What does the number 3 represent in the Bible?
Answered from the commentary of Morrish Bible Dictionary, An Outline of Sound Words, Frederick W. Grant and 17 others
Three in Scripture stands for divine fulness or completeness, and so for perfection in testimony. Its root is the Godhead: three is the number of the Persons in the Godhead, the divine fullness, and until three is reached God is not fully manifested, so it is called the number of manifestation. Nature gives the same sense, for the third dimension turns a flat surface into a solid, so three stands for what is solid, real and substantial. There is nothing beyond the third, and three marks a completeness of kind beyond which nothing can come, since all that God is is included in Father, Son and Spirit.
Most of these writers therefore see the Trinity foreshadowed wherever threes appear. Examples include the thrice-repeated "Holy" of Isaiah 6:3, the plural name Elohim, since the Hebrew plural means at least three, and the threefold blessing of Numbers 6:24-26. Some add the caution that the Old Testament gives only indications of the Trinity, and the full revelation waits for the New. The same fulness is seen in Christ as Prophet, Priest and King, and in the Gospel of John, where all the fulness of the Godhead is shown in Him.
Three is also the number of full and abundant testimony, after "in the mouth of two or three witnesses". So the Spirit, the water and the blood are three witnesses agreeing in one testimony to the Son (1 John 5:8). Kelly holds that the "heavenly witnesses" words of 1 John 5:7 are an interpolation and not Scripture. "A threefold cord is not quickly broken" (Ecclesiastes 4:12) is applied to a threefold confirmation that stands firm. Faith, hope and love are likewise the three that abide.
Three is just as often the number of resurrection, because the third day is marked throughout Scripture as the day of resurrection and life. On the third day of creation the dry land rose from the waters of death and brought forth fruit. On the third day Abraham saw the place where Isaac was received back as from the dead (Genesis 22:4). Jonah's three days and nights in the fish were the sign of Christ's burial and rising (Matthew 12:40). Hosea's "in the third day he will raise us up" (Hosea 6:2) looks to Israel's coming national restoration. All of this meets in Christ, raised "the third day according to the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:4). The ground given is that resurrection is where God manifests Himself when all human power is at an end, so revival, restoration and recovery belong to the number too.
The authors do not all agree on how far the third day means resurrection. Snell grants that Scripture does not instruct on it as plainly as on the resurrection itself, though to the spiritual mind little doubt remains. Kelly reads the third-day sprinkling of Numbers 19:12 as an adequate, complete witness that the man had been unclean, and says it "has nothing to do with resurrection". He takes the third day of Hosea 6:2 chiefly as the witness made complete. Grant reads that same sprinkling as the resurrection day, and others hold both meanings together: competent testimony and the number of resurrection. On the whole, the larger number take the third day as resurrection, while the sense of full testimony runs alongside it.
Verses: 1 John 5:8, 1 John 5:7, Numbers 19:12, Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Matthew 12:40, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 1 Corinthians 15:4, Hosea 6:2, Jonah 1:17, Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4:8, Ecclesiastes 4:12, Luke 24:7, Luke 24:46, Matthew 16:21, John 2:19, Matthew 26:34, Matthew 26:75, John 21:17, 1 Corinthians 13:13, Genesis 18:2, Exodus 23:14, Exodus 23:17, Deuteronomy 16:16, Deuteronomy 19:15, Matthew 18:16, 2 Corinthians 13:1, Daniel 6:10, Acts 10:16, Matthew 26:44, 2 Corinthians 12:8, Exodus 19:11, Genesis 22:4, Esther 4:16, Numbers 6:24, Numbers 6:25, Numbers 6:26, Revelation 1:4, Revelation 1:5, Matthew 3:16, Matthew 3:17, 1 Peter 1:2, Ephesians 4:4, Ephesians 4:5, Ephesians 4:6
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
THREE. Divine fulness or completeness, and hence perfection in testimony. God — Father, Son, and Spirit. This fulness was pleased to dwell in the Son of His love. Col. 1:19. Three times the voice came from heaven respecting the Lord Jesus. Matt. 3:17; Matt. 17:5; John 12:28. The Lord Jesus is Prophet, Priest, and King; Son of God, Son of Man, and Son of David. Three bear witness, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, "and these three agree in one." 1 John 5:7-8. The scriptures, comprising the law, the prophets, and the psalms, bore witness to Christ. Luke 24:44. Faith, hope, and love are elements of christian life here. A three-fold cord is not easily broken (Ecc. 4:12), corresponding to perfection in testimony: three also describes perfected experience. Luke 13:32; Gen. 22:4; Acts 9:9.
Three is the number of Persons in the Godhead, — of the divine fullness, therefore, — and until we reach this, God is not fully manifested. It is evidently the number of actualization, realization, manifestation. It is the number of the Spirit, who realizes in the creature the counsels of God.
Take the question of numbers and their significance in Scripture. One means unity, three full testimony, five the number of a man, seven perfection, eight resurrection, twelve administration, etc., etc.
In the sanctuary God manifests Himself; with the third Person of the Godhead, the Unity becomes a Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit tell out for the first time fully God. And 3 is thus the number of manifestation. So resurrection is plainly that work of His where all human power is at an end; and thus resurrection is on the third day.
Three is the number bespeaking abundant testimony. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established" (Matt. 18. 16). It speaks first of all of Divine testimony in all its stability and permanence as seen in the testimony of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The third day is notable in Scripture. Instances of it having been set aside for divine manifestation have already been placed before the reader. It may be termed the day of a new beginning. On the third day of creation the dry land appeared. (Gen. 1:9-13.) Israel crossed the waters of judgment and death of the Red Sea, and found salvation on its further shore, on the third day after leaving Egypt. The third is the resurrection day to this the "dry land" and the "further shore" of the Red Sea point. The third day is that on which the Lord, who had passed through the deep waters and the darkness of death, arose to die no more, and thus forever the third day is sanctified to His glory in His beginning anew His ways in resurrection. Christ referred frequently to the third day when foretelling His death and resurrection, and recalled Old Testament types of His resurrection when so doing. The number "three" is often identified with the Holy Trinity.
In Scripture, though a number be not given in words, the structure of a passage may be based upon a definite number. *
This chapter is especially rich in its symbolical, typical and dispensational meaning. It was on the third day that Esther came forth to enter into the presence of the king. The third day throughout Scripture is the day of resurrection and life, the day of blessing and glory. On the third day in the first chapter of Genesis the submerged earth came out of the waters and brought forth its beautiful vegetation. This speaks of resurrection and it is the first time this type is found in the Word of God. Many times after that the third day in the history of Israel is mentioned, as well as the third time, and each time it carries with it the same lesson. (See 2 Kings 20:5; Jonah and his experiences, etc.) All these passages are blessed types of Him who was raised on the third day after He finished the work the Father gave Him to do. And so is Esther a type. She passed typically through a death experience in her fasting, with deep anguish of soul. "If I perish, I perish," she had said; ready to sacrifice herself. When she stands in her royal garments before the king on the third day with her death experience behind she reminds us of Him who left the grave behind and is now garbed in resurrection glory. The golden sceptre tells of divine righteousness, power and grace. That sceptre is extended to all who come to God in that blessed and worthy Name. We can come with boldness to the throne of grace, obtaining mercy and finding grace to help in time of need. And there are other gospel applications which we can make. Esther's entering in to the king was not according to law. Law excluded her from the presence of the king. So we are excluded from being in God's presence, because we are sinners. But love has made a way through the Beloved One in whom we are accepted. And the banquet which Esther made for the king was for more than giving refreshment to him who loved her, as we can refresh Him also. It was a banquet to expose the enemy, to stop his accusation and take his power away from him. And all this is graciously accomplished in a spiritual way through the cross and the resurrection of Christ.
In the sanctuary, God manifests Himself. Resurrection too is that in which God is manifest, where all human power is prostrate in the dust: resurrection is therefore on the third day. Revival, restoration, and recovery naturally connect themselves with this.
"Three measures of meal" is no meaningless or arbitrary phrase. As employed by the Spirit the number three is expressive of divine completeness or fulness, and hence of the perfection of testimony. "Three measures" is the full divine measure, God in manifestation, as seen in the wondrous pathway of Jesus, the Son of God, the true Meat-offering. In this world where all was opposed to it, there was manifested before men a life of transcendent grace and holiness, essentially heavenly in all its aspects, displaying all that God was for man and all that man ought to have been for God.
The figure “3” plays an important role in Jude as a symbol for the perfect divine testimony of revelation.
Verses
- 1 John 5:7–87For they that bear witness are three 8the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and the three agree in one.
- Numbers 19:12He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean; but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.
- Matthew 28:19Go [therefore] and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit;
- 2 Corinthians 13:14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, [be] with you all.
- Matthew 12:40For even as Jonas was in the belly of the great fish three days and three nights, thus shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
- 1 Corinthians 15:3–43For I delivered to you, in the first place, what also I had received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; 4and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures;