…Wrapped and Sealed
The Body Document Series
Document 3 of 4
Document One established the Logos in beginning and the Torah as the body document in written form. Document Two examined the body showing what the document had always said, Thomas, the woman at the hem, the road to Emmaus. This document examines what happened to the body document at the cross and in the tomb. What the institution did with the document. And what the document did with the sealing.
The same hand that covered the Paleo-Hebrew pictures sealed the body in the tomb. The same institutional management of the covenant testimony. The same result, the document sealed by those who could not contain it. And the same outcome. The document opened from the inside.
The Same Hand
To understand the sealing of the tomb it is necessary to understand who sealed it and what they had been doing for five hundred years before that morning.
The scribal tradition, the Sopherim, the Pharisees, the chief priests, the institutional management of the covenant testimony that had built its authority on the post-exilic reforms of Ezra, had been sealing the document for five centuries. They replaced the divine name YHWH with Adonai six thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight times, sealing the identity the name declared behind a title that required institutional context to carry meaning. They replaced the Paleo-Hebrew script with the Aramaic square script, sealing the pictographic identity declarations behind abstract strokes that no longer showed the hand and the nail and the house. They built the gematria system over the space the pictures left, sealing the direct declaration behind a numerical code that required the authorized interpreter to decode.
They had been sealing the document for five hundred years. And now the document had arrived in embodied form. The Logos made flesh. The body document walking through the courts of the second temple. And the institutional management did what the institutional management had always done with the document. They sealed it.
Matthew 27:59-60, Yosef of Arimathea took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb. Then verse 65-66, Pilate said to them you have a guard of soldiers. Go make it as secure as you can. So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.
The body wrapped. The stone rolled. The seal placed. The guard set. The same institutional management of the covenant testimony sealing the body document in the tomb for the same institutional reason it had always sealed the document — to prevent the declaration from reaching the people without passing through the authorized management system. The same hand. Five centuries of practice. Applied to the body of the one the document had always been about.
They had been sealing the document for five hundred years. The Paleo-Hebrew pictures covered. The name removed. The numerical system placed over the space the pictures left. And now the body of the one the document had always been about lay in a tomb with a stone sealed over it and a guard set before it. The same hand. The same seal. Five centuries of practice.
The Three Days
Three days. Not incidental. Not the minimum time required for a Roman execution to be considered final. Three days, the covenant completion signature running through the entire testimony of the body document.
Avraham lifted his eyes on the third day and saw the place of the offering, Genesis 22:4. The third day as the day of covenant faithfulness confirmed. Avraham left for three days not knowing what YHWH would provide, and on the third day he lifted his eyes and the ram was in the thicket and the covenant held.
Hosea 6:2, after two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him. The prophet of the northern kingdom, whose community became the Samaritans who kept the Paleo-Hebrew pictures, declaring the resurrection on the third day centuries before the body document was sealed in the tomb.
Yeshua himself, Yochanan 2:19, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. The body document declaring in advance that the sealing of the tomb was not the end but the appointed three-day interval before the opening. Not a prediction about a future event. The document stating what the covenant completion signature had always declared, that the third day is the day the covenant faithfulness is confirmed.
The institution sealed the tomb. The body document lay in the sealed tomb for three days. Not because it was trapped. Because the three days were the appointed interval. The covenant completion signature. The pattern declared from Avraham to Hosea to Yeshua himself. Three days. Then the confirmation that the covenant holds.
Three days, the covenant completion signature. Avraham on the third day. Hosea on the third day. Yeshua declaring in three days I will raise it up. The institution sealed the tomb for institutional reasons. The three days were the appointed interval for covenant reasons. Not the same reason. The same three days.
Opened from the Inside
On the third day, Matthew 28:2-6, there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow and for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, do not be afraid. I know that you seek Yeshua who was crucified. He is not here for he has risen.
He is not here. The body document was not in the tomb when the stone was rolled away. The angel did not roll the stone to let the document out. The document was already gone. The stone was rolled away to show that what had been sealed was no longer there. The sealing had been broken from the inside before the stone was moved from the outside. The document opened itself. From within the sealing. Before any human hand touched the seal.
This is the pattern of the document throughout the entire covenant testimony. YHWH passed between the pieces alone in Genesis 15, sealing the covenant from the inside of the condition that could not be reached from outside. The Logos moved into the tzelem, entering from the inside of the creation the document had always been declaring. The covenant sealed for all who slept, entered from within the condition of sleep, of darkness, of the separation that required the covenant to be sealed for those who were inside it and could not reach outside it. The document always works from the inside out. Never from the outside in.
The institution sealed the tomb from the outside. The document opened itself from the inside. The same pattern as every other covering of the document, sealed from the outside by the institutional management, opened from the inside by the Logos that no institutional management has ever been able to contain.
The angel rolled the stone away to show that what had been sealed was no longer there. The document had already opened itself from the inside before any human hand touched the seal. The document always works from the inside out. The institution always seals from the outside in. The inside is always stronger.
The Grave Cloths Folded
Yochanan 20:3-7. Kefa (Peter) and the beloved disciple ran to the tomb. The beloved disciple arrived first and looked in and saw the linen cloths lying there. Then Kefa came and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth which had been on Yeshua’s head not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.
The grave cloths were not thrown aside in the chaos of a rapid departure. They were not scattered by an angel rolling a stone. They were lying there, the body wrapping lying where the body had been. The face cloth folded. Set aside deliberately. In a place by itself.
The document had no more need of the wrapping. The burial cloths had served the appointed purpose, they wrapped the body document in the sealing that the three days required. The dark. The sealed tomb. The interval. The appointed time of the opening. And when the document opened itself from the inside the wrapping was set aside. Deliberately. Folded. Not discarded in disorder. Put in its place. The covering honored for what it had served and released from its purpose.
This is the most intimate detail in the entire resurrection account. Not the earthquake. Not the angel. Not the guards falling like dead men. The folded face cloth in a place by itself. The document setting aside with deliberate care the covering that had wrapped it for the appointed three days. The institution had wrapped and sealed. The document unwrapped and folded the wrapping before it left. Not in haste. In the quiet of the third day before dawn. Before anyone arrived. The document completing what it had come to complete and setting aside what had served its purpose.
The face cloth folded. In a place by itself. The document setting aside its wrapping with deliberate care before it left. Not scattered. Not discarded. Folded. The covering honored for what it had served and released. The institution sealed from the outside. The document unwrapped from the inside. Folded the grave cloths. And left.
The same hand that covered the pictures sealed the tomb. The document opened itself from the inside on the third day. The grave cloths folded. The covering set aside. What the institution sealed the document had already left. The inside is always stronger than the outside.
The institution sealed the document for five hundred years.
The institution sealed the body in the tomb.
Three days.
The covenant completion signature.
Avraham. Hosea. Yeshua’s own declaration.
He is not here.
The document had already left.
Opened from the inside.
Before the stone was moved.
The grave cloths folded.
In a place by itself.
The covering set aside with deliberate care.
The inside is always stronger than the outside.
The Gospel Revolution • Mike Williams Ministries
William Ethan Massengill • Michael Lilborn Williams • Daniel Thomas Rouse
Published by Audrey Williams