When we begin to question Adventism, our internal reality shifts. Things we believed were absolutely true now seem doubtful. On one hand we begin to see that Scripture seems to say things we were taught could not be true. On the other hand, we read warnings from Ellen White (or hear her echoes in our heads) that threaten us with eternal damnation if we dismiss her testimonies. The seismic shift threatens to bury us alive as we try to dig out of our new discoveries and cognitive dissonance.
What is truth? Can we even know it? How are we supposed to figure out what to believe?
We feel doomed by terminal uniqueness; no one looking on understands our internal war zone. We don’t know whom to trust or where to turn. Who can understand us?
Actually, this experience is common to almost everyone who leaves Adventism. Because almost all of us go through the same struggle to discover what is real and true, I am going to address our shared confusion with some words of hope and reality.
Skewed worldview
Adventism has its own worldview. It does not teach the gospel of Scripture nor the Jesus of Scripture, yet it uses all the same words. Consequently, as people with an Adventist background who begin to question our cherished beliefs, we have to deal with two things.
First, we have to deal with the biblical gospel that Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day according to Scripture (1 Cor 15:3,4), and that His sacrifice and resurrection completed the atonement. There is NOTHING more needed to deal with any of our sins, and when we trust His finished work and repent of our sin, we are justified and pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24). We will never come into judgment once we have trusted Jesus and have been born again (Jn. 3:18; 5:24).
In fact, according to Scripture, there is no practice or work we can or must do that keeps us saved or contributes to our salvation or our standing with God. If we can’t be saved by our works, we cannot be lost by them, either. In other words, Adventists sometimes say Sabbath is not necessary for salvation, but they will say that once they know about the Sabbath, if they give it up they will be lost. This contradiction is not true. Something that cannot contribute to our being saved cannot contribute to our being lost. Our salvation is based entirely upon our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus (Eph. 2:8,9).
Are we going to trust Scripture alone, or are we going to include extra-biblical source(s) as part of our authority?
Second, we have to deal with what we consider our authority. Are we going to trust Scripture alone, or are we going to include extra-biblical source(s) as part of our authority? The Bible claims for itself that it is God-breathed and sharp enough to divide between our joints and marrow, our soul and spirit. God’s word—Scripture—judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts and corrects us and teaches us. (Heb. 4:12,13; 2 Tim. 3;16, 17).
Further, Hebrews 1:1-3 is explicit: God’s final word to us was Jesus. In the past He spoke through prophets—in many ways and places—but in these last days He has spoken through His Son. There are no last-day prophets. That is an Adventist teaching that does not come from Scripture. In fact, Jesus warned that many false teachers and prophets would come and deceive many. We listen to Jesus and we read God’s inspired word; we have to reject extra-biblical prophets.
When we deal with these two things—the true gospel and our source of authority—all the confusion of Adventism begins to resolve. If we are willing to read Scripture in context using normal rules of grammar and vocabulary, the confusion clears up. When we trust Jesus, we are literally born again because our dead spirits are brought to life by the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus (see Ephesians 2:1-10; Romans 1 through 8). His spirit indwells us and seals us (Eph. 1:13-14), and He Himself, the Author of Scripture, teaches us His word and applies it to our lives. The Bible suddenly makes sense when we are willing to trust Him and to give up our “right” to hang onto our conflicting beliefs and trust Jesus alone.
Here is the hope that can underlie our pursuit of reality and truth: it is knowable! Truth exists, and it is absolute. The caveat that must drive our discovery, though, is this: we have to be willing to lay before the Lord Jesus everything we think we know and ask Him to teach us truth and reality.
The foundation
We are all born dead in sin. No one is able to seek God, please God, or know God on his own; we are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3; Romans 3:9–18). As spiritually dead people, we cannot understand God’s word on our own. God reveals Himself to us and teaches us and brings us to life as we trust what He reveals to us (see Romans 1), but no natural person who is not born again can adequately understand Scripture. When a person desires truth, God reveals it because He puts that desire in our hearts, and He makes His word come alive.
People who are spiritually dead but want power and control, however, often use the Bible to invent their own private religions and beliefs, and they use it to manipulate people into following and obeying them. This is what the early Adventists did. They did not teach Scripture but developed their doctrines based on EGW’s visions. They admit this fact in their denominational history book Lightbearers to the Remnant. When people desire to know what is true, however, and ask God to reveal it, He does—and He lets us feel the resulting confusion so we will be drawn to His own revelation in His word.
Adventism’s founders were nearly all anti-trinitarian and/or Arian. They did not believe in the Trinity nor in the biblical teaching that all the fulness of God dwelt in Jesus in bodily form, nor did they believe the Holy Spirit was a person.
Furthermore, Adventism’s founders were nearly all anti-trinitarian and/or Arian. They did not believe in the Trinity nor in the biblical teaching that all the fulness of God dwelt in Jesus in bodily form (Col 2:9), nor did they believe the Holy Spirit was a person. But Jesus said He was sending another Comforter when He left. He said He and the Father would also make their abode with believers. The Bible clearly teaches that there are three Persons who share substance and attributes. God is spirit, Jesus said to the Samaritan woman (Jn. 4:24-25). All three Persons are spirit—but Jesus also took on a human body. Yet He never stopped being God the Son who is spirit.
The Trinity is a core belief of biblical Christianity, but the foundation of Adventism denied the biblical revelation of our triune God. All Adventist doctrines were built on an anti-trinitarian assumption.
When I realized that the Adventist “gospel” was not taught in the New Testament—that Adventism taught me a diminished Jesus who did not complete the atonement at the cross, I realized they had taught me a false religion—and I realized they had lied. I knew I could not betray the Jesus I had come to know through the contextual reading of whole New Testament books. I could not deny this amazing Jesus by staying in an organization that pretended to worship Him but who actually had a false version of Him. Staying would be living a lie and supporting a deception.
Ultimately, every one of Adventism’s beliefs is “off” from Scripture. At first I didn’t see that fact, but the more I read the Bible, the more I realized that not one of Adventism’s doctrines was biblical.
Examining our “source”
Adventism uses proof-texts to support itself, not contextual reading. When I started reading whole chapters at a time and saw their proof-texts in context, I realized they did not teach what I learned they taught. In fact, reading Scripture shined the light on my “Ellen White influence” . I thought I had left her behind, but gradually I realized that many of my understandings as well as assumptions were rooted in her commentary.
No prophet of God can utter false prophecies. Deuteronomy 18 is clear about that fact! If even ONE prophecy fails, that prophet is not from God and must not be feared. No, EGW cannot be a prophet of God nor even a nice devotional writer. She said false things about Jesus and the gospel and the whole Trinity. I had to release everything I believed that had come from her, and I had to ask God to show me what was true as opposed to what was from Ellen.
Furthermore, the Bible says absolutely NOTHING about a coming Sunday law. This dreaded prophecy is entirely the product of EGWs Great Controversy vision. The mark of the beast will be given to those who do not trust Jesus, not to those who worship on Sunday. The seal of God is the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14), and the mark of the beast is not yet known, but we know that true born again believers will NOT receive it. We do not need to fear it! Our salvation is entirely dependent upon whether or not we trust Jesus and have been born again. Keeping a day is not part of our “salvation package”.
What about death?
Adventists teach that humans are merely bodies-plus-breath and that when we die, our breathing ceases and nothing of us remains except as a memory in God’s mind. In other words, the Adventist version of humanity is merely physical. The Bible teaches, however, that we have spirits and bodies. Moreover, the Bible says that when our earthly tents (bodies) die, we (our spirits—our identities) go to be with the Lord, and that is “very much better” than remaining in our mortal tents. Further, it says that whether we are at home in our bodies or away, we make it our aim to PLEASE GOD. We can please God even after death when our spirits are with Him (2 Cor. 5:1-9; Phil. 1:22-23). If we are merely bodies that die in the grave, we would not be able to please God when we are absent from our bodies.
The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is one of Adventism’s deceptions when they discuss the “state of the dead”. They deny that the story of the rich man in Hades begging poor Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom for water reflects anything true about death.
“That’s just a parable,” they say dismissively. “Jesus just told that story to illustrate the eternal outcomes of humble poor people as compared to selfish, arrogant rich people.”
This parable, however, suddenly came into focus when our pastor Gary Inrig came to our Former Adventist Fellowship Bible study one Friday evening. When we asked him about that passage, he looked at us baffled for a moment and then said, “Jesus never used an untruth to teach a truth.” Jesus told about Lazarus because He was telling us a reality that explained not only the eternal outcomes of the arrogant and the humble, but also the eternal reality for those who had legitimate faith and fear of God and those who didn’t.
I realized then that I had believed Jesus would tell us untruths to support truth because EGW did. She said that God held His hand over William Miller’s “mistake” about Jesus coming in 1843 so that people would get ready. She taught us that God would deceive and trick us for His ulterior motives of “getting ready”. NO! God never tricks us nor deceives us! He cannot lie!
Does God reveal truth to sinners?
Truth is accessible to all people. The blood of Jesus opened a new and living way to the Father (Heb. 10:20). Now everyone—sinners and saints alike—can approach God in repentance and with requests for truth. He does not wait for us to clean up our acts before showing us reality. God saves SINNERS, not good people. Salvation is not about making bad people good but about bringing dead people (each of us born spiritually dead) to life via the new birth when we trust Jesus. Even believers sin, but there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom.as 7:14–8:1). God reveals Himself and the truth about Jesus to us when we ask Him to show us truth. He always answers that prayer, and He gives us the grace to believe and trust Him.
Spiritually dead people often claim to teach “truth”, but their truth claims do not make their words true. There is only one TRUTH: the Lord Jesus. We find Him when we submit our needs to God and ask Him to show us what is true. He makes His word come alive. There is only one way to be saved; no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, and our triune God reveals Himself, convicts us of our sin and of His mercy, and brings us to life. There is one TRUTH, and He has given us His word and His Spirit to reveal Himself to us.
God will never judge us for turning away from a false religion. Adventists say that what God looks for is “sincerity”, but Scripture never makes this claim. God asks for hearts that believe and trust the real Jesus. Ellen White said we would be rejecting truth to reject her, and she warned that those who rejected her would fall into apostasy. She deceived us.
God will never ask us why we turned away from a religion and an extra-biblical prophet that taught a different Jesus and a different gospel. In spite of her claims, Ellen White has never been a source of truth. God HAS given us the truth, however: His word. He asks us to trust Him, and He reveals the mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus to us while we are still sinners!
Those doubts and fears about losing salvation if we leave EGW and Adventism, though, affect each one of us because EGW taught us that to leave her “testimonies” would lead us away from God. She lied. She is a false prophet. The Bible says no such thing!
What about talking to family?
Family is hard. They may or may not want to hear what we are learning and experiencing. In fact, many of us lose our Adventist families to one degree or another. Nevertheless, we can tell them what we are learning. We tell them who Jesus is and what Scripture says. If they become angry and argumentative, though, arguing won’t help. Ultimately we are not to cast our pearls before pigs (Jesus’ own command) lest they trample the pearls into the mud and turn and rend us (Mt. 7:6). But the Lord is faithful, and He brings us more than we lose. His provision may not look like we think it should, but it is far better than what we could have devised. He brings us family in Him. (Mt. 10:16–25; Mk. 10:30).
We can expect our family to become hostile if we “leave the Sabbath” because they believe, as we all did, that keeping the Sabbath holy is the last-days mark of those who are ready to be saved. This teaching, however, is entirely the result of EGW’s visions. This idea is not found ANYWHERE in Scripture. The Sabbath has been fulfilled in Jesus, and in the new covenant there are no holy days or times or places. (See Galatians and Hebrews.)
When we decide that we have to honor the Lord Jesus even over our families, though, He carries us through the emotional fallout. Even though loved ones may become angry or cold toward us, the love and security of our true Father and the reality of Jesus holds us and more than compensates for the losses we experience.
Can I just focus on the gospel and not worry about all the other doctrines?
The most important thing is the true gospel of the Lord Jesus and knowing the real Jesus of Scripture. Jesus could not fail; He could not sin: He has always had all the attributes of God. When we realize who Jesus is and what He has done, when we admit our sin and trust Him, suddenly all the other things begin making sense as well. God leads us step-by-step to Himself, and He reveals the next things we need to know in His time. It’s not “on us” to figure out everything all at once. The Lord reveals and convicts us, and when we have been born again, His word begins to come alive. We cannot ignore all the “other things” once we know Jesus!
Being born again is what defines God’s people. We are made spiritually alive and literally indwelled by the Holy Spirit who is our guarantee of our eternal future (Eph. 1:13, 14)! No behavior has to define us to anyone. In the spiritual realm, our new birth is visible; we are sealed by God Himself, and He keeps us. Being born again places us in a different kingdom: the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13), and as a citizen of this new kingdom, all the wisdom and reality of God is ours in Christ. We cannot continue to cling to false beliefs without God Himself bringing us to His word as He gently corrects us and teaches us truth.
We are obligated to study the Bible for ourselves! We cannot dismiss personal pursuit of the Word because we don’t know what to believe or fear we might come up with a wrong answer. In fact, Paul commended the Bereans as being more noble than the Thessalonians because they searched the Scriptures (and that was the OT Scriptures) to check on what he said to them (Acts 17:11). We are morally obligated to study for ourselves. When we ask God to direct us and go to His word, reading contextually using the normal rules of grammar and vocabulary, God will answer our prayer. His word is true and cannot fail.
In fact, we MUST check everything another human teaches us—and that includes checking what EGW said. After all, she was just another human, and a manipulative and deceptive human at that.)
The Holy Spirit is faithful to teach us truth from God’s word. Furthermore, He sends people into the lives of His own children who will hold them accountable and teach Scripture faithfully. As we pursue the Bible, we discover that it is consistent, and the things we learn there are taught by other Christians as well. God confirms what we learn in profound ways. Moreover, He has raised up a lot of former Adventists who can affirm and confirm the questions and contrasts you see.
When we begin to question Adventism, the fear we feel is universal among us. The reason is simple: extricating ourselves from Adventism is a spiritual battle.
When we begin to question Adventism, the fear we feel is universal among us. The reason is simple: extricating ourselves from Adventism is a spiritual battle. Adventism teaches doctrines of demons (see 1 Timothy 4:1–6), and EGW had a demonic guide. It is a spiritual battle to leave, but Scripture tells us how to proceed (Ephesians 6:10-17; Philippians 4:6-7; John 10:28-30).
Ellen taught that the devil can give a person questioning Adventism a false peace, that he will deceive us and make us believe we have found “truth” when we question our religion. Again, she lied.
The devil will never give us peace. He gives us fear and a certainty of unworthiness and death. It is a lie from Ellen that indulging in sin and deception will give us unnatural energy, joy, or peace.
When we trust Jesus and know He has forgiven us and saved us, when we understand that He has done everything necessary for our salvation, we KNOW we are secure! That peace cannot be imitated!
The promises in Scripture were the antidote to the doubts and fears I experienced. When we have trusted Jesus alone and have experienced the new birth that is His grace and mercy for us when we have believed the gospel of our salvation, we KNOW we are saved. We are new people, and we KNOW it (Romans 8:14-17). Ultimately our fear is addressed by trusting Jesus; He then carries us through the doubts, and we realize that nothing is a surprise to Him. We can trust Him!
If you are beginning to question Adventism, here are some links that will help you understand the differences between Adventism and Christianity:
- What Is Seventh-day Adventism?
- “Walking in the Light: A Journey out of Adventism”
- How To Be Secure In My Salvation
- April 27–May 3, 2024 - April 25, 2024
- We Got Mail - April 25, 2024
- April 20–26, 2024 - April 18, 2024
Colleen,
Thanks for all you do. I share your articles on Facebook in hopes of reaching friends and family still deluded by the false teachings of EGW and the doctrines of Adventism.
Praying they will come to know the Truth!
Jayme
I have a new friend who is being bothered by the Adventists. I can tell he is in a spiritual war. As a former Adventist I know little bit about this war though I did not understand what they were teaching. He is a Christian though confused and that is where the spiritual war comes in. If they can get you into their church they hope they have you. I am trying to prevent that by warning him to stay away from them. He needs the armor of Ephesians 6 and I believe he has not learned to put all the armor on. That is where your newsletter comes in. I am sharing it with him. Thank you for it! Also, I wanted to mention I did some work for some Adventists near me who know you Mrs. Tinker. She claims to read your newsletter, and agree with it, and yet they still go to the Adventist Church. I strictly admonished them that if they knew they were a cult they should have left! They don’t even go to another church with Sunday services, only with the Adventists do they attend. Why is it that when Adventists hear the truth, claim to agree with it and yet continue in the cult? Because there friends are there, that’s why, and maybe they are lying when they say they agree with you. Just sayin~ I can tell you they still act like Adventists.
Thank you Jayme…the Lord is calling His sheep to Himself from wherever they may be trapped. Anne, I understand what you are saying. Many Adventists say they “agree” with us, but if they really did agree, they could not remain. Many Adventists know the problem with their doctrines, but because they still embrace the Adventist worldview, they cannot imagine leaving. They still believe man is merely physical, that Jesus does not have all the attributes of God, that He could have sinned and failed, that EGW was somehow used by God—whether as a prophet or merely a spiritual guide—and they still believe the Sabbath has some sort of eternal significance.
Unless an Adventist really encounters the biblical gospel and hears it, believing in the finished work of the Lord Jesus, and unless the Adventist honestly deals with the issue of “authority”—whose word do they believe, Scripture alone or EGW’s interpretations plus Scripture—they will remain bound in the Adventist worldview. The doctrines alone are not sufficient to keep them. Adventism is a spiritual deception. Only God can remove the veil that covers their hearts (2 Cor 3), and only the Holy Spirit can awaken the willingness to want to know truth.