Matthew 28:11-15 Liars, Cowards and Money

One of the images on the tapestries in the Vatican Museum in Italy.  These tapestries are from the 1500s and were created from images made by the students of Rapheal.

Matthew 28:11-15 Liars, Money and Cowards

“Tell people, ‘His disciples came …stole him away while we were sleeping,” the elders to the guards in Matthew 28:13.

“If one had any real evidence that, indeed, Jesus did return from the dead, then that is the beginning of a dropping of a series of dominoes that takes us to all kinds of wonderful things.  It assures an afterlife and all kinds of things that we would all hope are true…do I think that Jesus was the Son of God?  I don’t think that he is any more the Son of God than we are.”  (Hugh Hefner, in an interview with Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, p. 105)

“When I was in India last fall I had many opportunities to tell what Christ has done in my life. The thousands of faces in those predominantly Hindu crowds would nod and smile as I shared my experience. Hindus believe all roads lead to God—if Jesus was my guru, that was fine. They all had their gurus, too.   But when I spoke of the reason for my faith, the resurrection of Christ, the nods would stop... The fact of the Resurrection demands a choice, one that reduces all other religions to mere philosophies.”  (Chuck Colson, Christianity Today, March 21, 1986, p. 72)

While the women were going to tell the disciples, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place (v. 11).   For the women, the resurrection of Christ was great news, resulting in eternal life; for the guards, the resurrection was terrible news, resulting in their death sentence.

And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel (v. 12), they fabricated a lie and sealed it with a bribe.   Whenever this Council convened, the results were evil deeds and ungodliness, not repentance and revival.  (See 22:15, 34; 26:3-5, 57; 27:1, 62).  The Psalmist was correct: “The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed.”  However, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs,” (Psalm 2:2,4, NIV).

Even though they were teachers and keepers of the Law of Moses, they ignored it and bore false witness and gave out bribes, (see Exodus 23:1, 7-8).  They gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers, and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’  And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”  So they took the money and did as they were directed, (vv. 12-15).

“The allure of money is so seductive that Jesus said to serve Him is incompatible with serving money (see Matthew 6:24).   The guards chose the frail god of money and became instruments in Satan’s attempts to spread lies about Jesus. 

Yet the disciples could not be bought.   They had a core, a hope, that money could no longer penetrate.  And when money didn’t silence the early church, the authorities resorted to imprisonment (see Acts 4:3, 5:18), beatings (Acts 5:40; 8:3) and even death (Acts 7:60, 12:2). Still they proclaimed Christ.  If the resurrection were a fabrication, then why would the disciples give their lives for what they knew was a lie?    The lives of the disciples had been radically changed.  They went from hiding (see John 20:19) to preaching Christ even to the very ones who killed him (Acts 2:23,36; 7:52). 

If the disciples had indeed stole him away and wanted to start a new religion, then they picked the worst place to do it: in the very city in the very presence of those who killed Christ.  The disciples did not sail off to a new land and speak of something unverifiable that happened far away.    If someone in Jerusalem would produce the body of Jesus or direct people to the sealed tomb, then the disciples would be silenced and this new religion discredited.  None of that happened.   Furthermore, thousands came to faith right there in Jerusalem, the very place Christ was crucified and where eyewitnesses could challenge any falsehood about a risen Messiah perpetuated as truth by the disciples.

These evidences all make sense if Christ indeed rose from the dead.  None of these facts make sense if the resurrection was a fable produced by religious zealots centuries after Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus always will have its detractors.  The issue is not insufficient evidence; the issue is the hardness of men’s hearts.  If Christ is risen, then he is Lord and we must make a choice, as Colson says above.   Natural man does not want to face that choice.  So excuses are spread even today negating the resurrection of Christ.   Therefore it is no surprise that Matthew wrote that this story of the disciples stealing the body had been spread among the Jews to this day (v. 15).  As we investigate the historical facts surrounding the resurrection, we must also examine our own hearts.