Many of the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers of the nineteenth century were typological covenant dispensationalists, i.e., they believed that the new covenant followed the old covenant sequentially after the cross. In addition, the pioneers held a twolaw position. The Ten Commandments were distinct from the typical ceremonial laws. Hence the ceremonial laws which were ordained under the old covenant were abolished at the cross, while the Ten Commandments were perpetual.
The evangelical Protestants opposed the Seventh-day Adventist position on the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments with a one-law theory. Evangelicals claimed that both the moral and the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament were of Mosaic origin. They held the Mosaic law was abolished with the old covenant at the cross.
Evangelicals also held a covenant dispensationalism. This was the point of convergence between Seventh-day Adventists and evangelicals. At this point of convergence Seventhday Adventists unwittingly conceded a crucial issue to their opponents.
Uriah Smith writing in 1877, expressed this covenant dispensationalism in the context of the sanctuary teaching:
The sanctuary of the old covenant must bear the same relationship to the sanctuary of the new covenant, which the old covenant itself bears to the new.... All agree that they stand as type and antitype. The first was the type and shadow; this is the antitype and substance. The sanctuary of that dispensation was the type; the sanctuary of this is the antitype.
Uriah Smith's understanding of the typical earthly sanctuary was that it was associated with the old covenant, while the antitypical heavenly sanctuary was associated with the new covenant. This, led him to conclude there was a sequential old covenant-new covenant typological dispensationalism. The pioneer's typological understanding of Scripture interpretation led them to conclude that the old covenant was a type of the new covenant. new covenant.
E. J. Waggoner observed this biblical typology of the ceremonial system in the Old Testament. He saw that it pointed forward to Christ as type met antitype. But he also noted an experiential dimension in which certain Bible texts distinguished between the old and the new covenants. This aspect of biblical teaching had been overlooked by the pioneers. The pioneer's typological understanding of Scripture interpretation led them to conclude that the old covenant itself was the type of the antitypical new covenant. The ceremonial law of the types in the Old Testament dispensation being fulfilled by Christ, the antitype, in the New Testament dispensation, led many of the pioneers to conclude that the old covenant type during the Old Testament dispensation was fulfilled by the new covenant antitype of the New Testament dispensation. dispensation.
The Bible was divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament. The typological relationship between the sacrifices and ceremonies of the old dispensation, pointed to the greater sacrifice of Christ presented in the new dispensation. Ellen White wrote: "The Christ typified in the former dispensation is the Christ revealed in the gospel dispensation." Christ united the two testaments. The promise of the Old Testament was complemented by the fulfillment of the New Testament. "In the life and death of Christ, a light flashes back upon the past, giving significance to the whole Jewish economy, and making of the old and the new dispensations a complete whole."
These two economies were like Adam and Eve who were "made in the image of God." Adam alone was not the image of God. Eve alone was not the image of God. Adam and Eve together were the complete image of God. The Old Testament sanctuary, its sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood, and its multitude of ceremonies were made obsolete as mandatory forms of worship by the New Testament fulfillment in Christ; nevertheless, they remained a light from the past which was made clearer by "the life and death of Christ." These two economies of the old and the new dispensations were sequential -the new following the old. Both were a revelation from God concerning the gospel. concerning the gospel.
However, there was another equally biblical understanding of the old covenant and new covenant dispensations. The old and the new covenants understood as a heart experience was a nuance that had been overlooked by the early pioneers. These two covenant experiences were two parallel dispensations which had manifested themselves concurrently both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The old covenant and the new covenant were two separate experiences which, as it were, ran on two parallel tracks from the time of Cain and Abel until the mark of the beast and the seal of God as spoken of in the Book of Revelation. of Revelation.
Undoubtedly the pioneer's focus on the two economies of the Old and New Testaments, caused them to miss the Scriptural dimension of the old covenant and the new covenant as two distinct heart experiences. It is the purpose of this current essay to demonstrate from Seventh-day Adventist history how this took place.
Further, we can see that it was God's purpose to correct this misunderstanding and bring to the attention of the church light on the old covenant and the new covenant as two different heart experiences. This was essential in that the everlasting covenant is the third angels' message. The third angels' message is the reason for the existence of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its mission.
This typological dispensationalism of the Old Testament sanctuary and the antitype of the New Testament heavenly sanctuary, along with the twolaw theory of the ceremonial law and the Ten Commandment law, became the early Adventist pioneer understanding of the Scripture with reference to the old covenant dispensation before the cross and the new covenant dispensation after the cross.
The history of the pioneer's interpretation of the law in Galatians 3 is essential for understanding the crisis that confronted the church at the 1888 Minneapolis Conference. Before 1857 some Adventist pioneers such as J. N. Andrews understood the law in Galatians 3:24 to be the Ten Commandments. J. H. Waggoner maintained this in his book The Law of God. Stephen Pierce maintained that the law in Galatians was "the lawsystem." In discussing the "schoolmaster" of Galatians 3:24 Pierce explained - that the Moral Law alone was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ we have no evidence. True, it is by this Law we have the knowledge of sin; but how it brings us to Christ we are unable to tell. It was by the ministration of this Law, or by the types and shadows the body of which is of Christ, that men under that dispensation were led to Christ, as it is by the ministration of the gospel, or its teachings that men are led to Christ under this dispensation. dispensation.
One thing is clear, Pierce understood the "schoolmaster" of Galatians 3:24 to mean the law of types and shadows of the old dispensation which led men to Christ. He included the moral law in that whole system of law, but he could not tell how the moral law led men to Christ in the old dispensation. The ministration of the whole system of law under the old dispensation was no longer needed with "the ministration of the gospel" or its teachings to lead men to Christ under the new dispensation. Pierce interpreted Galatians 3:24 typologically rather than a description of the heart experience. Indeed, there was further truth to be learned from Galatians 3.
As Uriah Smith later recalled this three-day discussion at Battle Creek, he wrote to W. A. McCutchen:
Brother. J. H. Waggoner took the position (or had taken it in his book) that the law in Galatians was the moral law. Brother Pierce argued that it was the law system, "including the ceremonial law." I was then quite young in the truth, and as these meetings were new to me, I including both Brother and Sister White became convinced that Brother Pierce had the right view, and J. H. Waggoner was wrong. Sister White shortly after this had a vision in which this law question was shown her, and she immediately wrote J. H. Waggoner that his position on the law was wrong, and Brother Pierce was right. Brother White then took Brother Waggoner's book out of the market, for we all then considered the matter settled.
Later, in 1887, Ellen White was frustrated in seeking to recall what she had been shown. She could not remember what had been revealed in vision regarding J. H. Waggoner's book on the law:
I am troubled; for the life of me I cannot remember that which I have been shown in
reference to the two laws. I cannot remember what the caution and warning referred to were that were given to Elder J. H. Waggoner. It may be that it was a caution not to make his ideas prominent at that time, for there was great danger of disunion.
Ellen White initiated a search for this manuscript but it was never found. There were a number of different ideas about the law in Galatians 3 among Adventists in the 1850's, and setting forth one idea as foremost would tend toward disunity.
Ellen White's reported vision on the law in Galatians, around 1857, during the discussions with J. H. Waggoner and Stephen Pierce, became the basis for Uriah Smith and George I. Butler later concluding, prior to the 1888 Minneapolis Conference, that Galatians 3 dealt exclusively with the ceremonial law.
What was the relationship between the cross and the old and new covenants in early Adventist theology? It was best represented by the illustration of the cross as the great divide between the old dispensation and the new dispensation, between the old covenant and the new covenant. So there was an Adventist typological dispensationalism that viewed the covenants as conditioned primarily by time boundaries. The two dispensations of the old covenant and the new covenant as two distinct heart experiences had not as yet been discovered by the Adventist pioneers. by the Adventist pioneers.
Alberto Timm recognized this feature of early Adventist covenant theology. He wrote:
The Bible covenants were regarded as the basis of God's salvific relationship with His people. The transition from the old to the new covenant was viewed as marked by the death of the Son of God as "the testator" (Heb. 9:15-17), which installed Him as "the messenger" (Mal. 3:1) and "the mediator" (Heb. 8:6) of the new covenant.
Timm's observation was certainly correct.
This was the one point at which Adventist covenant theology had a seeming convergence with the evangelical dispensationalists who abolished the moral law with the death of Christ. For evangelicals the two covenants were seen as sequential and time bound. For example, a contemporary Baptist, Robert Howell (1801-1868), wrote:
. . . I will offer but one other exposition of the "two covenants," and which will also serve to show the abrogation of the law, and the independent, and effective character of the gospel. . . .
Thus have we seen that the old covenant, or law, was fulfilled, and superseded by the new covenant, or gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Here Howell uses the dispensational model of the two covenants to abolish the law with the old covenant and bring in the gospel of Jesus Christ with the new covenant.
This Adventist typological model of the old covenant succeeded by the new covenant created a problem for interpreting Galatians 3 which dealt with the heart experience of the everlasting covenant. With the typological model of the two covenants as sequential in nature, if the "schoolmaster" was the moral law, then Adventists would have to agree with the antinomians that the moral law was done away with at the cross. However, if the "schoolmaster" or "added law" represented the ceremonial law instituted with the old covenant, then it was done away with at the cross. This latter view was the preferred interpretation of the law in Galatians 3 by some Adventists. In the 1850's there was a diversity of views on this matter within Adventist thinking.