Seventh-Day Adventist
Exposed!
Compiled by
WM. C. IRVINE
Loizeaux Brothers, Bible Truth Depot
New York
First Edition, 1917 - Fifteenth Edition 1944
Seventh-Day Adventism
By Wm. C. Irvine and A. McD. Redwood
The Genesis of Seventh-Day Adventism
Seventh-Day Adventism, Christian Science, and Theosophy have one thing in common
at least–they all had hysterical, neurotic women as their Founders! Mrs. Ellen
G. White was the founder of the "ism" of this article, though she got her cue
from one William Miller of Low Hampton, N. Y., U.S. A. Concerning Mrs. White,
"Dr. William Russell, a chief physician in the Seventh-Day Adventist Sanatorium
at Battle Creek, long a Seventh-Day Adventist, wrote in 1869 that Mrs. White's
visions were the result of a diseased organization or condition of brain or
nervous system." Dr. Fairfield, likewise an Adventist, and for years a physician
in the same Sanatorium, wrote in 1887 that he had no doubt that her visions were
"simply hysterical trances. Age itself had almost cured her."1 We
may well pity the poor woman in her ill-health, but we cannot be sentimental
about the seriousness of her teachings, which amount to blasphemy and are
directly opposed to the Word of God.
Mrs. White's standard work is The Great Controversy between Christ and Satan,
which has run through several editions. This contains an authoritative
account of the Seventh-Day Adventism teaching. Of this book, however, (Rev.) D.
M. Canright (who was intimate with her for years) writes in his volume
Seventh-Day Adventism Renounced: "She often copies her subject-matter
without credit or sign of quotation from other authors. Indeed her last great
book, The Great Controversy, which they laud so highly as her greatest
work, is largely (mainly in its historical parts) a compilation of Andrews'
History of the Sabbath; History of the Waldenses, by Wylie; Life of
Miller, by White; Thoughts on Revelation, by Smith, and other books."
"The Pastors' Union of Healdsburg, California, investigated the matter, and
published many instances of her plagiarisms.” In spite of such facts, however,
the publisher's preface reads, "We believe she has been empowered by a Divine
illumination to speak of some past events which have been brought to her
knowledge with greater minuteness than is set forth in any existing records,
and to read the future with more than human foresight!"
Such a genesis is not very reassuring. In religious matters at least, one
expects to find the source for new light coming from a more lofty and spiritual
plane. A stream never rises higher than its source; and if this stream of a
"new faith" is no higher in source than represented, it does not augur well for
subsequent developments. Alas, we do not need to go very far into the depths to
find out the muddy and unwholesome character of this that is called Seventh-Day
Adventism. William Miller, the progenitor, was found out to be a very
false and dangerous prophet, but this much can be said of him-that he stopped
short after repeated failures in his own line, from going into the
wholesale theories and vapid imaginings advocated by the later Mrs. White,
albeit these new theories were built upon his discarded foundation!
Indictments
We
indict Seventh-Day Adventism on four main counts, leaving out lesser
(though none the less false) theories.
Indictment #1 - Attitude Towards the
Atonement
Seventh-Day Adventism
denies the Biblical Doctrine of the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ
as the only means of man’s salvation.
This is the first serious indictment. We shall prove it from Mrs. White's own
writings, so that we may not be accused of misrepresentation or exaggeration:
The ministration of the priests throughout the year in the first apartment of
the sanctuary (which sanctuary Mrs. White places in heaven and not on
earth!-Ed.) . . . represents the work of ministration upon which Christ
entered at His ascension.... For eighteen centuries this work of ministration
continued in the first apartment of the sanctuary. The blood of Christ,
pleaded in behalf of penitent believers, secured their pardon and acceptance
with the Father, yet their sins still remained upon the books of record.-The
Great Controversy.
Can it be unreasonable for us to inquire, What in the name of all that's
reasonable does this mean? Sins pardoned and yet still on the books!
(a) Seventh-Day
Adventism denies the finality of the work of Christ on the cross,
hence it makes Christ's
last cry on the cross, "It is finished," to be a lie!
As
in typical service there was a work of atonement at the close of the year, so
before Christ's work for redemption of men is completed, there is a work of
atonement for the removal of sin from the sanctuary. This is the service
which began when the 2,300 days ended (according to Mrs. White this was in the
year 1844! Evidently the nineteenth century was more wonderful than we had
imagined!-Ed.). At that time, as foretold by Daniel the prophet, our high
priest entered the most holy to perform the last division, of his
solemn work to cleanse the sanctuary . . . in the new covenant the sins
of the repentant are by faith placed upon Christ, and transferred, in fact,
to the heavenly sanctuary . . . so the actual cleansing to cleanse the
sanctuary. . . in the new covenant the sins of moval, or blotting out, of
the sins which are there recorded. But, before this can be
accomplished, there must be an examination of the books of record to
determine who, through repentance of sin and faith in Christ, are entitled
to the benefits of His atonement. The cleansing of the sanctuary therefore
involves a work of investigation–a work of judgment. Those who
followed in the light of the prophetic word saw that, instead of coming to
earth at the termination of the 2300 days in 1844 (as Prophet William Miller
had so dogmatically and widely proclaimed.—Ed.), Christ then entered in
the most holy place of the heavenly, to perform the closing work of atonement
preparatory to his coming.—Ibid.
We
have given this extended quotation on purpose to show a fair specimen of Mrs.
White's writings and teachings. Here then are the facts–William Miller
prophesied that Christ would come (hence the name Adventist) in 1844, but He did
not! So Mrs. White steps in to save the situation. A mistake has been made–it
was not to earth but to the "heavenly sanctuary" He came. Why? Her fertile
imagination was equal to the question-to complete the work of atonement, and to
carry on something she calls "investigative judgment," all preparatory to His
coming to earth at some later date!
She assumes therefore; (i) there is a
sanctuary in heaven, though the Bible says nothing about it being in heaven;
(ii) there is sin in heaven, though the Bible says nothing about it;
(iii) that in some mysterious way not explainable the sanctuary has to be a kind
of "mediator" and bear the sins of the believer for at least a time; (iv) this
sanctuary needs cleansing nevertheless; and (v) this cleansing and investigating
began in 1844. We find it difficult to decide whether to be shocked at
its rank heresy, or to pity the one who can write such balderdash. But there is
worse ahead.
Indictment #2 - Satan the Sin-Bearer
Seventh-Day Adventism
declares Satan to be the joint sin-bearer, and the vicarious substitute of the
sinner.
It
was seen also that while the sin-offering pointed to Christ as a sacrifice,
and the high priest represented Christ as Mediator, the scapegoat typified
Satan, the author of sin, upon whom the sins of the truly penitent
will finally be placed. When the high priest by virtue of the
blood of the sin-offering removed the sins from the sanctuary, he placed them
upon the scapegoat. When Christ, by virtue of His own blood, removes the
sins of His people from the heavenly sanctuary at the close of His
ministration, He will place them upon Satan, who in the execution of the
judgment must bear the final penalty. The scapegoat was sent into a land
not inhabited, never to come again into the Congregation of Israel. So
will SATAN be forever banished from the presence of God and His people and he
will be blotted from existence in the final destruction of sin and
the sinner.–The Great Controversy
Dr. D. Anderson-Berry gives but
a just estimate of this rigamarole in his book when he says:
We
have the choicest doctrine of the Gospel, justification by faith, utterly
contemned and set at naught. Nay, more, as if that were not enough to damn
their doctrine, they dare to substitute for Christ's finished work on the
cross, SATAN'S vicarious suffering in bearing away the sins of the people of
God into a land of utter annihilation. It does not lessen, the blasphemous
grossness of the idea to say that it is wholly imaginary, the figment of the
addled brain of a hysterical woman. It merely explains it!
If
ever there was a "damnable heresy" (see 2 Peter 2: 1) surely it is here! Mrs.
White professes to found all this teaching on Leviticus 23 and the book of
Daniel. We confidently hand both books, yea, the whole Bible itself, to any
mature, sane-thinking Christian and challenge him to find anywhere in the whole
sixty-six books of the Divine Library, one jot or tittle of evidence or proof
(set forth according to fundamental and eternal principles of exegesis), for
such consummate trash. It seems an insult to offer such stuff for the serious
consideration of a reasonable mind.
With this, compare the following few texts (selected out of a vast number) from
the Word of God itself, and then ask yourself, reader, which you are prepared to
believe and stake your soul's destiny upon.
-
“without shedding
of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22).
-
"it is the blood
that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev. 17: 11).
-
"ye know that ye
were not redeemed with corruptible things . . .But with the precious blood
of Christ. . ." (1 Pet 1:18-19).
-
“Who his own self
bare our sins in his own body on the tree. . ."
(1 Peter 2: 24).
-
"having made peace
through the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20).
-
"But now in Christ
Jesus . . .ye are made nigh by the blood of Christ”
(Eph 2:13).
-
"He that believeth
on Him is not condemned" (John 3: 18).
-
"There is therefore
now NO CONDEMNATION to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8: 1).
-
"Being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3:
24).
-
"The blood of
Jesus, Christ His (God's) Son cleanseth us from ALL SIN"
(1 John 1: 7).
Indictment #3 - Christ’s Humanity
Seventh-Day Adventists
teach that the Lord Jesus Christ inherited a sinful, fallen nature.
It
may surprise and pain the reader to learn that the above-statement is actual
FACT. If such is a foundation-stone on which the Seventh-Day Adventist church
is founded, how can it stand? Such is not the Christ we have learnt to know–not
the Holy Lord of Holy Writ.
The following
extract, taken from one of their own publications–Bible Readings for the Home
Circle, makes this astounding statement (p. 115, 1915 edition):—
In
His humanity Christ partook of our sinful, fallen nature. If not, then He was
not "made like unto His brethren,” was not "in all points tempted like as we
are," did not overcome as we have to overcome, and is not, therefore, the
complete and perfect Saviour man needs and must have to be saved.
In
other words they say, If you do not accept our teaching on the "sinful, fallen
nature" of Christ, you have no Saviour! This writer continues:
—
The idea that Christ was born of an immaculate or sinless mother,* inherited
no tendencies to sin, and for this reason did not sin, removes Him from the
realm of a fallen world, and from the very place where help is needed. On His
human side, Christ inherited just what every child of Adam inherits–a sinful
nature. On the divine side, from His very conception He was begotten and born
of the Spirit. And all this was done to place mankind on vantage-ground, and
to demonstrate that in the same way everyone who is "born of the
Spirit" may gain like victories over sin in his own sinful flesh. Thus each
one is to overcome as Christ overcame (Rev. 3:21). Without this birth
there can be no victory over temptation, and no salvation from sin, John 3:
3-7. (Their italics.)
*This, the writer perfectly well knows, is a doctrine which is held by no body
of evangelical Christians–it is Roman to the core.
Let us examine somewhat carefully the above teaching.
The Scripture tells us that we are partakers of God's holiness (Heb. 12:10); God
and Christ are one (John 10: 30); yet above we are assured that Christ "partook
of our sinful, fallen nature!" What a contemptuous denial of Scripture!
Are we not distinctly told that He was "holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners?" How could He be at once "Holy" and "undefiled"
and at the same time partake of our "fallen nature;" inherit what
we as sinners inherited, and yet be "without sin" ("sin apart," R. V.;
see Heb. 7:26; 4: 15)?
After publishing the above quotation with these and other comments in The
Indian Christian for January, 1927, we received a letter from the Editor of
Oriental Watchman, the official organ of the Seventh-Day Adventist people
in India, in which he sought to explain the teaching which he says, is orthodox
to the very core!" We can only give short extracts as the letter covers more,
than five type-written pages. He says:—
I wish to affirm definitely just the contrary to your conclusion by
saying that if Jesus did not take our fallen nature in His own person
(his italics) by His incarnation, fallen humanity is left without a saviour…
There was but one kind of humanity in the world that Jesus could have
taken, and that is fully described in Romans, chapter three, where Paul
describes it as sinful and fallen, and beyond all hope if left to itself.*
He who was holy and undefiled, had sin imputed unto Him. The sinful
nature which He bore was not that which came by the sins of His own
doing, for it is written of Him: "Who did not sin, neither was guile
found in His mouth" (I Pet. 2: 22), but they were the sins of imputation–sins
committed by others which were laid upon Him.
*He apparently
does not know that: "Sin is no property of humanity at all, but the disordered
state of our souls" (Faussett).
W.
Kelly says: "Not a trace of evil was in Christ. He was man as truly as the
first Adam–Son of man as Adam was not, but Son of Man which is in heaven–a
Divine Person, yet none the less a Man. But for these very reasons He was
capable and competent, according to the glory of His Person, to be dealt with
by God for all that was unlike Him in us. Had there been the smallest taint
in Him this could not have been done. The perfect absence of evil in this one
Man furnished the requisite victim; as in Himself and all His ways the divine
nature found satisfaction and delight. Would He then bear all? Be willing to
go down to the depth of the judgment of all men, according to God's estimate
of the evil of our nature? The entire, unbroken, unmitigated judgment of God
fell upon Him in order to deal with it and put it away forever. No less, I
believe, is the force of Christ’s death for us."
He
also quotes 2 Cor. 5:21, and draws attention to Isaiah 53.
So, then, we are to understand that Christ carried the burden of imputed sin His
whole life long, not only on the cross, for it was at His birth He
inherited His human nature.
Again if Christ inherited a sinful, fallen nature, when did He disinherit it?
Do they teach that He who is the same yesterday and today and forever, has taken
His "sinful, fallen nature" to God's right hand?
Let us now turn to orthodox teaching on this point. Dr. I. M. Haldeman of New
York says of Christ:—
He was
begotten of God from the seed of
the woman,
by
and through the Holy Ghost.
That which was begotten was not a person, but
a nature—a human nature.
This human nature was holy, Scripture calls
it "that Holy Thing." It was the holiness produced by and out of the Holy
Ghost.
It was the holiness produced by and out of God.
It was, therefore, in its quality the
holiness of God.
Since its quality was the holiness of God, there was
no sin in it, and no possible tendency to sin.
This holy, sinless human nature was
indissolubly joined to the eternal personality of the Son.
Dr. Griffith Thomas on Romans 8: 3* says: "Observe the wonderful fulfilment of
this verse. Thus we have the Deity of Christ, 'His own Son,' the Incarnation
'in the likeness of sinful flesh,' that is, He was like us in all things except
sin—Christ's flesh was not sinful, never the seat of sin; and His atonement 'for
sin,' which means 'as an offering for sin'."
Dr. C. I. Scofield says: "Our sins were borne 'in His body,’ but not in His
nature."
Were the teaching of-the Seventh-Day Adventist church true we would have a
monstrosity—Deity inheriting a sinful nature!
If
this could have been so there could have been no sinless sacrifice, no hope for
sinners, no Saviour. And how could it have been written: "The prince of this
world cometh, and hath NOTHING, in Me" (John 14: 30). Further the Scripture
says, "In Him Is No SIN" (1 John 3: 5)!
*Rom.
8: 3 is nicely balanced.
"Sinful" necessitates "likeness." "Sinful
flesh" would have meant that He Himself had needed a Saviour.
"Likeness of flesh" would have meant that the
Humanity of the Saviour was unreal—later the Docetic heresy
(C. F. Hogg).
Indictment #4 - Soul Sleep
Seventh-Day Adventism
believes in Soul-sleep after death and Conditional Immortality.
This indictment will not take up much of our time, as we deal with both these
heresies elsewhere in this booklet (see separate articles). Mrs. White says:—
Upon the fundamental error of natural immortality rests the
doctrine of consciousness in death, a doctrine like eternal torment,
opposed to the teaching of the Scriptures, to the dictates of reason and to
our feelings of humanity.
The theory of eternal punishment is one of the false doctrines
that constitute the wine of the abominations of Babylon.
. . .They received it from Rome as they received the false Sabbath.
Will the Seventh-Day Adventists explain then why Paul could use such language
as, "Absent from the body, present with the Lord"; and, "to be with
Christ, which is FAR BETTER”? Will Mrs. White tell us what "natural
immortality" means, and who is so foolish to preach it, when we see thousands
dying around us every day? Will Mrs. White or any of her disciples dare to set
up "the feelings of humanity" against the plain Word of the Living God-"These
(i.e., sinners) shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the
righteous into life eternal"? (See the article on Soul-sleep).
Indictment #5 - The Sabbath
The fourth indictment is that Seventh-Day Adventism tries to force
the
believer back under Law and so away from Grace, by their Sabbath teachings.
As
the Seventh-Day Adventists materialized the sanctuary in heaven, they were
forced to materialize everything. So besides an actual sanctuary in heaven,
with candlesticks, curtains, table of showbread and ark, they were forced to add
within the ark the two tables of stone, and call upon all to put themselves
under the law. Mrs. White at first refused to believe that the Fourth
Commandment was more binding than any other. Elder Bates urged its great
importance until Mrs. White had a convenient vision, in which she asserted she
was taken to heaven, and shown the sanctuary and its appointments! A
description of her vision is given: "Jesus raised the cover of the ark, and she
beheld the tables of stone on which the Ten Commandments were written. She was
amazed as she saw the Fourth Commandment in the very center of the ten precepts,
with a soft halo of light encircling it.
The Adventists have found a handle for their teachings in the erroneous way
Christians speak about the first day of the week (the Lord's Day) as if it were
the Sabbath.
The Adventists claim that Christians being still under the Law of Moses, are
bound to keep the "least of its precepts," and therefore must keep the Sabbath.
They also state that Protestants acknowledge that the Roman Catholic Church,
away back in the year A.D. 364, at the Council of Laodicea, changed the Sabbath
or Seventh day to Sunday or the First day. Neither statements are tenable when
judged in the light of Scripture and early Church history.
The
Sabbath was given as a "sign" and "perpetual covenant" between Jehovah and
Israel, as is most clearly stated in Exodus 31: 12-18. The Ten Commandments, of
which the law of the Sabbath is the fourth, were written with the finger of God
on tables of stone. These commandments are called "the ministration of death"
and "the ministration of condemnation," "written and engraven in stone"
(2 Cor. 3: 7, 9), which ministration, the Holy Spirit tells us, is "done away"
and "abolished" (vers. 11, 13), and in its place we have "the ministration of
the Spirit" and "the ministration of righteousness" (vers. 8, 9). Hence in
Colossians 2: 16 we read, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink,
or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.” See
also Rom. 14: 5, 6. Again we read in Colossians that the "handwriting of
ordinances" was "blotted out" and "nailed" to Christ's cross (as of old, bills
were nailed to the doorpost when when paid), for Christ has fulfilled the law on
our behalf, met its every claim.
Further, Scripture emphatically teaches our position of freedom from the law,
e.g., "Ye are not under the law but under grace" (Rom. 6: 14; see also Rom.
7: 4, 6; Gal. 5: 18); indeed the Epistle to the Galatians was written to
establish this very thing. The rebuke given to those who sought to bring the
Gentile converts under the yoke of the law as given in Acts 15, still holds good
for legalizers, such as the Seventh-Day Adventists: "Now therefore why tempt ye
God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor
we were able to bear?" (v. 10).
The Adventists say:-
Christ further declares that whosoever breaks even so much as one of the least
of the precepts of the law ... shall be called the least . . . in the kingdom
of heaven." See Signs of the Times (Extra No. 15, p. 50).
If
this still holds good, why do Adventists ignore circumcision? Again, if
Christians are bound to observe "the least of the precepts of the law," why did
the great Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), when writing to the Gentile converts,
declare their freedom from the law, and write of those who had sought to make
them keep the law, as those who "troubled you with words subverting your souls"
(v. 24)? If the keeping of the Sabbath was to be observed, why was it not
enjoined here? Why was it never enjoined to believers in a single passage of
the New Testament?
Before going further it might be well to note how the Sabbath was
to be observed. Someone has put it thus:—
It
was to be kept from sunset to sunset (Lev. 23: 32). If within twenty-four
hours any burden was carried (Jer. 17: 21), any fire kindled (Exod. 35: 3),
any cooking done (Exod. 16: 23), the Sabbath would be broken; the penalty for
which was death (Num. 15). Were this law observed by Adventists they would
all quickly be exterminated, as the above rules they consistently break. How
very inconsistent lie is who preaches to others to keep the Sabbath when he
does not keep it himself. Surely this man's religion is vain.
D.
M. Panton has well said: —
An
honest, if uninstructed, error is very prevalent among the Churches of Christ,
and affords the Seventh-Day Adventist the fulcrum for his lever. It is said
that the ceremonial law, and the civil law of Israel, have been abolished but
not the moral law, and that the Sabbath as occurring in the Decalogue, is part
of the unrevoked moral law of God. But (1) most remarkably no inspired writer
ever makes any such distinction between "moral" and "ceremonial" law; the
ceremonial law (e.g., Lev. 19) contains laws as purely moral as any in
the Decalogue, and had we been delivered from the ceremonial, while remaining
under the moral, Paul would most surely have said so—an utterance he never
makes. (2) The Sabbath, in-its nature, is itself a ceremonial law: the moral
law is all law which appeals to the conscience, and needs no written
revelation; but as to which day to observe, or whether to observe any day at
all, conscience is silent. If we aye to distinguish between the moral and the
ceremonial law, on the ground that one is passed, and the other still in
force, then–as the Sabbath is purely ceremonial law–it is passed. But
the most important point still remains. (3) I, as a Christian, obey all law
that is moral in the Decalogue, not because it is in the Law, but because
it is in the Gospel. Worship of God only is enjoined fifty times in the
New Testament; idolatry is forbidden twelve times; profanity four times; honor
of father and mother is commanded six times; adultery is forbidden twelve;
theft six; false witness four; and covetousness, nine times. "The Ten
Commandments," as Luther says, "do not apply to us Gentiles and
Christians, but only to the Jews." So therefore, Paul, in all his fourteen
epistles, never once names the Sabbath–except in a single passage where,
classing it with the entire law, he declares it has been totally abolished.
So the early Church held.
Now as to the second claim, viz., that at the Council of Laodicea the Roman
Catholic Church changed the Sabbath from the Seventh to the First day. Whatever
may have happened at that Council, we submit that the Sabbath was not changed.
For no decree of man could or can change God's covenant. What did take place,
so far as we can learn, was "to in a manner quite abolish" the observation of
the Sabbath for Christians. That is, that they made it illegal for
Christians acknowledging the sway of Rome, to observe the Sabbath as their
day of worship. But let it be well noted, large numbers of Christians were at
that time, and long before, observing the first day of the week as their day of
worship. The assertion of the Seventh-Day Adventists is entirely misleading as
is proved from the following extracts:-
(i)
The Epistle Of Barnabas
about A.D. 100.
"Wherefore, also we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on
which Jesus rose again from the dead."
(ii) The Epistle Of Ignatius: A.D.
107.
"Be not deceived with strange
doctrines, nor -with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live
according to the Jewish Law, we acknowledge that we have not received
grace. . . . If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order
of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the
Sabbath, but living in. the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our
life has sprung up again by Him and by His death."
(iii)
The Writings of Justin Martyr:
A.D. 145-150.
"And on the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the
country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the
writings of the prophets are read. . . . But Sunday is the day on which
we all hold a common assembly, because it is the First day of the Week on
which God made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose
from the dead."
(iv) Apostolic Constitutions:
Church life in the 2nd Century.
"On the day of the resurrection of the Lord–that is, the Lord's Day–assemble
yourself together without fail, giving thanks to God and praising Him for those
mercies God has bestowed upon you through Christ."
(v) Irenaeus: A.D. 155-202.
"The Mystery of the Lord's Resurrection may not be celebrated on any other day
than the Lord's Day, and on this alone should we observe the breaking off
of the Paschal Feast."* (Our italics all through).
*These quotations are taken from Dr. D. Anderson-Berry's book Seventh-Day
Adventism-he was a scholar of no mean repute. He states that these are
"extracts all made by myself, so that ignorance of the context might
not mislead me; the portions omitted I have omitted since they do not affect the
sense, and merely cumber the pages."
As
a matter of fact, the first day of the week–the Lord's Day–was selected not
in place of the Sabbath, but as a day in which to celebrate our Lord's death
and resurrection. As a writer has well said: "It is a day of thanksgiving and
liberty to the Christians, and a day which they delight in regarding as unto the
Lord (Rom. 16: 6). It is the Lord's Day, as John called it in Rev. 1: 10. On
that day Jesus rose the Head of a new creation. On the Lord's Day He appeared
to His disciples. On the Lord's Day the Holy Ghost was given. On the Lord's
Day the door of the kingdom was unlocked and 3,000 souls entered in. On the
Lord's Day the disciples came together to break bread in remembrance of Him
(Acts 20: 7)."
In
answer to the following question, The Witness (Scotland) gives the
accompanying lucid reply from the able pen of the late David Baron, one of the
most eminent and learned of Jewish believers:
How can a Hebrew Christian be shown that he must not keep the Seventh-day
Sabbath seeing it is written: "The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath,
to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant"
(Exod. 31: 16)?
There is no necessity to "show" or teach the
Jewish believers that they "must" not "keep the Sabbath" as if the Gospel made
the non-observance of the Seventh-day rest compulsory or a condition of true
discipleship. . . . When more fully instructed, and as he grows in grace and
in the knowledge of Christ, he will be brought to see for himself that the
Jewish Sabbath has no significance in this dispensation and in relation to
those whose calling is a heavenly one, and whose destinies are bound up –not
with time but with eternity....
The Sabbath is thus essentially connected with the old marred creation, with
the imperfect Mosaic dispensation, and with the typical redemption from
Egypt. But Christians are children of the new creation, and are in the
dispensation not of the Law but of the Spirit. "With Christ's resurrection,"
says an old writer, "the Seventh-day Sabbath expired, transmitting its
sanctity and its privileges to the new Sabbath–the first day of a new
week, which became our day of -rest (and of worship) in the power of a new
creation."
The
Editor of The Witness well says: "Sticklers for keeping the exact
'Seventh Day,' or Sunday, or 'Lord's Day,' have a difficulty in the way days
have been calculated and thrown about. In 1582 Gregory XIII found a
miscalculation and decreed to drop October 5-14 and to drop 3 leap years in
every century. In England 11 days (September 3-13) were dropped in 1752, in
addition to other changes."
References:
1
A. J. Pollock, Seventh-Day Adventism
The Devil is Subtle and Deceptive in
Seventh-Day Adventism
Seventh Day Adventists [SDA] profess to believe that faith in Jesus Christ
is the only way to Heaven. However, what they don't tell you is that they have a
very different understanding of what the term “faith” means. To the Adventist,
faith encompasses everything that the Christian life includes.
"To have faith means to
find and accept the gospel treasure, with all the obligations which it
imposes" (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 112).
SOURCE: SALVATION BY FAITH,
Jan Paulsen;
http://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.org/documents/Salvation%20by%20Faith.htm
Obligations? What obligations? Eternal life is a
free gift, paid for by Jesus' precious blood (Romans 4:5-6; 1st Peter 1:18-19).
SDA is a works-based false religion, which mandates OBLIGATIONS that the Bible
does NOT! There can be no obligations for something truly to be a gift! If I
tell you that I bought you a birthday present, but first you must complete a
list of obligations to have it; then it WOULDN'T truly be a gift! It would be
a reward that you had earned.
The entire corrupted mindset of the Seventh-Day
Adventist is that you had better do your best, while trusting Christ, and hope
your best is good enough when Christ's work of
Investigative Judgment is complete. This false doctrine is only taught by
Adventists. The term Investigative Judgment isn't even found in
the Bible. SDA's have their own bizarre demonic cult which is deceitful, packed
full of lies and smells with the stench of sewage from Hell. Run, run, run while
you can, before you get sucked into the deadly black hole of lies and deceit of
Seventh-Day Adventism!!!
Thus, faith to an Adventist means that a person
must be water baptized, go to church, faithfully live a righteous life, tithe,
keep the SDA Sabbath, et cetera, to be saved in their religion. Of course, that
is a damnable doctrine not taught in the Word of God. Seventh Day Adventism is a
false religion based upon self-righteousness and
a corrupt view of the gospel.
Biblical faith is simply resting in Jesus Christ
for salvation (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3-5; Romans 10:3-4; Ephesians 2:8-9).
Biblical faith imposes no obligation upon the sinner in order to be saved. Faith
in the Lord is all that is necessary. Eternal life is a free gift (Romans
5:15;6:23), freely offered (Romans 10:13) and freely received (Revelation
22:17). Salvation is receiving, not giving. The sinner who believes on Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, apart from all self-righteousness, will be saved and go
to Heaven.
Ellen G. White Adamantly Denied Jesus'
Deity
History can be corrupted, but the truth cannot.
Ellen G. White denied Jesus' deity.
