THE FALL AND REDEMPTION.
By Elder R. C. Porter
WHEN the work of creation is completed, and Christ is seated with his Father upon the throne of the universe, he enjoys with the Father the unsurpassed glory of the voluntary love and worship of his creatures in every world throughout the universe, and from the Father and the Son flow continuously every possible blessing to make life and home a paradise. Christ, as the Good Shepherd, leads the sheep by the still waters and into green pastures. But soon, alas, one sheep has strayed from the fold! Sin has entered our world, and it is lost. The enemy who caused the sheep to stray is that exalted angel, next to Christ, who failed to remember the very thing for which the Sabbath was given to man, namely, to commemorate his Creator as a God of love, who with almighty power was seeking only his greatest good. The creature thus in madness arose and declared before his Creator and the universe of the created that God was unjust and unloving, that his laws were arbitrary and oppressive, and that he, Lucifer, was justly kept down by his unkind Creator. With self-assertive rebellion he defiantly declared, “I will exalt myself above the stars of God; . . . I will be like the Most High.” Isa. 14:12–14; Eze. 28:12–27. The fall of Lucifer was the result of not remembering God as the “I Am that I Am,” that is, as the kind of God that he is, as declared in the true purpose of the Sabbath. Here was introduced that mystery of iniquity, mystery of self-exaltation, which has brought sorrow, wretchedness, misery, ruin, and death into the universe of God. The plan of attack in the overthrow of man was against true Sabbath keeping. Satan attributed to God a character of jealous hate in withholding from man an experience in the knowledge of things that would so elevate him as to make him like God. Gen. 3:1–5. This was just the opposite of the character the Sabbath was designed to perpetuate in their minds, as the character of their Creator. The devil well knew that the Sabbath rightly observed would always perpetuate in the minds of its observers the true character of God, and thus forever thwart his own plans to overthrow God’s government. To defeat this object of the Sabbath, he must turn its observers away from its true purpose. How artfully does he set about this work. “Yea, hath God said” (Gen. 3:1), is designed to insinuate doubt. He would say that God does know different. He does not mean what he said. This gives the key which unlocks the mysterious workings of that iniquitous one in the warfare against God all through the course of time. In the light of these facts, we can see why the Sabbath has ever been the center of attack. God and Christ are in the Sabbath, and to rightly keep it is to rest in God through Christ and to fully believe every word of God, and believe it as he has said it. In the very same manner that Adam and Eve were led astray in the garden, Satan has sought to lead the human family into forbidden paths ever since. “Yea, hath God said,” “The seventh day is the Sabbath,” and “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” for its Author is your Creator of love. “But he does not mean what he says,” has been, and is, but the old story of Eden over again, only expressed in other words. Over this plea the wily tempter has succeeded in getting the pagans to forget the true God, and to take Sunday as the day for the worship of their inanimate gods. Roman Catholics and professed Protestants, following in the wake of paganism, with the same plea started in Eden by the evil one, continue to cry, “Yea, hath God said, the seventh day is the Sabbath, but it makes no difference about which day; the church, guided by the Holy Spirit, changed the day; in fine, God does not mean exactly what he said.” The Jews and some seventh-day observers who profess to be Christians, blinded by the artful tempter, see in the Sabbath only physical rest, and while they in outward form observe the correct day as the Sabbath, they keep it in a wrong way, and so miss the wonderful blessing of true Sabbath keeping. Between these two thieves, a false day for the Sabbath, and keeping the true Sabbath in a wrong way, both born of one common parent, “God does not mean what he says,” Satan seeks to crucify God and Christ in the Sabbath, and crucify the Sabbath with them, as he crucified Christ between two thieves upon Calvary. But “thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” and “always causeth us to triumph in Christ.” Jesus triumphed in crucifixion, and he lives and reigns on high. So likewise the Sabbath, though for a time trodden beneath unhallowed feet, its true meaning set aside, and its true purpose forgotten, still lives and will eternally live, and accomplish its sacred mission, for4Christ says, “My word . . . shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Isa. 55:11. “Truth crushed to earth will rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error wounded writhes in pain,
And dies among her worshipers.” One sheep has strayed from the fold and is lost. What does the Shepherd now do?—He does the only thing that a good shepherd can do, he leaves the ninety and nine, and goes in search of the lost sheep until he finds it, and when he finds it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing, and beareth it home, and then calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” Luke 15:4–6. The entire universe of worlds is the flock before whom the Good Shepherd went in creation, and over whom he presided after creation. Jer. 17:12. It is commonly spoken of as one family, with God as the Father and Christ as the elder brother. Eph. 3:14, 15. When our world was lost in sin, Christ left the unfallen worlds and came to reclaim the one that was lost. When he came to this earth on his mission of love, he declared, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10. “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Matt. 15:24. “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Matt. 20:28. “I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” John 10:11. It is here directly stated that he came in search of the lost sheep. WHEN DID HE GIVE HIS LIFE FOR THE SHEEP?
There can be no question but that he did so give his life on earth, from infancy until its close on Calvary’s cross, yet it is equally clear that this is not the time that he first offered to die for the lost. It is said that he was a “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Rev. 13:8. In the counsels of eternity, before man was created, the plan of redemption was laid for the lost. This must needs be, or else God was overtaken by an unlooked-for emergency when man sinned. We cannot conceive of such a thing as this, for God is not as man to be thus mocked by his plans. One thing is certain, that the plan of redemption was laid before man was created, for it is plainly stated that Christ was a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. When, then, must the plan have been provided? and why was it so laid? Evidently the plan of redemption was laid far back in eternity, when it was decided to people the universe with intelligent beings, all of whom should be permitted to exercise the right of choice between right and wrong doing. By investing man with the right of choice, God must take the risk of sin entering the universe. This does not make God in any way responsible for sin, but it does become necessary for a provision to be made to meet the possibility of sin entering. This he does by offering his Son to die on the sinner’s behalf, and this Christ does by offering himself to die for sinners, a voluntary substitute for the sinner, that the sinner through him might be reclaimed. That this plan was devised in the counsels of eternity, and revealed only when it became necessary, is plain from the following scriptures:— “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but is now made manifest.” 2 Tim. 1:9, 10. “Now to him that is able to stablish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, but now is manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations unto obedience of faith.” Rom. 16:25, 26, Revised Version. “That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eph. 3:8–11. Here we have the whole matter very plainly and simply stated. He hath saved us and called us according to his own purpose, which he purposed in Christ before the world began. This purpose was an eternal purpose. It was kept in silence through times eternal. During this time in which it was kept in silence it was hid in God. The thing that was hid and kept in silence from eternity was the plan of saving sinners through Christ. Since this thing was hid and kept in silence through times eternal, it was known and understood unto those by whom it was hid and kept in silence, that is, to God and to Christ. To all others it was hid and kept in silence; therefore, none who chose to sin knew of any possibility of return from sin. Since this plan was devised in the counsels of eternity, when the plan of creating and peopling a universe was laid, it is clear that, as the creation was with reference to the universe, so the plan of redemption was not for one world only, but for any world in the universe that should fall under sin; and any individual in any world who should thus fall, would be offered pardon through Christ. Hence, doubtless, the fallen angels were offered pardon until they passed the boundaries beyond which there is no desire to return, as when men in this world commit the sin against the Holy Ghost, and the sad words are forced from Christ, “Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone.” To this world by the scriptures of the prophets it is not made known unto the nations for the obedience of faith. When was it made known according to the scriptures of the prophets? According to the prophet Moses, of whom it was said that Christ when he came would be a prophet like unto him (Deut. 18:18), it was first made known to Adam and Eve during the first conversation of Christ with them after they had sinned (Gen. 3:1–15). These are the wonderful words through which the first news of the possibility of returning to the fold was broken by the pitying Shepherd, as he approached the straying sheep, torn, bruised, sad, and despairing: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” What unspeakable joy filled the hearts of these poor, despairing souls when to them it was revealed that, through the manifold wisdom and boundless love of God, and the everlasting love of the “Seed of woman,” it was their privilege still to choose the right and have the life of bliss from which they had so recently been separated, and to escape the eternal death, to which they were otherwise doomed! Oh, the joy to see earth a paradise once more—Satan, and sin, and unrepentant sinners nowhere to be found in the universe of God, the original purpose of God in the creating and peopling of the universe with only those who chose the right, to yet be carried out without the loss of even one world! “O God, how unsearchable are thy judgments, and thy ways past finding out!” Truly in this great plan of peopling the universe with only those who voluntarily choose the right, which was begun in the creation and as now revealed will be completed through the plan of redemption, is made known the manifold wisdom of God. The law whose transgression brought sin, and sorrow, and death into this world, was God’s law of love, which governs his universe. The redemption offered is not for the purpose of removing this law of love, the transgression of which can only bring unhappiness and death to the transgressor, but to atone for the sins of the penitent and bring them back into their former relation to God, subject to his law, and in harmony with his government. “For this was manifested the Son of God, that he might undo the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8 (Englishman’s Greek New Testament). God through Christ created, and through Christ he now redeems. “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” 2 Cor. 5:18, 19.