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The Apostles’ Creed confesses the following words about Jesus: “On the third day he rose again from the dead.” There is a level of specificity to this line which anchors our hope as Christians in a real historical event—an event that fulfilled the promise of Scripture. In this article, I want to touch on three aspects: history, Scripture, and hope.
History
“The third day” marks the time between Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. This timestamp emphasizes the historicity and physicality of Jesus’s resurrection. As the apostle Peter proclaimed,
Jesus’s resurrection was dated and celebrated with a shared meal.
The heart of the apostolic gospel was that Christ Jesus died for our sins and was raised on the third day. In this, he “condemned sin in the flesh,” sealing it inside the tomb and “set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2–3).
Jesus’s physical resurrection on the third day is our assurance signed and dated with God’s signature, that “as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12).
Scripture
Following his resurrection, Jesus met with his disciples and told them “that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). He told them what the Scriptures taught:
According to Jesus, resurrection on the third day was necessary to fulfill Scripture.
Paul makes the same claim.
The third-day resurrection is one element of his divine mission foretold and foreshadowed in the Old Testament Scriptures. It is foretold in Hosea 6:2, where God’s son (see Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15) declares, “He will revive us after two days, and on the third day he will raise us up so we can live in his presence.”
The third-day resurrection is also foreshadowed in several places. An example cited by the author of Hebrews is Genesis 22, where “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac,” since “he considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking” (Heb. 11:17–19). Read the story again, and you’ll notice it was “on the third day,” after Abraham had considered Isaac as good as dead, that he received him back (Gen. 22:4).
Resurrection on the third day is not only about history; it is about God fulfilling his Word. Confessing Jesus’s resurrection on the third day is a confession that God keeps his promises.
Hope
“On the third day he rose again from the dead” is a confession of hope. Jesus’s resurrection is the victory march over sin, Satan, and death. Though these “enemies” still lurk, they are like snakes without fangs because of Jesus’s resurrection (1 Cor. 15:50–58).
This part of the creed also gives us hope as we wait. Resurrection on the third day implies a period of waiting between death and resurrection. The present reality of the Christian life is one of an already-but-not-yet tension. “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
Hidden in Christ we are no longer under the dominion of sin and death, yet “we groan” because our resurrection is still to come (2 Cor. 5:4). The present life is one of perseverance, putting sin to death, sharing in Christ’s sufferings, “becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10–11, ESV).
Confessing Jesus’s third-day resurrection anchors our hope and strengthens the muscles of faith for perseverance in waiting.
Gospel hope is not buried away like fool’s gold, waiting to disappoint. Jesus’s resurrection on the third day, according to Scripture, guarantees our physical resurrection in him in God’s good and perfect time (1 Cor. 15:20).
Jesus’s resurrection on the third day is good news.
