FOREWORD

I always intended to write a book on righteousness by faith. I have been acutely conscious of the Seventh-day Adventist mission to bring the saving righteousness of Christ to the world. This has been a great motivating power in my many years of teaching and public ministry. With every passing year I have committed myself all the more to the understanding and teaching of this truth that holds the key to God’s final message to the world. The conversions to Christ and the commitment to the gospel commission that have resulted have provided me as a teacher with lasting satisfaction.

I have written this book with a solemn feeling of responsibility for those who have been in my classes. A number of my fellow teachers and former students over the years have frequently raised the question: What is it going to take to carry the everlasting gospel of Revelation 14 to all the world in our generation? I cannot help believing that the answer centers in the saving righteousness of Jesus Christ.

I confess to a great sense of inadequacy, since each chapter requires a volume by itself to do justice to the subject. This book is not an exhaustive treatise on the subject. There have been conspicuous other works on the same theme. But the various aspects raised in the respective chapters I consider are of real importance. As for other aspects not dealt with, I can only request of my readers to believe that I do not write in ignorance of them. There is much more that could be written, for the truth of righteousness by faith is inexhaustible.

I am certain that no subject has been more often proclaimed from desk and pulpit. We have all listened to numerous presentations on the subject. So there is the possibility of thinking we are merely going over the same ground. But many professed Christians do not understand righteousness by faith in a practical sense, especially the doctrine and experience of sanctification and the work of the Holy Spirit.

It is hoped that this book may not lack a wide interest and appeal, that it may help quicken the sense of the church’s mission. Of our need to be renewed and filled with the Holy Spirit it would be superfluous to speak. For are not many of God’s people, and especially the young people, already becoming aware of the need of a revival based on the whole truth of Christ our Righteousness? In a study of this kind the pivot is Jesus Christ. Everything centers in Him, the Saviour and Lord who would possess all our hearts. We must never forget that we are to live by faith in the One who is "the author and the finisher of our faith."

The theological and practical aspects of the subject blend with, or overlap, each other. In dealing to some degree with the theological aspect, I am not insensible to the need to involve my readers in this truth. I would like to believe that in the following pages I have done something to bridge the gulf between the theology of righteousness by faith and the experience of it. This great truth is not something to quibble about. It is the way of salvation. I desire to involve the reader personally in Christ, the "Lord our Righteousness." It is not my purpose to raise theological issues. Theoretical unbelief has never been man’s problem when confronted with this truth. The chief obstacle is personal—a practical unbelief known only to the individual. Such a great truth, if it is to have saving power, must not be cast into a theoretical mold.

I have sought to address the hearts of my readers with the urgency of the claims of Jesus Christ, to make it incumbent to apply these claims to their lives. As you value your soul before God, I request that you study this work with a calm, intelligent, and open mind. I send it forth with the prayer that by His Spirit, God will deign to use it as a means of awakening some and inspiring others to enter more fully into God’s salvation unlimited.

This book pleads for a personal living relationship with Christ through His Holy Spirit. The book has come from much travail of soul and with many prayers that Christ will be more than a name, more than a theological idea, but a power equal to all our needs and our temptations, and our need to be saved eternally.

I venture just one more remark. In our pursuit of life in Christ, I pray that the reader will find how true is the experience promised to us in the wonderful words of the apostle Paul: "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30).

EDWARD HEPPENSTALL