The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young, Vol. 4 / And His Life Depicted in a Gallery of Eighty Paintings

by Richard Newton

This is the history of the burial of Christ. And now we may speak of four lessons taught us by this history.

The first lesson taught us is about—the certainty of his death.

Sometimes the enemies of our religion have ventured to say that Jesus did not really die, but that he only fainted, or swooned, or appeared to die. But it is of the highest importance for us to know that Jesus did really die. When we are saying or singing that grand old anthem—the Te Deum, we look up to Jesus and say, “When thou had’st overcome the sharpness of death, thou did’st open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” By Christ’s overcoming the sharpness of death is meant his resurrection from the dead. But, if his resurrection was a real resurrection, then the death from which he rose, must have been a real death. We cannot come out of a state, or place, if we have never been in it. It is impossible that you, or I, for example, should go out of this church, unless we were first in it. And when we know that none of us could enter heaven, unless Jesus had really died for us, we see how important it is for us to be sure of the certainty of his death.

Now there was one thing connected with the burial of Christ which proves that he was really dead, and that was the drawing out of the nails from his hands and feet. When a great, rough nail or spike has been driven into a piece of solid wood, we know how hard it is to draw it out. There were two such spikes driven through the palms of the hands of Jesus, and two through his feet. In trying to draw these out, I suppose they must have made use of a large pair of pincers, or of a hammer with a claw on one side of it. As they came to those nails, one by one, they would have to get the nippers of the pincers or the claw of the hammer under the head of the nail. Then they would have to press down hard on the bruised and torn part of the hands and feet of our Saviour. Now this must have been so very painful that if he had only fainted on the cross this dreadful operation, as they went through with it four times, would certainly have brought him out from his fainting fit. But it did not. It had not the slightest effect upon him. There was no more feeling in his hands or feet than there was in the wood of the cross to which he was nailed. And this proves that he was really dead.

But then there was another thing that took place at the crucifixion of Jesus which also proves the certainty of his death. We read in St. John xix: 34—“But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.” If Jesus had not been dead before this took place, that cruel spear, thrust into his heart, would certainly have killed him. If Jesus had been alive when the soldier did this, not blood and water, but only blood, would have flowed out from the wound which the spear made. And learned physicians who have examined this matter tell us that two things are clearly proved by this flowing out of blood and water from the wound which the soldier’s spear had made in our Saviour’s side. One of these is, that he was already dead. The soldier’s spear did not kill him, but it proved that he was dead before the wound was made.

And then the other thing which it proved was that Jesus had died of a broken heart. In Dr. Hanna’s “Life of Christ,” Vol. III. pp. 369-379, may be found letters from several eminent Scottish physicians, showing that nothing but a broken heart could account for the flowing out of “blood and water” from the wound in our Saviour’s side. It was not being nailed to the cross that killed our blessed Lord. Neither was it the wound made by the spear. No, but it was the great sorrow he had felt in being made to bear our sins, that had really broken his heart.

The sixty-ninth Psalm is one of the passages in the Old Testament that refers to Christ. It is he who is speaking there. And in the twentieth verse of that Psalm, we find him saying of himself, “Reproach hath broken my heart.” And so when we think of “the blood and water” that flowed out from his wounded side, and of the drawing out of those nails from his hands and feet, we may feel perfectly sure about the certainty of the death of Christ.

The next lesson that we learn from the burial of Christ is about—the fulfillment of his word.

The prophet Isaiah had spoken about the death and burial of our Saviour seven hundred years before he was born into our world. In the ninth verse of the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy, where he is speaking of Jesus he says, “And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death.” This means that it was arranged, or intended, that he should be buried with the wicked, and yet it would so happen that he would be with the rich in his death. We can easily see how it was to be expected that Jesus would be buried with the wicked, because he died with them. He was crucified between two thieves. These thieves were buried “with the wicked,” or in the place where common criminals were generally buried. And as Jesus had died with them, so it was to be expected that he would have been buried with them. And this is what would have happened if God had not ordered it otherwise. The disciples of Jesus had all forsaken him. And even if they had not done so, none of them were rich. Pilate would not have given them leave to take charge of the body of their dead Master. And if they had had it, they could not have procured a rich man’s grave in which to bury it. It seemed impossible, therefore, that what Isaiah had spoken should come to pass. But that was the word of God. It was written in the scripture that Jesus was to be “with the rich in his death.” And “the scriptures cannot be broken.” God’s word must be fulfilled. And so, just when Jesus was dying, Joseph of Arimathea, who had been a secret disciple of Jesus, made his appearance. He was a rich man. He had a sepulchre near at hand. He asked Pilate to let him have the body of Jesus, for the purpose of burying it. Pilate gave it to him. He buried it in his new tomb. And so the words of Isaiah were fulfilled to the very letter; although it seemed impossible before that such should have been the case. Jesus died with the wicked, and yet was buried with the rich. And here we see how wonderfully God’s word was fulfilled.