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Over 30 years ago my Dad wrote an article about the 3 days and 3 nights that Jesus was dead before He was resurrected.  My Dad spent his life questioning and refuting questions about perceived Biblical inconsistencies.  He believed that the Bible was the infallible word of God. This is one article that he wrote to clarify the question about how the 3 days and 3 nights in the grave really were 3 days and 3 nights not a different way of counting or the calendar being changed as some people allege.

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The Sign of Jonah

By James E Strickling

Introduction

For many years as a youth, I asked my Sunday School teachers every Easter the meaning of Jesus’ statement that He would be in the grave three days and three nights following His crucifixion.  The question always arose after the assertion that He was crucified and buried on Friday and was resurrected on Sunday.  The typical response, then and now, pleads that “days were counted differently then – a fraction counting for a whole day.”  Part of a day Friday, all day Saturday, and part of a day Sunday then add to three days.  At this point, the third nonexistent night is somehow forgotten.

Such “logic” only serves to dilute the Word and tends to make Bible-believers appear ignorant in the eyes of informed sceptics; it provides no intellectual satisfaction and offers no spiritual comfort.  Many defenders of tradition attempt to circumvent this by saying we shouldn’t be nitpicking.  This implies that either Jesus or the recorder was in error.  The reference to Jonah makes it clear that it isn’t a problem of translation.  Moreover, there is no error in this record in any respect.  It was truly a joyful experience to be shown the precise fulfillment of Jesus’ prophesy as documented in the Word.

The Passover

There was a multitude of Jewish people in Jerusalem when Jesus was crucified.  This was of course for Passover.  Passover was instituted some 1500 years earlier at the time of the Exodus as a remembrance of God’s delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

Prior to the Exodus, the Israelites were commanded to slay a lamb and smear its blood over their doorways.  The Lord would then pass over their abode as he performed the gruesome task of striking down the firstborn, the last plague to befall Egypt:  hence, Passover.  This was subsequently made an annual observance and the date declared to be a High Day – also called a Sabbath.  This Passover Sabbath began at sunset, as did all days in the Jewish reckoning of time.  It was preceded by a day of preparation – ending at sunset.  Observance would always be on the prescribed date.  This is recorded in the Book of Numbers.

Numbers 28:16-18

And in the fourteenth day of the first month is the passover of the Lord.  And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast:  seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.  In the first day shall be an holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of servile work therein.

Other annual holy days were also called Sabbaths. (See Leviticus 16:29-31.)

The Prophecy

The troublesome passage cites Jesus’ response to the request of the Scribes and Pharisees to provide a sign proving His identity.

Matthew 12:38-40

Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.  But he answered and said unto 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 (O.T.:  Jonah):  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.

We must then account for three days and three nights – not two nights and parts of three days.

Jesus’ Last Day

The Scriptures state explicitly that Jesus was tried and crucified on Preparation Day, the same date on which the lambs were slain in Egypt.

John 19:13a, 14a, 18a

(Pilate) brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat…And it was the preparation of the Passover…and they crucified him…

The next day (actually sunset the same day) was the Passover – an annual Sabbath.

John 19:31

The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was a high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

Occurring on a fixed date, the Annual Sabbath could fall on any day of the week.  The weekly Sabbath is of course always on Saturday.  Unless the Annual Sabbath happened to fall on a Saturday, there would have been two Sabbaths that week.  Realizing this makes understandable two otherwise seemingly contradictory passages in Mark and Luke.

Mark 16:1

And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James,                    and Salome, had* bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

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*” had” does not appear in the literal translation of the original Greek text

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Luke 23:56

And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day         according to the commandment.

Mark says that preparation of the spices followed the Sabbath; Luke says that the sabbath followed the preparation of the spices.  The combined sequence is a Sabbath, preparation of spices, and another Sabbath.  Thus, there indeed were two Sabbaths that week.

After the burial, Luke 23:54 says – in the original Greek – that a Sabbath was coming (translated the in the King James).  This contrasts with his use of the in verse 56 in which he also relates the Sabbath to the Fourth Commandment.

Matthew also noted two Sabbaths, but the King James does not reflect this.

Matthew 28:1a

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week…

 

A literal translation of the original Greek is stiff, but the message is indisputable.

Matthew 28:1a

But late of (the) sabbaths, at the drawing on toward of one (the) sabbaths…

By implication in Luke 23:56 (above) and the fact that Jesus made His first appearance on Sunday, the second Sabbath was necessarily the weekly Sabbath – Saturday.  The spices were prepared on Friday, and the first (annual) Sabbath was on Thursday.  It follows that Jesus was tried and crucified on Wednesday.

His Death, Burial, and Resurrection

Jesus died around 3:00 P.M.

Matthew 27:46, 50

And about the ninth hour (3:00 P.M.) Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying…my God, why        hast thou forsaken me?  Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the        ghost.

He was subsequently buried before sunset.  Three days and three nights later would have put the resurrection on Saturday, between 3:00 P.M. and sunset.  A resurrection at Sunset Saturday would have been early the first day of the week (Sunday) by Jewish accounting (Mark 16:9)

Conclusion

It is then clear that Jesus did not err in His prophecy, nor were his words mis-recorded.  Indeed, the sign of the prophet Jonah was His sign:  three days and three nights in the grave to bear witness to His being the Messiah!