POST 14 - The Death of Christ

by William W. Orr, A.B., M.A., Th.B., D.D.. Pastor and Teacher.

       The death of Jesus Christ was different from all other deaths.  This fact is a cornerstone of the Christian faith.  While everyone else dies as a result of sin, there was no sin in Him and therefore no cause of death.  But in the great redemptive plan of God, Christ became our Substitute, took our sin, and died for us.  Consequently, while His death is different from ours, yet in a sense His death is ours as well.  We died in Him (Gal. 2:20).

     Our Lord was taken to Calvary and nailed to the cross about nine o'clock in the morning (Mark 15).  There He hung for six hours, expiring at about three o'clock in the afternoon.  During this time, seven sentences fell from his lips, telling us among other things, that He was in perfect control of His thoughts and His faculties and He knew what His future would be.

     During this interval He prayed for His enemies; He commended His mother to the Apostle John's care; He dealt tenderly with the repentant thief;  He knowingly fulfilled prophecy as He called for a drink; and at last, He committed His spirit into His Father's hands.

     One can see easily that the death  Christ was no ordinary one.  He did not become progressively weaker as most victims of crucifizion did.  The loss of blood did not gradually impair His spiritual strength nor  affect His thinking.  Rather, after He had fulfilled all that had been written of Him, He announced,  "it is finished!"  Then deliberately and conclusively, after He had cried with a loud voice, He bowed His head on His own breast and died.  Truly it was a magnificent death.  This was the death of the Son of God, and in a very real sense it was our death.

     The reality of His death is indisputable.  It was a real death accordining to all the evidence.  The soldiers, trained in the art of recognizing death, testified that He was dead (John 19:33).  To be doubly sure, one of them drew hs spear and pierced His heart.  The Apostle John witnessed this act and wrote that with the spear thrust, there came forth blood and water -- a sure sign of death hastened by intense emotion.

     Other, reliable men added to the testimony of Christ's death. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea received permission to remove the bruised body from the cross and to prepare it for burial.  The centurion in charge of the whole vicious business also certified the death.  The evidence confirms the fact that Christ actually died.

     We should remember that the death of Christ had been foretold.  Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 described the manner of His death.  Also, Christ had repeatedley reminded His disciples of this forthcoming tragedy (Matt. 16:21; 17:22, 23; 20:17-19).  Each time He referred to His death, He also mentioned the subsequent resurrection.  On on occasion He likened His own death and burial and resurrection to the experience of Jonah during his three days in the belly of the great fish (Matt. 12:40).

     We know exactly what happened to the body of Christ.  He was taken down from the cross, wrapped in new linen cloths, with a hundred pounds of spices, according to the Jews' manner of burial.  Joseph provided a tomb for the burial.  A huge stone was rolled to the door to prevent molestation and the Roman seal affixed.  Later a military guard was thrown around the tomb to forestall any attempt on the part of friends to remove the body (Matt. 27:62-66).

     But, apart from His body, what happend to the Lord Himself?  Evidently He immediately entered into the realm of hades or sheol, where the righteous dead resided before the advent of His resurrection (Luke 16:22).  Psalm 16:10 makes this truth clear by the prophetic statement that the Holy One of Israel was not to be life in sheol.  To be sure, Christ was to go there, but He was not to remain in that place.

     A corresponding passage suggests that there was to be an evacuation of the inhabitant of the section occupied by the righteous.  There were taken far above and into the home of God Himself (Eph. 4:8-10).  In other words, when Christ returned to glory following His resrrection and His forty-day post-resurrection ministry, He took with Him all the righteous dead.  So when Paul died, he was not taken to shel or hades, but directly to the third heaven or paradise, which since the Resurrection is in heaven (II Cor. 12:1-4).

     Psalm 16:10 assures us that His body did not see corruption.  The orderly processes of dissolution and disintegration which inevitably follow death were arrest in His body.  Christ's body was destined for sudden transformation and changed after three days, into a glorified body.

     We, too, are destined for glorious new bodies, fashioned like Christ's resurrected body.  We shall have new and marvelous faculties and abilities.  The capacity to appear and reappear, imperiousness to pain, and adaptability to the environment of heaven will be "fringe benefits" of our resurrection bodies.

We are interested in YOUR RESPONSE.   Please use the COMMENT section at the end of EACH POST for your response and impressions.  Was this post helpful to you?   How?