Should We Rent Our Church to Adventists?
These questions came to us via email this week. Our answers follow each question.
Q: In trying to understand SDA doctrine, I have a few questions! In order for me to explain this framework to the church leadership, I need to better understand it myself! Below are my questions if/when you have time. Thank you in advance for your time!
Firstly, in the “Pre-history,” when Jesus was exalted to be equal with the Father, was Jesus considered to be God before that event?
A: EGW says both that Jesus is eternally existent with the Father, and that He came into being sometime in the distant past. The founders of Adventism were nearly all antitrinitarian; James White and Jospeh Bates came from the antitrinitarian Christian Connexion. James White wrote a pamphlet called “The Personality of God” in 1862 that said the Father has a body, the Son has a body, and the Spirit is force or power emanating from them. This belief is the substance of Adventism’s belief system. As the organization moved towards a more orthodox “godhead”, they left behind their Arianism and adopted a tritheism that they call a trinity. EGW called Jesus “God”, but originally he was either a creation or an emanation of God, not almighty God. His exaltation took him from that original position and gave him access to the full council of God. EGW also wrote (in a much-suppressed writing as of today) that before Jesus became incarnate on earth, he became an angel and tried to save Satan and his minions. It didn’t work, though. This teaching is the foundation of their identifying him as Michael the Archangel. Here is a link to James White’s pamphlet.
Q: After that, when Satan accused God of being unfair, was that in relation to the Mosaic Law? Since the Mosaic Law was given well into the biblical story, was Satan accusing God of the Law that would be given, or did the Law already exist in the “Pre-history”?
A: The “Law”, in Adventism, is nearly universally understood to be the Ten Commandments. They separate it from the rest of the Mosaic Law, calling the Ten “the Law of God” and the rest of the law “the Law of Moses”. They say the Ten existed in heaven in pre-history and it is the law all created beings, including the angels and the watching inhabitants of other planets, must keep.
Q: I’m also very confused about God being on “trial.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but since the Law, according to Satan, was deemed “unfair,” Jesus took on sinful flesh (i.e., having the ability to sin) to prove that He could keep the Law, thus proving that God truly is fair? Or is God’s fairness dependent on whether or not Jesus’ followers can follow in His example and live sinlessly?
A: God’s fairness depends upon Jesus’ followers obeying the law as Jesus did. He came as an example to show that the law could be kept, and those who follow him now realize they have no excuse because Jesus could keep it, so with enough prayer and dependence upon the Holy Spirit, they, too, can keep the law. This law-keeping proves God really was fair in giving the law.
Q: According to this view, is sinlessness attainable in this life before glorification? Since confessing sins relates to the heavenly sanctuary, it would seem as though sinlessness is not attainable?
A: Theoretically, yes. EGW taught that the last generation alive on earth when Jesus comes back will be perfectly keeping the law and reflecting the character of God. Likely no one before that last generation will manage to keep the law perfectly, but as long as the people are sincerely doing their best and confessing the sins they commit, God will make up for their remaining imperfections if they die before attaining sinlessness.
Q: Regarding the heavenly sanctuary, since Christ is currently undertaking His investigative judgment, what happens if he starts investigating you while you are still alive?
A: That question has kept generations of Adventists in fear. There was always the theoretical possibility that He could commence with the names of the living, but no one would know IF or WHEN He moved to the living. If He did, He would judge the living, and their eternal fate would be sealed based on whether or not they had been assiduously obedient and if they had confessed all their sins. If they had, they would be marked Pardoned and would be eternally sealed as ready for salvation. If they hadn’t been diligently obedient and/or had forgotten a sin or three and had not confessed each one, they would be eternally labeled LOST. The people themselves would not know that they had already been judged, and they would continue in their lives as if they had not—just as Adventists have always lived: not knowing whether or not they would be worthy to be saved.
Q: I’m also curious why God would feel the need to prove His fairness? Do they believe that God is somehow obligated to answer Satan?
A: Yes. They absolutely believe God is obligated to answer Satan. They also teach He is obligated to answer us and our questions, and that will be the purpose of the millennium which will be spent IN HEAVEN as God shows us the books of record and explains Himself and answers all our questions about why some are saved and others aren’t. EGW teaches that God must honor the free will of his creatures, so He limits Himself and doesn’t insert Himself into the affairs of his creatures on a regular basis. She teaches that Satan must fully play out his evil hand and self-demonstrate that he is evil and a liar. His own self-indictment over time will also be part of vindicating God. Satan will ultimately be the tragic hero who is destroyed by his own fatal flaw (not her words, but the absolute substance of her teaching). God the self-limiting will be vindicated by Satan’s demonstrating to the watching universe that his ways end in destruction.
Q: When Adam and Eve fell into sin, since there is no immaterial spirit, what exactly is sin? I understand that, in their view, it is somehow physical, and something that we “choose” to do, but I’m confused as to how they would define it. If their view is Pelagian, then what exactly happened in the Fall?
A: EGW explained that Adam and Eve “began to die” at the fall. The fact that God said they would die the day they ate is just a poetic detail; they “began to die”. EGW teaches that human genetic inheritance began to degrade after sin. She even taught that when Jesus came and took the likeness of sinful flesh, he took the degraded flesh of humanity after 4,000 years of genetic degradation. She teaches that humans are born with propensities to sin in their genetic inheritance, and that people choose whether or not to act on these propensities. So the fact that Jesus took the degraded human flesh of his generation means that His perfect law-keeping showed that humans can keep the law as He did.
Q: Moreover, if sin is not spiritual, I’m confused on what the cross achieved? I read that it somehow “proves” God’s love, but why would death be necessary to prove that? I cannot see how death makes sense other than as a propitiation?
A: Adventists do not have a clear explanation for the cross. It is a demonstration of God’s love—that God was willing to send His Son to die at the hands of evil men without complaining, showing that He loved us enough to suffer without complaining, like a lamb before the shearers is dumb. It also paid the price for the sins a person commits before accepting Jesus, but after accepting, the person has to keep himself saved by increasingly successful obedience and confession. Many Adventists teach that Jesus’ death paid Satan off—it paid for Satan’s claim on us. God’s hands were essentially tied, say many, because Satan claimed humanity as being under his control. He accused humans to God of being law-breakers, so when Jesus died without sinning, his death paid the ransom that Satan demanded and thus untied God’s hands. Because Jesus paid Satan, he could no longer claim us, and that payment opened up a way for God to again have access to humans so He could send His Spirit to mankind and help them if they asked for it. So some Adventists adopt a “ransom theory of atonement” saying that the ransom price was paid to Satan. Others adopt the governmental theory of atonement and say that God is forgiving even without the death of His son, that He didn’t need His Son to die in order to be a forgiving and gracious God. Jesus, they say, was a demonstration of the lengths to which God would go to show He loved us and to subject Himself to our evil and cruelty without lashing back, dying to show what a loving and good guy he is. Some say Jesus’ death was a demonstration to us of the fact that humans’ desire to kill God—and He let us kill Him to show us that He wouldn’t destroy sinners but would suffer at their hands, showing love to the bitter end.
In general, Adventists do not teach the propitiatory death of Jesus, and they say that the atonement was not completed on the cross. It continues today in heaven where Jesus is applying His blood to confessed sins.
Others today teach that Jesus’ death was essentially a universal payment for human sin, and humans are born into a redeemed and forgiven state. They just have to believe that and live in that reality. Sin, say some prominent Adventists today, is a psychological phenomenon. We are born with a “sin principle” in us that is a psychological state of shame. When we see that Jesus has taken care of sin, we can begin to live without shame and find our way into experiencing love. So sin is not a spiritual condition but a mental and psychological twisting; we have to come to believe and accept that sin is already taken care of. In this model Jesus did not die personally for people but for the world in general. We are thus born into a forgiven situation, but we have to decide to accept this fact and live as if it is true. It doesn’t require repentance and a new birth. It is a psychological acceptance of a theoretical idea that Jesus died to save us—and our job is to start living like it’s true.
Q: Additionally, I read on your website, regarding their understanding of being “saved by grace,” that God’s grace enables them to have faith in Christ and overcome sin. However, if we truly have no immaterial spirit, then what is faith?
A: For the Adventist, faith is a function of the brain/mind. They believe that all faith and religious assent is mental, that the Holy Spirit communities to people through the neurons of the frontal lobes of the brain, and belief is essentially an acceptance of “truth” (Adventist truth) that changes how we live because it changes our minds. They often develop arguments to say that repentance is a change of mind, and they believe that when the human brain sees and accepts Adventist truth, that acceptance marks the start of a new life, a life dedicated to Adventist truth. The mind’s acceptance of Adventist truth is propositional and philosophical, and it changes the way a person lives. Because of this central importance of the brain and the mind, the health message is important because unless the neurons are healthy, a person’s spiritual life will suffer. This belief is behind EGW’ statements that many slaves would be annihilated at death and not punished in the lake of fire because they never had the advantage of being able to hear or understand the gospel. They were limited, and a gracious God wouldn’t punish them for what they couldn’t comprehend. Until about forty of fifty years ago, Adventist families that had Downs’ babies or other developmentally disadvantaged children, would often institutionalize the children. They were incapable of understanding “the gospel” and would become as if they had never been when they died.
This belief also underlies Adventism’s endorsement and practice of abortion and their dedication to performing whatever genetic testing is available for the unborn. They offer abortions to mothers carrying children whose testing reveals chromosomal markers of developmental disabilities. They will also perform abortions for mothers who say the birth of a child will present severe problems for them. Here is an article that explains the history and practice of abortion in Adventism.
I hope this has helped. Please feel free to email anytime!] †
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