but coming to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead they did not break his legs,
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.
A soldier's spear was the last thing done to the body of Jesus. John stops his story to insist that he saw what came out — so why did this small detail matter so much, and what do the blood and water mean?
John's care over this one detail is the first clue to its weight.
It is a historic fact recorded by the Apostle John (19:34) that a soldier pierced the side of the dead Christ, and "at once there came out blood and water." The Apostle pauses to confirm it in a solemn way, as a personal eyewitness (John 19:35). We might conclude that he attached very special importance to it, even if there were no further reference to it anywhere.
The blood and water came from a body that was already dead. One writer sees a deliberate sign from God in that.
It was really from the dead Man. God furnished this supernatural sign of a work belonging to the incarnate Son of God alone; and the Spirit of God thought it so significant for His glory and man's reconciliation as first to record it in the last Gospel, and then to apply it to us in the Epistle before us.
Could there be a physical cause behind it? One writer weighs a suggestion others have made, and finds it points the same way.
The separation of the liquid blood into blood and water showed that death had taken place: it is never so except after death. Some think the water here was what fills the sac in which the heart sits. Breaking that sac, they say, is what produces a broken heart. If so, then whether it was broken by the convulsions of sorrow or pierced by the spear, death must have taken place.
Blood and water flowed together, but they are not the same thing, and their order matters. One writer notes how often the second of the two gets forgotten.
Strange to say, this water is almost dropped out of the faith of Christendom, though it occupies quite as large a place in the Word, both in doctrine and in type, as the blood — the last for propitiation, the first for purification. The blood is the ground of everything before God, and is therefore put first in John 19:34. In 1 John 5:8 the order is that of their application to us.
Propitiation is the sacrifice that satisfies God about sin. Purification is the cleansing of a person's life.
The two also work in different ways. One is settled once. The other is needed every day.
In that way the blood of Christ is applied to us by God once and for all; the water is used by us for daily, hourly cleansing. Ephesians 5:26 tells us plainly what the water is: "the washing of water with the word." This is cleansing for the Christian, who already has a standing before God because of the blood. The blood is the atoning aspect of the death of Christ. The water is the death of Christ presented to the believer in a practical way, leading to the cleansing of his ways and habits.
Nothing made the soldier use his spear. Jesus was already dead. Yet what came out of the wound answered the very act that made it.
The wretched soldier knew he could insult the meek and lowly Jesus without any consequence, and in that cowardly weakness he pierced His side with a spear. By that disgraceful act he let out the water and the blood, which was able to cleanse even someone like him. Here God revealed His heart — what He is to the sinner — and this is our salvation.
No one can say what moved the soldier. But his spear served a purpose that prophecy had already fixed — and left a mark that outlasted the grave.
Was it a thoughtless act by the man who did it? Was it out of contempt for the King of the Jews? Who can now say what moved the man to use the spear? But we know that in that act provision was being made for the fulfilment in a coming day of the prophetic words of Zechariah (12:10). And John calls attention to this. The mark of that spear thrust also remained after His resurrection (John 20:20, 27). Will it not be a mark by which the remnant of His people will recognise Him when He returns?
- Witnessed. John stops the story to say he saw it himself. He attached very special importance to this one detail.
- Death. The blood and water came from a body already dead. It was God's sign of a work that belongs to the Son of God alone.
- Blood. Listed first, because it is the ground of everything before God. It makes propitiation, and God applies it to us once and for all.
- Water. Listed second here, first in John's letter. It cleanses a life by the Word, and the believer who already stands secure through the blood uses it every day.
- Grace. The last insult man could offer opened the wound that cleansing flowed from. It was enough even for the soldier who made it.