The Essentials of
the Jones-Waggoner Message
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Righteousness
is by faith in this true Christ. "Faith" is the key
word in understanding the "truth of the gospel."33 Jones
and Waggoner invested the word with a meaning far deeper than the
popular churches had been able to comprehend, for they rightly
discerned the agape dynamic of the sacrifice of Christ (though
they never used the word). Thus they recognized faith as the
sinner’s response to, or heart-appreciation of, that truly
magnificent love. Said Jones:
Ever since that
blessed fact came to me that the sacrifice of the Son of God
is an eternal sacrifice, and all for me, the word has been
upon my mind almost hourly: "I will go softly before the
Lord all my days."34
"With the
heart man believeth unto righteousness."35 It is "heartwork."36
The outstanding fruit of the 1888 message was that it reached and
captured human hearts. The "messengers" and those who
heard them were often moved to tears, not of sentimentalism, but
truly Pentecostal in depth of heart response, and even ministers
requested re-baptism!37
Here was revival of
genuine New Testament faith, because the New Testament dimensions
of the love of Christ (as agape) were once more recognized
in their "length, breadth, depth and height."38 The
third angel’s message came of age in the 1888 insights. The
pagan-born doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul had
beclouded the cross of Calvary so that many could not appreciate
its true dimensions as an infinite sacrifice, a death equivalent
to that of the "Second death."39 Now at last the 1888
messengers related the true Adventist concept of the nature of man
and the "second death" to the cross, and in consequence
rediscovered the apostolic faith that once turned the world upside
down.40 This took them far beyond the Reformation.
Justification
by faith is forensic-effective.
Notes
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See Waggoner, ST Mar. 25, Oct. 13,1890 (quoted in Lessons
on Faith, Angwin, CA, Pacific Union College Press). See also
CHR 74-84. [return to text]
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Jones, GCB 1895, p. 382, also pp. 363-368.
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Rom. l0:10.
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A favorite phrase of EGW. See, for example, 4T 601; 5T 306.
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Lauretta and Daniel Kress, Under the Guiding Hand, pp.
87, 88 (Washington College Press, 1941). [return
to text]
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Eph. 3:14-19.
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If one holds to the natural immortality of the soul, then it
follows that Christ did not die for our sins nor in any way
suffer a penalty equivalent to the "second death,"
which loses all meaning. The Roman Catholic and popular
Evangelical view of the cross is closer to the Hellenistic
concept of eros than the NT idea of agape. See Anders Nygren, Agape
and Eros (London: SPCK, 1957) pp.l64, 180, 181, 224.
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Ellen White, inspired by the 1888 message, appealed for
presenting "Christ and Him crucified … to the hungering
multitudes." Jones’ and Waggoner’s message was deeply
permeated with an obviously profound heart appreciation of the
cross. See Daniells, Christ Our Righteousness, pp.
60, 61, 77. [return to text]
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