Christ was crucified on Thursday and rose from the dead on Sunday, just as planned

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Christ was crucified on Thursday and rose from the dead on Sunday just as planned.

One of the confusing aspects about the traditional understanding of the Crucifixion of Christ and his Resurrection on Sunday morning, has been how he could have been crucified on Friday, raised on Sunday and have the prophetic words regarding “3 days and 3 nights” in the grave still be true.

Many have attempted very creative machinations to make this scenario work out, including suggesting that the crucifixion actually happened on Wednesday rather than Friday.

Others have taken a different approach to this problem and eliminated Wednesday from the calculations, not the calculations of the crucifixion-to-resurrection time frame, but rather they have removed Wednesday from the week, in terms of knowing any events that may have taken place that day.

They have done so because we know what was happening in Jesus’ life the day before the crucifixion, and if the crucifixion was on Friday then those events had to happen on Thursday. The problem for those who understand Friday to be the day of the crucifixion, is to connect known details and days together in a meaningful way.

The only way to do that is to eliminate Wednesday from the week as a “silent” day. In fact if you look at any “harmony of the Gospels” (a chart that lines up information from each of the four Gospels with the events of the last week of Christ’s life, as to which day these events occurred) you will see that nearly always Wednesday isn’t on the chart.

I want to suggest that there is a simple answer to the dilemma and it has been laying there in the Scriptures the entire time. I also want to say that there is a sense in which this is not a big issue. I don’t want to be misunderstood to be making a mountain out of a mole hill.

The fact that Christ died and was raised again is the issue! It happened! Of that we are sure and that is what counts. The fact that our feeble brains can’t put together a simple time table or agree on precisely when things happened, doesn’t lessen one iota what Christ did for us.

That having been said, there is another sense in which it is critically important to understand when Christ died, because his death on a very particular day was a complete fulfillment, not just of the fact that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and 54 would die for us, but that the Passover Lamb of Leviticus 23 would die for us on the very day of Passover.

Because this is a blog and not a book I will be explaining this in short hand form, but I hope this abbreviated explanation will do the job for you.

The short cut to the truth is found in all 4 Gospels, not just one or two or even three, but all four where the story of the Resurrection is told.

In each Gospel (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1 and John 20:1) in the description of when the empty tomb of Christ was found, the Scriptures do not directly say that it was Sunday. It was Sunday of course and that is precisely what the Scriptures mean by what they do say, but what they each say in so many words is that the day the Tomb was found empty was the “morrow after the Sabbaths.”

The day after the “Sabbaths” was Sunday all right, so translating the text into English as it being the first day of the week is the correct understanding, but note the plural on Sabbaths!

That’s right, each Gospel speaks of “Sabbath’s” in the plural. But why?

There were two Sabbath’s that week.

“Pardon me, Gordon, what did you say? Two Sabbaths? How can there be two Saturdays in one week?”

Good question. There weren’t. But there were two Sabbaths. You see Sabbath doesn’t mean “7th day” nor does it mean Saturday. Sabbath means “rest” or “cease.” It was the day that God “ceased” from his labor in creation.

There were other “Sabbaths,” rest days, days of ceasing one’s labor. The Day of Unleavened Bread was one of those days. Take some time to read of the Feast days in Leviticus 23 in the Old Testament.

Passover was on the 14th day of the first month and the Day of Unleavened Bread was the next day, the 15th day of the month, the Day of Unleavened Bread being a God ordained day of Sabbath rest.

Christ was crucified on….drum roll please…Passover Day! Thursday. He is our Passover Lamb, completely fulfilling the prophecies of the lamb that died that the death angel might pass over us, and that we might live.

He was and is the perfect Passover Lamb. No fault was found in him, not a bone was broken, just as was the case with the lambs of Exodus 12.

Taken on the 10th day of the month (Sunday, the day of his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem) and examined to see if he had any faults, just as the Passover Lamb was examined, Jesus was found guiltless—“I find no fault in him." He was slain in the afternoon on Thursday at the very time that Passover Lambs were being slain all over Jerusalem.

A perfect fulfillment of His God ordained destiny.

When Joseph of Arimathea was taking Jesus off the cross to bury him because the Sabbath was coming, it wasn’t a Saturday Sabbath being referred to. It was the Sabbath of the Day of Unleavened Bread, the first rest day of that Feast, which was Friday of that week.

So Joseph was taking Jesus off the Cross on Thursday, Passover Day, just before the Day of Unleavened Bread, the Sabbath Feast day was to begin.

“But Gordon, Jesus and the disciples ate their Passover meal the day before Christ was crucified. How do you explain that?”

A better question in response to that question, is how does one explain John 18:28?

John 18:28 Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the praetorium. It was early. They themselves did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled but might eat the Passover.

Did you notice that? The Jews who had brought Jesus to Caiaphas had not yet eaten the Passover. Why is that? Because it was Passover Day when this happened!

Jesus and the disciples had eaten their Passover meal a day early. Why? Because they had to if Jesus was going to be the Passover Lamb Sacrifice on Passover Day.

Let’s add some more verses to cement this issue.

Take a look at John 19:14. Pilate is trying to release Jesus, but the enemies of Christ would have none of it. When did this confrontation happen? The day of Christ’s crucifixion about which we read in John 19:14:

Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover, it was about the sixth hour.

You see, Passover was just being prepared the day Jesus died, being prepared for the evening Passover meal. It was Thursday, the 14th day of the month. The day that lambs were to be sacrificed having been examined since the 10th day, Sunday, being found spotless and without blemish.

The next day, Friday, was the Day of Unleavened Bread, a high and holy day when a designated Sabbath rest was to be observed.

And what do we read of that day, Friday? John 19:31:

Since it was the day of Preparation (Thursday), in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath (Friday) (for that Sabbath was a high day)(the Day of Unleavened Bread) the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

When Jesus was dying on Passover Thursday, the Jews were concerned about the body being left on the cross the next day, Friday, the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. So they requested that his legs be broken so he would die more quickly and be removed before the sun went down, sundown being the mark of the beginning of a new day in Jewish reckoning.

Friends, Christ died on Passover Day just as was predicted. He died and was buried and was three days and three nights in the tomb, just as predicted.

And he was resurrected on a very specific day too, also in keeping with the Scriptures of Leviticus 23: The day of the Feast of First Fruits. God was keeping his appointments. The New Testament in fact calls Jesus our “First Fruits.”

Dying on Passover, Jesus carryied our sins away to the tomb on the Day of Unleavened Bread, a day when all “sin”/leaven is to be removed from one’s house. Raised on the Day of First Fruits, Jesus sent the Spirit of God to indwell his people on the very Day of Pentecost.

We now await a trumpet sound don’t we?

A trumpet sound for what? The Rapture of the Church when we shall all be gloriously translated into to heaven.

When would such a thing happen?

Four major events in God’s time table have happened on the precise day of his appointed Feasts: Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Pentecost.

Do you know what Feast is next in Leviticus 23? Could it be a feast having anything to do with the trumpet blast we all hope for? You guessed it: The Feast of Trumpets is number 5 and is the next in order.

Interesting isn’t it, that the Feast of Trumpets isn’t a spring Feast as are the first four. The Feast of Trumpets comes in the fall after a summer of harvest. Friends we are in that harvest season now, as souls are coming to Christ, the fields white for the harvest as Jesus said.

Keep your eyes peeled in the years ahead. There is another Feast Day coming for us.

The Trumpet shall sound and the dead in Christ will be raised first and then we who are alive and who are left shall go to meet the Lord in the air. Therefore comfort one another with these words……

The Trumpet shall sound. It’s on the calendar. And God keeps his appointments…to the very day.