Jesus Couldn't Have Died On Friday

The Easter holiday is comprised of four days over a weekend, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. Good Friday is celebrated as the day of Christ's death and Easter Sunday as His resurrection. Notice, however, what Jesus said in Matthew 12:40:

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Friday evening to Sunday morning cannot take three days and three nights.

The idea that Jesus died on a Friday is probably taken from Mark's account of Jesus' death. In verse 42 of Mark 15, He writes:

And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath...

Mark records Jesus' death as the day before the Sabbath. The Jewish Sabbath was the 7th day, Saturday. This can easily be explained. The Jews had at least two special Sabbaths, apart from their weekly 7th day. These days where set apart and they were to have special assemblies and no work was to be done. The first day and last days of the feast of Unleavened Bread were special Sabbaths.

Leviticus 23:3-8~“You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of complete rest, an official day for holy assembly. It is the Lord’s Sabbath day, and it must be observed wherever you live.

“In addition to the Sabbath, these are the Lord’s appointed festivals, the official days for holy assembly that are to be celebrated at their proper times each year.

“The Lord’s Passover begins at sundown on the fourteenth day of the first month. On the next day, the fifteenth day of the month, you must begin celebrating the Festival of Unleavened Bread. This festival to the Lord continues for seven days, and during that time the bread you eat must be made without yeast. On the first day of the festival, all the people must stop their ordinary work and observe an official day for holy assembly. For seven days you must present special gifts to the Lord. On the seventh day the people must again stop all their ordinary work to observe an official day for holy assembly.”

John is specific in mentioning that it was a day before the special Sabbath, some versions call it a high Sabbath. That is John 19:31:

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

Here's a view with which I agree: Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday morning. He died around 3pm (the 9th hour) and was brought down from the cross and buried before Wednesday evening arrived (see John 19:42). The Jews began their day in the evening (important), thus Wednesday evening would have been the beginning of Thursday for them, which would be the day to celebrate the Passover. Thus Jesus spent Wednesday night and Thursday (one night, one day), Thursday night and Friday (two nights, two days) and Friday night and Saturday (three nights, three days) and rose on Saturday night into Sunday (Saturday evening would already be Sunday, the first day of the week, since their day began in the evening like I said). Three days and three nights.

John records in verse 1 of John 20:

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

For those who think it really doesn't matter when Jesus died, it does. If He prophesied that He would be three days and nights in the heart of the earth and His prophesy was not fulfilled, it would render Him a false prophet. A fraud. Deuteronomy 18:21-22:

And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

For a more comprehensive discussion of this view, click here. I cannot vouch for anything else on this site. Caution must be employed.

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The Meaning of Easter

Easter is celebrated the world over to commemorate the resurrection of our Lord. Some religious groups prefer not to call it Easter for reasons that I completely understand.

You see, the most widely accepted origin of Easter is taken from a 6^th and 7^th century scholar known as the father of English History. Whether the origin that he suggested was made up or true is not certain.

In one of his books he says that Easter was actually a month named after a goddess, a month which is our April equivalent. The feasts celebrated in the goddess’s honor in that month were forgotten with the passage of time and replaced with the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection as we know it today and this two or so centuries after Christ’s ascension.

This explains the apprehension that some have today with calling it 'Easter'.

Galatians 3 offers at least three things that Easter means to a Christian. It shows us that Jesus’ died to redeem us from a curse. That he did this to fulfill a promise He made to Father Abraham. And that He did all this out of no duty but rather by His grace.

Easter means that we are children of Abraham. God promised Abraham several things. The promise to Abraham that he would have as many children or offspring as the stars in the sky is particularly significant. That promise was God's way of opening the door for non-Jews like me and you. Paul tells us in Galatians that that promise facilitated Abraham’s spiritual children, children who did not fall in his genealogical line but children that live like Abraham-those who live by faith. Hence the song:

Father Abraham had many sons,
Many sons had father Abraham
I am one of them, and so are you
So let’s all praise the Lord!

Let me put it this way, when Abraham looks down on this earth and sees Jews who are his natural descendants and sees you who is not, he feels a much stronger attachment and connection, a stronger affinity and bond to you. And even though, you do not share blood, you do not fall in his ancestry, even though you look nothing like him, he recognizes you as his very own because you live like him, you live by faith!

And that was Jesus' point in John 8 when He told the Jews that if they held on to His teaching they would know the truth and be set free. "Free?" They asked, "We have never been slaves. We are children of Abraham." They treasured their ancestry you see. Verse 39 says,

"Abraham is our father," they answered. "If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do the things Abraham did." ~John 8:39.

You can almost picture Abraham watching down from heaven, jaw dropped, seeing the descendants of his beloved son Isaac reject the Son of God and turn his face away in disgust. Then he sees you and I accept Jesus, coming to Him empty handed, just as we are. We can almost hear Him echo Jesus' words, "My real children are those who live as I lived."


Those who have faith like Abraham are his real children and they are blessed along with Abraham. The opposite of a blessing is a curse. Easter means we are blessed. We are given salvation freely and escape the curse that anyone else that refuses this free gift are under, that of earning salvation by living a perfect life. It is a curse because no one can live a perfect life. Paul calls this redemption from the curse of the law saying that Jesus redeemed us from this curse by being cursed Himself.

Finally Easter means God’s grace. This comes out clearly in verse 18 of Galatians 3. God did not have to promise Abraham anything. He did it by his grace. He extended the blessing of redemption to you and I who are unnatural children of Abraham not because He had to but because of His grace. He chose that the way through which this promise would be extended to us be by Christ redeeming us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us not because He had to but because of His grace.

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