"IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH."
A CORRESPONDENT inquires how the Saviour could be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, if he was crucified on Friday and rose on Sunday morning. There is a difference of opinion concerning the time of Christ's crucifixion; some placing it so far back in the week as to have three full days and nights intervene between that event and the resurrection. We do not bring up this subject here for discussion, but merely propose to give our views concerning it, for the sake of several who have solicited them. 1. We consider it a settled point that the Saviour was crucified on the sixth day of the week; for it was "the day before the Sabbath." Mark xv, 42. That the Sabbath here brought to view was the weekly Sabbath, we conclude from the fact that it is elsewhere twice mentioned in connection with the scenes of the crucifixion and the day immediately following it is said to be the "first day of the week." Thus Matthew says, "In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week;" and Mark records, "When the Sabbath was past, very early in the morning, the first day of the week." Matt. xxviii, 1; Mark xvi, 1, 2. And Luke, also, after stating that the women returned from the sepulchre, and rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment, "which is an incidental though irrefutable proof that the original Sabbath is binding in this dispensation, brings to view the first day of the week as the very next day following. Luke xxiii, 56; xxiv, 1. We also conclude from certain allusions, that the passover sabbath, and the weekly Sabbath, came together on that occasion. We are plainly told in Jno. xix, 14, that the preparation (that is, the day before the Sabbath, Mark xv, 42) was the "preparation of the passover;" and in verse 31 of the same chapter it is said that "that sabbath was a high day;" both of which passages are most naturally explained on the ground that the passover and weekly Sabbaths came together. 2. Christ many times declared that he should be slain and rise again the third day. He showed his disciples how he must be killed, and rise again the third day." Matt. xvi, 21. "They shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. Chap. xvii, 28. The same statement is also found in Matt. xx, 19; Mark ix, 31; x, 34; Luke ix, 22; xviii, 33; xxiv, 7, 46; 1 Cor. xv, 4. And after the event had transpired the disciples as they journeyed to Emmaus testified to the truthfulness of all these declarations, when they said, "But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel; and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done." Luke xxiv, 21. Here then we find eleven positive declarations that the resurrection should and did take place the third day after the crucifixion; and these declarations cannot be harmonized with the supposition that three full days and nights elapsed between those events. But, 3. It is once said that the Saviour should be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" [Matt. xii, 40], and twice [Mark viii, 31; Matt. xxvii, 63] that he should rise "after three days;" and how can these declarations be harmonized with the above? We answer that according to Jewish usage there is no discrepancy. Had there been any, his Jewish persecutors, ever watchful to catch him in his words and raise objections to his claims, would have discovered it, and urged it against him. But nothing of this kind was done; for by an idiom with which they were familiar, the unrestricted expression, three days and three nights, might be applied to any period which embraced only parts of such days and nights. The Old Testament furnishes quite a number of examples where events said to occupy three days, or continue till after three days, consumed but a portion of the third day. We need only refer to the following: Gen. xlii, 17, 18. "And he put them altogether into ward three days. And Joseph said unto them the third day," &c. In 2 Chron. x, 5 we read that Rehoboam said unto Israel, "Come again unto me after three days; but verse 12 informs us that "Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king bade." Again, queen Esther commanded the Jews to fast three days; but on the third day she put on royal apparel and went into the king's presence. Esther iv, 16; v, 1, 2. Thus it is evident that a part of a day was often put for the whole. For further satisfaction on this subject, Dr. Clarke refers the reader to Whitby, Wakefield, and Lightfoot. The subject may then be summed up as follows: 1. Christ was crucified the day before the Sabbath, which was Friday. 2. He repeatedly affirmed that he would rise the third day, as he accordingly did, on the first day of the week, after the Sabbath. 3. The expressions, "three days and three nights," and "after three days," according to Jewish usage may be applied to periods of time covering only a part of the first and third of those days.