Teacher Sent From God
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conception strengthened the power of sin. Bent on self-pleasing, men
came to regard God as such a one as themselves—a Being whose aim
was self-glory, whose requirements were suited to His own pleasure;
a Being by whom men were lifted up or cast down according as they
helped or hindered His selfish purpose. The lower classes regarded the
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Supreme Being as one scarcely differing from their oppressors, save
by exceeding them in power. By these ideas every form of religion
was molded. Each was a system of exaction. By gifts and ceremonies,
the worshipers sought to propitiate the Deity in order to secure His
favor for their own ends. Such religion, having no power upon the
heart or the conscience, could be but a round of forms, of which men
wearied, and from which, except for such gain as it might offer, they
longed to be free. So evil, unrestrained, grew stronger, while the
appreciation and desire for good diminished. Men lost the image of
God and received the impress of the demoniacal power by which they
were controlled. The whole world was becoming a sink of corruption.
There was but one hope for the human race—that into this mass of
discordant and corrupting elements might be cast a new leaven; that
there might be brought to mankind the power of a new life; that the
knowledge of God might be restored to the world.
Christ came to restore this knowledge. He came to set aside the
false teaching by which those who claimed to know God had misrep-
resented Him. He came to manifest the nature of His law, to reveal in
His own character the beauty of holiness.
Christ came to the world with the accumulated love of eternity.
Sweeping away the exactions which had encumbered the law of God,
He showed that the law is a law of love, an expression of the Divine
Goodness. He showed that in obedience to its principles is involved
the happiness of mankind, and with it the stability, the very foundation
and framework, of human society.
So far from making arbitrary requirements, God’s law is given to
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men as a hedge, a shield. Whoever accepts its principles is preserved
from evil. Fidelity to God involves fidelity to man. Thus the law
guards the rights, the individuality, of every human being. It restrains
the superior from oppression, and the subordinate from disobedience.
It ensures man’s well-being, both for this world and for the world to
come. To the obedient it is the pledge of eternal life, for it expresses
the principles that endure forever.