Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20060806.htm

JOHN: TRUSTING JESUS AS MESSIAH AND GOD
Part XLIII: Christianity's Validity Seen In Christ's Death On The Cross
(John 19:17-37)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

Various views today either deny the New Testament's record of Jesus' death on the cross, or claim that death meant He was not God as His life was subject to being forcefully, cruelly ended by other parties:

(1) Tyler Roberts, Lecturer and Head Tutor of Religion at Harvard University said: "A lot of my students express questions about the troubled Jesus near the end of his life, when he felt he was being forsaken by God [Matthew 27:46 on the cross]. To some, this means he couldn't be the Son of God, because why would he, God, do that?" ("Who Was Jesus?", by J. Simon, Life, 12/94, p. 79, 76, brackets ours) (2) Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University claimed: "Islam does not accept that he [Jesus] was crucified, died . . . he was taken to heaven without dying, without suffering the pain of death." (Ibid., p. 80, 72)

(3) As we have often noted in this sermon series, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code holds that Jesus escaped death on the cross and went to France to live out a long life with wife Mary Magdalene and their offspring (Darrell L. Bock, Breaking The Da Vinci Code, p. 4-5).

(4) Taking The Da Vinci Code a step further, on August 2, 2006, Diane Sawyer on ABC's national morning news show interviewed Kathleen McGowan, author of the new book, The Expected One as McGowan claims she must be a descendant of Mary Magdalene and Jesus since she has had visions of Mary Magdalene!

(5) Indeed, many authors have claimed Jesus could not have been impaled with nails to a cross as the New Testament teaches, for a long time there was practically no evidence that people were executed that way. For this reason, Dr. J. W. Hewitt, in his Harvard Theological Review article of "The Use of Nails in the Crucifixion" suggested "the victim's hands and feet were bound by ropes to the cross"! (cited in Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense, p. 223)

(6) Jon Murray, President of American Atheists, claimed Jesus was never an historical Person, that the whole Gospel record about His crucifixion and death was a myth. (Ibid., p. 68)!

One may then ask, "DID Jesus exist and die impaled with nails on the cross as the Gospels claim? IF this HAPPENED, how can we KNOW He could STILL be GOD and suffer such cruel mistreatment and death at the hands of OTHER people?!"

(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "DID Jesus EXIST and DIE IMPALED with NAILS to a cross as the Gospels claim? If SO, how could He be GOD and still suffer such a horrible event at the HANDS of OTHER PEOPLE?!"
  1. As we before noted, IMPARTIAL ANCIENT PAGAN testimony exists that Christ died impaled on a cross in the reign of Tiberius:
    1. The pagan historian, Tacitus, in Roman Annals, xv. 44 (circa. A. D. 117), in writing against Christians, claiming they were "'a class of men loathed for their vices,'" yet confirmed the fact that "'They got their name from Christ, who was executed by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.'" (F. F. Bruce, Jesus And Christian Origins Outside the N. T. , p. 22, emphases ours)
    2. Justin Martyr's Defense of Christianity (A. D. 150) written to Rome's Emperor Antonius Pius on Christ's death, in First Apology, 35. 7-9 asserted: " . . . nails . . . were fixed in Jesus' hands and feet on the cross . . . That these things happened you may learn from the 'Acts' which were recorded under Pontius Pilate." (Ibid., p. 19) Martyr's pointing the Emperor to a work this ruler could check to verify these claims shows the "Acts" of Pilate did exist and did state these things!
  2. Also, archaeological evidence has revealed that people were crucified in Christ's era as the New Testament record claimed:
    1. In June of 1968, Archaeologist V. Tzaferis under the direction of the Israeli Department of Antiquities and Museums, discovered just north of Jerusalem and near Mount Scopis the body of a crucified victim. (cf. N. Haas, "Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains >From Giv' at ha-Mivtar," Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970), p. 39 as cited in McDowell, Ibid., p. 223)
    2. In support of John 19:32, the article reporting on this find held: "Both the heel bones were found transfixed by a large iron nail. The shins were found intentionally broken. Death caused by crucifixion." (Ibid.)
  3. Then, John's Gospel in light of medical science shows Jesus did NOT die by the CRUCIFIXION WOUNDS inflicted by OTHERS, but by an ACT of GOD as He HIMSELF had before PREDICTED :
    1. Dr. Truman Davis, M. D., in "The Crucifixion of Jesus" in the March, 1965 issue of Arizona Medicine, p. 186 as cited in McDowell, Ibid., p. 224 claimed the piercing of Christ's side in John 19:34 that yielded "blood and water" proves Jesus did not die by crucifixion wounds!
    2. Rather, in Dr. Davis' own words, " . . . there was 'an escape of watery fluid from the sac surrounding the heart. We, therefore, have rather conclusive post-mortem evidence that [Christ] died, not the usual crucifixion death by suffocation, but of heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium.'" (Ibid.)
    3. This all fulfilled Christ's John 10:17-18 prediction that no man would take His life from Him, but that He would lay it down of Himself!
    4. This witness of Jesus harmonizes with other events in John's record:
      1. John 19:30 claims Jesus spoke His last words right before dying with His head erect, so He then had ample oxygen to be fully alert!
      2. Having spoken these words, Jesus immediately bowed His head and died, clearly not of suffocation caused by crucifixion, 19:30!
      3. When the soldiers came to break Jesus' legs and hasten death by suffocation, they saw He was already gone, and proved it, piercing His side to yield clear post-mortem fluid and blood, Jn. 19:32-35!
  4. Other events show Jesus was God and Messiah on the cross:
    1. The events of the cross fulfilled Scripture in several key ways:
      1. The soldiers cast lots for Jesus' knitted outer garment and divided His other clothes as Psa. 22:18 predicted, Jn. 19:23-24.
      2. Jesus said He thirsted to instigate His reception of vinegar as Psa. 69:21 predicted so He could die soon after, John 19:28-30.
      3. His legs were not broken as He was already dead in fulfillment of Exodus 12:46 and Psalm 34:20 as God's Passover Lamb for man's sins, John 19:31-36 with 1 Corinthians 5:7b.
      4. Then, in the piercing of Jesus' side, Zech. 12:10 was fulfilled, so Jesus is Israel's God, John 19:33-34, 37 with Zech. 12:9-10!
      5. Jesus' respectful address to His mother from the cross as "Woman" followed by His assigning her to John's care (Jn.19:25-27) was a remarkably gracious act in view of the harsh treatment to which He had been subjected and His physical, mental, emotional and spiritual agony at the time, Jn. 19:1-3, 17-18; He was empowered by God's Spirit (Heb. 9:14) as the Spirit-filled Messiah, Isa. 11:1-2.
Application: As Christ's death was a REAL, SUPERNATURAL event, may we (1) trust in His work on the cross for salvation (John 3:16; Romans 3:23-26) to receive eternal life and (2) live by the power of the Holy Spirit as He did in His death, Phil. 3:8-11.

Lesson: The FACT that CHRIST DIED on the CROSS is verified not only by ANCIENT PAGAN sources OUTSIDE the Christian faith, but the record of John's Gospel in light of medical science, Old Testament prophecy and Jesus' OWN PREDICTION of His death shows He died on that cross SUPERNATURALLY! He IS the Son of God and Messiah!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )



The testimony of reputable scholars regarding the truthfulness of the New Testament record on Christ's death is edifying in a sermon like this. We include just two of them as follows:

(1) Roman history scholar, Professor Thomas Arnold, for 14 years headmaster of Rugby, author of a three-volume History of Rome and holder of the chair of modern history at Oxford University, wrote:

"'I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.'" (Thomas Arnold, Sermons on the Christian Life -- Its Hopes, Its Fears, and Its Close , p. 324.

(2) C. S. Lewis, former professor of Medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge University, began as a scholar believing that the Christian faith was historically unsupportable.

However, in 1926, he wrote that he sat in his room on the other side of a fireplace from "'the hardest boiled of all atheists I ever knew'" and that this atheist "'remarked that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was really surprisingly good. 'Rum thing,' he went on. 'All that stuff of Frazer's about the Dying God. Rum thing, It almost looks as it had really happened once.'"

Lewis continued, writing: "'If he, the cynic of cynics, the toughest of the toughs, were not -- as I would still have put it -- 'safe,' where could I turn? Was there no escape?'"

"'That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.'" (C. S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (1955), p. 211, 215, 223 as cited in McDowell, Ibid., p. 217-218)



Christ was truly crucified, His hands and feet being impaled to a cross, and He died there SUPERNATURALLY for our sins! May we trust in Him for salvation and live for Him in His power!