EASTER SUNDAY INTERLUDE

The Reasonable Evidence For Christ's Resurrection In His Graveclothes

(John 20:7-8 et al.)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

If ever we Christians needed to be sure that our faith was reasonably true, that Jesus Christ actually bodily arose from the dead, it would be this Easter Sunday:

(1) In an interview that Belinda Luscombe of Time conducted with atheist Barbara Ehrenreich, a Ph. D. in cellular immunology ("10 Questions," April 14, 2014, p. 64), Dr. Ehrenreich claimed she "was educated as a scientist" to assert that "'(i)f you have a result that doesn't fit your theory, that falls way off the curve in your graph -- I'm sorry, you don't get to erase that.'"

Yet, when Ms. Luscombe asked Dr. Ehrenreich if she would explore if the source of a mystical experience she has admitted having experienced "could be God," Dr. Ehrenreich asserted, "'I would not explore monotheistic religions,'" implying that the Christian faith is not defensible given how scientists like her are trained to think!

(2) Similarly, when Bill Nye, "the Science Guy," debated Ken Ham of the Creation Museum, Nye "repeatedly claimed that he was his own authority, 'as a reasonable man'" (Mike Matthews, "The Debate Has Changed," Answers, April-June, 2014, p. 31-32), and "mocked the idea of trusting a book [the Bible] written 'thousands of years ago,'" Ibid., p. 32. The implication? That it is unreasonable to trust the Bible's statements for our faith.

(3) This Easter Sunday, in light of the recent terrorist attacks in Belgium, with many becoming concerned over the threat of ISIS and the possibility of suddenly entering into eternity, we need to be sure about our faith, and thus about the reasonableness of Christ's resurrection upon which our Christian faith stands!

Need: So, this Easter Sunday, we ask, "Do we have reasonable evidence for the resurrection of Christ?!"

I. When John wrote his Gospel that others might trust in Christ to be saved (John 20:30-31), he and Jesus' other apostles had been opposed and persecuted for decades for their claims about the Christian faith:

A. John's Gospel was authored in 85-90 A. D. "when John was an old man," Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 268.

B. By then, both the apostles Peter and Paul had been martyred by the Roman emperor Nero for their Christian faith (Zon. Pict. Ency. Bib., v. Four, p. 706; Ryrie Study Bib., KJV, 1978, p. 1716, 1765) and many teachers were already opposing the apostles' claims (1 John 4:1; Ibid., B. K. C., N. T., p. 882), even denying that Jesus had come in the flesh (1 John 4:2-3) and thus denying His bodily resurrection, Ibid., Ryrie, p. 1770.

II. John had reflected for decades on the already written gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, so in writing his Gospel much later, he meant to clarify issues (Ibid., Zon. Pict. Ency. Bib., v. Three, p. 672), providing a great amount of information that is not found in the other three gospels, Ibid., B. K. C., N. T., p. 268.

III. Of UNIQUE significance is John's testimony of how he HIMSELF came to believe that Jesus arose from the dead SOLELY from viewing the PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of His GRAVECLOTHES, John 20:6-8.

IV. That testimony counters the critics of the apostolic faith in John's era as well as ours (as follows):

A. John 19:40 claims that Jesus' solid body was buried according to the Jewish customs in Israel in His era, and they are described by Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense, 1990, p. 225-226 who cites ancient secular Jewish historian Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 3.8.3 and A. P. Bender, "Beliefs, Rites and Customs of the Jews Connected with Death, Burial and Mourning," The Jewish Quarterly Review, 7 (1895), p. 261, as follows:

1. Seventy-five pounds of spices were used with the graveclothes that consisted of long strips of linen. They were mingled with a fragrant wood that was pounded to dust and called aloes along with gummy myrrh.

2. The body was first wrapped with the linen strips starting at the feet and going up to the armpits with the arms first spread up, and then the arms were put down and wrapped next to the body up to the neck.

3. A separate piece of clothing formed by the linen strips was wrapped around the head with the spices.

4. The final, cocoon-shaped encasement around the whole body and head weighed from 92 to 95 pounds.

B. McDowell (Ibid.) cited early fifth century Church Father John Chrysostom (Homilies of St. John, 1969 (reprint), p. 321; U. B. S., Grk. N. T., 1966, p. xxxi), who noted that the "'myrrh used was a drug which adheres so closely to the body that the graveclothes could not easily be removed.'"

C. The various Greek verbs used in the New Testament Gospels indicate that the way Jesus' graveclothes were left by those who buried Him had remained untouched even after Jesus' solid body went missing from them:

1. John 19:40 that describes Jesus' solid body as being buried uses the verb deo ("tie, bind, fasten," Abbott-Smith, A Man. Grk. Lex. of the N. T., 1968, p. 103) to describe its preparation for burial.

2. Matthew 27:59 and Luke 23:53 use the Greek verb entulisso ("wrap up, roll, coil about," Ibid., p. 157), to describe the actions of the winding of the linen strips around Jesus' solid body by those who buried Him.

3. Then, in John 20:7 when John reported that Jesus' solid body had gone missing from the tomb, he used the same verb entulisso that Matthew 27:59 and Luke 23:53 had used to describe how Jesus' body had initially been prepared for burial to describe how the body wrapping and the head were still situated, Ibid.

4. However, the verb form of entulisso in John 20:7 is written as entetuligmenon, a perfect passive participle (U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 407; The Analyt. Grk. Lex. (Zon.), 1972, p. 142), meaning the head piece was still permanently wrapped up in the cocoon-like shape it had when the body had first been wrapped.

5. Also, John claimed that the head piece was separate from the body wrapping undisturbed from the way they were when Jesus' solid body had been laid to rest in the tomb, John 20:7; Ibid., McDowell, p. 235.

D. This discovery led John reasonably to conclude that Jesus' solid body had risen from the dead (as follows):

1. There was no natural, physical way in John's era to have removed the solid body with its hard skeletal structure from the cocoon-shaped, gummy encasement of graveclothes without disturbing the encasement.

2. Psychologically, there was no motive for anyone but God to have removed the body from the encasement:

a. Jesus' disciples would not have stolen the body to claim that Jesus had risen as Messiah, for a crucified and dead Messiah was no true Messiah according to Jewish belief, cf. Luke 24:19-21.

b. Israel's leaders did not want the body removed, for they had set a seal and a watch to guard the tomb from having the body removed lest it be stolen and others claim that Jesus had risen, Matthew 27:62-66.

c. The soldiers who guarded the tomb would not allow the body to be stolen as they were ordered to guard it from being taken under threat of the punishment of death, Matthew 28:11-15; Ibid., McDowell, p. 234.

d. Only God would have been motivated to remove the body.

3. Since only God would want to remove the body, and since the solid body had miraculously gone through the graveclothes, from viewing the empty graveclothes, John reasonably concluded that Jesus had risen!

V. Lest we doubt the Gospel writers' truthfulness in their claims, the testimony by Harvard law professor, Simon Greenleaf indicates that the New Testament Gospel writers all believed that what they wrote was true, that John's words about Jesus' graveclothes then reasonably testify that He arose from the dead:

A. Simon Greenleaf along with Justice Joseph Story was responsible for the rise of Harvard Law School to its eminent position among America's legal schools, Ibid., McDowell, p. 217. For years, Professor Greenleaf lectured on breaking down testimony to determine if a witness was lying in court, Ibid., p. 239-240.

B. In his work, "An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice," 1965 (reprint, 1874), p. 29 as cited in McDowell, Ibid., p. 239-240, Mr. Greenleaf held: "'The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unflinching courage.'" The Gospel writers "'had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidence of the great facts and truths they asserted.'" Indeed, "'(i)t was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact.'" (Ibid.)

Lesson: Opposite claims in John's day that Jesus did not rise from the dead because He had not actually come in the flesh, after decades of thought, and knowing he did so at great, ongoing peril to his life, John truly testified that he came to believe that Jesus bodily had risen from the dead when he saw the cocoon-like encasement that had been wrapped around His solid dead body was miraculously empty of His solid body though the encasement of wound linen strips with gummy myrrh and aloes still lay right where it had in Jesus' burial!

Application: (1) May we believe the witness of John that Jesus arose from the dead, and therefore that He died for our sins, was buried and arose, that we might have eternal life, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 3:16. (2) May we like John use the testimony he and the other Gospel writers gave to testify to the world of their need to believe in Christ.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . .)

John's admission that after all of Jesus' years of teachings on His resurrection that he still did not understand from Scripture that He would rise from the dead is a great, humbling admission to make! Nevertheless, John made it, noting that he believed in the resurrection just from the physical evidence of the empty graveclothes, John 20:6-9.

This admission "strikes the perceptive reader as being psychologically and historically true," Ibid., Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 342. John was shocked by what he saw at the tomb, and he wanted his readers to know it as evidence of Christ's resurrection even if it came at the admission of his own past spiritual dullness! Jesus arose!