Why I Believe in a Good Friday Crucifixion, not a Wednesday Crucifixion or a Thursday Crucifixion

Okay, today maybe Wednesday and it’s not yet Good Friday. I remembered some quackery I read from Chick Publications that suggested that the crucifixion happened on a Wednesday. I used to love Chick Publications while going paranoid reading the Alberto series. In The Force, I remembered how the book suggested that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday saying that Good Friday is just a “Catholic invention”. I reject that idea as much as I want to reject any claims by Reformation Online such as Futurism as a Jesuit invention.

Why I reject the Wednesday crucifixion

I think the Wednesday crucifixion has been used by the Seventh-Day Adventist cult. I’m amazed that the late Jack T. Chick never made a comic exposing the heresies of Ellen G. White or the Pentecostal movement. I did a critical re-reading of the Alberto series and who the late Alberto R. Rivera Sr. truly was. Rivera, as pointed out, embraced Seventh Day Adventists as brethren and preached in the late Tony Alamo’s pulpit. Alamo was a Pentecostal preacher who was caught in multiple scandals of illegal marriages with underaged women after his wife died. I think Alamo may have been guilty of multiple infidelities before his wife died. Rivera was documented to be habitually adulterous–something that’s not so spoken except to those who knew he was never a former Jesuit priest.

Going back, I think the problem with the Wednesday crucifixion is it would be 4 days in total. Too many days! Matthew 12:40 says Jesus declares in 3 days and 3 nights–which makes Thursday a little more possible. However, it can be seen that if He died on Wednesday and rose again on a Sunday, it would be a total of 4 days instead! It would be a literal overstay!

Here’s how it might actually go:

1. Wednesday day–¹/₂ day
2. Thursday night and Thursday day–1 day
3. Friday night and Friday day–1 day
4. Saturday night and Saturday day–1 day
5. Sunday night–¹/₂ day

So, we get a total of 4 days. So how does it work to have 3 days and 3 nights? Besides, the Jewish days started during sunset, not during sunrise. I personally think that a Wednesday crucifixion is just an absurd idea. It was probably done to justify Seventh Day Adventism or a lack of ignorance of Jewish customs.

A Thursday crucifixion may be more probable but I still reject it

I think a Thursday crucifixion can work if we were using the literal 72-day period. It’s the Western way of thinking. 3 days is literally 72 hours. We usually say that it will take 3 days to finish that we come back on the fourth day. Reasons for Hope‘s Shari Abbott also wrote the following in defense of a Thursday crucifixion. It’s because it would go like this:

Thursday Day=DAY 1 (afternoon hours): Jesus died at 3 pm. His soul went into the heart of the earth.  His body was buried before sundown. Then the High Sabbath day began.

Friday Night=NIGHT 1 (the High Sabbath)
Friday Day=DAY 2 (the High Sabbath)

Saturday Night=NIGHT 2 (the weekly Sabbath)
Saturday Day=DAY 3 (the weekly Sabbath)

Sunday Night=NIGHT 3  Jesus rose before sunrise on Sunday.

So, we get a literal 72 hours because we get 3 days and 3 nights. Though, I still associate Thursday with Maundy Thursday and Friday with Good Friday. I think this conclusion was probably derived from not understanding the Jewish concepts of what makes a day. A new day starts every sunset, not sunrise. Besides, we still must think of the third day as well.

Why I think the Friday crucifixion matches the antitype best

Many times, it’s mentioned that on the third day Jesus rose again. Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, Mark 9:31, 10:34, Luke 9:22, Luke 18:33, 24:1-46, John 2:19, Acts 10:38-40, and 1 Corinthians 15:4 use the expression “on the third day”. The apostle’s creed (which is a summary of the beliefs of the holy catholic (universal) Christian church states on the third day. The creed’s basis is on the expression of the third day to rise again. The resurrection happened on the first day of the week which is Sunday. That totally negates the idea that Sunday worship is the mark of the Beast because the apostles gathered on Sundays.

So, if Sunday (Jewish time) began on a Saturday evening then here’s now the antitype might actually match:

1. Jesus died on Friday afternoon making a half day
2. Friday night would be Saturday already in Jewish time making a half day
3. Saturday morning would mean another half day
4. Saturday evening would mean Sunday began meaning another half day\
5. Sunday morning finally came after the Sabbath

We would have to think of it this way as well with these events:

1. Thursday night was when the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was instituted as a memorial. That would be already Friday by Jewish time. So Jesus’ illegal trial was on a Friday, Jewish time, making it even more illegal. This would be a half-day.
2. Friday morning to the afternoon was when everything took place. Jesus was crucified at 9 A.M. and died at 3 P.M. So, it was more than 3 hours of agony. This would be another half day. Spices for anointing were prepared on that day. The bodies had to be taken down because the Sabbath Day was the next day.
3. Saturday was going to be a high double Sabbath during the Passover. Friday night meant half a day of Jewish Saturday. Saturday morning meant another half day. We have four half days making it 2 days.
4. Saturday sunset would mean the first day, Sunday meaning half a Sunday. Sunday morning would mean that the mission is accomplished at sunrise. The tomb is empty on the second half of Jewish Sunday. So three days and three nights were accomplished without being a literal 72 hours.

So, this was the Jewish reckoning in contrast to the Western reckoning. So, it didn’t literally have to be literally 72 hours. Instead, it was that he was resurrected on the third day. This was talking to a Jewish audience. The Romans were probably focused on a literal 72 hours. For them, Thursday night was still Thursday night and not Friday. So, the expression “on the third day” was most likely addressed to the Gentile audiences under Roman control. Matthew was a publican under Rome who left his dirty trade to follow Jesus. Matthew probably was more familiar with Roman counting than Jewish counting. So, the third day for Romans meant the literal third day. It’s like meet me in 3 days instead of meet me after 3 days. It was pretty much it would take 3 days to finish vs. it will be finished on the third day. The third-day appointment might take place in the early afternoon after the repairs are done.

It would be as interesting as the so-called “contradiction” between Daniel 1:1 with Jeremiah 25:1. 2 different methods of counting were used which the Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible comments as follows:

1. third year–compare Jeremiah 25:1 , “the fourth year; Jehoiakim came to the throne at the end of the year, which Jeremiah reckons as the first year, but which Daniel leaves out of count, being an incomplete year: thus, in Jeremiah, it is “the fourth year”; in Daniel, “the third” [JAHN]. However, Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 25:1 , 46:2 ) merely says, the fourth year of Jehoiakim coincided with the first of Nebuchadnezzar when the latter conquered the Egyptians at Carchemish; not that the deportation of captives from Jerusalem was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim: this probably took place in the end of the third year of Jehoiakim, shortly before the battle of Carchemish [FAIRBAIRN]. Nebuchadnezzar took away the captives as hostages for the submission of the Hebrews. Historical Scripture gives no positive account of this first deportation, with which the Babylonian captivity, that is, Judah’s subjection to Babylon for seventy years ( Jeremiah 29:10 ), begins. But 2 Chronicles 36:6 2 Chronicles 36:7, states that Nebuchadnezzar had intended “to carry Jehoiakim to Babylon,” and that he “carried off the vessels of the house of the Lord” thither. But Jehoiakim died at Jerusalem, before the conqueror’s intention as to him was carried into effect (Jeremiah 22:18 Jeremiah 22:19, 36:30 ), and his dead body, as was foretold, was dragged out of the gates by the Chaldean besiegers, and left unburied. The second deportation under Jehoiachin was eight years later.

After all, in some cultures, a child born is considered a year old by lunar reckoning. The Jewish Calendar may have some people celebrating 2 birthdays such as when there are two Adars–any person born in this month that’s around February to March. Adar is the month that gets chosen to be the leap month. Trying to understand Jewish reckoning is why I think that Jesus was indeed crucified on Friday and not the other 2 proposed days.