13. Besides obedience to God’s commandments, what else distinguishes God’s end-time people? Revelation 14:12, last part.
NOTE: ‘What is the faith of Jesus that must be kept to keep the commandments of God? . . . nothing else than the faith which brings into the life of the believer in Jesus the righteousness, the virtue, the very character, of God, the faith that brings into the life of the believer the power of God to perform there the will of God. The power of God comes to us in no other way than through the righteousness of God. The gospel is “the power of God,” only because that “therein is the righteousness of God revealed.” This righteousness reaches the believer only through faith, because it is revealed only “from faith to faith.” Romans 1:16, 17. And this faith is the faith of Jesus which He brought to the world, which He tested victoriously to the uttermost in every species of temptation that can ever be known to man, and which is freely given to every man in the world as the gracious gift of God. Ephesians 2:8-10. The righteousness of God, being the character, the very quality, of God, is nothing apart from the very personality of God Himself, and cannot be had apart from the personality of God Himself. Thus in Christ, by the faith which He exercised in the world, it was God who was manifest in the flesh, and who was reconciling the world unto Himself. And in the believer in Jesus, in him who keeps the faith of Jesus, it is still God manifest in the flesh; for it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and it is only God that is found in Christ. Thus the faith of Jesus is that which brings God to men and men to God: it is that which joins the divine to the human, making men “partakers of the divine nature:” it is that by which God dwells in the heart and works in the life, “working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight;” working in you “both to will and to do of His good pleasure:” it is that by which “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” This, and this alone, is the faith of Jesus that must be kept in order for a person to be indeed a keeper of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus,” in order to be a true believer of the Third Angel’s Message.’ Review & Herald, November 13, 1900.
14. How important is faith for God’s remnant people? Hebrews 11:6.
NOTE: ‘It cannot be that the power of faith is obsolete. It cannot be that Christ and His apostles would have insisted with such earnestness upon the importance of faith, if it were not to be connected with spiritual heavenly gifts to the end of time. Faith was a leading subject in all our Lord’s discourses. His life was a continued example of its perfect exercise. He spoke to the tossing waves, and every crested billow felt the instant check of an omnipotent rein. Come, said He to Peter, and the sea became solid to his tread. Money was wanted, and the magnetic thread that stretches from the Creator’s throne to the remotest atom of the universe, draws the fish with his treasure to Peter’s hook. Bear no more fruit, said He to the fig-tree, and the life force that sent up rich juices through trunk, and branch, and leaf, ceased its play. It was not as man, but as God, that He spoke, thought the disciples. Nay, said the Master, ye also, if ye have faith, can do not only the same, but even greater things. It is impossible for us to read Paul’s enumeration, in the eleventh of Hebrews, of what faith has done, without feeling that the saints of old knew something of a power with God which Christians at the present day have in a great measure lost. Nearly all these instances of faith were attended by supernatural tokens of divine favour; the acceptance of Abel’s offering; the translation of Enoch; the preservation of Noah; the miraculous interpositions in favour of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph and Moses. Faith cried, and the waters opened; faith blew the ram’s horn, and unseen forces scattered the city walls; Samson prayed, and a spiritual influence strung every nerve with a superhuman strength; prophets were permitted to look into futurity; women received their dead restored to life; through faith persecuted saints “stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong.” This is the very faith of which the Apostle is speaking, when he tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. Then Christians must all possess it.’ Uriah Smith: Review & Herald, January 29, 1861.