e are accepted in the beloved," wrote Ellen White. "The sinner's defects are covered by the perfection and fullness of the Lord our righteousness" (Our High Calling, p. 51).

Now, logic alone might have led me (after having read this quote) to think, Wow, now I can live however I want because my defects are covered by Christ. Instead, though-in an experience that transcended logic-my thoughts were: O Lord, thank you so much for this hope! Please cleanse me, change me, purge me of every sin, defilement, and defect. I want to live worthy of the high calling you have given me in Jesus.

Odd, isn't it, but the more I experience the reality that my "defects are covered by the perfection and fullness of the Lord our righteousness," the more I want to overcome those defects. The more I understand that I am saved by Christ's obedience to the law (as opposed to my own), the more I want to obey that law.

Again, logic would deem the opposite response, wouldn't it? I'm covered, so let's party. And yet the experience of Christ's righteousness covering my sins is exactly what makes me want to purge those sins from my life.

Let me be blunt: I've been an Adventist for almost 23 years now. And after all this time, if there's one thing that I am sure of, if there's one thing that I have no question about, if there's one thing that my experience (interpreted and judged by the Word) has taught me, it's this: unless I am saved by a righteousness that exists outside of me, a righteousness that is credited to me independent of my own personal righteousness, then you can stand on that wall at the end of the millennium and wave down to me, because, folks, I'm just not going to be there. It's that simple.

The issues aren't sanctification, or character perfection, or even what's often derided as "demonstration theology" (the idea that God's final generation develops a character that helps answer issues in the great controversy), although I believe in all three concepts. But in the end, however much sanctification, perfection, and character development I possess, unless I am "justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Rom. 3:28), I'm going die the second death, because, believe me, I deserve it.

Now, no matter how fundamental this truth is to my walk with the Lord, I'm astounded at the hostility that justification by faith alone arouses among us. No other topic, I've discovered, elicits as angry a response among the saints as this one. Whenever I write about it, I get barraged with letters, phone calls, e-mails, few of them friendly. In fact, one dear saint (an Adventist minister, to boot) has his own web site, and when I publish about justification, I get a front-page, mega-pixel haranguing about my promoting cheap grace and an incomplete gospel.

Baffled
I am baffled, because, unless my whole experience over the past 23 years is wrong, I can't imagine how anyone who knows the Lord, who has even seen a glimpse of God's righteousness as revealed in Jesus, could believe that whatever the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives is good enough to give them saving merit before God. If, as Ellen White writes, the closer we get to Christ, the worse we seem in our own eyes, then how could anyone drawing near to Jesus believe that whatever is happening in them justifies them in any way? This idea is so alien, so repugnant and antithetical to all that I have experienced over the years, that I'm amazed that people actually believe it.

Without wanting to be judgmental, all I can think is that these folks, having never experienced justification by faith themselves, are allowing logic alone to rule their theology, and logic alone tells them that if we are covered by Christ's righteousness as the only means of salvation, apart from anything that we do or even from anything that is done in us-what's to stop us from living a life of sin?

The answer's easy: "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments," (1 John 5:3, NKJV), and nothing will make you love God more than the experience of knowing that your "defects are covered by the perfection and fullness of the Lord our righteousness."

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Clifford Goldstein is editor of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide.