1. JESUS CHRIST ACTUALLY DIED.
Some who disbelieve in the resurrection of Christ assert that Jesus merely swooned, and that pitying hands took Him down from the cross, thinking that He had died. The cool air of the tomb in which He was placed revived Him, so that He came forth from the tomb as though He had really risen from the dead. The disciples believed that He had really died and risen again.
This theory is false for the following reasons:
Jesus Christ appeared to the disciples after the third day, not as a weak, suffering, half-dead man, but as a conquering, triumphant victor over death and the grave. He never could have made the impression upon the disciples that He did, if He had presented the picture of a sick, half-dead man.
From John 19:33-37 we learn that when the soldiers pierced the side of Christ, there came forth blood and water. Physiologists and physicists agree that such a condition of the vital organs, including the heart itself, precludes the idea of a mere swoon, and proves conclusively that death had taken place.
Joseph of Arimathaea asked permission to bury the body of Jesus because he knew that Jesus had been pronounced dead (Matt. 27:57, 58).
When the news was brought to Pilate that Christ had died, it is said that "Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph" (Mark 15:44, 45).
The women brought spices to anoint a dead body, not a half-dead
Christ (Mark 16:1).
The soldiers pronounced Him dead: "But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs" (John 19:33).
Jesus Christ Himself, He who is the Truth, testifies to the fact that He had really died: Rev. 1:18—"I am he that liveth, and was dead."