Abstract
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
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Part VII: How Did Jesus Die?
Chapter 1
Did the Lord Really Die on the Cross?
SOME YEARS ago
a young lawyer in England who had come to share the views of
liberal theologians, especially in Germany, maintaining that
the resurrection scenes in the Gospels reflected only the delusions
of certain of the more desperate of the disciples of Jesus whose
faith had been shattered by His ignominious death, set out to
prove to his own satisfaction that they were so full of improbabilities
and inconsistencies that they could be ignored altogether.
Using his legally trained mind
to the best possible advantage he set himself to an examination
of the evidence from every point of view -- and came to precisely
the opposite conclusion. Sir Robert Anderson, a name familiar
to many thoughtful Christians of an older generation, himself
became a firm believer and wrote a number of works which became
classics in their way, among which is his well-known The Silence
of God. Such is the power of Scripture.
It is the supernatural element
of Scripture which causes concern to those who are proud in intellect,
for it puts something beyond the range of man's unaided power
of thought, just as it is the judgment aspects of Scripture which
cause offense to those who feel themselves morally worthy. Philosophers
and theologians of the nineteenth century in continental Europe
were willing enough to accede to the judgment of history as to
the extraordinary perfection of Christ's life and the manifest
nobility of His self-sacrifice in death. But they were quite
unwilling to admit that He who so lived was any more than simply
a very great man and that He died anything other than a martyr's
death. The idea of a bodily resurrection, a resurrection of the
whole man, who thereafter for many days shared with His disciples
a substantial part of their old life together in such a concrete
way as to establish beyond doubt in their minds that He really
had
pg
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risen from the dead,
not as a ghost but as a re-embodied person -- this they could
not allow. It was admitted that these disciples really believed
that Jesus had returned to be with them; and, therefore, disallowing
such a miraculous event as bodily resurrection, it had to be
assumed that somehow Jesus had never actually died on the Cross.
Although the view that Jesus was
only thought to have died on the Cross, and that subsequently
the coolness of the tomb in which He was laid -- supposedly dead
-- had revived Him, is no longer seriously held even by the most
liberal theologians, it is still worth noting why the view was
abandoned. It is quite extraordinary how men who are desperate
to evade the force of Scripture will grasp at alternative explanations.
As we shall see, the more deeply one examines the Gospel accounts
of the Lord's death, the more certain it is that He really did
die. And the difficulties which face anyone who seriously holds
the liberal view are overwhelming, the more so as they are the
more carefully examined.
It is difficult indeed to suppose,
for example, that one who had suffered the appalling strains
and stresses, physical and emotional, of the previous hours,
could be nailed to the Cross, receive a severe wound in the chest,
be laid in a cold tomb, and there revive and find energy enough
with such wounds in hands, feet, and chest to brace himself against
a stone which almost certainly could only be moved from the outside,
and which was far too heavy for the women themselves to move,
and simply roll it out of the way. And this apparently without
the soldiers on guard being awakened! Only a few hours later
this figure, so mutilated according to Scripture as to be scarcely
recognizable (Isaiah 52:14), presented Himself before Mary and
overwhelmed her with the joy of recognition. Shortly thereafter
He walked for miles without limp, tiredness, or evidence of mental
anguish with two disciples who would surely have recognized Him
at once if He still bore the marks of utter exhaustion that must
have remained with Him had His recovery been a natural one. There
is no evidence of any desperate need for rest or food or drink.
There is every evidence that when their clouded vision had suddenly
cleared by His simple act of breaking bread with them they recognized
Him because He was exactly as they had known Him sharing their
table before the events of those terrible last days. According
to Scripture, the resurrected Lord was seen by hundreds of people,
five hundred at one time together (1 Corinthians 15:6). One or
two people may have hallucinations, but not hundreds, least of
all when they are all together.
pg.2
of 5
In
a series of essays published in 1893 under the title, Primary
Convictions, William Alexander had something of great value
to say about these resurrection scenes: (1)
In the introduction to "The
Monastery," Sir Walter Scott discusses the reasons for the
comparative failure of one of his previous novels, "The
Abbott." He attributes it in part to his delineation of
the White Lady of Avenal, and remarks emphatically upon the almost
certain breakdown of "supernatural machinery" in works
of fiction.
The point is
well taken, for, as Alexander pointed out, even such a great
literary artist as Shakespeare represented the great souls of
the departed as uttering only a few words. As Alexander puts
it, (2) "The
impression produced by their apparition is floated in to us through
the language of the spectators rather than the visitant himself."
Speaking of the Ghost in Hamlet, he noted that the language
of the Ghost himself falls far short of the lofty and awe-inspiring
conception conveyed by the words of others who impart to us the
impression which the dramatist wants us to form. It seems practically
impossible for man to create and portray consistently and convincingly
the doings and words of human spirits. When man creates a ghost,
he creates only a ghost of a ghost.
Supposing, for the moment, that
we are allowed only one of two alternative views of the resurrection
appearances: either that what the disciples saw was a ghost,
or that what they saw was actually Jesus recovered at least partially
from an ordeal which had been nearly but not quite fatal to Him.
Then, what kind of a record might we expect to find? Assuming,
first, that He really was only a spiritual being, a ghost if
you will, then can one honestly imagine that such a scene as
that in which Thomas was invited to handle and see that He was
not a ghost (John 20:27), would have found its way into
or been allowed to remain in the record? On the other hand, if
He was really only a man recovering from a frightful ordeal,
is it likely that a writer who wished to be convincing would
tell his readers how, having shared a meal at Emmaus with two
of His disciples, He suddenly and unaccountably disappeared out
of their sight (Luke 24:31) without causing them to be in the
least afraid or even curious, but rather 1eaving them with tremendous
assurance? Surely the one thing which a fabricator would try
to avoid would be logical inconsistency. Either He was a purely
spiritual being, in which case it would be absurd to have Him
inviting physical examination; or He was a
1. Alexander, William, Primary Convictions,
Harper, New York, 1893, p.96.
2. Ibid.
pg.3
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purely physical being,
who could hardly have been described as disappearing instantly
at will, or passing freely through barred doors and presenting
Himself unexpectedly among His followers. As a ghost He would
not invite physical examination, nor as an ordinary mortal be
able to ignore physical barriers.
But, on the other hand, if we once
allow the whole record to stand precisely as it is, then we must
admit that this Figure appears before us now as One whose behaviour
and constitution are totally unaccountable unless we allow two
facts: the first, that He really died by a means which left its
marks upon His body and set Him free from the limitations of
ordinary mortal existence; and secondly, that He really rose
again from the dead in such a way that He carried with Him the
total identity of His former existence, but with none of its
limitations, being no longer bound by the space-and-time frame
which had given to Him that character which rendered Him immediately
recognizable in His risen state to His former disciples. A real
life, a real death, and a real resurrection will alone account
for these things.
Although the resurrection scenes
occupy only a few pages, the risen Lord is the same Lord, only
even more gloriously so if that is possible, as the Lord who
ministered among men and shared their daily lives in the years
before the Crucifixion. Indeed, it was the absolute certainty
of this identity which transformed disappointed, fearful, and
even cowardly men who had experienced the apparent collapse of
all their hopes, into spiritual giants, eloquent, fearless, and
absolutely certain of what they believed.
And at the end, they parted company
with their Lord under circumstances which must surely be evidence
of an entirely new kind of relationship. What parting with one
dearly loved and utterly depended upon had ever before been an
occasion of great rejoicing! Yet this parting was. The disciples
returned from the Mount of Olives after the Ascension, not saddened,
depressed, lonely, or fearful -- but with great gladness. Such
a gladness in such a circumstance could only be accounted for
by some tremendous conviction, a conviction that their beloved
Lord had really triumphed over death. Such a conviction could
surely have never arisen had those 40 days been spent restoring
to health a defeated leader whose mission had manifestly failed.
Those few days transformed a band of ignorant, uneducated, and
often very selfish followers into a force which turned the Roman
world upside down. It is no wonder that Sir Robert Anderson in
the honesty of his mind found himself
pg.4
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completely convinced
of the truth of something which he had set out originally to
prove entirely false.
There is really no question that
Jesus did die on the Cross. The real question is how
He died.
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Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
reserved
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