Adam in the garden of Eden was made in the image of his maker. He was holy. But was he righteous? Let us think about this for a minute. Steps to Christ, page 62, tells us that "It was possible for Adam, before the fall, to form a righteous character by obedience to God's law." If Adam had been righteous before the Fall it could hardly have been said that he "could form a righteous character." Why bother to form a righteous character if he already had one? Notice now how this passage continues.
But he failed to do this, and because of his sin our natures are fallen, and we cannot make ourselves righteous. Since we are sinful, unholy, we cannot perfectly obey the holy law. We have no righteousness of our own to meet the claims of the law of God.
From this we can conclude that "righteousness" is something which is ours or comes to us as a result of facing temptation in a fallen or sinful nature and overcoming. This is why our Lord had to come to our world and "take" or "assume" our fallen, sinful natures, and by living a sinless life while thus encumbered, make it possible for us to receive from Him the righteousness we cannot produce for ourselves.
The Robe of Righteousness
Christ's Object Lessons, pages 310-312, gives us a beautiful basis for our study.
The white robe of innocence was worn by our first parents when they placed by God in holy Eden. They lived in perfect conformity to the will of God. All the strength of their affections was given to their heavenly Father. A beautiful soft light, the light of God, enshrouded the holy pair. This robe of light was a symbol of their spiritual garments of innocence. Had they remained true to God it would ever have continued to enshroud them. But when sin entered, they severed their connection with God, and the light that had encircled them departed. Naked and ashamed, they tried to supply the place of the heavenly garments by sewing together fig leaves for a covering.
Notice in this passage the expressions "robe of innocence," "robe of light." There is no mention of losing a "robe of righteousness." The passage continues:
This is what the transgressors of God's law have done ever since the day of Adam and Eve's disobedience. They have sewed together fig leaves to cover the nakedness caused by transgression. They have worn the garments of their own devising, by works of their own they have tried to cover their sins, and make themselves acceptable with God.
But this they can never do. Nothing can man devise to supply the place of his lost robe of innocence. No fig-leaf garment, no worldly citizen dress, can be worn by those who sit down with Christ and angels at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Only the covering which Christ Himself has provided can make us meeting to appear in God's presence. This covering, the robe of His own righteousness, Christ will put upon every repenting, believing soul. "I counsel thee," He says, "to buy of Me ... white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear." Revelation 3:18.
Now follows the key passage in this study. Notice the following: "This robe, woven in the loom of heaven, has in it not one thread of human devising. Christ in His humanity wrought out a perfect character, and this character He offers to impart to us."
We know what the "robe" is. It is the white robe of Christ's righteousness. But what about the "loom of heaven"? Be thinking about that. We shall have the answer presently. We continue:
By His perfect obedience He has made it possible for every human being to obey God's commandments. When we submit ourselves to Christ, the heart is united with His heart, the will is merged with His will, the mind becomes one with His mind, the thoughts are brought into captivity to Him; we live His life. This is what it means to be clothed with the garment of His righteousness.
Nothing could be clearer than that complete union with Christ can transform any individual who has been lost in sin and made him a "doer of the law." This is what the apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Here again is righteousness by faith, simply and clearly.
Here is a passage from The Glad Tidings, page 61, by E. J. Waggoner:
Many say of Christ, "We will not have this Man to reign over us," and thrust the blessing of God from them. But redemption is for all. All have been purchased with the precious blood--the life--of Christ, and all may be, if they will, free from sin and death. By that blood we are redeemed from 'the futile ways inherited from your fathers.' 1 Peter 1:18.
Stop and think what this means. Let the full force of the announcement impress itself upon your consciousness. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law"--from our failure to continue in all its righteous requirements. We need not sin anymore!
Do you get that? Do you believe it? Or are you wondering if you heard right? Remember, this is the message Ellen G. White endorsed at least three hundred times as was ecstatic over it. If it is not the truth we have all been deceived. But if it is the truth we have here a package of nothing but glorious good news! And remember, if it is not good news, it is not the gospel! Waggoner continues:
He has cut the cords of sin that bound us so that we have but to accept His salvation in order to be free from every besetting sin. It is not necessary for us any longer to spend our lives in earnest longings for a better life and in vain regrets for desires unrealized. Christ raises no false hopes, but He comes to the captives of sin, and cries to them, "Liberty! Your prison doors are open. Go forth." (ibid.).
A preacher's son said to his father one day, "Dad all this news is so good it simply cannot be true!" And his father replied, "You've got it wrong, son. This news is so good it cannot be anything else but true!" Waggoner has a little more for us:
What more can be said? Christ has gained the complete victory over this present evil world, over "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life"'(l John 2:16), and our faith in Him makes His victory ours. (ibid.).
E. J. Waggoner tells us more about righteousness and justification in The Glad Tidings, page 58. The views presented here take our ideas of righteousness and justification to some pretty lofty heights, but this is to be expected, since the message presented to us in 1888 was actually a recovery of the gospel which had lain "unseen and unheeded since the Day of Pentecost" (Fundamentals of Christian Education, p. 473). These "great truths" are what we are asked to give to the world at this time. Notice now:
When we read the frequent statement, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live,' it is necessary to have a clear idea of what the word 'righteous' means. The King James Version has it, 'The just shall live by faith.' To be justified by faith is to be made righteous by faith. 'All unrighteousness is sin' (1 John 5:17 KJV), and 'sin is the transgression of the law' (1 John 3:4 KJV). Therefore all unrighteousness is transgression of the law, and of course all righteousness is obedience to the law. So we see that the just, or righteous, man is the man who obeys the law, and to be justified is to be made a keeper of the law.
This view of justification is the one that those who are steeped in Calvinism have such a hard time believing. They see justification as only declaring a man righteous, while in fact he is still unrighteous, which makes God tell lies, which is impossible. Here is where the 1888 messengers introduced an aspect of justification which is a radical departure from the popular evangelical view. Waggoner stated the same truth in the Signs of the Times of May 1, 1893:
To be just means to be righteous. Therefore since the just man is the one who does the law, it follows that to justify a man, that is, to make him just, is to make him a doer of the law. Being justified by faith, then, is simply being made a doer of the law by faith.
Exactly how did God propose to accomplish this miracle of turning a man lost in sin into an obedient doer of the law? The answer is, by sending His Son into this world to become one with humanity, and, through His life on earth, and death on the cross, and resurrection from the dead, provide the ultimate answer to the sin problem (read Romans 8:3-4):
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Christ becoming one with humanity was not make believe. It was wonderful reality. The word "likeness" in the text means exactly that, the idea of "sameness," certainly not "unlikeness," which is what many would like to have it say. A. T. Jones had this understanding of the word "likeness," clearly expressed in the following passages taken from The Consecrated Way, pages 48-50:
Only by His subjecting Himself to the law of heredity could He teach sin in full and true measure as sin really is .... There is in each person, in many ways, a liability to sin, inherited from generations back, which has not yet culminated in the act of sinning, but which is ever ready, when occasion offers, to blaze forth in the actual committing of sins. ... there must be met and subdued this hereditary liability to sin. ... this hereditary tendency that is in us, to sin. ... our liability to sin was laid upon Him, in His being made flesh. ... Thus He met sin in the flesh which He took. and triumphed over it, as it is written: "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin IN THE FLESH." ... to keep us from sinning. His righteousness is imparted to us in our flesh; as our flesh, with its liability to sin, was imparted to Him. ... Thus, both by heredity and by imputation, He was laden with "the sins of the world". And, thus laden, at this immense disadvantage, He passed triumphantly over the ground where, at no shadow of any disadvantage whatever, the first pair failed. ... And by condemning sin in the flesh, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, He delivers from the power of the law of heredity; and so can, in righteousness, impart His divine nature and power to lift above that law, and hold above that law, and hold above, every soul that receives Him.
Jones concludes with an inspiring appeal:
God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, Christ taking our nature as our nature in its sinfulness and degeneracy, and God dwelling constantly with Him and in Him in that nature--in this God has demonstrated to all people forever, that there is no soul in this world so laden with sins or so lost that God will not gladly dwell with him and in him to save him from it all, and to lead him in the way of the righteousness of God.
And so certainly is His name Emmanuel, which is, God with us."
We turn again to E. J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, page 58:
Right doing is the end to be obtained, and the law of God is the standard. "The law worketh wrath," because "all have sinned," and the "wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience." How shall we become doers of the law, and thus escape wrath, or the curse? The answer is, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." By faith, not by works, we become doers of the law! "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Romans 10:10. That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident. How? From this, that "the just shall live by faith." If righteousness came by works, then it would not be by faith; "if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace." Romans 11:6. "To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Romans 4:4-5, KJV.
Believing! Believing! Believing! Surely the constant emphasis here cannot be lost on us. Notice how this receives even greater emphasis in the following paragraph taken also from The Glad Tidings, page 56.
So, then, they who are of faith are keepers of the law; for they who are of faith are blessed, and those who do the commandments are blessed. By faith they do the commandments. Since the gospel is contrary to human nature, we become doers of the law not by doing but by believing. If we worked for righteousness, we would be exercising only our own sinful human nature, and so would get no nearer to righteousness, bur farther from it. But by believing the "exceeding great and precious promises," we become "partakers of the divine nature," (2 Peter 1:4, KJV), and then all our works are wrought in God.
There's your Gospel, dear friends. God has found a way to bring us back from the mires of iniquity to a life of obedience to God's law of Ten Commandments. And this means peace. "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them" (Psalm 119:165).
Consider again Romans 5:18: "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."
Different explanations of this text have been put forward through the centuries since the Reformation. Calvin said that "all men" could only refer to those who were predestined for salvation. Universalists said "all men" meant that nobody would be lost, everybody would be saved. Arminius taught that "all men" meant that only provision for salvation was made for all men, that now we also have to do something to initiate the salvation process. As if God were saying: "I've done everything I can for you. I have even given my Son to die on the cross for you. Now it's up to you. I hope you make it. Most people don't. But good luck anyway." And Arminianism is where Seventh-day Adventists have been bogged down for more than a hundred years.
But now look at what the 1888 message tells us. E. J. Waggoner wrote in The Glad Tidings, pages 13 and 14:
The will of God is our sanctification. 1 Thessalonians 4:3. He wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:4. ... "Do you mean to teach universal salvation?" Someone may ask. We mean to teach just what the Word of God teaches--that "the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men." Titus 2:11, RV. God has wrought out salvation for every man, and has given it to him; but the majority spurn it and throw it away. The judgment will reveal the fact that full salvation was given to every man and that the lost have deliberately thrown away their birthright possession.
A friend of mine read this statement many years ago, and he told me that when he first read it, it about blew his mind! It had very much the same effect on me when I first encountered it. This means that at the Cross the whole world was set free. Of course, we have to learn about the good news. And when we learn about it, hear about it, we have to believe it! There's that little word "believe" again. If we hear the good news and don't believe it, it doesn't help!
Another similar statement by E. J. Waggoner appeared in the Signs of the Times, March 12, 1896:
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.
Evidences are being seen that among the large Protestant churches today changes in long held beliefs are taking place. An example is the doctrine of eternal torment. Some evangelical theologians are starting to raise serious questions about this teaching. Then there is the case of Neil Punt, one of the evangelical theologians. He wrote a book some years ago entitled, What's Good About The Good News? While for years the popular teaching had been that everyone is lost except those who do something about being saved, he turned the idea around, and began to suggest that, in fact, everyone is saved, and the only people who will be lost are those who insist on being lost! This man had theologians talking to themselves about this. Neil Punt had begun to understand an important part of the Gospel. There seems to be an understanding of the Gospel which is beginning to reach many in Christianity. As we saw in Waggoner's article, so many spurn the gift offered so freely.
Again from The Glad Tidings, page 66, the same beautiful thought is expressed. There is powerful good news in all this, which desperately needs to be given to the world. Notice again:
Thank God for the blessed hope! The blessing has come upon all men. For "as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation: even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." Romans 5:18 KJV. God, who is no respecter of persons, "has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place." Ephesians 1:3. The gift is our to keep. If anyone has not this blessing, it is because he has not recognized the gift, or has deliberately thrown it away.
Romans 5:18 in the New English Bible reads like this: "It follows then, that as the issue of one misdeed was condemnation for all men, so the issue of one just act is acquittal and life for all men."
Powerful good news! Indeed! All the way through!
Galatians 2:20 RSV, reads: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Waggoner says:
But unless we are crucified with Him, His death and resurrection profit us nothing. If the cross of Christ is separated from us, and outside of us, even though it be by so much as a moment of time and an hairbreadth of space, it is to us all the same as if He were not crucified. If men would see Christ crucified, they must look upward; for the arms of the cross that was erected on Calvary reach from Paradise lost to Paradise restored, and embrace the whole world of sin. The crucifixion of Christ is not a thing of but a single day. He is 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.' Revelation 13:8. And the pangs of Calvary will not be ended as long as a single sin or sinner exists in the universe. Even now Christ bears the sins of the whole world, for 'in Him all things consist'. And when at the last He is obliged to cut off the irreclaimably wicked in the lake of fire, the anguish which they suffer will be no more than that which the Christ whom they have rejected suffered on the cross. (The Glad Tidings, p. 44).
Further on in the same comment on Galatians 2:20 there is this:
All any man in the world has to do in order to be saved is to believe the truth; that is, to recognize and acknowledge facts, to see things just as they actually are, and to confess them. Whoever believes that Christ is crucified in Him, risen in Him, and dwells in Him, is saved from sin. And he will be saved as long as he hold to his belief. This is the only true confession of faith. (ibid., p. 45).
"Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:22).
Elder]. S. Washburn, a personal friend of Ellen G. White, in an interview with Robert J. Wieland, June 4, 1950, made this statement: "'E. J. Waggoner can teach righteousness by faith more clearly than I can,' said Sister White. 'Why, Sister White,' I said, 'do you mean to say that E. J. Waggoner can teach it better than you can, with all your experience?' Sister White replied, 'Yes, the Lord has given him special light on that question. I have been wanting to bring it out more clearly, but could not have brought it out as clearly as he did. But when he brought it out at Minneapolis, I recognized it.'"
The Loom of Heaven
We return now to the subject of the robe. Christ's Object Lessons, page 311, has this statement we quoted previously: "This robe, woven in the loom of heaven, has in it not one thread of human devising." We shall turn our attention now to the matter of the "loom of heaven." What is it, this "loom of heaven"? We have already studied about the robe, which is, of course, the white robe of Christ's righteousness, and how this becomes ours. We have considered many varied and important aspects of this subject. A. T. Jones, in the 1893 General Conference Bulletin, pages 207-208, presented a section on the weaving of the robe which is one of finest examples of sanctification symbolized that I have found. Let us take a look at this most fascinating portrayal. Here is where we shall learn about the "loom."
And we have it further, "Buy of Me gold tried in the fire, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed." And you remember the description that we already had of that raiment. The figure is, it is, "that garment that is woven in the loom of heaven, in which, there is not a single thread of human making."
This obviously is taken from Christ's Object Lessons, page 311, but is slightly misquoted. It should read "human devising" rather than "human making." Only a very small mistake. We continue:
Brethren, that garment was woven in a human body. The human body--the flesh of Christ--was the loom, was it not?
How clear! How could it be anything else? It was in this flesh this fallen, sinful flesh, yours and mine, that our Lord came down and assumed, in which He lived the perfect, sinless life, and wove a perfect, spotless robe for you and me to wear. Remember the quote from Christ's Object Lessons, page 311, which follows the one about the "loom of heaven"? Here it is again: "Christ in His humanity wrought out a perfect character, and this character He offers to impart to us." This should have told us right there what the "loom of heaven" was: His humanity, His flesh! We continue with Jones' description:
That garment was woven in Jesus; in the same flesh that you and I have, for He took part of the same flesh and blood that we have. That flesh that is yours and mine, that Christ bore in this world--that was the loom in which God wove that garment for you and me to wear in the flesh, and He wants us to wear it now, as well as when the flesh is made immortal in the end!
What was the loom? Christ in His human flesh. What was it that was made there? (Voice: The garment of righteousness). And it is for all of us. The righteousness of Christ--the life that He lived--for you and for me, that we are considering to-night, that is the garment. God the Father--God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. "His name shall be called Emmanuel"--that is "God with us." Now then, He wants that garment to be ours, but does not want us to forget who is the weaver. It is not ourselves, but it is He who is with us. It was God in Christ. Christ is to be in us, just as God was in Him, and His character is to be woven and transformed into us through these sufferings and temptations and trials which we meet. ... It is the cooperation of the divine and the human--the mystery of God in you and me--the same mystery that was in the gospel and that is the third angel's message. This is the word of the Wonderful Counselor.
... So we are led through these fiery trials and temptations to be partakers of the character of Christ and these trials and temptations that we meet reveal to us our characters and the importance of having His, so that through these same temptations that He passed through, we become partakers of His character, bearing about in the body the righteousness of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
... the beauty of it comes in that we are to have that garment as complete as He is. We are to grow up into Christ, until we all come in the unity of the faith. It is the same message still, until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
How tall are we to be in character before we leave this world? As tall as Christ. What is to be our stature? That of Christ. We are to be perfect men reaching "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
Who is the weaver? (Voice: God). In whose eye is the pattern? God's Many times, brethren, the threads seem all tangled when we look at them. The meshes seem all out of shape, and there is no symmetry at all to the figure, there is no beauty at all to the pattern as we see it. But the pattern is not of our making. We are not the weaver. Although the threads become tangled, and the shuttle as it goes through gets all clogged, and we do not know how it is all coming out, who is sending the shuttle? God sends the shuttle, and it will go through. You need never mind, if the threads get tangled and you can see nothing beautiful in it God is the weaver; can He untangle the threads? Assureur He will untangle them.
When we look for the symmetry of the pattern and see it all awry and the colors intermingled and the threads drawn through this way and that, and the figure seems spoiled, who is making the figure anyhow? God, of course. Whose loom contains the pattern of the figure in its completeness? And who is the pattern? Christ is the pattern, and do not forget "no man knoweth the Son but the Father." You and I cannot shape our lives on the pattern. We do not know Him. We cannot see clearly enough to discern the shape of the pattern, or to know how to shape it right even if we were doing the weaving. Brethren, God is doing the weaving. He will carry that process on. God sees the pattern in its completeness before it is done. It is in His eye perfected, when to our eye it all seems tangled and awry.
A. T. Jones has beautifully described for us the sanctification process, in a masterpiece of symbolism. We have learned how God is doing the work of transforming our lives into His image patiently but with divine thoroughness. There is a wonderful weaving process being carried on in our lives from day to day, to weave, as it were, the spotless character of our Lord Jesus Christ into our lives. Now notice the next sentence:
"BRETHREN, LET HIM WEAVE AWAY!" Amen! And now he continues:
Let Him carry on His blessed plan of weaving through all our life and experience the precious pattern of Jesus Christ. The day is coming, and is not far off, when the last shuttle will be shot through, the last thread will be laid on, the last point of the figure will be met completely, and sealed with the seal of the living God. There we shall wait only for Him, that we may be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.
Brethren, is He not a wonderful Counsellor? Oh, let us take His counsel to-night. Let us take the blessed faith that has been tried, and all that He tells us, for it is all our own. God has given it. It is mine. It is yours. Let us thank Him and be glad. (1893 General Conference Bulletin, p. 208).
Christ in His humanity, in the same fallen, sinful flesh which you and I have, which He assumed, wove a beautiful robe of perfect righteousness, by living a spotless, sinless, life and condemned sin in the flesh. He condemned sin in the flesh by proving that sin has no excuse for its existence, not even in a fallen nature. That flesh which He took, that sinful nature which He assumed, that was the "loom" in which He wove that robe of perfect righteousness which is offered to us. The flesh, the humanity, the fallen sinful nature which Christ assumed, was the "loom of heaven."
How it is possible for those who believe that Christ somehow took the sinless nature of unfallen Adam, to reconcile their belief with all we have been told about heaven's precious loom, is beyond understanding. Had Christ come in the nature of unfallen sinless Adam He would not have "condemned sin in the flesh." The word "flesh" consistently refers to our sinful condition in the Scriptures. Never does it apply to the sinless nature of Adam before the Fall. Even the eminent theologian, Karl Barth, recognized this. He stated, "Flesh (sarx) is the concrete form of human nature marked by Adam's fall. ..." This appears in his Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, part 2, page 151. See also Harry Johnson's doctoral dissertation, The Humanity of the Saviour, page 168. And the New Testament tells us that "every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist. ..." (1 John 4:3).
How do we wear that robe of righteousness? How does it become ours? Here it is again, from Christ Object Lessons, page 312:
When we submit ourselves to Christ, the heart is united with His heart, the will is merged in His will, the mind becomes one with His mind, the thoughts are brought into captivity to Him; we live His life. This is what it means to be clothed with the garment of His righteousness.
Your Robe: woven in the LOOM OF HEAVEN. As A. T. Jones told us, "It is mine. It is yours. Let us thank Him and be glad." Amen!