In the last posting we explored just a few of the instances in the Bible in which God used two days in shadows to represent two thousand years. Of course, the major clue for interpreting these hidden nuggets is found in 2 Peter 3:8, where we read, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.” 

        Normally references to “two days” or the “third day” refer to Christ’s second coming to save His chosen nation, Israel. The New Testament is full of such pictures, such as in the story of Jesus raising the Hebrew, Lazarus, from the dead. The Bible says, “Yet when He heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where He was two more days.” John 11:6. You, like most people, may not have noticed that phrase before, but the more we get attuned to shadows in the Bible, the more we realize that God is showing us that Jesus will stay in heaven for two thousand years before He returns to earth to redeem the Hebrew people, exactly as God had promised the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Of course the grandaddy of all of these “third day” pictures is the death and resurrection of Christ. Not only is that time period given to us in the Gospels, but also in places like Acts 10:40, “God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused Him to be seen.” 

        But what about us Gentiles? What about the church, the bride of Christ? Does God give us the same assurance in a two day shadow form as he does Israel? The answer is yes, but once again I have never seen it written about or any sermon preached on it. It is as if our scholars have never noticed it before. Once again, what a shame. The shadow I am referring to is found in the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.

        We all know the story. In fact you may have read it dozens of times. But were your spiritual eyes open? Mine weren’t for probably the first hundred times that I read it. It seems that God opens our eyes when He is ready for us to see what he has hidden within the scriptures.

        Before we look at this fantastic shadow, let’s first be clear that the Samaritans were not Jews. They were Gentiles. And the story of the Samaritan woman and her fellow townspeople is one of the very few accounts of Jesus dealing with anyone other than His fellow Jews. We might get a clue from that fact that this story is one directed to us, and as we shall see, it is. We’ll take up the story after Jesus told the woman about her past husbands and then responded to her statement about the coming Messiah by saying to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

        We then learn, “Many of the Samaritans from the town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days. And because of His words many more became believers. They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”  John 4:39-42.

        There actually are several shadows in that short story, but let’s concentrate on the “two days.” Anytime God uses the two days in reference to the Jews, He always is seen as waiting for that time period to pass before He acts, such as the case with Lazarus. In the case of the Samaritans, who represent us, though, Christ stays with them for the two days. That, of course has been the case. Jesus has stayed with us, His Gentile Church, in the form of the Holy Spirit. 

        In regards to the Jews, there eyes have been blinded for the past two thousand years. John 12:40 says, “He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn and I would heal them.” This was done so that we Gentiles would have time to come to Him, and the past two thousand years is referred to in Luke 21:24 as “The time of the Gentiles.”

        Yes, Jesus has given us a chance for eternal life, and has even stayed with us in the person of the precious Holy Spirit for these past two thousand years, but the time is quickly drawing to a close. If the “two days” are counted in Jewish years, their end was 2005. If God is counting them in “Gentile” years, the two days is up 2032. Either way, and with countless other clues within God’s Word, we can know for a certainty that it is about time for the rapture of Christ’s Gentile Church, which will usher in the last seven years of tribulation designed to open their eyes and bring in His beloved Jewish nation.

        I, for one, could not be more ready. The thought of it excites me to no end. I can hardly wait. How about you? If not, read or reread Part Seven of Unlocking God’s Secrets and you, too, will be as excited as a bride-to-be waiting for that glorious day, the “third day.”