Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Nineteen

                                                                                                                                              Verses 25-27

Jesus' mother, and two other women disciples, stood by and watched Jesus' crucifixion. They had to have been devastated with grief. God must have brought the Apostle John back from wherever he had gone to stand with them and comfort them.

When the scriptures relate that Jesus loved John, it does not mean that He loved John more than His other disciples. It means that John was a very special disciple to Jesus. John seemed to understand the deep, spiritual meaning of Jesus' mission much better than did the other disciples. The gospel of John demonstrates this fact. John also seemed to have much more compassion than did the other disciples.

Jesus, being a perfect son, made sure that He took care of His mother before His death. He also knew that He would have to leave this world and go home to Heaven. So He committed the care of His mother to the Apostle John. Jesus knew the great love and compassion that John had in his heart. Jesus knew that John would take great care of His mother until she died.

                                                                                                                                              Verses 28-30

As death approached, Jesus knew that He had accomplished His part for the salvation of humanity. Jesus had every confidence that His Spirit and His Father would accomplish the rest of His mission by the descent of His Spirit into Hell, and His Spirit's immaculate resurrection from the regions of death to reanimate His perfect body so that He could rise from the dead victorious over the Devil and all evil. Jesus also knew that His Father's Almighty Power would give Him and His Spirit the strength necessary to accomplish the complete salvation of the entire human race. John 5:24; John 5:28-29; Matthew 13:36-43; Luke 3:6; John 11:25-26; I Corinthians 15:20-22; Colossians 1:15-23; Hebrews 2:9-17; I Timothy 4:10.

As death approached, Jesus told the soldiers, "I thirst." Jesus had told the woman at the well that He could forever slake her spiritual thirst by giving her spiritual water by which He meant that He would give her His Holy Spirit. John 4:13-14. Jesus' terrible physical thirst demonstrated the fact that He was ready to give up His Spirit to the care of His Father and suffer physical death. Luke 23:46. Jesus' Father and His Spirit also suffered for man's salvation. The Holy Spirit had to suffer a descent into a putrid Hell, and Jesus' Father suffered agony and grief over the terrible suffering of His Son. Matthew 27:46; Acts 2:22-31. God suffered for the salvation of the entire human race through the suffering, death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God. God did this as One Being. God is Holy, Holy, Holy. Isaiah 6:3.

When the soldiers first nailed Jesus to the cross, they gave Him vinegar mixed with gall to drink, but Jesus did not receive it. Matthew 27:33-34. The vinegar would only make Jesus more thirsty. The Devil had the soldiers do this for two reasons. The gall was an anesthetic. It was meant to dull Jesus' pain and suffering. The Devil thought that if Jesus drank the gall, then He would not be able to completely suffer for the sins and evil of the entire human race, and the Devil would make Jesus fail in His mission. The Devil also had the soldiers offer vinegar to Jesus to increase His thirst so that He would have to give up His Spirit before He completed His suffering for all the sins and evil of all mankind, and thereby, the Devil would cause Jesus to fail.

But when Jesus had completed His suffering for the sins and evil of all mankind, He received the vinegar to make Himself absolutely thirsty, and thereby, He would be ready to give up His Spirit to alleviate His terrible, spiritual thirst for His Spirit and to alleviate His physical thirst by His physical death. When Jesus said, "It is finished," He knew that He had successfully fulfilled His part in the salvation of humanity, and He had complete faith that His Father and His Spirit would be able to complete His mission by raising Him from the dead. God is eternal. God is both moving and at rest at the same time. Revelation 22:13. Christ is "the beginning," which means He is moving into His creation and salvation. Christ is also "the end," which means He has completed His creation and salvation and is at rest. No human can understand this truth.