you: on the morrow after the sabbath (of the Passover) the priest shall

wave it' (Lev. 23:10,11; see also 15,16,17).

On the very morning of the resurrection, when the Saviour rose from the

dead, the priest in the temple would be waving the sheaf of the firstfruits

before the Lord.  As at the Passover, so here, type and fulfilment met

together not in a general way but on exact dates.

Another rather curious

coincident of dates is found in the record of the Flood.  In Genesis 8:4 we

'And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the

month, upon the mountains of Ararat'.

At first sight, no connection with the resurrection of the Lord is evident,

but a closer examination is resultful.  It will be remembered that at the

institution of the Passover, which took place in the month Abib (Exod. 13:4),

that what had been the 'seventh month' became 'the first month of the year'.

Consequently, the Ark grounded on the 17th of the month Abib, and as the

Passover took place on the fourteenth, 'three days' after brings us to the

very day of the resurrection, the 17th of the month.  It is interesting to

know the date of any incident of antiquity, but it is not so evident why

Moses should have taken the trouble to record this particular date that

coincides with the date of the firstfruits, and of the resurrection if it is

not an intentional type.

As we survey the possible Scriptures that Paul would have had in mind

when he penned 1 Corinthians 15:1-3, we must include the great prophecy of

Isaiah 53.  There, the Lord is depicted as being 'cut off out of the land of

the living', of making His grave with the wicked and with the rich 'in His

death', of pouring out 'His soul unto death'; nevertheless, without actually

using the word resurrection, the same prophecy says:

'He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days ... He shall divide

the spoil with the strong' (Isa. 53:10,12),

and these words would simply not be true if He Who thus had poured out His

soul unto death, was not raised from the dead.  We have purposely not

included the several Psalms that are so pointedly quoted by the apostles, as

these will come better in their place as we recover the witness of the New

Testament itself.

We turn our attention for a moment to the testimony of the New

Testament Scriptures, and this can be divided into two parts, those

references which are made before the Lord Himself died and rose again, and

those which are made after that glorious event.  For what is recorded before

the event, we are naturally shut up to the Gospels.  We turn, therefore, to

Matthew and read that when the twelve were commissioned to preach the gospel

of the kingdom with accompanying signs, these included not only the healing

of the sick, cleansing lepers, and casting out of demons, but of raising the

dead (Matt. 10:8).  Clearly if the Saviour had such authority over death, His

own triumph over the grave becomes not only possible, but most blessedly

probable.  When John the Baptist sent from prison to ask the Lord, 'Art thou

He that should come, or do we look for another?', these signs provided all

the confirmation needed, and they included the raising of the dead (Matt.

11:5).  In Matthew 12:40 we have the pointed reference to Jonah which we have

already noted, and in verse 41, the word translated 'rise' being the Greek

anistemi, the word which means 'to rise' from the dead in Matthew 17:9 (in