COLLEEN TINKER
Last weekend I listened, stunned, to two Adventist sermons preached verse-by-verse. One was from the much-beloved 2 Corinthians 3 passage in which Paul contrasts the covenant of death written on stone with the covenant of the Spirit written on the heart of flesh. The second sermon, preached by a different pastor, covered another much-loved passage: Galatians 3:20–27.
The sermon on 2 Corinthians 3 was delivered by Ty Gibson, founder of Light Bearers ministry, and the Galatians exposition was given by David Asscherick, a speaker and director of Light Bearers. To understand the fast-paced, evangelistic-style sermons of these two men, it helps to know the mission of Light Bearers: “To vindicate the beauty of God’s character.”
There it is: the core of Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm: God needs US to vindicate HIM.
There it is: the core of Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm: God needs US to vindicate HIM.
The two sermons were articulate and intense; the audience at Loma Linda University Church was large and engaged—but the messages were punctuated by Ellen White quotations and by declarations that destroyed the power of the passages.
The verbal gymnastics were clever, but the central messages Paul intended were lost. In each case the bottom line left the audience with a message that turns biblical reality inside-out.
Romans 3:9–18 and Ephesians 2:1–3 tell us the truth about ourselves: we are born dead in sin, unable to seek, to please, or to know God; we are unable to do good but are under the power of the spirit at work in the children of disobedience. We are by nature “children of wrath”.
Yet both of these speakers delivered a message that neglected to tell people the truth about themselves. This lack led, then, to not telling the truth about what Jesus did when He took our sin to the cross, endured the wrath of God, died and was buried, then shattered death on the third day because of His sufficient sacrifice!
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of the gospel-warp of these sermons occurred when Asscherick came to Galatians 3:27:
“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
After projecting the text on the screen, Asscherick turned to the mostly-Adventist audience and asked, “How many of you have been baptized?” A few hands went up, and the speaker asked again, “How many of you have been baptized? Keep your hands up!”
Most of the audience raised their hands, and Asscherick responded, “Then you who have been baptized are baptized into Christ, and you are clothed with Christ!”
He then proceeded to exhort the audience, “You just need to believe it!”
…he upheld the belief that baptism into Adventism equals the baptism into Christ taught in the New Testament—and he completely ignored the biblical teaching of believers being baptized spiritually into Christ when they are spiritually born again and filled with the Holy Spirit!
And there is was: Asscherick just endorsed the common Adventist explanation that water baptism is the moment of new birth. Furthermore, he upheld the belief that baptism into Adventism equals the baptism into Christ taught in the New Testament—and he completely ignored the biblical teaching of believers being baptized spiritually into Christ when they are spiritually born again and filled with the Holy Spirit!
Oh, he said that this new position in Christ is because of what Jesus did, but he never explained what that work actually was.
In short, the message of these “Jesus-centered” speakers is still great controversy Adventism. They do not teach that we are by nature dead in sin. They do not teach that Jesus took our imputed sin to the cross and literally propitiated for it, thus fulfilling the law and shattering death.
Rather, they make the case that Jesus “unmasked” Satan on the cross, revealing that he was a murderer. Thus this work of Jesus took care of sin, and people simply need to believe and be baptized into Adventism, and they are clothed in Christ.
No Gospel
In spite of the fact that both of these pastors selected central passages that teach the new covenant, they managed to avoid the clear implications of the text: true trust and belief in Jesus yields a completely new thing: a born again person who is not under the law but answers to the Author of the law instead. In fact, the new covenant of the Spirit is far superior to the covenant of the law written on stone, according to Paul.
The biblical gospel is actually “good news”—but the reality of good news means that bad news is being addressed. The good news of the gospel is that the bad news of our natural depravity is answered in Jesus!
Adventism does not teach that we are born dead in sin. Even more, it teaches that Jesus was fallible; He could have sinned and failed in His mission! If the wrong Jesus is preached, if the wrong nature of man is preached, people do not know what the gospel actually is. We have to know the bad news—that we are BY NATURE spiritually dead and condemned under God’s wrath—before we can grasp the good news—that Jesus took all of our imputed sin into Himself and paid the full payment for our sin.
Now, our hopeless state of sinfulness and all our sins that our natures propelled us to commit are either on us—or they are on Jesus.
If we do not understand that we are not born “forgiven” but must acknowledge our sinfulness and entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus who literally shed His blood to pay for us, we remain imprisoned in our own sinful natures.
If we do not understand that we are not born “forgiven” but must acknowledge our sinfulness and entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus who literally shed His blood to pay for us, we remain imprisoned in our own sinful natures.
Jesus didn’t die and set the world free from sin. We aren’t born “saved”, just needing to acknowledge and “believe”.
No! We are born condemned (Jn. 3:18, 39). Only when we believe in the Sin Bearer and trust His finished atonement at the cross as the full payment for our sin can we be saved.
And here’s the miracle that happens when we believe: we are literally born again, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3. When we believe, we pass at that moment from death to life as Jesus further stated in John 5:24.
Adventism does not teach the true gospel. Furthermore, it cannot teach the true gospel because it does not teach or believe the biblical fact of our natural spiritual death. Without the bad news that we are by nature spiritually dead, the good news of Jesus’ completed atonement means very little.
In context, Galatians 3:27 is NOT saying that anyone who has been baptized in water is clothed with Christ. In context, the baptism into Christ is the spiritual immersion into Christ through belief in Him.
We are placed by the Holy Spirit into Jesus when we believe, and when we believe, we are sealed and indwelled by the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13,14). This reality of being born again, of being given new spirits and new hearts as God promised in Ezekiel 36:26, 27, and of being given the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit is what it means to be in Christ.
The baptism into Christ is a spiritual baptism. Galatians 3:27 is not referring to water baptism.
Furthermore, baptism into Adventism is not the passage into Christ. People who are baptized into Adventism are baptized into a system and a false gospel. If they do not know the Lord and if they are not committing themselves to the Lord Jesus, they are not being baptized into Christ.
For Asscherick to tell that Adventist church full of people that they were all baptized into Christ and now just had to BELIEVE it was to tell them an untruth.
For Asscherick to tell that Adventist church full of people that they were all baptized into Christ and now just had to BELIEVE it was to tell them an untruth.
The model of Acts 10 reveals the difference between being baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit and being baptized in water. Here is Acts 10:44–48:
While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we [did,] can he?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days (Act 10:44-48 NASB).
Notice that the Holy Spirit was poured on onto Cornelius’s household as they heard Peter preaching the true gospel of the Lord Jesus. Those gentiles, who did not keep the law but who honored God, believed the good news of Jesus’ full atonement for sin. In fact, when they believed—an internal reality that the Jewish believers who were there with Peter could not see—they were immediately born again and sealed with the promised Holy Spirit!
Notice also that the Jewish believers were amazed because those Gentiles were—well, Gentiles! They did not embrace the law and agree to keep its tenets of holy days and ritual circumcision! They received the Holy Spirit exactly as they themselves had received Him—when they trusted Jesus and His full atonement for their sin!
When they saw that the Gentiles believed Jesus, then Peter ordered them to be baptized in Jesus’ name.
For Asscherick to tell that congregation that their Adventist baptisms meant they were baptized into Christ is to turn the biblical model upside-down and to give the people false assurance.
Those people need to know the bad news: they are NOT born into a condition of being saved, nor are they saved or born again by being baptized in water. Furthermore, baptism into a false organization certainly does not equal being “in Christ”!
That congregation needed to know that they are innately sinful with spirits separated from God because they are born in sin. They needed to know that the Lord Jesus knows their need and died for them, that they must realize they need a Savior and trust Him alone!
We Need the Truth
Preaching verse-by-verse through Scripture passages does not mean that the truth is being taught. As long as the preacher is interpreting the text through the filter of a false worldview, forcing the words to accommodate their great controversy worldview, the hearers will not understand the real good news.
Adventism’s unbiblical view of the nature of man—the belief that humans have no immaterial spirit separate from the body and that sin is somehow inherited genetically from our parents—prevents Adventists from knowing their need. As long as Scripture is taught from the perspective that we have “free will” and can choose to obey and follow Jesus, the reality of who Jesus is and what He has done will be obscured.
The physicality of Adventism supports the great controversy worldview that claims we humans are tasked with vindicating God. We fallible creatures are supposedly responsible for revealing God’s goodness to the universe.
This task is too big for mere mortals. We cannot vindicate our Creator—He is sovereign and takes full responsibility for His own reputation. In fact, He revealed His grace and mercy by sending His Son to be our perfect Sacrifice. It is in the Lord Jesus that God’s “character” is revealed.
Our job is to trust Him when He reveals to us our true need and His perfect provision. He comes to us; He finds us and opens our eyes. Our proper response is to believe instead of resisting because we want to have “control”.
We need truth, not a sweet story that puts us in the driver’s seat.
We need truth, not a sweet story that puts us in the driver’s seat. We cannot participate in our own salvation; we must see that we are creatures, and our Creator has provided everything we need for our salvation.
Yes, we are asked to believe when we see Jesus for who He is. Yet even that ability to believe is given to us by our gracious Father.
Adventism has blinded its members by inverting reality and putting mankind in the position of power. The truth is that our sovereign God sees and knows, and He has come for us. We need a Savior, and we can trust that Savior with all our sin.
His blood has fully paid for us, and in Him we are ushered into eternal life the moment we believe. †
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Hi again Colleen. Greetings from our Snowbound Tennessee mountains! In 1984 I heard Des Ford preach a similar message as your well-worded one above. I was struck by Des’ complete confidence in scripture! Until that time I’d always upheld Adventist theology as ”the Truth”. Des did not at that time compare the SDA positions – he just stood on the bible. The difference between the radically opposing positions was obvious. (Especially since he held his series of meetings in Chattanooga, very near to Southern Missionary College, from whence I graduated as a Theology major) Thank you, Colleen, for emphasizing the ”old old story” which I (we) have loved so long. The ongoing experience of removing SDA luggage has been both a sad and a joyful part of my long life, aided in no small part by the leading of the Holy Spirit through the ministries of FAF and of Proclamation!. HFC
Thanks for your excellent article Colleen .
The book “ The Coming Worldwide Calvary Christ Versus Antichrist “ by Desmond Ford has two parts .
Part One : What Is the Abomination of Desolation ? . Ford says on page 15 : What are key elements in the biblical contexts of “ the abomination of desolation “ ? In our answer we must include … the righteous remnant who vindictive
Yahweh …
Part Two : What is the Everlasting Gospel ?
Ford says on page 82 : Evangelical believers have never given “ justify “any other meaning than “ declare righteous “ Wesley clearly states that justification is not the new birth , nor the process of sanctification , and that his understanding was the same as that of Luther and Calvin . Ford in his explanation of the nature and importance of justification never mentions the new birth . However on page 76 he does say the fruit of the Spirit is the evidence that we have been born of the Spirit .
I believe when a person places their trust and belief in Christ , that person is born again . Simultaneously a whole lot happens : sealed and indwelled by the Holy Spirit , justified by faith , ushered into eternal life , entrance into the New Covenant , and no longer under the law but now under grace .