I Thirst
7 Words, John 19:28, Remsen Bible Fellowship, 04/13/2025
Text
John 19:28, ‘After this, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”’
Introduction
What do you think of when you think of Jesus? When you consider the person and work of the man from Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, what comes to mind? Do you imagine god coming to earth, but his humanity being a sort of super-humanity, impervious to the difficulties that face us as mere mortals? Or perhaps you think of a Jewish carpenter, who lived an exemplary life, and thus came to be thought of as divine by those who followed. A great example figure.
Establishing and teaching the correct biblical understanding of who Jesus is and what he did was the central concern of the early church, and it should remain our central concern today. The teaching of the Bible on this subject is helpfully summarized in the three so-called Ecumenical Creeds. These are the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian definition. They are referred to as Ecumenical because they are considered by all three major branches of Christianity - Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant - to be accurate summaries and statements of the faith once of all delivered to the saints. The brother of Jesus, Jude, teaches us in his brief letter (v3) that we must contend for this faith which has been handed down. But how can we contend for that which we do not know?
The short answer is, we can’t. So if you are ever wondering “why does Will talk so much about Jesus being truly God and truly man”, here is your answer: the church has always talked a lot about this. To the extent that we fail to emphasize either the true divinity, the Godness, of Jesus; or his humanity, his likeness to us in both body and nature: to that extent we are failing to be truly Christian. True Christianity always gives full weight to both realities.
So we’re clear, this sermon is going to be doctrine heavy. I try to bring doctrinal themes into the sermons on a regular basis, especially as they arise from the text. But this morning that is going to be overt and explicit. I will conclude the sermon with the Chalecodonian definition I just mentioned, as well as a section from the Athanasian Creed, which also has its origins in the early church. But before we go anywhere, I want to read the section on Jesus from the Nicene Creed:
We believe…in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
begotten from the Father before all ages,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made;
of the same essence as the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
and was made human.
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried.
The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again with glory
to judge the living and the dead.
His kingdom will never end.
That, to my mind, is well worth reading at the front end of this sermon, for two reasons: 1) it is gloriously true, and is always worth reading, pondering, and rejoicing in. 2) It serves as a good segue into the meat of the sermon today.
I. John shows Jesus as the Divine Word made Flesh
Some of the most famous words in the Bible are found at the front of John’s gospel.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)
This eternal Word, present in the beginning with God the Father, one with him and yet distinct from him—he is, as the Nicene Creed puts it, of one essence with the Father, though distinct in his person. This is true with the Holy Spirit as well, who shares in the One Divine Essence, and yet is identifiably unique from the Father and the Son. But here is what is most unique about the Son, about the eternal Word of the Father: verse 14 tells us that he “took on flesh, and dwelt among us.”
Some people think of John’s gospel as having a particularly large emphasis on the divinity of Christ. And John does take us back further in history: he doesn’t open with Jesus’ ministry of preaching, like Mark, or with a birth narrative, like Matthew or Luke. Instead, John is intentionally echoing the language of Genesis in these opening verses, and firmly starting with the fact of Jesus’ divine nature. However, this is never to the neglect or diminishment of that glorious reality in verse 14: he - the Divine Word - became flesh. The Divine Word took on real humanity. The humanity of Jesus is not downplayed by John, it is drawn in shown to be all the more striking because of the emphasis which is laid on his Divine nature.
John 1:18 speaks again to the divinity of Christ, as he is the only one to truly reveal God the Father: “no one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
The disciple Nathaniel proclaims Jesus’ divinity in John 1:49, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel!” Jesus, rather than rebuking this attribution of divine status, ups the ante: “Truly truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). In that statement Jesus:
* Calls himself “the Son of Man”, a title which actually carried more divine weight in ancient Israel than “son of God” would have. And,
* Calls himself the way to God. That might seem obscure, but the statement about angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man makes reference to the dream of Jacob in Genesis 28. There, Jacob, on the run from his brother Esau, sees what is sometimes called a ladder, but is probably best translated as a flight of steps—like what would be on an ancient ziggurat, or pyramid shaped temple. The top of this ziggurat is in the heaves, and Jacob sees angels going up and down. When he awakes from this dream, he calls the place the house of God, the gate of heaven. And Jesus says to Nathaniel, I am that gate.
Because Jesus is the only man to himself be God, to have his origin in heaven, he is the only one who can take men to heaven. So he says in John 10:7, “I am the door of the sheep”, and in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus is truly God, and he is truly from God. He demonstrates this fact throughout the gospel of John. The first half of John’s gospel is structured around the seven sign miracles: turning the water into wine (chapter 2), healing the official’s son (chapter 4), healing the man at the pool of Bethesda (chapter 5), feeding the five thousand and walking on water (chapter 6), healing the man born blind (chapter 9), and raising Lazarus from the dead (chapter 11). Jesus shows himself in these miracles to be the Lord of healing, provision, and joy, who has all of material creation underneath his authority.
Yet, at the same time, when he took on flesh, he really did take it on. So in chapter four, and verse six we read: “Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.” Jesus was tired from walking. Ponder that for a moment. The eternal Word who spoke the Milky Way galaxy into existence, the same Jesus who commanded 130 gallons of water to become wine - and it obeyed - this same Divine Word, the Lord Jesus, was weary from a long walk.
Do not miss the significance of this fact. Jesus’ humanity is every bit as real as yours and mine.
II. The Divine Word Physically Suffered
That’s how we know that, during his passion, the Lord Jesus was really suffering. The physical body of the Divine Word made flesh was being brutally broken for you and for me. Mark 15:23 tells us that Jesus had been offered wine mixed with myrrh while he was being led to the place of crucifixion. The myrrh would have acted as something of an analgesic, to relieve the pain. Jesus refused the painkillers. He dealt with the full brunt of the brutality.
Then, as the end of his time on the cross came, he spoke: “I thirst.” Now, the reason I have labored the real humanity of Jesus up to this point in the sermon is that I do not want John’s (very important) explanatory note to confuse you: Jesus spoke conscious of the scripture he would be fulfilling, and we’ll get there in a moment. But he wasn’t just saying words to check boxes. He spoke from the genuine experience of a man who had undergone a brutal day. Up all night, first in urgent prayer, and then being dragged before his accusers. Then beaten brutally with a whip. Made to carry his 80-100 pound rough-cut cross beam on his flayed back until he no longer could. And then crucified, nails driven through hands and feet. He then hung there for six hours. Jesus’ thirst is real thirst.
So, he calls out for a drink. And this time, when they bring him what the text calls “sour wine”, he receives the drink. The first wine offered had been to kill the pain. He refused that. But this wine, sometimes called wine vinegar, was what the soldiers would have had as their common drink. It was more effective for quenching thirst (and probably safer) than water. And Jesus asks for and receives a drink of this sour wine. Our Lord, the giver of Living Water, suffered real thirst at the cross. And, probably, not kindness but sadism from the soldiers, who knew that to give hydration to a crucified man would only prolong his pain.
III. The Divine Word Fulfilled Scripture
But now, we’ll turn and look at the note John the gospel writer gives to us: Jesus makes his request for a drink, he makes known his thirst, in order “to fulfill the Scripture.”
I’ve noted over the past couple of weeks how important it is that, though he issuffering in unspeakable ways, Jesus nonetheless remains in control, both of his own mind and the narrative arc of all history.
So, when John makes this claim, that Jesus spoke “to fulfill the Scripture”, what does he mean? What is fulfillment, after all? That’s one of those churchy-sounding words that gets thrown around sort of willy-nilly.
When we think of fulfillment, what often comes to mind is the accurate execution of an action or event that was specifically predicted in advance. So, for example, we’ve looked a lot at Isaiah 53 the past month or so, because there Isaiah is speaking of the suffering servant of the Lord, and that whole passage reads like a description of the physical reality and spiritual significance of Jesus’ work on the cross, penned 700 years in advance. We saw something similar last week in Psalm 22. Though David was writing from his own experience in Psalm 22, many of the things he says seem like exaggerated statements for him—but they almost exactly describe Jesus’ on the cross.
Here in Psalm 69, it is similar, but a little different. The Scripture to which John refers is Psalm 69:21: “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” This Psalm isn’t one where the broad sweep is full of Messianic themes: for example, David says, “O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you” (v5). Well, folly and wrong-doing certainly can’t refer to Jesus. So here we need a little broader understanding of “fulfill.” The word John uses in 19:28 can mean to accomplish, to fulfill, to complete, or to perfect. And while not every aspect of Jesus’ life maps onto King David’s, one of the themes in the gospels is that Jesus is the Son of David. The messiah whom the Jews expected had to be a descendant of King David, and the prophets foretold a time when the Messiah would reign on David’s throne eternally.
The gospel writers Luke and Matthew establish Jesus’ physical descent from David early in their gospels by means of genealogies. John doesn’t do that. Instead, he points to the fulfillment of a messianic pattern in Jesus’ life. And Psalm 69 plays a key role in that. In chapter two, Jesus enters the temple and finds the temple courts being treated as a place of commerce. So he makes a whip of cords, and drives out the merchants, tossing over tables and driving out the livestock. His disciples, in trying to understand the significance of this, remember Psalm 69:9—”zeal for your house will consume me.”
David had zeal for the house of the Lord. But it was imperfect. He wanted to build a temple so that the ark of God wouldn’t reside in a tent. But God wouldn’t allow it. His zeal was stifled. But in Jesus’ that zeal is consummate, completed—even as the old temple system gives way to the church, where the gathered people of God are now a living temple, entering the heavenly places as we gather to worship and praise the Father through Jesus who is himself the doorway to heaven.
So, here, later in Psalm 69, we have a fulfillment of a messianic pattern. David cries out in Psalm 69:20 that he had looked for pity and there was none, for comforters, but found none. And in verse 21 he continues, “for my thirst they gave me sour wine.” As mentioned earlier, the sour wine of the soldiers was simply what they had on hand. But it was hardly fit for a king. When the king, the ruler, the Savior, the Messiah appears, the response of the people should be to bring forth their very best. Instead, they brought forward a common drink for a common man.
Jesus, like David, was mistreated by those in authority. His place as the anointed-by-God Savior of his people was not recognized. He had to suffer before he could enter into his glory (Luke 24:26). Jesus fulfills, not just specific predictive prophecies, but broad patterns which God puts forward throughout the Old Testament histories. The most important of which is the pattern of death and resurrection. Of God’s saving work coming through the suffering of his servants.
IV. The Divine Word Finished His Work
Jesus’ suffering on the cross accomplished everything that was necessary for salvation. This will be our focus on Friday evening as we consider Jesus’ sixth cry from the cross: “It is finished!” It’s enough for today to note that Jesus spoke those words, according to John, immediately after receiving this drink. Jesus had completed the work set out for him by the Father in eternity past. Everything necessary for you salvation and mine, all of the payment for sin, had been completed by Jesus. He didn’t need to do anymore—and neither do you. His work really is complete.
Conclusion
Let us wonder again at this mystery: the Divine Word was made flesh in order to die for our sins. I said earlier that I was going to conclude with a couple of readings from church history which put theological language on this reality, so here is the Chalcedonian definition on the two natures - and one person -of Christ:
Chalcedonian Definition:
Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.
I’m also going to read the conclusion of the Athaniasin Creed. This creed is quite a bit longer, and is our clearest early definition of the doctrine of the Trinity. But the conclusion shifts from simply defining terms to what it means to believe in the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
Athanasian Creed:
But it is necessary for eternal salvation
that one also believe in the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.
Now this is the true faith:
That we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
is both God and human, equally.
He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and he is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.
Although he is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God's taking humanity to himself.
He is one,
certainly not by the blending of his essence,
but by the unity of his person.
For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
so too the one Christ is both God and human.
He suffered for our salvation;
he descended to hell;
he arose from the dead;
he ascended to heaven;
he is seated at the Father's right hand;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
At his coming all people will arise bodily
and give an accounting of their own deeds.
Those who have done good will enter eternal life,
and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.
This is the catholic faith:
one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.
Brothers and sisters, the incorruptible and invincible eternal Son took on flesh to be our Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. His suffering was real human suffering. And his real humanity and real suffering means that for all who believe in him there is real salvation. Jesus’ finished work means that all who look to him in faith - who believe in the sufficiency of his cross-work - will not perish, but have everlasting life.
