JESUS CHRIST

Through the atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ—a redeeming service, vicariously rendered in behalf of mankind, all of whom have become estranged from God by the effects of sin both inherited and individually incurred—the way is opened for a reconciliation whereby man may come again into communion with God, and be made fit to dwell anew and forever in the presence of his Eternal Father. This basal thought is admirably implied in our English word, “atonement,” which, as its syllables attest, is at-one-ment, “denoting reconciliation, or the bringing into agreement of those who have been estranged.” (New Standard Dictionary under “propitiation.”) The effect of the atonement may be conveniently considered as twofold: (more…)

One Sunday morning our teenaged son stood with two other priests to administer the sacrament, as they had done on many prior occasions. They pulled back the white cloth, but to their dismay there was no bread. One of them slipped out to the preparation room in hopes some could be found.  There was none. Finally our troubled son made his way to the bishop and shared the concern with him. A wise bishop then stood, explained the situation to the congregation, and asked, “How would it be if the sacrament table were empty today because there were no Atonement?” I have thought of that often–what would it be like if there were no bread there because there had been no crucifixion, no water because there had been no shedding of blood? If there had been no Atonement, what would the consequences be to us? Of course, the question is now moot, but it does put in perspective our total dependence on the Lord. To ask and answer this question only heightens our awareness of, and appreciation for, the Savior.  What might have been, even for the righteous,” if there had been no atoning sacrifice, stirs the very depths of human emotion. (more…)

The four Gospels are consistent in their report that some of Jesus’ disciples found his tomb empty on the first day of the week (see Matthew 28:6; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:3; and John 20:1-2).

No one during the first or second centuries suggested that Jesus Christ had not been buried in a tomb following his death by crucifixion. Such a counter-argument has risen only in the past few years among a few select scholars who question the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts. (more…)

Paul taught that to come unto Jesus Christ is to enter a new realm of existence, a spiritual realm. It is to forsake death and come unto life, to put away evil and darkness and learn to walk in righteousness and light. “Know ye not,” Paul asked the Romans, “that so many of  us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:3-6). (more…)

Let not ignorance and thoughtlessness lead us into the error of assuming that the Father’s foreknowledge as to what would be, under given conditions, determined that such must be. It was not His design that the souls of mankind be lost; on the contrary it was and is His work and glory, “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Nevertheless He saw the evil into which His children would assuredly fall; and with infinite love and mercy did He ordain means of averting the dire effect, provided the transgressor would elect to avail himself thereof. The offer of the firstborn Son to establish through His own ministry among men the gospel of salvation, and to sacrifice Himself, through labor, humiliation and suffering even unto death, was accepted and made the foreordained plan of man’s redemption from death, of his eventual salvation from the effects of sin, and of his possible exaltation through righteous achievement. (more…)

If the books of the New Testament were printed in the order in which they were originally composed, Paul’s letters would appear first. His earliest letters-1-2 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1-2 Corinthians, and Romans-were written sometime between A.D. 49 and 57 (perhaps even earlier for Galatians), before Matthew, Luke, and John were written and nearly contemporary with the Gospel of Mark. Therefore, the earliest written accounts of the Jesus Christ’s last hours on earth-the Last Supper on Thursday, the fateful crucifixion on Friday, and the glorious resurrection on the first Easter Sunday-are found in Paul’s letters.

The earliest explicit references to these events are found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, written about A.D. 57. Paul noted, “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). That was not all. Later in the same letter, Paul wrote to his readers, “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

This threefold aspect of the mission of Jesus Christ-that he died, was buried, and rose again-is echoed in many of Paul’s other letters. These other references often represent only allusions and implicit references to the events fully detailed in the Gospel narrative. However, Paul’s accounts provide written evidence demonstrating that an oral account of Jesus’ life enjoyed a fairly wide circulation across the entire Mediterranean basin before the Gospels were recorded.

The Greek term (kerygma) means “proclamation” and refers to the early preaching tradition about Jesus the Christ, particularly his salvific death and resurrection. The speeches of Peter and Paul in Acts and the letters attributed to them reveals traces of this tradition, which may have been important source material for the writers of the Gospels.

The Resurrection Narratives are linked to the Passion Narratives and cover the resurrection appearance to Jesus Christ’s disciples (see Matthew 28:1-20; Mark 16:1-20; Luke 24:1-53; John 20:1-15)

The pressing question for those who dismiss the Shroud of Turin as a fake and those who profess its authenticity is what elements of its existence can reasonably be proven. Although surprising to some, the fact is that very little about the shroud can be proven.

The Shroud of Turin is purportedly the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. The cloth measures about fourteen feet long and about three-and-a-half feet wide. Recently, a group of scholars reexamined the shroud, using the most modern methods, and found that an earlier carbon-14 dating, which placed the date of the shroud in the early Middle Ages, tested only a section of the cloth that was a later addition and may have overlooked the fact that some of the fibers actually date from the first century. Under certain lighting conditions, the shroud also seems to some to show the impression of the face of a grown man. Forensic tests on the shroud also suggest that it once covered the body of a man who had been brutally beaten on the head, face, and back and received some type of open wound in the side. Some believe that they can even detect marks from wounds in the hands. Despite early assertions that the shroud was a late pious or malevolent forgery, further testing has also shown that the shroud was not painted. The image preserved on the shroud was the result of a chemical reaction between the cloth and the bodily fluids of the man placed in it.

The shroud is certainly the burial cloth of a man who was brutally beaten before death, perhaps even a death by crucifixion. That is the single verifiable fact surrounding the shroud.

The shroud may likely be the same as the Shroud of Edessa-where legends place the beginnings of Christianity to the first century under Abgar V. The Shroud of Edessa was found under a pile of rocks or embedded in a cement wall in A.D. 544. The shroud was taken to Constantinople in August 944 and then subsequently taken to Europe after the sack of Constantinople in 1204-7. After the shroud’s removal from Edessa, dozens of individuals reported having seen the shroud, thereby passing on the shroud’s famous legacy. Eventually, the shroud was placed in the cathedral in Torino (Turin) Italy, for safekeeping.

Many fanciful stories have been pieced together to account for the shroud’s initial whereabouts and how it arrived in Edessa. The huge gaps in documenting the shroud’s whereabouts and the legends that have grown up about it have created enormous skepticism among Protestant scholars. Scholars have attacked the authenticity of the shroud from several angles, including the inability to account for its origins, the original carbon-14 dating, Roman and Jewish burial practices that seem to differ from how the shroud was used, and the simple fact that no one knew of it until the sixth century. On the other hand, defenders of the shroud have pointed out that it was likely used to cover the body of a crucified man, that legends of its existence abound-all preserving a similar tradition, and that stone fragments from the shroud are found also in the region of Jerusalem (travertine aragonite). Unfortunately, unless further information comes forward, the authenticity of the shroud can be neither proven nor disproven.

The observance of the feast of Passover extends back to the time when the children of Israel were commanded to obey it as part of their delivery from Egyptian captivity. The festival, beginning on Nisan 14 (modern March-April) with the sacrifice of the lambs, lasted for seven days. The celebration of the Passover-the event also known as the Last Supper in the synoptic Gospels-began with the sacrifice of the paschal lambs in the temple, portions of which were to be eaten as part of the Passover meal. According to the Gospels, Jesus Christ died on the Friday of Passover week and was resurrected on the first day of the week (Sunday) during the festival (Matthew 27-28:1). Therefore, the celebration of Easter traditionally fell in Western Christian churches on the first Sunday after the start of the Passover feast.

This simple solution, however, is fraught with difficulties. The month of the Passover feast was to begin with the new moon-determined in the first century by sight only-after the vernal equinox (which in the first century was March 21 for Jews, March 25 for the Romans). If the new moon was sighted correctly, then the night of Passover was a full moon. Because weather patterns are not always static, the new moon might not be observed on the exact night on which it occurred, leading to errors for the starting date of Passover. Moreover, many Jews of the first century followed a lunar calendar and roughly every three years found it necessary to intercalate (or insert) an entire month prior to the start of Nisan. The intercalation of another lunar month (29.5 days) would push the Passover further into April.

For the first two or three centuries, Christians were reliant upon the announcement of the Jewish Passover to calculate when to celebrate Easter. In the third and early fourth centuries (particularly at Nicea in A.D. 325), Christians developed their own method of calculating Easter dates based on Alexandrian astronomical calculations for the duration of the solar year. Today, Easter no longer represents the Sunday after the start of the Jewish Passover but instead represents a more accurate calculation of the date.