Advancing in the light

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (Matt. 16:18).* Here Jesus used a figure of speech familiar to His listeners. From the gates of a city, an army went out to conquer its foes. Jesus knew that throughout history the powers of hell would be arrayed against His church.

Soon after His resurrection, the prediction of Jesus came to pass in two ways. First came persecution. His fol lowers were taken before councils, beaten, and martyred. Second came the threat to the gospel. Pagan ideas crept in to the church, causing doctrinal differences and divisions. Many Christians gave up their faith, and at times the church seemed to be moving in reverse.

Yet this was as Jesus said it would be. But the church has survived. While many religious systems and schools of philosophy have come and gone, the church survives. Jesus the Master Builder is still at work, and in the end His church, which comprises all those who have genuinely trusted in Him, will triumph.

Today when we face so many problems in our church—the Seventh-day Adventist Church—it would be helpful to look back and see what we can learn from the past. The difficulties we face are not peculiar to us alone.

Problems are not new

Let us begin with the apostolic church. "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place" (Acts 2:1). This text speaks about their unity. They were not necessarily united in all doctrinal ideas. They were together physically in one place, following their Lord's command. A beautiful harmony of spirit was present, but if someone had asked them that day what they as individuals thought about many of the theological issues that we consider important to day, their answers might have come as a surprise. "To tell you the truth," they would probably have answered, "we have not even thought about those points." The apostolic church at that stage of history was obsessed with one overriding truth: "Christ is risen, He is alive, and we have seen Him. Because He lives, we shall also." Equipped with this great truth, they went out to preach and teach.

It was only as time passed that the church began to grapple more deeply with other related concepts. As the church learned new truths, it also meant that it had other things to unlearn. Truth itself never changes, but the church's understanding of it is only partial and ongoing. For example, for the first decade of its existence, the church had what could be called a "shut door" concept: the "good news" of Jesus was meant only for the Jewish people.

But the apostolic church had to learn that the good news had no racial limitation. Through a vision (Acts 10:9-17) God led Peter away from this narrow-mindedness. Peter did not comprehend at once what the vision meant. His experience with Cornelius, a Gentile, helped him understand.

We see this idea of progressive understanding in the case of the Old Testament prophets as well. They did not fully understand what their visions were meant to convey. For example, Peter points out that these prophets could not comprehend what God was revealing through His Spirit regarding the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 1:10, 11). This inability to understand everything at one time was true also of Ellen White. She admits: "Often representations are given me which at first I do not understand, but after a time they are made plain by a repeated presentation."' Prophets are not omniscient; they do not possess all knowledge. Like the rest of us, they have many things to learn and unlearn. Only Christ possesses all the truth, because He is truly God as well as truly man.

Now, back to the apostolic church. If the Gentiles were to be accepted into the church, the next natural question was on what basis? Did they have to become Jews first in order to come to Christ? Some evidently thought so: "Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: 'Unless you are circumcised ac cording to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved'" (Acts 15:1). Paul and Barnabas disagreed with that position, and a sharp dispute arose in Antioch.

We can see how this incident could easily have split the church. It doesn't take much to divide a church. But the Antioch church was determined to work its way through the problem as a body, and they sent delegates to Jerusalem to discuss the matter. The Jerusalem Council debated the issue, made its decision, and conveyed it to all the churches. The Gentile converts need not go through Jewish ceremonies. They were only "to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality" (verse 29).

A little later the issue of eating food offered to idols became a great concern at Corinth. Priests in pagan temples offered sacrifices of animals and sold the carcasses in the market place to raise revenue for their temples. Some mature Christians believed they could eat the food with a clear con science, as they knew that the idols were only wood and stone, and not true gods at all; others worried that to eat the food offered to pagan gods was to acknowledge those false gods. Paul discusses the whole issue in 1 Corinthians 8. It appears as though the church at Corinth was seriously divided over this problem. To us the issue may seem to be of little consequence.

History teaches us that every generation seems to have some issues that are important to them but seem trivial to later generations. For example, for many years we argued over the "daily" in Daniel 8, the law in Galatians, and the battle of Armageddon. Today's Adventists, for the most part, wonder why their predecessors felt so strongly on these issues. Could it be that in the future some may even look back on us and marvel at some of the issues we in the 1990s think so important as to fight over them?

The gospel focus

Speaking of theological contention, is there any issue worth contending for? Yes, says the apostle Paul. He affirmed this in his letter to the Galatians: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned" (Gal.1:8). Paul was fighting legalism that held that a person could be right with God by keeping the law. "Consider Abraham," Paul argued. "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Gal. 3:6). Since then the issue of faith versus works has been with the Christian church. It was a central issue of the Reformation. It emerged as a major concern of early Adventism and remains so with some today.

Apart from this, there were other issues facing the apostolic church, regarding which Paul appears not to be so concerned about having conformity. As an example, consider Romans 14:5, 6: "One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." The context shows that Paul is talking about fast days. Apparently some were taking sides on which were the correct days for fasting. Some were observing some or all the fast days; others were not concerned about any fasting day. Paul's position is freedom of choice and tolerance for one another.

This same attitude surfaces again in Colossians 2:16, in connection with some Jewish/pagan practices still lingering in the church. Paul's counsel was "Don't go judging each other."

Paul even set a personal example by observing some purification rites (Acts 21:17-26) even though he knew they were outdated. He taught that circumcision was not necessary (Gal. 5) and yet let Timothy be circumcised in order to keep the brethren happy (Acts 16:1-3). He did all this even though he knew these ceremonies had no meaning, now that Christ had come. Some may have labeled him a compromiser because he said, "I have be come all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings" (1 Cor. 9:22, 23).

While recognizing the importance of keeping the gospel pure, Paul recognized other issues not worth fighting over. There was room in the church for differences of opinion and practice.

Free, but not to wound

Consider again the example of food. Although Paul was a party to the Jerusalem consensus of Acts 15 regarding not eating food offered to idols, he wrote to the Corinthian church: "But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do" (1 Cor. 8:8). However, Paul recognized that there may be a good reason that someone may choose not to eat such food. He warned, "Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not be come a stumbling block to the weak" (verse 9). The principle is simple: we are responsible for how our conduct affects others in the church. Church members may feel absolutely sure that they are right in their ideas, but may act in such a way as to damage the weak conscience of another member who does not see things exactly as they do.

Like the early church we all have a lot of growing to do, and none of us is growing at the same pace. Certainly not one of us has yet arrived; therefore, we need to be patient with one another so that we do not become a stumbling block and cause someone else to lose their hold upon Christ.

Holding on to the Scripture

As the church began to grow, the nature of Christ became a divisive issue. Gnostic influence in some churches threatened the divinity of Christ and sought to make Him as one of God's creation instead of being the Creator. John's Gospel and Paul's Epistle to the Colossians were written in part to offset those Gnostic ideas and show that Jesus is the Creator and not a mere creature (see John 1:1-14; Col. 1:15-20).

For many centuries after the apostolic era, the church struggled to try and understand the nature of Christ. The subject dominated the agenda at many church councils. Some tried to go beyond the biblical data in their definition of Christ's nature. A few even tried to settle the differences by going to war. But who can really understand fully the nature of Christ? John 3:16 states that He is God's "only" Son. He is the monogenes: the "unique, only one of His kind." We must simply take the statements of Scripture and not try to add to them.

Sometimes the church is helped when heretics attack her. Such at tacks force her to do serious study and determine truth. Such was the case in the second century when Marcion the heretic decided he would provide a collection of the books of the Bible that he felt were authoritative. He rejected the Old Testament and focused on Paul as the only true apostle. His canon included only the abbreviated version of Luke's Gospel and 10 edited Epistles of Paul. Marcion's challenge accelerated the church's recognition of a New Testament canon.

Keeping an open mind

History shows that churches go wrong when they fail to keep open minds for more light and growth. Such was the case with the Papacy during the long Dark Ages. Creeds were set, and tradition, not the Bible, dominated the belief system.

Christ warned that His teachings could not be put into old wineskins of Jewish traditions. The gospel had to burst forth through the newly formed Christian community. But within a few centuries the church got itself trapped in traditions, and by the sixteenth century the need for reformation was clear.

The Protestant Reformation brought out two principal issues: (1) salvation is possible only through faith in the merits of Jesus, and (2) believers are free to study the Bible and be guided by the Holy Spirit to discover truth for them selves. In different lands churches arose as they broke with human traditions. But history soon repeated itself in these same Reformation churches after the deaths of their founders. They too set up their creeds and locked themselves into positions where there was no room for further growth. In The Great Controversy, under the chapter "The Pilgrim Fathers," Ellen White refers to a covenant the Puritans made for themselves "to walk together in all His ways made known or to be made known to them." She describes this as "the true spirit of reform, the vital principle of Protestantism." Then she quotes from a speech made by John Robinson, the Puritan pastor, as he bade goodbye to the pilgrims on their way to the New World: "I charge you before God and His blessed angels to follow me no farther than I have followed Christ. If God should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth of my ministry; for I am very confident the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy word." ²

As an evangelist I have (as have many others) often preached on the subject "Why So Many Churches?" I show the falling away from the "pure apostolic church" and the setting up of the Papacy during the Dark Ages. Then I point to the work of the great Protestant Reformation and how God was seeking to restore what was lost. Different churches were raised up stressing some vital truth that the Christian church needed to heed: Luther with his doctrine of justification by faith, Wesley with his stress on holy living, the Baptists with their emphasis on believers' baptism by immersion, etc. Then I pose the question: "Where did these churches go wrong? Was it not because they took what their founders had said and would not advance beyond?"

The Jews made the same mistake in Christ's day; the papacy followed the same path at the time of the Protestant Reformation, as did later the Protestant churches. They all allowed them selves to be locked into traditional teachings of the founders, without providing for the possibility for growth and new light.

No creed but the Bible

When the Seventh-day Adventist Church was formed in the mid-nineteenth century, the founders were determined that this church would be different from other churches.

When the first steps toward organization were taken in 1861 with the formation of the Michigan Conference, it was carefully spelled out that there was to be no creed but the Bible.³ Those present at this historic meeting signed a covenant that read: "We, the undersigned, hereby associate ourselves together, as a church, taking the name, Seventh-day Adventists, covenanting to keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus Christ." ⁴

In the discussion that followed, J. N. Loughborough spoke of the danger of creeds: "The first step of apostasy is to get up a creed, telling us what we shall believe. The second is, to make that creed a test of fellowship. The third is to try members by that creed. The fourth to denounce as heretics those who do not believe that creed. And, fifth, to commence persecution against such."

James White agreed: "Making a creed is setting the stakes, and barring up the way to all future advancement. . . . The Bible is our creed. We reject everything in the form of a human creed." ⁵

For this position, the young church received strong support from Ellen White who shared her thoughts on growth and understanding of truth: "We must not think, 'Well, we have all the truth, we understand the main pillars of our faith, and we may rest on this knowledge.' The truth is an advancing truth, and we must walk in the increasing light. . ..

"The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation. .. .

"Long-cherished opinions must not be regarded as infallible. It was the unwillingness of the Jews to give up their long-established traditions that proved their ruin . . .

"We have many lessons to learn, and many, many to unlearn. God and heaven alone are infallible. Those who think that they will never have to give up a cherished view, never have occasion to change an opinion, will be disappointed. . . .

"Whenever the people of God are growing in grace, they will be constantly obtaining a clearer understanding of His Word. They will discern new light and beauty in its sacred truths. This has been true in the history of the church in all ages, and thus it will continue to the end. But as real spiritual life declines, it has ever been the tendency to cease to advance in the knowledge of the truth. Men rest satisfied with the light already received from God's Word, and dis courage any further investigation of the Scriptures. They become conservative, and seek to avoid discussion. . ..

"If the pillars of our faith will not stand the test of investigation, it is time that we knew it." ⁶

The "old landmarks"

It is instructive to note how Ellen White faced "much talk about standing by the old landmarks" in the light of new perspectives given at the 1888 Minneapolis conference. When new under standings of righteousness by faith and the law in Galatians was presented at the conference, some felt that the old landmarks were being removed. One year later White wrote:

"The minds of men were fixed, sealed against the entrance of light, because they had decided it was a dangerous error removing the 'old landmarks' when it was not moving a peg of the old landmarks, but they had perverted ideas of what constituted the old landmarks.

"The passing of the time in 1844 was a period of great events, opening to our astonished eyes the cleansing of the sanctuary transpiring in heaven, and having decided relation to God's people upon the earth, [also] the first and second angel's messages and the third, unfurling the banner on which was inscribed, 'The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.' One of the landmarks under this message was the temple of God, seen by His truth-loving people in heaven, and the ark containing the law of God. The light of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment flashed its strong rays in the pathway of the transgressors of God's law. The non-immortality of the wicked is an old landmark. I can call to mind nothing more that can come under the head of the old landmarks. All this cry about changing the old landmarks is imaginary." ⁷

Note what Ellen White specifies as the landmarks. As our church grew in many significant areas, on several occasions the cry has been heard (as in 1888) that the landmarks are being removed. Frequently some would like to add their own ideas of what constitute the land marks. Others would like to hold to the traditions of the past and not see any need for new insights or perspectives. To do this is to fall into the same trap as the Jews in Christ's day, the papacy at the time of the Reformation, and the churches that our founders left behind.

Growing in truth

Growing in the truth and its under standing is a significant characteristic of Adventism. Robert Johnston points this out forcefully: "So the young faith continually advanced, not only in numbers but also in understanding. It changed its ideas about organization and the minis try, deepened its understanding of the third angel's message of Revelation 14, and revised its interpretations of prophecy, Christ and the Trinity, reclaimed the great truth of salvation by grace through faith, and found much else to learn or to unlearn. But while it corrected, amplified, and reclaimed, it never lost touch with its roots, the 'waymarks.'

"This is the most striking characteristic of Adventism. Without repudiating the past leading of the Lord, it seeks ever to understand better what that leading was. It is always open to better insights and willing to learn—to seek for truth as for hid treasure." ⁸

Therefore, our church showed wisdom when it voted for the first time a set of fundamental beliefs with the following preface: "Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. These beliefs, as set forth here, constitute the church's understanding and expression of the teaching of Scripture. Revision of these statements may be expected at a General Conference session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth or finds better language in which to express the teachings of God's Holy Word." ⁹

Once Ellen White was challenged as to how she could appear to support Jones and Waggoner at the 1888 Minneapolis conference when she rejected years earlier a similar position held by Waggoner's father. Ellen White answered: "That which God gives His servants to speak today would not perhaps have been present truth twenty years ago, but it is God's message for this time."' ¹⁰

This statement is an indicator that when certain truths become relevant for God's people to understand, the Holy Spirit reveals it to the church at that time. He leads them gently, no faster than they can understand and act. Each generation will then be able to stand on the shoulders of their forebearers and be free to grow in understanding. That means maintaining a sense of continuity and a sense of freedom to be a first generation of their own. As the new generation faces fresh issues in a world so different from that of the pioneers, it will be able to maintain a zeal and relevance for the message as did the founders for the world they lived in.