Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 10:06 am:

---

quote:

It is clear, from these and other passages, that Jesus accomplished His work by living in complete dependence on His Father. Jesus could have succeeded in His own strength and by His own initiative, because He was God; but He chose to walk by faith.

You and I cannot succeed in our own strength and by our own initiative, because we are not God; be we can choose to walk by faith. Therefore, appeals to holiness and keeping the Law will serve only to prove our complete failure (which, in fact, is what the Law is supposed to do according to Romans 3:20). Instead, we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, and Author and Perfecter of our faith (see Hebrews 12:2).

Even fixing our eyes on Jesus would not be enough if we did not have the Holy Spirit actually living within our own spirits. This is the hopelessness of Adventist eschatology whereby eternal life (the indwelling Holy Spirit) is not available until after the final judgment and the Holy Spirit as an external force will be taken away, leaving people to stand alone and keep the Law alone.

---