O Death, Where Is Your Victory?

1 Corinthians 15:55-57–"'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' 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."

Amen! Praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus who saves us from sin and death!  Amen!

(I have little more to add to this passage today)

Resurrection Sunday

This Sunday is the day in which Christians around the world celebrate the day of Jesus' resurrection from the dead.  We do this not merely in memorial, though.  When we join together to worship our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, risen from the grave, we do so understanding the great salvation that He offers through His flesh.  This is the very heart of Easter; it's the only reason we celebrate the day at all!

Let us not neglect this as we join together over food and family this Easter.  Let us, instead, only offer the sincerest of praises to our Lord for what He did upon the cross!

Romans 10:9-10–Salvation's Bare Necessities

Romans 10:9-10: "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."

There is perhaps no more direct a proof text for the modus of salvation.  It is laid out simply.  Basically, it involves two inter-related steps: believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth.  The latter is predicated upon the sincerity of the former as a verbal confession of faith is useless apart from an internal reality to back it up, while a purely internal belief is unverifiable apart from a verbal confession.

These two things go hand in hand.  They cannot be separated and maintained with any sense of dignity to either.  A verbal confession, to be sure, is not only the evidence of a held belief but it is also, perhaps even more so, the first realized action of that belief.  On the other hand, the internal belief is but a seed that unless it is watered and nurtured by action will whither as any other un-actuated belief that we humans so easily believe and un-believe at will.

In the end, the story of the Bible is the story of redemption, the story of salvation from sin.  And while Jesus did offer the ultimate example of humanity in His life, His purpose of coming to this world was to die as a substitutionary atonement for sin.  We should not lose sight of that stark truth, for it forms the basis of our faith and our confession.  It is because of that truth that we can proclaim: "Jesus is Lord!"

Engaging Easter

Across the earth on this Easter sunday, Christians unite in worship and remembrance of Christ Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection.  It is on this day, Easter, that the centuries old story is told and retold as families get together around the table for feasts and fellowship while the kids hunt for dyed eggs strewn about the home.  However, for this Easter, let us engage the story of Jesus again.

For starters, Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy.  Not only prophecy, but Jesus' life, death, and resurrection fulfilled the whole of the Old Testament.  This all being true, understanding the meaning of Jesus is something else entirely.

The Jewish faith, at the time of Jesus, was a closed religious system.  Their Law and Writings had been well-established for several centuries and the nation was all-too aware of their special status as the Chosen People of God.  The major feature of becoming the Chosen People was that the Israelites were given the Law, the perfect and absolute moral ethic of God.  The Law revealed the character of God as it pointed out the transgressions of sin.  It is the Law that condemned Israel but it did much more than that, preparing the world for the Messiah to take on the sin of mankind.

The Law's primary function was to expose sin.  More than that, the Law condemned the transgressors.  Forgiveness for the sin could be accounted for by sacrifice, but only in part because the blood of bulls and goats is not sufficient to cover the sins of man.  However, the Law acted as a funnel, in that the sin of all mankind was able to be concentrated and pressed upon Israel.  Thus, when the Messiah came as a Hebrew, the God Man Jesus became the perfect atoning sacrificial lamb who could take on the sin of the whole world by condemning sin in His own flesh upon the cross.

Easter is an important holiday.  In fact, it is on Easter that the most important event in all of history is remembered.  This Easter, let us take a step beyond gluttonous consumption and obligatory family engagements to dig into the Word and to seek after the Lord for what He has done.  This is truly a wonderful day for He is risen, and as a result we can live too!