Daily Bread  -  May, 2008

by Robert J. Wieland

Almost the last words that Jesus spoke to “us” as He was being taken up in His ascension into heaven were: “Peace be unto you” (Luke 24:36). That was not an idle greeting; He gives that peace—not merely offers it.

Such “peace” is the opposite of worry or fear; in fact it’s an antidote to worry and fear!

Included in that most precious gift is heart-reconciliation with the Father; He is now working to effect that reconciliation, for we read in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that “God was [is] in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.”

The gift is given to “whosoever will” receive it (Rev. 22:17). It includes the forgiveness of sins and the faith to believe that they have been forgiven. God’s forgiveness is not a temporary “pardon” which says that He doesn’t mind if we sin again—no; if God forgives us a sin it means that we will never do it again.

Forgiveness there is far more than mere pardon; forgiveness takes the sin away. Forgiveness imparts in the place of the sin (that was there) a divine-born hatred of the sin itself.

Forgiveness includes that reconciliation of heart with the Father, “in Christ.” That is, we have come to believe (even if we have not yet learned to understand) that we now hate the sin itself; there is no resentment left in the heart against the Father.

Even the pain and suffering of a love betrayed and lost (which embitters us) is healed by this “peace” that the Savior gives—not merely offers.

Miracle of miracles! A wounded heart is healed by the “peace” that Jesus gave as His last bequest at His ascension. Yes, there has been suffering, for the “peace” that Jesus gives would not be appreciated unless we had tasted it; “unto you it is given ... , not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:29).

“Given unto [us]!” Yes! A “gift” of suffering to make you happy in the day when Jesus comes; and you’re happy even now thanking Him for it, in advance.

It sounds outlandish, but it’s true: the marriage of Jesus is a cardinal Bible doctrine!

The Book of Revelation devotes an entire chapter to it, a chapter which has often been neglected, not because Bible students are resistant and unbelieving but simply because they don’t understand.

The Lord, the Father, who gave us the Book of Revelation (note, Rev. 1:1-3; the Father is the first link), would not waste the precious space that a whole chapter in Revelation occupies—chapter 19. The chapter is there because the “marriage of the Lamb” is vitally necessary to the understanding of God’s people in these last days.

It’s not right that all heaven is abuzz with the partying excitement that prevails there now, in anticipation, according to Revelation 19, and we who are God’s people here on earth plod along in darkness and ignorance.

Is it possible that the Lord Jesus Christ is in love with a “woman”? The answer is a resounding yes, but “she” is not an ordinary woman; she is “the church.” God’s people are guests at the wedding, says a profoundly serious writer in The Great Controversy; therefore they cannot also be the bride, the author says.

But elsewhere the same author over and over declares that “the church” is the Bride of Christ.

Indeed, God’s people as individuals will be “guests” at the wedding; but as a corporate body they are the Bride. The Son of God has become one of us; He is the divine Son of God, but He is also the Son of man; and as a human “man” He naturally wants to be married to the object of His conjugal love.

Heaven is abuzz with the excitement, says Revelation 19, over and over. People around the world are beginning to think of Revelation 19; and they are beginning to think also of the message of the long neglected Song of Solomon, especially chapter 5 (Jesus declared that that book is a part of the divinely inspired “Scripture,” in John 7:37, 38 [SS 4:15]). Maybe, the Lord willing, more tomorrow.

NEWSWEEK had a cover article entitled “Splitsville,” a study of divorce in modern America. It wasn’t a happy article.

“Once considered shocking and shameful, divorce has become a routine fact of American life in recent decades” it says. The divorce rate is more than double what it was in the 1950’s. The “statistics” are “depressing,” adds the article.

Two thousand years ago the Savior of the world declared that in the last days of earth’s history “the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12; if we had no other “sign of the times” to tell us that we are living in those last days, this sad news of divorce itself would be sufficient).

There must be a reason for this spiritual “disease” of lovelessness; shockingly, it can be found (of all places) in church!

Paganism has infiltrated and yes, has invaded, the Christian church. One example only can be cited here: the false doctrine of the natural immortality of the human soul. What this “Christianized” fallacy has accomplished is the virtual eclipse of the truth of the cross of Christ, the denial of what happened when Jesus died for the world.

If the human soul is by nature immortal, then Christ did not die on that cross! Thus in foisting this pagan philosophy into the popular church, Satan has succeeded to foment his rebellion against the true Christ, the son of God, the Savior of the world.

The death that Jesus died on that cross was not the “sleep” that we commonly describe as “death.” Says Scripture, “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Heb. 2:9). That “taste” was not simple “sleep;” it was the real thing—the awful “second death.” Christ “poured out His soul unto [that] death” (Isa. 53:12).

There is the truth of “love,” the agape that Paul says is God (1 John 4:8). Take that truth away, and we are left with “the love of many wax[ing] cold.”

The Bible says that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ...” This must mean that He loves everybody in the world.

But it is surprising to discover that there are some people whom the Lord “abhors.”

We find them in Proverbs 22:14: “The mouth of strange women is a deep pit; whosoever is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein.”

It’s possible therefore for the Lord to “abhor” someone’s character and yet at the same time He loves that person’s soul and wants him (her) to be saved eternally.

An example is King David. The Lord loved him but He abhorred his double sin of adultery and murder of Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 11:2-27).

The Lord gave King David the gift of repentance (repentance is always a gift from the Lord; see Acts 5:31; don’t ever refuse it).

David’s repentance is explained in two psalms especially, #32 and #51. He realizes that the root of his sin is hatred of God that expresses itself in murder of God—in other words, in the crucifixion of the Son of God. He says, “Against Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight” (51:4).

He confesses his sin without making any excuse for it; he realizes that the root of all sin takes him back to Calvary. That’s where the world is judged.

It’s better for us to realize the root of sin today and confess it rather than wait until the final day of judgment, too late to confess the truth.

A powerful “Good News” text is 1 Timothy 4:10:

“We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe.”

There are two ways that Christ is the “Saviour of all men”:

(1) He is literally and effectively “the Saviour” of those who “believe.”

(a) Their faith in Him is the kind that Galatians 5:6 describes as “faith which worketh by love.”

(b) That faith itself produces obedience to the holy law of God, because faith is a heart-appreciation of that love (agape) of God.

(c) Such faith melts a hard heart and reconciles the soul to God.

(d) We humans can’t duplicate what Christ did; but we can let our small, shriveled up hearts “enlarge” so we can appreciate what He has done for us (see Psalm 119:32).

(e) Then the love (agape) of Christ will “constrain” us “henceforth” to live only for Him.

(2) The second way that Christ is already “the Saviour of all men” is seen when we look at Romans 5:15-18:

(a) The “offence” our father Adam passed on down to us is the heritage of sin we all inherit from him.

(b) But the grace of Christ is much greater than all the sin the devil has tempted us to do.

(c) Christ has therefore reversed that curse that Adam brought upon us; he is the new Adam, our new father of the human race.

(d) What He did was to pay the penalty of our sin so that the Father could pronounce on the whole human race a “judicial verdict of acquittal” (Rom. 5:16-18, NEB).

(e) Therefore the Father has no chip on His shoulder against you or anyone; He makes “His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).

(f) Note: this is a judicial verdict of acquittal; now we must take action: be reconciled to God and to His holy law and let Him save us from sin.

How could the Samaritans in John 4:42 say that Jesus is “the Savior of the world” when today 2000 years later most of the world’s inhabitants do not recognize Him?

The Holy Spirit led them to say that because it is true!

The Father “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” for us; it was not an offer that required us to accept it first; Jesus is an out-and-out gift forever to this fallen human race.

All the giving has already been done; the fact that most of earth’s inhabitants do not accept the gift does not in any way lessen the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height ... of the love [agape] of Christ which passeth knowledge” in His giving of the gift (Eph. 3:18, 19).

What is the reason that most of earth’s inhabitants do not join the Samaritans in confessing that Jesus is their Savior? Most have never heard the gospel presented to them in a clear way; far more than we have yet seen, many will at last open their hearts and receive the good news when it comes to them clearly.

This we know from the prophecy in Revelation18:1-4 of another mighty angel who will “come down from heaven, having great power” when “the earth [will be] lightened with his glory.”

The second coming of Christ will be a decisive moment of judgment for the entire world. Christ so loves this lost planet that He will not permit that final moment of judgment to come until earth’s inhabitants have all had an ample opportunity to hear the message and respond; the Lord is not satisfied with a fear-induced, old covenant message even if it is being proclaimed worldwide.

Many people worldwide have come to understand that this year 2008 marks the 120th anniversary when “the Lord in His great mercy sent” a “most precious message” that was thoroughly New Covenant; glorious Good News that thrilled the hearts of some.

The differences between the New and the Old Covenant are clear-cut; we have detailed them on a little one-page sheet. If you would like to have a PDF file sent to you, please indicate accordingly; I believe you will be blessed (Robert J. Wieland, for Dial Daily Bread).

For many years I could not understand Romans chapter 5. Even after I completed my course in the Theological Seminary, it was over my head. As a pastor, I shied away from it in the pulpit.

Then a kind friend 100 miles away Xeroxed for me a series of articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner, from 1896. At last light began to shine through:

(a) When our first “father” Adam sinned in the Garden, a change, of mortality, came over him; he had to pass that on to all of us.

(b) The heavenly Father so loved us that He gave His only Son to save us; Jesus became our “last Adam,” or second Adam.

(c) He took on His sinless nature our fallen, sinful nature and became in all points “tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).

(d) In other words, Christ, having come now in “the likeness of sinful flesh” and “for condemning sin,” has condemned sin in that same fallen, sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3); He has condemned, conquered, defeated, trampled upon, sin in our fallen, sinful flesh, giving us the immense hope that by His grace and in His faith, we can overcome also.

(e) He has proved that we need never again say “the devil made me do it.”

(f) He has thus given us the confidence that the great controversy between Christ and Satan can be brought to its triumphant conclusion.

(g) And that confidence is now assured that the final victory hour is near—yes, in our lifetime, by the more abounding grace of Christ.

(h) That’s good news that should be heralded to earth’s remotest bounds.

(i) Come, help us proclaim it!

Let’s spend the next few days looking at some of the brightly shining “good news” texts in the Bible:

2 Corinthians 5:18, 19: “All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself [by Jesus Christ], not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”

Familiar words that often don’t penetrate our realization!

(a) From beginning to end, reconciliation is God’s work, not ours. Our natural “mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). It’s just too true: the “natural” warfare is on, even to our last breath unless we are “reconciled to God” in the meantime. (Old age doesn’t make anyone become a friend with God!)

(b) Christ bore our “karma” as the Hindus would say, set us free from the oppression of guilt against God. The last “Good morning” that Jesus spoke to us before His ascension was, “Peace be unto you”(Luke 24:36).

(c) That’s because He had borne the pain of the guilt of irreconciliation within His own soul, at His cross when He screamed, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”(Matt. 27:46). That was the quintessential agony of human abandonment by God! The darkest darkness of hell.

(d) He “tasted” that horror of hell. Peter tells us in Christ’s behalf that the Father would not abandon His Son to stay in hell forever because He didn’t deserve to be there—He was the only person in 6000+ years who was truly innocent: “Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption” (Acts 2:27).

(e) It was a crisp, cool spring day when Jesus was crucified, and Jerusalem being at an elevation above sea level helped make it a cool day; the rock-hewn grave that held His lifeless body was cold from the recent winter; that “body” of Jesus was preserved from any “corruption.” The Father would not permit it! He raised Him soon.

(f) The grand truth that was being worked out was that Jesus had done “the work” the Father had given Him to do—condemn, defeat, annihilate, trample on, kill, destroy sin in the same fallen nature or flesh that “all” of us inherit from our father Adam.

(g) Thus Jesus became the progenitor of the 144,00 people (figurative or literal number we don’t know) who in the very last days will demonstrate for the world and the vast universe to see—that sin is at an end in human flesh, forever. Join them, please.

It’s a tiny little verse in the Bible but it opens up a vast infinitude of blessings for fallen, mortal humanity:

“We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man”(Heb. 2:9, KJV).

(a) Jesus was “made” to be something He was not—lower even than the angels. Here again we see His condescension.

(b) He became human specifically for the purpose of dying (you became human for the specific purpose of living eternally!). From Babyhood He faced His cross; He lived His life in its shadow. You have lived your life in the unshadowed sunlight of God’s smile of delight with you.

(c) We “see” Him in the Word: behold the Christ of the Bible! The picture is clear.

(d) We can know Him more intimately through seeing Him in the Word than if we were walking the paths of the Holy Land with Him.

(e) He was “crowned” with the most unique “glory and honour”—the privilege of dying the death of every person on earth.

(f) But that “death” is not the restful sleep that death is, according to the Bible.

(g) It’s the real thing—the utter horror of the “second death”(cf. Rev. 2:11; 20:14).

(h) That description of the second death includes more than an eternal sleep (people often think that is something to be desired)—

(i) No, that “second death” is a final judgment of total condemnation from the open books of record—every cell of one’s being is on fire with self-destroying torture.

(j) It’s the horror that Jesus endured when He cried out to His Father on His cross, “My God, why have You forsaken me?”

(k) It’s what the lost will feel in that final hour.

(l) It’s more than a momentary anguish: it is the essence of the eternal horror of hell—the absence of God forever.

(m) The choice of His to accept it for our sake is what the Bible means by the word “love” (agape).

(n) Yes, while He was hanging on His cross, the Son of God could “not see through the portals of the tomb” to see His upcoming resurrection! He could see nothing but an eternal hell stretching out before Him. But He endured it, “despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2).

(o) Ponder that love; “behold” it. You’ll never be the same.

A man may love a woman truly, and she make a response to his love and tell him she also loves him truly; and then without provocation, she may turn on him and drop him cruelly:

That is a very painful experience for the man to have to go through. If, O man, you’ve never had to have it, thank the Lord. He never intended that you should have that painful sorrow.

Is it possible that the Lord Jesus Christ has been through that experience of suffering?

Only on a far greater plane than any of us have endured?

What we know for sure from the Bible is that Jesus will be married, for we read a prophecy that “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready”(Rev. 19:7, 8).

The clear meaning of the prophecy in context is that before this “marriage” takes place, it has been long delayed.

And the long delay was never the intent of the divine Bridegroom. “The disappointment of Christ has been beyond description,”—this we know.

And what we know also is that in the Song of Songs we have a clear prophecy of the divine Bridegroom’s suffering from the callous hardheartedness of the one “woman” whom He loves truly in all the world. It’s chapter 5:2-8 (incidentally, Jesus expressly commended the Song of Solomon as holy “Scripture” in John 7:37, 38).

The “man” (representing Christ) who truly loves the “woman” has just returned from a trip. He has come to her because He loves her, He wants to be with her intimately; but she disdains Him even though He knocks pleadingly on her “door,” telling her it’s raining outside where He is, please let Me in; but she rebuffs Him (read it; it’s there).

It’s one of the most painful pictures in the Bible, there in the Song of Songs.

But finally, she actually “repents”: she stops thinking of her own selfish comfort in her snug, warm bed on a rainy night and begins to think about Him out there in the cold and the wet, and gets up to care for Him.

The story of stories has to end with her repentance; otherwise “heaven” would be no more heaven, but become hell.

That’s how serious living is in this antitypical Day of Atonement during this Judgment hour (cf. Rev. 14:6, 7).

I cried yesterday, tears rolling unabashed down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it and I was not ashamed; and it wasn’t sentimentalism.

I heard someone very capable singing the old favorite, “The Holy City,” and I admit it was beautifully, artistically, done. But it wasn’t the artistry alone that moved me so.

It was the message that hit me powerfully, one little detail that was overwhelming to my own soul. Of the City, —

“Its gates were open wide,

and all who would might enter,

and no one was denied.”

Everybody knows that, of course; but why was I so moved all of a sudden?

An overwhelming realization of my unworthiness before the Lord, how I am indeed “less than the least of all saints,” how I was corporately in that group two millennia ago that yelled “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”...

And yet the gates of the Holy City are indeed wide open, and no one who wants to enter will ever be denied!

That’s a refreshingly different idea about the final judgment! What many have thought is that the Lord slams the door in some people’s faces and throws them kicking and screaming in protest into the Lake of Fire. That’s not true!

The truth is that no one will ever enter the Lake of Fire unless it is by his own free will and choice. Those who at last will be lost are those who will “welcome destruction.”

And not one who really wants to live in the New Jerusalem will be excluded!

This is an understanding of the “much more abounding grace” of the Lord that deeply moves my heart.

It not only brings tears to my eyes and moves my heart, but “constrains” me “henceforth” to devote my life and all I have to the service of the One who loved me and gave Himself for me.