“And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:39,40).
Skeptics refuse to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they have had an inordinately difficult time in trying to explain it away. One of the most widely advanced—yet most ridiculous—notions is that Jesus merely swooned, and later, in the cool air of the tomb, He regained consciousness, unwrapped His grave clothes, moved the great stone aside from the tomb’s entrance, overpowered all the Roman soldiers stationed there, and returned triumphantly to His disciples, who then incorrectly reported that He had been raised from the dead.
This whole tale is an absurd fantasy for many reasons, born of desperation. In our text verses, for example, Nicodemus brought a great weight of burial spices and linen clothes in which to bury Jesus’ body. John is careful to say that all these spices and clothes were “wound” together. When Lazarus had emerged alive from the tomb a few days earlier, he “came forth, bound [same word as ‘wound’] hand and foot with grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin,” so that others had to “loose him, and let him go” (John 11:44).
The clothes about Jesus were thus tied together so firmly that He could not possibly have untied them by Himself, even if He had been strong and whole. He didn’t have to untie them, of course, since His resurrected body simply passed through the clothes, leaving them lying there as though they still held Him in their folds (John 20:6,7). The Lord Jesus assuredly did not swoon. He died for our sins, and rose again! HMM
