240. Why Christ rose the third day
240. WHY CHRIST ROSE THE THIRD DAY
Why did Christ rise when He did? Is there some significance to the number three?
If He had risen directly after death, it might seem that His death was not genuine, and consequently neither would His Resurrection be true. But to establish the truth of Christ’s death it was enough for His rising to be deferred until the third day, for within that time some signs of life always appear in one who appears to be dead whereas he is alive.
Furthermore, by His rising on the third day, the perfection of the number three is commended, which is the number of everything, as having beginning, middle, and end. . . . Again, in the mystical sense we are taught that Christ by His one death (i.e., that of the body), which was light by reason of His righteousness, destroyed our two deaths (i.e., of soul and body), which are as darkness on account of sin; consequently He remained in death for one day and two nights, as Augustine observes.
And thereby is also signified that a third epoch began with the Resurrection. For the first was before the Law, the second under the Law, and the third under grace.
Moreover the third state of the saints began with the Resurrection of Christ, for the first was under figures of the Law, the second under the truth of faith, while the third will be in the eternity of glory, which Christ inaugurated by rising again (III, 53,2).
There were both literal, physical reasons and symbolic, spiritual reasons for Christ choosing to rise on the third day. (He chose this: He is the Logos, the eternal Mind of God, Who planned everything, with His Father and Their Spirit. No Person of the Trinity ever acts alone.) The literal and the symbolic are not alternatives with God, as they often are with us: see ST I,1,10, where St. Thomas gives us the basis, in the very nature and activity of God, for this principle of hermeneutics (interpretation). The basis for the oneness of literal and symbolic is ultimately Christ Himself, for He is both the perfect, complete symbol, the Logos or “Word” of God, and the perfect, complete fact, God Himself (Jn 1:1).
St. Thomas actually mentions three reasons: one biological, one symbolic, and one historical, for Christ rising on the third day. The first reason is to give us just enough time to refute the skeptical objection to the Resurrection that would attempt to explain it medically, by something like a cataleptic fit. An earlier resurrection might cast doubt upon the death. A later one would not be necessary, for three days is quite sufficient. Cell decay, and its smell, are quite evident by then.
Christ, like St. Thomas, is very practical! E.g., when He raised Jairus’ daughter (Lk 8:41-42, 49-56), He had to remind the amazed onlookers to give her something to eat. In contrast, Peter’s mother—in—law, also miraculously healed, herself plunged into the practical task of “serving” (Lk 4:38-39). Women are more practical about such things than men. Christ, Who invented both, has all the perfections of both.
St. Thomas’ numerology, in his second reason, should be seen as playful rather than demonstrative—playful on God’s part as well as St. Thomas’. Why should we be able to find more meanings in numbers than God does? Even here, we have multiple meanings, as in other symbolisms, rather than only one correct one, as in allegory, and as there is only one correct answer to a mathematical equation. We are not in the realm of equations here. Equations are in the realm of reasoning and proof. Here we are in the realm of contemplation and artistic appreciation of analogies. It is the realm of play.
Obviously the primary symbolic meaning of the number three is the Trinity. Threeness goes all the way up into ultimate reality, as equally does Oneness. (A typical divine both / and to surprise and transcend our human either / ors.)
It also suggests a number of different ways of classifying human history into three eras from God’s point of view (which is, of course, the primary point of view!): (1) before the Mosaic Law, (2) the era of Law, and (3) the era of Grace; or, alternatively, (1) Law, (2) Grace, and (3) Heavenly glory. Once again, it is both / and rather than either / or: both schemas are true and useful. Symbols are not exclusive.