A Response to the Video:
Seventh-day Adventism, the Spirit Behind the Church

by Bob Pickle

Answers to Questions Raised by:
Mark Martin, Sydney Cleveland
Dale Ratzlaff, The White Lie
. . . and Others

Discern Fact from Fiction

Salvation, Grace, and Obedience

#142 & #143: "She had no patience with Christians who dared to say 'I am saved.' 'We are never to rest in a satisfied condition... saying "I am saved"... they pervert the truth... They declare that we have only to believe on Jesus Christ and that faith is all sufficient; that the righteousness of Christ is to be the sinner's credentials... This class claim that Christ came to save sinners, and that he has saved them... But are they saved... No...' Signs of the Times February 8, 1897."—Mark Martin.

#142: She wrote this quote. Not really. The quotation is both out of context and altered.

Two quotes written seven years apart from two different periodicals from two different continents have been fused into one at the second ellipsis. The second quote is not from Signs of the Times, an American journal, but from Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, an Australian journal. Proof that all this is so can be found under "Point 71" in the documentation package, which reproduces both quotes.

The portions of the quotes that the video omitted reveal clearly what she was trying to say, something quite different than Mr. Martin's allegation. We'll demonstrate this under the next number.

#143: She had no patience with those who believe in Jesus and say, "I am saved." To start with, let's fill in the first ellipsis in the quote from the first article, and the last two ellipses in the quote from the last article:

"We are never to rest in a satisfied condition, and cease to make advancement, saying, 'I am saved.' "—Review and Herald, June 17, 1890. [p. 96]

But are they saved while transgressing the law of Jehovah?—No; for the garments of Christ's righteousness are not a cloak for iniquity.—Bible Echo, Feb. 25, 1897.

Will the reader please compare these two statements with what Mr. Martin said? Does his quoting of Mrs. White sound at all like what she really did say?

Before we go on, let's review a point from #66. If we want to avoid misconstruing Mrs. White's statements, we must recognize the definitions she was using. Typically, most folk who talk about when they were "saved" are referring to their justification and conversion. While this must be the definition Mr. Martin is using here, it isn't the one Mrs. White is using. She's referring more to the end of the Christian walk than its beginning:

It is not he that putteth on the armor that can boast of the victory; for he has the battle to fight and the victory to win. It is he that endureth unto the end that shall be saved. The Lord says, "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."—Review and Herald, June 17, 1890.

What was the problem with those in Mrs. White's day who, as Mr. Martin put it, "dared to say, 'I am saved' "? "As long as man is full of weakness,—for of himself he cannot save his soul,—he should never dare to say, 'I am saved.' "—Ibid. How interesting! Out of human pride they were in danger of trusting in self rather than Christ. In actuality, Mrs. White's concern was exactly opposite of what Mr. Martin alleges.

Human pride, ceasing to make advancement, forgetting that we are full of weakness, to these concerns we must add one more:

But the doctrine is now largely taught that the gospel of Christ has made the law of God of none effect; that by "believing" we are released from the necessity of being doers of the word.—Bible Echo, Feb. 25, 1897.

Both articles expressed this same concern for the doctrine called "antinomianism," a term meaning "against law." There are those who believe that one can live like the devil and still go to heaven. One gentleman of this persuasion conversed a bit with this writer on the topic. He was emphatic that even if he murdered a thousand people in cold blood one at a time and never repented, he would still go to heaven, for he had at some point in the distant past believed in Christ.

Mrs. White just couldn't buy that, so she said that "such pervert the truth." Odds are, you probably agree with her.

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