The unblemished Passover Lamb |
The Sbbath controversy exists
largely among gentile believers. Most people familiar with the Jewish religion
and culture figured it out long ago. But to gentiles who don’t know about these
things, the phrase in John
19:31 identifying the day after the Crucifixion as a special Sabbath
leads them to believe that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, because even
gentiles know that the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday. Many otherwise competent
resources (such as the Study Bible I use) make that mistake. And everyone agrees
that He rose again on Sunday. There isn’t any way you can put three days and
three nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. Hence the
controversy.
The unblemishe Passover Lamb |
Sabbath
means holy day. There is one every Saturday in Israel, but there are also
several during the year that are date specific.
That means they are always observed on a specific calendar date, regardless of
the day. They’re like our Christmas. It always comes on the 25th of December no
matter what day of
the week that happens to be.
The
special Sabbath John referred to is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and it’s a
date specific holy day; always observed on the 15th of the month they call
Nisan, which corresponds to March/April on
our calendar. So the first thing we learn is that the special Sabbath mentioned
in John 19:31 wasn’t a Saturday.
In
fact there are three special Sabbaths (or Holy Days, if you prefer) in the
month of Nisan alone; Passover on the 14th, the Feast of Unleavened Bread which
begins on the 15th and runs through the 22nd, and the Feast of First Fruits on
the Sunday morning following Passover. Of
the three, only Unleavened Bread prohibits work like the weekly Sabbath, but
all have both a historical and prophetic purpose and like all days in the
Jewish calendar they begin at
sundown, following the pattern of Genesis 1. (This also confuses
Gentiles since our day begins at midnight.)
The
Passover Lamb
The next issue we have to address is
the sequence of events in the week we call Holy Week. In Exodus 12, where
the Passover was ordained, we learn what that sequence was. God told the Israelites to select a
lamb on the 10th day of the month and inspect it for defects until the 14th.
This means through the end of the 13th. Then at twilight they were to slaughter
and roast it, eating it that same evening. Using some of its blood they
were to paint their door posts red to protect them from the plague coming upon
Egypt at midnight.
The Passover Feast |
Jesus
came to fulfill the prophecy of the Passover Lamb, to save from death everyone
who applies His shed blood to their lives.
The only day He ever allowed the people to hail Him as King was on the day we
call Palm Sunday, and as we’ll see it was the 10th day of the month. He did
this to fulfill the selection process for the Passover Lamb. When the officials
told Him to rebuke His disciples, He said that if they became quiet, the very
stones would cry out (Luke 19:40). For this was a day ordained in
history. It was the day He
officially presented Himself as Israel ’s Messiah and became the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world. It was 483 years to the day from the
issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem , spoken of by Daniel
the Prophet. (Daniel 9:25) A little while after the officials
cautioned Him, He condemned Jerusalem to utter destruction because they did not
recognize the day of His visitation (Luke 19:41-44).
The
next three days were filled with the most aggressive debate and confrontation
with the officials in His entire ministry. He was being inspected for any
doctrinal spot or blemish that would disqualify Him as the Lamb of God. They
found none, and finally no one dared ask Him
any more questions. (Matt. 22:46)
Some years before the birth of
Jesus, the Passover celebration had been changed and in the Lord’s time called
for a brief ritual meal of lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs
(horseradish) to begin the 14th followed by a great and leisurely festival meal
on the 15th, when the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins. This tradition is still
followed today.
The
14th became known as Preparation Day (Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:31),
because on it they made ready for the great feast day beginning at sundown,
after which no work was permitted. Matthew identifies the day after the
Crucifixion as the day after Preparation Day (Matt. 27:62) so all four
Gospels agree. Jesus died on Preparation day, the 14th of their month Nisan,
which is Passover. He ate the ritual meal with His disciples in the
Upper Room, and then was arrested, tried, convicted, and put to death; all on
Passover. He had to be, in order to fulfill the prophecies of the Passover
Lamb.
So
just like the Lord had commanded in Exodus 12, He was selected on the
10th, inspected on the 11th, 12th, and 13th, and executed on the 14th of Nisan.
How
Do We Know This?
A little over 100 years ago a
believer named Robert Anderson was head of Scotland Yard’s investigative
division. He became intrigued by the three days and three nights issue and
enlisted the help of the London Royal Observatory to investigate the problem
since astronomers can locate the exact position of the planets and stars on any
date in history. Since Passover always falls on the 14th, and since the Jewish
calendar is lunar (moon) rather than solar (sun) oriented, there is always a full moon on
Passover. This fulfills Genesis 1:14.
Plotting the course of the Sun and
Moon they documented the day and date of every full moon. The Royal Observatory discovered
that the first Palm Sunday was the 10th of Nisan, the day when Exodus 12says
to select the lamb. Therefore Passover, the 14th, was Thursday. The Feast of
Unleavened bread began on Friday the 15th, Saturday the 16th was the weekly
Sabbath, and Resurrection Morning was also a Sunday, the 17th. From Thursday to
Sunday there are three days and three nights. Here’s how it works. It’s
a little confusing to our way of thinking because the Hebrew day changes at
sunset, which means that night precedes day. But read carefully and you’ll see
that it makes sense.
As I’ve said, Jesus had to die on
Passover to fulfill the prophecy. Early that Thursday morning the Jewish leadership had gotten permission
to crucify Him. (Matt. 27:1-26) His fate was sealed and He was hanging
on the cross by 9 AM, as good as dead. His actual time of death was about 3 PM
and His body was laid in the tomb sometime later, since the officials wanted it
off the cross before sundown brought the Feast of Unleavened Bread, after which
no work was permitted. By then Jesus had been in Sheol for several hours.
Thursday was day one.
Because
in Jewish reckoning the night precedes the day, at sundown it became Friday the
15th, night one, and the special Sabbath John mentioned began (John 19:31).
At sunrise it was Friday day, day two. The next sundown brought Saturday night
the 16th, night two, and the regular Sabbath began. As of sunrise it was
Saturday day, day three. At sundown on Saturday it became Sunday night the
17th, night three, and sometime before sunrise Jesus rose from the tomb. Three
days and three nights. When the women arrived at sunrise to anoint His body, He
was already gone.
So in the week Jesus died two
Sabbaths that permitted no work were observed back to back: The Feast of
Unleavened Bread on Friday the 15th, and the regular weekly Sabbath on Saturday
the 16th. In Matthew 28:1 we read that at dawn on the first day of the
week (Sunday the 17th) the women who were close to Jesus went to the tomb. Luke
24:1 tells us they were going to anoint His body for burial. The two
Sabbaths had prevented them from doing so earlier. But He wasn’t there. He had
risen. Being the Sunday after Passover, at the Jewish Temple it was Feast of
First Fruits. At the Empty Tomb it was Resurrection Morning.
Jews celebrate the Feast of First Fruits |
Some people try to equate his time
of death with the burial of His body and say you can’t count Thursday as day
one, because His body wasn’t laid in the tomb until sunset was upon them. But
that doesn’t make sense. A person’s death always precedes his or her burial,
sometimes by several days. In the Lord’s case it was several hours between the
time He died the the time His body was lain in the tomb.
The two disciples who met the Lord
on the road to Emmaus that Sunday (the day the Lord’s resurrection was
discovered) help us to confirm this (Luke 24:13-35). At first they
thought the Lord must have been a very recent visitor to the area when He asked
them to explain why they were so sad. In the course of the discussion they
indicated it was the third day since the crucifixion. “Since” is roughly
equivalent to “after”. It being a Sunday, the previous day (Saturday) would
have been the 2nd day since it happened , and Friday would have been the first
day since it happened, making Thursday the day it happened.
Yeshua - our First Fruit |
Others argue that this view doesn’t
permit three full days and three full nights in the tomb but that’s not what
the Scripture says. It simply says three days and three nights. If you move his
death up to Wednesday like some teach to get three full days you violate the
Passover Lamb prophecies, and the disciples on the Emmaus road would have to
have said it was the fourth day since the crucifixion. So the Thursday date is
the only one that will accommodate both the Passover Lamb and the three day
three night prophecies.
No comments:
Post a Comment