April 8, 2006
Newsletter Archives

Unquestionably, everyone can parrot the meaning of Easter. They know it is about the Lord Jesus dying on the cross to pay for our sins. Unfortunately, for most people, that is where it ends. Hence the tragedy of Easter is not the brutality and suffering inflicted on the Savior, but he fact that His death has not benefited most who claim to be Christians. For the majority, he died in vain.
While they would protest this is not true, the fact remains. Ask them why He died and they would tell you He died to put away their sins. But ask them if their sins are put away and most will tell you they don’t know.
Next, ask them if His purpose was that they might go to heaven and they would tell you it was. But ask them if they know for sure they will be in heaven and they will tell you they don’t really know. Accordingly, the death of Christ is really of no benefit to them. It was all for nothing.
If His death leaves people exactly where it found them (in doubt about the forgiveness of their sins and their eternal destiny), what was the purpose?
Real believers, however, are not in doubt. For example, Job stated emphatically, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes—I, and not another.” Job 19:25-27. We could multiply examples of this in the Bible, but they all say the same thing in slightly different words.
My main concern is that we don’t go through Easter services another year and continue to miss the deepest purpose of the death of the Lord Jesus. Whether we get it or not is our choice, but there will never be a greater choice than that, and a greater loss if we don’t!

Russ Nesbit