In the Teacher sent from God, heaven gave to the human race its best and greatest. He who had stood in the councils of the Most High, who had shared in the innermost sanctuary of the Eternal, was the One chosen to reveal in person the knowledge of God. Through Christ had been communicated every ray of divine light that had ever reached our fallen world. It was He who had spoken through everyone who throughout the ages had declared God’s word to mortals. Of Him all the excellencies revealed in the earth’s greatest and most noble souls were reflections. In Him was found the perfect ideal.TEd 46.2

To reveal this ideal as the only true standard for attainment; to show what every human being may become; what, through the indwelling of humanity by divinity, all who receive Him may become—for this, Christ came to the world. He came to show how the children of God are to be trained, how they are to practice the principles and live the life of heaven.TEd 46.3

God’s greatest gift was bestowed to meet humanity’s greatest need. The Light appeared when the world’s darkness was deepest. Through false teaching the minds of men and women had long been turned away from God. In the prevailing systems of education, human philosophy had taken the place of divine revelation. Instead of the heaven-given standard of truth, people had accepted a standard of their own devising. From the Light of life they had turned aside to walk in the sparks of the fire that they had kindled.TEd 46.4

Having separated from God, their only dependence being the power of humanity, their strength was but weakness. They were incapable of reaching even the standard set up by themselves. The want of true excellence was supplied by appearance and profession.TEd 47.1

From time to time teachers arose who pointed minds to the Source of truth. Right principles were enunciated, and human lives witnessed to their power. But these efforts made no lasting impression. There was a brief check in the current of evil but its downward course was not stayed.TEd 47.2

When Christ came to earth, humanity seemed to be fast reaching its lowest point. The very foundations of society were undermined. The Jews, destitute of the power of God’s Word, gave to the world mind-benumbing, soul-deadening traditions and speculations. The worship of God “in Spirit and in truth” had been supplanted by the glorification of humans in an endless round of ceremonies. Throughout the world all systems of religion were losing their hold on mind and soul.TEd 47.3

As people ceased to recognize the Divine, they ceased to regard the human. Truth, honor, integrity, confidence, compassion, were departing from the earth. Relentless greed and absorbing ambition gave birth to universal distrust. The idea of duty, of the obligation of strength to weakness, of human dignity and human rights, was cast aside as a dream or a fable. Wealth and power, ease and self-indulgence, were sought as the highest good. Physical degeneracy, mental stupor, spiritual death, characterized the age.TEd 47.4

As the evil passions and purposes of men and women banished God from their thoughts, so forgetfulness of Him inclined them more strongly to evil. Bent on self-pleasing, they came to regard God as such a one as themselves—a Being whose aim was self-glory, whose requirements were suited to His own pleasure, a Being by whom people were lifted up or cast down according as they helped or hindered His selfish purpose. The lower classes regarded the Supreme Being as one scarcely differing from their oppressors, except by exceeding them in power.TEd 47.5

By these ideas every form of religion was molded. Each was a system of requirements. By gifts and ceremonies the worshipers tried to propitiate the Deity in order to secure His favor for their own ends. Evil, unrestrained, grew stronger, while appreciation and desire for good diminished. People lost the image of God and received the impress of the demoniacal power by which they were controlled. The whole world was becoming a sink of corruption.TEd 47.6

Paul, Joyful in Service

Only One Hope for the Race