The Resurrection Conspiracy
Matthew 28:11-15
Last Sunday, we gathered here to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and to worship Him. And again today and every Sunday, we gather for the same reason, because nothing is more important to our faith than the fact that Jesus was raised on the third day as He said.
In Matthew 28:1-10, we saw the women go early on the first day of the week to the tomb where Jesus had been laid. At that moment, an angel, bright as lightning, appeared causing a great earthquake and rolling the stone from the entrance of the tomb. Witnessing all this, the guards at the tomb were terrified, becoming like dead men. But the angel calms the women, saying, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” (Matt. 28:5-6).
The angel then commissioned the women to “go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead,” telling them that Jesus would be “going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him.” (Matt. 28:7). As they made their way to tell the disciples, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So, they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. (Matt. 28:9). Jesus also told them to “Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me,” (Matt. 28:10).
As I said last time, Christ’s resurrection gives us every reason to rejoice, to worship Him as Lord, and to tell others about Him. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ changes, comforts, empowers, and motivates us.
Unfortunately, not everyone views the resurrection of Jesus in this way. Since the very beginning, people have been trying to find a way to escape the Resurrection and the implications of Jesus actually rising from the dead and being Lord of heaven and earth. There have always been people who willfully disbelieve in spite of overwhelming evidence. Willful disbelief is not the same thing as believing doubts. In Matthew 28:16-17, when the eleven disciples went to the mountain in Galilee to meet the risen Lord Jesus, Matthew writes, “When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.” (Matt. 28:17).
These disciples were astonished at what they were seeing! They couldn’t believe their eyes! And the fact that some of our Lord’s own chosen disciples doubted proves that this kind of doubt is not fatal to our relationship with Him. Theirs was a doubt based on their belief. It was a normal, rational reaction to seeing the miraculous—that Jesus, who had been executed by crucifixion and was dead and buried, now stood before them very much alive! This kind of believing doubt, when humbly brought before the Lord, will be resolved and used by God to strengthen our faith in Him.
But what we see from of the chief priests and elders, wasn’t simply “doubting” as if they were merely having a hard time believing. Rather, theirs was a willful decision not to believe. It was a perverse choice, contrary to the evidence, to reject the truth of the resurrection and to refuse to bow to the Lord Jesus Christ. They were had called for Jesus’ execution because of envy (Matt. 27:18), afraid of losing their power and positions. That’s why they asked Pilate to post a guard at His tomb after He was crucified. “Sir,” they said to him, “We remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore 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” (Matt. 27:63-64).
They could not admit that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, because if He was raised, then Jesus truly is Lord. Then all men and women on earth, including them, owe to Jesus Christ their worship and obedience. If Jesus did not rise and is still dead, He is no threat to men’s false religious or philosophical systems. Tyrants and villains would not need to fear His power and justice. People could go on living however they want to without eternal consequences. But if Jesus is risen, He is the living Lord and judge. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then He wasn’t who He said he was, and we can all pack up our things and go home. But if Jesus did rise from the dead, then He really is the Son of God, and you owe your life and worship to Him.
The religious leaders willfully disbelieved the facts of Jesus’ resurrection, and they didn’t want other people believe it either. So, they created a conspiracy theory to cover for their own disobedience and unbelief. And this is what Matthew reports in our passage today.
1. The guards’ report (Matt. 28:11)
Matthew 28:11 says, “Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened.” So, while the women were going in obedience to Jesus and the angel to tell the disciples that Jesus is risen, some of the guards go to tell the chief priests what happened at the tomb.
Isn’t it interesting that these Roman soldiers didn’t go to the Roman governor Pilate who had commissioned them to guard the tomb? Instead, they went to the chief priests who had requested their services from Pilate in the first place. And the reason is obvious. Pilate commissioned them with guarding the tomb, making sure Jesus’ body remained in there. And now the tomb was empty! What could they tell the governor that would get them off the hook for their failure? Could they go before Pilate and say, “We know you ordered us to seal the tomb and stand guard over the body. But we don’t know what happened to the body, because, you see, a brightly shining angel came down from the sky like lightning, caused a great earthquake, rolled away the stone, breaking the seal . . .!” It’s not the kind of story that the governor would take for an excuse.
So, they go to tell the chief priests. And notice what the Jewish authorities do not do. They didn’t go back to the tomb with the guards to make sure that what they reported was true. It seems they believed the guard’s report enough that they didn’t run to verify the tomb was empty. Neither did they tell the soldiers to go search everywhere for the body of Jesus and return it to the tomb. They didn’t order them to go and arrest the disciples for stealing the body out of the tomb that was sealed by the authority of the Roman government. They didn’t report the supposed theft to Pilate.
Clearly, the chief priests had the evidence set before them! And yet, they wouldn’t bow humbly to the implications. Instead, they went into ‘damage-control’ mode. Their willful unbelief blinded them to the obvious truth. Such stubborn unbelief dismisses the overwhelming evidence and dull the mind to the good news.
Willful unbelief of the evidence led to …
2. The Jewish leaders’ conspiracy (Matt. 28:12-14)
Even though they clearly had the evidence of what had happened set before them, these leaders nevertheless planned together to formulate a lie. Matthew 28:12-14 says,
12 When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’ 14 And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.” (Matt. 28:12-14).
Their plan was to bribe the soldiers to tell a story that was patently false, that made no sense at all, and that certainly would not stand up in court. This lie would be a tough one to sell. And yet, it was the best that the counsel could come up with their limited time to think about it.
Just think about how ridiculous their cover story was. Would all the guards have been sleeping at the same time? Could the disciples actually have broken the Roman seal, slipped past all of the sleeping guards, silently rolled a one-and-a-half to two-ton stone uphill in the trench in which it sat, slip into the tomb, remove the body of the Lord while leaving all the wrappings inside, and sneak away with it without waking a single guard? And how did the guards know it was Jesus’ disciples that stole the body if they were asleep? If the disciples stole the body, then they knew their message of the resurrection was a lie. Now, we know that men sometimes give their lives for a lie. Muslim suicide bombers give their lives for the lie that they will be rewarded in heaven for their mass murders. But they don’t know that it is a lie. They believe it. People don’t usually die for something that they know is a lie. But the disciples went to their deaths as martyrs believing and proclaiming that Jesus was raised from the dead. Proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus did not make them popular, wealthy, or safe from trouble. No, it brought them constant persecution. It was three centuries before anyone gained anything but insults, danger, torture and death by preaching the resurrection of Jesus.
When it comes to the resurrection of Jesus—as with all the things the Bible teaches us—it truly takes more faith to deny the truth than it does to simply believe the gospel! Willful unbelief is neither logical nor rational. But it is obstinate and determined. And it is costly. Matthew says, “they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers” to tell the lie. They also promise to protect the soldiers from Pilate should the story get back to him. A Roman soldier who fell asleep on the watch could be executed for dereliction of duty. So, the religious leaders promise to protect them by satisfying Pilate, which probably means even more large sums of money would exchange hands.
Did their cover story work? Yes, for those who did not want to believe anyway. Notice third …
3. The spread of the false message (Matt. 28:15)
Matthew 28:15 says, “So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.”
Matthew probably wrote his gospel twenty to thirty years after the resurrection of Jesus, and he write that this “saying” (that the disciples stole the body) was still being reported. We have evidence that this lie was still being spread into the second century, when the early church father Justin Martyr had to write to defend the faith against it. Even today, some people readily accept it, along with many other “theories” that attempt to explain away the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances of our Lord.
Why did Matthew include this narrative of the guards report and the cover story by the Jewish authorities? I believe that they Holy Spirit ensured that Matthew included this passage because by it we see God’s wisdom and sovereignty. God uses even this conspiracy of the Sanhedrin and their cover story to confirm and validate Jesus’ resurrection. The story itself that they concocted is so full of holes that it actually has the opposite effect from what they intended. Matthew inserts this story to vindicate Christ’s resurrection against this stolen corpse theory. But he also has a broader pastoral concern. Remember Matthew is a Jewish Christian writing not simply to other Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians who are part of the early Christian community. He’s writing to his own people. He longs to see his own people embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as King and Messiah. Matthew presents the conspiracy, and he’s saying look how ridiculous this is! Matthew is showing them the absurdity of this rumor and he’s holding it up before them to expose their unbelief and to draw them into saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
What do you believe about the resurrection of Jesus? Do you think Jesus somehow staged his own death and then faked his resurrection? Why did the Jews concoct a plot while Jesus was still dead? Why were they so afraid? Why were the grave clothes left in such an odd position? Why did the guards suddenly and unitedly pass out? What about the appearances of Jesus after his death? Was that simply a mass hallucination? And how do you account for the radical transformation of the disciples? And the conviction of the early church that Jesus had risen from the dead? Finally, if he didn’t rise from the dead, what happened to his body?
These are the questions you need to think about. After you are through, then it’s time to make up your own mind. These conspiracy theories and cover stories are deadly, because it is vitally important that you do believe in Christ’s resurrection. Your salvation depends on it. Paul writes in Romans 10:9: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Do you believe God raised Jesus from the dead? Will you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord? I invite you to drop your cover story today and come to Jesus. He has risen. He is alive. He is there for you.
Matthew is also doing something else with this story. He’s highlighting the character of the Jewish religious leaders and contrasting it with Jesus Christ. In this passage we have the last commission given by the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day recorded in the gospel of Matthew. And you know what it is? Here’s what they commission the guards to do. You go and say that Jesus’ body was stolen, and we’ll pay you well for it. Do you see the two parts of the commission? Go therefore and lie, and we’ll pay you.
Look at what comes next in Matthew’s Gospel–Jesus’ Great Commission. And what’s His great commission? The risen Lord Jesus appears to His disciples and tells them,
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. (Matt. 28:19-20).
Jesus commissioned His disciples to go and teach the gospel, make disciples of all the nations to the ends of the earth. And they will teach it not for money, but in fact, will risk their whole lives to do it. Jesus says, “You do it because all authority has been given to Me, and because I’ll be with you always.” Do you see the contrast that Matthew presents? We have the religious leaders of Israel saying go therefore and lie, and we’ll pay you. And you have Jesus saying, go and tell the truth for My sake and be ready to lay down your life for it. What a contrast between the character of Jesus and His disciples and the Jewish religious leaders and these guards![i]
The point that we’re to understand is that when we obey the Great Commission, we should expect to experience the same kind of active disbelief from some—but we are to keep on being faithful to the call. Keep believing. Keep proclaiming that Jesus is risen. Keep living in worship and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep it up ‘til He comes again.
[i] Ligon Duncan, The Chief Priests Story, https://fpcjackson.org/resource-library/sermons/the-chief-priests-story/, accessed 04/10/2026.
