Tainted Doctrines and Besetting Sins
Colleen and Nikki, I SO enjoy your podcasts! I think I have listened to every one you have done. You really did a good job “unpacking” those fundamental beliefs, but I’ll have to say I still get confused when its’s said that if we take this or that belief out (meaning EGW’s heretical doctrines), it all comes crumbling down. I understand some doctrines being dependent on each other—such as you can’t have an investigative judgment with a belief that believers go to heaven after they die.
Is it possible for you to lay those connections out point by point? You probably have done different ones at different times, but it’s hard to remember how reality is different from Adventism when all my life the origins story is stuck in my head, and I’m not connecting the dots. I have to confess, Nikki—years ago when we were messaging you asked if I had “unpacked” Adventist doctrines. I didn’t really know your true meaning until I listened to the fundamental beliefs podcasts!
I have a couple more questions: what would you say about any kind of “besetting sin” (as in Gal. 5:19-21), when there is belief in God and a desire to do right, but when one continually fails? I know we all fail and we have an advocate, but in Galatians it says these people will not inherit the Kingdom of God. And I think it’s in 1 John where it says if one is born of God, one doesn’t make a “practice” of sinning. It seems to me that whatever particular sin or even sins one does, he or she tends to do the same sins over and over, so in that way it seems like “practicing”. I just don’t know how to interpret that…
Again I love love your podcasts! They are very inspiring.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you so much for writing. I understand your questions and confusion. Let me use a big-picture answer to your question about how the doctrines are all connected. First, it has helped me to understand that Adventism has NEVER been part of the Christian church. I will attach a link to the PDF file of a past issue of Proclamation! that contains an article on page six that may help you understand this historical background: https://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/Proclamation2007_MayJun.pdf
That being said, I’ll explain briefly: Christianity began with the apostles’ teaching when they were commissioned by Jesus to take the gospel to the world. The apostles’ teachings were written in letters and documents that became the New Testament (by the agreement of the first century and early second century Christians), and all we need for life and godliness and the knowledge of God’s provision and will is contained in Scripture. The church that has existed since the first century has its roots in the apostolic teaching that reveals our triune God, the Lord Jesus’ provision for us through his death, burial, and resurrection, and the Bible is our inerrant source of reality and truth. It is God’s Spirit Himself who teaches us to trust and apply Scripture to our lives.
Christianity, like a tree, grew and eventually split into two branches about a millennium after Christ, and those two branches became the Western (Roman Catholic) church and the Eastern (Eastern Orthodox) church. Those two branches were still connected in their roots to the apostolic teaching and shared that source, but, it might be argued, each of these two branches developed some aberrant teachings that have obscured the gospel that would require true believers in the biblical gospel to reform or even to move away from those churches in order to worship more truthfully and biblically. In fact, such a split DID occur about 500 years later when the Protestant Reformation grew another branch that split off from the Roman Catholic branch. The Reformation branch eventually formed many smaller branches that we might identify today as various denominations with differing practices, but if one traces those branches back down the trunk of the tree, they still have their original roots in the apostolic teaching.
Again, I am not saying that all of these splits and developments are authentic Christianity. In fact, I believe that Catholicism and Orthodoxy are far enough away from the apostolic gospel that one might be compelled to leave these churches—and I would say the same about some of the denominations that have grown out of the Reformation. Nevertheless, all of these branches have something in common that the “Christian cults” do not share: roots in the apostolic teachings of the New Testament.
And here is where we have to see Adventism. As the early church began to grow, a plethora of heresies grew up around it, and the early church fathers had to deal with them and to establish orthodox teaching. Those heresies included such things as Arianism (Jesus was once created or had a beginning and was not eternally almighty God), Ebionism (a syncretistic belief that included the law and an emphasis on diet and cleansing), and others. The early church dealt with these heresies and clarified that anyone who tried to teach these ideas was to be treated as a heretic and was forbidden to teach in the church.
Even though these heresies were identified and condemned early on, they never ceased to exist. Self-styled religious people always kept dipping into the human-centric paradigms of heresies and building movements around them. In the 19th century this response to heresies suddenly grew new life, and at least four “modern” quasi-Christian cults were formed: Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventism, and Christian Science. Not ONE of these religions had its roots in the apostolic teaching. Adventism, the cult we know best, was firmly rooted in Arianism. Essentially all the founders were openly anti-trinitarian/Arian, and Adventism’s doctrines were formed around the presupposition of anti-trinitarianism and a non-eternal, weak Jesus. It’s important to realize that every single doctrine was formed by people who didn’t believe in the Trinity, who didn’t understand Scripture without EGWs visions, and who didn’t have any understanding WHATSOEVER about the new covenant or the sufficiency of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.
In other words, they are a cult. They have a completely different root system from Christianity. They have NEVER been part of the Christian tree. Nevertheless, they grew up around the tree, and their branches eventually mingled with the branches of the tree, and their leaves look almost the same. If you look at the “forest” of Christianity, you would be nearly unable to discern the difference between the branches of Adventism that have intertwined with the branches of Christian denominations. Only by tracing the branches backwards DOWN the tree back to the root will you discover that the Adventist branches are connected to a completely different plant from the churches. Adventism is connected to the heresy-bush of Arianism (and one might also argue of Ebionism) that originally germinated in the shade of Christianity. But the roots are not Christian. They are literal, defined HERESY. Consequently, the branches and the leaves of the Adventist tree are NOT CHRISTIAN. They are the deceptively adapted crown of a noxious weed that has blended in with Christianity. Only by looking closely and tracing everything back to the root can one see that Adventist doctrines are ALL tainted—and unified. If you break off the most look-alike doctrinal branch from the Adventist bush, it is nourished by the sap of the heresy of Arianism and Ebionism. It has no trace of the nourishing sap of the New Testament teachings! It has poison in it.
Concerning besetting sins: Paul was writing in Galatians to gentile believers who had been born again. Yet in any congregation of true believers, there are always some who represent the “bad soils” of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13:1–23. The rocky soil and the weedy soil represent people who do receive the gospel seed and germinate gospel plants. Yet the rocky soil does not provide nourishment for the roots, and when the heat is on, the plants die. The weedy soil is choked with the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth. These cares that fill the weedy soil choke the gospel seed and do not nourish it, and the gospel plant becomes “unfruitful”. These soils represent people who are attracted to the gospel and even claim it for themselves, but they fail to place their full trust in the Lord Jesus. They attempt to hold onto the gospel while also retaining their worldly cares and their own hard-hearted doubts and unbelief.
When Paul writes to a church and cautions against the kinds of sin not allowed in the kingdom, he is cautioning a church in which he cannot see the condition of the the soil of each heart. In Romans 7 he explains that even committed believers have a “law of sin” in their members (verse 23) that cause believers to do things they do not want to do, things that disagree with the new heart and mind that has been transformed by the new birth and no longer DESIRES to indulge one’s sinful heart. In fact, Paul concludes this description by asking who would deliver him from this body of death and exults that NOW there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! Believers still sin because we still have mortal, un-resurrected, unglorified bodies. But because we are born again, we can recognize our sin and bring it to the Lord in submission to Him, allowing His Spirit to transform us. This is the sort of call Paul is making in Galatians.
He is warning that if people persist in holding onto sins they just can’t or won’t give up, they may be bad soils that need to respond to the gospel and trust Jesus. They may not actually be true believers at all—but if we are true believers, the Lord will patiently lead us to submit to Him as He shows us the areas of our need. The passage in 1 John that you mentioned is talking, again, to true believers and is pointing out that those who have been born again are no longer living in darkness, no longer living out of a still-dead-in-sin heart that is primarily self-serving and does not trust Jesus. Paul in Romans 7 explains that true believers still have sinful desires in our flesh, but these are things we are asked to submit to God. We are never asked to “overcome” all our sins in this life. We are not even asked to overcome sins in order to be saved. Rather, the biblical picture is that people who have been born again have a new position (in Christ instead of in Adam, transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son), new power (the indwelling of God Himself and the spiritual life He gives us when we believe), new potential (to be conformed to the image of the Son Rom. 8:29), and we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16).
True believers are in Christ, and they overcome in HIM. He is the One who overcame evil, and when we are His, His overcoming is ours.
So, Paul can be understood in Galatians 6 to be calling anyone who might fall into the weedy or rocky soil categories to examine his own heart and to repent and trust Jesus if he has only superficially embraced the gospel. Simultaneously, he is reminding true believers that they are not the slaves of their sin anymore. They have a Savior, and they can bring their temptations and fleshly desires to the Lord and ask their true Father to take care of them and to show them how to trust Him instead of self-indulging. And when these same believers DO sin, they have an advocate with the Father!
The important thing for us formers to remember is that the gospel and our salvation are not dependent upon what we do; salvation is dependent upon whether we are dead spiritually or alive through trusting and believing. We were so thoroughly taught that we have to good to get there—and Scripture says we have to ALIVE to get there. We have to BELIEVE!
Adventism gave us a heretical understanding of Scripture because our past religion’s root is deeply embedded in heresy that still colors every single doctrine and practice. We have to repent of our deception and trust God, and He will transfer us to His kingdom and redeem our past. Our sins will no longer define us; our trust in Jesus will, and He is faithful to work in us until our lives are over. He is now responsible for us, and He is the One who’s promised to complete what He has begun in us (Phil 1:6)
What Is Repentance?
What does repentance mean? How does the Bible explain the repentance required before salvation can be given?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: In Scripture, “repent” is used to say one turns away from his sin toward the Lord. A classic text is Peter’s use of “repent” in his Pentecost sermon. In Acts 2 we find this:
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:38–41).
Repentance means agreeing with God about our sin. Adventists are not taught that they are by nature dead in sin—literally spiritually dead—and that they must be brought to life spiritually (see Eph. 2:1–3, Romans 3:9–15, Colossians 1:13).
I’ve discovered that one of the biggest problems Adventists have as they begin to grapple with their religion is not understanding that they are by nature condemned (Jn. 3:18). Adventism teaches that “repent” means to admit one’s sins are offensive and to commit to stop doing them. Then they launch onto a road of fighting sin and of begging God to give them the strength to overcome.
Scripture, however, does not give this picture. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:1–6 that in order to see the kingdom of heaven, he must be born again, born of water and of the Spirit (in reference to Ezekiel 36:25-26). God promises to wash us clean and to give us new hearts, new spirits, and His Spirit. Repenting means that we recognize our natural sinful state—not just a state of embedded bad deeds but a state of being unable to AVOID or overcome sin. In fact, Romans 7 describes the fact that the law was given to increase sin, to identify our sinfulness, and to cause us to despair. Repentance is admitting we cannot please God or in any way do works that recommend us to God or build His kingdom unless we trust Jesus and throw our entire existence, identity, and future on His completed atonement which literally propitiated for our sin.
Adventists see “repentance” as begging God for forgiveness for all our bad deeds, and Jesus’ blood will take care of each sin that is confessed. In more progressive Adventist circles, on the other hand, some say that Jesus’ blood took care of ALL sin, so a person just needs to accept that fact and begin living as if one is right with God. Both of these approaches deny the personal nature of Jesus’ sacrifice and of our own need and of God’s calling of us.
When we see in Scripture that we are born LOST and unable to get right with God by any amount of commitment NOT to sin, we are driven to admit that we are helpless and unable to be good. We need a Savior, and we turn to Jesus and see that He has literally paid for all our sin which was all imputed to Him on the cross. When we see that all our efforts to be good are worthless works, we throw ourselves on His mercy and trust and believe that He has done all that is necessary to save us. This admission of our true state—dead in sin and eternally condemned by nature—and admitting that we need our Savior to rescue us is repentance. We agree with God and turn from our natural identity to Him who offers us a new heart, a new spirit, and His own Spirit residing in us. When we trust Him, we are born again, and His Spirit testifies with ours that we are children of God and joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:12–17).
God is the One who gives us the faith to believe. He knows that we are by nature unable to believe and trust Him but by nature keep trying to manage our eternal destiny by trying to please God. When we realize we CAN’T please Him apart from trusting the Son, we give up our efforts and believe that He has told us the truth and that He will do what He says He will do in us—finish what He began (Phil 1:6)! His death, burial, and resurrection are EVERYTHING we need—and when we trust Him, He gives us Himself to continue to show us how to trust Him at deeper and deeper levels. Now, instead of fighting SIN, we learn to submit to Him and to His word when we are tempted. We turn to Him and ask Him to show us how to proceed in the face of temptation in a way that will please Him. We finally have the ability to choose to trust Jesus instead of to indulge our temptations!
We will, of course, still sin—Romans 7 again—but there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus! Over time, as we continue to trust Him even in our worst temptations and faithless moments, He gradually matures us and grounds us in the reality of our knowledge of Him. I recommend reading through (or better yet, copying) Romans 7 and 8 and just allowing the living word of God to speak His eternal reality into your heart.
Response to a Letter from Last Week
This is in reference to the gentleman whose letter I read last week about being snared by Adventism. I can empathize with you with regard to your wife reading Ellen White books and listening to Walter Veith. The reason why is that my wife does the same thing. Not only does she listen to Walter Veith but also Doug Batchelor, Dwayne Lemon, CD Brooks, Henry Wright, and more.
My advice to you regarding Ellen White is to think logically as to why her teachings are wrong. The roots of Adventism started from William Miller wrongly predicting the return of Christ, first in 1843 and then in 1844, and he calculated the dates from reading, ironically, the most commonly used book in the bible from an Adventists perspective: the book of Daniel.
Ellen White turned what was known as the Great Disappointment into the investigative judgement. This doctrine is supposedly the divine judgment of professed Christians. My first question about this supposed event is this: why did God decide to do something of this magnitude on this particular date? If anything, in my opinion, something like this would have been established from either the start of creation or after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, where does this 1844 establishment of a major doctrine of salvation leave people who were Christians who were born and had died before that particular date without knowing about such a thing?
—VIA EMAIL
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I was fascinated with your answer to the first letter-Tainted Doctrines and Besetting Sins. I never before understood just what is really wrong with Adventism. I mean really, deep down at the foundation-wrong. Thank you for explaining it so clearly. Now I better understand just why it seems so “off”.
Thank you, Jeanie. That “root” defines the religion’s DNA. You can’t “reform” it. It is intrinsically what it is. When we discover what it really is, we have to follow truth and reality and abandon the deception.