SST #9 | Idols of the Soul | 1888 Most Precious Message

Sabbath School Today

With the 1888 Message Dynamic

The Book of Matthew

Lesson 9: "Idols of the Soul"

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God's instruction not to eat of the tree, they set up the first idol. They decided to do it "their way," not God's. The human race has been worshipping the idol of self ever since. The story of the rich young ruler captures the essence of this idol worship, which is the basis of all sin. Let's put his story into a modern context to understand him better. We will call him "Rich."

Rich was flipping TV channels and happened on a program on health. He already knew so much about the subject, he doubted this TV doctor could tell him anything. The doctor turns out to be an MD with a PhD in nutritional chemistry and homeopathic medicine. He is talking about wheat plants that have been genetically modified to mature faster. However, it also makes the plants more susceptible to pesticide spray.

Surprised and alarmed that this doctor knows something he doesn't, Rich orders the servants in his household to eliminate all foods containing wheat and pesticides. They must diligently read labels and resist buying anything he wouldn't approve of. He launches into an intense research program to learn everything about the dangers that lurk in food. Predictably, the servants get confused and something forbidden slips through. Rich is enraged and punishes them severely. Then, one of the servants politely asks if they could sit down with Rich and write a list of the now forbidden ingredients. Horrified, he exclaimed "don't you know that sitting is as bad as smoking? I forbid any of my servants to sit."

The list of forbidden foods and ingredients gets longer and more complicated. Gradually the family becomes obviously malnourished and constantly sick. The school nurse finally visits and tells them that unless their health improves soon, she will contact Child Protective Services and have the children removed from the home. Furious that an ignorant bureaucrat is trying to tell him anything, he ordered his servants to immediately begin teaching the children at home.

Rich is proud of his superior knowledge and is certain that he has made the right decisions for his family, but the threat of losing his children makes him uneasy. Rich wants to find someone who appreciates and admires him for his knowledge and control over his family. A new Teacher has written a book and made a series of YouTube videos, so Rich decides to question Him. When they meet, Rich asks Him, "I know the law requires us to consider our bodies the temple of God. I have kept all the known laws of health since my youth. What more should I do to make God see me as pious so He will take me and my family to heaven?"

Rich was initially confused at the Teacher's answer: "Give up all your knowledge and self-generated will power and ask God to give you the blessing of belief, then you will be obedient." That couldn't be right. Rich had worked hard for this knowledge. He had won many arguments showing people how wrong they were. It had become his ministry, a sort of health evangelism. That had to count for something. Anybody could believe, that was easy to say. The proof is in the doing. Rich doesn't realize he has the Gospel backwards.

Notice the sequence in E. J. Waggoner's summation: "So, then, they who are of faith are keepers of the law; for they who are of faith are blessed, and those who do the commandments are blessed. By faith they do the commandments. Since the gospel is contrary to human nature, we become doers of the law not by doing but by believing. If we worked for righteousness, we would be exercising only our own sinful human nature, and so would get no nearer to righteousness, but farther from it. … All are under the curse [of the law], and he who thinks to get out [from under the curse] by his own works, remains there. Since the 'curse' consists in not continuing in all things that are written in the law, therefore the 'blessing' means perfect conformity to the law" (E. J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, pp. 56, 57, Glad Tidings ed.)

Many of us have trouble with the concept that first we accept the blessing of belief, which, in turn, makes us naturally conform perfectly to the law. We see our character traits, the habits we try to stop, but nothing works. Some may think that even if you are able to go to a completely new environment, the character you inherited will leave its mark on you until the grave. They say, that's just the way I will always be. I'm stuck, so why try.

For those who have ever thought that, the 1888 message has wonderful news. Jesus was trying to get this across to Nicodemus when He said we needed to be born again. Jesus rewrote our condemned history when He took the human race in Him to the cross. We don't need to go to a completely new environment, we need to believe and accept that we are created new in Christ when He redeemed us on the cross.

"Someone may lightly say, 'Then we are all right; whatever we do is right so far as the law is concerned, since we are redeemed.' It is true that all are redeemed, but not all have accepted redemption. Many say of Christ, we will not have this Man to reign over us,' and thrust the blessing of God from them. … Stop and think what this means. Let the full force of the announcement impress itself upon your consciousness. 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law'—from our failure to continue in all its righteous requirements. We need not sin anymore! He has cut the cords of sin that bound us so that we have but to accept His salvation in order to be free from every besetting sin" (Ibid., p. 61).

It sounds too good to be true, but it's true. We have but to accept it.

—Arlene Hill

http://www.1888mpm.org/node/2114

SST #8 | Peter and the Rock | 1888 Most Precious Message

Sabbath School Today

With the 1888 Message Dynamic

The Book of Matthew

Lesson 8: "Peter and the Rock"

The immense prestige and power asserted in the Temple in Jerusalem commanded the devotion of the multitudes when Jesus faced them and said, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. 23:38), but a still small voice in the Bible story of Jesus of Nazareth intrudes upon the conscience. These teachings of Jesus call for our reverent attention today.

He waited until very near the end of His three and one-half years of ministry before He challenged His disciples with the ultimate question: "Whom say ye that I am?" (Matt. 16:15). They were clear that He is the long-awaited Messiah, but who is He?

God wants all of us to have perfect freedom to decide about Him. We read in Matthew 16:13 that Christ asked the disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man am?" The disciples replied that the people were divided about Him. Some said He was John the Baptist come back from the dead, or the prophet Jeremiah, or another of the prophets. John tells us that some of the people said, "He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people" (John 7:12). It's somewhat like it is today, isn't it? "There was a division among the people because of Him" (John 7:43).

But when Jesus asked the disciples, "Whom say ye that I am?" they were silent for a moment, and it seemed that no one dared to speak. They had often wondered just who He was. They saw that no other man was like Him. What amazed them was not so much the miracles that He performed, but the perfect love expressed in everything that He said and did. Finally Peter spoke up for the group: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16).

Jesus congratulated him for the courage of his convictions, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter [petros], and upon this rock [petra; rock solid truth as massive as Pre-Cambrian granite] I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (vss. 17, 18).

Petros is a little stone one can throw around; petra is the foundation rock which is Christ Himself. After poor unstable Peter had denied Christ three times and thus disqualified himself from being an apostle, he repented. Any thought that he was important was given up: he told the church of his day that Christ only is "the Rock" (1 Peter 2:8, petra). He knew he was nothing more than a petros.

Has the Lord's Church Always Been an Organized Body?

The beginnings of the true church can be traced to the everlasting (or new) covenant that the Lord made with Abraham long ago: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, ... and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:1-3). Thus the Lord began to organize His people to be a denominated, visible family, a "nation." His purpose: that they witness in the world.

Abraham's descendants were elected to be the ancient equivalent of today's organized church. They were publicly to share and exemplify his faith. Their nationhood was to demonstrate that it is possible for human beings to function in an organized unity, perfectly devoted to the Lord's guidance.

That nation came to be known as Israel. Her history records a series of ups and downs, with many dark episodes of corporate failure. (The "downs" were the direct result of the old covenant idea they had embraced on their own.) But did her terrible backslidings cancel the original election of God? The answer has to be no.

Although they were severely punished for their apostasies (especially Baal-worship), neither Israel nor Judah ever became Babylon. Even while they were captives in Babylon they remained Israel. Baal-worship was a disease that afflicted the body but did not transform it into Babylon.

Who Is "Israel" Today?

At the beginning of His ministry Christ selected disciples and ordained them, disciplining them to proclaim the gospel to the world. "'He ordained twelve.'... The first step was now to be taken in the organization of the church that after Christ's departure was to be His representative on earth" (Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 290, 291). "On this rock [their expressed faith in Him] I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). He commissioned them to be a disciplined, unified "body": "As the Father has sent Me, even so send I you" (John 20:21-23). They were not a disjointed scattering of "faithful souls." The Holy Spirit continued to organize and to lead the members toward perfect unity and cohesion.

When the Jews finally crucified Christ and rejected His apostles in 34 A.D., the Lord did not abandon His original covenant; He permitted a "shaking" to test His professed people. Two groups became distinguished and separated. The believing ones among them remained as His true church, and the unbelievers were shaken out. To the unbelieving Jews the Lord had to say, "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth [bearing] the fruits thereof" (Matt. 21:43). The "nation" was the church continuing as the true Israel.

Also in 34 A.D., the physical nation of Israel was rejected, but the true Israel repented at Pentecost because of faith in Christ, for "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29). That's how these contrite believers became the new Israel, the church, the true "nation bearing the fruits." The church was not an appendage or offshoot from Israel; it was the true descendants of Abraham (Matt. 21:42-45, etc.).

It is generally agreed among us that the modern Seventh-day Adventist Church has seriously repeated the history of ancient Israel. Ellen White often said that our "in-a-great-measure" rejection of the 1888 message over a century ago was a replay of the Jews' rejection of Christ.

But our 1888 history is different than that of the apostles—the apostles and church elders were responsive to the Holy Spirit's leading. What "the Holy Spirit said" to us we didn't do! But now the time has come when we must respond as promptly to His leading as the apostles did. The same Holy Spirit who organized the apostles is still alive today.

What Keeps the Church Together

When the early church functioned as a body in disciplined coordination under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Lord respected its organization. For example, when Saul of Tarsus was converted, the Lord brought him into immediate fellowship with His organized church.

The idea is beautiful Good News. Christ being the "head," each believer is automatically an important and functioning member of the body. No political or other human organization can enjoy such perfect unity where each member sees himself as especially created to fill a need. Nothing nurtures it like living membership in the "body of Christ." Every believing person discovers therein to his everlasting joy his true sense of self-identity and fulfillment.

Well over a hundred years after Minneapolis and 1888, the time has come for us to fulfill Paul's vision of a perfectly coordinated church where every member feels needed. For nearly two thousand years Paul's picture of genuine, lasting "church growth" has been awaiting its full realization:

"We should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, ... but, speaking the truth in love [agape], may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love [agape]" (Eph. 4:14-16, NKJV).

It's natural for some to fear that the church and its institutions are now too big and complicated ever to be successful. But the Bible gives no hint that the growth of the body makes difficult or impossible the Holy Spirit's work. Overall, the idea is that what will unify the church is pure, unadulterated truth promulgated wholeheartedly and unreservedly by its leadership. What happened in 1888 must be replayed, but this time in sanctified reverse.

—From the writings of Robert J. Wieland

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SST #7 | Lord of Jews and Gentiles | 1888 Most Precious Message

Sabbath School Today

With the 1888 Message Dynamic

The Book of Matthew

Lesson 7: "Lord of Jews and Gentiles"

Millions of Seventh-day Adventists around the world are studying about how an unknown little boy and the disciples fed 5,000-plus Jews and 4,000 Gentiles "bread." You say, I thought it was Jesus who fed the multitudes "bread." Yes, but He couldn't have done it without their help.

Creation ex nihilo ended on the seventh-day in the Beginning. If Jesus couldn't make bread out of stones to relieve His hunger in the wilderness, neither could He make bread out of nothing to feed the thousands.

The rules of the great controversy require that His faith be rewarded by the responsiveness and cooperation of those who believe in Him. His ministry of agape will succeed by eliciting unselfish service from formerly self-centered sinners turned disciples. Thus Satan's accusation that it is impossible for sinners alienated from God to render compassion and love for one's neighbor, which is required by the law of God, is proven false. Grace changes human hearts.

Jesus told the disciples, "give ye them [the Jews] to eat" (Matt. 14:16). Andrew found an unknown boy who was willing to give his lunch consisting of five barley loaves and two fishes to Jesus (John 6:8-9). That showed a commendable denial of self for a hungry boy, didn't it? Was he motivated by the love of Christ?

Jesus accepted the little boy's sacrifice, thanked His Father for the pitiful little gift in His hands, prayed for His blessing upon it (John 6:11). Think of it, thanking God for a totally inadequate supply of necessary food!

Then He broke the bread, gave it to each of the disciples and as He kept on giving, the bread kept on multiplying in His hands as they went—never a great pile of it all at once, only moment by moment as the need became apparent. Thus the 5000-plus Jews were fed bread.

In the case of the "four thousand" Gentiles (Matt. 15:38, 32), when He expressed His compassion on the people being so hungry that they might collapse on their journeys home, He first asked the disciples, "How many loaves do you have?" (Matt. 15:34). Apparently they scurried off to inquire and came back, "Seven, and a few little fish." Very well, now He can do something; "He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to the disciples [He needs them to be the waiters!] and the disciples gave to the multitude" (Matt. 15:36). [1]

As the Son of God, Jesus was Spirit-filled from His birth. Surely He must have been the living embodiment of the three angels' message. How? He spoke and lived the everlasting gospel. His life was a constant call for individuals to repent and come out of the world and be separated unto God.

After thirty years of common labor in obscurity, Jesus—the Son of man—was led of the Spirit into the experience of conversion. [2]

Jesus as the Representative sin-bearer had our sin removed and the replacement was the baptism of the Holy Spirit—the latter rain. "He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him" (Matt. 3:16). Jesus was anointed as God's Apostle [sent one] to "lighten the earth with His glory" (Rev. 18:1). He bore witness to the loving character of God, which seeks and saves the lost. God does not condemn the sinner, but rather convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment—a genuine ministry of comfort to the "poor."

At His inaugural sermon in the synagogue on Sabbath morning Jesus used as His text Isaiah 61:1-3. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings. ... that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." And the message to the highways and hedges, and in the streets and lanes of the city, is emphatically carrying the gospel to the poor.

This message and work of Jesus was the fourth angel combined with the third angel's message. He taught the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. He ministered the forgiveness of sins and imparted the power for a restored life to God. Christ declares that "the bread that I will give is my flesh, ... I will give for the life of the world." [3] Thus we "have no life" except what is purchased by His "flesh" and "blood" (John 6:51, 53).

Jesus gave "bread" to the Jewish multitudes, which included the common folk and leaders of the church, thus calling upon all to a corporate repentance. But the leaders rejected Jesus, the true Bread.

He gave the bread to all including the imperceptive rabble crowd who saw him as the long-looked-for Deliverer and led a populist movement to crown Him. Even the Twelve were caught up in the moment. It was for this reason that Jesus sent them away out onto the lake in a boat, and He stayed behind to disperse the multitudes (Matt. 14:22).

Jesus Christ sent the Holy Spirit to raise up the Great Second Advent Movement. Jesus baptized this movement with the Holy Spirit. Individually we may experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit and His continual infilling all along the journey. But it is also true of us as a people that we must together experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit—the latter rain.

This is what is predicted. "I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power [baptism of the Holy Spirit]; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice [the loud cry]" (Rev. 18:1).

Another angel takes us back to Revelation 14, to those three angels who have been doing a wonderful work since 1831 when William Miller gave his first Bible study on the prophecies, 185 years ago.

The Lord Jesus sent us "Bread," the beginning of the latter rain, in 1888 through His messengers A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner. [4] Jesus is "Bread" for the "life of the world" (John 6:33)—Jew and Gentile. [5] Justification, forgiveness of sins, is given to all at God's initiative. To all who eat/receive this "Bread" Jesus reconciles the sin-hardened heart to God; and one cannot be reconciled to God and not be reconciled to His commandments. Thus the "Bread" is justification by faith consistent with the unique Adventist idea of the cleansing of the sanctuary truth.

Shall "we" recover in our history the unique 1888 idea of "Bread" and give it to the world? Jesus needs "waiters" in order for Him to win the great controversy.

—Paul E. Penno

Endnotes:

[1] "The food multiplied in His hands; and the hands of the disciples, reaching out to Christ Himself the Bread of Life, were never empty. The little store was sufficient for all" (Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 369, 370).

[2] "After Christ had taken the necessary steps in repentance, conversion, and faith in behalf of the human race, he went to John to be baptized of him in Jordan" (Ellen G. White, The General Conference Bulletin, April 4, 1901, p. 36).

[3] The Greek word means the entire human race and the planet. We maintain that the "bread" is justification of life, which Jesus gave to all, Jew and Gentile. In reference to the "bread" the inspired pen writes, "He desires us to recognize Him in His gifts, that they may be, as He intended, a blessing to us. It was to accomplish this purpose that the miracles of Christ were performed. ... Nothing was to be lost. ... Not one word that concerned their eternal salvation was to fall useless to the ground" (The Desire of Ages, p. 368).

[4] "The Lord's message through Brethren [E. J.] Waggoner and [A. T.] Jones," "the light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren [and] has been in a great degree kept away from the world" (Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 234, 234).

[5] John 6:33-35 is not quoted in the lesson with respect to feeding the Jews and Gentiles. Thus one searches in vain for the unique idea of the 1888 message. God gives Jesus, the Bread of life, for the justification of the world.

SST #7 | Lord of Jews and Gentiles | 1888 Most Precious Message

Lesson 6: "Resting in Christ"

Sabbath School Today

With the 1888 Message Dynamic

The Book of Matthew

Lesson 6: "Resting in Christ"

The Sabbath [rest] is a revelation of Christ and a sign by which those who cherish it know that the Lord is the One who makes them righteous and sanctifies them. Resting in Christ is at the very heart of the 1888 Message. This message prepares a people, through righteousness by faith, for the second coming of Jesus. Ellen White writes concerning this message: "Christ is the complete system of truth. He says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." [1]

E. J. Waggoner elaborates and clarifies further: "The third angel's message is righteousness by faith; for the Sabbath is righteousness by faith; for by it a man comes into God's works, and those works are perfect. Therefore he gets rest by faith." [2] So, resting in Christ is at the core of the 1888 message and looking into the rest Christ gives is of great value. This is the rest gifted to us by Jesus (Matt. 11:28).

The Sabbath contains within it the creative power of God, the rest of God, the blessing of God, the presence of God, which makes holy, and the continuing dwelling presence of God, which sanctifies.

The Sabbath is a reminder of God as Creator: It is the reminder of His creative power manifested. It is a sign between Him and His people forever, "for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed" (Ex. 31:17).

The believer finds in Jesus the creative power of God manifested in making him a new creation: Creative power is the same as redemptive power, therefore redemption is creation—they are one and the same. The first thing that Jesus is to the sinner in this world is Creator (Redeemer), making the sinner a new creation. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10). So the work of God in salvation is creation.

In the Sabbath is God's rest: "For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: 'And God rested on the seventh day from all His works'" (Heb. 4:4). We have seen that only those who believe can enter His rest. God is Spirit so therefore His rest is a spiritual rest. Spiritual rest is freedom from sin.

The believer finds in Jesus God's rest: "For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His" (Heb. 4:10). Rest is a gift, therefore it is written: "Come unto me, ... and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). Spiritual rest is only received by faith.

In the Sabbath is God's blessing: "Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made" (Gen. 2:3).

The believer finds in Christ God's blessing: "God, having raised up his Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities" (Acts 3:26). And "God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). It is God who blesses us and turns us from our sins.

In the Sabbath is God's holiness: Only the presence of God can make anything holy. Moses, attracted by the sight of the bush burning yet not being consumed, turned aside "to see this great sight." "So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, 'Moses, Moses!' And he said, 'Here am I.' Then He said, 'Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground'" (Ex. 3:4, 5). That place was made holy ground solely by the presence of Him in the bush, just as the presence of the Lord made holy the seventh day, the Sabbath, when He rested on it and in it from all His works.

The believer finds in Christ the presence of God to make him holy: It is written: "At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you" (John 14:20). And "God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). It is the presence of Christ that makes holy, and His continuing presence sanctifies.

Elder Robert J. Wieland remarked to me once: "Righteousness is holiness which has confronted the problem of sin in sinful human nature and has triumphed over sin. Thus righteousness is something far beyond mere holiness!" [3] So it is Christ in us that makes us righteous, and His righteousness is only received by His faith.

"The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. My people will dwell in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places" (Isa. 32:17, 18). Righteousness is freedom from disobedience to the law and this is the definition of "spiritual rest,—perfect freedom from all sin." [4]

Ellen G. White wrote that the Sabbath points to Christ "as both the Creator and the Sanctifier." Moreover, "I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them ... (Ezek. 20:12). Then the Sabbath is a sign of Christ's power to make us holy." [5]

The Sabbath has in it Christ's sanctification: He not only blessed the seventh day, but sanctified it that His presence might dwell in it. Christ's presence makes holy, but His continuing presence sanctifies.

All the above is what is found in Christ; for the Sabbath rest is the culmination of the everlasting covenant—of the gospel which is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." The good news of the gospel is that all that is found in Christ is now your own experience because of Christ in you.

The believer finds in Christ God's abiding, dwelling, presence to sanctify him: For it is written: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him" (John 14:23); and "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God" (1 John 4:15); "For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (2 Cor. 6:16).

So we see that the Sabbath stands as God's sign of a completed work. It is the sign of a completed work at creation and a sign of the completed work of His secondary creation, the cross.

E. J. Waggoner wrote: "The power it took to create the world and all things that are in it, the power that keeps all things in existence, is the power that saves those who trust in it. This is the power of the cross." [6]

But to be made just or righteous means that self must die. We cannot kill self, but there is good news here too: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

We know from the Sabbath that Christ's presence makes holy—which is to make righteous, and His continuing presence within completes the sanctification.

Waggoner commented that justification is the highest state man can have on earth, and that sanctification is nothing more than this same justification moving forward over time. Christ's righteousness brings rest. Christ's righteousness is Sabbath.

Sanctification is the completed work of Christ manifested in the individual. Rest follows completed work. Spiritual rest follows completed spiritual work. The image of Christ is completely formed in the believer so that when God looks at the believer He sees His reflection.

"For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: 'In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength'" (Isa. 30:15).

"So you see when God set up the Sabbath, he had set creation all before man to start with, and man could see God in creation. But, the Lord wanted to get nearer to man than that; man could study creation and find a knowledge about God. But God wanted him to have the knowledge of God. In creation he could know about Him; in the Sabbath he would know Him; because the Sabbath brings the living presence, the sanctifying presence, the hallowing presence, of Jesus Christ, to the man who observes it indeed." [7]

Jesus said, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28).

 —Daniel Peters

Endnotes:

[1] Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, p. 1273. [On page 730 we have a further statement: "We know that the gospel is a perfect and complete system, revealing the immutability of the law." And then that "ra is the complete system of truth." The 1888 message teaches that Christ Himself is the Gospel.]

[2] E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews. No. – 16," General Conference Daily Bulletin 7, 17 (March 8, 1897), pp. 297-303.

[3] Personal email from Robert J. Wieland to Daniel Peters, March 8, 2009.

[4] E. J. Waggoner, The Gospel in Creation, p. 164.

[5] Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 288.

[6] Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, p. 140 (Glad Tidings ed.).

[7] A. T. Jones, 1893 General Conference Bulletin, pp. 136, 137.

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http://www.1888mpm.org/node/2109

Raul Diaz