Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-04-22
Pastor Russell's Sermon

dluon and glory, and took instead hu-
man conditions.
From being above the angels, He Of
His own volition took a nature and
place "a little lower than the angels"
And He did this, knowing it was only
preliminary step, He knew that the
particular steps Of self-denial and suf-
ferins were to follow. He humbled
Himself to become man, because a
man-Adam-had sinned, and through
him race had come under sentence of
death, and could not extricate itself
Only an uncondemned man could re-
deem the condemned one. For this
purpose Jesus left His glory, and twas
found in fashion as man."
The Logos did not become sinful
man, blemished or imperfect man.
On the contrary, He was holy, harm.
less, undeflled and separate from sin
ners." Otherwise, He could not have
been the Redeemer Being sinless, how
ever, this perfect One would suffer all
the more from the shame and igno-
miny connected with the mission He
undertook.
AS it was not a babe, but a man,
that had sinned and was to be redeem
ed, therefore Jesus needed to wait un-
til He reached manhood's estate-thirty
years-before He could begin His min
istry. Promptly at thirty He made
His conservation, and symbolized it
by water immersion at Jordan. Then
He went forth, declaring the Message
which He knew would be misunder-
stood-the Message of Gods Love, the
Message that there must be sacrifice
for sin, the Message that He was the
Sin-0 Offering, the Message that as re-
suit of that Sin-O Offering, blessed fruit
age afterward would come in the Mil
lennial Kingdom, which would bless
all the families of the earth.
As He foreknew, mankind, even the
best prepared-the Jewish people
were not ready for the Message. Thus,
as He foresaw and as the Scriptures
fpretold, they crucified Him-ignorant-
ly--for as st. Paul declares: "Had they
known it they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory" Il Corinthians 2:S,)
st. Paul reminds us that we should
consider Christ's undeservedness Of
persecution, lest we should be "weary
and faint in our minds" Similar ex-
periences must to some extent come
upon us. And If He who was perfect
endured patiently, we who are imper-
feet may well exercise great patience.
And so in our text the exhortation is
that we perceive how Jesus humbled
Himself, and that we should think it
a great privilege and pleasure similarly
to experience humiliations.
The Rewards Of Humility and Loyalty.
No doubt the Logos, "the Beginning
Of the Creation of God" the First
born Of every creature" the one by
whom all things were made, had such
loyalty to the Father that He would
ward been attached to the invitation
given Him. But, on the other hand,
it would not have been consistent with
kindness, love or justice for the Father
to demand of His Son such sacrifice.
Justice can make no such demand.
And If Love makes such n suggestion.
it should properly back up the sugges-
ton with some promise Of special
favor or blessing According to the
Apostle, God did just this. He in
formed Hts Son that He would appre-
ciate such a sacrifice, and set before
Him joy, a hope,
The Apostle does not explain the de-
tails Of that hope, but we may infer
them: ~ The joy of the Fathers
blessing in a superlative sense. (2)
The joy Of bringing many sons Of God
to the plane Of glory as His Bride
class. (8 The JOY of rescuing the
world of mankind from sin, sickness,
sorrow, pain, death, and Of uplifting,
or resurrecting all the willing and obe-
dlent of the race to human perfection,
and all that was lost by Adam. (A
An exaltation to still higher station
than that which He had left. He
would be made partaker Of the Divine
nature, far above angels principalities
and powers, and above His own previ-
Gus high station as the Only Begotten
of the Father, the Logos-the Word.
John 1:1-3
Here we are, dear brethren, with the
Apostles words and the full scope OF
his inspired testimony before us. He
tells us that IL we desire to be Of the
glorious Class Of more than conquer
ors, who will be honored by the Re
deemer, we must humble ourselves to
the doing Of the Divine will to the
best of our ability, as our Rcdeemer
humbed Himself to do the Fathers
will perfectly, Not that the Father
will accept anything less than perfec-
tiOn, but that our Redeemer will make
up to us by the lmputatlon Of His
for all that which we
lack through our share in Adams fall
and its consequence. In other words,
II we have the same loyalty Of heart
that the Master had, we will do what
we can, and so doing shall be accepta.
be' to the Father, through the Son.
satsn's Course In Contrast.
Notice, now, the contrast between
satans course and that Of the Lord
Jesus, Satan took the opposite course
from that which the Redeemer took.
Instead Of humbllng himself, willing
to do everything that would be pleas
ing to the Father, he was proud,