Matthew 27:51-53 meaning

The parallel gospel accounts of Matthew 27:51-53 are found in Mark 15:38 and Luke 23:45, 48.

Having described the moment when Jesus died on the cross (Matthew 27:50), Matthew calls upon the reader to consider four phenomena that occurred at this terrible moment which supernaturally marked the Messiah’s death.

These four phenomena were:

1. the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (v 51a)
2. and the earth shook (v 51b)
3. and the rocks were split (v 51c)
4. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised (v 53)

Matthew introduces this section of the signs and wonders accompanying Jesus’s death by addressing the reader with the rhetorical command: And behold (v 51a).

The first phenomena Matthew lists that marked Jesus the Messiah’s death was: the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (v 51a).

The temple was located in Jerusalem. Its buildings situated atop a large hill were likely visible from where Jesus was crucified just outside the city gates (Hebrews 13:12). The temple was the center of the sacrificial system and it was the headquarters of the Sadducees—the priestly order who rejected Jesus as the Messiah and illegally conspired to murder Him.

To learn more about the temple, see The Bible Says article: “The Temple.”

The temple veil is described in Exodus 26:31-35. It divided its main sanctuary into two separate rooms (Exodus 26:33). The first chamber was called “the holy place.” The second chamber, located behind the veil was called “the holy of holies.” God’s presence on earth was thought to reside in the holy of holies because this chamber originally held the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat (Leviticus 16:2).

No one was allowed to go beyond the temple veil and enter the holy of holies except for the high priest; and he was only allowed to do so on one occasion a year—on Yom Kippur, or “Day of Atonement” (Leviticus 16:2—also see Leviticus 16:2-19).

The veil of the temple was massive. The Mishnah—the ancient oral tradition of the Jews—describes its dimensions.

“The curtain has the thickness of a handbreadth…And with regard to the dimensions of the curtain, its length was forty cubits, as the height of the ceiling of the Sanctuary; and its width was twenty cubits, to match the width of the entrance.”
(Mishnah. Shekalim 8.5)

These ancient measurements approximately convert to sixty feet high and thirty feet wide, with a thickness of four or more inches. Moreover, the curtain was heavy. The Mishnah goes on to explain how when priests would make a new veil, that “the curtain was so heavy that they needed three hundred priests to carry it when they would immerse it” (Mishnah. Shekalim 8.5).

The temple veil was so thick that no man could have torn it. And if someone did, they would have torn it from the bottom to the top, not top to bottom as it was torn. Only God could have torn the veil this way. As will be explained shortly, God was showing how His earthly temple “home” was no longer going to be a room of bricks but rather He was going to dwell in human hearts.

The tearing of the temple veil in two would have deeply disturbed the Jews. It would have likely been interpreted a number of ways.

1. Jews could have interpreted the tearing of the veil to signify that the LORD’s presence was no longer with Israel.
2. Jews could also have interpreted its tearing to signify the LORD’s displeasure with Israel.

Both of these interpretations would have been heavy, disheartening, and ominous—especially considering how it was torn around the same time that “darkness fell upon all the land” (Matthew 27:45). Indeed, Luke seems to verify that the Jews did interpret these signs with a negative or ominous view when he wrote:

“And all the crowds who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return, beating their breasts.”
(Luke 23:48)

In ancient Jewish culture, the beating of one’s breasts was a demonstration of mourning, woe, and/or dread.

But at best, both interpretations are only partially correct. The chief and fuller significance of the veil of the temple being torn in two is the opposite of fear and dread. It signified something marvelous and wonderful!

3. The tearing of the temple veil indicated that the barrier separating holy God and sinful man was no longer an obstacle in the relationship between the Creator and His image bearers. Jesus removed the veil.

The temple veil being torn in two was the result of Jesus’s fulfilment of the Law (Matthew 5:17) and the yielding of His spirit (Matthew 27:50) which completed the perfect and everlasting sacrifice (John 19:30, Hebrews 10:12). Notice how Matthew links the Messiah’s death and yielding of His spirit with the tearing of the temple veil by making it the first thing he records after Jesus died.

God was showing how the manifestation of His divine presence was no longer going to be confined to a temple of stone—God was moving out. God’s new earthly temple would be human hearts (Ezekiel 36-26-27, 1 Corinthians 3:16). Fifty days later, God sent His Spirit to live in the hearts of believers, just as Jesus foretold (John 14:23, 16:7, 13-15, Acts 1:5, 8) on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4).

The author of Hebrews further points to the tearing of the temple veil’s true significance.

The Law and the sacrificial system that was delivered through Moses was good, but it was insufficient (Hebrews 7:18-19). It could show the way to live but among other things, it could not remove sins (Hebrews 10:1-4, 11).

But Jesus lived faithfully to God’s will and fulfilled the Law perfectly unto death. Upon His death, He established the promised new and better covenant (Hebrews 7:22, 8:7-13). His obedience on the cross was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices (Hebrews 7:27, 9:12). In fact, all the sacrifices before Jesus were a shadow and a copy of His perfect and everlasting sacrifice.

The author of Hebrews seems to metaphorically associate the torn temple veil with Jesus’s broken body and flesh which was torn on the cross. He exhorts his readers to draw near to God with faith in Jesus:

“Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith…”
(Hebrews 10:19-22a)

In the words of the book of Hebrews, Jesus had rendered the sacrificial system “obsolete” for the purpose of bringing man to God (Hebrews 8:13).

In this context, “obsolete” equates to no saving value. Obsolete does not mean that the author of Hebrews was calling for Jewish believers to cease offering temple sacrifices or to cease being Jewish. For instance, the Apostle Paul (who may or may not have been the author of Hebrews) continued to practice Jewish customs and maintain his Jewish identity throughout his life (Acts 28:17).

Rather, the author of Hebrews was calling upon Jewish believers to cease relying on their Jewish customs to bring them righteousness and to rely upon Jesus’s perfect sacrifice and priesthood alone.

This idea of the temple sacrifices being rendered obsolete by Jesus’s sacrifice may also have been included in what Matthew was implying when he wrote: “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:50-51a).

Previously, Matthew indicated that Jesus died about the ninth hour (Matthew 27:46). Jews would have recognized this as the same time when the priests would have been scheduled to offer the festival sacrifices for the Day of Unleavened Bread. The tearing of the temple veil occurring at the moment of the temple sacrifice seems to have indicated that this sacrifice was the first sacrifice to be obsolete and eclipsed by Jesus’s perfect sacrifice. Jesus’s sacrifice of Himself made further sacrifices unnecessary to atone for sin (Hebrews 7:27, 9:12).

One other note of interest involving the veil of the temple being torn in two is worth mentioning. We have already observed how the author of Hebrews equated the veil’s tearing with the tearing of Jesus’s body (Hebrews 10:19-20). But notice how Jesus’s death and the veil’s tearing also took place on the first day of Unleavened Bread. Jesus, the evening before these two “tearings” occurred, tore the unleavened bread during His Passover Seder meal with His disciples, and said: “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19).

The tearing of Jesus’s body is symbolized by both the tearing of the unleavened bread and the tearing of the temple veil. Each opened the way for humans to enter God’s presence without further mediation (Hebrews 10:19-20). The breaking of Jesus’s body and the death of the immortal Son of God is what makes eternal life possible as symbolized by the breaking the unleavened bread. It is also what allows us to live a life with God dwelling inside of us as symbolized by the tearing of the temple veil. It further is what allows us to enter God’s presence and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

Mark, who largely follows Matthew’s crucifixion account, likewise says: “And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38).

Luke, who is more chronologically sensitive than Matthew or Mark (Luke 1:3), mentions the tearing of the temple veil before he narrates Jesus’s death, and connects it with the crucifixion darkness,

“It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, because the sun was obscured; and the veil of the temple was torn in two.”
(Luke 23:44-45)

All three of these Gospels strongly link the tearing of the temple veil with Jesus’s death and indicate that for all intents and purposes both events occurred simultaneously.

The second phenomena Matthew lists that marked Jesus the Messiah’s death was: and the earth shook (v 51b).

Matthew is the only one of the four Gospels to mention the next three phenomena: the earth shaking, the rocks splitting, and the dead saints coming back to life.

Just as the sky had responded with darkness during the three hours when God forsook His Son (Matthew 27:45-46), so too, nature appears to have responded again when the Son of God died, as the earth shook.

Matthew’s mentioning of the earth shaking seems to be an eleventh event that was a fulfillment of prophecy concerning the Messiah’s death.

Jesus’s death was a day of judgment. And the earth that shook when He died fulfilled what the prophet Joel foretold would happen on the day of judgment:

“Before them the earth quakes,
The heavens tremble,
The sun and the moon grow dark
And the stars lose their brightness.”
(Joel 2:10)

In addition to what the Bible records, there are two secondhand ancient accounts that may describe the crucifixion earthquake.

Both accounts were mentioned in The Bible Says commentary for Matthew 27:45 in its discussion of the crucifixion darkness.

The first account is from the illustrious early church figure, Jerome (347-420 A.D.). Jerome’s source was Phlegon of Tralles, the chronicler “The Olympiad,” an account of historical and major natural events stretching back to the time of the first Olympic games. Phlegon wrote during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138 A.D.) Phlegon’s direct quote seems to have been lost to history, but Jerome quotes Phlegon as saying:

“However in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, an eclipse of the sun happened, greater and more excellent than any that had happened before it; at the sixth hour, day turned into dark night, so that the stars were seen in the sky, and an earthquake in Bithynia toppled many buildings of the city of Nicaea.”
(Jerome, Chronicles. Olympiad 202)

Jesus’s death most likely occurred in 30 A.D. or 33 A.D. The first year of the 202^nd Olympiad would have been 30 A.D. The fourth year would have been 33 A.D., which is the year some scholars believe Jesus was crucified. If correct, the crucifixion darkness and earthquake align with the same year Phlegon reported the earthquake and noon darkness in Bithynia. Even if Jesus was crucified in 33 A.D., it is also possible that Phlegon was referring to a separate event and that Jerome mistook it for the spectacular signs that accompanied Jesus’s death.

If these were the same events, this would mean the earth shook approximately 900 miles from the city of Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified.

The second account is also secondhand. It is from the ancient Christian writer, Julius Africanus (c. 160—c. 240). Africanus summarized an account by Thallus (1^st-2^nd Century Historian) who mentioned all three of the natural signs accompanying the cross:

• the darkness,
• the rocks being split,
• the earth shaking

Africanus’s summary of Thallus reads:

“On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun."
 (Julius Africanus, “Extant Fragments of the Chronography 18)

There is no specific date affixed to the events Thallus describes, but he indicates that all these things took place “in Judea”—the district where Jesus was crucified—“and other districts,” presumably near Judea. Julius Africanus infers that they were the same signs that accompanied Jesus’s crucifixion.

Neither Jerome nor Africanus’s accounts should be ignored, but neither are inspired, as scripture is (2 Timothy 3:16). So they should not be considered infallible.

The third phenomena Matthew lists that marked Jesus the Messiah’s death was: and the rocks were split (v 51c).

The Biblical account of the phenomena of the rocks splitting upon Jesus’s death is only found in Matthew.

When Jews saw or heard that the rocks were split, they would immediately think of Moses in the wilderness. As he was leading Israel through the desert wilderness, Moses struck the rock and the LORD miraculously caused life-giving water to gush forth, allowing the people and their livestock to drink freely (Exodus 17:5-6, Numbers 20:10-11). These wonderful events were retold numerous times throughout the Old Testament (Psalm 78:15, 78:20, 105:41, 114:7-8, Isaiah 48:21).

There are no reports of physical water flowing when the rocks split at Jesus’s death, but we do know that Jesus, who is a second Moses, provides living water—i.e. spiritual water for spiritual life in a desert of sin.

Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well:

“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
(John 4:10)

He went on to explain to her:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
(John 4:13)

Jesus also proclaimed to those who would listen:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
(John 7:37-38)

Moreover, one of the last things Jesus says in Revelation is:

“I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.”
(Revelation 21:6b)

This spiritual drink of eternal life became freely available to everyone upon the Messiah’s death and its availability seems to have been signified by the splitting of the rocks.

Another possible meaning of the rocks that were split at the Messiah’s death corresponds to how nature recognized Jesus’s identity as the Messiah and Creator while His own people did not (John 1:10-11). When the Pharisees scolded Jesus for allowing the multitudes to praise Him as He triumphantly entered Jerusalem a few days prior, He responded:

“I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!’”
(Luke 19:40)

With the support of “all the people” now silent and their voices used to condemn Him (Matthew 27:25), the stones were in a sense crying out—testifying to Jesus’s true identity—as the rocks were split.

The fourth phenomenon Matthew lists that marked Jesus the Messiah’s death was: the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised (v 52).

Of the four signs mentioned by Matthew, this is perhaps the most remarkable. This phenomenon happened in two stages. First, the tombs were opened. This happened when Jesus died; the veil of the temple was torn in two, the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

The second and more remarkable part of this phenomenon occurred three days later—after Jesus’s resurrection (v 53). The second part was that many dead saints came back to life (v 52b) and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many (v 53).

Matthew records that it was the bodies of saints who had fallen asleep that were raised.

The expression fallen asleep indicates that these people were dead. On one hand this expression is a euphemism—a figure of speech to speak delicately about a harsh and awful reality. But in a larger sense, the expression accurately describes the state of death for those who belong to the LORD—for death is not final (1 Thessalonians 4:14). God will restore them to life, and from an earthly perspective it is very much as though they had fallen asleep for a time. When God wakes them (and us) up we will be together again (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).

The fact that Matthew said the bodies of saints indicates that these saints were restored to a physical, natural life—and not unto their final resurrection into their eternal state. The resurrection of these saints was akin to the resurrections of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:22-23, 25-43—see also: Matthew 9:18-19, 23-25 and Luke 8:41-42, 49-56); the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11-17), and Lazarus (John 11:38-46). Since we are not told that these saints were resurrected with new, spiritual bodies, we can presume that all these saints would have eventually died again.

Neither Matthew nor history tells us anything more about these saints—only that they came out of their tombs, and lived for a time, because they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Assuming they died (again) they will be among those who are eternally recalled to life at Jesus’s second coming (1 Thessalonians 4:17, 1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

Also, Matthew specifies that saints were raised to life. Saints means “holy ones.” The Bible uses it to describe ordinary people who are faithful believers and followers of God. Matthew does not mention that unbelievers or unfaithful believers experienced this resurrection. The most likely reason he does not mention it is because it did not occur and that only saints were raised.

By using the term saints, Matthew likely means the faithful who believed God and hopefully clung to His promise to send the Messiah during troubling and contentious times. This could be saints during the Old Testament or saints from the intertestamental period up to the life of Jesus during the Roman occupation, the corruption of the priesthood, and the exploitation by the Pharisees. Matthew explicitly says that many of these saints were raised.

Moreover, Matthew’s account seems to indicate that the resurrection of these saints was confined to the area surrounding the holy city of Jerusalem where they appeared to and were seen by many people.

The resurrection of these saints is a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy:

“Your dead will live;
Their corpses will rise.
You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy,
For your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.”
(Isaiah 26:19)

The context of this prophecy is a song of Judah that calls for its people to be faithful in a time of distress when the wicked seem to prosper, because the LORD will defeat Israel’s foes and rescue Judah.

Matthew’s inclusion of the resurrection of the saints at Jesus’s death is the twelfth allusion to a Messianic prophecy being fulfilled over the course of his narrative of Jesus’s crucifixion.

This resurrection of the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep is a kind of fulfillment of the festival of First Fruits (Leviticus 23:10-14) and a foretaste of the Eternal resurrection (later to come) for all who believe in Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

Other Phenomena that were reported to have occurred at Jesus’s Death

In addition to the four signs that Matthew recorded, there are three other ominous phenomena recorded by the Jews themselves that occurred during the year Jesus died. These are recorded in the Jewish Talmud. These additional signs are:

1. The Menorah Light Went Out
2. The Temple Doors Mysteriously Swung Open
3. The Scarlet Thread on the Yom Kippur “Scapegoat” Did Not Turn White the Year of Jesus’s Death, as it had Every Year Before

In the next section, we will see how the Roman Centurion who oversaw Jesus’s crucifixion responded when he experienced some of these events when Jesus died.