The Third Day

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:1-5)

Nowhere in Scripture is the gospel (“good news” about Jesus) articulated so succinctly as in 1 Corinthians 15:1-5. The gospel can be explained in different ways to emphasize the rich and diverse dimension of Jesus’ person and work on our behalf. However we frame the gospel, two elements are essential in a full presentation of the good news: 1) Jesus died for our sins, and 2) Jesus was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul was crystal clear about those two fundamentals to saving faith in 1 Corinthians 15.

There is more. Paul added that Jesus was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. I wouldn’t want to argue that those eight words are necessary every time we tell someone about Jesus. Still, those extra words place the resurrection in a very limited historical context and a specific prophetic expectation. Jesus resurrection, according to Paul, was foretold in the Scriptures.

So what did the Scriptures in Paul’s possession (the Old Testament, but not the New Testament) say about new life on the third day? That’s a tantalizing question for both skeptics and believers.

Andrew Wilson can offer us a clue: “Even before the coming of Christ, a ‘third day’ refrain runs through Scripture…. There are clear proof texts [in the Old Testament] for the Crucifixion, like Isaiah 53, but no equivalent for the Resurrection, let alone resurrection on the third day. Yet this is not because the idea of rising to new life on the third day is nowhere in Scripture. In fact, it’s everywhere in Scripture.” (CT, March 2024, p. 28)

Tomorrow at New Life Church, we’ll search the Scriptures for the “third day.” What we find may surprise and delight us. If you live in the Clarkfield area, you’re welcome to join us for an Easter celebration. You can find more information about our church family here.

 

 

The Tree of Salvation

Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle. (John 19:16-18)

We’re accustomed to seeing crosses in many places. In churches. On churches. In cemeteries. On graves. In worship videos. On tattoos. To most of us, crosses are a symbol of faith.

In the Roman world, there were crosses in public places, too. But those crosses were not a symbol of faith; they were weapons of torture and death. People would see crosses frequently, often with a naked figure hanging on it–alive or dead. Rome crucified thousands of people, most of them slaves or criminals. There is a record of Roman soldiers crucifying an entire village simply because they wanted to occupy that territory. One way Rome kept the peace was by the terror of crucifixion. They used timber configured as a cross to crucify their victims or they used whatever tree happened to be available.

Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem. We remember that event on Good Friday.

Brian Zahnd writes: When the blood of the Son of God stained the wood that stood upon Skull Hill, it became the tree of life. What once was lost behind the closed gates of Eden has now been found…. The cross of Christ is the wood between the worlds—the world that was and the world to come…. As in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, the wood between the worlds is a portal.” (The Wood Between the Worlds, p. 16)

To the Apostle Paul, the cross was a scandal. He wrote, “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block [skandalon] to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Corinthians 1:23)

The scandal was not that crucifixion was a horrific and cruel practice. No, the crucifixion of human beings–guilty or innocent–was a common sight in Roman-occupied Israel. The scandal was that a cross would become Good News to the world. The heart of the gospel is the cross.

What turned a scandal into Good News was the third day. We’ll consider that next time.

Good for Food and Pleasing to the Eye

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. (Genesis 2:8-9).

The trees in the Garden of Eden could have become the world’s first tourist attraction. Of course, Adam and Eve would have needed no price for admission because they lived right among a great variety of trees: big trees and little trees, green trees and yellow trees, trees with smooth bark and trees with rough bark, trees with round leaves and trees with pointy leaves…. OK, those aren’t very scientific descriptions. If you want technical science, perhaps you could start off with coniferous and deciduous.

But we don’t need to dive into science here. The text reports that the trees in the Garden of Eden “were pleasing to the eye.” The trees were good looking! How often do we miss the aesthetic beauty of trees? Yet that is the very first purpose of trees noted in Scripture.

The largest tree in Minnesota is a massive cottonwood tree just a half-hour drive from our home in Clarkfield. Carol and I have stopped a number of times to admire it. The tree is 106 feet tall with a circumference of nearly 33 feet. (There’s a picture of it below.) I also recall another unique tree I once saw in Hawaii. It was a Eucalyptus Deglupta, also known as a rainbow tree. God has created a world with great beauty. Trees are pleasing to the eye. That’s the first thing Scripture says about trees.

A second purpose for trees in the Garden of Eden is that they were “good for food.” Undoubtedly, there were many kinds of rich, juicy fruit for Adam and Eve to enjoy. Perhaps there were apple trees, pear trees, peach trees, cherry trees, and more. Let’s not forget that leaves, bark and roots from trees also provide food for both humans and wildlife.

God created trees for us. Feast your eyes. Feast your taste buds. Enjoy!

Trees are beautiful. Trees are delicious. Next time, we’ll discover more of God’s purposes for trees.

 

Trees of the Bible

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. (Genesis 1:11-13)

 

According to the 8 Billion Trees website, there are over 3 trillion trees in the world, comprised of 65,000 to 73,000 different species. The number is uncertain because scientists are still discovering new species of trees. Forests occupy about 30% of the world’s land area. Russia plays host to more trees than any other nation by a large margin. Canada has more forests than any other nation. The oldest tree in the world is generally recognized to be the Methuselah tree in eastern California. Tree ring data indicates Methuselah is 4,855 years old. The world’s oldest tree is appropriately named!

 

Life as we know it could not exist without trees. Beyond the obvious necessities which trees provide humanity – food, shelter, and clothing – are essential processes which maintain the air we breathe, and land on which we stand, and the water we drink. Chlorophyll, photosynthesis, and cellular respiration are terms we may have learned in middle school, reminding us that trees are complex living organisms.

 

Trees made their earthly appearance in God’s second creative word on the third day of creation. Have you ever noticed that Day 3 and Day 6 each include two unique and separate creative words? God’s creation of trees on Day 3 stands out as a significant parallel to the creation of mankind on Day 6. 

 

J.R.R. Tolkien famously personified trees in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. The tree-like Ents could both walk and talk like people (and Hobbits). Similarly, C.S. Lewis humanized trees in The Chronicles of Narnia series. In both mythical fantasies, trees played a crucial role in the redemptive climax. So in Scripture, trees play a major role in our redemption and the healing of the nations.

 

It all begins on Day 3 of creation. The trees created in Genesis 1:11-12 utilized the light of Day 1, the sky and water of Day 2, and the dry land of Day 3 to perform their “magic” in beginning what would become the cycle of life. The work of trees continues to this day in our daily sustenance, in our redemption from the fall, and in the future restoration of God’s creation.

 

An Unimpressive Title

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. (Genesis 1:11-13)

Long ago, back in the days when “media” ministry denoted devotional literature delivered by the postal service, I used to receive periodic booklets from Radio Bible Class (now known as Our Daily Bread Ministries). They were best known for their daily devotional series, but RBC also published a large number of topical booklets and sent them out to anyone who requested them. I eagerly read everything that landed in my mailbox.

One little booklet piqued my interest the first time I saw it. It surprised me and I never forgot it. The pamphlet still stands out in my mind decades later. In fact, it’s sitting on the desk in front of me right now. It was written by Richard W. De Haan and published in 1976.

The title of the devotional booklet? Well, it won’t impress you. And that’s exactly what impressed me so long ago. The title was unimpressive. This wasn’t a book about salvation or heaven or hell or marriage or children or church or prayer or evangelism. In my mailbox was a package with 32 pages addressing a subject I had never considered before, even though it is referenced over 300 times in the Bible, including 19 times in the first three chapters of Genesis and four times in the last chapter of Revelation.

When I opened the booklet and began to read, I was captivated by the subject. I’m still intrigued by it today. So in my next post, I will begin to survey the Trees of the Bible.