MYLES CHRISTIAN | Host, Answering Adventism
For those coming out of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, detangling from the theological cobwebs can be a laborious chore. Like a cobweb, the fingers of Adventist doctrine are often thinly veiled, and one can feel them on the surface but struggle to pinpoint exactly where the problem is. With a little bit of biblical elbow grease and effort, slowly the errors begin to fall off.
But what I’ve found is that many Adventists go through this process, unsheathing from 1844, the investigative judgment, Ellen White, and so on—yet they still find themselves feeling the same way they did as Adventists—insecure and uncertain.
Why is this?
What is Man’s Real Problem?
As an Adventist youth, I thought about death more than the average youngster. Not in a dark sort of way, but in an existential context. I grappled with the reality that my life truly is but a vapor and could end at any moment, if not for the grace of God and knowing He is the sustainer of creation. But as I got older, I remember reading passages such as Colossian 2:13:
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses…”
Which would leave me asking a serious question… “In what way am I dead already?”
The Scriptures are clear from Genesis to Revelation that man is a dead creature while at the same time is a living being. We read from the beginning in Genesis 2:17 that part of the consequence of disobeying God was that “in the day that you eat thereof [of the tree] you shall surely die.” This act of disobedience by Adam plunged the entirety of the creation into an underground jungle that would require a Second Adam to come and fix, restore, and redeem what the First Adam broke—including man himself.
Due to the disobedience of man, all of his progeny is now born “dead in sins and trespasses” (Ephesians 2:1-2, Colossians 2:13) and in need of being “made alive.”
Due to the disobedience of man, all of his progeny is now born “dead in sins and trespasses” (Ephesians 2:1-2, Colossians 2:13) and in need of being “made alive.” This is man’s central problem. A person needs to be “born again”—something without which, Jesus taught, one won’t see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3). This happens when a person “hears the Word of Truth, the gospel of [their] salvation,” believes that gospel, and is sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:14-6). That sealing work regenerates a person’s dead spirit, making them alive in the Spirit, wherein the Holy Spirit testifies with our spirits that we are indeed a child of God (Romans 8:16). Then, knowing that the Holy Spirit is our down payment from God Himself, that we have an inheritance to come in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:17).
The message of the gospel is the solution to man’s problem—and the gospel is the Person and work of Jesus. Our good news is what He, as Almighty God, has done for sinners in His sinless life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. It is this message that God uses to raise spiritually dead people to life (Romans 10:14-7). This work of God replaces insecurity with assurance and instability with unwavering trust.
The Vestige of Adventism Many Never Shed
Many who leave the Adventist organization take with them Adventism’s false view of man’s nature—and not just man’s nature, but the Adventist physicalist view of reality itself. This phyicalist framework cannot account for the full scope of man’s problem. On top of this, the Adventist organization doesn’t possess the true gospel message, but a false gospel that is cursed by God (Galatians 1:6-9, 2 Corinthians 11:1-4). Their message has no power to raise spiritually dead sinners to newness of life—and why would it need to?
In the Adventist view, man is strictly a physical creature with physical problems. Any sort of reference to being “made alive in the spirit” is metaphorically waved away and made to be something that has to happen in the physical makeup of man. This physicalist worldview is why we have neo-Adventist types such as Ty Gibson and Tim Jennings who very regularly emphasize the physical healing of the mind. The say that if the psyche can be impacted enough, then one can get to the “fitted condition” for heaven. They say that the the behavioral problems of humanity are a result of the psyche of man not being touched enough, not understanding the loving character of God enough, and if those deficits change, then the core problem of man will change. This hypothetical change in understanding God’s character will result in behaving differently, and in the Adventist system, sin is physical—mere character blots.
Adventism’s proposed solution is an outward cleansing of the cup when the inside is a graveyard.
The Bible teaches that man is born naturally hostile to God, a hater of God that can do no good, cannot seek for God, dead in sins, and is a lover of sin and self rather than of God (Psalm 14:2-3, Romans 1, 3:10-12). Man is not neutral. Man is an active participant in his disdain and hostility to his Maker—by nature a child of wrath like the rest of humanity (Ephesians 2:3). Only through the born-again experience can one find freedom from this.
The Whole of the Matter
Adventism cannot solve man’s problem because Adventism doesn’t actually understand it. Furthermore, the system does not possess the actual antidote to the problem. Instead, it saddles people with a bunch of physical solutions, such as the health message, that carry the allure of keeping one physically alive longer, clearing the mind, and healing the physical body. Like the Apostle Paul said, they are things that have the “appearance of godliness,” but don’t actually bring one closer to God.
Adventism’s proposed solution is an outward cleansing of the cup when the inside is a graveyard. It does no good to potentially prolong one’s physical life if one is still spiritually dead and alienated from God.
While the Adventist teaching in this area may seem innocuous, it leads one down an unsuspecting path of outward promises and allure that will only leave one worse off than they were before heading down the path. It’s why numerous former Adventists forge the path of secularism and atheism. Adventism promised them something it wasn’t able to deliver, and it left them dead in their sins and trespasses, trying to do all sorts of things to alleviate their spiritual death: cleaning up their diet, “keeping” the seventh-day Sabbath (aka going to church on Saturday and only engaging in Adventist-approved activities until sunset) as best they can, mirroring the character of the pacifist, pushover Adventist Jesus, and so forth.
But thank God for His ability to illumine, shape, and restore through the washing of oneself in the Word of God which is the light of the path to Truth. And it’s in that Word that the true solution to man’s problem is found—the words of God himself. It’s there we find the gospel which is the power of God for salvation to all that believe it (Romans 1:16).
It’s the gospel that will transform a person and bring rest to their soul.
It’s the gospel that will transform a person and bring rest to their soul. It’s the truth about the perfect Person and work of Jesus Christ, the acceptance of that work before God the Father on the sinners behalf, and knowing that it’s on the basis of that work alone that one can have peace—not that work plus all of one’s deeds done in love. Rather, our eternal security is on the basis of Solus Christus—faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone. We have good days and we have bad days, but our Savior does not. Jesus isn’t merely a potential Savior, but a powerful and effective one. And He is saving His people as all of His enemies are being made a footstool, to the praise of His glory (Hebrews 10:13; 2 Peter 3:9). Hallelujah! †
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