Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 27:62

Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,

62. the next day, that followed the day of the preparation ] It was after sunset on Nisan 14. The preparation (paraskeu) was over, the Sabbath and the Paschal feast had commenced. This explanation of the somewhat unusual phrase accords with the view already taken of the Last Supper and the Passover.

While Christ’s enemies were busy this Sabbath day, His friends rested according to the commandment (Luk 23:56).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Now the next day, that followed the days of the preparation – The first day of the feast of the Passover was called the day of preparation, because all things were on that day got in readiness for the observances of the paschal week. The Jewish day closed at sunset, and the Sabbath at that time commenced. The next day mentioned here does not mean the following day in our acceptation of the word, or the following morning, but the next day in the Jewish way of speaking – that is, after the next day had commenced, or after sundown. To suppose them to have waited until the next morning would be absurd, as the disciples would be as likely to steal him away the first night as the second.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Mat 27:62-66

Command therefore that the sepulchre be made secure.

The Jew and the Roman watching the sepulchre

I. This passage of sacred history illustrates the truth that God has made all things for Himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. There is no counsel, nor wisdom, nor understanding against the Lord.

II. Some Christians are chosen of God to display by their great trials His power and wisdom, as Christ was by His death and burial and resurrection.

III. Bad men should be objects of pity rather than of fear or anger.

IV. Everything relating to the resurrection of Christ is unspeakably interesting for this reason, He was raised again for our justification. (N. Adams, D. D.)

Sabbath-breaking

It is a poetical justice that they who have so often accused the Saviour of Sabbath-breaking, now themselves finally desecrate this day. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)

Anxiety on account of Christ, even when dead

It is a common proverb, Dead men bite not. But here Christ, though dead and buried, bites and beats hard upon these evil mens consciences. They could not rest the whole night before, for fear He should get out of the grave some way, and so create them further trouble. Scipio appointed his sepulchre to be so placed, as his image standing upon it might look directly towards Africa, that being dead, he might still be a terror to the Carthaginians. And Cadwallo, an ancient king of this island, commanded his dead body to be embalmed and put into a brazen image, and so set upon a brazen horse over Ludgate for a terror to the Saxons. It is well-known that Zisca, that brave Bohemian, charged his Taborites to flay his corpse, and head a drum with his skin; the sound whereof, as oft as the enemies heard, they should be appalled and put to flight. And our Edward

I. adjured his son and nobles that if he died in his journey into Scotland, they should carry his corpse about with them, and not suffer it to be interred till they had vanquished the usurper and subdued the country. Something like to this the prophet Isaiah foretelleth of our Saviour (and we see it here accomplished), when he saith, In that day the root of Jesse shall stand up for an ensign to the people, and even his rest (or, as some read it, his sepulchre) shall be glorious (Isa 11:10). There are that think that these words, The day that followed the day of the preparation, are put ironically, or by way of a jest against the hypocritical sabbatism of the high priests, who would so workday-like, beg the body, seal the sepulchre, and set the watch on that Sabbath, for the which they seemed to prepare so devoutly before it came. (John Trapp.)

Unavailing precautions

Now they seemed to dance upon Christs grave, as thinking themselves cock-sure of Him. So did those bloody tyrants of the primitive times make no other reckoning, but to raze out the name of Christ from under heaven. Therefore, also, they did not only constitute laws and proclamations against Christians, but did engrave the same laws in tables of brass, meaning to make all things firm for ever and a day. But He that sat in heaven, and said, Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion, laughed at them; Jehovah had them in derision. Look how Daniel was innocently condemned, cast into the lions den, had the door sealed upon him, and, to see to, no hope or means of life was left him; and yet, by Gods good providence, he came forth untouched, and was made a greater man than before. So our blessed Saviour was innocently condemned, cast into the grave, sealed up among the dead, and to common judgment left as out of mind; yet early in the morning, at the time appointed by the power of His Deity, He raised Himself from death, and gloriously triumphed over it and hell. (John Trapp.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 62. The next day] This was the seventh, or Saturday, and might be what we should term the evening of the sixth, or Friday, because the Jews always ended their day when the sun set, and then began the next.

That followed the day of the preparation] That is, of the Sabbath. The victuals, c., which were to be used on the Sabbath by the Jews, were always prepared the preceding evening before the sun set. It is of this preparation that the evangelist speaks here and it is the same which is mentioned by Mark, Mr 15:42; by Luke, Lu 23:54; and by John, Joh 19:31. But there was another preparation which happened in the same day: viz. The preparation of the passover; this began about twelve o’clock, and continued till four, the time in which they ate the paschal lamb. See Joh 19:14.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This part of the history is recorded by no other evangelist: the recording it by Matthew contributes yet further to evidence the truth of Christs resurrection; for here was all imaginable care taken to prevent a cheat in the case.

The next day, that followed the day of the preparation, must be the sabbath day, Mar 15:42. These superstitious hypocrites, that quarrelled with our Saviour for his disciples (being hungry) plucking ears of corn on the sabbath day, and for his healing him that had a withered hand, Mat 12:13, can now themselves go to Pilate, to set him on work to command that the sepulchre should be made fast to the third day. They allege that Christ, whom they impiously call that deceiver, said, while he was alive, that he would rise again the third day, to answer the type of the prophet Jonas, Mat 12:39,40. They were doubtless jealous that there was more truth in those words than they were willing to believe. They pretend also a fear lest his disciples should come privately by night, and steal his body away, and then say he was risen. But was this a probable thing, that a government should be afraid of a few poor, unarmed men? They were doubtless convicted in their own consciences that he would rise again from the dead, and to prevent his coming out of the sepulchre, they would have Pilate command that the sepulchre should be made sure. Pilate tells them, that they had a watch, a band of soldiers, which he had commanded at this time to attend them, either for the guard of the temple, or other things about which they would employ them; they might make the sepulchre as sure as they could.

So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch. 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 which they had set. But by this their excessive care and diligence, instead of preventing Christs resurrection, as they intended, they have confirmed the truth and belief of it to all the world. So doth God take the wise in their own craftiness, and turn their wisdom into foolishness, that he may set his King upon his holy hill of Zion.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

62. Now the next day, that followedthe day of the preparationthat is, after six o’clock of ourSaturday evening. The crucifixion took place on the Fridayand all was not over till shortly before sunset, when the Jewishsabbath commenced; and “that sabbath day was an high day”(Joh 19:31), being the firstday of the feast of unleavened bread. That day being over at six onSaturday evening, they hastened to take their measures.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Now the next day that followed the day of preparation,…. Which was the sabbath day; for the day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, Mr 15:42, in which they prepared every thing necessary for the sabbath, and therefore was so called: and as this introduces the account of the chief priests and Pharisees, making application to Pilate, to secure the sepulchre; and which by his leave they did, by sealing the stone, and setting a guard about the sepulchre; it shows what consciences these men had, who accused the disciples of Christ of a violation of the sabbath, for plucking a few ears of corn on that day; and sought to kill Jesus, because he healed a man on it, and bid him take up his bed and walk; and yet they themselves could leave their devotions, and first meet together and agree upon an address to Pilate, and then go in a body to his palace; and having obtained their request, march to Joseph’s garden, and make the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch, which were servile works, and, according to their laws and traditions, not to be done on the sabbath day; and yet they scrupled them not, notwithstanding their characters and profession, which follow:

the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate; these were the inveterate and implacable enemies of Christ; they took counsel how to put him to death; they employed Judas to betray him, and sent a band of soldiers with him to take him; they suborned false witnesses against him; they moved the people to prefer Barabbas to him; they got him condemned to death, and followed him to the cross, where they mocked him; and still, like the troubled sea, they were restless and uneasy; for though he was dead, they feared his resurrection; and though they could not prevent the thing, they consult to hinder the credit of it.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Mat 27:62

. And the next day. In this narrative Matthew did not so much intend to show with what determined rage the scribes and priests pursued Christ, as to exhibit to us, as in a mirror, the amazing providence of God in proving the resurrection of his Son. Cunning men, practiced at least in fraud and treachery, plot among themselves, and contrive a method by which they may extinguish the memory of a dead man; for they see that they have gained nothing, if they do not destroy the certainty of the resurrection. But while they are attempting to do this, they appear rather as if they had expressly intended to bring it forth to the light, that it might be known. The resurrection of Christ would undoubtedly have been less manifest, or, at least, they would have had more plausible grounds for denying it, if they had not taken pains to station witnesses at the sepulcher. We see then how the Lord not only disappointeth the crafty, (Job 5:12,) but employs even their own schemes as snares for holding them fast, that he may draw and compel them to render obedience to him. The enemies of Christ were indeed unworthy of having his resurrection made known to them; but it was proper that their insolence should be exposed, and every occasion of slander taken away from them, and that even their consciences should be convinced, so that they might not be held excusable for ignorance. Yet let us observe that God, as if he had hired them for the purpose, employed their services for rendering the glory of Christ more illustrious, because no plausible ground for lying, in order to deny it, was left to them when they found the grave empty; not that they desisted from their wicked rage, but with all persons of correct and sober judgment it was a sufficient testimony that Christ was risen, since his body, which had been placed in a grave, and protected by guards who surrounded it on all sides, was not to be found.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CHRISTS RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION CERTAIN

Mat 27:62 to Mat 28:15

THIS Scripture involves the very citadel of Christianity. The Apostle Paul reasons with a logic that cannot be gainsaid, that if Christ be not risen from the dead our faith is in vain. The dead have perished and the living are without hope.

But the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is in itself not sufficient. The ascension is absolutely necessary to the completion of His claims, and the exercise of His powers. Our question, then, couples two words which are complementary. The resurrection without the ascension would prove nothing more than a reanimationa Lazarus, and not a Lord. An ascension without a resurrection would demonstrate nothing better than a translationa Prophet Elijah perhaps, but not the Son of God with whom is all power.

It was a marvelous thing that Jesus was begotten by the Holy Ghost, but even that would not demonstrate above discussion His essential Deity. Adam was the generation of the Spirit and not that of a human father. The working of miracles on the part of Jesus is not a sufficient evidence of His claim. Miracles occurred under the hands of Moses and Elijah and others who were nothing more than men of marked faith in the Almighty. The one who sets up a claim as the very Christ of God must not only bring us certain evidence of Divine appointment, such as mortal men have enjoyed, but a chain of evidences stretching from His first appearance in the world clear on to His second coming, and every link thereof must bear the imprint of the superhuman.

It will be conceded, I think, that the central argument of all the arguments presented in the Name of Christ, rests with this question, Did He rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven?

In answer to that I bring you first of all these texts from the Scriptures, and in elaboration of these suggest some thoughts for solemn reflection.

ARGUMENT FOR THE RESURRECTION.

It is not begging the question to appeal to the Bible for arguments of the resurrection. Even infidels concede that the Old Testament Scriptures were in the hands of men when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth; and very few intellectual, honest men question that the New Testament was born within a century after His reputed ascension. If, therefore, they are not trustworthy, skepticism has already enjoyed two thousand years of opportunity to disprove their statements. If, at the end of this time, the statements stand and gather to themselves an ever-increasing company who consent that they have made good their right to a place in the catalogue of historical facts, why should we not appeal to them in discussing the very subject that gave them their existence?

According to the Scriptures there are many lines of argument for the resurrection. Let me make mention of four of them.

The argument of the Empty Tomb.

In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from Heaven, and came and rolled hack the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow:

And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the woman, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay (Mat 28:1-6).

That statement is either true or false. If false, why did not the enemies of Christ expose the deception? That He had enemies, not even infidels question. That He was hunted to the Cross, no one now disputes. That He was buried is as certain as the execution of the Roman law. What became of the body? This was the very thing His enemies had feared. They had reminded Pilate of His prophecy, After three days I will rise again, and had asked that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day. And Pilate had said unto them,

Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.

So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch (Mat 27:65-66).

But when the resurrection was accomplished,

some of the watch came unto the City, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.

And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,

Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole Him away while we slept.

And if this come to the governors ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.

So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and tins saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day (Mat 28:11-15).

It is a singular thing, yet a certain one, that people can never manufacture a falsehood, the various parts of which can hang together. And when they asked the watchers to testify that they had slept on duty until Jesus had been stolen away from His grave, they confessed to a fault of which Roman watchers dare not be guilty on the very peril of life itself; and yet from that hour no better explanation of an empty tomb has been furnished the world. Within a century after these reputed events, the whole Roman empire was permeated by the doctrines of Christ, and men by the thousands and tens of thousands believed on Him as risen from the dead. The argument that entered into the conviction of the first century was that of the empty tomb.

There is the argument of the word of the angel to the woman. When you get together a company of spiritualists, everyone expecting to see a spook, it is fairly easy to fool the crowd. Turn the lights low, secure a ventriloquist or even a good actor, and your purpose is accomplished. But when the skeptical are present, the performance is commonly balked. They are not looking for spooks and they do not see them. These skeptics are valuable in uncovering fakes and pretenders; but Christ convinced skeptics in every instance.

The women who went to His tomb were skeptics. As much as they loved Him they never expected to see Him alive again. They went not for the purpose of anointing a risen Christ, but to embalm a dead One. They would not believe in the resurrection even on the authority of the angels testimony; and that, notwithstanding the fact that the two angels were in shining garments and they felt compelled to bow down their faces to the earth in their very presence. They were not even convinced when the angels reminded them of the prophecy, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again, though it is distinctly declared that they remembered His words. Not until they had seen Him, not until they had heard His voice, were they convinced.

The Apostles were skeptics everyone. It is reported that the words of these women seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

Peter and John went on a tour of personal investigation. And when they beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves they were not convinced, but departed wondering.

The two on the way to Emmaus were skeptics when Christ fell in with them, for He had to argue with them from the Scriptures that He was to be condemned to die and crucified and raised again the third day.

Thomas would not even take the testimony of his brethren, and insisted that nothing short of His own senses would cause him to believe.

Paul was so unbelieving that he persecuted every man who named the Name of Christ. And yet one after another, they were compelled to capitulate and accept as true what the angels had said to the women, He is risen. The word of an angel might, in itself, seem to have some authority, but when that word is attended by such evidences as to convince man after man against his expectation, utterly setting aside his skepticism, who will question its weight?

Again, there is the argument of the sight and statements of sane men. Paul splendidly sums this up in his Epistle to the Corinthians. He says,

He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve;

After that, He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

After that, He was seen of James; then of all the Apostles.

And last of all He was seen of me also, as one born out of due time (1Co 15:5-8).

When Mahomet expired, it is reported that Omar rushed from the tent, sword in hand, and declared that he would hue down any one who should dare to say that the Prophet was no more. But the Apostles of Jesus Christ behaved quite to the contrary. They consented that their Hero was dead; they mourned Him as gone forever; they could not believe what their ears heard concerning His resurrection, and it required the indisputable evidence of His personal presence to convince them. When 500 sane men and women stand up to testify to one thing, who would dispute them without the most overwhelming evidence to the contrary; and where is the evidence that opposed their testimony?

The speech of Christ Himself also must be considered. Matthew does not finish his report of this evidence until he has recorded the words of Jesus, for the eleven disciples went away into Galilee unto the place where He had appointed them,

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Mat 28:18-20).

From that time until His ascension, He talked with them again and again. Every touch was a new revelation of Himself; every word an additional proof. It was the forty days between the resurrection and the ascension that confirmed the faith of His followers, and made them ready to do, to dare, to die!

Dr. Lorimer, in his Argument for Christianity, remarks upon a time when, more than a hundred years ago, a little Baptist Association deliberately resolved on the reduction of heathenism, and determined on sending out an army of occupation. The stupendous audaciousness of the purpose excited the ridicule of not a few worldly-wise individuals, and indeed was without a parallel except in the earliest aggressions of the Church. And what rendered the movement more entertaining to the scoffers, and what imparted to it more and more of the spirit of desperate rashness and presumption, was the fact that the enterprise was entrusted to the generalship of a consecrated cobbler who himself constituted nearly all there was of the expedition.

But bold as was that endeavor, and marvelous as was the faith that attended it, bolder still was the faith of those poor, plain fishermen in their march upon the heathenism of the world, and infinitely greater was the confidence which they had in the Man of Nazareth! What is the explanation? For forty days, He who had been crucified before their eyes and buried in the tomb of one who had befriended Him, against which a stone had been sealed and about which a watch had been set, walked with them, talked with them, and inspired them, and finally ascended into the heavens before their very eyes! Aye, that was the foundation of their faith; that is the explanation of their courage; that is the secret of their willingness to be martyrs; that the rationale of the rise of the Church.

CERTAINTY AND ASCENSION.

To this subject of the ascension the Scriptures also speak.

They had prophesied it should come. What is the meaning of the Psalmists language, Thou wilt not suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption? What is the suggestion except that He was to rise from the dead? And what is the suggestion of the same Psalmists, Thou hast ascended on high; Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts? Christ Himself had said to the officials who had been sent to take Him to the chief priest, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him that sent Me. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come? (Joh 7:33-34). To Mary He replied, also, I ascend to My Father and to your Father; and to My God and to your God. And it came to pass even as He had said.

People believe far more easily in the natural than in the supernatural. They accept the scientific with a relish they know not for the spiritual. When I was a student at college, the transit of Venus occurred. At Aiken some German scientists drew their meridian circle on a stone and took their observations from it, and then enjoined upon the people to leave that stone in place so that in the year 2004, when the transit of Venus should again occur, observations might be taken from the same meridian circle. Dr. Pierson speaking of this said, Thrones will have been emptied of occupant after occupant; empires will have been lost; and changes, whose number and gravity are too great now to be conceived, will have taken place. Nay, human history may have come to its great last crisis and the millennial march may have begun. Yet, punctually to the moment without delay or failure, these students of nature will expect Venus to make her transit across the sun. They will hardly be disappointed. Gods order in nature is such that the great grandchildren of those scientists will see their forebears predictions fulfilled. But Gods order in the prophecy is equally dependable. He ascended even as He had said.

What a demonstration this of His Deity! John had testified after this manner, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life, declare we unto you. It included not only a risen Saviour but an ascended One. They had seen Him go! His ascension had been their most conclusive proof of His Deity. A mortal man might be resuscitated from what seemed to be death; but when resurrection from the grave and ascension are combined, who can stand against the argument for Deity?

Charles Spurgeon says, Whenever I read modern thoughts, and you cannot read long without coming across them, I am glad to get back to facts. And here are some facts. Jesus Christ did rise from the deadthat is true! He did also ascend into Heaven, for His disciples saw Him. Is not Spurgeons faith well grounded? If the testimony of men can be taken touching anything that ever occurred in this world, to what fact can you bring better witnesses; witnesses more surely convinced against their expectation; witnesses more perfectly in accord with what they say; witnesses more ready to sell their testimony with their blood than were the 500 who saw Him at once, and who perhaps waited upon one of the hills of Judea and watched until the very moment when the cloud received Him out of their sight? No wonder Charles Wesley wrote:

Hail the day that sees Him rise,To His throne above the skies;Christ, the Lamb for sinners given,Enters now the highest heaven.There for Him high triumph waits;Lift your heads, eternal gates!He hath conquered death and sin,Take the King of Glory.

In that ascension is the explanation of the Church. This great institution must be accounted for. The early Apostles did not hesitate to rest their claims to the conquest of the world on the fact of the ascension. They had their commission from an ascended Lord. Their very gifts were imparted by the same ascended Lord. And in all their services they looked to Heaven from whence also He was to come again.

Christians of the present hour who have never seen Him, yet know He is in the heavens; this with them is a matter of both history and inner consciousness. Some one tells the story of a lad standing in the street holding tightly to a string which stretched away into the very clouds. A man passing asked him what he was doing. Flying my kite! The man looking into the heavens said, How do you know that you have a kite? I see nothing. Neither do I, he replied, but I can feel it pull. That is the universal testimony of Christs men and women. The great Magnet of our souls is the Son of God. Our drawings Heavenward are not natural but supernatural. They are not born of the flesh but begotten by the Son Himself, who hath ascended on high.

He is gone! and we remain In this world of sin and pain:In the void which He has left,On this earth of Him bereft,We have still His work to do,We can still His path pursue;We can follow Him below,

And His bright example show.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BOTH.

What of it if Christ be raised and ascended up on High? Much every way.

Prominent among other things let me mention three.

He then is in the priests place. When they stoned Stephen unto his death the record says, He looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. When they banished John to the Isle of Patmos, he turned from the barren wastes about him to the bright world beyond, and oh, what a vision was vouchsafed! In the midst of the seven golden candlesticks was one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. What is the significance? Priesthood! That is the girdle the great priest wore. Hence the significance of the Apostles words,

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:14-16).

He then has the power to put away sin. The old priest could do that only by Divine appointment. In fact he did not do it at all, but God did it, sending the message of remission through him. But this ascended One dares to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee. On what ground? Because He was the very God! Sins had been committed against Him; He, therefore, could remit them, and He only. David said, Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned. The person who can forgive you is the one against whom you have sinned, and not another. How gracious to know that the One against whom we have heaped our sins is the Son of God who has ascended to the very heavens, and with Him is not only the power but the spirit of forgiveness. Truly, as Maclaren says, In Christs exaltation to the throne a new hope dawns on humanity. * * This Christ Jesus has tasted death for every man, and so brethren, sad, and mad, and bad as men may be, the Conquering Captive at the right hand of Gods throne is the measure of the pattern of what the worst of us may hope to be. Why? Because He hath power to put away sin.

Again, if He be the High Priest, He proffers a free salvation. What is the message from the right hand of the throne? I will; be thou clean. What is the message? Thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee. What is the message? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Oh, marvel of marvels, that men should neglect this and run greedily after lesser good! When several years ago Dr. Lorenz came to this country, he was brought by a millionaire of Chicago to put into place the dislocated hip of Lolita Armour. The attempt was supposed to be successful. The newspapers made a great ado about the marvelous man and his accomplishments. People went wild; his way was thronged; cripples were carried into the light of his presence; and in a southern city strong policemen wept as they were compelled to say to mothers, bearing their crippled darlings in their arms, He cannot give you attention, and so turn them away. Such is the enthusiasm for lesser good.

I grant you it is a great thing to have a whole body. I do not blame those mothers for running after Lorenz, a mortal man of very limited power; no, I do not blame them. But I say that men and women will rise up to blame themselves when they wake at last to discover that they have gone through the world crippled in soul, and treating with indifference the claims of that Christ in whom is all power in Heaven and in earth and who is as willing and able to make them every one every whit whole.

Have you ever looked upon that masterpiece Christ the Consoler painted by Friedrich Dietrich? One strange feature about it is that he presents Christ as among the European peasants of the present day, His personality and garb contrasting with their rude figures and homely faces. Before Him are the lame, the halt, the blind, the aged, the wounded soldiers, and the toilers, and as He passes His very presence seems to heal and enhearten, and the text for it is, The whole multitude sought to touch Him, for there went virtue out of Him and healed them all.

Oh, will you cry the praises of a Lorenz who at best could only give one temporal aid and possibly relieve a bodily deformity, and pass with indifference the risen and ascended Christ, who, by His word, can put away sin, restore the soul to the image in which it was created, and send it forth in health and happiness for time and eternity?

_______

For the study of Mat 28:16-20, see volume God Hath Spoken, published by the Worlds Christian Fundamentals Association.

BibleSupport.com Note: Riley is referencing the book God Hath Spoken and specifically his own lecture, The Great Commission. This is included in the Mat 28:16-20 section of this set.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

SECTION 75
JESUS TOMB IS GUARDED

TEXT: 27:6266

62 Now on the morrow, which is the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and, the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, 63 saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, After three days I rise again. 64 Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply his disciples come and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first. 65 Pilate said unto them, Ye have a guard; go, make it as sure as ye can. 66 So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

a.

Why do you suppose the Jews waited till Saturday to think about guarding Jesus tomb against the disciples? Did not they risk quite a bit already? At about what time do you think they approached Pilate requesting a guard?

b.

Why did they request the guard just until the third day?

c.

How did they seal the tomb? How would this help protect the tomb from unauthorized manipulation?

d.

Why would the Jews have no scruple about setting the guard on duty during the Sabbath?

e.

Why do you suppose Pilate was so willing to concede them a guard at the tomb? What personal interest did he have in guarding the tomb against tampering?

f.

How do these accurate precautions contribute directly to your faith?

PARAPHRASE

Next day, that is, the day after Friday, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered in a group before Pilate to say, Sir, we recall that this imposter, while he was still alive, said, After three days I shall rise again. Order, therefore, that the tomb be closely guarded until the third day, so that his disciples cannot go and steal the corpse, and tell the people, He has risen from the dead. The last piece of deception will be worse than the first.
You have a guard of soldiers, Pilate answered, Go, guard it as well as you know how.
So they went to make the tomb secure by setting a seal on the stone and by mounting a guard.

SUMMARY

Jewish leaders, unwilling to risk a counter-move on the part of Jesus disciples by spiriting away the body and claiming a faked resurrection, requested official permission to guard His tomb. Pilate sanctioned this move.

NOTES
HISTORYS MOST FUTILE PRECAUTIONS

Mat. 27:62 Now on the morrow, which is the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate. That the Preparation is not a readying for the Passover but the normal weekly preparation for the Sabbath is authentically evidenced by Josephus (Ant. XVI, 6, 2) and by the practice of the Galilean women (Luk. 23:56; Mar. 16:1; cf. Joh. 19:31; Mar. 15:42; Luk. 23:54). Modern Greek continues the use of Preparation as the normal word for Friday. (See fuller notes on Mat. 26:17.) Hence, the morrow, which is the day after the Preparation is the Sabbath. It is not clear whether the Jews presented their request to the procurator after sundown on Friday (= Saturday) or after sunrise on Saturday. Since Jesus had expired around three p.m. and was buried shortly before sunset, the guard could move in almost immediately as soon as the prefect gave the word. The Jewish authorities undoubtedly acted as decisively as cunning foresight permitted them to perceive the direction a potential counter-attack of the Nazarenes disciples might take.

The chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, perhaps not as a body, but privately lest their going to Pilate appear to be a violation of the Sabbath. Further, that these religious authorities went to Pilate on the Sabbath involves no incongruity for men who already violated every principle of their own jurisprudence to put Jesus on the cross. They could have little scruple about the Sabbath violation involved in standing guard on the Sabbath, since Gentile rather than Jewish soldiers would be employed for this.

However, when Matthew could have written more simply, his involved wording, morrow, which is the day after the Preparation, seems as if he were studiously avoiding the expression morrow, which is the Sabbath. (Cf. Mar. 15:42.) Nevertheless, he could identify the day when the guard was set in two ways: (1) call it the Sabbath or (2) call it the day after Jesus died, i.e. the day after Friday. If his primary interest is to establish that the guard was set reasonably soon after the burial, then by choosing the latter expression he assures the reader that the guard was placed soon enough to avoid the theft of the body feared by Jesus enemies and, thus, to guarantee the reality of the resurrection. Thus, Matthews complicated expression actually certifies that the authorities would not leave the tomb unguarded for even one night during which a resurrection hoax could be executed. Thus, morrow is intended in the Jewish sense, i.e., after sunset on Friday evening (= Saturday).

Mat. 27:63 saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, After three days I rise again.

At first glance it is astonishing that the Lords enemies recalled a prediction of Jesus that should have emboldened His disciples, and did everything feasible to hinder it, while the disciples themselves neither remembered it nor did anything to enhance it! (Cf. Joh. 20:9; Luk. 24:25 ff.; cf. Act. 17:3.) But God makes even mens unbelief to praise Him: Jesus followers, because they did not yet believe He would rise, remained completely out of the situation and did not compromise the evidence. They thus facilitated the enemies efforts at tightening security around Jesus tomb to avoid a faked resurrection. These very precautions become our most convincing proof that the resurrection really occurred and that the hypothesis of a hoax is itself false.

How could the skeptical leadership of Israel remember what the most devoted disciples did not? Many, especially Phraisees, knew that Jesus predicted it (Mat. 12:38; Mat. 12:40; cf. Mat. 27:46). Jesus had predicted it in cryptic language of signs (Joh. 2:18 ff.; Mat. 12:38 ff; Mat. 16:4) and in frank expressions (Mat. 16:21; Mat. 17:9; Mat. 17:22 f.; Mat. 20:17 ff.). His disciples puzzled over its meaning among themselves (Mar. 9:9 f.). Precisely because puzzling, the meaning of these prophecies might be debated beyond the circle of the inner group of disciples, and consequently leak out to a wider group, especially to the ever vigilant Pharisees. Again, all of Jesus great well-known claims to come from God and return to Him supported the resurrection concept (Joh. 7:33; Joh. 7:36; Joh. 8:21-30; Joh. 10:17-21). Finally, because He had resurrected Lazarus right under His opponents nose, His predictions of His own resurrection took on startlingly new power and meaning. Study the Sanhedrins panic in this light (Joh. 11:45 ff., Joh. 11:57). There was no question that He had said it.

Rather, the difference in remembering is psychologically explicable on the basis of each groups reaction to it; the disciples wanted to believe Jesus would never need a resurrection, the enemies wanted to believe He could never accomplish it once they got Him dead. The disciples were stunned by their grief and blinded by their distorted vision of an immortal political Christ, but His enemies dreaded Jesus influence even while dead.

Precautions against imposture

Mat. 27:64 Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply his disciples come and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first. The Jews suggestion, Command, argues that they had no intention of employing the Levitical Temple police to guard an unclean tomb area during the feast. Jewish guards may have had no authority beyond the Temple itself, hence, Roman soldiers were required.

Concerning the phrase, Until the third day, McGarvey (Jesus and Jonah, 68) wrote:

Why say till the third day, if he was to rise after three days? We would have said, till the fourth day; for if he was to rise after three days it would not be earlier than the fourth day, though it might be later. Evidently they understood the time included in the expression after three days as terminating on the third day. And as Jesus had been buried near the close of a day, and they expected him to rise, if at all, on the third day, they must have counted the small fraction of a day that remained after his burial as one of the three days. Their expression, till the third day, also shows that they expected him to rise before the third day would end, and that they therefore count a part of that day as a day.

They obviously meant to bracket the period He predicted for His entombment, so if the guard were set on Saturday (= even Friday night), the guard would remain until Monday, i.e. all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday. This, because the Jews were unaware of the disciples objective confusion and must utilize the broadest interpretation of the day count supposedly being used by anyone planning a hoax. Their alarm would be in force until Sunday evening (= Mondays beginning).

Lest haply his disciples come and steal him away. These guilty men who had stooped to betrayal to ensnare Jesus and deception to sentence Him to death, now fear that His men would also make use of some trick to recover the advantage. Little did they realize that these very followers, even after personally seeing Jesus risen from the dead, could hardly grasp what to do with this earth-shaking fact until Pentecost, much less make use of it to embarrass the Jews before then. They were emotionally incapable of simulating a resurrection!

The last error (plne, deception) proclaimed by the Galileans, that He had risen, will be worse than the first proclaimed by that deceiver (ekenos ho plnos, Mat. 27:63), that He was the political Messiah, the king of the Jews. They imply that they fear Jesus disciples potential political power, if they could ever be persuaded that He were risen, whether true or not.

Mat. 27:65 Pilate said unto them, Ye have a guard: go, make it as sure as ye can. This could be weary indifference, even though the prefect was as much concerned about quelling tendentious rumors as the Jews were. Ye have a guard (chete koustodian) is a positive reaction that grants the request: You have what you requested from me. He does not refer to their own detachment of Temple police. They had come to him requesting something they did not already possess or could have used without his permission. When the Roman soldiers report back to the chief priests after the resurrection (Mat. 28:11), this only confirms their being at the disposal of the Jews, as Pilate affirms here.

Make it as sure as ye can are words more precious to the Christian than any other order the Roman governor ever gave. They secure the authenticity of the resurrection by guarding against the imposture of stealing the body.

Mat. 27:66 So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them. This latter phrase suggests that the Jewish authorities were not content to entrust this critical detail to the Roman military, but actually supervised it personally. And would not their suspicions demand that someone be sent into the tomb to assure them that the body were really there before sealing the door? Then, after stretching a cord across the face of the great stone door from one side of the tomb door to the other, embedding each end of the cord in sealing wax, they pressed an official seal into the hot wax to give the seals authority. The purpose of the seals is not to hold the door shut, but to threaten anyone from opening it without due authorization from him whose seals they were (cf. Dan. 6:17). So long as the seals remained intact, it would prove that no one had bribed the soldiers to open the door. Backing up the seals was the Roman guard (Koustodia, Latin: custodia).

It should cause no surprise that the historical reliability of this section has been attacked by critics. Certainly, it has tremendous apologetic value, in that it proves that Jesus was really buried and that His body could not have been stolen, because the tomb was guarded against precisely this eventuality. But does this prove that Matthew invented his facts? For a Gospel in circulation among Hebrews who could ascertain the truth through private investigation and interviewing the enemies of Jesus, it would be worse than simply fraudulent, were these fictitious facts. The fundamental basis of Christianity, the certainty of Christs resurrection, would be undermined by doubts at its source, the tomb of Joseph.

God would have the last laugh however, because that guard and that seal meant that these non-disciples would be forced to be the very first to bring the astounding news to Jesus enemies that all their precautions had been futile (Psa. 2:4; Psa. 76:10). The disciples had indeed not tampered with the tomb or the body. He arose!

FACT QUESTIONS

1.

What day follows the day of Preparation?

2.

On what day was the guard placed on watch?

3.

Who set the guard at the tomb?

4.

Why was the guard placed there?

5.

Why was Pilate requested to cooperate?

6.

For how long was the guard to watch the tomb?

7.

Why and how did they seal the tomb?

8.

Explain Pilates expression: You have a watch.

9.

Show how the Jews diligence to avoid all deception served to establish incontrovertibly the reality of Jesus resurrection.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(62) The next day, that followed the day of the preparation.The narrative that follows is peculiar to St. Matthew, and, like the report of the rending of the veil of the Temple, may, perhaps, be traced to the converted priests of Act. 6:7. This was, as we find from what follows, the Sabbath. The preparation (Paraskeu) was a technical term, not, as is sometimes said, in reference to preparing for the Passover, but, as in Mar. 15:42, to a preparation for the Sabbath (Jos. Ant. xvi. 6, 2, is decisive on this point), and the use of the term here leaves the question whether the Last Supper or the Crucifixion coincided with the Passover, still an open one. It may be noted that the Jewish use of the term passed into the Christian Church, and that at least as early as Clement of Alexandria (Strom. vii. 76) it was the received name for the Dies Veneris, or Friday, the anniversary of the Crucifixion being the great or holy Paraskeue. On either view, however, there is something strange in the way in which St. Matthew describes the day as coming, after the preparation, instead of saying simply, the Sabbath. It is a possible solution of the difficulty thus presented, on the assumption that the Last Supper was a true Passover, that the day of the Crucifixion as being on the Passover, was itself technically a Sabbath (Lev. 23:7; Lev. 23:24). Two Sabbaths therefore came together, and this may have led the Evangelist to avoid the commoner phrase, and to describe the second as being the day that followed the preparation, i.e. the ordinary weekly Sabbath. The precise time at which the priests went to Pilate is not stated; probably it was early on the morning of the Sabbath when they had heard from the Roman soldiers of the burial by Joseph of Arimatha. The fact that the body was under the care of one who was secretly a disciple aroused their suspicions, and they would naturally take the first opportunity, even at the risk of infringing on the Sabbath rest, of guarding against the fraud which they suspected.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

143. TRANSACTIONS THE DAY AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION, Mat 27:62-66 .

62. The next day This began the moment the sun disappeared; it being the eve introducing the Saturday-Sabbath. The day of the preparation As Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, so Friday, the day of the crucifixion, was the day of preparation, that is, for the Sabbath. The preparation of the Jews began strictly at three o’clock in the afternoon; but the name preparation was popularly applied to the whole day. It is a palpable mistake that some commentators have made, that the watch was not set until the next morning, or after. This would have allowed full time for the commission of the theft of the body. The next day came on at sunset; and the watch of the two Marys had not long ceased when that of the soldiers commenced. Chief priests and Pharisees A part probably of the Sanhedrim.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Now on the next day, which is the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together to Pilate, saying, “Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, ‘After three days I rise again’.” ’

‘On the next day, which is the day after the Preparation.’ An unusual phrase but necessary because during the Feast there would be a number of Sabbaths (the regular Sabbath and the festal sabbaths), and thus ‘on the sabbath’ might have been misleading. Such a phrase can be used later (Mat 28:1) because the position has already been made clear here. This may mean the day after the preparation for the Passover, and thus the very night that Jesus was crucified. Or it may rather refer to the day after the Friday (which was always called, and still is in Greece, ‘the preparation’ (paraskeue)) which fell in Passover week. It was thus the Sabbath. This would not, however, be breaching the Sabbath. Pilate was within a Sabbath day’s journey and the issue was religiously important as it was theoretically dealing with a false prophet. They would, however, have avoided entering Pilate’s residence.

‘Were gathered together.’ We have already seen that in Matthew this often has a sinister significance suggesting a gathering together in antagonism against Jesus. So even after His death they are still seen as ‘gathering together’ against Him.

The unusual (for Matthew) conjunction of the Chief Priests and the Pharisees suggests that the prime movers here were certain of the Pharisees. They had possibly gathered in their synagogue full of satisfaction at what they had ‘accomplished’ and had suddenly been faced up with a disturbing possibility, that those wretched disciples of Jesus would steal the body of Jesus and then pretend that He had risen. It revealed something about the state of their own minds that they took it seriously. Had they thought about it they must have known that such an action would not, of course, deceive most people but they were men with a guilty conscience (Jesus had that effect on people), and were clearly worried that something unusual might happen (compare Herod’s fear about the rising of John the Baptist). It is doubtful if they were worried that it might deceive a few fanatics among those unreliable Galilaeans. So they took themselves off to the Chief Priests who had been responsible for all the negotiations with Pilate, and put the matter to them, and managed to convince them of the danger. And then together they went to Pilate. It was such an absurd idea that we can only assume that they believed it because of the state of their consciences and because of their fear of the power of Jesus and of what He had said during His trial. It is quite likely that they had an uneasy feeling that something unusual might happen that they could not explain. And as they knew that Jesus could not possibly rise before the Last Day all that they could think was that it might involve the disciples.

“Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, ‘After three days I rise again’.” Arriving at Pilate’s palace they spoke these memorable words. Pilate must have been amazed. He would hardly have taken the idea seriously. To him people just did not rise again, especially when they had been crucified. He could probably hardly believe what he was hearing. This is, however, testimony to the fact that Jesus had in fact said these words, or something similar (all their actions had been based on distorted words of Jesus). Note their description of Jesus as ‘that deceiver’. This may have been a reaction to precisely what He had accused them of when He had accused them of being deceivers like the Devil (Joh 8:41-47). But it was also sowing in Pilate’s mind the idea of deceit, and of some grand deception. They wanted him to think that Jesus’ followers (cowering away behind locked doors) had no scruples and could get up to anything.

Some have suggested that as such words had only been spoken privately to His disciples they could not have been known to the Chief Priests and Pharisees. But we must remember that a thorough (negative) investigation had been made into what Jesus had said at various times, and that they would have had as sources a number of lapsed disciples, and indeed even Judas himself. That would explain why the statement was still fresh in their minds. Their fear was probably not that large numbers of people would be deceived, but that enough might be to make things decidedly inconvenient, and especially that it might encourage Jesus’ supporters in their errors of whom they knew that there were a great many (as with John the Baptist).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

A Guard Is Set On Jesus’ Tomb In Order To Ensure That The Body Is Not Stolen (27:62-66).

There is nothing that reveals the truth about people more than their interpretation of the anticipated action of others. That is why you ‘set a thief to catch a thief’. It is because they both think in the same way. And sadly that is why these particular Pharisees who came to the Chief Priests, and then to Pilate, thought as they did. It was because they themselves would have felt able to be free with the truth when they were seeking to maintain their position, so that they assumed that others would do the same. It is the kind of behaviour that you find in well established fanaticisms. The first two or three generations of any new movement which has a firm moral basis, and which is being successful, are strong for the truth as they see it, and are convinced that others will see it too. They do not therefore see the need to resort to the tactics of deception, and would scorn doing so. They are confident in the truth that they uphold. It is the generations that follow, who are seeking to bolster up something that is slowly dying and for whom the moral dimension is dying, or who feel that they have to give their ideas a new impetus at whatever cost because they are not succeeding as they had hoped, who feel that they have to resort to such dishonesty.

The disciples were in fact locked away for fear of the Jews (no one would have invented such an idea), because they thought that those who had taken and crucified their Master would undoubtedly follow up their action by seeking to do the same to them. That is how they thought. It was what they would have done themselves in the circumstances because they were not astute politicians. They thus saw themselves as being seen as a danger by the Jewish leaders. But they had misinterpreted the aims and attitudes of their opponents. They simply judged by what they themselves would have done in the same situation because they had a higher opinion of themselves than they should have had, and did not see things from a position of long experience of such things. They had not realised that in fact to their opponents everything had hinged on the presence of Jesus. The disciples had thought that they too would be seen as a danger. But no one else saw them like that. Their opponents were confident that with Jesus out of the way the bubble would burst. They had seen it all before, and they were not worried about the disciples. Thus the Apostles were in hiding when they need not have been, because no one was looking for them, and that was why everything was being left to the women. We can be sure therefore that they would not have had the remotest thought of stealing Jesus’ body in order to practise a deception. People who do that kind of thing seek to present a brave face to the world. They reveal a confidence that they hope will cover up their deceit. They do not hide away like disillusioned men. But the disciples were disillusioned men (just as their opponents had expected), and their concern was therefore for survival. To them there was no expectancy of a resurrection, and they were totally devastated by what had happened. All their hopes had gone. They were not men with great influence who could extend that influence by deception. They were men who had lost their way, and whose influence had collapsed with the death of Jesus. They would have seen no point in stealing the body.

Furthermore can anyone really suggest that men who had stolen a body as a deception, or had perpetrated a deception, would then have been willing to face persecution, imprisonment and even torture in order to maintain their deception. What would have been the point? At that stage becoming a Christian was not the ladder to wealth and success, it was the road to the cross, it was the way of ignominy and shame. It was the way to being despised and rejected by their fellows. Would men then choose that way on the basis of a lie?

And by the time that Matthew wrote his Gospel Christianity was spreading rapidly and being successful. There was no need to resort to lies, especially as part of their success actually depended on the fact that they had brought a new level of morality into the world. It is quite incredible to think that Matthew and the early church could have brought us the Sermon on the Mount with its huge emphasis on truth and then have bolstered it with what they knew to be a lie.

But how do we know that the story about the guards was not an invention with the aim of demonstrating that the body was not tampered with? The answer lies in the details of the story. For it in fact proved nothing of the kind, because the guards are said to have been asleep (Mat 28:13). Now what kind of person practises a great deception in order to prove something and then immediately appends an explanation that could be seen as invalidating the deception? When you practise a deception you keep quiet about anything which might throw doubt on the deception. You do not immediately suggest possible holes in it. The only reason for mentioning this incident in this way is that everyone knew that the tomb had been guarded, and that therefore the Jews had given this as an explanation for their failure to prevent the body disappearing. It is actually further evidence that the body had unexpectedly disappeared.

These particular Pharisees on the other hand were convinced that deceit was precisely what the disciples would practise as a short term expedient. (But even they would have acknowledged that a movement based on such a lie would not have lasted long). They genuinely saw Jesus as a deceiver, for how could He not be when He disagreed with them? And they therefore assumed that His disciples would be deceivers too. Having learned to paper over the truth with regard to their own ideas, they assumed that others would do the same. For they were the later exponents of a position which had initially started out with such enthusiastic promise, but which had become bogged down by ritual and artifice, (even the later Rabbis drew attention to the fact that this was so), and they now feared that it was not gaining in popularity as it should. People were beginning to discover that there were holes in it. That was one reason why they had hated Jesus so much. He had kept on pointing out those holes. Thus they thought in terms of cover up and deception, and then assumed it of others.

Those who suggest that the early church invented this story in order to convince people that the body could not have been stolen are either totally unthinking, or are revealing the fact that they have the same tendency towards deceitfulness of mind as these Pharisees had. It suggests that they have within their own hearts a certain level of dishonesty which they see as acceptable, because they read it into others. They judge others by themselves, and thereby judge themselves. For there is not a single thing about the disciples that suggests that they would have been like this. Such deceit was certainly something that the later church would have practised centuries later when the church had become corrupt, had lost its first vision, and had much to gain materially by distorting the truth, but it was not the kind of action likely in a church where honesty and truth were seen as central (Eph 4:15; Eph 4:25; Eph 4:29; Col 3:9), where the teaching of Jesus was still very much hot in the memory (Mat 5:33-37), and where they themselves were undergoing suffering and poverty precisely because they believed in ‘the truth’ and were determined to proclaim it at all costs. Such people do not set out deliberately to deceive, or build their teaching on deliberate deception. It would take away any reason for their efforts. Rather they preach in the face of ridicule because they earnestly believe in what they say and are not interested in deception. Furthermore this was being circulated at a time when there were still people alive who knew the facts because they were in Jerusalem at the time. Had it been untrue the opponents of Christianity would have stood up and said so very firmly, (and so indeed would its friends), for these opponents were not men who were hidden in a corner, but men who had their own positive agenda and were rebuilding what they themselves believed in. And yet no one ever suggested that the tomb was not empty.

Note that it was certain ‘Pharisees’ who came to the Chief Priests with the suggestion of what the disciples would do. This was because they thought of the disciples in their own terms. They assumed that the disciples would try to fake a resurrection (they did not realise that they were in hiding), and that they would do it because they were deceivers like their Master. With their own strongly held belief in the resurrection these Pharisees (not all the Pharisees) were thus demonstrating that they would themselves not have been averse to considering doing the same thing, if they had thought that they could get away with it. They were no longer hot for a truth which had burned its way into their soul, but hot in support of a long held tradition, a second hand faith, which they supported by any means possible. They could not understand men of genuine moral fibre who were enthusiastic for truth. Nor could they believe in any resurrection that did not occur in the way that they anticipated. Thus they considered that any talk about Jesus rising had to be a deception. They were clearly not very reliable people.

The Chief Priests listened to what they had to say, and being sceptical about the possibility of resurrection could see that someone who was trying to prove the idea might well resort to such trickery. It was what they would have done themselves. And they probably also saw in these Pharisees before them fellow-tricksters who might well have used the same tactics. But this again revealed the trickiness and deceptiveness of their own minds. They saw the Pharisees, and everyone else, as being like themselves. Thus together they went to Pilate in order to guard against what was never going to happen. And some today follow the same tactics, because that is the kind of people that they themselves are. They are not above resorting to trickery themselves, and so assume it in others, even though the teaching of those others demonstrates their high moral standing. Such tricksters cannot understand moral standing. So to dismiss the disciples as deceivers is either to be guilty of shallow thinking, or to condemn our own attitude towards life.

The situation has a certain humour to it. The Apostles were in hiding from a danger that was never going to materialise, and with no thought of trickery, and the Chief Priests and Pharisees were setting a guard against a possibility which was never going to happen, and did it because they themselves were essentially tricksters. Such is what happens when men judge others by themselves.

Analysis.

a Now on the next day, which is the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together to Pilate, saying, “Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while He was yet alive, After three days I rise again” (Mat 27:62-63).

b “Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply His disciples come and steal him away” (Mat 27:64 a).

c “And say to the people, ‘He is risen from the dead,’ and the last error will be worse than the first” (Mat 27:64 b).

b Pilate said to them, “You have a guard, go, make it as sure as you can” (Mat 27:65).

a So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them (Mat 27:66).

Note that in ‘a’ they were fearful of a deception about a rising again, and in the parallel they take all precautions against it. In ‘b’ they were fearful that the disciples would steal the body, and in the parallel are told to set a guard in order to prevent it. Centrally in ‘c’ is what they were finally afraid of.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Guarding against the theft of the body:

v. 62. Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,

v. 63. saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.

v. 64. Command therefore that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night, and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead; so the last error shall be worse than the first.

v. 65. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch; go your way, make it as sure as ye can.

v. 66. So they went, and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone and setting a watch.

Whether it was due to a bad conscience or to vindictiveness, cannot be determined, but the Jewish chiefs even now were not satisfied. The day of preparation closed at sundown, and they were so anxious about a certain matter that they disregarded the rules of the great festival. Jesus was hardly laid into the grave when their delegation attended upon Pilate. It had occurred to them that yonder seducer, pointing contemptuously in the direction of the cross, had predicted that He would rise on the third day. What they now wanted was a way of safeguarding the tomb, in order that the body might not be stolen by fanatical disciples and His resurrection then proclaimed. In that event, they believe that the last delusion, the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, would be worse than the first one was, the belief in His Messiahship. Pilate, in a somewhat gruff manner, as though heartily disgusted with the whole affair, granted the request: Have your watch: there will be mighty little need of it, I am sure; secure the tomb as ye know how! This they proceeded to do in as thorough a manner as possible. They stretched a cord across the stone, fastening it on either side of the door with wax, upon which the seal of the governor was stamped. This was done in the presence and with the aid of the watch detailed for that purpose, the soldiers finally remaining to guard the tomb. Without knowing or in the least intending it, the Jews here prepared the way for a sound proof of the resurrection of Christ. The testimony of the very men whom they had chosen, soldiers that were entirely disinterested, would be strong evidence in favor of the great resurrection miracle.

Summary. Judas, in false remorse over his betrayal of Christ, commits suicide when the Lord is delivered to Pilate, while Jesus Himself is tried before the Roman court, sees Barabbas preferred to Him by the mob, is condemned to death by crucifixion by the court, though no guilt is found in Him, suffers the pains of crucifixion, dies on the cross, and is buried by His friends.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 27:62-64. Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, &c. That is, after the sun was set. They took this measure, therefore, not on the morrow, in our sense of the word, but in the evening after sun-setting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried: to have delayed it till sun-rising would have been preposterous, as the disciples might have stolen away the body during the preceding night. Besides, there is no inconsistency between this account of the time when the watch was placed, and the subsequent articles of the history, which proceed on the supposition that the women present at our Lord’s funeral were ignorant that any watch was placed at his grave; for they departed so early, that they had time to buy spices and ointment in the city before the preparation of the sabbath was ended; whereas the watch was not placed till the sabbath began. The day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, (see Mar 15:42.) whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day then was the sabbath, according to the Jewish style; but the Evangelist here expresses it by the circumlocution, the day which followed the day, because the Jewish sabbath was then abolished, and a new order succeeded. The Christian sabbath is the octave of that week. See Heylin.

When the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign from Jesus, he referred them to that of the prophet Jonah, see Ch. Mat 12:39-40 where he foretold his own resurrection from the dead the third day. Also at the first passover, when the Jews required a miracle of him, in confirmation of his mission, he replied, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.” See also what he said further to the Pharisees, Joh 10:17-18. Now if the persons to whom these two last declarations were made happened to hear the promise of the miracle of the prophet Jonah, they might, by connecting the three, understand, that Jesus meant to signify to them his resurrection from the dead on the third day, and might tell Pilate they remembered that he had said, while yet alive, after three days I will rise again. Perhaps also, on some occasions not mentioned by the Evangelists, our Lord might have made a public declaration of his resurrection in the very terms here set down; or we may suppose that Judas informed the council of his prediction; in short, whatever way they came to the knowledge of it, certain it is, that the chief priests and Pharisees were well acquainted with our Lord’s predictions concerning his resurrection. It seems they were often repeated, and so public, that they were universally known; and one cannot help remarking upon this circumstance, that if our Lord’s resurrection had been a cheat, imposed upon mankind by his disciples, it was the most simple thing imaginable for him to speak of it beforehand, because the only effect of such a prediction was to put all his enemies on their guard. Accordingly, the precaution and care which we find the rulers used in guarding the sepulchre, rendered it next to impossible for the disciples to be guilty of any deceit in this matter; and so by the Providence of God, what they meant for the entire subversion of the Christian cause, turned out the strongest confirmation of it. Mr. West, in his excellent observations on the history of the resurrection, has the following very useful remarks concerning the evidence of our Saviour rising on the third day: “That he did not rise before the third day, says this author, p. 222 is evident from what St. Matthew here relates of the watch or guard set at the door of the sepulchre. Now I observe from these words, 1. That the watch or guard was set at the sepulchre the very next day after the death and burial of Christ. 2. It is most probable this was done on what we call the evening of that day, because it was a high daynot only a sabbath, but the passover; and it can hardly be imagined that the chief priests, and especially the Pharisees, who pretended to greater strictness and purity than any other sect of the Jews, should, before the religious duties of the daywere over, defile themselves by going to Pilate; for that they were very scrupulous upon that point, appears from what St. John says, Joh 18:28 of their not entering into the hall of judgment or praetorium, where Pilate’s tribunal was the day before, lest they should be defiled, and so kept from eating the passover. And if it should be said, that, the paschal lamb being always eaten in the night, all their sacrifices upon that account were over, and they at liberty to go to Pilate in the morning, or at what other time they pleased; I answer, that allowing the objection, it is still farther to be considered, that this was the sabbath-day; and can it be supposed that the Pharisees, who censured Jesus for healing, and his disciples for plucking and eating the ears of corn on the sabbath-day, would profane that day, and defile themselves, not only by going to Pilate, but with the soldiers, to the sepulchre of Christ, and setting a seal upon the door of the sepulchre, before the religious duties of that solemn day were past? Especially, as they were under no necessityof doing it before the evening, though it was highly expedient for them not to delay it beyond that time. Jesus had said, while he was yet alive, that he should rise again from the dead on the third day; which prophesy would have been equally falsified by his rising on the first or the second as on the fourth. If his body therefore was not in the sepulchre at the close of the second day, the chief priests and Pharisees would gain their point, and might have asserted boldly that he was an impostor; from whence it will follow, that it was time enough for them to visit the sepulchre at the close of the second day. On the other hand, as he had declared he should rise on the third day, it was necessary for them (if they apprehended what they gave out,that his disciples would come and steal him away) to guard against such an attempt on that day, and for that day only. And as the third day began from the evening or shutting in of the second, according to the way of computing used among the Jews, it was as necessary for them not to delay visiting the sepulchre, and setting their guard, till after the beginning of that third day; for if they had come to the sepulchre, though never so short a time after the third day was begun, and had found the body missing, they could not from thence have proved him an impostor. And accordingly Matthew tells us, they went thither on the second day, which was the sabbath; and though the going to Pilate, and with the Roman soldiers to the sepulchre, and sealing up the stone, was undoubtedly a profanation of the sabbath in the eyes of the ceremonious Pharisees, yet might they excuse themselves to their consciences, or

(what seems to have been of greater consequence in their opinions) to the world, by pleading the necessity of doingit that day: and surely nothing could have carried them out on such a business, on such a day, but the urgent necessity of doing it then or not at all. And, as I have shewn above, that this urgent necessity could not take place till the close of the second day, and just, though but one moment, before the beginning of the third, it will follow, from what has been said, that in the estimation of the high priests and Pharisees, the day on which they set their guard was the second day, and the next day consequently was the third, to the end of which they requested Pilate to command that the sepulchre might be made sure. Here then we have a proof, furnished by the murderers and blasphemers of Christ themselves, that he was not risen before the third day; for it is to be taken for granted, that before they sealed up the sepulchre, and set the guard, they had inspected it, and seen that the body was still there. Hence also we are enabled to answer the cavils that have been raised upon these expressions, three days and three nights, and after three days; for it is plain that the chief priests and Pharisees, by their going to the sepulchre on the sabbath-day, understood that day to be the second; and it is plain, by their setting the guard from that time, and the reason given to Pilate for their so doing, viz. lest the disciples should come in the night, and steal him away, that they construed that day, which was just then beginning, to be the day limited by Christ for his rising from the dead; that is the third day. For had they taken these words of our Saviour, The Son of man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, in their strict literal sense, they needed not have been in such haste to set their guard; since, according to that interpretation, there were yet two days and two nights to come; neither for the same reason had they any occasion to apprehend ill consequences from the disciples coming that night, and stealing away the body of their Master; so that unless it be supposed that the chief priests and Pharisees, the most learned sect among the Jews, did not understand the meaning of a phrase in their own language; or that they were so impious or impolitic as to profane the sabbath, and defile themselves without any occasion; and so senseless and impertinent, as to ask a guard of Pilate for watching the sepulchre that night and day, to prevent the disciples stealing away the body of Christ the night or the day following; unless, I say, these strange suppositions be admitted, we may fairly conclude, that in the language and to the understanding of the Jews, three days and three nights, and after three days, were equivalent to three days, or in three days. That he rose on the third day, the testimony of the angels, and his own appearances to the women, to Simon, and to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, which all happened on that day, are clear and sufficient proofs.”

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mat 27:62 .] which follows the day of preparation , i.e. on Saturday . For is used to designate the day that immediately precedes the Sabbath (as in the present instance) or any of the feast days. Comp. on Joh 19:14 . According to the Synoptists, the of the Sabbath happened to coincide this year with the first day of the feast, which might also properly enough be designated (Lev 23:11 ; Lev 23:15 ), this latter circumstance being, according to Wieseler ( Synops . p. 417), the reason why Matthew did not prefer the simpler and more obvious expression ; an expression which, when used in connection with the days of the Passover week, was liable to be misunderstood. But Matthew had already spoken so definitely of the first day of the feast as that on which Jesus was crucified (see Mat 24:17 to Mat 27:1 ), that he had no cause to apprehend any misunderstanding of his words had he chosen to write . But as little does that precise statement regarding the day permit us to suppose that the expression in question has been made to turn on the divergent narrative of John (in opposition to de Wette). The most natural explanation of the peculiar phraseology: . ., is to be found in that Christian usage according to which the ( i.e. the , Mar 15:42 ) has come to be the recognised designation for the Friday of the crucifixion. Michaelis, Paulus, Kuinoel suppose that it is the part of Friday after sunset that is intended, by which time, therefore, the Sabbath had begun. This, however, is distinctly precluded by .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1413
THE GUARDING OF THE SEPULCHRE

Mat 27:62-66. Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the Chief Priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way; make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

THE enmity of the human heart against God will never cease to operate, till the heart itself be changed by divine grace. One would have hoped that, when so many wonders had been wrought during the crucifixion of Christ, when the whole multitude that were spectators of it smote their breasts with grief, when the Centurion and others of the heathen soldiers were constrained to attest his innocence, and to proclaim him to be the Son of God, and, lastly, when they had seen some of their own body, even members of the supreme council, paying the most marked respect to his dead body, and committing it to the tomb with funeral honours; one would have hoped, I say, that the malice of the chief priests and Pharisees would have somewhat abated. But they were still restless: not content with having put him to death, and thereby destroyed, as they imagined, all his influence in the world, they pretended to fear that his Disciples would come and take him from the tomb, and spread abroad a report that he had risen from the dead. They certainly had no reasonable ground for such a fear: for, to what purpose could it be for the Disciples to carry on such a delusion, when they could not gain any thing by it but misery in this world, and destruction in the world to come? But the chief priests wanted to pluck up by the very roots this dangerous heresy, as they esteemed it; and to prove to all that Jesus was an impostor. For this purpose they determined to secure the tomb, till the time of his predicted resurrection should be passed; and accordingly made their application to Pilate, for such assistance as they judged necessary.
Let us consider,

I.

The precautions they used to secure the tomb

[They remembered that Jesus had repeatedly foretold his resurrection on the third day: and they well knew, that, if the report of such an event should be circulated and credited, it would confirm his influence to such a degree that they should never be able to subvert it. They conceived that they had been guilty of a great error in suffering Jesus to live so long: and, if now they should leave it in the power of his Disciples to practise a deceit by stealing away the body, and affirming that he was risen, their last error would be worse than the first. They therefore, notwithstanding it was the Sabbath, went in a body to Pilate, to request that measures might instantly be taken to defeat any such plot: Yes, though they had often been filled with indignation against Jesus for performing acts of mercy on the Sabbath, they themselves felt no hesitation in violating the sanctity of it, in order to accomplish their malignant purposes.
In their address to Pilate, they designate our adorable Lord as a deceiver, whose imposture they are determined to detect. They branded him with this ignominious name, well knowing the influence which such appellations have in influencing the decisions of timid or ungodly men.
Pilate acceded to their request, and gave orders that a guard of soldiers from the castle of Antonia should be at their disposal. These therefore they placed around the sepulchre: and, lest any collusion should exist between them also and the Disciples, they put a seal upon the stone that closed the sepulcher; and thus secured themselves equally against fraud and violence: the Disciples could not overcome an armed guard; nor could the guard connive at their taking away the body without being immediately discovered.]
Let us next consider,

II.

The advantage derived from thence to the cause of Christ

[Not all the Disciples together could have devised a plan that should render such benefit to their own cause as this did. It is true, that Christs frequent appearances after his resurrection might remove all doubt from the minds of the Disciples; but still, if no precautions had been used to secure the tomb, there would ever remain some plausibility in the assertion, that the Disciples had stolen away the body, and that some other man had personated him in his various appearances, and thereby deceived the multitude. But behold, the enemies of Christ themselves destroy all foundation for such a conceit: and the very means they used to subvert the religion of Christ, have established it on a basis that can never be shaken. By the placing of a guard, the Roman soldiers themselves became witnesses of his resurrection; they immediately declared the event to the chief priests and Pharisees, who gave them large sums of money to conceal the matter [Note: Mat 28:11-15.]; and thus the priests themselves, even the whole Sanhedrim, became witnesses of the same. They were forced to invent some story to justify their continued rejection of Christ; but the idea of the whole guard (it is thought of sixty soldiers) being asleep at once, when the penalty of death was annexed to that offence, and the Disciples being able to remove the large stone from the door of the sepulchre, and to take away the body without so much as waking one of the soldiers, is too ridiculous to obtain the smallest degree of credit. That this should be done, too, and no one of the soldiers be called to an account for it, when their neglect had, on this supposition, defeated the most ardent wishes of the Jewish rulers, is inconceivable, especially when we know what was the state of the rulers minds at that time.

Now we can easily conceive what would have been the effect, if Jesus had not risen, and the Jewish rulers had been able, at the expiration of the third day, to bring forth the body, and to shew it to the people: they would thus have proved indisputably that Jesus was an impostor, and would have destroyed in a moment all the influence of his name. But their defeat has established the truth of our religion beyond a possibility of contradiction: Yes, we desire no better evidences of its truth, than those which the Roman soldiers and the Jewish Sanhedrim have this unwittingly afforded us: so that we may well say, Their last error was worse than the first: for, if their forbearance gave Jesus an opportunity of propagating his religion, this device of theirs proved to demonstration the fact on which his religion rests; and has thereby precluded all excuse for their obstinate unbelief.]
We would now suggest,

III.

Some general deductions from the subject

Truly this is a triumphant subject to the Christian: for though we cannot but mourn at the idea that our blessed Lord should be treated with such indignities, we are constrained to triumph, when we see how all the efforts of his enemies were overruled for the manifestation of his glory. But there are two thoughts in particular which we would suggest as arising from this transaction:

1.

How vain are the counsels of ungodly men!

[Doubtless the chief priests and Pharisees exulted in the hope that they had now attained complete success: but their devices were turned to their own confusion. It was thus throughout the whole history of our blessed Lord, and espepecially in the diversified events of his last hours: his enemies plotted together, and executed all their malignant purposes against him: but behold, in all that they did, they unwittingly fulfilled the Scriptures [Note: Act 13:27.] so that not one word of all the prophecies was left unaccomplished. In one sense they were Satans agents; for it was he who put it into their hearts to reject and crucify their Messiah: but in another sense, they were instruments in the hands of God, to execute the things which his hand and his counsel had determined before to be done [Note: Act 4:25-28.]. Thus also it has been with all who have conspired against the Lord in every age: he has invariably disappointed the devices of the crafty, and taken the wise in their own craftiness [Note: Job 5:12-13.]. Two objects his enemies always have in view; the one is, to injure his people, and the other is, to defeat his cause: but they are made, against their will, to advance the interests of both. In the history of Job we are informed, how Satan exerted himself in every possible way to ruin that holy man: but, after all his efforts, he only rendered Job the more exalted monument of grace, and augmented the happiness which he laboured to destroy [Note: Job 42:9-10. with Jam 5:11.]. In like manner, the enemies of the Church have been uniformly baffled in all their attempts against it. They put to death that eminent disciple, Stephen; and raised a persecution against the whole Church, so that none, except the Apostles, dared any longer to continue at Jerusalem: but the effect of their persecution was, to destroy one preacher, and to raise up a thousand in his stead [Note: Act 8:1; Act 8:4.]. At another time, having directed their hostility against the Apostle Paul, they prevailed so far as to get him confined in prison for two whole years. What a deadly blow must this, as we should think, have given to the Church! yet St. Paul himself tells us, that it turned out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel; since many in Csars palace, who would otherwise have never heard the word, were brought to the knowledge of it; and multitudes, when they saw his faith and patience, were stirred up to tread in his steps, and to preach the word without fear [Note: Php 1:12-14.]. Thus it ever has been; and thus it ever shall be: for Solomon tells us, There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord [Note: Pro 21:30.]; on the contrary, how many soever devices there may be in the hearts of men, the counsel of the Lord, and that only, shall stand [Note: Pro 19:21.]. The wrath of man shall praise him, and the remainder, which would not subserve his purposes, shall he restrain [Note: Psa 76:10.].]

2.

How happy are they who have God on their side!

[Whilst the Jewish rulers were plotting together for the utter subversion of Christianity, the Disciples were unconscious of their machinations, or overwhelmed with despair. But God is the friend of all his people, an ever-present help in the time of trouble. He is pleased to characterize himself by this very name, The Saviour of them that trust in him [Note: Psa 17:7. Jer 14:8.]. He permits indeed his enemies to triumph for a season; but he warns them of the fearful issue of their conspiracies against him [Note: Isa 8:7-10.]. As far as they prevail, they ascribe all their success to their own wisdom and power: but he reproves their folly, and visits upon them those very iniquities, which he has rendered subservient to the accomplishment of his own eternal counsels [Note: Isa 10:5-7; Isa 10:12; Isa 10:17.]. As for his own people, he encourages them to put their trust in him, without suffering themselves to be alarmed at the menaces of their enemies, or harbouring any fears about their ultimate success [Note: Isa 8:12-14.]. What their happy state should be, we see in the actual experience of David. He contemplates God in the character of an Almighty Protector [Note: Psa 18:2.]; and, when urged by an alarmist to indulge desponding fears, he nobly replies, The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lords throne is in heaven [Note: Psa 11:1-4. N. B. To the end of the third verse is the speech of the Alarmist.]. He even appeals to the whole world, what cause he can have for fear, whilst he has such an Almighty Friend for his support [Note: Psa 27:1.]. Such is the privilege of all his people: if they believe in him, they shall not make haste through unbelieving fears [Note: Isa 28:16.]: on the contrary, their very thoughts shall be established [Note: Pro 16:3.]. In a word, they shall, though beset with enemies on every side, be preserved as in a royal pavilion, and have such an inward sense of the Divine presence as shall comfort them under every trouble, or rather screen them from trouble, and fill them with joy unspeakable and glorified [Note: Psa 31:20.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

“Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, (63) Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. (64) Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. (65) Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. (66) So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.”

As Matthew is the only Evangelist, which hath noticed this conversation which took place between Pilate and the Chief Priests and Pharisees; it will be proper to propose the observations which I beg to offer upon it here. And I venture, to persuade, myself, that, if the several circumstances, connected with the relation, are duly attended to, this plan proposed by the confederacy, of securing the body of Christ, tended to confirm the very truth, they meant to bring into question; and is in itself, if there were no other, a most decided testimony, in proof to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.

For, first: by their application to Pilate for a watch, to guard the body of Christ, they prove that Jesus was truly dead, and laid in this new sepulchre. This is of no small consequence, in aid to all the other evidences we have of Christ’s death and burial. And, secondly; they no less prove, by what passed, as related in the following Chapter, that the body of Jesus did not remain in the sepulchre, notwithstanding a guard of soldiers were purposely placed there to secure it. See Mat 28:1 .

Here is a precious testimony, and from the mouth of Christ’s enemies also, in confirmation of the resurrection which followed. And with respect to the story of the disciples taking away the body, it is in itself too childish and ridiculous to deserve even the relation of it. That a few poor timid disciples, who during their Lord’s trial, and before any danger to themselves had even appeared, had all forsook Jesus and fled, should project such a scheme, as to come by surprise on a guard of Roman soldiers, who were placed at the sepulchre for no purpose but to watch the body of Jesus; and whose military discipline was the strictest in the world; and should actually take away the body, is one of the most extravagant suppositions, which ever entered the human mind.

And to heighten the representation still more, it is added, that this was done while the soldiers were asleep. Soldiers and centinels asleep! And so it seems, that the evidence these soldiers gave of this transaction, of what had happened, was while they were asleep. A new way of giving testimony!

Moreover, it is time to enquire, what possible motive these poor fishermen of Galilee could have to take away a dead body? Nothing can be more plain and evident than that the disciples of Jesus, at the time this transaction of Christ’s death took place, knew not anymore than their enemies, what the resurrection from the dead should mean. They had no other notions of Christ, notwithstanding all that Jesus had said to them, than that of a temporal prince; and when by his death, the hopes they had conceived of this kingdom were over, they would in a few days have returned to their former occupation again. In fact they did so.

Besides, where could they have put the body? Was it stolen, and yet intended to be concealed? And if so what could be then accomplished by it? And can it be supposed for a moment, that when the soldiers all of them awaked from their sleep and found the body gone, and taken away by disciples; would the Roman soldiers, aided by the whole Jewish Sanhedrim, have suffered this handful of poor fishermen of Galilee to have remained a single hour, without giving up their plunder, and bringing them to immediate punishment.

I have not dwelt so circumstantially on this subject from any apprehension of its necessity, for my Reader’s confirmation of the faith once delivered to the saints; but for the preciousness of anything, and everything connected with the resurrection of Jesus. Oh! the blessedness of knowing, and from divine teaching too; the certainty of that glorious truth, Christ is risen from the dead. And oh! when the conviction of that glorious truth is secured in the soul, by a testimony founded in the faithfulness of Jehovah; then in Christ’s resurrection, the sure resurrection of his redeemed is included. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power. Rev 20:6 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

62 Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,

Ver. 62. Now the next day that followed ] That is, on that high day, that double sabbath, they that had so often quarrelled with Christ for curing on the sabbath request a servile work to be done, of securing and sealing up the sepulchre. It is a common proverb, Mortui non mordent, Dead men bite not. But here Christ, though dead and buried, bites and beats hard upon these evil men’s consciences. They could not rest the whole night before, for fear he should get out of the grave some way, and so create them further trouble. Scipio appointed his sepulchre to be so placed, as his image standing upon it might look directly towards Africa, that being dead, he might still be a terror to the Carthaginians. And Cadwallo, an ancient king of this island, commanded his dead body to be embalmed, and put into a brazen image, and so set upon a brazen horse over Ludgate, for a terror to the Saxons. It is well known that Zisca, that brave Bohemian, charged his Taborites to flay his corpse, and cover a drum with his skin; the sound whereof as often as the enemies heard, they should be appalled and put to flight. And our Edward I adjured his son and nobles, that if he died in his journey into Scotland, they should carry his corpse about with them, and not suffer it to be interred till they had vanquished the usurper and subdued the country. Something like to this the prophet Isaiah foretelleth of our Saviour (and we see it here accomplished), when he saith, “In that day the root of Jesse shall stand up for an ensign to the people, and even his rest” (or, as some read it, his sepulchre) “shall be glorious,” Isa 11:10 . There are those who think that these words, “The day that followed the day of the preparation,” are put ironically, or rather by way of a facetious jesting, asteismos , against the hypocritical sabbatism of the high priests, who would so workday-like, beg the body, seal the sepulchre, and set the watch on that sabbath, for the which they seemed to prepare so devoutly before it came.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

62 66. ] THE JEWISH AUTHORITIES OBTAIN FROM PILATE A GUARD FOR THE SEPULCHRE. Peculiar to Matthew .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

62. . ] not on that night, but on the next day. A difficulty has been found in its being called the day , considering that it was itself the sabbath , and the greatest sabbath in the year . But I believe the expression to be carefully and purposely used. The chief priests, &c. did not go to Pilate on the sabbath, but in the evening, after the termination of the sabbath . Had the Evangelist said , the incongruity would at once appear of such an application being made on the sabbath and he therefore designates the day as the first after that, which, as the day of the Lord’s death, the , was uppermost in his mind.

The narrative following has been much impugned, and its historical accuracy very generally given up by even the best of the German Commentators (Olshausen, Meyer; also De Wette, Hase, and others). The chief difficulties found in it seem to be: (1) How should the chief priests, &c. know of His having said , ‘in three days I will rise again,’ when the saying was hid even from His own disciples? The answer to this is easy. The meaning of the saying may have been, and was, hid from the disciples; but the fact of its having been said could be no secret. Not to lay any stress on Joh 2:19 , we have the direct prophecy of Mat 12:40 and besides this, there would be a rumour current, through the intercourse of the Apostles with others, that He had been in the habit of so saying. As to the understanding of the words, we must remember that hatred is keener sighted than love ; that the raising of Lazarus would shew, what sort of a thing rising from the dead was to be ; and that the fulfilment of the Lord’s announcement of his crucifixion would naturally lead them to look further, to what more he had announced. (2) How should the women, who were solicitous about the removal of the stone, not have been still more so about its being sealed, and a guard set? The answer to this has been given above they were not aware of the circumstance, because the guard was not set till the evening before . There would be no need of the application before the approach of the third day it is only made for a watch , Mat 27:64 and it is not probable that the circumstance would transpire that night certainly it seems not to have done so. (3) That Gamaliel was of the council, and if such a thing as this, and its sequel ch. Mat 28:11-15 , had really happened, he need not have expressed himself doubtfully, Act 5:39 , but would have been certain that this was from God. But, first, it does not necessarily follow that every member of the Sanhedrim was present and applied to Pilate, or even had they done so, that all bore a part in the act of ch. Mat 28:12 . One who, like Joseph, had not consented to their deed before and we may safely say that there were others such would naturally withdraw himself from further proceedings against the person of Jesus. On Gamaliel and his character, see note on Acts, l. c.) Had this been so, the three other Evangelists would not have passed over so important a testimony to the Resurrection. But surely we cannot argue in this way for thus every important fact narrated by one Evangelist alone must be rejected e.g. (which stands in much the same relation) the satisfaction of Thomas , and other such narrations. Till we know much more about the circumstances under which, and the scope with which, each Gospel was compiled, all priori arguments of this kind are good for nothing .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 27:62-66 . Precautions against theft of the body ; peculiar to Mt., and among the less certain elements of the Passion history, owing its origin and presence in this Gospel apparently to the exigencies of the primitive Christian apologetic against Jewish unbelief, which, as we gather from Mat 27:64 , must have sought to invalidate the faith in the resurrection of Jesus by the hypothesis of theft accounting for an empty grave. The transactions here recorded effectually dispose of that hypothesis by making theft impossible. Is the story true, or must we, with Meyer, relegate it to the category of unhistorical legend? Meyer founds largely on the impossibility of Christ predicting so distinctly as is here implied, even to His own disciples, His resurrection. That means that the priests and Pharisees could have had no such solicitude as is ascribed to them. All turns on that. If they had such fears, so originating, it would be quite natural to take precautions against a trick. I think it quite possible that even independently of the saying in chap. Mat 12:40 , given as spoken to Pharisees, it had somehow reached their ears that Jesus had predicted His Passion, and in speaking of it was wont to connect with it the idea of rising again, and it was natural that at such a time they should not despise such reports.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mat 27:62 . , the next day, i.e. , the Jewish Sabbath, curiously described as the day ( ) , the more important day defined by reference to the less important, suggesting that Mt. has his eye on Mk.’s narrative (Mar 15:42 ). So Weiss-Meyer.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 27:62-66

62Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, 63and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’64Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’and the last deception will be worse than the first.” 65Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.” 66And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.

Mat 27:62-66 This account is unique to Matthew (cf. Mat 28:2-4; Mat 28:11-15).

Mat 27:62 “Now on the next day, the day after the preparation” This is an obvious reference to the Sabbath. Being in Pilate’s presence and court would have made the Jewish leaders ceremonially unclean and thus unable to participate in the Passover. This very act shows how fearful they were of Jesus and His power and predictions.

“the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together” It is so ironic (1) that they met at all; (2) that it was the Sabbath of Passover week; (3) that the Sadducees did not even believe in the resurrection; and (4) that they became powerful, though unwilling, witnesses to the resurrection!

Mat 27:63 It is ironic that Pilate is called Kurie (translated “sir”) by these Jewish leaders and Jesus the Lord is called “that deceiver.”

NASB, NKJV”that deceiver”

NRSV, NJB”that impostor”

TEV”that liar”

This word (planos) may be literally rendered “wanderer,” explaining the derivation of our English word “planet” from the same term for ” wandering” celestial lights. It originally referred to the orbit of planets that did not follow the standard pattern of the constellations. The term had a negative connotation in Greek. It was applied to errors or liars.

NASB”After three days I am to arise again”

NKJV”After three days I will rise”

NRSV, NJB”After three days I will rise again”

TEV”I will be raised to life three days later”

Literally, “after three days I am raised.” This is a present passive. The context implies that Pilate assigned Roman soldiers to guard the tomb. The Jewish leaders knew of Jesus’ predictions (cf. Mat 12:40; Mat 16:4) and feared them. The disciples were surprised by the resurrection-what irony!

SPECIAL TOPIC: THE RESURRECTION

Mat 27:65 “You have a guard” This is an idiom (i.e., an imperative, not an indicative) for permission to the Jewish delegation for Roman soldiers to guard the tomb.

“go, make it as secure as you know how” ” Go” is a present active imperative followed by an aorist middle (deponent) imperative. There is a bit of sarcasm here (i.e., “as you know how”). These priestly leaders were no friends of Pilate, but they shared a desire of political expediency.

Mat 27:66 “they went” This refers to the representatives of the Jewish leadership and the Roman soldiers. These leaders wanted to make sure the tomb was sealed and guarded! Their representatives may even have helped seal the tomb themselves!

The phrase “the living God” is a word play on the title YHWH (cf. Exo 3:14; Psa 42:2; Psa 84:2; Mat 16:16). This same word play is often found in biblical oaths, “as the Lord lives.”

“made the grave secure” This referred to an official sealing which used two blobs of wax placed at the juncture of the round stone and the wall of the tomb imprinted with an official Roman seal, with a string between them.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

that followed. This was the “high Sabbath” of Joh 19:42, not the weekly Sabbath of Mat 28:1. See App-156.

the day of the preparation. See App-156 and App-166.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

62-66.] THE JEWISH AUTHORITIES OBTAIN FROM PILATE A GUARD FOR THE SEPULCHRE. Peculiar to Matthew.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 27:62. , but on the morrow) A periphrasis for the Sabbath (cf. ch. Mat 28:1), which St Matthew employed for an important reason; perhaps because he did not choose to call the Jewish Sabbath any longer The Sabbath.- , and the Pharisees) They had taken no part in the actual trial; see ch. Mat 26:3; Mat 26:57, yet they had not been altogether inactive; see Joh 18:3. Perhaps there were also Pharisees among the Scribes and the Elders. Perhaps the Pharisees, from their extreme zeal, did many things which did not exactly belong to their office.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Mat 27:62-66

7. GUARD PLACED AROUND THE TOMB;

RESURRECTION OF JESUS

Matthew 27:62 to 28:10

62-66 Now on the morrow.-This was the next day, “which is the day after the Preparation.” Friday, the sixth day of the week, was called the day of Preparation, as all labor for the seventh day was to be done then. (Exo 16:22.) This year it was the Passover; the next day after it was the Sabbath and called by John “a high day.” (Joh 19:31.) Some think that the term “Preparation” became, before Matthew wrote, the solemn designation among the Christians to distinguish the Friday of crucifixion. The “chief priests and the Pharisees” conferred with each other as to what should be done; hence, they went to Pilate sometime during the day to make their request; their principles forbade their doing any labor on the Sabbath. We may suppose that they obtained consent either before the Sabbath began or immediately after it closed. They probably had examined the tomb and saw that the body was safe and the tomb sealed. Matthew is the only one that records these circumstances. The chief priests and Pharisees were aware that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection. Hence, they said to Pilate, “We remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.” They were afraid that he would rise, hence they thought to forestall the possibility of it by a powerful Roman guard around the tomb. However they did not express that fear to Pilate; they deceived Pilate as to their fear and cast aspersion on the disciples of Jesus. They approached Pilate as though it had just occurred to them that something might take place with respect to the body. Jesus had repeatedly said to his disciples that he would be raised on the third day and the public had learned of this. (Mat 12:40; John 2:19 10:15-18.)

Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day.-They spoke of Jesus as “that deceiver,” and that his disciples would attempt to practice deception with respect to his resurrection. They asked for the.power and authority of the Roman government to prevent his disciples from attempting to practice any deception. They thought him to be a pretender as to the Messiahship. They were shrewd in their malice; they said that if the sepulchre was not guarded his disciples might “come and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead.” If this should be done, they knew that his disciples could point to the empty tomb as evidence that he had been raised from the dead. Their shrewdness and precaution in making it sure that no one would molest the tomb are commended to all. If the tomb should be found empty, it would give the disciples of Jesus an advantage over them, and they thought that this “last error will be worse than the first.” Here they acknowledge that they had made an error. That which they called an error was beyond their control after the resurrection; they could no longer conspire against Jesus, nor stop the spread of the faith in him. In their attempt to put an end to the influence of Jesus, they did exactly what was needed to make it more sure that he was the Messiah and that he actually rose from the dead. It was taken for granted that he was dead, but they feared deception on the part of his disciples. It may be that “the last error” has reference to the people in thinking that Jesus was the Messiah because he had risen from the dead. It would be worse for the people to think that he was the Messiah because he had risen from the dead than it would be to believe him to be the Messiah because of his teaching. They could more easily pervert, contradict, and refute his teachings, so they thought, than to deny his resurrection. Note that these chief priests and Pharisees said to Pilate “after three days” that Jesus had said he would rise again; hence they asked for a guard “until the third day,” that is, until the third day had passed; again they understood “after three days” and “until the third day” to mean the same and that they would need the guard no longer.

Pilate said unto them, Ye have a guard.-That is, Pilate said take a guard and do as you wish. Some have understood this to mean that Pilate refused to give permission to use a guard that he refused to have anything further to do with them and that if they wanted the tomb guarded they should guard it with the temple officers or their own officials. However, it seems clear that Pilate gave permission for them to use the Roman guard as the imperative construction of the Greek verb bears this out. Pilate gave them permission to detail a Roman guard for this purpose and commanded them to “make it as sure as ye can.” They had permission to take all the armed men that they needed, and to make the sepulchre sure to their satisfaction. “So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them.” The stone was rolled over the door of the tomb and sealed; the Roman guard was stationed around it whose duty was to watch with unsleeping vigilance on pain of death. In sealing the tomb one or more cords were stretched across the stone rolled before the opening into the tomb and sealed at each end to the rock by wax or sealing clay. The guard of Roman soldiers was placed at the entrance of the tomb as a double means of preventing fraud. The sepulchre was watched so no fraud could have been practiced. We may infer that the Jews.saw to it that the tomb was sealed and the guard placed around it, for had the soldiers alone sealed it, the Jews might have said that the soldiers had suffered the disciples to steal the body; they could not say this since they sealed the tomb and placed the guard around it. It is probable that Pilate’s seal was used as the Roman guard was held responsible for it.

The Guard at the Tomb – Matthew 27:62-66

Open It

1. If you could have five personal bodyguards (any people on earth) whom would you choose and then where would you go?

2. Where do you feel the safest or most secure and why?

3. When in your life have you been “taken for a ride”?

Explore It

4. When did the chief priests go to Pilate? (Mat 27:62)

5. Who went to Pilate the day after Christ was buried? Why? (Mat 27:62-63)

6. What words of Jesus did the chief priests remember and report to Pilate? (Mat 27:63)

7. What did the religious leaders call Jesus? (Mat 27:63)

8. What did the religious leaders want Pilate to do? (Mat 27:64)

9. For how long did the religious leaders want help from Pilate? Why? (Mat 27:64)

10. What were the Jewish leaders afraid would happen if Pilate refused their request? (Mat 27:64)

11. What were the chief priests afraid would happen if Jesus body disappeared? (Mat 27:64)

12. What command did Pilate give? (Mat 27:65)

13. What did the religious leaders do to secure the tomb where Jesus was buried? (Mat 27:65-66)

Get It

14. Knowing the attitudes and the actions of the Jews, what is ironic about them calling Jesus a “deceiver” guilty of “deception”?

15. What man-made precautions are giving you a false sense of security that everything in your life is under control?

16. In what ways do we trust in our own plans instead of in God?

17. In what areas of life are we prone to try to cover up the truth?

18. Why are we sometimes afraid to admit the truth?

19. What claim or promise of Christ do you need to take more seriously?

Apply It

20. What truth do you need to face today?

21. What foolish, fleshly attempts to control God and your own life do you need to repent of today?

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Guarding the King’s Sepulchre

Mat 27:62-64. Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.

These punctilious priests and Pharisees, who were so scrupulous about keeping the Sabbath, did not mind profaning the day of rest by holding a consultation with the Roman governor. They knew that Christ was dead and buried, but they still stood in dread of his power. They called him a “deceiver”; and they even pretended to “remember” what “he said, while he was yet alive.” At his trial, their false witnesses gave another meaning to his words; but they knew all the while that he was speaking of his resurrection, not of the Temple on Mount Zion. Now they are afraid that, even in the sepulchre, he will bring to nought all their plans for his destruction. They must have known that the disciples of Jesus would not steal him away, and say unto the people, “Se is risen from the dead;” so they probably feared that he really would come forth from the tomb. Whatever conscience they had, made great cowards of them; so they begged Pilate to do what he could to prevent the rising of their victim.

Mat 27:65-66. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

The chief priests and Pharisees wanted Pilate to make the sepulchre sure, but he left them to secure it. There seems to have been a grim sort of irony about the governor’s reply: “Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can.” Whether he meant it as a taunt, or as a command to secure the sepulchre, they became unconsciously witnesses that Christ’s resurrection was a supernatural act. The tomb in the rock could not be entered except by rolling away the stone, and they guarded that by sealing the stone, and setting a watch.

According to the absurd teaching of the Rabbis, rubbing ears of corn was a kind of threshing, and therefore was unlawful on the Sabbath; yet here were these men doing what, by similar reasoning, might be called furnace and foundry work, and calling out a guard of Roman legionaries to assist them in breaking the Sabbath. Unintentionally, they did honour to the sleeping King when they obtained the representatives of the Roman emperor to watch his resting-place till the third morning, when he came forth Victor over sin and death and the grave. Thus once more was the wrath of man made to praise the King of glory, and the remainder of that wrath was restrained.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s The Gospel of the Kingdom

the day: Mat 26:17, Mar 15:42, Luk 23:54-56, Joh 19:14, Joh 19:42

the chief priests: Mat 27:1, Mat 27:2, Psa 2:1-6, Act 4:27, Act 4:28

Reciprocal: Psa 69:12 – They Psa 83:4 – General Mat 16:1 – Pharisees Mat 28:12 – General Joh 16:20 – but the Joh 19:31 – because Joh 19:34 – came

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

7:62

The day before any holy or sabbath day was called a preparation (Mar 15:42), and this would apply to every holy day, not only the regular weekly sabbath. The day of the passover was a holy day (Lev 23:4-5), hence the day before it would be a preparation. The passover came on Friday the 14th, thus it would naturally be a day that followed the day of preparation, and also the day following the crucifixion. On that day the leading Jews came to Pilate with their request.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mat 27:62. The morrow, which is the day after the preparation. The day of the preparation was Friday, as is plain from Mar 15:45. The morrow was therefore the Jewish Sabbath, though it is not called so here. The first day of the Passover (Friday) was in one sense a Sabbath, hence this designation is more definite. It is also supposed that the word preparation was the solemn designation in use among the Christians to distinguish the Friday of the crucifixion (Meyer).

Gathared together. On Saturday morning; the great Sabbath of the year, as the verse plainly states. While our Lord rested in the tomb, they desecrated the Sabbath, despite their great scrupulousness. It is urged that this must have taken place on Friday evening after six oclock, since the rulers would guard against the stealing away on the first night as well as on the subsequent one. But their anxiety was about the night preceding the third day (Mat 27:64). Besides the women were evidently not aware of the presence of the guard (Mar 16:3). This is accounted for, if we suppose that this incident occurred on Saturday, and not on Friday evening after six oclock.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

This last paragraph of the chapter acquaints us with the endeavours that the murderers of Christ used to prevent his foretold resurrection: they ask and obtain of Pilate, that his sepulchre might be strongly guarded till the third day was past and over, when probably they intended to have exposed his dead body to the view of the people; and accordingly a threefold guard is set about the grave; the stone, the seal, and the watch; concluding that Christ was safe enough either from rising or stealing: the stone making the grave sure, the seal making the stone sure, and the watch or band of soldiers making all sure. The stone being sealed with the public seal, no person might meddle with it upon pain of death.

Where note, 1. The wonderful wisdom, the over-ruling power and providence of God; by this excessive care and extraordinary diligence, the high priests hoped to prevent our Saviour’s resurrection, but the truth and belief of it was hereby ocnfirmed to all the world. How much evidence had Christ’s resurrection wanted, if the high priests and elders had not been thus maliciously industrious to prevent his rising!

Learn, 2. That the endeavours used to obstruct our Lord’s resurrection, have rendered it more certain and undoubted: had not all this care and caution been used by his enemies, the grounds of our faith had not been so strong, so evident, and so clear. It was very happy, that the Jews were thus jealous and suspicious, thus careful and distrustful; for otherwise the world had never received so full and perfect an evidence of Christ’s doth depend. Verily their solicitous care to suppress our Redeemer’s resurrection, has rendered it more conspicuous, and freed it from all suspicion of forgery.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mat 27:62-66. Now the next day; the day that followed the day of the preparation That is, after the sun was set, for the Jewish day began then. The day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, whereon they were to prepare for the celebration of it. The next day, then, (namely, Saturday,) was the sabbath, according to the Jews. But the evangelist seems to express it by this circumlocution, to show that the Jewish sabbath was then abolished. The chief priests, &c., came together unto Pilate The chief priests and Pharisees, remembering that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection more than once, came to the governor and informed him of it begging that a guard might be ordered to the sepulchre, lest the disciples should carry his body away and affirm that he was risen from the dead. But they took this measure not on the morrow, in our sense of the word, but in the evening, after sunsetting, when the Jewish sabbath was begun, and when they understood the body was buried. To have delayed it to sunrising would have been preposterous, as the disciples might have stolen the body away during the preceding night. Besides, there is no inconsistency between this account of the time when the watch was placed and the subsequent articles of the history, which proceed upon the supposition that the women present at our Lords funeral were ignorant that any watch was placed at his grave. For they departed so early, that they had time to buy spices and ointments in the city before the preparation of the sabbath was ended; whereas the watch was not placed till the sabbath began. Saying, Sir Thus the word is here very properly rendered, as in many other places it is as improperly translated lord. It should certainly always be translated sir, when no more than civil respect is intended. We remember that deceiver said, After three days Or, as

may be properly rendered, within three days, I will rise again We do not find that he had ever said this to them, unless when he spoke of the temple of his body, (Joh 2:19; Joh 2:21.) And if they here refer to what he then said, how perverse and iniquitous was their construction on these words, when he was on his trial before the council!

Mat 26:61. Then they seemed not to understand them! Perhaps, however, they may refer to what he said (when the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign of him) respecting the Prophet Jonas, namely, that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whales belly, the Son of man should be so long in the heart of the earth. Or, on some occasion not mentioned by the evangelists, our Lord may have made a public declaration of his resurrection in the very terms here set down. But, in whatever way they came to the knowledge of it, certain it is that the chief priests and Pharisees were well acquainted with our Lords predictions concerning it; and hence the precaution and care which they used in guarding the sepulchre, all which was overruled by the providence of God to give the strongest proofs of Christs ensuing resurrection. Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made sure This, as being a servile work, it might be thought they would not ask to be done on the sabbath. But we must observe, that they asked this of Romans, whom they did not consider as bound by the law of the sabbath. Jews to this day do not scruple to avail themselves of the work done by Christians on the Jewish sabbath. Pilate said, Ye have a guard Pilate, thinking their request reasonable, allowed them to take as many soldiers as they pleased of the cohort which, at the feast, came from the castle Antonia, and kept guard in the porticoes of the temple. For that they were not Jewish but Roman soldiers whom the priests employed to watch the sepulchre, is evident from their asking them of the governor. Besides, when the soldiers returned with the news of Christs resurrection, the priests desired them to report that his disciples had stolen him away while they slept; and, to encourage them to tell the falsehood boldly, promised, that if their neglect of duty came to the governors ears, proper means should be used to pacify him and keep them safe; a promise which there was no need of making to their own servants. Macknight. So they went The priests and Pharisees having got a party of soldiers, placed them in their post, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone To hinder the guards from combining in carrying on any fraud. See Dan 6:17 : where we learn that a precaution of the like kind was made use of in the case of Daniel shut up in the lions den. Thus, while the priests cautiously proposed to prevent our Lords resurrection from being palmed upon the world, resolving no doubt to show his body publicly after the third day, as a proof that he was an impostor, they put the truth of his resurrection beyond all question; for, besides that there could be no room for the least suspicion of deceit, when it should be found that his body was raised out of a new tomb, where there was no other corpse, and this tomb hewn out of a rock, the mouth of which was secured by a great stone, under a seal, and a guard of soldiers; by appointing this guard, they furnished a number of unexceptionable witnesses to it, whose testimony they themselves could not refuse. See Mat 28:11. The chief priests and Pharisees, says Bishop Porteus, having taken these precautions, waited probably with no small impatience for the third day after the crucifixion when they made no doubt they should find the body in the sepulchre, and convict Jesus of deceit and imposture.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

THE WATCH AT THE SEPULCHER

Mat 27:62-66. And on the following day, when, after the preparation, the high priests and Pharisees came unto Pilate, saying, We remember how that deceiver said while yet living, After three days I will rise; therefore command that the sepulcher be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples may steal Him away by night, and say to the people, He is risen from the dead; and the last error shall be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, You have the watch; go, make it secure as you know. And they, going, made the sepulcher secure, sealing the stone, with the watch. Thus we see the ecclesiastical authorities had finally succeeded, as they flattered themselves, in getting rid of what they regarded as the greatest nuisance that had ever afflicted the Church. These three years they have been in hot water, awfully perplexed and puzzled, studying night and day, laying all their wits and genius under contribution, to devise some plan or light on some scheme to get rid of Him. O how He has haunted them these three years! They have been tossed in a tempest of fear and solicitude. O the sleepless nights of the high priests, the ruling elders, and many of the leading Pharisees! Now they feel that God has delivered them of the awful nuisance, mistaking the devil for God. So they hold a council, putting their heads together, and unanimously resolve to hold the victory already won. As the removal of the body out of the sepulcher might prove a delusion to many in thinking that He has risen as He had predicted, they unanimously vote for a Roman guard to watch the tomb night and day. They have already subjugated Pilate and gotten him afraid of them, as they had threatened to arraign him before the emperor under charges of high treason if he dared to vindicate the cause of Jesus the Nazarene, who had repeatedly declared Himself King of the Jews; so now the governor grants their request, sending to the sepulcher a platoon of those formidable, sturdy, Roman soldiers, who are proof against peril and, knew no fear. Besides, the governors seat is placed on the stone which closes the sepulcher, the breaking of which is punishable with death. It is also a death penalty for a Roman soldier to go to sleep on guard. Therefore the magnates of the Church sleep soundly, enjoying a degree of nervous relaxation unknown the last three years, sinking away into ambrosial slumber, congratulating themselves, All is well.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 27:62-66. The Guarding of the Tomb (Mt. only).The story arose as a reply to Jews who averred that the disciples had removed the body of Jesus, itself a reply to the disciples assertion of the empty grave (cf. Mat 28:11-15). It is a relic of controversy in which each side imputed unworthy motives to the other and stated suggestions as established facts.the day after the preparation (Mat 6:2) is a curious paraphrase for the Sabbath.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

27:62 {16} Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate,

(16) The keeping of the tomb is committed to Christ’s own murderers, so that there might be no doubt of his resurrection.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

The guarding of Jesus’ tomb 27:62-66

Matthew’s Gospel is the only one that includes this pericope. It is a witness to the falsehood of the chief priests and elders’ claim that someone stole Jesus’ body (Mat 28:11-15).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The day to which Matthew referred was the Sabbath. He probably referred to it as he did to avoid the confusion that often arises when describing the Sabbaths associated with feasts. The Sanhedrin members could confer with Pilate if they did not have to travel more than a Sabbath day’s journey and if they did not have to enter his residence (cf. Joh 18:28). However they could hardly do everything else they did without violating the Sabbath, something they hypocritically had charged Jesus with doing.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)