wfn.org | TCN Editorial: Because He lives again!

["Lydia Ma" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>Taiwan Church News

>2980 Edition

>April 6~12, 2009

>Editorial: Because He lives again!

>Translated by Lydia Ma

Easter is the most important holiday of all Christian holidays because  if Jesus had only been born and crucified, but never resurrected from  the dead, everything else about Him and Christianity would be  meaningless. To remember Christ’s resurrection, churches agreed to  set aside the first Sunday following the first full moon of the spring  season as Easter Sunday. On this day, Christians from churches around  the world will gather for a service to celebrate Christ’s  resurrection.

The salvation and resurrection of Christ was foretold by the Prophet  Isaiah in the Old Testament (Isaiah 53:10-12). Hundreds of years after  Isaiah’s prophesy, we see accounts of Jesus’ death and  resurrection in the New Testament. Countless material evidence and  eyewitness accounts of His resurrection have stood firm against the test  of time and have been passed down to us in the last two thousand years.  These proofs include testimonies from women, Jesus’ disciples,  Roman guards, angels (Luke 24:3-7), the apostle Paul (Acts 9:1-22), the  crowd that saw Him after His resurrection (2 Cor. 15:6-7), Stephen (Acts  7:55-56), and material evidence such as an empty tomb and more.

Furthermore, apostles such as Peter and Paul not only witnessed the  resurrected Christ with their own eyes, they also experienced the  redemptive hope we now have because Jesus offered Himself as a living  sacrifice.

Cambridge scholar Canon Westcott pointed out that once we gather all  evidence surrounding Christ’s resurrection, we can confidently say  that there is no other event in the history of mankind that possesses  more evidence. Therefore, unless a person already has a prejudice or has  already made up in his mind that Christ’s resurrection must be  false, there is nothing that could convince us the resurrection lacks  evidence.

As we gather to reflect, remember, and celebrate Jesus’ sacrifice,  let us remember that though we will grow old and die one day because of  sin, we have also been offered eternal life and salvation because of  Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection.

Since we have been given so much grace, we must turn our backs to sin  and cease to be its slave so that we can live right. The apostle Paul  said it this way: “Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to  someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you  obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to  obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that,  though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form  of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin  and have become slaves to righteousness.“ (Romans 6:16-18). It is  only through repentance and obedience that we can have the life God  intended for us, and His intention is clearly described in John 3:16-17:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that  whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God  did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save  the world through him.”

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