I have got to be honest about something: I am not a big fan of Charles Dickens. I have tried. I am just not a big fan. However, I do love A Christmas Carol! What a great story! In particular, I love the way that A Christmas Carol begins. Do you remember? Listen:

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?[1]

Well! One thing is clear: it was very important to Dickens that the reader understood that Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge’s former partner, was, in fact, dead. Why? Because in just a bit, Marley was going to visit Scrooge from beyond the grave! The certainty of Marley’s death lends force to the shock of Marley’s reappearance. Marley, of course, comes as a ghost. But Dickens needs the reader to understand: Marley really was dead.

The Christian story hinges in part on the fact that the hero of our story, Jesus, really and truly and actually died on the cross. Here is how the Apostles’ Creed puts it: “was crucified, died, and was buried.” It is as if the writer/s of the Creed likewise needed us to understand this, because they use three images, all of which speak of death: (1) He was crucified. (2) He died. (3) He was buried.

Why this emphasis? Why this repetition? Because the shock of Jesus’ reappearance hinges on the certainty of His death. Jesus really died. And yet, to our amazement, there are some who have challenged even this idea. So let us consider carefully “was crucified, died, and was buried.”

Jesus really died on the cross.

We begin with the blunt and bold assertion that Jesus really did die on the cross. The scriptures present Him as having died. One way of approaching this is to do so through the lens of the formula, “breathed his last.” This little phrase is used in scripture as a synonym for “died” and is oftentimes followed by a declaration of death.

Consider:

Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 25:8)

(These are the years of the life of Ishmael: 137 years. He breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.) (Genesis 25:17)

And Isaac breathed his last, and he died and was gathered to his people, old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him. (Genesis 35:29)

When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 49:33)

Now consider Mark’s and Luke’s description of the crucifixion.

And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. (Mark 15:37)

Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46)

Yes, on the cross, Jesus “breathed his last.” He died. He really died.

Perhaps you are wondering why this point would even need to be made. Who on earth would deny that Jesus really died? Let me introduce you to Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus. Paulus was a big promoter of a theory called “the swoon theory.” James Leo Garrett Jr. explains:

Strongly advocated by Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus (1761–1851) of Heidelberg, this theory posits, according to Paulus, that Jesus did not die but went into a state of unconsciousness after six hours on the cross. His “non-fatal wounds had…the effect of blood-letting.” Amid the cool spring climate and aided by the spices, Jesus gradually revived. His grave was opened by some others, perhaps Essenes, and he put on the gardener’s nearby clothes and departed from the area. On various occasions he later “appeared in disguise” to his disciples in Galilee and in Jerusalem, and finally he died on the Mount of Olives.[2]

If you immediately think of objections to this idea, you are right to do so. There are strong objections to be made, and, indeed, they carry the day. Gary Habermas points out that it was another liberal theologian, David Strauss, whose critique of the swoon theory led to it now being considered nothing more than “a historical curiosity.” He observes that Albert Schweitzer “referred to Strauss’ critique as the ‘death-blow’ to such rationalistic approaches” and that “[a]fter Strauss’ views were circulated, the liberal ‘lives of Jesus’ usually shunned the swoon theory.”

What were Strauss’s critiques of the theory? They include, in Habermas’s summation:

• The almost certain inability of a weakened and near-death survivor of scourging and crucifixion to remove the heavy tomb-stone from the inside of the tomb which would had offered him “no edge” to get a grip, even if he could have moved it anyway.
• The unlikelihood of a crucifixion survivor being able to “walk the distance to the disciples’ hiding place after having his weight suspended on a Roman crucifixion spike just a short time previously[.]”
• Were Jesus able to make it out of the tomb and walk the distance to the disciples, they would have called for doctors for the near-death man, not mistaken Him as the resurrected Lord of life.

Habermas goes on to add another bit of evidence:

• The Romans were adept at inflicting pain and ensuring death, and Jesus’ death was so obvious that they did not break his ankles, which was their usual way of hastening death.
• The medical evidence suggests that the water that flowed from Jesus’ side came from the spear piercing “the pericardium, the sac that surrounds the heart” and “the blood came from the right side of the heart.”[3]

Well, this is compelling indeed.  It frankly strains credulity to propose that Jesus survived the cross!

On March 21, 1986, The Journal of the American Medical Association caused an uproar among many of its subscribers by publishing an article by Dr. William D. Edwards entitled “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ.” In it, Dr. Edwards gave a serious and sobering medical assessment of the crucifixion. I suspect that much of the outrage was over the fact that Dr. Edwards treated the crucifixion as an actual historical occurrence. Or perhaps some of the readers objected to having such an overtly “religious” subject discussed in a medical journal. The fact of the matter is, however, that Jesus did exist and was crucified and His crucifixion constitutes the most famous execution and death in all of human history, so why should it not be medically considered?

Dr. Edwards considered it to great detail. It is a sobering read on the harsh realities of a Roman crucifixion. Consider:

            The actual cause of death by crucifixion was multifactorial and varied somewhat with each case, but the two most prominent causes probably were hypovolemic shock and exhaustion asphyxia. Other possible contributing factors included dehydration, stress-induced arrhythmias, and congestive heart failure with the rapid accumulation of pericardial and perhaps pleural effusions. Crucifracture (breaking the legs below the knees), if performed, led to an asphyxic death within minutes. Death by crucifixion was, in every sense of the word, excruciating (Latin, excruciatus, or “out of the cross”)…

Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound to his side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear, thrust between his right ribs, probably perforated not only the right lung but also the pericardium and heart and thereby ensured his death. Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross appear to be at odds with modern medical knowledge.[4]

Yes, something like the swoon theory or some variation of it truly is “at odds with modern medical knowledge.” It is also at odds, if I may, with common sense.

Jesus “was crucified, died, and was buried.”

Because Jesus really died, we can live!

The question, of course, is why did Jesus allow Himself to be crucified? Why did the Son of God die? He died in order to accomplish something. One of the more powerful and beautiful descriptions of just what He accomplished is seen in Colossians 2. There, Paul writes:

¹³ And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

The cross accomplishes forgiveness and life for us! Because He really died, we can really live! How so?

Because He really died, a debt has been paid that we could not pay.

First, Jesus paid a debt we could not pay. Here is how Paul puts it:

¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

This raises three questions:

• What is the debt Paul speaks of?
• What are its legal demands?
• How was it “nailed to the cross.”

The debt is our sin-debt. When we sin against God, we build up debt by violating His law. It is a debt in the sense that a payment or punishment is now demanded by virtue of the fact that we violated His law, have sinned against Him. We owe that debt. We have a price to pay.

The legal demands are that the price of our sins be paid, ostensibly by the one who committed the sins. The legal demand is ultimately hell. We cannot go back and un-commit our crimes against Heaven. And even as we contemplate doing so, we are adding to our debt by sinning even more. Our debt is therefore an ocean of guilt that we can never even really begin addressing. We are helpless before our sin-debt.

The only way to satisfy this debt is to have one who has no debt (by virtue of the fact that He never sinned) take our debt upon Himself and pay the price for it. And this Jesus did on the cross! So our “record of debt” was “nailed to the cross.” It was nailed to the cross in that Jesus paid the debt by taking our sins upon His sinless self and satisfying the payment they called for in and through His own death.

²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Our debt is gone. Christ covered it with His blood. The price has been paid!

Because He really died, enemies have been defeated who we could not defeat.

And our enemies have been defeated!

¹⁵ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

This, too, happened on the cross. Who are these “rulers and authorities” that Jesus overcame? They are the very ones Paul spoke of in Ephesians 6

¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

They are Satan and all of his demonic powers. This is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” that Paul spoke of in Ephesians 2:2.

When, in our text, Paul says that God “disarmed” these rulers and authorities through the triumph of the cross and empty tomb, what does he mean? With what were they armed? Well, they were armed with shame and guilt and the threat of death and hell on the basis of our sin. They were armed with all that we had done wrong. They were armed with our memories of failure and the reality of our sin. They were armed with everything that makes us cringe, everything that makes us embarrassed, everything that makes us ashamed. And, with these things, the powers kept us fearful, kept us in chains, and kept us condemned.

But when Christ, through the cross and empty tomb, shattered the power of sin, death, and hell, by paying the price, overcoming death, and offering us salvation, the devil’s hold on us is no more. Now, when the devil speaks of all we have done wrong, Jesus says, “No no! None of that! He is mine! She is mine! They are forgiven!” And then He holds up nail-pierced hands!

Jesus really has stripped the devil of his weapon against us by paying our sin-debt and setting us free!

Do you remember in the film Tombstone when the young cowboy opens his jacket to Wyatt Earp to show Wyatt his pistol? In a flash, Wyatt snatches the gun from his sash and pistol-whips him with it, knocking him to the ground! That is how I see Jesus and the devil now because of the cross. The devil tries to use his favorite weapon—our guilt and our shame—and Jesus is having none of it! He turns it on the devil and says, “No, my children are forgiven and free, but you, Satan, are condemned forever!”

Yes, our victor and King, Jesus, has disarmed the powers. But there is one power yet that must be disarmed and He has disarmed it too! In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes:

²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Death. Our greatest foe. Death has been defeated by Jesus! It has been and it will be. It cannot terrorize us like he used to.

My father once had a horrible bicycle wreck. He cracked his skull and came very close to death. He shared with me recently that as he lay there bleeding heavily he realized that something was very seriously wrong, that he had sustained an injury that was not normal. Then it occurred to him that he might die. And he told me that in that moment he thought, “I might die…and I am at peace with that.” He said he felt an overwhelming calm and peace and a sense that, if this was his time, he would go gladly into the arms of God.

Yes, physical death still exists, but it has lost its power. Why? Because Christ Jesus, having broken the curse of death, assures us that we will have life when we too breathe our last! Jesus, our Savior and King, has gone before us through the valley of the shadow. He has destroyed all that is scary and foreboding there. He has cleared the way, and we walk gladly in His steps, and He is with us all the way.

“Was crucified, died, and was buried.”

And we say, Amen!

 

[1] Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol: The Original Manuscript. (New York: Dover Publications, 1987), p.6.

[2] Garrett, James Leo, Jr. Systematic Theology. Volume 2 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock), Logos edition.

[3] Habermas, Gary R. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. (Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company, 1996), p.72–74.

[4] Edwards, William D., Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer. “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 255 (March 21, 1986), p.1461, 1463.