There are brilliant scholars of the Bible who war each other over the timing of the crucifixion. One group with solid evidence argues that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, known as The Day Of Preparation, the day before the Passover, and that the only way to get to three days before the resurrection is that He then rose on Saturday, because it is the first day of the Jewish week.
The other group with solid evidence argues for the traditional belief that Jesus was crucified on Friday and rose on Sunday. How they get to three days from that viewpoint eludes me. It does not matter who is right. The important thing is that we understand the true meaning of the death, burial, resurrection, the happenings of the forty days after He rose, the things Jesus performed before He ascended to His Throne, and the ascension.
WHY THE THREE DAYS MATTER
The three days matter because Jesus publicly declared that He would be in Hell for three days but would return afterward, which is precisely what happened.
“Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, Teacher, we desire to see a sign or miracle from You proving that You are what You claim to be.
But He replied to them…’ An evil and adulterous generation, a generation morally unfaithful to God, seeks and demands a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the Prophet Jonah.
Meaning that the only proof they needed was the fact of His resurrection. If He did as He promised, rise from the dead, then He had to be God in the flesh.
From the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Priests, and scribes all knew who Jesus was.
Nicodemus said so. Yet, they killed Him because their pride, position, power, fame, and wealth were more important to them than God Himself. They are all in eternal hell—a horrid price to pay.
For even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster (Note: Jesus did not say whale!), so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’ (Meaning the bowels of hell, not Sheol as some believe.)
(Matthew 12:40)
Jesus had just blasted the slimy dudes who had turned the Temple into a profit center where they sold at exorbitant prices the sacrificial doves and other merchandise required for the sacrificial rites that the Religious rulers demanded of the people. Then this happened:
“Then the Jews retorted, What sign can You show us, seeing You do these things? Meaning: What sign, miracle, token, or indication can you give us as evidence that You have the authority to act like this?
Jesus answered them,’ Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it again.’
(John 2:19)
Then the Jews replied, ‘It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and will you raise it in three days?’
But He had spoken of the Temple which was His body. After He rose from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this.”
WHAT JESUS DID FOR THREE DAYS AND NIGHTS
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (Were living in your flesh and sin nature), God made you alive with Jesus. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
(Colossians 2:13-15)
THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CRUCIFIXION, RESURRECTION, AND ASCENSION OF JESUS:
When you see the bloody mess that Jesus became during His torture and crucifixion in movies like Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, Remember that it was the price He paid because He loves you personally that much, that He was willing to suffer that horrible price to prove it and to pay for your every sin, past, present, and future. It was the price He paid to forgive you, so never ask Him to forgive you. He paid in blood to do that and to guarantee every one of His great and precious promises. Here is what Good Friday and Easter are all about:
A PROMISE FROM GOD FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE AND BELIEVE IN JESUS:
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
(Hebrews 8:12)
“And in accordance with this will of God, we who believe and believe in Jesus have been sanctified, that is, set apart as holy for God and His purposes through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all.
Every priest stands at his altar of service ministering daily, offering the same sacrifices over and over, which are never able to strip away sins. In contrast, Jesus, having offered the one sacrifice, the all-sufficient sacrifice of Himself for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, in the position of honor, waiting from that time onward until his enemies are made a footstool for His feet.
For by the one offering He has perfected forever and completely cleansed those who are being sanctified.
And Holy Spirit also adds His testimony to us; for after having said,
‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, says the Lord:
I will imprint My laws (His Words, not the Ten Commandments and six hundred and three attached man-made rules and regulations) upon their heart, And on their mind I will inscribe them [producing an inward change], He then says,
“And their sins and their lawless acts
I will remember no more!!
Now, where there is absolute forgiveness and complete cancellation of the penalty of these things, there is no longer any offering required to atone for sin.
(Hebrews 8:12 and 10:10-18)
“For God so loved the world (you, fill in your name here) that He gave His only begotten Son, (Himself in the person of Jesus) so that WHOSOEVER believes and believes in Him shall never perish but will have everlasting life.”
(John 3:16)
You have just read the purpose for why God donned an earth suit and came here to save us. Those scriptures are what Jesus’s life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension were all about.
HAPPY GOOD FRIDAY OR WEDNESDAY AND EASTER!
Let us spend these days giving praise, laudation, and eulogy to the God who loves us that much, just the way we are!
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Love, Thanks, and Blessings,
Pastor Allen
Throne of Grace
2590 Sandy Court
Marietta, Georgia 30066
