The Nugget:
Heb 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;
The Question:
A Moslem poster at the Islam and Christianity Debate Group claims that the Bible teaches that Jesus did not actually die. He titles his post, “I still stand on my prove [proof] from the bible [Bible] that Jesus never died.”
My Answer:
Faruq Kolodi, let me help you understand Hebrews 5:7 more accurately. The text reads in the English Bible (KJV), “Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;”
The expression “was able to save him from death” for the phrase “from death” means not FROM death, for the Greek word is ‘ek,’ not ‘apo.’ He went down ‘into death,’ but was saved OUT OF (Greek, ‘ek’) it by resurrection.
Hebrews 5:7, therefore, does not say or mean that Jesus did not die. The glorious truth proclaimed by the historical record preserved in the New Testament declares that Jesus Christ arose from the dead on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4). Reference Bibles give a very full list of the places recorded in the New Testament where the disciples bore witness to the fact that Jesus Christ was raised bodily from the dead by God starting at Acts 2:24.
Further references are given to Acts 2:32; Acts 3:15; Acts 4:10; Acts 10:40; Acts 13:30, 34; Acts 17:31. Romans 4:24; Romans 8:11. 1 Corinthians 6:14; 1 Corinthians 15:15. 2 Corinthians 4:14. Galatians 1:1. Ephesians 1:20. Colossians 2:12. 1 Thessalonians 1:10. Hebrews 13:20. 1 Peter 1:21.