Question:
Dear Greg,
What
is your view on the quote that Jesus said that he would be in the grave 3 days
and 3 nights. I believe Jesus.
I do not believe that it was parts of days and nights like so many say.
Urban
Answer: Dear Urban,
I
believe Jesus as well. If you
examine the gospels, you will find one verse that mentions “three days and
three nights” (Matthew
Today,
the day I am responding to you, is Friday. Three
days from now will be Sunday. That’s
the normal way we communicate. That’s
the language used by the vast majority of passages in the Bible that speak about
Jesus’ death and resurrection.
What
about this passage to which you refer to in Matthew 12:40?
It says that Jesus will be in the heart of the earth three days and
nights, as Jonah was in the whale three days and nights.
So, is this a statement by Jesus that his body would be dead the precise
number of hours that Jonah was in the belly of the great fish, and that Jesus
would experience a precise, exact kind of predicament that Jonah did?
Or, perhaps, is it a statement that what Jonah suffered was similar to
what Jesus suffered?
If we disregard all other passages when Jesus spoke of his death, burial
and resurrection and try to force this one statement in Matthew 12:40 to be a
literal 72 hours, (as an exact period of time that the dead body of Jesus was in
the tomb), then we will have to insist that Jonah was also dead for 72 hours
while in the belly of the whale. However,
according to the book of Jonah, that was not the case.
Jonah did not die while in the great fish.
He was trapped—he was in the process of death—he was being
digested—but he never died. He
prayed to God from the belly of the great fish, an activity any of us would
favor in such a circumstance.
So
was Jesus’ body either dead (or not really dead if we compare it literally to
Jonah) for this same length of time during which Jonah was surrounded by death,
being digested, “as good as dead”? No,
that’s not what Jesus meant. If it
were, he would not have compared himself to Jonah.
He
was in distress, the verse says, in the “heart of the earth” for that period
of time. Another problem.
The body of Jesus was never, literally, in a grave “six feet under”
as we say, covered with earth. His
body was not in the earth at all. Six
feet under is a lot closer to the heart of the earth, by about six feet, than
the tomb in which Jesus was buried. His
tomb was on the side of a hill—carved out—not at all six feet under.
So once again this verse is not speaking literally—not in a precise
number of hours and not in the precise method of location of burial.
If we follow your logic we are going to have to believe that this one
verse, Matthew 12:40, is not only true about the precise length of time that
Jesus was in the tomb, but it is also a true statement that his body was buried
in the ground. Consequently, if that
verse is true, all others that speak of Jesus’ burial place are wrong.
Following your thoughts, we are going to have to believe that there was a
grave—not only six feet deep, but even deeper—much deeper to qualify as the
“heart of the earth.” Of course,
“heart of the earth” was not meant literally--neither were three days and
three nights meant literally in terms of the time Jesus’ body was in the heart
of the earth.
However,
if “heart of the earth” does not mean “six feet under”, what does it
mean? The Bible is written with
The
sign that Jesus is our Messiah is not a specific length of time that he was in
the grave. The sign was not all
about how long his body was in the tomb. Neither
the Jewish religious leaders nor the Roman soldiers were poised with stop
watches outside the tomb, knowing that when the 72nd hour had elapsed
he would either be our Messiah and Savior, or he would not.
If that was what was commonly understood, they would have been marking
time in such a way to disprove his claim of an exact 72 hours, but they did not.
They did, of course, post guards outside the tomb to prevent his
disciples from stealing the body and claiming that Jesus was resurrected, just
as he said he would be. They—Jewish
religious leaders, Roman military and political government, as well as Jesus’
disciples were well aware that Jesus said he would be resurrected on the third
day. They were prepared to stop it.
However, nothing about them taking him comment about “72 hours in the
heart of the earth” literally.
The
sign that Jesus is our Messiah is not some clock-watching mathematical puzzle.
The sign is that his tomb is not occupied.
He is risen. No one else has
ever been resurrected, with their body glorified and made immortal.
That’s the sign. Not some
mathematical calculation.
May
God bless you, Urban. Thank you for
allowing Plain Truth Ministries to be of service.
In
Christ,