FCP-14-THREE DAYS.

THREE DAYS. The ’God-Breathed’ Scriptures are, of themselves, enough to enable us to understand the Plan of God and the Salvation to be found in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, and, neither knowledge nor device of any kind, can explain it better than the plain words of Scripture He has inspired His People to record and proclaim since time began.

However many readers, puzzled by an interpretation handed down to them, or by a situation they cannot satisfactory explain, have, added words to, or, taken words away, from the written Word in an attempt to clarify what they see as an answer to the problem they have encountered.

This, of course, is not only forbidden by God Himself, but distorts the true meaning of His revelation to us and is never more evident than when the question of, ’How could Jesus be buried on Friday evening, spend three days and three nights in the tomb, and rise on Sunday morning,’ come up and is coupled with the further question usually associated with it, ’What is the Sign of Jonah?’ And while the answers to both questions are simple in themselves, only Scripture can give the reasons for the answers. The first question arises, it seems, because the answer to ’What is the Sign of Jonah?’ is thought to be the fact that Jonah sent three days and three nights in the whale.

But. Is this the Sign? In actual fact the only way we are going to discover what ’The Sign of Jonah’ was, is to listen to what our Lord said the ’men of Nineveh’ heard from Jonah.

’He began to say. This is an evil generation: they seek a sign, and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the Son of man be to this generation. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here.’ Luke 11:29-30; Luke 11:32. Matthew 12:39-41. Matthew 16:4. Mark 8:12. Jonah 3.

It was certainly not that they repented because he had been in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights! The Bible gives no hint that any of the people of Nineveh were ever aware that Jonah had been swallowed by a whale, and brought safely to shore again.

Perhaps, if they had known of it, more importance might have been given to that instead of to the real message Jonah did bring them from God, and they may have been caught up in wonder at the miraculous rather than in the more sober message Jonah was commanded to deliver. The three days and three nights in the whale was a matter between Jonah and God only.

Jonah’s message to Nineveh was that sin brought death, and repentance brought forgiveness. They believed the words he brought them from God, and God forgave them. Jonah 3. At first it may not seem obvious how the actions of the Ninevites could be a sign but Scripture shows that God was against their sin, as He is against all sin, and when Jonah’s message told them of their peril, they repented, turned to God, and were forgiven. Our Lord was saying that the response the men of Nineveh made to the message is the sign, and whoever makes the same response will find the same forgiveness, but although he was preaching the same message they could not understand it: Matthew 4:17. Mark 1:14-15. Luke 4:18-21.

John the Baptist, as he prepared the Way, had declared it also: Matthew 3:1-8. Mark 1:4. Luke 3:3 . No wonder Jesus said, ’The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment against this generation and condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater than Jonas is here.’ Matthew 12:41. Why then do we ask the question. ’How could Jesus be buried on Friday and rise on Sunday?’

It is because of the verse, ’For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’ A verse found only in Matthew, which is generally taken to mean that our Lord would be three days and three nights in the tomb after his burial. Matthew 12:40. But. Is this what the verse says? To understand we must go back to Jonah’s time and read for ourselves what Jonah’s experience really was; and the first important thing we discover is that Jonah was prepared to be sacrificed to save others. Jonah 1:12.

He knew also what it meant to be rejected, and what it was like to be forsaken of God ’in the midst, (heart), of the seas. Jonah 2:3.

We know he was alive as ’the waves and billows’ from God passed over him ’compassing him to the depths of his soul,’ and that he prayed ’even as his soul fainted within him.’ Jonah 2:7. He ’paid that which he had vowed’, and God delivered him. Jonah 2:9. Our Lord ever spoke clearly when he spoke of the grave, the tomb, the sepulcher, or of death, and he never said he would be three days and three nights in the tomb, that is simply how his words have been interpreted. The two key words are, ’heart’, (kardia in the Greek), and ’earth’ (ge in the Greek). Kardia being the heart, thought, mind, or feelings; and ’ge’, although here translated ’earth’, is also translated many times as land, ground, or country.

Today if one said they were going to spend a few days in the heart of the desert, or the country, or the city, we would know they were going to spend a few days entering into the centre of that particular place they had chosen to visit.

Here our Lord is saying, that just as Jonah had suffered in those three days and three nights, he too would enter into ’all those things’ written of him now, in the living part of the earth, (heart), or as Isaiah has it, ’in the land of the living.’ Isaiah 53:8.

Perhaps, of all the prophets, it is only in Isaiah that we have a more graphic word picture of the future sufferings of ’The Christ.’ Isaiah 53. Our Lord clearly foretold ’all these things.’ Matthew 20:18-19; Matthew 16:21; Mark 8:31; Mark 10:33-34; Luke 18:31-34. Luke 9:22. Luke 9:44-45. ’Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them. Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written of him by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spit on and they shall scourge him, and put him to death, and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things; and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.’ Of course they did not understand! They not only loved him, but they knew him to be ’The Christ’, and could not bring themselves to believe that the One promised through the centuries would have to suffer in this way!

They only began to understand when the women told them what the two men ’in shining garments’ said at the empty tomb, ’He is not here, but is risen! Remember how he spoke unto you in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words.’ Luke 24:4-8.

It finally became real to them when the Lord Jesus himself met the two on the way to Emmaus and said. ’O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.’ Luke 24:25-27. And as the two in turn were telling the eleven, Jesus came, and stood amongst them and said, ’These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them. Thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day. And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things.’ Luke 24:44-48.

It is clear that our Lord is saying here, that amongst them, ’In the land of the living,’ Isaiah 53:8. ’In the heart of the earth,’ He had fulfilled all things written of him, even to the death of the cross, and had risen the third day. No wonder Peter could declare at Pentecost with the Psalmist, ’Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.’ Acts 2:27. Psalms 16:9. The three days and three nights cover the whole time Jesus ’endured such contradiction of sinners against himself,’ Hebrews 12:3; beginning at the covenant to betray him, Mark 14:1-11, and ending with his resurrection; the first day of the week. John 20:1; John 20:19. Luke 24:1; Luke 24:13; Luke 24:21. The events leading to the ’covenant to betray him’ are found in Mark 14:12; Mark 10:11, Matthew 26:2-3. Luke 22:16, John 11:47-53. ’After two days was the Feast of the Passover, and of Unleavened Bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. But they said, not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people, and Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went unto the chief priests, to betray him unto them and when they heard it they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.’ The actual betrayal is described in detail in. Matthew 26:47-50, Mark 14:44-45, Luke 22:47-48, John 18:2-5.

Judas committed this final act soon after our Lord had shared the Passover with his disciples and this led to Jesus being delivered to the chief priests and the Gentiles, mocked, spitefully entreated, scourged, and put to death, as all the gospel writers record, buried as ’the even drew on,’ on the ’preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath,’ to rise on the third day, the ’first day of the week.’ John 20:1; John 20:19, Luke 24:1; Luke 24:13, and Christian writers have attested, that this day, is the resurrection day as far back as Ignatius. 30-107 A. D. And not only believers have testified! The chief priests and Pharisees, unknowingly, did the same on the ’day after the preparation.’

They came to Pilate asking that the sepulcher be made sure until the third day lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say he is risen from the dead’. Matthew 27:62-66, and their timing is such that it reveals that they must have believed the ’third day’ was about to be fulfilled, at least within the limit of the night to come as he had only been buried on the evening of the previous day.

They must have believed the ’three days’ began about two days before they came to Pilate. So the ’Sign’ is to be found in the response the ’men of Nineveh’ made to the preaching of the need for ’repentance and remission of sins,’ and the ’three days and nights in the heart of the earth’; to be seen in all the ’sufferings of Christ’ from the covenant to betray him to his resurrection. The Sign of Jonah is a twofold sign. And while the promise of forgiveness following repentance was clearly seen by those who first asked the question as our Lord walked amongst them, the second, of his suffering was recognized only after his resurrection and only, it seems, by his disciples when Jesus opened the Old Testament Scriptures to their understanding.

Both are a sign to us now.

Conviction as to its prophetic importance urges me to quote here part of that passage in Isaiah 53 from which Philip was to preach Christ to the eunuch in Acts 8:30-37. ’He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our Sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God, and afflicted.’

’But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of Our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.’

’All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.’

’He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.’

’And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death: because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; because he hath poured out his soul unto death.’

What a picture of the ’sufferings’, the death, and the resurrection of our Lord. The ’God-breathed’ scriptures are indeed infallible.

They need nothing ’added’ to them, and certainly nothing can be ’taken away’.

Indeed we are in danger, as Peter warned, of ’wresting the scriptures to our own destruction,’ if we do. 2 Peter 3:16. As I wrote above, God Himself also warns us not to ’add to’, or ’diminish from,’ His words. Deuteronomy 4:2. and Proverbs 30:6.

Unfortunately, despite its good intent tradition has done much to do this to Scripture, and nowhere is it more evident than at the time of the Nativity, and here at Passover, a time we celebrate as Easter when confusion reigns as earnest followers of Christ try to reconcile the three days and three nights in the tomb and with the Resurrection on the first day of the week, (Sunday), as the Scripture records.

Two different ways have been suggested. The first is to allow ’parts’ of days and nights to be known as ’complete’ days and nights and the second, to take the Passover day back to Wednesday and thus obtain three days and three nights in the tomb.

We can surely discard the first suggestion at once. The ’Sign’ is as ’Jonas was’, and if the time is shortened here, the time must be shortened there also, which would do the text of Jonah great harm.

No. When our Lord used the phrase ’three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’, he meant exactly that. Sunday. The first day of the week!

Resurrection day! For those who believe our Lord spent three days and three nights in the tomb, the difficult task of reconciling the day of the Crucifixion with the Resurrection Day begins right here. The usual way out of the problem is to take the Passover Day back to Wednesday, and make the day after an ’high day,’ because of the fact that the day after Passover Day is the Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This day is then called a Sabbath to reconcile it with the Gospel record which declares that the day of the crucifixion was ’the day of preparation that is, the day before the Sabbath.’

However. Immediately this is done several other problems arise, because, although the Day of Unleavened Bread is a day of ’holy convocation’ on which no ’servile work’ should be done, necessary tasks are permitted. The weekly Sabbath demands complete cessation from all work, ’according to the commandment,’ and the only other day to demand this complete rest is the Day of Atonement.

Preparations are required for the Passover and for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but these occupy several days. ’The Sabbath’ requires only one day and that is, the ’day of preparation’, and we must go back to the time of the Exodus to discover how this day came to be known as such. It was at that time when God provided ’manna’ in the wilderness. Exodus 16:5; Exodus 16:22-27.

He told the people that a double portion must be collected on the sixth day as they were not to gather on the seventh, ’The Sabbath.’ So in preparation for the weekly Sabbath they did as commanded, and, in time, the day before the Sabbath became known as ’the day of preparation’ as Mark explains in Mark 15:42.

It was on this day the people prepared meals and completed any other tasks which could not wait until after the Sabbath.

If the time of the crucifixion is taken back to Wednesday, an ’impossible’ Sabbath is added to the ’middle’ of the week for the ’preparation day’ can only refer to the weekly Sabbath.

No! The Scriptures have it right! The ’day of preparation’ was the Passover Day because that Passover Day was on a Friday. This weekly Sabbath was ’an high day’ indeed. Not only was it ’The weekly Sabbath,’ it was also the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a day of ’holy convocation.’ The most disturbing fact brought about by putting the Crucifixion and the Burial back to Wednesday is that if three days and three nights are insisted upon, ’in the tomb’, a resurrection on the first day is impossible. Our Lord would have to rise on the even before the first day, the Sabbath day! The Gospel accounts explicitly declare that our Lord was crucified and buried, on the preparation day as the even approached, with time enough before the Sabbath, for the women to ’go and prepare the spices and ointments’ before they rested on the Sabbath, as the Law required. And that Jesus did rise on the first day of the week is verified both by Scripture, and Christian writers alike. Luke 24:1-13. John 20:1-19. Ignatius 30-107 A. D. Irenaeus 178 A. D. The Scriptures are infallible

Isaiah foretold both the coming, Isaiah 7, and the suffering of Christ by inspiration, Isaiah 53, and John reminds us of this in John 12:37-38, where he writes. But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him. That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Our Lord’s suffering began when His own familiar friend, in whom He trusted, which did eat of His own bread, lifted up his heel against Him. Psalms 41:9.

It had been a soul stirring evening. The anointing of Jesus by Mary, and what it signified. His wonderful words of promise! The presence of Lazarus!

Yet, despite all this, it came into the heart of Judas to betray him.

We are not told when, but sometime that night, at least before dawn, he found opportunity to make his unholy covenant with the chief priests without being discovered, ’and they were glad.’

After the evening meal on Thursday, now Friday in Jewish time, Judas left with the words of Jesus, ’What you would do, do quickly,’ ringing in his ears and later, after our Lord had shared the Memorial Supper with his disciples, he committed his final act of betrayal in the Garden, beyond the brook Cedron. Our Lord was delivered into the hands of the chief priests and the Gentiles, mocked, spitefully entreated, spat on, scourged, put to death, taken down from the cross, and placed in the tomb on the ’preparation day’, as the ’Sabbath drew on’, that is, on the Friday, just before sunset. The Sabbath began after the women had gone home to prepare the spices and ointments and, ’to rest the Sabbath Day according to the commandment.’ On our Saturday night at sunset their Sabbath ended and the first day of the week began. Of course, we know our Lord was already risen when the women came ’very early in the morning’, but as we are not told the hour we can only say it appears that Jesus arose at a time which coincides with the hour when Judas covenanted to betray him to the chief priests three days earlier.

All those ’things’ which occurred during those 72 hours are described in detail in the passage, from Mark 14:10 to Mark 16:9. For those who wish to examine this further, I have made a list of several important facts which must be considered.

I close with a list of prophecies fulfilled in Christ in the last 72 hours.

But, for all believers the ultimate is this. He is risen!

We are baptized into a living Christ, which brings us to two interesting questions Paul asked in 11 Corinthians 15:16 ’If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised,’ and, 1 Corinthians 15:29 What shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? The phrase, BAPTISED FOR THE DEAD, has been thought by some expositors to mean, newly baptized believers, now take the place of others who had died and were now with the Lord. A nice thought, but, I think not. All new believers, stand prepared to present the same good news which brought them to Christ, to others.

They stand, in the Gospel, with all those who have gone before them.

Some believe the Scripture directs their attention to members of their family who did not have the opportunity to hear the message our Savior brought, and they should be baptized for them.

I do not agree with this view at all. The Word of God makes it perfectly clear that, ’No one can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him. ’ Psalms 49:7. As far as Paul is concerned, a belief in the resurrection or not, is the question.

It is a problem with which Paul had to deal with all his life, and, while he had sometimes been able to use the difference to his advantage, Acts 23:6, it was more often than not, a distinct barrier to belief. Acts 17:32. In Paul’s second letter to Corinth, he wrote that, although his first letter had made them sorry, he was glad it had been a godly sorrow which had been to their benefit, and, as we read his first letter we realize again what a difficult time they had been through. To be sure, there was much to praise God for, as they struggled to build the Church, because, among them, there were many differences which Paul tried to help them with.

He had much to praise them for, but, was not hesitant when what they did need admonition, and, perhaps in this portion of his letter is the one problem he was anxious to correct.

They could understand the good news that God in His love had sent His Son to save them from their sins and redeem them to Himself, and, they rejoiced in the salvation He had purchased for them, but they, still stumbled at the resurrection.

Paul began his letter praising God for their faith in Christ and what His sacrificial death on the cross had brought them, and commended them for their zeal in reaching out to others. At the same time, he reminded them of the culmination of that faith, the resurrection of Christ. ’So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ 1 Corinthians 1:7.

He had been able to guide them through the many differences that beset them, but, at this point, 1 Corinthians 15, he is obviously troubled by something which has been reported to him, and, it is concerning the resurrection of Christ.

He writes, ’ I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.’ verses 3-4.

Remember, Paul is writing to the believers in Corinth who have been baptized into Christ, and he wrote very plainly to them, demanding an answer to his question. How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

It is not difficult to understand the meaning of his words thus far, but, he did not leave them ignorant of the result of their disbelief.

He continues. Into whom were you baptized? and, at their answer, into Christ, reveals the result of that confession.

If Christ be dead and you are baptized into Christ, you are dead with Him.

Why be baptized for the dead if the dead rise not?’ 1 Corinthians 15:14-19.

It is clear what had happened. The Corinthians, in their zeal to have the Church grow, had failed to preach the resurrection, and, Paul did not hide his disappointment at their neglect.

However we know from his second letter to them, that his severity here, brought them to a closer walk with Christ and each other. His words in 2 Corinthians 7:8-12. ’Though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season’.

Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. Wherefore, though I wrote unto you, I did it not for his cause that had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto you.

There is no thought of taking the place of any faithful saint who has gone to be with their Lord.

Certainly no suggestion they be baptized for another.

They are to believe in, and preach the Gospel which has been delivered to them, in truth, with love. 1 Corinthians 1:30.