Part 5: The Great Controversy and the Vindication of God

This is the fifth installment of our series responding to the lectures delivered at the North American Division ministerial meeting in June 2022 in Lexington, Kentucky, in which the cluster of teachings known as Last Generation Theology were conspicuously and publicly challenged. This installment will focus on the lectures in question relative to the great controversy and the vindication of God’s character.

Again we remind our readers that the lectures in question are referenced in the form of audio recordings, and that each reference to one or the other of the featured lecturers is noted in terms of the minutes and seconds where the statement in question is found in the lecture being cited.

The Scope of Satan’s Defeat at the Cross

Both lecturers in question accuse Last Generation Theology of teaching that “Satan was not completely defeated by Christ on the cross” [1], insisting instead that “Christ effectively refuted Satan’s charges against God’s character and law via His perfect life and death on the cross” [2]. At one point [3] one of these lecturers quotes the following Ellen White statement in support of his position:

In the Saviour’s expiring cry, “It is finished,” the death knell of Satan was rung. The great controversy which had been so long in progress was then decided, and the final eradication of evil was made certain [##4|Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 503.##].

But while Ellen White is clear that the ultimate defeat of Satan was made certain by the events of Calvary, she is equally clear that the defeat of Satan remains a work in progress. To illustrate: in World War II the ultimate defeat of the Axis powers was made certain by the decisive battles at Midway, Stalingrad, and El Alamein in 1942 and 1943. But the hardest fighting of the war continued during the final two years of the conflict, until at last Germany and Japan surrendered in May and August of 1945.

The same is true in the great controversy between good and evil. In another statement Ellen White further explains what in fact was finished by Jesus’ life and death on earth. Please be aware that the bracketed portion is in the original:

He (Christ) prayed: “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” [That is, He had wrought out a righteous character on earth as an example for men to follow.] [##5|——Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 3, p. 260.##].

The living out of this example, made possible by Calvary, is what God now awaits in the lives of His people. Though, as Ellen White says, our Lord’s “life of sinlessness, lived on this earth in human nature, is a complete refutation of Satan’s charge against the character of God” [##6|——Bible Training School, Oct. 1, 1902.##], she is clear elsewhere that the continued refutation of these charges is the work of God’s people, through His grace and power:

All who break God’s commandments are sustaining Satan’s claim that the law is unjust, and cannot be obeyed [##7|——The Desire of Ages, p. 309.##].

Those who live the life of a Christian are battling against the devil’s lie that man cannot keep God’s law [##8|——Signs of the Times, July 10, 1901.##].

Exact obedience is required, and those who say that it is not possible to live a perfect life, throw upon God the imputation of injustice and untruth [##9|——Manuscript Releases, vol. 1, p. 369.##].

Therefore he (Satan) is constantly seeking to deceive the followers of Christ with his fatal sophistry that it is impossible for them to overcome [##10|——The Great Controversy, p. 489.##].

In other words, Satan’s arguments against the divine law are still operative in the great controversy, and it is the task of God’s saints to refute these allegations by replicating in their earthly lives the perfect conquest of evil demonstrated by their Lord’s example (Rom. 8:3-4; I Peter 2:21-22; I John 3:2-3; Rev. 3:21; 14:5).

Is God’s Victory Dependent On Mere Creatures?

So asks one of the lecturers in questions [11]. Another says it is “very disturbing” the way one leading advocate of Last Generation Theology states that “God is going to risk all on the 144,000” [12]. The former lecturer states emphatically: “God does not need the final generation to secure His victory” [13].

Yet the Bible itself is clear that the defeat of Satan by Jesus was not accomplished in its totality when Jesus died on the cross. In the original promise of salvation recorded in Scripture, God declared to Satan: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15). But according to the apostle Paul, Christ isn’t the only One who is expected to bruise Satan. Writing to the church, Paul declares: “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20). If Jesus had done all the bruising necessary when He died on the cross, this promise by the apostle would be quite unnecessary.

Ellen White echoes Paul’s words on the bruising of Satan by God’s people in the following statements:

The church will yet see troublous times. She will prophesy in sackcloth. But although she must meet heresies and persecutions, although she must battle with the infidel and the apostate, yet by the help of God she is bruising the head of Satan [##14|White, Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 594.##].

God help us to take heed to ourselves or we shall certainly lose heaven. Little departures from right, little indulgences, seem a trifling thing at present; but Satan will lead us on a track that will separate us from righteousness and from God. We want not our ways but God’s ways. We want to strive with all the powers of being to bruise Satan under our feet and be sure that we are right with God, that we have a clear title to our immortal inheritance [##15|——This Day With God, p. 27.##].

The statement noted above by one of the lecturers in question that “God does not need the final generation to secure His victory” [16], is likewise disputed by the following, very strong Ellen White statements:

We were brought into existence because we were needed. How sad the thought that if we stand on the wrong side, in the ranks of the enemy, we are lost to the design of our Creator [##17|White, Signs of the Times, April 22, 1903.##].

The following passage is even more amazing:

All heaven is represented to me as watching the unfolding of events. A crisis is to be revealed in the great and prolonged controversy in the government of God on earth. Something great and decisive is to take place, and that right early. If any delay, the character of God and His throne will be compromised [##18|——Manuscript 27, 1892.##].

Another statement is clear that the work of refuting Satan’s lies about God’s requirements is not the work of Christ alone, but of both Christ and His followers:

Unselfishness, the principle of God’s kingdom, is the principle that Satan hates; its very existence he denies. From the beginning of the great controversy he has endeavored to prove God’s principles of action to be selfish, and he deals in the same way with all who serve God. To disprove Satan’s claim is the work of Christ and of all who bear His name [##19|——Education, p. 154.##].

Missional Only?

One of the lecturers in question claims that while God’s people play a “missional role” [20] in witnessing to the truth of God’s character, in his view “the activity of mere humans does not provide grounds for the vindication of God’s character and God’s victory in the Great Controversy” [21]. Yet the following Ellen White statements are clear that the vindication of God’s character is very much the result of human activity, albeit empowered by the sanctifying grace of their Lord:

Pray, pray earnestly and without ceasing, but do not forget to praise. It becomes every child of God to vindicate His character. You can magnify the Lord; you can show the power of sustaining grace. There are multitudes who do not appreciate the great love of God nor the divine compassion of Jesus [##22|White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 317.##].

If there was ever a people in need of constantly increasing light from heaven, it is the people of God that, in this time of peril, God has called to be the depositories of His holy law, and to vindicate His character before the world [##23|——Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 746.##].

Let all remember that . . . angels are recording in the book of remembrance every word that vindicates the character and mission of Christ. Of those who testify of the love of God, the Lord says, “They shall be Mine . . . in that day when I make up My jewels.” Malachi 3:17 [##24|——Our High Calling, p. 168.##].

God will have a people upon the earth who will vindicate his honor by having respect to all of his commandments. . . . Not one of us can afford to dishonor God by living in transgression of his law [##25|——Review and Herald, Aug. 25, 1885.##].

His heart of sympathy goes out to all earth's sufferers, and with every one who works for their relief, He co-operates. As with His blessing health returns, the character of God will be vindicated, and the lie thrown back upon Satan, its originator [##26|——Christian Educator, Oct. 1, 1898.##].

But is this vindication only “missional,” as one of the lecturers in this discussion alleges? Or does it have a wider, cosmic implication as well?

Ellen White answers this question when she explains why Satan was not destroyed at the death of Christ:

Yet Satan was not then destroyed. The angels did not even then understand all that was involved in the great controversy. The principles at stake were to be more fully revealed. And for the sake of man, Satan’s existence must be continued. Man as well as angels must see the contrast between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness. He must choose whom he will serve [##27|——The Desire of Ages, p. 761.##].

In other words, the great controversy remains to be settled for both angels and humans as they witness the final contrast between righteousness and sin, in order that all—angels included—might fully understand the issues at stake. The following Ellen White statement is clear that the vindication of God through His people at the close of time is for the benefit of both the fallen world and the unfallen universe—a task, in other words, both missional and cosmic:

New territory is to be added to God’s kingdom. New tracts of moral vineyard are to be cultivated as the garden of the Lord. The honor of the law of God is to be vindicated before the unfallen worlds, before the heavenly universe, and before the fallen world. The bitterest persecution will come, but when Zion arises, and puts on her beautiful garments, she will shine forth in the beauty of holiness [##28|——Ye Shall Receive Power, p. 338.##].

Elsewhere the modern prophet describes the contrast between the perfect reproduction of Jesus’ character in His people and the perfect reproduction of the adversary’s character in the lives of the wicked, as will be seen at the close of time:

Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own [##29|——Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69.##].

John foresaw the conflict between the remnant church and the power of evil, and said, “The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

The forces of darkness will unite with human agents who have given themselves into the control of Satan, and the same scenes that were exhibited at the trial, rejection, and crucifixion of Christ will be revived. Through yielding to satanic influences, men will be transformed into fiends; and those who were created in the image of God, who were formed to honor and glorify their Creator, will become the habitation of dragons, and Satan will see in an apostate race his masterpiece of evil—men who reflect his own image [##30|——SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 974.##].

This final contrast, in the words of Ellen White, will vindicate God’s character before the universe:

The warfare against God’s law, which was begun in heaven, will be continued until the end of time. Every man will be tested. Obedience or disobedience is the question to be decided by the whole world. All will be called to choose between the law of God and the laws of men. Here the dividing line will be drawn. There will be but two classes. Every character will be fully developed, and all will show whether they have chosen the side of loyalty or that of rebellion.

Then the end will come. God will vindicate His law and deliver His people [##31|——The Desire of Ages, p. 763.##].

Quite obviously, the vindication of God’s law—His character—depicted in this passage remains in the future, and is directly tied to the ultimate contrast between fully developed righteousness and fully developed sin in the lives of humanity’s final generation, both saved and lost.

“Supplemented by Humans”

One of the lecturers in question accuses Last Generation Theology of teaching that in the ultimate triumph of good in the great controversy with evil, “God’s action is not sufficient, but must be supplemented by humans” [32]. But Ellen White in fact speaks of the spotless perfection reproduced in the lives of God’s end-time saints as the “supplement” of their Savior’s glory:

The church, being endowed with the righteousness of Christ, is His depository, in which the wealth of His mercy, His love, His grace, is to appear in full and final display. . . . The gift of His Holy Spirit, rich, full, and abundant, is to be to His church as an encompassing wall of fire, which the powers of hell shall not prevail against. In their untainted purity and spotless perfection, Christ looks upon His people as the reward of all His suffering, His humiliation, and His love, and the supplement of His glory [##33|——Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 18-19; see also The Desire of Ages, p. 680.##].

Again we find ourselves confronted with the choice between the fallible reasoning of uninspired scholars and the unmistakable clarity of the inspired pen.

No Competition With Calvary

One of the lecturers in question attacks Last Generation Theology as “anthropocentric”—human-centered [34]—rather than Christ-centered. But the fact is that nothing any Christian accomplishes, at the close of time or otherwise, is possible without the power and righteousness made available by the cross. Like the righteousness of justification and that of sanctification, what the Last Generation of Christians will accomplish and what the cross accomplished are in no way in tension or rivalry with one another. The sanctification of believers in every age is as much the result of Calvary as is their justification (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 10:29; 13:12,20-21), and this is as true of the Last Generation as for all previous ones. Without the cross, there can be no perfecting of Christian character, at the end of time or otherwise.

Moreover, we have seen that it is God who bruises Satan under the feet of His followers (Rom. 16:20), and it is God who vindicates Himself through their spiritual cleansing (Eze. 36:21-23,25-27). True, the saints will actively cooperate with this grace-empowered process, but whatever they do is only possible because of God’s creative and re-creative power. The words of King David in his final prayer for Israel underscore this everlasting gospel truth:

For all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee (I Chron. 29:14).

Conclusion

One is hard-pressed to understand why God would permit the controversy with evil to extend beyond Calvary for two thousand brutal, blood-soaked, sin-suffocating years if the key issues of the controversy had been conclusively settled by Jesus’ death. Why, if the great cosmic war was fully won at the cross, has God constrained humanity—not to mention the universe—to endure twenty additional centuries of military adventurism, genocide, Inquisition, colonialism, industrial brutality, environmental exploitation, COVID, mass shootings, and so much more?

It can’t be because the gospel hasn’t yet been preached to all the world, as Paul states in Colossians 1:23 that in his day the gospel “was preached to every creature which is under heaven.” What remains unfinished is the proclamation of the gospel through both verbal and practical harmony. Hence the following inspired assurances:

The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them.

The light of the Sun of Righteousness is to shine forth in good works—in words of truth and deeds of holiness [##35|White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pp. 415-416.##].

The world can only be warned by seeing those who believe the truth sanctified through the truth, acting upon high and holy principles, showing in a high, elevated sense, the line of demarcation between those who keep the commandments of God and those who trample them under their feet [##36|——SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 980.##].

And once again, finally:

Then the end will come. God will vindicate His law and deliver His people [##37|——The Desire of Ages, p. 763.##].

REFERENCES

1. Jiri Moskala, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—2,” 5:05; see also 21:05,21:40,23:09 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

2. John C. Peckham, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—1,” 35:47; see also 4:22 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

3. Moskala, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—2,” 21:05 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

4. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 503.

5. ----Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 3, p. 260.

6. ----Bible Training School, Oct. 1, 1902.

7. ----The Desire of Ages, p. 309.

8. ----Signs of the Times, July 10, 1901.

9. ----Manuscript Releases, vol. 1, p. 369.

10. ----The Great Controversy, p. 489.

11. Peckham, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—1,” 5:42; see also 0:40 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

12. Moskala, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—2,” 9:16 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

13. Peckham, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—1,” 28:05 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

14. White, Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 594.

15. ----This Day With God, p. 27.

16. Peckham, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—1,” 28:05 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

17. White, Signs of the Times, April 22, 1903.

18. ----Manuscript 27, 1892.

19. ----Education, p. 154.

20. Peckham, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—1,” 1:35,35:31 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

21. Ibid, 1:35.

22. White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 317.

23. Ibid, p. 746.

24. ----Our High Calling, p. 168.

25. ----Review and Herald, Aug. 25, 1885.

26. ----Christian Educator, Oct. 1, 1898.

27. ----The Desire of Ages, p. 761.

28. ----Ye Shall Receive Power, p. 338.

29. ----Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69.

30. ----SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 974.

31. ----The Desire of Ages, p. 763.

32. Peckham, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—1,” 6:01 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

33. White, Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 18-19; see also The Desire of Ages, p. 680.

34. Moskala, “God’s Character and the Last Generation—2,” 26:24 http://www.lastgenerationforchrist.org/articles

35. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pp. 415-416.

36. ----SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 980.

37. ----The Desire of Ages, p. 763.

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