Admittedly, this commentary contains some extrapolation, but it is based on scripture. It is me adding 1 + 1 and getting 2. I am referring to Herod’s mistaking of Jesus as John the Baptist resurrected. In his usual manner, Jesus would think it necessary to prove to the man who would be king wrong.
The murder of John the Baptist
would have been heartbreaking to those who he baptized. Just think about that; John
was beheaded just for telling the truth!
The Tetrarch Herod had just
stolen his brother, Philip’s wife, Herodias (Mat 14:3). John said one thing, “It
is not lawful for thee to have her” (Mat 14:4). That one truth cost John his
head and denying that cost Herod eternal life.
Just what Law was that? “You
shall not commit adultery” (Exod 20:14). Committing adultery is double faceted;
(1) lying with another man’s wife as if she is your own, and (2) the worship of
idols is adultery, or fornication, against God. The head of John became the
idol of his wife and his step-daughter. It is supposed that they would keep it
on the platter in Herod’s palace as a trophy for victory.
Jesus could have pardoned Herod
for his sin because no sin is too great for His mercy.
Herod gave John credit for something
that was not true. He said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he is
risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him”
(Mat 14:2). Herod thought that Jesus was John who had been resurrected. Herod
had John killed, but then thought that he had arisen. John had not. Jesus was
God in the flesh and John was a dead man, whose soul lived on in glory!
How is that known? When Jesus died, John did arise. “Where does it say that?” you ask.
And the graves were
opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the
graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto
many. (Mat 27:52-3)
John was sleeping. He would not
sleep forever, but only until the resurrection. Paul wrote that the Jews require
a sign (1 Cor 1:22). Although Herod thought that Jesus was John who had awakened,
as it turned out, his nightmare came true; John would soon wake up and appear to
him!
How could it be that those who
arose from their graves included John? “His disciples came, and took up the
body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus” (Mat 14:12). John’s body was buried;
it was not put into a tomb. His grave could be opened by supernatural causes
and men would not be required to roll back the stone, as people assumed with
the resurrection of Jesus.
Further evidence is that John was
a saint. Based on divine inventory, as with Lazarus, the last in should be
first out! Lazarus had already arisen, but John had not. It was his time to be awakened.
But would he not have decayed
over the years? Yes, like Lazarus, he would stink (John 11:39); he would stink very
badly, if not for new flesh that was incorruptible.
Resurrection is the restoration
of the flesh. In modern terms perhaps his DNA was used by God to make him a new
person. That, readers, is the process of rebirth. It begins with trust, passes
beyond life unto death, and ‘born again’ is an engendering by God above.
Was John a ‘saint’? A saint
is a follower of Christ who is morally pure. Literally, a saint is an ‘awful
thing’ (ibid). A headless man fits that description quite well!
John’s head was not with his
body. It was asleep somewhere else, indubitably in Herod Antipas’s palace.
Those saints “appeared to many.”
Herod Antipas was alive and well when Jesus died. It seems that the long dead
John may have appeared to Herod.
Where was John’s head? Probably
in the city of Tiberius where the palace of Herod Antipas was and to which the
springs of Emmaus was near.
After Jesus was resurrected, for
some reason, he was on His way to Emmaus. Why would he go to Emmaus immediately
upon being resurrected? Perhaps, to see John who was resurrected that same day,
if my incite is true! Jesus was on the way to Herod Antipas, probably to appear
to him; to show Herod the real Jesus and stand alongside John to convince Herod
that, not John, but Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).
Jesus was unrecognizable. He had
been glorified. Scripture reveals that when the regeneration process was
complete; after Jesus died and was resurrected, they conjectured, “Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” (Luke
24:26). They failed to recognize Jesus because He had been glorified. No longer
was his Person or even His flesh subject to the world for He had overcome the
world.
After serving the men who walked
with Him at one of their homes, Jesus just disappeared. “Jesus himself stood in
the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were
terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. (Luke
24:36-37).
The Substance of Jesus had
changed. His flesh was such that it revealed His Spirit. They could obviously
see the Image of God within Him just as with the first Adam whose Image was a
Phantom (ibid). What would Jesus look like? The ‘Son of God’ that
Nebuchadnezzar saw in the fiery furnace (Dan 3:25).
However, this commentary is more
about John and Herod Antipas. I submit that Jesus went to Emmaus only to join
John there and both appear to Herod together to prove to Herod that Jesus is
not the arisen John, but God Himself. Perhaps he wanted to show Herod His new
flesh to persuade Herod to become a Christian despite his adulteress
relationship with Herodias.
Jesus then overcame the world. Concluding
supper, which by the way, Jesus did not eat, “Their eyes were opened, and they
knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight” (Mat 24:31), then immediately
appeared to the remaining eleven apostles who were still eating their suppers; “Jesus
himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, ‘Peace be unto you’” (Luke
24:36).
Jesus, soon after his
resurrection made the rounds and appeared to many. It makes sense that John did
the same thing if he was one of the saints that was resurrected with Jesus. [1]
As it turned out, King Agrippa
was persuaded that Antipas was traitorous with the accusation that he conspired
against Tiberius Caesar with Sejanus and was now plotting against Caligula
Caesar.
Antipas died in exile, and as
early historians believe, he was executed. If so, what he did with John, others
did to him. Was he persuaded by a possible visit from both John and Jesus? That
remains unknown.
Consider now the story of the
other Lazarus and the rich man; The rich man begged Abraham in Paradise that
his brothers be warned. He replied to them, “If they hear not Moses and the
prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead” (Luke
16:31).
Antipas may have seen both John
and Jesus after they arose from the dead, but he would still not believe. He
might have seen two but remained unpersuaded.
Herod Antipas had his mind set on
his own fantasies: (1) That he should be king but as it turned out Agrippa became
King of Judea. That was also the royal title of Jesus. It stands to reason that
Herod feared Jesus who was the true heir to the Judean throne. His resurrection
would have frightened him for obvious reasons! (2) His other fantasy is that he
would be the favored one, not of Jesus, who was ‘King of kings,’ but Caligula
who would soon have that title as Caesar.
The evidence suggests that
although Herod may have seen two men arise from their graves, that he still did
not believe. He lies to this day in his grave at Lugdumen in Spanish Gaul… and
is still awaiting his own resurrection. He will be and then Jesus will say to
him, “I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity” (Mat 7:23).
With that said, Jesus and John
are both still alive. Time has no significance to the dead. There is no record
of John ever entering the grave again. The best bet is that John is in Paradise
and both he and Abraham are in Jesus’s Bosom; and that John, like Jesus, has
already been glorified, and indeed, Jesus surely found his head in Emmaus to
make him whole!
[1] In my book, The Skull
of Adam, I assumed that John appeared to Herod and confronted him for
breaking so many laws for Herod was a usurer, a schemer, and a traitor to
Caesar as well.
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