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The "I Come" Which Has Been

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 18, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 38.

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The "I Come" Which Has Been

By L. F. Starr

L. F. STARR
“Then said I, Lo, I come: . . . I delight to do thy will.” Ps. 40:7, 8; Heb. 10:7-9.
The truth contained in the prophetic and apostolic utterance of the Saviour embraces the plan of human redemption by his offering himself as man's sacrifice and his coming again with power and great glory a King of kings.
We are invited to accept this heart-lifting and cheering message, which brings good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people, “to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Let us look up to the heavens and ponder a little while that great antecedent to Bethlehem, the self-consecration of the eternal Son, to his incarnate life and work.
The will of the Father to redeem sinners by his incarnation and death was most pleasing to the heart of Christ. It is said (Prov. 8:31, R. V.), when he was solacing himself in the sweetest enjoyment of his Father, that the very prospect of this work gave him pleasure, that his “delight was with the sons of men.”
It became him to give himself cheerfully and with delight that thereby he might give his death the nature of a sacrifice. This was necessary to commend the love of Jesus Christ to those for whom he gave himself.
That he came into the world to die is a mercy of the first magnitude; but that he came in love to our souls, and underwent untold sufferings with such willingness for our sakes,—this heightens it above all comprehension.
The Scripture (Ps. 40:7, 8; Heb. 10:7-9) lifts the veil and discloses to us the mind which was in Christ Jesus when, in eternity, he, the Son, beloved before the foundation of the world, willed to come down and tabernacle in the flesh. John 1:14.
It gives to us the thought with which he, being true God (John 1:1), elected to become true man. John 1:14. It reveals his resolve to come and do the Father's will in the work of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken since the world began. Acts 3:19.
“Lo, I come . . . to do thy will.” What is the aim set in the foreground of the eternal thought, indicated in the psalm and developed in the epistle?
It is immediately to knit up mankind together into one with himself and the Father. It is to redeem the race, by incarnation, and to be “sacrifice and offering.” It is to do the last work which the ceremonial service could have done. It is that the incarnate being might put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Such was the ruling purpose of the self-consecrated Son of God.
This self-consecrator had in view, above all things, his death, his sacrifice, his expiation, his propitiation. To this end the Scriptures gravitate upon his crucifixion. “A body hast thou prepared me.” He took share with his brethren in the flesh and blood, “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death.” Being the brightness of his Father's glory, by himself, he purged our sins. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
The Scriptures speak convincingly of the pain and yet of the joy and the untold humiliation of our Lord. They tell us of his willingness to take upon himself “the form of a servant,” and be “made in the likeness of men,” which would be no mere figure of speech, but a reality to its very depths. They reveal his divinely free and full consent, in the heavenly council with the Father, to enter personally within the essential limitations of a sinful humanity, and drink the cup of sorrow to its dregs.
He willed, as a man, to experience what is meant by growth and development, what it is to weep and wonder, what it should be to say, “Thy will be done,” not only as the begotten Son of God, but as the Son of man under the olives of Gethsemane. He willed to cry, when the mantle of darkness enveloped the cross, when he felt the awful separation that sin makes between God and man. He who had been one with God felt in his soul the awful results of sin, but was content to do the Father's will in paying the penalty of sin by the sacrifice of himself. But the roots of our Christian joy are watered with the tears, the sorrow, and the sacrifice of our Redeemer. “It was to redeem us that Jesus lived, suffered, and died. He became a ‘man of sorrows,’ that we might be made partakers of everlasting joy.”
His sacrifice to rescue man from sin cost him dear. It involved his infinite humiliation. In view of his cradle and his cross, let us bless his name with the love of penitents; let us follow him with the love of witnessing disciples, for he saw it all far above the heavens, and said to the Father, “Lo, I come . . . to do thy will,” and we are his forevermore by his grace.
Garland, Wyo.