John 19:35-37

“ And he who saw it has borne witness, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he says true, that you also may believe. 36. For these things came to pass that the Scripture might be fulfilled: No one of his bones shall be broken. 37. And another word also says: They shall look on him whom they pierced. ”

Some (Weisse, Schweizer, Hilgenfeld, Weizsacker, Keim, Baumlein, Reuss, Sabatier) claim that in these words of John 19:35 the author of the Gospel expressly distinguishes himself from the apostle, and that he professes to be only the reporter of the oral testimony of the latter. He declares to the readers of the Gospel that John the apostle saw this, that he bore witness of it, and that he had the inward consciousness of saying a true thing in relating this fact. Thus these words, which have always been regarded as one of the strongest proofs of the Johannean composition of our Gospel, are transformed into a formal denial of its apostolic origin. We have already examined this question in the Introduction, Vol. I., pp. 193-197. We will also present here the following observations:

1. As to the school of Baur, which asserts that the author all along wishes to pass himself off as the apostle, it should evidently have been on its guard against accepting this explanation. It has not been able, however, to refrain from catching at the bait; but it has clearly perceived the contradiction into which it is brought thereby; see the embarrassment of Hilgenfeld with respect to this question, Einl., p. 731. In fact, if the author wishes throughout his entire work to pass himself off as the apostle John, how should he here openly declare the contrary? The reply of Hilgenfeld is this: “He forgets (falls out of) his part” (p. 732). A singular inadvertence, surely, in the case of a falsarius of such consummate skill as the one to whom these critics ascribe the composition of our Gospel!

Other critics, such as Reuss, find themselves no less embarrassed by the apparent advantage which they yet try to derive from these words. In fact, there exists in ch. John 21:24 an analogous passage in which the depositaries of our Gospel those who received the commission to publish it expressly attest the identity of the redactor of this work with the apostle-witness of the facts, with the disciple whom Jesus loved. How can we explain such a declaration on the part of the depositaries of the work, if the author had in our passage himself attested his non-identity with the apostle, the eye-witness? Do they knowingly falsify? Reuss does not dare to affirm this. Are they mistaken? It would be necessary to conclude from this that those who published the book had themselves never read the work to which they give the attestation in opposition to his. Still more, if they received from the author his book to be published, they must have known him personally; moreover, it is from the personal knowledge which they have of him and his character that they come forward as vouchers for his veracity. How, then, could they be deceived with respect to him?

2. And on what reasons are suppositions so impossible made to rest? Above all, the pronoun ἐκεῖνος is alleged, by which the author designates the apostle, distinguishing him from himself. But throughout the whole course of our Gospel we have seen this pronoun employed, not to oppose a nearer subject to a more remote subject, but in an exclusive or strongly affirmative sense, with the design of emphasizing somewhat the subject to which it refers; comp. John 1:18; John 5:39; John 7:20, John 9:51, John 19:37, etc., and very particularly John 9:37, where we see that when the one who speaks does so by presenting himself objectively and speaking of himself in the third person, he can very properly use this pronoun. Being forced to speak of himself in this case, John uses this pronoun, because he had alone been witness of the special fact which he relates.

3. Keim no longer insists on this philological question; he makes appeal to “rational logic,” which does not allow us to hold that a writer describes himself objectively at such length. But comp. St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:3! And it is precisely “rational logic” which does not allow us to ascribe to another writer, different from John, the affirmation: And his testimony is true. A disciple of John declaring to the Church that the apostle, his master, did not falsify or was not the dupe of an illusion! The first of these attestations would be an insult to his master himself; the second, an absurdity; for has he the right of affirming anything respecting a fact which he has not seen and which he knows only by the testimony of John himself?

4. Reuss rests upon the perfect μεμαρτύρηκε, has borne witness. The narrative of the witness, according to this, is presented as a fact which was long since past. But comp. John 1:34, where the: I have borne witness, applies to the declaration which John the Baptist has just uttered at the very moment. The same is the case here; this verb applies to the declaration which the author has just made in the preceding lines respecting the fact related: “It is said; the testimony is given and it continues henceforth;” such is the sense of the perfect.

5. It seems to me that we must, above all, take account of the expression: “ He knows that he says true. ” Here is the meaning which we are forced to give to these words: “The witness from whom I have the fact knows that he says true.” But by what right can the writer bear testimony of the consciousness which this witness has of the truth of what he says? One testifies as to one's own consciousness, not that of another.

6. Hilgenfeld, Keim, Baumlein, Reuss, Sabatier, cite as analogous John 21:24. “ This is the disciple (the beloved disciple) who testifies these things and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true. ” But the very similarity in the expressions makes us perceive so much more clearly the difference between them. The attestants say, not as in our passage: “ he knows (οἰδε) that he says true,” but: “ we know (οἴδαμεν) that he says true;” they do what the evangelist should have done in our passage, if he had, like them, wished to distinguish himself from the apostle; they use the first person: we know.

The adjective ἀληθινή does not here, any more than elsewhere, mean true (ἀληθής); the meaning is: a real testimony, which truly deserves the name, as announcing a fact truly seen. Καὶ ὑμεῖς, you also: “you who read, as well as I who have seen and testified.” The question is not of belief in the fact reported, but of faith in the absolute sense of the word, of their faith in Christ, which is to derive its confirmation from this fact and from those which are mentioned afterwards, as it was these facts which had already confirmed the faith of the author himself. It is not only from the fact of the outflowing of the blood and water that this result is expected. The for of John 19:36 proves that the question is of the way in which the two prophecies recalled to mind in John 19:36-37 were fulfilled by the three facts related in John 19:33-34.

The first prophecy is taken from Exo 12:46 and Numbers 9:12; not from Psalms 34:21, as Baumleinand Weiss think; for this last passage refers to the preservation of the life of the righteous one, not to that of the integrity of His body. The application which the evangelist makes of the words implies as admitted the typical significance of the Paschal lamb; comp. John 13:18, a similar typical application.

The Paschal lamb belonged to God and was the figure of the Lamb of God. This is the reason why the law so expressly protected it against all violent and brutal treatment. It is also the reason why the remains of its flesh were to be burned immediately after the supper.

As the prophecy was fulfilled by what did not take place with reference to Jesus (the breaking of the legs), it was also fulfilled at the same time by what did take place in relation to Him (the thrust of the lance), John 19:37. Zechariah (John 12:10) had represented Jehovah as pierced by His people, in the person of the Messiah. The action of the Jews in delivering Jesus up to the punishment of the cross had fully realized this prophecy. But this fulfilment must take a still more literal character (see on John 12:15; John 18:9, John 19:24). The meaning of the Hebrew term דָָּקרוּ, they have pierced, was considerably weakened by the LXX, who undoubtedly deemed this expression too strong as applied to Jehovah, and rendered it by κατωρχήσαντο, they insulted, outraged God by idolatry. The evangelist goes back to the Hebrew text; comp. also Revelation 1:7. The term they shall look on, ὄψονται, refers to that which will take place at the time of the conversion of the Jews, when in this Jesus, rejected by them, they shall recognize their Messiah. The look in question is that of repentance, of supplication, of faith, which they will then cast upon Him (εἰς ὄν); a striking scene magnificently described in the same prophetic picture, Zechariah 12:8-14.

In order to understand clearly what John felt at the moment which he here describes, let us imagine a believing Jew, thoroughly acquainted with the Old Testament, seeing the soldiers approaching who were to break the legs of the three condemned persons. What is to take place with regard to the body of the Messiah, more sacred even than that of the Paschal lamb? And lo, by a series of unexpected circumstances, he sees this body rescued from any brutal operation! The same spear-thrust which spares it the treatment with which it was threatened realizes to the letter that which the prophet had foretold! Were not such signs fitted to strengthen his faith and that of the Church? This is what John had experienced as an eye-witness and what he meant to say in this passage, John 19:31-37.

The entombment of Jesus: John 19:38-42. Here, as in the preceding passage, John completes the narrative of his predecessors. He makes prominent the part which was taken by Nicodemus in the funeral honors paid to Jesus, and sets forth clearly the relation between the advanced hour of the day and the place of the sepulchre where the body was laid. He thus accounts for facts whose relation the Synoptics do not indicate.