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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
persons of the suffering children of men. He makes their necessities
His own and takes to His bosom their woes.
The moral darkness of a ruined world pleads to Christian men
and women to put forth individual effort, to give of their means and
of their influence, that they may be assimilated to the image of Him
who, though He possessed infinite riches, yet for our sakes became
poor. The Spirit of God cannot abide with those to whom He has sent
the message of His truth but who need to be urged before they can
have any sense of their duty to be co-workers with Christ. The apostle
enforces the duty of giving from higher grounds than merely human
sympathy because the feelings are moved. He enforces the principle
that we should labor unselfishly with an eye single to the glory of God.
Christians are required by the Scriptures to enter upon a plan of
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active benevolence which will keep in constant exercise an interest
in the salvation of their fellow men. The moral law enjoined the
observance of the Sabbath, which was not a burden except when that
law was transgressed and they were bound by the penalties involved
in breaking it. The tithing system was no burden to those who did not
depart from the plan. The system enjoined upon the Hebrews has not
been repealed or relaxed by the One who originated it. Instead of being
of no force now, it was to be more fully carried out and more extended,
as salvation through Christ alone should be more fully brought to light
in the Christian age.
Jesus made known to the lawyer that the condition of his having
eternal life was to carry out in his life the special requirements of the
law, which consisted in his loving God with all his heart, and soul,
and mind, and strength, and his neighbor as himself. When the typical
sacrifices ceased at the death of Christ, the original law, engraved in
tables of stone, stood immutable, holding its claims upon man in all
ages. And in the Christian age the duty of man was not limited, but
more especially defined and simply expressed.
The gospel, extending and widening, required greater provisions
to sustain the warfare after the death of Christ, and this made the
law of almsgiving a more urgent necessity than under the Hebrew
government. Now God requires, not less, but greater gifts than at any
other period of the world. The principle laid down by Christ is that the
gifts and offerings should be in proportion to the light and blessings