The Myth of the Friday Crucifixion of the Lord Christ

Addendum: “Three Days”

The duration of the Lord Christ’s entombment should be without controversy; but, careless "Christians" maintain that He was crucified and entombed by twilight Friday, spent that night and all the following day (Saturday, the Sabbath) in the tomb, then arose before dawn Sunday morning.

The following verse is impossible to misunderstand—if one reads and actually believes it:

Mat 12.40
for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

However, since the Lord Christ made this statement to prove His “ultimate sign” (my term) to the Jews, the Holy Spirit ensured that the truth was repeated throughout the gospel accounts. He used different expressions, styles, slightly different syntax and different prepositions, but the truth was always the same: there was to be an interval of exactly three days:

Mat 16.21
From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.

Mat 17.22-23
And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” And they were deeply grieved.

Mat 20.18-19
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.”

Mar 8.31
And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mar 9.31
For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.”

Mar 10.34
They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.”

Joh 2.18-19
The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

During the Lord’s religious trial, there were witnesses who testified:

Mat 26.60-61
They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, and said, “This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’”

Mar 14.57-58
Some stood up and began to give false testimony against Him, saying, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’”

Those who came to gawk at and ridicule the Lord Christ at the crucifixion derisively repeated His statement:

Mat 27.39-40
And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

Mar 15.29-30
Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, “Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!”

The religious elite came to Pilate with this caution:

Mat 27.62-64
Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”

Two facts are undeniably true:

1. The Jews of the Lord’s day completely missed the spiritual component of the Lord Christ’s statement, namely, that He referred to His own body and the fact that He would rise from the dead.
   [Even the Lord’s disciples did not believe this. If they had, then the women would not have purchased and prepared spices, and all His disciples would have been at the tomb before dawn on Sunday, ready to greet Him!]
2. The Jews of the Lord’s day heard, remembered and understood the interval literally: three complete, consecutive 24-hour periods would transpire.

If the Jews of the Lord’s day understood the meaning of the interval of three days’ duration, how is it that Christians today can be so careless with the Lord’s words—especially when the Holy Spirit ensured that it was repeated so many times and so prominently?