Deliverance from the Cross — Page 52
out: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' Immediately thereupon a sponge filled with vinegar was put up to him to drink. This, instead of affording him any relief, caused him to be suffocated and he cried out: It is finished. By that time it was dark and the order was given to break the legs of those who were hung upon the cross, but when the soldiers came to Jesus, it seemed to them that he was dead already and they did not break his legs, but one of them pierced his side with a spear and forthwith came thereout blood and water, which was an indication that blood had not stopped circulating. The spear had not touched the heart but had injured the lung. The strain under which Jesus had laboured during the day, his agony upon the cross, his drinking of the vinegar and the thrust of the spear in his side which injured the lung, all combined to bring about a condition in which his breathing stopped but the circulation of the blood continued. To all appearance he had died, but in truth, despite the semblance of death, he was alive. If he had continued in that state for some time, the circulation of blood would also have stopped, but it was God's plan that the process of his resuscitation should now come into operation. Joseph of Arimathaca and Nicodemus, an expert physician, now came and took charge of the body of Jesus, brought it down from the cross, wrapped him in a linen cloth, which was impregnated with spices, and laid him in a sepulchre which had been recently hewn out of a rock. There 52