that He was dead already," and therefore did not break His legs. Our salvation hinges so entirely on Jesus Christ's vicari- ous death, that a moment's reflection will show us the divine wisdom of the fact being thoroughly proved. His unbelieving enemies could never say that He did not really die, and that He was only in a swoon, or fainting-fit, or state of insensibility. The Roman soldiers are witnesses that on the centre cross of the tree they saw a dead man.
34. — [But one.. .spear. ..pierced His side.] Here we have the sec- ond proof that our Lord did really die. One of the soldiers, determined to make sure work and. leave nothing uncertain, thrust his spear into our Lord's side, in all probability directing his thrust at the heart, as the seat of vitality. That thrust made it certain, if there had been any doubt before, that the body on the central cross was actually dead. They believed it from appearance, and perhaps from touch, when they first came up to the cross. They made it quite certain by the thrust of the spear. The body of a person in a swoon would have given some sign of life, when pierced with a spear.
The gross inaccuracy of those pictures which represent this soldier as a horseman, is worth noticing. Our Lord's body was easily witliiu reach of the thrust of a spear in the hand of a foot soldier. There is no evidence whatever that any Roman cavalry were near the cross !
The theory of Bishop Pearson, that this soldier pierced our Lord's side in anger and impatience, as if provoked to find Him dead, does not appear to me well-founded. It is not likely that the soldiers would be angry at finding a state of things which saved them trouble. To me it seems far more likely that the thrust was the hasty, careless act of a rough soldier, accustom- ed to prove in this way whether a body was alive or dead. I have heard it said by an eye-witness, that some of the Cossacks who followed our retreating cavalry, after the famous Bala- clava charge, in the Crimean war, were seen to prick the bodies of fallen soldiers with their spears, in order to see whether they were dead or alive.
Theophylact suggests that this soldier thrust the spear into our Lord's side in order to gratify the wicked Jews who stood
by.
Besser remarks most sensibly, " Even the soldier's spear was guided by the Father's hand."
[And forthwith.. .Uood and water ^ The remarkable fact here recorded has given rise to considerable difEerence of opinion.
(a) Some, as Grotius, Calvin, Beza, and others, hold that this issue of blood and water was a proof that the heart or peri- cardium was pierced, and death in consequence quite certain. They say that the same result would follow from a thrust into the side of any person lately dead, and that blood and water, or