How Did Three Days and Three Nights become Good Friday afternoon to Sunday Morning? - Part 1

This question, as always, is easy to answer. It became Good Friday afternoon to Sunday morning because men of the Christian religion didn't take the trouble to search the Holy Scriptures thoroughly. If they had done that they would have known that Good Friday to Sunday morning was unbiblical. This laziness was then compounded by their arrogance and blasé indifference to the Truth. Indeed, they were, and are still, not interested in the Truth, only in their vain religious traditions. Add to that their evil hatred of the Jews and all things Jewish and they have ended up believing a monumental deluded deception. Furthermore, through their prejudiced views, their closed minds and poorer than young school boy knowledge of Jewish religious customs and history, they made The Lord Jesus Christ out to be a liar. Can you believe that? Possibly you can't but, when I've finished this series of articles, I hope you will.

OK, let's cut to the core straight away by quoting this often overlooked verse of Scripture where The Lord Jesus Christ speaks these crucial words:

Matthew 12:39-40 But he answered and said unto them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: 40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Here I must emphasise that these two verses are what I call 'reinforced concrete verses or cast iron verses' - incorruptible so tamper with them at your peril. In view of this I am going to spend a little time analysing these two verses - and the reason? You would not believe some of the verbal garbage and written garbage that has been offered by so called Bible 'experts' and 'authorities' to explain these verses away. In doing this, they pathetically attempt to support the indefensible - the indefensible lie of the Lord Jesus Christ being in His tomb from Good Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. This, when a seven year old child could quickly do the maths and tell you that Good Friday afternoon to Sunday morning can never, in a million years, add up to three days and three nights. Unless, of course, the 24 hour day and night cycle has changed since 31 AD and no one has informed us!

Where was I, oh yes Matthew 12:39-40? First, we have more evidence that the Pharisees are still with us today. An evil and adulterous generation sought after a sign in the first century and today, an even more evil and adulterous generation tries to explain these verses away with the Good Friday to Sunday morning lie. When they do this they are making to 'none effect' this special sign the Lord Jesus Christ gave as evidence He was, who He said He was - the Messiah. Don't let anyone persuade you nor fool you into thinking that this is a trivial side issue, it is not. Those first century men of religion asked the Lord Jesus Christ for a sign and this is the only sign He was prepared to give them, the sign that He would be in the 'heart of the earth' for three days and three nights.

Now this 'heart of the earth' phrase is another little topic that Bible intellectual 'whiz kids' like to get their teeth into - milk teeth that is! OK, 'heart of the earth' what did The Lord mean by it? The answer is simple, simple being the operative word here and we're back to one of my favourite Scriptures: 2 Cor 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. To try or attempt to try and make Good Friday afternoon to Sunday morning add up to three days and three nights, one would think, is the height of impossibility. It is, and believe me these people do try. It's quite amazing how they dream up some of their stupid ideas and theories in order to prove the unprovable. There is however one thing all these silly theories have in common - none of them are simple!!

Apologies, I keep going off at tangents but they are necessary tangents. Now this phrase 'heart of the earth', what does it mean? Understanding what it means is crucial. Why is it crucial? It's crucial because the above mentioned 'experts' have spent hours and hours trying to read into it no end of spurious things that are not there. This phrase means only one thing, the simplest thing, and it means this - 'heart of the soil'. Jesus Christ said he would be in the 'heart of the soil' for three days and three nights. Not in a mythical Greek Hades which doesn't exist, nor at the centre of the earth in the molten core, nor in any other of their silly infantile fairy tale places. The Lord deliberately used Jonah's horrendous experience inside the belly of the whale or fish as a powerful type or shadow of what He, The Lord, was to endure. Jonah was entombed inside this creature for three days and three nights, not a minute shorter nor a minute longer, in other words He endured this trial for exactly that length of time. The Lord Jesus Christ uses this exactness of time to prophecy to the unbelieving Pharisees that that is exactly how long He would be entombed in the heart of the soil - a hole in the ground, a grave or a tomb. There was nothing more to it than that - all very simple.

Matt 26:61 And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

Mark 14:58 We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.

John 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

These three verses are very straight forward for those of us who know that a day follows a night but the gnat strainers and 'clever' people actually think the omission of the word night here reduces the normal twenty four hour cycle to a twelve hour cycle. How clever is that? Amazing eh? Well actually not very, because even three twelve hour sessions of time don't work either in proving the Good Friday afternoon to Sunday morning arrangement. The problem here being if The Lord was resurrected on a Sunday morning, at what time exactly did it take place? No one knows is the answer to that one, because His resurrection was not witnessed by anyone. All that was witnessed was the fact that the tomb was already empty when angel appeared and removed the stone. The thing is, if we apply the Biblical evidence correctly, we can work out at what time The Lord was resurrected if we follow what He told us i.e. He would be in the heart of the soil for three days and three nights. All we have to do is prove the correct time of His burial. Ah, now we're back to the simplicity that is in Christ!!

OK, I'm nearly done with this first article but I must finish it with another Scripture from Matthew because I can already hear some detractors quoting this verse as a counter to what I am saying, so let's go there now.

Matthew 28:1-6 [In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.] And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. 3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: 4 And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. 5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. 6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. (Please note I have emboldened and placed square brackets around verse 1 because I will be analysing it in detail in the next article.)

Right, what evidence do we have here in Matthew? The first evidence is that The Lord was already resurrected without the stone being rolled away from the tomb entrance. The Angel moved the stone to enable The Lord's followers to see for themselves that The Lord had already gone. The stone was not removed to allow The Lord Jesus Christ to leave!! The second evidence is the proof that The Lord was resurrected as Spirit not flesh or a 'bodily' resurrection as some blasphemers would have you believe. In resurrected Spirit He passed through the walls of the tomb.

Finally, the interesting thing is, we can prove from other Biblical evidence the exact time The Lord Jesus Christ died (and it wasn't Good Friday) and from that day and time we can easily prove what time He was raised from the dead (and it wasn't Sunday morning). It was three days and three nights after His burial, ah, that wonderful simplicity that is in Christ!

Article 2 will follow shortly so don't go away.