SEVENTH -DAY A D V EN T ISM continued
Seventh-day Adventists teach that Sabbath-keeping is essential for maintaining one’s salvation
in force from the creation, that it was ratified at Mt. Sinai, that the papacy as "the little horn” of Daniel 7 "changed the day,” and that "the third angel’s message” (Rev. 14:9- 11) requires that the ten commandments, including the seventh-day Sabbath precept, be obeyed. Subsequently, Bates wrote another tract, The Seal o f the Living God, attested by Ellen White who declared, "The seal is the Sabbath.” A more ambitious work, History o f the Sabbath and o f the First Day o f the Week, by J. N. Andrews, followed. Mrs. White confirmed Bates’ views with her "vision” of April 7, 1847 which we reproduced in our April issue. Claiming to be taken to heaven by an angel, she there supposedly “saw” the ten commandments with the other memorials of Israel’s history in the ark. O f the fourth commandment she writes: "The fourth [the Sabbath commandment] shone above them all; for the Sabbath was set apart to be kept in honor of God’s holy name. The holy Sabbath looked glorious — a halo of glory was all around it. I saw that the Sabbath was not nailed to the cross. . . . I saw that the holy Sabbath is, and will be, the separating wall between the true Israel o f God and unbelievers; and that the Sabbath is the great question to unite the hearts o f God’s dear waiting saints. And if one believed, and kept the Sabbath, and received the blessing attending it, and then gave it up, and broke the holy com mandment, they would shut the gates of the Holy City against themselves, as sure as there was a God in heaven above” (A Word to the Little Flock, one of the earliest Adventist publications. Italics mine). In the face of these declarations by "the messenger of the Lord to the remnant church” (as Mrs. White is designated by the Seventh-day Adventists), dare anyone claim that this sect does not teach that Sabbath-keeping is essential to salvation? Dr. Leroy Froom, prominent Seventh-day Adventist leader of the present day, explains: "Thus the Sabbath, first received under the binding claim of the law of God, was now reinforced by various prophetic passages, particularly of Revelation 14:9-12, which gave the Sabbath the signifi cance of a testing, sealing message for the last days. And the doctrine of the heavenly sanctuary, which explained the Disappointment and enforced the soundness of their basic positions, was now clearly interlocked with the doctrine of the Sabbath” (The Prophetic Faith o f our Fathers, Vol. IV, p. 95 9 ). It is consistent that the sanctuary teaching, which pre sents the Lord Jesus Christ as still making atonement in heaven, and the Sabbath doctrine, the sect’s chief mark of legalism and salvation by works, should be "interlocked.” The sanctuary heresy sets forth an incomplete Saviour; the Sabbath an unfinished salvation. Consequently, it is sadly true that no Seventh-day Adventist has assurance of salvation. He cannot rejoice in such Scriptures as 1 John 5:13: "These things have I written unto you that believe on the
name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” My soul is filled with a righteous indignation when I think of these modern religious leaders who, like the Pharisees of old, "shut up the kingdom of heaven against men,” of whom Christ further declared [in figure] : ". . . Ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matt. 2 3 :1 3 ). Those evangelical writers who have permitted "blind leaders of the blind” to persuade them to throw their influ ence into the enemy’s cause must also share in the responsi bility for this shameful betrayal of the souls of lost men. Instead of employing their gifts and energies as apologists for this sect, they should be warning men and women — and young people especially — of the peril of dabbling with error in any form. Thank God for a present salvation, for hope and joy and peace in believing that our sins are forgiven for His name’s sake, for the assurance of eternal life here and now! Salva- tion-plus-law, salvation-plus-the-Sabbath, is utterly contrary to salvation by grace through faith plus nothing, which blessed spiritual boon is based upon the finished work of a substitutionary, vicarious Saviour on the cross of Calvary. The Sabbath, as related to the last days, is described by Mrs. White as follows: "Through a rift in the clouds, there beams a star whose brilliancy is increased fourfold in contrast with the darkness. It speaks of hope and joy to the faithful but severity and wrath to the transgressors of God’s law. Too late they see that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seal of the living God. . . . The voice of God is heard from heaven, declaring the day and hour of Jesus’ coming and delivering the everlasting covenant to His people” (The Great Controversy, pp. 638, 6 4 0 ). In like manner the Seventh-day Adventist Sabbath as "the test and seal of God” is featured in all Seventh-day Adventist literature. For instance, Uriah Smith, famous for his 46- page Key to the Prophetic Chart upon which so much Seventh-day Adventist eschatology is based, wrote bluntly: "W e understand the religious world will be divided into just two classes, those who keep the Sabbath, and those who oppose it” (Biblical Institute, p. 24 0 ). It is my under standing too — and I am sure it is yours, my friends — that the world is divided into two classes: the saved and the lost, according to what they do with the offer of free salvation in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Lamb of God, man’s only Saviour. When Did the Sabbath Begin? No one denies the assertion of the Seventh-day Adventists that "on the seventh day” God rested from His creation labors and sanctified the day. However, there is no implica tion in the Genesis account or any other place in the Word that this Sabbath was applicable to man. Dr. Charles L. Feinberg comments: "There is no hint here [in Genesis]
26
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker