anybody tries to be king of the Jews or tries to upset Rome, far and wide the message would go, this is what happens to somebody who tries to stand against Rome. One of the other things we look at here in this passage, Here is the King of the Jews.

Was there some validity to what Pilate put on that sign? Yes, but Christ was there on the cross intentionally. He went there on purpose, not by saying, no, no, you guys have it all wrong. He went there on purpose to the cross. His first coming. As the king of the Jews, that applies to his second coming. So there is truth in it, but both the Jews and Rome got the timing wrong.

So at the bottom of page 2, John 19, 23-25, Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his outer garments, and made four parts, a part for every soldier, and also the tunic. And now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture. They divided my outer garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

Therefore the soldiers did these things." So the soldiers that are on execution duty, gambling for clothes and miscellaneous articles was common. You think of it, the soldiers, they're famous for the lowest level, not being paid all that well. A Roman soldier was paid the same as kind of a day laborer on a farm. So not paid all that well.

So they were looking for all kinds of different economic advantage, and one of the ways they could do that is to get the clothing and various articles off the people they had crucified. That wasn't the only thing that they did to try to add extra income. But that was one of the things they'd get. They'd get articles like this and either keep it for their family or sell it or something. But they would get articles like that, so that was pretty common. Now, but it fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. In fact, we'll just make quick reference to it. Psalm 22, 18 is where that is prophesied. The whole chapter Psalm 22 is a psalm that describes the crucifixion a thousand years earlier. So here's John 19, 26 and 27.

But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. And if you didn't have any Marys, there would be nobody there at all, right? So when Jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, women behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. From a statistical study of the ossuary boxes, these are the stone boxes about 20 inches long, about 20% of the women in Israel were named Mary.

And so we have... Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. They would have two sisters named Mary. And it would be, you know, Mary's this and Mary's that. They'd add some extra name to differentiate between the two. But yeah, you'd actually have two sisters named Mary.

It's kind of like George Foreman named all his sons George. So, yeah, isn't that strange? But that was fairly common. And the other thing is they had various traditions about how you pick out a name. And that was one of the reasons for picking out, you know, a name, even though it was a reproduction of some sibling's name. So, yeah, that was, strangely enough, fairly common.

Do you think that, I mean, what was that? Was that in relation to most distinctly Marion? We say Mary, but the reality is there were variations on the name, but ultimately it comes back to Mary. Think of the Jewish names. They had a tradition about how you name people. Think about John the Baptist, and people were surprised at how he was named. Why? It wasn't according to the traditions. Not that there's anything wrong with the name John, but it just wasn't according to tradition, so people were, you know, surprised. So, in fact, you have somebody name this or not name that, there's heavy tradition involved in how you name the child, not the latitude that we have today. So here are the three Marys, verse 26, when Jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby. And who's that? It is John. This is how John refers to himself. John not once refers to himself as John. He said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own household.

As we'll see next week, this is one of a number of conversations that took place. Just a quick outline, from 9 a.m. until noon, Jesus spent a lot of that time interacting with people and even talking to the others who were crucified next to him. So 9 to noon was talking to other people, including what we see described here in the Gospel of John.

Making the assignment. Mary, that's your son. John, that's your mother. Also, he has the insight into why John had so much knowledge. intimate knowledge about like the wedding at Canaan and other things that were going on because he could have gotten that from Mary. Yeah. And 1st John, 3rd John talking about the woman in the church. There's a lot of references. Yeah, think about it. John was one who recorded things having, I'm sure up to this point he spent some time with Mary, but from that point forward being able to talk to Mary about these things.

Mary herself is only named for the last time in Acts chapter 1, and is made reference to Jesus' brothers. So Mary does not, contrary to the Catholic Church prominence, Mary does not continue to be a prominent person named or involved in any way past Acts chapter 1. The closest reference we have, you know, born of woman, you know, is what is stated there. And we would disagree with the Catholic Church's stance that Revelation chapter 12, the woman is not Mary. The woman is Israel. But nonetheless. So here is Mary. She is being assigned, okay. Here is John. and John is to take care of her. Let's ask this question. How many brothers does Jesus have? We studied that back in January, so I don't expect you to remember that. Four brothers. How come none of them got that assignment? We saw earlier in the Gospel of John none of them at this point believed.

They were actually trying to get him killed so it didn't make any sense and there's no evidence that they were even there at the cross. So Jesus made this assignment while he was still on this side of death. He made this assignment to John who was there. And unlike Jesus' brothers, who were all antagonistic to the point of, hey, we'd really rather you were dead. Mary is the one who gets assigned to John and not Mary to the others. Now, from any record we have, Jesus also had sisters, plural, and later records record a couple of names for them, but the assignment for taking care of Mary is now John's. That becomes his task.

Okay, so, oh, one other thing we want to outline. What Jesus did from 9 to noon was to interact with people, including those who were on the crosses next to him. He interacted with people from 9 to noon. From noon to 3 he was silent until the very end. And what we find is the Gospel of John records one interaction out of those multiple interactions, and that interaction is assigning John to take care of Mary, and making that clear to Mary and John that that's what he was doing.

So if John takes that one, why would John record that one? Because it's him, right? It's him. He's the guy. So he remembers that very clearly, being assigned by Jesus with that duty. In the afternoon portion, from noon to three, not everything is recorded. We'll take a look at that next week. But what he records is significant. And he records some things that are not recorded in the other Gospels. Let's take a look at John 19, 28-30.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the scripture, said, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to his mouth. Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. We're going to take a brief look at what Jesus accomplished, because he accomplished more than just dying for our sins. But he said, I am thirsty. That's from Psalm 69, 21, as is the sour wine, also in Psalm 69, 21.

The word translated, it is finished, is actually one word, to telestai. So Jesus said, to telestai, just that one word. It's an accounting term, and it means paid. Interesting, here he is, with some of the last words, and what does he do? He says an accounting term. But it means it's all paid. It's paid. It's in the perfect tense, which means it's a completed past action with ongoing results in the future implying permanence.

Jesus paid it all permanently. One of the things we're going to see as we continue through the book of Hebrews is that there's a repeated statement from chapter 7 to chapter 10 of He paid it once for all. Once for all. And there's use of the perfect tense like this, and there's use also of another word, happiness. Once done, perpetually valid. It's a way of stating in a word the perfect tense. But Jesus, he paid it all, he pronounced it all paid. Let's take a look at the top of page 4. It says that all things had already been accomplished. Now notice, it isn't just he accomplished one thing, he accomplished multiple things.

And I think one of the deficiencies among Christians in general, is that they don't understand all the things that were accomplished. You go around to various Christians and you ask them, what was accomplished on the cross? And it's a rare believer that will go, oh he did this and this and this and this and this and this. Typically, you're doing pretty good if they'll say, well, he died for my sins or the sins of the whole world or something like that.

The reality is that he accomplished a great deal. Let's take a look at, I have the first slide, at a minimum, there are at least six things that happened on the cross as Jesus was crucified. and died that day in addition to the things said to the other people that day. So in the morning, things said to other people. The accomplishments were in addition to that.

One, Jesus died in our place. He died for our sins. He died in our place. And interestingly enough, the first mention, and this is somewhat debated, but I'd say in terms of anything really clear, It was not until a thousand years after the New Testament was finished, around the year 1100, when Anselm stated that Christ died in our place. The early church fathers, from any record we have, and we have lots of record, the early church fathers didn't get it that Jesus died in our place. They didn't understand that. So that's point one.

The next one, Christ's death made the devil powerless. That's something we've seen in the book of Hebrews. Because Christ's death took power away from the devil. What kind of power did that take away from him? The power of death, right? And Jesus says in Revelation, I have the keys of death and Hades. And death, 1 Corinthians 15, is the last enemy defeated. What does it mean that the devil had power over death?

Here's the thing, the devil had the power of death over people. as a threat, either to put people in fear, on the one hand, or the other thing is also just to kind of, you know, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die and this is all you got. You think of it, somebody who is an atheist or an agnostic is in a position where, you know, death is the end and that cuts it off.

Well, is that the end? No, and that's the problem. You know, even what happens with a lot of these shootings, what you find is some people shoot up a whole bunch of people and then shoot themselves. As if that's the end, right? Oh no, your troubles have just begun, right?

And so there's a mindset among many in our culture that, hey, I can go and blow away a bunch of people and shoot myself and it's all over. Oh no, you just started it. And so that mindset is from a distorted worldview that's quite wrong, quite wrong. One of the difficulties we have in our culture is that mindset where, hey, I'm just a well-evolved ape and I put a bullet in my head and I'm done. So I can do whatever mayhem and nonsense and put a bullet in my head and it's all over. No, it's not all over. You just began your problems and it's unfixable.

So the top one where it says that he died for our sins, now does that mean that he identified himself with us, with all people, and thus opening the door for us to identify with him? Think of this, what did John the Baptist say twice is recorded in the first chapter of John. He takes away the sin of the world, and people often misunderstand that, where He just kind of takes it all away. The word actually means lift up. He lifts the sins of the entire world and puts them, and this is the other part, we'll see this in Hebrews, He puts those sins on Himself, voluntarily. So John 1 is that He takes them off of us, and then Later on in Hebrews, we'll see he puts them on himself. And so he lifts them off of us, puts them on himself.

The price for all sin is completely paid. But let's ask this question. Because the price for all sin is completely paid, does that mean everybody is going to heaven? No, it doesn't. And we say the price is paid, but people have to take advantage of the payment. We used the example last week where let's say each person owes four trillion dollars and we're all in a prison cell together until we pay the four trillion dollars. Of course it's hopeless, right? Nobody can pull that off.

And so it's as if somebody comes in with a bunch of checks and there's a check for each person and This person who is handing out the check says the money is in the account. The money is in the account. All you have to do to get out of this prison cell is to turn that check over, sign it, turn it in at the door and walk free. So the price is paid, the money is in the account. But it only gets applied, you're only forgiven of those sins as you turn that check over and turn it in at the door and walk free. So all the sins are paid for, what Jesus said was correct. It's all paid. The money is in the account for every person on the planet. The payment's been made. You just have to turn the check over and sign it and turn it at the door and walk out. That's it. Do you believe it? Or do you take the check and just drop it on the floor? Do you rip it up before you drop it on the floor? Do you just stick it in your pocket and say, I'll think about it? See, that's the position that people are in. The money's in the account. It's all paid. But only those who believe it, the equivalent of turning the check over, signing it, turning it at the door and walking out. It's only those who believe who have that payment apply. Because otherwise, what is refusal of that payment?

It's saying, you know, Jesus paid it all, but I'd really rather do it myself. I'd rather make the payment myself. And, you know, Jesus made the payment in a matter of hours for all of us. because they have the capacity and the character to do so. But if a person denies that payment, which took a few hours, then they've got to spend forever paying for it themselves.

Not so much that they're going to do it themselves, but the fact that they don't believe the promise that God made in the offering of the blood sacrifice. That's right. It's ultimately, do I believe that God made the payment or not. And so because they don't believe, in the case of those who don't, they don't take advantage of the payment, although it's all paid, the money's in the account, they don't believe it and therefore they're volunteering to pay for it themselves.

So the same thing would have happened in the Mosaic law, that the Jews who didn't bring a Passover lamb to Passover every year, then they were saying the same thing, that they didn't comply with the law, they didn't believe in God's promise that if they bring a Passover lamb, then on the day of atonement, their previous sins are forgiven. But of course their first bad thought, they start the next year off where they have to pay the next year. But if they don't bring the lamb, then they're doing the same thing. In their case it's unbelief, right?

The problem with the believers, Hebrews is written to. We're studying the main service. The problem they're having is that they don't believe that Christ's last and final payment. We saw here, it is finished. They're not believing it is finished. We've got to go back and do the sacrifices some more. Why? Because we don't believe it is finished. Let's look at the rest here.

The next one, Christ's death confirmed Israel's new covenant. What would happen with an Old Testament covenant is that there would be a promise made, there would be then some kind of a swearing by, and what we see in the book of Genesis is God swears by himself, and then thirdly there would be some kind of a sign or gesture, often a sacrifice that would go along with the covenant. Jesus' death was the sacrifice confirming Israel's new covenant. Which is Jeremiah 31. There are 11 passages in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah that talk about Israel's new covenant. It's almost a dozen passages that talk about Israel's new covenant.

And to summarize quickly, it's that the law is written on their hearts. They have the universal and continuing dwelling of the Holy Spirit to know and live out the law. We have the universal and continuing in the church indwelling of the Holy Spirit to live life apart from the law. So the universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit is carried out in an entirely different way.

The next one we have there, Christ paid the bride price for us. And one of the things we notice on the next slide is the same six items, but we say who it applies to. The first two are every person who, you know, on the planet for all time, every person who believes in Israel. This one begins three things that are specifically for the church.

Christ paid the bride price for us. And this is revealed in Ephesians chapter 5. This is the sacrificial love that he expressed for us. This is why Christ and the Church is the example for the husband and wife. Because Christ paid the bride price for us, the Church. We are the bride. The next one, Christ paid the price of a slave or a flock. That also being for the church. And the last one, we were identified with his crucifixion and with his death. And that also is specifically for us in the church.

Now, we were baptized into Christ. Was Israel baptized into Christ? Israel, and this is 1 Corinthians 10-2, Israel is baptized into Moses. We were baptized into Christ, Israel was baptized into Moses. Why do we say baptized and use it two different ways? What does baptized mean?

Placed into and identified with. And of course there are consequences to each of these things. our identification with Christ, but what did we get separated from when we were joined to Christ in his crucifixion? What did we get separated from? The sin nature. That's one, there's three. What's the next one? The world. And that's Galatians chapter 6. the world, and one more, the law. So we were joined to Christ to be separated from the law.

That's Romans chapter 7, 4-6 and Galatians 2.19.

So when you talk about Christ's accomplishments, We're talking about multiple accomplishments, and it's interesting, this is something you talk to other Christians, sometimes it can be difficult talking to Christians from other backgrounds and whatnot, but this is a good starting place if there's an openness to discuss it with them.

Ask them what was accomplished on the cross. What was accomplished on the cross? And see what they say. It's very interesting. I would recommend you not press it too hard, because a lot of times it will puzzle that. It's a rare Christian believer who will understand all these things. But it is a place of beginning a discussion. If you've got believers, say, from other backgrounds, this is a way to ask, what happened on the cross? Because you'll notice this All things had already been accomplished. This is the all things. The accomplishments that took place on the cross.

What's the passage for the sin nature, dying to the sin nature? Dying to sin, the sin nature is Romans chapter 6. And it's definite article THE sin. And that's why when we went through Romans 6 I did an expanded and explained because typically what will happen, our translations will simply say sin. And they'll draw about the fact that there's a definite article before sin.

And it's not just sin, as you go through from Romans 5.12 into chapter 8. The sin does something. It accomplishes things. Including tricking you, Romans chapter 7. Fooling you. Tricking you. Chapter 6, it uses our bodies as a military instrument, as Christians.

The sin nature, Romans 6.23, pays a wage. Death. If you want death, you've got to work for it.

Romans 6.23. If you want death, you've got to work for it, as a Christian. But if you want life, that's free. That's free. Completely free.

Go ahead and close our time for prayer. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the things you've revealed. As we've looked at the passage, most of what we see here in John is simply historical. What we looked at just at the last, and we'll look at it some more, is not just history, but what happened. What's the significance of what took place? And we thank you, Lord, for You're working. We thank you for your Holy Spirit who brings to light these truths and the significance of what took place. We thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.