Basic HTML Version
The Plan of Redemption, May 18
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto
life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory
and virtue.
2 Peter 1:3
.
The plan of salvation is but dimly comprehended by the Christian world. Man,
as now taught by men who claim to have a knowledge of the Scriptures, can never
know the extent of his fallen, degraded condition; but the mission of Christ will
reveal the truth as it is in Jesus. Man can know the depths to which he has sunk only
by beholding the wondrous chain of redemption employed to draw him up. The
extent of our ruin can be discerned only in the light of the law of God exhibited in
the cross of Calvary. The wonderful plan of redemption must be discerned in the
death of Christ.
The world by its own wisdom cannot acquire a correct knowledge of the true and
living God. When Christ came to this world, clothing His divinity with humanity,
the treatment He received from the highest authorities of a nation that professed to
know God, made fully manifest the strength of human wisdom and reason. Their
reason could not form a correct idea of God through His way and works.
Only through faith in Christ is it possible for man to live the law. Man is not
able to save himself, but the Son of God fights his battles for him, and places him
on vantage ground by giving him His divine attributes. And as man accepts the
righteousness of Christ, he is a partaker of the divine nature. He may keep the
commandments of God, and live. Says Peter: ... “Whereby are given unto us
exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
The truth as it is in Jesus is obedience to every precept of Jehovah. It is heart
work. Bible sanctification is not the spurious sanctification which will not search
the Scriptures, but will trust to good feeling and impulses rather than to the seeking
for truth as for hidden treasure. Bible sanctification will lead its possessors to know
the requirements of God and to obey them. There is a pure and holy heaven in store
for those who keep God’s commandments. It is worth lifelong, persevering, untiring
effort. Satan is on your right hand and on your left; he is before you and behind. He
supplies his falsehoods to every soul who is not cherishing the truth as it is in Jesus.
He, the destroyer, is upon you to palsy your every effort. But there is a crown of life
to be won, a life that measures with the life of God. And those who do not close
their hearts and minds to conviction will learn what the love of a holy and righteous
God is; for it is an amazing principle, which works in a mysterious and wonderful
manner to secure the salvation of the race (
The Review and Herald, February 8,
1898
).
[153]
149