Howard W. Hunter wrote:
Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, pupil of Aristotle, conqueror of most of the known world in his time was one of the world’s great young leaders. After years of exercising military pomp and prowess and after extending his kingdom from Macedonia to Egypt and from Cyprus to India, he wept when there seemed to be no more world to conquer. Then as evidence of just how ephemeral such power is, Alexander caught a fever and died at thirty-three years of age. The vast kingdom he had gained virtually died with him.
Quite a different young leader also died at what seems such an untimely age of thirty-three. He likewise was a king, a pupil and a conqueror. Yet he received no honors from man, achieved no territorial conquests, rose to no political station. So far as we know, he never held a sword nor wore a single piece of armor. But the Kingdom he established still flourishes some two thousand years later. His power was not of this world.
The differences between Alexander and this equally young Nazarene are many. But the greatest difference is in their ultimate victories. Alexander conquered lands, peoples, principalities, and earthly kingdoms. But he who was called the Perfect Leader, he who was and is the life and light of the world—Jesus Christ the Son of God—conquered what neither Alexander nor any other could defeat or overcome: Jesus of Nazareth conquered death. Against the medals and monuments of centuries of men’s fleeting victories stands the only monument necessary to mark the eternal triumph—an empty garden tomb. . . .
Without the Resurrection, the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes a litany of wise sayings and seemingly unexplainable miracles—but saying and miracles with no ultimate triumph. No, the ultimate triumph is in the ultimate miracle: for the first time in the history of mankind, one who was dead raised himself into living immortality. He was the Son of God, the Son of the immortal Father in Heaven, and his triumph over physical and spiritual death is the good news every Christian tongue should speak. (Howard W. Hunter, was a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles for many years before becoming the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Lord’s Prophet during the mid 1990’s.)
