(12) The resurrection of Christ Part II
Vern Peterman · Jan 1, 2006
Apologetics, No. 13
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826234046649

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today we'll finish up part two of the Resurrection of Christ. There was a handout that was made available a couple months back. Hopefully you've got that with you. If you don't, let me know. I'll see if you can get a copy, but I think there should be adequate copies out there. Archaeology in the Old Testament is one we're starting. We began having those handouts available as well. If you don't, let me know. I think we've got some extras underneath. Archaeology of the New Testament follows and those have likewise been made available a handout like you see there.

Next we'll be looking at the Da Vinci Code. Anybody read that? Okay, Nancy and I have read it. Anybody else? It's coming out, I think May 19th is the date, a major film. It's got Tom Hanks as one of the actors. Let's see, Howard, what's the guys? Ron Howard. Ron Howard is the director. Anyway, so it's got some big names behind it.

The Da Vinci Code is a book, just to clue you in, that it is written as a piece of fiction, but at the outset in the preface says that all the historical claims are fact. Well, it claims things like, you know, nobody said that Jesus was deity until 325 AD. It makes a bunch of other claims. It largely attacks the Catholic Church, although there are things that are contrary to just plain biblical faith as well. It says that Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene, and that they had offspring. It says that Originally, the message was about God being both male and female, all sorts of things, and claims that all the differences from those things that are claimed in the book are cover-ups. They're church history cover-ups that they covered up that Mary Magdalene was actually considered an apostle, but the other apostles were jealous. So lots of different things that are in this book. the Da Vinci Code, and it'll come out major.

I had some statistics about the country of Canada, but something like a third of the people who read the book actually believed in the historical statement. So it's not like people are just dismissing it as fiction. Okay, and then finally, Dr. Luke, historian or storyteller. So we'll take one Sunday look at that as well. Questions so far? Or is it all baffling? Yes? No? Okay. Okay. You did get a handout. Okay. All right. That won't answer every question, but it might help.

We pointed out two weeks ago that as we look at the question of the resurrection, we kind of have to keep a mental context. As the apostles began proclaiming, and we see this in the early chapters of Acts, as the apostles began proclaiming the things that they did, and we see throughout the New Testament, they did so in the early years in the immediate context of lots of evidence and lots of eyewitnesses, and basically almost all that evidence right within this circle that you see within about less than a mile of the temple. You could stand in the temple, and as the Apostles did, and claim, we are witnesses, you are witnesses of these things, and they could claim that, and if anybody disputed anything, let's take a little walk. We could go from here, where the temple was, we could go over here, where the Last Supper was.

You want to go see the room? I'll show you. You doubt that this is what happened the night before? I'll take you to the place. I'll take you to the other people that were there. You can talk to them. Over here he was crucified and it says nearby he was buried. So all within this area over here to one side. Just take a little walk. You dispute any of it, take a walk.

So all these things were evident within an easy walk. of the temple. And finally, where Jesus spoke to them in the week before he was crucified, and where Jesus ascended weeks after he was crucified and resurrected. All these events took place in a close circle. And by the way, just so that you know, they could even do it on a Sabbath, because from the temple to each of those places is a Sabbath day's journey. So even a legal Jew could take a little walk from the temple on a Sabbath and be still within the law. Take a little stroll with me if you doubt any of it. We can verify anything you like.

The courtyard of what was thought to have been Caiaphas' house. This is the courtyard where Peter, and by the way, the identity here is not absolute, but it's pretty good. you're looking through the front gate into the courtyard where Peter was warming his hands and said, I don't even know him. Here's the steps up. It is recorded that John got Peter into this courtyard because John, as we see throughout the Gospel of John, has connections with the Sanhedrin and he records things that the other Gospels do not. So John got him in because John had those connections. Here's Caiaphas' ossuary. And this is, even by those who don't believe the gospel accounts, spiritually speaking, will affirm that this is the case. All the information points to this being indeed Caiaphas' ossuary box, his bone box.

Pontius Pilate coin, up in the upper left. Pontius Pilate inscription, upper right. Cornelius Tacitus coin, because Cornelius Tacitus is one of those who made claims about Jesus and what had happened there that day, a Roman historian, the writings of Josephus. Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus both wrote about Pilate.

Here is a model of the temple area on the north side and the Fortress Antonia. That would be the fortress where Pilate interrogated and pronounced sentence on Jesus. And the location of that's quite well-established and well-known, no question about it. In Jesus' day, they could sit there in the temple and point over to the fortress and say, that's the building where Pilate condemned him. And by the way, moving the Roman soldiers into that fortress was Pilate's doing.

The Jews didn't like it. Because here's Roman soldiers up on top of the towers looking over the Jewish temple. Here is the pavement at the Fortress Antonia. Pontius Pilate was a governor from 26 to 36 AD. During that governorship early, he moved Roman soldiers, a thousand normally, into the fortress. He ruled at Antonia Fortress, which is located right next to the temple as we saw. Pilate for a while said, I want to get this hot potato out of my hands.

Good morning. I want to get this hot, so he sent him over to Herod Antipas. We know exactly what Herod Antipas' relationship was with Herod the Great. We have lots of evidence and information. There are whole books on the guy, okay? So it's not like we're talking about somebody that just made up. Or, gee, I wonder if there was such a guy, okay? We know a lot about the fellow. He's referenced multiple times in the New Testament. They flogged him severely when they flogged Jesus, and we know exactly what that was like. The Romans wrote about it substantially.

Here is an ossuary found in Jerusalem. Again, this is a bone box dating from the first century. Yoho Hanan, the son of Hagakal. And here is the bone inside with a spike in the bone. Interesting, out of multiple written records of crucifixions throughout the Roman Empire. This is the only evidence that we have of a crucifixion.

And it is from the first century, the same century in which Christ lived and died. And it was found in Jerusalem. When Nancy and I were in high school, they were doing a construction project and dug into this thing. And lo and behold, there it is. So you're saying, okay, where have I got some good evidence that they actually did crucify people in addition to what's recorded? Well, it's found right in the same time period in the same city where Jesus was crucified. Let me ask you, why would it be so rare to find evidence like this? Evidence of somebody having been crucified.

What did they do with the bodies? Typically just dumped them. They'd leave them on the cross for days. Matter of fact, the more they left them on the cross, the more putrid it got and disgusting, the Romans loved it all the better. They said, it's like, to our thought thinking it would be like a billboard because it looked awful. And they just leave them up there to rot. And of course the Jews wanted them down because it was disgusting and it'd violate their law, but they didn't care.

And guess what else? That's the heel bone. Guess how they found the leg bones? Broken. Yeah. Just like you see in the scripture. So if you're looking for relevant evidence, does this fit the facts? Most certainly does. As a matter of fact, it almost marvelously fits the facts. Uniquely fits the facts. Okay.

We know a lot about Roman soldiers who were the ones directly responsible for crucifying Christ and guarding the tomb. There were some Roman soldiers here in this drawing, and by the way, the sitting down wouldn't have been allowed, so the artist missed that little historical point. Roman soldiers guarded the tomb, and we know a lot about how they guarded the tomb. The New Testament uses a unique word, and we have brought it into our language in an unusual way, a custodian. We think of it as somebody like a janitor. This is a guard, someone who is responsible to stay there and take care of things and see to it that the seal is not broken at the tomb. We know a lot about the Antonia Fortress.

As a matter of fact, we know that the Roman soldiers played games. Remember that they gambled for Jesus' clothing? This is Roman dice from the first century found in Jerusalem. This, which is part of the drawing I showed earlier of the floor, a little hard to see perhaps here, but you might see a little scratchings on the floor. It's where the Roman soldiers played games on the floor. They'd scratch in little kind of game boards on the floor. And that's the floor that Jesus was interrogated upon and given the sentence of death.

We know a lot about the tombs. So there's plenty of tombs around there. Here's one example. And what do you see? There's a step down. And do you see a little bit of something down there? The stone that's down there, partly rolled out of the way. Here's the inside of another tomb. And what do you see off to the right side? The stone. Here's one. This is Herod's family tomb. And this is looking from the top. See the round stone?

By the way, the more wealthy the family, the larger the stone. And that's why Joseph of Arimathea, was he wealthy? Yeah, Joseph of Arimathea was wealthy, and that's why the gospels record that the stone over the tomb was extremely large. And by the way, let me back up, this photo, or this artist's rendering is mistaken from that standpoint, because it was an extremely large stone, not a small one, that a lady would stoop down. Yes, we're talking about a very large one.

So anyway, there's the Herod family tomb. This one is the one that's believed to be Lazarus' tomb. The one that Jesus said, Lazarus come forth. And so that's just off to the east. And this is another view of the Herod's tomb. You see the top view, this is kind of a side view. So you can see that. Here's another one.

Lots of these tombs, so it's not like they said, well, they laid them in a tomb and there was a stone and nobody can go back and say, yeah, but they didn't use round stones. They just saw a bunch of pictures of them, you know. Somebody who wants to complain that, you know, this is out of cultural context has got no basis for doing so. Lots to work with.

Now, why don't you grab your handout here. Let's proceed. Let's make sure here. Now, here's the deal. We're in part two here of this handout, and the approach that you will see lots of people take, and actually, I think they take it in the handout that we made available to you that's kind of the plastic-coated handout from Rose Publishing. The approach that a lot of people will use is they will look at, here are the objections of skeptics, and then they'll say, but here's the reasons why that doesn't fit. I've taken kind of an opposite view, and I've said, look, if you know the facts, the accusations fall, you know, whatever they come up with. Some of the more recent ones that have come, been, you know, brought forth, one of them was Jesus had a twin brother, and the twin brother was actually the one that was crucified, and then Jesus was able to come up because he, you know, wasn't actually crucified, and pretend like he was resurrected.

Now, what do you think is the problem with that? No, and what's that? That's right. Yeah. So that's basically somebody came up with a concoction. You know, they invented something. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Ultimately, they would have been able to tell the distinctions. Go ahead and come on in if you like. Okay, yeah, see if you can help her out there.

So now, you know, people have come up with various kinds of ideas. You've got people that have come up with the swoon theory that Jesus didn't actually die, that he just passed out. People have come up with different ideas. The disciples stole the body, which was one of the things that the Jews had proposed to begin with as an accounting of things. So lots of different stories have been generated.

But the truth is, if we know the facts, and so I've tried to pack it in here and give you lots of Bible references, if we know the facts, a lot of these theories just drop out. You know, the idea is it's a myth. We've talked about that for a couple of weeks. So anyway, let's take a look through here.

Initially, the ability to readily verify the disciples' claims. We pointed out that within a Sabbath day's journey, you could look at all the evidence. You might have to go to get all 500 people that saw him resurrected. You might have to go and go a little farther than that, but you could still gather quite a few. plenty enough to justify it. You could easily verify all the things.

One of the things we point out here, the testimony of Jewish and Roman forces who arrested Jesus and were involved in some aspect of the trials. They were there. Now, what would be a potential problem with asking them? Okay, yeah. You have people who have multiple reasons to be counted as a hostile witness. But they would be there and of course some of them even by their denials would stand as evidence the way that they denied things.

The Roman soldiers who were responsible for making sure that Jesus was dead and dead all the way and for guarding the tomb would have received a significant risk, probably by estimates about 40% risk of death. And the other 60% is severe penalty. But 40% risk of being killed for failing in their duty. What do you mean you let Jesus out of the tomb? What do you mean you let somebody steal the body? Yeah. or that you're telling about. So there is a hostile witness issue there.

Nonetheless, there's eyewitnesses to the crucifixion, those who weren't necessarily in every case antagonistic to it. One of the things we found out a year or two ago as we looked at the passages, what did the Roman centurion who was in charge of crucifying Christ say about him ultimately?

Truly, this was the Son of God, okay? So he may initially, we would have suspected him to have been a hostile witness, but perhaps not. He may have turned around and said, you know, this is what happened. To be recorded as publicly saying, truly this was the Son of God, that's a substantial thing. It seems as though he was impacted.

The testimony of those who carried out Jesus' burial, it is recorded and therefore apparently known, Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and possibly unnamed others. Why do I say unnamed others? The names given are those two men. They're members of the Sanhedrin who are keeping quiet because they don't want the rest of the guys to know that they are followers of Christ.

But for one thing, you go to the tomb. All right, you got the body of Jesus to carry. assuming one strong guy, and it is nearby the crucifixion area to the tomb. The scripture says that. So one person, let's say, is going to carry Jesus' body. What's the weight of all the other stuff that they had to carry to treat Jesus' body, prepare the body? Pardon? 100 pounds. How about that? 100 pounds of material. So you've got Jesus' body, 100 pounds of material, and you've also got a stone to roll out of the way, and it is not just large, but described as extremely large.

I would suggest to you that the justification for there being even more unnamed people assisting is there. Can I say it absolutely? No. Is it strongly implied by the logistics, the weight, the number of things to be done? Furthermore, would it be reasonable to assume that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had servants? Reasonable thing to assume. All those things would fit together and say that you would have at least those two men and likely others, male and or female.

Wouldn't it be likely that they would have someone else do the caring and treating of the body because they wouldn't want to defile themselves by touching the dead? And that would be another issue as well. Ultimately, they may only have been supervisorial and not actually had any contact. Could be.

Okay? In addition to that, you have the testimony of, and again, we've talked about hostile witnesses, but four to 16 Roman soldiers who guarded the tomb, which was sealed with pilot seal. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. This is the custodian.

Definitely some issues with their testimony, but nonetheless, it's there. The testimony of the women and disciples who saw the empty tomb. Let's think about this. Scripture records that there were women who went to see where the body of Christ was laid, where Joseph and Nicodemus went to lay the body of Christ. So you've got that testimony Multiple women were there.

So it isn't a matter of, you know, some one person went there and they mistook the, where is this, excuse me, went to the wrong tomb. So you have, you have a pretty, you know, substantial evidence that they went to the right place. Then you had others who went to the, went to the tomb and interestingly, When Peter and John found out about the resurrection of Christ, what did they do? They went running to the tomb.

And did they run ahead? Or did they wait for the women to show them where it was? They ran ahead. How did they know where it was? They also may well have had prior opportunity to verify the location. It was implied by their running ahead. So you have several ladies and at least these two apostles who had some prior indication of where this is, either by firsthand or secondhand observation before. All right. You go down the list here, the testimony of 500 plus people who saw Christ resurrected. Now, during this time, they're all around Jerusalem, either immediately there and living in the area or visiting the area.

How tough do you think it would be to gather a substantial number of them together within the short weeks or even months, even the first few years after that time. Would that be a tough thing to do? You could get a fair number of them together early on.

By the time Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, and he's writing, we're talking better than two decades later, he says some of them have died. but there's still quite a number left. So lots of availability of evidence to substantiate things that way. How about the testimony of the disciples who saw Christ's ascent? Just a couple of the apostles there, or how many of them? Yeah, it seemed like we had the whole group there, right? Had the whole group of apostles there reading the account.

How about Roman legal documents? Notice this. What did Pilate have written on the sign, the epigraphon, as it was called in the Greek, that was put over Jesus' head on the cross? King of the Jews in three languages, okay? Hebrew, Greek, Latin, okay? So these three languages, written King of the Jews, Now, the Jews just loved to have that sign over Jesus' head, right? No. So what did they do? What did the Jews do? So Pilate said, sure, fine, right? No. What did Pilate say?

What I've written I've written. So there's written record. It wasn't just something, you know, go do it and we'll let it pass. He recorded, or had recorded, that this had taken place. So it was now available for examining the records. Is this what Pilate said? Is this what transpired? It was legal record, written record of what took place. Now, add to that Jewish legal documents. Up until 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed, that perimeter wall around the inner temple area, the na'as, that perimeter wall held temporary dwelling places for the priests it held meeting room areas for the Sanhedrin and it also held records of the genealogies and other Jewish legal records and so anybody who want to say is this is this Jesus really descended from David check it out There it is.

Go look for yourself. You doubt it? Take a look. We have no record that anybody disputed it. You could go visit all these sites. We've shown the aerial photo there. You could walk, take a short distance, visit all the sites. Now we have a question here.

How about somebody, Dr. Luke, from the evidence that we have, was a Gentile? and a medical doctor who appears to have become a believer after these events. So since he wrote the Gospel of Luke, what opportunity did he have to record what he recorded and to check things out? When did he have an opportunity to do that? Tom? Okay, basically you've got four decades, four decades time to examine the sites, walk, interrogate people, talk to them, recheck, get this guy, now is this what he said? Now you were there too, is that your recollection as well?

He could cross-check all those things. As he went through, there's even one place in Acts where he records the actual words of the letter. from the Roman commander, and he uses the word tupos, which means that these are the words, like we get our word type from that, stamped. So you've got a real good indication. Let's think of something else.

Where was Luke when Paul was two years in Caesarea, in prison? The indication we have from the book of Acts is that You know, because we have his first person plural, we and us, both before and after that. He was hanging around there and he basically had two years time to examine legal documents, to talk to people, to visit the sites, examine everything carefully.

And that's exactly what you see in the opening verses of the Gospel of Luke. After examining everything carefully, this is the record. Luke had definite access. into places where he could check things out. And that's what we see. And he, as we'll go through, we see Luke, historian or storyteller, the things that he brings forth are astounding. The detail that he brings out in many cases is amazing. But enough said, it is very clear that Luke had good access to the information.

He examined things carefully, he cross-checked things, so that what he was reporting to Theophilus, we don't know precisely who Theophilus was, but who he called Theophilus was the title that's only used elsewhere in the New Testament when Paul talks to a Roman governor. Okay, so we're talking likely to a Roman legal official. Okay, one of the points we make here, this is on page two in the middle, the lack of viable objections. Basically, we have no evidence of objections, written objections, no record of objections to the various facts available by anyone who was close to it within the first century. We have secondary reference to some people who objected to some things in one instance that I'm aware of.

That's Julius Africanus referring to a guy named Thallus, who lived closer to the events. But what all that Julius Africanus said was the darkness during the crucifixion was due to an eclipse. And that can't happen, as Julius Africanus points out, because this Passover happens around a full moon. Astronomically, the reason you got a full moon is because the the moon's on the wrong side for an eclipse.

So, anyway. Now, records by and about the witnesses. Let's go down the list here. These are the bullets on the bottom of page two. Gospel of Matthew, one of the disciples. So we have record of Matthew. The Gospel of Mark, likely a witness. This is the who uniquely says that there was a young man with a sheet about him in the garden, and they grabbed the sheet and he ran away naked. Mark doesn't identify himself there, but there's an interesting implication. He's the only one that records that.

So he's an associate of Barnabas, that's clear, a relative, Colossians 4.10 lays that out, an associate of Paul and Luke, Colossians 4.10, Philemon 24, and of Peter, 1 Peter 5.13. So he has direct contact with people who have either immediate access to the information or who have also checked out the information themselves. We also have the Gospel of John, one of the disciples, obviously quite familiar.

As we pointed out before, John makes note of contacts and names and events related to the Sanhedrin that the other Gospels do not. Only John records, for example, Nicodemus. Only John records that Nicodemus stood up for Jesus and the Apostles in front of the Sanhedrin and was rebuffed for it. Only John is the one who gives Peter access into Caiaphas' courtyard. And so you get details coming out. John is the one who records about Nicodemus assisting or being involved with the burial of Jesus.

John has some unique insights, and he's one of the eyewitnesses. First John, chapter one, first four verses, he says, we write to you the things we have heard, the things we have seen, the things we have touched. He makes specific reference to what we'd say is empirical testimonies, first-hand things. These are real things, not something we cooked up, not something we just heard about, not something we come to you and say, something vague like, it is said, or somebody told me. But he's saying, I saw it! I touched it! I was there.

Then we have the book of Acts written by Luke and associated Paul. We talked about Luke's access to the evidence. First Corinthians 15, 3 through 7 written by Paul. And numerous other references in the epistles by the apostles Peter, Paul, Peter, John, and other direct associates of the apostles. So you have multiple pieces of written evidence, lots to cross-check.

Alright, the nature of Jewish burial practices. This is one of the things that's going to stand in the way. The Jews, by the Mosaic law, were to bury a body by sundown. That was their mandate. Deuteronomy 21, 22, and 23. There was also the additional thing pressing it at this point, and that is what was going to happen the next day. after Jesus' crucifixion. Yeah, they were going to have a special holy day and they were not to have bodies hanging on the cross because of that.

It was something that the Jews demanded and the Romans accommodated them. Typically, the Romans like to see people take days to die. But once they died and you had something pressing like a Passover, the Romans said, okay, we'll break the legs. And they came to Jesus and said, He took the spear, poke, blood and water's coming out, he's already dead. So they passed on him and as scripture foretold, did not break the bones. Now, the body was prepared by myrrh and aloes and then wrapping the body in linen burial cloth.

And they said over 100 pounds of material to prepare this. So it wasn't like they just dabbled on a little bit or get a little plastic bottle from the corner drugstore, okay? Talking about large quantities that you'd have to take in big jugs and take this stuff and pour it on.

When they were done with this material and after it had stuck for a time, tests of what that would be like using what they'd done, it would, if you were to try to peel the wrappings off, it would tear off chunks of flesh. It would stick and adhere to the body. So guess how, I mean, the swoon theory that Jesus just sort of fainted, what's going to happen when they go and start taking this wrapping off?

This isn't going to work. Yeah, I'd be like, hey, you're starting to tear off chunks and you're starting to rip things up. This is a mess. This isn't, you know, here's a linen sheet. Things are fairly neat in what you see in the gospel description. That is not what you find, you know, if you were to go and try to tear the thing off a body with a person that just fainted.

Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Ah, what it says when you there's there's two different accounts that you put them together and he hung on the tree and then a rope broke or something happened that says he burst open. So he basically had guts all over the place.

It says he fell and burst open on the rocks below. And it doesn't talk about the burial treatment there. It may be simply because they assumed, oh, this is what would happen. but it just simply doesn't discuss it. So it's not to say that he wasn't buried. There's obviously some complications if he's broken open, but it just isn't addressed. So we don't have an answer for that, just lack of information.

One of the things that we look at here, this burial is usually on a stone shelf carved into rock. And then what they would do is, you know, put this sealing stone over the entrance. They would do that typically actually to prevent entrance by animals, so the animals wouldn't come in and start chewing away at the body. Occasionally, and this would certainly be one of those instances where there would be also an intent to make sure that human beings don't get in there.

Okay. Pardon? Oh, okay. Yeah. It's noted that the entrance to the tomb, the stone was extremely large and you would expect that for a rich man's tomb. So these things are things that we got note of that mitigating it, someone easily just coming up with some scheme, oh, they stole the body away. The women came and they're the ones that took the body, those kinds of statements.

The other thing is that during the time of the New Testament, primarily 10 AD to 60 was the main time when they did this ossuary box practice. We showed a picture of Caiaphas and Yohanan, those two ossuary boxes. It was a common practice from about 10 to 60 AD, a little bit thereafter and a little bit for a few decades before that, but that was a primary period. Now think about this, if you're going to take a body and their practice was to wait a year later, take the bones and then put them in an ossuary box, you want to do the right bones, right?

So what that says is that they did take particular care to see you know, where is this body laid? Because the practice being a year later, you're going to have to go and deal with these bones again. And so that would put an emphasis upon, you know, there wasn't some mistake about where this body was laid. We know that there were multiple witnesses to where it was laid.

And that the ossuary box practice would put particular emphasis on this so that you did that with the right bones. If you went to the wrong place, you might have risk of taking somebody else's body and the body may not be ready yet. It may have been a fairly recent burial. So getting the right place counts.

Now, the character of the Roman military is another point. Here's the Roman soldiers. I'm looking at the top of page four by now. Here's the Roman soldiers. They're assigned the task of crucifying Christ. At one point, here's Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus asking for the body of Jesus. And so here they are asking for the body of Jesus. They are wanting to get him buried. And so they ask Pilate, and Pilate says, sure, go ahead.

What does he do? He says, I've washed my hands of it. Earlier he said, I've washed my hands of it. But there was one concern that he had. You're correct. He did say, I've washed my hands of it. But when they came to ask him about the body, can we have the body? Did he say, go ahead? Or what did he say?

Is he dead yet? They asked the question, is he dead yet? So the Roman centurion was called up to testify, is he dead? Then Pilate gave permission. So what that tells you is that it was something that was of concern. Is he really dead? And what's the penalty, possible penalty for the Roman centurion if he's wrong? Okay. Again, the statistics by looking at the way the Romans treated things, about a 40% chance that the Roman centurion, if he came to Pilate and said he's dead and he's wasn't, death was about a 40% chance. The Roman centurion and probably the rest of them. So this isn't something that you just sort of casually say, I think he's dead. You're sure, because otherwise you might be dead. So it was not something taken casually. The next thing is death by crucifixion typically take days.

And as far as Romans were concerned, that was just fine with them. That was the intent. They would put the person crucified, and by the way, typically just strip them naked, male or female, strip them naked. They'd nail them, and the Roman soldiers were told, just get them up there. We don't care how you nail them. So sometimes they'd nail them through bones. Sometimes they'd nail them on the side of the cross. Sometimes they'd nail them through the front. They really didn't care, because as far as Romans were concerned, die slow, that's just fine.

We like it all the better. As a matter of fact, one of the Roman historians says, we always like to put the crucifixion in the most prominent place where everybody will see it, like a billboard. You don't want to end up like this. That's what they wanted. Lots of fear and disgust. So here's this crucifixion. It's not something they're going to be mistaken about, but they were surprised that Jesus was dead already. That was a surprising fact, and Pilate was surprised. That's why he asked about it. So the centurion had to testify that Jesus was indeed dead. Finally, you got the Jewish leaders. They were concerned that something might happen to the body of Jesus. They appealed to Pilate to have the tomb of Jesus guarded.

He authorized a guard, a custodia, or custodion is another Greek form. It's derived from a Latin, so it's not the usual word for guard that you find throughout the New Testament and a lot of other documents. It's a specific word that comes out of the Latin. It's only here in the entire New Testament in Matthew and those locations that you see there.

Typically four but up to 16 soldiers and what they would do is they would rotate between them as to who was up and the others would be at ease so they could rest or walk around wherever they wanted. But at least one soldier all the time and if you had 16 soldiers, four soldiers at a time rotating shifts between them, the others being around. on call.

And the idea is there to stay there, they would put a seal over the entrance of the tomb. And it was the seal of Rome, death penalty if broken. So first of all, anybody that comes there to break the seal, soldiers have immediate authorization, kill them. And if the soldiers fail, what do they get? significant risk of death penalty themselves.

So we're talking, this is not something you can be casual about. Somebody walks up, hey, what are you doing in the tomb? Oh, I'm coming to check on the body of Jesus. Okay, that's good. Take your time. No. No casual stuff. It's, what are you doing there next to that tomb? And boy, if you haven't got a really good authorization, you just got a sword shoved between your ribs. So this is definitely not something you're going to take casually. These soldiers are looking at it and they're saying, my life depends on that seal being untouched. That's their view of this thing. So having some Galilean fishermen come up and take the body is not something they're going to stand for.

And what's interesting is their response. What does the scriptures describe as their response when Jesus was resurrected? They were sitting there in shock. They were like, whoa, what happened? Why would that be a shocking event to these Roman soldiers?

Yeah, first of all, this never happened before. You know, boy, we've done duty a lot of times, but this has never happened. Yeah, Tom? Yeah. Yeah, intensive training in security with extreme threat for failure. And by intensive training, one of the points I bring up is the weaponry that they carried there that day, their training weaponry was all twice the weight. The swords that they trained with were twice the weight of what they carried there. These guys were ready. The shields that they carried for practice, twice the weight of what they carried there that day.

Really ready for anything that happened. Really ready to fight for anybody touching that seal. I saw a hand go up here. Art? What made it unusual? Typically, because we talk about Christ's blood, people didn't bleed to death when they died on the cross. Death was typically by suffocation.

Because what happens is there is a vast increase of force on the arms because you're having them like this. And so the tension on the arms isn't just 50-50 like this. The tension on the arms goes up to well over 500 pounds on each arm because of the position that you're in. So typically what they're doing is pushing up on the thighs, on the nails, and then getting a breath. and then going down until they got to go for another breath. Eventually the thigh muscles become exhausted and they're doing this kind of blood sugar shakes. Exhausted thigh muscles, they finally can't push it up anymore and so they die of suffocation. That's the usual death.

Typically would take days. So to have Jesus die the same day within six hours, because basically we're given in the Gospels a time, 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. Done. It is finished. And the difference is this. Jesus didn't die the typical crucifixion death. He died because he gave up his spirit. That's what it says. He gave up his spirit. So Christ didn't go on the cross because he said, no, no, I won't go, and they did it anyway. He gave himself. And Christ died on the cross not because he died the usual suffocation death and days, sped up by breaking the leg bone so you can't push your legs up to get a breath. But he died at three o'clock in the afternoon that day because he intently gave up his spirit. He gave his life. Into your hands I give my spirit, he said to the father.

Good question and it has a good biblical answer. Obviously, there's lots more you could look at here. I've tried to build in lots of references here. At the end, however, there's some other resources that you can take a look at. One is the pamphlet that we have handed out. There are several good books to give some thought to there. And then I give several good website links that you can pursue as well. Feel free to chase down any one of those if you have more information you'd like to dig out. OK? Plum run out of time so let's pray and call it a good start to the new year here.

Lord, thank you that we can start this day looking at the evidence, and this only being the second half, the evidence, the weighty, massive, substantial evidence that supports that you indeed rose from the dead. And we thank you for the additional insight, Lord, that we were united with you when you rose and so made alive in you. And we thank you, Lord, for what you have done and accomplished and what you've revealed because you love us and care for us. In Jesus' name, amen.