The Meaning of Easter

Easter is the most important part in the Christian theology for one simple reason--it marks an affirmation of the belief that a man can actually conquer death through the transformation of the Self.


Yes, for millennia, death has animated the minds of men. Many theories were propounded about it. Many philosophers have dedicated most of their lives unlocking its mysteries and the very basic question is, how to actually conquer death.


Man knows that every living organism, will at some point, face extinction. We now know that death occurs when our cells die. Our cells have its natural life span, currently at the maximum of 120 years. When a breakdown occurs in our normal functions, especially in some vital organ or what have you, we die. 


A scientist by the name of Aubrey de Grey identified the key events that makes us age and die.


First, organs are damaged by gradual cell loss. The gradual cell loss leads to a weakening of our defense system, making us susceptible to diseases and illnesses.


Second, cells getting old and worn out but refusing to die. These old worn out cells infect our body, making our body toxic and impure.


Third, a build-up of crud in our cells' garbage compactors known as lysosomes. The lysosomes break down the waste with enzymes. Overtime, they can get clogged, and the cells become poisioned and tissues goes bad.


Dangerous crud accumulating in the spaces between the cells. Fifth, sugar molecules bonding with protein molecules, over time causing tissues to stiffen and harden. Sixth, mitochondrial DNA mutations caused by exposure to free radicals and lastly, DNA mutatins in the cell's nucleus leading to cancer. 


After death our bodies then enter the decomposition stage. What is left of us is normally a pile of bones, which calcifies and then turns into fossils.


Now, what happens to our thoughts? What happens to all those accumulated experiences that we encountered when alive? 


It seems that all of these things ceases to exist as we die. Fact is, even us ceases to exist upon death.


Death, it seems, is the inevitable end of life. 


Yet, when one observes nature, death is simply not the inevitable end. Life continues to exists even after death.


There is this type of jellyfish that remains immortal by transforming itself back into polyp status. When damage occurs in its cells or system, it reverts back into its "baby stage", and then heals itself and assumes normalcy, growing until eventually it gets damage again, and the process begins all over again.


If this happens in one cell or two celled organisms, can it happen in multi-celled organisms such as man?


The bible teaches us the Way towards eternal life. 

We die because we are flesh. Flesh is mortal. We depend on so many things to keep us alive.

We depend on food. We depend on keeping the right body temperature to keep all our vital organs well and functioning. We depend on the functions of our organs. If one vital organ fails to function, then, we die.

At most, flesh lives for 120 years and then it dies. Why does flesh die? Flesh is made of corruptible material. It wastes away. Why ? Whenever we take food, we nourish ourselves yet, we actually deteriorate. The more we eat, the higher the chances of us dying.

When we take food, it does feed our bodies, only for a definitive length of time. Nowadays, despite new technologies, man can only live by about 120 years,[1] and that’s it.

Observe—those who live unholy lives are the ones who die early.  The more we sin, the more we live dirty and filthy lives. An example—if we eat dirty food, we die. If we smoke, we die. If we do things that is abominable, for example, incense, we die. We die due to corruption of our bodies. We corrupt our bodies because we live unhealthy and unholy lives.

Romans 7:5 says that while we are in the flesh, the motions of sins, did work in our own bodies “bring forth fruit unto death”. That is the truth. A sinful lifestyle leads to death, because it corrupts the body. 

We die because we are flesh. Ezekiel 18:20 says that a soul that sinneth die. A sinning soul is unclean, his heart not pure (Prov. 20:9). For all that is born of a woman is unclean (Job 15:14). And there is not a just man upon the earth, that doeth good and sinneth not (Eccleasiastes 7:20).

Our ancestors of old live long lives because they walk with God. What does this mean? It means that their lifestyles follow that of God’s precepts. Enoch lived three hundred sixty five years before God took him (General 5:24). Enoch ascended into heaven—flesh, bones and spirit. Enoch must have known several secrets to a long life because shortly after him, his descendants lived unusually long lives—Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty nine years, while his son Lamech, seven hundred and seven years ( Genesis 5:27, 31). Even Noah, the descendant of Lamech lived 950 years, just 19 years short of Methuselah (Genesis 9:29).

In Genesis 6:3, God declared that flesh can only live by 120 years, yet even after God declared these, several of Noah’s descendants lived more than this: Shem, son of Noah, lived five hundred years. Arphaxad, four hundred and three years.(Gen. 11:13). Salah lived four hundred and three years (Gen 11:15) while his son, Eber lived four hundred and thirty years. Terah, meanwhile, lived two hundred and five years (Gen. 11:32).

How did Enoch do it? Hebrews 11:5 has an explanation—faith. Enoch believed that he would not see death. His unshakable faith in God earned his rewards.

Faith, by itself, could give man a longer life. By “walking with God” one earns the right to live long and even earn the right to eternal life.

Yet, they still died. How then can one earn the right to live forever?

When a soul sins, he is cut off from God (Number 15:31). When one is cut off from God, he does not enjoy the mercies and glory of God. When we die, we all goes back to God,[2] the Father of the Spirits. [3]If our spirits are unpure, God will spake us out of His midst, because only the Holy merits the right to see God. Not all who return to God will merit everlasting life. Some who does good will wake up resurrected while those who worked iniquity, a resurrection of damnation (John 5:29).

John 5:29 is important for us to understand because this means that in the last days, every single spirit will be transformed. All of us will be resurrected. In the Book of Daniel, every single one who sleeps in the dust of the earth shall awake in those last days, some to everlasting life and some to “shame and everlasting contempt.”[4] Only the righteous will merit the reward of life eternal while those who perpetually sin, shall go away into everlasting punishment.  [5]

Why is it that those who sin will not be rewarded with everlasting life? Those who sin live in the flesh, which, according to the scriptures, is not of God’s. that which lives by the dictates of the flesh is simply, not of God.[6]

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. (1 John 2:16-17)

How do we live forever?

The body is flesh while the spirit lives forever. If we can just merge the flesh with the eternally living spirit, we can live forever. Is it possible for a man to live forever with his spirit clinging to his soul?

What is life eternal? John 17:3 says that life eternal is for man to know God as the only true God “and Jesus Christ”.  So, there are two requirements: one needs to know God as the true God and Jesus Christ.  Why is it important to know Christ? In John 3:36 it says that those who believed in the son of God will be given everlasting life.

What is the way then that leads to eternal life?

What is the Way?

The Way is a book which teaches us how to attain eternal life. What is the Way, the Truth and the Life that Jesus said in John 14:6? Why did he say that he is the Way, the Truth and the Life?

What Jesus referred to in John 14:6 are stages of illumination for mankind to attain eternal life. The Way is the means towards the Truth and the Truth is the way to life. By doing the things contained in the Way, man will discover the Truth and when he discovers the Truth, he gets Life.

Jesus is the culmination of all these—the way, the truth and the life—because he already attained illumination. He has broken the barriers that hinder man from the attainment of eternal life. He lived according to the law and those of the Prophets, discovered the Truth and now, was given eternal life.

What Jesus is asking us to do is follow his examples, how he lived, because that is the Way. He is not asking us to worship him—worship the one who made him, he says. His life is the Way because it proves that God’s ways can actually be realized by man. That man is totally capable of total obeisance is possible by doing what Jesus did when he lived on earth.

When one lives like Christ, he discovers the Truth. And what is the Truth?

That man can live forever. His corruptible nature can be changed to incorruptibility. How will man attain incorruptibility? It is by realizing that he has to live in a place where there is no corruption. Life depends on the environment it is in. If man goes to a place where there is no corruption, then, he will be able to live more than 120 years, the length of life God gave man as a consequence of man being flesh. [1]

And where is this place that is without corruption? This is a place called the realm of Light. How will man be able to go there? By learning the things which those who inhabit the realm of Light do. What are these things that they do? They keep themselves pure. How do they keep themselves pure? By thinking of things pure and Godly and keeping away from things which makes their bodies impure.

The human body is not made to last forever. It is made up of cells created and destined to die. When the cells of the body perish, death comes.  The life span of cells is the internal clock of man.

For man to live forever, he must transform and release his eternal spirit from the bonds of his body. That which is incorruptible lies within man. When the body is no more, the spirit needs a dwelling place.

When an evil person dies, his spirit becomes defiled. A spirit that is defiled will obviously seek a place of defilement.

When a holy person dies, his spirit becomes blessed and holy. A holy spirit will seek a place of utter bliss and holiness.

In the last day, the spirit of those who obey the Way will merit a reward—their spirits will attain another form, a holy form, that is pure. This form will enable them to live in the presence of God.

Remember that the heavens were described by the Ancients as “somewhat like water, an ocean.” That is allegorical. It just says that man cannot live in the heavens without an apparatus, or something that will enable man to breathe and act normally as what he does on earth.

The corruptible body of man cannot contain the holiness of paradise. The only way for man to live in paradise is for his corruptible body to attain incorruptibility so that he can now breathe and move freely in paradise. That is the Truth.

When man realizes the Truth, he is now prepared to accept Life. And what is Life that Jesus and the Prophets refer to?

It is the life spent eternally with God in his garden. It is a life which Adam and Eve experienced some millennia ago.

It is a life shared under God. 

[1] Genesis 6:1.

---

[1] Genesis 6:3

[2] Eze 18:4

[3] Num. 16:22; Heb. 12:9

[4] Dan 12:2 

[5] Mat 25:46 

[6] Joh 3:6  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

That controversial Barry Wain article

Far Eastern Economic Review
January/February 2008
Manila’s Bungle in The South China Sea

by Barry Wain

When Vietnamese students gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi last December to protest against China’s perceived bullying over disputed territory in the South China Sea, it signaled Hanoi’s intention to turn up the heat a bit.

And Beijing reacted in kind; instead of downplaying the incident, a foreign ministry spokesman complained, “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands.” The bluster on both sides, while just a blip in this long-running feud, is a timely reminder that the South China Sea remains one of the region’s flashpoints. What most observers don’t realize is that in the last few years, regional cooperative efforts to coax Beijing into a more measured stance have been set back by one of the rival claimants to the islands.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s hurried trip to China in late 2004 produced a major surprise. Among the raft of agreements ceremoniously signed by the two countries was one providing for their national oil companies to conduct a joint seismic study in the contentious South China Sea, a prospect that caused consternation in parts of Southeast Asia. Within six months, however, Vietnam, the harshest critic, dropped its objections and joined the venture, which went ahead on a tripartite basis and shrouded in secrecy.

In the absence of any progress towards solving complex territorial and jurisdictional disputes in the South China Sea, the concept of joint development is resonating stronger than ever. The idea is fairly simple: Shelve sovereignty claims temporarily and establish joint development zones to share the ocean’s fish, hydrocarbon and other resources. The agreement between China, the Philippines and Vietnam, three of the six governments that have conflicting claims, is seen as a step in the right direction and a possible model for the future.

But as details of the undertaking emerge, it is beginning to look like anything but the way to go. For a start, the Philippine government has broken ranks with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which was dealing with China as a bloc on the South China Sea issue. The Philippines also has made breathtaking concessions in agreeing to the area for study, including parts of its own continental shelf not even claimed by China and Vietnam. Through its actions, Manila has given a certain legitimacy to China’s legally spurious “historic claim” to most of the South China Sea.

Although the South China Sea has been relatively peaceful for the past decade, it remains one of East Asia’s potential flashpoints. The Paracel Islands in the northwest are claimed by China and Vietnam, while the Spratly Islands in the south are claimed in part or entirety by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. All but Brunei, whose claim is limited to an exclusive economic zone and a continental shelf that overlap those of its neighbors, man military garrisons in the scattered islets, cays and rocks of the Spratlys.

After extensive Chinese structures were discovered in 1995 on Mischief Reef, on the Philippine continental shelf and well within the Philippine 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, Asean persuaded Beijing to drop its resistance to the “internationalization” of the South China Sea issue. Instead of insisting on only bilateral discussions with claimant states, China agreed to deal with Asean as a group on the matter. Rodolfo Severino, a former secretary-general of Asean, has lauded “Asean solidarity and cooperation in a matter of vital security concern.”

Asean and China, however, failed in their attempt to negotiate a code of conduct. In the “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea,” signed in 2002, they pledged to settle territorial disagreements peacefully and to exercise restraint in activities that could spark conflict. But the declaration is far from watertight. A political statement, not a legally binding treaty, it doesn’t specify the geographical scope and is, at best, an interim step.

Since the issuance of the declaration, a tenuous stability has descended on the South China Sea. With Asean countries benefiting from China’s booming economy, boosted by a free-trade agreement, Southeast Asian political leaders are happy to forget about this particular set of problems that once bedeviled their relations with Beijing. Yet none of the multifaceted disputes has been resolved, and no mechanism exists to prevent or manage conflicts. With no plans to discuss even the sovereignty of contested islands, claimants now accept that it will be decades, perhaps generations, before the tangled claims are reconciled.

Recent incidents and skirmishes are a sharp reminder of how dangerous the situation remains. In the middle of last year, Chinese naval vessels fired on Vietnamese fishing boats near the Paracels, killing one fisherman and wounding six others, while British giant BP halted work associated with a gas pipeline off the Vietnamese coast after a warning by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. In the past few months, Beijing and Hanoi have traded denunciations as the Chinese, in particular, maneuver to reinforce territorial claims. Vietnam protested when China conducted a large naval exercise around the Paracels in November.

China’s decision in December to create an administrative center on Hainan to manage the Paracels, Spratlys and another archipelago, though symbolic, was regarded as particularly provocative by Hanoi. The Vietnamese authorities facilitated demonstrations outside the Chinese diplomatic missions in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to make known their displeasure.

Friction can be expected to increase as the demand for energy by China and dynamic Southeast Asian economies rises and they intensify the search for oil and gas. While hydrocarbon reserves in the South China Sea are unproven, the belief that huge deposits exist keeps interest intense. As world oil prices hit record levels, the discovery of commercially viable reserves would raise tensions and “transform security circumstances” in the Spratlys, according to Ralf Emmers, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

President Arroyo’s agreement with China for a joint seismic study was controversial in several respects. By not consulting other Asean members beforehand, the Philippines abandoned the collective stance that was key to the group’s success with China over the South China Sea. Ironically, it was Manila that first sought a united front and rallied Asean to confront China over its intrusion into Mischief Reef a decade earlier. Sold the idea by politicians with business links who have other deals going with the Chinese, Ms. Arroyo did not seek the views of her foreign ministry, Philippines officials say. By the time the foreign ministry heard about it and objected, it was too late, the officials say.

Philippine diplomats might have been able to warn her that while joint development has been successfully implemented elsewhere, Beijing’s understanding of the concept is peculiarly Chinese. The only location that China is known to have nominated for joint development is a patch off the southern coast of Vietnam called Vanguard Bank, which is in Vietnamese waters where China has “no possibly valid claim,” as a study by a U.S. law firm put it. Beijing’s suggestion in the 1990s that it and Hanoi jointly develop Vanguard Bank was considered doubly outrageous because China insisted that it alone must retain sovereignty of the area. Also of no small consideration was the fact that such a bilateral deal would split Southeast Asia.

The hollowness of China’s policy of joint development, loudly proclaimed for nearly 20 years, was confirmed long ago by Hasjim Djalal, Indonesia’s foremost authority on maritime affairs, when he headed a series of workshops on the South China Sea. Mr. Hasjim set out to test the concept of joint development, taking several years to identify an area in which each country would both relinquish and gain something in terms of its claims. In 1996, he designated an area of some thousands of square kilometers, amounting to a small opening in the middle of the South China Sea, which cut across the Spratlys and went beyond them. Joint development, unspecified, was to take place in the “hole,” with no participant having to formally abandon its claims. Beijing alone refused to further explore the doughnut proposal, as it was dubbed, complaining that the intended zone was in the area China claimed. Of course it was, that being the essence of the plan, without which it was difficult to imagine having joint development.

China’s bottom line on joint development at that time: What is mine is mine and what is yours is ours.

Beijing and Manila did not make public the text of their “Agreement for Seismic Undertaking for Certain Areas in the South China Sea By and Between China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Philippine National Oil Company.” After the agreement was signed on Sept. 1, 2004, the Philippine government said the joint seismic study, lasting three years, would “gather and process data on stratigraphy, tectonics and structural fabric of the subsurface of the area.”

Although the government said the undertaking “has no reference to petroleum exploration and production,” it was obvious that the survey was intended precisely to gauge prospects for oil and gas exploration and production. Nobody could think of an alternative explanation for seismic work, especially in the wake of year-earlier press reports that CNOOC and PNOC had signed a letter of intent to begin the search for oil and gas.

Vietnam immediately voiced concern, declaring that the agreement, concluded without consultation, was not in keeping with the spirit of the 2002 Asean-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties. Hanoi “requested” Beijing and Manila disclose what they had agreed and called on other Asean members to join Vietnam in “strictly implementing” the declaration. After what Hanoi National University law lecturer Nguyen Hong Thao calls “six months of Vietnamese active struggle, supported by other countries,” state-owned PetroVietnam joined the China-Philippine pact.

Vietnam’s inclusion in the modified and renamed “Tripartite Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking in the Agreement Area in the South China Sea,” signed on March 14, 2005, was scarcely a victory for consensus-building and voluntary restraint. The Philippines, militarily weak and lagging economically, had opted for Chinese favors at the expense of Asean political solidarity. In danger of being cut out, the Vietnamese joined, “seeking to make the best out of an unsatisfactory situation,” as Mr. Severino puts it. The transparency that Hanoi had demanded was still missing, with even the site of the proposed seismic study concealed.

Now that the location is known, the details having leaked into research circles, the reasons for wanting to keep it under wraps are apparent: “Some would say it was a sell-out on the part of the Philippines,” says Mark Valencia, an independent expert on the South China Sea. The designated zone, a vast swathe of ocean off Palawan in the southern Philippines, thrusts into the Spratlys and abuts Malampaya, a Philippine producing gas field. About one-sixth of the entire area, closest to the Philippine coastline, is outside the claims by China and Vietnam. Says Mr. Valencia: “Presumably for higher political purposes, the Philippines agreed to these joint surveys that include parts of its legal continental shelf that China and Vietnam don’t even claim.”

Worse, by agreeing to joint surveying, Manila implicitly considers the Chinese and Vietnamese claims to have a legitimate basis, he says. In the case of Beijing, this has serious implications, since the broken, U-shaped line on Chinese maps, claiming almost the entire South China Sea on “historic” grounds, is nonsensical in international law. (Theoretically, Beijing might stake an alternative claim based on an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf from nearby islets that it claims, but they would be restricted by similar claims by rivals.) Manila’s support for the Chinese “historic claim,” however indirect, weakens the positions of fellow Asean members Malaysia and Brunei, whose claimed areas are partly within the Chinese U-shaped line. It is a stunning about-face by Manila, which kicked up an international fuss in 1995 when the Chinese moved onto the submerged Mischief Reef on the same underlying “historic claim” to the area.

Some commentators have hailed the tripartite seismic survey as a landmark event, echoing the upbeat interpretation put on it by the Philippines and China. The parties insist it is a strictly commercial venture by their national oil companies that does not change the sovereignty claims of the three countries involved. Ms. Arroyo calls it an “historic diplomatic breakthrough for peace and security in the region.” But that assessment is, at the very least, premature.

Not only do the details of the three-way agreement remain unknown, but almost nothing has been disclosed about progress on the seismic study, which should be completed in the next few months. Much will depend on the results and what the parties do next. Already, according to regional officials, China has approached Malaysia and Brunei separately, suggesting similar joint ventures. If it is confirmed that China has split Asean and the Southeast Asian claimants and won the right to jointly develop areas of the South China Sea it covets only by virtue of its “historic claim,” Beijing will have scored a significant victory.

Mr. Wain, writer-in-residence at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, is a former editor of The Wall Street Journal Asia