First Quarter 2005 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"His Wondrous Cross"
The Story of Our Redemption

Insights to Lesson 10:
The Heart of the Cross
February 26-March 4

(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)

I remember the time when anything about the atonement or the cross was boring to me. What was interesting was spectacular fulfillments of the prophecies. I was interested in what I thought was uniquely “Adventist.” Something about Christ’s sacrifice reminded me of the Sunday-keeping Evangelical Church out of which I had come (“come out of Babylon”!) to become a Seventh-day Adventist. I wanted “present truth,” and that was news about the Sunday Law, or some new disaster predicted in Daniel or Revelation. Hymns about the cross were also boring. A set of Sabbath School Lessons about the atonement—? Dry as dust. Over my head.

Since I discovered (almost accidentally) the 1888 message and its relevance in our denominational history, all this has changed. With the discovery came also a glimpse into the meaning of AGAPE, a word I had never come across in attending church every Sabbath for years. With the discovery came also an intimate acquaintance with the agent of the Gift of Prophecy, Ellen G. White—her heart-broken anguish she felt over what was happening in the 1888 developments. She was forced to contemplate the same “boredom” manifested by the ordained ministers of her day who failed to resonate with the presentations of the cross from young Jones and Waggoner. The ministers thought this “1888” stuff was “Salvation Army-ism” brought into the Adventist Church to take our minds off the real truth for the day—the Sunday Law and impending persecution. Life was about to get interesting, and this “message of Christ’s righteousness” was distracting. Long out-of-reach Ellen White statements finally came to light for me that bared her soul and made the entire issue become flesh-and-blood, heart-warming reality. There are cosmic developments involved here in this “latter rain” truth.

The memory verse for this week sums up what was my spiritual condition: “the preaching of the cross [was] foolishness” to me! (And I was a “good” rank and file Seventh-day Adventist, went to church every week, paid tithe, etc.) The reason? I was spiritually dead. Anything spiritually real is boring if you’re dead. The Quarterly asks: “What happened at the cross?” Some brief answers:

(1) Christ was bringing “rebels” back to be friends with God, for He “cannot take rebels into His kingdom” (Ellen White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 1, p. 112). The most momentous happening of all eternity! It was a work that required far greater power than the original creation. Scientists, paleontologists, geologists, who study creation—step back; something is happening on that cross far greater than what happened on the original six days: rebels’ hearts are being melted and won!

(2) God revealed the four grand dimensions of His love (agape),* which when “beheld,” “constrains” or motivates the self-loving, lukewarm, worldly church member’s heart. Now he wants to “cast contempt on all [his] pride” and “henceforth” he will sense this constant drawing of that love. Now he finds it impossible to live for self, but now he must live for the One who . . . how shall we say it? We say He “died for us, in our stead,” a stereotyped phrase that comes automatically, a heavenly Insurance Policy coverage we can come to take for granted. What we yearn for is a deep appreciation for the truth. “What happened at the cross?” Exhaust your dictionaries, your encyclopedias, your philosophies: Christ has died the second death of the human race. He gulped down all the horror of the world’s hell, in Himself.

That leaves you bored, cold, unmoved?

When you ponder it, you don’t wonder that our lukewarmness is the greatest problem God has had to interact with in His 6000 years of experience dealing with sinners. “What great and wonderful effects have come from the crucifixion of Christ! . . . All who would be saved must themselves have an interest in the crucified One” (Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 18, p. 73). That “interest” I long did not have. Now it overwhelms everything.

There are people around the world this coming Sabbath who will be crying out to God the prayer of the hymn—“While on others Thou art calling, do not pass [me] by.” Anyone who wants to be set free from the frightful clutch of the world’s deadening grip can pray a prayer that God has guaranteed to answer: “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

The Holy Spirit may be making His last appeals worldwide. Where can He find someone whose heart responds to what it cost Christ to save us? This final work is being done from the great center in the Most Holy Apartment, on this final heavenly Day of Atonement. Fasting is not to change God to make Him more willing to save us from our love of the world; but it may clear our own minds and hearts to be able to appreciate what’s happening in the heavenly reality of today. The real news is not what’s happening in the Middle East, but what’s going on in that inner apartment of the heavenly sanctuary.

This particular Lesson 10 is the most critical of our 13. Be deadly serious as you pray for understanding. In a real sense, we in our current history are re-living the days before Christ’s cross, in Jerusalem. The Jews at that time didn’t know that the Kingdom of God was sweeping over them unawares (Matt. 12:28; Luke 11:20). When we at last appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10), we may face one great question: “Have you been crucified with Christ?” Only then do we appreciate His crucifixion!

What a privilege is ours just now!

—Robert J. Wieland

* See Ephesians 3:17-19

Read the study notes for lesson 11