been several weeks now since
I brought a message to us from the Gospel of Mark, but the last
message concerned the crucifixion and death of our Savior. This morning, I want to speak
to us about his burial. The verses here that record the
burial of our Savior's body, beginning in verse 42. And now, when the even was come,
because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath,
Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable counselor, which also waited
for the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly unto Pilate
and craved the body of Jesus. And Pilate marveled if he were
already dead. And calling unto him the centurion,
he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he knew
it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And he bought
fine linen and took him down, wrapped him in the linen, and
laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled
a stone upon the door of the sepulchre. and Mary Magdalene
and Mary the mother of Joseph be held where he was laid. I would remind us as we began to
think about the burial of the Lord Jesus Christ that when the
apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth reminding them of
the gospel that he had preached to them and the gospel he said
by which they were saved He included his burial. For I delivered unto
you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried,
and that he rose again on the third day. His burial was important
as everything about the Lord Jesus Christ is important because
of who he is. But I have five truths this morning
that I want to bring to us concerning his burial. First, his burial
was the subject of prophecy. burial of the body of the Lord
Jesus Christ was subject, was a subject rather, of prophecy. All the prophets, the Apostle
Peter tells us this in the book of Acts, but all the prophets,
all of those men throughout the Old Testament days who were prophets
of God, they all spoke of Him. They spoke of His coming, of
His incarnation. They spoke of His life. And they
certainly spoke of his death. They spoke of his burial as well. And they spoke of his reign,
his eternal reigning. Peter says this in his first
epistle, the spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets. Now
the spirit of Christ is God, the Holy Spirit. He proceeds
both from the father and from the son. God the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit of Christ, Peter
tells us, was in the prophets, testified beforehand. That is, before Christ came into
this world, before this actually took place, the Spirit of Christ,
which was in the prophets, testified beforehand, first of all, the
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. That's
always the order. Grace, glory. The cross, the crown. The suffering, the glory. That was the order for the Lord
Jesus Christ, and that's the order for you, for every one
of his people. First, we take up the cross and
follow him. But we know there's glory. at
the end of our journey. But here's one of the prophecies
in the Old Testament which concerned his burial. That's the first
truth I wanted to mention. His burial was the subject of
prophecy. In Isaiah chapter 53, which you
know speaks to us of the Lord Jesus Christ and his substitutionary
work As our savior, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was
bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. When God made his soul an offering
for sin, the prophecy goes on to say, and then it says this,
he made his grave with the wicked and the rich in his death. That's a prophecy of his burial. He made his grave with the wicked
and with the rich in his death. Now, it means, of course, that
both the wicked and the rich, both the wicked and the rich
had a hand in making his grave or his burial. Before that, he
was numbered. It was prophesied that he should
be numbered with the transgressors. And we know there was two transgressors
who were crucified alongside the Lord Jesus Christ. He was
numbered with the transgressors, but the prophecy goes on to tell
us He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his
death. The rich then refers to this
rich man's sepulchre. It was hewn out of a rock in
which his body was to be laid. Joseph of Arimathea, this man
that we read about here in our text, he was a rich man. Plus from the Gospel of John,
we read that Nicodemus also was helpful in the burial of our
Savior, and he brought a large amount of spices, showing that
both of those men, both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, involved
in his burial, that he made his grave with the rich. Lazarus, you remember Lazarus,
the brother of Mary and Martha who died, The Lord raised him
from the dead. Where was he buried? Well, the
scripture says in a cave. And that was very typical of
the common man, would be buried in a cave there. But our Lord
was buried in a sepulchre hewn out of a rock. It was a rich
man's sepulchre. Several years ago, I was here
at the church building one morning and a man that I knew who worked
for a funeral home, he called me and he said, preacher, guess
where I am? Well, I had no clue. Guess where
I am? Well, where are you? I'm, if I remember right, I'm
laying in a casket, a coffin that sells for over $70,000. It was made out of copper. I've
never seen a coffin cost that much money, but this sepulchre,
it was a rich man's grave that the Lord Jesus Christ was buried
in. His body was buried in. And Luke, of course, also reminds
us that there had never been anybody laid in this grave before. So he made his grave with the
rich. What about with the wicked? Well, the wicked, no doubt, refers
to the Roman soldiers. The Roman soldiers who were charged
with making his grave sure. Remember the Jewish leaders came
to Pilate and reminded him that He had said that, you destroy
this body, in three days I will raise it up. They said, well,
his disciples may come and steal his body away in the night, and
this is gonna be worse than him being alive. And Pilate then
gave the Roman centurion and soldiers the charge to make his
grave, as they said, as sure as you can. Well, Peter tells
us on the day of Pentecost that was an impossibility. It was
not possible, Peter said. It was not possible that he should
be holding of it. In other words, it wasn't possible
that the Lord Jesus Christ could be held by the power of the grave
or by death. Another prophecy that comes to
my mind concerning his burial might be Hosea chapter 13 and
verse 14, where he says, O grave, O grave, I will be thy destruction. Yes, he was laid in the grave,
but the grave could not hold him. The second truth about his
burial that I want to mention to us this morning is his burial
is an irrefutable testimony to his death. An irrefutable testimony
to his death. We read here in the text, Joseph
of Arimathea asked Pilate's permission to bury the body. He craved,
the scripture here says, he craved his body. But Pilate said, not
so fast. Not so fast, Joseph. I must ascertain, first of all,
that he is really dead. There have been recorded cases
of men who stayed on a cross for two days, for 48 hours, and
their bodies taken down from the cross and they lived. His burial, the fact that his
body was buried is an irrefutable testimony to the fact that he
literally, he actually did die. What if Pilate had not done this?
And we see the providence of God, we should see it in everything. We really should. In every day
of our life, we should see the providence of God. The Sunday
School message this morning was such a blessing, wasn't it, those
of us who were here when we thought about the providence of God.
You know, one verse that was used at Romans 8, 28, for we
know that all things work together for good. When something goes
against the grain, we learn to say, well, this is part of the
all things. Whatever it is, it's part of
the all things. The all things which are working
together for the good of those who love God, to those who are
the called according to his purpose. We see the providence of God
in Pilate's actions, the actions of the religious leaders in demanding
that Pilate do something to secure that grave. What if his body
had not been buried? What if it had not been buried?
Well, the enemies of the gospel, no doubt, would continue to teach,
as some people do even now, who are enemies of the gospel of
Christ. that he did not actually die,
that he did not actually give his life of ransom for many. But the heart of the gospel,
as you and I know so clearly today, when we preach Christ
and Him crucified, the very heart of the gospel is the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The justice of God, the law of
God, demanded satisfaction for anyone to be forgiven. God had
declared in that great passage in Exodus that speaks to us of
his mercy and his grace and his immutability, but it also tells
us I will by no means clear the guilty. And yet you and I, And
not only us, but all of his chosen people by nature are guilty before
God. He had to die. The wages of sin
is death. He lived a life without sin,
but he had to pay a payment, a debt payment that could only
be paid by his blood, by his life. All of the sacrifices in
the Old Testament, which pictured His sacrifice, they all testified
to this truth. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. Three truths about the death,
hurriedly. First of all, it is His death
that reconciles us unto God. I'm reconciled to God. I've been
reconciled unto God. I have peace with God. How? By
your obedience? By my obedience? Of course not. No, but rather by His death. For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled unto God, reconciled unto God. There was a time in
our father Adam when we were at peace with God, but we fell
into sin and we must be reconciled, reconciled unto God. And how
is that? Only one way. That's through
his death. If when we were enemies, we were
reconciled unto God by his death or by the death of his son. And
second, his death, it is his death that is the propitiation
for our sins. Now that word propitiation is
a strange word, isn't it? Most of us really have a hard
time getting hold of it. The death of Christ is the ground
whereby God is rendered propitious, favorable toward us, toward us
as sinners. And it's his death whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. And number three, it is his death
that redeems us under God. We're redeemed. Have you ever pawned anything?
Have you ever gone to a pawn shop and maybe you had some tools
or you needed some money to help you to payday, something like
that? You give them your object, whatever
it is, and they give you a little ticket. And you come back in
so many days and you pay whatever it is that they've loaned you
and the interest rate, and you redeem that. God gave his people
to Christ before the foundation of the world. But we fail. In our Adam state,
we come into this world alienated from God, enemies to God. And
we must be redeemed. And there's only one thing that
redeems a sinner. Not with gold, not with silver,
but with the precious blood, the precious blood of his son,
Jesus Christ. His burial, the fact that his
body was laid in the tomb, is an irrefutable testimony to the
fact that he died. He didn't just faint or was in
some kind of a swoon, as they used to say. No, he was dead. His body was lifeless. The third truth is his burial
was an act of faith on his part. So first of all, I said his burial
was a subject of prophecy. And his burial is an irrefutable
testimony to his death. And number three, his burial
was an act of faith on his part. That is on the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I want you to turn with me, if
you will, to Psalm 16. On the day of Pentecost, Peter
quoted from this psalm, but he makes it clear when he was preaching
that day that though David, King David, wrote this psalm, he was
the human author of this psalm, but he wasn't speaking about
himself. And Peter said, you know that's
so because David's sepulchre is still here. He was in Jerusalem.
His sepulchre is still here in Jerusalem when Peter was preaching
that day. No, this psalm is speaking about
David's Lord, David's son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's him speaking. You notice in verse 8, he said,
I have sent the Lord always before me because he is at my right
hand. I shall not be moved. Therefore,
my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall
rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of
life, and thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there
are pleasures forevermore. Now, the word hell in this passage
of scripture doesn't refer to the place of the damned. I believe
it refers to that state when the soul and the body are separated. There's a time when you die,
your body's going to be buried in the grave, your soul is going
to be with the Lord. That state. Some people believe
the word hell here refers to the grave itself. But I believe
it is that separated state between the soul and the body. The Lord
Jesus Christ, he knew, he believed that God would not leave his
soul, his soul in hell, in that separated state. It doesn't mean,
of course, that he went to hell. Some people teach that. In fact,
in the so-called Apostles' Creed, that's one part of that that
I could never agree to because it intimates that Jesus himself
went to hell and preached to the souls of those in captivity. No, the Bible doesn't teach that.
Our Lord commended his spirit where? To hell? When he was upon
the cross, he commended his spirit into his father's hands. And
remember, he was there in paradise to welcome that thief that believed
on him. Because he had told him today,
thou shalt be with me in paradise. No, he did not go to hell. There is no second chance. That's
what a lot of people like to teach and like to believe, isn't
it? That after you die, that you're gonna have another opportunity,
another second chance to believe. Oh no! As the tree falls, That's the
way it's going to lie. And as a person leaves this world,
either saved or lost, that's the way it's going to be throughout
all eternity. He submitted his body to burial
here, believing, knowing, trusting that God had promised him and
he would fulfill his promise that his body would not see corruption. He was buried believing, knowing
that his body and spirit would be reunited and raised to appear
in God's presence where, as he says here, there is fullness
of joy and pleasures forevermore. A fourth truth that I wanted
to bring to us is his burial testifies to believers that our
sins are gone. That makes you want to shout.
His burial testifies to every believer, everyone that comes
to Christ, everyone that looks to him as their Lord and Savior,
that our sins are gone. We know that the Lord Jesus died
to pay the debt of our sins. He had no sins of his own. The
scripture is very clear about that. He knew no sin. He did
no sin, in him was no sin, and yet the sins of his people were
all made, the scripture says, to meet upon him. They were laid
upon him, and Peter says, who his own self bear our sins in
his own body on the tree. That we, being dead to sins,
should live under righteousness. He bore our sins away. They were laid upon Him. And
I know there's mystery involved in that, but I'm just going to
believe what God says. They were laid upon Him. He bore
them in His own body on the tree. But I tell you what, He left
them in the tomb. When he came out of that grave,
they did not come out with him. I think of Christian and Pilgrim's
Progress. And I encourage us to read this
book. You say, well, I've already read
it. Read it again. Read it again. It's the first
of the year. It'd be a good opportunity to
put that on your reading list and read it. But you know, when
he left the City of Destruction, he had a burden on his back,
didn't he? Now, Pliable, one of his neighbors
wanted to go with him. He didn't have that burden. And
of course, when he fell in the Slough of Despond, he got out
on the side of the City of Destruction, went back home, Pliable did. But Christian had that burden
on his back. And we know that burden represents
sin, doesn't it? I still believe a person has
to be lost before they can be saved. I would not preach experience
because everyone's experience may be a little different. But
everyone that God saves comes to feel somewhat of that burden,
that burden of not being right with God, that burden of sin. Remember when he got out on the
other side of the slough, he met a man that I think his name
was Mr. Worley Wiseman. I'm not positive
about that. But he sent him over there to
the city where Mr. Legality lived. And he got over
there close to that city, and he got under that big mountain,
that cliff, the law of God. You read. Exodus chapter 19,
when God came down on that mountain and delivered that law to Israel
of old, the loudness, the fire, everything to make a person afraid. And he began to fear that he
was going to be destroyed by that mountain falling upon him.
And that burden was still on his back, even when he left that
place and came to the interpreter's house. And the interpreter told
him to take this path. It's a straight path. It's a
narrow way. And just stay in this path. He
still had the burden. But you remember where the burden
was taken away. When he came to the cross. And
John Bunyan said that burden just came loose from his back,
and it tumbled down the hill into the sepulchre. Whose sepulchre
was that? It wasn't Christian's. He was
still alive. Oh, no. It was our Lord's sepulchre,
wasn't it? He took our sins upon himself,
and he bore them away. When he came out of that grave,
our sins remained there. His burial testifies to believers
that our sins are gone. And lastly, his burial is a source
of consolation to all who are members of his body. I'm talking
about his mystical body, all who are members of his church,
those who are saved by the grace of God. When we contemplate the
fact that our body will soon, most of us sooner than others,
but our bodies will soon be buried, we remember that since his body
was there first, we have no cause to fear the grave. His presence
there has robbed the grave. of all of his fears, of all of
his terrors, his presence having been there. Charles Spurgeon
illustrated this glorious truth in this way, and I quote, see
that creeping worm, can you see that creeping worm,
how contemptible its appearance, It is the beginning of a thing.
Mark that insect with gorgeous wings, playing in the sunbeams,
sipping at the flower bells, full of happiness and life. That is the end thereof. That
caterpillar is yourself, your body. That caterpillar is yourself
until you are wrapped up in the chrysalis of death. But when
Christ shall appear, you shall be like him, for you shall see
him as he is. Had our Lord never been buried,
we would have no hope of one day having this Body of our humiliation,
this vile body fashioned like unto his glorious body. But we
do have an assurance and a good hope. I pray the Lord would bless
this word to you and I. Everything about Christ is precious,
isn't it? even his burial. We're going
to sing a hymn and then we'll be dismissed.