It is a most solemn fact that Religious Christendom, by accepting that the Savior’s resurrection took place early on the Sunday morning after His death at 3 P.M. on the Friday, makes each of the Three specific statements on the subject uttered by our Lord Himself appear grossly inaccurate. It is, therefore, a singular joy and a cause for much thanksgiving to be able to dispel the cloud of suspicion which has gathered around these Three statements by virtue of Christendom’s willingness to accept and act upon a theory which does despite to each one of them. Every true Christian knows that our Lord could not err in any statement He made; but for eighteen centuries no one has been able to prove to the world from the Scriptures that each of His Three predictions was literally fulfilled. Rather have His statements been explained away than explained, and this often by those to whom the process must have caused much misgiving.
Statement 1: Matthew 16: 21…
“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third day.”
The expression “raised again the third day” appears no less than ten times, in one form or another, as follows: Matt. 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Mark 9:31; 10:34; Luke 9:22; 18:33; 24:7, 46; I Corinth. 15:4. This is by far the most frequent term used in reference to the time the Lord would be raised from the dead.
Statement 2: Mark 8:31
“And He began to teach them, that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
This statement “after three days” occurs only once in the Authorized Version but the Revised Version renders Mark 9:31 and 10:34 as “after three days”. It is also quoted in this form by the Jews to Pilate when the asked for a guard for the sepulchre. (See Matt. 27:63 and Luke 24:21.)
Statement 3: Matt. 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.”
The statement is only recorded once in the Gospels.
Statement 3 is the most important of all because our Lord prefaced it with the words, “There shall no sign be given … but the sign of the prophet Jonas”. If, therefore, our Lord was not in the literal sense “three days and three nights” in death, then His one sign to this “evil and adulterous generation” failed. To declare such a thing would be blasphemy. To evade the issue by accepting the notion that the expression used by our Lord was a Jewish idiom that need not be treated literally is a most dangerous slight upon Him which, if taken to its final analysis, would allow His critics all the leeway they wish when belittling His statements on other subjects. To be a true prediction, our Lord’s session in death must have covered all or part of “three days” and all or part of “three nights”; and exactly the same terms would have applied to Jonah’s session in “the whale’s belly”.
Obviously, our Lord intended these three statements covering the time of His resurrection to be complementary one to the other. They are not purposeless and each one accomplishes a different object. We will take them in turn.
Light from the Word 