THESE are days of tremendous change and unprecedented opportunity. Century-old barriers are giving way. Doors heretofore closed are swinging open. Prejudices that have hitherto prevented successful contact and witnessing are melting under a new spirit that includes the new dialog. The call for the ecumenic outreach has opened the way for unprecedented exchanges of view. Time and the rising tide of events are bringing about opportunities as never before to present the fundamental principles of Adventism in its basic everlasting gospel setting and emphasis.
In the light of these facts the sobering question for us, as workers is, Are we prepared to press into these providential openings? Are we ready with an adequate approach adapted to these unprecedented opportunities?
The old techniques, carried over from early times and circumstances, are no longer adequate or appropriate in meeting the tempo and temper of the times, and in responding to the new spirit of inquiry abroad in a world gone amuck. Today the old largely negative approach—emphasizing chiefly the things wherein we differ from all other religious groups—is past, definitely past. And that is as it should 'be.
Limited Views Restricted Presentation
It is essential that we review the background and origin of that emphasis. It stemmed from conditions that developed right after the great Disappointment of 1844, when the first burden of our founders was to carry the newly discovered light on the sanctuary, the Sabbath, the mortality of man, and the Spirit of Prophecy just to those former brethren who had been in the Millerite movement. These had passed through the soul searching of preparation to meet God and the agony of disappointment over the failure of the Lord to emerge from the heaven of heavens to bless His waiting people at His anticipated second advent. That was the initial scope of their endeavors.
They had, as yet, no burden for others outside this large group, and made no approach to them. Gradually, however, their widening vision took in those who had not reached the age of accountability by October 22, 1844, and with them those who had not willfully rejected the judgment hour message of 1844. But their burden and their message remained the same.
Then when the significance and the urge of a worldwide heralding of the third message dawned that was to follow the proclamation of the first and second messages—and they sensed that it was to go to all mankind—they still continued to give essentially the same restricted emphasis, and pressed principally on 'the same "testing truths," the doctrines wherein, we differed.
Continued When Conditions Changed
They simply assumed that their new hearers in this wider circle were likewise converted men and women, with a valid Christian experience. Their great burden was to present the "commandments of God," involving particularly the Sabbath. That was first and foremost. They took for granted their acquaintance with the inseparable "faith of Jesus." Strangely enough, it was this that was the neglected area.
Two weeks was considered sufficient time to compass the range of the specifics of their new message and mission. And when one evangelist said that two weeks did not afford the necessary time—that he must have three weeks because of changing conditions—he was derided. And debating made them lawyers arguing a case.
It was this early restricted concept of our message, with its emphasis upon the things whereon we differed, that made the way difficult. It was misunderstood and resulted in the erection of formidable barriers. Often our denominational identification was hidden in our public evangelism until "confidence" could be established. This procedure was intended to avoid and overcome prejudice. But the very opposite resulted. This technique led to misunderstanding and the inevitable charge that we were sailing under false pretenses.
But that day has largely passed, thank God. Our Voice of Prophecy, Faith for Today, and It Is Written programs are frankly identified as Seventh-day Adventist. Most evangelists do the same. Would that all our public approaches could be as frankly identified. This would certainly lessen the comebacks. With our fundamentally Christian character and principles becoming better and better known, people now want to know what we really believe and why. We might well capitalize on our name.
Twofold Occasion for Misunderstanding
But there were underlying reasons for our past emphasis and procedures, and also for certain silences. This was occasioned, at first, by differing views on the part of some over the eternal pre-existence and complete deity of Jesus Christ and their failure to recognize Him as "all the fulness of the Godhead." This division of view led to a muffling of emphasis on the primacy of the person of Jesus Christ, and His majestic stature. Our sound and true position, attested by the Spirit of Prophecy, was put in jeopardy because of the constricted view of a minority that brought odium over this point upon the whole movement. So the "faith of Jesus" was subdued because of circumstances.
A second paralleling constriction of view was likewise held for a number of decades, largely by the same minority group. It was that the atonement was limited solely to the work of our heavenly High Priest in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary, and had nothing to do with the transaction of the cross, which was held to be simply the appointed sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins and the saving of men. And that took place on earth in A.D. 31. But they claimed that the sacrifice was separate from the atonement, which was in heaven only, and did not begin until 1844.
Only gradually were these two limited concepts clarified and corrected by men who through the study of the Word saw and proclaimed the glorious larger truth of the two phases of Christ's atonement, and put us in a true and proper light before the religious world. Such an emphasis, begun around and following 1888, led others at last to see us as truly Christian in our basic belief and emphasis. And this is strongly attested by Ellen G. White.
Not until these constricted views were corrected, and that fact made known publicly in scholarly circles, did the old prejudices melt that had been based on those faulty minority views. The old canard about our being an "anti-Christian cult" was abandoned by the informed, and we were conceded to be truly Christian—despite our Sabbath and sanctuary emphasis, and our position on conditional immortality.
The Call to a New Emphasis
For decades now, the call of God has been to put Christ in all His fullness foremost, and to emphasize the act of atonement as completed on the cross, with the subsequent application of its benefits being made by our ministering High Priest before the Father, with the consummation of this atoning working of Christ, and the effacement of sin set forth under the symbolism of the events of the Day of Atonement. Here is the heavenly directive for us today:
Do not make prominent those features of the message which are a condemnation of the customs and practices of the people, until they have an opportunity to know that we are believers in Christ, that we believe in His divinity and in His preexistence.—Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 58. (Italics supplied.)
Do not at the outset press before the people the most objectionable features of our faith, lest you close the ears of those to whom these things come as a new revelation.... Present the truth as it is in Jesus. There must be no combative or controversial spirit in the advocacy of truth.—Evangelism, pp. 141, 142.
We should not, upon entering a place, build up unnecessary barriers between us and other denominations, especially the Catholics, so that they think we are their avowed enemies.—Ibid., p. 144.
When we follow that inspired counsel, and heed those clear specifications, we have a new success. We are not plagued by the old handicaps. That is Heaven's blueprint for us as workers. Brethren in the ministry, the hour has come to accentuate the positive, and to stress the everlasting gospel before the world. We are to present the "faith of Jesus" inseparably alongside the "commandments of God"—always in balanced relationship.
Let us be done with a lopsided, inadequate emphasis. Without diminishing our specific witness on the Sabbath, the sanctuary, the nature of man, the Spirit of Prophecy, et cetera, we are to move into our rightful place as today's foremost heralds of Christ, making Him the "center of every doctrine," the throbbing heart of our whole system of truth. We are to stand before the world as the pre-eminent exponents of the full-rounded gospel today, and its eternal verities.
This is more imperative now than ever before, as tragic segments of Protestantism increasingly deny the Incarnation, the virgin birth, the actual deity of Christ, the blood atonement, the literal resurrection, and the literal, pre-millennial Second Advent. This is our day of opportunity and obligation. We are to stand in the breach. This is our larger commission, our mission for today. This is the third angel's message in truth and verity.
Experience has demonstrated that when we stress the eternal verities of the everlasting gospel, people are ready and eager to hear—and to heed. They then want to know about the rest of our faith. And they have no hesitancy over following the example of Jesus—Sabbath and all. We are under obligation to give the whole counsel of
Blessed to us is the night, for it reveals to us the stars.—Sunshine Magazine.
God in the most appealing and winsome way. We are to present a positive, saving gospel, not merely—or chiefly—to proclaim a negative warning. And for this right emphasis we are held accountable before God.
Successful With Two Constrasting Groups
The readiness of men to listen to that emphasis and evidence, appropriate and adequate for this new day, was recently brought home to me with force within the confines of a single week—December 5 to 11, 1965. On Sunday evening I was privileged to present the faith of Seventh-day Adventists to a study group of young married couples in the Trinity Lutheran Church of Washington, D.C. I made the positive approach, directed to a group of Lutheran Protestants.
The results were gratifying. A new understanding of Adventism was had, tying us in with those fundamental truths of primitive Protestantism that we share in common with all sound evangelical Christians, and going on from thence to explain the truths on which we differ and which make us Seventh-day Adventist Christians. These were truths that were due for emphasis in the "last days," the "time of the end," the "hour of God's judgment," but not yet due for emphasis in Luther's day. They saw the point, and the results of such understanding were gratifying. They realized the significance of the special truths of Adventism today.
Then on Sabbath afternoon, December 11, I had the further privilege of presenting the faith of Seventh-day Adventists to a group of 35 student priests from Catholic University, likewise of Washington, D.C., who came by chartered bus to Columbia Union College, in Takoma Park. This was the direct result of the new dialog emphasis in Catholic circles. There in the chapel of H. M. S. Richards Hall, at the very center of the campus, I presented our Adventist faith in comparison with, and in contrast to, both the faith of other Protestants and then the faith of Roman Catholics—only using another approach, likewise positive, but equally effective for this unusual group first contacted by our own theological seniors.
Again the results were similarly gratifying. Without compromising our faith, but capitalizing on certain tremendous historical facts, first in the early church and later in Protestant history, our place and relationship both to the Catholic faith and the popular Protestant faith became clear—and to the enhancement of truth.
Press Into the Openings Presented
So far as I am aware, this was the first time in North America that a Seventh-day Adventist representative has had an opportunity to present a 45-minute sketch of Seventh-day Adventist faith to such a group in the historical setting of the centuries, on the basis of the specifications and the recognitions of God's great prophetic plan of the ages, with each advancing factor in its proper and related place, and inexorably on the eschatological climax.
A favorable and faithful picture of Adventism was thus given to this Catholic group, and an effective setting forth of our specific message and its strategic place in the light and sequence of the centuries. The way was thus opened for further contacts and subsequent discussions of our faith and our unique place in Christendom.
Sets of Prophetic Faith and Conditionalist Faith were presented to the leader of the group to place in the, theological college library of the university from which the students came. This drew voluntary assurances from these student priests that these books would assuredly be consulted, and that the presentation of the afternoon would be widely discussed.-
So I earnestly repeat, this is the day to press into the openings and the dialog afforded by the new spirit of the times. This is -the time for the great advance. We must not fail our God in this auspicious hour. We must bear effective witness. We must adapt ourselves to changing conditions and confrontations without compromising but rather enhancing the faith of Seventh-day Adventists. Ours should stand out as the most Biblical, logical, historical, attractive, and appealing gospel message ever presented to men in this old world. That is the challenge before us.
