E. J. Waggoner
Christ himself is the embodiment, the personification, of the kingdom of God. The Gospel or good news of the kingdom is the demonstration of all the power of God in human flesh. Men are to be taught that the Spirit is stronger than the flesh, and can rule it; and that the flesh of weak, sinful man, even in what are supposed to be the most debased, savage races of the earth, can be used to show forth the mighty works of God. And this will be the case with everyone who completely recognizes the fact that he has but one debt, namely, that he owes himself to God, and thus to the world, since God lives for the benefit of His creation.
The debt that we owe to the world is love, and “God is love.” Therefore we owe it to the world—to all our fellow men—to allow God to reveal Himself to them in us. We owe it to everyone to cease holding down the truth in unrighteousness, so that all that may be known of God may be manifest in us. There is altogether too low a conception in the world of what a man ought to be. The standard of manhood is too low. The possibilities that are wrapped up in the human body are not grasped; but there are men now in the world who will allow God to use them to demonstrate that with Him nothing is impossible. Who will be one of them?
The men who will compose this glorious band will not be making excuses for not obeying God’s law either in letter or in spirit. The righteousness of the law—every commandment to the full—will be fulfilled in them; for love, the manifestation of God, is the fulfilling of the law. “Love works no ill to his neighbor;” but love must be at work; therefore love does good to his neighbor. Even so Christ “went about doing good.”
In the kingdom of God the Spirit rules: but “where the Spirit of God is there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17); therefore the absolute reign of the Spirit means the complete freedom of the body from all “fleshly lusts that war against the soul.” The desires of the flesh will be present in the flesh; but only the mind of the Spirit will be fulfilled. What a glorious thing it is that this Gospel comes to us, and that all this freedom—the freedom of the universe—is for us if we are willing to pay the price, namely, the absolute, constant and eternal surrender of ourselves to God.
Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, July 1, 1902