Wednesday, November 30, 2005

SOME FACTS

SOME FACTS ABOUT EASTER

by A. A. Davis
(from the book The Baptist Story, pp. 167-171)

Matt. 28:1--"In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre."
(Note:--The Jew reckoned his time from sundown to sundown. Since the Sabbath was the seventh day, the time in this text is evidently about sundown, Saturday afternoon. The Grave was empty.)
John 20:1--"The First day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene, early when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre."
Note:--This visit is not the same visit Matthew records. Note the time element.)
Mark 16:2--"And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun."
(Note:--This is still another visit made at sunrise, Sunday morning. Luke evidently records this same visit. Thus much confusion will be eliminated if we understand that separate visits were made to the tomb. The first one recorded by Matthew, who says it was near the end of the sabbath or about sundown Saturday afternoon. Note, also, that Matthew mentions an earthquake. None of the other writers make mention of an earthquake. Surely if they are all writing of the same visit to the tomb, they are very confusing to say the least. Since we believe the Bible is divinely inspired, we must believe that each of the writers told the truth.)
Please Note Matthew 12:40--"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."
We are asked to believe in the Easter celebrations that Jesus was crucified on Friday and was raised at sunrise Sunday morning. We would like to meet the man who can get three days and three nights from Friday afternoon to sunrise Sunday morning. If the Easter story is true, then Matthew 12:40 is false.
Who started this Easter business anyway? "There is no trace of the celebration of Easter as a Christian festival in the New Testament or in the writings of the Apostolic followers. The sanctity of special times or places was an idea quite alien from the early Christian mind; too profoundly absorbed in the events themselves to think of their external accidents." (Enc. Brit.--Ed. 9, Vol. VII, p. 531)
"The Christian who dwells on the truths of Christ as our passover and the gift of the Holy Spirit is every day keeping an Easter and pentecostal feast." Origin (contr. Celsum VIII--22)
'The Ecclesiastical historian, Socrates, (Hist. Eccl. VII) "Neither Christ nor His Apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival. The Apostles had no thought of appointing festival days, but of promoting a life of blamelessness and piety."
"The word Easter is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Eostre or Ostrae. The Anglo-Saxon Goddess of Spring and fertility, to whom the fourth month, answering to our April, thence called 'Eoster-monath' was dedicated. The name of this Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring was unfortunately blended with the passover festival. The Paschal festival was observed by the early Christians of Jewish descent early in the history of Christianity. The Jewish and Gentile elements were engaged in a long, continued and bitter controversy and an unhappy severance of Christian union. No rule as to the rule of the Paschal festivals having been laid down by authority, Christians were left to follow their own instincts. With the Jewish Christians, the Paschal Feast would end at the same time as that of the Jews on the 14th day of the moon at evening. And the great festival day would follow immediately, entirely irrespective of the day of the week. With the Gentile Christians, on the other hand, unfettered by Jewish traditions, the first day of the week would be identified with the resurrection festival and the preceding Friday would be kept as the commemoration of the crucifixion, irrespective of the day of the month. With one group, therefore, the observance of the day of the month; with the other, the observance of the day of the week was the ruling principle. The chief point was the 'keeping' or 'not keeping' the fourteenth day of the moon corresponding with the month, Nisan. Those who adopted the Jewish rule, did so keep the fourteenth day and were called 'Quartodeciman' and were stigmatized as heretics." (p. 531-Enc. Bri. 9 ed. Vol. VII.)
"How was this controversy finally settled? This diversity of usage was gradually brought to an end by the verdict of the Church of Rome. The Roman Christians adopted the ordinary Gentile usage, which within certain limits placed the observance of the crucifixion on Friday and that of the resurrection on the following Sunday. A decretal of Pope Plus I, (C. 147) pronounces that the 'pasch' should be celebrated on the Lord's Day by all." [Note: The word Easter is not used. This is the Paschal Feast.--A. A. Davis] Polycarp, the venerable Bishop of Smyrna, who according to Irenaeus (Apud Euseb, H.E.V 24) visited Rome in 159 A.D. with this object, failed to induce Anicetus to conform to the Quartodeciman usage which Polycarp had inherited from his master, the apostle John." (Enc. Bri.)
The Apostle John was baptized by John the Baptist. (Acts 1.22).
Polycarp was baptized by John the Apostle, Dec. 25, A.D. 95. (Neanders Ch. Hist.--p. 285).
At the time the above visit to Rome A.D. 159, Polycarp was Pastor of the church of Smyrna. Certainly we would be safe in assuming that these brethren, Polycarp and John, were representatives of the New Testament faith to their generation. You remember John was an apostle of the Lord and wrote the Book of Revelation. They certainly aligned themselves with the Quartodecimans which was the Jewish interpretation of the Paschal festival, which was to be observed, according to the Jewish calendar and not the Roman calendar. The feast of unleavened bread and the passover feast were identical. Luke 22:1; Exodus 12:14-20.
John 19:31--"The Jews, therefore, because it was the Preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross upon the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath was a high day) besought Pilate that their legs be broken that they might be taken away."
Now, what means the Preparation? What kind of a Sabbath does it refer to? The Preparation Day was always the day of the feast of unleavened bread preceding the Passover Sabbath. The Sabbath referred to was the great Sabbath of the Passover that began at sundown on this Preparation day. You will please note that John is careful to say that this Sabbath was not the ordinary seventh day of the week, but a High Sabbath. This Sabbath came only once a year, and always came on the fourteenth day of Nisan. Now if the Jewish calendar is correct, He was crucified on the day before this Great Sabbath, which would have been Wednesday, April 13th. Now figure your Matthew 12:40 text and harmonize it with Matthew 28:1. I believe that from the moment He entered the grave late Wednesday evening that exactly 72 hours to the minute He was raised from the dead. [A. A. Davis]
Further thoughts: See Romans 14:5; Romans 6:1-4; "There is only one authorized Bible method of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is Believer's Baptism. Every time a believer in Christ is baptized, he preaches and testifies that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Never in the scriptures is there any reference to a day or a season for the purpose of observing the resurrection of Jesus. Col. 6:16-17--"Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an Holy day or of a new moon, or of the sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ."
We believe that those who have respect to holy days and new moons and sabbath days are Shadow worshippers. The term Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Whit Sunday, Easter Sunday, Blue Monday, Sad Tuesday, by what ever name, these terms are meaningless to the informed new Testament Christian. While we believe in the resurrection of Jesus, since the moment of His resurrection, we cannot accept the Roman Catholic dogma of Easter anymore than we can accept their dogma on the virgin Mary and purgatory. Because of this conviction, Baptists have been persecuted and rivers have run with Baptist blood, because Baptists would not accept a Roman Catholic decree that contradicted their conscience and their Bible. For the Resurrection we have everything. For Eostre, the pagan goddess of spring and fertility, for whom the Easter festival was evidently named, we have no place for her in our religious life. Let Baptists everywhere beware of the Easter heresy. Watching the sunrise doesn't prove anything. It rises three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but watching a Believer rising from the waters of baptism, is God's appointed testimony. And Jesus rose from the dead to die no more. But I do believe this much about Easter, the women should get new dresses and hats for Easter, but I do not believe rabbits lay eggs.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

TheCAUSE OF GOD AND

TheCAUSE OF GOD AND TRUTH.

Part 4

Chapter 6—Of The Heathens

To the doctrine of the ancients, concerning the necessity of grace to the performance of every good work, the Pelagians objected the virtues and famous actions of the heathens. These Vossius, a favorite author of Dr. Whitby’s[1] has largely proved, under various theses or propositions to want all the conditions requisite in good works; such as doing them according to the law of God, in love to him, from faith in him, and with a view to his glory; and that "though some few of the ancients were of opinion, that the more virtuous among the heathens, such as Socrates and others, were saved, yet this notion was condemned of old by the other fathers, especially in the time of Austin." The collection which Dr. Whitby[2] has made out of the fathers, is very little to the purpose, chiefly relating to the endowments of nature, the blessings of providence, and temporal favors bestowed on heathens in common with others, denied, by none. The principal testimonies in favor of the good works and salvation of the heathens are taken from Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Chrysostom, and Jerom; but these, as Dr. Edwards observes,[3] at least some of them, had been bred in a philosophical way themselves, and so had retained a charity for that sort of men, yea, thought better of them than they deserved. Besides, should these testimonies be examined, they will not be found so full and express as they are thought to be; and other passages of these writers may be produced, contradicting of them. As to Justin Martyr, when he says, that such as Socrates and Heraclitus were Christians, he does not mean, as a learned man of our nation has observed,[4] that they were perfectly, only in part so; that is, as they were partakers of and lived according to the logos, or reason, which Christ, the Word and Son of God, imparts to every man. And as to Clement of Alexandria, Vossius has clearly shown,[5] that he could not say or think, that any could be saved without faith, and without the knowledge of Christ; which he supposed the heathens had through Christ’s descent into hell, and preaching to them there. Nor that he could mean that the philosophy of the Greeks was sufficient to salvation, only at most, that it was one degree towards, or what had a tendency to lead to Christ. And though Chrysostom says, that before the coming of Christ, they that did not confess him might be saved, yet he elsewhere affirms,[6] that the works of men ignorant of God, are like to the garments of the dead, who are insensible of them; his words are these; "They that labor in good works, and know not the God of piety, are like leipsanois neeron, ‘to the remains of the dead, who are clothed with beautiful garments but have no sense of them.’" And though Jerom talks in one place,[7] of "the knowledge of God being by nature in all, and that no man is born without Christ, and hath not in himself the seeds of wisdom and justice, and other virtues; whence many without faith, and the gospel of Christ, do some things either wisely or holily;" yet in another place he says,[8] "Let us bring forth that sentence (The just shall live by faith) against those who, not believing in Christ, think themselves to be strong, wise, temperate, and just; that they may know that no man liveth without Christ, sine quo omnis virtus in vito est, without whom all virtue is to be reckoned for vice." To which I shall add two or three testimonies more, showing that the virtues of the heathens were not properly good works, but had only a show of them, and were insufficient to salvation, and conclude, says Origen,[9] "if a conversation of good manners were sufficient to men for salvation, how is it that the philosophers among the Gentiles, or many among heretics, continenter viventes nequaquam salvantur, ‘who live soberly, are not saved?’ but because the falsity of their doctrine darkens and defiles their conversation." Again he observes[10] from Peter in Clement, "that good works which are done by unbelievers profit them in this world, non et in illo ad consequendam vitam aeternam, but not to obtain eternal life in the other." Cyprian has these words;[11] "The philosophers also profess to follow this (patience), but as theft wisdom is false, so is their patience: for how can he be either wise or patient, qui nec sapientiam nec patientiam Dei novit, who neither knows the wisdom nor patience of God?" Ambrose[12] expresses himself in this manner, "Virtues, without faith, are leaves; they seem to be green, but cannot profit; they are moved with the wind, because they have no foundation. How many heathens have mercy, have sobriety! but they have no fruit, quia fidem non habent, because they have no faith."ENDNOTES:[1] Hist. Pelag, 1:3, par 3, p. 358 ad 379.[2] Discourse, etc. p. 550, etc.; ed. 2. 527, etc.[3] Veritas Redux, p. 439.[4] Bulli Judicium, Eccl. Cathol. de necess, credendi qued Christ. sit Deus, append, ad c. 7, p. 201, etc.[5] Hist. Pelag. 1.3, par. 3, p, 376, 377.[6] Serm. De Fid. et Leg. Nat. tom. 6. p. 838.[7] Comment. in Galatians p. 70, M.[8] Ibid. p. 76, B.[9] In Matthew hom. 27, fol. 53.[10] Ibid. 35, fol. 74; vide etiam Comment. in Romans 1. 2, fol. 142.[11] De Bono Patientiae, p. 313.[12] Enarrat. in Psalm 1 p. 665.