And he went out, bearing his cross, to the place called [place] of a skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha;
The trial is over, and the Lord walks out of the city carrying His own cross to a place named after a skull. John alone tells it that way, and both the name of the place and the direction of the walk carry meaning.
Other accounts describe Him being taken away by His enemies. John's wording puts the movement in the Lord Himself, and one writer reads this as deliberate on John's part.
When he describes the going out to Golgotha, he is the only witness who says, "He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull." The other records tell us His foes led Him out, and John tells us this too, for that was the height of their guilt. But He went out — that was the triumph of His love. He went out; do we not see the majesty of that lonely Man, with thorns on His head and a cross on His shoulders? He was not driven out or dragged out, but in obedience to His Father's command He went out to lay down His life and to take it again.
The same detail is read as a sign of who was actually directing events.
Notice it says, "He went out." He was in control from beginning to end; He was leading, even though He had to carry that awful cross on the road to the place of execution.
In Luke, Simon of Cyrene carries the cross behind Jesus. Commentators read this not as a clash with John, but as two stages of one journey.
Several features stand out in John's Gospel, fitting his theme. In general, we may say they suggest the divine dignity of our Lord... So we see Him bearing His own cross. This in no way contradicts the fact that they compelled Simon the Cyrenian to bear it after Him. From Mark we would judge that our Lord was bearing His own cross at the start of the journey to Golgotha. On the way they met Simon coming in from the country, took the cross from our Lord, and put it on him.
Some say the Lord collapsed under the weight. One writer rejects that, and gives Simon's part a different sense.
The Lord alone is spoken of here as bearing His cross. As they went, we read elsewhere that they made Simon carry it after Him (Luke 23:26). This had to be shown: in one sense believers are identified with Him in the bearing of His cross — not bearing God's judgment, but bearing the world's rejection. John however focuses all attention on the blessed Son of God Himself. Note too that nothing in the account suggests the weight of the cross was too much for the Lord, as some have said. That is only human imagination.
The name came from the shape of the rock. The picture it makes still matters.
The place got its name from the odd shape of the rock, but it is significant for all that! A skull speaks of the humbling end of all man's power and glory. In some living man it may once have held as brilliant and powerful a brain as ever existed; and it has come to this! The Son of God accepted the judgment of death as from man's hand. He went to bear it in a place that pictured the end of all man's glory.
He did not simply end up there.
First, He comes, bearing His cross, to Golgotha, the place of a skull — the place of the kingdom of death... For this the Lord sought it. Here His love to men brought Him. Only He could lift this burden from them, and for this He must come Himself under it.
The men who arranged this death were not the ones giving it its meaning.
The injustice of Pilate and the frenzied hatred of the Jews could not have brought the Lord of glory to Golgotha. "He went forth bearing His cross." He offered Himself without spot to God... That "hence" had been reached at last, and without hesitation or haste He went out bearing His cross.
The Lord died in an outside place. One writer turns that into a question for us.
He took the outside place, and His voice falls on our ear from there. Do we listen to it? Do we understand it? Should we not think more seriously about the place where Jesus died? Should we be content to reap the benefits of Christ's death, without seeking fellowship with Him in His rejection? God forbid! "Let us therefore go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach." There is immense power in these words.
- Out. John alone says He went out — not driven, not dragged, but moving under His Father's command to lay down His life.
- Out carrying. He bore His own cross. Simon carried it later on the road — no contradiction, but a picture of believers sharing His rejection, not His judgment.
- Out to a skull. Golgotha pictures the end of all human power and glory — the place where death reigns.
- Out in love. He sought that place; only He could lift the burden of death from men, so He came under it Himself.
- Out to Him. He took the outside place, so the call is to go out to Him there. We share His reproach, not just the benefits of His death.
where they crucified him, and with him two others, [one] on this side, and [one] on that, and Jesus in the middle.
John reports the crucifixion in one short line: a cross in the middle, a condemned man on either side. Commentators press three questions on it — why the centre place, why two criminals, and what that middle position means now and forever.
John gives the other two men no name and no story. Mawson sees that silence as deliberate, and reads the middle place as a preview of a greater one.
Other Gospels tell us about the "two others"; but it was not given to John to do so — he had eyes only for Jesus. The criminals were there, but they were incidental. Jesus was in the middle. He was the centre of that scene, the centre of man's scorn and hatred. In a day still future He will be the centre of God's throne, the object of God's infinite and eternal approval, and of the worship of a multitude that no one can count.
The line-up was planned. Mawson describes the search behind it.
That morning they searched the prison cells of Jerusalem for the most degraded criminals the city held. They led them out to die along with Jesus. These men had been guilty of appalling crimes. That is why they chose them to hang one on His right hand and the other on His left. That is why they put Him on the centre and highest cross. They meant to proclaim by their well-considered and malicious plan that He was the worst of the three. So they heaped shame on Him, adding the deepest insult to the deepest injury.
Kelly sees the robbers on either side as part of the insult, and the sign over the cross as God's answer to it.
They crucified Him there with unusual indignity, a robber on either hand, since a robber had been preferred to Him. Yet God took care that even there the inscription on the cross gave Him a fitting testimony, whatever Pilate's motive: the despised man of Nazareth was the Messiah.
Men meant it as degradation. Prophecy had announced it centuries earlier:
Another fulfilment of Scripture: "he was numbered with the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:12).
Friends dying beside Him could have blurred what His death accomplished. Mawson finds a mercy hidden in that cruel choice.
But I am glad that they took men like these, and not James and John, as His companions that day. In this the devil showed his lack of foresight, and here he was outwitted. Suppose they had crucified James and John, one on His right hand and the other on His left. Then people would have said that these two were helping Him to finish His work of redemption... These murderers who hung with Him could have no hand in the work He was doing. They were suffering for their own crimes; He, the sinless One, for yours and mine.
Mackintosh reads the two men beside Him as a picture of the whole human race, sorted by one test.
The two thieves represent the two great classes that divide mankind. This division runs from the days of Cain and Abel down to this very moment. God's Christ is the one great, all-deciding test in every case. Every shade of moral character, every level of society, every caste, class, sect and party the human family has ever split into, or ever will — all of it comes down to one crucial point: "In or out of Christ." The difference between the two thieves is simply the difference between the saved and the lost. It is the difference between the Church and the world — between the children of God and the children of God's great enemy.
The world's lowest place could not remove Him from the position that belongs to Him.
Christ was willing to humble Himself to that lowest point, obedient to God, even to death. What death? The death of the cross: the most shameful, painful, horrible way of execution that ever existed. Yet the Lord Jesus must always be the Centre, whether in heaven or on the earth; and so even on the cross He is in the centre. How great He is! Though in utter shame, He is great; that is how John always describes Him, in His greatness. Notice that it says, "He went out." He was in control from beginning to end.
- Centre by malice. They chose the highest, middle cross to say He was the worst of the three — a planned insult, not a coincidence.
- Centre by prophecy. Isaiah said He would be numbered with the transgressors. A robber on each side fulfilled it.
- Centre alone. The two beside Him suffered for their own crimes; nobody shared in the work He was doing.
- Centre as the dividing line. The two men beside Him stand for the two classes of humanity. One question separates them: in Christ or out of Christ.
- Centre forever. The One in the middle of man's scorn will be in the middle of God's throne, worshipped by a multitude no one can count.