Paul stated of the resurrection of Christ, “If Christ has not been raised,” he said, “your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15: 17). Know too, that your whole faith of the resurrection rests upon the witnesses. Paul points this out and lists many of those witnesses (1 Cor. 15:5-8). But his list is not complete. There were others as well.
Perhaps the most powerful witnesses, the only ones to see him come out of the tomb, the first to report the resurrection, were the Roman soldiers assigned to guard the tomb. An angel of the Lord came and rolled away the stone, his dazzling appearance striking fear upon the soldiers, and they “became like dead men” (Mat. 28:3,4). Perhaps not unconscious but rendered powerless.
They must have seen Jesus come forth, for when they reported what they saw to the chief priests, they “assembled with the elders and consulted together, [then]they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers” to get them to say. “His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we slept” (Mat. 28:12,13). Our faith in the resurrection is well founded upon powerful firsthand witnesses, not the least being the very individuals assigned to guard and prevent any resurrection story from happening. Yet it appears their account of what they saw that Sunday morning confirmed the very thing they were assigned to prevent!
-Dennis Doughty
