305
THE K I NG ' S B U S I N E S S
DID CHRIST EVER DIE?
it natural and expedient to transfer all this ready-made symbolism to the resur rection of Christ, and thus Easter came to he observed as it is. It is absurd of course to have Easter movable and dependent on the lunar calendar when Christmas is fixed and is dependent on the solar year. The early Christians did observe Easter on a fixed day, namely March 21 or the vernal equinox, for over three centuries, up to the time when the council of Nice decreed that it should be movable. “Easter” is mentioned in the Bible—- in Acts—hut it there refers to the Jew ish Passover. The breach between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Chris tians widened, and at the council of Nice the church fathers adopted the present plan of determining Easter so that it should never fall on the same day as the PaSsover, which it did once in 19 years under the old system. By the rule of the council of Nice, Easter comes on the first Sunday after the full moon which occurs on or next after the vernal equinox. Though this action established a perfectly arbitrary and inconsistent date for Easter, it did avoid having it fall on the same day that the Jews observed.—Pathfinder. SEA SICK CHRISTIANS Weak faith will as surely land the Christian in heaven as strong faith; but the weak Christian will not have so pleasant a voyage thither as the strong one. Though all in the ship come safe to shore, yet he that is sea-sick through out the whole voyage hath not so much comfortable sailing as he that is in per fect health.
ANY theories have been advanced to explain away the resurrection of Christ. Those who seek for a natural explanation of every miracle recorded in Scripture, c l a i m that
Christ never really died at all; that He fell into an unconscious state which was mistaken for death; and that later He recovered and was rescued by His friends. A surface examination of Scripture suflices to brush away this objection. The writers of the four gospels give different accounts of the death and resurrection of Christ, as would natur ally be expected of four men writing independently of each other; but they agree in saying that Jesus gave up the ghost. Think of the tremendous physical and mental strain of the night preced ing the crucifixion—the agony in the garden—the arrest—the hurrying back and forth for the five trials to which He was subjected—the scourging by the Roman soldiers—the mocking in the Praetorium—the crown of thorns; then His sinking from sheer exhaustion under the weight of the cross, and the crucifixion. Ask yourself if the wonder is not rather that Jesus survived so long as He did. But it does not end here, for when the Jews came to Pilate and asked that the legs of the three men should be broken, so that death would be hastened and the bodies removed before the Sabbath, the sol diers, seeing that Jesus was “dead already, broke not His legs: howbeit,
HOW WE ARE LOSING SUBSCRIBERS! 1 ¡ p g r THEY GO T O GLORY Its a fact that most of Tke King’s Business Subscribers stay with us to the finish
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker