Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 19:38

And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave [him ]leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.

38. And after this ] More literally, But after these things. The ‘but’ marks a contrast between the hostile petition of the Jews and the friendly petition of Joseph. ‘These things’ as distinct from ‘this’ will shew that no one event is singled out with which what follows is connected: the sequence is indefinite. Comp. Joh 3:22, Joh 6:14. ‘After this ’ in Joh 19:28 is right: there the sequence is direct and definite. Comp. Joh 2:12, Joh 11:7; Joh 11:11.

Joseph of Arimathea ] See notes on Mat 27:57; Mar 15:43; Luk 23:50. The Synoptists tell us that he was rich, a member of the Sanhedrin, a good and just man who had not consented to the Sanhedrin’s counsel and crime, one who (like Simon and Anna) waited for the kingdom of God, and had become a disciple of Christ.

secretly for fear of the Jews ] This forms a coincidence with S. Mark, who says of him (Mar 15:43) that ‘ having summoned courage he went in unto Pilate,’ implying that like Nicodemus he was naturally timid. Joseph probably went to Pilate as soon as he knew that Jesus was dead: the vague ‘after these things’ need not mean that he did not act till after the piercing of the side.

took the body ] As the friends of the Baptist (Mat 14:12) and of S. Stephen (Act 8:2) did in each case.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

See the notes at Mat 27:57-61.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Joh 19:38-42

And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews

A threefold power

I.

THE POWER OF WORLDLINESS. Both of these men had opportunities of being convinced of Christs Messiah-ship, and both were in sympathy with Him, yet neither made a public avowal of discipleship. There were perhaps, three elements of worldliness that influenced them in the matter.

1. The love of wealth. Confession of Christ meant excommunication and the spoiling of goods. Hence Christ reminded His hearers of the sacrifices they would have to make, but neither Joseph nor Nicodemus had the moral courage to make them.

2. The desire for popularity. They occupied high positions and had the honour of the populace. Had they followed Christ they would have lost both, and loving the praise of men more than of God, had not the moral strength to make the sacrifice. There are three classes of men:

(1) Those who have no moral convictions–the largest class.

(2) Those who have moral convictions, but not enough courage to avow them. There are many such in parliament and the pulpit.

(3) Those who have moral convictions and carry them out regardless of the frowns of men. These are the heroes, reformers and saviours of the world; and also the smallest class.

3. The power of caste. They were members of the highest class of Jewish society–a class which, as a whole, was malignantly hostile to Christ. Because none of the rulers believed on Him, these men were too weak to pronounce for Him. These three elements are as strong here as there, now as then.

II. THE POWER OF THE CROSS. There was something about Christs death which roused these men to manly exertion, and two wonders connected with the Crucifixion were calculated to produce this effect.

1. The material. The rending of the veil, the earthquake, &c., must have produced some impression on the most sceptical, much more on those in whom lurked a secret love.

2. The moral. His moral Majesty, His prayer, His last words–in all these there was a still small, soul-penetrating voice, which must have affected these men. As they now handled the mangled frame, self-reproachful tears would fall. Thus the power of the Cross overcame, and is the only power to overcome the power of the world.

III. THE POWER OF PENITENCE. Now Christ is dead their consciences are stirred to their centre. Is it not always so with those who have neglected a true friend when he is gone?

1. It forced them to a compensatory effort, Nothing too good for Him now. Conscience will sooner or later drive a man to his duty.

2. The compensatory effort came too late. Of what use was the costly embalmment now! How often this is the case now! (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Christs funeral

There are six remarkable particulars about this funeral.

1. The preparations that were made for it.

(1) His body could not be buried till, by begging, his friends had obtained it as a favour from Pilate.

(2) And when they had gotten it, they wind it in fine linen with spices. But what need of spices? His own love was perfume enough to keep it sweet in remembrance of His people to all generations. However, by this they will manifest the dear affection they have for Him.

2. The bearers–Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. None could imagine that ever they would have gone boldly to manifest their love to Christ, when dead, who were afraid to come to Him (except by night) when He was living, when those that made open confessions of Him are gone.

3. The attendants who followed the hearse–the women that followed Him out of Galilee.

4. The sepulchre.

(1) It was anothers. As He lived in other mens houses, so He lay in another mans tomb.

(2) It was a new tomb; for had any other been laid there before Him, it might have been averred that it was some former body, and not the Lords, that rose.

5. The disposition of the body. There is no mention made of the tears, yet we may well presume they were not wanting in plentiful expressions of their sorrow (Luk 23:48).

I. WHY HAD CHRIST ANY FUNERAL AT ALL, since He was to rise again?

1. To ascertain His death, else it might have been looked upon as a cheat. Now, since our eternal life is wrapt up in Christs death, it can never be too firmly established.

2. To fulfil the types and prophecies that went before (Mat 12:40; Isa 53:9).

3. To complete His humiliation. Lower He could not be laid.

4. That He might conquer death in its own dominion; which victory furnisheth the saints with that triumphant song (1Co 15:55).

II. WHAT MANNER OF FUNERAL CHRIST HAD.

1. It was very obscure and private. Here was no external pomp. Christ affected it not in His life, and it was no way suitable to the ends and manner of His death.

(1) The dead body of the Lord was not brought from His own house as other mens commonly are, but from the tree. Had they not obtained this favour from Pilate, it must have been tumbled into a pit under the cross.

(2) It was attended with a very poor train; a few sorrowful women. Other men are accompanied to their graves by their relations and friends. The disciples were afraid to own Him dying, and dead.

(3) It was done in great haste. Time was short; they take the next sepulchre they can get, and hurry Him away that evening into it. Thus was the Prince of the kings of earth, who hath the keys of death and hell, laid into His grave.

2. Yet though men could bestow little honour upon it, the heavens bestowed several marks of honour upon it.

(1) A miraculous eclipse put the heavens and earth into mourning.

(2) The rending in twain of the veil showed that all ceremonies were now accomplished and abolished.

(3) The opening of the graves showed the design and end of Christs going into it.

III. COROLLARIES.

1. Was Christ buried in this manner? Then a decent and mournful funeral (where it can be had) is very laudable among Christians.

2. Did Joseph and Nicodemus so boldly appear, at a time of so much danger, to beg the body and give it a funeral? Let it be for ever a caution to strong Christians not to despise or glory over the weak.

3. Hence we may be assisted in discerning the depths of Christs humiliation for us, and see from what to what this love brought Him.

4. From this funeral of Christ results the purest and strongest consolation and encouragement to believers against the fears of death and the grave.

(1) The grave received, but could not destroy, Jesus Christ; and as it fared with Christs body personal, so it shall with Christs body mystical (1Co 15:20).

(2) As the union betwixt the body of Christ and the Divine nature was not dissolved, so the union between Christ and believers cannot be when their bodies shall be laid in their graves.

(3) As Christs body did there rest in hope, so it shall fare with the dead bodies of the saints (Psa 16:9-11).

(4) Christs lying in the grave hath changed the nature of the grave, so that it is not what it was. It was once a part of the curse, but now it is no prison but a bed of rest; yea, and a perfumed bed (Isa 57:2; Psa 23:4).

5. Since Christ was laid in His grave, and His people reap such privileges by it, as ever you expect rest or comfort in your graves, see that you get union with Christ now.

(1) The covenant of God holds firmly with our very dust (Mat 22:31-32; Rom 14:7-9). That dust is still the Lords.

(2) As Gods covenant with our very bodies is indissolvable, so Gods love to our very dust is inseparable (Rom 8:33).

(3) As Gods love will be with you in the grave, so Gods providence shall take order when it shall be digged for you; not till you are fit to be put into Job 5:26; Act 13:36).

(4) When ever you come to your graves, you shall find the enmity of the grave slain by Christ (1Co 3:21-22).

(5) Christ keeps the keys of all the chambers of death, and as He unlocks the door of death, when He lets you in so He will open it again for you when you awake, to let you out; He Himself wakes and watches by you while you sleep there (Rev 1:18). (J. Flavel.)

The burial of Christ

Of all the scenes of common life, there is none so affecting and instructive as the funeral of a friend. When heroes or a beloved monarch go to their last home, thousands gather round the tomb. Shall the great Saviour and King of men have no one among us to lament His death?

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BURIAL.

1. The persons who are bearing the blessed Jesus to His tomb. And who are they? The disciples? These all forsook Him and fled; and now He is dead, they leave His body to be mourned over and buried by others. But though, in the hour of need, they desert us who ought to be the first to minister to our necessities, yet the Lord will provide.

2. The time in which Jesus was interred. The Jews preparation day, and the people were now attending the service of the Temple; but Joseph and Nicodemus were not among them. They offered to God a more acceptable service than prayers and sacrifice; but having buried the Saviour, all their love for Him could not bring them to His tomb till the Sabbath was ended. Thus did they manifest the ardour of their affection, and at the same time admonish us to suppress the noblest feelings of our nature, rather than violate the command of God.

3. The place where the Lord was interred.

(1) A garden on the very hill on which He was crucified. It was right that the place where He suffered the greatest ignominy should be the first scene of His glory.

(2) His sepulchre was hewn out in a rock. A body could not hastily be removed from such a sepulchre by a subterraneous passage, nor could the disciples enter unperceived.

II. WHY WAS HE THUS BURIED?

1. That the prophecies concerning the Messiah should be fulfilled.

2. To prove the reality of His death.

3. To comfort His people in the prospect of death.

III. THE EFFECTS WHICH A CONTEMPLATION OF THE SAVIOURS TOMB SHOULD PRODUCE ON US.

1. A penitential sorrow for all the injuries we have done Him, and all the pain we have given Him.

2. Joy that His sufferings are past and His happiness begun.

3. An earnest desire to be where He is and to behold His glory.

4. The deepest anxiety to be prepared for our own latter end. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

The burial of Jesus

I. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS (Joh 19:38):

1. By whom effected. Joseph, assisted by Nicodemus, John, and the women.

(1) A native of Ramathaim in Ephraim, the birthplace of Samuel.

(2) A rich man, which rendered his service a signal display of courage, a true token of inherent nobility, a striking companion-picture to the Magi at Christs birth, and a beginning of fulfilment for Isaiahs oracle concerning His death (Isa 53:9).

(3) A member of the Sanhedrim, though probably not present when Christ was pronounced guilty of death (cf. Luk 23:50, with Mt Mar 14:64)

.

(4) A good man; one of the few who kept Gods commandments, and waited for the consolation of Israel (Luk 1:6; Luk 1:24).

(5) A secret disciple–like others of the rulers (Joh 12:42); e.g., Nicodemus, whose faith waxed stronger as Christs cause grew darker.

2. When attempted. After Christs death, which happened about 3 p.m. Obtaining leave from Pilate, he would then concert with Nicodemus about purchasing the linen cloth, &c. It would then be approaching even.

3. How carried out. The Evangelist is silent; but from the performers, we may conclude, with reverence, tenderness, and tears.

II. THE EMBALMMENT (verse 39, 40). Nicodemus now steps into the foreground.

1. His person identified. The same mentioned in chap. 3.

2. His courage emphasized–in contrast with that interview.

3. His love proclaimed. With no straitened hand he carries out his hearts design.

4. His reverence recorded. Along with the others he proceeds to embalm the corpse. First they lay the body on the white winding-sheet. Next the women, it may be supposed, take the smaller cloths from Nicodemus, and, filling them with aromatic powder, wrap them around its members. After this Joseph folds around it his great white sheet, and the work is complete.

III. THE INTERMENT (verses 41, 42).

1. The place of sepulture.

(1) A garden grave. In a garden death achieved its first victory. It was fitting that in a garden that victory should be reversed.

(2) A strange grave. In another grave He is laid, who died for anothers guilt.

(3) An honourable grave. He who died on a cross between malefactors is laid in a just mans tomb.

(4) A new grave. It was congruous that He who was a new Man (sinless), born in a new way (of a virgin), who had died a new death (for sin not His own), and who was to rise unto a new life (of glory and immortality) should rest in a new tomb.

(5) A near grave. Close to Jerusalem as ours is to the heavenly city.

2. The funeral procession. Contrast it with that of the great, even the wicked great. Lessons:

1. The overruling providence of God in the fulfilment of Scripture.

2. The guarantee that the sinners debt has been paid.

3. The transformation of the grave. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus at the burial of Jesus

At first, it may disturb your sense of proportion to see the names of two mere men in such a connection; thinking that no name but His own should be mentioned. You care to know nothing about them, and have eyes, ears, heart for nothing but one solemnity. We shall, however, not be out of order, nor break any canon of Christian good taste by taking emphatic notice of them.

I. BEFORE THE DEATH OF JESUS THESE TWO RULERS had been His secret disciples.

1. Foremost in the transaction we see Joseph. When we are told that fear kept him from avowing his discipleship, we are tempted at once to pass sentence upon him. But it may have been a fear natural to a mental sensitive plant, shrinking from every rough wind and every random touch–a fear fostered by an atmosphere of reverence, and heightened by anexquisite, pain at the thought of difference between himself and other men. The companion of Joseph was Nicodemus, a man like himself in station, in wealth, and in being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly.

2. These men were no worse than multitudes are now who pass as irreproachable. Many an undergraduate, many a man fighting his way through the earlier stages of a profession, having in his heart some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel, holds it secretly, out of the fear inspired by his social surroundings. Many a Christian, now loud in profession, great in repute, had he lived in the days of the Incarnation would have received no nobler notice than this–a disciple of Jesus, but secretly. How would it have been with you? How is it with you now? Let him who is without fault among you cast the first stone.

II. THE DEATH OF JESUS ROUSED THE TWO SECRET DISCIPLES TO DECLARE THEMSELVES.

1. It is remarkable that the first fact recorded in Christian history after the death of Christ is one that warns us against being merely secret disciples. Grace is not a treasure to be hid in the earth in the midst of the tent. Faith will not stay shut up in the heart any more than a seed will stay shut up in the soil. Sometimes, indeed, a seed may be dropped in some deep furrow where the clods harden over it, until a tearing storm fetches it out into light. Sometimes a Christian may be like that seed, and a storm of trouble may be needed to reveal him. At the Crucifixion such a storm burst upon these two disciples.

2. Look at Joseph. No one had suspected a stain on this white flower of the Hebrew aristocracy; no one had dreamt of anything on this soul of honour that could fear the world or shun the daylight; and perhaps, owing to the hearts deceitfulness, he had hardly thought of it himself; but when at length the Saviour in whom he had secretly trusted was put to death, the shock woke him up. Then, with pangs of burning shame, he would say, What a terrible coward I have been! Besides his sorrow on this account, he must have been sorry on his own–how much he had lost! The instructions, comforts, helps that open disciples had enjoyed. Never once had he said, Jesus, I love Thee; never once had he heard Jesus say, Go in peace!

3. The heroism of faith is almost always kindled by desperate circumstances. The heroism of Joseph began in Christs hour of darkness. When the only voice lifted up for Him all that day had been the voice of a dying thief–then it was that he openly declared himself. He had waited for the kingdom; and perhaps this poor mans prayer made him resolve to identify himself with the King. Boldly is the fit word for describing his errand to Pilate. Such a request, in later days, has cost men their lives. But the brave deed was successful. At the same time it helped to kindle similar courage in the heart of Nicodemus. They had often met in the high places of life, each knowing the other had faith in Christ that he was afraid to profess; they now met at the cross as at the altar of decision. (C. Stanford, D. D.)

Joseph of Arimathea

In this and parallel passages we have all that is recorded about the burial of Christ. Two things of importance were secured by Josephs interposition here.

(1) Through him we obtain an official attestation of Christs death, which was hardly to be expected at so early a stage.

(2) Through him the body of our Lord was saved from further indignity. We have here the illustration of

I. THE SLOW PROCESS BY WHICH SOME ARE BROUGHT TO A KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH.

1. Joseph was one of that class to which belonged Simeon and Nathanael. After Christs ministry began, he became a secret disciple, convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. Did not confess, but kept from complicity in the conspiracy of the rulers. Deterred by dread of singularity and love of caste.

The last stage, that of open sympathy with Christ, was reached and revealed by this act.

2. There are some Christians who cannot recall the time when they did not love and follow Christ. Others, once avowed enemies, have reached almost at a bound the position of open confessors; while others have attained only after long hesitation, and through many difficulties.

II. HOW THE VERY EXTREMITY OF A CAUSE BRINGS FRESH ADHERENTS FROM UNEXPECTED QUARTERS. Who would have thought that members of the Sanhedrim would be the first to identify themselves? Neither the enthusiasm of the people nor the malice of the rulers sufficed to bring matters to a crisis with Joseph. But now, when Christ is dead, and, seemingly, his cause too, hesitation is changed to decision.

1. Something similar has often happened in struggles for national liberty. When things have come almost to a hopeless extremity dormant patriotism has been roused.

2. So in persecution for Christs sake; as martyrs have laid down their lives others have taken their places.

3. So in the spiritual; so long as men only admire in Jesus the perfect character, &c., they may not be prepared to sacrifice much; but let them apprehend Him dying for sin, and they will be ready to brave all obloquy for His sake.

III. HOW THE TRUE CHARACTER OF A MAN MAY BE MANIFESTED IN A SINGLE ACT. Josephs intercourse with the counsellers did not reveal all that he was; only at the cross were disclosed his nobility, courage, faith. How many pass a quiet life among their fellows, who little know what spirit they are of. Revealing epochs occur in most lives. Sometimes brought about by sudden affliction, or change in circumstances, or temptation. (M. Hutchison.)

Joseph of Arimathea

is not mentioned in Scripture except in connection with the part which he acted in the burial of Christ; and his conduct in that transaction was so worthy of a disciple that his praise will always remain in the Churches of God. Indeed, as if Scripture had not said enough of him, legend has supplied the defect. It is fabled that he came over to England and founded the first English abbey–that of Glastonbury; and some remains of an ancient building still bear the name of the Chapel of Saint Joseph. Tradition further reports that Joseph, when resting on his journey at this place, struck his staff into the ground, which took root and became the famous Glastonbury thorn, which blossomed every Christmas, and being the frequent resort of pilgrims, brought much gain to the crafty inventors of the story. Such vanities a sounder faith has taught us to reject; and refusing the additions of men to hold fast the acknowledged truth of God. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man, an honourable counsellor, a member of the Sanhedrim, but one who consented not to the deed of his colleagues. He was a good man and a just. He had been timorous when the rest were bold; and now he becomes bold when they yield to fear. (J. Fawcett, M. A.)

One Joseph is appointed to take charge of Jesus in His infancy, and another is raised up to provide for His burial. (W. H. Van Doren.)

Secret discipleship

I. WHY MANY BELIEVERS PREFER SECRET ATTACHMENT TO OPEN DISCIPLESHIP. Possibly it is

1. The stringency of His requirements.

2. Shame at association with one of so lowly an origin, or so radical a reformer. Joseph would feel the force of these difficulties.

3. Fear of

(1) Being accounted presumptuous for attempting to lead instead of to follow.

(2) Being accounted righteous overmuch.

(3) Not being able to maintain consistency. They cannot trust Gods grace to keep them from bringing disgrace on the Church.

4. Because of wrong ideas about Christianity.

5. Because of the inconsistency of professors.

6. Because they do not see the need of open discipleship.

7. Because there is no fervency of love to Christ.

II. HOW FAR CHRIST RECOGNIZES SECRET DISCIPLESHIP. Let us see if we find any hint in the affirmative.

1. In the subsequent history of Joseph. We know little about him except that he gave to Christ, who had had the death of a malefactor, the burial of a king; but in this he seems to have had no hope in the Resurrection. No mention is made of Christs appearance to Joseph. If the tradition that he founded Glastonbury Abbey be credited, it only shows that he had shaken off his secret discipleship. Had his secret discipleship been intentional to help Christ as Hushai helped David, or Blonde de Nesle Coeur de Lion, there might possibly be some hope of recognition. But it is an absurd idea that Christ wishes us to appear worldly, and hide our religion, to advance his course.

2. There is no suggestion of the recognition of secret discipleship in any of Christs utterances. He claims open attachment–Follow Me, Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me, &c.

3. In the nature of things it is improbable that Christ should recognize it. Suppose Christianity is weak we ought to side with it because it is right. Sympathy with, and appreciation of, Christ demand it. (F. Hastings.)

A secret disciple

A native gentleman, a writer in the Missionary News relates, was taken seriously ill, and requested one of the Orissa missionaries to visit him. In the course of conversation the missionary offered to lend him any book in his library that would be likely to interest and profit him. I have a large number of books with which to instruct and exercise the intellect, but, added he, with emphasis, When I want food for my soul I go to the Bible; there only, pointing to a copy of the English Bible which lay on the table, I get something to warm my heart. When pressing on him the importance and necessity of making a public profession of his attachment to Christ, he said with tears, God, who searcheth the heart, knoweth that I am a heathen but in name; that my trust, my heart, are fixed on Him to whom I offer my daily prayer, and in whose mercy alone I trust. And it is my hope and intention, by the help of God, one day to make a public avowal of this my faith. (J. L. Nye.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 38. Joseph of Arimathea] See on Mt 27:57-60; and particularly Mr 15:42-43.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

See Poole on “Mat 27:57“, and following verses to Mat 27:59.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

38-40. Joseph of Arimathea“arich man” (Mt 27:57),thus fulfilling Isa 53:9; “anhonorable counsellor,” a member of the Sanhedrim, and of goodcondition, “which also waited for the kingdom of God” (Mr15:43), a devout expectant of Messiah’s kingdom; “a good manand a just, the same had not consented to the counsel and deed ofthem” (Luk 23:50; Luk 23:51he had gone the length, perhaps, of dissenting and protesting inopen council against the condemnation of our Lord); “who alsohimself was Jesus’ disciple,” (Mt27:57).

being a disciple of Jesus,but secretly, for fear of the Jews“He went in boldly untoPilate” (Mr 15:43)literally, “having taken courage went in,” or “hadthe boldness to go in.” Mark alone, as his manner is, noticesthe boldness which this required. The act would without doubtidentify him for the first time with the disciples of Christ.Marvellous it certainly is, that one who while Jesus was yet alivemerely refrained from condemning Him, not having the courage toespouse His cause by one positive act, should, now that He was dead,and His cause apparently dead with Him, summon up courage to go inpersonally to the Roman governor and ask permission to take down andinter the body. But if this be the first instance, it is not thelast, that a seemingly dead Christ has wakened a sympathy which aliving one had failed to evoke. The heroism of faith is usuallykindled by desperate circumstances, and is not seldom displayed bythose who before were the most timid, and scarce known as disciplesat all. “And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead”(Mr 15:44) rather “wonderedthat he was already dead.” “And calling the centurion, heasked him whether He had been any while dead” (Mr15:44) Pilate could hardly credit what Joseph had told him,that He had been dead “some time,” and, before giving upthe body to His friends, would learn how the fact stood from thecenturion, whose business it was to oversee the execution. “Andwhen he knew it of the centurion” (Mr15:45), that it was as Joseph had said, “he gave”rather”made a gift of””the body to Joseph”; struck,possibly, with the rank of the petitioner and the dignified boldnessof the petition, in contrast with the spirit of the other party andthe low rank to which he had been led to believe all the followers ofChrist belonged. Nor would he be unwilling to Show that he was notgoing to carry this black affair any farther. But, whatever werePilate’s motives, two most blessed objects were thus secured: (1) Thereality of our Lords death was attested by the party of allothers most competent to decide on it, and certainly free from allbiasthe officer in attendancein full reliance on whosetestimony Pilate surrendered the body: (2) The dead Redeemer, thusdelivered out of the hands of His enemies, and committed by thesupreme political authority to the care of His friends, was therebyprotected from all further indignities; a thing most befittingindeed, now that His work was done, but impossible, so far as we cansee, if His enemies had been at liberty to do with Him as theypleased. How wonderful are even the minutest features of thismatchless History!

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And after this,…. That is, after Jesus had given up the ghost, when it was a clear case that he was dead; as it was before the soldiers came to break the legs of the crucified, and before one of them pierced the side of Jesus with his spear, though that confirmed it: but it seems to be before these last things were done, and yet after the death of Christ, that Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate, and desired leave to take down the body of Jesus. This Joseph was a counsellor, one of the Jewish sanhedrim; though he did not give his consent to the counsel of the court concerning Jesus: he is here described by the place of his birth, Arimathea. This place has been generally thought to be the same with Ramah or Ramathaim Zophim, the birth place of Samuel the prophet; and so I have taken it to be in the note [See comments on Mt 27:57] but there seems to be some reason to doubt about it, since Ramathaim Zophim was in Mount Ephraim, or in the mountainous parts of that tribe, 1Sa 1:1 whereas Arimathea is called a city of the Jews, Lu 23:51. But if it was in the tribe of Ephraim, it would rather, as Reland o observes, be called a city of the Samaritans, to whom that part of the country belonged; besides, as the same learned writer shows from Jud 4:5 the mountainous parts of Ephraim were about Bethel, to the north of Jerusalem; whereas Arimathea is mentioned along with Lydda, which lay to the west of it, as it is by Jerom, and others: that ancient writer says p, that not far from Lydda, now called Diospolis, famous for the raising of Dorcas from the dead, and the healing of Aeneas, is Arimathia, the little village of Joseph, who buried the Lord; though he makes this elsewhere q to be the same with Ramathaim Zophim: his words are, Armatha Zophim, the city of Elkanah and Samuel, is in the region of Thamna by Diospolis, (or Lydda,) from whence was Joseph, who, in the Gospels, is said to be of Arimathia; and so in Josephus r, and in the Apocrypha:

“Wherefore we have ratified unto them the borders of Judea, with the three governments of Apherema and Lydda and Ramathem, that are added unto Judea from the country of Samaria, and all things appertaining unto them, for all such as do sacrifice in Jerusalem, instead of the payments which the king received of them yearly aforetime out of the fruits of the earth and of trees.” (1 Maccabees 11:34)

Lydda and Ramatha, or, as in the latter, Ramathem, are mentioned together, as added unto Judea from the country of Samaria; which last clause, “from the country of Samaria”, seems to bid fair for a reconciliation of this matter, that those two are one and the same place: and as the birth place of Samuel the prophet is called, by the Septuagint, Armathaim, as has been observed see Gill “Mt 27:57” so it is likewise called, , “Ramatha”, by the Targumist on Ho 5:8 as it is also by Josephus s. The city of this name, near Lydda, is now called Ramola, and is about thirty six or thirty seven miles from Jerusalem. The Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions render it, “who was of Rama”. Some take this Joseph to be the same with Joseph ben Gorion, the brother of Nicodemus ben Gorion, and who is supposed to be the same Nicodemus mentioned in the next verse. The character the Jews t give of Joseph ben Gorion is, that he was a priest, and of the richest and most noble of the priests in Jerusalem; that he was a very wise, just, and upright man; and that three or four years before the destruction of Jerusalem, he was about sixty seven years of age.

Being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews; not one of the twelve, but a private hearer, who had sometimes secretly attended on the ministry of Christ, loved him, and believed in him as the Messiah, but had not courage enough to confess him, and declare for him, for fear of being put out of the synagogue and sanhedrim: but now being inspired with zeal and courage, “went in boldly”, as Mark says,

and besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: from off the cross, that it might not be any more insulted by his enemies, and might not be thrown with the other bodies into the place where the bodies of malefactors were cast, but that it might be decently interred. This Pilate, the Roman governor, had the disposal of, and to him Joseph applies for it; which was a great instance of his affection for Christ, and was a declaring openly for him, and must unavoidably expose him to the malice and resentment of the Jews:

and Pilate gave him leave; having first inquired of the centurion, whether he was dead; of which being satisfied, he readily granted it; not only in complaisance to Joseph, who was a man of note and figure, but on account of the innocence of Jesus, of which he was convinced, and therefore was very willing he should have an honourable burial:

he came therefore; to the cross, with proper servants with him,

and took the body of Jesus; down from the cross, and carried it away. The Alexandrian copy, different from all others, and in language uncommon, reads, “the body of God”.

o Palestina Ilustrata, l. 3. p. 581. p Epitaph Paulae, fol. 59. A. q De locis Hebraicis, fol. 88. K. r Antiqu. l. 13. c. 4. soot. 9. s Ib. l. 5. c. 10. sect. 2. t Ganz. Tzemach David, par. 1. fol 25. 1. & 27. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Burial of Christ.

      38 And after this Joseph of Arimatha, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.   39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight.   40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.   41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.   42 There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

      We have here an account of the burial of the blessed body of our Lord Jesus. The solemn funerals of great men are usually looked at with curiosity; the mournful funerals of dear friends are attended with concern. Come and see an extraordinary funeral; never was the like! Come and see a burial that conquered the grave, and buried it, a burial that beautified the grave and softened it for all believers. Let us turn aside now, and see this great sight. Here is,

      I. The body begged, v. 38. This was done by the interest of Joseph of Ramah, or Arimathea, of whom no mention is made in all the New-Testament story, but only in the narrative which each of the evangelists gives us of Christ’s burial, wherein he was chiefly concerned. Observe, 1. The character of this Joseph. He was a disciple of Christ incognito–in secret, a better friend to Christ than he would willingly be known to be. It was his honour that he was a disciple of Christ; and some such there are, that are themselves great men, and unavoidably linked with bad men. But it was his weakness that he was so secretly, when he should have confessed Christ before men, yea, though he had lost his preferment by it. Disciples should openly own themselves, yet Christ may have many that are his disciples sincerely, though secretly; better secretly than not at all, especially if, like Joseph here, they grow stronger and stronger. Some who in less trials have been timorous, yet in greater have been very courageous; so Joseph here. He concealed his affection to Christ for fear of the Jews, lest they should put him out of the synagogue, at least out of the sanhedrim, which was all they could do. To Pilate the governor he went boldly, and yet feared the Jews. The impotent malice of those that can but censure, and revile, and clamour, is sometimes more formidable even to wise and good men than one would think. 2. The part he bore in this affair. He, having by his place access to Pilate, desired leave of him to dispose of the body. His mother and dear relations had neither spirit nor interest to attempt such a thing. His disciples were gone; if nobody appeared, the Jews or soldiers would bury him with the thieves; therefore God raised up this gentleman to interpose in it, that the scripture might be fulfilled, and the decorum owing to his approaching resurrection maintained. Note, When God has work to do he can find out such as are proper to do it, and embolden them for it. Observe it as an instance of the humiliation of Christ, that his dead body lay at the mercy of a heathen judge, and must be begged before it could be buried, and also that Joseph would not take the body of Christ till he had asked and obtained leave of the governor; for in those things wherein the power of the magistrate is concerned we must ever pay a deference to that power, and peaceably submit to it.

      II. The embalming prepared, v. 39. This was done by Nicodemus, another person of quality, and in a public post. He brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, which some think were bitter ingredients, to preserve the body, others fragrant ones, to perfume it. Here is. 1. The character of Nicodemus, which is much the same with that of Joseph; he was a secret friend to Christ, though not his constant follower. He at first came to Jesus by night, but now owned him publicly, as before, Joh 7:50; Joh 7:51. That grace which at first is like a bruised reed may afterwards become like a strong cedar, and the trembling lamb bold as a lion. See Rom. xiv. 4. It is a wonder that Joseph and Nicodemus, men of such interest, did not appear sooner, and solicit Pilate not to condemn Christ, especially seeing him so loth to do it. Begging his life would have been a nobler piece of service than begging his body. But Christ would have none of his friends to endeavour to prevent his death when his hour was come. While his persecutors were forwarding the accomplishment of the scriptures, his followers must not obstruct it. 2. The kindness of Nicodemus, which was considerable, though of a different nature. Joseph served Christ with his interest, Nicodemus with his purse. Probably, they agreed it between them, that, while one was procuring the grant, the other should be preparing the spices; and this for expedition, because they were straitened in time. But why did they make this ado about Christ’s dead body? (1.) Some think we may see in it the weakness of their faith. A firm belief of the resurrection of Christ on the third day would have saved them this care and cost, and have been more acceptable than all spices. Those bodies indeed to whom the grave is a long home need to be clad accordingly; but what need of such furniture of the grave for one that, like a way-faring man, did but turn aside into it, to tarry for a night or two? (2.) However, we may plainly see in it the strength of their love. Hereby they showed the value they had for his person and doctrine, and that it was not lessened by the reproach of the cross. Those that had been so industrious to profane his crown, and lay his honour in the dust, might already see that they had imagined a vain thing; for, as God had done him honour in his sufferings, so did men too, even great men. They showed not only the charitable respect of committing his body to the earth, but the honourable respect shown to great men. This they might do, and yet believe and look for his resurrection; nay, this they might do in the belief and expectation of it. Since God designed honour for this body, they would put honour upon it. However, we must do our duty according as the present day and opportunity are, and leave it to God to fulfil his promises in his own way and time.

      III. The body got ready, v. 40. They took it into some house adjoining, and, having washed it from blood and dust, wound it in linen clothes very decently, with the spices melted down, it is likely, into an ointment, as the manner of the Jews is to bury, or to embalm (so Dr. Hammond), as we sear dead bodies. 1. Here was care taken of Christ’s body: It was wound in linen clothes. Among clothing that belongs to us, Christ put on even the grave-clothes, to make them easy to us, and to enable us to call them our wedding-clothes. They wound the body with the spices, for all his garments, his grave-clothes not excepted, smell of myrrh and aloes (the spices here mentioned) out of the ivory palaces (Ps. xlv. 8), and an ivory palace the sepulchre hewn out of a rock was to Christ. Dead bodies and graves are noisome and offensive; hence sin is compared to a body of death and an open sepulchre; but Christ’s sacrifice, being to God as a sweet-smelling savour, hath taken away our pollution. No ointment or perfume can rejoice the heart so as the grave of our Redeemer does, where there is faith to perceive the fragrant odours of it. 2. In conformity to this example, we ought to have regard to the dead bodies of Christians; not to enshrine and adore their relics, no, not those of the most eminent saints and martyrs (nothing like that was done to the dead body of Christ himself), but carefully to deposit them, the dust in the dust, as those who believe that the dead bodies of the saints are still united to Christ and designed for glory and immortality at the last day. The resurrection of the saints will be in virtue of Christ’s resurrection, and therefore in burying them we should have an eye to Christ’s burial, for he, being dead, thus speaketh. Thy dead men shall live, Isa. xxvi. 19. In burying our dead it is not necessary that in all circumstances we imitate the burial of Christ, as if we must be buried in linen, and in a garden, and be embalmed as he was; but his being buried after the manner of the Jews teaches us that in things of this nature we should conform to the usages of the country where we live, except in those that are superstitious.

      IV. The grave pitched upon, in a garden which belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, very near the place where he was crucified. There was a sepulchre, or vault, prepared for the first occasion, but not yet used. Observe,

      1. That Christ was buried without the city, for thus the manner of the Jews was to bury, not in their cities, much less in their synagogues, which some have thought better than our way of burying: yet there was then a peculiar reason for it, which does not hold now, because the touching of a grave contracted a ceremonial pollution: but now that the resurrection of Christ has altered the property of the grave, and done away its pollution for all believers, we need not keep at such a distance from it; nor is it incapable of a good improvement, to have the congregation of the dead in the church-yard, encompassing the congregation of the living in the church, since they also are dying, and in the midst of life we are in death. Those that would not superstitiously, but by faith, visit the holy sepulchre, must go forth out of the noise of this world.

      2. That Christ was buried in a garden. Observe, (1.) That Joseph had his sepulchre in his garden; so he contrived it, that it might be a memento, [1.] To himself while living; when he was taking the pleasure of his garden, and reaping the products of it, let him think of dying, and be quickened to prepare for it. The garden is a proper place for meditation, and a sepulchre there may furnish us with a proper subject for meditation, and such a one as we are loth to admit in the midst of our pleasures. [2.] To his heirs and successors when he was gone. It is good to acquaint ourselves with the place of our fathers’ sepulchres; and perhaps we might make our own less formidable if we made theirs more familiar. (2.) That in a sepulchre in a garden Christ’s body was laid. In the garden of Eden death and the grave first received their power, and now in a garden they are conquered, disarmed, and triumphed over. In a garden Christ began his passion, and from a garden he would rise, and begin his exaltation. Christ fell to the ground as a corn of wheat (ch. xii. 24), and therefore was sown in a garden among the seeds, for his dew is as the dew of herbs, Isa. xxvi. 19. He is the fountain of gardens, Cant. iv. 15.

      3. That he was buried in a new sepulchre. This was so ordered (1.) For the honour of Christ; he was not a common person, and therefore must not mix with common dust He that was born from a virgin-womb must rise from a virgin-tomb. (2.) For the confirming of the truth of his resurrection, that it might not be suggested that it was not he, but some other that rose now, when many bodies of saints arose; or, that he rose by the power of some other, as the man that was raised by the touch of Elisha’s bones, and not by his own power. He that has made all things new has new-made the grave for us.

      V. The funeral solemnized (v. 42): There laid they Jesus, that is, the dead body of Jesus. Some think the calling of this Jesus intimates the inseparable union between the divine and human nature. Even this dead body was Jesus–a Saviour, for his death is our life; Jesus is still the same, Heb. xiii. 8. There they laid him because it was the preparation day.

      1. Observe here the deference which the Jews paid to the sabbath, and to the day of preparation. Before the passover-sabbath they had a solemn day of preparation. This day had been ill kept by the chief priests, who called themselves the church, but was well kept by the disciples of Christ, who were branded as dangerous to the church; and it is often so. (1.) They would not put off the funeral till the sabbath day, because the sabbath is to be a day of holy rest and joy, with which the business and sorrow of a funeral do not well agree. (2.) They would not drive it too late on the day of preparation for the sabbath. What is to be done the evening before the sabbath should be so contrived that it may neither intrench upon sabbath time, nor indispose us for sabbath work.

      2. Observe the convenience they took of an adjoining sepulchre; the sepulchre they made use of was nigh at hand. Perhaps, if they had had time, they would have carried him to Bethany, and buried him among his friends there. And I am sure he had more right to have been buried in the chief of the sepulchres of the sons of David than any of the kings of Judah had; but it was so ordered that he should be laid in a sepulchre nigh at hand, (1.) Because he was to lie there but awhile, as in an inn, and therefore he took the first that offered itself. (2.) Because this was a new sepulchre. Those that prepared it little thought who should handsel it; but the wisdom of God has reaches infinitely beyond ours, and he makes what use he pleases of us and all we have. (3.) We are hereby taught not to be over-curious in the place of our burial. Where the tree falls, why should it not lie? For Christ was buried in the sepulchre that was next at hand. It was faith in the promise of Canaan that directed the Patriarch’s desires to be carried thither for a burying-place; but now, since that promise is superseded by a better, that care is over.

      Thus without pomp or solemnity is the body of Jesus laid in the cold and silent grave. Here lies our surety under arrest for our debts, so that if he be released his discharge will be ours. Here is the Sun of righteousness set for awhile, to rise again in greater glory, and set no more. Here lies a seeming captive to death, but a real conqueror over death; for here lies death itself slain, and the grave conquered. Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

But secretly for fear of the Jews ( ). Perfect passive participle of . An example of the rulers described in 12:41-43 who through cowardice feared to own their faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But it must be put down to the credit of Joseph that he showed courage in this darkest hour when the majority had lost heart.

That he might take away ( ). Final clause with and the first aorist active subjunctive of . Else the body of Jesus might have gone to the potter’s field. Pilate gladly consented.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

A disciple of Jesus. Matt. calls him a rich man; Mark, an honorable counselor, i e., a member of the Sanhedrim; and Luke, a counselor, good and just.

Besought [] . Better, as Rev., asked. See on 11 22; Joh 16:23. Mark adds that he went in boldly, which is suggestive in view of John’s statement of his secret discipleship, a fact which is passed over by the Synoptists.

Gave him leave. According to Roman law. Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the third century, says : “The bodies of those who are capitally punished cannot be denied to their relatives. At this day, however, the bodies of those who are executed are buried only in case permission is asked and granted; and sometimes permission is not given, especially in the cases of those who are punished for high treason. The bodies of the executed are to be given for burial to any one who asks for them.” Avaricious governors sometimes sold this privilege. Cicero, in one of his orations against Verres, has a terribly graphic passage describing such extortions. After dwelling upon the tortures inflicted upon the condemned, he says : “Yet death is the end. It shall not be. Can cruelty go further? A way shall be found. For the bodies of the beheaded shall be thrown to the beasts. If this is grievous to parents, they may buy the liberty of burial” (v. 45). Compare Mt 14:12; Act 8:2.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

THE ENTOMBMENT V. 38-42

1) “And after this,” (meta de tauta) “Then after these things,” that culminated in His death, after the Jews asked that His body be removed, Joh 19:31. Had the soldiers removed the three they would have cast them together into some refuse pit, as in Jos 8:29.

2) “Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus,” (loseph apo harimathaias on mathetes tou lesou) “Joseph from and of Arimathaea who was a disciple of Jesus,” one of His believing confidants, a rich man, one of the Sanhedrin, Mat 27:57; Luk 23:50-51; Mar 15:43.

3) “But secretly for fear of the Jews,” (kekrummenos de dia ton phobon ton loudaion) “But for or because of fear of the Jews, secretly,” he acted, Joh 7:13; Joh 12:42; to avoid being excommunicated, excluded or ostracized from the synagogue, and its rights and privileges, both socially and religiously, Joh 9:22.

4) “Besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus:” (hina are to soma tou lesou) “In order that he might take up and bear away the body of Jesus,” He requested or appealed to Pilate for a personal privilege of honor, Mar 15:42-43; Luk 23:52.

5) “And Pilate gave him leave,” (kai epetrepsen ho Pilatos) “And Pilate allowed or permitted that he take it up and bear it away for burial, an honorable, temporary burial, Mat 27:58.

6) “He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.” (elthen oun kai eren to soma autou) “Then he (Joseph of Arimathea) came and took His body,” the body of Jesus, at the command of Pilate, Mat 27:58-59; Mar 15:44-45.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

38. Joseph of Arimathea besought Pilate. John now relates by whom, and in what place, and with what magnificence, Christ was buried. He mentions two persons who buried Christ; namely, Joseph and Nicodemus, the former of whom requested Pilate to give him the dead body, which otherwise would have been exposed to the lawless violence of the soldiers. Matthew (Mat 27:57) says, that he was a rich man, and Luke (Luk 23:50) says, that he was a counsellor; that is, he held the rank of a senator. As to Nicodemus, we have seen, in the Third Chapter of this Gospel, that he held an honorable rank among his own countrymen; and that he was also rich, may be easily inferred from the great expense which he laid out in procuring this mixture.

Till now, therefore, riches had prevented them from professing to be the disciples of Christ, and might afterwards have no less influence in keeping them from making a profession so much hated and abhorred. The Evangelist expressly says, that Joseph has formerly been kept back by this fear from venturing to declare openly that he was a disciple of Christ; and as to Nicodemus, he repeats what we have already seen, that he came to Jesus secretly, and by night, (Joh 3:2 and Joh 7:50.) Whence, therefore, do they derive such heroic magnanimity that, when affairs are at the lowest ebb, they fearlessly come forth to public view? I say nothing of the great and evident danger which they must have incurred; but the most important point is, that they did not scruple to place themselves in a state of perpetual warfare with their own nation. It is therefore certain that this was effected by a heavenly impulse, so that they who, through, fear, did not render the honor due to him while he was alive, now run to his dead body, as if they had become new men.

They bring their spices to embalm the body of Christ; but they would never have done so, if they had been perfumed with the sweet sayour of his death. This shows the truth of what Christ had said,

Unless a grain of corn die, it remaineth alone; but when it is dead, it bringeth forth much fruit, (Joh 12:24.)

For here we have a striking proof that his death was more quickening than his life; and so great was the efficacy of that sweet sayour which the death of Christ conveyed to the minds of those two men, that it quickly extinguished all the passions belonging to the flesh. So long as ambition and the love of money reigned in thenb the grace of Christ had no charms for them; but now they begin to disrelish the whole world.

Besides, let us learn that their example points out to us what we owe to Christ. Those two men, as a testimony of their faith, not only took down Christ from the cross with great hazard, but boldly carried him to the grave. Our slothfulness will be base and shameful if, now that he reigns in the heavenly glory, we withhold from him the confession of our faith. So much the less excusable is the wickedness of those who, though they now deny Christ by base hypocrisy, plead in his behalf the example of Nicodemus. In one thing, I admit, they resemble him, that they endeavor, as far as lies in their power, to bury Christ; but the time for burying is past, since he hath ascended to the right hand of the Father, that he may reign gloriously over angels and men, and that every tongue may proclaim his dominion, (Phi 2:9.)

Secretly, through fear of the Jews. As this fear is contrasted with the holy boldness which the Spirit of the Lord wrought in the heart of Joseph, there is reason to believe that it was not free from blame. Not that all fear, by which believers guard against tyrants and enemies of the Church, is faulty, but because the weakness of faith is manifested, whenever the confession of faith is withheld through fear. We ought always to consider what the Lord commands, and how far he bids us advance. He who stops in the middle of the course shows that he does not trust in God, and he who sets a higher value on his own life than on the command of God is without excuse.

Who was a disciple of Jesus. When we perceive that the Evangelist bestows on Joseph the honorable designation of a disciple, at a time when he was excessively timid, and did not venture to profess his faith before the world, we learn from it how graciously God acts towards his people, and with what fatherly kindness he forgives their offenses. And yet the false Nicodemites have no right to flatter themselves, who not only keep their faith concealed within their own breast, but, by pretending to give their consent to wicked superstitions, do all that is in their power to deny that they are disciples of Christ.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE ENTOMBMENT

Text: Joh. 19:38-42

38

And after these things Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away his body.

39

And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.

40

So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.

41

Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid.

42

There then because of the Jews Preparation (for the tomb was nigh at hand) they laid Jesus.

Queries

a.

Why the sudden bravery of Joseph and Nicodemus now?

b.

Of what significance is the hundred pounds of spices?

c.

Where was the tomb located?

Paraphrase (Harmony)

And when even was now come, because it was the Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, there came a rich man named Joseph, who was a councilor, of honorable estate a good and righteous man (he had not consented to their counsel and deed), a man of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews who also himself was looking for the kingdom of God, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, boldly went in unto Pilate, and asked that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave.
And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been anywhile dead. And when he learned it of the centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph brought a linen cloth, and came therefore and, taking him down took away his body.
And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid. And Joseph took the body; wrapped in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock, and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, the mother of Joses sitting over against the sepulchre, And it was the day of the Preparation and the sabbath drew on. And the women, who had come with him out of Galilee, followed after and beheld the tomb, and now his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. And on the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

Summary

Friends of Jesus ask for His body and give it a tender and careful burial. His body is prepared in a kingly fashion and is buried in a rich mans tomb.

Comment

Here, for the first time, Joseph of Arimathaea come on the stage of gospel history. Hendriksen says, The Arimathaea from which he came was probably the ancient Ramathaim-zophim . . . fifteen miles straight east from Joppa. The Synoptics tell us a great deal about this man. Mat. 27:57 tells us that he was a rich man; Mar. 15:43 states that he was a respected member of the council (Sanhedrin) and that he was looking for the kingdom of God (in other words, he was a devout man who believed the Old Testament prophets and was eagerly looking forward to the coming Messianic kingdom); Luk. 23:50-51 informs us that he was a good and righteous man and one who had not consented with the rest of the council to their evil purposes and deeds respecting Jesus.

It is evident that Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin for Luke records that he could have given consent with them to the death of Jesus but he did not. Why he did not we are not told. It is probable that he deliberately absented himself from the midnight quorum called by Caiaphas to condemn Jesus. Up until now Joseph, like Nicodemus, was a secret disciple of Jesus. He believed but not enough to confess Christ openly and take the consequences. Why the boldness now? First, there would not be nearly as much danger from the opposition now that Jesus was dead and their blood-thirstiness had been satisfied. Second, Luke gives us the hint that this mans righteous indignation had been stirred up at the unjust and inhumane treatment the council had unleashed upon Jesus. Stalker, in his book, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, puts it this way, It was the excess of wickedness in his fellow-councilors, who at length went to a stage of violence and injustice which allowed him to hesitate no longer. We find it hard to agree with Hendriksen and Lenski that Josephs boldness is a result of his knowledge of the atoning death of Jesus for him. It is inconceivable that Joseph, without the resurrection of Christ, should have such as grasp of the atoning efficiency of the death of Christ when even the disciples who had companied with Jesus for over three years did not then comprehend it!

Pilate, after assuring himself by the word of one of the soldiers that Jesus was dead, consented to allow Joseph and Nicodemus to take the body for burial. The boldness of Joseph had a contagion which was caught by Nicodemus. He brought a hundred pounds (about seventy-two pounds in our weights today) of burial spices. This was enough spices to bury a king. The spices were sprinkled profusely upon each strip of the linen bandaging as the body was wrapped limb by limb. The Jews did not embalm as the Egyptians. These spices would not hide the sickening odor of decaying flesh long. The body of Lazarus began to stink in four days (cf. Joh. 11:39). Because this was Friday evening and the Sabbath would begin at sunset, most of the usual customs of Jewish burial were foregone. The dead body would not be carried to the upper chamber of a house where his relatives and neighbors could come and mourn and say good-bye for the last time. The dead body would not be carried to the tomb on the litter-type funeral bier. There would be no hired mourners or funeral procession; no hired flutists and no rending of the garments.

According to Henri Daniel-Rops, in his book Daily Life In The Time Of Jesus, the typical tomb was a kind of cave or excavation, a vault cut into a rock cliff, with a little vestibule before it. One had to bow ones head to go into the vault itself. Sometimes the same entrance would lead to several vaults: as many as eight have been found together. The body was laid upon a bench specially cut in the rock, and no doubt surrounded and covered with aromatic herbs, often a great many of them. The tombs of the poorer people were closed by being walled-up, but the grander tombs had a more solid kind of gate, which is still to be seen in Palestine: it is a great round, like millstone, set in a deep groove and held open by a wooden wedge; as soon as the wedge is taken away the heavy stone sinks into its place and guards the entrance from all comers, thieves or hyenas.

Just such a tomb became the burial place of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was located in the immediate area of His crucifixion, Calvary. It was a new tomb (no one else had ever been placed in it for burial); it belonged to a rich man and had been hewn out of solid rock located in a lovely garden. The tomb chamber was so low the women had to stoop to look in (Joh. 20:11) and the stone rolled before the door was exceedingly heavy (Mar. 16:4). For a discussion of the place of the crucifixion see our comments on Joh. 19:12-22.

There are two important points to emphasize in the burial of Jesus. First, His burial in a rich mans tomb was a fulfillment of prophecy (cf. Isa. 53:9). Second, Pilate and his soldiers were certain that Jesus was deadHe had not swooned or fainted. Blood and water gushed from His side, He had stopped breathingHe was dead and now Joseph and Nicodemus may take Him and bury Him.

Quiz

1.

Where was Arimathea probably located in Palestine?

2.

Name four things about the character of Joseph of Arimathea which are related to us by the gospel writers.

3.

Since Joseph was a member of the Sanhedrin how could he have kept from voting at the sentencing of Jesus?

4.

Why was Joseph, formerly a secret disciple of Jesus, now so bold as to ask for His body for burial?

5.

What did Nicodemus contribute to the burial?

6.

Why would the usual customs of Jewish burial be foregone?

7.

What are two important points of emphasis connected with the burial of Jesus?

SPECIAL STUDY NO. THREE

WAS JESUS CRUCIFIED ON FRIDAY?
by SETH WILSON

When the question, Was Jesus crucified on Friday? is raised, it may be hard for you to find a clear and definite statement about it in the Bible. Good Christians may think He had to be in the tomb longer than the time from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning because of the expression three days and three nights in Mat. 12:40.

It doesnt matter too much on what day Jesus was crucified; but it does matter much how people use the Scriptures and how they trouble the church over such questions. Any view that denies that Jesus ate the Passover meal at the regular time is in direct conflict with plain statements of fact in three inspired books of the New Testament. Yet such a view is often taken by people who think that they are upholding the strict accuracy of Jesus words against centuries of false tradition.
This is merely a question of historic fact, not affecting our obedience to the commands of the Lord, and not essential to our reverent appreciation of Him. It should not be made a test of fellowship or source of contention. But as a matter of fact it makes all the better example for a study of how to get the truth of Gods Word by considering all the facts and letting the passages which are definite and clear in meaning determine the interpretation of those which are not so sure.

What Does The Bible Say?

This is a Bible study. Get your Bible and read the passages cited. Space will not permit quoting them.
All the Gospels say that Jesus was crucified and buried on the day called the Preparation. Read Mar. 15:42; Luk. 23:54; Joh. 19:14; Joh. 19:31; Joh. 19:42; and Mat. 27:60-62. The word translated Preparation was used as a name for the day which we call Friday in modern Greek.

Joh. 19:14 says, It was the preparation of the passover. Some have thought that this means the day on which the Passover lamb was prepared; but it can mean simply Friday of Passover week. Comparison with all the facts will show that this is what it does mean. Beginning with the Passover sacrifice and supper, seven days of unleavened bread were observed; and the entire week was called the Passover (See Luk. 22:1; Joh. 2:23; Joh. 18:39). Mar. 15:42 explicitly states, It was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath. The same meaning is shown in Joh. 19:31. The regular weekly Sabbath was Saturday.

But Which Sabbath?

The first day of unleavened bread might be called a Sabbath, because it was a day of rest according to the law (Lev. 23:7-8), and so was the seventh, or last, day. Some suggest that the Sabbath immediately following Jesus death was not Saturday, but the first day of unleavened bread, which could fall on any day of the week.

In the law (Lev. 23:4; Lev. 23:6), the seven days of unleavened bread were counted after the Passover meal, beginning Nisan 15. But all leaven was put out on the day the Passover was prepared, Nisan 14; so the day that the lamb was killed came in time to be called the first day of unleavened bread. (See Mar. 14:12 and Luk. 22:7.)

But if either of these daysthe one just preceding the supper, or the one following itwas actually called a Sabbath, still neither of them could be the Sabbath day that followed the burial of Jesus. For Mat. 26:17-20; Mar. 14:12-17 and Luk. 22:7-16 all state with absolutely unmistakable clarity that Jesus was alive and eating the Passover supper in the evening following the first day of unleavened bread when the lamb was sacrificed. If the day following the supper was the day of rest (or special Sabbath) it was still not the day after Jesus was buried, because it was the day of crucifixion.

Therefore, we see that, if there was in that week any day called a Sabbath other than Saturday, it had to be one that was past by the time Jesus was buried, and not the day following His burial. The day of preparation, then, on which He was crucified, could not be any day other than the day before the regular weekly Sabbath which we call Saturday.
One good brother has suggested that the seventh day of unleavened bread was the Sabbath which drew on as Jesus was buried. That would mean that Jesus was subjected to six or seven days of trials, mockings, and delays between the time He was arrested and the day of crucifixion. The Gospels do not show any intention of indicating that. The trials before the priests and the Sanhedrin were at night and dawn (Luk. 22:66); that before Pilate was early (Joh. 18:28); all happened in quick succession.

Moreover, no account gives any hint of more than one Sabbath between the burial of Christ and His resurrection on the first day of the week. Just turn and read how clearly Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are recorded in Luk. 23:54 to Luk. 24:1. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And the women also . . . beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre. The word Sabbath here is singular.

Properly Read, John Agrees

Johns account agrees completely with these statements. Joh. 13:1 does not say that the last supper was before the Passover, but that Jesus knew before the Passover that He must depart at this time. Joh. 13:29 does not prove that the Passover meal was to come later. The disciples who supposed that Judas was sent to buy something for the feast may have had in mind the seven-day festival. Or if it was possible at that hour to buy provisions they might have been for the meal now beginning. (In Joh. 13:2 the Greek does not say supper being ended, but supper being come.)

Joh. 18:28 does not prove that the Pharisees had not eaten the Passover meal, because they called all seven days connected with it the Passover. Anyway, the Passover meal was eaten at night, and such defilement as they feared in Pilates hall would end at sunset.

Joh. 19:31 shows plainly that the preparation was the day before the Sabbath. Calling that Sabbath a high day does not make it other than a Saturday Sabbath. It only means that it was considered especially sacred because it came in Passover week.

Three Days And Three Nights

Since the history states so plainly the fact that Jesus was crucified on Friday, it is necessary to take the prophetic figure of speech about the sign of Jonah (Mat. 12:40) as an inexact expression intended to agree with the statement which is made a dozen times, that Jesus arose on the third day. (See Mat. 16:21; Mat. 17:23; Mat. 20:19; Mat. 27:63-64; Luk. 9:22; Luk. 18:33; Luk. 24:7; Luk. 24:21; Luk. 24:46; Act. 10:40; 1Co. 15:4; and Mar. 9:31; Mar. 10:34 in K. J. V.) After three days is used in Mar. 8:31 (Joh. 9:31 and Joh. 10:34 in A.S.V.) to mean the same as on the third day. While those do not seem the same to us, it is evident that they did mean the same to the Jews. (See also 2Ch. 10:5; 2Ch. 10:12; Est. 4:16; Est. 5:1; Mat. 27:63-64.) Three days and three nights is just a fuller form for saying after three days; and both could mean in popular speech the same as on the third day. Any expression means just what it is used to mean. The facts of the record show with what meaning the expression was used by Jesus. We must not put into it a meaning that will deny or disregard the facts; but the facts must control our interpretation.

SERMON NO. EIGHTEEN

BEHOLDING THE CRUCIFIED ONE

Luk. 23:33-35 a

Introduction

I. SPECTACLE OF THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST. After the betrayal and arrest come the trials. He was shamed by His own (high priest). Herod plays with Him like a cat would a mouse. He mocks Him and allows Him to be smitten in the mouth. Then Jesus is returned to Pilate a second time. Pilate has Him scourged with a whip made of leather and bone until His back is a bleeding mass of raw flesh. Pilate wants to release Him. But the Jews cry Crucify Him, his blood be upon us and upon our children . . . Release unto us Barabbas the murderer. And, for political reasons, Pilate releases Him to be crucified.

And so the humiliated, tortured, betrayed, exhausted Son of God goes out bearing a 300 pound cross of wood. Through the streets of the city He goes, stumbling, dragging this cross along as the throngs cast stones and spit upon him. Up the long hill of Golgotha. There He is grabbed roughly by the soldiers and laid down upon the cross, BUT HE OFFERS NO RESISTANCE. The steel spikes are brutally driven into the quivering flesh of His hands and then His feet. The excruciating pain is relayed from the nerves to His brain. And what comes from his mouth? Agony and screams? NO! Hate and curses? NO! Wonder of wonders, His lips part to speak a blessingFather forgive them, for they know not what they do.

II. AND THE PEOPLE STOOD BEHOLDING . . . What did they behold in the crucified One? What did those around the cross see? They saw much the same thing as men and women see in the Crucifixion today. THE CRUCIFIXION WAS NECESSARY. IT WAS IN GODS PLAN FOR JESUS CONTINUALLY TAUGHT I MUST DIE . . . IT WAS A SPECTACLE OF LOVE FOR MAN TO BEHOLD. IT WAS A PLANNED SPECTACLE FOR IT WAS PROPHECIED. Luk. 2:1-52.

Discussion

I.

THE ROMANS. They beheld Him through eyes of Indifference. Pilate made two tries to release Him and saw that politics demanded His death so he washed his hands of the whole matter. WHAT WAS ONE MORE DEAD JEW?? AFTER ALL PEOPLE DIE EVERY DAY. He had many responsibilities of more importance than the squabbles of the Jews. HE JUST HAD OTHER THINGS TO DO MORE IMPORTANT THAN LISTENING TO THIS NAZARENES CLAIMS OR BEING TOUCHED BY HIS INNOCENCE. Notice the calloused indifference of the soldiers who methodically nailed him to the cross and then sat down to gamble over his garments. There are multitudes today who look at the Crucified One through eyes of indifference. THEY COULDNT CARE LESS THAT A MAN DIED SOME 2000 YEARS AGO. THEY ARE TOO BUSY WITH MORE IMPORTANT THINGS SUCH AS POLITICS, PTA, KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES. THEY HAVE SO CALLOUSED THEIR HEARTS AND THEIR EMOTIONS THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER TOUCHED WITH THE LOVE SHOWN IN THE CROSS.

They thought they saw Weakness. Pilate said, Dont you know I have the power of life and death over you . . . and still you say nothing in your own defense? This Nazarene had even taught the doctrines of weaklings according to them. WHO EVER HEARD OF TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK? GOING THE SECOND MILE? RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL? BUT A LOOK AT ALL THE CIRCUMSTANCES SHOWS THIS TO BE THE GREATEST ACT OF COURAGE HISTORY HAS EVER WITNESSED. MY LORD WAS NO WEAKLING NOR COWARD! HE WAS A MAN OF ALL MEN. THOSE WHO STOOD WATCHING HIM WERE THE WEAK, SPINELESS, GROVELING COWARDS. THESE WERE AFRAID TO FACE UP TO THE DEMANDS AND CONSEQUENCES OF HIS TEACHINGS. THE WEAKLINGS CANNOT TURN THE OTHER CHEEK, AND WILL NOT GO THE OTHER MILE.

They thought they saw Foolishness. He claimed to be a King, but where was His kingdom? They scoffed at Him as a religious crackpot. He had claimed to be a God . . . but none of their gods had ever acted like He didHOW FOOLISH! WITH THEIR GODS IT WAS OPPOSITEMEN DIED FOR THEIR GODS. He claimed to be dying in the place of men. This the wise heathen philosophers could not accept as sensible. The Greek philosophers at Athens scoffed at Pauls preaching the gospel of the cross and resurrection. (Act. 17:1-34).

HEAR WHAT MODERN UNBELIEVERS HAVE TO SAY . . . Dressed in the pious robes of ecclesiastical finery, giving the unsuspecting world the impression he is a follower of Christ, Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, former head of the World Council of Churches says, We hear much of the substitutionary theory of the atonement. This theory to me is immoral. If Jesus paid it all or if He is the substitute for me, or if He is the sacrifice for all the sin of the world, then why discuss forgiveness? The books are closed. Another has paid the debt, borne the penalty, I owe nothing. I am absolved. I cannot see forgiveness as predicted upon the act of someone else. It is my sin. I must atone.
The theologians today do not see Jesus dying for our sins. They see him merely dying a tragic death for his misguided conviction that he had a special mission. IT WAS NO ACCIDENT IT WAS PLANNED BY GODREAD THE PROPHETS, AND SEE HOW GOD MOVES IN AND THOUGH ALL OF HISTORY!
If a prince or a king, passing by an execution, should take the condemned mans place and suffer in his place the deed would ring through all history, and be quoted as an amazing instance of heroic pity; and well deserved would be all the words of praise and admiration which would record and eulogize it. Yet, our Lord Jesus did this, and infinitely more for those who were not merely criminals, but enemies to His own throne and person. This is a wonder of wonders. But it meets with small praise. The most of men around us have heard of it, and treated it as of little import; as an idle tale; as a pious legend; as a venerable fable; as an unpractical myth. Even those who know, believe and admire are cold in their emotions with regard to the story of the atonement. Herein is love which ought to set our hearts on fire, and yet we scarcely maintain a smoldering spark of enthusiasm. So said Spurgeon.
We preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumbling block and unto Gentiles foolishness . . . For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness . . . DO YOU STAND WITH THE GENTILES AS YOU BEHOLD THE CROSS???

II.

WHAT DID THE JEWS SEE AS THEY BEHELD HIM? To them His crucifixion was a stumbling block. What did they cry as they circled the cross? If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross . . . He saved others, himself he cannot save . . . THEY STUMBLED AT THE IDEA OF A CRUCIFIED AND HUMILIATED JEWISH MESSIAH. They had made up their minds ages ago just what type of Saviour they would accept. THEY WANTED A SOCIAL REFORMER, A POLITICAL LIBERATOR WHO WOULD LEAVE THE RELIGIOUS STATUS QUO ALONE. NEEDLESS TO SAY THERE ARE MULTITUDES OF PEOPLE TODAY WHO STUMBLE AT THE SAME THING. THEY LOOK AT THE CHURCH AS A FAILURE! THEY HAVE TRIED TO USE AND ABUSE THE CHURCH AS A SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENT, TO LIBERATE AND CONTROL POLITICS, BUT THEY WONT HAVE IT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SOULS OF MEN!

They stumbled at His claims to be divine. I believe Jesus could have gotten by and perhaps even have been honored if He had claimed to be just another prophet. Many would allow Him this much today. But when He claimed to: forgive sins, come before Abraham, be the Messiah, and demanded rule over their hearts THEY CRIED BLASPHEMY . . . THEY COULD NOT ACCEPT ANY TEACHING THAT ASSOCIATED HIM WITH GOD.

MODERN THEOLOGIANS REBEL AT THE IDEA THAT GOD HAS ASSOCIATED HIMSELF WITH MAN OR HAS COME INTO THE REALM OF HISTORY. THEY SAY HE MUST BE WHOLLY TRANSCENDENTWHOLLY OTHER. THEY SAY WE LIMIT GODS POWER AND HOLINESS WHEN WE SAY THAT HE CAME IN THE FORM OF FLESH. TO THE CONTRARY, TO RELEGATE GOD ONLY TO THE REALM OF THE WHOLLY OTHER LIMITS HIS POWER AND HOLINESS. HOW COULD A GOD WHO HAD NO DESIRE TO BE TOUCHED WITH OUR INFIRMITIES, TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO US IN HISTORY, BE RIGHTEOUS AND HOLY AND LOVING???
They felt they were rid of One whose righteousness they could not stand. As long as He was alive, they could not live with themselves, their consciences cried out against them, AND MEN AND WOMEN TODAY REJECT JESUS IN ORDER THAT THEY MAY BE ABLE TO DO AS THEY PLEASE, HAVING PUT BLINDERS UPON THEIR OWN CONSCIENCES. NO ONE WANTS TO MEASURE HIMSELF BY THE PERFECT STANDARD . . . JESUS CHRIST. WHEN HIS PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS SHOWS US OUR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, WE TRY TO HIDE OURSELVES IN SOME WAY OR ANOTHER. USUALLY BY COMPARING OURSELVES WITH OURSELVES.

They saw in the Crucified One their scapegoat. Their High Priest had said, It is expedient that one should die for the nation, lest the Romans come and take away our nation and our place. IS HE NOT BEING USED AS A SCAPEGOAT TODAY? SOME HAVE ACCEPTED CHRIST BUT, UPON FINDING THEY CANT HAVE HIM AND THE WORLD TOO, THEY FALL AWAY AND CRUCIFY AFRESH THE SON OF GOD, BY COUNTING THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHEREWITH THEY WERE SANCTIFIED AN UNHOLY THING. cf. also Heb. 6:1-6. AND THEN WHAT DO THEY DO? THEY USE HIS CHURCH AND HIS SAINTS AS THEIR EXCUSE FOR BACKSLIDING. THEY HARP ON THE HYPOCRITES . . . OR THEY HARP ON THE IDEA THAT CHRISTIANS ARE TOO UNCOMPROMISING, TOO INTOLERANT, FORGETTING JESUS HIMSELF SAID THERE ARE ONLY TWO WAYSTWO CLASSES OF HUMANITY, SAVED AND LOST. WHERE DO YOU STAND TODAY AND BEHOLD THE CRUCIFIED ONE? ARE YOU WITH THE JEWS? IF YOU ARE A BACKSLIDER, YOU ARE WITH THEM.

III.

WHAT DO BELIEVERS BEHOLD? One of the thieves beheld the Son of God and in faith and trust committed His soul to Him. We see sin condemned in the flesh. Jesus came in the flesh and lived a sinless life in the flesh, tempted in all points like as we are and WON THE VICTORY OVER SIN AND BECAME THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE FOR OUR SINS! He fulfilled the requirements of the law of God, even the sentence and penalty of the law which says, The soul that sinneth it shall die . . .

We see there the propitiation for our sin. WE BEHOLD JESUS AS HE SUFFERED THE AGONY OF THE SECOND DEATH FOR US. AND THEN WE READ AS HE HIMSELF REVEALS FROM HEAVEN TO JOHN IN THE BOOK OF REVELATIONTHAT SUCH AS ARE BELIEVERS, OVER THEM THE SECOND DEATH HATH NO POWER.

We see God manifesting Himself as being Just and the Justifier. God decreed in His law that sin must be punished. If He went back on His word, He would be a powerless, unjust God. BUT HOW CAN HE HAVE LOVE AND SAVE MEN AND STILL PUNISH SIN? HE ACCOMPLISHED IT ALL IN THE CROSS OF CALVARY WHERE HE PUNISHED SIN AND SAVED MAN THROUGH JESUS CHRIST!

We see sin as it was never shown before in all of its evilness. As a sinner man is a slave who must be redeemed, an enemy who must be reconciled, a dead corpse which must be resurrected and given new life, a captive whose powerful oppressors must be overthrown and a criminal who must be justified. WE SEE THE HOLY AND PERFECT HATE WHICH GOD HAS FOR SIN IN THE GIVING OF THE LIFE OF HIS SON.

We see the love and power of God manifested. The word of the cross may be foolishness to some. BUT TO THOSE WHO ARE BEING SAVED IT IS BOTH THE POWER AND THE WISDOM OF GOD . . . GODS INFINITE WISDOM KNEW THAT THE CROSS WOULD BE THE ONLY WAY TO DRAW MEN UNTO HIM IN SINCERE FAITH. And I, if I will be lifted up, will draw all men unto me. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friend. For the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts . . . for while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly . . . A man may decide many things in this life simply by human reason and knowledge. BUT WHEN IT COMES TO THE SALVATION OF HIS SOUL, HE MUST HAVE A POWER THAT IS BEYOND HUMAN REASON. THAT POWER IS PROVIDED IN THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. IT IS GODS DIVINE SEAL. GOD, DESIRING TO SWEAR WITH AN OATH, COULD SWEAR BY NONE GREATER THAN HIMSELF, SO HE SEALED HIS PROMISE BY SIGNING HIS OATH IN HIS OWN BLOOD . . . THE BLOOD OF HIS SON UPON THE CROSS . . .

Conclusion

YOU SAY, I WANT SOME ASSURANCE . . . I WANT SOME AUTHORITY . . . I WANT SOME POWER BEHIND ANY PROMISES OF SALVATION. THERE IT IS IN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. His death was sufficient for your sins. His resurrection is power for your new life. The entire New Testament says it is so. YOU MAY BECOME A NEW CREATURE . . . YOU MAY HAVE YOUR SINS BLOTTED OUT. YOU MAY HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT COME AND LIVE WITH YOU.

HOW DO YOU CONTACT THIS DEATH? By faith? YES, BUT MORE! For contacting His death comprehends all of our obedience. By simply repenting? YES, BUT MORE! By prayer? YES, BUT MORE! By making public confession of faith? YES, BUT MORE. IT IS FULL AND COMPLETE OBEDIENCE. Rom. 6:1-23 . . . We are baptized into his death; planted together with Him . . . Col. 2:1-23 . . . We are buried with Him in baptism. IT IS HERE THAT THE FINAL ACT IN OUR CONTACTING THE DEATH TAKES PLACE.

HOW DO YOU LOOK UPON THE CRUCIFIED ONE THIS EVENING? I pray with all my soul that you look with faith trusting and seeking to obey Him in all things. He has become the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. Remember what He told Nicodemus. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life. Joh. 3:13

YOU KNOW THE ACCOUNT OF THE ISRAELITES AND THE SERPENT OF BRONZE ON THE STAFF . . . THOSE BITTEN OF THE FIERY SERPENTS WERE CURED WHEN THEY LOOKED, IN FAITH AND OBEDIENCE, UPON THE BRONZE SERPENT LIFTED UP THERE IN THE WILDERNESS. BUT IF THEY DELAYED . . . PROCRASTINATED IN UNBELIEF, THEY DIED!
There was an old man converted at the age of 68. One day he sat crying as the minister was preaching on the text, No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. Later, with tears streaming down his cheeks, he approached the preacher. The preacher asked him what was the matter . . . Oh, sir that textit is true! he replied.
I did not know the Lord until I was 68. I stopped at my sons home this morning and said, Come on son, and go with me to church this morning . . . and he laughed as he replied, No, Dad, Ive got plenty of time; Ill wait until I am 68 to get religion, like you did.
I walked on down the street until I came upon my grandchildren playing and said, Come on kids, lets go down to Bible School this morning. No, they replied, we are busy, Grandpa; we will wait until we are old to start going to Sunday School and church like you did.
Sir, he said to the preacher, I would give my right arm if I could live my life over.
Napoleon, the little general, paced the floor of his tent. Half of his troops had been destroyed and the battle yet raged. A messenger rushed in with the shout, Tidings, sire, You have won the victory.
Yes, replied Napoleon quietly, I have won the victory but another such victory would cost me my kingdom. YOU MAY HAVE WON THE VICTORY OVER THE SERMON: YOU MAY HAVE WON THE VICTORY OVER CONSCIENCE, OVER PRAYERS OF MOTHER, OVER PLEADINGS OF YOUR WIFE, BUT ANOTHER SUCH VICTORY MAY COST YOU YOUR ETERNAL SOUL!

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(38) For the burial (Joh. 19:38-42), comp. generally Notes on Mat. 27:57-61; Mar. 15:42-47; Luk. 23:50-56.

But secretly for fear of the Jews.This is the only additional fact which St. John supplies with regard to Joseph. He places him in these verses side by side with Nicodemus, and ascribes the same trait of character to both.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

The friends of Jesus, and his entombment, Joh 19:38-42.

38. After this Joseph of Arimathea The foes have gone into the background, and Jesus is now with his friends for evermore. No apostle appears present at the embalmment or entombment; but one whose name is hitherto unmentioned, and would be forever unmentioned, but for this act, steps forward. So for the just man Providence ever raises new friends. And so may the weakest faith grow strong and take its proper post at the required hour. See note on Mat 27:57-61.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Judaisers, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. He came therefore and took away his body. And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night (Joh 3:1-15), bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about one hundred pound weight. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.’

As a result of Jesus’ death two men came out of the night into the light and both were prominent members of the Sanhedrin (Luk 23:51; Joh 3:1; Joh 7:50-51). The first was Joseph of Arimathea. He was a rich and pious man who ‘was looking for the kingdom of God’ (Mat 27:57; Mar 15:43), and he went to Pilate to ask for the body for burial. His success was probably aided by the fact that the remaining members of the Sanhedrin would be preparing for the Sabbath high day. His being a lay member of the Sanhedrin, and not implicated in the charges against Jesus, may have lent strength to his plea. But he would certainly be aware that what he was doing would soon come out, and it demonstrated that he was at last ready to show his true colours. ‘A disciple of Jesus’ simply indicates that He had heard Jesus’ teaching and was in sympathy with it.

The second was Nicodemus, who had come to Jesus ‘by night’ to learn from Him (Joh 3:1-15). Now he too comes into the day by bringing a great quantity of spices so that Jesus may have a proper burial. It is clear that they must have discussed the matter together so that Joseph, as the wealthy and influential elder, went to Pilate while Nicodemus went and bought the spices.

Thus was Jesus not cast in an unmarked grave and his body was not mutilated as was the common lot of criminals. Instead He was placed in the tomb of a rich man, being ‘with the rich in His death’ (Isa 53:9).

It would appear that a number of cloths were used to wrap the body mingled with the spices and that a larger linen cloth was then used to cover the body (Mar 15:46; Luk 23:53). Arms and legs would be bound to the body to prevent spasmodic movement, and a turban put round his head probably also holding up his chin from sagging.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Burial of Jesus ( Joh 19:38-42 ).

God’s watch over events is brought out initially in that Jesus had been anointed for His death (Joh 12:7). Now He was to have proper burial.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jesus’ Burial In Joh 19:38-42 we have the account of the burial of Jesus Christ.

Joh 19:38-40 Comments Our Identification with Christ – One preacher noted that when Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus took the body of Jesus Christ and buried it they were performing their own burial service. This is because the Lord gave Paul the apostle the revelation of our identification with Christ Jesus in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, exaltation and authority. Note these passages on our identification with Christ in His crucifixion and burial.

Rom 6:6-12

2Co 5:14-17

Gal 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Col 3:3, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The burial of Jesus:

v. 38. And after this, Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him leave. He came, therefore, and took the body of Jesus.

v. 39. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.

v. 40. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.

v. 41. Now, in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.

v. 42. There laid they Jesus, therefore, because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulcher was nigh at hand.

When, in the hour of trial, the apostles failed their Lord, other disciples, up till then almost unknown, boldly professed their allegiance to the hated Nazarene. One of these men was Joseph, a counselor, a member of the Sanhedrin, whose home was in Rama or Arimathaea, the city of Samuel, 1Sa 1:1-19. He had kept his convictions concerning Jesus secret for fear of the Jews. But now he comes forward boldly, goes to Pilate, and requests to be given the body of Jesus. Pilate, having made the necessary inquiries as to the death of the Crucified, granted the permission. So Joseph set out for Calvary to take down the body of his Master. And here he was joined by Nicodemus, of whom the evangelist has spoken in two places, Joh 3:1; Joh 7:50. This man had also come to the knowledge of the truth; he believed in Jesus as his Savior. He came to Calvary well prepared for the last work of love for the Master, bearing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, aromatic spices used for the embalming of the dead, a total of a hundred liters or Jewish pounds, almost seventy pounds avoirdupois. Being a rich man, he was willing to show his devotion for his Lord, the compound of spices which he brought being sufficient to anoint the whole body as well as to saturate the grave-cloths. Having taken the body down from the cross, these two men prepared it for burial, by wrapping it in the burial sheets with the aromatic spices, after the manner of the Jews in preparing bodies for entombment. At the place of crucifixion, adjacent to it or very near it, there was a garden, where Joseph had his own rock grave, which had never been used for a burial and therefore had not been desecrated by the smell of decaying flesh. The main reason for the hasty entombment in the near-by sepulcher was the nearness of the great festival day of the Jews. The day of preparation ended with sunset, after which manual labor of any kind was prohibited. Note: Jesus received, after all the shame and disgrace of His trial and death, at least an honorable burial: He was laid into the grave of a rich man and was buried after the manner of a rich man. All these factors point forward to His approaching glorification. There is nothing terrible about the sepulcher of Jesus; it rather appears as a couch for gentle sleep. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, by His burial has sanctified the graves of all His saints, made them places of calm repose, where they wait in peace for the great day of resurrection.

Summary. Jesus, after further mockery, is condemned to death by Pilate, is crucified on Calvary, gives up His life into the hands of His heavenly Father, and is buried by Joseph and Nicodemus, who had been His secret disciples for some time.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Joh 19:38. And after this Joseph of Arimathea, We have observed on ch. Joh 18:31 that Joseph of Arimathea seems to have been personally acquainted with Pilate, as he went to him, and begged leave to bury the body of Jesus. We can have no doubt of their being acquainted, if Joseph was one of the council who assisted Pilate in managing the affairs of his province, and particularly in judgingcauses. All governors of provinces had a council of this kind; accordingly we find it mentioned Act 25:12. It is, however, objected to Joseph’s being a member of Pilate’s council, that it was composed of Romans only; yet even on this supposition he might be a member of it, since he might enjoy the privilege of a citizen, as well as St. Paul. What other reason can be assigned for his being called a counsellor, Luk 23:50 and Mar 15:43? a name not commonly given to the members of the sanhedrim, whose proper title was , rulers. Further, St. Luke tells, (Luk 23:51.) that Joseph did not consent to the counsel ( ) and deed of them: he did not agree to the advice which the governor’s council gave, when they desired him to gratify the Jews. See the note on Mat 27:57.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Joh 19:38-39 . ] Joh 19:32-34 . The request of Joseph of Arimathaea (see on Mat 27:57 ), that he might take away ( ) the corpse, does not conflict with Joh 19:31 . For let it be noted that the expression in Joh 19:31 is passive , not stating the subject who takes away. The Jews, who make the request, presume that it would be the soldiers. Pilate had granted the request in Joh 19:31 , and had charged the soldiers with its execution, consequently with the breaking of the legs, and removal. The breaking of the legs they have in fact executed on the two who were crucified with Him, and omit it in the case of Jesus; and as Joseph requests from the procurator that he may take away the body of Jesus, and obtains permission, the order for removal given to the soldiers was now recalled in reference to Jesus , and they had to remove only the other two. It is, however, very conceivable that Joseph had still time , after Joh 19:32 ; Joh 19:34 , for his request, since the soldiers after the crucifragium must certainly first await the complete decease of the shattered bodies, because it was permitted to remove only bodies actually dead from the cross. Thus there is neither here, and in Joh 19:31 , a contradiction with Mar 15:44 (Strauss); nor does form, as De Wette finds, “a great and hitherto unnoticed difficulty;” nor are we, with Lcke, to understand and of the fetching away of the bodies (which the soldiers had removed), with which a groundless departure is made from the definition of the sense given in Joh 19:31 , and a variation is made in an unauthorized way from Luk 23:56 ; Mar 15:46 .

] The first time , Joh 3:2 . Comp. Joh 10:40 . It does not exactly presuppose a subsequent still more frequent coming (in Joh 7:50 also there is only a retrospective reference to what is related in chap. 3), but may also be said simply with reference to the present public coming to the dead person , so that only the death of Jesus had overcome the previous fear of men on the part of Nicodemus. Myrrh-resin and aloe-wood , these fragrant materials (Psa 45:9 ) were placed in a pulverized condition between the bandages (Joh 19:40 ); but the surprising quantity (comp. Joh 12:3 ) is here explained from the fact that superabundant reverence in its sorrowful excitement does not easily satisfy itself; we may also assume that a portion of the spices was to be designed for the couch of the body in the grave, 2Ch 16:14 .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1728
THE BURIAL OF JESUS

Joh 19:38-42. And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

THE smallest circumstances relative to the life and death of our blessed Lord may well be supposed to deserve peculiar attention: but the mere interment of his body one would imagine might be passed over as a matter of no moment. Yet we find our Lord himself repeatedly referring to it, during the course of his ministry. He mentions the indispensable necessity of his interment, in order to complete the purposes of his grace [Note: Joh 12:24.]: he specifies the term of his intended continuance in the heart of the earth [Note: Mat 12:40.]: and he commends the fervent love of Mary in pouring ointment on his head, as a prophetic, though not an intended, preparation for his burial [Note: Mat 26:12.]. In fact, the inspired history does not record any thing more minutely and circumstantially than the funeral of our Lord: and the more carefully we attend to what is spoken respecting it, the more interesting and instructive it will appear. Let us consider then,

I.

The peculiar circumstances of his interment

[In the moment when our Lord seemed abandoned by all, except a few women and his beloved Disciple, and when, as it should appear, no motive could any longer exist for shewing a regard for him, God raised up two persons of eminence and distinction to pay that respect to him when dead, which had been refused to him when living. One of these persons is very particularly described: the different Evangelists being consulted, we learn his name and place of abode: he was Joseph of Arimathea, or Ramah, in the tribe of Ephraim, the birth-place and residence of Samuel. Next, we have his rank and condition: he was a rich man, and an honourable counsellor, one of the Jewish Sanhedrim. Further, we are informed of his character and conduct: he was a just and good man, who, when the Sanhedrim had condemned our Lord as guilty of death, had not consented to the counsel and deed of them. Lastly, mention is made of his principles and attainments: he was a Disciple of Christ, who even then, when the Apostles had lost all thought that Christs kingdom should ever be established, actually waited for the kingdom of God, in expectation that it should yet appear [Note: Compare Mat 27:57-60. Mar 15:42-46 and Luk 23:50-53. with the text.]. This person went in boldly to Pilate, and begged to have the body of Jesus at his disposal. This conduct of his manifested a considerable degree of fortitude: for it could not but be very offensive to the rest of the Jewish council to see one of their own body paying funeral honours to one, whom, but a few hours before, they had condemned and crucified as a malefactor: besides, if Jesus should rise again according to the expectations that had been formed, he would infallibly be accused as a confederate with the other Disciples, and as having assisted them in stealing away the corpse from the tomb. Pilate, not believing that Jesus was so soon dead, sent for the centurion who superintended the execution, to inquire respecting it: and, on being assured by him that he was really dead, and that, subsequent to his death, he had been stabbed to the heart with a spear, he gave his consent. Joseph therefore went and took down the body, and wrapped it in some fine linen which he had bought for the purpose. But in this he was assisted by another person of eminence, Nicodemus by name, the same man who, three years before, had come to Jesus by night, to inquire into his doctrine; and who on one occasion had befriended him before the Jewish council, by stating, that the Jewish law did not admit of any person being condemned till after an opportunity of vindicating his own innocence had been afforded him [Note: Joh 7:50-52.]. This man bought a large quantity of myrrh and aloes, and other spices, about an hundred pound weight; and, together with Joseph, wrapped up the dead body in it for the present, intending, probably after the sabbath, to embalm it with greater care.

Joseph, after the custom of the Jews, had provided for himself a new tomb, hewn out of a rock: and, it being near to the place where Jesus was crucified, he deposited the body there: and, for the sake of decency and security, rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre.
Such is the account given us of the burial of our Lord: and at first sight perhaps it may appear, if not uninteresting, at least destitute of any important instruction. But we shall not be of this opinion, if we duly weigh, as we propose to do,]

II.

The practical benefits resulting from it

There is not a single circumstance in this account which is not very important; and the whole taken together is of singular use,

1.

To establish our faith

[Two things are necessary to be ascertained, before we can have just grounds for our faith in Christ; namely, first, the truth of the facts recorded concerning him; and next, the agreement of those facts with the prophecies of the Old Testament. Now the main facts to be ascertained, are, the death and the resurrection of Jesus: for, if he did not die, he has made no atonement for our sins; and, if he did not rise again, we have no evidence that his atonement has been accepted in our behalf. But behold how these facts are contained in the history before us! Pilate had doubts respecting the death of Jesus; and would not consent to Josephs request, till the point was ascertained from the very person whom he had appointed to superintend the execution. Had there been a spark of life in the body, the enemies of Jesus would not have given it into the possession of his friends; nor would his friends have consigned it to the tomb. His death therefore was proved beyond a doubt; nor was the truth of his resurrection less clearly manifested: for the tomb was new; and we are repeatedly told, that no corpse had ever yet been laid in it. Had there been any other corpse there, the resurrection of Jesus might have been ascribed to that; as the restoration of a dead body to life was effected by its being brought in contact with the bones of the Prophet Elisha [Note: 2Ki 13:21.]: or it might have been affirmed, that it was the other corpse, and not that of Jesus, that revived. But, when there never had been any other corpse deposited there, the resurrection of Jesus could not be confounded with that of any other person; nor could it be ascribed to any other power than his own. Moreover, the sepulchre being hewn out of a solid rock, was inaccessible, except at that entrance which was stopped by the stone, and guarded by the band of soldiers: had it been accessible in any other way, there might have been some plausibility in the story that the corpse was stolen from it by the Disciples; but the very nature of the grave precluded a possibility of removing the body from it, without the knowledge of the Roman guard.

Thus far then the facts are clear: and now mark their correspondence with the voice of prophecy. It had been expressly foretold, that, though Christ should be numbered with transgressors, and have his grave appointed with the wicked: yet with the rich should be his tomb [Note: See Isa 53:9. Bishop Lowths translation.]. This was as improbable as any event that could be conceived: the order was the same in relation to him as to the other malefactors, that his bones should be broken, and that he should be dealt with precisely in the way that the others were: yet behold, at the very instant when this prophecy appeared to have failed, God put it into the heart of a rich man, already provided with a tomb, near to the very place, to ask permission to inter the body, and actually to inter it in his own tomb! Surely, if the minute accomplishment of prophecy in the person of the Lord Jesus were duly considered, it would not be possible for any human being, whether Jew or Gentile, to entertain a doubt respecting the truth of his Messiahship: yet is this but one point of a hundred whereon our faith rests, and whereby it may be established.]

2.

To confirm our hope

[Many are the prophecies relating to the Church at large, and the promises relating to every individual believer, which yet remain to be accomplished, and for the accomplishment of which no visible means exist. Look at the state of the world, and see, how impracticable, humanly speaking, the idea is, of forming the whole race of mankind into one great society, who shall all acknowledge the Lord Jesus as their Supreme Head, and trust in him as their only Saviour, and serve him with their whole hearts, and enjoy and glorify him with their whole souls. Or look at any individual believer, and see his manifold corruptions, his innumerable temptations, his potent enemies: how can we conceive that he shall ever attain the Divine image, and triumph over all the powers of earth and hell? Yet we may see in the history before us, that God will never want means to effect his gracious purposes. He that raised up a Moses in the very court of Pharaoh, to deliver his people from Egyptian bondage; and foretold Cyrus even by name, three hundred years before he was born, as the destined Restorer of his people from their captivity in Babylon; and raised up Esther, in so astonishing a way, in the house of Ahasuerus, to save the whole Jewish nation from destruction; may safely be trusted to accomplish his own purposes in his own time and way. We have no occasion to inquire, How shall he do this or that? it is quite sufficient that he has promised: and it is our privilege to know, that what he has promised he is able also to perform; and that of all the good things which he has authorized us to expect, not one shall ever fail [Note: See Jos 23:14.] ]

3.

To enlarge our charity

[We are too apt to judge of things according as they appear to us, without considering how limited our views are, and how incompetent we are to judge aright. If we see not many who openly acknowledge God, we are ready to think the number of his worshippers much fewer than they really are. The Prophet Elijah erred in this respect: he thought that he stood alone in Israel, and that all besides himself were idolaters; whereas God informed him that there were no less than seven thousand men in Israel who had not bowed their knee to the image of Baal. And we, if we had lived at the time of our Lords crucifixion, should have concluded, that amongst the great council of the Jewish nation, who condemned him to death, there was not one who was not a decided enemy of the Lord Jesus. But the history shews, that there were two persons of great eminence amongst them, who were truly pious, though they had been restrained by fear from making a public profession of their sentiments. We must not be understood as intending to justify or excuse the fear of man; for it is certainly a great and heinous sin; and a man who is ashamed of Christ, and denies Christ now, has reason to fear that Christ will be ashamed of him, and deny him at the last day: but still it is comfortable to think that God has many hidden ones even amongst his most inveterate enemies, and many who will perhaps come forth at a future period with more boldness, and to more effect, than others who have made an open profession of his truth. I say again, We mean not to extenuate the guilt of cowardice; but still it is a fact, that many persons, whose cowardice we deplore, have opportunities of rendering services to God which they could never have rendered, if their profession of religion had been more avowed: and therefore, whilst we lament the weakness of the religious principle within them, we must neither judge them too severely, nor undervalue their real worth. We must make just allowance for those who are in high official stations, whose difficulties are thereby greatly increased. We must not despise the day of small things; but must rather bear with the infirmities of the weak; and rejoice in the hope, that they who are yet but babes in Christ, will, in Gods time, become men and warriors, and valiant for the truth. Many, like Paul, are training in the ranks of Christs enemies, who shall one day come forth as champions to fight and conquer in his cause.]

4.

To reconcile us to the thoughts of death

[Death is universally regarded as the king of terrors. Our nature revolts at the idea of being committed to the tomb. But why should we shudder at it, when we see the Lord of life and glory going down into the heart of the earth? Surely he has perfumed and sanctified the grave: and we may well be satisfied to be conformed to him in his death, when we have the blessed prospect of resembling him also in his resurrection. He indeed saw no corruption there; whereas we shall be devoured by worms, and return to our native dust: but then this will be only for a time; for we shall surely at the last day be raised again, and that which was sown in weakness, dishonour, and corruption, shall be raised in incorruption, power, and glory: yes, this mortal body shall be fashioned like unto Christs glorious body, and, together with our souls, be made partaker of everlasting felicity. All that we have to be concerned about, is, to be ready for the change; to seek an interest in that adorable Saviour who died for us, and to get an experimental knowledge of him in the power of his resurrection, that, being rendered conformable to his death, we may by any means attain the resurrection of the dead [Note: Php 3:10-11.].

We condemn not the respect shewn to departed friends, when we consign them to the grave. The pomp and splendour indeed of some funerals are an insult, rather than an honour, to the putrefying remains of one who is paying the penalty of sin: but a modest respect is due to that, which lately was a temple of the living God, and which shall ere long be restored, in perfect purity, to the full enjoyment of his presence. Yet we need not be solicitous about this: let us only be anxious, whether for ourselves or others, to fall asleep in Jesus; and then, whether honoured or not in our funeral rites, we shall be raised, through him, to endless felicity and glory.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. (39) And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound w eight.(40) Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. (41) Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. (42) There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

I do not think it necessary to enlarge on the circumstances relating to these honorable men. But in addition to what hath been offered by way of note in the history of it, as recorded by Mark and Luke; I would just observe, that the interment of the body of Christ became a most important service, both as it proved the reality of his death, and as it confirmed the types and prophecies concerning him. Isa 26:19 ; Psa 16:9-10 ; Mat 12:38-40 . And as the life of the Church in her recovery from the Adam-nature fall, ariseth out of the assurance, that Christ by his death had destroyed death; so the reality and certainty of it became a momentous article of the faith in Christ. It was necessary Christ should die, to do away sin and death by the sacrifice of himself. It was as necessary that he should be buried, that his humblings might be complete. The Lord had said by the spirit of prophecy a thousand years before; thou hast brought me into the dust of death. Psa 22:15 . And it was necessary, that though he died as one under the hands of justice, he should have an honorable funeral, and therefore, though his body was forfeited; yet to fulfil the seemingly contradictory prophecies, in which it was said, h e is taken from prison and from judgment, and cut off out of the land of the living; yet, contrary to all human probabilities, he should make his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; Isa 53:8-9 . these godly men, Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable counsellor, and Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, should arise to perform this office. And, as all these things were done by his death, his burial, and the honorable nature of it to fulfil those grand purposes; so his resurrection which followed, arose out of all those circumstances. Jesus must conquer death by his own death. He must go into the grave to subdue the power of the grave. And he must arise from the dead, in proof that he hath triumphed over both death and the grave in their own territories, and shewed the way to all his followers, how they are by virtue of their union with him, and communion in all that belongs to him, secured in all the blessings of his resurrection. So interesting an article of our holy faith, becomes therefore the certainty of Christ’s burial; and blessed be God, who hath made such ample provision in the scriptures to ascertain its reality.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

38 And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.

Ver. 38. A disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear ] A disciple he was, though a dastard. Infirmities, if disclaimed, discard us not. Uzziah ceased not to be a king, when he began to be a leper. Joshua the high priest, though ill clothed, yet stood before the angel,Zec 3:1Zec 3:1 ; Christ did not abhor his presence, nor reject his service. The Church calleth herself black, Son 1:5 , but Christ calls her fair, &c. In peace offerings they might offer leavened bread, to show that God will bear with his people’s infirmities.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

38 42. ] His Burial .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

38. ] not, ‘immediately after this’ but ‘soon after.’ The narrative implies, though it does not mention (as Mark and Luke do), that Joseph himself took down the Body from the cross. Lcke thinks the soldiers would have done this: but their duty seems only to have extended to the ascertaining of the fact of death. The of Joh 19:31 need not imply, ‘by their hands.’

It was customary to grant the bodies of executed persons to their friends. “Percussos sepeliri carnifex non vetat,” Quintil. Declam. vi.

On Joseph, and the other particulars, see notes on Matt.

to Golgotha.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 19:38-42 . The entombment .

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Joh 19:38 . , “But after these things”. In Joh 19:31 the Jews asked that the bodies might be removed. Had this request been fulfilled by the soldiers, they would have cast the three bodies together into some pit of refuse, cf. Jos 8:29 ; but before this was done Joseph of Arimathaea a place not yet certainly identified who was a rich man ( cf. Isa 53:9 ) and a member of the Sanhedrim (Mat 27:57 ; Mar 15:43 ; Luk 23:50 ), but also “a disciple of Jesus,” though “a hidden one, , through fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might remove the body of Jesus”. This required some courage on Joseph’s part, and Mark therefore uses the word . Reynolds says that “implies something of claim and confidence on his part. The Synoptists all three use , which rather denotes the position of a supplicant for a favour.” The reason, however, why is used in the Synoptists is that it is followed by an accusative of the object asked for; while is used in John because it introduces a request that something may be done. With Joseph’s request Pilate complied. . For , cf. 1Ki 13:29 . Another member of Sanhedrim countenanced and aided Joseph.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

John

JOSEPH AND NICODEMUS

Joh 19:38 – Joh 19:39 .

While Christ lived, these two men had been unfaithful to their convictions; but His death, which terrified and paralysed and scattered His avowed disciples, seems to have shamed and stung them into courage. They came now, when they must have known that it was too late, to lavish honour and tears on the corpse of the Master whom they had been too cowardly to acknowledge, whilst acknowledgment might yet have availed. How keen an arrow of self-condemnation must have pierced their hearts as they moved in their offices of love, which they thought that He could never know, round His dead corpse!

They were both members of the Sanhedrim; the same motives, no doubt, had withheld each of them from confessing Christ; the same impulses united them in this too late confession of discipleship. Nicodemus had had the conviction, at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, that He was at least a miraculously attested and God-sent Teacher. But the fear which made him steal to Jesus by night-the unenviable distinction which the Evangelist pitilessly reiterates at each mention of him-arrested his growth and kept him dumb when silence was treason. Joseph of Arimathea is described by two of the Evangelists as ‘a disciple’; by the other two as a devout Israelite, like Simeon and Anna, ‘waiting for the Kingdom of God.’ Luke informs us that he had not concurred in the condemnation of Jesus, but leads us to believe that his dissent had been merely silent. Perhaps he was more fully convinced than Nicodemus, and at the same time even more timid in avowing his convictions.

We may take these two contrite cowards as they try to atone for their unfaithfulness to their living Master by their ministrations to Him dead, as examples of secret disciples, and see here the causes, the misery, and the cure of such.

I. Let us look at them as illustrations of secret discipleship and its causes.

They were restrained from the avowal of the Messiahship of Jesus by fear. There is nothing in the organisation of society at this day to make any man afraid of avowing the ordinary kind of Christianity which satisfies the most of us; rather it is the proper thing with the bulk of us middle-class people, to say that in some sense or other we are Christians. But when it comes to a real avowal, a real carrying out of a true discipleship, there are as many and as formidable, though very different, impediments in the way to-day, from those which blocked the path of these two cowards in our text. In all regions of life it is hard to work out into practice any moral conviction whatever. How many of us are there who have beliefs about social and moral questions which we are ashamed to avow in certain companies for fear of the finger of ridicule being pointed at us? It is not only in the Church, and in reference to purely religious belief, that we find the curse of secret discipleship, but it is everywhere. Wherever there are moral questions which are yet the subject of controversy, and have not been enthroned with the hallelujahs of all men, you get people that carry their convictions shut up in their own breasts, and lock their lips in silence, when there is most need of frank avowal. The political, social, and moral conflicts of this day have their ‘secret disciples,’ who will only come out of their holes when the battle is over, and will then shout with the loudest.

But to turn to the more immediate subject before us, how many men and women, I wonder, are there who ought to be and are not, distinctly and openly united with the Christian community?

I do not mean to say-God forbid that I should-that connection with any existing church is the same as a connection with Jesus Christ, or that the neglect to be so associated is tantamount to secret discipleship; I know there are plenty of other ways of acknowledging Him than that, but I am quite sure that this is one department in which a large number of men, in all our congregations-and there are not a few in this congregation-need a very plain word of earnest remonstrance. It is one way of manifesting whose you are, that you should unite yourselves openly with those who belong to Him, and who try to serve Him. I do not dwell upon this matter, because I do not wish to be misunderstood, as if I supposed that union to a church is equivalent to union with Him; or that a connection with a church is the only, or even the principal way of making an open avowal of Christian principle; but I am certain that amongst us in this day there is a laxity in this matter which is doing harm both to the Church and to some of you. Therefore I say to you, dear friends, suffer the word of exhortation as to the duty of openly uniting yourselves with the Christian community.

But far higher and more important than that-do you ever say anyhow that you belong to Jesus Christ? In a society like ours, in which the influence of Christian morality affects a great many people who have no personal connection with Him, it is not always enough that the life should preach, because over a very large field of ordinary daily life the underground influence, so to speak, of Christian ethics has infiltrated and penetrated, so that many a tree bears a greener leaf because of the water that has found its way to it from the river, though it be planted far from its banks. Even those who are not Christians live outward lives largely regulated by Christian principle. The whole level of morality has been heaved up, as the coastline has sometimes been by hidden fires slowly working, by the imperceptible, gradual influence of the gospel.

So it needs sometimes that you should say ‘I am a Christian,’ as well as that you should live like one. Ask yourselves, dear friends! whether you have buttoned your greatcoat over your uniform that nobody may know whose soldier you are. Ask yourselves whether you have sometimes held your tongues because you knew that if you spoke people would find out where you came from and what country you belonged to. Ask yourselves, Have you ever accompanied the witness of your lives with the commentary of your confession? Did you ever, anywhere but in a church, stand up and say, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, my Lord’?

And then ask yourselves another question: Have you ever dared to be singular? We are all of us in this world often thrust into circumstances in which it is needful that we should say, ‘So do not I because of the fear of the Lord.’ Boys go to school; they used always to kneel down at their bedsides and say their prayers when they were at home. They do not like to do it with all those critical and cruel eyes-and there are no eyes more critical and more cruel than young eyes-fixed upon them, and so they give up prayer. A young man comes to Manchester, goes into a warehouse, pure of life, and with a tongue that has not blossomed into rank fruit of obscenity and blasphemy. And he hears, at the next desk there, words that first of all bring a blush to his cheek, and he is tempted into conduct that he knows to be a denial of his Master. And he covers up his principles, and goes with the tempters into the evil. I might sketch a dozen other cases, but I need not. In one form or other, we have all to go through the same ordeal. We have sometimes to dare to be in a minority of one, if we will not be untrue to our Master and to ourselves.

Now the reasons for this unfaithfulness to conviction and to Christ, are put by the Apostle here in a very blunt fashion-’For fear of the Jews.’ That is not what we say to ourselves; some of us say, ‘Oh! I have got beyond outward organisations. I find it enough to be united to Christ. The Christian communities are very imperfect. There is not any of them that I quite see eye to eye with. So I stand apart, contemplating all, and happy in my unsectarianism.’ Yes, I quite admit the faults, and suppose that as long as men think at all they will not find any Church which is entirely to their mind; and I rejoice to think that some day we shall all outgrow visible organisations-when we get there where the seer ‘saw no temple therein.’ Admitting all that, I also know that isolation is always weakness, and that if a man stand apart from the wholesome friction of his brethren, he will get to be a great diseased mass of oddities, of very little use either to himself, or to men, or to God. It is not a good thing, on the whole, that people should fight for their own hands, and the wisest thing any of us can do is, preserving our freedom of opinion, to link ourselves with some body of Christian people, and to find in them our shelter and our home.

But these two in our text were moved by ‘fear.’ They dreaded ridicule, the loss of position, the expulsion from Sanhedrim and synagogue, social ostracism, and all the armoury of offensive weapons which would have been used against them by their colleagues. So, ignobly they kept their thumb on their convictions, and the two of them sat dumb in the council when the scornful question was asked, ‘Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?’ when they ought to have started to their feet and said ‘Yes, we have!’ And when Nicodemus ventured a feeble remonstrance, which he carefully divested of all appearance of personal sympathy, and put upon the mere abstract ground of fair play-’Doth our law judge any man before it hear him?’-one contemptuous question was enough to reduce him to silence. ‘Art thou also of Galilee?’ was enough to cow him into dropping his timid plea for Him whom in his heart he believed to be the Messiah.

So with us, the fear of loss of position comes into play. I have heard of people who settled the congregation which they should honour by their presence from the consideration of the social advantages which it offered. I have heard of their saying, ‘Oh! we cannot attach ourselves to such and such a community; there is no society for the children.’ Then many of us are very much afraid of being laughed at. Ridicule, I think, to sensitive people in a generation like ours, is pretty nearly as bad as the old rack and the physical torments of martyrdom. We have all got so nervous and high-strung nowadays, and depend so much upon other people’s good opinion, that it is a dreadful thing to be ridiculed. Timid people do not come to the front and say what they believe, and take up unpopular causes, because they cannot bear to be pointed at and pelted with the abundant epithets of disparagement, which are always flung at earnest people who will not worship at the appointed shrines, and have sturdy convictions of their own.

Ridicule breaks no bones. It has no power if you make up your mind that it shall not have. Face it, and it will only be unpleasant for a moment at first. When a child goes into the sea to bathe, he is uncomfortable till his head has been fairly under water, and then after that he is all right. So it is with the ridicule which out-and-out Christian faithfulness may bring on us. It only hurts at the beginning, and people very soon get tired. Face your fears and they will pass away. It is not perhaps a good advice to give unconditionally, but it is a very good one in regard of all moral questions-always do what you are afraid to do. In nine cases out of ten it will be the right thing to do. If people would only discount ‘the fear of men which bringeth a snare’ by making up their minds to neglect it, there would be fewer ‘dumb dogs’ and ‘secret disciples’ haunting and weakening the Church of Christ.

II. I have spent too much time upon this part of my subject, and I must deal briefly with the following. Let me say a word about the illustrations that we have in this text of the miseries of this secret discipleship.

How much these two men lost-all those three years of communion with the Master; all His teaching, all the stimulus of His example, all the joy of fellowship with Him! They might have had a treasure in their memories that would have enriched them for all their days, and they had flung it all away because they were afraid of the curled lip of a long-bearded Pharisee or two.

And so it always is; the secret disciple diminishes his communion with his Master. It is the valleys which lay their bosoms open to the sun that rejoice in the light and warmth; the narrow clefts in the rocks that shut themselves grudgingly up against the light, are all dank and dark and dismal. And it is the men that come and avow their discipleship that will have the truest communion with their Lord. Any neglected duty puts a film between a man and his Saviour; any conscious neglect of duty piles up a wall between you and Christ. Be sure of this, that if from cowardly or from selfish regard to position and advantages, or any other motive, we stand apart from Him, and have our lips locked when we ought to speak, there will steal over our hearts a coldness, His face will be averted from us, and our eyes will not dare to seek, with the same confidence and joy, the light of His countenance.

What you lose by unfaithful wrapping of your convictions in a napkin and burying them in the ground is the joyful use of the convictions, the deeper hold of the truth by which you live, and before which you bow, and the true fellowship with the Master whom you acknowledge and confess. And when these men came for Christ’s corpse and bore it away, what a sharp pang went through their hearts! They woke at last to know what cowardly traitors they had been. If you are a disciple at all, and a secret one, you will awake to know what you have been doing, and the pang will be a sharp one. If you do not awake in this life, then the distance between you and your Lord will become greater and greater; if you do, then it will be a sad reflection that there are years of treason lying behind you. Nicodemus and Joseph had the veil torn away by the contemplation of their dead Master. You may have the veil torn away from your eyes by the sight of the throned Lord; and when you pass into the heavens may even there have some sharp pang of condemnation when you reflect how unfaithful you have been.

Blessed be His name! The assurance is firm that if a man be a disciple he shall be saved; but the warning is sure that if he be an unfaithful and a secret disciple there will be a life-long unfaithfulness to a beloved Master to be purged away ‘so as by fire.’

III. And so, lastly, let me point you to the cure.

These men learned to be ashamed of their cowardice, and their dumb lips learned to speak, and their shy, hidden love forced for itself a channel by which it could flow out into the light; because of Christ’s death. And in another fashion that same death and Cross are for us, too, the cure of all cowardice and selfish silence. The sight of Christ’s Cross makes the coward brave. It was no small piece of courage for Joseph to go to Pilate and avow his sympathy with a condemned criminal. The love must have been very true which was forced to speak by disaster and death. And to us the strongest motive for stiffening our vacillating timidity into an iron fortitude, and fortifying us strongly against the fear of what man can do to us, is to be found in gazing upon His dying love who met and conquered all evils and terrors for our sakes.

That Cross will kindle a love which will not rest concealed, but will be ‘like the ointment of the right hand which bewrayeth itself.’ I can fancy men to whom Christ is only what He was to Nicodemus at first, ‘a Teacher sent from God,’ occupying Nicodemus’ position of hidden belief in His teaching without feeling any need to avow themselves His followers; but if once into our souls there has come the constraining and the melting influence of that great and wondrous love which died for us, then, dear brethren, it is unnatural that we should be silent. If those ‘for whom Christ has died’ should hold their peace, ‘the stones would immediately cry out.’ That death, wondrous, mysterious, terrible, but radiant, and glorious with hope, with pardon, with holiness for us and for all the world-that death smites on the chords of our hearts, if I may so speak, and brings out music from them all. The love that died for me will force me to express my love, ‘Then shall the tongue of the dumb sing,’ and silence will be impossible.

The sight of the Cross not only leads to courage, and kindles a love which demands expression, but it impels to joyful surrender. Joseph gave a place in his own new tomb, where he hoped that one day his bones should be laid by the side of the Master against whom he had sinned-for he had no thought of a resurrection. Nicodemus brought a lavish, almost an extravagant, amount of costly spices, as if by honour to the dead he could atone for treason to the living. And both the one and the other teach us that if once we gain the true vision of that great and wondrous love that died on the Cross for us, then the natural language of the loving heart is-

‘Here, Lord! I give myself away; ‘Tis all that I can do.’

If following Him openly involves sacrifices, the sacrifices will be sweet, so long as our hearts look to His dying love. All love delights in expression, and most of all in expression by surrender of precious things, which are most precious because they give love materials which it may lay at the beloved’s feet. What are position, possessions, reputation, capacities, perils, losses, self, but the ‘sweet spices’ which we are blessed enough to be able to lay upon the altar which glorifies the Giver and the gift? The contemplation of Christ’s sacrifice-and that alone-will so overcome our natural selfishness as to make sacrifice for His dear sake most blessed.

I beseech you, then, look ever to Him dying on the Cross for each of us. It will kindle our courage, it will make our hearts glow with love, it will turn our silence into melody and music of praise; it will lead us to heights of consecration and joys of confession; and so it will bring us at last into the possession of that wondrous honour which He promised when He said, ‘He that confesseth Me before men, him will I also confess; and he that denieth Me before men, him will I also deny.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Joh 19:38-42

38After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away His body. 39Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. 40So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Joh 19:38-39 “Joseph. . .Nicodemus” These two wealthy, influential members of the Sanhedrin were secret disciples of Jesus who went public at this critical and dangerous time.

Joh 19:39 “bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight” This was the traditional aromatic burial spices of the Jewish people of the first century. The amount is somewhat extravagant; many see this as symbolic of Jesus being buried as a king (cf. 2Ch 16:14). See special topic on anointing at Joh 11:2.

The Greek word for “mixture” (migma), found in MSS P66, cf8 i2, A, D, L, and most of the church Fathers and versions, is surprisingly changed to “package” (eligma) in MSS *, B, W, and some Coptic versions. The UBS4 gives “mixture” a “B” rating (almost certain).

SPECIAL TOPIC: BURIAL SPICES

Joh 19:40 “So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices” The spices were for two purposes: (1) to kill the odor and (2) to hold the burial wrappings in place.

Joh 19:41 “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden” It is crucial that we understand the haste with which Joseph and Nicodemus worked. Jesus died at 3:00 p.m. and had to be in the grave by 6:00 p.m., which was the beginning of the Jewish Passover Sabbath.

“a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid” This is a periphrastic perfect passive participle. We learn from Mat 27:60 that this was Joseph’s own tomb. This is a fulfillment of Isa 53:9 quoted in Mat 27:57.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

this = these things.

of = from. Greek. apo. App-104.

Arimathsea. Probably Ramah, where Samuel was born. 1Sa 1:1, 1Sa 1:19. Called in the Septuagint Armathaim.

a disciple . . . but secretly. Matthew calls him “a rich man” (Joh 27:57); Mark, “an honourable counsellor” (Joh 15:43); Luke, “a good man and a just” (Joh 23:50). See on Joh 18:16.

for = because of. Greek. dia. App-104. Joh 19:2.

take away . . . took. Greek. airo. Same word as in verses: Joh 15:31.

gave him leave. Greek. epitrepo. Generally translated “suffer”. Mat 8:21, &c. Compare Act 21:39, Act 21:40.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

38-42.] His Burial.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 19:38-40. And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus.

Oh, how tenderly, and with how many tears, did they take their Lords body from the cross!

Joh 19:40-42. And wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews preparation day; for the sepulcher was nigh at hand.

Johns Gospel contains some particulars not mentioned by Mark; and the same may be said of Matthews account, and Lukes. Read them all when you are at home, and ponder the wonderful story. The apostle Paul, speaking of our Lords resurrection, mentions his burial. We will now read in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, just a few verses from the fifteenth chapter.

This exposition consisted of readings from Mar 15:34-47; Joh 19:38-42; John , 1 CORINTHIAN 5:1-9.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Joh 19:38. , moreover [but] after these things) Nothing was done in tumultuous haste.-, hidden [secretly]) So the LXX. Eze 12:6-7; Eze 12:12, (). Neither Joseph, nor Nicodemus, remained a hidden disciple: Joh 19:39.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 19:38

Joh 19:38

And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away his body.-It is singular that one who had failed to confess him while alive and manifesting his power should now do it when he was dead and all seemed lost. It is pretty sure that it was a modesty and shyness that shrank from publicity rather than a cowardly fear of the opposition it would have incurred. Persons moved by the personal timidity, rather by cowardice often when the issue can no longer be evaded, make the best and trusty friends of the truth. Joseph and Nicodemus both seem to be of this class. They shrank from prominence until all friends seemed to forsake, then they put themselves upon the side of truth and justice. So he took charge of the body so as to give it sepulture.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Love-impelled Services

Joh 19:38-42

In that supreme hour Christs secret disciples revealed their true heroism, and carried Him to the garden sepulcher. It had been written that the Messiah would make His grave with the rich, Isa 53:9; that prophecy seemed unlikely of fulfillment until Joseph and Nicodemus stood forth, in the darkest hour, as confessors of their faith and reverence. There are more friends of Christ in the world than we know of. They sit in our legislatures, our councils, and we meet them day by day as we go about our work. Although they give no outward sign of love or loyalty, they are forming secret resolves in their hearts, and the time will come when the fires of their love will burn the bushel that hides it, and they will avow themselves on the Lords side. Let us plead with such, however, not to waste these precious years. How much Joseph and Nicodemus missed of Christs inner fellowship by this long delay!

It was a royal burial. Love carried the body; sweet spices scented the air; a new-hewn grave received the precious treasure; and angels mounted guard. Remember that wherever the Cross of Jesus is erected, whether in the soul for the daily crucifixion of the flesh, or in the life by self-sacrifice for others, gardens will inevitably bloom.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Joseph: Mat 27:57-60, Mar 15:42-46, Luk 23:50

but: Joh 9:22, Joh 12:42, Pro 29:25, Phi 1:14

Reciprocal: Isa 53:9 – made Mar 15:45 – he gave Mar 15:46 – and took Luk 23:52 – General Joh 3:2 – came Joh 7:13 – spake Joh 12:7 – against Act 5:13 – of Act 13:29 – they took Act 17:34 – the Areopagite 1Co 1:26 – not many mighty 1Co 15:4 – that

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

FROM COWARDICE TO CONFESSION1

And after this Joseph of Arimatha, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that be might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night.

Joh 19:38-39

What a wonderful incident! Joseph of Arimatha and Nicomedusthey both desire to bury the Crucified after His death; what a strange meeting it must have been when they met at the foot of the Cross! They belonged to the same class, members of the Sanhedrim. But neither had ever told the other about the influence which Jesus had over him. While Nicodemus had gone by night and talked with Jesus, he had never told Joseph; and although Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, he had kept it secret. Then there came that strange meeting; each was conscious of an attraction, each was drawn to Calvary; and these old friends, who had never known what was going on in their hearts, met at the foot of the Cross. I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me. It was a very bold act of these men. Both belonged to the rich and cultured section of Jewish society, while Jesus of Nazareth was only a poor carpenter, and His followers nothing better than fishermen, mostly from despised Galilee. To stand out on the Christ side was to give a slap in the face to that exclusive section to which they belonged; moreover, the decree had gone forth that if anybody acknowledged the claims of Jesus as the Christ he should be cast out of the synagogue. Thus it meant both social and ecclesiastical excommunication, and also the forfeiting of all prospect of ambition. Yet up to the time that Christ died they had not true mens pluck, they were poor, miserable, pitiable people after all. Ah! but they cannot go on in this way. After all, there was a great deal that was noble about them. They had been brought to conviction; and the one who came to Him by night will have to come to Him by day, and the secret disciple must be an open disciple; because there is a great good God watching over them both, Who means to perfect the work that He has begun. Only, you know, it never gets easier to confess the Christ as you put it off, but it always gets harder. In this case, Joseph and Nicodemus came to confess the Christ just at the very time when He was despised and rejected of men; when to confess Him involved the greatest risk; they had to confess the Christ upon the Cross. The splendour of that courageous act takes away all power of our condemning their previous cowardice. And we can surely sympathise with them in their cowardice; neither you nor I can take a stone and fling at either Joseph or Nicodemus. For we ourselves have been great moral cowards. Yet the position of a man who has religion enough to feel that he ought to be a Christian, but not enough pluck to be one, is most desperate. These men found it so. They felt that life is not worth having, except under the conditions of self-respectfor it is a lie. They came face to face with that magnificent vision of obedience unto death, even the death of the Cross. From this position of compromising knowledge they had been wrought into the boldness of a magnificent confession.

I. Here is our lesson to-day.Make a distinct and definite act of confession of the Christ. How? Make your Easter communionthe Sacrament. The sacramentum was the oath the Roman soldier took to Csarto the King. Stand out, and take the oath of loyalty this coming Easter Day in sincerity. Do not take it, I implore you, in insincerity, do not make your Easter Communion if you do not mean it, or if you are merely constrained by external influence; for the love of God, do not communicate unless you mean it. Yes, but then you would not be here week by week, would you, if you meant to be like that? If you do not mean to be Christs, do not insult Him by taking His Sacrament, but if you donever mind how weak you are, come and breathe out the love in your Easter Communion; confess Christ.

II. Ah, but there are difficulties you have to get over, you say:

(1) The first difficulty is this, I dare not. Why? Because I am not going to insult the Christ; I am not going to make my Communion on Easter Day and then go back and live according to the world, the flesh, and the devil. I wont do that. Well, but which master are you to serve? Oh, I should like to be Christs, of course. I know that my life here would be happier, and that I should be saved from all kinds of perils, and that I should go on my way with a happier conscience, and when I came to die I should find Him with me. Then you are going to stand out for Christ? No. Why, why? Oh, I should be laughed at. Of course you will. You do not think you can serve Christ and not suffer for it? If any Man will be My disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me. I do not want to cheat you; the Cross always involves a certain amount of shame. But do you mean to say that you are going to live a moral coward? Because that is what it comes toI would be a Christian, if I dared. A coward cannot be a Christian; you can only be a Christian, you can only be righteous, by being brave. Have then the courage to follow Joseph and Nicodemus, have the courage to come out straight for the Christ, and take Him as your King.

(2) But you say there is another difficulty. It is not that I dare not, but I cannotI lack hope. I have known the most awful longings to be set free from sin, to follow after righteousness. I have resolved, and tried again and again and again, but the same result, and I have lost hope. Can you help me? Yes, I can. There is a living Christ with a Hand outstretched to help. Though, like Peter, thou art sinking in the waters of temptation, clutch that Hand, and He will hold thee up. He will safely lead thee through the battle. Thou mayest be wounded, but defeatednever! No one is finally defeated who has grasped the Hand of Christ. Though he fall he shall not be cast away, for the Lord upholdeth with His Hand. For every struggling sinner there is a message of hope; He will enable you to live a fighting life.

Remember, we have nothing to do with the victory. That is in His Hand. What we have to do is the fighting, and to die fighting is to die saved. We cannot command victory, but we can, God helping us, fight, fight to the end. Fight with our lower nature, with this evil world, against the forces of evil, under the blood-red banner of the Cross. Victory will come when and where He will. May God grant that we go each on his way open disciples of the Lord Jesus, fighting bravely without and within the battle of righteousness! If it be so, we shall know a gladsome meeting some daywhen the hurly-burlys done, when the battles fought and wonin that fair land where the victors meet for ever, and keep an eternal victors peace, and sing the victors song in the eternal Easter of the Resurrection Church.

Rev. Canon Body.

Illustration

That dread thing, the grave, is itself transfigured. Not only will it be grand, one wonderful day, to have done with it for ever, and to inhabit that great city which needs no cemetery, the heavenly Jerusalem; but even now, while the grave lasts, it is altered, it is transfigured, because in it the silent Lord, in the reality of His human death, lay down before us. I love to think of every Christian churchyard, every Christian grave, as linked spiritually to Josephs garden; a sort of extension of it, so that as it were the Lords sepulchrenow open to the eternal dayis always one among the sepulchres of His people.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

8

secretly for fear of the Jews means that his being a disciple had been kept secret up to this time. But he maintained that secrecy no longer, which he could not do if he performed the act he planned on doing in taking charge of the body of Jesus. The soldiers would not have permitted him to take the body, had he not been authorized to do so by Pilate, hence the record says that he “commanded the body to be delivered” (Mat 27:58).” And the open manner of Joseph’s actions is expressed in Mar 15:43, that he “went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.”

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

There is a peculiar interest attached to these five verses of Scripture. They introduce us to a stranger, of whom we never heard before. They bring in an old friend, whose name is known wherever the Bible is read. They describe the most important funeral that ever took place in this world. From each of these three points of interest we may learn a very profitable lesson.

We learn, for one thing, from these verses, that there are some true Christians in the world of whom very little is known. The case of Joseph of Arimatha teaches this very plainly. Here is a man named among the friends of Christ, whose very name we never find elsewhere in the New Testament, and whose history, both before and after this crisis, is completely withheld from the Church. He comes forward to do honor to Christ, when the Apostles had forsaken Him and fled. He cares for Him and delights to do Him service, even when dead,-not because of any miracle which he saw Him do, but out of free and gratuitous love. He does not hesitate to confess himself one of Christ’s friends, at a time when Jews and Romans alike had condemned Him as a malefactor, and put Him to death. Surely the man who could do such things must have had strong faith! Can we wonder that, wherever the Gospel is preached, throughout the whole world, this pious action of Joseph is told of as a memorial of him?

Let us hope and believe that there are many Christians in every age, who, like Joseph, are the Lord’s hidden servants, unknown to the Church and the world, but well known to God. Even in Elijah’s time there were seven thousand in Israel who had never bowed the knee to Baal, although the desponding prophet knew nothing of it. Perhaps, at this very day, there are saints in the back streets of some of our great towns, or in the lanes of some of our country parishes, who make no noise in the world, and yet love Christ and are loved by Him. Ill-health, or poverty, or the daily cares of some laborious calling, render it impossible for them to come forward in public; and so they live and die comparatively unknown. Yet the last day may show an astonished world that some of these very people, like Joseph, honored Christ as much as any on earth, and that their names were written in heaven. After all, it is special circumstances that bring to the surface special Christians. It is not them that make the greatest show in the Church, who are always found the fastest friends of Christ.

We learn, for another thing, from these verses, that there are some servants of Christ whose latter end is better than their beginning. The case of Nicodemus teaches that lesson very plainly. The only man who dared to help Joseph in his holy work of burying our Lord, was one who at first “came to Jesus by night,” and was nothing better than an ignorant inquirer after truth. At a later period in our Lord’s ministry we find this same Nicodemus coming forward with somewhat more boldness, and raising in the Council of the Pharisees the question, “Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?” (Joh 7:57.) Finally, we see him in the passage before us, ministering to our Lord’s dead body, and not ashamed to take an active part in giving to the despised Nazarene an honorable burial. How great the contrast between the man who timidly crept into the Lord’s lodging to ask a question, and the man who brought a hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes to anoint His dead body! Yet it was the same Nicodemus. How great may be a man’s growth in grace, and faith, and knowledge, and courage, in the short space of three years.

We shall do well to store up these things in our minds, and to remember the case of Nicodemus, in forming our estimate of other people’s religion. We must not condemn others as graceless and godless, because they do not see the whole truth at once, and only reach decided Christianity by slow degrees. The Holy Ghost always leads believers to the same foundation truths, and into the same highway to heaven. In these there is invariable uniformity. But the Holy Ghost does not always lead believers through the same experience, or at the same rate of speed. In this there is much diversity in His operations.

He that says conversion is a needless thing, and that an unconverted man may be saved, is undoubtedly under a strange delusion. But he that says that no one is converted except he becomes a full-blown and established Christian in a single day, is no less under a delusion. Let us not judge others rashly and hastily. Let us believe that a man’s beginnings in religion may be very small, and yet his latter end may greatly increase. Has a man real grace? Has he within him the genuine work of the Spirit? This is the grand question. If he has, we may safely hope that his grace will grow, and we should deal with him gently, and bear with him charitably, though at present he may be a mere babe in spiritual attainments. The life in a helpless infant is as real and true a thing as the life in a full-grown man: the difference is only one of degree. “Who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zec 4:10.) The very Christian who begins his religion with a timid night-visit, and an ignorant inquiry, may stand forward alone one day, and confess Christ boldly in the full light of the sun.

We learn, lastly, from these verses, that the burial of the dead is an act which God sanctions and approves. We need not doubt that this is part of the lesson which the passage before us was meant to convey to our minds. Of course, it supplies unanswerable evidence that our Lord really died, and afterwards really rose again; but it also teaches that, when the body of a Christian is dead, there is fitness in burying it with decent honor. It is not for nothing that the burials of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses are carefully recorded in holy writ. It is not for nothing that we are told that John the Baptist was laid in a tomb; and that “devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.” (Act 8:2.) It is not for nothing that we are told so particularly about the burial of Christ.

The true Christian need never be ashamed of regarding a funeral with peculiar reverence and solemnity. It is the body, which may be the instrument of committing the greatest sins, or of bringing the greatest glory to God. It is the body, which the eternal Son of God honored by dwelling in it for thirty and three years, and finally dying in our stead. It is the body, with which He rose again and ascended up into heaven. It is the body, in which He sits at the right hand of God, and represents us before the Father, as our Advocate and Priest. It is the body, which is now the temple of the Holy Ghost, while the believer lives. It is the body, which will rise again, when the last trumpet sounds, and, reunited to the soul, will live in heaven to all eternity. Surely, in the face of such facts as these, we never need suppose that reverence bestowed on the burial of the body is reverence thrown away.

Let us leave the subject with one word of caution. Let us take care that we do not regard a sumptuous funeral as an atonement for a life wasted in carelessness and sin. We may bury a man in the most expensive style, and spend hundreds of pounds in mourning. We may place over his grave a costly marble stone, and inscribe on it a flattering epitaph. But all this will not save our souls or his. The turning point at the last day will not be how we are buried, but whether we were “buried with Christ,” and repented and believed. (Rom 6:4.) Better a thousand times to die the death of the righteous, have a lowly grave and a pauper’s funeral, than to die graceless, and lie under a marble tomb!

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Notes-

v38.-[And after this Joseph of Arimatha.] This verse begins John’s account of our Lord’s burial. The manner of that burial was one of the things predicted by Isaiah (Isa 53:9), in a verse which is not correctly translated. It should be, “His grave was appointed with the wicked: but with the rich man was His tomb.” The details of His burial are carefully recorded by all the four Evangelists. Each of them names Joseph as the prime agent in the transaction, and, singularly enough, each mentions something that the other three Gospel-writers do not mention. Matthew alone says that he was “a rich man.” (Mat 27:51.) Mark alone says that he was “an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God.” (Mar 15:43.) Luke alone says that he was “a good man and a just,” who had “not consented to the counsel and deed of them, . . . who himself waited for the kingdom of God.” (Luk 23:50-51.) John alone says here, that he was “a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews.” It is another singular fact about Joseph, that we never hear a word about him in Scripture, except on this occasion of our Lord’s burial. Both before and after this interesting event, the Bible, for some wise reason, is entirely silent about him. Nor can we explain how an inhabitant of Arimatha happened to have a new tomb at Jerusalem. We must either suppose that, as a rich man, he had two residences, or else that, though born at Arimatha, he had lately removed to Jerusalem. The utmost we know is that the article in the Greek before “Joseph,” and before “of Arimatha,” seems to indicate that he was a person well known by history to the readers of John’s Gospel.

About the place whence Joseph came, “Arimatha,” nothing certain is known. Some think that it is Ramah, where Samuel dwelt. (1Sa 7:17.) The Septuagint Greek translator certainly calls Ramah “Armathaim,” which looks like it. Luke calls it a “city of Juda.” Nothing certain seems to be known about it.

[Being a disciple…secretly…Jews.] The Greek word rendered “secretly,” is literally “a concealed” disciple,-a past participle. The expression teaches the interesting fact that there were Jews who secretly believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and yet had not courage to confess Him before His crucifixion. We are distinctly told in Joh 12:42, that “many of the chief rulers believed, but did not confess Christ, because of the Pharisees.” But the character given of them, that “they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God,” is so condemnatory, that we may well doubt whether Joseph was one of these. Want of physical or moral courage was probably the flaw in his character. It is only fair to remember that, as “a rich man and a counsellor,” he had far more to sacrifice, and far more opposition to encounter, than poor fishermen or publicans would have. His backwardness to confess Christ cannot of course be defended. But his case teaches us that there is sometimes more spiritual work going on in men’s minds than appears. We must not set down every one as utterly graceless and godless, who is not bold and outspoken at present. We must charitably hope that there are some secret disciples, who at present hold their tongues and say nothing, and yet, like Joseph, will one day come forward, and be courageous witnesses for Christ. All is not gold that glitters, and all is not dross that now looks dirty and makes no show. We must be charitable and hope on.-His case should also teach us the great power of that mischievous principle, the fear of man. Open sin kills its thousands, but the fear of man its tens of thousands. Let us watch and pray against it. Faith is the grand secret of victory over it. Like Moses, we must ever live as those who “see Him that is invisible.” (Heb 11:27.) And to faith must be added the expulsive power of a new principle,-the fear of God. “I fear God,” said holy Col. Gardiner, “and there is none else that I need fear.”

[Besought Pilate…take…body…Jesus.] The conduct of Joseph deserves our praise and admiration, and his name will be held in honour by the Church of Christ, in consequence of it, as long as the world stands. Whatever Joseph was at first, he shone brightly at last. “The last are first” sometimes. Let us see what he did.

(a) Joseph honoured Christ, when our Lord’s own apostles had forsaken Him. He showed more faith and courage than His nearest and dearest friends.

(b) Joseph honoured Christ, when it was a dangerous thing to do Him honour. To come forward and avow respect for one condemned as a malefactor, for one cast out by the High Priests and leaders of the Jews,-to say practically, “I am Christ’s friend,” was bold indeed. Mark particularly says, “He went in boldly unto Pilate” (Mar 15:43), showing plainly that it was an act of uncommon courage.

(c) Joseph honoured Christ, when He was a lifeless corpse, and to all appearance could do nothing for him. It was not when Jesus was doing miracles and preaching wonderful sermons, but when there remained nothing of Him but a dead body, that he came forward and asked leave to bury Him.

Why Joseph’s “fear” departed, and he acted with such marvellous boldness now, is a question which we have no means of settling. But reason points out that in all probability he had been an eye-witness of much that had happened this eventful day. He had possibly stood within a short distance of the cross, and seen all that took place, and heard every one of our Lord’s seven sayings. The miraculous darkness for three hours, and the earthquake, must have arrested his attention. Surely it is not presumptuous to conjecture, that all this must have had a mighty effect on Joseph’s soul, and made him resolve at once to cast fear away, and avow himself openly one of Christ’s friends. It is almost certain that he must have been near the cross at three o’clock, when our Lord gave up the ghost, or else how could he have known of His death, and had time to think of burying Him?

After all it is a deep truth, that circumstances bring out character in an extraordinary way. Just as the developing liquid brings out of the dull grey glass in the photographer’s hands, a latent image which you never suspected before, so do circumstances bring out in some men a decision and power of character, which before you would have thought impossible.

Rollock remarks, “When Christ was working wonders, and speaking as never man spake, all this moved not Joseph to come forth and show himself. But now, Christ being dead and in shame, he comes out. Whereunto do I ascribe this? I ascribe it to the force that comes from the death of Christ. There was never a living man in the world that had such power as that dead body had. More mighty was His death than His life.”

[And Pilate gave him leave.] The entire absence of difficulties in Joseph’s way is, at first sight, rather remarkable. We may easily believe that Pilate was willing enough to grant Joseph’s request. He did not grant it till the centurion certified that Jesus was actually dead, and the ends of justice (so called) attained. Then at once he gave permission. It is fair to remember that he had regarded our Lord as guiltless all along, that if left to his own free will he would have released Him. It is probable, moreover, that he was vexed and annoyed at the obstinate pertinacity with which the Jews pressed for our Lord’s death against his wish, and that he would be glad enough to pay them off, and spite them, by gratifying any friend of our Lord. But we must also remember that to the burial of our Lord’s body the Jews themselves had no objection, and had even asked that the death of the criminals might be hastened and the dead bodies got out of the way. What they would have done with the body of our Lord, if Joseph had not come forward, we cannot certainly tell. Lightfoot says there was a common grave for the bodies of malefactors. In any case Joseph’s request was not likely to meet with objection either from Gentile or Jew. But, for all that, we must not forget that it made him a marked man, as a friend of Christ, and utterly ruined his character with Caiaphas and the high priests.

[He came therefore…took…body…Jesus.] The word rendered “took” here, is the same that is rendered “took away” just above.-Some think, as Tholuck and Ellicott, that the Roman soldiers took the body down from the cross. But I see no certain proof of this, and I think it unlikely they would take the trouble to do it, if others were willing to undertake the task. The meaning, in my opinion, is that Joseph came up to the cross, raised and lifted from it the lifeless corpse of our Lord and took it away for burial. Whether this was done by rearing a ladder against the cross, as Rubens’ famous picture represents, and so letting down the body after drawing out the nails; or whether by taking up the cross out of the hole in which it was fixed, laying it on the ground, and then taking out the nails, is a question which we have no means of deciding. To me it seems far more probable that the latter plan would be adopted than the former, and that as the cross was most likely reared up with the body on it, so it was taken down again with the body on it. But every reader must judge for himself.

In whatever way the body was taken down, or taken off the cross, everything seems to me to indicate that Joseph was the person who did it with his own hands. This is the more remarkable, when we consider that to touch a dead body made a Jew ceremonially unclean, and that this was the afternoon preceding the passover Sabbath. There seems, however, no reason why we should suppose that no one helped Joseph. He could hardly lift the cross, or reverently lift off the body of a full-grown person in the prime of life, without some aid. Why should we hesitate to believe that John and Nicodemus helped him?

It is a curious coincidence, though perhaps only a coincidence, that it was a “Joseph,” who probably first touched and received our Lord’s body when He was born into the world at Bethlehem, and again a “Joseph,” who was the last to hold, and lift, and handle the dead body of the same Lord, when He was buried.

v39.-[And there came also Nicodemus…night.] The fact here recorded is quite peculiar to John’s Gospel. For wise reasons, neither Matthew, Mark, nor Luke, ever mention the name of Nicodemus. John mentions him three times,-first as a secret inquirer (Joh 3:1-2); secondly, as a timid advocate of justice towards our Lord in the Jewish Council (Joh 7:50-51); and lastly, in this place. Both here and on the second occasion, he emphatically inserts the explanatory comment, that it was the same Nicodemus which “at first came to Jesus by night.”

The verse before us seems to show that Nicodemus came forward as a volunteer, and helped to bury our Lord, and did not shrink to take part with Joseph in his good work. I can hardly think that he went with Joseph to Pilate. There is not a word to show this in any of the four Gospels.

Some think that by agreement Nicodemus went to fetch the hundred pounds’ weight of spice (no slight burden to carry), while Joseph went to Pilate.

I should rather conjecture, that when Nicodemus saw Joseph coming boldly forward and showing anxiety to honour our Lord’s body,-Joseph, whom doubtless as a Pharisee and counsellor, he knew well,-his own heart was stirred within him, his own timidity fell to the ground, and he came forward and offered to aid. In so doing he deserves praise and honour, though in a lower degree, like Joseph. He showed more reverence and love to our Lord when dead, than he had ever done when alive. Once more we see that circumstances bring out character in very unexpected ways. The man that began seeking Jesus by night, at last confesses Jesus openly before the world, in the full light of day.

The case of Nicodemus is deeply instructive. It shows us how small and weak the beginning of true religion may be in the soul of man. It shows us that we must not despair of any one because he begins with a little timid, secret inquiry after Christ. It shows us that there are wide differences and varieties in the characters of believers. Some are brought into full light at once, and take up the cross without delay. Others attain light very slowly, and halt long between two opinions. It shows us that those who make the least display at first, sometimes shine brightest and come out best at last. Nicodemus confessed his love to Christ when Peter, James, and Andrew, had all run away. What need we have for patience and charity in forming an estimate of other people’s religion! There are more successors of Nicodemus in the Church of Christ than we are aware of. We may see some marvellous changes in some persons, if we live with them a few years. The strongest, hardiest trees, are often the slowest in growth. He that sets down men and women as graceless and godless, if they do not profess full assurance of hope the first day they take up religion and hear the Gospel, forgets the case of Nicodemus, and exhibits his own ignorance of the ways of the Spirit. All God’s elect are led to Christ, undoubtedly, but not all at the same speed, or through the same experience.

Calvin remarks on the conduct of Joseph and Nicodemus, “Here we have a striking proof that Christ’s death was more quickening than His life. So great was the efficacy of that sweet savour which the death of Christ conveyed to the minds of these two men, that it quickly extinguished all the passions of the flesh.”

Quesnel observes, “Wonderful is the power of Christ’s death, which gives courage to confess Him in His deepest humiliation, to those who, when He was doing miracles, came to Him only in secret.”

Henry observes that Joseph and Nicodemus showed weak faith, but strong love. “A firm faith in Christ’s resurrection would have saved them this cost and expense.” But they showed their deep love to our Lord’s person and teaching.

[And brought…myrrh..aloes…weight.] The mixture here mentioned was probably in the shape of powder. The two ingredients were strongly aromatic and antiseptic. The large quantity brought shows the wealth and the liberal mind of Nicodemus. It also shows his wise forethought. A dead body so torn and lacerated as that of our blessed Lord, would need an unusually large quantity of antiseptics or preservatives, to check the tendency to corruption which such a climate would cause, even at Easter. Considering also that everything must have been done with some haste, the large quantity of spices used was probably meant to compensate for the want of time to do the work slowly and carefully.

v40.-[Then took…body…wound…clothes…spices.] Here we are told the precise manner of the preparation of our Lord’s body for burial. As always in that time and country, He was not put into a coffin. He was simply wrapped up in linen cloths, on which the preparation of myrrh and aloes had been laid. Thus the powder would be next to our Lord’s body, and interpose between the linen and His skin. How the linen clothes were provided, we are told by Mark. Joseph “bought fine linen.” (Mar 15:46.) Joseph, being a rich man, had no difficulty in supplying funds for this purpose.

The word “wound” means literally “bound.”

The sentence before us supplies one more strong evidence of the reality of Christ’s death. Joseph and Nicodemus could not possibly be deceived. When they touched and handled the body, and wrapped it in linen clothes, they must have felt convinced that the heart had ceased to beat, and that life was extinct. There is no mistaking the feel of a dead body.

[As the manner…Jews…bury.] This is one of those occasional comments or explanatory remarks, which John sometimes makes in his Gospel, supplying strong internal evidence that he wrote for all the Church of Christ in every land, Gentiles as well as Jews, and that he thought it wise to explain Jewish customs. The reference appears to be to the wrapping of the body in linen, rather than to the use of the spices. Lazarus at Bethany came out of the grave wrapped around with cloths.

The wise foresight of the Spirit of God appears strongly in the details here given of our Lord’s burial. The quantity of spices used was so great, that it anticipates the objection that our Lord’s body might possibly “see corruption” in some degree before His resurrection. At the same time, the special mention of Joseph being “a rich man,” and Nicodemus “a ruler” helping him, completely stops the mouths of those who would have said that the followers of our Lord could never have found means to prevent the wounds of His body corrupting. By God’s superintending providence, inclining rich men to come forward, the difficulty was obviated, and the means provided.

Besser says, “Twice was Jesus Christ rich in the days of His poverty. Once, immediately after His birth, when the wise men from the East offered Him gold, and frankincense, and myrrh; and now, after His ignominious death, when a rich man buries him, and a distinguished man provides spices to anoint Him. Yea, a rich Joseph has taken the place of that poor Joseph who stood by the manger.”

v41.-[Now in the place…crucified…garden.] This verse tells us the place where our Lord was buried. It was in “a garden” close to the spot called Golgotha, where He was crucified. This fact alone seems to dispose of the theory, that the “place of a skull” meant a place where the skeletons and bones of executed criminals were lying about! Reason and common-sense point out, that, even if there were no argument against the theory from the Jewish customs about bones, it is very unlikely that “a garden” would have been near such a loathsome place. Golgotha could hardly be a place of execution, or a place where criminals were frequently crucified, if there was a garden near! The pictures that commonly represent the scene of the crucifixion as a bleak desolate-looking rocky hill. are manifestly quite incorrect. It was a place near to which, or where “there was a garden.”

The curious coincidence that the fall of the first Adam, the agony, the cross, and the sepulchre of the second Adam, were all alike connected with a garden, can hardly fail to strike a reflecting mind.

[And in the garden…new sepulchre…laid.] Here we have the very receptacle described in which our Lord’s sacred body was laid. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all tell us it was “hewn out of a rock,”-the limestone rock, which is the rock of the place. John tells us that it was “new;” and, like Luke, adds that “never man was laid in” it before.

It is curious that Matthew alone tells us that this tomb was Joseph’s own, “which he had hewn out of a rock.” (Mat 27:60.) Theophylact remarks, that it is a striking proof of our Lord’s poverty, that while He lived He had no house of His own, and when He died He was buried in another’s tomb.

It is almost needless to say that both the conditions of the sepulchre above mentioned are of great importance, and deserve careful notice. (a) Our Lord’s tomb was hewn out of a hard limestone rock. This made it clearly impossible for any one to say, that the disciples made a subterraneous entrance into the tomb by night, and stole the body away. By the entrance that it was carried into the sepulchre, by the same it must be carried out.-(b) Our Lord’s tomb was a new one, in which no one had ever been laid. This made it impossible for any one to say, after the resurrection, that there was no proof that Jesus rose from the dead, and that it might possibly be some one else. This could not be, when His body was the first and only body that was ever laid in this grave. Wonderful is it to see how at every turn the overruling wisdom of God has stopped, obviated, and frustrated, by wise provisions, the objections of infidels.

v42.-[Then laid they Jesus, etc.] In order to see the full meaning of this verse, we should slightly invert the order of the words, and paraphrase them in some such way as this:-“In this new rock-hewn tomb, therefore, Joseph and Nicodemus laid the body of Jesus, because it was conveniently nigh at hand, and because the Jews’ preparation day, or day preceding the passover sabbath, left them little time, and made it necessary to hasten their proceedings.”-We may well believe that these two holy men had but little time, when we consider that our Lord did not give up the ghost till three o’clock, that the day ended at six, and that only three hours were left for Joseph to go to Pilate and get leave to remove the body from the cross, for Joseph and Nicodemus to take the nails out and lift the body from the tree, for wrapping the body in linen with a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, and for finally carrying it to the tomb and rolling a huge stone to the mouth of the tomb.-When we remember, beside this, that the body of a full-grown man, wrapped in linen with a hundred pounds of additional weight in myrrh and aloes, would be a most awkward and difficult burden for two men to carry, we may well believe that nothing but severe exertion could have enabled Joseph and Nicodemus to finish their labour of love before six o’clock. The wonder is that they managed to do it at all. It certainly could not have been done if they had not got a sepulchre nigh at hand. Again the Holy Ghost appears to me to foresee the objection that there was not time to bury our Lord, and mercifully supplies the words which answer it: “the sepulchre was nigh at hand.” Even then we can hardly doubt that John and the women from Galilee must have lent some help. At all events it is distinctly recorded that the women were present, and that they were sitting by and beheld were the body was laid.

Thus ended the most wonderful funeral the sun ever shone upon. Such a death and such a burial,-so little understood by man and so important in the sight of God,-there never was, and never can be again. Who need doubt the love of Christ, when we consider the deep humiliation that Christ went through for our sakes! To tabernacle in our flesh at all, to die after the manner of a man, to allow His holy body to hang naked on a cross, to suffer it to be lifted, handled, carried like a lump of cold clay, and shut up in a dark, silent, solitary tomb,-this was indeed love that passeth knowledge. What true believer need fear the grave now? Solemn as is the thought of our last narrow bed, we must never forget that “it is the place where the Lord lay.” (Mat 28:6.) “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1Co 15:56.)

Henry observes, “Christ’s death should comfort us against the fear of death. The grave could not long keep Christ, and it shall not long keep us. It was a loathsome prison before, it is a perfumed bed now. He whose Head is in heaven, need not fear to put his feet into the grave.”

Every Bible reader knows that Isaiah’s famous prophecy contains the words, “He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death.” (Isa 53:9.) But not every one knows the interesting fact that the more correct translation of the Hebrew words would be, “His grave was appointed to be with the wicked; but with the rich man was His tomb.” This is the opinion of such eminent scholars as Capellus, Vitringa, Bishop Lowth, and Bishop Horsley.

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Joh 19:38. And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore and took away his body. It is easy to understand that Pilate should at once grant the permission asked. He had no interest in keeping the body; and by giving it up to disciples of Jesus he would have a fresh opportunity of at once doing despite to, and exasperating, the Jews. It seems not unlikely that in the fact that disciples receive the body of the Lord the Evangelist beholds a token of the care with which it was watched over by His Father in Heaven. Joseph, however, was not alone.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

This last paragraph of the chapter gives us an account of our Lord’s honourable burial: such a funeral as never was since graves were first digged.

Where observe, 1. Our Lord’s body must be begged before it could be buried, the dead bodies of malefactors being in the power and at the disposal of the judge: Pilate grants it; and accordingly the dead body is taken dead, wrapped in fine linen, and prepared for the sepulchre.

Observe, 2. The persons who bestowed this honourable burial upon Christ: Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus; the one provided fine linen, and the other fine spices, and they jointly wound and embalmed his body after the Jewish manner; both of them worthy, though close, disciples; grace doth not always make a public and open show where it is; but as there is much secret treasure unseen in the bowels of the earth, so is there much grace in the hearts of some saints, which the world takes little notice of. We read of none of the apostles at Christ’s funeral; fear had put them to flight; but Joseph and Nicodemus appeared boldly. If God strengthen the weak, and leave the strong to the prevalency of their own fears, the weak shall be as David, and the strong as tow.

Observe, 3. The grave or sepulchre in which our Lord was buried: it was a sepulchre in a garden, to expiate Adam’s sin committed in a garden: as by the sin of the first Adam we were driven out of paradise, the garden of pleasure; so by the sufferings of a second Adam, who lay buried in a garden, we may hope for entrance into the heavenly paradise. And it was in a new sepulchre, wherein never any man was laid, lest his adversaries should say, it was another that was risen, who was buried there before; or, that he arose, as one of the old prophets did, by touching the bones of some other dead person.

Observe, 4. The manner of our Lord’s funeral; it was hasty, public, and decent. It was hasty, by reason of the straitness of time; the sabbath was approaching, and all business is laid aside to prepare for that.

Teaching us, how much it is our duty to despatch our worldly business early on the eve of the Lord’s day; that we may be the better prepared to sanctify that day.

Again, our Lord’s funeral was public, and open; all persons that would, might be spectators, to cut off occasion from any to object, that there was deceit and fraud used in or about our Lord’s burial; yet was he also interred decently, his holy body being wrapt in fine linen, and perfumed with spices, according to the Jewish custom.

Observe, 5. The reasons why our Lord was thus buried, seeing he was to rise again in as short a time as other men lie by the walls: doubtless it was to declare the certainty of his death, and the reality of his resurrection, to fulfil the types and prophecies which went before of him; as Jonah being three days and three nights in the whale’s belly. He was also buried to complete his humiliation, this being the lowest state to which he could descend in his abased state. Finally, he went into the grave, that he might conquer death in its own territories.

Observe lastly, of what use our Lord’s burial is to us his followers. It shews us the amazing depth of his humiliations, from what and to what his love brought him, even from the bosom of his Father to the bosom of the grave. It may also comfort us against the fears of death; the grave could not long keep Christ, it shall not always keep us; it was a loathsome prison before, it is a perfumed bed now: he whose head is in heaven, need not fear to put his feet into the grave. Awake, and sing, thou that dwellest in the dust, for the enmity of the grave is slain by Christ.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Joh 19:38-39. Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly Because he durst not openly profess his faith in him; for fear of the Jews And their rulers, who were so strongly prejudiced against him. This man, acknowledging Christ even when his chosen disciples forsook him, besought Pilate that he might take away the body To preserve it from future insults, and to bury it in a decent and respectful manner. And Pilate gave him leave As soon as he was assured by the centurion who guarded the execution that Jesus was actually dead. He came, therefore Being thus authorized by Pilate; and took the body of Jesus That is, took it down from the cross, with proper assistance. And there came also Nicodemus Another member of the sanhedrim, of whom repeated mention has been made in the preceding narrative; who at the first At the beginning of Christs public ministry; came to Jesus by night See Joh 3:1-2; and being now grown more courageous than before, and to testify his great regard for Jesus, he brought with him a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight According to Josephus, great quantities of spices were wont to be used by the Jews for embalming a dead body, when they intended to show marks of respect to the deceased. Eighty pounds of spices were used at the funeral of Gamaliel the elder. See notes on Mat 27:57-60; Mar 15:42-46.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Vv. 38-40. After this Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, went and asked Pilate that they might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away the body of Jesus. 39. Nicodemus, who at the first came to Jesus by night, came also, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. 40. They took therefore the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, according as the Jews are accustomed to bury.

The request of the Jews, Joh 19:31, refers to the three condemned persons; but, as John has observed, the order of Pilate had only been executed with reference to two of them. Joseph then presents himself before him with an entirely new request, which applies to Jesus only. Baumlein : Sometimes, especially on occasion of a feast, the bodies of those crucified were given up to relatives. Philo in Flacc., 10. Mark relates that Pilate, on hearing this request, was astonished that Jesus was already deada fact which, according to Strauss, contradicts the permission which he had just given for the breaking of the legs. But this operation did not cause death immediately, as Strauss himself acknowledges; it served only to make it sure. Pilate therefore might be astonished that the death of Jesus was so speedily accomplished. Perhaps also his surprise was caused by the fact which was reported to him, that Jesus was dead even before the performing of this operation. For, as is also attested by Mar 15:44, he caused a detailed account of the way in which the things had taken place to be given him by the centurion who had taken charge of the crucifixion.

Arimathea probably denotes, not the city of Rama, two leagues north of Jerusalem, or the other Rama, now Ramleh, ten leagues north-west of the capital, near to Lydda, but Ramathaim (the noun, with the article represented by the syllable ar), in Ephraim, the birthplace of Samuel (1Sa 1:1).

In any case, Joseph was now settled at Jerusalem with his family, since he possessed here a burial-place, but only recently, because the sepulchre had not yet been used.

By mentioning Joseph and Nicodemus, John brings out, in the case of both, the contrast between their present boldness and the cautiousness of their previous conduct. That which, as it seemed, must completely dishearten themthe ignominious death of Jesuscauses the faith of these members of the Jewish aristocracy to break forth conspicuously, and delivers them from all human fear. No doubt, on seeing the Lord suspended on the cross, Nicodemus recalls to mind the type of the brazen serpent which Jesus had set before him at first (Joh 3:14). designates here, as in Joh 10:40, the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. If Nicodemus had been for John, as Reussseems to affirm, merely a fictitious type, how could he make him appear again here as a real and acting person, and this while expressly recalling the scene of ch. 3?

Myrrh is an odoriferous gum; aloes, a sweet-scented wood. After they had been pounded, there was made of them a mixture which was spread over the whole shroud in which the body was wrapped. Probably this cloth was cut into bandages to wrap the limbs separately. The words: As the Jews are accustomed, contrast this mode of embalming with that of the Egpytians, who removed the intestines and, by much longer and more complicated processes, secured the preservation of the corporeal covering.

The hundred pounds recall to mind the profusion with which Mary had poured the spikenard over the feet of Jesus, ch. 12; it is a truly royal homage. The Synoptics tell us that the holy women had the intention also, on their part, to complete this provisional embalming, but only after the Sabbath.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

19:38 {12} And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave [him] leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.

(12) Christ is openly buried, and in a famous place, Pilate permitting and allowing it, and buried by men who showed favour to Christ in doing this, men who had before that day never openly followed him: so that by his burial, no man can justly doubt either of his death, or resurrection.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

2. The burial of Jesus 19:38-42 (cf.Matt. 27:57-60; Mark 15:42-46; Luke 23:50-54)

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

All four evangelists mentioned Joseph of Arimathea but only with Jesus’ burial. The Synoptics tell us that he was a rich God-fearing member of the Sanhedrin who was a follower of Jesus and who had not voted to condemn Jesus. Only John identified him as a secret disciple who feared the Jews, namely, the unbelieving Jewish leaders. Jesus had warned His disciples about trying to hide their allegiance to Him (Joh 12:42-43). Finally Joseph came out publicly by courageously requesting Jesus’ body from Pilate.

Normally the Romans placed the bodies of crucified offenders, whose bodies they did not leave to rot on their crosses, in a cemetery for criminals outside the city. [Note: Josephus, Antiquities of . . ., 5:1:14.] Family members could not claim the bodies of people who had undergone crucifixion as punishment for sedition. [Note: Carson, The Gospel . . ., p. 629.] Thus Jesus’ corpse would have ended up in the grave of a common criminal but for Joseph’s intervention. Pilate probably granted his request for Jesus’ body because he realized that Joseph wanted to give Jesus an honorable burial. That would have humiliated the Jews further.

Joseph’s courageous act doubtless alienated him from many of his fellow Sanhedrin members. We do not know what the ultimate consequences of his action were for him. Evidently it was Jesus’ death that made him face up to his responsibility to take his stand for Jesus.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)