By Colleen Tinker
Desmond Ford, one of the most controversial Adventist figures within the last 50 years, died on March 11, 2019. His wife Gillian announced his death on Facebook with these words:
My beloved Des died this morning at St Mary’s Aged Care home shortly before 1:15 a.m. I was with him, and he died peacefully after a few very difficult months. The staff at the home all told me they had never met anyone so polite, so thankful, so courteous. He had great gifts and abilities but when they were stripped away, the purity and goodness of his soul shone out. He was a man always in a hurry, driven by a mission to serve God and proclaim Christ. He would urge you to take up the work he has laid down. As many of you know, he would say, Meet you here, there or in the air. He has gone ahead of us. And the world is a far colder place (also quoted in Spectrum, March 11, 2019).
Des Ford will be remembered in Adventism for his scholarship proving that the investigative judgment had no basis whatsoever in Scripture. He demonstrated beyond doubt that the central doctrine of Adventism was entirely the product of faulty hermeneutics encouraged by Ellen White’s visions and writings. In 1980 he was summoned to present his findings in front of a collection of Adventist administrators and scholars at Glacier View camp in Colorado. After presenting his scholarship, the end result was that the Adventist powers-that-be refused to act on the evidence, choosing instead to strip Ford of his Adventist ministerial credentials.
Additionally, Ford’s revelation came just months before Walter Rae published his evidence that Ellen G. White had plagiarized large sections of her book, The Desire of Ages.
The fallout from Ford’s “defrocking” and firing and from Walter’s Rae’s exposure of Ellen White yielded a hemorrhage of Adventist pastors and scholars from denominational employment.
The Adventist organization, desperately trying to do damage control, realized that many Adventist scholars and pastors agreed with Ford’s findings, and many Ford sympathizers were fired. Some found employment outside Adventism; others stayed on the fringes of the organization.
Still others, such as Dale Ratzlaff, founder of Life Assurance Ministries and Proclamation! magazine, and Mark Martin, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Phoenix, Arizona, realized that Ford’s research did two things: it revealed the doctrine of justification by faith alone—a doctrine not supported by Adventist theology, and it revealed that Adventism is not a Christian denomination. Its theology teaches “another gospel”.
Dale Ratzlaff writes in his book Truth Led Me Out (TLMO) that just months before Ford’s Glacier View summit meeting, Ford visited Monterey Bay Academy where Dale was teaching. For three successive mornings Dale and Des jogged on the beach, and Des used Scripture to explain the pure gospel to Dale. Dale was convicted by God’s word and knew Des’s conclusions were consistent with the Bible.
After the Glacier View meetings just months after those morning runs, Dale knew he could not support the investigative judgment any longer. In fact, he played a part in what he calls the “Adventist underground”. Dale writes,
Secrecy and covering up of error seemed wrong to me. Like me, millions of Adventists trusted the denominational leaders to be honest. How wrong, it seemed to me, for church leaders to pass off error as truth and then hide the fact that it was error and not truth. I decided I would print 500 copies of this [Ford’s] huge, 1000-plus page manuscript.
I had learned how to run offset printing presses from my first evangelistic meetings. Now instead of an old AB Dick, I had a Multilith 1250 printing press—old but still a trusted workhorse. I reduce the page size so that I could print it “four up” which meant I had about 250 runs of 500 each. When the work was completed—making a full pickup load—it was delivered to a person who lived near Pacific Union College who sold them to then Adventist underground. In this way, Des Ford’s research and the wealth of source material became immediately available for others to study.
TLMO p. 72
To make a long story short, Des Ford’s honest dealing with Scripture as it describes Jesus’ finished work and the end of judgment for those who believe laid bare the faulty central pillar of Adventist doctrine. Adventism, however, refused to acknowledge the truth of Ford’s research, fired him, fired many of his sympathizers, and performed its public relations sleight of hand to smooth over what proved to be a theological upheaval in the “remnant church”.
Many of those who were fired nevertheless retained their Adventist worldview and their sympathy with Adventism. Some, in fact, eventually were again re-hired years later, and their earlier “scandal” became a badge of honor among progressive Adventists who proudly questioned Adventism but remained loyal anyway. For others, the fear of being sidelined or fired caused many Adventists to go “underground” with their questions or convictions, and eventually the Ford debacle became old news. By the early 2000s many younger Adventists didn’t even know who Ford was.
Contrasting reactions
Not all Adventists who were shaken by Ford’s research, however, remained sympathetic to Adventism or moved into more liberal theological venues. Some, such as Dale Ratzlaff, embraced the biblical truth of the gospel of justification by faith proclaimed by Ford and realized that this very gospel undercut the rest of Adventist theology as well. He realized clearly that he, as an Adventist pastor, could no longer teach all 27 Fundament Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist organization.
Dale describes the decision he faced in 1980:
The day came when I had to make the final decision to either resign or promise to teach all 27 SDA doctrines. At first I told Elder Cook [Central California Conference President] that I was not going to resign. I felt that the church was leaving me rather than me leaving the church. By this I meant I had always thought the church stood for truth, and that was all I was seeking. Now the church, it seemed to me, was not concerned with seeking and following truth; rather its main interest was in its own preservation, even if that meant using deceptive practices of covering up known error. He told me, however, that if I were fired, which he was prepared to do if I did not resign, I would not receive any severance pay. He assured me that if I resigned I would receive severance pay.
I resigned. I knew I could never go back. That door was closed.
TLMO p. 102–103
Ironically, however, Des Ford’s discovery of the deep dishonesty at the heart of Adventist theology did not push him to leave Adventism. Stripped of his credentials, he nevertheless continued to identify as an Adventist—or at least as sympathetic to Adventism.
Following his firing he established an independent ministry called Good News Unlimited, and he began traveling and holding gospel meetings wherever he was invited. His audiences were almost always comprised of Adventists who agreed with his views about the non-existent investigative judgment.
While Ford preached the gospel and understood the need to trust Jesus and to be born again, filled and sealed with the Holy Spirit, nevertheless he retained an undying belief that the seventh-day Sabbath was an ongoing requirement. Even more surprisingly, he never renounced Ellen White. Although he did not treat her as an authoritative prophet, he retained a belief that she continued to play an important role in Adventism.
My encounters with Des Ford
I first heard of Des Ford when I was a 20-something English teacher at Gem State Academy in Caldwell, Idaho. I had always had confusion and questions about the investigative judgment, and after Glacier View, I somehow secured a copy of Des’s research showing that Daniel 8:14 could not possibly describe the instigative judgment. I remember reading the document I had gotten as I concurrently read the book of Daniel. When I was done, I knew that Daniel did not describe nor even hint at an investigative judgment. From that moment on, I knew the IJ was utterly false.
Ironically, however—similarly to Ford—I still believed I could be an Adventist and respect Ellen White while rejecting her only unique doctrine—the central pillar of Adventism.
Over 12 years later, I met Des Ford personally. Richard and I flew with relatives to Banff, Alberta, where we attended a weekend of meetings conducted by Good News Unlimited. We listened to Des teach, and while we (still Adventists) enjoyed his gospel presentations, both of us left the weekend with a subtle feeling of discomfort. Those who attended seemed more interested in following and supporting Ford than in pursuing the implications of embracing the gospel. There was a collective atmosphere of dissatisfaction with the Adventist organization but without a clear conviction of what they needed instead. It seemed they loved Ford for his boldness in speaking against the IJ, but they still held onto the Sabbath and their Adventist identities. They appeared to rally around Ford more than they rallied around the gospel that he taught.
By 1996 Richard and I had already begun to realize that the New Testament read in context did not support Adventist theology. We had read Colossians and Galatians, and we had also read Dale Ratzlaff’s early book Sabbath In Crisis. The astonishing beauty of the new covenant was already opening before us, and we were beginning to realize that we might have to leave Adventism.
I was working as an assistant editor of the independent magazine Adventist Today (AT), and as I prepared the copy for the July–August, 1996, issue of that magazine, I realized with pleasure that I had the privilege of editing an article by Desmond Ford entitled, “Is the Seventh-Day Sabbath Christian?”
I still remember my dismay as I realized Ford supported the seventh-day Sabbath with every argument I had learned as an Adventist! In fact, he even used the Adventist argument (later I learned it was an argument derived from “covenant theology”) that there really isn’t a distinctly new covenant. Ford wrote:
Admitting that Scripture (with the exception of Col. 2:16) endorses the seventh-day Sabbath, some have resorted to arguments on the covenant to dispose of the institution. But it has seemed to many that the best theologians have recognized for a long time that all the covenants of Scripture were merely topical variants of the one great everlasting covenant. Therefore, it is erroneous to draw hard and fast distinctions between the covenant at Sinai and the new covenant, as if to suggest they were in essential opposition.
Sinai was a replay of the Abrahamic covenant. See Psalm 105:9–11 which is quite clear on this matter.
The word “new” in relationship to the covenant actually means “renewed,” as with the “new” earth and the “new” heart. According to Hebrews 8:8–12, the essence of the law proclaimed at the Exodus is now written in the heart. 2 Corinthians 3 is certainly not suggesting that idolatry, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, murder, adultery, theft, lying, and covetousness as well as Sabbath-breaking have been sanctified by the cross. No, it is merely saying that all law (even New Testament law) becomes the ministration of death if people teach it without the message of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit .
AT July–August, 1996, p. 12
In fact, Des’s rather glib dismissal of 2 Corinthians 3 and Hebrews 8 have grown even more shocking to me as time has passed. He knew that Hebrews 9 destroyed the doctrine of an ongoing atonement in heaven. For him to dismiss the clear words of 2 Corinthians 3:3–6 which explicitly identify the Ten Commandments written on stone as the letter that kills seems disingenuous. The words are clear, and their meaning is clear. One cannot dismiss these verses as simply saying that law without the gospel bring death. Paul very clearly was NOT saying such a thing! He was clearly contrasting the Law with the new covenant of the Spirit. He was not teaching that one can combine the law with the Spirit.
In fact, Hebrews 8 is just as clear. Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31:31-33, and it clearly says God is establishing a NEW covenant, that the old one is obsolete and about to disappear!
For Des Ford, the brilliant scholar who used the literal words of Scripture to disprove the Adventist incomplete atonement and the fictional investigative judgment, to misrepresent the plain words of the New Testament in order to argue for the continuation of a sacred seventh day, seemed like a betrayal.
Ford developed many arguments familiar to Adventists to teach that Sabbath is required as he wrote his article. He even used the Adventist argument “Christ himself kept the Sabbath in life as well as in death. The only whole day he spent in the tomb was the seventh-day Sabbath. During his life he risked his whole ministry to show how the Sabbath should be kept” (Ibid., p. 14).
He ended his article with this paragraph:
The Sabbath of Judaism, with its oppressive laws and its rituals applying to sacrifice and temple, has gone forever. So have the additional laws that surrounded most of the Ten Commandments as found in the Torah. But the Sabbath of Eden remains. It was for the first man and woman; it is for the last man and woman, and it if for every man and woman of all time” (Ibid.).
As an Adventist on the cusp of leaving that organization because of the clear biblical teaching of the completed work of Jesus and the new covenant, Ford’s very Adventist defense of the Sabbath and the Ten Commandments as applying to Christians seemed incongruous to me. How could he see so clearly that the investigative judgment was invented but not see that the entire framework of the Adventist seventh day requirement was fulfilled in Christ? How did he not “see” the new covenant?
Kicked in the gut
Twelve years later I was editing a different magazine: Proclamation! produced by Life Assurance Ministries. Richard and I had been out of Adventism for nearly 10 years, and we still held Des Ford in high esteem because of his clear exposure of Adventism’s sloppy hermeneutics that undergirded their investigative judgment. Not only did we respect Ford for his scholarship, but we felt gratitude to him for his influence in Dale Ratzlaff’s coming to understand the truth of Jesus’ finished work and his help in providing Dale with the details that exposed the confusion of the investigative judgment which had plagued him.
In the January–February, 2008, issue of Proclamation!, we published an article by Des Ford entitled “Doctrine Determined by Faulty Hermeneutics”. In it he explains proper biblical interpretation and steps through the flaws in Adventism’s misuse of Daniel 8:14 to support the investigative judgment.
As we were communicating with Ford’s staff, including his wife, I asked if Ford was still officially a Seventh-day Adventist. We had understood that he had never removed his membership.
A member of his staff replied to me that Ford had recently removed his name from Adventist membership because he had applied for a job at a Baptist seminary in Australia, and they were not willing to consider hiring a Seventh-day Adventist. Ford did not subsequently get that job, but he remained outside the official roles of Adventism.
Nevertheless, I questioned them about whether Ford still attended Adventist churches and observed the Sabbath. They never gave me direct answers; instead, they told me that he spoke frequently and travelled often, going wherever he was asked to speak.
Satisfied that he was no longer officially Adventist, it seemed to us at Proclamation! that we would not be sending a double message to publish Ford in our magazine.
Seven months later we were shocked.
Desmond Ford had been invited to speak at the Campus Hill Adventist church in Loma Linda, California, on September 6, 2008. Thrilled to hear him in person again, especially after having published him in Proclamation!, Richard and I found seats in the balcony of the already-packed church when we arrived shortly before the meeting started.
Ford delivered a powerful explanation of the gospel, and after his talk, he participated in a Q & A session with Kendra Haloviak from the faculty of religion at La Sierra University, Jon Paulien, dean of the School of Religion at Loma Linda University, Larry Christoffel from the pastoral staff of Campus Hill Church, and Fritz Guy, also from the faculty at La Sierra.
The second question of the session was asked by Kendra Haloviak. I share the transcript of her question and of Ford’s answer:
Kendra Haloviak: Some of our friends, some Adventist pastors and lay people who were deeply blessed by learning the gospel, they have left Adventism over the seventh-day Sabbath. They have placed it alongside Paul’s comments about circumcision and about food issues and they suggest that to demand a specific day for Sabbath-keeping is to move from salvation by grace alone to some type of works. I just wonder this afternoon what you would say to these friends of ours who have made that decision. They see it as part of works righteousness as opposed to…if I really embrace—and they LOVE Scripture, they deeply love Scripture and are trying to be faithful to it. But if I embrace a particular day of worship I’ve moved from an arena of grace to an arena of law-keeping. What would you say to our friends who have made that decision?
Des Ford: Kendra, it’s my concern, too. The human heart needs support all the time from the Holy Spirit. I do not want people to follow me any further than I’m following Christ. The only book written against Robert Brinsmead’s protest over the Sabbath I have written: The Forgotten Day. I wrote it not long after Glacier View to support the seventh-day Sabbath. I refuse to join breakaway groups because I felt the problems such as you’re mentioning would take place. I could not please the people [who were] evangelical at Andrews because I felt they were going too far. So my concern is exactly the same as you, that some people can take a good thing and misuse it, but that doesn’t kill the truth that they are abusing. God instituted marriage, and most marriages are a failure. Marriage is holy, but marriage is terribly abused. But I agree entirely with the concern that you have that people who are forsaking very clear biblical truths like the seventh-day Sabbath and holiness of life in order to pursue their own lusts. I’m with you (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwnaK5Bob7Y).
Nearly eleven years later I still remember the feeling I had when those words left Ford’s mouth. Spoken with some heat (although he could never be accused of open anger), Ford had just relegated those of us who had left Adventism because of the gospel of the Lord Jesus and the glory of the new covenant to being, essentially, slaves to sin. He said that all of us left the Sabbath to pursue our “own lusts”, and he even added that we not only forsook the seventh-day Sabbath but “holiness of life”.
Not only was this a generalized statement, I realized, but he had to be aware that he was speaking of his own acquaintance and friend Dale Ratzlaff. He knew Dale. In fact, everyone in that building likely knew of Dale—his books and ministry had already brought the news of the new covenant to tens of thousands of Adventists and had earned him the opposition of Adventist leaders. To make a statement such as the one he made and to imply that Dale forsook the Sabbath and a holy life to pursue his own lusts was like a punch to the gut.
Furthermore, he knew Dale’s ministry—and ours—had published him in Proclamation! only months before. He had agreed to have his work printed in a magazine proclaiming not only the gospel that Ford loved but the fulness of Jesus’ finished work expressed in the new covenant!
Private admission: any day can be a day of rest
An almost unknown fact needs mentioning at this point. While Desmond Ford publicly maintained his unwavering support for the seventh-day Sabbath to the end of his life, boldly using all the familiar Adventist arguments to support it, he made a private admission to Dale Ratzlaff in 2010.
Dale had just completed his second revision of Sabbath in Christ and had sent his manuscript to his friend Des Ford for review before printing it. Des read the manuscript and responded to Dale that he had done a “beautiful job” explaining the gospel. Then he said, “But we need a day of rest. We need a day of rest!”
Dale asked Des, “If I were to take that rest day on a Sunday or a Monday or a Tuesday, would that fulfill your need for a day of rest?”
Des’s answer to Dale was“Yes.”
Privately Ford was willing to admit to Dale that a day of rest could be on a day other than the seventh, but this admission was never one he made publicly. In general his Adventist audience did not know he conceded “rest” could be experienced appropriately on a day other than Saturday Sabbath.
Summary
I want to go on record stating that I consider Des Ford a true brother in Christ. He clearly understood the gospel that we are saved by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus alone. I believe we will spend eternity together rejoicing in the fulness of truth and reality when the Lord allows us to know as we are known.
I also believe the Lord raised up Des Ford in the Adventist organization to do the work he did so well: he exposed the unscriptural fallacy of the investigative judgment. Moreover, the gospel which he loved and taught opened the eyes of many Adventists to the fact that their works do not contribute to their salvation. Many, in fact, in the early years after Ford’s Glacier View defense, embraced the gospel and eventually left Adventism and became part of the body of Christ.
As the years went by, however, Ford continued to remain loyal to most of the Adventist distinctive doctrines and sympathetic to the Adventist organization. As late as 2017 he went online defending the Adventist understanding of the seventh-day Sabbath, soul sleep and annihilation.
For some reason which only God knows, Des Ford reached a different conclusion about Adventism than did many others who discovered that Scripture shattered the core of Adventism. He did not admit that an organization that is built on a lie cannot be considered to represent biblical truth. If the foundation is false, every other doctrine must be re-examined. For some reason Ford did not use his sharp hermetical skills to see what the Bible actually says about the new covenant, about the seventh-day Sabbath, and about the nature of man and death.
I believe that if Des Ford had had the courage to follow his own example of scrutinizing the investigative judgment and had applied that scrutiny to the rest of the Adventist doctrines, he would not have been able to stay Adventist for most of the rest of his life. Because he did, however, the powerful influence he had after Glacier View began to wane.
In fact, because he stayed connected to Adventism and defended its other doctrines, he influenced many to stay without looking deeper. As one young couple remarked after hearing Ford speak in Loma Linda at that seminal 2008 meeting, Desmond Ford has shown us that we don’t have to believe in the investigative judgment in order to remain Adventist.
Des Ford has left a mixed legacy in and around Seventh-day Adventism. If he had had the courage to allow his scholarship to confront the full theology of Adventism—if he had had the courage to abandon the prophet and the movement that binds its members to fear and a fallible Jesus—I can only imagine what his legacy might have been! †
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Thanks Colleen. I’ve always wondered whether or not Des changed his position on Sabbath-keeping. Seems that he did so privately, but after preaching support for the Seventh-day Sabbath for the whole of his life, he was unwilling to declare his true position publicly. That’s sad.