After Jesus had been crucified, He gave up His life and died sooner than the criminals on the crosses either side of Him. Because He was already dead, His legs were not broken like the others as their bodies were taken down so as not to defile the Passover Sabbath.

Joseph of Arimathea was allowed to take Jesus’ body for burial, assisted by Nicodemus, and witnessed by at least two women (Matthew 27:57-61).

The Chief Priests and Pharisees had been alerted to what Jesus had said - that He would rise again on the third day. They wanted Pilate to have the tomb guarded, in case Jesus’ body was stolen and the disciples would be able to say that He was alive again.

Pilate’s reaction was to allow them to set a guard, and he authorised an official seal to be put over the stone covering the entrance to the tomb.

Who were the guards at the tomb? We cannot be sure if they were Roman soldiers or Temple Guards. The only Biblical information we have comes from Matthew 27:62-28:15.

Although there is an argument to be made for the guards being Roman soldiers, on the basis that an official seal was affixed to the stone, by order of the Governor, Pilate, the context is more nuanced.

The word for soldier in Matthew 27:65-66 and Matthew 28:11 is not ‘stratiotes’ as used in the rest of the New Testament, but ‘koustodia’  which means a group of people who guard something. The ‘stratiotes’ word for soldier is only used in Matthew 28:12. In Matthew 28:4 the word used is ‘tereo’ which means 'those who keep watch’, and where the word ‘soldiers’ is inserted in the NIV Matthew 28:15, the original simply says ‘they’. So, the matter is not clear-cut.

The context is helpful. Pilate’s words, ‘Take a guard’ or better, ‘You have a guard’ implies that guarding the tomb was not to be an official Roman military responsibility but delegated by Pilate to the guards who came under the authority of the Chief Priests and Pharisees.

That would be consistent with Pilate’s ‘hands off’ approach to the death of Jesus. Pilate had been willing for Jospeh of Arimathea to take possession of Jesus’ body (Matthew 27:57-60), and was willing to permit the Jewish authorities to secure the tomb until the third day (Matthew 27:62-65), but there is no clear indication that the Roman military were involved as they were in Matthew 27:27-33 and Matthew 27:54.  Acts 23:10-35 is also helpful in detailing the involvement of the Roman military in guarding Paul.

It is unclear how much the guards saw and heard on resurrection day. They witnessed the arrival of the angel who rolled the stone away and were overwhelmed by terror, becoming like ‘dead men’. They clearly realised that the stone had moved and the body was now missing from the tomb. They were able to report this to the Jewish authorities who bribed the guards with a large sum of money (Matthew 28:12-15) to lie about what had happened.

Despite the deep impression these events must have left on them, the guards agreed to actively subvert the truth of the resurrection day for a risky (falling asleep on-duty carried the harshest of punishments) and flimsy (if they were asleep, how could they have known the disciples had stolen the body?) lie.

Had they been Roman military, the failure of the guards would not have been rewarded by large sums of money but execution as in Acts 12:19.

Matthew notes that the falsehood of the guards was still widely believed at the time of writing, and indeed identical or similar stories are still used today to deny the resurrection. But the fact that neither the Jews nor anyone could ever produce the body of Jesus is hugely important – the empty tomb is a historical fact which points to the truth of the resurrection.

Whoever was guarding the tomb – they were totally ineffective. The Lord Jesus Christ did not need the stone to be removed in order to get out of the tomb, but so that the disciples could get in to see the linen cloths for the body and head lying by themselves where they had been placed, and that the body inside them had gone (John 20:5-7). Jesus had risen from the dead and would subsequently appear and disappear during the next 40 days! His body was recognisable but was different in nature.