And "when the sabbath was past," "as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week" (Mark 16:1a, Matthew 28:21b), we know that God had raised Christ Jesus from the dead. (Alleluia!)

It is this Crucifixion (unto death) and Resurrection (unto life) that the newly born of God follow after in their water-immersed baptism. "Know ye not, 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." (Romans 6:3-4.)

The water-baptism is our way of following Christ, putting off the old filthy man unto its death and then putting on the new clean man unto life. It is for us who believe on Him that Jesus Christ was crucified before the sabbath and, on the first day of the week, He was risen, of which has become known as Resurrection Sunday.

(It is not, as has been called, "Easter". That particular word only appears once in the King James Version of the Scriptures; and, that single Acts 12:4 reference is actually a translation from the Greek word for "Passover". Howbeit, regarding the Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, truly, "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us". --<1_Corinthians 5:7[d].--> Yes, Jesus is, truly, our Passover Lamb, but "Easter" is another matter than that of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Saviour.)

And then, after His Resurrection, after Christ Jesus had "shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days" (Acts 1:3[a]-b), He gave His last personal sentences to them, speaking of the Holy Ghost baptism to follow (which did not cease). "And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight." (Acts 1:9.) And in fulfilment of the Psalms 110:1 prophecy, Jesus was ascended upwards and then "sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." (Hebrews 10:12c-13.)

Yes, (praise God for His love and mercy!) it is for salvation and redemption, from death unto life, of the souls (who will humbly follow and do these things before God) "that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them... For he hath made ((Jesus Christ)) to be sin for us, who ((Himself)) knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2_Corinthians 5:19b-d,21.) Alleluia! Hallelujah!

© March 4, 1997, The Standard Bearer
P.O. Box 765, O.O.B., ME 04064

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