How the Little Book of Jude Refutes Adventism

[KASPARS OZOLINS]

Many Christians are much less familiar with the so-called “catholic” epistles than they are with the rest of the New Testament. The term catholic is not a reference to the Roman Catholic Church, but means “universal” (with a small c), i.e., the non-Pauline letters. Among these, in particular, the little book of Jude may be the most obscure. It’s a letter written by a little-known half brother of Jesus to an unknown audience. It’s an epistle that deals with false teaching and uses quite strong language. It has intriguing and perhaps confusing literary connections with Peter’s second letter. For these, and other reasons, Jude is often neglected in our Bible reading.

Although all of the above are worthy of our attention and study, I want to dwell on a few details in the book that are not directly connected with the broader theme of the letter, but which have very strong ramifications for how Seventh-day Adventism claims to understand God. I propose that as we consider the theological implications of these details, we will realize inescapably that the Adventist doctrine of God is completely antithetical to what Scripture teaches. 

A Primer on the Adventist Trinity

The Adventist Trinity and its historical development over the lifetime of the organization is nothing if not a confusing mess. Adventist scholarship and leadership acknowledges that the Christian concept of the Trinity was soundly rejected by its founders, though they rarely admit this to their lay people, and in point of fact the organization conceals this from both Adventists and non-Adventists. According to the received historical telling of Adventism, it was Ellen G. White who supposedly “cured” the church of its anti-trinitarianism. Ellen White’s strong statements on the full divinity of Christ, in combination with her own use of trinitarian-sounding language (“the heavenly trio,” “the three heavenly worthies,” etc.) is seen as evidence that Adventism since her has been soundly orthodox on the doctrine of the Trinity.

But some of her statements on the divinity of Christ appear to have been plagiarisms of orthodox Christian writers.

But some of her statements on the divinity of Christ appear to have been plagiarisms of orthodox Christian writers. For example, her often-quoted phrase “In Him [Christ] was life, original, unborrowed, underived” (Signs of the Times, April 8, 1897) was lifted from the writings of non-Adventist John Cumming (“In him was life,” that is, original, unborrowed, underived.”—Sabbath Evening Readings, 1856). 

Furthermore, her theology of the origins of the Great Controversy seems to indicate that Christ’s position was one in which he was exalted to be equal with the Father at some point prior to Genesis (The Great Controversy, ch. 1):

Satan in Heaven, before his rebellion, was a high and exalted angel, next in honor to God’s dear Son. His countenance, like those of the other angels, was mild and expressive of happiness. His forehead was high and broad, showing a powerful intellect. His form was perfect; his bearing noble and majestic. A special light beamed in his countenance, and shone around him brighter and more beautiful than around the other angels; yet Jesus, God’s dear Son, had the pre-eminence over all the angelic host. He was one with the Father before the angels were created. Satan was envious of Christ, and gradually assumed command which devolved on Christ alone. The great Creator assembled the heavenly host, that he might in the presence of all the angels confer special honor upon his Son. The Son was seated on the throne with the Father, and the heavenly throng of holy angels was gathered around them. The Father then made known that it was ordained by himself that Christ, his Son, should be equal with himself; so that wherever was the presence of his Son, it was as his own presence.

Charitable readers might point to her statement that “He [Christ] was one with the Father before the angels were created.” But the same readers might wonder, if Christ was one with the Father prior to the creation of the angels, was this always the case? Why the need to “confer special honor upon” the Son? Was there ever a time when the Son did not have such honor? Why the need to make known that “it was ordained by himself [the Father] that Christ, his Son, should be equal with himself”? 

And what of this Adventist business of Christ being viewed as Michael the archangel? Many Adventists instinctively, reflexively, push back against any connection with the Jehovah’s Witnesses in this regard, strenuously arguing that in Adventism Michael the archangel is fully God. 

What I want to do next is to grant the most positive reading of the Adventist understanding of Christ and its Trinity doctrine. Let’s accept that when Adventists say that Jesus is Michael the archangel, they intend to say that Jesus is still divine. Let’s accept the Adventist claim that Jesus has always been one with the Father (however understood). Let us more generally grant that Adventists believe there are three persons in the Trinity. What should we conclude about these Adventist doctrines when we carefully read the book of Jude? 

I submit that the letter of Jude reveals how hollow each of these claims is, and that Adventism remains fundamentally anti-trinitarian to this very day, undermining the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Adventism Undermines the Divinity of Christ

The book of Jude is one of the few places in Scripture where Michael the archangel is mentioned. In the letter, he is contrasted with false teachers whom Jude describes as blasphemers (Jude 8–10):

[T]hese people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

The false teachers blaspheme the glorious ones, according to Jude. Who are these glorious ones? Most scholars view this as a reference to fallen angels, and thus “glorious ones” is an indication of the supernatural might of these demonic forces (compare the language of “rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” in Ephesians or “power and principalities” in Colossians). One can apparently blaspheme against various heavenly beings, and not just God. These false teachers treated the demonic realm lightly, not realizing how dangerous it was. By contrast, even the great archangel Michael, as Jude notes, did not presume to do this when he was contending with the devil. Rather, he only said, “the Lord rebuke you.” 

Already within these few verses, we have a picture of the character and actions of Michael the archangel. Firstly, and most importantly, he is not the Lord. Secondly, although a mighty being, he has limited authority. Thirdly, he must contend with the devil, who is another angel (though fallen). Compare these conclusions with the actions and claims of the Lord Jesus, who in his time on earth personally rebuked both demons and Satan when tempted in the wilderness (Matt 4:10), when confronted by Peter (Luke 4:8), or when healing a boy plagued with seizures (Matt 17:18). In fact, Christ created all heavenly thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities, according to Colossians 1:16. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to one person alone, and he is most certainly not Michael the archangel (Matt 28:18).

Whenever Adventists claim that Jesus is Michael the archangel, they inescapably undermine the deity of Jesus Christ.

Adventism Undermines the Person of Christ

Christians struggled for several centuries after completion of the New Testament over how to rightly communicate what the Bible teaches about God and Jesus Christ. They eventually settled upon a kind of “trinitarian grammar” which speaks of three persons and one God with a single, undivided essence, or nature. Here we must be careful not to think of the term “person” in earthly, human respects. For in the incarnation, the Lord Jesus Christ took on a human nature, in addition to his eternal divine nature. There is no person we know of who possesses two natures (all of us only have a human nature). But Christ has both a divine and human nature. That is to say, he is fully God and fully man. He must be fully God, for Scripture prophesies that “salvation belongs to Yahweh” (Psalm 3:8), and “I, I am Yahweh, and besides me there is no savior” (Isaiah 43:11). Yet he must also be fully man, for man has sinned and incurred the curse. Christ came to die for men, and not for angels (even fallen angels). 

Yet we cannot separate these two natures—human and divine—to the point that we undo the one person of Christ.

Yet we cannot separate these two natures—human and divine—to the point that we undo the one person of Christ. To avoid this, theologians use a technical Latin term communicatio idiomatum “the communication of properties.” Behind all the technical jargon is a really simple idea. When we say that Christ has two natures (human and divine), we must also say that all of the divine attributes of God are present in the man Jesus Christ. Whether we are talking about God’s omnipotence or omniscience, Jesus never lost a single divine attribute subsequent to his incarnation. In saying this, we are confronted with the awesome thought that the genuinely human, genuinely helpless baby Jesus, nursing at his mother’s breast, was the same person who was simultaneously upholding all of the billions of galaxies in the universe, with their trillions of stars! We must grapple here with wondrous concepts which are glorious and unfathomable: Mary really was the mother of God in some sense (without having to go in a Roman Catholic direction), and God really did die on a Roman cross (again, with qualifications).

These are no abstract, pie-in-the-sky musings of obscure theologians. This is an idea that is a necessary consequence of reading Scripture faithfully, and in particular the book of Jude, especially the fifth verse, as I will now argue. 

A glance at a number of English Bible translations reveals a significant discrepancy in this verse. For example, the old 1611 KJV reads as follows: “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.” The King James, following the more limited selection of Greek manuscripts available to scholars at the time, reads “Lord” here. But the much more recent ESV has a very different reading: “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” This is almost certainly the better reading, as it is based on the earliest and best witnesses to which we have access now. The difference between the two readings is a single letter (Greek KC ‘Lord’ vs. IC ‘Jesus’), since Christian manuscripts always abbreviated these two words.

It was Jesus who saved a people out of Egypt. It was Jesus who destroyed the unbelieving Israelites. 

Jude 5 is therefore an absolutely astonishing verse. I want to underscore just how incredible the claim of these words is for Christian theology. In order to grasp this, we need to think precisely about the various titles we use for our Savior. In Scripture, he is often called ‘Lord’, and that is a reference to both his authority and divinity (since in the Old Testament, God was called ‘Lord’ [kyrios] with the same Greek word). He is more directly called ‘Christ’, and that is a reference to his being the anointed one, the long-promised prophet, priest, and king of Israel, ultimately a divine Savior. But most basically, he is called ‘Jesus’, because that is his personal name that Mary his mother was instructed to give to her Jewish baby. Notice therefore whom Jude is identifying as the one who led Israel out of Egypt and afterward destroyed the unbelievers. It is not the ‘Lord’ or ‘Christ’, but rather simply Jesus—Yeshua! Jude is indicating the following: this Jewish Jesus who was born of a virgin, lived with his disciples, died on a Roman cross, is the God of Israel! It was Jesus who saved a people out of Egypt. It was Jesus who destroyed the unbelieving Israelites. 

Adventists proclaim a fundamentally different Jesus—a false Jesus—when they claim that “The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb” (Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, ch. 78), or even that he “temporarily” gave up divinity so as not to enjoy any special advantages over fallen mankind.

Adventism Undoes the Shared Divine Nature of Christ

The official website of the Adventist organization states the following about its views on the Trinity: “Seventh-day Adventist Christians believe there is one God. And that this one God is three co-eternal beings who work together in unity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have always been, and always will be [emphasis added].” Here there appears to be an acknowledgement of how Adventists understand the term “persons” when speaking about the Trinity. Adventist do not understand the three persons as sharing a single divine nature, rather, God is composed of “three co-eternal beings who work together in unity.” The unity is not one of essence, but one of cooperation.

In response the little letter of Jude asks: Which person is “our only Master and Lord?” The answer: Jesus Christ (v. 4). Which person “saved a people out of Egypt?” None other than Jesus (v. 5). Which person ought to be prayed to (as divine)? The Holy Spirit (v. 20). Which person is “the only God, our Savior”? From what we have already read in Jude, this might seem like a trick question, for the answer is God the Father, who is distinguished from “Jesus Christ our Lord” (v. 25). My point is simply the following: every action of our triune God is undivded, because our triune God has a single, undivided divine nature, shared equally by the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father creates through the Son, by the Spirit, such that there is only one Creator God. The Father sent the Son, who offers himself through the Spirit for us all, such that there is only one Savior God. 

At stake is not just the doctrine of God, but the very gospel itself, which is fundamentally trinitarian in essence. 

Adventists proclaim a different God from that of Scripture when they twist, or otherwise confuse, the historic Christian language and understanding of the word person in speaking about the Trinity. At stake is not just the doctrine of God, but the very gospel itself, which is fundamentally trinitarian in essence. 

The official Adventist article explaining their Trinity irreverently concludes with a sports analogy: “The triune God may be compared to a winning team. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit work together in ways that a human team would never be able to for a common goal.” 

As Christians, we should firmly reject this blatant idolatry and instead affirm with the apostle Paul (1 Cor 8:5–6): 

For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

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Kaspars Ozolins

Kaspars Ozolins was born in Latvia to an Adventist family. They moved to Los Angeles where Kaspars attended Adventist elementary and high schools in Glendale, California, and his father was an Adventist pastor. He met Ieva, his wife, while studying in Latvia before pursuing a doctorate at UCLA in historical linguistics. After Kaspars completed an M. Div. at The Master’s Seminary in Sun Valley, California, he served as a research associate at Tyndale House in Old Testament and the Ancient Near East. He is now on the faculty at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as Assistant Professor of Old Testament Interpretation.

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