Truly this was the Son of God
Matthew 27:54
The work of redemption had been accomplished, the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled and the victory had been won. Giving His life into death, the Lord was able to cry out: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). God confirmed this cry from His beloved Son and gave mankind various unequivocal proofs of that victory and of the way God honoured His Son.
First of all, God tore down the veil of the temple from top to bottom, thus showing that “the way into the holiest of all” had now been opened up through the Lord Jesus and His shed blood (cf. Matthew 27:51; Hebrews 9:8).
In addition, God opened some graves (cf. Matthew 27: 51-53). It thus became clear that through His work of redemption the Lord Jesus had overcome death.
God also guarded the honour of His Son. As Isaiah had previously prophesied: the Lord’s body was not buried cheaply together with transgressors, but with dignity in the tomb of a wealthy man, in which no corpse had ever lain. It was hitherto untouched by “the wages of sin”.
From the beginning to the end of the Lord Jesus’ life we see mankind’s bitter hostility against Him. This did not end with His death, for the leaders of the people had His grave carefully sealed off and guarded. Yet all these precautions were pointless: in reality these measures only made the fact of the resurrection all the more evident and indisputable.
One observation dismays us: the Lord’s enemies remembered His prediction that He would rise again after three days (v.63), whereas His own disciples seem to have forgotten it!