The writings of Ellen White are clear that God’s method of addressing spiritual problems in His final covenant community will, in one key respect, differ from how He has addressed these problems in the past.
In past ages, an intransigent apostate majority in the professed community of faith has meant ultimate corporate rejection. The minority who remained faithful were thus constrained to worship elsewhere, often because they were forced out. This is what happened to ancient Israel, to medieval Christianity, and to post-Reformation Protestantism. But Ellen White is clear that in the final crisis of sacred history, God’s corporate fellowship of believers will experience purification through the departure, not of the faithful minority, but of the apostate majority. This purification process is often described, in Adventist parlance, as the shaking.
Such Ellen White statements as the following describe how this shaking process will play out:
The church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall. It remains while the sinners in Zion will be sifted out, the chaff separated from the precious wheat. This is a terrible ordeal, but nevertheless it must take place [1].
The shaking of God blows away multitudes like dry leaves. Prosperity multiplies a mass of professors. Adversity purges them out of the church. As a class their spirits are not steadfast with God. They go out from us because they are not of us; for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, many are offended [2].
As the storm approaches, a large class who have professed faith in the third angel's message, but have not been sanctified through obedience to the truth, abandon their position, and join the ranks of the opposition. By uniting with the world and partaking of its spirit, they have come to view matters in nearly the same light, and when the test is brought, they are prepared to choose the easy, popular side [3].
Some have entered the work with a human commission rather than the divine. . . . In short, they have a theory but not true conversion and sanctification through the truth. The great issue so near at hand will weed out those whom God has not appointed and He will have a pure, true, sanctified ministry, prepared for the latter rain [4].
At the eleventh hour the Lord will gather a company out of the world to serve Him. There will be a converted ministry. Those who have had privileges and opportunities to become intelligent in regard to the truth, and yet who continue to counterwork the work God would have accomplished, will be purged out [5].
This scenario, like others in the writings of Ellen White, is based on the Bible. In the Old Testament book of Zephaniah, chapter 3, we encounter an amazing prophecy of God’s last-day church, part of which is plainly echoed in the New Testament book of Revelation. We can read this amazing prophecy in verses 11 and 12 of Zephaniah 3:
In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against Me: for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of My holy mountain.
I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.
Then we find the following verse, echoed in Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 14:5:
The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid (Zeph. 3:13).
But What About the Church Organization?
But the question often arises, when the above inspired passages are studied, what will this mean for the visible organization of the church? If the church appears as about to fall, but does not fall, while the great majority are shaken out because of apostasy, how will the visible body of believers outwardly appear? Will there be a visible church structure of any kind? Or will it all go underground?
The inspired predictions relative to the shaking and the last days don’t provide answers to all of these questions. More than likely, this is a chapter yet to be written so far as the corporate journey of God’s remnant church is concerned. But there are certain things of which we can be certain, on the basis of the inspired writings. One of these is that there will in fact be some form of church organization, even at the close of time. Consider the following Ellen White statement:
Some have advanced the thought that as we near the close of time, every child of God will act independently of any religious organization. But I have been instructed by the Lord that in this work there is no such thing as every man’s being independent. The stars of heaven are all under law, each influencing the other to do the will of God, yielding their common obedience to the law that controls their action. And, in order that the Lord’s work may advance healthfully and solidly, His people must draw together [6].
So according to the inspired pen, there will in fact be some form of organization, even at the end of time, that will keep God’s global community of believers together. Of course, since the activities of the church will be illegal on a worldwide scale at that time (Rev. 14:8; 18:3), the maintenance of order and unity will have to be underground, at least to a major degree. Even from a strictly human perspective, we know this is possible, as underground organizations—both good and bad—have long existed in our world, and continue to exist today.
Thus, while we won’t likely have functioning institutions or Conference offices during the eschatological time of trouble, there will still be an organization—probably underground—that will offer guidance and facilitate unity. The fact that the untrue and faithless will have been purged from our ranks will likely make administration much easier. Remember, this is the time by which the full perfecting of Christian character will have been accomplished in the lives of those comprising God’s end-time remnant (Zeph. 3:13; I Thess. 5:23; II Peter 3:10-14; I John 3:2-3; Rev. 14:5).
The Faithful Won’t Be Cast Out
For many years, certain disillusioned Adventists who have rightly grieved over the church’s departure from its doctrinal, institutional, and moral mission as defined in Scripture and the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy, have nurtured the theory that as we near the end of time, the unfaithful majority in the church will increasingly and aggressively cast the faithful minority out of the church’s pews and off its membership rolls. As is usually the case with misperceptions and false expectations, certain incidents in recent decades—in different parts of the world—have given a measure of credence to this theory
But experience can never be our guide in determining religious faith or our perception of inspired prophecy. The immediate storm cannot obscure our recognition of God’s reality, be it past or present. This is what got Elijah into trouble when he fled from Jezebel, and God had to remind him that seven thousand souls had remained true to Him despite myriad pressures to the contrary (I Kings 19:18). And too often, those Seventh-day Adventists whom many would expect to have the inspired worldview firmly in mind, have permitted negative experiences with the organized church and the persistence of rampant apostasy in certain segments of the work, to obstruct from their view God’s promise that the corporate body of Seventh-day Adventists will at last be cleansed from its disobedient majority.
Moreover, the Ellen White predictions we have considered thus far in the present study do not permit us to conclude that the “church” which will not fall is a symbolic community of faithful believers only, as some have alleged at times. After all, the statement says that “the church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall. It remains, while the sinners in Zion will be sifted out” [7]. Out of what? Obviously out of Zion, which here is a metaphor for the visible church which contains both saints and sinners. Quite clearly, if at the start of the shaking Zion contains sinners that the shaking subsequently removes from its ranks, Zion can’t be perceived as a symbol of faithful Christians only.
Even more clearly is this borne out in Ellen White’s statement that “the shaking of God blows away multitudes like dry leaves,” that “prosperity multiplies a mass of professors,” and that “adversity purges them out of the church” [8]. These professors are obviously not true believers ceasing to be true, but rather, professed believers who stop professing the truth—a profession which exists by virtue of their membership in the visible Adventist body. The same holds true in the statement where she writes that “a large class who have professed faith in the third angel’s message, but who have not been sanctified through obedience to the truth, abandon their position, and join the ranks of the opposition” [9]. What position to they abandon? Their position as true and faithful believers? No, because they are not depicted here as true and faithful believers, but rather, as professed believers who haven’t been sanctified by obeying the truth. Quite clearly, what they abandon is their profession, which exists by virtue of their membership in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Everyone who holds membership in the worldwide Adventist body professes, by means of that membership, to believe in the third angel’s message, whether in fact they believe it or not.
Some have claimed that if the majority of the church is in apostasy, they would inevitably hold title to the church’s material assets and its public witness, and would thus in time rid the church’s visible ranks of the faithful minority whose rebukes and quest for accountability they have resented for so long. But that’s human reason talking, not divine revelation, and whenever these elements collide, it is divine revelation that must have the last word.
Conclusion
Those who claim that organized Adventism will invariably suffer the spiritual fate of ancient Judaism, medieval Catholicism, and post-Reformation Protestantism often bolster this claim with the assumption that “history repeats itself.” And this is often the case. But as Christians, we do not believe the cycles of history are inevitable or unending. We are not Hindus. God is not forced to operate in all the patterns of the past. Time prophecies were for centuries a means whereby God instilled faith and hope in His people. But after 1844, God has ceased to use this method [10]. Martyrdom, throughout the ages of the church, has been one means whereby the witness of Bible truth has exerted an impact on receptive hearts. But once probation ceases, this will no longer be [11].
For the same reasons, the Lord is not compelled to repeatedly call His faithful ones out of an ecclesiastical structure seemingly dominated by false believers. If He chooses to preserve the witness of His church by removing the apostate majority and keeping the faithful minority within the church’s visible ranks, that is as much His right as is the termination of the use of time prophecies in the public witness of His people. While we don’t know exactly what a purified, visible denomination will look like in the context of the final events, we can be certain from the inspired predictions noted in this study that God will have such a purified organization in the last days [12], and that the notion of certain ones that God will cease to work through the organized Adventist body as we near the close of time, is erroneous.
REFERENCES
1. Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380.
2. ----Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 89.
3. ----The Great Controversy, p. 608.
4. ----Manuscript Releases, vol. 12, p. 327.
5. Ibid, vol. 20, p. 320.
6. ----Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 258.
7. ----Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380.
8. ----Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 89.
9. ----The Great Controversy, p. 608.
10. ----Testimonies to Ministers, p. 55; SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 971; Manuscript Releases, vol. 10, p. 270.
11. ----The Great Controversy, p. 634.
12. ----Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 258.
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