Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. – Matthew 28:11-15
This paragraph in the book of Matthew has as its concern refutation of the explanation many of the Jews had distributed regarding the resurrection. Notice the unbelieving Jews were not saying that Jesus’ body still lay in the tomb, for it was general knowledge in the city of Jerusalem that the tomb wherein the body of Jesus was laid was empty. Rather the controversy had developed over why the body was not there. When Christians proclaimed, “The Lord is risen!” their enemies argued that the disciples had stolen the body away. When Christians pointed out that the guard at the tomb would have prevented such a theft, the enemies of Christianity would say that the guards fell asleep, a narrative, Matthew attests, the soldiers were bribed to uphold. This argument would not have developed if Jesus’ body still lay in the tomb.
Fifty days after Jesus’ burial, Peter preached in the city of Jerusalem, drawing a sharp contrast between “David…both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day” (Acts 2:29) and “This Jesus…God raised up” (Acts 2:32). The remarkable fact that belief in the resurrection flourished among those who were living during its occurrence in the city of Jerusalem, where He had been publicly crucified, shows how no other explanation squared with the facts.
That the disciples would have stolen the body of Jesus and claimed God had raised Him from the dead is implausible. Death and resurrection did not fit the widespread expectations of what the Messiah would do. Even among the apostles, at first there was no expectation that the Messiah would die, even though Matthew’s account reveals Jesus told them repeatedly and plainly that He would (Mt. 16:21-23; 17:22; 26:2). The mindset of the disciples would have been to look for a new Messiah rather than claim Jesus had been raised from the dead. Moreover, if first-century Jews were to attempt a hoax, they would not have the role of the women as the first witnesses to the resurrection (Mt. 28:1). Unfair as it was, the testimony of women was not as highly regarded as that of men in the first century. The women as the first witnesses fits if it is true not if it is being passed off as true.
The explanation common among the Jews that the disciples stole the body has no explanatory power in regard to the origin of the disciples’ belief in the resurrection. It is hard to deny that the earliest disciples sincerely believed that Jesus was actually risen from the dead for they staked their lives on this conviction. Who would be willing to die for a conspiracy they had agreed to uphold? A conspiracy would unravel when the conspirators were faced with death for upholding their hoax. But that is not what history shows. The apostles died for their belief in Jesus’ resurrection, James, one of the three closest to Jesus, being the first one recorded in Acts 12:2. They were willing to die because Christ had truly been raised from the dead.
-Mark Day