Hello AbbaLove,
We have to remember that these seven or eight quotes from the Messiah came about over a three year period, and were quoted by different men from different conversations all in various contexts. So with that in mind, if the conversation is focused on the first day (Thursday) when he will be ill treated, then he can say after three days (meaning after the one really bad day Thursday, then Friday, then also after Saturday), so in that conversation he is including Thursday. :
KJV Mark 8:31 And he began to teach them, that
the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
And when the focus is on comparing himself to Jonah, maybe a year from that other conversation, he can say it differently, but still true as I have shown previously (or see my book, the Template Challenge chapter at the end of this post):
NAS Matthew 12:40
for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Then at other times, perhaps in another year and talking to another person he says "on the third day arise," very possibly comparing himself to what happened with Abraham:
NAS Genesis 22:4, 7, 8
On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.
And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood,
but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" 8 And Abraham said, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." So the two of them walked on together.
Or maybe even to another verse:
NAB Hosea 6:2 He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence.
But whether or not those scriptures were in the Messiah's mind we know that he was not wrong in his statements, he meant each one in the context of when it was spoken:
NAS Matthew 17:23 and they will kill Him, and He will be raised
on the third day." And they were deeply grieved.
So the verse above is simply saying he would be raised on the third day from the day he was killed, which is Sunday.
The Messiah knew he would be crucified at Passover, he obviously knew the typology involved, and that he was the true Passover lamb of God:
NAS Matthew 26:2 "You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be delivered up for crucifixion."
He also knew that he would fulfill the First Fruit offering, which would be offered on the day after the Sabbath (i.e. Sunday, the first day) as the first fruits of the resurrection:
NAS 1 Corinthians 15:20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the
first fruits of those who are asleep.
NAS 1 Corinthians 15:23 But each in his own order:
Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming,
He knew all these scriptures and how they would be fulfilled:
NAS Leviticus 23:10 "Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, 'When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then
you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest
to the priest.
NAS Leviticus 23:11 'And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD
for you to be accepted; on
the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
They are not going to complete this offering "on the Sabbath" for God clearly commanded it to be offered on the day after the Sabbath. And even if they decided to disobey God and do the offering on the Sabbath, God's word will not return void, he will raise the first fruits on the day after the Sabbath (very early on Sunday, the first day of the week).
So it all fits perfectly if we take all the pieces of the puzzle together.
See my book from page 376 on, and the charts there showing how all the scriptures fit:
http://themessianicfeast.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/TMF_Template-Challenge.pdf
