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Testimonies for the Church Volume 8
Christ’s Victory Over Unbelief
While upon this earth, the Son of God was the Son of man; yet
there were times when His divinity flashed forth. Thus it was when
He said to the paralytic: “Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.”
Matthew 9:2
.
“But there were certain of the scribes sitting there,” who “began to
reason,” not openly, “but in their hearts, “saying, Who is this which
speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”
Mark
2:6
;
Luke 5:21
.
“And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil
in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven
thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of
man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of
the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.”
Matthew
9:4-6
.
The great Medical Missionary took away the sins of the paralytic
and then presented him to God as pardoned. And He gave him also
physical healing. God had given His Son power to lay hold of the
eternal throne. While Christ stood forth in His own personality, He
reflected the luster of the position of honor that He had held within the
enriching light of the eternal throne.
On another occasion Christ made the request: “Father, glorify Thy
name.” And in answer there came “a voice from heaven, saying, I have
both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
John 12:28
.
If this voice did not move the impenitent, if the power that Christ
manifested in His mighty miracles did not cause the Jews to believe, we
should not be greatly surprised to find that men and women today are in
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danger, through continual association with those who are incredulous,
of manifesting the same unbelief that the Jews manifested, and of
developing the same perverted understanding.
I am made unutterably sad as I consider what has been opened
before me regarding the condition of things at Battle Creek and other
centers of our work, where great light has been shining. In the past,
when matters have been shown to be wrong, there has been a re-
alization of the wrong, and this has been followed by confession,
repentance, and thorough reformation. But of late there have not been