09 - WHAT` IN A NAME?

An Episcopalians rector was travelling on foot through the mountains in a Southern State. Thirsty, he stopped at a cabin along the trail to ask for a drink of water. In the course of his conversation with the good woman of the house, he inquired whether there were any Episcopalians living in the neighbourhood. The woman took him to the back of the cabin, which was covered with the skins of many kinds of animals. Pointing to them, she said, Thar`s all the different kinds of critters the old man’s rifle has ever killed. Look them over and see if you can find an Episcopalian among them.”

Of course, the rector saw the humour of the situation. None who read this treatise are as ignorant as that woman was concerning Episcopalians. However, if you were to ask many church members why they belong to their particular denomination, we venture that no more than one in ten would have a thorough knowledge of the faith he professes. Only a very few could take their Bibles and point to certain Scripture texts to show why they are Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, or Episcopalians.

We need to remember that because one happens to be taught certain doctrines from the time he was little does not mean they are necessarily right. Instead of uncritically following the practices and opinions of men who lived two or three hundred years ago, we should make it our personal duty to examine them by the Bible to learn what is truth. Religion is a matter between each soul and his God.

We are not to read the Bible through someone else’s spectacle. When we study Scripture, we are prayerfully to judge for ourselves and to walk in the light as it shines upon our pathway. If we find our forefather’s beliefs to be in harmony with the Bible, them it is right for us to adopt them. On the other hand, is we find additional light and truth of which our forefathers knew nothings, we should obey those truths, also.

Every person should be able to give a scriptural reason for the faith he professes. “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15).

An examination of various denominational names reveals that many of them are indicative of distinctive doctrines or of distinguishing features of the church’s policy. Take, for example, the Baptist denomination. It bears that name because from the beginning of its history as a church, the Baptists have rejected infant baptism and have held to adult baptism by immersion.

There is the Presbyterian Church. The word presbyter means “an elder.” The presbytery is “a body of elders.” One of the distinctive features of Presbyterianism is that their church government invests the body of elders with supervisory authority. On the other hand, the Congregational Church is so called because their system of church government vests all power in the assembled brotherhood of each local church.

Then there is the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The word Adventist comes form the word advent, which means “a coming.” When we speak of the advent of spring, we mean the coming of spring.

The word Adventist may be used in two ways. When written with a capital A it refers to the church that bears the name Adventist. But if it is written with a small a it refers to a person who lays special stress on the second advent of Christ. Dictionaries define adventist in this general sense as “one who makes the second personal coming of Christ a special feature in his doctrine.”

When we examine the writings of the holy men of old, we find that God’s prophets laid stress on the second coming of Christ (see Acts 3:19-21). Therefore, all the Bible prophets were Adventists. Enoch, who was born a little more than six hundred years after Creation, was the fires Adventist preacher of whom we have record. “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying. Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him” (Jude 14, 15).

All the apostles were Adventists, for they laid such emphasis on the return of Christ that they mentioned it more than 310 times in the 260 chapters of the New Testament. An average of one in every 25 verses in the New Testament points to the return of our Saviour. There are 20 times as many texts for the Second Advent as for the first. There is more said about the return of Jesus in the Bible than about any other singe themes. In al Paul’s epistles baptism is referred to only 13 times, while the coming of the Lord is referred to more than 50 times. So the Bible lays such emphasis on this subject that it is clearly an Adventist book.

All the early Christians, then, were adventists, because all the New Testaments churches are described as living in expectancy of Christ’s return. The Corinthians were said to “come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:7). The Thessalonians were waiting for the Son of God from heaven (1 Thess. 1:9, 10), as were also the Philippians (Phil. 3:20). Peter describes the early church as “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (2 Peter 3:12, R.S.V.).

The Lord’s Prayer is an Adventist prayer because it lays stress on the second coming of Christ. Every time we pray, “Thy kingdom come” (Matt. 6:10), we are praying for the return of Jesus, for the time to come when He will appear as King (see 16:28). The Lord’s supper is an Adventist ordinance, for when we participate in the communion service we show forth “the Lord’s death till he come” (1 Cor. 11.26).

Jesus Himself was Adventist. Over and over again He stressed His return to earth at the end of the Christian Age. To the high priest He said, “Hereafter shall we see the Son of man sitting on the right hand on power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64). To His disciples He said, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I an, there ye may be also” (John 14:3).

How appropriate it is that a people preparing the way for the Second Coming should call themselves Adventists! They have chosen that name because it reminds all the world of the good news of the second advent of the blessed Saviour.

There is another part to the name of that people of prophecy. While other Christians generally keep the first day of the week, Adventists keep the seventh day as the Sabbath, as the Bible requires. Being distinguished from most other Christians by their observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, they call themselves Seventh-day Adventists.

There are several notable facts about the seventh day that forever prove that it is the only right day to observe as the Sabbath. It is the only day of the week God commanded man to rest on any other day; hence, no day except the seventh can ever be the divine rest day for man. It is the only day God ever blessed, or sanctified. It is the only day of the week ever given a sacred title.

The seventh day was sacredly observed by the prophets, the apostles, the early Christians, and by the Lord Jesus Himself. When, after he has accepted Jesus as his Saviour, a person takes his stand for the two great truths of the Advent and the Sabbath, he can encourage his heart with the thought that he is taking his stand on the side of the Lord Jesus and all these servants of the Lord, with all these on his side, why should he care how the world may ridicule him?

Some people think that Seventh-day Adventism is a relatively new idea in religion. But the two distinctive doctrines we have been discussing date back to the very beginning. The seventh-day Sabbath is as old as the creation of the world. The second coming of Christ is implied in Genesis 3:15 when God declared that in due time the woman’s Seed, Jesus, would “crush” (T.E.V.) the serpent’s head, referring to the destruction of Satan.

The Sabbath is like a rainbow extending from a perfect world in the beginning before sin entered (chap. 2:1-3) to the coming perfect new earth when sin is banished forever (Is. 66:22, 23). The second coming of Christ is a second rainbow, a rainbow of hope extending from Eden lost to Eden restored.

Seventh-day Adventists exist as a distinctive group of Christians because God wants the three angel’s messages proclaimed to Christians and non-Christians alike. Bible readers know why there was a Noah, who preached a distinctive message before the Flood. They also know why there was a John the Baptist, who preached a distinctive message before the advent of our Lord. So they can know, from Revelation 14:6-12, why the Adventists are here at this time with their distinctive message for all the world.

The Bible not only establishes clearly God’s day of worship, it also tells us specifically that the Sabbath is to be kept from sunset to sunset (Lev. 23:32; Mark 1:32), or from sunset Friday evening to sunset Saturday evening. In love for our Lord Jesus we gladly honor Him, our Creator – Saviour, by keeping the seventh day.