THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

John: Believing On The Christ, The Son Of God, For Eternal Life

Part XLV: Trusting In Christ For The Physical Evidence Of His Bodily Resurrection

(John 20:1-10)

I. Introduction

A. John's Gospel presents Jesus as the Son of God Who was full of grace and "truth," and the events surrounding His death, burial and resurrection reveal His truth in claiming to be the Son of God and Messiah.

B. We view the physical evidence of Jesus' bodily resurrection for our insight and edification (as follows):

II. Trusting In Christ For The Physical Evidence Of His Bodily Resurrection, John 20:1-10.

A. When John wrote his Gospel, he testified how he came to believe in Christ's resurrection in a manner aimed at enabling his readers to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and Messiah that they might be saved, Jn. 20:31.

B. John thus wrote that he believed Christ had risen before he knew the Scriptures on it (John 20:8-9), convinced by the physical evidence alone, a claim of great significance to his readers who have not seen the risen Lord!

C. We thus examine John's testimony in John 20:1-10 (with 19:31-35, 39-40) to discover what led him to believe Christ had risen from the dead based only on the physical evidence at the empty tomb (as follows):

1. It is important to note that John had seen the piercing of the side of Jesus' deceased body as opposed to the breaking of His leg bones by the soldiers as Jesus had unquestionably already died, John 19:31-35.

2. It is also important to note that John reported Jesus' dead body was "bound" (deo, Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 176-177) with "linen cloths" (plural, othoniois, from othonion, Ibid., p. 558; U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 407) with myrrh and aloes "as the manner of the Jews is to bury," John 19:39-40 KJV. The Jewish burial customs then involved wrapping the body in mummy-like form with strips of linen starting at the feet and moving up to the neck mixed with the gummy substance of myrrh and the fragrant sawdust of aloes, with the head being similarly wrapped separate from the body, Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense, 1991, p. 225. Thus, Jesus' graveclothes did not consist of a single piece of linen like a shroud, but strips of linen cloths wound around the body to form a sticky casement adhering closely to the body that would have been very hard for anybody to remove, Ibid., p. 226.

3. Then, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb while it was so early that it was still dark, and she saw the stone rolled away from the tomb opening, John 20:1. She quickly ran to Simon Peter and an unnamed disciple that scholars assert is John, the author of this Gospel, who politely omits his name here, to claim that parties had transported Jesus' body to some other undisclosed location, John 20:2.

4. Upon hearing her report, Peter and John immediately ran toward the tomb, with John outrunning Peter but stopping short of entering the tomb so as not ceremonially to defile himself while Peter came up from behind John and immediately went past him, entering the tomb, John 20:4-6.

5. John then quickly decided to enter the tomb to join Peter in witnessing what was in the tomb, John 20:8a.

6. What the two men saw was the gummy head wrapping not lying with the gummy body wrapping, but apart from it, and lying "still having been" entetuligmenon (perfect passive participle, The Analy. Grk. Lex., 1972, p. 142) by itself, John 20:7; Ibid., U. B. S. Grk. N. T. This verb is from the root entulisso, "wrap (up); fold up" (Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 269) that is also used of "fettering prisoners, swathing children hand and foot, holding people fast in a net," etc., Moulton & Milligan, The Vocab. of the Grk. N. T., 1972, p. 219. In other words, Peter and John saw Jesus' sticky head wrapping still lying wrapped up in the same mummy-like shape it had when His head had initially been wrapped in it, but without the head, and the sticky body mummy-like wrapping lying where it had been wrapped about His body, but minus the body!

7. John concluded that Jesus' body must have left the scene by passing through the sticky graveclothes without disturbing them, itself a miracle, so he believed He had risen from the dead to achieve such a feat!

8. So, based on his having already seen the undeniable evidence that Jesus had died on the cross, and based on the following physical evidence of His empty graveclothes, John believed Jesus had risen, John 20:8b.

Lesson: From the physical evidence alone, (a) seen in the piercing of Jesus' side versus the breaking of His bones on the cross to prove He had died, and then (b) seen in the way Jesus' sticky graveclothes lay the first day of the week still wrapped up and undisturbed from where they had been with Jesus' body in them, but now minus that body, John believed that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead before he knew of its prediction in the Scriptures.

Application: May we believe Jesus rose from the dead even from John's testimony of the physical evidence alone.