Jesus Is God!
I recently talked to an elderly Adventist man who said that he’s not trinitarian, and that Jesus isn’t God. He wants me to have Bible studies with him. He’s blind so it might be a challenge. If he wants to debate or argue, I’m not interested. I’m going to paste the study outline I’ve prepared into this email. If you have time, and inclination, would you you see what you think?
Thank you!
- John 8:58, Jesus declares, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” directly referencing God’s self-revelation to Moses in Exodus 3:14,
- “Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me. Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.”
- This led the Jewish leaders to attempt to stone Him for blasphemy.
- John 10:30, Jesus states, “I and the Father are one”.
- John 13:13, Jesus affirms, “You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am,”
- John 1:1 states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John 1:14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father”.
- Thomas addresses Jesus as “My Lord and my God!” in John 20:28, and Jesus does not correct him.
- The apostle Paul refers to Jesus as “our great God and Savior” in Titus 2:13.
- “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.The same was in the beginning with God.”
“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”—John 1 and Colossians 1 - Hebrews 1:8 But of the Son He says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, And the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.”
- Titus 2:13: “Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus”.
- Mark 2:5–7: “And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?”
- Isaiah 44:6, where YHWH declares, “I Am the first and the last,” is echoed by Jesus in Revelation 22:13. Revelation 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
- Revelation 17:14: “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”
- Isaiah 9:6: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
- Matthew 1:22: “Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:”
- Matthew 1:2: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us””
- Romans 10:9-14: “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
- Jude 1:4: “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
God the Father, and God the Son are both called Lord. “For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.—1 Timothy 4:10 LSB“
—VIA EMAIL
Response: This is good! I pray the Lord will open this man’s heart to Jesus!
About My Adventist Baptism
I’m grateful for the ministry that you guys provide. I look forward to each week to Colleen‘s Former Adventist Fact Check as well as to the Romans study with Nikki and Colleen on Former Adventist Podcast. I have shared your series on the covenants as well as the 28 fundamental beliefs; it has been a lot of help with the Adventists that I engage with.
I’m grappling—maybe even struggling right now with my baptism. Since leaving Adventism, I joined the Presbyterian Church and have been quite blessed being part of the Reformed community. I know this is not particularly the belief system I hear coming from your ministry, but it has been a great help to me in my journey, and I’m surrounded by a community of of strong believers. That being said, each Sunday when the pastor fences the Lord‘s table, I have to admit my conscience is pricked. I am a professed believer. I have accepted the true Jesus and the Trinity, and I have been accepted in a membership within the body. And yet, though I don’t want to get hung up on minutia, I still struggle with my Adventist baptism being legitimate.
When I approached the subject with the pastor, he did not see a problem with it because I was baptized in the name of the Father of the Son in the Holy Spirit, so in his mind, there was not a problem two years ago when I joined their church. However, recently listening to one of your FAF conferences, Pastor Martin made the statement that if you were an Adventist, do not put off becoming baptized. I have a meeting next Thursday with my pastor to discuss this further and wonder if you have any materials that I can share with him as to the efficacy of my previous Adventist baptism.
In the community I live [with an Adventist university in town], Adventists have done a very good job of looking like other Christians—except they go to church on Saturday and many are vegetarian. You know the drill. Do you have any resources that can help guide me and my pastor through this question? Again, it wasn’t an issue as I understood it two years ago, but my conscience has a strong pull at communion, and I’m looking to resolve this as biblically as I can.
Thank you again for everything you do.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing! This issue about baptism is significant. We usually recommend that people who leave Adventism be baptized into Christ. We never make it a “requirement” from our perspective because the Lord is the One who convicts us to obey and follow Him. A few people (actually we consider it to be quite unusual, but it does happen) really were committing themselves to the Lord Jesus when they were baptized Adventist in spite of their Adventism. In these cases, God confirmed His presence with them and gave them assurance and the awareness of His presence—things He does when people are baptized truly.
But usually, Adventists were NOT baptized into Christ as Adventists. Adventism teaches a false Jesus—the Adventist Jesus could have failed, didn’t know whether or not He would rise from the dead, and gave up His full deity, eliminating His omnipresence forever by assuming a body. The Adventist Jesus is not God. He can’t be God if He doesn’t have all the attributes of God. Furthermore, Adventism teaches a false gospel: Jesus did not complete His atonement at the cross, and the Law is the center of Adventist soteriology, not Jesus’ propitiation. They also teach that Satan is the final scapegoat, carrying the sins of the saved out of heaven (where Jesus’ blood defiled heaven by transferring sin from people to the heavenly sanctuary) and thus actually being the final sin bearer for the saved!
Adventism does not teach the gospel, nor does it teach true salvation by faith apart from works of the law. I am convinced that the Lord convicts His own to be baptized. If you are feeling convicted, I believe that is the Lord asking you to follow Him. Baptism is a public statement of your commitment to Him, and if you did not know Him or the gospel and were baptized into the cultic worldview and false gospel, you need to trust Jesus and follow Him when He convicts you to be baptized. I’ll be honest: I believe your pastor needs to understand that you are not being baptized to signal changing congregations; you want to be baptized because you have trusted Jesus and have been born again. You are following Him as did those early believers throughout the book of Acts. This is a gospel issue, a matter of finally knowing and trusting the true Jesus—not a ritual describing a change of theology.
A few years ago a former Adventist became born again and joined a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church in Michigan. She wanted to be baptized, but Lutherans typically practice infant baptism. Yet her pastor provided the means for her to be immersed on a Saturday evening at church. She had not been a true believer as an Adventist, and she wanted to follow Jesus and publicly declare she was now His.
In your case, your sense of “illegitimacy” when it comes to communion is significant. Since PCA requires that participants be baptized, I’m not surprised that your conscience is bothering you. Your Adventist baptism really was into a cult, not into Christ. Perhaps you could let your pastor know that Adventist baptism needs to be understood to be in the same category as a Mormon baptism or Jehovah’s Witness rite of membership. You could tell him about the baptismal agreements you had to affirm before being baptized, and help him understand the Adventist worldview. I will link an article that should help him understand that the Adventist worldview is not biblical, that the Adventist Jesus is not the I Am who died, was buried, and shattered our curse of death on the third day. Truly, your pastor needs to understand that you are not asking for baptism because you feel “uncomfortable” with your Adventism but that you are a new believer who has trusted Christ and wishes to be baptized as a believer—something you have never done. Your conviction is from the Lord, and I pray that your pastor will understand that fact and honor your request.
Here is an article that unpacks the Adventist worldview:
Here are some baptismal testimonies of some former Adventists. I believe these may help your pastor understand why you wish to be baptized:
- December 13–19, 2025 - December 11, 2025
- We Got Mail - December 11, 2025
- December 6–12, 2025 - December 4, 2025