p. 9 | The Greatest Impeachment and Its Refutation

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 21, 1909

The Greatest Impeachment and Its Refutation

By W. E. Haskell

God’s Character Impeached

W. E. HASKELL

The Word of God declares that Satan is a liar, and that he works with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. John 8:44; 2 Thess. 2:9, 10. Sin is deceitful and leads the sinner to justify himself and to think that all his ways are right (Heb. 3:13; Luke 16:15; Prov. 16:2); but in so doing God is necessarily condemned. Job 40:8.

God condemns sin. Sin would condemn God. So there is a double trial. Sin is on trial before the universe; so also is God. In the indictment which sin brings against God, God’s character is impeached. The truth of God is changed into a lie. Rom. 1:25. God is accused of being selfish; of doing nothing freely from love. This greatest slander was begun in heaven and renewed in Eden. Gen. 3:1-5. There it was represented that God was not seeking our good, but his own; that he wants to keep us down and exalt himself; to keep the best for himself and exclude us from it; that he requires sacrifice and self-denial from us, but will make none himself.

We are led to think that God’s good-will changes toward us when we sin against him. Ps. 30:21. This insidious deceptive feeling creeps into the human heart, urging us to do something to attract the attention of God to ourselves, provide some sacrifice, make some propitiation, devise some means to win his favor and reconcile God to us. This is all the outgrowth of that greatest falsehood. But by an act which speaks louder than any words God refuted the slander and revealed the truth. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.” 1 John 3:16. The cross reveals a God “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,” and a Saviour who is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” James 1:17; Heb. 13:8. It is a revelation of their unchanging purpose. But what is that purpose? Jesus said that he “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Matt. 20:28. But he said also that “the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” John 5:19. The cross demonstrates that it is the eternal purpose of the Father and Son to give themselves in all their fulness to minister unto others in every way possible for their highest good. In all the eternity of the past, in all the eternity of the future, this ever has been and ever will be their all-controlling purpose, with “no variableness, neither shadow of turning;” “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” This is their life, their joy, their glory.

When sin entered this world, and there was no other way in which they could give themselves to minister unto sinful man, then the Father gave his Son, who gave himself, unto the death of the cross. But it was only their unchanging eternal purpose adapting itself to the need and changed conditions of this fallen world.

The cross is the greatest demonstration of this fact, but it only demonstrates what ever has been, and ever will be, the greatest truth that God is love, infinite and unchanging. Then when we sin and feel that God’s good-will has changed toward us, we may know that that very feeling is sin’s slander by which it is seeking to misrepresent our Heavenly Father. No one was ever so misjudged and falsely accused as is he; and because of this the world does not know him as he is; for “he that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” 1 John 4:8. It is God who is seeking to attract the attention of mankind to himself (Isa. 65:2), who has devised the means, provided the sacrifice, made the propitiation whereby we might be reconciled unto himself. 2 Sam. 14:14; John 1:29; Rom. 3:24, 25; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19. The cross reveals the Father and Son enduring the greatest possible suffering, making the greatest possible sacrifice, thereby making self-evident that there is absolutely nothing for our good that they will not suffer or sacrifice. Rom. 8:32; Ps. 34:10; 84:10.

So on the cross, by this mightiest demonstration of the greatest truth, was made the most convincing, overwhelming refutation of the greatest slander. So complete was this that when all the universe—friend and foe, saved and lost—render their final verdict, there will be a complete vindication of God’s character by a unanimous acquittal from every charge in the indictment. Rev. 15:3, 4; Rom. 3:19; Phil. 2:10, 11. In this great trial we can not be mere spectators. In sin’s impeachment of God’s character, on one side or the other we must be witnesses.

Brayton, Tenn.