p. 2 | 3457 - Baptism

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 6, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 22.

3457 — Baptism

If baptism is necessary for salvation, was salvation possible before 1844, as there were no ordained Seventh-day Adventists before that time, were there?

In the first place, neither baptism nor the Lord's Supper nor any other ordinance is necessary for salvation. Christ only is necessary for salvation. There will be millions saved who were never baptized. God can and does save the submissive heart. 2 Chron. 16:9. If that heart can not, does not, see every duty, unknown duty will not hinder his salvation. See John 15:22, 24. Seeing the duty of baptism and rejecting it is quite another thing.

Seventh-day Adventists believe in the continuity of the church of Christ. Sometimes that church has been pure and triumphant. Sometimes she has been backslidden and persecuted. For a long time she was scattered in Babylon, in the wilderness of error, and to some extent still is. The center of God's church has always been with the faithful remnant. It was His church in the first century, in the fourth century, in the sixteenth century, in 1840 to 1844, as well as afterward. Seventh-day Adventists are composed of those who have embraced restored, down-trodden truth, and new truth for this time. They did not start a new church of Christ. They are God's remnant for this time to witness to His whole truth; but they do not repudiate the past of God's work.

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