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Review and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 37.

Live Day by Day

Review and Herald

Sep 12, 1907

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 12, 1907

Live Day by Day

By Julia Harris May

I heard a voice at evening softly say, Nor load this week with last week's load of sorrow. Bear not thy yesterday into to-morrow, Lift all thy burdens as they come, nor try To weigh the present with the by and by. One step and then another, take thy way— Live day by day. Live day by day.
Though autumn leaves are withering round thy way, Walk in the sunshine. It is all for thee. Push straight ahead, as long as thou canst see. Dread not the winter whither thou mayst go, But when it comes, be thankful for the snow. Onward and upward. Look and smile and pray— Live day by day. Live day by day.
The path before thee doth not lead astray. Do the next duty. It must surely be The Christ is in the one that’s close to thee. Onward, still onward, with a sunny smile, Till step by step, shall end in mile by mile. “ I’ll do my best,” unto thy conscience say. Live day by day. Live day by day.
—Julia Harris May.

Publishers' Page

By Editor

Conducted by the Department of Circulation of the Review and Herald Publishing Association

The Special Temperance Number of Life and Health

The second edition of the special Temperance number of Life and Health is being printed. The first edition of 25,000 copies was ordered out by the fifth of the month. The demand for this number is especially good.

What It Does

This number of Life and Health is devoted entirely to temperance. It meets a manifest demand in every community, and is convincing thousands of their personal responsibility in suppressing the liquor traffic.
It reveals to the general public some of the many unsuspected avenues through which the liquor habit is acquired.
It strikes a strong blow at the evils of the various intemperate practises, and is proving to be of great benefit in helping the public to discover some of the primary causes of alcoholism.
It emphasizes the fact that the diet has much to do with creating a thirst for alcoholic drinks.
It contains testimonials from those who have been enabled to break the craving for tobacco and wine through a vegetarian diet.
It prescribes dietetic and other treatments for the drink habit.
It impresses the importance and power of personal influence in battling against intemperate habits among men.
It strongly recommends, in addition to proper human agencies, the power of Christ, the Great Physician, as the best, surest, and most complete remedy for liquor and other narcotic habits.
It recounts the evidence of the discontinuance of alcohol in the practise of leading physicians, and their teachings and writings against its use as a medicine.
It cites conclusive evidence that liquor produces disease, crime, and poverty.
It teaches some of the cardinal principles of home temperance that will fortify boys and girls against temptation through life.
It contains good advice to mothers upon points that many regard as “small things.”
It gives the current comment on Milk and Alcohol in Medicine, Food Value of Alcohol, Alcohol as a Remedy in Disease, Science and Alcohol, Alcohol as a Depressant, Alcohol and Insanity, and Alcoholic Medicines.
It quotes statistics to demonstrate the destructive influence of ancestral alcoholism in the mental and physical degeneracy of children.
It recommends an educational campaign upon the true nature of alcohol as the surest remedy against its use.
It attributes the present extreme use of alcoholic drinks to the belief that they contain valuable nourishing elements.
It protests against the claim that alcohol is a food for tubercular patients.
It maintains that a reform in alcoholism is dependent upon a reform in the things that create a craving for a stimulant; forbidding the use of alcohol without removing the causes of its craving can not effect a reform.
It exposes the inconsistency of our government in licensing the liquor traffic, and then prescribing the teaching of temperance in our schools.
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It will be an excellent seller, and will bring to the worker a liberal wage for his services.

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The False Hope of a Second Probation

“The False Hope of a Second Probation” is the title of a new tract that has just been published. It is composed of the series of articles recently printed in the Review upon the subject of the Millennial Dawn. It is our only small publication that treats directly upon the subject of the teachings of the Millennial Dawn people, and will be found to be very helpful to all who desire to study to meet the errors taught by the Millennial Dawn sect. Price, two cents a copy, post-paid.

Foreign Publications

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Series 1—12
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The New Edition of Seer of Patmos

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This book contains an interesting story of the prophecies of the book of Revelation, written in simple narrative form, and presents a new side of the important messages recorded in John's prophecies, heretofore supposed to be the incomprehensible book of the Bible. It will be found to be interesting, instructive, and beneficial to all Bible students. It is nicely illustrated with original drawings especially prepared for the book. Being written in story form, it is especially attractive to the young.

Home and Health

Our New Home Manual of Health

“Home and Health” is a large health subscription book of 592 pages, filled with the most practical instruction, thoroughly illustrated, and designed for a home reference book upon the many details of home-making and the care of the health.
It embraces “The Home”—how to make it; “General Housekeeping”—all of its details; “The Diet”—what it should be; “The Care of the Body”—revealing the simple things one must do to keep the body healthy; “The Care and Training of Children”—sound common sense for parents; “The Home Treatment of Disease”—a valuable instructor, doctor, and nurse.
One who has examined the book carefully, says: “Wherever you may open the book, there is something very practical for the reader. Every page contains some bright, pithy points of value to all home-makers.”
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A Genuine Christian Experience

A GENUINE Christian experience means a personal fellowship with a personal Christ. Sound doctrine is essential, but an assent to sound doctrine as a mere act of the mind apart from the acceptance of Christ to dwell in the heart by faith is altogether insufficient, and does not bring freedom from the bondage of sin. It is the privilege of every believer to be in communion with Jesus, the Son, and through him with his Father and our Father. “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” The experience of the indwelling Christ is the heart and soul of true Christianity. Christ dwells within as the Lord our Righteousness. Christ dwells within as our Peace. Christ dwells within as the Truth and the Life. This is present salvation, and a salvation which will be eternally present. Thanks be unto God for such a Saviour.

The Present Sabbath-School Lessons

By Editor

A Criticism and a Reply

We have received a copy of the leaflet, sent out from Battle Creek, with the title “God’s Everlasting Covenant: Remarks Made by Alonzo T. Jones, in the Battle Creek Sanitarium Sabbath-school, July 20, 1907.” On reading it we find it to be a very severe criticism of the lessons now being studied in the senior division of our Sabbath-schools, and an attempt to prove that “the Seventh-day Adventist denomination has absolutely abandoned the true Seventh-day Adventist ground as tested by the writings of the spirit of prophecy,” and also “the true Christian ground as tested by the plain facts and plain words and the universal thought of the Holy Scriptures.” This is certainly a serious accusation to make against a body of professedly Christian people. One who presents such an indictment as this ought surely to have the most plain and positive evidence upon which to rest it. We would not expect that one who declares that “for this awful fact no one can possibly be more sorry than” he, would treat the lessons unfairly, or would by technical arguments attempt to make them say what by any fair construction, and taken as a whole, they do not say, in order to establish the “awful fact.” Has this been done? We shall be better able to answer this question after considering the charge, the proof adduced, and the actual teachings of the lessons.

The Charge

We will first quote the charge made:—
As the central proposition of this whole Lesson Quarterly as to God’s everlasting covenant is that it is “Obey and Live,” let us look at this on its own merit. This says that to Adam and angels God promised life “only on condition of obedience;” and this was a “compact,” an agreement, a contract, upon a “condition” or proviso, between God and his creatures. . . .
According to these lessons, then, on God’s part he promised to give to them life provided that they would obey; and on their part they promised to obey so that they could have life. Then when they had promised to do it, so that they could have life, and had to do it before they could have the life, then when they did do it and so got the life, how was it in fact and in truth that they got the life? There is only one possible answer, and that answer is perfectly clear: it is that they got the life by their own works. . . .
As the lessons teach, this covenant was the creatures’ agreement or compact, and their promise was that they would obey the law of God, the ten commandments, in order that they might have righteousness and life. . . .
Further: the Lesson Quarterly says that “righteousness and life go together.” This is the truth. But in this connection see what it is made to tell: as Adam and angels, all could have life only by their own works, in fulfilment of their own promise to obey; and as righteousness and life go together, it is positive and plain that they got righteousness by their own works in fulfilment of their own promise, and so this righteousness was absolutely and exclusively their own righteousness. And since their promise of obedience must be fulfilled before God’s promise of life could come in or be of effect, it also follows that the righteousness of their own works upon their own promise was entirely their own righteousness, and not the righteousness of God at all. It was absolutely righteousness by works, and not by faith; it was exclusively their own righteousness, by their own works, upon their own promise, and not in any sense the righteousness of God, which is by faith. [Italics as in the leaflet.]

The Basis for the Charge

There is much more of this same kind, accompanied by a somewhat painful exhibition of solicitude in behalf of the people who, it is alleged, have thus apostatized from the truth, but this is certainly sufficient to make clear what the charge is against these lessons and this denomination. This charge is based upon the following quotations from the notes appended to different lessons in the Lesson Quarterly:—
The angels must have lived under the
same covenant as man; namely, “Obey and Live.”
Since harmony can exist only when all wills, all choices, are in accord with one supreme will, it is apparent that death must be the result to the one who persists in wrong choosing. Hence the covenant is, “Obey and Live.”
We have found the condition of the covenant between God and his creatures to be, “Obey and Live.”
The compact, or covenant, under which Adam began his existence was that God promised life only on condition of Adam’s obedience.
We pass by, as unworthy of any serious attention, that substitution of logic for good sense by which the paragraph last quoted is made to prove that the writer of the lessons taught that Adam “entered into that agreement before he existed,” and inquire whether it is true that “these lessons are fundamentally wrong and inculcate ultra and destructive error; error that is subversive of souls, in that it is subversive of God’s everlasting covenant of grace, and the free gift of life and righteousness.” It is true that the quotations are all found in the Lesson Quarterly. It is true that when they are taken out of the connection in which they stand in the lessons, and apart from the other positive and clear statements in the lessons as a whole, they can be made by due process of manipulation to teach that the everlasting covenant is “a covenant into which the angels and Adam entered ‘without Christ,’ and therefore itself a covenant without Christ,” and may thus be made to furnish an apparent basis for the somewhat tragic exclamation, “Oh, oh, oh, my soul! Oh, people saved by the Lord! what awful thing is this that God’s everlasting covenant shall be made to be a covenant without Christ!” But it is not true that this series of lessons, when fairly and justly treated, justify any such conclusions.

The Charge Considered

Let us now consider these quotations in their proper connection. The one upon which the charge is most persistently rung, and which is made to furnish the foundation for a lengthy and somewhat involved argument, is the one last quoted: “The compact, or covenant, under which Adam began his existence was that God promised life only on condition of Adam’s obedience.” This is one of several conclusions drawn by the lesson writer at the end of the first lesson. The questions in the lesson with which it seems to be directly connected are these: “How did God impart life to man? Gen. 2:7. Upon what condition was this life to be continued? Gen. 2:17.” This last text reads thus: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” One of the other conclusions drawn from the same lesson and
printed in the same list with the one which is selected for manipulation is this: “His continued existence was dependent upon his choosing in harmony with God’s will.” When thus taken in the connection in which it appeared in the Lesson Quarterly, it will be clear to any one who is not looking for an opportunity to make an accusation against the denomination that this paragraph, much italicized and much capitalized in the leaflet, means that the continuance of life to Adam depended upon his obedience to the commandment of God that he should not eat of the forbidden tree. The provision made in Christ “before the world began,” by virtue of which man created in the image of God could be obedient, is not mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis, neither is it mentioned in the first lesson of this series, but it is presented in other parts of the Bible and in other places in these lessons. The “destructive error, error that is subversive of souls,” appears to us to consist more in the unfair manipulation of the lesson than in the lesson itself.
The other expression which is taken out of its connection and handled with much acumen is the phrase, “Obey and Live.” This is found first in the first lesson, and in the paragraph immediately following the one which we have already considered. It is plainly intended to be the condensed form of the previous statement that man’s “continued existence was dependent upon his choosing in harmony with God’s will,” or of that other statement that “God promised [continued] life only on condition of Adam’s obedience.” The same statements which have already been made with reference to these other paragraphs are therefore applicable to this phrase. The meaning of these several paragraphs, as found in their connection in the lessons, not as found in the leaflet, will be clear enough not to cause confusion to the man who reads them in their proper connection without putting into them what they do not by any fair construction contain. At the same time we are perfectly free to say that more care might have been exercised to avoid those expressions which make it possible to do just what has been done in this leaflet—by selection and manipulation to make the lessons teach what they do not really teach.
If the same method of treatment employed in this leaflet should be applied to the sayings of Jesus, he also could be made to teach salvation by works. To the inquiry of the young man, “What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” he replied, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments,” and by quoting several of them he showed that he meant the ten commandments of the decalogue. Now apply the logic of the leaflet: “As certainly then
as life was promised him only on a condition, so certainly he did not already have life; and not having life, he agreed [or would have agreed, had he accepted the condition imposed by Jesus] to obey in order that he might have it; as it was ‘only’ on that ‘condition’ that he could have life.” “It is a fault for either angels or men ever to enter into a compact of ‘Obey and Live,’ or to offer to God obedience as the satisfaction or ‘condition’ upon which ‘only’ they can secure the promise of life. And this for the reason that under such a ‘compact’ and upon such a ‘condition’ their obedience, and therefore their righteousness, would be only of themselves and of the law. And self-righteousness is no more true righteousness, and no more acceptable to God, in a heavenly angel than it is in an earthly Pharisee.” This kind of logic applied to one of the sayings of Jesus, taken apart from the general tenor of his teaching, demonstrates that he inculcated self-righteousness, righteousness by the law, and that if his instruction was followed, it would simply make Pharisees. We protest against such rabbinical methods.

Some Clear Statements

But now let us inquire whether there are any positive statements in this series of lessons which make it clear that they do not teach that the everlasting covenant is a covenant of bondage, as is charged in this leaflet, or a covenant without Christ. We quote the following paragraphs from the notes:—
God says he will give Christ for the covenant of the people [referring to Isa. 42:6], that is, Christ would furnish the people’s part of the covenant. God requires of the people perfect righteousness, but all have failed, so Jesus came to stand in our stead and furnish what we have failed to furnish, and thus to renew the broken covenant in himself, and with the people in him.—Lesson IV, note 2.
Since man fell by a disobedience which was the outgrowth of a lack of faith in God, it must be evident that man can be reinstated only by an obedience which is the outgrowth of faith in God.—Lesson V, note 2.
The steps of a man in entering the new covenant are: . . .
(b) Faith in Christ as expressed in God’s appointed way, and thereby receiving the righteousness of God. . . .
On God’s part, the steps are: . . .
(b) Writing his law in the man’s heart by the Holy Spirit so that the man can keep his commandments.—Lesson V, notes 5 and 6.
The bondage is sin or transgression of the law. Christ alone can save the sinner, and make him righteous or obedient. When a man assumes by his own works to make himself righteous, he is taking upon himself an obligation that he can never bear. The more one seeks to justify himself by his own acts, the more he becomes entangled in the yoke of bondage, or sin. Any theory or system which seeks righteousness by works is but a yoke of bondage.—Lesson VII, note.
These are the better promises [God’s promises previously quoted, to write the law in the heart, etc.] upon which the second is established, and they are all good, for they are the promises of God. All we have to do is to accept them, and we find them to be yea and amen in Christ Jesus.—Lesson VIII, note 4.
The Jews were trying, by their own works, to establish their own righteousness, and like all others who trust in morality for justification, they were too proud to acknowledge their own helplessness, and to submit to receiving righteousness by simple faith in Jesus, and so they stumbled.—Lesson IX, note 1.
We have found that the new covenant centers in Christ, and to accept him by faith is to keep the new covenant.—Lesson X, introductory note.
By these texts [the texts referred to in the previous lesson] it will be clearly seen that Christ, in counsel with the Father, offered himself as a substitute for man, that God accepted this offer, and thus the new, or renewed, covenant was confirmed of God in Christ by promise; Christ bringing to man the righteousness man failed to furnish, and meeting the penalty which man had incurred by sin.—Lesson XI, note 1.
Would the unprejudiced reader of these notes come to the conclusion that “these lessons make God’s everlasting covenant to be a covenant of bondage”—“a covenant into which the angels and Adam entered ‘without Christ,’ and therefore itself a covenant without Christ”? Are these notes printed in the same series of lessons and in the same Lesson Quarterly from which the quotations are taken in the leaflet?—They are. Are any of these quotations quoted or referred to in the leaflet?—They are not. Do the quotations made in the leaflet give a correct idea of the true teaching of the lessons from which they are taken, or of the series of lessons as a whole?—They do not. What, then, is the explanation of such a severe arraignment of these lessons and of the denomination, thus publicly made and printed to be sent out to the people?

A Personal Matter

Toward the close of this remarkable leaflet, after the charge has been made that the General Conference “administration” never did accept the message of righteousness by faith which was presented at the Minneapolis Conference in 1888, we find the following:—
And now at last in the Sabbath-school lessons in this Lesson Quarterly, senior division, third quarter, 1907, that spirit and that element [of opposition to the message of righteousness by faith] have most signally triumphed, in having got not only the “administration,” the “organization,” and the “denomination” committed body, soul, and spirit, to the covenant of “Obey and Live,” but, so far as in their power lies, have actually committed the created universe, and even the Creator himself, to that same covenant of bondage of self-righteousness. And this after fifteen years of religious liberty and righteousness by faith!! . . .
And because by never a hair’s breadth would I yield to the demands of that element, to compromise or modify—that is, to abandon—the sure ground of that eternal truth, I have been held as only an unreasonable extremist—until they could endure it no longer, but, upon deliberate action taken, must publish broadcast concerning me that—
“We hereby declare that he does not now properly represent this denomination before the public,” and that he is “no longer authorized to do so.”
I bless the Lord for that. Since it is true that against the plain facts and plain scriptures, and against the plain writings of the spirit of prophecy, these Sabbath-school lessons, originated and issued by the denomination, commit the denomination, and even God himself, to a covenant of bondage, to a covenant “without Christ,” then it is the happiest thing that ever came to me from this earth, that “this denomination” itself should officially notify the world that I do not properly represent them.
Such a statement of the case as this in this immediate connection is certainly very suggestive. For reasons which were stated in the action itself, but which were not quoted in the leaflet, and which did not relate to the question of righteousness by faith, the General Conference Committee deemed it necessary to make a statement concerning the relation of the denomination to the one who prepared this leaflet; then in due time this leaflet appears in which an attempt is made to show that the whole denomination has “absolutely abandoned the true Seventh-day Adventist ground,” and “the true Christian ground,” but that he himself has “by never a hair’s breadth” yielded to the pressure brought to bear upon him to abandon the eternal truth, and that when “they [there is no antecedent to this pronoun] could endure it no longer,” they made the public announcement quoted above, for which he blesses the Lord. We grant that it is possible that the whole denomination should apostatize from the truth of the gospel, and that there should remain only this one champion of the truth, but we are not convinced that such is the case by the proof set forth in this leaflet, after examining the lessons themselves. On the contrary, we are compelled to regard this leaflet as an answer to the action of the General Conference Committee, a deliberate attempt to prove apostasy upon the part of the whole denomination as the basis for personal exultation over the action of the Committee.

Setting the Denomination Right

The leaflet closes with this appeal:—
Will “the administration” and “the organized work” now undo this wrong that has been done, and set the denomination right by presenting the true and everlasting gospel of God’s everlasting covenant in truth? Or will they refuse to do this, and leave this blessed work for others to do? and then themselves defend the awful error of the lessons, and charge with “apostasy” and with “warring on the denomination” all those who preach the true and everlasting gospel of God’s everlasting covenant in
truth? Which will they do? Which will you do? As for me, I will now go everywhere, preaching to every creature the everlasting gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ in God’s everlasting covenant as that everlasting covenant is in “the Truth.”
This is apparently an outburst of zeal for the truth, but it appears to us to contain something more than this. If the “administration” does not respond to this scathing exhortation to “set the denomination right,” but leaves “this blessed work for others to do,” who is so well prepared to do that work as he who “never by a hair’s breadth” has swerved from the path of eternal truth? And what better justification could there be for a campaign in the field to “set the denomination right” than the alleged fact so fully set forth in this leaflet that the denomination “has absolutely abandoned the true Seventh-day Adventist ground”? We do not wish to surmise any unworthy motives for such a solicitude for truth, or to attribute any purpose which is not apparent, but when the millstone is set up on edge, it is difficult not to look through it.
We have not been appointed to speak in this matter in behalf of the “administration,” but from our own standpoint we are not convinced that it is necessary to recall these lessons, and “tell to all the people who have studied the lessons that the lessons are fundamentally wrong.” We are willing to admit that they might have been improved in the form of statement. We hope that all our Sabbath-school lessons will grow better and better. We do not profess to have attained to the standard of absolute perfection, but we still have faith that the denomination has not gone over to righteousness by works, body, soul, and spirit, and we shall seek to do what we can to prevent any such catastrophe.
It will be our purpose to teach to this people the everlasting gospel, and to set forth in its true light any effort to confuse them or to lead them away from the message which has called them out from the world and set their feet in the path to Zion. While we may not dwell constantly upon the technical side of the question of righteousness by faith, yet we shall hope to help this people into the genuine experience as defined by the spirit of prophecy: “What is justification by faith?—It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself.”

Christ Is Our Righteousness

By Editor

Editorial

CHRIST is our righteousness. He imparts righteousness to us by giving himself to us. When we accept him by faith, we are made righteous by faith. The theory of righteousness by faith, a mere abstract doctrine as the basis for a discussion, has no more power in it for deliverance from the pride and sin of the natural heart than has a theory in astronomy or political economy. One who is unchristlike in his spirit and method of upholding the doctrine of righteousness by faith needs to learn more of the experience, the reality, of that doctrine. “The scribes and the Pharisees' sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.” We should not turn away from the true doctrine of righteousness by faith because some of its zealous advocates have failed to reveal the fruits of this doctrine in their lives. It is not the fault of the doctrine. Instead of rejecting the doctrine we should adorn the doctrine.

Crucified with Christ

“I HAVE been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.”

God's Glorious Work

By C. M. S.

It is a wonderful work to chisel an angel form out of a cold, white, insensate stone. We look upon it and wonder at the skill of the artist and the deftness of the chiseling that brought beauty and the representation of life out of ugliness and the representation of death.
There is a more wonderful work than that taking place in the earth to-day. Jesus Christ is taking the ugliest of characters and bringing them back into the likeness of the divine pattern. Concerning that wonderful work he declares: “I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.” Isa. 13:12. So precious are they upon whom this work is performed that they are designated by the strongest term Inspiration can use to show their value. He says: “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.” Mal. 3:17.
But the regard of the Lord for his loyal people is deeper than that of men for jewels, however great that may be. His regard is that tender heart sympathy, as well, which the heart of the parent feels for the child. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Ps. 116:15. And precious also in his sight is the life that sets him forth before a world that is forgetting him. Concerning those that reverence Jehovah and think upon his name he says: “I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Mal. 3:17.
Truly that possession of the Lord's is a most valued one. Had there been but one soul to make up that possession, we know heaven would have made the same sacrifice that it did for the whole multitude redeemed from among men. Says Jehovah, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.”
Many times in sore temptations or deep discouragement Satan holds before us the cloud of our own sins to shut out the sunlight of heaven; but it is always when we are looking away from the Lamb of God that we see that cloud. Turn and look to him, and it vanishes. Turn away from him, and we have nothing to look to but the fruit of our own crooked way, the result of our own sinful course. If Satan can not induce us to commit further sins, he will seek to convince us that those already committed are unforgiveable and insure our ruin. Then let these blessed scriptures shine out in all their luster: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” Again: “He will tread our iniquities under foot; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”
The soul striving for a character bearing the divine likeness will meet the subtle suggestion that we are worthless, and that it is impossible that heaven should care for us individually; that the Redeemer could not possibly understand all our trials. Then let these scriptures occupy the mind and sink into the heart: “For we have not a high priest that can not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
The sacrifice made, the work accomplished, is sufficient for every soul upon the earth. We can have no legitimate reason for discouragement, or for doubt of his ability to save us. He sacrificed all that he did in order to demonstrate his love and his willingness and ability to save. Doubt it not. Appropriate all that he has done; accept all that he has given; believe him sincere when he invites all to partake of the water of life; believe his word when he says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
If we accept these invitations and act upon these exhortations and admonitions, then we shall triumph. It is not of us or through our worthiness, but of and in and through him—righteous only through his righteousness; triumphant in the great triumph which he achieved; joint heirs to the eternal inheritance by virtue of his redemption of the usurped dominion. To those who thus accept him is made this blessed and everlasting promise: “He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no more.” Rev. 3:12. That means to be forever with Christ.
God, being rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us live together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: . . . For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
That is the glorious work that the gospel of Christ is doing in the world to-day—out of just such unpromising material as we are, making living stones for the completion of that temple which shall never be destroyed. C. M. S.
Continue reading: Criticisms of the Sabbath-School Lessons Examined