How Ephesians Contradicts Adventism #12 – Proclamation! Online Magazine

Adventism Warps Our Understanding of Scripture

Ephesians 4:17–32

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

The challenge with reviewing an entire book of the Bible, without skipping around, examining how Adventist’s teaching on the passage differs from an evangelical biblically-based understanding is that Adventist teaching doesn’t always stand in direct opposition to evangelical teaching. In some cases, the teaching is the same. In many cases the teaching is only slightly different.

Former Adventists are often criticized as being hyper-critical when pointing out what seem like very small differences. However, it is important to understand and discuss these small differences because those difference are part of the Adventist mindset or glasses which influence their understanding of Scripture. As an Adventist, it is important to understand what parts of your understanding of Scripture come from Scripture alone and what parts come from other sources (dare I mention anyone’s “favorite author”). As a Former Adventist, it is valuable to re-examine how the traditions and prophetic insights of the Adventist church have influenced our understanding of Scriptural passages.

There are aspects of the Adventist mindset that impact every verse of the Bible. When you begin a study with strongly held biases, the simple meaning of the words can take on different definitions. This is why I examine the passages so closely. Truth can withstand the deepest scrutiny, and errors will ultimately be revealed.

Paul begins this section with a clear call for Christians to act in a way that is consistent with Christian teaching. These former gentiles are strongly admonished to avoid going back to their previous ways. Paul makes it clear that the lifestyle of a believer should be different from the lifestyle of the culture around them. Believing in Christ means living like you believe rather than continuing in the sinful lifestyle of the world.

That message is clear, and Adventists and Evangelical Christians both understand that Paul is discussing a faith that extends beyond claiming the name of Christ and discusses how one lives one’s life as a Christian. The emphasis is not in the differences in how various groups understand what Paul states; rather, he is explaining what it means if a professed follower of God doesn’t meet the standard set forth here.

Since the time of Luther, evangelical Christians have explained the tension seen in our lives and explained in Scripture with the phrase “simultaneously saint and sinner”. This phrase doesn’t mean that we are part saint and part sinner, just like Jesus wasn’t part God and part man. This biblical concept is that we are, at the same time, both fully sinful and fully righteous. This is only possible because our righteousness (our being a saint) isn’t based on our actions or inactions. It is based completely on what Christ did for us. Because we are credited with Christ’s righteousness, we are viewed by God as fully righteous.

However, we are also, at exactly the same time, fully sinful. It helps to understand that it is impossible for us to be just a little sinful. James tells us that if we have broken any of God’s commands (such as gossiping or showing favoritism) we have broken all of His commands (James 2:8-10). His point is similar to the point that Jesus makes in the Sermon On the Mount when He equates an act of lust with adultery and insults with murder (Matthew 5:17-30). God doesn’t sort sins into big sins and little sins, or mortal and venial sins. Any sin makes us a sinner and, therefore, we all remain sinners.

While all of a believer’s sins are forgiven, it doesn’t mean that we should live however we want. Sin still has consequences. People are still hurt. God’s name can be drug through the mud because of what His followers do (Rom 2:17-24). The difference between those who live by the flesh and those who live by the Spirit is this: the carnal mind, knowing Jesus has paid for sin, sees in forgiveness a free pass to sin more. The Spirit-led mind, however, knowing that we sin as long as we are in our mortal flesh, values the free gift of forgiveness even more and longs to please God instead of himself.

For the Evangelical Christian, passages that call out sin and describe the life we are called to live serve to:

Point out our sin;
Highlight our ongoing reliance on God’s gift of forgiveness; and
Instruct us in living according to His will.

Contrast with Adventism

This understanding is not the general Adventist view when reading a passage like this. I have to say “general” view, because there are a number of Adventist teachings on how we are saved. It is interesting that the organization struggles to define and attain agreement on the most basic point of Christianity. While the Adventist Church has a vaguely worded belief statement about salvation, the hardest question most Adventists could ask for themselves is, “What must I do to be saved?”. Because Adventism doesn’t have a clear idea, or more accurately has a number of competing ideas, regarding how Jesus’ death saves us, the individual member can be left in perpetual doubt. The primary difference between what are seen as grace-oriented Adventists and conservative Adventists is the definition of what it means to be “fit for heaven”. Fitness for heaven can be defined a variety of ways:

Living in obedience to the 10 commandments;
Avoiding any willful sin;
Becoming a better person gradually (trend of your life); or
Being a better person than plenty of other people.

What all of these definitions include is some degree of works on the part of the follower. Therefore, when an Adventist reads a passage like Ephesians 5, the primary message ends up becoming a list of requirements separating real believers from insincere followers. The passage becomes a measuring stick to evaluate their own fitness for heaven.

Even though Adventists share this view that there are requirements real believers must meet, there are also some distinct differences in Adventists’ understandings of individual passages. For example, verses 23 and 24 speak of being “renewed in the spirit of your mind” and “putting on the new self”. The Clear Word illustrates the slight shift common to the Adventist mindset:

Renew your hearts each day by committing your hearts to Christ. Determine to live totally for Him. This is what it means to be a new person in Christ, recreated the way God designed, reflecting His goodness and holiness.

In the Adventist gospel, ongoing salvation is accomplished through the actions of the believer: committing and determining. By contrast, for the evangelical Christian, the renewal discussed is an action of the Holy Spirit on the believer; furthermore, the evangelical understands that the Holy Spirit’s fruit in our lives isn’t about achieving or maintaining our salvation. Rather our salvation was already accomplished.

Another interesting modification found in The Clear Word regards the new life of the thief. In Scripture, thieves are to find work to support themselves and to give to others in need (Eph. 4:28). The Clear Word adds that the thief “pay back what was stolen”. Restitution isn’t a bad idea. Many believers may be led by the Holy Spirit to do exactly that (as Zacchaeus was led to repay his fraudulent gain). However, that instruction is not included in this passage. Could this addition be another example of adding our works to Christ’s completed work?

As soon as I read the passage for this blog, I knew that one verse would be changed in The Clear Word and explained away in the Adventist Bible Commentary ( AdventistBC). The idea that we were already sealed by the Holy Spirit (v 30) is completely incompatible with Adventist theology. Embracing this one simple truth that is repeated in Scripture pulls a string that eventually unravels the entire knotted ball of Adventist doctrine. For instance:

If the Holy Spirit is the seal of God, then the Sabbath can’t be.
If sealing with the Spirit already happened during the lifetime of Paul, there can’t be a future investigative judgment starting in 1844 to determine who can be sealed for salvation.

So how does The Clear Word change this simple statement of Scripture to avoid these destructive conclusions? Let’s look:

Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit who put His seal of approval on you when you gave your heart to Christ. The Spirit is the only One who can keep you from living a life of sin and seal you for the day of deliverance.

The Clear Word creates two different seals, a seal of approval and a seal of deliverance. This allows one to be present time (even at the time of Paul) and the other to be future (immediately before the return of Christ). It is an interesting sleight of hand to help preserve Adventist doctrine.

This multiple seals concept didn’t originate with The Clear Word; it can be found in the AdventistBC comments on this verse as well. The AdventistBC alludes to a future sealing at the end of time by referencing people to Rev 7:2 and discusses a seal at the time of conversion signifying “that the approval of heaven rests upon (the convert’s) choice and experience”.

The unique Adventist worldview, created through Ellen White’s prophetic revelation of the Great Controversy paradigm, changes what Adventists’ understand when they read a passage in Scripture. These changes in understanding follow a person even when they leave Adventism. Unpacking these hidden influences through Bible study with people who understand how verses have been manipulated and twisted is an important step for Formers. Uncovering these hidden influences isn’t about knowing the right doctrines; it is about how fully we can embrace and appreciate the grace of God.

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Rick Barker

Rick Barker is a native of Southwestern Ohio and led a weekly Bible study for former SDAs in the area for over 10 years. Rick graduated from Andrews University in 1987 and received a Masters degree from the University of Dayton. He previously served on the staff of the Thomas Bilney Institute for Biblical Research and volunteered on the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry website. He is an active member of his local Lutheran church, having served as an elder as well as both an adult and youth Sunday school teacher. Rick was a volunteer for 6 years and remains a participant on the discussion boards. Rick and his wife Sheryl formally left the SDA church in 2004. Prior to this they had been active in the Miamisburg and Wilmington Ohio churches.

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