Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Christ's Death and Burial
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Matthew 12:40
Some try to say that the phrase "in the heart of the earth" in Matthew 12:40 does not mean buried in a grave or tomb. Those who support this theory say that heart implies "middle of" or "midst of," and earth should really be translated as "country" or "world." Thus, the argument runs, Jesus is actually saying that He would be three days and nights in Jerusalem, since it was the center of the nations according to Ezekiel 5:5: "This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her." Supporters do not say how Jesus' being in Jerusalem for this amount of time can act as a sign of His Messiahship. However, this argument holds no water. First, the Greek is literally translated here, as it is from a Hebrew idiom found in Jonah 2:2-3, the place to which Jesus referred in giving His sign. In that place, "heart of the sea" parallels "into the deep," which Jonah in the previous verse calls "the belly of Sheol," which is the pit where the dead are laid or the grave. So, heart of the earth means "underground," just as heart of the seas means "underwater." "In the heart of the earth," then, was a Hebrew metaphor signifying being dead and buried. Second, the similar sign Jesus gave in John 2:19, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up," is explained plainly in verse 21: "But He was speaking of the temple of His body." Though they use different metaphors, the two signs are the same: Being in the heart of the earth is the result of having the temple of His body destroyed. Ergo, Jesus was not talking of His travel plans in Jerusalem but of His death, burial, and resurrection. Indeed, the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), as much as men try to cram their traditional beliefs into it. Would that they read the Bible for what it says rather than what they want it to say!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
In the Heart of the Earth
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Matthew 27:64
Commentators say this proves that Jesus did not have to be in the tomb a full three days, but only parts of three days. However, they fail to recognize that the priests spoke this on Thursday, not Wednesday. They were asking Pilate to seal and guard the tomb at least through the Sabbath, when three days and three nights would have fully elapsed since Christ's death and burial!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
'After Three Days'
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Luke 23:43
In Luke 23:43, Jesus Christ tells one of the criminals being crucified next to Him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." This statement forms the foundation of belief for the majority of professing Christians that they will go to heaven as soon as they die. The common interpretation is that Jesus promises the malefactor he would be with Him in "Paradise"—assumed to be heaven—later that day, after both had died. From this scenario, they extract the theory that all of the faithful are likewise caught up to heaven immediately upon death. This verse has become the modern pillar of the ancient pagan belief that our soul lives on after the death of the body and finds its way to heaven to be with God. The only problem is that Luke 23:43 does not support this at all! Jesus gave only one sign that He was the One He said He was: that He would be in the grave for three days and three nights: Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign 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. (Matthew 12:38-40, emphasis ours throughout) If Jesus was not in the grave for three days and three nights, He is not our Savior! But since we know He was telling the truth, He must have been in the grave for exactly three days and three nights—thus, He could not have been in Paradise that day. Following this through, if He was not in Paradise on the day He died, neither was the criminal hanging next to Him. The apostle Paul corroborates that Jesus did in fact fulfill His prophecy. In I Corinthians 15:3-4, he tells Christians: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures." Notice that Paul says Jesus was buried, not that the body was buried and His consciousness went to Paradise. It reads that He—Jesus, Himself, entirely—was buried. He was dead for three days. He died for our sins, was in the grave for 72 hours, then came back to life after being resurrected by the Father. John gives further proof of where Jesus was: "Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there [in the tomb, the grave] they laid Jesus . . ." (John 19:41-42). Similarly, Peter told those present on Pentecost, "[David], foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." (Acts 2:31) This states that Jesus' body and soul were in "Hades" (the grave) before His resurrection, not in Paradise. Jesus Himself tells us He was not simultaneously in the grave and in Paradise. When Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb, she encountered the resurrected Savior (John 20:14). After He identified Himself (verse 16), He told her plainly where He had not been: "Jesus said to her, 'Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, "I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God."'" (John 20:17). Clearly, He had not been in Paradise with the Father during the time He was in the grave, thus the criminal was not either!
David C. Grabbe
What Happened to the Thief on the Cross? (Part One)
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Luke 23:46
Because of the widespread (and unbiblical) assumption that mankind possesses an immortal soul and that even in death the consciousness of a person lives on absent his or her body, many will take Luke 23:46 to mean that Jesus was with the Father that day in spirit form. Subsequently, they will assume that the criminal next to Him could have been as well. However, the larger issue is what the Bible consistently shows happens at—and after—death. Yes, the spirits of both Jesus and the criminal returned to God the Father, as do the spirits of all people (Ecclesiastes 3:21; 12:7). Yet, at the same time, their consciousness ended, such that it could not be said that they—their complete persons—were with the Father. Jesus committed His spirit to the Father, yet He clearly told Mary after His resurrection, "I have not yet ascended to My Father" (John 20:17). What does it mean that His spirit was with the Father, but not His body or soul (see Acts 2:31)? Was His spirit conscious of being in Paradise? Notice what the Word of God says: -
"For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks?" (Psalm 6:5). Thus, there is no praise of God or even contemplation of Him when a person goes into the grave—yet the spirit is with God! -
"Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or Your faithfulness in the place of destruction? Shall Your wonders be known in the dark? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" (Psalm 88:11-12). The psalmist calls the grave "the place of destruction," "the dark," and "the land of forgetfulness." Consequently, death is a definite stopping point, and consciousness and experience do not continue in the grave. -
"The dead do not praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence" (Psalm 115:17). If the dead are automatically taken to the presence of God, why would they not praise Him? How could any being remain silent in the presence of the most awesome Person in the universe? -
"His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish" (Psalm 146:4; our emphasis throughout). A person's spirit departs (and returns to God, as Ecclesiastes 3:21 and 12:7 show), yet at that point all of his plans (thoughts, KJV) perish. This is because the human spirit does not have consciousness inherent within it. -
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going" (Ecclesiastes 9:10). It could not be any clearer: The condition of death means a total cessation of consciousness and awareness. In biblical usage, death is pictured as sleeping—there is no knowledge, no comprehension of the passage of time, no recognition of God, etc. There is no consciousness. The spirit in man allows understanding (Job 32:8; I Corinthians 2:11), but it depends on a living body for consciousness. The idea that some eternal consciousness continues after death comes from paganism, not the Holy Scriptures! The spirit in man, in its most basic definition, is a person's mind (heart, attitudes, etc.), not a separate sentient being. As a result, even though all the spirits of all the dead throughout human history have returned to the Father, Jesus' statement, "No one has ever gone into heaven" (John 3:13), demonstrates that the "spirit in man" is not the entire person, just a component. Yet, that component, absent a body (physical or spiritual) that can sustain life, has no consciousness of its own. The spirit is given or returned to a body—physical or spiritual—at the time of a resurrection (Luke 8:55). Jesus' spirit returned to the Father, yet He—the Man, the Son of God, the whole Being—did not ascend to the Father until after He was resurrected three days and three nights later.
David C. Grabbe
What Happened to the Thief on the Cross? (Part Two)
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Luke 24:21
To most, counting as we do, "today is the third day since these things happened" (in reference to the first day of the week) would place the crucifixion on the previous Thursday, not Wednesday. However, this simple mathematical explanation is a bit superficial. Those who look at the counting of days from an inclusive point of view say that the disciples' phrasing points to the previous Friday, since the Jews would have counted the current day, Sunday, along with Saturday and Friday to arrive at their three days. This would seem to support the traditional Good Friday-Easter Sunday scenario. Yet, Jesus said, "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). Everywhere else, the Gospels support a 72-hour burial from Wednesday at sunset to the weekly Sabbath at sunset. Can this verse in Luke 24 be a contradiction? There are two ways of resolving this apparent inconsistency. The first considers that the disciples are not referring just to the three days of Jesus' burial. Then what are they talking about? They actually say, "Today is the third day since these things happened." To assume that they refer only to the crucifixion is to ignore the context of the passage. In verse 18, Cleopas exclaims, "Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?" From the summary of what they told Him, we can conclude that the disciples recounted the whole string of events that occurred in what we now call Crucifixion Week—and those events did not end with Jesus' death and burial. Matthew 27:62-66 informs us that on the day after Christ's crucifixion—Thursday—the Jews went to Pilate to ask that a guard be set on the tomb, and he told them to do it themselves. They may have done it immediately, but they may have waited until sunset, since the day was a High Day, a holy day Sabbath, the first day of Unleavened Bread. So, on either Thursday or early Friday, a guard was set, making it the last activity surrounding the "big news" that the disciples told the resurrected Jesus about. They could then say that it had been three days since the last of "these things" had occurred. The second, and perhaps best way, to understand this comment, is to take it in its most natural sense. The immediately preceding thought is that the disciples "were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel." The sign that Jesus had given to them was of being "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). The sense of the ensuing comment, however, is that their hopes were dashed because the three days and nights of the sign had already passed! The idiomatic phrase reads literally, "One is passing this day as the third," implying "the third day has passed." In essence, they were not saying that it was the third day of Jesus' sign but, unfortunately, that the third day was already up!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
In the Heart of the Earth
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