Commentary - Matthew 27:57-66

Bird's-eye view

This passage details the burial of our Lord and the subsequent, futile attempts of His enemies to secure the tomb. It is a story of two starkly contrasting responses to the death of Jesus. On the one hand, we see the tender and courageous love of a secret disciple, Joseph of Arimathea, who risks his position and reputation to give Jesus an honorable burial, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 53:9 that He would be "with a rich man in his death." On the other hand, we see the paranoid, hypocritical fear of the chief priests and Pharisees. In a moment of supreme divine irony, these men, who refused to believe Jesus' words, now act upon them with deadly seriousness. Their frantic efforts to prevent a fraudulent resurrection by sealing the tomb and posting a guard serve only to make the actual resurrection an undeniable, officially verified historical event. God, in His sovereignty, uses the very schemes of His enemies to provide the airtight evidence for His Son's victory over death.

The scene is bracketed by two groups of witnesses. The faithful women watch the burial, preparing to anoint the body, their hearts full of sorrowful love. The unfaithful guards are posted to watch the tomb, their presence a testimony to the fear of the establishment. Between the loving care of Joseph and the hateful fear of the Sanhedrin, the body of the King is laid to rest, awaiting the dawn of the third day when all the powers of hell and Rome, with their seals and their soldiers, would be proven utterly impotent.

Outline

Context In Matthew

This passage serves as the bridge between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Having detailed the death of Jesus and the supernatural signs that accompanied it, Matthew now shows the immediate aftermath. The burial is the final stage of Christ's humiliation. He who created the world is laid in a borrowed tomb. This event concludes the narrative of His earthly suffering. The second part of the passage, the securing of the tomb, sets the stage for the triumph of chapter 28. Matthew is meticulously recording the historical details to show that the resurrection was not a myth, a hallucination, or a conspiracy. He is establishing the chain of custody for the body and documenting the official, hostile measures taken to ensure it remained buried. The actions of the chief priests and Pharisees, intended to disprove Jesus, become a crucial part of Matthew's apologetic for the truth of the empty tomb.

Key Issues

The King's Temporary Rest

When a king dies, he is buried with pomp and circumstance. But when the King of kings died, He was buried in haste as the Sabbath approached, His body broken and bloodied. And yet, even in this, His royal honor was preserved. God had ordained that His holy one would not see corruption, and He had also ordained that He would be buried not in a common criminal's grave, but in the tomb of a rich man. The story of Jesus' burial is not a sad postscript; it is an essential part of the gospel narrative. The Apostle's Creed rightly affirms that He "was crucified, died, and was buried." His burial confirms the reality of His death. A phantom does not need a tomb. A man who merely swooned does not get wrapped in linen and sealed behind a great stone. The solid rock of the tomb, the heavy stone, the clean linen, the Roman seal, and the armed guard all scream one fact: Jesus of Nazareth was truly and completely dead. And this makes the fact that He was alive three days later all the more glorious.

Verse by Verse Commentary

57 Now when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus.

As evening approached, the Sabbath was drawing near. If action was not taken, Jesus' body would be unceremoniously dumped in a common grave. At this moment, a man steps out of the shadows of the Sanhedrin. Joseph was a rich man and a member of the council that had condemned Jesus, but John tells us he was a disciple "secretly, for fear of the Jews." All the prominent, public disciples had fled. It is the secret disciple who now steps into the light. God is never without His man. Joseph's wealth is not mentioned incidentally; it is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that the suffering servant would make his grave "with the rich in his death" (Isa 53:9). God had prepared this man and his resources for this very hour.

58 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.

This was an act of extraordinary courage. To associate oneself with an executed criminal, a man condemned for treason against Rome, was to invite suspicion and scorn. Joseph was risking his wealth, his position on the council, and possibly his life. He went in boldly to Pilate, the man who had the authority to say no. Pilate's quick consent, after confirming Jesus was dead (Mark 15:44-45), likely stemmed from a mixture of contempt for the Jewish leaders who had railroaded him and a lingering sense of guilt. He was done with the whole affair and was happy to hand the body over, thwarting any further plans the Sanhedrin might have had for it.

59 And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

Joseph, along with Nicodemus (John 19:39), another secret disciple from the Sanhedrin, took down the body of our Lord. The description is one of reverence and love. This was not the hurried work of an undertaker, but the tender care of a devotee. The cloth was clean, fitting for the spotless Lamb of God. They were performing the last rites, an act of worship for their crucified King. They were treating the body not as a mere corpse, but as the sacred vessel that had housed the Son of God.

60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away.

The details here are crucial. It was Joseph's own tomb, a gift of love. It was a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. This was providentially arranged by God to eliminate any possibility that someone else might have risen from the dead, or that Jesus was resurrected by touching the bones of an old prophet. It was hewn out of solid rock, meaning there was only one way in and one way out. Finally, a large stone was rolled against the entrance. This was the final, human seal on the finality of death. From every human perspective, the story was over. The tomb was secure. Jesus was gone.

61 And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the grave.

While the men do the heavy work, the women watch. These are the same women who were at the cross. Their devotion is steadfast. They are the faithful remnant. They sit and watch, marking the spot, their hearts breaking, but their love unwavering. They are the last at the cross, the last at the tomb, and they will be the first to witness the resurrection. They are the bookends of this dark chapter, representing a love that death cannot extinguish.

62 Now on the next day, the day after the Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate,

The "next day" was the Sabbath, a day of holy rest. But there is no rest for the wicked. While the disciples are in hiding and the women are mourning, the chief priests and Pharisees are busy scheming. Notice their hypocrisy; they would condemn Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, but they have no qualms about conducting official business with a pagan governor on what was a High Sabbath during Passover week. Their religion was a tool for control, not a matter of the heart.

63 and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’

Here is the great irony. The enemies of Jesus remembered His prophecies about the resurrection more clearly than His own disciples did. They call Him "that deceiver," but their actions prove they take His words very seriously. They are haunted by His claims. Unbelief is not a calm, rational state; it is a frantic, fearful effort to suppress the truth that it knows, deep down, might just be true.

64 Therefore, order for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples 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.”

Their logic is entirely worldly. They cannot conceive of a genuine resurrection, so they assume the only alternative is fraud. They project their own deceitful nature onto the disciples. They fear a lie. They are not afraid that Jesus will actually rise; they are afraid that people will believe He has risen. The "first deception," in their minds, was Jesus' ministry and claim to be the Messiah. A successful resurrection hoax, they reason, would be a "worse" deception, giving His movement an unstoppable momentum. They understood the power of the resurrection, even as they denied its possibility.

65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how.”

Pilate is dismissive and contemptuous. The phrase "You have a guard" is ambiguous. It could mean "Take a guard" (from the Roman cohort), or it could refer to their own Temple guard, which he is now authorizing to act with Roman authority. Either way, he washes his hands of it. His statement, "make it as secure as you know how," is a challenge. Do your worst. Put all your human effort into keeping that tomb sealed. God is using Pilate's cynicism to set the stage. The security of the tomb will not be a Jewish affair, but an officially sanctioned and witnessed event.

66 And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.

So they do it. They make it as secure as they know how. They have a detachment of soldiers standing watch. And they place a seal on the stone. This was likely a cord stretched across the stone and fastened at both ends to the rock face with wax, stamped with an official Roman insignia. To break that seal was to defy the authority of Caesar and was punishable by death. They had now pitted the full military and political power of the Roman Empire against the promise of a Galilean carpenter. They could not have done a better job of authenticating the resurrection if they had tried.

Application

There are two great lessons for us here. The first is the lesson of courage. Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple, but when the moment of crisis came, God gave him the grace to act boldly. We should not despise the day of small beginnings in our own faith or in the faith of others. God can take a timid, secret faith and, in a moment, make it the instrument of His glorious purpose. When the public leaders fail, God raises up unexpected servants.

The second lesson is the utter futility of fighting God. The chief priests and Pharisees threw everything they had at the problem of Jesus. They had political power, religious authority, Roman soldiers, and an imperial seal. They made the tomb "as secure as they knew how." But their best was laughably insufficient. They were trying to bar a door with a toothpick. When God decides to act, all human opposition is nothing. The rulers of this world can plot and scheme, they can pass their laws and set their guards, but the King of Heaven laughs at them. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the ultimate proof that no tomb can hold the one whom God has raised, and no power on earth can thwart the unstoppable plan of God. Our job is not to fear the seals and the guards of the modern world, but to trust in the God who breaks them all.