Some earnest people ask, does “1888” weaken obedience? A wise woman had said that “we have preached the law, the law, until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa.” “We” thought we were doing great, fulfilling Revelation 12:17 and 14:12; we were the wonderful “remnant” distinguished by “keeping the commandments of God.”
Then came “1888.”
Now the question arises, How does that relate to God’s law? Is “1888’s” grace cheap grace? Does it encourage disobedience to the law of God? Lower church standards? Fixate on the grace of Christ and what happened at the cross to the neglect of our “works”?
We know Ellen White was overjoyed to hear it
She said it was the clearest presentation of the gospel she had heard publicly “for the past forty-five years.” She also said that if those two young messengers had not brought the message, we just wouldn’t have had it, meaning that the Lord had laid a burden on them He had not laid on her. If in any way their message weakens obedience to God’s law, it cannot be “precious,” let alone “most precious.”What made her so happy was that at last it set the law before the people in its true light. The young messengers’ understanding was fresh, unique, dynamic. She was painfully aware that the Sundaykeeping Evangelical churches denigrated God’s law, declaring either that it had been abolished at the cross or was impossible for us humans to obey. Either way, the popular view of justification by faith was employed to refute the Sabbath truth. She rejoiced that “1888” finally portrayed the ten commandments as ten promises upholding heart-obedience.
“1888” was clear in this understanding
1. Justification by faith is far more than a legal declaration. The “judicial verdict” of “acquittal for all men” was made at the cross (John 12:32, 33; Rom. 3:23, 24; 5:15-18). Anything accomplished there cannot be restricted or denied to anyone because Christ’s sacrifice was universal. “1888” took a giant step further: faith in Jesus makes the believer become “obedient to all the commandments of God.” (This cut through the Gordian knot of thousands of anti-Sabbath harangues.)2. Justification by faith now becomes a purely personal experience. The heart of the one who believes is reconciled at-one with God. And furthermore: since no one can be reconciled to God and at the same time not be reconciled to God’s holy law, it follows that genuine justification by faith makes the believer demonstrate “obedience to all the commandments of God.”
That of course includes the Sabbath commandment (but it also includes obedience to the troublesome seventh!). Fornication and adultery are not to be “named” among those who prepare for Christ’s second coming (Eph. 5:3). Ellen White was especially concerned: a minister who breaks the seventh commandment “is a traitor of the worst type. From one such tainted, polluted mind the youth often receive their first impure thoughts. … A second trial would be of no avail …”
3. Thus “1888” was the first powerful message in Adventism that joined “the faith of Jesus” to God’s law. It produces the kind of non-egocentric obedience that will enable “His people to stand in the day of God.” That’s why it was the initial “showers from heaven of the latter rain” and “the beginning” of Revelation 18:1-4 that will close the great gospel commission.
4. All “obedience” which is motivated by fear of punishment or by a hope of reward comes far short of the genuine. It’s the “righteousness” of the Pharisees. Outward compliance with the law when the heart is un-reconciled is the lukewarmness-plague of the world “church of the Laodiceans.” This was the problem which “the Lord in His great mercy” sought to heal by sending “1888.” That’s why the New Covenant was its focal point of controversy with the elders.
5. Thus Jones and Waggoner caught a vision of the cross in the third angel’s message. They glimpsed a bit of the light that will lighten the earth at last.
6. But we must beware of counterfeits. Some years ago a great movie reveled in the violence of Calvary, but those tears it evoked were human emotion, easily aroused; the crying audiences went out of the theaters as world-loving as they entered. The movie could not portray “Jesus” in reality as dying the second death for the sins of the world. Since the movie, we still have a work to do. That blessed truth is still left for flesh-and-blood people to tell!
7. But can we emphasize too much what happened on the cross and lull people to neglect obedience to the law? We have this answer (Ellen White is speaking of “1888”):
The theme that attracts the heart of the sinner is Christ, and Him crucified. … Present Him thus to the hungering multitudes, and the light of His love will win [people] from darkness to light, from transgression to obedience and true holiness. Beholding Jesus upon the cross of Calvary arouses the conscience to the heinous character of sin as nothing else can do.
That phrase “as nothing else can do” must include our famous preaching “the law, the law, until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa.” “We” learned a better way in “1888.” But the future still awaits lighting the earth with glory.
8. Never in history has a message more powerfully demonstrated obedience to God’s holy law. A century-plus ago many were afraid that too much “grace” would undermine the law. But Paul says that nothing but proclaiming that “grace of God” can teach us to “say No to ungodliness, and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:11, NIV). Fear won’t do it; hope for heavenly real estate won’t do it; only Christ’s grace can do it.
9. This generation must decide: shall we proclaim the New Covenant, or the Old? The former proclaims “liberty to the captives,” the latter, “bondage” (cf. Gal. 4:24). One proclaims the ten commandments as ten promises, the other as ten fear-laden negative burdens.
10. “Godly fear” is appropriate for any truehearted Christian. But the love that is agape casts out craven fear (1 John 4:18). Jesus describes a group who will appear before Him in judgment at last who think they have “kept the commandments,” but Jesus must tell them sorrowfully, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:21, 22). What could have gone wrong? Their good “works” were “wonderful.”
Paul helps us understand what went wrong: these dear people had misunderstood what true commandment-keeping is. It does include Sabbathkeeping, health reform, tithe-paying, all the good works we can think of; but it fails to be true obedience unless it is motivated by agape: “Love [agape] does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love [agape in the original] is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10; the Greek construction could be understood as implying that agape alone is the fulfillment of the law). Only proclaiming Christ and Him crucified can motivate that fulfillment.
Again, popular Christianity, which teaches salvation in sin rather than from it, fails to grasp agape because of their natural immortality of the soul belief. We have something wonderful to tell, a mission most exciting.
When I stated before my brethren that I had heard for the first time the views of Elder E. J. Waggoner, some did not believe me. I stated that I had heard precious truths uttered that I could respond to with all my heart, for had not these great and glorious truths, the righteousness of Christ and the entire sacrifice made in behalf of man, been imprinted indelibly on my mind by the Spirit of God? Has not this subject been presented in the testimonies again and again? When the Lord had given to my brethren the burden to proclaim this message I felt inexpressibly grateful to God, for I knew it was the message for this time. The third angel’s message is the proclamation of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ. The commandments of God have been proclaimed, but the faith of Jesus Christ has not been proclaimed by Seventh-day Adventists as of equal importance, the law and the gospel going hand in hand. I cannot find language to express this subject in its fullness.—Selected Messages, book 3, p. 172 (emphasis supplied).