Upon becoming a SDA, I observed three things:

First: Adventists seem to know everyone’s history – father, mother, relatives, academy, college attended, and profession. If asked for my name, faces went blank as persons would search the recesses of their minds for any family connections. I explained that I was new SDA, first in my family, and “no” I did not attend Adventist anything – just public high school and colleges (that is, I had no connections to start the chain of conversations).

Second: At potluck, Adventist appear to forbid themselves any desert during the week – and Sabbath is a “free” day where desert is allowed, because when the desert counter opens, Adventists attack it like locusts.

Third: Something important happened in 1888 – but I don’t know what. The 1844 date is explained, but when Adventist mention 1888, there is the “knowing” look in their eyes, and cryptic conversations that are never explained. Sometimes I felt like screaming, “What happened in 1888?”

Well, finally, Dr. Ken Hart (physician at SAC – Social Action Community Health Clinic) and Sabbath School teacher at Loma Linda University Church, presented an afternoon seminar to explain events surrounding 1888. “I’m finally going to understand this 1888 mystery,” sayeth I. It took over two hours, but I now have the “knowing” look in my eye, and can join the cryptic conversations about 1888! For new and potential SDAs in Fulcrum7 Land who also feel like screaming, “What happened in 1888!” – I offer the following:

The events before, during, and after 1888 conflicts are interesting and important to study. The conflicts concerned the definition of “the law” in the Book of Galatians. G. I. Butler, President of the General Conference (located on the East Coast where the Review & Herald is published) said, “The law that was added is the ceremonial law, and I don’t know how anybody could ever suggest that it is the moral law.” E. J. Waggoner, Signs of the Times editor (located on the West Coast), said, “It’s the moral law; I don’t know how anybody could suggest that this is the ceremonial law.”

Other things I learned: General Conference leaders (located on the East Coast) shipped Ellen White, who lived in California, off to Australia to get her away from Waggoner’s influence. Ellen White’s letters from Australia to General Conference leaders to be shared with others were buried in the GC vault. A Sunday law was proposed in the U.S. around this time. Ellen White’s letters were finally “discovered” by two students, Weiland and Short, who obtained permission to “look into the vault” for research while working on their masters thesis in the 1950s. But, the General Conference Committee who granted Weiland and Short their masters degree also forbid Weiland and Short from publishing their masters thesis research and vault discoveries. This prompted SDAs with a copy of Weiland’s and Short’s thesis to publish it for “underground” distribution from one SDA to the next until new leadership at the General Conference allowed all of Ellen White’s writings -- known and unveiled from the vault – published. Today, all of Ellen White’s writings are published on the internet and computer disk.

The following is Ellen White’s letter from Australia to General Conference leaders that was buried in the vault rather than shared with others:

I am asked concerning the law in Galatians. What law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ? I answer: Both the ceremonial and the moral code of ten commandments.

The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24). In this scripture, the Holy Spirit through the apostle is speaking especially of the moral law. The law reveals sin to us, and causes us to feel our need of Christ and to flee unto Him for pardon and peace by exercising repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord’s message through Brethren [E.J.] Waggoner and [A.T.] Jones. By exciting that opposition Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world.

The law of ten commandments is not to be looked upon as much from the prohibitory side, as from the mercy side. Its prohibitions are the sure guarantee of happiness in obedience. As received in Christ, it works in us the purity of character that will bring joy to us through eternal ages. To the obedient it is a wall of protection. We behold in it the goodness of God, who by revealing to men the immutable principles of righteousness, seeks to shield them from the evils that result from transgression.

We are not to regard God as waiting to punish the sinner for his sin. The sinner brings the punishment upon himself. His own actions start a train of circumstances that bring the sure result. Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner, works in him a change of character, and makes it more easy for him to transgress again. By choosing to sin, men separate themselves from God, cut themselves off from the channel of blessing, and the sure result is ruin and death.

The law is an expression of God’s idea. When we receive it in Christ, it becomes our idea. It lifts us above the power of natural desires and tendencies, above temptations that lead to sin. Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them (Psalm 119:165) -- cause them to stumble.

There is no peace in unrighteousness; the wicked are at war with God. But he who receives the righteousness of the law in Christ is in harmony with heaven. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other (Psalm 85:10).

In addition, this Ellen White’s letter was printed once in the Signs of the Times in 1890, but never reprinted until recently:

The law of Jehovah was burdened with needless exactions and traditions, and God was represented as severe, exacting, revengeful, and arbitrary. He was pictured as one who could take pleasure in the sufferings of his creatures. The very attributes that belonged to the character of Satan, the evil one represented as belonging to the character of God. Jesus came to teach men of the Father, to correctly represent him before the fallen children of earth. Angels could not fully portray the character of God, but Christ, who was a living impersonation of God, could not fail to accomplish the work. The only way in which he could set and keep men right was to make himself visible and familiar to their eyes. . . .

Christ exalted the character of God, attributing to him the praise, and giving to him the credit, of the whole purpose of his own mission on earth, to set men right through the revelation of God. In Christ was arrayed before men the paternal grace and the matchless perfections of the Father. In his prayer just before his crucifixion, he declared, I have manifested thy name. I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. [John 17:6,4] When the object of his mission was attained, the revelation of God to the world, the Son of God announced that his work was accomplished, and that the character of the Father was made manifest to men.”

For Ken Hart’s “What Happened in 1888?” lecture notes and references, download the PDF “What Happened at Minneapolis in 1888?”

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