FORD AND WEBER DIALOGUE

Section II: Ford’s critique of Weber

Three arguments have been offered against the gospel I teach and cherish. First is the
argument ad hominem--an argument relative to the person rather than the issues. This argument
was invoked against Christ when it was said that "He divideth the people" (John 7:43) and
against Paul, who was labeled "a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition" (Acts 24:5). The
same argument was used against Martin Luther because of the excesses of the Peasants' Revolt,
which was contemporaneous with the beginnings of Luther's reformation. This argument is very
convincing for those who prefer classification to close thought. It is the argument of prejudice,
which word means nothing more than a prejudging of the facts without becoming fully
acquainted with them.

Martin's language is very strong. He claims that "Without question, the most hated and
feared man in recent Adventist history is Desmond Ford." This is certainly not true in Europe
(where 1844 is rarely alluded to or taught), the South Pacific, or anywhere on this continent I am
personally known. It has been a matter of great joy to me that I did not lose one known friend
over the Glacier View debacle. I include in my reckoning, division and conference presidents,
college professors, book editors and magazine editors, pastors, and laity.

Do Adventists indeed hate other people? Have they never understood Paul's 13th chapter
of 1 Corinthians? If not, how can they be expected to understand what he has written in
Romans? Certainly, those who hate know not the gospel in which I rejoice.

Let us move to the second argument. It is contended that righteousness by faith in the
New Testament does not mean justification only. This matter is easily settled for those who
know Greek, for the same word is translated as either justification or righteousness; but it is also
easily settled by those who know only English, if they will consider every context where
righteousness and faith are linked by Paul.

I was on the committee appointed by the Adventist church to study this very issue at
Palmdale in 1976, when scholars assembled from Andrews University and elsewhere, plus an
Australian contingent. That committee agreed that contrary to traditional Adventist teaching,
"When the words righteousness and faith are connected (by 'of,' 'by,' etc.) in Scripture, reference
is to the experience of justification by faith. Review and Herald, May 27, 1976, p. 4. I
recommend to those unfamiliar with the original biblical languages to closely study Romans
1:17; 3:26; 8:10; 10:4; Galatians 2:21; 2 Corinthians 3:9, and observe how some translations in
certain of these texts use the word justification, whereas others in the same text use the word
righteousness. See, for example, the New English Bible on Romans 8:10 and 2 Corinthians 3:9.
("Acquitted is a synonym for justified," as all acknowledge.)

The third argument is that Acts 26:19 proves that sanctification is by faith alone. Again,
knowledge of the original languages is helpful at this point but not indispensable. Sanctification
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in the New Testament often means not growth in grace, but acceptance of grace. The
Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary on page 995, discussing sanctification says:

As a modern theological term, sanctification denotes a process of character development,

or the result of this process. However, as used in the New Testament, 'sanctification' and
'justification' are essentially equivalent terms, . . . . Thus, sanctification is presented as a
past act (see 1 Corinthians 6:11, where 'are sanctified' is literally 'were sanctified').

The Greek root is the New Testament equivalent to the Hebrew term that denotes
separation. Mount Sinai was sanctified, the Sabbath was sanctified, etc. Thus, in the New
Testament where the King James Version uses the word sanctified, some other translations often
use consecrated or dedicated (see 1 Corinthians 1:30; John 17:19).

The New Testament does not teach sanctification by faith alone. We are not zombies
after conversion, wherein God does everything and we do nothing. The Holy Spirit now works
in us "to will and to do" His good pleasure. The New Testament uses about 20 verbs of effort in
connection with the process of character development. We are to strive, multiply, run, crucify,
fight, flee, etc. No one reading closely the New Testament or the writings of Ellen White would
find grounds for believing that either source teaches sanctification by faith alone. In the
Christian life, it is true that "Without Him, we cannot. And without us, He will not." We are to
work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, yet remembering that not a leaf in the
garden of the soul can stir unless the Holy Spirit breathes upon it. While righteousness by faith
implies the imputation of Christ's perfect righteousness to our account, the righteousness
developed in character formation at any stage is never perfect and, therefore, should never be
included under this Pauline rubric. The righteousness of justification is perfect, but is not
inherent. The righteousness of sanctification is inherent, but is not perfect. The righteousness of
glorification will be both perfect and inherent.

Only Christ fulfilled the law perfectly. We, ourselves, are struggling and falling, falling
and rising again, failing in speech and action to represent Christ, despairing and hoping. Thus
wrote Ellen White towards the end of her ministry, paraphrasing Romans 7:14-25. (See
Testimonies vol. 9, p. 222.) Christ, in fulfilling the law, revealed an infinitely perfect character,
an excellence which has never been found, and neither could be, in any other. (Testimonies vol.
6, p. 60; SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 7, p. 904). "We cannot equal the pattern. . . ."
(Testimonies, vol. 2, p. 549).

Ellen White never claimed infallibility, and Dr. L. E. Froom cited approximately one
hundred quotations from her pen in his last book The Movement of Destiny, saying that the
Bible and the Bible only should be used for doctrine. But she often marvelously summarized
gospel truths. For example, in Acts of the Apostles, pp. 560-561, she wrote, "So long as Satan
reigns, we shall have self to subdue, besetting sins to overcome; so long as life shall last, there
will be no stopping place, no point which we can reach and say, I have fully attained. . . . There
will be a continued reaching out of the soul after God, a continual, earnest, heartbreaking
confession of sin and humbling of the heart before Him. At every advance step in our Christian
experience, our repentance will deepen." Further, "The religious services, the prayers, the praise,
the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers, as incense to the heavenly sanctuary,
3 Ford critiques Weber – Sec. II

but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled, that unless purified by
the blood, they can never be of value to God. They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the
intercessor, who is at God's right hand, presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not
acceptable to God." (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 344).

Because, as John tells us, we lie if we affirm that we have no sin; and because, as James
tells us, "In many things, we all offend;" and because, as Jesus tells us, we should pray for
forgiveness whenever we pray, and even after what we consider to be perfect obedience, confess
that we are unprofitable servants - in view of these things, we are ever dependent on that perfect
infinite righteousness imputed to us as a free gift as we lay hold of our sacrifice and
representative by faith alone. This the New Testament gospel, and holy living is always its fruit
(see Great Controversy, p. 256).

We have touched upon the only three objections that Martin Weber has to my statement
on the gospel. With his usual courtesy and honesty, he has then proceeded to affirm positively
many of the items that I teach and preach. After that, he moves into an area which is not really
found in my statement on salvation, nor was it asked for--the matter of the Investigative
Judgment. However, if Elder Weber wishes to move from the gospel to this area of eschatology,
I am glad to move with him.

The first thing to be said is that nowhere in my writings or in my preaching have I denied
the fact of a last judgment for believers. Martin seems to think that I do. As my allusion to the
topic in the statement on salvation says, I believe that the last judgment for believers has no
terrors, inasmuch as Christ is the believers' substitute there as well. I do not use John 5:24 to
deny the prospect of a coming judgment for those in Christ, but I do use it to deny that the
judgment constitutes any threat and that it should in any way unsettle the assurance of the one
fully dedicated to his Lord and Savior. Justification by definition is the bestowal of the favorable
verdict of the Last Judgment at the moment of faith, and it is a permanent possession despite
failures and mistakes, provided one maintains true faith in Him who is our Savior and Lord. The
Last Day does not originate the verdict, it only proclaims it to the universe. (See John 3:18,36;
5:24; 10:27-29; 12:31; Romans 3:28; 5:1-2; 8:1, 33-39; I John 3:1,2; 4:17; 5:11-12.)

Repeatedly, Elder Weber quotes Revelation 14:7 about the hour of judgment, but he
misapplies it to believers. The same words occur in Revelation 18:10, and it is clear that the
judgment applies there only to Babylon. It is the same in Revelation 14 also. See Verse 8. In all
the apocalyptic literature, including Daniel, the threat of judgment especially applies to those
who are persecuting the saints. Thus, in Daniel 7 it is clearly said that the judgment is upon the
little horn, and thereby the saints are vindicated. See Daniel 7, 10-11, 25-26. Be very careful to
observe that the last verse clearly says that when the judgment sits, the dominion of the little
horn (Antichrist) is consumed and destroyed. This is no Investigative Judgment for the saints.
Neither is it in Revelation 14:7, as Verses 8 and 18:10 testify.

I acknowledge the truthfulness of Elder Weber's statement: "Some of the most

depressing, faith-destroying fallacies in the history of Christianity have infiltrated the Adventist
Church through misunderstanding the sanctuary and the judgment." Likewise, his admission that
the pioneers "were deficient in their understanding of salvation." Again, when he says that "No
4 Ford critiques Weber – Sec. II

Adventist today believes what the earliest pioneers did about the sanctuary," his statement is
more true than his following lines suggest. The early Adventists believed that the judgment
began in 1844 and would be brief - less than one generation in length, according to Uriah Smith.
Now, today one can either believe it began in 1844, for which there is no biblical warrant
whatsoever, or one can believe the judgment is brief (as I do), but one cannot believe both.

When Brother Weber proceeds to say that "Nobody's Adventism is so historic that they
believe what our pioneers all did in the late 1840s and early 1850s," he is undeniably correct.
The doctrine of the Investigative Judgment, for instance, was not accepted as a church doctrine
until about 1857. (See Maxwell's book Tell It to the World for evidence on this topic.) In the
following paragraph we have the statement that "Jesus began a new dimension of His work in
heaven in 1844." And it is further declared that "This is the unique and indispensable pillar of
Adventist doctrine." May I comment on these claims?

First, let it be said that no important doctrine rests on a single verse (Matthew 4:7; 18:16;
2 Corinthians 13:1), so that wipes out 1844 immediately. Furthermore, most scholars today, and
many translations, indicate that it is not days that are pictured in Daniel 8:14, but evening and
morning burnt offerings, which would cover approximately three and a half years. Thus, Today's
English Version (Good News Bible) translates the verse "for 1,150 days. . . ." The whole context
is about the taking away of the regular offerings by Antichrist.

This "unique and indispensable pillar" is nowhere mentioned in the New Testament, and
if we are holding to the faith of Jesus, we should demand that it be found there. It is certainly not
found in the book of Hebrews, as F. D. Nichol and other scholars have pointed out. (See my
Glacier View manuscript, Chapter One.) This "unique and indispensable pillar" was based on
very faulty exegesis. In trying to defend 1844 after the failure of Christ's return, Adventists
connected it with Leviticus 16 by untenable methods. By using the King James Version, rather
than the original Hebrew, they fixed upon 2,300 days and the word "cleansed," but the original
Hebrew does not say either. The word for day is not in the text and neither is the word cleanse in
the Hebrew text. Consult modern versions. The majority of them make very plain the truth on
this matter. Secondly, the early Adventists did not notice that in the context it was the little horn
who had defiled the sanctuary and trodden it underfoot, not the saints by their sins. So, the
indispensable pillar has no New Testament statement, and neither has it any Old Testament
statement either. No wonder Adventist scholars in general have refused to write books and
scholarly articles in defense of the doctrine in recent decades, with very few exceptions. Indeed,
when Elder F. D. Nichol and Raymond Cottrell sent out a questionnaire to our leading Bible
scholars in the 1950s, all 27 conceded that there was no way of proving from Daniel 8:14 a
doctrine of the Investigative Judgment. (See my Appendix 19 in the Glacier View manuscript.)

I agree wholeheartedly with Brother Weber that the judgment is no threat to the saints,
and I deeply appreciate his excellent points on the ancient Hebrew meaning of judgment. His
points are helpful, as we consider the fact that in the last great day it will be considered whether
we have maintained to the end our faith in Christ, but they are quite irrelevant in establishing an
Investigative Judgment. Nowhere in the New Testament is it ever suggested that the judgment is
something that will take over a century and a half. On the contrary, from Revelation 22:11-12, it
is easy to see that the Final Judgment is just a matter of declaration as to where everybody
5 Ford critiques Weber – Sec. II

stands, a declaration made immediately before Christ's appearance in the clouds of heaven.

Martin Weber finds fault with my understanding of the word atonement. Contrary to
what he suggests, I do not see the word as signifying only Christ's sacrifice at Calvary. What I
do see is that the chief New Testament use of the concept is thus applied. Brother Weber draws
illustrations from the Old Testament in support of his thesis on the atonement and the sanctuary
ministry, but he thereby sets the Bible on its head, making the Old Testament primary and the
New Testament secondary, which is just the opposite of what the book of Hebrews does. As
practically every scholarly commentary on the book of Hebrews is quick to point out, for
example, Adventist scholar Dr. Norman H. Young has written:

It is rather clear, therefore, that our author is laboring to modify the type to fit Christian
beliefs about Christ's death: In the old cult, the High Priest comes out from the holiest to
the altar before the Lord in order to complete the blood aspersions, now the High Priest
of the good things that have come enters the holiest, having once-for-all performed the
act of cleansing. We must emphasize again that to interpret the work of Christ woodenly
from the Day of Atonement imagery, is to reverse the method of Hebrews. (Unpublished
Ph.D. thesis "The Impact of the Jewish Day of Atonement on the Thought of the New
Testament," Manchester 1973, p. 218.)

Dr. Young also writes:

In all our writer's references to sprinkling is an oblique allusion to the Day of Atonement
Blood Aspersion, only oblique because, as we have repeated ad nauseam, he is anxious to
define the cross as the final and once-for-all cultic act with blood. If there is any
post-Calvary application of the blood, it is in the act of Christ's intercession in the
cleansing of Christian worshipers; but these are results of the cross, not continuations of
it or subsequent cultic acts, they have nothing to do with the blood application of the
heavenly holiest, not even metaphorically. This, then, is why he chooses to speak of the
inauguration of the tent, rather than directly of the Day of Atonement cleansing. The
mention of that tent in Verse 21 prepares the way for Verse 23 forward and the fulfillment
of the Day of Atonement in aspersion by the death of Christ. (Emphasis supplied.) (Ibid,
p. 225.)

It is also pertinent to mention that Dr. Young has pointed out what Dr. Cottrell and many
other Adventist scholars have demonstrated - that a comparison of Hebrews 9:7 with 9:25 and
13:11 and 9:11-12 makes it clear that the High Priest, in anti-type as in the type, went directly
into the most holy place after the shedding of blood. In other words, these verses make it quite
clear that Hebrews teaches no two phases of ministry but only the one phase in the holy of holies
through the atonement made on the cross. Again, I quote Dr. Young:

The parallel nature of these verses makes it clear that the equivalent to 'into the second' in
9:7 is 'into the holiest' in 9:25, 13:11, 9:11-12. There's no way of avoiding this, for 9:7 is
quite specific; into the second cannot mean the sanctuary in general, nor the outer
apartment; it means what it says: 'the second 'tent',' i.e. the holy of holies (9:3,7). See
New Testament Studies, October 1973, 20:100-104. (This article says what all
6 Ford critiques Weber – Sec. II

Seventh-day Adventist scholars familiar with Greek know - that Hebrews 9 applies to the
Day of Atonement to the cross, not to 1844. Who was sacrificed in 1844?)

Learned commentaries on Hebrews point out the error of Elder Weber's statement that
"cows were sacrificed with goats for atonement on inauguration, not on Yom Kippur." Leviticus
16 makes it clear the priest offered a young bullock on the same day of atonement as he offered
the goat for the sin offering. The Greek word for cows is used in the Septuagint for young
bullocks, and is found in Leviticus 16, and the plural is just a generalizing form applying to the
use year after year.

Brother Weber says, "I wish Desmond Ford didn't deny his next phase of atonement in
the heavenly sanctuary." I wish Elder Weber wouldn't assert it. Nowhere does the New
Testament assert it. There is just nothing in Hebrews or any part of the New Testament that
speaks of two phases of ministry in the heavenlies. Certainly, our Lord's high priestly ministry is
referred to, the ministry on which He entered in the holy of holies immediately at His ascension.
See Hebrews 6:19-20; Hebrews 10:19-20; Hebrews 9:7-8, 12,25. I'm grateful for the fact that
the most recent book on the sanctuary theme, the one by Dr. Roy Adams, warns us against
teaching that Christ only went into the most holy apartment in 1844. At Glacier View, for the
first time in Adventist history, it was admitted that such is not the case, and now the new view is
standard, though it contradicts the typical Adventist stress on Christ's ministering in two
apartments. Practically every book or article on the sanctuary and the judgment written after
Glacier View has made concessions unknown to lay Adventists before 1980.

We would draw special attention to the third paragraph in Elder Weber's statement, under
the heading "Cleansing Heaven's Temple." Here it is:

First, notice that 'the heavenly things' of the sanctuary would be cleansed. This is not
what happened on the cross, but what would happen in the heavenly temple during
Christ's priesthood. And the cleansing of the earthly is said to be a copy of the way the
heavenly would be cleansed. This explicitly requires a parallel between the two
sanctuaries regarding their cleansing.

I am so glad that Elder Weber has made this plain statement. I recommended to him
years ago that if he would only give thorough study to Hebrews 9:23, he could save himself
writing the book on the Investigative Judgment. The following verses make very clear what is
meant by the cleansing of the heavenly things. Most translations give a connecting word in the
verse that follows. Usually, it is the word "for" or "because." Explaining the meaning of the
cleansing, Paul talks about Christ's entrance into heaven in connection with His sacrificial
offering of Himself at Calvary. This agrees with the third verse of the opening chapter of this
same book, which affirms that Christ cleansed our sins and then sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high. It is the same Greek root that is used for "purged" in Hebrews 1:3 and
"cleansed" in Hebrews 9:23. Certain Adventist scholars have long tried to make this fact clear to
the church, that Hebrews 9:23 must be explained by Hebrews 1:3, and that both are a reference
to the cleansing or atonement accomplished by the blood of Christ shed on Calvary prior to His
entrance into the Holy of Holies at the right hand of God. The New Testament knows no such
ceremony of judgment work hundreds of years after the cross and over a century and a half
7 Ford critiques Weber – Sec. II

before the end of time. All can read for themselves that Hebrews 9:23 has nothing to do with an
event over eighteen centuries in the future. Hebrews knows nothing about an Investigative
Judgment.

So, when Elder Weber inquires, "Why must he reject the two-phased ministry of Christ
and the 1844 judgment?" my answer is "Because it is nowhere taught in the New Testament or,
indeed, in the Old Testament." The Greek term translated atonement in the authorized version of
Romans 5:11 is not used in the New Testament as Elder Weber suggests. The Greek word
translated atonement in Romans 5:11 means reconciliation and is applied in Verse 10 for the
death of Christ, which reconciled us to God. (See also 2 Corinthians 5:18-19.)

The heart of the New Testament is the cross of Christ. The everlasting good news springs
from that reconciliation between God and the human race on the basis of the finished atonement
made at Calvary by our substitute and representative. Everything before the Gospels points
forward to that event, and everything discussed after the Gospels points back to that event. To
take the cross from the Christian, as Ellen White says, would be like blotting the sun from the
sky. To permit a calendrical date like 1844, or a theological theory never heard of before the
1850s, to share the glory of Calvary is blasphemy. To try and prove such perversion by inference
is unacceptable to New Testament Christians. Cardinal truths stand out immediately. When once
it is seen that we all paid the price of our sins, past, present, and future, in our representative at
the cross (2 Corinthians 5:14, 21; John 1:29; Romans 5:10, 18-19) and that the only barrier to
salvation is our unbelief (Hebrews 4:3; Revelation 22:17)--then, there is joy, overwhelming joy,
at those glad tidings "which make the heart to sing, and the feet to dance."