(by Gerald L. Finneman)
Some say that because Jones and Waggoner in their later years lost their way, this somehow invalidates nearly everything they wrote during the time when Ellen White endorsed their message. She disagrees. Some even try to make them responsible for the "Holy Flesh" movement that became prominent at the turn of the century. The evidence is contrary. Some openly attack their teaching on the human nature assumed by Christ in His incarnation.
Most recently the point of attack has been on what Jones and Waggoner taught about justification. This may prove to be the most heated discussion yet, for this deals with the nuts and bolts of salvation. The 1888 message taught two aspects of one justification: that which was for all mankind; and the other, for those who believe. The first was universal and corporate in scope; the other conditional, and by faith.
First we will notice what Waggoner taught on justification by faith and then will follow with what he taught about universal justification.
On Justification by Faith
Waggoners teaching was very different from that which is preached by Evangelicals within and without Adventism. To him, justification by faith meant to make righteous, or make obedient to God's law. He writes this six times in sixteen pages in Christ and His Righteousness.
1. "To justify means to make righteous, or to show one to be righteous" (p. 51).
2. "Let us first have an object lesson on justification, or the imparting of righteousness" (p. 57).
3. "Christ says that he [the publican] went justified, that is, made righteous" (p. 58).
4. "We are justified [made righteous] freely by his grace" (p. 60).
5. "... Forgiveness is something more than a mere form, something more than a mere entry in the books of record in heaven, to the effect that the sin has been canceled. The forgiveness of sins is a reality; it is something tangible, something that vitally affects the individual. It actually clears him from guilt; and if he is cleared from guilt, is justified, made righteous, he has certainly undergone a radical change. He is, indeed, another person.... And so the full and free forgiveness of sins carries with it that wonderful and miraculous change known as the new birth" (p. 66).
6. "Again, what brings justification, or the forgiveness of sins? It is faith. [Rom. 5:1 quoted]" (p. 67).
Justification by Faith and the Law
"When the apostle says that we do not make void the law of God by faith, but that, on the contrary, we establish it, he means that faith does not lead to violation of the law, but to obedience. No, we should not say that faith leads to obedience, but that faith itself obeys. Faith establishes the law in the heart.... Instead of faith leading to antinomianism, it is the only thing that is contrary to antinomianism.... The man of faith is the only one who truly honors the law of God" (ibid., p. 95).
"Justification carries the law on the face of it. ... It establishes the law in the heart. Justification is the law incarnate in Christ, put into the man, so it is incarnate in the man" ("Letter to the Romans, No. 5," General Conference Bulletin, 1891).
Clearly Waggoner taught early on that justification by faith is a change not only in one's standing with God, but that the heart is changed. This is not acceptable to many, if not most, Evangelicals today.
Universal Justification
Jones and Waggoner were crystal clear in their presentations on universal justification. Some arguments against them cast doubt on their writings within a very short time after 1888. Waggoners The Glad Tidings, published in 1899, has come under attack because of his unequivocal statements there. Let's first look at some of them and then notice an argument against Waggoner and this book.
"It is true that all are redeemed, but not all have accepted redemption.... All have been purchased by the blood—the life—of Christ, and all may be, if they will, free from sin and death.
"Stop and think what this means; let the full force of the announcement impress upon your consciousness. 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,'—from not continuing in all its righteous requirements. We need not sin any more. He has snapped asunder the cords of sin that bound us, so that we have but to accept His salvation in order to be free from every besetting sin" (ibid., p. 116).
"Christ has, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9), so that every man in the world has received the 'unspeakable gift' (2 Corin. 9:15). 'The grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus, Christ, hath abounded unto many,' even to all; for as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.' Rom. 5:15, 19" (p. 16; revised edition, p. 11).
"He gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us, and He did not die in vain. Deliverance is ours. Christ was sent 'to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.' Isa. 42:7. Accordingly He cries out to the captives, 'Liberty!' To them that are bound He proclaims that the prison doors are open. Isa. 61:1. To the prisoners, He says, 'Go forth.' Isa. 49:9. Each soul may say, if he will, 'O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid; thou has loosed my bonds.' Ps. 116:16. The thing is true, whether we believe it or not. We are the Lord's servants, even though we stubbornly refuse to serve; for He has bought us; and having bought us, He has broken every bond that hindered us from serving Him. If we but believe, we have the victory that has overcome the world. 1 John 5:4, R.V., John 16:33. The message to us is that our 'warfare is accomplished,' our 'iniquity is pardoned.' Isa. 40:2. We have but to shout, as Israel did before Jericho, to see that God has given us the victory. God 'hath visited and redeemed His people.' Luke 1:68... .
“All this deliverance is according to the will of our God and Father.” The will of God is our sanctification. 1 Thess. 4:3. He willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Tim. 2:4. And He 'worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.' Eph. 1:11. 'What! Do you mean to teach universal salvation?' 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, R.V. 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 and complete salvation was given to every man, and that the lost have deliberately thrown away their birthright possession. Thus every mouth will be stopped" (ibid., pp. 21-23; revised edition, pp. 13, 14).
"Faith does not make facts; it only lays hold of them. There is not a single soul that is bowed down with the weight of sin which Satan hath bound on Him, whom Christ does not lift up. Freedom is his; he has only to make use of it. Let the message be sounded far and wide. Let every soul hear it, that Christ has given deliverance to every captive. Thousands will rejoice at the news" (pp. 199, 200; revised edition, p. 107).
The argument that seems to hold sway with some is that Waggoner can not be trusted at this date (1899). Waggoner was still a well-known writer and speaker to Adventists. He held responsible positions in the church at this time and some years later. But somehow, so the argument goes, he was doing something sinister and was going into apostasy in die future and therefore this book can not be trusted.
Very well. Let's look at what he wrote several years preceding this eventful year, and find if he taught something different about corporate justification. He wrote for nearly a year on the book of Romans in The Signs of the Times in 1895 and 1896. The purpose of the articles was then what it is today—evangelistic. This paper was not an in-house journal. Waggoner had this to say concerning the much discussed verse in Romans 5:18:
"There is no exception here. As the condemnation came upon all, so the justification comes upon all... the free gift comes upon all" (The Signs of the Times, March 12, 1896).
One man told me that he would not accept Waggoner at this time. So I presented a thought from a sermon from Jones of a year earlier in 1895 at the General Conference. Part of that sermon is given here to show what Jones taught concerning Romans 5:18:
"Adam, then, was the figure of him that was to come. That one to come is Christ. Adam was the figure of him. Wherein was Adam the figure of him? In his righteousness?—No; for he did not keep it. In his sin?—No; for Christ did not sin. Wherein, then, was Adam the figure of Christ?—In this: That 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. That is where Adam is the figure of him that was to come... .
"Whatever he should have done embraced us; and what he did made us what we are.
"Now, here is another Adam. Does he touch as many as the first Adam did? That is the question. That is what we are studying now. Does the second Adam touch as many as did the first Adam?—And the answer is that it is certainly true that what the second Adam did, embraces all that were embraced in what the first Adam did. What he should have done, what he could have done, would embrace all...
"The question is, 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; we were there. All the human race were in the first Adam. What that first Adam, what that first man, did, meant us; it involved us. That which the first Adam did brought us into sin, and the end of sin is death; and that touches every one of us, and involves every one of 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, every man that has ever lived upon the earth, and was involved in the first Adam, is involved in this, and will live again. There will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. Every soul shall live again by the second Adam, from the death that came by the first Adam.
"'Well,' says one 'we are involved in other sins besides that one.' Not without our choice. When God said, 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed,' he set every man free to choose which master he would serve; and since that every man that has sinned in this world, has done it because he chose to. 'If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,'—not them who had no chance to believe; the god of this world blinds no man until he has shut his eyes of faith. When he shuts his eyes of faith, then Satan will see that they are kept shut as long as possible.... And why did he blind the minds?—Because they 'believe not.'...
"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; the second Adam's righteousness undoes that, and makes every man live again. As soon as Adam sinned, God gave him a second chance, and set him free to choose which master he would have. Since that time every man is free to choose which way he will go; therefore he is responsible for his own individual sins. And when Jesus Christ has set us all free from the sin and the death which came upon us from the first Adam, that freedom is for every man; and every man can have it for the choosing.
"The Lord will not compel any one to take it. He compels no one to sin, and he compels no one to be righteous. Every one sins upon his own choice. The Scriptures demonstrate it. And every one can be made perfectly righteous at his choice. And the Scriptures demonstrate this. No man will die the second death who has not chosen sin rather than righteousness, death rather than life. In Jesus Christ there is furnished in completeness all that man needs or ever can have in righteousness; and all there is for any man to do is to choose Christ, and then it is his" (General Conference Bulletin, 1895, pp. 268, 269, Paradise View edition, pp. 73, 74).
We observe that both these men held identical views at this time concerning corporate justification for all mankind. There can be no mistaking their message from this time and later, because this aspect of justification did not become hazy in their presentation. It was unequivocal. In order to get away from their clear thinking and biblical presentation on this subject one has to divert the attention away from the presentations to find fault with the presenters.
Some will accept messages closer to the well-known year "1888." Was this concept of justification presented before 1895? Yes. Waggoner wrote about "universal redemption." When? 1890:
"Infants that have not come to an age where they can understand right from wrong for themselves, are the special subjects of God's favor. By virtue of Christ's sacrifice they share in the universal redemption from the death which results from their being descendants of Adam. They cannot suffer the death which is the penalty of sin for they have never had personal guilt (The Signs of the Times, August 25, 1890).
Not only in 1890, but only two months after the General Conference in 1888 he wrote:
"Human nature is sinful, and the law of God condemns sin. Not that men are born into the world directly condemned by the law, for in infancy they have no knowledge of right and wrong, and are incapable of doing either, but they are born with sinful tendencies, owing to the sins of their ancestors" (The Signs of the Times, January 21, 1889).
Again in 1891 he said:
"The same power that will make men immortal in the life to come, justifies them—makes them conformable to the law—by being in harmony with it, every day" (General Conference Bulletin, 1891, Sermon, No. 7).
"[God's] own purpose is a purpose of grace, and the free gift by grace comes upon all unto justification of life" (No. 13).
Here is repudiation of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin which condemns babies to hell (or consigns them to limbo) if they are not baptized before death. The idea presented by Waggoner is not universal condemnation in the first Adam, but justification of life for all because of Christ, the second Adam, who undid what the first one did.
God's grace awaits the unborn. It waits to take the newborn by the hand and if that newborn does not resist God's grace, He will hold on with a grasp so firmly that no one will be able to pluck that babe out of His hand!
For one to reject Jones's and Waggoners clear teaching on corporate justification during the years we have surveyed—1889 to 1899—he or she must do it on other grounds than that of time and consistency.
Gerald L. Finneman