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The Plan of Redemption, May 18
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According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. 2 Peter 1:3.
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The plan of salvation is but dimly comprehended by the Christian world. Man, as now taught by men who claim to have a knowledge of the Scriptures, can never know the extent of his fallen, degraded condition; but the mission of Christ will reveal the truth as it is in Jesus. Man can know the depths to which he has sunk only by beholding the wondrous chain of redemption employed to draw him up. The extent of our ruin can be discerned only in the light of the law of God exhibited in the cross of Calvary. The wonderful plan of redemption must be discerned in the death of Christ.
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The world by its own wisdom cannot acquire a correct knowledge of the true and living God. When Christ came to this world, clothing His divinity with humanity, the treatment He received from the highest authorities of a nation that professed to know God, made fully manifest the strength of human wisdom and reason. Their reason could not form a correct idea of God through His way and works.
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Only through faith in Christ is it possible for man to live the law. Man is not able to save himself, but the Son of God fights his battles for him, and places him on vantage ground by giving him His divine attributes. And as man accepts the righteousness of Christ, he is a partaker of the divine nature. He may keep the commandments of God, and live. Says Peter: ... “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
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The truth as it is in Jesus is obedience to every precept of Jehovah. It is heart work. Bible sanctification is not the spurious sanctification which will not search the Scriptures, but will trust to good feeling and impulses rather than to the seeking for truth as for hidden treasure. Bible sanctification will lead its possessors to know the requirements of God and to obey them. There is a pure and holy heaven in store for those who keep Gods commandments. It is worth lifelong, persevering, untiring effort. Satan is on your right hand and on your left; he is before you and behind. He supplies his falsehoods to every soul who is not cherishing the truth as it is in Jesus. He, the destroyer, is upon you to palsy your every effort. But there is a crown of life to be won, a life that measures with the life of God. And those who do not close their hearts and minds to conviction will learn what the love of a holy and righteous God is; for it is an amazing principle, which works in a mysterious and wonderful manner to secure the salvation of the race (The Review and Herald, February 8, 1898).
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