Do you believe that Easter is a celebration of life like no other?
Lots of talk about resurrection; some even call it ‘Resurrection Day.’
‘So What’ skeptics of Christ’s Resurrection
As a kids we easily turned a phrase for things of which we were skeptical. My quick answer to a parent or someone in authority: “So what?”
What answer quickly rolls off my tongue? What reactive thought tumbles around in my head about things I choose not to think about?
“So what?”
As one finally bowed down before Almighty God who calls Christ Jesus my Lord, I contrinued to be a little surprised by the ‘so what’ look of so many wandering souls I encounter in my everyday mortal life.
Their non-consideration of Easter and frequent rebellion at even a mention of the name of Jesus affirms their ‘so what,’ as common era reaction to faint hope that the resurrection of Jesus is real.
These with hearts hardened to God will always turn against any hope that Christ’s cross and the resurrection are most real and relevant answers to sin. Judgment for sin and punishment of a second death are the furthest thoughts removed from the flesh of self-worshiping humanists.
Jesus was rejected and crucified by a religious establishment that made up their own rules about God. Jesus came to a world that did not seek God. Jesus came to save sinners. Jesus came as a sacrifice for our sin. And Jesus is resurrected from the grave, because He IS the LORD God! He came to man to show us the mercy required to save us from death with the grace of reward for eternal life we do not deserve.
for Church members:
The photo to the left & cover photo have been added to the original post along with some minor edits, including this question below from our earlier series on Doctrine of the Church.
SO WHAT if we do NOT insist that JESUS is the ONLY way of eternal life because of the Cross?
Gentle believer, fellow saint of Christ’s own body,
Our own sacrifice is small and our reward great for our touching of hearts with the healing love of Christ Jesus. Sure, the world says of the resurrection, ‘so what?’
Yet even in these last days of evil we have hope in the resurrection to share with others who also never believed that Jesus would die for them.
As long ago as the first century and first generation of witness of the gospel, men were still evil. Yet the letters of the Apostles spoke to the Jew and the nations alike, all who would listen about the Messiah Jesus.
Paul lived in Corinth for a time and wrote of the resurrection to the church, encouraging us in Christ. HERE is his answer to the so what skeptics and listeners in the public arenas of hostile crowds:
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.
14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
Mention Jesus Christ and you get a tough crowd, don’t you? And most with their face against God show you that ‘so what’ look.
It was no different in Corinth when Paul taught the gospel to the church there in person or by letter.
Even by the pagan standards of its own culture, Corinth became so morally corrupt that its very name became synonymous with debauchery and moral depravity. To “corinthianize” came to represent gross immorality and drunken debauchery… Like most ancient Greek cities, Corinth had an acropolis (literally. “a high city”), which rose 2,000 feet and was used both for defense and for worship. The most prominent edifice on the acropolis was a temple to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Some 1,000 priestesses, who were “religious” prostitutes, lived and worked there and came down into the city in the evening to offer their services to male citizens and foreign visitors.
CAN YOU THINK OF A 21ST Century of the Common Era CITY LIKE THAT?
CAN YOU THINK OF A TEMPLE TO GLORIFY US & our gods?
ARE THE CITIZENS AND VISITORS OF OUR BEST CITIES LIKE CORINTH?
Yet Paul preached to the church in Corinth (and all the other believers) about the resurrection:
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Are you like those without hope in the resurrection?
Does your earth-friendly, Christian-persecuting community “corinthianize” the pulpits of truth with compromises of false faith?
Roger@TalkofJESUS.com +
Guard against it, as Paul warned.
For we have Christ crucified, died and resurrected. We hold to certain hope of eternal life in worship of God our heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the Kingdom of the new heavens and the new earth without sin.
Christ has been raised from the dead!
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep..
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death…
The only ‘so what’ question
Are you looking to your own resurrection?
Do you share the Good News of Christ’s resurrection with others?
Do you even Talk of JESUS to anyone — even others in your gatherings ‘at church?’
“Who was Jesus?” they may ask; for the world hears little of our Lord in these last days.
This might be the only ‘so what’ question you ever get from your unbelieving friend or loved one. Jesus rose from the dead! Over five hundred witnesses. Furthermore, Jesus promised He will return for you and me, if you would like to have him as your Lord too.
Here's how Paul continued with the Good News of Jesus' resurrection to Corinthians of the 1st century:
35 But someone will ask,
“How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”
36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body…
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable;
what is raised is imperishable.
43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
I know resurrection is a lot to think about. Has a lot more to do with your body and soul than bunnies and eggs. Jesus has a lot to say about it. You should read one of the gospels about Jesus.
(John, for instance, tells us a lot about why God sent Jesus to the world.)
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
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