Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 13 (1898)

Ms 20, 1898

His Wonderful Love

February 18, 1898

This manuscript is published in entirety in 8MR 39-41.

This world is a vast missionary field. Christ is the greatest missionary the world has ever known. The wonderful love He manifested in our behalf is without a parallel. Willingly He passed over the ground where Adam fell, redeeming Adam’s failure. 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 1

Christ is called the second Adam. In purity and holiness, connected with God, and beloved by God, He began where the first Adam began. But the first Adam was in every way more favorably situated than was Christ. The wonderful provision made in Eden for the holy paid was made by a God who loved them. Everything in nature was pure and undefiled. Fruits, flowers, and beautiful, lofty trees flourished in the garden of Eden. With everything that Adam and Eve required, they were abundantly supplied. 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 2

But Satan came, and insinuated doubts of God’s wisdom. He accused Him, their heavenly Father and Sovereign, of selfishness, because, to test their loyalty, he had prohibited them from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Eve fell under the temptation, and Adam accepted the forbidden fruit from his wife’s hand. He fell under the smallest test that the Lord could devise to prove his obedience; and the floodgates of woe were opened upon our world. He was furnished with a holy nature, sinless, pure, undefiled; but he fell because he listened to the suggestions of the enemy; and his posterity became depraved. By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners. 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 3

When Christ came, He entered a world disloyal to God, a world all seared and marred by the curse of rebellion against the Creator. The archdeceiver had carried on his work with intense vigor, until the curse of transgression had fallen upon the earth. Men were corrupted by Satan’s inventions. He had been leading men astray by his false representations of God’s character. Claiming [for] himself the attributes of mercy, goodness, and truth, Satan attributed his own attributes to God. These misrepresentations must be met and demonstrated as false, by Christ in human nature. 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 4

Christ was tempted by Satan in a hundredfold severer manner than was Adam, and under circumstances in every way more trying. The deceiver presented himself as an angel of light, but Christ withstood his temptations. He redeemed Adam’s disgraceful fall, and saved the world. There is hope for all who will come to Christ and receive Him as their personal Saviour. 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 5

Christ, the Commander of all heaven, One with God, clothed His divinity with humanity, that humanity might touch humanity. He humbled Himself, taking up His abode on the earth, that He might become acquainted with the temptations and trials wherewith man is beset. He placed Himself among the poor, that as a human being He might understand their afflictions. Before the heavenly universe, He unfolded the great salvation that His righteousness would bring to men if they would accept it—an inheritance among the saints and angels, in the presence of God. 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 6

With His human arm Christ encircled the race, while with His divine arm He grasped the throne of the Infinite, uniting finite man with the infinite God. By transgression the world has been divorced from heaven. Christ bridged the gulf, and connected earth with heaven. In human nature He maintained the purity of His divine character. He lived the law of God, and honored it in a world of transgression, revealing to the worlds unfallen, to the heavenly universe, to Satan, and to all the fallen sons and daughters of Adam that through His grace humanity can keep the law of God! He came to impart His own divine nature, His own image, to the repentant, believing soul. 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 7

The faith that grasps Christ, and believes in Him will work by love and purify the soul. “If our gospel is hid,” Paul declared, “it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them ... For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” [2 Corinthians 4:3, 4, 6.] 13LtMs, Ms 20, 1898, par. 8