Nikki and Colleen talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They also delve into the differences between the true gifts and the manifestations that Adventism’s prophet experienced. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Colleen: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: And I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: Last week we looked at Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 4:1-6 about our unity in the Spirit as believers. This week we’re going to continue Paul’s discussion of the unity of the Body of believers, but this time it’s going to be in the context of his discussion of God’s gifts to the church intended for the equipping of the saints and the building up of the Body. But first, we want to remind you that we love hearing from you. You can email your comments or questions to formeradventist@gmail.com. If you go to proclamationmagazine.com, you will find our online magazine and articles, and you can sign up for our weekly email. You can find links there to our YouTube channel and to this podcast, and you can also donate using the donate tab. Please follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and if you love the podcast, please give us a 5-star review. It helps our podcast to grow and expand its reach. Also, our 2021 Former Adventist Fellowship Conference begins this Friday February 12, and goes to Sunday February 14. If you haven’t yet signed up to be part of that, please do. It’s going to be online-only this year because of the COVID situation, and we would love for you to join us by livestream, and if you sign up, you will be able to participate in our Zoom breakout sessions. So write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com, give us your email and your home mailing address, and we will send you links for both the livestream and the Zoom breakout sessions, so watch for your email from us, and we look forward to seeing you this weekend at our conference. So, Nikki, I have a question for you before we launch into this text. As an Adventist, what did you think the gifts of the Spirit were, and what were they for?
Nikki: Honestly, I think I believed that the gifts of the Spirit were for the Latter Rain.
Colleen: Oh, that’s interesting.
Nikki: I knew that Ellen White was said to have had the gift of prophecy. I didn’t even think about the other spiritual gifts, honestly. I didn’t think even of the teachers or the pastors. I don’t know, I just didn’t think about it, but I did think often of the prophecies, I believe from Joel 2, that talk about your children dreaming dreams and having visions, and I think that’s what I would have thought of if you had asked me about the spiritual gifts. I would have thought of that in last day things.
Colleen: You know, that’s a very interesting thing because I actually can’t remember what I thought about spiritual gifts either, as an Adventist. I know I read about them, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. And I’m thinking now that maybe one of the reasons that just didn’t register, because we had absolutely no understanding of the new birth or what it meant to be sealed by the Holy Spirit, because after all, the Sabbath was the seal of God, and the Holy Spirit was all sort of a metaphor.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And I just wonder if that was related to our lack of understanding because I don’t remember thinking about the spiritual gifts either, except for Ellen White having the gift of prophecy.
Nikki: And I didn’t often think about the universal church. I thought of our church, and I thought of the remnant, which would be made up of people from our church, but I didn’t think about the universal church, and so I think, you know, Adventism is a well-oiled machine. And if there are needs, they are pragmatically taken care of, and so the idea that spiritual gifts would come into play at all when putting people in positions of ministry in the church was brand new to me when I left Adventism, when I joined Trinity.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And I remember thinking that, “Um, is this a little bit out there? Is this a little charismatic, ‘spiritual gifts,'” you know.
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: So I just hadn’t heard about that in Adventism.
Colleen: You know, that’s an interesting memory because when we first came out of Adventism and joined Trinity Church as our first Christian church, it was kind of shocking to us to realize that church offices were not nominated and appointed by a committee.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: There’s no nominating committee.
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: There was no somebody calling you up and saying, “Would you serve as Sabbath school superintendent this week or children’s leader.” And I remember one time Gary Inrig standing up in church and saying, “We believe the Holy Spirit brings people according to the way He gifts them, and we don’t force a ministry to come into existence at this church until the Lord asks somebody to do it and gifts them for it and it is something that they’re convicted of by the Lord that they need to do.” That was so revolutionary to me.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Because Adventism [laughter] – You remember how it is.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Every single office was nominated by the nominating committee, and even the idea of who would be nominated to be on the nominating committee –
Nikki: [Laughter.] Yes.
Colleen: – was a highly political decision.
Nikki: I was going to say, there was a nominating committee for that too. Carel and I sat on a board that they called the Ministry Council that eventually rolled over into the Elder Board, and one of our jobs was to be responsible for a specific ministry in the church and to make sure that all of their needs were met, and I handled Cradle Roll, and people would come to me and say, “I am exhausted. I can’t keep doing this.” A lot of the women doing it were mothers of very small children. They were tired, and I would go to the board, and I’d say, “You know, they’d like to step down.” “Well, find out whatever you can do to try to keep them there. We really need people in there.” So, it was really about keeping things moving, keeping things running.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And to some extent, I do understand. When you’re in a Christian church, you need people to come in and obey the commands and –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – be a part of it, but it’s just a different system. Different system, different values, different methods. Very pragmatic.
Colleen: It sure is. Yes. And how can you be anything but pragmatic if you have an entirely materialistic worldview. You are material, the church is material, your doctrines are beliefs, and there is no sense of spiritual reality that is actually based in God who is Spirit.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: You know, we had God who has got a physical body. We did not understand we had to be born again in a literal sense. Yeah, that’s very interesting. I had forgotten that whole nominating committee thing until you mentioned that. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: Well, let’s read this passage, and I have to say, this passage triggered some really interesting thoughts in my head about Adventism and about how I understood these spiritual gifts to be fulfilled within Adventism and within our prophet. So before we talk about any of that, Nikki, please read Ephesians 4:7-16.
Nikki: Okay. “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, ‘When He ascended on high, He led captive the captives, and He gave gifts to people.’ (Now this expression, ‘He ascended,’ what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ, from whom the whole Body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the Body for the building up of itself in love.”
Colleen: Thank you, Nikki. It’s interesting to me how moving and beautiful this passage is to me now that I am a believer and born again and understand the gospel. It’s an amazing passage he’s describing.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: When we look at verse 7, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift,” he has just finished talking about keeping the unity of the faith and that we have been made into one Body, and we have one Spirit, we have one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all, and then this is his next comment: “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” What is that grace that is given to us? Is this that nebulous whatever it is that causes us to be saved or what is – in context, what is Paul talking about here?
Nikki: He’s talking about the spiritual giftings that God gives us once we’re born again. This is more evidence that unity in the church is not uniformity because this is different for each person. That’s why it says, “According to the measure of Christ’s gift.” So God calls us to different roles, but for the common purpose.
Colleen: That’s right. It’s such an interesting thing, and it reminds me just of the previous chapter, where Paul said that “This grace was given to me to make known to everybody the administration of this mystery.” He has considered his own calling as the apostle to the Gentiles, with the assignment of explaining the New Covenant, that job is God’s grace to him, and now he’s using that same word to explain God’s grace to us being the gifting that God gives us in the Body when we’re one in Christ.
Nikki: Which takes us back to Ephesians 2:10, that when He created us new in Christ, He prepared in advance these works that we would walk in, and then He equips us to do it. We were saying, this isn’t just something that we do. God works in us to do this, and that’s essentially what this is talking about. This isn’t merited gifting.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: This is the headship of Christ at work. It’s Him sovereignly deciding who does what, then providing for them to accomplish it.
Colleen: I know as an Adventist it was hard to think – when I did think of spiritual gifts or jobs in the church, it was all related to talent.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: What did I grow up being able to do? What have I trained to do? What do I have a special ability to learn? This isn’t about talents, this isn’t about fleshly gifts from our gene pool. This is about what God does in us when we’re born again. We are His workmanship, as you just mentioned in Ephesians 2:10. We are His workmanship, which is our new birth it’s talking about, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared in advance for us to do. You’re absolutely right, Nikki. He decides who does what, and He gives us the spiritual gifts necessary to equip us for what He asks us to do. There’s never any room for jealousy or for “Why do they get to do that and I don’t?” I’ve learned that the Lord brings to us what He wants us to do in His time, and I can trust Him to do that. I don’t have to try to part the waters and make a way for myself to do whatever it is I think I want. He knows, and He brings it when it’s time.
Nikki: That is so interesting. I thought of it the same way you did. I thought that our talents were at play here, and I used to think, “There’s nothing I’m going to be able to do for the Lord. I can’t sing, I don’t know how to play an instrument, I’m not medical, I can’t be a missionary.” I felt completely useless to God because I measured myself against the talents of other people.
Colleen: Well, and that’s a big deal in Adventism, isn’t it? I mean –
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: – the emphasis on higher education and getting those degrees and – well, when we look on at verses 8 and 9, Paul is continuing to explain this idea, and he quotes Psalm 68 in verse 8. You did some research into that, Nikki, and studied it. Would you talk a little bit about that, please, and talk about the quote from the Psalms and how he uses it here?
Nikki: Yeah, I had never really thought of Psalm 68. I am embarrassed to admit that. I mean, I’ve read it, but I never thought of it in light of what Christ did. I had not noticed that Paul used this Psalm in this passage. I had read it before out of Ephesians, but I didn’t, you know, go back and look at the Psalm. It’s a beautiful Psalm.
Colleen: It is.
Nikki: It’s one that I have loved for other reasons. I loved the “Father to the fatherless.” I think that that’s something that a lot of us can resonate with, and Him putting the lonely in families. So this Psalm is a picture of the triumphant king, of triumphant God, and he’s leading a procession after taking Jerusalem from the Jebusites. And so there’s all of this celebration that’s going on, and you have God ascending. And Paul uses this to describe what Christ did, that He had descended in His incarnation, and He had conquered in His mission and then ascended back up to the Father. And just like in these kinds of processions when a king conquers, He has all the spoils from the people that He had conquered, and you see, in the Psalm 68, those spoils are divided among the peoples. And here Paul is using that picture to talk about the gifts that Christ gives the church in His victorious ascension to the Father.
Colleen: That is so interesting. And you know, I read one commentator who said, “The fact that Paul uses Psalm 68 to describe Jesus’ triumphant ascension to the Father after conquering the curse of death and releasing all of us who believe from that curse, the fact that he uses the Psalm to apply it to Jesus means that Paul sees Jesus as God.”
Nikki: That is so great.
Colleen: He’s using a description of God’s sovereign victories over all the enemies of God, and he applies it to Jesus, who is victorious over all the enemies of God. And I thought that was a really awesome insight, that this is an evidence of Paul’s total belief that Jesus is God.
Nikki: That’s really incredible. And you know, it also reminds me of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John chapter 3 when He says, “If I tell you of earthly things and you don’t believe me, how will you believe me when I talk to you about heavenly things,” and He describes Himself as being the one who descended. “No one has ascended into heaven except for the one that has descended,” so He Himself connects Himself to this Psalm too. And so we see Paul doing it as well. It’s pretty neat.
Colleen: It’s amazing. In 9 and 10, he expands that whole idea of ascending and descending, and I know that this little passage in 9 and 10 can sometimes seem a little confusing, like what are they talking about, exactly what is meant when He ascended, He descended? And in essence I think we can look at this as a description of, like Jesus Himself said to Nicodemus, Jesus descended from heaven and became a man, and He actually died and went into the earth, but then He ascended back to the Father, and He’s the only one who has done this, He’s the only one who has done this descending and ascending, and it’s interesting that one of the things Paul quotes from the Psalm is that “He led captive a host of captives.” And you know, we were talking about this, Nikki, before we did the podcast, and how initially we had not really fully understood what that meant. Is he talking about people who were captive to sin now being captive to Christ? As we read some of the commentators who wrote about this, we realized this is talking about Jesus taking spiritual captives, the demons, the spiritual forces. We found some passages that confirm that this is the idea the Psalmist meant and that Paul properly applied it to mean. Colossians 2:15, for example, says that He defeated, on the cross, Satan. He disarmed the powers, the spiritual powers and authorities and humiliated them. He broke their power when He broke the power of death. And Hebrews 2 also says He came to destroy the one who held the power of death, that is, the devil. So Jesus did take captive and carried these captives in His train. The evil forces in the universe are His captives. They can only do what He allows them to do. Their power has been broken. So then we come to verse 11. Now, verse 11 is interesting. It’s one of the four specific passages in the New Testament that talks about spiritual gifts. We’ve mentioned this before. Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 are central passages that describe and talk about God giving spiritual gifts. Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter 4 also mention spiritual gifts. This is the Ephesians 4 passage. It’s not as lengthy as the Romans and 1 Corinthians ones, but it has a slightly different context as well. It’s a very interesting one, and I think we have to look pretty closely at this because this starts to touch on what we came from. So in verse 11, Nikki, what does this say God gave? He gave some to be what? In the context of the church, what is he saying about these gifts?
Nikki: Well, He gave us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, and they have a specific role. They’re for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. So just to point out right there, that means that the saints have a work of ministry that they need to be equipped for.
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: So there’s no lone ranger Christian sitting in their house. God gives us work to do. So this is for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry and for the building up of the Body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith.
Colleen: I think what’s interesting here is that he names these five gifts, and he’s not talking so much in this context as individuals within the church are given these specific gifts, although that is true. He is talking instead in the sense of God gives these offices or these roles to the church, so that through the history of the church, God provides instruction and oversight from people who fulfill these roles. We talked in chapter 2 about the idea of the apostles and prophets and how they are the foundation of the church. The foundation is only laid once. Apostles who laid the foundation of the church were a one-time, unrepeatable event because you can’t lay that foundation again. And there were prophets who were involved in that as well. But this is saying that these gifts to the church are for our edification, and it strikes me that one of the things Paul told Timothy was that he was to not neglect the apostles’ teaching. He was to read the word and not neglect the apostles’ teaching. The teaching of the apostles that laid the foundation of the church left us the New Testament.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And that continues to be the source of our doctrine and our practice as the church. So even though there are not new apostles who are laying new foundations today, those original apostles are still guiding us, supporting us, teaching us, and revealing the Lord to us. And they still have that function in Scripture.
Nikki: We have this modeled in Acts. We read that the church was committed to the apostles’ teaching, to the breaking of bread and to fellowship. This is what the church did.
Colleen: And that’s still what we’re supposed to do.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: God provides people who can accurately exposit the word, who can evangelize, and even, in the context here, he says these gifts are for the building up of the Body. So at the same time evangelists help grow the Body, they also in some way help the Body itself by their proclamation of the gospel. These are roles or offices that continue to bless the church. Before we talk about how Adventism has used this idea, I want us to finish the context here, so that we understand what it says that these five offices do for us, and then we’ll go back and look at how Adventism talks about prophecy and what it actually did to that organization. This is “for the equipping of the saints for works of service, to the building up of the Body of Christ,” and then, verse 13, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” And I want to say, what’s “the faith”? As an Adventist, I understood “the faith” to mean Adventism. But in the context of the New Testament, “the faith” is the Christians’ common belief in Jesus, their conviction about Christ, and the doctrines about Christ. This is the faith to which we’re called. It’s like you’ve often said, Nikki, it’s the Jude text, the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. That’s our faith, the conviction of Christ’s identity and the doctrines about Him. So that’s the faith we’re measuring up to. These gifts to the church of these gifted individuals who teach, who shepherd, who build, who speak for God to us, their job in the Body is to help all of us grow in this way. And it’s interesting because it was a new thought for me, after leaving Adventism, that the spiritual gifts are for primarily internal use. They’re for the building up of the Body, not for necessarily primarily projecting out and proselytizing the world. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings people to Christ. Contrary to the model we used in Adventism, which is “we have to take the health message, we have to go and dispel all the darkness by exposing Adventism to the dark world.” No, that’s not what this is about. The spiritual gifts are for the Body to be built up so that we will glorify Christ.
Nikki: And it’s interesting that these particular offices that he’s talking about are giftings that are there to articulate the gospel, and as they do this, and as they are faithful in this, we are protected from every wind of doctrine and the trickery of people and craftiness and deceitful scheming. And isn’t it interesting, it is a characteristic of evil and deception to use what God created for the destruction of what God created. Prophets, false prophets. God gave us the prophets to help build up sound doctrine and to protect us, but people come in as false prophets and try to destroy what God has done.
Colleen: It’s interesting, Nikki, we were talking about this earlier. Verse 14 is so, so specific, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine. First of all, this reminds me of the passage in Hebrews where it says, you should be teachers by now, but I have to come and reteach you. You should be eating meat and not milk. We are children if we’re not immersing ourselves in Scripture and allowing the Spirit to change us by applying God’s word to our life at every level where we live. And Paul is saying, we’re called not to be children. We’re called to allow the gifted individuals who bring the word of God to us and who exhort and encourage us, we are called to allow these gifts God gives us to grow us. We can’t afford to say, “Oh, that’s just too complicated for me. It’ll all pan out in the end.” We are supposed to dig into Scripture and to understand what He’s telling us. As I’m reading through this and talking about it with you, Nikki, I can’t help thinking this passage here has looked very different to me after understanding that Ellen cannot be considered a true prophet of God. And I want to say, I know a lot of Adventists – I would have been one of those – who would have said, “Oh, I’m not necessarily saying Ellen White was a prophet.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: “Oh, I don’t read what she says.” “Oh, I don’t think she says anything that I need today. She’s not a prophet.” I’ve heard people say that. I’ve heard people say, “No, I don’t think she was a prophet. She was a good devotional writer. We learn more about Jesus if we read her.” They discount what she is. And yet, Nikki, do you know that embedded right in the heart of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of Adventism is a whole fundamental belief devoted to Ellen fulfilling the gift of prophecy. I mean, talk about taking Scripture and twisting it. It’s #18, it’s fundamental belief #18, and I just want to read the actual words of the fundamental belief, right out of their book Seventh-day Adventists Believe. Now, I want to say again – I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again – the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of Adventism are publicly posted on the Adventist church’s website. However, the commentary explaining them, the commentary defending and exposing the ways Adventists think about these beliefs, is included in a book called Seventh-day Adventists Believe. This book is not online. The contents of it are not online. I have not been able to find this book anywhere except in the Adventist Book Centers or on their Adventist Book Center website. It’s almost like an internal work for Adventists. It’s not something that the public is even really aware exists, but it’s very telling because it describes how they think about these beliefs. Now, here’s fundamental belief #18: “The Scriptures testify that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy. This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church, and we believe it was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G. White. Her writings speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church. They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested.” Nikki, what on earth does it mean that the gift of prophecy is an identifying mark of the remnant church and that it was manifested in the ministry of Ellen White?
Nikki: I have no idea. And I would love to know the texts that they use to support that, but you know what? Even if you told me, I know they’d be yanking them out of context.
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: Hebrews 1, right out the gate, tells us that long ago in times past He spoke to us through prophets and through the fathers, but now He’s spoken to us through His Son.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: I don’t understand how they get there.
Colleen: I also notice that in this fundamental belief they use the words out of 2 Timothy 3:16, where Paul says that all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for correcting, instruction in righteousness, teaching, they use those words right out of that text to explain that that’s what’s true of Ellen White. They say she provides comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church. Well, number one, what church? It’s not the biblical church that’s the Body of Christ, it’s the Adventist organization.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: The church that’s the Body of Christ doesn’t have an Ellen White.
Nikki: And you know what? I understand very well why they don’t like Paul, aside from the fact that he has a different gospel than they do.
Colleen: [Laughter.] Yes.
Nikki: He’s very clear about the fact that you don’t elevate teachers, you don’t elevate people, and you don’t go beyond what is written. That’s 1 Corinthians. You can read about it in the first five chapters.
Colleen: Yes!
Nikki: Don’t go beyond what is written.
Colleen: It’s just incredible to me. I wanted to read from the commentary about this fundamental belief, a quote that’s kind of buried in the middle, and it’s one that most people would not ever see because most people don’t read this book, and certainly people who are not Adventist would probably not see it, but right in the middle it talks about Ellen White’s gift, and it quotes Uriah Smith, who was a contemporary of Ellen White and was one of the Review & Herald’s editors for many years when the Adventist organization was first founded. Now, this is what he says about Ellen White’s prophecies: “The following illustration explains the relationship between the Bible and postbiblical instances of the prophetic gift.” And now we hear from Uriah Smith: “Suppose we’re about to start upon a voyage. The owner of the vessel gives us a book of directions, telling us that it contains instructions sufficient for our whole journey and that if we will read them we shall reach in safety our port of destination. Setting sail, we open our book to learn its contents. We find that the author lays down general principles to govern us in our voyage and instructs us as far as practicable judging the various contingencies that may arise ’til the end, but he also tells us that the latter part of the trip will be especially perilous, that the features of the coast are ever changing by reason of quicksands and tempests, but for this part of the journey, says he, I have provided you a pilot, who will meet you and give you such directions as the surrounding circumstances and dangers may require, and to him you must give heed. With these directions, we reach the perilous times specified, and the pilot, according to promise, appears. But some of the crew, as he offers his services, rise up against him. ‘Oh, we have the original book of directions,’ say they, ‘that’s enough for us. We stand upon that and that alone. We want nothing of you.’ Who now heeds the original book of directions, those who reject the pilot or those who receive him, as that book instructs them? Judge ye.”
Nikki: This is terrible. This is terrible. And you know what? I think people need to know, if you have a kid in university, in an Adventist university, this is required reading. This is a required course, what Adventists believe. They’re teaching these people, they’re teaching these kids –
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: – these things. And you know what? This is classic inoculation against truth.
Colleen: Yes!
Nikki: If they can mock people who think differently – they’re essentially mocking sola scriptura in this. And yeah, I know, it was written a long time ago, but that’s a current book that’s being used right now to indoctrinate kids. It’s an inoculation against the gospel. This is why when we go to our families to talk to them and try to tell them something, they – “Oh, yeah, we know what you think. We know what you believe.”
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: They think they already know.
Colleen: It’s just absolutely incredible to me. The Bible never says, “I will send you someone with special information for the last days.” The Bible says God has spoken to us in these last days in His Son. We don’t get a new prophetic voice. We have Jesus and His word. And you know they developed this argument, and it’s in this commentary, in this book. They used the example of John the Baptist, that John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way of the Lord before His first arrival for His first ministry on earth. So in the same way God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for the Lord, He has now sent this new voice, Ellen White, to prepare the way for the second coming. What a heretical teaching!
Nikki: This is terrible, and this is not going to be found in Scripture.
Colleen: No. But it’s what underlies their 18th fundamental belief. You know, I’ve got to say, when Adventists talk to people who have never been Adventist, they know how to frame Ellen White in, “She’s not equal to the Bible,” “Oh, she’s like a New Testament prophet who just has help for daily living.” No! They mean something much more by her. But what people who have never been Adventist don’t understand is that if you look at Ellen White, if you recognize that her prophecies are a fundamental belief of the organization, then you have to open up that door that is labeled “Ellen White” and look at everything she wrote because everything she wrote is still current in Adventism. Now, people don’t talk to outsiders about that. It’s much too embarrassing and much too indicting. But everything she wrote has formed the Adventist worldview, and it’s like a funnel. If you look at the 18th fundamental belief, look closely at what they say about her, and then look at her words and her prophecies, which are supposed to guide the church to the second coming, it’s like an expanding vista of rules and regulations and interpretations and falseness that Adventists are responsible to uphold.
Nikki: It’s so interesting to me that this is fundamental belief #18, and I don’t want to get wooey. I know chapter and verse are not inspired in Scripture, but it’s interesting, Deuteronomy chapter 18, beginning in verse 18, it says this –
Colleen: Wow. [Laughter.]
Nikki: “I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put my words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.” This is speaking of Jesus.
Colleen: Wow.
Nikki: “It shall come about that whoever will not listen to my words which He shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”
Colleen: Wow. I find the 18’s very interesting. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] It is funny. That last verse doesn’t say, “You shall not worry about that prophecy.” It says, “You shall not fear the person.”
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: There is no respect. There is no following or submitting to that person. That person is in conflict with the last prophet –
Colleen: Absolutely.
Nikki: – the Lord Jesus.
Colleen: She is not fulfilling this role of prophets in Ephesians 4. She is not that. She did not speak about the biblical Jesus. She did not teach the biblical gospel. She is a false prophet, just like you read, Nikki.
Nikki: And she has many failed prophecies. I really strongly recommend, if you haven’t read D.M. Canright’s book, Life of Mrs. E.G. White, Seventh-day Adventist Prophet, Her False Claims Refuted, you need to get the book. It’s an excellent book, and he has a couple chapters in here exposing several of her false prophecies.
Colleen: I so second that motion. This is an amazing book, very important. I just want to say one more thing about this fundamental belief book, and that is that in the commentary on #18, there is also a quote from Ministry Magazine dated 1982 where the author, Richard Hammill, says this, “Although she [Ellen] never held an official position, was not an ordained minister, and never received a salary from the church until after the death of her husband, her influence shaped the Seventh-day Adventist Church more than any other factor except the Holy Bible,” and I want to say, “That’s except the Holy Bible as interpreted by her.” So, inside Adventism, leaders acknowledge and know that the Adventist organization, its doctrines and practices, are shaped largely by Ellen White. She herself made it almost impossible to reject her without terrifying fear. In fact, when I was leaving Adventism, when I started understanding what the Bible said, I was terrified because of one of her quotes, which kept coming to my mind. It’s from her book Counsels for the Church on page 94. She says, “It is not alone those who openly reject the Testimonies” – and by the way, “Testimonies” was her word for her own writings and visions. “It is not alone those who openly reject the Testimonies or who cherish doubt concerning them that are on dangerous ground. To disregard light is to reject it. If you lose confidence in the Testimonies, you will drift away from Bible truth. I have been fearful that many would take a questioning, doubting position, and in my distress for your souls, I would warn you. How many will heed the warning?” I cannot tell you, Nikki, how often that warning came to my mind as I was leaving. “Am I rejecting the Bible because I’m rejecting Ellen?”
Nikki: I think that’s a common fear.
Colleen: Yeah. And you know, some people don’t even know where the fear comes from. She articulated it just that clearly. Another thing that Adventists often say is, “Oh, she never claimed to be a prophet. No, she’s not a prophet.” They will say that to try to look normal in the eyes of people who have never been Adventist, but inside, Adventists all know that she was prophetic. And this is what she said about herself. This was in a letter she addressed in 1906 to the elders of the Battle Creek Church. “I am now instructed that I am not to be hindered in my work by those who engage in suppositions regarding its nature, whose minds are struggling with so many intricate problems connected with the supposed work of a prophet. My commission embraces the work of a prophet, but it does not end there. It embraces much more than the minds of those who have been sowing the seeds of unbelief can comprehend.” And she also said this, “Everyone who has a knowledge of the truth should awake and place himself body, soul, and spirit under the discipline of God. The enemy is on our track. We must be awake, on our guard against him. We must put on the whole armor of God and follow the directions given through the Spirit of Prophecy.” That’s her writings. “We must love and obey the truth for this time.” That’s her present truth. “This will save us from accepting strong delusions. God has spoken to us through His word. He has spoken to us through the Testimonies to the church and through the books that have helped to make plain our present duty and the position that we should now occupy. The warnings that have been given, line upon line, precept upon precept, should be heeded. If we disregard them, what excuse can we offer?” She was clear.
Nikki: That’s just incredible. That’s incredible. She says to put on the full armor of God and then to obey the Spirit of Prophecy? That is not what Ephesians 6 says. We’ll get there.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: We’ll get there eventually, but when we put on the full armor of God, first of all, her gospel message isn’t even compatible with the armor of God. They are not the same, and Ephesians – Paul tells us, once we put it on, to stand.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: To stand and to pray.
Colleen: I have one last quote from her about her own writings, and I find it incredibly damning. She says this, and this was a letter to Brother John Andrews, who, by the way, is the namesake of Andrews University, where the seminary is. “My visions are either of God or the devil. There’s no halfway position to be taken in the matter. God does not work in partnership with Satan. Those who occupy the position cannot stand there long. They go a step farther and account the instrument God has used [meaning herself] a deceiver and the woman Jezebel. If after they had taken the first step it should be told them what position they would soon occupy in regard to the visions, they would have resented it as a thing impossible, but Satan leads them on blindfolded in a perfect deception in regard to the true state of their feelings until he takes them in his snare.” She defended herself by saying, “My visions are either of God or of Satan, there’s no halfway.” Well, I think we know who they were from, because she didn’t teach the God of Scripture nor the Jesus of Scripture. She taught a heresy, a false Jesus.
Nikki: Did I understand right? Did she say those who come against her and refer to her as a deceiver are being deceived by Satan?
Colleen: Yes, Satan leads them on blindfolded, in a perfect deception. Yes. That’s exactly what she said.
Nikki: That helps me understand why one of the scariest things about coming to that place where I was willing to examine Adventism was that I was afraid Satan was going to deceive me –
Colleen: Of course.
Nikki: – by leading me away from her. That was terrifying to me.
Colleen: I think it is to a lot.
Nikki: That I was being deceived.
Colleen: Well, you weren’t being deceived. Scripture is very clear, the Holy Spirit is very clear, this woman was not born again, she did not understand the Bible, she did not teach the true gospel. She taught heresy. She led millions of people into slavery and agony of fear. She has led many people into deep depression and destruction. She is a false prophet.
Nikki: And she fails the biblical test of a prophet.
Colleen: Absolutely. Well, the antidote for those of us who were raised in her worldview, even without knowing how the church really thinks about her and what she really said about herself, the antidote is found here at the end of this section of Ephesians 4, in these last three verses of our section. Do you mind reading them again, Nikki, 14 to 16? And let’s just talk through what our real hope is.
Nikki: “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of people, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is, Christ, from whom the whole Body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the Body for the building up of itself in love.”
Colleen: So what’s our antidote to falseness like Ellen White? What is Paul saying is what we can count on?
Nikki: Well, He’s given us these gifted people in the Body of Christ to root us in sound doctrine, those who follow the teachings of the apostles, the true gospel, who build us up, who build this sound doctrine into our lives, and because of this command in 15 –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – which is not separate from 14, we’re to speak the truth in love. We come against these false teachings that come into the church, and we’re able to do that because we’re rooted in the right gospel, the true faith. And so we speak the truth in love, and in this way we grow up in all aspects into Christ, the head of the church, who, by the way, gave all the gifts to begin with. [Laughter.]
Colleen: Yes. [Laughter.] And He didn’t give Ellen that gift of hers. That was from the other side. And I loved what you’d said earlier, Nikki, about speaking the truth in love. It doesn’t mean we don’t speak the truth. And we often encounter this when we talk to our Adventist loved ones. They feel that we are not being loving, and yet we have to speak the truth. We have to say, “This is a falsehood. This over here is what Scripture teaches. You have to evaluate this. You have to know what you believe. You have to know what is true.” And Scripture is clear.
Nikki: And speaking the truth in love doesn’t necessarily always mean sweetly.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: You know, Jesus was clear when He confronted the Pharisees and false teachers. He was clear. But it was motived by love, love for His Father, love for the truth, love for the people who were being deceived by the Pharisees. So we speak the truth to others in love because we love, not this New Thought kind of love. I was listening to a podcast I had told you about by Alisa Childers, and it’s actually titled “Is Your Church Teaching New Age Ideas?” And it’s interesting because in New Thought, love is not being confrontational. It’s accepting everybody. It’s live and let live, keep peace, be positive, don’t judge, because Jesus didn’t judge. Jesus is the judge. It’s not this peacekeeping kind of thing.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: It’s speaking in the name of Christ, with the gifts He’s given us, to expose error.
Colleen: And when we do this, and when we submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus in the Body of Christ, understanding that He’s given us our unique roles to play and that He’s given us people to help us understand His word, to shepherd us, to care for us, that He Himself is our head, we realize that, as this section concludes, we’re being built up in love by Jesus Himself, who is the head of the entire church, and we have to recognize that a false church that claims to be part of Protestant Christianity but teaches a different gospel and a different Jesus is not a true church. It is not part of the Body of Christ, and while there may be sheep within Adventism that God is calling to Himself through faith in Christ, that organization is not part of the church, and we can’t consider it a group of believers.
Nikki: Yeah, I remember somebody telling me, as I was leaving Adventism, when I talked to them about the problems with Adventism, they said, “Well, look at how many of us there are. There are so many Adventists.” And that argument was resolved for me when I heard an apologist say once, “If you measure the faithfulness of a church by the number of people in the pews, then the cults are winning.”
Colleen: Oh, yes.
Nikki: That’s not how you determine what truth is.
Colleen: No. That’s a great point. Itching ears collect false doctrine because it satisfies their flesh. The true gospel gives us life, and we may lose a lot of what we had, but the Lord is faithful. He keeps His promises, and He gives us 100 times what we lose for His sake. As we conclude this section, if you haven’t placed all of your faith in the Lord Jesus, if you haven’t recognized that He is God’s final word to the world in these last days, as it says in Hebrews, if you still fear the threats of a false prophet who shaped and controlled a whole organization that poses as part of the Christian church, we ask you to reconsider. We ask you, come to Ephesians and read this book and ask the Lord to show you who Jesus really is and what He has really done. Come to the foot of His cross and confess that you are a sinner who needs saving and that you know that He has paid with His blood for all of your sins, past, present, and future. And we ask you to place your faith in Him. You will never look back, because knowing Jesus truly is the greatest thing. We will see you next at our conference. Our next podcast will be our live one, and we look forward to entertaining some of your questions and doing a Q&A.
Nikki: And don’t forget that you can go to proclamationmagazine.com to sign up for our weekly email containing online articles and other ministry news. You can write to formeradventist@gmail.com to send in questions or comments or ideas for future podcasts. We love hearing from you. Don’t forget to follow us or like us on Facebook and Instagram, and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Bye for now.
Colleen: We’ll see you next week.
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