John 19:32 Commentary and Bible Study

The Lord was dead. Why did the soldier pierce his side? It seems unfathomable. They were given instructions to break the legs to please the Jews so that they could remove the bodies and get rid of them before sundown, before the sabbath. But there was no instruction to take up a spear and pierce through any of the bodies. Nevertheless one of the soldiers does it. What possessed him? Well God is overruling. There is a prophecy about to be fulfilled here. The soldier didn’t know it, he was a pagan. But God is overruling in every detail. There have been all sorts of ideas about the blood and the water. Some suggest that this indicates that Christ died of a broken heart (which the medical people tell us would not issue in blood and water anyway), but this kind of idea is put across, and in some ways it seems attractive. But Christ did not die of a ruptured heart, a broken heart. I think some rather like this idea because it suggests broken heartedness in an emotional way. No, Christ was crushed in ways we cannot grasp and see, physically as he took this pain and agony in the body, but much more in his soul. But he closed in glory and triumph and yielded up the spirit of his own volition. He didn’t die of a broken heart. So what is this? Well it is a miracle. This is the work of God and that is what the vast majority of preachers, teachers and commentators in the reformed tradition have always believed. You have only got to turn to your Matthew Henry. It is a very sad thing that today’s evangelical commentaries seem to shy away from this. Something very special happened at Calvary and out of his side flowed blood and water. Well, what was God saying? We know that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. And of course it was prophesied that this would happen. And what about the water? Well, Christ himself declares himself to be the water of life. Anybody who believes in him out of their innermost part will flow a well of water springing up into eternal life. The blood is the remission of sin, the blood of Christ, by which sin is washed away. The water is regeneration, new life by the power of the Spirit.Rock of Ages, cleft for me,Let me hide myself in Thee;Let the water and the blood,From Thy riven side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure;Cleanse me from its guilt and power.