part 3 of 3

The Full Truth is Uplifting,
Not Depressing

The temptation constantly intrudes to regard the full truth as somehow depressing or “negative.” How much better to gloss over the facts and make ourselves feel good!

But the Lord says, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32). Truth is always encouraging because truth is vitalized by love. Truth is divine. Therefore, the most encouraging and edifying news that can come to the church is the full knowledge of her alienated relationship to Jesus Christ as disclosed in His testimony and in the facts of her own history.

A simple fact becomes immediately relevant: a full and final reconciliation with the Lord that will’ lead to finishing His task on earth will accompany our experience of repentance.

It has been customary to speak of the 1888 message as a mere “re-emphasis” of the historic, Protestant doctrine of justification by faith as taught by the Reformers. This masks the truth of that era of our history as much as the Jews’ way of speaking of a certain Rabbi from Galilee masks a purpose to deny His real identity. Just as Christ was indeed a Rabbi from Galilee, so the 1888 message was indeed justification and righteousness by faith. But just as Christ was far more than a Rabbi from Galilee, so the message was far more than a mere re-emphasis of the teaching of the Reformers of old.

Luther had a great work to do in reflecting to others the light which God had permitted to shine upon him; yet he did not receive all the light which was to be given to the world. From that time to this, new light has been continually shining upon the Scriptures, and new truths have been constantly unfolding. (The Great Controversy, pp. 148, 149.)

That “light” will continue to unfold until it lightens the earth with glory under the ministration of the long-awaited “latter rain” and “loud cry;” the 1888 message was the beginning of its final manifestation. Our great world task is as yet unfinished largely because of a failure to relate ourselves aright to that divine manifestation of truth. (See Selected Messages, Book 1, pp. 234, 235.)

We Are No More Righteous
Than Our “Fathers”

We today may feel distressed that any of our brethren of a past generation should have reacted against what the Lord intended to be the beginning of the finishing of His work. We may even feel thankful that we have not been tested as they were. “We were not alive then and therefore cannot be guilty as they were. They were individually responsible to God; they are in their graves; we are innocent, fortunately removed from their temptation by nearly a century.”

But the Bible principle of corporate guilt sheds an entirely different light on the matter. We may confess not only what we superficially see as our own iniquity, but also the iniquity of our fathers “with their trespass which they have trespassed” against the Lord. (Leviticus 26:40-42). We know that it is not unfair of the Lord to withhold from us further showers of the latter rain, for until we understand and repent in the same way that the Lord required ancient Israel to understand and repent of their past history, it can be said of us in truth, “Great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all which is written concerning us” (2 Kings 22:13). Surely we can pray as did Ezra, “0 my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to Thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this, day” (Ezra 9:6, 7).

Daniel’s Corporate Repentance

Our position before the Lord closely parallels that of Israel in the days of Daniel. Here the principle of corporate guilt and corporate repentance comes into sharp focus.

Daniel could have argued before the Lord, “Some of us and some of our fathers were true, Lord; look how faithful Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and I have been! We have practiced health reform, we have received all the light You gave us! Remember how some of our ‘fathers’ in Jerusalem, as Jeremiah for example, Baruch, and a few others, stood nobly for the truth in times of apostasy. We are not all guilty, Lord!”

But what did Daniel pray? Notice his use of the corporate “we”:

O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto Thee, but unto us confusion faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off. … O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee. . . .

Yea, all Israel have transgressed Thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey Thy voice; therefore, the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against Him.

. . . For our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us.

. . . I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel. (Daniel 9:7-20.)

The result of this humble, honest recognition of corporate guilt is well-known. What will be the result of a similar recognition of our own measure of corporate guilt? How could it be anything other than the restoration of the “latter rain” and the “loud cry”?

As we have seen in previous chapters, the principle of individual and corporate guilt and repentance centers in the cross of Calvary. “The spirit of grace and of supplications” is poured on “the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem” when God’s people “look upon Him whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10). The fact that we were not physically, personally present at Calvary is seen to make no difference.

The fact that we were not personally present in 1888 likewise will be seen to make no difference. The sin of our “fathers” is “our” sin. Christ Himself, in His own flesh, has shown us the way to experience a repentance for sins of which we have not thought ourselves individually and personally responsible. If He, the sinless One, repented in behalf of the sins of the whole world, surely we can repent in behalf of the sins of our “fathers,” whose denominational “children” we are today!

Did the 1901 Conference
Cancel the 1888 Unbelief?

Sincere members of the remnant church have assumed that the 1901 General Conference was the scene for an “about-face” and reformation that undid the rejection of the 1888 message and cancelled out its sad consequences. This view requires the parallel assumption that the “latter rain” and the “loud cry” have been progressing since the 1901 Session. This is the historical basis of the popular “all is well” school of thought.

It is true that the 1901 Session did result in great blessings to the world-wide organization of the church. But it is also clear that the results of that meeting in no way show that a deep spiritual reformation occurred that reversed the rejecting of the beginning of the “latter rain.” Ellen G. White wrote to a friend a few months after the 1901 Session:

The result of the last General Conference [1901] has been the greatest, the most terrible sorrow of my life. No change was made. The spirit that should have been brought into the whole work as the result of the meeting, was not brought in because men did not receive the testimonies of the Spirit of God. As they went to their several fields of labor, they did not walk in the light that the Lord had flashed upon their pathway, but carried into their work the wrong principles that had been prevailing in the work at Battle Creek. (Letter to Judge Jesse Arthur, Elmshaven, January 14, 1903.)

As the result of this impenitence, the finishing of the work was delayed an indefinite time. The following quotation is well known:

We may have to remain here in this world because of insubordination many more years, as did the children of Israel, but for Christ’s sake His people should not add sin to sin by charging God with the consequence of their own wrong course of action. (Letter December 7, 1901; M-184, 1901.)

Even so, it was not too late then to engage in an experience of repentance. Mrs. White did not use the phrase “denominational repentance,” but she expressed the principle. “All” needed to participate:

But if all now would only see and confess and repent of their own course of action in departing from the truth of God, and following human d visions, then the Lord would pardon. (Idem.)

In sober moments we realize that revival and reformation are needed in every aspect of our vast world-wide work. Every department of our organization needs the infilling of the Holy Spirit—educational, medical, evangelistic, pastoral, financial, institutional, publishing, Administrative. No end of books could be written detailing all the minutiae of our needs. We can spend decades to come in wringing our hands about them.
Much the same situation existed in the days of John the Baptist. He could have spent several lifetimes trying to encompass all the needs for repentance in his day. He preferred to lay “the axe … unto the root of the trees” (Matthew 3:10).

To repent of “our” rejection of the “beginning “ of the latter Rain is to lay the axe “unto the root” of our present problem.

There remains in our search for repentance one more question: what will be the practical results of corporate and denominational repentance?