Jesus the Christ Part 69

The present writer believes that the Lord Jesus died of a broken heart.

The psalmist sang in dolorous measure according to his inspired prevision of the Lord's pa.s.sion: "Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." (Psalm 69:20, 21; see also 22:14.)

9. The Request that Christ's Tomb be Sealed.--Many critics hold that the deputation called upon Pilate on Sat.u.r.day evening, after the Sabbath had ended. This a.s.sumption is made on the ground that to do what these priestly officials did, in personally supervizing the sealing of the tomb, would have been to incur defilement, and that they would not have so done on the Sabbath. Matthew's statement is definite--that the application was made on "the next day, that followed the day of the preparation." The preparation day extended from sunset on Thursday to the beginning of the Sabbath at sunset on Friday.

FOOTNOTES:

[1301] Matt. 27:31-33; Mark 15:20-22; Luke 23:26-33; John: 16, 17.

[1302] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1303] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1304] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1305] Matt. 27:34-50; Mark 15:23-37; Luke 23:33-46; John 19:18-30.

[1306] Isa. 53:12; compare Mark 15:28; Luke 22:37.

[1307] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1308] Numb. 12.

[1309] Revised version, marginal reading, "tunic."

[1310] Matt. 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:23,24; compare Psa.

22:18.

[1311] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1312] Pages 85 and 89.

[1313] Matt. 27:42, 43. The clause "if he be the King of Israel" in verse 42 of the common text is admittedly a mistranslation; it should read "He is the King of Israel." See revised version; also Edersheim, vol. 2, p. 596; compare Mark 15:32.

[1314] John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32.

[1315] Matt. 4:3, 6; see pages 130, 137 herein.

[1316] Luke 23:42; the revised version reads "when thou comest in thy kingdom."

[1317] See chapter 36, following.

[1318] John 19:25; compare Matt. 27:55, 56; Mark 15:40, 41; Luke 23:48, 49. See Note 6, end of chapter.

[1319] See references last cited; and Luke 8:2, 3; also page 264 herein.

[1320] Luke 2:34, 35; page 97 herein.

[1321] Mark 15:25; see Note 7, end of chapter.

[1322] Compare P. of G.P., Moses 7:37, 40, 48, 49, 56.

[1323] John 19:28; compare Psa. 69:21.

[1324] The Gospel writers leave us in some uncertainty as to which of the last two utterances from the cross.--"It is finished," and "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," was spoken first.

[1325] Doc. and Cov. 18:11; revelation given in June 1829; see also 19:16-19, and page 613 herein.

[1326] See "The House of the Lord," pages 59, 60.

[1327] Matt. 27:51-54; Mark 15:38, 39; Luke 23:47-49.

[1328] John 19:31-37.

[1329] Deut. 21:23.

[1330] Exo. 12:46; Numb. 9:12; Psa. 34:20; John 19:36; 1 Cor. 5:7.

[1331] John 20:27; B. of M., 3 Nephi 11:14, 15.

[1332] Note 8, end of chapter.

[1333] John 19:34-37; compare Psa. 22:16, 17; Zech. 12:10; Rev. 1:7.

[1334] Matt. 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42.

[1335] John 3:1, 2; 7:50; see pages 158 and 404 herein.

[1336] See revised version, Mark 15:46.

[1337] Matt. 27:62-66.

[1338] Note 9, end of chapter.

CHAPTER 36.

IN THE REALM OF DISEMBODIED SPIRITS.

Jesus the Christ died in the literal sense in which all men die. He underwent a physical dissolution by which His immortal spirit was separated from His body of flesh and bones, and that body was actually dead. While the corpse lay in Joseph's rock-hewn tomb, the living Christ existed as a disembodied Spirit. We are justified in inquiring where He was and what were His activities during the interval between His death on the cross and His emergence from the sepulchre with spirit and body reunited, a resurrected Soul. The a.s.sumption that most naturally suggests itself is that He went where the spirits of the dead ordinarily go; and that, in the sense in which while in the flesh He had been a Man among men, He was, in the disembodied state a Spirit among spirits. This conception is confirmed as a fact by scriptural attestation.

As heretofore shown[1339] Jesus Christ was the chosen and ordained Redeemer and Savior of mankind; to this exalted mission He had been set apart in the beginning, even before the earth was prepared as the abode of mankind. Unnumbered hosts who had never heard the gospel, lived and died upon the earth before the birth of Jesus. Of those departed myriads many had pa.s.sed their mortal probation with varying degrees of righteous observance of the law of G.o.d so far as it had been made known unto them, but had died in unblamable ignorance of the gospel; while other mult.i.tudes had lived and died as transgressors even against such moiety of G.o.d's law to man as they had learned and such as they had professed to obey. Death had claimed as its own all of these, both just and unjust. To them went the Christ, bearing the transcendently glorious tidings of redemption from the bondage of death, and of possible salvation from the effects of individual sin. This labor was part of the Savior's foreappointed and unique service to the human family. The shout of divine exultation from the cross, "It is finished," signified the consummation of the Lord's mission in mortality; yet there remained to Him other ministry to be rendered prior to His return to the Father.

To the penitent transgressor crucified by His side, who reverently craved remembrance when the Lord should come into His kingdom,[1340]

Christ had given the comforting a.s.surance: "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." The spirit of Jesus and the spirit of the repentant thief left their crucified bodies and went to the same place in the realm of the departed.[1341] On the third day following, Jesus, then a resurrected Being, positively stated to the weeping Magdalene: "I am not yet ascended to my Father." He had gone to paradise but not to the place where G.o.d dwells. Paradise, therefore, is not Heaven, if by the latter term we understand the abode of the Eternal Father and His celestialized children.[1342] Paradise is a place where dwell righteous and repentant spirits between bodily death and resurrection. Another division of the spirit world is reserved for those disembodied beings who have lived lives of wickedness and who remain impenitent even after death. Alma, a Nephite prophet, thus spake of the conditions prevailing among the departed:

"Now concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection. Behold, it has been made known unto me, by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body; yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that G.o.d who gave them life. And then shall it come to pa.s.s that the spirits of those who are righteous, are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise; a state of rest; a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow, &c. And then shall it come to pa.s.s, that the spirits of the wicked, yea, who are evil; for behold, they have no part nor portion of the Spirit of the Lord; for behold, they chose evil works rather than good; therefore the spirit of the devil did enter into them, and take possession of their house; and these shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth; and this because of their own iniquity; being led captive by the will of the devil. Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked: yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful, looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of G.o.d upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection."[1343]