Gospel of John, 19:23-24

We are in John. We're on chapter 19, and I think I got all of the questions done except for the last one from last week, which has to do with verse 23 and 24, and it's a pretty easy question. The question is, why does John record verse 23 and 24, and the verse is, then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to each shoulder apart and also the tunic, now the tunic was without seam woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be. That the scripture might be fulfilled, which says, they divided my garments among them, and my clothing they cast lots, therefore the soldiers did these things.

If I could record that. He did it very simply just to fulfill prophecy. And we're going to see today there are certain things that John records just for that fact alone. The Lord Jesus is doing some things just for that fact alone to fulfill prophecy.

Because the Gospel of John, as we talked about last week, what aspect of the Lord Jesus' death, burial and resurrection is the gospel of John or his life. We said last week that he's the burnt offering, which has to do with presenting the Lord Jesus as dying to glorify God in the sense that we had so terribly dishonored him. We're looking at the Son of God here. We're not looking at him as a peace offering or the sin offering or the trespass offering.

So a lot of what John does and records has to do with just the fulfillment of prophecy so that what you're seeing here is the fulfillment of the eternal covenant. So kind of keep that in mind as we go along. Lesson 41, chapter 19, we'll do 25-42. I'll read a couple of verses.

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother. and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. And when Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by, whom he loved, he said to his mother, Woman, behold thy son. And then said he to the disciple, Behold thy mother. And from that day, or that hour, that disciple took her unto his own home. My question is, what was Jesus demonstrating concerning himself in these two verses, or three verses?

What's he doing? Why do you do this? And nobody had an answer? Yeah, which shows his humanity. That's exactly what he's doing. He's demonstrating that he's a man. And he's discharging his human obligations. That's what he's doing. So, what I found interesting is that even at the cross, at the point of dying, he's not unmindful of his duties to his family. Which is really cool. The thing that I did notice here is how many of his brothers were there?

Zippo, Nada, not a single one of them. How come? They weren't believers. They weren't believers at this point. It's interesting that this group of people that are there, only one disciple, who's John, and then these other women, his mother and then these other women. They're the only ones that are there. Everybody else, all these, you know, Peter and all those other brave guys are hiding in the weeds someplace because they're scared to death that the Jews and the Romans are going to grab them and do the same thing to them. In verse 29 he's about to die but what's he thinking about? In 29 he says, and now there was set a vessel full of vinegar and they filled the sponge with vinegar and put it upon hyssop and put it to his mouth.

What's he thinking about here? We just talked about it a minute ago. Yeah, look at the focus he has. He needs to fulfill all of the prophecies that have to do with him. So he cries out that he's thirsty. He's acting in accordance with the glory of his person, and he's acting in grace.

Psalm 69, 21 says, They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. The thing about the Lord Jesus Christ is that those who are doubters of who he is, if they would study the word of God, especially prophecy concerning him, they would find that every single prophecy about the Messiah was fulfilled by him. Right to the last minute. Every bit of it.

So, verse 30, And when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the spirit. So I ask, what does it is finished mean? And by the way, in Greek it's one word. It's Tetelesteia. It is finished. What's finished? The Eternal Covenant. What's that? Yeah, that's exactly right.

He and the Father had a contract, right? The short version is that if you will become a man and die for the sins of the world, I will raise you up. But we found out that there's a whole lot of other things that he agreed to in the eternal covenant that he has fulfilled and he has not missed a single one. So when it's done, he says it's finished.

He's done it all. There's not anything left to do. Every detail that the Father sent him to do was done to the very last item. It's proof that no scripture could be left that would not be of no importance. Do you understand what I mean by that? Not a single scripture is unimportant. He's fulfilled every part of it. So, do you see that even his death is a result of a voluntary act? You see that? He... How do I say this? Was this achievement a perfect act on his part? You understand what I mean by that question? You mean perfectly complete? Yeah.

There wasn't anything, as we used to say in the Marine Corps, there weren't any Irish pennants. You know what Irish pennants are? When you got your uniform on, you had these little strings that come off of stuff. You weren't allowed to have any of those in the Marine Corps. You know how they got rid of them? They burned them off. With a cigarette lighter, they'd singe them back.

There weren't any Irish penance at the cross. Every single thing was done according to the perfection of God. There was nothing left at this point for Him to accomplish. Not a single thing. It was all done. Could you say that this cry of His that is finished was Is it the last gasp of a defeated martyr?

Oh, no. What is it? Triumph. That's exactly right. That's what Merle Tenney says. This cry is not to be interpreted as the last gap of a defeated martyr, but it's a shout of triumph of victory. It's finished. Bruce. You're saying that everything was finished, but didn't he raise himself?

Well, in terms of the covenant, his part of the covenant Here's what his deal was. I'll become a man, and I'll die for the sins of the world. Once I'm dead, my job is done. What is the Father's part of the covenant? I'll raise you up. See, that's the Father's part.

Now, from the study of scripture, we discover that all three persons of the Godhead were involved in the resurrection of Christ. But Christ, at the point of his dying, he's fulfilled his part of the bargain. It's like if you and I have a contract, a real estate contract, there are certain things I have to do and certain things you have to do. The Lord Jesus is saying He's fulfilled His end. He glorified the Father to the full.

And the reason this is so important, you know the verse in Paul that says that God is just and the justifier of them who believe? Have you ever thought about that? That God is just and he's also the justifier. Without the death of Christ on the cross, if God was only going to be just, what happens to you and me? We all get condemned. But because of the work of Christ on the cross, God can be just because a condemnation for sin has happened, which means he also can be the justifier of those who believe. Isn't that cool? The thing that God did is he resolved the problem himself, according to his own veracity and his own holiness, so he can justify you and me. Because he's been satisfied.

So there's nothing left for you to do but to do what? Leave. Pretty cool. So, question four. The word bowed. can be translated laid to rest. What was the place of rest for Christ? With his Father. The cross is the place of rest. Isn't that something?

In Matthew 8.20, the Lord Jesus said, using the same word, Jesus said to him, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To lay his head is exactly the same word.

In Luke 9.28, Jesus said to them, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. The only place that he could lay his head and rest was at the cross.

Why? His job was done. That's right. The job is done. You don't sit down until the work is done. I've been trying to tell John that for his whole life. You work first, then you sit down. Question 5, in verse 30, what in verse 30 demonstrates the eternal covenant? We said it was completed. His redemptive work is done. What in that verse shows that the covenant, we've already talked about it.

In John 10-11, the Lord said, I'm the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The fact that the Lord Jesus laid down his life of his own choice really goes towards explaining, to some degree, the remarkable character of his death. The thing that we have to understand, even though we've spent a lot of time talking about Pilate and the Jews, this is all a voluntary act on his part.

The entire thing is his decision. His decision. The people that actually put him to death were just pawns used to carry out what his purpose was. So it goes and points up the sovereignty of God, not only in creation and sustaining of the universe, but in the very atonement for sin, every single part of it was God's decision and voluntary on Christ's part that he do it.

I mean he's standing before Pilate and all this stuff that's going on, it's almost like the Lord Jesus is enduring each element Like if Pilate would have said, OK, I'm done with you Jews. I'm going to let Jesus go. What would have happened then? Would Jesus have walked out? He even told Pilate, look, you're not taking your life from me.

I'm giving it. I'm giving it. I think it's really important for us to understand that this is God's show, so to speak. He's doing this even though all of these other people are involved in it and contributed atrocities to him. This is God who's doing this for the sins of the world. Could you maybe explain a little bit about these people being pawns and so forth and yet they're not robots are they?

They have a free will. Are they acting really out of their free will even though God is the one doing this stuff? We can have a discussion on free will. I don't think there is such a thing as free will. We have the ability to choose. But take a man who is not saved. Unless the Spirit of God acts on him, he is not free to choose life.

Is he? But we all have volition and we all can choose and so there are circumstances and natures and environment and all these things that go into who we are and why we would make a decision given a certain set of circumstances like the discussion between the Lord Jesus and Pilate on truth. It's a very interesting discussion because the Lord Jesus is really trying to save Pilate. He's trying to move him in a place where he would sort of turn his back, make a decision to turn his back on what he thought or didn't think truth was, and look to Christ for truth, and then Christ would have shown it. But he didn't go that far. And God holds him responsible for his decision.

Now, every person in here, and as we get into a couple more questions, I think you'll see it clearer. If you look at kind of the, if you took all the characters and kind of looked at who they were, and their background, like Pilate, like the high priest, like the Jews, like the disciples, the Roman soldiers, the women at the cross, and think about what caused them to play the role they played in the crucifixion. And you'll find that they all come from different backgrounds, different environmental influences, education, They're under certain structures in the society they're in, which leads them to make the decision to be involved at the point that they're involved. We would say, well, is God's sovereign will engaged in overall all of that?

Absolutely it is. Absolutely it is. Because God, I think you have to start with the premise that God in his sovereignty can create a human society and give everybody volition and a will and none of those wills will circumvent his sovereign will. Isn't that interesting? He can do that. As a matter of fact, that's what he's done.

When some of you were saved so young that you don't remember exactly when, you've always been saved. Some of you, like me, were saved later on in life. And when I made the decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, I made it viewing only what I could see. I thought I was making the decision. Right? And I was. And I wasn't coerced. I was drawn. I only found out later that it was God who did all the work. And I really, when I made the decision to believe in Christ, He set it all up. I would have never made any other decision. You see? I never was coerced as far as I knew. I was drawn. You see? So, His sovereign will is in place. And my volition and my will corresponds with His.

The last part of that answer would be every will of every man was created to be subject to God's will. And the fulfillment, the perfection of all creation, especially human beings, is to always do the will of God. When we go home to be in glory, we will be totally satisfied because we're created to do the will of the Father. And that is the thing that fulfills us more than anything else. The lie that we've bought into is that I'm fulfilled if I make the decision and I go do my thing. If you look in the Old Testament, there's a little sentence in Genesis 6 that's just a devastating sentence, but you go by it because you don't think it's a big deal. And here it says that every man did what he thought was right in his own heart. I mean, sounds like page four of the American Constitution, right?

What's wrong with that? What is wrong with that, if anything? What's wrong with me doing what I think is right in my own heart? The heart is deceitful above all things. What's that? The heart is evil and deceitful above all things. You can't trust it. That's right. The heart is deceitful and evil above all things. Who can trust it or not? What did you say? I just said it's not in your nature. That's right. See? That's the big lie. That I do what I think is right in my own mind. Duh. Question six. Let me see here. Verse 31.

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation day, that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was a high day. He saw Pilate, that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was dead already, they did not break his legs. When you break the legs of a crucifying victim, what does it cause? Suffocation. Because they are holding themselves up. And actually that is the thing that causes somebody who is crucified to die. They suffocate. They sink down and their shoulders and things squeeze off their lungs and they die.

So, why are the Jews doing this? because it's the Sabbath coming up. In Deuteronomy 21 it says if a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he's put to death and he's hung on a tree his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree but he shall surely bury him on the same day for he was hanged as a cursed of God so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance. We'll talk some more about this, but here are the Jews, it's the night, coming up on the Sabbath, and when does the Jewish Sabbath start? When?

Sundown. Sundown. That's the beginning of the day. So they're hurrying. It's 3, 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 4 o'clock maybe. Sun's going down. They've got to hurry, because they know about Deuteronomy. So in verse 31 shows the condition the Jews operated under, explain the Jewish viewpoint. Let's see if you pick up on what I mean here. Who did the Jews just crucify?

The Lord of Glory. And what is their big concern? Keeping the law. Keeping the law. So, I mean, do you see this? that they're keeping the law, but they just crucified God. You know, we would say, well, what were they thinking? They weren't. So, what's interesting about law keepers, law keepers are more interested in keeping the law, because what does the law do? Well, let me ask it this way. when you're under a law system, who are you focused on?

Yourself. Why? Because you have to be. If I say you've got to do a thousand push-ups and run ten miles, you've got to do that. You're the one that's got to do that. Any kind of a law system forces you to be focused on yourself. So here the Jews are under a law system, a Mosaic system. They're very focused on the performance of the law because the law says, if you can't do it, I will curse you. That's pretty scary stuff. So, anybody who is under a law system, what do they miss? This points it out dramatically. What do they miss?

Grace. More than that. His glory. His glory. How about just Him? They miss Him. So if you decide you want to be a good legal Christian, you know what it's going to cost you? Him. It's going to cost you intimacy with Christ. Because we live under grace. And when you live under grace, the great freedom about living under grace is that you don't have to look at you anymore. You know, the pogo thing, I found the enemy within the camp, guess who it is? It's me. I'm the enemy. So my freedom and my liberty in Christ is to be able to look away from me to Him. And I can only do that under a grace umbrella. I cannot do that under a legal system because I'm always concerned about how I'm doing. Right? If I live under grace, do I have to be concerned about how I'm doing?

What's the definition of grace, Courtney? excluding me. Unlimited and unmerited blessings from God based on the complete work of Christ. So if grace is the definition, if you accept this definition, it is the unlimited, unlimited, unlimited, can't say that enough, and it's unmerited, which eliminates law, blessings from God based on the totally adequate work of Christ. How much focus do you need to put on yourself to make sure you're getting enough grace?

None. Why? Because it's coming at you full on all the time. And that's the one thing that allows you to look away from yourself to Christ. To look at the one who is exhibiting the grace to you. All of us have a mentality that we're not measuring up somewhere Under grace, you not only went past the major up line, but you're way beyond it.

So here the Jews are, living under a lost system, missing the grace of God, and in their mind the most important thing to do is to get this corpse down off of the tree so that we won't get defiled. They missed Christ. That's why they put him to death. because he claimed to be God. They never sat down and thought, gee, I wonder if he's telling me the truth. A couple guys did, but most of them didn't. Here were men rejecting the Savior and yet so careful about carrying out the letter of the law. They didn't realize that the rejection of Jesus was far worse than leaving his body upon the cross on the seventh day.

Verse 34, one of the soldiers with the spear pierced the Lord Jesus' side and immediately came out blood and water. So when the soldier pierced his side, what does the water and the blood represent? Truth. He's already dead. And if you look at, from a representative standpoint, what does the blood represent to a believer? Sacrifice. Forgiveness. Sins paid for is a better way to look at it. That's what the blood does.

What does the water represent? Anybody else? What's water represent? What's water represent to the believer? To you? Life. How do you get clean? Washed. Washed with what? Water. The water of what? The Word of God. So I think John records this not only to show that he in fact was dead, and that the only thing that came out of his heart was water and blood.

But the analogy is, like in 1 John 5.6, this is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is the truth.

In 1 John 5.8, the Spirit and the water and the blood and the three are in agreement. By the precious blood of Christ, I am justified before God. By the water of the Word, it cleanses the believer from every defilement of the world. Do you see that? I think during verse 35 there, it explains pretty much what it was. And he that saw it bore witness, and his witness is true. And he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might be made full. One more verse about this.

In 1 John 1.7, John says, But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, here's the result.

We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. So there's two things here, there's the blood that deals with the sin issue and there's the washing of the water with the word which deals with the defilement that we have living in the world. And the symbol of that in the Gospels was the washing of feet. The washing of the feet of the disciples, the point of contact between a believer and the earth is your feet. And that's what gets dirty. So the word of God is designed, the washing of the water of the word is designed to keep us clean, so to speak. Question 9 has to do with what Jack just read. Everything that John does, he does for a specific purpose.

Verse 35 says, And he that saw it bore witness, and his witness is true, and he knows that he is true, that we might believe. The whole purpose of what John does, he's telling his readers that he's writing this so that they might believe. And he's giving them the object of their faith. Not only is he, he recognizes that if persons aren't going to believe, They have to believe in something specific and someone specific. So he writes about the cross and the elements of the cross and he says, I'm writing all of this for one purpose only, that you might know and believe. He says, when you study John's epistles, he says the same thing there. I do this so that you might believe. So, maybe you can say it this way, he recognizes that faith must have an object and substance and therefore he's putting the substance of the work of Christ before the reader.

He's putting it out there so that they would have the specific thing to believe in. The environment I came from, before I was a believer, there was a lot of talk about faith, but faith was sort of defined as faith for itself. You know what I mean? If you have faith, all this really cool stuff is going to happen. Maybe. If your faith is strong enough, you'll derive all kinds of benefits from that. It wasn't until after I became a believer and discovered that what faith really is, is I've got to know first what to believe, specifically, and then I have to assent to believe it.

And oh by the way, we as believers, do we believe promises or facts? Facts. I had a great discussion about this with the ladies in Parker this week. Facts or promises? The Old Testament Jews believed in promises, didn't they? God was going to do a whole lot of things, and they believed Him and His promise. But you and I, believe in absolute facts, things that are already true of us, right now. So how do we find out what to believe? We read the fact book. The Word of God tells us specifically what we're to believe. It just lays it right out there. And John says, that's my job. My job is to lay it out so that when you read it, you know what to believe. That's what he said. The other thing my co-chairs go back to is on John 2, when he wrote this, is after all the epistles. 30 some years.

So again, I think with all that Paul taught, the specifics of this was to teach who Christ was. His whole focus is on the deity. to kind of bolster back up all of Paul's epistles with, this is the Son of God. So the perspective of when he wrote this, and why he's doing it, and why his focus of what John is. And he did die on the cross, and he did fulfill scripture, and he was a man, and all of those things, yeah, that's exactly right. Exactly right. Verse 33 and 34.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they didn't break his leg, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his heart. And I ask the question, what is John's testimony for here? Why does he sort of insert that in those little verses there?

To make sure that Christ wasn't really dead. That's exactly right. Because if you're agnostic, What are you saying about Jesus? The incarnation wasn't real. And that he was a spirit being and then right before he died the spirit stepped down from the cross. And he really didn't die?

That was one of the interesting things with these Muslims. Talking to them, they are taught that Christ was not the person you mentioned. then they mysteriously had a reappearance all of a sudden. You know what's interesting about that? Why would Islam make that little issue so important to their religion? Why that issue? I mean they could have just bypassed it. Because that was the sacrifice. What's that? That was the sacrifice that was efficacious. More than that. That little part right there Why would they hone in on that little issue? They took Jesus out of the way and stuck one of the soldiers up there. Because if there's no death of the Son of God, there's no remission of sins. None. And Satan knows that.

What's the gospel? When you're saved, you have to believe the gospel. What's the gospel? The plain 1 Corinthians 15, that Jesus Christ died according to the scriptures. He was buried and he rose. If you believe that, you're safe for all eternity. You don't have to do anything else. Well, if you want to attack that, how are you going to do it? You're going to go right at that issue, aren't you? That he really didn't die. He suffered a lot and bled a lot but then they ushered him off the scene right before the death and they stuck somebody else up there. We look at that and say who would believe that? Islam believes that. Who really do you think wrote the Quran? Yeah, who wrote the Quran? Who was behind it?

It wasn't a guy that was on our team. So, John would have us know that a death took place before the spear was thrust and that all scripture was fulfilled before the soldier stuck the spear in his side. I think there's something else really important here.

Okay. In verse 30, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. They're not saying he died from all the torture and suffocation and anything else, it's that he turned his life over. Gave it up. Now I don't want to pick on you, but did you answer question 13? No, I haven't done any of it. No homework. But to me, You know, this whole lesson has been bugging me. He gave up his spirit. That's right. That's exactly right. And that's such an important point. And that was the most important part of his voluntary job.

Well, and if you know anything about crucifixion and you study what's happened to Christ up to this point, he could have lasted two or three days. He wasn't, I mean, he wasn't so severely dehydrated and loss of blood that he couldn't have lasted. And the two guys that were crucified on either side of him, that's why they go out and break their legs so that they'll suffocate and they'll get it over with. There's stories of people lasting three or four days on a cross. So that's the point. He decided when he was going to die. Nobody else did. He decided. And that's the proof of the verse. When the soldier sticks the the spear in him is to make sure he's dead, he's already dead. He decided when.

They didn't. What would you say is the sin of all sins? Not supporting the Broncos, right? Unbelief. Unbelief is the sin. What is the dividing line then between belief and unbelief when it comes to everything you know. What's the division line? The cross is the dividing line.

Unbelief was at its height. It had achieved its objective in destroying Jesus. On the side of unbelief were the Jewish high priests, the rulers, Pilate, the soldiers of the execution squad. belief on the other side was at its lowest ebb, for it had been unable to stem the hostile tide that swept Jesus to death. On this side were the women Mary, John, and possibly Nicodemus and Joseph. Each group represented some class of people. I referred to this earlier. The Jewish unbelievers possessed a bitter and implacable unbelief of the organized religionists who were activated by jealousy, prejudice, self-aggrandizement and self-interest.

Pilate embodied the unbelief of expediency which was accompanied by no particular religious convictions He is the type of man who will believe if he doesn't have to sacrifice anything of his reputation or his personal convenience. Again, we don't know anybody like that either. The soldiers picture the callousness and indifference of unbelief. Jesus meant less to them than he did to Pilate.

To those who believe, Jesus reversed the attitude predicated on him in John 2.24, but Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them for he knew all men. What's interesting about this in the cross, when the Lord Jesus says to John and Mary, behold your son and behold your mother, he's entrusting something to them that he never entrusted to man before. You see that?

Because he knew their hearts. But he also knew that this was the end of the covenant for him and that he could go ahead and do this because he knew what was coming. You know, just three days down the road. So when you look at these characters that are participating in this, the Jews, Pilate, the soldiers, they all have kind of a different agenda, but they all belong in the one army of unbelief.

Now, now that all has been accomplished, why can't anyone desecrate his body or do anything more to him? Now think about this, who's in charge of this thing? God is, right? So, God allowed all these indignities. God allowed him to be beaten, to crown his head with thorns, and to spit on him, to discourage him, to nail him to a cross, and to pierce his side. God allowed all of that to happen.

Until he died. Once he's dead, not a single unclean hand touches his body. Not a single one. They're done. They can't do anymore. Now granted he's dead, but they can't desecrate his body. Their chance is over with. God will not allow anything negative to happen to the body of the Son of God from this point on. Not one person is allowed to do anything that in any sense would dishonor him or dishonor his corpse.

And this was a question we kind of answered before. Did anything man do Did anything man did to Jesus answer the sin question? You understand the question? I tried to rephrase it. Torture doesn't answer it. Well didn't man crucify him? Degrading doesn't answer it. Wasn't it the Jews and Pilate and the Roman soldiers that crucified him and beat him up? It's only because he allowed them to do those things. Did it answer the sin question? No. What answered the sin question? He gave up his spirit. God was propitiated. God was propitiated. So how did that happen? What happened?

What spiritually happened at the cross? In John's gospel you see all the physical stuff, but not a lot. What happens spiritually to the Lord Jesus that deals with the sin issue? He's separated. Well, what does God do first? He takes all the sin of the whole world, all the sins, and your sin nature and my sin nature, and puts it on him, identifies him with it. And when that happens, he turns away from it. That solves the sin issue, not all this physical stuff that happened to him.

That's where the real agony was. I doubt that we even can approach appreciating the intimacy the father and the son have had for all eternity and in this one point in time the father turns away from Christ. I can't imagine what that would be like because I don't know the intimacy well enough. I understand what it's like to be rejected in a loving relationship. We all experience that when somebody dies.

But here is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, on the cross, and he has made the thing that God can't look on, and God turns away from him. I can't imagine what that would be like. That's where the real agony was, and that's where the real suffering was. And yet all that time, the word Jesus says, it's finished. My father and I are deciding about this, not you.

When Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus claimed Jesus' body, what does it publicly demonstrate about them? What's that? Okay, but publicly, what does it demonstrate publicly about them? His body deserved honor? Who's Nicodemus? Who is he? He's a Pharisee, right? And he's got a seat in the Sanhedrin. In my study of Joseph of Arimathea, he was a Pharisee too.

And so these guys are, it'd be like both of these guys are congressmen or senators. In the body of men, who condemn Jesus. For them to actually go to Pilate and say we want the body of Jesus, can we take it down? What does it publicly demonstrate? It demonstrates that they are believers and they are willing to take the chance. It could have been a very costly decision for them. See, that's the thing about these two guys, that they stand up publicly and they, by their actions, demonstrate their loyalty to Christ. That's a very precarious position.

How'd the other disciples, those other eleven brave guys, what were they doing? Hiding. They weren't waiting around to sneak in there and grab the body of Christ. They're hiding. But these two men, They go and ask for the body of Christ for burial and they publicly demonstrated their loyalty to Him.

That was a courageous thing to do. Do you think they were led by the Holy Spirit? Oh, absolutely they were. Or even involved by the Holy Spirit? I wouldn't say that. I'd say they were led by Him. But they were believers. Like the disciples were. But where did these guys get the courage?

Because our friend Peter is looking for a hole to crawl in. He doesn't want anybody to discover who he is, especially since he's crying a lot. Mike, what do you think was going through Pilate's mind when people from the Sanhedrin they were part of, two members of that came up and passed through his body?

Say that again. What do you think Pilate was thinking? I think Pilate at this point was thinking, boy this deal is finally over. Well he came to him and said, you're welcome to them, get them out of my sight. So he doesn't recognize that there was a unanimous feeling among the Jews? No, but I would guess that they also knew that they had to get them down before the end of the day. I think at this point, Pilate is good to be rid of this deal, he doesn't want any more to do with this. Now, one last question.

Why does John record burial? People answer, why does he record the burial? Yeah, you don't bury live people. You only bury the dead ones. And that's why, like in Romans 6, when it talks about, don't you realize you were baptized into Christ's death, you and me? And what's the next verse say? that we were buried with him, which means you died too. When you see burial after death, it proves that there was a death. That's why it's recorded. It wasn't just unwashed because he sent the Roman cohort to protect the grave afterwards.

I mean, he was he didn't want anything more. Well, didn't you just go to him? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you know, they're going to steal a body. We know that he wants nothing more than one body missing. That's right. He's still afraid. Yeah. So let's close in prayer. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and how we thank you for the death of your dear son on the cross that we might be free, free to behold his glory and be conformed in him. Thank you, Father, we pray in his name. Amen.