Mankind’s
need for a Savior
The Bible
discusses sin and our need for forgiveness and reconciliation to God (the theme
of the biblically commanded Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread) far more
often than the subject of the resurrection. Within the King James Version of
the Bible, the word sin is used 447 times
compared with the word resurrection being
used only 41 times. Don’t forget that sin was the cause of Christ’s death. Only
by repenting of our sins and being reconciled to God by the death of Christ can
we be assured of being resurrected
(Acts
2:38; John
5:29; John
11:25). This is not to minimize the importance of
Christ’s resurrection. It, too, is
a
crucial step in the salvation process (1
Corinthians 15). After being reconciled to God the Father by the
death of His Son, ultimately we are saved by Christ’s life as He pleads for us
in the role of our High Priest and lives in us through the Holy Spirit, helping
us to overcome sin
(Romans
5:10; Hebrews
4:14-16; 1
John 2:1; Galatians
2:20). The process of our coming out of sin is
pictured in the biblical feast immediately following Passover, the Days of
Unleavened Bread, during which Christ’s resurrection occurred. Again, though,
the Bible nowhere instructs Christians to keep a special celebration of
Christ’s resurrection, nor is there a biblical record of early Christians doing
so. But it is clear that both Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul expected
Christ’s followers to commemorate His sacrificial death on our behalf in a
special ceremony (Matthew
26:26-28; 1
Corinthians 5:7; 11:23-28).
Nonetheless, the celebration of Easter prevailed. Those who remained faithful to
Christ’s example of keeping the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread
decreased in number and were persecuted by those favoring Easter. Although how
God views humanly devised changes in the worship He commands will be considered
in a later chapter, let’s now examine how the traditions of this holiday fail
to match the biblical record.
Sunday
morning resurrection?
The choice of
a Sunday date for Easter is based on the assumption that Christ rose from the
grave early on a Sunday morning. The popular belief is that Christ was
crucified on a Friday and rose on a Sunday. But neither
of
these suppositions is supported by the biblical record. Matthew
12:38 shows some of the scribes and Pharisees asking Jesus for a
sign to prove He was the Messiah. Jesus told them that the only sign He
would give was
that of the prophet Jonah: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”
(verse
40).
But how can we
fit “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” between a
Friday-afternoon crucifixion and a Sunday-morning resurrection? The traditional
view of the crucifixion and resurrection allows for Jesus to have been entombed
for only a day and a half.
Some try to reconcile Christ’s words with their belief in a Friday crucifixion and
Sunday resurrection by rationalizing that Christ’s “three days and three nights”
statement does not require a literal span of 72 hours. They reason that a part
of a day can be reckoned as a whole day. Hence, since Jesus died in the
afternoon—around “the ninth hour” after daybreak, or about 3p.m. (Matthew
27:46-50)—they think the remainder of Friday constituted the first
day, Saturday the second and part of Sunday the third. However, they fail to
take into consideration that only two
nights—Friday night and Saturday night—are accounted for in this
explanation. After all, the Bible is clear that Jesus had already risen before
the daylight portion of Sunday (John
20:1). Something is obviously incorrect in this common conclusion
regarding when Christ was in the tomb. Jonah
1:17, to which Christ referred, states specifically that “Jonah was
in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” We have no reason to
think these days and nights were fractional. Nor is there any basis for
thinking that Jesus meant only two nights and one day, plus parts of two days,
when He foretold the length of time He would be in the grave. Such
rationalization undermines the integrity of Jesus’ words.
Was
Christ’s sign fulfilled?
If Jesus were
in the tomb only from late Friday afternoon to sometime early Sunday morning,
then the sign He gave that He was the prophesied Messiah was not fulfilled. The claim of His Messiahship
rests on the fulfillment of His words; it’s that serious a matter. Let us
carefully examine the details of those fateful days. Each of the Gospel writers
gives an account of the events, but each presents different aspects that need
to be correctly synchronized and harmonized to produce a clear sequence and
understanding of what happened. We will see that, when each account is
considered, the chronological details mesh perfectly. For instance,
John
19:31 preserves a crucial point that provides
insight into the other narratives. The preparation day on which Jesus was
crucified is described as the day before the Sabbath. But John clarifies it by
stating that this approaching Sabbath “was a high day.” This
does not refer to the weekly Sabbath (Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) but to
the first day of Unleavened Bread, which is one of God’s annual high, or
Sabbath, days
(Exodus
12:16-17; Leviticus
23:6-7), which could—and usually did—fall on other days of the week.
Some believe
that this high day fell that year on the seventh day of the week, making it
coincide with the weekly Sabbath, with the preparation day being on Friday. But
Luke’s account shows that this was not the case. Notice the sequence of events
outlined in Luke
23. Jesus’ moment of death, as well
as
His hasty burial because of the oncoming Sabbath, is narrated in verses 46-53.
Verse
54 then states, “That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew
near.”
Two
Sabbaths mentioned
Many have
assumed that it is the weekly Sabbath mentioned here. But that’s incorrect.
Instead, it was a Sabbath that occurred on a Thursday,
since verse
56 shows that the women, after seeing Christ’s body being laid in the
tomb, “returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils” for the final preparation
of the body. Such work would not have been done on a Sabbath day since it would
have been considered a Sabbath violation. This is verified by Mark’s account,
which states, “Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary
Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices [which they would
not have purchased on the high-day Sabbath], that they might come and anoint Him”
(Mark
16:1). The women had to wait until this Sabbath was over before they
could buy and prepare the spices to be used for anointing Jesus’ body. Then, as
Luke
23:56 says, it was after purchasing and preparing the spices and
oils on Friday that “they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.”
This second Sabbath mentioned in the Gospel accounts is the regular weekly Sabbath,
observed from Friday sunset through Saturday sunset. By comparing details in
both Gospels—where Mark tells us the women bought spices after
the Sabbath and Luke relates that they prepared the spices
and then rested on the Sabbath—we
can clearly see that two different
Sabbaths are mentioned. The first was a
“high day” (John
19:31)—the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread—which in that
year, A.D. 31,
fell on a Thursday.
The second was the weekly seventh-day Sabbath. (See “The Chronology of Christ’s
Crucifixion and Resurrection” below.)
Sign
of the Messiah
After the
women rested on the regular weekly Sabbath, they went to Jesus’ tomb early on
the first day of the week (Sunday), “while it was still dark” (John
20:1), and found that He had already been resurrected
(Matthew
28:1-6; Mark
16:2-6; Luke
24:1-3). When we allow the Scriptures to interpret themselves, all
four Gospel accounts accurately harmonize and attest to the validity of Jesus’
promise that He would be in the grave three days and three nights—not just part
of that time. Several Bible translations recognize that more than one Sabbath
is discussed in these events. In Matthew
28:1 some Bible versions, including Alfred Marshall’s Parallel New
Testament in Greek and English, Ferrar Fenton’s Translation
and Green’s Literal Translation, properly translate this phrase as “after the sabbaths.” Young’s Literal Translation and The
Complete Word Study
Dictionary: New Testament (1992, p. 1270) similarly acknowledge
that multiple Sabbaths are intended here. The wording of Mark
16:1-2 is confusing to some because it seems to suggest that the
spices were purchased after the weekly Sabbath rather than before it, on Friday. However,
this is explained by Luke
23:56, which clearly shows that the women bought the
spices before, and not after, the weekly Sabbath, “and they rested on the
Sabbath according to the commandment.” Mark did not mention this weekly Sabbath
rest in his account, but Luke, who wrote his account of these events later,
did. Some also stumble over Mark
16:9, not taking into account that there is no punctuation indicated
in the original Greek. Therefore, to be in harmony with the material presented
in the other Gospels, a better translation would be: “Now having risen, early
the first day of the week He appeared first to Mary Magdalene … ” These verses are not saying that Jesus rose early on Sunday
morning, but that He appeared early on
Sunday morning to Mary Magdalene, having already risen some time earlier. When
we consider the details in all four Gospel accounts, the picture is
clear.
Jesus was crucified and entombed late on Wednesday afternoon, just before a
Sabbath began at sunset. However, that was a high-day Sabbath, falling that year
on the fifth day of the week, sunset Wednesday to sunset Thursday,
rather than the weekly Sabbath from Friday sunset through Saturday sunset. He
remained entombed from Wednesday at sunset until Saturday at sunset, having
risen from the dead. Thus, when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb on Sunday
morning before sunrise, “while it was still dark,” she found the stone rolled
away and the tomb empty. We can be assured that the duration of Christ’s
entombment before His resurrection, which He foretold as proof of His Messiahship, was precisely as long as He said it would be equaling
the “three days and three nights [Jonah was] in the belly of the great fish” (Matthew
12:40). Thus, Jesus rose late Saturday afternoon around sunset—not
Sunday at sunrise—which was exactly three days and three nights after He was
placed in the tomb just before sunset on Wednesday. Christ’s prophecy of the
time He would be in the tomb was fulfilled precisely. Because most people do
not understand the biblical high days kept by Jesus Christ and His followers,
they fail to understand the chronological details so accurately preserved for
us in the Gospels.
The
Chronology of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection
Tuesday
Jesus
Christ ate an evening Passover meal with His disciples and instituted the New
Covenant
symbols (Matthew
26:26-28). Jesus was then betrayed by Judas, arrested
and
during the night brought before the high priest.
Wednesday
Jesus
died around 3 p.m. (Matthew
27:46-50). This was the preparation day for the annual,
Not
weekly, Sabbath, which began at sunset (Mark
15:42; Luke
23:54; John
19:31).
Jesus’
body was placed in the tomb just before sunset (Matthew
27:57-60).
Thursday
Wednesday
sunset to Thursday sunset was the high-day Sabbath,
the
first day of Unleavened Bread (John
19:31; Leviticus
23:4-7).
It
is described as the day after the “Day of Preparation” (Matthew
27:62).
Friday
The
high-day Sabbath now past, the women bought and prepared spices for anointing
Jesus’ body
before
resting on the weekly Sabbath day, which began at Friday sunset (Mark
16:1; Luke
23:56).
Saturday
The
women rested on the weekly Sabbath, according to the Fourth Commandment
(Luke
23:56; Exodus
20:8-11). Jesus rose near sunset, exactly three days and three nights after
burial,
fulfilling the sign of Jonah and authenticating the sign He gave of His messiahship.
Sunday
The
women brought the spices early in the morning while it was still dark
(Luke
24:1; John
20:1), finding that Jesus had already
risen
(Matthew
28:1-6; Mark
16:2-6; Luke
24:2-3; John
20:1).
He did not rise on Sunday morning, but near sunset the day
before.
3 Day Chronology