Adventist Identity and Mission

Recently, I have listened to more than one church leader urge Adventist clergy to preserve the unique identity and mission of the Adventist Church. We are not just another denomination. Our mission is different from historic, classic, apostolic, traditional, ordinary, orthodox Christianity. We are the people of Revelation 14, the remnant church, God’s church for the end time. Our mission flows from this divinely-given identity: the proclamation of the eternal gospel in the context of the three angels.

My interpretation: community service, spiritual formation, nurture of the feeble, healing of the broken are all good things, but we can leave most of this work to other churches and ministries, to non-profits, Buddhists, and humanitarians. Our job is to get people ready for the Second Coming. This readiness is radically different from plain, old, faithful discipleship. It consists of believing the Adventist interpretation of Daniel 7-9 and Revelation 12-20.

I demur.

For four reasons.

1. The central meaning of “remnant” is continuity, not novelty. The first 1800 years of Christianity was not the beta version of Adventism. We are not a “finally perfected” version of Christianity. “The remnant” of Revelation 12 continues the identity and mission of the church. There is no hint in Revelation that the remnant reforms or completes the work of the church.

2. Revelation 14 mentions the “hour of judgment.” This is not a reference to 1844. It is a reference to John 12:27-33. It is an announcement of the Christian era not the century and a half and counting beginning in 1844.

3. The eternal gospel–the other “message element” mentioned in Revelation 14–is not a new message applicable from 1844 forward. It is the eternal gospel.

4. Getting people ready for the Second Coming is not different from getting them ready to go to work next Tuesday or Tuesday five hundred years ago. God does not impose a new standard or announce a new ideal for a brief period immediately prior to the Second Coming. Christians have always been called to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect. They have always been saved by grace. And so it will remain till the Second Coming.

5. What calls forth the distinctive Adventist accent to Christianity is the shape of the spiritual/ideological world we live in. Truth must be formed so it addresses people where they live. Adventism has unique gifts for making God and the gospel accessible to people living in the third millennium.

The most important elements of Adventist identity and mission are shared with other Christians. We are disciples of Jesus and worshipers of God. The most important elements of our distinctive identity are not endtime scenarios but practices and beliefs that facilitate healthy lives and hopeful theology: God is love, Sabbath, nature of death, nature of hell, judgment, integration of health and holiness.

Daniel and Revelation should not be presented as the soul of Adventism. Rather the distinctive Adventist interpretations of these prophecies should be seen as the special treasure of the Adventist cognoscenti. After you’ve been in the church long enough to become deeply and happily grounded in the eternal gospel, if you demonstrate maturity and stability, then we’ll tell you our secrets–the Mark of the Beast, 1844, the Little Horn, the 1260 days. It is possible to integrate these beliefs into a healthy theology, but like all esoteric theological ideas, they have potential for deranging unstable people–the kind of people often drawn to our evangelistic presentations that major in monsters and plagues and minor in the Savior.

The mission of Jesus–and by extension our mission–is first to preach the gospel to the poor and release to captives. Care for the retarded, those suffering from mental illness or battling addictions, the painfully geriatric is just as central to our mission as is preaching about the Mark of the Beast and the Little Horn. In fact, one easy test of the validity of our prophetic message is its effectiveness in motivating Adventist individuals and institutions to practice “disinterested benevolence.”

It is appropriate for church administrators, in allocating human and financial resources, to make sure the distinctive Adventist identity is not lost in our engagement with broken humanity or in our cooperation with other Christians. Our theology has something to say about God that is not said equally well by anyone else. Our theology, including our prophetic scenarios, is a treasure. But the ultimate test of our faithfulness is not how well we preserve our treasure, but how effectively we put it to work. (Interpret the last clause of the previous sentence in the light of Isaiah 58, Luke 4, 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 25).


“I saw that it is in the providence of God that widows and orphans, the blind, the deaf, the lame, and persons afflicted in a variety of ways, have been placed in close Christian relationship to His church; it is to prove His people and develop their true character. Angels of God are watching to see how we treat these persons who need our sympathy, love, and disinterested benevolence. This is God's test of our character.” Ellen G. White, Testimonies to the Church, 3:511.