I received the following question:

Question, can you elaborate on Matthew 27:52,53? I find it somewhat confusing.

Matthew 27:50. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.
51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

This is indeed an odd passage, and there are multiple questions raised by it. Who were these saints who were raised? When had they died? Were they only saints who had recently died, or were there some raised who had died a good while in the past? Might there even have been some raised who did not even die within the lifetime of those currently alive? Then, why, if they were raised at the time of Christ’s death, did they not come out of the graves until after His resurrection three days later? What were they doing in the graves for three days? How can one who is alive live in a grave for three days? Then, why does it say they appeared to many? If they were alive again, would they not have taken up residence somewhere and started living there again among their fellow living people as they had done in the past, even as Lazarus did after Christ raised him from the dead? How could this be described as simply “appearing to many”? And yet if they did not settle down and start living among other men again, what did they do? Where did they go? What happened to them? When did they die again, assuming they did, even as Lazarus whom Christ raised?

We can easily imagine answers to these questions. I might hazard the guess that the only saints raised in this case where those who had recently died, whose loved ones would still be alive to know and recognize them. I could guess that the same Lord Who raised them from the dead kept them alive in their graves for three days, while He fellowshiped with them, and perhaps while He “caught them up” on all that had happened while they were dead. I might suppose that they went into the holy city to appear to many in order to prove to the people of Jerusalem that a great miracle had indeed taken place at the time of the death of Jesus Christ. Then, they would have dispersed and gone back to wherever their families and dear ones lived throughout the land of Israel. And I might suppose that they lived in those various places until whatever time death again overcame them in whatever form it came upon them.

I say, I could guess all these things, and in fact if I were to guess, that is exactly what I would guess happened. I think that explanation makes the most sense, and fits with other pre-Kingdom of God resurrections we see take place at the hands of Christ and His apostles during that same period of time. So I think those are good and sensible guesses, and yet I have to admit that they are guesses. The passage simply does not tell us details like this. I do not know for certain that these saints were only the recent dead, that God kept them alive and busy somehow in their graves for three days, or that their “appearing” was only for evidence to the people before they went back to living day-to-day lives. I think those are all the most likely guesses, but they are just guesses. The Lord has not filled in all these details for us, and so we simply cannot know for sure all the details of this miracle that are not recorded for us. We have to say that it remains a mysterious passage about which much speculation is possible. Yet one thing is certain: these dead saints were raised, they were raised at the time of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, this was a powerful and evidential miracle, and many people saw them alive again afterwards. Beyond this, we cannot go with any certainty.

Thanks for the great question. Keep studying the Word!