ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SALVATION Edward Heppenstall has devoted his life to the study of the
Scripture and to sharing with others what he has learned.
UNLIMITED Using pulpit, podium, and press, he has consistently
witnessed to the centrality of Christ in all the Bible. Born in
England, most of his ministry has been in the United States
and in the classroom—as professor of theology at La Sierra
College, chairman of the department of systematic theology
in the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, and
professor of theology at Loma Linda University.
Perspectives
in
Righteousness
by Faith CONTENTS

Foreword
1. Man the Problem: Who is he?
Edward 2. Saving Righteousness Revealed
Heppenstall 3. God "Acquits the Guilty"
4. "The Just Shall Live By Faith"
5. "Repentance Unto Life"
6. Christ’s Gift is Life
DEDICATED 7. Christ Our Sanctification
To my family: 8. Led by the Spirit
Margit, my wife,
Malcolm and Lois, 9. The Obedience of Faith
Astrid and Joe,
with my deepest wish
10. One Faith, One Mission
always to find Christ Additional Reading
and to let Him rule our
lives as Saviour and
Lord.

Copyright 1974 by Review and Herald Publishing

Association
Washington, DC 20012
Library of Congress
Catalog Card No. 73-91425
Editor: Raymond H. Woolsey

At Issue Index Salvation Index

FOREWORD
I always intended to write a book on righteousness by faith. I have been acutely
conscious of the Seventh-day Adventist mission to bring the saving righteousness
of Christ to the world. This has been a great motivating power in my many years
of teaching and public ministry. With every passing year I have committed
myself all the more to the understanding and teaching of this truth that holds the
key to God’s final message to the world. The conversions to Christ and the
commitment to the gospel commission that have resulted have provided me as a
teacher with lasting satisfaction.

I have written this book with a solemn feeling of responsibility for those who
have been in my classes. A number of my fellow teachers and former students
over the years have frequently raised the question: What is it going to take to
carry the everlasting gospel of Revelation 14 to all the world in our generation? I
cannot help believing that the answer centers in the saving righteousness of Jesus
Christ.

I confess to a great sense of inadequacy, since each chapter requires a volume by

itself to do justice to the subject. This book is not an exhaustive treatise on the
subject. There have been conspicuous other works on the same theme. But the
various aspects raised in the respective chapters I consider are of real
importance. As for other aspects not dealt with, I can only request of my readers
to believe that I do not write in ignorance of them. There is much more that could
be written, for the truth of righteousness by faith is inexhaustible.

I am certain that no subject has been more often proclaimed from desk and
pulpit. We have all listened to numerous presentations on the subject. So there is
the possibility of thinking we are merely going over the same ground. But many
professed Christians do not understand righteousness by faith in a practical
sense, especially the doctrine and experience of sanctification and the work of
the Holy Spirit.

It is hoped that this book may not lack a wide interest and appeal, that it may
help quicken the sense of the church’s mission. Of our need to be renewed and
filled with the Holy Spirit it would be superfluous to speak. For are not many of
God’s people, and especially the young people, already becoming aware of the
need of a revival based on the whole truth of Christ our Righteousness? In a
study of this kind the pivot is Jesus Christ. Everything centers in Him, the
Saviour and Lord who would possess all our hearts. We must never forget that
we are to live by faith in the One who is "the author and the finisher of our
faith."

The theological and practical aspects of the subject blend with, or overlap, each
other. In dealing to some degree with the theological aspect, I am not insensible
to the need to involve my readers in this truth. I would like to believe that in the
At Issue Index Salvation Index
1
MAN
THE PROBLEM:
WHO IS HE?
THE QUESTION as to the nature and destiny of man will not rest unanswered.
We do not wonder at this. One of the most important questions we can ask is:
What is man? Who is he in this world? Every person is under obligation to ask
himself: Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from and where am I
going? Personal identity and maturity depend on the answers to these questions.
We cannot be honest with ourselves until we seek such answers.

According to the Bible account, the first thing we learn about man is that he is a
created being, made in the image of God. We read these words in the first chapter
of Genesis:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule So God
created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and
female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and
increase, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over . . . every living thing that moves
upon the earth" (Gen. 1:26-28, N.E.B.). [Texts in this book credited to N.E.B. are from
The New English Bible. © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press anti the Syndics of the
Cambridge University Press 1970. Reprinted by permission.]

What is man that thou shouldst remember him, mortal man that thou shouldst
care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than a god, crowning him with
glory and honour. Thou makest him master over all thy creatures; thou hast put
everything under his feet: . . . 0 Lord our sovereign, how glorious is thy name in
all the earth! (Ps. 8:4-9, N.E.B.).

Herein is the greatness of man: made in God’s image, a son of God, a godlike
being with capacity for fellowship with God. He is a child of God’s creation,
made to respond freely as an earthly son to his father. He is the original prince of
this world, responsible only to God Himself.

Because God is love, love requires fullness of expression. God as love cannot
live by Himself in an empty universe. Love requires a beloved. God expressed
Himself in creatures akin to Himself, holding communion with them. As free
moral agents, Adam and Eve were given the opportunity of a right response, a
clear recognition of personal responsibility to Him who had created them. Man
was made in the likeness of God, not in the likeness of the brutes.

Man must never be thought of as separate from God. Man is not given qualities
by which he functions independently of God. The moment man is thought of as
independent of God, man destroys his identity. He no longer can see himself or
2
SAVING
RIGHTEOUSNESS
REVEALED

Jews and Greeks alike are all under the power of sin. This has scriptural warrant: "There
is no just man, not one." For sin pays a wage, and the wage is death (Rom. 3:9, 10; 6:23,
N.E.B.).

WE FIND from Scripture that man’s alienation from God is marked by two fatal
consequences: He is wholly without righteousness, and he is under sentence of death.
Therefore, for man to be saved, God must do two things: He must remove the death
sentence, and He must provide a perfect righteousness and the divine power that brings
men into a right relationship with Himself. The first God does by the death of Christ; the
second by Christ’s righteous life on earth. This is the gospel, "the power of God unto
salvation" (Rom. 1:16).

The Gospel is God’s Gospel; God is the planner of this Gospel. God is the initiator of this
Gospel. Indeed everything about the Gospel should always be in terms of God primarily,
for this reason, that sin after all is rebellion against God. Sin is not just something that
means that you and I have failed, and have let down ourselves and our standard; sin is not
just something that makes us miserable and unhappy. The essence of sin is rebellion
against God leading to estrangement from God; and if we do not conceive of sin always
in reference to God and our relationship to Him, we have an inadequate conception of
sin.... This is the starting point of the Gospel. . . . And our central need, therefore, is to be
reconciled to God. . . . As our sin is separation from Him, salvation is reconciliation to
Him.— MARTYN LL0YD-JONES, Romans (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1970), p. 33. Used by permission.

The Sinner’s Need of Righteousness

Men seem almost indifferent to the desperate peril created by sin. All too often men are
utterly unaware of the power of sin in their own lives and the record of sin that stands
against them in the courts of heaven for which they must answer in the judgment. Sin is
an unlimited evil. Once it is committed, it cannot be undone.

Yet the Bible is full of expressions of God’s love for sinners. It is God who "spared not
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all" (Rom. 8:32). It is God who "so loved the
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). It is God, our heavenly Father, who will
never dishonor His character of righteousness and truth by offering to save man in his
sins and let sin continue to reign. The everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ meets the needs
of sinful man.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to
every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith to) faith: as it is written, The just shall live by
faith (Rom 1:16, 17).

In this text Paul affirms that the gospel saves sinners because in it is revealed the
"righteousness of God," which is now made available for unrighteous men. God’s answer
to the sin problem is tied to the word "righteousness," the one thing that man does not
have.

The frequency with which the word "righteousness is used in the Bible when speaking of
God’s plan to redeem man stands in contrast to the human race where none is righteous.
How can man get right with God? How can man be reconciled to God? How can man be
restored to the image of God and to His likeness?

In the very same verses where Paul speaks of the revelation of God’s saving
righteousness he also speaks of the revelation of God’s wrath.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness (verse 1 8).

We make no plea for a God who must execute justice and demand payment, but for the
need of a loving God who must reveal mercy and righteousness if the sinner is to be
redeemed. What a universal need for saving righteousness exists in the world, the need
for man to be restored to God and to his original state from whence he is fallen! At the
same time God makes no compromise with sin.

Of course we do not mean by "the wrath of God" capriciousness or some uncontrolled

emotion, or arbitrary anger, and loss of self-control. What it means is God’s utter
detestation of sin and evil. This is something that is revealed everywhere in Scripture.
What is the meaning of the Ten Commandments if it is not this? They are a revelation of
the holy character of God. God says to His people, "Be ye holy; for I am holy ... God
cannot but hate sin. God would not be God if He did not hate sin God is light and in him
is no darkness at all."—Ibid., pp. 8, 9.

God’s answer to the sin problem is the revelation of His righteousness. What is this
"righteousness of God" that saves men?

The Biblical Meaning of Righteousness

The Bible uses the word righteousness in several different ways.

First, righteousness is spoken of as an attribute of God, a specific quality of God’s own
character. God is righteousness in the same sense that He is truth, light, love. Perfect
righteousness belongs to God as an intrinsic part of His own being. Speaking of God,
Isaiah says: "And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle
of his reins" (Isa. 11:5).

But righteousness as a divine attribute does not save men. On the contrary, were God to
manifest Himself openly to sinners in His untrammeled righteousness and perfection, this
would result in man’s destruction. No sinner could endure it for a moment.

Second, the word "righteousness" is also used to describe the uprightness of men, the
morality of those who seek to live righteously in this present world. Daniel, when
addressing King Nebuchadnezzar as he faced the judgment of God, urged upon him: "0
King, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness"
(Dan. 4:27).

The word "righteousness" is here conceived in terms of right-doing. It can refer to moral
men either Christian or non-Christian, describing a way of life in obedience to moral
principles and personal integrity. A certain moral righteousness does belong to man
insofar as he obeys the law of God and the moral laws underlying society. This relative
righteousness is of great importance in terms of man’s responsibility to his fellow men.
This human uprightness and morality does play a significant part in maintaining the
social and civil order of the nation.

But again, this does not save man, since man cannot obey the law of God perfectly in
himself. The righteousness that saves men is not attainable by human effort whatsoever.
Man is not saved by works of righteousness, although righteous living will follow as a
consequence of a right relationship with God. God is not saying that the morality of law-
abiding citizens is not a good thing for the present world order. It certainly is desirable.
But it does not save a man.

Third, the righteousness that saves is the "righteousness of God" revealed to man through
Jesus Christ alone.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the
law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ
unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and
come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:21-24).

The beginning of man’s return to God converges in the life and death of the Son of God.
He is the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), and, "when
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" (Rom. 5:10). Alone, God in Christ reconciled
the world unto Himself (see 2 Cor. 5:19). He requires no help from man in this supreme
revelation of saving righteousness.
Thus saving righteousness is not an attribute of God or an ethical requirement and
demand by God. It is a divine act that reveals in historical events God’s plan and power to
save man. It is an objective act that changes the hopeless situation of mankind whether
men believe and accept salvation or not.

Salvation by the righteousness of Christ means that man acknowledges and believes that
God has revealed and effected in Christ alone a righteousness that is eternally all-
sufficient for all men. This perfect righteousness consists of Christ’s fulfillment of God’s
commandments and obedience to the will of God that was maintained even unto the death
on the cross. It is a righteousness that satisfies all the requirements of divine justice,
revealed in the sphere of human sin and death. This makes the gospel the power of God
unto salvation.

The Christian faith is not a philosophy, it is not merely a teaching. It is based on a series
of historical events. The teaching derives from and is grounded in the historical events.
That can never be too much emphasized, because this is the point at which our faith
differs from every so-called religion. All religions are teachings; this (the Christian faith)
is event and historical happening before it is teaching; it is an announcement of events, of
actions and of facts. . . . God has revealed this, and He has done so in the historical events
connected with the life and work and ministry, the death and resurrection and ascension
of the Son of God, and with the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost.—
Ibid., pp. 40, 41.

It is important to understand Paul’s statements on this great truth. First, he emphasizes the
fact that the righteousness that saves is "the righteousness of God," in order to distinguish
it from the righteousness of men. It is the righteousness of God revealed and not the
righteousness of man achieved (but it is the righteousness of Christ achieved in man). The
saving initiative is God’s. To be saved man needs a revelation from God, not a new set of
requirements.

The particular form that the revelation of saving righteousness takes is determined by
God alone. It does not come through the involved and complicated arguments of the
world’s great men. No amount of mental activity by man can produce it. Saving
righteousness is due entirely to divine action. God alone, in a unique act of redemption,
has brought to bear upon man’s lost condition a revelation of His saving power and
righteousness.

Now the revelation of God in nature has no solution to the sin problem. Nature speaks to
man’s need of God, but brings no satisfaction. The argument for the existence of God
from nature has meaning only for the man who already has a Christian orientation and
experience. To claim to believe in God because one can see design in nature and an
orderly universe does not make a person a Christian. Simply to theorize about the design
and purpose of God in creation can only distract from the first business of life, to "seek
first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness" (Matt. 6:33). Without the divine
intervention of God in Christ, the shadows of sin and death that have fallen upon all men
can issue only in the continual descent of the race into eternal darkness from which there
is no escape.

Neither is salvation to be conceived as a solution to the social problems of the race

effected by the wisdom of man. The "righteousness of God" is not a soothing of one’s
guilt or cheering one up in the hours of discouragement. Man is never saved by his own
moral development. No righteousness exists among men that is acceptable to God. Only
the righteousness of God is the power unto salvation, because only God can provide and
bestow it. Without it man must remain in slavery to sin and under the sentence of death.

Salvation does not merely consist in our receiving forgiveness of sins. The thing that
Apostle [Paul] stresses is that we are given a positive righteousness. "But now" he says,
"the righteousness of God." What man had been trying to produce, and especially the
Jews, was a righteousness that would satisfy God. The Jews thought they were doing it
through the Law; others thought they were doing it with their morality and their
philosophy. Paul has proved that it was all vain. "But now," he says, there is an entirely
new position—a righteousness from God is available. This is the big thing in salvation; . .
. Before we can be admitted to heaven we must be clothed with righteousness. . . . A
righteousness of God, or from God, is now available because of what Christ did when He
came into the world and what He has completed by going back again to the Father.—
Ibid., pp. 42, 43.

The divine source of saving righteousness is Jesus Christ, His person and His work on
earth. Here alone God has revealed the righteousness that man needs.

You are in Christ Jesus by God’s act, for God has made him our wisdom; he is our
righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30, N.E.B.).

I count everything sheer loss, because all is far outweighed by the gain of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I did in fact lose everything. I count it so much garbage,
for the sake of gaining Christ and finding myself incorporate in him, with no
righteousness of my own . . . but the righteousness which comes from faith in Christ,
given by God in response to faith (Phil. 3:8, 9, N.E.B.).

Saving righteousness is called the righteousness of Christ because it belongs to Him

alone, it comes from Him and not from the law. The prophet speaks of "The Lord our
righteousness" (Jer. 33:16). Paul describes it as the "righteousness of one" man;
"obedience of one" man; "the gift of righteousness . . . by one, Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5: 17-
19). In stating it this way, Paul proclaims His to be the one righteous life, the one life on
earth perfectly obedient to the law of God, lived under human conditions, a life lived
entirely by faith in His Father, dependent upon God alone.

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me (John 6:57).
Jesus Christ on earth lived righteousness by faith. As a man He lived as all men ought to
live, a life of complete trust and dependence upon His Father. This perfect righteousness
had never occurred until Christ came to earth. Jesus Christ is the only reason for
Christianity and the Christian church. Christ did descend from heaven into this world. He
did live a perfect life on earth. He was crucified and died for the sins of all men. He was
raised from the dead according to the Scriptures. Today He is the living Christ. He alone
is our righteousness.

These facts stand forever and cannot be dethroned any more than the stars in their
courses. Christ is the turning point of man’s sinful history. In Christ and through Christ
new life from above begins. Christ thrust into the sinful stream of humanity a current of
righteousness so powerful as to turn the face of men back toward the living God. There
can never be another Christ who is both Saviour and Lord. The believer must look to Him
and depend on Him who continually communicates His righteousness to those who live
by Him.

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He
that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life (1 John 5:11,
12).

This is the good news for sinners: God’s redemptive action in His Son, originated and
planned by God as expressions of His everlasting love and power. This action of God
saves men. This power gives man that which he could never provide for himself:
salvation, redemption, transformation, and reconciliation with God.

Furthermore, this divine gift of righteousness is complete in Christ. When Christ was
about to leave His disciples, He promised to send them the Holy Spirit, who would
"convince the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment." Convincing of
righteousness, He said: "Because I go to the Father and you will see me no more" (John
16:8-11, R.S.V.). Christ meant that the gift of righteousness is now complete in Him. It is
a perfect righteousness, objective in Christ alone, offered to man as a gift.

Paul never wearies in making Christ and His righteousness the pivot in man’s
redemption. In Romans, chapter 5, he further emphasizes this by comparing the first
Adam with Christ, the second Adam. The way to salvation was closed by the first Adam
and reopened by Jesus. The first man was the first sinner. Thus death began and has
continued ever since to reign in the world. Paul does not say that all men are punished
because Adam sinned or that God regarded Adam’s descendants as guilty by virtue of
Adam’s guilt, but that all men are involved in the sin and death that began with Adam.

The sin of Adam inflicted universal injury on the human race, not by implicating all men
in the sin Adam committed, but by involving them in its consequences. This is the reality
to which men must accommodate their thinking and living. Paul saw in this the glorious
opportunity for God to manifest His grace and mercy and to provide a divine
righteousness, the power of God for salvation. As sin and death came to all men through
Adam’s sin, so life and righteousness are available to all men through Jesus Christ. "As in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22).

The only cure lies in another Man’s righteousness. To experience that righteousness man
must be united with Christ by faith. This righteousness that belongs to Christ is reckoned
to the believer who trusts wholly to Christ’s help.

The relation of the subjective attitude to the objective act of redemption needs special
explanation. . . The historical manifestation of pardoning righteousness is the very power
of God, who rules over all, and it is man’s business to submit to it.... This means being
directly challenged and arrested by God, brought under his authority, made partaker at
once in the mighty act of salvation through faith, and set within the sphere of God’s
righteousness. All who believe share in that righteousness. The demand for faith always
accompanies the most objective utterances concerning the righteousness of God (Rom.
1:17; 3:22-28; 4:5, 1). The achievement and proclamation of salvation are never
separated from the appropriation of it. (GOTTFRIED QUELL AND G0TTLOB
SCHRENK, Righteousness (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1951), pp. 47, 48.

Righteousness and Law *

[*The use of the term law in this book should be identified with the moral law of the Ten Commandments.
This specific aspect of law is distinct from the generic use of the Hebrew word torah. In contrast with the
Decalogue, there is much flexibility in the use of the term torah either with reference with the first five
books of Moses (the Pentateuch) or the general reference to Old Testament teachings and instructions from
God. In this book "law" is concerned primarily with Paul’s use of it, particularly as found in the Epistles to
the Romans and the Galatians. When Paul says "by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 1:20); ‘‘I had
not known sin but by the law’’ (chap. 7:7) "love is the fulfilling of the law" (chap. 13:10); he is speaking of
the moral law of the Decalogue.]

Paul is careful to point out the relationship of Christ’s righteousness to the law of God.

But now the righteousness of God without the law [that is, independently of law] is
manifested (Rom. 3:2 1).

Paul emphasizes the fact that saving righteousness is altogether different from any
righteousness attempted by man’s efforts to keep the law. Salvation does not come by
right doing; otherwise it would be salvation by law.

Christ also is silent about any righteousness acceptable to God that can be attained by
human effort. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ said:

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20).

Christ is saying that the righteousness He brings and offers exceeds the righteousness of
the Jewish leaders. When pointing out the failure of the Jews to attain salvation, Paul put
it this way:
For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God (Rom. 10:3).

These scriptures affirm that saving righteousness is beyond the reach of the most
meticulous observance of the law. While saving righteousness involves the fulfillment of
the law, it is not achieved or produced by law. In God’s plan of redemption through
Christ’s righteousness, there is no place for the Christian saving a little corner for
righteousness by works in order to safeguard the law and defend it. Saving righteousness
comes by a right relationship to Christ; and not out of a man’s relation to the law. The
second relationship comes as a result of the first. This was where the Jews failed.

Whatever your interpretation of "without law" means you must never say that the Law
has disappeared, vanished, or been cast away for ever out of God’s sight. That is not the
case. It does not mean that. What then does it mean? It means that our attempting to keep
the Law perfectly ourselves as the means of salvation has been entirely set aside, not
because the Law no longer applies, but because Another has rendered this perfect
obedience to the Law on our behalf. . . . The Lord Jesus Christ saves us by keeping and
honouring the Law for us. The Law has not been removed; God has not done away with
the Law. The Lord Jesus Christ has satisfied it and kept it, and we are given the fruit and
the result of what He has done.

The Law of God is still there, and it is still the means of judgment; and there is no
conceivable standing in the presence of God without a righteousness which answers the
demands of the Law and satisfies it, and conforms to it. Our view of salvation must never
be one that dismisses the Law; it must be one which establishes" the law.—LLOYD-
JONE5, op. cit., pp. 44, 45.

The gracious gospel of righteousness by faith which brings salvation is not offered to
men on lowered conditions of obedience. The righteousness that Christ lived in His entire
life on earth met the requirements of the law of God and is a fulfillment of it. Had Christ
disobeyed the law in the slightest degree, there would not be a divine righteousness to
reckon to man’s account. In light of Christ’s perfect obedience to the law, it can be seen
that there can be no lessening of the moral obligation to keep the law of God. Christ does
not offer men a perfect righteousness in order that man no longer need obey God’s
commandments or live righteousness, but to provide man with the power to obey them.

The fact that God in Christ made an atonement for sin in order to reconcile men to
Himself does not give to any man the right to go on sinning and breaking the law of God.
In the very nature of the case, it is salvation from, not in, sin.

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law (chap.
3:31).

Ellen G. White makes the point thus:

Righteousness is obedience to the law. The law demands righteousness, and this the
sinner owes to the law; but he is incapable of rendering it. The only way in which he can
attain to righteousness is through faith. By faith be can bring to God the merits of Christ,
and the Lord places the obedience of His Son to the sinner’s account. Christ’s
righteousness is accepted in place of man’s failure, and God receives, pardons, justifies,
the repentant, believing soul, treats him as though he were righteous, and loves him as He
loves His Son. This is how faith is accounted for righteousness.—Selected Messages,
Book 1, p. 167.

Every soul may say: By His perfect obedience He has satisfied the claims of the law, and
my only hope is found in looking to Him as my substitute and surety, who obeyed the law
perfectly for me. . . . He clothes me with His righteousness, which answers all the
demands of the law. I am complete in Him who brings in everlasting righteousness. He
presents me to God in the spotless garment of which no thread was woven by any human
agent. All is of Christ, and all the glory, honor, and majesty are to be given to the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sins of the world,.—Ibid., p 196.

It is never to be forgotten by saint or sinner that "the law is holy, and the commandment
holy, and just, and good" (chap. 7:12), that God’s holy law must ever speak and ever
remind us how sacredly Christ regards it and kept it. He who partakes of the
righteousness of Christ will likewise regard and honor the law.

"Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets; I did not come to
abolish, but to complete. I tell you this: so long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter,
not a stroke, will disappear from the Law until all that must happen has happened. If any
man therefore sets aside even the least of the Law’s demands, and teaches others to do the
same, he will have the lowest place in the kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone who
keeps the Law, and teaches others so, will stand high in the kingdom of Heaven" (Matt.
5:17-19, N.E.B.).

While Scripture, particularly the New Testament, exalts the law of God as the standard of
righteousness, at the same time it opposes man's using the law as a method to gain merit
and a standing with God. Righteousness by faith is diametrically opposed to
righteousness by works.

By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the
knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20).

But we know that no man is ever justified by doing what the law demands, but only
through faith in Christ Jesus; so we too have put our faith in Jesus Christ, in order that we
might be justified through this faith, and not through deeds dictated by law; for by such
deeds, Scripture says, no mortal man shall be justified (Gal. 2:16, N.E.B.).

Because all men break the law of God in one way or another, the law convicts all of sin.
The law judges and estimates the works of men according to the objective facts in a
man’s life. Hence any appeal to works done in an effort to keep the law can only point
out man’s inadequacy to obey it.

Salvation by faith means trust and commitment not to oneself, but to Jesus Christ. The
more a man is convicted of his sinfulness and shown his need of a perfect righteousness,
the more he is convinced that anything in the way of personal merit or perfect obedience
can never be rendered without Christ. Unless God provides a perfect righteousness for
him, he can never be saved at all.

Thus the saving righteousness of Christ stands in clear contrast to the claimed self-
righteousness of man. Self-righteousness does not remake man. It does not create in man
a new nature. Man is never born again under his own auspices to keep the law. Usually,
its effect is to make man more self-satisfied, more complacent, less conscious of the need
for the gift of Christ’s righteousness. It is not in man’s right or reason to choose his own
conditions. Repent, believe, and obey are involved and are part of man’s response to God.
These are man’s responsible acts and attitudes to the gospel.

The Christian life is not self-improvement. It is not trying to perfect one’s own natural
life. It begins with the appropriation by faith of the righteousness of Christ. This brings
man into oneness with God and gives man victory over sin, not by sheer will power but
by the presence of Christ in the life. The Christian now seeks to live righteously and keep
God’s commandments, not by laborious self effort but by coming more and more under
the control of the Holy Spirit. Christian obedience does not come by outward conformity
to the law of God, but by the reality of the Holy Spirit’s presence.

By faith in Christ the Holy Spirit is given His rightful place. He is the controlling power,
enlightening the mind in the knowledge of Christ, renewing the will and the heart,
empowering the life to be fully in harmony with God.

It is with deep concern that we learn of those who believe that people can be saved by
some other method than through Jesus Christ, who are willing to stand at God’s tribunal
in their own righteousness. The lie of Satan, "ye shall be as gods," pervades the hearts
and minds of men and women.

When Christ came to earth to bear the sins of men and provide in Himself the gift of
righteousness that is the power of God unto salvation, He knew that one sin, discerned
and judged in God’s presence, was more than any soul could bear alone. That sin,
unpardoned and unforgiven, must forever sink man into the depths of despair and eternal
night.

When Christ came to the earth He beheld on every side the transgressions of men against
God. He knew that man without a Saviour must receive the sentence of eternal death.
Christ came to bear the sins of men and remove the death penalty. There was no
concealment of the world’s sin from Christ. All the forces of evil conspired to destroy His
work and His person. Principalities in high places united to make a life of righteousness
impossible. This was the crisis of the world’s destiny.
All the lines of human history meet at the cross. Christ alone has ransomed men. God has
only one voice from heaven. Christ, the perfect Man, covers the believer with the robe of
His righteousness. There is no Bible truth so rooted in the heart of God and in our world
as that saving righteousness comes through Christ alone. The Christian must ever depend
upon the righteousness of one Man, where mercy and truth meet together, and
righteousness and peace kiss each other in God’s supreme act of redemption.

3
GOD
"ACQUITS
THE GUILTY"

What, then, are we to say about Abraham, our ancestor in the natural line? If Abraham
was justified by anything he had done, then he has a ground for pride. But he has no such
ground before God; for what does Scripture say? "Abraham put his faith in God, and that
faith was counted to him as righteousness. Now if a man does a piece of work, his wages
are not "counted as a favour; they are paid as a debt. But if without any work to his credit
he simply puts his faith in him WHO ACQUITS THE GUILTY, then his faith is indeed
"counted as righteousness" (Rom. 4:1-5, N.E.B.).

THE FALL of Adam has entailed great evils for the entire race. Men are born into a world
of sin for which they were not originally responsible. Men have no choice concerning
where to be born or to live. Man cannot move to another world where sin does not exist.
It is not man’s fault that he is born into a world and a state of sin.

Therefore, it appears that it would be quite unjust for God to leave man in his lost
condition and under condemnation, without providing a way of escape. But to rescue
sinners involves great problems for God, for man, and for the universe. It is not just a
matter of forgiving man and glossing over sin. Sin works two evils in the human race: it
separates the individual from God, and disorders the life in itself. Both these evils must
be overcome in any divine remedy. The death penalty must be removed. Man must be
restored to a right relationship to God and to a moral and spiritual state of health.

When interpreting the different aspects of God’s plan of redemption, the Bible uses such
terms as justification, born again, reconciliation, righteousness, and sanctification. All
these terms describe certain realities of Christian experience. In this chapter we are
primarily concerned with the doctrine of justification. The basic meaning of the Greek
word translated "to justify" involves a judgment made in conformity with a standard of
what is right: just according to the law.

If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges
may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked (Deut.
25:1).
To justify in this passage means to pronounce a favorable verdict on the basis of the
person’s being proved to be in the right. Condemnation is the opposite judgment. The
Bible insists that judges of men must make only righteous judgments.

He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are
abomination to the Lord (Prov. 17:15).
Woe unto them . . . which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness
of the righteous from him (Isa. 5:22, 23).

In His judgment of men, God says of Himself: "I will not justify the wicked" (Ex. 23:7).

Three times Job asked the question: How can a man be just before God? (Job 9:2; 15:14;
25:4.) How could man possibly get an acquittal before God in view of the fact that he is a
sinner? How could God ever declare man righteous when he is unrighteous? Job could
see no way for this to take place.

The issue is this: Can the verdict of condemnation for disobedience and sin be changed,
and how? Can God reverse the verdict and still remain righteous in His judgments? And
if so, on what basis? Is there any way God can now take the side of the sinner?

The apostle Paul affirmed that God does "acquit the guilty." In this issue it appears that
God’s own character is at stake. The reasoning is something like this: According to the
Bible, does not justification rest entirely on a man’s moral uprightness, and condemnation
on a departure from it? If God acquits the guilty, is He not taking sides with sin rather
than with righteousness? Is He not Himself an unjust judge?

The Jews believed that God dealt with men merely according to their own personal
obedience to the law. Men were judged and declared righteous because they were
righteous. For the most part, the Jew accepted no other way of securing a favorable
verdict before God. The judgment of God was based on a standard to be obeyed. Schools
of scribes and rabbis were organized to explain the application of the law to every
conceivable experience of human life. The Pharisees insisted that God can justify only
those who obey the law and not those who break it. If God is a righteous Judge, then like
the righteous judges in the courts of the land, He can give acquittal only when man
actually deserves it. And to deserve it, man must be righteous and live righteously.

Must not God, therefore, give priority to His law? If so, there is only one thing for God to
do: execute the death penalty on all sinners. Or can He make an exception just this once
and not count the violation of His law? Granted God has a perfect right to say whether He
will or He will not pardon the sinner. He also has the right to say how He will do it. But
He cannot now proclaim that in the course of pardoning and restoring sinners, He intends
to bypass the principles of justice and righteousness intrinsic to His own character. It is
not possible for God to offer a general amnesty for five or ten or twenty billion sinners
merely by divine decree, simply for reasons known only to Himself.
God created the universe of a million worlds governed in righteousness. He created His
creatures to live in righteousness. He instructed them that any departure from
righteousness would be considered rebellion against Him. The penalty would be
separation and death. Consequently, when Christ came to the earth He made it quite clear
there was to be no tampering with God’s law. In the process of saving sinners, God
cannot abrogate His law any more than He can change His character.

Once the sovereignty of the moral law is reduced, so is the sense of sinfulness. God’s
plan of redemption is a recognition that sinners are under the condemnation of the law
and need to be delivered from it. Any plan that aims to weaken the authority of the law or
to obscure the sinfulness of sin must, at the same time, diminish the urgency of the gospel
and the need for Christ. to bear the sins of men. Therefore the case for, man as he is,
looks hopeless.

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the
law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20).

For one thing, obedience to the moral law cannot justify the sinner from sins previously
committed. And second, the natural man is not able to obey the spirit of the law, which
requires a heart that is in harmony with God. Therefore any appeal to law or to the works
of law has to be abandoned. Before the law man cannot deny the charges. He cannot be
acquitted.

How Can Man Be Just Before God?

No other truth is given more emphasis in the New Testament than the doctrine of
justification. The word in its various adjective, noun, and verb forms is used more than
two hundred times. We are dealing with a truth of great importance in relation to man’s
salvation and Christian experience. Paul makes frequent use of the word in his
interpretation of the doctrine of righteousness by faith.

But we know that no man is ever justified by doing what the law demands, but only
through faith in Jesus Christ; so we too have put our faith in Jesus Christ, in order that we
might be justified through this faith, and not through deeds dictated by law; for by such
deeds, Scripture says, no mortal man shall be justified. (Gal. 2:16, N.E.B.).

This truth is as important as it is simple and intelligible. Men are sinful and estranged
from God. They are under condemnation and the penalty of death. In vain do men
struggle to free themselves. In vain do men hope for deliverance by self-righteousness
and self-dependence. ‘Such men stand in dire need of being acquitted before the bar of
God. Therefore, the all-important question raised by Job must be answered: How can a
man be just before God? How can the sinner secure a divine verdict in his favor? How
can God possibly acquit the guilty and do it with His righteous character and His divine
law?
The gospel of righteousness by faith is good news in that it would fain restore all men to
God and remove all that comes between the sinner and the Saviour. Thus God has
instituted another way of justifying and acquitting the sinner, by an entirely different way
than by law: "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus" (Rom. 3:24).

It is important to get away from any technical idea of justification. This doctrine takes
seriously the action of the divine Judge in relation to sin. Paul makes this quite clear in
the following verses:

For God designed him to be the means of expiating sin by his sacrificial death, effective
through faith. God meant by this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he
had overlooked the sins of the past— to demonstrate his justice now in the present,
showing that he is himself just and also justifies any man who puts his faith in Jesus
(Rom. 3:25, 26, N.E.B.).

According to this passage God set forth Christ as a sacrifice for two reasons: one, to
demonstrate His justice or righteousness; and two, to justify "any man who puts his faith
in Jesus." There is a divine and a human side to justification.

In considering the divine side of this truth, Paul asserts that in justifying sinners, God acts
in a way that satisfies the principle of justice. Divine justice is met in and through Jesus
Christ, not in the sinner. When hope is held out in Scripture that God will acquit the
guilty, the promise takes us beyond any effort of man to make recompense to God.
Justification depends entirely on what God has done in His Son.

In the provisions of propitiation two things cohere and coalesce: the justice of God and
the justification of the ungodly. . . . [This justice of God implied in the expression, "that
he might be just"] shows that it is the inherent righteousness of God that cannot be
violated on any account and must be vindicated and conserved in the justification of
sinners. This shows that the righteousness contemplated in the demonstration in verse 25,
as well as in verse 26, is the inherent justice of God.— JOHN MURRAY, The Epistle to
the Romans (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959), pp. 118,
119. Used by permission.

Paul speaks in this scripture of the necessity for God to make a demonstration of justice
because "he had overlooked the sins of the past." Paul argues that during the ages prior to
the coming of Christ, God had actually passed over sin in the sense that He had never
exacted the full penalty of the law upon sinners. For 4,000 years previous to the cross He
had manifested only long-suffering and forbearance with sin. This left God open to the
charge of injustice. God had not executed judgment commensurate with the sins of men.
It appeared that God had been satisfied with something less than perfect obedience to the
law by relaxing the penalty for transgression of the law. In this way it appeared that God
had passed sin by.
Paul goes on to show that in the light of this seeming passing over sin, it became all the
more necessary for God to demonstrate His justice by a revelation from the Godhead of
Their own judgment on sin. He did this when He sent forth His Son as a propitiation for
sin. By this God provided the righteous basis for acquitting the sinner. The implication is
that God would not have been just if He had acquitted the guilty sinners without the
sacrificial death of Christ.

The passing over did make it necessary for Him to demonstrate His inherent justice and
that by showing. . . that justification demands nothing less than the propitiation made in
Jesus’ blood.—Ibid., p. 120.

It was never God’s intention to lead men to believe that He had relaxed the claims of law
and justice; far from it. That God would perform justice was "witnessed by the law and
the prophets" (Rom. 3:21). Throughout the Old Testament the message of divine
redemption filled the whole perspective of Israel. But until Christ came God had not
provided either the reality of a perfect righteousness for man or carried out a righteous
judgment on the sins of men. The law had foreshadowed it, and the prophets had foretold
it.

Christ saw His death foreshadowed in the Temple sacrifices, whose blood had streamed
for centuries. Every lamb and animal offered, slain under the knife, spoke to Him of the
divine purpose for His coming into the world. All the fires of the altars, burning night and
day for thousands of years, were waiting for Him, waiting to be fulfilled by the one great
sacrifice, the Lamb of God.

Jesus was perfectly familiar with the Old Testament revelations of the majesty of God’s
law and the horrible nature of sin. He saw before Him the hour when God would impute
to Him the transgressions of men like the sand of the sea for multitude. On the cross
Christ stood before God. He assumed the penalty that should have come upon all men in
all ages: the sins of those who sleep in the dust of the earth, the sins of generations yet
unborn, the sins committed by all kindreds, nations, tongues, and peoples. The cross of
Christ is the divine judgment that should have fallen upon men, but is now assumed by
all members of the Godhead.

The death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross on Calvary was not an accident; it was
God’s work. It was God who "set him forth." . . . It is a great public act of God. God has
done something here in public on the stage of world history, in order that it might be
seen, and looked at, and recorded once and for ever—the most public action that has ever
taken place. God thus publicly "set him forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood."
—LLOYD-JONES, Romans, p. 97.

No revelation of God exceeds this majestic truth. From the beginning of the world, the
sins never to be forgotten by eternal justice, recorded in the books of heaven, had been
rolling down like great waves of the ocean towards Calvary. Only Jesus Christ could
endure the dimensions of the divine judgment on sin. On the cross He knew that His
terrible agony was the righteous judgment of the Godhead. He knew that this judgment
must be executed. He voluntarily took this judgment upon Himself on behalf of all
members of the Godhead. He knew that there was a final death other than sleep. He
thereby confessed to all the universe the meaning of judgment: the separation of the soul
from God. In this the death of Jesus stands alone.

The hosts of the redeemed stand here in anticipation, the price of their acquittal paid. The
eternal hope of reconciliation with God and restoration to righteousness depended on
Him alone. Christ could have refused to bear the divine judgment on sin. Then all would
have been lost. What wonder then that such an eternal truth runs through all the Bible!

Christ went to the cross, not because men turned against Him, but because the hand of
God was in it. . . .Christ died the death that sinners should have died. . . .He did this by
the appointment of the Father. It was the Father’s condemnation of sin that brought the
atoning death of Christ, that and His burning will to save men.—LE0N MORRIS, The
Cross in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1965), p. 221. Used by permission.

There is just one relief to the guilty soul: the hearing of God from the cross: "Give Me
thy sins, receive by faith My righteousness and My justification." No man who is
confronted with Jesus Christ as the world’s Redeemer should ever refuse to be saved by
the righteousness of Another. There is no middle ground here. There must be no
minimizing of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

On the cross the sinless Son of God, in love to man and in obedience to the Father,
entered submissively into that tragic experience in which sinful men realize all that sin
means. He tasted death for every man.—JAMES DENNY, The Christian Doctrine of
Reconciliation (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1918), p. 278.

Thus the basis for man’s acquittal and restoration to favor with God is found in the merits
of Christ’s righteousness and in His bearing sin’s penalty. The law is honored and the
righteous character of God revealed. At no time or place is there the slightest tendency to
weaken the authority of God. God’s plan of redemption neither palliates sin nor
diminishes the claims of the law of God. The cross satisfies the justice of the Godhead in
dealing with the sin problem. An earthly judge has no such provision, nor can he do what
God does in giving His Sinless Son that by His life and death He can acquit the guilty.

Christ bore the penalty for sin, but is no sinner in doing it. He is the spotless Lamb of
God. The Father does not consider His Son guilty of sin or meriting condemnation. The
fact that Christ bore our sins does not involve Him in the sin itself. On the cross Christ
accepted for all members of the Trinity the inevitable end of man’s moral failure and the
judgment he deserved.

Christ bought us freedom from the curse of the law by becoming for our sake an accursed
thing (Gal. 3:13, N.E.B.).
The expiation for sin was not that someone should be punished, but that sin should be
adequately judged by the Trinity within our sinful world and before the universe. That is
why Christ became a man in order to die. No member of the Godhead could bear the
penalty for man’s sin without taking human nature. For divinity cannot die.

All men, good and evil, die as a consequence of sin. But this is not the penalty for sin that
John speaks of as the second death. (See Revelation 20:13, 14.) Only one Man, Jesus
Christ, has ever borne the penalty for sin. The manifestation of divine judgment on sin at
the cross and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness in place of man’s unrighteousness
do not violate justice. They reveal it.

[Christ] revealed the righteousness of the reconciliation of mercy and justice. The
reconciliation of mercy and justice did not involve any compromise with sin, or ignore
any claim of justice; but by giving to each divine attribute its ordained place, mercy could
be exercised in the punishment of sinful, impenitent man without destroying its clemency
or forfeiting its compassionate character, and justice could be exercised in forgiving the
repenting transgressor without violating its integrity.—Selected Messages, book 1, pp.
260, 261.

What right had Christ to take the captives out of the enemy’s hands? The right of having
made a sacrifice that satisfies the principles of justice by which the kingdom of heaven is
governed. . . . On the cross of Calvary He paid the redemption price of the race. And thus
He gained the right to take the captives from the grasp of the deceiver.—Ibid., pp. 308,
309.

Justification Experienced

Justification has been satisfied in Christ. How far then is the believer involved? Is
justification something done for the believer and not in him? Is justification simply a
change in one’s standing with God, or does it include a change in the believer’s
character?

The gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s sin; for the judicial
action, following upon the one offence, issued in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of
grace, following upon so many misdeeds, issued in a verdict of acquittal (Rom. 5:16,
N.E.B.).

If God is on our side, who is against us? Who will be the accuser of God’s chosen ones?
It is God who pronounces acquittal; then who can condemn? (chap. 8:31-33).

In these scriptures the emphasis is on God’s declaring a man just, the passing of a
favorable verdict. Obviously the believer is not made righteous in the sense that he is no
more a sinner. Justification does not restore man to that perfect state as God originally
created him. The justified man is still in a sinful state.* As a sinner, the believer is no less
deserving of condemnation. Justification does not change the nature of the offense. God
does not come to show the sinner that he has not done wrong. He does not proclaim the
sinner sinless, for that would be a lie.

* [State of sin—This term has reference to the state into which all men are born and in which they
live due to mans lessened capacity to respond perfectly to God. Man lacks the insight into the
nature of his own egoism and sinfulness: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9}. This state of sin, the absence of original righteousness
darkens the understanding, be it ever so slight; perverts even minutely the operation of the will;
makes the conscience unable to discern perfectly between right and wrong.]

Sin does not reign, but it does remain. The Christian is a justified sinner. He brings to
God an attitude of complete trust, not in his own righteousness, but in the righteousness
of Christ. God regards him as righteous, as though it were really so. The justified man
does not believe something about himself which is not true. He knows himself an
acquitted sinner. God acquits the guilty, not the righteous. However, the believing sinner
is made right with God.

The great work that is wrought for the sinner who is spotted and stained by evil is the
work of justification. By Him who speaketh truth he is declared righteous.—Ibid., p. 392.

On what basis, then, does God declare the repentant, believing sinner righteous—as if he
had not sinned?

"Abraham put his faith in God, and that faith was counted to him as righteousness." . . .
In the same sense David speaks of the happiness of the man whom God "counts" as just,
apart from any specific acts of justice. . . . Consequently, he [Abraham] is the father of all
who have faith . . . , so that righteousness is "counted" to them. . . . Those words were
written, not for Abraham’s sake alone, but for our sake too: it is to be "counted" in the
same way to us who have faith in the God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead; for
he was given up to death for our misdeeds, and raised to life to justify us (Rom. 4:3-25,
N.E.B.).

The text states that the righteousness of Christ is imputed or reckoned to the believer.
Abraham’s standing before God was changed from condemnation to justification. God no
longer imputed sin to him. God put Christ’s righteousness to his account. So God declares
all believers righteous by virtue of their relationship to Christ, who kept the law perfectly
for them. The verdict of acquittal is reckoned to them because Christ paid the penalty for
sin. God no longer deals with men as under the law, but as they are in relation to Christ.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit (chap. 8:1).

Acquittal by the imputed righteousness of Christ is not some fictional transaction. God
truly does proclaim the believer free from condemnation. God does treat him as if he had
not sinned. What is central is the worth of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice. By the merits
of Christ the believer’s status and life are changed.
From the human side, God requires the response of faith. What change does genuine faith
involve in the justified man? To begin with, faith constitutes the believer’s right attitude.
This very attitude of faith makes him right, with God at the center of his life. The believer
has been won back to God. When God sees that kind of trust in Christ’s righteousness, He
reckons him as righteous. By faith the believer has already entered upon the way of
righteousness.

Faith desires Christ’s life of righteousness as his own. He wants what Christ is, and not
his own righteousness. He is united with Christ. He is now the adopted child in the family
of God. Thus justification by faith actually involves the believer in the life of Christ. A
righteous life must follow as the only true witness to being acquitted before God. This
will appear in life, in conduct, and in character. The Christian has set this goal before
himself and has purposed in his heart to live like Christ. Faith never leaves the believer
with the idea that nothing needs to be done.

Christ through the Holy Spirit is forever putting Himself forth as the power of God unto
salvation. He who commits himself to Christ opens himself to receive this divine life and
becomes a partaker of it. The life for which faith hungers is bestowed, not as a reward for
obedience, but as the free gift of God.

The sinner who through faith is right with God is certainly not made perfect in holiness,
but the power which alone can make him perfect is already really and vitally operative in
him. And it is operative in him only in and through his faith.—DENNY, op. cit., p. 292.

Justification is not automatic. It involves a reciprocity between God and man. Thus
justification anticipates sanctification. Justification has been satisfied and completed by
Christ, but it does not mean once justified always justified, nor once saved always saved.
A man can apostatize from the faith.

Not for a moment does justification allow carelessness with sin or with salvation. The
gospel requires that we understand the righteousness of Christ, that we study and believe
God’s answer to the sin problem, that we share in God’s hatred of sin. There is no
mechanical, automatic bringing of sinful men into the kingdom of God. All willful
disobedience is apostasy from God. Justification never ignores the demand for a
righteous life. It is the gateway to a life in Christ.

It is a complete mistake to ascribe to Paul the idea of salvation as a process that is ended.
When a man is declared righteous, he enters the service of righteousness, becoming, so to
speak, its property; his faith in God’s righteousness is obedience, and leads to
disobedience. . . .The gift of righteousness brings the believer into the custody of this
power. . . . It is righteousness which gives admission to the state of sanctification. It takes
command of the whole of life as the victor over unrighteousness and sin The
righteousness of God" carries with it the conviction that at the very moment of
justification the believer is admitted into the status of righteousness in the new life:
Justification is the means whereby he is brought under the creative power of the
righteousness of God.—GOTTFRIED QUELL AND GOTTLOB SCHRENK,
Righteousness, pp. 52-54.

Furthermore, true faith is never mere intellectual assent to Christ and His righteousness.
Intellectual assent moves in an area of unreality. The saving power of the gospel is not
based on religious information and agreement with it. Faith is an active, energizing,
dynamic power by virtue of being united with the living Christ. In this way the Christian
experiences the spiritual and moral reality that belongs to Christ. It is a reality that is
beyond man’s ability to achieve. Morally perfect, man is not; but he has entered upon that
way. He has chosen that type of life.

However, when we speak of new life from God, we are dealing with the new birth, with
regeneration rather than justification. If we are to retain the Biblical use of these terms,
then it is advisable not to make justification and regeneration the same thing. In Christian
experience they both may occur at the same time. The moment a man is justified he is
also born again. In experience they belong together. Justification and regeneration are two
sides of the same coin. We discuss them separately in order better to be able to
understand the different aspects of the plan of redemption.

The prodigal son was not only pardoned and forgiven by the father. In returning to the
father the estrangement was removed. He began a new life. He re-established the right
relationship. He was right with his father in heart and mind. Man does not remain in the
"far country" trying to change his life before returning to the Father’s house. Neither does
he return home without any intention to change his life. Otherwise the estrangement
would continue as before. It is not possible to experience justification and acquittal
without returning to God with the whole of one’s being. So justification means both to
declare right and to be set right. The spiritual life begins with justification and
regeneration.

The apostle James made clear the nature of the involvement when the Christian is
justified.

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works; shew me thy faith without thy
works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. . . . But wilt thou know, O vain man,
that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he
had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works,
and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith,
Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness (James 2:18-23).

James wrote in part to correct the antinomian abuse of the doctrine of justification by
faith, the error of supposing that because we are not justified by works, we are not bound
to perform them. It is that error of supposing that one can be under grace without
honoring that grace. Let the believer show what the tenor of his life is once he is justified.
Let the proof of his justification be manifest in a life of good works.
The question has been asked: How much of Christ and His righteousness must be
received in order to be saved? Can the believer stop with the doctrine of justification
complete in Christ? The safer question would be: How much of Christ and His work of
redemption may one reject or ignore, and yet escape eternal loss? A limited or false
conception of Christ’s redeeming work can lead to deception. Justification is simply the
beginning, not the whole, of the Christian way. Christ does not stop with justification.
There is much that follows.

Justification through Christ is sure to everyone who believes. To discover personally that
God acquits the guilty is the greatest reason for security, joy, and peace. God has in mind
that the believer should never move from under it, from now until eternity, and should go
on to perfection.

Justification, the acquitting of the guilty, requires not that God later should dredge the
depths of the sea for our sins and bring them up against us. Every word that we have
spoken is recorded as well as every deed that we have done. One must know that in the
ages to come they will not arise and call us cursed and condemn us. Justification makes
sure that our sins are truly forgiven, that the redeeming power of God will restore us to
righteousness. Justification affirms that our sins will not any more be imputed to us. The
crown of righteousness means that the worst sinner redeemed will be able to look round
the universe and see no trace of the evil that he has done. All this, justification
anticipates.

It is a natural question to ask how God could possibly have accomplished this in and
through His Son, who was called upon to make such a sacrifice. The idea that some
people have of a good-natured but weak, doting heavenly Father who cannot find it in His
heart to administer the death penalty is not the scriptural teaching on justification. This
universe would not be worth living in if there was not a righteous God upon the throne of
the universe. Sin would obtain the upper hand and righteousness be put to everlasting
confusion in all the universe.

License to continue sinning and to break God’s law is not part of God’s character or His
government. A terrible judgment on sin is revealed at the cross of Calvary. God does not
acquit the guilty in a light and careless fashion. He answers Job’s question by manifesting
the principles of His character and His righteousness. Let justification be so understood
and so experienced that Christians may look God in the face and have His righteousness
on their side forever.

Let us understand what God did in Christ. Let us see Christ fulfilling the law and the will
of God in His life. Let us watch Him write the law and the justice of God in letters of
gold across the sky and in our hearts and lives. As the sinner beholds this wondrous gift
in Jesus Christ, let him realize that upon this ground alone the eternal Judge justifies the
repentant sinner.

Let not men believe for one moment that men are justified and stay justified regardless of
how they live. Let no man believe he can play fast and loose with the righteousness of
God and use the cross of Christ as a city of refuge every time he sins. The idea that Christ
shed His blood in order that man can be indifferent about his sins and careless about his
obedience to God’s commandments cannot be charged to Him who said:

"I am not come to destroy [the law], but to fulfil [it]" (Matt. 5:17). Justification never
leads to a life of sin. It is the beginning of a new life in Christ, a restoration to the image
of God. Within the heart and mind of the Christian who has experienced justification
there is a response of gratitude, love, and obedience that proves that the marvelous grace
and mercy of God have not come to him in vain. The idea of justification leading to sinful
living and disobedience to the law of God is everywhere contradicted in the Bible.
Justification has never been lightly bestowed. It is one of the most costly things in all the
world. With justification come holiness and obedience. No man is ever justified except by
the cross of Christ. But no man is ever justified who is not now being sanctified.

4
"THE JUST
SHALL LIVE
BY FAITH"
Without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that
he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Heb. 11:6).

THE CLEAREST examples of faith are offered in certain Biblical cases in the life and
ministry of our Lord. When He walked the earth and mingled with men and women in
need, every response of genuine faith was followed by expressions of divine pleasure and
action. Jesus was genuinely happy to find faith manifested.

The Roman centurion came to Jesus with great concern for his sick servant. When Christ
promised to come and heal the sick man, the centurion replied, "[Just] speak the word
only and my servant shall be healed. . . . When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to
them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in
Israel" (Matt. 8:5-10).

The Importance of Faith

Matthew 15 tells the story of a journey Jesus and His disciples made to Tyre and Sidon. A
Canaanite woman came seeking help for her daughter who was "tormented by a devil."
She would not be put off in spite of several apparently negative responses. She pressed
her case even to the point of disbelieving what Christ said (when He was testing her) and
cast her entire trust on Him as the Son of God. Seeing her earnestness and humility Jesus
replied, "‘Woman, what faith you have! Be it as you wish!’ And from that moment her
daughter was restored to health" (verse 28).

Jesus invariably commended people for their faith. So it was in the healing of the ruler’s
daughter and the woman with a flow of blood (chap. 9: 8-22), the men who let the
paralytic down through the roof (Luke 5:18-26), the repentance and forgiveness of Mary
Magdalene in the house of Simon the Pharisee (chap. 7:36-50), the healing of the blind
man near Jericho (chap. 18:35-43). In every case Christ went into action, without
hesitation, in response to simple faith.

The familiar saying about faith moving the mountain shows that faith has to do with what
God alone can perform; it is letting God go into action. . . . Apart from faith, which
involves personal acceptance of Jesus, Jesus does not act— CARL HENRY, Jesus of
Nazareth, Saviour and Lord; article by James P. Martin, "Faith as Historical
Understanding" (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Win. Eerdmans, 1966), p. 193. Used by
permission.

The vital necessity of faith is further emphasized when Christ said, "Nevertheless when
the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (verse 8). The implication of the
question is that genuine faith will be difficult to find.

In this passage Jesus was not suggesting that when He comes again, men will be lacking
in knowledge and in consistency in what they know. Faith defines a certain and distinct
attitude to God on man’s part. By its very nature it transcends the search for information
and verification and attaches supreme value to God, to Jesus Christ, and to the Word of
God. Valuable as sound thinking and knowledge of truth are, men become Christians or
believers only when they take their stand within God’s saving power and righteousness
and commit themselves with the whole of their person to Jesus Christ.

"The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17). These simple, clear words do verily contain the
key to life here and in the hereafter. Where salvation and eternal life are provided by God
and offered as a gift, there must be some responsive action or attitude on the sinner' s part
that signifies his acceptance of and commitment to it. That response is faith. Man is not
thereby merely searching for knowledge, but for life. Faith apprehends the reality of the
living God. Faith links us up with God.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, speaking to His listeners, said:

"Therefore I did you put away anxious thoughts about food and drink to keep you alive,
and clothes to cover your body. . . . Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow and reap
and store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are worth more than the
birds! . . . How little faith you have! No, do not ask anxiously, ‘What are we to eat? What
are we to drink? What shall we wear? All these are things for the heathen to run after, not
for you, because your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Set your mind on
God’s kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as
well" (Matt. 6:25-33, N.E.B.).

Christ is not reproving His listeners for their ignorance or their inconsistency regarding
God’s care and provision for their lives, but because of their lack of trustful reliance on
Him.
Luke puts the divine action of God in Christ at the root of salvation. But this does not
mean that all men are saved. It opens the door. But if men are to enter, it is necessary that
they should receive this salvation. This means that their attitude must be that of
wholehearted submission to God. . . . Jesus praised the faith of the centurion (Luke 7:9). .
. . By contrast there is castigation for faithlessness (Luke 9:41). . . . Jesus . . . is seen as
demanding from men . . . an attitude of wholehearted trust— LEON MORRIS, The Cross
in the New Testament, p. 102.

Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. . . For
yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall
live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we
are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul (Heb. 10: 35-39).

The Meaning of Faith

What is the meaning and the sense in which the Scriptures use the word faith? How did
the great men of faith use it in the Bible? The Greek word for faith is pistis, and the verb
form is pisteuo. Neither word is ever intended to be equated with simply knowing
something. It goes further than that. It has in mind the idea of trust, reliance upon,
allegiance to.

Thou believest that there is one God: thou doest well: devils also believe, and tremble
(James 2:19).

The devils know the correctness of God and His Word. What they know in their minds
actually corresponds to the eternal truth about God and what He is and has done. They
know that Jesus is the Son of God. They acknowledged that several times when our Lord
lived on the earth. Rational agreement with divine realities does not mean that one has
faith.

A dynamic faith involves far more than coherence, intellectual illumination, or knowing
something to be true. There are many things we know to be true without placing
confidence in them. We believe that man is mortal and subject to death. We believe all
men are sinners and born without God in the world. We believe in the final destruction of
sin and the wicked. But we do not trust in these facts, even though we acknowledge them
to be true.

Faith . . . is not merely an intellectual awareness of the truth, or even an intellectual

acceptance of the truth. You can have that and still be without faith. Faith means a real
trusting in Him and what He has done on our behalf and for our salvation. . . . The man
who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself, and no longer looking to
himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. . . . He does not look at what he
hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and
His finished work, and he rests on that alone.— MARTYN LLOYD-JONES, Romans, p.
45.
Almost never does the Greek word for faith stand alone, but is connected with
prepositions expressing the idea to believe on or in.

This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent (John 6:29).

While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light (chap.
12:36).

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me (chap. 14:1).

Paul speaks of having "faith in his blood" (Rom. 3:25). "Ye are all the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26).

That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also
trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also
after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:12, 13).

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is
counted for righteousness (Rom. 4:5).

The use of the prepositions is significant. To believe someone may mean simply to
believe what he says and nothing more. To believe in or on a person means to attach great
value so as to have confidence in him. Believers are to trust in the promises and in the
Word of God, because the God who makes a promise and who speaks is always true. He
keeps His word. The truth about this Person, the promises He makes, have come to have
real meaning. They take a believer out of himself and satisfy his need for that which is
trustworthy. Life is largely a search for those persons in whom we can trust completely.
This very attitude of faith is no simple intellectual assent, but an act of the man’s whole
self.

Knowledge does not become belief until it involves action. This holds true in our relation
to doctors, dentists, or any branch of services to be rendered. Knowledge that can be
taken for granted is of little value until it is trusted and acted upon.

To say that faith is not merely an assent to truth is not to say that faith does not involve
truth. To make the knowledge of faith anti-intellectual would be to remove it from the
area of factuality in the objective world. It is a fact that Christ is Lord; it is false to say
that He is not. And the lordship of Christ is a fact affirmed by the intellect— LEWIS B.
SMEDES, All Things Made New, p. 210.

Faith is personal response and surrender to the total historical claim which Jesus the
Christ makes upon us.— CARL HENRY, op. cit., p. 196.

The action of faith shifts the center from self and self-confidence to Christ. This action or
basic move in the life is not accomplished easily. Faith makes people think hard about
themselves in relation to God. It stirs the mind to the deepest concern for the right
relationship to God.

There is nothing superficial in what the New Testament calls faith, in its relation to this
ultimate truth in God; . . . it is his absolute committal of himself for ever to the sin-
bearing love of God for salvation. It is not simply the act of an instant, it is the attitude of
a life; it is the one right thing at the moment when a man abandons himself to Christ, and
it is the one thing which keeps him right with God for ever. It is just as truly the whole of
Christianity subjectively as Christ is the whole of it objectively— JAMES DENNY, The
Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation, p. 291.

Faith earns no merit. Faith means wholehearted reliance on Christ. This reliance is no
fiction. We acknowledge our total dependence on Him for salvation, for life, and for
righteousness. This relationship of continued trust and commitment to God restores man
to a life that God originally planned for him in the Garden of Eden. Salvation must begin
at this point. It is Christ’s life we choose, not ours.

Faith is never an easy acceptance of Christ. It involves a decided commitment that we

want Christ, His life, and His will. When God sees this kind of faith, He treats us as
righteous, according to what we have committed ourselves to be in Christ. Such a faith
has already entered upon the way of righteousness and obedience to the will of God.

The act of faith is as much being held by God as holding Him; the power of faith is
exercised as much in capitulation as in conquering—the faith that overcomes the world is
capitulation to Christ’s great victory.— G. C. BERKOUWER, Faith and Justification
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1954), p. 190. Used
by permission.

The Exercise of Faith

What is the starting point for faith? Where is the right place to begin? "Looking unto
Jesus the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb. 12:2). Saving faith is not self-generated.
It is the gift of God. God’s revelation of saving righteousness in His Son, Jesus Christ,
initiates our faith and continues it from start to finish. "For therein is the righteousness of
God revealed from faith to faith" (Rom. 1:17).

Faith arises because of its object, Jesus Christ. This is of supreme importance. To have
genuine faith means that the object of faith cannot be false. It must be true. The error of
false religions is that the objects of their faith are not real, but false gods. The mind seeks
certainty and trust in one thing: that the object of faith be real and genuine and not a
creation of fancy or of the minds of men. Where the object of faith is false, then professed
belief in a false god dissolves into self-deception.

Come, open your plea, says the Lord, present your case, says Jacob’s King; let them
come forward, these idols, let them foretell the future. Let them declare the meaning of
past events that we may give our minds to it; let them predict things that are to be that we
may know their outcome. Declare what will happen hereafter; then we shall know you
are gods. Do what you can, good or ill, anything that may grip us with fear and awe. You
cannot! You are sprung from nothing.

I ask a question and no one answers; see what empty things they are! Nothing that they
do has any worth, their effigies are wind, mere nothings (Isa. 41: 2 1-24, 28, 29, N.E.B.).

Every man lives by faith to some degree. He trusts in someone. Even trust in ourselves, in
our abilities, or in our friends gives some meaning and value to this life on earth. We
speak of faith in the doctor, in the builder, in the pilot of a plane. Faith is based on what
these men are in themselves as persons worthy of trust. Faith differs according to the
nature and quality of the person. Faith directs the value of the doctor to us in terms of his
ability to heal and to save life.

If we put our trust in money and possessions, which are all transitory, then we have no
future. Actually no one thing or person can be trusted absolutely. Apart from trust in the
true and living God everything else is relative. We live in time and are creatures of time.
Only by faith in the eternal God will we belong to eternity. Faith in Jesus Christ means
that life has ultimate meaning, a guarantee of life now and life in the hereafter. All other
things are transitory.

Solomon learned his lesson and put it this way:

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, . . . all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his
labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another
generation cometh: ... I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold,
all is vanity an(I vexation of spirit.

Then I looked on all the works that my hands ha(l wrought, and on the labour that I had
laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity (Eccl. 1:2-11; 2:11).

This is where the fortitude of God’s people has its place—in keeping God’s commands
and remaining loyal to Jesus (Rev. 14:12, N.E.B.).

How does God win back the allegiance of sinful men? How can God once again secure
man’s trust, confidence, and personal allegiance? What method can God use to lead men
to abandon self-dependence and self-sufficiency? Here the God of heaven emerges in His
true character. He Himself invades our world in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The appeal of the gospel always asserts the priority of Jesus Christ. At the same time it
presents the facts to us in terms of a divine revelation set in human history. The vital
thing about the One who redeems us is that He is truth, righteousness, and love in His
person. Therefore God has given man every reason for trust. Only as we trust the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ can life have meaning at all.
This love of God seen in Christ is never something we can be glib about. The repetition
of religious clichés is not enough: sin, salvation, the truth, the message, finishing the
work of God. They should be more sparingly used, not simply as a shallow reference
vocabulary that covers indifference and neutrality. Faith grasps the reality for which these
terms stand. We must make sure that our use of religious terminology is not an escape
from spiritual reality.

Faith is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end is the believer’s saving
relationship to Christ. Genuine faith means that the object of our faith does exist, that
Jesus Christ is the living God, that our lives are directed and controlled by this supreme
sovereign Power. Faith does not save. Jesus Christ does that. We trust the promise of
Christ to come again and we are saved through hope. We trust in the redemptive work of
Christ; otherwise we have no assurance that our sins are forgiven and our future salvation
secured. By faith we cal’ stand the transitory nature of life and face death unafraid. We
can live in security because we know that God is responsible for our lives and not we
ourselves. We exclaim with the apostle Paul:

With all this in mind, what are we to say? If God is on our side, who is against us? He did
not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all; and with this gift how can he fail to
lavish upon us all he has to give? ... Then what can separate us from the love of Christ?
Can affliction or hardship? Can persecution, hunger, nakedness, peril, or the sword? . . .
In spite of all, overwhelming victory is ours through him who loved us. For I am
convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman
powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in
heights or depths—nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:31-39, N.E.B.).

There is nothing in faith that makes it our saviour. Faith cannot remove our guilt. Christ is
the power of God unto salvation to all them that believe. The justification comes through
the merits of Jesus Christ. He has paid the price for the sinner s redemption. Yet it is only
through faith in His blood that Jesus can justify the believer.— The SDA Bible
Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, on Rom. 5:1, p. 1071.

Faith is directed to its glorious object, Jesus Christ, without the mind being diverted in
the smallest degree by a consideration of faith itself as something to congratulate oneself
about. This is why the weakest and simplest person should not hesitate to trust a Saviour
who is fully able to save to the uttermost. The believer should not dwell on the excellence
of faith, but on the excellence of Christ our Righteousness. Where the believer has his
thoughts directed to the inherent worth of faith, he might conclude that faith contributes
to his salvation and has merits in itself. Faith has value only as it is grounded in Christ.

We do not believe with him, or by his help, but in him. . . . And in him . .. we have our
power to believe. He is not only faith’s object but also faith’s world. He becomes our
universe that feels, and knows, and makes us what we are. Deep as the thirst for God lies
in the soul, nowhere but in Christ do we have the communion that stills it. . . . The
possession of God is sure for every age and soul only in Jesus Christ as its living ground.
— P. T. FORSYTH, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (London: Independent Press,
Ltd.), p. 56. Used by permission.

It is the trick of Satan to get us occupied with ourselves instead of looking to Jesus Christ.
Faith is worth nothing until it disregards the weaknesses of ourselves and others and
commits us in total allegiance to the One who never fails.

A life in Christ is a life of restfulness.... Your hope is not in yourself; it is in Christ. Your
weakness is united to His strength, your ignorance to His wisdom, your frailty to His
enduring might. So you are not to look to yourself, not to let the mind dwell upon self,
but look to Christ. Let the mind dwell upon His love, upon the beauty, the perfection of
His character. Christ in His self-denial, Christ in His humiliation, Christ in His purity and
holiness, Christ in His matchless love—this is the subject for the soul’s contemplation. It
is by loving Him, copying Him, depending wholly upon Him, that you are to be
transformed into His likeness....

When the mind dwells upon self, it is turned away from Christ, the source of strength and
life. Hence it is Satan’s constant effort to keep the attention diverted from the Saviour and
thus prevent the union and communion of the soul with Christ. The pleasures of the
world, life’s cares and perplexities and sorrows, the faults of others, or your own faults
and imperfections— to any or all of these he will seek to divert the mind. Do not be
misled by his devices.... We should not make self the center and indulge anxiety and fear
as to whether we shall be saved. All this turns the soul away from the Source of our
strength. Commit the keeping of your soul to God, and trust in Him.... Rest in God. He is
able to keep that which you have committed to Him. If you will leave yourself in His
hands, He will bring you off more than conqueror through Him that has loved you.—
Steps to Christ, pp. 70-72.

Personal Involvement

He who takes Christ and the Word of God seriously must face the exercise of faith in
terms of his becoming personally involved. Jesus Christ, His person, and His saving work
have now become a personal matter. So we sincerely ask, What must I do to be saved?
How can Christ’s righteousness avail for me? God actually loves me. He will receive me.
The nature of Christ, the atonement, His priestly work in heaven, have meaning for us in
a particular individual sense. Faith is an individual response. This was Paul’s experience,
as he said:

[We] whose pride is in Christ Jesus,... put no confidence in anything external. Not that I
am without grounds myself even for confidence of that kind. . .. I could make a stronger
case for myself.... But all such assets I have written off because of Christ. I would say
more: I count everything sheer loss, because all is far outweighed by the gain of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I did in fact lose everything. I count it so much
garbage, for the sake of gaining Christ and finding myself incorporate in him, with no
righteousness of my own, no legal rectitude, but the righteousness which comes from
faith in Christ, given by God in response to faith. All I care for is to know Christ, to
experience the power of his resurrection, and to share his sufferings, in growing
conformity with his death, if only I may finally arrive at the resurrection from the dead
(Phil. 3:3-11, N.E.B.).

Faith is a human act, sweeping our whole life into its power, a human act that affirms in
will, word, and work that Christ begins in us. Faith is decisive. And it is total. . . Faith is
an authentic human action without which there is no union with Christ. Our faith is our
total response to Christ’s initiative.— SMEDE5, op. cit., p. 201.

There is always the temptation to remain distant in order to consider Biblical facts
objectively without any personal involvement. Saving faith does not divest the truth of
sound evidence, but it is more than some logical procedure such as we find in
mathematics or scientific investigation of a problem or a case. While we must seek to
make the truth of righteousness by faith as clear as possible, faith is a personal response
due to the work of the Holy Spirit. We should bear in mind the scripture:

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received up into glory (1 Tim. 3:16).

There is an urgency about salvation that makes it undesirable that we should keep on
waiting to act until we have weighed every difficulty and every question in the delicate
balance of logic. If we keep on raising questions, the necessity to exercise faith in Jesus
Christ will elude us. Faith is a moral and spiritual necessity more indispensable to life
than physical hunger and food. It is not worthwhile to doubt and dispute continually
about the Word of God. It is not good to set an understanding of Christ within the limits
of our own thinking. We must make sure that our discussion of religion is not a cover-up
for the lack of spiritual reality.

Granted that man’s response to God cannot be blind reception. We must see and
understand the truth before we can appropriate it. Christian experience cannot progress
far beyond our discernment of Bible truth. However, the Word of God turns the
searchlight of truth not just upon man’s reason, but upon the whole man.

[Faith] means for Paul man’s total surrender to God’s saving act. The faith which is
reckoned for righteousness is not a psychic force, or an achievement of almighty reason,
or the perfection of religious virtue; it is the realization of God alone as Saviour, the one
and only way of opening the door to the revelation of the one and only true object of
faith.— G. QUELL AND G SCHRENK, Righteousness. p. 48.

Personal involvement brings us into the custody of this divine Person and Power. It gives
the Holy Spirit admission to the whole of our lives. It takes command of us and breaks
the slavery of sin and self. One cherished sin, the withholding of one part of our lives
from Christ, will arrest spiritual progress, pollute spiritual insight, blind the mind, and
make faith impossible.
Faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit. "All men have not faith" (2 Thess. 3:2). The gift of
faith is never withheld from those who earnestly and sincerely seek God according to the
Scriptures. Peter’s confession of faith was followed by our Lord’s statement: "Blessed art
thou, . . . flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee" (Matt. 16:17). That is, faith does
not arise by virtue of the wisdom and the natural efforts of men.

Faith itself is not my independent work; it is the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart.
Only God Himself has the power to bring my stubborn and rebellious will to the point of
surrender. . . . It is when the cross of Christ has shattered our self-sufficiency, humbled
our pride, and raised us again from the dust by the power of his love—only when this has
been done that the Spirit of God can flow into our souls and take control of us. . . . The
Spirit brings home to our hearts what Christ has done for us, and awakens that response
which is faith—the Amen of the soul to God’s judgment and God’s mercy.. . . The Spirit
creates faith, and faith receives the Spirit.— LESLIE NEWBIGIN, Sin and Salvation
(Philadelphia, Pa.: The Westminster Press, 1956), pp. 99, 100.

Faith is always a divine gift, always a work of the Holy Spirit. . . . Faith is not conceived
by flesh and blood.— BERKOUWER, op. cit., p 190.

Personally to desire God, to seek God, to open the mind and heart to receive God—this is
faith. Not simply to believe something about Him, but to believe in Him; not simply to
hold an opinion or a conclusion, but to lay hold of Christ Himself. Under the moving
influence of the Holy Spirit we turn ourselves completely over to Christ. We know it to
be the one supremely true thing, the one eternal reality that can change our lives.

Faith and Emotionalism

It is a serious mistake to identify faith with feeling. A looking to one’s emotions or

dependence on one’s reason makes self the ultimate court of appeal, which is in part the
original sin of all men. Obviously man’s own feelings cannot create or maintain faith.
Man’s weakness and impotence cannot form the basis for trust in God. No mastermind of
intelligence or reach of emotion can ever provide man with ultimate certainty. Man can
easily fall victim either to his own limited mental ability or to his own feelings. Men are
easily given to deceptions and errors both of the mind and of the heart.

This is the day for religious awakenings and great stirrings of the heart. Religious
excitement presents itself in bewildering array. Here lies the peril. The ignorance and the
gullibility of multitudes offer these religious fads—no matter how false their premises
may be, no matter how Biblically inadequate their foundation, or how flimsy their
authority—a fertile field for deception and counterfeit. Millions of people of the world
will have great difficulty extricating themselves from the religious confusion unless their
faith is intelligent, moral, and spiritually grounded in the Word of God.

There is great danger that some of the religious revivals that push people into abnormal
excitement will result in verdicts rendered against the truth, which could have been
avoided had each person held himself personally and intelligently and morally
responsible to the revealed Word of God. Under the plausible pretense of having an
ecstatic encounter with the supernatural, men err from the path of righteousness and from
obedience to His Word.

Manifestations on a grand scale are appearing in some of the religious revivals, which
threaten the churches by a deceptive counterfeit. The spiritual problems and needs of our
time cry out for a message that will not only help men and women recognize the need for
enlightened minds on the truth of God but will stabilize men’s moral conduct and lead the
life along the path of divine truth.

Faith that is founded on that which is divinely true is ageless, changeless. To the man of
truth faith is no blind leader of the blind. He has a fine receptiveness for the truth of
God’s Word. His mental and spiritual vision is clear, and his faith is based on divine
realities. Man’s aspirations after God cannot be satisfied or his mind at peace unless
confidence be reposed both in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and in His Holy Word.
Men are in peril who claim to have an encounter with God, yet who fail to submit the
mind and the life to the clear teaching and guidance of the Bible.

Fellowship with God is not a subjective disturbance that must be artificially aroused at
intervals. It is impossible to experience Christ unless we understand and appreciate that
such terms as forgiveness, repentance, justification, the new birth, and sanctification have
a distinctive personal meaning for us, experienced in the whole of our lives.

Any effort to push a man over the brink emotionally is deceptive. We must not seek to
lure people with a false bait. Faith is not an emotional feeling that has to be whipped up.
Any playing on man’s emotions is destructive to faith. Sensationalism is a bad thing. We
must not degrade our relationship to Christ to the level of emotional excitement or spirit
excitation.

Multitudes are being deceived by offers of spiritistic encounters with the supernatural.
Because one is beside himself with some form of religious ecstasy does not mean that he
has met the Lord Jesus Christ. Pagan peoples and religions offer the same kind of wild
religious entertainment. There is not a religion in the world that is without this kind of
spirit manifestation. The history of world religions gives lurid insight into the claims that
one can experience the supernatural.

Today millions are carried away by the sensational in religion. At the bottom of it all
there lurks the temptation to believe that genuine faith in God as taught in the Bible does
not belong here at all. Today the claim to spiritual power of righteousness by faith in
Christ is being silenced by thrills of the flesh and emotions that soar in irrational music,
that laugh and shout and clap and stamp, with the idea that God is there.

Christ moved among men with humility, meekness, dignity, reverence, and majesty. How
little of the loud and the sensational there was in the ministry of Jesus Christ. In the
Scriptures all manifestations of the presence of God immediately produced great awe and
quietness in the hearts of those present.
The gifts of the Spirit and the presence of God are so profound and so delicate that there
is no loss of self-control. The presence of Christ in the life knows nothing of an
excitement that departs from moral purity and good works. Faith in Christ and in His
Word never exalts the devotees to the clouds where men are exempt from obedience to
the law of God and beyond the claims of the Ten Commandments. True faith absolves no
one from the operation of a sound mind in harmony with truth. Faith that holds
fellowship with Christ is no lashing of the mind into frenzy. True faith refrains from
every manifestation that jeopardizes the soundness of mind and life.

The alternative to this transportation into ecstasy is not lukewarmness and spiritual
indifference. The Holy Spirit kindles the mind and makes the Word of God come alive. It
makes man hungry for the righteousness of Christ, with a passion to save the lost. The
tongues of men become instruments of God in proclaiming and witnessing to the wonders
of God’s love and transforming power.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keeps life in balance and fills the inner
man with lasting joy in contrast with an external hilarity of the moment. There is no
exaggerated stimulus to emotional indulgence, but a manifestation of heaven’s love, joy,
and peace. These fruits of the Spirit are a perennial experience. The man of faith in
Christ, in the superiority of heavenly truths, experiences an aroused activity of the mind
where all is uplifted and "all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and pure, all that
is lovable and gracious, whatever is excellent and admirable" fills the mind and the life
(Phil. 4: 8, N.E.B.).

"Let This Mind Be in You"

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God: hut made himself of no reputation, and took
upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in
fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. (Phil. 2:5-8).

The difficulty in exercising faith is not upon the side of God. No sinner is ever more
eager for righteousness than his Redeemer is to give it to him. No desire to repent of sin
on the part of man ever exceeded the eagerness of God to meet man with complete
forgiveness and the saving righteousness of Christ.

Christ Himself showed us the way. In His human life on earth, our Lord lived by faith in
His Father. He said: "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:29). He exhorted men:
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall
find rest unto your souls" (Matt. 11:29). Since Christ in His perfect life reveals this to be
the true attitude of faith and dependence on the Father, how much more do unrighteous
men need to have this same attitude. Christ spoke to this point in the Sermon on the
Mount.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that
mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall he filled
(chap. 5:3-6).

These words speak of the mind that we must possess if we are to exercise true faith. They
speak of the bankruptcy of the human heart because of sin and pride. He who hungers
and thirsts after righteousness confesses his lack of that righteousness that can be
supplied only from beyond himself. He who is poor in spirit and who knows his need is
the man who is ready to receive help from God. He who is meek does not assume that his
own mind is the source of great wisdom, that he can trust in himself.

Faith fares badly by the concentration upon oneself, where the emphasis has shifted from
sufficiency in God to self-sufficiency. Men easily come to depend upon themselves. The
world of human achievement breathes the desire for self-exaltation.

Even in the church men inadvertently come to believe that progress in the cause of God is
achieved by human methods: by programs, by policies, by human ingenuity and agency
without depending upon the Holy Spirit. The fatal mistake is to believe that the church
can accomplish the work of God by the wisdom of men rather than by the regenerating,
sanctifying, and transforming power of God.

True faith in God leads away from the autonomy of man. To be more sure of ourselves
than we are of Jesus Christ is the height of folly. Righteousness by faith excludes every
jot and tittle of self-esteem and self-assertion, every thread of pride. In these sophisticated
times we have fallen heir to a complicated system both in theological thought and in
church life, which has to be bolstered up with all kinds of activities and techniques to
impress people. Consequently, the emphasis can easily shift to ourselves.

No airtight theological system and no expertise in human methods can give us a

triumphant faith. Difficulties arise when, as professed Christians, we set up an
ecclesiastical pattern and practice and then grow complacent and self-righteous by virtue
of our conformity to it. It is imperative to make faith in Christ attractive, irresistible, and
the opportunity for the highest adventures in Christian living, expressive in sacrificial
service for the sake of Christ. Our faith in Christ must so involve us with God that we
venture all we have for the sake of spiritual victory and the triumph of the kingdom of
God.

We must be absolutely honest when facing the claims of Christ upon the whole of our
lives. We must reject all practices in life, in business, in pleasure that leave Jesus Christ
out of the domain of our thinking and living. Once the professed Christian refuses to open
himself entirely to Christ, the integrity of the person begins to crumble. The peril of self-
deception sets in. Back of most of our spiritual failures is our unwillingness to face the
truth about ourselves in the presence of Christ.
No profession of faith will last unless we permit Christ to cleanse the innermost parts of
our souls. To seek to hide our secret faults and selfishness from Christ ultimately spells
disaster.

The answer to all our rationalizations about ourselves, to our superficiality, must be a life,
not merely a series of religious propositions. Faith that works by love enables us to face
ourselves as we are. We accept the gift of God. We come with no false claims. We let
Christ break through with His purity, His unselfishness, His power to cleanse, His truth.
Such a faith unites us with that divine power that makes us truly Christian before God
and man.

The Fight of Faith

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called (1
Tim. 6:12).

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run,
that ye may obtain. . . Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an
incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the
air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I
have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

There is peril in the phrase "only believe" if one imagines that salvation involves an
easygoing attitude, leaving people unaware that God calls for the whole of their lives, that
since Christ has done all, the Christian needs to do nothing.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church.... [We supposed] that the account has
been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.

[Costly grace] . . . is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the
eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves
his nets and follows him. . . . It is costly grace because it costs a man his life, and it is
grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and
grace because it justifies the sinner.

The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who
has left all to follow Christ. .

This cheap grace has been no less disastrous to our own spiritual lives. Instead of opening
up the way to Christ it has closed it. Instead of calling us to follow Christ, it has hardened
us in our disobedience. . . . Seduce us to the mediocre level of the world, quenching the
joy of discipleship by telling us that we were following a way of our own choosing, that
we were spending our strength and disciplining ourselves in vain—all of which was not
merely useless, but extremely dangerous. — DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, The Cost of
Discipleship (New York, The Macmillan Co., copyright 1963), pp. 45, 47, 48, 55, 58, 59.
A vital faith is not a tense effort to believe, holding a strenuous attitude of mind. Trusting
God is exactly the opposite of that. Faith relinquishes the tense responsibility we feel for
ourselves and depends on Christ "who . . . is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30). Christians who exert every effort to
have faith inevitably fail because they are looking to themselves rather than to Jesus
Christ. Faith does not come by sheer will power, nor by exhortations to exercise faith.

Yet the Bible speaks of the "fight of faith," the conflict that goes on in the life of the
Christian.

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh
lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to
the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would (Gal. 5:16-18).

The fight of faith centers in the battle for the control of the mind, between the spiritual
forces of light and the spiritual forces of darkness.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace (Rom. 8:5, 6).

Because of previous tendencies and habits of sin, man does not easily respond to God.
Faith moves within the salvation and the spiritual power provided by God. But it is not
always easy to stay within these areas. Living a godly life is not free from conflict.

The warfare against self is the greatest battle that was ever fought. The yielding of self,
surrendering all to the will of God, requires a struggle; but the soul must submit to God
before it can be renewed in holiness.— Steps to Christ, p. 43.

We live in and from our minds. This is the person we actually are. "He [God] will work
by His Spirit through the mind He has put in man."— Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 725.

What kind of mind does God work through?

Faith in Christ . . .calls for an acknowledgment of the enlightened intellect controlled by a

heart that can discern and appreciate the heavenly treasure. —Christ’s Object Lessons, p.
112.

The issue here is this: It is a fight to keep an enlightened intellect on the Word of God,
and a heart that can discern and appreciate the things of God. To develop and possess
such a mind determines one’s ability to exercise and to live by faith.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Rom. 10:17).

The revelation of God’s truth in the Bible is God’s recognition and compliment to the
believer upon whom God has endowed his noblest mental possibilities and moral
response. Christians unquestionably must affirm of themselves a faith that rests on the
Word of God, working through a mind that is sensitive to the will of God. Faith does not
stand alone. It is produced by the Word quickened by the Spirit.

"Go, your son lives." The man believed what Jesus told him and went. "Because you say
so I will let down the nets" said Peter. "just say the word" says the Roman captain, and he
believed. (See John 4:50; Luke 5:5; Matt. 8:8.)

To be strong in faith one must become strong in the Word. God addresses men as
intelligent beings and assumes that enlightenment of the mind is a condition of genuine
faith. Every fact and truth of the Bible is the basis for faith. There is no genuine faith that
is indifferent to truth. It is profoundly and soundly rational and thoroughly spiritual. A
religion that neutralizes or paralyzes the mental faculties disables people spiritually. If
thoughtful men are to be strong in faith it will not be because they are asleep or because
the mind has been drugged by the trivial and the superficial. The credential of a genuine
faith is a mind reverent and intelligent in the understanding and acceptance of the truth of
God. The fight of faith requires knowing, living, and obeying all the truth of God.

No man will reach heaven by inaction. The indifferent and the willfully blind must be
awakened and roused up in order to be saved and changed. Faith is an act of the mind, an
act of the whole person that carries the whole of life with it. It is the most vital and
vigorous activity that can be conceived of.

The exercising of the mind unto godliness is no simple or easy matter. The fight of faith
involves staying alert to the deep movings of God, of His truth, and of the Holy Spirit. It
is not easy to stay spiritually alert these days. The fight of faith means that we no longer
live our lives on the shallow surface of things.

The mind occupied with commonplace matters only, becomes dwarfed and enfeebled—
Education , p. 124.

The reason it is so difficult for men and women to live religious lives is because they do
not exercise the mind unto godliness. It is trained to run in the opposite direction. Unless
the mind is constantly exercised in obtaining spiritual knowledge and in seeking to
understand the mysteries of godliness, it is incapable of appreciating eternal things
because it has no experience in that direction. This is the reason why nearly all consider it
uphill business to serve the Lord.— Testimonies, vol. 2, p. 189.

The fight of faith means daily awareness and commitment to maintain one’s union with
God, to encourage and feed every hunger and thirst for God. Some who believe in
salvation by grace alone believe that therefore, living the Christian life requires no effort
—although everything else in life does. Living by faith calls for our most serious
cooperation with Christ. When faced with temptation, we are urged to search the
Scriptures. When tempted to become discouraged, we are invited to fix our eyes on Christ
and on the promises of God. At such times it requires effort to think God’s thoughts and
let Christ’s mind prevail.
If we would practice and exercise faith in Christ with the diligence that men put forth in
pursuit of the temporal and shallow aims of the world, the Christian life would be
transformed. Often people spend far more time learning to play music or a game than to
live by faith in Jesus Christ. As Christians, do we spend anything like the effort and the
time to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God that we spend on worldly enterprises,
in the search to be well-fed, well-dressed, and well-amused? If we truly believe in
salvation by faith, then let us practice it with all we have.

I have always respected and admired men like Moses whose faith centered on Christ and
cooperated with God for the realization of their divinely appointed destiny.

By faith Moses . . . refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of Egypt. . . By faith he
forsook Egypt, . . . for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible (Heb. 11:24-27).

It is not easy to do this. The tendency is to emphasize more the side of the secular rather
than the spiritual. It is easy to be religious, but very difficult to be spiritual. The excessive
occupation with things of time and sense, the growing interest in secular pleasure to the
neglect of prayer and the study of God’s Word, takes so much of our time that we have
neither time nor energy left to grow spiritually.

Moses "endured, refused, chose, forsook"— all strong words of action involved in the
meaning of living by faith. Nowhere does the Bible say the saints are carried on beds of
ease, God doing everything and man doing nothing. The plain reason why we are not
better Christians, victorious Christians, is not because faith in Christ is inadequate, but
because when the pressure and the temptations come we are not totally committed to
Christ. We yield to self and to sin. Spiritual failure in the life is a problem for many who
seem incapable of controlling the passions, abnormal appetites, and sinful desires of the
human heart. They take their eyes off Christ and from His promises. No Christian ever
loses the fight of faith until he allows sin to blind the mind to the truth of Christ and to
dull the ears to the truth God speaks to him through the Bible.

Perhaps no better Bible character is set forth as an example of a strong and genuine faith
than Abraham. Faith expressed his fervent and unwavering trust in God.

What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for
righteousness (Rom. 4:1-3).

Abraham’s faith did not justify him or save him. The Lord Jesus Christ was the divine
reality from which his faith proceeded. The living God was the moving cause that made
his faith strong and enabled him to do those things that pleased God. The events and the
decisions for God in his life are remarkable.
Abraham was born in sin as all men are. He was an idolater. "They served other gods"
(Joshua 24:2). But God appeared to him. He was convinced of the folly of idol worship
and of the importance of serving the true God and trusting in Him for salvation. He
looked to the Saviour for forgiveness and redemption. A radical change was wrought in
his life. Ever after he was a worshiper and a follower of God. The Scripture says that
Abraham’s faith was strong, firm, unmovable. His faith did not stand alone. It was
characterized by prompt, cheerful, and self-denying obedience. First God commanded
him to leave his country, his kindred, and his father’s house and take up his abode in
Canaan, an unknown land to him (see Gen. 12:1-4).

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after
receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. . .For
he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11 :8-
10).

The faith of the apostle Paul also involved obedience, when the risen and ascended Christ
met him on the way to Damascus. Paul said later that he conferred not with flesh and
blood, but proceeded immediately to fulfill his mission as an apostle to the Gentiles.

Obedience is essential to faith for it illustrates the truth that faith is not autonomous and
self-sufficient— that it capitulates in total surrender. . . . Faith is the basic concept which
is further described and characterized by the expression obedience of faith. That
obedience of faith is consistent with sola gratia—the obedience of faith . . . is . . the total
response to the gospel.— BERKOUWER, op. cit., pp. 195, 196.

Abraham’s second great test of faith came when God had promised to make him the
father of many nations, yet did not give him a son until both he and his wife, Sarah, were
too old, they thought, to have one.

As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed,
even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they
were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many
nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in
faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years
old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: he staggered not at the promise of God
through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to) God; and being fully persuaded
that, what he had promised, he was also able to perform. And therefore it was imputed to
him for righteousness (Rom. 4:17-22).

Abraham’s third great test of faith came when he was commanded to offer up his son,
Isaac (see Heb. 1 1:17, 18). God tested Abraham’s faith as to whom he loved most, his
child or his God. Without hesitation Abraham proceeded to obey God’s command. Until
the last moment he fully expected to sacrifice his son.
Abraham’s faith was a living, working faith. He subordinated all earthly values to
heavenly things of which he had so high an appreciation in comparison with those of the
world. He looked upon himself as a stranger and pilgrim here on earth.

Thus faith requires an intelligent, moral responsibility to God’s Word. Faith never asks in
callous indifference: What is truth? Men are in great peril when they claim to believe God
and His Son Jesus Christ while trying to exclude their lives from the moral and spiritual
claims of God. Says the apostle John: "This is the victory that overcometh the world,
even our faith" (1 John 5:4).

The goal of faith is to live a life worthy of the Lord. Therefore, to say in faith that "Jesus
is Lord" is also to commit oneself to obedience.... The obedience of faith is not a new
form of legalism. . . . Faith is never done with because it is a renewed act of obedience in
every situation of life.— SMEDES, op. cit., pp. 202-204.

Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes. . . . Faith is only
real when there is obedience.— B0NH0EFFER, op. cit., p. 69.

The relation between our commitment to Christ and Christ’s living out His life in us is
fundamental. A life of faith is distinguished by the power received from God. It is
powerful in its ability to exercise assurance, certainty, and moral obedience to God. "Take
up the great shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows
of the evil one" (Eph. 6:16, N.E.B.). When Satan comes in all his deceptive forms, the
Christian discerns who he is and with power from God resists his temptations and
emerges from the battle of life victorious. What a glorious privilege to be kept so firm
and true to God. "With great power gave the apostles witness" (Acts 4:33). How
wonderful to be so possessed by God, to give a courageous witness, to realize the
fulfillment of God’s will.

The danger in our day is that men’s calling upon Christ and the use of His name is so
light and casual, so cozy and easygoing, that it goes for nothing. We must be prepared to
pay the price for a faith and firm allegiance to Christ and to His Word. The Christian is
summoned to exercise a faith that leads to obedience. "Faith without works is dead"
(James 2:20). Faith without obedience is dead. Faith is never opposed to right works. *
[Works refer to the deeds and behavior of men. Works can be marks of genuine faith and
love, or they can be marks of a legalistic response and an effort to gain favor with God.
Works of the law refer to deeds done in an effort to keep the law of God. The works of
faith are those of love, honesty. purity, righteousness, and the fruits of the Spirit. The
Christian is created in Christ Jesus unto good works (Eph. 2:10). He is to be fruitful in
every good work (Col. 1:10). Christ urged His followers so to live that men may see your
good works. and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). Good works are
contrasted with evil works (John 3:19; Col. 1:21). "Dead works" are works that have no
life in them from God or from the Holy Spirit.] It is only opposed to no works. Faith is
never the competitor of obedience to the commandments. It is the motivation for
obedience.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law
(Rom. 3:31).

The Holy Spirit illumines, convinces, persuades, enables, guides, and sanctifies. Faith is
never guilty of the high crime of disobedience to the will of God. The gospel of
righteousness by faith is an act and a power so all-embracing and so total that it does for
the Christian what the law could never do. Never is a man more committed and active
and never does he so fully keep the commandments as when he lives by faith in Jesus
Christ.

5
REPENTANCE
UNTO
LIFE

Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life (Acts 11:18).

THE GOSPEL is a summons not only to faith, but also to repentance. There are certain
responses that man must make to God, such as faith, repentance, and obedience, without
which he cannot become a Christian. These he is responsible for. All of them are of equal
importance.

"As for the times of ignorance, God has overlooked them; but now he commands
mankind, all men everywhere, to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will
have the world judged." (Acts 1 7:30, N.E.B.).

The design of Christ is to save His people from their sins and reconcile man to God. All
the knowledge of God and His plan of redemption is futile unless it leads to an adequate
response. Both faith and repentance are closely related in the Christian’s response to God.
In the previous chapter we found that faith involves the person with Christ and His claims
upon the human heart. More specifically repentance identifies the Christian with the mind
of Christ in relation and reaction to sin. There is such a thing as a lifetime of both faith
and repentance. Both involve identification with the mind of Christ. Both require the total
response to Christ’s purpose and will.

Consider the emphasis that John the Baptist, Jesus, and His disciples placed on man’s
need to repent. In preparing the Jewish nation for the coming of Christ, John the Baptist
appeared as a preacher in the Judean wilderness. His theme was: ‘‘Repent: for the
kingdom of heaven is upon you" (Matt. 4:17, N.E.B.). "I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:32). When Pentecost came, like John the Baptist and
Christ before them, the disciples went forth with power and called on men to repent. Men
were compelled by the Spirit to cry out: What must I do to be saved?
Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give
repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins (Acts 5:31).

Repentance is a beautiful word. The repentance of sinners is the occasion for great
rejoicing in heaven.

I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more
than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance (Luke 15:7).

Christ never toned down the nature of response that man must make. What is involved in
repentance is the tension of a great moral and spiritual decision. Two powers are in
deadly conflict: Christ and Satan, the world of God and the world of evil. Christ’s
preaching and teaching on earth is vibrant with meaning and a crucial decision. God
claims the lives of men since He redeemed them. A great transforming possibility must
become actual in man. The kingdom of God is at hand. There is no time to waste.

Meaning of Repentance

The English word repentance comes from the Latin, not from the Greek. The New
Testament word is metanoia. It is a combination of meta, a preposition meaning "after,"
and nous, meaning mind." Literally, the "after-mind," meaning a change of mind, a mind
that has entered upon an entirely new path. The word metanoia is one of the great words
and truths of the Bible. It occurs fifty-six times in the New Testament. It describes a
revolutionary change of mind that is decisive for the whole personality. Every faculty is
enlightened, the intellect convicted, every feeling inspired and brought to contrition, and
the will decided for Christ. Change your mind first is the cry that rings through the New
Testament from beginning to end. Bring your mind into harmony with God. That is the
initial call of the gospel. Make a complete turn from self and sin back to God.

Repentance consists essentially in change of heart and mind and will. The change of heart
and mind and will principally respects four things: it is a change of mind respecting God,
respecting ourselves, respecting sin, and respecting righteousness—JOHN MURRAY,
Redemption, Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Win. B. Eerdmans, 1955), p. 114.

The English word to repent comes from the Latin repoenitere from which we get
"penance," doing penance for past sins. Emphasis is placed upon an emotional
experience, remorse, grief over past sins, rather than the basic change of mind and
purpose. Where the Greek calls for a change in the total attitude and motivation, the
English or Latin word stresses abasement of self for sins committed. Thus the Latin word
has distorted the original Greek meaning. When Christ called on men to repent, He was
not looking simply for the expression of grief and lamentation over past sins, but a basic
change of the whole mind. Emotional grief lasts only for a short time.

God has in mind the changing of the mental patterns in order to secure a transformation
of the whole life. Without new mental patterns, human behavior and character are not
changed. Life is changed only when the dominant attitudes of people are changed. This is
the reason why repentance is so important. It goes to the root of life and behavior. The
sinful viewpoint of life is forsaken. The true righteous viewpoint of life in Christ is
accepted. Repentance includes the idea of sorrow for sin, but this is not its main thrust.

Actually the Greek uses another word to express "regret" or a change of feelings.

For godly sorrow worketh repentance (Metanoia) to salvation not to be repented of

(metamelomai—regretted); but the sorrow of the world worketh death (2 Cor. 7:10).

Metanoein means a change of heart either generally or in respect of a specific sin,

whereas metamelesthai means to experience remorse. Metanoein implies that one has
later arrived at a different view of something, . . .Metamelesthai that one has a different
feeling about it.—GERHARD KITTEL, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
(Grand Rapids: Win. B. Eerdmans, 1967), Volume IV, p. 626.

In studying the Bible on this topic, it is desirable to read a version that renders the use of
these two words with discrimination in order to avoid confusing their meanings.

In this passage Paul argues that the sorrow of the world is regret, a temporary emotional
reaction with no basic change of mind. But genuine repentance is a change of attitude that
man never regrets having made. The change is permanent. Judas repented in the sense of
regret, but with no real change of mind. With "metamelomai" nothing is really faced in
life. "Metanoia" refers to that change that makes a man a Christian. "Metamelomai"
leaves a man emotionally in anguish for a short time. True repentance always has in mind
a turning from sin to God, which involves the whole self. It is with this in mind that Paul
writes in Romans:

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:5-7).

Because many revivals have emphasized emotional reactions and "hitting the sawdust
trail," Christianity has suffered at the hands of men. There is a temporary emotional
reaction usually because of the sad results of some wrongdoing. The penitential revivals
of some religions have taught people to do penance with the hope of paying for their sins
by manifesting an exaggerated grief. People should not be frightened into feeling sorry
for their sins. Any appeal to fear in order to secure man’s response is not a healthy thing
to do.

Both Greek words involve the element of sin, but with a different reaction. Repentance
meaning regret is a temporary thing. "Metanoia," repentance or change of mind, is a
turning from a life of self and sin, with a full understanding of what it means to bring
one’s whole life into line with God.
A man may be very sorry about his sin, but that brings no salvation. It may result only in
death. Paul ascribes no particular merit to grieving over sin. A man may be very regretful
in the way we call remorse. This involves depth of grief, but no decisive break with sin,
no determined putting away of sin. . . . The repentant sinner is not only sorry about his
sin, but by the grace of God he does something about it. He makes a clear break with it. .
. . Repentance is forward looking as well as backward looking. It points to a life lived in
the power of God whereby sin will be forsaken and overcome as well as grieved over—
LEON MORRIS, The Cross in the New Testament, p. 261.

In calling upon men to repent the New Testament never has in mind a shallow emotional
outburst but the highest creative activity of the mind and personality. There is great peril
in making so light and superficial a response that it represents nothing more than a
passing feeling, an emotional release following grief.

Pharaoh, when confronted with the tragedy and the pressure of the plagues, confessed to
Moses: "I have sinned" (Ex. 10:16). His response was due to fear. There was no change
of mind that brought him into harmony with God and with His will. Human character
cannot be changed by some temporary emotional concern. Sorrow for past sins is only a
small part of the total experience of repentance. Judas repented in the sense of regret. He
experienced such agony that it led him to suicide. His regret did not suffice to lead him to
change his whole life and accept the mind of Christ.

Unfortunately, revivalists have often called for emotional reactions rather than a turning
of the whole life away from sin and back to God. Morbid self-scorn and depreciation can
be an unwholesome mood. Repentance is not self-impeachment and recrimination that
weaken the mind. There is no advantage in beating one’s breast, in attempting to punish
oneself by an exaggerated self-humiliation. Repentance unto life does not aim at the
dominance of dark moods, but genuine forgiveness. Long hours of self-reproach and the
bearing of guilt are signs of a defective trust in the love of God. When sin becomes more
distressful than men can bear, they should remember the promise of God:

O my God, my soul is cast down within me.... Yet the Lord will command his
lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer
unto the God of my life. I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why
go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? . . . Why art thou cast down, 0 my
soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him,
who is the health of my countenance, and my God (Ps. 42:6-1 1).

We do need a fuller and a keener consciousness of the sinfulness of sin, but we are not to
let this overwhelm us. Christianity is not a religion of melancholy. With God’s
forgiveness come peace and strength for new life. Repentance unto life purges one of
guilt and sin. It does not increase it.

God requires repentance, not to provide impunity for sin or to escape the penalty, but to
turn men from sin to righteousness. Often men rejoice in the fact that God in Christ has
done it all. However, any idea that man’s part is some easy routine is contrary to the kind
of response that God expects man to make. The Bible calls on men to trust Christ as
Saviour and enthrone Him as Lord. This involves a sincere and firm resolve to renounce
all sin, to regard no iniquity in the heart, and to follow Christ come what may.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself,
and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and
whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it (Matt. 16:24, 25).

Repentance is the most costly business in the world. It cost God everything to forgive
men. It costs men everything to be reconciled to God.

True repentance is such an uncomfortable experience that sinners naturally shun it. They
will adopt all kinds of subterfuges to hide from themselves and from others their need of
it, and they will engage in all manner of activities in substitution for it. It requires a
special gift from God before they realize the necessity for it. This is all the more so in that
there are sins of which a man must repent which do not appear to the natural man to be
sins at all. Thus in his pride he does not recognize pride as pride, but acts in a spirit of
self righteousness. It takes a complete revolution in the soul, a divine work of recreation
before a man can see that repentance is needed for a whole way of life.—MORRIS, op.
cit., p. 262.

Every person of sincere understanding knows what a serious act of the mind is. It needs
little or no definition. The man who is determined to repent of his sins does not rest
satisfied with the knowledge that Christ has completed man’s redemption at the cross. He
must take a stand with Christ and put his whole life under God’s direction and control. He
has that fixed purpose to be devoted wholly to God. The way of Christ is the main
business of his life. He is that serious. This is how it was with all the great men of faith in
the Bible.

The modern conscience is easy on sin. Any idea that one can casually drift into the
kingdom of God is not true. This very attitude misunderstands the cost of divine
forgiveness. The cross affirms that God cannot take sin lightly. It reveals there can be no
escape from divine judgment on sin. Someone must bear that judgment. The infinite love
of God in Christ did just that. This alone makes forgiveness possible. Man’s right attitude
and response toward sin and righteousness is the recognition that only the atonement of
Jesus Christ can provide the answer.

Many religious revivals seem to have developed the concept that God is love to the
fashionable point where no radical change in man is necessary. Nothing is so delusive as
the shifting of personal responsibility from a genuine repentance to an easy use of the
name "Jesus." Such self-deception only accentuates the real nature of the sinful self.
Repentance is a continual thing in the life that requires the Christian to apply the whole
truth to practical everyday living.

Basic changes in perspective never occur easily, because such a change involves the
whole self. It is never merely an intellectual matter, but a shift in one’s basic moorings. At
times it involves a terrific struggle and soul-searching, the crucifixion of self. The
Christian faith is a way of looking at the whole of life and experience in the light of Jesus
Christ.

The fact that man understands the meaning of repentance does not mean that he can
repent. Repentance requires that men seek personal integration on a level of life away
from self and sin and toward God. That is why repentance as emotional grief is
unavoidably superficial. Only when the whole self moves into agreement with the mind
of Christ does man repent and change his perspective and sense of values.

Repentance means a decided preference for God’s way of thought and life. It means a
decided break with everything that God calls sin and transgression. The repentant
believer places himself on the side of God without reservation. That cannot be realized
with a divided mind and heart. Therefore repentance under the Holy Spirit is man’s
personal responsibility to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.

How Do Men Repent?

Genuine repentance is the result of the action and influence upon the mind by the Holy
Spirit and by the Word of God. The natural man has no power to make the change unless
God brings it about. The capacity for freedom from guilt and the power of sin does not
reside naturally within the individual.

Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing
that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance (Rom. 2:3).

The Holy Spirit places a powerful impetus upon man to repent. He stirs the conscience to
cry out: What must I do to be saved? No man can understand the nature of his sinfulness
unless the Spirit brings conviction. It is of little use to call upon people to repent, so long
as they lack the insight as to the nature of themselves as sinners before God. Man cannot
shift his mind and heart into harmony with God by his own strivings. He cannot breast-
beat himself into submission.

So long as men are satisfied with their own good works, their abilities, and their moral
achievements, no repentance can come. No man can confess to God what he is either
unable or refuses to acknowledge—the sinfulness of his heart. Hence man’s need for the
convicting power of the Holy Spirit. When men do not see that self is an idol, how can
they repent of it? If man refuses to acknowledge that self, not God, is the center of his
life, how can he repent?

When self and sin are viewed in the light of the supreme sacrifice made by the Godhead,
then the goodness of God leads men to repentance. The means and the price of
forgiveness is so costly and the problem of getting men to return wholly to God is so
eternally crucial that forgiveness is never granted apart from the sacrifice of the Son of
God. There is no halfway house in repentance.
When fundamental convictions and basic motivations are changed, it is much like
changing one’s job or moving to another country. To understand and feel the force of
God’s appeal to repent goes much further than sorrow for past sin.

After Peter denied his Lord he went out and wept bitterly. Peter’s sorrow was genuine. It
produced the right change in his whole mind and personality. His repentance was
permanent, as shown by his subsequent conduct and change of life.

Both the law and the gospel seek to awaken an to his need to turn back to God. Men, for
the most part, have departed from the law of God and consider the Ten Commandments a
code man that needs adjustment from age to age. They forget that violation of the law
puts man under divine judgment. Neither will men repent unless they see the danger of
perishing and take seriously the judgment of God on sin. For if man not in danger of
perishing, if there is little chance that he will suffer eternal separation from God and from
life, why should he repent? Why get serious about Christ’s bearing man’s sins, and is call
to repent, if man is not in danger of being eternally lost?

How much urgency is there in rescuing a man from a mountain if he can easily climb
down by himself? The law and the gospel should both be proclaimed together. For no
sooner is the law of God proclaimed than the sinfulness of sin becomes apparent, and
"the wages of sin is death." God addresses man in both the law and the gospel. men are to
repent they must hear what the law God says. Both law and gospel constitute the word of
God to man. They must be taken seriously. To lose the deep sense of the sinfulness of sin
is to lose the need for repentance and the need for transformation of life.

God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

The text speaks both of everlasting life and perishing. Both are eternal possibilities. The
word "perish" must be taken as seriously as the words "eternal life." Repentance is that
decisive.

Repentance and Time

If repentance is concerned with sins already committed, then the chief time reference is to
the past. But if repentance includes man’s identification with God’s attitude towards sin,
the primary time reference is to the present and the future. The believer now appraises his
life and motives before he has actually committed the sin itself. His adoption of the mind
of Christ leads him to confront present situations and temptations that are freighted with
sinful possibilities.

Repentance aims to deal with the "now" situation. The believer comes to see his sinful
tendencies as they are in the present, with a view to their possible future manifestation
and power. Because he has adjusted his thinking to the spiritual realities and truths of
God, he judges the very seeds of sin before they have produced the harvest.
Sin is not simply an act but also an attitude. Sin is lust; repentance is the judgment on lust
in terms of its end product, adultery. Sin is hatred; repentance is the reaction of the mind
to hatred as though it were murder. Sin is deceit; repentance is the rejection of crooked
thinking as though it were dishonesty and embezzlement.

Thus repentance requires that state of mind which can see that the seed of murder is
already involved in the envy and the hostility, and adultery is already in the experience of
lust. Man’s response to God must begin here. Repentance does not wait until men have
actually committed the overt acts of murder and adultery.

The time for Cain to repent was when hate arose in his heart against his brother, not after
he had killed him. The time for Esau to repent was when he gave priority to carnal things,
not after he had sold his birthright and met all the evil consequences of that transaction.
The time for Pharaoh to repent was when he resisted the Lord, not when his first-born son
was slain. The time for Judas to repent was when he began to doubt Jesus and give way to
his proud and avaricious desires, not when the Jewish leaders refused to accept the return
of the thirty pieces of silver.

God intends that repentance will lead a man to regard his wrong attitudes and react to
such attitudes as he would react to the evil deeds themselves. This is the only solution to
many s inner problems. Repentance requires the integration of the mind of man with the
mind of Christ.

The Christian does not live retrospectively in the past, sorrowing over sins committed and
lost opportunities. He lives now, in the present. Repentance conditions his mind with the
insight and judgment that discerns between right and wrong before such thoughts are
manifested in deeds. Christ’s call to repent is the call to think like Christ on moral and
spiritual issues, always with the sincere desire to live in harmony with God.

Thus this change of attitude will lead the believer into a more genuine type of Christian
experience. It is never wise to wait to repent until evil thoughts have brought forth a
harvest of evil deeds. Repentance gives to the Christian a sensitivity to sin, with a
determination to live according to the mind of Christ.

The Church at Laodicea

You say, "How rich I am! And how well I have done! I have everything I want in the
world." In fact, though you do not know it, you are the most pitiful wretch, poor, blind,
and naked.... All whom I love I reprove and discipline. Be on your mettle therefore and
repent. (Rev. 3:17-19, N.E.B.).

The apostle John wrote the book of Revelation to the seven churches and to those facing
similar life situations that have existed in every church since that day. He states their
excellencies and defects, their victories and failures. John is not denying the existence of
true believers in these churches.
Laodicea was a luxurious city, the wealthiest of the seven. It had everything that a city
could wish for: libraries, baths, sports arenas, temples, art centers, a rich commerce,
progressive industry, a medical school among the best of that day. From a material,
educational, and cultural point of view, it had need of nothing. The city offered to its
citizens everything that the heart could desire. It had every justification for self-esteem
and self-exaltation.

As is often the case the Laodicean church had absorbed the city’s spirit of self-
sufficiency. Self-esteem and self-exaltation are difficult to condemn and hard to reject,
especially when one can give good reasons for feeling this way. After all, one does not
wish to suppress self-realization and personal fulfillment. Psychologically and socially
much can be said in favor of a self-sustained way of life.

The Laodicean today is about the same as it has always been. The world is in love with
itself. The aim of life is comfortable living and personal achievement in every field of
endeavor. There is nothing immoral about that. But so much of this kind of living is
attached to nothing.

Modern man is being changed in interests, desires, values derived from secular progress.
The full benefit of all the advancement of modern science is available for man’s blessing
and satisfaction. It tends to make the Christian more secular-minded than spiritual when
the abundant life is thought of in terms of earthly values. In the enjoyment of all the
benefits of modern civilization, men easily become indifferent in their religion. Man is
faced with a mentality and a way of life that have grown superficial and trivial.

"As things were in Noah’s days, so will they be in the days of the Son of Man. They ate
and drank and married, until the day that Noah went into the ark and the flood came and
made an end of them all. As things were in Lot’s days, also: they ate and drank; they
bought and sold; they planted and built; but the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it
rained fire and sulphur from heaven and made an end of them all—it will be like that on
the day when the Son of Man is revealed" (Luke 17:26-30, N.E.B.).

For the Laodicean church, all this presents a challenge. The Christian must get his
meaning for life from God, not from things; from spiritual realities, not from the secular.
The Scripture states that the church of Laodicea had imbibed the world’s spirit. The
church felt no need, since it was rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing.
Outwardly the church had prospered.

The spirit of self-sufficiency and self-esteem are so prone to lend themselves to false
conclusions. There lurks the peril of forgetting that men need to live daily in total
dependence on God and continually affirm their need for Jesus Christ. A self-sufficient,
self-satisfied Christian is hard to approach, especially with respect to anything that
lessens self-esteem. Such men feel little or no responsibility to anyone but themselves.
Those who by education, culture, and the abundance of food, achieve within themselves a
laudable way of life are in the greatest danger of centering life in self rather than in God.
Men draw from all these achievements their own inspiration. Every serious attempt to
call men to repentance finds its most serious stumbling block in man s pride and self-
exaltation. The self-centered life is the most perilous way a man can take.

Today we face a crisis both in the world and in the church by virtue of man’s dependence
upon himself. This age is the culmination of man’s own career, the maturity of his awful
sin: to try to be like God without God. The world is in mortal danger. Men need to be
saved from their own self-dependence and self-seeking.

It is hard to refuse the charm of the secular life, the recognition that comes to the wealthy,
the educated, and the powerful, the deference given to men of distinction. No man falls at
the foot of the cross so long as he is rich, increased in goods, and in need of nothing. One
of the singular things about self-sufficiency and self-exaltation is that nobody wins. It
comes down to this: Men find it hard to realize that the great things of the Holy Spirit can
offer anything better than what they already have. Faith in God is inadvertently replaced
by faith in man, his power, his accomplishments.

Why is ours a materialistic, secular age? It is easy to put the blame on science, on
education, on culture. But none of these satisfies the question. Nearer to the truth is that
men have become lovers of their own selves more than lovers of God. Here is the heart of
the matter.

The same temptation to self-sufficiency and exaltation exists in religion as it does

anywhere else. The craving for religious superiority is the same expression of human
pride. Laodicea claims to be rich enough to need nothing. No position is harder to deal
with. One cannot reason with this position because people do not see it for what it is in
the sight of God.

For any religious body to assume the designation of being the church of Laodicea is no
compliment. "Rich, increased in goods, and have need of nothing." Herein is the radical
character of man’s sin: "Ye shall be as gods." The more men have, the more brilliant they
are, the higher they go in their profession, the more importance men attach to themselves.
To the degree that man exalts himself and considers himself self-sufficient, to that degree
he feels no need of God.

Laodicea’s problem is self-sufficiency. It is difficult to let Christ reign when this attitude
prevails. Sins of this type are more dangerous and more subtle than the sins of the flesh.
In education men tend towards being credit hunters and degree worshipers. The pursuit of
excellence in the academic world is not to be despised; however, there is always the
temptation to seek for a doctorate simply for its own sake—to fix attention on the search
for recognition rather than on solid achievement.

True Christian greatness, either in the academic world or in the church, will be
recognized for what it is, whether or not certain alphabetical fragments trail after a man’s
name. Education and culture may provide a man with a certain surface polish that enables
him to pass muster in society. But genuine unselfishness, love for others, complete
dedication to the kingdom of God and His righteousness can never grow in a selfish
heart. These are the fruits born of the Holy Spirit.

The church has caught the commercial spirit, the idea that success is related to the
amount of money raised. Inadvertently emphasis is placed on catering to the importance
of men and worshiping self. There is need of spiritual insight here. In our age we like
everything reduced to exact figures. It is the age of quantitative analysis, of charts and
graphs. Such figures and statistics that tell us of what man has done may not lie, but they
may encourage the wrong inferences. Data gathered and numbers tabulated tell us very
little about the spiritual growth of the church. Men easily rely overmuch upon numbers—
the increase in tithe and offerings, the numbers baptized, the religious material
distributed. But who can reduce to percentages the spirituality of men?

Granted that the church must of necessity have its material side, its organization. These
things cannot be avoided. They contribute to the high purpose of the kingdom of God.
But they become a hindrance when they become objects of our chief interest and concern,
when the means are mistaken for the end. Men are easily concerned with the externals of
religion. It seems easy to lay emphasis on the wrong things that encourage the self-
sufficient attitude.

To belong to the remnant church must come to mean that members find themselves in
touch with those spiritual forces that change lives, to give to God’s work because He has
really commissioned us. Then we will find all other attractions and fascinations dim
beside the steady flame that burns within our hearts.

Men need salvation from their own self-dependence and self-seeking. God is intensely
opposed to any attitude that centers a man in himself, to those idolatrous loyalties that run
competition with Jesus Christ. The thing that makes religion superficial is not necessarily
a lack of ability and knowledge, but a lack of seeing and doing all things to the glory of
God. There are some problems that never seem to be solved. One of these is a concern for
personal prestige and power.

In the church, administrative excellence is not necessarily synonymous with spirituality

and with communion with God. The peril is that men may become obsessed with the
notion that organization counts more than the spiritual effects upon men and women who
wait for guidance. Men easily come to enjoy looking at the splendor of their own
achievements in the field of religion. But unless the Christian minister and worker finds
Christ at the center of his life, he will undoubtedly discover himself as the center of
power and authority. And when man worships himself, he cannot worship God.

From the text in Revelation, Laodicea’s sin is not a willful known violation of God’s
commandments. We are dedicated to keeping the Ten Commandments. We know when
we willfully violate them. But the Scripture says that Laodicea "knows not that she is
miserable, poor, blind, and naked." Consequently, the church’s problem is not obvious or
easily understood.
Self-sufficiency and self-exaltation are hard to detect and deal with. Men do not repent of
things that they do not understand or acknowledge. The limits of repentance depend upon
the limits of our willingness and ability to see ourselves before God. The Pharisees were
not willing to see themselves in the light of Jesus Christ. Therefore they could not and
would not acknowledge the terrible nature of their sin, pride and self-exaltation. What,
they asked, could possibly be wrong? What could they have to repent of? Their own
superiority complex made repentance impossible.

The blinding nature of self-centeredness is that we sin without the awareness of it. We
exalt ourselves without any pangs of guilt. Our faces are not flushed with crimson when
our ego prevails. The self-centered man, the self-willed man, the self-exalted man in the
message to the Laodiceans has not stolen anything, killed anyone, or betrayed his family.
He has done nothing that startles and shocks the conscience.

If God is going to be our Lord and we are going to be Spirit-filled, we must disavow the
worship of man and his abilities that puts human achievements before spiritual power.
The message to the Laodiceans finds Christ standing at the door calling upon us to repent.
If we believe that God’s loving interest in His people is so great that He not only has
redeemed us but has commissioned us with the final message for the world prior to
Christ’s return, then the obvious thing to do is to enter fully into a vital relationship with
God and a complete dependence upon Him. Only transformed men can transform the
world.

The world is on the verge of one of the greatest spiritual awakenings, the latter rain of the
Holy Spirit. There is an upsurge of spiritual craving throughout the world. A Spirit-led,
Spirit-filled church will find adequate power for the tasks that confront it. God has a true
remnant, the unseen and unobtrusive "seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to
Baal." Only God knows who they are. We have intelligence. We have brilliance in
education, in organization. We have promotion. Religion was never better advertised than
it is today. But living the third angel’s message, the everlasting gospel, should surpass
any mere attempt to promote it.

An honest dealing with the fact as God states it in the message to the Laodiceans does not
put truth or spirituality in peril. The very conditions that prevail have in them the
possibility of strengthening faith and character, provided that the truth about ourselves is
really faced as behooves sincere Christians. The Laodicean church is called to be a
peculiar people. The message can be advanced in every community by genuine Christian
witnesses. We must relate ourselves to the things we own, as stewards of the kingdom of
God. Life with Christ must become a beacon light in the midst of a hard and money-
grabbing world.

Where do we get the impulse toward reformation and repentance, righteousness and
regeneration? Through prayer and the study of the Word of God we make an effort of will
to establish and maintain dependence on God alone. We cannot fully turn from self-
sufficiency without a diligent seeking after God. Personal communion with God needs to
become far more real.
Repentance unto life is offered to those who discover that until they do repent and
experience God’s forgiveness and regenerating power, they cannot proceed any further in
life. The understanding of oneself can be seen only in the presence of Christ. Job came to
see that when he said: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye
seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42: 5, 6).

Man cannot attain to a knowledge of himself from within himself. He can only do that
within the circle of God’s presence and love. Never will man make a more important
discovery than when, under the presence and love of God, he sees clearly the horrible
nature of self-sufficiency and self-exaltation. The believer has the strongest motives for
coming to Christ who loves him. The repentant sinner may submit himself with
confidence and depend with joy upon the One whose love is an everlasting love and
whose power to save is to the uttermost.

This is an individual matter. This is a way of God’s saying to us: "If you are really serious
in your resolve to belong entirely to Christ, I hereby promise you that in the sight of all
heaven there are no obstacles that stand in your way that cannot be overcome or
overpowered." God will take upon Himself to banish those things that rise up to hold you
back. Let a man, hearing the call of Christ and the voice of the Holy Spirit through the
Word of God, resolve to turn his mind and heart to Christ. To such a man we say in the
name of Christ: Let nothing dishearten you or distract you from your soul’s intention.
Make bold to say to God that with all your heart and mind you choose to follow Him,
come what may.

6
CHRIST'S
GIFT
IS LIFE
I have come that men may have life, and may have it in all its fullness (John 10:10,
N.E.B.).

WITH THESE words Christ proclaimed His purpose in coming to the earth—to give life.
It was His own life that He brought and that He was to give to men.

I am . . . the life (John 14:6).

I am that bread of life. . . . I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any
man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever (chap. 6:48, 51).

The witness is this: that God has given us eternal life, and that this life is found in his
Son. He who possesses the Son has life indeed; he who does not possess the Son of God
has not that life (1 John 5:11, 12, N.E.B.).

Christ, who is our life . . . (Cot. 3:4).

But God, rich in mercy, for the great love he bore us, brought us to life with Christ even
when we were dead in our sins (Eph. 2:5, N.E.B.).

Man does not have life in himself. Only God has life: inherent, independent,
inexhaustible, immortal. Man’s life is derived, dependent, limited, mortal. When God first
put man and woman on this planet He gave them life. Life flowed from God to man as
long as man remained perfect. Man’s life continued by virtue of his union with God.

When Adam and Eve sinned this relationship was broken. Life from God was withdrawn.
Physically they began to die. Spiritually, they were cut off from God. By their own choice
of a life independent of God, they were banished from His presence. They were now alive
to sinning, but dead to the things of God—spiritually dead. All of man’s faculties now
functioned on the natural, carnal level, outside of a right relationship with God. Everyone
since then has experienced this wrong relationship. Nowhere is man’s life in its natural
state seen to be in a right state of dependence on God. So the Bible speaks of the natural
man as being dead in sin.

Time was when you were dead in your sins, . ;when you followed the evil ways of this
present age, when you obeyed the commander of the spiritual powers of the air, the spirit
now at work among God’s rebel subjects. . . . But God, rich in mercy, for the great love
he bore us, brought us to life with Christ even when we were dead in our sins. And in
union with Christ Jesus he raised us up and enthroned us with him in the heavenly realms
(Eph. 2:1, 3-6, N.E.B.).

Men still believe Satan’s lie that men can have life in themselves. Consequently, they feel
selfsufficient and in no need of new life from God.

Good morality in man does not give man a title to anything more than being a good moral
man. But this is not spirituality. Culture and education never in themselves enable a man
to see more than the kingdom of man. Cultivation of the natural man usually ends in
more self-exaltation and pride. There is no entrance as a natural man into God’s kingdom.

Man’s spiritual and eternal destiny lies with God who alone has life. Most religions in the
world express the same need and desire: to pass beyond this brief mortal life that man
now has, into a life that is immortal. But only Christ makes this available to man. Apart
from Christ, man’s life is permeated by sin, self-seeking, and death. God did not make
man to be that way. Christ came to change that, to give new life, spiritual life. Christ’s
work alone radically transforms human nature. It involves the integration of the whole
human personality with Jesus Christ. All the impulses, instincts, desires, and urges throb
with the new life from Christ.

The Bible speaks of two Adams: the first Adam, God created; the second Adam is Jesus
Christ incarnate. From the first and the second Adams, two kinds of life emerge: the
natural and the spiritual. Together they represent the entire human race. In Romans 5 Paul
compares the two kinds and the effects of each upon man. The first Adam was the head
and father of the human race. By his sin he involved all his descendants in both physical
and spiritual death. He lost life from God by his alienation from God. Jesus Christ is
called the second Adam because to Him was entrusted the task of redeeming man from
the first Adam’s fall and separation from God. As men were originally one in Adam, now
they are one in Christ.

The first Adam cannot give the life he no longer has. Jesus Christ came to give back
eternal life to man, obedience instead of disobedience, justification in place of
condemnation, righteousness in place of unrighteousness. Thus Christ belongs to the
entire human family. He communicates spiritual life to all who receive Him by faith.
"The last Adam was made a quickening spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).

In his sinful state, man does not exercise his faculties in accordance with the will of God.
Self-will prevails. Man’s sinfulness does not consist in the lack of capacities, but the
perversion of them owing to his separation from God. The unconverted man is morally
and spiritually unable to do what God requires of him.

"A natural Christian!" This deceptive idea has served many as a garment of self-
righteousness, and has led many to a supposed hope in Christ, who had no experimental
knowledge of Him, of His experience, His trials, His life of self-denial and self-sacrifice.
Their righteousness which they count upon so much is only as filthy rags.

Life has met with a change—a change so marked as to be represented by death. From
living, active life, to death! What a striking figure! None need be deceived here. If this
transformation has not been experienced by you, rest not. Seek the Lord with all your
hearts. Make this the all-important business of your lives.—Testimonies, vol. 2, pp. 177-
179.

The New Birth

"In truth, in very truth I tell you, unless a man has been born over again he cannot see the
kingdom of God." "But how is it possible," said Nicodemus, "for a man to be born when
he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?" Jesus answered,
"In truth I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born from water
and spirit. Flesh can give birth only to flesh; it is spirit that gives birth to spirit. You ought
not to be astonished, then, when I tell you that you must be born again" (John 3:3-6,
N.E.B.).

This statement goes right to the heart of man’s problem. To bring about the spiritual
change from death to life is spoken of as being born again. Nicodemus understood the
immense difficulty of spiritual regeneration. He knew that some real change was
necessary, that his own Jewish religion, as popularly understood, had failed to restore all
men to life with God.

What does the believer most need to receive from Jesus Christ? Christ answered this in
His discussion with Nicodemus. First, He said, man is born of the flesh. That is, the
sinner is tied to sin. He walks in the desires and under the power of his fallen nature.
Second, this "fleshly" nature can produce only after its kind. Third, spiritual life in man
can be created only by the power of the Holy Spirit. For this reason Christ became
incarnate. For this reason the Holy Spirit was sent to communicate spiritual life. The
Scripture describes this experience as being born from above (see John 3:31), indicating
supernatural life. "If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17, R.S.V.).

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation
(Gal. 6:15, R.S.V.).

To arouse those spiritually dead, to create new tastes, new motives, requires as great an
outlay of power as to raise one from physical death.—ELLEN G. WHITE in Review and
Herald, March 12, 1901.

The gift of eternal life is the Christian’s starting point. Each man’s natural life has a
beginning. So has the spiritual life, which is not fallen human nature renovated, but a new
life from heaven—"the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness" (Eph. 4:24).

Regeneration and conversion are other words used to describe the new birth. It has been
argued that there is a difference between regeneration and conversion: the first being the
divine side of the new birth; the second, the human side. From the human side conversion
is man’s turning from sin to God. "Repent . . . and be converted" (Acts 3:19). "When thou
art converted, strengthen thy brethren," Christ said to Peter (Luke 22:32).

The Greek word for conversion is strepho. It is used because the subject of conversion is
always man. The word is also used of the believer’s turning to God. "Ye turned to God
from idols to serve the living and true God" (1 Thess. 1:9). For simplicity we shall use the
terms the new birth, conversion, and regeneration synonymously.

Men need more than a perfect example; they need life, supernatural life. Therein lies the
great secret of the Christian life. Life from God awakens and gives new spiritual capacity
to every part of man. The whole man, body, soul, and spirit, is brought under the
guidance and control of the Holy Spirit. There is a spiritual resurrection from the dead.
The Christian is united with God.

God does not give us supernatural life to possess on our own. He does not make man
immortal. Spiritual life is not given to us except as we remain in Christ. The gift of new
life is communicated with the Son and never apart from Him.

I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck
them out of my hand (John 10:28).

Salvation is participation in the life of Christ. Perdition is exclusion from that life. The
life of Christ and of the Holy Spirit is real and present in us as long as we maintain and
cherish this life through faith. Always it is true that in ourselves we are nothing and have
nothing.
God’s redemption in Christ stands in contrast with all human methods of improvement
and self-development. Human theories, ideas, rules, and ethical principles are initiated
and presented to the natural man. Man hopes that by a clear understanding and
acceptance of these principles men may be motivated to live accordingly. But human
"progress" leaves man himself as the center of life. He is still egotistic, regardless of his
refinements and cultural developments.

Here lies the difference between secular and Christian education, between human
progress and divine salvation. The one comes by natural methods, human. promotion and
communication. The second comes by divine intervention. One of life’s great problems is
getting man to see the bankruptcy of all purely human systems and the urgent need of an
entirely new life from God. The last thing man gives up is trust in himself.

The New Testament records five individual instances of conversion. The Ethiopian
eunuch questioned Philip about the passage the eunuch had been reading in Isaiah 53
concerning the Messiah, and he was converted (see Acts 8:26-39). Cornelius, the Roman
centurion, asked the angel for an explanation of the vision that God gave him. Peter came
and led him, along with the members of his household, to accept Jesus Christ (see chap.
10:24-48).

Paul encountered the Lord directly on the Damascus road (see chap. 9). The Lord opened
the heart of Lydia as Paul preached the gospel. She was a seller of purple cloth in the city
of Thyatira (see chap. 16:13-15). The jailer in Philippi was confronted with the Lord’s
miraculous deliverance of Paul and Silas from prison. Paul told him of Christ. He
believed, along with all his family, and was baptized (see verses 25-33). All of these
individuals were directly or indirectly confronted with the truth about the person and
work of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s conversion is the most spectacular, and pictures for us the nature of the change that
takes place when one is born of the Holy Spirit. Up to this time Paul had opposed Jesus
Christ. Paul was an orthodox Pharisee, committed entirely to the law and what it stood
for. He had not the slightest leaning toward Christianity. He was diametrically opposed to
Jesus Christ and His teachings. But the hand of God reached out and arrested him. A great
miracle took place in his life. The veil dropped from his face when he met Christ. He
surrendered to the risen Lord. Paul the rebel became the most earnest and devoted
Christian in the Christian era. From that time on the living Christ became the center of all
Paul’s thinking, working, and living.

What Is the New Birth?

What is the new birth? What really happens? Can we know what actually takes place?
The new birth is a miracle by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore it is not possible to
analyze all that is involved and how it is brought about. We do not know just how the
Spirit works or the degree of the Spirit’s control of the Christian convert.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof; but canst not tell
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit (John
3:8).

Ellen White makes some keen observations relative to the new birth. She draws analogies
from life in nature and compares it with the "germination of the good seed. . . . So from
natural life, illustrations are drawn, to help us better to understand the mysterious truths
of spiritual life."—Steps to Christ, p. 67.

The germination of the seed represents the beginning of spiritual life—Education, p. 105.

In dwelling upon the laws of matter and the laws of nature, many lose sight of, if they do
not deny, the continual and direct agency of God. They convey the idea that nature acts
independently of God, having in and of itself its own limits and its own powers
wherewith to work. . . . This is false science.... It is not by an original power inherent in
nature that year by year the earth yields its bounties and continues its march around the
sun. The hand of infinite power is perpetually at work guiding this planet. It is God’s
power momentarily exercised that keeps it in position in its rotation.—Testimonies, vol.
8, pp. 259, 260.

The same principle holds true in the spiritual life. Life in the physical world and in nature
is dependent upon a direct connection with God, who continually exercises His power
and energy. So it is in the spiritual life. However, we must not interpret this analogy to
mean that God operates mechanically or that His action is impersonal. just the opposite is
true.

What is significant is that not only physical life but spiritual life is dependent upon God’s
continued action. A bond of union is created between the human and the divine. Man is
restored to a vital relationship with God, which makes fellowship between God and man
possible. The regenerative communication of the power of Christ occurs in a vital
personal relationship with Christ. Jesus teaches this when He says:

"Dwell in me, as I in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, but only if it remains united
with the vine; no more can you bear fruit, unless you remain united with me. I am the
vine, and you the branches. He who dwells in me, as I dwell in him, bears much fruit; for
apart from me you can do nothing. He who does not dwell in me is thrown away like a
withered branch" (John 15:4-6, N.E.B.).

The Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the only begotten Son of God, binds the human
agent, body, soul, and spirit, to the perfect divine-human nature of Christ. This union is
represented by the union of the vine and the branches. Finite man is united to the
manhood of Christ. . . . We are made one with God in Christ—ELLEN WHITE, in
Review and Herald, April 5, 1906.
Your birth, your reputation, your wealth, your talents, your virtues, your piety, your
philanthropy, or anything else in you or connected with you, will not form a bond of
union between your soul and Christ.— Testimonies, vol. 5, pp. 48, 49.

These statements are significant in an understanding of the experience of conversion.

When a man is born again, a personal union is formed, as it is in the marriage
relationship. Christ unites the believer with Himself by the Holy Spirit. Goodspeed puts it
this way in his translation: "We shall be saved through sharing in his life" (Rom. 5:10).
This union begins at the new birth. There is a divine presence and power available for the
believer—the very life of Jesus Christ. The believer must be linked up with God.

This can be illustrated by the operation of electrical appliances. Plugged into the source
of electricity, they function as they are intended to do. Unplugged, they are useless. So it
is with the Christian. If we are detached or separated in any way from Christ, we are
spiritually void and lifeless. United to Christ by the Spirit, we function as God intended
us to do. Therefore we must abide in Christ. This miracle of regeneration reverses in part
the original break with God brought about by sin. With the new birth we are once again
united with God. We live within the life of the Holy Spirit. The agency and presence of
the Holy Spirit are indispensable. Says the apostle Paul, "No man can say that Jesus is the
Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 12:3).

Oneness With Jesus Christ

And the glory which thou gayest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we
are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the
world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me (John
17:22, 23).

The concern of our Lord just prior to His crucifixion was for the restoration of the
believers to oneness and union with Himself and with His Father. The consciousness of
personal oneness with God in Christ is the distinctive feature of the Christian religion. "In
Christ Jesus" speaks of a living relation to a living Person, as opposed to the adoption of
opinions and conformity to rules.

A man apart from Christ is not a Christian— he can do nothing. To be in Christ or in the
Spirit means that the whole man is on the side of Christ, living under the control and
direction of the Holy Spirit. This oneness is as real and intimate as the union of husband
and wife. We cannot live the Christian life. Only Christ can do that in us. We cannot bring
forth the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. Only the Spirit’s presence and control can do
that. The supreme offense to Christ and to the Holy Spirit that leads to the unpardonable
sin is to affirm in deed and word that we do not belong to God and that we find nothing in
God that interests us.

Oneness with Christ means that in Him we have found life’s true meaning. We really
want Him to have us. We don’t want more rules, more works, more self-concentration—
even in our religion. It is not ecstasy we seek, or the sensational. We desire to be
possessed by Christ. Under the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit we relinquish
ourselves to Christ. We have discovered that He is the kind of Being with whom we want
to identify.

The Holy Spirit does not become incarnate in the believer. He ever remains personally
distinct from ourselves. He is never fused or amalgamated with our spirit. He never takes
over our human personality. Surrender to the Spirit’s leading means control by the Spirit,
but not replacement. He never supersedes human responsibility. He never weans the mind
from the objective truth of the Bible and replaces the individual intelligent response of
man with some form of mysticism or magic. He arouses the mind, inspires the desires
and affections, until the Word of God lives and imparts life.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way
of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord;
and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the
rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither;
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper (Ps. 1:1-3).

The Holy Spirit works in cooperation with the faculties, through the mind of man. He
does not overwhelm the believer. He empowers and heightens every faculty and ability
that man has so that life is filled with all the fruits of the Spirit. Never before was life so
wonderful. The Spirit does not abrogate or absorb man’s individuality, but strengthens,
purifies, renews, frees, enlightens it. This is in direct contrast with evil spirits who throw
their victims into ungovernable ecstasies, casting them to the floor, taking away their self-
control.

The Holy Spirit leaves the Christian with a clear mind. He provides increased spiritual
insight, vitality, and power. Man is allowed the full use of his normal faculties, but is free
from the degrading, enslaving power of sin and egoism. The mind, heart, and life are all
alive to Christ and to the truth of His Word. The born-again Christian bears witness to all
that Christ is and to all that He taught.

The Spirit works upon human hearts through the Word of God. He does not inscribe upon
our hearts and lives things not taught in Scripture. He writes the faithfulness, the love, the
purity, the wisdom, and the mercy of God, until we are caught and captivated by the
beauty of our Lord.

When we have done our best to capture the meaning of the new birth and the oneness we
have with Christ, we sense that unless the Holy Spirit moves toward us through the Word
of God, nothing really happens. Without the Holy Spirit truth is likely to appear only as
definitions and cold ideas. The faculties of the unconverted man are spiritually lifeless
and averse to the things of God. Nothing but the influence and power of the Spirit can
change this. We should despair of eternal life and living truth, unless the power of the
Spirit is exerted to this end—the submission to Christ as man s rightful Sovereign and
dearest Friend.
Henceforth through the Spirit, Christ was to abide continually in the hearts of His
children. Their union with Him was closer than when He was personally with them—
Steps to Christ, p. 75.

Satan will constantly present allurements to induce us to break this tie,—to choose to
separate ourselves from Christ. Here is where we need to watch, to strive, to pray, that
nothing may entice us to choose another master; for we are always free to do this—Page
72.

Unceasing prayer is the unbroken union of the soul with God, so that life from God flows
into our life; and from our life, purity and holiness flow back to God.— Page 98.

We may keep so near to God that in every unexpected trial our thoughts will turn to Him
as naturally as the flower turns to the sun—Pages 99, 100.

How Is a Man Born Again?

What is the response required of man in order to experience the new birth and new life in
Christ? The characteristic of the natural man is his inclination to exercise self-will and
stand independent against God. The great enemy, then, is self-will, with all its attendant
forms: self-love, self-exaltation, self-sufficiency. With the gift of salvation offered from
our Lord, we are confronted with the quality and nature of man’s response and
responsibility.

To receive this gift without working for it seems incredibly simple. But is it that simple?
Surrender and commitment often involve a struggle. Furthermore, the way we understand
this offer depends on how we interpret Christ’s invitation to follow Him.

In Mark 10:17-30 and Acts 16:27-34 are presented two men: one a Jew, the rich young
ruler; and the other a Gentile, the jailer at Philippi. The young Jew apparently possesses
great moral integrity. He has been educated in the Jewish faith to great purpose. He is no
delinquent, no carouser, no prodigal son. He confidently affirms that he has kept the
commandments from his youth up. The other man, older, no doubt, probably has little or
no religious training. Both men ask the same question: What must I do to be saved? What
must I do to inherit eternal life?

For the Gentile, Paul gives a very simple answer. He says that what you have to do to be
saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That same night the jailer gives his heart to
Christ and is baptized. It is as simple as that. For the young Jew, Christ’s answer appears
more complicated and difficult. He said that you must keep the commandments. The Jew
affirms he has met those requirements. Then Jesus said that you must sell all that you
have and give to the poor. This seemed to the rich man an insurmountable obstacle to his
being converted to Christ. It proved to be just that.

Why did not Jesus give the same answer that Paul gave: "Just believe in Me and you will
be saved"? The instructions to the jailer seem extremely simple and easy. No extended
questions or studies. The instructions to the Jew were incredibly difficult. Now suppose
you choose to attend two different churches and ask this same question: What must I do
to be saved? The one gives you a very simple answer: "Just believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ." The other church says: "You must keep the commandments, and you must sell all
your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor." If you could be saved in either of
these churches, which church would you join?

Why is the jailer so easily saved and the moral young Jew so easily lost? Is Paul making
salvation easy, while Christ is making it difficult? Is not part of the good news of the
gospel that God’s redemptive love and salvation can be had for the taking? Is salvation
not a gift freely offered to all who will reach out and accept it? Is not regeneration as
simple as accepting Jesus invitation, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28)?

Do we not proclaim the clear, simple gospel to all the world in order to secure a verdict
for Jesus Christ? Is it not as simple as that, especially in a world where most people have
hardly learned to read? Strangely enough, it is not simple at all. To get people to make the
right response and place themselves entirely on the side of Christ and be converted can be
the most difficult thing imaginable.

Christ made it clear that if any man chose to become His disciple he must be prepared to
make a total surrender. He must take the kingdom of God seriously, not casually. He must
accept the unqualified rule of God over his life.

A certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou
goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests;
but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. And another of his disciples said unto
him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me;
and let the dead bury their dead (Matt. 8:19-22).

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he
shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers
did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever... . Many
therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can
hear it? . . . From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with
him (John 6:57, 58, 60, 66).

We must be on guard against making easy decisions. The difference between the Jew and
the Gentile jailer was not that God was laying down a different set of requirements. The
jailer was prepared to make the kind of surrender and commitment that accepted the
Lordship of Christ in his life. The Jew was not.

Satan does not want anyone to see the necessity of an entire surrender to God. When the
soul fails to make this surrender, sin is not forsaken; the appetites and passions are
striving for the mastery; temptations confuse the conscience, so that true conversion does
not take place.—Testimonies~ vol. 6, p. 92. Emphasis supplied.
There is in reality no such thing as an incomplete surrender or partial conversion. We are
either surrendered as completely as we know how, or we are not. The Christian life does
not consist in only giving up a few bad habits. It is not only setting up a moral rule and
keeping to it. It involves the dedication of our lives to Christ, say ing "Yes" to Him on
everything.

Christians are sometimes more committed to a given moral standard than to Jesus. Here
conformity to the law provides man with a measure of personal achievement. This gives
man something to be proud of, something to stand on in the presence of God. Here man
can still claim a measure of independence from God. This was the primal sin of Adam
and Eve. To the degree that we depend upon ourselves and on our accomplishments, to
that degree we have fallen away from Christ.

To have the religion of Christ means that you have absolutely surrendered your all to
God, and consented to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. . . . The surrender of all our
powers to God greatly simplifies the problem of life. It weakens and cuts short a thousand
struggles with the passions of the natural heart.—Messages to Young People, p. 30.

Surrender requires the reign of Christ and not the reign of sin.

Conversion is not a half-and-half work, a serving God and Mammon, but an entire
turning to God.— ELLEN G. WHITE, in Review and Herald, Feb. 19, 1901.

Christ demands undivided heart-service, the entire use of mind, soul, heart, and strength.
—ELLEN G. WHITE, in Review and Herald, July 25, 1899.

The whole heart must be yielded to God, or the change can never be wrought in us by
which we are to be restored to His likeness. . . . God desires to heal us, to set us free. But
since this requires an entire transformation, a renewing of our whole nature, we must
yield ourselves wholly to Him—Steps to Christ, p. 43.

To follow Christ requires wholehearted conversion at the start, and a repetition of this
conversion every day.—The SDA Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, on
Numbers 13:30, p. 1113.

The peril is that the dimension of Christian commitment may be lost in a demand for
nothing more than moderate achievement on the purely ethical and moral level. The
explicit concern of Christ was that He should rule in the Christian’s life. This is where
"straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life" (Matt. 7:14). Those
who desire an easygoing Christianity should realize that a man cannot be a Christian by
that kind of response. When Christ asks a man to follow Him, He is calling for nothing
less than complete commitment. This can involve conflict and struggle with self-will. The
self-willed life does not give up easily.

Self is the enemy we most need to fear. No form of vice has a more baleful effect upon
the character than has human passion not under the control of the Holy Spirit. No other
victory we can gain will be so precious as the victory over self .—The Ministry of
Healing, p. 485.

This union costs us something. It is a relation of utter dependence, to be entered into by a

proud being. All who form this union must feel their need of the atoning blood of Christ.
They must have a change of heart. They must submit their own will to the will of God.
There will be a struggle with outward and inward obstacles. There must be a painful work
of detachment, as well as a work of attachment. Pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness sin
in all its forms, must be overcome, if we would enter into a union with Christ. The reason
why many find the Christian life so deplorably hard, why they are so fickle, so variable,
is, they try to attach themselves to Christ without first detaching themselves from their
cherished idols.—ELLEN G. WHITE, in Review and Herald, Dec. 13, 1887.

The less you cherish self, the more distinct and full will be your comprehension of the
excellence of your Saviour.— The Desire of Ages, p. 493.

God’s method of communicating life and spiritual health to the Christian is not like that
of the physician. The latter seeks to effect such a cure that the patient does not need to
return for further treatment. God’s method seeks permanently to bind the repentant
believing sinner to Himself forever.

Jesus is our example. He Himself shows us the way. On earth He lived His life totally
surrendered to the Father. He lived by faith. More than once He said of Himself:

I can of mine own self do nothing.., because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the
Father which hath sent me. ... The Son can do nothing of himself (John 5:30, 19).

Jesus Christ came to establish the kingdom of God, not upon human obedience to a moral
code, human independence, or by the brilliance of men’s wisdom and organization. The
kingdom of God is rooted and grounded upon the truth that human nature must itself be
radically changed, and its whole course of self-will and independence from God be
reversed. The way Christ lived in submission to the Father’s will and in dependence upon
the Holy Spirit, shows the believer how to live in submission to Christ. Christ was the
one life lived on earth in which the will of God alone was obeyed from the beginning to
the end.

Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus. For the divine
nature was his from the first; yet he did not think to snatch at equality with God, but
made himself nothing, assuming the nature of a slave. Bearing the human likeness,
revealed in human shape, he humbled himself, and in obedience accepted even death—
death on a cross (Phil. 2:5-8, N.E.B.).

Dependence on His Father and the surrender of His own will to live by the will of the
Father was the inner principle and motivation of Christ’s entire life on earth. "Lo, I come
to do thy will, 0 God" (Heb. 10:7). Here is human nature as God intended it. "For I came
down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me" (John 6:38).
This does not mean that Christ did not make His own choices. Every step He took was
based on His own voluntary decision. But in the use of His will, He chose to make God’s
will His own. When Christ healed the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, He was
challenged by the Pharisees who sought to kill Him. In reply Jesus said:

The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things
soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise (John 5:19).

In Gethsemane we behold Him choosing only the Father’s will and not His own.

My soul is exceeding sorrowtul, even unto death. ... 0 my Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt (Matt. 26:38, 39).

Our living by Jesus Christ means the end of self-will, the end of life apart from God. The
one plague spot in our lives, the one infection men have, is self-centeredness. At the new
birth we shift our center to Christ.

There was this great consciousness of God in the life of Jesus. This intimate access to His
Father was always marked by an attitude of dependence and submission to the will of
God. Never by His own inherent power did Jesus perform any of His miracles. He denied
Himself the use of His own divine power. He was perfect God and perfect man. Did not
the Father give all power into His hands (see John 13:3; Matt. 28:18)? Of all men born
into this world, is He not the one man who could truly have lived by His own power and
depended on Himself? Yet He chose to live by faith alone.

Could He not have turned the stones into bread when tempted in the wilderness? Could
He not have come down from the cross when challenged to do so? In the wilderness,
Satan sought to get Christ to resort to the use of His own power and perform a miracle on
His own behalf. In every case Jesus refused to have the question referred to Himself. On
every point He depended upon the will and the power of God. He surrendered Himself
completely to the guidance and control of the Holy Spirit, even though this meant fasting
for forty days and nights.

Christ’s temptations invariably were directed against trust in His Father. "If You are the
Son of God," says Satan, "Your heavenly Father would provide for all Your physical
needs. No earthly father would see his child go hungry for this length of time. If You are
the Son of God, then exercise divine power on Your own behalf."

But the Spirit had led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (see Matt. 4:1-
11). Jesus must not take Himself out of His Father’s hands and from the control of the
Spirit even though it means starving for physical sustenance. There can be no leading or
action except by the Holy Spirit. The plan of salvation depended entirely upon Christ’s
living by His Father and not by Himself, even though He was the Son of God and had the
power of life within Himself. His whole life was organized around trust in the Father.
Men are often inclined to believe that for Christ to be tempted in all points like as we are
(see Heb. 4:15), He must have had a sinful nature as we do. But this fails to understand
the basic issue of temptation, to live by oneself rather than to live entirely by faith in
God. Jesus Christ was sinless, free constitutionally from every taint of sin and defilement,
and in that sense holy, harmless, undefiled, "separate from sinners" (chap. 7:26). This
created for Him a far greater difficulty in living by His Father.

If we found ourselves starving in some desert place, it would be no temptation to depend

on ourselves, to turn stones into bread, because we could not do it. It would be no
temptation to come down from a cross, for we have no power to do it. But Christ could
have done it. Temptations of this kind are in proportion to a man’s power to change the
situation. But to trust in His Father, to live by the guidance of the Spirit even though this
meant going hungry, rejected and despised of men, nailed to a tree when He could
Himself come down—that is what it meant for Christ to live by faith and by His Father.

How does a man "make Himself of no reputation" and still retain his sense of personal
significance and self-worth? Is not Jesus of equal significance with the Father in heaven
and on earth? Yet He needed not to grasp at anything for personal status and significance.
He could let all things go.

Most of us have a reputation to make and to keep. The great illness of man is his anxiety
over himself, always trying to grasp after something that will give him a standing.
Worldly speaking, the significant man is he who is able to acquire an abundance of
things, education, position, prosperity, popularity, and power. Yet what he grasps after is
quite meaningless. As Christians, how do we gain our sense of personal significance?
How do we preserve our sense of self-worth? Are we motivated by self-concern? Are our
lives marked by anxiety because other people are a threat to us? This anxiety and self-
concern is the cause of much that is unredemptive in our lives.

The Christian is called to identify himself with Christ. Jesus Christ is the representative
Man, the ideal Man, in order that death to self-will might be realized in those for whom
He died. The cross for us requires our total surrender, a continued confession of our
ability to save ourselves and other people. "The kingdom of God cometh not with
observation" (Luke 17:20). This is a day of outward observation, of human things and
methods. There is always the temptation to search for them and let them absorb our
attention and divert our minds from God. "Cease ye from man," God says (Isa. 2:22).

Jesus is the supreme witness to what commitment to the will of God means. His relation
to His heavenly Father in trust and daily surrender must be our example. Christ is an utter
stranger to the modern spirit that grasps after self-esteem, status, reputation, and power.
Our rejection of self-will and self-exaltation, our complete surrender to God, will lead us
through the darkness and temptations of these final days to life’s consummation and
eternal life with Christ.
7
CHRIST
OUR
SANCTIFICATION
THE CHRISTIAN doctrine of righteousness by faith is frequently described theologically
in terms of justification and sanctification, or in other words, imputed and imparted
righteousness.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30).

But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God (chap. 6:11).

A perfect righteousness has been provided by God in one Man, Jesus Christ. He is the
God who shares Himself with men. He invites a relationship with Himself. God has great
concern to relate with men and to share His life with them. Therefore it is important to
ask, In what way and to what extent does God share His righteousness with us? Does
God only impute His righteousness to the believer, or does He actually impart it?

Imputed righteousness means the reckoning of Christ’s own perfect righteousness to the
believer whereby he stands justified, acquitted before God. The believer’s sins are no
longer imputed to him because Christ has borne them. Christ’s righteousness is put to the
believer’s account before God, solely on the basis of faith and commitment. All this is
predicted on an objective righteousness found only in Christ. At the same time the
believer is born again and restored to all the rights as a redeemed son of God.

Salvation is from the guilt, the condemnation, and the power of sin. Man is delivered
from the guilt and the condemnation when he is justified. Sanctification deals with the
power of sin.

Freedom from condemnation is the first step. Without such freedom the Christian has no
assurance that he can be delivered from the power of sin. The man who knows himself
forgiven and acquitted before God is the man who can also believe that Christ will save
him from the power of sin. The first is the pledge of the second.

What are we to say, then? Shall we persist in sin, so that there may be all the more grace?
No, no! We died to sin: how can we live in it any longer? Have you forgotten that when
we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus we were baptized into his death? By
baptism we were buried with him, and lay dead, in order that, as Christ was raised from
the dead in the splendour of the Father, so also we might set our feet upon the new path
of life (Rom. 6:1-4, N.E.B.).
Justification and sanctification belong together. The usual doctrinal approach has been to
keep them distinct from each other and maintain a clear division between imputed and
imparted righteousness. This division is not supported by Scripture. The gift of
justification based on imputed righteousness is the commencement of a life led by the
Spirit. From beginning to end the whole of the Christian life is by faith alone.
Justification, regeneration, and sanctification are all part of the ongoing Christian
experience.

Can we say at the point of justification and regeneration that we are already saved, or
must we assert that so long as life lasts we cannot make this claim? The Scriptures clearly
state that unless we experience salvation here and now, we cannot be saved in the
hereafter. Christ said to Mary Magdalene in the house of Simon the Pharisee: "Your faith
has saved you; go in peace" (Luke 7:50, N.E.B.).

Paul declared: "By his grace you have been saved" (Eph. 2:8, N.E.B.). In the Greek the
perfect tense of the verb is used, indicating salvation already realized. Jesus said to
Zacchaeus, "Salvation has come to this house today" (Luke 19:9, N.E.B.). "He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life" (John 3:36). "He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (chap. 5:24). "He that hath the Son
hath life. . .. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of
God" (1 John 5:12, 13).

These scriptures speak of experiencing salvation now, of having eternal life now. This
does not mean, however, once saved always saved. Salvation is a continuing experience.
Salvation from the guilt and condemnation comes with the believer’s acceptance of
Christ. This is the present right of the believer who is in Christ. At the same time
salvation is from the power of sin. This is a lifetime experience. Regeneration and
justification are not ends in themselves. We as Christians undergo a lifelong saving
process from the power of sin. At any point along the way we may depart from the faith.
Only as we abide in Christ does salvation abide in us. Final salvation is realized with the
coming of the Lord.

The Scriptures also speak clearly of salvation as a process that continues so long as life
lasts. The present continuous tense is used in the following texts:

I declare unto you the gospel . . . wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved [being
saved] if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have beIieve(d in vain 1
Cor. 15:1,2).

Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be
saved (Matt. 10:22; see also chap. 24:13; Heb. 5:7).

We are continually being saved. Salvation is not something that occurs once and for all.
The experience of eternal life here and now does not lead to spiritual laxity. Wherever the
claim is made to be once saved always saved, there the gospel of salvation has not been
properly presented or understood.

It is unfortunate that men have often emphasized once saved always saved with the
shallow and easygoing attitude toward sin that has followed from it. The experience of
salvation at conversion is in order to be saved at last. This does not mean that we must
live without assurance and in uncertainty as to our standing with God. So long as we are
in Christ, we can have certainty of a present salvation. But this initial experience must not
be taken for granted.

Imparted Righteousness

How then shall we interpret the phrase "imparted righteousness"? Does God not only
impute Christ’s righteousness to us but also impart it? Is Christ’s righteousness actually
transferred to us in some way? Is there an actual extension of Christ’s righteousness into
the life of the Christian?

There are two possible interpretations of the phrase "imparted righteousness." First, an
entity called righteousness is actually imparted so that we become more and more
intrinsically righteous in our own person. This means that the more we have of this
imparted righteousness within ourselves, the less we need of Christ’s imputed
righteousness put to our account. Obviously, if we become ourselves intrinsically more
righteous, we do not need the righteousness of another. The weakness and sinfulness of
the growing Christian would finally end in an intrinsic personal righteousness before
Christ comes. This would make the progressing Christian increasingly independent of
Christ’s objective righteousness. Sanctification as the work of a lifetime would mean
progress toward personal perfection; given enough time and Christian effort the believer
would reach a state of perfection comparable to that of Christ.

The second interpretation of the phrase "imparted righteousness" means increased

participation in the very life of Christ through faith. We become increasingly dependent
on Christ. Regeneration brings us into the new life, united with Christ. Sanctification
grants us a fuller share in Christ’s own life. What is imparted to us is the Holy Spirit’s
control. Christ’s righteousness is never ours in any sense apart from or independent of the
Son of God. It always belongs to Christ in a way that it never belongs to us. Daily
surrender and commitment is the measure of the Spirit’s control in the life. We
increasingly confess: "I can of mine own self do nothing."

The actuality of an intrinsic righteousness, or an imparted righteousness, that God gives

apart from Himself is never found in Scripture. The problem of the sanctified life is not
solved by saying that imputed righteousness is something outside of us put to our
account, and imparted righteousness is something that intrinsically belongs to us as
Christians. Adam’s primal sin was choosing life apart from God. Sanctification as
imparted righteousness can never mean that in any form. The believer who apostatizes
from the faith after fifty years of being a Christian is not left with fifty per cent of his
righteousness. He has none at all, for he is outside of Christ. The Holy Spirit is no longer
in control of his life.

The fact that Christ is our sanctification is not exclusive of, but inclusive of, a faith which
clings to him alone in all of life. Faith is the pivot on which everything revolves. Faith,
though not itself creative, preserves us from autonomous self-sanctification and moralism
– G. C.. BERKOUWER, Faith and Sanctification, p. 93.

Biblical Meaning of Sanctification

In the Bible the children of God are commanded to be holy, to be a sanctified people unto
God (see Ex. 19:14; 28:41). The Hebrew word kadosh or kadhesh is translated into
English by the words "holy, holiness, sanctify." They all have the same root word in the
Hebrew, which occurs in its various forms over 800 times. The Greek word for "sanctify"
is hagiazo or hagios, and is translated by the words "holy, holiness, sanctify,
sanctification, saints." Again all have the same Greek root, found 243 times in the New
Testament.

The root meaning of the Hebrew word is to be set apart, separated from sin unto God.
Those who are sanctified now belong to God. Whatever is set aside or set apart for God’s
use and service is said to be holy or sanctified. A thing or a person becomes sanctified by
dedication or consecration to God. Neither is intrinsically holy or sanctified in itself.
Sanctification is a quality of life by virtue of one’s nearness to God. This belonging, this
dependence on God, is of the greatest importance in understanding what sanctification
means.

The idea of holiness or sanctification is used of both things and persons. The place where
God manifests His presence is "holy ground" (Ex. 3:5). The tabernacle and the Temple
with all the furniture and the vessels were holy because they were set apart for God’s use.
They belonged to Him. The Sabbath is holy (see chap. 20:8-1 1), a day set apart for God.
No other day has this designation. The tithe is holy or sanctified because one tenth of
man’s wealth and income belongs to God.

"Sanctify unto me all the first-born, it is mine" (chap. 13:2). This did not mean that the
first-born was morally or spiritually superior to the rest of the family. Always
sanctification expresses a relationship to God. The children of Israel were said to be holy
because they were God’s people. God redeemed them from bondage in Egypt. From
thenceforth they were to be set apart from all the nations and the idols around them (see
chap. 19:6; Lev. 20:24). They were to recognize His sovereign love and lordship over
them. God’s right to their allegiance was based on their belonging to Him and His
belonging to them.

Christ said of Himself: "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be
sanctified through the truth" (John 17:19). Christ is not speaking of His own moral
improvement, for He was sinless. But He set Himself apart, consecrated Himself for His
sacred mission. He dedicated Himself to His Father’s purpose for the salvation of the
world.

The same is true of the church of God. She has been redeemed and purchased by the
blood of Christ. God claims her full allegiance. As Christians we acknowledge this divine
ownership with all our hearts and lives. In the New Testament, Christians are called
"saints" for the same reason. The word saint is the designation most frequently used of
Christians because its basic meaning is that of dedication to God.

Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints (1 Cor. 1:2; see also Rom. 1:7).

This claim of Christ upon all Christians to belong to God surpasses every other claim that
can be made. If God had failed to redeem man at the cross, He could have made no claim
to ownership. Man could never be sanctified or holy, for man would still be alienated
from God. If man fails to acknowledge the claim of God’s ownership of all he is and has,
he cannot be sanctified regardless of how morally good he may be.

The apostle John in the book of Revelation writes of God’s "sealing the servants of God
in their foreheads," of "having the Father’s name written in their foreheads" (Rev. 7:3;
14:1). We write our names in books and on things that belong to us. So Christ writes His
name on those who have come to belong to Him. The Sabbath is the "sign . . . that I am
the Lord that doth sanctify you" (Ex. 31:13), that is, of God’s ownership. The text does
not say that Sabbathkeeping sanctifies a person, but it is a sign that God does it.
Obedience to the fourth commandment will ultimately provide the test for those who
truly come to belong wholly to Christ. So crucial will be the test, that only those who are
prepared to make that kind of commitment with the whole of their lives will obey that
commandment.

The sanctified life brings everything into a right relation with God. It follows naturally
and spontaneously that people who give this total allegiance will live in harmony with
Christ. What can be more transforming morally and spiritually than the control of God
and the Holy Spirit in the life? The sanctified Christian never elbows Christ or the Spirit
out of control in his life. What is invincible is God’s hold on us, not our hold on God.

Sanctification is never something worked up by man. It is not a quality that man

possesses in and of himself, but a certain quality of life derived from God. Consequently,
the longer we live as Christians, the more we become dependent on Christ. Sanctification
depends upon the same source as does justification, participation in the life of Christ by
faith. Imparted righteousness is no more a quality of life given apart from Christ than is
imputed righteousness. The first speaks of Christ s ownership and control; the second of
Christ’s righteousness put to our account. Both require us to look away from self to the
living Christ. There is a rising dependence on Christ.

Not one thread of selfishness must be drawn into the fabric of character we are weaving
—ELLEN G. WHITE, Notebook Leaflets, "A Deeper Experience."
In the Scriptures sanctification is both a completed and a continuing work. There is no
such thing as partial sanctification. We belong to Christ entirely from the time we are
born again and for the rest of our lives. The use of the Greek aorist tense may speak of a
completed work.

To the congregation of God’s people at Corinth, dedicated [sanctified] to him in Christ

Jesus, claimed by him as his own (1 Cor. 1:2, N.E.B.).

You are in Christ Jesus by God’s act, for God has made him our wisdom; he is our
righteousness; in him we are consecrated [sanctified] and set free (verse 30).

But you have been through the purifying waters; you have been dedicated [sanctified] to
God and justified through the name of the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of our God (chap.
6:11).

The use of the aorist tense affirms no partial sanctification, a partial dedication, a partial
belonging to God. In the Bible sanctification is frequently illustrated by the marriage
relationship, a lifetime of belonging. There is no such thing as a partial belonging in one’s
relationship to God any more than there can be in marriage. To belong to one’s husband
or wife one day out of the week is not marriage. To belong to God one day out of seven is
not sanctification. Sanctification always signifies a total experience of God’s ownership.
This ownership is complete at conversion and should continue this way.

This does not deny the need to grow. But growth is always within the relationship and
never outside of it. The use of the present tense in the Greek verb speaks of a continuing
work.

Consecrate (sanctify) them by the truth; thy word is truth (John 17:17, N.E.B.).

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly (1 Thess. 5:23).

"For their sakes I sanctify myself" (John 17:19); that is, my consecration is a continuous,
lifelong experience. There is no finality in sanctification in this life. There is no finality in
growing a garden. We cannot rest on the fact that we have planted flowers and
vegetables. Days or weeks of neglect will produce a crop of weeds.

It is not enough to find the door to salvation and enter it. Justification is not an end in
itself, but a means to an end, the gateway to a lifetime of belonging to God. Repentance,
conversion, baptism: these experiences start us out on the Christian way. We begin as
babes in Christ. Growth requires constant nurture. If we rely on a past conversion, we
shall cease to grow. When an educated person imagines himself to have mastered the
areas of knowledge, he stops learning. However, the more he studies the more he
confesses that he knows so little.

So the continuing work is not toward sanctification but in sanctification. This means that
we are continually learning and maintaining our allegiance, our commitment, and
consecration to God. As we draw nearer to Christ, we realize how far short we come of
the ideal and how much there is in Christ we wish we had. There is so much of the
likeness of Christ that we do not yet possess.

A spiritually stalled Christian is in a dangerous position. He can get sidetracked by the

discouragements and difficulties that beset his path. He can become distracted by the
enticements of the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is serious business to consecrate
oneself daily to God. As Christ continues to extend the claim of ownership in all aspects
of living, the Christian acknowledges this and surrenders to it. To grow in sanctification
is to walk with Christ and to become increasingly like Him.

When I speak of "growth in grace" I only mean increase in the degree, size, strength,
vigour, and power of the graces which the Holy Spirit plants in a believer’s heart. . . . I
hold that repentance, faith, hope, love, humility, zeal, courage, and the like, may be little
or great, strong or weak, vigorous or feeble, and may vary greatly in the same man at
different periods of his life. When I speak of a man "growing in grace," I mean simply
this—that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his
love more extensive, his spiritual-mindedness more marked. He feels more of the power
of godliness in his own heart. He manifests more of it in his life. He is going on from
strength to strength, from faith to faith, and from grace to grace.—J. S. RYLE, Holiness
(Westwood, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co.), p. 85.

A life of sanctification is not a slavish obedience to law. Only to the degree that we
acknowledge this divine ownership and sonship does the moral change have any
Christian factor about it. Right being exceeds right doing. The mark of the sanctified man
is not only that he does good things. Sanctification is participation by faith in the life of
Christ through the Holy Spirit. From this the Christian takes his motivation, his purposes,
and his life-style. All that our Lord needs is our total availability. As the sick man who
receives new life is now capable of progress from sickness into health, so it is with
sanctification. We increasingly live out this new life from Christ in all situations. He
encompasses our path. We walk with God by setting Him always before us. We cherish
an habitual recollection, an active, realizing sense of God. We perceive His hand in
prosperity and in adversity, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow. We hear His
voice speaking to us in His Word.

We find happiness in communion with Him. We can say from the heart: "It is good for me
to draw nigh unto God. There is none upon earth that I desire more than Thee." Christ is
the supreme object of our love and devotion.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on
the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For
ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory (Col. 3:1-4).

To rely on the righteousness of Christ is the beginning and the end. . . . Sanctification is .
. . not a moral process, but it is being holy in Christ and having a part, through faith, in
his righteousness. . . . All depends on Christ. "Once I have Christ I need no longer worry
about my sanctification, no, but I press on and count all things to be loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."—BERKOUWER, op. cit., p. 104.

Throughout the Christian life there is increased restoration to the image of God.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).

To grow in grace is to grow in Christ. We trust Him more every day. We are grafted into
Christ as the branch is to the vine. We feed on Christ and live by Him. We are married to
Christ and have our lives molded by Him. Not by just attempting to conform our lives to
any set of rules, but by throwing open our lives to the influence of the Life-giver we are
to grow into His likeness. We receive His life as the plant receives light from the sun. To
desire our Lord, to seek Him, to perceive Him, to trust Him, to open the heart and love
Him—this is faith.

A progressive sanctification must keep the windows of faith opened to the grace of God. .
. . Any "striving," in this connection, receives its content from the fact of Grace. Not
activity as such is disqualified by Scripture but only the activity which cannot be
considered as growing in grace or as the perfection of holiness in the fear of God. The
progress that is here meant is like the fruitbearing of branches in the vine. . . . All activity
and progress must bear this stamp—Ibid., pp. 107, 108.

We must give attention to the study of the Word and to prayer. There must be an economy
of time. Procrastination in the things of God must be shunned as a plague. Many things
impose a weight of care and anxiety upon us. The temptation is to involve ourselves in so
many secular enterprises that we have scarcely a moment for a private life with God.

The great and heavenly blessing of sanctification is the fruit of our union with Christ. . . .
Without me, without vital union with me, similar to that of a living branch to a
flourishing vine, ye can do nothing that is truly good and acceptable in the sight of God.
It is by the Spirit of truth and the word of grace, that any sinner is, or can be sanctified.
As it is written, "Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth, through the Spirit."
Hence we read of the "sancification of the Spirit; of the holiness of truth; and of being
sanctified by the truth" (1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Thess. 2:13; Eph. 4:24; john 17:19). By comparing
these passages together, it is evident that the Divine Spirit employs evangelical truth as
the appointed instrument, in producing that holiness in the heart and life of a Christian.—
ABRAHAM BOOTH, The Reign of Grace (Grand Rapids: Win. B. Eerdmans, 1949), p.
206. Used by permission.

Letting God Be God

The root problem in sanctification is the difficulty of letting God be God in our lives.
Selfcenteredness is that function of man that loves his own being supremely and seeks its
own way to exalt itself. Self-will is the mainspring of man’s actions and the center of
reference.

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I
count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win
Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but
that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith (Phil.
3:7-9).

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world (Gal. 6:14).

God does not accept the most splendid service unless self is laid upon the altar, a living,
consuming sacrifice. The root must be holy, else there can be no sound, healthy fruit,
which alone is acceptable to God.— Gospel Workers, p. 371.

Those who have the deepest experience in the things of God are the farthest removed
from pride or selfexaltation.—Ibid., p. 323.

The fear of looking to and depending upon self should be the concern of every Christian.
Unfortunately some professing Christians have come to believe that they must go as far
as possible under their own steam. Beyond that, they feel, they can count on Christ.

It makes a great difference whether Christ is my Sovereign Lord and my righteousness, or

whether I have shifted the emphasis to myself. Only by witnessing to the former can we
convince the world that we are a holy people. Only by attributing every outflow of moral
and spiritual goodness to its source in Christ can we give Him His rightful place in our
lives. It is time to have done with accounting for the good we do and the exalted products
of human attainment in comparison with other creeds and churches. If we as a people
profess to be Christians partly because of our ability, so as to call attention to it, then is
our faith vain. Sanctification in Christ gives no credit to man for his efforts. By human
culture, education, and social pressure a man may be morally good from his youth up, but
this does not mean he has experienced sanctification. Sanctification is a Biblical word
that has meaning only in terms of the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the life. We
are never in less need of Christ and His righteousness. The abiding in Him never lessens.
It increases.

We are never independent agents. Transformation of the life is due solely to control of the
Holy Spirit. The closer one comes to the power of God, the less credit he takes for it.

For if anything is clear in the message of Scripture, it is that in sanctification there is

never, under any circumstances, any room for pride or self-praise.—BERKOUWER, op.
cit., p. 117.
The moment we think we can do anything in and of ourselves, sin and self-will defeat us.
To believe that we have arrived at the place where we have a righteousness of our own
can only be a delusion, for it offers to man a greater measure of that independence from
God that is the primal sin of Adam. The truth must come home to us that every aspect of
salvation centers in Jesus Christ. We can only confess and give glory to Him. Joyfully we
hail Christ as Lord as well as Saviour.

The greatest praise that men can bring to God is to become consecrated channels through
whom He can work. . . . He asks for a whole heart, give it to Hun; it is His both by
creation and redemption. He asks for your intellect; give it to Him. . . . God requires the
homage of a sanctified soul, which has prepared itself, by the exercise of the faith that
works by love, to serve Him. . . He asks us to be absolutely and completely for Him in
this world as He is for us in the presence of God.—Acts of the Apostles, p. 566.

The error of making sanctification something attainable by the unaided fierce efforts of
the will can only in the end lead to an insidious self-esteem. The word striving in the
Christian life has enough emotional color to indicate man’s problem. The nature of
Christian striving needs to be understood. Sanctification is not simply a moral process,
but being holy in Christ. We must strive to abide in Christ and not work out our own
salvation under only our own wisdom and effort. We must strive to depend entirely on
Him.

We know that once we have been embraced by God, our hearts are set on fire with the
love of God. We do not keep this experience by selfexamination. We are sure that God
has created in us the life of Christ. We know that the life we live by faith and love is from
Him. His unceasing love for us has involved us in His own recreative power. Biblical
sanctification is not mystical. It is the most intelligent and meaningful reality in all the
world, a life lived to His glory and within His presence and power.

Crucified and Resurrected With Christ

The great question that presses upon the mind is concerned with the genuine reality of the
Christian’s relationship to Christ. In what way and to what extent do we share in the
death and the resurrection of Christ?

I have been crucified with Christ: the life I now live is not my life, but the life which
Christ lives in me; and my present bodily life is lived by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and sacrificed himself for me (Gal. 2:20, N.E.B.).

Have you forgotten that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus we were
baptized into his death? By baptism we were buried with him, and lay dead, in order that,
as Christ was raised from the dead in the splendour of the Father, so also we might set our
feet upon the new path of life (Rom. 6:3, 4, N.E.B.).

The apostle Paul uses the terms "death" and "resurrection" to describe the nature of our
identification and union with Christ. We are to die to the old life and be resurrected to the
new life in Christ. To die to our sinful nature and to be crucified with Him does not mean
there is some bad entity or essence in the body that must be eradicated. Man is a whole
person. In the Bible such terms as heart, flesh, mind, and spirit are not separate parts like
the lifeless pieces of a machine. They refer to differing functions of the whole man. When
God asks for the heart, He is not asking for an emotional response per se. He is calling for
a response from the inner man in contrast to mere external conformity. Always the whole
person is involved, whether the function is good or evil. The whole person surrenders or
refuses to surrender to God. The issue is the control of the whole man either by God or by
Satan.

What does it mean to be crucified with Christ? What do we die to and to what are we
resurrected? Man’s prior condition is that he is alive to sin. He lives under the dominion
of sin. He is in slavery to it. He lives and operates in that sphere where sin holds
dominion. He is subject to its power, its rule, and control. In this sphere he spends his
time and energy. This is where his hopes are. He is on the side that is against Christ and
His righteousness, the wrong side in the great controversy between Christ and Satan. He
lives at Satan’s disposal as a citizen of his kingdom.

Referring to this state Paul speaks of our being "once slaves of sin," having yielded our
bodies to the service of impurity and lawlessness. Here is a sphere of servitude to sin that
destroys man’s power to do right and to resist temptation. Here in the devil’s kingdom
and sphere of operation man involves himself in a constant repetition of wrong decisions,
to destroy all desire for that which belongs to Christ.

When we speak of this great controversy in the lives of men, we are not talking theory or
moving in a world of unreality. We ourselves know clearly the nature of our own personal
problems with self and sin. All men in the world are enveloped and involved in those
tragic words "sin" and "Satan." All men outside of Christ are "sold under sin" (Rom.
7:14).

You must regard yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God, in union with Christ Jesus.
So sin must no longer reign in your mortal body. . . . You must no longer put its several
parts at sin’s disposal. . . . Put yourselves at the disposal of God, as dead men raised to
life; yield your bodies to him as implements for doing right; for sin shall no longer be
your master. . . . God be thanked, you, who once were slaves of sin, have yielded whole-
hearted obedience to the pattern of teaching to which you were made subject, and,
emancipated from sin, have become slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:11-14, 17-19,
N.E.B.).

Paul stresses the fact that there are two spheres in which a man may live, two masters we
can choose from. They are diametrically opposed to each other. The end of one is eternal
death. The end of the other is eternal life. As far as man s destiny is concerned, the issue
is final. Not to choose Christ is to choose the devil. To side with sin and Satan carries
with it total impotence, helplessness, and ruin.
To be crucified arid die with Christ means to die to sin and its rule over us. We no longer
live our lives on the wrong side. We have made a decision and a commitment by the
power of God to move from under the dominion of Satan and sin. To be resurrected with
Christ is to begin living on the side of Christ, under His power and life. We have joined
forces with the right side in the great controversy. We have accepted the rule of Christ
and His righteousness. This means unconditional deliverance from the slavery of sin. We
have changed leaders. Satan’s mastery is finished in our lives. From henceforth we will
not swerve in our loyalty to God and to His Word. We fight the good fight under the
banner of the Lord Jesus Christ. "This is my command: be strong, be resolute; do not be
fearful or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9,
N.E.B.).

The Son of God goes forth to war,

A kingly crown to gain;
His blood-red banner streams afar;
Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink His cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears His cross below—
He follows in His train.

A noble army, men and boys,

The matron and the maid,
Around the Saviour’s throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed;
They climbed the steep ascent of heaven
Through peril, toil, and pain—
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train.
—REGINALD HEBER

Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, wrote, "Give me a place to stand and I will move
the earth." In this world Christ is the only fixed point. He is the One who never changes.
On Him alone we can absolutely depend. "Thou, 0 Lord, remainest for ever" (Lam. 5:19).
He is the one Lord our God, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." He is the Center around
which all else turns. He alone can chart our course into the eternity beyond. He alone is
greater than all our sins, our agony, our suffering, our failures, and death itself.

He alone can command Abraham, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, . . . and offer
him there for a burnt offering" (Gen. 22:2), for He alone can resurrect him. Christ will
never be overthrown by either sin or death. He has conquered them both. When we have
shifted our center onto Christ, all life takes on a new quality.

God waits for us to put the direction and control of our lives in His hands. There must be
no holding back, no divided heart. God must have all of us. In this choice we cannot be
forced. We can be awakened by the Spirit and by the Word of God. God will not violate
the will of any man. God pursues a man with love and patience. He follows him to the
uttermost and never gives up.

Salvation and freedom come when we respond to God and cry, "God be merciful to me a
sinner" (Luke 18:13).

Have mercy upon me, 0 God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the
multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from
mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my
sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy
sight. . . . Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; and renew a right spirit within me (Ps. 51:1-
4, 10).

Only as we see our utter helplessness and renounce all self-trust, shall we lay hold on
divine power. All our good works are dependent on a power outside of ourselves;
therefore there needs to be a continual reaching out of the heart after God, a constant,
earnest confession of sin, and humbling of the soul before Him.... We are safe only as we
feel our weakness, and cling with the grasp of faith to our mighty Deliverer.—The
Ministry of Healing, pp. 455, 456.

Our acceptance of the rule of Christ and dependence upon Him must be made daily and
in all situations. We must enter every transaction and every pleasure in light of the fact
that He is our Saviour and Lord. We must not call a moratorium on the rule of Christ in
any isolated deed or desire and take our own way as did the prodigal son. We have
chosen life in Christ, life with Christ, a life like Christ, a life under the Holy Spirit with
all the fruits thereof. We seek not our own will, but the will of God in all things.

Because we are identified with Christ, we are also identifiable as Christians among our
fellow men. There is nothing that we engage in, be it business, education, pleasure, social
relations, or a life vocation, but what it is apparent that we are followers of Christ, that
Christ is the One we love and serve. We are part of Christ’s church, Christ’s community,
Christ’s kingdom. Everywhere we go we live as citizens of the kingdom of God. There
must be no doubt as to our Christian identification.

Here a man must take his stand. Here are the crossroads for all men. What a man does
with Christ is the most decisive issue he must face.

We have now come to the hour of God’s judgment and destiny for the world. The
fulfillment of God’s final purposes and plans is ripening fast. His movements are certain.
In the remnant church are united the streams of history and prophecy that pertain to the
end of time. We have not chosen this hour for the consummation of all things. God has
chosen it.

Elisha the prophet and his servant had encamped overnight in the city of Dothan. The
king of Syria had determined either to capture or to kill the prophet, so during the night
he sent his army with horses and chariots and encompassed the city. The next morning
the servant of Elisha was alarmed at what he saw. There appeared no way of escape. He
did not have the faith that Elisha had. He said in fear, "Alas, my master, how shall we
do?" And Elisha answered, "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be
with them." Thereupon Elisha prayed that his servant’s eyes might be opened. "And the
Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full
of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha" (2 Kings 6:15-17). "The angel of the
Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them" (Ps. 34:7).

What a contrast of poverty and riches, of weakness and strength, between how Christ
found us in sin and what He makes and offers to us! What eternal security is ours! What
we need is to abide in Christ in total and joyful commitment. We need to be sufficiently
possessed with the reality that the divine powers of heaven, who are for us, are greater
than all the earthly forces against us. We must not carry in our hearts and minds a distant,
indifferent, and enfeebled image of a God who delays His coming. We need to share in
the inspiration of a great expectancy of the soon-coming triumph of the church of Christ.
Let our consecration and confidence proclaim to the world that above all the weaknesses
of men, God will lead His children and His church to such spiritual victory that
multitudes of men and women will find redemption.

"In Christ"

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection (Phil. 3:10).

I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal. 2:20).

"In Christ" is the phrase used in the New Testament to express the nature of the Christian
life. Christ is one with us and we with Him. Within the Godhead the same oneness
prevails (see John 1:10:30-33, 37, 38; 14:10, 20). To be buried with Christ does not mean
a loss of consciousness. To be resurrected with Christ does not refer to some superhuman
encounter that temporarily takes us out of our natural sphere. The Holy Spirit produces in
us the same life that Christ lived on earth.

The Spirit does not displace us. He does not destroy our integrity as real persons. Nor
does He somehow keep a still, silent vigil alongside our ego. Nor does He elevate our
souls to a new metaphysical level. He brings us Christ to enable us to live the Christ life
—to live in a way that is wise, holy, and righteous. Christ within us brings us back to the
image of God—a life of action in obedience to God—L..B. SMEDES. All Things Made
New, p. 174.

God does not share His divinity with us. Christ in us does not mean that we are deified.
There can be no submerging of one person into another. His action upon and in our lives
is through our intelligent cooperation and conscious rational commitment. Every day we
are colaborers with Christ, partners with Him as we are with our husband or wife. We are
in Him as branches are in the vine, as the head is related to the various parts of the body,
as the bride is to the bridegroom.
When we speak of Christ in the heart, we should not ask where He is, but what He is
doing. The important thing is not location, but action. Christ is not in confinement at an
address labelled "my heart." He is operative, freely, as the Spirit in my life where it really
counts. —Ibid., p. 183.

A life in harmony with Christ is a far more profound and total experience than men deem
it to be. To be in Christ does not mean that we are able to make a few separate resolutions
to correct some bad habits. Nor does it consist in the possession of a few good thoughts
mixed with some sinful ones, or doing a few right acts alongside corrupt ones. It means to
have an undivided heart in relation to God. It involves living within the very presence of
God and to His glory, to obey God in all aspects of life from the right motive, as an
affectionate child does within a loving household.

To be in Christ means that we can never find ourselves in a situation where there is no
hope and no meaning. There is no anxiety or emotional failure that cannot be met and
changed when we discover that God so loves us that He never forsakes us. We may turn
everything over to the everlasting assurance of His love. We discover ourselves as a
forgiven and accepted person of supreme value to God. We can praise and thank Him for
what He is to us and what we are to Him. There are no limits to the life that we can live.

As we daily consecrate our lives to Christ, we increasingly sense the sinfulness and
selfishness of what lies deep within us.

The closer you come to Jesus, the more faulty you will appear in your own eyes; for your
vision will be clearer, and your imperfections will be seen in broad and distinct contrast
to His perfect nature. This is evidence that Satan’s delusions have lost their power; that
the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God is arousing you.... The less we see to esteem
in ourselves, the more we shall see to esteem in the infinite purity and loveliness of our
Saviour. A view of our sinfulness drives us to Him who can pardon. . . . The more our
sense of need drives us to Him and to the word of God, the more exalted views we shall
have of His character, and the more fully we shall reflect His image—Steps to Christ, pp.
64, 65.

The closer we come to Christ the more sharply we feel the guilt of a sinful action. There
should be no despair or consternation. A calm, intelligent awareness of our sinfulness
should prevail. The presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit, when clearly understood and
lived by, increasingly overcomes anxiety and fear. To be faced with more of the reality of
our own sinful nature should not create panic. Nothing is more wholesome for the
Christian than the effect of the Spirit’s presence upon the life and the mind, for He causes
the beauty of Christ and His character to be seen and desired.

Always one’s sinfulness and selfishness bring disquiet, but for a good reason: The
Christian now finds himself in the very presence of One who abhors sin. But let us not, in
the hour of discovery of our sinfulness, give way to discouragement and make rash
decisions that lead to further sin. On the contrary, let us cast ourselves before the Lord,
who loves us and who came to save us from sin. Let us plead the merits and the
righteousness of Christ. Let us continue to die to self and to sin under the leading of the
Spirit.

This admits of no delay and no doubt. For in the presence of Christ our whole lives are
seen in their right proportion and perspective. Let us never fear to invite the searching
scrutiny of the Holy Spirit into our lives. To do this with sincerity of heart will speedily
bring victory and release from guilt and the power of sin. There is always forgiveness
with God. There is an everlasting mercy and love exercised toward us. Here we are sure
of pardon, of righteousness, of acceptance, and of deliverance. "For as the heaven is high
above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him" (Ps. 103:11).

The Scandal of the Cross

To die to sin and self, to arise to a new life in Christ, is not easily brought about and
maintained. Self is always an intruder, ready to assert itself and insist upon control. Self
dies hard.

But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of
righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the
works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; as it is written, Behold, I lay
in sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not
be ashamed (Rom. 9:31-33).

The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?
Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it
will grind him to powder (Luke 20:17, 18).

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks
foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of
God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the
weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not
many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of
the world, ... to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence
(1 Cor. 1:23-29).

It is very difficult for man to understand how dangerously selfish he is. Man’s self-
sufficiency and pride discredit offers of salvation by One who let Himself be nailed to a
tree and who called upon men to die with Him. Ours is an age of the exaggerated
consciousness of man and his ability.

The life Christ lived and the death He died appear to man as an attack upon human
independence. Jesus Christ is the most disturbing person ever to enter our world.
Knowing what egotism has done to our world, Christ will give no recognition to man’s
self-esteem. The center of sin is selfishness, and the center of selfishness is pride. To
accept the meaning of the cross for our lives does not occur easily. For the majority the
way of the cross is a stumbling block that makes faith impossible.

The great men and minds of the world would have easily settled for a Christ who had
proclaimed the most matchless teachings to the exultation of the crowds, who would have
established a school of philosophy exceeding that of the Greeks, and who would have
written the world’s greatest literature for all generations. This men would have
understood. If only Christ had asserted His towering independence above all men who
ever lived. Men would have understood that. If only Christ had trod our narrow world
like a Colossus, believing that all the resources to greatness resided in Himself, refusing
to surrender His own will in complete dependence upon another. If only He could be
understood and seen as the world’s supreme genius of the mind. If only He had tried
rationally to build out from Himself in the development of this beautiful creature called
man.

But to invite men to deny themselves, to take the way of the cross with Christ and to die
to self-will, self-esteem, self-sufficiency, self -dependence, and human pride—that is the
scandal of the cross. The cross is founded on the judgment of man’s pride and
independence, on the road to human greatness without God. The way of the cross begins
in a surrender of self and a confession of sin, the end of man’s determination to master his
own destiny and to save himself.

Because of men’s pride, even in the church, through the centuries, the triumph of God’s
kingdom has been delayed. It is always a serious problem when we promote ourselves
more than Christ and as a consequence worship men rather than God, when the struggle
for position and power leads to idolatrous loyalties that run competition with our Lord.
Nothing denies our Lord more and silences our witness to the truth. The perils of self-
praise and self-seeking are greater than the perils of martyrdom. Any professed Christian
life is a failure where the worship of men suppresses the worship of God.

The way of self and the way of the cross represent two worlds and two ways. However
we may seek to build up ourselves by our own accomplishments, pride now threatens the
world with destruction. Because of the sinfulness of men in all their pride and
independence from God, the world is now on its way to final disaster.

Life by man’s wisdom can give the world no hope, no basis for trust and allegiance, no
inspiration that reaches beyond sin and death. Within our dark world, man the sinner can
never be healed of his sickness from within himself. The great tragedy for man is not the
tragedy of the cross, but the moral and spiritual fall from righteousness and the refusal to
make Christ and His cross the way to life eternal. Man is afraid of the subordination his
own personality if he takes the way of the cross.

There are multitudes of men and women who do not seem to have the faintest
understanding of what following Christ means. Christ went to the cross to save men and
to make men whole. Unless we live within the victory of Christ and the experience of the
cross in our own lives, everything we do will be out of focus and off center.
Jesus Christ, who "made Himself of no reputation and who "tasted death for every man
on the cross," is soon to invade our world with the armies of heaven. At that time every
knee shall bow and acknowledge Him King of kings and Lord of lords. It is folly to
assume that man will continue to be his own master. Christ is the rightful ruler of this
world and of our lives, whether we care to acknowledge it or not. He alone will establish
a millennium of peace and righteousness. He alone will create new heavens and a new
earth. No ages of progress by sinful men, regardless of their brilliance, can possibly bring
about that kind of triumph and victory over sin and death.

We as Christians have at our disposal all the unsearchable riches of Christ, upon which
we can draw each day. Not one thing has Christ withheld from us.

8
LED
BY THE
SPIRIT

JESUS LEAVES no doubt as to the vital importance of the coming and work of the Holy
Spirit. Once Christ has returned to heaven, the third Person of the Godhead is to take His
place on earth. Jesus promised His disciples: "I will not leave you bereft," or orphans
(John 14:18, N.E.B.). He would come to them in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me (John 15:26).

He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you (chap.
16:14).

Jesus’ bodily presence was about to be withdrawn. He promised another divine Presence
from the Father. The Greek word "another" means one like unto Christ, of the same kind.
Christ was incarnate—in human flesh. The Spirit was not. Christ always speaks of the
Spirit as a Person distinct from Himself. The Holy Spirit does not appear in human form
as Christ did, lest men might conceive of there being two Christs. The Holy Spirit is
never to be confused with our own spirit. He remains personally distinct from ourselves.

The Spirit of Christ

Since Christ’s resurrection and ascension, there was to be in the world the third Person of
the Godhead, as real and dynamic as is Christ. The Scriptures clearly teach the existence
of a spirit world of some kind. Men come either under the control of the Holy Spirit or
under demonic control. This issue is so crucial as to require the most careful study and
spiritual insight. The failure to experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit explains the
failure in Christian living and Christian service. The neglect of the Spirit is as disastrous
as the neglect of Christ when He was on earth.
The word "Comforter" in the King James Version does not give the right idea. Christ
promised "another Paraclete," not another comforter. The Greek word literally means one
called to the side of. In the New English Bible the word is translated "Advocate," or
counsel for the defense. The apostle John is probably thinking of a friend at court when
he uses this word. The Paraclete is the divine Friend who does whatever is necessary for
the Christian life. He responds when called upon for help in every way and in every
situation. The word was never used before of a member of the Godhead. It is used four
times in our Lord’s parting words and with deliberate emphasis. As Christ’s substitute on
earth, the Spirit is to be the Captain of our lives, to inspire courage and total allegiance, to
provide power for triumphant living.

The Holy Spirit could come only when Jesus went away.

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is for your good that I am leaving you. If I do not go,
your Advocate will not come, whereas if I go, I will send him to you (John 16:7, N.E.B.).

On the last and greatest day of the festival Jesus stood and cried aloud, "If anyone is
thirsty let him come to me; whoever believes in me, let him drink." As Scripture says,
"Streams of living water shall flow out from within him." He was speaking of the Spirit
which believers in him would receive later; for the Spirit had not yet been given, because
Jesus had not yet been glorified (chap. 7:37-39, N.E.B.).

What did Jesus mean by this? Why could not the Spirit come until Jesus had returned to
heaven? The clear implication is that the work of the Spirit on earth is a consequence of
the completion of the saving work of Christ and dependent upon it.

Just what is meant by Christ’s words, "the Holy Spirit was not yet given"? It cannot mean
that the Spirit was not in the world until Pentecost and after. The Spirit was ever
manifesting His divine power and presence. At Creation the Spirit moved upon the face
of the deep" (Gen. 1:2). David prayed, "Take not thy holy spirit from me" (Ps. 51:11).
Ezekiel speaks most frequently of the work of the Holy Spirit. All the great men of God
in the Old Testament were born again by the Holy Spirit.

Neither is it Biblical to interpret this to mean that previous to Pentecost the Holy Spirit
worked on man from the outside, and that afterwards He worked from within man. This
concept is based on an unfortunate inference drawn from the statement, "He dwelleth
with you and shall be in you" (John 14:17). Speaking of Gideon, the Scripture says that
the Spirit of the Lord took possession of Gideon (see Judges 6:34, N.E.B.). The Hebrew
states that "the spirit of God clothed himself with Gideon." In that case the Spirit must be
within man. No one should try to localize the Spirit as being ‘‘on’’ or ‘ in" man.

The prophet Joel prophesied: "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my
spirit upon all flesh" (Joel 2:28). The apostle Peter later declares that this prophecy was
fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (see Acts 2:16-18). This seemed to point to the fact that
the Spirit was not poured out in His fullness until Pentecost; that until then, the gift of the
Spirit was partial; after that, it was complete.
Why was the gift of the Spirit not complete before Pentecost? John gives the explanation:
"Because Jesus had not yet been glorified." When the Son had ascended to heaven to the
right hand of the Father, Christ was glorified. Pentecost was the evidence of Christ’s
glorification. The full manifestation of the Holy Spirit depended upon this exaltation of
Christ on His return to the Father. Then the Spirit was to flow out like rivers of living
water.

The full manifestation of the Spirit depended upon Christ’s completing His work on
earth. Henceforth the work of the Spirit was to be one with the work of the Son. So
closely are they identified that the Spirit is given the title, "the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor.
3:17, N.E.B.), "the Spirit of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:19).

The Holy Spirit had now at His disposal the finished work of Christ. Redemption was
accomplished when the fullness of the time came. Pentecost was the Spirit’s supreme
opportunity to bear witness to Christ. The Spirit’s work is to hold the spotlight on Christ,
to glorify Him by taking what Christ is and has done and making it effective in and
through His followers. "He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew
it unto you" (John 16: 14). The Spirit does not proclaim new truths. He is not an
innovator. He leads Christ’s followers into the truths taught and realized by Jesus (see
chaps. 1:17; 14:26). He makes Christ living and real to men (see verses 17-20).

For he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak (John
16:13).

The new fact is Jesus Christ, the perfect Man in heaven Upon the throne of God, glorified
by the Father.

This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he
hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the
heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly,
that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ (Acts
2:32-36).

The work accomplished by Christ on earth remains central. It cannot be superseded by

the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is to effect in the lives of men the reality of what Christ is and what He has
wrought in His own Person. This is why "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by
the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 12:3). Experiencing the saving power of Christ in the life does
not depend upon human eloquence or man’s wisdom but "in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of
God" (chap. 2:4, 5). Only the Spirit can bring the saving knowledge and power of Christ
to man. That is the exclusive work of the Spirit. Without this, Jesus must remain to us just
a figure of history who lived two thousand years ago.
Therefore the statement, "The Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not been
glorified," emphasizes the fact that the work of the Spirit is tied to that historical work of
Christ when He lived and died on the earth, that apart from this the Spirit would have no
witness to bear.

The New Testament knows no work of the Spirit except in relation to the historical
manifestation of Christ.. .. The Spirit of God is always a gift that comes from God and
testifies to the human spirit of the salvation that God has wrought in Christ.—GE0RGE
S. HENDRY, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1965), p. 29.

All He does is in Christ Jesus." The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. He operates in and
through the Son. God has no gifts for us out of Christ, not even the gift of the Spirit. It is
the Spirit who brings life, but the life He brings is Christ. The Spirit is the vehicle, but it
is "Christ who is our life" (Col. 3:4).—From Life by the Spirit by A. SKEVINGTON
WOOD, copyright 1966, Paternoster Press, Ltd., pp. 23, 24. Used by permission.

This association of the Holy Spirit with the living Christ prevents the Christian faith from
degenerating into a vague mysticism and an impersonal religion. Because the Holy Spirit
is a Person sent to take the place of Christ and to witness to Christ and His completed
work, God meets us personally.

The cross of Christ is the center of all human history. It is the one decisive event for all
mankind. Here the decisive battle in the great controversy with Satan was fought and
won. Christ conquered the powers of evil. Man is therefore a redeemed person.

Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me (John 12:3 1, 32).

Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his
Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God
day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of
their testimony (Rev. 12:10, 11).

The divine gift of the Paraclete is based on the fact of our exalted Lord, now triumphant.
He will reign until He has put all enemies under His feet (see Heb. 10:11-14). We
Christians share in this resurrection life through the Holy Spirit. Sin and death no longer
hold dominion over us. The victory was for us. The Spirit makes that victory real in our
own experience. Man is not a spectator in the great controversy, looking back to a
historical event that had happened two millenniums ago. He is a participant. Christ’s
victory must become part of our life and experience. Man must be made free.

Because in Christ Jesus the life-giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of
sin and death (Rom. 8:2, N.E.B.).
Victory and redemption are not automatic or mechanical. They cannot be taken for
granted as some distant battle that has decided our fate. Christians are to share in the
battle and the victory. The participation must be real.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you,
the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness (Rom. 8:9,
10).

These verses speak of our being "in the Spirit" and "Christ in you." They describe the
way we are to live our whole lives: how completely we are involved with the Godhead,
wholly dependent upon Their presence and control for our salvation.

To live in the flesh or in the world means to live our lives entirely involved on that level,
affirming that these natural powers dominate our interests, our desires, our actions, and
our behavior. Life in the flesh means we are spiritually dead. On the other hand life in the
Spirit means we are spiritually alive. Our lives belong either to one realm or to the other.
The sensational event or experience so-called that catches the headlines and startles the
mind is never adequate, because in Christian living endurance is required.

The Christian retains his moral autonomy. The Spirit is no blind force, working on
emotionally misguided recipients, overwhelming the mind. For the Spirit’s leading and
control can be rejected. The Spirit can be grieved, and He can be quenched (see Eph.
4:30; 1 Thess. 5:19).

We know that presence by the newness of life, the new sense of all things are now
possible. The ordinary ministry of the Holy Spirit is through and not against the normal
faculties of man.—LYCURGUS M. STARKEY, JR., The Work of the Holy Spirit (New
York: Abingdon Press, 1952), p. 73.

One of the great errors is a disposition to make special manifestations an evidence of the
baptism of the Holy Ghost, giving to them the name of Pentecost, as though none had
received the Spirit of Pentecost but those who had the power to speak in tongues; thus
leading many sincere Christians to cast away their confidence, plunging them into
perplexity and darkness or causing them to seek after special manifestations of other than
God Himself. Another grave tendency is the disposition to turn aside from the great trust
which God has given us in the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of believers, and
seek for signs and wonders and special manifestations—Reprinted by permission from I
Believe in the Holy Spirit by MAYNARD JAMES, published and copyrighted 1965,
Bethany Fellowship, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438. P. 116.

The Spirit of Truth

Time and again in His last words to His disciples, Christ associated the gift of the Spirit
with truth.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another to be your Advocate, who will be
with you for ever—the Spirit of truth (John 14:16, N.E.B.).

However, when he comes who is the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all truth (chap.
16:13, N.E.B.).

The term "Spirit of truth" means the Spirit who communicates truth.

But your Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach
you everything, and will call to mind all that I have told you (chap. 14: 26, N.E.B.).

The Holy Spirit is the divine Teacher. He will bring back to the disciples’ minds all the
things that Jesus has taught them. He will make clear their meaning, which they did not
previously understand, opening up vistas that have been beyond them. The Spirit will not
change the teachings of Jesus. He will establish their truth and full meaning, "not in the
words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth" (1 Cor. 2:13).

At, the very core of the Christian faith is God’s respect for man as a rational and
responsible person. This requires that men judge truth from an intelligent and rational
standpoint. God respects the freedom of choice. God can use no methods or bring no
pressures to bear that violate man’s personal integrity and freedom of choice. The
Christian faith is supernatural, but it is never irrational. It commends itself to the mind of
man. Within its framework, emotional excitations of the moment cannot form the basis
for a sound choice.

Distortions and false premises in Christian experience must be met by the authority of the
truth of the Word of God. The most rational and inspired records of revelation were given
by the Holy Spirit.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For
the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:20, 21).

The impulses of the Holy Spirit, even in men really inspired, so suited themselves to their
rational faculties, as not to divest them of the government of themselves, like heathen
priests under their diabolical possessions. Evil spirits threw their prophets into such
ungovernable ecstasies. . . . But the Spirit of God left His prophets the clear use of their
judgement, when, and how long, it was fit for them to speak, and never hurried them into
any improprieties either as to the matter, manner, or time of their speaking.—STARKEY,
JR., op. cit.

What kind of truth does the Spirit present to our minds in Scripture? What kind of God
does the Word offer for our truth? "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
unto the churches" (Rev. 3:22). The Spirit will teach the truth about Christ, about God,
about man, with total reliability and saving power. Without this guidance and divine
instruction Paul speaks of those who have ‘‘the understanding darkened being alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that is’ in them, because of the blindness of
their heart" (Eph. 4:18).

What is needed for the communication of truth and the banishment of error? No new
faculties need to be created. No newly inspired truth is required. God has already
provided a revelation, the Word of God, through the prophets and apostles.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and
is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12).

The leading of the Spirit here contemplated is not removed from the normal processes of
the thinking mind. In all the leading and teaching by the Holy Spirit the human mind is to
be preserved. We must not take refuge in a supposed encounter with the supernatural in
absence of the revealed Word of God in the Scriptures.

Through the leading of the Spirit, Christ offers His own revealed and spoken word. Christ
the Truth in us corresponds to the highest conception of what is genuine. There is no false
leading of the Spirit by the Word. His leading awakens the mind, whereby the Bible
comes alive. Only by the balanced emphasis on the Word and the Holy Spirit can God be
glorified and men be sanctified by the truth.

God hath . . . chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth (2 Thess. 2:13).

The Word of truth, the Word of God, the Word contained in the Bible, is the instrument
which the Holy Spirit uses in regeneration, but it is only as the Holy Spirit uses the Word
that regeneration results. The mere written Word will not produce the new birth, no
matter how faithfully preached or faithfully given . . .unless the living Spirit of God
makes it a living thing in the hearts..—from The Holy Spirit by R. A. TORREY.
Copyright 1927 by Fleming H. Revell Company, p. 74. Used by permission.

Our Daily Bread

We pray God to "give us . . . our daily bread" (Matt. 6:11).

The spirit alone gives life; the flesh is of no avail; the words which I have spoken to you
are both spirit and life. . . . Your words are words of eternal life (John 6:63, 68, N.E.B.).

All of us need to have the Word of God empower us, to be "born anew, not of mortal
parentage but of immortal, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Peter 1:23,
N.E.B.).

Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be of a kind of
firstfruits of his creatures. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of
naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your
souls (James 1:18, 21).

We receive life by receiving the Word through the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more important
for spiritual growth than to keep the Word and the Spirit together as we study the Bible.
This is the divine encounter the Bible speaks of. Divine truth is never simply an
intellectual idea to be argued about. It is a divine message sent from God: trustworthy,
dependable, by which man is never deceived. Because God always keeps His word, the
promises and prophecies in the Bible are true and unshakable.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God (Rom. 8: 14, 16).

How does the Holy Spirit bear witness with our spirit? The Spirit takes the truths about
Christ, His work, and His Word and produces an experience in agreement with, and
obedience to, that Word. Thereby the Spirit assures us that the Word of Scripture is the
embodiment of special revelation, the very Word and Truth of God. The Spirit does not
witness to something that is false. This witness can be understood and experienced by the
wise and the simple, by the learned and the ignorant. Our spiritual experience answers
precisely to the Word of God. An intelligent communication between God’s mind and our
minds, between His life and ours, we can understand. What God promises and has done
in and through Christ does actually come true in our lives.

The natural man cannot discern the truths of the Word because they are spiritually
discerned. Our realizing in experience that Christ is "made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30) is convincing evidence
of the truth about God and His Son.

To keep spiritually alive and hungry for the Word of God is one of the great needs today.
The limited use of the living Word is one of the church’s perils. Men read the Bible, but
subject it to their own control and superior wisdom, without the guidance of the Spirit.
We as Christians are called to introduce men to the reality of God’s truth and thereby to
experience the power of it.

The Spirit is married to the Word, not merely in that the Spirit guides the intellect to a
proper understanding of the words and sentences of the Scriptures, but in that He brings
the reality of Christ’s power into human lives as they hear and identify themselves with
the word about the cross.—LEWIS B. SMEDES, All Things Made New, p. 181.

The Word of God seeks to capture the heart and the life with a commanding moral and
spiritual power not found in any other book. Because of this it brings assurance to those
who are Spirit-led. They will not deny the truth in the day of trial and anxiety. The Holy
Spirit is never given to be enjoyed as a luxury for special occasions. He comes that men
may be changed into sons of God and know it to be so. He leads into a glad obedience to
God’s commandments, into loving service for others, and into sacrifice for the kingdom
of God.
At times men are tempted to lose confidence in the church. Only the Christian led into
truth by the Spirit will be able to tolerate the shortcomings of the church and at the same
time put himself under her influence. In these days we need to remind ourselves that one
who criticizes the mistakes of the church often becomes an absentee from the truth. To be
Spirit-led draws men together. It bids them overlook errors of understanding and the
mistakes of sinful men. It prompts them in love to bear with one another’s faults, to pray
together and to bear witness to God’s truth together.

When men step from the ranks of the church ostensibly because of what they claim to see
as hypocrisy, they also step from the truth of God. The effort to remain in the truth by
one’s own decisions in isolation cannot succeed. Whenever men choose to isolate
themselves from the church of God with the false idea that the truth is still left to them,
they are mistaken.

I am the light of the world. No follower of mine shall wander in the dark; he shall have
the light of life (John 8:12, N.E.B.).

Let us be firm and unswerving in the confession of our hope, for the Giver of the promise
may be trusted. We ought to see how each of us may best arouse others to love and active
goodness, not staying away from our meetings, as some do, but rather encouraging one
another, all the more because you see the Day drawing near (Heb. 10:23-25, N.E.B.).

Much of contemporary theology has lost faith in the Bible as the word of God. Men
cherish an existential method of reaching truth, while rejecting the objective propositional
truths of the Bible. This position holds that truth does not reside in the verbal, rational,
creedal statements of the Scriptures. We are told that the written and the spoken word of
the Bible is not the word of God. In this way men reject the historicity of much of the
Bible: the historical account of Creation, the fall of man, and much of the historical Jesus
recorded in the Gospels.

The traditional Christian position holds that the written doctrinal statements and
teachings and recorded historical events are completely trustworthy. Because men live on
the plane of history, revelation and redemption occur on that plane. Because man is made
in the image of God with power to reason and to think, God speaks to man on that plane.
Study, to know the truth rationally and spiritually is no mystical experience. The leading
of the Spirit through the given Word makes the rational communication of truth dynamic.

Contemporary theology affirms that God communicates life and not doctrine. But when
Jesus promised that the Spirit would lead His followers into "all truth," this is a form of
statement that must include rational knowledge. Unless human nature is constituted
rationally, it is difficult to see how God can get through to man at all. For if God is
known, but nothing is said, do we not border on mysticism or spiritualism? Are we not
left without an objective test of truth? And if something is said, but God is not known, is
this not mere theoretical religion? Can there be any communication without knowledge
spoken or written in the form of ideas and statements such as we find in the Bible? Where
there is a meeting of minds, must not a known language be used? If we deny the function
of a known language, of words spoken and written that can be understood, must we not
ignore the mind as an essential part of the image of God?

What arouses faith is both knowledge and the leading of the Holy Spirit. The Christian
faith involves a rational, intelligent voice and content from God in the Scriptures. The
fundamental issue is whether God is able to reach man through the faculties with which
He has endowed man at Creation. The real barrier between man and God is sin, not
rational knowledge. We should never forget that man was fashioned at Creation for moral
and spiritual fellowship with God, for an obedience to His will and to His
commandments, spoken and then written by God in propositional form in two tables of
stone.

As a safeguard against all forms of spiritualism and antinomianism, God gave His word
in the Bible as the only source of trustworthy doctrinal truth. These doctrines and truths
bring the mind of God and the mind of man together. The written word in Scripture is the
infallible voice of God to man.

During the past few years a religious revival has been sweeping the land. Tens of
thousands of people seek some experience with the supernatural under the terms "God"
and "Jesus Christ." These people are no longer content with a conventional approach to
religion. They seek a deeper awareness and more intimate knowledge of God. Basic to all
this experience the Bible must be recognized and accepted as the authority.

Men assure us that Christianity is a life, and not a creed or a doctrine, but an encounter
with the supernatural. But there should be no conflict between correct thinking and
correct living; rather the contrary. To swing the pendulum of belief away from doctrine is
not necessarily to swing nearer to God or to Jesus Christ. The leading of Christians by the
Spirit into "all truth" leaves no doubt as to the value of Bible teachings. The true contrast
that men need to make between holding a theory of the Christian faith and experiencing it
is not between doctrine and life; for he who "will do his will [the will of God], he shall
know of the doctrine [teaching], whether it be of God" (John 7:17). This cannot be
translated to mean that if the life is right with Christ, Bible teachings and doctrines are of
little or no consequence. Christ is saying that if men will live in accordance with Bible
truth that they already know, they will have certainty and be led into more light and truth.

The problem is that men do not transmit the Bible truths they know into genuine living.
The contrast is not between life and doctrine, but between life that results from true
doctrine and that which results from false doctrine or the absence of doctrine. Obviously,
since the Spirit leads into "all truth," it is not by our faithfulness to the truth that we
become less like Jesus Christ. The issue is not between the law of love and the law of the
Ten Commandments, but between true and false doctrines. The arguments that have raged
and the differences that have existed on this point through the centuries show the
difference between truth and error, not between a doctrine and a life. Bible teachings and
the rational content of the Bible invariably have been bulwarks in the church against error
and apostasy.
The present state of the world shows a tragic departure from the objective truths and
teachings of the Bible and the moral law of God. It is unfortunate that professing
Christians express doubts as to the emphasis to be placed on Bible teachings. If this is the
way toward the final spiritual revival in the world and in the church, then is there not
more need to let others know just what we believe and what the Bible teaches on truth?

The cry "dogmatism" has to do with attitudes of people, not with teachings. In all modern
religious revivals, that which holds to the Bible doctrines comes nearest to the truth of
God. That religious movement that raises the question, What Bible doctrines and truths
shall we stand upon? is closer to hearing the voice of God than all claims to unintelligible
spiritistic communications. This is one of the tests of whether one is led by the Spirit,
whether one is moving more and more into the light of God or into darkness.

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because
there is no light in them (Isa. 8:20).

How much error or departure from the truths of God’s Word is safe? How much Bible
doctrine must be omitted in a "revival" in order to arrive at love? Just what are modernist
revivalists trying to accomplish? Are they taking refuge in vague terms on doctrine in the
place of Jesus? At this point it may be profitable to ask whether a religious revival is
regarded as successful because of the truths it contains or the truths it omits?

To proclaim Bible truth in the power of the Spirit is to challenge people to think and to
decide which side to take in the great controversy between truth and error. The leading of
the Spirit is not promoted by downgrading Bible teachings. Granted that a man can hold
dogmatically to doctrine without the Spirit. But doctrines are never so cried against by
men as when error is breeding and when compromise in the life is taking place.

The source of the church’s authority is the Bible and the Spirit. The truth of the Scriptures
does not change. Time does not destroy its relation to life itself. Christians led of the
Spirit will find that the Word of God transforms the life. Obedience in life will be in
accordance with and not contrary to the Word of God.

The doctrines of the Bible have not been twisted to fit our particular denomination. The
church has grown out of commitment to Bible truth. It is this that must clothe our pulpits
with an authority not based on men. Sound Bible truth will never restrain liberty.
Nevertheless, truth and doctrine of the Bible do limit men. The affirmations we make in
standing on the Word of God are a limit indeed. But so is the law of gravitation. So are
the laws that control the blood in the body. So are all the other laws in the natural world.

There are no other alternatives. To search the Scriptures under the leading of the Spirit
and to bring one’s life in accordance with them is vital to our strength. License to believe
and to follow what one chooses can become the most destructive factor in Christian
experience. The church whose doctrines tend in life to obedience, to purity, to love under
the guidance of the Spirit, will be the church that restores the truth of God to the world.
So far as the great controversy between Christ and Satan is concerned, the deeper and
more diligent our study of God’s Word and obedience to it, the more we shall give glory
to God and fulfill our mission in the world.

The question of right doctrines or teachings is related to the issue of which church to join;
whether the doctrinal tests of church fellowship shall be undefined and relegated to the
inconsequential; whether men may even call upon Jesus in the darkness of our world.
Each goes in a different direction as far as doctrinal truth is concerned, each hoping that
he will at last arrive at the gates of heaven and gain an entrance into the kingdom of God.

I suppose it is possible to enlarge the church membership by slacking-up on or

eliminating disturbing doctrines, and thus bring everyone who names the name of Christ
under one church roof. However, it would be too bad to be led astray by ambiguities on
the truth of God, thinking oneself to be secure while all the time one is actually adrift
from God and headed for eternal darkness and disaster.

There is nothing that he [Satan] desires more than to destroy confidence in God and in
His word.... God has given in His word.., the great truths which concern our redemption. .
. . By the aid of the Holy Spirit, which is promised to all who seek it in sincerity, every
man may understand these truths for himself. God has granted to men a strong foundation
upon which to rest their faith.—The Great Controversy, p. 526.

There should be no conflict between the revealed Word and the mind of man. The Spirit
carries the authority of the Word to the mind and life of the believer. Being persuaded and
enlightened, convicted and led, the believer is satisfied that God has spoken in His Word.
He is now sure that the only thing for him to do is to obey that Word. Righteousness in
the life and power to obey God’s commandments have their foundation in Scripture. It is
the truth of Scripture that must come alive, not some other kind of truth. God seeks
deeply to influence and change men by the Word and the Spirit.

There is no optional authority for the Christian. Under the inspiration of the Spirit, all the
books of the Bible were written in solemn procession to lay their tribute to the truth from
God. By the faith that works by love, by the sense and leading of the Spirit into the truth,
the Christian knows that he has passed from death unto life, from uncertainty to living
truth. He can say with the apostle Paul:

I know who it is in whom I have trusted, and am confident of his power to keep safe what
he has put into my charge, until the great Day. Keep before you an outline of the sound
teaching which you heard from me, living by the faith and love which are ours in Christ
Jesus. Guard the treasure put into our charge, with the help of the Holy Spirit dwelling
within us (2 Tim. 1: 12-14, N.E.B.).

The Spirit of Power

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you (Acts 1:8, N.E.B.).
People are often confused about spiritual power. Many interpret the power of the Holy
Spirit in terms of the sensational, in ways that are removed from the normal everyday
experience of the Christian. The basic Biblical meaning and use of the word is adequacy
for living the abundant life, the sufficiency of divine resources for every situation.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound
mind (2 Tim. 1:7).

Adequacy for living, love in every relationship, a balanced, integrated mind—what

tremendous realities to have in one’s Christian experience! If we had been privileged to
meet Christ when He walked the earth, this is the kind of person and personality we
would have expected Him to be. He was equal to everything.

He put restraint upon His show of power, but gave no limits to His love, His kindness,
His mercy. How totally adequate He was in living the abundant life that He offered to His
followers. In the hour of trial, suffering, and the loss of all things, even life itself, men of
God through the centuries had this divine adequacy that banished fear, anxiety, and doubt.
They possessed a sound and spiritual mind, a mind integrated with Christ and with their
fellow men.

What was the consequence of the Spirit’s outpouring upon men? We have only to look at
the lives of the apostles prior to and after Pentecost. Previously they were afraid of
themselves and the people around them. With the crucifixion of their Master, a sense of
failure and discouragement possessed their hearts. All was lifeless and powerless. The
best of them were helpless. Then the Spirit came. The disciples poured forth from the
upper room into the streets. Both Jew and Roman tried to silence their witness. They
replied boldly:

Peter and John said to them in reply: "Is it right in God’s eyes for us to obey you rather
than God? Judge for yourselves. We cannot possibly give up speaking of things we have
seen and heard" (Acts 4:19, 20, N.E.B.).

They defied high priests and the Jewish hierarchy, Roman kings and procurators. They
laughed at difficulties and at the pressures that came upon them. They displayed a mental,
moral, and spiritual power that confounded their enemies and converted their listeners.
Their holy boldness in the confession of faith in their Lord, their emotional buoyancy and
flaming convictions on the spiritual and moral issues of their day, captured for Christ the
hearts of those around them. Thousands were converted in a day. The Holy Spirit
witnessed through them as to the power of the gospel.

The Holy Spirit added nothing new to Jesus Christ or to the Word of God. He added
everything to the disciples. He gave their lives meaning and purpose. The Holy Spirit
came not as an incoherent sound, but as the power of God.
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were
unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they
had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).

There is a divine adequacy and spiritual fitness that comes to those who are filled with
the Holy Spirit. They are not empowered to startle people, but to convert them. Miracles
and shattering upsets are all to the good in their place and time. But these are not the kind
of things that can be maintained through every waking hour. Christians do not live and
move in such an atmosphere. To find the divine resources adequate for daily living, to
face the truth about themselves because God’s love never fails, to forget themselves in
loving concern for the lost, to bear witness to their Lord even unto death and face it all
with a sense of assurance, peace, and security—that is the power that people need most.

In the whole of the remnant church there is not to be found a single believer who does not
need this fullness of the Spirit. This need is one of the supreme affirmations of our faith.
Without the Spirit we may build the church externally and increase both our numbers and
our real estate, but we cannot build spiritual life. Without the Spirit we may gain church
members, but it is very doubtful that we can win people to Christ for eternity.

There is always the danger of "having a form of godliness, but denying the power
thereof" (2 Tim. 3:5). Religion can be both a form and a power. We can structure our
religion intellectually, formally, organizationally. Religion can be man-made. Men do
construct their own righteousness. We have all done that at times. This was the basic
problem of the Jews whose religion centered in the law. They believed that the
requirements of the law could be met and lived by the natural life they had.

But man cannot live what he does not have potentially within him. He can only live what
he has intrinsically the power to do. The power of Christianity is the power of the Holy
Spirit. Without spiritual power, religion is only a form. Sin in the life is a power, not a
form. The form of religion cannot possibly meet the power of sin. There must be a
corresponding power or dynamic. The basic question is: Does the Christian faith really
give people the power to change and transform their lives?

This supreme question of the Christian faith hangs over life and religion today. Mental
assent to truth offers only the form of religion. The extent of its reach is superficial. Men
want a faith that gives meaning and power to life. The promise of the Spirit offers exactly
that.

When the church is too eager to get across to people all the doctrines and duties contained
in the religious program, the Holy Spirit may be overlooked. Baptismal classes may
communicate religious information whereby the only response gained is mental
agreement and consent to what has been explained. In such case there is little or no
incentive to commitment. All too often we try to validate and establish the teachings of
church and school without the power of the Spirit.
In these days the church has used all manner of methods and techniques to communicate
the message. She has proclaimed her doctrines by all kinds of names, sought the right
phrases in advertising the truth. But do we lead the convert to the source of spiritual
power? However fervently we change our music or sing our ditties, are we offering to
people the one thing that can save and transform life, clear the mind of ignorance and
darkness, increase faith, sanctify relationships, emancipate them from the slavery of sin
by a genuine commitment to Christ and to the control of the Holy Spirit?

Form and respectability in religion are dangerous, especially when they are of the
Laodicean kind. Spiritual progress and triumph are not the result of soft and superficial
amiability. A spiritless sophistication never leads to great campaigns for Christ. Great
enterprises that bring about the triumph of the everlasting gospel are possible only by
men who have experienced the power of the Spirit in their own lives. We need to listen
not only to clever people but to spiritual people. We need to give the Holy Spirit His
‘rightful place. The whole essence of the third angel’s message is the conviction that no
other power is available to us than the power of God’s Holy Spirit. Truly all our hopes are
in Christ. The spiritual power is His alone.

Spiritual or Carnal

For my part, my brothers, I could not speak to you as I should speak to people who have
the Spirit. I had to deal with you on the merely natural plane, as infants in Christ. And so
I gave you milk to drink, instead of solid food, for which you were not yet ready. Indeed,
you are still not ready for it, for you are still on the merely natural plane. Can you not see
that while there is jealousy and strife among you, you are living on the purely human
level of your lower nature? (1 Coy. 3:1-3, N.E.B.).

In this message to the Corinthians Paul writes of the contrast that exists between the
spiritual and the nonspiritual members in the church. The Corinthian church was a chief
problem church of Paul’s day and of the first century of the Christian era. The members
were divided in their loyalties, being attracted more to men than to Jesus Christ. They
boasted of their worldly wisdom. They were emotionally and spiritually immature. Paul
called them "babes." They had never grown up. They were motivated by their own
selfishness. They seemed unable to settle their own problems within themselves, so they
went to law against one another

Paul indicated they were building their lives on hay and stubble, not on Christ the rock.
Some of the church members were libertines engaged in immorality; they had problems
in marriage, indicating the absence of the love by the Holy Spirit. In their worship they
profaned the Lord’s Supper. The tongues they claimed to speak were an embarrassment to
the church, not an inspiration. So Paul described the church members as carnal.

One of the most difficult things for Christians to do is to learn to live their lives in a right
relation to eternal values and realities. We are no longer to be fashioned according to the
world. Our lives are to be ordered by the divine working of the Holy Spirit. But the
temptation is to seek life’s meaning on the natural level of the world and the flesh.
Consequently, in the life of the Christian there exists a spiritual tension created by the
flesh and the Spirit.

If you are guided by the Spirit you will not fulfil the desires of your lower nature. That
nature sets its desires against the Spirit, while the Spirit fights against it. They are in
conflict with one another so that what you will to do you cannot do. But if you are led by
the Spirit, you are not under law.... Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the
lower nature with its passions and desires. If the Spirit is the source of our life, let the
Spirit also direct our course (Gal. 5:16-18, 24, 25, N.E.B.).

The flesh signifies human nature in its sinful limitations and weakness, human nature in
its sinful state apart from the Spirit. Paul calls such a person the "natural man," who loves
the present life. The "natural man’s" desires are attached to this world with little desire
for heavenly values. He loves the riches and pleasures of the world more than he loves
God.

The spiritual man is entirely different. His sufficiency is in God. His inner life is
possessed and motivated by the Holy Spirit.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot
please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Rom. 8:5-
9).

In this world it is no simple matter to let God be our all in all. Secularity and carnality
plead that attention be given to earthly pursuits. This is an age of wealth, of teeming
plenty, of an abundance of pleasure, an age full of appeal to sensual excitement. The lust
of the eye and of the flesh is stimulated by every possible medium of communication.

Spirituality does not require the Christian to be isolated from the world. Neither does it
condemn the marvelous riches and advancements of modern civilization. But it places all
these things in proper perspective. Our faith does not exclude the best in science,
painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and literature. We are free to appreciate the
highest culture as is any man. But we insist upon the supremacy of the spiritual. We
affirm that we can only possess and enjoy all these things as we are truly Christian and
heavenly minded.

With appreciation for all the benefits that God has given us in our world must come our
devotion to the Creator. With admiration for the beauty of this life must come the beauty
of holiness. With relish for pleasures that are helpful there must be the power to sacrifice,
the willingness to do without all these things for Christ’s sake. The Christlike life must
have priority. This spiritual way of life with Christ we must passionately maintain at all
costs. Are we prepared to make this kind of commitment?
There is possible a certain quality of life by virtue of the Spirit’s indwelling. Thereby the
Christian becomes a higher species of the human race. The spiritual man has within him
the life force that belongs to God. He lives always in newness of the Spirit, not in the
oldness of the letter (see Rom. 7:6). Christians are to be spiritually the richest people, the
most radiant and dedicated people on earth. Life is filled with the love of God and the
fruits of the Spirit.

But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity,
gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22, 23, N.E.B.).

These verses identify the spiritual man. They affirm some of the great and commanding
words of the spiritual life. They speak of a divine power and beauty of life that transcend
the superficiality of things. This new, spiritual life is like a resurrection from the dead.
The Holy Spirit bids us rise to the fullness in Christ. The spiritual man finds it impossible
to desire and enjoy the cheap, l the ugly, the impure, and the superficial. Christian
refinement, gentleness, and all the graces of the Spirit are not born of sluggish, flippant
thinking, of idle and shallow observation. By the Holy Spirit, God has made
Christlikeness possible. What is impossible for the natural man is now possible through
the Spirit. The Christian has the i mind of Christ.

"Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all
prepared by God for those who love him," these it is that God has revealed to us through
the Spirit.

This is the Spirit that we have received from God, and not the spirit of the world, so that
we may know all that God of his own grace has given us; and, because we are
interpreting spiritual truths to those who have the Spirit, we speak of these gifts of God in
words found for us not by our human wisdom but by the Spirit. A man who is unspiritual
refuses what belongs to the Spirit of God; it is folly to him; he cannot grasp it, because it
needs to be judged in the light of the Spirit. A man gifted with the Spirit can judge the
worth of everything (1 Cor. 2:9, 10, 12-15, N.E.B.).

There is a kinship between us and Christ that nothing can destroy. In spite of the
increased awareness of tendencies to sin and self, the battle is not lost. We are sure of the
power of God. We know He will work out what He has put within us by the Spirit. We
continually reach up to God in prayer.

Because Christ kept His word and sent the Holy Spirit to abide with us, we are sure of the
sufficiency applied to us. The everlasting love of God for us, the eternal vigilance of the
angels toward us, the heavenly ministry of Christ, all unite us with supernatural power.

For those who put their trust in Him, it is impossible that they should be lost and defeated
at last. Without doubt and without controversy, we are tied to God with unbreakable
bonds. Amid all the temptations and trials of earth, we know and experience the
inexhaustible power and support of the everlasting arms of God. To this end we daily
surrender our lives to God, intelligently, wholeheartedly. We pledge our allegiance to be
obedient to all His will and to His Word. We daily open our lives to be filled with the love
of God.

The Spirit of Love

God’s love has flooded our inmost heart through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Rom.
5:5, N.E.B.).

The primary thing, the essential, spiritual thing in Christian experience, is the ability to
love as Christ loved. This is the test by which God seeks to present Himself to the world
and to the universe.

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16).

This is the focal point from which we take our bearings spiritually.

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of
God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was
manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into
the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved
us, we ought also to love one another (1 John 4:7-1 1).

The third angel’s message is never the word of God in isolation. We do not experience
truth in cold words. We do not proclaim the truth by some formal statement. Because love
has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, suddenly Christ is present in our
lives.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that
ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have
love one to another (John 13:34, 35).

Christian maturity involves, then, progress in our capacity to love. This is the most
difficult thing to affirm. . . If Christian experience means anything at all it is also the most
difficult to deny there can be no Christian life at all unless there is some real meaning in
progress . . . to express love—DANIEL D. WILLIAMS, God’s Grace and Man’s Hope
(New York: Harper and Bros. Publishers, 1949), pp. 195, 196.

Love alone makes total response and personal involvement possible. Love is the point of
no return. God is not giving us theological lectures in the Bible. He is giving us Himself.
God involved Himself with the whole human race of sinners in the giving of His Son.
That was God’s total response to us all. God does not stand afar off to achieve His
purpose merely by legislation.
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground
without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not
therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows (Matt. 10:29-31).

The most incomparable thing in all the world is the coming of the love of God into the
human heart. We cannot command ourselves to love. We can only respond to a love that
is given. "We love Him because He first loved us." All men, even in the midst of their
sinfulness and despair, are encircled by God’s love. His eternal concern for His children
meets our need for self-worth and meaning. God affirms our integrity as sons and
daughters of God. He never stops loving us. Therefore we can open our entire life to God,
with all its moral, emotional, and spiritual problems, and be absolutely secure in doing it.
We can really face the truth about ourselves without fear and anxiety; and in the process
of being loved, healing takes place.

The divine imperative to love is fulfilled by the love with which we are embraced. We are
no longer preoccupied with ourselves under the pressure of laws and rules. The very
reality of actually belonging to God, at one with Him, makes obedience a delight and
sacrifice a pleasure.

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor.
3:17).

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear (1 John 4:18).

Where love reigns there can be no slavery, no exploitation. Love means dependence. At
the same time it gives freedom. Our integrity is safe where Christian love reigns. Our
sense of selfworth and well-being is increased and never suppressed. We are fulfilled, not
deprived.

Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor
rude; never selfish, not quick to take offence. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not
gloat over other men’s sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance (1 Cor. 13:4-7, N.E.B.).

We know that any real inner change is beyond ourselves to accomplish. But because God
loves us, we can accept ourselves. In the presence of such an everlasting love we can face
our inner problems truthfully. At the same time we experience the way in which God
cares for us and loves us. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).

The Christian life is a life fully exposed to Christ without pretense or hypocrisy. No one
can really be safe unless he permits Christ to cleanse and redeem the innermost parts of
his soul. We need the love of God to break through our selfishness and the ugliness of our
resentments and hostility. How is it possible that we should learn to love as Christ loved,
with all our imperfections and sinfulness? Because love is a response to a life and a love
so wonderful, so irresistible in Jesus Christ.
Such a love makes us debtors to all men. The cry of the human race is to be truly loved.
Man’s great hunger is for this abundant life and redeeming love. The soul of man is not
redeemed by passing fantasies. Under love’s redeeming power men awake to a new life
of liberty, gladness, and hope. Eternal love must be our inspiration, our strength, and our
greatest commodity. Then love’s triumph will be irresistible.

"As scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38).
Wherever a clean river flows it imparts life. To overflow with the Holy Spirit means that
divine life possesses us. It springs forth in a vital ministry to others. We are able
ministers, not of the letter which kills, but of the Spirit that gives life (see 2 Cor. 3:6). The
Spirit-led Christian is at odds with all that is death to the life, to the mind, to the family,
and to the church. His witness pours forth as a river, shedding spiritual vitality, healing
the sick mind, restoring the waning love.

What more fitting symbol of the Spirit-filled life is there than that of a bounding river. As
the river takes its rise in the high places of the earth, so the river of life by the Spirit
issues from the mountaintops of God’s redeeming love and grace. To be filled with the
Spirit makes life to sing and to shed abroad the beauty of Jesus Christ.

9
THE
OBEDIENCE
OF FAITH

CHRISTIANITY IS a divinely revealed religion. The difference between all other

religions and Christianity is the difference in its authority. Once we believe that God has
spoken His Word to man, we should have no difficulty believing that Word. God’s deity
is accepted without question as authenticating His Word. The Word of God stands on its
own divine origin. Human reasoning does not make it more true. Reasoning is the human
medium by which the Word of God becomes known to us. Revealed truth is our ultimate
authority.

Man’s Need of Divine Authority

From Mt. Sinai God spoke to man in such majesty and glory as the world had never
before heard or seen. The children of Israel heard His voice. God wrote with His own
finger the Ten Commandments, all ten of them. No other moral code received that honor
or distinction. This is the beginning point for Christian morality and obedience. Morality
has a firm foundation.

Why was this revelation necessary? Man is a sinner. His moral sense is perverted. A gulf
exists between man and God due to man’s fall into sin. Man, of himself, has no way back
to God. He cannot find God by his own devices. If God is to be known, it will be because
God condescends to come down from heaven to communicate to man.
The law of God at Sinai was not the creation of man’s own thinking. Israel did not invent
their moral code in the wilderness. It came down from heaven. Man is silent at Sinai.
Only the voice of God is heard. No prophet speaks here. No human genius is lecturing on
ethics. Israel established no school of philosophy from which they finally developed their
own ethical system. God led Israel away from the culture and advanced civilization in
Egypt in order that they should hear His voice alone. For us also, everything depends on
our believing that God Himself spoke at Sinai, that these Ten Commandments are not the
words of men.

The children of Israel did encamp around Mt. Sinai. They did see Moses descend from
the mountain with the two tables of stone from God. These things did happen. These
tables of stone rested in the ark throughout their wilderness wanderings. The Ten
Commandments came with the authority of a "Thus saith the Lord." Through the
following centuries, whenever the children of Israel departed from the Lord, the divine
charge was that they had disobeyed the voice of the Lord heard at Sinai. Any revival and
restoration involved a return to obedience to the law of God, the supreme authority in
their lives.

At Sinai God provided man with a divine moral code for life. Man’s ethics are to be
tested, not by man’s ideas but by God’s word. If we reject God’s word in favor of man’s
word, then we dethrone God and enthrone man in God’s place. The divine credentials are
God’s writing the Ten Words with His finger and speaking them with His voice to the
mind of man. This establishes forever the authority of God’s law.

The Ten Commandments are excellent in their nature. They set forth the moral
righteousness that belongs to God. The law of God does not admit of improvement. It
constitutes the finest moral code ever given to man. It was given with absolute clearness
and intelligence so that none need misunderstand. In this revelation are no ambiguities,
nothing to confuse the mind. At Sinai God does not address the people of Israel in
mythological terminology. The law is simple and straightforward. It is foolish to believe
that at some later time God submitted the clarification and reinterpretation of His moral
law to the fallible judgment of men.

The absolute integrity of these moral principles has its foundation in the moral nature of
God. All these commandments are evidence of His moral perfection. The clear, rational
expression of His law and His character speaks authoritatively to man. That revelation at
Sinai is an objective historical event. It did take place.

The order and method of God’s revelation at Sinai is significant. The relation of the
divine deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt to the giving of the
Ten Commandments is a fundamental one. Yet it is liable to be overlooked, or at least to
be inadequately apprehended.

And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods
before me (Ex. 20:1-3).
Before God proclaims His law to Israel, He identifies Himself. The Decalogue is not
given in isolation from Christ the Redeemer. The preface to the giving of the law makes
this clear. Before God requires anything from men, He provides everything for them.
Grace comes before law. The giving of the law must not be separated from the divine
Deliverer and Lawgiver. Israel must know from the beginning who their Lawgiver is. His
act of redemption is the prelude to the giving of the law. God makes Himself known first.
In light of what He has already done for them, he asks for their loving response to Him.
The belief that God at Sinai gave them a dispensation of law to be replaced fifteen
hundred years later at the coming of Christ by a dispensation of grace is entirely un-
Biblical. The doctrine of dispensationalism is entirely man generated.

This wondrous manifestation of God’s grace to Israel included the exercise of His
miraculous power before Pharaoh and Israel’s walking on dry land in the midst of the sea
while the Egyptian army perished in the waters. Such a miraculous deliverance could
never be forgotten. Throughout their history this deliverance was celebrated in song and
story. It became the occasion for a celebration of joy at every Passover. It reminded them
of Jehovah as the God of love and grace.

This is the ground on which the law of Moses rests. Jehovah has just bestowed upon the
children of Israel the most remarkable expression of His grace of which history has any
record. They did not merit this. They did not deserve it. They did not earn it. They had no
claim upon God whatsoever. His mighty deliverance was not a reward for their previous
obedience to the law, but the inspiration for future obedience. He was their divine
Redeemer and Protector, the "Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6). His encounter with them at Sinai was an
outpouring of His love and grace, with the intent of fulfilling His covenant and promises
that He had made to their fathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Israel owed everything to Jehovah. They stood around the foot of Mt. Sinai as a people
already endowed with the supreme distinction of being children of the living God,
separate from all other peoples in the world. They now belonged to Him by virtue of His
redeeming them from slavery. Who could deny such a wonderful God the response of
faith and loving obedience to His will and law? What more could God have done to
secure their response of faith and love? There was not the slightest ground for a legalistic
response. Israel was not confronted with a cold law that they could not obey, but with
their Redeemer who was now prepared to fight for them all the way into the Promised
Land by His power alone. Obedience to the law was in no sense the condition of eternal
life. It was to be from henceforth a grateful return for the gift of life, the natural
spontaneous response of love that the rescued sinner must feel towards his Saviour. Thus
the moral law of the Ten Commandments takes its place in God’s plan of redemption, the
place where it belongs for all time.

The commandment of God is not an inert law, which man can impersonally fulfill or not,
but something which calls for a total and personal relationship, in the giving over of the
heart, and therein of the whole man, to obedience. . . . Obedience is always a response to
the divine demand, and excludes every merely legalistic understanding of the law.—G. C.
BERKOUWER, Man: The Image of God, pp. 177, 178.

These historical personal revelations from God are more important than any human
opinion and judgment. What is needed is more concern lest the moral character of God be
tarnished and the divine law of the Ten Commandments be abrogated. When men deny
and reject the commandments given at Sinai, then it becomes possible not only to disobey
them, but to believe that they should be changed and adapted to every generation and
situation. If the Ten Commandments are merely ways in which people found it
convenient to act at different times, then they have very little authority. They have no
binding force in the life. One opinion is as good as another. Man can therefore do as he
likes. There is no ultimate authority once revelation is denied.

The world stands in need of a great moral revival. Unless men find in Christ the power to
obey His law, there is no hope for mankind. The true knowledge of moral distinction
between right and wrong and the immutable sense of moral obligation can be arrived at
only by accepting the revealed and immutable law of God.

We cannot get the right moral code from man the sinner. How can the moral judgment of
the sinner be capable of deciding what is right and wrong, without bringing over into the
process and the judgment the sinfulness inherent in men’s hearts and minds? Must not a
mind that is warped by sin and blinded by evil be rigidly excluded from deciding what is
the right moral code for men? Man cannot define and decide a true morality from within
the bounds of his own sinful ways, for this relaxes our hold on God’s law by trying to
measure and test it by its utility in human situations.

It is a dangerous error to believe that the dictates of conscience and the pressure of human
situations determine the standard of obligation. For the mind of a sinful race partakes of
that depravity under which man is now held in bondage. The point at which morality can
be trusted cannot be ascertained.

Unless men see themselves in the light of God’s law and the redemptive work of Jesus
Christ, it will benefit nothing to use His name. Everything in the name of religion that
claims to free man’s spirit and life, without a corresponding moral and spiritual
transformation by Jesus Christ, is pernicious and self-deceiving.

A man who has toned down sin either by changing or rejecting the law of God will be in
no hurry to appropriate the atonement Christ provided for his sins. He will feel little need
for the dying "Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." And when man
stands before the judgment seat of God, if he has not experienced both the grace and the
power of God to save him from his sins, it will be too late. There is no greater need than
to make men conscious of their sins before God and their need of Christ.

No generation of Christians who have inhabited the earth ever carried such responsibility
as the present one for the restoration of the Decalogue as the word of God to man. In a
sinful world morality must have a firm foundation. Expediency can never yield moral
dependability. Given a defective moral code, the consequences will soon appear in
conduct. The Scripture speaks of the crumbling of the moral structure of today’s
civilization.

You must face the fact: the final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. Men will
love nothing but money and self; they will be arrogant, boastful, and abusive; with no
respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affection; they will be implacable in
their hatreds, scandal-mongers, intemperate and fierce, strangers to all goodness, traitors,
adventurers, swollen with self-importance. They will be men who put pleasure in the
place of God, men who preserve the outward form of religion, but are a standing denial of
its reality (2 Tim. 3:1-5, N.E.B.).

The remnant church of God has something very specific to say to the world. The day will
soon come when the eternal law of God will be very precious indeed. Men may seem not
to care to obey the law of God. But the time is just upon us when they will find out that
they have been sinning against God, that it is too late to repent and to get forgiveness.
Then the law of God will stand out clearly in the heavens for all men to see. Men whose
easy belief has led them into disobedience and the breakdown of moral integrity will find
themselves under the judgment of Christ. Again it is good to remember the words of
Christ:

"Not everyone who calls me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only
those who do the will of my heavenly Father. When that day comes, many will say to me,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out devils in your name, and in your
name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them to their face, ‘I never knew you; out
of my sight, you and your wicked ways!’

"What then of the man who hears these words of mine and acts upon them? He is like a
man who had the sense to build his house on rock. The rain came down, the floods rose,
the wind blew, and beat upon that house; but it did not fall, because its foundations were
on rock. But what of the man who hears these words of mine and doçs not act upon
them? He is like a man who was foolish enough to build his house on sand. The rain
came down, the floods rose, the wind blew, and beat upon that house; down it fell with a
great crash" (Matt. 7:21-27, N.E.B.).

Man’s Enmity Against the Law of God

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7).

Probably the most damning indictment of man is his natural enmity against the law of
God, against the righteousness which the law requires. Man by nature is contrary to the
law of God. Consequently, he does his utmost to get rid of it. He rebels against God in
this way.
The reason man does not obey God’s law is because he is not disposed to do so. The child
does not obey his parents unless he has the disposition to do so. Man does not love God
and obey His commandments unless he has the disposition to do so. His faculties and his
nature are so paralyzed by sin that they have lost their natural ability to obey God’s
commandments or accept their authority.

One must love God to keep His commandments. But enmity and love cannot coexist in
the mind. So long as enmity to God reigns in the heart, love to God cannot. We cannot
love God and hate Him at the same time. We cannot possess a rebellious, disobedient
spirit and an obedient one at the same time. The unregenerate man is so averse to the law
of God, that, left to himself, he will not obey it. Throughout the universe and in heaven
man is not known for any brilliance, physical strength, or beauty. He is known as a rebel
against God.

There is no way to change the depraved nature without the agency of the Holy Spirit. "No
man can come to me unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me" (John 6:44, N.E.B.).
Furthermore, unregenerate men feel that any demand for a strict obedience to the
Decalogue is a denial of personal freedom. Men believe that insistence upon that kind of
obedience infringes on their liberty. The unregenerate man tends to feel that God’s law
fetters him, denying him the free scope for his natural powers, capacities, and
inclinations. He rebels against the law of God in the name of freedom.

There was a time when, in the absence of law, I was fully alive; but when the
commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. The commandment which should have
led to life proved in my experience to lead to death, because sin found its opportunity in
the commandment, seduced me, and through the commandment killed me (Rom. 7:9-11,
N.E.B.).

But the false cry for freedom from obedience to the commandments does not make
bondage to sin-any less real. Man’s sin problem is not resolved by changing or abrogating
the law, but by having the Holy Spirit write God’s law in man’s entire being. Then enmity
is changed to love. The heart is changed, not the law. There is no lessening of man’s
responsibility to obey the law. Rather it is more clearly defined and accepted. Christ so
reigns in the Christian’s life that he has no further conflict with the law of God.

0 how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day (Ps. 119:97).

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. More to be desired are they
than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward
(Ps. 19:7-11).
Obedience keeps our peace with God. The more our lives witness to the obedience of
faith that works by love, the more encouragement and assurance we will have. The more
we disobey God, the more condemnation will mar our lives.

Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them (Ps. 119:165).

Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And
whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do
those things that are pleasing in his sight (1 John 3:2 1, 22).

The Unchangeable Law of God

As one studies the history of man, one could easily conclude that Satan has conspired
with sinful man against the law of God. Consequently, the moral standard and the claims
of God’s law have been greatly obscured. Daniel wrote of the time and the religious
power that would seek to pervert the law, and by so doing oppose God Himself.

And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the
most High, and think to change times and laws (Dan. 7:25).

One of the marked features of the world today is the departure from the law of God. Men
construe transgression in softer terms than the Word of God does. Man’s attitude amounts
to a laxness and a leniency with the claims of the law in favor of a very tolerant God of
love. Even with many churches the plea is for an openness of mind when considering any
kind of moral absolute. There is an absence of positive convictions on moral issues. All
of this leads people to no longer accept the law of God as binding. Men advance their
own laws and standards in place of God’s law.

It is also believed and proclaimed by many that one commandment is different from all
the rest: that the command to keep the seventh day as Sabbath can be amended to keep
Sunday, the first day of the week. If that could be done, the Ten Commandments are no
longer God’s unchanging will and moral standard for man. The question involved here is
whether the man who keeps Sunday holy has done what God commanded him to do. If
freedom in Christ means that in order to accommodate himself to his situation and relieve
his discomfort, man can modify, amend, add to, or change God’s law, how shall we
interpret Christ’s own statement: "I tell you this: so long as heaven and earth endure, not
a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Law until all that must happen has
happened" (Matt. 5:18, N.E.B.)?

If the exact requirement of the fourth commandment or any of the other commandments
can be changed by man, has he not usurped the place of God? Has he not denied the
eternal nature of the law of God proclaimed by Christ? Has not man now become the lord
of the Sabbath in the place of Christ? Jesus said, "Therefore the Son of man is Lord also
of the sabbath" (Mark 2:28). How do you change any one of the Ten Commandments
without breaking it and negating the whole law? (See James 2:10.)
Adam and Eve tried this and brought sin and death to the entire human race. King Saul
tried it. When God sent him to destroy Amalek, the deadly enemy of Israel, the command
was straightforward and uncompromising:

Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay
both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass (1 Sam. 15:2, 3).

What did Saul do?

And Saul smote the Amalekites. . . . But Saul . . spared Agag [the king of the
Amalekites], and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs,
and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. . . . Then came the word of the
Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I set up Saul to be king: for he is turned
back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments (1 Sam. 15:7-11).

Did Saul keep part of God’s specific command, or did he simply break all of it? Men
have always been wrong in supposing that the law of God could be changed or modified
in any particular. Only when man accepts the commandments of God as Christ did,
inviolate in all parts, does he look at his violations as sin against God. Everywhere in
Scripture, God has submitted His law to man only for complete obedience and never for
disobedience, even in any of the so-called minutial aspects.

Many religionists, churches, and denominations will not agree with this. The scriptural
demand that man keep God’s law in all its parts is unacceptable to men who insist on
accommodating the commandment to fit themselves. Because the law of God points out
sin and considers every infraction as transgression, men who wish to go their own way
find the law intolerable.

The only choice left is to reject obedience to the commandments or set up a system or an
interpretation accommodated to their own sinfulness. When this happens there results a
serious loss of respect for God’s commandments. Once this attitude becomes prevalent,
then the moral deterioration of both men and nations follows. This is what we see in our
society and in our world today. No moral stability remains. How small a portion of those
who profess to be Christians are unflinching advocates of God’s truth, upholders of the
law, sustainers of the Bible as the Word of God? How few are engaged in manning the
moral dikes and holding back the flood of transgression that is sweeping over the world!

Sinful man easily assumes that it is enough to believe the gospel, but be exempt from the
claims of God’s law. This is a dangerous error. For the warped judgment of the sinner
partakes of that transgression that he dismisses as unimportant. The requirements of
obedience must be perpetual regardless of our inability to do what the law requires. We
can never escape the demands of the law of God.

Dare we harbor the thought for one moment that God will allow us to transgress any of
His commandments? Can we really believe in a God who allows moral evil in any form
to continue? If we are truly honest with ourselves and accept the whole truth of the Bible,
we will believe that in committing our lives to Christ we ought also to obey Him and
keep His commandments. This is what the gospel had in mind in saving us from sin.
Everywhere the gospel honors the law.

The cry of "legalism" every time a Christian seeks to adhere strictly to keeping the whole
law does not hold weight anymore. Man’s problem today is not to be found in his trying
hard to obey the law, but in his desire and determination to be free from the law. There
have always been those who have hoped to become righteous by their own good works
and welldoing, hoping thereby to win favor with God. They have difficulty in accepting
salvation by faith alone.

The scribes and Pharisees in Christ’s day perverted the proper function of the law and the
doctrine of salvation by grace. They taught that the keeping of the commandments was
the prerequisite for becoming a child of God and not the result of it. In their religion they
drew their motivation from the law and not from God’s gift of salvation freely offered
solely on the basis of faith. Thus they became their own ideal by their own efforts, with a
false security based on self-righteousness. Christ repudiated the legalism of the Jews; so
did Paul and the other New Testament writers. Certainly there is opposition to the wrong
use of the law in the Bible.

It is more than unfortunate that many theologians, Bible interpreters, church leaders, and
the Christian church throughout much of its history have interpreted the New Testament
opposition to the wrong function of law as opposition to the law itself and to the moral
contents of the law. The tragic consequence is that many professed Christians have been
led to believe that strict obedience to all of the commandments is no longer obligatory.
But the moral content of the law is eternal. The moral and spiritual character of the Ten
Commandments is inviolate. The values of perfect goodness, perfect purity, perfect
honesty, perfect love, and perfect worship of the one true God that the law requires are
universal, embracing every one of God’s creatures throughout the universe, including the
angels.

Christ is not the end of the law; . . . He is the one person who meant to fulfill and did
fulfill the law. Christ, far from ending the law, put it on its proper footing (Rom. 3:31).
And the Spirit’s function within us is to enable us to fulfill the genuine demands of the
law (Rom. 8:4). What the law is, what the law reveals, what the law demands is not only
unassailable from the vantage point of Christ; man must bow before it in total
commitment as the revelation of God Himself.

The content of the law gets unconditional assent. But the function of the law is another
matter. Here things become more complex. There is an important distinction within the
function of the law. We can talk about its legitimate and intended function on the one
hand and its illegitimate and distorted function on the other. We can talk about the
function that God meant it to have and the function that people . . . invested it with.—
LEWIS B. SMEDES, All Things Made New, pp. 96, 97.
The purpose of the law is to show us our sins. The purpose of the gospel is to take away
our sins. We are not to apply the law where the gospel is to be applied. The law of God
does not fail. Nor does it lay aside the claims for obedience. Granted that the moral law
can be obeyed only by the man in Christ. The law of God is spiritual. It is addressed to
spiritual persons. The Christian should have no difficulty in rendering honor to the law by
his obedience to it. There is no conflict between the law and the gospel, only between
legalism and the gospel.

Strict adherence to the law of God is not legalism. The fact that a man insists on obeying
all of the Ten Commandments does not make him a legalist. Only when a man obeys the
law in order to gain acceptance and a standing with God is he a legalist. Only when he
attaches merit to his obedience to gain favor with God is he a legalist. Jesus Christ is
antilegalistic. But He is not antinomlan.

Compulsive obedience is unacceptable to God. Right doing apart from the right motive is
not saving righteousness. The righteousness of the Jews consisted in an externalization of
the law. For them external conformity was the fulfillment of the law. Christ rejected this.

For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20).

Jesus was just as particular about the "jots and the tittles" of the law as they were. But He
went beyond them in possessing a heart and mind in perfect harmony with the law. In His
life Christ showed what true obedience really involved. The law of God was eternally
vindicated in Jesus.

"If any man therefore sets aside even the least of the Law’s demands, and teaches others
to do the same, he will have the lowest place in the kingdom of Heaven, whereas anyone
who keeps the Law, and teaches others so, will stand high in the kingdom of Heaven"
(Matt. 5:19, N.E.B.).

According to this, every man’s place in the kingdom was to be determined on how he
obeyed the law and how he taught it. There was to be no tampering with it. Christ came
not to release his followers from their obligation to obey the law, but to give them
supernatural power to obey it by means of His own indwelling presence and that of the
Holy Spirit. Transgression of God’s law is nowhere approved in the Bible. It is excluded
under the gospel. The requirements are eternal. We must not allow ourselves to differ
with Christ by seeking to change or disobey any part of His law. To do so is to move
away from Christ.

The law and the gospel are complementary. Any teaching that weakens the authority of
God’s law obscures the sinfulness of man and diminishes the need for the saving work of
Christ. "The strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor. 15:56). "By the law is the knowledge of
sin" (Rom. 3:20). "Sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful."
"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good" (chap. 7:13,
12).
The law cannot restore a man to righteousness and obedience, but the gospel and the
Holy Spirit can. The gospel is good news because it provides the Christian power to be
saved from sin and do what hitherto he could not perform: obey God’s commandments.
The gospel manifests its full power and glory when the claims of the law are faithfully
sustained. The binding force of the law, so far from being weakened by the redeeming
work of Christ is, by virtue of that work, affirmed for all men. Just what would the gospel
do for the human race if it left men in their sins and their transgressions of the law? "By
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" (chap. 5:19). "What shall we say
then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid" (chap. 6:1, 2).

We are saved by grace through faith. This is the root of all obedience. Obedience is
nothing without faith. But neither is faith anything without obedience. Faith that does not
work by love to recover man to harmony with God is no faith. Salvation by grace is never
the minister of transgression.

But if the law of God can be changed or abrogated as some would like to believe, then no
longer is sin that serious. And if the law could be changed, then it was not necessary for
Christ to die for sin. The law and the gospel stand or fall together. The unchanging
obligation of the law of God is essential if the nature of sin is to be understood. Christ
died for our sins because there was no way to lessen the penalty for sin by lessening
man’s transgression of the law without at the same time diminishing the urgency of the
gospel.

To change the law of God cannot help man, for to abrogate it is simply to approve sin.

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no
adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so
do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty (James 2:10-12).

The Christian must make up his mind how he wants to live: either in harmony with and
obedience to God’s will or in disagreement with God.

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law
(Rom. 3:31).

It is no small thing that in being saved by Christ alone, men find that salvation is from sin
unto the fulfillment of the righteousness of the law, from disobedience unto obedience.
Men are not saved by great sacrifices or on account of obedience. At the same time a
living faith is not a lapse into a life of sin. It leads to no moral retardation. Assurance of
God’s forgiveness can never be without corresponding moral change. The children of
God must sow to themselves in righteousness, not in unrighteousness.

God is not only our heavenly Father, but our Lawgiver. He is so because He is also our
Creator, as He is of all things in the world and in the universe. This is apparent from the
orderliness of the universe and the absolute authority and consistency of natural law
throughout the physical realm. God never varies these natural laws. If God were
unreliable, changeable, inconsistent in upholding and directing these laws, utter chaos
would prevail. Science confirms the absolute dependability of the laws by which God
runs our world and our universe. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the
firmament sheweth his handywork" (Ps. 19:1). We thank God then for His consistency
and His dependability. We rejoice in it. We would not have it any other way.

Since God rules our physical world by law, is it not equally important that God should
insist upon the rule of the moral law within the realm of rationally free beings? God
created us to live in harmony with Himself and with all other beings in the universe. Man
was made in the image of God, endowed with that very same nature from God. God
would not be God if, at Creation, He had not given man a moral standard akin to His own
character, intelligently understood and morally and spiritually approved and obeyed by
all His creatures. There is every reason to rejoice that our heavenly Father requires His
children to live by the life that is in Himself, by the moral code that He Himself is. Jesus
Christ on earth lived His life in absolute obedience to the will of His Father, the very life
that God intended us to live.

Let men travel to the uttermost parts of the universe, to the planets and to the stars if
possible. They will be confronted everywhere with the unalterable declaration of God’s
laws concerning what is good and what is evil. God’s law both in nature and in all created
beings will encompass them like the very atmosphere itself.

Before long the heavens surrounding our world, and the earth itself, will pass away with a
great noise at the coming of Christ. All that is sinful and involved in the transgression of
God’s law will be forever eradicated. But never will the moral law inherent in the very
nature of God be changed. Today the remnant church calls upon men and women
everywhere to honor both the law and the everlasting gospel. Fidelity to the moral law
and to the will of God is the lodestar amid the moral degeneracy of our time.

The Obedience of Love

At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath
my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall
be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him (John 14:20,
21).

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s
commandments, and abide in his love (chap. 15:9, 10).

In this passage Christ promises His disciples the Holy Spirit with its love dynamic. "The
fruit of the Spirit is love" (Gal. 5:22). This love for Christ is no sentimental emotion in
the heart. It is expressed by obedience to His commandments, by a type of morality that
truly knows how to obey with a "faith which worketh by love" (verse 6). The obedience
of love is the mark of our total allegiance to Christ. "If ye love me, keep my
commandments" (John 14:15). Love to Christ is expressed in moral terms. Obedience is
the test of discipleship. "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" (chap.
15:14).

There was never a day when men talked so much about love, and yet the word means so
little or is so shallowly understood. One of the great deceptions in modern reli~gion is the
unwillingness of men to understand and accept the love of God upon the terms laid down
by Jesus Christ. The tragedy of our day is the degrading of life and love because people
will not relate love to the law of God. Certainly the world needs the love of God, but it
must be a love that we can trust: intelligent, clean, honest, based on eternal values, and
proceeding from the Spirit of God.

From the above scriptures we learn that Christian love moves within the circle of the will
and the law of God, never outside of it. Christian freedom is freedom to obey the
commandments, not freedom to disobey. The type of freedom that wants only the feeling
of love and the right to express it any way men please, without restraint and self-control,
is a conterfeit. [sic]We need the law of God to sit in judgment on that which is not
Christian in our lives, to judge our sins for what they are. We do not want to be deceived.
We want a righteous God we can trust, not a doting "man upstairs" who will let us do
anything we have a mind to do.

We have developed in our time a type of Christianity that acknowledges no obligation to

the commandments. There is a moral permissiveness that is being sanctioned by modern
Christianity. All over the world the law of God is being silenced. People are being fed a
type of religion or gospel that has little or no appeal to genuine Christian obedience.
Today we have a conscienceless religion with no moral dynamic. We have belief that
does not influence behavior. We have love without responsibility. We have an easy calling
upon Jesus Christ without real commitment, a climate of compromise with sin and moral
standards. Much of religion is in name only.

It is of primary importance that we hold true to both the law and the gospel and steadily
remember the fact of God’s absolute and eternal antagonism to sin and the transgression
of His law. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil" (Prov. 8:13). Transgression of God’s law
never aids in the fulfillment of man. It invariably destroys man.

But the law of God lacks the power to motivate man to obedience.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit (Rom. 8:3, 4).

Man cannot obey the law in his own strength. The law is man’s master. As Paul states it,
the unconverted sinner is "under law," or under its dominion. He is bound by the law. The
pressure of the law does not change a man.
We know that the law is spiritual: but I am not: I am unspiritual, the purchased slave of
sin. I do not even acknowledge my own actions as mine, for what I do is not what I want
to do, but what I detest. But if what I do is against my will, it means that I agree with the
law and hold it to be admirable. . . . For I know that nothing good lodges in me—in my
unspiritual nature (Rom. 7:14-18, N.E.B.).

At once it becomes apparent that man can never meet God’s requirements in his own
strength. The law can point men to God’s moral ideal, but it does not show the way to
reach it.

The law of God claims perfect obedience and fulfillment from the heart. It not only
exercises dominion over outward actions, but over the very intents and desires of the
heart. The law of God condemns the whole circle of wrong actions and wrong motives.
Not only killing is forbidden, but also hate; not only the act of adultery, but lust. Not only
external acts of disobedience are forbidden, but every wrong motive and intent. Far from
giving His followers a new or a changed law, Christ insisted upon an inner, as well as an
outer, obedience to the Ten Commandments. (See Matt. 5:2 1, 22, 27, 28.)

The law of God can pressure man to conform externally, but it cannot produce true
obedience. Within the family, it can require external obedience, but it cannot make
children love their parents. It can make a man conform socially so as to refrain from
stealing, but it cannot make him honest in heart. It can prevent a man from killing
another, but not from hating him. It can require a man to have only one wife, but it cannot
make the husband loving. It can require a man to obey the law of the state, but it cannot
make him do that with gladness and enjoyment.

In short, the law cannot change a man’s heart so that his overt acts now flow from the
highest and best motives. The law cannot produce in man what can come about only
when a man’s heart is in harmony with God. That is why we cannot solve the sin problem
by changing or doing away with the law. Motivation lies beyond the power of the law.
The law cannot produce love. But Christ can. "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom.
13:10).

That is what the gospel offers: a change of heart and mind that makes the whole of man’s
conduct an expression of what a man really is. The Christian in whom the Spirit dwells
has a mind renewed in the love of God and the love of righteousness. We now have the
exalted privilege to live as sons of God. Our heart and life belong to God. All the benefits
of salvation in Christ constitute the most powerful motive to keep God’s commandments.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the
Lord; I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to
them a God, and they shall be to me a people (Heb. 8:10).

We must follow what is truly in our hearts. When the Spirit writes the law in our hearts,
the heart will desire and delight in that law. This means that man s inmost life is changed
and expressed in terms of harmony with and obedience to the law. When Paul writes that
God sent His Son into the world to condemn sin and cause us to walk after the Spirit (see
Rom. 8:3), he means that the power of the Spirit has now entered into our lives in order
that we may be able to live out the righteousness that the law requires. In our lives the
Holy Spirit unites both the law and the gospel.

Love is not motivated or bound by law. Love never puts limits on our obedience and
commitment with the idea that we have done enough. Love is the enjoyment of God and
man. Love born of the Holy Spirit is the supreme spiritual quality and experience that we
can know. It defines the nature and quality of our response and our involvement with God
and man. We now "delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Rom. 7:22). We
rejoice that the righteousness of the law is part of our very lives. Everything about the
law of God is now attractive. We walk in newness of life. We have a new spiritual
dynamic, the constraint of love.

No greater stress is laid in Scripture than on the attributes of love and righteousness. To
say that God is love is no contradiction of His divine revelation in the Ten
Commandments. Both at Sinai and on the cross God moves toward us in perfect love and
perfect righteousness. Here we see clearly the kind of love that God has for us, the kind
of love and righteousness of the earth made new. God grant us understanding and
confidence in the historical facts of these divine revelations. What human brain could
have invented either the Decalogue or the divine atonement for sin at the cross? Man’s
trust in and obedience to God’s revelation of law and gospel has kept the human race
alive even until now, and ennobled and sanctified His followers in every age.

We need to commit ourselves to that love from God and from His Son Jesus Christ that
issues in our deliverance from all that is sinful. Let us give full scope to His incomparable
love and law in our lives. The power of the Holy Spirit within us is sufficient to make us
like Him, to keep His commandments, and to know Him whom to know is life eternal.

10
ONE
FAITH—
ONE MISSION

THE CHRISTIAN mission is the mission of Jesus Christ. It is identified with our Lord’s
purpose in coming into the world:

There is one body and one Spirit, as there is also one hope held out in God’s call to you;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through
all and in all (Eph. 4:4-6, N.E.B.).

Christ’ s mission was unique, incomparable to anything seen or communicated in the

world before or since. It involved all members of the Godhead for the redemption of
sinners. The honor of God throughout the universe was at stake. The final eradication of
sin and the reign of righteousness depended upon the life and work of Jesus Christ.

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19: 10).

I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in
darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not
to judge the world, but to save the world (John 12:46, 47).

The object of God’s redeeming love is the world (see John 3:16). The whole world is
ruined and lost by sin and death. This problem has not been resolved by the golden ages
of human greatness. The saving power of the everlasting gospel transcends all human
effort and human organization. Christ is the supreme saving dynamic from God. The
gospel is not to be interpreted as social improvement, however important that may appear
to men. God’s supreme action in and through His Son. Jesus Christ, does not permit us to
shift the gospel emphasis to human improvement.

But Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that is God’s own proof of his love
towards us. And so, since we have now been justified by Christ’s sacrificial death, we
shall all the more certainly be saved through him from final retribution. For if, when we
were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much
more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. But that is not all: we
also exult in God through our Lord Jesus, through whom we have now been granted
reconciliation (Rom. 5:8-11, N.E.B.).

The central feature of Christianity is the redemption of man through the righteousness of
Christ and His sacrificial death, appropriated and received by faith. The most persistent
and disturbing truth regarding the natural man is that he stands hopelessly lost as a
condemned sinner before God, unless some message and some power from beyond
himself come to his rescue.

The Mission Assigned

Christ has commissioned His church with the message to win men to Him, to
acknowledge Him as the world’s Saviour and Lord. After His resurrection and before His
final departure from the world, Christ commissioned His disciples to take the gospel to
every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

Jesus then came up and spoke to them. He said: "Full authority in heaven and on earth
has been committed to me. Go forth therefore and make all nations my disciples; baptize
men everywhere in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach
them to observe all that I have commanded you. And be assured, I am with YOU always,
to the end of time" (Matt. 28:18-20, N.E.B.).

The disciples clearly understood their divine mission to the world. They were the chosen
instruments to carry the message of redemption to all men and to win the world for
Christ. The Holy Spirit was poured out upon them for the specific purpose of
empowering them to take the gospel to all the world. Nothing else was to claim their
attention. With this in mind Christ proclaimed His followers to be the "salt of the earth"
and "the light of the world" (Matt. 5:13, 14). A vast harvest of redeemed persons would
result, bringing about the kingdom of God.

Thus all Christians share in the obligation and the power of Christ’s mission. The church
is a living body through which Christ lives and works. No other organized body of men
can make this claim. Any interpretation of the Christian faith that finds in social, civil,
and national improvement the fulfillment of God’s purpose does injustice to the gospel
and leaves man in a lost condition. Man’s salvation and recovery are bound up with the
gospel. God does not make the best efforts of men the instruments of His grace and love
for man. The gospel commission is Christ-centered, not man-centered. To enlist people in
social work is not necessarily to enlist them for Christ. It is possible to do successful
social and civic work and yet leave men alienated from God.

What then is the relation of the gospel commission to the problems of society and of
mankind? Of all peoples, Christians should have the greatest compassion for all men,
manifested in works of unselfish sacrifice, social and health service. No Christian can
remain indifferent to the injustice done to the peoples of the world. The church’s witness
to the saving power of the gospel is not incompatible with the removal of the evils of
society. The gospel is relevant to every human situation. Christ died for the world. The
church must not retreat from it. But the church is not to be satisfied with temporal
solutions. What is crucial is the supernatural power to change individuals. The church
must recognize its priorities.

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you
(Matt. 6:31-33).

The social gospel has much to commend it to popular favor. It affects a high degree of
respectability. It possesses social and moral influence. Wherever man rules with justice
and compassion, great benefits accrue to man. We accept with gratitude all the efforts of
men to rule the nations well. We have a deep appreciation for earnest people, moved by
compassion for the masses of suffering and oppressed humanity, who devote their lives
that men may be lifted to a better plane of living on the earth.

But social salvation is a rather meaningless term, for there is no real salvation by such
means. Human improvement on any level is but a side issue to the paramount one. It may
answer for social growth, but it has no adequate conception of the sinfulness of sin, the
lost condition of men, and what it takes to be saved. Human endeavor to establish a
millennium of peace and prosperity fails to understand and deal with man’s basic
problem: his sin and consequent separation from God.
There is danger in thinking that the root of man’s problems is not in man’s sinful nature,
but in his poor environment; that given a the application of the increased skill and
wisdom of men, a new world order may be established. The bearing of this question upon
the work of the church is crucial. The inevitable tendency of any theory and practice—
social, political, or international—that places man at the center of his world must end
with the rejection of Christ.

To believe that sinful man will triumph over his selfishness and reach a millennium of
peace has no Bible support whatsoever. The very facts of world conditions and trends are
contrary to that belief. The spirit of evil is becoming dominant throughout the world.
Christ compared our day to the days prior to the destruction of the world by the Flood.

"Heaven and earth will pass away; my words will never pass away. . . . As things were in
Noah’s days, so will they be when the Son of Man comes. In the days before the flood
they ate and drank and married, until the day that Noah went into the ark, and they knew
nothing until the flood came and swept them all away. That is how it will be when the
Son of Man comes (Matt. 24:35-39, N.E.B.).

Our Lord treated all earthly matters, public and political, from a spiritual viewpoint. He
was not entangled in them, though He was aware of them. He came to bring and establish
the kingdom of God. The fundamental element in Christianity is the love of God for
individual sinners. This lies at the basis of all divine activity for man. On this alone
depends the good of society and of the individual. Christ belongs to all time. Amid a
world tottering to its ruin, His message offers the one way of redemption and ultimate
triumph. The church is not interested in either white or black supremacy, but in Christ
supremacy. We seek the enthronement of Christ on earth and not the rule of man. Until
sin and self are uprooted and Christ placed at the center of life, there is no way to make
better men and women.

It is possible to join an organization for the improvement of working and living

conditions and still remain outside of Christ. Within the organized groups of both social
and civil efforts there is a clear delusion as to the nature of the change taking place. Such
efforts cannot change man any more than "the Ethiopian [can] change his skin or the
leopard his spots" (Jer. 13:23). The social gospel presents a false perspective. Group
pressure interests men in social adjustments rather than in heart righteousness, in outward
conformity rather than in an inner change, in temporal betterment rather than eternal
wellbeing. It is preoccupied with the benefits of this life and forgetful of one’s eternal
destiny. Its objectives are good, but it asserts the autonomy of man, which is
consequently followed by independence from God. No basic changes can take place until
the sinner returns home to his heavenly Father.

The spiritual problems of men are of first consequence. Each man needs above all
personally to be reconciled to God. To condemn the learned and devoted efforts of men to
improve world conditions would be wrong. We believe in the sincerity and concern of
many who seek a better world. The question is not to deny the temporal value of such
efforts, but to question the outcome—whether they leave men in their sins. The Bible
declares that world civilization cannot be saved. Only individuals can.

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body (Rom. 8:22, 23).

The God of heaven [shall] set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the
kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all
these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever (Dan. 2:44).

The Mission Completed

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to
preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue,
and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his
judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the
fountains of waters.... Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the
commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus (Rev. 14:6, 7, 12).

The final gospel message to the world summons the remnant church to a mighty spiritual
conflict, but not to a doubtful one. The time for the triumph of the everlasting gospel is
near. The church of God anticipates and proclaims the triumph of the coming Son of God.
From His priestly throne in the heavenly sanctuary Christ administers redemption and
judgment. He directs the affairs and movements of His church to a final consummation,
to certain and eternal victory.

Over against our High Priest and King there stands the prince of darkness. He is called
the prince of this world. He also has a kingdom and agents through which he rules with
demonic power over his subjects. Scripture declares that the great enemy of Christ and of
His church is combining his forces for a last assault upon God’s truth and God’s people.

And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of
her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ
(Rev. 12:17).

In these last days God has not left Himself without a witness. Two things are said of
God’s remnant church: She keeps the commandments of God and has the testimony of
Jesus Christ.

Central to the divine mission of the remnant church are the great truths of the Word of
God. They include the following: the personal Being and nature of God, the Creation of
this world, the nature of man, his Fall and depravity, the nature of Christ the God-man,
the Bible as the Word of God, the nature and work of the Holy Spirit, righteousness by
faith alone, the law of God and the obedience of faith, the mortality of man, and the
imminent return of Jesus Christ.

The remnant church’s view of the future of the world in terms of the imminent return of
Christ is of incalculable importance to the way its members order their lives and the
mission of the church itself. What right has any church to assume that its mission is to
proclaim God’s last message to the world? The day of commitment to the whole truth of
God’s Word is here. With the spread of religious revivals and claims of encounters with
the supernatural, how are religious people to know what is true and what is false?

The people of God are directed to the Scriptures as their safeguard against the influence
of false teachers and the delusive power of spirits of darkness. Satan employs every
possible device to prevent men from obtaining a knowledge of the Bible; for its plain
utterances reveal his deceptions. At every revival of God’s work the prince of evil is
aroused to more intense activity; he is now putting forth his utmost efforts for a final
struggle against Christ and His followers. The last great delusion is soon to open before
us. . . . So closely will the counterfeit resemble the true that it will be impossible to
distinguish between them except by the Holy Scriptures. By their testimony every
statement and every miracle must be tested. . . . None but those who have fortified the
mind with the truths of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict.—The Great
Controversy, pp. 593, 594.

To get men to use the name of Jesus Christ without obedience to the Word of God is
reason for distrust. Confusion is greatest where there is an "easy-believism" without a
sound Biblical content. The remnant church calls on men to go the whole way with
Christ, to welcome whatever God says in His Word and be obedient to it. The spiritual
solvent of religious revivals is not in the use of the name "Jesus" apart from the claims of
God’s Word. Let not the use of the name "Jesus" outrun the claims of the Word of God.

At recurring periods in the history of the church there have been religious revivals, all
involving a return to Jesus Christ. The question of belief in the Scriptures and
commitment to the truth of God is far more complicated today. For many, the gospel has
become crystallized in one simple response: "Believe in Jesus." Certainly we would not
wish to criticize this response as opposed to the gospel of Christ. The first impulse is to
approve and acclaim all manifestation of the Spirit and appeals to the person of Jesus. But
we are reminded of Christ’s caution in Matthew 7: 21-23 that men may call on Jesus
without being obedient to His Word, that when men do this and are careless about
obedience to the faith once given to the saints Christ rejects their claim to discipleship.

When we consider modern religious revivals whose only requisite is their claim to an
encounter with the spirit world, we turn to the Word of God as the only true test and
safeguard.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because
many false prophets are gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).
The faith of the remnant church is in the guidance and control of the Holy Spirit through
an intelligent understanding of the Word of God. We insist that Christians must be trained
to think clearly on the Word and on their responsibility to it before they join any church.
All who profess to follow Christ must be instructed in the revealed truth of God in
Scripture.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect,
throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:16, 17).

With the present emphasis by the remnant church upon obeying the commandments, men
may assert that we are moving from Christ as the pivot of the faith. But this is not so.
There is no incompatibility between calling upon Jesus and obeying the Word of God. To
follow Christ all the way means to find no fault with any part of the Scriptures. There is
no disagreement between eternal salvation by faith in Christ and obedience to His
commandments. Men need to be on guard against the superficial and faithless
interpretations of what God’s Word requires. There is sure guidance only by the Holy
Spirit through the Word. We commend to all men that which is attainable by the power of
the Holy Spirit, a life of righteousness and obedience to Christ and to His commandments
and dedication to the service of God.

The danger with much of modern religious revival is that man’s apostasy from the
teachings and commandments of God’s Word is hidden under this use of and appeal to
Jesus. Christ is not experienced in the life by just using His name. Faith is not an affair of
sentimentalism. Christ is not known by imagination and ecstasy. Religion without a clear
understanding of and obedience to the truth of the Bible stands in peril of satanic
delusion. To shout the name "Jesus" without obedience to His teachings and His
commandments is a denial of the faith.

Francis A. Schaeffer, in his book Escape From Reason, has put it this way:

I have come to the point where, when I hear the word "Jesus"—which means so much to
me because of the Person of the historic Jesus and His work—I listen carefully because I
have with sorrow become more afraid of the word "Jesus" than almost any other word in
the modern world. The word is used as a contentless banner, and our generation is invited
to follow it. But there is no rational, scriptural content by which to test it, and thus the
word is being used to teach the very opposite things from those which Jesus taught. . .

We have come then to this fearsome place where the word "Jesus" has become the enemy
of the Person Jesus, and the enemy of what Jesus taught. We must fear this contentless
banner of the word "Jesus," not because we do not love Jesus, but because we do love
Him. FRANCIS A. SCHAEFER, Escape From Reason (Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1971), p. 78.

We live in an age in which self-indulgence, reckless extravagance, and dishonest

principles pervade large communities and organizations. Our world mission must
continue in spite of economic crises. Those living in darkness still need the light of the
gospel of Christ. The Christian mission is not a negative thing, our personal escape from
eternal damnation. The most important thing is not what we are saved from but what we
are redeemed for. Redemption in Christ is never an escape from life. We are saved from
sin in order to live for Christ.

In the matter of communication and financial ability we appear to have outstripped our
communication of Christ. Trained, promoted, pressed, and urged in money-raising
projects we have acquired a facility for contacting people, which brings in large sums of
money. Both the church and the ministry are good at getting people to canvass for
financial contributions. We know how to ask for funds. Do we know equally well how to
press for souls?

Stewardship is a way of life, not for money’s sake, not by external compulsion, but by
inward principle. The means to fulfill our divinely given mission to the world must flow
freely and more generously. Stewardship is not a practice forced on the unwilling, but a
living faith and a way of life. Every Christian is a steward of God for all he is and has.
Stewardship takes in all of life.

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have
committed unto him against that day. Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast
heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was
committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us (2 Tim. 1:12-14).

"The Spirit of Prophecy"

The remnant of the seed of the church is said not only to keep the commandments, but
also to have "the testimony of Jesus," which "testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"
(Rev. 12:17; 19:10). Both of these are part of our mission.

The testimony of Jesus is that which Jesus Himself bore. It is also the truth that He taught
and mediated through His apostles and prophets. The apostle John was the divinely
commissioned prophet to whom God showed the visions of Revelation. In the presence of
God he heard in words clear and loud the command to write in a book that which had
been shown and spoken to him and to make all this known to the seven designated
churches in Asia Minor.

To the remnant church, Laodicea, Christ addressed Himself as the "faithful and true
witness" (chap. 3:14). Consequently, any witness or testimony from Jesus through a
prophet bears great significance. The Laodicean church has such a testimony from Jesus
through Ellen G. White. The prophet or messenger is the agent who communicates the
message or the word of truth. This testimony is not the witness of the messenger’s own
Christian experience, but what Christ gives to the church through that messenger about
Himself and His Word. Hence this testimony is invariably and closely connected with
what is known as the Word of God.
The church’s responsibility is to adhere faithfully to that testimony from Jesus Christ. The
messenger is not at the focal point at all. Christ and his message are of supreme
importance. The writings of Ellen White are for the disclosure of God’s will and purpose
to the remnant church. There can be no idolizing of man or woman. The Word of God to
the remnant church has divine authority. That fact gives the Word certainty and power.
And because the message given through Ellen G. White is Christ’s own testimony, we
accept it.

This is not an unreasonable or false claim. The Bible writers were men chosen of God to
mediate God’s messages and truths to men. The writings of Ellen White call men back to
the Bible and to the will of God. Unfortunately, in our professedly enlightened age, men
often consider themselves too wise to turn from themselves to receive a message from
God. But one has to make a choice. Ellen White’s messages from God were given for this
last age of the world. These messages have enlightening power, convicting power, and
judging power.

The test of truth is her witness to the Word of God, for it was not to some mystical inward
experience. Invariably her appeal is to the objective content of Bible truth and doctrine or
a revealed message from God Himself. Nowhere does Ellen White surrender the
objective Biblical authority in favor of spirit phenomena. Her messages from God are
communicated in a clear, intelligent, coherent voice. Spiritually, her writings are not
measured in terms of psychical phenomena. Her witness to Christ and to the truth of the
Bible is never swallowed up in a process of mystical sounds and ecstasy.

She declares in clear tones the soon coming of the Lord. We should not leave her
messages unexplored. Her testimony centers in the redemptive work of Christ and His
righteousness. Her words are possessed of remarkable rational and emotional maturity.
The impact of her own consecrated personality is felt by the reader who seeks to hear the
voice of God and to learn His will.

Ellen White presents the larger view of the issues in the great controversy between Christ
and Satan. Boldly and directly, yet lovingly, she appeals to men and women to follow
Christ and obey His commandments. She proclaims the gospel to the present-day
situation. She has not shunned to declare all the counsel of God. This prophetic note no
one should doubt. She speaks and writes with the spiritual conviction that the success of
the mission and the message of the church is founded on the truth of the Holy Scriptures.
Thus she calls men back to God and to His Word.

"The Hour of God’s Judgment Has Come" (Rev. 14:7, N.E.B.).

Judgment is one of the keynotes of this final message to the world. The remnant church
does not believe that the kingdom of God will come by the efforts and programs of men,
but by a judgment from God Himself that decides the destiny of all men. The urgency of
the message that brings all men to the judgment seat of God in our time is rarely given its
proper place in most of the preaching of the gospel. The time of the end climaxes with a
divine judgment in the heavenly sanctuary. The setting of the three angels’ messages
begins with the assembling of the high court of heaven at a fixed period of time that ends
with the return of Christ. This judgment will lead to the triumph of the saints and the
reign of God.

Christ gave an explicit warning in His parable of the ten virgins, five of whom were wise
and five foolish (see Matt. 25:1-13). This parable describes the judgment of the entire
church. The lamps symbolize those who profess the Christian faith and the churches to
which they belong. The oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The flame in the lamps points to
the genuine Christian experience produced by the power of the Holy Spirit. The central
emphasis of the parable is the necessity for having an adequate supply of the Holy Spirit
in the life that will carry us through to the judgment and the coming of Christ.

The five foolish virgins took oil in their lamps, but only enough to last for a short time.
The supply of oil failed at the critical moment and prevented them from securing from
Christ a judgment in their favor and an entrance into the kingdom of God. No scripture
speaks to us more clearly as to the folly of believing once saved always saved, with the
false assurance that because one started out on the Christian way, he can glide the rest of
the way safely into the kingdom of heaven.

This parable applies to the age immediately preceding the second coming of Christ. The
five foolish virgins who ran out of oil are in the same class as the man in Christ’s parable
of the wedding feast who accepted the king’s invitation to the banquet and went in among
the guests. Because this man did not have on the wedding garment provided by the king,
symbolizing the righteousness of Christ, he was cast out.

Two things are clearly set forth in these parables: the absolute necessity of trusting in and
experiencing Christ’s righteousness and the necessity of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
We are being judged now. Every hour that passes bears witness before God to what we
are. We ourselves are putting in the evidence day after day. The Judge is already sitting. It
is this fact that gives solemnity and dignity to life. Christ has made full provision and
ministers continually the power of an endless life.

This sinful world has almost run its course. Christ will soon appear with catastrophic
suddenness. The "elements shall melt with fervent heat" (2 Peter 3:10-14). Conditions
will get worse and worse until the conflict of nations will threaten the world (see 2 Tim.
3:1-5).

The purpose of God’s final message goes far beyond social and economic utopia. The
only solution for the agonies of men is the rule of Christ upon the earth. The only hope is
that Christ will quickly assert His sovereign rule by His personal, bodily return as King of
kings and Lord of lords. Ultimately Christ will build a new earth upon the ruins of the
old.

Let us discharge this divine commission with heaven-born, Spirit-born passion. Then we
may be assured that the remnant church will, despite all opposition, march on from
 victory to victory. For it is ever true: "In all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us" (Rom. 8:37).

ADDITIONAL
READING
Dillistone, F. W. The Significance of the Cross. London: Lutterworth Press, 1944, 201 pp.

Dodd, C. H. Gospel and Law. New York: Columbia University Press, 1951, 81 pp.

Lenski, R. C. H. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Columbus, Ohio: Wartburg Press, 1945,
933 pp.

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Win.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1959, 320 pp.

Morris, Leon. The Story of the Cross. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1957, 128 pp.

Ritschl, Albrecht. The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation. Edinburgh:

T. and T. Clark, 1900, 680 pp.

Robinson, N. T. G. Faith and Duty. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950, 147 pp.

Schaeffer, Francis A. The Church Before the Watching World. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-
Varsity Press, 1971, 105 pp.

Simpson, A. B. The Holy Spirit or Power From on High, vols. 1 and 2 . Harrisburg:
Christian Publications, Inc., 293 pp., 286 pp.

Smith, C. Ryder. The Bible Doctrine of Salvation. London: The Epworth Press, 1941, 263
pp.

Stevens, George Barker. The Christian Doctrine of Salvation. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark,
1909, 536 pp.

Stott, John R. W. Basic Christianity. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1958, 144 pp.

Watson, Philip S. Let God Be God. London: Epworth Press, 1947, 177 pp.