Matthew 27:52 - Exposition

The graves were opened. The earthquake tore away the stones that closed the mouths of many of the adjacent tombs. This and the following fact are mentioned only by St. Matthew. Many bodies of the saints which slept ( τῶν κεκοιμημε ì νων , who had fallen asleep ) arose. Matthew anticipates the time of the actual occurrence of the marvel, which took place, not at this moment, but after our Lord's resurrection, who was "the firstfruits of them that slept" (see the next verse). Who are meant by "the saints" here is doubtful. The Jews probably would have understood the term to apply to the worthies of the Old Testament. But the opening of the sepulchres in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem would not have liberated the bodies of many of those who were buried far away. The persons signified must be those who in life had looked for the hope of Israel, and had seen in Christ that hope fulfilled; they were such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea, true believers, who are called saints in the New Testament. How did these bodies arise? or how were they raised up? They were not mere phantoms, unsubstantial visitants from the spirit world, for they were in some sense corporeal. That they were not resuscitated corpses, as Lazarus, Jairus's daughter and the son of the widow, who lived for a time a second life, seems plain from the expression applied to them in the next verse, that "they appeared unto many," i.e. to persons who had known them while living. Some have thought that in them was anticipated the general resurrection, that, delivered from Hades and united to their bodies, they died no more, but at the Ascension accompanied Christ into heaven. Scripture says nothing of all this, nor have we any reason to suppose that any human body, save that of our blessed Lord, has yet entered the highest heaven (see Hebrews 11:39 , Hebrews 11:40 ). Another opinion is that these were not strictly resurrections, but bodily appearances of saints like those of Moses and Elias at the Transfiguration; but it is a straining of language to make the evangelist describe such visitations as bodies arising from open sepulchres. Farrar tries to elude the difficulty by a supposition, as baseless as it is dishonouring to the evangelist's strict and simple veracity. He writes, "An earthquake shook the earth and split the rocks, and as it rolled away from their places the great stones which closed and covered the cavern sepulchres of the Jews, so it seemed to the imaginations of many to have disimprisoned the spirits of the dead, and to have filled the air with ghostly visitants, who, after Christ had risen, appeared to linger in the holy city. Only in some such way," he adds, "can I account for the singular and wholly isolated allusion of Matthew." Because a fact is mentioned by one evangelist only, it is not on this account incredible. St. Matthew was probably an eyewitness of that which he relates, and might have been confuted by his contemporaries, if he had stated what was not true. An early witness to the fact is found in Igmatius, who, in his 'Epistle to the Magnesians,' Matthew 9:1-38 . , speaks of Christ when on earth raising the prophets from the dead. The whole matter is mysterious and beyond human ken; but we may well believe that at this great crisis the Lord, who is the Resurrection and the Life, willed to exemplify his victory over death. and to make manifest the resurrection of the body, and this he did by releasing some saintly souls from Hades, and clothing them with the forms in which they had formerly lived, and permitting them to show themselves thus to those who knew and loved them. Of the future life of these resuscitated saints we know nothing, and will not presumptuously venture to inquire. When they have demonstrated that the sting was now taken from death, that the power of the grave was broken, that men shall rise again with their bodies and be known and recognized, they pass out of sight into the unseen world, and we can follow them no further.