Thoughts on Matthew 28

Today’s reading: Jeremiah 24; Matthew 28

My thoughts on Matthew 28 are really a follow up on what I wrote yesterday from Matthew 27 about the Jewish leaders disbelieving Jesus because of their hardness of heart, not for lack of evidence.

As Jesus was hanging on the cross they said, “Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him,” but like we talked about yesterday, they already had a mountain of evidence they were willfully ignoring, so what would one more miracle do for them?

My question this morning is, “Which is harder, getting off the cross, or resurrecting from the dead?”

If they would have believed Jesus was the Son of God if He came down off the cross, surely they should believe Him after He resurrects from the dead, right??

This is the real kicker though, the Jewish leaders knew Jesus had predicted His own resurrection! At the end of Matthew 27 they go to Pilate and say, “Sir, we remember how that imposter said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He is risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” Pilate gives them the guard they are asking for, and then on the third day, the guard comes back to the Jewish leaders reporting that an angel had appeared, rolled the stone away, and then announced that Jesus had raised from the dead! And surely the guards had checked as well and knew that the tomb was empty.

So upon hearing that this man who had performed every sign and wonder attributed to the Messiah had also accurately predicted His own resurrection from the dead, do the Jewish leaders stop and repent before the Lord, crying out, “How wrong we were Lord!”? Not at all! They double down on their position, paying off the guards to lie about what happened, claiming that Jesus’ disciples stole the body even though they knew better.

They had written off, and excused every work and miracle of Jesus for three years, lying to themselves and others for the sake of their pride. Maybe they really had convinced themselves that He was casting out demons by the power of Satan, but there is no excuse to convince themselves of here. They have heard what happened, they know the truth, and they are paying the soldiers off to lie about events so that nobody else will be “led astray.” Worse than rejecting the clear truth in front of them, even when they have no other explanation or excuse for it, they are actively suppressing the clear evidence to keep others from turning to the Lord as well.

As I’ve said before, this is where many people are today as well. God has given us powerful evidence for His existence, His work, His Son, etc. along so many different lines. Some people, to be sure, are simply unaware of the evidence, but others see it and reject or excuse it as “not good enough.” There is nothing wrong with wanting or needing evidence, and there is nothing wrong with not finding one line or piece of evidence convincing in and of itself. But as the evidence mounts, one piece piling on another, painting a fuller and fuller picture of the reality God is revealing to us, if we refuse to ever be satisfied, we have to realize, at some point, that we are operating just like the Jewish leaders who had sufficient evidence before them, but had already decided they could never be convinced.

This makes me think of what we read a few days ago in Jeremiah 17: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

This is nothing but pride, self-deception, and hardness of heart toward the Lord.