Transcript

Bryan Chapell tells the following: As I was pastoring a rural church attended by farmers and coal miners—people accustomed to hard lives—I heard a story that taught me more about the nature of true faith than I had gained in much of my seminary education.

The story was of a miner who was a stalwart believer, and who was injured at a young age on the job. Because of his injury, he became an invalid.

Over the years he watched through a window near his bed as life passed him by. He watched fellow workers marry, raise families, and have grandchildren.

He watched the company he had served thrive without attempting to make adequate provision for his loss. He watched as his body withered, his house crumbled, and hope for better things in this life died.

Then, one day when the bedridden miner was quite old, a younger man came to visit him. “I hear that you believe in God and claim that he loves you,” said the young man. “How can you believe such things after all that has happened to you?”

The old man hesitated and then smiled. He said, “Yes, there are days of doubt.

Sometimes Satan comes calling on me in this fallen-down old house of mine. He sits right there by my bed, where you are sitting now. He points out my window to the men I once worked with whose bodies are still strong, and Satan asks, ‘Does Jesus love you?’

Then, Satan makes me look at my tattered room as he points to the fine homes of my friends and asks again, ‘Does Jesus love you?’ Finally, Satan points to the grandchild of a friend of mine—a man who has everything I do not—and Satan waits for the tear in my eye before he whispers in my ear, ‘Does Jesus really love you?’”

Startled by the candor of the old man’s responses, the younger man asked, “And what do you say when Satan speaks to you that way?”

The old miner responded, “I take Satan by the hand, and I lead him to a hill far away called Calvary. There I point to the nail-pierced hands, the thorn-torn brow, and the spear-pierced side. And then I say to Satan, ‘Look! Doesn’t Jesus really love me!’”

The Cross is the highest expression of love for each of us individually by God. We never need to doubt God’s love and care, because in willingly laying down His life that we might live eternally, the Cross shows how much and how deeply our Savior loves us.

John 19:28 reads, “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.”

Between verse 27 and 28 of John 19, we have the three hours of darkness—from noon to 3:00 p.m. It was during this time that God the Son was forsaken by God the Father as Christ suffered the penalty of our sins and faced the Father’s judgment against them.

Christ is 100% God and 100% man. And at the Cross, we see both Christ’s humanity and His deity. In this saying of the Cross, we’re shown an undeniable example of Christ’s humanity. Being fully man, He experienced a common bodily need: He became thirsty.

It’s been pointed out correctly that Christ began His ministry HUNGRY in the wilderness and at the end of His ministry He was THIRSTY on Calvary’s Cross.

The fifth of Christ’s seven statements from the cross is a very human one, revealing the intensity of His physical suffering at the Cross.

But at the same time Christ’s statement of “I thirst” is prefaced with “Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

The word “knowing” here reminds us of Christ’s omniscience, that He is all-knowing as God. So in the same verse we are shown that Christ is both man and God.

In His mind, were all the Scriptures. He had the whole truth of God before Him. Christ knew the plan of God and the Word of God perfectly and innately and from eternity past.

He was aware of the fulfilling of the details of prophecy. He knew when every single detail had been accomplished. He knew that all Scripture must be fulfilled in His death.

He was conscious of all that was taking place and He overlooked nothing. And He knew there was one prophetic Scripture yet to be fulfilled.

As Christ hung on the Cross in His suffering, the Scriptures were on His mind. And this speaks VERY loudly and clearly to each of us about our need to order our lives by the Word, and like Christ, to turn to the Scriptures in the moments of our deepest suffering.

We do so knowing that we find comfort, encouragement, strength, and hope there.

Christ knew that except for one prophecy concerning the Cross, “all things were now accomplished,” everything had been perfectly fulfilled up to that point in time.

It’s been said that “Over twenty Scriptures from the Old Testament were fulfilled in the last twenty-four hours of Jesus’ life on earth. Among them:

Sold for thirty pieces of silver. Fulfilled. Betrayed by a friend. Fulfilled. Deserted by His disciples. Fulfilled. Accused by false witnesses. Fulfilled. Visage marred, wounded and bruised. Fulfilled. Stood silent before His accusers. Fulfilled.

His hands and feet pierced. Fulfilled. Not a bone broken. Fulfilled. Soldiers casting lots for His garments. Fulfilled.”

The life and death of Christ was a constant fulfillment of prophecy.

And Christ, “knowing that all things were now accomplished” and in order that “the Scripture might be fulfilled,” from the Cross our Savior said, “I thirst.”

It is striking to note the paradox of these words, of the thirst of the One who gives the water of life everlasting.

In John 4:14, the Lord told the Samaritan woman at the well, “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

And we should also stop to think how the One who created water, the One who caused water to flow from a rock in the wilderness to provide for the thirsty Israelites, that by a word here He could have spoken and instantly met His own need.

But similar to the Lord’s temptation in the wilderness when He refused to meet His own need of hunger apart from the will of the Father, so it’s the same with His thirst here. Christ came to accomplish and fulfill the will of the Father and the Word of God.

And in Scripture, it was written that He should thirst and be given vinegar to drink, so now Christ made known His need of thirst, not primarily that it might be relieved, but primarily that “the Scripture might be fulfilled.”

And in doing so, Christ honored the faithfulness of God and the truth of His Word.

The Scripture that Christ knew needed to be fulfilled in that moment was Psalm 69:3,20-21. Telling of the Savior’s thirst and emotional pain at the Cross, this passage says:

“I am weary with my crying; My throat is dry; My eyes fail while I wait for my God…Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

What led to this saying from the Cross is because it was written in God’s Word: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

The first part of that verse, “They gave me also gall for my meat” had already been fulfilled.

Matthew 27:33-34 reads, “And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.”

When Christ arrived at Golgotha to be crucified, before He was nailed to the cross, they offered and gave Him “vinegar to drink,” or cheap, sour wine mixed with gall.

The gall was like a sedative, or an opiate, something to dull the horrifying pain of crucifixion. It was a pain-deadening drink.

The cheap, sour wine made the bitterness of the gall palatable. They offered Christ something that would take away the edge of the pain before they pounded the nails through His hands and feet.

But as soon as He tasted it and realized what it contained, the Lord refused to drink it, because He came to take the full impact of the suffering of the Cross for us, with no impairment of His senses, no alleviation of His pain.

So the first part of Psalm 69:21 regarding the gall had been fulfilled, now it was time that the second part of it be fulfilled: “and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

Christ primarily spoke the words “I thirst” in obedience to the will of God and to fulfill the Word of God. But He also spoke the words “I thirst” because of His physical need.

Thirst was a part of the torturing death by crucifixion. It generated a raging thirst. And this was one of the greatest agonies of crucifixion.

The mouths and throats of people hanging on crosses cried for water. Lips cracked, and tongues swelled. Christ’s thirst while hanging on the cross in our place reminds us of the reality and intensity of His physical suffering.

Referring to the Cross prophetically and the suffering of the Savior, Psalm 22:15 reads, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.”

The tongue cleaving to the jaw is a sign of an intense dryness, and a tormenting, extreme thirst. Due to the trauma to the body, perspiration, and the loss of blood, intense, burning thirst accompanied the physical suffering involved in crucifixion.

Thirst causes real pain and is a torturous thing. We who have experienced it in just a limited basis know the pain and discomfort that comes from it. And we can survive much longer without food than we can without water.

As Christ hung on the cross, suffering and dying, the Son of man knew every agony the human body could experience and His body cried out for water as ours would also. His great thirst at the Cross reminds us that He was and is 100% man.

Many years ago, Dennis Repko was with a ministry called the Navigators, and he worked in the Middle East with a small group of Lebanese men who were interested in the things of God. During their time together, they studied and discussed the Bible.

Then Dennis decided that they needed to be involved in some life experiences that might bring to the surface any particular areas of weakness in which they would need to mature and grow in Christ.

A friend of one of the members of the group needed a wall built around his home, so the group undertook the project of building that wall.

Recounting this, Dennis said, “It’s an amazing thing how well these fellows did until they got thirsty and tired. These guys, who thought they were maturing so quickly in the Christian life became irritable, demanding, and impatient. Fatigue, hunger, and thirst can be very revealing. That’s when the real person comes out.”

We see the real person come out in Christ’s suffering, fatigue and thirst. His infinite love, kindness, and longsuffering remained and shone through it all.

1 Peter 2:21-23 says, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not…”

Underlying Christ’s physical thirst is another kind of thirst that our Savior experienced in a deeper, more profound way on the cross.

When Christ made the statement “I thirst” He was still experiencing that separation from the Father. He was not only experiencing a physical thirst, but a spiritual thirst as well.

It was a cry about His abandonment from the Father. “I thirst” is spoken when the Father had turned away and withdrew from the Son when He was made sin, when He inflicted upon Him the full fury of His wrath against our sins.

Christ’s physical thirst was only the tip of the iceberg. His deepest, most profound thirst was spiritual, thirsting after His Father, from who He was separated for the first time in eternity as He paid the penalty for all our sins.

Scriptures such as these were the type of thirst Christ was referring to as well. Psalm 63:1 reads: “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek Thee: my soul thirsteth for Thee.”

Psalm 42:1,2 states, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.”

On the Cross, Christ had just said before this, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Christ had only known perfect union and fellowship with His Father from eternity, and now during this time of separation, He longed for it to return and He thirsted after God. Christ’s soul had a deep spiritual thirst for God. And it was a thirst that could only be quenched by fellowship with His Father.

Christ’s thirst also teaches us how Christ faced the fire of God’s judgment against our sins at the Cross.

The cry of “I thirst” speaks to the intensity of the spiritual suffering Christ had endured and was enduring, the severity of the wrath He went through for us when the fire of the wrath of God was poured out against Him in full measure as He bore our sins and paid for them. This caused Christ to thirst.

For those who do not trust the Substitute who faced God’s judgment against our sins for us at the Cross, they will have to face the judgment of God against their sin themselves in hell forever. Thirst is part of God’s judgment against sin, both at the cross and in hell.

And one of the eternal torments for unbelievers who die in their sins is thirst.

We see this in the account of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar in Luke 16. The rich man died in his sins and went to the torment of hades. Lazarus the beggar died, and because he was a believer, he went to paradise.

Out of the flames of his torment, seeing Abraham and the beggar Lazarus, the rich man cried out “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame” (16:24).

The rich man requested of Abraham the treasured relief that just a single drop of water would bring. The rich man didn’t ask for a barrel of water or a jar or a thermos or a cup or a gulp. He just said a drop or two would be precious beyond description.

This unrelieved anguish and torment of thirst will go on forever and ever for those in hell because they will be experiencing the judgment of God against their sins.

They will thirst forever in hell because they did not receive the living water and life that Christ gives to those who believe.

Hell will be a place where they will experience the intense, continual, raging torment of thirst. And it will never be quenched because they didn’t receive the provision of salvation from the One who thirsted for them at the Cross in facing the judgment against our sins.

Christ thirsted for us at the Cross when He paid for our sins and faced God’s wrath as our blessed Substitute. He thirsted for us so we may never thirst in hell.

He thirsted for us so we may never have to thirst for God spiritually like He did by being separated from the Father.

When we trust Christ, we will never, ever thirst, physically or spiritually, in the eternal state. Christ faced the judgment of God against our sins at the Cross, and when we trust His sacrifice for us, Christ takes that judgment of thirst away. We have our spiritual thirst eternally and completely quenched by the Cross of Christ.

And thus, as the Lord said in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.”

Also, in the future seven-year tribulation, God’s wrath will be poured out on this world and He will judge sin in that day. And this will result in thirst.

When the third trumpet judgment sounds, a great star falls from the heaven and it will fall “upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters” (Rev. 8:10).

This star contaminates the rivers and fountains of water, making 1/3 part of the world’s fresh water bitter and undrinkable, causing widespread thirst and death (8:11).

When the third bowl judgment is poured out in the Great Tribulation, it is poured on ALL the world’s fresh water in “the rivers and fountains of water” and they turn to blood, leaving no pure drinking water on earth, of course, causing widespread thirst in that day.

The torments experienced by those currently in hades and those in the future lake of fire, will be experienced by people in the tribulation, and one of those torments will be thirst.

John 19:29,30: “Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.

“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”

After Christ said, “I thirst,” the Roman soldiers around the cross went to “a vessel full of vinegar” or a jug of sour wine. The mention of this vessel reminds us of John being an eyewitness of the Cross and that he had personally seen that vessel. A few hours earlier, John had been near the Cross, when the Lord committed His mother into his care.

Vinegar, or sour wine was the cheapest drink available at that time and was an ordinary beverage of soldiers and common laborers. It relieved thirst more effectively than water and was cheaper than regular wine.

A jar of it sat the crucifixion site for two purposes: first, for the thirsty soldiers and second, those who were crucified. One of the cruel purposes of crucifixion was a prolonged death. And the sour wine being there was a sadistic thing that enabled victims to linger even longer in their torture.

Hearing the Lord’s words, one of the soldiers dipped and filled a sponge with the sour wine. Roman soldiers carried a piece of sponge with them in lieu of a drinking cup. This soldier took a sponge, soaked in the sour wine, and pressed it onto a stalk of hyssop.

Matthew 27:48 describes it this way, “And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.”

The sponge was placed on a “reed,” or a branch from a hyssop bush, and was then lifted to the Lord to drink from it.

We should not imagine Christ hanging many feet up in the air, almost inaccessible. His feet were perhaps 3-4 feet from the ground, so it would be easy for the soldier to put a sponge at the end of a branch and give Christ a drink.

The use of a hyssop branch ties in with the imagery of the Passover and points to Christ dying as the true Lamb at Passover.

In the original Passover in Egypt, the Jews dipped a bunch of hyssop branches in the blood from their sacrificed lamb and then applied it to their doorposts and lintels.

Exodus 12:22,23 says, “And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood…and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood…For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He seeth the blood…the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.”

Christ is the true Passover Lamb, and hyssop plays a part in the scene of His death.

This is to cause all to think back to the blood of the Passover lamb, and how the judgment of God passed over the houses with the blood applied to the doorposts, and then how Israel was redeemed and set free from their bondage in Egypt as a result.

Likewise, as Paul wrote, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. And the judgment of God passes over us who have trusted Christ and have the blood applied to our hearts by faith.

Christ simply said, “I thirst,” the sour wine is given to Him from a sponge on a hyssop branch, the Lord took a sip of the liquid, and the 1000-year-old prophecy is fulfilled: “and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

The Lord was ready to die at that moment and ready to dismiss His spirit, because the work of redemption was complete, and He knew that “all things were now accomplished” concerning His sacrifice for sin.

Twice Christ was offered something to drink at Calvary. The first time, He refused the sour wine mixed with gall. The second time, He took a drink of what was just sour wine.

Christ did not take that drink to prolong His life. He took that drink to fulfill Scripture, and because He had two more things to say, and He needed to moisten His throat in order to say them, “It is finished,” and “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”

A high-rise apartment building caught fire one night, and a man living on one of the upper floors was trapped in his bedroom with no way out. Fire was all around him and certain doom appeared to be his fate.

However, one courageous firefighter willingly climbed a ladder to rescue him. No one would say the firefighter was wrong or too narrow to have provided only one way for the man to be rescued, because there was no way out beforehand.

What’s more, the firefighter put his life on the line to make sure there was at least one way out of the fire.

Comparing this to our spiritual plight, there is no way out from our sins, but “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). The Savior gave His life willingly in order to provide us the only way out from the eternal fires of hell.

It’s not too narrow to say there is only one way to God. There is only one way that we could be saved from our sins: by Christ’s all-sufficient payment for sin at the Cross and His resurrection.

By faith alone, trusting that Christ died for our sins and rose again, we are saved. Have you believed?