Buried with Christ (John 19:38-42 Jeff Kliewer)

Teach Me Your Way and the Need for God’s Truth

The child's worth every mile. I can almost feel the anticipation. We have any right to tell God.

What he should do, but I want to say that this is some of the most amazing, blessed things, and I would think that it would warm the heart of God. For us who are walking here on the earth, we have a lot of paths to go to recognize that unless we have the truth that God gives, and unless we have this understanding of a relationship that God gives, we are left in a bad place.

And so we boldly go up in front of the throne of God and we say, please God, teach us your truth. I need your truth. Lord, please God, unite our hearts because I am pushed and torn in so many different directions.

Only when I am united to you do I have the way of truth to that walk by. So as the Psalmist says, I think we are right to proclaim in the imperative, teach me your way, oh Lord, that I may walk in your truth, unite my heart to fear your name.

This is encouraging us to understand and to submit to his sovereign will. This is an encouragement for us to have this focus and the desire to only have his truth, because that is only truth, that we can depend on him in all things of life, that we seek his truth, that we seek his way.

Church Announcements and Upcoming Ministry Events

Some announcements. Next Sunday is our celebration as we remember and celebrate the coming of the promised Messiah. We come together, please come back in the morning for our normal worship services at nine o 'clock, 1045, and then at four o 'clock in the afternoon, our candlelight service.

A great time to speak to friends, neighbors, co-workers that often do not desire to come into a church, but they will come on a Christmas day. And so invite them and join, have them join together. The word of God will be proclaimed.

It's less than a month away, Mary Elizabeth. In four weeks on the 14th, we will install our new pastor, our associate pastor, Tim Robinson, something that we've been excited about for a long time. And under the providence of God, he brought a man that leads our youth in godly ways.

And quite frankly, he brought the most amazing woman to be his helpmate in life. But come back in four weeks. The details of how it's going to be, when it's going to be, will be coming forth. But put on your calendar the 14th of January.

In February, we're going to have another starting point class. If you are new to our church, if you want to know more about our church, maybe if you're interested in membership, sometime in February, we're going to have a starting point class.

Details will come. If you're at all interested, contact myself, Pastor Jeff, one of the elders. We will make sure you know the details for that. We have been teaching on our Wednesday, noontime study.

The last two weeks have been an overview and a deep dive on the truth and the blessings of the incarnation. Pastor Jeff, in his Thursday gram, highlighted it. It's a good thing to look at, especially in this season, as we're considering the coming of our Messiah.

But we will be taking a short break off of our Wednesday studies, knowing that Christmas, then the following week, and then New Year's. So our next session on Wednesday will be the 10th of January. You can come here Wednesday.

You are invited. You probably will be sitting by yourself and praying, but that's a good thing. We're not going to be teaching class for the next few weeks. But speaking about coming together, please join us tonight at six o 'clock.

This is such a powerful moment for the church as we come together on Sunday evenings for a time of prayer. Join us, please, at six o 'clock. Let's turn to prayer. Lord, we do come into your very presence this morning.

We come in worship of your deity. We come in submission to your sovereignty. And we come with gratitude for the hope that you give us through the blood of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of your Holy Spirit.

We're coming into your presence seeking truth. We acknowledge the lure of the world. We acknowledge our own desires in the flesh. But our desire is to walk in your way. And so as the psalmist, we proclaim boldly, teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.

Unite my heart to fear your name. Lord, we thank you for your many blessings as we anticipate, celebrate the coming of Messiah. We acknowledge our own unworthiness, but we reside in your love as adopted sons and daughters.

Lord, be with those here in a way that are in need. We especially continue to remember your children in Israel. Be with our pastor, Jeff, as he opens the word to us that your spirit will speak powerfully through him, that our hearts will be open to hear.

And we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

The Incarnation, Christ’s Worthiness, and the Sermon’s Aim

Joyful, I ascend the heavens in time, O spirit, deity who dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel, angels sing, glory to his gloriousness. Raised, risen with healing in his wings, mild he lays his glory by. O Lord, to raise the sons of earth, give them second birth of seed, glory to the

Privilege of coming into this place to worship you, for you are worthy. You sent your son into this world, this sin-cursed world, to be born of the Virgin Mary and live among us, to live a sinless life, but born to die.

Thank you, Jesus, that you would die for our sins and then rise from the dead on the third day. So Lord, you are worthy of all praise, and we give it to you, Lord. We thank you, Lord, that we could sit at your feet and learn from you.

And so as we open the word today, we pray that our eyes would be open to see glorious things in your word. Speak, your servants are listening. In Jesus' name, amen. The points of the sermon last week were three, and they all had to do with the hope that we have because God has spoken in the Bible.

Without a Bible, we have no hope. The first point last week was that we cannot know right from wrong without the Bible. Now, we do have human reasoning, and that comes from God as part of his general revelation to us, minds that are able to discern right from wrong, but that conscience can be seared as with a hot iron, and people can have differing views because of the fall of man.

We need an objective standard. A few things happened in the news last week that reminded me of this point. The first was a Turkish lawmaker. He was standing before the whole council and proclaiming an anathema on the nation of Israel and on any of you who support Israel, on us.

And he said that the wrath of Allah will fall on those who support Israel. And as he said those words and took one more breath, he stepped away from the microphone and instantaneously dropped dead. Now, a Muslim who believes in the revelations of Muhammad as being from God, these will say, well, he must have been a prophet, and therefore he had finished his work and fell down dead.

But to us, it looks a whole lot more like Ananias and Sapphira and the judgment of God. In fact, in Genesis 12, one to three, it says those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.

We need an objective standard to understand what is even happening in the world and who is in the right in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A second example caught my mind, caught my eye, and that was an exorcist who works for the Roman Catholic Church.

He calls himself Father Chad Ripperger. Now, the Bible says, do not call anyone father, referring to a spiritual authority on earth. So right there, you have a clue that he's off base. But he said, I'm in regular contact with the devil, and he assures me that there is no stronger weapon against him than the Holy Rosary.

Now, if this exorcist is talking to the devil, and the devil is the father of lies, maybe you shouldn't take his word for what is the strongest weapon. We know, of course, what is the weapon, the sword of the spirit, which again raises the question, by what standard are we to judge these things?

A third and final example, in Iowa this last week, the satanic temple set up a baphomet statue in the statehouse. This is a goat head, just like a gross image of Satan. And because the Iowa statehouse couldn't distinguish between the Christmas tree, which in some way represents Christian faith, the light of the world and all of these things, and a Satan statue, they allowed both to sit in the statehouse.

By what standard can you condemn that as wrong? Well, a man named Michael Cassidy, a Christian man, a Navy Reserve instructor pilot, walked into the Iowa Capitol this week, and decapitated the baphomet idol.

He took the head off the thing and stuffed it in a trash can, and destroyed the idol. And by what standard can anyone say that he's wrong? I actually think he was right to do that. There is a reason for that.

And we're not going to get into it now, because we have a whole text to deal with. We're going to push that to off the cuff on Wednesday. We're going to sit and talk and work out the thinking on that.

But the text that we've been studying raises this question. In the trial of Jesus, chapter 18, verses 30 and 31, they bring a charge, but their charge is so vague, it's hard to understand what's going on.

And pilot says, well, why don't you take him and judge him by your law? Well, the problem is Jewish law would not allow for crucifixion, and Roman law would not allow the Jews to crucify anybody or kill anybody.

They couldn't execute capital punishment. So whose law are you going to go by? The Roman law or the Jewish law? This comes to culmination in John 19, verse 31. You can turn there. We're still reviewing from last week.

In John 19, 31, it says, since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, whose law is at concern at this point in the text? The Jewish law. But they have to appeal to the Roman governor to allow them to do what they would do by Jewish law.

So you have this conflict in the text between these two competing worldviews and these two different ethical systems. Of course, crucifixion is grotesque and it's horrible and it's evil. And yet it was part of Roman jurisprudence to punish wrongdoers.

So you have this competition. And so then the question becomes, how do we know what is true? And the answer given in John 19, 31 to 37, is that this word from God is attested by the evidence of prophecies that are fulfilled in Jesus.

You know that Jesus is the Messiah because the prophets foretold that not one of his bones would be broken. And on the cross, they did not break his legs. Instead, they put a spear in his side, which also fulfills yet another prophecy in Psalm, I'm sorry, in Zechariah chapter 12.

So the fulfillment of prophecies validate Jesus. And conversely, by the evidence of these things worked out in history, the Bible itself is confirmed. So prophecy proves the Bible, just like it proves Jesus.

Now, how can you know the meaning of Jesus' death? Is he just a criminal hung on a cross or even an innocent victim of Rome and the Jewish leaders? We only know what happened that day, 33 AD, when he was strung up on the cross.

We only know the meaning of it because we have this word from God. We were given a revelation of the Passover, the Passover lamb, and the shedding of blood for the protection of those underneath the blood.

And the prophetic picture of the Passover gives us the meaning of Jesus' death. He is no ordinary man. He is the lamb of God, the Passover lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He is the righteous one dying for the unrighteous.

He is the lamb who bears our iniquities, Isaiah 53. We know these things because of the Bible. Without the Bible, we don't know the meaning of Jesus' death. So John's point in John 19, 31 to 37, while Jesus is hanging on the cross, he devotes seven verses to the fulfillment of prophecy, which confirms him as Messiah and points us to the scripture.

And so it says in verse 36 that the scripture might be fulfilled. Verse 37, again another scripture. We do have an objective standard. Now that brings us to verses 38 to 42. And here we have the burial of Jesus.

And these themes continue into this passage as well. The fulfillment of prophecy, the meaning of his death, and the theme this week is the burial of believers with Christ. Here we have the burial of Christ.

But what I want you to notice as I read it, Joseph of Arimathea was secretly a disciple. He was a disciple in hiding. Nicodemus had come at night, a disciple in hiding and becoming a disciple. But in order for them to publicly identify with Christ, they had to be buried with him.

This is the story of Jesus' burial, but it's also the burial of their reputation. They're going to lose everything. Both of these men have seats on the Sanhedrin, the 70. These are the rulers, these are the rich, and they will lose everything to identify with Christ.

Let's read it. John 19, 38 to 42. After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him permission.

So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

So we'll exposit this in three parts. First, Joseph of Arimathea. Second, Nicodemus. And then third, what they did together, which is bury Jesus, which was their own burial with Christ. Let's first look at Joseph of Arimathea.

He fulfills prophecy, probably without even knowing it, as he identifies with Jesus. What do we know of this man, Joseph? Here we only have the kind of one verse telling us anything about him, that he's from Arimathea.

That's another town. It's probably only mentioned so that you wouldn't confuse him with Joseph, Jesus's biological, not biological father, stepfather, or the other Josephs of the Bible. He's Joseph of Arimathea.

But we don't know much about him here, just that he had been following Jesus from a distance. So what else do we know? Well, we have information in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So all four of the Gospels have reference.

In Matthew 27, we learn a couple things. Matthew 27, 57 to 60, he was rich. And that's important for a reason I'm going to show you in a minute from Isaiah 53, 9. Number two, this tomb was his own tomb.

And he himself had carved it into the rock. Luke tells us that he had not consented to the crucifixion. And Mark tells us, this is important, he was a council member. He was part of the Sanhedrin. He was looking for the kingdom of God.

And when he asked for the body of Jesus, Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead. Usually, crucifixion took more than six hours. It would take a couple of days for someone to die. And so Pilate said, wait a minute.

He sent for the centurion, the leader of the Roman troop to come back and confirm that, yeah, Jesus was actually dead. So this took a while. He's standing before Pontius Pilate for some time. Now, the thrust of this verse comes in the center of it.

Notice how he's identified as a disciple of Jesus. But remember John's theme about believers and disciples. Some are only superficially believers, outwardly disciples, but in their hearts, they're not fully converted.

John 6, 66, they all abandon him. John 8, 30 and 31, they believe, but then they don't. Here, Joseph of Arimathea is a disciple, but notice, secretly for fear of the Jews. That's important. He has not publicly identified with Christ.

Something's going on in his mind. He's noticing that this is a miracle worker and that there's never been anyone who speaks like this man. And he's being converted in his mind, but he has not publicly identified with Christ.

Why? Prestige. He's a council member. Riches. He's wealthy. Legacy. He has all of the esteem of the people and he wants to leave that to his family. He's probably an older man because who else is already thinking about his death and buying land to build his own tomb?

He's thinking about leaving an inheritance and taking care of everything for his family. He has much to lose and yet he's beginning to believe. What he needs to do at this point is to die. He has to die to his own fleshly desires, the world around him.

He has to be buried with Christ. This is the point in verse 38. It's a secret kind of faith. It's not yet taking a stand to publicly identify. And yet here in verse 38, he comes to Pilate. The idea there is it's wide open.

Everybody is seeing this. The whole council is watching it go down. He's standing there for 10, 20 minutes. Go get the centurion. Everybody's watching this. He's making now the public stand that he refused to make earlier on.

What changed? Well, I think it was the death of Jesus. I'm sure he saw the blood and water pour from Jesus' side. The bones weren't broken. Passover lamb, light bulbs going off, pierced in the side, Zechariah 12, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53.

The lights are turning on and it gets to the point where he's willing to let everything else go to identify with Christ. Case study number one. But how many witnesses do you need to establish a testimony?

Two or some cases three. But here there are two. And John will serve as a third witness recording these things. Witness number two is Nicodemus, verse 39. Nicodemus also notice who earlier had come to Jesus when?

By night. Why does the council member come at night? He is afraid to openly identify with Christ. And at this point in the story, he's not even fully understanding. There are three appearances of Nicodemus in John and it's together building a thread.

Kind of like Rahab's red thread that she hung out the window to indicate to the Jewish spies. That thread is often pictured as the red thread of redemption. All from Genesis to Revelation, you have a red thread of the blood of the lamb from Genesis 3 .15 to Genesis 22 to Exodus with the Passover lamb in Leviticus 17 .11, the blood in Deuteronomy 22 through Joshua, the red thread of Ahab.

Yeah, Ahab. No, what's her name? Rahab. Yeah, I got that twisted in my brain. Thank you that we have another elder here straighten me out. The red thread of redemption runs through the whole Bible. You need to pick up on these kinds of things to follow the train of thought, right?

In the same way, Nicodemus has his own thread running. John 3, John 7, John 19. John is doing something by telling these stories, okay? In John 3, he comes by night and he asks questions. He knows this is a teacher who comes from God.

Nobody else could be doing these miracles. And Jesus gives him the gospel and that he must be born again. The light begins to shine, but not fully. John 7, let's read that one. John 7 .45 to 52. And then we'll finish with Nicodemus in the text we're currently at in John 19.

Maybe you didn't notice this in reading through John, but Nicodemus appears a second time in John 7. And here, he's beginning to take a stand. He's not going to say Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God.

But he will begin to question the injustice of the way they're treating him. So he's coming around and he's starting to make a stand. John 7 .45 to 52. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, why did you not bring him?

They're frustrated. The officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them, have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.

Who in verse 50? Nicodemus. Who had gone to him before and who was one of them said to them, does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? How do you think they're going to react to that?

Well, we hear it in verse 52. It's kind of a slap in the face. They replied, are you from Galilee too? Nothing good comes from Nazareth. That's the podunk out there, you know, fly over country. Nothing good comes from Galilee.

What are you, a Galilean? Search and see no prophet arises from Galilee. They're mocking him. So Nicodemus takes one on the chin. He's beginning to stand, but this is a picture of what it's like to become a Christian.

You begin to hear about Christ and something begins to click and you question more what you've been raised with and what other people are saying. And you're, you're in the throes of it, but there must come a point.

And here it is in John 19 verse 39, where the one who earlier came to Jesus by night comes rolling up with 75 pounds, you're not going to miss him, worth of spice and aloe. He's probably got it in a little cart behind him unless he's super strong.

He's got it on his shoulder. Here comes Nicodemus and he goes to Pilate in the presence of everyone and takes his public stand. That's the point. He's willing to lose it all. What did Joseph of Arimathea really lose?

A tomb, a place of death. But what did he gain? Everything. Christ and eternal life. Nicodemus alongside Joseph are willing to be buried with Christ. What do I mean buried? His reputation, his wealth, his family's future in the eyes of the world.

He's willing to be buried with Christ. So let's see this happen then in verses 40 to 42. What did they do? They took the body of Jesus, the blood drenched body of Jesus. They, they get there. Don't picture this like a flannel graph in Sunday school, where they take the little felt thing off the cross.

This is bloody and gory and removing the wrist from the nail and they must clean him. And wrap him and the sun is going down. It must not set. It's a race against time because they don't want to defile the land.

They must get him buried before dark. It's a, it's a very intense situation and they're willing to give it all now. They're so valuing his body that they're willing to be mocked. The soldiers surely are mocked.

Look how they care for his dead body. The council members mocking and laughing. Oh, look what Nicodemus has done. You know what? I saw this coming. Remember when he was asking questions? I knew he was a Galilean.

The scorn is being mocked upon him. This is the burial custom of the Jews. Verse 41. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had been laid.

So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, so the reason that Joseph of Arimathea chooses to give up his own tomb is because they needed somewhere close to bury the body.

In other words, he had not premeditated, I'm going to use my tomb. They're in a chaotic march here. A race against time. They've got this body. They've wrapped him with all of the aloes, which by the way, what was the burial spice?

Myrrh. When Jesus was born, they brought him gold because he's the king of kings. They brought him frankincense because he is the priest who mediates between God and man. They brought him myrrh because he is a prophet and a prophet is never welcomed by his own people.

They stone and kill the prophets. It was the prophetic teaching of Jesus that got him killed. You see this again and again in John. They pick up stones to stone him in John 8 because they don't like his claim, before Abraham was born, I am.

It's his prophetic word that offends. And listen guys, the picture of Jesus as always meek and lowly in speech is a false Christ. He is gentle with the humble and broken sinner. The woman caught in adultery, he forgives her and says, sin no more.

The tax collectors, the sinners, the prostitutes. He mercifully deals with them, calls them to repentance and forgives them so gently. He's as meek as a lamb, but to the hard-hearted, the prideful, those who mishandle the law, the false teachers, he in Matthew 23 is as ferocious as a lion.

You brood of vipers, he'll say. He speaks clearly. He doesn't mince words. He's very direct. He's not at all effeminate as many people present him these days. He preaches the truth and that's what got the prophet killed.

And so he's buried with myrrh. Church, he was born to die. They brought him myrrh at his birth because he was born for this purpose, to lay down his life for sinners like us. It was God's plan that he be buried.

And here comes that myrrh again, pictured prophetically earlier of what would come of him. He is to be buried. And the big idea that I want to communicate today is that the burial story of Jesus picks up on Joseph and Nicodemus and you and me.

The idea here is you must die and be buried. The old man of the flesh who loves this world must be buried with Christ. Now notice I don't say death to self. Very often people misconstrue what it means to be buried with Christ.

The phrase death to self is very popular in evangelicalism, but it's not in the Bible. Death to self would imply that you must obey certain rules and deny yourself in order to achieve something from God.

It is a picture, turn with me, of Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2 verses 20 to 23. I have some really good news. To be buried with Christ is not death to self in the sense that you hear it taught sometimes in fundamentalist circles.

Look at verse 21. Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. The teaching of death to self is a do not, do not, do not. If we were to proof text this verse and just use it as a springboard and take it out of context and preach it, do not handle, do not touch.

God doesn't want you to enjoy the taste of food, the pleasure of sex, the laughter, the entertainment, the good things of life. Do not, do not, do not. That would be proof texting because pay attention now to what it actually says in Colossians 2, 20 to 23.

If with Christ you died, this is being buried with Christ, to what? Not to yourself, but to the elemental spirits of the world. Why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

Well, you want to be buried alive? Then heap up laws that you must obey in the flesh. The living man trying to obey, do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. That's like being buried alive under a bunch of laws that you can't keep.

So it's not death to self because read on, what is it referring to? Verse 22, they're referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings. These indeed have an appearance of wisdom.

It looks like that's really spiritual in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. To die and be buried with Christ is to stop the indulgence of the flesh.

The issue is the old man of flesh must die. The old man of the flesh must be buried with Christ. And that is not the same thing as do not, do not, do not. When Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took the body of Christ, they so valued this treasure entrusted to them for burial that they were willing to count everything else in their life as loss compared to the surpassing greatness of Christ.

I think C .S. Lewis hit the ball out of the park on this one. He was a little liberal for me in some areas, so I don't quote him just without reservation, but in the book Weight of Glory, he makes this point in ways that I had not heard and I think I've not heard better stated.

He said this, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us.

Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. What C .S. Lewis is saying is that we are content with what the flesh craves, what the world offers, and in that we're like little kids that live in a slum and we're sitting in the slum and the water's running through the gutter and we're taking that slum water and making some dirt and making little things out of the slummy dirt.

And we're so happy with that. We think that this is really what life is all about because we've never imagined what a holiday at the sea would be like. What Jesus is telling us when he says in Luke 9, 23 and following, that you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.

He's saying to be buried with him to the things of this world in order to take hold of that which is life and deed. It is in your self-interest. He'll go on to say, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?

What's he doing there? He's appealing to yourself, your own self-interest. It's in your interest, the interest of your joy to let go of the small temporary and fake pleasures that never satisfy in order to take hold of what is truly valuable.

He even goes on to say that you don't forfeit yourself. So it's not death to self. It is death to the old man of the flesh. I'm crucified with Christ and I no longer live. The life I live in the body, I don't live for me, but for Christ.

The old man has been crucified, but there's a new man. There's a new life. This is the teaching again and again. And I think we misunderstand what it means to be crucified and buried. It means to identify with Christ and to take his life.

Now, here's how it works out in real life. When you're buried with Christ, you are trusting him to provide the good things of this life. You're the living sacrifice of Romans 12 .1. You're on the altar, but Romans 12 .2 says, so that you may discern what is the will of the Lord, the good and pleasing, perfect will of God.

So to be buried with Christ is to wait on the Lord, to give you in his time, all of the good things of this life and the one to come. It's to wait for his will to bless you with those things. The old man of the flesh just wants to take and indulge itself with the things and the temptations of this world.

But when you're buried this way with Christ, you're waiting on him to give you what tastes good and feels good and is pleasurable. All of these things come from Christ as good gifts to his children. So the man who's dead with Christ will receive those things in his time and in his way.

It's actually very much in your interest to be buried because the gifts he gives to his children are better by far than the temporary fake and empty pleasures of this world that always leave you unsatisfied.

In Christ, there's only freedom. In Psalm 16, he says that he gives pleasures forevermore at his right hand. So it is in our interest to be buried with Christ. One more thing to say and then we close.

This burial with Christ has a very tangible outward picture. For Nicodemus and Joseph to identify with Christ, they had to go in front of Pilate in the presence of everybody publicly and ask for the body of Jesus and in front of everybody before sunset, get his body and bury it.

Subject to scorn and mockery, it's very public. You have to be buried with Christ in baptism. It is an open public identification with Christ in which you are buried with him, immersed underwater and raised to newness of life.

When the body of Jesus was taken by Joseph and Nicodemus, where was his spirit? Don't believe in the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of soul sleep. When you die, it's not like your spirit is just unconscious and unaware until Jesus comes back.

No, the teaching of the Bible is to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ. Your spirit separates from the body and then at the rapture, your body and spirit are reunited at the coming of the Lord in the air.

In the same way, when Jesus died, his spirit continued to live. He was still upholding the universe by the word of his power. So where did his spirit go? We know at least two things. One, he told the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise.