'I, if I be lifted up"- a response

During the 1880s two young editors stimulated the Seventh-day Adventist Church's thinking on justification by faith through the columns of the Signs of the Times creating such a stir that they were allowed to present their convictions at the seminal 1888 General Conference. Although we may be disappointed in the way church leaders reacted, we look back at the Minneapolis meeting as the great watershed of Adventist thinking on the gospel. From that mountain peak flow two distinct streams: the pre-1888 law-oriented view of salvation and the Christ-centered approach. These then break into a number of rivulets. The church's failure to reach consensus on the meaning of the gospel and the relationship of law and gospel has been responsible for much confusion and in-fighting and has stunted the growth of the church. What we lack is a sense of unity concerning our most important doctrine—salvation.

Recent theological stirrings in Ministry remind me of the debate which raged a little over a century ago, and I am hoping that the Seventh-day Adventist Church will again be pressed to consider its reason for existence. I deeply appreciate your article "Global Mission, My Mission" (April 1992) in which you advocate the church's placing the doctrine of Christ at the head of our fundamental belief statement and then in the other doctrinal statements, showing how each of them relates to Christ. Your follow-up article, "I, if I Be Lifted up From the Earth" (October 1992) continues in the same vein as you urge the president of the General Conference to bring the church into consensus on our most vital doctrine, the doctrine of salvation (the relationship of justification and the renewing work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer). In the October issue, both Martin Weber's "Three Counterfeit Christs" and Woodrow Whidden's "The Way of Life Engravings: Harbingers of Minneapolis?" forcefully support your contention that the church must resolve its internal tension over the gospel.

Within Seventh-day Adventism at least four major gospel rivers are flowing besides lesser streams, each claiming possession of the central message and mission of the church. Evangelical Adventism would have the church focus on Christ's vicarious, substitutionary work, including His life of obedience, and especially climaxing with His death on Calvary. For evangelical Adventists "justification" means the satisfaction of all the law's claims in the final judgment through the doing and dying of the God-Man Jesus Christ in behalf of believing sinners. We, as sinners, deserve death, yet He took our sin and guilt upon Himself, dying in our place. The law demands perfect obedience from the one who would be justified, but we have none to provide. The obedience of Jesus and the character He developed living on earth is placed to the account of the believer (imputed) covering his or her inadequacies. God accepted the life and death of Jesus in our behalf and raised Him from the dead. Seated at God's right hand in heaven, Jesus Christ is our righteousness, presenting us as righteous in His person to the Father. For evangelical Adventists this is the gospel.

Some may ask where sanctification and victory over sin come in. Evangelical Adventists also believe that the resurrected Lord sends the Holy Spirit into their hearts, and that this victory over sin is a fruit of the gospel. The Holy Spirit provides assurance of salvation, even though He brings to them a deepening conviction of sinfulness and inadequacy. The Holy Spirit floods their heart with hope for Christ's second coming, and they long for the day when the struggle between the sinful flesh and the spirit will be over.

There is, for the believing Christian, a series of uninterrupted victories. The key to victory is to hold justification and sanctification in proper relationship, always distinguishing them but never separating them. Separating them results in anti-nomianism and the "once-saved-always-saved" error. Equating them, or rendering them indistinguishable, results in the opposite error, legalism, or perfectionism, as the individual looks inwardly for the basis of acceptance with God. Continual faith in what Jesus Christ accomplished for us nearly 2,000 years ago motivates and keeps us throughout the progressive character development that stretches from conversion to the Lord's coming.

But what about those living when Jesus returns? The final generation of saints are no different in their faith or commitment from the saved of any previous generation, though they will have gone through a unique experience. Of them it may be said, as it could be said of the saved of every generation, that two things are true: (1) they are trusting in God's grace and the doing and dying of Jesus Christ as their sole claim to salvation; and (2) they would rather die than reject or neglect any of God's commandments. This is what I believe and teach as a Seventh-day Adventist minister. I believe that there are many pastors and members of the laity who would agree with me. This is what I call evangelical Adventism.

A second group within the church holds that Christ's death provides for forgiveness for past sins but does not cover present shortcomings. When your past debt is canceled, then Jesus through the Holy Spirit comes into your life in such a powerful way that you are able to live a sinlessly perfect life. You can and must become so victorious that when human probation closes just before the Lord returns, you must stand without the benefit of a mediator. If there is a single sin or short coming, then you are eternally lost. The gospel and even justification itself are believed to include both a person's standing before God as well as one's state. God is waiting for a whole generation of absolutely sinless individuals to vindicate Him before the universe, just as Jesus Christ did when He lived on this earth.

A third type of gospel popular among some Adventists states that the church ought to move beyond such primitive expressions as "propitiation," "substitutionary atonement," "God's personal wrath," "the judgment," "justification," etc., correct and helpful though they may have been. Jesus' death was not a penal substitution for our sins but rather a demonstration of God's love. The cross does not change God's relationship to us but rather changes our relationship to Him. The great est need of the church is to recognize our selves as God's friends and not His servants. God is most interested in restoring relationships, and that happens when people understand that He is not the vengeful God that the devil and some Christians have made Him out to be. The purpose of the atonement is not to satisfy justice but rather to vindicate God before the uni verse, answering all of Satan's charges against God.

Then there is a fourth group, the "Atheologicals" who really don't care what you believe about the gospel as long as you don't argue about it. Some of this group are perfectly content with theological pluralism, though they may have definite personal convictions on the gospel. They tend to minimize the importance of the term justification or downplay the distinction between justification and sanctification. What is important to them is emphasizing areas in which all agree and on developing healthy relationships.

From the standpoint of the fundamental beliefs one can hold any of the four gospels and not be at variance with the stated position of the church. The question which evangelical Adventists are asking is Can one can hold any of the different gospels and not be at variance with the Scripture? For example, is it biblical to deny the believing sinner's continual need for God's forgiving grace? Is it biblical to deny the vicarious, substitutional and imputational aspects of Christ's work in behalf of sinners? Theories are often right in what they affirm but wrong in what they deny or ignore. Certainly it is proper to insist that the Christian may have victory over sin, but that can come only through deepening repentance and continual trust in the merits of Christ. Certainly it is true that God is not vengeful and bloodthirsty in the way the gods of paganism are often depicted, but does that mean that God must not, in Christ, reconcile the world to Him self through the cross of Calvary? Certainly unity is important, but never at the expense of the Bible truth of the everlasting gospel. There are many theological points that are minor, but certainly the gospel is the major issue. We may have diversity on the minor points, but we must have consensus on the one central doctrine.

How can we fulfill our commission of heralding the three angels' messages, centering on proclaiming the "everlasting gospel" (Rev. 14:6) unless we agree on the gospel? For the sake of the glory of God for which the unity of the church exists, we must come into consensus on the biblical meaning of the gospel and settle the internal warfare over the gospel.

Here are three suggestions for reaching consensus on the meaning of salvation. First, read the "Dynamics of Salvation" published in the February 1988 issue of Ministry. This document comes the closest to a consensus on defining righteousness by faith. Perhaps it could be made the subject of sermons, discussion groups, camp meeting presentations, and area-wide meetings.

Second, a few of us who consider our selves evangelical Adventists are in the process of forming an association. It does not purport to be an official organization, but merely an association of those who understand the gospel as justification (which always results in sanctification) and who love to talk and study about Christ and the cross.

Third, perhaps an open forum could be established where articulate proponents for the various views could state their case. In the early days of Seventh-day Adventism, the Review and Herald served this purpose.