And after these things Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly through fear of the Jews, demanded of Pilate that he might take the body of Jesus and Pilate allowed it. He came therefore and took away the body of Jesus.
The crucifixion ends with a man stepping out of the shadows. A member of the council that condemned Jesus now asks Pilate for His body. Why does a frightened disciple turn brave at the very moment fear makes most sense?
The other Gospel writers fill in what John leaves out about this man's standing and his conduct in the council.
Who was this Joseph of Arimathea? A wealthy man of the Jews and a secret disciple of the Lord Jesus. He was an honourable councillor and a member of the Sanhedrin. He too was waiting for the kingdom of God (Mark 15:43). He was a good man and just. The Sanhedrin came together to condemn the Holy One, but Joseph of Arimathea had not agreed to their plan and deed (Luke 23:51)... He went straight to Pilate. This man had the authority to dispose of the bodies of the crucified. Usually they ended up in the criminals' graves, once every dishonour had been done to them. He begged for the body of Jesus, and Pilate agreed readily and gave his permission.
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Joseph had every worldly reason to stay quiet.
God uses a dangerous time to call out His own hidden ones. Joseph of Arimathea can be a secret disciple no longer. He was a rich man (Matt. 27) and an honourable councillor (Mark 15). But wealth and position make confessing Christ only harder. Fear of the Jews had prevailed until now. The death of Jesus, which made others afraid, made Joseph bold.
Joseph acts at the point where the whole cause looks finished.
If he had thought about his reputation among his fellows, he would have stayed at home that day... Suppose the Lord had come down from the cross when the priests challenged Him. Joseph might then have been bold and said, "I knew all along who He was." But He hangs dead, to all appearances completely defeated. Peter and the other disciples have deserted Him and fled. That is the moment when this nobleman comes forward boldly and asks for His body.
John says he was a disciple secretly; Mark says he went in boldly to Pilate. Writers hold the two together rather than choosing between them.
We learn something of the strength of the current still flowing against the Lord, since Joseph went secretly for fear of the Jews, though he went in boldly to Pilate (Mark 15:43). An honourable man and a councillor — how should he care for the body of the crucified One? He was a disciple of Jesus, writes our Evangelist. The ten apostles were scattered.
The act itself was a public statement. Nobody chose to stand beside an executed criminal.
It was a great and noble act. The timid and secret disciple came out as bold as a lion. In the face of a hostile world, he took his stand by the cross of his crucified Lord. It was an unheard-of thing. Whoever before had set any value on the body of a crucified criminal? That a ruler of the Jews should do it must have caused a sensation... It was as though he said, "Jews, you have rejected Him, but I embrace Him. World, you have despised and crucified Him, but I love Him. Christ for me. I share in His shame and will bear His reproach. You are on that side; I am on this." This is the stand Paul took in later years. He said, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."
Behind Joseph's courage lies a plan far older than that day.
Long centuries before, Isaiah had prophesied about our Lord's body. It would not be buried with the thieves who were crucified with Him, thrown into a common dishonoured grave. He would lie with the rich in His death (Isa. 53:9). How was this to be fulfilled? ... Two men are raised up by God to fulfil this prophecy. Two secret believers come to the front.
Pilate's permission was more than an official's favour.
That precious body was not allowed to be treated as a criminal's. A legal decision handed it over to those who loved Him. They wrapped it in fragrant, costly perfume and laid it in a new grave cut out of the rock... The same unyielding judgment that had dealt with Him on the cross now demanded the fullest honour for Him. This was legal testimony that His sacrifice was accepted.
Joseph already believed. What changed that day was something else.
The moment of decision had arrived for him. It was not a decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, for he had already done that. It was a decision to take his place as a follower of the crucified Christ.
- Secret. Joseph believed, but fear of the Jews kept it hidden. His rank and wealth made open confession harder, not easier.
- Reserved. God called out His hidden one at the dangerous hour. The death that frightened everyone else made Joseph bold.
- Bold. He went straight to Pilate, who had authority over the bodies of the crucified, and asked for a body no one else would claim.
- Fulfilled. Isaiah had said He would lie with the rich in His death, not in a dishonoured grave. God raised up two secret believers to see it done.
- Decided. Joseph's step was not a decision to believe. It was a decision to stand openly with a rejected Christ — the choice every hidden disciple still faces.
And Nicodemus also, who at first came to Jesus by night, came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds [weight].
Nicodemus appears here for the third and last time in John's Gospel, and every mention recalls how he began — as a man who came in the dark. Now he comes in the open, in daylight, carrying an enormous weight of burial spices.
Writers trace his story across the Gospel as a slow sunrise.
There are three stages in his history. I call John 3 midnight, John 7 twilight, and John 19 daylight. It was darkest midnight in that man's soul when he crept quietly to Jesus, hoping that nobody saw him. He was starting to get a glimmer of light when he slipped in a word for the Lord in chapter 7. But the death of Christ produced in Nicodemus what His life had never done.
A dangerous hour brings hidden disciples into the open. What frightened others made these men bold.
God uses a dangerous time to call out His own hidden ones... The death of Jesus, which made others afraid, made Joseph bold... And he was not alone. Nicodemus had been known longer, but at first he had no good name for moral courage. Now he joins in the last acts of love, with a large offering of myrrh and aloes. The cross of Christ, which unbelief stumbles over, puts his faith to work and shows it. The two, made brave by grace, make up for the missing service of the twelve.
Writers differ here. One warns that a bold act in a crisis is not the same as following Jesus day after day under reproach.
To follow Jesus all the time under reproach, and to commit yourself for ever on His account, is very different from acting only when some great occasion comes. By then there is no room left for that steady following, and the sheer scale of the evil forces us to separate from it.
Nicodemus had once come at night with a question he could not answer. Now he comes to bury the One he questioned.
If we ask humbly and in His presence, "How can these things be?" He Himself will give the answer. Yes, the cross of His Son will explain the question. As it was with Nicodemus, so we too will learn to value the death of Jesus... Jesus died so that we might live. His death not only opens our dull hearts to divine love; it also answers our questions about God and His kingdom.
People used myrrh and aloes to prepare a body for burial. Aloes have a strange double quality.
In the aloes there is that which is bitter to the taste but sweet in fragrance. Death was bitter for the Lord Jesus as He endured the cross... There was all the shame. Man's proud and wicked heart invented everything it could to insult the holy One in the hours of His sufferings... But how rich is the fragrance of His perfect obedience and submission to God's will. And how rich is the fragrance of the love shown in all He bore for God's glory and our blessing.
One writer measures the offering against the One it honoured.
Nicodemus brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes, fragrant spices used for the dead, and a large quantity of them. This fits this Gospel. No amount of precious spices could fully show the fragrance of the death of the Son of God.
The quantity is the point. This was not a normal burial. It was a royal send-off for a man the nation had just executed as a criminal.
These two Israelites are true children of Abraham. They claim the body of the Lord and set it apart, with the same faith Abraham had. They are also true subjects of the King of Israel, so they honour that body with the honours of a son of David. They spend large and expensive perfumes on it. They lay it in the garden, in a new, untouched tomb, where the smell of death had never yet passed.
The Gospel records not just the act but the amount.
They had done what they could. That service done to Christ has never been forgotten. The inspired Word keeps the names of these two, and it records the weight of the spices Nicodemus brought as well. God never forgets service done to Christ, or in His name... They could look for no glory from men at that time for doing such a service.
- Midnight. Every mention of Nicodemus recalls his first, fearful, night-time visit. God never edits that starting point out of his record.
- Daylight. The cross finished what the teaching started: what Christ's life had not drawn out of him, Christ's death did.
- Boldness. Danger draws hidden disciples into the open. Two men made up for the missing service of the twelve — though writers differ over how much credit courage in a crisis deserves.
- Fragrance. The spices are bitter and sweet at once: bitter like what He bore, sweet like His obedience. No amount of them could fully express it.
- Remembered. Scripture records the exact weight. God never forgets service done to Christ, even when men give no glory for it.
They took therefore the body of Jesus and bound it up in linen with the spices, as it is the custom with the Jews to prepare for burial.
Two members of the ruling council had kept their faith hidden. Now, in daylight, they prepare the body of Jesus for the grave with a costly weight of spices, as Jews buried their dead.
The verse assumes a practice its first readers knew. Bandages were wound round the body, with the spices packed in among the cloths.
Among the Jews they simply wrapped the body round with bandages, with a quantity of spices enclosed. Nicodemus supplied "a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds in weight."
The word John uses is not the ordinary word for burying. One commentator points to the Greek word behind it:
The word is not thaptein but entaphiazein. It is the word used for embalming, or at least for preparing a body for burial, as here.
A criminal's body belonged in a criminal's grave. His did not go there.
His grave was appointed with the wicked; but this could not be allowed to take effect: He was with the rich in His death. Joseph's tomb was the only fitting place for the body of the Holy One, who could not see corruption, during its brief stay there. God's providence justified Him there, until the resurrection should justify Him openly.
The same judgment that fell on Him at the cross now insisted He be honoured:
The same unyielding judgment which had dealt with Him at the cross now demanded the fullest honour to Him, as judicial testimony that His sacrifice was accepted.
Both materials carry meaning.
Nicodemus has traded his timidity for boldness. He brings so large an amount of spices to signify that the death of the Lord Jesus has in it a sweet fragrance, one that will delight the heart of God the Father for the ages of eternity. The wrapping in fine linen reminds us of the perfect purity of the life of the Lord Jesus in every detail. That life was laid down for a time, in sacrifice, but with a view to taking it up again.
That fragrance did not end at the tomb:
He has left His death behind, but we cannot leave it behind. His resurrection glorifies that death; it does not erase it. The myrrh and aloes perfume His garments still (Ps. 45:8). Up in the glory of heaven, the hearts of His redeemed still see Him as a "Lamb slain" (Rev. 5:6).
The word "they" covers two men who had kept their faith to themselves until now.
God uses a dangerous time to call out His own hidden ones. Joseph of Arimathea can be a secret disciple no longer… The death of Jesus, which caused others to fear, made Joseph bold… Nicodemus, who at first had no reputation for moral courage, joins in the last acts of love with an abundant offering of myrrh and aloes. The cross of Christ, such a stumbling block to unbelief, tests and displays his faith. The two grow brave by grace and make up for the missing service of the twelve apostles.
The scene puts a question to every believer who stays hidden:
Is it not a call to secret believers, timid disciples who keep in the shadows, to come out boldly into full daylight and confess their Saviour and Lord?
Burying Him "as is the burial custom of the Jews" was the act of people who did not expect Him back.
You would look in vain for proofs of understanding and power in the believers at this time. Yet the divine nature showed itself in their attachment to Jesus. All this time they were seeking the Living among the dead. They did not know the Scriptures, nor the power of God. They did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.
Those same cloths had more to say when He rose. One writer sets them beside the grave clothes of Lazarus:
When Lazarus came out of his tomb he was bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and he needed friendly hands to loose him. The sacred body of Jesus did not need such friendly service. It did not rise from the dead wrapped in the garments of death. He left them behind Him undisturbed by His rising… all that spoke of bondage and of prison had been left behind.
- Custom — Jews wound the body in linen bandages with spices packed among them. The word John uses points to embalming, not just to laying a body in the ground.
- Care — His grave was assigned with the wicked, yet He was with the rich in His death. The Holy One could not see corruption, and Joseph's tomb was the only fitting place for Him.
- Cost — The spices speak of a death fragrant to the Father. The linen speaks of a spotless life. That perfume still clings to Him in glory.
- Courage — The hour that frightened the bold made the timid brave. Two hidden men filled the gap left by Jesus' twelve disciples. Their example calls every quiet believer into daylight.
- Conquest — They buried Him without knowing He must rise. The linen they wound round Him stayed in the empty tomb — the sign that death had lost.
But there was in the place where he had been crucified a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.
John alone mentions the garden by the cross. Why does that setting matter, and why does Scripture stress that no one had used the tomb?
John notices where things happen. One commentator asks what welcome man's garden gave Him.
Among the writers of the New Testament John is the only one who speaks of a garden. He is always great on environment. In his Gospel the setting brings out either the full beauty or the stark bareness of the deeds he records. So he speaks of a garden, and with it he shows us a traitor, a cross, and a tomb. The purpose of John's Gospel is to present the great fact that God has come down to men... He came, so well suited to the deep need of men, and entered man's garden. And can it be possible that there the traitor met Him, and men condemned Him to a cross and a tomb? Yes, so it was; men had nothing better than that for Him.
The Bible opens in a garden too. One writer sets that first garden beside this one.
Let us contrast the two gardens — that of Genesis 3 with that of John 19. In the one God placed the first Adam, innocent, with access to the tree of life. But he chose the tree of responsibility, in the error of his way, and fell. In the other lay He who had a right to the tree of life, but who had answered the responsibility in the dust of death. For the one, the garden eastward in Eden became the gateway to a lost world, which ends in the lake of fire. For the other, the second garden becomes the gateway for His people — not to Paradise regained, but to the Paradise of God.
A place of growth is a strange address for a grave.
It is fitting that it should be in a garden. Death entered in a garden, and God drove our first parents out of it. When the consequences of sin had been put away, the garden appears again... What fruits for all eternity, we may say, have grown in this garden where the tomb was! There was sown the Grain of wheat which has produced such a harvest... The garden around the tomb of our Lord speaks of life and points forward to His resurrection.
Scripture takes trouble over a detail that looks minor. One writer traces it back to an event in Israel's history. A dead man touched the bones of the prophet Elisha in his tomb, and came back to life.
Why is God so careful to say that? Look at the Old Testament, and you will see how carefully God guards everything connected with the person of His blessed Son... If the Spirit of God had not been careful to record this, Satan and the Jews would soon have spread this story: Jesus had risen from the dead, but that was nothing new. It had happened before in Old Testament times. They had put Him into a tomb where the bones of some prophet lay, and so He revived again. God foresaw that lie, and has taken great care to tell us it was a new tomb.
Another writer reads the same detail differently. It guards the body itself from any contact with decay.
The Psalmist had foretold that the Lord would not let His "Holy One" see corruption. We all know what that meant. The holy and sacred body of Jesus went through death, but decay never touched it in the least. But it also meant that His body should not even come into contact with it from outside. When God fulfils His word, He does so thoroughly and completely.
The burial arrangements were not left to the men who had arranged the crucifixion.
The malice of men would have pursued the Lord beyond death. As Isaiah 53:9 should read, "they appointed His grave with the wicked." They had prepared a rough hole near the cross. They meant to throw His body there with those of the thieves who had also died. But God stepped in, and "He was with the rich in His death."
Every other grave has a claim on what it receives. This one did not.
There had never been a tomb like it before, if we judge it by what was laid in it and by what came out of it. Up to that hour the grave had stood first in the list of things that are never satisfied. It had never cried, "It is enough"... There had always been a natural link between the tomb and what it held. God had said, "you are dust, and to dust you shall return." But in this new tomb there was no such link. The death of Jesus was voluntary... He was the Holy One of God and could see no corruption; death had no claim on Him, and so the tomb could not hold Him.
- Garden lost. Eden had a tree of life, but the first Adam fell there, and death entered the garden.
- Garden entered. John alone names the setting, and shows what man's garden held for Him: a traitor, a cross, a tomb.
- Garden guarded. God stopped His enemies at the grave. They had a rough hole ready beside the thieves; He was buried with the rich instead.
- Garden untouched. "Where no one had yet been laid" shields Him from both decay and the lie that some earlier prophet's bones revived Him.
- Garden regained. A grain of wheat was sown there, and the way out of that garden leads not back to Eden but on to the Paradise of God.
There therefore, on account of the preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was near, they laid Jesus.
John 19 ends with a rushed burial: sunset was near, the Sabbath was about to begin, and the only grave ready stood right beside the cross. Was that only convenience, or was God at work in the haste?
The verse gives a practical reason for the choice of grave: time had run out. But look at who buried Him — two men who had never dared to admit they followed Jesus.
The Saviour was rejected and despised. Yet in His death He was to be with the rich and the honourable. Two men had not dared to confess Him while He lived. Now they are awakened by the greatness of their nation's sin and by His death itself, and they care for His dead body. So God fulfilled His words of truth. Joseph and Nicodemus place the Lord's body in a new tomb in a garden near the cross. It was the Jews' preparation day, so they could do no more at that moment.
A condemned man could expect a criminal's grave. Jesus received something else, and the closing Sabbath cut the burial short.
His grave was to be with the rich: "And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death." He would probably have been buried in the public ground kept for criminals, where the two thieves were likely thrown. But now that man had fully satisfied his hatred, God takes care of the One who had glorified Him even to death... Notice that the Sabbath day was at hand, so the burial could only be temporary. They would finish it after the Sabbath. The women who loved the Lord also made preparations to embalm Him at a later moment.
Both men had kept their faith quiet. What silenced everyone else moved them to act.
God uses a dangerous time to call out His own hidden ones. Joseph of Arimathea can be a secret disciple no longer. He was a rich man and an honourable councillor. But wealth and position only make confessing Christ harder. Fear of the Jews had prevailed until now. The death of Jesus, which made others afraid, made Joseph bold... The cross of Christ is a stumbling block to unbelief, yet it tests his faith and brings it into the open. The two men grow brave by grace, and they supply the service the twelve disciples failed to give.
One writer turns their example into a question.
Does this not speak to secret believers, to timid disciples who keep in the shadows? They should come out into full daylight and confess their Saviour and Lord.
John records that this tomb had never held anyone. One writer finds a first in human history there.
It was a new tomb in more than one sense. It was new because never before had the grave received a sinless occupant. There had always been a natural link between the grave and the dead, for God had said, "you are dust, and to dust you shall return." But there was no such link between the body of Jesus and the grave. For the first time in human history the grave received a body that could not decay, because it was sinless. Yet His burial was as real as His death. Here is the gospel: "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried." And we cannot stop there: "he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures."
John tells us the tomb stood in a garden. That setting reaches back to where death first entered the world.
It is fitting that it should be in a garden. Death entered in a garden, and our first parents were driven out of it. When the consequences of sin had been put away, the garden appears again... What fruit for all eternity has grown in this garden where the tomb was! There the grain of wheat was sown that has produced such a harvest... There they laid Him. This was a preparation indeed — a preparation for the eternal Sabbath of God, in complete contrast to the legal "preparation of the Jews."
John does not say they laid a corpse there. He names the Person.
"They laid Jesus." This again contradicts views of human destiny that treat the body as something abandoned for ever at death. The Lord's body is spoken of as Himself.
- Near — they chose that tomb because the Sabbath was closing in and it stood close by. The haste was real, and God used it.
- Named — that same nearness drew out two hidden disciples, Joseph and Nicodemus. Their fear turned to courage when everyone else fell away.
- New — the grave had never held a body, and now it received One whose body could not decay.
- Garden — death began in a garden, and God answered it in a garden. This burial pointed to God's eternal rest, not just a Jewish holy day.
- Gospel — the burial is part of the message, not a footnote: He died, He was buried, He rose again.