After Three Days and Three Nights …

At important turning points in both Old and New Testament history when God did new things, they were accompanied by visible, corroborating signs. This is particularly true of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Again and again redeemed men have needed to know whether what they believed came from God or from the Devil or some other source. Moses faced this need when God called him to go to Egypt to deliver Israel from bondage. Moses asked God, “Whom shall I say sent me?” God’s response was, “I AM THAT I AM has sent you” (Exod. 3:14). Moses addressed God again: “Behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’ ” (Exod. 4:1)—in other words, “What sign can I give them so that they will know you have sent me?” God then told him to use the rod in his hand, and by the use of that rod he performed miracles before the Pharaoh that were visible, unmistakable signs.

A second Old Testament incident occurred when Elijah confronted the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel. Unfortunately, the people of Israel needed some kind of sign to prove that Jehovah rather than Baal was God. Elijah challenged the priests of Baal to a crucial test: whoever was able to get his god to consume the animal sacrifice by fire from heaven would thereby demonstrate that his god was the true God. The priests of Baal did all they could to call down fire, but to no avail. Then when Elijah called on Jehovah, the fire fell from heaven and consumed his sacrifice. At once, the people shouted that Jehovah was God.

From the earliest days of his ministry, Jesus faced the question of how men could know for certain that he was the Messiah sent from God. His miracles constituted his messianic credentials. No one else could do the works that he did. Those works witnessed to his deity and provided supporting evidence for his claims. Even though men might not believe the words he spoke, they could know he was who he said he was because of the signs and wonders he performed. Jesus made this quite clear. “If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me: but if I do them, even though you do not believe, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (John 10:37, 38, italics added). The outward sign of his messiahship was his works.

It was not strange that Israelites with perverse hearts should also raise questions about his works. They demanded one sign after another. Even after he had performed numerous miracles, they asked for more outward demonstrations in support of his claims. It was within this context that Jesus gave these unbelievers the sign of his resurrection, which may be the greatest of all the signs we find in Scripture. Certain scribes and Pharisees said to him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” His answer was, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall 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 whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:39, 40).

Later on, Matthew says that the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to Jesus “and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven” (Matt. 16:1). Since they had not really accepted the earlier signs from heaven, Jesus undoubtedly knew they would disbelieve any additional ones he might show them. But still he did not disregard their request. He said: “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah” (Matt. 16:4).

The Sadducees and the Pharisees knew the Old Testament Scriptures. They understood that before Jesus, like Jonah, could emerge alive, in some analogous fashion he had to be imprisoned for three days and three nights. They could certainly perceive the beginning of this sign, the crucifixion of Jesus. Because they took seriously what Jesus had said about the sign of Jonah, they sought Pilate’s permission to make the tomb secure. It was sealed with the seal of Roman power, and a Roman guard was stationed to make certain that no one rolled way the stone or stole the body of Jesus.

The sign of Jonah was further expanded by Jesus in at least two other instances in the Gospels. The first was in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. In the discourse recorded in Luke 16, Jesus made mention of his resurrection. A rich man who had died and gone to hell asked Abraham to send Lazarus to tell the man’s brothers how awful hell was and to urge them to prepare for the future life better than he had done. Abraham told the rich man that his brothers had as their witnesses Moses and the prophets. If they followed the teaching of Scripture, they would have no problem. But the rich man knew that his brothers either did not read the Scriptures or did not believe them. So he begged Abraham to send a messenger back from the dead. But Abraham replied: “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.” In this manner, Jesus again pointed ahead to his own resurrection as a sign in support of the Old Testament Scriptures concerning himself. When this incident is included with the other resurrection data, it strengthens the sign of Jonah.

When Jesus, at the Passover, cleansed the temple, the Jews again asked for a sign from him. “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’ … but he spoke of the temple of his body” (John 2:19, 21). The clinching conclusion comes later, when John writes that the disciples of Jesus remembered that he had said this and “they believed the scripture [meaning of course the Old Testament Scriptures] and the word which Jesus had spoken.” Again this account centers on the most important aspect of the sign of Jonah: Jesus would be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. But death could not hold him captive. Jesus once again pointed to the sign of Jonah, this time within the context of rebuilding “the temple of his body” in three days.

Some kind of outward sign for faith was no less important for believers in that day. The tragic tale of John the Baptist’s last days confirms this. John was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15), but this was no guarantee that he would not suffer from moments of doubt. Nor did it deliver him from the need for outward confirming evidences of the true role of Jesus. John delivered his heaven-given message and fulfilled his role as the forerunner of the Messiah. He had no doubt in his mind when he proclaimed boldly that Jesus was the suffering Messiah. But when he was put in jail, he fell into a deep depression, and his earlier triumphant proclamation of Jesus’ messiahship was shaken by doubt.

John sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?” John needed some sign other than the sign of Jonah, for he would not be alive to see or to hear of Jesus’ death and resurrection. He needed some kind of an immediate response to renew his faith. And Jesus gave him the reassurance for which his heart yearned; he performed miracles then and there so that the disciples of John could return to him and tell him what they had seen. Luke says: “In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many that were blind he bestowed sight. And he answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them’ ” (Luke 7:21, 22).

Jesus went far beyond anything John could have asked. He performed a variety of healings, and John had an abundance of evidence to satisfy him in the closing hours of his life. So God always reinforces hearts that need confirming signs to strengthen their faith in the hour of deepest trial. And just as John believed the evidence he got secondhand from his disciples, so we believe the evidence we have from Jesus’ disciples.

The sign of Jonah was meaningless, of course, if it was not literally fulfilled in the historical process. Some scholars distinguish between salvation history and real history. Salvation history does not require a literal, historical resurrection of Jesus (or of Jonah) from the dead. Real history does. Now, it is true that the Bible presents salvation history. But it informs us that salvation history occurred within the historical process and is real history also. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is a fact. The blood that Jesus shed on Calvary’s cross was real blood; the gaping hole in his side was a real hole; the resurrection body was a real body that could be seen and felt and handled; he really ate and drank with his disciples beside the shores of the Galilean lake.

When Jesus specified that he would be three days and three nights in the earth, he was saying plainly that death’s claim on him had a limit. His word was a promise that he would break the chains of death and rise in resurrection power. But even more was signified by his resurrection. It meant he had paid the just demands of the law for man’s transgressions; he had conquered death; and he offered the hope of everlasting life to all who would believe. The horror of his suffering gave way to the glory of his resurrection.

The sequel to the story and the assurance that it was true came in the witness of the apostolic church. Whether the testimony is that of Peter in the first apostolic sermon at Pentecost or of Paul on Mars Hill, the clinching word is the same. And the final word concerning this sign was spoken by Paul in First Corinthians 15: if the sign of Jonah was not fulfilled, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.… Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (1 Cor. 15:14, 18). This is the ultimate significance of the resurrection sign. The resurrection is the guarantee of both the justification of those who believe and the judgment of those who don’t.

Helmut Thielicke says that the resurrection accounts are “an example of the Bible’s use of a veiled and, one might say, discreet language in pointing to events that no words can adequately describe. Thus, the way of speaking must be indirect and even cryptic. Naturally, one cannot talk about the resurrection the way one reports a traffic accident or an historical event.” Dr. Thielicke is both right and wrong. Indeed, the resurrection has elements within it that defy the noblest efforts of the believing heart to describe it; nonetheless it can be reported in the newspapers as a historical event. The headlines could shout, “The Tomb Is Empty! Jesus Is Risen and Was Seen by Men!” The Easter fact based on the resurrection sign of Jonah is as contemporary and as true as the headlines of tomorrow’s newspaper. It has in it a twofold meaning: He lives! And because he lives, I live also!

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