I’m very glad that Greg included a section on this forum for book reviews. Here is a book which is available as a PDF on John Piper’s site, http://www.desiringgod.org/. I’m in the middle of reading it and have been blessed a lot by what Piper wrote in this book.
The book is in my view very good for different points which I’ll plan to write in my following posts. Back to the issue and start with the beginning. Good insights are present even in the “Acknowledgments” section of the book.
For example, John’s father is mentioned as a the one to whom the book is dedicated, he died in 2007 and was a faithful preacher of the gospel, and one of his favorite sermons was entitled “Grace for the Guilty”. It has at the end
“God clothes you with his righteousness when you believe, giving you a garment that makes you fit for heaven.FOJ, page 9”
I put “fit” in bold to emphasize what important was for me to understand that sanctification does not make me “fit” for heaven, but justification makes me, the garment of God’s righteousness which is sufficient and perfect, and I am “fit” for heaven from the first time I believed. In the adventist church I was raised, following the wesleyan tradition, justification was only our title for heaven, and sanctification was our fitness. Since sanctification is never perfect, always incomplete, being fit for heaven is an unfulfilled dream. But I was taught constantly to work, to “get ready” for heaven, to completed my preparation for the second coming, which robed me of any security regarding my salvation, either present or perfect. I also read good adventists books which emphasized Christ’s righteousness as sufficient for our salvation, and that we will not raise above the level of justification, being always sinners saved by grace.
Piper continues:
For my father, the gospel of Christ included the news that there is a righteousness—a perfect obedience of Jesus Christ—that is offered freely to all through faith alone. And when faith is given, that righteousness is imputed to the believer once and for all. Together with the sin-forgiving blood of Jesus, this is our hope. From the moment we believed until the last day of eternity God is 100 percent for us on this basis alone—the sin-bearing punishment of Christ, and the righteousness-providing obedience of Christ. FOJ, page 9
Amen! Amen!
The book is critique of the position taken by N.T. Wright, which espouses what is called “New Perspective of Paul”. His views will be clarified afterwards, what is important is Piper’s methodology. He wrote the book, sent it to Wright, and Wright replied with a 11,000-word response which clarified misunderstanding. Accordingly Piper modified the content of the book and now it is twice in size, and we have here a very accurate description of Wright’s views. As will be seen, there are many similarities between his views and the adventists view regarding the gospel, but also certain differences. I’ll try to focus on similarities for the sake of being relevant to both formers and current adventists, without neglecting the other important points.
The goal of writing this book is superb in my view
I would be happy if it was said of this book what John Erskine said in 1792 of Solomon Stoddard’s book, The Safety of Appearing at the Day of Judgment, in the Righteousness of Christ: “The general tendency of this book is to show that our claim to the pardon of sin and acceptance with God is not founded on any thing wrought in us, or acted by us, but only on the righteousness of Christ. FOJ, page 11”
The title “The Future of Justification” is given by N.T. Wright’s claim to be a modern Luther smashing the traditions of centuries of interpretations, even saying that from the time of Augustine the entire Christian church had a wrong view about justification. At the surface this looks like fidelity to Sola Scriptura, Bible alone, above all creeds and traditions, but piper is right in pointing that the reformers “labored to link their thinking to the to the writings of the church fathers (hence the Reformers’ adoption of the slogan, ad fontes, “back to the sources”)” (FOJ, page 61). What Wright argues for is rather Solo Scriptura, interpreting the Bible as no one else ever did, claiming to see what nobody else in the body of Christ had seen. This is similar to adventist’s claim of seeing in Daniel 8 what the body of Christ through the centuries had never seen.
Piper thinks that the future of justification will be better served by the old guys like Luther, rather than the new guys, like Wright.
Wright has an undissimulated love for novelty, and he modifies the understanding of justification to the point of raising questions about the nature of the gospel he proclaims, if it is a false gospel which attracts the curse found in Galatians 1:8-9. When somebody looks and understands what Wright says about justification it seems that the conclusion is that Wright indeed falls under this curse, but surprisingly Piper says
My conviction concerning N. T. Wright is not that he is under the curse of Galatians 1:8–9, but that his portrayal of the gospel—and of the doctrine of justification in particular—is so disfigured that it becomes difficult to recognize as biblically faithful.It may be that in his own mind and heart Wright has a clear and firm grasp on the gospel of Christ and the biblical meaning of justification.
This may be confusing in the light of Piper trying to save Wright from the accusations of preaching a false gospel, but when you read the book it becomes clear why. For example, Wright denies imputation of Christ’s righteousness in justification, but on the other hand he affirms the substitutionary work of atonement on the cross as essential, and even defends it. Ont he one hand he sees justification in terms of covenant membership, and rejects the imputation of righteousness in a law-court setting, saying that a judge cannot confer righteousness. But he does not reject the law-court context in which the judge pronounce someone just.
Because of this type of confusing justification with implications of justification, Piper’s book is directed as a reply to someone who is considered a Christian brother with a deficient view of the gospel, which in effect can be devastating, making God’s grace of no effect. I hope as Piper hopes that people will not follow Wright in his understanding because they will depart from the clarity of the gospel, and loosing the grasp on this truth is a very dangerous path.
I recommend Piper’s book for anyone who wants to have a firm grasp of the gospel. It is impossible to express here the position of NT Wright, the review will be as long as Piper’s book; read the book and you’ll find excellent presentations of what imputation is, and what God’s righteousness is. I will turn to the subject of God’s righteousness in my following post
Thanks for bringing NT Wright’s work to our attention. John Piper is right in challenging Wright’s conclusions, as Wright makes a frontal assault on the gospel of justification by faith alone.
There are many attacking Luther and Calvin’s views on this, but the gospel must be staunchly defended.
Recently, I was given an excellent, autographed, 190-page book entitled WhenSinners Say “I Do” by Dr. Dave Harvey, senior pastor of Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania USA. Being a book primarily about marriage relationships, it contains a wealth of Reformed theology as well. I will wet your appetite with the following brief quotations:
Theologians at the Altar: “No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones.” (quoting R. C. Sproul, page 20)
“Marriage is not first about me or my spouse. Obviously, the man and woman are essential, but they are also secondary. God is the most important person in a marriage. Marriage is for our good, but it is first for God’s glory.” (page 25)
“To promote enjoyable God-glorifying marriages is why I’m writing this book. I hope that’s what you’re looking for by reading it.” (page 31)
“Could it be that you and your beloved are actually sinners? Then this book is for you! And could it be that God already knows you are sinners, yet gives you everything you need to build a thriving marriage anyway?” (page 32)
“Sin is always aimed first and foremost at God...There can be no small sins against a great God.” (page 42)
“We are all the worst of sinners, so anything we do that isn’t sin is simply the grace of God at work.” (page 43)
“Sin creates war--war with God, war with others, and war within yourself.” (page 46)
“God sees you as more than a forgiven sinner. He sees you as a holy person.” (page 57)
“Our real opponent is not on the opposite side of the bed, but within our hearts.” (page 58)
“Martin Luther called marriage ‘the school of character.’” (page 81)
“Marriage means that our bodies are now claimed by God for the pleasure and service of another. Our connection is so comprehensive that God gives our spouse a claim over our body.” (page 157)
“It has been well documented that Adam’s first response at the first sight of Eve can be faithfully translated as ‘Wow!’ Adam’s response tells us much about the joy of sex as God created it to be between a husband and wife in the covenant of marriage. The curse took away the ’wow‘ and left us with a ’woe.’” (page 168)
“A maturing marriage is one that sees all the way to the finish line and beyond.” (page 174)
“It’s hard to think of pain as preparation. Whether it’s a toothache or the loss of a spouse, pain just seems so obviously a right-now kind of experience that the future rarely enters our thinking.” (page 180)
“As real as our marriages are to us on this earth, they are just a shadow of the reality we will experience when Christ comes to claim his bride.” (page 183)
The title “The Future of Justification” is given by N.T. Wright’s claim to be a modern Luther smashing the traditions of centuries of interpretations, even saying that from the time of Augustine the entire Christian church had a wrong view about justification. At the surface this looks like fidelity to Sola Scriptura, Bible alone, above all creeds and traditions, but piper is right in pointing that the reformers “labored to link their thinking to the to the writings of the church fathers (hence the Reformers’ adoption of the slogan, ad fontes, “back to the sources”)” (FOJ, page 61). What Wright argues for is rather Solo Scriptura, interpreting the Bible as no one else ever did, claiming to see what nobody else in the body of Christ had seen. This is similar to adventist’s claim of seeing in Daniel 8 what the body of Christ through the centuries had never seen.
Piper thinks that the future of justification will be better served by the old guys like Luther, rather than the new guys, like Wright.....
Gabriel,
Thank you for the apt depiction of what I see as a protracted “tug of war” between a man who seeks Scriptural Truth and another who in my mind is pursuing earthly glory by working very hard to see what no one else has seen before. I couldn’t help but see a parallel between Mr. Wright’s mission of re-writing the Christian definition of justification; and Ellen White’s efforts to redefine the gospel message. Your artful phrase ”Solo Scriptura” was brilliant and again I was reminded of how Christ’s teachings warned us how spiritually deadly a self-serving pride and the seeking of earthly praise really is! I can’t help but think that a major motivation for those who espouse extra-biblical concepts and doctrine are under the rabid influence of human pride! Is Mr. Wright really interested in helping Christians by correcting false interpretation and understanding? Or is he on a mission to build himself up as having a unique (Solo) view of the scriptural truth? I’ll not judge him, but I’ll leave it to the readers of his arguments to discern the truth.
I sense no humility in Mr. Wright’s arguments or efforts. The essence and the truth of the Holy Scripture is not complicated. The pre-reformation church tried hard to keep scripture complicated and private so that they would be the sole (Solo) purveyors of the truth, and did so in whatever form and flavor that was most compatible with the earthly needs of the church! Thank God that, with His help, the reformers discerned and thought differently!
Thank you for your kind words, I planned initially to post more about this book, but reading further and further in the book, I became aware that it is impossible to capture the ideas without the context in which Piper develops his thoughts, and this will require posting too much of the book. In conclusion, read the book for yourself. It may save your life, or will uplift and strengthen it
I can’t help but think that a major motivation for those who espouse extra-biblical concepts and doctrine are under the rabid influence of human pride!
Dan, I think you hit the nail on the head here. Humans like to innovate—to find something new that nobody else has seen. The Adventist pioneers believed they found “present truth” that the apostles and Christians for 18 centuries had missed. In our day, we have open theists who tell us that God really doesn’t know the future and N.T. Wright who presents “the new perspective on Paul”, both “new and improved” Christian teachings which were apparently missed by careful theologians in over 2000 years of Christian scholarship.
All of these attempts to innovate the gospel are driven by pride—pride which desires recognition and notoriety for discovering a new angle on an old truth. Yet in innovating these old truths and claiming “new” or “present” truth, the old truth is diluted. Worse, when these purveyors of a new and improved Christian doctrine find followers who are willing to swallow what they’re selling, they claim attention for themselves that belongs only to Christ. Witness the prosperity gospel teachers of our time who make themselves the center of attention and reduce the work of Christ to an enabler of all the material blessings this world has to offer.
The apostle Paul addressed this very problem in his letter to the Ephesian church, and his inspired words ring true to this day.
“He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:10-16 ESV)
There are many “winds of doctrine” floating around these days. We must listen to the apostles, prophets and evangelists of old who brought a truth that is unchanging and has remained “present truth” for the last 2000 years.
I can’t help but think that a major motivation for those who espouse extra-biblical concepts and doctrine are under the rabid influence of human pride!
Dan, I think you hit the nail on the head here. Humans like to innovate—to find something new that nobody else has seen. The Adventist pioneers believed they found “present truth” that the apostles and Christians for 18 centuries had missed. In our day, we have open theists who tell us that God really doesn’t know the future and N.T. Wright who presents “the new perspective on Paul”, both “new and improved” Christian teachings which were apparently missed by careful theologians in over 2000 years of Christian scholarship.
All of these attempts to innovate the gospel are driven by pride—pride which desires recognition and notoriety for discovering a new angle on an old truth. Yet in innovating these old truths and claiming “new” or “present” truth, the old truth is diluted. Worse, when these purveyors of a new and improved Christian doctrine find followers who are willing to swallow what they’re selling, they claim attention for themselves that belongs only to Christ. Witness the prosperity gospel teachers of our time who make themselves the center of attention and reduce the work of Christ to an enabler of all the material blessings this world has to offer.
The apostle Paul addressed this very problem in his letter to the Ephesian church, and his inspired words ring true to this day.
“He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (Ephesians 4:10-16 ESV)
There are many “winds of doctrine” floating around these days. We must listen to the apostles, prophets and evangelists of old who brought a truth that is unchanging and has remained “present truth” for the last 2000 years.
Greg
May I point out that for some 1500 of those 2000 years the believers were either Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, and in the very first of those centuries just christians. 500 years ago Calvin and Luther were the ones comming with “innovative” underderstandings of the scripture compared with the generally held understandings of the same. Were observers in the years before the 30 year war talking about these new reformers trying to make a name for themselves by spreading these new teachings? Was Sola Scriptua something new that nobody else before had seen?
In saying this I am trying to show that how one evaluates others beliefs depends on the color of glases one is wearing. Just as an adventist would say that he or she is believing things that have been present truth for 2000 years, so you say the same about reformed beliefs and Roman Catholics say about their beliefs.
None of us can read the minds of anyone else, it is difficult enough to try and understand ones own mind. Who are we to say that someone who came and went before we were born was driven by either pride or an honest desire to understand Gods self revelation? No, is it not rather so that it is arrogant of ourselves to ascribe pride as the driving motive of someone else that we do not agree with? You believe that your understanding is as close to Truth as can be, and therefore adventists and other arminians are following leaders who worked for the sake of their own name? No, I think this is making it a bit to easy on yourselves, not to mention that it might backfire by tempting you to pride. Jesus said to those who had time to examine other peoples faith and intentions, ‘first remove the logg in your eyes so you can see clearly’. Who of us is without sin to take up stones against other sinners?
No, I think this is making it a bit to easy on yourselves, not to mention that it might backfire by tempting you to pride. Jesus said to those who had time to examine other peoples faith and intentions, ‘first remove the logg in your eyes so you can see clearly’. Who of us is without sin to take up stones against other sinners?
There’s nothing prideful about saying that the gospel is worth standing for, worth articulating clearly and worth defending. This is the very counsel the apostle Paul gave in Galatians 1:8-9. The pride Jesus was pointing to found its source in the accumulated layers of man-made religion the Pharisees added to the Scriptures, which led men to thank God they were “not like that tax collector” because of their privileged Jewish position (Luke 18:9-14). västergötland , nothing we have said on this thread or on this site compares to what the Pharisees did to the Word of God, and if you’ll look with open eyes, you’ll see the Pharisaical behavior you despise within your own Adventist church. For example, who else but Adventists pride themselves on being “God’s remnant church”, proven by their faithful fourth commandment-keeping and their special revelations from Ellen White?
västergötland, answering your earlier charge about the Reformers creating something new that the church did not have for the prior 1500 years, you are mistaken about what the Reformers believed they were doing. They did not believe they were creating something new, but recovering something old—a gospel that the Catholic church originally possessed but ultimately obscured beyond recognition.
Consider these words from Reformed theologian Michael Horton:
“Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the later Reformers, including the Puritans, insisted that they were not merely “catholic” in the sense that they had some historic link to Rome—"the Catholic Church"—but that they were in fact truly catholic in the sense that they were simply purging the church of its accumulated errors. Seeing themselves in continuity with the historic catholic church, the Reformers did not regard themselves as revolutionaries or sectarians wanting to overthrow the church and disregard the historic reflections of the great Christian thinkers but employed that very tradition in defense of their rediscoveries. By expelling the Protestants, the Church of Rome was believed to be excommunicating itself from the catholic church, falling under the apostolic anathema for embracing another gospel (Galatians 1:8,9). One need only scan the tracts, catechisms, confessions, and letters of the Reformation to be impressed with the volume of appeals to the church Fathers.”
“As already mentioned, Luther and Calvin certainly did not argue that they had seen something in Scripture that somehow missed the attention of every other thinker for one and a half millennia; they called upon the Fathers, and especially Augustine, for support. Thus, they demonstrated that their message was not something new but a recovery of something old—something that had been lost by a corrupt curia. It was not a brand-new insight but the recovery of a message that had been taught by the Catholic Church during its best days.” Source here.
västergötland, this is more than enough to answer your charges. Nothing new was created at the Reformation, but many supposed inheritors of the Reformation are still busy undoing the hard fought gains earned by the Reformers through conviction, persecution, and often martyrdom. It is a shame that many Christians today stand on the shoulders of these giants while fighting against the very doctrines the Reformers gave their lives for.
No, I think this is making it a bit to easy on yourselves, not to mention that it might backfire by tempting you to pride. Jesus said to those who had time to examine other peoples faith and intentions, ‘first remove the logg in your eyes so you can see clearly’. Who of us is without sin to take up stones against other sinners?
There’s nothing prideful about saying that the gospel is worth standing for, worth articulating clearly and worth defending. This is the very counsel the apostle Paul gave in Galatians 1:8-9. The pride Jesus was pointing to found its source in the accumulated layers of man-made religion the Pharisees added to the Scriptures, which led men to thank God they were “not like that tax collector” because of their privileged Jewish position (Luke 18:9-14). västergötland , nothing we have said on this thread or on this site compares to what the Pharisees did to the Word of God, and if you’ll look with open eyes, you’ll see the Pharisaical behavior you despise within your own Adventist church. For example, who else but Adventists pride themselves on being “God’s remnant church”, proven by their faithful fourth commandment-keeping and their special revelations from Ellen White?
What about this event in the life of Jesus?
38John said to Him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.”
39But Jesus said, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me.
40"For he who is not against us is for us.
41"For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.
Indeed you are right, the error is not in standing for the gospel, the error is being against someone else who is standing for the gospel simply “because he was not following us”. And I am aware of many shortcommings of the adventist church, but this is not the place nor the time to wash that out. You and friends are quite capable of finding fault with adventism without my help.
västergötland, answering your earlier charge about the Reformers creating something new that the church did not have for the prior 1500 years, you are mistaken about what the Reformers believed they were doing. They did not believe they were creating something new, but recovering something old—a gospel that the Catholic church originally possessed but ultimately obscured beyond recognition.
In case I failed to make my point clearly, it was that if you replace “reformers” with “adventists” in your preceding paragraph, it would still be equally true.
Consider these words from Reformed theologian Michael Horton:
“Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the later Reformers, including the Puritans, insisted that they were not merely “catholic” in the sense that they had some historic link to Rome—"the Catholic Church"—but that they were in fact truly catholic in the sense that they were simply purging the church of its accumulated errors. Seeing themselves in continuity with the historic catholic church, the Reformers did not regard themselves as revolutionaries or sectarians wanting to overthrow the church and disregard the historic reflections of the great Christian thinkers but employed that very tradition in defense of their rediscoveries. By expelling the Protestants, the Church of Rome was believed to be excommunicating itself from the catholic church, falling under the apostolic anathema for embracing another gospel (Galatians 1:8,9). One need only scan the tracts, catechisms, confessions, and letters of the Reformation to be impressed with the volume of appeals to the church Fathers.”
“As already mentioned, Luther and Calvin certainly did not argue that they had seen something in Scripture that somehow missed the attention of every other thinker for one and a half millennia; they called upon the Fathers, and especially Augustine, for support. Thus, they demonstrated that their message was not something new but a recovery of something old—something that had been lost by a corrupt curia. It was not a brand-new insight but the recovery of a message that had been taught by the Catholic Church during its best days.” Source here.
västergötland, this is more than enough to answer your charges. Nothing new was created at the Reformation, but many supposed inheritors of the Reformation are still busy undoing the hard fought gains earned by the Reformers through conviction, persecution, and often martyrdom. It is a shame that many Christians today stand on the shoulders of these giants while fighting against the very doctrines the Reformers gave their lives for.
Greg
I am not intending to speak against the reformators, I am merely trying to point out that as far as intentions and purposes go, they were not very different from those who started adventism…
I am not intending to speak against the reformators, I am merely trying to point out that as far as intentions and purposes go, they were not very different from those who started adventism…
This is where I believe you are mistaken. The Adventist pioneers claimed new doctrine not previously seen in the whole history of the Christian church. They claimed to be God’s “remnant church” who were uniquely situated to benefit from God’s blessings because of their understanding of Daniel 8:14 and their experience of the Great Disappointment. They created an entirely new eschatological framework to explain their date-setting error and for a time, they considered the door of salvation to be shut for all the “apostate” or “fallen” Protestant churches who did not join them.
The early Adventists did not recover anything old, they created something new to explain an error that would have never happened if they had taken Jesus’ words seriously: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36).
Even the Adventist apologist Clifford Goldstein admits that the 1844 doctrine (including the investigative judgment) is not found in any other church. In his introduction to a recent Sabbath school quarterly, he wrote: “Various ‘Adventist’ teachings from the seventh-day Sabbath to the eternal destruction (as opposed to eternal torment) and the nature of the millennium all can be found scattered throughout Christendom. Except one: the 1844 pre-Advent judgment. This is ours, indeed, alone.”
The difference between the Adventist pioneers and the Protestant Reformers could not be more stark. The Adventist pioneers were looking for a way to explain their date-setting error, while the Protestant Reformers were looking to recover the gospel.
Biblically and historically, your thoughts are well-stated and right on the mark. I know of no essential doctrine of the Christian faith that official Adventism has not tempered with in some way. Some SDA pioneers, like Ellen White, actually GAVE UP the Trinity doctrine in preference for her husband’s Arian views that dominated Adventist theology until the mid-1890s. Most Adventists today would consider one giving up Trinitarianism as a major breach of Christian orthodoxy. It is noteworthy that there has never been an official apology for teaching such an aberration of the Christian faith. Arians today still find support for their views in the writings of early Adventists. There is currently a resurgence of Arianism, in various conservative pockets of Adventism, as being the real or original version of Adventism.
Unfortunately, Ellen White never did get the Trinity right. In fact, in the 100,000 pages attributed to her, the words “Trinity” and “Trinitarianism” were never used. Thus, persons with historical Adventist views would not even be accepted into SDA membership today. However, it is important to remember that the major tenets of the Seventh-day Adventist Church were formulated by their Arian pioneers. Sadly, the Arian and time-setting legacies still remain deeply engrained in the theology of contemporary Adventism. In no authentic or even remote way can Adventism rightly claim to be “the final link of the Protestant Reformation.”
Oh, you were thinking of 1844. That is indeed a mystery I have not penetrated.
västergötland, this is the problem. When you start looking back into the early history of the Adventist church, you run into many questions. What is clear to me at this point is that Adventism would not have gotten off the ground without William Miller’s initial error of predicting the second coming of Jesus in 1843/1844. In a twist of irony, William Miller admitted his error and abandoned his involvement in the Advent movement. Others were not so quick to admit their errors (maybe due to pride?) and so they looked for alternative explanations to avoid the shame of returning to their Protestant churches. The breakthrough came when Hiram Edson had a “vision” where he saw an alternate explanation. Instead of Jesus returning to earth in 1844, he merely moved from one part of heaven to another. Edson’s friend O.R.L. Crosier later wrote up this vision in a newspaper article (published in the Day-Star Extra, February 7, 1846) that was read by James and Ellen White, who immediately endorsed it as being the answer they were looking for. Crosier’s interpretation of events was the perfect solution to their problem, because he suggested a solution that was non-verifiable, unlike the prediction of Jesus’ physical return to earth. By claiming a heavenly fulfillment for William Miller’s prediction instead of an earthly one, the early Adventists had all the “proof” they needed to remain separate from their Protestant churches and create a new movement. In another twist of irony, Crosier himself later admitted that his interpretation was in error, and he too, like William Miller, abandoned the Advent movement.
Look at what Crosier wrote in 1899 in response to a query about whether he still endorsed the Adventist interpretation of 1844 and the “shut door” visions of Ellen White that ensued:
“It is unfortunate that many good people are unwilling to correct their mistakes. Denying them, covering them up, explaining around them, is not so honorable, not so Christian, as acknowledging them. A candid confession,—"I was mistaken,"—is a spiritual tonic.
The visions you speak of, having been a cheap and powerful means of financial and party success, the temptation to defend and encourage them has been very strong. Having known their history [the history of the early Adventists] quite well for fifty-thee years, I have always believed their inspiration to be entirely human, seldom unselfish, and often false as to facts, and obviously unscriptural as to doctrine.
...
On account of our ignorance of the Scriptures my argument was more fully and more widely accepted than it deserved to be.”
When asked in 1853 whether he still endorsed the view of 1844 he had written about earlier, Crosier said this:
“I exceedingly regret ever having published the errors contained in that article and feel thankful to our heavenly Father for the clear light of his word which enabled me to see and renounce them . . .”
In light of Crosier admitting his error, it is particularly troubling that Ellen White gave God’s endorsement to Crosier’s work in 1846:
“The Lord showed me in vision, more than one year ago, that Brother Crosier had the true light, on the cleansing of the sanctuary, et cetera, and that it was His will that Brother C. should write out the view which he gave us in the Day-Star Extra, February 7, 1846. I feel fully authorized by the Lord to recommend that Extra to every saint.” A Word to the Little Flock, p. 12. April 21, 1847.
Those who stayed with the “little flock” of early Adventists, because they bought into the initial error of Miller, Crosier, and then Ellen White, were unfortunately primed to accept even more error over the coming years. Instead of building their faith upon the solid foundation of Scripture, they built upon the shaky foundation of 1844 and Ellen White’s subsequent visions and testimonies.
Since your most serene majesty and your high mightinesses require of me a simple, clear and direct answer, I will give one, and it is this: I can not submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is as clear as noonday that they have fallen into error and even into glaring inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons, if I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God’s word, I neither can nor will retract anything; for it can not be right for a Christian to speak against his country. I stand here and can say no more. God help me. Amen
That words finished Luther’s defense before the Diet of Worms, and shows a proper Sola Scriptura, Bible alone belief. There are two elements here,
1. Rejection of human authority “I can not submit my faith either to the pope or the council”
2. Submission to the Bible “convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons”
These two elements do not imply the following things, and I’m linking to the 1 and 2
1. God certainly had in the church people who were spiritually gifted, and rejecting human authority in the church does not mean that their writings should not be respected. What is important is not to make their writings the last court of appeal. Only the Bible is the last, and infallible authority.
2. Luther, in humility, left a door open to be corrected in his views by the others, expecting them to correct him using the Bible and reason. He certainly was aware of his own blind spots, and his fallibility, and was willing to be corrected by others, with the condition that they will use the infallible rule, the Bible.
It is tragically that from the start of their church, the adventists were not open to correction in their views. In this way they come with strange interpretations which were foreign to the church at large. From the start they were not open to be corrected by those who pointed to them that no human knows the hour or the day when the second coming will occur. They stubbornly refused to reconsider their position, and after they proved wrong, they still cling to the idea that the others were wrong and their interpretation of the Bible was right, and searched for alternative explanations of their teachings, but basically retaining the premise that those who opposed them were in error, and lost (Shut door theology).
And since their doctrines have the “heavenly approval” of a modern day prophet, the SDA church is closed to correction by Scripture and reason. Why submit to correction “inspired writings”? Even the thought of doubt is considered dangerous. Maybe minor errors are allowed, but not errors of substance. As int eh case of transition from “Earth” as the Sanctuary to “heaven” as the sanctuary, these are minor errors which does not change the basic assumption: the other churches are apostates, and the SDA is the only true and faithful church, which passes the test by which God tests his children in these last days.
