HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2012 / SPRING / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

S P R I N G • 2 0 1 2
VOLUME 13, ISSUE 1

 

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D E P A R T M E N T S

LETTERS to the Editor
 

 

Two articles I loved

I have never seen your website before this evening when I stumbled upon it. I love the article "Never Without Blood..." by Martin L. Carey. It gives a fantastic description of why the moral influence theory is inadequate and gives me more to ponder about the death of Christ, why it was necessary, and who God is and who we are in relationship to his death. Very well done!

Then I read the article by Cheryl Barker about the Sabbath. I am still pondering that one and have not come to a conclusion about it yet and plan to give it more study and thought. The description she gives of the "today" rest seems to fit my experience and relationship with God of the past few years although I have not felt entirely sure of my footing in it. There is possibility that the excellent study done by this author may be helping me find more Biblical grounds for how the Holy Spirit has seemed to be leading me and fitting me into my growing understanding of Romans and my relationship with the law.

I left the Adventist church about 20 years ago after being a staunch and legalistic Adventist all my life, although I did not realize I was a legalist at the time. I spent some years in agnosticism, but eventually realized I could not find a way to disprove the validity of the Scriptures. A few years after that, through what I believe to be God’s intervention and leading, I again became a Christian but have not returned to the SDA church because I no longer see God in the way I was taught there. I came to realize, as I was leaving the church, that so much of my life was centered around the fear and rules I had learned there, and very little was motivated by love. I found a new form of Christianity the second time around where I now see and worship a God of love, not of a bunch of rules. I have prayed that if God wants me to return to that church that He will lead me there and put the desire to do so in my heart. He has not done so yet, and I am thinking that probably He never will.

It is very heartening to me to see these two thoughtful articles, and I will be continuing to look into your website for further information. Thank you so much for what you are doing.

Via email

 

Sunday church to avoid looking Adventist?

I believe that God has revealed Himself and His will to us in His word and through His Son. We do not need any other source of truth besides the Bible.

I came out from the Catholic church with “the Sabbath light” of the Adventist church, but as I started reading the Bible on my own, certain things I found were different from their teachings…I stopped reading EGW books, and I no longer believe there is an investigative judgment going on, nor that Satan is the scapegoat, or that we have to add our works to the complete atonement of Christ for our salvation…I believe the Sabbath is a matter of conscience. Jesus is our Sabbath, and we have His rest when we believe in Him.

I keep the physical Sabbath (Saturday) rest so I can fellowship with my family and friends, not as an obligation…I like to think that Jesus told His chosen people, the Jewish nation, that He wanted them to keep the Sabbath (seventh day) not for salvation but for holiness and remembrance of His creation. Is that not a good reason?

I think that you all at Life Assurance Ministries are opting to go to church on Sundays, not as a matter of conscience, but as a matter of not wanting to be, still, in some way, doing what the Adventists do or giving the appearance that you still are honoring the seventh day of the law. Well, it is your choice, even if it’s out of this fear, but I do not judge you or criticize you for it. We are all free in Christ’s love.

I appreciate your magazine, the well-written articles which are quite inspirational—they make me study and dig deeper into the Bible.

Trusting in Him alone, I send my thanks and God’s blessings upon all of you, my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Fort Worth, TX

Editor’s response: I want to respond to your comments regarding those of us at Life Assurance Ministries “opting to go to church on Sundays”. First, God’s commands to the Jewish nation were just for them. That was a good reason for them to keep Sabbath; for us in the new covenant, however, that command has been superseded by the Lord Jesus who fulfilled the shadow of Sabbath and of the whole law (Col. 2:16-17; Heb. 10:1). Moreover, the Sabbath for Israel was not just a memorial of creation. In Deuteronomy 5, when Moses was renewing the covenant with the wilderness generation just before they entered the Promised Land, he reiterated the Ten Commandments. When he delivered the fourth, he made no mention of creation. Instead, he says in verse 15, that in remembrance of God’s great rescue of them from slavery in Egypt, they were to observe the Sabbath. It’s vital that we understand the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. The old demanded law-keeping in exchange for blessings. The new gives us Jesus’ blood as our covenant; we are blessed when we are in Him. The shadows of Sabbaths and rituals are obsolete when we have the Lord Jesus as our Savior.

Second, our worship on Sunday has no shade of desire to avoid the appearance of honoring the law or to avoid looking Adventist. Instead, we worship on Sunday because that’s when Christian churches generally meet, and the early church worshiped on the first day as well. If we were to worship on Saturday, our worship would be largely limited to Seventh-day Adventist churches. If we attended Adventists churches, we would not hear Scripture taught in a clear, literal way. We would hear Adventist teaching, and that would not be the biblical gospel.

Furthermore, Hebrews 10:25 admonishes us to meet together in order to strengthen each other. This command is for the church, those who are born again of the Spirit. We cannot be admonished and strengthened in biblical reality if we are not meeting with brothers and sisters who embrace Scripture alone.

Finally, God calls us to live with integrity. For us at Life Assurance Ministries, integrity includes leaving behind the day that we formerly learned was the seal (or the “sign of the seal”) of God. To call a day the mark of God and the evidence that we are among the saved is to dishonor the Holy Spirit whom Scripture calls God’s Seal (Eph. 1:13-14). Sabbath was an idol to us as Adventists; we were taught to die for it if necessary. We have to give up hedging our bets just in case Sabbath is important. Now that we know Jesus is all we need, we have to give up the day which formerly claimed our loyalty and give all our loyalty to Christ alone.

Thank you for your letter and for your willingness to share your thoughts with us.

 

Good, deep stuff

Wow, you have really done it with this issue! Very appropriately at Christmas, you have given all Christians, not just former Adventists or JWs, a collection of editorials discussing basic elements of Christianity and only secondarily Adventist deviations. Some Christian friends in our Lutheran community have found these articles very meaningful, especially the ones by Martin Carey and Dale Ratzlaff. There is a lot of good deep stuff here, very thought provoking and worth a second, even third read. Congratulations and thank you.

via email

 

Adventism a path of ­encouragement

We have been receiving Proclamation! for several years. Thanks for your thoughtfulness and sacrifice in sharing that which is most valuable to you. The truth is that I have not read the magazine except perhaps scanning the first issue or two. That is, until this last issue for the fall of 2011. It is well written. But I have been saddened to read of the disillusionment expressed about the Adventist Church, for I have not seen it the way you have described. Yes, there is within the Adventist Church all of the things you have identified. No question! And it is true that worldliness, infidelity, fanaticism, works, and a whole lot of other things are present in the Church. And it is true that there are many ways of interpreting the Scriptures and Writings among both the laity and the clergy and theologians. But in spite of all of these variations, I have found in the Adventist Church a path and encouragement for becoming true and loving followers of Jesus. By my own studies, I have come to conclude that there is no merit in any teaching or doctrine, but that these are only the means by which we grow, whether closer to God or away from Him, depending upon their truth or error. And this is one of the strengths of Adventism as I see it. There is room within the church to see and express truth in various ways.

So, I am sorry your experience has not been rewarding. I sense your love for God and for His cause. I wish you could look past the disappointment of the past and see the church as a movement within the greater family of God with a special message for these end times which, in spite of its weaknesses, provides a community of faith through which the entire world can be prepared to meet Jesus upon His soon return.

Williams Bay, WI

Dale Ratzlaff’s response: You mention that you wish we could look past the disappointment of the past and see the Adventist church as part of God’s family with a special message for the end times. I, too once felt the same way. However, I had no idea of the misinterpretation of Scriptures present in Adventism until years after I left it. Studying the Bible without Ellen White helped me see the errors of the Adventist message.…The Adventist message not only undermines the Pauline gospel but it is certainly not the apostolic gospel that was once for all delivered to the saints…May God bless us each as we seek to be true to His word.

 

Don’t be discouraged

I appreciate your magazines’ exploring truth in an easy to understand way. Don’t be discouraged; it is self-righteous pride, religious pride—that even some Christians fall into when embracing some non-essential doctrine which makes them the “special ones of God”—in which your critics are enslaved.

So few today will stand for just the basic truths of the Bible, and the results are clearly seen in the increasing amount of sin in the world. God bless you.

John Adcock
Jesus People Information Center
Sacramento, CA

 

Enemy of truth

Former Adventists (are the) worst enemy of truth. Satan was in heaven, remember. So why are you, Dale Ratzlaff and Richard and Colleen Tinker, false teachers? Have mercy on you all!

Bowie, MD

 

Thank you

Thank you, each and everyone, for your ministry. May God continue His bountiful blessings to you as your serve Him.

Cornville, AZ

 

I am not a…

…former Adventist, inquiring Adventist, Sabbatarian, or concerned Christian. Please stop sending me your publication. It is irritating.

P.S. Do you not have a more productive ministry that you might engage in??

East Brunswick, NJ

 

Love it

I love your magazine, especially the testimonies.

Baptist pastor
Riverside, CA

 

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Truth needs no other foundation than honest investigation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and a willingness to follow truth when it is revealed.

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"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God; not of works, that no one should boast." Ephesians 2:8,9