By Robert A. Lewis
Do you believe as many millions of professing Christians do around the world, that Jesus Christ died on Good Friday afternoon and rose from the grave on Easter Sunday morning?
Although the above has been taught from the pulpits of thousands of churches throughout Christendom over many hundreds of years, have you ever personally taken the time, as the Bible instructs you to do, to check the Scriptures to see that what you have been taught is in fact the truth?
The Pharisees asked Jesus personally for proof that He was really the Messiah and this was His reply to them: “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the fish’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:39-40). He offered them only this one sign: that, like Jonah (refer Jonah 1:17), He would remain in the grave for three days and three nights.
Jesus Christ’s proof to He being the promised Messiah that Scripture foretold was to come, was not any of his spectacular miracles or even the fact of His resurrection. His only proof was the length of time He would remain in the ground.
As there can be no dispute that they were indeed the words of Jesus Christ Himself, why then, as in the case of so many of the other false teachings and doctrines of mainstream Christianity, would you believe He died on Good Friday afternoon, was buried that same day just prior to sunset and rose on Easter Sunday morning? Even an 8 year-old child is capable of working out that there is barely a 36-hour time period between Friday evening and Sunday morning. Certainly not three full days and nights or a time period of 72 hours.
Clearly mainstream Christendom inclusive of all its various Church Denominations and Sects is faced here with two alternatives. Either Jesus Christ wasn’t the Son of God, the Messiah and Savior of mankind He claimed to be, but rather was the biggest fraudster in human history. And, half this world’s population who claim to be Christians and followers of Jesus Christ are in fact, as the other half believe, complete infidels… happy to place their eternal destinies in a person both their church leaders and they themselves believe didn’t meet and fulfill the one and only proof He gave as a sign that He was indeed the person He claimed to be…
Or, Jesus Christ IS in fact who He claimed to be and the half of this world’s population who claim to be Christians, yet by their own words and actions clearly don’t believe Jesus fulfilled the only proof that He ever offered to He being the Messiah, choose to blindly give allegiance to someone they believe as having failed and deceived them… regardless. Now, how silly is that! There is no middle ground here. One or the other has been spreading lies and is clearly wrong… dead wrong!
Was Jesus Christ the biggest con-man of all time or, was He truly who He claimed to be and in fact did fulfill the only proof He ever gave for His own validity? And is the church you’ve supported and believe has been showing mankind the true path to salvation and eternal life, just teaching another falsehood? Helping propagate the false doctrine that is part of the false religious system your Bible says will be across the face of the Earth in the days leading up to the return of Christ and His rule on this Earth? Who’s right… and who’s dead wrong? It is vitally important you know which.
A Seventy-Two Hour Period Of Time…
Hebrew scholars agree that the reference to “three days and three nights” found in Jonah 1:17 refers to a 72-hour time period. In the first book of the Bible the division of the day and night was clearly defined: “And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. …And the evening and the morning were the second day. …And the evening and the morning were the third day” (Genesis 1:4-13). Here God sets out exactly how long three days and three nights would take: three periods of light and three periods of darkness.
Jesus confirmed how long a day and a night was when He said: “Are there not twelve hours in the day? …But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth,” (John 11:9-10)
Four further scriptures confirm the period of time that Christ was in the grave: Matthew 27:63, Mark 8:31, Mark 9:31 and John 2:19-21. To reject the proof of this 72-hour period of time is to reject the singular sign that Jesus Christ gave confirming Himself as being the true Messiah.
So What Day Did Christ Actually Die?…
Now that we know that the common teachings of main-stream Christianity has no connection to the Biblical records, does Scripture in fact reveal the true day Christ died and the day of his resurrection? It most certainly does!
The reason many people believe Christ died on Friday is because the Bible says the day of the crucifixion was called ‘the preparation’ (see Luke 23:54). Which is referring to the fact the following day was a Sabbath. And as it is commonly known the Jews observe a Saturday Sabbath, everyone assumes therefore that this ‘preparation’ day was a Friday.
The Apostle John though was more specific. The Jews intended to break Christ’s legs, which would have contradicted the prophecy that a “bone of Him shall not be broken” (John 19:36, Psalm 34:20). Why? Because “it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day)” (John 14:31). Aha! There your have it! The expression “high day” doesn’t denote just another normal weekly Sabbath, but rather it was one of the annual holy days that are listed in Leviticus 23 – and in this specific case, the first day of Unleavened Bread. If they were to break His legs, Christ would die in time to be buried before the holy day arrived. However, the Scriptures show that Jesus had already died when the soldiers arrived.
In Matthew 26 we read, “And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, He said unto His disciples, Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified” (verses 1-2). Jesus Christ actually died on Passover – the same day that the Passover lamb was killed throughout Biblical history! The Passover was the day before and therefore the preparation day, for the first of the annual holy days. These annual holy days can fall on any day of the week, not necessarily on a Saturday. In the year of the Passover in 31 A.D., the year of Christ’s death, the Passover was on a Wednesday (as the Hebrew calendar shows). The first annual holy day in that year was a Thursday and rather than dying on ‘Good Friday’, Christ actually died on the Wednesday afternoon, the Passover day, just as had been typified by the Jewish people with the slaughtering of a lamb on each Passover day, for thousands of years prior.
So When Was Christ Resurrected?…
Now that we know that in fact it was exactly a 72-hour period that Christ was in the grave, as He foretold, it doesn’t require a mathematical genius to realize that Jesus Christ’s resurrection took place at the same time of the day, three days after his burial. The preparation day Wednesday, ended at sunset (a day ends at sunset according to the Bible; refer Leviticus 23:32), and the Jewish law required that the dead be buried prior to the Sabbath. The Scriptures record Christ “cried with a loud voice” at “about the ninth hour” in reference to the ninth hour after dawn – which was around 3 p.m. in the afternoon (Matthew 27:46).
Therefore we know from the scriptural record, that Christ died in the late afternoon on the Wednesday, was buried before sunset and was resurrected 72 hours later on the Sabbath Saturday, at the same time. Thereby fulfilling the only sign Christ gave: the sign of the prophet Jonah.
The Apostle Paul agreed that Christ fulfilled the Scriptures regarding that sign when he recorded: “For 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” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
The Friday Between Two Sabbaths…
The Bible describes the women as buying spices after one Sabbath (Mark 16:1), but preparing those spices before another Sabbath (Luke 23:56). Mark and Luke’s accounts are not a contradiction, but is further evidence of two Sabbaths in the week of Christ’s crucifixion. The Friday between the two Sabbaths being a normal weekday in which the women were able to obtain and then prepare their spices.
Following Christ’s Resurrection…
The Scriptures clearly state (Mark 16:2) that Mary Magdalene came with the spices to anoint Christ on “the first day of the week… at the rising of the sun.” She found that the stone of His sepulcher was rolled away (verse 4). And verse 9 confirms that He had already been resurrected: “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week…” Now note it doesn’t say He “did rise” or “rose on the first day”. It simply says He was risen (past tense). He had indeed done so, as the Scriptures clearly show, on the late Saturday afternoon.
The expression ‘was risen’ is mistakenly taken by main-stream Christianity as the sole basis for the idea that Christ was resurrected on Easter Sunday morning, yet it says nothing of the sort! Instead, it simply confirms that Christ had already been resurrected and emerged from the tomb by the time Mary Magdalene arrived.
So Whom Will You Believe?…
Will you believe the minister in your local church and all your fellow ‘Christian’ friends and neighbors, or the only sign Jesus Himself gave as recorded in your Bible and a simple mathematical calculation even an 8 year-old child can resolve? And more importantly, what does knowing the truth about Christ’s death and His resurrection mean for your observance of Easter?
Easter with its traditional Sunday ‘sunrise service’ has absolutely no biblical basis for its observance. You will not even find the word Easter mentioned in your Bible. (Although ‘Easter’ is used once in the King James translation, for which Bible scholars agree the Greek word pascha translated ‘Easter’ in Acts 12:4 should have been correctly translated ‘Passover’). Adam Clarke in his commentary says about this word, “Perhaps there never was a more unhappy, not to say absurd, translation than that in our text.”
Millions of ‘Christians’ misguided by this world’s false religious system are observing the religious days of Easter, Christmas and Sunday worship which were never kept by Christ, His Apostles or the true church of God that He established. These religious festivals and ‘holy’ days all have pagan origins that were craftily entrenched into our culture, predominately by the influence of the Bishops of Rome dating back to as early as the second century A.D. and in some instances much further back. Even centuries prior to the establishment of Christianity. All these facts can easily be uncovered with just a little historical research.
If you would like to learn of the Holy Days that God DOES actually require that you keep – the same days that Jesus Christ, the New Testament church and all true Christians still observe today – and which your Bible says will be still observed throughout the Millennium rule of Christ and His Church on Earth, you may like to read the free booklet: ‘Pagan Holidays, or God’s Holy Days… Which?’ Go to: https://gospeltruths.info/library/
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