Christian Basics Home

Christian Basics Course Session 5: The Christ Rises from the Dead

Appendix A to Session 5: The third day pattern in the Old Testament – ‘Climactic reversal from death to life’

  1. We can say more about the timing of the Christ’s resurrection.  In the Old Testament stories, the ‘third day’ is a day with some surprising patterns.  The first surprise is how often ‘the third day’ time stamp is mentioned.  There are 69 references to ‘third day’ or ‘three days’ in the Old Testament.[1]  By comparison, there are only 14 references to ‘two days’ or ‘second day’. There are only 8 references to ‘fourth day’ or ‘four days’.  So the Old Testament makes a lot of ‘three days’, and ‘the third day’.  We can conclude that something is being communicated.  The day contains special meaning.  But what is that meaning?
  2. We can see the meaning by looking at the pattern of events on the third day.  There are fourteen passages in the stories of the Old Testament which use the phrase ‘on the third day’.  Of these, nine stories have a person saved from death that third day.[2]  This is surprisingly high.  Compare this sample with the twenty-four passages where the Old Testament speaks of ‘the next day’.[3]  Only 2 out of 24 passages on the ‘next day’ have such an event, where a person is saved from death.  This is much less than 9 out of 14 on the third day.
  3. Our point is that the careful reader can notice a special theme in ‘the third day’ stories.  This pattern is the ‘climactic reversal from death to life’.
  4. Let’s read a story to get the idea.  Consider this story in Genesis 22:1-19:  It’s a story from Abraham’s lifetime, around 2000 BC.

NIV Genesis 22:1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. 2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" 8 Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. 12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

  1. In this story, the third day was the day when Abraham was to kill Isaac.  God had decreed Isaac’s death, so Isaac was as good as dead.  Yet, in the climax to the story, Isaac’s life is spared on the third day.  It is a reversal from life to death on the third day.
  2. A shorter story occurs in 2 Kings 20.  This story comes from around the year 710 BC.

NIV 2 Kings 20:1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, "This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover." 2 Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 "Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him: 5 "Go back and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, 'This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the LORD. 6 I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.'"

  1. Hezekiah had been told by God that he would die.  Yet in a great climax, on the third day he is well enough to go to the temple.
  2. There is another passage in the Old Testament which links the resurrection of the dead with the third day.  This passage is not a story, but a predictive prophecy.  The passage is Hosea 6:2, and was written around 730 BC.[4]

ESV Hosea 6:1 "Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.

The passage is a poem.  The first half of each line is preliminary; the second half is the climactic prediction for the future.  For example, ‘he has torn us’ is preliminary, a statement of the past.  But ‘that he may heal us’ is the climactic prediction for the future.  Just so, in verse two, ‘after two days he will revive us’ is preliminary.  ‘On the third day he will raise us up’ is the climactic prediction for the future.  So the third day is predicted to be a day of raising up.

  1. We do not have time to cover all the stories in question.  The point is that the Old Testament points to the third day as a day of climactic reversal from death to life.

 

Christian Basics Course Appendix B to Session 5: The historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection


[1] excluding dates.

[2] Gen 22:4, 40:12, 42:17, Ex 19:11, Josh 9:17, Judg 20:30, 1 Sam 30:1, 2 Kgs 20:5, Est 4:16.

[3] Gen 19:34, Exod 9:6, 18:13, 32:6, 30, Num 11:32, 16:41, 17:8, 33:3, Jos 5:11, Jdg 6:38, 9:42, 21:4, 1 Sam 5:3, 11:11, 18:10, 20:27, 30:17, 31:8, 2 Sam 11:12, 2 Kgs 8:15, 1 Chr 10:8, 29:21, Jonah 4:7

[4] I have used the ESV because I think it is a better translation at this point, closer to the idea of resurrection which is present in the original Hebrew.