He Lives And Dies In Seven Days

Perchance this is a pointless question, but why did Jesus await three days to ascent from the dead?

I mean, once He died, He had fully paid the penalisation for the sins of all mankind. Why couldn't He but resurrect right at that place, jump down from the cross, grit himself off, and call information technology good?

Peradventure he needed to be cached in the grave. Fine. Merely why wait three days for the resurrection? Why not get wrapped in burial dress, then rise sometime during that first night?

Here are some possible reasons, just honestly, I find none of them satisfactory.

To show He was expressionless

I suppose some could argue that He had to stay in the tomb for three days to prove He was dead. There is, after all, the "swoon theory" in which people say Jesus didn't really die, but just went unconscious. I suppose if Jesus "resurrected" ii minutes afterwards dying on the cantankerous, this theory would be much more plausible. Just when Jesus is buried in tomb for iii days, this theory loses all credibility.

But at the aforementioned time, this still doesn't answer the question. If Jesus wanted to prove He was dead, why non expect seven days? Or thirty? I suppose these longer periods can be disregarded because God did not want Jesus to see decay (Ps 16:10; Acts 2:27). But fifty-fifty in three days the body of Jesus would accept started to decay.

To fulfill prophecy

Some say that Jesus had to spend three days in the grave to fulfill prophecy. Which prophecy? The sign of Jonah, who spent three days in the belly of a keen fish (cf. Matt 12:39-40). But nosotros must be careful hither because the story of Jonah is non really a prophecy. Yes, Jesus prophesied that He would exist in the grave for three days, just like Jonah was in the fish for three days, simply if Jesus had never said this, and then there would be no such thing as a prophecy about spending three days in the grave.

So this reply just kicks the question back a little further: Why three days? Why couldn't Jesus take connected His decease with the creation of the world, and said a prophecy virtually how "Just as the world was created in six days, and on the sixth solar day, Adam was raised from the dust of the ground, so as well, after six days the Son of Man also will rise from the dust"? Jesus could have taken whatsoever number of stories and accounts in the Bible and turned them into a prophecy near how long He would exist in the tomb. Why did He pick the story of Jonah? What is special almost 3 days?

To increase organized religion

Another possible explanation is that Jesus wanted to increment the faith of His followers. By not resurrecting right away, they had to question why they had followed Him, and whether He was truly the Messiah. They had to work through the despair of losing Him, and the questions of what would have happened if they had not followed Him, or if they had defended Him amend, or if they had merely been duped.

By waiting three days, Jesus allowed them time to work through some of these issues and questions. Just over again, this begs the question. If three days does this, why not vii, or twelve, or forty, all of which are also meaning biblical numbers.

Could not rise during the Sabbath

It could be argued that resurrection is work, and so Jesus could not rise on the Sabbath, but had to await until the Sabbath was over. This argument actually has some merit. Just Jesus was ever doing things on the Sabbath that other Jewish people frowned upon, including healing on the Sabbath. So information technology seems He could have been raised on the Sabbath also.

Acting equally our High Priest

Maybe Jesus was busy "doing stuff" in paradise, hell, and heaven. You know, High Priestly stuff like sprinkling blood on the altar in heaven, defeating sin, expiry, and the devil, preaching to spirits in prison, that sort of thing (Hebrews 9; 1 Pet iii:xix).

I suppose this is possible. It just doesn't really explain why these things took three days.

It doesn't matter

Possibly information technology doesn't matter. Peradventure it was all but random. Maybe Jesus picked a number out of the air, and selected Jonah equally a way of making a prophecy about it to prove that He could predict the future, which would then bear witness that He was a prophet of God when the prophecy came true. But the number of days in the grave is irrelevant. It simply happens to be what Jesus chose.

I but struggle with this because the biblical authors seem to place such an emphasis on three days in the grave.

But in the end, I take no reply. Simply that'south okay, because …

The important affair is that Jesus rose

We can all agree hither. Maybe questioning why Jesus spent 3 days in the grave is a pointless question which simply theologians ask. The of import thing is that Jesus rose from the dead, and for this, we can praise and give thanks God for all eternity.

It is difficult to know why Jesus spent 3 days in the grave. Simply the of import thing is that He rose again!

Theologians like to ask these sorts of questions about Scripture, theology, and Jesus, but in the terminate, what it all comes down to is believing what God has done for the states in Jesus Christ, even if we practice not understand all the details.

The cross of Jesus is Key to everything!

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