I can already imagine the wheels spinning in your mind at hearing my provocative title. Of course Adventism has a serious problem with legalism. But before you walk away from this article, hear me out on this one.
Despite the diversity of stories and backgrounds of people who leave the Seventh-day Adventist church, it’s quite impressive that formers almost universally agree that Adventism has a problem with legalism. Yes, there are stories of abuse to be told. Yes, there are a host of doctrinal issues at play. There are, in fact, many reasons why Seventh-day Adventists are leaving the church in droves. Yet with all the reasons each individual might give, almost all would include the charge of legalism somewhere.
What is even more incredible is the fact that a seriously significant segment of current Adventists would agree in principle that their own church tends toward legalism. While they may not articulate it in quite the same way as formers, the issue is repeatedly raised––and not just within one category of Adventism.
Sonia Huenergardt, writing for Adventist Review back in 2005, begins a piece titled “Are you a legalist?” with the following statement: “Legalist. It’s a dreaded word in Seventh-day Adventism.” While the author herself was raised in a different denomination that apparently lacked this problem, she freely admits that “Adventism, on the other hand, has borne the stigma of legalism since its beginning.” This stigma is powerful enough that even those that are most ignorant of Adventism––those who never grew up in the denomination and are largely unaquainted with its teachings––are more likely than not to cite the seventh-day Sabbath and Judaistic legalism as prime characteristics of the church.
In a doctoral dissertation defended at Andrews University in 2005, Juhyeok Nam chronicles the assessment of both evangelicals and Adventists of the infamous Questions on Doctrine book, almost certainly the most controversial work ever published within the church. Even before its publication, evangelicals such as J. Oswald Sanders had concluded that the church was thoroughly legalistic. Writing in 1948, he charged that Adventism is “the recrudescence of first-century Judaism.” Horton Davies, another evangelical, grouped Adventism together with other cults (such as Mormonism) under the label “Judaistic.” Responding in part to this widespread view among evangelicals, Questions on Doctrine devoted an entire chapter to “Questions on Law and Legalism” (others included topics central to Adventism such as Sunday and Sabbath, prophecy, and Ellen White).
Walter Martin’s landmark work Kingdom of the Cults, written after Questions on Doctrine (and whose assessment of Seventh-day Adventism is in part based on that book) describes the movement as follows: “[T]hey are often prone to believe that their remaining saved depends on commandment-keeping.” He ultimately classified the group as orthodox (albeit with heterodox tendencies), yet the charge of legalism stuck. More recent evangelical evaluations of the church also often place it in the orthodox camp (to varying degrees), while nevertheless pointing out the issue of legalism.
A blog article from Nathan Busenitz, dean of The Master’s Seminary (an evangelical institution in California) is instructive. The author comes short of calling the group a cult, though he does state that “its doctrinal distinctives fall short of orthodoxy.” (Busenitz does points out that “[h]istorically, evangelicals and fundamentalists regarded the Seventh-day Adventist movement as a cult.”). Among criticisms of Ellen G. White and her authority in comparison to Scripture, he titles a section in his blog with the following characterization of Seventh-day Adventism: “A Legalistic Emphasis on the Sabbath and Dietary Laws as Binding for Christians.”
Where do all these assessements leave us? There seems to be a strong impression among many groups that Adventism has a problem with legalism. Perhaps, then, the old adage holds true: “Where there’s smoke, there’s a fire.”
Sin: the real problem
When we examine the whole phenomenon of “legalism” more closely, however, other interesting observations emerge. Merriam-Webster defines the term as follows: “strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code.” With such a definition, it is no wonder that most religious people claim to reject legalism––nevertheless it clearly exists in some fashion (even to the point that the same people will claim that it is a “problem”). This is true of Seventh-day Adventism. No less an authority than the current president of the church, Ted Wilson, revealed as much when speaking at an Oakwood University event in 2011. In the address, the president called on listeners to seek “Christ’s all-encompassing righteousness” (his term for the Adventist conception of righteousness). Urging his hearers, Wilson declared: “Legalism will not do it. It blocks the only way to salvation––total dependence on Jesus Christ, our only way to salvation.” Rejecting any characterization of the Advent movement as legalistic, Wilson went on to state: “This call for revival and reformation is not some legalistic, ‘pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps’ kind of religion. It is centered in Christ and Him alone.”
Ironically, we can agree with Wilson’s statements on one level. Legalism does in fact block our way to salvation. However, to former Adventists who understand the coded language, Wilson demonstrates that there is a more fundamental, underlying problem in Seventh-day Adventism than legalism. He explained this problem more explicitly in the following remark during the same speech: “The two great provisions of salvation––justification and sanctification––cannot be separated for they constitute the fullness of Christ’s all-encompassing righteousness.”
What, then, is the underlying issue? What is the root cause behind Adventist legalism (among its other problems)? I would submit to you that an Adventist’s most pressing need, like that of any human being, is the need to deal with the problem of sin.
This problem (sin) would not be such a problem if we were dealing with another kind of God. But the true God, the God of the Bible, has resolutely and adamantly set his face against sin and wickedness and against those who commit it. Were our God like a corrupt politician, there would be no sin problem. But he is not. “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you” (Psalm 5:4).
Unfortunately, Adventism’s attempts in dealing with sin (and finding acceptance with a righteous and holy God) read like a catalogue of failures. There is a conspiracy of sorts among numerous Adventist doctrines that inevitably leads to abject failure––witnessed, in part, by the symptom of legalism. For what can legalism indicate, if not the fact that any religious system that exhibits it has failed to adequately deal with the problem of sin?
Only a brief overview of major areas can be covered here (each has been dealt with extensively many times by Proclamation! and other resources), but notice how every major division of theology in Adventism touches upon sin.
Facing a holy God
The great controversy theme presents a “controversy” about God, diverting from the actual, biblical controversy: man and his sin. This God must be assisted by humans in order to be vindicated; how can he then be the true solution to the problem of human sin? Man himself, however, is also presented differently from the Bible’s description, compounding the problem. For what could be a more natural route to legalism than viewing human beings as merely physical entities (endued with some life force)? Such a view of man inevitably leads to a clinical analysis of sin: what can be observed on the outside, what can be measured and counted. This material view flies in the face of the biblical perspective which depicts the fallen sons and daughters of Adam as truly spiritually dead, though outwardly living (cf. Ephesians 2:1).
Thirdly, and most fatally, the Adventist doctrine of salvation is woefully inadequate to the task of dealing with sin. Though there are a diversity of Adventist theological perspectives, it is interesting to note that all (historic, moderate, progressive) distort the cross of Christ. Among the various conceptions are models with a two-stage atonement (with a heavenly sanctuary defiled by human sin––hardly a success), atonement that covers past sins (but not future sin), atonement that is intended to move the individual through Christ’s identifying with human brokenness (as opposed to His suffering vicariously for sin), and so forth. None is able to do what the biblical Jesus actually did: “the lamb who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
In conclusion, I would submit that dealing with the Adventist problem of legalism is something of a red herring. The real issue that needs to be addressed is facing the holy God who created each of us and demands the perfect righteousness that is so lacking in us. Any religious system that fails to provide a solution to this problem can and will inevitably lapse into legalism (as do all non-biblical worldviews and religions).
The only real solution is found in the vicarious, suffering death of the Son of God, who bore the wrath of God against sin, swallowing it up completely, so that those who place their trust in Him would be deemed righteous, forgiven, justified. His resurrection is their vindication and their life.
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:21–26).
- Gaslighting—By Adventists - October 17, 2024
- My Only Comfort in Life and Death - August 22, 2024
- False Abraham Created By Ellen White - June 27, 2024