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When was the guard placed at the tomb?
Matthew: Not until the second night.
It is argued that Jesus must have risen because a guard was placed at his tomb so that it was impossible for his disciples to “come by night, and steal him away.” But had his body really been left in the tomb, as claimed, they would have taken it the first night had they desired it. The passage cited from Matthew in the preceding criticism declares that a guard was not requested of Pilate until the day following the crucifixion, so that the tomb was without a guard the first night. The sepulchre was not opened and examined when the guard was placed there on the following day. “So they went and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch” (Matt. xxvii, 66). Had the seal been found unbroken at the end of three days it would not have proved that Jesus’ body still remained in the tomb. It would merely have proved that the body had not been removed after the seal was placed on it.
It may be urged that Jesus had prophesied that he would not rise until the third day, and that an earlier disappearance of the body could not be harmonized with a strict fulfillment of the prophecy. But of this prophecy the disciples, we have seen, were ignorant.