Easter Question -- why roll away the stone?

[darinhouston]

In Christ's resurrected body, He appeared to have been able to pass through walls, appear and disappear, etc. So, why roll away the stone? Why not just appear to the believers and have the Roman government roll away the stone to prove the news of His living was a lie?

[mikew]

It would be too much work for Peter and the others to have to move the stone. So God moved it for convenience sake. There likely was a critical basis for the early discovery of the empty tomb by Mary, Peter and others. Possibly it was more important to have the early statements of the resurrection of Jesus. The doubts of Thomas have become a proverb and a lesson.

Also, I think this was a testimony to the Roman (or was it priestly) authorities whereby it would be impossible for a causal attempt to sneak around the guards and secretly move the stone away. The guards had to "testify" to something unlikely ("um, we fell asleep. The disciples overtook us.")

[darinhouston]

What I'm curious about is why did anyone need to move the stone before Christ appeared?

[steve]

If Christ appeared without the stone being rolled away, the Romans might have simply ignored the reports of the resurrection appearances and gone their way. The Romans would have no incentive to remove the stone. They were not particularly interested in or threatened by the testimony of the Christians for the first quarter of a century after the resurrection.

It was the Jews who were annoyed by the resurrection reports, but they would have little leverage with the Romans to force them to remove the stone and to disprove the Christians' witness. Pilate already resented the way the Jews had blackmailed him to crucify Christ against his better judgment (remember the jab he took at them with his caustic "What I have written I have written"?). Since he had delivered Jesus to be crucified, the Jews had nothing more with which to further blackmail him. Their pleading with him to have the stone removed would, most likely, only strengthen his resolve to ignore the matter.

If anyone was to see that the resurrection reports were not mere hallucinations, there had to be an empty tomb to render those reports congruous. If no one could look inside the perpetually sealed tomb, the reports of resurrection appearances would seem only humorous to skeptics. As it turned out, God overrode the Roman authority, broke the seal, and put the vacant tomb on public display.

[darinhouston]

Nice -- thanks Steve.

[TK]

great minds think alike darin- i think i asked this a while back on this forum. now i have to find it to see if Steve gave the same answer

TK

[steve]

Let me know if I did or not. I don't remember.

[TK]

i found it! here it is: http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1213

You didn't respond to that thread, Steve. But i cant imagine you would have said anything much different than you did here.

TK

[darinhouston]

This one's nagging at me again. Reading Mark today, it reminded me that the tomb didn't need to be "opened" supernaturally for the empty tomb to be found -- the women were coming to annoint the body as per custom, no? They debated how to roll the stone away -- Wouldn't the guards have opened the tomb for them and found it empty?

[steve]

My assumption is that the women did not realize the tomb had been officially sealed. I don't think the guards would have had the authority to break the seal.