The three angels’ messages are a story of grace. They are the story of a Savior’s love beyond measure &mdash a story of Jesus who loves us so much that He would rather experience hell itself than have one of us lost. They are the story of a boundless, unfathomable, incomprehensible, undying, unending infinite love.
God is never caught by surprise. He is not subject to the changing winds of humanity’s choices. As we have already seen, His plan to deliver us from the domain of sin was not some afterthought after sin reared its ugly head. God was not caught off guard by the awful drama of sin.
Read Revelation 13:8 and 1 Peter 1:18-20. What do these verses teach us about the plan of salvation?
Image © Philippians McKay from GoodSalt.com
The phrase “everlasting gospel” in Revelation 14:6 speaks of the past, the present, and the future. When God created humanity with the capacity to make moral choices, He anticipated that they would make errant choices. Once His creatures had the capacity to choose, they had the capacity to rebel against His loving nature. The only way to avoid this reality would be to create robot beings controlled and manipulated by some divine cosmic plan. Forced allegiance is contrary to God’s very nature. Love requires choice, and once beings are given the power of choice, the possibility of making the wrong choices exists. Therefore, the plan of salvation was conceived in the mind of God before our first parents’ rebellion in Eden.
“The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of ’the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.‘ Romans 16:25, R.V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God’s throne.” — Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.
The “eternal gospel” speaks not only of the past and present — it is the basis of a future with hope. It speaks of living eternally with the One whose heart is aching to be with us forever.
| Read Ephesians 1:4. Think about what it means that, even before the “foundation of the world,” you had been “chosen” in Christ to have salvation in Him. Why should you find this truth so encouraging? |
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