New England Pastor Magazine

Welcome!

2009-05-05T11:29:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the website for New England Pastor, a bi-monthly magazine for all Seventh-day Adventist pastors living in New England. Here, you will find more information about the magazine, sermons from various speakers, and archives of past issues and articles. You can also contact the editors if you are interested in learning more about the magazine, or if you would like to subscribe to the magazine as someone who lives outside of New England.

We would love to hear your feedback on any of the articles. At the bottom of each article, there is a link that says "Post a Comment." Please click on that and share any thoughts you may have in response to the subject presented.

Ongoing dialogue and discussion is always enjoyable!

Please visit the links to the right. And if you have any questions, please e-mail us at newenglandpastor@gmail.com.

Who We Are

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New England Pastor is a bi-monthly magazine for pastors in New England, carrying forth the vision that Ellen White had for the area over a century ago: "I saw that when the message shall increase greatly in power, then the providence of God will open and prepare the way in the East for much more to be accomplished than can be at the present time" (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 149, emphasis added). It is free of charge to those who pastor in New England. For all those living outside of New England who would like to subscribe, please inquire by contacting:

newenglandpastormagazine.blogspot.com/
newenglandpastor@gmail.com
67 Cottage St., Bangor, ME 04401

Musings on the Future

2009-05-05T11:23:00.002-04:00

by Bill Brace

Just recently I had an invitation to be a special guest at a Jewish-Roman Catholic ceremony that was to be attended by high ranking officials of both faiths, including the Cardinal of Boston. I was flattered by the personal invitation extended to me by a new Jewish friend of considerable rank; however, I was forced to decline due to a previously committed engagement. The purpose of the high-profile meeting was not only to honor past victims of the Holocaust but also to publicly display the rapidly growing rapprochement between the two aforementioned religious entities.

I am certainly aware of the manifold counsel we have been given not to separate ourselves from leaders of other faiths. We’re advised, in fact, to pray with and for them. Certainly, all are candidates for the kingdom of heaven.

But this got me to thinking of the differences between the message of Seventh-day Adventism and the other world religions as shown to climax in the events described in Revelation 13. Quite correctly there is the conflict over the day of worship which has been our denomination’s traditional understanding. Even though there seems to be a growing denial of such an interpretation among a few within our ranks, I still hold that to be true, very true. The Sabbath will be the central external bone of contention.

However, we also know the Sabbath represents God’s ultimate sign of freedom—freedom from succumbing to the attractiveness of the old covenant and salvation by man’s devising. Freedom from self-centeredness. It is the Lord’s sign for those who are, indeed, living righteously by faith. Sunday is a sign of force; the Sabbath, a sign of freedom.

Not too long ago I was saddened to see that an ordained pastor, who formerly worked among us, has not only given up the seventh-day Sabbath truth, but he is now also on an unfortunate slide into further spiritual oblivion. One of his recent publications, that many of us receive, highlighted the popular but heretical belief within Christianity of immediate life after death. Both these untruths, Sunday worship and immediate life beyond death, do a tragic disservice to the central Christian teaching of the cross. They seriously rob God of His glory. Unfortunately, that which he thinks to protect, he actually depreciates and grossly diminishes.

Brothers and sisters: this is no time to drift. The finish line in this great marathon of faith and life is within sight!

The events forecasted to unfold in Revelation 13 may soon come upon us. None of us has the sanctified insight to know exactly when. It is our duty as pastors to prepare our flock for what has been described by the servant of the Lord to come as “an overwhelming surprise.” What is to be our objective in such a preparation? Well, I do believe it is to develop within the hearts and minds of all members ones who will “love not their lives unto the death.” Quite contrary to an egocentric faith that still exists, to one degree or another, in our hearts.

The ancient prophet Isaiah bids us to proclaim to our parishioners, “Messengers of good news, shout to Zion from the mountaintops! Shout louder to Jerusalem—do not be afraid. Tell the towns of Judah, ‘Your God is coming!’ Yes, the Sovereign Lord is coming in all His glorious power. He will rule with awesome strength. See, He brings His reward with Him as He comes. He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will carry the Lambs in His arms, holding them close to His heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young” (Isaiah 40:9-11 NLT).

Yes, while we are to be alert for opportunities to come as close as we can to men and women who are leaders of other faiths and, indeed, to form friendships with them, let us not forget we have a message that can “save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.” Indeed, “we have not followed cunningly devised fables.”

Be of good courage. The message given you, as it is permeated with the gospel of righteousness, still has the power within it to transform lives into the likeness of Christ. So, as pastors and watchmen on the walls, let us dig deeply to find those veins of gospel gold that invite us to discovery. May we never be content that what we know is sufficient for what lies ahead.

A Matter of Confidence: Salvation through God’s Eyes—Part Two

2009-05-05T11:17:00.003-04:00

by Fred Bischoff

This article is Part 2. Part 1 was in the January/February 2009 issue, also available here.

—Editors

Our day is called “the day of visitation.”^{^[i]} The global visit has begun, which parallels the local one at the first advent of Jesus. That word translated “visitation” speaks of an Overseer doing His work, “looking over” things. I submit He is still looking for faith and love. And in His work of looking, He is finding people who want and desire what He has, more than anything else, more than life itself. And these people He has been training, as He did His twelve.

The message of His faith and love, enduring against abounding faithlessness to the end, will be the final witness in lives transformed and empowered by that very faith and love.^{^[ii]} Only such abounding grace will stand the storm when confidence evaporates from off the face of the earth, for the last time. There will be a remnant whose lives confess that “the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”^{^[iii]} They have found the Source of the gold, and have helped themselves, their wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked selves, to the inexhaustible supply.

This is the experience described by the cryptic exclamation at the climax of the message of the third angel of Revelation 14. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” God has given sinners two marvelous gifts through His Son. He still holds out the original design for them, in His image, as described in His commands. But commanding helpless sinners is similar to telling a lame person to rise and walk. We find Jesus did both in His time among us here, and such reaching out must have conveyed much more than a raw command. They must have been statements of faith. They must have had within them the power to accomplish the vision, the goal. And when the recipient caught the vision, the circuit that conducted omnipotence was completed, and the supernatural happened. Creative faith was met by responsive faith.

Do we see it, the second gift hand-in-hand with the first? He is saying, “My plan for you hasn’t changed (law). I can see you restored (gospel).” This makes the secret of patience, the end-time endurance to stand the final storm of faithlessness, simply keeping what He has given. The same One who called Judas “friend” to the end^{^[iv]} shows us how He views us, and how we can view the most intimate traitors as well. When God appears to abandon us, and most around us actually do abandon and even turn on us, our faith and love, as did His, can endure to the end. As Paul told the Galatians, this faith working by love is the only thing that has power to overcome. All else falls with Babylon.

Only an appreciation of these gifts from His heart can lead us to value them so much, as they reveal to us His value, that we will keep them, come what may. With the committed^{^[v]} of all ages, we will love not our lives to the death,^{^[vi]} but will give ourselves to God and neighbor right through the storm, reflecting His faith and love that never failed to the death. This maturity and this alone will enable us to stand unwaveringly in our witness to Him.

The dynamic is not new to the end-time. Paul wrote of it. “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.”^{^[vii]} By the means of His faith, drawing, encouraging, shining the bright light of hope and possibility, we receive a confidence that instead of fearful, we are bold, and instead of drawing back, we move toward Him and all others. John saw and experienced this reality and looked forward to our day of unprecedented global fulfillment. He wrote, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because He first loved us.”^{^[viii]}

Let’s not miss the simple solution. If we have fear as we face the unfolding events in this “day of judgment,” we need a more mature love, to be “as He is”—agape. The torment that Babylon inevitably faces due to her self-focus,^{^[ix]} can only be avoided by submitting to His making us “perfect in love.” That is how we come out of Babylon.^{^[x]} And there is but one source—“He first loved us.” His love, believing all things, is the creative source for any love we have believing anything.

Adventism’s Mission

When Jesus returns the second time, He will be looking for the very same thing He searched for with longing heart 2000 years ago. He even asked a question that projected to that future search. “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”^{^[xi]} In His revelation to John, as we saw, He answered His own question. There will be those who keep His faith. Above all else, this is the core of the Advent movement’s mission. A few examples from our history will show the practical power in this dynamic.

It was the year after Minneapolis, and Ellen White was addressing ministers in Colorado on the topic, “The Need of a True Concept of Righteousness by Faith.” She observed,

The soul-saving message, the third angel’s message, is the message to be given to the world. The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus are both important, immensely important, and must be given with equal force and power. The first part of the message has been dwelt upon mostly, the last part casually. The faith of Jesus is not comprehended. We must talk it, we must live it, we must pray it, and educate the people to bring this part of the message into their home life. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:5.^{^[xii]}

Would she write the same 120 years later to all pastors, even those of New England? The evidence is clear this was the missing ingredient, the neglected landmark, if you please, that God was working to restore to Adventism in the years surrounding Minneapolis.^{^[xiii]}

E. J. Waggoner’s handling of this theme, how righteousness by faith functions, was highlighted to Ellen White by her angel guide two years before Minneapolis.^{^[xiv]} When at Minneapolis she heard Waggoner explain it in person for the first time, her response was ecstatic. “Every fiber of my heart said, Amen.”^{^[xv]} In 1890 when Waggoner published what were apparently his Minneapolis studies, he addressed the dynamic.

For, most wonderful truth of all, He bought you for the very reason that you were not worthy. His practiced eye saw in you great possibilities, and He bought you, not for what you were then or are now worth, but for what He could make of you. He says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake.” Isa. 43:25. We have no righteousness, therefore He bought us, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”^{^[xvi]}

Four years later, Ellen White was in Australia, working to win a successful farmer whose family had already identified with the Advent movement. She described her method of evangelism.

We held meetings at Brother Radley’s house, but he manifested so little interest in them that they were discontinued. His heart was not inclined to fully accept the faith. But I talked with him as though he was fully with us, presenting before him his responsibilities for his neighbors. I said, “You have the light of truth, and you have a work to do to enlighten others. You love to read. Study, then, for time and for eternity. The time which any of us have to work is short. We must act our part in the service of God.” I told him what he could do to advance the knowledge of the truth. He assented to it all by a mere response.

This was in 1894. Brother Starr was with me. After we left he said, “I was surprised to hear you talk to him as though he were fully with us. If he himself does not work on the Sabbath, his hired help works.” I answered, “I talked to him just in the right way. I presented to him his high obligations to God in point of influence, laying the matter before him as one who should stand in the gap and make up the hedge, and raise the Sabbath of the fourth commandment to its exalted standard.”

He felt himself far from deserving the confidence I placed in him. We prayed with the family, and had the precious blessing of the Lord. Thus from time to time we visited him, and he always treated us courteously, but did not fully identify himself with us. Yet I always talked with him as one who knew and loved the truth, always laying out plans with him whereby he might be a laborer together with God. I told him that our responsibility and accountability to God was the strongest and most powerful of all motives that should lead us to obtain the very best kind of knowledge, the highest education. If he gained this, he could help other minds with a force proportionate to his intelligence and religious devotion, and be a bright and shining light to his neighborhood.^{^[xvii]}

She continued to keep the faith of Jesus for Mr. Radley, treating him “as though”—as he could be, placing confidence in him, conveying a vision to him of what God saw him doing. And in the same letter she could happily report, “It would be difficult for a mind to continue in resistance to all these efforts, and O how happy I am to state that Brother Radley has come out, decided, firm, and true. He is now one of the leaders.”^{^[xviii]}

The next year, writing to her son Edson who had difficulty with some church leaders, she described the faith of Jesus in that setting.

If you can do so in an unobtrusive way, try to help Bro. Olsen, and stay up his hands. He needs sympathy, and words of hopefulness and courage. But please do not cast reflection upon the men who have not a living connection with God. If you are considerate, you may do good to A.R. Henry, and Harmon Lindsay. Show by your attitude that you hold no bitterness toward them. Whatever their attitude toward you, let it not discourage you or embitter your experience. Hold fast to Jesus. He has helped you, and he will help you every hour. But do not be off your guard for one moment. Do not indulge in hasty speech. If possible, we want to save these men, who know so little of the Spirit of God. In order to do this, while you should not depend on them as gods, be kind and courteous, treat them as respectfully as though they had been your best friends.^{^[xix]}

Can we hear echoes of Jesus’ word of faith to Judas—”friend”? Two years later she wrote to Edson and his wife Emma the amazing statement quoted earlier affirming Jesus’ “faith in the souls for whom He died.” In another two years A. T. Jones attempted to describe the source and importance of this confidence.

You have been, and you are, thankful that you have confidence in God. This is well; for it is a great thing to have doubt and uncertainty removed, and confidence in God established in the mind and heart. It is, therefore, a thing really to be thankful for, that you have confidence in God.

Yet there is a greater thing than this to be thankful for, and that is that God has confidence in you.

Indeed, it is God’s confidence in us that is all the ground of our confidence in him.

Considered solely upon the merit of the question, it is indeed a very little thing that we should have confidence in him; while it is a thing great beyond all comparison that he should have confidence in us.

Just think what we were,—a people laden with iniquity, alienated from God, and enemies in our minds, by wicked works. Yet when we were all this, God deliberately invested in us all that he had,—the great “price” of his dear Son, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of God. This is a marvelous display of confidence.

He had such confidence in us that he would invest in us—aliens and enemies—all that he had, and all that he is,—even himself,—expecting that his confidence in us would destroy the alienation, break down the enmity, and win us to confidence in him.

And this fairly reckless confidence in us did actually win us from alienation and enmity to confidence in him. This is the only thing that ever did or that ever could so win us. Thus his confidence in us is all the ground of our confidence in him.

And thus is established and illustrated the divine principle that confidence begets confidence; yea, that confidence to the extent of what seems recklessness will beget confidence even to what seems recklessness; for no person can fairly and seriously contemplate the marvelous confidence that God has shown in us, without being won to a confidence in God that is a perfect abandon of trust,—a trust that holds firm and steady through every vicissitude—fire, flood, suffering, persecution, death itself—that this world can possibly know.^{^[xx]}

An End to Delay in Mission

Can we see that without such practical faith and love, the witness of “this gospel” to all the world has been delayed? That without a mature love that nothing can frighten, the day of judgment must be prolonged? That a lack of keeping the faith of Jesus has made impossible both the keeping of the commandments and the endurance God intends? And that lacking such a settling, maturing experience being completed, the winds of the final storm of faithlessness have of necessity been held back longer than otherwise needed?

A reason this practical experience has failed to develop is an emphasis on the result desired to the neglect of the cause needed. By that I mean that the faith of Jesus has been viewed mostly in its responsive, dependent dimension. As essential as that is to the plan of salvation and its culmination, that aspect is, as described, but a response to a more fundamental dynamic of faith, its creative, empowering side. I have attempted to shine a light on that divine core in this study.

The desired responsive faith can only be proportionate to the creative initiative. The more adequately we grasp “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height [of] . . . the love of Christ”^{^[xxi]}—the love that fuels the dynamo called faith, the love that believes all things—the more wholehearted will be our love response that believes what He believes.

How God does business, as “the heavenly merchantman,” is to be our focus. He operates on the gold standard of faith and love. We learn it by copying Him, by seeing how He has treated us, all of us, in that very way. This we must meditate on, and it will change us.

There are faithless merchants at the end, in Babylon’s business of taking.^{^[xxii]} They obviously play on confidence, but their system cannot last. Confidence in “the lie”^{^[xxiii]} must eventually collapse. It is a false confidence and can only work through deception. Though the devil is the greatest “con man” and will deceive multitudes to the end,^{^[xxiv]} at the final revelation of “the truth” in contrast to “the lie,” no one will stand with him.^{^[xxv]} False confidence in his system will have evaporated forever in the vivid light of “the truth” of God’s faith and love.

Glimpsing now what He has, and what we need, may help us see why “the time of preparation [has been] prolonged.”^{^[xxvi]} And seeing this may through His grace hasten the unchallenged reign of Him whose faith preserved the human race, seeing “it as it might become through redeeming love.”

Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll....

[i] 1 Pet 2:12.

[ii] Matt 24:12-14.

[iii] 1Tim 1:14; compare Rom 5:20.

[iv] Matt 26:50.

[v] In this verb we find the third main way the dynamic we have been exploring is described. In noun forms, it is faith, confidence, commitment.

[vi] Rev 12:11.

[vii] Eph 3:12.

[viii] 1 John 4:17-19.

[ix] Rev 14:10; compare 20:10.

[x] Rev 18:4.

[xi] Luke 18:8.

[xii] White, The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials (Washington, D.C.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1987), 430.

[xiii] Ellen White wrote repeatedly from 1888 through at least 1901 of the theme of putting together “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” also described as “the law and the gospel” and “the righteousness of Christ in relation to the law.” See 1895 Evangelism—Resources from A Period of “Manifest Demonstration of the Spirit” (The W. W. Prescott Armadale Sermons), Appendices A & B for some 20 sample statements. One of the clearest was written the month after the Minneapolis meetings. “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.” Idem., 1888, 217.

[xiv] “Said my guide, ‘There is much light yet to shine forth from the law of God and the gospel of righteousness. This message, understood in its true character, and proclaimed in the Spirit, will lighten the earth with its glory.” Compare Ibid., 1888, Ibid., 165.

[xv] Ibid., 348.

[xvi] Ellet J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Glad Tidings Publishers, 1999), 81.

[xvii] White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 1 (Silver Spring, Md.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1981, 1987, 1990, 1993), 146-147.

[xviii] Ibid., 149.

[xix] Idem., 1888, 1463. Olsen was the General Conference President. Henry and Lindsay were financial and administrative officers for the General Conference and the publishing work.

[xx] A.T. Jones, Review and Herald, January 4, 1898.

[xxi] Eph 3:18, 19.

[xxii] Rev 18:3, 11, 15, 23.

[xxiii] In the NT, “the lie” speaks of the lie about God, that He is a taker, not a giver, that He is selfish and self-exalting. “The truth” is the truth about Him. See John 8:44; Rom 1:25; 3:7; 2 Thes 2:10-12.

[xxiv] Rev 20:8-10.

[xxv] Prov 14:28; See White, The Great Controversy, (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1950), 671.

[xxvi] White, 1888, 1525.

The Jonah Complex

2009-05-05T11:10:00.002-04:00

by Julia Reynolds

Pastor Joe Naw drove in silence after the evening board meeting at one of the churches he pastors in Vermont. He sighed, partly from fatigue and partly from sheer frustration, as the wipers swished away the falling snow. He wondered out loud, “Lord, why did you send me to this cold tundra where the people can be as cold as the weather?” He had only made a suggestion in the meeting, but had been shot down with a comment that had misconstrued his motives entirely, and had undermined his leadership in the church. He tried to explain his thoughts, but found the more he said, the deeper the chasm of misunderstanding grew. Joe even began to question his calling as a minister—he felt angry and struggled with bitterness. His life of ministry felt like drudgery to him, yet he had a family to support and he felt he must press on.

Once home, Joe felt a bit warmed by the fire. He shared with his wife Joan the events of the evening. She sympathized and said, “Well, dear, Christ too was misunderstood by the people He came to save; ministry can be hard at times.” He retorted angrily, “Yes, and look what they did to Christ. They crucified Him and I don’t care to share the same.” And who can blame him?

Can it be that at some time in most of our ministries, if we are honest, we too can share Pastor Joe Naw’s feelings? Ministry does not deliver the Utopian package perhaps we once dreamed of. Can ministry demand too high a price? How far, honestly, is the Shepherd willing to go in sacrificing His life for the sheep?

Two brothers were fighting over a toy. The mother came into the room and said, “What would Jesus do?” The older brother said to the younger, “Okay, you be Jesus.” Do we feel this way at times? Jonah did.

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me” (Jonah 1:1-2).[1] God called Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach repentance or else the city would be destroyed. But the story goes that Jonah resisted the call to ministry and sailed away in a ship headed for Tarshish. Eventually, Jonah (after much persuasion from God) obeyed and went to Nineveh. His was one of the most successful evangelistic crusades in ancient and modern history, for we read in Jonah 3:10, 4:1, “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it. . . . But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.”

The question must be asked, “Why was Jonah angry?” Certainly God used him to bring about the revival of a whole city! Jonah himself admits why he was angry. We read in Jonah 4:2, “Ah Lord, was this not what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, One who relents from doing harm.” We can see from this passage that Jonah was advanced in his understanding of the character of God. He had a clearer picture than many—even in modern ministry—have of who God is. He had a deep understanding of the love and mercy of God, but clearly Jonah was lacking in these same attributes. His pride and self-love stole from him the highest aspirations of ministry. Without an honest-hearted agape love for those he was sent to save, he failed to be like the God he was to represent.

When self is still on the throne, like Jonah, it is natural to become bitter and angry when something threatens to de-throne self. Could there be a Jonah in all of us? Do we all struggle against our own self-interests? Could it be that we are called to such a radical life of selflessness and agape love? Could this be the answer to success in ministry? Could it be that we are to prefer others above ourselves as we read in Philippians 2:3, “ Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Is this the key to successful ministry—to love as Jesus loved? I believe it is. If we find ourselves suffering from the Jonah complex, and we all do from time to time, then we are to cast ourselves upon Christ and plead for Him to give to us His love, lest we, too, be bitter and angry in spirit.

What about healthy self-care, setting boundaries and balance? Does the Lord call us to minister till we slip into a premature grave from overwork and stress? The text in Philippians 2:3 affirms that we have “our own interests that need to be looked into.” Even Christ in His humanity left the crowds to recharge his batteries. He needed to be alone for rest and prayer with his Heavenly Father. Yet, the truth of Scripture will answer the greater question of how to avoid the Jonah complex.

John 10:11 tells us that, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know my sheep, and am known by my own . . . and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Are we called to do the same as the good shepherd?

“Shepherd the flock of God . . . and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive that crown of glory that does not fade away” (1Peter 5: 2, 4). All believers are called to shepherd the flock. You may be a pastor with a congregation or a mother with a flock of children or a doctor with a group of patients or coworkers. Every believer has a flock of sheep to shepherd. But how do we shepherd our flock?

Love must be sincere (see Romans 12:9). If we have the Jonah complex and our love is not genuine for the sheep, then we are merely “the hired hand,” and will eventually run away when wolves come into the camp. The hireling did not care for the sheep as did the Good Shepherd. Are we more like the hireling or the good Shepherd? Do we flee when times get tough? You can be certain wolves will indeed come and our sincerity will be tested! Friends, we are in a great controversy. Satan is marshalling his troops against the people of God. The battle is fierce and getting fiercer, and if you haven’t noticed, wolves are already among us (see Matthew 10:16). Only those who lock in with Christ and share His love for fallen humanity will weather the coming storm. Only those, who with God’s grace, can shed themselves of the Jonah complex, will stand in the last great battle. Like Jonah, we may have some measure of success, but in the end, “without love, we are nothing” (see 1Corinthians 13:2).

So how do we shed ourselves of the Jonah complex? How do we become more like the Good Shepherd and not the hired hand, who, like Jonah, cared nothing for the sheep? The unconditional selfless agape love of the Good Shepherd is not achieved by trying hard to mimic Him. But when we fall helpless upon Christ, realizing our selfish condition, we are made righteous by something He puts into us—“Having made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Christ.”[2] We read in Christ Our Righteousness by Bill Lehman, “So it is not a mere following after a pattern. It is something that happens to us that He causes. We must be born again. In other words, we must receive new hearts that ‘are created in righteousness and true holiness.’ Ephesians 4:24. When I get a new heart things are different. Righteousness is of the heart.”[3]

We see that, according to Ellen White, “Righteousness is love.”[4] Righteousness is being right as Christ was right in His agape love. It’s not self-exalting like Jonah, but self-sacrificing like Christ. It’s not being on a high throne reaching down; it’s going down as Christ came down for His sheep (see Philippians 2:7-9). Man seeks to exalt self above others—this Jonah complex is like the tower of Babel reaching higher to protect and exalt self. But Babylon the Great has fallen—it cannot stand. Simply put: to exalt self or go up is to go down—as in Babylon. To go down—in self sacrificing agape—is to go up! If Jesus is in the heart, that love will come through. As Ellen White says,

When Christ dwells in the heart, the soul will be so filled with His love . . . that it will cleave to Him; and in the contemplation of Him, self will be forgotten. Love to Christ will be the spring of action. Those who feel the constraining love of God, do not ask how little may be given to meet the requirements of God . . . but aim at perfect conformity to the will of the Redeemer. With earnest desire they yield all, and manifest an interest proportionate to the value of the object they seek. A profession of Christ without this deep love, is mere talk, dry formality, and heavy drudgery.[5]

When Christ comes into the heart, the heart is filled with His love. If, like Pastor Joe Naw, our ministry is becoming, “mere talk, dry formality or even heavy drudgery,” then we can be encouraged to cast ourselves upon the merciful Good Shepherd and be renewed in His Spirit and His likeness. Even in the face of our own unbelief in being able to follow Him as we should, He steps in and has faith in us through His own faith (see Romans 3: 3,4, 22-26). God’s end-time people who are victorious will not have the Jonah complex, but, instead, will have the faith of Jesus working by love (see Revelation 14: 12).

We are called to radical Christianity, which means radical agape love and commitment. In this we make ourselves vulnerable as He did. Like Christ, we are not called to be the hired hand which cares nothing for the sheep, but instead the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep. Will we respond to His call?

[1] Unless otherwise indicated, texts are taken from the New King James Version.

[2] Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1980), 394.

[3] J.W. “Bill” Lehman, Christ Our Righteousness (2003), 84.

[4] White, Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1955), 18.

[5] Idem., Steps to Christ (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1956), 44, 45.

Righteousness by Faith and a Search for Balance in Adventist Theology

2009-05-05T11:01:00.001-04:00

by Michael W. Campbell

Adventism was born in the midst of antebellum revivalism. A significant part of its origin can be traced to the Christian Connexion, a loosely affiliated group of Christians during the mid-19^th century who were obsessed with the notion that Protestantism must return to the model of the New Testament Church. Church hierarchy and anything remotely resembling institutionalization was anathema. Joseph Bates and James White, both co-founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, were ordained Christian Connexion ministers.[1] In the same spirit, William Miller, the apostle of the second coming of Jesus and namesake of the Millerite revival, was himself a revivalist. His numerous speaking appointments across New England brought revival. Some ministers invited Miller to speak at their church, not because of his novel idea of the second coming of Jesus but because they had heard through other ministers of the revivals that occurred in the wake of his preaching.

It seems natural that Seventh-day Adventists, as Protestants at the heart of this revivalism, naturally believed in the notion of righteousness by faith. Early Millerites wrote about the importance of accepting Christ’s righteousness as the only source for salvation.[2] What is significant is that as the group of Sabbatarian Adventists who formed what later became the Seventh-day Adventist Church after 1863, the emphasis on revivalism shifted to that of the distinctiveness of Seventh-day Adventism. Thus, the “five pillars” of the Sabbath, Sanctuary, Second Coming, State of the Dead, and the Spirit of Prophecy were showcased in both pulpit and printed page. Early Sabbatarian Adventist preachers were well known for their knowledge of the Bible, and especially, Bible prophecy.

Christ, the Way of Life and Minneapolis

By the late 1870s, Adventist leader and two-time church president James White sensed that Adventism needed a fresh infusion of grace into its core beliefs. This is best illustrated through the famous “Way of Life” charts first instituted by Adventist physician Merritt G. Kellogg, one of Adventism’s pioneer missionaries to California. The chart was a “vivid portrayal of the plan of salvation” first published in 1873. The most prominent feature of the chart was the Ten Commandments at the center of the engraving. By 1880 James White produced a new sketch entitled “Behold the Lamb of God,” which placed Christ on the cross as the central focus. Although James White did not live to see the revised picture, his family made sure it was completed. Similarly, shortly before his death, James White printed several tracts emphasizing the need for a more Christ-centered Adventism.[3]

In many ways these charts signaled a larger shift within Adventism that would occur the following decade in the famous 1888 Minneapolis General Conference Session. It was at this meeting that Alonzo T. Jones and Ellet J. Waggoner, two young ministers, presented “a most precious message” that uplifted Christ as the center of Adventist theology. Whereas the content of what that message entailed continues to be debated within Adventism, there is no doubt that these meetings were an outgrowth of a tremendous need for a more Christ-centered righteousness by faith emphasis within Adventist theology. Ellen White recognized the need, stating that Adventists had preached the law until they had become as dry as the hills of Gilboa.[4]

The actual General Conference session was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from October 17 to November 4, 1888. A ministerial institute (Oct. 10-19) preceded the meeting. Tensions escalated as controversy over the interpretation of the law in Galatians and the identity of the 10 horns in Daniel became contentious issues for debate. Ellen White, recognizing the significance of Jones and Waggoner’s presentations beyond the immediate issues, cautioned those present to exhibit a Christ-like spirit toward one another.[5] Despite her warnings, she wrote about the mean spirit exhibited at Minneapolis. “Never in my life experience was I treated as at that conference.”[6]

The greatest contribution of Jones and Waggoner was their emphasis on righteousness by faith, which was desperately needed to bring balance to Adventist theology. “The third angel’s message,” she stated, “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.”[7]

The Fate of Righteousness by Faith

One of the great ironies of Seventh-day Adventist history is that Jones and Waggoner, who became the most prominent Adventists within Adventism for more than a decade after their debut in 1888, would ultimately leave the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Does that mean that the message of righteousness by faith disappeared with them? I don’t think so. One of the most compelling aspects of the 1888 story in Adventist history is the twist of fate showcased by two of Jones and Waggoner’s fiercest opponents, Uriah Smith (editor of the church’s flagship Review and Herald) and George I. Butler (who after the 1888 General Conference session moved to Florida into obscurity and retirement), both of whom repented of their opposition to the role they had played at Minneapolis. The two would later go on to make some of their most significant contributions within Adventism after they repented. Butler, more specifically, was responsible for starting the denomination’s fledgling work in the American South and later, at a critical juncture, was single-handedly responsible for saving the newly formed College of Medical Evangelists (now Loma Linda University Adventist Health Sciences Center). One of the great stories of Minneapolis is the power of grace to changes lives—even some of the most hardened and critical leaders who resisted the fresh infusion of grace at Minneapolis.

It seems that every generation since Minneapolis has had to wrestle with the meaning of righteousness by faith for their generation (a topic that extends beyond the scope of what I can write about in this article). During the 1920s Arthur G. Daniells, especially after his retirement as church president in 1922, traveled across the country preaching a message of revival that distinctly emphasized the importance of righteousness by faith. Two of his co-patriots, Meade McGuire and Taylor G. Bunch, both of whom became well-known Adventist preachers through the 1930s and 1940s, became prominent within Adventism for their message of righteousness by faith. Taylor Bunch, in particular, would trace some of his insights back to the memorable Minneapolis meeting. Later still, during the 1970s, another resurgence of interest in righteousness by faith occurred with the preaching of Morris Venden, Robert H. Pierson, and other prominent Adventists who once again wrestled with the meaning of righteousness by faith for their generation. Today, a postmodern generation must again wrestle with the meaning of Adventist theology. And, once again, it remains to be seen where, on the continuum of Adventist theology, our church is headed other than the fact that yet another generation will once again wrestle with the central question of what makes Adventist theology distinctive. And closely related to that question, what role will the teaching of righteousness by faith play within Adventist theology?

[1]Bert Haloviak, “A Heritage of Freedom: The Christian Connection Roots of Seventh-day Adventism,” unpublished paper, 1995.

[2]Cf. William Miller, “Letter from Mr. Miller, No. 3 on the Return of the Jews,” Signs of the Times, April 15, 1840, 14.

[3]See Woody Whidden, “’Christ, the Way of Life’ Prints” in The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, ed. Jerry Moon and Denis Fortin (Review and Herald, forthcoming). See also, James White, Redemption (Oakland, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1878), Idem., Christ in the Old Testament (Battle Creek, Mich.: Review and Herald, 187-?).

[4]Ellen G. White, The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, (Washington, D.C.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1987), 557.

[5]Idem., White, Letter 20, 1888, in 1888 Materials, 40.

[6]Idem., Letter 7, 1888, in 1888 Materials, 186-189.

[7]Idem., 1888 Materials, 217.

The Cross and the Faith of Jesus: Implications for the Cleansing of the Sanctuary—Part Two

2009-05-05T10:53:00.004-04:00

by Lyndi Shwartz

This article is Part 2. Part 1 was in the January/February 2009 issue, also available here.

—Editors

In 1965, John Lennon wrote a song entitled, “Help.” The words are as follows:

When I was younger, so much younger than today

I never needed anybody’s help in any way

But now I’m older and I’m not so self-assured

Now I’ve found I’ve changed my mind I opened up the door

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down

And I do appreciate you being round

Help me get my feet back on the ground

Won’t you please please help me!

Said Lennon regarding that song in a 1980 interview at the Dakota building and not knowing he was about to be gunned down: “That was the cry of my heart and no one came with an answer.” Please help me, is the cry of humanity, consciously or unconsciously—to be released from the presence and power of sin. The gospel of Jesus Christ, beginning from His birth to His ascension where He now ministers for us in the heavenly sanctuary, is the only thing powerful enough to “purge our consciences from dead works to serve the living God.”

But how does the gospel accomplish that? The answer is the faith of Jesus Christ. Ellen White, reflecting on the Minneapolis General Conference session, has much to say about faith in the 1888 materials.

The faith of Jesus has been overlooked and treated in a careless manner. It has not occupied the prominent position in which it was revealed to John. . . .[i] The third angel’s message is the proclamation of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. 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. . . .[ii] The message that was given to the people in these meetings presented in clear lines not alone the commandments of God—a part of the third angel’s message—but the faith of Jesus, which comprehends more than is generally supposed. . . . If we proclaim the commandments of God and leave the other half scarcely touched, the message is marred in our hands. . . .[iii] The soul-saving message, the third angel’s message, is the message to be given to the world. The commandments of God and faith of Jesus are both important . . . and must be given with equal force and power. . . . We must talk it, we must live it, we must pray it, and educate the people to bring this part of the message into their home life.[iv]

The final quote is the sum of why this topic is so tied to the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. “Let Jesus be our theme. Let us with pen and voice present, not only the commandments of God, but the faith of Jesus. This will promote real piety as nothing else can.”[v]

The faith-of-Jesus concept has two aspects: 1) faith, and 2) faithfulness. To address this fully and understand its implications for the Day of Atonement, we need to focus attention on Paul’s “gospel,” because at the heart of “what Paul preached” was the story of Jesus Christ. The gospel story is foundational for the explicitly theological portions of Paul’s writings. However, before delving into Paul’s gospel, let us establish some definitions. The faithfulness of Jesus Christ refers first of all to His gracious self-renouncing, self-emptying, sacrificial love which “seeketh not her own,” that compelled Him to die the death of the cross. He “humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross,” as described in part 1 of this article. His mission from the time He left heaven after the “counsel of peace” to His resurrection was one of faithfulness and faith. Jesus Christ is the one Person Who embodies radical obedience by remaining faithful to God to the painful end.

It is also faith. Although His entire life of obedience was lived by faith, nothing is more helpful than the final scenes from His life where Ellen White says, “He could not see the Father’s reconciling face. . . . He could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice.”[vi]And then to highlight the point, she says, “He had relied upon the evidence of His Father’s acceptance heretofore given Him. By faith He rested in Him [God]. . . . By faith Christ was victor.”[vii]Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”[viii]

Paul’s concern in his “gospel” is that we understand the implications of the gospel story. Richard B. Hays writes, “Jesus actualized and exemplified faith in such a way that He is the Creator of a new domain or power field characterized by faith.”[ix]Paul in Hebrews 12:2 says we are to look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. The text does not say “of our faith” as in many English translations. Galatians 2:20 aptly says that as a result of Jesus’ faithfulness, the life that we now live, having been crucified with Christ, we live “by the faith of the Son of God” who loved us and gave Himself for us! We are taken up into His faithfulness, and that faithfulness shapes us into people after the divine similitude.

We think differently: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Hebrews 12:3 says we are to “consider Him,” “give thought to Him,” “compare your experience with His,” (Berkeley), “Take your standard from Him” (Knox). He continues to tell us in verse 4 that among the things to consider, Christ had to strive against sin, resisting to bloodshed. Thus He died by faith, surrendering His will to the will of the Father.

In Romans 1:18-3:20, Paul depicts for us a stark contrast between the faithfulness and righteousness of God and humankind’s (Gentile and Jew alike) ungodliness and unrighteousness. He asks a question in chapter 3:3, which he answers in a dense passage in verses 21-26. And the question is: will the faithlessness of humankind nullify the faithfulness of God? As we look at the answer in verses 21 and 22, there are exegetical difficulties as presented in most English translations. The difficulty lies in the objective genitive reading as opposed to the subjective genitive: “But now the righteousness of God apart from law is revealed . . . even the righteousness of God which is through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.” This translation would lead us to believe that God’s righteousness is revealed by our faith in Jesus Christ. This reading, however, leaves the phrase “for all who believe” as redundant and the choice of the verb “is revealed,” puzzling. The emphasis of the passage is God’s action in putting forth Jesus, who was faithful to God to the painful end, consisting in Himself, through His resurrection a new humanity whom God has “predestined to be conformed to the image of His son” (Romans 8:29).

The passage should then read “even the righteousness of God which is through the faith of Jesus Christ.” Our faith, “for all who believe” is the appropriate response to a blessing already given in Christ, and it is also the mode of participation in the pattern lived out in Jesus Christ. “The gospel story is not just the story of a super-hero who once upon a time defeated the cosmic villains of law, sin, and death, and thus discharged us from all responsibility,” Hays writes, “It is also the enactment of a life-pattern into which we are drawn.”[x]

Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ are cosmic events in which we are included vicariously: “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” Paul represents redemption in Christ as a radical restructuring of human nature. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor 5:17). “Consequently,” Hays offers, “the faith of Jesus should be understood as a concentric expression, which begins, always, from the faith of Christ Himself, but which includes necessarily, the answering faith of believers, who claim that faith as their own.”[xi]

Hence, Paul says in Galatians 2:20, and I use the subjective genitive reading, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” The objective genitive reading of Paul has hampered our ability to grasp hold of the “power field” characterized by Christ’s faith. Revelation 14:12 says, “Here are those who keep the commandments of God and keep the faith of Jesus.” This passage occurs at the time of the third angel’s message, during the time of the Pre-advent Judgment, and the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. With a proper subjective genitive reading of Paul’s “gospel,” we see that the faith of Jesus is the only faith that allows the righteousness of Christ to be fully manifested in our sinful flesh. Victory in the Day of Atonement, the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, is based on experiencing the transforming power of the faith of Jesus, which is manifest in radical obedience and remaining faithful to God to the end. These who have the faith of Jesus as their own will follow the Lamb wherever He goes, including the Most Holy Place.

Four summary points regarding the faith of Jesus and the cleansing of the Sanctuary:

1. Christ’s death has constituted in Himself a new faithful humanity.

2. Paul represents redemption in Christ as a radical restructuring of human nature—our attentions and our affections.

3. The faith of Jesus is a concentric expression that spreads from Jesus’ faith and includes necessarily the answering faith of the believer.

4. We participate in the patterning faith enacted by the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

A.T. Jones, in The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection, says,

And this faith of Jesus by which in the place of the lost, He hoped in God and trusted God for salvation from sin and power to keep from sinning—this victory of His it is that has brought to every man in the world divine faith. . . . That faith which He exercised and by which He obtained the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil—that faith is His free gift to every lost man in the world. And thus this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith and this is the faith of which He is the Author and Finisher. This is the faith of Jesus that is given to men. This is the faith of Jesus that must be received by men in order for them to be saved. This is the faith of Jesus which now in this time of the Third Angel’s Message, must be received and kept. . . This is the faith of Jesus referred to in the closing words of the Third Angel’s Message: Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.[xii]

The world is crying out for help. Will we give them an answer?

[i] Ellen G. White, The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials (Washington, D.C.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1987), 212. Emphasis added, unless otherwise indicated.

[ii] Ibid., 217.

[iii] Ibid., 367.

[iv] Ibid., 430.

[v] Ibid., 728.

[vi] Idem., The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 753.

[vii] Ibid., 756.

[viii] All texts are from the New King James Version unless otherwise specified.

[ix] Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), xxxi.

[x] Ibid., 211-212.

[xi] Ibid., xxxii.

[xii] A.T. Jones, The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection, (Dodge City, Minn.: Upward Way, 1988), 26.

The Shulamite, Mary, and You

2009-05-05T10:44:00.004-04:00

by Shawn Brace

When a word in Greek or Hebrew is used only a handful of times in the Bible, scholars take note. This is especially true when there seem to be thematic links among the various passages.

Over the past two or three years, I have made it my mission to study the Song of Songs. I am convinced that this wonderful book typologically points to God and His relationship with His people. But I want to make this connection on solid exegetical and intertextual grounds.[1] I don’t simply want to come to the Song of Songs and say, “Well, since Jesus said that all Scripture testifies of Him, it must mean that this whole book is about Jesus. Thus, the Shulamite’s two breasts represent the Old and New Testaments, etc.”[2] There needs to be a solid foundation for such an understanding.

So last year, I decided to go through the whole book and trace the use of the Hebrew words throughout the Old Testament. I didn’t get very far without realizing that there were incredible intertextual links to the temple and sanctuary. This was the case when the Shulamite described Solomon, for example. Thus, when she describes Solomon’s body in 5:10-16, she uses such terms as lilies, rods,[3] gold, pillars, foundation, Lebanon, and Cedars—the combination of which is found only in the description of Solomon’s temple in 1 Kings 6 & 7. In reflecting upon this interesting connection, Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman concludes, “We resist using this fact to allegorize the text, but again we suggest that it associates her description with something exalted, even holy.”[4]

Well, imagine my surprise—long after I had put my serious study of the Song to rest—when I discovered an amazing intertextual link in the Greek version of the book. While going over the story of Jesus’ anointing at Bethany, both Mark and John say that the woman—identified as Mary in John—anointed Jesus with an “alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard” (see Mark 14:3; John 12:3).[5] The Greek word for “spikenard” (nardos) is used in the New Testament in these two places alone. But, quite surprisingly, the word is used in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament three times—all in the same book.

I’m sure you know the book: the Song of Songs. Notice, for example, how the Shulamite is described by Solomon: “Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, fragrant henna with spikenard [nardos], spikenard [nardos] and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices” (Song 4:13, 14).

But the one other place the word is used in the Septuagint takes the cake. Notice the Shulamite’s words in 1:12, “While the king is at his table, my spikenard [nardos] sends forth its fragrance.” Does this scene ring a bell with you at all? Notice Mark’s full description of Jesus’ experience in Bethany: “And being in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, as He sat at the table, a woman came having an alabaster flask of very costly oil of spikenard. Then she broke the flask and poured it on His head” (Mark 14:3). John goes on to add that “the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil” (John 12:3).

Jesus, the King, is sitting at the table, when the fragrance of Mary’s spikenard envelopes the house. I don’t believe that the similarities are coincidental. In Mary’s selfless act towards Jesus, we see the high calling of all Christ’s followers. And the relationship that Solomon and the Shulamite enjoyed is that which Jesus had with Mary, and which He desires to have with us.

May we all respond to Christ’s agape love the way Mary did, and enjoy the same intimacy that Solomon and the Shulamite had.

[1] Wikipedia defines intertextuality as “the shaping of texts’ meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality.

[2] See, for example, Christopher W. Mitchell, The Song of Songs (Saint Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House, 2003), 1, who feels quite comfortable with allowing this to be his hermeneutical approach, saying, “All Scripture is to be interpreted Christologically.” While I agree with Mitchell to a certain extent, I do not feel comfortable with a complete carte blanche approach and feel as though there should be some sort of controlled interpretation that derives from the text in question itself.

[3] In a very intriguing coincidence (or is it?), the Hebrew word used for “rods” is actually galiyl—the same word that is elsewhere translated Galilee.

[4] Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs. NICOT (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2001), 174.

[5] All Scriptures, unless otherwise indicated, are from the New King James Version.

Preaching Mozart

2009-03-03T12:14:00.002-05:00

by Shawn Brace

I had an “aha!” moment a few months ago during Prayer Meeting at one of my churches. I don’t lead out in this particular Prayer Meeting for now, so it gives me a little more time for reflection. And as we were talking about the Holy Spirit and prayer, the fellow who was leading quoted Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing . . . “ And that’s when the “aha!” moment came.

This verse lays out the divine imperative of the preacher. As Paul writes just a few verses earlier, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). Thus, the pastor’s primary responsibility is not to be a counselor, not to create a board agenda, not to be a visionary. The pastor’s primary job is to draw faith from the heart of his people.

This, of course, speaks especially to our preaching. When I stand up each week and deliver my message, what does that message chiefly elicit from my audience? Guilt? Boredom? Fear? A sense of duty or responsibility? I am afraid, far too often, that this is what my audience feels after too many of my sermons. And if that is the case, then I have failed to a large degree in performing my chief goal: drawing faith from their hearts.

The truth is, maybe God places more responsibility into the hands of the preacher than we realize. While everyone is ultimately responsible for his or her own salvation and the implementation of faith, Paul unabashedly tells us that the way this faith is exercised is by “hearing,” and the way that a person hears is by listening to a preacher. Of course, in Paul’s day, very few people actually had access to the written Word. Their primary encounter with the Bible was through the weekly readings that took place in the synagogue.

But is it all that different these days? For most people, though they have access to the Bible on their bookshelves, their only encounter with the Bible from week to week is what they hear from the preacher on Sabbath or Sunday morning. This causes the burden to fall all the more on the preacher to make sure that the one time that person meets the Word, that Word is drawing upon the faith that God has placed into every heart.

And that faith, of course, is nothing more than a heart-experience with God. Faith, as Paul tells us elsewhere, “works through love” (Gal 5:5). So it is my job to raise the appreciation, in the hearts of my listeners, for Christ and His agape love. And by so doing, I am drawing a faith-response from them.

This cannot be done by preaching a 45-minute sermon on how we should all be “prayer warriors” or against the evils of television. If it is devoid of the truth about God’s saving love, then I am simply giving a humanistic sermon, and rather than drawing faith from my listeners, I am trying to play off their sense of duty. Which doesn’t work in the end.

Some may not realize that Albert Einstein was an accomplished violinist. He would often pick up his violin and begin to strum the instrument profusely when he was stumped by a certain mathematical problem and trying to work through the problem in his head. He would create melodies as he strummed, and then he would, all of a sudden, put his violin down and return to his math problem, having figured out the solution as he was playing.

But Einstein didn’t always love the violin. In fact, he didn’t like it at all when he first started playing. His mother, as so many other mothers have done throughout the ages (just like my mother with me), insisted that he take lessons and practice. He was on the verge of giving up the instrument altogether when, one day, he came across Mozart’s sonatas. He instantly fell in love with the instrument and could hardly put it down. And reflecting on that experience, he later observed, “I believe that love is a better teacher than a sense of duty.”^{^[1]}

His experience and subsequent observations are poignant. How often do we try to coax people into a “faith-experience” by trying to elicit a sense of duty and responsibility from them? Instead, we should be preaching Mozart to them and drawing faith from their hearts.

Do our parishioners hear Mozart when we preach? “So then faith comes by hearing. . . "

[1] Quoted in Walter Issacson, Einstein (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 14.

The Cross and the Faith of Jesus: Implications for the Cleansing of the Sanctuary - Part One

2009-03-03T12:09:00.003-05:00

by Lyndi Schwartz

“For God so loved the world.” John the Apostle of love—whose gospel alone details Jesus’ act of washing the disciples’ feet, an act of humility that bored a hole deep in his heart and mind—strangely gives us very little of the events in Gethsemane. John, who throughout his gospel never mentions his own name, who refuses to speak of himself in reference to himself, who never paints himself in the foreground as a hero, but rather uses every reference to himself to honor Christ, refers to himself simply as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He is in awe of the marvel that Christ loved him and in a unique way, gripped the reality and was humbled and transformed by it. In 1 John 1:1, he says “That which was from the beginning . . . that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon . . . that which we have seen and heard we declare to you.”^{^[1]}

At first glance it seems redundant to say “he saw it and he looked upon it.” However, there are two different Greek words used. The first “seen” is optanomai, which is to gaze with wide open eyes as at something remarkable! It is not simple voluntary observation or mechanical, passive, casual vision. Even more emphatic is the second word theaomai, translated “looked upon.” This word signifies an earnest, continued inspection. John, moved by what he saw, asks us to look not with mechanical, passive, casual vision, but to inspect with earnestness the agape of Jesus Christ. So let us with earnestness do what John has asked us to do.

In John 12, Jesus was standing in the shadow of the cross, and the Greeks came to see Him. His response to the visitants seemed strange. He said, “Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (v. 24). After a period of silence that seemed to carry Him far away, He cried out in v. 27, “Now My soul is troubled and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I came to this hour.” Ellen White says of this expression of dread, “The message of the Greeks, foreshadowing as it did the gathering of the Gentiles, brought to the mind of Jesus His entire mission. The work of redemption passed before Him from the time when in heaven the plan was laid, to the death that was now so near at hand. A mysterious cloud seemed to enshroud the Son of God.”^{^[2]}

Five days later having eaten the final Passover supper with His disciples, we see Him in Matthew 26 with them in Gethsemane. He takes His three closest friends, Peter and the two “sons of thunder,” and began to be exceedingly sorrowful and deeply distressed. In fact, He told them flat out in v. 38 that His soul was exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Then He asks for intercessory prayer. Why would the Son of God need intercessory prayer? Before Christ came to our world, He understood the facts of all that would be required of Him to redeem mankind. He knew that He would experience terrible feelings, terrible emotional distress, and terrible pain. He knew the fact that He would die of a broken heart, that He would drink the cup of the Father’s wrath, and that He would die the death of the cross by becoming a curse for us. And knowing all this, He went to the Father and willingly volunteered to save mankind. Ellen White tells us in The Story of Redemption that He went to the Father in heaven three times and pled with Him for the right to die for fallen humanity.

Now an amazing contrast takes shape in the Garden of Gethsemane as He pleads with His three closest companions to pray for Him and His sweat becomes like great drops of blood. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He would again go to the Father three times, only this time, He pleads not for the right to die for mankind, but He pleads to be released from the responsibility of dying for mankind. As He stood in the shadow of the cross, He was no longer eager to enter into the steps required for the redemption of mankind. He was distressed and perplexed. As Ellen White describes,

A mysterious cloud seemed to enshroud the Son of God. His humanity shrank from the hour of abandonment, when to all appearance He would be deserted even by God, when all would see Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. He shrank from public exposure, from being treated as the worst of criminals, from a shameful and dishonored death. A foreboding of His conflict with the powers of darkness, a sense of the awful burden of human transgression, and the Father’s wrath because of sin caused the spirit of Jesus to faint, and the pallor of death to overspread His countenance.^{^[3]}

Later when He was on the cross, the Psalmist gives us a glimpse into the state of His mind when Christ cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1) This statement, bland in English, is infused with emotion as we look at the original languages. Christ no doubt knew several languages, including Latin, Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew. Even though Christ knew beforehand of this experience, He is perplexed, troubled, distressed by the strangeness of it, and under the strain, He cries out in two languages, “Eli, Eli lama [Hebrew] Sabachthani [Syriac, an ancient Aramaic language].” Jesus Christ is experiencing the veiled promise in Genesis 15, given to Abraham in his deep sleep—may God be ripped from God, like these two animals have been ripped apart, if We are not faithful to the covenant. In this passage the emphasis is on the smoking gun and the burning torch that passed between the pieces, signifying God the Father and God the Son and their covenant to save mankind at any cost to themselves. Christ was experiencing this on the cross.

What kept Him on the cross? What sustained Him in Gethsemane? A model put forth by A.J. Greimashas been helpful in elucidating the tremendous conflict enveloping the mind of Christ on the cross.^{^[4]}

Sender → Object → Receiver

↑

Helper → Subject ← Opponent

The top line is called the “axis of communication” because it represents the sender’s act of communicating the message (object) to the receiver. The bottom line is called the “axis of power.” The “axis of power” represents the story’s conflict played out in which the success or failure of the subject is determined by the relative power of the helper vs. the opponent. If the opponent is too strong, the subject will fail to carry out the mission, and the communication of the object to the receiver will not occur. If, on the other hand, the helper is stronger than the opponent, the subject will succeed in his task of communicating the sender’s message.

As we apply these facts to the cross, it is helpful to recall our opening text. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). Galatians 4:4, 5 also says: “When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His son born of a woman made under law to redeem those who were under law that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

Love

Redemption

God → Reconciliation → Those under law—mankind

Adoption

New creation

↑

( ) → Jesus Christ ← Curse/eternal separation

Jesus vs. Father’s will

Putting the “axis of power” under the microscope, Ellen White makes some poignant statements in The Desire of Ages.

All His life, Christ had been publishing to a fallen world the good news of the Father’s mercy and pardoning love. . . . But now with the terrible weight of guilt He bears, He cannot see the Father’s reconciling face. Satan with his fierce temptations wrung the heart of Jesus. The Savior could not see through the portals of the tomb. Hope did not present to Him His coming forth from the grave a conqueror, or tell Him of the Father’s acceptance of the sacrifice. He feared that sin was so offensive to God that their separation was to be eternal.^{^[5]}

Psalm 22 describes for us this dark struggle and, hence, the two languages He spoke on Calvary. It also tells us what we must do when the darkness of doubt and the lack of faith threaten to undo us. He reviewed how the Father had been with Him during His sojourn on earth. Ellen White says, “In those dreadful hours, He relied upon the evidence of His Father’s acceptance heretofore given Him. . . . By faith He rested in Him Whom it had ever been His joy to obey.”^{^[6]} Going back to the model we fill in the helper.

Love

Redemption

Reconciliation → Mankind

God → Adoption

New Creation

↑

Faith → Jesus Christ ← Curse

In the axis of power we see Jesus struggling with the opponent of the curse, the feelings of God’s abandonment and hopelessness, the struggle to say not My will, but Yours be done. And in the end, faith was the victory. Faith was the power that enabled Him to carry out the heavenly errand. Jesus Christ, by the power of faith, has performed the act of redemption which allows mankind to choose to accept the Gift. “Saving faith is the faith of Jesus,” Gerald Finneman writes, “This is the faith that not only believes in the absence of feelings, but against them.”^{^[7]}

All heaven was risked at Calvary. It was possible for Him to fail, and had He failed, it would have been a failure of cosmic proportions. Finneman adds: “When Jesus was driven to the edge of insanity, when He got to the end of His rope of faith, it held!”^{^[8]}

“For God so loved the world.”

[1] All texts are from the New King James Version unless otherwise specified.

[2] Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 624.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Referenced in Richard B. Hays, The Faith of Jesus: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), 91-106.

[5] White, 753.

[6] Ibid., 756.

[7] Gerald L. Finneman, Christ in the Psalms (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Glad Tidings Publishers, 2004), 32.

[8] Ibid., 39.

The View from the Pew

2009-03-03T12:07:00.001-05:00

by Kristin McGuire

We attended the “Sabbath and Sanctuary” weekend at the West Lebanon, New Hampshire Church the weekend before Thanksgiving. Richard and Jo Ann Davidson were the speakers, and we were very blessed. After his final presentation, which was on the sanctuary, Richard was taking questions. My question was, “What would ‘coming to the holy place’ (Leviticus 16:3) look like for us?” His answer so moved me and has since affected my devotional life that I have to write about it.

He explained that “coming to the holy place” means going there in our imaginations that “where (He is) there (we) may be also”(John 14:3). It’s one thing to invite Jesus to help us with this and that and to enter in to all of our activities, but to realize that He has also invited us to come to where He is, is something even more delightful to consider and do. He went on to illustrate his point with a story.

Richard teaches at Andrews Theological Seminary, and once upon a time he had a favorite student. Perhaps this student was to Richard what John the disciple was to Jesus. So we’ll call him John. One day the Davidsons invited John to their home, perhaps for a meal, I don’t remember all the details. Well, at one point during John’s visit to the Davidson’s home that day, John said, “Doc, can I have a hug?” Richard, who had had his back to John at the time, smiled and turned around, expecting this good old slap-on-the-back type of hug that men do, but instead he saw tears streaming down John’s face.

Now Richard had been to many of John’s activities, maybe sporting events, things like that, and had shown special concern for John’s welfare and progress and had followed his life at the seminary with great interest. John knew that Richard cared deeply for him, but the fact that the Davidsons had invited him to their home, spent time with him in their home, was something altogether different. He said, “I knew you cared about me, but you invited me to your home!” Clearly, John was deeply moved by this, and no doubt it has had a profound impact on him.

My purpose here, pastors, is not to get you to invite people to your homes (although it’s a good thing to do). My purpose is to broadcast this simple kindergarten illustration, if you will, of the invitation that Jesus gives to you every day to come to Him in His home, the “holy place.” Let me just say that I and my whole family (and that’s six extra chairs at the table) have shared a Friday evening meal at Bill and Melanie Brace’s home on numerous occasions, so I know whereof I speak. This is a powerful tool to bind our hearts and blend our lives. I can’t tell you how refreshed I have been by these “oases in the desert.” Due to the intensity of life, though, these occasions can only take place a limited number of times throughout the year—maybe once a year now, or less. But how many times can it happen in our fellowship with Jesus? At least once a day, and preferably several! Jesus is inviting you to come refresh yourself in His home as many times and for as long as you want!

Maybe some of you are chuckling at the simplicity of my telling you this, when it is just so elementary, something you have known and believed all your life, perhaps. Well, then, just be encouraged that the light has finally gone on for this writer and her heart now is more bound to Jesus than ever. Maybe some of you, like me, are affected in a disorderly way (if you know what I mean, SAD), especially this time of year here in the Northeast. Well, Henry W. Frost once wrote: “Nothing so blesses the man who prays as the praise which he offers, ” and this idea of going to where God is in my imagination puts a whole new light on prayer and praise. So when shadows fall, let us ”praise God in His sanctuary . . . and let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150)^{^[1]}

[1] At that same conference, Ellen Busl, the principal at Estabrook School there in West Lebanon, sort of wondered out loud if there would ever be such a thing as a really good, up-to-date children’s textbook on the Heavenly Sanctuary. We were all delighted to hear that God had answered Ellen before she asked (Isaiah 65:24), because Richard Davidson has been asked to write just such a book, and our prayers are with him in that endeavor.

The Investigative Judgment: Is it Biblical? Part Three

2009-03-03T12:04:00.003-05:00

by Herbert E. Douglass

The word used for “cleansed” in Daniel 8:14 has “such a breadth of meaning that it cannot be captured by a single English word.” The Hebrew, nitsdaq, conveys at least three English “nuances” such as “(1) to ‘set right/restore’ (as emphasized in Isa. 46:13, (2) to ‘cleanse’ (as emphasized in Job 15:14; 4:17; and 17:9), and (3) to ‘vindicate’ (as in Isa. 50:8).”^{^[1]}

In view of the Great Controversy, all three “nuances” together convey what transpires during Christ’s role as our High Priest during the investigative judgment.

“To set right or to be restored.”^{^[2]} Since 1844, the first angel of Revelation 14 proclaims that once again the world will hear the full-orbed, “everlasting gospel.” For centuries this world has heard a limited gospel, one that focuses primarily on forgiveness while muting the empowering grace that God has promised to overcomers. But the “everlasting gospel” truly “restores” the truth about God’s salvation plan—more than “cheap grace,”^{^[3]} more than rigorous pilgrimages, more than good fellowship and warm spiritual feelings.

“To cleanse.”^{^[4]} In this text, so much of the Old Testament typology looms depicting how the “sins” of the people, transferred to the sanctuary during the year, are finally “cleansed” on the annual Day of Atonement.^{^[5]} When we look at the larger picture that God intended the sanctuary service to teach us, we learn that “the tabernacle, through its service of sacrifice, was to teach—the lesson of pardon of sin, and power through the Saviour for obedience unto life.”^{^[6]}

The earthly sanctuary revealed many aspects of Christ’s role as our sacrifice and mediator for one transcending purpose: “In all [earthly sanctuary services], God desired His people to read His purpose for the human soul.” It was the same purpose Paul had emphasized: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).^{^[7]}

Ellen White connects the earthly sanctuary with its divine purpose even more directly when she notes that the “Jewish tabernacle was a type of the Christian church,” that those “faithful and loyal to God” form the “‘true tabernacle,’” and “Christ is the . . . high priest of all who believe in Him as a personal Saviour.”^{^[8]}

A review of those who can be trusted with eternal life

During the pre-advent judgment, unfallen worlds and the angels are reviewing (investigating) the characters of those who have died and the maturing characters now living to see who have been truly serious about joining them in a sin-free universe.

Especially will this be true of those whom Christ is preparing to represent Him during the endtime when His loyal witnesses will indeed proclaim the “everlasting gospel” to all the world (Matthew 24:14). In fact, the successful completion of the gospel commission depends on “cleansed” Christians who want God’s character as well as His power. Only then will their witnessing be believable.^{^[9]}

In a special sense, in view of the larger, antitypical meaning of the sanctuary symbolism, the investigative judgment since 1844 is a matter of “cleansing” the human temple from the defilement of sin.

In a sermon delivered at the Minneapolis General Conference in 1888, Ellen White emphasized this point:

Now Christ is in the heavenly sanctuary. And what is He doing? Making atonement for us, cleansing the sanctuary from the sins of the people. Then we must enter by faith into the sanctuary with Him, we must commence the work in the sanctuary of our souls. We are to cleanse ourselves from all defilement. We must ‘cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.^{^[10]}

Many last-day events are held in suspension until this “cleansing” reaches that point where God will not be embarrassed to give His endtime people the promised “latter rain.”^{^[11]} The eyes of the unfallen universe are not on this world’s dreary parade of wars, famines, and natural disasters as they try to figure out when Jesus will return. They have been patiently waiting for God’s professed people to cooperate with Him in “hastening the advent” (2 Peter 3:12).^{^[12]}

Now, our third “nuance” reflected in Daniel 8:14: “to vindicate.”^{^[13]} God’s loyalists in the endtime eventually vindicate His patience, wisdom, and “grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). In Ezekiel 36, we can see God’s big picture as to how essential to God’s plan is the faithful response of His faithful.

Running down parallel tracks in the endtime, the truth about Satan’s wicked plans will be dramatically revealed as well as the truth about God’s character and His promises to His faithful. In both cases, God is vindicated.^{^[14]}

Here is how Frank Holbrook describes it:

We must keep our reasoning straight here. The controversy that began with God does not merely end with the judgment of man. If it began with God, it must end with God. That is, if the great moral controversy, which has troubled our universe for millennia, began with false accusations against the Deity, it can only terminate—with a secure universe—if the Deity is cleared or vindicated of these charges. In actuality, God ‘cannot' reaffirm the justification of His genuine, repentant people unless He Himself and His plan of salvation are acknowledged by the loyal universe as true and just, and the same loyal intelligences agree with God that Satan is a wicked rebel and his accusations against God are false. The ultimate purpose of final judgment is not simply to vindicate an omniscient Deity, but also to draw all created intelligences both loyal and redeemed—and the lost—into a willing agreement with God and His view of matters.^{^[15]}

Hour of rejoicing, not fear

After outlining all this good news about the investigative judgment which God and His loyalists have looked forward to for thousands of years, one more thought needs to be said: For those living during this time of judgment, it should be their hour of rejoicing, not fear. Fear, yes, for those who have a wrong picture of God that Satan has painted so effectively since his rebellion in heaven. Fear, yes, for the shame they will feel when, after spending their lives in self-seeking, they at last look into the eyes of Jesus whom they had resisted for so long. But for those who see God through Jesus, judgment time is good news—His coming is near!

Loyalists today rejoice in Daniel’s categorical declaration that the investigative judgment is “made in favor of the saints of the Most High” (Daniel 7:22). Loyalists rest in our Lord’s assurance that “he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24).

Loyalists sing with Job, even during tough times: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25, 26).

Loyalists daily thank the Lord for the assurance that they are “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6), that if they keep “walk[ing] in the light as He is in the light . . . the blood of Jesus Christ . . . cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:9), that all who make Jesus the Savior and Lord of their lives can claim His promise, “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (John 10:28, 29).

Loyalists have discovered that “the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12) helps them to endure life’s troubles, that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

Men and women of faith are not afraid of the investigative judgment. They know that Jesus as their Intercessor, their Mediator, met Satan face-to-face on this earth. With the same human equipment we all have, without any special advantages, He proved that men and women this side of Eden can overcome any temptation hurled by Satan.^{^[16]} He gave us courage and took away our excuses. He not only led the way through a world of “fiery darts of the wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16) to show it could be done, but He also comes back through His Holy Spirit to give us the same power He had.^{^[17]} That is why John could pass on to us our Lord’s promise that we too “may overcome” even as He “overcame” (Revelation 3:21).

Our all-powerful Mediator

In the investigative judgment, as our “all-powerful Mediator”^{^[18]} Jesus can face down all of Satan’s charges against His people. When Satan objects to God’s rulings in favor of those men and women of faith who have honored Him with their loyalty, Jesus points first to His own unsullied record in His dueling with Satan; then He points to the records of His loyal followers, to their “diligent” faithfulness and their maturing faith trajectory.^{^[19]}

Further, His loyalists know that Jesus stands in the courts above as their High Priest today, not only as their Example showing the way to overcome sin, but also as their Enabler to help them prove Satan wrong, even as He did. This insight sparkles with heavenly dynamics:

Everyone who will break from the slavery and service of Satan, and will stand under the blood-stained banner of Prince Immanuel will be kept by Christ's intercessions. Christ, as our Mediator, at the right hand of the Father, ever keeps us in view, for it is as necessary that He should keep us by His intercessions as that He should redeem us with His blood. If He lets go His hold of us for one moment, Satan stands ready to destroy. Those purchased by His blood, He now keeps by His intercession.^{^[20]}

A powerful Intercessor

If I should see a man with a baseball bat entering the room behind your back, my instincts would be to intercede and do all I could to keep him from hurting you. I would be your “intercessor” at that point in your life. Jesus is doing just that every hour of the day and night for you and me through angels and the Holy Spirit.^{^[21]} We can count on His powerful intercessions in our lives today, even as we have been counting on the fact that He died for us on that horrible Cross!

All that adds up to sky-high assurance for loyalists during the investigative judgment! One day soon, if we keep abiding in Christ, walking into the Light He gives us daily, we will be part of that great multitude that declares God’s judgments to be “true and righteous” (Revelation 19:2). We will be part of the eternal answer to Satan’s lies. We will be part of the reason that guarantees to the unfallen worlds and unfallen angels that the whole universe will finally and eternally be secure from all rebellion.^{^[22]} We will be telling the universe that God did not risk his universe on human beings in vain!

The faithful know that their loyalty to God is not based on their efforts to seek His favor but in the sense of privilege that they can honor God in “the hour of His judgment.” The question always is: Do I enjoy known duty and am I responding as one who wants to honor God in every aspect of my life? If so, God is winning and Satan is losing!

Those who live daily with the “assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22) know, with a quiet humility, void of pride, that the investigative judgment is nothing more than an on-going record that reflects one’s daily walk with the Spirit. This heavenly review mirrors those in the endtime who have taken Peter’s counsel seriously: “Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:11, 12).

[1] Richard M. Davidson, “In Confirmation of the Sanctuary Message,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, vol. 2, no. 1, 1991; “The Meaning of Nitsdaq in Daniel 8:14,” Ibid., vol. 7, no. 1, 1996.

[2] RSV (1952) reflects this understanding: “. . . then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state”; TEV: “ . . . will be restored.”

[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s famous phrase. See Excursus O: Summary of Bonhoeffer Exposé of “Cheap Grace.”

[4] KJV, ASV, Moulton’s.

[5] “In the ancient sanctuary the solemn services of the annual Day of Atonement brought the yearly ritual cycle to a close (Lev.16). The work of atonement, or reconciliation, performed on that day brought to completion all that the sanctuary and the priests could do for repentant sinners, and cleansed the sanctuary and the people.”—Don F. Neufeld, editor, The Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, Revised Edition (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1976), 95.

[6] Ellen G. White, Education (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1952), 36.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Idem., Signs of the Times, February 14, 1900.

[9] “By revealing in our own life the character of Christ we cooperate with Him in the work of saving souls. It is only by revealing in our life His character that we can co-operate with Him. And the wider the sphere of our influence, the more good we may do. When those who profess to serve God follow Christ's example, practicing the principles of the law in their daily life; when every act bears witness that they love God supremely and their neighbor as themselves, then will the church have power to move the world.” Idem., Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1941), 340.

[10] Cited in A. V. Olson, Thirteen Crisis Years, (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1981), 276.

[11] White, White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5 (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1948), 214.

[12] See Herbert E. Douglass, The End (Brushton, N.Y.: TEACH Services, Inc., 2001) for 31 references in the writings of Ellen G. White which support Peter’s admonition in 2 Peter 3:12.

[13] See NASB, margin. See The International Critical Commentary (New York: Scribner’s, 1927), 342. “A significant feature of the final judgment is the vindication of God’s character before all the intelligences of the universe. The false charges that Satan has lodged against the government of God must be demonstrated as utterly groundless. God must be shown to have been entirely fair in the selection of certain individuals to make up His future kingdom, and in the barring of others from entrance there. . . . Thus the Heb. sadaq [cleansed, restore, vindicate] may convey the additional thought that God’s character will be fully vindicated as the climax to “the hour of his judgment” (Rev. 14:7), which began in 1844.”—SDABC, vol. 4, 845.

[14] “In the antitype also, against Satan’s false claim that God cannot fulfill His new covenant promises, God gathers an entire generation to Himself at the consummation of history who demonstrate the ultimate effectiveness of the gospel. . . . . Not only do the saints serve to vindicate God’s character. Ezekiel uses the same language to describe the final judgment upon the wicked, and in particular their leader (Ezekiel 38:16, 22, 23, RSV). The final judgment reveals not only the ultimate effectiveness of the gospel but also the full ripening of iniquity.”—Richard M. Davidson, “The Good News of Yom Kippur,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, vol. 2, no. 2, 1991.

[15] Frank B. Holbrook, The Atoning Priesthood of Jesus Christ (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Adventist Theological Society Publications, 1996), 174.

[16] White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press,1940), 24, 762.

[17] “The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries, and the submission of men to this satanic captivity was amazing. Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world's Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church.” Ibid., 671. “The Holy Spirit was promised to be with those who were wrestling for victory, in demonstration of all mightiness, endowing the human agent with supernatural powers, and instructing the ignorant in the mysteries of the kingdom of God. That the Holy Spirit is to be the grand helper, is a wonderful promise. Of what avail would it have been to us that the only begotten Son of God had humbled Himself, endured the temptations of the wily foe, and wrestled with him during His entire life on earth, and died the Just for the unjust, that humanity might not perish, if the Spirit had not been given as a constant, working, regenerating agent to make effectual in our cases what had been wrought out by the world's Redeemer.”—White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 2 (Silver Spring, Md.: Ellen G. White Estate, 1981, 1987, 1990, 1993), 14.

[18] Idem., The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press, 1950), 488.

[19] Ibid., 425.

[20] Ellen White Comments on Romans 8:34, SDABC, vol. 6, 1078.

[21] “The intercession of Christ in man's behalf in the sanctuary above is as essential to the plan of salvation as was His death upon the cross. By His death He began that work which after His resurrection He ascended to complete in heaven. We must by faith enter within the veil, ‘whither the forerunner is for us entered.’ Hebrews 6:20. There the light from the cross of Calvary is reflected. There we may gain a clearer insight into the mysteries of redemption. The salvation of man is accomplished at an infinite expense to heaven; the sacrifice made is equal to the broadest demands of the broken law of God. Jesus has opened the way to the Father's throne, and through His mediation the sincere desire of all who come to Him in faith may be presented before God.”—Idem., The Great Controversy, 489.

[22] Idem., The Desire of Ages, 759.