A QUERY by M. E. Steward

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 24, 1900

A QUERY.

By M. E. Steward

M. E. STEWARD.

(Battle Creek, Mich.)

THE question has been asked, How could God have been in William Miller’s work, when he taught an error?

How could God have been in Martin Luther’s work? The keynote of the Reformation was justification by faith. Faith does not make void the law: it establishes the law. Yet Luther was an habitual transgressor of the fourth commandment of God’s law.

John Wesley added sanctification to the justification taught by Luther. Wesley and his godly associates did a mighty work for the Lord; but none of them observed the true Sabbath. Can one be justified and sanctified while continuing in sin? you may ask.

God suffered William Miller to make a mistake without setting him right. Christ did the same when the people shouted, “Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Could anyone say that God was not in that work? The people could not understand the nature of the kingdom of God at that time; yet their attention must be directed to the One who was about to be crucified for the world; he must appear as the legal heir of David’s throne.

Just so the Lord has overruled the errors of his workers. Justification by faith separated his people from the antichristian church. In Miller’s time the generation was in existence that was to witness the second coming of Christ, and his church must be made ready for translation. The first thing to do was to separate them from merely nominal professors of Christianity. This the test of the first angel’s message accomplished.

On the other hand, very shortly after the disappointment the church saw “the temple of God . . . opened in heaven.” Judging from the typical sanctuary, the temple must have the ark containing the tables of the law. And now comes the light on the Sabbath; Luther’s and Wesley’s works are rounded out; and we behold a harmonious whole—a design so beautiful, so full of tender mercy, that our hearts are filled with reverential love and gratitude.

For twelve hundred and sixty years the papacy “cast down the truth to the ground,” till it was said that there was not a doctrine of the Bible which she had not perverted. When the Lord undertook to restore the truth, he did not give it all at once. There has been a gradual unfolding of truth during the last four hundred years. Christ said to his disciples, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye can not bear them now.” He has given time to understand and appropriate each truth before giving another. What tender consideration is this! Can we help loving and trusting the Lord more as we see him keeping pace with the weakest and smallest?

Coming down to the nineteenth century, William Miller gave the world the first angel’s message, — “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.” The great idea of this message is time. Since the angel represented the Lord, God’s part of William Miller’s work was time. Mr. Miller founded his work on Dan. 8:14: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” God still gives one point at a time. The sanctuary belongs to the Third Angel’s Message, and was not to be understood till the third angel came. It is all plain now, and point by point the dear Saviour is bringing his people to perfection, to present to himself “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,” but “holy and without blemish.”