WHAT DAY DID JESUS DIE?
Jesus did not die on Good Friday, bad Friday, or any other Friday. The truth of the whole matter is that the Lord Jesus died on a Wednesday. Let's turn to Matthew 12:40and notice Christ's own prophecy pertaining to His death burial and resurrection:
"For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly (or as it reads in the Hebrew-- in the sea monster's belly),so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
There is no clearer truth in all the world than Jesus' own specific prophecy of His death, burial, and resurrection. Eleven different times the Bible mentions that our Lord would be dead “three days,” and He gave us this one specific type setting forth the exact length of time that not only would His flesh be in the grave, but His Soul and Spirit would be in the flames of Hades. He said that just as Jonah was ‘three days and three nights” in the belly of the fish, that He also would spend “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”—Hades—paying our sin debt. Peter preaching in Jerusalem also testified to this fact:
Acts 2:24,31“But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power….he [David] looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY.”
If Jesus was crucified on Friday afternoon and was raised on Sunday morning as is commonly believed and taught, then His Word failed. He said that He would be dead “three days and three nights,” and you can't figure more than two nights from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning to save your life.
Now, some of you are probably saying, "What difference does it make whether our Lord was crucified on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or any other day?" Well, it makes all the difference in the world. The Bible teaches that Jesus spent “three days and three nights” in the “heart of the earth”. And it is necessary that we believe the Bible if we are Christians. We may not understand all of the Bible, but God expects us to believe it all because it is His Word. And we're to study all of the Bible, not just sections or portions or passages that we particularly like.
Jesus fulfilled the type of Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. That's what the Scripture says in Jonah 1:17. Jesus became the anti type of Jonah. Sometimes people say, "Didn't the Jews count part of a day as a whole day or part of a night as a whole night?" Whenever you have the expression "day and night" mentioned together in the Hebrew Scriptures, it always means a full day and a full night. I can give you several Scriptures along that line. For instance, if you will turn to Esther 4:16; I Samuel 30:12-13and, of course, Jonah 1:17, you will find the expression "three days and three nights." And in every instance it means full days and full nights--not part of a day and part of a night. You know, Jesus defined what a day is. If you will turn to John 11:9, you will find that our Lord said: "Are there not twelve hours in a day?" Well if there are 12 hours in a day, then there are 12 hours in a night. And so three days and three nights would have to be 72 hours. Anything shorter than 72 hours would not fulfill the type of Jonah or the words of our blessed Lord.
THE RESURRECTION WAS NOT ON SUNDAY
Another fallacy connected with Easter is that Christ supposedly arose on Sunday morning. The truth of the matter is that our Lord arose from the dead late on Saturday afternoon. Let me give you the Scripture:
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. And so she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them. "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb. And the two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first, and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb entered then also, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, and that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes.John 20: 1-10
Now, please take note of two things. First, the tomb was already EMPTY when Mary Magdalene, alone, came to it. Second, Peter and John then visited the tomb also very late on Saturday just as Sunday was beginning. If we carefully consider each of the four Gospel accounts, one fact stands out beyond any question. When Mary Magdalene FIRST came to the tomb, Jesus was ALREADY GONE!
Here we have the secret of the whole matter. Now, if Jesus rose from the dead just as Sunday was beginning, and the prophecy of Matthew 12:40said that Christ had to be in the heart of the earth “three days and three nights,” then it is perfectly obvious that our Lord was crucified on Wednesday and His body had to be placed in the tomb before 6 P.M. on that day. Then His body remained in the tomb through Thursday (night and day), Friday (night and day), and Saturday (night and day), and was raised from the dead just as (Jewish) Sunday was beginning, or what we now would call Saturday evening about 6 o’clock. This fulfilled the prophecy of Matthew 12:40. Now, remember that the Jewish day always began at sundown, at about 6 P.M. Our day begins at midnight, but the Jewish day began at sunset. In Leviticus 23:32 the Lord said:
"From evening until evening you shall keep your Sabbath."
Please keep in mind that Mary made two visits to the tomb. John records the first visit of Mary on Saturday evening, at the close of the Sabbath, with Peter and John soon arriving at the tomb just a little later after Mary had informed them of what had happened. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the second visit of the women with Mary the next morning, early Sunday morning, at sunrise. It is then they see the angels.
WHEN WAS CHRIST CRUCIFIED?
Next, we find that Christ did not die on Friday, but on Wednesday. We have already found that the resurrection took place late Saturday just as the new Jewish week was beginning. Well, if we go back three days and three nights, the length of time that our Lord was in the grave, we come to Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday is the only day on which our Lord could have been crucified. No other day will fit the known facts.
Now let us see exactly when Christ was crucified. According to John 19:31 , our Lord was crucified on the Day of Preparation, that is, the preparation of the Jewish Passover. Notice,
"The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for the Sabbath day was a high day) besought Pilate that their legs would be broken, and that they might be taken away."
The Passover always began on the l4th day of the Jewish month of Nisan (Leviticus 23:6), and the day following or the l5th, was always a High Day Sabbath. This was not the weekly 7th day Sabbath, but the annual Passover Sabbath. Please notice,
“On the fourteenth day of the first month at evening is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of the unleavened bread unto the Lord; Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. In the first day (the fifteenth) you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no secular work therein.” Leviticus 23:5-7
Thus it is fixed that this 15th day was ALWAYS a Sabbath regardless of the day of the week. This is the High Day Sabbath mentioned in John 19:31. Now the Scripture makes it plain that Christ was crucified on the day preceding this High Day Sabbath. This was called the PREPARATION DAY. Here it is in a "nutshell." Jesus ate the Passover in the first hours of Wednesday the l4th--just after 6 P.M. (We would call this Tuesday night.) Then He went to the Garden was arrested, tried, and the next day, crucified, still Wednesday the l4th.
He was crucified on the same day in which He ate the Passover. Jesus, therefore, as the Lamb of God, died for our sins on the l4th day of the Jewish month of Nisan (which corresponds with our April.) This had to be on a Wednesday, if we go back three days and three nights from Saturday evening, the time when our Lord came out of the tomb.
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