Robert J. Wieland : 2005
Part 1
Healthful Living and the 1888 Message
The message of healthful living has always been a part of “the third angel’s message” since our denominational beginnings in the 1840s. It has also had a prominent part in the special truths that “God in His great mercy” showered upon us in the 1888 message.
The Story of Our Health Message
Almost simultaneous after the Great Disappointment when the “saints” were accepting the first knowledge of the sanctuary message, there came the rudimentary understanding of what has been known as “health reform.” The principal concerns at that early time were giving up tobacco and alcoholic drinks. (Drug abuse wasn’t a problem to the early Adventists.)
From our beginnings as a people, the reason for a health message was not so much the desire to live longer and enjoy pleasure free from suffering, as to maintain clarity of mind to comprehend the truths in the Adventist idea of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. That was what made the Adventist message unique and appealing to “the remnant” who reverenced the Bible.
The idea of “cleansing” came to be thought central to living in the antitypical Day of Atonement. Tobacco was seen as “the filthy weed,” and its use “defiling.” The emphasis on giving it up was not so much fear of lung cancer or high blood pressure or all the other physical ills that follow its use today, but it was this idea of “cleansing.”
Abundant Scripture was found on the evils of drunkenness, so total abstinence easily became the idea of “cleansing” in abandoning alcoholic drinks. In the early literature of the church less is said about the physiological detriments of such intemperance than is the case today. Their use was largely viewed in the light of the Most Holy Apartment ministry.
Thus from the 1844 era to that of 1888, the health consciousness of the Seventh-day Adventist Church was concentrated on a preparation for the second coming of Christ, not longevity motivation as is the popular emphasis on “health” today. The concern that transcended all was getting ready for the soon-coming close of probation.
But we have to be honest and recognize that hope of reward and its complement fear, played a prominent role in their “health reform” motivations. A reasonable fear is always present (for example, you look both ways before crossing a busy street and you think of lung cancer before you start smoking). But the idea of a better motivation (a concern for Christ Himself) was arrived with the proclamation of the 1888 message.