The Burial’s Significance
Matthew 27:57–61
[Joseph] laid [the body] in his own new tomb. Matthew 27:60

Jesus’s burial has theological significance for us. This point strikes us when we study what is said about the grave in the Old Testament and about the burial of Jesus in the New Testament. Old Testament texts speak of the grave with dread. Examples include Genesis 37:35 (“In mourning will I go down to the grave” [NIV]) and 2 Samuel 22:6 (“The cords of the grave coiled around me” [NIV]). Often the word translated “grave” in our Bibles is Sheol, which has overtones of hell, as in Psalm 116:3 (“the anguish of the grave” [NIV]) or Job 10:21, which calls it “the land of darkness and deep shadow.” To say that Jesus not only died but was also buried in the grave means that he descended as low as he could go in order to raise us up to heaven.

Yet there is more. In Romans, Paul speaks of Christians being buried with Jesus in his death, just as they are raised with him in his resurrection. He does this while discussing the Christian life, explaining why believers cannot continue in sin. For example, “We were buried . . . with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

When theologians work out these parallels, they have little trouble showing how we have been crucified with Jesus, raised with him, or even made to ascend into heaven with him. But they have trouble with the burial. How were we buried with Christ? they ask. What does this add that is not already covered by our death to sin?

I suggest that the reason burial is an important step even beyond death is that burial puts the deceased person out of this world permanently. A corpse is dead to life, but in a sense it is still in life, as long as it is around. When it is buried, when it is placed in the ground and covered with earth, it is removed from the sphere of this life permanently. It is gone. That is why Paul, who wanted to emphasize the finality of being removed from the rule of sin and death, emphasizes it. He is repeating but also intensifying what he said about our death to sin earlier. “You have not only died to it,” he says. “You have been buried to it.” To go back to sin once you have been joined to Christ is like digging up a dead body.

I do not think the Gospel writers had this in mind when they wrote about Christ’s burial, but guided by the Holy Spirit, they were laying down as a detail of history what Paul in particular would later unfold in its full theological significance.

Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865

Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.