Grace on Trial—Robert J. Wieland
Grace on Trial

Chapter Seven

CAN THE GOOD NEWS BE TOO GOOD?

Jesus makes a fantastic promise, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. … And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues [languages, Greek]; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”145

Matthew gives another version of the same assurance of success: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations. … And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And John adds what he remembers hearing the Lord say, which is even more astounding: “He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”146

Are these promises too good to be true? The good news is that they will be fulfilled, without fanaticism and without extremism in the glorious final message proclaimed by the fourth angel of Revelation 18:1-4. If the Bible is true, the whole world is to be “illuminated” with the glory of a powerful message.

The key to the fulfillment of these promises is in two significant phrases: (a) a people must “preach the gospel,” and (b) the fulfillment will come to him “who believes in Me.” Only “the gospel of Christ … is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.”147 “He who believes in Me” means “he who has true faith,” the kind that “works” in righteousness by faith.

In other words, there is tremendous power in true righteousness by faith. The devil will tell us that this news is too good to be true.

The Lord’s church must not be impotent in the face of the moral and spiritual plagues that afflict society today. There is drug abuse, alcoholism, marital infidelity, sexual immorality, corruption, compulsive eating disorders, and widespread psychological depression. A steady and increasing deterioration of the human spirit is bringing millions to the place where they are mentally unable even to comprehend His everlasting gospel.

He has promised adequate power to cope with these tragic needs. That power is in the gospel. The Holy Spirit has promised to bless its true proclamation with His presence; but if the message is adulterated with legalism or spiritualism so that in any way it is a distortion of the true gospel, to that extent the Holy Spirit’s blessing has to be withheld.

Meanwhile the Lord has instructed “four angels” to “hold” the “four winds” of human passion “till we have sealed the servants of our God.”148 The sealing is the final work to be accomplished by the gospel. The loosing of the “four winds” is a very sad thing, the complete breakdown of social order, decency, morality, fidelity, and economic and political security. The Bible says it will be Babylon dropping into the sea like a millstone, the end of weddings, Christmases, shopping, sports, materialistic orgies, vacations, and sensuality.

Meanwhile, the special message which the three angels of Revelation 14 proclaim is “the everlasting gospel” in the setting of the Day of Atonement and the cleansing of the sanctuary. This is what made the 1888 message of righteousness by faith distinctly different from that of Protestantism in general. We cannot understand the gospel clearly today except in this context:

The third angel closes his message thus: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” As he repeated these words, he pointed to the heavenly sanctuary. The minds of all who embrace this message are directed to the most holy place, where Jesus stands before the ark, making His final intercession for all those for whom mercy still lingers, and for those who have ignorantly broken the law of God.”149

The point is simple: if His people will faithfully proclaim that sealing message, the Lord has promised that He will do His part to restrain the exploding evil in the world. But if the church does not faithfully proclaim the message that alone can prepare a people for the return of Christ, He cannot hold in check those near-exploding global forces of evil. Merely to proclaim a message that prepares people for death is not good enough. The time must come when there is a message that prepares them for His second coming.

Surely it was never His will that World Wars I and II should unleash such mayhem and pain in the world, as well as the horrors and violence that are so common in many lands today. The world has been starving for “the third angel’s message in verity,” and still is. We are perilously close to economic, political and social ruin.

God’s plan was that a small people would make a great impact on the world by proclaiming a unique message that Heaven could fully endorse. They would be like little David with five smooth stones facing Goliath, and they would be as successful. The gospel power to prevent those tornadoes of passion was to be in the message itself, not in church institutions, budgets, or organization.
Even today, a century later, those who study the 1888 message realize the unusual power that is in it. It carries its built-in “heavenly credentials,” the kind that convince both honest Adventists and non-Adventists.

Speaking of power, there are also in the world numerous “faith-healers,” charismatics, and charlatans who prey upon people’s self-centered motivations. Many profess the name of Christ, but there is a problem:

They can see no light in the third angel’s message, which shows the way into the most holy place, … and they can not be benefited by the intercession of Jesus there. Like the Jews, who offered their useless sacrifices, they offer up their useless prayers to the apartment which Jesus has left; and Satan, pleased with the deception, assumes a religious character, and leads the minds of these professed Christians to himself, working with his power, his signs and lying wonders, to fasten them in his snare.150

We are told that Satan can work miracles and even give his followers “light and much power, but no sweet love, joy, and peace.”151 But there is good news lurking beneath this shadowed truth. The presence of the counterfeit only proves that the genuine is in existence somewhere.

How a Pure Gospel Message Can Have Power

Everywhere the early apostles preached, something happened—either a riot or a revival. No one could sit on the fence after listening to them.152 The reason they could turn “the world upside down” was not their cleverness or their personalities. The power was in the content of their message. It was not magic.

Peter’s sermon at Pentecost reveals the source of their power: they understood what the cross means. All the Gentile world, not just the Jewish leaders, was seen to be guilty of the rejection and murder of the Son of God. Pentecost was corporate guilt exposed. Enmity against God had blossomed into the supreme crime of eternity. The apostles minced no words in telling it.153 The proclamation of that truth catalyzed humanity.

Ellen White declared that the 1888 message was the beginning of the latter rain gift of the same Holy Spirit, as Pentecost was the beginning of the early rain. Its power was intended to lighten the earth with glory. But there is a profound truth hidden in this history: it was not the works of men or the supposed revival of the church in the early 1890s that began to fulfill that wondrous prophecy; it was the message itself—“the revelation of the righteousness of Christ, the sin-pardoning Redeemer.”154 There was in it “the truth of the gospel,” the most powerful force that can be exerted on human hearts.155

Some of the human problems which the gospel of the apostles solved were the same ones that perplex psychiatrists and social scientists today. We read of miracles that took place at Corinth that were greater than mere physical healings: “Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”156

These same problems that afflict the human race today are not mere occasional moral lapses. Each becomes a compulsive obsession or addiction with roots going down to people’s toes. They are powerless to break the slaveries. How were those problems solved in Corinth? The answer is in the text: by the message of justification by faith.

It was more than a cold theological formula; it was living truth. There was frightful moral depravity in the days of the pagan Roman empire. Citizens and slaves were so violently cruel that they revelled in watching human beings fight wild animals, and each other, to the death. The more blood the more fun. Prostitution was sanctified as a part of religion. But through the proclamation of the gospel, “grace did much more abound,” and reigned “through righteousness [by faith] unto eternal life.”157 The story of the cross touched secret springs hidden deep in Gentile and Jewish human hearts and released latent powers undreamed of.

The message placed “under grace” people who were shackled by all kinds of compulsive sin, including that of “abusers of themselves with mankind” (homosexual lifestyle), and now a new compulsion shackled them willingly and gladly to Christ. The result was a happy one. “Sin shall not have dominion over you,” said Paul, “for you are not under law but under grace.”158 Even today, that message of grace conquers all kinds of secret addictions when appeals to self-centered concern are helpless to motivate people to a true and lasting change.

What Truth Does a Message of Grace Emphasize?

The apostles’ message of grace proclaimed what is often neglected or denied within the church today—the truth of Christ’s human nature being like, not unlike, ours. What impressed those people was the reality of the Son of God coming nigh at hand, taking their nature and being tempted as they were, suffering in their place, accepting their poverty that He might give them His wealth, conquering their temptations by faith but with the same equipment they had. Paul reminded the Corinthians of what they had learned from him: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”159

Here was a power that gripped human hearts as nothing had done in all previous history. The most hopeless captives found deliverance. The cross-reality burns its way into the deepest recesses of human consciousness as a spiritual catharsis. A new sense of self-respect emerges that nothing can destroy.

Needless to say, an enemy opposes such a revelation and would suppress it within the church, and thus keep it from the world. He is determined to make us believe that his clever invention of sin is invincible.

The Power in the 1888 Message

For a brief time after the Minneapolis conference, the precious message was proclaimed in our camp meetings and schools. What were its fruits? Ellen White said: “The present message—justification by faith—is a message from God; it bears the divine credentials, for its fruit is unto holiness.”160 There seems to have been something phenomenal about it:

I have never seen a revival work go forward with such thoroughness, and yet remain so free from all undue excitement. There was no urging or inviting. The people were not called forward, but there was a solemn realization that Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. … We seemed to breathe in the very atmosphere of heaven.161

I saw that the power of God attended the message wherever it was spoken. You could not make the people believe in South Lancaster that it was not a message of light that came to them. … God has set His hand to do this work. We labored in Chicago; it was a week before there was a break in the meetings. But like a wave of glory, the blessing of God swept over us as we pointed men to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. The Lord revealed His glory, and we felt the deep movings of His Spirit.162

Note that it was not the personalities of the speakers, hierarchical pressures, promotional strategies, or advertising, that had such “power.” It was the message itself.

Has this “most precious message” been clearly proclaimed to the world since then so that the sealing work could be done? The obvious fact of nearly a hundred years of history since the loud cry began is significant. It declares that the message has not been truly proclaimed. And Ellen White boldly says that “in a great measure” it has been “kept away” from both the church and the world.163

But this is good news—to discover the reason for the long delay of a century has to give us hope. It is in our power to recover much of the message because the Lord in mercy provided for its being available in out-of-print books and periodicals.

God’s Plan for His Remnant Church

The heart of God yearns for all the heart-burdened captives of Satan in the world today. Christ paid the price for their deliverance, and yet millions, yes, billions, are virtually ignorant of His work as High Priest in the Most Holy Apartment. He must depend on His church to proclaim and to demonstrate that unique message so as to deliver from Satan’s grip. He has promised that His remnant church is to be the avenue through which His much more abounding grace is to be communicated to the world. This is a grace more abounding than is understood by any people who have no knowledge of the Most Holy Apartment ministry:

It shall come to pass afterward [in the last days] that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. … And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.164

The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.165

I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. … And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her [Babylon], my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.”166

Note that word, “having great authority.” In the original language it is the same word that Jesus used when He told His disciples that “all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Now, in this time of His closing work of atonement, He is finally able to communicate that “authority” through His people on earth so that in His name they will be empowered to do the “greater works” than He did on earth. The world is to be “illuminated with His glory” through a clear, unadulterated, uncorrupted proclamation of His Good News, not by impressing them with our denominational strength.

Is the prophecy too good to be true? Ellen White says it will happen:

In visions of the night representations passed before me of a great reformatory movement among God’s people. Many were praising God. The sick were healed, and other miracles were wrought. A spirit of intercession was seen, even as was manifested before the great day of Pentecost. Hundreds and thousands were seen visiting families. … Hearts were convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit, and a spirit of genuine conversion was manifest. On every side doors were thrown open to the proclamation of the truth. The world seemed to be lightened with the heavenly influence.167

What a glorious future! We must not let the enemy rob our hearts of that confidence.

The pure, true gospel of the grace of God had such power on Paul that people thought he was beside himself in his unmeasured devotion to Christ. He replied that it was not because he was made of more heroic stuff than others. The grace of Christ in His matchless love at the cross “constrained” him. That is, it motivated him, pushed him forward relentlessly, almost in spite of himself. Now he found it impossible to go on living for self. It made him a “new creation.” To be reconciled to God, to have the invisible barrier removed that had beclouded his soul all his life, was totally joyous. The cross captured him forever, and he begs us not to look at it and yawn in boredom: “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”168

The unique message of righteousness by faith that the Lord sent us begins to reproduce in modern human hearts the same selfless devotion that motivated Paul long ago. Says one of the messengers:

We “live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Gal. 2:20. O, he loved me! When he gave himself in all his glory, and all his wondrous worth for me, who was nothing, is it much that I should give myself to him?169

Let us try to immerse ourselves in Paul’s message of grace so that we can feel those waves rolling over us:

For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. … It is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all … those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. …

Through our Lord Jesus Christ … we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand. … The grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. … Those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. … Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. … Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? …

Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are … under grace.170

We must not try to rewrite Paul and force him to teach the helpless legalism of try-harder-to-be-good, try-not-to-sin. Astounding as it may seem to us today, he is saying that the power of sin is broken by grace. Note what this treasure-passage says:

  1. Righteousness by faith is not cold theology. It is the ministry of grace.
  2. Faith provides access into this grace, that is, a heart appreciation of the love of God opens the gates of access to hope and glory. Here is plenty of reason for self-respect.
  3. “The gift by the grace … abounded to many.” “In the matchless gift of His Son, God has encircled the whole world with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air which circulates around the globe. All who choose to breathe this life-giving atmosphere will live, and grow up to the stature of men and women in Christ Jesus.”171
  4. Grace is greater than our sin (that is stupendous! Believe it.)
  5. Believed and received, grace reigns in the life like a king.
  6. Grace abounding makes it impossible for the believer to continue living in sin. Obsessions, captivity to evil habits, alienations, are disarmed.
  7. Grace thus imposes a new captivity which is an unending motivation to holiness of life.

How Can You Be Sure That You Are Included in This Grace?

Not one human soul in all the world is left out. See how the power that changes hopeless lives is not fear of punishment or hope of reward, but an appreciation of the cross:

The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.172

To each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.173

Let us examine these jewels of grace:

  1. The Holy Spirit imparts to “all men” an intruding sense of the kindness and mercy of God, knocking for entrance to all despairing worldly hearts. Listen, look, don’t slam the door shut, pause to appreciate that grace, and you will find yourself beginning to cherish it.
  2. In this passage there is an insight that the Supreme Court needs to see. Much as we may excuse ourselves by thinking that addictions to alcohol, drugs, or lust are merely a “disease,” they are in reality volitional. The problem is that the human will is held captive. But there is good news: the grace of Christ actually teaches us how to exercise a controlling volition, how to “say ‘No’” to impulses to evil. Again, it is understanding the cross that makes this little-understood power to become reality.

No addict in all the world faces a more terrible compulsion than Jesus felt as He knelt in Gethsemane and prayed, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”174 And a few hours later, the compulsive temptation to come down from the cross and abandon His suffering was even stronger; no one has ever felt such tugging at the soul.

  1. When the grace of God teaches us also to say what Jesus said to temptation—"No,”—this is not a vain choice. When grace teaches us to say that powerful word, the result is guaranteed: we henceforth “live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,” even with alluring temptations all around us. It would be no great achievement to live such lives in perfect surroundings, but Paul adds that God’s great salvation is demonstrated in a wicked world, as wicked as the one that crucified the Son of God.
  2. This deliverance by grace fills the heart with “the blessed hope” of seeing Jesus face to face at His return. Paul’s righteousness by faith is Adventist to the core, and the core of Adventism is the message of the cross of Christ.
  3. Thus the secret of this marvelous power is in that sacrifice where He “gave himself for us.” This penetrates deeper than all the psychiatry in the world in probing to the source of our sin and alienation. The believer actually achieves union with Christ.
  4. The Saviour does a good job when He saves; no lingering root of “wickedness” is left in the heart to produce a future fall from grace.

Do you want to be like Jesus? Then receive the grace that he has so fully and so freely given. Receive it in the measure in which he has given it, not in the measure in which you think you deserve it. Yield yourself to it, that it may work in you and for you the wondrous purpose for which it is given, and it will do it. It will make you like Jesus.175

Salvation from sin certainly depends upon there being more power in grace than there is in sin. … Wherever the power of grace can have control, it will be just as easy to do right as without this it is easy to do wrong.

No man ever yet naturally found it difficult to do wrong … because man naturally is enslaved to a power—the power of sin—that is absolute in its reign. … But let a mightier power than that have sway, then … it will be just as easy to serve the will of the mightier power.

But grace is not simply more powerful than sin. … There is much more power in grace than there is in sin.… Just so much more hope and good cheer there are for every sinner in the world.176

Is this too good to be true? Beware lest you let yourself think so, for it is dangerous to doubt how good the good news is.

Read Chapter 8 — The “Precious Nearness” of the Saviour

NOTES:

  1. Mark 16:15, 17, 18.
  2. Matthew 28:18-20; John 14:12.
  3. Romans 1:16.
  4. Revelation 7:1-4; Early Writings, pp. 36-38.
  5. Early Writings, p. 254.
  6. Ibid., p. 261.
  7. Ibid., pp. 55, 56.
  8. See for example, Acts 17:1-6.
  9. Acts 2:23-37.
  10. Review and Herald, November 22, 1892.
  11. Cf. Galatians 2:14.
  12. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
  13. Romans5:20, 21.
  14. Ibid., 6:14.
  15. 2 Corinthians 8:9.
  16. Review and Herald, September 3, 1889.
  17. Ibid., March 5,1889.
  18. Ibid., March 18,1890.
  19. Selected Messages, Book One, pp. 234, 235.
  20. Joel 2:28,32; Acts 2:17.
  21. Habakkuk2:14.
  22. Revelation 18:1,4.
  23. Testimonies, Vol. 9, p. 126.
  24. 2 Corinthians 5:14-6:1.
  25. A. T. Jones, General Conference Bulletin, 1895, p. 351.
  26. Romans 4:13, 16; 5:2, 15, 17, 20, 21; 6:1, 14, 15.
  27. Steps to Christ, p. 68.
  28. Titus 2:11-14, NIV.
  29. Ephesians 4:7.
  30. Matthew 26:39.
  31. Jones, Review and Herald, April 17, 1894.
  32. Jones, Ibid., September 1, 1896.

Read Chapter 8 — The “Precious Nearness” of the Saviour

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