On the Third Day He Rose Again (The Creed, Part 13)

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

Matthew 12:40

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I believe that on the third day Jesus rose again from the dead. Today there’s two common questions I get that I want to answer regarding this statement in the Creed.

The first one is this. If Jesus was placed in the tomb on Friday evening, just before 6 p.m. and he was in the tomb all day Saturday, and then rose again from the dead early Sunday morning, at most, that only puts Jesus in the tomb for maybe 36 hours? Far short of the 72 hours that it would take to be in the tomb for three whole days. Well, does this contradict Scripture? Because so often we talk about Jesus being buried for three days and rising from the dead on the third day.

But notice just that. Whenever Jesus anticipates or predicts his own resurrection, he almost always uses the phrase on the third day. However, there is one time in Matthew chapter 12, where Jesus says this, he says,

For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:40)

Well, there do we have a contradiction? Well, the answer is no. I like to explain it this way. Have you ever done long term airport parking before? I have. And what you do is you pay by the day whether or not you’re there for full day or not. So imagine if I check my car in late on Friday night, and it sits there all day Saturday, and I come back and pick it up on Sunday morning. Even though my car sat there for 36 hours, I’ve paid for three whole days, 72 hours of parking.

Think of Jesus resurrection the same way. Jesus paid for three days and three nights in the tomb. But boy, once he hit day three, he was free to check out anytime he wanted to.

The other statement that oftentimes gets questions is the word, again. He rose again from the dead. People will ask, well, does that mean that Jesus rose twice? The answer, of course, is no. But rather when we use that word again in the English language, it doesn’t just mean to do something over like making my bed again. It can also mean to return back to a previous state of being. For instance, he went off to war and returned home again. He didn’t go to war twice, but rather when he comes back from war, he returns to the state of peace and tranquility that he was in before getting shipped out overseas.

In Jesus’ case, it’s the same way, he rose again. In other words, he returns to the state of power and life he had before his death. Now, as we think about this, it’s all important because so often as I talk with Christians, as we picture the end goal of our faith going to heaven when we die. And don’t get me wrong, that is a wonderful comfort, a wonderful joy. Think about it this way, heaven is the five-star resort on our way to a final vacation, a final destination.

But the ultimate goal of our salvation is for God to return this creation again to the state in which it was before the fall. And while we’re up in heaven, we’re just waiting for God to do that, for Jesus to come back and raise the dead again and restore creation so that once again we may walk with God, as Adam and Eve did in the garden. Once again the world is a perfect bliss, a Paradise. Once again we return to a state of eternal peace and rest. That’s something so exciting that I would be willing to check out to go see. Amen.