In Seventh-day Adventist parlance, those divinely commissioned to proclaim to the world God’s last message of grace prior to the close of probation and the return of Christ in power and glory at His second advent. SDA s understand that the three angels’ messages of Rev. 14:6–12 , coupled with the message of Rev. 18:1–4 , constitute this last message, which summons all people everywhere to worship the Creator in view of the fact that the hour of divine judgment is at hand, and warns against succumbing to the great latter-day apostasy foretold in Rev. 13:11–17 . Convinced that the time has come for this message to be given, and in view of the fact that they alone among the bodies of Christendom are giving this message, SDA s believe the term remnant to be an appropriate designation of themselves in their role as God’s appointed witnesses to earth’s last generation. At the same time they hold that God has loyal people in the other Christian churches.
The term remnant in Rev. 12:17 —from which the expression “remnant church” is derived—is based on OT usage of it to describe successive generations of Israelites as being in the line of God’s chosen people down through the centuries. This faithful “remnant” was heir to the sacred promises, privileges, and responsibilities of the covenant originally made with Abraham and later confirmed at Sinai. It consisted of Israelites who survived such calamities as apostasy, war, captivity, pestilence, and famine, and were spared in mercy to continue as God’s chosen people. (See 2 Chron. 30:6 ; Ezra 9:14 ; Isa. 10:20 ; Eze. 6:8 , 9 ; 7:16 .) It was always a relatively small group that remained loyal to the true God, that accepted anew the responsibilities and privileges of the covenant, and that went forth to witness for Him ( 2 Kings 19:30 , 31 ; Isa. 37:31 , 32 ; 66:19 ).
The Protestant churches of the Reformation era may be considered God’s faithful remnant after more than a millennium of papal apostasy. SDA s hold that various Protestant groups served as Heaven’s appointed harbingers of truth, point by point restoring the gospel to its pristine purity, but that one by one these groups became satisfied with their partial concept of truth and failed to advance as light from God’s Word increased, and with each refusal to advance, God raised up another chosen instrument to proclaim His truth to earth’s inhabitants.
Finally, with the arrival of “the time of the end”—the time when Heaven’s last message ( Rev. 14:6–12 ) was to be proclaimed to the world—God called another “remnant,” the one designated in Rev. 12:17 as the remnant of the long and worthy line of heroes of the faith. This is God’s last remnant by virtue of the fact that it is the appointed herald of His final appeal to the world to accept His gracious gift of salvation. From early times SDA s have proclaimed the three messages of Rev. 14:6–12 as God’s last appeal to sinners to accept Christ, and have humbly believed their movement to be the one designated in Rev. 12:17 as “the remnant.” SDA s hold that no other religious body is proclaiming this composite message, and no other meets the specifications enumerated in Rev. 12:17 , that God’s faithful ones are now scattered among all the churches of Christendom, but that all who purpose to order their lives in harmony with all His revealed will are potential members of the remnant mentioned in Rev. 12:17 .
One chapter in the first SDA pamphlet, A Word to the “Little Flock” (1847), bore the title “To the Remnant Scattered Abroad.” This chapter had appeared as a broadside in April 1846, under the title “To the Little Remnant Scattered Abroad.” This is the first known use of the term by SDA s. In the Review and Herald for Feb. 28, 1856 (7:176), Uriah Smith replied to a questioner who asked why SDA s claim to be “the remnant,” what they were the remnant of, and whether they consider themselves to be Jews. Smith explained that Christians are “heirs according to the promise” ( Gal. 3:7 , 29 ), and cited Rev. 12:17 as applying the word beyond the Jewish era, to Christian times. Furthermore, he said SDA s are the only ones who meet the conditions specified in Rev. 12:17 for God’s last remnant, for they alone keep all of God’s commandments and have the faith of Jesus. He cited Joel 2:28–32 also— “the remnant whom the Lord shall call”—as referring to the church in the last days, and concluded: “That remnant we claim to be inasmuch as we bear their characteristics.” The following year James White made a defense of the appropriateness of the term “remnant” as applied to SDA s. He concluded that (1) Satan’s war on the remnant is the last link in the prophetic chain of Rev. 12 (the context assigns the “remnant” of Rev. 12:17 to a period of time after the 1260 days of vs. 6 and 14 ); (2) “the figurative word, remnant, must represent the latest members of the church of Jesus Christ, living just before His second coming”; and (3) as a commandment-keeping people, Seventh-day Adventists meet the specifications given in Rev. 12:17 1 ( ibid. 9:76, Jan. 8, 1857).
Early Sabbathkeeping Adventists called themselves “the remnant” by virtue of the fact that they were, at the time, an unorganized and scattered remnant of those who had accepted the Advent message of 1844 and who still believed that God had been, and still was, leading them. The word “remnant” reflected the idea that they were a small group who remained loyal to the Advent hope, that they were the last group of God’s chosen people prior to the coming of Christ, and that they alone were complying with the conditions specified in Rev. 12:17 . Today Seventh-day Adventists emphasize the scriptural basis and usage of the term (see SDACom , additional note on Rev. 12 ) as applicable to those whom God chooses to be His witnesses to earth’s last generation.