"And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just: (51) (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. (52) This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. (53) And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. (54) And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. (55) And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. (56) And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment."
Concerning this Joseph, the Holy Ghost hath made mention of hire to his advantage, in calling him an honorable counsellor; and though of the Sanhedrim, he had not joined them in the horrible transactions concerning the death of Jesus. So far from it, that he determined to give Christ, though crucified at Golgotha, a decent interment. See, Reader! how, by seemingly unlooked for causes, the Lord overrules things to his own glory. The Holy Ghost, ages before had said, that the Messiah should make his grave with the rich in his death. Isaiah 53:9. A thing the most improbable, seeing that Christ was to die under the hands of both Jews and Gentiles, and as a common felon, and at Golgotha, a place where the bodies of the criminals executed there, lay, for the most part, unburied, and their skulls kicked about with contempt. Yet so it was. Jesus shall have an honorable burial, partly that his death, which is the life of the Church, may thereby be fully proved; and partly, that the identity of his person, being put into a tomb wherein before never man lay, may be the more perfectly known. Reader! let you and I follow in solemn meditation, the funeral of the Lord Jesus; and behold those holy sacred remains, which the grave cannot detain, lodged there for a few hours, until the time appointed for his resurrection! Never did the grave, though but for a short season, hold such a prisoner! But let us not overlook the needs be for Christ's interment. It proved his death. It proved the truth of the prophecies. He must, as a part of his Suretyship, be brought into the dust of death. Psalms 22:15. The type of Christ implied this, and Jesus himself taught it. For; saith Christ as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew 12:40. And above all, as Christ must be brought down to the dust of death, to fulfil the whole of his abasement, so from the grave it became necessary to prove the triumphs of his exaltation. In the grave Christ destroyed the power of the grave, and by his own death, the power of Sin, Satan, and Death. Read Hosea 13:14 :explained by 1 Corinthians 15:55-57; Hebrews 2:14. Here then it was, from this memorable sepulchre, the faithful in Christ Jesus were taught to look up, and behold the complete victory over death. And here the everlasting mansions of glory first clearly opened by Christ to his people. Precious Jesus! it is thou, by thy death, hast overcome death; and by thy resurrection hast secured the final resurrection of thy members.