Commentary - Matthew 28:11-15

Bird's-eye view

In this brief but potent account, Matthew shows us the first official response of the Jerusalem establishment to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The world has just been seismically altered by the single greatest event in its history, and the enemies of God are the first to receive a formal report. What follows is not confusion or disbelief, but a calculated, corporate decision to suppress the truth. This is not a crime of passion; it is a premeditated conspiracy against the Holy Spirit. The chief priests and elders, confronted with eyewitness testimony of a supernatural event, do not investigate the claim. Instead, they investigate how to best conceal it. They resort to the crudest of tools, bribery, to manufacture a lie that is as clumsy as it is wicked. This passage reveals the anatomy of unbelief: it is not a lack of evidence, but a hatred of the truth. The very men who guarded the tomb to prevent a fraudulent resurrection now pay to create one. Matthew concludes by noting the legacy of their lie, a lie that persisted for decades, demonstrating that the central conflict of the gospel is not between belief and doubt, but between the truth of the empty tomb and the deliberate falsehoods men will pay to protect their own power and position.

This is the birth of the first anti-gospel. The good news is that Christ is risen. The bad news, cooked up in a back room and paid for with dirty money, is that He was stolen. This is the official story of the old covenant order in its death throes, a pathetic attempt to maintain control in a world that now belongs to a risen King. Their actions here are a full confession of their own bankruptcy and a tacit admission that they know the truth. You do not bribe men to lie unless you are terrified of what has actually happened.

Outline

Context In Matthew

This pericope is strategically placed by Matthew. It immediately follows the glorious account of the angel's announcement to the women and Jesus' own appearance to them. The light of the resurrection in verses 1-10 is now contrasted with the darkness of the conspiracy in verses 11-15. As the women are running with joy and fear to bring the disciples the greatest news in history, the guards are trudging into the city to bring the religious leaders the most terrifying news they could imagine. This juxtaposition highlights the two possible responses to the resurrection: worship or cover-up. There is no middle ground. Furthermore, this event sets the stage for the Great Commission at the end of the chapter. The disciples are to go into all the world and proclaim the truth of the resurrection, but Matthew wants us to know from the outset that this proclamation will be met with an official, well-funded, and persistent lie. The battle lines are drawn here, not over a misunderstanding, but over a known and hated truth.

Key Issues

The Birth of Fake News

What we are witnessing here is the first formal act of Christian persecution, and it does not begin with swords or chains, but with a lie. The enemies of Christ know they cannot win a fair fight. The tomb is empty, and their own hand-picked guards felt the earth shake and saw the angel. The evidence is overwhelming. So, they do what men always do when the truth threatens their power: they manufacture a counter-narrative. They cannot put the body back in the tomb, so they must put a lie in the mouths of the people.

This is a foundational text for understanding the nature of the world's opposition to the gospel. It is rarely an honest intellectual disagreement. At the bottom of it, you will almost always find a conspiracy of men who love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. They had the facts. The guards, who had every reason to lie to save their own skins, told the truth of what happened. The chief priests, upon hearing this incredible report, did not call for an investigation. They called for a meeting of the board. Their problem was not epistemological; it was political. A risen Messiah meant the end of their authority, the end of their system. And so, for the sake of their own kingdom, they declared war on the kingdom of God with their first and most potent weapon: a well-funded lie.

Verse by Verse Commentary

11 Now while they were on their way, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened.

While the women are running with the gospel, the guards are walking with the facts. Note who they report to. These soldiers were likely Roman, but they had been put at the disposal of the Jewish leaders. Their first report is not to Pilate, their governor, but to the chief priests, their employers for this particular task. They deliver a full, factual account: the earthquake, the angel, the stone rolled away, the terror that knocked them out cold. They are reporting a supernatural event, a divine invasion. The enemies of Jesus are now in possession of an eyewitness report from neutral, even hostile, parties confirming that something beyond all human explanation has occurred at the tomb they were so concerned about securing.

12 And when they had assembled with the elders and took counsel together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers,

Their response is immediate and revealing. There is no panic, no awe, no inkling of repentance. Instead, we see a business meeting. They assemble, they take counsel. This is a formal, corporate decision by the Sanhedrin. The same body that conspired to kill Jesus now conspires to conceal His resurrection. Their solution is not theological or military; it is financial. They gave a large sum of money to the soldiers. The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and here it is the seed of the first great lie against the gospel. They paid thirty pieces of silver to get Jesus into the tomb, and now they pay a large sum more to deny that He ever left it. This is the budget of unbelief.

13 and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’

Here is the lie itself, crafted by the best minds of the religious establishment. And it is, on its face, utterly preposterous. Let us dissect the foolishness. First, if the guards were asleep, how could they possibly know who stole the body? Were they asleep and awake at the same time? Did they recognize the disciples by the sound of their sandals in their dreams? Second, sleeping on guard duty, particularly for Roman soldiers, was a capital offense. To admit this would be to sign their own death warrant. Third, the idea that the disciples, who had scattered in terror and were hiding behind locked doors, suddenly mustered the courage to overpower a detachment of professional soldiers to steal a body they believed was dead is psychologically absurd. The lie is a tissue of contradictions, but it is the best they can come up with.

14 And if this is heard before the governor, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.”

The chief priests anticipate the obvious objection from the soldiers: "If we admit to sleeping on duty, Pilate will have our heads." To this, they offer a guarantee. They promise to use their political influence with the governor to ensure the soldiers' safety. We will win him over. This likely means more bribery. The corruption goes all the way up. They will lie to Pilate and grease his palms to protect the soldiers who are telling their primary lie to the public. They are building a fortress of falsehood, with one lie buttressing another. They are promising to make the soldiers out of trouble, or literally, "free from care." They are offering a false salvation, a counterfeit peace, in exchange for their testimony against the true Prince of Peace.

15 And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.

The bribe works. The soldiers, preferring cash in hand and a promise of safety to the terrible truth of a risen Lord, take the money and become the first missionaries of this new anti-gospel. Matthew, writing his gospel decades later, adds a crucial editorial note: this story, this clumsy lie, became the standard explanation among the unbelieving Jews. It was widely spread and persisted to this day. This shows us the power of a lie when it is backed by official sources and when people want to believe it. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not a secret. It was a public event with a public counter-explanation. From the very beginning, people had to choose not between evidence and no evidence, but between two stories: the apostolic testimony that He is risen, and the Sanhedrin's propaganda that He was stolen. Matthew's final phrase confirms that this battle of narratives was still raging as he wrote, and it continues to this day.

Application

This passage should stiffen our spines. It teaches us not to be surprised by the world's opposition to the gospel. When we preach Christ crucified and risen, we should not expect the powerful and established to investigate our claims with an open mind. We should expect them to convene, take counsel, and figure out the most effective way to shut us up. Often, this will involve lies, slander, and misrepresentation. The lie that the disciples stole the body was the first "conspiracy theory" leveled against the church, and it will not be the last.

We also learn about the nature of a hardened heart. The chief priests were not ignorant; they were intransigent. They had more evidence for the resurrection than Thomas ever did, and they used it to double down on their rebellion. This is a terrifying warning that more facts do not always lead to more faith. For a heart set against God, evidence is just another obstacle to be overcome, another truth to be suppressed. Our job is not to convince the willfully blind with clever arguments, but to faithfully proclaim the truth of the resurrection and let the Holy Spirit do the work of opening eyes.

Finally, we must see the pathetic nature of their lie as a backhanded testimony to the truth. The official story is so flimsy, so full of holes, that its very existence points to the reality it seeks to conceal. Why invent such a ridiculous tale? Because the tomb was undeniably empty. The great fact of Easter morning is so solid and immovable that the only way to get around it is to construct a lie that is transparently foolish. The enemies of God, in their very attempt to deny the resurrection, end up bearing witness to it. The truth is out. Christ is risen, and not even a mountain of bribe money can put Him back in the grave.