How Legal Justification Has Become an Issue: A Brief Look at Recent History by Robert J. Wieland
It is ironical that some are opposing the idea of a legal justification made effective at the cross for "all men" because of their zealous rejection of the "Reformationist" or "new" theology. The truth is that this doctrine is an effective refutation of what they wish to oppose.
In the 1970s Desmond Ford and Robert D. Brinsmead were prominent champions of the Reformationist view, especially after the Palmdale Conference of 1976. In agreement with David McMahon, they saw Waggoner as teaching Roman Catholicism because he had maintained that justification by faith makes the believer righteous, or makes him obedient to the law of God. The biblical law-court language, they insisted, required that "justification" could not make one righteous because the ancient Hebrew judge could never "make” an accused person "righteous," but only "declare" him so (Deuteronomy 25:1). They maintained that justification by faith therefore is only a legal declaration. This is the reason why so many see a red flag when they hear the phrase "legal justification." They have failed to see the distinction maintained by the 1888 Message Study Committee. Hopefully this glimpse of the history may help to dispel suspicion.
I was serving in the 1970s as the pastor of a church in the San Diego area, part of the Southeastern California Conference. Many of my fellow-pastors were enthusiastic supporters of the Reformationist views. Ford and Brinsmead were speaking in such prestigious Adventist venues as the Loma Linda University and Paradise Valley churches. Ford and Brinsmead appeared on the surface to prove that Jones and Waggoner were Roman Catholic in their theology, and because I supported the 1888 message this placed me before my congregation in a ridiculous light. Having begun to appreciate something of the potential of the 1888 message I sensed that the Reformationist views were a denial of it, but at the time I had not read very deeply into it. I countered that the ancient Hebrew judge indeed could not make the accused to be "righteous," but neither could he "declare" a man righteous until he had carefully examined all the evidence of the case. Therefore the true sense of Deuteronomy 25:1 was that he must recognize that the innocent person was "righteous." Waggoner saw this (Christ and His Righteousness, p. 51), and the evidence proved that Waggoner was not Roman Catholic in his view.
The Reformationist view insisted that any change in the believer's heart takes place not in justification by faith but in sanctification; and since sanctification is never complete in this life, the believer can never hope to overcome sin completely until glorification takes place at the second advent. The corollary of this view required that Christ in His incarnation must take only the sinless nature of Adam before the Fall, because if He had taken our fallen, sinful nature as the 1888 message said, the Reformationist view insisted that He would have been forced to participate in sin and thus could not have been our sinless Saviour. Implicit in this view is the idea that total victory over sin is impossible so long as man has a sinful nature or "sinful flesh," and this must apply to Christ as well as to us. I began to see that there are serious differences between the Reformationist view and that of the 1888 message.
About this time someone at Loma Linda kindly xeroxed for me Waggoners 1895-96 Signs articles on Romans. I had never before read them. His comments on Romans 5 impressed me deeply. I re-read The Glad Tidings and began to understand that the legal justification took place at the cross, long before the sinner repents and believes. And if it took place at the cross, it must objectively apply to "all men." It follows therefore that justification by faith must be experiential, and must be a change of heart that makes the believer obedient to all the commandments of God. It dawned on me that this was the reason why Ellen White so enthusiastically supported the 1888 message when she first heard it (Testimonies to Ministers, p. 91-93; MS 5, 1889; The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, pp. 348, 349). She had never before heard this message presented publicly in the past 45 years, and sensed that it must yet lighten the earth.
It was apparent that the Ford-Brinsmead views in the 1970 s were undermining the peoples confidence in the sanctuary message which teaches the possibility of overcoming sin (not the sinful nature!) completely before the return of Christ. Wanting to help my congregation at Chula Vista to realize what the issues were, I wrote a little tract giving biblical evidence that the legal justification or "declaration" took place at the cross and therefore applied objectively to "all men," and that justification by faith had to be the subjective experience of change of heart and reconciliation with God that produces complete obedience. My xeroxed tract somehow found its way to the General Conference and attracted the attention of Dr. Arnold Wallenkampf of the Biblical Research Committee. He wrote me a letter of appreciation, noting that this truth is the effective refutation of the Reformationist doctrine. (He has presented it forcefully in his book, What Every Christian Should Know About Being Justified, with very little difference, Review and Herald, 1988.)
About this time, unknown to me, Elder Jack Sequeira had been diligently xeroxing Jones and Waggoner material in the Heritage Room at Andrews University. Taking these documents back to Uganda, he found an opportunity to study them when Idi Amin expelled him and he was forced to wait in the Middle East four months for a visa to enter Ethiopia. He spent the time in deep study of Romans and Galatians, following up through biblical exegesis the new convictions that Jones's and Waggoner s writings had impressed upon him. Thus the two of us through our separate paths had come to virtually the same conclusions quite independently.
In 1978 or 1979 I wrote The 1888 Message—An Introduction, which was accepted for publication by the Southern Publishing Association of Nashville. In chapter seven I clearly set forth the same view of a legal justification at the cross as I seek to proclaim today, in the same terminology. When the Review and Herald took over the work of the SPA and this book went out of print, they decided to drop it. Elder Ron Spear persuaded them to reprint it, as he was employed there at that time. To date, this reprinted volume has sold some 20,000 copies, mostly in our ABC's.
Opponents of Sequeira's book object to the phrase "legal justification effected at the cross," and condemn it as "deadly heresy." They say it does not appear in those precise words in Ellen White's writings. They fail to realize that it was called into being to refute the Reformationist teachings of our time, which is why we have used it. For "historic Adventists" to reject this biblical truth is to undermine the foundation of the very doctrines they wish to support.