Lesson 1: “Reality Check”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
Adventist, what do you mean when you claim to be part of the Church of Laodicea? Do you mean that Adventism is God’s last-day church on earth? If you believe Laodicea symbolizes Adventism, do you also believe you are in danger of being rejected by Jesus? Will Adventism be spewed out of His mouth because it is cold and unbelieving, refusing to open the door to Jesus? How can Adventism be both the one true end-time church and a church without Jesus in it?
Adventism and Laodicea
This week marks the start of a new Sabbath School quarterly, the second quarter of 2026. Entitled Growing in a Relationship with God, this quarter’s lessons focus on how to improve one’s devotional life. The author of these studies is Nina Atcheson, the curriculum manager and senior editor of the General Conference’s children’s Sabbath School curriculum entitled Alive in Jesus. She writes in the introduction that she is “praying that the Holy Spirit will move upon us individually and as a worldwide church to draw us closer to God as never before.”
In this prayer she reveals the tip of the Adventist iceberg: she writes from the assumption that Seventh-day Adventism is the one true remnant church of Bible prophecy which Jesus directly addresses in His letter to the church at Laodicea in Revelation 3:14–22. This view, which is an example Adventism’s eisegesis, or reading itself into the New Testament reprimands and commands, reinforces Adventists’ belief that the Bible is their personal “instruction manual” made accessible to them by their own last-day prophet, Ellen G. White.
Significantly, the quarter’s studies open with the application of Laodicea as God’s revelation of Adventism as His last-day people whom He lovingly encourages to stay united to Him and to choose to spend time with Him.
In fact, this quarter’s moralizing the importance of spiritual disciplines, of obedience to Adventist practices and doctrines, and of choosing to do the right things only stands up on the assumption that Adventism is God’s true church revealed in Scripture. For this reason, starting with Laodicea reflects the diabolical genius of Ellen White who endorsed this interpretation in her writings. Adopting the formerly popular historicist method of interpreting the book of Revelation, Ellen White made the seventh church addressed in Jesus’s letters the Adventist organization.
While the Reformers interpreted the church of Laodicea to be the true church of God in the last stages of history which became spiritually lukewarm and in need of awakening, Ellen White applied Laodicea to Adventism itself. In this way she was able to leverage Jesus’ rebukes to this dead church and shame Adventists, reminding them that they were responsible for God’s reputation and for bringing the Sabbath message to “apostate Christianity”.
What Is Real?
Before we look further at what to do with Adventism and Laodicea, let’s review our hermeneutic. We use what is called the literal-historical-grammatical hermeneutic. In other words, we are to understand the Bible in its normal or plain meaning unless the text uses figures of speech or obvious symbolism. The words mean what they say; God says what He means. There is real authorial intent.
Further, interpreting a passage historically and contextually means that we seek to understand the culture and the situation that prompted the text. For example, understanding Jonah’s running away from God’s assignment to preach to Ninevah must be understood in the context of the Assyrians and their history with Israel, their inhumane cruelty and their threats and ultimate success in conquering the northern kingdom of Israel.
Finally, interpreting Scripture grammatically means following the rules of Hebrew and Greek grammar and recognizing the nuances of the text. For example, in Titus 2:13 Paul writes of “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ”. Here he clearly uses “God” and “Savior” as parallel terms, and they are both in apposition to the name Jesus Christ. In other words, Paul identifies Jesus as both God and Savior.
And so forth. The bottom line is that if we read the Bible literally, as we would read a normal book of science or history, we must believe that the words mean what they say. There is clear authorial intent, and the words mean what they say. Grammar is clear; tenses matter; sentence structure matters; number and case matter. Context is everything: we cannot yank a passage out of its original context and apply to to another. One passage can only have one meaning, and while ultimately we may be able to make application derived from that one meaning to ourselves as believers, we cannot change the intent or context or grammar of the text.
In spite of its protests that they use the historical-grammatical hermeneutic, Adventism does not use the literal, grammatical, historical method of Bible interpretation. Rather, they use a method of Biblical understanding established by Ellen White’s commentaries. They seldom lead with this fact, but EGW IS Adventism’s official interpreter. They teach the Bible according to Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm.
So, when it comes to Jesus’s letter to the church at Laodicea, how are we to understand it today?
The best way to approach this letter is to do what we described above: read the words in context, using normal rules of grammar and vocabulary. The words mean what they say, and context is everything.
“Write What You See”
When John met the risen Christ on the island of Patmos around the year 90 AD, he received the last book of the New Testament—a book in which he recorded a series of revelations that was, essentially, the final chapter of God’s prophecies given to Israel through the major and minor prophets. In one sense, Revelation is the ending of the still-unfulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament.
In Revelation 1:12 the risen Christ explains to John the first thing he is to write: letters from Jesus to seven literal churches in the region known today as Turkey. Those churches were in existence as John wrote Jesus’ words to them:
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, saying, “Write in a scroll what you see, and send [it] to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”—Revelation 1:12, 13 LSB
Laodicea was the seventh letter Jesus delivered through John, and He wrote to a specific congregation in the city of Laodicea. In this letter He described their spiritual condition and their need:
“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: This is what the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says: ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and [that] the shame of your nakedness will not be manifested; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”—Revelation 3:14–22 LSB
Jesus clearly wrote to the people who called themselves “Christians” and comprised the church in Laodicea. In fact, we hear about Laodicea in Paul’s epistles as well; at the end of Colossians he wrote that the church at Colossae was to share their letter from him with the church at Laodicea, and the Laodiceans would share his letter from him with Colossae.
This church was a real church, but as this letter from Jesus shows, the members were drifting spiritually to the point that the church was dead. There could have been some people in the church who had not hardened their hearts completely, and this letter was an appeal to them to hear the Lord’s call and to respond. Yet only this church and the church at Sardis received NO commendation from Jesus. The other five did receive commendation, even though He had warnings for most of them. Yet the church at Laodicea was in grave danger of ceasing to exist. Jesus was about to spit them out of His mouth.
In fact, Jesus pictured Himself as standing OUTSIDE the door of this church, knocking, asking that if anyone heard His voice, that person should open the door and admit Him.
So, then, if this letter was a real letter to a real church that was in danger of ceasing to exist, in danger of having its candlestick removed, what application can this letter have to us?
We can understand the Lord Jesus’s warnings and pleas to this church the same way we understand Paul’s instructions in his epistles to literal churches: Galatia, Ephesus, Colossae, Philippi, Thessaloniki, Corinth, Rome. We understand that God’s truth applies to His body whenever His people live. Yet we don’t assume that Paul’s epistles represented other eras or historical periods. They addressed real people with specific needs.
In the same way, Jesus’ letters to these churches were literally to these churches. Yet we can equally apply the Lord’s instructions to all seven churches to ourselves in whatever local body of Christ He has placed us.
Adventism and the Historicist Method
Adventism, however, uses a nearly-obsolete method of interpreting Revelation: the historicist method. The Teachers Comments on page 13 of the quarterly says this:
Our analysis of our condition will be conducted in light of the apocalyptic message to the church of the Laodiceans. This message comprises the seventh, and final, letter to the churches in Asia Minor, as found in the book of Revelation. The seven letters, contained in chapters 2 and 3, are prophecies that cover the history of the Christian church, from the period of the early church to the time of the end. God Himself addresses His church in these letters.….
Specifically, the literal churches, with their historical and geographical characteristics, are used as symbolic representations of prophetic truth. By way of example, a cursory glance at the progression of the Lord’s movements on behalf of His church, as portrayed in the seven letters, suggests that the literal coming of the Lord advances nearer and nearer…
The message to the Laodiceans marks, therefore, the crucial moment when the coming of the Lord is the closest: He now knocks at the door of the heart. He awaits our response to His gracious invitation to give Him entrance that He may abide with us…
Nothing in the biblical text suggests that the seven churches who received letters from Jesus are symbolic of “prophetic truth”. They reveal the Lord’s concerns for His people’s faithfulness to Him and to His gospel, but these churches are not representing prophetic time periods. Yet Adventism with its great controversy paradigm—dependent as it is upon unique and strange time prophecies—depends upon forcing these letters to represent historic epochs leading to the second coming.
The following quote from GotQuestions.org will help explain why Adventism depends upon an outmoded method of interpreting Revelation:
In some cases, historicism has been abused by those attempting to predict a specific date for the return of Jesus, such as the Millerites in 1844 and Harold Camping in 1994 and 2011. As one would expect, all such attempts at pinpointing the return of Christ have failed, and they will continue to fail (see Matthew 24:36).
Historicism, so popular with the Reformers, remained a dominant perspective on eschatology through the 19th century. However, due to its nebulous interpretation method (no two historicists agree on what symbols go with what historical events) and the fact that John’s original readers could not have understood the book of Revelation in a historicist manner, the historicist view is not widely held today.
Ironically, Adventist scholars continue to try hard to make Adventism and evangelicalism fit together, like smaller pieces in a larger picture of Christianity. Yet under the surface, at a level they ASSUME more often than they EXPLAIN, they rely on biblical interpretations that support non-Christian, cultic worldviews rather than historic Christianity. The great controversy worldview depends upon the outmoded historicist understanding of Revelation in order to hold up its sanctuary doctrine, supposedly begun in 1844 when William Miller’s prediction that Jesus would return on October 22 failed. It depends upon believing Adventism IS Laodicea, the last-day church of the world’s history.
Ironically, Adventists are proud to be Laodicea; they believe they are named symbolically in the book of Revelation. Concurrently, Ellen White has given Adventism one of its most effective manipulative tools: permission to goad and guilt its members into compliant obedience in order to keep them loyal to the Sabbath upon pain of eternal annihilation. Laodicea, after all, is lukewarm and on the verge of being expelled.
Yet Jesus is standing at their door. They are His last day church, and they believe that if they muster up loyalty to the Sabbath and try to proselytize new members, they may escape the fate of being spat out of Jesus’ mouth.
Of course, staying loyal to the one true remnant church of Bible prophecy yields benefits for the organization: the obligatory tithes and offerings paid by the loyal Sabbath-keepers.
Adventism Is Not a Church
The bottom line, however, is that Adventism is not actually a church. It is a faux-church, a counterfeit of Christianity, a cult that teaches a false gospel with a fallible Jesus and with members who don’t know they are spiritually dead and must be literally born again.
For Adventism to conscript Jesus’ letter to one of the seven churches of Asia and make it apply to them is deceptive to the max. Adventism has advertised itself as a church with unique insight into prophecy. It gathers proselytes by deceiving them into thinking the Adventists have the best biblical explanations of end times. Yet as they lure the unsuspecting into their ranks, telling them that they will be safe from the judgment if they keep the seventh-day Sabbath, they are making those converts victims of the darkest kind of slavery: the slavery of deception and believing in a false god.
Jesus warned about this kind of deceptive proselytizing as He declared His “Woes” against the Pharisees:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”—Matthew 23:15 LSB
Thursday’s lesson exhorts the reader to stay connected to Jesus by remembering to ask for the Holy Spirit. Here are the author’s words:
The sap in a grapevine is like the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We might be like a dead branch, but when we choose to spend time with God, the Holy Spirit enters into us like the sap from the roots and brings us to life so that we start to grow. In the same way that we need to make a conscious choice to want to abide in Jesus, we must also ask for the Holy Spirit (the sap) to flow into our lives.
Yet Adventists cannot get the Holy Spirit’s power into their lives by asking for Him. The Bible tells us the only way we receive the Holy Spirit’s indwelling:
In Him, you also, after listening to the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of [God’s own] possession, to the praise of His glory.—Ephesians 1:13, 14 LSB
There is only ONE way to receive the Holy Spirit, the permanently indwelling presence of God Himself: we must hear the true gospel of our salvation and believe. When we believe, we pass at that moment out of death into life!
Adventism soothes and seduces its members by teaching what sounds like biblical principles, but they structure these principles onto their underlying foundation without describing it. Underneath it all, Adventism interprets reality and Scripture by the commentary of Ellen White. They assume that the great controversy paradigm is truth, and they teach their members that in order to be saved, they must obey the way THEY teach them to obey.
They misinterpret Scripture; they use illegitimate interpretive methods to make the Bible appear to support the great controversy—and this method of teaching is designed to bind Adventists to a false worldview in which they believe that they must hold fast to Adventism or be lost.
Adventism does not teach the biblical gospel. Adventists are not the church of Laodicea, and Jesus’ warnings to this church are not for them because they are not a church.
Rather the command for Adventists is to hear the gospel of their salvation and believe. Adventists must repent of their deception and their belief in a fallible Jesus. They must hear and believe that the Lord Jesus became sin for us; He died our death on the cross and was buried. Then, on the third day, He rose because His blood paid the price for human sin and broke our curse of death!
Adventist, look to Jesus alone. See that He has completed the atonement on the cross, and believe. In Jesus you will be made alive, and you will be indwell by the Holy Spirit, adopted by the Father and guaranteed your eternal future.
Repent and believe today—and pass from death to life!
This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
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