John 19:23-24 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat… I. The SPOLIATION OF DEATH. Christ is crucified. Death has completed its work. What had it done? 1. It had not destroyed His existence. He had gone in His full personality, and in the plenitude of His powers to His God and ours. 2. It had not destroyed His character. Death cannot rob us of this. It is the only property we can carry out of this world. What then does it take from us? (1) Our material frames. Here was Christ's body torn from Him — the body through which He looked out at the universe, through which He received His sensations, by which He delivered His sublime doctrines and wrought His marvellous deeds. A precious thing is the body, and yet death takes it from every man, however much he may appreciate it. (2) Our material property. The garments of Christ were His only earthly property, but of them He was stripped. No doubt He valued them, not merely on account of their utility, but on account of those hands of love that had woven and presented them. Such is the spoliation of death. "We brought nothing into the world," &c.; "Naked came we," &c. All of the earth which men struggle for and gain they must lose. II. THE DESECRATIONS OF AVARICE — gambling over the garments of the Son of God. If aught of this earth were sacred, these were; yet avarice seizes them, gambles over them, and turns them to its sordid ends. Avarice has ever traded in the sacred, and now more than ever. It not only trades in corn, manufactures, &c., but in philanthropic and religious institutions. Preaching has become a trade; temples, houses of merchandise; charitable societies, organs of worldly greed. III. THE CULMINATION OF WICKEDNESS. Where can you see — 1. Baser ingratitude than in putting to death One who "went about doing good"? 2. More outrageous injustice than in torturing One who was exquisitely tender and overflowing with mercy? Truly the Crucifixion is the culmination of sin! And yet it is marvellous that the most consummate production of human wickedness should be made by God the instrument by which to banish it from the world. Thus sin frustrates its own purpose. (D. Thomas, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. |
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