Are My Friends Adventists?
Shalom Richard and Colleen! Firstly, thank you so much for what you’re doing with your channel and outreach; it is no doubt helping so many people, as it’s helping me tremendously during a bit of a crazy season.
I wanted to ask you something and get your input on the situation I’m currently in; I’ll make it as brief as I can.
I’m currently attending Bible study with a few ex-adventists, who have been out of the church now for quite a few years. I myself am non-denominational and was saved through simply reading the bible and believing it, with no denominational/religious background. I thank God Almighty that my understanding of the Scriptures hasn’t been tainted and I can read and understand them cleanly. I didn’t know these people were ex-adventists until I started studying with them – they never spoke about it, and I thought they were just normal truth seeking Christians perhaps jaded with mainstream “Churchianity”” Within a few days of hearing them talk about the gospel my spirit was troubled and i’ve just felt uncomfortable ever since. I’m now in a really awkward position as I realize I may be living with people who don’t actually know Jesus.
Despite not attending the Adventist church for many years, they have some strange doctrinal positions that are upsetting me. My question is, does it sound to you like the spirit of Adventism is still working in these people, despite what they might say to the contrary? My gut is telling me this is a completely different Jesus. Here are the beliefs they hold that make me suspect this is the case –
- They will admit Jesus is “Mighty God” but not “ALMIGHTY” God. This is the main one that is absolutely vexing me. They say because he’s God’s son he’s “God” in that sense, but only the Father is the Almighty God, that somehow the Father is of a different being to Jesus. It seems they believe Jesus is the literal son of God in a humanistic sense, like he’s a separate being, as a human son is separate being to their father, but has the “name and authority” of their father. They can’t properly clearly explain to me what they believe here, it’s really murky and frustrating.
- The Father “brought forth” Jesus at a point in time, admitting he wasn’t always the Father, and became the Father when he brought forth Jesus, just like human beings.
- The Holy Spirit is not a separate person but the presence of Jesus and the Father.
- They staunchly deny the Trinity, call it a Roman/pagan invention, while at the same time holding a completely wrong understanding of the Trinity itself (believing it teaches three beings and so forth). They are sympathetic to Arianism and early Adventist pioneers.
- Jesus is Michael.
- There is some sort of ongoing contention between Jesus and Satan as if they’re equal brothers of some kind or something (Satan is jealous of Jesus?)
- Sunday worship is absolutely without question the mark of the beast, all of Christianity and the entire world is going to turn on them for keeping Saturday Sabbath.
It’s all just a mess, I’ve never heard of these teachings before, and it all upsets me. They say they’re not associated with Adventism, have been out for a long time, but my gut is that their entire understanding of scripture and whole world view is from Adventism, they can’t even help it because they’ve been indoctrinated into it, and this unfortunately leads me to believe they might not even be saved. I don’t know what i’m supposed to do, they’ve opened up their house to me, and are extremely kind, and double my age so it makes things very awkward regarding approaching all this.
Any thoughts and advice would be so greatly appreciated. Thank you, love and blessings to you both in our wonderful Master’s name.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: What a difficult situation you are in! In reality, though, what you describe is very straightforward, historic Adventism. The fact that they claim to be ex-Adventists seems to be related to the fact that they embrace original anti-trinitarianism instead of today’s “trinitarian” claims. Within Adventism there is a growing movement back toward anti-trinitarianism, and there is a growing movement of people leaving the main organized organization over this issue. It appears your housemates are in this category.
Original Adventists were openly anti-trinitarian. Over the years, however, they moved toward a more trinitarian stance—at least more trinitarian language. It seems, in part, to be related to the fact that Ellen White and her “literary helpers” were copying material from some Christian sources, and their ideas worked their way into her works, especially her book The Desire of Ages. After the publication of that book, however, as late as 15–20 years later, she was still writing about “The Heavenly Trio” and “the Three Worthies of Heaven”.
Every point of belief that you mentioned is typical historic Adventism. I assure you that this couple does not believe in a biblical nature of reality nor understand the true gospel. They do not believe man has an immaterial spirit that is born dead and must be born again. Further, without doubt their intention is to convert you. Adventists typically befriend people, especially Christians who aren’t aware of Adventists’ true beliefs, and then pursue “friendship evangelism”. They ingratiate themselves and become personally indispensable so that the targeted person feels protective or dependent or obligated to the Adventist and become vulnerable to their beliefs because they are attached to them and unable to discern the danger of their beliefs.
I am going to link two articles for you that will help you understand what your benefactors believe.
Your friends believe in a physical view of man, that man does not have an immaterial spirit that separates from the body at death and which is born dead in sin. Adventists deny human depravity and have a nearly Pelagian view of man and of salvation. They are devotees of the extreme idea of “free will”, that God must limit His own power to accommodate the free will of man and of Satan himself.
They deny that the atonement was completed at the cross but say that Jesus continues the atonement in heaven, applying His blood to sins in the ongoing investigative judgment as He reviews the heavenly books of record and as professed believers confess their sins. Ultimately they believe that Satan is the scapegoat who carries away the sins of the saved into the lake of fire and is punished for them.
Have you found our video podcasts, Former Adventist Fact Check? This quarter’s Sabbath School lessons are covering EGWs flagship doctrinal book, The Great Controversy. We are doing commentary on each of the lessons which are based on a progression through this book. I have a hunch that these videos will help you understand the worldview of your hosts if you watch them. Of course, your couple is more “cultic” even than modern Adventists, but the worldview, the EGW-dependence, and the basic shape of their idea of man and sin and salvation are the same. Here is a link to the Adventist Fact Check playlist; the videos covering The Great Controversy began with “Adventist War in Heaven” for the lesson dated Mar 30–April 5. You can see the progression from the first one through the subsequent lessons of this quarter in the playlist.
Please let us know if we can be of further help.
Need Correct Link—and Thanks for Ratzlaff’s Articles
I watched your podcast of the Lesson 10 Exposing Spiritualism, June 1-7, 2024. Where can I find the printed version of your commentary for Lesson 10? I like to print the commentaries so I can highlight sections and file them for future reference.
I very much appreciate the Sabbath School commentaries. Each week I keep learning more and more about the totally cultic interpretations/beliefs of the Adventist church. All the Proclamation! articles are excellent. I especially enjoy reading Former Adventist testimonies. I suppose everyone has a story with a few similar elements, and perhaps some unique experiences as well. I ignorantly starting attending the Adventist church after I attended a few of my Adventist neighbor’s Bible studies and heard believing in Jesus was not enough to go to heaven. You have to “get ready” in order to be “translated.”. To qualify for translation you have to keep the Sabbath. AT 14, that revelation pretty much scared me, so I started attending the Adventist church. Though I did not fall in line with all EGW’s visions regarding diet/health/dress/recreation restrictions, I did become a staunch Sabbath-keeper. Through an amazing series of events, I left the darkness of that cult, pulled my daughter out of church school, began attending a wonderful, nurturing evangelical church, and started to read the Bible for myself. God knew my heart and lead me out of darkness into the light of His Son. God truly is GOOD!
I am so pleased that you are including some of Dale Ratzlaff’s articles in the on-line Proclamation! newsletter. I spoke with Dale on the phone a few years back. That is a very precious memory. One of Dale’s books (Sabbath in Crisis) was instrumental in opening the eyes of a former Worldwide Church of God lay preacher’s eyes that God gave the Law/Sabbath to the Jewish nation. Only the Jews. The man came to understand that God gave the Law/Sabbath to the Jews only. He left the WWCG and joined a gospel-centered church.
Response: Thank you for writing! I’m really happy to hear that the Sabbath School Commentaries are helpful. Those lessons are incredibly convoluted and deceptive, building their arguments on the false worldview Adventists already have in their heads.
The online version of the companion article is here; I’m so sorry we had the wrong link in the email:
I truly praise God for His mercy in revealing Himself to us! †
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