GOOD FRIDAY AND THE BIBLE

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GOOD FRIDAY DECEPTION

It is imperative that God’s people learn to
study and think! Too many Christians are content to go with the flow of the
mainstream religious community; they fail to contemplate and confer with the
Scriptures, and this failure leaves them unable to rightly divide truth.
Today’s Christians are a generation illiterate in the Scriptures. As a result,
we are easily intimidated by our Christian friends and acquaintances. We are so
unnerved when we find ourselves out of the main­stream that we quickly
capitulate on any potentially controversial subject. 
In this day and time of terrorism, the word fundamentalist has literally brought
fear into the hearts of those Bible believers who hold dear the lit­eral
interpretation of the Scriptures. As a result, we find ourselves outside the
religious loop, grappling with issues that
were crystal clear to the past leaders of fundamentalism. However, we must not
allow reli­gious tradition to take precedence over the inspired words of
God.  This is a day when those who
study and digest the Word of God must become
a breath of fresh air.

In this article, we will discuss the subject
of Good Friday in light of the Bible, rather than religious tradi­tion. Dr.
John R. Rice, founder and editor of The
Sword of the Lord,
once told about a man who was running for office. After a day of campaigning, he went to
his campaign manager and said, “Guess what my opponent did?”
“What?”
“He called me a liar.”
“That’s too bad.”
“But he did worse than that.”
“What was that?”
“He proved it on me,” the politician
answered.
Now I am going to prove to the religious
world that its teaching and practicing of Good Friday is wrong. All over
America, on the Friday before Easter Sunday, Good Friday services are
conducted. In fact, many Baptist
churches and schools shut down on that Friday in observance of a Catholic holy day.
Some Baptists even hold Good Friday services. They start the services at noon
and end the services at three o’clock in observance of the supposed day of
crucifixion so many centuries ago. This belief and practice is erroneous!
I will prove to you that our Lord was
crucified on Wednesday. He was laid in the grave about six o’clock on Wednesday
evening. He was in the grave Wednesday evening, all day Thursday, Thursday
evening, all day Friday, Friday evening, and all day Saturday; He rose from the
grave on Sunday.
It is very important to remember that the
Jewish day started with the evening. The Bible does not say that the morning
and the evening were the first day. It says, “And the evening and the morning day were the first day.” (Genesis 1:5)
The Jewish day began at six o’clock in the evening,
not at midnight as our day does.
Our Lord was in the grave three days and
three nights.  Which days was Jesus
in the grave? He was in the grave during the days of Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday. Which nights was Jesus in the grave? He was in the grave during the
nights of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. He came out of the grave at the
evening time early Sunday morning.
Let us take a closer look at the matter of
the three days and three nights. In the Bible, the
day is usually the light part of a twenty-four hour period. Thus, three
days would be three periods of the light part. There are other meanings of the
word day in the Bible.  It can be used to refer to such periods
of time as “the day of the Lord,” “the
day of calamity,” “the day of vengeance,” t
he day of “visitation,” and so
forth.  How­ever, normally the Lord speaks about the light time in the
twenty-four hour cycle when speaking of the day.
In Genesis 1:3-5, is the Lord talking about
a twenty-four hour period when He talks about a day? No. He called the light
day, and the darkness He called night. So, when the Lord talks about a day, He
is talking about the light part of the twenty-four hours.  When He is talking about the darkness,
or night, He is talk­ing about the dark part of the twenty-four hours. So, the
evening and the morning were the first day.
When our Lord talks about three days in the
grave, what does that mean? It simply means three light pe­riods. When He talks
about three nights, He means three dark periods. The evening and the morning
are a complete day.
John 11:9 says, “Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in a day? If any man walk
in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.”

According to our Lord, there are twelve hours of light in one day. Exodus 13:21
says, “And the Lord went before them by
day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of
fire to give them light; to go by day and night…”
So, when the Lord says day, He does not mean the day and the night; He means the light
part of the twenty-four hours.
Matthew 12:40 says, “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.”

Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights. How many hours
are in a day? There are twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness,
which equals twenty-four hours. Three times twelve equals thirty-six hours of light, and three times twelve equals
thirty-six hours of darkness. Thirty-six hours of light plus thirty-six hours
of dark­ness equals seventy-two hours all together. Therefore, Jesus was in the
heart of the earth for three days and three nights or seventy-two hours.
The Lord Himself told us how many hours are
in the day—twelve—and how many hours in the night—twelve. Thus, the Lord told
us that He was in the heart of the earth for a total of seventy-two hours.
For the sake of discussion, let us assume
that Jesus was crucified on Friday afternoon at three o’clock. We have nine
hours left until midnight. So, from midnight Friday until midnight Saturday we
have twenty-four hours. Now, add twenty-four and nine, and you have a total of
thirty-three hours. Jesus came out of the grave sometime Saturday night. So,
let us add six more hours to the thirty-three, and we end up with a total of
only thirty-nine hours.
It is impossible for Jesus to have been
crucified on Friday! Since Jesus had to be in the heart of the earth for seventy-two hours, if He had
been crucified on Friday, He would have needed to stay there Saturday, Sunday,
and Monday. However, Matthew 28:1 says, “In
the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn to­ward the first day of the week,
came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.”
The Bible
tells us plainly that Jesus rose on the first day (Sunday), not the second day
(Monday).
Why do so many churches observe Good Friday?
They do so simply because their churches are built on traditions, not the
Scriptures.
Luke 23:52-54 says, “This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took
it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in
stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and
the sabbath drew on.”

The Sabbath was the day after the
crucifixion. What day is the Sabbath? Saturday.  If the Sabbath was the day after the crucifixion, then what
day would it nor­mally seem that our Lord was crucified? Friday! If we do not
study the Scriptures carefully, it would seem that our Lord actually was
crucified on Friday, as the Catholics teach.  This is where the Good Friday doc­trine emerges. The answer
is an easy one.
There are two kinds of Sabbaths. There is
the sev­enth day Sabbath and the high day Sabbath. In Leviticus 23, we have
seven Sabbaths apart from the weekly Sabbath. These seven Sabbaths are the high
day Sabbaths. They are as follows:
Ø  The
first Feast of Unleavened Bread Sabbath (the day after Passover – verses 6-8)

Ø 
The second Feast of Unleavened Bread Sabbath (the seventh day of
the feast – verse 8)

Ø 
The
Pentecost Sabbath (fifty days after the first Feast of Unleavened Bread Sabbath
– verses)    (15-21)

Ø 
The
Sabbath of the Trumpets (verses 24-25)

Ø 
The
Sabbath of Atonement (verses 27-32)

Ø 
The
first Feast of Tabernacles Sabbath (verse 34-35)

Ø 
The
second Feast of Tabernacles Sabbath (verse 36)
None of these Sabbaths deal with the seventh
day of the week. Thus, we have seven Sabbaths plus the weekly Sabbath.
John 19:31 says, “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies
should not re­main upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was
an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they
might be taken away.”

The question is,
Was Jesus crucified before one of the seven Sabbaths of Leviticus, or before
the weekly Sabbath? John 19:14 says, “And
it was the prepara­tion of the Passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith
unto the Jews, Behold your King!”
According to this verse, Jesus was crucified the day before the
Passover Sabbath (or the first Feast of Unleavened Bread Sabbath), not the
weekly Sabbath. Thus, Jesus had to have been crucified on Wednesday, with
Thursday being the Passover Sabbath.
Matthew 28:1 says, “In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of
the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepul­chre.”

Now, to which Sabbath is this verse referring? It is referring to the weekly
Sabbath. The Sabbath af­ter His crucifixion—which
occurred on a Thursday—was a high Sabbath, and the Sabbath before His res­urrection
was a weekly Sabbath—Saturday—because the Bible says that the next day was the
first day of the week.
The conclusion is quite clear. Jesus could
not have been crucified on Friday because there were two Sabbath days that had
to occur before He was resur­rected. Therefore, the first night our Lord was in
the grave was the Passover Sabbath (the first Feast of Unleavened Bread
Sabbath), or Thursday, the first month and the fifteenth day. Therefore, the
second Sabbath was the weekly Sabbath.
That is why Mary Magdalene said, “…after the sab­bath.” Jesus was in the
grave during two Sabbaths: the first Feast of Unleavened Bread Sabbath (also
called the Passover Sabbath) on Thursday, and the
weekly Sabbath on Saturday.  


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