Deliverance from the Cross — Page 87
V RESURRECTION The conclusions reached on an examination of the enlarged photographs of the Shroud leave no room for doubt that when the body of Jesus was removed from the cross the action of the heart had not been stopped or suspended and that the heart continued in action after the body was placed on the Shroud. If it had been left in that condition without any further ministration, the probability is that the prolonged stoppage of the supply of oxygen to the heart would have brought the action of the heart to a standstill and Jesus would have died. Unfortunately there is a complete gap in the Biblical account with regard to the activities of Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus after the body of Jesus, wrapped in the shroud, had been placed in the sepulchre. There is, however, one item of information which appears to furnish an explanation of what happened thereafter, and that is that Nicodemus had brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight, and the body of Jesus was wound in linen clothes with the spices (John 19:39-40). It was the action of the aloes on the spices that operated to restore the breathing which had stopped and that in turn helped to maintain and 87