Matthew 27:52-53 recorded:
And the graves were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose, And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, came into the holy city, and appeared to many.
I have always thought that resurrection of the body will happen at the Second Coming of Christ.
Lots of questions to ask, here! That passage is inherently confusing. Let’s take a quick look at it:
Among the events of Good Friday:
- the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two
- the earth quaked
- rocks were split
- tombs were opened
- the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised
Now… something weird happens in the narrative at this point. The evangelist stops talking about Good Friday, and moves on to some things that happened later.
“After [Jesus’] resurrection”, these things happened:
- they [the dead saints] entered the holy city
- they appeared to many
(Then we go back to Good Friday and see the centurion’s response to the events going on at that time.)
But, there are
so many questions to ask! Let’s look at the Good Friday event:
- the earthquake caused tombs to be opened.
- bodies were raised.
Remember that the burial custom of those days was to bury a body and then come back after some time had elapsed, so that the bones could be collected and placed into a (small) ossuary.
That’s what would have remained of the “bodies of the saints”! So, it’s not too difficult to imagine that, due to the earthquake, some tombs were flung open and the bones of the dead were exposed.
The important thing to remember, though, is this:
that’s all that the evangelist says happened on Good Friday. No mass ‘resurrection event.’
So, what about the rest of the passage – verse 53? Let’s look at it:
- this happened “after his resurrection”. Lots of questions:
- when? is this something from Easter Sunday? Another day? Is it a mass event, happening all at once, or are we talking about part of the general case of the dead in Christ rising to new life after they die, at the times of their deaths? We just don’t know.
- “they entered the holy city”:
- where? Is this Jerusalem? Or is it God’s “heavenly city” (i.e., heaven)? Is this a reference to the eternal life won by Christ, which all the saints inherit?
- “appeared to many”
- to whom? Christians? Residents of Jerusalem?
- where? did they appear “in the holy city” (which might not be all that much of an ‘appearance’ if the holy city is heaven!)? did they appear among the people (i.e., on the way to the holy city)?
- in what fashion? Did they appear physically to people, and if so, as bones? Did they appear as a vision?
So… many, many questions abound. Non-believers will often point to these verses as a proof-text that the gospel accounts are fake (after all, they insist, a mass resurrection event would
certainly have been noticed, and
definitely been recorded by Jews or Romans in Jerusalem). But, as you can see, the account doesn’t say what we might think at first blush it’s asserting…
