Friday: Further Study: How To Be Saved
Further Study: Ellen G. White, Repentance,
p. 23-32, in Steps to Christ.
— Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ, p. 26.
We can no more repent without the Spirit of Christ to awaken the conscience than we can be pardoned without Christ.
As we behold the Lamb of God upon the cross of Calvary, the mystery of redemption begins to unfold to our minds and the goodness of God leads us to repentance. In dying for sinners, Christ manifested a love that is incomprehensible; and as the sinner beholds this love, it softens the heart, impresses the mind, and inspires contrition in the soul.
–Pages 26, 27.
The humble and broken heart, subdued by genuine repentance, will appreciate something of the love of God and the cost of Calvary; and as a son confesses to a loving father, so will the truly penitent bring all his sins before God. And it is written,
1 John 1:9. –Page 41.If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Discussion Questions:
- Many try to drown their sense of guilt with alcohol, drugs, worldly pleasures, or by cramming their lives with frenzied activities. Why do none of these methods really work? How would you help someone who is in this condition to find the true solution for guilt?
- It is possible to recognize our sins without bearing
fruits worthy of repentance.
Why isn’t that true repentance? What is the value of these fruits? Are they good works done in order to gain God’s favor? Explain your answer. - Discuss the fact that Christ’s righteousness is free, but not cheap. Although we do not have to pay for it, the Lord had to pay an infinite price at the cross. Think about how fallen we are, and how serious sin must be, that it took something as
extreme
as the death of the Son of God Himself in order to save us from the consequences of sin.
(14)
Jesus stated: "If I be lifted up, I will draw all to myself." The Bible describes God's Lamb as slain from the foundation of the world.
Ellen White in her book Education, p 263, tells us that the cross was a manifestation to our dull senses of the suffering God was subjected to from the beginning when sin broke the harmony in heaven.
Quite often we focus on the cross, forgetting that, figuratively speaking God was on the cross right from the beginning. God did not require that Jesus be rejected by his chosen people. Jesus did his utmost to convince the Jewish leaders that he was the promised Messiah and rightful King.
We tend to view the cross as an event in history when in fact it is a process that started with the rebellion of Lucifer and will terminate with his final destruction.
The Angel Gabriel predicted that Jesus would inherit the throne of his Father David. This could have been a reality. The future was open to the Jewish nation. Both the death of Jesus was predicted and his sitting on the throne of David. Both alternatives were open to them.
This is why Jesus wept over Jerusalem with the following words: "If even you had comprehended what pertains to your peace. Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, but he also lamented the blindness of his people concerning the glorious future that was open to them.
In the Old Testament we find both the description of a glorious future of the Holy City and the death of the Messiah. The Jews had the power to choose between those two opposite alternatives.
This is why Ellen said that God's promises and his threatening are contingent on the choice we make. The future is not set in cement, but rather open to us!