Bibliography
Chapter Thirteen
1 John 6:48.
2 John 6:49.
3 John 6:51.
4 John 10:10.
5 Genesis 1:3.
6 Matthew 8:8.
7 Matthew 8:10.
8 The Desire of Ages p269.270.
9 Ibid p270.
10 Luke 5:24.25.
1 .John 1:4.
12 Psalm 51:10.
13 Ezekiel 36:26.27.
14 4 Bible Commentary p1165.
15 Steps to Christ p48. Philippians 2:13. 1:6. Psalm 138:8.
16 Signs of the Times. 06.12.1893.
17 Exodus 31:13-18. Ezekiel 20:12.30.
18 Exodus 20:8-11.
19 Review and Herald. 08.16.1906.
20 Review and Herald. 01.17.1893.
21 Review and Herald. 06.09.1891.
22 Signs of the Times. 06.12.1893.
23 Matthew 12:8. The text says Jesus is “Lord even of the Sabbath day”, but leaving out the word ‘even’ does not change its meaning.
24 My Life Today p26. Colossians 1:27. 1 John 5:20.
25 1 John 5:5. This text has been paraphrased for clarity only.
26 Colossians 1:27. 2:9.10. C.E.T. p246.
27 Daniel 7:25.
28 2 Thessalonians 2:3.4.
29 2 Corinthians 11:4.
30 The Great Controversy 1888 p193.
31 Ibid p528. CG 1911 p582.
32 Review and Herald. 08.23.1898.
33 8 Testimonies p290.291.
34 Education p16.
35 My Life Today p17.
36 Christ’s Object Lessons p68.
37 Education p27. Ephesians 4:24.
Immanuel -- God with Us
Chapter Thirteen
CREATIVE POWER
Jesus stood before His disciples and said, “I am the Bread of life”. 1
He was not speaking of bread that would provide nutrition for the body like manna eaten by the Hebrews hundreds of years earlier. Of them Jesus said, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.” 2
Instead, the Saviour was referring to Himself as the “living Bread”, bread that would give eternal life. 3
His words, “I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly”, referred to His power to create a new heart in the surrendered soul. 4
In the beginning, Christ, as the Word of God, had spoken the world into being. When He said “Let there be light”, there was light. 5 His very Word provided that which He had spoken.
It was the same when He came to this earth. The centurian said to Him, “Speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.” 6 He understood that Christ possessed the power to heal his servant. “When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” 7
Christ’s Word is creative power.
Consider the paralytic, a man who needed healing of the body as well as healing of the soul. Christ restored both to full health. “The same voice that spoke life to man created from the dust of the earth, had spoken life to the dying paralytic.” 8
It required creative power to restore health to that decaying body.
But the same power that gave life to the body also gave spiritual life to the heart. “He who at the creation spake, and it was, who commanded, and it stood fast, had spoken life to the soul dead in trespasses and sins. The healing of the body was an evidence of the power that had renewed the heart.” 9
Christ said to the Jewish rulers, ‘Which is easier? To say, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee’, or to say, ‘Rise up and walk?’
Then he said, “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy), I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.” 10
John said of Christ, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” 11
One of the most earnest prayers recorded in the Word of God is that of David when he pleaded, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” 12 God's response to such a prayer is always, “A new heart will I give you.” 13
This work Christ continues today. Men and women are to seek God most earnestly for a true Christian experience, and to “feel the creative power of the Holy Spirit. They are to receive the new heart, that is kept soft and tender by the grace of heaven.” 14
This experience is the re-creation of the soul, the work of redemption. It is the work of Christ, and He “invites us to give ourselves to Him, that He may work His will in us”, for “it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” 15
The sign of Christ’s creative power is the Sabbath.
It “shows Him to be supreme, the Maker and Upholder of the universe, the One from whom we receive ‘life and breath and all things’, and hence the One to whom our allegiance is due.” 16
Christ told His people at Sinai that the Sabbath would be the sign “that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you”, and when He lay in Joseph’s tomb, He rested from His work of redemption. 17 It had been no less a creative work than when He spoke the creation of this world into being.
Today, when we “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”, we are acknowledging that Christ is both our Creator and Redeemer. 18 He will do the work in us just as surely as He did it in days long ago.
By observing the seventh day Sabbath, “we are to be reminded continually of the creative power of our God.” 19
However, if we are only keeping the Sabbath as a memorial of creation six thousand years ago, we are not fulfilling all the command requires. Unless Christ is creating in us a new heart, day by day, moment by moment, Sabbath-keeping is simply an outward, external work. A deeper experience is needed to prepare us for heaven.
“The weakness and inefficiency of the church must pass away. Creative power from above must impart life to the human agents whom God would use, that they may be able to co-operate with divine intelligences. The church to whom God has imparted His endowment of heavenly truth must not remain dead in trespasses and sins.” 20
“The keeping of the commandments of God involves a cross.” 21
Satan is determined to separate the law from the gospel, and to take away the knowledge of Christ’s creative power from the earth. He wishes to have it “banished from the contemplation and remembrance of men.” 22
But while the fourth commandment is faithfully kept by God’s people, the devil cannot accomplish his purpose.
Those who understand the two-fold significance of the Sabbath, know that Christ is “Lord of the Sabbath” through creation and redemption, and that the Incarnation of God’s only-begotten Son is the central pillar of the gospel. 23
However, the Incarnation is not just a doctrine that Christ came in human flesh two thousand years ago -- it is a fulfilled work where Christ united the human spirit with the divine Spirit in His own body. Rather, the on-going result of the Incarnation is the presence of Christ’s Spirit – His holy Spirit -- within the believer today.
The change that takes place in the life, is “one of the deepest mysteries of the Word…. It is ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’.” 24
The very fact of the Incarnation is the key to overcoming, for John asks, “Who is he that overcometh the world?” His answer is clear, “…he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God.” 25
“The incarnation of Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’, is the great theme of the gospel. ‘In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him’.” 26
Although the Enemy of Christ can never obliterate this wonderful truth, he has worked through the Papal Church to set up a counterfeit system, inspiring the Papacy to “think to change times and laws”, setting aside the seventh-day Sabbath for the first day of the week, and replacing it with a man-made institution. 27
Thus the minds of men and women are turned from the creative power of Jesus to the prince of evil.
The sign of Satan’s supremacy -- Sunday, the first day of the week -- is a symbol of the “man of sin… sitting in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” 28
It constitutes a counterfeit ‘god’, a counterfeit ‘jesus’, and a counterfeit ‘unholy spirit’. 29
The result of this trinity of false gods is a counterfeit gospel, giving a “counterfeit holiness” and a “spurious sanctification”. It is a “work of deception” from beginning to end. 30 “Satan can present a counterfeit so closely resembling the truth that it deceives those who are willing to be deceived…” 31
Unless we turn completely from the deceptions of Satan, we will be deceived, for there is no creative power in deception. “Error never sanctifies. It can do no good. And how full of darkness is the soul that receives error as truth, and shapes his course of action in accordance with it.” 32
“The path of error often appears to lie close to the path of truth. It is hardly distinguishable from the path that leads to holiness and heaven. But the mind enlightened by the Holy Spirit may discern that it is diverging from the right way. After a while the two are seen to be widely separated.” 33
The true work of sanctification prepares us for heaven. “More and more fully do we become partakers of the divine nature. We are fitted for heaven; for we receive heaven into our hearts.” 34
We need now to be imbued with Christ’s Spirit, and “we should not rest until we receive it.” 35
“As you receive the Spirit of Christ -- the Spirit of unselfish love and labor for others -- you will grow and bring forth fruit… More and more you will reflect the likeness of Christ in all that is pure, noble, and lovely.” 36
As we look at nature – the trees, the flowers, the streams, the birds, the animals – we see Christ’s power and in “every manifestation of creative power is held out the assurance that we may be created anew in righteousness and holiness of truth.” 37
Immanuel -- Chapter 1
Immanuel -- Chapter 2
Immanuel -- Chapter 3
Immanuel -- Chapter 4
Immanuel -- Chapter 5
Immanuel -- Chapter 6
Immanuel -- Chapter 7
Immanuel -- Chapter 8
Immanuel -- Chapter 9
Immanuel -- Chapter 10
Immanuel -- Chapter 11
Immanuel -- Chapter 12
Immanuel -- Chapter 13
Immanuel -- Chapter 14