Martin Weber debates by correspondence with five Seventh-day Adventist thought leaders: Morris Venden, George Knight, Jack Sequeira, Ralph Larson, and Graham Maxwell (who declined to participate). What is unusual is that the author is also the moderator of each of these debates. The subject of the debates is revealed in the book's subtitle, "Making sense out of five different Adventist gospels."
The debate revolves around the meaning of justification and sanctification, a pre-Fall versus a post-Fall nature of Christ, sinless versus relative perfection, faith and works during sanctification, substitution versus moral influence, and related matters. For those who have been examining these issues through the years very little new ground is broken.
Reading the book leaves one with the questions: What is the purpose of the book? Will reading the book increase a person's faith or weaken a person's faith? Is a debate the best way to reach conclusions on such an important topic? Are the five men really teaching five different gospels, or are they looking at the same gospel from different perspectives? If they are teaching five different gospels, will those led to Christ by the four who are teaching false gospels be saved? Since the author does not agree with everything any of these five men teach, is his gospel the only way of salvation? The final, vital question: Is it necessary to understand the technical, fine points of theology to be saved?
The most important statement in the book is found on page 90 in Jack Sequeira's final statement: "Thank you (Martin) for letting me have the final say on your analysis of my under standing of salvation in Christ. It is obvious that some things we may not see in the same light until we get to heaven; but thank God we can agree on the central message of the New Testament that it is the birth, life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ that constitute the good news of the gospel, and that it is man's only hope."
Ralph Larson calls Weber's attention to a similar conviction expressed by Ellen G. White in The Great Controversy, page 343: "But no man, how ever honored of heaven, has ever attained to a full understanding of the great plan of redemption, or even to a perfect appreciation of the divine purpose in the work for his own time. Men do not fully understand what God would accomplish by the work which He gives them to do; they do not comprehend, in all its bearings, the mes sage which they utter in His name."
