JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

The first converts accepted his word as truth, and their united assembly to hear the
apostles' teaching and to share in the breaking of bread and prayers (v. 42) constituted the
Church.
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The body of believers was formed on the assumption that Jesus had really risen from the
dead and that the coming of the Holy Spirit was a direct consequence of His ascension. This
assumption was never disproved, although the educated hierarchy of the Jewish nation which had
plotted and had finally accomplished Jesus death, opposed the movement bitterly.
Had Jesus’ body still been accessible, they could have produced it and thus have nullified
the preaching of the apostles. The priesthood did not refrain from doing so because they feared
popular opinion, for on several occasions they arrested the apostles and held them in jail for trial.
The obvious inference is that they did not deny the resurrection because they could not refute the
fact. The body could not be found, and no other explanation than resurrection could account for
its absence from the tomb.
The book of Acts records the remarkable growth of the church
Early Christianity, unlike Islam, was not spread at the point of the sword, by force, but
through the persuasiveness of her preaching. By the early fourth century, Christianity had
become so widespread and influential that she was recognized as the official religion of the
Roman Empire. While from this point onwards her successes must be attributed, at least in part,
to her new official status, before this point she had "nothing to commend her except her
beliefs."44 Church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette of Yale wrote in History of the Expansion
of Christianity:
"It was the conviction of the resurrection of Jesus which lifted his followers out of
the despair into which his death had cast them and which led to the perpetuation
of a movement begun by him. But for their profound belief that the crucified had
risen from the dead and they had seen him and talked with him, the death of
Jesus and even Jesus himself, would probably have been all but forgotten."45
A follower of Buddha writes of that religious leader,
“When Buddha died it was with that utter passing away in which nothing whatever
remains."46
Mohammed died on June 8, A.D. 632, at the age of 61. His tomb is visited yearly by tens
of thousands of Muslims. But they come to mourn his death, not to celebrate his resurrection.
Yet the church of Jesus Christ, not only on Easter Sunday, but on every Sunday, celebrate
the victory of her Lord over death and the grave.