You Can Know You Have Eternal Life
#66 King Jesus of Nazareth
King Jesus God, Myth, or Mere Man? (9)
Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? (2)
Testimony of the Guards
by Jim Mettenbrink
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Regarding whether Jesus rose from
the dead, some have asserted that Jesus body was stolen
by the disciples. In fact the Jews maintained the stolen
body story for at least twenty years after the resurrection even
at the time of the writing of Matthew (Mt 28:15). Justin
Martyr wrote in Dialog with Trypho (AD165) that this
story still circulated 130 years after Jesus death. Thus,
the presence of a guard at Jesus tomb in Matthews
gospel is relevant to proving that Jesus body was not stolen,
but that He rose from the dead.
Since Jesus tomb had a guard,
the dialog between the Jews and first century Christians would
have been something like this:
Christians: Jesus rose.
Jews: Not so! His loyal followers stole His
body.
Christians: But Jewish leadership insisted on the
guards at the tomb, who would have prevented its theft.
Jews: True, but the guards fell asleep.
Christians: The Jewish leaders bribed the guards
to say they fell asleep.
Now
if in fact there had been no guards at the tomb, the dialog would
have been different:
Christians: Jesus rose.
Jews: Not so! His followers stole his body.
Christians: The guards would have prevented the
theft of Jesus body.
Jews: There were no guards.
The
Jewish leaders, acknowledged that a guard existed and yet spread
the rumor that the disciples stole Jesus body. This
would have at least caused some doubt that Jesus rose from the
dead. But the scriptures clearly state that it was the
Jewish leadership who (1) personally sealed the tomb, thus certifying
that Jesus body was in the tomb (Mt 27:66), (2) insisted
upon a guard being posted at the tomb (Mt 27:62-66), (3) bribed
the guards to say the body was stolen while they slept (Mt 28:11-15).
(4) There is no record of the guards being put to death
for dereliction of duty, thus reflecting the collaboration between
the Jewish leaders and guards an attempted cover-up of
the resurrection (Matthew 28:11-15).
The Jewish leaderships direct
involvement in the security of the tomb implicitly prohibit a
believable claim that Jesus body was stolen. Is there
still more testimony pointing to the credibility of the claim
of Jesus resurrection of the dead that we can know
for certain? Did anyone actually see Jesus rise?
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