The Crucifixion

187:0.1Af­ter the two brig­ands had been made ready, the sol­diers, un­der the di­rec­tion of a cen­tu­rion, started for the scene of the cru­ci­fix­ion. The cen­tu­rion in charge of these twelve sol­diers was the same cap­tain who had led forth the Ro­man sol­diers the pre­vi­ous night to ar­rest Je­sus in Geth­sem­ane. It was the Ro­man cus­tom to as­sign four sol­diers for each per­son to be cru­ci­fied. The two brig­ands were prop­erly scourged be­fore they were taken out to be cru­ci­fied, but Je­sus was given no fur­ther phys­i­cal pun­ish­ment; the cap­tain un­doubt­edly thought he had al­ready been suf­fi­ciently scourged, even be­fore his con­dem­na­tion.

187:0.2The two thieves cru­ci­fied with Je­sus were as­so­ciates of Barab­bas and would later have been put to death with their leader if he had not been re­leased as the Pass­over par­don of Pi­late. Je­sus was thus cru­ci­fied in the place of Barab­bas.

187:0.3What Je­sus is now about to do, sub­mit to death on the cross, he does of his own free will. In fore­telling this ex­pe­ri­ence, he said: “The Fa­ther loves and sus­tains me be­cause I am will­ing to lay down my life. But I will take it up again. No one takes my life away from me—I lay it down of my­self. I have au­thor­ity to lay it down, and I have au­thor­ity to take it up. I have re­ceived such a com­mand­ment from my Fa­ther.”

187:0.4It was just be­fore nine o’clock this morn­ing when the sol­diers led Je­sus from the prae­to­rium on the way to Gol­go­tha. They were fol­lowed by many who se­cretly sym­pa­thized with Je­sus, but most of this group of two hun­dred or more were ei­ther his en­e­mies or cu­ri­ous idlers who merely de­sired to en­joy the shock of wit­ness­ing the cru­ci­fix­ions. Only a few of the Jew­ish lead­ers went out to see Je­sus die on the cross. Know­ing that he had been turned over to the Ro­man sol­diers by Pi­late, and that he was con­demned to die, they bus­ied them­selves with their meet­ing in the tem­ple, whereat they dis­cussed what should be done with his fol­low­ers.