The Angel at the Tomb, Matthew 28:1-6

As the focal point of our study I chose to just title the message The Angel at the Tomb. There's a little more going on in this message but were going to title it that and begin to look at what takes place in the first 10 verses of Matthew 28. Last week we had a flyover and we had a look at what happened on that first resurrection Sunday as it was discovered that the tomb was empty, as it was announced by the angel that He was risen, and that there were many witnesses to that fact, both willing and unwilling. The guards at the tomb were unwilling witnesses as they came out of their shock and their stupor and reported that the grave was empty; they went back to the religious leaders. They were unwilling witnesses where as the others were willing witnesses. But all of them had a difficult time believing what had happened: that He was alive and had truly risen from the dead.

One thing that comes across as you read through these accounts is that the women did not go to the tomb expecting it to be empty. They were prepared to anoint his body. Many times He had warned them and promised them that He would rise from the dead, but they didn't believe it. When Peter and John ran to the tomb they didn't run there because they expected Him to have been risen from the dead; they did not believe it yet. It took time, and even as we will see when we get down to verse 16 in this chapter we are told, "Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed. [17] When they saw Him, they worshiped {Him;} but some were doubtful".

I think what this isn't saying is that they tend believe it, yet but they just they couldn't believe it, was just so astonishing. And we are that way. We believe certain things are true, but we just can't believe it. We have that tension because it just seems so unbelievable.

We will look at three things: the days in the tomb, the earthquakes and angels, and then the unsuspecting witnesses. Those three things will look at as we go through the passage. What we read in Matthew 28:1 is the beginning. "Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first {day} of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave".

This is somewhat of a summary statement. The comparable passage that we see in Mark chapter 16 talks about what the women did the night before, that they went to get the spices to anoint the body. That the phraseology here, "after the Sabbath," talks about when the Sabbath begins, which roughly that year was about 7 pm, and after that you have the first day of the week. In fact the literal idiom here it that we see in the second phrase, "as the first day of the week began to dawn", they didn't have a name for that first day. They didn't call it Sunday are some other term; it was the first day from the Sabbath, literally. It is a genitive construction; it is the first day from the Sabbath. That's how they would count it. Then you have the second day from the Sabbath in the third. What's the focal point of all those phrases? It's the Sabbath; that's the holy day, the day to worship the Lord. So everything revolves around what would transpire on Shabbat every week as the day of rest, the day to focus upon the Lord.

But there's a lot to read about the phrase "after the Sabbath", but it basically indicates the Sabbath is ended and it some time that night. Now the next phrase, "as the first day of the week began to dawn", probably puts this at a different time frame—later on towards morning the next day—than Mark does. Mark clearly talks about them going to the shops to get the spices they needed, and the things that they needed for the to anoint the body. That showed that they were expecting the body to be there. This time they come, and this could have been later, could have been different; it's really tough trying to correlate some of these things. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.

They were watching the burial, watching the preparation of the body prior to dusk, sundown on Friday. And they were watching it because they wanted to make sure everything was done right, and that He was buried. Then they left to observe Sabbath. So this looks to me like this may be subsequent to buying the spices and later the evening, what we would call Saturday evening and they're going just to observe the tomb. Otherwise you end up with poor Mary just running back and forth across Jerusalem the whole time. Some people do that. The way they correlate it, they look at John. 20 and they see Mary coming before dawn, and then she goes somewhere else, and then she comes back again for Matthew 28:1. I think that gets her just running all over Jerusalem too much.

It's going to be on this third day. Now what's happening on the Jewish calendar here is that there have been three significant days back-to-back. There has been Passover, which began Thursday at sundown and ended Friday at sundown. Then there was the first day of unleavened bread, which began Friday night at sundown and ended on Saturday night at sundown. Then you had a third day, Saturday night at sundown until Sunday night at sundown, which is the feast of the firstfruits, the day that Christ is raised from the dead.

When we get to this and start talking about this timeframe, questions come up. I know questions come up in the minds of some of you. I taught on this a little bit two weeks ago when I was in Tucson. We opened for questions the end. The first question was, what day was Jesus crucified on? Do you think Jesus was crucified on Wednesday? What about Thursday? That question always seems to come up and I thought this was an appropriate time to address this.

The reason this question comes up is because of what Jesus said in Matthew 12:40. In the midst of the passage dealing with the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit when the Pharisees and the Sadducees reject Jesus claim He is Messiah, and claimed that He is casting out demons in the power of Satan, Jesus rebukes them, announces this condemnation, and He says that "this sign will come". It's the sign of Jonah, and He describes this as, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth".

First of all it's a quote. The three days and three nights in the belly of the fish is a quote from Jonah; it is a quote from the Hebrew in Jonah. That tells us immediately that this phrase is a Hebrew idiom. It is a Hebrew phrase. It's not to be interpreted from a Greco-Roman 20th century way of telling time and counting days. This is an idiom that grows out of Hebrew and the way in which the Jews and Middle Easterners counted time. As already noted we count the first year of somebody's presidency from the first day they are inaugurated until 365 days later, but the Jews and many Middle Easterners counted the reign of the King in terms of part of the year. In the Mishnah it says that if the year began with Nissan, which is roughly March or April on our calendar, and the king begins to rain at the end of the year (what we would say is January) then that whole year is counted as a year, even if it's only been a few days. We would say, well that's not right. How would you say he reigned the whole year if he has only reigned for one day of that year? But that's how they counted; that's not how we count, so we have to understand that as part of the background.

We have to learn to count as Jesus counted. And every time we get into this discussion about what day of the week Jesus was crucified on this verse comes up. I know that for two reasons. I know it because I'm always asked that that's always what brought up number two that for many years until probably about eight or nine years ago I firmly believed in Wednesday crucifixion, and that was the first thing I would bring up. I'm going to point out why this is this is a problem. This is a problem because when we look at all of the time terms that are used in the Gospels they all have to mean the same thing. So we get into Matthew 26:61 when the Pharisees are talking to Pilate about putting a guard on the tomb and they're saying, "He said, I'm able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days". That's less than 72 hours. What typically happens is when people look at the Jonah passage they say three days and three nights means three full days three full nights, that has got to be a minimum of 72 hours. Well that would also mean that if He is resurrected after that, that He was resurrected on the fourth day, not the third day.

But here they quote Jesus as having said it would be in three days, on the third day. Matthew 27:63 and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I {am to} rise again.’" Is it in three days or after three days? The terms are synonymous. After three days is only used by the religious leaders here and by Mark in the Gospel of Mark. The other Gospels say on the third day or in three days, which means the same thing.

So either everybody is confused. Are all these terms have to mean the same thing, it's just how language works, it is just the idiom. Mark 14:58 they are quoted as saying,, "We heard Him say, "Destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days …" So this is less than 72 hours again. Matthew 16:21, "From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day".

In Matthew 17:23, "and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” This is less than 72 hours. My point is that "after the third day, on the third day the third day", they're all talking about the same period of time.

The normal way that they counted is demonstrated in Scripture. We see Jesus using this way Luke 13:32. He says, "Go tell that fox [Herod Antipas] behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected". Notice how He is counting time. Today is the first day, tomorrow is the second day, and then the third day. That's how you would normally count things. Today would be day one, tomorrow is day two, and then the day after, would be the third day. We have some illustrations of this from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is important because remember the key phrase comes at a Jonah. It's an Old Testament book; we are talking about Old Testament Hebrew idiom. It doesn't matter what Roman idiom is, it doesn't matter what the Greek idiom is, we are dealing with Hebrew idiom.

Leviticus 19:5, 6 ‘Now when you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten the same day you offer {it,} and the next day; but what remains until the third day shall be burned with fire'.

We see the same thing in Exodus 19:10, 11 The LORD also said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people". So today is one day tomorrow's the second day and then you have the third day.

Now why have I emphasized that? Because we come to Luke 24:21, we see a reversed process. When Jesus is talking to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they don't know who He is. He has cloaked His identity so He can talk to them about what is happening. He says, "Explain to me what has happened. What's going on? They are amazed. "Where you been? All these things that have been going on in Jerusalem you don't know. There was this man Jesus, and we hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel". "Indeed", they say, "besides all this, today …" What day are they talking about? This is Jesus' appearance to these two disciples late in the afternoon of Sunday. It doesn't matter whether you're Roman, whether you are Greek, whether you are Hebrew, what ever you are. If they are talking on Sunday afternoon—and they are Jewish—when they say today is the third day, when did that day begin? It began at sundown on Saturday. What ended at sundown Saturday? The second day. If Sunday afternoon is the third day, the second day ended at sundown on Saturday. When did that second day begin? That began on sundown on Friday night. What ended at sundown Friday night? The first day. When did the first day begin? The first day began on Thursday night at sundown. So from Thursday night to Friday night is the first day. Jesus is crucified on the first day, and when they are talking to Jesus on the road to Emmaus they are talking about all these things that happened. They are talking about the crucifixion. All those events that transpired happened after Thursday sundown. They had the last supper after sundown Thursday. After midnight they went to Gethsemane. He is arrested; there are the trials; all of that happens on the first day. Then the second day is Saturday and the third day is on Sunday. That's the only way you can understand this.

"… it is the third day since these things happened". And he follows just what I've explained already, that today is the first day, tomorrow is the second day, and then we have the third day.

There is a footnote in the Babylonian Talmud that states when the time is undefined, part of the day is reckoned as the whole day. I've heard that from every Hebrew or Jewish Christian scholar that I've known, from Arnold Fruchtenbaum to many others. And what first got me thinking about this was that if this three days and three nights, meant three literal days and three literal nights, or 72 hours, then why is it that I can't find a Jewish Christian scholar that would affirm that that's an important issue. Every one of them argues for a Friday crucifixion. Another term is "the day of preparation", that's preparation for the Sabbath.

But we have more confirmation from the Old Testament. In Esther 4:16, Esther has come to a realization that Haman wants to give one day when every person can kill as many Jews as they want to. It would have been a major Holocaust. Esther has discovered that she has to go into the presence of Ahasuerus, and if he doesn't recognize her let her come forward, that's off with her head, she's dead. She is gathers her close friends together and she says: “Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day …” That's about as close to three days and three nights as you can get.

But how is this applied. Look at chapter 5, verse 1. It happened on the third day. Now on the third day, just like in Jesus time, means before the third night. I tried to figure this out if there's any other way around it; you can't get it, the third night follows the third day. It happened on the third day, so here you have a phrase, three days; night and day does not include the third night. That establishes this as an is an idiom for how they counted time.

We see an earlier example in Genesis with Joseph. He takes his brothers and puts them all together in prison for three days. Then in verse 18, "And Joseph said to them"--and in the Hebrew it says on or in the third day. So again it's before the full 72 hours is completed. I think there are a lot of other details you can go into to substantiate a crucifixion on Friday, resurrection on Sunday, but this pretty much satisfies it. The only objection to that biblically has always been that three days and three nights for Matthew chapter 12, and yet, what we see here is that that has to be understood idiomatically, and there is support for that from Old Testament usage.

Now the next question is, why is the third day important? Was there some significance to that? If you were Jewish would you have thought of something? There is prophetic passage in the Old Testament; it's not going to be fulfilled until Jesus comes to establish his kingdom. That's the ultimate referent point. Hosea chapter 6:1, 2 “Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn {us,} but He will heal us; He has wounded {us,} but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him."

Now if you exegete and interpret that passage correctly it's talking about what will happen at the end of the Tribulation when Israel calls upon the Lord to deliver them. But in second Temple Judaism this phrase "the third day" had come to be an idiom for when you realized the forgiveness of God; the finalization of redemption and the arrival of God's forgiveness and redemption. If you were Jewish, that's what you were taught: the third day is when you will realize God's redemption. So I think there's significance to why Jesus was in the tomb for those three days and three nights.

"After the Sabbath (the first day of the week) began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb." Then were told that something happened. It is interesting to look at what the chronology is here, and read carefully.

Matthew 28:2, And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.

There was a great earthquake. That's the first thing that is pointed out, but other things are happening at the same time. The next word is the Greek word gar, which indicates an explanation of this earthquake. "… for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat on it".

If you read that too quickly you'll think that that the earthquake caused the stone to roll away. But the text says that the angel rolled away the stone. There's a great earthquake, and the explanation for this earthquake is that the angel rolls the stone away. If you want to put this in geologic terms what you have it when there is a fault line is that there's an incredible amount of pressure that comes to bear at these different points, and then something happens physically that triggers an earthquake. That's all fine and good if you believe in a closed universe, but we don't believe in a closed universe. We believe that there's an open universe. It's open to God.

This is a problem I pointed out with those who interpret everything from economics to politics from a closed system. It is that God actually intervenes in human history. So physical trigger points aren't the only kind of trigger points. There are spiritual trigger points. What this points out—and what I want to show sis how this fits within the structure of biblical revelation—is that there is an intersection between the material and the immaterial, between the visible and the invisible, between the physical and the spiritual, that is not open to investigation through empiricism or rationalism. We can only know about it through revelation. And this is what we see here. It is that there is something going on physically, but what triggers the earthquake is something spiritual: the angel moves the stone. And when the angel moves the stone it has this impact on the physical creation, and there is not just a little rumbling. The text says that there was a great earthquake.

Now it could be that this is an aftershock from the great earthquake that occurred when Jesus died on the cross, but that, too, shows an intersection of the spiritual with the physical that we can't investigate in the science classroom.

Let's fit this within a pattern in Scripture. We go back to Genesis chapter 19 and we see that there are two angels and God, who come to visit Abraham. Then we have this interchange as God tells Abraham that what He is going to do is bring judgment on the cities of the plains, and he's going to bring judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities for their for their sinfulness. Then Abraham pleads with God to rescue the righteous—which is "righteous Lot" as he is called by Peter. The two angels go to warn Lot and his family to get out of Dodge, otherwise known as Sodom. The angel says to Lot—because Sodom and Gomorrah are about to be completely incinerated by fire and brimstone—"I cannot do anything until you arrive there. What Lot said just before this is, "Let me get out of here. There's little town over here, let me go stay there". The angel says, "You go there but I can't do anything until you arrive there".

After Lot gets there, we are told in verse 24, "Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. Isn't that interesting. There's a trigger point that is spiritual, but then there's a physical thing that happens.

We see it happen sometime later Mount Sinai. Exodus 19:18 "Now Mount Sinai {was} all in smoke because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently."

You have this massive earthquake because of the presence of God on the mountain; it's triggered by a spiritual reality. What else we know from this is that angels were present. We know that from Galatians 3:19, where Paul tells us in that last line, "… having been ordained [the Law] through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made". Angels are not talked about in Exodus, but Paul tells us that angels were present on Mount Sinai.

We see it again with Elijah. In first Kings 19:11 as he has fled south to Horeb, which is another name for Mount Sinai, and while he was there, having little pity party God is going to give him a little biblical counseling, and is going to reveal Himself through these different events to teach Elijah a few things. In the middle of it there is a strong wind, and it breaks the rocks in pieces before the Lord. But the Lord wasn't in the wind. Then he goes on to say, "And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord is not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord is not the fire, and after the fire still small voice".

The pointed I'm making here is that God shows up and there's an earthquake. It is that intersection, and we see it, from Genesis all the way through the Old Testament. Then we jump ahead to the future revelation and we see in Revelation 8:5, which is between the trumpet judgments, "Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake". An angel triggers does something and it triggers an earthquake.

We have same thing in Revelation 13: "…in the same hour there is a great earthquake and the 10th of the city fell". In Revelation 19 we see another earthquake. Revelation 16:17 "Then the seventh {angel} poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, 'It is done.' [18] And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake {was it, and} so mighty."

All the way through Scripture you have these events where God shows up and there are these various manifestations, one of which is often an earthquake, because the holiness of God impacting his fallen creation seems to create this environment. There is a trigger point that is spiritual and not physical.

And the ultimate one is the prediction and Zechariah 14:4. We do know that there is a fault that runs right through the Mount of Olives, and that pressure is building all the time. But the trigger is going to be the foot of the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes to the Mount of Olives, and then there will be a massive earthquake in the Mount of Olives will be split in half, which will allow for the Jews who are under persecution and in Jerusalem to escape.

When we read this and we read about this great earthquake, this isn't just some little tangential thing that happened. It is integral to understanding that God has shown up here and is doing something, and it fits a pattern that goes from Genesis to Revelation. We can just come in and say this is some sort of made-up apocalyptic scenario; it fits everything that we know in Scripture.

The women—I called them unsuspecting witnesses—weren't planning to be witnesses of the resurrection; they were going there that day to anoint the body. They were not thinking about anything about resurrection whatsoever. When they show up they describe the angel, his countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white is stone. This is language that is often used to describe God, to describe the throne room of God, and it describes Moses after he has been in the presence of God. It is a reflection of God's glory. It is so brilliant that the guards shook for fear. The same word is used there (shake for fear) as for an earthquake, and so there's little pun going on here, a play on words in the Greek text, that the angel came and it shook the ground, and also shook up the guards. Jesus was supposed to be dead. He's alive; but they fall down as if they are dead. It is a little humor in the story.

The angel answers and says to the women: "Don't be afraid". Whenever God shows up people are afraid, all the way through Scripture. And that's what's happening here. They are afraid, and so the angel says: "Don't be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He's not here for He is risen as He said. Come and see the place where the Lord lay". They are to be witnesses, so there is going to be a show and tell moment so that they can see and be witnesses of the empty tomb, and then go to help people about it.

They were planning to be witnesses. This isn't something that was made up. We see this all the way through the episode. This is the last thing they expected and they don't necessarily come willingly to accept the fact that there is a resurrection. There has to be many convincing proofs, as Luke puts it in Acts chapter 1, before they stop doubting. And then they are told in Matthew 28:7 “Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.”

The point is that they were not planning to be witnesses. They were unexpected, unsuspecting witnesses, but they become the first to be witnesses that Jesus has risen from the dead

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