Evidence for God from Science

Hello,

What is behind these verses? I am assuming that they are not to be taken literally.

Matthew 27:51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

What is Matthew trying to tell us?

Thanks.

Christian2 wrote:Hello,

What is behind these verses? I am assuming that they are not to be taken literally.

Matthew 27:51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

What is Matthew trying to tell us?

Thanks.

Not sure why he put the holy people's resurection after the resurrection of Jesus but as for the rest.

The temple held the arc of the covenant. Historically only the Levites could enter. Upon the death of Jesus all were now able to approach God through Jesus. The earth quake symbolizes the comming of a new age. The holy people were now free to enter the kingdom of heaven? Not sure about this one. No accounts of this in the other Gospels.

Hi Christian2,

As always, you pick the hard stuff!

I cannot see anyhting that would have me believe that these verses were not meant to be taken in a literal fashion. They describe the 4 miracles that attested to the death of Jesus. I think Bgood has already given a good explanation for the temple curtain, but if you need more on that, let us know.

The controversial part here relates to the resurrection of the saints. Unfortunately, the Bible is not very clear on this, the intent was clearly not to gratify our curiosity, but to teach. Somehow we can accept an eclipse, earthquake and the tearing of the curtain, but dead people rising is a bit harder to explain. We need to answer who the risen saints were, and in what manifestation did they rise, physically or spiritually. There are a few options:
1. The saints that rose were the patriarchs, like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This would be a confirmation of what Jesus said in Matthew 22:32.
2. They may have been modern saints, i.e. Jesus's contemporaries, who died before him, like John the Baptist.
3. A third possibility is that it was the martyrs, as referred in Matthew 23:35. Rev 20:4,5 says that those martyrs will rise before the other dead.

The second main issue is whether the arose bodily, or spiritually. The Bible is not clear on this. Note, however, that it happened only after the resurrection of Christ, so it will not be unreasonable to assume they rose in the same glorified form as Jesus.

Although not all things surrounding the resurrection of the saints are clear, we must look to the important lessons we learn from it. The most important thing is that we see the immediate victory of Jesus over death. The saints appeared to many, thus testifying to that victory. Secondly, that those who had kept the faith as saints while alive, were rewarded exactly as promised, thereby showing the saving benefit of serving God. Thirdly, Jerusalem is here called the holy city, and the risen saints went into the holy city, once again confirming and setting the expectation for future saints, that they will rise and enter the holy city, as promised in Revelations. They are woken up with Christ from the sin of death into a life of righteousness with Him.

Hope that helps.

(Most info from Matthew Henry)

BgoodForGoodSake and August,

Sorry to confuse you, but I shouldn't have included verse 51 in my quote. I understand what it means and this account is included in Mark and Luke.

I was most interested in the dead people rising and you are right August, this is hard to explain or hard to understand. Matthew must have expected his readers to understand what he was trying to say. Some scholars take it literally but I don't think that most do. I doubt that it is meant to be taken literally. After all an event like that certainly would been mentioned someplace else--in the woks of Josephus for instance. It's not often that people see dead people walking.

I read something about it in a book with several scholars commenting. Now I have to remember which one and find it. When I do, I'll type it up post it.

Thanks.