Truth Bearing the Divine Credentials
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loving Father. We must center our hopes of heaven upon Christ alone,
because He is our substitute and surety.
We have transgressed the law of God, and by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified. The best efforts that man in his own
strength can make, are valueless to meet the holy and just law that
he has transgressed; but through faith in Christ he may claim the
righteousness of the Son of God as all-sufficient. Christ satisfied the
demands of the law in His human nature. He bore the curse of the law
for the sinner, made an atonement for him, that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Genuine faith
appropriates the righteousness of Christ, and the sinner is made an
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overcomer with Christ; for he is made a partaker of the divine nature,
and thus divinity and humanity are combined.
He who is trying to reach heaven by his own works in keeping
the law, is attempting an impossibility. Man cannot be saved without
obedience, but his works should not be of himself; Christ should work
in him to will and to do of His good pleasure. If a man could save
himself by his own works, he might have something in himself in
which to rejoice. The effort that man makes in his own strength to
obtain salvation, is represented by the offering of Cain. All that man
can do without Christ is polluted with selfishness and sin; but that
which is wrought through faith is acceptable to God. When we seek
to gain heaven through the merits of Christ, the soul makes progress.
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, we may go on
from strength to strength, from victory to victory; for through Christ
the grace of God has worked out our complete salvation.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. Living faith enables
its possessor to lay hold on the merits of Christ, enables him to derive
great comfort and satisfaction from the plan of salvation.—
The Review
and Herald, July 1, 1890
.
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