Weak Arguments From The Guards (Matt. 27:62-66; 28:2-4, 11-15)

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Is this like the six supposed appearances to three young Portuguese shepherds of the Virgin Mary in 1917?

The women are afraid, then joyful; the guards are afraid, then corrupt.

  1. What actually happened.
    • 27:62-66; 28:2-4. There had been an earthquake, there was an angel (Luke and John both say that there were two), and there was an empty tomb (it is not said that the guards saw the risen Christ).
  2. What the guards were bribed to say happened.
    • 28:11-15; 2 Cor.13:8. In 1951 C. S. Lewis on his growing distrust of evolution: ‘What inclines me now to think you may be right in regarding [evolution] as the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives is not so much your arguments against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders.’
    • Trypho claimed that the disciples stole Jesus’ body in his debate with Justin Martyr. This is repeated by Hermann Samuel Reimarus (d. 1768 in Hamburg), and by Hugh Schonfield’s The Passover Plot in 1965.
  3. Evaluating truth from falsehood.
    • Let us now look at the two options more closely:
      1. The resurrection is supernatural. True, but everything about Christ is supernatural, so this fits.
      2. It was in the interests of the priests and the elders to produce the body. They failed to do so.
      3. The guards were in trouble (see Acts 16:26-28; 27:42). So here they have an opportunity to escape.
      4. There is no way that guards, at risk of their lives, would have slept through a raid on a tomb. Chrysostom: ‘They can’t even lie plausibly!’
      5. Where did the disciples’ courage come from? Two things: the resurrection of Jesus – Matt.28:18; and the coming of the Holy Spirit – Acts 2:1-4.