Studies in the Gospel Message
The subject of the Sabbath-school lesson for September 13 is, The Secret of Continuance. When the Lord appeared unto Moses in the burning bush and commissioned him to bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt, he revealed himself as the I AM. “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” After the first refusal of Pharaoh to let Israel go, and the apparent failure of the effort of Moses to bring deliverance to that people, “God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am JEHOVAH: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH I was not known to them. . . . Say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord [Jehovah], and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great judgments.” In the article in “Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible,” dealing with the Hebrew word which is translated “Jehovah” in our Authorized Version of the Bible, after stating the probable derivation of the word, the writer says: “If the etymology above given be accepted, and the name be derived from the future tense of the substantive verb, it would denote, in accordance with the general analogy of proper names of a similar form, ‘He that is,’ ‘the Being,’ whose chief attribute is eternal existence.” Thus when the Lord revealed himself as the Redeemer of his people from Egyptian bondage, he announced the name which emphasized his everlasting continuance. Many centuries later, just before the Babylonish captivity, when the Lord revealed to the prophet Habakkuk his purpose to raise up “the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation,” and declared that “they shall come all for violence: . . . and they shall gather the captivity as the sand,” the prophet based his hope of deliverance upon this same attribute of continuance. “Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die.” When God manifested himself in the person of his Son Jesus (Jehovah-Saviour), as the Redeemer of the world from the bondage of sin, it was necessary that the people should understand that their hope of redemption from sin and of eternal life (continuance) depended upon their faith in Jesus as the revelation of the I AM in the flesh. He therefore said unto them, “If ye believe not that I AM, ye shall die in your sins.” And the miracles recorded in the book of John, like the miracles recorded in the book of Exodus, are the miracles of the I AM, the proof and the pledge of a Redeemer in the flesh who could “save his people from their sins.”5 After Jesus had been raised from the dead, and had taken his seat “on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man,” the Holy Spirit moved the apostle Paul to write the epistle to the Hebrews as the interpretation of the real meaning of the sanctuary and its services. In the first chapter he sets forth the relation of sonship as being fundamental to the whole question, and in the familiar language of the Old Testament he declares the divine character and glory of the Son, in whom, as the eternal Word, God has spoken “at the end of these days.” In one of these quotations the eternal being of the Son, the Creator, is contrasted with the brief time during which all created things will endure. Let us read it: “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands: they shall perish; but thou continuest: and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a mantle shalt thou roll them up, as a garment, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.” In the second chapter this same eternal Son is revealed as bringing many sons unto glory by identifying himself with humanity, that he might be able to deal with sin in behalf of humanity. “Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” “By offering himself to make intercession for the transgression of the human race, Christ executed the office of priest.” “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.” Thus the eternal Son, the I AM, the Word which was God, became flesh, in order that sin might be condemned in the flesh, and “to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” By this union of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of man, provision was made so that all transgressions of God’s holy law could be freely pardoned, and transgressors of the law could be changed into keepers of the law. Here is the statement of the Scripture: “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” This is the gospel of the forgiveness of sin. This is the gospel of “the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.” How this wonderful change can be wrought constitutes “the mystery of the kingdom of God.” It is the secret of continuance. The real law of God is his life. Jesus knew it as such. “I know that his commandment is life everlasting.” The obedience of faith is harmony with this life. Sin is the transgression of this law, a going contrary to this way of life. Obedience is the path of life, the experience of continuing. Sin is the path of death, the experience of stopping. “In the way of righteousness is life.” “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Righteousness is constructive. Sin is destructive. He who accepts Christ the eternal Son as his righteousness is thus brought into fellowship with the I AM, and like the Son, he continues. God hates sin, but loves the sinner. “The wages of sin is death,” and if sin is permitted to continue, the sinner must cease to continue. God’s purpose is to put an end to sin, and in making provision for sin to be removed out of the earth he makes provision that the cleansed sinner shall continue forever. “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth [continueth] forever.” The consideration of these principles makes it clear that in the setting up of the fifth kingdom so that “it shall stand forever,” the complete removal of sin out of the earth is involved, and the destruction of “him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” That which prevents the continuance of the kingdom must be removed if the kingdom is to be established upon the basis of eternal continuance. God’s method of successfully dealing with this problem is the mystery of the gospel, the secret of continuance. We are now prepared to see that when the God of heaven sets up his kingdom in the earth so that “it shall stand forever,” he must deal with sin not merely in the ordinary manner in the forgiveness of the individual sinner, but in the actual blotting out of sin from the universe. This means the cleansing of the sanctuary, the final work with reference to the disposal of sin. This question will be studied more fully in later lessons. The conclusion seems to be plain that in the gift of the eternal Son, the I AM, and in the provision thus made for the forgiveness of sin by declaring “his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,” God has revealed the secret of the continuance of his kingdom in the earth. It is the work of the preacher of the gospel “to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery,” that men may be brought into the actual experience of partaking of the divine nature and of knowing the secret of continuance not merely as a theological theory, but as the fact of the eternal life manifested in the flesh.