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Our Message and Work To-day

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Nov 24, 1904

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 47.

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Our Message and Work To-day

By William Warren Prescott

W. W. PRESCOTT
(Reading for Tuesday, December 13)
Our message is “the everlasting gospel.” This is “the gospel of God . . . concerning his Son.” This gospel is always “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth,” and the reason for this is that “God’s righteousness is being revealed in it.” This is the gospel of righteousness by faith—the one and only true gospel.
Our message is the gospel of salvation from sin through faith in Christ as a personal Saviour. It proclaims the unchanged and unchangeable law of God, “for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin;” and then it declares (Rom. 3:21-26) that “apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.”
This is the personal experience of the gospel of righteousness by faith. It exalts God’s law as “holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good,” and then preaches faith in Jesus as the only possible means of living a life in harmony with that law. This is the faith which establishes the law.
Our message is the threefold message of the fourteenth chapter of the book of Revelation. It declares that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand,” and it presents “the everlasting gospel” of righteousness by faith as the only preparation for the coming of the Son of man on the white cloud. It announces that the judgment hour is come, and urges the worship of the true God as revealed in his Son, Jesus Christ, the Creator and the Redeemer.
It makes known the apostasy of the professed church of Christ through its acceptance of the creeds and the traditions of men in place of “the law and the testimony,” so that it is “fitly represented by the term ‘Babylon.’”
It points out that the little horn in Daniel’s vision of the four beasts, and the ten-horned beast from the sea in John’s vision, find their fulfilment in “the man of sin” of Paul’s prophecy, who assumes the titles and the place of the true God. It warns every man against worshiping the beast or his image, and against receiving his mark “on his forehead or upon his hand.”
The result of this proclamation of the threefold message is that a people are called out who accept the revelation of God the Father which has been made in the person of his Son, who give to the Son the place which belongs to him in the plan of redemption, and who are steadfast in their obedience to the commandments of God. This is the gospel of righteousness by faith, applied to the special circumstances and needs of the last generation. In this setting, the doctrine of justification by faith will not be a mere theoretical philosophy, but it will reveal itself as “the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself.” It then becomes the message of preparation for the coming of the Lord.
Our message is, therefore, “the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.” It is such a revelation of the character of God in Christ and of the work of God through Christ as, when really accepted, will make men and women like Christ, and thus give them boldness in this judgment hour, and prepare them so that they will not be ashamed before him at his coming.
Our message is such a teaching of “the everlasting gospel” in its purity as will expose all the deceptions of Satan and his perversions of the truth. It will unmask all these new gospels of modern times, and will show that their advocates have taken simply the vocabulary of the gospel of Christ in which to set forth “philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” It will make it clear that the overt act of the worship of the beast and his image is only the climax of that tendency in the human heart to exalt a man (self) in place of God, and it will bring home to the experience of each individual the declaration of the gospel prophet, “All flesh is grass, . . . Behold your God.” It will translate Isaiah’s cry, “Behold your God,” into John’s words, “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world.” It will accept no tradition in the place of the living oracles of God, and no man as the vicegerent of the Son of God, but will take the Word of God as the source and authority of all doctrine, and will give to Jesus the eternal Son, the place which belongs to him as the true Head of thechurch. All this it will do in presenting the Scripture evidences of the coming of the Lord in this generation, and in making ready a people prepared for the Lord. This is the real purpose of our message.
It may help us to appreciate more fully these truths if we recall some experiences in our recent history. In the following quotation the spirit of prophecy defines the real meaning of the message of righteousness by faith, which was emphasized anew to us sixteen years ago:—
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. Many had lost sight of Jesus. They needed to have their eyes directed to his divine person, his merits, and his changeless love for the human family. All power is given into his hands, that he may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of his own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel’s message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of his Spirit in a large measure.
The uplifted Saviour is to appear in his efficacious work as the Lamb slain, sitting upon the throne, to dispense the priceless covenant blessings, the benefits he died to purchase for every soul who should believe on him. John could not express that love in words; it was too deep, too broad; he calls upon the human family to behold it. Christ is pleading for the church in the heavenly courts above, pleading for those for whom he paid the redemption price of his own life-blood. Centuries, ages, can never diminish the efficacy of this atoning sacrifice. This message of the gospel of his grace was to be given to the church in clear and distinct lines, that the world should no longer say that Seventh-day Adventists talk the law, the law, but do not teach or believe Christ.
The efficacy of the blood of Christ was to be presented to the people with freshness and power, that their faith might lay hold upon its merits. As the high priest sprinkled the warm blood upon the mercy-seat, while the fragrant cloud of incense ascended before God, so while we confess our sins, and plead the efficacy of Christ’s atoning blood, our prayers are to ascend to heaven, fragrant with the merits of our Saviour’s character. . . .
Unless he makes it his life business to behold the uplifted Saviour, and by faith to accept the merits which it is his privilege to claim, the sinner can no more be saved than Peter could walk upon the water unless he kept his eyes fixed steadily upon Jesus. Now it has been Satan’s determined purpose to eclipse the view of Jesus, and lead men to look to man, and trust to man, and be educated to expect help from man. For years the church has been looking to man, and expecting much from man, but not looking to Jesus, in whom our hopes of eternal life are centered. Therefore God gave to his servants a testimony that presented the truth as it is in Jesus, which is the third angel’s message in clear, distinct lines.
From our general view of the question, and from the quotation just given, it is clear that the message of “justification through faith in the Surety,” the message of “the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God,” is “the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel’s message.” We may, then, reverse the statement, and say that the third angel’s message is the message of “justification through faith in the Surety.” It follows then plainly enough that the only genuine message of justification by faith for this generation is the third angel’s message, and that the threefold message of Revelation 14 must be the setting in which the doctrine of justification by faith must be taught to the people in this last generation, in order that it may be the genuine message of justification by faith.
In other words, the true teaching of justification by faith for this generation means more than an abstract argument upon free grace and the gift of righteousness: it involves all that grows out of a correct understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh, and of the eternal purpose of God from the making of the everlasting covenant of grace unto the establishment of the kingdom of God in the new earth. This means the restoration of the pure truth of the gospel, and will include every distinctive doctrine which has separated Seventh-day Adventists from the other denominations.
But in order that these distinctive doctrines shall constitute the third angel’s message, they must be taught as essential features of the gospel of righteousness by faith; and in order that the message of righteousness by faith to this generation may be genuine, it must be presented as the warning message of Revelation 14. On no other basis can the third angel’s message be truly given, or the doctrine of justification by faith for this generation be truly taught.
If our message is studied and understood from this standpoint, we shall be saved from the mistake of substituting some phase of the message, or some partial revelation of the truth, for the message itself. There is constant danger of doing this, since the work has been divided into several departments. The gospel message which is to prepare a people for translation must deal with the whole man, body, soul, and spirit. But in all this work there must be the revelation of the one essential experience—being made righteous by faith. Any principles which constitute a special department of our work, such as the principles of religious liberty, the principles of health and temperance, or the principles of education, are, then, a part of this third angel’s message when they are taught as one phase of the experience of justification by faith, and in their relation to the other phases of the message.
When taught on any other basis, they may be valuable as a means of bestowing some temporal benefit, but they can not be regarded as an integral part of this message. They may easily become a convenient medium for the doctrine of righteousness by works, one form of self-salvation apart from the atoning work of Christ.
Our message, then, is God’s last call to the world to accept his offer of salvation from sin, through faith in the merits and atoning work of Jesus Christ, the Son of man and Son of God. In giving this last call, the gospel in its fulness and its purity will be proclaimed “unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people.” All the light of past ages will be focused upon this generation until “the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”
In thinking about our work, we must remember the words of Jesus, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Our first work is to believe with all the heart the very message of which we have been speaking. In recent years some have lost their faith in the message, and as an inevitable result their work has been inefficient. Those who really believe that this is the final message of mercy will make it the supreme thing in their lives. They will pray for it, they will sacrifice for it, they will labor for it. Its prosperity will be their chiefest happiness, its adversity will be their chiefest sorrow.
Furthermore, there will be united and intelligent action on the part of the believers to carry this message quickly to all the world. The message itself is the greatest incentive to carry the message. “The love of Christ constraineth us.”
In view of all these considerations, we solemnly believe that the time has fully come for Seventh-day Adventists, to whom this message has been committed, to take up their work with a holy zeal and an undying enthusiasm, and to give themselves wholly to this service until the work is finished. Earnestly and heartily, with unwavering faith and unceasing effort let us spread this warning call in the highways and in the byways: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel.”
“God of Israel, high and glorious, Let thy people see thy hand; Let the message be victorious Through the world, in every land: Come, Lord Jesus, O come quickly, And thy blessing now command.”