SAVED BY HIS LIFE by T. E. Bowen

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 13, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 41.

“SAVED BY HIS LIFE.”

By T. E. Bowen

“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Rom. 5:10. It was not enough to bring about the salvation of fallen humanity that Christ should die. That was necessary for our reconciliation, but a perfect, sinless life must be lived in the flesh for us. It is by that life we are saved. All agree that Jesus lived this perfect life. He was without sin. By this sinless life he “condemned sin in the flesh.” Many sought to entangle our Redeemer in sin. The Jews believed him to be a Sabbath-breaker, and tried to fasten this sin upon Him. Some thought he had a devil. Others brought other accusations, but He continued to speak the truth, and asked, “Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” John 8:46. Again, at the close of His work, He says, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you; for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing [no sin] in Me” (John 14:30), nothing in harmony with Satan.

“Sin is the transgression of the law.” If Jesus had been convinced of sin, He would have broken some portion of the law; “for sin is the transgression of the law.” Every one of the ten precepts He kept. He must, then, have kept the fourth commandment, which enjoins the keeping holy of the seventh day of the week—not the first. All His life He observed this day; for it was His custom to read in the synagogue. Luke 4:16.

But we are saved by His life. And that life was a Sabbath (seventh-day) keeping life. Every individual, therefore, saved in the kingdom of God must have imputed to Him, through faith, this life of Jesus Christ.

Inasmuch as the Lord gave no intimation of His followers observing any other day for the Sabbath, how can it be possible for them, since light has shone upon the Sabbath, to receive by faith this Sabbath-keeping part of Jesus’ life, when they believe another day to be the Sabbath, which He never recognized? Can they by some sleight-of-hand movement in faith, conform their Sunday-keeping life with the true Sabbath-keeping life of Jesus Christ? For to be a Christian we must even now live His life. “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Will the Son of God live a different life now in the flesh of His followers of Nazareth than He lived eighteen hundred years ago in the flesh of Jesus? Will He in the flesh now live a Sunday-keeping life, when before He lived a Sabbath (seventh-day) keeping life? Would He then be “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever”?

Reader, ponder carefully the life of Jesus. Is it not a perfect example? Are you not satisfied with it just as it was lived? Then try not to climb up some other way, but rejoice that you can be saved “by His life,” and remember that you can not change it.

T. E. BOWEN.

Newburg, W. V.