Gospel-writers speak of it as " a place." Not one of them calls it a •' mount."
84. — [Father, forgive them.] These words were probably spoken while our Lord was being nailed to the cross, or as soon as the cross was reared up on end. It is worthy of remark that as soon as the blood of the Great Sacrifice began to flow, the Great High Priest began to intercede.
Let it be noted, that during the six hours in which our Lord wfiis on the cross, He showed that He possessed full power as the Son of God, and that though He suifered. His sufferings were voluntarily undertaken. As King and Prophet He opened the gates of life to the penitent thief, and foretold his entrance into Paradise. As Priest, He intercedes, in the words before us, for those who crucified Him.
[They knoiv not what they do.] The principle involved in this saying deserves notice, and requires fencing with two preliminary remarks.
On the one hand, we must beware of supposing that ignorance is not blameworthy, and that ignorant persons deserve to be for- given their sins. At this rate ignorance would be a desirable thing. All spiritual ignorance is more or less culpable. It is part of man's sin, that he does not know better than he does. His not knowing God is only part of his guilt.
On the other hand, we cannot fail to observe in Scripture that sins of ignorance are less sinful before God than sins of know- ledge, and that no case is apparently so hopeless as that of the man who sins wilfully against light.
Our Lord's meaning in the words before us appears to be that those who crucified Him did not at the time know the full amount of the wickedness they were committing. They knew that they were cnici tying one whom they regarded as an impos- tor. They did not know that they were actually crucifying their own Messiah, the Son of God. — This is what St. Peter distinctly asserts, " I wot that through ignorance ye did it." (Acts iii. 17.) So also St. Paul says, " Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1 Cor. ii. 8.) To use the words of Gill on this place, our Lord " does not mention the ignorance of those He prays for as a plea for pardon, but as a description of their state." As Clarke observes, " If ignorance does not excuse a crime, at least it diminishes the intensity of it."
The question naturally arises, •* Who were those for whom our Liord prayed ? " — I cannot, as some do, confine His prayer to the Boman soldiers who nailed Him to the cross. I rather regard it as applying also to the great bulk of the Jewish people who were standing by, and aiding and abetting His crucifixion. They were mere tools in the hands of the leading Scribes and Phari-
468 KXFOSnORT thouohtb.
tees. Thay were blindlj led by blind teachn^. They did not really know what they were doing.
Whether our Lord included the Chief Priests and Scribes, Annas and Gaiaphas and their companions, who had heard His declaration that He was the Christ, and yet formally rejected and condemned Him, I think more than doubtful. I belicTe they were given over to judicial blindness, and most of them probably perished in their sins. We never read of any of them neing converted. The priests who were "obedient to the faith," (Acts vi. 7.) were probably of a different party from those who condemned Christ.
T<et it be noted, that the union of clear bead-knowledge of Christ with wilfiil heart-rejection of Him, is the nearest approach that can be made to a definition of the unpardonable sin. St. Paul seems to teach this in the sixth chapter of Hebrews. Above all, he seems to point to this when he says of himself, ** I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." (1 Tim. i. 18.)
[Parted his raiment and cast lotf^ Let it be noted here, that our Ijord was evidently crucified naked. The shame and un- seemliness of such a posture in death, must doubtless have added much to the misery of the punishment of crucifixion.
The literal fulfilment of the twenty-second Psalm in this verse and in the following one, ought to be carefully observed. (Psalm xxii. 17, 18.) The prophecies about Christ's first advent to suffer were fulfilled and accomplished in every word. In like-manner, and by analogy, we are justified in expecting a literal fulfilment of every word in the prophecies of Christ's second advent to reign in glory.
35. — [He saved others ; let him save himself, if he he Christ.'] The utter blindness of the Jewish nation on the subject of Messiah's sufferings is a very remarkable fact. To us those sufferings appear most plainly foretold by David, Daniel, and Isaiah (Psalm xxii. Dan. ix. Isai. liii.), and most plainly prefigured and typified by all the sacrifices of the Mosaic law. Yet the Jewish teachers of our Lord's time could not see them. The idea of Messiah " saving others" by His own death seems never to have entered into their minds. The words before us are a striking proof of the blindness of the rulers. They might have been told most truly, " Because this person before you is Christ, He does not save Himself; and He does not save Himself in order that He may save others."
37. — [If thou be... King of the Jews. ..save thyself] The difference between the mockery of the Jewish rulers and of the soldiers ought to be noticed. The Jews mocked our Lord as a helpless " Christ," or Messiah unable to save Himself, and therefore unfit to be a Saviour of Israel. — The ignorant Gentile soldiers, on the contrary, mocked Him as a helpless " King of the Jews,'* without