MORNING MANNA 4-16-22
EASTER IS ESSENTIAL
And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
While He was with the disciples, Jesus told them what was coming in the future. But they did not really grasp the implication of His teaching until later. When the angels met the women at the empty tomb, they told them to remind the disciples of what Jesus had said. “But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you” (Mark 16:7). The resurrection is essential, and just as much a part of God’s plan of salvation as the cross is. There is no hope of Heaven if Jesus did not rise from the dead. But He did. And as we celebrate that victory over the grave, we are reminded of our certain future with Him in Heaven.
J. C. Ryle said that the resurrection “is the crowning proof that He has paid the debt which He undertook to pay on our behalf, won the battle which He fought to deliver us from hell, and is accepted as our Surety and our Substitute by our Father in heaven. Had He never come forth from the prison of the grave, how could we ever have been sure that our ransom had been fully paid? Had He never risen from His conflict with the last enemy, how could we have felt confident that He has overcome death, and him that had the power of death, that is, the devil? The resurrection is our certainty that we will have the eternal life Jesus purchased for us. – Copied
David Stone
Lakeway. Baptist Church
Humble, Tx.
