Should “Good Friday” Actually Be “Good Wednesday”?

The Rise of the Issue of Wednesday Rather Than Friday Death of Jesus

I don’t separate over the timing of the crucifixion during “Holy Week.”  My position for many years, after preaching through every one of the four Gospels verse by verse, is that the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross by Roman crucifixion on Friday.  Part of the reason I’m writing this is because I’ve heard this indirectly twice during this week on successive days.  One, whom I respect as much as anyone, wrote:

Roman Catholics have essentially flummoxed many Protestants, Fundamentalists, and Baptists about “Easter.” They are wrong about a “Good Friday” with associated heresies such as “Lent,” and the “crucifix” is anti-Gospel since the Lord is off the Cross and not entombed.

That’s quite a claim.  If you take the Friday position, then Roman Catholics flummoxed you into that.  I needed to look up “flummoxed” to find out what Catholics had done to me while I studied the Textus Receptus text in preparation for my sermons to preach in a service of our historic Baptist assembly.  “Flummoxed” means, “completely confused, bewildered, or perplexed, often to the point of being unable to act.”  Merriam Webster says, “completely unable to understand.”  The author stated his apparently unflummoxed position as thus:

Prior to his Sunday resurrection, the Lord died on Wednesday afternoon and was entombed by Wednesday 6:01 PM (i.e., Thursday), being in the grave Thursday to Friday (Day 1), Friday to Saturday (Day 2), and Saturday to Sunday (Day 3), or seventy-two hours.

That statement and what I believe cannot both be right, I fully admit.

The Buttressing of the Wednesday Death Position

The author buttressed his timing with the following quote as the major argument (directly referring to Matthew 12:39-40):

Jonah’s entombment in the whale was a sign and must be taken literally. All signs must be literal to be of any value.

He added the following for this to work:

Expressions such as “be raised again the third day” (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19, et al) are figurative and must conform to the literal.

To get a Wednesday day, he claimed two Sabbaths (a “high” Passover Sabbath on Thursday and the regular weekly Sabbath on Saturday), and the women’s spice preparation/buying as evidence of those separate rest days.

Four Problems with the Wednesday Death and Defense of the Friday One

The Jewish Idiom and a Literal Sense

To begin, I see this as a flawed interpretation on multiple levels:  biblical language, Gospel chronology, Jewish time-reckoning, and historical evidence.  It creates more problems than it solves while ignoring or missing how first-century Jews actually counted time.  First, “Three days and three nights” from Matthew 12:39-40 is a Jewish idiom, not a literal 72-hour stopwatch.  “All signs must be literal” mistakes how Hebrew/Aramaic speakers used the expression idiomatically.  “Idiomatic” does not mean, “not literal.”

The grammatical-historical method seeks to discover the sensus literalis — the literal sense. This isn’t a “wooden” literalism that ignores figures of speech.  A literal meaning is the author’s intended meaning.  If a writer used an idiom, the “literal” meaning is the idiomatic one.  If we apply the grammatical-historical method, we must ask: “How would a first-century Jew have understood Jesus’ claim in Matthew 12:40?”  To interpret this phrase “literally” as 72 hours misinterprets the author’s literal intent if the author was employing a standard linguistic convention of his time.

Arguments for Idiomatic, Literal Expression

For at least four reasons, a rigid 72-hour count is a modern Western imposition, not how the Bible or first-century Jews spoke.

1. Inclusive reckoning was standard: Any part of a day counted as a whole day. The Jerusalem Talmud states: “A day and a night are an Onah [a portion of time] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it.”
2. Old Testament parallels:
   1. Joseph imprisoned his brothers “three days” then released them “on the third day” (Genesis 42:17-18)—not 72 hours.
   2. Esther’s “three days and three nights” fast ended when she acted “on the third day” (Esther 4:16–5:1).
3. Jesus Himself used “three days” interchangeably: He repeatedly predicted He would rise “on the third day” or “after three days” (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; Luke 9:22; 18:33; 24:7, 46). The Gospels never say “after 72 hours.”
4. Matthew 12:40 simply echoes the Jonah idiom: It means the same thing as “on the third day.” A Friday afternoon death + Saturday in the tomb + Sunday morning resurrection = parts of three days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), exactly as Jews counted it.

Explicit Placement of Friday Crucifixion in Gospels

The Gospels explicitly place the crucifixion on Friday (the “preparation day” before the Sabbath).  Every Gospel agrees:

• Mark 15:42:  “And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,.”
• Luke 23:54: “And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on [was about to begin].”
• John 19:14, 31: “And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour” and “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,).”  That last part is the Passover holy convocation of Leviticus 23:5-8. The Jews wanted the bodies removed before the Sabbath.

The next day after the crucifixion is called “the Sabbath” (Matthew 27:62; Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56). There is no textual hint of a Wednesday death followed by a Thursday high Sabbath and a separate Saturday Sabbath with a normal workday (Friday) in between.  The two-Sabbath scheme forces the texts: the Gospels treat “the Sabbath” as singular and immediate after the crucifixion. The spice accounts harmonize easily under the Friday view — the women prepared what they had on Friday afternoon, rested on the (high) Sabbath Saturday, then bought/prepared more after sunset Saturday for Sunday morning.

Inconsistencies Created by Wednesday Death Chronology

The Wednesday death chronology creates inconsistencies.  One, “Thursday to Friday (Day 1), Friday to Saturday (Day 2), Saturday to Sunday (Day 3)” is fuzzy on exact sunset timing and doesn’t cleanly deliver three full nights depending on when Wednesday 6:01 p.m. burial occurred. Two, it contradicts Jesus’ repeated “third day” statements.  Three, it requires re-dating Passover/unleavened bread in ways that don’t align with the astronomical data for the likely years (AD 30 or 33), where Friday crucifixion fits best.  Four, dozens of other resulting problems ensue regarding calendar, Gospel harmony, and early church practice.

Historical Evidence Supports Friday Viewpoint

Last, early historical evidence overwhelmingly supports Friday.  On the other hand, no historical evidence exists, that I know or have read, that advocated Wednesday. Debates in the 2nd–4th centuries were about when to celebrate the Resurrection, which were linked to Friday death or Sunday resurrection, never about moving the crucifixion day itself.  The Wednesday view is a modern development — late 19th/20th century.  It gained some, yet little, traction under influences from E.W. Bullinger, William Graham Scroggie, and especially Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God in the mid-20th century.

No trace of the Wednesday view appears in any 16th or 17th century Baptist document, sermon, or debate (read John Gill here).  Searches of Baptist history on this specific question turn up only modern fringe arguments.  Early Baptists were part of the broader rejection of certain Roman Catholic “holy days.”  They often avoided formal observance of “Good Friday” or “Easter” as mandatory festivals, preferring to focus on the biblical events themselves.  They never, however, disputed the underlying chronology of Friday death and Sunday resurrection.  The London Baptist Confessions, first and second, and the Philadelphia Baptist Confession, all three have this statement speaking of Jesus:

. . . . was crucified, and died, and remained in the state of the dead, yet saw no corruption: on the third day he arose from the dead (emphasis added) with the same body in which he suffered. . . .

Friday Death Summarized

The biblical timeline presents a clear, harmonious, and triumphant account of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection that has been the consistent testimony of the church for two thousand years. Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday — the day of preparation before the Sabbath (Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:14, 31) — buried before sunset that same evening, and rose victoriously early on Sunday morning, the first day of the week. This is not a later “Catholic” invention or a tradition to be dismissed; it flows directly from the plain reading of all four Gospels when understood in their first-century Jewish context.

In Jewish reckoning, Matthew 12:40 was an idiom meaning parts of three days — not a rigid 72-hour stopwatch in modern Western terms. Any portion of a day counted as a full day and night (again, see Genesis 42:17-18; Esther 4:16–5:1; and the consistent Jewish usage in the Talmud and other sources).

• Friday (Day 1, part of a day and night): Jesus died around 3:00 p.m. and was laid in the tomb before sunset.
• Saturday (Day 2, the full Sabbath): He rested in the tomb while the women observed the commandment to rest (Luke 23:56).
• Sunday (Day 3, early morning): He rose “on the third day,” exactly as He repeatedly predicted (Matthew 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Luke 24:46; 1 Corinthians 15:4).

This fulfills the sign of Jonah idiomatically and literally as first-century Jews understood it — no contradictions, no extra days inserted. The Gospels repeatedly call the crucifixion day “the preparation” (i.e., Friday, the day before the weekly Sabbath), and the next day is explicitly “the Sabbath” followed immediately by “the first day of the week” when the women came to the tomb (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1-2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). There is one high Sabbath (Passover-related) that fell on Saturday that year, and the women’s spice preparation and purchase fit seamlessly: they prepared what they had on Friday afternoon, rested on the Sabbath, and returned after it ended.

Olive Branch

I want to end this by saying that I believe that the interlocutors in opposition to this above written, defended position magnify the glory of the resurrection.  They honor a literal intent of scripture.  Also, these churches and men rightly celebrate the resurrection of our Lord on Sunday.  Their focus remains where it belongs — the finished work of Christ, His victory over death, and the hope of our resurrection in, with, and by Him (1 Corinthians 15:58).  Let us rejoice together:  Jesus is risen!!