Third section the judgment upon the church itself second picture of judgment

ΕXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Synopsis.—John introduces this account by a statement of the motives that led to it. The Jews come, in the first place, to Pilate, requesting him to have the bodies removed, and thereupon Joseph of Arimathea entreats the governor to allow him to take the body of Jesus. Nicodemus Isaiah, according to John, associated with Joseph, and provides the spices for embalming. Mark and Luke characterize Joseph of Arimathea more exactly than Matthew. Special prominence is given by our Evangelist to the two Maries,—Mary Magdelene, and “the other” (the mother of Joses, according to Mark): they are represented, here as seated opposite to the grave. The sealing of the sepulchre ( Matthew 27:62-66) is related by Matthew only.

Matthew 27:57. When the evening was come.—The first or early evening, the day’s decline; because the bodies must have been removed before the evening arrived, Deuteronomy 21:23; Josephus, De Bell. Judges 4, 5, 2.

There came a rich man.—1. De Wette: He came into the prætorium2. Meyer: He came first to the place of execution to go thence to the prætorium3. He came to the little company of female disciples upon Golgotha, and advanced into their midst, proclaiming himself as a disciple. “A disciple, but secretly for fear of the Jews,” says John. Luke: “A counsellor, a good man and a just. The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them; … who also waited for the kingdom of God.” Mark: “An honorable counsellor, who also waited for the kingdom of God.” Matthew gives the prominence to his wealth: “A rich Prayer of Manasseh,” referring undoubtedly to Isaiah 53:9, according to the Septuagint translation, Καὶ δώσω τούς πονηροὺς ἀντὶ τῆς ταφῆς αὐτοῦ, καὶ τοὺς πλουσίους ἀντὶ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ. The following translation is indeed free, but is agreeable to the context: They had appointed Him a grave with the despised; and among the honored (עָשִׁיר, did He obtain it) in His death.—The first occasion of this step of Joseph was probably his fear that the Jews might remove the body in some disgraceful manner; for the circumstances related John 19:31-37 had preceded. Faith, however, shot a ray of hope, in all probability, through Joseph’s mind, and operated along with this feeling of veneration, and his desire openly to confess the name of Christ.

Of Arimathea.—“Commentators are divided between Rama in Benjamin ( Joshua 18:25) and Rama (Ramathaim) in Ephraim ( 1 Samuel 1:19, Samuel’s birthplace). For the latter, indeed, the form speaks decisively; but the addition of Luke, πόλεως τῶν ’Ιουδαίων, according to 1 Maccabees 11:34, does not harmonize.” De Wette. See “Ramah” in Winer [and other Bibl. Encyclop.].

Named Joseph.—One Joseph is appointed to take care of Jesus in His infancy, another to provide for His burial. Quite analogous, there was an Old Testament Joseph, who had the task of providing for the Jewish people in its infancy in Egypt; and to him corresponds the Josephus who has prepared the historic resting-place for the expired Israelitish nation in his books (Antiq, De Bello Judges, etc.). The name Joseph (יוֹסֵף) means, according to Genesis 30:24 : “he adds” (Increaser); for another explanation, see Gesenius. He was βουλευτής, a member of the Sanhedrin, Luke 23:50; not (as Michaelis supposed) a councillor of the little country-town Ramathaim, nor (according to Grotius) a town councillor of Jerusalem. Lightfoot makes him to have been a priestly temple-councillor; but that is probably the same as a Sanhedrist. According to the ecclesiastical tradition, he is represented to have belonged to the seventy disciples, and to have been the first who preached the Gospel in England (the rich Prayer of Manasseh, the guardian-saint of a rich people; just as the Magdalene, the repentant sinner, is the patron-saint of France). For other traditions, see Evangelium Nicodemi, p12, and Acta Sanct. Mart2:507. He was evidently, like Nicodemus, one of the secret disciples of Jesus, who came forth and publicly confessed their faith after the death of the Lord. Μαθητεύ ειντινι, to be the disciple of some one. He was a follower of Jesus, and hence he had not consented to the murderous counsel of the Sanhedrin; and this holds good, of course, regarding Nicodemus.

Matthew 27:58. He went to Pilate—He ran the risk, says Mark.^[FN92] He was exposed to more danger from the Jews than from Pilate, because this act was a confession of his faith. “It was the Roman custom to allow the bodies to hang upon the cross till they wasted away, or were consumed by the birds of prey. Plaut. Mil. glor. ii4, 9; Horat. Epist. i16, 18.^[FN93] But should friends request the bodies to be taken for interment, the request could not be refused, Ulpian48, 24, 1; Hug, De cadav. punit. in the Freiburger Leitschrift 5, p174.” Meyer.—That the body be delivered (to him). Meyer is in favor of retaining the second τὸ σῶμα, the repetition having a certain solemnity.

Matthew 27:59. He wrapped it in a clean linen cloth.—Bengel: Jam initia honoris. Not a shroud, nor a garment (Kuinoel); but winding sheets, linen clothes, John 19:40, in which the body was wrapped (Meyer). It was probably an entire piece at first, and was afterward divided for the purpose of rolling. This idea occurs to us from the object to be attained: the pieces of linen must be wrapped around the limbs in such a way as to enclose the spices, which had been powdered to be employed for embalming. The first, temporary anointing, and the intention of a second and more formal embalming, are both unnoticed by Matthew. But that the body was anointed, is self-evident; and the second formal anointing, which Mark and Luke declare to have been proposed by the women after the Sabbath, is not excluded by the merely temporary act. By the first anointing, they sought simply to preserve the body; by the second, they wished to fulfil the ceremonial requirements, for which no time remained upon Friday evening. Therefore, upon the first occasion, they made a profuse, but simple use of costly substances (myrrh and aloes); and the women would find no difficulty in buying before and after the Sabbath, upon the Friday evening before, and the Saturday evening after, from six o’clock, such quantities of these spices as appeared necessary to their womanly desires for the great burial: see Luke and Mark.

Matthew 27:60. In his own now tomb.—“It was a great disgrace among the Jews if any one had not a burying-place of his own; and so it came to be considered an act of charity to bury neglected dead bodies. Josephus mentions as among the abominable deeds of the Zelots and Idumeans, that they left their dead unburied.” See Friedlieb, p169. The statement of John, that the tomb was in a garden near the place of the crucifixion, and was chosen on account of the necessary haste, is not contradictory of the statement that the grave was the property of Joseph.^[FN94] It must have been exactly the location of his newly-formed family-tomb that led him to propose his grave, and yield it up as an offering.

In the rock.—With the article. In that particular rocky district of Golgotha. The Jews placed their graves outside their towns. It was only kings and prophets (and priests, indeed, no less) who might be interred inside the walls. Commonly, these graves were excavations, or grottoes in gardens, or in spots planted with trees; sometimes natural caves; often, as in this case, expressly hewn out (a costly method), and sometimes built up. These tombs were sometimes very roomy, and provided with passages. The sepulchres were either made with steps downward, or placed horizontally; while the particular graves inside were hollowed out, either lengthwise or crosswise, in the Walls of the tomb. For more particular accounts, consult Winer (art. Gräber—Graves), and Schultz, Jerusalem, p97.^[FN95]. The new rock-tomb of Joseph, and the hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes (myrrh, a resin from the myrrh-tree of Arabia and Ethiopia; aloes, a precious, fragrant wood; the pound, the Attic litra, five and a half ounces less than our pound), which Nicodemus presented, are expressions of that sacrificing renunciation with which now these two disciples advanced into view, after that the death of Jesus had awakened them to life. Holy rivalry!

He rolled a great stone.—A natural method of closing the mouth of the tomb. “In the Talmud, such a piece of rock, employed to shut up a sepulchre, is called גֹּוֹלָל, roller.”

Matthew 27:61. The other Mary.—She was mentioned in Matthew 27:56, and is the mother of James and Joses, the wife of Alphæus; and Mark ( Mark 15:47) accordingly says, Mary [the mother] of Joses, as the best and most codd. read. Codex A. reads there ἡ ’Ιωσήφ Wieseler infers from this reading, without sufficient warrant, that she was the wife or daughter of Joseph of Arimathea.—Were there sitting.—It is only Matthew who states this glorious fact; according to Mark, “they beheld where He was laid.”

Matthew 27:62. That followed the preparation.—The παρασκευή is the day of preparation for the Sabbath, Friday, on this occasion the first day of the feast; and hence the day which followed was the Sabbath, or Saturday, the second day of the Passover. Wieseler holds the expression was chosen, because the first day might have been called also σάββατον Meyer says: “The name is explained by the fact, that παρασκευή was the solemn designation in use among the Christians to distinguish the Friday of the crucifixion.” It is extremely noteworthy, that the Jews hold a council and hurry to Pilate upon the Sabbath morning, and that too the great Sabbath of the feast. Kuinoel: “Lex mosaica inierdixerat operam manuariam, ut et judicii exercitium, non vero ire ad magisratum, ab eoque petere aliquid, prœsertim cum periculum in mora esset.”

Matthew 27:63. After three days.—De Wette: “Jesus had never declared that openly and before strangers.” Still He had told it to the disciples, and not as secret teaching, but to be published. [ John 2:19; Matthew 12:40.] Probably Judas had given them the more exact statements.

Matthew 27:65. Ye have a watch!—That is: Ye shall have a watch! Your petition is granted. Official, and perhaps discontented laconism. But it cannot moan, Ye have yourselves a watch (Grotius), of whom ye may make use, the temple-guards; for that view is opposed to Matthew 28:14.

As ye understand.—Not, “as sure as you can;” or, “as appears to you best;” or, “if that is possible;” but, “as ye understand that,” according to your meaning of securing. He places the guard at their disposal; the employment of the men, the guardianship or guarantee for Christ’s continuance in death, which they wished him also to undertake, that he will leave to themselves; and they are to employ this force to attain the end they had in view, especially the insuring of the tomb as long as it may be necessary. In this instance, again, Pilate kept not his conscience pure, and preserved not his civil power unimpaired,—giving a guard because of a religious question.

Matthew 27:66. Sealing the stone.—A string was stretched across the stone, and sealed to the rock at both ends with wax [upon which was stamped the official seal of Pilate].

The assertion of Meyer, that this sealing of the grave, which Matthew records, belongs to the unhistorical traditions, does not need here a lengthened refutation.^[FN96] But the following points furnish materials for an answer:—1. Jesus had certainly declared previously, that He would rise upon the third day2. The grave might be sealed, without the women coming to know it upon the Sabbath3. The Sanhedrists could not have taken the body of Jesus into custody, because Joseph had previously obtained it. Besides, it was their interest to affect carelessness regarding it4. The seduction of the guard to give a false testimony, and the silencing of the procurator, correspond in every point to the character of the world; besides, it is not said that the soldiers brought their false report to Pilate, rather the opposite5. It is quite natural that Matthew, according to the character of his Gospel, should be the writer to report this historic transaction, as he did the corresponding history of the resurrection, Matthew 28:11-15.^[FN97] It is still less worth while to deal with the assumption of Stroth, that this is an interpolation. This statement simply proves, that the critic could not grasp the meaning of the passage. For the remainder, see Matthew 28:11.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Regarding the early occurrence of death in our Lord’s case, consult the author’s Leben Jesu, ii3, p1619. One of the reasons why death appeared at so early a date, was that the dying body hurried forward to its transformation. To this, the phenomenon, John 19:34, had already pointed; for the resurrection of Jesus was at once resurrection and glorification. In the death of Jesus, the great mystery of death is glorified.

[Different opinions on the death of Christ: 1. It was His own voluntary Acts, by which He separated in the full vigor of life His spirit from His body, and placed it, as a deposit, in His Father’s keeping2. It was the act of God the Father, in answer to the prayer of the Saviour3. It was the natural consequence of His physical sufferings, and occurred so early (after six hours, instead of the usual twelve or more of sufferings on the cross), either on account of the extraordinary intensity of His agony of body and mind during the trial in Gethsemane and on Calvary, or by a sudden rupture of the heart. These views may be combined, by supposing that the Saviour hastened His death by a voluntary self-surrender which the Father accepted. The passage, John 10:17-18 should be carefully considered in this connection. The resurrection, too, is represented on the one hand, as Christ’s own Acts, to whom the Father has given to have life in Himself ( John 2:19; John 5:26; John 10:17-18; Acts 1:3; Romans 1:4), and, on the other hand, as the act of His Father ( Acts 2:24; Acts 2:32; Romans 4:24; Romans 6:4, etc.). Consult on this subject, W. Stroud: The Physical Cause of Christ’s Death, Lond1847; Samuel J. Andrews: The Life of our Lord upon the Earth, New York, 1863, p550 ff.; the various Commentators on the Gospels, and Lange’s profound suggestions in the Doctrinal and Ethical Thoughts to Chap, Matthew 28:1-10, nos7,8.—P. S.]

2. Along with the death of Jesus, the courage of the New Testament confessors begins to manifest itself. To this confessing band belong the sorrowing women who (according to Luke) follow the cross-laden Lord, the centurion beneath the cross, also the two hitherto-secret disciples, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Under this head, also, must we notice the fact, that the two Maries continue sitting alone over against the Lord’s tomb, in that awing and affrighting spot.

3. One of the striking ironies of God’s judgment may be observed in the circumstance, that the members of the Sanhedrin are forced to go upon the morning of the paschal Sabbath to the sepulchre of Jesus, for the purpose of sealing the stone, because the dead Christ allowed them no rest. In that anxiety we may see the effect of the words of Judas, and of the Lord’s prediction of His resurrection. Upon this morning of the feast, it was no formal meeting of council they held: the most decided enemies of Jesus consulted among themselves, and then dropped in singly, as if by accident, to make their request to Pilate: and thus there came to be a kind of priestly council in the governor’s palace, to which the Evangelist here alludes. It was alleged by these priests, that the disciples might come and steal away the corpse; and this lying assertion reveals to us, how well prepared they were for any emergency, even the worst But, beneath all this disguise, they were the prey of fear, and the real motive was terror. Influenced by a monstrous, superstitious belief in the power of the seal of Jewish authority, and of a Roman guard, they imagined themselves able to shut up in the grave the possibility of a resurrection by Jesus, the divine retribution, a result of that resurrection, and, above all, their own wicked fears. And so they desecrate the great Passover Sabbath by their restless occupation, seeking to secure the grave of Him whom they had accused and condemned for His miracles of love wrought on ordinary Sabbaths. The disembodied spirit of the Jewish law must wander around the grave of Jesus upon the most sacred Sabbath of the year. In that act we have the last expression of their abandonment to the Gentiles of salvation through a Messiah; and also the strongest expression of the folly they manifested in their unbelief. By means of a priestly seal, and a borrowed military guard, they desire to secure in a permanent tomb the spirit and life of Christ, the spirit of His past, present, and future, as if all were a mere deception.

4. But in the meantime^[FN98] the spirit of Christ’s life is laboring in the depths of the grave and the under world or Hades. The germ of humanity and salvation was bursting into new life in the earth, and also in the heart of the disciples; in the former, saved from death, in the latter, from apparent despair.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The quiet Sabbath; or, the death-rest of Jesus in its twofold efficacy: 1. It institutes the sabbath of redemption in the disciples’ hearts; 2. it institutes the godless labor of wicked fear in the enemies’ camp.—How friends and foes are busied about the dead Christ: 1. The friends; 2. the foes.—The revival of the disciples, a presage of His resurrection.—How through Christ’s death His secret disciples obtain the power to confess Him openly: 1. Now they feel their full guilt; 2. now they see the world’s full condemnation; 3. the perfect vanity and wretchedness of the fear of man; 4. the perfect glory of the sacrificial death of Christ.—Joseph of Arimathea or, the wonder how, in spite of all, the rich enter the kingdom of heaven.—The sacrifice of Joseph.—The offerings of the male and female disciples.—The Church at the holy sepulchre.—How Christ’s love changed the women into heroines, beside the grave.—How the younger disciples meet the older always at Christ’s grave.—The Lord’s convulsing death, by which lambs become lions like Himself, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.—The import which that evening-seat over against Jesus’ grave has for us.—The quiet Sabbath, and the quiet grave.—The burial of believers a sermon.—The grave of Christ amidst all the world’s graves: a transfiguration of the same.—The Jewish method of burial in its difference from the heathen sepulchre, a prophecy which has been fulfilled in the grave of Jesus.—The interment of mankind, a picture of their religion,—1. Among the heathen; 2. the Jews; 3. the Christians.—Christ’s grave has changed the impure Jewish grave into a consecrated Christian grave.—The isolated graves of Judaism, and the Christian churchyard; or, the sleeping are gathered together by Christ—Gethsemane, and the holy sepulchre; or, the garden of struggle converted into the garden of rest—Paradise and the accursed earth, Golgotha and the garden of the grave and the resurrection; or, the old and the new world.—Priests and Pharisees in their ever-abiding dread of Christ, whom they imagined they have killed.—The means by which the slaves of the letter think to imprison in the grave the spirit and life of Christ: 1. Cunning pretences; 2. antiquated seals of authority; 3. borrowed guards.—The illusion which the foes of Jesus make of the truth of His life and efficacy: 1. The illusion: (a) they make Christ a lie; (b) a destructive lie; (c) a double deception2. The result of this illusion: (a) they become deceptive opponents of His life; (b) of His redemption; (c) of His resurrection.—How the old Sabbath fanatics desecrate the second, the great Sabbath of God.—They went and secured the grave with guards, and sealed the stone.—The old yet ever-new history: legalism becomes the servant of the kingdom of darkness.—The self-annihilation of the authority of the old world, making itself the minister of the Wicked One: 1. The self-annihilation of the power of the church-seal (the bull); 2. the self-annihilation of the power of the soldiery (in conflict with the Spirit of Christ).—The sacred corn-field upon Golgotha, between Good Friday and Easter.—Christ is dead to live for ever,—1. In the heart of God; 2. in the depths of His life; 3. in the bosom of humanity; 4. in the centre of our hearts.

Starke:—As God watched over His Song of Solomon, and revealed His care visibly, so will He guard and take care of Christ’s members (in death).—Canstein: Riches and a high position are undoubtedly accompanied with dangers; 1 Corinthians 1:26; yet God has his own among the noble and wealthy, 1 Kings 18:12-13.—He who employs his wealth to God’s glory (upon Christ’s body, His Church, servants, members), has made a good investment—Bibl. Wirt.: In the most bitter persecutions, and greatest apostasy, there are many steadfast disciples who confess Christ and serve Him —Nova Bibl Tub.: Faith grows in trial; and he who acknowledged Christ but secretly daring His life, dared to solicit Him boldly after His death.—Osiander: Those often become cowardly and despairing, who were at first bold and fearless; and vice versa,—Cramer: God’s Spirit is mighty and wonderful, and can quickly make a heart where there is none.—God often draws out the hearts of the high to glorify Himself, and rejoice his people.—Osiander: We should bury our dead honorably, and testify in this way openly, that we believe in the resurrection of the dead.—Zeisius: The burial of Christ, the rest of our bodies.—The guard, and the sealing of the grave, must become testimonies to the resurrection.—Wilt thou do good to Christ, do it to His people.—We may still show love to Christ in the persons of His poor members.—True love loves still, after death.—True faith never lets Christ escape; if faith sees Him not with the eyes, still she keeps him, His cross and death, in her heart—Quesnel: Death cannot extinguish a friendship which God’s Spirit has instituted, and Christ’s blood has cemented.—The will’s extreme wickedness has united to itself extreme blindness of perception (in so far as they sought by a foolish proposal to remove the truth of the resurrection, while they only served to confirm it).—The wicked are like the restless sea, their evil conscience gives them no rest, Isaiah 57:20-21.—Zeisius: No human power prudence, or cunning, can hinder God’s work, Psalm 25:3.—The issue was a condemnation of themselves, and a glorification of Christ.

Heubner:—By Joseph’s example we are taught to honor the dead, especially when we had known them.—The body, too, is to be honored: it is the garment of the soul.—Many hands were employed in burying Christ, and with what tenderness and love!—Christ’s rest in the grave, the type of the soul’s spiritual sabbath.—Tarry lovingly by the graves of your loved ones.—Whosoever loves Jesus, is lost in the contemplation of His death.—Teach thyself to bury thy life Jesus.—They wish to prevent His resurrection, and they must establish unwillingly its certainty; at the outset they proclaim the secret of the resurrection, and, permitting their knowledge of the true meaning of the “destruction of the temple” to appear, they punish themselves thus for a false accusation.—As often as a man strives against God, against the truth, he strives against himself, and prepares shame and difficulties for himself.—The more men seek to bury the memory of the truth, the more it appears.—In their slanders, men give the key to their discovery and detection.

Braune:—Who had believed that any one would have come now to the cross? But, behold, two rich men come, members of that Sanhedrin which had rejected Christ!—Their hearts forced them; they acted under the impulse of a new spirit.—The fear of man is overcome.—The new grave, in which no man had been laid; as He rode into Jerusalem upon an unused colt. And shall His Spirit make His abode in an old heart?—The friends who acknowledged the Lord when covered with shame, are the Christian types of those who believe in virtue when all the world ridicules it.—The guards have one object in common with the friends of Jesus, that the bodies be not changed, and that so the resurrection be all the more certain.—The disciples forget the words of Jesus regarding the resurrection, His enemies remember them (Reason: the sorrow of the one, the fear of the others).—They would prevent a deception, and they themselves practise a deception.—These liars and murderers fear the disciples are liars.—What is done in God’s strength and spoken in His Spirit, appears to view and stands fast.

Gerok:—The sacred evening—stillness upon Golgotha: 1. The quiet rest of the perfected Endurer2. The quiet repentance of the convulsed world3. The quiet labor of the loving friends4. The quiet peace of the holy grave.—Kuntze:—The burial of Jesus manifests to us,—1. The believer’s courage; 2. love’s power; 3. truth’s seal; 4. the mourners consolation.—Wolf:—Looks of comfort toward the grave of Christ.—Brandt:—The burial of Jesus Christ,—a work of, 1. Grateful acknowledgment; 2. holy love; 3. praiseworthy courage; 4. a work causing the deepest shame to many.