Mark 15:45 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 15:45

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Elsewhere we read that Joseph himself took down the body, with help we assume. Wasn’t he scared of being defiled as a Jew on the day of preparation before the sabbath? No, Joseph had faith. How can you be defiled by handling a dead body, if that dead body is the body of the Saviour, the body of the Messiah? His faith knew there was no defilement in this act. But a man of his station wouldn’t normally be handling a body and yet he humbled himself and this was the greatest privilege imaginable for him – to be given the duty by God of conducting to a sepulchre the body of the Messiah.We read that Joseph of Arimathea was accompanied by Nicodemus. He too had become a disciple of Christ, and together they anointed the body of the Lord and wrapped it in the long linen shroud. Before the body was wrapped in it, between each wrapping, were laid the ointments, the spices, and then the next wrapping and more ointments and spices. Why did they do this? Because they expected that the body of Christ would decompose; that it would lie in the tomb, and after some three or four days naturally it would deteriorate. Those rich spices with their aroma would cover the decomposition. They didn't understand the prophecy of Psalm 16 given to David, that God would not let the body of his Messiah suffer corruption. It wouldn't; it didn’t, and he would rise again without corruption. But that's what they thought. They didn't yet understand the resurrection. They thought he was in that tomb and that was it. They loved him. They believed in him. This wasn't the end. Somehow this would serve to take away the guilt of sin. This will be the great act. He said he would return. So it is with faith, but not clear understanding, that they anoint him, and then he's placed in the tomb. Apparently, soon afterwards, the chief priests arrange with Pilate for there to be a Roman guard and Roman sentries, and a Roman seal set on that tomb (Matthew 28:11-12). Christ’s body would be there until the first day, until the resurrection.

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Questions

Where was Christ? Well his body was there in the tomb, but his soul was with God the Father. He said so. He had said to the dying thief, ‘To day shalt thou be with me in paradise’, in the paradise of Christ. Where is that? ‘I go to my Father’, he had told the disciples, not a separate place from where the Father is. The paradise of Christ is in heaven where God the Father dwells, and that is where Christ was. ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit’ – his spirit: what is that? The spiritual being of Christ, who is God, who cannot die. The person of Christ, the spiritual being of Christ, had left the body and was with the Father. God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one God, and they cannot be separated. We do not understand exactly how it was that Christ, when he died on Calvary, suffered the separation from the Father that we deserved for all eternity, as we are punished in hell. Christ must suffer our separation, and yet he cannot be separated from God. But somehow he was obliged to experience that separation from his Father, though essentially he is inseparable from the Father. Those things are beyond our understanding. But we believe because Scripture teaches us so – ‘My God, my God,’ said Christ, ‘why hast thou forsaken me?’ Nor can we understand how the man Jesus of Nazareth, and the divine being of Christ, the Son of God, can be one. The human nature is so small, and the divine nature so infinite. Yet that is what has been brought about: the extraordinary and wonderful unity of the spirit of Christ with his human spirit. The soul of Christ, God and man, rose to the Father's side, where he would in due course receive all authority and power. He had it before, but now he has it by having earned it on Calvary's cross. His body in the tomb, his divine being and human spirit with the Father on high.

There are not three places where the departed go – Sheol, the place of the grave: one department for the lost, and another for Christ and the saved, and thirdly heaven, slightly different from Sheol. No, there are only two places: the place of the dead for the lost, and the paradise of Christ. When Paul was strangely lifted up the paradise, to heaven, he says that he did not know whether he had been taken bodily or in his spirit alone. That means that when our disembodied souls go at death to heaven, we will be able to function almost as though we were in the body. If Paul did not know, then he must have been able to function somehow, even as a disembodied soul. When we receive our resurrection bodies it will be wonderful, but even before then in the paradise of Christ we see each other and can somehow function almost as though the body was still there.

Did Christ actually descend into hell? The Apostle’s Creed seems to say that. Or is the truth that Calvary was his hell, that on the cross he descended into hell for us. He descended from heaven to Calvary, and there he suffered our hell. Yes, in that sense he descended into hell. But the holy one, the holy one couldn't possibly descend into the pit of darkness. That is a misunderstanding of 2 Peter.

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Mark 15:45 Commentary and Bible Study