Over the years much has been made of the seamlessness of the tunic. It has been used to point out the unity of the church after the death of Christ, the likeness of the seamless tunic to the tunics of priests and that Jesus is the true high priest, the wholeness of Christ’s teachings, and even the virgin birth of Jesus, but these are probably all fanciful since this method of weaving was quite common at the time. What is true here is that the tunic was more valuable since it was seamless and if it were torn into parts, it would lose its value and even start to unravel. Therefore, the soldiers cast lots to see which of them would get the tunic. They had already done their work of crucifying the prisoners and now all they had to do was to guard the area until the prisoners all died, which would often take a long time. Barclay notes that the real tragedy here is not the hostility of the world to Christ and His message, but the indifference of the world represented by these soldiers playing dice at the foot of the cross of the dying Son of God.

The combination of sources for the material found in this verse is interesting. John was there at the cross so we have an eyewitness account of the exact words of the soldiers. John also writes that the action of the soldiers was a fulfillment of (Psa 22:18). This insight was undoubtedly given to him by the Holy Spirit. God has determined that man will have a vital role in His plan of salvation but it must be in total dependence upon His Holy Spirit Whom He sends for our benefit.

Psalms 22:18  They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

Studdert Kennedy wrote the following poem based on this incident:

And sitting down, they watched him there,
The soldiers did;
He made his sacrifice,
And died upon his Cross to rid
God’s world of sin.
He was a gambler, too, my Christ.
He took his life and threw
It for a world redeemed.
And ere the agony was done,
Before the westering sun went down,
Crowning that day with its crimson crown,
He knew that he had won.