80% of Americans will celebrate Easter this year (most popularly by eating a special meal, visiting family, going to church, and searching for eggs).
Cultural warriors proclaim victory over the significance of a Christian holiday in our culture, but if you look deeper, you learn that Easter celebration does not mean Christian.
Like other religious holidays that are more cultural than Biblical, Easter celebration in America far exceeds Bible belief.
Only 66% believe Jesus rose from the dead.
Only 52% believe they are sinners.
Only 34% believe good works cannot justify.
Only 30% believe Jesus was God.
Only 13% believe all sin deserves eternal damnation.
Only 11% believe in the trinity.
Evidently, Easter is not a celebration of saved Christians; it is a celebration of the culturally religious.
Many believe Jesus rose from the dead, but most remain ignorant of what Christ’s resurrection meant (i.e., the gospel that saves).
This is the problem with holy days. They create religious adherents that are not regenerate.
In other words, it creates religious practice as empty as the tomb. Most Christians claim, “He is risen,” but not because they are all saved.
When Israel lacked knowledge of the truth, yet continued in religious practice, God tells them to stop swearing, “the LORD lives” (Hos 4:15). He was practically dead to them.
God warned Jeremiah about the religious in his day: “though they say, the LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely” (Jer 5:1-2).
If not for the grace of Christ, Isaiah 1:14 could have been spoken by the Lord today as self-proclaimed Christians ignorantly celebrate a day in unbelief:
“Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.”
The good news is that God’s gracious response then to Israel abounds in this dispensation of grace (Rom 5:20).
“Come now, and let us reason together…” – Isa 1:18
The Lord would have us remember not just that he raised from the dead, but why he raised from the dead according to Paul’s gospel (2 Tim 2:8). This requires reasoning from scripture (Acts 17:2-4; 2 Cor 3:10).
When we move past the empty tomb to the mystery revelation of the risen Lord, we can create the unashamed workmen God desires (2 Tim 2:15-18).
In truth and love,
Justin “raised with him” Johnson