Day of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

ARGUMENT FROM THE TYPES

There is one more line of argument, which is absolutely conclusive in favor of the view that Christ was crucified on Friday and rose on the first day of the week; and that is the argument from the types. Christ was the antitype of the passover lamb. “Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us.” 1 Corinthians 5:7. The lamb was always to be killed on the 14th day of the month, “between the two evenings.” (Exodus 12:6, margin), that is, between 3 P.M. and sunset. (See Robinson’s Greek Lexicon, under “opsia.”) So Christ expired at the legal time, on the 14th day of the month, a little after 3 P.M., “between the two evenings.” The passover he ate with his disciples the evening before, was by anticipation. We know the day he died was the true time for slaying the paschal lamb, or he could not have been a true antitype. The day following, that is, the 15th, was the first passover sabbath. Leviticus 23:6. And on the morrow after this passover sabbath, the sheaf of first-fruits was waved before the Lord. Leviticus 23:11, 15. DCRC 30.1

In proof that “the morrow after the sabbath” (Leviticus 23:15) was the 16th day of the month, and that the day preceding it, that is, the 15th, the passover sabbath, is the sabbath referred to, we present the following from Smith’s Bible Dictionary, edited by S.W. Barnum. Under “Passover,” he says: - DCRC 30.2

“On the 15th, the night being passed, there was a holy convocation, and during that day no work might be done, except the preparation of necessary food (Exodus 12:16.) ... On the 16th of the month, ‘the morrow after the sabbath’ (i.e., after the day of holy convocation), the first sheaf of harvest was offered and waved by the priest before the Lord.” DCRC 30.3

Under “Pentecost” he says: - DCRC 30.4

“Pentecost (fr. Gr. pentecoste = the fiftieth sc. day from the second day of the feast of unleavened bread or the passover).... 1. The time of the festival was calculated from the second day of the passover, the 16th of Nisan. The law prescribes that a reckoning should be kept from ‘the morrow after the sabbath’ to the morrow after the completion of the seventh week, which would, of course, be the fiftieth day (Leviticus 23:11, 15, 16; Deuteronomy 16:9).” DCRC 30.5

On the expression “morrow after the sabbath,” as given in the foregoing extract, he has this note: - DCRC 31.1

“It has been generally held that the ‘sabbath’ here = the first day of holy convocation of the passover, the 15th of Nisan mentioned in Leviticus 23:7 (compare verses 24, 32, 39). Some have made the ‘sabbath’ here = the seventh day of the week, or the Sabbath of creation, as the Jewish writers have called it; and thus the day of pentecost would always fall upon the first day of the week. But Bahr proves from Joshua 5:11 and Leviticus 23:14 that the omer was offered on the 16th of Nisan.” DCRC 31.2

Bagster’s Greek Lexicon, under “Pentecoste,” says:— DCRC 31.3

“One of the three great Jewish festivals, so called because it was celebrated on the fiftieth day, reckoning from the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, i.e., from the 16th day of Nisan.” DCRC 31.4

Andrews (“Life of our Lord,” p. 434), says: - DCRC 31.5

“The ceremonies of the second day of the feast, the 16th Nisan, were peculiar, and important to be noted. Upon this day the first-fruits of the barley harvest were brought to the temple, and waved by a priest before the Lord, to consecrate the harvest; and not till this was done, might any one begin his reaping. Leviticus 23:10-12.” DCRC 31.6

Similar testimony might be greatly multiplied; but these quotations are sufficient. Let the reader note the order of these events: 1. The paschal lamb was slain on the 14th day of the month; 2. The 15th day was the passover sabbath; 3. On the 16th day, the morrow after that sabbath, the sheaf of the first-fruits was waved before the Lord. Now as the passover lamb typified the death of Christ, so the wave-sheaf typified his resurrection. Paul not only calls Christ our “passover,” but he calls him also our “first-fruits:” “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ, the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” 1 Corinthians 15:22, 23. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.” Verse 20. And in fulfilling this type, Christ must follow the same order on the same dates. Thus he was slain on the 14th day of the month, which that year fell on Friday. The next day, the 15th, was the passover sabbath, and chanced that year to be the weekly Sabbath also. On the morrow after the Sabbath, the 16th, which happened that year to come on the first day of the week, he was raised from the dead, in fulfillment of the type of the wave-sheaf. There was but one full day, 15th Nisan, between the killing of the lamb on the 14th and the waving of the sheaf on the 16th. So there could have been but one full day between Christ’s death upon the cross, and his resurrection. Whoever puts in more, shatters the whole typical system into fragments, by making it a failure. But the fact that Christ was crucified the 14th and raised the 16th, does not vitiate the declaration that he was to be “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth;” for that expression includes, as we have seen, more than simply the time he was in the grave: it reaches from his betrayal to his resurrection; and between those points, there is all the time requisite to fulfill the prediction. (See again the diagram on p. 14.) DCRC 31.7

With the view here presented; namely, that Christ was betrayed the evening following the 13th of Nisan, was crucified Friday, the 14th, expired and was buried between 3 P.M. and sunset of that day, lay in the grave the 15th, and rose on the morning of the first day of the week, the 16th, - with this view, we say, there is the most perfect harmony between type and antitype, prediction and fulfillment, the words of Christ, and the words of his disciples, and the testimony of all the evangelists throughout. There is not a flaw, fallacy, weakness, or discrepancy in the entire argument. And we commend it to all who may have been in anywise perplexed on this subject, as one on which they may rest with all the assurance that is born of demonstration. DCRC 32.1

U.S.