Richard, I am so thankful that you shared this quote from Manuscript Releases, Volume 12, page 52. It brings me great encouragement. I receive encouragement when I read in inspiration that God knew the situation that would plague the church (unconverted professors of Christ), and yet as I read today's chapter, I am again amazed at the miracle of divine grace to change the life!
But we hear the word "grace" used so much that it seems that it has lost its deep, powerful meaning. We are told that we are "saved by grace, through faith" (Ephesians Chapter two, verse eight). . Grace is God's unmerited favor--unearned, undeserved. And in the life and experience of Zacchaeus, we see a powerful picture of the grace of God manifest in Christ to transform the life of a guilty sinner and make him into a saint. What did Zacchaeus deserve? He deserved to be arraigned before a just, holy God as a thief and extortioner--he deserved to die the second death on account of his sins. But Jesus comes to hm not to condemn, but to save! We live in a world filled with intensely heinous sin, and many people are deeply entrenched in such sins that is seems hard for them to believe that God could ever save them.
I have felt like one of these people--I know how messed up my life was and how living apart from Christ (even in a religious home) was like a living hell. There is no peace or lasting joy in sin and the so called "pleasures" of the world. But having sinned as I did, the amazing reality that Christ saves me from myself melts my heart! I am so amazed that God chooses to take me, weak and helpless though I be in the flesh, and then transform me by grace into a man after His heart. Miracle of miracles! And by continually beholding Jesus, I am ever aware of my sinfulness in the flesh, but rejoicing in the gift of a new heart and mind that is kept pure and holy by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. This is my story! This is my song! And yet this is what God wants to do for every person born in this world--He desires them to experience the new birth!
Here is where the good news of grace lies--Jesus did not come to save the "righteous" (those who think themselves righteous apart from a full surrender to Christ), but sinners--that is, those who sense their deep need! And one can only realize their need when they see God in HIs glory and holiness who gave His law, a law which cannot be changed to meet man in his guilty condition. But wondrous love! God sacrificed Himself in Christ to save us from the condemnation of the law, and to transform the heart by His Holy Spirit! Such an experience is the greatest miracle! This is a miracle that is manifest in all of the fruits of the Spirit so that not one is missing in the life of a truly converted Christian who abides in Christ by faith.
Zacchaeus had been overwhelmed, amazed, and silenced at the love and condescension of Christ in stooping to him, so unworthy. Now love and loyalty to his new-found Master unseal his lips. He will make public his confession and his repentance. {DA 554.2}
Here is grace! Zacchaeus realized he was so unworthy--but the love of Jesus melted his heart! I pray that each of us will continue to realize that all Jesus has done, is doing, and ever will do for us is totally undeserved--simply because He loves us with unfathomable love. This simple and infinitely profound truth--of the love of God--is worth meditating upon, singing about, and studying both now and for all eternity!
By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal God both to men and to angels. He was the Word of God,--God's thought made audible. In His prayer for His disciples He says, "I have declared unto them Thy name,"--"merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,"--"that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them." But not alone for His earthborn children was this revelation given. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God's wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which "angels desire to look," and it will be their study throughout endless ages. Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which "seeketh not her own" has its source in the heart of God; and that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto.{DA 19.2}