Page 24 - Eschatology - Student Ebook

night (night one), Thursday day (day one), Friday night (night two), Friday day (day two), Saturday night
(night three), Saturday day (day three). We do not know exactly what time He rose, but we do know that
it was before sunrise on Sunday. The discovery of the empty tomb was made just at sunrise (Mark 16:2),
before it was fully light (John 20:1). That makes three days and three nights in the tomb, just as Jesus
told us. Here is a timeline of what has been presented:

With all of that said, it must be noted that the day of the week that Jesus was crucified is not something
we know from Scripture. We can only conjecture. If God wanted us to know whether it was
Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, it would have been clearly stated.

What we do know is that it occurred on Passover as a model of the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb, and
that He rose again on the Feast of First Fruits, since He is the First Fruit of the resurrection. It is fine to
hold a personal view, but unwise to become dogmatic about it. We should celebrate the cross and the
resurrection every day, not just once a year on Easter.

Can you see that these events could not “just have happened” as a coincidence? God told men what
would happen, and it happened just as He predicted, to the exact detail. These are just three examples
of the hundreds of prophecies that were fulfilled exactly as predicted. Does that not give you
confidence in the many prophecies yet to be fulfilled, that they will come to pass just as literally as those
fulfilled in the past?

23