MYLES CHRISTIAN | Host, Answering Adventism
Since the late 20th century, possibly sooner, a shift in the Adventist Church’s focus has taken place regarding a central doctrine in the overall Great Controversy framework—and that’s the belief in sinless perfectionism. Few doctrines receive the reaction this one does when I engage with Adventists across the spectrum. It’s typically met with animus and insistence that the Adventist Church has changed,—rown beyond this error—and they’re now a “gospel centered” movement that has changed their ways.
But is this the case?
The Adventist Catch-22
I was engaging with an Adventist professor on this subject not too long ago who said he wasn’t quite sure where Adventism got off the rails during the “Adventist Dark Ages” (1920-1950), but he was confident that the movement has course corrected and is actively working to combat this problem of “sinless perfectionism”. He insisted that we will all struggle with sin until our final breath and that total perfection will only come at the Second Coming when Jesus changes us.
Slightly puzzled, I began to explain to him exactly where the doctrine came from—it wasn’t some great mystery. It’s obviously coming the Adventist pioneers’ handling of the Bible—which would go on to receive the “divine stamp of approval” from God by way of Ellen G. White.
In the December 10, 1889 issue of the Review & Herald, for example, we read:
And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” Gen. 5:24. It is only a short journey to the heavenly hills, brethren, if we walk with God. In John 15:10, Jesus tells us he kept his Father’s commandments. He did not say, “I am trying to keep” them, but he says, “I have kept” them. So it is not enough that we try to keep the commandments. We must keep them. The character of the saints is not established by their failures to keep the commands of God, but by their success in doing so. Those who simply try to keep the commandments, are moral cripples; they do not walk with God; they simply hobble along after him…—Review & Herald, December 10, 1889
Yikes! The Church’s paper was publishing statements like this and using Genesis and John as their biblical support for such. Using Jesus as the Great Example—a staple concept in formal Adventist theology—they point out that Jesus was sinlessly perfect. And since this is so, we are to be likewise. In fat, sinless perfectionism is a belief that is downstream of their teaching regarding being “fitted for heaven” by means of perfect sanctification. This is supposed to be what probation now is for.
Two years later, in the same paper, Ellen White reiterates this same thing except she gives a slightly different angle that evidences the larger role this doctrine plays in the Adventist paradigm:
God will test all, even as He tested Adam and Eve, to see whether they will be obedient. Our loyalty or disloyalty will decide our destiny. Since the fall of Adam, men in every age have excused themselves for sinning, charging God with their sin, saying that they could not keep His commandments. This is the insinuation Satan cast at God in heaven. But the plea, “I cannot keep the commandments,” need never be presented to God; for before Him stands the Saviour, the marks of the crucifixion upon His body, a living witness that the law can be kept. It is not that men cannot keep the law, but that they will not.—Review & Herald, May 28, 1901
Ellen White clearly ties sinless perfectionism to the great controversy storyline and message. Satan allegedly began attacking the 10 Commandments in heaven, claiming they were unfair and needed to be changed, saying that God’s creatures could not keep them. Jesus as the Great Example came to demonstrate this accusation is false, that the law cannot be changed, and that the only way to enter into heaven with God is through perfect faith and the keeping of the laws of His government. This perfect obedience of Jesus allegedly vindicated the character (law) of God and silenced the accusations of Satan. The call is now for you to do likewise—side with Jesus in the controversy and silence Satan yourself through the help of the Holy Spirit.
Just as in the 1889 issue of the Review & Herald, Ellen White reiterates elsewhere that it’s not that a person cannot keep the law, but that they will not. According to her, only attaining a totally perfect level of law-keeping will vindicate God—trying one’s best simply will not do. Furthermore, this teaching was a recurring theme:
“He [Jesus] came to demonstrate the fact that humanity, allied by living faith to divinity, can keep all the commandments of God. He came to make plain the immutable character of the law, to declare that disobedience and transgression can never be rewarded with eternal life. He came as a man to humanity, that humanity might touch humanity, while divinity laid hold upon the throne of God.”—Mind, Character and Personality, Vol. 2, pg. 564 (2MCP 564.4)
Now, despite these obvious and perspicuous statements, the modern Fundamental Beliefs book appeals to a recent revision of EGW’s demands—without explanation:
“Some incorrectly believe that the ultimate perfection that glorification will bring is already available to humans. But Paul wrote near the end of his life, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the price of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12-14. Sanctification is a lifelong process. Perfection now is ours only in Christ, but the ultimate, all-comprehensive transformation of our lives into the image of God will take place at the Second Advent.”—Seventh-day Adventists Believe, pg. 148
When I read this statement it hit me that this professor was simply parroting the Fundamental Beliefs book and not actually engaging with what the text actually says. In the quote above, we see the book regurgitating the same puzzling statement that “some incorrectly believe that the ultimate perfection that glorification will bring is already available to humans.” This sentence might be one of the most tone-deaf and perplexing statements in the entirety of the book.
The text does not explain that people “incorrectly believe” perfection is possible because their prophetess told them it was possible! Furthermore, the same Fundamental Beliefs book tells them in chapter 18 that this prophetess functions as a safeguard to Adventists to protect them from doctrinal division and confusion! Yet this book—and modern Adventist theologians—outright contradict EGW’s “prophet authority” on this matter.
Let’s look at another example from the prophetess. Citing 1 John 3:2 as her support, she writes in Sons & Daughters of God:
“We are not to settle down, expecting that a change of character will come to us by some miraculous work, when Jesus shall appear in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. No, my young friends, we are judgment-bound, and probation is granted to us here in this life, in order that we may form characters for the future, immortal life.”—Sons and Daughters, (January 3) pg. 9 (SD 9.2)
But the Fundamental Beliefs book just told us this clear “prophetic” teaching is not true. Total perfection from sin will only come at glorification and the Second Coming, they claimed. Furthermore, the book asserts, it’s wrong to say otherwise.
Yet here from EGWs own pen we have an allegedly divinely-inspired application of 1 John 3:2 which completely contradicts the modern explanation. In conjunction with the Adventist doctrine of probation (a completely unbiblical concept), she claims that probation now is for Adventists to develop a perfectly sinless character before Christ returns because, once He returns (or at the point of one’s death), a person’s character is locked in for eternity. Thus, one must get to a totally sinless condition now to have a totally sinless character for eternity.
As with much of what she said, this is by no means a one-off statement. Again in Last Day Events she states:
“If you would be a saint in heaven you must first be a saint on earth. The traits of character you cherish in life will not be changed by death or by the resurrection. You will come up from the grave with the same disposition you manifested in your home and in society. Jesus does not change the character at His coming. The work of transformation must be done now. Our daily lives are determining our destiny. Defects of character must be repented of and overcome through the grace of Christ, and a symmetrical character must be formed while in this probationary state, that we may be fitted for the mansions above.”—Last Day Events, pg. 295 (LDE 295.1)
Does it get much plainer than this? Are we really to believe this has some cryptic, hidden meaning that is the total opposite of what it plainly says? Last Day Events is used as a college classroom book in Adventist universities. I know this because I’ve seen it and been there. She makes it very clear that “probation” now is for the purpose of a person’s development of a totally sinless condition—which will be locked in upon one’s death or the Second Coming. Only those who have developed a character identical to Jesus’s will be “fitted for the mansions above.”
In The Great Controversy, which the Adventist organization is seeking to hand out to a billion recipients:
“Now, while our great High Priest is making the atonement for us, we should seek to become perfect in Christ. Not even by a thought could our Saviour be brought to yield to the power of temptation. Satan finds in human hearts some point where he can gain a foothold; some sinful desire is cherished, by means of which his temptations assert their power. But Christ declared of Himself: “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.” John 14:30. Satan could find nothing in the Son of God that would enable him to gain the victory. He had kept His Father’s commandments, and there was no sin in Him that Satan could use to his advantage. This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble.”—The Great Controversy, 623 (GC 623.1)
She defined “perfect in Christ” as being as sinless as He was. And if one hasn’t attained sinlessness before the close of probation, that person will not make it through the Time of Trouble. EGW used Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness as a parallel to the Time of Trouble in the end times with Jesus being a picture for us of ourselves. Satan will be seeking to tempt believers during this time, and only those who have developed a perfectly sinless character like Jesus will be able to stand.
The Whole of the Matter
I didn’t get a response from this professor to these obvious contradictions between Ellen White and the same Fundamental Beliefs book that props her up as a doctrinal unifier. But it did highlight the seemingly paradoxical state in which the Adventist Church will forever be caught. Furthermore, this unbiblical belief demonstrates why they will always have a false gospel.
In recent years it seems as though the word “gospel” has become a buzz-phrase. Anytime words become popular labels, they tend to become more watered-down and less precise. This phenomenon is a tragedy when it comes to the word “gospel”, especially when discussing it with a Seventh-day Adventist. In my experience, one of the hardest parts around this discussion is getting an Adventist to understand that the gospel is not systematic theology; in other words, the gospel isn’t every doctrine contained in the Bible, and it isn’t the Seventh-day Adventist belief system.
The gospel is good news about a Person and what He did—His work. In other words, it’s the good news about the Person and work of Jesus Christ. And a false gospel is any message that claims to be the gospel but alters what the real Christ Himself has revealed about both Himself and what He accomplished. Furthermore, Jesus Christ told His apostles the gospel (Galatians 1:12) who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, codified Jesus’ revelation in Sacred Scripture. This fact also means that the gospel is completely about Jesus: what He did and who He is. The gospel tells us what sinners that stand condemned before a Holy God can receive by being “hidden in Jesus Christ” by faith.
The Adventist Church has distorted this message by adding (and subtracting) from both the Person of Christ and His work.
The Adventist Church has distorted this message by adding (and subtracting) from both the Person of Christ and His work. They have added novel doctrines like the investigative judgment to the work of Christ—an addition which completely distorts what Jesus actually came to do, what He accomplished, and who He is by His very Person.
The same is true with their doctrine of sinless perfection. The Adventist model does not recognize, teach, or grasp that believers are already “fit for the mansions above” by virtue of Jesus Christ being perfect and fit. When a believer is “in Christ Jesus”, he or she has already been raised up with Christ in His resurrection and “seated with Christ in the Heavenly Places” (Ephesians 2:6).
What the Adventist Church fails to distinguish, because Ellen and the pioneers did not, is the difference between “positional” and “experiential” sanctification. This difference is addressed in Hebrews 10 where the author speaks of believers as both “being sanctified” (present and ongoing) and “having been sanctified” (past and ongoing). Positionally before God, a believer has already been 100% sanctified on account of Christ and His representation for them before the Father. But in time and place, the Spirit begins working in the hearts of born again believers, making them more and more like Christ, effectuating the experience of sanctification in ones own personal life.
Importantly, experiential sanctification is not the basis for being “fit for heaven” and right with God. This teaching is a fundamental misunderstanding on the parts of Ellen White and the Adventist Church. In fact, this misunderstanding of experiential sanctification is something that, as time has gone on, I think some of their scholars have recognized. Some now see the problem, but they would rather not rock the boat, preferring to go along to get along. So they ignore the blatant contradictions.
Eradicating this abhorrent and bondage-inducing doctrine from the Adventist framework, though, is not as simple as hand-waving and printing a contradictory statement in the exposition of their beliefs. It is integral to the entire pie of Adventist soteriology. The central thrust of Adventist theology is that God is on trial, having to vindicate himself and the 10 Commandments from accusations made by Satan. And sinless perfectionism is a central cog in that machine.
At the end of the day the believers’ righteous standing before God rests squarely on who Jesus is and what He accomplished for His people—His death for our sin and His resurrection which broke our curse of death. The only thing the sinner provides is the sin that made such a salvation necessary. Our daily war with sin should drive us to the foot of the cross where daily we pray, as Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer—Father, forgive us our sins. And like the same prayer teaches us—we should be asking that God’s Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven—fixing our eyes on that glorious day when we will indeed receive glorification which is promised to us in the gospel along with physical resurrection.
In humility, we must recognize that we aren’t good enough, and Jesus doesn’t need our best efforts to allow Him to be a Savior. He is powerful and able, not a beggar. †
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