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Do you Really Want to Be Saved? #3
Christ, Unselfish in Human Flesh
Larry Kirkpatrick ++ Mentone Church of Seventh-day Adventists ++ February 7, 2004
We are pursuing a plan. We want to present to others ideas about things that may be altogether new to them. Our thesis (See “Do You Really Want to be Saved? #1”) boils down to this: One who really wants to be saved is one who has made a commitment to live in God's unselfish kingdom for eternity. Eternity is a very long time. If we are truly committed to that kingdom, then we are committed to modeling it today. This means that I will, today, live unselfishly. And tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day.
This calls to mind the command made through Paul: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Was Jesus' mind selfish? No. What can be then for the situation of our mind? Is it impossible then for us to have the mind of Christ? Is this just some unfullfillable promise, some carrot hanging off a stick, dangling in front of our noses, some unexplained cosmic farce? Is it God's idea of a joke. Or… Or can fallen humans really, actually overcome? Can we really have the mind of Christ?
The Badge of Christianity
This is exactly the reason for the emphasis on unselfishness. Do people really want to be saved? The reason often boils down to the basic notion of self-preservation—a motivation that is understandable, but not necessarily motivated by God. Surely many of the “bad guys” throughout history still wanted to continue to exist; just not on God's terms (thus, their path as bad guys). The difference is some are willing to commit themselves to doing righteousness and some are not. Some are willing to commit themselves to doing unselfishness, and some only to selfishness.
In that light, consider this thought: “The badge of Christianity is not an outward sign, not the wearing of a cross or a crown, but it is that which reveals the union of man with God. By the power of His grace manifested in the transformation of character the world is to be convinced that God has sent His Son as its Redeemer. No other influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life. The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.” (Ellen G. White, Counsels on Sabbath School Work, p. 100). We think of a badge as an emblem that is worn. I prefer Mrs. White's definition.
Think about it. According to her, the badge of Christianity is that which reveals a condition or quality. She says it is “that which reveals the union of man with God.” It is not something that we have the moral power to make real on our own. God must intervene, but He refuses to intervene past the point of human choice. He will intervene to bring us to the point where we can choose Him, but if we refuse Him, He will not enforce His kingdom upon us.
Unselfishness is a condition or quality that is unavailable to us in ourselves. Therefore the next sentence: “By the power of His grace manifested in the transformation of character the world is to be convinced that God has sent His Son as its Redeemer.” God's model of the gospel is more transformative than legal, more regenerative than relational. God's power is to be manifested in our changed characters. This is God's major evidence that Christ is Redeemer.
Jesus is Always the Evidence
Mind you, Jesus is always the evidence. Two thousand years ago He was the evidence in Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Today, He is still the evidence; He still lives; today His purpose is to live in the last generation of Christians. Through the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers, the character of Christ is to be reproduced in us. And that means an unselfish character influencing me, flowing out from me into the world. “Ye are My witnesses,” (Isaiah 43:10), says God.
Are we?
Remember, “No other influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life. The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.” So I say again, Jesus is still the evidence—but Jesus in us.
Jesus came and lived in human flesh just exactly like ours, and was victorious. Or, we could say, Jesus came and lived in human flesh just exactly like ours, and was unselfish. These statements are equally correct, but one tells what the victory is victory over. It is a victory over unselfishness. But Satan disputes Jesus' victory, His unselfish life. “Mitigating circumstances!” he says, “Tampering with the evidence! Misrepresentation!” “Jesus was God,” he claims; “His flesh was somehow different from our own.” Somehow, He was specially enabled to resist the downward pull of the broken human nature He bore. His example for us doesn't count because He is different from us.
Unselfishness in the Human Nature Which We Now Have
But inspiration comes back, and says, “Jesus, our precious Saviour, was the majesty of heaven. But what a life was His, marked with self-denial, with love, with tenderest compassion for the fallen race! He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. With His own special sorrows?—No; but with the griefs and sorrows of men. Jesus was a living illustration of what man must become. That which He experienced and exemplified in His life He expects us to practise in our lives.” (Review and Herald, October 20, 1896).
All that is is what the Bible already says. Hebrews 2:11 “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.” Hebrews 2:14: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Hebrews 2:16-18: “For verily he took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted.” Hebrews 4:15: “For we have not such an high Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Inspiration further says,
We need not place the obedience of Christ by itself as something for which He was particularly adapted, by His particular divine nature, for He stood before God as man's representative and tempted as man's substitute and surety. If Christ had a special power which it is not the privilege of man to have, Satan would have made capital of this matter. The work of Christ was to take from the claims of Satan his control of man, and He could do this only in the way that He came—a man, tempted as a man, rendering the obedience of a man.... Bear in mind that Christ's overcoming and obedience is that of a true human being. In our conclusions, we make many mistakes because of our erroneous views of the human nature of our Lord. When we give, to His human nature, a power that it is not possible for man to have in his conflicts with Satan, we destroy the completeness of His humanity. His imputed grace and power He gives to all who receive Him by faith. The obedience of Christ to His Father was the same obedience that is required of man.... Man cannot overcome Satan's temptations without divine power to combine with his instrumentality. So with Jesus Christ, He could lay hold of divine power. He came not to our world to give the obedience of a lesser God to a greater, but as a man to obey God's Holy Law, and in this way He is our example.... The Lord Jesus came to our world, not to reveal what a God could do, but what a man could do, through faith in God's power to help in every emergency. Man is, through faith, to be a partaker in the divine nature, and to overcome every temptation wherewith he is beset. The Lord now demands that every son and daughter of Adam through faith in Jesus Christ, serve Him in human nature which we now have.... It was not God that was tempted in the wilderness, nor a god that was to endure the contradiction of sinners against himself. It was the Majesty of heaven who became a man—humbled Himself to our human nature. We are not to serve God as if we were not human, but we are to serve Him in the nature we have, that has been redeemed by the Son of God. (Online at Ellen G. White, Manuscript 1, 1892).
Don't stumble over some of the above statements. Ellen White clearly believed that Jesus was Himself God, that in Him was “life, original, unborrowed, and underived.” (Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 530). But she is here indicating that when Jesus came and lived on earth, His mission was pregnant with importance to us. He came to die as our Substitute on the cross, yes! But He also came to be our Example for how to live. He came to make possible and to show fallen, selfish beings how to be unselfish. Although He was God, He laid aside the glories of heaven.
You know, a King, when he takes off his robe, is the king still. Jesus emptied Himself; similarly, we must empty ourselves. We are selfish, and we need to let the gospel of God empty that out of us. That's why this same passage (Philippians 2:7, 8) includes the command in verse 5: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
It is a promise that we can—in this life—become unselfish!
How did Jesus do His miracles? Not by any of His own power. Desire of Ages again, this time, page 336:
When Jesus was awakened to meet the storm, He was in perfect peace. There was no trace of fear in word or look, for no fear was in His heart. But He rested not in the possession of almighty power. It was not as the ‘Master of earth and sea and sky’ that He reposed in quiet. That power He had laid down, and He says, ‘I can of Mine own self do nothing.’ John 5:30. He trusted in the Father's might. It was in faith—faith in God's love and care—that Jesus rested, and the power of that word which stilled the storm was the power of God.
As Jesus rested by faith in the Father's care, so we are to rest in the care of our Saviour. If the disciples had trusted in Him, they would have been kept in peace. Their fear in the time of danger revealed their unbelief. In their efforts to save themselves, they forgot Jesus; and it was only when, in despair of self-dependence, they turned to Him that He could give them help.
Some say that Jesus really didn't empty Himself of anything at all, but that He merely “restrained His power... not shed[ding] any aspect of His deity.” But here in p. 336 is the most definite evidence that “He rested not in the possession of almighty power.” That is a different scenario than restraining almighty power revving within! (On the question of what Jesus emptied Himself of, see also Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32; Desire of Ages pp. 22, 23, 43, 48, 49, 70, 669, 674, 675; Manuscript Releases 14, p. 23.) All this is important because it shows so clearly that His case while in humanity was our case while in humanity. “Christ in His humanity was dependent upon divine power.” (Desire of Ages, pp. 674, 675).
But back to our thesis. Satan claimed that Jesus cheated in the great controversy, that because He was God He overcame by means of some special adaptation unique to Himself. Satan claimed Jesus' experience was very different from our own. But inspiration comes back, asking and answering: “He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. With His own special sorrows?—No; but with the griefs and sorrows of men.” In other words, we may know for certain that Jesus really was a valid Example and that His character is really reproducible in our humanity.
It is critical for us to know and understand the consequences of this. It provides the foundation for our knowledge that Christ living in us can do just what He did when He lived in Nazareth and in Judea. He can overcome, He can be unselfish, we can overcome, we can be unselfish in co-operation with Him.
We Know, But Does the World Know?
This brings us to the witnesses question again: How does God plan to give evidence at the end? Through His end-time people. More precisely, through Christ in His end-time people. But will we let Him in? Will we surrender our cultivated love for and behavioral habit patterns of sin? Will we let those be taken away and replaced with the positive graces of the Holy Spirit? Will we co-operate with transformation and thus become enabled to model unselfishness here and now, or will we just prefer to talk about what it will be like a million years from now?
Is there something we know that conflicts with long-established teachings? Is God doing anything at all in our era, or is He content for the world to lay sunken beneath the weight of unbiblical error for another thousand years?
Drunken World, No Model in Sight
God is looking for those who will, today, model unselfishness. I will tell you why. It is found in Revelation 17:1, 2, starting halfway through the verse: “Come hither, and I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” Verse four says she has in her hand a golden cup that is “full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.”
In Bible prophecy, a woman represents a church; a pure woman a pure church, an impure woman a false church. This woman is dressed in scarlet and purple, she's wearing jewelry all over the place, she is riding a beast with seven heads and ten horns, in verse six she is drinking the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. She is a false church who in the end is in control of the governments of planet earth. She represents a church that massacred millions in the medieval age, received a deadly wound at the close of the 18th century, and after that wound's healing rises to prominence for the grand finale.
We know that historically, the only religious body this could be is the Roman Catholic Church. Now pay attention. Who is drunk in verse two? The world is drunk in verse two, specifically, “the inhabitants of the earth.” They are drunk with a beverage that is characterized as “the wine of her fornication.” They have fornicated with her, but the wine is a cup in her hand, and she is the primary responsible party here, so it is called the wine of her fornication rather than theirs. Now what you have here is a church-state combination. The church provides the doctrines and the state provides the coercion, the threat and the power to enforce her doctrine, to force people into behaviors and beliefs that are against their conscientious position.
What are some of the false doctrines of that church? Purgatory, the infallibility of the pope, a belief that Mary had an immaculate conception (she was born with a humanity untainted by sin), infant baptism, a belief that it is proper for the church to use the state to compel people to observe what the church regards as sound doctrine and to murder believers in order to save their soul. That's just the beginning. What I want you to understand is, this entity is responsible for polluting the earth with her false doctrines. She makes the inhabitants of the earth drunk with her false doctrines. And part of the wine of babylon is her teaching, spread across the earth from one end of the globe to another, of original sin.
This is the teaching that we are guilty for Adam's sin, that we are born sinners. That's wrong, it is unbiblical, it is unsound, it takes choice out of the picture and makes you and I guilty for the sin of someone else. It is a lie of the first magnitude and is part of the fermenting, confusing, babylonizing wine of the scarlet woman's golden cup of false doctrines. The Bible postiitvely opposes it. Remember Ezekiel 18:20: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” Now it is true that we are born with a fallen, broken, alienated, sinful nature, but until we act in solidarity with the nature, until we choose to vote in favor of that nature, we are not guilty.
This teaching is deeply pernicious because of the way it confuses the issues. It reduces man's personal guilt and personal responsibility by taking the focus off of personal choice, personal guilt, and placing it on an event neither you nor I can have any say in, and into something that we made no personal choice to participate in. It is the antithesis of the great controversy, taking God's people out of the battle and linking our salvation to a God who predestines some to be saved entirely apart from whether they do good or evil, and some to be lost entirely apart from whether they do good or evil. Such a God appears arbitrary. His essential unselfishness is called into question. He operates apparently according only to whim.
In earlier years, people who believed in original sin also believed in predestination. Great care was made to understand the interrelationship of one doctrine with another. Today, a sloppy approach brings to us teachers of original sin without its root teaching of predestination. There is no reason for us to be falling into this ages-old Babylonian wine. See, it's like this. If we can never really become unselfish because of our nature, then why try? Then God must not expect us to become unselfish. So why try? God takes a shortcut and changes our character in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump, because it didn't get changed before that. So we can never model God's unselfish kingdom before the moment of translation because He refuses to save us that much before that moment.
Down to the Bottom-line
So let's come to the bottom line then. The world has been polluted, truth has been commingled with error via the golden cup of false doctrines bobbling in the hand of the false church. In consequence, the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with her false doctrine. Among her false doctrines are those that say to man that real unselfishness cannot actually be attained and thus is not required of us. So no one who subscribes to this theory, held in some form or other by most Christians around the world, is going to even think they can model unselfishness to the world. Oh yes, we should be unselfish in the fits and starts we in our better moments are able to manage, but no matter how much we would like to model it, it is impossible in the system.
Moreover, there is no need to model it. God selects arbitrarily who is to be saved and who lost. And perhaps He isn't as unselfish as we thought either, with His arbitrary and high-handed ways. So that's the bottom line. Thus a faulty system of salvation leads to a false picture of what He is doing today. If you hold to the one idea, you wil lcome out holding to this mischaracterizeation of God. So He is looking for those who will, today, model unselfishness. The reason why is, there is no other religious group out there on planet earth that thinks it can even be done or that it must be done. Your question and mine—Do you really want to be saved—is a window to another world. It is a doorway to a different view, a different concept. It is the dividing line between a confused picture of what Christianity is about, and what God's purposes for His people today are actually. It is a stark reality-check for us about why God raised up this people a century and a half ago.
Jesus' life while on earth in the same flesh as ourselves—an unselfish life, I might add—is the evidence we need. When few, if any in the world are saying such a thing is possible, we have been granted a concrete, living demonstration through Jesus that it is. Sometimes people wonder if the nature of Jesus' humanity matters. I would say, yes, it matters just as much as Philippians 2:5. When God calls us to have the mind in us that Jesus had in Him, He is calling us, unmistakably, to model unselfishness here and now. Where? As the earlier quotation stated: “The work of Christ was to take from the claims of Satan his control of man, and He could do this only in the way that He came—a man, tempted as a man, rendering the obedience of a man.… Christ's overcoming and obedience is that of a true human being. When we give, to His human nature, a power that it is not possible for man to have in his conflicts with Satan, we destroy the completeness of His humanity.… The Lord Jesus came to our world, not to reveal what a God could do, but what a man could do, through faith in God's power to help in every emergency.… The Lord now demands that every son and daughter of Adam through faith in Jesus Christ, serve Him in human nature which we now have.… We are not to serve God as if we were not human, but we are to serve Him in the nature we have.”
All we have done, brothers and sisters, is connect the dots. We talked about living unselfishness. Living it now. Is it even possible for us? Yes, Jesus blazed the path for us, He showed us that it is possible for us in the same way as it was possible for Him. If we don't understand this, if we think that somehow Jesus' obedience was something for which He was uniquely adapted by His particular divine nature, or that He had a special power which it is not the privilege of man to have, or that He was not tempted as a man, did not render the obedience of a man, or that His overcoming and obedience was not that of a true human being, or if we give to His human nature a power that it is not possible for man to have, then what? Satan would have made capital of this matter. Oh yes.
When we understand that we can be unselfish because Jesus was unselfish, then we will really believe that through the strength of God, we can let this mind be in us that was also in Christ Jesus. Then we will be clear at last that “The badge of Christianity is not an outward sign, not the wearing of a cross or a crown, but it is that which reveals the union of man with God. By the power of His grace manifested in the transformation of character the world is to be convinced that God has sent His Son as its Redeemer. No other influence that can surround the human soul has such power as the influence of an unselfish life. The strongest argument in favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian.” (Ellen G. White, Counsels on Sabbath School Work, p. 100).
Conclusion
God help us now to believe and see something of the length of the ladder heaven let down in order to save us. Let me ask you again. When you think about how precious Jesus is, when you consider what He risked for you, when you think about what it means to the universe to model God's unselfish kingdom today, do you really want to be saved?
[Congregation: Yes!]
Yes. Me too. God is so good!
Next week, #4 at last: We take this theme and develop evangelistic approaches for using it in conversations. But now, let's pray. Let's thank our heavenly Father for sending Jesus, and be astonished that He sent us, and go forth and model unselfishness from this day until our translation.
