The Seventh-day Adventist Church didn’t just “happen” as an accident of history. The Lord raised it up to proclaim a message most vital since Pentecost: to prepare people for the close of probation and the second coming of Christ. This meant translation without seeing death!
A monumental task! Never been done before in history.
Modern Protestantism is confused with twin enthusiasms, one for Pentecostalism, and the other for Roman Catholicism. Is it possible that an apparently obscure message “sent” to us 120 years ago can be meaningful to this generation?
Ellen White says yes, and it’s Bible
Often “we” have assumed officially that “1888” was only a re-emphasis of popular Sunday-keeping ideas of the gospel, and our job is to hammer away on the law, the law, and let them proclaim the gospel; or at least, let us borrow it from them.Even today, here is what is commonly believed among us (from a foremost official voice about “1888”):
The importance of the 1888 message was not some special Adventist doctrine of justification by faith developed by Jones and Waggoner. Rather, it was the reuniting of Adventism with basic Christian beliefs on salvation.
Is it true, as some have claimed, that the 1888 message of righteousness by faith is a unique Adventist message? [The answer implied is no.] Whatever the message was, Paul, Luther, and Wesley shared and preached it.
If that is true, the message of course was not special; consequently many have assumed that “1888” should be forgotten.
In fact, that’s precisely what’s happening. And because of the Evangelicals’ missing link in understanding “1888,” it’s far beyond what they can grasp, sincere as they were then and are today. But when we Seventh-day Adventists deny that “1888” is special, we expose our own people to a grave danger. The current Dale Ratzlaff movement is an example, for he could never have gone the way he has, if he had known “1888.” All through his extensive Seventh-day Adventist education from the cradle roll to the Seminary heights, he was deprived of knowing “1888.” It’s hungry animals that fight, and it’s hungry people who create offshoots. (Even to this day the Theological Seminary offers no “101” in the 1888 message.)
Luther and the other Reformers were not able in their day to grasp the message, and likewise the Evangelicals of today. They were and are good people, but there is something they simply cannot see. The Reformers couldn’t see it, as it was before their day; and Protestants in general today haven’t seen it because of their absorption in the doctrine of natural immortality. (And we haven’t made it clear to them; our Questions on Doctrine that was supposed to do that job fifty years ago failed.)
The reason is, says Ellen White in a brilliant statement about Evangelicalism:
They have no knowledge of the way into the most holy [apartment of the heavenly sanctuary]. … Like the Jews, who offered their useless sacrifices [after Calvary], they offer up their useless prayers to the apartment which Jesus has left.
How does the 1888 message go beyond Luther, Calvin, the Reformers, and modern Evangelicals?
Arminianism was a protest or “Remonstrance” against Calvinism (and Lutheranism), in 1610. Take Calvinism as an example. It summarizes its popular doctrines with the acronym TULIP:T, “Total Depravity.” Sounds true but it’s a distortion of human sinfulness. In contrast, “1888” recognizes the total involvement of all of us in the sin of crucifying Christ, but this is not “total depravity,” it’s total corporate guilt.
We see this laid bare in “our” own enmity against the “most precious message” when “we” “in a great degree” rejected it as the Jews rejected Christ. That was our corporate sin, and Calvin was trying to express it but couldn’t quite understand.
U, “Unconditional Election.” This is the idea that if God has decreed you to be one of the few He has planned to save, you can never be lost for any reason. In effect it revises the Lord’s prayer to say, not “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,” but Thy will must and will be done … .” This again is a subtle distortion of a “most precious” truth. God has “elected all men” to be saved and they will be, unless they interpose a rebellious will to contradict His election. But this greater truth does not encourage disobedience. Faith in the Lord’s “election” motivates to total harmony with Him in obedience.
If we let the Lord have His way, He will lead us all the way into His eternal kingdom. All the devils in hell cannot keep one out unless he chooses to reject His “election.” In restoring to us our freedom of choice, Christ permits us to nullify and defeat God’s purpose of love for us if we choose. “The sinner may resist this love, he may refuse to be drawn to Christ, but if he does not resist, he will be drawn to Jesus” (Steps to Christ, p. 27; Ellen White wrote this astounding statement for the first time shortly after 1888). Thousands of Seventh-day Adventists who worry about their personal salvation need to understand this reasonable and common-sense truth of biblical “election.” Everybody needs it also.
L, “Limited Atonement.” This again is a subtle denial of a “most precious” truth. It really ends up meaning that Christ did not die for every one of us, but only for those few who are the “elect.” In contrast, “1888” sees that Christ has purchased the gift of salvation for “all men” and has given the gift to them “in Himself.” Romans 5 describes it as a “judicial … verdict of acquittal … for all men” (vss. 15-18). God wants all to be saved and before the foundation of the world He predestined all to be saved (Eph. 1:3-6).
But some will allow only that the Savior has “offered” the gift to “all men,” but has not given it, until they do something first to believe and accept it. In other words, with this Calvinist idea, our salvation is ultimately due to our own initiative. But “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them”—all this done at the cross before you and I came along (2 Cor. 5:19).
Christ has “tasted death [the second] for every man” (Heb. 2:9), which can only mean that He has paid the full price to save “every man.” This went beyond popular Adventism of its day and of ours, declaring that Christ has not only offered salvation to all, but has actually given the gift, placing it in every man’s hand, as it were. He became “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42), “the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe” (2 Tim. 4:10). Not merely would-like-to-be.
It’s a breath-taking idea, and shocking, but it’s Bible. Those who are lost at last have made their true name to be “Esau.” He had the “birthright;” he didn’t need to do anything to obtain it, but he “despised” and “sold” what God had placed in his hands (Gen. 25:34; Heb. 12:16). What Christ did is a free, full atonement given in a legal sense to “all men.”
The only alternative is a “limited atonement.” If Christ didn’t truly save you when He “saved the world,” then you have been short-changed by a “limited atonement”! Move on into unlimited grace!
I, “Irresistible Grace.” Again, we are face to face with a subtle distortion of “most precious” truth. Grace is far greater than “the carnal mind” has been willing to recognize. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20). We’ve been quick to see how powerful are temptations to sin, but slow to see that the grace of Christ is far stronger than they are. When prayer meeting time comes, the temptation to stay home and watch TV seems strong; but the problem is not the strength of the temptation. It’s that we don’t see how much stronger is that grace.
Calvinism came close—grace is almost irresistible if one understands the “width and length and depth and height … [of] the agape of Christ which passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:17-19). But it can still be resisted. When we preach “the law, the law, until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa” that grace is “frustrated” (Gal. 2:21, KJV). The result? Frustrated grace produces “lukewarmness” that everywhere permeates the worldwide church. But the agape of Christ, understood, “constrains” or motivates to endless devotion.
Our lukewarmness is a consequence of keeping back from our people (“in a great degree”) this “most precious message.”
P, “Perseverance of the Saints.” The idea is that once you are saved, you can or will never fall. “1888” tells us not to look at the “perseverance of the saints,” but look at the perseverance of Christ. And here is another “most precious” truth often clouded by a remnant of Babylonian confusion. It has been preached for decades that the Lord gets us started in a “relationship,” but then it’s up to us to “maintain it” by three duties: “(1) prayer, (2) Bible study, and (3) witnessing,” all excellent things to do. But not as works-righteousness.
A doctor brings a baby into the world, but then does not back off and leave it to survive on its own, but he places it in the arms of a mother. The truth in the Bible is that Christ not only initiates this saving “relationship,” He seeks to maintain it as well. That’s what seems difficult to grasp: does He love us that much? Is His grace so great that you can be lost only if you resist Him and beat Him off? But that’s what Ellen White has just said a moment ago.
His love is far greater than is usually comprehended because it is agape, which “never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). The idea is entwined with what Jesus means in Matthew 11:30, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” The idea many serious youth have is that it’s “hard” to be saved and “easy” to be lost—the result of neglecting the grand dimensions of that agape which “passes knowledge.”
Again, this is the result of not recognizing that the “most precious” truths of 1888 were a giant step beyond what 16th century Reformers and contemporary Sunday-keeping Evangelicals have believed.
If we could grasp how the gospel is better Good News than we have been content to know, it would be impossible for us to lose so many of our youth. All too often they have the vague idea that their salvation is up to themselves, and we have regarded it as dangerous to emphasize too much the agape of Christ and His perseverance, His “much more abounding” grace, lest we weaken the fear motivation to keep the commandments. (All which of course is Old Covenant inspired.) But another question remains.
Does Arminianism embrace “1888”?
It was indeed a giant step closer to the true gospel, and the Wesleys grasped it. But again Arminianism comes short of the light the Lord wanted us to see in 1888.Jacobus Arminius was a wonderful man, but the Lord had not given him the final outpouring of the latter rain. Arminius wasn’t ready for it. But God’s time was ready in 1888, because He wanted the gospel commission completed in that generation, and the heavenly Bridegroom longed for “the marriage of the Lamb” to come then.
The famous Arminian Remonstrance of 1610 failed to grasp the full extent of what Christ accomplished by His sacrifice. It declared that “God from all eternity past determined to save all who believe in Jesus and to leave the incorrigible and unbelieving in sin and under wrath.” It sounds perfect, but think again: “God so loved the world … ” “God our Savior … will have all men to be saved.” He “is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” He never “determined to leave anyone under wrath.” Those who are “left” there are only those who leave Him, on their own and choose it. Arminianism came short.
Let’s not marvel that the brethren in the 17th century couldn’t yet grasp how good the Good News is. The world needed “the third angel’s message in verity” to come.
Further, the Remonstrance declared that although “Christ died for and obtained redemption and forgiveness of sins for all, … those benefits are effective only for those who believe on Christ.” Again, it sounds perfect, until we grasp the grander truth that every “benefit” that any one anywhere has ever enjoyed has already been the purchase of the cross of Christ. “Never one, saint or sinner, eats his daily food, but he is nourished by the body and the blood of Christ. The cross of Christ is stamped on every loaf. … Every meal [becomes] a sacrament” (The Desire of Ages, p. 660). This truth is the essence of the final loud cry message that will lighten the earth with glory. The sacrifice of Christ has already given every human being all the “benefit” he has ever enjoyed!
Arminianism further cemented their limited view of the grace of God in “the [later] Opinion of the Remonstrants.” It declared again that “no one becomes an actual partaker of the benefits of the death of Christ except by faith.” They just couldn’t yet see that Desire of Ages page-660-idea of everybody eating his daily food because of the sacrifice of Christ.
Fear is not to be the final motivation
“The last message of mercy to be given to the world [‘the third angel’s message in verity’] is a revelation of His character of love” (Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 415). Modern man immersed in wild selfseeking will at last be shown clearly that all his “fun,” his wealth, even his next breath, has been purchased and given to him. He has already enjoyed it all because Christ has died his second death. He will then either believe humbly and thankfully with a total dedication of his all to the Savior and will receive “the seal of God,” or he will choose to disbelieve and then enforce the mark of the beast.Whatever may be the spiritual condition of the remnant church, it is safe to say that the twin current popular phenomena in Evangelicalism of (a) Pentecostalism and (b) Roman Catholicism shouts to us that the final outcome must be near.
In yielding up His precious life, Christ was not upheld by triumphant joy. All was oppressive gloom. It was not the dread of death that weighed upon Him. It was not the pain and ignominy of the cross that caused His inexpressible agony. Christ was the prince of sufferers; but His suffering was from a sense of the malignity of sin, … He knew that without help from God, humanity must perish, and He saw multitudes perishing within reach of abundant help. Upon Christ as our substitute and surety was laid the iniquity of us all. The guilt of every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His heart. … But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father’s reconciling face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man. So great was this agony that His physical pain was hardly felt. …
Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe. … By faith He rested in Him whom it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in submission He committed Himself to God, the sense of the loss of His Father’s favor was withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor.—The Desire of Ages, pp. 752, 753; 756