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Joh_19:34. The soldiers, when they saw, etc. The death of Jesus, in keeping with their attitude of indifference in the matter, had therefore been unobserved by them (in answer to Hengstenberg); they now omitted the leg-breaking in His case, as aimless in the case of one already dead. But one pierced Him with a lance in the side. Wherefore? Not in order to ascertain whether He was actually dead; for, according to the context, the thrust took the place of breaking the legs. Hence it must be assumed, according to the analogy of the latter, that the object of the thrust was to make quite sure of the death of Jesus, i.e. in case He should not yet be altogether dead, to put Him completely to death.
αὐτοῦ τ . πλευράν ] His side. Which? is not clear; but the left, if he who dealt the thrust stood before the cross, was most naturally at hand.
ἔνυξε ] Neither the word itself (since νύσσειν ordinarily denotes violent thrusting or stabbing; especially frequent in Homer, see Duncan, ed. Rost, p. 796), nor the person of the rude soldier, nor the weapon (lance, belonging to the heavy armour, Eph_6:11), nor the purpose of the thrust, nor the palpable nature of the opening of the wound, to be assumed, according to Joh_20:27, nor ἐξεκέντησαν , Joh_19:37, admit the interpretation, which is implied in the interest of an apparent death, of a superficial scratch (Paulus).
αἷμα κ . ὕδωρ ] is, considering the difference and significance of the two substances, certainly not to be taken as a hendiadys (“a reddish lymph,” Paulus[251]). Whether the blood and water issued forth contemporaneously or after one another, does not appear from the words. In the natural[252] mode of regarding this twofold issue, it is thought either (1) that Jesus was not yet dead, but simply died in consequence of the thrust, which pierced the pericardium with its watery lymph, and at the same time the chamber of the heart, from which the blood welled (so the two physicians Gruner in the Commentat. de Jesu Chr. morte vera non simulata, etc., Halle 1805), to which, however, the mode of contemplation of the entire apostolical church is opposed, which was certain, and had the personal testimonies of Christ Himself to the fact that in His crucifixion itself the putting to death was accomplished. Or (2) it is assumed that the blood had been decomposed in the corpse (Hase, Krabbe, and several others), so that serum, bloody water, and placenta, clots of blood, separately issued forth; which separate outflow, however, of the constituent parts of blood cannot, in the case of a fresh body that had been healthy, be anatomically established. Or (3) the heart is considered, just as the Gruners suppose, as having been pierced through, though the death of Jesus is assumed to have already previously taken place (Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Wetstein, and several others), as also Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 584 (the death of Jesus was a sudden breaking of the heart), holds to be most probable. Not substantially different is the view of the English physician William Stroud, A Treatise on the physical cause of the death of Christ, London 1847, comp. Tholuck, who, besides the cavity of the heart, brings into consideration also the two bags of the diaphragm, with the fact of their fluidity in corpses. This mode of regarding the matter renders unnecessary the entirely arbitrary theory of Ebrard, p. 563 ff., of extravasations and sugillations which the thrust occasioned,[253] and would be quite satisfactory if John had desired to give an account generally of a natural, physiological effect of the lance-thrust. But irrespective of the fact that he adduces nothing which would allow us to think in ὕδωρ not of actual water, but of lymph ( ἰχώρ ), he desires to set forth the phenomenon manifestly as something entirely unexpected (note also the εὐθύς ), extraordinary, marvellous. Only thus is his solemn asseveration in Joh_19:35, and the power of conviction for the Messiahship of Jesus, which he finds in the truth of the ἐξῆλθεν , κ . τ . λ ., to be comprehended. To him it was not a subsidiary circumstance (Ebrard, comp. Lücke on Joh_19:35, and Baeumlein), which convinced the soldier who gave the thrust of the death of the Crucified One, but a miraculous σημεῖον , which further set forth that the corpse was that of the divine Messiah ( τρανῶς διδάσκον , ὅτι ὑπὲρ ἄνθρωπον ὁ νυγείς , Euth. Zigabenus), of whose specific calling and work, blood and water are the speaking symbols, in so far, that is, as He has by blood brought the redemptive work to completion, and by means of water (i.e. by means of the birth from above, which takes place through baptism, Joh_3:5) has appropriated it; a significance which Tholuck also esteems probable in the sense of the Gospel. Comp. also Steinmeyer, who, however, ascribes to the water only the subordinate purpose, to place the blood under the point of view of the definite (purifying) operation. Luther: “our redemption is concealed in the miraculous work.” Comp. 1Jn_5:6, where, however, τὸ ὕδωρ , agreeably to the standard of the historical point of view ( ἐλθών ), stands first. See also Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 255. We must abide by this exegetical conclusion[254] (comp. Hengstenberg on Joh_19:37), and must renounce the demonstration of natural connection not less than in other miraculous appearances of the evangelical history.[255] The figurative interpretation or explaining away of the fact itself (Baur, p. 217 ff.: by reference to Joh_7:38-39 : it is the representation, contemplated by the writer in a spiritual manner, of the idea that with the death of Jesus there immediately begins the fulness of spiritual life, which was to proceed from Him on behalf of the world) is only possible on the assumption that neither John nor He gave an historical account, as further Baur (see p. 272 ff.), whom Scholten follows, refers the entire narrative of the omission to break the legs, and of the side-thrust, simply to the dogmatic interest of representing Jesus as the true Paschal lamb, and thereby the turning-point at which the O. T. economy of religion ceased to exist, and the new began, the essence of which is contemplated in the blood and water that flowed out. See in opposition to Baur: Grimm in the Stud. u. Krit. 1847, p. 181 ff., and 1849, p. 285 ff.
[251] To this conclusion Hofmann also (Weissag. u. Erfüll. II. p. 148 f.) again involuntarily returned, understanding undecomposed, still flowing blood, as a sign that the body of Jesus was exempt from corruption. See, in opposition, also Luthardt. But Hofmann, in his Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 490, has renounced the above interpretation, and now has represented the matter thus: the bleeding away of the dead one had been so complete, that at last not blood, but water flowed, and this was to the apostle a proof that Jesus’ corpse remained exempt from corruption, which begins with the decomposition of the blood. Comp. also Baumgarten, p. 423 f., and Godet. But so physiological an observation and conclusion is not to be adopted without some more precise indication; and of the complete bleeding away on which, finally, water flowed, the text says nothing, but speaks simply and solely of blood and water, which issued forth.
[252] In a natural way, but in a higher sense, Lange, II. p. 1614 f., explains the phenomenon from the process of change through which the body of Christ was passing. A precarious expedient, in which not only is the possibility of a clear representation wanting, but also the essential and necessary point of the reality of the death, as of the condition of separation from the body, is endangered, and instead of the death, the beginning of another modality of corporeal life is conceived; while, generally also, the process of this assumed change must have been passed through in a very material way. Besides, the body of the Risen One had not yet been transformed (He still eats, still drinks, etc.), though altered and become more spiritual, but the transformation first begins at the ascension (comp. 1Co_15:51-53). A possible preparation for this transformation from the moment of death onwards is beyond the scope of any more exact representation, and very precipitate is the conclusion that this preparation must also have announced itself by some sign in the wounded body.
[253] They originated, he thinks, through the distension of the muscles, and from them the water issued; but in penetrating deeper the lance also touched places of fluid blood.—But in this way not αἷμα καὶ ὕδωρ , but ὕδωρ καὶ αἷμα would have issued forth.
[254] Fathers and artists have decked it out in monstrous colours, e.g. Nonnus, διδύμαις λιβάδεσσιν , first blood, then θέσκελον ὕδωρ flowed; Prudentius, Enchir. John 42: both sides were pierced; from one blood, from the other water flowed. See also Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr. p. 587 f. In the two substances the two sacraments were symbolically seen, as Augustine, Chrysostom, and many others; Tertullian, Euth. Zigabenus, and several others saw therein the baptism of water and the baptism of blood. Comp. Cornelius a Lapide in loc. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper have also recently been found set forth in several ways in water and blood. See particularly Weisse, II. p. 326 f. In this way historic truth is of course given up. Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 317: “The redemptive death is the condition of the Christian sacrament generally, which here in its twofold form figuratively flows forth from the body of the crucified One.” This, he thinks, naturally suggested itself to John, since according to his representation Jesus was the true paschal sacrifice, the recognition of which in the Gentile world is brought into view by the lance-thrust of the Roman soldier. Other arbitrary explanations in Strauss.
[255] The symbolic signification in regard to the true expiatio, and the true lavacrum, is also assumed by Calvin; but he disputes the supernatural element in the fact: “naturale enim est, dum coagulatur sanguis, omisso rubore fieri aquae similem.”