What is the significance of water from Jesus' side?

Question

John 19:34 "one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water."

I know this is supposed to be something great as in the next verse the apostle tries to ensure us just how true this is -

John 19:34 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.

What is so significant about this? Is it symbolic of something?

Answer 1

It is a sign that a person is dead. When the blood separates, only water would come out. The testimony is just to say that when he said that Jesus was dead, he was really dead.

I found this information too:

There came out blood and water ... There has to be some element of the miraculous in this. Naturalistic explanations have some plausibility, as for example that of Dr. Stroud quoted by Westcott, who supposed that "the blood rapidly separated into its more solid and liquid parts, which flowed forth in a mingled stream." But the trouble with that explanation is that blood serum is not water; and there is also the time factor, there having been insufficient time for such a separation to have taken place. In addition, as Westcott pointed out, "the separation of the blood into its constituent parts is a process of corruption." The Father did not permit the Holy One to see corruption (Psalms 16:10 ).

You can also find more information about what happens to blood when we die here

First, the blood separates into the solids and the fluids. If you were to puncture someone who had been dead what would come out would be watery (thus the reason the soldiers punctured the side of those crucified to test if they were dead yet -- if you got "water" instead of blood the person had died). Eventually, as the body decompses (assuming no mortuary's involved) the fluids would evaporate.

Read more: What happens to the blood in our body when we die? | Answerbag http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/169882#ixzz22t6cDysy

Answer 2

I don't know of any symbolic importance of this, beyond the obvious: this is very unusual! Blood is blood, water is water, and they don't show up together inside the human body. When was the last time you saw someone bleed like that?

What's interesting is that such a condition is actually quite consistent with modern medical knowledge, under a very specific set of circumstances: this sounds a lot like a cardiac rupture. Intense and prolonged emotional and physical stress can cause the heart to rupture, which brings a very fast death and causes other fluids around the heart to mix with the blood, which are much thinner and less colorful. If the soldier's spear went in at the right place, it could have let this mixture out, which would have appeared to be "blood mixed with water" to an observer.

This is not how a person being crucified usually died, by the way. Crucifixion was a long, slow torment that eventually ended in gradual death by exhaustion. Someone who was only a few hours in crying out with a loud voice and then suddenly expiring was quite out of the ordinary! John's point here seems to be that, while Jesus died on the cross, he did not die of the cross. Instead, as he had claimed earlier on in his ministry, he had life in himself, and he had the power to lay it down and to take it up again, and no one would take his life from him.

Answer 3

Mason and Dan have both noted the literal significance of the blood/water issue. It was a medical indication that A) he was dead and B) he didn't die as the direct result of the crucifixion.

On practical thing we can note from this is that Jesus was in control of things right up to the end. We know from Scripture that nobody forced Jesus's life from him, he gave it up willingly. This is rightly applied to Jesus' willing submission to his captors, even stopping his disciples from fighting his arrest. However, we see this is true all the way to the end, when it is Jesus who surrenders himself to his Father and lets go of his own life rather than the physical reality of the cross actually taking his life.

Luke 23:46 (ESV)
⁴⁶  Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.

Another practical result that came out of the deal was that finding him already dead at such an early time frame, they did not go on to break his legs to induce a quick death by suffocation as would have been required otherwise.

Thus, something that was said about him in the OT that could have been understood figuratively, also literally happened in spite of the odds.

Psalm 34:20 (ESV)
He keeps all his bones;
   not one of them is broken.

Answer 4

Matthew Henry, in his ('Complete') commentary on John 19:31-37, says that the blood and water, which both had important meaning in the law, represented justification and sanctification.

"...blood for remission, water for regeneration; blood for atonement, water for purification."

Answer 5

In addition to the heretofore mentioned physiological significance, Catholic Tradition says that this also signifies baptism (water) and Eucharist (blood). This position (and much besides) can be found here.