SECTION X

the burial of the lord

(Mat 27:57-66. Mar 15:42-47. Luk 23:50-56. Joh 19:31-42)

It had been determined in the counsel of God that an honourable burial should be prepared for the deceased Prince of men; and in order to realize this decree, the motives and feelings which actuated the Jews were made to co-operate in the most remarkable manner with the inmost wishes of believers.

The Jews could not but feel an urgent desire to have the bodies of the crucified taken down and buried before evening, at which time the Sabbath commenced. It was against the law, in its general terms, to let bodies remain all night upon the tree (Deu 21:22-23); and in this case there was also the special consideration, that the next day was the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath-day was a high day (Joh 19:31). They could not bear the thought that the bodies should remain hanging upon the cross during the greatest day of the feast.¹ Besides, they doubtless felt a mysterious impulse from an evil conscience which urged them to hurry into the grave the body of Jesus, which hung upon the cross as a living reproach against them, that they might, if possible, consign to oblivion both His person and His cause.

Therefore, in the idea of fulfilling, as they best could, the duty of the day of preparation for a Sabbath of particular solemnity, and before they knew of our Lord’s death, they went to Pilate and besought him that the legs of the crucified might be broken, and that they might be taken away. They knew that the course of crucifixion usually lasted so long before death ensued, that the time until evening was not sufficient for it’; therefore they wished to see the ordinary mode of execution hastened by another.² The mode which they proposed was not suggested to them by any Roman custom of supplementing crucifixion in that way. It was an idea of their own; although it no doubt contained reference to the fact, that breaking the limbs (crurifragium) was a separate punishment customary among the Romans, which, from its nature, might be conjoined with crucifixion or supplement it.³ Perhaps the cognate punishment of stoning to death was floating in their minds when they made their proposal. At all events, the more speculative among them might have a special motive which made them wish that the body of Christ should be broken. Pilate assented to their proposal. So the soldiers who were entrusted with this task came and began it by breaking the legs first of the one thief, and then of the other. They left our Lord to the last, evidently from some feeling of respect for Him, which was perhaps due to the influence of the believing centurion. When they came to Jesus, they saw that He was dead already. From this we may infer, that Pilate had sent other and fresh soldiers to execute this order. As Jesus was manifestly dead, they gladly spared themselves the trouble of breaking His legs. But, for securing the certainty which their office demanded, they did an act equivalent to breaking the legs. One of the soldiers thrust a spear⁴ into Jesus’ side. This could not have been done with the intention of testing whether He was dead or not, for they were all convinced of His death already. It was rather designed to give an official seal to that conviction, by giving in addition a stroke of itself sufficient to have caused death.⁵ Consequently we must consider it as a deadly thrust aimed at our Lord’s heart. The position of the soldier, face to face with Jesus, naturally gave occasion for aiming at His left side. That the wound inflicted on the body was of considerable size, is proved by the circumstance, that Thomas could afterwards desire to thrust his hand into it for the purpose of assuring himself of our Lord’s resurrection.

This spear-thrust was followed by a striking appearance; blood and water immediately flowed from the wound. All this had deep significance for the Evangelist John; he writes with peculiar emphasis, ‘And he that saw it bear record, and his record is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.’ And why does he hold these facts to be so significant? ‘For,’ he continues, ‘these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken:’ Exo 12:46. And again another Scripture saith, ‘They shall look on Him whom they pierced:’ Zec 12:10.

It seemed to him very remarkable that, under God’s guidance, Scripture was fulfilled by an act of a Roman soldier who knew nothing of the Scripture—by an act apparently so fortuitous, and caused by such peculiar circumstances. But he thought it still more remarkable that two passages of Scripture so far apart were fulfilled by this one act, and fulfilled as distinctly as if the spear had been expressly made for effecting an almost literal fulfilment. But it seemed to him most remarkable of all, that in this way even here Scripture was fulfilled, not copied, but realized in its very essence, and that in both features already referred to.

In respect to the first, i.e., the singularity of this fulfilment of Scripture, even a talmudic verbal criticism, destitute of the Spirit, cannot help seeing that, in the Evangelist’s view, the Roman soldier had no conscious intention of fulfilling two passages of Scripture when he thrust the spear into Jesus’ side. Even such a criticism must see that John’s astonishment was caused by the infinite power of adaptation displayed by Providence, in connecting so great designs and the fulfilment of Scripture with an apparently blind, arbitrary, and unusual act of a heathen soldier.

In respect to the second, the Evangelist was specially impressed by the mysterious combination of the two passages of Scripture in one fulfilment, and by the exactness with which both were fulfilled. He considered Christ as the true Paschal Lamb; and therefore the ordinance in respect to its preparation, ‘Neither shall ye break a bone thereof,’ had to be kept inviolate when He was put to death. He considered Him also as the true and highest representative of Jehovah. Therefore also that fearful fact, seen by Zechariah in prophetic vision, that Jehovah’s people would aim a deadly thrust at their covenant God Himself in His representative, and would be compelled to look on Him whom they had pierced, had to receive a first and very striking fulfilment in the hour of Jesus’ death.⁶ Here was much that was singularly striking: first, the secret connection between two passages of Scripture so far apart—between an early typical ordinance of Moses and a symbolic prediction of one of the later prophets; next, God’s connecting the accomplishment of His great designs with an act so isolated and unexpected. A bone of Him was not broken, although, when the soldiers broke the legs of the two thieves, it was highly improbable that they would forebear doing the same to Him. However unlikely it was, until the very last moment, that the man who represented Jehovah should, just before His interment, still receive a stroke by which the word of the prophet was fulfilled almost literally, yet that stroke He had to receive.

But when John speaks of the fulfilment of Scripture, he speaks of it, as Matthew also does, in a sense which lies far beyond the sphere of vision of our critics. He has in view essential fulfilments—the unfolding and realization with power and completeness of the Messianic history, which were intimated long before by prophetic types and sayings. This was the case here also. Jesus was the true Paschal Lamb; therefore He had to be put to death and offered in sacrifice indeed, but not crushed and disfigured. The form which had manifested the life of the Holy One must remain unmutilated, although life had departed. At the same time, it had to become evident that His enemies did not put Him to death with calmness and composure, but in a tumult of excitement and anxiety, as if they had been hunted by the terrors of judgment.⁷ But the Evangelist found quite as remarkable a fulfilment of the second passage referred to, in the fact that the dead body of Jesus was pierced by the spear, and that blood and water immediately flowed from the wound. It is evidently not the mere spear-thrust, but also and principally its peculiar result, which he regarded as referring to that passage of Scripture. In this result he saw a sign—a sign fitted to alarm and reprove the enemies of our Lord.

The question arises here—In what respect did he see a sign in this streaming forth of blood and water from our Lord’s side? It has been thought⁸ that he pointed to this fact as a telling refutation of the opinion of the Gnostics, who maintained that the Redeemer had only the appearance of a body. But this idea is unfounded. Had John intended to refute the Gnostics by pointing to the first trace of blood on the body of Jesus, he would have pointed to that which [must have issued from the wounds of His hands and feet when nailed to the cross.⁹ But John knew better—he knew that such an argument as this would have had no effect on the Docetists. These men, who let themselves be driven by their system impudently to declare the reality of the corporeal appearance of Christ to be mere semblance, must have held it still more suitable thus to characterize a single phenomenon of this corporeity attested only by John. John knew better how to refute the Gnostics, by showing that the world was made by the Eternal Word in His unity with the Eternal God, and that without this Word nothing was made. Besides, it is manifest that he considered the sign as a sign for those who stood on Golgotha as adversaries of Jesus; and certainly they were no Docetists.

Equally untenable is the view, that the Evangelist gave this sign as a proof of the certainty of our Lord’s death.¹⁰ Those who take this view overlook the fact, that not only John, but, according to him, the Roman soldiers also, were convinced of Jesus’ death before He was pierced by the spear. No doubt John rightly found in this piercing an official attestation of our Lord’s death, and an equivalent to breaking His legs. But that he, on his standpoint, should have felt the need of pointing to this strange streaming forth of blood and water as a physiological proof of our Lord’s death, entirely contradicts the character of an apostolic Christian, to say nothing of his being an Evangelist. Even had he really desired to descend to this standpoint of anatomical investigation, he could scarcely have adduced as proof of Jesus’ death a sign which cannot be considered an ordinary sign of death,¹¹ but rather a strange phenomenon.

Strauss, indeed, goes so far as to charge the Evangelist with having reasoned himself into the belief that a separate substance must flow from the body of one who has just died, because after bloodletting the blood drawn separates into clots of blood and water, and with having upon this erroneous supposition invented the story to prove the death of Jesus. This is charging the Evangelist with two defects, the one of a mental, the other of a moral nature. This monstrous levity must be attributed to the custom which the critic has, of explaining the lofty problems of the apostolic region by the trivialities of common life.

It may be regarded as the rule, that when incisions are made into a body which has become stiff, no more blood issues from it, because the blood, the circulation of which ceased with the last beat of the pulse, begins ‘to coagulate an hour after death.’ But there are cases in which the blood retains its fluidity a longer time, namely, when death has been occasioned by nervous fever and suffocation;¹² and so ‘passive issues from the larger vessels’ may take place even after death.¹³ Professional men have maintained that such an issue may be represented as an effusion of blood and water; that is, lymphatic humour may accompany the flowing blood, especially when the pleura (containing as it does lymphatic vessels) has been wounded.¹⁴ It has been shown lately, that it is even possible that, under certain circumstances (after internal effusion of blood as it may occur after violent straining of the muscles), blood decomposed while in the body may flow forth from an incision made into it.¹⁵ But it is very questionable if we can suppose these special circumstances in the case of Christ’s body. We are not compelled to assume a violent straining of the muscles when He was stretched upon the cross. Even if we should assume that such pathological disarrangements might have taken place in the body of the dying One, and been shown by the wound in His side, still such an appearance would have to be considered as an exception to the rule. John therefore could not have adduced it as a known and acknowledged sign of actual death. But it is very evident that he by no means cites the fact he mentions as a thing to be expected with certainty, but as an appearance which could not fail to astonish those who stood around. It may well be assumed that he has no inclination to attribute this singular circumstance to former derangements in Christ’s organization. Besides, the question still remains, if the expression he uses will permit us to think here of proper blood decompounded into sanguineous and aqueous matter. Even if it does so, at any rate he considers the easy and ready streaming forth of this substance, separated into blood and water, as something extraordinary—as a sign in which the word of the prophet, They shall look on Him whom they pierced, received its first fulfilment; consequently as a sign which might become a reproach, or even a sign of terror, to our Lord’s enemies. Thus those fathers who found a miracle here hit on the right sense of the passage.¹⁶ Yet it must be observed that no abstract miraculous appearance can be meant here. The wonderful appearance harmonizes with the peculiarity of the life and death of Christ; and this is to be conceived of as quite a peculiar phenomenon of the silent change now taking place in His higher nature.

We may observe that, in ordinary cases, the first stages of corruption commence immediately after death. But this cannot be supposed in respect to Christ’s body, in the very peculiar state in which it was in the interval between His death and resurrection. We must rather assume that, in accordance with the peculiar condition of His body, quite a different change from that caused by corruption could not fail to commence in it immediately after death; therefore we do not keep inside the circle of Christology if, when discussing this question, we set out with the supposition that Christ’s body, even in death, must have gone through the same processes as other bodies; and that we must confirm the truth of the fact which John relates by examples from common anatomical experiences.

John relates a primary phenomenon in the history of the body of Christ, which anatomy or medical science in general may inquire into if it chooses, and, indeed, will continue to inquire into. But he is far from giving information respecting it in the way of scientific reflection, as if he meant to say, These men laid a disturbing hand upon this mysterious and unparalleled metamorphosis during the sleep of death, they lifted the veil which concealed the sacred process of transformation which Christ’s body was undergoing in its passing from the death of this life into the resurrection-life, and then that singular sign appeared, giving indication of the very mysterious condition of this body. He rather views this, as he does everything, on its religious and christological side.

These men treated the body of Christ as a common corpse. They pierced the sacred form in which the Lord of glory had dwelt and acted, and over which even now the Spirit of glory brooded with a blessing, to preserve it from corruption, and to prepare in it the new birth for heaven; but the divine and sacred sign which their onset called forth immediately rebuked them. Thus the piercing of His side was the last and most pointed symbol of the great blindness with which the people of Israel, and the world with them, denied the Lord of glory and aimed a deadly thrust at His heart; and its extraordinary result was the first symbol and real beginning of those signs of Christ’s pre-eminence and glory, which are disclosed on all attacks of this kind on the body of Him who seems destroyed, and which rebuke and enlighten the world.

That denial of Christ still continues in part, and the piercing of His side is repeated a thousand ways in its spiritual signification; but as often as Christ, as He appears in time, receives deadly injury, new tokens of His life and majesty burst forth from His mystical body, and even from the graves of His saints. These signs of Christ have already opened the eyes of those whom He has created anew to be the core of humanity, and they have long since begun to mourn for this holy dead One, as one mourns for an only son; but the completion of this enlightenment is still future for the world, and especially for the people of Israel: Zec 12:10.

The profound and eagle-eyed Evangelist has confidently stamped this passage with his authority, in opposition to the judgment of the critics, who maintain that nothing is to be found here except a tissue of confused literalism. In his view, these occurrences were of the highest importance. He writes that he has, as an eyewitness, given testimony to them. From that time forth he had always testified of them;¹⁷ the event, therefore, was still present to him as if he saw it. He adds, his record is true; i.e., in accordance with the reality of the case, in so far, namely, as he here relates not merely the outward fact in an outward manner, but also exhibits it in its ideality, in its unity with the eternal spirit of Scripture, which was also the spirit of his life. But he is as certain of the historical actuality of the event, as he is of its christological ideality: he expresses this by the words, ‘And he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.’

If it be asked with wonder, how does the Evangelist come to employ these repeated asseverations? the answer is, that he relates here the last fact in Christ’s pilgrimage, in which he saw His glory. The spear-thrust forms in his view the conclusion of Christ’s sufferings; and he relates with exultation how, even in this climax of His sufferings, His pre-eminence was so wonderfully brought to view, and how, even here, types and prophecies of the Old Testament met, and were fulfilled in Christ’s being glorified, on the one hand, as the suffering Paschal Lamb, and on the other, as the Lord of glory ruling judicially even in death.

The passage, then, forms a conclusion, just as the passage Joh 12:37, where John looks back upon the public life of Christ among the people; as the passage Joh 20:31, where He sums up the proofs by which Jesus showed Himself after His resurrection; and lastly, as the passage Joh 21:24, where he points to the things in which Christ symbolized His perpetual abiding in the world after the ascension.

After our Lord’s death, but before tidings of it had been brought to Pilate, one who honoured Him went to Pilate, and besought him to give him the body of Jesus. This man was Joseph of Arimathea,¹⁸—a disciple of Jesus, says John, but secretly, for fear of the Jews. He was a good man and a just, as Luke says; and as he had waited for the kingdom of God (with earnest longing for its revelation), his faithfulness and piety had brought him into fellowship with Christ. But worldly considerations had hitherto prevented him from coming forward openly in behalf of Jesus, as they had likewise for a long time restrained Nicodemus. According to Matthew, he was a rich man; according to Mark, an honourable counsellor: so he had much to lose. He had already given in the council undeniable tokens of a favourable disposition towards Jesus. Luke says, ‘He had not consented to the counsel and deed of them.’¹⁹ Yet he had not hitherto openly acknowledged Jesus. But now he acts differently.

It is a fact of the highest truth, and of touching effect, that our Lord’s two rich adherents, who, from worldly considerations, had hitherto held so ambiguous a position towards Him, come forward so decidedly as His disciples now when He is dead. The holy influence of His death has broken in pieces the stony ground of their former state, and torn the veil through which they saw their nation’s former state of existence in a dim and sacred light. He has deeply reproved, shaken, and freed them. Since, for them, the poles of the old world have been so thoroughly reversed, in the sufferings of Christ—since in these sufferings, the death of the cross has become the highest honour in their eyes, and the suffering of death a divine victory, their position towards the world has become entirely different.

First of all, both at the same time decided to come forward, willing henceforth to live and to suffer as disciples of Jesus. They next show their zeal for the honour of Him who was covered with shame, by purposing to rescue His body from the usual common interment,²⁰ and to prepare an honourable burial for Him. Whether the two acted in concert from the beginning, or whether the bolder Joseph first went forward and drew Nicodemus along with him, we know not. At all events, as friends of Jesus, they were the friends of one another: the inward experiences they were both undergoing had a sympathetic connection; while distress and zeal, in addition to the most urgent business of this hour, soon brought them together outwardly also. When the day was drawing to a close, and the execution on Golgotha was to be finished, Joseph, as Mark says, ‘came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.’ Pilate heard with astonishment that He was already dead, and seemed scarcely willing to believe it. He therefore called the centurion who kept watch on Golgotha, and asked him whether He had been any while dead.²¹ From this we may infer, that he thought it possible that Joseph might wish to deceive him, or had deceived himself in respect to the death of Jesus. Pilate thought that it pertained to the cares of his office to ascertain the reality of our Lord’s death, before giving His body to one who honoured Him.

It follows from this statement, that the death of Jesus must have taken place very speedily, when compared with the usual lengthened course of suffering upon the cross.²² This may be partly explained from our Lord’s great sufferings before the crucifixion,²³ but also, without question, partly from the energy wherewith His holy and healthy life expedited the slow separation between soul and body.²⁴

After the governor had received from the centurion satisfactory information regarding the death of Jesus, he gave His body to the counsellor, perhaps in some measure moved by Joseph’s honourable position.²⁵

And now grateful love began to prepare most honourable burial for the King in the kingdom of love. The body was taken down from the cross. Joseph bought fine linen in which to wrap Him; while Nicodemus procured the spices which were put into the linen clothes, making them an aromatic bed for the body. Nicodemus felt the need of honouring the Lord with a princely expenditure now, as had shortly before been done by Mary in Bethany. He brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes,²⁶ about a hundred pound weight.²⁷ This preparation was manifestly not measured by bare requirement. It was the custom of the age to prepare costly obsequies for venerated persons.²⁸ And so Jesus was, according to Jewish custom, wrapped in linen cloth; and this was, as usual, cut into parts, to cover the body, the limbs, and the head.²⁹

The sepulchre was most providentially prepared. Joseph possessed a garden near the place of execution, in which he had hewn himself a new tomb out of the rock, wherein was never man yet laid.³⁰ He did not esteem this tomb too precious for the body of his Lord. John observes, that they laid Jesus in this sepulchre because of the Jews’ preparation day. Luke remarks, that the Sabbath was drawing on. If this was the reason why they laid Jesus there, it would seem that, with more leisure, He would perhaps have been buried elsewhere. And very possibly other disciples could have brought forward superior claims. But the expression, perhaps, bears reference to the conduct of the Jews. It was, no doubt, galling to them that Joseph took care of the Crucified One; and they must have wished, since he did so, that the body should be quickly removed out of sight. After He had been hastily interred, Joseph rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre. The Sabbath was near—the last acts of the crucifixion, the concluding act of the execution, the taking down of Jesus from the cross, and His burial, had all followed in quick succession during the decline of the day.

The women who followed Him were also present at His interment. They carefully observed the sepulchre, and saw how the body was laid. After the manner of women, they took exact notice of everything, and even in the midst of their deep sorrow they could rejoice at this honourable burial of their beloved Master, while yet they could find much to take exception to in the form in which it was gone about, and this made them wish a fresh and more tasteful embalming. The eyes of so many women could easily discern defects in preparations which had been made in the greatest haste, and that by men.³¹ They were not satisfied even with the spices. They wished to introduce greater variety. With this view, some of them returned to the city and prepared spices and ointments that same evening, towards the approach of the Sabbath. They then rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment, however hard they felt it to be obliged to defer a whole day their preparation for honouring the body of Jesus.

But while some of the women thus hastened home, impelled by love to Jesus, the same love kept two of them in the neighbourhood of the sepulchre until late in the evening. These were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, or of the sons of Alpheus. These sat themselves down by the grave. They were most probably of a naturally fearless disposition; and as followers of Jesus, they had long been imbued with the spirit of devotedness to their Master, and now their Christian heroism had reached maturity in the trials around the cross.

These women, who, with the love of true sisters of the Crucified One, the courage of fearless minds, and the self-forgetfulness of deep affliction, sat throughout the evening twilight opposite the sepulchre in the lonesome garden, silent and sunk in deep meditation, form a noble contrast to those bands of mourning women who are often to be seen in the East lying on the tombs in clear daylight, giving utterance more or less loudly to their wailings for the dead. The spirit of faithfulness is here revealed on its New Testament inwardness, freedom, and sublimity. With Christ they had died to the world; like departed spirits who have through the King of spirits become familiar with the otherwise dreaded realm of spirits, they sat there until late in the evening. Meanwhile the time for procuring spices for the anointing before the Sabbath had passed away. Yet they could not forbear adding something of their own for decorating the body of Christ. As soon as the Sabbath was over (after six o’clock on Saturday) they made a purchase, in which they were joined by Salome.³²

Thus we see the disciples of Jesus animated by a holy emulation to testify their devotedness to Him even when dead, and to render the richest honours to His body in the tomb. Joseph of Arimathea, besides his office and influence, brings as an offering to Him a highly prized possession—a new tomb hewn in the rock, probably at first intended to receive his own body. Nicodemus has long enough withheld his homage; but now, in the hundred pounds of costly spices which he brings, we recognize the strong expression of a devotedness which knows not how to do enough, and the deep repentance and soaring faith of an aged man who has found in the death of Christ his second and everlasting youth. We need not wonder if the pious women also will not be behind in glorifying the beloved dead. And how characteristically was this company of women separated into two divisions by the influence of love! Some of them hasten home to procure as soon as possible what is nesessary for the second anointing of Jesus; the others cannot for a long time leave His tomb, and afterwards join those who are preparing the solemn anointing.

Our Lord thus received one simple but ample anointing in His chamber of the tomb, and three were intended for Him. He was buried with such princely magnificence that the antagonistic criticism,³³ which would readily comprehend the like in the case of any Persian satrap or Arabian emir, finds it utterly incomprehensible because the whole great reality of the New Testament is still covered with a veil for that criticism, and seems to it a realm of fable, or because it imagines the burial of Jesus was a matter on which as little as possible ought to have been expended. But the Scripture had to be fulfilled in this point also, even the saying, Isa 53:9, A grave was given Him with the rich.³⁴ We say ‘be fulfilled’ in the sense of Matthew and John. It is a primary fact, that God’s Anointed was during His life treated as the most despised and unworthy, and after His death buried as a rich man. The love and faithfulness due to Him remained at first an unpaid debt; but afterwards tokens of gratitude, too long deferred, were brought to Him in the tomb, with burning tears of repentance, in a rich funeral offering. Christ had already experienced this lot in His forerunners the prophets. In His own life this fact was exhibited in all its clearness and magnitude. But it recurs again in a thousand shapes in the experience of His Church and the lot of His faithful witnesses.

The enemies of our Lord had vainly imagined that His death would bring them repose; but they soon found, that when dead, He caused them still more uneasiness than He had done when alive. This anxiety sought an outlet, and must find it, as certainly as sickness of soul always finds its fixed idea. They remembered that Jesus, when alive, had said that He would rise again on the third day. It has been asked, How could they know that He had said this? And it has been replied, possibly they learned it from Jud 1:1; Jud 1:2 ³⁵or, such an expression might have been openly uttered by one of the disciples and have come to the knowledge of the council.³⁶ This answer is quite correct: if they got only the slightest hint of this kind, it could furnish them with the key to His enigmatical expression, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up;’ and this the more readily as they had to examine Him concerning this saying, and might be convinced that He did not mean their temple on Mount Zion.³⁷ But the remembrance of this saying of Christ now alarmed them like the spirit of the dead. Even as soon as the night after the murder, it appears to have alarmed them to such a degree as to drive them to hold a consultation at a most unsuitable time,³⁸ on the morning of their great paschal Sabbath. This was no formal sitting of the council, but an improvised conference of the more decided enemies of Jesus, in which the form of a session was intentionally avoided because of its being the Sabbath.³⁹ In this conference they came to the conclusion, that our Lord’s sepulchre must be sealed and furnished with a watch until the third day was over. Thus minded, they went to Pilate, going, as it would seem, one by one, and expressing their desire with their petition; but so many went, that it gave the appearance of a conference held in his house. They evidently wished to avoid the form of a procession, as they had avoided a formal sitting; still, there arose the monstrosity of a conference in the house of a heathen.⁴⁰ They addressed him, saying, ‘Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.’ They had, it is clear, already invented the subterfuge which they would employ if, in a few days, it should be proclaimed-He is risen. Meanwhile they deceived themselves with the wretched figment, that possibly His disciples might steal the body of Christ, might then proclaim that He had risen again, and produce surprising effects by means of this deception. And on account of such an illusion as this, they assembled and held consultation on the most solemn morning of the year, and, casting aside their reverence for the Sabbath, hurried as petitioners to Pilate, applying for a watch-for a watch to guard the grave of a criminal. But beyond doubt it was something far different which mysteriously distressed and alarmed them, namely, the possibility that Jesus might really return from the dead. With a strange and superstitious belief in the efficacy of their own official seal and of the Roman watch, they dreamed of being able to prevent the possibility of His resurrection and renewed activity, and of the infliction of a severe retribution for their deed. Above all, they hoped to be able to shut up their own base fear within His tomb. Pilate seems to have agreed to their proposal with the languid listlessness of a great man who is fatigued and wearied out. He dismissed them curtly with the words, ‘The watch is granted you: go, make it secure, as ye know how’ (as ye are acquainted with the custom). Negative criticism⁴¹ is of opinion that, from Pilate’s character, he could not but dismiss with derision the persons who wished to set a seal on our Lord’s sepulchre. This is not a bad idea! Their proposal was a mockery of their own doings. And who knows that Pilate did not dismiss these men, with their paltry ostensible motive for a paltry proceeding, with a jeering expression, as if he had meant to say, The watch is at your service; be off now, and set about the sealing, as you are so well up to it!

And they actually went. They were not ashamed: they proceeded to the tomb, impressed the seal upon the stone in the presence of the watch, and handed over to these men the charge of the sealed sepulchre. That was the culminating point of this self-contradictory Jewish Sabbath-service. The members of the high council hold private consultations on the most solemn of the solemn Sabbath-days; they run hither and thither, and even assemble for conference in the house of the heathen procurator; they go and seal the stone over the sepulchre of our Lord, and commit the keeping of it to the Roman watch. The whole matter was evidently judicial. The high council (and embodied in it, the spirit of Jewish traditionalism) laboured and toiled with anxious fear on the year’s most solemn day of rest around the sepulchre of Christ, for no other purpose than to seal in the lasting silence of the grave the ever-active Spirit of Christ, and His new life enkindling in the concealed depths of the Godhead for the work of a new and eternal Sabbath.

At the same time, this act of the Jews was the last and highest expression of their rejecting the Messiah and giving Him over to the Gentiles. As they thought, they sealed in the tomb the last ray of possibility that Jesus as the Risen One could be preached to their nation and shake the world. Thus in their design they imprisoned for ever the Messianic hope of their nation, like as if the spirit of freedom were to be immured in cloisters, and they committed the keeping of the grave to a Roman guard, on which henceforth all their false security rested. According to their idea and wise procedure, the theocratic kingdom had now fallen so low that all its security reposed upon the fidelity of a Roman heathen guard.

Finally, this act betrays the greatest folly, and by it the unbelief of the council makes a mockery of themselves. They thought to enclose within the tomb what Christ had already accomplished before His death, calling it ‘the first error.’ And they wish besides to imprison in the grave His second and more mighty working after death, of which they had a dark presentiment, calling it ‘the last error’ which might be worse than the first. And so, with their priestly official seal (a bulla), and with a band of dull mercenaries begged from a foreign nation, they mean to seal up for ever in the sepulchre the Spirit of Christ—the Spirit of His past, present, and future—His life and the unfolding of His glory—the new life, the new kingdom, the new age, and the new world. That was their last official procedure in regard to the Messiah, and they went about it with lofty officialism, while the idea and design of their office was to prepare for the Lord of glory a way to His people and to all the world. But in this act is symbolically set forth the folly of all false labourers in the service of the Church, of all carnal theologians, of all watchers and workers of the old world, in which sin and death reign; and this folly which ever anew seeks in a thousand ways to seal the sepulchre, is therein condemned as the climax of all folly and self-mockery.

Thus the stone was sealed, and a guard set over the sepulchre. Should His disciples now come to visit it, they would be roughly warned away. But His friends could keep the solemn Sabbath with more repose than His enemies. They seemed to have passed the day so quietly, that most of them heard nothing about the watch which had been set over the sepulchre. At any rate, we may assume that the women who went early next morning to the sepulchre knew nothing of this measure.⁴²

The solemn realities of the crucifixion and the darkness of the tomb had cast a gloom over their life also; but now in them, as in the sepulchre and body of their Lord, there was preparing an awakening to newness of life.

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Notes

1. Baur in his treatise (On the Composition, &c., 165) says it is a ‘pure impossibility’ for blood and water, and especially in visible separation, to have flowed from a dead body when pierced. He then proposes the question, How can the Evangelist, we must ask again, have seen what, from the nature of the case, could not possibly be seen? He gives as answer: ‘What cannot be seen with the bodily eyes may be seen spiritually; where there is no place for the sensuous and material view, there always remains room enough for that higher view in which the outward and the material moulds itself into an image of the spiritual,’ &c. The more livingly one is impressed with the significance of a mighty incident, the more powerfully does the whole tenor of the ideas which float before his mind press upon him in a concrete view, in which everything becomes not merely form and figure, but also action and incident.’ Self-criticism of ‘criticism’ has surely reached its climax here. Mournful lot! that that proud discipline must in our days sometimes transcend the bounds which even itself has set to its fancies. Thus far is clear, if a man can boldly affirm that an Evangelist writing his Gospel could conjure up every kind of illusion (for it is not pretended that he is poetizing here), he himself must have first come to view things in such a manner that he can conjure up any kind of illusion in the realm of ‘criticism.’

2. According to Strauss (554), the two statements, that Joseph of Arimathea was not afraid to take charge of the body of Christ in such adverse circumstances, and that he was a counsellor, gave rise to everything else which the Evangelists, influenced possibly by the passage Isa 53:9, &c., said about Him, and this renders the whole liable to suspicion. The passage in question is one of the many in which the character of this ‘criticism’ is very plainly mirrored. Compare Ebrard.

3. On the construction of Jewish sepulchres, compare Schulz, Jerusalem, 97; Friedlieb, 173; [Jahn’s Bibl. Antiq. (Ed. Upham), p. 100. Several of the dissertations appended to the Critici Sacri are devoted to this and kindred subjects.—Ed.]

4. According to Strauss (560), there is a difference between Matthew and John in respect to the right of possession which Joseph had to the garden in which Christ was laid. ‘According to John,’ says Strauss, ‘it was not because Joseph owned the sepulchre that Jesus was laid in it, but because time was pressing they laid Him in a new tomb, which happened to be in a neighbouring garden.’ Hug (199), has triumphantly repelled this supposed damaging attack. ‘Is the doctor of opinion that a proprietary or family burial-place could be made use of without ceremony? The ancients did not think so. Everybody must remember many inscriptions on Roman and Grecian burial-places, which invoke the vengeance of the gods on the wrong-doers who dared to lay there the body of a stranger not belonging to the family,’ &c. Besides, it has been shown above why John should account for the burial of Christ in the way he did, although he knew that the sepulchre belonged to Joseph.

5. Sepp observes (604), ‘But among the Jews the cross, as also the stones employed in stoning to death, the rope used in hanging, and the sword used for beheading, were buried on the spot of execution; and in all likelihood the crosses and bodies of the two thieves were buried in the so-called “valley of dead bodies” (Jer 31:40), to which the corpses of executed criminals were consigned.’ This observation speaks in favour of the genuineness of the relics of the cross. Friedlieb remarks, on the contrary, ‘Without the intervention of this man (Joseph), Jesus would probably have been buried on Golgotha like the two malefactors’ (169). The very name, ‘Place of skulls,’ favours the opinion that malefactors were buried here on the very place of execution.⁴³

6. Strauss is of opinion (564) that the apostles, in their defence before the council, should have appealed to the fact that the sepulchre had been sealed, and that this would have been a powerful weapon in their hands.

This, as well as the question, why they did not appeal to the rent veil of the temple, belongs to the rubric which says, John, in giving testimony to the Messiah, should have appealed to what he had heard from Elisabeth, his mother. The apostles moved in the sphere of religious, dynamic, and incontestable certainty, and therefore, when testifying before their opponents, they could not build upon such certainties as arise from the affixing or removal of an official seal.

7. Matthew’s account of the sealing of the sepulchre, Mat 27:62-66, agrees exactly with his statement, Mat 28:11-15, that the soldiers of the watch were afterwards corrupted by the chief priests. Nothing can be concluded against the historical character of these statements, from the circumstance that Matthew alone imparts them; although, among others, Hase thinks so, 262. They were of special importance for the Jewish Christians, for whom Matthew directly wrote; they were also in keeping with the distinctive peculiarity of his Gospel, while the other Evangelists could not feel the same interest in relating these facts. There would unquestionably be a considerable difficulty, if we must suppose that Mat 28:12, meant to say, that the council at an ordinary sitting, and after formal consultation, resolved ‘to bribe the soldiers, and put a lie into their mouth.’ Compare what Hug has said against this view, 207. We have already seen (Book II. vii. 6) that the party in the council who were fanatical and mortal enemies of Jesus often held private conferences, distinct from the official sittings of the council. Besides, the Evangelist by no means says that that consultation, which was unquestionably a private conference, formally resolved to bribe the soldiers. They held a consultation, in which probably the chief priests, with a self-accusing conscience, proposed, with a silent understanding respecting the means to be employed, to secure the silence of the soldiers about what had occurred at the sepulchre. The particular way to effect this would be left to the chief priests. It may be held as a sign of the naïveté of the antagonistic criticism, that it cannot imagine an arrangement of this kind, not avowed, but well understood, such as may often occur in the council of the ungodly.

1) See Friedlieb, 163.

2) 'It was not the custom of the Romans to take the crucified down from the cross; they were left on it until their flesh mouldered, or was devoured by birds of prey and other wild animals. As a rule, their sufferings were not shortened, they had to die a lingering death; sometimes, however, they were despatched by a fire kindled below them, or by lions or bears sent to devour them.'—Friedlieb, 163.

3) See Friedlieb, 164 Crurifragium, it is true, did 'not always kill the delinquents'; we must not, however, overlook the fact that, in the case before us, it was employed for the very purpose of putting the crucified to death. Besides, the coup de grâce was, as the rule, combined with crurifragium. [See an interesting note in, Neander's Life of Christ, 472.—ED.]

4) 'The λοτχη was the ordinary Roman hasta, a lighter weapon than the pilum, consisting of a long wooden shaft with an iron head, which was the width of a hand-breadth and pointed at the end, and so was egg-shaped.'—Friedlieb, 167.

5) See Friedlieb, 167.

6) The Evangelist s citation is free and inexact. The passage stands in the prophet thus: 'And they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced.' Yet it is to be observed that many copies read אליו (they shall look on Him). See Hitzig, Die Zwölf khinen Propheten, 150. Compare Hengstenberg's Christology, iv. 74 (Clark s Tr.)

7) See Book I. v. 5, Note 1.

8) By Olshausen, for example; see iv. 249 (Clark s Tr., 2d Ed.)

9) [John could not have pointed to the blood flowing from the hands and feet, because almost no blood issued from the wounds of the nails; there being no large vessels cut by them, and the nails 'plugging' the wounds. And whether John appealed to the blood flowing from the side as proof of the reality of the body or not, it is very certain that those who succeeded him in the Docetic controversy did most constantly and confidently so appeal. See instances of this in Irenæus, Origen, and Athanasius (and surely these men knew what was effectual against the Docetæ) given by Burton, Heresies of Apostal. Age, p. 472. See also Waterlaud's Works, v. 190. ED.]

10) This view became the prevalent one in modern times, since the two Gruners transferred the subject to the domain of medical science, and showed the possibility of blood and water having flowed from Jesus side. Friedlieb, 167. In primitive times the event was looked on as miraculous ; comp. Tholuck on John, 400 (Clark s Tr.)—[Dr Stroud, in his treatise On the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ (Lond. 1847), adopts and very ably advocates the view that our Lord died from rupture or breaking of the heart; he thus accounts both for the cessation of life being earlier than is usually occasioned by crucifixion, and for the effusion of blood and water. Valuable medical opinions on the same point are appended to Dr Hanna's The Last Day of our Lord s Passion (Ed. 1862).—Yet it is to be considered that there are strong arguments for supposing that it was the right and not the left side that was pierced. It will be remembered that some of the most celebrated early paintings represent the wound as on the right side. The literature of the subject is very extensive, but probably most readers will be satisfied with the treatises of Queustedt, Ritterus, and Sagittarius, which are included in the Thesaurus Theol.-Phil. appended to the Critici Sacri. The note of Lampe is well worth referring to, were it only for the devout deliverance of Gretser cited therein.—ED.]

11) See Strauss, 549.

12) See Strauss, ii. 550.

13) See Ebrard, p. 442 (Clark's Tr.)

14) See Hase, 258.

15) See Ebrard. Comp. Tholuck on John, 401.

16) See Tholuck on John, 400. Weisse too thinks, ii. 330, that the Evangelist means to relate a miracle here ; he is, however, of the opinion, that this passage, taken in connection with 1 John v. 6, is designed to point to the body of Christ as the living source from which the sacraments of the Church have flowed,—not blood alone, but also water,—without which no man can truly come to life. For an opposite view comp. Ebrard, p. 440. ['Venerat enim per aquam et sauguinem, sicut Joannes scripsit, ut aqua tingeretur, sanguine glorificaretur, proinde nos faceret aqua vocatos, sanguine electos. Hos duos baptismos de vulnere perfossi lateris emisit, quatenus qui in sauguinem ejus crederent, aqua lavarentur, qui aqua lavissent, etiam sauguiuem potarent.'—Tertullian, de Baptismo, c. 16.—ED.]

17) See Book I. v. 5, Note 1.

18) According to Robinson (ii. 239, 241, 2d Ed., Loud.), Rama (Arimatliea) lay east wards from Lydda in the direction of Jerusalem; but it is not the same place as Ramlah, which means The Sandy; while Rama signifies a height. Neither is this Arimathea the same as the city of Samuel. [Robinson's conclusion is, The position of the scriptural Arimathea must, I think, be still regarded as unsettled. But see Thomson's Land and Book, 530.—ED.]

19) The latter (deed) may possibly imply a protest against the resolution of the Sanhedrim, and the former (counsel), that he had been outvoted in it,

20) 'Among the Jews, persons who were executed were not laid in the family burying-place, along with honourable people. The Sanhedrim appointed two special burying-places for them : the one for the beheaded, hanged, and crucified; the other for the stoned or burned to death. Their bones might be collected and laid in the sepulchre of their fathers only after the entire decay of the flesh' (Sepp, iii. 602). Moreover, among the Jews it was a great disgrace to receive no honourable burial : to bury the neglected dead, was therefore reckoned among the good works; and Josephus counts it among the heinous crimes of the Zealots and Idumeans, that when besieged in Jerusalem, they did not bury the dead. See Friedlieb, 169.

21) The true meaning of the writer is destroyed, if we suppose, with Sepp, a synchysis, or trajectio verborum, according to which Pilate asked, Is He dead already? and the officer replied, πάλαι, Long ago.

22) That Jesus died soon, shows that the two thieves survived Him. We must re member, however, that they were nailed to the cross later than He. As a rule, a few
hours seem to have been sufficient to cause death to the crucified. Josephus experience (Vita, §75) confirms this view. He was able to rescue only one of the three crucified whom he was allowed to take down after they had hung a few hours. See Neauder, 472 [Bohn]. [The two following notes are also important.—ED.]

23) See Rauschenbusch, 433.

24) When Tertullian supposed that Jesus death was supernaturally hastened by Him self, he had some notion of that mysterious energy with which the force of life can show itself even in expediting the death-struggle by strengthening the pangs of this second birth, just as the energy of a strong woman expedites the pangs of the natural birth. Compare Umbreit on dying as a voluntary and personal act of man, Stud, und Krit. 1837, iii. 620. [And whatever we think of the physical cause of Christ's departure from life, we must maintain, with Augustine, non earn deseruit invitus, sed quia voluit, quando voluit, quoniodo voluit.—De Trin. iv. 16.—ED.]

25) Besides, this permission was no great favour on the part of Pilate. Similar cases often occurred, and were even provided for by the law. Friedlieb, 170.

26) We are indebted to Ehrenberg for the exact description of the myrrh-tree (Bal- samodendron Myrrha) which grows in Arabia and on the opposite coast of Ethiopia. See Winer, Art. Myrrh. The resinous matter, at first oily and then somewhat bitter, is of a yellowish white, becomes gradually gold-coloured, and hardens to a reddish hue. Comp. the same, on the aloe (woody aloe). Because of its strong and pleasant fragrance, the wood of this plant was used for perfume, and even for embalming bodies. These spices were pulverized before being used for embalming.

27) It is the Attic litra of twelve ounces that is here spoken of.

28) 'Among the Romans there were various gradations in burying the dead.' There is also a dissimilarity found among the mummies, &c. Nicodemus' estimation of the man whom he intended to honour is to be gathered from the rank in which he wished to place His body. Hug, 200. On costly funerals among the Jews in some cases, see Sepp, 605.

29) See Friedlieb, 171. The Jews generally used, for wrapping the bodies of those who had been executed, old linen which had served for covering and binding the rolls of the law. Sepp, iii. 607. [See the interesting notes to Pearson on the Creed, Clause 'and was buried.'—ED.]

30) The new sepulchre reminds Strauss (560) of the ass on which no man had sat. He thinks the one narrative throws suspicion on the other. It is remarkable with what boyish eagerness antagonistic criticism always mounts the two asses mentioned most prominently in the Bible : Balaam s ass in the Old Testament, and the unridden colt in the New.

31) John's words, καθὼς ἔθος ἐστὶ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις, cannot, as Strauss maintains they do, exclude the idea that the women found it still necessary to supplement the sepulture of our Lord. A sepulture may be correct, complete in every form, without our being able to say that it is in every respect satisfactory to all the mourners. The critic cannot raise himself above the standpoint of formal correctness, but seems inclined to say when a thing is finished, it is finished.

32) We thus explain the supposed difference between Mark and Luke in regard to the time when the spices were purchased, which the Wolfenbiittel Fragmentist, and more recently Strauss, ii. 556, have asserted to be inexplicable. The explanation is very simple. We have only to consider both accounts carefully, and make use of Matthew to explain Mark.

33) See Strauss, ii. 557. Comp. on the opposite side, Ebrard. It is affirmed that Matthew knew nothing of the spices, because he does not mention them when he speaks of wrapping the body in a clean linen cloth. It is true that 'even the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist granted that the wrapping in a clean linen cloth, mentioned by Matthew, included the Jewish embalming.' But our critic, who is in general led by mere outward similarities and appearances to overlook essential relations, can here persuade himself that Matthew meant to represent the anointing of Jesus in Bethany as a substitute for the supposed omission of the embalming.

34) The passage might be rendered freely, but in accordance with its meaning, some what thus : His grave was intended to be with poor outlaws, and in death (He was) in the vaulted sepulchre with the rich and respected

35) See Hug, ii. 202.

36) See Ebrard.

37) Hase thinks (262), it would have been strange if the Pharisees had come to understand aright that saying of our Lord sooner than the apostles did. The strange ness of this supposition disappears when we reflect that the Pharisees, just because they were conscious that they intended to put our Lord to death, must have understood sooner than the disciples His intimations that they meant to do so. Now the first part of our Lord s saying referred to the fact that they intended to put Him to death. When they apprehended rightly this first part, the explanation of the second followed as matter of course. They were supported in their view by the circumstance that they had to make inquiries regarding the saying ; and finally (as has been said), they might also have received information that Jesus had foretold His resurrection. We must also take into account that they were masters in combination and interpretation, and could find the meaning of a saying of our Lord more readily than the disciples, when, as here, a historical idea was in question. But it does not in the least follow from this, that they had come to believe in the resurrection of Christ

38) Matthew indicates this circumstance in his description of the day, ᾕτις ἐσζνὶ μετὰ τὴν παρασκευήν. This 'is truly a strange description of the Sabbath,' says Strauss (561), who takes no notice of the deep meaning of this expression.

39) See. Hug, 204.

40) Συνῃήχθηοὲαν πρὸς Πιλάτον, says Matthew. Lex Mosaica interdixerat operara manuariam, ut et judicii exercitium, non vero ire ad magistratum, ab eoque petere aliquid, prscsertim cum periculurn in rnora esst.—Kuinœl, Ev. Matth. p. 813.

41) See Strauss, ii. 556.

42) Possibly, however, they knew of the watch over the sepulchre without knowing of the sealing, and had hoped that the watch would not hinder them in a work? of piety. W. Hoffman, 402. Yet it seems to us more probable that both facts were unknown to them.

43) [It is, however, supposed by competent authorities, that this name, the place of a skull, may have been given on account of the shape of the rising ground or rocky hillock resembling a skull. For a complete discussion of the topography of Calvary, see Robinson's Researches, i. sec. 8.—ED.]