The Gospel of John - Burial and Resurrection

We have, matter of fact, the bottom of page one. We have kind of the schedule from here on out. I included last week's just because it kind of makes sense in terms of the sequence. Christ the Lamb of God is what we covered last time, and then burial and resurrection today, and then ascension and seating next week, and then on with these topical lessons in the elective from here on out to the end of the year. So this one, Christ's burial and resurrection, is what we're talking about here.

So these words of Paul contain the contents of the gospel to be believed in order to be saved, and our direct testimony regarding Paul and our secondary testimony regarding the other witnesses numbering more than 500. So here's 1 Corinthians 15, 1-8. Now I make known to you brethren the gospel which I preached to you which also you received in which also you stand By the way, that's perfect tense And that's the same perfect tense is used for the same word in Romans 5 to this grace in which we we stand By which also you are saved if you hold fast the word which I preached to you unless you believe in me I And then verse 3, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep, which is Paul's figure of speech for, you know, they've passed away. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also."

So, last Sunday, we examined Christ's death for us as the Lamb of God, so that's in Lesson 35, Gospel of John, September 15th. We also examine Christ's death for us as it is presented in the Gospel of John. In the lesson number 36, Gospel of John, we did a Good Friday Clock. By the way, I have a couple additional copies if you're interested and anyone wants to catch up with that, the Good Friday Clock. And then we looked at the composite of the four Gospels in the form of a clock for the Day of Christ's Crucifixion. We'll look at Christ's burial and resurrection, and then we have these bulleted here from September 29th through October 27th. So we'll be examining what the four Gospels have to say about Christ's burial and resurrection with this schedule in mind.

So here's the schedule that we have including today. Alright, so top of page two there. Oh, and by the way, I also, in addition to this Good Friday Clock, if someone's interested, I also have some copies of the full schedule in case somebody's keeping these, like in a binder or something of that sort, so feel free to come up and grab those.

So, on the top of page 2, the Law of Moses gave specific directions for the Jews regarding how soon a dead body had to be removed when hung, colon, it must be taken down and buried the same day where the land would be defiled. So this is Deuteronomy 21, 22, and 23.

If a man is committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day where he was hanged as accursed of God, so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

Now, did the Romans care at all about this Law of Moses stuff? Not so much, right? The reality is the Romans would crucify someone, and they didn't care how long the body was on the cross that they crucified them on. As a matter of fact, if it was on there for days, that was fine with them, because a crucifixion to them was like a billboard that said, don't mess with Rome. So they didn't care if the body was on the cross for days and got foul and everything else. But the Jews did. Now, what does this say? How soon must the body come off the cross for the Jews? What's that? Yeah, same day. I mean, right. Same day. OK, so so here's what the Romans did. They didn't care about the law of Moses. They don't care. And bottom line is, you know, it doesn't matter to them. They just prefer to keep the body up on the cross for days.

But, when the situation came about that you had a great number of Jews, because think about it, they would have sometimes hundreds of thousands of Jews coming for a Passover. And, you know, how many Roman soldiers are there? Are there hundreds of thousands of Roman soldiers in Jerusalem? No. So the bottom line is they really don't want a riot. So even though ordinarily they just let the bodies stay up on the crosses for days, on this particular time, on like a Sabbath, during the Passover days, you know, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, then they would go ahead and accommodate taking the bodies down because they didn't want some kind of a riot that would get out of hand. The reality is even with several thousand Roman soldiers you're not going to overcome Jews that are really upset. And the Jews did have a temple guard. The temple guard was not casual. Here's what we see in the bullets.

The next day was a Sabbath. Within the days of Passover, feast of unleavened bread. And that's something that people often forget. The word Passover was used a couple of ways. One, it meant the first night. That's when they would typically have their Passover meal. The first night of unleavened bread. But then the subsequent days of unleavened bread, which went on for a week, were also called the days of Passover.

So during that week, if you had a Passover slash unleavened bread and the Sabbath, that was a high holy day. So John chapter 19 calls it a high day. That's short for a high holy day. It's like this is really holy and if you still have bodies on the cross on this high holy day, the Jews are going to get major upset. you're going to guarantee a riot.

So, there was a great swelling of the number of Jews present on the days of Passover and the Romans did not want the crowd to get out of hand. Matthew 27-24 talks about when there was concern of Pilate that things were going to turn into a riot. He didn't want that. The reality is that while the Romans had several thousand soldiers, and by the way, Pilate didn't stay in Jerusalem. He stayed in Caesarea and came over on these special times, like Passover, with several thousand soldiers. But they still only had several thousand soldiers as compared to the Jews, hundreds of thousands.

So, they did not want things to get out of hand. So while the Romans didn't care, ordinarily, they just let the bodies be on there, they did abide by not having the bodies up there on the Sabbath. So it's sort of a, you know, we'll work this out so that we don't cause any problems.

Alright, so, then we see in the middle of page 2, Joseph of Arimathea, and Arimathea was, of Arimathea means it was a town nearby, and previously we showed maps where that's located. A dissenting member of the Sanhedrin, that is the council, as Pilate, this is Pontius Pilatus, as he would be called, and by the way, the U's were spelled how? They were actually V's, right? So we say W and it's not a W, it's a double V, right? So Pontius Pilatus with the U's spelled with V's, for the body of Jesus so we have each of the Gospels have that account Matthew Mark Luke and John all of them have that with Joseph of Arimathea asking for the body of Jesus so Pilate confirmed with the centurion and by the way the centurion was a special guy because we have it recorded in in Matthew and in Mark that when Jesus died, the centurion said, we have crucified an innocent man, and truly this was the Son of God, which is really remarkable.

And by the way, we could ask the question, who were the people who were spiritually impacted noticeably on the day of the crucifixion? The thief on the cross and the centurion. Isn't that interesting? The thief on the cross and the centurion were the ones who were most greatly impacted on the day of the crucifixion, so far as we have any record. Isn't that something? So then Pilate confirmed with the centurion, the one who had said that Jesus was innocent and that he was the Son of God, that Jesus had died and then granted permission. Yep, you can do that.

Then Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, and this is only reported in the Gospel of John. We give the references chapter 3, 1, 4, 9, 7, 50, and 19, 39. Those are the places where Nicodemus is mentioned. Though he's mentioned several times in the Gospel of John, he's not mentioned in any of the others. Whereas Joseph of Arimathea is mentioned in every single one, Nicodemus, interestingly, is mentioned several times, but only in the Gospel of John. So Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds of wrappings, aloes, and myrrh. And so this was a huge amount of wrappings, aloes, and myrrh.

A burial that would be fit for royalty. You would only have that amount, ordinarily, if you were burying someone who was royalty. The average person could not afford that much. That was extraordinary, very extraordinary. So Jesus had a criminal's death and a king's burial. Isn't that something? Now, the common people in Israel could likely not afford such a costly burial.

Jesus was placed in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and very likely their servants, with Mary Magdalene, that means, Magdalene was not her last name, means she was from Magdala, which is a town on the west shores of the Sea of Galilee. And that's been excavated, by the way. Archaeologists have gone and excavated the ancient town of Megillah. And Mary, the mother of Joseph, is additional witnesses to the identification and preparation of Jesus' body in the location of the tomb. And the tomb was sealed with a large stone. Interesting. Why the importance of a large stone?

Could you have a small stone? Yeah, you could have, right? And so you'd have a small stone and a small entry and then a larger tomb inside, right? And so you could have had a small stone. In this case, it was a larger stone. And what would be the difference with a larger stone? Pardon? Yeah, in other words, possibly a grave robber might be more interested.

Also animals, also with a large stone, it's not going to be something casually opened. As a matter of fact, we find that the ladies come on Sunday morning expecting to come there and wondering, how am I going to open this thing? So it isn't something that just anybody would open, right? And it also meant the fact that it was open when they got there on Sunday morning meant that something extraordinary had happened because this was a big stone. You're not going to just have anybody move it, right? Okay.

Matthew uniquely reports that on the Sabbath of the week of Passover, so this is something Matthew reports the other Gospels do not. Matthew 27, 62 through 66. Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the day of preparation was a standard Jewish term. It's used in all four Gospels.

It's the day before Passover. It's the day before Sabbath. You're getting ready for Sabbath. And why is that important that you get ready for Sabbath? You can't do any work on the Sabbath. Yeah, you can't do any work on the Sabbath. And certain things are defined as work. I mean, we would think, you know, that's not work. But yeah, they had things defined as work. And you cannot do it. And a half hour too late is too late. Right? And even today, observant Jews have to wrestle with that. They've got even more things that are defined as work. So the day of preparation, you take real seriously because you've got to get it all done.

You can't say, well I've just got two more things I've got to do on the Sabbath. You can't do that. Talking to some Jewish people now, they would actually hire Gentiles to come in and do things like turn on a light switch. Because they can't do it. Yes?

So the day after the preparation means that it was still what we would call Saturday, right? What we would call Saturday. The chief priest of the Pharisees, that is the Sanhedrin, also called the council in the Gospels. gathered together with Pilate and said, ìSir, we remember that when he was still alive, that deceiver said, ìAfter three days I am to rise again.î Therefore give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise his disciples may come and steal him away and say to the people, ìHe has risen from the dead, and the last deception will be will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, you have a guard, go, make it as secure as you know how. And they went and made the grave secure and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone. Alright, so let's talk about how that happens. Top of page three.

So Jesus had told both his disciples and the Jews about his resurrection in three days. So this is interesting, about his resurrection in three days, He told his disciples and the Jews about this. And the Jews even remembered about it. Now, here's what's really interesting. Did the disciples understand he was going to be resurrected in three days? Isn't that interesting? But the Jews, they didn't take it seriously in one respect, but even the Jews understood better than the disciples. Isn't that interesting?

Why would they even be concerned because of his physical condition? That's what I've never understood. I mean, he could barely walk. What were they thinking was going to happen? Are they thinking he's going to resurrect? No. What they're thinking is, ah, the disciples are going to come and make this concocted thing that he had resurrected. Right? And he's not going to appear, he's just going to disappear. Yes. And the tomb will be empty and they'll say, see, the tomb is empty.

And so that's what the Jews were concerned about. They weren't thinking, you know, this guy's really going to resurrect. What they're thinking is this con job. Because remember, what did they use twice in here, the word deceiver and deception. Deceiver and deception gets put in here. That's what they're thinking is going to happen. They're not thinking it's going to resurrect.

But they took it more seriously than the disciples did. Which is rather astounding. So the Jewish leaders referred to deceiver and deception regarding Jesus and his disciples. I give all the references for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for this. I'm going to be resurrected in three days.

So the word for guard is a word borrowed from the Latin. It's custodia. We have our word custodian, but that's nowhere near what the original word meant. What would happen is they would have a sentry of 12 to 16 soldiers The soldiers would typically take shifts of three or four at a time with this group. And those soldiers who are standing guard, the ones on assignment, would have guard over, in this case, the tomb.

They would stand there. They were not, I mean, frequently people think they fell asleep. They didn't. Because why didn't they fall asleep? It was a death penalty for them if they did. The standard treatment for a soldier who is supposed to be on guard in one of these custodia, if they fell asleep, was to light their clothes on fire. That would definitely get them awake, right?

At any rate, this is something to be taken seriously. Also, the ones put on custodia were not some rookie, neophyte, plebe's beginners kind of guys. These were guys who were ready for battle. So, at any rate, this guard, this custodia, is to be taken seriously. I'll see some artistic portrayals or dramatic portrayals that shows the guard sleeping. Not a chance. These are guys that know that if I fall asleep, I'm going to die. Are you going to fall asleep if you know that? Probably not.

So that's what Pilate assigned to them. That's the word. It's spelled out in Greek, but it's a Latin borrow word. So it referred to this Roman sentry of 12 to 16 soldiers. While some believe that these soldiers were simply Jewish temple guards, the use of the Latin term in the seal on the stone would tend to say otherwise.

Now, what's the deal with the seal on the stone? Why would they seal it? Certainly that, you're right on that point. Think about it, it was a capital punishment to break the seal, right? So one thing is it gave the soldiers authorization if the seal was broken to just take out anybody that came. So any disciples that come, like Peter with the sword or something, any disciples that would supposedly come would be taken out by these Roman soldiers and they would have full authorization to kill anyone who did try to do that. Yeah. Okay, what they would do is they would come up with the seal of Rome and they would have on there a seal, probably wax, you know, put a ribbon or something across there and there's death penalty to break that Roman seal.

They would typically have a Roman official come and put that seal on there, and it's not like the seal is somehow physically preventative. It's legally preventative. That's the import of the seal. It's not like you somehow seal it and you can't break the seal. The idea is if you break the seal, just like, let's take for example, suppose it was an official Roman document, and you had a seal on it. Could you break it physically? Yes. But could you break it legally without consequence? Absolutely not.

That was the idea of the seal, putting the seal on the stone. So here the stone is sealed with the seal of Rome. The soldiers are appointed to stand guard, three or four at a time, on penalty of death. to stand guard and they had full authorization to kill, I mean just not wound or something, but flat out kill anybody who tried to come and break the seal. So that would have been rather preventative, don't you think?

The Jewish temple guards could have guarded the tomb under direct orders from the Sanhedrin without Pilate's knowledge. So I think that stands against the idea that these were just Jewish temple guards. Because the Sanhedrin could have just said, hey look, temple guards, just go over there and guard the stone.

Guard the tomb and the stone and don't let anybody in. But instead they went to Pilate to get the authorization under Rome with a Roman guard, a custodia, and the seal of Rome there on the stone. So that anyone who might come in and break it would receive the death penalty instantly. Then there wouldn't be any judge, you're just dead. So the Jewish leaders wanted the tomb guarded well with the death as the consequence for violating the seal.

So this would be done on Saturday. Now, why didn't they do it the day before? Why didn't they set a guard the day before? He had told them, how many days until I resurrect? Three days, right? So they didn't need to worry about it on Friday night, okay? They didn't need to worry about that, but come Sunday morning then would be a problem. So coming in there Saturday would be okay.

And by the way, why would they come there on the Sabbath? Isn't it against their law to travel on the Sabbath? Pardon? Okay, one, it's not against the law for the Romans to travel on the Sabbath. And two, if it was close enough, five-eighths of a mile is a Sabbath day's journey, okay, you can travel that far. So it was close enough that they could go to pilots and ask for a pilot to do this.

And then once you put the Romans there, they're going to stand watch and they don't care whether it's Sabbath or anything else, right? It was another reason to have the Romans be the ones doing the watch, not Jews. Because you don't have any laws to abide by. Romans don't care about those Jewish laws.

I have a question. Is the Jewish Temple Guards guarding the tomb? No, the Jewish Temple Guards would not have watched the tomb because one, this is a Latin term for a custodia, they went to Pilate and asked Pilate to do it, which they wouldn't have had any need to do if they just said Temple Guards, right? So the Temple Guards were under the authority of the Sanhedrin. They could have just asked the Temple Guards, hey, go watch this. They didn't. Instead, they went to Pilate to get a Roman seal on there and Roman guards watching this thing so they had full authorization to apply the death penalty to anybody that came to the tomb.

So did Pontius Pilate believe that he was going to resurrect on the third day? Pontius Pilate was just basically going along with, okay, you guys want this, that's fine with me. He didn't care. He wasn't going to do it unless they asked, right? And he hadn't been told about this three days resurrecting. The Sanhedrin are telling him. And they had heard Jesus say he's going to resurrect in three days. Were the Jewish temple guards Jewish or Roman? The Jewish temple guards were Jews. So they couldn't have stayed there. It would be a problem for them, you know, what's work? You know, right? What's work? And then you get into questions like, is putting a seal on this thing work? Right?

And killing somebody in the break. Yeah. So you've got some problems, you know, for the Jewish temple guards, but the Romans, you wouldn't have a problem. And then if you actually did have to kill somebody as a Jewish temple guard, are the Romans going to be okay with that? Well, maybe not. So you just solve the whole issue if you have a Roman, you know, sentry, custodian. sat there and you got no issues. They'll do anything.

Plus the Roman soldiers were probably more fit at battle than the Jewish temple guards were. Actually, the Jewish temple guards were not to be looked down upon. However, they did have various limitations and the Romans didn't have any limitations. You got full authorization to kill anybody that came. under the Roman soldiers. And here's the seal of Rome, you're going to fight that and take that to the death.

Okay? Yes. Why didn't they just accuse the disciples of rolling away the stone? I mean, the stone's rolled away, right? The seal's broken. The death penalty. Yes. So why didn't the Jews or the Sanhedrin just... In the end, that's what they did. In the end, that's what they did. But, did that work? No. Is that what the disciples were afraid of? Why they were hanging out in the upper room? Yeah, you think about it. Here's the disciples. Jesus is resurrected.

They didn't really understand what was going on. They said, oh no, we're going to get accused of something. Because they didn't understand what was going on. And they thought, uh oh, I'm going to get accused of something. We don't know how this happened. Somehow the tomb was opened, the body was moved. This sounds like trouble to me. I'm going to be blamed. They're going to come after me. They're going to do me in for even thinking of this. Even though I didn't have any part of it, the blame could be there. And the reality is the Roman soldiers who were set as sentries, remember they were They were possibly threatened with capital punishment because the tomb was in fact open. The seal of Rome was broken and they didn't kill anybody.

So they were in trouble and the story that they came up with was, you know, hey, somebody stole it. Somebody stole the body, and that's the story, and the Jewish leader says, don't worry, we've got you covered. We'll give that story. Now, you might ask the question, well, how did somebody steal the body when you guys were supposed to be on guard?

So it's rather uncomfortable, right? Let's take a look at some slides here. This is the crucifixion and burial which would be on a Friday late in the day. And by the way, let's think about something else. The Bible talks about Jesus being crucified at nine and then dying at about three.

How accurate were their timepieces? Not so much, right? Pretty much most of what you'll see, you read through the Gospels and in the Book of Acts, with a few exceptions, everything is 6am, 9am, noon, and 3, right? So their time pieces were not accurate. So that's one thing, is some people read the Gospels and think, 9 o'clock on the, no, not on the button, because they don't have on the button, you know?

They don't even have wrists, you know, sundials. So this is one of those things where you have to go find a sundial and, you know, good luck with that. The other thing, do they have time zones and all that? No, they don't have that. So our sense of time and their sense of time, we just need to kind of forget about all this precision, right? So here's another thing we look at.

Here's the Last Supper to Golgotha, the events numbered in sequence. We've had this on a previous set of handouts here. Here is the palace, likely the place where Pilate did the interrogation and sentencing. Here's the traditional site for Golgotha. I think that's the correct one. Dr. Lane Rittmeyer, who is the foremost authority on the archaeology of this entire area, believes it's that location. Here would be where it would be in today's aerial photos. This would be the shot, and some weeks ago we provided this in the handout.

This area that you see in the foreground was a quarry. That is, they took a lot of the rock material there to build a lot of the temple structure. And this area right in here that's called Golgotha, or the place where Jesus was crucified, was a rock of lower quality, so therefore they just left it and it would have made a hill. And then over here, off to the side, would be the location of the tomb. Okay, so right nearby. Okay, take the body off there, go right from there over to here, and there's the tomb.

So where was the 5.8 mile walking distance? Oh, to give you an idea of what that would be, let's see if I have anything that shows that. Okay, here is the temple. Here is the Mount of Olives, right across the Kidron Valley, which is right here. This is about a Sabbath-based journey, about five-eighths of a mile. Next month I hope to go there. So at any rate, here is the location of Golgotha most likely, and the tombs would be right nearby in the same query. It would be a new tomb because they were done querying. They just got the rock out of there. Here is the crucifixion clock. And those numbers shouldn't be taken too seriously. For the most part, these should be looked at as the sequence, not the exact time.

So this would be the Sunday of the Resurrection. And this is an artistic panoramic painting of the Resurrection. I think it's a little bit overdone, but anyway. And then this would be another artist rendering. This is somewhat realistic in the sense that here's the tomb and here are the crosses right nearby on the raised area. So this would fit what we showed before in here. So that's not a bad artistic representation, just the same. This is another artist rendering. So here's a fairly large stone as opposed to... Some of the tombs actually have small stones just a few feet across. Pardon? Oh yes, definitely.

Because they roll it and they actually make a slot. Let's see if I have any other... Yeah, this one here where they show it out of the slot is not correct. What they do is they actually make a slot for the stone and roll it. And yes, it would be that. What they would typically do is once they got it in place, then they would put stones underneath to wedge the stone to keep it from being easily rolled.

Yes? So is that solid rock and they just dig it all out? Yes. Here's the characteristic. It's limestone, which when it's initially carved out is soft. relatively soft and can be hacked out with metal tools. As it's exposed to the air, it tends to harden over time, so it makes it easy to work with and that's fairly common geologically throughout a good portion of Israel. So yeah, that would be fairly easily done. If you imagine it was something like granite or something, that would be a different matter. But the limestone is softer initially and then hardens over time with exposure to the air.

Here would be a depiction of coming to the open tomb and grave cloths strewn about here. By the way, let's speak briefly about something. Over here, the Shroud of Turin. And you'll see pictures of it, and people have done all kinds of scientific studies and all that. I'm not terribly convinced, and here's why. The Shroud of Turin has, whoever this was, has their face shown on that cloth.

When you look at the Gospels, the cloth around Jesus' face was separate. A separate piece. And it even records that what they found was a separate headpiece. That's not what you see with the Shroud of Turin. Therefore, comparing those two, I say this doesn't qualify. It's a very interesting piece of archaeology of some kind, but it doesn't fit the Gospel's description. Jesus had a separate headpiece.

And that's what you see described, yes. So kind of that shroud then over his head first and then the other garments put on top? Possibly, but that still doesn't quite fit the description. of the piece wrapped around. Some of the descriptions are pretty phenomenal, and the image itself being in that cloth, I have no idea how that could have happened. Yeah, it is spectacular, it's just, I'm not sure it fits the biblical description.

Here is John and Peter, artistic rendering again, running to the tomb. What's interesting, here's John and Peter running to the tomb, Did they understand what they saw? Not really, because what did they do next? They went home. Yeah, they went home. Here's another artistic depiction of John and Peter running. Now what happens, John stops at the entry and Peter runs in. Of course, that's like Peter anyway, right? That's typical of Peter, right? Run in full bore.

Yes, here's something, the indications are that John was younger by quite a bit, may have actually been in his teens still as a disciple. So that's part one. James's brother appears to have been the older one. However, he died first. John, so far as we know, was the last apostle to die, and the only one, so far as we know, that died a natural death, all the rest of them having died of martyrdom. At which point in all this, we've got Yeah, let's think about that.

Here you have guards whose assignment is you kill anybody who even tries to open that tomb and break the seal. Right? That's your assignment. And if you fail, it's death penalty. You're going to kill anybody who does that. Now, does God send a whole legion of angels to go against these guards?

No. God sends a couple of angels. And how many angels does it take to roll away the stone? One. Is that angel worried that the Roman soldiers are going to take him out? No. And that by itself must have unnerved the Roman soldiers. Here is this angel who's not the least bit afraid of them. Anybody else would have been. Here's an angel who's not the least bit afraid of them and doesn't pay any attention to them.

And by the way, where are they expecting somebody to come from? While they're expecting somebody to come from outside approaching the tomb, right? Where does this angel likely show up? Behind them. So here's this angel, pays no attention to him, is not the least bit afraid, and begins opening the tomb, rolling the stone away. Opens it up. And the description of the Gospels is that they just froze like dead men. Here's battle-hardened, experienced Roman soldiers under threat of death penalty if they fail. And here's an angel that comes behind them and just rolls the stone away without a worry in the world about those Roman soldiers.

Yes. Well, if the centurion knew that Jesus could have been the Son of God, then obviously the Roman soldiers were quite aware of Jesus' teachings, and these soldiers could have said, you know, kind of the same thing. This truly is God. What we don't know is, was the same centurion assigned? It's possible he was, but it could have been a different one, right? It's possible that the centurion that said, we crucified an innocent man and who testified to Pilate, yes, he's dead. It's possible that same one was assigned to this guard, but we don't know. And so we don't know what the Roman soldiers assigned to Sentry knew. It's possible they knew a fair amount. Nonetheless, what it says is that they were just frozen. Here are battle-hardened men that just had something happen to them they had never seen before in their lives.

And here is an angel showing up behind them. They're not supposed to let anybody pass them. Here's an angel showing up behind them, just rolling the stone away, breaking the seal without any care or concern. And think about it, what would the angel have been authorized to do had these guys come at the angel? What's that? Yeah, you guys come at me, you're all dead. You're all gone. And the angel's not the least bit concerned. And so these guys are just frozen. Well, the first comment usually from an angel is fear not.

Yeah, that's right. Why? Quite startling. Twice in Revelation, John begins to worship an angel. in the book of Revelation, twice. He begins to worship an angel. Why? Because the angel is so awesome, even though his glory is a secondary glory. The angel is so awesome that John thinks, this must be God. And so imagine, here's this angel shows up.

These Roman soldiers have never seen anything like this being. And they're stunned. They're frozen. They're as dead men, is the description. Here are fearless, battle-hardened Roman soldiers under threat of death penalty if they fail, and they're just stunned to the point of inaction. They've fallen down as if dead.

Now, what we have here in post-resurrection events here is given on the bottom of page 3 in the gospel parallels or gospel harmony on the bottom of page 3. And so it gives the various sequences and passages. In some cases, the events are recorded in just one gospel. In some cases, the events are recorded in all four gospels, and then, of course, varying things in between. John, as we've studied, has a number of things listed there where he is the only one who describes the event, post-resurrection event. in several cases.

So we've got that. Let's turn it over here to page four. So here is a summary of the passages. So here's what we would call Sunday morning. And by the way, the Jews had different ways of counting time, and so did the Romans. The Jews had several ways of counting time, so did the Romans. So here Here what you have on Sunday, several events, you have the tomb visited by the women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome.

Are they at that point convinced of a resurrection? No. How do we know that they're not convinced of a resurrection? Yes, Mary is actually going to say to Jesus, Later on, here, someone is taken away. Just tell me where the body is, right? Just tell me. Yes, so she's not believing in the resurrection yet. She just knows the body isn't there. Along with the other ladies that went with her. There's Mary of Magdala, that town on the west shore of Galilee, is the one who comes there with Mary, the mother of James and Salome.

And then, The stone is rolled away allowing witnesses to see the empty tomb. Why did Jesus need the stone to be rolled away in order to be resurrected and get out of the tomb? I'm seeing head shake. Why not? He later on that day walked through doors. He didn't need to have the stone rolled away to get out. The stone was rolled away not so Jesus could get out. but so that others could see that the tomb was empty. That's why the angel rolled it away in the first place, so others could see the tomb was empty.

So then you have the tomb found empty by the woman at about the time of sunrise and the tombs found empty by Peter and John, grave clothes arranged consistent with resurrection. Now, do Peter and John understand that he is resurrected. He's gone. Yeah, they see the body's gone, they see here's the grave clothes, but what they understand isn't real clear at that point. So then, that same day, this is a post-resurrection appearances, so we talked about the empty tomb, and we have women and men, a few women and A couple men, Peter and John, who see the empty tomb.

Then we have again on Sunday, here is Jesus with Mary Magdalene, as reported in Mark and in John. The other women with instruction to meet in Galilee. Now this is key. When here on the first day Jesus is resurrected, the direction to these women is he's going to be in Galilee next.

Some people will read the account in John where Peter says I'm going fishing and they're just kind of thinking that Peter's kind of gone haywire. No, from the outset they were told he's going to be in Galilee next. Go there. So from the very first day they were told go to Galilee. So then the report of the soldiers to the Jewish authorities, the Sanhedrin's absurd explanation. Oh, the soldiers fell asleep. Yeah, right. The soldiers fell asleep and somebody stole the body. Are the soldiers going to fall asleep? No. That's not going to happen. Now, let's ask this question.

What's with these Jewish leaders? A number of them have seen signs, they've heard others tell of these signs that Jesus did, including the raising of Lazarus just a week before. What are these Jewish leaders thinking? Why don't they go, Aha! Here's Jesus and He actually is resurrected. Why don't they do that?

Yeah. Well, it's the same reason that I think that they knew that he was the Messiah because of all of his messianic miracles. But they didn't want him to be their Messiah because he didn't meet the image that they wanted. And he obviously wasn't going to do away with Rome, which was one of their priorities. Yes. And let's think, what did they think was the basis for Jesus' signs?

Who was the one who made him made him able to do the signs. Yeah, it's basically a tribute to Satan. So yeah, this guy does, he's a deceiver. He does signs, actually he doesn't, you know, we don't deny he does signs and miraculous things, but he does it by deception and by the devil.

Pardon? Yeah, the one in competition and He's just a problem, you know. Here we've got our authority, we've got a very delicate balance here with the Romans, and we don't want to mess it up. And so this guy is just a real serious problem. We've got our system, we've got our balance of power, and we've got our place, and this guy is really going to mess it up. So we've got to get rid of him. Yeah?

He didn't appear to be kingly according to Isaiah, his prophecy. He was uncommonly, he didn't look like a king, he wasn't somebody that you would look at and notice. He didn't have the appearance of a Saul that they would want as king. Well let's think about this, how were they expecting the Messiah to come? Where was the Messiah going to come from? The Messiah, according to Daniel, was going to come in the clouds, right? How did Jesus come? Did he come in the clouds in his first coming?

No. Hey, wait a minute, isn't this guy just Joseph's son? Isn't he the carpenter's son? I mean, here's Mary, you know, just kind of a peasant woman. Here's his brothers and his sisters. This can't be the Messiah. This can't be the one who's going to drive the Romans out of here. Yeah, beside that, this guy, he was born because his mom got pregnant before they were married. What kind of Messiah is that?

So you think about it, from a Jewish standpoint, he just doesn't qualify. And then to be a problem. I mean, if he just kept quiet about it, that would be one thing. But then to come in and do things like clear the temple, and come in and renounce things. Then, as we studied just recently, tell people I'm the last rabbi.

Whoa! You know? This is a problem. Yeah, and so far as they're concerned, you're doing all this stuff, but you're not the Messiah. We know that, because we know your dad and your mom and your brothers and sisters. You just come from Nazareth, a little town. You're not the Messiah, and all this stuff you're doing that's impressing people, you're a deceiver and the devil's doing it.

That was their picture. And you're just increasingly a problem. So we've just got to get rid of you. So that was their plan, and they thought they'd pulled it off. Now let's ask a couple of questions. We don't have much time. Let's ask a couple of questions.

One, why the burial? Why didn't they just take him off the cross, Jesus resurrects? We're done. Yeah, what's that because of the crowds the crowds right? What do you mean by that? Okay Okay, it would have stirred things up right other are there other reasons Okay Okay? Prophecy said that he would be buried, so you couldn't just, okay, he's dead, you know, and now he's going to resurrect just right off the cross, right? So prophecy would be another reason. Is there another reason?

Okay, it means something. And let's ask this, you're identified with Christ in five ways. What are those? Crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and seated. And so that second one of those is one of those things in which you were identified with Christ. So although the tomb was opened and one came out visibly, physically, we were there with Him, identified with Him in His burial. And so that tomb had not just one coming out of it, but a mass exodus that includes you and me.

But if the resurrection was the only purpose, then the stone wouldn't have had to be open. I think this reveals an interactive God, that he has a purpose other than just resurrection. He is supposed to interact with the people so that they have a better understanding and a fuller belief that it actually did happen. I mean, he could have just been taken out of the tomb and never opened it.

Yeah, just take it out and, you know, the tomb is sealed, he comes out of the tomb, you know, he goes bye-bye. No, instead what we see is, here's the tomb, it's open, several, you know, people, men and women are both, you know, witnessing the empty tomb, they witness his appearance. Here's another reason why he's in the grave. What is it? It's part of the Gospel. It's a part of the Gospel, right? And you're quite correct about that. But there's still another reason. That's what happens to us, and that's true. There's another reason.

He's certifiably dead. He really did die. This wasn't just he swooned, he passed out, he came close to death, or it sure seemed like he was dead. This guy is so dead that the centurion says, yep, he's dead. We poked the spear in his side and blood and water came out. Yep, he's dead. And we put him in this tomb, suffocated him with a hundred pounds of wrappings and myrrh and aloes and everything, sealed the tomb up.

Yep, he's dead in a doornail, right, we would say. He is genuinely dead. There isn't any, I got halfway killed kind of thing, or I was close to death. So he was fully man. He was fully man and fully dead. Okay? Physically speaking. Fully man and fully dead. He was really dead, not just close. Okay? Not just fake. Not just, you know, it seemed like it. He was really, really dead.

And that's one reason for the three days, and we mentioned before the Jews count a part of a day as a full day. That's one reason for the three days, late Friday on into all day Saturday and early Sunday, as we would count the days, is he was certifiably dead, really, really dead.

And then really, really resurrected so that the tomb was empty, so that the soldiers had to make excuses, so that He was seen multiple times by multiple people in different parts of Israel, around Jerusalem and up in Galilee. And by the way, different parts of Galilee as well. So both the death and the resurrection were genuine, multiply witnessed events. So those are the things that we believe and are saved by, as we believe, His death for our sins, His burial when He was really dead, and His resurrection in which He really was raised to new life.

Fully God and fully man. Okay, we've got people ready to press their noses up against the window here. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for what You've revealed here. We thank You for the certainty of this testimony here and what you believe, what we are to believe about what you did and who you are. And we thank you for the things that you've revealed here because you love us and care for us so very much. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.