How Many Days Was Jesus in the Tomb?

QUESTION: Matt. 17:1 says, "After six days." Luke 9:28 says "about an eight days later." Harmonize this discrepancy.

ANSWER: Luke, by using the word "about," intimates that he is not speaking accurately in counting the fractions of two days, the first and the eighth, while both Matthew and Mark count only the whole days between the two events making only six. The Jews generally counted the fractions  as  whole days, so that Jesus was three days in the tomb, though only one whole day.

— Steele's Answers pp. 237, 238.

On Ezekiel 37:18, 19

QUESTION: Explain Ezek. 37:18, 19.

"And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand." — Ezekiel 37:18, 19 KJV.

ANSWER: The Jews became divided after Solomon's death, ten northern tribes forming a new kingdom and two tribes remaining loyal to the dynasty of David. The  prophet, by fastening two sticks together symbolically united them. It has no reference to any union in modern times.

— Steele's Answers, p. 233.

Salvation by Faith in Christ

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged." — John 16:7-11 ASV.

Another truth implied in the Spirit's conviction of the world is that present salvation and eternal life depend solely on faith in Christ for which there can be no substitute. By this declaration the pious, God-fearing pagan living up to his best light is not excluded from salvation. He evinces that he has the spirit of faith and the purpose of righteousness which are accepted in the involuntary absence of a knowledge of the historic Christ. He has engraven on his own character, through co-operation with the universal activity of the Holy Spirit, the imperfect outlines of the image of Christ, styled by Joseph Cook "the essential Christ." When the apostles demonstrated to the conscience of the Jews that there was salvation in no other name, not even in Abraham their father nor in Moses their lawgiver, they were convicted of the most stupendous crime possible, but not beyond the forgiving grace of their disowned and crucified Messiah. Great as was their first crime of murdering their King, their second offense of rejecting His claims did not place them individually beyond His pardoning mercy, if they would repent and believe, although it sealed their national doom. Their unbelief vitiated all their fancied righteousness sought from the law and rendered it detestable and all their sacrifices abominable to the searcher of hearts. They were preeminently guilty of unbelief. The temporal consequences to their nation manifestly confirm the assertion that it was the most heinous of all sins.

— from The Gospel of the Comforter (1898) Chapter 6.