The Day Jesus Christ Died
The Day Jesus Christ Died
For people to say that Jesus died on Good Friday and
arose on Easter Sunday morning is not only doing great
damage to the integrity of God’s Word, but is also causing
many people to question the simple logic of Bible
believers who propound such teaching. Jesus Christ explicitly
declared in Matthew that He would be in the grave
three days and three nights.
Matthew 12:40:
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.
Matthew 12:40 in twice specifying three days and three
nights distinctly denotes three periods of twenty-four hours
each. How can a person calculate three days and three
nights from Good Friday 3:00 P.M. until Easter Sunday
Morning? The Bible declares that Jesus Christ was already
risen by Easter Sunday morning which would be
the third day; but even so, where is the third night? This
teaching does not fit. What are we going to do? We have
to go to the Word of God to find the day, the hour and the
details involved in Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection
in order to have the Word of God rightly divided.
When the Word of God fits, there are no contradictions,
no errors.
I Corinthians 5:7 says, “. . .Christ our passover is sacrificed
for us.” Jesus Christ in fulfilling the law had to
carry out exactly the demands thereof. One important part
of the law was the observance of the Passover which was
first established as Moses and Aaron prepared to lead the
children of Israel out of Egypt.
Exodus 12:1-6:
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the
land of Egypt, saying,
This month shall be unto you the beginning of
months: it shall be the first month [Abib or Nisan] of
the year to you.*
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying,
In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them
every man a lamb, according to the house of their
fathers, a lamb for an house:
And if the household be too little for the lamb, let
him and his neighbour next unto his house take it
according to the number of the souls; every man according
to his eating shall make your count for the
lamb.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the
first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from
the goats:
And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the
same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation
of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
The tenth to the fourteenth of the first month (Abib or
Nisan) are days to prepare for the high day of Passover.
The first day of the Passover was always on the fifteenth
of Nisan.
Leviticus 23:5:
In the fourteenth day of the first month at even [evening]
is the Lord’s passover.
The fourteenth day at even began the fifteenth of Nisan
as the Jewish day begins at sunset, the even. The fourteenth
was the day before the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, the day of preparation. On the fifteenth of Nisan
the Passover Feast officially began.
Leviticus 23:6, 7:
And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the
feast of unleavened bread [which is Passover] unto
the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation. . . .
The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the
fifteenth, would always be a holy convocation, a Sabbath
day, a high day.
If the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread came
on a Tuesday, that Tuesday would be a Sabbath day. If
the first day of the Feast came on a weekly Sabbath, on
a Saturday, then it still was a high day and it would have
pre-eminence over the weekly Sabbath. This pre-eminence
is similar to our holidays. For example, if Christmas
happens to come on a Tuesday, it is a holiday; but if
Christmas comes on a Sunday, the special day of Christmas
takes priority over the weekly Sunday. This point
has bearing upon the death and resurrection of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
The greatest point of confusion comes by not differentiating
between the Sabbath which was the first day
of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the weekly Sabbath.
The day before the weekly Sabbath was Friday so
the teaching has therefore been that Jesus died on Friday.
But the day after Jesus’ death does not refer to the weekly
Sabbath, as explicitly stated in John.
John 19:31:
The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation
[the day before the fifteenth of Nisan], that the bodies
should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day,
(for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought
Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they
might be taken away.
The fact that Jesus was crucified before a special Sabbath
is emphasized in the King James by putting the
notation in parentheses: “. . .(for that sabbath day was an
high day,). . . .” Jesus was crucified the day before a
special day, the high day, which was the first day of the
Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Passover, and not on the
day before the regular weekly Sabbath.
The Gospels document the specific time of day that
Jesus Christ died on the fourteenth of Nisan.
Matthew 27:45, 46, 50:
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over
all the land unto the ninth hour.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud
voice. . . .
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice,
yielded up the ghost.
Mark 15:33, 34, 37:
And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness
over the whole land until the ninth hour.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud
voice. . . .
And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the
ghost.
Luke 23:44-46:
And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a
darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple
was rent in the midst.
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and
having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
After Pilate released Jesus to the Jews, John 19:15-30
records Jesus’ being led away to Golgotha, His crucifixion,
the title being nailed above Jesus’ head, His clothes
being parted, the attention given to His mother and His
receiving the vinegar. Then verse 30 repeats the account
of Jesus’ death.
John 19:30, 31:
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he
said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave
up the ghost.
The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation,
that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on
the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high
day,). . . .
The day and time of the crucifixion and burial are
clearly on the fourteenth of the first month between three
and six o’clock in the afternoon. All four Gospels also
readily concur on the time of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
Three o’clock was the time of death. To fulfill the
Passover rite, Jesus, our sacrificial lamb, had to be buried
sometime between 3 P.M. and sunset, for after sunset
began the high day and thereon no one could do manual
labor.
Leviticus 23:7:
In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation:
ye shall do no servile work therein.
Joseph of Arimathea had to work quickly after Jesus’
death to get permission from Pilate, to remove Jesus’ body
and to place it in his newly-hewn tomb.
John 19:41, 42:
Now in the place where he was crucified there was
a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein
was never man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’
preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
These four records pinpoint the day of Jesus’ crucifixion
and burial as being the day before the Passover, the
fourteenth of Nisan, and the time of Jesus’ death as being
the ninth hour, which by our reckoning of time is three
o’clock in the afternoon.
Matthew 28:1:
In the end of the sabbath [this is the weekly sabbath],
as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week
[our Sunday], came Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary to see the sepulchre.
This is early Sunday morning. In verse 6 of Matthew
28 the report was, “He is not here: for he is risen. . . .”
This verse does not say that He arose on what is called
Easter Sunday morning. It says that by the time the women
got to the tomb, the angel reported that Jesus was not
there for He had already risen.
Mark 16:1 and 6:
And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had
bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint
him.
And he [the angel] saith unto them, Be not affrighted:
Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he
is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they
laid him.
Mark does not say that Jesus had just arisen. The declaration
of the angel again was, “He is already up.”
Again in Luke. 24:6 the angel declared to those at the
sepulchre on Sunday morning, “He is not here, but is
risen. . . .” Once more, The Word simply declares that He
was already up. It does not tell in Matthew, Mark nor
Luke exactly when He got up; but it does tell that by the
time the women came, which was very early, Christ had
already risen. John 20:1 records that when Mary Magdalene
arrived at the sepulchre in the dark of the early
morning of the “first day of the week,” the tomb was
empty. Not one of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke
nor John—states that Christ arose on Easter Sunday morning.
That is tradition, not The Word.
Matthew 12:40 states that Jesus was not simply to be
dead three days and three nights; He was to be buried
three days and three nights. A legal standard is involved
in the “three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth.” In Biblical times no one could be officially pronounced
dead until he had been interred for seventy-two
hours, three days and three nights. Why did God not raise
His Son immediately after Jesus died, since God obviously
had the power? The reason lies in the legality of
the event, for Jesus Christ had to fulfill the law; that is,
He had to be in the grave three days and three nights and
not just part of this time.
Our failure to recognize that the first day of the Passover
was a high Sabbath, a holy day, a special convocation,
and our failure to understand that the Jewish day began
at sunset have caused most of the difficulty regarding the
time of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says in John 19:31 that Jesus was crucified
and buried on the day of preparation, the fourteenth day
of Nisan. Matthew 27:46 tells us that Jesus died at 3:00
P.M., which is the ninth hour by Jewish reckoning. Jesus
had to be buried before sunset; because sunset started the
next day, which was the Passover. To get three complete
nights and days beginning with the late afternoon of the
fourteenth of Nisan, the seventy-two hour duration would
end with the late afternoon of the seventeenth of Nisan.
So at whatever time He was buried between 3:00 and
sunset on the fourteenth of Nisan was the hour He was
raised on the seventeenth of Nisan—seventy-two hours
later. Now we must count backward to calculate the days
of the week.
We know that when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb
early on Sunday, the first day of the week, the tomb was
already empty and Christ had already risen. So Christ had
to have risen sometime between 3:00 P.M. and sunset on
Saturday, the seventeenth of Nisan. That means He would
have had to have been buried between 3:00 P.M. and sunset
on Wednesday, the fourteenth of Nisan, three days and
three nights or seventy-two hours previously. Jesus Christ
literally fulfilled the law; He carried out the Word of God
by being buried on Wednesday afternoon and being raised
seventy-two hours later on Saturday afternoon.
Jesus Christ literally fulfilled the law. While the Jews
selected their spotless lamb to be used as the Passover
sacrifice, Jesus Christ was “selected” and acknowledged
as acceptable when He made His triumphal entry into
Jerusalem. While the Passover lamb was being sacrificed
in the late afternoon during the preparation, Jesus Christ
was dying on Golgotha. The blood of the Passover lamb
was of non-effect beginning with this occasion as Jesus
was the true Passover, the complete Passover.
However, just because Jesus died on a Wednesday, I
am not going to advocate that we change to Good Wednesday
instead of Good Friday for Galatians 4:9 and 10 says
that we are not to be observers of days or times or special
hours. But I am going to adhere to the accuracy of God’s
Word and acknowledge its truth. The pieces of the puzzle
fall into place when the days of the months are rightly
divided, when the hours of the days are rightly divided, and
when the special days are understood. These tie together
the whole record of the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. The Word of God is always so accurate.