From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 6 of a series. Read part 5.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve... (1st Corinthians 15:3-6)

The Bible is a book of facts. In the passage we are examining in this series, the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul declares to us that the person and work of Jesus Christ together constitute the greatest fact of all history. Skeptics and mystics through the centuries have tried to deny this, but the evidence stands against them. The essence of the Gospel is not only that Jesus Christ is a historical person; not only that He stands apart from all of created humanity as "all the fullness of the Godhead in a body" (Colossians 2:9); not only that He died on the cross for sinners; but that He was, furthermore, buried. This also is essential to the Gospel.

Jesus Christ went into the grave just as we go into the grave. In His case, His body was wrapped in grave clothes, and sealed in a tomb. The essence of the Gospel is that Christ died for our sins, and He was buried.

Going into the grave for three days, wrapped in a particular type of grave clothes, would give the proof that Jesus Christ really died. He did not, as some try to say, merely swoon on the cross, or become unconscious on the cross. He actually died. He actually was buried.  In the Gospel of John, we read the record of how this was done:

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. (John 19:38-42)

It was vital for these details to be recorded in the Biblical record, because there is yet more. In God's plan, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea provided the means by which the physical evidence of Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead would be clear to all.

The essence of the Gospel is a great and unbreakable chain of facts. It is a historical fact that Jesus Christ not only lived, not only died, not only was buried - but on the third day He rose from the dead. We shall take up this next great fact as we continue.

Next: The Essence of the Gospel Is That Jesus Christ Rose From the Dead

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