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Questions and Answers
AUTHOR(S): | Hassell, Sylvester
Pittman, R. H. |
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Resurrection
Q. How long was the body of Jesus in the tomb?
A. The Jews, on all occasions, in computing and speaking of the time of their feasts and fasts and circumcision and purifications, called a part of a day a whole day (see I Kings 20:29; Esther 4:16; 5:1; Levit. 12:3; Luke 2:21); so that the expression of Christ that "the Son of man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40) means, as understood by the Jews (Matt. 27:63, 64), and, as interpreted by the recorded facts of the case, a part of three natural days, amounting, I think, to about thirty-seven hours. It is certain that the Jewish Sabbath was the seventh day of the week, our Saturday (Exod. 20:10); and that Christ was crucified on the day before the Sabbath, our Friday (Matt. 27:62; Mark 25:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:14,31,42); and that He rose from the dead on the first day of the week, our Sunday, called on that account the Lord's Day (Matt. 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-6; Luke 24:1-6; John 20:1-19; Rev. 1:10). According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke Christ died on the cross about the ninth hour, or 3 p.m. (nine hours after sunrise). The Jewish day (evening and morning, Gen. 1, or night-day, as the Greeks called it) began and ended at sunset, or about 6 p.m. Therefore the body of Christ lay in the grave about three hours of Friday, twenty-four hours of Saturday (resting there the whole Jewish Sabbath), and about ten hours of Sunday (from Saturday 6 p.m. to Sunday about 4 a.m., just before dawn), making about thirty-seven hours in all. According to all the Jewish methods of speech, this period would be called three days and nights or three natural days.
Q. "Did the saints really rise from the dead and appear unto many when Christ was crucified. If so what became of them?"
A. The record is clear in Matt. 27:52 and 53, that "many of the bodies of saints arose and came out of their graves and went into the Holy City after His resurrection." The record is silent as to what became of them. The great lesson however is that Christ had conquered death and the grave and that in due time all who sleep in Jesus will have a triumphant resurrection. P.
Q. Are the doctrines of non-resurrectionism and annihilationism taught in the Scriptures?
A. No, indeed; they are the doctrines of heathenism, and are directly contradictory to all the teachings of the Scriptures and to the faith of the church of God from Abel to the present time, and are not tolerated by any sound and orderly church of Christ.
Q. Was Nicodemus a regenerated man?
A. I think that his coming to Christ for instruction and his tender love for Him after His death (John 3:1-15; 19:39-40) prove that he was.
Q. Can natural men, without regeneration, come to Christ and believe in Him and be saved?
A. All Scripture and experience and observance prove that they can not; but, if men desire the spiritual and holy salvation of Christ above all things else, the Scriptures prove that they are already regenerated (whether they know it or not), and will be eternally saved (Matt. 5:6; John 7:37-39; 6:47).
Q. What is it to be "sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30)?
A. To be marked and kept, as God's peculiar people, by His Holy Spirit until the resurrection of our bodies (Eph. 1:13,14; Rom. 8:23,38,39).
Q. Did not Jesus rise from the dead in the end of the Jewish Sabbath, before the first day of the next week commenced (Matt. 28:1)?
A. The words "in the end of the Sabbath" are indefinite; the original reads literally "late in the Sabbath," or perhaps "after the Sabbath," which ended at sunset, or six o'clock Saturday evening; the following clause, in the same verse, defines the time more exactly, "as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week." The old Syriac version of the second century reads, "as the first day of the week began to dawn."
Q. What does Paul mean when he says, "We who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them who are asleep" (I Thess. 4:15)?
A. That, as explained in the next two verses, believers living on the earth at the time of Christ's second personal or bodily coming to the world, will not anticipate, will not be changed and be glorified before those who are dead in Christ; but that Christ will first raise His dead saints, and then change and glorify them and His living saints, and then take the whole family of the redeemed home to heaven with Him forever.
Q. What change did Christ's body undergo in the resurrection?
A. It began to undergo and, at His ascension, fully underwent the change that all His people will undergo, at their ascension, from a natural, mortal, and corruptible to a spiritual, immortal, and incorruptible body. His humanity, that is His human body and spirit are like ours, yet without sin; and now it is glorified, as ours will be by His gracious and almighty power.
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