Today I'd like to discuss the significance of the number three in Scripture, which typically, three means something complete and good.
1. God says something 3 times: We see God repeating a phrase thrice in several places in Scripture, emphasizing importance, certainty, and divine majesty. Examples of threefold repetition of phrases in the Bible:
• Mt 7:7: Jesus used a threefold expression to emphasize the importance of prayer, saying that we must ask, seek, and knock.• John 21:15-17: Following Peter’s denial of Christ, Jesus asked him three times, "Do you love me?" and three times instructed him to "feed my sheep". This reinforced Peter's reinstatement and the importance of his ministry.
• 1 Samuel 3: God calls out to the little boy Samuel three times before Samuel realizes it is God speaking and not the priest Eli.
• Acts 10:13-16: A voice from heaven tells Peter three times, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat" in a vision, which emphasized to him that God has made all creatures clean.
2. Three of the same words: We see several instances of three of the same words in a row. Examples of threefold repetition of words in the Bible
• Isaiah 6:3: The seraphim cry out, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory". This threefold repetition emphasizing God's absolute holiness and majesty is repeated in Revelation 4:8 during John’s experience in the throne room.
• Revelation 8:13: An angel cries out "Woe, woe, woe" to warn of the severe trumpet judgments to come.
• Jeremiah repeats the word “land” thrice (Jeremiah 22:29; cf., 7:4),
3. The hour of mercy: Jesus died on the cross at three in the afternoon (Mt 27:46)
4. Three trials of Christ: The Lord Jesus suffered through three mock trials before three different men-- the High Priest (Mt 26:57), Pilate (Mt 27:2), and Herod (Luke 23:7-12).
5. Three crosses on Calvary: Jesus was crucified between two criminals, thus there were three crosses on Calvary, signifying that Christ died for all men, offering complete salvation, full and free, to everyone, even the worst of sinners (Matthew 27:38, Mark 15:27, Luke 23:33, and John 19:18).
6. Three hours of darkness: It became dark for the final three hours while Jesus hung upon the cross (Mt 26:45).
7. The third day: There are multiple references to the third day, all of which are related to Christ's resurrection.
• Jesus rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4). According to Jewish culture, three days past death indicated the person was truly dead. Therefore, Jesus not rising until the third day proved that he truly conquered death.
• Hosea had prophesied that (Hos 6:1-2) God would restore us on the third day, which was a veiled reference to Christ’s resurrection.
• Likewise, Hebrew sacrificial meat from a peace offering could not be eaten on the third day because it would be considered impure, or "tainted”, and unacceptable to the Lord. This rule ensured that the offering remained pure, foreshadowing that Christ’s ultimate sacrifice would conquer corruption and decay before the third day (Leviticus 19:6 and Leviticus 7:18).
8. Three days of darkness: The tenth and final plague that God brought upon Egypt before the Exodus was three days of darkness (Ex 10:21-23).
9. Three patriarchs: In Scripture, we have three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Matthew 22:32). These were the forefathers of the nation of Israel, the chosen people of God.
10. Three men repopulated earth: After the flood, Noah’s three sons– Shem, Ham, and Japheth—repopulated the earth.
11. Three men in the furnace: There were three Hebrew men thrown into the fiery furnace by Kng Nebuchadnezzar—Shadrach, Mechach, and Abednego, as recorded in Daniel 3.
12. Three consecutive prayers or times of prayer:
• Early Christians may have had three set prayer times a day, modeled after verses like Psalm 55:17 and Daniel 6:10.
• Matthew 26:44: Jesus went back to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane three times.
• 2 Corinthians 12:8: The Apostle Paul says he pleaded with the Lord three times for his "thorn in the flesh" to be removed.
13. Three o’clock prayer: The hour of prayer was 3:00 PM.
• Peter and John were going up to the temple at three in the afternoon, which was called the time of prayer, as recorded in Acts 3.
• Cornelius the Roman centurion had an angelic visitation while praying at three in the afternoon, as recorded in verse 3 and 30 of Acts 10.
14. Three is God’s phone number: Jeremiah 33:3 is the verse that's often used to say that God’s phone number is simply 333, that as we call unto Him, He will answer us and show us great and mighty things we do not know.
15. Denied Christ three times: Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed (Matthew 26:34). This indicated that he had completely denied the Lord.
16. Three gifts: The Magi present to Jesus three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh in Matthew 2.
17. Three angels: In Revelation 14:6-11, there are three angels each having an important message. The first tells all the earth to worship God. The second declares the fall of Babylon. And the third declares that anyone who receives the Mark of the Beast will receive God’s wrath.
18. Three closest disciples: Jesus had three disciples who were closest to Him – Peter, James and John, whom he took with him for a number of special things that only they got to experience and not the other apostles. For example:
• In the Garden of Gethsemane, he took the Three with Him to watch and pray with Him (Mt 26:37).
• He also took them up onto the sacred mountain of transfiguration (Mt 17:1).
• He only allowed the Three into the room with him when He raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead (Mk 5:37).
19. Three repeated multiple times in Acts 10:
• Three men: Cornelius sent three men, in response to the angel’s instructions to get Peter (Ac 10:7, 19).
• Three day time span: Peter arrived at the home of Cornelius three days after the angel appeared to the centurion (Ac 10:30).
• Cornelius the Roman centurion had an angelic visitation while praying at three in the afternoon, as recorded in verse 3 and 30 of Acts 10.
20. Three repeated multiple times in Acts 28:
• Publius, the chief official of the island of Malta, welcomed Paul and his team to his home and showed them generous hospitality for three days. (Ac 28:7)
• After three months they put out to sea from Malta (Ac 28:11)
• They put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days (Ac 28:12)
• When Paul arrived in Rome, the brethren there traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet Paul and his team, for which Paul was thankful to God and was encouraged. (Ac 28:15)
• Three days after Paul arrived in Rome, he called together the local Jewish leaders to assemble in his house (Ac 28:17)
21. The Trinity: The Godhead is a Holy Trinity, since God is three in one: the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6), the Son (Colossians 2:9), and the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17).
22. Threefold human nature in God’s image: God created man in His own image. Just as God is Three in One, so man has a threefold nature – body, soul, and spirit (Gen 1:27; 2:7; 1 Thes 5:23; Mat 10:28).
23. Three temptations of Christ: During his forty-day period of fasting in the wilderness, satan tempted Jesus three times (Mat 4; Lk 4).
24. Third heaven: Paul the apostle referred to Paradise as the Third Heaven (2 Cor 12:2,4). The Third Heaven is distinguished from the first heaven, which is the sky immediately above us, and the second heaven which is either the realm of space outside earth's atmosphere, or the spiritual realm around the earth where angels and demons contend with one another.
Satan's Counterfeits
It goes without saying that satan has his counterfeit version of three, such as his evil trinity including himself, the beast or antichrist, and the false prophet. The world also has their superstitious belief "bad things come in threes," and that the third time is a charm to express hope that a third attempt at something will be successful after two previous failures. The number three is a prominent and powerful figure throughout the occult, witchcraft, paganism, and other mystical and esoteric traditions. It is seen in the kingdom of darkness as a number of creation, balance, manifestation, and spiritual power.
Closing Words
As we've just seen, the number three definitely has great significance in Scripture, typically connoting completeness or indicating that something is good. The Third Heaven is a perfect example of that; but we also saw the completeness of Christ's three temptations, the threefold nature of man, and the Triune Godhead, to whom the angels cry "holy" three times.
Then there were the three closest disciples with whom Jesus spent more time and had greater intimacy than any of the others. The three angels in Revelation with their end-time messages were another example, as well as the one angel that cried "woe" three times. We looked at the three gifts presented by the Magi to the baby Jesus, as well as Peter's complete, threefold denial of Christ, and the Lord's complete, threefold reinstatement of him as an apostle, which he did using a question repeated three times each follow by a statement made three times.
We also saw multiple references to prayer, such as the threefold invitation to ask, seek, and knock, as well as the three prayers of Christ in the garden, and of Paul about his thorn. There was the hour of prayer and the death of Christ at three o'clock, which some might call the hour of mercy; as well as the early Christian practice of having daily three set times of prayer. We saw why we sometimes like to say that God's "phone number" is 333.
We noted that three men repopulated the postdiluvian earth. There are three patriarchs of the faith, and there were three Hebrew young men in the fiery furnace.
God called to the prophet Samuel three times when he was a little boy, and He told Peter three times to kill and eat the animals in the sheet that was let down from heaven three times.
The final Egyptian plague consisted of three days of darkness. There were three crosses on Calvary and three hours of darkness during Jesus' crucifixion. After He died for us on the cross and was buried, He rose again on the third day, which is why the peace offering as a type of Christ could not be eaten on the third day.
Now that we understand the significance of the number three and what it means, we can better grasp many of these three-fold biblical concepts, repetitions. and occurrences. May it build your faith to pray more earnestly, seek the Lord more diligently, knock more persistently, call upon Him more frequently, read His Word more faithfully, and trust Him more completely.
Attribution notice: Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible NIV, copyright Zondervan, used by permission. Image is free and in the public domain.
Author's note: If you enjoyed this post, you may also like the other posts in this blog available through the links in the
Home page, such as
Numerical Patterns in Scripture,
Numerical Coincidence Confirms Rapture,
The Unity of the Bible,
All Scripture must be fulfilled,
The Bible is the Word of God, and
The Bible Never Fails. Also see
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Do You Want to Know Him?If you want to know Jesus personally, you can. It all begins when you repent and believe in Jesus. Do you know what God's Word, the Bible says?
“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (Mar 1:14b-15). He preached that we must repent and believe.
Please see my explanation of this in my post called "
Do You Want to Know Jesus?"
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Len Lacroix is the founder of
Doulos Missions International. He was based in Eastern Europe for four years, making disciples, as well as helping leaders to be more effective at making disciples who multiply, developing leaders who multiply, with the ultimate goal of planting churches that multiply. His ministry is now based in the United States with the same goal of helping fulfill the Great Commission.
www.dmiworld.org.
