Mark Bradford's Bible Blog

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,^[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

This one verse has long been regarded as “the Gospel in a nutshell.” We see “John 3:16″ on signs at ballgames, and used to see it in Tim Tebow’s eyeblack before the NFL’s uniform code disallowed it. I’ve often wondered how many saw that reference and had no idea what it referred to. If you’ve ever wondered what John 3:16 means, I hope to help you understand in this post. This one elegant statement sums up God’s plan of salvation.

There is some disagreement as to who is speaking at this point. Some scholars believe that Jesus is still speaking all the way to verse 21. Others think that the quotation ends at verse 15, and that from this point to verse 21, John is adding his own commentary on what Jesus had said to Nicodemus. Either way, these verses are crucial to our understanding of the Gospel, and what it means to accept or reject Jesus.

For God so loved the world: This phrase makes two key points. First, God took the initiative, and he did so because of his great love. Many get the idea from the Old Testament and their own upbringing that God is all about judgment. They imagine that God is watching us all the time, just waiting for us to mess up so he can condemn us. There is the mistaken impression that the love of Jesus somehow changed the mind of God from judgment to love. But God, even though he would have been well justified in destroying the world because of our wickedness, made this ultimate sacrifice for one reason; because he loved us so much. Jesus would never have come at all if not for the love of God.

The second point is that God loved the world. This was a big part of what Nicodemus was struggling with. Jews of his day did not believe that God loved the world. They believed that God loved Israel, and hated Israel’s enemies, which was pretty much everyone else. That’s how they justified their hatred of the Gentile nations. When Jesus said we are to love our enemies, (Matthew 5:43-48, blog) it was a revolutionary statement, because the common wisdom was that we should love our neighbor, and hate our enemy. Israelites figured that God hated their enemies, so they should hate them too. So if Jesus was still speaking to Nicodemus here, this would have been a shocking statement to him. God loved the world, with all its paganism, debauchery, and cruelty? Yes, and he still loves each of us, in spite of our sin. His love does not imply approval, however. God loves us like a parent with a wayward child. A parent loves their child unconditionally, even though they may disapprove of their behavior. And we are God’s wayward children. But he loves us so much that he sent his only Son, knowing all the while that many would reject even this extravagant gesture.

I believe that this phrase also refutes the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement. That doctrine states that Jesus did not die for all, he died for the elect. The reasoning is that if Christ died for all and all are not saved, then the blood of Christ is ineffective, and God is not sovereign. That belief flies in the face of this, the central verse of Christianity. God did not so love the elect that he gave his only Son. He loved the world so much that he did that. Jesus is not the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the elect. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. (1:29, blog)

…that he gave his one and only Son:

This phrase gets into the nature of the Trinity, which none of us can really explain. Jesus is God in the form of a man. He was born to a human woman, Mary, who was impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Somehow, during his time on earth, God the Father and Jesus were separate beings. Otherwise, when Jesus prayed, he was praying to himself. But he was and is God.

Though no one can fully explain how Jesus is God’s Son, and also God himself, the key phrase here is one and only. This was a one-time, once for all deal. Animal sacrifices were insufficient to save. The only way to save us all, once and for all, was for God to sacrifice his one and only Son. Some of us are willing to sacrifice our own lives to save another, but how many of us would sacrifice the life of our only child? More than that, how many would sacrifice our child to save someone who hated us, or denied we even existed? God had a whole world of people like that, and he gave his one and only Son to save them.

…that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

As I’ve stated many times before in this blog, many have the idea that believing means to simply agree that something is true. But that’s not what it means at all. It means to trust in, rely upon, and live in accordance with what we say we believe. We live this every day and never think about it. If you don’t believe that a bridge will hold, will you cross it? We drive our cars because we believe that they will get us to our destination safely. If we didn’t believe that, we wouldn’t drive them. If you say you believe in something, but your “belief” doesn’t affect your behavior, you don’t really believe at all.

In order to receive the benefit of my belief in my car, I have to drive it. By the same token, in order to receive the benefit of belief in Jesus, I have to live for him, trust in him, rely upon him, and live according to what he says. As this verse plainly says, whoever believes in Jesus will not perish, but have eternal life. That doesn’t mean our bodies will never die. Everybody dies, but those who believe will not perish in the eternal sense. The Amplified Bible translates the word perish as come to destruction, be lost. Those who truly believe in Jesus will not come to destruction, will not be lost in the life to come. Instead, we will have eternal life. As I said in my last post, eternal life isn’t just human life that lasts forever. That could be a curse! No, eternal life is the very life of God. It’s a life where time does not exist, where we live in the immediate presence of God forever. It’s resurrected life in all the power and glory that Jesus had in his resurrected, glorified body. In spite of all our wickedness and rebellion against God, God loved the whole world so much that he sacrificed his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him, trusts in him, relies upon him, and puts his words into practice would not be lost or come to destruction, but have the very eternal life of God himself.

⁹ “How can this be?”^(K) Nicodemus asked.

¹⁰ “You are Israel’s teacher,”^(L) said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹ Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know,^(M) and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.^{(N) 12} I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?

As I said in my last post, Nicodemus should have been familiar with the concept of being born again. It was an expression used to describe the change that occurred when a Gentile convert became a Jew. But Nicodemus couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the idea that a righteous Jew like him needed this new birth. So he asked Jesus, “How can this be?” Jesus chides him by saying, “You are Israel’s teacher, and do you not understand these things?” As a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, he must have been familiar with the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:33:

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.

This prophecy describes a level of righteousness that went far beyond the external righteousness of the Pharisees. And this new covenant was not about Gentiles becoming Jews. The new birth was also for the people of Israel. How easy it is to read a passage of scripture and think it applies to other people, but not to us!

Then Jesus shares something with Nicodemus that he refused to share with the religious leaders later: the source of his authority. Throughout the gospels, people marveled that Jesus taught as one who had authority, rather than simply quoting great rabbis of the past, like the scribes did. (Matthew 7:28-29, Matthew 9:8, Mark 1:22, Mark 1:27, Luke 4:32) Here Jesus tells Nicodemus that he has authority to say the things he says because he is testifying to what he has seen. He is the Word that came to Jeremiah and the other prophets. The truths of God are his truths, because he is God. But even though he speaks the truths of God on his own authority, and performs miraculous signs to prove his authority, still “you people” do not accept his testimony. Which people? John plainly tells us over and over that people did believe in Jesus because of his miracles. I think the people Jesus is referring to are the authorities that Nicodemus represented. They knew what Jesus had been doing, and still didn’t believe. How much does Jesus have to do for us to believe?

The things that Jesus had talked to Nicodemus about were “earthly things,” that is, things that happen on earth, to people. Things that can be seen and heard. If Nicodemus couldn’t understand concepts that he could see and hear, how could he understand things no one had seen or heard?

¹³ No one has ever gone into heaven^(O) except the one who came from heaven^(P)—the Son of Man.^{[e](Q) 14} Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness,^(R) so the Son of Man must be lifted up,^{[f](S) 15} that everyone who believes^(T) may have eternal life in him.”

No one had ever gone to Heaven and come back to tell about it except Jesus. Even the prophets who had visions of Heaven had trouble describing it. Their words sound very strange to our ears. But Jesus came down from Heaven to earth, so he knew what he was talking about. But Jesus didn’t spend much time talking about heavenly things. He was more interested in telling people what our relationship with God should be, and what our relationships with others should be. He didn’t start by telling Nicodemus about the mysteries of Heaven. He started by telling him that he must be born again.

Then Jesus makes a rather strange analogy to an even stranger story from Numbers 21:4-9, where the people grumbled about their living conditions in the desert. God sent poisonous snakes among them that bit people, and many died. So God told Moses to make a bronze snake and raise it on a pole where everyone could see it. Those who looked on the bronze snake were cured. Those who didn’t died. It’s strange that the God who forbade graven images would tell Moses to do this, and it seems strange that Jesus would compare himself to the image of a snake. But that’s not what he was doing. He was using the fact that the snake was lifted up, and those who looked on it were saved, as an analogy for how he would be lifted up on the cross, and then lifted up in glory at his ascension, and those who look to him, to his death and resurrection, are saved. But the word for lifted up also means exalted. Throughout the ages since, Jesus continues to be lifted up. We lift him up, or exalt him, in praise and worship, and we hold him up for all to see, that those who turn to him might be saved. That’s our job as believers, to lift up Jesus.

We are to lift Jesus up so that those look on him and believe (trust in him, rely upon him, live in accordance with what he says) will have eternal life. That’s not just human life that lasts forever. That could be a curse! No, eternal life is the very life of God. It’s a life where time does not exist, where we live in the immediate presence of God forever. It’s resurrected life in all the power and glory that Jesus had in his resurrected, glorified body. Look to him, believe in him, and receive that life.

³ Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,^[a] you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” (NLB)

In verses 1-2 of this chapter, Nicodemus came to Jesus to find out more about what Jesus was teaching. See my post on that passage here. Though John doesn’t record Nicodemus asking any questions of Jesus before Jesus gave this answer, his question was implied in the fact that he came in the first place, or else John simply didn’t record the question. As I mentioned in my last post, it was part of the Sanhedrin’s job to investigate new teachers. Jesus would have assumed that Nicodemus, as part of the Sanhedrin, was there to inquire about Jesus’ doctrine. So he either anticipated Nicodemus’ question, or John didn’t record it.

The doctrine of being born again was not new to Israel, nor was the concept of a new covenant. The new covenant was expected to be established when the Messiah came. It was prophesied in many places in the Old Testament. Jeremiah 31:33 says:

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”

See also Ezekiel 11:19:

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

But in the Jewish mind at the time, being born again described the change from Gentile to Jew. When a Gentile convert became a proselyte to Judaism, he underwent baptism and circumcision, and was said to have experienced a new birth, from Gentile to Jew, from unclean to clean. This concept would not have been new to Nicodemus, which sheds some light on his question.

⁴ “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

⁵ Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.^{[b] 6} Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.^{[c] 7} So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You^[d] must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” (NLB)

Nicodemus’ incredulity doesn’t stem from an unfamiliarity with the concept of being born again. He’s surprised that Jesus would say that Jews needed this new birth. Even those considered the holiest of all Jews, the Pharisees, needed to be born again. That made them no better, no closer to God than the vilest Gentile. That’s what Nicodemus had a hard time grasping. Jews believed that being born a Jew was enough to guarantee their salvation. Jesus was telling Nicodemus that everyone, including a “righteous” Pharisee like him, had to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God. That was the new doctrine he was teaching.

What does Jesus mean by born of water? Some think it means baptism, others say it means physical birth. If he meant physical birth, that would fit well with what he said in verse 6, that he’s comparing human life with spiritual life. But isn’t it redundant and obvious to say you have to be born in the first place to be born again? Since baptism is clearly an integral part of our salvation, (Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16, Galatians 3:27) and it was also a major part of conversion to Judaism, I think Jesus is talking about baptism when he says that we must be born of water. He was telling Nicodemus that he needed baptism as much as any Gentile.

This was a surprise to Nicodemus, but Jesus told him he shouldn’t be surprised by that, given all the prophecy to that effect. As Jesus states in the next passage, Nicodemus was Israel’s teacher. He was well aware of the prophecies, so he should not have been surprised by what Jesus said.

Jesus’ comparison to the wind is apt. In the ancient mind, wind, spirit, and breath were all connected. Many times, they were the same word. In Matthew 27:50, when Jesus died, Matthew says he gave up his spirit. John uses the same language in John 19:30. But Mark 15:37 and Luke 23:46 say Jesus breathed his last. Both meant the same thing. The breath of life and the spirit were one and the same in the ancient mind. When the breath of life was gone from a person, they had given up their spirit. When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, he came with a sound “like the blowing of a violent wind.” (Acts 2:1-2, blog) The wind is invisible, but you can see its effects. Likewise, you can’t see the Holy Spirit, but you can see the effect he has on people once they are born of the Spirit.

If you click on the footnote in verse 3, you’ll see that born again can also mean born from above. When we are born again, born of water and the Spirit, we are born from above. This is one of the indispensable doctrines of our faith. Lots of doctrines are open to discussion, but not the doctrine that we must be born of water, that is, baptized into the name of Jesus for the salvation of our sins, and born of the Spirit, that is, filled with the Holy Spirit as the believers were at Pentecost. Christianity is not just a belief system. It’s not just ritual and rules. That’s what Jesus was telling Nicodemus. The Pharisees were all about ritual and rule keeping. They believed that as long as you kept all the rules, what was in your heart was irrelevant. He went to Jesus to find out what Jesus was teaching, and Jesus gave him this right up front. The fact that he was born a Jew would not save him. Neither would all the rules he kept and all the sacrifices and offerings he made. Our heritage and religious observances won’t save us either. The only way to enter the Kingdom of God, that is, his church and eternal life in the kingdom to come, is to be made a new creation by being born of water and the Spirit.

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus^(A) who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.^(B)2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi,^(C) we know^(D) that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs^(E) you are doing if God were not with him.”^(F)

The third chapter of John’s gospel is one of the central chapters in all of scripture. It’s very rich and deep, so I am going to take it in very small bites. Here the doctrine of what it means to be a believer in Jesus, to be born again, is introduced. This chapter also has the most famous memory verse of all, verse 16, which begins a momentous treatise on God’s plan of salvation for all people. But first, John begins by introducing us to Nicodemus. Nicodemus only appears in John’s gospel. This is his first appearance. In 7:50-51, he defends Jesus to some other Pharisees who were against him. And in 19:38-40, he accompanies Joseph of Arimathea in preparing Jesus’ body for burial by providing 75 pounds of myrrh and aloes, which shows that he was a wealthy man. Nicodemus was a believer, and his journey as a Christian appears to have started here, with this conversation.

I’ve read some commentaries that seemed to think it was remarkable that a wealthy, influential man, a member of the Jewish aristocracy and ruling council would come to Jesus at all. It’s speculated that that’s why he came to Jesus at night, because he was afraid to come to Jesus during the day because of how the Sanhedrin might react. But part of the Sanhedrin’s job was to investigate new teachers and prophets, to see if their teaching was true or false, and whether they might be the Messiah. Other delegations from the council were sent to inquire of Jesus in Matthew 12:38 (blog) and Matthew 16:1 (blog). There was great expectation in Israel at the time that the Messiah would come soon, so when a potential candidate came on the scene, (as they did often) the Sanhedrin would investigate them to see if the Messiah had indeed come. Nicodemus found that he had come, but most of the rest of the council were not persuaded. I think Nicodemus came to Jesus at night because that was the best time to have a private conversation with him. During the day, Jesus was surrounded by crowds, so Nicodemus sought Jesus out to speak to him privately at night.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee. The Pharisees were the dominant sect of Judaism at the time of Jesus. A casual reading of the gospels seems to cast the Pharisees in a negative light most of the time, and Jesus was very tough on them. Today, the word Pharisee is considered to be synonymous with hypocrite. But the Pharisees were the most popular and numerous of the Jewish sects at that time, the others being the Sadducees and the Essenes. The Apostle Paul was also a Pharisee. (Acts 26:5, Philippians 3:5) Rabbis tended to be Pharisees, and priests and the Jewish nobility tended to be Sadducees. Pharisees believed that the whole Old Testament was scripture, where the Sadducees only considered the first five books to be scripture. The Pharisees also believed in the resurrection of the dead, and Sadducees did not. (Acts 23:8) So doctrinally, Jesus agreed more with the Pharisees than with the Sadducees. Jesus certainly believed in the authority of the whole Old Testament, and he definitely believed (and proved) the resurrection of the dead. It’s no wonder that there always seemed to be Pharisees around everywhere Jesus went. They were interested in what he taught, because he agreed with them on some key points.

But the Pharisees also loved rule keeping, and thought that if they kept all the rules, that made them righteous. They had created thousands of rules in addition to the Law as a “hedge” around the Law, the idea being that if they kept all of the rules they had added, it would keep them from ever breaking the Law itself. They loved prestige and money, and their adherence to the Law and the rules of the Talmud and Mishnah was all external. They believed that as long as you kept the rules, what was in your heart did not matter. In this conversation with a prominent Pharisee, Jesus turned that concept upside down.

Nicodemus begins by calling Jesus Rabbi, a title of great respect. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law loved to be called by that title, and Jesus forbade his disciples from allowing themselves to be called rabbi because of the status of the title. (Matthew 23:5-8, blog) Jesus didn’t want his disciples to seek status or titles of respect, but to be servants. But it was altogether proper for Jesus to accept that title himself. Rabbis had disciples, and Jesus had disciples. Rabbis taught from their great knowledge of the Law, and Jesus had greater understanding of the Law than any other teacher ever had. By calling Jesus Rabbi, Nicodemus was acknowledging Jesus’ legitimacy.

He then goes on to confirm what John had been saying earlier, that the signs that Jesus provided confirmed that he came from God and spoke on God’s behalf. Jesus performed miracles, in part, to prove that his teaching was true, so that people would believe in him, as John stresses throughout his gospel. And Nicodemus seems to be representing more than just himself. He says, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.” It seems likely to me that, as I mentioned earlier, there were those on the council who believed that Jesus was a legitimate rabbi, perhaps a prophet, and possibly even the Messiah. Maybe this was not an “official” inquiry by the Sanhedrin, but a minority group from within the council that wanted Nicodemus to talk to Jesus. They had seen his miraculous signs, and knew that he had disciples. So Nicodemus went to Jesus to find out what this new teacher’s doctrine might be. And Jesus wastes no time in telling him what his doctrine was. I’ll get into that in my next post.

²³ Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him. ²⁴ But Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew human nature. ²⁵ No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like. (NLB)

In this short passage, John again indicates that one of the reasons Jesus performed miracles is so that people would believe in him. In fact, John repeatedly calls them signs rather than miracles. Signs are meant to send a message. A stop sign isn’t just a red piece of decoration. If we see one, we’re supposed to stop. Likewise, when Jesus healed someone, or fed the multitude, or turned water to wine, it wasn’t just a magic trick. It was meant to show that he was the Messiah. Whenever John tells of a miracle that Jesus performed, he calls it a sign, and he tells us that people believed as a result of that sign.

But the kinds of signs that Jesus provided were not the kind that the religious authorities were looking for. They wanted the spectacular. They wanted signs from heaven, meaning signs in or from the sky. (Matthew 16:1-4, blog) But Jesus, the vast majority of the time, performed miracles of compassion. When Jesus did the miraculous, he did it to help people. It was perhaps not as flashy as a pillar of cloud or fire, but it was a sign. What was it a sign of? Barclay says that they were signs of what God was really like. God had done the spectacular on many occasions, and still does. He does it every night when the sun sets over the Rocky Mountains not far from my home. But God isn’t just about power and majesty. He is a God of love and compassion, and Jesus showed that with almost every miracle he performed. He was giving the people signs that God was not just far off in his Heaven, ruling from on high. He is right here with us, concerned with our problems, wanting to help us.

But Jesus’ ministry was much more than performing miracles. It was a balancing act between healing and teaching. The miracles proved that his teaching had the authority of God behind it. Jesus healed many people, but he preferred to teach. And he was wary of crowds who were only interested in seeing or receiving a miracle. He wanted them to hear what he had to say, and put it into practice. It’s not those who receive the benefit of a miracle who are like a man who built his house upon bedrock, it’s those who hear these words of mine and put them into practice. (Matthew 7:24, blog)

John uses the same Greek word for trust in verse 23 that he uses in verse 24, which is why I used the New Living Translation today. The NIV uses the word believe in verse 23, and entrust in verse 24, but the Greek word is the same. When the word believe is used in the New Testament, it means the same as trust. Believe doesn’t just mean what we think of as belief now, a mental assent that something is true. It means to rely upon, to trust in, to live in accordance with. That’s what it means to believe in Jesus. Not that we simply agree that he is the Son of God, but that we trust in him, we rely upon him, and we live in accordance with what he says.

Jesus wisely did not put his trust in the crowds who were wowed by his miracles. He knew how fickle people can be. He understood human nature. We tend to be selfish, to think that it’s all about us. Even in our relationship with God, we many times have the tendency to think that it’s all about what God can do for us. It shows in our prayers. How often are our prayers simply lists of requests? Jesus wants to have a relationship with us, to make us more like him. This is one more way to be like Jesus. We shouldn’t put our trust in people. He is the only one we should rely upon, trust in, and live in accordance with.

¹⁸ The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

²⁰ They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹ But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

After Jesus cleared the Temple courts of the crooked practices that were going on there, the religious leaders asked him a very legitimate question: “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus had acted as a prophet would act. Prophets were expected to provide signs to prove their authority. Samuel had called down thunder and rain from heaven (1 Samuel 12:16-18), in the time of Moses, God had provided manna from heaven (Exodus 16:4-5) and the pillars of fire and cloud (Exodus 13:31), and Elijah had called down fire from heaven in his confrontation with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). Of course, Jesus was much more than just a prophet. By the time he did this, many were saying that he was the Messiah. The Messiah was certainly expected to provide signs equal to, if not greater than the signs of Moses and Elijah. The religious authorities also demanded a sign from Jesus in Matthew 12:38-50 (blog) and Matthew 16:1-4 (blog). In both of those cases, Jesus told them that the only sign they would receive was the sign of Jonah, by which he meant his death and resurrection. His reply here meant the same thing. The Temple leadership would destroy Jesus’ body, and he would raise it up again in three days.

It was common for Jews of Jesus’ day to refer to their bodies as a temple. Some commentators say that Jesus may well have pointed to his own body when he said this. I don’t know if that’s true, but if he did the men questioning him didn’t get it. They thought he was referring to the Temple in Jerusalem, where they were standing. This became a charge against Jesus at his trial, (Matthew 26:59-61, blog) and against Stephen at his. (Acts 6:14, blog)

In my posts on the passages I referred to in Matthew, I said that the reason Jesus did not provide the kind of signs that the leadership was looking for was that if he had, they would have accepted him as the Messiah, and he would never have been crucified. As a result, none of us would have been saved. In order for God’s plan of salvation to be accomplished, Jesus could not be accepted by the chief priests and elders of his day. In order to save us, Jesus had to be rejected by them. (Luke 9:22, 17:25) But of course, Jesus did provide the sign he promised at his resurrection. Most of the Jews of Jesus’ day did not accept him even then. But his disciples did.

²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

After Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he said here, and what he said about the sigh of Jonah. He had given them the sign that he promised, and they believed. And Jesus’ resurrection is still the ultimate proof that he is what he said he was. He is God. Is the sign of his resurrection enough for you to believe?

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

¹³ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”^[c]

Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple appears in all four gospels (Matthew 21:12-13, blog, Mark 11:15-17, blog, Luke 19:45-46, blog). But only John places it here, at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, rather than at the end, like Matthew, Mark and Luke do. What does this mean? Many say that it must mean that Jesus did this twice. But I have a hard time believing that Jesus could do something this drastic as his first public act, and then continue to minister for three years unmolested. At the very least, the Temple guard would have been put on alert to prevent him from doing something like this again. Some have also said that the order of events may have been mixed up by a scribe later. That’s possible, but it seems more likely to me that if the order was changed later, it would have been done the other way around, to make it match the other gospels. I agree with Barclay on this. He says that John was not that concerned with the timeline. That was also true of Matthew. Of the four Gospel writers, only Matthew and John were apostles, and they were the least interested in the order of events. Matthew was much more focused on proving that Jesus was the Messiah foretold by prophecy. John mainly sought to prove that Jesus is God.

One clue about this can be found in the fact that John does not begin this account like he did the previous ones. John was careful to point out in chapter one what happened on four consecutive days: John’s testimony about Jesus to the Pharisees happened one day, (1:19-28, blog), his testimony about him to the crowd came the next day, (1:29-34, blog) Andrew began following Jesus the day after that, (1:35-42, blog) and Jesus called Philip and Nathaniel on the fourth day (1:43-51, blog). He also gives a specific day for Jesus’ first miracle. (2:1-12, blog) But here, no specific time is given. It’s not important when Jesus cleansed the Temple. What’s important is the fact that he did it, and why he did it.

The crooked practices in the Temple courts that Jesus condemned are well known. The Greek word for drove out here is ekballo, which is the same word that’s used when Jesus drove out demons. That’s the same kind of passion and authority over evil that Jesus showed here. Why was Jesus so upset? It wasn’t because people were selling things in the Temple courts. It was because they were cheating the pilgrims who had come, some from very far away, to celebrate Passover. For example, doves were required for sacrifice, but it was difficult to bring doves from a distant country. It was much easier to buy them in Jerusalem, so they were sold in the Court of the Gentiles at the Temple, often at exorbitant prices. Sacrifical animals that were brought were rejected as not being “perfect’ enough. The merchants would offer to sell them acceptable ones at a high price, then would confiscate the animals that were brought, and resell them to other pilgrims. It was a huge money making racket. That’s what made Jesus so angry. Plus, every Jewish male over 20 years of age had to pay a “Temple tax”(Matthew 17:24-27, blog), which they could only pay using the Temple currency. So they would have to exchange their regular money for Temple money, and the exchange rates were outrageous. On top of all that, this was done in the outer courts of the Temple, which was the only place Gentiles could come and pray. They really had turned Jesus’ Father’s house into a market, and a crooked one at that.

One detail that John includes that the others don’t is that Jesus wove his own whip before he did this. Though Jesus displayed righteous anger, he thought about what he was going to do for a long time before he did it. He was deliberate about it. Anyone who thinks this passage excuses fits of temper are mistaken. Jesus was acting as judge here, not reacting to a personal slight. He was pronouncing judgment upon those who desecrated God’s house, and as God himself, he had every right to do so. Be careful about lashing out in anger towards others and judging them. We are not God.

Later, Jesus’ disciples remembered Psalm 69:9, where David says, “Zeal for your house consumes me.” Jesus showed that kind of zeal for God’s house throughout his life, from the time he was a boy. He scared his parents half to death by staying behind at the Temple at a previous Passover, unbeknownst to them. (Luke 2:41-52, blog) When they came back and Mary asked him how he could have treated them that way, he said, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” How much zeal do we have for God’s house? Do we go there out of obligation or habit? Or is our attitude like Jesus, who wanted to be there every chance he got, and did what he could to protect his Father’s house?

Jesus Changes Water Into Wine

¹ On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴ “Woman,^[a] why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

This famous story of Jesus’ first miracle is found only here in John’s gospel. This was probably the wedding feast of a relative. Jesus, his mother Mary, the disciples he had at the time, (Andrew, John, Philip, and Nathaniel) and probably Jesus’ other siblings were all there. This must have been a very large gathering, given the amount of wine that Jesus provided. In that culture, to run out of wine or food at a wedding feast was a social faux pas of the highest order. It would bring disgrace upon the couple who was getting married, and that disgrace would haunt them for the rest of their lives. In addition, wine was a rabbinical symbol of joy. To run out of wine at a wedding would be taken as a bad omen for the marriage. It would indicate that their marriage would be without joy. In past posts, I have listed this miracle as one of the few that Jesus performed that was not a miracle of compassion, but that was wrong. This miracle showed great compassion for the bride and groom and their families. The fact that this happened shows incredibly poor planning on the part of the hosts. So by performing this miracle, even reluctantly, Jesus not only saved the bride and groom from disgrace and embarrassment, he also saved whoever was in charge of this feast from some kind of unfortunate consequence.

We can only speculate as to why Mary came to Jesus with this need. As far as we know, Jesus had not performed any miracles until then. But Mary knew who her son was. She showed great faith in him here, even though she had not seen him display miraculous powers yet. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) Notice that she didn’t ask Jesus to do anything. She just told him about the problem. She knew that he would understand the gravity of the situation.

Some are troubled by the fact that Jesus calls his mother “Woman” rather than “Mother.” But other translations translate that term dear woman. It wasn’t a term of disrespect. Rather, it was a term of great respect and endearment. It was what men in that culture called women that they loved, at least in public. Jesus also called his mother by this term on the cross. (John 19:26)

Jesus had not yet begun his public ministry, and it seems that he didn’t want to make a public demonstration of divine power yet. But he did want to help these people, so he did it in a way that met their need, yet didn’t draw attention to himself. The only people who knew what Jesus had done after this was over were his mother, the servants, and his disciples.

Mary’s words to the servants are words that we should always remember:Do whatever he tells you. I’m sure that while they were filling the water jars, the servants were wondering how in the world filling water jars with water would help with the wine problem. But they did what Jesus said anyway. If we want to see the power of Jesus in our lives, we must heed Mary’s instructions, and do whatever Jesus tells us to do, no matter how it looks at the time.

⁶ Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.^[b]

⁷ Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

We’ve all heard many times at weddings that Jesus performed this miracle as a way of ordaining marriage, since he did it at a wedding. But that thought is not supported by scripture. There were, however, multiple purposes for this miracle, one of which I already talked about; compassion for the bride and groom and their hosts. One of the other purposes for this miracle was to usher in the New Covenant. The water that was kept in these jars was used for ceremonial washing rather than for drinking. Washing hands, or cups, or dishes with this water didn’t necessarily make those things sanitary, it made them ceremonially clean. The Pharisees criticized Jesus and his disciples for not observing the ritual hand washing that this water was used for, (Matthew 15:1-20, blog) and Jesus condemned the Pharisees and teachers of the Law for being so fastidious about making sure their dishes were ceremonially clean while serving food in them that was stolen. (Matthew 23:25-26, blog) The water in these jars represented Old Covenant thinking. With his first miracle, Jesus replaced the water (ritual) of the Old Covenant with the wine (joy) of the New Covenant.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. One of the things I want to focus on in these verses is how Jesus used the servants, and how they exercised faith, and thus got in on the blessing. Mary had told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do, and they did it, regardless of how it looked. They must have wondered why Jesus had told them to fill these particular jars, rather than ones used for drinking. But Jesus had told them to fill these specific jars. So they did as he instructed them. They didn’t go halfway with their obedience. They used the jars Jesus told them to use, and they filled them up, not halfway, but to the brim. If we want to see God work and experience the blessing, we can’t only obey him halfway.

⁸ Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, ⁹ and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside ¹⁰ and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

If it took faith for the servants to fill what in their minds would have been the wrong jars for drinking water, how much more faith would it have taken for them to then serve some of it to their boss? These servants were probably slaves, and could easily have been beaten or even killed at their master’s whim. But they still did what Jesus said. When the master of the banquet tasted the wine, he didn’t compliment the servants, he complimented the groom. The servants went unnoticed. But, unlike their master, they knew what had just happened. All the master, the groom, and the guests got was some really good wine, and the escape from the disgrace that would have befallen them for having run out. The servants, because of their obedience, got to see a miracle, and they got to be the instruments that Jesus used to deliver that miracle. I can’t help but see this in terms of we who minister to others. If we who serve in ministry will be obedient to what Jesus tells us to do, we get to be the instruments that God uses when he does his good work. We aren’t the source of the power, or the joy, or the miracle. But we get to see it up close. We get to see the effect that God’s power has on those to whom we minister in his name. We are his servants, and like the servants in this account, we may (and probably should) go unnoticed. All we did was what he told us to do.

¹¹ What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

¹² After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

When I first blogged on John’s gospel in 2009, one of the main lessons I took from it was the twofold purpose of miracles. John stresses throughout this book, whenever Jesus performs a miracle, that two things happen: God is glorified, and people believe as a result. Right here, in his account of Jesus’ first miracle, John points that out. By turning water to wine, Jesus: a) revealed his glory (God was glorified) and b) his disciples believed in him. Though Jesus had other reasons for doing what he did here, he mainly did it to glorify himself, and so that his disciples would believe. Jesus also did this to save his relatives from shame, humiliation, and disgrace. And he did it to as a way of showing that the old system of law and ritual would give way to a new system of grace, love, and joy.

Jesus Calls Philip and Nathanael

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

⁴⁶ “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

In the previous passage John told how Andrew and his brother Simon had met Jesus, which the other gospel writers had not written about. See my posts on that passage here and here. In this passage, he tells us about how two more of the apostles came to follow Jesus, Philip and Nathaniel. They also were men whose stories were not covered in the other gospels.

We’re not given any back story on how Philip came to know Jesus.  But Jesus was moving to Capernaum in Galilee (Matthew 4:13, blog), and Jesus wanted Philip to go with him. It’s clear from what Philip said to Nathaniel about Jesus that Philip knew who Jesus was. He had spent enough time with Jesus, and had studied the Law and the prophets enough to know that Jesus was the one foretold by them. He also knew that his friend Nathaniel would want to know that he had found the Messiah. As Andrew couldn’t wait to tell his brother about Jesus, so Philip couldn’t wait to tell his friend about him. Before they left, Philip wanted to give Nathaniel the chance to come too. I believe that Jesus relocated there at the invitation of Andrew and Simon. He would live in their family home for most of his ministry.

Nathaniel is skeptical at first because of Nazareth’s bad reputation. But Philip didn’t argue with Nathaniel about it. He simply said, “Come and see.” So far, it seems that all of the disciples except Philip had come to know Jesus because they were invited to by someone else; Andrew by John the Baptist, Simon by Andrew, and Nathaniel by Philip. As anyone who sells something can tell you, the best form of advertising is word of mouth. When someone you know and trust is excited about something, their recommendation means more than any commercial. Some of Jesus’ disciples followed him because he called them directly. But most, like Andrew, Simon Peter, and Nathaniel, came to Jesus because someone they knew told them about him. The same is true today. A few may come to Christ because they feel his leading on their own, or hear about him on TV or read about him in a book. But most people come to Christ because they are led to him by someone they know. It’s up to us to tell the people close to us about Jesus.

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

⁴⁸ “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

⁴⁹ Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

⁵⁰ Jesus said, “You believe^[h] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” ⁵¹ He then added, “Very truly I tell you,^[i] you^[j] will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’^[k] the Son of Man.”

Jesus shows a good deal of divine insight here. Though I don’t believe that the Bible teaches that Jesus was omniscient while in the flesh, he was a prophet, and had an extraordinary relationship with his Father. God showed him things. I also suspect that Philip had told Jesus about his friend Nathaniel. So when Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching, he as much as said, “Here is the righteous Jew, the man of integrity that I’ve heard so much about.” Nathaniel’s response is somewhat amusing to me. He didn’t say what a lot of us would have said under the same circumstances. If it were me, I might have said something like, “Thank you for your kind words, Teacher, but I am a sinner like everyone else.” But Nathaniel basically asks, “How did you know I was so righteous?” Jesus’ reply to him was an expression among rabbis of his time. The phrase “under the fig tree” was used to describe meditation on the scriptures. Sort of like our expression regarding being “in our prayer closet.” I don’t actually know anyone who prays in a closet, but we know what someone means when they say that. Jesus may have been saying that he actually saw Nathaniel under a fig tree, but he was definitely saying that he knew that Nathaniel was a man who studied and meditated on the scriptures. Nathaniel wanted to know how Jesus knew that he was a righteous man, and Jesus replied that he knew that Nathaniel was a man of the scriptures. If we want to be righteous, we must be people who are grounded in the scriptures.

When Nathaniel heard this, he knew that Philip had been right about Jesus. He was the Messiah, the one foretold by the Law and the prophets. Peter gets credit for being the first to declare that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God, (Matthew 16:16, blog) but Nathaniel’s confession of Christ here came long before Peter’s. Nathaniel’s declaration shows that he had the popular notion at that time of what the Messiah would be. He didn’t say that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world like John the Baptist did. The term Son of God didn’t mean to Israelites of that time what it means to us. They had no concept of the Trinity then. Son of God was a term used to describe kings. Nathaniel was calling Jesus the Messiah King who had come to rescue Israel from bondage.

Jesus responded by basically saying, “You were impressed by the vision of the fig tree? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Then he turns to all of them who were with him at the time, Andrew, John, Philip, and Nathaniel, and told them that they would all see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man. Notice the quotation marks. Jesus was referring to Jacob’s vision of the ladder between earth and Heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it in Genesis 28:12. He also called himself the Son of Man, perhaps for the first time. That term was from Daniel 7:13. It was a title for the Messiah that didn’t have any political or nationalistic implications. That’s why Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man so often. Jesus knew that Nathaniel, as a man of the scriptures, would know what those references meant. Nathaniel had called Jesus the king of Israel, but Jesus began to correct that notion right off the bat. He would not take the throne of Israel, at least not yet. First, he would be the Son of Man prophesied by Daniel. He would be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world predicted by John the Baptist. And he is the stairway from earth to Heaven, the way for us to gain access to God.

Jesus Has Risen

¹ After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

² There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The resurrection of Jesus is, of course, reported in all four gospels. It’s the central doctrine of our faith, and without it, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Corinthians 15:14) See my posts on Jesus’ resurrection in Mark here, and Luke here. Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary,” whom I believe must have been Mary the mother of Jesus, went to the tomb, not just to see the tomb, as Matthew implies, but to complete the ritual embalming that was supposed to be performed by family members, as both Mark and Luke clearly state (Mark 16:1, Luke 24:1). The way the language of verses 2-4 are translated in the NIV make it seem like the earthquake happened when the women arrived, but that is not in the original language. As Mark and Luke say, the stone had already been rolled away when the women arrived at the tomb (Mark 16:4, Luke 24:2).

It looks to me like the account of what the angel had done, and what happened to the guards is a sort of “flashback.” When the women came on the scene, the tomb was open and the guards were either unconscious or gone. I can’t help but wonder if one or more of the guards were converted as a result of this experience. If so, they are very likely the source of this account. We know now that the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire was greatly helped by believers in the Roman army. At least four Roman soldiers witnessed the resurrection of Christ. How could they help but be changed by that experience?

The description of the angel’s appearance (we know from Luke 24:4 that there were actually two angels, though Matthew and Mark only mention one) is very similar to the description of Jesus at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:29). The implication is not of a light shining on them, but a brilliant light shining out from within them. This is an example of what I call the light of Jesus (blog).

⁵ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

As always seems to happen when an angel appears to someone in the Bible, the first thing they say is, “Don’t be afraid.” But I don’t think the women were just afraid of the angels, though the appearance of angels is enough to strike fear into anyone. Mark seems to say that they were alarmed that the body of Jesus was gone (Mark 16:4-6). John says that Mary Magdalene thought Jesus’ body had been stolen (John 20:2, 13). Imagine the shock of visiting the grave of a loved one, and finding the grave dug up, the casket open, and the body missing! But the angel reminded them of what Jesus had promised, and that he had risen, just as he said. Our greatest sorrow can be turned to joy if we will only remember the things Jesus said, and believe that he will do what he said he’d do.

The angel showed them the place where Jesus’ body was laid. They saw the grave clothes in which Jesus had been wrapped. John gives a detailed description of them. From the appearance of the grave clothes, it was obvious that the body had not been stolen. If it had been, the thieves would not have unwrapped the body first, nor would they have taken the trouble to fold up the cloth “by itself, separate from the linen,” as John  describes (John 20:6-7). Since John made a point of describing the grave clothes, and said that he saw and believed at that point (John 20:8), I have had the belief for decades that Jesus left them that way for a specific reason. I believe that when Jesus rose, he folded his grave clothes the way he had always folded his clothes during his life. I believe he left them that way for John’s benefit, because John was his best friend. John would see the grave clothes folded the way only Jesus would have done it, and would know Jesus was alive, because he had traveled and lived with Jesus for three years. John had seen Jesus fold his clothes that way many times.

But what had not occurred to me until now is that Jesus must also have done this for his mother’s benefit. It would have been Mary who taught Jesus to fold his bed clothes neatly every morning when he got up. Mary was one of the first to see the place where Jesus was laid. She saw the grave clothes folded the way she had taught her son to do. She must have known he was alive the moment she saw that. Of course, I know this is all just speculation. But you can’t prove me wrong! Mary also had personal experience with angels. She knew that what they said was always true. Her son was risen.

⁸ So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. Then Jesus said to them, ⁹“Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰“Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

When Jesus appeared to the women, they immediately fell at his feet and worshiped him. That is the only appropriate response to the risen Lord. One might think his mother would run up and throw her arms around him, but Mary knew that this wasn’t just the boy she had raised. This was God himself, the only one who is worthy of our worship. And Jesus accepted their worship, which proves that he is God. Jesus told them the same thing the angel did, to go and tell his disciples that he is risen, which they did (Luke 24:9-10). They were the first to tell the Gospel, the good news that Jesus is risen from the grave.

We know from Luke 24:36 that Jesus appeared to his disciples that same day in Jerusalem. He didn’t wait until they went back to Galilee. But Matthew is simply condensing the story, as he did elsewhere. But the essential facts are the same in all four gospels. Jesus is no longer in the grave. He is risen!

The Guards’ Report

¹¹ While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. ¹² When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, ¹³ telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ ¹⁴ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” ¹⁵ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Matthew is the only gospel writer who tells us of this deception. It shows just how far human beings are willing to go to protect themselves and their interests. Some of the guards, probably the commanders of the guard at the tomb, went to the chief priests and told them what had happened. Why did they go to the chief priests, and not to Pilate? When the Pharisees went to Pilate to ask that the tomb be sealed, in the NIV, Pilate’s answer is given, “Take a guard, go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” But some translations of 27:65, like the New King James, translate the first part of Pilate’s answer as you have a guard. Some scholars believe that refers to the Roman guard that was assigned to the Temple, or perhaps extra guards were placed under the chief priests’ authority during the Passover. The guards at the tomb may been part of those under the chief priests’ authority at that time, and that was why they reported to the chief priests after the resurrection.

Imagine the fear that struck the chief priests when they heard the news that angels had rolled the stone away, and that the body of Jesus was missing. In verse 4 of this chapter, Matthew says that when the angel rolled the stone away, the soldiers at the tomb “were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.” The soldiers may not have actually seen the risen Jesus. They may have been unconscious, and did not know what happened to him. But they knew that all of their precautions were for naught, and that they had been overpowered by some kind of divine force. To the chief priests, this could have only one meaning: God had raised Jesus from the dead, just as Jesus had predicted. God would not have sent angels to roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb just so Jesus’ disciples could steal his body. God does not work that way, and the chief priests knew it. They knew they had to consult with the elders, which probably means the whole Sanhedrin was called into session to decide what to do.

The chief priests, together with the elders, the ruling council, decided on a course of action. I think it’s entirely possible that the fate of Jerusalem was decided once and for all at that meeting. This was the same group that had convicted Jesus of blasphemy on Friday morning. But we know that some among them, namely Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, had not consented to the group’s decision (Luke 23:50-51). They had voted “innocent” when the council voted to convict Jesus. I imagine that, when this discussion took place after the guards’ report, there were a few who recommended that if Jesus really was raised from the dead, the leadership should acknowledge him as the Messiah. The tearing of the curtain in the Most Holy Place probably came up in the discussion. God was clearly at work. But as in the trial of Jesus, they were in the minority. I can’t help but think that if the religious leadership of Judea had embraced the truth in that moment instead of bribing the soldiers to spread a lie, Jerusalem might have been saved. But they decided to protect their own status and position rather than do what was right, and Jerusalem’s fate was sealed.

Matthew says the guards were paid a large sum of money. In the Roman army, the penalty for falling asleep while on guard was death, so it must have been a really large amount of money to persuade the soldiers to spread the rumor that they had been bested by some relatively unarmed Jews, that they fell asleep while on guard, and slept so soundly that a group of men breaking the Roman seal and rolling the stone away didn’t even wake them! Now that I think of it, that’s probably another reason the soldiers went to the chief priests instead of Pilate. If Pilate heard about it, they would be much more likely to suffer punishment for allowing this to happen. That’s why the chief priests promised to smooth things over with Pilate if he heard about it. Pilate was corrupt, and would gladly have accepted a bribe himself. It’s pretty obvious from the gospels that Pilate really wanted nothing to do with this matter to start with, and only participated in the trial of Jesus because he was pressed to by the chief priests and elders. He would soon be going back to Caesarea, and probably wouldn’t want to be bothered with this matter anyway.

Matthew says that the rumor that Jesus’ body had been stolen by his disciples survived among the Jews to the time he wrote his gospel, some 30 years after the resurrection. The chief priests and elders succeeded in maintaining their power for another 37 years or so, until Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed in 70 A.D. The thing that strikes me most from this account is the fact that the religious leaders of Israel knew that Jesus was risen. They heard about it before most did, and from the most credible witnesses. What did they choose to do with this information? Instead of admitting their error, repenting and accepting that Jesus really was God’s Messiah, they chose to pay bribes and spread a lie. The only reason they would do this was to protect their own position. If the Messiah was indeed risen from the dead, if the curtain in the Most Holy Place was really torn in two, then the whole system that had made them rich and powerful was coming to an end. Rather than acknowledge that and accept whatever God had for them, they decided that what they wanted was more important than what God wanted. Before we condemn them for that decision, we need to ask ourselves how many times we have done the same.

But many thousands did believe Jesus was risen, and at least 500 actually saw the risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:6). Aside from all the other evidence that we have that Jesus is risen, one of the most compelling is the testimony of the apostles. Most of them were imprisoned, tortured, and martyred for preaching the resurrection of Jesus. Yet none of them recanted. People will not die for that which they know is a lie. The testimony of the apostles proves that Jesus is risen.