Jesus Christ, the ONLY Saviour of this world, made an incredible propesy that virtually the entire religious community has overlooked or outright rejected. Being approached by the religious leadership of His day, the conversation went like this:
“Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered saying, Master, we would see a SIGN from thee [to prove His Messiahship]. 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: 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 [grave]” (Matt. 12:38-40).
Either Jesus fulfilled this SIGN to this group of religious leaders of His day, or we have no Saviour. Jesus said He would be THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS in the tomb before His resurrection. If Jesus did not remain in the grave as He said, He would have lied, sinned, and could not be our Saviour.
The entire religious world believes Jesus died late Friday afternoon and rose early Sunday morning -the Good/Friday and Easter/Sunday resurrection. How could this be true? That would be only Friday and Saturday night - TWO NIGHTS, not three. Before we absolutely PROVE that Jesus’ words were fulfilled to perfection, let’s delve into history to understand WHY people DO the things they do. Most people grow up in a church and accept its teachings WITHOUT QUESTION as to WHY they do or believe a particular thing. Why have many of you reading this observed Lent, “Holy Week”, or “Good Friday?” Why have many bought “hot-cross buns” and colored Easter eggs? Why attend church on Easter Sunday or maybe attend an Easter sunrise service?
What is the MEANING of the name “Easter” and where did it comefrom? Most believe it refers to the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday morning. Since the time that the church and state combined under the Roman Empire, it has been taught that Jesus rose from the dead Easter Sunday morning. The English name “Easter” is the slightly changed spelling of the name of the ancient Assyrian goddess Ishtar, pronounced exactly as we pronounce “Easter.” The Babylonian name of this pagan goddess was Astarte, wife of Baal, the Sun-god. It was worship of the Sun-god and his wife, the “Queen of Heaven,” that God warned Israel concerning worship that would produce idolatry. From the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Unabridged, 1974 edition: “Easter:” “AS. [Anglo-Saxon], from the name of the old Teuton goddess of Spring.” The 5-volume Hastings Bible Dictionary, has six lines concerning the name Easter. It occurs only once in the King James Version as a MISTRANSLATION. Hastings says: “Easter, used in Authorized Version as a translation of ‘Pascha’ in Acts 12:4, ‘intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.’ Revised Version has substituted correctly ‘the Passover.’”
Notice the frank admission of The World Almanac, 1950 edition, page 704: “In the second century, A.D., Easter Day [Passover] was, among Christians in Asia Minor the 14th of Nisan..” The churches Paul raised up in Asia Minor kept the Passover as a MEMORIAL of Christ’s DEATH. The date for this memorial was always through sighting of the first faint crescent of the New Moon after the spring equinox. Then count 14 days [Ex. 12]. This date of the 14th day of the first month of God’s calendar, not the Roman calendar, can fall on ANY day of the week. Example: 1990, Passover fell on Tuesday, April 10th. Read the following scriptures where Paul and the Apostles taught Gentile converts to keep God’s Passover found in the Bible and NOT Easter, the pagan goddess “Queen of Heaven.” [Acts 2:1; 12:3; 20:6; 18:21; 1 Cor.5:7-8; Acts 20:16; 1 Cor. 16:8; and most of all, 1 Cor. 11:20-32.
The unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrolls has caused quite a stir in higher religious circles. To be exact, the information contained in them absolutely PROVES that the original church NEVER kept even one of the modern holidays that are called Christian. From the book The Scrolls and the New Testament by Krister Stendahl, p. 5: “..the Dead Sea Scrolls add substantially to our knowledge of the Jewish background of Christianity. On this point there is universal agreement. It means...that both the Pauline [Apostle Paul] and the Johannine [Apostle John] literature can be UNDERSTOOD [only] IN THEIR JEWISH BACKGROUND...” P.6, “It has always been known that Christianity emerged OUT OF Judaism, and to the early church this was not only a historical BUT A THEOLOGICAL FACT.”
Why is this so important? It shows that the original New Testament church NEVER engaged in pagan celebrations or religious observances. They continued from the Old Testament ways, but they accepted their Messiah.
In discussing a man by the name of Marcion and his desire not to accept the findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls, page 6 says: “He wanted Christianity to be a new religion, just as it is to us. Whereas the New Testament sees Jesus asthe fulfillment of the prophecies, we [in modern times] are apt to see him as the FOUNDER OF A NEW RELIGION. And our paramount problem is to prove that there is something new in Christianity, something never heard of before. Our pattern of thought is that of natural science: Jesus is the inventor of Christianity and the church is the guardian of his patent and his copyright. In the New Testament the major concern is the diametrically opposite one: to make clear that all is ‘old’, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE PROPHETS. The golden rule is not promulgated as the terrific achievement of an ethical thinker; it is recommended by the remark, ‘This is the Law and the Prophets.’”
This original church after the day of Pentecost continued living by all of God’s Laws and accepted Jesus as their Saviour. They did not participate in pagan rituals.
According to Alexander Hislop’s book The Two Babylons, Easter “bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the ‘queen of heaven’, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country.”
Pagans had different names for the same god according to what nation they resided. This goddess of spring was called Astarte in Babylon and Ishtar in Assyria, according to Assyrian monuments found by Layard in excavations at Nineveh (Layard’s Nineveh and Babylon, p.629). Both were pronounced Easter. Beltis, or Bel [referred to in the Old Testament] was also called Moloch. It was for sacrificing to Moloch and other pagan gods that Solomon was condemned by the true God of the Old Testament who became Jesus our Saviour in the New Testament (1 Cor. 10:1-4; 1 Kings 11:1-11).
During the ancient Chaldean Sun-worship, Baal was the Sun-god while Astarte, Ishtar or Easter, in English, was his wife.
Hislop says: “The festival, of which we read in church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. IT WAS CALLED PASSOVER, and was very early observed by Christians.....That festival agreed originally with the TIME, of the Jewish [Lord’s, Ex. 12:11) Passover, WHEN CHRIST WAS CRUCIFIED... That festival was not idolatrous, and was preceded by NO Lent.”
A fifth century church writer named Cassianus wrote: “It ought to be known that the observance of the forty days [of Lent] had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.”
Jesus nor the Apostles observed anything resembling a Lenten season. If not, and it can’t be found in the Bible, then where did this observance originate?
“The ‘forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ‘in the spring of the year,’ is still observed by the Yezidis or pagan Devil-worshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians. Such a Lent was held by the pagan Mexicans, in honor of the sun...Such a Lent was observed in Egypt [Egyptians, by Wilkinson]. This Egyptian Lent of forty days was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god.” (The Two Babylons, by Hislop, pages 104 and 105, and Sabean Researches, by Land-seer, p.112).
In Ex. 12:24 God told Israel to observe the Passover. This was given before the Old Covenant or what people call the Law of Moses! It pictured the Lamb of God dying for the remission of our sins, as a TYPE of the future Christ. At His last Passover, Jesus changed the emblems used from the blood of the lamb and eating its flesh to the bread [body] and wine [blood] to be observed EACH YEAR TO MEMORIALIZE HIS DEATH TILL HE COMES (1 Cor. 11:20-32).
But WHY are we suddenly born into a world that celebrates a spring festival to a pagan goddess of the Sun? The western nations that came under the influence of the Roman Empire were deceived into changing God’s Passover and substituting in its place the PAGAN festival in commemoration of the counterfeit “saviour” and mediator of Baal, the SUN god, named after the mythical Ishtar or Easter, his wife. This was none other than Semiramis, the mother/wife of Nimrod, who claimed to be the wife of the sun-god, the idolatrous “QUEEN OF HEAVEN”. The celebration of Easter is PAGAN to the core!!!
During the observance of Easter in ancient Chaldea, they used hot cross buns and dyed eggs in worship to this mother/goddess just as professing Christian people do today.
According to the book, The Two Babylons, pgs.107-108, these “buns” were known by the identical name that was used in the worship to the goddess Easter, “queen of heaven”, as far back as Cecrops, the founder of Athens, Greece, 1,500 years before Christ!
In Mythology by Bryant, Vol. 1, p. 373: “One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.”
One of several reasons that God allowed the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, called Jews beginning in 2 Kings 16:5-6, to go into national captivity at the hands of the Babylonians was because of this worship of the “queen of heaven”, Easter, accompanied by the making of HOT CROSS BUNS!
The whole seventh chapter of Jeremiah describes God’s judgement upon the House of Judah because of this idolatrous worship of the “queen of heaven.” “For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings(v. 5)...Then will I cause you to dwell in this place [Palestine], in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever (v.7)... [If not] I will cast you out of my sight (v.15)...Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in Jerusalem? (v.17)...The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, TO MAKE CAKES TO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN...that they may provoke me to anger...Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man and upon beast...and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched” (v.18-20).
The original word that Jeremiah wrote in the Hebrew language for CAKES was “kavvan”, which means “BUNS”. This same Hebrew word is used only in one other place in the Bible, Jer. 44:19. Once again, this was in reference to worship of the “queen of heaven” and offering her HOT CROSS BUNS! Everywhere else the English word CAKES is used, it is a DIFFERENT Hebrew word.
The origin of the Easter egg can be traced just as easily. In the book Druids, p.208 by Davies, it discusses that the ancient Druids displayed an egg as the sacred emblem of their idolatrous order. Also, on p.207, it states that in the mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, part of the ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. Hindus celebrated with a golden colored egg. Japan’s ancient custom was to have a hard brazen colored egg. In China dyed or painted eggs were, and still are, used on “sacred” heathen festivals. In ancient Egypt and Greece eggs were used in their idolatrous religious rites of fertility.
So, WHY do Christians from America and Western Europe dye eggs at Easter, which was done in ancient fertility rites in paganism? Can any of these traditions be found in the Bible? WHAT do they have to do with the resurrection of Jesus AFTER being THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS in the tomb? What do Easter RABBITS, an ancient symbol of fertility because of their rapid reproduction, have to do with the resurrection of Jesus? THERE IS NOT ONE WORD OF ANY OF THESE IN THE BIBLE EXCEPT TO CONDEMN THEM AS FEASTS TO THE “QUEEN OF HEAVEN!” WHY would Christ allow His followers to practice pagan rites? God calls them abominations!
Jesus and the Apostles foretold a falling AWAY from the truth by the great majority, not the growth of a large church visible to the world. Paul stated only 30 years after the church began that “the mystery of iniquity doth already work” (2 Thes. 2:7). Paul stated “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [resurrection of the dead] shall not come, except there come a FALLING AWAY FIRST, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he AS God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thes. 2:3-4). Paul referred to the mystery of iniquity, which Easter and Christmas are the two CHIEF festivals.
Jesus called His church the “little flock.” He said the gates of hell [the grave] would not prevail against His church. His true church might become very small in numbers, but it would never die out.
The New Testament describes two churches that would be extant at the same time. One would be a great, powerful, universal church, participating in this world’s political order, ruling over nations, and united with the Beast, the Holy Roman Empire during the “Dark Ages.” Revelation 17 describes this church as having great pomp and ritual, decked in purple, scarlet and gold - proud, worldly, boastful, PAGAN. She is described as a worldwide DECEIVER! It says the whole world will be made drunk with her FALSE doctrines. Her followers will not be able to distinguish truth from error because of her paganized teachings that are not based upon the Bible! This great church is drunken with the BLOOD of the saints that she has martyred. She claims to be the depository of all truth.
How has the WHOLE world been deceived? Answer: Dan. 7:25, “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to CHANGE times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” Rev. 17:5 says this great church that would rule supreme would have DAUGHTER churches. They would also continue the changed times and laws of their mother and thereby deceive their followers! They would substitute PAGAN doctrines instead of Biblical doctrines.
Babylon means CONFUSION! What greater confusion is there than to have 843 different churches all teaching something different? However, there is only ONE Bible with ONE set of times and laws! God calls things what they are - confusion. False paganism, called Christianity, CONFUSES everyone! God calls it MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT.
Where did the small group of individuals go who would NOT compromise the times and laws? Did the followers of God’s truth go into the system and apostatize into Babylon? NO! Jesus said the gates of hell [the grave] would never prevail against His church. It might become small, with seemingly no one left. But Jesus PROMISED it would never die out! God’s church was prophesied to be a “little flock.” Jesus described that church as being continually persecuted, despised by the great visible church called Babylon. God’s church was to be unspotted. It was to wait patiently for the Kingdom of God, not become embroiled with worldly politics. It was to always keep the commandments of God and the FAITH of Jesus! It was NOT t adopt paganism instead of God’s revealed way in the Bible. It was to be LED of God’s Holy Spirit, which leads into ALL truth.
The church Jesus built would understand THE SIGN that Jesus was in the grave three days AND three nights. It would NOT change God’s sign, rather that sign was to be further PROOF of the Messiahship of Jesus.
Where did this church go during the Middle Ages? Remember, this Church was never a large, politically powerful organization of men. It was, and is today, a SPIRITUAL ORGANISM, not a political organization that is seeking to set up the Kingdom of God now. Instead, it is waiting for the return of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords to establish His Kingdom. This Church is composed of all whose hearts and lives are being CHANGED by the Spirit of God.
This Church has constantly been scattered by persecution and opposition of the forces of this world. It has been difficult for this Church to remain UNITED and ORGANIZED because of the Satanic forces of evil constantly pressuring it to conform with Babylon, or be destroyed!
This was prophesied of old concerning this Church (Dan. 12:7). Ezekiel forecast this persecution (Ezek. 34:5-12). Jeremiah followed in their footsteps (Jer. 23:1-2). The early church that was established by the apostles was scattered by persecution (Acts 8:1). Jesus warned them ahead of time that they would be subject to persecution (Matt. 26:31). James sent his letter to the brethren scattered abroad (James 1:1).
This small body of believers, in comparison to the population, has nearly always been overlooked and ignored by secular history. This “little flock” was prophesied to be despised of this world and be driven into the wilderness by governmental authorities. Revelation 12 describes this Church as fleeing for protection. “And the woman (Church) fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days” (Rev. 12:6). In prophesy a day can equal a year. Therefore 1260 days equals 1260 years of fleeing into the wilderness or outside the reach of the Roman Empire. From the time the Roman Emperor gave equal status to the Bishop of Rome over all Church matters, the true Church fled from the apostasy that followed. From 538 AD until 1798 AD, when Napoleon captured the Pope and put him in a French prison, the Church existed underground or outside the reach of the persecutors of the Church at Rome.
Since Jesus died ON THE Passover and was resurrected THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS later, Satan must obscure this truth from the world. How he succeeded is recorded in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, article on “Easter”: “There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in th New Testament, or in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers...The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish (that is God’s) festivals, THOUGH IN A NEW SPIRIT, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed. Thus the Passover, with a new conception added to it, of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb and the first fruits from the dead, continued to be observed.
“Although the observance of Easter was at a very early period the practice of the Christian Church, a serious difference as to the day for its observance SOON AROSE BETWEEN THE CHRISTIANS OF JEWISH AND THOSE OF GENTILE DESCENT, which led to a long and bitter controversy. With the Jewish Christians...the fast ended...on the 14th day of the moon at evening..without regard to the day of the week. The Gentile Christians on the other hand...identified the first day of the week with the resurrection, and kept the preceding Friday as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month.
“Generally speaking, the Western Churches [Catholic] kept Easter on the 1st day of the week, while the Eastern Churches [taught by the apostle John] followed the Jewish rule.
“Polycarp, the disciple of John the Evangelist, and bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in 159 to confer with Anicetus, the bishop of that city, on the subject, and urged the tradition which he had received from the apostle of observing the 14th day. Anicetus, however, declined. About forty years later, the question was discussed in a very different spirit between Victor, bishop of Rome, and Poly-crates, metropolitan of proconsular Asia [the area of the Churches in Rev. 2 and 3]. That province was the only portion of Christendom which still adhered to the Jewish usage. Victor demanded that all should adopt the usage prevailing in Rome. This Polycrates FIRMLY REFUSED to agree to, and urged many weighty reasons to the contrary, whereupon Victor proceeded to excommunicate Poly-crates and the Christians who continued the Eastern usage. He was, however, restrained from actually proceeding to enforce the decree of excommunication... and the Asiatic churches RETAINED their usage unmolested. We find the Jewish [Biblical] usage from time to time reasserting itself after this, but it never prevailed to any large extent. “A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the council at Nicaea in 325. At that time the Syrians and Antiochenes were the solitary champions of the observance of the 14th day. The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and that none hereafter should follow the blindness of the Jews. [Clear language that the Roman Emperor and the Catholic Church changed God’s truth to paganism] ...The few who afterwards separated themselves from the unity of the [Roman] church continued to keep the 14th day, were named Quarto-decimani, and the dispute itself is known as the Quarto-deciman controversy.”
Through this history, we can see how the church at Rome grew in size and power and adopted pagan practices. Through these councils ruled over by a pagan Emperor, the true ways of God were eliminated one-by one under the guise of being “Jewish.” It was by violence and bloodshed until the year 1798 that th Roman Empire and its church paganized the visible church and gave us the practices people adore today.
Easter sunrise service is NOT Christian and never has been! Look what Ezekiel was inspired to write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Eternal’s house, and behold...between the porch and the altar were about five and twenty men, with...their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the SUN toward the east. Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing...that they commit the ABOMINATIONS which they commit here?...Therefore will I deal IN FURY: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I NOT hear them!” (Ezek. 8:15-18).
Most of us in the Christian community have observed Easter out of ignorance, not knowing WHERE it came from nor HOW it got into our belief system. You may PROVE this information for yourself. Notice, “If we sin willfully AFTER we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth NO more sacrifice for sins, but a CERTAIN fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Heb. 10:26-27).
The ONLY SIGN Jesus told the religious leaders of His day that He was the true Messiah was the sign of THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS in the grave. Notice His words and believe them. “Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. 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: For as Jonas [Jonah] 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” (Matt. 12:38-40).
The ONLY sign Jesus gave to that generation MUST still be true today, otherwise we cannot believe Jesus! Paul warned of the falling away in 2 Thes. 2:1-4. Peter also warned as “there were false prophets also among the people [of Old Testament Israel], even as there SHALL BE false teachers among you [Christians], who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord [or His sign] that brought them...and MANY shall follow their pernicious ways” (2 Pet. 2:1-2). Notice, it is the MANY who would deny, not the few. HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU PERSONALLY KNOW THAT BELIEVE JESUS WAS THREE DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE GRAVE? Or does nearly everyone you know believe He was only TWO nights, ONE day, and a few minutes Friday night and Sunday morning?
It was not until AFTER the death of the last apostle -John -that the “Good Friday and Easter Sunday” tradition came into the churches as we have already shown.
Jesus will answer for us whether He really expected to be in the tomb three days and three nights. “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” (Mk. 8:31).
Jesus did NOT say that He would rise after a day and a half or 2 days, rather after THREE days!!! Let’s suppose for a moment that Jesus was crucified and buried late Friday evening just before sunset. One day after would be Saturday evening just before sunset. Two days after would be Sunday evening just before sunset. Three days after would be Monday evening just before sunset. Jesus had already risen way before Monday because He spoke to the women who came to the tomb EARLY Sunday morning. Either Jesus was NOT crucified on Friday, or He did NOT fulfill THE SIGN that He gave to the religious leaders of His day!
But Jesus DID fulfill THE SIGN. Notice what the angel of the Lord stated: “He is NOT here: for He is risen as He said” (Matt. 28:6). He said He would rise AFTER three days and would be three days AND three nights in the grave. The angel said He fulfilled THE SIGN. Let’s go further.
“Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up...But He spake of the temple of His body” (John 2:19,21). If Jesus had been killed and buried on late Friday evening just before sunset and rose early Sunday morning, He would NOT have been raised in three days; It would have been a day and a half. Jesus asked, “are there not 12 hours in the day” (Jn. 9:11), giving inference that there are also 12 hours in the night if they were of equal length. Three days [12 hours x 3] is 36 hours and three nights [12 hours x 3] is 36 hours. 36 hours of day PLUS 36 hours of night = 72 hours. Exactly what Jesus said, “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” - 72 hours.
Jesus clearly said that He would rise “the third day” and “after the third day”. Yet Jesus was clearly already raised by Sunday morning when the women came to the tomb. Let’s count again. If Jesus died on Friday, the first day after His crucifixion and burial would have been Saturday! If He rose on the second day after His death and burial, that would have been Sunday! If He were to rise the third day, it would have been Monday before He rose. It would have been impossible for a Friday death and burial and Sunday morning resurrection.
In order to justify the Friday death and Sunday resurrection which allows for only a day and a half, Adam Clarke’s commentary on Matt. 12:40 quotes the Jewish Talmud. The Seventh Day Adventist Bible Commentary implies the same. The Bible cannot contradict itself as these commentaries would lead you to believe (Jn. 10:34).
In the Old Testament times King Rehoboam arranged for the people to meet with him about a certain decision: “Come again unto me after three days. And the people departed” (2 Chron. 10:5). This occurrence is also found in 1 Kings 12:5, “Depart yet for three days, then come again unto me.” Now drop down to v.12: “So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day.”
Notice that the people left “for three days” and did not return until “after three days” - “as the king appointed.” Let us pretend they met with the king late Friday evening just before sunset. They would not have returned the same time the next day [Saturday] because it would have been only ONE day, and the king said AFTER three days. The earliest they could have returned would have been Monday. WHY? Because Monday was the third day after or FROM late Friday when they originally met with the king. The first day from Friday was Saturday; the second day from Friday was Sunday; the third day from Friday was Monday. Monday, NOT SUNDAY, was the third day from Friday.
How does the Bible COUNT from one day or one year to another? “...I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even unto the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that is TWELVE YEARS...” (Nehemiah 5:14). FROM the twentieth year to the thirty-second year was TWELVE years, NOT THIRTEEN YEARS. Likewise, the third day FROM Friday is Monday, NOT Sunday. Jesus could NOT have been raised on Sunday morning if He died late Friday just before sunset.
Another Old Testament example was when Queen Esther requested: “Fast ye for me and eat nor drink THREE DAYS, night or day: I also...will fast likewise; and so will I go unto the king” (Esther 4:16). “Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel” (Esther 5:1) and went into the king as she said. How many days later was this? THE THIRD DAY of the fast. We saw she requested the fast to be until the THIRD day, and she also qualified it by saying both day AND night. Let’s pretend again that Friday just before sunset was the time when the call to fast went out. One day FROM Friday is Saturday; two days FROM Friday is Sunday; The third day FROM Friday is Monday. It ends up being the same every time. They fasted three complete days, night and day, NOT parts of three days.
When we counted the year (as above), we started with the NEXT year. When we count days, we start to count with the NEXT day also. This means Jesus meant WHAT HE SAID. He would be three days AND three nights in the grave, which IS 72 hours!
According to Luke 23:54, Jesus was buried just before sunset on the day of His crucifixion. Jesus said that He would rise AFTER the third day, and be three days and three nights in the grave. He MUST have risen 72 hours AFTER He was put into the grave. The resurrection of necessity was just before sunset of the third day following His burial. Remember that when the women came to the tomb early Sunday morning, the angel said: “He is risen: He is not here” (Mk. 16:6). The sunset, the night before, was Saturday because He was already gone by Sunday morning. We must now count backwards from Saturday near sunset. One day backward FROM Saturday is Friday. Two days backward FROM Saturday is Thursday. Three days backward FROM Saturday is Wednesday near sunset. Of course, sunset started the first day of Unleavened Bread - a yearly Sabbath, not the weekly Sabbath.
The Sabbath that followed Jesus’ death was an annual “high day” or holy day. “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,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away” (John 19:31). This annual Sabbath could fall on ANY day of the week. Compare with Lev. 23. Mark 16:1 continues the account. “And when the sabbath [first day of Festival] was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.” Their purchase and preparation of spices was on Friday, because they could NOT purchase on the Holy Day - Thursday.
After making their purchase of spices and preparing them, they “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment” (Lk. 23:56). This was the Sabbath - Saturday. So the ladies saw where they laid His body on Wednesday just before sunset, then kept the first day of unleavened bread on Thursday, then bought and prepared spices on Friday, then rested the Sabbath according to the commandments. While they were resting late on Saturday, the sabbath, Jesus arose. The next morning when the women came to the tomb Jesus was already gone “as He said.” This all proves the crucifixion was NOT on Friday nor the resurrection on Sunday. Rather, He died late Wednesday and was resurrected three days AND three nights later on Saturday, just before sunset.
Evidence is available to prove that there were two sabbaths that week in which Jesus was crucified. Every translation into English of the Bible but one has obscured this truth. The one correct translation is the Ferrar Fenton.
The King James translation says: “In the end of the sabbath,...” This incorrectly uses the singular for sabbath. The original Greek is in the plural -meaning more than one sabbath had passed. Ferrar Fenton correctly renders it: “After the Sabbaths.” He adds a footnote concerning this verse which says: “The Greek original is plural, Sabbaths.”
This verse seems to contradict all other clear scriptures, but it really doesn’t. This verse does not prove a Sunday resurrection. In the King James Version, the comma is placed AFTER the word “week”. By doing so, it makes it appear that Jesus rose on Sunday morning. A little research shows that commas and punctuation did not come into use until 1400 years after this was written and codified into the Bible as we have it today. The truth is simple. The original Greek allows the phrase “early the first day of week” to be grammatically connected with the words “having risen” OR with the words “He appeared first to Mary Magdalene.” The Expositor’s Greek Testament says the phrase “early the first day of the week” may EITHER be “connected with [having risen], indicating the time of the resurrection, OR with [appeared], indicating the time of the first appearance.”
Every scripture thus far has proven it could not refer to the TIME of the resurrection, therefore, it does refer to the first appearance of Jesus to Mary (Jn. 20:14). The correct rendering of Mark 16:9 should have been, “Now having risen, early the first day of the week he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.”The Montgomery translation is correct on this verse, while the Revised Standard Version is wrong.
After the original apostles died, the Gentile converts began to dominate the church. This NEW leadership was coming out of pagan traditions, or supposedly were. It was these converts that began to teach a Friday crucifixion because of their roots in “Babylon Mystery” religions. Semiramis made up the story that Nimrod died on a Friday and rose from the dead on Sunday morning to keep authority over Nimrod’s kingdom after his death. This was Satan’s counterfeit. However, these same “apostolic fathers” freely admitted that there was a custom of fasting on Wednesday in honor of the crucifixion. The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, article, “Fasting”, shows that the Wednesday fast was probably derived from “the day on which Jesus was betrayed” and “on which the Sanhedrin decided to kill him!”
These same “false prophets” tried to change the year of Jesus’ birth, the year He began His ministry, the length of His ministry, the day of His death, and the day of His resurrection - all to justify a pagan tradition of the Sunday resurrection of Nimrod, the pagan saviour who was a mighty tyrant AGAINST God!
There is an abundance of evidence of these attempts to change the day of the crucifixion and the resurrection. James A. Walther, in an article entitled “The Chronology of Passion Week,” in the June 1958 Journal of Biblical Literature, says that for centuries many Catholics argued that Jesus ate the Passover on Tuesday night, was taken early Wednesday morning by the Jewish mob to be executed. He wrote: “References in the Didascalia, in Epiphanius, in Victorinus of Pettau...Support the Tuesday [night] Passover [eating of the last supper] dating and the subsequent arrest of Jesus in the morning hours of Wednesday [the Passover day].”
An early attempt to change the day of the resurrection from late Saturday to the early hours of Sunday morning was in the false “Gospel of Peter”, circulated from Rome about the time of John’s death. This false “gospel” reads: “...And they drew out the nails from the hands of the Lord, and laid Him upon the earth... And the Jews rejoiced, and gave His body to Joseph that he might bury it...And he took the Lord, and washed Him, and rolled Him in linen cloth, and brought Him into His own tomb..And I and my companions were grieved; and being wounded in mind we hid ourselves...And upon all these things we fasted and sat mourning NIGHT AND DAY UNTIL THE SABBATH. “But the scribes and Pharisees and elders being gathered together one with another...came to Pilate, beseeching him and saying, Give us soldiers, that we may guard His sepulchre for three days, lest His disciples come and steal Him away...And with them came elders and scribes to the sepulchre, and having rolled a great stone together with the centurion and the soldiers, they all together set it at the door of the sepulchre; and they affixed seven seals...and guarded it. And early in the morning as the sabbath was [dawning], there came a multitude from Jerusalem and the region round about, that they might see the sepulchre that was sealed.
“And in the night in which the Lord’s day was drawing on...the tomb was opened” -and the resurrection supposedly occurs. (From the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 10). This said clearly that the disciples fasted between the crucifixion and the Sabbath “night and day until the Sabbath.” This evidence alone shows the cruci-fixion was NOT on “Good Friday”!
1 Cor. 5:7, “...Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:” Paul said Jesus became our passover Lamb. John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Jesus, our passover Lamb, was crucified on Passover day, Abib 14, hours before sunset which begin the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23). He died at the correct time of the killing of the lambs by Israel just before deliverance from Egypt. In Ex. 12:6 they were told to kill the lamb on the 14th day of the first month at evening, meaning at the very end of the day just before sunset to begin the Feast, which began at sunset beginning the 15th. God begins and ends days at sunset, not at midnight (Lev. 23:32). The Jews killed their lambs late on the afternoon of the 14th and ate them the night that began the 15th or first day of Unleavened Bread (John 18:28). Jesus was killed in the afternoon of the 14th, the Passover, and was buried just before sunset starting the 15th.
God’s calendar revealed to Moses in Ex. 12:1 was to begin in the spring of the year. From the booklet, “God’s Sacred Calendar, 1967-1968”, by Kenneth C. Herrmann, p.1-2, we read: “A new year is to begin IN THE SPRING. ‘This month [Nisan or Abib] shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you’ (Ex. 12:2). THE BEGINNING OF THIS MONTHAND OF ALL GOD’S MONTHS IS DETERMINED BY THE APPEARANCE OF THE FIRST FAINT CRESCENT OF THE NEW MOON IN THE WEST JUST AFTER SUNDOWN. The astronomical new moon calculated [by the modern Jewish calendar] for the United States IS, in general, a day or two earlier.” This is very important in determining the day of the Passover the only year He could have died.
From the book, The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, by Arthur Spier, p. 7, column 2, “The beginnings of the months were determined by direct observation of the moon...they had SEEN the new crescent...” Next paragraph, same column, “Whenever, after two or three years, the annual excess of 11 days had accumulated to approximately 30 days, a thirteenth month Adar 11 was inserted before Nisan in order to ASSURE that Nisan AND Passover [both] WOULD OCCUR IN SPRING and not retrogress toward winter.”
According to the way the Hebrews determined the Passover, the following are dates given by various scholars.
Many scholars have tried to fix Jesus’ death in 30 A.D., but that still will NOT give a Friday crucifixion. Others try to say in 31 A.D. the Passover fell on Monday, but that doesn’t work either. 31 A.D. was an intercalary year where a 13th month was inserted to guarantee the first month and Passover BOTH were in Spring. Rather than the Passover being on March 26, it was a month later on April 25th, a Wednesday. Truly, Jesus was three days and three nights in the grave, as He said would be the ONLY SIGN given that He was, and IS, the Son of God.