Page 66 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

many (Matt. 27:52-53) He not only did not forbid Thomas to touch Him but
commanded that he should thrust his hand into His side.

We are convinced from these Scriptures that Christ Jesus ascended up to heaven
early on the day of His resurrection, escorting into the presence of the Father those
who had died in faith. He brought them out of the ante-room, Paradise, and introduced
them at the court of heaven. He returned again to earth the same day. Since there was

no life on this earth, it became necessary for God to export life from heaven, where
alone it is produced, and plant it in the earth. This was done in the person of the
God-Man.

In the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ He manifested the moral glory of
Deity. In Him were hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It pleased the
Father that in Him shall all fullness dwell, and this fullness was evident in every word
and deed of His matchless life. The four relatively short accounts of His brief earthly

career have given rise to libraries of volumes devoted to the earthly walk and ministry
of this peerless One, and yet the treasures of His grace in His life and death are not
exhausted.

The reason His life and work were so absolutely unique lies in the fact that He
alone of all who ever lived observed in every detail of His life the will of God and
never deviated from it in any small particular. His was the life that fulfilled God‟s
original purpose in the creation of man, because it was strictly ordered according to

the divine constitution of government based upon absolute faith in and obedience
toward God. He never admitted in the smallest measure any consideration based upon
the existent cosmic order of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life.

In the temptations the adversary tried to get Him to do just this thing—to do
something that had not, as its sole motive, the glory of the Father. When He was
hungry, after a forty days‟ fast, the adversary said, “Command these stones to be made

bread.” To have done so would have been for Him to utilize His miraculous, divine
resources for the gratification of a bodily need, and this would have been an act
predicated upon a consideration of the “lust of the flesh” rather than upon full

obedience. The reply was to reiterate His only basis of action, and that was strict
obedience to the expressed will of God in the written word. “It is written, Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Always Godward!

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