The Comprehensivness of Christ

and

His Righteousness

 

"One interest will prevail, one subject will swallow up every other, Christ and His righteousness." E.G. White, Review and Herald, Dec. 23, 1892.

 

 

 

Click to go to our Home Page

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In an earnest desire to give the final message, some have mistaken the comprehensiveness of righteousness by faith (Christ and His righteousness), and the three angel’s messages as they relate to the all the Merits of Christ, the Godhead and God’s character of Love. All these aspects of the last message are contingent and it is just as impossible to separate them as it would be to separate the law from the gospel, which both messages are contingent upon as well.

 

The very individuals who “specialize” in the giving of these messages, by separating them from one another as being separate, distinct and exclusive, don’t seem to discern just how broad a scope they embrace, as well as the fact that they are all contingent and are not one whit exclusive of one another.

 

 

Ellen White said that the 1888 message of righteousness by faith was the three angel’s messages in verity. Those messages, which also embrace the character of God, His law, the gospel, and the Godhead, the personality of God, are not in the least extent exclusive of one another.

 

"One interest will prevail, one subject will swallow up every other, Christ and His righteousness." E.G. White, Review and Herald, Dec.23, 1892.

 

Christ and His righteouseness, embraces every issue in the Bible! The personality of God is involved in every issue of the Bible. The self-sacrificing love constituting the character of God is involved in every issue of the Bible. That is how broad, comprehensive, and all embracing these messages are. So when Ellen White said that Christ and His righteousness will swallow up every other subject, that involves every issue involved in the Scriptures! The following statement by Ellen White will serve as a classic demonstration of this fact:

 

"The peculiar work of the third angel has not been seen in its importance. God meant that His people should be far in advance of the position which they occupy today. But now, when the time has come for them to spring into action, they have the preparation to make. When the National Reformers began to urge measures to restrict religious liberty, our leading men should have been alive to the situation and should have labored earnestly to counteract these efforts. It is not in the order of God that light has been kept from our people--the very present truth which they needed for this time. Not all our ministers who are giving the third angel's message really understand what constitutes that message. The National Reform movement has been regarded by some as of so little importance that they have not thought it necessary to give much attention to it and have even felt that in so doing they would be giving time to questions distinct from the third angel's message. May the Lord forgive our brethren for thus interpreting the very message for this time." {5T 714.2}

 

Here is how it works in principle:

 

·       The first angel’s message calls us to worship God only.

·       Part of worshipping God only is to worship on the day He has sanctified and made Holy, the seventh-day Sabbath.

·       The second angel’s message called us out of Babylon, which sanctifies Sunday, an act of man to show his authority.

·       The National Reform movement was the ecumenical movement in its earlier stages of emergence. It was working for a Sunday Law.

·       Not all SDA ministers see this simple process of association. Some even think to give attention to the church’s involvement in the ecumenical movement is being off topic to the three angel’s messages and righteousness by faith relative to the Merits of Christ.

·       The Merits of Christ and His righteousness called us out from Babylon. To return in any way is a violation of both. In other words, one is not appropriating the Merits of Christ which are His character, His law, when they violate any one of those laws and/or the three angel’s messages.

·       Some who teach the Merits of Christ, say that you can willfully, knowingly, violate the three angel’s messages and the Midnight Cry, by belonging to a new movement that has corporately violated those messages and thereby the three angel’s messages and the character of Christ—the transcript of that character, His law, and His Everlasting Gospel, AND STILL APPROPRIATE THE MERITS OF CHRIST. Now that is a total paradox. That is a total contradiction.

·         The persons I know who are foremost in “specializing” in the Merits of Christ message, and the Character of God message, are thus found to be in gross violation of those messages, the three angel’s messages, the Midnight Cry message, by instructing their followers to remain joined to a church that is violating such serious messages. Thus, they violate the character of God as displayed in His law. Thus they violate the three angel’s messages, which are righteousness by faith in verity, because all of the above called us out of any association, councsel/council, girding or confederacy/conspiracy with Babylon. How could such person be chosen by God, to enter a wilderness experience (Ezekiel 20:34-38) to be trained by God, when they are in gross violation of the very message they specialize in by instructing their followers to violate those messages by membering with those who violate them?

 

“The last message of mercy to be given to the world is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them.”—Christ’s Object Lessons, 415, 416 (1900). {LDE 200.4}

 

If we love God and profess to be giving a revelation of His character of love, which is part of the Merits of Christ and His righteousness, we will not be found violating that message by teaching others to knowingly, wilfully, violate it by joining a new movement that has removed God by violating all of the above in principle.

 

One of the individuals who specializes in the Merits of Christ message, told me years ago that he was going to pray that God would make it plain as to who was right, me or him. I think God just abundantly answered that prayer again. For you see, it was answered decades ago before the person every prayed that prayer, but he did not have the spiritual discernment to see all of the above, when I cited these principles long ago.

 

Who indeed will be taken to the wilderness to be taught of God? A Person or a People?

 

34 And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. 35 And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. 36 Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord GOD. 37 And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: 38 And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

 

God calls out a faithful remnant of people into the wilderness of the people. It is that church triumphant by which and from which the rebels are shaken. There will be tares amongst that group for a time, just as Judas was a tare amongst the disciples, but eventually all tares are shaken out. That wilderness people will not sanction open sinning thorns.

 

—rwb