What separates believers from their old life of sin and bondage?
The three days and three nights Christ spent in the tomb, received by faith in the gospel—His death, burial, and resurrection—separate believers from their old life of sin and bondage. Just as Israel needed three days to be separated from Egypt, so the believer is separated from sin through that gospel.
Les explains that Matthew 12:38-40 records the scribes and Pharisees asking for a sign, and Jesus answering that an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, with no sign given except the sign of the prophet Jonah. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Way back in Exodus, God was already giving a picture of basic premises: there is no setting us free from the shackles of sin any more than Israel could be set free of Egypt unless they could have three days separating them from their place of captivity. It is the same in our salvation. If we ignore the basic premise of the gospel—that Christ died, was in the grave three days and three nights, and rose from the dead—we have no gospel. But when we put our faith in that gospel, that three days and three nights in the tomb separates us from that old life of sin and bondage.