Chapter 29—Christ Our Only Hope
[
This article appeared in
The Signs of the Times, August 2, 1905
.]
Before the foundations of the world were laid, Christ, the Only
Begotten of God, pledged Himself to become the Redeemer of the
human race, should Adam sin. Adam fell, and He who was partaker of
the Father’s glory before the world was, laid aside His royal robe and
kingly crown, and stepped down from His high authority to become
a Babe in Bethlehem, that by passing over the ground where Adam
stumbled and fell, He might redeem fallen human beings. He subjected
Himself to all the temptations that the enemy brings against men and
women; and all the assaults of Satan could not make Him swerve from
His loyalty to the Father. By living a sinless life He testified that every
son and daughter of Adam can resist the temptations of the one who
first brought sin into the world.
Christ brought men and women power to overcome. He came to
this world in human form, to live a man amongst men. He assumed
the liabilities of human nature, to be proved and tried. In His humanity
He was a partaker of the divine nature. In His incarnation He gained
in a new sense the title of the Son of God. Said the angel to Mary,
“The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that
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holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God”
(
Luke 1:35
). While the Son of a human being, He became the Son of
God in a new sense. Thus He stood in our world—the Son of God, yet
allied by birth to the human race.
Christ came in human form to show the inhabitants of the unfallen
worlds and of the fallen world that ample provision has been made to
enable human beings to live in loyalty to their Creator. He endured
the temptations that Satan was permitted to bring against Him, and
resisted all his assaults. He was sorely afflicted, and hard beset, but
God did not leave Him without recognition. When He was baptized
of John in Jordan, as He came up out of the water, the Spirit of God,
like a dove of burnished gold, descended upon Him, and a voice from
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