Grace on Trial

The word "gospel" means "Good News," and Heaven forbid, it's never boring. Correctly presented, it always captures and holds people's attention. When Jesus proclaimed the News, "the common people heard him gladly."1 The apostles' preaching was so attractive and winning that their enemies confessed that they had "turned the world upside down."2 In every age, the Good News compels the attention of mankind. Never does the Holy Spirit indite a tame, stale message. The last proclamation is communicated by "angels" "to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people,... with a loud voice," meaning, with compelling interest. Then the message swells "mightily" as it lightens the earth with glory.3 Turns towns and cities "upside down."

This scenario must call for the most interesting and powerful communication that the world has ever heard. Yawning and neutrality will become impossible. As in the days of the apostles, people will get off the fence and either accept wholeheartedly or reject just as decidedly. For everyone it's going to be one or the other, either the final mark of the beast or the seal of God.

Any presentation of the gospel that is dull is suspect. The Adventist youth who complain of Adventism as "not exciting, not positive, not big enough" most likely have never heard that third angel's message proclaimed "in verity" in the way that catalyzes humanity.

The 1888 message lifted Adventist preaching and teaching out of the doldrums. Ellen White describes its impact on youth:

Meetings were held in the College which were intensely interesting.... The Christian life, which had before seemed to them [the students] undesirable and full of inconsistencies, now appeared in its true light, in remarkable symmetry and beauty. He who had been to them as a root out of dry ground, without form or comeliness, became “the chiefest among ten thousand," and the one "altogether lovely."... One after another of these students of Battle Creek College, hitherto ignorant of the truth and of the saving grace of God, espoused the cause of Christ....

[Listeners] expressed ... gladness and gratitude of heart for the sermons that had been preached by Bro. A.T. Jones; they saw the truth, goodness, mercy, and love of God as they never before had seen it.4

Two of Ellen White's favorite words to describe the 1888 message were "precious" and "most precious."5 Her vocabulary of enthusiastic endorsement of the message and ministry of Jones and Waggoner nearly exhausts the English language treasury of enthusiasm. The following is an assortment of these phrases culled verbatim from her writings between 1888 and 1896:

"God has given them His message;""presented with freshness and power;""Christ's delegated messengers;""men whom God has commissioned;""the demonstration of the Holy Spirit;""men divinely appointed;" [there is] "beauty in the precious things presented at this [1888] Conference ... convincing evidence;" "most precious light;" "precious truths;" "the waves of truth;" "harmonizes perfectly with the light which God has been pleased to give me during all the years of my experience;""this message ... will lighten the earth with its glory;""it was the first clear [public] teaching about this subject from any human lips I have heard;""in Minneapolis God gave precious gems of truth to His people in new settings;""this light... [is] the matchless charms of Christ;""God sent these young men [Jones and Waggoner] to bear a special message;""God has committed to His servants a message for this time;""His chosen servants;""the true religion, the only religion of the Bible ... that advocates righteousness by the faith of the Son of God;" "showers of the latter rain from heaven ... in Minneapolis;""men upon whom God has laid the burden of a solemn work;""God is working through these instrumentalities;""through brethren Jones and Waggoner;... these men had a message from God;" "God has upheld them;... He has given them precious light, and their message has fed the people of God;""in rejecting the message given at Minneapolis, men committed sin;""light from the throne of God;" "the message of His healing grace;" "if you accept the message, you accept Jesus;""every fiber of my heart said Amen;""the manifest movement of the Spirit of God;""Brother Jones has borne the message ... and light and freedom and the outpouring of the Spirit of God has attended the work.... 'Messengers I [the Lord] sent to My people with light, with grace and power;'" "great and glorious truths;""a Christ-like spirit manifested, such as Elder E.J. Waggoner had shown ... like a Christian gentleman ... in a kind and courteous manner;" "the voice of the true Shepherd;" "wherever this message comes, its fruits are good ... great treasures of truth.... A life-giving message ... to give life to the dry bones," "the deep movings of the Spirit of God have been felt upon almost every heart.... We seemed to breathe in the very atmosphere of Heaven;" "the present message ... bears the divine credentials;" "the Lord is giving fresh evidence of His truth, placing it in a new setting, that the way of the Lord may be prepared;""we have been hearing [Christ's] voice in the message that has been going for the last two years [1890];""the message He has sent us during these last two years is from Heaven;""the heavenly credentials;""it is the third angel's message in verity;" "messages bearing the divine credentials ... set forth among us with beauty and loveliness, to charm all whose hearts are not closed with prejudice;""new wine ... additional light;""Brother Jones speaks ... [the people] fed with large morsels from the Lord's table;" "heaven-sent refreshing of the shower of grace;" "the voice of the heavenly Merchantman."6

This is only a brief sampling of some 375 such expressions. An eyewitness, J. S. Washburn, told us how he remembered seeing Ellen White sit on the front seat at Minneapolis while Waggoner was speaking, her face beaming as she kept saying "Amen! Brethren, there is great light here."7 She herself confirms this when she says of Waggoner's message, "When [he] presented it, every fiber of my heart said Amen."8

Yet most of our people have acquired the idea that there is something dangerous about that message, that in many areas Ellen White disagreed with it. She couldn't have said all those things if she had disagreed with it. In fact, there is not one area of the message that she disagreed with when she came to understand it.9

Six years later she was still enthusiastically describing the ongoing message as "the sweetest melodies that come from human lips, — justification by faith, and the righteousness of Christ."10 Imagine a message presented to Seventh-day Adventists so joyous and hope inspiring that the listeners were tempted to think it was too good to be true.11

The message is not so much the miracle of feeding hungry people as the greater miracle of developing an appetite in church members so undernourished that they do not even feel hungry. Surely our heavenly Father wants us to learn to appreciate what a blessing a healthy appetite is.

Not only is the Lord our Shepherd, He is also our Host who seats us at His table loaded with nutritious spiritual food. But most of us are not spiritually hungry and thirsty, and many are famished for spiritual food. Day after day, week after week passes, without personally ingesting the bread of life. A millionaire starving with no appetite may be worse off than a famine refugee who feels his hunger.

If the Lord's messenger were among us today, she would have to say again,.“ This I do know, that our churches are dying for the want of teaching on the subject of righteousness by faith in Christ, and on kindred truths."12

The Inestimable Blessing of Feeling Hungry and Thirsty

There is a special happiness that comes when we sense this starvation. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."13 Here is Ellen White's description of the happiness we will know when we learn to feel that hunger (many said things like this when they heard the 1888 message):

If you have a sense of need in your soul, if you hunger and thirst after righteousness, this is an evidence that Christ has wrought upon your heart.... Familiar truths will present themselves to your mind in a new aspect; texts of Scripture will burst upon you with a new meaning, as a flash of light.... You will know that Christ is leading you; a divine Teacher is at your side... You ... will long to speak to others of the comforting things that have been revealed to you. ... You will communicate some fresh thought in regard to the character or the work of Christ. You will have some fresh revelation of His pitying love to impart to those who love Him and to those who love Him not.14

When the Lord says that we are "blessed" when we hunger after righteousness, what kind of righteousness must He be speaking of? There is only one kind—that which is by faith.

In other words, those who feel that they already understand righteousness by faith lose the blessing straight off, while those who feel empty are the only ones who can "be filled." There is tragic reality here, for there could even be some ministers and leaders who don't sense their need. Jesus says He actually hears them say in their hearts that they're not hungry.

According to the Lord Jesus, we, both leaders and people, have a basic general problem. He says: "You say,’ I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.'"15 Or, “You don't feel hungry or thirsty." He is describing a last-days phenomenon. As a people generally we feel wealthy in our understanding of the gospel. "We have the truth; we understand the doctrine of righteousness by faith." This feeling of satisfaction dooms us to world embarrassment, for in fact he says we are "wretched, and miserable, and poor," and (in the Greek) outstandingly so.

And, unbelievable as it may seem, the Lord Himself says that the ones who primarily exhibit this lack of healthy appetite are the leadership of His church.16 The “angel of the church” is not the same as the church. The churches are "the seven golden candlesticks," but "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" is its leadership, including administrators, educators, pastors, elders, deacons, Sabbath School teachers, Pathfinder leaders, etc. One couldn't dare to say this unless the Lord Himself said it. As a group, He says we share that common illness of feeling full when in fact we are starving.

A Message of Healing for the Seventh-day Adventist Church

There was also spiritual famine among us prior to 1888. A few months before the Minneapolis conference the Lord's messenger declared:

A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.... We have far more to fear from within than from without. The hindrances to strength and success are far greater from the church itself than from the world.... What is our condition in this fearful and solemn time? Alas, what pride is prevailing in the church, what hypocrisy, what deception, what love of dress, frivolity, and amusement, what desire for supremacy! All these sins have clouded the mind, so that eternal things have not been discerned.17

The facts concerning the real condition of the professed people of God, speak more loudly than their profession, and make it evident that some power has cut the cable that anchored them to the Eternal Rock, and that they are drifting away to sea, without chart or compass.18

The issue that faces us is whether words like the following could apply to us in this new millennium. It's too natural for us to feel that they are passé. A few weeks before the 1888 Conference began, she wrote: "0 that the haughty hearts of men ... might enter into the meaning of redemption, and seek to learn the meekness and lowliness of Jesus."19

It was this need that the Lord wanted to meet in the message of 1888. These words have been often quoted:

The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.20

Even though the message was "in a great measure" resisted and kept from the people a century ago, there are beautiful pictures of success that describe the future of God's work. Hope revels in these promises: "This gospel... will be preached in all the world,” said Jesus. "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.""I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.... It shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance."21

This last message is to be simple, beautiful, and always interesting. The future has to be good:

If through the grace of Christ His people will become new bottles, He will fill them with the new wine. God will give additional light, and old truths will be recovered, and replaced in the framework of truth.... One interest will prevail, one subject will swallow up every other—CHRIST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.22

As we discover what that "most precious" message is and how it differs from what is commonly assumed to be "the [Evangelical] doctrine of righteousness byfaith," we shall find it refreshingly different. The revelation of "the righteousness of Christ" reveals Him as a Savior "nigh at hand" and "not afar off."

It might become Good News far better than most imagine is possible.

Notes:

1. Mark 12:37.
2. Acts 17:6.
3. Revelation 14:6; 18:1-4.
4. Review and Herald, February 12,1889.
5. See Testimonies to Ministers, p. 91; Ms. 8a, 1888; Ms. 15,1888; Ms. 24,1888; Ms. 13,1889; Review and Herald, March 5, July 23, September 3,1889; March 11,1890; August 8,1893; Letter 51a, 1895.
6. See Appendix for the list of these sources.
7. Signed report of interview with J. S. Washburn, Hagerstown, Maryland, June 4,1950.
8. Ms. 5,1889.
9. There were times when she cautioned the messengers not to overstate their convictions and thus create for themselves unnecessary prejudice. These counsels are sometimes interpreted as disagreements, which is not true. She supported their message heart and soul, as these quoted phrases indicate. The "Majority" Report of the General Conference ad hoc "Primacy of the Gospel Committee"(February 8,2000; www.adventist.org) maintains that there were "many areas" in which Ellen White disagreed with the "most precious message" which "the Lord in His great mercy sent to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones." This raises a question: how could an honest woman write hundreds of endorsements of their message and then disagree with even one "area" and not tell us what it was? No evidence exists to support that charge of "many areas."
10. Review and Herald, April 4,1895.
11. Ibid., July 23,1889.
12. Gospel Workers, p. 301.
13. Matthew 5:6.
14. Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 36.
15. Revelation 3:16,17.
16. Verse 14;Revelation 1:20; Gospel Workers, pp. 13,14;Acts ofthe Apostles, p. 586.
17. Review and Herald, March 22,1887.
18. Ibid., July 24,1888.
19. Ibid., September 11,1888.
20. Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 91,92.
21. Matthew 24:14; Revelation 18:1-4; Habakkuk 2:14; Joel 2:28-32.
22. Review and Herald, Extra, December 23,1890; see Jeremiah 23:6; 33:16; Isaiah 32:17.