A POINT OVERLOOKED

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 11, 1879

A POINT OVERLOOKED.

Probably no believer in the Scriptures questions the view that the paschal lamb was a type of Christ; nor that the slaying of that lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month met its antitype in the death of Christ. “Christ our passover,” says Paul, “is sacrificed for us.” 1 Cor. 5:7.

It will be as readily conceded that the offering of the wave sheaf of the first-fruits, Lev. 23:10, 11, was the type of the resurrection of Christ. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.” 1 Cor. 15:20. And the antitype in every case falls in the same month, and on the same day of the month, as that to which the type was confined.

Now it is said of the wave sheaf that it was to be waved on the “morrow after the Sabbath.” Lev. 23:11. This must mean one of two things: either the morrow after the weekly Sabbath, or the morrow after the passover sabbath. If it was on the morrow after the weekly Sabbath, then the waving of the sheaf, and consequently its antitype, the resurrection of Christ, took place on the first day of the week. But if it was the morrow after the passover sabbath, then there was but one full day between the slaying of the paschal lamb and the offering of the wave sheaf; for the lamb was slain on the 14th day of the month, the passover sabbath was on the 15th, and the morrow after that sabbath, the 16th, was the day of the wave sheaf. Consequently, in the antitype but one full day intervened between the death and resurrection of Christ. Thus, in accordance with the type of the paschal lamb, he was crucified on the 14th day of the month. During the passover sabbath, the 15th, he lay in the tomb. On the morrow after that sabbath, the 16th, in accordance with the type of the wave sheaf, he arose from the dead. He was not therefore three full days and three full nights, or seventy-two hours, in the tomb.

In view of these facts, it is plain to be seen that the double proposition for which some contend, that Christ was in the tomb seventy-two hours, and that he rose, not on the first day of the week, but on the Sabbath, is certainly null and void in one of its divisions. For if Christ did not rise on the first day of the week, then the sabbath, on the morrow after which his resurrection was to take place, according to the wave-sheaf type, was the passover sabbath; and this being the case, but one full day intervened between his death and resurrection, and consequently he was not in the grave seventy-two hours. But if this sabbath was not the passover sabbath, it must have been the weekly Sabbath, and in this case, the resurrection of Christ, as the antitype of the wave sheaf, is inseparably fixed to the first day of the week.

One of these views we must take. But take which we will, we repeat that the statements that Christ remained in the tomb seventy-two hours, and that he rose on the Sabbath, cannot both be true; and very possibly neither of them is correct.

The view held by the expositors, Henry, Clarke, Scott, and Williams, and by the Bible dictionaries of Smith, Cassell, Watson, Kitto, and the Am. Tract Society, is that the sheaf was waved on the 16th of the month, the morrow after the passover sabbath, and that, in reckoning forward to the Pentecost, the word “sabbaths,” in Lev. 23:15, “seven sabbaths shall be complete,” means simply weeks: seven weeks shall be complete. This is undoubtedly the correct view. Then we repeat, in the antitype, we can have but one full day between the death of Christ and his resurrection: he was crucified one day, lay in the tomb the next, and arose the next. Let us say, to be in harmony with the majority as far as possible, that he was crucified on Friday, lay in the tomb on Sabbath, which was, in that instance, both the weekly Sabbath and the passover sabbath, and for that reason was called by John “a high day,” John 19:31, and rose from the dead on the first day of the week. This would answer the type in every respect.

But how, then, it will be asked, could he have been in the grave three days and three nights, or seventy-two hours? Answer: The scripture does not say he should lie in the grave, but “in the heart of the earth;” and, secondly, it does not read seventy-two hours, but “three days and three nights.” The “grave” clause, and the “seventy-two hour” clause, are not Scripture declarations but human assumptions.

When we inquire what the expression three days and three nights means, it is to be borne in mind that in the scripture it means what it meant in the days of Jonah, nearly nine hundred years before Christ, without any reference to what it would mean to-day. In the change of usage which has befallen all language, it may now be much more definite than it was then. Christ points us back to the time of Jonah: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matt. 12:40. The question is not, what does this expression mean now? nor what did it mean in the days of Christ? but, what did it mean in the days of Jonah? What was the usus loquendi of that age as respects the expression “three days and three nights”? We have no evidence whatever that it meant seventy-two hours and no less; but we do have evidence that it was used to express a period of time embracing only a part of three days, or ending on the third day, as in the case of Joseph’s brethren, and of queen Esther. The position therefore that we must have full seventy-two hours in this period is not proved but only assumed.

Just so with the expression, “the heart of the earth.” It is assumed that it means the grave; but where is the proof? There is no necessary inference to be drawn from the case of Jonah that it means the grave; for Jonah was alive all the time he was within the fish; but they who are in the grave are not alive. The word heart means literally the organ by which the circulation of the blood is maintained. This definition is of course confined to animal life. As applied to an inanimate object, it means the part nearest the middle or center. But nobody supposes that Christ went into the middle of the earth. Figuratively it means the seat of the affections and sensibilities, including hate, anger, etc.

In the passage in question, it must be used in a figurative sense as applied to the earth, in which case the earth itself must be used in a figurative sense, meaning the inhabitants of the earth; as in the passage, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.” Jer. 22:29. Therefore if the question is raised, What can the expression, “the heart of the earth,” mean if it does not mean the grave, the reply is, the people of the earth; and the expression, “in the heart,” etc., would mean under their power, subject to their will, under the control of their anger and hatred.

But this subjection of Christ to earthly power commenced before his death. It was a marked period in his experience. When he suffered himself to be taken by the mob, he was just as much in the power of wicked men as he was while he lay in the tomb. Christ surrendered himself into their hands, not accepting the deliverance which he might have had; Matt. 26:53; and when he did this, he said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” Luke 22:53. The betrayal, the seizure, the mock trial, the buffeting, the taunting adoration, the crown of thorns, the crucifixion, the guard over the tomb, were all parts of one great whole—the work of the powers of darkness while Christ was in subjection to them. It marked the time of his lowest and most abject humiliation. He was then in the very heart of the earth, under the control of wicked men, as Jonah was under the control of the fish.

And how long a time have we? Allowing the crucifixion to have been on Friday, in order to come as near as possible to the general opinion, the betrayal and arrest of Christ were on Thursday evening. We then have Thursday night and Friday, Friday night and Saturday, and Saturday night to early Sunday morning, when he arose, which was the third day, and would harmonize all the declarations of Scripture, so far as we are aware, on this subject.

All the difficulty on this question lies in the assumptions that the heart of the earth means the grave, and that Christ must be in there just seventy-two hours. But if we admit assumptions, we could believe in a Sunday Sabbath, in a spiritual coming of Christ, in a temporal millennium, and the immortality of the soul. On these subjects we do not tolerate assumptions. Why should we on the subject under consideration?

The attempt to meet in any degree the argument for Sunday-keeping by the plea that Christ did not rise from the dead on Sunday, we regard as a very unfortunate mistake. 1. Because it raises a false issue. 2. It turns aside the controversy from the main and important point. 3. It is a virtual acknowledgment on the part of him who uses it of that which is not true, and which he does not himself believe, namely, that the time of Christ’s resurrection has some determining influence on the Sabbath question. 4. Hence the Sunday-keeper is confirmed in his impression that if Christ did rise on Sunday, that day is the Sabbath; and when it is found impossible to convince him that Christ did not rise on Sunday, he goes away confirmed in his error, and all other arguments in behalf of the Sabbath are nullified. 5. To show how difficult it will be to satisfy the objector that Christ did not rise on Sunday, but on the Sabbath, it is sufficient to state that even the Seventh-day Baptists, who are the especial champions of that view, are not agreed among themselves. In the Sabbath Recorder, issues of July 3 and 10, 1879, appears a lengthy article from the pen of J. W. Morton, to show that Christ rose from the dead “at or near the going down of the sun on Monday.” 6. To show any candid person that even if Christ did arise on Sunday it has nothing whatever to do with the Sabbath question, does not require one-tenth the argument that it would to show him that he did not rise on Sunday; indeed, we think we might just as well say one-thousandth part the argument; for we do not believe that this latter declaration can be proved. 7. We have not yet learned of an individual who, failing to be convinced by any other argument, has found this the turning point, and been led from Sunday to Sabbath-keeping by the claim that Christ did not rise on the first day of the week.

We think the present article suggests a better way.