I have not given last generation theology serious contemplation in years, decades even, not since the late 1990s, maybe. Last generation theology? I cannot think of a topic less relevant to my Christian experience. Some perfected, victorious, fully overcoming host of faithful in 10, 20, or 50 years hence? Are you kidding? It’s a topic that I could not care less about.
What I do care about is how I can be perfected today. How can I be victorious now? How can I, in the immediate moment, overcome my character defects? How can I, this afternoon, selflessly love others? Please! If through God’s grace we do these things day by day now, this last generation stuff will surely take care of itself.
With all that being said, I do have more sympathy for last generation theology than I generally let on to. There are Bible texts and Ellen White quotes that, if inclined, one could view through that last generation lens. Such texts as: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). Or “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). Or when Ellen White writes that God is honored by “the faith and obedience of [His] people.”[1] Or “The honor of God, the honor of Christ, is involved in the perfection of the character of His people.”[2]
Whoever these saints are, whatever experiences they have, and whatever character they possess, they are saved only by what saved the thief on the cross: the righteousness of Jesus for them, outside of them, imputed to them.
Those who interpret these references, and others, as pointing to a final generation that vindicates God’s character before the onlooking universe—they might be right. And that’s fine, just as long as one point is understood: Whoever these saints are, whatever experiences they have, and whatever character they possess, they are saved only by what saved the thief on the cross: the righteousness of Jesus for them, outside of them, imputed to them, “the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe” (Rom. 3:22). As long as that truth is jackhammered into our heads, this last generation could be so sanctified that one more whole-wheat organic bean sprout sandwich and they will float off to heaven even before Jesus returns.
Having joined the Adventist Church in 1980 and becoming, over the decades, a somewhat grizzled old theological street brawler, I thought that I had heard it all. That is, until I recently heard someone claim that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not consumed by the flames of the fiery furnace because (and I quote) “there was no sin or fault in them to be burned up,” and that is how the final generation has to be. I, truly shaken, had no idea that people believe like this. (“Come on,” my wife said, “you are naive.”)
Yes, we can have victory (1 Cor. 15:57). Yes, we can overcome (1 John 5:4). Yes, we can reflect the character of Jesus (Gal. 4:19). Victory, overcoming, reflecting Jesus—these are undeniable manifestations of what it means to be saved. But to make these manifestations the means of salvation itself? What a stunning denial of the gospel—for any generation, last or otherwise.
[1] Ellen G. White letter 1, 1883.
[2] Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1898, 1940), p. 671.
