Deliverance from the Cross — Page 73
result in death. In the case of Jesus it can be assumed that lung activity ended before the lance pierced the chest. The result of a stab in the chest is the end of breathing, the giving up of the pneuma, which was described as death. As things appeared in those days it meant that the man was dead. For the world of his time Jesus was dead - but he was not dead in the medical sense of our time. What we call medical death is a different death, the death of a different world. Once more we see things in the context of the contemporary world. He who had given up the ghost was dead, and this is what was said about Jesus. But today, giving up the ghost is not the same as being dead; only when the heart stands still is death a medical fact. The activity of the heart and blood circulation are the criteria. Jesus was not dead, because the activity of the heart continued after the execution. The pneuma having been given up, the implication was that death had occurred. In the classical sense there was no more life in the body because breathing was part of life. But, for the purpose of the Resurrection as God willed and planned it, the continued activity of the heart had a practical purpose - and no more - because He intended it to be a resurrection of the same body, the same flesh which Jesus had before the execution. It is this fact of the complete continuation of existence after the execution which theologians have 73