John 19:36Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

On the other hand, by his testimony he confirms the Prophet's words. He says, in effect, I have spoken of this so that you may know that there is great likeness between the type and the Truth.

Do you see how much care he takes to persuade us of what seems shameful and apparently brings dishonor?

Truly, the fact that the soldier insulted even the dead body was much worse than the Crucifixion itself.

Yet I have spoken also of this, he says, and I have spoken with great care, "that you may believe" (v. 35).

Therefore let no one refuse to believe. Let no one be ashamed and thereby harm our cause.

That which seems especially shameful is precisely our most precious good.

We also reverently receive His inward parts as food, that is, what is secret and hidden. Yet we do not break the bones, that is, thoughts hard to understand and exalted.

For what we cannot understand, we do not break. That is, we do not try to understand it badly or perversely.

Therefore, when we understand soundly, we do not break. We preserve the divine whole.

But when we strain to understand and accept a heretical understanding, then we crush and break firm and inaccessible thoughts.

Such things, that is, what is difficult to understand, must be burned with fire. This means they must be entrusted to the Spirit.

He will work them and refine them, because He searches all things, even the depths of God (1 Cor 2:10).

For he said, "But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs." To this belongs the testimony, "Not a bone of Him shall be broken."

This was a prescription given to those who, in the old Law, were commanded to celebrate Passover through the slaughter of a sheep. That served as a shadow of the Passion of Christ.

Therefore "Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us" (1 Cor 5:7). The prophet Isaiah also foretold this: "Like a sheep He was led to the slaughter" (Is 53:7).

At the same time, the Evangelist indicates that, in Christ's legs not being broken, the Old Testament type was fulfilled. This type was given in the unbroken bones of the paschal lamb.

In the piercing of Christ's rib, the prophetic words of the prophet Zechariah were fulfilled (Zech 12:10).

The lamb prefigured the true paschal Lamb, Christ, in whose most pure body no bone was to be broken.

"In the type this was set beforehand for the sake of the Truth" (Chrysostom).

The second prophetic passage of Scripture, now fulfilled in Christ, is found in the book of the prophet Zechariah (Zech 12:10).

In this passage Jehovah, in the person of the Messiah, is presented as pierced by His people. This same people, looking upon the Pierced One, is shown offering repentance before Him with weeping and lamentation.

In general, this prophecy was fulfilled in the Lord's Crucifixion. More particularly, it was fulfilled precisely in the piercing of His ribs with the spear.

Of course, it was not the people but a Roman soldier who pierced Him. Yet the soldier was only the external instrument.

The people, in the person of its representatives, brought the Lord to the Crucifixion. The piercing of the ribs was one particular event within it.

In the Lord, this prophecy was fulfilled in the very Crucifixion and piercing of the ribs.

In the Jews, who according to the prophecy will look upon the Pierced One, weep, and lament, it began to be fulfilled from the very time of the Lord's Crucifixion (Lk 23:48).

It has been fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled constantly in their conversion to faith in their crucified Messiah, in which repentance is necessary.

It will be fulfilled finally in the general conversion of the people to Christ, which the holy Apostle Paul foresaw and foretold (Rom 11:25 and following).

This ordinance was incomprehensible in itself. Neither in the feast, nor in the lamb, nor in the occasion for which Pascha was established could one point to the reason for this decree.

Therefore this ordinance showed by itself that its reason was hidden in God’s special counsel concerning humanity’s destiny.

Or, what is the same, the Paschal lamb was a type of another Lamb, the heavenly Lamb.

St. John the Baptist had already called Jesus Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Jn 1:29).

And behold, what was prefigured by the Paschal lamb is fulfilled in Jesus: His bones are not broken.

This fulfillment is all the more striking because it takes place on the very evening when, according to the Law, the Paschal lamb was eaten.

The second prediction is taken from the prophetic vision of Zechariah. The Prophet says: “I will pour out the spirit of grace and compassion on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

And they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced. They shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an Only-begotten” (Zech 12:10).

After saying that tribes and families will mourn (Zech 12:11-14), the Prophet says: “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for washing away sin and uncleanness” (Zech 13:1).

Then he describes the destruction of idols and false divinations (Zech 13:2-6). Jehovah speaks this whole prophecy (Zech 12:1).

Such is the Prophet’s prophecy. Jewish tradition also saw in this prophecy a prophecy about the Messiah, in the Jerusalem Talmud.

The words “I will pour out the spirit of grace” could not be spoken in his own person by the Prophet or by any other ordinary son of man.

Only the Messiah could also open a fountain for washing away sin and destroy every superstition.

Finally, He who is here called pierced is also Jehovah. In his apocalyptic vision, St. John points to Christ Jesus in Zechariah’s prophecy (Rev 1:7).

Thus the Sanhedrin, against its own intentions, pierced its own Messiah.

By a higher ordering this was permitted so that, in fulfillment of the prophecy, those sons of Israel capable of receiving the spirit of grace would look upon the Pierced One.

They would mourn the sin of crucifying the Messiah in the spirit of grace-filled repentance (Acts 3:19).

But the hardened would fruitlessly mourn the same sin for all eternity.

Christian hearers, see how heavenly Providence arranged even the least circumstances of the cross-sufferings of Christ Jesus.

It did so to strengthen faith in our Savior and to awaken grace-filled love for Him.

May God deliver each of us from being cold and distrustful toward that faith which has been so fully witnessed, in all its parts, by heaven itself.

A fearful danger threatens us even if our faith in Christ Jesus is not sufficiently alive.

Why did He endure so much shame and suffering from the blind Jews? For our sins.

How, then, can we fail to weep for the sins for which the Son of God was pierced?

Or do we think that the prophecy of the New Testament seer will not be fulfilled upon us if we remain unrepentant?

Yet all the prophecies concerning the coming of our Savior into the world were fulfilled to the smallest iota.

John the seer saw and told us: “Behold, He comes with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him.

And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen” (Rev 1:7).

Hear with what certainty the seer speaks to us. He says, “Even so, Amen.”

By an oath he assures us that he speaks the truth. By an oath he assures us that all the tribes of the earth will wail when the Pierced One appears to judge the universe.

This is that Pierced One in whom, on earth, people either did not believe at all, or believed but did not justify faith by the labors of repentance.

O, let us weep while there is still time for saving tears. Let us weep while our weeping can wash us with the grace-filled water opened by the pierced Son of God for His earthly Church.

Amen.

The laws established for the Paschal lamb, which prefigured Him and prophetically portrayed Him, must fully be applied to the sacred Lamb.

This is precisely what John indicates in verse 36. The Apostle Paul also indicates it when he says: “Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed for us” (1 Cor 5:7).

The other saying, cited by John in verse 37, is found in the Prophet Zechariah (12:10).

With great prophetic clarity, moved by the Spirit of God, he said: “Upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem I will pour out the spirit of grace and compunction.

And they shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only-begotten son.

They shall grieve as one grieves for a firstborn,” and so forth (Zech 12:10). “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for washing away sin and uncleanness” (Zech 13:1).

Above, we saw the prophecy about the Lord’s sufferings depicted in Psalm 21. In the same psalm, verse 28 indicates that all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord.

All the families of the nations will worship before Him.

Therefore here too lies the answer to the question: to whom precisely does Zechariah’s saying refer, “They shall look upon Him whom they pierced”?

The Jews who handed the Lord over looked upon Him. The soldiers who crucified Him looked upon Him. The centurion guarding Him looked upon Him.

The pious men and women who reverently buried Him also looked upon Him.

In other words, representatives both of the Jews and of the Gentiles looked upon Him.

Or better, in their persons the whole world of human beings looked, and will look, upon the Pierced One.

By faith it received, and will receive, healing from the wounds of sin, according to the word and comparison of the Lord Himself.

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15).

Thus the promises of God were fulfilled, beginning with His word about the seed of the woman who was to strike the serpent.

“From being wounded in the heel, that victorious Seed of the woman, or Head and Deliverer of believers, is not excluded,” says Metropolitan Philaret.

He says this concerning God’s curse pronounced upon the serpent as the representative of the devil, in his notes on Gen 3:15.

This serpent’s sting in the heel is the wounding of which the Prophet Isaiah speaks: “By His wound we are healed” (Isa 53:5).

From this first revelation to the Incarnation of God the Word, the coming mystery appears ever more clearly throughout the Old Testament.

It appears in types, in psalms, and in prophecies.

The connection of all these prophetic indications with the Incarnation of God the Word on earth was finally disclosed to believers by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

He was sent by the Lord Jesus from the Father. See Jn 15:26; 16:7-14; 20:22; Acts 1:5; and compare the first chapter of John’s Gospel, 1-18.

The study of the Old and New Testaments together reveals the whole plan of divine wisdom saving humanity.

“The very Word of God, the unchanging Image of the Father, enters into His image which is in man (Gen 1:26).

He bears flesh for the sake of flesh, and is mingled with a rational soul for the sake of my soul, cleansing like by like,” says Gregory the Theologian.

By the human soul of God, the dominion of death was destroyed, and resurrection from Hades was proclaimed to souls.

By the body of Christ, corruption was rendered powerless, and incorruption was manifested from the tomb, says Athanasius the Great.