p. 78 | WHITER THAN SNOW

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 19, 1880

WHITER THAN SNOW.

WHEN a flippant unbeliever accosted an earnest evangelical preacher with an objection to his sermon, and said: "Sir, I don't like your theology. It is all blood, blood, BLOOD! It savors of the shambles. I like a pleasanter gospel." The ambassador of Christ replied: "True, my theology is bloody. It recognizes as its foundation the death of Christ, with the thorn-pierced brow, bleeding hands and open side. I am quite content that it should be bloody; for God has said: 'Without shedding of blood,' there is no remission of sins; and, 'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.'"

"Scarlet" sins become "white as snow." How? "Not by works of righteousness which we have done." All the dyers on earth cannot dye a red into white. And no human merit can avail or cleanse one crimson spot of guilt away. "By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost," are we justified and sanctified, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood."

Of the redeemed in glory we read, "they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." The livery in Heaven is white. "Fine linen, clean and white," "white robes," "white horses;" "a white cloud," as the seat of the Son of man; "a great white throne" for the Judge; "a white stone" for the accepted saints, who "walk in white" with him who has made them "worthy." Verily, we must wear our "white raiment" here, if we would enter there. "They are without fault before the throne of God." And "Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it—that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing."

To the Fountain opened for sin and uncleanness let us daily draw near, and take with us the words of "the snow-prayer." As said a happy little girl who came in one morning to her Christian mother's knee, after a bright race in the crisp, freshly-fallen snow, "Mamma, I could not help pausing while I was at play, to pray the snow-prayer." "What did you pray, my dear?" asked the interested mother. The dear child replied, "Mamma, I said to Jesus, 'Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.'"

"Helpless and foul as the trampled snow, Sinner, despair not, Christ stoopeth low, To rescue the soul that was lost in sin, And raise it to life and enjoyment again; Groaning, bleeding, dying for thee, The Crucified hung on the accursed tree; His accents of mercy fell soft on thine ear— Is there mercy for me? will he heed my prayer? O God, in the stream that for sinners doth flow, Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

-Selected.