CHRIST'S BURIAL
"Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and THAT HE WAS BURIED, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" - 1 Cor 15:1-4

Devotion 7 of 14

APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE
      In his remarkable summation of Divine history, Paul proclaimed the burial of Jesus as well as His resurrection. "And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. And when they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead" (Acts 13:28-30, NASB).
Christ's burial was an interlude between His death and resurrection. It was the  point at which He further identified with those He came to save. As the prophet Isaiah said, "He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth" (Isa 53:9, NIV).

      In answer to the Psalmic prophecy, God did not "leave" the body of His Son in the grave. "Because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay . . . Seeing what was ahead, he [David] spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to the grave, nor did His body see decay" (Acts 2:27,31). However, Jesus' body was buried for a while,  even though it was not subject to corruption.

      The burial of Christ was foreshadowed in the prophet Jonah. Jesus twice declared the association in Matthew's Gospel. "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt 12:39-40, NASB). "An evil and adulterous  generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah" (Matt 16:4, NASB). Luke's Gospel adds, "For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation" (Luke 11:30,  NASB). 

      Three long days and nights the body of Jesus remained in the heart of the
earth, apparently confirming the triumph of darkness. The "sign" was His return  from the dead in power and glory. As Paul said elsewhere, "Who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 1:4)

  The fact is that Jesus was buried. It is not an incidental fact, but one integral to the Divinely given "sign."

PRAYER POINT: Father, I thank You Jesus did not remain in the grave. I recognize that when He rose from the dead, hope sprang forth for the human race, planting the rose of immortality upon the grave which formerly spoke of hopelessness. Receive my praise for the risen Savior, in His own precious, precious name!

-- TOMORROW: THAT YOU MIGHT KNOW . . . --