Chapter 14 The Death and Resurrection of Jesus
Contents
'He revealeth and deep and secret things'
(Daniel 2: 22)
The Gospel of Mark enables us to trace with accuracy the events of the four days from our Lord's entry into Jerusalem on Monday, April 27th AD 33. In Dan 11:12, we read of the cursing of the fig tree 'on the morrow', that is, on the Tuesday; and in Dan 2:19 'when the even was come, He went out of the city.' In Dan 2:20, 'in the morning' - Wednesday - the fig tree is seen dried up from the roots. On this day Jesus ended His ministry in the Temple and departed from it (Dan 13: 1).
Matthew chapters 24 and 25 gives our Lord's teachings on this final day, after His departure from the Temple, and in Mt 26:2, He says: 'Ye know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.' These 'two days' were, inclusively, the Wednesday on which He spoke and the Thursday - April 30th - in the evening of which He took the Passover with the twelve, and Judas betrayed Him.
Friday, May 1st, was the day of His crucifixion. It was the 15th of the 1st month in the Divine Calendar, and, as we see so clearly from the Gospels, the Jews' Passover was a day later - that is, the Lord was crucified on their 14th Nisan, and buried that same evening (John 19: 31-42).
As already mentioned in our Chapter 9, the days of the coming out of Egypt proved to be an exact pattern of the days between our Lord's death and resurrection in AD 33. Revelation 11:8 likens 'the great city ... where also our Lord was crucified,' to 'Egypt.' That is, Jerusalem 'spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt.' And when we read Luke's account of the Transfiguration, we find Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus about His coming 'exodus' (lit. Greek) which He was about to 'accomplish at Jerusalem' (Luke 9:31).
It is important to note this, because we have to insist that there was a perfect antitypical fulfilment in AD 33, of which the events at the Exodus from Egypt were typical.
In 1639 BC the whole nation of Israel 'departed ... on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the passover' (Numbers 33: 3). This was the type. In AD 33, one Man 'went out' of the 'Egypt' of this world, by crucifixion, and all of the redeemed went out with Him. Paul argues this way in 2 Corinthians 5:14. The 'Passover', therefore, which God was observing for the fulfilment of His Word was certainly not 'the Jews' passover', which John's Gospel alone mentions (Jn 11:55).
Similarly, the 'first day of unleavened bread' or 'the feast of unleavened bread,' to which Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:1,12 and Luke 22:1-7 refer, and which is always the 15th of the first month, (commencing in the evening of the 14th), was certainly not the Jewish Feast - which did not commence until the time of Christ's burial. The only reference made to the Jews' Feast is in John 19: 31, where the Evangelist says that 'that sabbath day' after the crucifixion, 'was an high day.' That is, the Jewish weekly Sabbath (our Saturday) which commenced on the Friday evening, when the bodies of the crucified were taken down for burial, was 'a high day' because it was also the beginning of the Jews' Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Because He 'hated' the Jews' Feasts (see Isaiah 1: 13-15), God ignored the celebration on their 15th of Nisan, which was the Saturday. Was it likely, then, that He would acknowledge the Jews' 'first day of the weeks', that is, the Sunday? On this day the Jews were presumably keeping the ordinance of Leviticus 23: 11-12, offering a sacrifice, together with the first sheaf of their harvest 'on the morrow after the sabbath.' One thing is perfectly clear: the Lord could hardly accept their burnt offerings, and recognise their Feast of 'Firstfruits' when they had just put His own Son to the most terrible death it was possible for man or devils to devise!
It will be clearly understood that the reason we are saying this is to show plainly that 'the first day of the weeks' (or more correctly, the first day of the Sabbaths - that is, the seven Sabbaths to Pentecost) which all the Gospels declare was the day of Christ's Resurrection (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1 & John 20:1), was not the Jewish one. God waited until these two observances of the Jews, the 'holy convocation' of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Jews' 'First Day of the Weeks' (our Sunday, May 3rd) which followed it, were past and gone before He raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Therefore, Monday, May 4th, AD 33, was the true 'First (day) of the Weeks', and how perfectly our blessed Lord and Master fulfilled the Divine requirements of this day, as has already been described in our Chapter 11. Now that we can see how Christendom has failed to understand the timing of our Lord's abode in death and in the grave, we can look afresh at the 'week' of the New Creation. We have already patterned out the four days, from the evening of the hidden Day of Atonement, to the evening of the 14th of the 7th month in the Calendar of the Life of Jesus. The two days of His entombment, Saturday and Sunday, May 2nd and 3rd, were thus the 15th and 16th of the 7th month, and His glorious Resurrection, therefore, took place on 'the seventeenth day of' 'the seventh month' - reminding us of the day when the Ark came to rest 'upon the mountains of Ararat' (Genesis 8:4).
How wonderful now to discover that this 'week' of seven days was to God a miniature, each day for a thousand years, of the whole course of man's time upon the earth!
We have seen the 4,000 years from Creation to the Cross shadowed in the four days Jesus looked ahead to His death; we have seen the two days his body lay in the sepulchre as the pattern of these past 2,000 years of Jewish dispersion, and the bloodstained history of Christendom. And we now know that we live on the borderland of that seventh day - the 'thousand years' of Christ's coming Kingdom.
The Hours of the Cross
We learn from Mark's record that our blessed Redeemer was crucified at 'the third hour' of the day (Mark 15: 25). Jewish daytime counting began at sunrise, so the third hour would be between 8 and 9 am. Inclusively reckoned, it was for 7 hours that He suffered on the Tree - until 'the ninth hour' (2 - 3 pm), and His purpose was to make atonement for the sins of seven thousand years.
Of necessity, many questions will arise which must for the present remain unanswered in this brief survey of Time in the Scriptures. Those whose minds are active in this matter will quickly grasp the fact that the great intervention of God in the celestial sphere, when He caused the earth's revolution to come to a halt for 'about a whole day' (Joshua 10: 13) must have directly affected the order of the weekdays thereafter, creating a day's difference between time, as reckoned in Heaven, and as recorded by man on the earth.
The fact was that there was only one sunset in 48 hours. This, indeed, was how God 'wrought' to preserve His 'Sabbaths,' as He says in Ezekiel 20: 12-22. Heaven's calendar became one day in advance of Israel's after the 'long day'. Therefore, when Christ died, in God's sight it was already a Sabbath, and as He refused to reckon time to His Son while He was dead, the day of the resurrection (Monday, May 4th) became to God 'the morrow after the sabbath' (see Leviticus 23:11).
This was not the only reason why this tremendous miracle was wrought in 1599 BC , but it certainly effected this purpose, and it is also a very significant fact that the next great intervention of God with the sun, in the time of Hezekiah (712-711 BC ) was, inclusively, '888' years later (see Isaiah 38: 8). This certainly confirms that both of these acts of God in the heavens were directly related to the Person of Jesus, Whose number is 888.
'Three Days and Three Nights'
We can now look back and see how perfectly the one and only sign Jesus said would be given to His generation was fulfilled - 'the sign of the prophet Jonas.' (Matthew 12:39-40). The Friday upon which He died, 'at the ninth hour,' was clearly the first day, and the Friday night, the first night. The Saturday and Saturday night were the second day and night, and the Sunday and Sunday night, the third day and third night.
'The Third Day' and 'After Three days'
Three times in Mark's Gospel our Lord stated that He would be 'killed, and after three days rise again' (Mk 8:31 and in the Revised Version Mk 9:31 and 10:34). This expression includes the day of His death as the first of the three days. When, however, as in Matthew 16:21, we find the expression, 'be killed and be raised again the third day,' we know that the two days of death commenced with the evening (3-6 pm) on the Friday, after Jesus yielded up His Spirit at 'the ninth hour' (Matthew 27:46), and once again, 'the third day' is found to be the Monday, when God raised Him from the dead.
A Note on 'The Evening'
It has to be remembered that the Jewish period of a day in Scripture commences in 'the evening', and the very word for 'evening' in Hebrew means 'mixture' or 'mingling.' Thus, one day merges, so to speak, into the next in the evening. A proof of this may be seen in Matthew 26:17, where 'the first day of the feast of unleavened bread' clearly began in the afternoon, before 'they made ready the passover' (Mt 26:19). The account continues in Mt 26:20, 'Now when the even (that is, sundown, or 6 pm) was come, He sat down with the twelve.' The Divine 15th day was thus beginning as the 14th was ending.