THIRD DAY, THE (יֹ֥ום שְׁלִישִֽׁי; τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ). On five different occasions when Jesus spoke of His coming death, He added that His resurrection would take place on “the third day.” This theme was introduced in the first year of His ministry, in Jerusalem, after driving out the money changers and the traffickers from the Temple. In answer to the angry question of what sign He would show them to justfiy this act, He answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” regarding which the apostle adds, “He spoke of the temple of his body” (John 2:19, 21). In the middle of His ministry, Jesus made the famous statement, the time factor of which is recorded only by Matthew, “As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt 12:40). On three subsequent successive occasions He repeated the specific time limit in Matthew 16:21 (and parallels Mark 8:31 and Luke 9:22); Matthew 17:23 (and Mark 9:31); and, finally, Matthew 20:19 (and Mark 10:34; Luke 18:33). Jesus’ earliest statement must have left a deep impression upon His enemies, for two false witnesses at His trial before Caiaphas referred to this statement, although they misquoted it (Matt 26:61 and Mark 14:58). When Jesus was on the cross, those that passed by reviled Him, and reminded Him of the words He had spoken three years before (Matt 27:40 and Mark 15:29). Even on Saturday when the chief priests and Pharisees asked Pilate for a military guard to protect the tomb, they repeated this statement with an added insult, “We remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I wi ll rise again’” (Matt 27:63).

The Jews were not the last ones to refer to this time period. Three times it reappears in Luke’s final chapter (and not in any of the other gospel parallels). The angel reminded the women of what Jesus Himself had said, that on the third day He would rise again (Luke 24:7); the two disciples on the Emmaus road must have had this in mind when they said to the unrecognized Jesus, “It is now the third day since this happened” (v. 21). In one of His very last appearances Jesus directed the attention of His disciples to this theme when, opening their understanding, He said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead” (v. 46). Twice again does this appear in the early records of the apostolic church. Peter, in preaching in the house of Cornelius, affirmed that it was this Jesus whom “God raised him on the third day” (Acts 10:40); and in the ch. on the Resurrection by Paul is a statement of great significance, that Christ “was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:4). See Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s statement clearly declares that the OT Scriptures somehow predicted not simply that Christ would rise again, but that this resurrection would take place “on the third day.” Possibly the most specific reference that Paul had in mind was the confidence of the remnant in Israel, “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him” (Hosea 6:2). The great scholar of Oxford, Dr. Pusey, does not exaggerate when he says,

The resurrection of Christ and our resurrection in Him and in His resurrection could not be more plainly foretold....The two days and the third day have nothing in history to correspond with them except that in which they are fulfilled, when Christ, rising on the third day from the grave, raised with Him the whole human race.

There are other passages of Scripture, however, that bear upon this subject, and in looking at them, one should remember the words of the great church historian, Philip Schaff, that “The Biblical symbolism of numbers is worthy of more serious attention than it has received in English theology” (in Lange’s Commentary on Matthew, p. 183). Is not the very first occurrence of the word in the Bible—and generally first occurrences of basic words in the Bible have great meaning—relevant to the subject, for it is on “the third day” (Gen 1:9-13) that biological life first appeared. Also in Genesis, in the story of Joseph, there is a release from prison on the third day (40:12, 13), and, actually, when Joseph’s brothers were released from prison after three days, Joseph said to them on the third day, “Do this and you will live” (42:17, 18). Notice how often this matter of life is vital in these three-day passages. The reference to Jonah’s experience in the belly of the great fish for a period of three days is well-known to all Bible students, because of our Lord’s reference to it (Jonah 1:17).

“Three” also is used in passages indicating separation, as when people are separated from the visible, material world about them, and from one another, by darkness. The plague of darkness in the judgments on Egypt lasted just three days (Exod 10:22, 23); and darkness surrounding the cross was for a period of three hours (Matt 27:45); Paul was in the darkness of blindness for three days after his experience on the way to Damascus (Acts 9:9). “Three” is also used in important passages relating to divine punishment: God punished Israel with a three-year famine (2 Sam 21:1); the drought predicted by Elijah continued for three years (1 Kings 17:1 and 18:1). Separation from loved ones is often for periods involving a series of three, as Christ, when twelve years of age, was separated from Joseph and Mary for three days (Luke 2:46). Finally, a three-day period is closely related to the matter of the disposal of the remnants of a sacrificial animal before corruption should set in (Lev 7:17, 18; 19:6, 7). This is, of course, what Peter had in mind when, in quoting the 16th Psalm, he referred to God’s promise that He would not let His Holy One see corruption. It is a strong witness to the importance of this time element as it relates to Christ’s resurrection that the agnostic, David Strauss, should have felt compelled to devote ten pages of his famous Life of Jesus Critically Examined to a desperate attempt to break down this solid evidence of Christ’s foreknowledge (see the Eng. tr. from the 4th Ger. ed., 644-653).

Bibliography For an early treatment of this subject, see a book published anonymously in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1866, Triads of Scripture. The most detailed study is by W. M. Smith, in the Sunday School Times, for March 24 and 31, April 7, and July 14, 1928.