In Matthew 12:38, some of the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for
a sign to prove He was the Messiah. But Jesus told them that the only
sign He would give was that of the prophet Jonah: "For as Jonah was
three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will
the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (verse 40).
But how can we fit "three days and three nights" between a Friday-afternoon
crucifixion and a Sunday-morning resurrection? This traditional view
allows for Jesus to have been entombed for only a day and a half.
Some believe that Christ's "three days and three nights" statement
does not require a literal span of 72 hours, reasoning that a part of
a day can be reckoned as a whole day. Thus, since Jesus died in the
afternoon, they think the remainder of Friday constituted the first
day, Saturday the second and part of Sunday the third. However, they
fail to take into consideration that only two nights-Friday night
and Saturday night-are accounted for in this explanation. Something
is obviously wrong with the traditional view regarding when Christ was
in the tomb.
Jonah 1:17, to which Christ referred, states specifically that "Jonah
was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." We have no
basis for thinking that Jesus meant only two nights and one day, plus
parts of two days. If Jesus were in the tomb only from late Friday afternoon
to early Sunday morning, then the sign He gave that He was the prophesied
Messiah was not fulfilled.
