For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
The Son of man came to search after and pursue the straying into the depths of misery in order to recover, redeem and restore those separated from God by sin and helpless to find the way back. This was spoken with reference to Zacchaeus, whose welcoming of Christ brought salvation to his house and proved true conversion by repentance, abandoning dishonest practices and making restitution. He who was the Son of the infinite God left glory and took humanity to live self-denial rather than pleasure, devoting all to this one object of rescuing the perishing world. He accomplishes it by paying the ransom with His death and blood, seeking as Shepherd and Physician among sinners and outcasts of every nation, rank and condition without turning any away. That same work of seeking and saving is entrusted to every believer as personal responsibility to be done in His loving, self-sacrificing way, and its success brings transformation of life and joy in heaven over even one repentant sinner.
Words and Zacchaeus Setting
The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. His mission calls believers to follow His example by going beyond the church and working to save souls, especially those who have not heard the truth. Following in His footsteps means making that same seeking and saving work their own, depending on the Lord and taking hold of it intelligently and consecrated to God with all they have and are. God gives reasoning, intellect, tact, thought and sharpness to devise, plan and execute, so all are responsible to Him for their use and are to exercise every ability and power with an eye single to His glory and not to glorify and please themselves. This is the most solemn work ever given to mortals, and it is greater than using talents for self.
The verse states the purpose of the events in Luke 19:1-10, spoken with reference to Zacchaeus. It was addressed to priests yet lives through all time. It explains why He accepted invitations to eat with publicans and sinners, because He knew sinners needing salvation would be at their tables, and in all His words there He scattered seeds of truth. It lays the same duty on all ambassadors commissioned by God to study how to reach souls and to be found in every place where there are souls in need of a Saviour. His purpose is also expressed as calling sinners to repentance, not those who suppose they have a legal claim to God's favor.
In Zacchaeus's case salvation came to his house and household when he welcomed Christ as personal Saviour, despite condemnation and judgment by others that he was a sinner. His faith and character showed him to be a son of Abraham. Christ received him because He came to call sinners to repentance, while people who counted themselves righteous could remain in greater need of repentance and be excluded from the kingdom. Because He came to save them, jealousy, accusation and suspicion must not drive them away, for harming those who love Christ is treated as harming Christ Himself. His generosity and fourfold restitution were Christian works, but he had done them before meeting Christ.
Christ's merciful works and teaching reached Zacchaeus and awakened hope in him that repentance and a changed life were possible, with desire to know Christ and longing for a better life. Although he was a publican who had done wrong and was regarded as unjust and beyond reform, the saving purpose reaches even such. The truth took root in his heart, led him to recognize his need for repentance and restitution and to begin correcting his wrongs, and was ready to bear fruit to God's glory. Conversion was proved sincere by abandoning dishonest practices and making restitution, as entering a person's life turns it from wrongdoing.
His tender mercy reaches those who look hopeless to others, especially objectionable and sick characters who need extra effort and help. His mission was not to save people who felt no need of salvation and not to confine His labors to those blessed with great light but not improving their privileges, but to call sinners to repentance and to help those who need help most, the tempted and tried, the weak, the erring and perishing, the wandering lost sheep. The Pharisees found fault with Him for this tenderness and mercy. His action shows what must be done rather than cutting the straying off and leaving him to Satan or to where the devil wants him. What is required is doing Christ's work and not the devil's work by refusing to build barriers between God and the soul, but binding them with cords of love where Christ bound them, bringing one going astray into the hands of Christ where he can be prayed for and led and guided, melting hard hearts and putting away harsh ruling and control. Those who feel strong in themselves and separate from others who do not meet their ideal in cold-hearted indifference do not manifest His spirit, and all who are helpers and workers together with God must share His meek and humble life in seeking the lost.
To seek means to search after, to search out to rescue, to pursue along straying paths into depths of misery. To save means to recover, redeem, reconstruct and restore. To be lost means separation from heaven caused by sin, ruin through sin, death in sin and estrangement from God, perishing helplessness and inability to find the way back to safety by themselves. Like a lost sheep, people cannot return by themselves, and without His seeking and saving they perish. The lost are far from spiritual, have lost the presence of God and the true ideal of character, and copy the human instead of the divine. Searching for and rescuing them is the work of all heaven, employed and active in surrounding people with light, giving opportunity and holding before them the highest motives so they will return to serving God.
He left the royal courts and heavenly courts and came to this world as a child, retaining His divinity while taking humanity and human weakness. In sympathy and love He left His exalted place, took on human weakness and sin, endured temptation, ridicule, grief and sorrow, and descended into humiliation to the cross. This combined humanity and divinity teaches that people can overcome evil when, in their humanity, they exercise living faith in His divinity, and this divine power can help them overcome their tempers, dispositions and unbelief. By His sacrifice He lifts people from sin and brings them back to God, joining earth to heaven, and this was His mission pursued with earnest effort. He saves men not in their sins but from their sins, offering salvation to guilty transgressors of God's law who stand under punishment for transgression, moved by a heart of love and longing with hungry wishfulness to rescue them. All who seek Him with the whole heart will hate sin while, like Christ, seeking to save sinners, and when one soul learns of Jesus and finds everlasting strength where mortal strength fails, His heart is made glad and there is joy and singing in the heavenly courts, whereas refusal to come to Him for life leaves the lost unrecovered.
Nature of Christ's Coming
The Son of man is the Son of the infinite God, the Highest who was with the Father before the world was. In giving His Son to seek and save that which was lost, the Father gave all heaven, indeed gave Himself in His Son that He might have the joy of receiving back the sheep that was lost. He came to this earth and honored it with His presence, emptying Himself of glory and clothing divinity with humanity so humanity could touch humanity and fallen man could be shown the perfect love of God. He left heaven's royal courts and made this saving work His purpose, and after His death and resurrection He continues working for the salvation of men and women and calls others to help in that work.
He left the royal courts as a child, retaining divinity while taking humanity, so that people in their humanity exercising living faith in His divinity can overcome evil, tempers, dispositions and unbelief. He laid aside His royal robes and kingly crown, veiled His divinity with humanity, left His high command and heavenly honor and glory, and laid off His glorious diadem. He was born of poor and humble parentage, unrecognized as One from the royal courts, did not seek a high position, did not come in worldly splendor or to win the honor of earthly rulers, but came in the form of a servant, despised and rejected, and took human weakness to touch humanity. He came without consulting His own ease or pleasure to a world seared and marred with the curse, to rescue fallen beings who had lost original holiness, were ignorant of the perfection of God's character and were not subject to God's moral government, to bring them back to loyalty, because in the grand counsels of heaven a revelation of God in the person of His only begotten Son was found positively necessary as the true light lighting every person.
His coming was not to live a life of pleasure, ease, selfish indulgence or self-indulgence, for He did not live to please Himself. The Son of God set aside glory and took humanity so fallen people could encounter and be shown God's perfect love. The stated purpose of His earthly life was self-denial and self-sacrifice in order to seek and to save that which was lost.
Before laying aside His royal crown and robe, stepping down from the throne and clothing divinity with humanity, the whole length of the dark and discouraging path lay open before Him, every pang that would rend His heart, every insult and every privation from the manger to Calvary with its fearful anguish. He knew it all and did not hesitate, but as Prince of life and glory lived as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, delighting to do God's will with God's law within His heart. He saw the world perishing in sin and moved steadfastly forward through Satan's temptations in the wilderness to rescue it. He kept steadfastly to that saving work with confidence and love for those for whom He died even though discouraged and disappointed in men again and again.
Seeking and saving the lost was His sole purpose and one object, to which He devoted His time, abilities and life. He allowed nothing to divert Him or distract Him from the salvation of human souls, and that mission guided His work. Though as the great Teacher He could have revealed scientific knowledge that would have made the discoveries of the greatest men look like utter littleness, that was not why He came, and He would not let even that possibility turn Him aside.
Though rich in heaven's treasure He became poor so people might become rich through Him, leaving heaven to live amid reproach and insult and die a shameful death. He gave up everything to seek and save the lost, pictured as recovering a lost pearl buried in rubbish, precious though its value is never known until earnestly sought. His seeking and saving was suffering in human form as Lord of glory, lacerated with stripes and bruised for iniquities, bearing the chastisement of peace, healing by stripes, crying out in agony and pouring out His life on the cross for the one lost guilty sheep, so the cross tells the depth and breadth of infinite love and through it perishing souls may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Every moment of His life in the world was God repeating His gift, the sinless One making infinite sacrifice as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, regarded as stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, taking the cup of suffering as if guilty and draining it to the dregs and bearing the sin of the world to the bitter end, with anguished cry of forsakenness as appeal to the Father revealing unmeasurable love in which the Father Himself travailed in almighty paternal love, so eternal life is placed within reach of every son and daughter of Adam, and He still feels the consequences of continued sin as if Himself guilty.
Whom He Came to Save
All are lost and helpless unless character is transformed, perishing without a way back by themselves, and the Son of man came as the True Shepherd to seek and save them at cost to Himself. The gift of the only-begotten Son to a life of humiliation and death shows the worth placed on every soul bearing God's image and purchased by blood. His mission reaches the whole human family, Jew and Gentile, of every nation, tongue, rank, wealth and race, and the whole world is His field of labor. He left the ninety-nine and laid aside royal robes, veiling divinity with humanity and serving humbly to lift the lowly and restore the image, calling sinners to repentance rather than the self-righteous. Angels share that seeking work as messengers of mercy ministering to heirs of salvation and encamping around those who fear God.
He came to call sinners to repentance, not those who suppose a legal claim to favor or feel no need of salvation, not confining labor to those blessed with great light unimproved, but helping most those tempted and tried, weak, erring, perishing and wandering. His welcome of Zacchaeus shows why He received one condemned by others: welcoming Christ as personal Saviour brought salvation to his house, and his faith showed him a son of Abraham, while those counting themselves righteous could remain in greater need and be excluded. He exposes cherished sin plainly so lives ruined and kept from God can recognize it and put it away, and when truth breaks through selfishness to humility, contrition and gratitude, those are the very ones He came to save. Therefore jealousy, accusation, suspicion and cold-hearted indifference that separate from others and drive the needy away are contrary to His meek and humble spirit, and harm done to those who love Him is counted as harm done to Him Himself.
The lost include the little ones who believe in Him and must not be despised or offended, meaning not only children in years but those needing care and protection in religious experience, the sin-sick and those in fault. This calls for praying for erring brethren rather than accusing them, going to them kindly as directed and laboring by the Bible plan instead of separating them from the church and leaving them to Satan's temptations. It includes patiently caring for children who are erring or difficult to teach by correcting, teaching self-control, instructing the ignorant and reforming those who learned evil, for such are placed in the way of helpers as a blessing. Such patient care of an imperfect child to grow toward the divine Pattern and prepare for immortal life reflects His own work for fallen souls, and He stoops from His throne with pity to listen to their cries, grieving most when appointed workers are clouded by unadvised words, requiring tenderness, love, humility and conversion as little children.
His mission brought Him among the afflicted, poor, distressed, needy, despised, lowly and outcast, and though exalted and pure He did not use status as reason to keep apart or limit care to the honored, making help to the helpless a duty even when disagreeable. It also embraces people in wealth and honor who do not know God or keep His commandments, who need personal effort and special warning because many are spiritually hungry beneath indifference. It reaches the guilty, corrupt, degraded, intemperate and hopeless on the verge of ruin as objects of tender pity, sympathy and tireless effort, ready to cleanse them and supply all necessities, so that no one needing Him is turned away. Though disregarded by some He sought to rescue, He gave His life to save sinners, calling followers to work patiently and humbly without judging any unworthy.
He regarded the Jewish people as lost sheep, sought to gather them from paths of sin and error back to His fold, and gave them the first opportunity to hear the message of salvation. At the same time He treated people of other nations with consideration and courtesy, contrary to the teaching that only the Jewish nation would be saved.
His seeking is not limited to family or relatives but meets people where they are, rich and poor, high and low, and must go to all classes without pride, haughtiness or withdrawal from any class, white or colored. Those who love Him follow His steps by dwelling among the lowly, mingling with publicans, sinners and common people not to become low but to lift them by precept and example, correcting the false standard that judges worth by appearance, wealth, real estate, learning or position, for God shows no respect of persons and values the humble contrite heart, purity and love. This includes not avoiding the despised nor neglecting Black people and the colored race, but serving them through teaching, practical help, literacy, manual labor, farming and trades, developing abilities and helping find livelihoods beyond cotton-field labor, affirming their value to God as restitution for stolen time and denied education. All are only trustees and stewards of eternal riches entrusted for this work, debtors to Greek and barbarian, wise and unwise, who must give reckoning for use of goods for the poor, distressed, needy and suffering bearing God's image, relieving them as true religion and supreme duty, lest those enjoying comforts without care fail to hear well done, good and faithful servant.
How Christ Seeks and Saves
Christ saves by paying the ransom price with His death to bring sinners of every kind, nation and tongue into union and sympathy with Himself, not passing by even the most sinful but giving deepest interest, sympathy and effort to those most in need of reform and transforming grace. In sympathy and love He left His exalted place, took human weakness, endured temptation, ridicule, grief and sorrow, and descended in humiliation to the cross, and by that sacrifice He lifts people from sin back to God and joins earth to heaven. His provision is a full and perfect sinless offering whose blood can cleanse even the foulest stain. His death was the great freewill offering for sin that opened a fountain of mercy and a second probation, so that whoever believes should not perish but have everlasting life, and refusal of that greatest gift ever offered shows highest contempt for God. The sinless One lived as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, regarded as stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, taking the cup of suffering as if guilty and draining it to the dregs and bearing the sin of the world to the bitter end, and He still feels continued sin as if Himself guilty, while the Father Himself travailed in almighty paternal love so that eternal life is placed within reach of every son and daughter of Adam. He pledged His own life to give a second probation with pity, compassion and love without parallel, making every provision so none need perish, calling all who labor and are burdened to come for rest and uniting to Himself by new inspiration of grace everyone who comes.
He saves from sins, not in sins, recovering what was lost through the fall by redeeming humanity through perfect obedience to God's law in human life, joining humanity with divinity and making obedience possible. The sins of everyone who receives Him are charged to Him, and He fully satisfies God's justice. Salvation is offered to guilty transgressors standing under punishment, whom He longs with hungry wishfulness to rescue, and all who seek Him with the whole heart will hate sin while, like Him, seeking to save sinners, whereas refusal to come for life leaves the lost unrecovered. Every word He spoke and everything He did was unselfish, moved only by love greater than any other love ever shown, to show what human beings can become when they join weakness to His strength. His coming answers the claim that people cannot keep God's commandments, for one person rescued proves that claim false and proves God's law right, since He lived obedience on earth to prove it possible, took away guilt resting on the sinner by taking sorrow upon Himself, so the sinner can stand before God dressed in righteousness. He rescues sinners from their sins rather than leaving them in sin.
This mission did not abolish God's moral law, for in the sermon on the mount He affirmed its continuing authority, came to fulfill its demands and make it honorable, and showed God does not set aside the penalty for breaking it.
He seeks as the True Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to search wilderness and dangerous places until the wanderer is found, persisting under most discouraging circumstances without shrinking from hardship and peril, with all suffering forgotten in the joy of finding, and recovery of even one repentant sinner brings joy in heaven. Those who recognize need are like the sick who need a physician. He came as the great Medical Missionary and Great Physician ever watching over the sick and suffering, healing the sick, relieving the suffering and oppressed, consoling the bereaved, restoring those turned away, and offering mercy and opportunity to turn to the only One with power to save. His followers must represent Him by living not for self but for others, relieving need wherever suffering or oppression is seen and speaking timely strengthening words to the weary, assured of blessing in this God-called work. Physicians who care for the sick work in His place under His oversight as guardians of those He purchased with His own blood, and must be governed by high noble principles, understanding by experience the soothing power of Christ's grace with experimental knowledge of truth so they can impart its uplifting health-giving power, hold up the Saviour before the sick and dying, and kneel beside the sufferer asking the Great Physician to take the case, an impression that may result in saving the soul. Because every person is bought by His blood, none is to be treated with indifference or contempt, but each fellow traveler on the steep heavenward path is to be helped and encouraged, and man as crowning glory of creation is redeemed at inconceivable cost since only He could restore the moral image lost through transgression.
He accepted invitations to eat with publicans and sinners because sinners needing salvation would be at their tables, and in all His words there He scattered seeds of truth. His teaching met practical spiritual needs, redirecting curiosity and speculative questions toward what leads to salvation and eternal life, giving light needed to follow holiness while leaving unnecessary inquiries unanswered, with the Holy Spirit making clear through God's Word what is essential, and His mission frees disciples from ceremonies fulfilled by His sacrifice, leaving baptism received by faith as the ordinance pointing to the One who takes away sin. His mission is mercy, goodness and truth toward sinners, even receiving them and eating with them, with greatest pity and tender compassion especially for the poor, needy and helpless, including those who use God-given intellect to separate themselves from their Maker and lead others into sin. The hardhearted scribes and Pharisees misunderstood this from self-righteousness, pride and failure to appreciate His mercy, and found fault with Him for receiving sinners. Rather than rebuking them openly lest hearts close, He taught His seeking and saving work through the parable of the lost sheep as a lasting symbol to carry with them, and through the lost coin and prodigal son showing pitying love for those erring and straying by their own course yet not left in misery and for all exposed to the artful foe, so that after resurrection and ascension the Holy Spirit would convict some and bring them to unite with the disciples in the church.
He undertakes to save all who trust in Him, seeing wrongs and evils needing address and knowing needs so He can best shape and heal the soul, with His death the assurance they can be restored to favor and welcomed. A sinner can personally trust that He died and rose again to justify and save, accept promised forgiveness, and need not remain unsaved. Being a sinner does not mean God has cast one off but proves need for Saviour, forgiveness and pardon, and the greater the sin the greater the need, so when accused of being lost the answer is to admit the condition and claim His mission to rescue the lost, believing His word, obeying His commands and coming so as not to perish. He came to pardon every transgression and gave His life so the lost may have eternal life, working to open blind eyes. He redeems from sin and death all who come, raises them to His throne and gives everlasting life. He is the only remedy for sin, come to a world seared and marred with the curse to lift fallen man, reveal the Father's love to the perishing, bring them to look and live, and thereby bring many sons and daughters to glory, which must be received by striving lawfully with no pretentious faith but a faith making Him a personal Saviour, believing He is the only name whereby we may be saved.
Believers Share the Mission
Seeking and saving the lost is the most solemn work ever given to mortals and the highest class of work ever entrusted to them, greater than using talents for self. Jesus bought people with His own blood for this work and lays it on every Christian as individual responsibility that cannot be transferred to another. Whatever ability or calling a person has, God has given to every man his work, requiring personal effort for souls instead of idleness, carelessness and indifference. Every believer is to become more efficient by practice, better qualified to work the works of God, and educated and trained in the science of spiritual husbandry. This charge belongs not to ordained ministers alone but to every Christian young or old, rich or poor, who has been forgiven by Christ, set free by truth and owned by Him, to concentrate all energy on building up the kingdom by lifting up those ready to perish and presenting truth to others. Every church should have wise workmen who seek God to learn the best methods of labor for the tempted and tried and erring so as not to lose one, rather than remaining inefficient and helpless and depending on the minister to do what they should and must do if they would hear, Well done.
Every one who believes in Christ as a personal Saviour shares this seeking and saving work and is under bonds to God to be pure and holy and to do active service as a spiritual worker, whether great or small, rich or poor, bond or free. Anyone blessed with light who does not diffuse that light neglects a sacred duty plainly marked out in the Word, will lose the rich grace bestowed, see his own light diminish and his own soul brought into peril. Those to whom he should have been a shining light then miss the labor God intended them to have through the human instrument, and the unsought sheep is not brought back to the fold. True conversion proves itself by winning souls, with every voice saying Come and every influence and ability exercised to invite others, and no one is excused even when able to do only little, for doing what one is able gives courage and faith and grace for a larger work. Working to win souls is the test of having the truth and loving God and keeping His commandments, done by using God-given capabilities as entrusted talents to proclaim truth to those in darkness of error, and no truly converted person can stand as an idle looker-on, for there can be no inactivity without spiritual death.
Following in His footsteps means making that same seeking and saving work our own, with reasoning, intellect, tact, thought and sharpness to devise, plan and execute held as a trust for which all are responsible to Him. Depending on the Lord, believers are to take hold of the work intelligently and consecrated to God with all they have and are, exercising every ability and power with an eye single to His glory and not to glorify and please themselves. Those sent to labor are not merely to preach but to minister, carrying Christ's own solemn responsibility, and their work is measured not by a large list of sermons preached but by what has been done in saving souls and in training workers. Doing this requires being often with God in earnest prayer, seeking wisdom through diligent searching of the Scriptures, and earnest labor in personal effort. Those who go out to seek the lost must abide in Him and have His mind and teach the truth as it is in Jesus, for relying on themselves will keep them from accomplishing much.
The true Christian united with Him shares His love, pity and compassion and is touched with earnest hunger for souls, not resting until doing all in his power with time and strength, not shunning toilsome work, to give others the truth that brought gladness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Such a soul yokes up with Christ and works in harmony with Him, reveals the Saviour's love, yearns to bring others to Jesus, is melted with tenderness at the peril of souls out of Christ, watches for souls as one that must give an account, and seeks to win souls with invitations and pleadings mingled with assurances of God's promises, and this is registered in the books of record as laboring together with God. This work is to be done in Christ's way, with patience, personal interest and determination without discouragement, using consecrated human abilities as Jesus can use them. Like the shepherd going after the one strayed sheep, Christians are to approach those in fault with meekness, kindness and love, seeking their salvation rather than criticizing, condemning or pushing them away.
Followers are to join this work and not condemn those who need help, but come near and help them with humility, meekness and tender care, even when doing so brings suffering, sacrifice or trial. This redeeming, reconstructing and restoring flows from who God is, for God is love in Himself, in His very essence, and God is life, and it is His prerogative to redeem, reconstruct and restore, making the very best of what appears an injury and giving Satan no occasion for triumph by making the worst appear or exposing weakness to enemies. Everyone connected with Christ becomes a partaker of the divine nature and a laborer together with God in this same work, binding up the bruised and wounded soul and, when a brother or sister has erred, working with Christ to restore such a one in the spirit of meekness instead of joining with the enemy in destroying and ruining. Because He came to call sinners to repentance and not those who suppose they have a legal claim to favor, jealousy, accusation and suspicion must not drive them away, for harming those who love Christ is treated as harming Christ Himself. Even those who seem hopeless, including people trapped in harmful habits or destructive conduct, are souls He died for and is willing to forgive if they come to Him, and they should not be cast away but met with kind attention, faith and prayer and helped in Christ to resist temptation and overcome evil.
His mission calls Christians to follow His example by going beyond the church and working to save souls, especially people who have not heard the truth. His followers must go to them through personal labor rather than wait for them to come, reaching the rich as well as the poor, including people brought low by misfortune or intemperance and those trapped in sin, as souls for whom He died, sharing His concern for human suffering and working among the fallen with sympathy. They are to go out personally to people who might not hear the message in large gatherings, open the Scriptures to them and share the words of life. They share this work by going out to reach sinners and those who do not know the plan of salvation, rather than concentrating efforts on people who already know the truth. Seeking and saving requires active, aggressive energy that goes out beyond one's own people into new places, securing halls and meeting people where they are, letting light shine to those in darkness and casting in the seed of truth by speaking the Word.
Human effort in speech works together with sleepless, ever-active, unseen agencies that secure the great result of saving the soul, done by praying in faith, doing one's best, committing all to God who cares for the seed sown, and then working and waiting patiently and watching unto prayer. Everyone who expects to be saved himself is charged to do special soul-saving work together with Christ before time passes into eternity, and claiming to labor together with Christ is empty without fulfilling it. Fulfilling it means not neglecting cities and highways near and far and not gathering into small settlements, but kindling many lights in all cities by house-to-house work, giving a soul-saving message to many neighborhoods, and arranging small camp-meetings in favorable places to draw people out to hear soul-saving truth. Rejoicing in the beauty of Jesus as Chief among ten thousand altogether lovely should move those bought with a price and entrusted with sacred light and truth to share saving grace with those who know nothing of it and to point out the antidote for sin, for to bury this entrusted light in the earth is slothful neglect bringing condemnation rather than the benediction, Well done, good and faithful servant.
The work includes more than preaching: personal conversation and prayer with those who hear the message are essential ways to seek the lost and can bear fruit to God's glory. Ministers must watch over people with a shepherd's care, talk and pray with them, and make faithful efforts with the watchful interest of a shepherd guarding sheep. God's people are to share soul-saving Bible truths with the unconverted, including through publications, for neglecting to deliver this message may contribute to their ruin. Out of love for precious souls for whom He died, those who have the cause at heart must do as He did by not seeking their own ease or pleasure but going forth to seek and to save the lost to call sinners to repentance. His work of saving those lost in sin required sacrifice, and His followers are called to join that work, giving up self-interest and seeking to bring sinners to the Saviour, finding reward and joy in this service.
Self-denying, self-sacrificing service for those who need help brings joy to the Saviour and has a reward. His sacrifice as the Good Shepherd come from heaven to seek and save calls His followers to labor earnestly for the unsaved rather than remain idle. His example in leaving the heavenly courts to come into the sin-polluted world teaches that His followers can live in the world without adopting its customs or pleasures, remaining among unbelievers to help save others for that purpose alone, where a faithful life can show the transforming power of true religion. This mission is the greatest work of principals, teachers, pastors and leading men in schools and sanitariums, done by ministering in His lines in humility and dependence on higher authority, being daily taught by God how to lift up the erring and open the understanding of the ignorant, walking humbly with God, learning from the great Teacher, studying the Word with diligence and earnest prayer, letting God correct errors of judgment, fearing lest by example the lame and weak be turned out of the way, and striving to be faithful to charge. His ministers are to make winning souls their first concern and to work with sorrow for sin, patient love, and determined, unceasing effort.
Teachers must follow His pattern by being missionaries winning pupils to Jesus, manifesting love and forbearance to the very ones who most need it, especially restless, nervous and less attractive children, with no partiality to those who please fancy, no pride, unloving strictness, arbitrary authority or overbearing commanding manner. Teachers need the love of God in their hearts, submission to God, calm kindness, and managing ability with mental and physical balance, because without love they give a wrong mold to developing character, cause disorganization and failure in management, and result in loss of souls, while faithful influence is as lasting as eternity. When pupils stray, teachers who care for His people should seek them rather than abandon them, working to win and save them with His help. Teachers and students share in the same work of seeking salvation of souls and recovering what was lost through transgression, and gaining experience in this soul-saving work by laboring to place the feet of every student upon the true foundation, the solid Rock, is the most essential experience for teacher and student. Physicians who care for the sick work in His place as the Great Physician and divine Medical Missionary ever watching over the sick and suffering who purchased human beings with His own blood, serving as guardians of those He purchased under His oversight and governed by high, noble principles in carrying out His will.
A physician is not fit for medical missionary work until by experience he understands the soothing power of grace and has an experimental knowledge of the truth, so that he can impart in words the uplifting, health-giving power of God's truth and hold up the Saviour before the sick and dying. When the Christian physician kneels beside the sufferer and asks the Great Physician to take the case into His own hands, the impression made on the mind of the sick one may result in the saving of his soul.
Fruit Joy and Accountability
To be saved is to be forgiven and given peace, renewed in nature, clothed with Christ's righteousness, elevated and purified in character, fitted to work with God, and changed from hatred and revenge to love for God. This rescue reaches people in corruption, degradation, misery, bondage to Satan and separation from God in order to lift them up. It was wrought by taking humanity and fighting the battle where Adam fell through appetite, meeting the powers of darkness and winning victory at every point of Adam's failure to open a way of salvation. Divinity cooperates with humanity to effect radical change, making the pardoned more than conquerors, bringing them into connection with Christ at infinite cost and even to a seat upon His throne. It requires cleansing the soul temple of every defilement, ceasing self-indulgence, coming into right relation to God, being cleansed from all iniquity, walking worthy of the calling, and laboring earnestly for the salvation of family and friends. The same mission calls followers to deny self, reject ease and selfishness, and bring the lost from darkness into the light of God's love.
The gift of the only-begotten Son and the infinite price of His blood show the worth God places on every human soul. Each person of every rank, wealth, race, nation and tongue bears God's image and is purchased by Christ, and all are lost and helpless unless character is transformed. By taking humanity, serving humbly and dying on the cross, He came to lift up the lowly, exalt human worth, provide a stepping-stone for humanity to meet divinity, share the divine nature, escape the corruption in the world through lust, and be continually uplifted and ennobled. Restoration of the moral image of God in man to uplift fallen humanity is the grand work of redemption. Everyone redeemed from hopeless misery is therefore to cooperate with Him as co-worker with the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, reaching fallen humanity and uplifting them rather than laying snares, making secret plans to draw souls into temptation, or seeking advantage among wealthy, self-indulgent men who abuse His mercies and embezzle the goods of heaven.
Recovery of even one sinner who repents brings joy in heaven, gladness to the heart of Christ, and singing in the heavenly courts, like the shepherd rejoicing over the found sheep sought in the desert and in dangerous places. Those who recognize their need are like the sick who need a physician, guilty transgressors under punishment for transgression whom He longs with hungry wishfulness to rescue. He saves not in sins but from sins, and all who seek Him with the whole heart will hate sin while, like Him, seeking to save sinners; refusal to come to Him for life leaves the lost unrecovered, but when a soul learns of Jesus and finds everlasting strength where mortal strength fails His heart is made glad. Loving workers carry on His work by finding those fallen into degradation, relieving suffering, teaching righteousness, and preparing them to know that their souls matter and to seek restoration through divine power, and the rescue of even one from Satan's power brings joy among the angels. His example calls followers to work and sacrifice to win the perishing, for each soul is of great value and one person won can help save others, while He grieves when even one soul for whom He sacrificed is lost and desires all to enter the kingdom, using His followers as His agents through their words and actions.
All heaven is enlisted in beseeching laborers to recover the lost sheep, and all the resources of heaven are at the command of interested workers to bestow upon perishing souls to lead them back to the fold. The Father gave all heaven in the gift of His Son, the Highest who was with the Father before the world was, who clothed divinity with humanity to lift up the lowly and stand as Advocate of the sinful family, suffering in human form as Lord of glory, lacerated with stripes, bruised for iniquities, bearing the chastisement of peace, healing by His stripes, crying out in agony and pouring out His life on the cross for the one lost guilty sheep. The cross is set up that perishing souls may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, telling the depth and breadth of infinite love and the greatness of the Father's love, revealing that the Father gave Himself in His Son that He might have the joy of receiving back the sheep that was lost. The very angels who fought for God when Satan sought supremacy, who shouted for joy over creation and the first parents, and who witnessed the fall and expulsion from Eden, are intensely interested in working in union with the fallen, redeemed race, ministering in every necessity of the elect who strive to be victorious overcomers, desiring to look into the plan of redemption and rejoicing when one soul by faith takes hold of Christ's personal merits as personal Saviour. Human agencies become the hands of heavenly instrumentalities, connecting invisible with visible agencies to restore the moral image of God, bind up the wounds and bruises sin has made, and relieve the oppressed and distressed by practical unselfish ministry with God-given talents.
Those so transformed become partakers of the divine nature with selfishness separated from life, compassionate, touched with human woe, loving the fallen brother as God and Christ love them and loving as Christ loved, evidencing Christ's attributes, and heaven looks with joy and delight upon these blended influences. Anyone who influences even the most lowly and wins them to Christ cooperates with divine agencies by presenting a personal, sin-pardoning Saviour, reaching a hand of sympathy and Christlike love so the sinner grasps Christ's hand by faith and a link of union is formed between soul and Saviour. Heavenly intelligences do their part and will use any human agent touched with the infirmities, necessities, troubles and perplexities of those for whom Christ died, passing by hearts that are not tender and pitiful, kind and thoughtful, and ready to relieve the woes of others. God gives power for this rescuing work to every person who will unite with heavenly intelligences, requiring separation from selfishness and granting special talents for helping one another that bring change to the world.
Seeking and saving the lost, bought with the infinite price of His own blood, is the greatest work on earth, laid as individual responsibility that cannot be transferred on everyone who believes in Christ as personal Saviour, great or small, rich or poor, bond or free, whatever ability or calling. Each is under bonds to be pure and holy and to do active service as a spiritual worker, with personal effort for souls instead of idleness, carelessness and indifference, becoming more efficient by practice, better qualified to work the works of God, and educated and trained in the science of spiritual husbandry. The lost are backsliding, wayward, straying sheep caught in the enemy's snare and ready to perish, precious in God's sight, to be sought by going to them in love, coming close to their side, earnest conversation, tender sympathy, determined effort, and prayer that presses their case to the throne of grace as Moses pleaded for Israel, refusing to let go. Those who close the door of their hearts like the Pharisees must fall on the Rock and be broken and become converted, and when spiritual life is renewed by the Holy Spirit with affections set on heavenly things, believers do the work their Master did and shine as witnesses in moral darkness. Abilities unused or put to wrong purposes waste and decline, and the church must present God's Word to the fallen both in the world and among the churches even when those around seem unresponsive.
One blessed with light who does not diffuse it neglects a sacred duty plainly marked out in the Word, loses the rich grace bestowed, sees light diminish and soul brought into peril, while those who should have received labor through the human instrument miss it and the unsought sheep is not brought back to the fold. Every church should have wise workmen who seek God to learn the best methods of labor for the tempted, tried and erring so as not to lose one, rather than remaining inefficient and helpless and depending on the minister to do the work they should and must do if they would hear the welcome of well done. Neglecting this rescue leaves souls to perish and brings solemn questions in the judgment about slothfulness in failing to save souls ready to perish. He would enter gatherings of the thoughtless and worldly, frivolous entertainments, amusements, parties and suppers only to seek and save the lost, and cannot be invited to them for frivolity; mingling in them without that purpose slights God and grieves His Spirit. Separation from the world does not unfit for the work but increases power for usefulness, for firmer hold on heaven gives greater power.
His example is to connect with people and meet them where they are so as to reach all classes, not only through preaching but in homes and innocent social gatherings. He did not stay among the exalted and honorable nor spend time among those seeking ease and pleasure, but worked to help those needing help, to lift up the bowed down, break the yoke of oppression from those in bondage, heal the afflicted, and speak sympathy and consolation to the distressed and sorrowing. His life was inspiring, authoritative, social, kind, generous and beneficent, meeting men with their prejudices where they are to minister light, comfort and peace found in accepting truth, giving a better understanding of God's claims and more perfect knowledge of truth, showing the best manner of helping fellow men, with special care for the poor. Those entrusted with truth must follow that broad plan, breaking down Pharisaical chilliness, reserve, exclusiveness and dictation, not shunning the society of fellow men but encouraging it to bestow heavenly benefits, holding all they have not as their own but as lent in trust to advance His cause, partaking of His Spirit, blessing the needy, comforting the distressed, filled with love for perishing souls and finding delight in following His footsteps.
The Son of man came to search after and pursue the straying into the depths of misery in order to recover, redeem and restore those separated from God by sin and helpless to find the way back. This was spoken with reference to Zacchaeus, whose welcoming of Christ brought salvation to his house and proved true conversion by repentance, abandoning dishonest practices and making restitution. He who was the Son of the infinite God left glory and took humanity to live self-denial rather than pleasure, devoting all to this one object of rescuing the perishing world. He accomplishes it by paying the ransom with His death and blood, seeking as Shepherd and Physician among sinners and outcasts of every nation, rank and condition without turning any away. That same work of seeking and saving is entrusted to every believer as personal responsibility to be done in His loving, self-sacrificing way, and its success brings transformation of life and joy in heaven over even one repentant sinner.
Words and Zacchaeus Setting
The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. His mission calls believers to follow His example by going beyond the church and working to save souls, especially those who have not heard the truth. Following in His footsteps means making that same seeking and saving work their own, depending on the Lord and taking hold of it intelligently and consecrated to God with all they have and are. God gives reasoning, intellect, tact, thought and sharpness to devise, plan and execute, so all are responsible to Him for their use and are to exercise every ability and power with an eye single to His glory and not to glorify and please themselves. This is the most solemn work ever given to mortals, and it is greater than using talents for self.
The verse states the purpose of the events in Luke 19:1-10, spoken with reference to Zacchaeus. It was addressed to priests yet lives through all time. It explains why He accepted invitations to eat with publicans and sinners, because He knew sinners needing salvation would be at their tables, and in all His words there He scattered seeds of truth. It lays the same duty on all ambassadors commissioned by God to study how to reach souls and to be found in every place where there are souls in need of a Saviour. His purpose is also expressed as calling sinners to repentance, not those who suppose they have a legal claim to God's favor.
In Zacchaeus's case salvation came to his house and household when he welcomed Christ as personal Saviour, despite condemnation and judgment by others that he was a sinner. His faith and character showed him to be a son of Abraham. Christ received him because He came to call sinners to repentance, while people who counted themselves righteous could remain in greater need of repentance and be excluded from the kingdom. Because He came to save them, jealousy, accusation and suspicion must not drive them away, for harming those who love Christ is treated as harming Christ Himself. His generosity and fourfold restitution were Christian works, but he had done them before meeting Christ.
Christ's merciful works and teaching reached Zacchaeus and awakened hope in him that repentance and a changed life were possible, with desire to know Christ and longing for a better life. Although he was a publican who had done wrong and was regarded as unjust and beyond reform, the saving purpose reaches even such. The truth took root in his heart, led him to recognize his need for repentance and restitution and to begin correcting his wrongs, and was ready to bear fruit to God's glory. Conversion was proved sincere by abandoning dishonest practices and making restitution, as entering a person's life turns it from wrongdoing.
His tender mercy reaches those who look hopeless to others, especially objectionable and sick characters who need extra effort and help. His mission was not to save people who felt no need of salvation and not to confine His labors to those blessed with great light but not improving their privileges, but to call sinners to repentance and to help those who need help most, the tempted and tried, the weak, the erring and perishing, the wandering lost sheep. The Pharisees found fault with Him for this tenderness and mercy. His action shows what must be done rather than cutting the straying off and leaving him to Satan or to where the devil wants him. What is required is doing Christ's work and not the devil's work by refusing to build barriers between God and the soul, but binding them with cords of love where Christ bound them, bringing one going astray into the hands of Christ where he can be prayed for and led and guided, melting hard hearts and putting away harsh ruling and control. Those who feel strong in themselves and separate from others who do not meet their ideal in cold-hearted indifference do not manifest His spirit, and all who are helpers and workers together with God must share His meek and humble life in seeking the lost.
To seek means to search after, to search out to rescue, to pursue along straying paths into depths of misery. To save means to recover, redeem, reconstruct and restore. To be lost means separation from heaven caused by sin, ruin through sin, death in sin and estrangement from God, perishing helplessness and inability to find the way back to safety by themselves. Like a lost sheep, people cannot return by themselves, and without His seeking and saving they perish. The lost are far from spiritual, have lost the presence of God and the true ideal of character, and copy the human instead of the divine. Searching for and rescuing them is the work of all heaven, employed and active in surrounding people with light, giving opportunity and holding before them the highest motives so they will return to serving God.
He left the royal courts and heavenly courts and came to this world as a child, retaining His divinity while taking humanity and human weakness. In sympathy and love He left His exalted place, took on human weakness and sin, endured temptation, ridicule, grief and sorrow, and descended into humiliation to the cross. This combined humanity and divinity teaches that people can overcome evil when, in their humanity, they exercise living faith in His divinity, and this divine power can help them overcome their tempers, dispositions and unbelief. By His sacrifice He lifts people from sin and brings them back to God, joining earth to heaven, and this was His mission pursued with earnest effort. He saves men not in their sins but from their sins, offering salvation to guilty transgressors of God's law who stand under punishment for transgression, moved by a heart of love and longing with hungry wishfulness to rescue them. All who seek Him with the whole heart will hate sin while, like Christ, seeking to save sinners, and when one soul learns of Jesus and finds everlasting strength where mortal strength fails, His heart is made glad and there is joy and singing in the heavenly courts, whereas refusal to come to Him for life leaves the lost unrecovered.
Nature of Christ's Coming
The Son of man is the Son of the infinite God, the Highest who was with the Father before the world was. In giving His Son to seek and save that which was lost, the Father gave all heaven, indeed gave Himself in His Son that He might have the joy of receiving back the sheep that was lost. He came to this earth and honored it with His presence, emptying Himself of glory and clothing divinity with humanity so humanity could touch humanity and fallen man could be shown the perfect love of God. He left heaven's royal courts and made this saving work His purpose, and after His death and resurrection He continues working for the salvation of men and women and calls others to help in that work.
He left the royal courts as a child, retaining divinity while taking humanity, so that people in their humanity exercising living faith in His divinity can overcome evil, tempers, dispositions and unbelief. He laid aside His royal robes and kingly crown, veiled His divinity with humanity, left His high command and heavenly honor and glory, and laid off His glorious diadem. He was born of poor and humble parentage, unrecognized as One from the royal courts, did not seek a high position, did not come in worldly splendor or to win the honor of earthly rulers, but came in the form of a servant, despised and rejected, and took human weakness to touch humanity. He came without consulting His own ease or pleasure to a world seared and marred with the curse, to rescue fallen beings who had lost original holiness, were ignorant of the perfection of God's character and were not subject to God's moral government, to bring them back to loyalty, because in the grand counsels of heaven a revelation of God in the person of His only begotten Son was found positively necessary as the true light lighting every person.
His coming was not to live a life of pleasure, ease, selfish indulgence or self-indulgence, for He did not live to please Himself. The Son of God set aside glory and took humanity so fallen people could encounter and be shown God's perfect love. The stated purpose of His earthly life was self-denial and self-sacrifice in order to seek and to save that which was lost.
Before laying aside His royal crown and robe, stepping down from the throne and clothing divinity with humanity, the whole length of the dark and discouraging path lay open before Him, every pang that would rend His heart, every insult and every privation from the manger to Calvary with its fearful anguish. He knew it all and did not hesitate, but as Prince of life and glory lived as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, delighting to do God's will with God's law within His heart. He saw the world perishing in sin and moved steadfastly forward through Satan's temptations in the wilderness to rescue it. He kept steadfastly to that saving work with confidence and love for those for whom He died even though discouraged and disappointed in men again and again.
Seeking and saving the lost was His sole purpose and one object, to which He devoted His time, abilities and life. He allowed nothing to divert Him or distract Him from the salvation of human souls, and that mission guided His work. Though as the great Teacher He could have revealed scientific knowledge that would have made the discoveries of the greatest men look like utter littleness, that was not why He came, and He would not let even that possibility turn Him aside.
Though rich in heaven's treasure He became poor so people might become rich through Him, leaving heaven to live amid reproach and insult and die a shameful death. He gave up everything to seek and save the lost, pictured as recovering a lost pearl buried in rubbish, precious though its value is never known until earnestly sought. His seeking and saving was suffering in human form as Lord of glory, lacerated with stripes and bruised for iniquities, bearing the chastisement of peace, healing by stripes, crying out in agony and pouring out His life on the cross for the one lost guilty sheep, so the cross tells the depth and breadth of infinite love and through it perishing souls may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Every moment of His life in the world was God repeating His gift, the sinless One making infinite sacrifice as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, regarded as stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, taking the cup of suffering as if guilty and draining it to the dregs and bearing the sin of the world to the bitter end, with anguished cry of forsakenness as appeal to the Father revealing unmeasurable love in which the Father Himself travailed in almighty paternal love, so eternal life is placed within reach of every son and daughter of Adam, and He still feels the consequences of continued sin as if Himself guilty.
Whom He Came to Save
All are lost and helpless unless character is transformed, perishing without a way back by themselves, and the Son of man came as the True Shepherd to seek and save them at cost to Himself. The gift of the only-begotten Son to a life of humiliation and death shows the worth placed on every soul bearing God's image and purchased by blood. His mission reaches the whole human family, Jew and Gentile, of every nation, tongue, rank, wealth and race, and the whole world is His field of labor. He left the ninety-nine and laid aside royal robes, veiling divinity with humanity and serving humbly to lift the lowly and restore the image, calling sinners to repentance rather than the self-righteous. Angels share that seeking work as messengers of mercy ministering to heirs of salvation and encamping around those who fear God.
He came to call sinners to repentance, not those who suppose a legal claim to favor or feel no need of salvation, not confining labor to those blessed with great light unimproved, but helping most those tempted and tried, weak, erring, perishing and wandering. His welcome of Zacchaeus shows why He received one condemned by others: welcoming Christ as personal Saviour brought salvation to his house, and his faith showed him a son of Abraham, while those counting themselves righteous could remain in greater need and be excluded. He exposes cherished sin plainly so lives ruined and kept from God can recognize it and put it away, and when truth breaks through selfishness to humility, contrition and gratitude, those are the very ones He came to save. Therefore jealousy, accusation, suspicion and cold-hearted indifference that separate from others and drive the needy away are contrary to His meek and humble spirit, and harm done to those who love Him is counted as harm done to Him Himself.
The lost include the little ones who believe in Him and must not be despised or offended, meaning not only children in years but those needing care and protection in religious experience, the sin-sick and those in fault. This calls for praying for erring brethren rather than accusing them, going to them kindly as directed and laboring by the Bible plan instead of separating them from the church and leaving them to Satan's temptations. It includes patiently caring for children who are erring or difficult to teach by correcting, teaching self-control, instructing the ignorant and reforming those who learned evil, for such are placed in the way of helpers as a blessing. Such patient care of an imperfect child to grow toward the divine Pattern and prepare for immortal life reflects His own work for fallen souls, and He stoops from His throne with pity to listen to their cries, grieving most when appointed workers are clouded by unadvised words, requiring tenderness, love, humility and conversion as little children.
His mission brought Him among the afflicted, poor, distressed, needy, despised, lowly and outcast, and though exalted and pure He did not use status as reason to keep apart or limit care to the honored, making help to the helpless a duty even when disagreeable. It also embraces people in wealth and honor who do not know God or keep His commandments, who need personal effort and special warning because many are spiritually hungry beneath indifference. It reaches the guilty, corrupt, degraded, intemperate and hopeless on the verge of ruin as objects of tender pity, sympathy and tireless effort, ready to cleanse them and supply all necessities, so that no one needing Him is turned away. Though disregarded by some He sought to rescue, He gave His life to save sinners, calling followers to work patiently and humbly without judging any unworthy.
He regarded the Jewish people as lost sheep, sought to gather them from paths of sin and error back to His fold, and gave them the first opportunity to hear the message of salvation. At the same time He treated people of other nations with consideration and courtesy, contrary to the teaching that only the Jewish nation would be saved.
His seeking is not limited to family or relatives but meets people where they are, rich and poor, high and low, and must go to all classes without pride, haughtiness or withdrawal from any class, white or colored. Those who love Him follow His steps by dwelling among the lowly, mingling with publicans, sinners and common people not to become low but to lift them by precept and example, correcting the false standard that judges worth by appearance, wealth, real estate, learning or position, for God shows no respect of persons and values the humble contrite heart, purity and love. This includes not avoiding the despised nor neglecting Black people and the colored race, but serving them through teaching, practical help, literacy, manual labor, farming and trades, developing abilities and helping find livelihoods beyond cotton-field labor, affirming their value to God as restitution for stolen time and denied education. All are only trustees and stewards of eternal riches entrusted for this work, debtors to Greek and barbarian, wise and unwise, who must give reckoning for use of goods for the poor, distressed, needy and suffering bearing God's image, relieving them as true religion and supreme duty, lest those enjoying comforts without care fail to hear well done, good and faithful servant.
How Christ Seeks and Saves
Christ saves by paying the ransom price with His death to bring sinners of every kind, nation and tongue into union and sympathy with Himself, not passing by even the most sinful but giving deepest interest, sympathy and effort to those most in need of reform and transforming grace. In sympathy and love He left His exalted place, took human weakness, endured temptation, ridicule, grief and sorrow, and descended in humiliation to the cross, and by that sacrifice He lifts people from sin back to God and joins earth to heaven. His provision is a full and perfect sinless offering whose blood can cleanse even the foulest stain. His death was the great freewill offering for sin that opened a fountain of mercy and a second probation, so that whoever believes should not perish but have everlasting life, and refusal of that greatest gift ever offered shows highest contempt for God. The sinless One lived as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, regarded as stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, taking the cup of suffering as if guilty and draining it to the dregs and bearing the sin of the world to the bitter end, and He still feels continued sin as if Himself guilty, while the Father Himself travailed in almighty paternal love so that eternal life is placed within reach of every son and daughter of Adam. He pledged His own life to give a second probation with pity, compassion and love without parallel, making every provision so none need perish, calling all who labor and are burdened to come for rest and uniting to Himself by new inspiration of grace everyone who comes.
He saves from sins, not in sins, recovering what was lost through the fall by redeeming humanity through perfect obedience to God's law in human life, joining humanity with divinity and making obedience possible. The sins of everyone who receives Him are charged to Him, and He fully satisfies God's justice. Salvation is offered to guilty transgressors standing under punishment, whom He longs with hungry wishfulness to rescue, and all who seek Him with the whole heart will hate sin while, like Him, seeking to save sinners, whereas refusal to come for life leaves the lost unrecovered. Every word He spoke and everything He did was unselfish, moved only by love greater than any other love ever shown, to show what human beings can become when they join weakness to His strength. His coming answers the claim that people cannot keep God's commandments, for one person rescued proves that claim false and proves God's law right, since He lived obedience on earth to prove it possible, took away guilt resting on the sinner by taking sorrow upon Himself, so the sinner can stand before God dressed in righteousness. He rescues sinners from their sins rather than leaving them in sin.
This mission did not abolish God's moral law, for in the sermon on the mount He affirmed its continuing authority, came to fulfill its demands and make it honorable, and showed God does not set aside the penalty for breaking it.
He seeks as the True Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to search wilderness and dangerous places until the wanderer is found, persisting under most discouraging circumstances without shrinking from hardship and peril, with all suffering forgotten in the joy of finding, and recovery of even one repentant sinner brings joy in heaven. Those who recognize need are like the sick who need a physician. He came as the great Medical Missionary and Great Physician ever watching over the sick and suffering, healing the sick, relieving the suffering and oppressed, consoling the bereaved, restoring those turned away, and offering mercy and opportunity to turn to the only One with power to save. His followers must represent Him by living not for self but for others, relieving need wherever suffering or oppression is seen and speaking timely strengthening words to the weary, assured of blessing in this God-called work. Physicians who care for the sick work in His place under His oversight as guardians of those He purchased with His own blood, and must be governed by high noble principles, understanding by experience the soothing power of Christ's grace with experimental knowledge of truth so they can impart its uplifting health-giving power, hold up the Saviour before the sick and dying, and kneel beside the sufferer asking the Great Physician to take the case, an impression that may result in saving the soul. Because every person is bought by His blood, none is to be treated with indifference or contempt, but each fellow traveler on the steep heavenward path is to be helped and encouraged, and man as crowning glory of creation is redeemed at inconceivable cost since only He could restore the moral image lost through transgression.
He accepted invitations to eat with publicans and sinners because sinners needing salvation would be at their tables, and in all His words there He scattered seeds of truth. His teaching met practical spiritual needs, redirecting curiosity and speculative questions toward what leads to salvation and eternal life, giving light needed to follow holiness while leaving unnecessary inquiries unanswered, with the Holy Spirit making clear through God's Word what is essential, and His mission frees disciples from ceremonies fulfilled by His sacrifice, leaving baptism received by faith as the ordinance pointing to the One who takes away sin. His mission is mercy, goodness and truth toward sinners, even receiving them and eating with them, with greatest pity and tender compassion especially for the poor, needy and helpless, including those who use God-given intellect to separate themselves from their Maker and lead others into sin. The hardhearted scribes and Pharisees misunderstood this from self-righteousness, pride and failure to appreciate His mercy, and found fault with Him for receiving sinners. Rather than rebuking them openly lest hearts close, He taught His seeking and saving work through the parable of the lost sheep as a lasting symbol to carry with them, and through the lost coin and prodigal son showing pitying love for those erring and straying by their own course yet not left in misery and for all exposed to the artful foe, so that after resurrection and ascension the Holy Spirit would convict some and bring them to unite with the disciples in the church.
He undertakes to save all who trust in Him, seeing wrongs and evils needing address and knowing needs so He can best shape and heal the soul, with His death the assurance they can be restored to favor and welcomed. A sinner can personally trust that He died and rose again to justify and save, accept promised forgiveness, and need not remain unsaved. Being a sinner does not mean God has cast one off but proves need for Saviour, forgiveness and pardon, and the greater the sin the greater the need, so when accused of being lost the answer is to admit the condition and claim His mission to rescue the lost, believing His word, obeying His commands and coming so as not to perish. He came to pardon every transgression and gave His life so the lost may have eternal life, working to open blind eyes. He redeems from sin and death all who come, raises them to His throne and gives everlasting life. He is the only remedy for sin, come to a world seared and marred with the curse to lift fallen man, reveal the Father's love to the perishing, bring them to look and live, and thereby bring many sons and daughters to glory, which must be received by striving lawfully with no pretentious faith but a faith making Him a personal Saviour, believing He is the only name whereby we may be saved.
Believers Share the Mission
Seeking and saving the lost is the most solemn work ever given to mortals and the highest class of work ever entrusted to them, greater than using talents for self. Jesus bought people with His own blood for this work and lays it on every Christian as individual responsibility that cannot be transferred to another. Whatever ability or calling a person has, God has given to every man his work, requiring personal effort for souls instead of idleness, carelessness and indifference. Every believer is to become more efficient by practice, better qualified to work the works of God, and educated and trained in the science of spiritual husbandry. This charge belongs not to ordained ministers alone but to every Christian young or old, rich or poor, who has been forgiven by Christ, set free by truth and owned by Him, to concentrate all energy on building up the kingdom by lifting up those ready to perish and presenting truth to others. Every church should have wise workmen who seek God to learn the best methods of labor for the tempted and tried and erring so as not to lose one, rather than remaining inefficient and helpless and depending on the minister to do what they should and must do if they would hear, Well done.
Every one who believes in Christ as a personal Saviour shares this seeking and saving work and is under bonds to God to be pure and holy and to do active service as a spiritual worker, whether great or small, rich or poor, bond or free. Anyone blessed with light who does not diffuse that light neglects a sacred duty plainly marked out in the Word, will lose the rich grace bestowed, see his own light diminish and his own soul brought into peril. Those to whom he should have been a shining light then miss the labor God intended them to have through the human instrument, and the unsought sheep is not brought back to the fold. True conversion proves itself by winning souls, with every voice saying Come and every influence and ability exercised to invite others, and no one is excused even when able to do only little, for doing what one is able gives courage and faith and grace for a larger work. Working to win souls is the test of having the truth and loving God and keeping His commandments, done by using God-given capabilities as entrusted talents to proclaim truth to those in darkness of error, and no truly converted person can stand as an idle looker-on, for there can be no inactivity without spiritual death.
Following in His footsteps means making that same seeking and saving work our own, with reasoning, intellect, tact, thought and sharpness to devise, plan and execute held as a trust for which all are responsible to Him. Depending on the Lord, believers are to take hold of the work intelligently and consecrated to God with all they have and are, exercising every ability and power with an eye single to His glory and not to glorify and please themselves. Those sent to labor are not merely to preach but to minister, carrying Christ's own solemn responsibility, and their work is measured not by a large list of sermons preached but by what has been done in saving souls and in training workers. Doing this requires being often with God in earnest prayer, seeking wisdom through diligent searching of the Scriptures, and earnest labor in personal effort. Those who go out to seek the lost must abide in Him and have His mind and teach the truth as it is in Jesus, for relying on themselves will keep them from accomplishing much.
The true Christian united with Him shares His love, pity and compassion and is touched with earnest hunger for souls, not resting until doing all in his power with time and strength, not shunning toilsome work, to give others the truth that brought gladness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Such a soul yokes up with Christ and works in harmony with Him, reveals the Saviour's love, yearns to bring others to Jesus, is melted with tenderness at the peril of souls out of Christ, watches for souls as one that must give an account, and seeks to win souls with invitations and pleadings mingled with assurances of God's promises, and this is registered in the books of record as laboring together with God. This work is to be done in Christ's way, with patience, personal interest and determination without discouragement, using consecrated human abilities as Jesus can use them. Like the shepherd going after the one strayed sheep, Christians are to approach those in fault with meekness, kindness and love, seeking their salvation rather than criticizing, condemning or pushing them away.
Followers are to join this work and not condemn those who need help, but come near and help them with humility, meekness and tender care, even when doing so brings suffering, sacrifice or trial. This redeeming, reconstructing and restoring flows from who God is, for God is love in Himself, in His very essence, and God is life, and it is His prerogative to redeem, reconstruct and restore, making the very best of what appears an injury and giving Satan no occasion for triumph by making the worst appear or exposing weakness to enemies. Everyone connected with Christ becomes a partaker of the divine nature and a laborer together with God in this same work, binding up the bruised and wounded soul and, when a brother or sister has erred, working with Christ to restore such a one in the spirit of meekness instead of joining with the enemy in destroying and ruining. Because He came to call sinners to repentance and not those who suppose they have a legal claim to favor, jealousy, accusation and suspicion must not drive them away, for harming those who love Christ is treated as harming Christ Himself. Even those who seem hopeless, including people trapped in harmful habits or destructive conduct, are souls He died for and is willing to forgive if they come to Him, and they should not be cast away but met with kind attention, faith and prayer and helped in Christ to resist temptation and overcome evil.
His mission calls Christians to follow His example by going beyond the church and working to save souls, especially people who have not heard the truth. His followers must go to them through personal labor rather than wait for them to come, reaching the rich as well as the poor, including people brought low by misfortune or intemperance and those trapped in sin, as souls for whom He died, sharing His concern for human suffering and working among the fallen with sympathy. They are to go out personally to people who might not hear the message in large gatherings, open the Scriptures to them and share the words of life. They share this work by going out to reach sinners and those who do not know the plan of salvation, rather than concentrating efforts on people who already know the truth. Seeking and saving requires active, aggressive energy that goes out beyond one's own people into new places, securing halls and meeting people where they are, letting light shine to those in darkness and casting in the seed of truth by speaking the Word.
Human effort in speech works together with sleepless, ever-active, unseen agencies that secure the great result of saving the soul, done by praying in faith, doing one's best, committing all to God who cares for the seed sown, and then working and waiting patiently and watching unto prayer. Everyone who expects to be saved himself is charged to do special soul-saving work together with Christ before time passes into eternity, and claiming to labor together with Christ is empty without fulfilling it. Fulfilling it means not neglecting cities and highways near and far and not gathering into small settlements, but kindling many lights in all cities by house-to-house work, giving a soul-saving message to many neighborhoods, and arranging small camp-meetings in favorable places to draw people out to hear soul-saving truth. Rejoicing in the beauty of Jesus as Chief among ten thousand altogether lovely should move those bought with a price and entrusted with sacred light and truth to share saving grace with those who know nothing of it and to point out the antidote for sin, for to bury this entrusted light in the earth is slothful neglect bringing condemnation rather than the benediction, Well done, good and faithful servant.
The work includes more than preaching: personal conversation and prayer with those who hear the message are essential ways to seek the lost and can bear fruit to God's glory. Ministers must watch over people with a shepherd's care, talk and pray with them, and make faithful efforts with the watchful interest of a shepherd guarding sheep. God's people are to share soul-saving Bible truths with the unconverted, including through publications, for neglecting to deliver this message may contribute to their ruin. Out of love for precious souls for whom He died, those who have the cause at heart must do as He did by not seeking their own ease or pleasure but going forth to seek and to save the lost to call sinners to repentance. His work of saving those lost in sin required sacrifice, and His followers are called to join that work, giving up self-interest and seeking to bring sinners to the Saviour, finding reward and joy in this service.
Self-denying, self-sacrificing service for those who need help brings joy to the Saviour and has a reward. His sacrifice as the Good Shepherd come from heaven to seek and save calls His followers to labor earnestly for the unsaved rather than remain idle. His example in leaving the heavenly courts to come into the sin-polluted world teaches that His followers can live in the world without adopting its customs or pleasures, remaining among unbelievers to help save others for that purpose alone, where a faithful life can show the transforming power of true religion. This mission is the greatest work of principals, teachers, pastors and leading men in schools and sanitariums, done by ministering in His lines in humility and dependence on higher authority, being daily taught by God how to lift up the erring and open the understanding of the ignorant, walking humbly with God, learning from the great Teacher, studying the Word with diligence and earnest prayer, letting God correct errors of judgment, fearing lest by example the lame and weak be turned out of the way, and striving to be faithful to charge. His ministers are to make winning souls their first concern and to work with sorrow for sin, patient love, and determined, unceasing effort.
Teachers must follow His pattern by being missionaries winning pupils to Jesus, manifesting love and forbearance to the very ones who most need it, especially restless, nervous and less attractive children, with no partiality to those who please fancy, no pride, unloving strictness, arbitrary authority or overbearing commanding manner. Teachers need the love of God in their hearts, submission to God, calm kindness, and managing ability with mental and physical balance, because without love they give a wrong mold to developing character, cause disorganization and failure in management, and result in loss of souls, while faithful influence is as lasting as eternity. When pupils stray, teachers who care for His people should seek them rather than abandon them, working to win and save them with His help. Teachers and students share in the same work of seeking salvation of souls and recovering what was lost through transgression, and gaining experience in this soul-saving work by laboring to place the feet of every student upon the true foundation, the solid Rock, is the most essential experience for teacher and student. Physicians who care for the sick work in His place as the Great Physician and divine Medical Missionary ever watching over the sick and suffering who purchased human beings with His own blood, serving as guardians of those He purchased under His oversight and governed by high, noble principles in carrying out His will.
A physician is not fit for medical missionary work until by experience he understands the soothing power of grace and has an experimental knowledge of the truth, so that he can impart in words the uplifting, health-giving power of God's truth and hold up the Saviour before the sick and dying. When the Christian physician kneels beside the sufferer and asks the Great Physician to take the case into His own hands, the impression made on the mind of the sick one may result in the saving of his soul.
Fruit Joy and Accountability
To be saved is to be forgiven and given peace, renewed in nature, clothed with Christ's righteousness, elevated and purified in character, fitted to work with God, and changed from hatred and revenge to love for God. This rescue reaches people in corruption, degradation, misery, bondage to Satan and separation from God in order to lift them up. It was wrought by taking humanity and fighting the battle where Adam fell through appetite, meeting the powers of darkness and winning victory at every point of Adam's failure to open a way of salvation. Divinity cooperates with humanity to effect radical change, making the pardoned more than conquerors, bringing them into connection with Christ at infinite cost and even to a seat upon His throne. It requires cleansing the soul temple of every defilement, ceasing self-indulgence, coming into right relation to God, being cleansed from all iniquity, walking worthy of the calling, and laboring earnestly for the salvation of family and friends. The same mission calls followers to deny self, reject ease and selfishness, and bring the lost from darkness into the light of God's love.
The gift of the only-begotten Son and the infinite price of His blood show the worth God places on every human soul. Each person of every rank, wealth, race, nation and tongue bears God's image and is purchased by Christ, and all are lost and helpless unless character is transformed. By taking humanity, serving humbly and dying on the cross, He came to lift up the lowly, exalt human worth, provide a stepping-stone for humanity to meet divinity, share the divine nature, escape the corruption in the world through lust, and be continually uplifted and ennobled. Restoration of the moral image of God in man to uplift fallen humanity is the grand work of redemption. Everyone redeemed from hopeless misery is therefore to cooperate with Him as co-worker with the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, reaching fallen humanity and uplifting them rather than laying snares, making secret plans to draw souls into temptation, or seeking advantage among wealthy, self-indulgent men who abuse His mercies and embezzle the goods of heaven.
Recovery of even one sinner who repents brings joy in heaven, gladness to the heart of Christ, and singing in the heavenly courts, like the shepherd rejoicing over the found sheep sought in the desert and in dangerous places. Those who recognize their need are like the sick who need a physician, guilty transgressors under punishment for transgression whom He longs with hungry wishfulness to rescue. He saves not in sins but from sins, and all who seek Him with the whole heart will hate sin while, like Him, seeking to save sinners; refusal to come to Him for life leaves the lost unrecovered, but when a soul learns of Jesus and finds everlasting strength where mortal strength fails His heart is made glad. Loving workers carry on His work by finding those fallen into degradation, relieving suffering, teaching righteousness, and preparing them to know that their souls matter and to seek restoration through divine power, and the rescue of even one from Satan's power brings joy among the angels. His example calls followers to work and sacrifice to win the perishing, for each soul is of great value and one person won can help save others, while He grieves when even one soul for whom He sacrificed is lost and desires all to enter the kingdom, using His followers as His agents through their words and actions.
All heaven is enlisted in beseeching laborers to recover the lost sheep, and all the resources of heaven are at the command of interested workers to bestow upon perishing souls to lead them back to the fold. The Father gave all heaven in the gift of His Son, the Highest who was with the Father before the world was, who clothed divinity with humanity to lift up the lowly and stand as Advocate of the sinful family, suffering in human form as Lord of glory, lacerated with stripes, bruised for iniquities, bearing the chastisement of peace, healing by His stripes, crying out in agony and pouring out His life on the cross for the one lost guilty sheep. The cross is set up that perishing souls may know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, telling the depth and breadth of infinite love and the greatness of the Father's love, revealing that the Father gave Himself in His Son that He might have the joy of receiving back the sheep that was lost. The very angels who fought for God when Satan sought supremacy, who shouted for joy over creation and the first parents, and who witnessed the fall and expulsion from Eden, are intensely interested in working in union with the fallen, redeemed race, ministering in every necessity of the elect who strive to be victorious overcomers, desiring to look into the plan of redemption and rejoicing when one soul by faith takes hold of Christ's personal merits as personal Saviour. Human agencies become the hands of heavenly instrumentalities, connecting invisible with visible agencies to restore the moral image of God, bind up the wounds and bruises sin has made, and relieve the oppressed and distressed by practical unselfish ministry with God-given talents.
Those so transformed become partakers of the divine nature with selfishness separated from life, compassionate, touched with human woe, loving the fallen brother as God and Christ love them and loving as Christ loved, evidencing Christ's attributes, and heaven looks with joy and delight upon these blended influences. Anyone who influences even the most lowly and wins them to Christ cooperates with divine agencies by presenting a personal, sin-pardoning Saviour, reaching a hand of sympathy and Christlike love so the sinner grasps Christ's hand by faith and a link of union is formed between soul and Saviour. Heavenly intelligences do their part and will use any human agent touched with the infirmities, necessities, troubles and perplexities of those for whom Christ died, passing by hearts that are not tender and pitiful, kind and thoughtful, and ready to relieve the woes of others. God gives power for this rescuing work to every person who will unite with heavenly intelligences, requiring separation from selfishness and granting special talents for helping one another that bring change to the world.
Seeking and saving the lost, bought with the infinite price of His own blood, is the greatest work on earth, laid as individual responsibility that cannot be transferred on everyone who believes in Christ as personal Saviour, great or small, rich or poor, bond or free, whatever ability or calling. Each is under bonds to be pure and holy and to do active service as a spiritual worker, with personal effort for souls instead of idleness, carelessness and indifference, becoming more efficient by practice, better qualified to work the works of God, and educated and trained in the science of spiritual husbandry. The lost are backsliding, wayward, straying sheep caught in the enemy's snare and ready to perish, precious in God's sight, to be sought by going to them in love, coming close to their side, earnest conversation, tender sympathy, determined effort, and prayer that presses their case to the throne of grace as Moses pleaded for Israel, refusing to let go. Those who close the door of their hearts like the Pharisees must fall on the Rock and be broken and become converted, and when spiritual life is renewed by the Holy Spirit with affections set on heavenly things, believers do the work their Master did and shine as witnesses in moral darkness. Abilities unused or put to wrong purposes waste and decline, and the church must present God's Word to the fallen both in the world and among the churches even when those around seem unresponsive.
One blessed with light who does not diffuse it neglects a sacred duty plainly marked out in the Word, loses the rich grace bestowed, sees light diminish and soul brought into peril, while those who should have received labor through the human instrument miss it and the unsought sheep is not brought back to the fold. Every church should have wise workmen who seek God to learn the best methods of labor for the tempted, tried and erring so as not to lose one, rather than remaining inefficient and helpless and depending on the minister to do the work they should and must do if they would hear the welcome of well done. Neglecting this rescue leaves souls to perish and brings solemn questions in the judgment about slothfulness in failing to save souls ready to perish. He would enter gatherings of the thoughtless and worldly, frivolous entertainments, amusements, parties and suppers only to seek and save the lost, and cannot be invited to them for frivolity; mingling in them without that purpose slights God and grieves His Spirit. Separation from the world does not unfit for the work but increases power for usefulness, for firmer hold on heaven gives greater power.
His example is to connect with people and meet them where they are so as to reach all classes, not only through preaching but in homes and innocent social gatherings. He did not stay among the exalted and honorable nor spend time among those seeking ease and pleasure, but worked to help those needing help, to lift up the bowed down, break the yoke of oppression from those in bondage, heal the afflicted, and speak sympathy and consolation to the distressed and sorrowing. His life was inspiring, authoritative, social, kind, generous and beneficent, meeting men with their prejudices where they are to minister light, comfort and peace found in accepting truth, giving a better understanding of God's claims and more perfect knowledge of truth, showing the best manner of helping fellow men, with special care for the poor. Those entrusted with truth must follow that broad plan, breaking down Pharisaical chilliness, reserve, exclusiveness and dictation, not shunning the society of fellow men but encouraging it to bestow heavenly benefits, holding all they have not as their own but as lent in trust to advance His cause, partaking of His Spirit, blessing the needy, comforting the distressed, filled with love for perishing souls and finding delight in following His footsteps.