The Upward Look

Heaven Gave Its Most Costly Treasure, August 29

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16. UL 255.1

After the Saviour had fasted forty days and forty nights, “he was afterward an hungered.” Then it was that Satan appeared to Him. He came as a beautiful angel from heaven, claiming that he had a commission from God to declare the Saviour's fast at an end. “If thou be the Son of God,” he said to Christ, “command that these stones be made bread” (Matthew 4:3). But in Satan's insinuation of distrust, Christ recognized the enemy whose power He had come to earth to resist. He would not accept the challenge, nor be moved by the temptation. He stood firmly to the affirmative. “Man shall not live by bread alone,” He said, “but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (verse 4). UL 255.2

Christ stood by every word of God, and He prevailed. If we would always take such a position as this when tempted, refusing to dally with temptation or argue with the enemy, the same experience would be ours. It is when we stop to reason with the devil that we are overcome. It is for us to know individually that we are right in the warfare, to take the affirmative in the sight of God, and there to stand. It is thus that we will obtain the divine power promised, through which we obtain “all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue” (2 Peter 1:3). UL 255.3

There is such a thing as being partaker of the divine nature. We shall all be tempted in a variety of ways, but when we are tempted we need to remember that a provision has been made whereby we may overcome.... He who truly believes in Christ is made partaker of the divine nature, and has power that he can appropriate under every temptation. He will not fall under temptation or be left to defeat.... UL 255.4

We think it costs us something to stand in this position before the world; and so it does. But what has our salvation cost the heavenly universe? To make us partakers of the divine nature, heaven gave its most costly treasure.... He engaged to stand in a fallen world as the representative of the Father. And He would die in behalf of a lost race. What a work was this! If He should fail, if He should be overcome by temptation, a world would be lost.—Manuscript 99a, August 29, 1908, “Called to Glory and Virtue,” sermon preached at Loma Linda, California. UL 255.5