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Why God Gives Us Truth

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 21, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 52.

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Why God Gives Us Truth

By ARTHUR W. SPAULDING

ARTHUR W. SPAULDING
Why does God give us truth? Most Christians, if you put that question to them, will give one of two answers: “In order to save us;” or, “That we may give it to others.” These answers contain but half truths; and they represent the attitude of the majority of church members, an attitude which is responsible for their spiritual sloth or their zeal without knowledge.
Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” He did not say, “The truth shall save you;” because, while it does save, to stop short with saving is not the object of truth. Sinners need saving; they can do nothing for God and humanity until they are saved from their sins. Therefore the first thing God does is to save from sin; the first great truth he offers, is salvation from sin. There is just one truth that saves, and that is the truth that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The truth of the atonement, of justification by faith, is the basic truth of Christianity. And it is the truth that the devil tries the hardest to hide. He has led one great church to deny the doctrine, and he has induced other churches which hold the doctrine to deny its practical application. Millions of professed Christians have not salvation, but are striving by their own good works to get salvation. Pin a man down to real facts, and in nine cases out of ten he will tell you that he has accepted the truth in order to be saved; he is keeping the Sabbath, he is paying tithe, he has adopted health reform, he is looking for the Lord to come, in order to get to heaven. But he never can be saved by such means. Whoever keeps the Sabbath in order to get to heaven never will get to heaven; for he is trusting in his own works, which never can save him, because they do not measure up to God’s standard.
Salvation is not surcease of sorrow, relief from trouble, a taking of lustful pleasure. If pleasure. Salvation is a freedom from the crushing load of sin, and a companionship with God, which as often occurs in a fiery furnace as on a mount of transfiguration. No man without that salvation, that abiding presence, loves to do right; no man with it loves to do wrong. Salvation is a free gift, not a wage; and he who has received that gift has received the love of the truth and the power to do right. He keeps the Sabbath, then, and he keeps the other nine commandments, not in order to be saved, but because he is saved. The justified-by-works tries to keep the law in order to get to heaven; tries and fails. The justified-by-grace keeps the law because he loves it.
The process, it is true, is not always instantaneous; it is a growth, often but slowly coming to perfection; and one may in a moment, by losing Jesus, lose that salvation, and commit sin; but so long as he keeps Jesus, the power of salvation, Jesus is within him, and holds him from falling. Sabbath keeping, and all other good works, are the fruit, not the cause, of salvation. You can’t keep the Sabbath unless you are saved. See Ex. 31:12-17. To us “who are saved” the gospel is the power of God. I Cor. 1:18. And you must be saved, not merely once in your life, but day by day and moment by moment.
Every Sabbath you truly keep (and that means more than you or I realize) is a Sabbath keeping performed by Christ, and not by you. His perfect Sabbath keeping, as his perfect keeping of the law in every other particular, works in the man who keeps the Sabbath and the law. The result of your salvation will be Sabbath keeping, if you know the truth of the Sabbath.
“Why, then, should I be taught the truth of the Sabbath?” That is the question. And the answer to it is the key to the whole purpose of God’s giving us truth. The truth is given to the members of the church to build them up, until they have the full stature of the character of Christ, until they are perfect in the work of ministering. To minister means to serve; as Jesus says, “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,” and, “I am among you as he that serveth.” Mark 10:45; Luke 22:27. That perfect ministry is the full stature of the character of Christ, that stature is the place to which Christians are to be brought by receiving, through the teachers Christ has ordained, the gifts of new and fuller truths. That is why God gives us more and more truth: that we may become better helpers of our fellow men. First, he saves us from our sins, by our acceptance of the great truth of the atonement, of justification by faith, of free grace; then he sets us to work, and in order that we may be more efficient, he gives us, point by point, more truth, greater light, which will revealour deficiencies and faults, which are then removed by the grace of Christ working in us, and we are made freer to do God’s service. In this way, “the truth shall make you free.”
Every additional truth God gives us is intended to free us from some superstition or evil practice which hinders our ministering to our fellow men. For instance, the truths of hygiene and rational living are given us not merely that we may have the pleasure of health, but that we may use that health of body and mind in blessing and helping others. A sick man is a poor minister. Perfect ministry requires perfect health.
And so it is with every truth which God reveals, up to the Sabbath, which is the crowning truth of the great system of edifying (building-up) truths. Every single truth you know, if you will analyze it, will be found to remove some obstacle in your way of being a better worker for Christ.
That is why God gives us truth. First, he gives us one great truth that saves us. We are saved to serve. Then he gives us a succession of truths, each one of which is to build us up, bring us nearer the stature of Christ in his work of ministry. And unless those truths accomplish that for us, they accomplish nothing at all. It is worth nothing to us to have the mere theory of the truth. But if those truths are working in our lives, they are making us more unselfish, more helpful, more intelligent, more efficient; and others will know that we have truth, not because we talk about it, but because of what they see in us and receive at our hands.
We are meant to practice the truth before we preach it. Christ never taught a truth that he had not tried and tested by practice; and his hearers, before they heard it from his lips, knew it from his practice, knew it from the healing of their sick, the clothing of their naked, the feeding of their hungry, the comforting of their sorrowing, the joy of their redeemed. “Christ prefaced the giving of his message by deeds of love and benevolence.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VII, page 228. He spent far more time in healing than in teaching, and what drew the crowds to his teaching was not a flamboyant system of advertising, but just the fact that he had practiced the truth among them. That is the best advertisement a Christian evangelist can have today.
How unprofitable it is for us to go out preaching doctrines to people if we make no use of those doctrines ourselves. Why should I urge a man to accept the Bible system of tithes and offerings if it has not acted its mission in my own life of making me more unselfish, economical, generous, and helpful to others, and enabled me to recognize God’s ownership in this world? Why should I attempt to teach others the truth of the sanctuary if my knowledge of Christ’s present position has not drawn me closer to him in communion, and in consequence made me more gentle, compassionate, patient, earnest, and sweetly serious? Why should I proclaim the coming of Christ as king in glory, if he is not already king in my life? If I do so, I bring the truth into ridicule instead of into favor. It is a fruitless and foolish waste of energy to try to proselyte to a faith which has no works, to teach truths that bear no fruitage in our lives. Let the tree bear its fruit, and people will seek it.
There is a cry coming up to God from this sick old world, a cry for help and comfort and salvation. To you and me who know him, he sends the message down: Go and give to them the help I have fitted you to give. Heal their sicknesses, comfort their sorrows, remove their ignorance, revive their hopes, bring them to the Source of life. Freely you have received; freely give.
Hendersonville, N. C.