5. From Christ's being dead already, before the others crucified with him, we learn his willingness to die for us. His love made quick despatch. He could have retained his life longer, but he was willing to let it go, that everything might be finished that was necessary for our comfort and restoration.
6. We learn also from hence, the voluntariness of his death. If his legs had been broken, his death would have seemed an effect of violence
SERMON UPON JOHN XIS. 34-37. 35
rather than willing resignation. He had said, John x. 18, ' Xo man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself : I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.' It is meant of his divine power, and to notify that there was no force put upon Christ, but he would undertake it, and appear in this circumstance. In this obla- tion Christ would be the priest ; his legs were not broken, but he gave up the ghost. Thus I have opened the occasion.
Secondly, The circumstance itself, in the 34th verse, ' But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout Avater and blood.' They brake not his legs, but to make an experiment whether he were truly dead, and had any sense and feeling left, and to put some scorn upon his body, one of the soldiers, out of malice, and beyond his commission, pierced his side with a spear ; and the heart being pierced, together with the bag of water that encircleth the heart, and Christ's body not being cool, there followed a flux of water and blood.
I shall look upon this circumstance under a threefold considera- tion—
1. As an act of Christ's love and condescension, that he would expose his body to the malice and violence of wicked men. He might have withered and dried up the soldier's arm, as he did Jeroboam's when he stretched it out to reach the prophet ; but by this stroke Christ would have his heart and bowels opened to us, to show how full of love he was to sinners. Look, as at the beginning Adam's side was opened, and Eve was taken out of Adam's side, so is the church out of Christ's side. He suffered his side to be opened that he might open to us the gate of life. Some of the ancients compared this wound in Christ's side to the door in the side of the ark, by which all the creatures that were not to perish in the flood found entrance. By this door we have entrance into the heart of Christ, and by Christ presented to God the Father. Patet area cordis -per foramin/i corporis, saith Bernard. By the hole of his side we may espy the secret of his heart. He opened his side, that we might see his heart. He would have sinners know that he had not a drop of blood which he accounted too good for us. He would now let out the residue, that he might not keep a drop. His heart was first pierced with love, and then with a spear. It had never been pierced with a spear if it had not been first pierced with love. Christ saith, Cant. iv. 9, ' Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse.' First wounded with love to the church, and that brought him to the cross, and there he was wounded and pierced with the malice of men. Other members were wounded before, and now his heart. His hands and feet were pierced with nails, and his life-blood dropped out by degrees ; but now his side is pierced, and through his side his heart, which caused the flux of water and blood.
This circumstance is useful to beget hope and thankfulness.
[1.] Hope for all wounded sinners. It is said of those converts, Acts ii. 37, ' That they were pricked in their hearts.' This is the usual case of all the saints in pangs of the new birth ; they are pricked, and wounded in heart with a sense of their sin and rebellion and unkind- ness to God. Now this is some ground of comfort ; Christ's own heart was wounded. The bowels of mercy were now set open by a spear, and
36 SERMON UPON JOHN XIX. 34-37.
to penitent sinners tliey shall never be sliut more. Therefore when you are wounded, think of the wounds of Christ. These are the clefts of the rock in which a poor guilty creature may lie hid when wrath maketh inquisition for sinners. When God caused his glory to pass hy, he put Moses in a cleft of the rock, Exod. xxxiii. 22 ; and the spouse is described to lie hid in ' the clefts of the rock, and the secret places of the stairs,' Cant. ii. 14 ; which certainly is meant of some secret hiding-place in time of danger, wherein God is wont to protect his people. Your hiding-place is the wounds of Christ. Here you may run for shelter. Oh, it is sweet to be found in him, by his side to get into his heart, and there to lie hid till the pursuit of wrath be over. Everything that was executed upon the person of Christ should be some advantage to faith, for it maketh up a part of his merit. The wounds of Christ are the best cure for the wounds of a sinner. The prophet saith, ' By his stripes we are healed*,' Isa. liii. 5.