How Do I Untangle Adventist Prophecy?
I wanted to reach out because I find myself in a season of sincerely studying the Scriptures and trying to understand these issues for myself. Listening to the Former Adventist Podcasts has been great and has helped me understand.
My parents are devoted Seventh-day Adventists, and over the past several weeks we’ve had many conversations about the Sabbath, the Law, the New Covenant, Daniel, Revelation, and Ellen G. White. My goal has never been to argue with them or prove them wrong. I love and respect my parents very much. I simply want to know what the Bible truly teaches.
During our discussions, they’ve presented what seems to be the full Adventist prophetic framework, including:
- The perpetuity of the Ten Commandments, especially the Sabbath.
- Matthew 5:17–20 (“I came not to abolish but to fulfill”). which means he came here to show us that it can be fulfilled. The mosaic covenant that was nailed on the cross not the Ten Commandments.
- Hebrews 4 and the meaning of “Sabbath rest.”
- James 2 and the Ten Commandments.
- Jeremiah 31 and the New Covenant.
- Daniel 2 (the statue of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay).
- Daniel 7 (“changing times and laws”).
- Daniel 8 and the 2,300 evenings and mornings.
- Daniel 9 and the 70 weeks.
- The Investigative Judgment of 1844.
- The future National Sunday Law.
- Revelation 12 and 13, including the belief that the second beast represents the United States and that Sunday worship will become the Mark of the Beast.
- They say things like “wait till you see the Sunday law and you will think of us and how we were right”
- John 14:15
- and so many verses that tie into the investigated judgment.
I have been studying myself and trying to understandin a way where I can defend my stance, and while I can see how the Adventist interpretation connects them together, I also recognize that many of those connections are interpretive rather than explicitly stated in the text. I want to be fair, honest, and faithful to Scripture as I study.
Since you once believed these doctrines yourself, I was hoping you might be willing to help me.
More than anything, I would love to understand what you now believe are the foundational passages that helped you conclude that the Adventist prophetic system does not accurately reflect the teaching of Scripture.
I’m not looking for arguments or debate. I’m looking for biblical clarity. If there are key chapters, verses, books, sermons, or study resources that you believe every sincere person should examine before accepting or rejecting Adventist theology, I would be incredibly grateful if you could point me in that direction. At the end of the day I would like my parents to understand where I’m coming from and maybe even change their belief.
Thank you for taking the time to read my email. I know your schedule is busy, and I truly appreciate any guidance you may be able to offer. My prayer is simply to follow God’s Word wherever it leads.
May God bless you and your ministry.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing—I do understand your dilemma.
Bottom line: it was learning to read the Bible CONTEXTUALLY that ultimately shattered Adventism. Richard and I began reading through whole books of the Bible contextually, one chapter at a time, with our Christian neighbors. We had never studied the Bible that way before—chapter by chapter believing the words meant what they said, as in a normal book. With our neighbors, we couldn’t used our proof-texts. We just read straight through in context.
The first “rule” of inductive Bible study is to observe: contextual reading means we had to understand who the author was, who the recipients were, and the purpose of the books. We went verse by verse, asking ourselves what the verbs were, what tense they are in, and what the prepositions are. Is there a command? A reproof? A statement of fact? Whatever is actually stated, we had to observe it and accept it at face value.
The second step is to “interpret”. Once we had observed a passage, we asked how the original audience would have understood it. What would they have thought? What would they have done if the actual words were believed? Every passage of Scripture can only have ONE meaning, and the original audience would have understood that meaning as it applied to them.
The third step is “application”. Only after observing and interpreting a passage as it would have been understood by the original audience can we apply its meaning to ourselves. The MEANING never changes; the application of that single meaning may differ from age to age or person to person, but the meaning is always the same. In other words, when Daniel 8:14 in context tells Israel that an abomination of desolation would desecrate the temple for 2300 evenings/mornings, that meaning can’t change for us today. It still means that a hostile antichrist power from Greece was going to desecrate the temple for a period of time lasting for 2300 evening/mornings—the evening and morning sacrifices offered daily (as the last half of Daniel 8 explains). This passage cannot change meanings for today. It still tells the Jews that a desecrating power would destroy the sacrifices and the temple, but after that period of time, the temple would be restored. That MEANING can’t morph into the investigative judgment with weird applications of 2300 years. The interpretive details are in the passage, not in extra-biblical interpretation.
Contextual Bible reading is both the foundation and the building blocks of understanding Scripture.
Importantly, Dale Ratzlaff’s books Sabbath in Christ and The Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventism unpacked the Adventist assumptions underlying their central doctrines. Sabbath in Christ takes every Adventist argument and applies contextual Scripture to the arguments, and it reveals that God has spoken in covenant promises. The Sabbath has a specific place in the Bible and a specific application.
Cultic Doctrine reveals the back-story to how the investigative judgment was developed, and we see (with receipts) how EGW was deceptive, lied, and didn’t understand Scripture herself. It shows HOW the founders developed their core doctrine, and it wasn’t through contextual Bible study.
Those are the places I would begin. I also recommend that you listen to the Former Adventist Podcast series through the book Daniel. We share our sources but go contextually through the chapters verse by verse. You can find it here on YouTube.
Here is a link to Ratzlaff’s online book Sabbath In Christ: https://lifeassuranceministries.org/sabbath-in-christ-2/
Here is a link to Ratzlaff’s book Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventism: https://lifeassuranceministries.org/cultic-doctrine-of-seventh-day-adventists/
I also would like to invite you to join us Friday evenings at 7:00 Pacific Time for our weekly FAF Bible study. If you wish to join us by Zoom, email FormerAdventist@gmail.com and ask for a zoom link, or, if you are in Southern California, contact us for how to attend in person. You will find a welcoming group of former and questioning Adventists, and we study through Scripture learning how the Bible corrects our Adventist. Worldview. Our proof-texts and Ellen-white inspired interpretations gave Adventists a specific worldview that sees Scripture through a physicalist lens that doesn’t see. God as sovereign. We have to relearn our worldview as we align our thinking with Scripture, knowing that God says exactly what He means. There is authorial intent in the Bible, and we have to submit to the normal understanding of the words. We are not in authority OVER the words; the words are actually the authority. They mean what they say.
Also, on our website ProclamationMagazine.com, there is a button at the top called “topics”. Click there and find articles on all the primary Adventist subjects categorized by topic.
Jesus Said “Fulfilled”, Paul Said “Abolished”. Why?
I hope your day is going well. As I’ve been studying the Bible, I’ve realized that in Matthew 5, Jesus says he came to fulfill the law and not to abolish it. However, in Ephesians 2:15, Paul says that Jesus “abolished the law of commandments”. How do you guys see this? It seems like Paul is saying something Jesus never did.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Context explains the difference in wording regarding the law. In Matthew 5 Jesus is speaking to Jews before He went to the cross. He tells them that He Himself came to fulfill the law. The law was given to Israel to keep them pure and separated from the pagan religions and lifestyles of the Canaanites around them. It was a system of religious ceremonies and requirements that provided a means of blood atonement and mediation between sinners and God. It defined Israel as God’s people, and it pointed toward a coming Messiah.
Jesus came announcing that He was the One that had been promised who would fulfill the law. The law had at its core a death sentence. It demanded perfect obedience or death. God provided sacrifices as a means of dealing with sin temporarily, but the sacrifices could never cleanse the sinful hearts and the spiritual death of the Israelites. The law emphasized that sin demanded death.
Jesus came to fulfill that demand. He became sin for us and took God’s wrath so God did not count the world’s sins against it but against His Son (2 Cor 5:18–21).
In Ephesians 2 Paul is explaining how the Lord Jesus brought the gentiles into the benefits of reconciliation with God. He explains that only Israel had God’s covenants of promise. Only Israel were God’s people in the old covenant. God had given His promises, laws, and covenants to Israel alone, and the gentiles were without God and without hope in the world (Ephesians 2:11, 12). But now that Christ has come and has become sin for us and died the death God demanded, He has fulfilled all the requirements of the law. He has paid the price and has fulfilled all the shadows of the law and its requirements and ceremonies.
Notice that Ephesians 2:15 says that He abolished “in His flesh the enmity, the Law of commandments contained in ordinances…” Paul is reiterating that Jesus literally took the death sentence in His own flesh. He took the curse of sin, and He paid the price of sin in His own flesh.
Furthermore, the law was given to Israel to keep them SEPARATED from the gentiles. It forbade them to eat with gentiles, to marry gentiles, to fraternize or worship with gentiles. If gentiles wanted to worship Yahweh, they could—but in order to live as members of God’s covenant people, they had to convert and be circumcised. Unless they did, those covenants of promise were not for them.
But Jesus came and fulfilled the law’s demands of death for sin, and when He fulfilled the law, He destroyed in His own flesh the death sentence of the law. He Himself destroyed the barrier between Jews and gentiles. By fulfilling the demands of the law, He took down the barrier, and Jews and gentiles were no longer defined as being under the law or not under the law. Now there was a new covenant—one inaugurated in Jesus’ own blood. Now God’s people are defined by whether or not they believe and trust the Lord Jesus and His shed blood.
God’s people are now defined by whether or not they are in Christ. The law is obsolete because its purpose was completed in Jesus. In His own flesh He destroyed the barrier between Jew and gentile. In Jesus alone, both Jews and gentiles can be God’s children on the basis of trust in Jesus. The law’s purpose is finished. Now the covenant promises of God’s unconditional covenants are for anyone who trusts Jesus, and when we do, we are sealed with His own Spirit. We become one new “man”: born-again believers. In Christ we are one body through Christ’s blood.
Hebrews 7:11, 12 tells us that because Jesus is a priest according to a different order—Melchizedek instead of Levi—there is necessarily a new law. The old law is fulfilled and thus obsolete. It is the same as a person’s will or living trust. A trust defines the details of how a person’s estate will be distributed when that person dies. When the trustor dies, the estate is disbursed according to the terms of the trust. When the estate has been distributed and the trust’s requirements have been fulfilled, the trust is obsolete. It is not “destroyed”; it still exists as a historic document as proof to future generations that the original trustor’s wishes were fulfilled. But the trust itself has no more application. It is a record of what has already been done and has no future purpose because its purpose was fulfilled. It is a historical record of what has transpired once its terms have been fulfilled. Paul uses this example in the book of Galatians.
So Jesus abolished the ENMITY of the law, as Eph. 2:15 says. The law’s purpose was to keep God’s people separated from the evil influences of pagan gentiles. In fact, the law demanded “enmity” between them. Jesus abolished that enmity and made one new man—believing Jews and gentiles—in His own body. He Himself was the legally required Sacrifice that could atone for sin. By offering Himself as the sufficient sacrifice, the enmity between Jews and gentiles was abolished because the law no longer defined God’s people and separated them from unbelievers. Now Jesus’ blood is the thing that unites both Jew and gentile. There is no law requiring them to be separate. Now they can be one in Christ. †
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