Hello All,
(This is just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. These weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in our Father. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Study Guide” is titled “Taken and Tried”. What a good lesson on Mark’s account of the last supper, the Gethsemane temptation/ victory, the capture of Jesus, and the realization that comes to Peter that there are depths of sin in his heart that he never realized… but that Jesus knows so well even as He knows Peter himself so well. I so hope each of us really take time to study these lessons. The lessons are painstakingly crafted to lead us into deeper and still deeper trust in our loving Father and Friend.
This week, I have chosen to write on a little comment made in Thursday’s lesson on Gethsemane. One that is so very prevalent and so totally believed. In the next to last paragraph is the statement that “salvation is offered to the world”. Is salvation only “offered”? Or is it “given” to all? What precisely is “offered” (or “given”)?
In Romans, Paul is very explicit. “As through one man’s offense (Adam) judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act (Christ) the free gift came to ALL Men resulting in justification of life” (Romans 5: 18). This begs two more questions. 1. What is the “free gift”? 2. What does “justification of life” mean?
1. What is the “free gift (that) came to all men” (ibid)? We see the results of the “free gift” in the verse quoted. The result of the “free gift” is “justification of life”. But, what is the “gift”? In the verse just preceding the verse quoted, Paul tells us it is the “gift of righteousness” (Romans 5: 17). As we have concluded in previous weekly “thoughts’, righteousness is defined as “the state in which a right relationship exists between man and God” (SDA Bible Dictionary). Therefore, this “right relationship… between man and God” (ibid) is established by “the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5: 15). This makes so much sense. Christ’s death demonstrates God’s great love for man and establishes a right relationship between us. God is not out to get us. He loves us and carries each of us and our sin. This is what we are to see as we meditate on the meaning of the cross. “The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God… The heart of the infinite Father is pained in sympathy” (Education pg. 263). The cross is what establishes “righteousness” … establishes a “right relationship” of agape-love between man and God. Therefore, the “free gift” seen at the cross, is the gift of God Himself in the person of His Son. God establishes a right relationship by giving Himself to us. He is the free gift. He is “the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world” (John 1:9).
2. “What does “justification of life” mean? The above answer to question #1 virtually gives us the answer. If we understand “justification” to mean “being set right”, we are “set right” by God’s gift of Himself. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace…” (Ephesians 2: 13-14). Truly, at the cross, all of us see the true nature of our God, His true heart of love for each of us, His true carrying us and carrying our sin, and the establishment of a true right relationship between God and each of us. A relationship of love between Father/ child. He our Husband, we His wife.
God gives Himself. This is the “free gift”. But remember the original quote from the quarterly… the contention that “salvation is OFFERED to the world’ (op. cit.). Salvation is healing. The free gift of Himself to each of us is the salvation/ healing. Salvation/ healing is GIVEN to each of us. Salvation is not just offered to each of us. It is given to each of us. However, each must embrace that salvation and value it for the precious gift it is. Most do not embrace this gift of God. Most put it on the shelf, ignore it, silence it, squash it, shove it aside. The “judgment” will show that all mankind have been given this gift. The free gift has been given to all, not just offered. But the irreclaimably lost have not valued it nor wanted it… and have cast it from them. The “free gift” has surely “come to all men” (op. cit.). But not all will be saved/ healed. Not because they were not clever enough to accept the healing given, for it is already theirs. Nevertheless, they were determined enough to discard it, thwart it, hate it and throw it from them. They will have none of it… ever. An eternity of love and grace extended to those lost would never ever change the irreclaimably lost. The free gift has been determinably and persistently thrown into the trash heap. Having the gift and despising it, they “crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:6).
The gift is yours… it is mine. The gift of God Himself is given to all mankind. May we not by our busy lives and self-centeredness kill the gift of God given to us. Let not the gift of God in us die for lack of value and “nourishment”. Truly, we have a choice. Not the choice of accepting the gift or not, because the gift (GOD Himself) is ours. But the choice of killing the gift (Christ) that is already ours. God is already ours. I pray each of us may embrace and nourish this precious relationship of love between our loving God and… me.
With brotherly love,
Jim