The devil is a creature of habit. He is a habitual liar.
“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it,” John 8:44.
Periodically he issues forth an old lie, dressed up in apparently new garb. A member of one of his chief agencies of deceit in this world today, the Roman Catholic Church, has peddled the latest version of a satanic lie, much to the delight of the ignoramuses in the media.
‘The Daily Mail’ had the headline: “Mystery of Christ’s death solved? Jesus died from fatal bleeding after dislocating his shoulder carrying the cross, claims doctor-turned-priest”. The author of this regurgitated falsehood is ‘retired neurologist turned Roman Catholic priest, Patrick Pullicino’.
There is no mystery regarding how our Saviour died. God has given us numerous personal witness accounts of His death.
He died as a result of an act of His own sovereign volition, yielding up His spirit on the cross at Calvary, where he had been executed by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish leaders and suffered the death-dealing agonies of crucifixion.
Peter on the day of Pentecost stated the nature of the Saviour’s death and named those guilty of it. “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain,” Acts 2:22-23.
Peter would not have said that had the Saviour died as a result of ‘an accident’ on the way to Calvary!
The death of Christ was the outworking of God’s eternal purpose to save His elect through the sacrifice of His Son. This was the message of the apostles.
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures,” 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.
Prophecy states that the Saviour suffered much on the cross. “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels,” Psalm 22:14. The body of the crucified endured very much and limbs were pulled out of joint. But death did not come from those injuries. The Saviour died from the shedding of His blood on the cross. “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission,” Hebrews 9:22.
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed,” Isaiah 53:3-5.
Such falsehoods and deceits as set forth by this priest of Rome can only be touted in an atmosphere of blind ignorance of what the Bible teaches. In the Roman Catholic community, the Bible is a closed book and its teachings are basically unknown to both its people and preachers! Consequently, the most brazen of lies may be issued and taught as a doctrine of the Bible and few are any the wiser.
As John the Apostle recorded, there was none of the Saviour’s bones broken, 19:31-35. As for the ‘water and blood’, it has been repeatedly stated over the centuries by Protestant commentators, such as Dr John Gill (1697-1771): the ‘water and the blood’ coming forth from the wounding of the Saviour by the Roman spear is accounted for in “a natural way by the piercing of the ‘pericardium,’ which contains a small quantity of water about the heart.”
There is no mystery, just the urging of yet another myth upon a blinded world.
Truly, “For many deceivers are entered into the world,” 2 John 1:7. Patrick Pullicino is but the latest to peddle his deceits.