XXXVIII - 8(05)

“Watchman,

what of the night?”

"The hour has come, the hour is striking and striking at you,
the hour and the end!"          Eze. 7:6 (Moffatt)

"The Centrality of Sunday

for Christians of Today"

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Catholics and Evangelicals

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 "We Are Brothers"

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Editor's Preface

The Documentation of the teaching on the Doctrine of the Incarnation as taught by the Adventist Church continues in this issue of WWN (pp. 2-4). However, the emphasis takes second place to what John Paul II said prior to his death regarding Sunday, and what emphasis Benedict XVI will give to the same question, as well as his ecumenical intents. Just as we were concluding this draft of WWN, the June issue of L'Osservatore Romano came to the desk with a center spread featuring the 'Homily" which Benedict XVI gave at the Mass in Bari, Italy, closing the 24th Italian National Eucharistic Congress. The strong affirmation of his ecumenical intent — "working with all my might" to achieve - and parallel events demand close attention, but must await another issue of WWN.

There are three factors which surface in the current emphasis of Sunday by Rome: 1) The day — "Making holy the Lord's day! (L'Osservatore Romano. 1 June 2005, p.1): 2) The Sunday Mass. the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday, the worship of a presumed "creation' by man. Instead of the worship of the Creator on His day — the Sabbath: And 3) the use of the Eucharist to achieve the "unity" of Christendom under Rome.

"The Christ whom we meet in the Sacrament is the same here in Bari (Italy) as he is in Rome. ... He is the same Christ who is present in the Eucharistic Bread in every place on earth. This means that we can encounter him only together with all others. We can only receive him in unity."

Benedict XVI - May 29, 2005 — Bari, Italy

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The Doctrine of the Incarnation as Taught in Adventism — 8b

Decades of Conflict and Apostasy
1952 — Present - 2

Continued from 7(05), p. 7

On the question of the Incarnation, Questions on Doctrine followed closely the articles that had appeared in The Ministry. The writer(s) of the book declared that "although born in the flesh, He [Christ] was nevertheless God, and was exempt from the inherited passions and pollutions that corrupt the natural descendants of Adam. He was 'without sin' not only in His outward conduct, but in His very nature" (p. 383; emphasis supplied).

The word, "exempt" has theological connotations borrowed from Rome. James Cardinal Gibbons, in his comments on the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in his monumental work The Faith of Our Fathers, stated that "unlike the rest of the children of Adam, the soul of Mary was never subject to sin, even in the first moment of its infusion into the body. She alone was exempt from the original taint" (88th ed., p. 171; emphasis supplied). The main thrust of the view presented in QonD, however, was pegged to the word "vicariously." After quoting from Isaiah 53 and Matthew 8, this comment is made:

It could hardly be construed, however, from the record of either Isaiah or Matthew, that Jesus was diseased or that He experienced the frailties to which our fallen human nature is heir. But He did bear all this. Could it not be that He bore this vicariously also, just as He bore the sins of the whole world?

These weaknesses, frailties, infirmities, failings are things which we, with our sinful, fallen natures, have to bear. To us they are natural, inherent, but when He bore them, He took them not as something innately His, but He bore them as our substitute. He bore them in His perfect sinless nature. Again we remark, Christ bore all this vicariously, just as vicariously He bore the iniquities of us all (pp. 59-60; emphasis theirs).

I recall as if it were but yesterday, the day following the close of a camp meeting in Indiana, where I was ministering, of being called off of a work detail by T. E. Unruh, the president, to meet with Elder A. V. Olson of the General Conference, who had been the principal speaker that year. The objective of the meeting, which was held in Unruh's camp meeting office, was to interrogate me about my position on the Incarnation. (That is a story in itself.) During the session Unruh and Olson got into an argument as to whether Christ could take a "common cold." I was amused; for it reminded me of the history from the Middle Ages of the scholastic debates over how many spirits could dance on the point of a needle. I laughed. This brought a verbal blast from Unruh. It embarrassed Olson, and he quickly ended the meeting because he had "to catch a plane." In parting, he assured me that he had not requested the meeting.

When QonD reached the ministers and laity of the Church, reaction was swift and pointed from those who knew what the Church had taught in regard to the nature Christ had assumed in becoming man. Elder M. L. Andreasen met the issue "head-on." Through mimeographed and printed Letters to the Churches, he presented to all who were willing to read about the compromises resultant from the illicit fraternization with the Evangelicals by leading ministers at the headquarters of the Church. On the subject of the Incarnation, Andreasen wrote:

If Christ had been exempt from passions, He would have been unable to understand or help mankind. It, therefore, behoved Him "in all points to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest. ... for in that He himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted" Hebrews 2:17-18). A Saviour who has never been tempted, never has had to battle with passions, who has never "offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him who was able to save Him from death," who "though He were a son" never learned obedience by the things He suffered, but was "exempt" from the very things a true Saviour must experience: such a Saviour is what this new theology offers us. It is not the kind of Saviour I need nor

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the world. One who has never struggled with passions can have no understanding of their power, nor has ever had the joy of overcoming them. If God extended special favors and exemptions to Christ, in that very act He disqualified Him for His work. There can be no heresy more harmful than that here discussed. It takes away the Saviour I have known and substitutes for Him a weak personality, not considered by God capable of resisting and conquering the passions which He asks men to overcome.

It is, of course, patent to all that no one can claim to believe the Testimonies and also believe in the new theology that Christ was exempt from human passions. It is one thing or the other. The denomination is now called upon to decide. To accept the teaching of Questions on Doctrine necessitates giving up faith in the Gift God has given this people (Letters to the Churches, Series A, #1, p. 8).

Andreasen was correct in drawing a distinct line that the acceptance of the "new" view of the Incarnation meant rejection of the "testimonies" of the Spirit. The "messenger" had plainly written - "Though He [Christ] had all the strength of passion of humanity, never did He yield to temptation to do one single act which was not pure and elevating and ennobling (In Heavenly Places, p. 155).

During the controversy resultant from the publication of QonD, a group of representative members in the Loma Linda, California, area formed a committee for the revision of the book. They presented a Memorial to the General Conference Committee which charged that the book glossed "over certain vital fundamentals and compromise[d] other tenets of our faith." Then the committee illustrated what they meant by this charge:

To illustrate: In Hebrews 2:14-17 and The Desire of Ages, pp. 48-49 and 112, it is stated in clearest language that Christ our Saviour was "subject to the great law of heredity" and took upon Him our "fallen" and "sinful" nature. See also Medical Ministry, p. 181.

In direct contradiction to these inspired words QonD declares that Christ "took sinless human nature," and that "He was exempt from the inherited passions and pollutions that corrupt the natural descendants of Adam." This constitutes a most unfortunate surrender to the so-called "Evangelicals," and robs the Christian of a perfect divine-human Saviour.

The Memorial also expressed the Committee's deep conviction in these words:

It is evident that certain statements and teachings of the book will never be accepted by a considerable number of our people. In fact, it is our conviction that not since the time of J. H. Kellogg's pantheistic controversy more than a half century ago, has anything arisen to cause such disquietude, dissention, and disunity among our people as the publication of this book.

The Memorial was signed by the following: A. D. Armstrong, Frank L. Cameron, Edna E. Cameron, R. F. Cottrell, Florence Keller M.D., Scott Donaldson, Claude E. Eldridge, Pearl Ferguson, N. M. Horsman, Orville W. Lewis, Sharon Y. Lewis, Daniel A. Mitchell, Harold N. Mozar M.D.,

O. S. Parrott M.D., B. R. Spear, Claude Steen M.D., Willa S. Steen, W. T. Weaver, Walter L. Webb, Harry G. Willis and Thomas I. Zerkle M. D. (This group could hardly be considered a part of the "lunatic fringe" of the Church. [See 7(05), p. 5, col. 2].

While at Andrews University (1964-1965) to complete work for a Master's degree, I obtained a copy of a term paper, "The Humanity of Christ" by Robert Lee Hancock, written for the Faculty of Church History. This paper was a brief study of the teachings of the Church on the nature of Christ's humanity. It has served as a guide for the in-depth research that I have done for this manuscript. The term paper was motivated because of the charge "that the church has changed her historic position on the doctrine of Christ's human nature." The study was "limited to the question of whether Christ took the nature of Adam as he was originally created perfect by God, or whether he had the 'sinful' flesh with its inherent weaknesses which every child normally inherits from his parents."

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The student's conclusions were most interesting. He wrote:

Regarding the specific question of Christ's humanity, this study has revealed that:

1)   from its earliest days the Seventh-day Adventist Church taught that when God partook of humanity He took, not the perfect, sinless nature of man before the Fall, but the fallen, sinful, offending, weakened, degenerate nature of man as it existed when He came to earth to help man. …

2)   that during the fifteen year period between 1940 and 1955 the words, "sinful" and "fallen" with reference to Christ's human nature were largely or completely eliminated from denominational published materials.

3)   that since 1952, phrases such as "sinless human nature," "nature of Adam before the fall," and "human nature undefiled" have taken the place of the former terminology....

The findings of this study warrant the conclusion that Seventh-day Adventist teachings regarding the human nature of Christ have changed and that these changes involve concepts and not merely semantics (Robert Lee Hancock, "The Humanity of Christ," Term Paper, Dept. of Church History, AU, July, 1962, pp. 26-27).

In 1971, Review & Herald Publishing Association released a book by Dr. Leroy E. Froom titled, Movement of Destiny. The weight of two of the highest officers of the Church was employed in placing the "imprimatur" upon the book. Elder Robert H. Pearson, president of the General Conference wrote the Foreword (p. 13) and Elder Neal C. Wilson, chairman of a large guiding committee which reviewed the book before it was released, wrote the Preface in his capacity as Vice President for the North American Division (pp. 15-16). This book is as "official" as any publication could be except for one approved by the General Conference in Session. Froom himself maintained that "some sixty of our most competent denominational scholars of a dozen specialties" approved what he wrote in the book (Letter to Editor, dated April 17, 1971).

A book review of Movement of Destiny by Ingemar Linden (Spectrum, Autumn, 1971) cautioned readers as to the pitfalls they might meet in the reading of this book. Linden stated that Froom "stands as the foremost current apologist" of the Church. In 1971 Linden was a teacher at Uppsala University in Rimbo, Sweden. He was a member of Church Historians Association of Sweden, and reviewer of theological dissertations in the field of eschatology and apocalypticism for church historians in Scandinavia. He noted that in writing the book, Froom was given the task of "countering all 'charges' against Adventism's founding fathers and succeeding leaders," and observed that because this puts considerable limitation on his work, "the reader must always be on the alert when studying Froom, asking himself whether Froom has given a full account, or whether important aspects have been neglected, or misrepresented.”... "Movement of Destiny seems to be the work of the General Conference 'defense committee to put all things straight', with Froom serving as an untiring preacher and organizer of the material" (pp. 89-91).

While Froom covers many doctrines in their historical development in the Church, this manuscript is primarily concerned with the teaching of the Church in regard to the humanity Christ assumed in the Incarnation. On this subject Froom revealed his position in writing of the contacts which preceded the publication of the book, Questions on Doctrine. He placed himself and the Church in full accord with the editor of Our Hope, who had written that Christ's "conception in His incarnation was over-shadowed by the Holy Spirit so that He did not partake of the fallen sinful nature of other men."

In a section which discussed the note in Bible Readings on the nature of Christ's humanity, Froom declared it to be an "erroneous minority position" (p. 428). The phrase to which Froom most strenuously objected indicated that Christ "partook of our sinful, fallen nature." How then did this "minority" concept get into Bible

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Readings? In 1956, Anderson did not know WWN 7(05), p. 6, col. 2). Froom, being a part of the same study group did not know then either. But now fifteen years later an answer is either found or manufactured. It was written supposedly by one, W. A. Colcord. No proof is given; a mere statement is made - "Apparently it was first written by W. A. Colcord, in 1914" (Froom, op.cit.) To discredit the statement in Bible Readings, Froom resorted to what amounts to a "smear" tactic. In a footnote, he alleged - In 1914, about the time his note on Christ's nature appeared in Bible Readings, he regrettably lost faith in the teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church" (ibid.). Not having an admissible answer in 1956, a "goat" was found in 1971!

(To Be Continued)

"The Centrality of Sunday

for Christians of Today"

Two and one half months before his death, John Paul II addressed the Pontifical Commission for Latin America whose theme was "Sunday Mass, the center of Christian life in Latin America." He said:

I am pleased that in this year dedicated to the Eucharist you have chosen to reflect on the various initiatives in order to "experience Sunday as the day of the Lord and day of the Church" (apostolic letter Mane Nobiscum Domine, #23). It was not the Church who chose this day but the Risen Christ himself, and this is why the faithful should welcome it with gratitude, making Sunday the sign of their fidelity to the Lord and an indispensable element of Christian life.

I already wrote in my apostolic letter Dies Domini: "It is crucially important that all the faithful should be convinced that they cannot live their faith or share fully in the life of the Christian community unless they take part regularly in the Sunday Eucharistic Assembly." Taking part in Sunday Mass is not only an important obligation, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out clearly, but first and foremost a profound need of every member of the faithful. It is impossible to live faith without taking part regularly in Sunday Mass, the sacrifice of the Redemption, the common Banquet of the Word of God and of the Eucharist Bread, center of Christian life.

The importance of the topic demands of us, pastors of the Church, a new effort to make people discover the central place of Sunday in the ecclesial and social life of today's men and women. For all bishops and priests it is a challenge to summon the faithful to constant participation in Sunday Mass, an encounter with a living Christ (The Pope Speaks, Vol. 50, #3, pp. 161-162).

This last quoted paragraph from the pope's address needs careful reflection. Two categories of people are noted, "the faithful" (the members of the Roman Church) and "today's men and women" (the non-Catholic). Observe that the pope called for a "new effort to make people discover the central place of Sunday" in their lives. It should also be observed that the emphasis is on the "Sunday Mass."

In the June issue of WWN (p. 7) we noted that the last prayer intent of Pope John Paul II for April was that "Christians may live Sundays more fully as the Day of the Lord." We asked what might be ahead under Benedict XVI? Now an answer can be given.

On Trinity Sunday (May 22) Benedict XVI, in a reflection before leading the prayer of the Angelus with the faithful gathered in St Peter's Square made, the following observations:"

We are contemplating the mystery of the love of God shared in a sublime way in the Most Holy Eucharist, the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, the representation of his redeeming Sacrifice.

For this I am glad to address today, the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, my greeting to the participants of the Eucharistic Congress of the Church in Italy which opened yesterday in Bari. In the heart of this year dedicated to the Eucharist, the Christian people converge around Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament, the source and summit of their life and mission.

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In particular, each parish is called to rediscover the beauty of Sunday, the Lord's day, in which the disciples of Christ renew, in the Eucharist, communion with the One who gives meaning to the joys and hardships of each day.

"Without Sunday we cannot live:" thus professed the first Christians, even at the cost of their lives, and this is what we are called to repeat today (L'Osservatore Romano, 25 May, 2005, p. 1; emphasis his).

Not only does Benedict XVI emphasize the need for Sunday, but Sunday connected with the Eucharist. Further, he intends to promote "visible unity" of the body of Christ. "In an address read in Latin to cardinals in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, after his 19 April election, the Pope said his 'primary task' would be 'that of working - sparing no energies- to reconstitute the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers.' "He said he was 'aware that showing good sentiments is not enough for this. Concrete acts that enter souls and move consciences are needed."'

"Benedict said he was 'fully determined to cultivate any initiative that might seem appropriate to promote contacts and understanding with representatives of different churches and ecclesial communities.' And he pledged to 'continue weaving open and sincere dialogue' with people of other faiths or those simply looking for an answer to life's fundamental questions" (ENI, 25 May 2005, p. 2).

Earlier, Cardinal Walter Kasper, who was President of the Pontifical Council for promoting Christian Unity under the reign of John Paul II, and who was a fellow theological professor with Ratzinger in Munster, Germany in the 1960s told the television network CNN that the election of Ratzinger was a "good sign" for the ecumenical movement. Kaspar quoted Ratzinger as telling him in a "short" meeting that he had with him after his election - "Well, now we will work together, walk together, on paths to the unity of the churches" (ibid.). In his inaugural mass during which he was invested with the papal ring, Benedict "seized the opportunity by challenging the Christian church of his desire for unity. His first prayer as pope was significant - 'Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd."' Representatives from half of the world's nations together with 350,000 pilgrims witnessed the solemn ceremony.

On his first trip outside of Rome following his installation as Pope, he conducted an outdoor mass at the Italian city of Bari which was attended by an estimated 200,000 people. Still pledging to make Christian unity a priority of his papal reign, he "called for the rediscovery of the religious meaning of Sunday as an antidote to the 'rampant consumerism and religious indifference' that was making the modern world a spiritual desert."

Catholics and Evangelicals

In the June issue of Christianity Today, (CT), there is an article by Timothy George, dean of the Beeson Divinity School of Samford University, and an executive editor of CT, which is a "must reading" for all who are seeking to put together the meanings and factors of events that are now unfolding as a result of the change in the Papal pontificate. George asserts that "Evangelicals can be glad that the new pope is not likely to be a mere caretaker;" and "I believe that his pontificate will be one of great moment for the Christian church, not least for evangelicals" p. 49).

He lists five reasons why "evangelical Protestants, and orthodox believers of all persuasions, should be pleased at the election of Pope Benedict XVI."

1) He takes truth seriously.

2) His theology is Bible focused.

3) His message is Christocentric.

4) He is Augustinian in perspective.

5) He champions the culture of life.

Then Dr. George turned to the new Pope's concern for the unity of all Christians. He revealed that in the turbulent '60s as a professor at Tubingen, Ratzinger forged an alliance with Peter Beyerhaus and other evangelical leaders to stand together against the forces of unchecked

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secularism and unbelief. He quoted Ratzinger as saying:

We saw that the confessional controversies we had previously engaged in were small indeed in the face of the challenge we now confronted, which put us in a position of having, together, to bear to our common faith in the living God and in Christ, the incarnate Word.

Then, Dr. George added - "Though the battlefronts have shifted, the same cooperation between faithful evangelicals and believing Roman Catholics is no less urgent today" (p. 52).

To this pronouncement, George wrote two key sentences which focus on a deeper understanding of the prophecy of Revelation 13. He stated: "Roman Catholicism is not a cult, and the pope is not the Antichrist. Just so, evangelicals are not a sect, and the gospel call for all people to repent and turn to Jesus is not proselytism."

The orthodox "Protest"-ism, that arose in the "sea" as the time allotted to the beast that came "up out of the sea" drew to its close (Rev. 13:1, 5), did proclaim that the Papacy was the "antichrist" (See Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol. II). Now we have a new "evangelical" protestantism coming up in the "earth" which is denying the orthodox position, but the prophecy designates it as the ""false prophet." (Rev. 13:14-15; 19:19-20). Yet it was with representatives of this "false prophet" that Adventist leaders dialogued which altered some of the basic teachings of the Church and set in operation the decades of conflict within the ranks of Adventism itself, involving the areas of the Incarnation and the Atonement.

"We Are Brothers"

In the June issue of CT, two articles are referenced back and forth, the one by Dr. Timothy George, which we have noted above, and another, an editorial commenting on a meeting in 1981 between the late Pope John Paul II and Billy Graham, founder of CT. The editorial observes:

Billy Graham had never met a pope until John Paul II invited him to Rome in 1981. Ushered into the papal apartments by the Vatican's famous Swiss Guard, Graham marvelled at the pomp. He and the pope chatted like long-lost friends for half an hour, swapping photos, gifts, and travel stories. Before Graham left, John Paul II reached over, clutched Graham's thumb, and told him, "We are brothers" (p. 28).

The editorial closes with this observation:

With new found political influence, evangelicals have supplemented their meagre public ethic by learning from Catholic social teaching. So long as the Catholic Church adheres to John Paul II's firm orthodoxy, evangelicals will gain from this ecumenical effort (p. 29).

Footnote:

Just as we concluded the above for this issue of WWN, we received the 1 June 2005 issue of L'Osservatore Romano. Bannered across the central part of page 1 were the words - "Making holy the Lord's day! The next large type sentence reads - "The Pope stresses our indispensable need for Jesus in the Eucharist. The core of this issue is the homily given by Benedict XVI at a Mass in Bari, Italy, May 29. One sentence is excerpted and set in a box in the center of the two pages which reads - "I would like to reaffirm as a fundamental commitment working with all my might" to re-establish the "full and visible unity of all Christ's followers." (More, next issue of WWN.)

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Christianity Today

Operators

Christianity Today (CT) was founded by Billy Graham, and he remains Honorary Chairman of the Board of Directors. The issue from which we quoted extensively in this WWN, focused on "Christian College Renaissance." The gist of these articles was showing how "scholars and schools are thinking harder than ever about how to shape higher education that is truly Christian."

The Managing Editor, Mark Galli, in his editorial comments, stated that when it comes to "Christian" higher education, "we know whereof we speak." He stated that nearly "every person on the CT hallway has attended a Christian institution of higher learning." He then lists the production staff of CT, and where each received his graduate work.

He lists himself as having obtained his "Christian higher education" from Fuller Theological Seminary, and then noted that the editor, David Neff, received his at "La Sierra University, Andrews University, and San Francisco Theological Seminary," a Presbyterian school (p. 9).