Friday: Further Thought ~ To Love the Lord Your God
Further Thought:
“The cross of Christ will be the science and the song of the redeemed through all eternity. In Christ glorified they will behold Christ crucified. Never will it be forgotten that He whose power created and upheld the unnumbered worlds through the vast realms of space, the Beloved of God, the Majesty of heaven, He whom cherub and shining seraph delighted to adore — humbled Himself to uplift fallen man; that He bore the guilt and shame of sin, and the hiding of His Father’s face, till the woes of a lost world broke His heart and crushed out His life on Calvary’s cross.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
That the Maker of all worlds, the Arbiter of all destinies, should lay aside His glory and humiliate Himself from love to man will ever excite the wonder and adoration of the universe. As the nations of the saved look upon their Redeemer and behold the eternal glory of the Father shining in His countenance; as they behold His throne, which is from everlasting to everlasting, and know that His kingdom is to have no end, they break forth in rapturous song: ‘Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by His own most precious blood!’” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, pages 651, 652.
Discussion Questions:
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It is October 22, the 187th anniversary of the Great Disappointment. Perhaps it is time to reflect on our mission and our expectations. This week we have been reminded of the first and greatest commandment; To love God with all our heart. And its corollary; To love one another. Those are the "big picture" commandments and sometimes our spiritual lives have been jam-packed with filling in the detail. I could start a lively discussion on health, wedding rings, women's ordination, defining the edges of the Sabbath, government control, tithe paying, and so on. But the really big issue is; "Where is our heart?"
Jesus showed us how. He died on the cross. He was God. He could have zapped his crucifiers into an ephemeral mist if he wanted to. But, he did not stick up for his rights. He did not ask for a properly defined court of justice. He did not save himself.
The point is not lost, that in the act of not saving himself, he saved others. And in so doing he revealed the true character of God. Self-sacrificing love.
It was a great disappointment to the disciples at the time and it took both the resurrection and time to understand what had really happened. Their hope for an earthly kingdom where they were part of the rulership had been dashed; to be replaced by a sense of mission and purpose.
And in the wake of our own disappointment of 1844 are we still waiting for our doctrines and world view to be vindicated or have we moved on to a sense of mission and purpose.
On Wednesday I quoted Micah and want to reiterate his message here:
Yes Maurice, always a day of sober reflection isn't it? Our study this quarter recounts Israel's failure to enter the promised land through unbelief(Heb 3:19), and it is no different today. It is the unbelief of individuals that effects the corporate body of the church, and while this unbelief remains in the majority, we will remain in this present world if the Type as taught us anything. Perhaps many here could quote Ellen's thought on this where she writes that due to our "insubordination" we would remain in this earth "many more years".
Micah 6:8 is directed at the individual, since this is how we are saved, according to our personal faith, if we are found to overcome our natural unbelief.
Where will next October 22 find us individually?
Your math is off a decade.
2021 minus 1844 = 177
Still, your message is good.
That comes from doing arithmetic in the morning when I have just woken up. Even mathematicians can be bad at arithmetic. 😀
I would invite you to linger a while with a vital point in the Great Controversy quote in today's lesson:
It is easy to miss what Ellen White is trying to help us to see. The Creator didn't flinch at stepping down from the highest height to the lowest depth in order to try and save every single person taken captive under The Serpent's takeover of planet earth and its inhabitants (Genesis 3:13,14).
But have you stopped to consider what was involved in this in more detail?
1) Jesus needed to become one like us (Romans 8:3) so that He could demonstrate that, contrary to Satan's allegations that God's 'law' of beneficence was impossible to actually live by, a human could in fact do so when linked to God.
2) Thus Jesus needed to experience first-hand the vulnerabilities of fallen humanity - physically, mentally, emotionally (Isaiah 53:4).
3) Within this inferior (to the 1st Adam's physical capacities) state, Jesus needed to retrace the path of the 1st Adam but not give into temptation. Thus he needed to be tempted. And because Satan saw this as his opportunity to 'take Jesus out', Satan threw absolutely every temptation he could at Jesus in an effort to get Jesus, like the 1st Adam, to relinquish self-sacrificing love and instead embrace self-preservation (Hebrews 4:15; Matthew 27:42).
What were the greatest temptations Jesus had to experience and endure successfully? Death on a cross? Loss of His life? Loss of His eternal life? Loss of connection with His Father (Matthew 27:46)? Each and every one of these temptations would have been excruciating beyond imagination for Jesus. But it would appear that there was something that exerted an even greater impact upon Jesus than facing each and all of these temptations...
4) Jesus love for us - each and every single one of us - was so strong that the greatest and most excruciating anguish He suffered was the indescribable pain at seeing each and every person who hardened their heart and embraced the way of self-destruction when He had personally created them to experience abundant life (Psalm 139:13; John 10:10). The pain Jesus felt, not for Himself, but for each one who chose the way of "perishing" (2 Peter 3:9) is what killed the Eternal Creator. He died of a broken heart.
This is the depth of the kind of love/beneficence that God bids us embrace - a love that would lead our heart to break for those who are 'perishing'. Perhaps in light of this awareness you can see more clearly what is being unpacked in Matthew 5:43-48. The call to 'being perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect' is first and foremost a call to growing in our capacity to 'love' (ie, manifest a self-sacrificing-beneficial disposition towards) all others. No wonder this foundational necessity for true life will be the "science" (knowledge and understanding) and "song" (personal experience) of the redeemed through all eternity.
Phil, if we consider Gethsemane, I believe Jesus' greatest trial was to surrender His will(as the Son of man, with a fallen nature) to the will of God. Jesus' love for lost souls did not diminish, but He did sweat BLOOD over something that this love could not diminish, and His soul recoiled at the very thought of the "cup" He was to drink for a lost world. He prayed 3 times for a way out, while sweating blood and loosing life, and would have died there without the aid of an angel of God sent to revive Him.
Whether Adam, Abraham, the 3 Hebrews, or Jesus, the greatest trial is our own will vs the will of God. We need only to exercise this self-will on one small cherished sin to lose eternal life by placing self above God. This one choice would put us at war with God, His government, and His purposes. This is what Jesus struggled over in Gethsemane as His will desired another way, yet He surrendered to the Will of God whom He trusted above Himself. Isn't this trusting in God our need as well?
When God withdrew His presence from Jesus while on the cross, Jesus could feel the abandonment(God's wrath against sin) and yes, it broke His heart, as it will with every sinner who remains impenitent to the end. This death has been endured for everyone of us, how could we ever reject it?! Yet too often we do.
Hi Robert
Thanks for your input. I do not disagree with you regarding surrender of our will as our greatest trial in terms of temptation.
At the same time, Ellen White is proposing that something other than/beyond this actually crushed out His life.
Could it be that as strong as Jesus self-distress was (via the tempting promptings to have the cup pass from Him), it was His distress for others that prevailed as the stronger of the two and in so doing crushed out his life? If this were the case, it would give a whole deeper layer of expression and meaning to what John 15:13 is saying...
Hi, Robert. I have to wonder what you mean by "a fallen nature." Inheriting a humanity weakened by 4,000 years of sin, Jesus certainly did not have the physical, mental, or moral strength of primeval humanity. That said, there was not one particle of sinful or selfish disposition in the incarnate Son of God. We have no possibly adequate conception of the horror He was facing in the prospect of seemingly eternal separation from the Father. To suggest the slightest bit of selfishness or lack of nobility in Jesus, due to "a fallen nature," so that He could only find the motivation to sacrifice Himself to save us by yielding to the will of another, I find utterly repugnant. I sincerely hope that this is not what you intended.
I believe Robert was saying Christ took on humanity. And you are right He did not fall to the wiles of the devil that all of humanity did, has and is, and is only saved by Christ righteousness. Your point of repungence is taken.
Knowing Robert's writings I do not believe that He had that in mind.
We need to know what took place on our behalf from the book, Story of Redemption:
He then made known to the angelic host that a way of escape had been made for lost man. He told them that He had been pleading with His Father, and had offered to give His life a ransom, to take the sentence of death upon Himself, that through Him man might find pardon; that through the merits of His blood, and obedience to the law of God, they could have the favor of God and be brought into the beautiful garden and eat of the fruit of the tree of life. SR 42.2
Also this may help us.
Satan, with his fierce temptations, wrung the heart of Jesus. Sin, so hateful to His sight, was heaped upon Him till He groaned beneath its weight. No wonder that His humanity trembled in that fearful hour. Angels witnessed with amazement the despairing agony of the Son of God, so much greater than His physical pain that the latter was hardly felt by Him. The hosts of heaven veiled their faces from the fearful sight. SR 225.2
Good question R.G., and let me say that "fallen" does not mean "sinful", until one transgresses the law of God. Enoch, also fallen in nature, "walked with God"(see Amos 3:3). So can we!
Regarding Jesus' motive, there can be no question, but regarding His temptation, just read the words of His prayer(three times) to His Father: "nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done"(Luke 22:42). Speaks for itself doesn't it? THIS is the "faith of Jesus" we must possess.
Phil, In Jesus' case, the two were inseparable weren't they? Jesus suffering for sin(of the whole world) caused His fallen nature to react, thus His prayer offered 3 times. This was the Son of (fallen)MAN that suffered as we surely would without His suffering FOR us.
For both,
"In the garden of Gethsemane Christ suffered in man's stead, and the human nature of the Son of God staggered under the terrible horror of the guilt of sin, until from His pale and quivering lips was forced the agonizing cry, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me:” but if there be no other way by which the salvation of man may be accomplished, then “not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” Human nature would then and there have died under the horror of the sense of sin, had not an angel from heaven strengthened Him to bear the agony. The power that inflicted retributive justice upon man's substitute and surety, was the power that sustained and upheld the suffering One under the tremendous weight of wrath that would have fallen upon a sinful world. Christ was suffering the death that was pronounced upon the transgressors of God's law."
BTS September 1, 1915, par. 5
Sobering to realize the finally impenitent will realize this awful horror.
No, Robert, I don't think that Luke 22:42 speaks for itself in the way that you think it does. You seem to be doing more interpreting than you realise, with a view coloured by some highly questionable presuppositions.
Compassed with the infirmities of fallen man, Jesus was simply overwhelmed with the enormity of what He was facing, and without the aid of the Father, obtained through the submission of faith, could not have gone through with the sacrifice that He had so willingly and knowingly embraced. Indeed, in the first place, it was the Father who struggled with agreeing to the plan of redemption, not the Son.
The Son of God lost none of His selfless nobility by becoming a man. I will not question the sincerity of your motives, Robert, but I am afraid that you are tragically mistaken concerning the human nature of Christ. It contains not one taint of the selfishness that pervades ours from birth, until we consent to partake of the divine nature that Christ possessed inherently.
By the way, I love your choice of quotation from Ellen White. She was describing exactly what I am trying to explain to you. Never bring Jesus down to our level.
While I can appreciate your concern for not bringing "Jesus down to our level", it seems that the points made in the following scriptures. Hebrews 2:16-18. And oh my what about 2 Corinthians 5:21?
I believe that Christ "took on" our sin nature and it wrestled against His divine nature. Just as our experience is to take on and become "partakers of the divine nature" 2 Peter 1:4 and not fulfill the lust of our sinful flesh.
If we would only take the time to study and accept what the Bible says about Christ nature, perhaps we wouldn't have to continue this wondering in the wilderness.
Great point Robert! Fallen does not mean sinful.
R.G. Do you also find this scripture "repugnant" John 8:28, where Christ says I do nothing of myself.....?
Love is the key that unlocks the door. We shall be known for the love we share one for another. The knowledge and understanding that makes up the science of God’s creations. Otta one blood God made all men.
Ohh, - the mystery of the Salvation of mankind! I think that we, in the form of flesh, will never perceive the complexity of the Plan of Salvation, but one thing we can know for certain - 'the Creator's Love for his creature' moved Heaven and earth to accomplish His desired outcome.
All powers residing in heaven, including those from heaven assigned to the watch-care of the inhabitants of earth, needed to be in perfect harmony working toward that goal - Salvation of mankind. Only Lucifer, together with those he had enticed to follow him during his insurrection, stood on the sidelines, waiting and watching for an opportunity to prevent Him from reaching His goal.
I do not think that outside of/without God's love, man has the capacity to love - 'Love' is the heavenly source/aspect of the life OF man'. Though admonished to love God with all our heart, this love can only be reflected imperfectly as man loves his Creator and his fellow man; this is why man's Salvation is based on the perfect love of the Son of God, Christ Jesus, and not on man's love of his Maker.
We are given the assurance by our Lord and Savior that, as we love the Father with all our being and abide in His Son's Way of Life by Faith, they will never forsake us on our journey through life.
Ellen White has so eloquently described the 'Mystery of the power of God's Love'. There is just one part of a sentence that evades my understanding: "That the Maker of all worlds, the Arbiter of all destinies, should lay aside His glory and *humiliate Himself from love to man* ... ."
Maybe someone can help me see this comment in the light which reflects the unfathomable Love of the Creator for His creature. Did not His Love for man provide His motivation for becoming the Son of Man? I cannot see a place for 'humiliate Himself'.
I understand that only in the capacity of being fully man could the Creator become the 'Arbiter of man'. He needed to experience being 'man' before He could evaluate/judge man's sin, forgive sin, eliminate consequences of sin's violation of universal Law; so fulfilling the *spirit of the universal law* - forgiving sin through/by His Love and so keeping man alive. I understand God, in the capacity of Creator and Son of Man, redeeming mankind by/through His creative, life-giving, life-restoring Power vested in His Love.
These past week's lessons reached deep, challenging us to open our spiritual eyes to understand that it is the power of God's Love which is our Salvation - Rom.1:16; 1Peter1:3-23.
Excellent observations, Brigitte! The humiliation was an inherent aspect of God becoming a man. Can you imagine? His great love made this a necessity under the circumstances, and He was willing to take it on! Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth!
We should rejoice that God loved us before we were created. Ephesians 1:4. I would say that He choose us, emphatically means, He loved us. He loved us 1st therefore we should be joyful in our salvation. Luke 10:20. To love the Lord your God, the author and editors out did themselves this week. I rejoice.
2: How do we both love and fear God at the same time?Simple, out of respect, honor, praise, and thanks giving, we worship Him in love. Someone asked how do we do that? A year or two ago a gentleman gave his testimony right here on ssnet.org blog. He said, I had wondered from God big time. I felt the drawing of the Holy Spirit, I responded by starting to study the Sabbath School Lesson M.W.F. then it led to daily. I found I needed to mingle(share with others) of like faith. I started going back to church. To make a long story short I now am addicted, I can't go a day without my relationship with Christ, which is now all inclusive. Mind you this was a process over 2 years. That's the way the Holy Spirit worked for me.
May the Holy Spirit work in you as He has in this gentlemen and me.
Happy Sabbath