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

Insights to Lesson 8:
Darkness at Noon
February 12-18

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

This week’s lesson begins with our Savior’s agonizing cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

With this announcement, darkness enshrouds Jesus Christ, the true “Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (1 John 1:9).

Veiled from a hostile world are His moments of supreme suffering—unique in the history of the universe. Never again will this scene be repeated. The Father, at-one with His Son from eternity, separates from His sin-laden Son. Plunged into emotional agony beyond human comprehension, the Father’s heart, like the veil inside the temple, is rent with anguish.

What? Forsake His beloved Son! Permit the powers of darkness to overwhelm His precious Son and do nothing to stay the sword!

All for our thankless, miserable race. God so loved the world that He gave . . . all of heaven in that One unspeakable Gift.

Gazing upon the scene, we take off our shoes, as it were. The ground upon which we stand is holy. We pray for Divine eye salve to comprehend the deep things of God.

The cross will be our all-absorbing theme throughout eternity. The cross of Christ is the capstone of the message that God sent to His people more than 100 years ago to prepare them—not for death but—for translation. Also foreshadowed in this message were flickerings of the glorious light of the fourth angel of Revelation 18:1, which will yet illuminate every nation and people group on earth.

As the history of our world passes before us, we recognize that God’s eternal purpose has ever been to reveal Christ, the Light of the world. Indeed, the cross was not the first time that God caused light to shine through the darkness.

The Light Shines in Creation

In the beginning the earth was reported to be “without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:2). The presence of darkness indicates that evil existed prior to creation. The prince of darkness had already been at work, attributing to God self-serving motives that in reality sprang mysteriously from his own heart. Many of the heavenly host had never had reason to consider the character of their Creator. The charges of Satan caused a great divide within the heavenly ranks. War broke out in heaven, and Satan and his followers were cast out.

This event closely coincided with the creation of the earth, which in the beginning was bathed in darkness. God’s first creative work was to dispel this darkness with light—a revelation of the character of Christ in contrast to that of Satan.

“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:3, 4).

John tells us that “in the beginning” “all things were made through Him,” and that “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Sadly, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:1-5, excerpts).

In 2 Corinthians 4:6 Paul writes, “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We see that from the very beginning, God desired to reveal Jesus Christ, the light and life of the world, in contrast to sin and the powers of darkness. This effort culminated in those dark hours in which Christ hung on the cross. The cross of Christ means everything to us. Here we find our sole purpose and reason for existence.

Light Shines at the Time of the End

At the Minneapolis meetings and in camp meetings thereafter, God’s plan was that “the people who had been in darkness might open their hearts and minds to the message that God should send them, that they might see the truth, new to many minds, as old truth in [a] new framework. The understanding of the people of God has been blinded, for Satan has misrepresented the character of God. Our good and gracious Lord has been presented before the people clothed in the attributes of Satan, and men and women who have been seeking for truth, have so long regarded God in a false light that it is difficult to dispel the cloud that obscures His glory from their view.

“On Sabbath [report of camp meeting at Ottawa, Kansas, printed in The Review and Herald, July 23, 1889], truths were presented that were new to the majority of the congregation. Things new and old were brought forth from the treasure house of God’s Word. Truths were revealed which the people were scarcely able to comprehend and appropriate. Light flashed from the oracles of God in relation to the law and the gospel, in relation to the fact that Christ is our righteousness, which seemed to souls who were hungry for truth, as light too precious to be received” (Selected Messages, book1, pp. 355, 356).

The fruit of these messages was life changing: “At every social meeting many testimonies were borne as to the peace, comfort, and joy the people had found in receiving light.” “We thank the Lord with all the heart that we have precious light to present before the people, and we rejoice that we have a message for this time which is present truth. The tidings that Christ is our righteousness has brought relief to many, many souls, and God says to His people, ‘go forward’ ” (Ibid, pp. 356, 357).

In order to appreciate Christ’s righteousness in the context of the cross, the truth as it is in Jesus must be proclaimed clearly. If we fail to comprehend the Cross of Christ aright, then we cannot proclaim the gospel clearly.

Mistaken Views of the Cross

Let us briefly examine some of these commonly held but erroneous beliefs.

• In order to save mankind, Christ had to be physically tortured as a punishment for our sins. Hence, the beatings and insults he received, the nails that pierced his hands and feet, and the many other injustices he suffered were necessary to appease God the Father for the sin of mankind.

Note: While no one will deny that Christ endured excruciating physical torture, we recognize that sin causes something much worse than even physical torture. Sin separates the creature from the Life-Giver. The mental agony Christ endured from Gethsemane to the Cross was so much greater than the physical pain he felt that He was hardly conscious of the physical suffering, excruciating though it was. In this story we catch a glimpse of the pain that sin has brought to the heart of God from its very inception. In Psalm 22 the veil is pulled back enough to catch a glimpse of Christ’s thoughts while hanging in this great horror of darkness:

“I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me” (verse 14).

In the Sabbath School quarterly, Monday’s lesson says, “In the Bible darkness is a symbol of evil, of separation from God, who is Light and in whom ‘is no darkness at all.’” It continues, “Darkness, then, is an outward symbol of the spiritual darkness that was surrounding the Son of God as He bore the full brunt of God’s righteous wrath against sin. . . . ‘The dense blackness,’ wrote Ellen White, ‘was an emblem of the soul-agony and horror that encompassed the Son of God’” (The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 3, p. 164).

• A second commonly held idea is that Christ died “so that none of us will ever have to face it ourselves” (see Tuesday’s lesson)

Note: The idea that Christ died “instead of me” misses the point of the cross. The Bible is clear that the cross involves death for all. It wasn’t merely that Christ died “instead of me” but that He died “as me.” The corporate nature of humanity “in Christ” explains how Christ could be fair in redeeming our fallen race. Even as “all died” in Adam, even so shall “all be made alive” in Christ (1 Cor. 15:22).

Colossians 3:3 says: “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

The whole world was involved in the crucifixion of Christ, and in Him, all died (2 Cor 5:14). Further, the darkness of separation from God due to sin “every sinner must experience” (EGW Comments, SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 924). Those who appreciate this truth experience death “to self” in Christ each day (Gal. 2:20). Those who reject their involvement in Christ’s death will one day see that in so doing they have also rejected life in Him.

E. J. Waggoner wrote, “The cross is and always has been a symbol of disgrace. To be crucified was to be subjected to the most ignominious death known. The apostle said that if he preached circumcision, that is, righteousness by works, the offense of the cross would cease. The offense of the cross is that it is a confession of human frailty and sin, and of inability to do any good thing. To take the cross of Christ means to depend solely on Him for everything, and this is the abasement of all human pride. Men love to fancy themselves independent. They have no objection to any goodness that they themselves can do. One might preach ‘morality’ to a band of robbers, or to any heathen, and it would be well received, so long as they were exhorted to get it by their own efforts. Indeed, they would feel flattered, rather than otherwise, for such preaching would imply that they were already righteous in themselves. But let the cross be preached; let it be made known that in man dwelleth no good thing, and that all must be received as a gift, and straightway somebody is offended” (The Glad Tidings, original ed., p. 211).

• A third commonly held idea is that Christ came in a human nature different from the nature that you and I share. Therefore, the victory He gained over temptation throughout His life and on the cross was achieved in a manner different from how I must overcome. And the nature of the corporate “death of self” we enter into with him is confused.

One of the central points of the 1888 message was that Christ took the same nature as fallen man in order to “redeem that which was lost.” Christ experienced “death to self” every day of His life by denying the selfish wants of the flesh. Never by thought, word, or deed, did our Savior allow self-interest to gain the ascendancy. By taking our humanity upon His divinity, He crucified the flesh with all its lusts, and made it a slave to righteousness. Because of His supreme victory over the flesh, there is no need for any human to wallow in sin any longer. His victory over sin was complete, and He accomplished this in our own fallen, human flesh.

Alonzo T. Jones said, “Dead with Him? Do we know that? . . . When He had been crucified, and had died, what followed? He was buried,--the burial of the dead. And what of us? Now, ‘therefore, we are buried with him.’ Buried with Him! Were we crucified with Him? Did we die with Him? Have the Father and Christ wrought out in human nature, the death of sinful self?--Yes. Whose?--Mine.

“Then do you not see that all this is a gift of faith that is to be taken with everything else that God gives of faith? The death of the old man is in Christ; and in Him we have it, and thank God for it. With Him the old man was crucified; with Him the old man died; and when He was buried, the old man was buried. . . . In Him it is--in Him. . . . We are simply studying now the fact which we have in Him, the facts which are given to us in Him, and which are to be taken by faith” (1895 General Conference Bulletin, p. 352).

What Lies Ahead

To those who live during the last hours of earth’s history, the cross has special import. In His closing ministry in the heavenly sanctuary above, Christ is preparing a Bride, a special people, to unite with Him in marriage. When this preparation is complete, the marriage will be consummated.

Many Christians have gone to the grave relieved that Christ died “instead of them.” But Christ’s Bride will grow into a more mature appreciation of the sufferings of Christ. The 1888 message was especially sent for this purpose. When man and wife are joined together, the two become one flesh. What he experiences, she experiences.

None can yet comprehend what it will be like to be living in that day. The Bride will feel keenly the world’s rejection of Christ. His suffering will be hers. As the Spirit of God, long-resisted, is withdrawn from this world, all the demons of hell will send the earth into one final, dreadful time of trouble. Once again, Christ will experience keen agony, not from separation from His Father as He did at the cross, but from the eternal loss of His children who have rejected Him.

His Bride will be hated and reviled by the world. Yet the Bride, filled with the agape love of Christ, will feel only sadness and pity for those souls who are her persecutors. As the Divine hand of protection is removed, God’s people, still in the world and bearing a fallen, sinful nature, will feel the wrath of God against sin. They will feel it is against them. Though no sins unrepented of can be brought to mind, they still feel the anguish of sin and the separation from God that it brings.

Isaiah describes this time in vivid language: “‘For your Maker is your husband, . . . . For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused,’ says your God. ‘For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,’ says the Lord, your Redeemer” (Isa. 54:5-8).

In this dark hour of earth’s history, just before Jesus Himself descends from heaven with a shout, and with the sound of the trumpet, the Bride experiences in her sphere a darkness akin to that of the cross. Her feelings tell her that God has abandoned her. Everyone around her echoes this thought. Though weary and hunted, hungry and thirsty, she grasps the Hand of omnipotence and leans fully on His everlasting arms of kindness, even as Christ, her Husband, did on the cross. Death has been decreed. For a moment she has been permitted to taste the agony of the cross. She can now fully identify with her Husband in His sufferings. But in mercy He does not leave her to die at the hand of her enemies. Her testimony will be, “When darkness seems to veil His face, I rest on His unchanging grace.”

The Cross Recovered

“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Christ was crucified; He was ‘delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification’ (Rom. 4:25). But unless we are crucified with Him, His death and resurrection profit us nothing. If the cross of Christ is separated from us, and outside of us, even though it be but by so much as a moment of time and an hair’s breadth of space, it is to us all the same as if He were not crucified. No one was ever saved simply by looking forward to a cross to be erected and a Christ to be crucified at some indefinite time in the future, and no one can now be saved simply by believing that at a certain time in the past Christ was crucified. No; if men would see Christ crucified, they must look neither forward nor backward, but upward; for the arms of the cross that was erected on Calvary reach from Paradise lost to Paradise restored, and embrace the whole world of sin. The crucifixion of Christ is not a thing of but a single day. He is ‘the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world’ (Rev. 13:8, RV); and the pangs of Calvary will not be ended as long as a single sin or sinner exists in the universe. Even now Christ bears the sins of the whole world, for ‘in Him all things consist’; and when at the last He is obliged to cut off the irreclaimably wicked in the lake of fire, the anguish which they suffer will be only that which the Christ whom they have rejected suffered on the cross” (E. J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, original ed., p. 84, 85).

—Patricia L. Guthrie

Read the study notes for lesson 9