Review of republished Questions on Doctrine (Annotated Edition)
The groundbreaking volume, Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine (QOD), has been out of publication for over 40 years. It was originally published in 1957 as a joint effort between the Seventh-day Adventist church and some evangelical Christians, namely, Walter R. Martin, Donald Gray Barnhouse and George R. Cannon.
History
Martin was preparing a book, Rise of the Cults, that would have included the Seventh-day Adventist church as a non-Christian cult. He made direct contact with individuals within the church to make sure he was representing their theological positions correctly.
He received feedback from some Adventists that his portrayal was inaccurate. He requested a representative group of leaders to meet with him regarding a series of questions he had developed. The answers would demonstrate to him whether the SDA church was a cult, an evangelical Christian denomination, or a heterodox sect.
The individuals that were involved from the Seventh-day Adventist church included LeRoy Edwin Froom, Walter E. Read, and Roy Alan Anderson. T. E. Unruh, president of the East Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, spoke with Reuben R. Figuhr, General Conference president (1954-1966) who, in the summer of 1955, formally approved the conferences already underway.
Adventist theological waters had been occasionally stirred up over various issues prior to 1957, but it was then that a storm began which rages to this day. The explanations of four doctrines that almost instantaneously caused major rifts between now-warring factions within the church were: 1) The atonement of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, 2) The relationship between grace and works in salvation, 3) The deity of Jesus Christ and the Trinity and 4) the human nature of the incarnate Christ.1
Accomplishment of the original Questions on Doctrine
This single volume accomplished two major changes for the Seventh-day Adventist church. First, it increased the acceptance of Seventh-day Adventists as fellow evangelical Christians by many who trusted Barnhouse and Martin’s scholarship. The language used in the book was also language that was comfortable to and used by many evangelical Christians.
Second, the book caused significant confusion and strife within the ranks of Adventism. The language used to explain Adventist doctrines was not consistent with language used by most Adventists prior to 1957. It appeared in some cases that the authors had made slight changes in the understanding of unique Adventist doctrines. Some polarization between previously agreeable groups within Adventism began to occur.
With the current annotated edition, the 46-year-long effects of the book may reverse if the annotations are received as an official statement by the church. Many evangelical Christians may no longer look on Adventists as fellow evangelicals, while those inside the denomination may find greater acceptance from their fellow Adventists rather than being referred to as “disaffected brethren” or “ultra-conservatives.”
Fast forward
The history leading up to the current republication of QOD has yet to be fully compiled. Within the Seventh-day Adventist church those in agreement with and opposition to QOD have spoken freely (and sometimes hotly) in the forty-six years since publication. Martin had recognized that the Adventist church of the 1980’s was not the same as that of the 1950’s, with which he had dealt originally. The controversies surrounding Desmond Ford and his lengthy study of the Investigative Judgment2, as well as Walter T. Rea’s study of the plagiarism of Ellen G. White3 had caught Martin’s attention. He had formulated three new questions and had asked help from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to provide answers for these questions which were:
- Why is the book Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine no longer available?
- Does the Seventh-day Adventist church still hold to the answers it gave in that book to the doctrinal questions non-Adventists have posed?
- Do you regard the interpretations of the Bible by Ellen G. White to be infallible, that is, to be the infallible rule of interpreting Scripture? For instance, if an issue comes up where you are debating something and Mrs. White speaks on it, is that the infallible voice?
W. Richard Lesher, vice-president of the General Conference, responded to Martin’s letter on April 29, 1983. In that letter, Lesher stated:
You ask first if Seventh-day Adventists still stand behind the answers given to your questions in Questions on Doctrine as they did in 1957. The answer is yes. You have noted in your letter that some opposed the answers given then, and, to some extent, the same situation exists today. But certainly the great majority of Seventh-day Adventists are in harmony with the views expressed in Questions on Doctrine.4
The first question was answered as well in his reply. The third question was left conspicuously unanswered. Martin was not satisfied. He was becoming ever more aware of the nature of the strife the original book had caused as well as of the damage done to ministers who aligned themselves with the statements in QOD. Martin wanted a face-to-face meeting with leadership from the church, similar to what was done in the 1950’s, to reconfirm, and go beyond, the statements provided in 1957. He also requested that QOD be republished so that he and the Christian world could know that the church stands behind its 1957 statement and could be considered a Christian denomination.
He was finally given a face-to-face meeting with William G. Johnsson, editor of Adventist Review, the church’s primary weekly organ. The meeting aired on the television program The John Ankerberg Show in 1985. Martin challenged the church and its representative Johnsson on national television to republish QOD.5 That particular program caused quite a stir within Adventism, opening afresh some of the wounds that had healed since 1957. In answering Martin’s questions, William Johnsson consistently held up the Twenty-seven Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists. Martin was not receiving a frank “yes” or “no” in answer to his questions regarding the church’s position on QOD. The unanswered question and the “yes” answer given by Lesher was a contradiction to Martin. This, as well as what seemed to Martin to be theological changes away from the positions printed in QOD, frustrated him. He strongly stated that the label “cult” may again be applied to this church, or perhaps the label never should have been removed as it was becoming apparent that he may have been deceived by a well-meaning minority of men in leadership in the 1950’s.6
The republication of QOD would not happen in Martin’s lifetime. Walter Martin passed away on June 26, 1989. The recent republication with annotations does provide the answers for which many have been looking.
History: a solution?
History is sometimes necessary to help restore peace in times of conflict. In the Adventist church, history may play a significant role in bringing to an end the years of debate and confusion regarding this one volume.
George R. Knight is an accomplished professor of history at Andrews University, the Adventist theological seminary in the United States. The author of numerous books, he has provided clear insights to important events and individuals involved in setting the stage for Adventism as well as to those in the early years of the church. Some titles include From 1888 to Apostasy: The Case of Alonzo T. Jones (1987), Millennial Fever and the End of the World: A Study of Millerite Adventism (1993); A Brief History of Seventh-day Adventists (1999); and A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs (2000).
The essential need regarding QOD was for someone in an authoritative position within Adventism to bring clarity to some of its ambiguous statements. Knight has accomplished this and more. To begin, he realizes the scope of the situation the book generated:
Questions on Doctrine easily qualifies as the most divisive book in Seventh-day Adventist history. A book published to help bring peace between Adventism and conservative Protestantism, its release brought prolonged alienation and separation to the Adventist factions that grew up around it.7
… Questions on Doctrine has been vilified by many Adventists and has probably done more to create theological division in the Adventist church than any other document in its more than 150-year history. (p. 516)
Knight’s “Historical and Theological Introduction” to the annotated edition provides a concise presentation of the people and events leading to the publication of QOD in 1957. His theological perspective, beginning on page xxvi, provides some of the reactions from both inside and outside Adventism. In this part of the introduction and throughout the annotations he also gives his interpretation of the theological statements made in the book.
His first “theological conclusion” is the most unusual statement in the annotations:
We are now in a position to make a first theological conclusion regarding Questions on Doctrine: That the book is almost entirely made up of clear restatements of traditional Adventist theology that are phrased in such a way that the book remained faithful to Adventist beliefs while at the same time speaking in a language that those outside of Adventism could understand more easily. (p. xxix)
The fact that years of division and strife within the SDA church “grew up” around the publication of this book indicates that these were not “clear restatements.” However, Knight points out, when one reads QOD, one is reading traditional Adventism. Evangelicals Martin, Barnhouse, and Cannon thought they were receiving “clear statements”, but they were actually reading words designed to camouflage traditional Adventist doctrines. The doctrinal statements in QOD were unclear to church members, and divisions grew up around the newly worded doctrines. Traditional Adventism is what Martin and Barnhouse were concerned with from the beginning, but because of the evangelical-sounding words used in the book, the men were led to believe that Adventism had come to hold orthodox evangelical positions. Following 1957, Martin spent a lengthy career defending the SDA church as a Christian denomination. He believed that QOD was truly a change in Adventist understandings from certain previous historical positions.
Perhaps Knight could have written: First Theological Conclusion:
The book is almost entirely made up of restatements of traditional Adventist theology. However, it was phrased in such a way that the book confused faithful Adventists, while at the same time speaking in a language that was more acceptable to some evangelicals, allowing them to believe changes had been in place for years.
Answers on doctrine
The answer Walter Martin never received to his third question from the General Conference in 1983 has finally been answered. The new annotated edition of QOD has modified the church’s answers to the first and second questions so they align with the third answer. The answer to the first question, why is the book QOD no longer available, has been modified from “there are many copies of this book available in libraries” to the actual “republication” of an annotated edition. The answer to the second question, does the Adventist church still hold to the answers it gave in QOD to the doctrinal questions posed by non-Adventists, has been modified from “yes” to “not as the answers were stated in the 1957 edition of QOD.” The third question again was:
Do you regard the interpretations of the Bible by Ellen G. White to be infallible, that is, to be the infallible rule of interpreting Scripture? For instance, if an issue comes up where you are debating something and Mrs. White speaks on it, is that the infallible voice?
This question may never be answered with a firm “Yes” or “No.” To answer “Yes” would deny the repeated statements that the Bible alone is used to derive Adventist doctrine. A “No” would, for many in the church, deny the special “Gift of Prophecy” that was given to God’s last-day messenger, Ellen G. White for the purpose of leading this denomination further into the light of the “present truths” revealed through her. The new annotated QOD, however, affirms that Adventism has never modified its doctrines. Indirectly this “new” volume affirms Adventists’ dependence upon Ellen G. White by supporting all of the church’s doctrines and traditional interpretations.
Jesus’ deity
The church had revised and published 22 Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists in 1931. Fundamentals two and three included statements on the Trinity and the full deity of Christ, yet it was well into the 1940’s that debates continued within the church on the deity of Christ. (It wasn’t until 1985 that the wording of “Holy, Holy, Holy” in the church hymnal was re-worded to include the traditional Trinitarian phrase, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity”, replacing the Adventist emendation “God over all Who rules eternally”.) By the 1950’s, the church was able to state that it was to be recognized as a truly Trinitarian denomination. The way this doctrine was stated in the 1957 QOD was deceptive and false.
Our people have always believed in the deity and pre-existence of Christ, most of them quite likely unaware of any dispute as to the exact relationships of the Godhead. …we have statements from Ellen G. White, at least from the 1870’s and 1880’s, on the deity of Christ, and on His oneness and equality with God; and from about 1890 on she expressed herself with increasing frequency … (QOD, p. 48)
Note in the above quotation the church demonstrates that it has statements from Ellen G. White supporting Christ’s Deity. In the Fundamental Beliefs, Certificate of Baptism, and Church Manual, scripture is referenced in support of Christ’s deity. We will see, however, that the members and leaders use Ellen White as the final authority.
Many of the early anti-Trinitarians include Ellen White’s husband, James White, Uriah Smith, General Conference president and author of Daniel and the Revelation, E. J. Waggoner, author of Christ Our Righteousness, and many other significant figures in early Adventist history.
Knight’s knowledge of this history provides us with a correction to the point of view stated in the original QOD:
Ellen White was one of the very few among the earliest Adventist leaders who was not aggressively anti-Trinitarian. (p. 46)
Neither was she aggressively Trinitarian. If she had been stronger on this point, there would not be so much confusion in the church on the doctrine. Knight identifies the problem as current:
“… the denomination in the closing years of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first has witnessed a resurgence of anti-Trinitarianism and semi-Arianism on the basis that the earliest founders of the denomination held those views.” (p. 39)
Note that this resurgence is not on the basis of scripture, but on what the early SDA founders believed. He then unintentionally emphasizes Adventists’ confusion over the question of Christ’s deity by referring to a statement of Ellen G. White’s in her book The Desire of Ages, p. 530, referring to Christ, “… in Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived.” His annotation indicates:
That statement and others proved to be quite controversial and drove Adventist scholars back to their Bibles … (p. 46)
This provides great insight into the methodology used by Adventist scholars. It was not a controversy over the deity of Christ that caused them to search the scriptures. The statement from Ellen White caused them to go back to the Bible. It appears that they were reading the writings of Ellen White, then looking for Biblical support for her statement.
Jesus’ human nature
Regarding the human nature of Christ, the original QOD states,
It could hardly be construed, however, from the record of either Isaiah or Matthew, that Jesus was diseased or that He experienced the frailties to which our fallen human nature is heir. But he did bear all this. Could it not be that He bore this vicariously also, just as He bore the sins of the whole world? (QOD, p. 59)
The men in conference identified Jesus’ humanity as a humanity in which He took our fallen nature vicariously. To state that He took our fallen nature literally would be to agree with Ellen White. Knight points out:
That position [of Christ’s vicariously bearing fallen human nature] is certainly not set forth in the New Testament. Nor was it the one held by Ellen White. … Thus according to Ellen White, at the incarnation Christ actually, rather than vicariously, took upon himself … “fallen, suffering human nature, degraded and defiled by sin.” 8
Note the wording used here, “Thus according to Ellen White…”. This again indicates that she is the final and authoritative voice on doctrinal matters. One will not find a statement such as hers in all of the New Testament.
In this statement, Ellen White indicates that fallen human nature has been defiled by sin. She believed that this is the humanity that Jesus took upon Himself. Unlike the authors of QOD, Knight prefers the wording provided by the church’s end-time messenger. This statement places the church squarely outside the evangelical Christian community. Evangelicals, whether Calvinist or Arminian, would never refer to Jesus’ human nature as “fallen” or “defiled by sin.”
Statements about the atonement of Christ and the nature of works
It is the question of Christ’s atonement in the heavenly sanctuary as presented by QOD that caused the greatest division within the church between the so-called “historic” Adventists and the more evangelical-leaning Adventists. The teaching of the Christian church across two millennia is that the shedding of the blood of Jesus on the cross of Calvary is a complete and final sacrifice and offering which atones for the sin of humanity and appeases the wrath of God towards humanity.
The original QOD claims that the Adventist doctrine of atonement “had a wider meaning than many of their fellow Christians attached to it.” (QOD p. 347, 348) This “wider” doctrine included an application of the blood in the “heavenly sanctuary” (a literal place in heaven, not just heaven itself) such that believers could appropriate it into their lives. Knight points out that the early Adventist doctrine of atonement was not wider but different. To quote Andreasen on this subject,
“But the slaying of the lamb did not in and of itself make atonement. … The blood of the Passover lamb had to be put on the lintel and doorposts before it availed for atonement. Must a like ministration of the blood of Christ, the true Lamb of God, also be observed? Hebrews answers this in the affirmative….”9
As Adventist believers travel on the road of imparted character perfection, the Holy Spirit provides the believer with strength to live as a perfect human, just as Jesus lived while on earth (p. 307). The word “imparted” is a word common to Catholic and Eastern Orthodox expressions of the Christian faith. According to The American Heritage Dictionary it means “to grant a share of”, or “bestow”. “Imparted righteousness”, therefore, means that a person receives a portion of, or a gift of righteousness. It is external and not intrinsic to that person’s identity.
Protestants would use the words “imputed righteousness”. “Impute” means to attribute or ascribe something (such as wickedness or merit) to another. “Imputed righteousness” indicates that believers stand perfectly redeemed before the Father, in Christ Jesus, as the Holy Spirit guides them in living a sanctified life. God sees their righteousness as intrinsic to their identity in Christ. It is not a bestowal or gift which is applied externally and can be removed. It is part of a Christian’s identity as a born-again child of God.
Knight indicates that justification is what Christ does for his people, and sanctification is what Christ does in his people. With this simple wording, all Christians would agree. However, the Adventist belief of living perfected lives without a Mediator in the end-times is not in alignment with historic Christian belief. This belief meshes with the idea of imparted righteousness: a person becomes increasingly law-abiding and righteous until he becomes perfect. Knight is in alignment with the fundamental statements of belief of the Adventist church including that of imparted righteousness and ultimate perfection. He includes both the 1931 Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists (22 statements) and the revised 1980 Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists (27 statements) to support his position.
The 1980 statement includes section 10, “The Experience of Salvation.” Here it is stated: “The Spirit … writes God’s law of love in our hearts, and we are given the power to live a holy life. Abiding in Him we become partakers of the divine nature and have the assurance of salvation now and in the judgment” (p. 12). God’s law of love, for the Seventh-day Adventists, are the Ten Commandments written on the heart of the believer with special emphasis on the fourth commandment. For Adventists, abiding in Christ and partaking of the divine nature provide assurance of salvation, rather than trusting in Christ’s completed sacrifice and offering on the Cross. In Adventism, His blood is currently being applied in the heavenly sanctuary and appropriated by believers to complete the atonement that was only begun on the cross.
Law, works and judgment
The section of QOD titled, “The Relationship of Grace to Law and Works,” is one of the few sections in the book where Knight has made no annotations. The book made some evangelical-sounding statements in this section.
Salvation is not now, and never has been, by law or works; salvation is only by the grace of Christ…. Nothing men can do, or have done, can in any way merit salvation. (QOD, p. 141)
… the authors of Questions on Doctrine equate the experiential character perfection of Matthew 5:48 with the perfect sacrifice of Christ in Hebrews 10, which perfected His people for all time (10:14).
Hebrews 10 is referring to … the perfection that Christ had accomplished for His people.
By way of contrast, the perfecting of Matthew 5:48 refers to what Christ is seeking to do in His people…. (p. 307)
Although there is some disagreement, most evangelicals identify the statement of Jesus in Matthew 5:48 as one of being, not of becoming. Christ doesn’t say “become perfect;” He says “be perfect.”
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:48, NIV)
Knight refers to what is done for us and what is done in us. For the Seventh-day Adventist, what is done in us is as integral to salvation as what is done for us. However, in Protestant evangelicalism, what is done for us is salvation. What is done in us is the lifetime work of the Holy Spirit. Nothing done in us is an integral part of salvation. For Protestants, it is a benefit of having been completely saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.
In Adventist theology, the Investigative Judgment is the primary and unique doctrine of the church, not shared with any other Christian body. Based on their interpretation of the book of Daniel, Adventists believe that, beginning on October 22, 1844, Jesus entered the second phase of His atonement in the Holy of Holies in the heavenly sanctuary. This judgment, an on-going judgment of believers, results in Christ’s application of His blood to those who are found faithful. Those who do not prove, through their character perfection, to be true saints of God, have their names removed from the Book of Life.
Knight shows an interesting development within Adventism regarding the nature of this judgment.
Many mid-twentieth century Adventists appear to have been fixated on judgment as condemnation. But the past fifty years have seen a growing perspective on judgment as the vindication of the saints.
Christians will have a pre-advent judgment, but the good news is that the Judge is not against them or even neutral. … When the pre-advent judgment is seen from that perspective, there is no reason why any Christian should want to reject the idea. (p. 334)
Here Knight, along with most of the Adventist church, has forgotten or avoided Jesus’ plain statement in John and changed the meaning of judgment. When speaking with Nicodemus about being born again, Jesus specifically refers to judgment as He says,
He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:18, NASB)
The common evangelical Christian belief regarding judgment is that all will be judged. Believers have already been judged in Christ Jesus, who paid for that judgment by dying on the cross in the believer’s place. Evangelicals also believe in a final judgment of believer’s works, where the dross will be burned away leaving only pure gold. Within Adventism, this Investigative Judgment is specifically for the salvation of believers, separating the wheat from the chaff before Jesus can come to resurrect dead believers and translate living believers.
Knight misinterprets the evangelical understanding of judgment. He directs his statement towards those such as Barnhouse and Martin.
Of course, those with a Calvinistic, predestinarian perspective, such as Barnhouse and Martin, would find no use for a pre-advent judgment, since the results of judgment had been predetermined in the mind of God. But such a perspective overlooks the clear teaching of Daniel 7 on the pre-advent judgment of God’s people being a verdict of vindication. (p. 334)
In Adventism, the judgment is actually not a vindication of believers; it is a vindication of God Himself. This idea is presented in the original QOD and not questioned by Knight.
If God alone were concerned, there would certainly be no need of records. But that the inhabitants of the whole universe, the good and evil angels, and all who have ever lived on this earth might understand His love and His justice, the life history of every individual has ever lived on earth has been recorded, ….
God’s love and justice have been challenged by Satan and his hosts. The archdeceiver and enemy of all righteousness has made it appear that God is unjust. Therefore in infinite wisdom God has determined to resolve every doubt forever. He does this by making bare before the entire universe the full story of sin, its inception and its history. It will then be apparent why He as the God of love and of justice must ultimately reject the impenitent, who have allied themselves with the forces of rebellion. (QOD, 420, 421)
The Investigative Judgment is the judgment of believers as Christ and his angels pore over the books in the heavenly sanctuary. The final judgment in Adventism is actually a judgment of God’s ways. Satan is the challenger, and God must answer him for the universe to understand that God is correct in His judgments. God must make sure everyone understands His love and must remove every doubt forever. It appears that God’s good works are to be judged as well.
The untransformation
The Seventh-day Adventists went through a major transformation in 1957. With the publication of Questions on Doctrine, they appeared to align themselves with evangelical Christians.
In 2004, the church may be on the verge of an undoing of that transformation, resulting in a reversal of all that the original QOD accomplished. Jan Paulsen, President of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist church, gave an address to church leaders in May of 2002. His presentation, The Theological Landscape, indicated much of what Knight has written into the Annotated Edition.
Paulsen makes these following statements:
…we are Christians of a very specific identity. …are we becoming more recognizable as “Christians” than we are as Seventh-day Adventist Christians? … I am speaking about our readiness to protect our identity.
Has our stand on ecumenism changed? … The answer, emphatically, is no. … And we have stated openly our reasons. … There is no change in our being separate; neither do we need to change our basic prophetic scenario.
… I underscore again that it is vital that we keep our separate identity. … And we continue to see ourselves as the historical remnant gathering the faithful remnant from any and all corners to the purposes of God.
Some would have us believe that there have been significant shifts in recent times in regard to doctrines that historically have been at the heart of Seventh-day Adventism.
Let no one think that there has been a change of position in regard to this [unique historical SDA doctrines].
Paulsen’s address was difficult for many “evangelical” Adventists. It stated, in effect, that the church is not an evangelical church. George Knight’s annotations in the “republished” QOD support Paulsen’s idea of separatism and uniqueness.
Knight has demonstrated several times that,
- Ellen G. White is the final voice and authority in doctrinal matters. Without using those words, he and others within the church unabashedly refer to her for beliefs and then attempt to find support for those beliefs from the Bible.
- The church leadership was neither transparent nor straightforward and was definitely one-sided to appease the evangelicals. In a word, they were deceptive.
- The original Questions on Doctrine cannot be trusted as an official doctrinal statement from the Seventh-day Adventist church.
- The Annotated Edition, published by a university as part of a collection of early “heritage” documents, shows that the church has relegated this volume to the status of an historical relic.
Knight made a strange statement about the wording of QOD in his introduction; however, he has demonstrated that QOD was neither a “clear restatement” nor was it “faithful to Adventist beliefs.” He uses history to counter his own statement as well as to provide insight to the doctrinal workings of this church.
To conclude, take a look at the 17th fundamental belief of the church. In part it reads,
… her [Ellen G. White’s] writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction.
For those familiar with the New Testament, this sounds eerily like a verse from the book of Timothy.
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness… (II Timothy 3:16, NASB)
In reading the annotated edition, this writer became confused at times. Not only are there contradictory writings from the pen of Ellen G. White and other authors in the church, George Knight seemed to be contradictory to himself at times. There seemed to be an underlying anger in the annotations against Martin, Barnhouse, Calvinism, and Evangelicals, while Knight used every effort to bring unity back to a church in turmoil for 46 years.
Adventists and evangelicals can be thankful that the Annotated Edition has been published. Rather than being confused by the deceptive leaders of the church in 1956, we can read Knight and be sure that the church has never really changed from its historical positions. Although the majority of members are Trinitarian, the church is a haven for works-oriented, anti-Trinitarians who make symbolic gestures to other Christian groups but who do not interact spiritually as members of the body of Christ. QOD was groundbreaking. Perhaps the annotated edition will be as well. †
Endnotes
- Knight, George R. Questions on Doctrine, Adventist Classic Library, Historical and Theological Introduction to the Annotated Edition, p.xiv, Andrews University Press, 2003
- Ford, Desmond, Daniel 8:14 The Day of Atonement and the Investigative Judgment, Evangelion Press, 1980
- Rea, Walter T. The White Lie, M & R Publications, 1982
- Martin, Walter R.; Zacharias, Ravi, Gen. Ed., The Kingdom of the Cults, Revised, Updated and Expanded Edition, p.537, Bethany House Publishers, 2003
- The John Ankerberg Show, Martin/Johnsson segments “Who Is Telling The Truth?”, 1985
- Adventist Currents, October 1985. “The Travail of William Johnsson”
- Knight, ibid, “Historical and Theological Introduction to the Annotated Edition,” p. xiii
- Knight, ibid, p. 56, quoting White, Ellen in The Youth’s Instructor, V. 48, No. 50, Dec. 20, 1900
- M. L. Andreasen, The Book of Hebrews, pp. 16, 17, Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1948
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