A Sealed Tomb

Christ’s mission seemed to have ended (and even failed) with His

death on the cross. Satan succeeded in instigating Judas to betray the

Savior (Luke 22:3, 4; John 13:26, 27) and the chief priests and elders to

demand His death (Matt. 26:59, Matt. 27:20). After Jesus was arrested,

“all the disciples forsook Him and fled” (Matt. 26:56, NKJV), and

Peter denied Him three times (Matt. 26:69–75). Now Jesus was lying

in a tomb hewed out of a rock, closed with a large and sealed stone,

protected by Roman guards (Matt. 27:57–66), and watched by invisible

demonic powers. “If he could, he [Satan] would have held Christ locked

in the tomb.”—Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 12, p. 412.

During His earthly ministry, Christ had foretold not only His death

on the cross but also His resurrection. Using the Eastern inclusive

language—in which a fraction of a day stands for a whole day—Jesus

mentioned that “ ‘as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly

of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights

in the heart of the earth’ ” (Matt. 12:39, 40, NKJV). On other occa-

sions Jesus underscored that He would be killed but on the third day He

would rise again (Matt. 16:21; Matt. 17:22, 23; Matt. 20:17–19). The

chief priests and the Pharisees were aware of those statements and took

measures that they hoped would prevent His resurrection.

Read Matthew 27:62–66. How did these actions only help provide the

world later with more evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?

All security measures taken to keep Jesus locked in the tomb only

made His victory over death and the hosts of evil even more noticeable

because of all the precautions and measures that His enemies took to

try to make sure it would never happen.

Also, these men surely had heard of the miracles of Jesus; they had

seen some of them, too. And yet, they thought that a guard over the

tomb could stop Him, the one who was able to do so many miracles,

from being resurrected?

Also, they put a guard around the tomb in case of—what? That the

disciples might steal the body and then claim that Jesus had been resur-

rected from the dead? When the people would ask, “Where is the risen

Jesus?” They could say: “Just take our word for it.”

If nothing else, their actions revealed just how afraid the chief priests

were of Jesus, even after He died. Perhaps, deep down, they did fear

that He just might be resurrected after all.