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GOOD FRIDAY?
RESPONDING TO DR ZAKIR NAIK
Dr. Zakir Abdul Karim Naik is an Indian Islamic apologist. He is the founder and President of the Islamic Research Foundation and Peace TV.
Dr. Naik has many times debated and argued that Jesus never died, and if Jesus never died it therefore meant he never resurrected.
Any religious apologist who argues that Jesus neither died nor resurrected is actually attempting to dissolve the entire foundation of Christianity, and this is what Dr. Zakir Naik has consistently attempted to do.
It is imperative to state that religions such as Buddhism could continue to exist without the personality of Buddha, this is because salvation in Buddhism is not centered on Buddha but on his believes, and Islam could equally continue to thrive without the personality of Prophet Muhammad because salvation in Islam is not centered on Prophet Muhammad but on his teachings.
But this cannot be said of Christianity; Christianity is solely built on the personality of Jesus Christ; his teachings, death and resurrection.
The hope and message of Christianity is founded on Jesus’ death and resurrection, eliminate this truth and Christianity ceases to exist.
If Dr. Zakir is therefore able to prove that Jesus indeed never died and resurrected, he would have successfully proven that Christianity is built on a faulty foundation and a faulty doctrine.
Dr. Zakir denial of Jesus’ death and resurrection is centered on his interpretation of Mathew 12:40 where Jesus said, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
In view of Mathew 12:40 he advances two main points for his position;
First, he argues that Jesus said he will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, and anything short of that contradicts Jesus’ words.
However since Christians teach that Jesus died on Friday and rose on Sunday, it’s a clear prove to him that Jesus never died because Friday-Sunday would be two days and two nights.
(Friday; one day one night, Saturday; two days two nights. And by Sunday dawn the tomb is empty)
Secondly he argues from Mathew 12:40 by saying that since Jesus compared himself to Jonah in the belly of the fish and according to him, since Jonah was alive in the fish’s belly, Jesus could not have been dead in the tomb.
Against this backdrop he consistently declares that anyone who proves him wrong would compelled him to convert to Christianity.
My response:
Credit should to be given to Dr. Zakir that truly Friday-Sunday cannot be argued to be accurate three days and three nights in correspondence to Jesus’ own words in Mathew 12:40, but what are that facts;
Jesus indeed said he will spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And He literally meant what He said, “…So will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Mathew 12:40 any form of defense for this scripture should be nothing less than a three days and three nights period.
If Jesus died on Friday and rose by Sunday dawn, he would have spent less than three days and three nights in the tomb.
The Bible truly said Jesus resurrected by Sunday (first day of the week) dawn (Mathew 28:1-6).
However, where did Dr. Zakir gets the idea that Jesus died on Friday?
Was he informed or he read it from the Bible?
He probably heard it from Church tradition not the Bible.
The traditional teaching within the church is that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, and churches commonly observe the Good Friday before Easter Sunday as the day of Jesus’ death, but a Friday observance is a matter of church tradition rather than a biblical truth.
The facts are that, the Bible never mentioned of a Friday crucifixion. The Bible only said that Jesus died a day before the Sabbath because that was the same day Joseph of Arimathea requested for the body of Jesus.
“Now when evening had come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath. Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.” Mark 15:42-43/Luke 23:53-54
Research has revealed that when the letters of Mathew, Mark and Luke were read across the early churches; indicating that Jesus died a day before the Sabbath; many Christians believed then that Jesus died on Friday because the weekly Sabbath was on Saturday.
However, the Jews did not only observe the weekly Saturday Sabbath, they also observed the annual Passover Sabbath which could fall on any day of the week.
So the question one needs to ask is this, “Jesus died a Day before which Sabbath? was it a day before the Passover Sabbath? or a day before the weekly Saturday Sabbath?
Apostle John, who happens to have written the last book of the four gospels aka (the book of John), clarified which Sabbath it was.
He said, “Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.” John 19:31 KJV
“Since it was the day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from hanging on the cross on the Sabbath-for that Sabbath was a very solemn and important one…” John 19:31 AMP
John clerified that, that Sabbath was not the ordinary Saturday Sabbath; it was a solemn and important one because it was the annual Passover Sabbath.
Also a high day Sabbath refers to a special Sabbath day required by a feast observance regardless of the day of the week upon which it falls.
Jesus died on Passover, and the Jewish feast of Passover is always followed the next day by another Jewish feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The Unleavened Bread is always a high day Sabbath according to scripture (Lev. 23:6-8/John 19:31), which matches the Bible’s testimony that the day after Jesus’ death was a high day Sabbath.
(Passover which is called Pesach in Judaism is a holiday commemorating the Jews liberation from slavery in Egypt and the “passing over” of the angel of destruction. The angel “Passover” all houses in Egypt that had the blood of lamb on their door post.
According to Moses, the Passover lamb was to be chosen on the 10th of Nisan [Exo.12:3], and Jesus entered Jerusalem as the chosen Lamb of God riding on a donkey aka “Palm Sunday” on the 10th of Nissan.
The lamb was to be killed on the 14th of Nisan [Exo 12:6] called Passover lamb. And Jesus died on the 14th of Nisan, signifying as the Passover lamb. For instance calculate 4 days from Palm Sunday and it would be Thursday)
Whiles Scripture never names the specific day of the week on which Jesus dies, it does tell us the day Jesus rose from the dead. Scripture says Jesus was raised before sunrise on the first day of the week:
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” Luke 24:1-3
The first day of the week in the Jewish calendar is Sunday, and the Bible says the tomb was discovered empty on a Sunday.
So we can begin counting backward three days and three nights from Sunday to arrive at the day Jesus died.
We cannot count Sunday daytime itself, because Scripture says Jesus was out of the grave before dawn on Sunday.
Therefore, we start counting with the Saturday nighttime period and move back three daytime periods and three nighttime periods:
Saturday nighttime- 1 night
Saturday daytime- 1 day
Friday nighttime- 2 nights
Friday daytime- 2 days
Thursday nighttime-3 nights
Thursday daytime- 3 days (Jesus died before sunset, so the day is counted)
Jesus died on Passover, which fell on Thursday that year (Friday was the high day/Passover Sabbath, the following Saturday was the weekly Sabbath) and spent three days and three nights in the tomb and by Sunday dawn He resurrected.
Finally, we find further evidence of a Thursday death by consulting lunar records for the second and third decades of the first century.
Jewish feasts are timed according to lunar activity, and in the year Jesus died, the day of Passover began Wednesday night and ended Thursday at sundown (He died on Thursday before sundown), the next day Friday was the Passover (high day) Sabbath, and the next day was the weekly Saturday Sabbath.
Dr. Zakir second argument is based on the view that Jesus could not have been dead in the tomb because He compared himself to Jonah being three days and three nights in the belly of the fish and Jonah according to him was not dead in the belly of the fish.
But Jonah himself disagrees with Dr. Zakir; Jonah actually indicates that he died in the belly of the fish, this is what Jonah said;
“I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice…I went down to the moorings of the mountains; The earth with its bars closed behind me forever; yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD, my God” Jonah 2:2, 6 KJV
Jonah was swallowed by a fish but he made it clear that he cried to God from hell or sheol, which clearly points to the fact that he died whiles in the belly of the fish and was given back life by reason of his prayers.
Dr. Zakir should be made to understand that if you do not get answers to your questions it does not mean the answers do not exist; it only means you have not asked the right persons for the answers.
Now that I have responded to him, I would pray he becomes a Christian like me.
JESUS DIED, RESURRECTED AND SHALL COME AGAIN. MARANATHAN
NB: This article is not opposed to the traditional observance of the Easter Good Friday but to make a biblical fact.
By M.A.SHAMBACH
