Only the "remnant" preaches the final truth
Only 'believers in the near advent' who keep the commandments could preach the last message, the paper decreed. The Bible delivers the gospel to everyone who calls on the name of the Lord.
By Rodrigo Custódio ·
The moment
On February 19, 1880, the Signs of the Times — the Adventist weekly founded by James White and printed in Oakland, California — published its volume 6, number 7. It was the movement's missionary paper: it came out every week through the Pacific Press Publishing Association and circulated along the American West Coast, carrying the theology of the then-young Adventism.
In that issue, in the middle of the paper, appeared the article entitled (in our translation) "The Final Warning," signed by Elder R. F. Cottrell — an Adventist preacher and writer, a frequent contributor to the periodical. The theme was the three angels' messages of Revelation 14: the "last warning" that, according to the paper, had to be preached to the world before the end.
Cottrell set the scene with solemnity: the end was "more evidently near" and the promised warning would have to be heard before it. He asked: "Who is proclaiming the promised warning?" And he answered with proud numbers — there were "about two hundred thousand Adventists" in the world, and the message was already being published in seven different languages, spreading from coast to coast of America and even into Europe, by voice and by press.
Up to that point, it was merely the missionary enthusiasm of an expanding movement. But the article was not content to announce the message: it confiscated it. In the same breath in which it celebrated the expansion of the work, Cottrell defined once and for all who could preach God's last message — and, in the same gesture, disqualified all other Christians on the planet. The sentence that sealed the monopoly appeared in print on page 75, in the middle of the paper.
A nineteenth-century engraving of a walled garden with the gate locked with a padlock: the image of the monopoly the paper claimed — God's last message kept under lock and key inside the denominational enclosure.
The gesture was clear: to fence in the gospel with denominational wire. The "final warning" ceased to be God's message to the world and became the registered property of a group — and page 75 of the paper became the deed of that theological registry office.
The absurdity
Read carefully what the paper put on paper — not an honest doubt, not a hypothesis, but a verdict: the last warning, the message of the third angel, would be "impossible" to preach for anyone who was not a "believer in the near advent"; all others "will be far from" preaching it. And, among the Adventists themselves, only the commandment keepers would be "the people described" in Revelation. Not every Christian, not every preacher of the gospel: only the "remnant" certified by the paper.
"It is impossible that it should be preached by any others than believers in the near advent; all others will be far from preaching it. And, among Adventists, none can be the people described but those who keep the commandments of God as well as the faith of Christ."
Source: Signs of the Times, vol. 6, no. 7, February 19, 1880 — p. 75.
The original passage in English, highlighted in yellow on page 75 of the issue: the paper decrees that the last warning is "impossible" to preach for anyone who is not a "believer in the near advent."
The clipping above is the documentary evidence: it is not paraphrase, it is not interpretation — it is the paper itself, in ink and paper, declaring that God's final message has an owner, an address and a membership card. All other Christians, says the printed page, "will be far from" preaching it.
Why this is serious
Cottrell's thesis creates two castes of Christians: the qualified and the disqualified. And the one who decides qualification is not the Bible — it is the paper. Every Christian who preached the gospel over nineteen centuries, every pastor who proclaimed Christ crucified and risen, every missionary who carried the cross to distant lands: according to page 75, they "will be far from" preaching the final truth. Only a nineteenth-century movement, with two hundred thousand adherents, would have the seal.
Notice the logic: the message runs from coast to coast in seven languages — and the article does not say "we are the only ones who preach it," it says "only we CAN preach it validly." It is the difference between missionary zeal and exclusivism: one announces, the other confiscates.
And what qualifies the preacher, in the paper's thesis? Keeping the commandments — read: keeping the Sabbath — added to belief in the near advent. Qualification for the last message becomes a matter of works of the law and of belonging to a dated group, not of faith in Christ. The Adventist reader learned, in black and white, that the Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian brother who loves Jesus and preaches the gospel would be "far" from preaching God's truth. It was schism institutionalized as printed doctrine.
A nineteenth-century preaching hall with empty chairs: in the paper's thesis, all other Christians — however faithful to Christ they might be — would be "far" from preaching the last message.
There is the irony the article fails to perceive: Cottrell compares Adventists to John the Baptist, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." John pointed outside himself — "behold the Lamb of God" — and decreased so that Christ might increase. The article takes the opposite path: it points inside the group, and the last message ceases to be about Christ and becomes about who has the right to preach it.
Denominational exclusivism with a claim to a monopoly on the final truth has a name in the history of the Church: sect. The biblical remnant was never a closed club with a gatekeeper — it was the people God preserved by grace, not by membership card.
The verdict of the Scriptures
The Bible knows no such monopoly: "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13) — and whoever calls, preaches. The commission is universal: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). There is no denominational asterisk on the Great Commission, nor any clause of exclusivity for nineteenth-century movements.
God, says Peter, "shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:34-35). The paper of 1880 made exactly the partiality that God does not make: it measured preachers by the group's yardstick and stamped "far" on the forehead of every Christian outside the enclosure.
As for Revelation 14:12 — "here is the patience of the saints: those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus" — the text describes the saints by faith in Jesus, which defines the people of God throughout Scripture. Nothing there limits preaching to a specific movement. To turn the description of the saints into a deed of monopoly is to twist the text until it says what the group needs.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). "Whoever believes in him" does not fit inside the little denominational enclosure of page 75. God's last message is the gospel — and the gospel belongs to everyone who believes, not to those the paper qualified.