Annihilation Showed Me the Adventist Trap
Satan almost caught me in his trap. First of all, I think all Seventh-day Adventists have broken the first of the Ten Commandments in which God said, “You shall have no other gods before me.” They with their human, finite minds have a concept of God which is not biblical. It’s a different god from what the Bible reveals.
I have a problem with [the Adventist evangelists] I hear on a Seventh-day Adventist TV channel I receive. I started to watch the channel because I wanted to know what Adventists believe and teach, and that is where the problems arose. But thank God the Holy Spirit prevails.
I have been following your ministry for years; I get my Proclamation! in my email box every Friday. Everything your ministry says Adventists believe and teach is true; they even believe that the Lord Jesus has a fallen nature. I notice they always talk about their view of human nature when they talk about death, heaven, and hell. They are always highly emotionally charged, or they demean Christians who believe what the Bible says about eternal hell as being monsters. They even go so far as saying the God that we worship is a monster, but they insist the god they worship is the god of love because He does not send people to eternal hell.
Because I was filling my spirit with this garbage, I started to have some nagging thoughts about God being a monster. I know God is love and is the God of justice, but deep inside of me I started to question God’s character. Then, the final straw was when [a well-known Adventist televangelist] was teaching about hell. He said that because Christianity in general teaches eternal hell, he sympathizes with Charles Darwin and the atheists on this subject because the God that Christians portray can send a 15-year-old who becomes of age and commits suicide to eternity in hell. He said that sending people to hell for eternity for a few life-spans of sin portrays a monster. He said if there were such a God, he would have served Him from fear of going to hell instead of from love.
I heard [another Adventist evangelist] say something similar on a different program as he talked with three Adventist men. They were highly emotionally charged; to be honest, what they were saying about our God really bothered me because the Lord Jesus died a terrible death on our behalf so we would not spend eternity in hell. We who believe will spend eternity with the Triune God!
I do not think those Adventist teachers are saved; I think their sayings are blasphemy against a holy and just God. The Bible does not reveal annihilation.
I don’t believe in annihilation, so I cannot become a Sabbath-keeper, or worse—an atheist. This shocking teaching was really bothering me; I did not have good night’s sleep (this event happened Sunday, July 24, 2022). I have determine not to watch that station anymore, and my husband and I am finished with them. I will keep reading your articles to understand what Adventists teach and how to reply to them. I love God not out of fear, but out of gratitude.
Thank you; God bless your ministry.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: You have accurately assessed the Adventist teachings you heard from [the two Adventist evangelists you mentioned]. The Lord has been guarding your heart and has shown you that these things are not true. The Bible does NOT teach what they teach.
I agree completely with your analysis. God has revealed Himself in His word, and Adventism undermines God’s holiness and justice. It refuses to teach that humans have a literal spirit which is born dead in sin (Eph. 2:1–3), and it refuses to teach that hell is not about the physical acts we have done primarily; it is about the fact that sin separates us from God and literally takes our spiritual life away from us. We are born depraved because of Adam (Romans 4–5; 1 Cor. 15), and our sin is against a holy God! Adventists do not teach a sovereign, holy God who is in charge of all things, including hell and the devil. He is utterly just! Hell is the consequence for refusing to believe in the Lord Jesus (Jn. 3:18; 36; Mt. 25:41–46).
I agree also that most Adventists are likely not saved because they do not know and believe the gospel of our salvation (see Eph. 1:13,14; 1 Cor 15:3,4; Jn. 6:29); instead and they cling to the belief that law-keeping is what defines those who will be saved. Without believing the gospel of our salvation, 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), a person cannot be born again. We are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we hear and believe the gospel of our salvation! (See Eph. 1: 13, 14).
I would like to suggest that, if you haven’t yet, you start listening to the Former Adventist Podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-adventist/id1482887969
Many people say this podcast is helping them understand Adventism and is helping them to understand Scripture much more clearly. I think it may be helpful to you!
What Did Jesus Mean, “I Have Not Yet Ascended”?
I wanted to ask about the Scripture where Jesus told Mary Magdalene, “Don’t cling to Me; I have not ascended to the Father yet.”
You have said that Jesus’s spirit, upon death, was with the Father, not dead in the tomb, and that He was “today in paradise” with the thief on the cross.
What did Jesus mean when He told Mary, “Don’t cling to Me; I have not yet ascended to the Father?”
—VIA EMAIL
Response: It apparently means, literally, “Don’t hold onto me. I’m still here…I haven’t ascended to the Father yet. You will see me again!” Jesus immediately told her to go tell the disciples that He was risen, and He said to remind them that He would meet them in Galilee. So she had a job to do, and He also had His own work He was doing which was not revealed. But He wasn’t saying He was untouchable because He hadn’t yet gone to the Father; He was saying that she shouldn’t detain Him.
He used physical words, not spiritual words: “Don’t hold onto Me; I haven’t ascended yet to the Father.” Adventists have tried to make this mean that for some reason Mary couldn’t hold Him because He still needed to appear before the Father to be sure the sacrifice was received. This idea is not in Scripture at all. In fact, He wouldn’t have resurrected if the sacrifice hadn’t been sufficient and accepted. The curse of death couldn’t have been broken if His shed blood hadn’t been adequate.
Further, the Trinity was never separated. Even in death, God was not separated from Himself. Jesus the Man died, and His spirit went to Paradise that very day, but Jesus was also God. God cannot die, and in a mystery we cannot explain (which is encompassed by the whole mystery of the incarnation), Jesus as God was never separated from the Father and the Spirit. In fact, in Colossians 1:16-17 we see that in Jesus all creation holds together. It is the “job” of the second person of the Trinity to be Creator and the one who sustains creation. In other words, even when He was in the womb and in the tomb, God the Son was holding all creation together.
Jesus had forty days on earth after His resurrection, and He would see Mary again. He was simply asking her not to detain Him—He was not making some statement about checking in with the Father in order to be sure He’s finished His work. He was simply saying, “Don’t hold onto me—we both have work to do, and I’m still here. You’ll see me again.”
Podcast Is Healing
Colleen, your podcast with Nikki is so amazing! You and Nikki’s experiences are just like mine! It’s so healing to hear. I listen to them repeatedly. I have been sharing with a friend, and she is healing, too. I thank God, and I thank you all. You are all in my prayers. May God continue to richly bless you.
—VIA EMAIL
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