FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
November 3
THE SANCTUARY DOCTRINE EXPLAINS THE WAY OF SALVATION OF THE GOSPEL (Part 38)
What That One Thief Crucified With Christ Saw and Heard from The Antitypical Sacrificial Lamb of God at the Calvary Moment.
“In the judgment hall and on the way to Calvary he [this particular condemned criminal] had been with Jesus. He had HEARD Pilate declare, ‘I find no fault in Him..’ John 19:4. He had marked His GOD-LIKE bearing, and His PITYING FORGIVENESS of His tormentors. On [his vantage height in] the cross he sees the MANY GREAT RELIGIONISTS shoot out the tongue with scorn, and ridicule the Lord Jesus. He sees the WAGGING HEADS. He hears the UPBRADING SPEECH of his companion in guile [the other condemned thief]: ‘If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.’ Among the PASSERSBY he hears many DEFENDING Jesus. He hears them repeat His WORDS, and tell of His WORKS.
“The conviction COMES BACK to him that this is the Christ. Turning to his fellow criminal he says, ‘Dost thou not FEAR GOD, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?’
“The dying thieves have no longer anything to fear from men. But upon one of them pressed the CONVICTION that there is a God to FEAR [see the first angel’s message, Rev. 14: 6,7], a future to cause him to TREMBLE. And NOW [at that Calvary Moment], all sin-polluted as IT is, HIS LIFE HISTORY IS ABOUT TO CLOSE. ‘And we indeed justly,’ he moans; ‘for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this MAN has done nothing amiss.’“ – E. G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 749.
If still conscious somehow though visibly undetectable, the “conviction that there is a God to fear” in the ebbing moments of a dying person who has led a sinful life, is the final glimmer of hope for his eternal salvation, if he repents and confesses in his mind to God, even in a matter of seconds or in his thoughts, unheard by mortals and evil angels.
In such special but not strange cases, as established prototypical by that one thief on the cross, they are eternally saved exclusively through JUSTIFICATION, not by sanctification or “overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.”
They no longer had any time whatsoever left for the latter work. As there are “eleventh hour workers” illustrated in the parable, there are also souls that will be saved at the “eleventh hour” of their individual probation time.
How? Because “the plan of salvation is broad enough to embrace the whole world,” and God in Christ “sees the end from the beginning,” and “looks upon the heart while men looks upon the outward appearance,” the perfect righteousness of Christ is instantly IMPUTED to such souls by child-like, implicit trusting faith in the merits of Christ’s sacrifice and sin-cleansing blood.
It is not imparted as in sanctification—the process of character perfection, which is purification from sin and it’s defilement, a progressive work of a lifetime in the “new creature in Christ” in his “walk in the Spirit,” as he, like Paul, “presses towards the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus” till the end of his earthly journey. Having “died in Christ,” not perished in his sins, he is blessed, rests from his labors, and his sanctified works follow him to eternity! Rev. 14:13.
(To be continued). Bless all, NMF.