We got mail…

Adventist gospel is not the gospel

I just wanted to share some thoughts I’ve been having recently. The more I hear through your podcasts, you tube presentations, and reading, the more I realize now why I always had feelings of immense frustration in Adventism. Sitting in church I used to feel sad that I couldn’t invite non-believing friends (my husband included) to the Adventist church. I thought that the  messages they preached were only suitable for someone who had already come to know Christ. Although occasionally hearing about Jesus, I felt so often that the message would be “inappropriate” for someone who needed to come to the Lord in order to understand the wonderful grace of God. Instead, Adventist services focused on the law or end-time things or health, and many preachers quoted Ellen White. 

Something was missing, but now I know what—I realize that the Adventist gospel is not the gospel at all! 

Thank you for everything you are doing.

—VIA EMAIL

 

Shocking but freeing 

I wanted to tell you that your most recent podcasts on the nature of man and the nature of God, who Christ is, what He came to do, and especially your most recent podcast 108 on Fundamental Belief #9 “Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ,” has been huge for us as it has revealed the fact that we have definitely had a flawed understanding of who Jesus is and why he came. It has been a rather shocking and yet freeing realization! Though neither of us was raised Adventist, we remember being actively taught that sin is about breaking the law and that it would be possible to get to heaven by living a perfect life, but since we are unable to do that because of our sin nature (i.e. our “propensity” towards sin), Jesus came to live a perfect life for us, that that was part of the “work” that He did to save us. (Even recently our in-laws handed us a book for our kids called, Think, Act, Be Like Jesus—we threw it out immediately!).  

I never understood that Jesus’ perfect law-keeping was not an achievement, but that his law-keeping just revealed who Jesus is, that sin is about spiritual death, and that it was His death, burial, and resurrection that accomplished His work of saving us by conquering death and giving us spiritual life. I thought I understood this fact, but I’m realizing that my understanding has been really murky. 

I have been in the Reformed church since my mid-20’s, and I have loved learning the biblical doctrines of God’s sovereignty and man’s total depravity, spiritual death, spiritual life, and so forth, but I’m now realizing that at a heart level, I have still been hanging onto the idea that sin is about breaking the law and that Jesus’ life was our example of how we should live, and so I always have this nagging sense that I am such a huge disappointment. 

Hearing you talk through these things this week has been amazing. It has opened our eyes to the error in our thinking and given us more clarity of understanding on how the fall relates to sin and how sin relates to spiritual death and that Jesus came to give us spiritual life, not to give us an example of how we should live or the power and means to stop sinning. I’m still processing through all of this.

—VIA EMAIL 

 

Can sincere Adventists be saved?

Thank you for your continuing podcasts. I am getting tremendous insights from these messages; sometimes I get the “aha” moment after the second or third time listening to the message!

I do have two questions for you after listening to the latest podcast on the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. The first is about our sins and that God doesn’t remember our sins once we are born again. This is great, but what’s our part? Do we need to confess our sins once we are born again? 1 John 1:9 and James 5:16 suggest that we are to confess our sins, and it appears that these verses are being written to believers.

Second is your statement in one of the podcasts that the reason you are so passionate about your ministry is that you want to bring out Adventists from the false doctrine into the Bible truth, and that their salvation is at stake.

 My question is, do you think that an Adventist can be saved if they believe that Jesus died for their sins, which I think that many—or most—do believe. I also know of several Adventists who are very devoted to their beliefs and appear that they are very close to God and trust His leading in all aspect of their lives. They state that they can see God’s leading in their lives. For me, its hard to think that they can be “lost”. Do we really need to convert Adventists? I do realize that you should, once /if you are convicted, take action consistent with your convictions. Your thoughts are appreciated.

—VIA EMAIL

Response: You are right; 1 John 1:9 ad James 5:16 are written to believers. Even as born-again believers we will sin, but the Holy Spirit does not let us sin successfully forever. When we have been made spiritually alive in Christ, our sin bothers us, and it becomes a hindrance to our openness to the Lord Jesus as well as to those we may sin against. But even if our sin is only private, it creates a barrier to our fellowship with the Lord. We do need to confess or repent of it to the Lord when we realize we have sinned as believers.

The difference now, though, is that the fact that we have sinned does not take us OUT of salvation. We are still born again and placed in Christ. Being alive in Christ, however, makes us even more sensitive to the barriers to fellowship that our sins create. In order to harbor sin in our hearts as born again believers, we have to harden our hearts—and that hardening not only makes us less bothered by sin but it makes us less open to the Lord. In fact, Hebrews 3:13 helps me understand this dynamic:

Hebrews 3:13: But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

This is saying that believers can become hardened not just by sin directly, but by the deceitfulness of sin, and this hardening can be so subtle and gradual that we don’t recognize it at first. This reality is one of the reasons why the Lord puts us in fellowship with other believers; our encouragement of one another helps us see truth and reality more clearly and brings us face to face with our own blind spots. The Lord works in us continually after we believe, and He matures us and shows us our sin and weaknesses and brings us to the place where we must confess those things to Him and allow His Spirit to have access to our weaknesses so His strength can be made perfect (2 Cor 12:9). 

So yes—we do have to confess—but that confession is not for the sake of being re-saved. Our sins, as believers who are born again, are all forgiven at the cross. That is why we are adopted and born again! But our still-mortal flesh still sins (Romans 7), and the Lord works in us to teach us to trust Him more and more deeply. We confess and repent as He shows us how to trust Him instead of indulging our fleshly habits and desires. He changes us as we go through this process. It’s just that this process of repentance/confession is now occurring from a position of knowing the Lord and of being spiritually alive. We are never saved by our obedience. We are saved by our belief and trust in Jesus! Our salvation is not “being good”. It is being given LIFE instead of spiritual death. Our spiritual growth takes place by faith AFTER we are made alive. 

As for devoted Adventists. That is a tough question, especially when we are close to them.

First, we never convert people. Adventism definitely takes the position that we convert people to “the truth”, but that idea is unbiblical. God Himself works in people to soften their hearts to the truth and to help them see who Jesus really is. In fact, the more we try to make an Adventist see the truth when they are unwilling to see, the more they tend to harden their hearts. Arguments and discussions that go nowhere do more harm than good. We are instructed, however, to declare the gospel of Jesus’ finished work and to be ready teach and answer questions. Paul said this to Timothy:

2 Timothy 4:1–2: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

As I have thought about Adventism over the years, I struggled at first with the same questions you asked. Here is what I have come to believe. First, unlike we were taught as Adventists, we are not saved on the basis of sincerity. Scripture never tells us that God evaluates whether or not we are “living up to all the light we have.” Instead, Romans 1:18–21 is very clear that God reveals Himself, His eternal power and divine nature, through what has been made, so that all men are without excuse. Now, God’s self-revelation through nature is not the special revelation that shows us how to be saved, but when people believe and recognize God, He Himself makes sure that they receive the knowledge of the Lord Jesus that is necessary for salvation. 

We were taught that we are responsible for people having the knowledge they need to be saved, but Scripture never says that. God reveals Himself, and He brings the truth to them by whatever means He knows they need. As far as Adventists go—I had to face the fact that I always had Scripture. To be sure, I didn’t know how to read it, but ultimately I had God’s living word, and He never stuttered. Rather, my internal framework misinterpreted Him. But God knew what I needed, and He sent situations to me that caused me to look at His word with questions and with the desire to know truth. He awakened a hunger for truth, and He sent situations and people at just the right times to help me see truth in His time. 

Salvation isn’t a matter of sincerity or of living up to my sincere beliefs as I understand them. Scripture is clear that salvation is by believing in the One whom the Father sent (Jn. 6:29, Acts 16:31; John 5:24). It is belief and trust in Jesus and His finished work, and that belief involves repentance and the recognition that we have held onto beliefs that God did not tell us were necessary. Adventists believe that Jesus died for their sins, but Adventism does not teach its members to understand that the Lord Jesus actually propitiated God’s wrath against sin (Romans 3:25-26) and that we are by nature children of wrath. Adventists believe Jesus’ death is a ticket to salvation, but they have to have other things in order so that they can cash in on that ticket. They have to keep the Sabbath; they have to live healthfully; they have to be loyal to the “truth” that is Adventism. They actually believe in a false Jesus—a Jesus who could have sinned and failed; a Jesus who ceased to exist while in the tomb; a Jesus who came to uphold the law and to place people UNDER its requirements—which include its curse. 

When I would think about sincere Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, I could see that they needed to leave those religions and trust Jesus in order to be saved. But I couldn’t look at Adventists and see the same need. All I could see was the sincerity of many Adventists who believed Jesus died for them and who sincerely believed their religion was truth based in Scripture and who were loyal and sincere. I had to realize that Adventism does not teach the true gospel. It teaches a FALSE gospel, and Paul anathematized anyone who teaches “another gospel” (Gal. 1:6). 

All to say, Adventists do not, regardless of sincerity, place their full weight of trust on the Lord Jesus ALONE. Furthermore, Adventists do not understand that they are BY NATURE children of wrath and under condemnation (Eph. 2:1-3; John 3:18). They do not recognize that they need to repent and trust the true Jesus. A sincere Adventist is no more “saved” than is a sincere Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness. They truly believe they have the truth, but believing they have truth doesn’t make it so. 

I had to come to see Adventists as needing the gospel. If I assume they are saved because they sincerely worship Jesus as they understand Him, I can cut them off from the gospel by not recognizing they need to understand the truth. 

That being said, it is the Lord Himself who brings people to repentance and to a recognition of their need for Him. Meanwhile, if you are close to an Adventist, I believe the best thing you can do is to be true to your own commitment to the Lord Jesus. As you recognize the truth of Scripture, it is a powerful witness for you to be true to your own convictions.

No, you cannot convert an Adventist. Yes, you can be true to Jesus and love Adventist loved ones for Him. The Lord will deal with them. I would suggest, though, that you offer to just read through Scripture with them on a regular basis…try just reading through whole New Testament books, one chapter at a time.