The religion of the Bible consistently challenges the limits imposed by human reality. This is perhaps the ultimate secret of the former’s staying power and grip on the experience of those who embrace it. When, by contrast, temporal or natural reality is permitted to challenge and distort Biblical faith, the latter loses its most basic reason for existence.

Tangible reality, for example, tells us that death is the end of all things—that, as atheist Jean-Paul Sartre once claimed, it makes a mockery of all human ideals. But the Bible disagrees, telling us that the bodily resurrection of our Lord from the dead has made inevitable the obliteration of death (I Cor. 15:15-26), and that when Jesus returns in the clouds of heaven it will receive the eternal epitaph, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (verse 55).

The ten faithless spies thought they were being true to reality when they reported to Israel that the giants and walled cities of Canaan were too difficult to conquer (Num. 13:28,32-33). They didn’t stop to remember how God had only recently drowned in the Red Sea the greatest army then in existence—an army which, we might add, had repeatedly subdued the residents of Canaan during the previous century. But this is what can happen when perceived present dangers blot from our sight what God can and has accomplished.

Years ago, I remember a youth leader in a very indulgent Adventist congregation who spoke of his ministry to the young as “reality-based.” Knowing him and his theology as I did, I suspected it was also reality-limited. It is one thing to honestly admit the vulnerability of professed Christians to the world’s allurements. It is quite another to espouse a spiritual worldview that leaves sin unconquered and unconquerable so long as the present life lasts.

God’s Last Generation Message

What has come in recent years to be known as Last Generation Theology is nothing new in the history or experience of Seventh-day Adventists. Far from being, as some have alleged, the product of a few marginal extremists, it is in fact the remnant church theology under a different name—the most basic doctrinal and moral rationale for the spiritual agenda and lifestyle imperatives embodied in the Advent message. It is simply another way of declaring the message of both Old and New Testaments that God is waiting for a faith community who will adhere without exception—in both profession and practice—to His Ten Commandment law (Zeph. 3:13; II Peter 3:10-14; I John 3:2-3; Rev. 12:17; 14:5,12).

And let us remember that Biblical commandment-keeping can’t be a merely partial accomplishment. All it took was a single sin to remove our first parents from Eden, and all it will take is a single sin—unconfessed and unforsaken—to keep any of us from returning there. The apostle James writes, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. . . . So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty” (James 2:10,12).

Whenever I hear people say perfection is impossible, or claim that they’ve never met a sinless person, my pastoral instinct to make issues practical takes over, and I ask them if they’ve ever met someone who through God’s power has given up tobacco, alcohol, domestic abuse, pornography, racism, or any number of other sins. Which of us can’t say that we haven’t met men and women who through God’s grace have conquered one or more of these vices, and never indulged in them since?

I remember a young man with whom I conversed while pastoring in New York. I was leaving a pastors’ meeting at one of my churches, and this young man and I stood together on the platform at the local train station as we awaited our return train to the City. This young man, Gary by name, told me of having claimed divine strength to give up any number of adulterous relationships which had come close to destroying his marriage. As we talked together, he smoked a cigarette. Without any prompt from me, he asked me at one point, waving his cigarette, “Is this a sin?” I explained to him what the Bible teaches about our body temples, and how the same God who had given him victory over adultery could give him victory over smoking.

I pray that in the years since that encounter, God has enabled him to do just that.

Whenever we meet someone who has overcome any sin, whatever it may be, we encounter proof that God can give victory over every other sin as well. If God can give an alcoholic, a racist, a wife-beater, or a pornography addict total victory, that proves He can do the same for gossipers, overeaters, workaholics, or even people who struggle with old-fashioned pride.

In the words of Ellen White:

In the day of judgment the course of the man who has retained the frailty and imperfection of humanity will not be vindicated. For him there will be no place in heaven. He could not enjoy the perfection of the saints in light. He who has not sufficient faith in Christ to believe that He can keep him from sinning, has not the faith that will give him an entrance into the kingdom of God [1].

But many of you say, “How can I help sinning? I have tried to overcome, but I do not make advancement.” You never can in your own strength, you will fail; but help is laid upon One who is mighty. In his strength you may be more than conqueror. You should arise and say, “Through the grace of God, I will be an overcomer.” Put your will on the side of God's will, and with your eye fixed upon Him who is the author and finisher of your faith, you may make straight paths for your feet.… Lay hold upon Him by living faith, and believe the word of God to the letter [2].

We can overcome. Yes: fully, entirely. Jesus died to make a way of escape for us, that we might overcome every evil temper, every sin, every temptation, and sit down at last with Him [3].

Conclusion: When Hope and History Rhyme

Like faith and love, hope is one of those traits uniquely powered by Biblical religion (I Cor. 13:13). Indeed, how is hope sustained without acknowledging a transcendent reality? (It’s like the old adage about atheists in foxholes.) Despite the stain of centuries left on God’s reputation by so many professed Christians and other misguided religionists, the invitation of others to “imagine a world without religion” (John Lennon) offers little hope of something better, as the world has already been there a number of times—think the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France and the gulags of Joe Stalin’s Russia. The star of hope outshining the record of Christian follies and failings is the promise of its own often-ignored, often slighted Sacred Text, with its supernatural power to remake humanity experienced by so many whose joy, selfless service to others, and conquest of evil have too often eluded the headlines and the historical record.

But that will not always be. The apostle Paul, writing of the Last Generation of victorious Christians, exudes both the hope that dwarfs the trials of the struggling believer and the often hidden, often unacknowledged hope of the world for that final, holy demonstration promised in the Scriptures:

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:18-19).

The late Irish poet Seamus Heaney, adapting for dramatic purposes the ancient Greek tales of the Trojan War, makes us think—whether he intended so or not—of those in contemporary Adventism who persist in placing the perfect obedience enjoined in God’s Word beyond the reach of the sanctified Christian:

History says, Don’t hope

On this side of the grave,

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme [4].

Once in a lifetime—indeed, once in the sweep of eternal ages—an entire community of fallen beings will display the glory and love of God before men and angels, in the “untainted purity and spotless perfection” [5] of their Lord’s demonstrative righteousness.

And indeed, when that happens, hope and history will rhyme at last.

REFERENCES

1. Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 3, p. 360.

2. ----Review and Herald, Sept. 20, 1892.

3. ----Testimonies, vol. 1, p. 144.

4. “The Cure at Troy,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cure_at_Troy

5. White, Testimonies to Ministers, pp, 18-19.

Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan