There are many facets to the last message though it may seem
like a simple endeavour to some. All of the facets are indicative of God’s character
of love. Everything God has done for the salvation of man has been motivated
by His character of self-sacrificing, self-effacing love.
In this series I will provide evidence for the many different
facets of the last message as defined by the Bible and Ellen White. In this
first part, I am sharing the best explanation of the last message as the
Everlasting Gospel that I have personally heard. It is by the late J. Wilfred
Johnson.
The
Everlasting Gospel
One of the best presentations of the last message I have
personally heard is the following presentation by J. Wilfred Johnson to SDA
General Conference officials:
“It’s high time now that we got some things straightened out
in our lives. You still must acknowledge that you are not ready to stand before
God without an Intercessor. And I have no hesitation in acknowledging it. But
I’m not afraid of it. If I attempt to prepare myself to meet God because I’m
afraid, I’ll never make it. All those who come to God must fear [respect]
Him, but not be afraid of Him. The drawing card to the heart of God is love,
not fear. Love and fear are absolutely opposites. Says the Scripture:
“Perfect love casteth out fear;” and the perfect love which Adam had in the
garden was promptly destroyed when he sinned.
The first consequence of sin was fear in the heart of man. And
it’s fear—the emotion of fear—lack of security—which is responsible for the
major part, if not all, the ills of mankind, including his sufferings and
death. Fear has filled our hospitals with those who are ill. Fear has made
people try to work out their own salvation. Fear has made many a person keep
the Sabbath outwardly. But preparation to meet God by keeping His
commandments on the basis of being afraid will not work! We think we have an
understanding of the truth, but the message of the True Witness says that we
are “blind.”
And do you know what the last message to this world is going
to be? Well, I don’t need to tell you. You’ve preached it for many years. The
last message to this world is the everlasting gospel. Think about it; it’s
the everlasting gospel, not the formal doctrines. And you know what the
everlasting gospel is: it’s the power of God unto salvation, to all that
believe; and it is the message of sins forgiven – that’s what it is! It reveals
the love of God for His people. There’s no fear in that. I’m not afraid then
– I should not be. And if I am afraid, it is an indication that I do not have
sufficient faith in the integrity of my Redeemer. And Satan enters my life
through doubt; and the moment I doubt, I become afraid.
But now if I have perfect confidence in my Saviour, I will
have no fear; for I am clean before God, and God accepts me. And the matter
of getting rid of sin is placed on an entire different basis. I no longer have
to “keep” the law to be saved from eternal death. And while I know that all
people who enter the New Jerusalem will be clean people – will be pure people
– will be people who are keeping the law of God and co-operating with Him, --
while I know that, I still recognize that I do not have to keep the law.
Those people will be keeping the law not because they have to, but because
they want to. And when I get to the place where I want to keep the law for an
unselfish reason and not for a selfish one, then I will be able to keep it.
But if I want to keep the law to save my own selfish skin,
then I can’t keep it. The reason I can’t keep it is that it is based on
self-renouncing love; and while I may keep the commandments outwardly, very
methodically, like the rich young ruler, I still lack something. Keeping the
commandments means living the life of self-sacrificing love, and this is the
preparation that we need. We need the love of Jesus – the love of God – in
our hearts; for when we are born of love, we will not sin; and we become sons
of God. The new birth experience at conversion, and manifested through the
rite of baptism, is but the beginning. We are born as infants into the family
of God. Henceforth we must grow into maturity.
A complete new birth is not accomplished until we are filled
with the love of God and do not sin. And so my motive for trying to keep the
law is not to save myself nor to gain favor with God, nor position; but my
motive now is to keep the law of God in order to please my Savour, and to spare
Him the inconvenience and suffering that my sin will cause Him, since He has
guaranteed to accept the full penalty of my transgression, in order that I
may have eternal life as a free gift, and remain a secure member in His
family of saints. This life is mine; and now I keep the law as best I can,
not for my own sake, but for His sake.
For when we continue in sin after having become a member of
His new “body” of saints, we crucify to ourselves the Son of God afresh, and
put Him to open shame. We renew in His personal body, the sufferings of the
cross. For He becomes “married” to His saints. He is the “head” of His new
mystical body. And all the aches and pains of the body register in the head.
And this marriage occurs before the literal coming of Jesus in the
clouds of heaven. Then the sins of any members of His new spiritual (eternal)
“body” (of saints) register as pain in His heart and mind; even as do our
physical body illnesses register pain in our head! [cf. R&H 10-16—94,
Vol. 3, p. 194: ‘Let us bear in mind that Christ is the great central . .
.’].
This is the most important point which I have talked about.
This is the everlasting gospel of the new testament which will swell into a loud
cry. It will finish God’s work in the earth, not by bringing in numbers, but
by saving a man from his sins – by cleansing the sanctuary. For we
[the 144,000] are the new body temple of the eternal Son of God.
Are you thinking about it? I hope you are. The final message
and the final movements, will be rapid, will be accomplished largely be
laymen. [cf. 5T 80 & 81]. It will be the individual members who will
finish the work of cleansing their soul temples of sinning. And it will be
the work of the Holy Spirit in the latter rain – the eternal life blood which
Jesus relinquished at the cross in dying the eternal death of the sinner –
which Spirit of eternal life returned to the Father in the most holy of the
heavenly Sanctuary at the time of the cross; to be administered to each
obedient saint at the intercession of Jesus the high priest. The latter rain,
[which] is the final delivering of the eternal life-blood of Christ to His
“new” eternal body of saints, who now replace the original body in which He lived
from eternity.
He gave His original eternal body and blood as an eternal
sacrifice, for His saints to eat and drink, whereby they obtain eternal life
in themselves! (John 6:53, 54). I could say much more – but why should I?
Herewith I have given you the most important message. I’ve told you the
things that God has made plain to me. But let me elaborate on Christ’s
eternal sacrifice:
Christ Died
the Eternal Death of the Sinner
On the cross, He died the eternal death of the sinner, from
which there can be no hope of a resurrection [returning to His former DIVINE
ONLY EXISTENCE]; that we might receive the eternal life-in-Himself, which had
been His. This eternal life was the entity of the Holy Ghost. A ghost is the
image – the living spirit – of one who has died. At death, it returned to God
who gave it.
Note by Ron: Recall that the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ
as a dove. That was the Holy Spirit DIVINE ONLY life He relinquished at His
Incarnation. Then, just before He died, He commended that Spirit to His
Father and could never again return to that DIVINE HOLY SPIRIT LIFE ONLY. He
henceforth took upon Himself humanity forever. But the Father sends that
Spirit to us—that DIVINE NATURE Holy Spirit the Son was constituted of before
His Incarnation Sacrifice in the Heavenly Sanctuary from the foundation of
the earth. End note.
Christ was the eternal Son of God by virtue of the eternal
Spirit of life which the Father had shared with His only-begotten Son from
eternity past [cf. John 5:26] and the following reference:
“Christ declared that after His ascension, He would send to
His church the Comforter, who was to take His place. This Comforter is the
Holy Ghost – the soul of His life. . . .” R&H, May 19th, 1904.
But He volunteered to die the eternal death of the sinner. And
after presenting His disciples with His final profound lesson at the last
Passover supper, explaining how He must die the eternal death of the sinner,
and relinquish His eternal body and blood for them to eat and drink to obtain
the eternal life which had been His, He went to Gethsemane and surrendered
His life into the custody of His Father; and thus could die the eternal death
of sinful humanity on the cross.
The Time When
the 144,000 Collectively Receive the Holy Ghost
After His resurrection, He ascended to intercede in the most
holy apartment of the heavenly sanctuary for the Father to send His Spirit of
eternal life – now called the Holy Ghost – to each one for whom He
interceded. When 144,000 saints obtain perfect obedience, they will
collectively receive the fullness of the Holy Ghost of the former Christ who
had died the second death of the sinner from which there is no hope of a
resurrection. Repentant sinners live eternally by receiving the eternal life
Spirit of Christ – the Holy Ghost – as a permanent gift. End message by J.
Wilfred Johnson
Commentary by Ron: By the words “from which there is no hope
of a resurrection,” is meant that after the cross Christ could never again
return to His former existence as DIVINE ONLY. He thus proffered to us His
Divine Nature life, to wit:
2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
"He (Christ)
suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which WAS His." Desire of
Ages, p. 25 1 Cor. 11:24-265, cf. John 6:53, 54, Titus 3:5, 6.
"Christ
declared that after his ascension, he would send to his church, as his crowning gift, the Comforter, who was to take his place. This Comforter is
the Holy Spirit,--the soul of his life,
the efficacy of his church, the light and life of the world. With his Spirit
Christ sends a reconciling influence and a power that takes away sin.
In the gift of the Spirit [HIS
LIFE--THE SOUL OF HIS LIFE], Jesus gave to man
the highest good that heaven could bestow....
The Spirit was given as a
regenerating agency, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been
of no avail....
It is by the Spirit that the heart
is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the
divine nature. Christ has given his Spirit as
a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil,
and to impress his own character upon the church." E.G. White, Review and Herald Articles, May 19,
1904, vol. 5, p. 42.
“Christ
had stooped to take upon Himself man’s nature; He was to bear an infinite
weight of woe as He
should make His soul an offering
for sin; yet
angels desire that even in His humiliation the Son of the Highest might
appear before men with a dignity and glory befitting His character.” E.G.
White, The Great Controversy, pp.
313, 314.
The abominable Trinity Doctrine of Rome contravenes everything
you have just read by teaching that the Holy Spirit always existed as a third
person. That totally obfuscates the highest good, crowning sacrificial gift
that heaven can bestow—the gift of the soul of His life—His Holy Spirit. If
the Holy Spirit is a totally different person than the Son of God, then there
was no such sacrifice for sin and therefore there was no atonement for sin,
for only the Testator GOD could die for sin. If the Son who died did not die
to something eternally—HIS DIVINE HOLY SPIRIT (ONLY) NATURE—then there was no
atonement! The entire Christian economy is thus destroyed by the Roman
Catholic Trinity doctrine! Satan is laughing all the way to the pits of hell!
Rome’s Trinity Doctrine is nothing more than a spiritualistic
lie and the biggest one that Satan ever told! Why? Because it has everything
to do with the personality of God and subverts the “highest good, crowning
gift” that heaven can bestow. It thus sweeps away the entire Christian
economy in one felt swoop!
"The
spiritualistic theories regarding the personality of God [the Godhead],
followed to their logical conclusion, sweep away the whole Christian economy.
They estimate as nothing the light that Christ came from heaven to give John
to give to His people. They teach that the scenes just before us are not of
sufficient importance to be given special attention. They make of no effect
the truth of heavenly origin, and rob the people of God of their past
experience, giving them instead a false science." E.G. White, Selected
Messages, Bk. 1, p. 204.
The Holy
Spirit always existed in the person of the Son of God, but it did not become
a third person until the Incarnation. Was the Holy Spirit an eternal
dignitary (person) as Ellen White states? Certainly! Are the three persons of
the Godhead eternal? Certainly! Except for the humanity part of Christ. But
as Ellen White states, He now retains that humanity forever.
Idols Smuggled into the SDA Church
"Worldly
policy is taking the place of true piety and wisdom that comes from above,
and God will remove His prospering hand from the conference. Shall the ark of
the covenant be removed from this people? Shall idols be smuggled in? Shall
false principles and false precepts be brought into the sanctuary? Shall
antichrist be respected? Shall the true doctrines and principles given us
of God, which have made us what we are, be ignored?.... This is directly
where the enemy, through blinded, unconsecrated men, is leading us."
E. G. White, Manuscript 29, 1890.
The
Trinity Doctrine is a false idolatrous doctrine of Rome. She brags that this
doctrine is her central doctrine. This abominable of all doctrines was
smuggled into the SDA church by ONE MAN, Leroy Froom, in 1930. That began the
Omega of Apostasy that Ellen White said would continue and wax stronger until
Jesus comes. This doctrine makes SDA’s worse than Babylon, heathen graven
image worshippers, because they knew the truth.
"God's
professed people are selfish and self-caring....They are idolaters, and are
worse, in the sight of God, than the heathen, graven-image worshippers who
have had no knowledge of a better way." Testimonies, Vol. 2,
440-441.
—rwb
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