I have seen paintings and drawings of the empty tomb of Jesus and they always show an empty slab with something that looks like a sheet draped over the slab. I always thought that doesn't prove that he rose from the dead. Someone could have stolen the body and left the grave cloth. And then I wondered why didn't his family get his body for burial. In my studies, I found that the Romans did not allow criminal burial but threw the bodies on the trash heap or left them
hanging for the birds and animals to eat them. REMEMBER THIS IT IS IMPORTANT LATER.
JOHN 19;38 "And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus,but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away His body .
"And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury."
John 20:1-10, gives us a picture of His Resurrection. "Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb."She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him. In her mind she feared they had removed the body and cast it on the garbage pile where all criminal crucified persons were thrown
hanging for the birds and animals to eat them. REMEMBER THIS IT IS IMPORTANT LATER.
JOHN 19;38 "And after these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus,but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away His body .
"And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury."
John 20:1-10, gives us a picture of His Resurrection. "Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb."She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him. In her mind she feared they had removed the body and cast it on the garbage pile where all criminal crucified persons were thrown
John outran Peter and arrived there first.Stooping down, he looked into the tomb and was staggered at what he saw. Peter came., He just bowed his head and stepped into the sepulchre and John followed him. Notice the language: "And lie beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin that was upon his head not lying with the linen cloths, but laid in a place by itself."
You understand, Jesus' body had been embalmed as the custom of the Jews was to bury.Nearly every rich family had a slave who understood embalming. They had one hundred pounds of a mixture composed of myrrh and aloes and a bundle of linen cloths.They cut the linen up into strips, smeared it with this mixture as you would a bandage towrap around a wounded finger, and then wrapped the body of Jesus. Every finger was wrapped separately and then the hands; and arms, until the whole body was wrapped as an Egyptian mummy. When it was finished, they took the embalmed body and put it into the sepulchre, and it was sealed by Roman authority.Notice, the body of Jesus likely weighed 180 to 200 pounds in his health. He would shrink about twenty pounds in the crucifixion. There was a hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes, besides the linen cloths they used in embalming. Then the body would weigh about 280 pounds. When they had finished the embalming, His body was completely encased except for His face.
If Jesus had not died of a ruptured heart and the spear thrust, He certainly would have died in the three days and three nights of embalming. No one could have lived thru that.The embalming cloth had grown hard and stiff in that dry cell in the seventy-two hours He was there. The cloth had not been rent or torn. He had come out of the grave clothes through the narrow aperture where His face had been.
What they saw was not cloth laying on the slab but an empty shell composed of the strips of cloth and the mixture of herbs and embalming spices hardened . There was no way he could have got out of this hardened cocoon unless he had been resurrected. This is a fast sketch of what I have found to be what they saw. .In fact in the scriptures it tells of John going to the to the tomb and it says.
..Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.
IF I SAW SOMETHING LIKE THIS THAT WOULD BE PROOF ENOUGH FOR ME!!!!!!!!!
The face was the last to be wrapped and it was separate from the body until the final coating was applied. You notice that the head wrapping came off separate from the body. I did a demonstration of this with a balloon for the children I used to teach in Sunday School.
