62On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, 63saying, "Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, "After three days I will rise.' 64Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, "He has risen from the dead.' So the last deception will be worse than the first."
65Pilate said to them, "You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how." 66So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard.
The chief priests and Pharisees were not yet done with their plotting. There is one more thing they wanted to do to discredit Jesus, and that was to make sure His prophesy of being raised from the dead would not happen. The lengths these guys have gone to destroy Jesus is amazing. And why were they doing this? To protect their law? To protect their standing in the religious community?
I would think that much of what they did to accomplish this broke law after law in their book and may have hurt how they were viewed in the religious community. They just plotted to have someone killed. Even here, it says they gathered together with Pilate the day after the Day of Preparation. Footnotes in my Bible say the Day of Preparation is Friday, so they gathered with Pilate on the Sabbath, which was against their law too.
This should serve as a good reminder to ourselves. Sometimes we got so caught up in what we are trying to do that we forget what we should be trying to do. Even if they could not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, there should have been no way they could justify how they would break all their laws in order to destroy Him.
It bothers me that they refer to Jesus as “that deceiver”, especially when they are the ones practicing deception. They are so busy casting blame elsewhere that they do not see what they are doing. And when I think of the greatest deceiver, I think of Satan himself. So it really bothers me when Jesus is referred to in terms of anything related to Satan.
I wonder, did Pilate smirk when the chief priests and Pharisees called Jesus a deceiver? According to Matthew 27:17-24, he knew that they had handed Jesus over only out of envy. He knew that Jesus was a just Person. He probably knew that these chief priests and Pharisees were much more the deceivers than Jesus was. Now here they were, after they had gotten their wish to have Jesus put to death, asking for more, asking for a guard to make sure no one tampered with Jesus’ tomb. I’m surprised Pilate bothered to grant this next wish. But he had washed his hands of what would happen to Jesus, would have nothing to do with His death, and now Jesus was dead.
I believe that Pilate still wanted nothing to do with Jesus. He didn’t see to it himself how the tomb would be guarded, but simply sent a guard with them, saying to do what they could themselves. I get the impression that Pilate was simply trying to get rid of them the easiest way he could, by giving them a guard and telling them to go their way. The fact that Roman guards were posted outside the tomb had nothing to do with the Roman government making sure Jesus wouldn’t be “raised” through deception, but were only sent to humor the chief priests and Pharisees. The Roman government had no interest in Jesus at this point. Only the chief priests and Pharisees were doing this to continue their scheme that seemed to be getting way out of hand.
But even though I object to everything these chief priests and Pharisees have said and done, and I am disappointed in Pilate’s attempt to remain uninvolved, it all made possible what Jesus was sent to do. Because of their actions, Jesus would die for our sins and would be resurrected, the temple would be destroyed and would be rebuilt in three days, and because of their actions this day, they would have proof that Jesus was indeed risen. With the tomb sealed and guarded, there could be no question about how Jesus left the tomb. God indeed works in mysterious ways!