I Believe He Died – (The Creed, Part 10)

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

Luke 23:46, Psalm 31:5

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I believe he died. At the moment of Jesus’ death he said these beautiful words. “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46, Psalm 31:5) Those words were a bedtime prayer for Jewish children. And what a beautiful, appropriate way for Jesus body to surrender his Spirit into heaven and into His Father’s keeping at his own death.

When we think about the death of Jesus, we say that so often it’s easy for us to be desensitized to how important that moment is for our salvation. In fact, like every important moment of Jesus life for our salvation, even Jesus’ death is a moment that is under attack. You see, because there’s so much evidence for Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, many skeptics will go back and say, well, then perhaps Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. And what they posit is what’s called the swoon theory. That Jesus, because of his physical suffering on the cross just passed out or fainted. And this deceived the people into thinking he was dead. So they took him, place him in a tomb, and later he revived and everyone thought that he had come back to life. And so they were convinced that somehow he was also their Lord of life.

So whenever we come up to speculation, we have to compare it to real history. Here’s some real history about three men that we know of who are taken down from a cross while still alive. This happened in 70 A.D. the historian Josephus had a number of friends that were captured and later crucified after the fall of Jerusalem to General Titus. And so Josephus goes to General Titus, the Roman general, and ask him to take his three friends down from the crosses. Titus immediately complied. He sent men to bring Josephus his friends off the crosses, and they were given the best medical treatment available in the Roman Empire at that time. And despite that, despite even their short time on the cross, two of his friends still died just from the physical trauma of having been crucified. The last friend of Josephus did manage to survive, but he remained a cripple for the rest of his life.

Now let’s apply what we know to the swoon theory. The idea that somehow, after being crucified, Jesus was able to revive by himself with no medical treatment at all. That after his arms and legs have been pulled out of joint, he somehow, crippled and maimed, though he would have been, would be able to roll that heavy stone from the inside, be able to roll that stone away, and somehow escape the tomb. And if we grant all those other things, can you imagine this broken, crippled person trying to convince his disciples that he is the Lord of life, the way, the truth, and the life?

That would be nonsense. You see, we have eyewitnesses that were there at Jesus crucifixion who saw that he was crucified and that he died. And the Roman soldiers in charge of the crucifixion, they had one job. They were not allowed to leave their post until they knew that their charges were truly dead. In most cases, they would break the legs. Other cases, they would light a fire at the base of a cross to speed up asphyxiation. But in Jesus’ case, he found he was already dead. But just to make sure, they took their spear and thrust it through his side, bringing a flow of blood and water, proof that Jesus heart had been pierced, that he was truly dead.

Jesus’ death on the cross is one of the foundational truths of the Bible. It means that by his death, he has truly redeemed us from death. And because of Jesus’ tender moment prayer before his death, giving his soul safely into his Father’s keeping, now every Christian on their deathbed can approach death, being no more afraid than we are to fall asleep. We too can say that same prayer. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit, because Jesus truly died. Amen.