That impresses us with the beauty of “1888” is its clear view of the New Covenant. It illustrates how the message is “most precious.”
It was better news than important people at the time wanted to grasp. The confusion became most intense in 1890, but has seeped throughout the 20th and on into our 21st century.
The Lord Jesus promised that he would “pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, … even the Spirit of truth. … I will not leave you comfortless [orphans, Greek]: I will come to you” (John 14:16-18). This promise has been fulfilled in the gift of the Holy Spirit, whose work is to “guide [us] into all truth” (16:13). We recognize that this prophetic “gift” has been manifested in the work of Ellen G. White. The Lord revealed to her which side she should stand on in this conflict:
Since I made the statement last Sabbath that the view of the covenants as it had been taught by Brother Waggoner was truth, it seems that great relief has come to many minds.
Writing to Uriah Smith and others, she said:
Night before last I was shown that evidences in regard to the covenants were clear and convincing. Yourself, Dan Jones [the church Secretary, not A. T. Jones], Brother Porter and others are spending your investigative powers for naught to produce a position on the covenants to vary from the position that Brother Waggoner has presented.
She has always wanted us to rely primarily on Bible evidence in controverted subjects. Waggoner and Jones had been enabled by the Holy Spirit to break through the fog that had darkened this subject for centuries. Once they grasped the import of the theme of the great controversy between Christ and Satan and saw the Day of Atonement and justification by faith in this light, the New Covenant emerged out of the fog bright and clear in the sunshine. Simply and briefly stated, what they saw is this:
Then why this massive confusion?
Inherited from centuries of controversy between Calvinism and Arminianism, the general popular view of the two covenants has been that they are two “dispensations,” the Old to last only until the cross when the New should come into being. Thus it was assumed that God had invented the Old Covenant to be in force up until the time of Christ, when a new “dispensation” should begin as the first manifestation of a “better covenant“ (cf. Heb. 9:6).Perplexities and self-contradictions grow out of this “dispensational” view wherever it comes up. Among us, at the time of the 1888 General Conference Session, it was difficult to find any two of the leaders who could agree on the details.
Enter the “special messengers” whom the Lord “sent” in 1888
They forthwith declared that the “dispensation” idea is foreign to the Bible. The two covenants are not matters of time, or dispensation; they run side by side all through history since the fall of man at Eden. They are matters of heart-conviction. People living in Old Testament times could be under the New Covenant if they cherished faith in Christ: we today can be under the Old if we don’t understand and believe how good the Good News is.Waggoner’s clearest presentations are found in his two books, The Glad Tidings (Pacific Press, 1900; republished 1972), and The Everlasting Covenant (a series of Present Truth articles published in the 1890s and now in book form under that title by Glad Tidings Publishers).
The salient points are:
1. The New Covenant was what God promised in Genesis 3:15—a Savior who would trample on the head of our enemy, Satan. God made no mention that Adam and Eve were to promise anything in return.2. God’s promise to Noah to save him and his family from the Flood was a renewal of the New Covenant. Noah preached “righteousness by faith” (Heb. 11:7). Again, no mention of any promise God exacted from Noah.
3. Paul cites God’s promises to Abraham as the clearest statement of the New Covenant (Gal. 3:8-18). There are seven in Genesis 12:2, 3 (KJV), all for Abraham and his descendants by faith:
These promises are to us individually as Abraham’s children by faith
Later (13:14-17; 15:5) God promised to give Abraham not only the land of Canaan, but the whole earth for his “everlasting possession,” which Waggoner early remarked must include also everlasting life or he couldn’t enjoy it; and that meant also it must include the righteousness by faith necessary to inherit it.In other words, in Waggoner’s view the New Covenant is the essence of the “everlasting gospel,” the righteousness by faith which is the “third angel’s message in verity,” something our beloved Sunday-keeping churches (and Seventh Day Baptists) had not as yet clearly understood.
This was why in her enthusiasm the dear lady declared this message of the New Covenant to be “the beginning” of the light which should lighten the earth with glory in the final “loud cry.”
Waggoner and Jones were impressed that when the Lord made those seven promises to Abraham, He didn’t ask Abraham to reciprocate with any in return. Instead, He asked the patriarch to believe His promise. The 1888 messengers insisted that when the Lord “makes a covenant,” it’s one-sided on His part. There must be a response to His promise, yes, a response of gratitude and believing, but our response to His promises is not one in which we stand on equal footing, eye to eye, fulfilling a “bargain” between equals. Our faith commitment is dependence on His promises, which are all “Yes, and in Him Amen” (2 Cor. 1:20).
But right here is where unbelief gave birth to problems
The same spirit that led the Galatians to insist that they could stand on a par with God in the plan of salvation led our brethren to insist that God’s promises must be mutually balanced by our own.Waggoner observed humorously:
After the Flood, God made a “covenant” with every beast of the earth, and with every fowl, but the beasts and the birds did not promise anything in return. Genesis 9:9-16. They simply received the favor at the hand of God. That is all we can do—receive. God promises us everything that we need, and more than we can ask or think, as a gift. We give Him ourselves, that is nothing. And He gives us Himself, that is, everything. That which makes all the trouble [here he refers to the opposition he has been receiving from the brethren] is that even when men are willing to recognize the Lord at all, they want to make bargains with Him. They want it to be an equal, “mutual” affair—a transaction in which they can consider themselves on a par with God. But whoever deals with God must deal with Him on His own terms, that is, on a basis of fact—that we have nothing, and are nothing, and He has everything and is everything and gives everything.
This aroused “our” intense opposition, because as Ellen White later explained, “it lays the glory of man in the dust.” Ministerial leadership pride in the elders was wounded; and pastoral pride is even today our immense problem.
The believer in Christ glories in nothing save the cross of Jesus Christ by which the world is crucified to him and he unto the world (cf. Gal. 6:14). Self “is crucified with Christ,” and Ellen White explained how that was why our brethren reacted against this “most precious message.” The love of self and pride is common in all people, but most painfully evident in religious leaders who profess to “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). But our brethren didn’t realize it at the time, because, as she said, they didn’t know their own hearts.
But how does the Old Covenant fit into the picture?
Paul emerges as the first biblical writer who clearly discerned the significance of Israel’s history in the light of the two covenants. In Romans 4 he tells us some six times that Abraham is “our father,” yes, “the father of all them that believe” (vss. 11-18). In Galatians 3 and 4 he tells the sad story of the Old Covenant:1. Abraham believed the New Covenant promises, but his descendants 430 years later did not have his faith. They had come out of Egyptian slavery on their way to the Promised Land, which they could have had in a short time of travel if they hadn’t gotten delayed by the Old Covenant on the way.
2. He gave them the same promises He had given to Abraham: “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord” (Ex. 6:6-8). Note that the Lord did not ask for them to make any promise in return. But the next verse says, “They would not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.” This unbelief set them up for the tragedy of creating a vain Old Covenant promise that would mislead people for generations.
3. At Mount Sinai God sought to renew the same New Covenant promises He had made to Abraham: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice, and keep My covenant [cherish My promise, according to Waggoner], then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people, … and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (19:3-6).
The Hebrew word translated “obey” is shamea, which means to listen attentively with faith, that is, not kicking or fighting with objections or unbelief. The Hebrew word translated as “keep” is shamar, which means to keep in the sense of “to treasure.” It is used of Adam being “put into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15). He treasured it! Anybody who treasures a garden will take care of it.
4. There is a play on words here. If Israel were to keep or “treasure” the promises made to their “father Abraham” as he believed and treasured them, then God would “treasure” them and they would become the greatest nation on earth. No cruel world empires to arise such as Assyria, Babylon, or Rome, no Stalins or Hitlers. Again, no mention of any promise the Lord asked Israel to make in return!
But that doesn’t mean that they were to lie down and do nothing. What He wanted was the faith which Abraham showed. Such faith makes a choice, a commitment, a dedication. There is no end to the “good works” that faith working by love (agape) will do! (See Gal. 5:6.)
5. But Israel took it upon themselves to promise: “All that the Lord has spoken, we will do” (Ex. 19:8). Of themselves, these were good words, and some believe that there is nothing wrong with Israel saying those words. But these words were spoken in their “self-righteousness.” And we know God didn’t ask them to make the promises. And of course we know that all self-righteousness is essentially sin. Thus unbelieving Israel themselves formed the Old Covenant. Let’s not blame God for their troubles!
6. In a matter of weeks they had broken their promises and were worshipping a golden calf (32:1-6). Thus began a detour, says Paul in Galatians 3:22-24, that lasted for many centuries. In God’s plan it must finally lead them back to where Abraham their father had been, to be “justified by faith.”
The history of Israel was up and down, mostly down, until good King Josiah’s sons led the kingdom of Judah into total ruin in 586 B.C., to demonstrate fully the enslaving nature of the Old Covenant (Paul says that it “genders to bondage,” Gal. 4:24). It finally led Israel to reject and crucify their Messiah.
Righteousness does not come by works, nor by our promising to keep God’s law
It comes “through faith,” that is, a humble heart that appreciates what it cost the Savior to save us. (Humility is a vital component of faith, for we read in Habakkuk 2:4: “Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.”)The grace of God is given freely to all (Rom. 3:23, 24; Titus 2:11), and therefore “every man [is given] a measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3). Christ died for the world; He redeemed the human race; “in Him” God has promised the gift of everlasting life to all who will receive it as a gift, not as something they must earn by good works or by promises to obey.
Now here’s a question. Isn’t it all right to promise to obey God’s law? Shouldn’t we lead our children to promise God that they will always be faithful? Don’t their promises help them to remain faithful?
Vows and promises to God to help repair the church roof or in a special way help the poor are not inherently wrong, but they are different than promises to be obedient to God and to be righteous. We must be ever so careful that we are not making promises of obedience to God in a spirit of self-dependence. If we think that we can make the promise to Him and keep it, then we are no different than those selfrighteous Hebrews long ago. And whoever makes the promise is the source of the “righteousness!” (How good a “source” of righteousness are you?)
We humans are not good at keeping our promises to be righteous. And when we break them (as we certainly will) then we sink ourselves into unnecessary discouragement. Children especially are in danger here.
After the pastor or teacher urges them to make the promise to be obedient to God and they are tempted and forget and break their promise, they get down on themselves and think they are no good, why even try to be a Christian? Many give up. That’s why the Old Covenant leads into “bondage.”
God hasn’t asked for us to keep promises; He has asked us to believe that He is the real Promise Keeper. Says Steps to Christ:
You are weak in moral power, in slavery to doubt, and controlled by the habits of your life of sin. Your promises and resolutions are like ropes of sand. You cannot control your thoughts, your impulses, your affections. The knowledge of your broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in your own sincerity, and causes you to feel that God cannot accept you. What you need to understand is the true force of the will. This is the governing power in the nature of man, the power of decision, or of choice. Everything depends on the right action of the will. You can choose to serve Him (p. 47).
Sometimes (often, in fact) we sing hymns carelessly, not realizing what the lyrics say. For example, take that lovely hymn of consecration, “O Jesus, I Have Promised” (Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal, #331). Many sing it with an Old Covenant mind-set, not realizing that apart from God’s powerful New Covenant promises we are powerless to do what we are singing. We must have “grace to follow” (last line, third stanza)! To remind ourselves of this, perhaps we should change one word: “O Jesus, I Have Chosen.”
Many are the youth who have vainly promised in Weeks of Prayer, who have come down in front to serve the Lord faithfully. Sometimes the effects last a week or two; but then comes backsliding. And so, many then say, as Dr. Roger Dudley has documented in his scientific studies of our youth, “It’s too hard; I guess I’m not cut out to go to heaven.” Thus again the Old Covenant demonstrates its true nature as “gendering to bondage.”
When we do make promises to God, when can we be sure that there is no “self-dependence” in them?
Abraham’s response to God’s promises was the simple Hebrew word AMEN (Gen. 15:6), which implies a heartfelt appreciation, a heart-agreement with God, a heart-commitment to Him just as when we say “amen” to something we heartily agree with. That’s all God wants from us, for He knows that it will also produce all the obedience the holy law requires!When by faith we are totally reliant on God’s power and on His promise of salvation, we may vow with Jacob, “then shall the LORD be my God” (Gen. 28:21). But this is not a promise like Peter made before he denied Christ; this is a choice to believe, a choice to receive, a choice to yield the heart to God. It’s a commitment. That’s what Steps to Christ, page 47, enjoins upon us!
The New Covenant was the central pillar in the “most precious message” of 1888. May its truth be resurrected in the Church.