There really ought not to be any question about something if Jesus says it. How can we have faith in Him unless we believe what He says is true? But if there is anything He said that seems to arouse more problems in the minds of good Christians, it's this: to say it's "easy" to be saved and "hard" to be lost. Shocking as it may seem, this is what Jesus said:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;... for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).
Apparently human nature is intent on believing that His yoke is hard, that being a true Christian is a fiendishly difficult job, a heroic achievement that requires more than what most people have. And of course such an idea frustrates and discourages many who sincerely desire to follow Jesus, but think they don't have what it takes.
This quotation from Jesus makes up only half of our chapter title:
The other half also comes from his words in a conversation Paul had with Him when he was arrested on the way to Damascus. Paul is telling King Agrippa about the incident:
At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.... I am Jesus whom thou persecutest (Acts 26:13-15).
Saul of Tarsus was having a battle with his conscience. The Holy Spirit pressed into his soul the constant conviction of sin. For him to go on in his mad campaign against Jesus and His followers, he must repress all the convictions and promptings of the Holy Spirit. This was "hard" on him, and it could have led to severe physical and emotional disorders.
The Lord loved him so much that He actually made it "hard" for Paul to destroy himself through impenitence. And when Saul became the apostle Paul, he never forgot the lesson. Ever afterward he was to leach that it is easy to be saved and hard to be lost if one understands and believes the "Good Mews." Thus, in the words of Jesus, his burden is "easy," and to oppose his salvation is "hard."
Such is the meaning of "righteousness by faith," and the 1888 messengers caught the idea of Jesus and Paul. This was another unique feature of their message, seldom articulated today. Our youth are continually bombarded with the idea that it's hard to follow Jesus, and it's easy to follow the devil. In fact, the idea is entrenched in the minds of many Seventh-day Adventists like the Rock of Gibraltar.
They think that both the Bible and Ellen White teach the Bad News idea. For example, consider a passage from Paul that appears superficially, on the surface, to reinforce it:
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth [strives, contends] against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would (Galatians 5:16,17).
There are two ways to understand this statement:
On the other hand, explanation (2) emerges as the best Good News one can imagine. The Holy Spirit is actually doing the "work," the "striving." Whereas we always thought we had to do the striving, it turns out (according to Paul) that this is the part that the great Third Person of the Godhead does. Fasten your seat belt and hang on tight: Paul's radical idea is that He is actually stronger than the flesh. Every moment of every day He strives, or contends, against the promptings of our sinful nature, and with our consent defeats them. In fact, He spends as much time with each of us in this constant striving against sin as if we were the only person on earth. His striving against our sinful nature is a twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week job. And He never takes a vacation. He never forces anyone, but He does motivate us.
Which of the two explanations is the correct one?
The 1888 message says, unhesitatingly, the Good News one, for it alone is completely in harmony with the words of Jesus above. It is because Jesus knows that the mighty Holy Spirit does the lifting of the heavy weight that He assures us, "My burden is light." Jones broke through the clouds of darkness and caught Paul's meaning:
When a man is converted, and is thus brought under the power of the Spirit of God, he is not so delivered from the flesh that he is actually separated from it, with its tendencies and desires... No; that same degenerate, sinful flesh is there.... But the individual is no longer subject to these. He is delivered from subjection to the flesh, with its tendencies and desires, and is now subject to the Spirit. He is now subject to a power that conquers, brings under, crucifies, and keeps under, the flesh.... The flesh itself is brought into subjection to the power of God, through the Spirit, [so that] all these evil things are killed at the root, and thus prevented from appearing in the life...
This blessed reversal of things is wrought in conversion. By conversion the man is put in possession of the power of God, and under the dominion of the Spirit of God, so that by that power, he is made ruler over the flesh, with all its affections and lusts; and, through the Spirit, he crucifies the flesh with the affections and lusts, in his fighting "the good fight of faith."...
Jesus came to the world, and put himself in THE FLESH, just where men are; and met that flesh, JUST AS IT IS, with all its tendencies and desires; and by the divine power which he brought by faith, he "condemned sin in the flesh" and thus brought to all mankind that divine faith which brings the divine power to man to deliver him from the power of the flesh and the law of sin, just where he is, and to give him assured dominion over the flesh, just as it is.
Some one may say, "Well, that Good News may have been true back in the days of Jones a century ago; but today with all the electronic allurements of modern sin, is it still true now?"
So, we ask: which is stronger, sin or grace? Paul answers unhesitatingly: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness" (Romans 5:20,21).
But this has been difficult for us to believe. How often we have thought that the TV was stronger than reading the Bible, or prayer meeting. We find the world's hold on us so alluring that it seems by comparison that the work of the Holy Spirit is as weak as a radio signal from Mars.
If so, something is not clear to us. We have not understood the gospel. We turn again to the 1888 message for some much-needed Good News:
When grace reigns, it is easier to do right than it is to do wrong. That is the comparison. Notice: As sin reigned, even so grace reigns. When sin reigned, it reigned against grace; it beat back all the power of grace that God had given; [That was Saul of Tarsus kicking against the pricks.] But when the power of sin is broken, and grace reigns, then grace reigns against sin, and beats back all die power of sin. So it is as literally true that under the reign of grace it is easier to do right than to do wrong, as it is true that under the reign of sin it is easier to do wrong than to do right (Jones, ibid., July 25,1899).
It can never be repeated too often, that under the reign of grace it is just as easy to do right, as under the reign of sin it is easy to do wrong. This must be so; for if there is not more power in grace than there is in sin, then there can be no salvation from sin...
Salvation from sin certainly depends upon there being more power in grace than there is in sin. Then, there being more power in grace than there is in sin, ... wherever the power of grace can have control, it will be just as easy to do right as without this it is easy to do wrong...
[Man's] great difficulty has always been to do right. But this is because man naturally is enslaved to a power—the power of sin—that is absolute in its reign. And so long as that power has sway, it is not only difficult but impossible to do the good that he knows and that he would. But let a mightier power than that have sway, then is it not plain enough that it will be just as easy to serve the will of the mightier power, when it reigns, as it was to serve the will of the other power when it reigned?
But grace is not simply more powerful than is sin... This, good as it would be, is not all... There is much more power in grace than there is in sin. For "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." ... Let no one ever attempt to serve God with anything but the present, living power of God, that makes him a new creature; with nothing but the much more abundant grace that condemns sin in the flesh, and reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Then the service of God will indeed be "in newness of life"; then it will be found that his yoke is indeed "easy" and his burden "light"; then his service will be found indeed to be with "joy unspeakable and full of glory."
As usual, Waggoner chimes in with some more Good News:
The new birth completely supersedes the old. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God." He who takes God for the portion of his inheritance, has a power working in him for righteousness, as much stronger than the power of inherited tendencies to evil, as our heavenly Father is greater than our earthly parents.
The context of Waggoner's quotation from 2 Corinthians 5 says, "The love of Christ [agape] constraineth [motivates] us" (verse 14). People get that backwards. Constrain, the very opposite of restrain, means "to propel," "to push." That love doesn't push us against our will, but the Holy Spirit gives us all the motivation possible, short of that.
In the early days of motoring, some car makers (Locomobile, for example) advertised that their cars were so strong they could climb Pike's Peak. But anyone trying to drive a simple Model T up that steep road found it "hard." The poor flivver would shudder and stall, and the radiator would boil over. The poor man's car just wasn't built for that mountain.
Need I say that many Christians view getting ready for the Lord's return as even more difficult?
But now let's drop a 420 cu. in. V-8 engine in that Model T, and then watch it zoom up the steepest road.
It's only a pathetic ignorance of the agape in the pure, true gospel of Christ that makes the Christian life seem to us so "hard." The Bible has been telling us that the Holy Spirit is a mighty power plant to motivate:
Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain (Zechariah 4:6,7).
It takes a powerful engine to flatten out steep hills. But that is just what an understanding of the cross does for us:
For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again (2 Corinthians 5:14,15).
Look at what this actually says:
This idea of the constraint of God's agape permeates Paul's teachings. Consider the following:
Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? (Romans 2:4).
His idea is that God is not standing back, as many conceive of Him, with His divine arms folded in disinterested unconcern while we wallow in our lost condition. He is not saying, "Well, I made the sacrifice for you two thousand years ago; I've done My part—it's up to you now. You must take the initiative. If you want to come, come; and if it seems hard to you, you just don't have what it takes to be a Christian. I have somebody else waiting to take your crown.
"How many millions of people feel that way about God! And some shy and timid ones feel, "God does have plenty of people ready to take my crown—He doesn't need me, and I'm not really sure He wants me." In contrast, Waggoner emphasizes the seeking, persistent love of God toward "every man." It is He who takes the initiative, a radically different idea than our usual one:
And we need not try to improve on the Scriptures, and say that the goodness of God tends to lead men to repentance. The Bible says that it does lead them to repentance, and we may be sure that it is so. Every man is being led toward repentance as surely as God is good.
When you pray for a loved one, a friend, or a neighbor to be converted, you don't have to wake the Lord up out of sleep to persuade Him to do something that He is reticent to do—not according to what Paul says. The goodness of God is already working, leading your person to repentance. The trouble is that we often hinder what He is already seeking to do! We thwart His answer to our prayers because we haven't understood the goodness, longsuffering, and forbearance of the Lord in their true dimensions.
A lady came to prayer meeting each week asking prayer for her unbelieving husband. I don't remember how long it was later, but one Sabbath morning he came down the stairs before breakfast dressed up in his good suit. "What does this mean?" she inquired. With a big smile he answered, "I'm going to church with you and the children." Quick as a flash, out came her true feelings: "But darling, if you lose your job because of the Sabbath, how can we make the car payments, or the house payments?"
Hubby never said a word, went back up, put on his work clothes, and that was the end of it forever.
Instead of begging the Lord to please do something for our loved ones, a better way for us to pray would be, "Lord, thank You that You are already leading my loved one or neighbor to repentance. Now please, please, help me get out of the way!"
We continue the same passage from Waggoner:
Not all repent. Why? —Because they despise the riches of the goodness and forbearance and long-suffering of God, and break away from the merciful leading of the Lord. But whoever does not resist the Lord, will surely be brought to repentance and salvation.
That sounds revolutionary to many who say, "Well, I just can't believe the Good News is that good! It seems to me that if a sinner wants to be saved, it's only fair that he work hard at it, he must take the initiative, he must do something. But this has it backwards. It says that if he stops resisting, he will be saved!"
Yes, that's exactly what it says.
However revolutionary it sounds, that is the Good News of the gospel. It presupposes the active, aggressive, persistent love of God as a Good Shepherd taking the initiative to find His lost sheep. Ellen White says the same thing in Steps to Christ, page 27:
As Christ draws them to look upon His cross, to behold Him whom their sins have pierced, ... they begin to comprehend something of the righteousness of Christ...
The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ—but if he does not resist, he will be drawn to Jesus; a knowledge of the plan of salvation will lead him to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins, which have caused the sufferings of God's dear Son.
Once you grasp the secret of the Lord's active, seeking love, this Good News begins to leap at you from almost every page of the Bible. Note these beautiful thoughts from Paul's writings:
Before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith... Ye are all the children of God in Christ Jesus...
The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Galatians 3:23-4:5).
With his clear view of "the law in Galatians," Waggoner has caught the real truth of this passage:
God has not cast off the human race; therefore, since the first man created was called "the son of God," it follows that all men are heirs in the sense that they are in their minority. As already learned, "before faith came," although all were wanderers from God, we were kept under the law, guarded by a severe master, "shut up," in order that we might be led to accept the promise. What a blessed thing it is that God counts even the ungodly, those who are in the bondage of sin, as His children—wandering, prodigal sons, but still children. God has made all men "accepted in the Beloved." This probationary life is given us for the purpose of giving us a chance to acknowledge Him as Father, and to become sons indeed.
This is strikingly different than the usual idea.
We have supposed that those who lived in Old Testament times were kept "under the law," while in New Testament times faith came. But Waggoner makes clear that even today we are kept "under the law" until faith comes to us individually in our experience. The law is our "school-master," a disciplining agent to drive us to Christ. What we do not learn by faith by His grace, we learn by discipline. And all this infinite care is lavished upon us individually in order to conduct us to Christ, "that we might be justified by faith."
This is happening right now. Without exception, all of us are "shut up," "under the law," until we reach that place in life where faith "comes." This imprisonment is a part of the drawing process, another evidence of the Lord's persistent and active love for us individually.
It is easy for us to draw a circle that shuts out our apparently unbelieving neighbors. But Waggoner discerned that the Lord draws a circle that includes them—at least until they finally beat Him off by never-ending resistance. So often we regard those outside the circle as wolves, not sheep; but the Lord looks upon them as sheep who have wandered away. Another inspired metaphor is that they are children who are minors who aren't yet ready to take over their inheritance of grace (Galatians 4:1-5). Seldom have we known how to recognize them as children of God, kept "under the law" indeed, but still children whom the schoolmaster is trying to conduct to Christ.
So Galatians 4 brings us this beautiful illustration of the child of the estate owner who is heir of all things. But the kid runs around the estate barefoot, while the slaves boss him and lord it over him until he comes of age. So, says Paul, with all of us—we are minors, urchins, under the "slaves," until we reach our majority, which is the coming of faith to us individually. Amazing as it may seem, the Lord's infinite program is geared to the saving of lost people!
This throbbing evangel shines through further in Waggoner's insight into God's gift of grace already given to every man:
Since the inheritance is through the righteousness of faith, it is equally sure to all the seed, and equally within the reach of all. Faith gives all an equal chance, because faith is just as easy for one person as for another. God has dealt to every man a measure of faith, and to all the same measure; for the measure of grace is the measure of faith, and unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." Eph. 4:7. Christ is given without reserve to every man.
In other words, the astounding truth is that the Lord is actually doing something for every man, woman, and child on the earth! But His work is thwarted until they know it; and they can know it only as someone proclaims the Good News to them.
That's why He has urged us to "go ... into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," not Bad News. And we need to understand that there is indeed power in that gospel if it can be freed from the poisonous legalism error that has frustrated the grace of God. If we have tried to help people and have failed, it is better to recognize that our understanding of that gospel may have been deficient, rather than to blame the people. It is true that some will reject it even when it is presented in its pristine purity. But many more than we usually see today will accept when it is clearly presented.
We find that this virtual obsession with the grace of God runs like a thread of gold through the writings of both Jones and Waggoner:
"For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us,... was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea." For how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea; wherefore also through Him is the Amen, "unto the glory of God by us" (2 Corinthians 1:19,20). No promise of God has ever been given to man except through Christ.
Personal faith in Christ is the one thing necessary in order to receive whatever God has promised. God is no respecter of persons: He offers His riches freely to everybody; but no one can have any part in them except as he receives Christ. This is perfectly fair, since Christ is given to all if they will but have Him.
Where does Ellen White stand on this matter? She agrees:
Christ and His mission have been misrepresented, and multitudes feel that they are virtually shut away from the ministry of the gospel. But let them not feel that they are shut away from Christ. There are no barriers which man or Satan can erect but that faith can penetrate.
In faith the woman of Phoenicia flung herself against the barriers that had been piled up between Jew and Gentile. Against discouragement, regardless of appearances that might have led her to doubt, she trusted the Saviour's love. It is thus that Christ desires us to trust in Him. The blessings of salvation are for every soul. Nothing but his own choice can prevent any man from becoming a partaker of the promise in Christ by the gospel.
Yes, the shocking truth is that the sinner must resist in order to be lost! That is how much the Lord loves him.
But the 1888 message took a giant step even beyond.
It found in Paul's writings clear assurance that the death of Christ on the cross not only offers the sinner a provision for his salvation, but it has actually accomplished his justification. The death and resurrection of Christ, and His gift of the Holy Spirit, have done something for every person. Let us look at what Paul says first, and then at Jones's and Waggoner's comments:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:... therefore as by the offence of one [Adam] judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one [Christ] the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's [Adam's] disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one [Christ] shall many be made righteous (Romans 5:12-19).
Whatever it was that Adam passed on to the human race, Paul makes clear that Christ canceled it, for "all men." But we seem to have found it hard to believe what Paul says. We say, "No, Paul, that can't be true. The free gift of justification came upon a few people, not all. It only comes upon those who do something." But Waggoner seems to have caught Paul's idea:
There is no exception here. As the condemnation came upon all, so the justification comes upon all. Christ has tasted death for every man. He has given himself for all. Nay, he has given himself to every man. The free gift has come upon all. The fact that it is a free gift is evidence that there is no exception. If it came upon only those who have some special qualification, then it would not be a free gift. It is a fact, therefore, plainly stated in the Bible, that the gift of righteousness and life in Christ has come to every man on earth. There is not -the slightest reason why every man that has ever lived should not be saved unto eternal life, except that they would not have it. So many spurn the gift offered so freely.
However strange those words may sound to us today, they are in harmony with what the apostle himself says. No wonder Ellen White was so enthusiastic about the message! It was Good News, for it presented the character of God in a new and more favorable light. Waggoner says again:
The faith of Christ must bring the righteousness of God, because the possession of that faith is the possession of the Lord himself. This faith is dealt to every man, even as Christ gave himself to every man. Do you ask what then can prevent every man from being saved? The answer is, Nothing, except the fact that all men will not keep the faith. If all would keep all that God gives them all would be saved.
Think of all that the sinner must resist if he insists on being lost! No wonder it is "hard." Puny little person that he is, he must fight against the combined strength of Heaven's persistent love. It wears people out! And the requisite motivation to live a truly consecrated life is abundantly provided by the simple appreciation of the truth of this justification that has "come upon all men."
One wonders how Calvin could ever have entertained the idea that Christ died only for the elect. Simply believe that He died for you, and forthwith you suddenly see that it becomes impossible "henceforth" to live a self-centered life. The equation ("one died for all" = "then were all dead") has its own built-in power supply. Simply believe the astounding truth, and the Lord's burden becomes "light."
Having seen that Scripture fully supports Jones's and Waggoner's big ideas of gospel motivation, it remains to be seen how Ellen White supports them. She has the same idea:
Infinite Love has cast up a pathway upon which the ransomed of the Lord may pass from earth to heaven. That path is the Son of God. Angel guides are sent to direct our erring feet. Heaven's glorious ladder is let down in every man's path, barring his way to vice and folly. He must trample upon a crucified Redeemer ere he can pass onward to a life of sin.
It is implicit in her writings that God's love is active and seeking, and must be resisted in order for the sinner to be lost:
God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If there were no light, there would be no shade. But while the shade comes by the sun, it is not created by it. It is some obstruction that causes the shadow. So darkness emanates not from God.... Disregard of the light that God has given brings the sure result. It creates a shadow, a darkness that is more dark because of the light which has been sent....
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Gal. 6:7. God destroys no man. Every man who is destroyed will destroy himself. When a man stifles the admonitions of conscience, he sows the seeds of unbelief and these produce a sure harvest.
Do not therefore conclude that the upward path is the hard and the downward road the easy way. All along the road that leads to death there are pains and penalties, there are sorrows and disappointments, there are warnings not to go on. God's love has made it hard for the heedless and headstrong to destroy themselves.
How shall we reveal God to the world?
Seventh-day Adventists have been accused, and sometimes rightfully so, of teaching that Christ will be full of murderous vengeance and bloodthirstiness when He returns the second time. Evangelists have represented Him as coming with some kind of mysterious cosmic machine gun that emits a lethal ray to murder all His enemies. But the 1888 message presented no such distortion of God's character. The angels told the apostles that it will be "this same Jesus" who returns a second time (Acts 1:11). Sinners will have changed, not He. They will be hardened, not He.
If one smokes six or eight packs of cigarettes a day for years and then comes down with lung cancer or emphysema, can he say, "God has destroyed me"? Truly, "every man who is destroyed will destroy himself."
Note how in one short paragraph alone Ellen White says seven times that the unsaved are lost solely because of their own choice, and not through any arbitrary expulsion inflicted on them by the Lord:
Yes, if we eclipse the cross of Christ, then we must admit that it becomes terribly hard to be saved. Motivation to consecration and devotion dries up. Temptation to evil becomes overpowering in its appeal. The Saviour becomes "a root out of a dry ground," and His gospel contains "no beauty that we should desire him." Duty becomes a burden, obedience difficult, reading the Bible is boring, prayer is empty, Sabbath-keeping is boring. This is the pathetic "Christian experience" of many church members.
But if we understand the unadulterated gospel of the Lord's grace, Jones says, even the choice to bear the cross with Christ becomes easy. And for sure, this matter of choice is the only possibly difficult thing in being saved. If even that becomes "easy" in view of Christ's cross, surely we have it made!
If the Lord has brought up sins to us that we never thought of before, that only shows that he is going down to the depths, and he will reach the bottom at last, and when he finds the last thing that is unclean or impure, that is out of harmony with his will, and brings that up, and shows that to us, and we say, "I would rather have the Lord than that"—then the work is complete, and the seal of the living God can be fixed upon that character. [Congregation: "Amen."] Which would you rather, have a character [Someone in the congregation began praising the Lord and others began to look around.] Never mind. If lots more of you would thank the Lord for what you have got, there would be more joy in this house tonight.
Which would you rather, have the completeness, the perfect fulness, of Jesus Christ, or have less than that, with some of your sins covered up that you never know of? [Congregation: "His fulness."] But don't you see, the Testimonies have told us that if there be stains of sin there, we cannot have the seal of God. How in the world can that seal of God, which is the impress of his perfect character revealed in us, be put upon us when there are sins about us? ... And so he has got to dig down to the deep places we never dreamed of, because we cannot understand our hearts... He will cleanse the heart, and bring up the last vestige of wickedness. Let him go on, brethren; let him keep on his searching work...
It is simply with you and me a living choice, as to whether we will have the Lord or ourselves, the Lord's righteousness or our sins, the Lord's way or our way. Which will we have? [Congregation: "The Lord's way."] There is no... [difficulty] in making the choice when we know what the Lord has done, and what he is to us. The choice is easy. Let the surrender be complete.
Waggoner agreed: one has to fight the truth in order to make it "hard" to believe:
It is as natural for the child of the infidel to believe as it is for the child of the saint. It is only when men build up a barrier of pride about themselves (Ps. 73:6) that they find it difficult to believe.
Now let Jones, in his forthright, homely way, urge the truth further home:
Can a man live on what he died of ?—No. Then when the man has died of sin, can he live in sin?... A man dies of delirium tremens or typhoid fever. Can he live on delirium tremens or typhoid fever, even if by a possibility he should be brought to live long enough to realize that he was there? The very thought of it would be death to him, because it killed him once. So it is with the man who dies of sin... He cannot live on what he died of.
But the great trouble with many people is that they do not get sick enough of sin to die...They get sick perhaps of some particular sin, and they want to stop that, and "want to die" to that, and they think they have left that off. Then they get sick of some other particular sin that they think is not becoming to them—they cannot have the favor and the estimation of the people with that particular sin so manifest, and they try to leave that off. But they do not get sick of sin—sin in itself, sin in the conception, sin in the abstract, whether it be in one particular way or another particular way. They do not get sick enough of sin itself to die to sin. When the man gets sick enough... of MM, ... you cannot get him to live in it any more.
And what supplies the power to "die" like this to sin? Yes, the cross of Christ. Jones continues:
We have constantly the opportunity to sin. Opportunities to sin are ever presented to us ... day by day. But it stands written: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." "I die daily."... The suggestion of sin is death to me ...in Him.
Therefore this is put in the form of a surprised, astonished question: "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?"...
"For sin shall not have dominion over you." The man who is delivered from the dominion of sin is delivered from the service of sin... Jesus died, and we are dead with him. And he is alive; and we who believe in him are alive with him.... "I am crucified with him." As certainly as he is crucified, I am crucified; as certainly as he is dead, I am dead with him; as certainly as he is buried, I was buried with him; as certainly as he is risen, I am risen with him—and henceforth I shall not serve sin (p. 353).
Perhaps the familiar fact of power steering in our cars can help us sense this. Try to steer a car with power steering when the engine is not running. It's hard to turn the wheel. If you have one of those giant highway trucks, it is practically impossible to turn those huge front wheels unless the engine is providing power to the steering mechanism. But if the engine is running, then even a child can twist the steering wheel this way or that. The power makes it easy.
But still, as driver, you must do something. You must choose which way you want to go. The engine can never relieve you of that responsibility. You can never sit in your car or truck, fold your arms, and say, "Take me to the post office." But once you choose to turn right or left and apply ever so little effort to turn the wheel, immediately the power mechanism goes to work and makes the task easy. This is a fascinating mechanism, for it illustrates the gospel.
To those who think they find it "hard" to be saved, a wise writer addresses some helpful counsel:
Many are inquiring, "How am I to make the surrender of myself to God?" You desire to give yourself to Him, but you are weak in moral power, in slavery to doubt, and controlled by the habits of your life of sin. Your promises and resolutions are like ropes of sand. You cannot control your thoughts, your impulses, your affections. The knowledge of your broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in your own sincerity, and causes you to feel that God cannot accept you; but you need not despair. What you need to understand is the true force of the will. This is the governing power in the nature of man, the power of decision, or of choice... The power of choice God has given to men; it is theirs to exercise. You cannot change your heart, you cannot of yourself give to God its affections; but you can choose to serve Him. You can give Him your will; He will then work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure. Thus your whole nature will be brought under the control of the Spirit of Christ; your affections will be centered upon Him, your thoughts will be in harmony with Him.
Another question must be looked at:
Is this Good News message mere quietism, the false heresy that the sinner has nothing to do, just be passive, a glob of putty manipulated by the divine will? No, you have your freedom of will.
Some who are afraid of too much Good News superficially assume that this statement contradicts this chapter, but it needs to be rightly understood:
Christ has given us no assurance that to attain perfection of character is an easy matter. A noble, all-round character is not inherited. It does not come to us by accident. A noble character is earned by individual effort through the merits and grace of Christ. God give the talents, the powers of the mind; we form the character. It is formed by hard, stem battles with self. Conflict after conflict must be waged against hereditary tendencies. We shall have to criticize ourselves closely, and allow not one unfavorable trait to remain uncorrected.
Does this nullify the Good News of the grace of Christ? Does it contradict what He said, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light"? Does Ellen White contradict herself? There are other statements in Ellen White's writings that some quote in order to oppose the Good News aspect of the 1888 message. "Strive" and "pray without ceasing"; but we must also breathe without ceasing if we would live physically; but is that "difficult"? And we must eat,probably several times daily, as long as we expect to live; is that "difficult"? A healthy person breathes, "stretches" every muscle as a Christian "stretches every nerve," eats, and finds the constant exercise and activity to be joyous, much more so than being inert or inactive.---
We must never forget that there are indeed hard, stern battles with self, and endless conflicts. But the point is that our own individual effort is useless apart from the merits and grace of Christ. His cross must never be lost sight of! It actually makes our part easy.
Was His burden light in the Garden of Gethsemane or on His cross? No. His own hard, stern battle with self in Gethsemane and on the cross was so severe that He sweat drops of blood, yes, even His very heart was ruptured in His final agony. What does it mean? Was He telling us a lie when He said, "My burden is light"?
He suffered all that terribly difficult agony in order to save us. The burden He speaks of in Matthew 11:30 is simply His burden that we share by faith. That faith works by love, and makes it light for us to carry, for we appreciate the heaviness it was to Him.
The only difficult thing in being a true Christian is the choice to surrender self to be crucified with Christ. We are never called to be crucified alone—only with Him.
But, thank God, it is a million times easier for us to be crucified with Christ than it was for Him to be crucified alone for us! Behold the Lamb of God, and it does indeed become easy:
When I survey the wondrous crossEven if this still seems hard, don't ever forget that it remains much harder to go on fighting against love like that, and beating off the persistent ministry of the Holy Spirit, in order to be lost!
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Isaac Watts