Message from, Joseph of Arimathea, found in The Gospel of God’s Love, page 189.
“I desire to write a few lines to let you know that I really did exist as a mortal, and that I am the same man who laid the body of Jesus in the tomb where never before had any body been laid. I was with him at his death, and was with his body when it was laid in the tomb and sealed, and I know and testify that no man or society of men, as it has been said, stole his body from the tomb. His body was entombed, as was the custom of my time, and he was wrapped in cerements and fitted for the long sleep in the tomb, as we supposed,
“While I was not a follower of Jesus, yet his doctrines appealed to me as containing truth, having about them a living inspiration which I did not find in the teachings of the Jewish theology (for I was a Pharisee). I never thought that his death was justifiable or approved it, but I was not able to prevent it; and feeling that a great crime had been committed by the people of whom I was one, I tried to make small atonement fot the great crime by giving him burial in my new tomb.
“Of course, I did not believe that he would rise again in the way he had made known to some of his disciples, and when we buried him, I only thought that the tomb would be his sepulcher until nature had destroyed his body as it had done in the cases of all others who had been entombed.
“As you can imagine, I was interested in the proceedings taken by the Jewish leaders in their efforts to prove that Jesus would not arise from the tomb on the third day, and I kept watch as well as did the soldiers, and I can testify that no mortal ever removed the stone from the mouth of the tomb.
“I was there when the angel came and the soldiers were put into the sleep that the Bible speaks of. And I, Joseph, say this, knowing that it may not be believed, and that the Bible makes no mention of it: I saw the stone rolled away, and the shining one standing at the entrance of the tomb.” To be continued…