Why Did Jesus have to Die?
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Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It has been a few months since our last newsletter and many things have taken place in that time. As I interact with many of you from around the world there is a growing sense of gratitude to our wonderful Father for the gift of His Son to show us His true character and to assure us of His forgiving love. One event that has really increased momentum in the message has been the book by Jay Schulberg called Acts of our Gentle God. I was introduced to this book by Christine Nelson from Florida. I read it during Passover this year and what a blessing it was to read. The book Agape released in December of 2017 has been a comprehensive attempt to present our Father exactly as Christ revealed Him when He came to earth. This volume takes some effort to process and digest. Many of its principles have been presented more simply in the book Acts of our Gentle God. The two books together make a powerful combination to open the willing heart to the glorious truth that our Father does not use violent force on His creature to rule His universe. Acts of our Gentle God and Identity Wars are my first "go to" books to share with others when the door is opened to tell of the wonderful Father we serve as revealed in His Son. In a few weeks I and my family will begin our tour across Australia and then on to South Africa for a number of meetings as well as Tabernacles in the Cape Town area. The theme burning in my soul is the love of God as manifested in the Cross. A number of us have been drawn to contemplate the Cross of Christ in our morning and evening sacrifice time. The book Desire of Ages is such a treasure for contemplation of our beloved Saviour. Just in time for this tour I have completed a new book called Cross Examined and Cross Encountered. I invite you to study this little volume as it is a seed of thought for things to come in respect of why Jesus had to die for us. For the vast majority of Christians there is the thought that Christ was indeed smitten of God and afflicted because of His stern justice. This sits in a very awkward position with the thought that God is appeased through death. This has in part been the cause of the retreat by Christianity from the true Sonship of Christ, for if Christ is God Himself then God would not be not appeased by the death of His Son for Christ is not actually His Son but His counterpart displaying the attributes of a Son that simply reveals self sacrificing love. This is a difficult place to travel although I believe for many the motivation is sincere to avert the charge of child sacrifice and the idea of a deity that is appeased through death. For those of us who have taken refuge in the precious of the begotten Son in our reading of Scripture there is different framework that beckons us. A framework forged in the beautiful 1888 message and that being the arrangement of the two covenants across salvation history. In such a context the sacrificial system of the Old Testament calls us to re-examine our understanding. It is true God instituted the sacrificial system but at the same time He told Israel that He did not command them about sacrifices and offerings when they came out of Egypt. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: Jeremiah 7:22 How do we reconcile this statement. Did not God command Israel regarding all the rules and regulations regarding sacrifices? Is this not commanding them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices? Could these commandments be in the same context as God commanding Samuel to anoint Saul to be king? God never desired Israel to have a king but Israel desired it and thus God gave them one. In Psalms 40:6 we are told that God does not desire sacrifice and offering and He does not require burnt offering and sin offering. If this is the case then is the law of Moses truly a ministration of death to show the heart of man to himself as one that does desire sacrifices and offerings? In the booklet Cross Examined and Cross Encountered you are invited to consider the position of the Law of Moses in the plan of salvation. It is a glorious gift to man and yet at the same time if man had been more faithful to God none of it would have been required. Notice: "If man had kept the law of God, as given to Adam after his fall, preserved by Noah, and observed by Abraham, there would have been no necessity for the ordinance of circumcision. And if the descendants of Abraham had kept the covenant, of which circumcision was a sign, they would never have been seduced into idolatry, nor would it have been necessary for them to suffer a life of bondage in Egypt; they would have kept God's law in mind, and there would have been no necessity for it to be proclaimed from Sinai or engraved upon the tables of stone. And had the people practiced the principles of the Ten Commandments, there would have been no need of the additional directions given to Moses. {PP 364.2} The additional precepts given to Moses where on account of the apostasy of man and yet the principles in this Law speak to eternal principles which the hasty reader is eager to nail to the Cross in order to escape its blessings which the natural man deems as curses. Such is the blindness of Laodicea. I am reminded of this statement that I read recently: Satan wished to cause Jesus to presume upon the mercy of His Father and risk His life before the fulfillment of His mission. He had hoped that the plan of salvation would fail; but the plan was laid too deep to be overthrown or marred by Satan. {EW 156.1} If the plan of salvation had been too deeply laid for Satan to overthrow it, does this not suggest that there are layers to our understanding of the Cross that are much deeper than we have imagined? I am inviting you to dig a little deeper on this question and consider the place of the Old Testament sacrifices in relation to the Cross of Christ while considering that the everlasting gospel has never changed. Christianity commenced as soon as man had sinned. This is the only way that the gospel can be everlasting. I pray our Father bless you and your family in abundance as you consider the Cross of Christ and its wonderful light reflecting the Father's love for us. Adrian Ebens
Pastors, Bible Workers, Translators, Editors and Canvassers Maranatha Media is supporting Pastors, Bible workers and others in several countries. Thank you for helping us to help them. Maranatha Media does not employ people. We partner with those who love the message and simply do our best to help them do what God calls them to do in their field of labour. We say thank you for all our supporters in various parts of the world that help us get the joyous news of the Third's Angel's message out to the world. We ask for your prayers as we continue to advance the light of truth. We are very excited about the things we are learning and pray that you also will be blessed on this journey into a deeper knowledge of the Father and the Son.
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Natural Justice and the Atonement
