FORUM 5
When God created man, He created him as a free moral agent. He also provided for all the possibilities and accepted all the risks. Furthermore, even before man's creation, every detail of a plan of love was prepared in view of the atonement that would be needed if mankind fell.
The history of the accomplishment of that plan is the expression of God's love.
What was behind man's fall?
From the very beginning, the issues of the great controversy dealt with the authority of Jesus as God's Son and with the necessity of God's law. By attacking that law, the great rebel aimed to overthrow the authority of its Author.
After man's fall, Satan declared that human beings had proved him right and that they were unable to keep God's law. With this and other accusations, he attempted to draw the universe with him into his way of thinking. To many, Satan's claim seemed to be right, but on the cross Christ fully unmasked the deceiver as a liar and murderer. In Eden, with the great privileges he had, Adam could have resisted and overcome Satan's temptations. This Christ knew. But He came to the world to demonstrate that, even without such privileges as Adam had, man could overcome the great deceiver by maintaining a living connection with heaven.
A victim in man's place
To understand why God had to send a victim to be put to death in the place of the guilty race, one needs to understand certain things. The penalty for sin is death. If man was to be saved, a victim had to be found. What did Jesus Christ do? "The instant man accepted the temptations of Satan, and did the very things God had said he should not do, Christ, the Son of God, stood between the living and the dead, saying, 'Let the punishment fall on Me. I will stand in man's place. He shall have another chance.' " --Letter 22, Feb. 13, 1900.
"God forbears, for a time, the full execution of the sentence of death pronounced upon man." --Redemption; or the Temptation of Christ, p. 17 (Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 1, p. 1085).
Let us understand the following: First, God created all men in Adam. Genesis 1:27; 1 Corinthians 15:22. Second, Satan ruined all men in Adam. Romans 5:12, 18; 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22. And third, God provided redemption for all mankind and all who have suffered under sin in "the second man," Jesus Christ, "the last Adam, [whom He has made] a quickening spirit." 1 Corinthians 15:47, 45. See also 1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 1:3; 2:5, 6.
"The sin of Adam caused a deplorable state of things. Satan would now have unlimited control over the race, unless a mightier being than was Satan before his fall, should take the field, conquer him, and ransom man.
"Christ's divine soul was exercised with infinite pity for the fallen pair.… He proposed the only means that could be acceptable with God, that would give them another trial, and place them again on probation.… Through his humiliation and poverty Christ would identify Himself with the weakness of the fallen race, and by firm obedience show that man might redeem Adam's disgraceful failure, and by humble obedience regain lost Eden.
"The great work of redemption could be carried out only by the Redeemer taking the place of fallen Adam. With the sins of the world laid upon him, He would go over the ground where Adam stumbled. He would bear a test infinitely more severe than that which Adam failed to endure. He would overcome on man's account, and conquer the tempter,…" --The Redemption Series, "The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness," pp. 14, 15.
"I then saw the glorious Redeemer, beautiful and lovely; that He left the realms of glory and came to this dark and lonely world to give His precious life and die, the just for the unjust. He bore the cruel mocking and scourging, wore the plaited crown of thorns, and sweat great drops of blood in the garden, while the burden of the sins of the whole world was upon Him. The angel asked, 'What for?' Oh, I saw and knew that it was for us; for our sins He suffered all this, that by His precious blood He might redeem us unto God." --Early Writings, p. 49.
What a great mystery this is for us! "Christ submitted to crucifixion, although the heavenly host could have delivered Him. The angels suffered with Christ. God Himself was crucified with Christ; for Christ was one with the Father. Those who reject Christ, those who will not have this man to rule over them, choose to place themselves under the rule of Satan, to do his work as his bondslaves. Yet for them Christ yielded up His life on Calvary." --Bible Echoes, August 6, 1894 (Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 1108).
When Jesus died, did His divine nature die as well? "When Christ was crucified, it was His human nature that died. Deity did not sink and die; that would have been impossible." --Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 1113.
"He who died for the sins of the world was to remain in the tomb the allotted time. He was in that stony prison house as a prisoner of divine justice. He was responsible to the Judge of the universe. He was bearing the sins of the world, and His Father only could release Him." --Manuscript 94, 1897 (Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 1114).
How was it possible for Him to be resurrected as human? Because He bore the penalty for others, while He Himself was pure. "The fact that the Son of God, innocent and pure, suffered for sin; that the guiltless bore the punishment of the guilty, the just endured the penalty for the unjust, breaks the heart; and as Jesus is lifted up, conviction strikes to the soul, and the love that prompted the bestowal of the infinite gift of Christ, constrains the repenting one to surrender all to God." --Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, March 26, 1894.
What happened to Jesus' humanity? "Christ ascended to heaven, bearing a sanctified, holy humanity. He took this humanity with Him into the heavenly courts, and through the eternal ages He will bear it, as the One who has redeemed every human being in the city of God, the One who has pleaded before the Father, 'I have graven them upon the palms of my hands.' The palms of His hands bear the marks of the wounds that He received." --Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 1125.
"The separation that sin makes between God and man was fully realized and keenly felt by the innocent, suffering Man of Calvary." --The Signs of the Times, February 15, 1883.
"In the plan of salvation, justice and mercy clasp hands together." --The Signs of the Times, July 14, 1890.
Choice of the victim
It has been pointed out that the plan of redemption had a purpose greater than the salvation of mankind. The Saviour said before His crucifixion: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." John 12:32. Christ's dying for the salvation of man would make heaven accessible to men and also justify God and His Son before the entire universe in their dealing with the rebellion of Satan. It would establish the eternal validity of God's law and reveal the nature and results of sin (inventing another law permitting killing, lying, or worshiping whomever). It was to be shown whether the divine statutes were defective and subject to change or perfect and immutable.
The choice was clear. The Son saw at once what his role was to be--victim. God the Son, who, with His Father, authored this law which was challenged and declared too difficult by Satan, would Himself show by His example that those accusations were false. "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." "And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all that obey Him." Hebrews 2:10; 5:9.
"With a holy sadness Jesus comforted and cheered the angels and informed them that hereafter those whom He should redeem would be with Him, and that by His death He should ransom many and destroy him who had the power of death. And His Father would give Him the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, and He would possess it forever and ever. Satan and sinners would be destroyed, nevermore to disturb heaven or the purified new earth. Jesus bade the heavenly host be reconciled to the plan that His Father had accepted and rejoice that through His death fallen man could again be exalted to obtain favor with God and enjoy heaven." --The Story of Redemption, p. 44 (see also Early Writings, p. 151).
Was the choice simple?
"Said the angel, 'Think ye that the Father yielded up His dearly beloved Son without a struggle? No, no. It was even a struggle with the God of heaven, whether to let guilty man perish, or to give His beloved Son to die for him.' " --Early Writings, p. 151.
What was the first possibility? To let a world which deserved death perish, having broken the divine law. What was the second possibility? To redeem it. Nothing but the Creator's love for His creatures, even in their rebellion, led God to make the decision in favor of redemption. Jesus loved everyone on earth and saw in them, not the sinners they were, but what they could become through His grace.
Will we be able to find a sin so enormous that it cannot be purified by the blood of Christ? "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:18.
| Discussion questions |
| 1. |
After reading the following statement, contrast Christ and Lucifer: When Jesus told the heavenly host that He would die for the human race, "…the heavenly host sang a song of praise and adoration. They touched their harps and sang a note higher than they had done before, for the great mercy and condescension of God in yielding up His dearly Beloved to die for a race of rebels. Praise and adoration were poured forth for the self-denial and sacrifice of Jesus; that He would consent to leave the bosom of His Father, and choose a life of suffering and anguish, and die an ignominious death to give life to others." --Early Writings, pp. 150, 151. See also The Story of Redemption, pp. 44, 45. |
| 2. |
Read the following texts and discuss the basis of the relationship that should exist between man and God:
1 John 4:9, 19
Romans 5:8-11
John 3:16 |
| 3. |
What is Jesus for you?
Hebrews 9:15
Hebrews 10:1-18
1 John 1:7-10 |
| 4. |
What does Christ want to give the inheritors of guilt and death? |
| 5. |
Do I really want Jesus to come in and live in and through me, or am I satisfied with my inheritance from the first Adam? |
