Builders of Faith

Builders of Faith Explorer II:  Exploring End-Time Prophecy

Lesson 15—The Remnant Church

1.    How do the descriptive features of the woman in Revelation 12:1 help identify her?

“Now a great sign appeared in heaven:  a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.”  Revelation 12:1.

Answer:  First, please note that this woman is the opposite of the harlot woman described in Revelation 17, which we identified as a false church in Lesson #10.  Surely, the woman here in chapter 12 is also a symbolic woman.  Notice her features below:

A.    Clothed with the Sun—A Messianic prophecy in Malachi 4:2 calls the Messiah “…The Sun of Righteousness….”  Thus, this woman is clothed with the righteousness of Jesus.

B.    Moon under her Feet—She is not trampling the moon, but simply standing on the moon as if the moon were her foundation.  The literal moon reflects the light of the sun so as to point back to the sun.  So we conclude that this symbolic moon is the written Word of God that reflects and thus points us back to Jesus, the living Word of God.  John 5:39 tells us that “…the Scriptures…are they which testify of Me [Jesus].”

C.    Garland of 12 Stars—This garland is like the wreath given to winners in the Olympic games.  This woman is an overcomer, with the number 12 reflecting the number of God’s Kingdom, that is, there were 12 tribes of Israel and 12 apostles of Jesus.

These features demonstrate that the woman of Revelation 12 is a pure woman—that is, the pure faithful Church that really belongs to Jesus—not the counterfeit church represented by Babylon the harlot.


2.    Who is the red dragon, and who did he seek to kill?

“And another sign appeared in heaven:  behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns….”  Revelation 12:3.  “So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan….”  Revelation 12:9.  “And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.  She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron….”  Revelation 12:4-5.

Answer:  The red dragon is called Satan.  Satan sought to kill a male child who was destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron—which is what Jesus will do at His Second Coming, according to Revelation 19:15.  Therefore, Satan attempted to kill Jesus.  Since the dragon is also a symbolic beast, it must represent a political power, which in this case, was Rome.  Remember that Herod killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem in order to kill the Messiah; and Pontius Pilate, representing Rome, authorized the crucifixion of Jesus.


3.    When Satan failed to keep Jesus in the grave, whom did he go after next?

“And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.  Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God….”  Revelation 12:6.  “Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.”  Revelation 12:13.

Answer:  Satan next began to persecute the woman—the Christians who were faithful to Jesus because they were the people of Jesus.


4.    Where did the woman flee for some measure of safety, and for how long?

“Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.”  Revelation 12:6.  “But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.”  Revelation 12:14.  “But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.”  Revelation 12:16.

Answer:  First, please notice that Revelation 12:7-12 is a parenthetical thought because verse 13 covers the story of the woman that verse 6 began to tell.  Second, the woman fled into the wilderness, paralleled by the word earth.  That is, she fled into the more sparsely populated areas of the world to seek protection.  Finally, this persecution period lasted for 1,260 literal years, as we had interpreted these symbolic time expressions in Lesson #5.  In other words, the dragon during those years was the Papal Antichrist, a period lasting from 538-1798.


5.    What does “the remnant of her seed” in Revelation 12:17 tell us?

“And the dragon was wroth [angry] with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”  Revelation 12:17 (King James’ Version).  “And it shall come to pass in that day That the remnant of Israel,…Will never again depend on him who defeated them, But will depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.  The remnant will return…to the Mighty God.”  Isaiah 10:20-21.  “But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.”  Jeremiah 23:3.

Answer:  In Hebrew history, the remnant consisted of those faithful to God who survived when God allowed judgments to befall their nation for its widespread apostasy.  Also, the remnant was always the organized nucleus around which God would reestablish His covenant community after the judgment had passed.  In this way, the Bible remnant is like the remnant of a bolt of cloth, which is the last part of that bolt.  Therefore, we conclude that “the remnant of her seed” in Revelation 12:17 (1) represents a relatively small group of Christian believers who have remained faithful to Jesus, and (2) that it is a visible, organized Christian church rather than a collection of unconnected believers scattered here and there.


6.    At what time in history will the remnant church appear?

Answer:  The pure woman is referred to as the woman directly until Revelation 12:17.  Throughout the texts that she is called the woman, the time period is the 1,260 literal years, which ended in 1798.  By switching to “the remnant of her seed” in verse 17, the apostle John is signaling that the remnant church will appear after that time and during what Daniel called the time of the end, sometime after 1798.


7.    What two things especially characterize the remnant church?

“And the dragon was wroth [angry] with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”  Revelation 12:17 (King James’ Version).

Answer:  First, the remnant church keeps the commandments of God, which we learned in Lesson #9 are the Ten Commandments.  Second, it has the testimony of Jesus Christ.


8.    Is the phrase “the testimony of Jesus Christ” testimony "about" Him or "from" Him?

“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony….”  Revelation 12:11.

Answer:  The Greek text allows it to be understood in either way.  However, two pieces of evidence point to the interpretation here that it should be understood as the testimony from Jesus.  First, if John had meant that this was the testimony of believers about Jesus, he could have used the expression their testimony, which he had done in verse 11 of this same chapter.  Second, throughout John’s writings (five books of the New Testament), he usually used a certain preposition when he clearly meant what we call the word about (or concerning).  But he did not use it in this phrase.  So it probably should be understood as the testimony from Jesus.


9.    What other evidence in the book of Revelation confirms our conclusion and pinpoints exactly what “the testimony of Jesus” means?

“…I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus.  Worship God!  For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”  Revelation 19:10.  “…For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets….”  Revelation 22:9.

Answer:  First, note that the two parallel verses here give us an explicit answer to our question.  Exactly where 19:10 has “the spirit of prophecy”, 22:9 has the words “your brethren the prophets….”  Second, among other Jewish writings of the day, the term “spirit of prophecy” meant the “gift of prophecy”.  Finally, note what the parallels inside 19:10 tell us:

A    testimony
B    Jesus
B1  spirit [Spirit]
A1  prophecy

This parallel tells us that the word spirit should be capitalized because it represents the Holy Spirit as a parallel to Jesus.  Then note that the word testimony is parallel to the word prophecy.  All of this evidence shows us that when Revelation 12:17 says the remnant church will “have the testimony of Jesus”, it means that it will possess the gift of prophecy in its midst.  Of course, that does not mean that every member of this church will be a prophet because God has never operated that way.  However, it does mean that the gift of prophecy will, at some major point, be present in this church.


10.    But wasn’t the spiritual gift of prophecy discontinued after the New Testament?

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ….”  Ephesians 4:11-13.

Answer:  This New Testament passage could not be clearer that prophets should be expected in the Church until Jesus returns in glory.  Remember that in Explorer I, Lesson #15, we learned that the so-called “sign gifts” of the Holy Spirit, which included the gift of prophecy, can appear among God’s people at any time the Holy Spirit chooses—but that we should particularly expect them as we draw near to the Second Coming of Jesus.  So what happened in Christian history?  Early in the 2nd century, after the last of the special apostles had died, the Church experienced many false prophets, who were often caught up in some obviously fanciful interpretations of Scripture.  So the Church implemented the “three-fold order of ministry”—bishops, elders, and deacons—and told their members to look to these men for their understanding of Scripture and to avoid anyone who claimed to have the gift of prophecy.  Therefore, why would the Holy Spirit continue to give the Church the prophetic gift if the Church was automatically going to ignore this gift?  This long history in the Church leads modern Christians to call any church that claims to have the gift of prophecy a cult that can automatically be ignored as a “false” church.  How tragic that Church tradition has ignored the very claims of the New Testament!


11.    What is the role of a prophet in the church today?

“…I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”  Jude 3.  “Do not quench the Spirit.  Do not despise prophecies.  Test all things; hold fast what is good.”  I Thessalonians 5:19-21.

Answer:  In New Testament times, “the faith…was once for all delivered to the saints.”  In addition to this statement, Jesus, who had intrinsic divine authority within Himself as God, used the Bible of His day as the last Word in matters of doctrine and practice.  Therefore, the Bible is supreme, and all major teachings of any church should be based on the Bible, not on a prophet inside the church.  A modern true prophet, in fact, will point his/her fellow members back to the Bible and lift up Jesus, not himself/herself.  Second, we would expect a modern prophet to be accepted only by the members of the denomination he/she serves.  Third, we would expect such a prophet to provide spiritual counseling to individual church members and to the denomination as a whole.  Fourth, he/she would probably provide organizational counseling to help guide the denomination in its total work for Jesus.  Fifth, we might expect him/her to provide certain details, consistent with the Bible, that are not given in Scripture.  Finally, we would expect such a prophet to apply Bible principles, especially to new situations that were never faced in Bible times.


12.    What are the major features that can help us identify the remnant church?

A.    It will arise after 1798 in “the time of the end”.

B.    It will teach the importance of the Ten Commandments in the Christian life, including the Sabbath Commandment.

C.    It will have the gift of prophecy at least at some point in its history.

D.    It will start small and gradually become a global movement.

E.    It will preach the everlasting gospel that salvation is by grace through faith alone.

F.    It will lift up Jesus as our High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, emphasizing the mediation of His righteousness for all who sincerely come to God the Father through Jesus.

G.    It will be a Protestant church in that it will stand on the Bible alone, even when its teachings are inconvenient or unpopular.

H.    It will teach the connection between physical and spiritual health and thus emphasize health reform, requiring the abstaining from unclean meats, alcoholic beverages, and tobacco, and encouraging people to adopt a plant-based, whole-foods diet as the ideal.

I.    It will proclaim the Pre-Advent Judgment as going on now in heaven.

J.    It will teach that Papal Rome, as a system, is the Antichrist in its two phases.

K.    It will teach that the Sabbath-Sunday issue is at the heart of the final crisis over the mark of the beast.

L.    It will preach the soon, but undated, Second Coming of Jesus as one visible, audible, and glorious event that the world needs to be prepared for.


13.    What Christian Church-Movement is the only one that meets all of the requirements listed under Question #12 above?

Answer:  Only the Seventh-day Adventist Church meets all of the requirements to be called the remnant church, as we summarize below:

A.    It was officially organized in 1863, which is certainly in “the time of the end”.

B.    It teaches the importance of the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath Commandment of resting and worshiping on Saturday, the seventh day of the week.

C.    At its beginning, Ellen White (died in 1915) was gradually accepted as having the gift of prophecy.  Her counsel was very valuable in setting us up organizationally to become the global movement that it is today.  She lifted up Jesus and the Bible, did not even make acceptance of her gift a prerequisite of church membership, and met all the other requirements and expectations of a modern prophet.  That means that without her writings at all, the Seventh-day Adventist Church would still teach all of the doctrines it teaches today!  No other modern group that claims the gift of prophecy in its midst can say that.

D.    It started in the United States as a small group and gradually developed into the global movement it is today—a movement which operates more medical, educational, and evangelistic institutions than any other Protestant church, and is second in this area only to the Roman Catholic Church.

E.    Despite its critics’ charge that Seventh-day Adventists believe they are saved by keeping the Sabbath, the church has never taught any such thing.  Instead, it follows the example of the 16th-century Protestant Reformers in teaching that salvation is only by God’s grace through faith.  Our works are taught as necessary fruits of our salvation, not the cause of it, even partially.

F.    It emphasizes the sanctuary in heaven and Jesus’ mediation there of His righteousness on behalf of anyone who comes to God the Father through Jesus.

G.    It is a Protestant church because it stands on the Bible alone as the authority for doctrine and basic Christian practices—even when some of those truths are inconvenient or unpopular, such as 7th-day Sabbath-keeping, footwashing, tithing, the state of death as a dreamless sleep, and a hell that will consume the wicked at the end of time.

H.    It is well-known for its medical work and the encouragement of health reform around the world, and its members as a whole have been scientifically measured as the healthiest people on earth.  It does not require vegetarianism, but abstinence from unclean meats, alcoholic beverages, and tobacco.  However, it promotes and encourages people to adopt a plant-based, whole-foods diet as the ideal.

I.    It is the only church that proclaims the Pre-Advent Judgment is going on in heaven right now, having started in the fall of 1844.

J.    It is the only organized Christian church that still teaches that the Papal Roman Church, as a system (not as individuals), is the Antichrist, which was the Protestant position for about the first 300 years of the Protestant movement.

K.    It is the only church that teaches that the final crisis over the mark of the beast will be a test of loyalty to God or to Satan, in which the test concerns faithfulness in keeping the Bible Sabbath (Saturday) or in honoring the Papal Sunday.

L.    Although it arose from the ashes of the 19th-century Millerite movement, it has never set a date for the Second Coming of Jesus.  Instead, it preaches the soon, but undated, Second Coming of Jesus as one visible, audible, and glorious Second Coming—rejecting the teaching of the secret rapture.


14.    Do Seventh-day Adventists teach or believe that they are the only ones who will be saved?

“And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.”  John 10:16.  “And I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her [Babylon], my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.’”  Revelation 18:4.  “…For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.”  Luke 12:48.

Answer:  No, not at all.  Instead, we recognize that Jesus has called this movement to prepare a people to face the end-time crisis and be prepared for the Second Coming of Jesus.  This means that He will hold Seventh-day Adventists to a higher standard to set a good example and to work in His vineyard to fulfill our end-time mission.  We further recognize that probably many of us will fail and give up the faith when the world begins turning against us in an organized way.  In the meantime, we must warn the people against the system of the Papacy and to turn from following her authority in honoring Sunday in opposition to the Bible Sabbath.  We also recognize that Jesus’ desire is for people to come out of spiritual Babylon and to enter His one fold.  Nevertheless, we fully expect that a large majority of the saved in heaven will be those who never knew about the Bible Sabbath, but God will have honored them for honoring Him according to what they knew to be truth.  However, for those in our generation who have a reasonable opportunity to know more Bible truth, and who become convicted of it, they should answer the Holy Spirit’s call to leave the spiritual confusion of Babylon and her daughter churches and to join hands with God’s remnant church.


15.    Are you willing to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit as He calls you to follow the new truths you have learned and to further check out His remnant church?

Appeal:  Allow me to personally invite you to Google or use the phone book to find the location of the nearest Seventh-day Adventist Church to you and visit it one Sabbath (Saturday) soon and to make an appointment to speak to its pastor about what you have learned in these two sets of Explorer lessons.  In the meantime, the staff of Builders of Faith will pray for your decision.  May He bless you abundantly as you pursue His Word, His truth, and His church!

 

Quiz for Lesson 15—The Remnant Church

 

1.  Which of the following statements about the woman in Revelation are true? (3)

  She is a symbolic woman and the opposite of the harlot in Chapter 17.

  Having a garland of 12 stars indicates that she is of symbolic royal descent, as faithful to Jesus, the King of kings.

  Being clothed with the sun indicates that she is clothed with the righteousness of Jesus.

  Standing on the moon means that she stands on the Bible as her foundation of truth.

  The woman represents the people of Israel with its 12 tribes.

 

2.  Who is the red dragon, and whom did he seek to kill? (2)

  The ultimate dragon is Satan.

  Since the dragon is also a symbolic beast, it represents a political power that Satan used to try to kill Jesus (Roman Empire).

  The dragon sought to destroy the Jewish nation.

 

3.  When Satan failed to keep Jesus in the grave, whom did He seek to destroy next? (1)

  The Jewish nation

  The people of Jesus—faithful Christians

 

4.  Which of the following statements about the woman’s fleeing are true? (3)

  The woman fled to the desert area around the Dead Sea.

  The woman fled into the wilderness, also said to be the earth.

  The woman was somewhat helped by the sparsely populated areas of the world for a period of 1,260 literal days.

  The woman was somewhat helped by the sparsely populated areas of the world for a period of 1,260 literal years.

  From a previous lesson, we learned that this 1,260-year period was 538-1798.

 

5.  Which statements below about the “remnant” are true? (3)

  The remnant consists of the last part of the original.

  In Hebrew history, the remnant consisted of those who remained after a judgment of God and whom He used to re-establish His covenant community.

  The remnant consisted of the scattered people of God in foreign nations whom He used to proclaim His truth.

  In Revelation 12:17, the remnant is the organized but relatively small last-day church that God uses to warn the world against the coming Papal confederacy.

 

6.  The remnant church will appear in history sometime during Daniel’s “time of the end”, that is, sometime after 1798. (1)

  True

  False

 

7.  What is “the testimony of Jesus Christ” that is one of the characteristics of the remnant church? (1)

  It is Jesus’ testimony that He gave in the Bible.

  It is the remnant people’s own testimony they give about what Jesus has done for them.

  In Revelation, it specifically refers to the spiritual gift of prophecy.

 

8.  Which of the following statements about the gift of prophecy in the church are true? (5)

  The apostle Paul wrote that we should expect prophets in the church until Jesus returns.

  The gift of prophecy probably died out in the church as a whole because the early Church told its members to ignore anyone who claimed to have the gift of prophecy.

  Any prophet or his/her writings in the church today would have to teach that the Bible is the only source of doctrines—that the Bible is supreme.

  We would expect that a modern prophet would provide additional doctrines to the church.

  We would expect that a modern prophet would provide additional details that would have to be consistent with whatever the Bible says.

  We would expect that a modern prophet would probably provide spiritual and organizational counsel to the church that accepted him/her as a prophet.

 

9.  Which of the following are some of the major features that can help us identify the remnant church? (6)

  It will teach the importance of the annual festivals in keeping them in a Christian (not Jewish) way.

  It will teach the importance of keeping all of the Ten Commandments, including the 4th Commandment about the 7th-day Saturday Sabbath.

  It will have the gift of prophecy at least at some point in its history.

  It will teach that the Antichrist has not yet come.

  It will proclaim the Pre-Advent Judgment as going on in heaven now.

  It will preach the soon but undated Second Coming of Jesus as one visible, audible, and glorious event (with no secret rapture).

  It will preach the everlasting gospel that salvation is by grace through faith alone.

  It will teach that the mark of the beast will be honoring the Papal Sunday in the final crisis.

 

10.  What is the remnant church, and does it teach that only its members will be saved? (3)

  It is the Roman Catholic Church.

  It is the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

  The remnant church definitely does not teach that only its members will be saved, but that many of its members will probably be lost, especially when persecution begins.

  The remnant church teaches that many of God’s people are currently in spiritual Babylon or her daughter churches, and that they will hear Jesus’ voice and come out and be saved.