The Message in Verity
Just how are we to understand the statement of Mrs. E. G. White that "righteousness by faith" is " the third angel's message in verity," as found in the Review and Herald of April 1, 1890? Have we not a distinct message to give, with distinctive doctrines and a mighty negative warning? Would the statement imply that we are simply to present the everlasting gospel without warning against the apostasy?
We assume at the outset that the querist refers to the expression " third angel's message " in the sense of comprehending the full threefold ;message of Revelation 14. With this understanding, may we observe that the third angel's message, like the divine law, has both a positive and a negative aspect? And these two phases of the message can never be rightly separated. The one absolutely demands the other, else the presentation is but partial, incomplete,, and inadequate. Negatively, the third angel's message is a divinely commissioned warning against that malign principle typified and crystallized in the " beast," his system, and his mark. This negative warning must be given, or we are faithless to our trust. But positively, it is expressly declared to be the " everlasting gospel " so presented along with the warning as to furnish the complete remedy and corrective to meet the errors introduced by the apostasy.
Now the basic principle upon which the whole superstructure of the beast system is built, is that of salvation by human endeavor; or, in other words, righteousness by works. Against this subversive, anti-Christian principle the full force of this last warning message is to be thrown, and the opposite God's everlasting gospel — is to be as insistently proffered. The conclusion is consequently unavoidable that the absolute antithesis to the basic righteousness-by-works principle of the beast system is the everlasting-gospel principle of righteousness by faith, and salvation wholly by divine grace.
And just there is the open secret of the expression, "It [righteousness by faith] is the third angel's message in verity." The proper presentation of the positive phase of the message, is none other than the proclamation of righteousness by faith. It touches profoundly the presentation of every fundamental tenet of our faith — the second coming, the Sabbath, the sanctuary truth, and all. When presented with Christ as the center and faith in His provision of imputed and imparted righteousness as the underlying redemptive principle, each of these truths becomes a presentation of some phase of applied righteousness by faith. Thus, only by the accepted righteousness of Christ will the soul be prepared to meet the Holy One at His coming; or, only by that same applied righteousness will the " rest that remaineth " fill the heart of the seventh-day Sabbath keeper. The parallel could be continued exhaustively.
Righteousness by faith is not, therefore, a separate message, a thing apart from or in addition to the explicit provisions of Revelation 14. In these days it is to be taught in the terms and specifications of this message, and must harmonize with the closing phase of Christ's redemptive work. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the distinctive message of the third angel may be and has sometimes been presented only in its negative aspect as bare doctrines, cold formulas for intellectual assent, destitute of connection with Christ and His righteousness, and so utterly failing to be " the third angel's message in verity."
It is at once apparent that this question is not immaterial, irrelevant, nor academic in its nature, but is a most vital, practical, and unavoidable principle, affecting the life and labor of every herald of the threefold message. More than that, it profoundly affects the eternal welfare of our hearers. God grant that we may each present the third angel's message in its verity as the righteousness of Christ by faith.
L. E. F.
