There are professing believers who take the Lord's words in Matthew 12:40 to mean that He must truly and literally have been a full 72 hours "in the heart of the earth." Such teaching can only serve to wreak havoc on one's faith in the inspired written word, that is the God given received text. Granted, there are what we may call "renderings" and "punctuations" in certain places that us moderns may think should have been better translated, but ever remember the Authorized Version was published over 400 years ago when English was an altogether different language! The KJV 1611 is only a translation. The Scriptures are only inspired in the original Hebrew and Greek tongues, and they came without "chapter and verse" and 'English' punctuation, nevertheless, it is the content in the manuscripts employed by the translators of the KJV 1611 that are inspired. A full defence is beyond the scope of this small article.
It is agreed by all teachers of God's written word that it is not wise to base any doctrine on one verse alone without scriptural support. So, if the Lord was truly and literally "in the heart of the earth" for a full "three days and three nights", that is 72 hours, then the Friday crucifixion could not have happened, this much is obvious.
In Matthew 12:40, on "the three days and three nights" the Lord is quoting Jonah 1:17 verbatim; "Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." It is an established fact in Mosaic Judaism (biblical Judaism!) that the Jews reckoned the night with the day*. Therefore if Jonah wasn't in the "belly of the fish" for the timescale of what us moderns understand as a full 72 hours, then the same would be true of the Lord in Matthew 12:40.
So it must have been that Jonah was "swallowed up" and inside the "great fish" late on a Friday, all through the Saturday Sabbath, and "vomited out" (Jonah 2:10) early on a Sunday morning. He 'rose' on a Sunday morning to go to Nineveh. This "great city" being a microcosm for the whole Gentile world to whom the Lord would give the "great commission" (Matthew 28:18-20). Again, let me remind the reader that the Lord was quoting verbatim from the Jewish Scriptures, and that He is a Jew! When He "created the heavens and the earth" the "morning" was always spoken with the "evening", see Genesis 1:5-1:31. The Lord quoted extensively from the book of Genesis throughout the Gospels, and everyone knows, believer and unbeliever alike that every day includes an evening and a morning.
Let us look for evidence that the Lord was indeed resurrected on Sunday morning.
"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread" Acts 20:7. Why would Jewish believers come together on a Sunday to "break bread" in the name of the Lord if they didn't believe He was resurrected on the first day of the week, also known as "the Lord's day"? Similarly, the disciples were ordered on "the first day of the week" to "lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him.." (1 Corinthians 16:1-2); again, why on "the first day of the week"? what be the significance? John "was in the Spirit on the Lord's day" Revelation 1:10, again, what be the significance of this, if He hadn't risen on that Easter Sunday morning? Likewise, in John 20:19, "Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week". This buttresses perfectly with Mark 16:9 where we read that the Lord "was risen early on the first day of the week." (Emphasis's mine). Abraham, the father of faith, "of all them that believe" (see Romans 4:11) was given the covenant of circumcision which pointed to the eighth day, a new day, the resurrection day of our Lord which was the first day of the week. This new day came to be known as the Christian Sabbath, the Lord's day. The unbelieving Jewish sabbath remains the same, the Christian believer is under the new covenant, the Lord Jesus is truly "Lord even of the sabbath day." Matthew 12:8.
Let us not lose sight of the fact that the Jewish Scriptures are none other than our Old Testament; the unbelieving Jews are blinded to the truth of the New Testament. I believe that those who believe and teach a literal 72 hour stay in "the heart of the earth" are deceived and are doing a very great disservice to the Gospel Truth of Christ. "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." Psalm 119:89. But not according to those who would shipwreck the faith of some, who would otherwise trust the plenary inspiration of holy writ.
The Lord "rose the third day according to the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:4.
*On the 'difficulty' of accepting that the Lord was not a full 72 hours "in the heart of the earth".
Dr John Gill writes (and to this all, the other great reformed expositors agree, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Jamieson, Fausett & Brown, and countless others) .
"To solve this difficulty, and set the matter in a clear light, let it be observed, that the three days and three nights mean three natural days, consisting of day and night, or twenty four hours, and are what the Greeks call "night days"; but the Jews have no other way of expressing them, but as here; and with them it is a well known rule, and used on all occasions, as in the computation of their feasts and times of mourning, in the observance of the Passover, circumcision, and diverse purification's, that "a part of a day is as the whole" and so, whatever was done before sun setting, or after, if but an hour, or ever so small a time before or after it, it was reckoned as the whole preceding, or following day; and whether this was in the night part, or day part of the night day, or natural day, it mattered not, it was accounted as the whole night day: by this rule, the case here is easily adjusted; Christ was laid in the grave towards the close of the sixth day, a little before sun setting, and this being part of the night day preceding, is reckoned as the whole; He continued there the whole night day following, being the seventh day; and rose again early on the first day, which being after sun setting, though it might be even before sun rising, yet being a part of the night day following, is to be esteemed as the whole; and thus the Son of man was to be, and was three days and three nights in the grave; and which was very easy to be understood by the Jews; and it is a question whether Jonas was longer in the belly of the fish."
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