John 20:1

CHAPTER XX.

THE RESURRECTION (John 20:1-18)

At the request of the priests, Pilate sealed the door of the sepulcher with the Roman seal and placed. guard of sixteen Roman soldiers over it, lest "his disciples should steal away the body." There, upon the last seventh day Sabbath of the world, the torn and weary body of the Lord lay at rest. The faithful and loving women, who had stood at the cross, had followed the body to its resting place, and "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of Jesus, beheld where it was laid," having observed it before the Roman guard was placed there. After the Sabbath was passed, they returned, early on the first day of the week, to embalm the body with sweet spices,. tribute not satisfactorily attended to amid the confusion of the hurried burial. They found no body in the tomb.

Farrar says with great force and justice: At the moment when Christ died, nothing could have seemed more abjectly weak, more pitifully hopeless, more absolutely doomed to scorn and extinction and despair, than the Church which he had founded. It numbered but. handful of weak followers. They were poor, they were ignorant, they were hopeless. They could not claim. single synagogue or. single sword. So feeble were they, and insignificant, that it would have looked like foolish partiality to prophesy for them the limited existence of. Galilean sect. How was it that these dull and ignorant men, with their cross of wood, triumphed over the deadly fascinations of sensual mythologies, conquered kings and their armies, and overcame the world? There is one, and one only, possible answer--the resurrection from the dead. All this vast revolution was due to the power of Christ's resurrection.

THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS. -- There has been much discussion of the time that the Savior's body was in the grave. As he had spoken of it being three days and nights in the earth, some have insisted that he was crucified on Thursday, buried Thursday evening, and was in the tomb Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. If the Passover had come that year on Thursday evening, there would be no inconsistency between this hypothesis and the facts, for Friday would have been an annual Sabbath. This view, which has been ably advocated by some learned writers, reconciles the four expressions that refer to the time of burial, (1) "On the third day," (2) "After three days, (3) "In three days," and (4) "After three days and three nights" as follows. It is said that "on the third day" may include. period beginning with the first minute of the first day and ending with the last minute of the third, embracing in all seventy-two hours. "After three days," it is insisted, means the same as "three days and three nights," while "in three days" may include the last minute of. period of seventy-two hours. It is, therefore, held that this is the exact period that the Savior's body was in the tomb, extending from the time of burial on Thursday evening until the time of resurrection on Sunday, three days and three nights being the measure by which we are to settle the duration of the indefinite expressions. While all this seems plausible it labors under the difficulty that it does not harmonize with the facts. These facts should be noted: 1. The Savior was buried on the day he was crucified. He was crucified and buried on "the day of preparation," and "the next day that followed the day of preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate" to ask. guard. According to Matthew, then, the first day of burial is the day of the crucifixion. Mark also says that Christ was buried on the evening of the day of preparation. Luke also says that he was buried on the day of preparation. John says the same thing. This, then, is the first day, in the evening. The Savior is buried near the close of the first, instead of the beginning. If it was Thursday, Friday would be the second day, Saturday the third, and Sunday, on which all admit that he rose, the fourth day. The theory named above would require that the burial take place the very beginning of the first and the rising at the very close of the third, whereas the very opposite is true. If he was buried on Thursday and rose on Sunday, he rose on the fourth day. This view, therefore, is to be rejected, and we are to understand the expression "three days and three nights," not according to ours, but according to the Hebrew idiom.. day and. night was expressed by. single term meaning. day-night. Any part of the period was made to stand for the whole. The parts of Friday and Sunday that the Savior was in the tomb would stand for the Friday and Sunday "day-nights," while the whole of Saturday is, of course, included. See 2 Chronicles 10:5; 2 Chronicles 10:12, where the people sent away for three days returned on the third day. Also 1 Samuel 30:12-13, where three days is the same period as three days and three nights. These two references show that the "third day." "three days" and "three nights," according to Hebrew usage, means the same period of time.

1. The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early.

The Sabbath ended at sunset, so that Jesus had been dead and buried Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning, beginning at the previous sunset, three days according to Jewish reckoning. See 1 Samuel 30:12-13; 2 Chronicles 10:5; 2 Chronicles 10:12. This visit John says was "early, while it was yet dark;" Mark says "very early in the morning;" Matthew says "As it began to dawn." John names Mary Magdalene as the important one of these women who visited the tomb, but does not say she was alone. From the other evangelists we learn that Mary, the mother of James and Joses, and Salome were with her, and that they came with sweet spices to embalm the body of Jesus, expecting to secure aid to remove the stone. The fact that they came to embalm the body shows that they were not satisfied with the coarser, but loving treatment of Joseph and Nicodemus, and that they did not expect. resurrection. To their astonishment they found the stone rolled away.

Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, etc.

The reason that John mentions Mary Magdalene alone is shown in this statement. She was the one who ran and met Peter and himself. Her sad cry, "They have taken the Lord away out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him," shows that others were with her at the sepulcher. Her only explanation was that the enemies had taken away the body. While Mary had gone to seek the disciples the other women entered the sepulcher and saw an angel there. See Matthew 28:6-7.