EGW Notes - Lesson 3
Sabbath Afternoon, January 8
The angels of God were commissioned to visit the fallen pair and inform them that although they could no
longer retain possession of their holy estate, their Eden home, because of their transgression of the law of God, yet
their case was not altogether hopeless. They were then informed that the Son of God, who had conversed with
them in Eden, had been moved with pity as He viewed their hopeless condition, and had volunteered to take upon
Himself the punishment due to them, and die for them that man might yet live, through faith in the atonement
Christ proposed to make for him. Through Christ a door of hope was opened, that man, notwithstanding his great
sin, should not be under the absolute control of Satan. Faith in the merits of the Son of God would so elevate man
that he could resist the devices of Satan. Probation would be granted him in which, through a life of repentance
and faith in the atonement of the Son of God, he might be redeemed from his transgression of the Father’s law.
—The Story of Redemption, pp. 46, 47.
Christ in His ministry had opened the minds of His disciples to these prophecies; “beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Luke 24:27. Peter in
preaching Christ had produced his evidence from the Old Testament. Stephen had pursued the same course. And
Paul also in his ministry appealed to the scriptures foretelling the birth, sufferings, death, resurrection, and
ascension of Christ. By the inspired testimony of Moses and the prophets he clearly proved the identity of Jesus of
Nazareth with the Messiah and showed that from the days of Adam it was the voice of Christ which had been
speaking through patriarchs and prophets.
Plain and specific prophecies had been given regarding the appearance of the Promised One. To Adam was
given an assurance of the coming of the Redeemer. The sentence pronounced on Satan, “I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”
(Genesis 3:15), was to our first parents a promise of the redemption to be wrought out through Christ.—
The Acts of
the Apostles
, pp. 221, 222.
It had been difficult even for the angels to grasp the mystery of redemption—to comprehend that the
Commander of heaven, the Son of God, must die for guilty man. When the command was given to Abraham to
offer up his son, the interest of all heavenly beings was enlisted. With intense earnestness they watched each step
in the fulfillment of this command. When to Isaac’s question, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham
made answer, “God will provide Himself a lamb;” and when the father’s hand was stayed as he was about to slay
his son, and the ram which God had provided was offered in the place of Isaac—then light was shed upon the
mystery of redemption, and even the angels understood more clearly the wonderful provision that God had made
for man’s salvation. 1 Peter 1:12.—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 155.
Sunday, January 9
In These Last Days
Fellow pilgrim, we are still amid the shadows and turmoil of earthly activities; but soon our Saviour is to
appear to bring deliverance and rest. Let us by faith behold the blessed hereafter as pictured by the hand of God.
He who died for the sins of the world is opening wide the gates of Paradise to all who believe on Him. Soon the
battle will have been fought, the victory won. Soon we shall see Him in whom our hopes of eternal life are
centered. And in His presence the trials and sufferings of this life will seem as nothingness. The former things
“shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great
recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the
promise. For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” “Israel shall be saved … with
an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.” Isaiah 65:17; Hebrews
10:35-37; Isaiah 45:17.—Prophets and Kings, pp. 731, 732.
As the sinner, drawn by the power of Christ, approaches the uplifted cross, and prostrates himself before it,
there is a new creation. A new heart is given him. He becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. Holiness finds that
it has nothing more to require. God Himself is “the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Romans 3:26. And
“whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Romans 8:30. Great as is the shame and degradation through sin,
even greater will be the honor and exaltation through redeeming love. To human beings striving for conformity to
the divine image there is imparted an outlay of heaven’s treasure, an excellency of power, that will place them
higher than even the angels who have never fallen.—Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 163.
In His promises and warnings, Jesus means me. God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son,
that I by believing in Him, might not perish, but have everlasting life. The experiences related in God’s word are
to be my experiences. Prayer and promise, precept and warning, are mine. … As faith thus receives and assimilates
the principles of truth, they become a part of the being and the motive power of the life. The word of God,
received into the soul, molds the thoughts, and enters into the development of character.
By looking constantly to Jesus with the eye of faith, we shall be strengthened. God will make the most
precious revelations to His hungering, thirsting people. They will find that Christ is a personal Saviour. As they
feed upon His word, they find that it is spirit and life. The word destroys the natural, earthly nature, and imparts a
new life in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes to the soul as a Comforter. By the transforming agency of His
grace, the image of God is reproduced in the disciple; he becomes a new creature.—The Desire of Ages, pp. 390, 391.
Monday, January 10
God Has Spoken to Us By His Son
The Scriptures clearly indicate the relation between God and Christ, and they bring to view as clearly the
personality and individuality of each. …
The personality of the Father and the Son, also the unity that exists between Them, are presented in the
seventeenth chapter of John, in the prayer of Christ for His disciples:
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all
may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe
that Thou hast sent Me.” John 17:20, 21.
The unity that exists between Christ and His disciples does not destroy the personality of either. They are one
in purpose, in mind, in character, but not in person. It is thus that God and Christ are one.—
The Ministry of
Healing
, pp. 421, 422.
Satan is determined that men shall not see the love of God which led Him to give His only-begotten Son to
save a lost race; for it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance. O how shall we succeed in setting
forth before the world the deep, precious love of God? In no other way we can compass it except by exclaiming,
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God” (1 John
3:1). Let us say to sinners, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). By
presenting Jesus as the representative of the Father, we shall be able to dispel the shadow that Satan has cast upon
our pathway, in order that we shall not see the mercy and inexpressible love of God as manifested in Jesus Christ.
Look at the cross of Calvary. It is a standing pledge of the boundless love, the measureless mercy of the heavenly
Father.—Selected Messages, book 1, p. 156.
In the kingdom of God, position is not gained through favoritism. It is not earned, nor is it received through
an arbitrary bestowal. It is the result of character. The crown and the throne are the tokens of a condition
attained—tokens of self-conquest through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Long afterward, when John had been brought into sympathy with Christ through the fellowship of His
sufferings, the Lord Jesus revealed to him what is the condition of nearness to His kingdom. “To him that
overcometh,” Christ said, “will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with
My Father in His throne.” Revelation 3:21. The one who stands nearest to Christ will be he who has drunk most
deeply of His spirit of self-sacrificing love. … love that moves the disciple, as it moved our Lord, to give all, to live
and labor and sacrifice even unto death, for the saving of humanity.—The Acts of the Apostles, p. 543.
Tuesday, January 11
“He Is the Radiance of the Glory of God!”
The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, existed from eternity, a distinct person, yet one with the Father.
He was the surpassing glory of heaven. He was the commander of the heavenly intelligences, and the adoring
homage of the angels was received by Him as His right. This was no robbery of God. “The Lord possessed me in
the beginning of his way,” He declares, “before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning,
or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding
with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: while as yet he had not made
the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there:
when he set a compass upon the face of the depth” (Proverbs 8:22-27).
There are light and glory in the truth that Christ was one with the Father before the foundation of the world
was laid. This is the light shining in a dark place, making it resplendent with divine, original glory. This truth,
infinitely mysterious in itself, explains other mysterious and otherwise unexplainable truths, while it is enshrined
in light, unapproachable and incomprehensible.—Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 247, 248.
The blessings of redeeming love our Saviour compared to a precious pearl. He illustrated His lesson by the
parable of the merchantman seeking goodly pearls “who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and
sold all that he had, and bought it.” Christ Himself is the pearl of great price. In Him is gathered all the glory of
the Father, the fullness of the Godhead. He is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His
person. The glory of the attributes of God is expressed in His character. Every page of the Holy Scriptures shines
with His light. The righteousness of Christ, as a pure, white pearl, has no defect, no stain. No work of man can
improve the great and precious gift of God. It is without a flaw. In Christ are “hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge.” Colossians 2:3. He is “made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
1 Corinthians 1:30. All that can satisfy the needs and longings of the human soul, for this world and for the world
to come, is found in Christ. Our Redeemer is the pearl so precious that in comparison all things else may be
accounted loss.—Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 115.
Wednesday, January 12
Through Whom He Made the Universe
While God’s Word speaks of the humanity of Christ when upon this earth, it also speaks decidedly regarding
His pre-existence. The Word existed as a divine being, even as the eternal Son of God, in union and oneness with
His Father. From everlasting He was the Mediator of the covenant, the one in whom all nations of the earth, both
Jews and Gentiles, if they accepted Him, were to be blessed. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God”
(John 1:1). Before men or angels were created, the Word was with God, and was God.
The world was made by Him, “and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). If Christ
made all things, He existed before all things. The words spoken in regard to this are so decisive that no one need
be left in doubt. Christ was God essentially, and in the highest sense. He was with God from all eternity, God over
all, blessed forevermore.—Selected Messages, book 1, p. 247.
In Christ were united the divine and the human—the Creator and the creature. The nature of God, whose law
had been transgressed, and the nature of Adam, the transgressor, meet in Jesus—the Son of God, and the Son of
man. And having with His own blood paid the price of redemption, having passed through man’s experience,
having in man’s behalf met and conquered temptation, having, though Himself sinless, borne the shame and guilt
and burden of sin, He becomes man’s Advocate and Intercessor. What an assurance here to the tempted and
struggling soul, what an assurance to the witnessing universe, that Christ will be “a merciful and faithful high
priest”!—Ellen G. White Comments, in The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 926.
The mechanism of the human body cannot be fully understood; it presents mysteries that baffle the most
intelligent. It is not as the result of a mechanism, which, once set in motion, continues its work, that the pulse
beats and breath follows breath. In God we live and move and have our being. The beating heart, the throbbing
pulse, every nerve and muscle in the living organism, is kept in order and activity by the power of an ever-present
God.
The Bible shows us God in His high and holy place, not in a state of inactivity, not in silence and solitude, but
surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of holy beings, all waiting to do His
will. Through these messengers He is in active communication with every part of His dominion. By His Spirit He
is everywhere present. Through the agency of His Spirit and His angels He ministers to the children of men.
Above the distractions of the earth He sits enthroned; all things are open to His divine survey; and from His
great and calm eternity He orders that which His providence sees best.—The Ministry of Healing, p. 417.
Thursday, January 13
“Today I Have Begotten You”
When Christ bowed on the banks of Jordan, after His baptism, the heavens, were opened, and the Spirit
descended in the form of a dove, like burnished gold, and encircled Him with its glory; and the voice of God from
the highest heaven was heard, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The
prayer of Christ in man’s behalf opened the gates of heaven, and the Father had responded, accepting the petition
for the fallen race. Jesus prayed as our substitute and surety, and now the human family may find access to the
Father through the merits of His well-beloved Son. …
The word that was spoken to Jesus at the Jordan … embraces humanity. God spoke to Jesus as our
representative. With all our sins and weaknesses, we are not cast aside as worthless. … The glory that rested upon
Christ is a pledge of the love of God for us. It tells us of the power of prayer—how the human voice may reach the
ear of God, and our petition find acceptance in the courts of heaven. … The light which fell from the open portals
upon the head of our Saviour will fall upon us as we pray for help to resist temptation. The voice which spoke to
Jesus says to every believing soul, This is My beloved child, in whom I am well pleased. … Our Redeemer has
opened the way so that the most sinful, the most needy, … may find access to the
Father.—God’s Amazing Grace, p. 83.
God has adopted human nature in the person of His Son, and has carried the same into the highest heaven. It
is the “Son of man” who shares the throne of the universe. It is the “Son of man” whose name shall be called,
“Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6. The I AM is the
Daysman between God and humanity, laying His hand upon both. He who is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners,” is not ashamed to call us brethren. Hebrews 7:26; 2:11. In Christ the family of earth and the family
of heaven are bound together. Christ glorified is our brother. Heaven is enshrined in humanity, and humanity is
enfolded in the bosom of Infinite Love.—The Desire of Ages, pp. 25, 26.
The Son of God died for those who had no claim on His love. For us He suffered all that Satan could bring
against Him.
Wonderful—almost too wonderful for man to comprehend—is the Saviour’s sacrifice in our behalf. … When
we realize that His suffering was necessary in order to secure our eternal well-being, our hearts are touched and
melted. He pledged Himself to accomplish our full salvation in a way satisfactory to the demands of God’s justice,
and consistent with the exalted holiness of His law.
No one less holy than the Only Begotten of the Father, could have offered a sacrifice that would be efficacious
to cleanse all—even the most sinful and degraded—who accept the Saviour as their atonement and become
obedient to Heaven’s law. Nothing less could have reinstated man in God’s favor.—Selected Messages, book 1, p.
309.
Friday, January 14
For Further Reading
In Heavenly Places, “Breaking the Power of Death,” p. 44;
The Faith I Live By, “A Personal God,” p. 40.
