62 The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ 64 Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead’, and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.
Was there unconscious irony in Pilate's words in 65? In fact, no power on earth could have kept Christ in the grave. For by death He had destroyed death, and it was therefore not possible that death could hold Him. There is something of the humour of God - if we can speak thus of such a solemn time - in the determined attempts to make sure that He could not rise again - the guard of soldiers, the watch, the seal - as if these could ever prevent it! All they did was to prove that there could be no possible deception by the disciples about His rising again. And their very precautions became, a few hours later, the witnesses to the truth that He had risen. People try to stamp out the work of God like this. And for a time they appear to succeed - but lo! a resurrection takes place, and their designs are confounded. Sometimes individuals do this in their own hearts; they bury the impressions made on them by the Word, pushing them down and crushing then out - but they have a habit of rising again to confound them. It was in vain that Saul of Tarsus sought to bury the pricks of his conscience in a mad flurry of restless activity. They would out, in spite of all he could do, and finally overcame him. Resurrection life is always stronger than death; death is swallowed up of victory!