1888 FOR ALMOST

DUMMIES

Robert J. Wieland

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 Before we begin...
“1844” is our classic icon. It marked the
beginning of the special faith of Seventh-day
Adventists, as Pentecost marked the beginning of
the gospel going to the world. Yet another date
keeps popping up, another “icon” for us, which has
perplexed us.

“1888” is clothed in an aura of mystery. Why

does it keep popping up, and why is it discussed
almost with hushed tones as though a skeleton
lurked somewhere in our closet?

There’s tremendous meaning buried in it. And

the One who keeps bringing it up is the Holy
Spirit: He will not let it die, even century after
century (parts now of three centuries have gone
by). It will take the stage more and more as time
goes on.

The reason: “1888” marks the “beginning” of

the world’s second Pentecost, and people
everywhere are at last beginning to ferret out the
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story. There is a skeleton in our closet.

The mystery unfolds

Pentecost also marked the gift of the Holy

Spirit. The world didn’t know what was happening
except as the apostles could tell them, but what was
going on behind the scenes was the Son of God
being inaugurated as the world’s High Priest. It
was in the “Holy” or First Apartment of the
heavenly sanctuary. He had not only died for the
sin of the world and been resurrected, He was now
busy working through the Holy Spirit to reconcile
human hearts everywhere (including Gentiles) who
would respond, and bring them into oneness with
God the Father. A great work.

Not only was the High Priest changing hearts,

He was preparing those who chose to believe to be
“accounted worthy” to come up in the first
resurrection that will come when He returns to
earth personally, visibly, literally (cf. Luke 21:35;
Rev. 20:5, 6). This “work” had been going forward
steadily from Pentecost until the end of the 2300-

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year prophecy of Daniel 8:14, which came in 1844,
our “icon.” That’s the setting for that first unique
Adventist icon-date.

With it began what we know as the Seventhday

Adventist Church; something was happening in
human hearts. No big display; a few believers had
gone through the “Great Disappointment” of 1844
and had “survived” spiritually; that is, this little
group had not given up their conviction that the
true Holy Spirit had been present in that “Midnight
Cry” movement, and they were not about to deny
Him.

With that Great Disappointment came Jesus

leaving His ministry in the First Apartment and
closing its door, and then opening the door into the
Second Apartment. Now He faced a new task: not
prepare people to die and come up in the
resurrection but prepare people to be translated
without seeing death at His second coming.

That has been the point of His ministry since

1844 and also the burden of Ellen White’s writing

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her 25 million words of testimony.

Things on earth have seemed to happen slowly,

but year by year the convictions of truth have
deepened among thoughtful people. The church
was organized in 1863. Shortly after, its mission
work began around the world, and we have all been
regaled with fantastic stories of “progress.”

But the conviction has also deepened that even

if we were to “baptize” billions, the number would
mean nothing so far as finishing the gospel work is
concerned; character transformation prepares for
the coming of the Lord.

The time for the “harvest” may come, but He

can’t come until the “harvest of the earth is ripe”
(144,000 character transformations, literal or
symbolic number is not the point). Not until then
can the mighty one designated as “another angel”
proclaim to the long-waiting Savior, “Thrust in
Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for
You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe”
(Rev. 14:15). After that Christ can’t wait a day; He

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must come to earth as King of kings and Lord of
lords immediately, when the harvest is “ripe.”

“1888” thus marks the time for “the beginning”

of getting the harvest “ripe”

The message that came in that year was a

revelation in itself; it had “heavenly credentials.” It
came straight from the throne of God. “The Lord in
His great mercy” sent it, but it came in the most
humble appearance as the Jews’ Messiah came
from the throne of God but was born as a peasant
in Bethlehem’s manger, with lowly animals.
“1888” was a new “Bethlehem,” but the grand
event threw some wonderful saints into a tizzy just
as the original “Bethlehem” threw the Temple
priests off guard in Jerusalem.

Precious few who attended the Minneapolis

1888 meeting had an inkling of what was going on.
One little woman 62 years old was also caught by
surprise, for she heard and saw things that
astonished her. Not in 45 years, she later said, had
she heard anything like this in our church, or in

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fact, anywhere.

She didn’t say so at the time right then, but

later she said that what she had been hearing and
watching in the “1888” affair was “the beginning”
of that grand prophecy of Revelation 18 that tells
of the whole earth being lightened with the glory of
a final message. It will be the complementary gift
of the same Holy Spirit who first came with power
at Pentecost.

“1888” For Almost Dummies tells in a simple

way, and in as few words as possible, what
happened, and what the message still is today. But
before we go into our thought-provoking study,
let’s look at a brief summary of how good is the
Good News of “1888.”

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 What Did the 1888 Message
Say?
Ten Unique, Essential Elements

1. Christ’s love is active, not merely passive.

As the Good Shepherd, He is continually seeking
the lost sheep. Salvation does not depend on our
seeking Him but on our believing that He is
seeking us. This is our believing response to His
seeking us. He has taken the initiative. Those who
are lost at last resist and despise His initiative in
the drawing of His love. This is what unbelief
means.

2. It follows that it is difficult to be lost and it is

easy to be saved if one understands and believes
how good the Good News is. Since Christ has
already paid the penalty for everyone’s sin, the
only reason anyone can be condemned at last is
continued unbelief, a hard-hearted refusal to
appreciate the redemption achieved by Christ on
His cross and ministered by Him as High Priest.

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The true gospel unveils this mysterious unbelief
and leads to a repentance that prepares the church
for the return of Christ. Human pride, praise and
flattery of human beings, is inconsistent with true
faith in Christ. It’s a sure sign of prevailing
unbelief, even within the church.

3. In seeking lost mankind, Christ came all the

way, taking upon Himself and assuming the fallen,
sinful nature of man. This He did that He might be
tempted in all points like as we are, yet
demonstrate perfect righteousness “in the likeness
of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3, 4; the 1888 message
accepts “likeness” to mean what it says, not un-
likeness). Righteousness is a word never applied to
Adam in his unfallen state, nor to holy, sinless
angels. It can only mean a holiness that has come
into conflict with sin in fallen human flesh, and
triumphed over it. Thus “the message of Christ’s
righteousness” that Ellen White was so happy
about in 1888 is rooted in this unique view of the
nature of Christ. If He had taken the sinless nature
of Adam before the fall, the term “Christ’s
righteousness” could not make sense. The 1888

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“messengers” (A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner)
saw that the teaching that Christ took only the
sinless nature of Adam before the fall is a legacy of
Romanism, the insignia of the mystery of iniquity
which keeps Him “afar off” and not “nigh at hand.”

4. Thus our Saviour “condemned sin in the

flesh” of fallen mankind. This means that He has
outlawed sin; sin has become out of date in the
light of His ministry. It is impossible to have true
faith in Christ and continue in sin. We cannot
excuse it by saying, “I am only human” or, “the
devil made me do it.” In the light of the cross, the
devil cannot force anyone to sin. To be truly
“human” is to be Christlike in character, for He
was and is fully human as well as divine. For the
church to accept the message means a preparation
for translation without seeing death.

5. It follows that the only thing God’s people

need in order to prepare for Christ’s return is that
genuine faith. But that is what the church lacks; she
imagines herself to be doctrinally and
experientially “rich and increased with goods”

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when in fact our root sin ever since 1888 has been
unbelief. Righteousness is by faith; it is impossible
to have faith and not demonstrate it in the life,
because faith always works by love. Our moral and
spiritual failures are the fruit of keeping alive
Israel’s ancient sin of unbelief.

6. Righteousness by faith since 1844 is unique.

It is “the third angel’s message in verity.” This
means that it is greater than what the Reformers
taught or what the popular churches understand
today. It is a message of “much more” abounding
grace. It makes sense with the unique Adventist
truth of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, a
work that includes the full cleansing of the hearts
of God’s people on earth.

7. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is not merely

provisional but effective for the whole world. The
only reason anybody can be lost is that he chooses
to resist the saving grace of God. For those who are
saved at last, it is God who has taken the initiative;
for those who are lost, it is they who resist and
reject God’s initiative. Salvation is by faith;

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condemnation is only by non-faith, which is
unbelief. But true faith is distinguished from its
counterfeit.

8. Thus Christ’s sacrifice has judicially justified

“every man,” and has literally saved the world
from premature destruction. All men owe even
their physical life to Him, whether or not they
believe. Every loaf of bread is stamped with His
cross. When the sinner hears and believes the pure
gospel, he is justified by faith. The lost deliberately
negate the justification Christ has effected for
them. They throw away the salvation already given
them.

9. Justification by faith is therefore much more

than a judicial declaration of acquittal which
depends on the initiative of the sinner. Faith is an
appreciation of God’s initiative, and it changes the
heart. The sinner has now received the atonement,
which is reconciliation with God. It is impossible
to be truly reconciled to Him and not also be
reconciled to His holy law. Therefore true
justification by faith makes the believer to become

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obedient to all the commandments of God. (There
is a direct link between true justification by faith
and Sabbath-keeping.)

10. This marvelous change is accomplished

through the ministry of the New Covenant. The
Lord actually writes His law in the heart of the
believer so that obedience is loved. This provides a
new motivation which transcends fear of being lost
or hope of reward. (Either of those motivations is
what Paul means by his phrase, being “under the
law.”) The Old and New Covenants are not matters
of time but of condition. Abraham had faith and
lived under the New Covenant. Many today live
under the Old Covenant because self-centered
concern is their motivation. The Old Covenant was
the people’s promise to be faithful to God; the New
is God’s promise to be faithful to us. Salvation
comes by believing God’s promise to us, not by
our making promises to Him.

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 Chapter 1

Playing “Calvary” a Second

Time
The Jewish lad sat on the floor listening as his
elders talked about solemn things. Why have the
Jews been disappointed about their Messiah? God
promised Him, they wailed; but why has He never
come?

One day, the name of Jesus of Nazareth came

up. Little Joseph asked innocently, “Who was He?”

“A Jew of the greatest talent,” was the answer,

“but He falsely claimed to be the Messiah, so the
Jewish tribunal asked the Romans to put Him to
death.”

But the boy had questions. “Why is Jerusalem

destroyed, and why are we [Jews] in captivity?”

This time his father answered: “Alas! because

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the Jews murdered the prophets!”

Immediately “2 + 2 = 4” flashed through the

boy’s mind: “Perhaps Jesus was also a prophet, and
they killed Him when He was innocent.”

A child leads the way

The boy was forbidden to go to a Christian

church, but this conviction was so strong that he
would linger outside just to hear the preaching
through the windows. When he was only seven, he
was boasting to a Christian neighbor of the future
triumph of the Jews at the coming of the Messiah.
The old man interrupted him: “Dear boy, the real
Messiah was Jesus of Nazareth. But your ancestors
rejected and crucified Him, as they did the
prophets. Go home, read Isaiah 53, and you will
see that Jesus is the Son of God.”

Joseph did so, young as he was. It fit perfectly.

He asked his father to explain it.

But his father disliked even thinking about

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Isaiah 53; he was stern. Joseph never asked again,
but truth moved him when he grew up to be a
Christian missionary proclaiming the second
coming of Jesus.

Steeped in Jewish unbelief, father and the

elders stayed behind. They kept on praying the God
of Abraham to send their Messiah while they
refused to see He had already done so in Jesus of
Nazareth. Another thousand years of those prayers
would still be unanswered.

Now we must come to our story as Seventhday

Adventists

If God should give us a “most precious” gift

and we should sinfully refuse to accept it, does He
meekly send it again and again for centuries more?
He has more divine self-respect than that. The Jews
will never get their Messiah until they back up and
receive the One heaven already sent them. God has
a very healthy self-respect; He doesn’t let you walk
all over Him for millennia.

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 We are in a similar quandary. How can we
today explain to an innocent child why Jesus has
not come back a second time when our pioneers
proclaimed His “soon” coming nearly two
centuries ago? And we’ve been doing it ever since.
Does “soon” mean nothing?

Daniel and Revelation pinpoint where we are in

time. Our pioneers expected to see Jesus come in
their lifetime, and heaven gave Ellen White a
vision in May 1856 wherein an “angel” assured
them that Christ would come within the physical
lifetime of some of them. Then she added, “Solemn
words these, spoken by the angel.”

But we’re still here. (All of that generation, of

course, have gone to their rest.)

God expects us to ask “Why the delay?”

We believe what we claim, yes, we “love His

appearing.” That means we will be concerned.
Why this failure of the heavenly angel’s promise of
1856? Without history’s answer, the question is left

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begging over parts of three centuries, one of them a
complete one. Must it be so for centuries more?

Joseph Wolff’s elders were praying for

something that had already happened. Now, God
has promised to send the “latter” rain of His Spirit
before Christ can come the second time. As Joseph
Wolff found in his Bible evidence that the Lord
had already sent their Messiah in Jesus, so we find
that heaven has already sent “us” the “beginning”
of the latter rain of the Holy Spirit that we had
prayed for so much: “The Lord in His great mercy
sent a most precious message to His people” that
was “the beginning” both of the “loud cry” of
Revelation 18 and of “showers from heaven of the
latter rain.” Then, adds Ellen White some hundred
times, we disdained it “just like the Jews.”

We have deprived the world of blessings God

designed they should have had. In her
understanding, there has never been a greater
mistake made by the Lord’s true church (“His
own,” John 1:11) since what the Jews did two
millennia ago. Unlike any other church in these

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two millennia, we have in a special way played
“Calvary” a second time.

What is the “latter rain”?

A special gift in the form of a message. It is to

prepare God’s people for meeting Jesus, and being
changed at His coming without suffering death. It’s
“translation,” which Enoch experienced (Heb.
11:5). The latter rain “ripens the grain for the
harvest,” that is, it woos God’s people away from
their idolatry and love of the world so that they
want the kingdom of Christ to come. It awakens a
zeal like those had who waited for Him in the
autumn of 1844. It’s not something foggy like
emotionalism; it’s biblical truth that had never been
so clearly understood.

This means a shift in Christian experience from

Old Covenant to New Covenant thinking. It was
the principal issue that impacted the reception of
“1888.” It demonstrated that there is “light” in the
gospel that is greater than the popular Sunday-
keeping churches are able to see, sincere as they

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are. Justification by faith in the Day of Atonement
is something beyond Luther’s, Calvin’s, or the
Evangelicals’ possible understanding.

Old Covenant thinking sees God’s holy law as

ten stern commandments, difficult to keep, and
fear-inducing. New Covenant thinking sees them as
ten divine promises to anyone who believes the
Preamble—that God has already delivered you
from Egyptian darkness and “bondage.”

We see this shift in Revelation 19: “The

marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has
made herself ready” (vs. 7). She once was a flower
girl at the wedding, delightful in her innocence.
But “she” has to grow up. She becomes a bride
who understands and loves her Bridegroom.
Concern for Him becomes greater than her former
egocentric concern for her own security and
salvation.

We have learned to think of the latter rain as “a

message of Christ’s righteousness,” a clearer grasp
of practical godliness—all by faith. The idea is in

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the next verse: “And to her [the bride] was granted
that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and
white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints.”

At last when this happens the latter rain is

welcomed, no longer resisted. Now it is received
when God’s people have taken the step that
concludes the message from the true Witness—
they have “overcome even as [He] overcame”
(3:21). Their faith has matured under the refreshing
“showers of the latter rain” received, not rejected.

According to Ellen White’s testimony, all this

should have come over a century ago, yes, within
the lifetime of people living in 1856. When the
latter rain is received, it prepares for a grand
“harvest” of human souls who will respond to a
final “lifting up” of Christ and Him crucified. It
will be a revelation of the cross that the world has
never seen so clearly. The “most precious
message” will penetrate to every honest heart on
earth:

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 The message will be carried not so much by
argument as by the deep convictions of the Spirit of
God. The arguments have been presented. The seed
has been sown, and now it will spring up and bear
fruit. … Now the rays of light penetrate
everywhere, the truth is seen in its clearness, and
the honest children of God sever the bands which
have held them. Family connections, church
relations, are powerless to stay them now. Truth is
more precious than all besides. Notwithstanding
the agencies combined against the truth, a large
number take their stand upon the Lord’s side.

Over a hundred times the Lord’s servant was

forced to declare that “our” reaction to this gift was
“just like the Jews’” reaction to Jesus when He
came!

What do we need to do?

Recover what we lost is the simple answer. The

Lord loves us too much to want to humiliate us;
repentance will never do that to the repentant
sinner. We will humble ourselves, yes; but our

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Savior puts His arms around us warmly. The
innocent child Joseph Wolff saw what his people
needed to do—recover what they had lost.

To resolve our quandary is easy; just give to the

world church the message which “we” “in a great
degree” rejected, according to the Lord’s
messenger. The problem is simple: the world needs
that special Good News that God wanted to give
them. How can we dare withhold it, century after
century?

Give it to them!

A Question Naturally Arises

“Can God do something to force the sleeping

‘bride’of the 21st century to ‘make herself ready?’”

God’s omnipotence must be restrained: never

has a bridegroom dressed his bride for the
wedding. That’s her job, to “make herself ready.”

The Lord has given us an excellent church

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organization, but He has wisely left this to us.
Prayer is good, but not good enough; it must be
augmented by a response from us—“be zealous
therefore, and repent.” Praying for the latter rain
could drag on for another century, and praying
without recovering what we lost has to be a vain
exercise that only confuses people. No bridegroom
in his right mind can coerce his bride to say “I do.”
Neither can Christ.

He cherishes in His heart a confidence that His

people are basically honest. (We wouldn’t believe
our “28 doctrines” unless we were!) This
conviction that Christ cherishes, requires that we
“overcome” where Joseph Wolff’s elders failed.
Creating or joining an offshoot is not the solution.
Repentance within the “body” of believers is the
solution.

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 Chapter 2

“1888” and the Loud Cry

The loud cry has already begun in the
revelation of the righteousness of Christ, the sin-
pardoning Redeemer. —Ellen G. White, Review
and Herald, Nov. 22, 1892

The two belong together and will forever be

united in our thinking. “1888” was this prominent
Bible prophecy in its actual “beginning”
fulfillment. Wonderful time to be alive!

“After these things I saw another angel come

down from heaven, having great power; and the
earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried
mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the
great is fallen, is fallen. … And I heard another
voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that
ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:1-4).

The ancient prophets dreamed of that glory.

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And here it was, at last played out before the eyes
of assembled delegates to a Seventh-day Adventist
world conference in 1888 (not just a tiny little
group somewhere).

One’s most natural question comes up: how

could it be this cataclysmic event? It happened in a
humble little wooden church in Minneapolis with
less than a hundred delegates present! Everybody
who has a Bible can read about the prophecy—a
“mighty angel,” “great power,” “earth … lightened
with glory,” “strong voice from heaven,” “big
ideas” penetrating every honest heart in Islam,
Buddhism, Catholicism—“the world.”

True, what happened in Minneapolis was a

mere whimper in the world of that day (and even
ours now). Remember, however, the long-awaited
Messiah Himself was born in a humble cowshed
with some animals, and we are told not to “despise
the day of small things” (Zech. 4:10).

A keen listener and perceptive observer was

present. She saw something that apparently none of

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her contemporaries recognized: “1888” was the
beginning of that eschatological wonder. (It took
Ellen White about four years of contemplation to
come to that conclusion with enough courage to
say so publicly.)

Furthermore, she seems to declare as a positive

statement, through use of a double negative, that it
was also “showers from heaven of the latter rain.”
Her closest contemporaries in Australia said they
had evidence that this was her open conviction.

And it makes sense, for there’s no way the

“loud cry” of Revelation 18 can make its long-
awaited world debut unless that latter rain is “sent”
first and received. It must always come first or
God’s people can’t give “the loud cry.”

And the evidence that “1888” is Revelation 18

fulfilled is more than merely Ellen White’s
subjective evaluation; the internal objective
evidence in the message itself is clear. Its unique
elements of built-in biblical truth demonstrate a
comprehensive evangel that meets the details of a

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world-enlightening message (and the last one at
that). If Ellen White was wrong in her perception
here, her life testimony gets pretty well discredited
en toto, because never was she so enthusiastic
about anything in her long career than she was
about this pinpointing of “1888” significance.

This brings us to serious thinking

What was the initial, rock-bottom, foundation

idea that permeates “1888”? What makes the
message so unique in its claim for our attention
(and the world’s) today?

Simply put, it’s something that never crossed

the minds of Luther, Calvin, or the Wesleys, or the
Sunday-keeping Evangelicals of the 1888 era, or
the consciousness of our Sunday-keeping brethren
and sisters of today.

Maybe we haven’t told it in a way that grips

their interest: it’s the cleansing of the heavenly
sanctuary, the work of the world’s great High
Priest in its Second or Most Holy Apartment. The

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context of “1888” is the cosmic Day of Atonement
which we’ve been living in since 1844—often not
realizing it. At last the truth of justification by faith
is to be seen as its very essence.

The problem in 1888 was that although the

cosmic Day of Atonement had begun 44 years
earlier (Dan. 8:14), our own people had not
embraced the idea of following Christ in that
closing work of His.

1. What brought the Seventh-day Adventist

Church into being was what explained the mystery
of the Great Disappointment of 1844. At the
conclusion of the 2300-year prophecy (“then shall
the sanctuary be cleansed”), Christ left the First
Apartment, closed its “door” (figuratively
speaking), and opened the door into a new phase of
ministry—His final work of atonement in the
Second or Most Holy Apartment. This is not
reconciling the Father to us but reconciling us to
the Father.

2. His sacrifice on the cross had been ample

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and complete; but now its full fruitage must be
demonstrated in a people. The world and the
universe deserve to see that what has been theory
has become visible fact. Christ must lead His
people into a complete heart-reconciliation with
Himself. The Holy Spirit must speak creatively to a
corporate body of the church, “Be ye reconciled to
God.” Every buried root of alienation must and will
be “cleansed.”

3. Significant numbers of thoughtful and loyal

Seventh-day Adventists worldwide are now
constrained by conscience to acknowledge that the
immense world suffering that has had to go on for
many decades (centuries) has been unnecessary for
the completion of the great controversy between
Christ and Satan—for example, World Wars I and
II, the current wars in Iraq, Darfur, etc.

4. In the early years after 1844, the little group

that had gone through the Great Disappointment
and wouldn’t give up, eagerly accepted every ray
of truth-light that God sent them:

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 (a) The sanctuary message as we understand it
came first (Hiram Edson in his barn); then

(b) the seventh-day Sabbath truth (from Rachel

Preston, the Seventh Day Baptist); and then

(c) the time to begin the Sabbath (the Bible said

sunset); then

(d) the basic principle of health reform, which

was Day of Atonement practical godliness; then

(e) the nature of man (mortal, not immortal, the

defense against Spiritualism); and

(f) even a kind of “dress reform” that expressed

the principle of modest living and appropriate
selfdenial. There was no kicking, screaming,
resistance.

By 1856, a finite angel (whose knowledge

incidentally could not be omniscient) was happy
with the obvious progress of developing faith in the
hearts of this little corporate body of people. Christ

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was happy, too, for here was that little “body” of
believers at last bent on “following the Lamb
wherever He goes.” The first such corporate group
in history since Pentecost!

This special angel predicted with angelic (but

finite!) judgment that some believers then living
would be translated without seeing death at the
coming of Jesus. The promise of the Lord
descending “from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God
… [when] the dead in Christ shall rise first” and
“we which are alive and remain shall be caught up
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the
air,”—this was to be fulfilled in their lifetime!

Momentous

The 1856 angel must have been excited. Now if

only this people will continue the eager “at-
onement” reception of truth that characterized the
early Adventists, they will receive the gift of the
latter rain, and the angel’s prophecy can be fulfilled
and the “great controversy” can end in victory,

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now.

But the “leading brethren” said no; no way. “In

a great degree” they “shut it away” from the people
and from the world.

Ellen White’s appeals in the Review

Nearly two years after the beginning of this

“most precious message” she recognized that
something had gone wrong. Speaking in the
capacity of “the testimony of Jesus” she wrote a
series of appeals in the Review (1890) pleading
with our people to realize what era of world history
they were living in. She declared the message of
Jones and Waggoner to be the essence of Christ’s
Most Holy Apartment ministry:

We are in the day of atonement, and we are to

work in harmony with Christ’s work of cleansing
the sanctuary from the sins of the people. Let no
man [or woman] who desires to be found with the
wedding garment on, resist our Lord in His office
work (January 21).

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 Next week she is at it again:

Christ is in the heavenly sanctuary, and He is

there to make an atonement for the people. … He is
cleansing the sanctuary from the sins of the people.
What is our work?—It is our work to be in
harmony with the work of Christ. By faith we are
to work with Him, to be in union with Him. … A
people is to be prepared for the great day of God
(January 28).

Next week, she has to come back again:

The mediatorial work of Christ, the grand and

holy mysteries of redemption, are not studied or
comprehended by the people who claim to have
light in advance of every other people on the face
of the earth (February 4).

Next week, she is impressed again:

Christ is cleansing the temple in heaven from

the sins of the people, and we must work in

34
harmony with Him upon the earth, cleansing the
soul temple from its moral defilement (February
11).

Her intensity increases week by week:

The people have not entered into the holy place

[most holy], where Jesus has gone to make an
atonement for His children. … But there is spiritual
drought in the churches (February 25).

Something keeps her from dropping it:

Light is flashing from the throne of God, and

what is this for?—It is that a people may be
prepared to stand in the day of God (March 4).

Finally, after twelve weeks of constant

emphasis, she lays bare what’s on her heart:

We have been hearing His voice more

distinctly in the message that has been going for
the last two years. … We have only just begun to
get a little glimmering of what faith is (March 11).

35
 You have been having light from heaven for
the past year and a half, that the Lord would have
you bring into your character and weave into your
experience. … If our brethren were all laborers
together with God they would not doubt but that
the message He has sent us during these last two
years is from heaven, … special light for the
people (March 18).

Could it be, Heaven is trying to tell us

something?

How is this 1888 idea of justification by faith

related to the Day of Atonement work of Christ?
How does it go beyond the justification by faith of
the 16th century Reformers and of our own
Sundaykeeping Evangelicals (and yes, the view
popular even among us today)?

Or does it?

1. The 1888 idea lifted the cross of Christ

higher than it had been displayed since Pentecost.

36
It was a partial fulfillment of a later prophecy Ellen
White made: “Great truths that have lain unheeded
and unseen since the day of Pentecost, are to shine
from God’s word in their native purity.” The
Sabbath and the cross finally came together. By
accepting the Bible truth of the nature of man
(mortal, not immortal), our people became ready to
grasp a deeper truth about the cross of Christ: the
death He died on His cross was the world’s
“second death.” The dimensions of His love
(agape) were far greater than modern Christianity
had comprehended.

2. The message proclaimed that Christ had

successfully accomplished the mission the Father
had sent Him to do—He had actually redeemed the
world, saved the world, won for “all men” an
adoption into the family of His Father, granted to
them all “a judicial verdict of acquittal.” By virtue
of the cross the world now stood differently before
God. Christ had become the “last” or second Adam
who had reversed the judicial condemnation that
had come on the world because of the first Adam’s
sin.

37
 3. In other words, because of the cross the
Father could “make His sun to rise on the evil and
on the good, and send rain on the just and on the
unjust” (Matt. 5:45). He was now free to treat
“every man” as though he had not sinned! Now the
truth of the Lord’s Supper could make heartfelt
sense: Christ Himself is “the bread of God …
which … gives life to the world.” “The bread that I
will give,” says Jesus, “is My flesh which I will
give for the life of the world. … Unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you
have no life in you”—equally true of “all men,”
believers and unbelievers alike. But “the life of the
world” that Jesus speaks of is far more than the
physical life of animals! Christ gave the gift of
“more abundant” life to the human race; if only “all
men” would receive the gift (which is already
given them) with heart-felt thankfulness (which is
faith), it would be to them the beginning of eternal
life.

4. But this truth articulated in the 1888 message

does not mean everyone will go to heaven. It’s not

38
the heresy of Universalism. By His sacrifice, Christ
has given every one of us the freedom to resist and
reject what He has given us. And sadly, many do.
The lost want their own final end; at the judgment
at the end of the thousand years of Revelation 20,
they will ask for destruction. Those who are saved
at last are simply those who gladly received the
gift. That simple.

5. God’s plan was, that once Seventh-day

Adventists could learn to proclaim this truth—what
Christ has accomplished for the human race—then
honest hearts would respond in faith and
experience what the Bible calls “justification by
faith.” That’s what the gospel accomplishes in
hearts and lives changed forever.

6. Salvation is more than an “offer” made to the

world. It’s the “gift” Christ has “given” to the
world. At last John 12:32, 33 comes into its own:
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw
all peoples to Myself. This He said, signifying by
what death He would die.” The Lord has given this
unworthy people a unique grasp of the significance

39
of Christ’s cross—yet to lighten the earth with
glory.

Christ’s death proves God’s great love for man.

It is our pledge of salvation. To remove the cross
from the Christian would be like blotting the sun
from the sky. The cross brings us near to God,
reconciling us to Him. With the relenting
compassion of a father’s love, Jehovah looks upon
the suffering that His Son endured in order to save
the race from eternal death, and accepts us in the
Beloved.

By revealing the extent of what Christ

accomplished on His cross, people are brought to
where they can recognize themselves as the famous
“Esau.” They have been given the birthright, given
“in Christ.” In startling reality, the sinner sees that
Christ has personally, individually died his second
death. It’s far more than a stirring of the emotions.
Hearts are confronted with a meaningful alternative
—either “despise” and “sell” what was placed in
their hands (as did Esau), or treasure the gift by the
same life-changing faith that Abraham exercised.

40
No middle ground.

As one example, the self-sacrifice needed to

receive the Sabbath truth now becomes a joy. It’s
an encouragement to see how the Holy Spirit will
do a “quick work” in all the world.

7. Justification by faith therefore in this Day of

Atonement is infinitely more than a legal
declaration (as is commonly supposed); it
accomplishes within itself all the heart-changing
miracles that we commonly assign to the word
“sanctification.”

Obedience becomes a New Covenant joy

In summarizing the 1888 message of

justification by faith, Ellen White declared that it
makes the believer “obedient to all the
commandments of God,” which of course includes
the Sabbath commandment, and the seventh one,
too. (People learn to regard their body as the
temple of the Holy Spirit.)

41
 And in this New Covenant joy is revealed the
truth that prepares a people for translation. It’s a
more mature glimpse of the grace of God that
effectively “teaches” that self-denial is a joy. The
Sabbath “proclaimed more fully” is what must
come with the Loud Cry.

No one can know justification by faith in its

end-time setting who does not render heart-felt
obedience to all the commandments of God. There
can be no continued subservience to the “man of
sin” (who created the spurious sabbath) when
justification by faith is seen in the light of the
cleansing of the sanctuary.

When received and proclaimed by the

corporate body of God’s people, it will be like
blowing trumpets with the heavenly news, “Let us
be glad and rejoice, and give Him glory, for the
marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has
made herself ready.”

42
 Chapter 3

Why the Old Covenant

Paralyzes Us
That impresses us with the beauty of “1888” is
its clear view of the New Covenant. It illustrates
how the message is “most precious.”

It was better news than important people at the

time wanted to grasp. The confusion became most
intense in 1890, but has seeped throughout the 20th
and on into our 21st century.

The Lord Jesus promised that he would “pray

the Father, and He will give you another
Comforter, … even the Spirit of truth. … I will not
leave you comfortless [orphans, Greek]: I will
come to you” (John 14:16-18). This promise has
been fulfilled in the gift of the Holy Spirit, whose
work is to “guide [us] into all truth” (16:13). We
recognize that this prophetic “gift” has been
manifested in the work of Ellen G. White. The

43
Lord revealed to her which side she should stand
on in this conflict:

Since I made the statement last Sabbath that the

view of the covenants as it had been taught by
Brother Waggoner was truth, it seems that great
relief has come to many minds.

Writing to Uriah Smith and others, she said:

Night before last I was shown that evidences in

regard to the covenants were clear and convincing.
Yourself, Dan Jones [the church Secretary, not A.
T. Jones], Brother Porter and others are spending
your investigative powers for naught to produce a
position on the covenants to vary from the position
that Brother Waggoner has presented.

She has always wanted us to rely primarily on

Bible evidence in controverted subjects. Waggoner
and Jones had been enabled by the Holy Spirit to
break through the fog that had darkened this
subject for centuries. Once they grasped the import
of the theme of the great controversy between

44
Christ and Satan and saw the Day of Atonement
and justification by faith in this light, the New
Covenant emerged out of the fog bright and clear
in the sunshine. Simply and briefly stated, what
they saw is this:

(a) The New Covenant is God’s promise of

blessings and salvation in Christ.
(b) The Old Covenant is the promise of the
people to do everything right so they can be
saved.

Then why this massive confusion?

Inherited from centuries of controversy

between Calvinism and Arminianism, the general
popular view of the two covenants has been that
they are two “dispensations,” the Old to last only
until the cross when the New should come into
being. Thus it was assumed that God had invented
the Old Covenant to be in force up until the time of
Christ, when a new “dispensation” should begin as
the first manifestation of a “better covenant“ (cf.
Heb. 9:6).

45
 Perplexities and self-contradictions grow out of
this “dispensational” view wherever it comes up.
Among us, at the time of the 1888 General
Conference Session, it was difficult to find any two
of the leaders who could agree on the details.

Enter the “special messengers” whom the Lord

“sent” in 1888

They forthwith declared that the “dispensation”

idea is foreign to the Bible. The two covenants are
not matters of time, or dispensation; they run side
by side all through history since the fall of man at
Eden. They are matters of heart-conviction. People
living in Old Testament times could be under the
New Covenant if they cherished faith in Christ: we
today can be under the Old if we don’t understand
and believe how good the Good News is.

Waggoner’s clearest presentations are found in

his two books, The Glad Tidings (Pacific Press,
1900; republished 1972), and The Everlasting
Covenant (a series of Present Truth articles

46
published in the 1890s and now in book form under
that title by Glad Tidings Publishers).

The salient points are:

1. The New Covenant was what God promised

in Genesis 3:15—a Savior who would trample on
the head of our enemy, Satan. God made no
mention that Adam and Eve were to promise
anything in return.

2. God’s promise to Noah to save him and his

family from the Flood was a renewal of the New
Covenant. Noah preached “righteousness by faith”
(Heb. 11:7). Again, no mention of any promise
God exacted from Noah.

3. Paul cites God’s promises to Abraham as the

clearest statement of the New Covenant (Gal. 3:8-
18). There are seven in Genesis 12:2, 3 (KJV), all
for Abraham and his descendants by faith:

[1] “I will make you a great nation;

[2] I will bless you,

47
 [3] and make your name great;
[4] and you shall be a blessing.
[5] I will bless those who bless you,
[6] and I will curse him who curses you:
[7] and in you all families of the earth shall be
blessed.”

These promises are to us individually as

Abraham’s children by faith

Later (13:14-17; 15:5) God promised to give

Abraham not only the land of Canaan, but the
whole earth for his “everlasting possession,” which
Waggoner early remarked must include also
everlasting life or he couldn’t enjoy it; and that
meant also it must include the righteousness by
faith necessary to inherit it.

In other words, in Waggoner’s view the New

Covenant is the essence of the “everlasting
gospel,” the righteousness by faith which is the
“third angel’s message in verity,” something our
beloved Sunday-keeping churches (and Seventh
Day Baptists) had not as yet clearly understood.

48
 This was why in her enthusiasm the dear lady
declared this message of the New Covenant to be
“the beginning” of the light which should lighten
the earth with glory in the final “loud cry.”

Waggoner and Jones were impressed that when

the Lord made those seven promises to Abraham,
He didn’t ask Abraham to reciprocate with any in
return. Instead, He asked the patriarch to believe
His promise. The 1888 messengers insisted that
when the Lord “makes a covenant,” it’s one-sided
on His part. There must be a response to His
promise, yes, a response of gratitude and believing,
but our response to His promises is not one in
which we stand on equal footing, eye to eye,
fulfilling a “bargain” between equals. Our faith
commitment is dependence on His promises, which
are all “Yes, and in Him Amen” (2 Cor. 1:20).

But right here is where unbelief gave birth to

problems

The same spirit that led the Galatians to insist

49
that they could stand on a par with God in the plan
of salvation led our brethren to insist that God’s
promises must be mutually balanced by our own.

Waggoner observed humorously:

After the Flood, God made a “covenant” with

every beast of the earth, and with every fowl, but
the beasts and the birds did not promise anything in
return. Genesis 9:9-16. They simply received the
favor at the hand of God. That is all we can do—
receive. God promises us everything that we need,
and more than we can ask or think, as a gift. We
give Him ourselves, that is nothing. And He gives
us Himself, that is, everything. That which makes
all the trouble [here he refers to the opposition he
has been receiving from the brethren] is that even
when men are willing to recognize the Lord at all,
they want to make bargains with Him. They want it
to be an equal, “mutual” affair—a transaction in
which they can consider themselves on a par with
God. But whoever deals with God must deal with
Him on His own terms, that is, on a basis of fact—
that we have nothing, and are nothing, and He has

50
everything and is everything and gives everything.

This aroused “our” intense opposition, because

as Ellen White later explained, “it lays the glory of
man in the dust.” Ministerial leadership pride in the
elders was wounded; and pastoral pride is even
today our immense problem.

The believer in Christ glories in nothing save

the cross of Jesus Christ by which the world is
crucified to him and he unto the world (cf. Gal.
6:14). Self “is crucified with Christ,” and Ellen
White explained how that was why our brethren
reacted against this “most precious message.” The
love of self and pride is common in all people, but
most painfully evident in religious leaders who
profess to “keep the commandments of God, and
the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). But our brethren
didn’t realize it at the time, because, as she said,
they didn’t know their own hearts.

But how does the Old Covenant fit into the

picture?

51
 Paul emerges as the first biblical writer who
clearly discerned the significance of Israel’s history
in the light of the two covenants. In Romans 4 he
tells us some six times that Abraham is “our
father,” yes, “the father of all them that believe”
(vss. 11-18). In Galatians 3 and 4 he tells the sad
story of the Old Covenant:

1. Abraham believed the New Covenant

promises, but his descendants 430 years later did
not have his faith. They had come out of Egyptian
slavery on their way to the Promised Land, which
they could have had in a short time of travel if they
hadn’t gotten delayed by the Old Covenant on the
way.

2. He gave them the same promises He had

given to Abraham: “I will take you as My people,
and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I
am the Lord your God, who brings you out from
under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will
bring you into the land which I swore to give to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you
as a heritage: I am the Lord” (Ex. 6:6-8). Note that

52
the Lord did not ask for them to make any promise
in return. But the next verse says, “They would not
heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel
bondage.” This unbelief set them up for the tragedy
of creating a vain Old Covenant promise that
would mislead people for generations.

3. At Mount Sinai God sought to renew the

same New Covenant promises He had made to
Abraham: “You have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings,
and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you
will indeed obey My voice, and keep My covenant
[cherish My promise, according to Waggoner],
then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all
people, … and you shall be to Me a kingdom of
priests, and a holy nation” (19:3-6).

The Hebrew word translated “obey” is shamea,

which means to listen attentively with faith, that is,
not kicking or fighting with objections or unbelief.
The Hebrew word translated as “keep” is shamar,
which means to keep in the sense of “to treasure.”
It is used of Adam being “put into the Garden of

53
Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15). He
treasured it! Anybody who treasures a garden will
take care of it.

4. There is a play on words here. If Israel were

to keep or “treasure” the promises made to their
“father Abraham” as he believed and treasured
them, then God would “treasure” them and they
would become the greatest nation on earth. No
cruel world empires to arise such as Assyria,
Babylon, or Rome, no Stalins or Hitlers. Again, no
mention of any promise the Lord asked Israel to
make in return!

But that doesn’t mean that they were to lie

down and do nothing. What He wanted was the
faith which Abraham showed. Such faith makes a
choice, a commitment, a dedication. There is no
end to the “good works” that faith working by love
(agape) will do! (See Gal. 5:6.)

5. But Israel took it upon themselves to

promise: “All that the Lord has spoken, we will
do” (Ex. 19:8). Of themselves, these were good

54
words, and some believe that there is nothing
wrong with Israel saying those words. But these
words were spoken in their “self-righteousness.”
And we know God didn’t ask them to make the
promises. And of course we know that all self-
righteousness is essentially sin. Thus unbelieving
Israel themselves formed the Old Covenant. Let’s
not blame God for their troubles!

6. In a matter of weeks they had broken their

promises and were worshipping a golden calf
(32:1-6). Thus began a detour, says Paul in
Galatians 3:22-24, that lasted for many centuries.
In God’s plan it must finally lead them back to
where Abraham their father had been, to be
“justified by faith.”

The history of Israel was up and down, mostly

down, until good King Josiah’s sons led the
kingdom of Judah into total ruin in 586 B.C., to
demonstrate fully the enslaving nature of the Old
Covenant (Paul says that it “genders to bondage,”
Gal. 4:24). It finally led Israel to reject and crucify
their Messiah.

55
 Righteousness does not come by works, nor by
our promising to keep God’s law

It comes “through faith,” that is, a humble heart

that appreciates what it cost the Savior to save us.
(Humility is a vital component of faith, for we read
in Habakkuk 2:4: “Behold his soul which is lifted
up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by
his faith.”)

The grace of God is given freely to all (Rom.

3:23, 24; Titus 2:11), and therefore “every man [is
given] a measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3). Christ died
for the world; He redeemed the human race; “in
Him” God has promised the gift of everlasting life
to all who will receive it as a gift, not as something
they must earn by good works or by promises to
obey.

Now here’s a question. Isn’t it all right to

promise to obey God’s law? Shouldn’t we lead our
children to promise God that they will always be
faithful? Don’t their promises help them to remain

56
faithful?

Vows and promises to God to help repair the

church roof or in a special way help the poor are
not inherently wrong, but they are different than
promises to be obedient to God and to be righteous.
We must be ever so careful that we are not making
promises of obedience to God in a spirit of self-
dependence. If we think that we can make the
promise to Him and keep it, then we are no
different than those selfrighteous Hebrews long
ago. And whoever makes the promise is the source
of the “righteousness!” (How good a “source” of
righteousness are you?)

We humans are not good at keeping our

promises to be righteous. And when we break them
(as we certainly will) then we sink ourselves into
unnecessary discouragement. Children especially
are in danger here.

After the pastor or teacher urges them to make

the promise to be obedient to God and they are
tempted and forget and break their promise, they

57
get down on themselves and think they are no
good, why even try to be a Christian? Many give
up. That’s why the Old Covenant leads into
“bondage.”

God hasn’t asked for us to keep promises; He

has asked us to believe that He is the real Promise
Keeper. Says Steps to Christ:

You are weak in moral power, in slavery to

doubt, and controlled by the habits of your life of
sin. Your promises and resolutions are like ropes of
sand. You cannot control your thoughts, your
impulses, your affections. The knowledge of your
broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens
your confidence in your own sincerity, and causes
you to feel that God cannot accept you. What you
need to understand is the true force of the will. This
is the governing power in the nature of man, the
power of decision, or of choice. Everything
depends on the right action of the will. You can
choose to serve Him (p. 47).

Sometimes (often, in fact) we sing hymns

58
carelessly, not realizing what the lyrics say. For
example, take that lovely hymn of consecration, “O
Jesus, I Have Promised” (Seventh-day Adventist
Hymnal, #331). Many sing it with an Old Covenant
mind-set, not realizing that apart from God’s
powerful New Covenant promises we are
powerless to do what we are singing. We must
have “grace to follow” (last line, third stanza)! To
remind ourselves of this, perhaps we should change
one word: “O Jesus, I Have Chosen.”

Many are the youth who have vainly promised

in Weeks of Prayer, who have come down in front
to serve the Lord faithfully. Sometimes the effects
last a week or two; but then comes backsliding.
And so, many then say, as Dr. Roger Dudley has
documented in his scientific studies of our youth,
“It’s too hard; I guess I’m not cut out to go to
heaven.” Thus again the Old Covenant
demonstrates its true nature as “gendering to
bondage.”

59
When we do make promises to God, when can
we be sure that there is no “self-dependence” in
them?

Abraham’s response to God’s promises was the

simple Hebrew word AMEN (Gen. 15:6), which
implies a heartfelt appreciation, a heart-agreement
with God, a heart-commitment to Him just as when
we say “amen” to something we heartily agree
with. That’s all God wants from us, for He knows
that it will also produce all the obedience the holy
law requires!

When by faith we are totally reliant on God’s

power and on His promise of salvation, we may
vow with Jacob, “then shall the LORD be my God”
(Gen. 28:21). But this is not a promise like Peter
made before he denied Christ; this is a choice to
believe, a choice to receive, a choice to yield the
heart to God. It’s a commitment. That’s what Steps
to Christ, page 47, enjoins upon us!

The New Covenant was the central pillar in the

“most precious message” of 1888. May its truth be

60
resurrected in the Church.

61
 Chapter 4

A Breakthrough in
Understanding the Gospel
This is the supra-critical issue

“1888” will again turn the world upside down

as the apostles did after Pentecost. But it flew right
over “our” heads when it came!

“We” supposed the truth was the same as the

justification by faith held by the 16th century
Reformers and the Sunday-keeping Evangelical
churches of that era, but that was the most tragic
misunderstanding that has come since the Great
Disappointment of 1844.

“The everlasting gospel” of Revelation 14 is

“the third angel’s message in verity.” And the
inspired messenger also says, “The doctrine of
justification by faith has been lost sight of by many
who have professed to believe the third angel’s

62
message.” “Not one in one hundred … understands
for himself the Bible truth on this subject
[justification by faith] that is so necessary to our
present and eternal welfare.” That’s a polite way of
saying that 99 out of a 100 were asleep at the time.

Did Martin Luther and the 16th century

Reformers proclaim the essence of the 1888
message? If the answer is “yes,” there is no need
for the Seventh-day Adventist Church to exist other
than to contribute the so-called “gospel” of
legalism and law-keeping.

Ellen White seems clear in context: “Luther

had a great work to do … yet he did not receive all
the light which was to be given to the world. From
that time to this, new light has been continually
shining upon the Scriptures and new truths have
been constantly unfolding.” This must include
“1888.”

The message of salvation has been preached in

all ages; but this message [the third angel’s
message which in essence is the 1888 view of

63
justification by faith] is a part of the gospel which
could be proclaimed only in the last days, for only
then would it be true that the hour of judgment had
come.

Why is this true?

Because since 1844 we have been living world

history’s cosmic equivalent of Israel’s Day of
Atonement. The “new light” and “new truths” she
speaks of must include a clearer understanding of
justification by faith. It is parallel to Christ’s “new”
work (since 1844) of cleansing the heavenly
sanctuary. What wasn’t truth in Luther’s day has
become truth today—this is the heavenly Day of
Atonement, and of judgment.

“No such message has ever been given in past

ages,” she continues. Hebrews says that Noah
preached “righteousness which is according to
faith” (11:7), but it wasn’t in the light of the
cleansing of the sanctuary. Ellen White continues:
“Paul, as we have seen, did not preach it; he
pointed his brethren into the then far-distant future

64
… The Reformers did not proclaim it.” That also
includes Calvin and the Wesleys.

The only conclusion possible: there is an

understanding of justification by faith that is “new
light” for these last days, a message that must
include “showers from heaven of the latter rain,”
and “the beginning” of the loud cry that will yet
lighten the earth with glory. That is “1888.”

How does it differ? How does it go beyond

Luther?

Although we as Seventh-day Adventists have

made little if any effort to tell the 1888 view to the
Catholic and Protestant world, it resolves the
centuries-old conflict between Calvinism and
Arminianism. It agrees with Calvinism in that
Christ’s work of justification accomplished on His
cross was effective, that is, He accomplished what
He set out to do. It disagrees with Calvinism’s
“limited atonement” confined only to the restricted
“elect.”

65
 It agrees with Arminianism’s insistence that
what Christ accomplished is available to “all men,”
but it disagrees with its insistence that it is only
available, that there is nothing in it effective for
“all men” unless they do something first. “1888”
says that Christ’s sacrifice has touched “every
man” who has ever come into the world because
mankind’s very life is the purchase of His blood.
The Father can make “His sun rise on the evil and
on the good, and send rain on the just and on the
unjust” only because of the “verdict of acquittal”
that Christ has given to “all men” because of the
cross (Matt. 5:45; Rom. 5:15-18, NEB).

E. J. Waggoner told it clearly:

“By the righteousness of One the free gift came

upon all men unto justification of life” [Rom.
5:18]. There is no exception here. As the
condemnation came upon all, so the justification
comes upon all. Christ has tasted death for every
man. He has given Himself for all. Nay, He has
given Himself to every man. The free gift has come
upon all. The fact that it is a free gift is evidence

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that there is no exception. If it came only upon
those who have some special qualification, then it
would not be a free gift.

It is a fact, therefore, plainly stated in the Bible,

that the gift of righteousness and life in Christ has
come to every man on earth. There is not the
slightest reason why every man that has ever lived
should not be saved unto eternal life, except that
they would not have it.

Waggoner made plain that this 1888 view of

justification is not the heresy of Universalism:

“Do you mean to teach universal salvation?”

someone may ask. We mean to teach just what the
Word of God teaches—that “the grace of God hath
appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” Titus
2:11, RV [the Greek sustains this rendering]. God
has wrought out salvation for every man, and has
given it to him; but the majority spurn it and throw
it away. The judgment will reveal the fact that full
salvation was given to every man and that the lost
have deliberately thrown away their birthright

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possession.

The gift is ours to keep. If anyone has not this

blessing, it is because he has not recognized the
gift, or has deliberately thrown it away.

A. T. Jones loved this truth:

All that were in the world were included in

Adam; and all that are in the world are included in
Christ. In other words: Adam in his sin reached all
the world; Jesus Christ, the second Adam, in His
righteousness touches all humanity. … Does the
second Adam’s righteousness embrace as many as
does the first Adam[’s sin]? Look closely. Without
our consent at all, without our having anything to
do with it, we were all included in the first Adam’s
sin; we were there. All the human race were in the
first Adam. What that first Adam, what that first
man, did, meant … involved us. …

Jesus Christ, the second man, took our sinful

nature. He touched us “in all points.” He became
we and died the death. And so in Him, and by that,

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every man that has ever lived upon the earth, and
was involved with the first Adam, is involved in
this, and will live again [1 Cor. 15:22]. …
Therefore, just as far as the first Adam reaches
man, so far the second Adam reaches man. The
first Adam brought man under the condemnation of
sin, even unto death; [so] the second Adam’s
righteousness undoes that, and makes every man
live again.

Why is this truth so important?

1. By recovering the truths of both Calvinism

and Arminianism while rejecting their errors,
“1888” rediscovers the original truth of the cross of
Christ in a way that none of the Reformers were
able in their day to grasp, honest though they were.

2. Thus Christ actually saved the world, and in

doing so, He saved “every man” in a real sense, but
many people did not see it. As Paul says, “The
judicial action, following upon the one offence [of
Adam], issued in a verdict of condemnation, but
the act of grace, following upon so many misdeeds,

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issued in a [judicial] verdict of acquittal. … The
issue of one just act is acquittal and life for all
men” (Rom. 5:16, 18, NEB).

3. “1888” grasped this truth. Christ died the

second death for “every man” (Heb. 2:9). Luther
almost reached this truth because he alone of the
Reformers began to understand the nature of man,
but as a whole the Reformation could not grasp it
due to their prevailing belief in natural immortality.
Their name “protestant” became “dead” (Rev. 3:1).

Likewise the Sunday-keeping Evangelicals of

the 1888 era could not grasp it for the same reason.
“The breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of
the love (agape) of Christ was over their heads.
“1888” called Seventh-day Adventists to supply
what was missing.

4. The conclusion: God has entrusted to

Seventhday Adventists a unique understanding of
the cross that with His blessing is yet to lighten the
earth with glory. This cannot be grasped except in
the light of the cleansing of the sanctuary.

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 Long ago the importance was told us of
following Christ by faith into the Second
Apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, and the
tragedy of staying behind:

Those who rose up with Jesus would send up

their faith to Him in the holiest [apartment] and
pray, “Father, give us Thy Spirit.” Then Jesus
would breathe upon them the Holy Ghost. In that
breath was light, power, and much love, joy, and
peace.

I turned to look at the company who were still

bowed before the throne; they did not know that
Jesus had left it. Satan appeared to be by the
throne, trying to carry on the work of God. I saw
them look up to the throne and pray, “Father, give
us Thy Spirit.” Satan would then breathe upon
them an unholy influence; in it there was light and
much power, but no sweet love [agape], joy, and
peace.

Thus we can be exposed to the extremely subtle

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counterfeits of a false holy spirit. Justification by
faith in the light of Daniel 8:14 will save us from
confusion and deception.

5. When an honest heart recognizes this

ultimate truth of what happened on the cross, “the
love [agape] of Christ constrains” (motivates) that
soul to live “henceforth” only for the One who died
our second death for us. The results, in God’s plan,
are phenomenal: all Old Covenant, egocentric
motivation is transcended.

The Sabbath truth, for example, comes into its

own.

In the final loud cry yet to come, for which the

1888 message was only an advance billing, “the
rays of light penetrate everywhere, the truth is seen
in its clearness, and the honest children of God
sever the bands which have held them. Family
connections, church relations, are powerless to stay
them now. Truth is more precious than all besides.
… A large number take their stand upon the Lord’s
side.” That glorious outcome to the gospel

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commission was what the Lord intended “us” to
see in the 1888 era. But rejecting (“in a great
degree”) the beginning of the latter rain was a
spiritual abortion.

The Old Covenant motivation of fear will not

figure in this closing work. “The grace of God that
brings salvation … teaches us to say ‘No’ to
ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live
selfcontrolled, upright and godly lives in this
present age.” Why this ultimate power in soul-
winning? That “grace” is “much more abundant”
and points to the cross: “Our great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ, … gave Himself for us to redeem us
from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a
people that are His very own, eager to do what is
good” (Titus 2:11-14, NIV; not perfection of the
flesh but faith which produces perfection of
Christlike character).

6. According to Ellen White’s divinely inspired

prophecy in The Great Controversy, our
denominational evangelism has yet to come fully
into its own. When we are willing to embrace the

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full truth of biblical justification by faith (with its
concomitant blessings of the New Covenant and
the nearness of our Savior) we will have a message
that will startle modern Evangelical churches.

Then the thrilling Revelation 18 prophecies of

The Great Controversy will be unfolded.

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 Chapter 5

How Close Has Jesus Come

to Us?
Have you ever tried to eat an artificial banana?
If you’re hungry, it looks like the real thing, but it
doesn’t fool the monkeys (I tried to fool them when
I lived in Africa). “1888” pinpoints not only a true
Christ, but also exposes a counterfeit false christ
and a false holy spirit. Truths that make up “1888”
center in this double disclosure.

“1888” proclaimed how close Jesus has come

to us. This makes all the difference in our personal,
day-by-day Christian living (but Satan didn’t like
the idea!).

In the end, there will be only two great “faiths”

in the world: “Babylon” and the Revelation 18
“loud cry ” message that will lighten the earth with
glory.

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 “1888” probed deeply

To get ready for the second coming of Christ

requires that we distinguish the nearness of Jesus
from the popular idea of the Immaculate
Conception of the Virgin Mary. Here is the first
published statement from E. J. Waggoner
following the Minneapolis Conference; it
summarizes it nicely:

We have an exhortation which comprehends all

the injunctions given to the Christian. It is this:
“Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the
heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High
Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” To do this
as the Bible enjoins, to consider Christ continually
and intelligently, just as He is, will transform one
into a perfect Christian, for “by beholding we
become changed” (Heb. 3:1).

Here’s a triple-edged truth: (a) Seeing Jesus

“just as He is” is seeing Him as taking upon His
sinless nature our fallen, sinful nature, but living a
sinless life therein. (b) Receiving Him in this way

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transforms His people into being “perfect,” ready
for Christ’s appearing. (c) This is accomplished not
by a works program, but simply by His people
“beholding” Him “just as He is,” but not as
Babylon portrays Him.

Thus in these few words was encapsulated what

the church had been waiting for ever since the
Midnight Cry of 1844 because in “1888” lay the
beginning of what we had been praying God to
send—the initial outpouring of the “latter rain.”

Simple, but also profound

The popular dogma of the Immaculate

Conception teaches that when the Virgin Mary was
conceived in the womb of her mother, God worked
a miracle to break the genetic DNA that all other
humans have inherited from the fallen Adam. She
was virtually therefore a new creation, as was
mother Eve at creation. But this one was
“unfallen.” She was not a true human being.

This privately invented “Mary” was so “pure”

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that she could not be tempted as all other humans
are—particularly with sexual temptation. We might
say, okay; at last we have a perfectly sinless
woman; so what?

But the problem is her Son: is He also not a

true human being?

In this teaching, the Virgin Mary gave to her

Son Jesus a nature different from ours, which
means that Jesus in His incarnation took only the
sinless nature of Adam before his fall and could not
have been tempted in all points like we are.

In other words, Mary and Jesus were not

descendants of the fallen Adam as are all humans.
And of course this meant that Jesus could not have
been “in all points tempted like as we are,” as
Hebrews 4:15 says. He had to be “exempt” from
having the flesh where our temptations arise and
thus He would be tempted differently (if at all).
This teaching removed Jesus from humanity. This
present-day widely prevalent view has its source in
Romanism.

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 Many see Him only in the cathedral windows
and assume they know Him; but the true Christ has
been hidden from them.

It was simple Bible truth that the 1888

messengers proclaimed

“The [true] gospel of God … concern[s] His

Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the
seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:1-3).
The heavenly angel told Joseph before Jesus’ birth
that His name shall be “‘Immanuel,’ which is
translated, ‘God with us,’” not God far away.

We see Him revealed in this Bible picture:

“What the law [the ten commandments] could not
do in that it was weak through the flesh [that is, our
fallen, sinful], God did by sending His own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He
condemned sin in the flesh [ours, fallen, sinful]”
(Rom. 8:3).

The origin of our world’s problem with sin was

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the claim of Satan when he was “Lucifer” that God
is unfair to maintain His law, for nobody can keep
it— especially humans who are already sinful by
nature (as we all are). The prime exhibit seemed
convincing: after some 4000 years of human
history when Jesus came, not one human had ever
been able to avoid falling into sin. Satan crowed:
“See! I’m right! God is unfair!” If Jesus had
sidestepped the contest by taking the sinless nature
of the unfallen Adam, Satan would forever after
have trumpeted, “Foul! Unfair!” A soldier with a
bulletproof vest is braver than one without.

But the Father gave Jesus a job description

1. Defeat Satan in humanity.

2. Enter the fray where the problem is.
3. Take on Your sinless nature (brought from
heaven), the same fallen, sinful flesh and nature
that all humans have.
4. Then condemn or defeat sin there, in its last
lair in the universe.
5. Deliver the human race from this captivity of
sin.

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 6. Triumph in the “great controversy” over
Satan.

And Jesus did!

With no “exemption,” no “bullet-proof vest,”

Jesus entered into the same arena where we have
all lost the battle. And right here in our human
flesh and human nature He “condemned,” defeated,
outlawed, conquered, crushed, trampled on,
annihilated, excommunicated, destroyed … sin. He
came to where it had taken root—in human flesh.

In our same flesh He won the great controversy

with Satan, opened the gates of heaven for
believing, repenting sinners, and the hearts of
heaven rejoiced.

The next verse tells what will now happen:

“That the righteous requirement of the law might
be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the
flesh but according to the Spirit.”

That phrase “righteous requirement” is one

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word in the original, dikaioma, which means the
righteousness that has its origin in Christ but has
been imparted to the believing human being.

Here again is the cardinal truth of “1888”:

human beings by the faith of Jesus will overcome
sin, “condemn” it in our fallen flesh, and will
become ready in one generation for the second
coming of Jesus—something no other corporate
group has realized in all past history. God had
intended that Christ should return in that 1888-era
generation!

But this is not the heresy of “perfectionism.”

This overcoming victory will not be motivated by
fear or pride, nor by a selfish hope of reward. It
will be the work of grace which abounds much
more than all the sin the devil can invent for these
last days.

Hebrews describes how this works

Inasmuch then as the children [that’s we] have

partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise

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shared in the same, that through death He might
destroy [Greek, paralyze] him who had the power
of death, that is, the devil, and release those who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject
to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to
angels [who have a sinless nature], but He does
give aid to the seed of Abraham (2:14, 15).

Hebrews never suggests that Christ HAD a

sinful nature. He HAD a sinless one; but He “took”
our sinful nature.

Why?

Therefore, in all things He had to be made

LIKE His brethren, that He might be a merciful
and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God,
… for in that He Himself has suffered, being
tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted
(vss. 17-18).

This is the glorious gospel of hope that many

have been hindered from seeing. But the Lord gave
it to Seventh-day Adventists, and Ellen White said

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that “God commanded [it] to be given to the
world.”

It presented a Christ who knows how the sinner

is tempted, and can save Him from the lowest hell.
“We do not have a High Priest who cannot
sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all
points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15).

It has been generally assumed that getting

serious about overcoming sin means only hard,
boring work. But “1888” had only joyful Good
News. Here’s a sample:

Grace is not simply more powerful than is sin.

… This, good as it would be, is not all. … There is
much more power in grace than there is in sin. For
“where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound.” … Let no one ever attempt to serve God
with anything but the present, living power of God,
that makes him a new creature; with nothing but
the much more abundant grace that condemns sin
in the flesh, and reigns through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Then the

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service of God will indeed be “in newness of life”;
then it will be found that His yoke is indeed “easy”
and His burden “light”; then His service will be
found indeed to be with “joy unspeakable and full
of glory.”

Jesus came to the world, and put Himself in the

flesh, just where men are; and met that flesh, just
as it is, with all its tendencies and desires; and by
the divine power which He brought by faith, He
“condemned sin in the flesh,” and thus brought to
all mankind that divine faith which brings the
divine power to man to deliver him from the power
of the flesh and the law of sin, just where he is, and
to give him assured dominion over the flesh, just as
it is.

He who takes God for the portion of his

inheritance, has a power working in him for
righteousness, as much stronger than the power of
inherited tendencies to evil, as our heavenly Father
is greater than our earthly parents.

When people receive such a message

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wholeheartedly, will it not prepare them for the
coming of Jesus when they will be caught up to
meet Jesus without dying (that’s the meaning of the
word “translation”)? (See 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. Enoch
and Elijah were “translated” without dying; Heb.
11:5, 2 Kings 2:11.) There will also be an
innumerable corporate crowd who have learned to
follow wherever the Lamb leads (Rev. 14:1-6).

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 Chapter 6

The “Good Shepherd” Idea

Before “1888” “we” had “preached the law, the
law, until we [were] as dry as the hills of Gilboa,
that had neither dew nor rain.” No one overtly
denied the “Good Shepherd” idea—that Christ
actively seeks and saves the lost rather than waiting
for us to seek and find Him; but during those pre-
1888 years we lacked what later came as “a most
precious message.” The gospel was far better Good
News than “we” had thought it could be.

No one among us today will deny the parable

of the Good Shepherd. But the idea seldom gets
through clearly.

For example, consider the basic theme that

permeates so much of what we hear in pulpits, and
at camp meetings: in order to be saved there are
three things we must do: (1) read the Bible, (2)
pray, and (3) witness. The theme is played almost
endlessly. “Maintain your relationship with the
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Lord,” which means get up in the morning, read
something devotional, and pray. And the cure for
spiritual maladies is “work for others.”

True, 100%. Can’t be said too often. But a few

weeks after camp meeting, we get busy again, and
we’re back in the same old problem of
lukewarmness.

“Maintaining that relationship” with the Lord is

the problem

Once we get far enough along that we have

what we think is a “relationship,” it’s commonly
understood that maintaining it is the believer’s job.
And that seems to make good sense, for hasn’t the
Lord done His part of the job, so now it’s only fair
that we do ours. There have to be some “good
works.” We must make our contribution, is the
idea.

And here’s where we often fall down. We

forget or we get too busy, and then it seems the
Lord is far away. And of course it’s all our fault,

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isn’t it? So, … enter Old Covenant guilt.

The pre-1888 Church was a working church.

“Our” activity was almost frenetic. The Review
and Herald and the Pacific Press were churning out
literature, our evangelists were pitching tents and
holding evangelistic “efforts,” stirring up the
Sunday-church pastors and frequently raising up a
little new church at the close of the campaign. We
almost invariably won each debate that we got into
over “the law and the Sabbath.” A great spirit of
triumphalism seemed to indicate that the Lord was
pleased with our progress.

The Review was one of the finest, if not the

finest of religious publishing houses in the nation.
The Battle Creek Sanitarium was world-famous;
kings came across the Atlantic to go to it. We were
finding a place on the map and our people rejoiced
in “the blessed hope” of Christ coming soon.

But still our message was “dry,” confessed

Ellen White. Ever since Early Writings was written
(1850) we had been praying for the Lord to send

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the “latter rain.” And now at last in 1888 He did so
with refreshing advance “showers” in a message
that startled and even alarmed “us.” It was
surprising because it majored in revealing Christ as
a Savior who does not wait for us either to initiate
or to maintain a “relationship” with Him. The
spotlight shone on a divine love that takes both
initiatives. And there is where we became scared:
this is going to upset our devotion to the Sabbath.

What is Christ doing?

God is not hiding in a celestial office where we

must seek Him out. He’s not like a doctor in his
sanctum sanctorum where the nurse keeps you out
until you have an appointment. Rather, the message
is shocking, even to us today: your salvation does
not depend on your perseverance or hard work in
seeking the Lord. The Savior takes the initiative in
seeking you. This has been hard for us to humble
ourselves and grasp. Paul quoted Moses:

“The man who does those things shall live by

them.” But the righteousness of faith speaks in this

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way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who wil ascend
into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down from
above) or “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’”
(that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what
does it say? “The word is near you, even in your
mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith
which we preach).

Christ in His earthly life was human as we are,

dependant on His Father, and it’s amazing but true
that the Father took the initiative in seeking His
Son day by day to maintain a closeness with
Himself.

Jesus speaks of Himself in Isaiah: “The Lord

God … awakens Me morning by morning, He
awakens My ear to hear as the learned. The Lord
God has opened My ear” (50:4, 5). Jesus didn’t
need an alarm clock. Does the Father love us as
much as He loved His Son?

The Holy Spirit does for us all that the Father

did for Jesus. Shocking as it seems to many, He
seeks to maintain our closeness with Christ. He

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prompts us continually. Our problem is revealed in
the next part of Isaiah’s verse: “And I was not
rebellious, nor did I turn away.” In contrast, that is
what we often do. We repulse the initiative that the
Holy Spirit takes in our behalf. (Peterson
represents Jesus as saying, “The Master, God,
opened My ears, and I didn’t go back to sleep,
didn’t pull the covers over My head,” vs. 5.)

As we look back, something special seems to

have been developing when “1888” came along.
Jesus Christ the Savior was progressing in His
closeness with His church. He was wanting to
pursue His church as a lover pursues a bride-to-be.
Seldom in society does the man wait for the
woman he loves to take the initiative. Probably
unknown to the corporate body or to the church,
something was moving down the verses of
Revelation 19 and had come as far as the time for
verses 7 and 8. It was now time to “rejoice,” for
something must happen that had never before
happened in history: “the marriage of the Lamb is
come, and His wife has made herself ready.”

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 After centuries and millennia of human history
we had come to Daniel’s “time of the end;” but
something was involved we weren’t prepared for.
Living in “the time of the end” meant that verses 7
and 8 of Revelation 19 had to be fulfilled in the
progressive Christian experience of the church as a
body. We can’t continue static in “the time of the
end” forever; Revelation 19 has to move on to
fulfillment. We can’t stall the progress of sacred
history. “The marriage of the Lamb is come and
His wife has made herself ready.” But she hadn’t
done it, yet.

What can happen that will effect this grand

paradigm development?

In all past ages “the Lamb’s wife” has never

“made herself ready.” She has always been the
flower girl at the wedding, never the bride. But she
has to grow up; you can’t stay a child forever.

How can the heavenly Bridegroom get His

church’s attention? By burning down the Review
offices and the grand Battle Creek Sanitarium?

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(This all happened after the 1901 General
Conference Session.) Can He bring His people to
attention by an unprecedented fear-motivated
demand for holy living? The answer has to be in
the text: “To her [His bride-to-be] was granted that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and
white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints” (vs. 8).

No, the means the Lord will employ will not be

a thunderclap from heaven or an earthquake, but a
tender, quiet, heart-warming message of “the
righteousness of saints.” A message that woos the
heart—“righteousness by faith,” the Bridegroom
coming close in an appeal, a gentle touch of truth.

The Jews in Christ’s day expected the Messiah

to come with a thunderclap and earthquake, for
many Old Testament prophecies seemed to say so.
The Jews were not prepared that He came gently, a
Babe born in Bethlehem, a questioning Lad in the
temple when He was only 12, a modest healing
ministry in Galilee, a message of Good News
beatitudes preached on a grassy hillside. Many

94
leaders were so shocked, they never recovered their
spiritual equilibrium until they rejected and
crucified Him. Ellen White often said (over 100
times) that our reaction to “1888” was “just like the
Jews.” It was Jesus taking us by the hand and
saying, Come, let’s go to the wedding!

As a divine Bridegroom, His initiating love was

so strong that Ellen White for the first time in her
writing career said that He would lead us all the
way to consummation of the wedding if we didn’t
“resist” Him. Listening herself to the 1888 message
prompted her to formulate this astounding thought.

It was the essence of the message of Jones and

Waggoner regarding righteousness by faith. In
brief:

1. The motivation was the cross and the love

revealed there—not a theological exercise, but a
wooing message. When it was allowed to get
through to the youth and the church members, the
results were spectacular. Ellen White had seen
nothing like it since the Midnight Cry of 1844. For

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example, the messengers didn’t harp on tithe-
paying, but huge tithe flowed in, unasked for.
Human hearts were beginning to respond in a
phenomenal way.

2. “1888” presented what Christ has already

accomplished for us. Again, it was a wooing
message: emphasis was on the Good Shepherd’s
infinite dangers He went through “where He found
His sheep that was lost.” As Christ was lifted up as
the Lamb of God, true to His promise He was
“drawing all persons” to Himself. His death for us
was the equivalent of the second death. He had
“poured out His soul unto death,” even the second.

In the meetings held after Minneapolis, there

was something different from many of our Weeks
of Prayer or evangelistic meetings today: “There
was no urging or inviting. The people were not
called forward, but there was a solemn realization
that Christ came not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance.” It was something new in
Adventism— yes, in modern Christianity.

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 3. Christ was presented as carrying the world
on His heart. The message said nothing about
Arminianism or Calvinism, yet it transcended and
solved the anomalies in both. It was designed by
Heaven to grip the attention of sincere people in
the popular churches who sensed that the time had
come for something new. Startling as it might be,
the atonement was effected for the world; Christ
had died the second death for every man’s sin, had
“tasted death for every man” (Heb. 2:9). The
Savior had become the “last Adam.” He had
reversed what the first Adam did in bringing a
“judicial verdict of condemnation” on “all men,”
and had effected for the same “all men” a judicial
verdict of “acquittal” (Rom. 5:15-18, NEB). Now
was revealed the way to grip hearts and bring
conviction of the Sabbath truth. Now the
predictions of Early Writings and The Great
Controversy regarding the final inflow of souls
were to meet fulfillment. It was exciting to be
alive, and Ellen White was overjoyed.

4. The message revealed that the Savior had

answered thousands of questions when He declared

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that His “yoke is easy and [His] burden is light,”
and that it’s “hard” to resist and oppose such love.
Can you imagine the shock that ideas like this
could have had on ministers and people who heard
these things but had assumed that this little sect of
Seventh-day Adventists were legalists? Here was
forming in minds and hearts a deep conviction that
Jesus is a Shepherd seeking us, striding past all the
barriers that human prejudice has erected. Here is a
Divine Suitor who is taking bold steps to His
Beloved’s heart.

5. The message portrayed Jesus as intimately

near, “Emmanuel, God with us.” Never since Paul
had anyone presented so forcefully the reality of a
Savior who “took” on His sinless nature our fallen,
sinful nature, and had therein “condemned sin in
the flesh.” The Bridegroom has come fresh from
the battle where He has been proclaimed Victor!
The gargantuan Conflict of the Ages has been won!
In human flesh! Now the Bride can enter into His
feelings, can share with Him His triumph, as a
bride enters into her husband’s heroic career. In the
promised intimacy, all fear is “cast out” (agape

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does that! 1 John 4:18). Hearts would be won to
want to “overcome even as [He] overcame” (Rev.
3:20). The stage was re-set.

6. Now at last, after years of being as “dry as

the hills of Gilboa,” Adventism was thrilled with
the New Covenant succeeding the Old. No other
identification is so apt for describing the impact of
“1888.” It was like a black and white photo
suddenly shining in radiant color. At last here is a
message of Christ’s righteousness that’s big time,
one with stature that can lighten the earth with
glory. The millions immersed in the darkness of
“Babylon” will “see a great light” (cf. Matt. 4:16).

Ellen White sat over on one side in front at the

Minneapolis Church as she listened, her face
beaming. Never had she heard such truth come
publicly from human lips, for 45 years.

The lost lamb is wedged in the thorn bush on a

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 dangerous cliff that wild stormy night

Will it rejoice when it is rescued by the

selfsacrificing Good Shepherd? Or will it squirm
and resist and fight its Rescuer? The parable didn’t
say. It’s for us to complete the story, for the lost
little lamb has resisted its Shepherd now for many,
many years.

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 Chapter 7

“1888” and Obedience

Some earnest people ask, does “1888” weaken
obedience? A wise woman had said that “we have
preached the law, the law, until we are as dry as the
hills of Gilboa.” “We” thought we were doing
great, fulfilling Revelation 12:17 and 14:12; we
were the wonderful “remnant” distinguished by
“keeping the commandments of God.”

Then came “1888.”

Now the question arises, How does that relate

to God’s law? Is “1888’s” grace cheap grace? Does
it encourage disobedience to the law of God?
Lower church standards? Fixate on the grace of
Christ and what happened at the cross to the
neglect of our “works”?

We know Ellen White was overjoyed to hear it

She said it was the clearest presentation of the

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gospel she had heard publicly “for the past forty-
five years.” She also said that if those two young
messengers had not brought the message, we just
wouldn’t have had it, meaning that the Lord had
laid a burden on them He had not laid on her. If in
any way their message weakens obedience to
God’s law, it cannot be “precious,” let alone “most
precious.”

What made her so happy was that at last it set

the law before the people in its true light. The
young messengers’ understanding was fresh,
unique, dynamic. She was painfully aware that the
Sundaykeeping Evangelical churches denigrated
God’s law, declaring either that it had been
abolished at the cross or was impossible for us
humans to obey. Either way, the popular view of
justification by faith was employed to refute the
Sabbath truth. She rejoiced that “1888” finally
portrayed the ten commandments as ten promises
upholding heart-obedience.

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 “1888” was clear in this understanding

1. Justification by faith is far more than a

legal declaration. The “judicial verdict” of
“acquittal for all men” was made at the cross (John
12:32, 33; Rom. 3:23, 24; 5:15-18). Anything
accomplished there cannot be restricted or denied
to anyone because Christ’s sacrifice was universal.
“1888” took a giant step further: faith in Jesus
makes the believer become “obedient to all the
commandments of God.” (This cut through the
Gordian knot of thousands of anti-Sabbath
harangues.)

2. Justification by faith now becomes a

purely personal experience. The heart of the one
who believes is reconciled at-one with God. And
furthermore: since no one can be reconciled to God
and at the same time not be reconciled to God’s
holy law, it follows that genuine justification by
faith makes the believer demonstrate “obedience to
all the commandments of God.”

That of course includes the Sabbath

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commandment (but it also includes obedience to
the troublesome seventh!). Fornication and
adultery are not to be “named” among those who
prepare for Christ’s second coming (Eph. 5:3).
Ellen White was especially concerned: a minister
who breaks the seventh commandment “is a traitor
of the worst type. From one such tainted, polluted
mind the youth often receive their first impure
thoughts. … A second trial would be of no avail
…”

3. Thus “1888” was the first powerful

message in Adventism that joined “the faith of
Jesus” to God’s law. It produces the kind of non-
egocentric obedience that will enable “His people
to stand in the day of God.” That’s why it was the
initial “showers from heaven of the latter rain” and
“the beginning” of Revelation 18:1-4 that will
close the great gospel commission.

4. All “obedience” which is motivated by

fear of punishment or by a hope of reward
comes far short of the genuine. It’s the
“righteousness” of the Pharisees. Outward

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compliance with the law when the heart is un-
reconciled is the lukewarmness-plague of the world
“church of the Laodiceans.” This was the problem
which “the Lord in His great mercy” sought to heal
by sending “1888.” That’s why the New Covenant
was its focal point of controversy with the elders.

5. Thus Jones and Waggoner caught a vision

of the cross in the third angel’s message. They
glimpsed a bit of the light that will lighten the earth
at last.

6. But we must beware of counterfeits. Some

years ago a great movie reveled in the violence of
Calvary, but those tears it evoked were human
emotion, easily aroused; the crying audiences went
out of the theaters as world-loving as they entered.
The movie could not portray “Jesus” in reality as
dying the second death for the sins of the world.
Since the movie, we still have a work to do. That
blessed truth is still left for flesh-and-blood people
to tell!

7. But can we emphasize too much what

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happened on the cross and lull people to neglect
obedience to the law? We have this answer (Ellen
White is speaking of “1888”):

The theme that attracts the heart of the sinner is

Christ, and Him crucified. … Present Him thus to
the hungering multitudes, and the light of His love
will win [people] from darkness to light, from
transgression to obedience and true holiness.
Beholding Jesus upon the cross of Calvary arouses
the conscience to the heinous character of sin as
nothing else can do.

That phrase “as nothing else can do” must

include our famous preaching “the law, the law,
until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa.” “We”
learned a better way in “1888.” But the future still
awaits lighting the earth with glory.

8. Never in history has a message more

powerfully demonstrated obedience to God’s
holy law. A century-plus ago many were afraid
that too much “grace” would undermine the law.
But Paul says that nothing but proclaiming that

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“grace of God” can teach us to “say No to
ungodliness, and worldly passions, and to live self-
controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present
age” (Titus 2:11, NIV). Fear won’t do it; hope for
heavenly real estate won’t do it; only Christ’s grace
can do it.

9. This generation must decide: shall we

proclaim the New Covenant, or the Old? The
former proclaims “liberty to the captives,” the
latter, “bondage” (cf. Gal. 4:24). One proclaims the
ten commandments as ten promises, the other as
ten fear-laden negative burdens.

10. “Godly fear” is appropriate for any

truehearted Christian. But the love that is agape
casts out craven fear (1 John 4:18). Jesus describes
a group who will appear before Him in judgment at
last who think they have “kept the
commandments,” but Jesus must tell them
sorrowfully, “I never knew you” (Matt. 7:21, 22).
What could have gone wrong? Their good “works”
were “wonderful.”

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 Paul helps us understand what went wrong:
these dear people had misunderstood what true
commandment-keeping is. It does include
Sabbathkeeping, health reform, tithe-paying, all the
good works we can think of; but it fails to be true
obedience unless it is motivated by agape: “Love
[agape] does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love
[agape in the original] is the fulfillment of the law”
(Rom. 13:10; the Greek construction could be
understood as implying that agape alone is the
fulfillment of the law). Only proclaiming Christ
and Him crucified can motivate that fulfillment.

Again, popular Christianity, which teaches

salvation in sin rather than from it, fails to grasp
agape because of their natural immortality of the
soul belief. We have something wonderful to tell, a
mission most exciting.

When I stated before my brethren that I had

heard for the first time the views of Elder E. J.
Waggoner, some did not believe me. I stated that I
had heard precious truths uttered that I could
respond to with all my heart, for had not these great

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and glorious truths, the righteousness of Christ and
the entire sacrifice made in behalf of man, been
imprinted indelibly on my mind by the Spirit of
God? Has not this subject been presented in the
testimonies again and again? When the Lord had
given to my brethren the burden to proclaim this
message I felt inexpressibly grateful to God, for I
knew it was the message for this time. The third
angel’s message is the proclamation of the
commandments of God and the faith of Jesus
Christ. The commandments of God have been
proclaimed, but the faith of Jesus Christ has not
been proclaimed by Seventh-day Adventists as of
equal importance, the law and the gospel going
hand in hand. I cannot find language to express this
subject in its fullness.—Selected Messages, book 3,
p. 172 (emphasis supplied).

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 Chapter 8

Why “1888” Differs From

Sunday-Keeping
“Righteousness by Faith”
The Seventh-day Adventist Church didn’t just
“happen” as an accident of history. The Lord raised
it up to proclaim a message most vital since
Pentecost: to prepare people for the close of
probation and the second coming of Christ. This
meant translation without seeing death!

A monumental task! Never been done before in

history.

Modern Protestantism is confused with twin

enthusiasms, one for Pentecostalism, and the other
for Roman Catholicism. Is it possible that an
apparently obscure message “sent” to us 120 years
ago can be meaningful to this generation?

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 Ellen White says yes, and it’s Bible

Often “we” have assumed officially that

“1888” was only a re-emphasis of popular Sunday-
keeping ideas of the gospel, and our job is to
hammer away on the law, the law, and let them
proclaim the gospel; or at least, let us borrow it
from them.

Even today, here is what is commonly believed

among us (from a foremost official voice about
“1888”):

The importance of the 1888 message was not

some special Adventist doctrine of justification by
faith developed by Jones and Waggoner. Rather, it
was the reuniting of Adventism with basic
Christian beliefs on salvation.

Is it true, as some have claimed, that the 1888

message of righteousness by faith is a unique
Adventist message? [The answer implied is no.]
Whatever the message was, Paul, Luther, and
Wesley shared and preached it.

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 If that is true, the message of course was not
special; consequently many have assumed that
“1888” should be forgotten.

In fact, that’s precisely what’s happening. And

because of the Evangelicals’ missing link in
understanding “1888,” it’s far beyond what they
can grasp, sincere as they were then and are today.
But when we Seventh-day Adventists deny that
“1888” is special, we expose our own people to a
grave danger. The current Dale Ratzlaff movement
is an example, for he could never have gone the
way he has, if he had known “1888.” All through
his extensive Seventh-day Adventist education
from the cradle roll to the Seminary heights, he
was deprived of knowing “1888.” It’s hungry
animals that fight, and it’s hungry people who
create offshoots. (Even to this day the Theological
Seminary offers no “101” in the 1888 message.)

Luther and the other Reformers were not able

in their day to grasp the message, and likewise the
Evangelicals of today. They were and are good

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people, but there is something they simply cannot
see. The Reformers couldn’t see it, as it was before
their day; and Protestants in general today haven’t
seen it because of their absorption in the doctrine
of natural immortality. (And we haven’t made it
clear to them; our Questions on Doctrine that was
supposed to do that job fifty years ago failed.)

The reason is, says Ellen White in a brilliant

statement about Evangelicalism:

They have no knowledge of the way into the

most holy [apartment of the heavenly sanctuary].
… Like the Jews, who offered their useless
sacrifices [after Calvary], they offer up their
useless prayers to the apartment which Jesus has
left.

How does the 1888 message go beyond Luther,

Calvin, the Reformers, and modern
Evangelicals?

Arminianism was a protest or “Remonstrance”

against Calvinism (and Lutheranism), in 1610.

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Take Calvinism as an example. It summarizes its
popular doctrines with the acronym TULIP:

T, “Total Depravity.” Sounds true but it’s a

distortion of human sinfulness. In contrast, “1888”
recognizes the total involvement of all of us in the
sin of crucifying Christ, but this is not “total
depravity,” it’s total corporate guilt.

We see this laid bare in “our” own enmity

against the “most precious message” when “we”
“in a great degree” rejected it as the Jews rejected
Christ. That was our corporate sin, and Calvin was
trying to express it but couldn’t quite understand.

U, “Unconditional Election.” This is the idea

that if God has decreed you to be one of the few He
has planned to save, you can never be lost for any
reason. In effect it revises the Lord’s prayer to say,
not “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven,”
but Thy will must and will be done … .” This again
is a subtle distortion of a “most precious” truth.
God has “elected all men” to be saved and they
will be, unless they interpose a rebellious will to

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contradict His election. But this greater truth does
not encourage disobedience. Faith in the Lord’s
“election” motivates to total harmony with Him in
obedience.

If we let the Lord have His way, He will lead

us all the way into His eternal kingdom. All the
devils in hell cannot keep one out unless he
chooses to reject His “election.” In restoring to us
our freedom of choice, Christ permits us to nullify
and defeat God’s purpose of love for us if we
choose. “The sinner may resist this love, he may
refuse to be drawn to Christ, but if he does not
resist, he will be drawn to Jesus” (Steps to Christ,
p. 27; Ellen White wrote this astounding statement
for the first time shortly after 1888). Thousands of
Seventh-day Adventists who worry about their
personal salvation need to understand this
reasonable and common-sense truth of biblical
“election.” Everybody needs it also.

L, “Limited Atonement.” This again is a

subtle denial of a “most precious” truth. It really
ends up meaning that Christ did not die for every

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one of us, but only for those few who are the
“elect.” In contrast, “1888” sees that Christ has
purchased the gift of salvation for “all men” and
has given the gift to them “in Himself.” Romans 5
describes it as a “judicial … verdict of acquittal …
for all men” (vss. 15-18). God wants all to be saved
and before the foundation of the world He
predestined all to be saved (Eph. 1:3-6).

But some will allow only that the Savior has

“offered” the gift to “all men,” but has not given it,
until they do something first to believe and accept
it. In other words, with this Calvinist idea, our
salvation is ultimately due to our own initiative.
But “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto
Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto
them”—all this done at the cross before you and I
came along (2 Cor. 5:19).

Christ has “tasted death [the second] for every

man” (Heb. 2:9), which can only mean that He has
paid the full price to save “every man.” This went
beyond popular Adventism of its day and of ours,
declaring that Christ has not only offered salvation

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to all, but has actually given the gift, placing it in
every man’s hand, as it were. He became “the
Savior of the world” (John 4:42), “the Savior of all
men, especially of those that believe” (2 Tim.
4:10). Not merely would-like-to-be.

It’s a breath-taking idea, and shocking, but it’s

Bible. Those who are lost at last have made their
true name to be “Esau.” He had the “birthright;” he
didn’t need to do anything to obtain it, but he
“despised” and “sold” what God had placed in his
hands (Gen. 25:34; Heb. 12:16). What Christ did is
a free, full atonement given in a legal sense to “all
men.”

The only alternative is a “limited atonement.”

If Christ didn’t truly save you when He “saved the
world,” then you have been short-changed by a
“limited atonement”! Move on into unlimited
grace!

I, “Irresistible Grace.” Again, we are face to

face with a subtle distortion of “most precious”
truth. Grace is far greater than “the carnal mind”

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has been willing to recognize. “Where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom.
5:20). We’ve been quick to see how powerful are
temptations to sin, but slow to see that the grace of
Christ is far stronger than they are. When prayer
meeting time comes, the temptation to stay home
and watch TV seems strong; but the problem is not
the strength of the temptation. It’s that we don’t see
how much stronger is that grace.

Calvinism came close—grace is almost

irresistible if one understands the “width and length
and depth and height … [of] the agape of Christ
which passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:17-19). But it
can still be resisted. When we preach “the law, the
law, until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa” that
grace is “frustrated” (Gal. 2:21, KJV). The result?
Frustrated grace produces “lukewarmness” that
everywhere permeates the worldwide church. But
the agape of Christ, understood, “constrains” or
motivates to endless devotion.

Our lukewarmness is a consequence of keeping

back from our people (“in a great degree”) this

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“most precious message.”

P, “Perseverance of the Saints.” The idea is

that once you are saved, you can or will never fall.
“1888” tells us not to look at the “perseverance of
the saints,” but look at the perseverance of Christ.
And here is another “most precious” truth often
clouded by a remnant of Babylonian confusion. It
has been preached for decades that the Lord gets us
started in a “relationship,” but then it’s up to us to
“maintain it” by three duties: “(1) prayer, (2) Bible
study, and (3) witnessing,” all excellent things to
do. But not as works-righteousness.

A doctor brings a baby into the world, but then

does not back off and leave it to survive on its own,
but he places it in the arms of a mother. The truth
in the Bible is that Christ not only initiates this
saving “relationship,” He seeks to maintain it as
well. That’s what seems difficult to grasp: does He
love us that much? Is His grace so great that you
can be lost only if you resist Him and beat Him
off? But that’s what Ellen White has just said a
moment ago.

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 His love is far greater than is usually
comprehended because it is agape, which “never
fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). The idea is entwined with what
Jesus means in Matthew 11:30, “My yoke is easy,
and My burden is light.” The idea many serious
youth have is that it’s “hard” to be saved and
“easy” to be lost—the result of neglecting the
grand dimensions of that agape which “passes
knowledge.”

Again, this is the result of not recognizing that

the “most precious” truths of 1888 were a giant
step beyond what 16th century Reformers and
contemporary Sunday-keeping Evangelicals have
believed.

If we could grasp how the gospel is better Good

News than we have been content to know, it would
be impossible for us to lose so many of our youth.
All too often they have the vague idea that their
salvation is up to themselves, and we have
regarded it as dangerous to emphasize too much
the agape of Christ and His perseverance, His

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“much more abounding” grace, lest we weaken the
fear motivation to keep the commandments. (All
which of course is Old Covenant inspired.) But
another question remains.

Does Arminianism embrace “1888”?

It was indeed a giant step closer to the true

gospel, and the Wesleys grasped it. But again
Arminianism comes short of the light the Lord
wanted us to see in 1888.

Jacobus Arminius was a wonderful man, but

the Lord had not given him the final outpouring of
the latter rain. Arminius wasn’t ready for it. But
God’s time was ready in 1888, because He wanted
the gospel commission completed in that
generation, and the heavenly Bridegroom longed
for “the marriage of the Lamb” to come then.

The famous Arminian Remonstrance of 1610

failed to grasp the full extent of what Christ
accomplished by His sacrifice. It declared that
“God from all eternity past determined to save all

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who believe in Jesus and to leave the incorrigible
and unbelieving in sin and under wrath.” It sounds
perfect, but think again: “God so loved the world
… ” “God our Savior … will have all men to be
saved.” He “is the Savior of all men, especially of
those who believe.” He never “determined to leave
anyone under wrath.” Those who are “left” there
are only those who leave Him, on their own and
choose it. Arminianism came short.

Let’s not marvel that the brethren in the 17th

century couldn’t yet grasp how good the Good
News is. The world needed “the third angel’s
message in verity” to come.

Further, the Remonstrance declared that

although “Christ died for and obtained redemption
and forgiveness of sins for all, … those benefits are
effective only for those who believe on Christ.”
Again, it sounds perfect, until we grasp the grander
truth that every “benefit” that any one anywhere
has ever enjoyed has already been the purchase of
the cross of Christ. “Never one, saint or sinner, eats
his daily food, but he is nourished by the body and

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the blood of Christ. The cross of Christ is stamped
on every loaf. … Every meal [becomes] a
sacrament” (The Desire of Ages, p. 660). This truth
is the essence of the final loud cry message that
will lighten the earth with glory. The sacrifice of
Christ has already given every human being all the
“benefit” he has ever enjoyed!

Arminianism further cemented their limited

view of the grace of God in “the [later] Opinion of
the Remonstrants.” It declared again that “no one
becomes an actual partaker of the benefits of the
death of Christ except by faith.” They just couldn’t
yet see that Desire of Ages page-660-idea of
everybody eating his daily food because of the
sacrifice of Christ.

Fear is not to be the final motivation

“The last message of mercy to be given to the

world [‘the third angel’s message in verity’] is a
revelation of His character of love” (Christ’s
Object Lessons, p. 415). Modern man immersed in
wild selfseeking will at last be shown clearly that

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all his “fun,” his wealth, even his next breath, has
been purchased and given to him. He has already
enjoyed it all because Christ has died his second
death. He will then either believe humbly and
thankfully with a total dedication of his all to the
Savior and will receive “the seal of God,” or he
will choose to disbelieve and then enforce the mark
of the beast.

Whatever may be the spiritual condition of the

remnant church, it is safe to say that the twin
current popular phenomena in Evangelicalism of
(a) Pentecostalism and (b) Roman Catholicism
shouts to us that the final outcome must be near.

In yielding up His precious life, Christ was not

upheld by triumphant joy. All was oppressive
gloom. It was not the dread of death that weighed
upon Him. It was not the pain and ignominy of the
cross that caused His inexpressible agony. Christ
was the prince of sufferers; but His suffering was
from a sense of the malignity of sin, … He knew
that without help from God, humanity must perish,
and He saw multitudes perishing within reach of

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abundant help. Upon Christ as our substitute and
surety was laid the iniquity of us all. The guilt of
every descendant of Adam was pressing upon His
heart. … But now with the terrible weight of guilt
He bears, He cannot see the Father’s reconciling
face. The withdrawal of the divine countenance
from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish
pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be
fully understood by man. So great was this agony
that His physical pain was hardly felt. …

Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken

of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup
of human woe. … By faith He rested in Him whom
it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in
submission He committed Himself to God, the
sense of the loss of His Father’s favor was
withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor.—The
Desire of Ages, pp. 752, 753; 756

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 Chapter 9

Cleansing the Sanctuary: Our

Job, or Christ’s?
He promises that if there is an ounce of honesty
in our souls “you will know the truth, and the truth
will make you free” (John 8:32). Telling it is His
specialty: “I will pour out My spirit on you; I will
make My words known to you” (Prov. 1:23).
Especially true in this Day of Atonement is this:
“When He, the Spirit of truth is come, He will
guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).

Good news!

He will put His feeding trough down so low

that lambs can reach it. If He “sent a most precious
message” that was the start of the latter rain,
wouldn’t He make it possible for any sincere
person to understand?

“1844” tells what God is doing in this cosmic

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Day of Atonement. An angel told Daniel, “Unto
two thousand and three hundred days; then shall
the sanctuary be cleansed” (8:14, KJV). That was
2300 literal years which ended in 1844 when Christ
began His final Day of Atonement work. While
this happens in heaven, on earth three angels
preach (Rev. 14:6-12).

But after all these years spanning three

centuries, “every nation, kindred, tongue, and
people” still wait to be gripped by the message.
These three “fly in the midst of heaven” like a
helicopter over the treetops. But they’re not the
end: “Another angel,” a fourth, “comes down from
heaven, having great power” like a spaceship so
“the earth [can be] lightened with his glory” (Rev.
18:1-4). That’s where “1888” comes into its own.

It figures with “1844” in this scenario because

it marked the “beginning” of that fourth angel’s
message, as William Miller’s preaching in 1831
marked the beginning of that first angel’s message.

Common sense would say that there must be

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some special spiritual nutriments in the fourth
message.

1. The gospel has built-in truth that prepares

a believer for Christ’s coming as it is
understood in Day of Atonement context.

Not one soul has been “translated” (going to

heaven without dying, like Enoch and Elijah) under
Christ’s ministry in the First Apartment of the
heavenly sanctuary. Spiritual nutriments or
“medicine” from the tree of life in the final
ministry of Christ are needed. They accomplish
what has never yet been done in the last 2000
years. That’s what Ellen White claimed was God’s
intention in sending “1888.” It had to be “new
light,” which had never been clearly perceived in
the past.

2. “1888” was a break-through that all the

world, including Protestants and Catholics,
would have been amazed to see if “we” had let it
get to them.

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 Just as the Jews of Christ’s day (yes, even His
disciples) could not foresee the grand dimensions
of their calling, so we Seventh-day Adventists have
been slow to see the burst of light to come with that
“other angel” of Revelation 18. It was “sent” to us
but “we” blocked it.

3. In imagination let’s join a congregation

gathered in 1893 to listen to a sobering sermon
on the living message:

“Some of the brethren … came here free; but

the Spirit of God brought up something they never
saw before, … and revealed things they never saw
before; and then, instead of thanking the Lord that
that was so, and letting the whole wicked business
go, and thanking the Lord that they had ever so
much more of Him than they ever had before, they
began to get discouraged. They said, ‘Oh what am I
going to do? My sins are so great.’ There they let
Satan cast a cloud over them, and throw them into
discouragement, and they get no good out of the
meetings day after day. …

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 “If the Lord has brought up sins to us that we
never thought of before, that only shows that He is
going down to the depths, and He will reach the
bottom at last; and when He finds the last thing that
is unclean or impure that is out of harmony with
His will, and brings that up, and shows that to us,
and we say, ‘I would rather have the Lord than
that’—then the work is complete, and the seal of
the living God can be fixed upon that character.
[Congregation: ‘Amen.’]. …

“Which would you rather, have the

completeness, the perfect fullness, of Jesus Christ,
or have less than that, with some of your sins
covered up that you never know of? … And so He
has got to dig down to the deep places we never
dreamed of, because we cannot understand our
own hearts. … He will cleanse the heart, and bring
up the last vestige of wickedness. Let Him go on,
brethren; let Him keep on His searching work. …

“If the Lord should take away our sins without

our knowing it, what good would it do us? That
would simply be making machines of us. He does

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not propose to do that; consequently, He wants you
and me to know when our sins go, that we may
know when His righteousness comes.”

Do you get the point?

Cleansing the sanctuary is the work the High

Priest does, it’s not what we do. We let Him do it.
And He will do it if we don’t “resist Him.”

The only reason it has not been done long

before this is that we have been “resisting” Him all
this long while.

And didn’t know what we were doing.

Now all the angels in heaven are crying out to

us, it’s time that “1888” be understood.

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 Chapter 10

Adventists and the “Marriage

of the Lamb”
Is Jesus in love with a “woman”? Yes, He is!

It was He who invented sexual love and

marriage. The story has been in the Bible from the
beginning. When Adam was in desperate loneliness
in Eden, the Lord brought Eve to him; He also
foresaw the time when He would comfort His own
loneliness with the “marriage” of a “bride” taken
from His beloved world. Jesus is alone, lonely Man
in heaven; He wants to be with His people.

No woman on earth could be so tall, so

beautiful, so wise, that she could be the bride of the
divine Son of God; the “woman” with whom He is
in such desperate love is a “corporate” woman—a
“body” of humans composed of redeemed sinners
from “every nation, tribe, tongue, and people”
(Rev. 14:6, 7). “She” has grown up from her

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infancy “in Christ” through all the stages from
childhood in which a woman grows up; she has
come at last to a place of maturity where she will
be ready to stand by His side as His “help-meet.”

In Revelation’s picture, she will share with

Him the administration of His new kingdom of
which He has just been crowned “King of kings
and Lord of lords,” for He invites her to sit with
Him on His throne (Rev. 3:21). He can’t rule there
alone! He has to have someone “sit” with Him
whom He can love and trust and respect as a king
regards his queen who shares his reign.

The story through history

When God’s people had wandered away from

Him, Isaiah assured them that God stands toward
Israel as a “husband” (54:5). When Israel rebelled
against Him, he described their infidelity as
“harlotry” (1:21). Jeremiah likens Israel’s infidelity
to a “wife” treacherously departing from her
husband” (3:20). The husband’s brokenheartedness
is implied.

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 Ezekiel spends an entire long chapter
discoursing on Israel’s youth being a time when
she was so charming and beautiful and innocent
that He, wanting to be her husband-to-be, fell in
love with her (16:8; that’s quite a chapter!). Paul
likens Christ’s relationship to His church as that of
a Lover being betrothed (2 Cor. 11:2).

Like a surrealist painting, these vivid scenes

portray the whole of human history and especially
that of God’s people, as a divine-human love affair,
a husband wooing a wife. It’s the back-in-the-
shadows reality that informs Scripture, Old and
New Testaments. In Ephesians Paul shocks
Christians of all ages with the declaration that
agape-love is sexual love: “Husbands, love your
wives [with agape] even as Christ also loved the
church” (5:25); so Christ’s love for the church is a
conjugal love, that of a Lover for the girl who
arouses Him!

This is so shocking that Charles Wesley’s

famous hymn “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” has

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extracted criticism through the years. “Bishop
Wordsworth in the nineteenth century once said it
was ‘inexpressibly shocking,’ and should not be
sung in Westminster Abbey.” Even his brother
John excluded it from his 1780 Large Hymnbook,
“and in other hymnbooks ‘lover’ has been altered
to ‘refuge’ or ‘Saviour.’”

This fear of the humanity of the Savior is

probably due to the widely popular Dogma of the
Immaculate Conception which deprives the Virgin
Mary of a genetic link to the fallen Adam and thus
separates her Son from true identity with humanity.
The reticence even in Seventh-day Adventist
churches to sing Charles Wesley’s hymn probably
derives unconsciously from the same.

Hosea’s painful frustrated love

The prophet dramatically represented a man’s

love for a woman as an example of the love of
Christ for the nation of Israel (2:1-5; 3:1-5). The
tortured prophet stands in history as the preeminent
example of the disappointed but steadfast love of

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man for a woman, because he still loved Gomer
after she played the harlot on him. Hosea could not
forget his love for her, notwithstanding. There must
have been something in her personality, in her
eyes, her soul, that won his devotion throughout
that stormy relationship.

What kept him in love? We say, love, that is,

something in her. But the New Testament word for
such love, agape, is by nature a love that is not
dependent on the goodness, value, or beauty of its
object; how then could Hosea “love” a woman for
any reason but such a “spiritual” non-emotional
reason? But he did; Paul insists that agape is sexual
as well as “spiritual.” Hosea’s love for her was
conjugal, man for woman; it had to be.

He illustrates Christ’s love for His church that

keeps His commandments in the last days. Why
does He single her out to love her, like a man
singles out one from all the world of women to
love?

There must be something about that “body” of

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believers that Revelation designates as “the
remnant,” which “keep the commandments of God
and have the testimony of Jesus Christ,” that has
called forth or has released the conjugal love of
Christ. He wants to marry “her”; and that desire is
a burning one, not to be turned aside. The
disappointment of that love in “1888” was to Him
“beyond description.”

Ezekiel vis-à-vis “1844”

Following Ezekiel’s pattern story of the

lifelong love of Christ for “young” Israel, we could
say that the little group who went through the Great
Disappointment of 1844 were deeply beloved of
Him in this special sense. The “remnant” refused to
give up their faith, confident that the true Holy
Spirit was working in the Midnight Cry. They were
especially dear to His heart (Jesus describes them
in His message to “the angel of the church of the
Philadelphians,” Rev. 3:9, 10).

When new truth came to them such as the

closing of the First Apartment of the heavenly

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sanctuary and the opening of the Second and they
believed, there was an endearing loyalty in His
eyes; then when Rachel Preston brought them the
seventh-day Sabbath truth, they welcomed it
instead of resisting and fighting it (as they did
precious truth forty years later). Then when the
first principles of health reform came, again they
eagerly accepted. On down through the early
history of this people, a special heavenly love affair
was developing. Not since Pentecost has Jesus
found such a group of believers loyal to Him.

Then comes our sad history of “1888.”

And here the Song of Solomon 5:2-8 comes on

stage

The Lover (Christ) has come “home” to His

beloved after a safari; He is tired, lonely, hungry,
wet from the rain. He longs to be with her
intimately. He “knocks” (the Hebrew speaks of it
as banging on the door), and knocks some more.
The woman who is the object of His love disdains
Him, thinks she is too relaxed, having gone to bed

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for the night; why does He bother her now? (The
world is too comfy a place as it is, says the Bride-
to-be of the Lamb.)

Finally, she forgets about her own selfish

comfort and begins to think about Him out there in
the darkness and in the rain, hungry and alone; it is
true, He loves her!

She belatedly gets up and goes to let Him in,

but when she opens the door, He is “gone.”

I slept, but my heart lay waking:

I dreamed—ah! There is my darling knocking!
“Open to me, my own,” he calls,
“my dear, my dove, my paragon [my perfect
one].
My head is drenched with dew [rain],
My hair, with drops of the night.”
But I have doffed my robe; why should I don
it?
My feet are bathed; why should I soil them?
Then my darling put his hand in,
his right hand at the door,

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 And my heart yearned for him.
How my heart fainted when I heard him!
So I rose to let my darling in,
my hands all moist with myrrh,
my fingers wet with liquid myrrh,
that dropped on the catch of the bolt.
I opened to my darling,
But my darling, he had gone.
I sought him, but I could not find him,
I called, he never answered.
—Moffatt

Increasingly, thoughtful people are coming to

see here the story of “our” disdaining the Lord
Jesus in the most precious message of the
beginning of the latter rain. In rejecting it, says the
Lord’s servant, we disdained Christ, just as “the
woman” did her Lover in Song of Solomon 5:3.

Christ’s pathetic appeal in His message to “the

angel of the church of the Laodiceans” (“be
zealous therefore and repent,” Rev. 3:19) is
connected with the Song of Solomon, for His
parting appeal is a direct quotation from it, not

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from the Hebrew text but from the ancient Greek
text, the LXX: “Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. If a certain one [tis, Greek] hears My voice
and opens the door,” … then comes the intimacy.

A yearning Bridegroom longs for the marriage

to come.

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 Appendix
Ellen White Answers Questions About the
Message and the “Messengers”

1. What do you say about “1888”?

“The loud cry of the third angel has already

begun in the revelation of the righteousness of
Christ, the sin-pardoning Redeemer” (The Ellen G.
White 1888 Materials, p. 1073; 1892).

“God meant that the watchmen [church

leadership] should arise and with united voices
send forth a decided message. … Then the strong,
clear light of the other angel who comes down
from heaven having great power [Revelation 18:1-
4] would have filled the earth with his glory … the
very message that God meant should go forth from
the Minneapolis meeting, . … the message of truth
which angels of heaven were seeking to
communicate through human agencies—
justification by faith, the righteousness of Christ”
(pp. 1070, 1071).
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 “Some felt annoyed at this outpouring [of the
Holy Spirit]. … They said: This is only excitement;
it is not the Holy Spirit, not showers from heaven
of the latter rain, … [they] resisted the Spirit of
God at Minneapolis” (pp. 1478, 1479).

2. When you spoke of “1888” as “the

message of Christ’s righteousness,” what unique
concepts did you have in mind?

“We are to show that God’s chosen people will

keep His commandments, refusing to swerve to the
right or to the left in disobedience. … Did the
Saviour take upon Himself the guilt of human
beings and impute to them His righteousness in
order that they might continue to violate the
precepts of Jehovah? No, no! Christ came … to
bring [man] strength to obey the precepts of the
law” (p. 130).

“Divinity took the nature of humanity, and for

what purpose?—that through the righteousness of
Christ humanity might partake of the divine

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nature” (p. 332).

3. What grand purpose do you understand

was in God’s mind when He “sent” us “1888”?

“… obtaining that efficiency which might have

been [ours] in carrying the truth to the world, as the
apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost.
The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its
glory …” (p. 1575).

“Light is flashing from the throne of God, and

what is this for?—It is that a people may be
prepared to stand in the day of God” (Review and
Herald, March 4, 1890).

4. Why didn’t God by-pass Jones and

Waggoner and give the message directly to you?
You had already been acknowledged as “the
Lord’s messenger”!

“The question is, has God sent the truth? Has

God raised up these men to proclaim the truth? I
say, yes, God has sent men to bring us the truth that

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we should not have had unless God had sent
somebody to bring it to us. God has let me have a
light of what His Spirit is, and therefore I accept it,
and I no more dare to lift my hand against these
persons, because it would be against Jesus Christ,
who is to be recognized in His messengers” (p.
608).

5. Could you yourself learn anything from

Jones or Waggoner?

“Dr. Waggoner has spoken to us in a

straightforward manner. There is precious light in
what he has said. … I would have humility of
mind, and be willing to be instructed as a child.
The Lord has been pleased to give me great light,
yet I know that He leads other minds, and opens to
them the mysteries of His Word, and I want to
receive every ray of light that God shall send me,
though it should come through the humblest of His
servants” (p. 162).

6. Did you regard them as perfect in their

understanding? How did you regard their

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work?

“Some things presented in reference to the law

in Galatians, if I fully understand his position, do
not harmonize with the understanding I have had of
this subject. … Some interpretations of Scripture
given by Dr. Waggoner I do not regard as correct”
(pp. 163, 164; this was stated on November 1,
1888. A few years later she did “fully understand,”
and said: “‘The law was our schoolmaster to bring
us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith’
(Gal. 3:24). In this scripture, the Holy Spirit
through the apostle is speaking especially of the
moral law” (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 234;
1896; emphasis added).

“I believe without a doubt that God has given

precious truth at the right time to Brother Jones and
Brother Waggoner. Do I place them as infallible?
Do I say that they will not make a statement or
have an idea that cannot be questioned or that
cannot be in error? Do I say so? No, I do not say
any such thing. Nor do I say of any man in the
world. But I do say God has sent light, and do be

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careful how you treat it … Who says they [Jones
and Waggoner] are perfect? Who claims it? We
claim God has given us light in the right time. And
now we should receive the truth of God—receive it
as of heavenly origin” (pp. 566, 567).

7. How did you regard the message which

Jones and Waggoner were bringing to the
church?

“The Lord has raised up men and given them a

solemn message to bear to His people” (p. 210).
“God has made these men messengers to give light
and truth to the people” (p. 279). “The plan of
salvation … has been made so clear that a child
may understand” (p. 281). “A Christ-like spirit
manifested, such as Elder E. J. Waggoner had
shown all through the presentation of his views” (p.
219).

“When Brother Waggoner brought out these

ideas in Minneapolis, it was the first clear [public]
teaching of this subject from any human lips I had
heard, excepting the conversations between myself

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and my husband. … And when another presented
it, every fiber of my heart said, Amen” (p. 349).
“The Lord is speaking through His delegated
messengers” (p. 398).

“You reject Christ in rejecting the message He

sends” (p. 399). “Elder Jones … presented the
subject of justification by faith in a plain, direct
manner, in such marked simplicity that no one need
to be in darkness, unless he has in him a decided
heart of unbelief, to resist the workings of the
Spirit of God” (p. 465), “… light which God has
sent you for the last year and a half—or nearly
that” (p. 538; 1890), “… that I might stand side by
side with the messengers of God that I knew were
His messengers, that I knew had a message for His
people. I gave my message with them right in
harmony with the very message they were bearing”
(p. 542).

“God has set His hand to do this work. …

Suppose you blot out the testimony that has been
going during these last two years [1890]
proclaiming the righteousness of Christ, who can

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you point to as bringing out special light for the
people? The message as it has been presented
should go to every church … the heavenly
credentials” (p. 545). “God has shown me that He
raised up men here to carry the truth to His people,
and that this is the truth” (p. 614).

“The message given us by A. T. Jones and E. J.

Waggoner is the message of God to the Laodicean
church” (p. 1052-1141; 1893). “The Lord has
raised up Brother Jones and Brother Waggoner to
proclaim a message to the world to prepare a
people to stand in the day of God” (p. 1208).

8. What encouragement do you give us that

denominational repentance will yet prepare the
way so that the latter rain can come?

“There are glorious truths to come before the

people of God. Privileges and duties which they do
not even suspect to be in the Bible will be laid open
before the followers of Christ. As they follow on in
the path of humble obedience, doing God’s will,
they will know more and more of the oracles of

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God, and be established in right doctrines. The
baptism of the Holy Spirit will dispel human
imaginings, will break down self-erected barriers,
and will cause to cease the feeling that ‘I am holier
than thou.’ There will be an humble spirit with all,
more faith and love; self will not be exalted. ‘Look
and live.’ Christ’s spirit, Christ’s example, will be
exemplified in His people. We shall follow more
closely the ways and works of Jesus. The pulpit,
the press, and the church will be more humble,
more forbearing, more patient and kind, and the
love of Jesus will pervade our hearts. It is
impossible for me to picture before you the result
of this influence” (p. 333; 1889).

“The fear of God, the sense of His goodness,

His holiness, will circulate through every [Seventh-
day Adventist] institution. An atmosphere of love
and peace will pervade every department. Every
word spoken, every work performed, will have an
influence that corresponds to the influence of
heaven. Christ will abide in humanity, and
humanity will abide in Christ. In all the work will
appear not the character of finite men, but the

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character of the infinite God. The divine influence
imparted by holy angels will impress the minds
brought in contact with the workers; and from
these workers a fragrant influence will go forth to
all who choose to inhale it. The goodly fabric of
character wrought through divine power will
receive light and glory from heaven, and will stand
out before the world as a witness, pointing to the
throne of living God.

“Then the work will move forward with

solidity and double strength. A new efficiency will
be imparted to the workers in every line. Men will
learn of the reconciliation from iniquity which the
Messiah has brought in through His sacrifice. The
last message of warning and salvation will be given
with mighty power. The earth will be lightened
with the glory of God, and it will be ours to witness
the soon coming in power and glory, of our Lord
and Saviour” (Medical Ministry, pp. 184, 185;
1902).

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