Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission

Part Two - The Formation of the Seventh-day Adventist Theology of Mission

Chapter IV - The Early Development of the Theology of Mission (1844-49)

In this chapter the aftermath of the second or great disappointment will be discussed in the context of the early development of the Sabbatarian Adventists. From 1845 onward the majority of Adventists began to interpret this Disappointment ¹ as another failure in their time calculations. However, for a minority the mistake was not in the time setting but in the prediction of the nature of the event which was to take place on October 22, 1844. From this minority the Sabbatarian Adventists emerged. Therefore special attention will be given to attempts by this group in their search for a biblical rationale for the Disappointment which would vindicate the Seventh Month movement as a vital event in the history of salvation. Furthermore it will be shown how Sabbatarian Adventists integrated the Sabbath doctrine into their 1844 experience, an integration responsible for the unique relation between the Sabbath and the imminent parousia in their theology of mission. Developments in ecclesiological self-understanding gave Sabbatarian Adventists a self-identity which justified their mission among other Adventists. The chapter concludes with a description of the gradual missiological development from a position which confined the outreach to Adventists, toward a view that Sabbatarian Adventists had a future mission to non-Adventists who had not yet rejected the doctrine of the imminent Second Advent. Some of the most influential Sabbatarian Adventists were James White, ² his wife Ellen G. White ³ (nee Ellen G. Harmon), Joseph Bates, ¹ Hiram Edson, ² and John N. Andrews. ³ FSDA 103.1