Matthew 27:54

What the centurion and the other soldiers meant when they called Jesus "the Son of God" depends somewhat on who they were and what their background was. The centurion was a Roman soldier responsible for 100 men, not that that many guarded Jesus then. The other soldiers may have been Romans from outside Palestine or Gentile residents of the land who served in the army. They probably meant that Jesus was a divine being in a pagan sense. If so, they spoke more truly than they knew. The darkness, earthquake, and Jesus’ manner of dying convinced these hardened soldiers that this was no ordinary execution. They seem to have reacted superstitiously and fearfully. Matthew recorded the centurion’s comment as another ironical testimony to Jesus’ messianic identity. Here Gentiles testified to the identity of Israel’s Messiah whom the Jews had rejected.

"In declaring Jesus to be the Son of God, the Roman soldiers ’think’ about him as God ’thinks’ about him [cf. Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5; Matthew 16:23]. Accordingly, their evaluative point of view concerning Jesus’ identity can be seen to be in alignment with that of God. . . .

"Two consequences flow from this. The first is that the soldiers acclamation becomes the place in Matthew’s plot where Jesus is, for the first time, both correctly and publicly affirmed by humans to be the Son of God. And the second consequence is that, as a result of the soldiers’ acclamation, the way is in principle now open for the task of ’going and making disciples of all nations.’ Or, to put it differently, one could also say that the way is now open for the task of making the salvation Jesus has accomplished in his death owing to his conflict with Israel redound to the benefit of all humankind. Then, too, since the Roman soldiers are themselves Gentiles, they attest in this way as well that the time for embarking upon the universal mission is at hand." [Note: Kingsbury, Matthew as . . ., p. 90.]

Other confessions that Jesus is God’s Son appear in Matthew 3:17; Matthew 4:3; Matthew 4:6; Matthew 8:29; Matthew 11:25-27; Matthew 14:33; Matthew 16:16; Matthew 17:5; Matthew 21:37-39; Matthew 22:42-45; and Matthew 24:36.