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Transcript 163D — Three Days and Three Nights?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. Could you explain to me how Christ's resurrection took place three days and three nights after the crucifixion. But yet by our calendar today, when we count Friday through Sunday, we only have two full days and two nights. And I'll take the answer over the air.
HC: All right. Fine. Thank you.
The question is raised, How can we work out this idea that Christ rose three days and three nights after He was crucified, since He was crucified on Friday and He rose from the grave on Sunday morning? Now there's three days there, all right. There's Friday, because in the Bible a partial day is counted as a full day. Then there's Saturday, and then there's Sunday. A part of Sunday would be counted as a full day. So you have three days.
But we run into trouble with the nights, because we only have Friday night and Saturday night. But you see, the Bible doesn't teach that Christ was in the grave three days and three nights, or that He rose three days and three nights after He was crucified. The Bible doesn't teach this anywhere.
The Bible does say something that sounds almost like that. In Matthew 12, we read in verse 40, "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." But you see, the heart of the earth is not the grave. The heart of the earth is something else.
The heart of the earth is used in the Bible as a figure of the suffering of hell. When we go back to Jonah, because that is what is alluded to here in this passage, we find in the Book of Jonah, in Chapter three, where it speaks about Jonah in the belly of the fish, that the language of hell is used. Let me just read a couple of verses.
We read in verse 6 of Jonah two, "I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever." Well, that's what happens when you go to hell. You are in the land whose bars close upon you forever. "Yet Thou didst bring up my life from the pit." The pit is a synonym for hell. It says in verse two, "Out of the belly of hell I cried."
In other words, Jonah's being in the belly of the fish is a figure of Christ enduring hell for our sins. And then it says, "Thou didst cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas." The heart of the seas, or the heart of the earth, is a figure of hell. You remember, in Ephesians 4 it says that Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth. That is language to indicate that He endured hell. He endured suffering in order to pay for our sins.
So we don't have to think only about Christ in the grave. We have to look at Christ in His suffering. Now when did it really begin? Look at Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, Thursday night. He said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." Already He's talking about hell.
Then He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and you'll remember that the sweat began to pour off of his body in great drops of blood into the ground. God was already pouring out His wrath on Him, the wrath of hell. And He was crying out to God. Now He was still a free man. He had not been bound by Satan as yet. And yet already He is suffering intensely. God is pouring out His wrath on Him. He's enduring hell for our sins.
And of course this reaches a crescendo on the cross, when He cries out, "My God, My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" That's the essence of hell. Now His suffering was completed in every sense of the word when He rose from the grave on Sunday morning. At that time it became abundantly clear that He had overcome death.
And so He was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth: Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, all day Friday, all day Saturday, and a partial day Sunday. This was the duration of Christ's suffering. Literally, therefore this timetable took place. He was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Well, thank you for that.