Is the Seventh-day Adventist Church the "Noah's ark" of the twentieth century, the only "fold of safety" in modern times? Are we being exclusivists or narrow-minded for thinking so? Are our doctrines true and free from error in the broad themes they set forth? Do we have additional truths, or a perspective of truth, not found in other religious organizations? If not, what right do we have to invite those of a different religious persuasion to unite with us?
There are some who want to separate "beliefs" from Christ and our experience with Him. But Christ, His deity and Lordship, His atoning sacrifice and all that goes with it, must be believed before He can become a spiritual experience in our hearts. If we believe in the reality of a "great controversy" in which "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers" (Eph. 6:12), a system of beliefs, doctrines if you please, must be at the center. All that Scripture teaches can be summed up in a set of doctrines or beliefs, and it is this that gives focus and content to our spiritual experience.
Therefore the prince of darkness, well acquainted with Scripture, works perseveringly and malignantly to deceive the very elect, not only by twisting Scripture but by destroying confidence in its authority. Thus he has magnificently confused the human race and spawned a multiplicity of concepts not in harmony with a plain "Thus saith the Lord."
On the other hand, God heroically attempts, through individuals and groups, to bring the world back into the pathway of truth. It is important to note in this great controversy view that whenever reformations have occurred and God's truth has beamed brightly upon the world, that which comes to light is not so much the newness or uniqueness of the truth but rather a rediscovery of truths that have been given to the world from the very beginning. In reference to our own movement we should understand that our uniqueness must not depend upon or be equated with the originality of a particular truth. Rather it is based on a restoration of truth. Through this movement, truth long buried under tradition and philosophy has been brought back into focus. If the eyeglasses through which we discern truth become opaque through error and superstition, the cleaning of the glasses does not make the truth unique or new; it simply restores it to its original clarity. God's truth, as revealed in His Word, has been made of none effect through centuries of both neglect and opposition, but now it is being brought back to a condition of clarity, brilliance, and effectiveness in the life.
Isaiah speaks of those who "shall build the old waste places" and calls them "The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in" (Isa. 58:12). The Jews' moral edifice lay in ruins, and a great work of rebuilding through revival, reformation, and restoration was needed. A breach in the wall, resulting from failure to practice true religion, needed repairing. Verse 13 refers to the restoration of true Sabbathkeeping. This is a very significant passage for our church today when the three angels' messages of Revelation 14 include the restoration of the Sabbath to its rightful place in the lives of men.
In our role as "repairers of the breach, restorers of paths to dwell in," we simply stand at the end of a long line of those who have done a similar work from the beginning of truth's perversion by sin. Biblical history indicates numerous victories, and failures, for God's truth. When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost not only their perfect spiritual nature but their face-to-face fellowship with God. Their concepts of Him and His truth inevitably began to deteriorate rapidly, influenced by a "fig-leaf theology." God did everything possible to help them understand that there was only one way, one plan, one truth to follow. Satan so despised this singleness of God's way, its exclusiveness and uniqueness, that he inspired the first murder over it. Cain felt there must be at least two ways, but God said only one. This initial experience is but a microcosm of all human history since.
Noah and his family are another out standing example of the unique and exclusive nature of restored truth. Noah's preaching was totally out of harmony with the theological and scientific thinking of his day. His core message of salvation by faith alone in the Lord is identical in its essentials to the core message of our church today—the everlasting gospel. He preached in the setting of a world to be destroyed by water; we preach in the setting of a coming world destruction by fire.
Likewise, in God's call to Abraham we see a most intriguing aspect of exclusiveness. Because Abraham and his family clung to a knowledge of the true God in the midst of superstition and heathenism, God chose him and his descendants to serve as His handpicked representatives in preserving and restoring His truth. A man who was willing to sacrifice his only son surely had special insight into God's love shown through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son, but did Abraham's teaching and example to the heathen tribes about him produce any new truth? Never! What he believed and practiced was as old as Adam and Eve! Because of his faithfulness the promise was given: "In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:3).
Moses, too, son of slave parents, had the finger of God placed upon him. A slave leading slaves! Truly God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. Again there was a restoration of the truth. Through this small group, so ignorant of God's will and ways, the intricacies of a sanctuary system were given so that the world might better comprehend the mighty plan of salvation. Did Moses teach something new and different, something that had never been understood by anyone prior to his time? Never! His work was a restoration of truth.
Hebrews, chapter 11, after speaking of these examples and others, reaches a pinnacle in verse 13: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." These were the unique ones, the different ones, the untouchables, and the rejected. These were the square pegs in round holes. Why ? Because by faith they believed in God's salvation and truth.
But the most "unique" and "exclusive" figure in all history was none other than Jesus Christ. Here was the One, the only One, through whom men could be saved (see Acts 4:12). Tragically, even this basic claim is being surrendered by many Christian thought leaders today. Years ago, the ecumenical movement embraced non- Christian religions, and now many Christians feel it is too narrow to believe that only through Jesus Christ can men be saved and that no other religion outside of Christianity is valid in itself. Thus the claims of Christ Himself are set aside as too exclusive.
Did Jesus teach anything new and original when He came to our world? According to the statement by Ellen White appearing on page 25, He did not. His work was to "readjust and establish . . . in the framework of truth" precious gems of spiritual knowledge that He Himself had originated and given in the beginning. Notice that these gems of truth had been "cast . . . into the minds and thoughts of each generation." Every religion has some truth in it, but all truth originates with Christ. (Please study this entire statement carefully. It gives us a broader under standing of inspiration and revelation. It gives us clearer insights into the work of Ellen White herself and her borrowing from other sources. It has helped answer many questions in my own mind and has been a tremendous source of under standing. )
As we know, the visible church became saturated with error shortly after the death of the early apostles. But God had a faithful remnant who were nurtured in the wilderness. The sixteenth-century Reformation attempted to revive the specialness and uniqueness of God's message, and succeeded remarkably well considering the circumstances under which it labored. But as the Reformation continued, it fragmented, and to a great degree remained buried under the rubbish of men's philosophies. Even recovered truths lost their former gleam. Finally, at the turn of the nineteenth century, God's prophetic clock struck the hour for the birth of the Advent movement. It was never His intention for the Advent movement to disintegrate, but following the great Disappointment and its aftermath, little remained of the Millerite cause apart from Seventh-day Adventists.
It is not just, one particular doctrine or concept of belief that is involved in the uniqueness of this movement. It is an entire pattern of thinking and believing based on God's Word. In the last days of earth, when God's restoration and reformation movement is destined to spread around the world, a most important element is the comprehensiveness factor. When all the doctrines of this church are considered as a whole, one can see that God has led us into the most comprehensive, all-inclusive, perfect system of doctrines on earth. It's a golden chain of truth, at the center of which stands Jesus Christ and Him crucified. When properly under stood and practiced, this message brings meaning to life and a sense of direction, commitment, destiny. It is not a piece of truth here and there, but an entire system that in its fullness is incomparable.
We must ever be aware that the idea that "we have the truth" can be so easily perverted. On this razor-thin line we can easily lose our balance and fall off on the side of selfish exclusivism, which generates feelings of pride and superiority, or we can fall on the other side and blur the uniqueness of our message and mission by attempting to dilute and ameliorate our doctrines. Above all, we need to under stand clearly that our mission and message are unique not because of who we are, but because of who God is and what His Word says. We become unique as a visible church only as we submit to Him, His truth, His Word. Only then will God be pleased to use us in reaching the world with more abundant life.
In this and future editorials we will be examining truths that comprise this system of restoration and uniqueness. Probably the most prominent of these is the seventh-day Sabbath. Although God's restored truth involves more than the knowledge of the Sabbath, this aspect has always been a major part of Seventh-day Adventism's message. History reveals seventh-day Sabbathkeeping by individuals and groups in different parts of the world, but it is the Lord's plan to restore this magnificent truth on a worldwide basis. This church constitutes the major Sabbathkeeping group. We stand virtually alone among worldwide religious groups in believing that God created the world in seven literal days and that the earth was buried by a Genesis flood. Note that I said "worldwide," for other groups here and there agree with us, but among entire church bodies represented in nearly every country of the world who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis unfortunately we virtually have the field alone. We wish it were otherwise.
Peter, through inspiration, knew that belief in the Biblical record of Creation and the Flood would be given up in the last days (see 2 Peter 3:3-6). Most Christian churches have attempted to accommodate so-called scientific opinion of earth's origins by accepting variations of the interpretations of the geologic column and attempting to harmonize Scripture with these theories. If accepted, these accommodations discredit the seven-day Creation formula and ultimately destroy the necessity for a seventh-day Sabbath memorial of Creation. There are even some among us who favor interpreting Scripture in light of scientific research. Yet actually, neither the evolutionary model with its various interpretations nor the Creation model can be demonstrably proved. Regardless of what one believes relative to the origin of our world, it must rest largely on faith. I am convinced that in the near future our faith will be more severely tested in this area. Genetic engineering and the shaping of life in the laboratory will challenge the scriptural account of man's divine creation.
Sad to say, not all such attacks against our belief in the seventh-day Sabbath will come from without. Nor should we be amazed when other pillars of our faith, not now under attack, are weakened by those we would expect to defend them. The internal attack on the Sabbath and the Biblical record of Creation, although not openly manifest at present, is one I predict will become increasingly evident. We will have to face it squarely. Satan is violently angry and will stop at nothing to abort this movement that has been called to preach the three angels' messages, including the first angel's call to worship God as Creator.
This first angel also commands the preaching of the everlasting gospel, but the gospel must be preached within the framework of Biblical creationism and the seventh-day Sabbath, or our message will lose the brilliant power and glory that God designs for it.
When God raised up this movement at the end of the prophetic 2300-year period, Satan already had his plans well formulated to subvert it. As an ardent student of the Scriptures (and, I might add, a believer in the year-day principle), he had the time prophecies mastered long before nineteenth-century Adventists existed. When the Sabbath and its links to Creation week began to be preached, Satan diverted people's minds in a very clever manner. Charles Darwin wrote his first draft of Origin of Species in 1844 and published it several years later. This work changed the thinking of the scientific world almost overnight. The very basis of the present socialistic system in Eastern Europe can be traced to a meeting of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Paris in 1844. Thus science and politics combined have swept the world with an atheistic, evolutionary theory. The very element God used in making the Sabbath His memorial of Creation—time—is the same element Satan used in creating the evolutionary theory. The underlying basis of evolutionary thinking is that given enough time, anything can happen!
Many in our own ranks do not fully understand the power and beauty of the Sabbath truth. The following quotation by Ellen White says something unusual about the importance of the Sabbath: "Elder K knows not of what spirit he is. He is uniting his influence with the dragon host to oppose those who keep the commandments of God, and who have the testimony of Jesus. He has a hard warfare before him. As far as the Sabbath is concerned, he occupies the same position as the Seventh Day Baptists."—Testimonies, vol. 1, p. 337.
Is there a difference between the Sabbath as understood and taught by Seventh-day Adventists and as given by Seventh Day Baptists? I believe there is. Ellen White continues: "Separate the Sabbath from the messages, and it loses its power; but when connected with the message of the third angel, a power attends it which convicts unbelievers and infidels, and brings them out with strength to stand, to live, grow, and flourish in the Lord."—Ibid. The key point is the relationship of the seventh-day Sabbath to the three angels' messages. The focal point of the three angels' messages is the everlasting gospel. And the focal point of the everlasting gospel is the cross. The cross, then, is central to all three messages.
The emphasis of the three angels' messages, and especially the third, is righteousness by faith alone in Jesus Christ. Nothing reaches so deep into the inner recesses of a person's soul as a sense of the pardoning love of Jesus. When this is understood and experienced, obedience to all of God's will, including the seventh-day Sabbath, is the natural response. This is why we are admonished repeatedly to lift up Jesus and Him crucified before the world. Seventh-day Adventists must preach the seventh-day Sabbath in the context of the three angels' messages. People must understand the relationship between a call to worship God as Creator, memorialized by the seventh-day Sabbath, and the everlasting gospel, which has the cross as its center. Otherwise the Sabbath doctrine loses its power. When Christ and His cross occupy their rightful position, the heart is filled with an intense desire not merely to submit to but to joyfully seek God's will. Love for a person—not a doctrine, an institution, a policy book, a method, a theological or philosophical concept, or a budget—exists in the heart. Commandment keeping becomes a happy experience. The law is no longer odious or burdensome.
Thus, the true everlasting gospel, the Sabbath, and the other nine commandments of God are inseparable. The Reformers, as remarkable as they were, did not quite capture this holistic plan of salvation. One of the unique, special privileges (and responsibilities) God has given to this people is the restoration of the Sabbath truth in the context of the everlasting gospel and the three angels' messages. There is no other religious movement on earth that has this concept in the way that we have. In that sense we have a special and unique message.— J.R.S.
(To be continued.)
Christ the originator of all truth
In His discourses Christ did not bring many things before them at once, lest He might confuse their minds. He made every point clear and distinct. He did not disdain the repetition of old and familiar truths in prophecies if they would serve His purpose to inculcate ideas.
Christ was the originator of all the ancient gems of truth. Through the work of the enemy these truths had been displaced. They had been disconnected from their true position, and placed in the framework of error. Christ's work was to readjust and establish the precious gems in the framework of truth. The principles of truth which had been given by Himself to bless the world had, through Satan's agency, been buried and had apparently become extinct. Christ rescued them from the rubbish of error, gave them a new, vital force, and commanded them to shine as precious jewels, and stand fast forever.
Christ Himself could use any of these old truths without borrowing the smallest particle, for He had originated them all. He had cast them into the minds and thoughts of each generation, and when He came to our world, He rearranged and vitalized the truths which had become dead, making them more forcible for the benefit of future generations. It was Jesus Christ who had the power of rescuing the truths from the rubbish, and again giving
them to the world with more than their original freshness and power.
As Christ presented these truths to minds, He broke up their accustomed train of thought as little as possible. Nevertheless a new and transforming economy of truth must be woven into their.experience. He, therefore, aroused their minds by presenting truth through the agency of their most familiar associations.—Ellen G. White manuscript 25, 1890, pp. 5, 6 (written at Battle Creek, Michigan, Jan. 7, 1890).
