In the Outer Court
55
and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause
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came I unto this hour.” A foreboding of his coming conflict with the
powers of darkness, by reason of the position he had voluntarily taken
in regard to bearing the guilt of fallen man and taking upon himself
the Father’s wrath because of sin, caused the spirit of Jesus to faint,
and the pallor of death to overspread his countenance.
He remembered the persistence and malice of Satan, who had
boldly contended with the angels in Heaven that his sentence was
unjust, maintaining that there was no self-denial with God, and that
Satan, in struggling to carry out his purposes and have his own way,
was only imitating the example of God. If God followed his own
will perfectly and continually, why should not the first sons created in
his image do so? By this argument Satan deceived many of the holy
angels. He complained continually of God’s severity, just as children
sometimes complain of their parents’ severity in restraining them from
carrying out plans destructive to the family government. Rather than
submit to the will of God he turned from the light of reason, and set
himself in opposition to the divine plans.
In the warfare ensuing, Satan for a time seemed to hold the advan-
tage. He could lie; God could not lie. He could move in a thousand
crooked and deceiving ways to gain a desired object; God must pursue
the straightforward course of truth and righteousness. For a time Satan
triumphed in an apparent victory. But God would unmask the enemy
and reveal him in his true character. Christ, in taking the nature of
man, was divinity clothed in humanity. He came as the light of the
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world, to shine upon and scatter the thick darkness of Satan’s decep-
tions and reveal his workings to the children of men. Christ practiced
the most rigid self-denial in resisting the manifold temptations of the
adversary. He conquered Satan in the long fast of the wilderness, and
when he came to him as an angel of light, offering the dominion of the
world in exchange for his worship; he made sacrifices that will never
be required of man, as man can never attain to his exalted character.
His whole earthly life was a demonstration of perfect submission to
his Father’s will. The course of Christ and that of Satan present the
complete contrast of the life of an obedient with that of a disloyal son.
The final triumph of Christ over Satan could only be perfected
through the death of the former. He thus opened free salvation to man,
taking upon himself the stigma of the curse, and, in laying down his