It wasn’t on the second day. And it wasn’t on the fourth day. It was on the third day that the great fish “vomited Jonah onto dry land” (Jonah 1:17; 2:10; Matthew 12:40).
And it wasn’t on the second day, or the fourth day, but on the third day that our Savior, Jesus Christ, shed the shackles of death and burst out of the grave alive! It was on the third day!
Now, on the first day of creation God defeated the darkness by sending the light. On the second day, God divided the watery depths from the sky. “God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse” (Genesis 1:7).
What did God do on the third day of creation?
On the third day God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear” (Genesis 1:9). The dry land was raised up out of the watery depths.
It was raised up!
Does creation’s third day foreshadow Jonah miraculously coming out of the waters alive? Does the third day of creation prophetically symbolize Jesus’ resurrection, when He was raised up? The dry land was raised up, just as Jonah and Jesus were raised up, each on the third day.
There’s more.
On the third day, God produced life where there had never been life. “God said, ‘Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.’ And it was so… The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Evening came and then morning: the third day” (Genesis 1:11-13).
Prior to His crucifixion, Jesus had promised His disciples: “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after he is killed, he will rise three days later” (Mark 9:31). Jesus kept His word. The graveyard that had held His lifeless body for three days, blossomed and bloomed with new life… on the third day!
“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).
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