The Life Examined with CAROLYN MACOMBER | Proclamation! Magazine Contributor
“The Jesus I know now is so different from the Jesus I knew as an Adventist,” said a young woman who recently became a born-again Christian. Her statement resonated deep within me. “Yes,” I thought, “The Jesus presented in the teachings of Adventism is different from the scriptural Jesus.”
Scripture warns of people embracing “another Jesus”.
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough … For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness (2 Cor. 11: 3-4; 13-15).
It is important to know the biblical Jesus so we are not deceived by someone teaching “another” Jesus. The biblical Jesus is described in John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn. 1:1,2,4). John in Revelation describes Jesus as the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Hebrews 1 gives Jesus the following qualities, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” The New American Standard Bible translates the Greek word charakter as exact representation. This is why Jesus was able to answer Phillip and say, “Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father … I am in the Father and the Father is in me ….” (Jn. 14:8-11). The Biblical Jesus has always been God, with all the attributes of God. Never has Jesus lost those attributes, nor did He have to be given His “God-ness”.
Adventism distorts the biblical Jesus and implies He was less than God at one time.
In contrast, Adventism distorts the biblical Jesus and implies He was less than God at one time. For example, the Adventist Fundamental Belief #18 states that Ellen White is “a continuing and authoritative source of truth”. Thus, with doctrinal authority, she writes, “Some of the angels sympathized with Satan in his rebellion, and others strongly contended for the honor and wisdom of God in giving authority to His Son…They wished to look into His unsearchable wisdom, and ascertain His purposes in exalting Jesus and endowing Him with such unlimited power and command” (Early Writings, p. 145, 146; 1920).
This idea that Jesus was exalted or given unlimited power is in direct contradiction to Scripture. The Word, Jesus, has always been the exact representation of the Father; He has always had all the authority of God.
Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, was the only possible payment for the debt of human sin. If He had at any time sinned or had come to earth with an imperfect character, He could not have been the acceptable sacrifice to a Holy God. The writer of Hebrews describes it this way,
“how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.…since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:13-15).
Adventists believe Jesus had no advantage over us but that He came to earth capable of failing. Ellen White writes, “But Christ, coming to the earth as man, lived a holy life, and developed a perfect character” (Desire of Ages, p. 762).
The Jesus of Adventism had to “develop” his perfect character; Scripture teaches that Jesus came to earth completely righteous (Jn. 7:18). Otherwise, He could not have been our Substitute.
The Adventist Jesus has not always been God, and He came to earth with Mary’s fallen nature. I am so thankful that I have been redeemed and have a relationship with the Biblical Jesus! The Jesus I understood as an Adventist could never have saved me! †
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