three nights, at the beginning of the first day of the week (Saturday at sunset), He arose again from the grave. When the women visited the tomb, just before dawn next morning, they found the grave already empty. So we are not driven to any such makeshift as that any small por tion of a day is reckoned as a whole day and night, but we find that the statement of Jesus was literally true. Three days and three nights His body was dead and lay in the sepulchre. While His body lay dead, He Himself being quickened in the spirit (I Peter 3:18) went into the heart of the earth and preached unto the spirits which were in prison (I Pet. 3:19) (The Old Testament saved who were awaiting Christ’s resurrection to take them unto paradise.) This supposed difficulty solves itself, as do so many other difficulties in the Bible, when we take the Bible as meaning exactly what it says. It is sometimes objected against the view here ad vanced that the two on the way to Emmaus early on the first day of the week (that is, Sunday) said to Jesus in speaking of the crucifixion and the events accompanying it: “ Besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done” (Luke 24:21), and it is said that if the crucifixion took place on Wednesday, Sunday would be the fourth day since these things were done. But the answer is very simple. These things were done just as Thursday was beginning at sunset on Wednesday. They were therefore completed on Thursday, and the first day since Thursday would be Friday, the second day since Thursday would be Saturday, and “ the third day since” Thursday would be Sunday, the first day of the week. So the supposed objection in reality supports the theory. On the other hand, if the crucifixion took place on Friday, by no manner of reckoning could Sunday be made “ the third day since” these things were done. Many passages in Scripture support the theory ad vanced above and make it necessary to believe that Jesus died late on Wednesday. Some of them are as follows: “ For as Jonah 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” (Matt. 12:40); “This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days” (Matt. 26:61); “Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, 'save Thyself’ (Matt. 2:40); “ Sir, we remember that that de ceiver said, while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again” (Matt. 27:63); “ The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31); “They shall kill Him, and when He is killed, after three days He shall rise again” (Mark 10:34, ASV ); “ Ah, Thou that destroys the temple and buildest it in three days, save Thyself!” (Mark 15:29); “ Besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done” (Luke 24:21); “ Jesus an swered and said unto them, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But He spake of the temple of His body. When therefore He was risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said” (John 2:19-22). There is absolutely nothing in favor of Friday cruci fixion but everything in the Scripture is perfectly har monized by Wednesday crucifixion. It is remarkable how many prophetical and typical passages of the Old Testa ment are fulfilled and how many seeming discrepancies in the Gospel narratives are straightened out when we once come to understand that Jesus died on Wednesday and not on Friday.
Everything about the pascal lamb was fulfilled in Jesus. (1) He was a Lamb without blemish and without spot (Ex. 12:5). (2) He was chosen on the 10th day of Nisan (Ex. 12:3), for it was on the tenth day of the month, the preceding Saturday, that the triumphal entry into Jerusalem was made, since they came from Jericho to Bethany six days before the Pass- over (John 12:1— that would be six days before Thursday, which would be Friday), and it was on the next day that the entry into Jerusalem was made (John 12:12 and following verses), that is, on Saturday, the 10th Nisan. It was also on this same day that Judas went to the chief priests and offered to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26:6-16; Mark 14:3-11). As it was after the supper in the house of Simon the leper, and as the supper occurred late on Friday, that is, after sunset, or early on Satur day, after the supper would necessarily be on the 10th Nisan. This being the price set on Him by the chief priests, it was the buying or taking to them of a lamb which according to law must occur on the 10th Nisan. Furthermore, they put the exact value oh the lamb that Old Testament prophecy predicted (Matt. 26:15, compare Zech. 11 : 12 ). (3) Not a bone of Him was broken when He was killed (John 19:36, compare Ex. 12:46; Num. 9:12; Psalm 34:20). (4) And He was killed on the 14th Nisan between the evenings, just .before the beginning of the 15th Nisan at sundown (Ex. 12:6, R.V. margin). If we take just exactly what the Bible says, viz., that Jesus was slain before the Passover sabbath, the type is marvellously fulfilled in every detail, but if we accept the traditional theory that Jesus was crucified on Friday, the type fails at many points. Furthermore, if we accept the traditional view that Jesus was crucified on Friday and ate the Passover on the regular day of the Passover, then the journey from Jericho to Bethany, which occurred six days before the Passover (John 12:1) would fall on Saturday, that is, the Jewish sabbath. In reality His triumphal entry into Jerusalem was on the Jewish sabbath, Saturday. This was altogether possible, for the Bible elsewhere tells us that Bethany was a sab bath day’s journey from Jerusalem (Acts 1:12; compare Luke 24:50). Furthermore, it has been figured out by the astrono mers that in the year 30 A.D., which is the commonly accepted year of the crucifixion of our Lord, the Passover was kept on Thursday, April 6th, the moon being full that day. The chronologists who have supposed that the crucifixion took place on Friday have been greatly per plexed by the fact that in the year 30 A.D. the Passover occurred on Thursday. One writer, in seeking a solution of the difficulty, suggests that the crucifixion may have been in the year 33 A.D., for although the full moon was on a Thursday that year also, yet as it was within two and half hours of Friday. He thinks that perhaps the Jews may have kept it that day. But when we accept exactly what the Bible says, namely, that Jesus was not crucified on the Passover day, but on the “preparation of the Passover,” and that He was to be three days and three nights in the grave, and as the “ preparation of the Passover” that year would be Wednesday, and His resur rection early on the first day of the week, this allows exactly three days and three nights in the grave. To sum it all up, Jesus died about sunset on Wednes day. Seventy-two hours later, exactly three days and
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APRIL. 1961
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