John Calvin Commentary John 19:34

"howbeit one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water." — John 19:34 (ASV)

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear. When the soldier pierced Christ’s side with his spear, he did so to ascertain if Christ was dead; but God had a higher object in view, as we will soon see.

It was a childish contrivance of the Papists when, from the Greek word λόγχη, which means a spear, they manufactured the proper name of a man and called this soldier Longinus. To give an air of plausibility to their story, they foolishly alleged that he had formerly been blind and that, after receiving his sight, he was converted to the faith. Thus they have placed him in the catalogue of the saints. Since their prayers, whenever they call on God, rest on such intercessors, what, I ask, will they ever be able to obtain? But those who despise Christ and seek the intercessions of the dead deserve that the devil drive them to ghosts and phantoms.

And immediately there came out blood and water. Some people have deceived themselves by imagining that this was a miracle, for it is natural that congealed blood should lose its red color and come to resemble water. It is also well known that water is contained in the membrane immediately adjoining the intestines. What has led them astray is that the Evangelist takes such pains to explain that blood flowed along with the water, as if he were relating something unusual and contrary to the order of nature.

But he had quite a different intention: namely, to adapt his narrative to the passages of Scripture which he immediately adds, and especially so that believers might infer from it what he states elsewhere, that Christ came with water and blood (1 John 5:6).

By these words he means that Christ brought the true atonement and the true washing. For, on the one hand, forgiveness of sins and justification, and, on the other hand, the sanctification of the soul, were prefigured in the Law by those two symbols: sacrifices and washings. In sacrifices, blood atoned for sins and was the ransom for appeasing the wrath of God. Washings were the signs of true holiness and the remedies for removing uncleanness and the pollutions of the flesh.

So that faith may no longer rest on these elements, John declares that the fulfillment of both these graces is in Christ; and here he presents to us a visible sign of the same fact. The sacraments which Christ has left to his Church have the same design, for the purification and sanctification of the soul, which consists in newness of life (Romans 6:4), is shown to us in Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper is the pledge of a perfect atonement.

But they differ widely from the ancient figures of the Law, for they exhibit Christ as present, whereas the figures of the Law indicated that He was still at a distance. For this reason I do not object to what Augustine says, that our sacraments have flowed from Christ’s side. For when Baptism and the Lord’s Supper lead us to Christ’s side, so that by faith we may draw from it, as from a fountain, what they represent, then we are truly washed from our pollutions and renewed to a holy life, and then we truly live before God, redeemed from death and delivered from condemnation.