Αnd rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

 “If Christ has not been raised, then empty (too) is our preaching; empty, too, your faith,” says St. Paul. Christianity began as a resurrection movement. 

The Creed affirms a historical fact: the person of Jesus, truly killed, actually dead, and really buried, rose again into a newness of life at a specific time (on the third day) in a particular place (Jerusalem).

This resurrection differs fundamentally from other biblical instances of the dead being raised, such as the widow's son by Elijah, Lazarus, Jairus's daughter, and the son of the widow in Nain.

While these individuals experienced a quantitative extension of their earthly lives, Jesus's resurrection represents a qualitative glorification of life.

The Creed’s word choice “rose again” highlights Christ’s own power to rise from the dead.

Scripture, however, also affirms that the resurrection is the work of the Father and the Spirit. St. Paul writes that Jesus was raised by the Father (Rom 6:4; Gal 1:1) and by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:11).

St. John’s Gospel, in turn, emphasizes the Son’s role: “I lay down my life, that I may take it up again” and “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

The Catechism clarifies that the resurrection is the work of the Holy Trinity. In this mystery, the three divine persons act together as one and manifest their own proper characteristics.

So, there is no contradiction but a revelation of the mystery of the Triune God acting in perfect unity and distinction.

At the resurrection, Christ’s human soul, intellect, and will remain fully present and perfectly united to His glorified body and divine person.

These faculties are no longer subject to weakness or limitation but are transformed and glorified, just as His body is. He remains the God-man forever – perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity.

Jesus's first followers were convinced of his resurrection as God bore witness to them through both word and deed, and, crucially, through their own direct experiences of seeing, hearing, and touching the risen Lord.

According to Paul, the body of Jesus was ‘sown’ in one manner and ‘raised’ in another. "What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.

It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.”

The phrase 'on the third day' refers to the third day after Jesus’s death. The disciples going to Emmaus said to Jesus, “It is now the third day since this took place.” The early church commemorated the breaking of the bread on Sunday.

The Didache (the teaching of the Apostles) instructs: “Every Lord’s Day… gather together, break bread, and give thanks after confessing your sins.”

Similarly, Justin Martyr testifies: “On Sunday we hold our common assembly… for on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.”

Jesus was not dead for 72 hours, as most modern people would understand the phrase. According to the common first-century Jewish reckoning of time, if something occurred during even a part of the day, it was attributed to ‘the day.’

Thus, Jesus died on Good Friday (day one), was dead all of Holy Saturday (day two), and remained dead for the early hours of Easter Sunday before He rose (day three).

A common Jewish belief held that a person was not truly dead until three days had passed. Thus, counting Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as three days posed no issue, since even part of a day was regarded as a full day.

The phrase “in accordance with the Scriptures” was added at the Council of Constantinople to affirm Christianity’s continuity with Israel’s story.

This directly countered Marcionism, which rejected the Hebrew Scriptures, viewing the Old Testament God as cruel and incompatible with Jesus's Father and sought to sever the faith from its Jewish roots.

Jesus himself foretold: “The Son of Man must suffer… be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Lk 9:22), echoing St. Paul’s testimony that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Cor 15:3–4).

To say Jesus rose ‘in accordance with the Scriptures’ is not merely to quote a set of ancient texts; it is to say that Jesus stepped into, inhabited, and brought to fulfillment the entire redemptive story written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.

It means that the entire biblical narrative had at last reached its climax, its appointed and God-ordained goal, in these astonishing events.

Jesus Christ’s true capacity to suffer, to the point of undergoing death and burial, binds him to space and time in a real, and not merely apparent way.

In his resurrection, it will not be history to render him eternal; rather, He will render history eternal.