Transcript

Robert Gorham Davis was a professor of English at Columbia University. After his retirement spent his energies writing letters to the New York Times Editorial Section.

He wrote many letters and they were usually prompted by any favorable mention of Christian truth. Anytime the New York Times made some mention of Christianity, he protested with a letter.

In one such letter he wrote, “If there were such a God who really wished to reveal Himself to mankind, He could do so in an amazing way that left no doubt.”

Well, He did. God revealed Himself to mankind through His Son, and God left no doubt of the revelation of Himself to mankind by His Son rising from the dead.

The resurrection of Christ is the single most amazing way God could have revealed Himself to us. And the facts are clear. The evidence is comprehensive. Christ is risen from the dead. And the resurrection of Christ is the door to eternal life.

Satan hates the resurrection. As we’ll see in Matthew 28:11-15, he tried to cover it up by the lies and scheming of the religious leaders and the Roman soldiers. And he still tries to cover up the resurrection today.

As a result, the true meaning of Easter is covered-up with bunnies, eggs, candy, and baskets. But we must be careful and vigilant to not allow the world to cover-up for us, who believe in Christ, what that holiday is really all about.

And it’s about Christ, having paid our sin debt in full, rising again the third day. He defeated sin and death for us that we, and any who believe, might have eternal life.

Matthew 28:11: “Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.”

Matthew records, “now when they were going.” The “they” is the women who had come to the tomb on resurrection morning. An angel had appeared to them at the tomb and told them to tell the disciples that Christ was risen from the dead as He said, and that He was going before them into Galilee where they would see Him.

As they went from the tomb, the Lord appeared to the women. And then He also told them to tell the disciples that He was risen and would meet them in Galilee.

Thus, as verse 11 says, “now when they were going,” it means these women were obeying the Lord and were on their way to deliver to the disciples the good news and this message from the risen Savior.

People were moving in different directions on Resurrection morning. The women were on the move toward the disciples’ location, and “some of the watch” or the Roman soldiers were on the move as well “into the city” of Jerusalem to find the Jewish chief priests.

It seems strange, doesn’t it, that Roman soldiers would seek out the Jewish chief priests? We will see why as we go along here. We learn more about these soldiers in Matthew 27:62-66, which reads,

“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.”

We are introduced to these Roman soldiers here and the reason why they were at the tomb. After Christ’s death on the Cross, the chief priests and Pharisees remembered Christ’s words that He would rise again after three days. They did better at remembering this than Christ’s disciples did.

The chief priests and Pharisees request from the Roman Governor, Pilate, a watch, or a Roman guard unit, to be stationed at the tomb to ensure that the disciples didn’t try to steal Christ’s body and claim He rose again.

Pilate granted the watch. So the Roman soldiers “went, and made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch.”

Now Roman guards were serious about what they were put in charge of guarding, because if a Roman soldier failed in his duty as a guard it was an offense punishable by death. They faced certain and immediate execution.

This was why the Philippian jailor was about to kill himself after the earthquake when he thought Paul and all the prisoners had escaped.

The punishment for failing on guard duty according to Roman law was for the soldier to be stripped of his clothing and burned alive by a fire started with the clothes he was stripped of. The fear of that punishment made guards very alert and mindful of their responsibilities.

Josh McDowell wrote this about a Roman watch: “A Roman guard unit was a 4-to-16-man security force. Each man was trained to protect six feet of ground. The 16 men in a square of four on each side were supposed to be able to protect 36 yards against an entire battalion and hold it.

“Normally what they did was this: four men were placed immediately in front of what they were to protect. The other 12 were asleep in a semi-circle in front of them with their heads pointing in.

“To steal what these guards were protecting, thieves would first have to walk over those who were asleep.

“Every four hours, another unit of four was awakened and those who had been awake went to sleep. They would rotate this way around the clock.”

We know the guard unit in front of Christ’s tomb was a multi-man force because Matthew recorded how “SOME of the guard came into the city” after the resurrection. “Some,” of course, implying some of the several men of the Roman watch.

Matthew 27:66 tells us that the Roman guards “made the sepulcher sure, sealing the stone.” Application of the Roman seal to the stone was key because it was a public testimony that Christ’s body was actually there.

Before that seal was applied, each member of the guard unit would go in and verify that what they were guarding was there. Their lives depended on that. So that seal tells us that Christ’s body was in that tomb.

After verifying that Christ’s body was in the tomb, the stone was rolled in place, and a cord was then stretched across the rock covering the entrance.

The cord was fastened at each side with sealing clay. Then the soft clay packs were stamped with the official signet of the Roman governor.

The fact that a Roman seal was applied to the tomb told everyone that the tomb and its contents was protected by nothing less than the power and authority of the Roman empire, which was the world super-power at the time.

Trying to move the stone from the tomb’s entrance would have broken the Roman seal, and thus incurred the judgment of Roman law and power.

And the consequences were severe, as according to their law, breaking a Roman seal carried a mandatory and automatic sentence of crucifixion in an upside-down position.

After inspecting the tomb, rolling the stone into place at the entrance, and sealing the stone, the Romans guards then set the watch and got themselves in place.

As we looked at in our last episode, what happened next was that after 3 days, on Resurrection morning, the Roman watch was present at the tomb.

When the angel descended to the already empty tomb, a great earthquake took place. The angel then rolled the stone back from the door and sat on it.

The sight of this angel sitting on the stone, whose “countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow” (Matt. 28:3), caused the Roman guard unit to become paralyzed with fear and they literally and visibly shook. They were so overwhelmed with fear that they then fainted “and became as dead men.”

That’s the last thing they remembered until they regained consciousness. When they came to, we know the soldiers checked the tomb by the cover-up and lie that ensued.

We know the soldiers found the tomb empty, except for the grave clothes lying just as they were when they were wrapped around the Lord’s body, and the head napkin folded neatly to the side. The soldiers saw all this and examined the entire scene.

Then “some of them” came into the city of Jerusalem. They came to talk to the chief priests and to report to them all that had happened. Only “some” of them came because the others were probably fearful for their lives and were in hiding.

The “some” who did come were shrewd. They did not report to their superior officers or to Governor Pilate, instead they reported to the Jewish chief priests. They reported to the men who were as anxious as they were to cover up what had happened.

They reported to the chief priests, “all the things that were done” Matthew 28:11 says. And “all things that were done” included the earthquake, the appearance of the angel, the angel launching the stone away from the entrance to the tomb and then sitting on it.

After this, they told them how they fainted. Then they reported that after they came to, the tomb was empty, except for the graveclothes.

The chief priests, therefore, received word of Christ’s resurrection before the disciples. The women were still “going” and on their way to the disciples, and already the religious leaders knew.

Matthew 28:12-14: “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 governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.”

In verse 12 it says “when they [or the chief priests] were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel.” The chief priests immediately called for a formal emergency meeting of the Sanhedrin, which is the 70-man ruling body of the Jewish religious leaders.

The firsthand facts from the soldiers were shared. The tomb is empty. They’ve got to do something about it. They assembled to consult together, that together they might come to a satisfactory resolution.

First they decide to bribe the soldiers to lie. Verse 12 says, “they gave large money unto the soldiers.” They couldn’t have them going around saying there was an earthquake, an angel who rolled the stone away, and then that the tomb was empty.

This was hush money. The Greek word for “money” in verse 12 is silver. They gave them a LARGE sum of silver money.

They had bought Judas off for the sum of 30 pieces of silver. Now they had to pay much more, but there was no price too high to buy a lie about this. This information could not come out.

It is incredible though isn’t it, that the resurrection did not soften the hearts of the religious leaders to believe. Instead it hardened their hearts. They were determined in their unbelief. Same thing happens now, with people being determined in their unbelief.

Second, the Jewish religious leaders decided that, in return for the large sum of money, the soldiers were to spread a lie: “Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole Him away while we slept.”

These religious leaders of Israel were desperate to come up with a story to explain the empty tomb and deter people from turning in faith to Christ. The body was stolen.

This was the only lie that worked. Nothing else works but this, because you have to explain an empty tomb. But their cover-up proves the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The lie to be made known was, “Well, we were all asleep when the disciples came in the middle of the night and stole His body.”

However, the question that should have been logically raised is, “If you were asleep, how do you know His disciples came during the night and stole His body away?!” You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be asleep and also know who took Him.

It also raises other questions: How could the disciples have rolled the stone away without waking the Roman guard? How could all the soldiers have fallen asleep at the same time? If the disciples had stolen the body, why had they taken time to remove the grave clothes and fold the napkin? This wasn’t a grave robbery.

Another question is: Why were the guards bribed instead of punished? They did not fulfill their responsibility and they should have been executed, why were they bribed?

Dr. Bill White states this: “If the stone were simply rolled to one side of the tomb, as would be necessary to enter it, then [the Jewish leaders] might be justified in accusing the men of sleeping at their posts, and in punishing them severely….

But…there was some undeniable evidence which made it impossible for the chief priests to bring any charge against the guard. The Jewish authorities must have visited the scene, examined the stone, and recognized its position as making it humanly impossible for these men to have permitted its removal.

“No twist of human ingenuity could provide an adequate answer or a scapegoat and so they were forced to bribe the guard and seek to hush things up.”

Part of the reason for the large bribe for the soldiers also was that the religious leaders were asking them to incriminate themselves and to admit to sleeping on guard duty in violation of Roman military law, which again was punishable by death.

For this reason, the third thing the religious ruling body decided was to assure the soldiers of their protection, telling them, “If this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you.”

They were good at doing that, persuading the governor Pilate. Pilate was like putty in their hands. When Pilate was resistant to crucifying Christ, they kept working on him and worked the crowd into a frenzy against him.

They told him, “If thou let this Man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend” (John 19:12). As we know, the weak-kneed Pilate ultimately relented and commanded Christ to be crucified.

Thus, if Pilate tried to take action to execute the soldiers, the chief priests knew they could go to him and keep the soldiers out of trouble.

Matthew 28:15: “So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”

Confident that the chief priests could do this and keep them safe, in verse 15, we learn that the soldiers took the large sum of money. They took the money and did what they had been “taught” the verse says.

You had a number of soldiers that all needed to be telling the same story. They needed to go over the details of the cover-up and the lie so that one soldier wasn’t saying one thing and another was saying something different.

They needed to be on the same page. Thus, they were “taught” the lie carefully.

In verse 15, we see they “did as they were taught.” They propagated the lie. The soldiers, who knew better, lied. The religious leaders, who knew better, lied.

Satan, who is the father of lies, still propagates lies about the Resurrection today, and people still believe them.

Here’s a few lies about the resurrection that are out there. There’s the “Wrong Tomb theory” that the reason the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty was because the women went to the wrong tomb.

But as we pointed out, the women had watched where He was buried the day of His crucifixion and knew where the tomb was. This would mean that not only did the women go to the wrong tomb, but so did Peter and John when they ran to the tomb later.

And the right tomb would have been located after a while, especially by His enemies who would have wanted to disprove the resurrection.

There’s the “Christ Did Not Die Theory” that Christ didn’t really die on the cross and just fainted from exhaustion. He was buried alive, and thus He later left the tomb on His own.

But this would mean that in His weakened condition after His crucifixion, He would’ve had to get out of the graveclothes, push the stone out and far away from the entrance, either eluding the Roman soldiers or not waking them. And He would’ve had to survive a spear being thrust in His side.

A woman wrote this to J. Vernon McGee once: “Our preacher said that on Easter Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed him back to health. What do you think?”

McGee replied, “Dear Sister, beat your preacher with a whip for thirty-nine heavy strokes. Nail him to a cross. Hang him in the sun for six hours. Run a spear through his heart. Embalm him. Put him in an airless tomb for three days. Then see what happens.”

There’s the “Hallucination Theory.” This theory is that people only thought they had seen the resurrected Christ and had just hallucinated. But there were too many different people in too many different places at too many different times and circumstances to be able to have that many hallucinations or to be able to corroborate their stories.

And the “Stolen Body Theory” that began on Resurrection Day is still out there and believed by some, that the disciples stole His body. But the truth of the matter was that the disciples were in fear of their lives, hiding. They weren’t plotting how to get the body.

The Roman soldiers were told to spread the stolen-body lie because the leaders feared that the Resurrection was going to be preached and believed. They knew the news that the tomb was empty was going to spread, so they had to spread the lie quickly and widely.

As Mark Twain once said, “A little lie can travel half way ‘round the world while Truth is still lacing up her boots.”

The Resurrection coverup lie of the disciples stealing the body went out far and wide. Matthew, writing years later, confirms that this was still the prominent story.

Although the story the soldiers told about the empty tomb was ridiculous, it was widely spread and believed by the Jews in that day.

What we have here in Matthew 28:11-15 is an account of Christ’s resurrection from the viewpoint of His enemies. The Holy Spirit, in the wisdom of God, gives us this angle as proof of the truth.

Critics and doubters of the Resurrection may question the accounts by Christ’s friends, saying that of course they’re going to lie and say He rose again, because they were His friends. So unbelievers might dismiss the testimony of His followers.

But it’s pretty hard to dismiss the testimony of His enemies! The last thing the Jewish leaders wanted was a resurrection and an empty tomb, but this is exactly what they got, and the elaborate cover-up is proof that the resurrection really happened.

Christ’s followers give strong testimony to His resurrection in their eyewitness accounts, and His enemies give strong testimony to it in the plot to cover it up. Any and every way you look at it, Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Because Christ lives, it shows He is Lord, God and the only Savior. Christ’s resurrection vindicates and declares to all mankind that He is all that He claimed to be. He is the eternal Son of God. He is the Savior through whom all can be saved.

Romans 1:4 states that Jesus Christ was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

“A story is told of an African Muslim who became a Christian. His friends asked, ‘Why have you become a Christian?’

He answered, ‘Well, it’s like this. Suppose you were going down the road and suddenly the road forked in two directions, and you didn’t know which way to go. There at the fork were two men, one dead and one alive—who would you ask which way to go?’”

Unlike spiritual leaders and founders like Mohammed, Buddha, Confucious, Joseph Smith and others who are dead in the grave, Jesus Christ is alive! As Christ Himself stated in Revelation 1:18, “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore.”

The Resurrection destroys the lie of Satan: “I’ll believe what I want, you believe what you want, as long as we’re all sincere, we’ll all be okay.” The Resurrection shows us that Christ is the only One to trust, that there are no other options but Him.

He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no man comes to the Father but by Him. He is the one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

We come to God on His terms, not ours. God’s terms are that we come to Him through His Son, the living Savior Who paid for all our sins and rose again from the dead, and by just believing that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day.