Does Jesus Christ call the Seventh-day Adventist Church to repentance? Or does He merely call for it from some individuals within the church?
A FAX direct from Heaven could not be more arresting than Christ's one command to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans: "Be zealous, therefore, and repent." To whom does He say this? What does He mean—"repent"?
"The angels of the seven churches" and "the churches" are not the same. They are distinct. "The seven candlesticks ... are the seven churches." But "the seven stars you saw in My right hand," He says, are "the angels" who symbolize the leadership (Revelation 1:20). Since He addresses the message to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, it must be more than individual or personal repentance He calls for.
God's ministers are symbolized by the seven stars, which He who is the first and the last has under His special care and protection. The sweet influences that are to be abundant in the church are bound up with these ministers of God. … The stars of heaven are under God's control. … So with His ministers. They are but instruments in His hands … (Gospel Workers, pages 13, 14).
That "angel" of the Laodicean church must include Sabbath School leaders; academy, college, and university teachers; local elders; deacons; Pathfinder leaders; pastors; local and Union conference leaders; and of course General Conference leadership—all who guide the church.
Therefore this total body of leadership is the focus of Christ's special attention in the Laodicean message. It is not in any way disrespectful to the human leadership of the church to give attention to what the True Witness says.
Laodicea is the seventh church of history, the last one just before the second coming of Christ. It is parallel with the proclamation of the three angels' messages of Revelation 14. No eighth church can follow The message cannot be bad news, for Laodicea is not a bad word. It simply means "vindicating the people." Heeding the call to repent redeems Laodicea from failure and provides her with her only hope.
How Long Have We Known the Message?
In our early denominational history the message was taken quite seriously. As far back as 1856, our pioneers expected that it would lead into the latter rain and the final loud cry within their generation. But with the lapse of well over a century of seeming indifference on the part of Heaven, we have thought the message is either not very urgent or perhaps has already done its work. For whatever reason, it has been relegated to the back burner. Our modern culture is deeply obsessed with the need for cultivating self-esteem, both personal and denominational, and this message appears to be not very good at doing that. Hence it has also become rather unpopular to talk about it.Since we have assumed that the message is addressed only to individuals, its application has been so widely scattered that it has had no real focus. We have not known what to do about it. Everybody else's business is nobody's business. But the possibility that Christ's appeal is for corporate repentance casts the message in an entirely different focus. If He is calling for corporate repentance, it follows that He is also calling for denominational repentance.
Is He Serious?
Why is He so concerned? He can't forget that He gave His blood for the world. "The angel of the church of Laodicea" is represented in Revelation as standing between heaven's light and a dark world, intercepting it. The outcome of the issue in Revelation 3 determines the outcome of the entire Book of Revelation. Defeat in chapter 3 will hold up or even prevent the victory of chapter 19. We, the "angel" or leadership, have delayed for a century the final purpose of God to lighten the world with the glory of the "everlasting gospel" in its end-time setting. The ultimate success of the great plan of redemption thus requires that the "angel" heed Christ's message and overcome. If Laodicea should fail, that entire plan would suffer a disastrous final defeat.The reason is obvious. Seventh-day Adventists do not hold the doctrine of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches that saved people go to heaven immediately at death. We believe that all the righteous dead must remain in their graves until a corporate resurrection. But this "first resurrection" depends on the personal return of Jesus, which in turn depends on a group of living saints getting ready for His coming. The reason for this is that "our God is a consuming fire" to sin (Hebrews 12:29). Christ dares not return until He has a people in whose hearts all sin has been blotted out. Otherwise, His coming would consume them, and He loves them too much to do that to them. Thus it is His love that requires Him to wait until He has such a people ready. It follows that, until then, all the righteous dead are doomed to remain prisoners in their graves.
Can we begin to see how an enemy has been infiltrating this church with the "new theology" lie that it is impossible for a people to overcome sin per se? Since the success of the entire plan of salvation depends on its final hour, Satan is fighting his last-ditch stand at this point.
For sure, Heaven is not concerned about our perpetuating an organizational machine for the sake of denominational pride, like General Motors struggling to maintain its image in the face of foreign competition. Heaven is concerned about the tragic need of the world for that pure gospel message which alone can bring deliverance from sin to all who call upon the name of the Lord. Suffering humanity weighs on the heart of God more than our concern for our denominational image. If "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" is standing in Heaven's way, the Lord's message to that "angel" must get through. Heaven's seeming indifference is deceptive; the Lord is moving the very stones themselves to cry out:
All heaven is in activity, and the angels of God are waiting to cooperate with all who will devise plans whereby souls for whom Christ died may hear the glad tidings of salvation. … Souls are perishing out of Christ, and those who profess to be Christ's disciples are letting them die. … Oh, that God would set this matter in all its importance before the sleeping churches! (Testimonies, vol. 6, pages 433, 434).
The True Head Of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Jesus introduces Himself as "the Amen, the faithful and true witness." Why is He the true Head of the Seventh-day Adventist Church? He gave His blood for His church. He alone can convey truth to her. No committee or institution can control Him or forever suppress His message. The word "Amen" indicates that He is still in business as the living witness to the church. Above the conflicting din of present-day voices, we are told that He will see to it that His message comes through loud and clear:Amid the confusing cries, "Lo, here is Christ! Lo, there is Christ!" will be borne a special testimony, a special message of truth appropriate for this time (Ellen G. White, Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, page 984).
Ellen White has bemoaned our constant tendency to put fallible human beings between Christ and ourselves. Note how in one short paragraph she tells us of this idolatry no less than five times:
It has been Satan's determined purpose to eclipse the view of Jesus, and lead men to look to man, and trust to man, and be educated to expect help from man. For years the church has been looking to man, and expecting much from man, but not looking to Jesus (Testimonies to Ministers, page 93; 1896; emphasis supplied).
Imagine Jesus Christ as Guest Speaker!
Christ has "eyes like a flame of fire" (Revelation 2:18). His message is no bandaid solution to our problems, no strategy that a committee can devise. It is a solemn and holy message; we will bring upon ourselves the judgment of the ages if we disregard it. If Christ were invited to be guest speaker to the human leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, His message would be that of Revelation 3:14-21. He would stir our souls to their depths. And He has the utmost right to speak thus to us!This topic of corporate repentance has been sharply contested for over 40 years. General Conference opposition has been intense and pervasive. But in recent months two prominent General Conference authors have rescued the topic from disrepute and made it eligible for serious discussion. The Senior Sabbath School Quarterly for early 1992 openly discussed the need for it. Could it be that the Lord's providence has opened the way for us to inquire further into what His call means? His call to "repent" must somehow make sense to us today, and to our youth as well. We can only seek humbly to understand it. In this modest volume we search for its meaning.
When Will We Respond to the Lord?
Repentance is not something that we do. It is never accomplished by voting on a committee. It is a gift from the Lord that has to be humbly and thankfully received (Acts 5:31). But how can we ever find the time to receive such a gift? There is always the eternal pressure of "do" hanging over us all. And when will we find the will to receive? The recent book co-authored by two General Conference leaders plaintively asks:Will we do the work of spiritual preparation that God calls for, and allow Him to use us to finish His work on earth? Or are we going to let another opportunity slip through our fingers and find ourselves and our children in this sinful world for another 50 or 60 years? (Neal C. Wilson and George E. Rice, The Power of the Spirit, page 53).
Can you imagine the disappointment ancient Israel would have felt if Joshua had told them at the River Jordan after already wandering for 40 years: "Sorry, folks, we must go back to the wilderness to wander for another generation"? But such a delay has already happened repeatedly in our denominational history, and the greatest disappointment has been to the Lord Himself.
As we near the end we are seeing centrifugal forces at work within the church trying to force dissension and disunion. Some may conclude that these unprecedented buffetings mean that Jesus Christ has abandoned the church. But His appeal to "the angel of the church" proves that He has not done so. His greatest concern, Heaven's highest priority, is to effect revival, reformation, and repentance within this church. He does care.
What does He say to us?