When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Matthew 28:11-15

When God speaks, it is always the truth.  In a prayer to his heavenly Father, Jesus stated, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17).  God has revealed his word of truth to us in the Bible.  Though written by human beings, the Bible is actually God’s word.  One of writers of the Bible explained, “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:13).

On the other hand, when God's enemies speak, they must resort to lies or fraud to defend their unbelief.   The religious leaders of the people refused to believe that Jesus was sent by God to save the world of people from sin and death.  In their estimation, Jesus was a false Messiah and a real threat to their authority.  So they opposed him throughout his ministry and eventually had him arrested, tried, and executed.  They were wrong, however, to think that their encounter with Jesus was over when his lifeless body was laid in the tomb and closed by a large stone.

Early on Sunday morning, the third day since the death and burial of Jesus, the Roman guards hurried from the tomb to tell them “everything that had happened.”  They told about the violent earthquake and that they saw an angel of the Lord roll back the stone from the tomb.  The sight of that brilliant heavenly being was so breathtaking that it caused those burly men to faint and collapse feebly to the ground.

The reaction of the religious leaders is interesting.  We’d expect them to scoff at the soldier’s report, asserting that the earthquake was just coincidence and dismissing the account of the angel as nonsense.  Even if they thought there might be some validity to the report, why didn’t they send someone to the tomb to investigate?  Instead, they immediately called a closed meeting and devised a plan to cover up the whole matter with a lie.  They knew the truth.  Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he predicted.  Their response to that great truth was to mask it with a monstrous lie, and bribe the soldiers to spread it.

Jesus rose from the dead.   That’s no lie.  God proclaims that truth in the Bible.  Jesus’ resurrection assures us that he is the Savior whom God sent to free us from the guilt of our sins and give us eternal life.  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!  That’s truth, not to deny, but to believe.