We have seen that the Gospel of John reveals the Lord as the very expression of God coming to us as life. By imparting Himself into us, He becomes everything to us and meets all our needs that He may bring God into us and bring us into God, mingling God with us until God is one with us and we are one with Him. In other words, the Lord is the very expression of God, imparting Himself to us as life, meeting all our needs, and mingling God with us as one. This is the main thought of chapters one through seventeen. All who have been regenerated by Him will be one in this divine life. In fact, we are one with one another in this divine life, even as we are one with God in this divine life. After such a revelation in these seventeen chapters, in chapters eighteen and nineteen the Holy Spirit reveals the Lord’s willingness to go into death and to deliver Himself to death that He might be sown as a grain of wheat into the earth to die in order that He might rise up to release and impart Himself into us, thus bringing forth much fruit by His death and resurrection.
The thought of the Holy Spirit in John 18 and 19 is not mainly that of the Redeemer bearing our sins, dying for our sins on the cross, and redeeming us from the curse of our sins. The thought of the Redeemer and His redemption is seen mainly in the first three Gospels. The thought in the Gospel of John, especially in chapters eighteen and nineteen, is mainly that of the Lord as the seed of life going into death and releasing Himself through death and resurrection. In this way, the one grain has been released to produce the many grains. Life originally was restricted to the one grain, but now, by death and resurrection, Christ’s very life has been released, has brought forth many grains, and is now in the many grains. This is the thought concerning the Lord’s death in the Gospel of John.
We have seen that the Lord delivered Himself in voluntary boldness to be processed (18:1-11), that He was examined in His dignity by mankind (18:12-38a), that He was sentenced in man’s injustice (18:38b—19:16), and that He was tested in God’s sovereignty by death (19:17-30). In this message we come to the very crucial matter of the issue of the Lord’s death (19:31-37).
John 19:34 says, “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.” Two substances came out of the Lord’s pierced side: blood and water. Blood is for redemption, dealing with sins (John 1:29; Heb. 9:22) for the purchase of the church (Acts 20:28), and water is for imparting life, dealing with death (John 12:24; 3:14-15) for the producing of the church (Eph. 5:29-31). On the negative side, the Lord’s death takes away our sins; on the positive side, it imparts life into us. Hence, it has two aspects: the redemptive aspect and the life-imparting aspect. The redemptive aspect is for the life-imparting aspect. The record of the three other Gospels is only for the redemptive aspect of the Lord’s death, but John’s record is not only for the redemptive aspect but also for the life-imparting aspect. In Matthew 27:45, 51; Mark 15:33; and Luke 23:44-45, “darkness,” as a symbol of sin, appeared, and “the veil of the temple,” which separated man from God, “was rent.” Those were signs related to the Lord’s redemptive death. Furthermore, the words spoken by the Lord on the cross in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them,” and in Matthew 27:46, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (because He bore our sin at that time), also depict the Lord’s redemptive death. But the flowing water and the unbroken bone mentioned by John in verses 34 and 36 are signs of the Lord’s life-imparting death. This life-imparting death releases the Lord’s divine life from within Him for producing the church, composed of all His believers into whom His divine life has been imparted. This life-imparting death of the Lord was typified by Adam’s sleep that produced Eve (Gen. 2:21-23), and is signified by the death of the one grain of wheat falling into the ground for the bringing forth of many grains (John 12:24) for the making of the loaf—the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). Hence, it is also the life-propagating, life-multiplying, regenerating, and reproducing death.
As we shall see, the Lord’s pierced side was prefigured by Adam’s opened side, out of which Eve was produced (Gen. 2:21-23). The blood was typified by the blood of the Passover lamb (Exo. 12:7, 22; Rev. 12:11), and the water by the water that flowed out of the smitten rock (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4). The blood formed “a fountain” for the washing of sin (Zech. 13:1), and the water became “the fountain of life” (Psa. 36:9; Rev. 21:6).