First Quarter 2004 Adult Sabbath School Lessons:
"The Gospel Of John"

Insights to Lesson 10
True Greatness
February 27-March 5, 2004

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

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you love one another.” Jesus spoke these words following the dramatic lesson of humility when He washed His disciples’ feet following the paschal supper in the upper room that Thursday evening prior to entering Gethsemane on His way to Calvary. Although the condescending act of Jesus, their Teacher and Lord, brought about a temporary softening of the hard hearts of His disciples, nevertheless an underlying spirit of self-sufficiency and contention lurked beneath the surface. So Jesus gave them a new commandment—“love one another as I have loved you.”

Less than 24 hours remained until Jesus would teach them how to love one another by the supreme demonstration of how He loved them. Only by learning the lesson taught at Calvary could there be any hope that Jesus’ new commandment might take root in the heart of His disciples down through the ages who would venture to follow their Savior.

Percolating beneath the facade of every man are two principles that are vying for the mastery. Apart from Christ the spirit of self-exaltation will always gain the supremacy. “[Everyone] should understand the nature of the two principles that are contending for the supremacy, and should learn to trace their working through the records of history and prophecy to the great consummation. He should see how this controversy enters into every phase of human experience; how in every act of life he himself reveals the one or the other of the two antagonistic motives; and how, whether he will or not, he is even now deciding upon which side of the controversy he will be found” (Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, p. 462).

Opposing the principle of self-exaltation, which originated in the mind of Lucifer, is the principle of self-sacrificing love. This principle alone is the foundation of the very nature of God. It is the mind of Christ who was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that through His poverty we might become rich. Jesus prayed for His disciples and those that would believe in Him through their word, that they might be one just as He and His Father were one. He prayed that the love with which Father loved Him might be in them and that He would be in them (John 17:23, 26). This prayer has been answered in isolated instances throughout history, but heaven is still waiting for the delinquent bride who has yet to make herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb. A worldwide body of believers who are without fault before the throne, in whom no guile is found in their mouths, who have come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This has been Christ’s purpose for us since the beginning of His ministry in the Most Holy Apartment since 1844.

The author of our lesson quarterly rightly observes that the evident disunity of the church in general shows that Jesus’ prayers can be frustrated in the same that we may “frustrate the grace of God” (Galatians 2:21). Perhaps we need to grasp the significance of what happened at the cross. When we do learn the lesson of the cross, it will lay the glory of man in the dust. “What is justification by faith?—It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself. When men see their own nothingness, they are prepared to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. When they begin to praise and exalt God all the day long, then by beholding they are becoming changed into the same image. What is regeneration?—It is revealing to man what is his own real nature, that in himself he is worthless (Special Testimonies, A09, p. 62; Manuscript Release, No. 20, p. 117. This was written in the aftermath of the coming of the 1888 message; this experience was what Heaven wanted to happen among us at that time).

Justification and acquittal from the curse of the law has been granted as a free gift to mankind. Nothing man can do can add one iota to His justification except behold the matchless charms of Christ and allow His love to melt our hard, hard hearts till we come together in the unity of the faith of Jesus—a faith that works by love. “It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ. We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones. As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit. If we would be saved at last, we must learn the lesson of penitence and humiliation at the foot of the cross” (The Desire of Ages, p. 83; again, this was written with reference to what heaven wanted to happen to us as the result of the 1888 message).

The promise of heaven remains true. “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for [his] only [son], and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for [his] firstborn . . . In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness” (Zech. 12:10; 13:1).

Read the study notes for Lesson 11