Jesus: The Seven Wonders of HIStory Part 6 - His Resurrection 1 

Copyright “This David Pawson video is the copyright of ©David Pawson Teaching Trust 2020 and is streamed with the permission of the David Pawson Teaching Trust. For a full library of David’s teaching resources please visit www.davidpawson.org” 

Thoughtful Thoughts 18.4.25 by John Dunning;

Jesus’ death & resurrection.

A). INTRODUCTION… JESUS’ DEATH WAS WITNESSED

1). God accepted Jesus’ crucifixion as the price needed to pay for the forgiveness of those who repent of sin. Jesus’ crucifixion shows the seriousness of sin and words can’t possibly express the true cost to Jesus of paying for all sin ever committed.

–

2). Unlike the two criminals on either side of Jesus, His knees were not broken when the soldiers came to take down the bodies, as He had died before the others from the agony He had endured during torture, both of the cross, the whipping and thorns, but also separation from His Father in Heaven. 

a). Note that in Exodus 12:46 it says that the animals made by way of a sacrifice to God must not have their bones broken.

b). Confirmed in Numbers 9:12. 

c). Psalm 34:20 prophesies the Messiah will not have His bones broken either. 

d). John 19:31-33 tells us that Jesus did not have His bones broken. Jesus’ death was a sacrifice for sin.

–

3). When

a). The year.

We know the year of Jesus' first coming as a result of Roman historical records for when the census was held, which made Joseph and Mary go to Bethlehem. So Jesus was born in the year 4BC (BC = “Before Christ”! Yes, I know, it doesn’t make sense! Don’t get me started!) 

Jesus was 33 years old when He was crucified, which means He died in 29AD (Anno Domini), which is Latin for “In the year of our Lord”. 

–

b). The day of the week.

Now, in the year Jesus was crucified (in 29AD),  the Jewish Passover had a “High Sabbath”, (also mentioned in the gospels). That High Sabbath meant that that Passover started on what we now call Wednesday. That now explains how Jesus came to be dead and buried for 3 days AND 3 nights, rising on the 3rd day, which to Gentiles, is our Sunday, as He was crucified on Wednesday afternoon, and taken down before 6pm. 

We only celebrate “Good Friday” because the Catholic church got the day of the week wrong, by guessing it was a Friday because that was the normal Jewish Sabbath day. 

Because of Pope Gregory’s anti-semitism, he moved the week of Jesus’ death from Passover time, to when the Germans celebrated their pagan goddess of “Eostre”.  

–

c). The New Covenant.

As Jesus died, the Temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom. That curtain was more like a huge theatre curtain on a stage, and God literally tore it down from top to bottom, signifying that the Old Covenant route to God was now closed. 

Forgiveness was only through the cross of Jesus now. 

–

d). Witnesses to Jesus’ death.

i). The Centurion in charge who would have crucified a lot of people, and yet upon seeing Jesus' crucifixion, Mark tells us that the Centurion said “Surely this man was the Son of God”.

ii). John noted that a soldier put his spear through Jesus’ side, and saw white and red blood corpuscles coming out from his heart, so Jesus really was dead.

iii). Disciples took Jesus’ body and buried Him before the High Sabbath started on what we call Wednesday at sundown. 

–

B). WHAT DID JESUS DO BETWEEN DYING ON THE CROSS AND RISING?

Peter tells us in his letter, (1 Peter 3:18-20), that after Jesus died, He preached

“to those who had lived at the time of Noah’s flood”. What a statement! So who would all those people have been? 

The Anglican Book of Common Prayer was updated not so long ago because it originally copied the Catholic version of the Apostles Creed that Jesus went down to hell, which is wrong. Eventually, it was corrected to say Jesus went down to the dead, thus recognizing the church’s mistaken theology, but it was a bit late in the day. 

Hades is the place where souls go to after they have died, waiting for the day of judgment. Jesus was busy preaching to those drowned in Noah’s flood. A clue as to why Jesus may have made an exception to preach to those drowned in Noah’s flood by giving them another chance, is hinted at in Matthew 11:21-22 and 15:21. We are also told in Matthew (27:52-53), that just after Jesus died, graves opened and many bodies were allowed to be raised to live another day. WOW!

Jesus had said that the Gentile towns of Tyre and Sidon would have repented if only they had seen in their towns what Jesus had done in the Jewish towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida, (beside Galilee). The Jews had had more opportunity to repent than others, but they still didn’t. After that Jesus then went directly to the Gentile towns of Tyre and Sidon to preach. 

Now, back to the people around at the time of Noah’s flood, who were the only people group who God did not allow to live out their natural life expectancy. They could argue they had not had the same opportunity to live out their natural life, and to repent. So, they could argue that they were treated differently to everyone else. The point of covering all that here is to show that God is fair. But what WE need is God’s mercy, which we come back to in the epilogue. 

–

C). JESUS’ RESURRECTION WAS WITNESSED

Jesus was resurrected in the early hours of what we call Sunday morning. 

i). 500 people saw Jesus after He was resurrected. 

ii). The disciples changed from being afraid for their lives, to fearlessly preaching about Jesus until they were murdered.

iii). The whole world started to change for the better. 

We have an pdf e-book by Dr Victor Pearce “What the World Owes to Christians”, giving us a few examples of the differences those changed by Jesus made to the world. Every new member may have a free pdf copy of our e-book. The Easter holiday is a remembrance of what Jesus did at Passover.

–

D). EPILOGUE

If God gave us what we deserved, heaven would not be an option… 

God could just say to us “The wages of sin is death.” That would be justice. 

Sin had to be paid for first, before He could forgive us and make us “white as snow”. 

Paul goes on to tell us in Romans, “But the free gift of God is eternal life – THROUGH Jesus Christ our Lord.” Jesus Christ paid the price for us to be forgiven and to enable us to be made righteous. (“He died to make us good”.) 

The point of covering this here is to show that what WE need is God’s mercy, not justice. If we only received justice, we would be in a pickle. This time of year reminds us of God arranging for our sin to be paid for, so that He can show us mercy. We can access God’s mercy by repenting of our sin, and asking for His forgiveness. (Psalm 51 can help you with that, as well as the prayer Jesus taught us in Matthew 6:9-15.)

God wants to take away our sin, in exchange for His righteousness, but we have to respond to His invitation… RSVP.

Prayer along with this hymn… My mother went to India in Chennai to be a hospital ward sister, where she helped to train nurses during WW2, and today we have a choir from Chennai Province singing “The Old Rugged Cross…” here…; https://youtu.be/UmhzQdMVJ1M

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

This link takes you to our DEVOTIONAL https://blog.inspirationalmedia.org.nz/

---------  Click HERE for our previous broadcasts  --------

Inspirational Radio… 

We have launched our new online discipleship ‘radio’ station…. which is streamed from our new website:-  https://InternetChristianRadio.com/

Our new website station “Inspirational Media Radio”, has hour-long Bible readings, David Pawson sermons, testimonies, and classic hymns. Just follow the website links. 

PS: In order to cut costs, our office has needed to move to being more of a part time service provider, so bear with us if there is a time lag in our responsiveness, and if you wish to help sustain us, Cyber Membership helps us and enables you to have substantial benefits all round. (See “Membership Options” ).