We don’t know much about him, except that his mother died at his birth, and with her last breath named him Ichabod—meaning, “the glory is departed” (I Sam. 4:19-21). His mother was the wife of Phinehas, one of the dissolute sons of Eli, the latter having served as high priest and judge of Israel for forty years (verse 18). Notwithstanding her husband’s impiety, Phinehas’ wife was a woman who feared the Lord [##1|Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 585.##]. Upon hearing of the death of her father-in-law and her husband, she went into labor, gave birth to a son, and in the process lost her life. Her dying words are recorded in the last verse of First Samuel 4:
The glory of God is departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken (verse 22).
What happened to her son afterward, we are not told. But his name has endured ever since as an epitaph for individuals and institutions believed to have passed the point of no return so far as apostasy and the likelihood of spiritual reform are concerned.
Testing Truths for Past Faith Communities
When an individual passes the point of no return with God, only He can know, as He alone knows the heart (I Kings 8:39). But when in fact should the hope of reformatory change be relinquished so far as an institution or religious movement is concerned?
First, let’s look at how to answer this question relative to God’s faith communities through the ages. The role of testing truths is the key. Ancient Israel experienced horrific apostasy from the golden calf at Sinai to the days of Christ and the apostles—everything from idol worship, orgiastic fertility rites, human sacrifice, the mistreatment of the vulnerable, Sabbath violation, ritualistic legalism, and much more. But while centuries of the above misdeeds certainly produced the hardening of hearts which eventually proved fatal to Israel’s standing with God, it took a final testing truth—the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah at the close of Daniel’s seventy-week prophecy (Dan. 9:24)—to accomplish the end of their corporate probation.
Jesus explained this principle in His parable of the vineyard and the wicked husbandmen. Centuries of rejecting and killing God’s messengers certainly brought about an increased hardening of hearts with the passing of generations. But it didn’t bring about a corporate close of probation. According to Jesus’ parable, this only happened with the rejection and murder of the householder’s son. Which is why, after telling this story, Jesus declared:
The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof (Matt. 21:43).
Until this took place, even the gross apostasy rampant in Israel had not succeeded in annulling their status as God’s chosen people. Despite the unholy traffic in the Temple, Jesus still declared that building His Father’s house (John 2:16), and His own also (Luke 19:46). In His Sermon on the Mount He called Jerusalem “the city of the great King” (Matt. 5:35), for which reason He forbade oaths to be taken in its name. To the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well He declared, “Salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22).
Even the death of Jesus by itself was not sufficient to terminate Israel’s probation. They still had to understand what in fact they had done. The Bible is clear that God winks at the times of humanity’s ignorance (Acts 17:30), and states elsewhere, “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). In the light of this, it is significant that on the cross Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
Thus, in order for probation to close for Israel on account of their killing the Messiah, they needed to understand what they had done. This opportunity was afforded them in the testimony of Stephen before the Sanhedrin. The one destined to be the first Christian martyr demonstrated from Israel’s history the chosen nation’s record of spurning divine appeals, culminating in the murder of the promised Savior Himself (Acts 7:51-53). The insane anger greeting the messenger’s witness was sufficient to bring Israel’s probation to an end, as evidenced by Stephen’s vision of “the Son of man standing on the right hand of God” (verse 56). This is the same language found in Daniel 12:1, where Michael—the Son of God and humanity’s Mediator—is seen as standing up, signifying another point—the final one—at which probation ceases for mankind.
This is why the seventy-week prophecy of Daniel 9 ends with the stoning of Stephen rather than the actual death of Christ (Dan. 9:24). Ellen White explains the significance of this event as follows:
The seventy weeks, or 490 years, especially allotted to the Jews, ended, as we have seen, in A.D. 34. At that time, through the actions of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the nation sealed its rejection of the gospel by the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution of the followers of Christ. Then the message of salvation, no longer restricted to the chosen people, was given to the world [##2|——The Great Controversy, p. 328.##].
Just as the testing truth for ancient Israel was the acceptance of the Messiah, so the testing truth for the medieval church was acceptance of the Reformation gospel. Ellen White speaks of the dilemma that faced the Reformers and those who received their summons to Biblical faithfulness:
When the Reformers preached the word of God, they had no thought of separating themselves from the established church; but the religious leaders would not tolerate the light, and those that bore it were forced to seek another class, who were longing for the truth. In our day few of the professed followers of the Reformers are actuated by their spirit. Few are listening for the voice of God, and ready to accept truth in whatever guise it may be presented. Often those who follow in the steps of the Reformers are forced to turn away from the churches they love, in order to declare the plain teaching of the word of God. And many times those who are seeking for light are by the same teaching obliged to leave the church of their fathers, that they may render obedience [##3|——The Desire of Ages, p. 232.##].
Indeed, the heirs of the Reformers have—according to the inspired pen—followed sufficiently in the footsteps of the Mother Church to, like her, be characterized as Babylon:
The message of Revelation 14, announcing the fall of Babylon, must apply to religious bodies that were once pure and have become corrupt. Since this message follows the warning of the judgment, it must be given in the last days; therefore it cannot refer to the Roman Church alone, for that church has been in a fallen condition for many centuries. . . .
Many of the Protestant churches are following Rome’s example of iniquitous connection with “the kings of the earth”—the state churches, by their relation to secular government; and other denominations, by seeking the favor of the world. And the term “Babylon”—confusion—may be appropriately applied to these bodies, all professing to derive their doctrines from the Bible, yet divided into almost innumerable sects, with widely conflicting creeds and theories [##4|——The Great Controversy, p. 383.##].
According to Ellen White, the gradual departure of Protestantism from the faith of the Reformers, and the simultaneous failure of Protestants to accept further light from Scripture, reached a pivotal moment in the proclamation of the Advent message by William Miller and his associates. In her words:
The second angel’s message of Revelation 14 was first preached in the summer of 1844, and it then had a more direct application to the churches of the United States, where the warning of the judgment had been most widely proclaimed and more generally rejected, and where the declension in the churches had been most rapid. But the message of the second angel did not reach its complete fulfillment in 1844. The churches then experienced a moral fall, in consequence of their refusal of the light of the advent message; but that fall was not complete. As they have continued to reject the special truths for this time they have fallen lower and lower [##5|——The Great Controversy, pp. 389-390.##].
So just as the message of the crucified and risen Messiah was the testing truth for ancient Israel, just as the message of supreme Biblical authority and salvation by grace through faith was the testing truth brought to Christendom by the Protestant Reformers, so the end-time Advent message—first proclaimed by William Miller, then declared in greater precision and power by the Seventh-day Adventist Church—has been the testing truth for nominal Protestantism.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Earmarks of Babylon
The modern Seventh-day Adventist Church has experienced decades of dangerous apostasy in any number of its congregations and institutions. Attacks against Biblical inspiration, the prophetic authority of Ellen White, our classic sanctuary doctrine, Last Generation Theology, Biblical gender role distinctions, and Biblical sexuality standards have tarnished the witness and compromised the faithfulness of many in our ranks. The fact that so many of these aberrations are tolerated in the church without drastic curtailment by denominational administrators causes many thoughtful members to wonder if “Ichabod” should be pronounced over the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, or if perhaps the church has joined the fellowship of Babylon.
Some who find the LGBT movement such an appalling intrusion in our ranks just now would do well to remember that the sin of homosexuality among God’s professed people is nothing new. According to the Bible this problem existed at times during Israel’s divided monarchy, and probably at other times as well. We read, “And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel” (I Kings 14:24). On several occasions Judah’s reforming kings had to deal with this recurrent problem (I Kings 15:12; 22:46; II Kings 23:7). Yet even the occasional presence of this gross abomination did not terminate Israel’s status as God’s chosen people.
But the inspired pen is clear as to which teachings cause a church to become a part of Babylon. Two statements offer a list of doctrines, acceptance of which—according to the inspired pen—places a church in the Babylonian fold. Both of these statements occur in the context of Ellen White's warnings against calling the Seventh-day Adventist Church Babylon, and provide a means whereby Babylon may be distinguished from the Remnant Church of God:
The fallen denominational churches are Babylon. Babylon has been fostering poisonous doctrines, the wine of error. This wine of error is made up of false doctrines, such as the natural immortality of the soul, the eternal torment of the wicked, the denial of the pre-existence of Christ prior to His birth in Bethlehem, and advocating and exalting the first day of the week above God's holy and sanctified day. These and kindred errors are presented to the world by the various churches [##6|——Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 61-62.##].
The wine of Babylon is the exalting of the false and spurious sabbath above the Sabbath which the Lord Jehovah hath blessed and sanctified for the use of man; also it is the immortality of the soul. These kindred heresies, and the rejection of the truth, convert the church into Babylon [##7|——Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 68.##].
This primary focus on Sunday sacredness and natural immortality is understandable, since Ellen White pinpoints these two errors as being those on which the churches of Babylon will unite in the last days:
Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome [##8|——The Great Controversy, p. 588.##].
Let us review again the heresies listed above, acceptance of which causes a church to become Babylon:
1. The natural immortality of the soul
2. The eternal torment of the wicked
3. The denial of the pre-existence of Christ prior to His birth in Bethlehem
4. The exaltation of Sunday over the true Sabbath
Of course, number 2 is actually a subset of number l, since the eternal torment of the wicked is a logical result of accepting the immortality of the soul. No doubt this is why Ellen White mentions simply the immortality of the soul in the last two of the three statements cited above.
As with ancient Israel and the nominal churches of Christendom, numerous and egregious sins—whether open or secret—are never cited by the inspired pen as just cause for abandoning the faith community and starting a new one. Only the failure to accept a testing truth can bring about such a parting of the ways. We see this demonstrated by the very stern warning given by Ellen White against sexual immorality in the church of her day. One of these was addressed to Elder G.I. Butler, then-president of the General Conference, in l886 [##9|——Manuscript Releases, vol. 21, p. 380.##]. Here Ellen White stated that such conditions placed us "in danger of becoming a sister to fallen Babylon, of allowing our churches to become corrupted, and filled with every foul spirit, a cage for every unclean and hateful bird" [##10|——Manuscript Releases, vol. 21, p. 380.##]. Yet more than thirty years earlier, in l854, she made an even stronger statement about the tolerating of this sin within the church:
I saw that the seventh commandment has been violated by some who are now held in fellowship by the church. This has brought God's frown upon them. This sin is awful in these last days, but the church (members) have brought God's frown and curse upon them by regarding the sin so lightly. I saw it was an enormous sin and there have not been as vigilant efforts made as there should have been to satisfy the displeasure of God and remove His frown by taking a strict, thorough course with the offender. It has had an awful, corrupting influence upon the young. The see how lightly the sin of breaking the seventh commandment is regarded, and the one who commits this horrid sin thinks that all he has to do is to confess that he was wrong and is sorry, and he is then to have all the privileges of the house of God and be held in (the) embrace or fellowship of the church. They have thought it was not so great a sin, but have lightly esteemed the breaking of the seventh commandment. This has been sufficient to remove the ark of God from the camp, if there were no other sins to cause the ark to be taken away and weaken Israel [##11|——Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce, pp. 248-249.##]
Six years after her letter to Butler, in a letter to his successor, Ellen White warned that this sin was still present in the church, even among ministers:
We have been asked why it is that there is so little power in the churches, why there is so little efficiency among our teachers. The answer is that it is because known sin in various forms is cherished among the professed followers of Christ, and the conscience becomes hardened by long violation. The answer is that men do not walk with God, but separate company from Jesus, and as a result we see manifested in the church selfishness, covetousness, pride, strife, contention, hardheartedness, licentiousness, and evil practices. Even among those who preach the sacred word of God, this state of evil is found, and unless there is thorough reformation among those who are unholy and unsanctified, it would be better if such men would leave the ministry, and choose some other occupation where their unregenerate thoughts would not bring disaster upon the people of God [##12|——Manuscript Releases, vol. 2, p. 61.##].
The significance of these statements for the present discussion cannot be missed. Three decades before she wrote to Elder Butler that we were "in danger of becoming a sister to fallen Babylon" because of adultery in the church [##13|——Manuscript Releases, vol. 21, p. 380.##], Ellen White wrote that the condoning of this problem in the church had been "sufficient to remove the ark of God from the camp." And six years after writing to Butler, she writes to his successor, Elder O.A. Olsen, telling him this problem was still to be found in the church, even among the ministry, and was responsible for withholding God's power from His people [##14|——Manuscript Releases, vol. 2, p. 61.##].
Yet despite these sobering statements of divine displeasure regarding the church, never once did Ellen White counsel our people to withdraw themselves from the denominational structure because of these corrupt practices. She died with her name still on the Seventh-day Adventist Church books, still supporting organized Adventism with her influence and her means. Quite obviously, Babylon in the church did not mean the church had become Babylon.
Institutions
But what about institutions inside the church? When is it time to give up hope so far as revival and reformation in such a context are concerned?
Many are familiar, of course, with Ellen White’s warning to the church during the Kellogg crisis, “Keep your families away from Battle Creek” [##15|Quoted by Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Later Elmshaven Years, 1905-1915 (Washington, D.C: Review and Herald Publishing Assn, 1982), p. 67.##]. But what needs to be remembered is that at this time, “Kellogg’s forces [had] reopened Battle Creek College, closed after the denomination moved the school to Berrien Springs” [##16|Lewis R. Walton, Omega II: God’s Church at the Brink (Glennville, CA: Lewis R. Walton, Publisher, 1995), p. 58.##]. The college was thus no longer affiliated with the church, but was instead fully under the auspices of John Harvey Kellogg and his sympathizers. Any realistic efforts at reform by means of the church’s collective conscience was thus out of the question by the time Ellen White gave the aforesaid warning.
From the present writer’s observation and experience, efforts at internal reform within congregations and denominational institutions are often relinquished prematurely by leaders and members who grow weary of the struggle and find it easier to walk away from a problem situation and either join a different entity or start something new. Religious conflict is a particularly vexing experience for most people, especially cultural conservatives with a “mind your own business” attitude, for whom debates, corrective discipline, and progress by painful increments tend to disrupt the haven of peace and quiet they have hitherto found the church and its institutions to be. Though understandable for many reasons, an attitude like this can cause the abandonment of many otherwise salvageable circumstances.
Much could be said regarding how to address such situations, but what is most important is to recognize that until all realistic efforts have been made to bring about positive change in a local church or institution, the “abandon ship” option should not be considered. It is imperative that church members realize, for example, that local congregations don’t belong to the one temporarily serving as pastor, and that a Seventh-day Adventist school—at any level—serves a more far-reaching purpose than merely handing out diplomas. Recognizing their role as stewards in both of the above circumstances, and others, should become a priority for both church members and students. Much more than has yet been seen could be accomplished in the pursuit of revival and reformation were those at the church’s grassroots to begin asserting their rightful responsibility as agents of renewal and corrective change.
Conclusion: When—and When Not—To Cry “Ichabod!”
The Sacred Record is clear that until a corporate faith community is faced with a particular testing truth, no collective weight of negative history and rampant sin is just cause for the faithful to walk away. Centuries of deep and grotesque apostasy did not annual ancient Israel’s status as God’s chosen people; only when they rejected Jesus as the Messiah did this take place (Dan. 9:24). And the many vignettes of heretical teaching and wrongful practice in contemporary Adventism have not caused the corporate Adventist structure to become a part of Babylon. Wrong as such practices as women’s ordination and the LGBT lifestyle certainly are, the ultimate test for God’s end-time people will be neither of these, but rather, the Sabbath/Sunday crisis, coupled with the enemy’s age-old delusion of natural immortality [##17|Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 588.##]. Until and unless the official voice of global Adventism embraces one or both of these errors, the glory of God will not have departed from the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
In our labors for revival and reformation within local congregations and church institutions, every effort must be exerted to accomplish a spiritual turnaround before we start advising people to consider finding another congregation or institution, or perhaps starting something new. Those who believe themselves unsuited for the trauma of internal church conflict must remember that far worse is coming, and that the power of God to sustain His warriors remains constant. Jeremiah 12:5 is still in the Bible:
If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?
Even the original “Ichabod!” cry was not final. The ark of God was returned to Israel (I Sam. 6), and the Philistines were finally defeated at the Battle of Ebenezer (I Sam. 7:11-13). God will at last purify to Himself “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing . . . holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). Far from His glory departing at last from the Seventh-day Adventist Church, that glory will experience a full and unrivaled demonstration through God’s last-day church. In the modern prophet’s words:
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 [##18|——Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 18-19.##].
REFERENCES
1. Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 585.
2. ----The Great Controversy, p. 328.
3. ----The Desire of Ages, p. 232.
4. ----The Great Controversy, p. 383.
5. Ibid, pp. 389-390.
6. ----Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 61-62.
7. ----Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 68.
8. ----The Great Controversy, p. 588.
9. ----Manuscript Releases, vol. 21, p. 380.
10. Ibid.
11. ----Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce, pp. 248-249.
12. ----Manuscript Releases, vol. 2, p. 61.
13. Ibid, vol. 21, p. 380.
14. Ibid, vol. 2, p. 61.
15. Quoted by Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Later Elmshaven Years, 1905-1915 (Washington, D.C: Review and Herald Publishing Assn, 1982), p. 67.
16. Lewis R. Walton, Omega II: God’s Church at the Brink (Glennville, CA: Lewis R. Walton, Publisher, 1995), p. 58.
17. White, The Great Controversy, p. 588.
18. ----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