"Three Days Three Nights"

I truly sense there is an unsettling fundamentalism circulating that robs the soul of a capacity to read and understand obvious metaphors. This becomes all too clear when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus continually reminded the disciples that He would die and rise again after “three days and three nights” (Matt. 12:40; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; John 2:19). He made many statements about dying and resurrecting on the “third day” (Matt. 16:21; 17:23; Luke 9:22; 18:33; 24:7, 21, and 46). The Scriptures also indicate that Christ burial took place prior to the start of the Sabbath (Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:31-42), and that the empty tomb was discovered after the Sabbath ended (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1) on the first day of the week (Matt. 28:1; Mark. 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1).

Here comes then Mr. Fundamentalism on the Left. He will tell me, “Well, there you have it. “Three days and three nights” just does not work, since you never really get 72 hours from Friday evening to Sunday morning. The Bible is simply in error. Then Mr. Fundamentalism on the Right comes along. He will tell me stories about movable Sabbaths, Wednesday Crucifixions, or something else all to prove that Jesus was in the grave exactly “three days and three nights” and he will insist if I think otherwise than I have but nothing less fallen into the dreaded pit of liberalism! I find both of them to be in error.

A wooden literalistic understanding of “three days and three nights” really leads to absurdity without resolution to any theory on the timeframe between the crucifixion and resurrection. Scriptures inform us that Jesus died at around 3:00 pm on Friday just prior to the beginning of the Sabbath (the “ninth hour” is 3:00 pm. cf. Matt. 27:49; Mark 15:34). Yet, come 6:00 am or the time of daybreak on Sunday, when the women came to the tomb (Mark 16:1-8; Matt. 28:1-8; Luke 24:1-10; Jn. 20:1-8), the Lord had already risen. Given these parameters it would be impossible for Jesus to have been in the tomb for an exact 72 hours, as if one were to take “three days and three nights” in the most wooden literal sense. To take “three days and three nights” in the most literal sense would mean Jesus rose on the fourth day as opposed to the third day!

This is never really a problem, and Mr. Fundamentalism on the Left and Mr. Fundamentalism on the Right are stricken with dull minds that have lost their literary capacities to recognize obvious metaphors.

Jesus was reckoning His own time in the grave to Jonah’s time in the belly of the fish. Remember, the Jonah ran from Yahweh, through a course of events the reluctant prophet was cast into stormy waters, but the Lord appointed a fish to swallow him, and he remained in the belly of “the fish for three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17). The story of the prophet was so emblazed upon the collective conscious of the ancient Jewish people, the Christos could easily speak of His own “three days and three nights” in the earth and the people could understand He was speaking of His own death.

Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, who loved around AD 100, wisely said “A day and a night make an ‘onah, and the portion of an ‘onah is reckoned as a complete ‘onah” (j. Sabbath 9.12a). So the ancient Jewish mind can easily see that the Lord was in the grave for a part of the day on Friday just before the start of Passover, the whole day on Saturday, which was the Passover, and part of the day on Sunday morning. Since a portion of an ‘onah is reckoned as a complete ‘onah, Friday and Sunday can be reckoned as a complete day. Even Jesus’ disciples understood this, as two were walking on the road to Emmaus after Passover ended on Sunday and they realized it was already the “third day” (Luke 24:21).

Unlike Mr. Fundamentalist on the Left and Mr. Fundamentalist on the Right can readily understand the kinds of ways numbers are used metaphorically. When someone says, “That guy at work was let go after his third strike,” we understand that the person who was fired did literally three infractions, and while “three strikes’ in a game of baseball means the batter is out, that guy’s “third strike” is just a way of saying the fellow’s last violation at work became the occasion for the termination of employment, albeit there were likely many other problems to go with that. We can easily recognize what a person means if she says, “You’ll get your pound of flesh.” It is a profound allusion to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, and while the tragic comedy’s character Shylock wants his literal “pound of flesh” from Antonio, we understand “pound of flesh” to be a figurative way of referring a very harsh unmerciful exacting punishment to the letter of the law, which fails because it can never live up to that essence of the law. In the same way, we can understand Christ “three days and three nights” in the tomb to be from Friday evening to Sunday morning.

All this to say, the biblical testimony stands true: Jesus was in the grave “three days and three nights” and He rose on the “third day.” 
~ WGN