I saw a video clip yesterday of an apologist being asked about Matt. 27:51-53. ‘Do you believe that is literal?’ was the question.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.
He replied ‘maybe apocalyptic language, maybe literal – I don’t know’. He was then a bit on the back foot and was critiqued for having made an exhaustive enquiry and defence for the literal resurrection of Jesus, but claimed not to know what Matthew intended with these verses and the ‘resurrection’ of these saints. No problem with being agnostic over biblical texts – there are so many that I have not got a clue about!
The problem with the apocalyptic language answer is the context is not apocalyptic but the culmination of prophetic Scripture, with the list of ‘and… and…and’. If apocalyptic then maybe the crucifixion (not to mention the later resurrection) might also not be literal but simply a way of describing the impact of the life Jesus of Nazareth. So Matthew gives us a description of what literally took place – even though strange.
Back tracking for a moment. Between life as we experience it ending (living in the land of the dying) and the parousia the Scriptures can be read in different ways as to the ‘existence’ of those who have passed away. The consistent hope in Scripture is not that of ‘going to heaven when I die’ (very Platonic) but that at the ultimate great reversal those who have been judged righteous will be resurrected. Scripture does not answer our questions as it comes with a different world view. Belief in the resurrection of the dead becomes the prominent Jewish belief (not so for the Sadduccees) as it is the answer to the question about God’s faithfulness. If the renewal of all things is ‘here’ then those alive at that time would be rewarded… but a question remained: what about those not ‘here’ for they have died before that time? Answer – God will raise them up, and then the NT makes clear that those of us who are alive will not enter that time simply as we are but our bodies will be transformed. Resurrection and transformation then were the belief that answered the ‘problem’ of those who have died.
[It is hard to make out what is believed about the ‘interim state’ – Scriptures such as Paul’s ‘I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better’ could simply be that or pulling on a Jewish tradition of the reward for the martyrs (comes through also in Revelation 20 and the resurrection of the martyrs). Bottom line is that those who die in Christ are in Christ and I strongly lean to a non-resurrected, but conscious existence with Christ’].
One aspect that is often overlooked in the strange (and unique) passage in Matthew is that of verse 53: ‘after his resurrection’. They are not resurrected prior to Jesus – their tombs are opened at the hour of crucifixion (presumably the effect of the earthquake) – but the resurrection is after Jesus comes forth. Not metaphorical, nor apocalyptic for we then have the same historical language used of Jesus – they appeared to many.
Resurrection ‘ahead’ of the time-line! The resurrection of Jesus is intensely physical; it is not only far beyond ‘he is alive’ to ‘you cannot find his body’… but the effects of the resurrection are physical to such a level that this creation will be renewed and it has left an impress on time so that there can be inbreakings of ‘end-time / eschatological’ events out of expected time sequence. This aligns post resurrection-time (the time we live in) with incarnational time – now there is a thought!