And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.
Ver. 60. And laid it in his own new tomb] His own, which was now well warmed, sweetened, and sanctified by our Saviour's body, against himself should be laid there; as afterwards he might and probably was, too. A new tomb it was, and fit it should be for that virgin body, or maiden corpse, as one calls it, untouched and untainted. Besides, else it might have been suspected, that not Christ but another arose; or if he, yet not by his own, but by another's virtue: like him who revived at the touching of the bones of dead Elisha, 2 Kings 13:21. Buried our Saviour was: 1. That none might doubt his death. 2. That our sins might be buried with him. 3. That our graves might be prepared and perfumed for us, as so many beds of roses, or delicious dormitories, Isaiah 57:2. He was buried in Calvary, to note that he died for the condemned; and in a garden, to expiate that first sin committed in the garden; and in another man's sepulchre, to note that he died for other men's sins, as some will have it. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, bestowed great cost in repairing this sepulchre of our Saviour, which the heathens out of hatred to Christ had thrown down, and built a temple of Venus on the same ground. And Jerusalem, that poor ruinous city, being governed by one of the Turks, Sanzacks, is for nothing now more famous than for the sepulchre of our Saviour, again repaired, and much visited by the superstitious sort of Christians, and not unreverenced by the Turks themselves.
Which he had hewn out in the rock] For his own use. See the like, 1 Kings 13:30. The Thebans had a law, that no man should make a house for himself to dwell in, but he should make first his grave. Charles V, emperor, five years before he died, even when he was employed in his greatest affairs, caused a sepulchre to be made, with all things appertaining to it, necessary for his burial, and that secretly, lest it might be taken for ostentation or hypocrisy: which things he had closely carried with him whithersoever he went five years together; some thinking there had been some great treasure in it; some other that there had been books of old stories: some thought one thing, some another. But the emperor smiling, said, that he carried it about him to remind him of his death.
And he rolled a great stone] Either for an inscription to the sepulchre, or for more safety to the body, or that the glory of the resurrection might be the greater, or all these together.