‘Crucified, Dead, Buried … The Third Day He Rose Again’

‘Crucified’

So they took Jesus, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to The Place of the Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. Where Him they crucified, and with Him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”. Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jesus’, but rather, ‘This man said, I am the King of the Jews’”. Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written”.When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also His tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be”. This was to fulfil the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots”. So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your Son”. The he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother”. And from that hour the disciple too her to His own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished said – to fulfil the Scripture – “I thirst”. A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to His mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished”, and He bowed His head and gave up His spirit (John 19:16–30).

Introduction

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a Dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a Man clothed with Raggs, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own House, and a Book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and Read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled: and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry: saying, what shall I do?  

The opening words of The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Here is a man with a Bible in his hand and the burden of sin upon his back and he’s covered with rags of guilt, and shame, and unrighteousness. Here is a man who lives a in a city called Destruction. His days are numbered. His time is short. I wonder, my friend, do you have a burden like that? Do you live in a place like that? Have you come this day covered in guilt, and sin, and shame? Is your cry, ‘What shall I do?’ ‘Where shall I go?’ ‘Is there mercy for me?’ Are you dwelling in a place of destruction – a place of darkness and despair? ‘What shall I do?’ This poor fellow with a burden on his back and a Bible in his hand meets a preacher called Evangelist who says to this man, ‘Fly – run away – from the wrath to come’. And Evangelist points the burdened man in the direction of a little gate, with a narrow path that leads to the foot of the Cross. And when the man came at last to the Cross, his burden fell from his shoulders, and his sins rolled away, and angels came and stripped him of his rags, and clothed him with robes of righteousness. Here in our passage stands the Cross where Christ was crucified. And here, before the Cross, there is mercy, and grace, and forgiveness for every sinner who repents and believes upon the Lord Jesus Christ. This very moment you may look at the Cross and live. ‘Come, let us settle the matter’, says the Lord God, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be as wool’ (Isaiah 1:18).

1] Firstly, we see the crucifixion of Christ. In many ways, preaching is the art of plain speaking. It involves explaining and applying exactly what the Scripture says. We read plainly in our text that Christ was crucified. He was crucified in the reality of history, in space and time, at a particular location outside the walls of Jerusalem (cf. Hebrews 13:12), near the city (v. 20), at a place called Golgotha (cf. Matthew 27:33). We are dealing here with reality. This is the most significant fact in the history of humankind – the crucifixion of the Son of God. The events leading up the crucifixion remind us of the suffering of Christ under Pontius Pilate (v. 1). The Lord Jesus had been delivered over to Pilate, the Roman Governor of Judea, who had commanded the Roman soldiers to whip and beat the Lord Jesus. And they had twisted together a crown of thorns and pressed the thorns into His head. They arrayed Him in a purple robe, and mocked him, saying ‘Hail, King of the Jews’, and they struck Him with their hands, and they beat Him beyond recognition (vv. 2–3). Strangely, Pilate had hoped that this would be sufficient to pacify the anger of the Jews as he had found no fault in Christ (v. 4, 6), but to no avail. He was presented wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe to the mob, and they chanted. ‘Crucify Him, Crucify Him’ (vv. 5–6). Here was a man mutilated by the brutality of the Roman soldiers, but that was not enough for the crowds. They wanted Him dead. ‘He has made Himself to be the Son of God’, they said, ‘And our laws demand His death’ (v. 7). Inadvertently, the Jews remind us of Christ’s true identity. He is truly the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the everlasting Word, through whom all things were made, eternally begotten of the Father before all worlds were made (John 1:1–3). This very same Christ assumed a human nature. He took a body like our own and came in the flesh to dwell among God’s people as a descendent of line of King David (John 1: 14).

Yet, as John reminds us in the prologue to his gospel, ‘He came to His own, and His own received Him not’ (John 1: 11). They didn’t want Him. Not only did they refuse Christ, but they crucified Him through the ruthlessness of Rome. Pilate had no reason to crucify Christ at all – he found no guilt in Him – and after speaking with Jesus, seeing his silence under suffering, Pilate sought to have Him released, but the Jews cried out, ‘If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself king opposes Caesar’ (v. 12). The Jews turn Roman politics against Pilate. If this man claims to be the King of the Jews, is he not an enemy of Rome and of the Emperor? Pilate must concede to their demands or risk the wrath of Caesar, yet he says to them once more, one more chance, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’ (v. 15). John notes the significance of the time in which Christ was to be crucified as the day of preparation for the Passover, nearing the time when the lambs would be slain to atone for the sins of Israel (v. 14). ‘On this day of atonement, of all days, shall I crucify your King?’ (v. 15). It’s almost as if he grasps at the great significance of these events, whereas the crowds and chief priests appear clueless. Here is the Passover Lamb – Christ Jesus – even ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’ (John 1: 29). But the chief priests answer, ‘We have no king but Caesar’ (v. 15). Not only do they betray Christ, but their own identity as a people under the sovereignty and lordship of God alone. In actual fact, they have no King but Yahweh – even the Lord Christ – whom they crucified (v. 16).

He was made to carry His own cross. Having been beaten and whipped beyond recognition, stripped naked, bloody and bruised, He is compelled to carry this heavy cross to the place called the Skull or Golgotha – a place of death (v. 17). It was such an exhausting a journey that He collapsed on the way and, as the synoptic gospels remind us, a visitor to Jerusalem passing by called Simon of Cyrene was compelled by the Romans to carry the Cross. We are reminded that Christianity calls us to carry the Cross. ‘For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few’ (Matthew 7:14). This is no prosperity gospel. There is no promise of health, and wealth, and success in the gospel of Christ. This is not your best life now. There is only the certainty of suffering and hardship – the way of the Cross. The old self must die – be crucified and buried with Christ. The Lord Jesus says, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Matthew 16:24). My friends, are we a people of the Cross? Do we count all things as loss for His surpassing glory? Do we desire to know Christ in His sufferings? To become like Him in His death? For without the Cross, there is no crown. Without participation in His death, there is no resurrection. ‘Why should a person come to the cross? Why should he embrace death with Christ? Why should he be willing – in identification with Christ – to go down to the cross, down into the valley of the shadow of death, down even to the tomb of Christ and up again? Why? Because, my friend, that’s the only way that God can get glory out of a human being’ (Paris Reidhead). Let us therefore take up the Cross, die to self, and follow Him.

They took the Lord Jesus to the place of the skull where they crucified Him. He was placed between two thieves and crucified with them (v. 18). In the words of the Prophet Isaiah, ‘He was numbered with the transgressors’ (Isaiah 53:12). He wasn’t crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but upon a cross with common criminals. They say, ‘A man crucified dies a thousand deaths’. It was a shameful death – full of pain, and suffering, and misery. Large nails were driven through His hands and His feet, suspended in agony, He would rasp for breath, forcing himself upwards to fill His lungs. He was already bloody and beaten, but upon the Cross His wounds would swell, and his tendons tear apart, and his arms ache endlessly, his head would burn with pain, His thirst would be unbearable, and death would come by slow asphyxiation. He suffered not only physically, but emotionally and psychologically – the shame, the mocking, the nakedness, the tears of His mother, and abandonment of his friends. And at the back of the physical and emotional sufferings, there was something far greater taking place, something of eternal and cosmic significance. The Lord Christ was suffering for the sins of the world – assuming all the guilt, and sin, and shame of lost humanity, and suffering the wrath and judgement of a Holy God for human sin. ‘God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Here is the eternal Son of God crucified upon a Roman Cross for my sin and your sin. Here is One who came from a world of love and righteousness, adored by myriads of saints and angels, and eternally loved by the Father – the One who created the stars and named them one by one, yet embraced the dust of earth, and died for Adam’s rebellious children. Here is the bright morning star, the only begotten Son, the Word of the Father, the image of the invisible God, the Son of David, the long-expected Messiah, the Prince of Life, the Light of the World, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Here is this wonderous God-man with nails in His hands and feet, and a crown of thorns upon His head. All the sorrow, and sadness, and suffering of humanity, and the pains of darkest hell, and the fire of that infernal world was poured out upon Christ as an atonement for sin. All your guilt was laid upon Him. Your debt He paid; and your death He died. He bids you to come. You may have an interest in the Saviour’s blood today – this very moment. There is no need for anyone to perish in their sins. Simply come to Christ for cleansing. What shall I do? Where shall I go? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved – you and all your household (Acts 16:31). Is there mercy for me? Yes, there is mercy for you and for every one of you who calls upon the name of the Lord. There is mercy for you, for your spouse, and for your children, and even your children's children. Come to Him in sorrow for sin, with faith in your heart, believing His gospel, and He will never ever let you go. He says, ‘Come to me all you that labour and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28); ‘And Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out’ (John 6:37).  

2] Secondly, Christ is proclaimed King in three languages. Above the Cross, John tells us, there was an inscription written by Pilate. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’ (v. 19). Many of the Jews – as well as people from all parts of the Roman empire passing by Jerusalem that day – would have seen the inscription as the place where Christ was crucified was near the city (v. 20). His death was a public spectacle. There was nothing secretive or polite about crucifixion. There was no dignity and no discretion. Criminals were crucified supposedly as public deterrent; such was the brutal ideology of Rome. This inscription – Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews – was written in three languages: Aramaic, Latin, and Greek (v. 20b). Aramaic was a Semitic language spoken by the Jews in Palestine and many others besides. It was the language of the people. Latin was official language of the Roman Empire – the language of politics. And Greek was the international language of commerce and culture throughout the Roman world. And so, by God’s providence, Pilate was unintentionally proclaiming the sovereignty of Christ to the known-world in three languages – to ordinary men and women, to Roman officials and lawyers, to merchants, middling sorts, and to all that passed by.

The chief priests wanted Pilate to qualify the inscription to read, ‘This man claimed to be the King of the Jews’ (v. 21), lest the world think they’ve crucified their own Messiah. However, Pilate insists to score a political point, ‘What I have written, I have written’ (v. 22). Yet his words are true in a much more profound way than he could ever have realised. Jesus was truly the King of the Jews. He was not their king in nationalistic or a political sense. Some of the zealots who followed Christ wanted Him to overthrow the Roman Empire and were doubtless devasted and confused by His crucifixion. ‘We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles’ (1 Corinthians 1:23). They couldn’t see the purpose of God in the death of the Messiah. They were looking for a political saviour to deliver them from the oppression of Rome. But Jesus has already said to Pilate, ‘My Kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36). It’s not Jerusalem. It’s not Palestine. It’s not a small piece of geography in the Middle East. He is King of another realm – a world of love and righteousness. He is the Potentate of time. This immense universe is His wide domain. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, God omnipotent who reigns over all. There is not a single atom in this vast cosmos outside of His sovereign control. ‘There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, “It is Mine”’ (Abraham Kuyper). And He shall reign forever and ever; and the glory of His Kingdom will never end.

The Jews were the covenant people of Christ – the representatives of His Kingdom in the world. He had chosen them, the least of all the families of the earth, to be a people for His glory (Amos 3:2). Under the New Covenant in the blood of Christ, the Gentile nations are also invited into covenantal relationship with the Lord Christ. ‘He rules over a Kingdom which recognises no national or racial distinctions, a kingdom in which the Aramaic-speaking Jew, the Roman, and the Greek – yes, a people elect from every tribe, and tongue, and nation – are citizens’ (Hendriksen). His Kingdom is the glorious city of God. In the Book of Revelation, John describes the New Jerusalem as city with twelve gates in the walls – three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west – to welcome peoples from the four corners of the world (Revelation 21: 12–13). In this glorious city, there’ll be no more night; for God is there, bright and shining like the sun, and by His light ‘the nations will walk, and into it the kings of the earth will bring their glory. Its gates will never be shut at the end of the day, because there will be no darkness there. And into the city will be brought the glory and honour of the nations’ (Revelation 21: 24–26). His Kingdom – the glorious city of God – is an international Kingdom of light, and glory, and honour. There is no place for racism or xenophobia in the church. Ours is an international gospel. Ours is a gospel for the whole world of lost mankind. John Wesley famously wrote in his diary, ‘I see the whole world as my parish … in whatever part of it I am, I judge it my right [and] … duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation’. As Christians, we are commissioned by Christ to take the gospel of His Kingdom to the ends of the earth. Jesus says, ‘Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations’ (Matthew 28:19). In the gospel of Luke, He says, ‘repentance and the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations’ (Luke 24:47). In the Acts of the Apostles, the Lord Christ promises that His disciples will be ‘His witness in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). In Revelation, John describes the Church international – ‘a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne – and to the Lamb!’ (Revelation 7:9–10). When Pilate wrote the inscription in three languages, he could never have known the great significance of his words. Christ is proclaimed among the nations (cf. Psalm 96: 3; Psalm 105: 1; 1 Chronicles 16: 24; Jeremiah 50: 2; 1 Timothy 3:16), even to the very ends of the earth. He is worshiped, loved, and adored by billions of Christians of different languages in every corner of the world.

Jesus Christ is King – ‘and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His Kingdom there shall be no end’ (Luke 1:32–33). And though He was crucified, dead, and buried, the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father Almighty, and He will come again, with glory to judge the living and the dead, and reign forever, world without end. Let us therefore be sure that we know Christ as our King and that His kingdom is established in our hearts. Those who have denied Him in this life will be denied a share in His Kingdom in the life to come. The splendour of His Kingdom belongs to those only who have fallen down at His feet and worshipped Him. A place of everlasting night and of blackest darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth has been reserved for those who refuse Him. Hell is a place of hopelessness. The inscription above the Gate of Hell in Dante’s Inferno reads, ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here’. Such a place of misery is kept for those without the Shepherd-King to lead them in the paths of righteousness. Christ Jesus is our King and Sovereign and He commands that we trust and obey His word, follow Him in faith, serve Him with humility, and repent of our sins before the coming of His glorious kingdom without end. Have you bowed the knee to Christ? Have you fallen down with tears before Him – with sorrow for sin and faith in His Word? Come, worship Him. Come bow down before Him. It’s now or never. Today is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Come to Him. He gladly receives broken and contrite hearts.

3] Finally, Christ’s work is finished. The Lord Jesus was crucified and the soldiers cast lots for his clothing in fulfilment of Psalm 22: ‘They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots’. The Lord of glory is crucified before their eyes; and these Romans are playing a game (vv. 23–24). Even today, men and women are playing games before God. They are captivated by the toys, and trinkets, and vanities of life. They are not concerned about salvation and redemption. They never think to ask: Who am I? Where I am going? What happens to me when I die? They couldn’t care less about this man upon the Cross. They think only of material things, some clothes and a seamless tunic. Playing games before the Lord Jesus, the Crucified. They are a prototype our generation. We live in a society consumed by the quest for material gain. How much stuff can I accumulate for myself? How much wealth can I store up in barns? How many treasures can I gather upon earth where moth and rust destroy? A BMW, a four bedroom house, an Xbox Series X, a PlayStation 5, iPads, iPods, gadgets, gizmos, and all vanities: ‘And so Mammon led them on – Mammon, the least upright spirit that fell from heaven, for even in heaven his looks and thoughts were always downward bent, admiring more the riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold, than aught divine or holy … and Men also, by his suggestion taught, ransacked the world, and with impious hands, rifled the bowels of the … earth, for treasures better hid … Let none admire that riches grow in hell’ (Milton). They divided his garments among them and for his clothing they cast lots – stuff, money, gambling – the world and all its vanity at the foot of the Cross. My friend, ‘You cannot serve both God and Mammon’ (Matthew 6: 24). All your stuff, and riches, and gain will perish with you in that place of eternal darkness. Put your stuff away and look at the Cross of Christ. See your Saviour dying. Consider Him. Consider eternity. My friend, why will you die? Will you not turn your eyes upon Jesus? Will not the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace?

The Lord Jesus sees beyond the soldiers playing games to His mother Mary. There is something far more valuable than all the treasures of the world in this person. Jesus' mother was honoured by him. She was blessed among women. Our parents, whom we love, are far more valuable than worldly treasures. The law of Moses says, ‘Honour your mother and father’. It was one of the Ten Commandments written with the finger of God. The Lord Jesus was ever obedient to the will of God and honours His mother even in death. ‘When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!’ And then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother’ (vv. 25–26). He entrusts His mother into the care of John, the beloved disciple. Some have wondered why He calls His mother ‘woman’ in this passage, but I question what ‘mother’ could bear to see her son dying in such agony. He calls her ‘woman’ because she must no longer see Him as her son, but as her Saviour, even her Lord. Notice also the presence of women at the foot of the Cross (v. 25). It seems that of all Jesus’ disciples, only one was present at the Cross, the apostle John. The others had fled from fear lest they be taken captive and crucified. Where is Peter brave and bold? Where’s his courage now? He’s sold it. He fell flat on his face before a serving girl and thrice denied the Lord Jesus. Let it be a lesson to us: women are generally far braver than men. We see their courage, their devotion, and their love to the Lord Jesus before the Cross. Let them be an example to us all – a reminder that we are called to follow Jesus and love Him no matter what may come our way. Therefore, consider today the cost of following Jesus like these women. Be bold and be strong, for the Lord is with you, and He will give you strength. 

The narrative is building up to a conclusion – Christ takes some sour wine from the soldiers on a sponge (vv. 28–19). He cries these words, ‘I thirst’ – again a fulfilment of Psalm 22 (v. 15). The physical exhaustion of the Cross would have caused Him to lose water through sweating, and He would have suffered desperate thirst. The sponge of bitter wine was extended on branch of Hyssop – the branches of which were used at the Passover for the sprinkling of blood upon the doorposts of Hebrew households so that angel of death would pass them by. His thirst reminds us of the need for atonement and covering for sin. At the back of the physical thirst, Christ is suffering the wrath of God for our salvation. All the wrath and judgement of God is being poured out upon Him for the redemption of lost humankind. This thirst is a spiritual thirst, experienced only by those in the fires of a lost eternity. Christ is the Passover lamb who suffers the judgement of God in our stead. Death comes to Him and not to us. For His blood, received by faith, is painted upon the doorposts of our hearts. He suffered spiritual thirst that we by faith should never bear it; even that we might partake of the waters of everlasting life. ‘If anyone is thirsty’, Jesus says, ‘Let Him come unto me and drink’ (John 7: 37). ‘Come all you who are thirsty’, He cries, ‘come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money, and price’ (Isaiah 55: 1). His gospel is free. His mercy is free. His grace is free. And freely offers living water to lost mankind – and whoever drinks by faith the water He gives will never thirst again. It is a fountain springing up to life eternal.

Christ drinks the bitter wine offered by the soldiers because, John tells us, He knows that ‘all now was finished’ (v. 28). His work of atonement and redemption is complete. And He takes the sour wine to cry one last time: ‘It is finished’. His work of salvation is finished. There’s nothing more to add. The debt of human sin has been paid by His death. His blood is sufficient to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Our full salvation rests only upon the finished work of Christ. ‘We have a Saviour who has done all, paid all, accomplished all, and performed all that is necessary for our salvation’ (J. C. Ryle). And we take up the words of the apostle Paul, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus … Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died; more than that, He is risen. He is even at the right hand of God, making intercession for us’ (Romans 8: 1, 34). Christ suffered all the condemnation due to us upon the Cross. There is nothing left to pay for those who are found in Him by faith. His work is absolutely finished – final, completed, done.  ‘He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves (repeating sacrifices as under the Old Covenant); but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus obtaining an eternal redemption’ (Hebrews 9:12). The redemption He has secured to cover our sins is infinite, eternal, and unchanging. It is finished. There is nothing whatsoever to add to His work. It is complete in Him.

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

The call of the gospel is simply this: receive by faith what Christ has done. ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved’ (Acts 16:31). It is not the possibility of salvation offered, but the certainty of it for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. ‘These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name’ (John 20: 31).

‘Dead, Buried …’

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for the Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So, the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it bore witness – his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth – that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken’. And again, the Scripture says, ‘They will look on Him whom they have pierced’. After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen clothes with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there (John 19: 31–42).

Introduction

The Lord Christ, the eternal Son of God, suffered as real man. He knew all the hardships of this life, poverty, temptation, the scorn of men, the angst of Gethsemane, the agony of the Cross. He suffered physically the beatings of Roman soldiers, the crown of thorns, the nails in His hands and feet, the slow and painful asphyxiation of the Cross. He suffered emotionally: the mocking of the crowds, the tears of his mother, the abandonment of His friends. He suffered spiritually. Christ sustained in His body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race, and by His suffering He makes atonement for sin in order that He might deliver us, body and soul, from eternal condemnation and obtain everlasting salvation for all who call upon His name. He suffered, as the Apostles’ Creed says, ‘under Pontius Pilate’ in the reality of history – at a particular point in space and time, when Pilate was the Roman Governor of Judea. The Scriptures emphasise the historicity of these events. Christ Jesus didn’t die in Narnia or Middle Earth. He died in the reality of human history at the hands of Roman soldiers under the authority of the Roman Governor. We are reminded that His life, death, and resurrection are historical events. They are not brute facts or isolated, meaningless events. On the contrary, the facts recorded in the New Testament hold great significance. They hold deep meaning and purpose for humanity. Jesus was crucified for sins not His own. He shouldered the curse of human sin to procure the redemption of lost humanity.

Paul interprets the theological significance of the history for us: ‘Christ’, he says, ‘has redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged upon a tree” (Galatians 3:13).  He died to satisfy the justice of God. He died to pay the debt of human sin, to make expiation and atonement for the sins of the world, even to suffer the wrath, curse, judgement of God as a substitute for sinners of lost mankind. The Lord Christ suffered unspeakable anguish, pain, even the terrors of that infernal world, that He might deliver us from sin and death and hell. He was ‘crucified, dead, buried’ as the Creed says. He truly died upon the Cross, and was buried, and His tomb was sealed with a great stone and guarded by Roman soldiers.

1] Firstly, we see the reality of Christ’s death. He truly died upon the Cross and gave up His spirit. He was not a victim of death nor of Pilate, neither of the Jews, or the Roman soldiers. John says, ‘He bowed His head and gave up His spirit’ (v. 30). He did this of His own accord. Christ freely gave Himself up to death upon a Cross. Earlier in the gospel of John, Jesus says, ‘I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down; and I have authority to take it up again’ (John 10:17–18). Christ voluntarily gave Himself up to death upon a Cross. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus called out with a loud voice from the Cross, saying, ‘Father into your hands I commit my spirit’ (Luke 23:46). He entrusted His own soul into the hands of His Father. Even upon the Cross, the Lord Christ was King of the Universe. He was ruling and sustaining all things according to His powerful Word. No one takes His life from Him. He freely gave Himself for sinners. It was his choice to die. Here at the Cross, He remains in total control of His life and death as the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth. Yet He freely poured out His soul unto death, He laid down His life, He dismissed His spirit, He rent body and soul asunder and cried, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30). His work of redemption was completed. ‘We must not view His death as some tragic accident, but as the fulfilment of His obedience to the will of the Father for the redemption of lost humanity. No other died as He died’ (John Murray). All the suffering of the Cross He endured as an act of perfect obedience to the will of His heavenly Father. Paul says, ‘He was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross’ (Philippians 2:8). His death was the ‘climatic requirement of His obedience’ (John Murray). He fulfilled the righteousness requirements of the Law as a perfect sacrifice for sin. Where we had disobeyed God, consumed by sin and unrighteousness, the Lord Jesus obeyed His Father in life and in death and offered Himself freely, once and for all, to make amends for sin.

In order to make atonement, the Lord Christ had to die. ‘Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness for sin’ (Hebrews 9:22). This is why John devotes such attention to the fact of Christ’s death. We are told that ‘one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water’ (v. 34). It was the day of preparation for the Passover, and not wanting to defile the Holy Day, the Jews petitioned Pilate for the legs of the condemned to be broken in order that their bodies might be removed before the sabbath day. Normally, the Romans would leave the bodies to decay for several days as a warning to transgressors. However, on special occasions, such as the emperor’s birthday, the legs of those condemned could be broken to end their lives quickly and the bodies hastily buried. However, when the soldiers come to Jesus, they find Him already dead. They don’t break His bones, fulfilling the words of the Psalmist: ‘Not one of His bones will be broken’ (Psalm 34:20; John 19:33, 36). Instead, one of the soldiers callously thrusts a spear, six feet long with a cast iron point, upwards into His side piercing the heart of Christ. Thereby fulfilling the words of the Prophet Zechariah, ‘They will look on Him whom they have pierced’ (Zechariah 12:10; cf. Psalm 22:16). 

Jesus would have already died upon the Cross as combination of cardiovascular collapse and exhaustion asphyxia. The spear to his side did not kill Him for He was already dead, but it certainly confirms His death. Christ was perceived to be dead and was pierced with a spear by an expert Roman solider who was a trained killing machine. The Lord Jesus had been beaten, and whipped severely, a crown of thorns had been pressed into His head, nails had been driven into His hands and His feet, and He suffered the slow and agonising asphyxiation of the Cross as He struggled against the weight of His own body to breathe. The flow of blood and water was most likely pericardial fluid pouring out from the spear would. All of this confirming the reality of His death. In other words, He didn’t merely swoon or faint upon the Cross. He actually died. A spear pierced His side. ‘Without a real death there could be no real sacrifice; without a real death there could be no real resurrection; and without a real death and a real resurrection, the whole of Christianity … has no foundation at all’ (J. C. Ryle). By God’s providence, the Roman solider confirmed the death of Christ beyond dispute when He thrust the spear into our Lord’s side.

John, the beloved disciple and author of the gospel, was an eyewitness to the crucifixion and death of Christ: ‘He who saw it had borne witness – his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth – that you also may believe’ (v. 35). The Christian gospel calls you to believe in a crucified Saviour. It calls you to believe that Christ truly died and that His death holds eternal significance. ‘He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed’ (Isaiah 53:5). The blood and water described by John not only witness to the fact of His death, but to the significance of it. This is a theological fact. The blood and water speak of atonement. John deliberately makes mention of the preparation for the Passover to connect the events of Christ’s death with the idea of atonement for sin. The blood of animals was shed under the Old Covenant for the forgiveness of sins, especially on the Day of Atonement. In fact, the sacrifices of the Old Covenant had no real efficacy in themselves, but they were types and shadows anticipating the effectual work Cross. The typology of Scripture points always to ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). The water was given for cleansing. Our sins defile us. They make us unclean. But at the Cross ‘a fountain was opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness’ (Zechariah 13:1). ‘And if we confess our sins’, John says, ‘He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). For ‘the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7).

There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.

2] Secondly, we see the love and grace of those who buried our Lord. Joseph of Arimathea, who was a secret disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of the Jesus. We know very little about Joseph of Arimathea. He was a secret disciple of the Lord Christ and Jewish senator, one who would not consent to the deeds of the Sanhedrin in condemning and crucifying Christ. He risks everything for Christ at this moment, his wealth and status, in petitioning Pilate to have body of Christ removed and buried in his new sepulchre. He comes forward to honour Christ even when the apostles had forsaken Him and fled. There are millions upon millions of Christians in the world – many of whom we will never know and never meet – but they love the Lord Jesus. They may not share identical theological beliefs, they may not worship in the same way as we do, but if they honour the Lord Jesus and exalt Him by faith in their hearts, they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us learn that there are many Christians in the world who are like Joseph of Arimathea, secret disciples of our Lord, unknown to many in the Church and the world, but known and loved by God.

There’s a tendency in the Western Church towards a pessimism today. We consider the decline of Christianity, the influence of secularisation, and many have fallen into a deep despair. It’s all over for Christianity in the West. It’s all doom and gloom. The end is nigh. You get this kind of pessimism among Christians. ‘Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”. But what is God’s reply to Him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal”. Even at the present time, there is a remnant, chosen by grace’ (Romans 11: 2–5). The Lord God will save an elect people for His glory. The Lord Christ will build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. One day we will be astonished by the sight of the glorious city of God – an elect people from every tribe, tongue, and nation – people of all languages, of every culture, of all ethnicities. There will be myriads upon myriads, thousands upon thousands, more than the sand upon the seashore and the stars in the sky. They shall all stand at the last day before the throne of God giving glory and honour to the lamb that was slain. Why do you despair my friends? Is the Lord’s arm shortened that it cannot save? Let’s get out of the evangelical pity party and come to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

‘It is not those who make the greatest show in the church, who are always the fastest friends of Christ’ (J. C. Ryle). Where were the apostles? Where’s mighty Peter? What about Andrew? Or James the Son of Zebedee? Where’s Phillip and Bartholomew? Where’s Matthew, and Thomas, and Simon, and Judas Thaddeus? Or James the brother of Jesus? Where are they? Hiding. Afraid. They are denying they ever knew our Lord. Yet these secret disciples – Joseph and Nicodemus – in spite of their fear of the Sanhedrin, risk everything to honour and bury the Lord Jesus Christ. Your faith may be as small as a mustard seed, or as thin as a spider’s web, but if it latches onto Jesus then it is true and saving faith. For it is not about the strength of your faith, but the strength of the Saviour in whom your faith is found. He is mighty to save. He is my strong deliver, my refuge, my fortress, and my Saviour. ‘We are secure in Christ not because we hold tightly to Jesus, but because He holds tightly to us’ (R. C. Sproul). Underneath us are his everlasting arms. 

We know more about Nicodemus than we do about Joseph. Nicodemus was a distinguished Jewish theologian of the Pharisees and a member of the Sanhedrin. He had long been a secret admirer of Jesus and one day came to him by night. Jesus told him of the necessity of the new birth for those who would see and enter the kingdom of God: ‘You must be born again’ (John 3:7). This was a key theme in the preaching of George Whitefield during the eighteenth century revivals. It’s not enough to have the outward form of religion, you must be inwardly changed by the Spirit of God. You may have a good baptism, sound theology, Church membership, a black Bible, you may have shed tears of repentance, and offered many prayers to God, and yet be dead in sin. He is not a real Christian who is only one outwardly; but he is a true Christian only who is one inwardly, whose baptism is of the heart, and in the Spirit, and not merely of water. ‘I go to chapel’ – you say, ‘surely God will have mercy on me’. Not at all. If Christianity consisted only in the observances of religious duties, chapel-going and charity, then who was more righteous than the Pharisee who fasted twice a week and gave tithes of all he possessed? Yet he was not justified in the sight of God. The sum of the matter is this: Christianity includes morality and religious duty as grace does reason, but if we are only mere moralists, if we are not inwardly changed by the powerful operations of Spirit of God, and if our actions do not proceed from the principle of a new nature or a new birth then it is to be feared we shall be found naked and ashamed in that Great Day when Christ at last returns to judge the living and the dead, and even be found among those who vainly depend upon their own righteousness for salvation, and not upon the saving righteousness of Christ Jesus. If any man be truly and properly in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come! Nothing short of a sound and thorough conversion will bring about your salvation. It is not enough to turn over a new leaf, to become a good person. It is not enough to attend chapel and say your prayers. It is not enough to have religiosity. No, you must be born again. Not only some things, but all things must become new in soul. The Spirit of God must come and live within your heart. In short, you must not be an almost Christian, but an altogether new creature in Christ.

Nicodemus was at first bemused by Christ’s doctrine of regeneration, but clearly the Spirit of God had worked grace in his heart, and he was born again. When the Pharisees wanted to seize Jesus and charge him as false prophet, Nicodemus spoke in his defence, upholding the rule of law, ‘Does our law convict a man without first hearing from him to determine what he has done?’ (John 7:51). Nicodemus defends the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence until clear evidence demonstrates otherwise. These are values now embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to the law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence’ (Article 11). Nicodemus courageously stands up for the innocence of the Lord Jesus before the Council of the Pharisees. He has a new heart, new values, a clear conscience. His mind, will, and affections have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. He has been sanctified, made reasonable, just, true, honest, and fair. He’s a new man, a new creature in Christ Jesus.

We see Nicodemus in the passage before us loving tending to the body of our Lord. We can only imagine what it must have been like to see the crucified body of Christ – bruised, bloody, torn to pieces. Yet Nicodemus and Joseph tenderly care to His burial. The same Nicodemus who came timidly to Jesus by night, now comes boldly to the burial of our Lord bringing a costly mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight to anoint and prepare the body of our Lord to buried with honour and dignity. Nicodemus reminds us of the need for patience and kindness in understanding the mystery of conversion and the progression believers make in the Christian life. We may want someone to understand the new birth immediately, but God works according to His own time. ‘We must not condemn others as graceless and godless because they do not see the whole truth at once and only reach Christianity by slow degrees’ (J. C. Ryle). Not everyone is converted in the same way. Not everyone has the same testimony. For some, salvation came immediately and dramatically as with Paul on the road to Damascus. For others, the Lord graciously and gently opened their hearts to believe as with Lydia. For some, like Nicodemus, it takes time to ponder, to chew over the great doctrines of Christianity, to think careful about the words of the Lord Jesus. There is certainly only one way – through Christ Jesus alone – but there are many means and ways whereby the Spirit of God works in the hearts of men and women. There are degrees of faith, there are degrees of understanding, and we are reminded that sanctification is a progressive work of the Spirit of God. Step by step we inch closer to glory. 

Your beginnings in the Christian life may be very small – you may have only a little faith, a little understanding, a little godliness, but such is the Kingdom of heaven. ‘For the Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man planted in His field. Although it is the smallest of all seeds, yet it grows into the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches’ (Matthew 13:31–32). Nicodemus came from small beginnings. A seed was planted by the Lord Jesus Christ in the heart of Nicodemus as He spoke with him concerning the new birth. It grew into a majestic work in which he greatly honoured the Lord Christ in His death and burial. Jesus does not despise small things. He nourishes the small embers of faith: ‘A bruised reed He will not break, the smoking flax He will not put out’ (Matthew 12:20). ‘Who has despised the day of small things?’ (Zechariah 4:10). Let us be thankful that God works sometimes unseen, secretly, and yet marvellously by His grace in our weakness to make known His perfect strength.  

3] Thirdly, we see a glimpse of glory in His burial. Having endured the most painful sufferings in His body and soul upon the Cross, the Lord Christ died and was buried, and remained under the power of death for a season. The eternal Son of God, through whom all things were made, the One who has the power to give life and to take it away; the One who healed the sick, and gave sight to the blind, and who even raised the dead, himself bled, and died, and was buried.  

Tis mystery all! The immortal dies:

Who can explore His strange design?

The Lord Christ came right into a world of hot tears, and sighs, and sorrow, a place of suffering, sickness, and death. He came to the graveside – ‘the world of strained faces, hushed voices, and tear-stained eyes’ (Milne). He came even to that place where the destructive power of death is so real and irreversible. So deep was His love for us that He went down in identification with lost mankind into valley of the shadow of death. His body was taken down from the Cross, wounds still gaping wide, and was lovingly washed and prepared for burial, wrapped carefully in cloths generously laced with spices. He was carried and laid in the tomb and sealed there in darkness, silently, in solitude.

He experienced all the sufferings of life, the judgement of God, the agony of the Cross, and the solemn darkness of the tomb. In the words of the Prophet Isaiah, ‘By oppression and judgement, He was taken away … and He was cut off from the land of the living … and assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death’ (Isaiah 53:8–9). Yet, in the midst of this darkness and despair, there is reason for hope. Although His burial properly belongs to the humiliation of Christ, yet it also anticipates His exaltation. ‘It is a new tomb. Decay has never entered it. The body of Jesus did not suffer corruption. God took care of that. The tomb belonged to a rich man. It was a tomb fit for a king. Here everything points to exaltation’ (Henricksen). The Lord Christ speaking through the Psalmist had said, ‘For you will not leave my soul in Sheol; neither suffer you holy one to see corruption’ (Psalm 16:10). His body was kept in a new tomb and preserved by the power of the Holy Spirit from decay. Here was the hope resurrection. Here was a seed of life at work.

The spices applied to His body show great love and honour to the Lord Christ. John is careful to record the weight in detail as seventy-five pounds (thirty-four kilos), far exceeding normal use. In fact, the only occasion for such a costly gift was specifically at the burial of kings. There’s a glory and a dignity in the burial of Christ. ‘He was buried with the rich in His death’ (Isaiah 53:9). His body was laid in new tomb without corruption, scented with a kingly gift of Myrrh and aloes, under the care of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, both affluent members of the Sanhedrin. Everything in His burial speaks of His glory, His dignity, His honour. Even in the darkness of the tomb, there is the light of resurrection. ‘Christ’s death should comfort us against the fear of death. The grave could not long keep Christ, and it shall not long keep us’ (Matthew Henry). ‘For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; and death shall have no dominion over Him’ (Romans 6:9).

The Scriptures say, ‘It is appointed for man once to die, and then to face the judgement of God’ (Hebrews 9:27). My friend, are you ready to die? Whether you are young or old, whether you have sinned much or little, whether you have offended much or neglected much, you stand guilty, condemned, and your sins are altogether vile and odious in the sight of a holy God. What shall you do? What shall you plead on the day of reckoning? There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell but the mere pleasure and mercy of God. The bow of His wrath is bent, and its arrow made ready at your heart, and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of Almighty God between yourself and a lost eternity. Your life hangs by a string as thin as a spider’s web above that place of blackest darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. But today an extraordinary opportunity is set before you. This is a day of salvation. A day wherein Christ has flung wide the doors of mercy, and he stands in the door calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners: ‘Come unto me, all you who are weary and heaven laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink’ (John 7:37). He excludes none: ‘Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely’ And He never turns any away: ‘Him that cometh to me, I shall in no wise cast out’ (John 6:37). ‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live’? (Ezekiel 33:10) ‘Surely, as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live’ (Ezekiel 33:11). Why, why will you die? Why not turn to God and live? The Lord Christ has died that you may have life. He asks only that you come in repentance and faith, believing His word, believing that death is not the end of all being, believing the hope of resurrection.

You see, my friend, He’s not dead. His tomb is sealed no longer. Christ is risen from the grave. ‘The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. Therefore, consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 6:10–11). The Lord Christ has risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father Almighty in the majesty on high. His eyes blaze with fire, his feet are like burnished bronze, and his voice is the roar of many waters. In His hand He holds seven stars and out of His mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword. And He will come again with glory, as a rider upon a white horse, His robes dripped with blood, to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there will be no end. My friend, will you be found in that kingdom? Would this day you lay hold of eternal life? Would you attain the resurrection from the dead? Would you know the glorious life of the world to come? Then you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. He says, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he life’ (John 11:25). ‘Fear not’, said He, ‘I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore’ (Revelation 1:17–18).

‘… The Third Day He Rose Again’

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:11–31). 

Introduction

The Lord Christ died. He was crucified and buried. His body was prepared with spices, wrapped in clothes, and laid in a tomb. The tomb was sealed with a great stone and guarded by Roman soldiers. He had suffered sorrows in His body and soul severe beyond our comprehension. He had been beaten, whipped, mocked, reviled, spat upon, and nailed to a cross, with a crown of thorns pressed into His head. He has suffered the physical torture and agony of the Cross. He had struggled against the weight of His body to breathe, the mental and psychological anguish, the humiliation, the scorn, the abandonment of His dearest friends, and the tears of His mother. Beyond the physical and emotional suffering of the Cross, the Lord Christ was crucified as an atonement for sin. He died the death deserved by us. He carried our guilt, our sin, our shame to the Cross and suffered the wrath and judgement of God for us. He died for us. He died for our salvation. He died to make an end of sin. His body was taken down from the Cross, loving cared for by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and laid in the tomb, and sealed shut with a great rolling stone.

But on the third day, His tomb is empty. The stone has been rolled away. The Roman soldiers have fled. Mary came to the tomb very early in the morning. It was still dark, just as the light of dawn was beginning to rise, but the tomb is empty. Mary has no thoughts of resurrection. On the contrary, she runs to the disciples, to Peter and John, and says, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him’ (John 20:2). The first people to doubt the resurrection were not atheists, but Christians. Mary came to the tomb expecting to find a body. She had no idea that Jesus had risen from the dead. ‘They must have taken him’, she said. None of the disciples were expecting the Lord Jesus to rise from the dead. Their master was gone. Their friend was dead and buried. Their hopes shattered. Their world turned up-side-down. ‘Their doors were shut for fear of the Jews’ (John 20:19). Are we next? Will they come for us also? Even when the women brought news of an empty tomb and a risen Saviour, they did not believe. ‘When the women told these things to the apostles, these words appeared in their sight as idle talk, and they disbelieved them’ (Luke 24:10). Thomas doubted most of all: ‘Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails, and my hand into His side, I will not believe’ (John 20:25).

Peter and John fearing the body of the Lord had been stolen and His grave desecrated, they ran to the tomb. It’s empty, the stone is rolled away, and strangely the graveclothes are folded neatly in the tomb. A sight and sense that sends shivers down your spine. Thieves would never have taken the time to unwrap the graveclothes, undress the corpse, and fold the graveclothes. Thieves don’t come into your house and do your ironing, and wash your dishes, and file your bank statements. They come as quickly as possible, they pull your house apart, they get what they want and leave as quickly as they came. What kind of robbery and desecration is this? What manner of thieves defy armed Roman soldiers, push aside a massive rolling stone, carefully unwrap the body of Christ, neatly fold the graveclothes, and hurry about Jerusalem with a naked dead body? Peter it seems was confused by these things. Luke tells us that ‘he went away, wondering to himself what had happened’ (Luke 24:12), but the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved also went in to the tomb ‘and he saw and he believed’ (John 20:8). Why should John have believed? He saw the folded graveclothes. They were a sign to John not of robbery, but that Christ had risen from the dead. Though not fully understanding that this miracle was a fulfilment of the Scripture that Christ must rise from the dead, John nonetheless saw the power of an endless life: he saw the empty tomb, he saw the folded graveclothes, and he believed (v.8).

John records three accounts in this chapter of those eyewitnesses who encountered the risen Christ: Mary Magdalene in the garden, the terrified disciples meeting in a locked room, and last of all to doubting Thomas. The design of these accounts is to persuade us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ: ‘These are written (John says) that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name’ (v. 30). Today you are confronted with the reality of an empty tomb and a risen Saviour. The most unusual, wonderful, and powerful claim of the Christian gospel: He is not here. His tomb is empty. He has risen, just as He said (Matthew 28:6). 

1] Firstly, the Lord Christ appears to Mary Magdalene in the garden (vv. 11–18). Mary Magdalene is weeping and as she wept, she looked into the tomb. It has been a night of tears. Her Lord and Saviour was taken and crucified. She had seen Him falsely accused, beaten, humiliated, nailed naked to a Cross – suffering, bleeding, dying. He died. The Lord of glory was crucified. This morning the women had come to the tomb with spices, hoping the Roman soldiers would move the stone, and let them finish the work Nicodemus and Joseph had started. But when she arrived, the body of Jesus was gone. Not only had her Lord suffered the humiliation of the Cross, but now His tomb had been desecrated and His body stolen by thieves or so she thought. Her heart is heavy with sorrow, mingled with love for the Lord Jesus. As she looks into the tomb, two angels in white are sitting there where the body of Jesus had lain. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him’ (v. 13). She entertains no thoughts of resurrection. She wholly and entirely expected to find the body of Christ at the tomb. Even seeing the angels, clothed in white, she still believes someone has taken the body. She’s crying her heart out with grief. She may not have had much faith to see that Christ had risen, but she truly loved the Lord Jesus.

Her tears were not only because Jesus was dead, but because His body was missing on top of all that taken place. ‘The removal of a body from the tomb was a form of desecration; an outrageous abuse of the dead’ (Beasley-Murray). You can almost picture her whole body shaking with grief and indignation. They have taken ‘my Lord’, she says. It’s deeply personal. Here is a heart full of love for Christ. ‘She was last at His Cross and first at His grave’ (Bishop Andrews). We know very little about Mary Magdalene from Scripture. The synoptic gospels teach us that she was one out of whom the Lord Jesus had cast ‘seven devils’ (Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2). She had been tormented by evil, mental health problems, oppression, injustice, and her community would have rejected her, but not the Lord Jesus. He loved her. He set His grace upon her. He saved her. He delivered her from devils. What a Saviour! What a man to show such love! Here is a real man. Here is the picture of what true humanity looks like. Though all the world despises and scorns, Jesus loves broken people. He loves the rejects, the outcasts. He heals the leper. He gives sight to the blind, he heals the sick and needy, He takes the lowest sinners and shows them great mercy. Never had she experience such love, such grace, such mercy, such forgiveness. Her sins, though many, were forgiven. Those who have been forgiven much, love much; but those forgiven little, love little (Luke 7:47). 

Do we not very much need a great sense of our sin? Have we been broken in sorrow and repentance for our sin? Have we wept at the throne of mercy in deep contrition? Do we realise as Christians the exceeding sinfulness of sin in the sight of a holy God? Mary did. She knew. She had a good dose of herself. She understood how terrible her condition had been, yet the Lord Jesus loved her. He had freed her from hell on earth, mental anguish, restored her personality, made her whole again. It's no wonder she loved Him. She owed Him everything. Do we not also owe Christ everything? Has He not given us salvation, mercy, grace, pardon for sin, and peace with God? Why is my heart cold? Have we lost the love we had at first? Have we forgotten how much He loved us? Have we become so familiar with the gospel that we’ve forgotten the cost of our redemption? See the nail prints in His hands and feet. See the wound in His side. See the marks upon His head from the crown of thorns. My every sin on Him was laid, all the guilt, and shame, and sorrow of lost mankind. How can we not love Him? How can our hearts not melt like wax before His great love?

Even as Mary wept in her grief, Jesus found her. He comes to her in the power of an endless life and says, ‘Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ (John 20:15). She doesn’t recognise him at first. This is a fact of great significance. She wasn’t expecting the Lord Jesus to be alive. She thought He was dead. And the man speaking to her, she assumes to be the gardener and keeper: ‘Sir’, said she, ‘if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid him’ (v. 15). You can almost imagine the Lord Jesus smiling as he says, ‘Mary’. And immediately, she turns around and sees the Lord Christ has risen from the dead. Though glorified in body and mind, yet He was recognisable. She cries ‘Rabboni’ – the Aramaic word for ‘teacher’, surely amazed to see Him alive (v. 16). And we assume she tried to embrace Him in wonder, love, and awe, but Jesus says, ‘Wait Mary – do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers and sisters and say to them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father; to my God and your God’ (v. 17). Martha must remember that the Lord Jesus is holy. Even though He is a wonderful friend and gentle Saviour, He is also the Son of God and worthy of immortal honours. Mary is given a commission to go and tell the disciples the good news of great joy. It is a reminder that we cannot keep Jesus to ourselves in the four walls of the chapel, we are called to go out into the world and proclaim the wonderful message that Christ is risen from the dead.

The psalmist says, ‘Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning’ (Psalm 30:5). How true indeed for Mary who was blessed with a sight of the risen Saviour early in the morning! Yet the joy that Mary experiences, may be yours also. This very moment you may embrace the Lord Christ as your Saviour and attain the resurrection from the dead. Those who believe on the Jesus Christ know pardon for sin, peace with God, and a joy unspeakable and full of glory. He once died for sin, but now He lives forevermore. And the life He offers in the gospel is freely open to all who call upon His name. He will swallow up death forever in victory; and God shall wipe away all the tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed. And in that day, we shall say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted Him, and He saved us. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation’ (Isaiah 25:9).

2] Secondly, Jesus appears to His disciples in a locked room (vv. 19–23). Picture the scene in your mind. The disciples are deeply afraid. Will they also be taken and crucified? They shut themselves in a room together at night. ‘The doors were locked … for fear of the Jews’ (v. 19). Suddenly, Jesus appears and stands among them saying, ‘Peace be with you’ (John 20:21). The greeting was common is Israel, but Christ Jesus never let words fall with reason from His lips. He spoke peace into their situation. He spoke to their doubts and fears. ‘Peace’ and not blame – ‘peace’ and not fault finding – ‘peace’ and not rebuke – the first words the disciples heard from the lips of the Risen Saviour were ‘peace be with you’. The idea here is of completeness, wholeness, and restoration. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. It is a comprehensive kind of peace, a peace that passes all understanding, and a peace which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Jesus speaks peace to the very depths of our emotional and spiritual wellbeing. It was but three days before they had all forsaken Him and shamefully fled, yet He speaks peace to them. He forgives their inequity and remembers their sins no more. We must not think harsh thoughts of Christ. His first thought is to restore the backsliders, to strengthen their courage, to build them up in the faith. See the compassion and kindness of our Lord: when we wander out of the way, He will bring us back. When our feet have almost slipped, He will lift us up. When our hearts are full of doubts and fears, He will speak peace to our souls. Even though we stumble and fall, yet He will never leave us nor forsake us. This is a fundamental truth: your salvation does not depend upon your personal performance, neither upon the strength of your faith, or the extent of your theological knowledge, but solely upon Christ and His finished work of redemption. He is the strength of my salvation.

The Lord Christ appears before His disciples suddenly by His divine power when the doors were shut and bolted. Walls, doors, locks and keys mean nothing to a glorified body. Jesus fully assures them both of His resurrection and of their apostleship, breathing upon them the Holy Spirit for the ministry of the gospel. Either the doors were opened to Him by His divine power, or the very walls themselves were a passage to Him. There’s a furious debate among commentators over how exactly Christ appears to the disciples. Suffice to say, He appeared by His divine power in the flesh in His risen glory in their very midst. He was neither a ghost nor an apparition, but truly man, the risen Saviour incarnate, in the flesh. His resurrection was a physical and bodily resurrection. He rose in very same body in which He had suffered and died, but this is a glorious body. This is a resurrection body, a body filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: ‘What was sown perishable is raised imperishable, what was sown in dishonours is raised in glory, and what was sown in weakness is raised in power’ (1 Corinthians 15:42–43). 

‘He showed them His hands and His side’ (v. 20). He showed them the nail prints, the scar of the wound from the spear, now healed by His divine power. In other words, he appeals to their physical senses. Christianity is not merely a theoretical or speculative faith, appealing only to the intellect. It appeals also to the senses, to lived experiential reality. He encouraged them to see with their own eyes and lay hold of Him with their hands: ‘Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones and you see I have’ (Luke 24:39). The intellectual challenge of the gospel is both rational and experimental. He invites them to lay hold of His physicality and verify that He lives. John says in his first epistle, ‘That which was from the from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with out eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life – the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you eternal life’ (1 John 1:1–2).

The gospel appeals both to the mind as a system of truth and to the senses as an experimental faith. The Christ of faith is identical with the Christ of history. You cannot say, ‘There was a Christ of history, but little can be known about Him besides his moral teachings, and that the Christ of faith is a subsequent embellishment of the Church under Hellenistic influence’. Not at all! That is a distortion of the gospels. The Christ of history, of physicality, of flesh and blood is one and the same Lord and Saviour as the Risen Christ of glory. John was an eyewitness, a disciple of Christ. He had seen Him, heard Him, handled Him, touched Him, and believed on Him to life eternal. It is impossible to separate the theology and the history in the gospels. A liberal gospel would cut the pages of Scripture to pieces in the quest for the historical Jesus. The facts and their significance are one and the same. The very same Christ who lived and died in history rose again in the reality of space and time. We are dealing here with reality, the highest reality, and the uncanny reality of resurrection, glory, and the power of an endless life. He is not dead. He is risen. He rose again in the reality of spacetime. The Christ of history is the Christ of faith. 

The disciples are commissioned by the Lord Christ to proclaim the gospel. He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld’ (vv. 22–23). In other words, the Church proclaims the gospel message of the forgiveness of sins in the power of the Holy Spirit: it proclaims that those who believe in Jesus have their sins forgiven, and that those who refuse to believe are liable to perish eternally in a place of blackest darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The proclamation of the Church does not constitute the forgiveness of sins, it simply reflects what God has done already through Christ. I cannot forgive sins. No man, priest, bishop, or minster but Christ has the power to forgive sins. Him we proclaim. We preach Christ, the whole Christ, crucified. He is the gospel. He is good news – His life, His death, and resurrection. We’re not saved by our own merits, nor through the mediation of the Church, neither through popes and bishops, but simply through faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ in whom we find life eternal.

3] Thirdly, He appears to doubting Thomas (vv. 24–30). Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, was not with the other disciples when Jesus came. We are not told the reasons why he was absent and it is best not to speculate. Suffice to say, He missed a great blessing because He was absent from the fellowship of God’s people. The writer to the Hebrews says, ‘Do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Great Day approaching’ (Hebrews 10:25). Christians may meet in different ways, hold services at different times, worship in different styles, but we always come together in fellowship around the word of God. We meet to pray, to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, to read Scripture, to hear the word of life preached, and to remember the finished work of Jesus Christ. Let us not neglect such wholesome fellowship with each other. We come to meet with God in the person of Christ Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

The other disciples say to him, ‘We have seen the Lord’ (John 20:25). They tell Him of His appearance in the locked room and the blessing of His presence. Thomas refuses to believe. He is very much a prototype of our generation, and his doubts are profoundly important. The early Christians did not invent the empty tomb and the meetings or sightings of the risen Christ. They truly believe He had died. Thomas most of all. Nobody was expecting this kind of resurrection. Thomas doubted deeply and His doubts remind us of the human reality of the gospels. He says, ‘Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into His side, I will never believe’ (John 20:25). The disciples had received a peace which passes all understanding, but Thomas had no peace of mind. He was restless, angry, frustrated. ‘I will never believe’. No doubt Thomas had been a devoted disciple, but here he is found in a slough of despond. ‘His universe collapse when Jesus was crucified. He was “of all men most pitiful” [1 Corinthians 15:19]’ (Hendriksen).

Have you said, ‘I will never believe’. ‘It’s all nonsense’. ‘Stories for children’. So did Thomas, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Yet Jesus came to Him in the power of His resurrection. Eight days later, Thomas is with the disciples, again in a locked room, and Jesus appears. And Thomas is stunned. Have you ever had to ‘eat your own words’? Thomas did. Jesus stood before Thomas and said, ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands, and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Stop doubting and believe’ (v. 27). Not only did the Lord Christ appear, but He knew Thomas’ objections exactly and invites Him to see His hands and to touch His wounds. And Thomas falls down in wonder crying, ‘My Lord and my God’ (v. 28). It is more than surrender, it is worship. Thomas sees beyond even the resurrection to the divinity and majesty of Christ as the eternal Son of the living God. Some have said that Thomas is merely expressing His wonder and amazement to see Jesus alive, but for a Jewish man to take the name of God in vain would be blasphemy. Notice also that John is very careful to say, ‘Thomas answered Him, ‘My Lord and my God’ (v. 28). He spoke directly to Jesus and made this confession of faith. Both terms affirm the divinity of the Lord Christ and correspond to the Hebrew names for God: ‘Lord’ (Kyrios in Greek) is the equivalent of Yahweh in Hebrew, and ‘God’ (Theos in Greek) is the equivalent of the Hebrew Elohim.

The Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely and truly God. He is coequal and coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. In the face of Jesus Christ shines all the glory of God himself. Thomas sees the Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, even His God, Jehovah, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. For a Jewish man, this is a remarkable confession. Worship and the honour of divinity belongs to Yahweh only, yet Thomas falls upon His knees before this man Jesus and says, ‘My Lord, My God’. The Lord Jesus Christ is the God-man. He is the Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father before all worlds were made: God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the One by whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together. This same Lord God, the eternal Son, for our sakes was made man and assumed the full reality of our humanity – flesh and blood, a human mind, a human heart, a human soul, and was made incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit in womb of the Virgin Mary. This same Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures, and He appeared to Mary and the women, to the disciples, and to doubting Thomas. The Lord Christ is truly man and therefore He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. Yet He is Almighty God and is therefore able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him. He is man, and so gentle to sympathise; He is God, and so mighty to save.

Take up and read the gospels. Brings all your doubts, bring your intellect, bring your common sense, bring all your faculties, reason, will, and emotions to the Scriptures. Bring everything you have before Christ and carefully consider him. Consider the manner of His life, His death, His resurrection. Use your mind, ponder, chew over it, and think carefully about these things. The one thing you cannot do is dismiss Christ in His risen glory. You are confronted with the strange mystery of the resurrection, of life eternal, sins forgiven, and peace with God. This is a message of hope in a hopeless world. There is a question found in the soul of every human being: what will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything? Who am I? Where am I going? What happens when I die? Is there any meaning to life that the inevitable reality of death does not destroy? ‘If the dead are not raised, let us eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die’ (1 Corinthians 15:32). If death is the end of all being, then we are most of all to be pitied. This wonderful world of art, music, science, literature – all your hopes, all your fears, all your dreams, your loved ones, your vocation – it will all come to nothing if all being is moving relentlessly toward death and the grave.

It is into this culture of death that the Light of the World speaks words of everlasting life: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall He live’ (John 11:25). The great hope of the gospel is life. In the Lord Jesus Christ there is life eternal, life everlasting. Death is dead. Christ is risen. The tomb is empty. He lives. And because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because He lives, I know He holds the future. And life is worth the living just because He lives. The Christian hope does not merely consist in heaven, but the glorious life of the world to come. We believe in the resurrection of the body and the renewal of heaven and earth. We believe in a new heaven and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells. A day is coming when the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and the glory of the children of God. The Lord Christ has risen and ascended into heaven. He has sat down at the right of the Father Almighty; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead: and His Kingdom shall have no end. Job, the Old Testament saint who lived many thousands of years before the advent of Christ, wrote these remarkable words: ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And though my body decay, yet in my flesh shall I see God’ (Job 19:25–26).

Would you stand with Job on that day? Do you have a fixed and sure hope in the risen Saviour? Thomas saw with His eyes and believed, but blessed are those who see by faith the glory of the risen Lord and believe (see John 20:29). One day faith will give way to sight, and we shall gaze upon the beautiful face of our Saviour. Would you be there in a new world of love and righteousness? The only requirement is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. John closes his gospel with these wonderful words: ‘These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that by believing you may have life in His name’ (v. 31).