Why another study on righteousness by faith? Aren't there many other subjects we could profitably study? Why do we need yet another study on the gospel?
First, because the gospel is the heart of everything we are as Christians. Even if we've got everything else right, but are not clear about how we are saved, our correctness on doctrine won't matter much. There will be many, many people in heaven who will get their wrong doctrines straightened out in heaven. God will have lots of kindergarten classes in heaven, teaching people about all the simple things in the Bible that they didn't understand very well, but no one will be there whose heart is not surrendered to God. Everyone who is in heaven will first have learned to yield his life to God here on earth--everyone. We must be sure that we are absolutely certain about how salvation works.
Second, the errors on righteousness by faith keep coming at us from all angles. Challenges to the gospel of the Bible keep coming. It seems like a new error is developed every year or two, which demands our thoughtful response. It is very clear that Satan has made it his priority to confuse the gospel of the Bible, the only gospel which can save us from destruction. It has become very hard to stay away from the ditches on both sides of the road of salvation. Either we are trapped in legalism, trying to earn our right to heaven, or in cheap grace, claiming salvation while doing nothing to meet the most basic conditions of salvation. These ditches are very easy to fall into and hard to escape. Because of this confusion we must continue to study the basic truths of how salvation works.
The Challenge
An independent ministry published a while back a special issue of its flagship magazine....To my dispirited disappointment, its definition of the everlasting gospel was that "every man, woman, and child must die daily. We must surrender our will moment by moment to God-- the heart united with His heart, the mind united with His mind--only then can we think the thoughts and live the life of Jesus."
Here we are in the twenty-first century--more than 113 years after 1888--and this is how some still define the everlasting gospel? Isn't the everlasting gospel the good news that Jesus, the God-man, lived a life of perfect obedience to the law and then died as my substitute in order that I, by faith, can claim His perfect righteousness as my own, a righteousness that comes only by faith in His righteousness--a righteousness credited to me apart from "the works of the law"?...
Through the power of God's Spirit a believer can, indeed, die to self daily and, indeed, think the thoughts and live the life of Jesus. That's good news too. But the moment these internal actions be- come conditions for justification, the moment they become the means by which a person is saved, the good news gets blunted-- like with a sledgehammer.
Although the magazine's editors would be shocked to realize it, its theology is just like Roman Catholicism....Notice how humanistic, how sinner-centered, this understanding of the gospel is. We must die daily, we must surrender our will, we must do this, we just do that. The argument that it's God doing the works in us, and thus not our own, doesn't let them off the hook....It's still the people, themselves, doing these works, and if these works justify them, then they're saved by faith and works, period.
God does work in us so that we can become righteous; that's an undeniable part of the Christian experience. But no matter how righteous we become by what God does in us, our salvation still comes only from what God has done outside us, in the life and death of Jesus. Our hope of salvation must never remain centered upon ourselves, or what happens within; instead, the righteousness that saves us--the obedience that redeems us and the holiness that justifies us--always remains external to us, a righteousness that exists in heaven itself, "the righteousness of God" Himself.
It's too bad about that magazine....There's no Christ on their cross, which means that whatever good they offer comes burdened with the unbearable weight of salvation by works, which is no gospel and, certainly, not the "everlasting" one. (Clifford Goldstein, Adventist Review, November 22, 2001)
Response
Clifford Goldstein is directly challenging the gospel that some are teaching. Before we analyze this challenge, it might be well to notice some letters that came in to the Review after this column was printed.
Did Clifford Goldstein say there were no conditions to salvation?... There are certainly conditions that human beings must meet to gain salvation, and some of them can be difficult to meet, but meeting those conditions does not count for merit, does not qualify us for heaven, and does not constitute payment for, fitness for, or title to heaven. All of these things are gifts to us; all are based initially, always, and solely on the righteousness of Christ. The conditions merely guarantee that heaven's population is limited to those who think it's a good idea to have Jesus in charge. (Auburn, WA)
It is a matter of record that in recent years some who have been most eloquent in preaching the cross have left the denomination, carrying their entire church with them. I like what I once read: If legalism has killed its thousands, antinomianism has killed its ten thousands. There must have been a better way to express what Goldstein was trying to say. I am not sure that it is accurate, by merely quoting from just a piece of an article, to say that "they" believe in righteousness by works. (Orlando, FL) (Adventist Review, January 24, 2002)
Another response was printed in the Review shortly thereafter.
According to Goldstein's new view of the gospel,...Christ should have addressed Nicodemus in something like the following manner in John 3:3-8: "Nicodemus, you are a master of Israel, but what you need to understand [Mr. Pharisee/Legalist] is that you are justified by faith alone, outside of and apart from what happens inside of you. There are no conditions to your being justified or retaining justification other than your believing. This is the essence of the gospel. Once you understand this objective gospel, we can talk about being born again and the heart change that comes." Now this sounds like good news (almost)! Trouble is, the Master Teacher did not say it this way. Instead He insisted ( another must?) that Nicodemus be born again with water (cleansing) and with the Spirit.
An unpublished letter to Clifford Goldstein made these comments.
Regarding sanctified obedience having no part in man's salvation, as I follow your teaching to its logical conclusion, a few questions arise. If the Holy Spirit's work in us and its resultant obedience does not enter into salvation's picture because both are "works," whether or not it is God working in us, then do we have to DO anything, by His grace, to avoid receiving the beast's mark?...Why is "every man" judged "according to his works," if works, the inward working of the Spirit which produces both inward and outward righteousness, have nothing to do with his salvation?...If there is a truly definitive "Christless Cross," it is found in the theology that denies the essential (saving) work of His indwelling Spirit. It is a direct contradiction of the gospel of Jesus Christ; it is hailing Him as Savior while denying His Lordship with a kiss; and it is presumption. No father worthy of the name would attempt to raise his children without conditions of obedience. The Creator of the heavens and earth not only has conditions of obedience, He fills us with His own power of love to obey Him, to bear His image to the world, and to vindicate His name before the onlooking universe. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is full of conditions that have a direct bearing on our salvation. It is so clear, I cannot think how good minds become confused over this issue.
Analysis
Now, statements and counter-statements are not enough. All they illustrate is that there is much confusion about the gospel. What we desperately need to know is what the Bible says about the gospel, not just what human beings think about the gospel. So we are going to go back over this column by Clifford Goldstein (hereafter listed as CG) and do some analysis. We will also be referring to a response by Larry Kirkpatrick (hereafter listed as LK) on December 8, 2001 on his website (greatcontroversy.org). He begins his response in the following way.
From time to time we read articles that astonish us.... It really takes your breath away. The chief editor of our denomination's world-wide Adult Sabbath-School Bible Study Guide thinks what most of us understand to be the authentic gospel of Seventh-day Adventism is another gospel than the one he holds. The amazing thing is, he is exactly right as to that point; it is--and decidedly is--a different gospel.
CG challenges the view that "every man, woman and child must die daily. We must surrender our will moment by moment to God." His challenge is strong and direct: "Here we are in the twenty-first century...and this is how some still define the everlasting gospel. Isn't the everlasting gospel the good news that Jesus, the God-man, lived a life of perfect obedience to the law and then died as my substitute in order that I, by faith, can claim His perfect righteousness as my own, a righteousness that comes only by faith in His righteousness."
No one will oppose his belief that Jesus' perfect life and His substitutionary death is the foundation upon which our salvation is built. This is the incredible good news of the gospel. But right in CG's challenge is the statement that faith is necessary for salvation. Then the gospel is more than the life and death of Christ. Many people believe that Christ lived and died, but they have no faith in His saving power, and they will not be saved. The only way in which the gospel becomes good news for us personally is when we, by faith, accept His life and death in place of our sinful lives. Does this not make faith an essential condition of our salvation? Faith has no merit, and it cannot be the basis or cause of our salvation, but we will not be saved without faith.
Ellen White put it this way: "He is pardoned on condition that he receive Christ, confessing and repenting of his sins and becoming renewed." (Loma Linda Messages, pp. 103-4) "He has laid down conditions in His Word, and we should diligently, interestedly, with heart and mind, set about the task of learning these conditions, lest we make some mistake and fail to secure our title to the mansions above." (5 T 543) "We should know what we must do to be saved....We must meet the conditions laid down in the Word of God or die in our sins. We must know what moral changes are essential to be made in our characters, through the grace of Christ, in order to be fitted for the mansions above." (5 T 535)
As we look at some Bible verses, we are looking for conditions specified by God to take advantage of Christ's substitutionary life and death. "The kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." (Mark 1:15) Here repentance is a condition of salvation. While we fully understand that faith and repentance are gifts of God and come directly from the Holy Spirit, we must make personal choices to appropriate these gifts and use them to access the plan of salvation. There is a human aspect to the good news of the gospel.
Hebrews 11 is known as the great faith chapter. "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous....Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed....By faith Moses,...refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God." (Hebrews 11:4,11,24,25) It was through faith that Abel was counted righteous. Sarah didnt produce a son any more than we can produce salvation, but because of her faith, God performed the miracle. Moses refused and chose, by faith. Faith was a condition of the mighty works of God through all these heroes of faith.
John makes the conditions even more explicit. "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." (1 John 3:7) Notice that the text does not say that the one who does righteousness has already been declared righteous, and that this is just a fruit of his being righteous. Doing and righteousness are one and the same thing.
Paul describes the steps to salvation very clearly. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:5-7) How are we saved? By washing, by regeneration, by renewing, by the Holy Spirit. All of these are steps in the salvation process, not results of the salvation experience. This is a crucial defining point in our study of the gospel. The evangelical Christian gospel teaches that all of these things are the inevitable result of accepting Christ and being saved. In other words, once we stand justified and saved, we will experience all these resuslts (which they call sancti fication) in due time, just as we will experience glorification in due time. This means that salvation does not depend on our experiencing regeneration and renewal, but on "being justified by his grace" apart from the new birth experience. But this text places regeneration and renewal as necessary steps in justification and salvation. Without these steps, we are not saved.
Ellen White says it clearly. "Our only ground of hope is in the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and in that wrought by His Spirit working in and through us." (SC 63) The work of the Holy Spirit in us is part of the ground of our salvation. "There must be an entire, unreserved surrender to God, a forsaking and turning away from the love of the world and earthly things, or we cannot be His disciples." (RH August 31, 1886) Surrender and forsaking seem to be definite conditions of being Christians. "God requires the entire surrender of the heart, before justification can take place; and in order for man to retain justification, there must be continual obedience, through active, living faith that works by love and purifies the soul." (1 SM 366) "Salvation means to us complete surrender of soul, body, and spirit." (ST Nov. 15, 1899) It is crystal clear that surrender precedes justification. There is simply no salvation without surrender. Is surrender a condition of salvation then? It is not an option, it is not a result, it is a necessary step before we can be justified and saved. Incidentally, faith and surrender are one and the same thing. There is no genuine faith without heart surrender. Any faith without surrender is the kind the devils have, who believe and tremble. Surrender is the only way we can receive Christ's righteousness. Then perhaps surrendering the will and dying daily are vital parts of the everlasting gospel!
CG says, "But the moment these internal actions become conditions for justification, the moment they become the means by which a person is saved, the good news gets blunted--like with a sledgehammer." Let's look into inspiration again. "Implicit obedience is the condition of salvation.(ST Nov. 15, 1899) "The great gift of salvation is freely offered to us, through Jesus Christ, on condition that we obey the law of God." (ST Dec. 15, 1887) "Self-denial is the condition of salvation." (Bible Echo, Dec. 9, 1895) Do these conditions really blunt the good news like a sledgehammer?
Let us take one more look at the conditions named in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. Faith, repentance, surrender, obedience, self-denial. Do we begin to hear some peole shout, "Legalism"? The problem comes when we confuse the conditions of salvation with the means of salvation, which is exactly what CG did. The means of our salvation is Christ's life and His death on the cross. That's the only means of salvation we will ever have. God's grace sent His Holy Spirit searching for us before we even knew anything about God. Alll of these things are the means of salvation. The conditions of salvation are simply the things that we do in response to God, showing that we like God's means. We yield to His way of salvation rather than to our selfish wills. Conditions are not meritorious; means are meritorious. Conditions do not earn anything; they simply say, "I want to be part of the family. I want to be adopted. You have done everything you can do to save me, and now I choose to be part of Your plan."
When you are taking a trip by car, the engine and the fuel are the means of getting to your destination. But is something else necessary if you are going to get there? Do you have to get into the car, get behind the steering wheel, work some pedals on the floor and some levers to get there? Those are the conditions of your travel. But if there is no gas in the tank, you could sit behind the steering wheel for a month and you would never get anywhere. Fuel in the tank and an engine under the hood are the means, the cause, of your trip. The conditions of your trip involve getting into the car.
"When we exercise faith we obey and when we obey we exercise faith, but neither earns us salvation. Jesus' death counted to us and the work of His Spirit in us is salvation." (LK) If we separate faith from obedience, then we must answer the question, "How much later does obedience come?" Does it happen a minute later than faith, or an hour later, or a month later? If obedience is only a fruit of faith, then we can just sit back and wait for the fruit to appear. If God will just take away the temptations that I am bombarded with, then obedience will come as an inevitable fruit of my faith. Do you begin to see how much allowance this kind of thinking makes for continued sinning in my life--until God sees fit to remove the temptations? No, faith and surrender and obedience are synonymous. They happen together, and they are conditions of salvation.
CG continues, "Notice how humanistic, how sinner-centered, this understanding of the gospel is. We must die daily, we must surrender our will, we must do this, we must do that. The argument that it's God doing the works in us, and thus not our own, doesn't let them off the hook....It's still the people, themselves, doing these works, and if these works justify them, then they're saved by faith and works, period." These are very strong, even sarcastic comments. Let us see how they square with Scripture.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal. 2:20) Being crucified with Christ sounds very much like dying daily, because the verse is about daily living in the flesh. Notice also who is living this daily Christian life. It is Christ living in me Who produces any good works that are ever going to happen in my life. Perhaps it is important here to differentiate between two kinds of "good works." A person who is not crucified with Christ can do good works in the eyes of fellow human beings. Being a good moral person is a noble thing, but it is a work of the flesh, produced by human motivations for human ends. A "good work" which is approved by God as part of His salvation plan is only a work which Christ does in us. The only "good work" the Bible knows of is the work of Christ living in us. It is never Christians themselves doing good works.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Phil. 2:12-13) How are we to "work out" our salvation? God both wills and does in us. My working will produce absolutely nothing apart from God. As far as we allow, God will work in us to obey Him.
"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:...Whereunto I also labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." (Col. 1:27-29) Our striving is of value only as Christ is living in us and working in us. Any work which has relevance for eternal life will be a work produced by Christ in our lives.
"But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." (Mark 13:11) Who are we to depend on for "good words" to be spoken? We are to serve as mouthpieces for the Holy Spirit.
While we can choose to serve and obey God, we simply cannot carry out our choices. Romans 7 is very true for us in our own abilities. The good that we want to do, we do not carry out. Those things we do not want to do are the very things we end up doing. While we may want to obey God, it is simply not in our power to carry out our desires. True good works are possible only by God's grace and power. We ourselves can never do the kind of good works which are relevant to the salvation process. On the basis of Scripture, we must reject CG's contention that "it's still the people, themselves, doing these works." If they are truly good works, they are God's works which we are allowing Him to carry out in our lives.
CG continues, "But no matter how righteous we become by what God does in us, our salvation still comes only from what God has done outside us, in the life and death of Jesus. Our hope of salvation must never remain centered upon ourselves, or what happens within; instead, the righteousness that saves us--the obedience that redeems us and the holiness that justifies us--always remains external to us, a righteousness that exists in heaven itself."
LK responds, "But our hope of salvation has never been centered upon ourselves or on what Christ does in us. Can we be fair at this point too? All we hold is that those inspired statements that say that God works in us, that salvation includes an inward experience of regeneration, that 'Our only ground of hope is in the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and in that wrought by His Spirit working in and through us,' must be honored for what they tell us--no more, and no less. Al l we say is that a critical part of our salvation, besides what has happened outside of us, is also, according to inspiration, what happens inside of us."
In a recent Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, (March 18, 2003) CG's perspective found a practical application. In discussing the faith of Abraham, the author concluded, "However much Abram's life was a life of faith and obedience, it was not a life of perfect faith and perfect obedience....The righteousness that saves us is a righteousness that is credited to us, a righteousness that is...imputed to us. This means that we are declared righteous in the sight of God, despite our faults; it means that the God of heaven views us as righteous even if we are not." Here we have come face to face with the extreme danger of this understanding of the gospel. lt teaches that since we are saved by external righteousness alone, ongoing faults and unrighteousness in our lives are not relevant to our salvation. It says that we remain justified and saved while these faults and sins remain unconfessed and unsurrendered. If Abram remained justified while he was lying about his wife, then I can remain justified while lying to or about my wife. This gospel allows some unconfessed sin to remain in the life of a justified Christian, since the righteousness that saves us "always remains external to us." This is the heart and soul of the evangelical gospel which promises salvation apart from surrender and obedience, and which has led to so many unfortunate excesses in the popular churches today.
Some years ago the Adventist Review (August 12, 1982) reported a similar experience outside the Adventist Church. "Father Zacharia, pastor of the...Coptic Orthodox church,...experienced what can only be described as an evangelical conversion....Zacharia has been teaching that justification is 'a mere verdict of righteousness' without any inward renewal, or righteousness of character. That is, when God justifies sinners He declares them righteous without making them righteous." The Review article concluded that this view of justification "separates what the Reformers refused to separate, namely, the new status and the new life, justification and regeneration, the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit....Justification is not a legal fiction that leaves the justified sinner unchanged. For God justifies the sinner only if he is in Christ....New status, new life, new creation--we must not separate these blessings. They belong together and are given to all who are in Christ."
In his concluding thoughts about the magazine CG is criticizing, he says, "When some Adventists are trying to meld evolution with our faith, these people aren't; when some Adventists are questioning our prophetic message, these people aren't; when some Adventists are buying into the subjective and secularist-premised notions of historical criticism, these people aren't; when some Adventists are doubting the prophetic ministry of El len White, these people aren't. All of which is commendable, except for one technicality: there's no Christ on their cross, which means that whatever good they offer comes burdened with the unbearable weight of salvation by works, which is no gospel and, certainly, not the 'everlasting' one."
Two points are important here. First, he admits that "these people" strongly oppose the many attacks on the Adventist message during recent years, most of which have come from within Adventism. They have remained faithful to the foundations of the Adventist message. But since "these people" do not accept his version of the gospel, CG says that they have "no Christ," salvation by works, and "no gospel."
LK comments, "But the author of the article thinks that their gospel is a works-gospel, and rejects all their consistency on all their other points with the suggestion that they are presenting the issue of salvation in a misstated manner. This is his giant conundrum, the inexplicable corner he has painted himself into, his riddle and dilemma. Namely, if these folk to whom he refers are consistent in all these other points, isn't it possible that they are being consistent here too? Isn't it possible that they are rightly interpreting the Bible and Ellen G. White in their understanding of what the everlasting gospel is?"
Second, CG rightly points us to the importance of the gospel--the way of salvation. It is supremely important that we explain and defend the true gospel as our first priority. No matter how correct we may be on other issues, if our understanding of the gospel is faulty, our salvation may be in jeopardy. If CG is right that we have a gospel of salvation by works, does it really matter that we are right on all those other issues? If we truly believe in salvation by works, we are lost. CG has done us a real service by pointing us to the heart and soul of Christianity--the gospel message. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is more important than understanding the gospel correctly. If we don't know the gospel, our knowledge of creation and evolution means nothing.
Adventism believes very strongly in soul-winning and evangelism. But if our evangelism and Bible studies are based on a false gospel, evangelism may be the most dangerous thing we can do, because it will bring tares into the church and make people a little more comfortable on their way to hell. If we assure people that their salvation is entirely external to themselves, that they are declared righteous prior to an internal making righteous, that God will take care of major internal changes down the line somewhere, in due time, then their baptism into the church may be the most dangerous thing they have ever done in their lives. The only hope they have is that God will be able to overrule the false gospel by which they were brought to Christ, and point their sincere hearts to the real cross of Calvary.
In a later Adventist Review column (Jan. 23, 2003) CG pressed his position even more strongly.
I am saved by a righteousness that exists outside of me, a righteousness that is credited to me independent of my own personal righteousness....I can't imagine how anyone who knows the Lord, who has even seen a glimpse of God's righteousness as revealed in Jesus, could believe that whatever the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives is good enough to gi ve them saving merit before God....How could anyone drawing near to Jesus believe that whatever is happening in them justifies them in any way? This idea is so alien, so repugnant and antithetical to all that I have experienced over the years, that I'm amazed that people actually believe it. Without wanting to be judgmental, all I can think is that these folks, (have) never experienced justification by faith themselves.
In another Adventist Review article (Sept. 25, 2003) J. David Newman expressed this same understanding of the gospel in these words.
Salvation is made up of two parts--grace and transformation.... Grace is what saves us....It is outside us and is given to us freely when we place our trust in Jesus. Transformation begins to take place the moment we receive grace. Transformation takes place inside us. We always look to grace for the assurance of our salvation.
In other words, transformation, while it always follows our reception of grace, is not part of the saving process. Transformation is a result of salvation rather than the method of salvation. In this understanding of the gospel, grace remains essentially separate from transformation. No matter what protestations to the contrary, transformation in the new birth experience is removed from the saving act.
I believe that the columns by CG constitute an open declaration of war on the true gospel of Jesus Christ. He is saying exactly the same thing that Desmond Ford was saying some 25 years ago: Let's get our gospel straightened out so we can accomplish our mission. CG's understanding of the gospel is exactly what Dr. Ford was trying to convince Adventism of during those years. This evangelical understanding of the gospel will destroy Adventism just as surely as if we were to accept evolution in place of creation.
Seeds and Fruits
Now it is always true that fruit does not grow out of nothing. Fruits always come from seeds planted, and seeds usually appear innocuous and harmless. But we know that some seeds produce flowers while other seeds produce weeds. What were the theological seeds that have produced the evangelical-gospel fruits in the Adventist Church?
In 1979 there was a furor of discussion over justification, sanctification and the new birth. One hundred forty-five leaders in Adventism were called to headquarters to study these subjects and produce a document reflecting our position on righteousness by faith. The document was titled "The Dynamics of Salvation,'" and appeared in the Adventist Review July 31, 1980. Most of the conclusions in this paper were sound, but there were some seeds in it which have produced fruit.
In a section entitled "The New Status in Christ," we find five points--Justification, Reconciliation, Forgiveness, Adoption, and Sanctification (in the sense of consecration). Strangely enough, there was nothing about the new birth or transformation in this section. Then these sentences appeared, "But even if we slip and fall, our sins are not entirely like those of the unredeemed....As long as we stand in the faith relationship with God, we retain our new status as His sons and daughters." Now it is true that if we slip and fall and repent we retain our status in Christ. But what if we slip and fall and don't repent? What if we rationalize or defend or cherish our sin? Then do we retain our status in Christ? There was no discussion of this important distinction in this document. A seed was planted.
The next section was entitled "The New Life in Christ." Here we find New Birth and Restoration. This should not be in a separate section from "The New Status in Christ." This implies that once we are saved we will discuss the new birth and new life. The new birth was separated from justification and forgiveness. A very important seed was planted, separating salvation from the new birth.
In the discussion of growth (the usual meaning of sanctification), sanctification is equated with the works we do and the fruit we bear. Now sanctification is a result or fruit of salvation which comes along after our salvation has been accomplished. In this section there is nothing about sanctification being as much a gift of grace as is justification. Another important seed was planted.
Inspiration tells us, "Through faith in My name He (the Father) will impart to you the sanctification and holiness which will fit you for His work in a world of sin, and qualify you for an immortal inheritance in His kingdom." (ST June 18, 1896) Notice carefully that we do not produce sanctification or holiness. These are God's gifts of grace through faith, and they are necessary to qualify us for heaven. In other words, they are part of the salvation process, not just fruits of an accomplished salvation. "If the character which we develop during our probation is according to the divine Pattern, it qualifies us to receive the welcome, 'Well done.'" (1 MR 201) We are not qualified for heaven by justification alone. Both justification and sanctification are gifts of God and are necessary to salvation. One is not a condition and the other a result.
There is so much confusion on this subject right now that one sentence bears repeating. Sanctification is a gift of grace; it is not totally or partially a work of man.
In the document we have been considering, when obedience is discussed there is no mention of obedience being a condition of salvation, which is so clearly outlined by Ellen White. Seeds were planted in this statement (largely of omission and misplacement) which have made the evangelical gospel seem to be mainstream in Adventism. Deadly seeds always bear deadly fruits.
What's So Amazing About Grace?
Philip Yancey is perhaps the most popular writer in Christian circles today. His book, What's So Amazing About Grace? has been hailed by some as the top Christian bestseller. Among non-Adventist authors, he is likely the most popular in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As evidence of this, in 2001 the Avondale College Church (Australia), with the approval of the South Pacific Division, invited him to speak on grace. These presentations were then broadcast over satellite to 180 locations throughout the division.
In 2002 Kevin Paulson reviewed this book (available on www.greatcontroversy.org). Following are some of his most important comments.
Yancey's book has doubtless contributed to what might be called the "grace saturation" in numerous books, sermons, articles, Sabbath School lessons, and other features of contemporary Adventism. The word "grace" now rivals the word "relationship" in the church's popular vocabulary....Sadly, though, his book on the subject might have better been titled, Only Half of Grace....
The following Bible verses give the other half of grace, verses without mention in the nearly 300 pages of Yancey's book. "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." (2 Cor. 9:8) ..."Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." (2 Tim. 2:1) "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world." (Titus 2:11-12) ..."Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." (Heb.12:28)...
Why does Yancey make no mention of Jesus' parable of the man who sold all he had to purchase the field with a hidden treasure (Matt. 13:44)? Or the merchant who did the same in order to buy a pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45-46)? What about the parable of the talents, in which the diligent use of God's gifts decides our eternal destiny (Matt. 25:14-30)?...
In the Prodigal Son story,...Yancey...(implies) that repentance or the lack thereof made no difference to the father in Jesus' story....It remains true that the prodigal left the pigpen and his sinful life before his father took him back. We don't read of the father traveling to the city where his son partied, apologizing for the "legalistic" rules which drove the son away, then offering the son an unconditional invitation to return, irrespective of how he lived. Jesus taught no such gospel, no such perversion of divine grace. Likewise, in referring to the pa able of the servant forgiven for the ten thousand talents, Yancey fails to mention the Bible's clear teaching that the servant's forgiveness depended on his willingness to forgive another....
(Yancey) writes: "Jesus' kingdom calls us to another way, one that depends not on our performance but His own. We do not have to achieve but merely follow. He has already earned for us the costly victory of God's acceptance" (p. 72)....At one point he quotes favorably one who writes of "God's unconditional grace and forgive- ness" (p. 15), and quotes another who insists how grace comes with "no strings attached," demanding "nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude" (p. 26)....
Like so much of evangelical Protestantism, as well as some within Adventism, Yancey teaches a salvation doctrine based on an "umbrella" view of God's forgiveness, a canopy supposedly covering past, present, and future sins--all at once....
Yancey, like so many others, makes no distinction between what we do in our own strength and what the sanctified Christian does through God's strength...."Jesus proclaimed unmistakably that God's law is so perfect and absolute that no one can achieve righteous- ness. Yet God's grace is so great that we do not have to" (p. 210).... "It is our human destiny on earth to remain imperfect, incomplete..." (p. 273). At one point Yancey writes that Jesus replaced the categories of "righteous" and "guilty" with "sinners who admit" and "sinners who deny" (p. 182)....
The fact is that if one accepts the doctrine of unconditional forgiveness and its Siamese twin--that sin can't be overcome even through God's power--all aspects of Christian living will suffer....Yancey's book ...offers the reader a half-gospel--freedom from guilt without freedom from sin. Only half of grace. Jesus presented the full gospel of Scripture in one very brief sentence, stated to the adul- terous woman thrown at His feet: "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more" (John 8:11). Yancey's book focuses on the first half of this sentence. The other half it denies.
It is truly alarming that so many Seventh-day Adventists have allowed themselves to be taken captive by this book and its author. For those who were once "people of the Book" to let the Bi ble's unerring standard be held hostage to flowery words and emotional stories, is a crisis of no small magnitude....Yancey's book is a revealing commentary on the continuing fall of Protestant Babylon....
But unless, in Ellen White's words, we "preach Christ in the law," (RH March 11, 1890) neither will be correctly understood. The same Jesus who declared, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35) also stated, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed" (John 8:31). "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:10) because only if the law is fulfilled can we be sure true love is present. The new covenant of grace, identical throughout Scripture and never mentioned in Yancey's book, defines the inner core of the Christian's relationship to God: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Jer. 31:33).
Inspired Postscript
None need fail of attaining, in his sphere, to perfection of Christian character. By the sacrifice of Christ, provision has been made for the believer to receive all things that pertain to life and godliness. God calls upon us to reach the standard of perfection and places before us the example of Christ's character. In His humanity, perfected by a life of constant resistance of evil, the Savious showed that through cooperation with Divinity, human beings may in this life attain to perfection of character. This is God's assurance to us that we, too, may obtain complete victory....The holiness that God's Word declares he must have before he can be saved is the result of the working of divine grace as he bows in submission to the discipline and restraining influences of the Spirit of truth. Man's obedience can be made perfect only by the incense of Christ's righteousness, which fills with divine fragrance every act of obedience. The part of the Christian is to persevere in overcoming every fault....Glorious is the hope before the believer as he advances by faith toward the heights of Christian perfection. (AA 530-533)
As the mind dwells upon Christ, the character is molded after the divine similitude....We contemplate His character, and thus He is in all our thoughts. His love encloses us....His image is imprinted upon the eye of the soul, and affects every portion of our daily life, softening and subduing our whole nature....We have become transformed in character; for heart, soul, mind, are irradiated by the reflection of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Here again there is the realization of a personal, living influence dwelling in our hearts by faith....Jesus is to us an abiding presence, controlling our thoughts and ideas and actions....Jesus Christ is everything to us-- the first, the last, the best in everything; it is the warp and woof, the very texture of our entire being. (MYP 159-161)
It is by unceasing endeavor that we maintain the victory over the temptations of Satan....No one will be borne upward without stern, persevering effort in his own behalf....There are hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil that must be o vercome....We are to form habits of thought that will enable us to resist temptation. We must learn to look upward....A storm is coming, relentless in its fury. Are we prepared to meet it?...We need now the sword of the Lord to cut to the very soul and marrow of fleshly lusts, appetites, and passions...."Like as he who called you is holy, be ye ourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:15-16 ARV)....Now is the time to put forth earnest effort to overcome the natural tendencies of the carnal heart....Only as we see our utter helplessness and renounce all self-trust, shall we lay hold on divine power....All our good works are dependent on a power outside of ourselves; therefore there needs to be a continual reaching out of the heart after God....Perils surround us; and we are safe only as we feel our weakness and cling with the grasp of faith to our mighty Deliverer. (8T 313-316)
I submit these statements to you as the true gospel of Jesus Christ. What we have been analyzing is a half-gospel, and it may be the most dangerous thing that Satan has ever devised to destroy our hope of salvation. Our salvation, bought for us by the blood of Jesus, awaits our complete and total surrender to God, so that He can transform our life by His grace. May His grace and His gospel be real for each one of us.
During the last few years a challenge has been offered to Seventh-day Adventists. Do we truly know if we are Protestant in our understanding of the gospel, or are we more Catholic than Protestant? This is not a minor challenge, for the Catholic way of salvation is definitely not Biblical, and if we are clinging to the Catholic gospel unwittingly, we are certain to have faulty and even dangerous perceptions of the gospel. We need to know if our gospel is Biblical or is a twisted, counterfeit version of the gospel.
The Challenge
In a Review column we were given a short quiz to test our understanding of how a person is saved. The questions were divided by odd and even numbers, which will be indicated in the sampling of statements below.
Odd: "Our right standing with God is based solely on what Christ has done for us. True or false?"
Even: "Our right standing with God is based on what Christ has done for us and in us. True or false?"
Odd: "We are justified by the merits of Jesus Christ alone. True or false?"
Even: "We are justified by God through the merits of Christ, and through the work of His Holy Spirit in our lives. True or false?"
Odd: "God gives us right standing with Him by accounting us righteous in His sight. True or false?"
Even: "God gives us right standing with Him by actually making us righteous in His sight. True or false?"
Odd: "After accepting Christ's righteousness, a believer experiences the new birth, which results in a transformed life and character. True or false?"
Even: "After having a new birth experience, in which a person's life and character is transformed, that person is then justified before God. True or false?"
After these test questions, the author drove the point of the column home.
"If you answered 'true' to all the odd-numbered questions and 'false' to all the even-numbered ones, then you line up with what has classically been the Protestant point of view. On the other hand, if you had placed 'true' after any or all of the even- numbered ones then, to some degree at least, you are inclined toward the teaching that Roman Catholicism has embraced since the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century."
However, the most important issue is which of these statements reflects the Biblical teaching about how human beings are saved. The author continues, "All the odd-numbered statements reflected the biblical teaching that our right standing with God is based, not on anything that we can do--or even what God can do in us--but solely on what Christ had done in our stead through His life and death. In contrast, the even-numbered statements reflect the idea that our right standing with God is based not just on Christ's merits imputed or credited to us, but also on what God does in our lives. This latter position has been attractive to several Christian groups, Roman Catholics (and some Adventists) included....In a desire to accentuate the holiness of God and His high expectations of His people, many sincere believers are attracted to ideas not supported in Scripture." (Clifford Goldstein, Adventist Review, Sept. 23, 1999)
In a later Review article, the author expanded his understanding of the true gospel. "Since the Reformation, Lutherans along with almost all Protestants have insisted that justification by faith is an act by which God declares us righteous....The Reformers taught that justification was something that God does for us, not in us--a crucial distinction....We're justified only by what Christ did for us, apart from us, outside of us....Protestants understand 'the grace of justification' as purely a legal declaration; for Rome justification is a process of inner renewal, something that happens in us. (Clifford Goldstein, Adventist Review, June 22, 2000)
Another author comes to the same conclusions in an earlier Review article. "Put simply, papal Rome supplants justification by faith alone, which accounts or reckons the sinner as righteous for Christ's sake, with a justification that makes a sinner righteous through an inner, sanctifying or transforming grace. Through this transforming grace, the sinner is declared to be justified....Put still another way: Rome teaches that the sinner is justified because of what grace does in him or her." (Woodrow Whidden, Adventist Review, May 25, 2000)
Some Recent History
About twenty years ago, Desmond Ford mounted a major challenge to several Adventist beliefs, including justification by faith. In support of his position, an Anglican clergyman wrote a book detailing the ongoing struggle over righteousness by faith in the Adventist Church. His analysis of justification follows. "Whereas Rome taught that justification means to make the believer just by the work of inner renewal in his heart, the Reformers taught that justification is the declaration by God that the believer is just on the grounds of the righteousness of Christ alone, which is outside the believer." (Geoffrey Paxton, The Shaking of Adventism, Zenith Publishers, Wilmington, DE, 1977, p. 39)
He charged that to focus on "the indwelling Christ is to abandon the Reformation doctrine of justification." (Ibid., p. 42) "The grace of God always refers to God and never to what is in the believer's heart." (Ibid., p. 40)
It seems that the same challenge was being made in the late 70's by a Reformed scholar. The very same issues were being raised then, and we were asked to decide between the Protestant gospel and the Catholic gospel. The challenge is simple and basic. If we believe in an inward work of grace as necessary to and preceding salvation, we are said to be Catholic. If we believe that salvation is Christ declaring us righteous as a legal statement, we are said to be Protestant.
Justification in the Bible
The first place we need to go is to Scripture, and then to the Spirit of Prophecy. It is only from inspired sources that we are safe in drawing any conclusions about so important a subject as salvation.
A classic statement by Paul is in Romans 5:1. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." The context of Romans 3-5 is clearly justification, which always produces peace in the heart because we are right with God. Romans 4:7,8 describes what happens in justification. "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." So justification is forgiveness of sins, covering sins, not crediting sin to the believer.
Ellen White expands on the meaning of this forgiveness. "God's forgi veness is not merely a judicial act by which He sets us free from condemnation....It is the outflow of redeeming love that transforms the heart. David had the true conception of forgiveness when he prayed, 'Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.' Ps. 51:10" (Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 114) Notice very carefully that forgiveness is a judicial act--a legal declaration--but it is not restricted to that. Forgiveness is the transformation of the heart--an inward work. It is the creation of a new heart and spirit within us.
In a similar statement we read, "To be pardoned in the way that Christ pardons is not only to be forgiven, but to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. The Lord says, 'A new heart will I give unto thee.'" (Review and Herald, Aug. 19, 1890) Pardon from sin is not followed by renewal--it is renewal. Pardon is a new heart. There is no difference between pardon, forgiveness, renewal, and transformation. They are all describing the same act of God, which we know best as justification.
In Titus 3:5-7 we have a very clear description of justification. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." How does Jesus save us? By regeneration and renewing of the heart by the Holy Spirit. Notice that the Holy Spirit is intimately involved in this saving experience. This process of renewal leads to justification. (It has been suggested that justification in verse 7 actually precedes the renewal of verse 5. However in verse 5 the renewal is the method by which God "saved us." Would we really want to suggest that justification occurs before we are saved? This would destroy the crucial place of justification in the salvation process.) Clearly these verses teach that renewal and regeneration are the methods by which God saves or justifies us. Justification is much more than a legal declaration or accounting.
1 Corinthians 6:11 has a unique perspective on the salvation process. "And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Did Paul get a little mixed up in his order of events here? Perhaps in our Western logical minds we have created a rigid sequence which is not always seen in Scripture. Maybe Paul is trying to tell us that the washing and sanctifying and justifying are more alike than they are different. They describe one process of salvation which is unified. One part is not more crucial or necessary for salvation than any other part. Once again, we see that salvation is an inward work, which is accomplished by the Holy Spirit.
In Romans 8:1,9,10 there are some interesting parallel statements. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit....But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." To be "in Christ Jesus" is to be "in the Spirit," which is the Spirit dwelling "in you," which is the same as "Christ in you." These are all describing the same salvation process in the person who believes in Jesus. To divide these concepts up, and say that some of them justify us, while others are only the fruit of justification, is to twist the words of Scripture to suit our own theological preconceptions.
We have a beautiful description of the conversion process in the following paragraph. "As the sinner, drawn by the power of Christ, approaches the uplifted cross, and prostrates himself before it, there is a new creation. A new heart is given him. He becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus....God Himself is 'the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.' Rom. 3:26" (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 163) At the moment of surrender to Christ's atoning death, God makes the sinner a new creature with a new heart, and this whole process is described as justifying.
"By receiving His imputed righteousness, through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit." (SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1098) Here we have a combination of terms which are strictly separated in current scholarly writing on this subject. Imputed is placed in justification, while transforming is placed in sanctification. But in this sentence we learn that we receive imputed righteousness (justification) through the process of transformation by the Holy Spirit. Our only possible conclusion is that transformation and justification are one and the same thing.
Perhaps the clearest of all these statements is this one. "Having made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Christ, God pronounces us just." (Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 394) It is important to note here that current popular thinking would rephrase this as follows: "Having declared us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Christ, God makes us just." The way it is stated by Ellen White is totally unacceptable to those who are currently challenging the long-held Adventist view of the gospel. Ellen White is too clear to be misunderstood. First God makes us righteous inwardly (which is imputed righteousness), and then He pronounces or declares us just or righteous. God simply declares what He has already done.
The most famous conversion chapter in the Bible is John 3. Let us look for some parallels in verses 14,15,3,6. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life....Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God....That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." In these verses receiving eternal life comes only through being born again, and the new birth comes only through the work of the Holy Spirit. All of this is an inward process of transformation.
There are more parallels in Ephesians 4:22-24. "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." When we leave the "old man" condition, which is another term for being lost sinners, we are created a "new man," which means being renewed in our minds. The Bible consistently describes the change from "lost" to "saved" status as a new creation or renewal, which is always an inward process.
There are more parallels in Galatians 2:16,20. "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified....I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Here we have the strongest possible statement by Paul that we are justified by faith alone, and never by works. He then describes this as crucifixion and new life in Christ. So, justification is the same as being crucified with Christ and Christ living in me. These are all terms meaning exactly the same thing--the change from lost to saved status.
There is one more insight in Galatians 3:11,2,3. "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith....
Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" In the process of justification, the Holy Spirit is very much involved. He begins the work of justification by faith, which automatically makes justification an inward process.
Justification in the Reformers
In the challenge placed before us, we were told that the Protestant reformers believed and taught the old-numbered statements, while the Catholic Church taught the even-numbered statements. We are assured about Luther's "mature concept of justification: it is the forensic or legal imputation of Christ's righteousness to the repentant believer." (Hans LaRondelle, Ministry, November, 2000) "Forgiveness and making right contradict one another." (Hans Heinz, Ministry, November 2000) We are told that Luther and the other reformers believed in justification as legal declaration or accounting righteous, rather than making righteous. Let us look at some representative statements by Martin Luther.
"...this movement of justification is the work of God in us." (Luther's Works, Concordia Publishing House, Saint Louis, 1963, vol. 34, p. 177 [1536])
"He therefore draws us into himself, and transforms us....It is thus in Romans 5, 'We are justified by faith.'" (LW, vol. 32, pp. 235-36 [1521])
"Therefore the Christ who is grasped by faith and who lives in the heart is the true Christian righteousness, on account of which God counts us righteous and grants us eternal life." (LW, vol. 26, pp. 129-30 [1535])
"But so far as justification is concerned, Christ and I must be so closely attached that He lives in me and I in Him....Faith must be taught correctly, namely, that by it you are so cemented to Christ that He and you are as one person, which cannot be separated....This faith couples Christ and me more intimately than a husband is coupled to his wife." (LW, vol. 26, pp. 167-68 [1535])
"Then what does justify...the Holy Spirit who justifies." (LW, vol. 26, p. 208 [1535])
"This faith justifies you; it will cause Christ to dwell, live, and reign in you." (LW, vol. 27, p. 172 [1519])
At the beginning of his sermons on John 3, Luther said, "This chapter stresses above all else that sublime topic: faith in Christ, which alone justifies us before God." (LW, vol. 22, p. 275)
All of these statements are telling us the same basic thing. Justification is transforming us. When Christ lives in the heart, God counts us righteous. Justification is Christ living in me and I in Him. Faith is cementing us to Christ so that we cannot be separated. Justification is done by the Holy Spirit. The new birth experience is justification. All of these statements stress inward righteousness as the essence of justification, and yet we are told that Luther's mature concept of justification is the "legal imputation of Christ's righteousness to the repentant believer."
How did this misunderstand come about? Why do we have an erroneous picture of what the major reformers believed? Perhaps this might be the key. "In time, Lutherans began to draw an increasingly sharp distinction between the event of being declared righteous (justification), and the process of being made righteous (sanctification, regeneration)." (Raoul Dederen, Ministry, November, 2000) It was the followers of Luther that began to make a sharp distinction between being declared righteous and being made righteous.
Another scholar says it even more plainly. "Luther's concept of justification, his concept of the presence of Christ within the believer...all were rejected or radically modified by those who followed him." (Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, vol. 2, p. 32) McGrath describes specifically how this happened. Melanchthon promoted legal-only justification (Ibid., pp. 23-26). Martin Chemnitz defended Luther against Catholic attacks, and he followed Melanchthon's reasoning. Chemnitz said that there is no Scripture evidence for internalized righteousness. He said that "Christ in you" is figurative language, and we are counted as righteous even though we are not really righteous. (Ibid., p. 29). Orthodox Lutheranism came to follow Chemnitz on this issue and thus rejected Luther's position. (Ibid., pp. 44-45)
So we see that the trouble spot is those who followed Luther in time and changed what he actually taught. Legal-only justification is actually post-Reformation scholastic Lutheranism. Unfortunately, this understanding of justification has become the standard position of churches and scholars of our day. Now some of our own Seventh-day Adventist thinkers are telling us that this is the Biblical position and the position of the Reformers. The harsh reality is that this position (the odd-numbered questions in the quiz) is neither Biblical nor Protestant. It is the position of what has come to be known today as the Evangelical gospel, which is a well-defined set of beliefs about how salvation works for indi vidual Christians. What is called the Catholic gospel in the quiz (the even-numbered questions) is really the Biblical and Protestant position.
Justification in Catholic Teaching
Then what is the real Catholic position on salvation? Actually, it is spelled out very well in the Review articles quoted from earlier. "Christ's merits...are actually infused into the life of the believer through the sacraments administered by the Roman Catholic Church itself. Rome teaches that this saving merit doesn't remain outside of us but becomes something that happens inside a person, a change that gives that person merit before God....'Moved by the Holy Spirit,' says the Catechism, 'we can merit for ourselves and for all others the graces needed to obtain eternal life.'...
'The church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation.'...The Roman Catholic system is based on the crucial notion that all that Christ has done or does for a person comes mediated through the church itself. In other words, salvation...is dispensed to the faithful only through the church and its sacraments and priesthood." (Clifford Goldstein, Adventist Review, June 22, 2000)
"The sanctifying grace of God (is) infused into the believer through the sacraments of the church....This inner, 'infused' righteousness forms the meritorious basis of the penitent believer's justification....The Catholic way of salvation is a vast sacramental system that sees grace as being mediated through the sacraments administered by ordained priests. The sacraments and the human priests...are the channels of saving grace." (Woodrow Whidden, Adventist Review, May 25, 2000)
There are several clear Catholic teachings about salvation, which are spelled out very well in the quotations above.
1) God's grace is infused into the believer. Infusing is what happens in a blood transfusion. Another person's blood is infused into my blood supply so that the two become one, and can never be separated again. God infuses His righteousness into us so that it becomes an inseparable part of us, and we can then use this infused righteousness (now part of us) to obey God and do good works. This is not imparted righteousness, which is God sharing His power and grace with us moment by moment as long as we remain connected with Him. If we separate from Him, the connection of righteousness is broken, and we are left without any righteousness at all. We have no internal righteousness which we can use at our discretion.
2) We are infused with righteousness only through the sacraments. This is the crucial bottom line of salvation. We can't receive righteousness and justification by surrendering to God and confessing our sins to Christ. We can receive God's grace only through the sacraments of the church administered by the priests. The sacraments actually convey God's grace and righteousness to the believer.
3) Because we have righteousness infused into us, we have merit before God, and the good works we do by this infused righteousness will merit eternal life for us.
4) Salvation is only possible through the mediation of the church through the priesthood. It is impossible to be saved by individually approaching God in faith on the basis of Christ's atonement.
This is the real Catholic position on righteousness by faith. It is not aboutChrist dwelling in us. It is not about justification meaning to make righteous. It is not about the Holy Spirit's work in us leading to justification. It is not about the new birth being necessary before we are pronounced righteous by God. It is about the church and the sacraments and the priesthood.
What Is Going On?
Now we come back to the quiz with which this paper began. What was called the Protestant and Biblical position is really the Evangelical position, and what was called the Catholic position is really the Protestant and Biblical position. The real Catholic position of salvation is quite different from any of the questions selected from the quiz. (There were other questions in the original quiz which correctly differentiated between Protestant and Catholic beliefs, but the ones selected are the crucial ones for our study.)
Why is all of this worth our attention? Because if the Biblical gospel is all about an inward experience in which the Holy Spirit actually makes us righteous through the new birth before we can be pronounced righteous, then we are being warned to stay away from this teaching because it is Catholic. We are being warned against the Biblical gospel under the guise that it is a Catholic gospel. Further, we are being told that we should believe in another gospel, which is really the Evangelical gospel, under the guise that it is the Biblical gospel.
This is a very subtle deception, because it links the obviously destructive and erroneous teaching of the Catholic Church about salvation with the true gospel of the Bible. We are instructed to throw out both because one is so obviously dangerous. We are being told that inward justification and the Holy Spirit making us righteous before pronouncing us righteous are the same as infused righteousness, the sacraments, merit, and indulgences. By means of carefully crafted articles and a quiz (in which we hardly know what the right answers should be) we are being told to exchange the Biblical gospel for the Evangelical gospel.
Since the Evangelical justification is a legal declaration of forgiveness, and not in itself a change of heart--the change of heart comes in sanctification, which they believe is never complete in this life--therefore justification by faith covers continued sinning to some degree. In fact, they see it as impossible to stop sinning as long as we are in mortal flesh with a sinful nature.
Sometimes we used to wonder how the "very elect" could be deceived. After all, the Adventist message was so clear and based on such solid Biblical evidence that deception was well-nigh impossible. And then came the winds of doctrine blowing about us during the last twenty years. Gradually those winds have infiltrated various levels of our church, until what was rejected out of hand in previous years has become mainstream thinking in some quarters. We are being told that what was once orthodox Adventist teaching about salvation is really Catholic and dangerous. We are being told that the gospel promoted by Ford, Brinsmead, and Paxton in the 70's is the true gospel which we should have accepted back then and we certainly need to get it right today. The winds of deception are very persuasive and can easily sweep away the "very elect" today.
Final Thoughts
I am going to conclude this study with some thoughtful perceptions of what is happening in the Adventist Church today.
In what we are dealing with here, there are only two distinct streams. There is the authentic stream of the everlasting gospel, as defined in Revelation 14:7, and there is the stream which is to be found enshrined today in the evangelical gospel. The two are absolutely, watertight, logical, and coherent concepts, but, as Sister White says, men start with a wrong premise and bring everything to bear upon it, which is exactly what Evangelical Protestantism has done.
These concepts have now plunged into the Baptist Church, the Church of Christ, and even into other more conservative groups. Incredibly, they are now making great inroads into the Seventh-day Adventist Church!
Today we are in no man's land in Seventh-day Adventism if we try to integrate some of these pagan, Augustinian, Catholic, Evangelical, Reformed concepts into Seventh-day Adventism. There is no consistency in having part of one, and part of the other.
Our brethren at Glacier View were wholly wrong in condemning his (Ford's) eschatology (end-time interpretation) while upholding his soteriology (salvational concepts). Either he was right on both or wrong on both. However , somehow those who were leading out in Glacier View did not have sufficient understanding of the situation to discern that Ford's eschatology and soteriology were wholly inseparable.
There is no way we can safely accept part of the everlasting gospel and part of the evangelical gospel, because error will eventually always win out. When truth and error are incorporated together, ultimately error is the victor.
Many Seventh-day Adventist preachers today are presenting a hybrid system of theology, and have an admixture of the everlasting gospel, and Evangelical Protestantism.
For example, take preachers who support the understanding that Christ took upon Himself our fallen nature, adult believer's baptism, and the possibility of victorious Christian living. These beliefs are all inconsistent with Evangelical Protestant concepts. Yet many of the same preachers will deliver sermons consistent with the evangelicals: a justification-alone salvation, sins do not separate us from God, the belief that the man of Romans 7 is the converted man.
As these preachers attempt to blend their evangelical teachings with portions of the everlasting gospel, they present an inconsistent gospel. It is not logical to have them together. However, most of us are just not sufficiently versed to distinguish such inconsistencies, and so members of widely different understandings receive from the sermons that which they believe, and so declare it all to be--a beautiful gospel.
The more we as Seventh-day Adventists neglect the study of God's Word, the greater will be our inability to perceive the lack of consistency in the presentations--either in sermons or in books. (Colin Standish, Our Firm Foundation, November, 1996)
The reality is that when we do not perceive inconsistencies in teachings, we will not perceive inconsistencies in practices either. Our confusion in doctrine is leading to confusion in worship styles, church growth methods, music, entertainment, church standards, and on and on.
Perhaps the best conclusion to this thought paper is Paul's admonition in Ephesians 4:13-15. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ."