Is Jesus God? (Part 4.1: Did Jesus Die?)

(This is part four of a series on the divinity of Christ. Start by deciding if the Gospels have any historical value; follow that with Jesus’ claims of divinity; look into prophecies and miracles; then come back here. As an aside, there are a lot of footnotes on this one, so if you’re reading it in your email or your reader, you might want to click through so you can hover over the footnotes to see the text rather than clicking or scrolling to the bottom. Be warned: this post gets a little grisly.)

The Resurrection is Jesus’ ultimate miracle, the defining argument of Christianity. Paul tells us that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is empty.¹ Because not only did Jesus foretell that he would be crucified and rise again,² he also said it was the one essential sign he would give.³

The first step in “proving” the Resurrection⁴ is establishing that Jesus died. Let’s look a little bit at the suffering that preceded his death:

The Agony in the Garden

The night before he died, Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. As he awaited his betrayer, he prayed so fervently that he began to sweat blood.⁵ This is an actual medical phenomenon—hematidrosis. When a person is under extreme stress, his capillaries can burst under the skin; the blood then oozes out through his pores. This is, as one might expect, an extraordinarily painful situation resulting in extreme bruising wherever the blood vessels burst. Not a good way to start the night.

When his betrayer showed up, Jesus wasn’t surprised. It had been foretold that he’d be betrayed by a friend⁶ after all, and sold for 30 pieces of silver.⁷ After he’s dragged away, he’s interrogated,⁸ punched repeatedly in the face⁹ and kept up well into the early hours of the morning.¹⁰ It seems unlikely that he got much sleep; still less so that he got any food or water. By Friday morning, he would have been in pretty bad shape before the Romans even laid a hand on him.

The Scourging at the Pillar

After a night of torment at the hands of the Jews,¹¹ Jesus made his way to wimpy Pontius Pilate, who questioned him weakly and had little but blustering to offer in response to Jesus’ taciturn acceptance of his fate.¹² When Pilate found that there really wasn’t any legitimate charge to pin on him, he wanted to let him go. Well, scourge him, then let him go.¹³ That’s generally my response to people who’ve done nothing wrong.

Then, of course, the real punishment began. If you’ve seen The Passion of the Christ, you’ve got an idea that this was more than a cursory beating. It was torture, plain and simple. Roman soldiers were excellent at inflicting pain and just because this was a preamble to the far more painful crucifixion doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have done a thorough job. While Scripture is silent on the extent of the scourging, we can get a pretty good idea from the blood stains on the Shroud of Turin.¹⁴ Scientists who have investigated the blood stains on the Shroud¹⁵ say that the man it was wrapped around would have been in critical condition before he even made it to the Cross.

The Crowning with Thorns

As if all the beatings weren’t enough, let’s add insult to injury by mocking the Lord with a crown of thorns.¹⁶ And these weren’t your Grandma’s thorns. We tend to depict the crown of thorns as something that would have scratched poor Jesus’ sweet little face, but the evidence¹⁷ indicates that these were skull-piercing thorns.¹⁸ Long enough to do some serious damage.

The Carrying of the Cross

Now, we don’t know exactly how much Jesus’ cross weighed, although recent scholarship suggests 100 pounds at the very least. And we don’t know how far he walked, although it was probably at least a mile and it was certainly uphill. But we do know that the task was so hard—or Jesus was in such bad shape—that he couldn’t do it himself.

Bear in mind once again that Roman soldiers weren’t exactly known for their compassion. Especially not toward Jews. So when they impress Simon of Cyrene into service,¹⁹ it’s probably not because they were feeling nice. It makes more sense to assume that Jesus had been beaten so raw that he looked likely to pass out. And the soldiers’ job wasn’t just to kill him. Romans are more specific than that. They were supposed to crucify him. Crucifixion was the most humiliating and painful way to die—so painful that they had to invent a new word to describe the pain: excruciating. Ex cruce. From the cross.

So if they wanted to stay out of trouble, they had to make sure he made it all the way up to Calvary. God seems to have wanted it that way, too, given all the types²⁰ of the Cross that he put into salvation history. Isaac carrying the wood of his sacrifice,²¹ Noah saved by the wood of the ark,²² the bronze serpent lifted up²³…. Then there’s the fact that crucifixion was the most shameful and agonizing way one could die—this God of ours wasn’t content with a quick painless death for us; he wanted us to know that he was willing to suffer everything for us. And that he had already suffered everything with us.

The Crucifixion

Now comes the real fun.²⁴ Jesus, having been stripped, beaten, and mocked, is now nailed to a cross and hung—most likely stark naked—to suffocate to death. I’m sure you know that’s how crucifixion works, but take a moment to give it a try. Stand up and hold your arms out to the side. Far enough behind you that they could be nailed to a cross. Now lift them above your shoulders like you’re hanging there. Good. Now take a deep breath.

You can’t do it, can you? Your diaphragm is lifted by the position of your arms, leaving very little room for your lungs to expand. You can get enough oxygen that our little experiment won’t kill you, but it would if you did it long enough. (You can put your arms down now.)

This is how crucifixion works. It’s long and slow and terrible. Men who weren’t beaten first would usually hang by the side of the road, being ridiculed and spat at, for three days before they finally died. Jesus was such a wreck that it only took him three hours. Only three hours of slowly suffocating to death, having to rip the nails further through his wrists every time he pulled himself up far enough to take a deeper breath. Only three hours of horrific pain aggravated by the panic that an inability to breathe sparks in the human body.

This is where the typology really goes nuts. Jesus even calls out the first line of Psalm 22—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—to make sure we’re making the connections.²⁵ He’s mocked by onlookers who insist that God would save him if he loved him.²⁶ He cries out with desperate thirst.²⁷ His hands and feet are pierced.²⁸ They divide his clothing and cast lots for his robe.²⁹ Quite the coincidence if it’s not really the fulfillment of prophecy.

By the time he breathes his last, it seems like a sure thing that he’s good and dead. Nobody could survive all this. But the Romans weren’t taking any chances. After all, Romans who botched an execution were likely to be executed themselves. So we can be fairly confident that he’s dead simply from the fact that they don’t break his legs. To speed up the process—to make it impossible for the condemned to push up with their legs and get a little more oxygen—they broke the legs of the two thieves. But Jesus was already dead, so they didn’t bother.³⁰ If they didn’t break his legs, they must have been certain that he was dead—they’re pros, after all.

Just to be sure, though, they stabbed him in the side.³¹ And he didn’t flinch. That might not mean anything on its own, but John gives us a key detail: blood and water poured out. Sure, that symbolizes baptism and the Eucharist, his divine and human natures, and any number of other things. But it’s also scientifically relevant. When a person suffocates, there’s a clear fluid that collects in the pericardial sac, the region around the heart. While one might expect Luke, the doctor, to fabricate this information, we get it from John, who recounts it not because it’s convincing but because he was there and probably got sprayed.

What does it matter that it was the “water” from the pericardial sac? It means he got good and stabbed. This is no surface wound, it’s a serious attack on flesh and organs. Any living body would react to this. Even if the spear miraculously missed the lungs and heart, the trauma of the thrust would have caused a living body to gag or seize or something. Even if he had passed out, even if he was comatose, even if he was completely paralyzed, his body would have reacted. But it didn’t. If he’s not flinching when he’s stabbed through (or at least near) the heart and lungs, he’s good and dead.

Nobody at the time claimed he didn’t die—that would be ridiculous. Even the Jews (in Biblical times and later) affirmed that Jesus was dead. Nobody could suffer all this and survive. See Acts 25:19, for example: “Instead [the Jews] had some issues with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died but who Paul claimed was alive.”

Burial

But exploring the death of Jesus is, of course, only part one of the question of the resurrection. We’re following the body now, a body that was buried³² in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.³³ He wasn’t stolen away and hidden somewhere secret. His burial place was widely known—to the point that the Jews posted a guard.³⁴ The disciples may not have understood his predictions of the resurrection, but the Sanhedrin sure did. So they checked on the body, sealed the tomb, and posted a guard.

The Body

And then, on the third day, the body was missing. The stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty, and the guards had some cockamamie story about seeing some glowing guy and going catatonic with fear.³⁵ The burial cloths were rolled up in the tomb and there was no trace of yesterday’s bloody corpse. The guards’ story—and the Jews’ hush money³⁶—indicate that the conflict at this point wasn’t about whether the tomb was empty but why. Nobody, it seems, could produce the dead Messiah. So it all comes down to this: where’s the body?

For that, friends, you’ll have to tune in next time. This post is plenty long enough already. But I’ll give you a little hint (spoiler alert!): he rose.

1. 1 Cor 15:14 [↩]
2. Mt 20:18-19, among others. [↩]
3. Mt 12:38-40 [↩]
4. By “proving,” I mean demonstrating that it is the best possible explanation. [↩]
5. Lk 22:44 [↩]
6. Ps 41:10 [↩]
7. Zec 11:12-13 [↩]
8. Mt 26:57-68 etc. [↩]
9. Mt 26:67 etc. [↩]
10. After Peter denies him, the cock crows. Whether that’s the Roman hour of cock crow—gallicinium—or an actual rooster crowing, he was still being tormented at 3am. [↩]
11. Let’s take a moment to remember that while historically the Jews crucified Jesus, so did the Romans. Really, though, it was our sins that crucified Jesus. So, and I hope this is obvious, we do not in any way blame the Jews of today for the sufferings of Christ. No more than we blame ourselves, that is. Don’t be an anti-Semite. Jesus is a Jew. [↩]
12. Is 53:7 [↩]
13. Lk 23:15-16 [↩]
14. Look into some of the research surrounding this fascinating artifact. While some dubious test results have convinced people that it’s a medieval forgery, the bulk of the evidence suggests that it’s legit. Suffice it to say that the image on the Shroud cannot be reproduced. It isn’t paint, dye, pigment, lead, or ash. In fact, scientists have no idea how it was created. Their best bet is that the body it was wrapped around suddenly emitted a great deal of radioactive light, resulting in the image that we have today—which, by the way, is a photo negative of a person. It would be pretty impressive—that is to say, impossible–for a forger of the middle ages to even have a concept of a photo negative let alone the capacity to emit radioactive light. This skeptic is convinced. [↩]
15. Check out A Doctor at Calvary if you really want to get into the medicine behind all this. A shorter version linked to here. [↩]
16. Mt 27:29 etc [↩]
17. Pollen on the Shroud [↩]
18. Which, by the way, would make a great name for a Christian screamo band. I’ve been saying this for years and one day I just know I’m going to turn on the radio and hear the end of some awful shrieky thing. “That’s the newest single from Skull-Piercing Thorns,” the announcer will say, and my life will be complete. [↩]
19. Mt 27:32 etc. [↩]
20. Old Testament people or events that foreshadow New Testament realities [↩]
21. Gen 22:6 [↩]
22. Gen 6-9; Wis 14:5, 7 [↩]
23. Nm 21:4-9; Jn 3:14 [↩]
24. /sardonic [↩]
25. Mt 27:46 etc. [↩]
26. Ps 22:9, Wis 2:18, Mt 27:43 etc. [↩]
27. Ps 22:16, Jn 19:28 [↩]
28. Ps 22:17-18, Is 53:5, Is 49:16 [↩]
29. Ps 22:19, Mt 27:35 etc. [↩]
30. Also fulfills prophecy—Ex 12:46, Jn 19:36 [↩]
31. Zec 12:10, Zec 13:6, Jn 19:37 [↩]
32. Is 53:9 [↩]
33. Mt 27:57-60 etc. [↩]
34. Mt 27:62-66 [↩]
35. Mt 28:4 [↩]
36. Mt 28:11-15 [↩]