Within 150 years of the founding of the Church of God a group calling itself the Universal (Catholic) Church, having broken away from God’s church, had sunk into total apostasy. Since that time heathenism has held a dictatorial position within the cult. The so-called Protestant Revolution did little to address the problem. Due to the power of Satan over professing Christendom, the whore’s harlot daughters (Protestant churches) retained many of the mother’s whorish practices and doctrines. One such practice involves the church’s accusation against Jesus Christ–that He lied repeatedly about His resur- rection. Satan has convinced the church specifically and the world in general that Jesus not only lied about this issue, but about numerous other issues as well.

For centuries professing Christendom has accused the Biblical Christ of lying about the amount of time He was in the tomb prior to His resurrection. The Counterfeit Church (Catholicism/Protestantism) proclaims loudly and clearly that the Biblical Messiah is a fraud, a fake–a Counterfeit Christ. She proclaims equally loudly and clearly that her messiah (Tammuz) is the real savior. As her messiah, Tammuz commands an annual observance of his supposed death and resurrection at which time his worshipers also honor his mother, known among English speakers as Easter.

The honesty of the Biblical Jesus of Nazareth determines the legitimacy of the Institutional Church as a Bible-based, God-led religion. The worth of any religion is dependent on the veracity of its god(s). Christianity is the only religion known to man that declares that the words of the God she professes are not to be taken as inherent truth, and that anything written by Him can be accepted, rejected or changed depending on the religious proclivities of the reader. This explains the exis- tence of the hundreds of denominations/faiths/churches that comprise it. The “church” having rejected Jesus’ Words relative to His resurrection, let us use those same Words, along with history and science, to determine the Truth about the matter.

When pressed by the Pharisees for proof of His Messiahship, Jesus replied that He would give them (and all of mankind) ONE SIGN that He was God’s Son. The sign was that He would be in the tomb exactly three days and three nights just as Jonah was in the fish’s stomach three days and three nights (Mat. 12:38-40). The Counterfeit Church declares that Jesus lied about this, contending that He was entombed only one day and two nights–Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night. For rejecting His one and only sign, Jesus calls the Counterfeit Church what He called their spiritual ancestors–“… a wicked and adulterous generation (group).”

Jesus caused to be recorded 13 times in the four gospels that He would be in the tomb THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS. The church declares to the world repeatedly that He lied. Some claim that in the Greek language, any part of a day equates to a whole day. But note that Jesus referenced Jonah’s three day, three night stay in the fish’s belly, which was recorded in Hebrew. Hebrew has no such part-of-a-day-equals-a-day rule. Their respective stays in their respective places were identical unless, as the church declares, Jesus lied. The question that must be answered is: From whence came the church’s messiah and his one-day-two-night stay in the tomb–THE WORLD OF HEATHENISM.

Beginning in the fourth century, fearful pagans began flocking into the Catholic Church by the tens of thousands. Many of them worshiped a sun god named Tammuz who supposedly died on Friday and came back to life on Sunday–the day they sat aside to honor him. In order to appease their heathen “converts” the church hierarchy Jesus and Tammuz into one entity, changed the day of his death to Friday, changed the day of her honoring him to Sunday (his resurrection day) and applied Jesus’ name to the Satanic mess. See The Sabbath and the Mark of the Beast.

In order to make the Jesus/Tammuz, Friday/Sunday morass work the church was forced to reject the Words of Jesus Christ. This proved not to be a problem for the apostates, nor is it a problem for her spiritual descendants. The professing church does not believe the Lord, preferring Satan’s word over His Word? Why? THE LIE. Satan has convinced her that she is saved and can therefore believe and do whatever she deems right regardless of what God declares in His Word. THE CHURCH BELIEVES THAT JESUS DIED SO THAT SHE COULD SIN AND GET AWAY WITH IT. The irony of this and numerous other situations is that I find myself trying to convince “saved,” “born again” church people that they can actually believe the One they claim has saved and rebirthed them. With extremely rare exception I have found this to be an impossible task–the more religious, the less success–ministers being the most God-resistant. Let us now approach the subject at hand–the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Step one in proving Christ’s honesty concerning His resurrection is to determine the exact year in which His crucifixion, burial and resurrection took place. God is exact; so must we be. One must keep in mind that secular science has proven that man was keeping exact times and dates some 600 years before Jesus’ birth, meaning that exact calendrical information was available at the time of His birth. Once the time of His birth and death are determined, the exact date of His resurrection can be known, which enables truth-seekers to determine how many days and nights He was in the tomb.

God has provided Scriptural, scientific and historical proof that Jesus was in the tomb three days and three nights, and that He died in the year A.D. 31. Proving these facts, along with the dates of several of His Holy Days (Sabbaths) will dispel the myth that He died on Friday and arose on Sunday. Facts will show that He in fact died on Wednesday afternoon and arose on the seventh day of the week (Saturday–His Sabbath) just before sundown.

As with any other Biblical endeavor, there must be total harmony of the Scriptures concerning the subject under investiga- tioin. Scripture must also harmonize with secular history and scientific fact whenever either of them is available. Both have proven to be helpful in the study of Jesus’ death and resurrection. I give special credit to those whose research I use in writing this posting. To be continued.