Where was Jesus crucified?

The Greek is κρανίον, 'a skull.' The word 'Calvary' is from the Latin Calvaria, having a like signification; agreeing also with the Hebrew GOLGOTHA, which has the same meaning. Matt. 27:33; Luke 23:33. The place where the Lord was crucified, and near to which the tomb was situated in which He was buried. The traditional site of the Holy Sepulchre is now well within the city of Jerusalem, and great efforts have been made to prove that this spot was at that time outside the city, but this is not at all credible. A much more probable place is that pointed out by the Jews on the north of the city, near the Grotto of Jeremiah. Visitors have declared that this site has, at a distance, the natural contour of a human skull. It would have been near the city yet outside it, and near also to where there could have been a garden, in which a tomb could have been cut. It is also a spot from whence the crucifixion could have been seen by the passers-by (on the road from the Damascus gate). This site has therefore several points in its favour.

The actual place is however unknown; and doubtless God has so ordered it that it should not be made an object of idolatry, or turned into a holy shrine, over which there would have been great contention, as there has been, with bloodshed too, over the so-called Holy Sepulchre.

The Crucifixion. — Reaching the place called in the Hebrew, or rather Aramaic, Golgotha as Luke explains the name, the place of a skull, probably from some resemblance to one — there they crucified the Lord, and the two thieves with Him. The place was situated outside the city (Heb. 13:12; John 19:17, 20; Matt. 28:11), and near a garden (John 19:41). And now, reading Luke's account of the Crucifixion, the most cursory reader must be struck with its difference from that of the others. Four accounts of it we have, each evangelist describing it, and though Matthew and Mark agree very much in their relation, the former tells what the latter does not, and thus presents the darkest picture of them all. In Matthew men's hatred of Christ and their treatment of Him come out in the fullest way, that taunt of the chief priests of which Psalm 22:8 had forespoken being found only in his history. Then, too, from the time that the Lord owned to Pilate that He was the King of the Jews (27:11) till He cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" (ver. 46), that evangelist has recorded no utterance from His lips. Nothing in all that part of Matthew's gospel comes in to relieve the darkness and gloom of the scene. In John it is different. Presenting the Lord as a Divine Person, we see Him in all the calmness of One who knew whence He was, providing for His mother, and caring for the fulfilment of every word of God. In Luke it is the Man Christ Jesus who suffers, but the One who shows grace even on the cross. Hence we have the Lord opening His mouth in words which told of grace, the dark picture of the Crucifixion thus lightened by sayings with which all Bible readers are now familiar.

GOLGOTHA

GOLGOTHA (Hebrew), Calvary (Latin)—“a skull” or “the place of a skull,” outside the walls of Jerusalem, thought to be a hill two hundred and fifty yards west of Damascus gate was the last scene of the Saviour’s sufferings and sorrow.

Without the Gate. — Little of course could the priests of old have surmised, as they carried forth the carcase of the sin offering to a clean place outside the camp, what that act really prefigured, even the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ without the gate. Now we learn that the priests' act was typical of circumstances connected with the death of the true sacrifice. Here only (Heb. 13:12) is this fact definitely stated. Of course at the time of His death, and till Jerusalem was destroyed, all there knew well where was Golgotha or Calvary. So the different Evangelists mentioning the place do not directly say that it was outside the gate. To mention Golgotha, was enough for readers then (Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22; Luke 23:33; John 19:17). John, however (19:17), if not Matthew also (27:32), and Mark (15:20), seem to indicate that it was outside the city. In the fact of His suffering outside the gate typical teaching then had its fulfilment. But God had another purpose in the Lord's death at Golgotha, little as the enemy could have divined it. Christ suffered there that His people might be sanctified, or set apart, for God by His blood. A crowd followed the procession to Golgotha, the Lord bearing His cross, and Simon bearing it after Him. Who then thought to what use the locality of the Lord's death would be turned by the Holy Ghost? To eat of the sin offering the Hebrews must follow it. Outside the gate He suffered. Their privilege then to partake of the true sacrifice carried them outside of Judaism, and away from it. What if some who followed the procession to Golgotha were subsequently converted! With what interest would this deduction from it have been read by them!

The Crucifixion. — The end now approached. A few hours, and the Lord's life on earth would terminate; the world to see Him no more, till to its astonished gaze the spectacle will appear of opened heavens, and the exit of a train, such as never yet has been seen, headed by the crucified One, arrayed in the emblems, not of mock, but of real sovereignty. The world might see Him going to Golgotha and bearing His cross. It will see Him with many diadems on His brow, returning to deal with His enemies, and to have them put completely under His feet. But the day of which John now writes was the day of the Lord's deepest humiliation, and most awful sufferings. To the cross He was going. "They took Jesus therefore," we read, "And He went out, bearing the cross for Himself, to a place called The place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha" (17) — very likely so named from "the look or form of the spot itself, bald, round, and skull-like." Several details noticed by others are here omitted, — as the Lord's words to the women on the way; His prayer to His Father for His murderers; and the wine mingled with myrrh, offered him by the soldiers before crucifixion, which was customarily provided, it is said, to deaden the sensibility of the crucified ones to the pain of that death. Nor have we any notice of the mockings, of the chief priests, the jeers of the mob, nor the revilings of the two thieves, followed by the conversion of one of them.

But to the chief priests such a title was an offence. It stated that which they refused to admit, so they wanted Pilate to alter it, and to write, "that he said, I am the King of the Jews." Pilate refused to comply with their request. He could be firm when he wished it. Firmness he now manifested. "What I have written I have written" (22), was the Procurator's curt reply. That settled the matter. Well had it been for him, if he had manifested similar firmness, when pressed to consign to the cross One whom he well knew was innocent. The title then remained unaltered, which publicly declared that the Jews had crucified their King. Many read it; for Golgotha was nigh to the city, and probably near some thoroughfare. That name Golgotha will never be forgotten. Whatever may have been the association connected with it previously, that name can now never drop into oblivion. It lies embalmed in the Sacred Word. Golgotha was its name before the Lord's crucifixion; Golgotha is the name it has borne ever since. Yet its site is still a matter of discussion. Through the vicissitudes of the city and nation certainty as to its recognition, for the present at least, has perished. And surely we may trace Divine wisdom in that. God would guard His people, if possible, from idolatry. What more sacred spot could there be, than that where the Redeemer breathed His last? And if people now would, in lands far distant from Palestine, falling down, venerate a cross, many a devotee, if the actual spot could be definitely identified, would be ready to prostrate himself on it. Matthew, Mark, and John knew it well, and could have conducted pilgrims to the place; yet none of them have left sufficient indications to enable modern travellers to cry Eureka — i.e. I have found it.*

The Christian population gave names to the streets, and point out traditional sites of many events recorded in scripture, but of course without the slightest authority. Of these arbitrary identifications the one that appears the most improbable is that of the CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, said to cover the spots where the Lord was crucified and where He was buried, which is within the city. See CALVARY.

Faith alone preserves from the power and wiles of the devil. Pilate and the Jews were wholly opposed in their thoughts and wishes; but God was not in the thoughts of the one more than of the others. They had each his own way, but all astray; and now they show themselves the open enemies of righteousness as well as of grace, incapable of discerning the clearest ways, marks, and proofs of God present in love to man, no matter how low He might come down. The cross of Christ makes all and every one manifest. Pilate under pressure of fear for his own worldly interests gave up Jesus to their malice, though knowing Him innocent; and He bearing His cross went forth to the place of a Skull, Golgotha, in Latin "Calvary." There was He crucified with peculiar indignity, a robber also on either hand, as a robber had been preferred to Him. Yet God took care that even there a fitting testimony, from whatever motive in Pilate's breast, should be rendered to Him in the inscription on the cross; the despised man of Nazareth was the Messiah. Where were the Jews if He was their King? The keenest adversaries of the true God, blindly fulfilling His terrible prophecies of their unbelief and wickedness under a self-complacent zeal for His name and law. There stood His title, read by many; for the place was near the city, written in the tongues not of the officials only, nor of the polite world, but of the Jews too; and all the efforts of their high priests but riveted it to the cross under the pertinacious and irritated and scornful spirit of the procurator.

Abraham rises early in the morning, cleaves the wood for the burnt offering, takes Isaac and two young men with him, and sets forth for Mount Moriah, the future site of the Temple at Jerusalem, within sight of which our Lord died on Calvary's cross.

Jesus, then, suffered without the gate. "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate." (Heb. 13:12) He took the outside place, and His voice falls on the ear from thence. Do we listen to it? Do we understand it? Should we not consider more seriously the place where Jesus died? Are we to rest satisfied with reaping the benefits of Christ's death, without seeking fellowship with Him in His rejection? God forbid! "Let us go forth therefore to him without the camp, bearing his reproach. There is immense power in these words. They should rouse our whole moral being to seek more complete identification with a rejected Saviour. Shall we see Him die outside, while we reap the benefits of His death and remain within? Shall we seek a home, and a place, and a name, and a portion, in that world from which our Lord and Master is an outcast? Shall we aim at getting on in a world which could not tolerate that blessed One to whom we owe our present and everlasting felicity? Shall we aspire after honour, position, and wealth, where our Master found only a manger, a cross, a borrowed grave? May the language of our hearts be, "Far be the thought!" and may the language of our lives be, "Far be the thing!" May we, by the grace of God, yield a more hearty response to the Spirit's call to "Go forth!"

The Burial. — After death comes burial. How was that to be carried out? The Apostles were not there. Who then would perform that last office for the dead? God — and how interesting it is to notice it — has always His instruments ready for His work. In this case they voluntarily came forward, for there were to be two of them, and both members of the Sanhedrin. Nobody would have expected that. We cannot suppose that either Annas or Caiaphas had the slightest idea that two men of reputation, one a man of wealth, and both members of the great council of the nation, would have come forward to bury the body of the Crucified One. By whom and where the thieves were buried has been for long shrouded in oblivion. By whom and where Christ was buried was to be remembered throughout all ages. We do not mean that we can at present authoritatively fix the site of the sepulchre. That controversy has still to be settled. But Scripture informs us that it was contiguous to the place of execution, being in a garden nigh to Golgotha (John 19:41). Joseph, a rich man, says Matthew (27:57), an honourable councillor, writes Mark (15:43), a good man and a just, states Luke (28:50), was God's instrument for this service. He was a Jew of Arimathaa, a city of Judea, and not a Galilean, which makes his act the more remarkable. And though Nicodemus, as John records, was with him to help in taking down the body, and placing it, with the spices which the latter had brought, decently and reverently in the tomb, yet Joseph had gone alone to Pilate to ask for the body. And in his own new tomb, as Matthew (27:60) tells us it was, which he had hewn out in the rock, the dead body of the Lord was laid. Joseph had prepared, as he thought, that tomb for himself. He had really hewn it for an earlier occupant, even Him whose disciple he had become.