The Golden Chain
Introduction

Jesus our Saviour! How could anything be more important than seeing Him as He truly is?

The author of Hebrews urges us to “consider” Him, the Greek word (katanoeo) meaning to “perceive clearly,” intensively, to “understand fully, closely.” Our spiritual weaknesses and defeats come from not obeying that command found in Hebrews 3:1.

Since His name is “Immanuel,. . . God with us,” we must “perceive clearly” that He is both fully God and fully man. How to understand this has been a main problem for nearly two thousand years and is still so among Seventh-day Adventists today. Yet “the humanity of the Son of God is everything to us. It is the golden chain that binds our souls to Christ, and through Christ to God. This is to be our study.” (1SM 244, emphasis added).

“For years,” says Ellen White, “I have seen that there is a broken link which has kept us from reaching hearts, this link is supplied by presenting the love and mercy of God” (March 3, 1891, Council of PVesidents meeting). Any failure to “perceive Christ clearly” is a broken link in “the chain that has been let down from the throne of God [which] is long enough to reach to the lowest depths” (7T 229). “One defective link makes a chain worthless” (8T 158).

Ellen White sensed that the clearest and most beautiful presentation of Christ as “God with us” since apostolic times was found in the 1888 message of Christ’s righteousness because she saw it as the “beginning” of the Holy Spirit’s latter rain and the loud cry of the final gospel message. For some 105 times she identified Jones and Waggoner (during the decade after 1888) as “the Lord’s messengers,” and ten times as His “special” or “delegated” messengers. Surely she is trying to tell us something. It would seem the most natural thing to do now would be to give a sympathetic hearing to the message.

But there are objections, because in the very heart of the 1888 message is a concept that some sincere scholars see as a stumbling block. They are rightly anxious to preserve inviolate the truth of Christ’s perfect sinlessness. The 1888 messengers had no doubts about Christ’s perfect holiness and righteousness, but they maintained that His character was developed in a human nature identical to ours—a fallen nature. Further, they maintained that when God’s people truly understand and appreciate this “righteousness by faith” they will be enabled to “overcome even as [Christ] overcame” and thus prepare for His glorious return.

The problem of objectors is four-fold: (a) fear that this concept will somehow worm its way in to undermine Christ’s perfect sinlessness; (b) fear that “orthodox” theologians in the popular churches will ridicule us if we embrace it; (c) fear that this is “Pharisaic perfectionism;” and (d) perplexity regarding apparently contradictory statements in the Bible and in Ellen White writings.

If such contradiction seems apparent, the solution must be closer study. Complete confidence in divine inspiration is at stake. Hence, this subject assumes a towering importance.

There is no desire here to pry into deep mystery, but there is a reason for more study. “Those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). There are divine mysteries in regard to the incarnation of Christ that we may never fully understand, but there are also truths revealed that are essential to understand now if we are ever to “overcome even as [Christ] overcame.”

Ellen White frequently spoke of the 1888 message as “the message of Christ’s righteousness.” Never did she speak of it as the message of His “holiness.” Christ was “holy” at His birth (Luke 1:35), but He was “righteous” at His death (Romans 5:18). There is a vast distinction. Implicit in her phrase “Christ’s righteousness” is the idea that Christ “overcame” and condemned sin in our fallen, sinful flesh which He “took.” The following was written concerning this 1888 message of Christ’s righteousness:

The enemy of God and man is not willing that this truth should be clearly presented; for he knows that if the people receive it fully, his power will be broken. If he can control minds so that doubt and unbelief and darkness shall compose the experience of those who claim to be the children of God, he can overcome them with temptation. … Unless divine power is brought into the experience of the people of God, false theories and erroneous ideas will take minds captive, Christ and His righteousness will be dropped out of the experience of many, and their faith will be without power or life. …

The Lord can do little for His people, because of their limited faith. The ministers have not presented Christ in His fulness to the people, either in the churches or in new fields, and the people have not had an intelligent faith. They have not been instructed as they should have been that Christ is unto them salvation and righteousness. … A bright light shines upon our pathway today [she is writing in the context of the 1888 message] and it leads to increased faith in Jesus. We must receive every ray of light (R&H, Sept. 3, 1889, emphasis added; somehow this powerful statement failed to get into the four-volume set of her 1888 Materials).

A “mystery” in the New Testament is not something God wants to hide from man, but a truth He wants to reveal to us. The 1888 view of Christ’s righteousness “in the likeness of sinful flesh” was an important part of the “rich floods of light” that shone on our pathway. The message Ellen White endorsed as “most precious” was not merely emotional feeling; it was objective truth, a “secret” which God obviously wills to make known.

We expect that Ellen White wrote simply and clearly within her own context. Further, we would not dare to charge God with giving us a Bible that is not understandable, or is self-contradictory. If we do not permit our own ideas to intrude into our reading of inspired writings, I believe we shall encounter no problems of confusion.

As to the embarrassment we fear could come from the ridicule of “orthodox” Evangelicals should we publicly embrace that “most precious message” God gave to us, I believe we may be repeating the unbelief of the ten spies at Kadesh-Barnea. They were sinfully afraid of “giants” who were powerless before the arm of the Lord. The popular churches desperately need to have their minds stirred by a bold proclamation of Bible truth. And especially in this area of Christ’s righteousness, there is a tremendous vacuum waiting to be filled. Millions in the popular churches want to be led to the true Christ and find Him “nigh at hand” and not “afar off.” Ellen White’s enthusiastic endorsement of Jones’s and Waggoner’s presentation of Christ and His righteousness at South Lancaster, Massachusetts, January 11, 1889 is on record: “We felt the necessity of presenting Christ as a Saviour who was not afar off, but nigh at hand” (R&H, March 5, 1889). That statement alone lifts this subject out of the realm of sterile theology into practical gospel living.

Further, there is not the slightest need for us to be embarrassed. The Lord has already prepared the way before us. Well-respected individual non-Adventist theologians today have come to believe basically the same truth as the 1888 idea about Jesus. The British theologian Harry Johnson has written a doctoral thesis at London University, The Humanity of the Saviour, in which he convincingly demonstrates that respected theologians through the centuries have embraced a view of Christ’s nature identical to that which was the heart of our 1888 message. Johnson cites the following: Gregory of Nyssa (330-395 A.D.), Felix of Urgel (f. 792), Antoinette Bourignon (1616-1680), Peter Poiret (1646-1719), Christian Fende, Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734), Gottfried Menken (1768-1831), Hermann Friedrich Kohlburgge (1803-1875), Edward Irving (1792-1834), Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (1788-1870), Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann (1810-1917), and McCloud Campbell (1800-1872). There was also J. Garnier who was contemporary with Jones and Waggoner.

It is unlikely that Jones and Waggoner read these writers. At least, they never cite any of them. What they taught is what they found in the Bible itself. (The same can be said for most of these who studied and wrote independently). Few if any theologians of a past age were free from all error of some kind, but precisely the same can be said of all of our “prophetic fathers” of the Dark Ages. But it is truly inspiring that these had the courage in the face of vicious persecution to advance a view of Christ’s righteousness that until now we have been slow to accept.

Of modern proponents that Christ took our fallen nature and lived in it a life of perfect righteousness Harry Johnson says: “There are signs that in the future it may win more general acceptance” (The Humanity of the Saviour, p. 167).

Dr. Froom could well have added a section to his Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers series showing how this “most precious message” was brought to the fore time and again through the centuries both before and after the 1260 years of papal supremacy. Little was said about it in pre-Reformation times however, for reasons that are not difficult to imagine. Those who did from time to time advocate it were mercilessly opposed, even by Protestant leaders. But their opponents never came to grips with the objective realities of their message. Time and again, Johnson points out, their opponents jumped to the conclusion that when they said that Christ “took fallen human nature” they implied that He was a sinner, whereas the opposite is the truth. (The same insistent misapprehension seems echoed in current efforts in our midst to oppose the 1888 concepts.) Speaking of those who believed Christ took fallen human nature, Johnson comments:

In their view it was perfectly possible to hold side by side His sinlessness and his assumption of “fallen human nature,” and they do not appear to be guilty of illogically combining incompatibles. If this doctrine has been rejected for this reason, it has been rejected only because it has been misunderstood (op. cit., p. 193).

It’s something like the frequent situation during past centuries when Christian sabbath-keepers were persecuted as Jews simply because they kept the seventh day. The idea that the sinless Christ assumed fallen human nature has been even more unpopular through the centuries than the seventh day sabbath, yet it rests on the same Biblical foundation.

There is no “perfectionism” in the 1888 message. It is simply the message of “the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.” There is not a trace of extremism in it, though its contemporary opponents mistakenly charged it with being extremism (TM 92, 97). Ellen White stoutly defended it.

In fact, it's impossible to accept Ellen White and not accept what she says about that message. The White Estate have released all that she wrote in letters, articles, and man uscripts that relate to the 1888 message and history. The four volumes of these 1888 Materials total an astonishing 1,800 pages—more than she wrote about any other single subject. Whatever may have been the human faults or weaknesses of the 1888 messengers, her endorsement of their message is massively supportive, leaving only an isolated hook on which objectors can precariously hang an unbelieving doubt

This author is convinced that it's far too late in the day to entertain any doubt. A quote from the dust cover of one of John F. MacArthur's recent books is sadly appropriate to the spiritual condition of many of us in the Seventh-day Adventist Church today:

Pragmatism ignores doctrine and focuses more on achieving "success" than on communicating God's Word unashamedly. Tragically this theology:

• emphasizes church growth over church doctrine

• makes entertaining congregations more important than feeding them spiritually

• views truth as being secondary to "what works" —Ashamed of the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1993).

The 1888 message which "the Lord in His great mercy sent" to Seventh-day Adventists is the spiritual food for which many in the church are famishing. It's too true that "Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them." The "most precious message" has indeed "in a great degree [been] kept away from the world" (TM 91; 1SM 234, 235; 1896).

The natural, unconverted human heart resents a call to Christlike character. But the message is all Good News, and is all by faith. It is simply the gospel standard set by Christ, for which He ministers much more abounding grace to make all its imperatives become joyous enablings.

Although there is no “perfectionism” in the 1888 message, there is indeed a call to holy living. In February 1894 Ellen White published a booklet as No. 118 of the “Bible Students’ Library,” entitled Christ Tempted As We Are. Her message supported Jones’s and Waggoner’s con­cept of Christ taking our fallen, sinful nature, yet living therein a life of perfect righteousness.

She begins by quoting Hebrews 2:17, 18 and 4:15:

“It behooved [Christ] to be made like unto His brethren. … He is able to succor them that are tempted,” “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” She then refutes the popular “Christian” idea that “we cannot overcome as He overcame”:

This is not true. … Christ knows the sinner’s trials; He knows his temptations. He took upon Himself our nature. ... Christ was actually tempted, not only in the wilderness, but all through His life. In all points He was tempted as we are, and because He successfully resisted temptation in every form, He gave us a perfect example. … Jesus can enable us to resist Satan’s temptations. … Jesus fought all our battles. … The Christian’s …strongest temptations will come from within; for he must battle against the inclinations of the natural heart. The Lord knows our weak nesses. … The hand of the Infinite is stretched over the battlements of heaven to grasp your hand in its embrace. The mighty Helper is nigh to help the most erring, the most sinful and despairing (pp. 3-12).

Good News! To realize how good it is, this is our purpose.

Read A Brief Review of the 1888 Concept of Christ’s Humanity