Proof That Jesus Really Died

Q. Why was Christ buried?

The answer is: “To prove that He had really died.” 

• Now we know that the soldier pierced Christ’s side and blood and water flowed out. 
• By this it was already proven that Christ was dead. 

Nevertheless, if Christ had immediately been raised from the dead, 

• the disciples would have wondered whether He had really died. 
• In this way Christ’s burial gave further testimony to the fact that Christ was truly dead. 

In the burial there was the process of preparing the body 

• (washing, then wrapping the body with cloth intermingled with spices). 
• Nicodemus and Joseph would have felt that the body of Christ had grown cold and stiff. 
• They would have seen the grey hue of death color in His skin.
• Through the process involved in burial, proof was given to the church that Christ had really died.

We should also see the burial of Christ as the last stage in Christ’s humiliation. 

• When God pronounced His curse upon man, 
• He declared that man would return to the dust, from which he was created (cf. Genesis 3:19). 
• When men are buried, their bodies decompose in time and return to dust. 

Although Christ’s flesh did not see corruption (cf. Psalm 16:10, Acts 2:31), 

• He was nevertheless buried. 
• This then was the last part of Christ’s humiliation. 
• He was buried as a symbol of the curse that rested upon man.

Christ’s burial gives us comfort, 

• for according to Scripture, “We are buried with Christ by baptism into death” (Romans 6:3,4). 
• This is one of the symbols of baptism. 

Immersion in water is symbolic of death. 

• Thus in the sign of baptism there is the promise that we died with Christ. 
• This means that we as believers participate in the payment which Christ offered for sin. 
• His payment is our payment. 
• We have passed from judgment of death to eternal life in Christ.

Adapted Excerpt from Only By True Faith by Van Delden

From the Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 16

Q. Why was He buried? 

A. His burial testified that He had really died.

For the Bible Tells Me So...

John 19:38-42 

• After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus. 
• And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.
• Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. 
• Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 
• So there they laid Jesus, because of the Jews’ Preparation Day, for the tomb was nearby.