Why was Jesus tomb sealed and guarded?
Jesus tomb is sealed and guarded
a. Sir: They gave Pilate a title of honor and respect. But the day before these same religious leaders rejected the King of Kings. They mocked and despised Him, putting Jesus to open shame, but they honored Pilate.
i. On the next day: “It must mean that the chief priests and Pharisees actually approached Pilate on the Sabbath with their request. If they did that, it is clear to see how radically they broke the Sabbath Law.” (Barclay)
b. We remember … how that deceiver said, “After three days I will rise”: Ironically, the enemies of Jesus remembered His promise of resurrection better than His own disciples remembered.
c. While He was still alive: In this, the enemies of Jesus admit that Jesus is dead. They did not believe the “Swoon Theory,” a conjecture that denies the resurrection, saying that Jesus never really died, but just “swooned” on the cross, and then somehow wonderfully revived in the tomb.
i. A humorous letter to the editor to a Christian magazine accurately evaluated the “Swoon Theory”:
Dear Eutychus: Our preacher said, on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered
Dear Bewildered: Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear through his heart; embalm him; put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Eutychus
d. Lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away: They couldn’t have been afraid of the disciples. They knew they were terrified and in hiding. They knew they were gone from the crucifixion scene. Their intelligence sources and informants let them know the disciples were terrified. Instead, they were afraid of the power of Jesus.
i. After all, look at their words: And say to the people, “He has risen from the dead.” If that were to happen, why not just say to the disciples, “So where is Jesus? Produce the supposedly living body of your risen Lord!” They knew that it would do nothing for the disciples to steal the body of Jesus, because they could not present a dead body and pretend it was alive. That would prove nothing. What they were really afraid of was the resurrection power of Jesus.
ii. It is sad that the religious leaders were afraid of the resurrection power of Jesus, but at least they believed it was true. On Saturday morning, the chief priests and the Pharisees preached a better resurrection sermon than the disciples did.
iii. “Justin says that such stories were still being actively disseminated in the middle of the second century (Dialogues 108). The fact of such propaganda in itself indicates that it could not be denied that the tomb was empty; what was questioned was how it came to be empty.” (France)
e. Command that the tomb be made secure … you have a guard … make it as secure as you know how: This shows that both the Jewish leaders and the Romans were well aware of the need to guard the tomb, and that they took all necessary measures to secure it. These security measures simply gave greater testimony to the miracle of the resurrection. If Jesus’ tomb was unguarded, one might suggest that an unknown person or persons stole the body, and it would be difficult to refute. Yet because the tomb was so well guarded, we can be certain that His body wasn’t stolen.
i. You have a guard was Pilate’s promise to supply a Roman guard. “It is unlikely that the Jews would have needed Pilate’s permission at all to deploy their own police; moreover the word for guard is (uniquely in the New Testament) a transliteration of the Latin word custodia. It is therefore more likely that it was Pilate’s troops who were used; the Jewish leaders are going for maximum security.” (France)
ii. “Vain men! As if the same power that was necessary to raise and quicken the dead could not also remove the stone, and break through the watch they had set. But by their excessive care and diligence, instead of preventing Christ’s resurrection, as they intended, they have confirmed the truth and belief of it to all the world.” (Poole)
f. Sealing the stone and setting the guard: This describes the measures taken to secure the tomb of Jesus.
i. The tomb was secured by a stone, which was a material obstacle. These stones were large, and set in an inclined channel. This was a real obstacle. For sure, the stone could not be rolled away from the inside. The disciples, if you had enough of them, could roll away the stone—but not quietly. Besides, they would have to work together to roll it away, and that didn’t seem likely.
ii. The tomb was secured by a seal, which was an obstacle of human authority. The seal was a rope, overlapping the width of the stone covering the entrance to the tomb. On either side of the doorway, there was a glob of wax securing the rope over the stone. You could not move the rock without breaking the seal. It was important that the guards witness the sealing, because they were responsible for whatever was being sealed. These Roman guards would watch carefully as the stone was sealed, because they knew their careers, and perhaps their lives, were on the line. The Roman seal carried legal authority. It was more than yellow tape barricading a modern crime scene; to break a Roman seal was to defy Roman authority. That stone was secured by the authority of the Roman Empire.
iii. The tomb was secured by a guard, which was an obstacle of human strength. A typical Roman guard had four soldiers. Two watched while the others rested. This guard may have had more. The soldiers would be fully equipped—sword, shield, spear, dagger, armor. We should also remember that these were Roman soldiers. They didn’t care about Jesus or Jewish laws or rituals. They were called to secure the tomb of a criminal. To them the only sacred thing at this tomb was the Roman seal, because if that were broken, their careers were ruined and they might be executed themselves. Soldiers cold-blooded enough to gamble over a dying man’s clothes were not the kind of men to be tricked by trembling disciples, or would not jeopardize their necks by sleeping at their post.
iv. None of these obstacles mattered. They all fall away before Him!
• Material obstacles don’t stand before the resurrected Jesus.
• Human authority doesn’t stand before the resurrected Jesus.
• Human strength doesn’t stand before the resurrected Jesus.
Guzik, D. (2013). Matthew (Mt 27:62–66). Santa Barbara, CA: David Guzik.
