Righteousness By Faith and the 1888 General Conference
The Nature of Man
One thing must be made clear from the outset. Every one of us born into this earth are born with a sinful nature (having a natural inclination to sin.) No one can hope to do right by their own will. None of us have, or will ever have in this life, the power to overcome a sin with our own strength. Proverbs 20:9 says, Who can say 'I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin'?
No matter how much we try to change ourselves, we cannot do it. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil.
Jer. 13:23.
No amount of good works, dedication or efforts to try harder can make this any different. For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before Me, says the Lord God.
Anyone who feels that if they just keep trying, or that if they try harder they can grow the power within themselves to overcome any particular sin is sadly mistaken. Even if you don't see your faults, and you think you are pretty good, this is the conclusion of the matter: For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.
Eccl. 7:20. Whether you realize it or not, whenever you try to overcome a sin by yourself, you are trying to make things right by works. There is no victory in this, and you will always fail.
The Nature of Jesus
What about Jesus? When He came to this earth as a human, was He born like us, or was He born with special power to help Him overcome? The Bible is clear: But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law
Gal. 4:4. And just what does born of a woman actually mean? Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity
and to make it more clear: he had to be made like his brothers in every way
. Why did He have to be made like us? that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.
Heb. 2:14,17-18 (NIV). Therefore we see that in all things Christ was made like us, and this was necessary in order for Him to save us from sin. This is why we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.
Christ can actually empathize with us because He has gone through the same things, in that He was in all points tempted as we are
. Yet do not misunderstand what this means, because even though we all have sinned Christ was yet without sin
. Heb. 4:15.
Make no mistake, when Jesus walked on this earth He was in all points made like us. The difference between our lives and His is that He did not sin. It is not that He wasn't able to, or that He was made so that He could turn off the ability to be tempted when He wanted. In fact, He was affected by genealogy and other things just as we are. However, He did not sin, and He made it clear that there is no excuse you can name or think of as to why you commit any sin that you do. If Jesus had been made in any way to have a power above sin that we cannot have, His sacrifice would have been meaningless and there would be no point in His death.
Taking Hold of Christ
So we know that there are no works we can do to make ourselves right with God, so what are we to do? There is one answer. We must have faith that Jesus can save us. (Gal. 2:16). Only by putting our trust in God is it possible to have victory over a sin. Only by saying Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me
can we be saved. Ps. 51:10. It should also be our desire that God would wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin
Ps. 51:2.
Now I know you are probably saying that you know all of this, and this is nothing new, right? We know that we can only be saved by faith, and we cannot earn our salvation. We also already know that Jesus was God and He became man and was tempted just as we are. You are probably asking, what's so new about that? After all, isn't this a basic teaching of our church?
Yes, while that is true, there is something that many of us miss in all of the seemingly simplicity of this message.
Now I am going to make a bold and straightforward statement right here. This may seem to you a little harsh, and you may not even agree with me. The reason why I am stating it here and now is because I don't want to ease into it slowly, because in all the easing you may not get the impact of this statement, and if I go step by step through the Bible you may end up agreeing, but missing the importance and significance of what I am about to say. So unconventional as it may be, here it is:
It will always be and has always been God's plan for His people living on earth to stop sinning completely. God has made every provision for His followers to have complete and total victory over every single sin. If God convicts one of His followers to stop any particular sin and that person does not listen, that person is not living in Christ and his or her claim to be a Christian is a lie. Furthermore, God especially requires His people in the end times to gain complete and uncompromising victory, and there will be a point in time, here on earth, when God's true followers will have total victory over every sin. Whether you believe this is true or not, this is reality. Even though you may not see this in your life right now, that does not make this invalid. I am not trying to say that you are a liar or that God does not love you. I am simply saying that God has given you a means to overcome any sin in your life, and there is no excuse for not accepting God's gift and using this means. As harsh as it may sound, if you decide to live in any form of sin, regardless of how big or small, you will not be saved.
