Statement of Faith, p. 2
XII. That the fourth commandment of this law requires that we devote the seventh day of each week, commonly called Saturday, to abstinence from our own labor, and to the performance of sacred and religious duties; that this is the only weekly Sabbath known to the Bible, being the day that was set apart before paradise was lost, Genesis 2:2-3, and which will be observed in paradise restored, Isaiah 66:22-23; that the facts upon which the Sabbath institution is based confine it to the seventh day, as they are not true of any other day; and that the terms Jewish Sabbath and Christian Sabbath, as applied to the weekly rest-day, are names of human invention, unscriptural in fact, and false in meaning.
XIII. That, as the man of sin, the papacy, has thought to change times and laws (the law of God), Daniel 7:25, and has misled almost all Christendom in regard to the fourth commandment, we find a prophecy of a reform in this respect to be wrought among believers just before the coming of Christ. Isaiah 56:1-2; 1 Peter 1:5; Revelation 14:12, etc.
XIV. That, as the natural or carnal heart is at enmity with God and His law, His enmity can be subdued only by a radical transformation of the affections, the exchange of unholy for holy principles; that this transformation follows repentance and faith, is the special work of the Holy Spirit and constitutes regeneration, or conversion.
XV. That as all have violated the law of God and cannot of themselves reader obedience to His just requirements, we are dependent on Christ, first, for justification from our past offenses, and, secondly, for grace whereby to render acceptable obedience to His holy law in time to come.
XVI. That the Spirit of God Was promised to manifest itself in the church through certain gifts, enumerated especially in 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4; that these gifts are not designed to supersede, or take the place of, the Bible, which is sufficient to make us wise unto salvation, any more than the Bible can take the place of the Holy Spirit; that, in specifying the various channels of its operation, that, Spirit has simply made provision for its own existence and presence with the people of God to the end of time, to lead to an understanding of that word which it had inspired, to convince of sin, and work a transformation in the heart and life; and that those who deny to the Spirit its place and operation do plainly deny that part of the Bible which assigns to it this work and position.
XVIL. That God, in accordance with His uniform dealings with the race, sends forth a proclamation of the approach of the Second Advent of Christ; that this work is symbolized by the three messages of Revelation 14, the last one bringing to view the work of reform on the law of God, that His people may acquire a complete readiness for that event.
XVIII. That the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary (see proposition 10), synchronizing with the time of the proclamation of the third message, is a time of investigative judgment, first, with reference to the dead, and; at the close of probation, with reference to the living, to determine who of the myriads now sleeping in the dust of the earth are worthy of a part in the first resurrection, and who of its living multitudes are worthy of translation-points which must be determined before the Lord appears.
XIX. That the grave, whither we all tend, expressed by the Hebrew sheol and the Greek hades, is a place of darkness in which there is no work, device, wisdom, nor knowledge. Ecclesiastes 9:10
XX. That the state to which we are reduced by death is one of silence, inactivity, and entire unconsciousness. Psalm 146:4; Ecclesiastes 9:5-6; Daniel 12:2, etc.
XXI. That out of this prison house of the grave, mankind are to be brought by a bodily resurrection the righteous having part in the first resurrection, which takes place at the second coming of Christ; the wicked in the second resurrection, which takes place a thousand years thereafter. Revelation 20:4-6
XXII. That at the last trump, the living righteous are to be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and with the resurrected righteous are to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, so forever to be with the Lord.
XXII. That these immortalized ones are then taken to heaven, to the new Jerusalem, The Father’s house in which there are many mansions, John 14:1-3, where they reign with Christ a thousand years, judging the world and fallen angels, that is, apportioning the punishment to be executed upon them at the close of the one thousand years;Revelation. 20:4; 1 Corinthians 6:2-3; that during this time the earth lies in a desolate and chaotic condition,Jeremiah 4:20-27, described, as in the beginning, by the Greek term abussos, bottomless pit (Septuagint of Genesis 1:2); and that here Satan is confined during the thousand years; Revelation. 20:1-2; and here finally destroyed;Revelation 20:10; Malachi 4:1; the theater of the ruin he has wrought in the universe, being appropriately made for a time his gloomy prison-house, and then the place of his final execution.
XXIV. That at the end of the thousand years, the Lord descends with His people and the New Jerusalem, Revelation. 21:2, the wicked dead are raised and come up upon the surface of the yet unrenewed earth, and gather about the city, the camp of the saints, Revelation 20:9, and fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours them. They are then consumed root and branch, Malachi 4:1, becoming as though they had not been. Obadiah 15, 16. In this everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, the wicked meet the everlasting punishment threatened against them. Matthew 25:46. This is the perdition of ungodly men, the fire that consumes them being the fire for which the heavens and the earth which are now are kept in store, which shall melt even the elements with its intensity, and purge the earth from the deepest stains of the curse of sin. 2 Peter 3:7-12
XXV. That new heavens and a new earth shall spring by the power of God from the ashes of the old, and this renewed earth, with the New Jerusalem for its metropolis and capital, shall be the eternal inheritance of the saints, the place where the righteous shall evermore dwell. 2 Peter 3:13; Psalm 37:11, 29; Matthew 5:5
