If "God is love," love is power. The final manifestation of the Holy Spirit will be simply a demonstration by the church of the love of God:
It is the darkness of misapprehension of God that is enshrouding the world. Men are losing their knowledge of His character. It has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. At this time a message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and saving in its power. His character is to be made known. Into the darkness of the world is to be shed the light of His glory, the light of His goodness, mercy, and truth.
This is a work outlined by the prophet Isaiah in the words, "Oh Jerusalem, that bringeth good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength."
Those who wait for the bridegroom's coming are to say to the people, "Behold you God." The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them. (Christ's Object Lessons, pp. 415, 416.)
Jesus included the finishing of His work when He said, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35).
For over a hundred years we have sensed the need for that love. Local churches all over the world long to be able to reveal it, but feel hampered by inadequacy and contradictory influences that work to negate it. Obviously Satan hates the idea of such love really succeeding. Due to his "making war" against the "remnant church" from within as well as from without, after all these years we still are forced to recognize that this ultimate manifestation of love is yet future. No one can successfully point to a time in our past history and say, "Here the latter rain was received, and here these final prophecies were fulfilled."
Love, the Fire in the Coal
When that love does impregnate the church as fire permeates the coal, she will become super-efficient in soul winning. Each congregation, "Jerusalem" to its local community, will be what Christ would be to that community were He there in the flesh. He inspired with hope "the roughest and most unpromising," encouraged those who were "discouraged, sick, tempted, fallen," saved those "who were fighting a hand-to-hand battle with the adversary of souls." So will the church become a duplicate of Christ's power to redeem lost people.
This will not be done by bright advertising schemes or promotion methods. The Holy Spirit will do something for the heart because the church members will receive the "mind of Christ." "Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and signs and wonders will follow the believers. … The rays of light penetrate everywhere, the truth is seen in its clearness, and the honest children of God sever the bands which have held them. … A large number take their stand upon the Lord's side!' (The Great Controversy, p. 612).
What could those "rays of light" be except a clear example of the love of God seen in His people? One's mind staggers to try to imagine the joy that will flow like a river when the word of the Lord goes forth in glory and power and human hearts meet Christ and find in Him their soul's longing!
When one prays for the Lord to use him to win a soul, he can never know who that person may turn out to be. We may have hoped He would use us to win some "good" person; we may discover that He wants us to win someone we think of as "bad." We think of our congregation as a comfortable, exclusive religious club when the Lord declares that it is "an house of prayer for all people," including "sinners" we haven't thought much about.
It is pathetic to try to limit love to "good" people. Any love so restricted ceases to be love. It stands revealed for what it is-naked selfishness. Real love is not dependent on the beauty or the goodness of an object, as is our natural human affection. We "like" somebody who is nice. But it is impossible for us to love somebody who is not nice, unless an entirely different kind of love takes over the control of our hearts. That kind of love is what the New Testament calls "agape."
Here is an example of what it is: "God commendeth His love (agape) toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. … When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Romans 5:8, 10). "I say unto you, love [the same word] your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you" (Matthew 5:44). We are to make the "sun" of our love "to rise on the evil and on the good," to show our mercy and compassion both on "the just and on the unjust" (verses 45-48).
Why does God waste His gifts on "bad" people? Why send sunlight and rain on "enemies"? The answer is that God has something that is not natural for us to have-agape. If we could manipulate the bounties of nature, we would make a difference. And we would probably feel that our method of discriminating between "good" and "bad" people would be more efficient in persuading the "bad" to become "good" than God's way of showering blessings on both alike without any sign that He likes one type of person better than the other.
But our Father in heaven is "perfect" in His love for the unworthy. When we learn such love, He will call us "perfect," too, His true "children."
Such love filling the church will accomplish wonders we now hardly dream of. We have no idea how many people are counted by the Lord as His, scattered all around us far and near, whom now we consider hopeless. Yet they are just as much His as was Mary Magdalene, or the thief on the cross. The moment we try to be selective in our "love" and feel, "I want to invite this person to come to Christ because he is nice, but I don't care to win that person," we forfeit connection with the Holy Spirit.
As the "Pharisees and scribes murmured," we are too easily scandalized because "this Man receiveth sinners" (Luke 15:1, 2). But the greater the evil of the sinner, the greater is God's glory in changing him:
The divine Teacher bears with the erring through all their perversity. His love does not grow cold; His efforts to win them do not cease. With outstretched arms He waits to welcome again and again the erring, the rebellious, and even the apostate. . . Though all are precious in His sight, the rough, sullen, stubborn dispositions draw most heavily upon His sympathy and love; for He traces from cause to effect. The one who is most easily tempted, and is most inclined to err, is the special object of His solicitude. (Education, p. 294.)
Repentance Lights the Fire in the Coal
Now, to be practical, how can we learn this kind of love?
There is no way except by seeing Christ as He is. He is very different from what many confused ideas have supposed He is. Perfectly sinless, nevertheless He experienced a corporate repentance "in behalf of the sins of the world." He knew how weak He was apart from strength from His Father. He knew He could fall. Born in the river that sweeps us into sin through the force of its undertow, He stood firm on the rock of faith in His Father, even when it appeared that He was forsaken. The Father sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh." In very truth He is our "brother." He bore the guilt of "every sinner." No one's heart was locked for which He did not therefore have the key.
Zechariah says that the greatest event ever to happen to the church in the last days will be this new vision of Christ: "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him." Here is a clear picture. When we realize that we are the ones who have crucified Him, and when we "look upon Him" with understanding, we shall realize a new sense of oneness with Him and sympathy for Him. We will feel toward Him as a parent feels toward an only son, a great warmth of affection that will cancel out the appeal of all worldly allurement. This experience will indeed be a miracle.
The point of Zechariah's prophecy is that corporate repentance felt for corporate guilt will trigger this marvelous experience. Then will come the free-flowing love for sinners we long to achieve. The point is that this ability to feel for and to love every sinner was not a supernatural endowment imparted to Christ exclusively because He was the Son of God; it was the direct result of His experience of corporate repentance.
We may not in our human judgment be guilty of the sin of another, but once we get the idea that we too are born with a carnal mind which is "enmity against God," we sense how in truth that sin is as natural to us as it has been to another, and how it would have been acted out in us if it had not been for the grace of Christ and for the lack of equal circumstances or opportunity. He who has the "mind of Christ" will have the repentance of Christ. The closer He comes to Christ, the more he will identify himself with every sinner on earth. Christ asks "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" to repent no more than He Himself has repented. It is treason to Him to repent less!
Righteousness by Faith and Repentance
Only a repentance such as this can make sense of the expression, "The Lord our Righteousness." The one who knows that Christ is all his righteousness will know that he is himself all sin. The one who feels that by nature he has at least some righteousness of his own will feel he is that much better than the sinner. Feeling so, he will know nothing of Christ. Christ to him will be a stranger. And so will the sinner be a stranger to him. When Wesley saw a drunkard lying in the gutter, he said, "There, but for the grace of Christ, am I." Evidently he must have felt it deep inside, for if the remark had been a mere cliche to him, he would never have been able to change as many lives as he did.
Self-righteous "saints" abhor the truth of Christ's righteousness. They resent the contrition that is implicit in seeing in Christ all their righteousness. They shrink with abhorrence from putting themselves in the place of the sinner, the alcoholic, the dope addict, the criminal, the prostitute, the rebel, the mentally ill. They say in heart, "I could never sink to such a depth!"
So long as they feel thus, they are powerless to speak as Jesus did the effective word to help such. Their love for souls is frozen by their impenitence. Restrained and restricted, it ceases to be love. They decline to enter the kingdom of heaven themselves through letting the Holy Spirit melt down their deep-frozen hearts, and they actually "shut up the kingdom of heaven against men," barring the way so that neither "Mary Magdalene" nor "the thief on the cross" can find a path to get in. Blessed would be the millstone to be hung around the necks of such people, and blessed would be their drowning in the sea, said Jesus, rather than that they should face in the Judgment the results of their hard lifelong lovelessness. "It were better not to live than to exist day by day devoid of that love which Christ has enjoined upon His children" (Counsels to Teachers, p. 266).
It is this impenitence that is directly hindering the coming of the "latter rain" for the effective finishing of the gospel work on earth. According to Christ's call to "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans," it is time now for us to understand that the guilt of the whole world's sin is ours, "mine," apart from the grace of Christ. 1 am the whole world's sin, its frustrated enmity against God, its despair, its rebellion-all is mine; and if Christ were to withdraw from me His grace, I would embody the whole of its evil, for "in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing."
This is the reason why the repentance Christ begs us to accept takes us back to Calvary. It is impossible to repent truly of minor sin without repenting of the major sin which underlies all other sin. Without seeing that truth, repentance is an empty word. True repentance is nothing short of an "after-perception" of our guilt shown "in behalf of the human race" in crucifying Christ.
There is a close relation between righteousness by faith and corporate identity. As we have seen, the underlying idea behind the "message of Christ's righteousness" is that I possess not a shred of righteousness of my own. If I have none of my own, what do I have which is rightfully my own?
The answer is sin.
But how much sin do I have? Only a little? No, I am all sin. It follows that the New Testament idea of "righteousness by faith" is built on the principle of corporate guilt and corporate repentance. By perfect corporate repentance, the sinner accepts the gift of contrition for all sin of which he is potentially capable, and not merely for the few sins which he thinks he has actually committed himself. Thus in turn he receives the gift from Christ of potential righteousness equal to His own perfection, at present far beyond the sinner's capacity. But it is just as real as the sense of potential guilt he has realized in behalf of the sins of the whole world.
The Miracle-working Power of Repentance
If the sinner narrows his repentance within the Limit:.: of those few "little" sins he feels personally guilty of actually committing, he likewise narrows his reception of righteousness from Christ to equally restricted limits of his poor idea of what it should be. The result: pride, complacency, pathetic ignorance, and lukewarmness. Such an impenitent "saint" is living as far below his capacity for life as a sea gull made to fly the ocean who bathes in a birdbath.
Miracles will become natural to the one willing to receive the gift of corporate repentance from Christ. Such love for sinners "hopeth all things." Like the Lord Himself, the repentant sinner "delighteth in mercy" and discovers his greatest pleasure to be taking apparently hopeless material and making these people subjects of God's grace. Think of the beautiful work you will be able to do once you receive in "the mind of Christ" His own experience of repentance:
Tell the poor desponding ones who have gone astray that they need not despair. Though they have erred, and have not been building a right character, God has joy to restore to them, even the joy of His salvation. He delights to take apparently hopeless material, those through whom Satan has worked, and make them the subjects of His grace. . . Tell them there is healing, cleansing for every soul. There is a place for them at the Lord's table. (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 234.)
Such delight in transforming "apparently hopeless material" is "the joy of the Lord." The church is invited to enter into it, now.
We have reached the time in history when individual repentance need no longer be confused with corporate repentance. Paul's doctrine must now come into its own, and the seed sown nearly two thousand years ago begin to bear the blessed fruit that the whole creation has groaned and travailed together in pain to see.
The kind of repentance Christ calls for in the Laodicean message is already a concept beginning to be realized. When one member in a congregation falls into sin, a little reflection can convince many of the members that they actually share in the guilt. Had we been more watchful, more alert, more kind-hearted, more ready to speak "a word in season to him that is weary," more effective in proclaiming the pure truth of the gospel, we might have saved the erring member from his fall. With knowledgeable pastoral care, almost any church can at present be led to feel this corporate concern.
It is encouraging therefore to trust that within this generation the same sense of loving concern can be realized on a worldwide scale. When this time comes (and it will come unless hindered and opposed), there will be a heart-unity and corporate concern between races and nationalities seldom seen as yet. The fulfillment of Christ's ideal will be seen on all levels and among all groups. The winter of frozen inhibitions and fears will give way to a glorious spring and summer where the loves and sympathies that God has implanted in our souls will find true and pure expression to one another. Racial and cultural barriers will come down. It will be impossible any longer to feel superior to or patronizing toward people whose race, nationality, or cultural milieu was deprived. With the "mind of Christ," you automatically feel yourself on their level, and a bond of sympathy and fellowship is established "in Him." Again, this will be a miracle, but one that will follow the laws of grace.
This repentance will take us a step further in the path to spiritual maturity. Instead of limiting itself to a shared repentance in behalf of our contemporary generation of the living, it will take in past generations as well. Paul's idea, "As the body is one, and hath many members, … so also is Christ," will be seen to include the "body" of Christ in all time.
Already we can sense the concern "in Christ" which the Holy Spirit imparts to the church, so that we can share the guilt of a fellow-sinner who is our contemporary; it is only another step to share the guilt of one who is not contemporary. Thus a repentance becomes possible for the sins of previous generations, and Moses' command is found possible of obedience (Leviticus 26:40). Thus the "final atonement" becomes a reality, and the pre-Advent judgment concluded.
The perfect "one body" experience will fill the church. While it is true that there will be a "shaking," and some, perhaps many, will be shaken out, the inspired word that describes this process of separation clearly implies that a true remnant of believers in Christ will remain. The "shaking" of the tree or branches will certainly mean that "gleaning grapes shall be left in it" (cf. Isaiah 17:6; 24:13). Those who are " " "shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the Lord" (verse 14). Those who are shaken out will only make "manifest that they were not all of us" (1 John 2:19). God's work will go forward unhindered, but rather greatly strengthened.
In this time, the church will be united and coordinated like a healthy human body. Church tails will be a thing of the past. Backbiting, evil-surmising, gossip, even forgetfulness of the needs of others, will be overcome. The listening ear having learned to be sensitive to the call of the Holy Spirit, the conviction of duty will be heard and acted upon. When He says to one as He said to Philip the deacon, "Go near, and join thyself to this chariot," the obedient response will be immediate; and a soul will be won as Philip won the Ethiopian official from Candace's royal court. At last the Holy Spirit will find a perfectly responsive "temple" in which to dwell; and rejoicing over His people with singing, the Lord will gladly bring into their fellowship all His "people" now scattered in Babylon.
Miracles of heart-healing will come precisely as if Christ Himself were present in the flesh to minister them. Chasms of estrangement will be bridged over. Marital dissensions will find solutions that have evaded the best efforts of counselors and psychiatrists. Broken homes will be cemented together in the bonds of such divine love that elicits ultimate contrition and repentance from believing hearts. Harps now silent will ring with melody when the strings are touched by this hand of love. Bewildered and frustrated youth will see a revelation of Christ never before discerned. Satan's enchantment of drugs, liquor, immorality, and rebellion will lose its hold, and the pure, joyous tide of youthful devotion to Grist will flow as never before to the praise of His grace.
The watching world and the vast universe beyond will behold with joy the final demonstration of the fruits of Christ's sacrifice. In a profound sense hardly dreamed of by the pioneers of the Advent Movement, the heavenly sanctuary, nerve center of God's great controversy with Satan, will be "cleansed," justified, set before the universe in its right light.
The Church a Powerhouse of Ministering Love
Such an experience of repentance will transform the church into a dynamo of love. The strongholds of Satan will be pulled down before it. No church will have seating capacity for the converted sinners who will stream into it. Because He took the steps the sinner must take in repentance, Christ was enabled to pass by no human being as "worthless;" He broke the spell of the world's enchantment for the wealthy, the pleasure loving, the vain; He inspired with hope the "roughest and most unpromising;" He cast out "devils." Corporate and denominational repentance is the "whole church" experiencing this same Christlike love and empathy for all for whom He died.
Those who say, "It's too good to be true! It just can't happen! I'll never see it!" should be careful how they react to the heavenly vision of success. In the days of Elisha, Samaria suffered a terrible siege famine. "A donkey's head cost eighty pieces of silver, and half a pound of dove's dung cost five pieces of silver." Acts of frightful cannibalism were well known. Blaming the Lord for it all, the king wanted to kill the prophet. (Are the present attacks on Ellen White also the result of a similar motivation?)
Elisha responded by promising that within twenty-four hours "ten pounds of the best wheat or twenty pounds of barley" would be selling in the city gates for only "one piece of silver." The instant reaction of "the personal attendant of the king" was that such plenty would be too good to be true. "That can't happen,' he responded,"-not even if the Lord himself were to send grain at once!"
"You will see it happen, but you won't get any of the food," Elisha replied. The Bible story continues, "It so happened that the king of Israel had put the city gate under the command of the officer who was his personal attendant." When the Lord suddenly frightened the invading Syrians and they left their huge supplies for the starving Israelites, the officer was "trampled to death by the people at the city gate." (See 2 Kings 7:1-20, G.N.B.).
Our unbelief in this "time of the latter rain" will likewise shut us out from taking part in the glorious experience that the Lord foretells for His people once they repent in obedience to His command. Numerous inspired statements confirm the vision of the "whole church" within history fully experiencing such blessing.
An example is the following vision of a repentance yet future, but which is to be experienced by the leadership of the church. Note that it will be a repentance so deep and effective that previously unknown and unrealized sin will be brought to consciousness. Note also the reference to the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10 of God's people sensing their involvement in the sin of piercing Christ:
In the night season I was in my dreams in a large meeting, with ministers, their wives, and their children. I wondered that the company present was mostly made up of ministers and their families. The prophecy of Malachi was brought before them in connection with Daniel, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah. The teaching of these books was carefully investigated. The building of the temple, and the temple service, were considered. There was close searching of the Scriptures in regard to the sacred character of all that appertained to the temple service. Through the prophets, God has given a delineation of what will come to pass in the last days of this earth's history; and the Jewish economy is full of instruction for us.
The offering of beasts … The rivers of blood … provision for the poor to receive the comforts of life … the whole sanctuary service . . .
All these things were closely studied by the company before me in my dream. Scripture was compared with scripture, and application was made of the word of God to our own time. After a diligent searching of the Scriptures, there was a period of silence. A very solemn impression was made upon the people. The deep moving of the Spirit of God was manifest among us. All were troubled, all seemed to be convicted, burdened, and distressed, and they saw their own life and character represented in the word of God, and the Holy Spirit was making the application to their hearts.
Conscience was aroused. The record of past days was making its disclosure of the vanity of human inventions. The Holy Spirit brought all things to their remembrance. As they reviewed their past history, there were revealed defects of character that ought to have been discerned and corrected. They saw how through the grace of Christ the character should have been transformed. The workers had known the sorrow of defeat in the work intrusted to their hands, when they should have had victory.
The Holy Spirit presented before them Him whom they had offended. They saw that God will not only reveal himself as a God of mercy and forgiveness and long forbearance, but by terrible things in righteousness He will make it manifest that He is not a man that He should lie.
Words were spoken by One, saying, "The hidden, inner life will be revealed. As if reflected in a mirror, all the inward working of the character will be made manifest. The Lord would have you examine your own lives, and see how vain is human glory.' 'Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.' (Review and Herald, February 4, 1902.)
If it were in your power to "vote" that this experience take place now, would you want it to?
Well, the vote is in your power, and mine.
And we will exercise it, one way or the other.