Exposing Adventism - W.W. Prescott's lament to G.C. President W.A. Spicer

Quote:

Like Canright, Albion F. Ballenger had served the church faithfully for many years, and in 1905 was an administrator in charge of the Irish Mission. He was an able speaker and writer, and a diligent student of Scripture. Like Canright, Ballenger had never mentioned his views on the sanctuary in public, but a committee of twenty-five the General Conference appointed to hear him reported that he entertained views regarding the ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary contrary to that of the church. He acknowledged the possibility that he might be wrong, and pleaded for someone to point out from the Bible where he was wrong, but no one did, either then or later.

The church withdrew his ministerial credentials and disfellowshiped him because of what he believed, not for anything he had said or done. Twenty-five years later W. W. Prescott (a member of the GC ad hoc committees appointed to meet with the dissidents) commented in a letter to W. A. Spicer, then president of the General Conference: "I have waited all these years for someone to make an adequate answer to Ballenger, Fletcher and others on their positions re. the sanctuary but I have not seen or heard it." Ballenger subsequently explained his views in the book Cast Out for the
Cross of Christ. "No one," he lamented, "who has not experienced it can realize the soul anguish that overwhelms one who, in the study of the Word finds truth which does not harmonize with that which he has believed and taught during a whole lifetime to be vital to the salvation of the soul." (Raymond Cottrell, Sanctuary Doctrine - Asset or Liability?)

• Raymond Cottrell. Sanctuary Doctrine - Asset or Liability?