Perfect In Christ
Helmut Ott
Chapter VII
Two Groups of People in the Church (World):
Those Righteous in Christ by Faith and Those Unrighteous
Finally, we will consider some statements in Ellen White’s writings that indicate that the church contains only two kinds of people: (1) those who are righteous because they are covered in the merits of the Saviour (insert: "perfect in Christ"), and (2) those who are unrighteous because they attempt to meet God’s standard of perfect righteousness “independent of the atonement” and “without the virtue of divine mediation.” (insert: Everyone else including Jews)
According to Ellen White, the two classes have their first representatives in Cain and Abel, and will coexist in the church to the end of time:
The Pharisee and the publican represent two great classes into which those who come to worship God are divided. Their first two representatives are found in the first two children that were born into the world. Cain thought himself righteous, and he came to God with a thank offering only. He made no confession of sin, and acknowledged no need of mercy. But Abel came with the blood that pointed to the Lamb of God. He came as a sinner, confessing himself lost; his only hope was the unmerited love of God (Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 152).
“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain” (Heb. 11:4). Abel grasped the great principles of redemption. He saw himself a sinner. . . Through the shed blood [of a lamb] he looked to the future sacrifice, Christ dying on the cross of Calvary; and trusting in the atonement that was there to be made, he had the witness that he was righteous, and his offering accepted. . . . Cain and Abel represent two classes that will exist in the world till the close of time. One class avail themselves of the appointed sacrifice for sin; the other venture to depend upon their own merits; theirs is a sacrifice without the virtue of divine mediation, and thus it is not able to bring man into favor with God. . . .
Those who feel no need of the blood of Christ, who feel that without divine grace they can by their own works secure the approval of God, are making the same mistake as did Cain. If they do not accept the cleansing blood, they are under condemnation. There is no other provision made whereby they can be released from the thralldom of sin. . . . As Cain thought to secure the divine favor by an offering that lacked the blood of a sacrifice, so do these expect to exalt humanity to the divine standard, independent of the atonement (Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 72, 73).
[Marcus Introduction] The Middle Ages, for the Jew at least, begin with the advent to power of Constantine the Great (306-337). He was the first Roman emperor to issue laws which radically limited the rights of Jews as citizens of the Roman Empire, a privilege conferred upon them by Caracalla in 212. As Christianity grew in power in the Roman Empire it influenced the emperors to limit further the civil and political rights of the Jews. Most of the imperial laws that deal with the Jews since the days of Constantine are found in the Latin Codex Theodosianius (438) and in the Latin and Greek code of Justinian (534). Both of these monumental works are therefore very important, for they enable us to trace the history of the progressive deterioration of Jewish rights.
...the Jewish state was ruled by puppet kings of the Romans, the Herods. When the Jews revolted in 66 AD, the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem (70 AD). The Bar Kokba revolt between 132 and 135 AD was also suppressed, Jericho and Bethlehem were destroyed, and the Jews were barred from Jerusalem. The Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel. At the same time, he changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more in slavery. Some of those who survived left the devastated country (and established Jewish communities throughout the Middle East) but there was never a complete abandonment of the Land of Israel. That is, there were always Jews and Jewish communities in Palestine, though the size and conditions of those communities fluctuated greatly.
When Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity (312), he took steps to elevate the status of Jerusalem and the city became a center of Christian pilgrimage. Constantine relaxed some restrictions on Jews, but renewed the prohibition on the residence of Jews in Jerusalem, permitting them to mourn for its destruction once a year, on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av.
But it is highly probable that the works of the ancients, which he says they [the Ascetics of Egypt] had, were the Gospels and the writings of the apostles, and probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in many others of Paul's Epistles.