FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
August 5
THE GOSPEL OF CHRISTIANITY’S CHRIST VS THE ‘GOSPEL’ OF ROME’S ANTICHRIST – (Part 14)
After first learning from years of dedicated personal Bible study the meaning of the “gospel” or the “good news of salvation” and what necessitated it, starting with its first introduction to Adam and Eve immediately after they fell to Satan’s temptation in Eden, cradled in those immortal words of hope, light, and life as the “mother” of all promises and prophecies of the Bible recorded in Genesis 3:15 and culminating in the final ones in Revelation, the last of the 66 books of the Bible, I have learned the following:
1) the everlasting gospel of the everlasting covenant is the divine comprehensive plan of redemption and salvation of fallen mankind from the power of sin and Satan and is taught in great detail in the whole SANCTUARY DOCTRINE and its services that includes the systems of the priesthood and sacrifices, the sacred feasts and ordinances in both type and antitype, symbols and shadows of its substance. In the Old Testament the gospel was taught in symbol through the ceremonial system of the Mosaic (or Jewish) dispensation up until these types met their antitype in Christ in Christian dispensation.
2) This glorious truth was revealed to Moses as well as to David and all the holy men of God from generation to generation until the closing work of the day of atonement and cleansing of the sanctuary, both in type and antitype, as the last act and closing work of high priest in the most holy place of the sanctuary. It was in the course of this Bible discovery that I came upon two brief statements that encapsulate and summarize what and why God commanded Moses to command Israel:
“Let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” Exo. 25: 8, 9; cf. 15:17. “Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?” Ps. 77: 13. God’s “way” of salvation, which He says, “walk ye in it” (see Ps. 86:11; cf. 27: 12, 4) is and through the sanctuary doctrine and message. Therein is revealed the wondrous mysteries of the plan and work of redemption!
Here they are:
“The Sanctuary was the heart of the typical system. There the Lord placed His name, manifested His glory, and held converse with the High Priest [Aaron and his sons only] relative to the welfare of Israel. While we inquire from the Scriptures what the Sanctuary is, let all educational prejudice be dismissed from the mind. For the Bible clearly defines, what the Sanctuary is, and answers every reasonable question you may ask concerning it.” O. R. L. Crosier, “The Sanctuary,” printed in the “Day Star Extra,” in 1846. This article was endorsed by E. G. White in “A Word to the ‘Little Flock,’ printed in 1847. Reprint 1987, Leaves-of-Autumn Books, Payson AZ. The other quote summarizes what the Gospel means and what it was designed to accomplish for fallen mankind:
“The gospel is a system of practical truths destined to work great changes in the human character. If it does not work the transformation in life, in habits, in practice, it is NO TRUTH [emphasis mine] to those who believe it. Man must be sanctified through THE TRUTH. And said Jesus, ‘Thy word is truth’ (John 17:17).
Unless the truth of God shall lift up man OUT OF his depravity [sinful, carnal nature], his intemperate and profligate habits, and make him REFLECT THE IMAGE OF JESUS, he is lost [in his sins].” E. G. White, Letter 14, March 13, 1885.
(To be continued). Bless all, NMF