Jesus Opened the Understanding of His Followers

Christ Triumphant - A Devotional by E.G. White

Jesus Opened the Understanding of His Followers

Today's Text: Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. Luke 24:45

The Message:      The sayings of Christ are to be valued, not merely in accordance with the measure of the understanding of those who hear; they are to be considered in the important bearing that Christ Himself attaches to them. He took the old truths, of which He Himself was the originator, and placed them before His hearers in heaven's own light. How different was their representation. What a flood of meaning and brightness and spirituality was brought in by their explanation.      After His resurrection Christ opened the understanding of His followers, that they might understand the Scriptures. Everything had been transformed by the working of the arts of Satan. Truth was covered up by the rubbish of error, and hidden from finite sight. When Christ referred to His humiliation, rejection, and crucifixion, the disciples could not take in His meaning. It had been a part of their education to expect Christ to set up a temporal kingdom, and when He spoke of His sufferings they could not understand His words....      Christ had many truths to give to His disciples of which He could not speak, because they did not advance with the light that was flashed upon the Levitical laws and the sacrificial offerings. They did not embrace the light, advance with the light, and follow on to still greater brightness as Providence should lead the way.      And for the same reason Christ's disciples today do not comprehend important matters of truth. So dull has been the comprehension of even those who teach the truth to others that many things cannot be opened to them until they reach heaven. It ought not to be so. But as minds become narrow, they think they know it all, and set one stake after another in points of truths of which they have only a glimpse. People close their minds as though there were no more for them to learn, and should the Lord attempt to lead them on they would not take up with the increased light. They cling to the spot where they think they see a glimmer of light, when it is only a link in the living chain of truths and promises to be studied....      The development of truth will be the reward to the humble-hearted seeker who will fear God and walk with Him. The truth that the mind grasps as truth is capable of constant expansion and new development.... As the mind grasps it in its preciousness, it becomes elevated, ennobled, and sanctified.-Manuscript 143, 1897 (Manuscript Releases 16:122, 123).

Commentary: My friend, as the eyes of the people were blinded at the time of Christ's first coming, so too has it been blinded today.  Satan had used his mighty power of deception to fill the minds of the people with error, that the truth was lost sight of.  The method that Satan used to accomplish this was through the leaders of the people.  As he thus worked his deception upon them, their hearts were corrupted and they in turn corrupted the hearts and minds of the people.  This is the same method that he uses today. Today the remnant church of God has been corrupted from the top down.  Since the pioneers have been laid to rest, the spirit of antichrist has crept into the church.  Little by little the error that was pointed out and resisted by our church pioneers, has crept into the church by men in positions of authority, until it has led the church to embrace the false god of the trinity.  "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." (Jude 1:4). In the time of the Alpha of deadly heresies, the prophet of God was bidden to meet the pantheistic and trinitarian views of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, in which he espoused that God was in all things.  When Mrs. White came out against his book, Dr. Kellogg wanted to make some changes to it claiming that he had recently come to believe in the trinity and thought he could clear up the errors by saying that it was not God that was in all things, but the Holy Spirit.  To this Mrs. White was shown that the writer had not changed.  The theories he was conveying were from the mind of Satan. For many Seventh-day Adventists, they believe that this event in our churches past was only about pantheism, but in reality it was about the trinity, a belief that the church had never held.  Of the Alpha of deadly heresies, she said that the Omega would follow and that it would be of a startling nature.  While the message of Dr. Kellogg had been stopped in the time when the church had a living prophet to guide the people, she has been laid to rest, and since that time the error that was started by Dr. Kellogg has become the Omega and has been embraced by the church today. The trinity by its very teachings denies the Father and the Son.  By claiming that the Son of God is not truly a son, then the Father is not truly a father, thus destroying the whole of the gospel.  "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16).  Of this the apostle John foretold "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.  Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also." (1 John 2:22, 23). The trinity is a false image of God and is the reason why the church, which was once represented as the pure church of Philadelphia, has become the church of Laodicea.  It is now "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:" (Revelation 3:17), because it has accepted a false god in place of the One true God of the Bible.  By accepting the trinity as God, it has been corrupted and no longer has the righteousness of Christ in it.  This is evident by the counsel of Jesus to buy of Him white raiment that they may be clothed, and that He is on the outside seeking to gain entrance into the heart of His people, saying "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20).  They cannot hear His voice, because they are listening to the voice of Satan given through the pastors and leaders of the church. My friend, it is time for you to "Study to shew thyself approved of God...rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15), and anoint thy eyes with the eysalve of truth, that you may heed the voice of Jesus calling you back to worship the One true God today. God bless,

Video of the Week The Trinity & Ellen White - Nader Mansour Ellen White is thought to have promoted the Trinity. In this study, Nader Mansour examines some historical evidence that is often overlooked. The evidence is compelling and clear as to where Ellen White stood on this question.