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condemned the innocent, he, it is true, also condemned himself and human justice as he
applied it, but at the same time imposed sentence on Jesus as the representative of the highest
judicial power in the world, functioning by the grace of God and dispensing justice in God’s
name. The sentence of Pilate was also the sentence of God, though on entirely different
grounds. It was significant too that Christ was not beheaded or stoned to death. Crucifixion was
not a Jewish but a Roman form of punishment. It was accounted so infamous and ignominious
that it might not be applied to Roman citizens, but only to the scum of mankind, to the meanest
criminals and slaves. By dying that death, Jesus met the extreme demands of the law. At the
same time He died an accursed death, and thus gave evidence of the fact that He became a
curse for us, Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13.
4. THE BURIAL OF THE SAVIOUR.
It might seem that the death of Christ was the last stage of His
humiliation, especially in view of one of the last words spoken on the cross, “It is finished.” But
that word in all probability refers to His active suffering, that is, the suffering in which He
Himself took an active part. This was indeed finished when He died. It is clear that His burial
also formed a part of His humiliation. Notice especially the following: (a) Man’s returning to the
dust from which he is taken, is represented in Scripture as part of the punishment of sin, Gen.
3:19. (b) Several statements of Scripture imply that the Saviour’s abode in the grave was a
humiliation, Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:27,31; 13:34,35. It was a descent into hades, in itself dismal and
dreary, a place of corruption, though in it He was kept from corruption. (c) Burial is a going
down, and therefore a humiliation. The burial of dead bodies was ordered by God to symbolize
the humiliation of the sinner. (d) There is a certain agreement between the stages in the
objective work of redemption and the order in the subjective application of the work of Christ.
The Bible speaks of the sinner’s being buried with Christ. Now this belongs to the putting off of
the old man, and not to the putting on of the new, cf. Rom. 6:1-6. Consequently also the burial
of Jesus forms a part of His humiliation. His burial, moreover, did not merely serve to prove that
Jesus was really dead, but also to remove the terrors of the grave for the redeemed and to
sanctify the grave for them.
5. THE SAVIOUR’S DESCENT INTO HADES.
a. This doctrine in the Apostolic Confession.
After the Apostolic Confession has mentioned the
sufferings, death, and burial, of the Lord, it continues with the words, “He descended into hell
(hades).” This statement was not in the Creed as early nor as universally as the others. It was
first used in the Aquileian form of the Creed (c. 390 A.D.), “descendit in inferna.” Among the
Greeks some translated “inferna” by “hades,” and others by “lower parts.” Some forms of the
Creed in which these words were found did not mention the burial of Christ, while the Roman
and Oriental forms generally mentioned the burial but not the descent into hades. Rufinus