|
Who Is Jesus? Why Did Jesus Come
to Earth?
A personal testimony of faith.
Please
note: The foundation for the following testimony of faith
has been taken from the original God
inspired scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments of the Holy Bible.
All here was written humbly, prayerfully, and with full
awareness that people's decisions regarding the eternal
state of existence of their souls could be made while
reading the following testimony.
May God bless you and open your heart to His truth.
Romans
1:16
For I am not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first,
and also to the Greek (Gentile
or none Jew).
God In Three Persons
The Bible teaches
that God is actually three "Persons". This is an
infinite mystery of God that the finite mind of man cannot
understand. The Bible does not teach that there are three
Gods, but that there is one God. This one God, however, is
expressed in three Persons. There is God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
The Second Person of this Trinity is God's
Son, Jesus Christ. He is co-equal with God the Father. He
was not a Son of God, but the Son of God. He
is the Eternal Son of God -- the Second Person of the Holy
Trinity, God manifested in the flesh, the living Savior.
The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ had no beginning. He
was never created. The Bible teaches that: "The
heavens were created by Him" (John
1:1-3).
All the myriads of stars and
suns were created by Him. The birth of Jesus Christ
that we celebrate was not His beginning. His origin is
shrouded in that same mystery that baffles us when we
inquire into the beginning of God. The Bible only tells
us, "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God" (John 1:1). The "Word"
spoken of here refers to Jesus Himself.
About Jesus Christ, the Bible teaches us, "Who
is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every
creature: For by Him (Jesus) were all things created, that
are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and
invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or
principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him,
and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all
things consist." (Colossians 1:15-17).
That last phrase indicates that He created all
things including time and space as we know it and more.
All things continue to exist and function because He
will's it so.. The Bible again says,
"In the beginning,
O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the
heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but
you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You
will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be
changed. But you remain the same and your years will
never end" (Hebrews
1:10
-12).
Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, our Savior
Again Jesus said
of Himself,
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the
end."
He and He alone, had the power to bring man back to God.
But would He?
If He did, He would have to come to earth.
He would have to take the form of a servant.
He would have to humble Himself and become obedient unto
death.
He would have to grapple with sin.
He would have to meet and overcome Satan, the enemy of
man's souls.
He would have to redeem sinners out of the slave market of
sin.
He would have to set the prisoners of sin free by paying a
price.
That price would be His own life.
He would have to be despised and rejected of men.
He would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief.
He would have to be separated from God.
He would have to be wounded for the transgressions of
men.
He would be bruised for their iniquities.
His blood would be shed to atone for man's sin.
He would have to reconcile God and man.
He would be the great Mediator of history.
He would have to be a substitute, the ultimate
sacrifice.
He would have to die in the place of sinful
man.
All this would have to be done voluntarily.
And that is
exactly what happened! Looking down from heaven where He
is high and lifted up, through the very time and
space that He Himself had created, He saw this planet
swinging in space, doomed, damned, bound in the chains of
sin, and very worthy of hell.
It gives me great pause when I consider that God may have
contemplated our total destruction, feeling perhaps even
regret for creating us. He certainly had the power and the
right to return us to the non-state of non-existence from
which we came.
Then in His mercy, in His love, He saw you and he
saw me struggling beneath our load of sin.. He made
and announced His decision in the council halls of Heaven.
The angelic hosts were awestruck by the depth of His love
for us humans. All of heaven bowed in humility as heaven's
Prince of Princes and Lord of Lords, who could speak
worlds into existence, for our sake chose to
throw off His robes of Glory there in Heaven, and become a
man here on earth! Was
there joy or was there weeping in heaven on that day? How
many angelic beings considered that we humans were not
worth the life of one angel, let alone that of the only
begotten Son of God Himself?
And so it began.
Jesus came to reveal God to men. He told
us that God loves us and is interested in our lives. He
told us of the mercy and long-suffering and grace of God.
He promised us life, the true life, life eternal, life
everlasting, life beyond death.
Jesus Christ
became a person and walked in a body of flesh and
blood in order that He might die (Hebrews
2:14).
"He appeared so that He might take away our
sins (1 John 3:5). The
very purpose of Christ's coming into the world was that He
might offer up His life as a sacrifice for the
sins of men. He came to die so that we might live.
The night Jesus
was born Satan trembled both with fury and with fear.
Satan tried to destroy Jesus as soon as He was born. When
the decree went forth from King Herod ordering the
slaughter of all the children, its one purpose was to make
certain of the death of Jesus.
The Sinless Son
All the days of
His life on earth Jesus never once committed a sin. He is
the only man who ever lived who was sinless. He could
stand in front of men and ask, "Can
any of you prove me guilty of sin?" (John
8:46).
The enemy hounded Him day
and night, but they never found any sin in
Him. He was without spot or blemish.
Jesus lived a humble life. He made Himself of
no reputation. He neither sought nor received honor of
men. He was born in a stable. He was raised in the
insignificant
village
of
Nazareth.
He was a carpenter, a common labor trade of His time.
He gathered around Him a humble group of fishermen as His
followers. He walked among men as a man; He was one of the
people. He humbled Himself as no other man has ever
humbled himself.
But, yet, Jesus taught with such authority
that the people of His day said, "No
one ever spoke the way this man does" (John
7:46).
Every word that He spoke was historically true. Every word
that He spoke was scientifically true. Every word that He
spoke was ethically true. There were no loopholes, no
lukewarm beliefs expressed of spiritual matters (that are
so common today among ministers) in the moral
conceptions and statements of Jesus Christ. His ethical
vision was wholly correct, correct in the age in which He
lived and particularly correct in every age that has
followed.
Today to some people the teachings of Jesus seem to be but
foolishness. Little
do they know that even as they utter words of denial
of God and of Jesus it is simply and sadly the curse upon
them of the unspiritual “natural man”:
"But the natural
man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they
are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.
(1Cr
2:14)
You, oh weak and foolish natural man, the atheist among
us, do not be so quick to ascertain yourself as being
correct in your shallow assessment that "there is no
God". For God Himself in His mercy has chosen to
reveal Himself to you, however it is in your pride and
self willed arrogance, not in your intelligence,
that you have chosen to remain ignorant of the
greatest knowledge that man kind could seek after; the
knowledge of our meaning, our purpose, our origination,
and the ultimate agency that has predetermined our eternal
future. In your prideful self-denial of God you are not
wise, not standing high and lifted up on your imaginary
pedestal of self worship as you so wrongly believe,
instead you are but a fool. And those that walk in the
wisdom and Spirit of God see your folly, and we weep for
the loss of your eternal soul.
Jesus spoke only truth in its purest form.
The words of this blessed person were prophetically
true. He prophesied many things that are even yet in
the future. Lawyers tried to catch Him with trick
questions, but they could never confuse Him. His answers
to His opponents were clear, clean-cut, and truthful.
There was no deception in His meaning, no hesitancy in His
words. He knew, and therefore spoke with quiet authority.
He spoke with such simplicity that the common people heard
Him gladly. Though His words were profound, they were
plain and easily understood by those truly seeking to hear
the truth. He spoke in simple parables to allow better
understanding by the common folk of His time. Yet today,
unless guided by the Holy Spirit the most knowledgeable
and most highly educated people on this planet cannot
fully comprehend all that He has said and done.
Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding
is infinite. (Psalms: 147:5)
Nothing Jesus ever spoke has
been, nor ever will be, proven wrong or incorrect. His
words were weighty with meaning and purpose, yet they
shone with clarity and simplicity of statement that
staggered His enemies. He dealt with the great questions
of the day in such a way that, from simple to
sophisticate, men that were not educated nor highly
intelligent had no difficulty in understanding Him. He
spoke to the very heart of man.
The Lord Jesus cured the sick, the lame, the
crippled, and the blind. He healed the leper and raised
the dead. He cast out demons. He quieted the elements. He
stilled storms. He brought peace, joy, and hope to the
thousands to whom He ministered while on earth.
He showed no sign of fear while among those He
taught. He was never in a hurry. He met with no accidents.
He moved with perfect coordination and precision. He had
supreme poise of bearing. He did not waver or worry about
His work. Though He did not heal all the sick, did
not raise all the dead, did not open the eyes of all the
blind, nor feed all the hungry, yet at the end of His life
He could say, "I
have finished the work you gave me to do." Here
he spoke of the "work" that his father God sent
him to do. That work was to secure our salvation.
He stood before Pilate and quietly said,
"You would have
no power over me if it were not given to you from
above" (John19;
11).
He approached His cross with dignity and
calmness, with an assurance and a set purpose that
fulfilled the prophecy written about Him eight hundred
years earlier: "He
is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep
before her Shearer's is dumb, so he opened not his
mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).
Jesus' defeat of Satan the fallen Angel
Jesus focused His
mind, and His will became subservient to His Father's will
as He moved supremely, gloriously, and with great
anticipation toward the mission that He had come to
accomplish. He had come to save sinful men. He had come to
appease the wrath of God. To stand in the gap
for us poor lost souls on a doomed planet.
He had come to defeat the evil one, the
rebellious one, Satan, forever. He had come to conquer
hell and the grave. There was only one way that
He could do it. There was only one course set before Him.
Thankfully, for our sake, Jesus had only one plan for His
future on earth.
Calvary.
His death had been prophesied thousands of years
before.
First, in Eden's Garden; and then in sermon, story,
and prophecy, the death of Christ was set forth in
the ages past. Abraham foresaw His death in the ram that
was provided to replace his son Isaac on the altar of
sacrifice required of him by God.. The children of Israel
symbolized His death in the slaughtered lamb. Every time
blood was shed on a Jewish altar, it represented Jesus the
Lamb of God who was someday to come and take away all sin.
David prophesied His death in detail in more than one
prophetic Psalm. Isaiah devoted whole chapters to
predicting the details of His death.
Here is an interesting point to consider that many today
confuse. Some say that Jesus tried to copy the Old
Testament sacrifice in His offering of Himself as the
ultimate sacrifice to God. This is far from the truth. The
reality of it is that the Old Testament requirements of blood
sacrifice were in fact all pointing to Jesus. In the
Jewish Passover feast then (as now) whether they realized
it or not, Jesus was represented by the blood of the
innocent sacrificial lamb that was spread on the doorposts
to allow the angel of death to pass over their houses.
Today as Christians, we spiritually apply the blood of
Jesus, our sacrificial lamb for forgiveness of our sins,
to the door posts of our hearts. And in doing so, death
itself cannot hold us (passes over us) and we live forever
in the house of the Lord.
Jesus Christ said that He had power to lay down His life
when He said,
"The good shepherd lays
down his life for the sheep"
(John 10:11).
He said again,
"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so
the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who
believes in Him may have eternal life" (John
3:14, 15). Jesus Christ
had faced the possibility of the cross far back in
eternity. During all the ages, which preceded His birth
here on earth, He knew that the day of His death was
drawing closer. When He was born of a virgin, He was born
with the shadow of the cross darkening His pathway. He had
taken on a human body in order that He might die as our
substitute. From the cradle to the cross, His
purpose was to die that we might live.
Be still for a moment, quiet your mind of the
busy life you lead, now allow yourself to picture in your
mind's eye the last day of Jesus' life on earth
before his death.
The night watches in Gethsemane
lighted by the flaming torches,
the kiss of the traitor, the arrest, the trial before the
high priest, the hour of waiting. The palace of the Roman
governor, the journey to the
palace
of
Herod,
the rough handling by Herod's brutal soldiers, the awesome
scenes while Pilate tried to save Him as priests and
people clamored for His blood. The scourging, the howling
multitudes, the path from Jerusalem to Golgotha, the nails
in His wrists, the spike through His feet, the crown of
thorns upon His brow, the sarcastic and mocking cries of
the thief at His side, 'You have saved others, now save
yourself.'
Do you think He
was at the mercy of the Roman soldiers? Do you feel that
He was helpless to change what was taking place
around Him? Then let me assure you He was not held to the
cross by the nails driven through His hands and feet, but
by His infinite love for us.
Therefore does my Father
love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it
again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to
take it again. This commandment have I received of my
Father. (John 10:17-18)
There He hung
between heaven and earth. If we had been present and were given spiritual
eyes, surely we would have seen Heaven's gate opening to
receive He who died for us. Having suffered unspeakably
for our sake, He voiced only one appeal as to His physical
suffering, simply a statement by which He let us know in
two words something of the terrible physical pain He
suffered when He said, "I
thirst."
When Christ died,
He died voluntarily. He was in total control of the
situation. Jesus could have called down legions of Angels
with just one thought. "Do
you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he
shall presently give me more than twelve legions of
angels?" (Mat 26:53)
Jesus was not just
a mortal man; He was also God, the One that had created
the very earth that His tormenters now stood upon as they
gazed with derision at Him. Consider this; Jesus had given
life to the acorn that grew into the tree that became the
wooden cross that He now hung on. The nails that
pierced Him were made up of iron ore that He had caused to
form in the bowels of the planet. He was absolutely and
totally in control of His situation; He had planned it
while still sitting in the throne room of Heaven before He
came to earth. For us to be set free of our guilt-sin, He
had to become our sacrifice. Jesus chose not to come down
from the cross. He chose to remain on the cross so that
all would be accomplished for our sake. He chose the
exact moment when He expired. He voluntarily gave up His
spirit and even spoke of it at that moment: “And
when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus,
he gave up the spirit. (Luke:
23:46
)
Jesus chose to die for us that we might
be forgiven and have eternal life.
He is worthy of our praise.
Sinner or Substitute
God demands death,
either by the sinner or by a substitute. Christ was the
substitute! Gabriel and twelve legions of furiously
outraged angels hovered on the rim of the universe, their
swords of indignation unsheathed. One look of need or of desired
assistance from the blessed face of Jesus and they would
have swept the angry, shouting multitudes surrounding the
cross straight into hell. Again, it was not the spikes
that held Him there on the cross; it was the cords of His
love for us that bound Him to the cross, more than any
spikes that men could ever hammer.
"But God
demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans
5:8).
For you! For
me!
He bore our sins in His body upon that sacrificial
cross. Picture Him on the Cross, bending His sacred
and so innocent head, and gathering into His heart the
awful isolation of separation from God because of the sins
of the world. See how He accepts upon Himself the
guilt for our sin. As we stand overwhelmed in the presence
of this suffering, feeling our own inability to understand
or explain, and with the great sense of His majesty
overwhelming us, we hear the last words that pass His
lips, "It is
finished."
"Finished?"
What does He mean "finished", you say?
"It is finished" meant the end of our
fear of death; "Oh
death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? (1Cr:
15:55)
“It is finished” spoke of the initiation of our
forgiveness. The curtain that separated mankind from God
in the Holy temple on earth, as it was spiritually in
heaven, was now torn asunder. We no longer had to send in
earthly Priests to beg God's mercy upon us. We now could
approach the throne of God boldly washed in the
sacrificial blood of our new Savior Jesus!
"Finished" meant, there was nothing more that
needed to be done by Him. For our part, we only need to
accept that which Jesus did for us that day on the
cross.
But the physical
suffering of Jesus Christ was not the worst suffering that
He went through. Crucifixion was a common form of
execution in Rome in
those days. Many men before Him had died on a cross.
Others had hung suffering on a cross longer than the six
hours that Jesus did. Many men before Him had become
martyrs.
The truly awful suffering of Jesus Christ was
His spiritual death. He reached the final issue of sin,
fathomed the very deepest sorrow that man had ever faced,
when He cried, Eli,
lama sabachthani? "My God, why have you forsaken
me?" (Mat 27:46)
This cry was our
proof that Christ, becoming sin for us, had died
physically, and with it He lost all sense of the Father's
presence at that moment in time. Because He now bore our
sins, God could not allow Jesus to be in His
presence. The perfect and Holy One, Jesus, God
in flesh, now became sin itself and was totally and
completely alone. In the supreme hour of mankind's history
Christ uttered those words! Proof, given to us by His own
words, "My
God, why have you forsaken me?" that
He truly took upon Himself our sins. For a Holy and pure
God could not allow even His own Son to stand before Him
while carrying our sins. So God turned away from His only
begotten Son, Jesus, there on the cross as He bore our
sins. God allowed Jesus to face a real death so that all
that had been prophesied would be fulfilled. For Jesus to
be literally and truly resurrected from the dead as
scripture had prophesied for thousands of years He first
had to literally and truly die.
He who knew no
sin took on our sins (became sin) and also the punishment
due us because of the sin, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him (Galatians
3:13; Mark
15: 34
; 2 Corinthians
5:21).
How this transfer of guilt was accomplished -
man may never know- unless God someday allows us to
see the process by which it took place. However, this I do
know -- He bore my sins in His body upon the cross. He
hung where I should have hung. The pains and everlasting
torment of hell that were meant for me were in my stead
laid upon Him, and now I am able to go to Heaven and
receive that reward which is not my own, but is His by
every right. All the types, the offerings, the shadows,
and the symbols of the Old Testament were now fulfilled.
No longer do the priests have to enter once a year into
the
Holiest Place
. The sacrifice is
complete in Jesus.
“It is Finished”
Now that the ground of redemption has been
laid, all the guilty sinner has to do is believe on
the Son, and he can have peace with God. "For
God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life" (John
3:16).
In the death of Christ I see three things:
First, a description of the depth of man's sin. Do not
blame the people of that day for hanging Christ on the
cross. You and I are just as guilty. It was not the people
or the Roman soldiers who put Him to the cross
-- it was, and is, your sins and my sins that made it
necessary for Him to volunteer this death.
Second, In the sacrifice of Jesus I see the
overwhelming love of God. If ever you should doubt the
love of God, take a long, deep look at the cross, for in
the cross you find the expression of God's love.
Imagine such a great love as to give up the life of your
only son for someone as undeserving as me.
Third, Jesus is the only way of
salvation. Jesus said, "I
am the way, the truth and the life: no man comes to the
Father but by me" (John
14:6).
There is no possibility of being
saved from sin and hell, except by identifying
yourself with Jesus. If there had been any other way to
save you, He would have found it. If reformation or living
a good moral and ethical life, or works, or philanthropy
would save you, Jesus never would have needed die. A
substitute had to take your place. Men do not like
to talk about it. They do not like to hear about it
because it injures their pride. It takes all value of self
out of the picture.
Many people say,
"Can I not be saved by living by the Golden Rule? Or
just following the precepts of Jesus? Or living the good
and ethical life that Jesus taught?" Even if we
could live the life that Jesus taught, we still
would be sinners. We still would fail, because not one of
us will ever live a sinless life from the time we are
born till the time we die. We have all failed to live free
of sin, we will continue to fail. We have transgressed, we
will continue to transgress. We have disobeyed. We have
sinned. Therefore, what are we going to do about that sin?
If we cannot break these cursed bonds of sin of our
own accord, then what shall we do? There is only one thing
to do and that is to bring it to the cross and find
forgiveness.
For all have sinned, and
come short of the glory of God; Romans
3:23
The world will never know peace until it finds
it in Jesus Christ.
You will never know peace with God, peace of
conscience, peace of mind, and peace of soul, until you
stand at the foot of the cross and identify yourself
with Christ by faith. The cross is the secret of peace.
Through the cross is the only way to find peace with God.
"Since we have now been justified by His
blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath
through Him" (Romans 5:9). The
sacrificial blood of Jesus, the Son of God, changes men's
standing before God. It is a change from guilt and
condemnation to pardon and forgiveness. The repentant
sinner is completely pardoned through the blood of Jesus
Christ. "Who will
bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is
God who justifies. So how can man condemn those
washed in the blood of Christ? Christ Jesus, who died --
and who was raised to life -- is at the right hand of God
and is also interceding for us (Romans
8:33
-34).
"But if we walk in the light, as He is
in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the
blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all
sin" (1 John 1:7).
The key word in this verse is all. Not part of our
sins, but all of them. Every lie you ever told,
every mean, low-down dirty thing that you ever did; your
hypocrisy, your lustful thoughts, your jealousy, your
unforgiving spirit, whether in your heart or in actual
deed-- all are cleansed by the death of Christ-- but,
ONLY if you accept Him as your Lord and as your
Savior.
But this is not the end!
We do not leave Christ hanging on a cross with blood
streaming down from His hands, His side, and His feet.
After His death He is taken down and laid carefully away
in a tomb. A big stone is rolled against the entrance of
the tomb. Soldiers are set to guard it. All day Saturday,
His followers sit gloomily and sadly in the upper room.
Two have already started toward Emmaus. Fear has gripped
them all. Early on that first Easter morning the three
women, Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Salome make their way to
the tomb to anoint the dead body. When they arrive, they
are startled to find the tomb empty. In the tomb, the
women found that there was no sign of having been a
departure done in haste, all was orderly, leaving the
impression of One Who had leisurely removed the garment of
death and ridded Himself of what no longer was due Him. An
angel is standing at the head of the tomb and asks, "Whom
do you seek?" And
they reply, "We
seek Jesus of Nazareth."
And then the angel gives the greatest, most glorious news
that human ear has ever heard,
"He is not here,
He is risen." (Mathew 28:6)
Do you need a contrast to assist you in
recognizing the great value of those words spoken by the
angel? What would be our poor and miserable lot this day
if the angel's message to the women searching for Jesus'
body had instead been?
"He is not here, He is dead, and has been
buried elsewhere".
Praise and all glory should be given unto our loving
and merciful God, that for our sake He chose to allow
Jesus to be resurrected.
The Fact of the Resurrection
Upon that great fact
hangs the entire plan of God's salvation for us. Without
the resurrection, there could be no salvation. Christ
predicted His resurrection many times. He said on one
occasion, "For as
Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's
belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew
12:40).
As He predicted, He also returned.
A Historian's view.
There are certain
laws of evidence, which hold in the establishment of any
historic event. There must be documentation of the
event in question made by reliable witnesses. There is
more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is
that Julius Caesar ever lived or that Alexander the Great
died at the age of thirty-three. It is strange that
secular historians will accept thousands of facts for
which they can produce only shreds of evidence. But in the
face of the overwhelming evidence of the life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ they cast a (spiritually
blind) skeptical eye and hold (un) intellectual doubts.
The trouble with these people is that they do not want
to believe. Their spiritual vision is so blinded and
they are so completely prejudiced that, sadly for them,
they cannot accept the glorious fact of the resurrection
of Christ on Biblical witnesses' testimony alone.
The resurrection of Jesus meant the
following:
First,
that Christ was undeniably God. He was what He claimed to
be. Christ was Deity in the flesh.
Second, it meant that God the Father had accepted
His Son's atoning work on the cross, which was necessary
for our salvation. "Who
was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for
our justification" (Romans
4:25).
Third,
it assures mankind of a fair and righteous judgment. "For
as by one man's (Adam) disobedience many were made
sinners, so by the obedience of one (Jesus) shall many
be made righteous" (Romans
5:19
).
Fourth,
it guarantees that our bodies also will be raised in the
end. "But now is
Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of
them that slept" (1 Corinthians
15:20
).
The Scripture teaches that as Christians, our bodies may
go to the grave, but they are going to be raised on the
great resurrection morning. Then will death be swallowed
up in victory. As a result of the resurrection of Christ
the sting of death is gone and Christ Himself holds the
keys to death and the grave. He says, "I
am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for
ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and
Hades" (Revelation
1:18
). And
Christ promises those that accept His atoning and
forgiving sacrifice that "Because
I live, you will live also."
And, fifth, it means that death will
ultimately be abolished. The power of death has been
broken and death's fear has been removed. Now we can say
with the Psalmist,
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" (Psalm 23:4).
Without the
resurrection of Christ, there could be no hope for the
future.
The Bible promises that someday "We
are going to stand face to face with the resurrected
Christ, and we shall have bodies like unto His own
body" (1 John 3:2).
There has never been
another man, teacher, or preacher of any religious faith
that claimed to be God or the son of God and was allowed
to continue doing so by God Himself. All other leaders of
all other religions accepted that they themselves were but
mortal men. Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and to be
God Himself. He has never been proven to be wrong. God
allowed Jesus to make this claim then and has continued to
allow it today. In fact God is causing the name of Jesus
to be heard around the world so that all may find
redemption before this age draws to a close.
Jesus is the Son of the living God. Jesus is our only
way to approach God for forgiveness of our
sins. We cannot stand before God without
first accepting the Salvation offered to us
through Jesus.
Thank you for
taking the time to read this, my personal testimony to my
faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Savior.
If you have questions that you would like to discuss about
the Gospel please contact me by email. I will be very
happy to assist you in any way possible to come to know
the Love of God.
Love and peace to you all in the blessed name of Jesus.
A brother and servant in Christ, Barry L. Brumfield
Contact me: Barry L. Brumfield
Written
and Copyright held by Barry L. Brumfield
© 2000-2010 Reproduction by written permission only.
|
