Both Jesus and Paul say that Jesus raising from the dead on the 3rd day was actually prophesied in the Old Testament:
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, – 1 Cor 15:3-4
44 Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” 45 And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. 46 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, – Luke 24:44-46
These statements by Paul and Jesus frequently provoke a familiar objection: where, exactly, is this resurrection on the 3rd day prophesied in the Old Testament? Paul, inspired by the Spirit, could not have lied, and Christ especially was incapable of lying. Where then can we find these prophecies?
Hidden Wisdom and Revealed Mystery: Paul’s Own Framework
To answer this question properly, we must pay attention to what Paul has already said before reaching 1 Corinthians 15. Paul does not introduce the idea of Christ’s death and resurrection as “according to the Scriptures” out of nowhere. He has already laid the conceptual groundwork earlier in the letter, especially in 1 Corinthians 2:6–8:
“We speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” – 1 Corinthians 2:6–8
This passage is absolutely crucial. Paul explicitly describes the crucifixion of Christ—the very foundation of the third-day resurrection—as “hidden wisdom” and “mystery.” Neither the human rulers nor the unseen powers (cf. Ephesians 6:12) understood what they were doing. Had they grasped the true meaning of Christ’s death, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. The logic is devastatingly clear. If Satan had known that killing Christ would result in his own decisive defeat (Col 2:15; Heb 2:14-15; Gen 3:15; Psalm 91:13), he would not have engineered the crucifixion. Likewise, if figures such as Pilate had truly understood that Jesus was the God-man, the Messiah anointed by God, they would not have handed Him over to death. The plan was hidden—intentionally so.
However, this does not mean that God left them utterly blind. They were given enough light to reason, enough revelation to recognize that Jesus was truly God’s Son, and enough theological grounding to know that God cannot ultimately be defeated. Their failure was not due to a lack of evidence, but to a failure of understanding—one rooted in hardened hearts rather than divine obscurity.
How is this mystery revealed? Paul answers immediately in 1 Corinthians 2:10–16. The hidden wisdom of God is not discovered by human reasoning but revealed by the Spirit of God:
“God has revealed them to us through His Spirit… For no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God… that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” – 1 Corinthians 2:10–16
Paul emphasizes that spiritual truths are discerned spiritually, not by natural or worldly wisdom. The apostles speak these truths not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, “comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” The result is staggering: “We have the mind of Christ.”
This pattern—mystery hidden, then revealed by the Spirit through the apostles—is not unique to the crucifixion and resurrection. Paul explicitly applies it elsewhere. In Ephesians 3:1–10, he explains:
3 how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets…9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places– Eph 3:3-5, 9-10
This mystery, once concealed in God, is now proclaimed by the Church so that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known—even to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. That means even the angels and demons got to Church to hear the mystery of God explained and finally revealed. God encoded His redemptive plan in Scripture in such a way that hostile powers could not unravel it ahead of time, while ensuring that it would later be fully unveiled to His people.
Paul, and even Peter, state this again succinctly:
“The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.”– Colossians 1:26
10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into. – 1 Peter 1:10-12
Peter explains that the prophets themselves searched diligently to understand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. Astonishingly, Peter adds that even angels longed to look into these things. The Scriptures were being studied—by prophets and angels alike—yet the full meaning remained veiled until the appointed time.
All of this provides essential background for 1 Corinthians 15. When Paul says that Christ died and rose again “according to the Scriptures,” he is not claiming that the Old Testament contains an obvious, explicit statement spelling out a third-day resurrection in modern terms. On the contrary, given everything he has already said, we should expect the opposite. The prophecy would be real, Scriptural, and intentional—yet hidden, embedded in patterns, types, and analogies, awaiting revelation by the Spirit after the fact.
Against this backdrop, Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 15 is not weak or evasive. It is perfectly consistent with his theology of mystery revealed, a divine strategy in which the Old Testament truly foretells Christ’s death and resurrection—but in a way that only becomes clear once the risen Christ stands on the far side of history.
Types of Prophesies?
Professor Dr. James D. Price explains that ancient Jewish interpreters worked with a well-defined set of interpretive principles. What constitutes as a prophecy was not only direct prophetic statements like Micah 5:2 or Zech 9:9. Dr. Price identifies other types of prophecy employed by Jewish interpreters of the Hebrew Bible, such as:
- Prophecy by analogy and similarity, in which historical acts typologically prefigure future events or persons. The New Testament uses these types of “prophecies” quite often. Examples such as as Hos 11:1 quoted in Matthew 2:14-15; 1 Cor 10:1-4 quoting Exodus 17 and Num 20 and Deut 32; Eph 5:25-32 quoting Gen 2:24; Matthew 2:17-18 quoting Jeremiah 31:15, prove these cases.
With this perspective in place, the search for resurrection prophecy in the Hebrew Bible takes on a different character. The task is no longer to locate a single explicit proof-text, which the scripture does not demand, but to identify patterns, types, and analogies that prefigure the Messiah’s death and resurrection on the third day. It is to this task that we now turn.
Abraham and Isaac
Genesis 22:4-5 tells us:
“Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.’”
This statement reflects Abraham’s belief in the power of God to raise the dead—a faith confirmed in Hebrews 11:19:
“…concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.”
Abraham is commanded to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering in the region of Moriah, a journey that culminates on the third day. Before ascending the mountain, Abraham tells his servants that “we will come back to you” after worshiping God (Gen 22:5). As the New Testament later reflects (Heb 11:17–19), this statement reveals Abraham’s confidence that God would somehow preserve his promise through Isaac, even to the point of raising him from death.
The reason Abraham is said to have received Isaac back from the dead “figuratively” is that, unlike Christ, Isaac did not actually die. Nevertheless, from Abraham’s perspective, Isaac was already as good as dead. Abraham did not know that God—or, more precisely, the Angel of the Lord—would intervene to stop the sacrifice. And so in his mind, he was going to obey God and slay his son. At the same time, Abraham knew that Isaac was the very son through whom God had promised to establish Abraham’s descendants as a great nation. At this point though, Isaac had no children, and the promise appeared impossible to fulfil if Isaac was dead. How would Isaac have so many children to make a great nation if he was dead? Abraham therefore faced two seemingly irreconcilable divine words: the command to sacrifice Isaac and the promise that Isaac Himself was to bare children.
According to Hebrews, Abraham resolved this tension by trusting that God would raise Isaac from the dead. Having already witnessed God’s faithfulness over many years, Abraham concluded that God was not contradicting Himself and would remain true to his promise even through death. In this sense, Isaac was “received back” on the third day—not through an actual resurrection, but through Abraham’s faith in resurrection as the only coherent solution.
Interestingly, in Jewish tradition this became known as the Akedah (or “binding”) of Isaac. There are even certain Jewish that teach that Isaac actually died and was resurrected back from the dead, and in other traditions, his sacrifice was actually accepted by God as atonement for the sins of his future children and descendants:
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut
There was… a remarkable tradition that insisted that Abraham completed the sacrifice and that afterward Isaac was miraculously revived… According to this haggadah, Abraham slew his son, burnt his victim, and the ashes remain as a stored-up merit and atonement for Israel in all generations.
– The Torah: A Modern Commentary p. 151
Encyclopedia Judaica
It appears that this notion was widespread in medieval times: Ibn Ezra (commentary on Gen. 22:19) also quotes an opinion that Abraham actually did kill Isaac… and he was later resurrected from the dead. Ibn Ezra rejects this as completely contrary to the biblical text. Shalom Spiegel has demonstrated, however, that such views enjoyed a wide circulation and occasionally found expression in medieval writings.
– Louis Jacobs, “Akedah,” Encyclopedia Judaica 2:482.
Song of Songs Rabbah 1:14:1
MY BELOVED IS UNTO ME AS A CLUSTER OF HENNA. CLUSTER refers to Isaac, who was bound on the altar like A CLUSTER OF HENNA (KOFER): because he atones (mekapper) for the iniquities of Israel.
-Soncino Midrash Rabbah (vol. 9, second part, p. 81).
Leviticus Rabbah 29:9
When the children of Isaac give way to transgressions and evil deeds, do Thou recollect for them the binding of their father Isaac and rise from the Throne of Judgment and betake Thee to the Throne of Mercy, and being filled with compassion for them have mercy upon them and change for them the Attribute of Justice into the Attribute of Mercy!
-Soncino Midrash Rabbah (vol. 4, p. 376).
Shibbole ha-Leket (13th c.)
When Father Isaac was bound on the altar and reduced to ashes and his sacrificial dust was cast onto Mount Moriah…
-Shibbole ha-Leket.
The Jewish Encyclopedia
In the course of time ever greater importance was attributed to the ‘Akedah. The haggadistic literature is full of allusions to it; the claim to forgiveness on its account was inserted in the daily morning prayer… even in the Talmud voices are raised in condemnation of its conception as a claim to atonement… These protests were silenced by the persecutions in which Jewish fathers and mothers were so often driven to slaughter their own children in order to save them from baptism. This sacrifice is regarded as a parallel to that of Abraham…. The influence of the Christian dogma of atonement by vicarious suffering and death, it has been suggested, induced the Jews to regard the willingness of Isaac also to be sacrificed in the light of a voluntary offering of his life for the atonement of his descendants.
-Rabbi Max Landsberg (1845-1928), “‘Akedah,” Jewish Encyclopedia.
Israel Raised on the Third Day
In both the Old and New Testaments, “Israel” is not only the name of a nation but also, strikingly, a title applied to the Messiah himself. In Isaiah 49:3, the Servant of the Lord, the Messiah, is explicitly addressed as Israel. This identification is taken up in the New Testament when Jesus re-enacts Israel’s history—most notably in his return from Egypt, which Matthew interprets through Matthew 2:14–15. The Messiah is called Israel because He stands as Israel-in-person: faithful where the nation failed, obedient where it faltered, and representative of its entire story. True Israel (Christ, the Son of God) is what Shadow Israel (the nation, who is also called God’s son cf. Exo 4:22-23) was meant to be.
This identification makes the prophecy of Hosea particularly striking. The prophet declares that God will raise his son Israel on the third day:
2 After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence.
– Hosea 6:2
Here, Israel is spoken of as though dead and awaiting resurrection on the 3rd day. Significantly, later Jewish tradition understood this passage eschatologically. The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 97a) interprets Hosea 6:1–2 as referring to the Messianic era, the time when God would finally restore and redeem Israel through the coming Messiah.
Hosea reinforces this resurrection imagery elsewhere by speaking of Israel’s redemption from the realm of the dead:
14 “I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death.
– Hosea 13:14
Sheol is Hebrew name of the realm of the dead, rendered Hades in Greek. God Himself declares that He will ransom and redeem Israel from Hades. When read together, Hosea 6 and Hosea 13 present a coherent picture: God will resurrect His Son Israel from Hades on the third day.
Jonah and the Sign of the Third Day
According to Jesus himself, the experience of Jonah constitutes another example of prophecy by type and analogy, one that prefigures His own death and resurrection. When challenged for a sign, Jesus points not to a future miracle but to a past event already embedded in Israel’s Scriptures:
“For just 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.”
(Matthew 12:38–41)
By appealing to Jonah, Jesus treats that story as a divinely shaped pattern whose full meaning was intended to point to Christ.
When the book of Jonah itself is examined closely, the analogy becomes clearer. Jonah’s confinement in the belly of the fish is described in language that portrays his experience as a descent into the realm of death itself.
2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish’s belly. 2 And he said:
“I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction,
And He answered me.“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
And You heard my voice.
3 For You cast me into the deep,
Into the heart of the seas,
And the floods surrounded me;
All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I have been cast out of Your sight;
Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple.’
5 The waters surrounded me, even to my soul;
The deep closed around me;
Weeds were wrapped around my head.
6 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 2:1-6
He speaks of crying out “from the belly of Sheol,” of being cast into “the depths,” and of the earth closing its bars upon him forever (Jonah 2:2–6). Jonah understands himself as a man who has died. Whether Jonah actually died or whether he is speaking as if he died is debated. What truly matters is that Jonah decided to describe the event this way which explicitly parallels that of Christ’s resurrection. After three days, he is delivered from Sheol and restored to life when God commands the fish to release him (Jonah 1:17–2:10).
It is precisely this pattern that makes Jonah a fitting sign. Just as Jonah was delivered from the power of Sheol after three days, so Jesus would truly descend into death and be raised from it on the third day. The apostles later interpret the resurrection in exactly these terms, declaring that God did not abandon Jesus to Hades nor allow his Holy One to see corruption (Acts 2:29–32).
Jonah, then, functions as a prophetic analogy rather than a direct prediction. His experience establishes a recognizable pattern: descent into the realm of death, confinement for three days, and divine deliverance. Jesus identifies this pattern as the divinely appointed “sign” that interprets his own death and resurrection. What Jonah experienced figuratively, Christ fulfills literally; what Jonah endured temporarily, Christ conquers decisively.
The Temple Raised on the Third Day
The destruction and restoration of the temple provide a concrete historical pattern that the New Testament explicitly reapplies to Jesus’ resurrection.
In 586 B.C., the First Temple was destroyed by Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard under Nebuchadnezzar. With the temple destroyed to ruins, the visible sign of God’s presence among his people was lost. Yet the prophets insisted that this loss would not be final.
When the exiles returned from Babylon, the rebuilding of the temple marked a dramatic reversal of judgment. According to the book of Ezra, the work was completed and the temple restored under divine authorization:
“They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel…
And this house was finished on the third day of the month of Adar.”
(Ezra 6:14–15)
The significance lies not merely in the calendar detail, but in the symbolism: the house of God, once destroyed, begins its “raising” and restoration on the third day. The temple, Israel’s sacred dwelling place, moves from desolation to renewed life according to a pattern already familiar elsewhere in Scripture.
Against this backdrop, Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John take on sharper meaning. When challenged by the religious authorities, he declares:
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
(John 2:19–22)
John is careful to explain that Jesus was not speaking about the stone structure in Jerusalem, but about his own body. The physical body of Christ is presented as the true temple—the ultimate dwelling place of God among humanity. Just as the Jerusalem temple was destroyed and later raised again, so Jesus’ body would be destroyed in death and raised on the third day.
The Darkness and the Third Day Rising
Another striking prophetic pattern by analogy appears in the plague of darkness in Egypt. In Exodus 10:21–23, the Lord commands Moses to stretch out his hand toward heaven, and a tangible, oppressive darkness covers the land of Egypt for three days:
“They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.”
Exodus 10:21–23
Notice how this 9th plague of Moses allowed darkness to rule over the Egyptians for 3 days, but what’s interesting is that the text adds a subtle but significant detail: “nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.” The verb translated “rise” derives from the Hebrew root qum, meaning to rise up, stand, or arise. This is the same verbal root that later becomes charged with resurrection meaning. Its Aramaic equivalent appears on Jesus’ lips in Mark 5:41, when he says, “Talitha, kum,” commanding a dead girl to rise from the dead:
41 Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” – Mark 5:41
The language of Exodus thus already associates darkness with an inability to “rise”. The New Testament repeatedly identifies Jesus as the Light that overcomes darkness. John writes that he is the true Light who enlightens everyone (John 1:9–10), the Light of the world (John 8:12; 9:5), and the Light that must be believed in before darkness overtakes (John 12:35–36). Against this backdrop, Jesus’ words at his arrest take on symbolic weight:
“This is your hour, and the power/rule of darkness” (Luke 22:53).
The dominion of darkness is temporarily permitted to engulf the Light of the world for 3 days. In this sense, the crucifixion can be read as the ultimate enactment of the Exodus pattern. Darkness reigns, the Light is seemingly swallowed, and for a time there is no “rising.” The apostolic proclamation insists that God reversed this state decisively on the third day. In Acts 10:30–41, Peter declares that God “raised him up” on the third day. Significantly, Luke employs two Greek verbs that correspond closely to the Hebrew word qum: ἐγείρω (to awaken, arouse, raise up) and ἀνίστημι (to rise, stand up, resurrect). The vocabulary of resurrection mirrors the ancient language of “rising” that Exodus denied to Egypt during the three days of darkness.
Seen typologically, the plague of darkness becomes more than a judgment against Egypt. It establishes a pattern: darkness that immobilizes, a people preserved in light, and a decisive reversal after three days. What Egypt experienced symbolically, Christ experienced truly. What Israel was spared from, Christ entered fully. And where none could “rise” during the darkness, God ultimately causes his Son to rise, breaking the dominion of darkness itself.
Conclusion
With all that said, Paul was absolutely right. The mystery of the resurrection on the third day runs throughout the Scriptures—not as a set of explicit predictions, but as a pattern disclosed through symbols, types, and analogies. What was once veiled is now revealed by the Spirit to the apostles.
This is precisely what the Gospel of Luke describes after the resurrection. The disciples already knew the Scriptures, but they did not yet grasp their true center. Only when the risen Christ himself interpreted them did understanding dawn:
“Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.’” (Luke 24:45–46)
Earlier in the same chapter, Luke emphasizes the method Jesus used—interpretation by correspondence and fulfillment:
“Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27)
Notice how this passage says that Christ “interpreted” (διερμηνεύω) the Scriptures, now merely read them. The Greek word διερμηνεύω means to explain, expound, interpret. Enlightened by the Spirit, they came to see that these patterns were not ends in themselves but converged on Christ. He was not merely one figure among many; He was the One which the whole Scriptures pointed to.
Seen in this light, Paul neither fabricated nor misunderstood the claim he makes in 1 Corinthians. When he writes:
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4),
He is not appealing to a single proof-text. He is summarizing a mystery now unveiled: the deep, scriptural pattern that only becomes clear once Christ has opened the eyes of his witnesses. Paul speaks as one who, like the apostles before him, has been taught by the Spirit to see what was always there—hidden in plain sight, and now revealed in the risen Christ.