To someone who didn’t know the Bible well, what happened to Jesus that afternoon would have seemed to be nothing more than a tragic series of events. That person would have seen only an innocent man being badly mistreated. But if someone did know the Scriptures, he or she would have been shocked as they watched key prophecies being fulfilled in front of their eyes, especially the way Jesus’ body was treated after He died. Certain things were done to Him by people who had no idea of the spiritual meaning behind what they were doing, things that God, through His prophets, had described in detail hundreds of years earlier. Unknowingly, those soldiers fulfilled two prophecies which were such powerful testimonies about Jesus that John assumed that there would be people who suspected that he had put those events into his account, but that they hadn’t really occurred. After all, John is the only one of the gospel writers who mentions them, probably because neither Matthew, Peter (Mark’s source), or whomever Luke interviewed (Lk 1:1-3) had been close enough to the cross to see what John saw. So as soon as he finished describing what happened, he inserted these words, 

John wasn’t the only one that afternoon who saw those events and recognized the prophecies that were being fulfilled. Two of Israel’s top, religious leaders were also watching and understood the meaning of what they were seeing. They had memorized and studied the Bible since they were children, so when they saw the soldiers shatter the legs of the other two criminals but leave Jesus untouched; and then when one of the soldiers thrust a spear into Jesus’ side, they could hear in their minds the same statements John quoted for us: “Not a bone of Him shall be broken” (Ex 12:46; Nu 9:12) and “They shall look upon Him whom they pierced” (Zec 12:10). If they had been unsure of Jesus before the crucifixion, after the soldiers finished their gory work no doubt remained, and they knew what they had to do, and they knew they had to do it before the sun set.