Colleen and Nikki discuss Adventism’s doctrine “Baptism”. Baptism along with agreeing with all 28 doctrines is the doorway to membership. This ritual is a necessary for salvation, but is not a guarantee of being saved. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Nikki: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: Today we’re looking at Fundamental Belief #15, titled, “Baptism.” Colleen, we have crossed a milestone.
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: We are halfway through this book.
Colleen: That is amazing.
Nikki: It feels good. [Laughter.] You know, every week as we get ready to discuss these chapters, one of us, usually you –
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: – says that this chapter was harder than any of the others. We just kind of keep, week after week, feeling that way. And at this point, I don’t think we can actually rank them, they’re just all so upsetting. But I have to confess, this week was really hard for me. I got so emotional, I ended up calling the Southeastern Conference to make sure that the names of my husband and I have been officially removed from their books forever.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: Now, I’ve requested it, but I wanted to follow through. I was so upset.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: The longer we do this series, the more cultic the organization becomes in my eyes –
Colleen: Oh, that’s the truth.
Nikki: – and the more consistent their deception looks –
Colleen: Uh-huh.
Nikki: – and the less random their variants appear.
Colleen: Oh, right.
Nikki: I don’t even know how to explain it further. I know that these opening statements are probably hard for new listeners. They’re strong statements.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And if this podcast is relatively new to you, I hope you’ll go listen to our very first episode. That’s where we share our heart and why we do what we do.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And I would also encourage you to listen to episodes 2 and 3, where we talk about cult mind control and grieving after Adventism. For some reason, those just seem fitting to go alongside this series.
Colleen: I agree, um-hmm.
Nikki: So while seeing these false teachings and manipulative, controlling methods that they use to propagate them is pretty upsetting, those emotions really don’t negate the fact that this needs to be exposed.
Colleen: They have to be.
Nikki: And I know a lot of people like to say, “Oh, you’re just upset.” [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] “You have an axe to grind.”
Nikki: Yes. Yes. So if you’re new, I hope you’ll hang in there with us as we compare these doctrines with Scripture. This is really important.
Colleen: This is how we unpack our worldview.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Because even when we come to understand the gospel, we often don’t even realize that we have Ellenisms in our head, we have assumptions in our head that we think are right, and years later we can discover they’re there. Walking through these doctrines is unearthing stuff like that.
Nikki: Yeah, and that definitely happened. And even if you know that their doctrines are incorrect, walking through this book and seeing their methods –
Colleen: Yes, yes.
Nikki: – oh, that’s hard.
Colleen: The methods are making me really mad.
Nikki: Um-hmm. Well, let’s get started.
Colleen: Okay.
Nikki: But before we do, let me just remind our listeners that you can write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. Your emails are such an encouragement to us, and we thank you for writing. If you haven’t yet, be sure to visit proclamationmagazine.com to sign up for our weekly emails containing new articles each week and other ministry news. And you can like and follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and please leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts, as it does extend our reach.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: So my question for you, Colleen, really is how has it been for you, walking through this book, now that we’re halfway through? What is the sense that you’re getting that you didn’t expect?
Colleen: Well, I can tell you easily what my sense is. I had no idea, even though I’ve used this book as a reference tool for years, I’ve never sat and studied it chapter by chapter, really looked at the words, really looking at the footnoting, looking at how they’re supporting their statements, I’ve never really looked at it closely, but I’m seeing something very clearly at this point. This book, Seventh-day Adventists Believe, is not just a statement of fundamental beliefs and as an Adventist would think of Christianity or of their unique brand of Christianity. This is an instruction manual. The reason I’m stressing that is because every chapter, as the book itself says, builds on the last one.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: A little bit more is revealed. Ideas are introduced. Once an idea is introduced, the phrasing of that idea we see repeated in coming chapters. And it’s quite fascinating to me that the book doesn’t just start with the same kind of language and phrases that we get at this point. They carefully develop the Adventist worldview in a really systematic way so that you think, okay, so why is baptism chapter 15? Why is Scriptures number 1? Well that makes some sense, but then why is the great controversy earlier than what they call the life, death, and resurrection of Christ? Why is this order used? And the order is used because it’s building a worldview.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So, if I were an Adventist missionary – I’ve never been an Adventist missionary, but I have been an Adventist teacher and an Adventist in other capacities, but if I were being sent to a country that I didn’t know and were being tasked with helping to make proselytes, this book would be the ideal handbook. It tells you exactly how to think, exactly how to introduce the subjects that create the worldview of Adventism, and right in the middle is baptism. And I realize, after reading through this chapter this week, that this is the definition and the revelation of baptism as an Adventist cultic rite of membership. And membership only comes after you can buy onto the Adventist worldview of the great controversy, the Adventist worldview of not Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, which is what Scripture calls the gospel, but His life, death, and resurrection. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s a different way of looking at things. This is a systematic buy-in, and baptism is the ultimate buy-in, and after that you get the more cultic beliefs. After that, we’re going to come up to the doctrine on Ellen White; we’re going to come up to the doctrine on end-times. It’s very systematic, and this is the central chapter of how you buy in as a member after being convinced of these first things.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: What about you, Nikki?
Nikki: Well, yeah, I’ve seen that it’s very systematic, it’s very intentional. The vocabulary grows as you go. Combined with reading this book, one of the things that I’ve been doing on my off-time is I’ve been watching programs where people are giving testimony of having left cults.
Colleen: Interesting.
Nikki: I recently watched a series on Lifetime called “Leaving Polygamy.”
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And I’ve been looking at Leah Remini’s series on Scientology. And then I’ve been reading this book. Not intentionally all together, but as I do, I’m seeing patterns.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: I’m seeing the remnant mindset. I’m seeing that for those who question, they’re rebellious. They’re supposed to submit to the leaders, the ones who know more than them.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: I’m seeing that if you leave you’re apostatizing –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – you’re going to go to hell, and you might end up with cancer.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: A lot of these, actually all three of them –
Colleen: Right. Interesting.
Nikki: – treat you like you’re going into world and you’re going to be unhealthy. And anyway, so these cultic dynamics are really starting to jump out at me as I read this chapter and I see how they’re so similar to these other groups –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – along with the systematic method. You know it’s hard. I know it’s hard for people to hear the word “cult” when you talk about Adventism when you’re leaving, early on. And I know that there are Christians who don’t understand yet –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – that these are cultic doctrines, these are doctrines of demons.
Colleen: They are.
Nikki: But it’s just more and more clear as we work our way through.
Colleen: And it’s not a mistake, the order these doctrines are set up in this book.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Why don’t we read their doctrine on baptism, Nikki, and we’ll talk about how they present this in the book. It’s perhaps one of the most coded of their chapters so far. It’s very clear, as I read through, that they use words that they know Christians will understand in a particular way, but it’s code in this book for specific Adventist data that you have to be an insider to understand.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So, let’s read the doctrine.
Nikki: Okay. This is Fundamental Belief #15 on “Baptism.” “By baptism we confess our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and testify of our death to sin and of our purpose to walk in newness of life. Thus we acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior, become His people, and are received as members by His church. Baptism is a symbol of our union with Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, and our reception of the Holy Spirit. It is by immersion in water and is contingent on an affirmation of faith in Jesus and evidence of repentance of sin. It follows instruction in the Holy Scriptures and acceptance of their teachings.”
Colleen: Well, it almost sounds innocuous, but Nikki, does anything jump out at you from this actual doctrinal statement?
Nikki: Well, first of all, we place our faith in the person of Christ –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – as well as His work. We entrust Him with our salvation, but we are placing our faith in the person of Christ, not just His death and resurrection.
Colleen: Right!
Nikki: And baptism itself is an identification with who He is and what He’s done, His death, His burial, His resurrection.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: We were buried in Christ and raised with Christ and created new in Christ.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: It’s all about Christ.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: It’s not me renouncing an old lifestyle –
Colleen: Right!
Nikki: – and promising to live a new lifestyle. That’s the fruit of being born again. That’s the fruit of being transferred out of the kingdom of darkness.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: But they take baptism and they make it about me.
Colleen: Yes! It’s inside out.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: This phrase, “Baptism is a symbol of our union with Christ,” well, that’s not what Scripture says. In Scripture, baptism is a representation of not our union with Christ, but of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, with which we are identified when we trust Him.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It sounds like a quibble, but it’s a really significant difference from an Adventist perspective, because for them union with Christ is not a spiritual aliveness that the Bible teaches. For them union with Christ is a mental assent to Adventist doctrines.
Nikki: Um-hmm. It’s following His example. Well, and they also say that you’re not able to be baptized here unless you give evidence of the repentance of sin. You know, it might seem simple as you’re reading this. Maybe you’re a leader in a Christian church –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – and you think, well, yeah, we want people to give testimony, we want to see that this is real before we baptize them. But if you read this chapter, you understand this is a very specific thing that they’re expecting to see. Baptism is actually, in their own words, initiation into the Body of Christ.
Colleen: Yes, which is defined as them.
Nikki: So you can’t actually enter the Body of Christ until you prove to these people that you’ve repented enough.
Colleen: And repentance looks like giving up all of those practices in lifestyle that Adventism says is wrong.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: I grew up hearing stories of people who wanted to become Adventist, but they entered the baptismal font wearing their wedding rings, and they could not be baptized unless they took those wedding rings off. So, you know, in more liberal Adventist communities that would not happen today. It might not even happen in all of the conservative ones because in 1980 the General Conference did issue a declaration that wedding bands, simple wedding bands, were not a sin, even though Ellen White had said not one penny should be spent on a circlet of gold. But in the early ’80s it became permissible to wear wedding bands. Nevertheless, the point is this examination to be ready for baptism involves checking to be sure the person no longer eats bacon, no longer wears earrings, and as I said, pastors differ, but there will be a specific set of things that they look for. They can’t smoke, they can’t knowingly drink, they can’t wear certain kinds of clothes, they can’t eat certain kinds of food. Baptism can only occur when these things are given up.
Nikki: This takes me again back to our episode on the BITE model, on mind control.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: I believe it’s Episode #2.
Colleen: Yes, um-hmm.
Nikki: If it isn’t, it’s #3.
Colleen: Well, as we go through this book, it’s interesting to me that in the first paragraph under this doctrine, they begin a story of a woman in Central Africa who wanted to become Adventist, and her husband said he would kill her if she was baptized Adventist. But in the very first paragraph, the way the story is written betrays that Adventists themselves do not understand, or at least are not willing to concede, that they don’t really know what it means to be Christian. Because it says here, “She did not consider baptism to be merely an option. She longed to become a Christian.” Well, Nikki, what’s wrong with that, from a biblical perspective? How can that not be describing Christianity?
Nikki: Because you’re not baptized until after you’re a Christian –
Colleen: Exactly!
Nikki: – until after you’ve believed and put your faith in Christ.
Colleen: And have been born again.
Nikki: It’s a witness of something that’s already happened.
Colleen: Right. And for them to say she longed to become a Christian betrays that they have no understanding of the new birth. In their minds, becoming a Christian is a mental assent to a body of belief and then taking the social and societal risk of being baptized and putting off all your old behaviors, no longer eating pork with your rice and so forth. It’s interesting to look through this chapter and see how they describe certain things, and right under their first subhead, “How Important Is Baptism?” they talk about baptism being what Jesus’ example is for us.
Nikki: In that section they say: “Baptism is a symbol of embracing righteousness and committing one’s life for its advancement. It’s a spiritual act in which all can participate.” Baptism is identifying yourself with Christ. It’s a witness of the fact that through His death, burial, and resurrection you have new life. You have been placed in Him. They’re saying that it’s a choice to embrace righteousness, to committing your life for its advancement. What does that even mean?
Colleen: What does that mean?
Nikki: And it’s not a spiritual act in which all can participate. It’s for believers.
Colleen: Of course, Adventist baptism is something they can all participate in because it’s not biblical baptism. But they mimic biblical baptism, and I find it so fascinating that they say it’s a symbol of embracing righteousness. Well, what is righteousness? What do they mean when they say righteousness?
Nikki: Obeying the law.
Colleen: Exactly! That’s how Adventism defines righteousness. I think even some Christians might define it that way.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: But righteousness is something bigger than the law. Righteousness is an attribute of God. Righteousness is not defined in God by His obedience to the law. It’s who He is. So a person cannot come up to the Adventist missionary or pastor and say, “I’m ready to embrace righteousness and live my life for its advancement.” Only if you mean keeping the law in the Adventist way does that make any sense.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So they’re using words that sound pious, Christian, and biblical, but they have a hidden meaning, and within the Adventist framework it’s clear what they mean: I’m ready to keep the Ten Commandments and honor the Sabbath and give up my bacon, because I’m following the health laws, and I’m going to advance this lifestyle. I’m ready to be baptized into this.
Nikki: So if baptism is defined by embracing righteousness, then they go on and say, “In this commission Christ made clear that He required baptism of those who wished to become a part of His church, His spiritual kingdom.” So if you have to embrace righteousness and law-keeping in order to become a part of His church, well, this echoes a couple chapters ago where we looked at the remnant church.
Colleen: Yes, it is an echo of that. And like I said at the beginning, this is one of the reasons this chapter is placed where it is because everything we learned about their view of the remnant, their view of the great controversy, their view of the church is required in order to understand how to become part of it. It’s not the biblical church. You don’t join it in the biblical way, which is by faith and trust in Christ and being born again. Christians join the Body of Christ through an act of God, not through a decision to go through a rite, or we might even say a cultic rite, of baptism as an act of membership. So once again, these words are code. For a Christian, they will not see what’s wrong, but for an Adventist or somebody being trained in Adventism, it will make sense. It’s code for embracing Adventism.
Nikki: And they say, a little further down in that section on how important baptism is, they say, “While baptism is vitally linked to salvation, it does not guarantee salvation.”
Colleen: Oh, well that’s helpful. [Laughter.]
Nikki: Um-hmm. [Laughter.]
Colleen: How do you explain what they mean by that?
Nikki: Well, you can’t be saved without it –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – but it doesn’t mean you’re going to be saved.
Colleen: It’s exactly the way they talk about Jesus. You have to accept Jesus into your heart, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be saved. You can’t be saved without it; you can’t be guaranteed you’ll be saved with Jesus either. It all boils down to how well are you going to keep the law, how well are you going to embrace the lifestyle, and you better commit to it and sign up for it or all that trying to keep the law will count for nothing. Under the heading of their “One Baptism,” I was really struck by the fact that they had a footnote at the end of their small paragraph where they introduced the subject of One Baptism, which is a reference to Ephesians, where Paul says in the Body of Christ we have one Lord, one Spirit, one Father, one baptism, one Body, and they take that phrase and they’re applying it to themselves, they’re applying it to their own baptism. So they’re trying to explain what the one baptism means, and then they have a little footnote, which takes us to a really long footnote filled with quotes and references to other Adventist documents. And it’s in this footnote on the one baptism where they make a case for what Adventism calls being rebaptized. So Adventists believe that if you join Adventism by baptism and if you find that you fall into sin and you have just really transgressed the law and transgressed what you know Adventism teaches, that you can be rebaptized and start again on a clean footing. What really upset me about this footnote is that they quote Ellen White to support this idea, and her support to show that “rebaptism” is a biblical idea is to refer to Acts 19:1-5, where we find the story of the Ephesians when Paul comes to Ephesus on one of his missionary journeys and he finds a group of people who have received John’s baptism. Now, what was John’s baptism?
Nikki: It was a baptism of repentance, and it was before the public ministry of Christ.
Colleen: Yes. They had received John’s baptism for repentance, and he asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit, and they said, “Well, we didn’t even know there was a Holy Spirit.” So Paul taught them about the Holy Spirit, about trusting Christ and being born again and filled with the Spirit, and then he baptized them in the name of Christ. Ellen White takes that story, and she says this about those Ephesians: “They had no clear understanding of the gospel. When they received baptism at the hand of John, they were holding serious errors.” She doesn’t say that they didn’t know about the Holy Spirit. She says they had serious errors, as if they were holding some kind of heresy in their heads. That’s not what the Bible says. She goes on, “But with clearer light, they gladly accepted Christ as their Redeemer, and with this advanced step came a change in their obligations. As they received a purer faith, there was a corresponding change in their life and character, and in token of this change and as an acknowledgement of their faith in Christ, they were rebaptized in the name of Jesus.” And then she goes on to say, “Many a sincere follower of Christ has had a similar experience.” She says that people can fall into sin and then “his former baptism does not satisfy him now. He’s seen himself as a sinner.” And then they want to be rebaptized, and so they get rebaptized, and she says that the Bible confirms that idea based on this story of the Ephesians. That’s a complete misuse of that story.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That’s not what the story even says. That was their first baptism, if you want to put it that way, when Paul came along. It was their believer’s baptism. But Adventism doesn’t understand believer’s baptism because they don’t actually believe in the finished work of Christ.
Nikki: She certainly didn’t know how to read the Bible.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: She was pulling from a historical book, a book that gave us the history of the church, the birth of the church and the growing and the spreading of the gospel for the first time, and so they’re living during a time where they had the testimony of John, and then here comes the Messiah –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – all the work that He’s going to do, the death, burial, and resurrection, and they need to hear that. This is all happening within their lifetime.
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: I found it interesting – I went and looked in the church manual at what they have to say about baptism, and in the section on rebaptism, they have another quote from Ellen White where she’s actually stating that believers who have been baptized before should not be urged to be baptized again. But then she says – at the very end of this she says, “Give God a chance to work with His Holy Spirit upon the minds so that the individual will be perfectly convinced and satisfied in regard to this advanced step.”
Colleen: Oh, my.
Nikki: So she’s talking about it like it’s an advancement.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: It’s a moving forward. And we read already that they talk about baptism as advancing the life. Yes, they might say, “Well, we don’t tell people they need to be rebaptized,” but in the back of their mind they’re hoping the Holy Spirit is going to cause them to want to be advancing.
Colleen: They will allow people who have been baptized by immersion in other churches, such as a Baptist church, if they join Adventism, they can join on what they call “profession of faith.” They have to profess and sign off on their belief in Adventist doctrine just as if they were being baptized. So they have to accept Adventist teaching, the whole business that people being baptized as Adventists accept. They just don’t have to be dunked again, and they call that “profession of faith.” But if they haven’t been baptized by immersion, they have to do that. And what’s interesting here, and I might as well mention it, baptism by immersion is the model we see in Scripture. I am a firm believer in believer’s baptism –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – baptism by immersion. But in Christianity – and this came as a surprise to me when I left Adventism. Adventism makes a very big deal about sprinkling and child baptism as being a great heresy. Well, while I don’t see it in Scripture, it is not considered a heresy within Christianity.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It is considered a secondary issue, and it is not something that breaks fellowship. I know Christians who’ve never been baptized by immersion but who were baptized as infants. They love the Lord, they love His Word, and they believe they’ve been baptized, and that is something that is accepted within Christianity as a whole as a secondary issue. Now, it might be enough to cause us to say, “I can’t join a church where that’s their general practice,” but if they trust Jesus, if they know they’re saved, and they honor the Word of God, it’s considered secondary. So Adventism’s emphasis on the immersion, without allowing even for profession of faith from someone who has been infant baptized, that tells me that the cultic nature of their understanding of baptism is profound. They have to have that water dunking in order for them to consider it real, which, of course, also reveals their misunderstanding that a true believer is truly baptized by the Holy Spirit when they come to faith, and the Holy Spirit baptizes them into the Body of Christ.
Nikki: They have conflated the water baptism with the Spirit baptism.
Colleen: They have.
Nikki: So one of the things that was so frustrating to me is in the section “Symbol of Being Dead to Sin and Alive to God.” This is where they really start to work it into the mind of the reader that you actively participate in putting to death your sins –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – and committing to live this new life, AKA BITE model.
Colleen: Yes, Adventist truth.
Nikki: This is where we call it a cult initiation.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: They’re taking the symbol of baptism and they’re turning it into something that you can only do within Adventism.
Colleen: Absolutely, well said. They say, “The intimacy of the believer’s relationship with Christ is revealed through expressions like ‘baptized into Christ Jesus.'” And I want to say, even the sentence, while you can’t look at that and say, “Humph, that’s false,” but “the intimacy of the believer’s relationship with Christ is revealed”? No. That’s not actually what’s revealed in baptism. Baptism is an outward sign that somebody who has been born again experiences to declare publicly their alignment, their trust in, their new birth into Christ. It’s not just, “I want everybody to see that I’m intimate with Christ,” and that’s up to anybody’s guess what that means. Within Adventism, how would you have even understood those words?
Nikki: I don’t know. [Laughter.]
Colleen: I don’t either. As a Christian, I see that I don’t describe my new birth as something that I would call “my intimacy of relationship with Christ.” I would just say, “I have new life in Christ. I have been born of God.” That’s not some odd, emotional, sentimental experience. I have a new identity because I’ve been born of God, literally.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So they don’t even talk about it with biblical terms.
Nikki: I think so much of the reason why they can’t talk about it that way is because they get all of the different things we’ve already looked at in the book so wrong.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: The nature of man is so wrong.
Colleen: They have no spirit. They do not believe they’re born spiritually dead and must be born again. And they don’t believe their spirit is separate from their body. They believe it’s their breath. How can you have spiritual death if it’s only your breath that is your spirit?
Nikki: Yeah, I think that this chapter touches on all of those issues –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – on the nature of man. They say, “Baptism symbolizes the crucifixion of the old life.” They say, “As a burial follows a person’s death, so when the believer goes down into the watery grave the old life that passed away when he accepted Jesus Christ is buried.” The way that I understand this as a Christian now is while you were dead in your sins, God raised you to life.
Colleen: That’s Ephesians 2:4.
Nikki: This isn’t about a lifestyle, an old way of life. This is the man. The man was dead –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – and now the man is raised to life through the power of Christ’s resurrection. So it’s the resurrection of the new man, it’s the creation of the new man in Christ. It’s hard to pull these words apart in a way that makes sense.
Colleen: Yeah. Yes.
Nikki: I believe this is very much connected to our walk through Ephesians chapter 2 in a previous podcast series.
Colleen: In that same section they say, “The baptismal ceremony is a demonstration of an inner cleansing – the washing away of sins that have been confessed.” No, baptism in Scripture is an act that we do when we have been born again. When we trust Jesus, all of our sins, past, present, and future, are forgiven, and we are made new. It’s not just the sins that have been confessed that are forgiven. That’s the teaching of the Investigative Judgment that used to keep me awake until the middle of the night when I was a teenager, worrying I’d committed the unpardonable sin, worrying I had a sin I had forgotten to confess. Nikki, you often talk about what the Day of Atonement sacrifice was really for in Israel. Do you want to talk about that?
Nikki: Yeah. It jumped out at me when we were walking through Hebrews. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says that the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement was for the sins of the people not remembered.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: When Jesus died on the cross, He was the sacrifice of atonement that all the sacrifices pointed to. You can read about this in Hebrews.
Colleen: So this is just another illustration of the fact that Adventism doesn’t believe Jesus’ atonement was finished on the cross. It doesn’t believe that you can know you are saved. It’s an indication that they do believe you have to remember and confess every sin, that’s what Ellen White said. She said even forgotten sins can keep you from being saved. This is just kind of buried in a sentence in the middle of this chapter, but all of that underlying Adventist belief is there and is connected with baptism. So you can see Adventist baptism is not the same baptism as Christian baptism.
Nikki: In the next section they talk about how baptism symbolizes what it is to be alive to God, and they say, “Christ’s resurrection power goes to work in our lives. It enables us to walk in newness of life.” And they say, a little further down there, “This new life lifts us to a higher plateau of human experience, giving us new values, aspirations, and desires that focus on a commitment to Jesus Christ.”
Colleen: They don’t mean new birth.
Nikki: No, they don’t.
Colleen: They mean having your head purged of worldly thoughts, of self-flagellating until all you can think of is giving up your bacon, giving up your ham, giving up your meat, giving up your earrings, and adopting the Adventist lifestyle. This is talking about a new way of living, adopting a new lifestyle.
Nikki: So they’ve laid out a case now, up to this point, that baptism is vital for salvation.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: It’s the commandment of Christ, it’s absolutely important. It must be through immersion, that it’s a symbol of dying to your old way of life and committing to a new way of life. And now they’re going to go in and talk about how it is a symbol of a covenant relationship.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: Even this chapter starts to take you down this garden path.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: So if you’ve bought it this far, then you know you can’t be saved unless you give up your old lifestyle –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – commit to a new lifestyle, get baptized – and you have to do it in the remnant church – and they go on and they now say you have to be a part of a new covenant, which is essentially the old covenant given to a new people group.
Colleen: Well said! That’s what their new covenant is.
Nikki: They say, “When the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah they broke their covenant relationship with God, terminating their special status as His chosen people. Although God’s covenant and His promises remained the same, He chose a new people. Spiritual Israel replaced the Jewish nation.
Colleen: When I read that, I was really upset. They even give texts to try to bolster up their point. But they failed to mention Romans 11. I just have read what Paul says in Romans 11 about Israel. Now, we as Adventists didn’t learn this. To study Romans 9 through 11 is another paradigm shift. This is such a clear passage, verses 28 to 29. Paul says this: “From the standpoint of the gospel they [or Israel, the Jews] are enemies for your sake” – he’s speaking to the Gentile Christians – “but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are [present tense] – they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Paul is very clear all through those three chapters, Romans 9 through 11, that God’s call on Israel, His choice of Israel, has not been rescinded. His promises cannot be broken. The fact that Israel failed, the fact that Israel sinned, does not change God’s promises that are His unilateral promises to Abraham for his descendants or His choice of the nation Israel. God is not done with Israel, and we do not replace Israel.
Nikki: No, we don’t, and you know, one of the most wonderful moments for me, right after I left Adventism, was realizing that I am not a part of the 144,000 –
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: – even as a Christian.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: It’s very clear in that passage that these are Jews. God has a future plan for Israel that we can read clearly in Scripture.
Colleen: And while all the details aren’t revealed, the fact that there is a plan is very clear. And Paul warns us Gentile believers not to be arrogant, because we are not better than they, and if He could take out unbelieving natural branches from His tree of purposes and plans, He can remove us as grafted branches as well.
Nikki: So if we’re now spiritual Israel, under the Old Covenant, and we’ve bought into the rest of the book and we realize that the remnant church has a special last-day message related to that Old Covenant, that moves us very seamlessly into the next section, where they talk about Adventists being consecrated to Christ’s service. They say that because at Jesus’ baptism the dove came down, they say that He actually “received a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” And that this experience “reveals that water baptism and Spirit baptism belong together.”
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: So when you have your water baptism, that’s when you are baptized by the Spirit, in Adventism.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And they say that “In the apostolic church the outpouring of the Holy Spirit generally followed water baptism. So today, when we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are dedicated, consecrated, and united with the three great persons of heaven and to the spreading of the everlasting gospel.” We’re back to the remnant message of Revelation 14.
Colleen: That phrase, “the everlasting gospel,” is a reaching back into the first angel’s message, which we talked about when we talked about the remnant, that first angel’s message from Revelation 14:6 and 7: For he saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven, carrying the everlasting gospel and saying, “Worship God, fear Him, give glory to Him.” That word “everlasting gospel” Christians understand to mean the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Adventists understand it to mean the Sabbath, the Investigative Judgment, and the second coming, just as we discussed when we went through The Three Angels’ Messages in “The Remnant and Its Mission.” “The everlasting gospel” is their code for their message. And not only that, Nikki, in this sentence it says that people who are baptized into Adventism – that’s the context here – are consecrated and united with “the three great persons of heaven.” That is not the Trinity. That is that group of gods which Ellen White named “the heavenly trio” and “the three great worthies of heaven.” Adventism, as we talked about before, does not believe in the Trinity expressed in three persons who share substance. She believed in three separate beings, and she called them “the three worthies of heaven.” She didn’t call them the one God. She called them “the heavenly trio,” and as we discussed earlier, Adventist theologians have defended that view and argued in papers, scholarly papers that they’ve written, Jerry Moon being one that I’m thinking of in particular, that “the heavenly trio” is the right view of the Trinity. That’s what this book is talking about.
Nikki: So this is another example where if somebody who doesn’t understand Adventism comes in and reads this one sentence, they might think, “Hmm, they worded that oddly.”
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: But they wouldn’t understand all that’s behind it.
Colleen: Right!
Nikki: This is the special vocabulary that’s come out through the rest of this book, and it’s interesting that when they say that at water baptism you receive the Holy Spirit and then you’re going to go preach this everlasting gospel, they say, “The Holy Spirit prepares us for this ministry by purifying our hearts.”
Colleen: Of course.
Nikki: And then they go on and say that it’s at the time of water baptism that the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts so that they can do this.
Colleen: That’s not what Scripture says.
Nikki: No. So everything hinges on being immersed by Adventists.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: And that gets clearer as we go.
Colleen: Already we can see, Adventist baptism is a cultic rite of membership.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s access to the remnant.
Nikki: They say right here that “baptism also marks the person’s entrance into Christ’s spiritual kingdom. Since baptism unites the new believer to Christ, it also functions as the door to the church.” Well, we understand, because we’ve been looking at this for so long, that they mean the remnant church –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – the true church, the Adventist church. This punts you right into the next section on “Qualifications for Baptism.”
Colleen: Their first qualification is just “Faith,” and then they explain it, that it has to be “a faith in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice as the only means of salvation from sin.” And then they say, “Christ said, ‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved'” (Mark 16:16). Well, they didn’t finish the verse. The verse is finished by saying, “Those who disbelieve are not saved.” They just quote the part of the verse that supports them, but then they say, “In the apostolic church only those who believed the gospel were baptized.” Well, I want to say, sure, a Christian reading this would go, “Okay. People who believe the gospel are baptized.” But in their context, given everything they’ve written in this book and chapter up to this point, they mean that “everlasting gospel,” that first angel’s message, “Fear God, give Him glory, the hour of His judgment is come.” In other words, keep Sabbath, you’re being judged, 1844, and Jesus is coming again.
Nikki: They’re taking these texts to say that baptism, again, is necessary in order to be saved. They’re forgetting that John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water, but one comes after me who will baptize with the Spirit and fire.”
Colleen: They don’t deal with the Holy Spirit’s baptism being the thing that introduces people into the Body of Christ. That’s what Scripture teaches.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: They don’t deal with that in this chapter.
Nikki: So here’s where I start to see them getting slippery. They say, “Since ‘faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,’ instruction is an essential part of baptismal preparation.” And they’re going to begin to build a case for baptismal candidates being taught the 28 Fundamental Beliefs before being baptized.
Colleen: They move from faith into repentance and fruits of repentance. And they emphasize that without conversion a person cannot enter a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Notice again, no use of the phrase “new birth,” no use of the phrase “believing in Christ,” it’s “conversion,” and Adventists do use that word “conversion,” and they say it means a change of mind. So their code here is this means you change your mind about living worldly lives and choose to live Adventist lives, and only through repentance of that worldly life can you experience death to sin, a prerequisite for baptism. Well, what does Scripture say baptism is about? The examples we see in the Book of Acts of people being baptized, do you see them giving up all their sins before they’re baptized?
Nikki: No, they’re believing the gospel that they’ve been told.
Colleen: That’s it. And when they believe, the Holy Spirit seals them, as it explains in Ephesians 1:13 and 14, and they are new, they have new life.
Nikki: One of my favorite stories is at Cornelius’ house, when these Gentiles hear the gospel, and suddenly they are filled with the Holy Spirit and they are speaking in tongues, and the Jews are like, “Well, if God sees fit to put them in the church, what’s stopping us from baptizing them?”
Colleen: That’s what is a prerequisite for baptism, believing in Jesus, not experiencing death to sin. Now, a Christian might say, “But we do experience death to sin,” and biblically our old self is put to death when we have a new birth, but that’s not what they’re talking about, because they don’t believe in a new birth. They don’t believe they’re spiritually dead and must be made alive. They’re talking about beating their bodies until sin is dead. They’re talking about committing to not smoking, committing to not drinking, to not eating bacon and pork. That’s what they’re talking about here. And it’s code, but that’s what they mean.
Nikki: It’s willpower.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: When they’re talking about fruits of repentance, they say, “Their lives ought to demonstrate their commitment to truth as it is in Jesus and express their love to God through obedience to His commandments. In preparing for baptism, they ought to have surrendered erroneous beliefs and practices.” So if we’re going to call this “code” –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – they need to demonstrate their commitment to Adventist teachings, truth as it is in Jesus, we’ve read about in previous chapters –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – this is related to Ellen White.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: So they need to commit to that, and they need to “express their love to God through obedience to His commandments.” This is one of their favorite proof-texts, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And of course, that’s the Decalogue. And of course, that’s the Sabbath.
Colleen: That’s the Sabbath. They have to show they’re willing to keep the Sabbath.
Nikki: And, “In preparing for baptism, they ought to have surrendered erroneous beliefs and practices.” That would be going to church on Sunday.
Colleen: They aren’t going to say any of that because they know the Bible doesn’t support those kinds of claims, but that is what they teach their converts.
Nikki: And they say, “Unless they give this evidence of their relationship with Christ, they are not yet ready to join the church.” And again, “the church” is the remnant church, in their eyes.
Colleen: That’s right. You were looking, Nikki, in the church manual. They refer to it here under their heading “Examination of Candidates.” It’s interesting that they believe and teach that before a person is baptized someone, a pastor or someone official, has to examine the candidate for baptism and ascertain that they will agree to Adventist doctrines and agree to lifestyle changes. In other words, they won’t baptize them with the rings on. They won’t baptize them with the earrings in. Now, like I said, there may be some pastors now in certain more liberal areas who will, but underneath it all, they won’t baptize somebody who’s not committed to the Sabbath. What was it that you found about who examines a candidate and how that happens?
Nikki: Well, in the church manual, I believe it’s the 2005 manual, on page 44 they say, “Candidates individually or in a baptismal class should be instructed from the Scriptures regarding the church’s fundamental beliefs and practices and the responsibilities of membership. A pastor should satisfy the church by a public examination that candidates are well instructed and committed to taking this important step and by practice and conduct demonstrate a willing acceptance of church doctrines – again, Adventist church doctrines –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – and the principles of conduct, which are the outward expression of those doctrines.” Again, there we go with Sabbath-keeping.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And they say that if public examination is impractical, then candidates should be examined by the board or a committee appointed by the board. So there are a lot of hoops that you have to jump through, but look at what they said just before they lay out all these hoops, which include the 28 Fundamental Beliefs.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: They say, “Baptism is the avenue of induction into the church. It is fundamentally the pledge of entrance into Christ’s saving covenant and should be treated as a solemn and yet joyful welcome into the family of God. Membership in the church is possible only in those churches included in the sisterhood of churches recognized by a conference.” Again, this is the Seventh-day Adventist conference.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: If this is starting to sound Mormon, it’s because it does.
Colleen: It does, yes. [Laughter.]
Nikki: They say, “Those who acknowledge their lost state as sinners, sincerely repent of their sins, and experience conversion may, after proper instruction, be accepted as candidates for baptism and church membership.”
Colleen: “Instruction” is another code word, because on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, Peter and the apostles preached in Jerusalem at the temple, and people heard the truth of Jesus in their own languages from wherever they had come to come to Passover and Pentecost, and they heard and 3,000 believed. Now, if you want to call that “instruction,” okay. They preached the gospel and they introduced them to Christ. Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, Philip came along, found this eunuch from Ethiopia reading the scroll of Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” And the man said, “No, I need someone to explain it.” Well, Isaiah is an amazing book, which lays out the prophecies of Christ, and Philip joined the eunuch in his carriage and explained Jesus to Him, and the man said, “What’s to stop me from being baptized?” He was baptized the minute he understood who Jesus was. When Adventists say they need instruction, they talk about baptismal classes.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Like those things they do in the fifth grade throughout their schools. That’s another cultic thing.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Children in the fifth grade, or perhaps sixth, but fifth is kind of typical, in Bible class they offer baptismal classes. Parents have to sign off on it, but in general Adventists like to baptize their kids between the ages of 10 and 12. They take them through a whole series of classes explaining Adventist beliefs, and at the end of that they have mass baptisms and baptize them in. That period of instruction is that period of time when they teach them Adventism as opposed to Christianity.
Nikki: Well, and they lead their chapter on membership in the church manual, it’s chapter 6, they lead with an urge for young people to be indoctrinated.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: They actually say, “The solemn obligation of membership in the Body of Christ should be impressed on everyone desiring church membership.” So the Body of Christ, here again, they have the keys.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: They have the keys to this. And if you go through and read this chapter on membership, Ellen White herself says that the Adventist church leaders need to be very careful about who they baptize and who they discipline because they have the keys to the kingdom.
Colleen: Oh.
Nikki: What they bind on earth will be bound in heaven, what they loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. This is papal authority –
Colleen: Yes, it is.
Nikki: – that she’s ascribing to Adventism.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: And they say, “While there’s no stated age for baptism, it is recommended that very young children who express a desire to be baptized should be encouraged and entered into an instruction program that may lead to baptism.”
Colleen: This book also refers to the appropriate age for baptism, and among other things, they say, “Persons put their salvation in jeopardy only when they have come to the age of accountability and then reject the influence of the Holy Spirit.” Well, the Bible does not teach that there is an age of accountability. That’s a construct that Adventism has taught, and I know some Christian churches have even taught it in the past, but the Bible doesn’t teach an age of accountability. Whether that comes from the Jewish tradition of the 13-year-old bar mitzvah or what, I don’t know, or whether it comes from the example of Jesus in the temple at the age of 12 speaking to the teachers. Whatever it is, the Bible doesn’t teach an age of accountability. The Bible teaches that when anyone hears the word of their salvation, the gospel of their salvation, and believes, they will be born again and sealed with the Spirit. That can happen even in younger children. That’s not to say just because somebody claims they’ve “accepted Jesus,” they’re ready to be baptized, but the point is we can’t measure a person’s ability to be sincere or dependable by any age. God determines when we hear and see. And finally, “The Fruit of Baptism” is the last section in this book. And the authors list three fruits of baptism. The first is “the preeminent fruit,” which is “a life lived for Christ.” The second fruit is “a life lived for Christ’s church,” and the third is “a life lived in and for the world.” Nikki, how would you explain these three fruits? They sound good.
Nikki: Well, I would say that a life lived for Christ would be keeping the Ten Commandments, upholding the law, vindicating God.
Colleen: The life lived for Christ’s church is obviously talking about supporting Adventism. And, by the way, Adventist baptismal vows include supporting Adventism through one’s tithes and offerings, participating in Sabbath schools and church and evangelistic methods. So supporting or living for Christ’s church is not just a matter of living a Christlike life and loving the brothers and caring for them. It involves very specific things that Adventists understand to be their jobs. And then, when it talks about a life lived in and for the world, what would that look like in Adventism?
Nikki: To continue the healing ministry of Christ. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] Yes.
Nikki: I believe that that is really where they’re getting their message out there in the world is through their medical missionaries and their hospitals and their special diets.
Colleen: That’s right, the lifestyle, the clean, clean-’em-up lifestyle. I found – interestingly, I found my father’s baptismal certificate. He was baptized into Adventism in 1935. Now, this is no longer part of the Adventist’s baptismal certificate, but these ideas are still there, and they were explicitly stated, and he had to sign this. Besides the list of Adventist beliefs, besides the list of how to live for Christ, there was a page called the “Communicant’s Covenant,” and this is what my Dad had to sign: “Having seen new light shining from the Bible showing that a special message is due to the world at this time concerning the soon coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven and kindred truths connected therewith, and desiring to walk in all the light and be ready to meet the Savior when He appears, I do hereby covenant together with God and His people that by His grace I will be faithful to the beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.” Now, that’s a clear reference to the new light of 1844 revealed by Ellen White. It’s not stated, but that’s exactly what it means. It has three more paragraphs. The second one is saying that he has been brought by divine grace to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ “through whose atoning sacrifice I have redemption and forgiveness and will endeavor by precept and example to hold up to the world the crucified and risen Christ and do my part in preparing the world for His second coming.” That’s a reference to the Adventist belief that they have to help Jesus come back.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: They have to do their part so that the word goes out and He will then come back. Third, “I will do the best of my ability to loyally maintain the doctrines of the Bible.” Now, of course, that means what they go on to say: “I will give to the Sabbath school my hearty and practical support. I will be faithful in attendance at divine worship on God’s holy Sabbath, prayer services, and the ordinances of the Lord’s Supper. And finally, I will use my influence for the support of a faithful evangelical ministry among us and will endeavor by life and effort individually to win souls to Christ.” And of course, that means win souls to Adventism.
Nikki: And what year was that again?
Colleen: 1935.
Nikki: Wow. You know, they have some other optional vows in the 2005 Church Manual. You can answer 13 questions or you can answer 3. I believe that the three questions would be for Christians who are being converted in and don’t know all the other stuff yet.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: That’s my theory. But within these questions, you have to affirm that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is the remnant church of God –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – that Ellen White had the gift of prophecy, that you’re going to pay tithes, that you will keep the Ten Commandments, including the Jewish Sabbath.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: They have a list of all of these fundamentals, and they can only be baptized if they’re willing to admit or to adhere to this, to sign off on this, and then based on the chapter we just read, that water baptism will then provide for them the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, and entrance into the remnant church.
Colleen: Absolutely. And as we close, I just want to say: What is baptism? What does the Bible tell us? And I just want to end with the reference to the Philippian jailer when Paul and Silas were in prison and an earthquake shattered the ground and loosed all the prisoners as Paul and Silas had been singing in jail. And the terrified jailer, who had been listening to them sing their hymns, came up to them and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas and said, “‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ And they spoke the Word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them, and he rejoiced, along with his entire household, that he had believed in God.” And that is all it takes to be baptized, truly baptized, into the family of God.
Nikki: If you have questions or comments for us, you can write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. Don’t forget to visit proclamationmagazine.com to sign up for our weekly emails containing new articles each week, as well as other ministry news. You can like us and follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and please leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. And join us next week as we examine chapter 16, “The Lord’s Supper.”
Colleen: See you then.
- Inspecting Adventism’s Beliefs—God the Holy Spirit | 114 - October 17, 2022
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