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62 On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, 63 saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard. ~ Matthew 27:62-66
Today, we conclude our study of Matthew 27. In our most recent studies of this gospel, the Lord Jesus had been crucified, taken down from the cross and buried in a borrowed tomb. While the disciples were locked away by their fear, three women stood stunned as they witnessed Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus bury the Lord Jesus. While the Lord had made it abundantly clear to them that He was going to Jerusalem to die His followers should not have been so shocked when it happened.
The Jewish religious leaders, on the other hand, were rather gleeful once they thought they had finally stopped this threat from Galilee. That is until they remembered His words that He would rise from the dead. It was then that they scrambled to make their way back to Pilate to make another request of him. It is at this point that we pick up the narrative today. The Jewish religious leaders referenced two deceptions that the Lord Jesus was supposedly guilty of: the first was His declaration that He was the Messiah and the second that He would raise from the dead. Both of these turned out to be true and it was the reason He came to this earth in the first place.
For the followers of the Lord Jesus Friday was filled with much confusion and many questions. The intense suffering of the Lord Jesus brought for them the most excruciating of pain. They were stunned due to the fact that this One whom they had followed for three years was dead. As a result they were all scattered and afraid. The man they left everything to follow was now dead and sealed behind a two ton stone. All of their hopes had been dashed and buried with Him. Our most critical moments in life is when we are most hopeless because it is then that we are convinced that we need the Lord the most.
In v.62-64 of today's passage we read, "62 On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, 63 saying, 'Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.'"
It was now the Sabbath. This was not just any Sabbath, it was the Passover Sabbath, the holiest day of all of the Jewish calendar. Over night the religious leaders of first century Israel had remembered that the Lord Jesus had said that He would rise from the dead. This made them hurry over to Pilate's residence very early in the morning requesting that he make the tomb secure by placing Romans soldiers at the entrance of the tomb. I find it very interesting that the enemies of the Lord Jesus remembered that He predicted His own resurrection, yet His followers had forgotten that He made such a prediction.
These religious leaders were so afraid of the Lord Jesus they referenced Him as "that deceiver." By using the pronoun "that" these so-called leaders communicated their contempt for the Lord Jesus. Their hostility, hatred, fear, and brutality led to His death because He was a threat to their will. This was the proposition of the enemy in the Garden of Eden and Adam concluded: "Not your will but my will be done." Satan doesn't try to get unto follow him directly because he deceives us to follow him indirectly by following ourselves.
The religious leaders of Israel made this request of Pilate because they feared that the followers of the Lord Jesus would steal His body and fake His resurrection. But, there was a problem because the stone that had been rolled in front of the tomb was about two tons. This stone was round and it had been rolled into a channel in front of the tomb. The channel was on an inclined so that the stone was rolled down into the channel and the only way to move a two-ton stone in this case is to move it up hill. Needless to say the tomb was pretty secure. It could have been moved with the help of many people and the leverage of wooden implements. But, it was not.
In v.65-66 of today's passage we read, "65 Pilate said to them, 'You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.' 66 So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard."
The religious leaders of Israel made this request of Pilate because they feared that the followers of the Lord Jesus would steal His body and fake His resurrection. According to the other gospel writers, there were between 10 to 16 well-armed Roman soldiers there guarding the tomb. Also, there was a Roman seal at the entrance of the tomb. The seal had a clay pack on one side of the stone and a clay pack on the other side of the stone. A rope was placed between the two seals and if anybody broke the seal they were to expect death.
In taking all of these precautions the religious leaders made sure that there was no other explanation for the absent body of the Lord Jesus except the resurrection. If there were no seal and no guards, the resurrection could have been explained as a grave robbery. But, in the end the deception of the religious leaders of Israel failed them and was overcome by the All Powerful One. Our hope becomes unbreakable once we see that God's promises are unbreakable. Even our broken existence finds great comfort in this fact that our God is so big He can overcome death with life.
