The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 648
With unutterable love, Jesus welcomes His faithful ones to the joy
of their Lord. The Saviour’s joy is in seeing, in the kingdom of glory,
the souls that have been saved by His agony and humiliation. And the
redeemed will be sharers in His joy, as they behold, among the blessed,
those who have been won to Christ through their prayers, their labors,
and their loving sacrifice. As they gather about the great white throne,
gladness unspeakable will fill their hearts, when they behold those whom
they have won for Christ, and see that one has gained others, and these
still others, all brought into the haven of rest, there to lay their crowns at
Jesus’ feet and praise Him through the endless cycles of eternity.
As the ransomed ones are welcomed to the City of God, there rings
out upon the air an exultant cry of adoration. The two Adams are about to
meet. The Son of God is standing with outstretched arms to receive the
father of our race—the being whom He created, who sinned against his
Maker, and for whose sin the marks of the crucifixion are borne upon the
Saviour’s form. As Adam discerns the prints of the cruel nails, he does
not fall upon the bosom of his Lord, but in humiliation casts himself at
His feet, crying: “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” Tenderly
the Saviour lifts him up and bids him look once more upon the Eden
home from which he has so long been exiled.
After his expulsion from Eden, Adam’s life on earth was filled with
sorrow. Every dying leaf, every victim of sacrifice, every blight upon the
fair face of nature, every stain upon man’s purity, was a fresh reminder
of his sin. Terrible was the agony of remorse as he beheld iniquity
abounding, and, in answer to his warnings, met the reproaches cast upon
himself as the cause of sin. With patient humility he bore, for nearly a
thousand years, the penalty of transgression. Faithfully did he repent of
his sin and trust in the merits of the promised Saviour, and he died in the
hope of a resurrection. The Son of God redeemed man’s failure and fall;
and
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