Really and Truly Dead

Order of Service

• Announcements
• Hymn — When Morning Gilds the Skies
• Call to Worship — Jeremiah 31:31-34
• Hymn — When Morning Gilds the Skies
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Sin
• Assurance of Pardon — Matthew 11:28-30
• Apostles' Creed
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Prayer of Dedication
• Hymn — Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed
• Scripture Reading — John 19:31-42
• Sermon
• Prayer
• Lord's Supper
• Hymn — There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood
• Benediction
• Doxology

---

Sermon Title: Really and Truly Dead

Scripture: John 19:31-42

I. The Death of a Real Body That Is Physical (vv. 31–35)

A. The Jews requested that the victims' legs be broken to hasten death before the Sabbath

1. This was a high Sabbath — both the weekly Sabbath and the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread
2. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 forbade leaving a cursed man hanging on a tree overnight lest the land be defiled

B. The soldiers found Jesus already dead and pierced his side with a spear, producing blood and water

1. Jesus laid down his life on his own accord — no one took it from him (John 10:18)
2. John emphatically insists he witnessed this firsthand: "his testimony is true"

C. John's emphasis on the physical reality of Christ's death combats Docetism

1. Docetism (from Greek dokeō, "to seem") taught that Christ only appeared to have a physical body and only seemed to be crucified
2. John addresses this directly in 1 John 4:1-3: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God
3. The Quran reflects Docetic influence, stating Christ was neither killed nor crucified — it only seemed so; Docetism is not merely a first-century problem

D. The physical death of Christ is the very foundation of our salvation

1. Donald Macleod: "The saving power of Jesus' ministry lay not in his teaching nor in his example nor in his influence but in his dying — the Lamb had to be slain"
2. We confess in the Apostles' Creed that he was dead and buried — that truth is where our salvation rests

II. The Death of a Body Whose Bones Are Spared (vv. 36–37)

A. Scripture is fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken" (Psalm 34:20)

1. The unbroken bones declare Jesus died as a righteous man — condemned by the world, but vindicated by the Father

B. The Passover Lamb typology is central: "You shall not break any of its bones" (Exodus 12:46)

1. John's Gospel is saturated with Passover overtones in the passion narrative
2. The hyssop branch used to offer Jesus sour wine echoes its use in applying the lamb's blood to the doorposts at Passover (Exodus 12:22)
3. Michael Morales: "The cross on which Jesus shed his blood has become the doorpost of the world"

C. Jesus is presented as both Lamb of God and Son of God (John 1:29-34)

1. The Passover lamb substituted for the firstborn sons of Israel (Exodus 13:13-15)
2. In Genesis 22:2, God commands Abraham to sacrifice his only son; the ram in the thicket substitutes — but no ram substitutes for God's own Son
3. Zechariah 12:10 — they will mourn for the pierced one "as one mourns for an only child… as one weeps over a firstborn"
4. Zechariah 13:1 — a fountain opened to cleanse from sin; the blood and water from Christ's side is the fountain of New Covenant blessing
5. Jesus is the only begotten Son (John 1:14; John 3:16) — the final and ultimate Passover, the unblemished and unbroken Lamb, the firstborn Son sacrificed in our place

D. William Cowper, who struggled with severe depression and guilt, expressed this in There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood: sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains

III. The Death of a Buried Body That Rests (vv. 38–42)

A. Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple and member of the Sanhedrin, honorably requested Jesus' body from Pilate

1. The customary Jewish practice for those crucified as cursed was burial in a common grave; Joseph arranged a new, unused tomb instead

B. Nicodemus — last seen coming to Jesus by night (John 3) — came openly, bringing approximately 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes

1. This lavish amount was fitting for a royal burial; the King's body was honored
2. John may signal that Nicodemus, having witnessed Christ's death, was finally stepping into the light

C. The burial takes place on the Sabbath — a Great, High Sabbath — and this is theologically significant

1. The Sabbath literally means rest; its origin is in creation — God rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2)
2. The seventh day in Genesis, unlike the other six, has no "evening and morning" — it was an open-ended, eternal rest that Adam was to enter through obedience
3. Hebrews 4 teaches that the weekly Sabbath pointed to an eternal Sabbath rest that Adam failed to enter through disobedience
4. Isaiah 57:2 — the righteous who die are described as resting in their beds; Daniel 12:13 — Daniel's death is described as rest

D. Christ as the Last Adam fulfills the creation mandate

1. Jesus completes the Father's mission on the sixth day (Friday): "It is finished"
2. He rests all day on the seventh day (Saturday — the Sabbath)
3. He rises on the first day of the week (John 20:1), ushering in New Creation and the New Covenant
4. Sunday worship is the church's participation in New Covenant, New Creation rest — we enter the eternal Sabbath now by faith and fully then by sight when Christ returns
5. Christ Our Passover Lamb gives us eternal rest — now in part, and fully at his return, when God and the Lamb will be our everlasting light