ADVENTISM’S FUNDAMENTAL BELIEF #1: The Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, are the written Word of God, given by divine inspiration through holy men of God who spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In this Word, God has committed to man the knowledge necessary for salvation. The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the authoritative revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God’s acts in history. (2 Pet. 1:20, 21; 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; Ps. 119:105; Prov. 30:5, 6; Isa. 8:20; Jn. 17:17; 1 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 4:12.)
One’s view of inspiration forms the foundation for how every other doctrinal belief can be understood. Understanding what someone means when they affirm the inspiration of Scripture is a complex task because there are some subtle, yet profound, differences that are based on an accurate understanding of a few technical terms. One of the most important is the distinction between infallibility and inerrancy.
There is not a single view of inspiration that is accepted as the mainstream view because, even within these technical terms, there are nuances that lead to disagreements. Any critique of Seventh-day Adventist doctrine and teaching on this subject needs to start at this larger picture. So let’s begin to unpack the meaning of the terms:
- Dictation – God dictated the words of Scripture and the writers of Scripture recorded those words verbatim. This view is often confused with the next approach. Oftentimes that confusion is intentionally sown by critics of the verbal plenary view.
- Verbal plenary – Human writers were guided by God to produce the words of Scripture. While the individual writing styles and experiences of the human writers were maintained, God’s direct guidance assured that the words chosen were completely accurate. The Word of God as a written document is a complete and perfect combination of God and man just like the Word made flesh is both fully man and fully God. Terms and their definitions are important, particularly as we look deeper into Seventh-day Adventist teachings. The phrase “verbal-plenary inspiration” emphasizes two things. Plenary means full or complete. As it relates to biblical inspiration it specifically means that all parts of the Bible are equally inspired. In practical terms, this means that the words spoken by Christ don’t have greater accuracy or authority than any other words in Scripture. Including the word “verbal” with plenary indicates that the inspiration, accuracy, and authority applies to the specific words chosen. Verbal-plenary is the predominate evangelical Christian doctrine of inspiration and is my personal view.
- Thought or dynamic – Human writers received inspired understanding of God and were left to their own abilities to express that understanding. The underlying message of Scripture is inspired, but the specific words and statements are derived solely by humans.
- Inspirational – The Divine inspiration comes from the impact it has on the reader or listener. The inspiration of the Bible is similar to the inspiration of a good sermon, story, or any other book. God uses the message to individually touch a person. The inspired nature of the work isn’t the content of the work but rather its impact on the reader.
Another important definition to understand about the views of inspiration is the difference between inerrancy and infallibility. Although the words inerrant and infallible sound like equivalent terms, they are not. They are used to convey slightly different understandings. Before I begin with those distinctions, I would like to point out that the historical view of evangelical leaders is that Scripture is both infallible and inerrant. Infallible means that the document accurately and completely conveys the author’s intent. Inerrancy means that the document is without error in the content. Infallibility is more of a general construct while inerrancy is about the specific details. It would be inaccurate and incomplete to conclude that one of these two was the “higher” or more demanding standard.
The power of the term infallibility is based largely on how the one using the term has defined the Author’s intent. Scripture could be infallible in an overall sense, meaning that we believe God has accurately and completely conveyed everything He wants us to know. However, if we define the intent of Scripture differently, the infallibility may take on a very different meaning. For example, if Scripture is infallible in conveying God’s character there can be many other topics covered in Scripture that we are no longer affirming to be accurate and complete. If Scriptural infallibly conveys God’s intent for marriage, then marriage is between a man and woman and it is ideally between one man and one woman. However, if Scripture is infallible only as it relates to God’s character then we can conclude that the descriptions of marriage and the teachings on marriage found in the Bible may not be accurate or complete and we can; therefore, condone a marriage between two men. How one defines or limits the scope of God’s intent will dramatically change how the person understands Scripture. This is one reason that we see differences in doctrines and practices between churches that are relying on the Bible for their doctrine.
Inerrancy is a slightly different standard, it demands that everything stated in the Bible is free from error. Contrary to strawman arguments created to discredit inerrancy, this doesn’t mean that we have to accept the idea that the earth sits on pillars (see, for example, 1 Sam 2:8; Psalm 75:3), rather we can distinguish figurative, poetic language from historical and didactic statements. The challenge for the adherents of inerrancy is to define a consistent hermeneutic for distinguishing what type of language is being employed (for instance, is a passage poetic or historical language).
What Scripture Says About Inspiration
What can we learn from Scripture about inspiration? Let’s start with what Scripture directly tells us:
- But he (Jesus) answered, “It is written, ’Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’ (Matt 4:4).
- But he (Jesus) answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21).
- If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord (1 Cor 14:37).
- All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).
- For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).
Scripture being God-breathed narrows our understanding of inspiration. God is the direct source of Scripture; it isn’t just a collection of writings from godly people about God. It is also important to note that all of Scripture is described as having the same source and value.
The passage from Second Peter may move us a little closer to understanding the nature of inspiration. A prophet’s words are from God (“men spoke from God”) specifically under the direction of the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t definitively prove that the specific words of Scripture are inspired by God, but it certainly supports verbal inspiration.
Jesus refers to Scripture as the “word of God” and specifically as the “word that comes from the mouth of God”. Similarly, in the passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul makes the claim that the words he writes are a command from God. Clearly neither Jesus nor Paul has any issue with attributing the words in Scripture to God. This is important because a key question regarding inspiration is whether the specific words in Scripture come from God or if it is only the concepts that come from God, and the words are merely a person’s best attempt to convey that concept. Once again, Scripture supports the idea that the words, not just the ideas, are from God.
Both Jesus and Paul use Scripture in a manner that only makes sense if the specific words are inspired and 100% accurate:
- Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ’You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? (John 10:34-36)
- But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt 22:29-32).
- Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise (Gal 3:16-18).
Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in John chapter 10 is predicated on the word gods being plural in Psalms 82. His rebuttal in Matthew 22 is based in the tense of a verb in Exodus 3. Paul’s description of how Gentiles are included in God’s covenant, and therefore saved, is based on the word offspring (or seed) being singular in Genesis 12. None of these passages make sense if Jesus and Paul didn’t believe that the specific words in Scripture were inspired and accurate. This also returns us to the earlier point about all Scripture being God-breathed. The inspiration for all of Scripture has to be considered equal; whatever we conclude about the passages that Jesus and Paul reference must be true for all of Scripture.
Let’s take a look into how inspiration is described in the Old Testament:
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ’How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him (Deut. 18:18-22).
This passage from Deuteronomy is even more specific about the inspiration of the specific words. God says, in this passage, that He puts His words in the prophet’s mouth. God calls these words His own. The most reasonable conclusion that one can draw from how Scripture describes itself is that the specific words in Scripture are directly inspired by God.
This same passage in Deuteronomy also tells us something about the accuracy of Scripture. The passage tells us that if a prophet attributes something to God that is not completely true, God commands that this prophet be put to death. If God’s inspired word is anything less than completely accurate, wouldn’t God be holding himself to a lower standard than He demands of His prophets?
The possibility of error entering into the inspiration process also raises the question of the power of God in His interaction with people. Is God’s power limited because He is working through imperfect people? When everything else is stripped away, I believe this question is at the core of deciding whether God’s word must be trusted to be completely accurate. If God’s power is limited by sin and/or the will of people, then it is likely that inspiration is an imperfect process. If God is more powerful than sin, then there is no reason to believe that God-breathed words could be erroneous.
I find it interesting that the first temptation for mankind was to question the accuracy of God’s words:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen 3:1).
Now it is fashionable, even in many churches, to deny the accuracy of God’s Word. When the words in Scripture clash with the “enlightened” views of society, our view of inspiration is put to the test. Scripture tells us that all of the words contained inside are God’s and that we can fully trust the accuracy of those words. Can we truly believe Scripture and simultaneously conclude that some passages are more inspired or accurate than the others?
Thought or Dynamic Inspiration
There is considerably more potential for deceitful interpretations if one is focusing attention on the perceived underlying thought rather than the words chosen. To be fair, most proponents of thought inspiration are not attempting to deceive anyone and still assign considerable importance to the actual words used. For many theologians this is primarily a debate over the “why” that parallel accounts, such as those in the Gospels, have small variations and has very little, if any, impact on the overall understanding of doctrine. However, that isn’t always the case.
The dark side of thought inspiration is very serious indeed. Thought inspiration introduces the concept that errors may have crept into Scripture because humans are imperfect at conveying the thoughts of God. The underlying thoughts are perfectly correct, but the way those thoughts are explained in words may have errors. It isn’t hard to see how the unscrupulous can manipulate that approach to deny plain statements of Scripture and replace that with an underlying “theme” of thought that supports any position that they want.
The fact that people can easily mis-apply and re-interpret Scripture is not sufficient reason to reject this as a doctrine. However, I will contend that the Bible teaches that examining the fruit is one of the valid means of evaluation. The bad fruit of thought inspiration is that this doctrine is easily applied to negate the clear statements of Scripture in favor of personal interpretations.
An example of how this would play out can be found in how one might interpret 1 Tim 3:1-7:
The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
If the very words of Scripture are inspired, any elder must be a married, heterosexual, monogamous man. However, if only the thoughts of Scripture matter, then perhaps an elder only needs to be someone who is currently in a monogamous relationship. This is the basis (or at least a significant element) for the large variation in church doctrines regarding the ordination of women and homosexuals as pastors. No group is ignoring the Bible, they just have very different views on the nature of biblical inspiration.
Please indulge me in another example. Hopefully all Christians would agree that God is love. But, depending on how we view the inspiration of Scripture, this agreed upon truth can result in very different understandings. For those who accept a verbal-plenary inspiration along with the “conservative” applications of thought inspiration, the Bible describes God’s actions, and His followers must reconcile their ideas of love with those descriptions. We accept that God’s actions, however strange they might seem to us, define what it means to be loving, just, righteous and merciful (to name a few of God’s characteristics that are equally and fully true). In the Bible, God’s being loving didn’t mean that God never confronted anyone. God’s being loving didn’t mean that God didn’t call someone out about their sin. God’s being loving didn’t mean that God didn’t destroy those who opposed Him.
However, there are those who also take the truth that is love and reach very different conclusions about how God reacts to current social issues. The error begins by applying their own definition to what love must mean. This is often justified by concluding that “if even sinful humans can know that a particular action is loving, then clearly God must act in accordance with our understanding.” This logic allows us to both define love and define the character of God based on the values of sinful man. Having defined love in a way that makes us feel good, we can proceed to determine what actions are, or are not, acceptable to God, regardless of what Scripture might say on any of those subjects. Because we aren’t actually concerned about what Scripture specifically says, only about the thoughts that underlie Scripture. Like the thought that God is love.
Adventist doctrine affirms infallibility, within a limited scope. The Adventist view of inspiration is very nuanced. It is incorrect to simply conclude that the Adventist view of inspiration is outside of mainstream Christianity and move on. Without a strong commitment to teachings presented in the Bible, Adventism loses any reason to exist. Adventism can’t be the “remnant church”, can’t be the church that presents the third angel’s message to the world, and must often set aside their common arguments for their doctrines. For example, Adventist Bible studies make a large deal out of the word “remember” in the Sabbath commandment, and this requires an underlying belief in the accuracy of Scripture.
However, the attempts to defend and justify the writings of their Prophetess, Ellen G. White, present Adventists with some unique and difficult challenges. Without Ellen White, the SDA church loses its ability to claim being the remnant church that has the Spirit of Prophecy. At the same time, it is clear that Mrs. White contradicted herself at times and made statements that are clear errors. If the Adventist church is going to cling to Ellen White while also ignoring or nullifying many of her problematic statements, they need a view of inspiration that allows this.
One doctrinal tool that allows this re-imaging of Ellen White is the Adventist doctrine of Present Truth. Ellen White’s later statements can contradict her earlier ones because each statement wasn’t the “truth” for that immediate point in time. This can also be applied backwards to account for any contradiction between Ellen White and Scripture. Both were “true” for the time they were written, and the more recent truth (Ellen White) can supersede the ancient truth due to the recency.
The other doctrinal tool is to embrace a very limited version of infallibility. Once it is inevitably accepted that Ellen White’s writings aren’t 100% true and accurate, Adventist apologists focus on promoting a view of scriptural inspiration that shares a similar degree of errors and falsehoods as their church’s prophetess. The end result is often a very malleable view of both Ellen White and the Bible where truth is really left in the hands of individuals (or church committees). Truth becomes whatever the reader wants, and anything the doesn’t align with those wants can be explained away as errors, or at least historical artifacts that were true long ago but no longer apply. If each of us decides what constitutes “present truth” we have now each become our own gods. We are the ultimate arbiters of truth.
The challenge is that one can’t legitimately embrace both sola scriptura doctrines and personal truths. Having one negates the other. One can certainly find plenty of churches that have chosen personal truths and decried doctrines as divisive. Other churches have seen these trends and more firmly embraced an inerrant view of Scripture. I contend that the Adventist church is generally trying to keep a foot in each camp, and shift their weight from one foot to the other depending on the specific need (with the exception of the liberal wing of the Adventist church that has firmly embraced the “personal truths” position).
It would be wrong to conclude that the Adventist church, and individual Adventists, don’t believe the Bible or take the Bible seriously. However, it is important to understand the Adventist view of inspiration and Present Truth in order to evaluate their doctrines and sort through their apologetics regarding those teachings.
It is appropriate that the Adventist Fundamental Beliefs start with their view of inspiration. Every other doctrine flows from this starting point.
Seventh-day Adventist Doctrine of Inspiration
Describing Adventist doctrine is challenging for a combination of reasons. There is considerable variation in the views of individuals within the Adventist church, and that diversity of doctrine is accepted, or at least tolerated, within Adventism on many subjects. The Fundamental Belief statements may even be worded in a manner that allows for that diversity. The comments that I make about doctrine are based on what is written in the official Adventist church belief statements along with the previous two books published by the church explaining those belief statements. This reflects the doctrine agreed upon by the Adventist church leaders. Notice the language of this published first fundamental belief statement:
The Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, are the written Word of God, given by divine inspiration through holy men of God who spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In this Word, God has committed to man the knowledge necessary for salvation. The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the authoritative revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God’s acts in history.
Let’s examine the wording of this belief statement as it relates to the terms and concepts described previously.
The belief statement affirms infallibility but doesn’t mention inerrancy nor any concepts relating to inerrancy. The book published by the church to explain these belief statement, Seventh-Day Adventists Believe (2005) describes inspiration as “Divine revelation…given by inspiration of God to ‘holy men of God’ who were ‘moved by the Holy Spirit’ (2 Pet. 1:21). These revelations were embodied in human language with all its limitations and imperfections, yet they remained God’s testimony. God inspired men—not words” (page 14).
This book includes several Ellen White (EGW) quotes to define what inspiration is: The Bible “is not God’s mode of thought and expression. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen.”
“Inspiration acts not on the man’s words or his expressions but on the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual mind. The divine mind is diffused. The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God” (page 15).
This explanation of the Adventist doctrine of inspiration reveals a clear belief in thought inspiration and suggests (“The divine mind is diffused”) that error could be introduced. An article from the Adventist Review (the official weekly newsmagazine published by the Adventist Church) makes it clear that the church does believe that errors exist in the Bible. “God gives the prophet freedom to select the kind of language he or she wants to use. That accounts for the different styles of the Biblical writers and explains why Ellen White describes the language used by inspired writers as ’imperfect’ and ’human.’ Because ’everything that is human is imperfect,’ we must accept the idea of imperfections and mistakes in both the Bible and Ellen White’s writings.” (“The Dynamics of Inspiration”, May 30, 1996, pp. 22-28).
A phrase that you will hear commonly within the Adventist church, but is conspicuously absent from official statements on the doctrine of inspiration, is “present truth”. While the phrase is typically a euphemism for the writings of the Adventist prophet, Ellen White, it also reveals an underlying belief in progressive revelation.
Let’s unpack “progressive revelation”. The underlying assumption in progressive revelation is that God continually reveals new truth to His creation. This doctrine has a very reasonable basis: the entire New Testament and corresponding New Covenant.
A false dichotomy is commonly created when discussing progressive revelation. People are presented with two options. One position is that God never changes and therefore everything that comes after the books of Moses must be understood based on what God said to Moses (the most extreme example of that within Christian circles would probably be some groups of Messianic Jews). The false dichotomy argument presents the alternative that the New Covenant is proof that God is continually changing what is “true.” The false argument continues that if God doesn’t change, then we have to obey everything exactly as it was laid out to Moses or that we must accept that God is continually changing and updating His instructions based on what people are ready to accept.
I want to build on the idea of God changing His instructions based on what people are ready to accept, or what is important to God at any given point in time. If this is the case, what is our basis for truth? Does the Bible provide the answers for what is true?
Sadly, the answer is “No!”. Within the framework of this line of reasoning, the Bible can only address what was important to God at the time the different books were written. The Bible is nearly 2,000 years out of date when identifying “present” truth. If the Bible doesn’t provide the answers on what is “present truth” how can we ever know truth?
If truth is specific to the current time and culture, there are only a few ways that we can know present truth. We can have a current prophet or leader (such as the Pope) with a direct line to God to provide us with the answers regarding what currently matters to God. We can have leaders and teachers who apply the principles that they find in Scripture to conclude what is the new “present truth.” If we rely on a prophet or church leader to define current truth, we have determined that our source of truth is something other than just Scripture. Sure, we might revere Scripture. But we have concluded that the prophet or leader providing this new insight into present truth carries more authority than the Bible.
Based on the available information, the official Adventist doctrine on inspiration can be summarized as:
- Firmly rooted in thought inspiration
- Embraces progressive revelation
- Rejects inerrancy
- Affirms infallibility in a very limited scope
The only aspect of Scripture that Adventist doctrine defines as being completely accurate (infallible) is the “revelation of (God’s) will”. This is a trickier statement than it initially appears. If the Bible is infallible on the passages about God’s will, that would seem like it could cover a great deal of what is contained in the Bible. Let’s return to an earlier example. Scripture says that an elder must be “the husband of one wife”. This seems to detail God’s will regarding the appointment of elders in the church. If the Bible is completely accurate in this statement, an elder must be a married, heterosexual, monogamous, male. However, introducing the modifier “revelation of” to this infallibility allows for a number of different approaches to this passage.
The question of what a passage reveals about God’s will is a completely subjective matter. What I conclude has been revealed to me could easily be completely different from what you conclude has been revealed to you. I can quickly identify several possible revelations about God’s will that a person could equally conclude from this passage:
- An elder must be a married, heterosexual, monogamous, male
- An elder must currently be in a monogamous relationship
- An elder must be a respected member of society
If the criteria is only that Scripture accurately reveals the will of God, many “personal truths” become equally valid. There is no single truth. There may be a “present truth”, based on the culture and needs of the current time period. There is even room for individual truths based on personal experiences. The Belief Statement affirmation of infallibility is rendered meaningless by the scope of infallibility that been attached to it. It becomes impossible to make clear, doctrinal conclusions within this framework. The ongoing controversy surrounding ordaining female pastors in the Adventist church is an example of the result of this doctrinal approach. It is impossible to appeal to Scripture for an answer to this question. The only authority can be a vote within the Adventist church. And, apparently, even that authority can be rejected by individuals who disagree with the vote.
The underlying question is, “Do the words of Scripture matter?”. Can we discount what Scripture actually says when it doesn’t match our modern sensibilities of what it true? Can we decide for ourselves that what Scripture really intended was different from what was actually written because we perceived an underlying principle or thought that give us a different answer than what the Bible states?
I believe that when we place our understanding above the plain words of Scripture, we are choosing to place ourselves above God. We are worshipping another god. Whether that god is modernism, human reasoning, or just ourselves, we have selected a different, higher authority.
I contend that when the statements in Scripture can no longer be believed and accepted at face value, we can’t claim to be people of the book. We can’t claim to be followers of God. We have become followers of ourselves and of our “superior” understanding. There is, however, a simple solution. Submit ourselves daily to what the Word teaches. Instead of trying to manipulate that Word into teaching what we want, believe what is written in the Word and allow it to transform us.
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