The Chief Priests' Story.
This tale of the high priests', if it be good for anything, will bear the same cross-examination and analysis as others in the annals of important jurisprudence, and candour is compelled instantly to admit it labours under serious embarrassments.
I. In the very outset, the antecedent improbability of particulars crushes it. How came a trained watch all to go to sleep? Would the whole band of sixteen men be likely to fall away at once, and remain in slumber a time long enough for this amount of labour? This was noisy work, and took some numbers to do it, yet it would have to be done leisurely. Who folded up the napkin and arranged the grave-clothes in the dark? And if the Roman soldiers were asleep, how did they know anything about it?
II. The immediate followers of Jesus had no motive to steal the body of their Lord.
III. It is evident from the entire story, told here in its artless naturalness, that the disciples had no sort of concerted plan to do any such thing. Why, they had His body in their power after Joseph begged it on Friday evening; now was it possible that the idea should strike them to go and pilfer it away on Saturday?
IV. The Jews never told this tale to any judicial audience or court, so that it could be subjected to cross-examination. Stealing the body was a capital crime, yet not one of these accused disciples was ever arrested for its commission. To have proved this story of theft in the night would have overturned the entire Christian religion in one sweep. But after this first lie in Jerusalem the Sanhedrim preserved a discreet silence.
V. There was awful risk to the soldiers if this story was true, but if the story was nottrue there was no peril in it.
VI. The inherent impossibility of the act itself cannot be left out of sight. If there was one spot more than another likely to be under malevolent and curious scrutiny, it was that where the Nazarene Prophet was laid. Any suspicious movement would have been observed by a score of eyes.
VII. Then what could be done with the body after the disciples had got it in possession? In that land, where such strict regulations existed, where every one shunned contact because of a ceremonial uncleanness, how could those frightened Galileans have relieved themselves of a burden so awkward after they had passed the precincts of the garden? If discovered, what was there so fatal to their faith, as well as to themselves, as this half-buried body of the crucified Nazarene?
C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts,p. 100.
References: Matthew 28:11-15. E. D. Solomon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 293.Matthew 28:11-20. Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. iii., p. 276. Matthew 28:16. A. Raleigh, From Dawn to the Perfect Day,p. 230. Matthew 28:16; Matthew 28:17. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 493.