APRIL, 1946
151
EDITORIALLY SPEAKING
the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ the absolute pre-eminent place among all the religions of the world. No other world leader has ever risen from the dead and none ever will! The reason behind Christ’s resurrection is His supreme deity. He rose because of Who He is—in deed and in truth, the Son of God. A recent study of resurrection facts yielded great personal profit and an abundance of teaching material to the writer. We very earnestly recommend the same searching of the Scriptures to our readers, especially to those who have a preaching and teaching min istry. -i r ★ Abolish Easter? ATO, we’re serious. Think now, would it not be more to the glory of God, and to the unadulterated honor of Christ, if this modem celebration of Easter were abolished? Not that we object to the honoring of the risen Christ. In fact, our earnest, and all- consuming desire is that He should re ceive more and more honor. But does. Easter do this? This Easter, open your eyes and look around you. What do you see? Is there any sincere worship of a resur rected Son of God, or humble pledge to allow the risen Christ to rule? No, verily, that is not what we see. Rather, there are pride and extreme selfish ness. There is gratification of sensual desires. There are rabbits, decorated eggs, new hats. May God forgive us! We are making a mockery of this day. You know, of course, that the New Testament does not command that any one Easter day be celebrated. In too many churches, because it is so widely emphasized on Easter, the marvelous and all-transcendent truth of the res urrection is omitted the rest of the year. Some of God’s servants have come to believe that the modern ob servance of Easter is a trick of Satan himself. What then is God’s plan? Would He have Easter abolished? Yes, I sin cerely believe it should be. At the same time God would call to our at tention the fact that He has ordained fifty-two Easters for each year. Yes, for that is the purpose of the Lord’s Day (Sunday): to commemorate the resurrection. He purposes that His children should every seven days gath er around the risen Christ, where our hearts may truly exu> Jn the pres ent and eternal implicatio/y of the res urrection.
Unanswerable Proof T^VERY Bible student knows that the -^preaching and the teaching of the early Church leaders, as set forth in the first chapters of the Book of Acts, placed the preponderance of their em phasis on the doctrine of the Resur rection. Many have felt that this was the divinely ordained antidote for the skepticism and unbelief of all ages. A demonstration of the practical value and power of this doctrine was seen in a recent Incident. We were on a visit to a large Midwestern city where there is being erected what is supposed to be an architectural mas terpiece in the form of a temple to a new religion—the Baha’i world faith. It seemed to our classically unedu cated eyes a structural monstrosity. It is quite a showplace with all the trimmings; guides are provided for the edification of visitors. Each guide is also a purveyor of “new truth” to those who are shown through the buildings. We were conducted Into the large and, as yet, unfinished high-domed central room and there given a small dose of Baha’i doctrine. This dealt with a series of personages from Per sia, purportedly new vehicles of God’s revelation. We were told that, al though Jesus Christ was a means of revelation, He had been superseded by this new faith, which was God’s plan. The order, to their way of think ing,. was: Judaism, Christianity, Mo hammedanism, Hinduism, and the final revelation, Baha’ism. We inquired whether the guide rec ognized that Christ was different from the other persons he had referred to because He rose from the dead. “What,” I asked, “ does Baha’ism do with the truth of the resurrection?” He replied quickly, “Of course they recognize this, but as a spiritual resurrection.” We persisted, that this was not a spiritual resurrection, but a physical one, for did not Christ show His hands and His side, and did He not invite the disciples to handle Him and see? Did He not eat a piece of fish and a honeycomb before them? And did not more than five hundred testify to the truth of these things? Here the guide, usually so voluble and ready with answers for everything, fell silent. When he spoke again, he admitted that they did not accept this revelation, did not believe the story, in short, that the truth of the resur rection was to them a lie. Of course it is. You must reject the revelation unless you want to give
“ Another” T ITERALLY tons of comfort and en- couragement are bound up in the meaning of that one word. Look, it is the night before the day of that cruel- est deed: the crucifixion. The Lord and thé disciples are in the upper room, and as the latter realize finally that their precious Lord is really to leave them, they are unutterably sad. And the loving Christ, burdened though He is, is solicitous for the sorrowing hearts of the eleven. What can be said to alleviate their sorrow, and assuage their grief? Words come from His lips, words of life, words of comfort. He tells them of future mansions in the skies, and of greater works which they shall do. Then He promises them “another” Comforter. What a wealth of mean ing is manifested in the choice of just that adjective! The coming Comfort er is to be “another”—One just like the Lord has been to them. Our Lord could use the common Greek word for “another,” but the one He utters is the one which links forever the iden tity of the Holy Spirit with Himself. This One, promised and soon to ap pear, is to take up this matter of com forting just where the Lord is about to lay it down. It is a most marvelous thought. He, the Spirit of God, is meant to be to all of God’s children just what the Lord Jesus was to His disciples. Do we need wisdom? The Holy Spirit has all wisdom. Do we need strength and power? He, being God, is omni potent. Will He understand our prob lems? He is “another” Comforter, just like the Lord Jesus. And He dwells not in some far off heaven, but He is as close to me, and to every other Christian, as is the beat of my own heart. It wouldn’t be hard, you say, to live the- Christian life if the Lord Jesus were really here in person. If we, like His disciples, could reach out and touch Him! If we could actually sit at His feet and talk over our prob lems! Isn’t that what the disciples did? Ah, my friend, remember that there is sent to us “another” Com forter—one like our Lord, who is di vinely intended to be all to us that the Lord Jesus Christ was to His disciples and who will bring to our remembrance all that He taught when He was here on earth. And we may day by day, by actual experience, learn the blessed truth of our Lord’s "another” Comforter.
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