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Transcript 430B — The Resurrection in Matthew 27:51-52
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: In Matthew 27:51 & 52, what does the Holy City refer to?
HC: We have this very intriguing question that comes forth from Matthew 27: 51 & 52. Jesus is hanging on the cross, And then we read that the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom, that great curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the holy place. And then we read those words in verse 52: "And the graves were opened, And many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of thc graves after His resurrection, and went into the Holy City and appeared unto many." What could this be referring to?
Now we know, first of all, that the Holy City has to be something else than Jerusalem. Why do we know that? Well, the reason is that once Christ hung on the cross, once He shed His blood for our sins, then God's work was finished insofar as national Israel was concerned as being the representation of the body of Christ. Nationa1 Israel, of course, had as its key city Jerusalem. And in Jerusalem its key place, was the temple. And in the temple was the Holy of Holies the most holy place, which the priest entered once a year. And in the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant, representing God Himself. It was symbolically representing the place where God came down to man. In the temple the blood sacrifices were offered, which were pointing to the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
But Christ completed all these Old Testament sacrifices. He completed the usage of the temple as the holy place, and Jerusalem as the Holy City. Never again would it be the Holy City. The Holy City now can only be the body of believers. If you go to Ephesians 2, you find there that God speaks of the body of believers as being, as it were, building blocks in the temple of God. We're built into a most holy temple.
In I Corinthians 3 and in I Corinthians 6 the believers are called "temples of the Holy Spirit." In I Peter 2:4 or 5 God speaks of us as lively stones, or living stones, in the house of God. The temple is the body of Christ from this point on. And the body of Christ from this point on will be represented by the congregations and churches that encompass all the nations of the world,
The Holy City no longer is Jerusalem. More than that, in Revelation 21 we read of the New Jerusalem, the Holy City, coming down out of Heaven, prepared as a bride for her husband. This is a reference to the whole body of Christ that comes down out of Heaven. And it's called the New Jerusalem because it is the perfect Jerusalem. It is the Jerusalem without spot or wrinkle. It is the Jerusalem, the City of God, that is made up only of born again believers. And it is called the Holy City.
So we sense that the Holy City is not Jerusalem. It's the body of believers in some sense. Now notice what came out of these graves: "Many bodies of the saints which slept arose." These are bodies that came out of the graves. It doesn't say, "Many saints were resurrected." Lazarus was resurrected when God raised him from the dead. He came forth, as a body and a soul, a totally integrated being. This speaks of bodies of the saints which slept, which arose.
You see, this is the language really of the last day, when we will experience the resurrection of our bodies.
Actually, I believe that God is bringing to pass here a resurrection that is like the resurrection of thc last day, the resurrection of the bodies of certain saints. They may have lived a hundred years before, or a thousand years, or two thousand years before. It's immaterial. Ever since they had died, or they had fallen asleep, in their souls they had been living with God in Heaven. But now their bodies are resurrected. And following Jesus' resurrection, they appeared in the Holy City, that is, in Heaven, where the body of Christ is, the same Holy City that's referred to in Revelation 21.
"... and appeared unto many." You see, Jesus gave His life a ransom for many. Now we can speculate as to why they were resurrected. We know that the believers in Heaven have very deep and fervent interest in Christ's redemption, the redemption that He offers on the cross, We know that this has to be, because only by virtue of the finished work of Christ on the cross can the believers be in Heaven. Those Old Testament believers, of course, are in Heaven in their souls, anticipating the work of Christ on the cross.
That they are deeply concerned with the work of Christ on the cross is seen adequately in the conversation that took place on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Moses and Elijah came from Heaven and appeared to the Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of three of the disciples. What did they talk about together? They talked about, the Bible says, His coming decease, of the fact that He was going to the cross.
One can completely understand this. If Jesus in any way is unsuccessful in paying for their sins by going to the cross, these believers cannot remain in Heaven. They are only in Heaven by virtue of Christ's finished work on the cross. But now, you see, Christ has gone to the cross. And this we know was a terrible, terrible, an awful thing that Jesus did, to endure the wrath of God for our sins, the equivalent of an eternity in hell. Would He be consumed in this? Would He really be successful?
Even in the Psalms we read where Christ Himself anticipated His suffering. And He cried out to God not to leave His soul in Sheol. We see where He asked God to be sure to rescue Him once He had paid for our sins. The terror, the awfulness of enduring God's wrath. It's beyond human comprehension.
It is true that when Jesus hung on the cross and He said, "It is finished," in His Spirit He left His body and went into Heaven. And so in that sense you could say, "Well, then at that point in time the believers in Heaven could rejoice, because Christ had finished His work on the cross."
Yes, in a sense He had. But in another sense He had not. The proof of His finished work was the fact that He would rise again on Sunday morning. His body was still in the grave. And His body was a very real part of Christ. And the proof of Christ's victory on the cross was the resurrection. We read this in I Corinthians 15: "If Christ had not been raised, we would still be in our sins."
Therefore, there would be a period of forty days, from the time of the resurrection until the ascension of Jesus into Heaven, when the believers in Heaven, it would seem, would not really know how successful Jesus had been.
Had He really been able to overcome death so that He actually did rise again? And I believe, and now I'm speculating, at this point I'm going to start speculating, I believe, based on all that we have talked about now concerning these events, that God in His mercy resurrected a number of the Old Testament saints, so that they (and remember, they had been living in Heaven in their soul existence for many years; they were really people in Heaven, but they were without their bodies), but now, right after Jesus rose from the grave, they appeared in Heaven in their bodies and were reconciled with their souls, so they would take their place along with Enoch and Elijah and Moses, who also are in Heaven in their glorified spiritual bodies, their resurrected bodies.
And this would be tremendous evidence, tremendous indication, to all that were in Heaven, that the victory of the cross was complete. Otherwise how could they be resurrected, if Christ had not risen? They knew it was time for Christ to rise. And now, by virtue of the fact that Christ is the first-fruits, because He rose, therefore these bodies could appear in Heaven. The resurrection was a tremendous success.
Now we don't read anywhere else in the Bible about this resurrection. These believers did not appear in any city on this earth. There's no suggestion anywhere in the Bible that this is so. The language that is used here indicates that they appeared in Heaven.