ACCORDING TO JESUS, HOW MANY HOURS ARE THERE IN A DAY? IN A NIGHT?

Have you ever taken the time to wonder how the people who set important dates could have squeezed 3 days and 3 nights between sundown Friday and sunrise Sunday? Or do you just accept it as another 'Mystery" of God? According to Jesus Christ, in John 11:9 he is quoted as saying :

"Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. KJV

We all know that there are 24 hours in a complete day, so reciprocally, there must be 12 hours in a night as well. So, a day and a night = 1 complete day or 24 hours. But, just to be sure let's take a look at the context of John 11, which is the subject of "raising Lazarus from the dead." In verse 6 we read, that after Jesus found out that Lazarus was sick, he continued to stay where he was for 2 more days. This is incredible in and of itself. Most of us would scurry right over and start praying. But Jesus waited 2 days before departing. John 11:7-11 goes on to say:

Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.

8 His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?
9 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.
10 But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.
11 These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

In the 2 days since Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, he died. But Jesus told his disciples that Lazarus was "sleeping." His disciples replied with: "Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well." I get such a kick out of these guys! These disciples were so tired from following the Lord around, they couldn't wait to get some sleep. When Jesus told them Lazarus was sleeping, they were probably thinking to themselves, "that lucky dog, I wish I was getting some sleep!" I can just see Jesus now, shaking his head and looking up to heaven, saying, "O Lord, O Lord, what am I going to do with these guys?" Jesus had to have a great sense of humor.

John 11:13-15
13 Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
15 And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.

By the time Jesus got there, Lazarus had been dead 4 days and was all ready in a cave grave, corrupting and stinking away. 3 complete days, or 72 hours, is as long as the body can go without decaying or as the Bible puts it, corrupting. And we know that the Lord Jesus suffered no corruption:

Acts 2:3131 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

What we need to see, is that when God says something, that is what he means. To corroborate what he said, he even brought Jonah into the picture: Jonah 1:17

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.

To get even greater clarification, let's go back to the beginning:

Gen 1:55 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

It can't get much clearer than this, but still Christians are willing to fight tooth and nail to hang on to Tradition. Many will say, "what difference does it make?" It has to do with the Integrity of God's Word: Can it be believed? God does not want people just to take things on "faith," that His Word is Truth. He can prove it's truth and he wants people to be able to do the same. But, when we celebrate or commemorate or venerate Christ's life and death and resurrection on days which are biblically impossible, it makes it more difficult for the unbeliever to believe.

Jesus was raised from the dead by sunset on Saturday, at which time Sunday began in accordance with eastern Biblical Times. Counting backwards 3 days and 3 nights means he was dead and buried by sunset on Wednesday. Why? Because Thursday, which began at sunset was a "High Day," not the weekly Sabbath:

John 19:3131 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

A High Day is a particularly special Sabbath, a day of holy convocation to The Lord God, which in this case was the first day of The Feast of Unleavened Bread and fell on Thursday the 15th of Nisan, which, again, began at sunset on Wednesday the 14th.

When the Bible says 3 Days and 3 Nights, that is what it means. It does not mean 2 nights and 1 day which is what you have if Jesus was dead and buried before sunset on a Friday. There is no Good Friday in the Bible.

God Bless and Happy Resurrection Sunday

SINCE 4 WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, why doesn't anyone teach it?

John 19:32-33

 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.

33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:

KJV

To the student of the Bible these 2 verses should "stand out like a sore thumb" in contrast to what is traditionally taught. Here is what we have:

1.  Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, (the first among those who were crucified that day)
2. and of the other which was crucified with him. (One of the ones crucified WITH, at the same time as Jesus was)
3. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: (when they came to Jesus----think about this------if there were only 2 crucified with him the soldiers would have come to Jesus 2nd, if he was between the 2 or Jesus was at the end of the three).

John makes a distinction between the first crucified and the one crucified along with him showing that everyone was not crucified at the same time.

Luke 23:26, 32-33

 And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. KJV

Here we have:

1. Simon a Cyrenian carrying Jesus' "cross" behind him.
2. Cross is the Greek word, stauros, a stake, pole or post
3. 2 Malefactors, kakourgos, workers of evil
4. Led with him, sun, accompanying him

Contrary to tradition Scripture clearly teaches that Jesus did not carry a physical piece of wood, particularly not a 2 member piece of wood with one member perpendicular to the other. These 2 evildoers were led with him and crucified with him, at the same time as him.

Matt 27:35-37  And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there; And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. KJV

After they crucified him they: (These things took a little bit of time to do).

1.  and parted his garments, casting lots: 
2. And sitting down they watched him there; 
3. And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. KJV

Matt 27:38 Then were there two thieves, leistes crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. KJV

These 2 are a specific kind of malefactor who came up to be crucified after the other 2 who were led with Jesus. One could easily say that I am just splitting hairs here, if it were not for this verse 44:

 The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. 

But we know from Luke 23:39-40 that only one malefactor reviled Jesus while the other did not:

39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

KJV

There can be no doubt in your mind what the Scriptures teach on this subject, that 4 were crucified with Christ, not just 2. Now John 19 makes sense. There were 5 people crucified in a line with Jesus in the midst of them

John 19:18

18 where they crucified him, and with him two others, on this side, and on that side, and Jesus in the midst.

YLT

Here's how the KJV reads:

18 Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

One is not in the texts and was added by the translators. "on either side" are the Greek words enteuthen kai entheuthen.  Kai is usually translated as "and," and serves as a copulative, Here enteuthen is translated as on and side. When  enteuthen is repeated as it is here, it means both sides:

  enteuthen 

NT:1782  from the same as NT:1759; hence (literally or figuratively); (repeated) on both sides:

(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)

It is unbelievable to me how many versions and translations have missed this: 2 on both sides! 

This should cause you to wonder how much more they've misrepresented the God-breathed Word, but, unfortunately, it probably won't because hardly anyone really cares. After all, most Christians are more content with 2,000 years of Church Tradition than they are with the truth.

Does the truth matter to you?

Myth # 2 of the Cross Christ Bore

MYTH-- The Cross that Christ bore was made of 2 pieces

TRUTH-- It was a single piece of wood like the bottom portion of a tree.

The Greek word translated "cross," is stauros, which means an upright pale or stake. Here is what Vines says:

Topic: Cross, Crucify

<A-1,Noun,4716,stauros>
denotes, primarily, "an upright pale or stake." On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo, "to fasten to a stake or pale," are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed "cross." The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the "cross" of Christ.

As for the Chi, or X, which Constantine declared he had seen in a vision leading him to champion the Christian faith, that letter was the initial of the word "Christ" and had nothing to do with "the Cross" (for xulon, "a timber beam, a tree," as used for the stauros, see under TREE). See 1 Peter 2:24.

As you can clearly see, the symbol that Christians use to represent "the Cross" did not become associated with the crucifixion until 200 some years after the eventand is in reality a pagan symbol of another god. In other words, in their/your attempt to identify yourself /themselves as Christians you, they and them are ignorantly glorifying the Chaldean god, Tammuz.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother writing things of this nature since no one if anyone at all will be changed by what I write. The reason I continue to do it is to expose the error that is being believed and practiced by religious Christians and expose unbelievers to the real truth of what the Bible says about itself.

Furthermore, since Christ was not crucified on 2 cross-membered pieces of wood, his hands were over his head. It only took 2 nails to do the job. If anyone comes up with the 3 nails that were used you will know it is not true.

Do the the things I write about here in this blog make any difference to you?

MYTH #1 of THE CROSS CHRIST BORE FOR US

MYTH-- He carried a physical piece of wood

TRUTH-- He carried a spiritual Cross

     Much like my last post where we saw that 4 were crucified with Christ instead of 2, we will soon learn that Jesus was too abused to carry an 8-12' timber on his shoulder, so the Roman soldiers made someone else do it.
     Matt 27:31-32 tells us:
And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross. KJV

     Mark 15:20-21 tells the same story:
And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.

     And Luke 23:26 says the same thing:
And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.

     Here we have three very clear accounts of who carried Jesus' cross, where he came from, who his sons were and the fact that he followed Jesus on the way to Golgotha. Whenever there are a majority of clear verse on a given subject, the seemingly ambiguous verse or verses must fit with the majority of clear ones, not vice versa. 

     John 19:16-18 gives us the seemingly contradictory verse:

 Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.

 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

     Most of the Commentaries say that they believe that Jesus initially carried his own cross but then they made Simon carry it for some unknown reason. Keep in mind that Jesus had just been through roughly 40 hours of torture and beatings and initially took him in the night. He probably had not had any sleep in over 2 days. It is my belief, because of the lack of any other evidence to the contrary, that he never carried his own cross. What he did carry was the figurative cross of our sins that were laid upon him

1 Peter 2:24

   Who his own self bare (carried) our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

Heb 9:28

 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

Furthermore, the morning after they had taken him he was bound and led away to be delivered to Pontius Pilate: Matt 27:1-2

When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. The common way to bind someone believed to be a criminal is to tie up their hands or feet or both. Here they led him away so we must assume he was walking and probably being pulled along with a rope.

     All 4 gospel accounts show Jesus being led away just as livestock would be led to water:

Luke 13:15

 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? These words in the Greek, apago, is the same 

word used in all the above passages. Jesus' hands were bound and he was being led about, keeping him from being able to carry anything upon his shoulders.

Regardless of any suppositions on my part, the 3 three clear verses above on the same exact event should be enough to convince anyone that the cross Christ bore was not a physical one.