There Is No Difference

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 12, 1911

There Is No Difference

The Word of God clearly teaches “that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him.” No position that man can occupy, be it that of a king on his throne or the highest prelate of the church, gives him any preeminence over the humblest man on earth, in access to God. The Christian religion knows no class or caste distinction. Man-made religions, however, are built upon this very principle. Some are held to be the special favorites of God; they stand as his special representatives. America, in its issue of August 19, thus speaks of the present Pope, Pius X:—

This we do know, that the number of the sovereign pontiff’s days, by reason of his office, are in God’s hands in a very special way. Far less than ours, than those of any temporal ruler, are they determinable by the natural happenings of daily life. We may say even that in a certain sense many high things for him in God’s providence are more absolutely decreed, because his office of God’s vicegerent joins him more closely to God than any other human creature existing on earth.

There is unmistakable satisfaction to every child of God, however humble his parentage or lowly his situation, to know that when he kneels before his Creator and Redeemer, he has direct and immediate access to the throne of the Infinite. His intercession need not go through priest or prelate. As though Christ died for him, and him only, he can present his petitions before the throne of grace. This is the beauty and the sweetness of the individual relationship existing between God and each one of his children.