[My wife and I were kindly invited to share with a Methodist Sunday School class something of the beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists.]
Thank you for the privilege of sharing our common trust in our Lord Jesus Christ. Seventh-day Adventists have strong Methodist roots. Many of our early leaders were Methodists. Ellen White, co-founder of our church, was baptized by immersion as a Methodist. My wife’s family were Methodists, and served as Methodist missionaries in Africa.
I believe the Methodist hymnal presently contains over fifty hymns written by John Wesley’s gifted brother Charles. Ours includes nineteen. Among these I especially enjoy Soldiers of Christ, Arise, Hark the Herald Angels Sing; Christ the Lord is Risen Today; Love Divine; I Do Believe; Jesus, Lover of My Soul; and Lo! He Comes.
Like John Wesley, we understand that the Christian’s essential relationship is not with a church organization, but with Jesus Christ Himself. Wesley recalled his own reaction to the reading of Luther’s commentary on Romans, and described his conversion in these familiar words:
"About a quarter before nine, while he [Luther] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine."
We recognize with John Wesley, that the experience of conversion may be sudden, as it seemed in his case. But it may also be a gradual process, or the culmination of a long wooing by the Holy Spirit. And we agree that the decision to follow Jesus Christ must be made by each individual, and made in the highest sense of personal freedom.
Like Wesley, we are impressed by God’s wonderful grace–grace that surrounds us and persuades us to move toward faith; the care of a gracious God who loves us, accepts us, and pardons us; and who makes it possible to grow in Christian maturity.
Like the Methodists we see ourselves as heirs to the great truths of the Reformation, and like Wesley, we wish to give new emphasis to old truths.
The most important of Seventh-day Adventist beliefs is the one that brings joy and assurance to Christians everywhere–good news about our Heavenly Father, confirmed at such cost by the life and death of His Son. We find throughout the Bible, reference to what we call "the great controversy" over the character and government of God.
God is not the kind of person His enemies have made Him out to be–arbitrary, unforgiving, and severe. Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." As Jesus showed, God is loving and trustworthy, eager to forgive and heal. While our Creator is infinite in majesty and power, He is an equally gracious person, who values nothing higher than the freedom, dignity, and individuality of His intelligent creatures. Thus they may freely give Him their love, their faith, their willingness to listen, to obey. This is the truth revealed through all the books of scripture. It is the everlasting Good News that wins the trust and admiration of God’s loyal children everywhere.
It is our high privilege to speak well of God, and to introduce our Loving Father as our Divine Physician, well able to cure the disease of sin. Although none of us has achieved complete healing, we are convinced that healing is taking place. God has provided abundant evidence of his competence and care. We thus accept His unrivaled promise, that to anyone who remains in treatment, the cure is certain.
Our highest aim is to be among those God can call His friends. Like Job, Abraham, Moses, and Paul, we hope to speak well of God. We have been set right with God through His generous plan of salvation. We hope that others may see in us the contagious joy that comes from recognizing God’s gracious acceptance. Inspired by Christ’s perfect example, empowered by God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, we wish always to speak well and truly of our Heavenly Father.
As He revealed God to the world, Jesus both taught and preached. But He chose to spend most of his time healing the sick. We are honored to follow our Lord. By the Christian practice of the healing arts we share God’s love and care. When we emphasize healthful living, we acknowledge our respect for the life God has given us. And as God restores His image in human bodies and minds, we are eager to cooperate with Him.
We accept the claim of Jesus to be truly God. As an act of intelligent worship, we commit our lives to His service. With well-founded trust we accept Jesus’ promise to return, when He will take all who have accepted Him to a better land and an eternal kingdom. Our trust in Christ’s literal return gives us our chosen title: "Adventist."
The seventh-day Sabbath is a precious gift from God, who has thus promised a regular appointment with all who will meet with Him. Upon this day we remember our roots–created in God’s image, called to be His children. Despite our rebelliousness, God still loves us and has made gracious provision for our restoration. The Sabbath reminds us that our Creator is the only One who can heal the damage done by sin. And upon the seventh day of each week, we look forward to a Sabbath-like rest in the Divine kingdom to come.
Thus we are "Seventh-day Adventists."
We rejoice in the blessed hope of the resurrection, when loved ones separated by death will be reunited. Those who have fallen asleep in Jesus will then awake to receive the immortal life God offers as a free gift.
In baptism, we celebrate Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Immersed following the example of Jesus, we signify our burial to rebelliousness, and resurrection to a new life of joy in God’s service.
As we look eagerly to Jesus’ return, we wish to be among those He calls "saints," those who "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
As followers of Jesus Christ, Adventists have probably far more in common with Methodists, than we have areas in which we differ. But I believe you have invited me speak especially of those areas of the Christian life to which Adventists give special emphasis.
We have for several years now, shared this same sanctuary, in which we have both worshipped our one Lord. This has been possible because we use the church principally on Saturdays, while you sit in the same pews on Sundays. When Methodists invite a Seventh-day Adventist to speak, I’ll assume you wish to hear something especially about the Sabbath.
We have already spoken of the respect God shows for our individuality, that our trust, our willingness to listen may be freely given. Yet right in the heart of what James calls God’s "royal law" is a command to remember the Sabbath. Is this perhaps one instance where God has placed an arbitrary requirement upon His people, just to show His authority and test their willingness to obey? Yet the whole message of Scripture is that there is no arbitrariness in God. Paul has explained that God’s laws were given to help us, to protect us in our ignorance and immaturity, to lead us back to faith.
The first angel of Revelation 14 calls on us to worship God our Creator. This reminds us that the first mention of the Sabbath in the Bible is at the end of Creation Week.
How easily God could have created our world in a single instant of time! Instead, with the universe looking on, He chose to do it in six twenty-four hour days. On the first day it was only "Let there be light." Then the second day, the third, the fourth, the fifth–God in unhurried drama and majesty unfolded His plans for our earth.
By the sixth day this world was a beautiful place. Where now were Satan’s charges that God was selfish and severe? And look at the freedom He gave Adam and Eve, creating them in His own image, with individuality, power to think and to do. He created them able to freely love and trust–or just as freely, to rebel and spit in His face!
God even gave Satan an opportunity to approach our first parents at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God did not hide that tree in some dark corner of Eden. He placed it in the middle of the Garden so that Adam and Eve would see it every time they came to eat of the tree of life (see Genesis 2:9; 3:2). Of course we could trust God not to allow His children to be tempted beyond their power to resist (see 1 Corinthians 10:13). So Satan’s approaches were limited to the tree, and Adam and Eve were warned not to risk a confrontation with the wily foe.
Then God shared with us–as much as He could with created beings–some of His own creative power. He so designed it that when a man and a woman come together in love, they can create little people in their own image! "Have many children," the Creator said, "so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control." (Genesis 1:28 TEV).
The universe saw that everything was very good. Love and admiration for God must have known no bounds. Where now were Satan’s charges that God had no respect for freedom, or that He made selfish use of His authority and power?
"On the sixth day God completed all the work he had been doing, and on the seventh day he ceased from all his work. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he ceased from all the work he had set himself to do." (Genesis 2:2, 3 NEB).
So God and His universe celebrated the first seventh-day Sabbath. It was not man’s seventh day. It was only his second. If the main purpose of the Sabbath is to provide a day of rest each week since our creation, we should be keeping Sabbath every Thursday! But that first Sabbath was God’s seventh day. It was a day when the Creator called on the universe to celebrate with Him the meaning of what He had done, to reflect on the truth that had been revealed and the falseness of Satan’s charges.
It must have seemed to the angels that the great controversy had now been won. But Satan’s most serious charge had yet to be denied. He had accused God of being a liar when the Creator warned His creatures that sin results in death. The events of Creation Week had not dealt with this accusation. For thousands of years God waited to give His reply.
Then, at the most auspicious time, God sacrificed Himself in His Son to prove the truthfulness of His word. "It is finished." Jesus cried. By Friday evening of Crucifixion Week, all questions in the great controversy had been fully answered. The most damaging of Satan’s charges had been fully met.
And the next day was another Sabbath. As the Son of God lay resting in the tomb, the whole onlooking universe must have paused to reflect on the truth that had been revealed during that last week of Jesus’ life and to celebrate the costly victory that had been won on Calvary. Satan had at last been completely exposed. The trustworthiness of God had been eternally confirmed.
This is the Sabbath God told His people to remember. He knew we needed to pause each week to be reminded of the truth the Sabbath represents. The Sabbath is no mere test of our obedience. Caught up in the great controversy as we are, we need the message of the seventh day. As Jesus said to His disciples, "The sabbath was made for the good of man" (Mark 2:27, TEV).
All through the Bible the meaning of the Sabbath is repeated and enlarged. When God gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, He presented the Sabbath as a memorial of Creation Week, a reminder that He is our Creator and we are His created beings.
But, as John and Paul explain, the One who created us was none other than Christ Himself (see John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:16). The seventh-day Sabbath reminds us that the One who came to save us is the One who made us in the beginning. The gentle Jesus who died on Calvary is also the supreme, all-powerful Creator of the universe. God did not send some subordinate to die for us. The Creator came Himself, the One who is equal with God, for He is God. By keeping holy the seventh-day Sabbath, we acknowledge our faith in Jesus as not only our Saviour but also our Creator and our God.
What kind of person, then, is our God? Could He be as gracious and respectful of our freedom as is the Son? The reply comes every Sabbath: God is just like Christ, for Christ is God.
Presently most Christians prefer to observe the first day of the week as a memorial of Christ’s resurrection. Surely it is good on Sunday morning to remember, This is the day on which Christ rose from the grave. And on Friday would it not be well to reflect, This is the day on which Christ was crucified? And on Thursday evening, This is the time when Christ met with His disciples in the upper room?
But the only weekly Sabbath of which the Bible speaks is the day set apart to remind us that the Person who lived among us as such a gentle man, the One who gave His life for us, is Himself the One who made us, for He too is God.
Finding the Sabbath in his Bible, my wife’s grandfather, while still a Methodist, and before he even heard there were Seventh-day Adventists, began keeping holy the seventh day, while he continued to honor Sunday.
Another way in which the seventh-day Sabbath serves to strengthen our faith is mentioned in both Exodus and Ezekial. In each passage the Lord Himself is speaking:
"Keep the Sabbath, my day of rest, because it is a sign between you and me for all time to come, to show that I, the Lord, have made you my own people." (Exodus 31:13, TEV)
"Make the Sabbath a holy day, so that it will be a sign of the covenant we made, and will remind you that I am the Lord your God." (Ezekial 20:20, TEV).
"I made the keeping of the Sabbath a sign of the agreement between us, to remind them that I, the Lord make them holy." (Ezekial 20:12, TEV).
Much as we have sinned against Him, God has not abandoned us as His people. Instead, He works for our salvation; and as the Creator, He has the power to save and heal us.
Our salvation includes not merely forgiveness, but the healing of the damage sin has done. It means the harmonious development of our physical, mental, and spiritual powers, until the image of God in which we were created, is perfectly restored. The observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is an acknowledgment that only the Creator can perform such a work of transformation. Just as He created us in the beginning, only He has the power to re-create us now.
It is no less a miracle of creation to restore fallen human beings than it was to create them perfect in the beginning. No wonder David prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10). Some seek to accomplish this transformation by themselves, by rigorous obedience, self-discipline, self-denial. But the Sabbath comes each week to remind us that only by faith in our Creator can the healing work be done.
When Moses repeated the Ten Commandments in the Book of Deuteronomy, he mentioned the Exodus rather than the Creation as the reason for Sabbath observance: "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God brought you out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and for that reason the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day" (Deuteronomy 5:15, NEB).
This is not a discrepancy in Scripture, nor a lapse of the great leader’s memory. The purpose of the seventh-day Sabbath is to remind us of the truth about God. He is not only our Creator but also our Saviour and Redeemer. The One who created us free in the beginning now shows His creative power to release us from any kind of bondage and restore our godly freedom.
In Hebrews 4 the Sabbath is described as a type and foretaste of the final rest and restoration to come. Just as God rested from His labors at the end of Creation Week, there remains a Sabbath-like rest for the people of God.
When the children of Israel marched into the land of Canaan, they failed to enter God’s rest because of lack of faith. They possessed the Promised Land, but they did not enjoy the Sabbath-like rest that trust in God can bring. Today, if we maintain our faith in God, we can begin to enjoy this rest even in this life. And we shall enter the Sabbath-like rest when we are admitted to the heavenly kingdom and Eden is restored.
By keeping holy the seventh-day Sabbath we acknowledge our anticipation of this Sabbath-like rest to come, our faith in the second coming of Christ, and the re-creation of all things.
These meanings of the Sabbath recall God’s answers to the great questions that stir the minds of thinking people, the basic questions of philosophy: Where have we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go after we die? And the overriding question, Is there a God? If so what is He like? And what does He want of us people?
Where have we come from? The seventh-day Sabbath has always reminded us that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).
Why are we here? What is the great purpose of life? How do we attain to the greatest good in life? The Sabbath has always reminded us that the great purpose of life is our salvation, our restoration to the image of God, by faith in the One who made us perfect in the beginning.
Where do we go after we die? The seventh-day Sabbath points forward to the second coming of Christ, the final rest and restoration to come.
Is there a God? Do we know what He is like and what He wants of us people? The seventh-day Sabbath reminds us of how God has revealed Himself–in so many ways, but especially in His Son.
Since the Sabbath is so important, it was only natural that the great adversary would seek to destroy it. Satan’s purpose is to destroy faith in Christ, to undermine our confidence in Him as the Creator, and thus nullify the testimony of Jesus to the truth about His Father. But Satan could hardly hope to accomplish this as long as men continued to recognize all that the Sabbath represents. Therefore He lent his influence to the neglect or perversion of the Sabbath, or to the substitution of another day.
Mankind has paid a heavy price for changing the seventh-day Sabbath. For without the Sabbath to provide the answers to the great questions in life, other solutions have been widely substituted.
This is why the seventh-day Sabbath is so vital a part of God’s last message to the world. The main difference between the many religions in the world and true Christianity lies in the answers to these fundamental questions.
Moffatt has interpreted Ezekial 20:12 thus: "I gave them my sabbath, to mark the tie between me and them, to teach them that it is I, the Eternal, who sets them apart." Most of the world has broken this tie, the seventh-day Sabbath. God’s last message to the world includes the restoration of this tie. It is not a message of legalism; it is a message of love and faith.
When we join with the first angel of Revelation 14 in telling the Good News about our Creator-God, we are presenting Christ as the One who made us in the beginning, the One who is working to re-create us now, and as the One who is coming again to restore all things. And when we present this, we are preaching the meaning of the seventh-day Sabbath.
It is a law in this orderly universe that we become like the one we worship and admire. If we correctly understand Revelation chapters 13 and 14, someday the whole world will be divided into two sides. One group will have chosen to agree with Satan. Because of their faith in him, their preference for his way of doing things, they will have become like him in character.
The other group will have rejected Satan’s lies. At risk of life they persist in "keeping God's commands and remaining loyal to Jesus" (Revelation 14:12, NEB). Because of their faith in Christ, their love and admiration for his wise and gracious ways, they will have become like Him in character.
In that last time, the observance of a substitute sabbath could represent faith in a substitute Christ, the one who all along has sought to take the place of the Son of God–both in our affections and in the government of the universe. This is the usurper who sought to set himself up as God, the one who dared to ask his Creator to bow down at his feet and worship him.
When that time comes, the intelligent observance of the seventh-day Sabbath will represent faith in the true Christ. It will be public acknowledgment to each other and the onlooking universe that we worship Jesus Christ as our Creator, our Saviour, and our God–and that we accept as true His testimony about the Father.
God has promised to restore our world, to give it back to his people again. As Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, "How blest are those of a gentle spirit; they shall have the earth for their possession" (Matthew 5:4 NEB). But before they can receive their inheritance, our earth must first pass through the fire described in the third angel’s message. This "eternal" fire (see Jude 7) is so intense that Peter says, "the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10 KJV).
When the fire has completed the purification of our globe, God will re-create the world. Just as "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," so in the end He will create again. John said that he saw "a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (Revelation 21:1).
In imagination let us picture God creating our new world. How do you think He will do it this time? Of course He could choose to create it in an instant of time. But what if He should repeat the unhurried majestic drama of that first Creation Week! The great controversy is over. No need now to answer Satan’s charges. But, patient Teacher that He is, might God want to answer questions anyone may have about that simple Genesis account? Might He choose to do it again in six days?
But whatever way He chooses, one thing at least will be different. No need this time for God to create an Adam and Eve–just to throw open the gates and welcome His children back to their Eden home (see Revelation 21, 22).
The prophet Isaiah looked forward to the day when God would create "new heavens and a new earth," and he pictures God’s happy people assembling to worship their Creator "from one sabbath to another" (Isaiah 65:17; 66:23, KJV).
If on the first Sabbath in the new earth God should invite us to join with Him and the onlooking universe in celebrating all that has been done, would we complain? Would we then object that Sabbathkeeping is an arbitrary requirement just to show God’s authority and test our willingness to obey?
Think of all there will be to remember! The Sabbath sums up the Good News. It reminds us for eternity of the everlasting truth. And those who love and reverence God will find it their greatest delight to gather from one Sabbath to another to give expression to their faith in our infinitely gracious and trustworthy God.
The scriptures know of only one weekly day of worship. And I believe that some future day all of us, Methodists and Seventh-day Adventists, will worship together on the seventh-day Sabbath God has given us all. But why wait until then? God offers us the blessings of the Sabbath even now.
–R. Wresch M.D., 1997, adapted from Maxwell, Can God Be Trusted?, pp 139-150, Southern Publishing, © 1977.