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!
Okay, Martin here goes this is the entire train of my argument with myself this morning and my ponderings having read this:
I found your reflections on Matthew 27:51–53 deeply careful, especially your attention to the sequencing..tombs opened at the crucifixion, but the saints appearing only after Jesus’ resurrection. That insistence on order without demythologising the text feels important.
One thing I keep returning to, though, is what the text doesn’t give us ..and how deliberate that absence seems to be?
Matthew never tells us when these saints were raised to life. The opening of the tombs is dated. Their appearance is dated. But the moment of restoration itself sits suspended between Friday and Sunday, unmoored from ordinary time. Resurrection happens .. but without a timestamp.
That raises a question for me:
do you think Matthew is deliberately showing resurrection as something that reorders time, not merely happens within it?
I’m also struck by the fact that they are unnamed. They are seen, but not catalogued. Recognised, but not narrated. Resurrection here produces witness without biography .. bodies present in the city, yet not returned to systems of recognition or control.
Another question I find hard to escape is experiential rather than doctrinal:
if life is restored before release ..if orientation lags behind restoration ..what does that suggest about resurrection as a process rather than an instant?
The text seems to allow for a phase of alive-but-not-yet-visible, which feels very different from how resurrection is often spoken about. Not triumphal, not explanatory ..more contained, even restrained (?).
I also wonder whether Matthew’s refusal to describe their interior experience is itself protective. We are not given their feelings, their interpretation, or their testimony.. only their presence. Resurrection is made public without being psychologised.
I’m curious how you read these silences.
Do they function simply as narrative economy, or do you see them as doing theological work in their own right?
For me, the passage seems to insist that resurrection breaks death’s authority before the world is ready to receive the consequences..and that gap matters.
What I find myself seeing, as I sit with this suspended grammar in the text, is a resurrection sequence that is more ordered ..and more unsettling .. than we usually allow.
If the opening of the tombs is named on Friday, and the appearance of the saints is named only after Jesus’ resurrection, then there is a threshold the text does not locate in calendar time at all: life restored, but not yet released.
That suggests to me that resurrection is not presented here as a single instant, but as a process with internal ordering..where restoration precedes orientation, and visibility waits for alignment.
What strikes me is the restraint of this. These saints are not rushed out. They are not deployed as proof. They are not turned into spectacle or explanation. Life is returned, but it is contained .. not until a temple centre reasserts itself, but until the Kingdom centre holds.
In other words, visibility does not wait for institutional stability, but for alignment around the risen Jesus himself. Resurrection is ordered relationally, not architecturally. The centre that must hold is not a building, a system, or a cultic space ..it is the Kingdom reality inaugurated in Jesus’ own rising.
I’m increasingly persuaded that this threshold..restored but not yet oriented to the world ..is not a deficiency in resurrection, but part of its mercy. Resurrection does not force immediate reintegration into a world that has not yet caught up with what has happened.
The text’s refusal to tell us how they felt, when exactly life returned, or what became of them afterwards seems protective rather than incomplete. Resurrection is allowed to be real without being stabilised, categorised, or made legible.
That feels significant to me .. not because it answers our questions, but because it refuses to rush them, and in doing so preserves the dignity of what cannot ‘yet’ be integrated.
I’d be interested in how you read that restraint ..whether you see it as narrative necessity, or as part of Matthew’s theological claim about how resurrection actually enters the world?
Just when I had everything sorted!!! But in reality there are a number of ‘left hanging’ points. And I think probably deliberately. Matthew puts the whole story at this point (I think) to tie it to the hour of crucifixion with the and… and… and… sequence so the cross is shown to be decisive; then he puts resurrection in here (but with an ‘after’) to keep Jesus’ resurrection as separate and unique – the firstborn from the dead. He has one annoying bit – ‘and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised’… it would have been more helpful if he missed that part out and simply went to ‘after Jesus raised out they came’. Theologically I am not able to go to they experienced resurrection prior to Jesus. Did they become alive? They were raised (ἐγείρω (egeirō)) which can be used metaphorically even of ‘to be awoken ‘ or ‘to be healed’ but given that it is the same verb that Matthew uses in the immediate context of the resurrection of Jesus it is hard to leave it as metaphorical. If I could have helped Matthew I would have moved that phrase to the ‘after’ part of his writing. Maybe he simply conflates the time and then makes sure we all are as clear as Martin(!!!!) that this part happened after Jesus’ resurrection.
However the mess (my opinion) of the text opens up possibilities irrespective of the precise timing and ‘restored but not yet oriented to the world ..is not a deficiency in resurrection, but part of its mercy’ is very strong indeed. Into the incompleteness comes possibilities. Beyond the text – way beyond – is the resurrection / parousia the final word? We have an eschaton but is it a final ‘telos’? An arrival to a new state but without growth beyond??? Probably not.