Seventh-day Adventists Part 1
Notes
Transcript
Handout
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
This denomination was founded in 1863 and was birthed out of the Millerite movement of 1843-1844.
Seventh-day Adventist.
We have covered a lot of cults so far in our study. Today we will take a look at a denomination rather than a ‘cult’. Some may or will no doubt call it a cult but I will be speaking to much of my own experience with knowing friends and family who personally are Adventist.
From my own experience speaking and being around Adventists including an Adventist pastor, I would consider them to be Christian with some very different view.
The Millerites were the followers of the teachings of William Miller, who in 1831 first shared publicly his belief that the Second Advent of Jesus Christ would occur in roughly the year 1843–1844. Coming during the Second Great Awakening, his teachings were spread widely and grew in popularity, which led to the event known as the Great Disappointment.
Spoiler:
The Great Disappointment is that Jesus did not return on the prophesied date.
Seventh-day Adventists are considered a Protestant denomination.
What are the two most well known fact about Seventh-day Adventists?
They observe the Sabbath day.
They believe in the imminent second coming (Advent) of Jesus Christ.
Who founded the Seventh-day Adventists?
Joseph Bates, James White, and Ellen G. White.
Ellen G. White is the most prominent figure and she will overshadow the men who helped in the founding.
We will discuss Ellen G. White a little later.
Is it wrong to observe the Sabbath?
No.
Is it required of me as a Christian to observe the Sabbath?
No. It is a personal matter on whether you observe the sabbath or not.
16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul explicitly refers to the Sabbath as a shadow of Christ, which is no longer binding since the substance (Christ) has come. It is quite clear in those verses that the weekly Sabbath is in view. The phrase "a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day" refers to the annual, monthly, and weekly holy days of the Jewish calendar (cf. 1 Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 2:4; 31:3; Ezekiel 45:17; Hosea 2:11). If Paul were referring to special ceremonial dates of rest in that passage, why would he have used the word "Sabbath?" He had already mentioned the ceremonial dates when he spoke of festivals and new moons.
Also let us note that the Sabbath was given under the Mosiac Covenant and we are now under the New Covenant. We also are not Israelites or Jews.
I do think there is value in having a day that you observe as the Sabbath where you rest and relax from work or things that are burdensome.
If you have found that day of the week, please let me know, I’m still looking for it.
There are two main Hebrew words used for rest in the Bible. The first is shabbat, which gets partially translated into the English word “sabbath.” So what is shabbat? This word simply means to stop working. Think of an hourly job where you clock out at the end of a shift. The work is done, and there’s no more until you clock back in.
The other main Hebrew word for rest used in the Hebrew Scriptures is nuakh. This means to “dwell” or “settle.” This is not the same as clocking out from an hourly job. This type of rest is like sitting in front of a fire with a loved one or unpacking a suitcase to stay at grandma’s house for the holidays.
God introduces the ideas of shabbat and nuakh right around the same time in Scripture. In the creation account, God works for six days creating the world, and he rests on the seventh day (Gen. 2:2-3, Genesis 2:2-3).
After six days of bringing order to chaos, he takes the time to shabbat from his work. Only a few verses later, we read that God creates humans and then immediately “rests them” or “settles them” (nuakh) in the garden with him (Gen. 2:15
Genesis 2:15
15Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.). The literary structure communicates a link between the concepts of shabbat and nuakh—they are connected. God leads by example as he rests from work (shabbat), and then he dwells (nuakh) with his people.
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
All this talk of rest right before a passage that deals with Sabbath? This is no mistake. The people have become weary and burdened by the heavy weight of observing the Sabbath, following the letter of the law while missing God’s intent behind the command.
Jesus wants to clarify the meaning of Sabbath for them. The people are in need of rest—to stop hard work (shabbat) and be present with God (nuakh). And Jesus is here to usher in the full promise. He is God’s rest, and the people can come to him and find the true seventh-day rest that God intended.
Do we believe in the imminent return of Christ?
Yes we do.
Do Seventh-day Adventists believe in the rapture?
No.
What I think differentiates us from Seventh-day Adventists is that we believe the rapture could happen at any moment and the events of the end times could be triggered at any moment.
In fact, all the Adventists I have met are moving to the middle of no where, building bunkers, and going off the grid living. All in the preparation to go through the tribulation period.
Do Adventist believe you go to heaven or hell when you die?
No.
I say no, but it is more complicated than a simple yes or no.
They believe in ‘soul sleep’ which means you ‘sleep’ or remain in a dormant state until God judges.
Do Adventists believe in hell?
No, they reject the idea that hell is an eternal place of torture for the sinner.
Adventists believe that hell is not an eternity of suffering and torture. They believe God is just but also merciful and it’s not in the nature of God to torture the unrighteous for eternity. Instead, sinners and unbelievers will ultimately die for eternity.
Most Adventists believe some variant of annihilationism.
Which means they believe that people cease to exist upon death.
Adventists believe that people will be annihilated after the judgment, that when the wicked are simply destroyed and not tormented eternally. This is contrary to the biblical teachings of hell.
Most Adventists believe that God is too merciful and gracious to punish eternally.
Where does the bible teach that hell is a place of eternal torture?
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Jesus Himself event spoke of hell as a place of eternal punishment:
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
The bible is clear that to be absent from the body is to be present with the LORD. We will go to the place of eternal destination upon death.
8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Adventists follow what two teachings?
Ellen G. White’s books
The Bible.
I purposely put them in this order, because it seems more often than not, Ellen White is venerated over the bible itself. Her writings seem to be the foundation on so much of what Adventists hold to in their beliefs.
Ellen White believed that extra holiness and discipline were the way in which one were to live. She promoted extreme abstinence from things such as alcohol, meats (mostly of all kinds), tea, and coffee are among the few things she was against.
The Adventists will promote her as a leader in the 1900’s medical field.
Most Adventists will be vegan or vegetarian, though some of the Adventists I know do eat meat.
Although the Adventist church will only really make the stance to abstain from pork and shellfish.
The way I have always viewed Adventists is if you put Christianity and Judaism into a blender. That is not a real representation of the Adventists as they do pick and choose which Old Testament Mosiac laws to follow.
Do Adventists believe you can lose your salvation?
The short answer is yes.
Adventists deny the doctrine of Eternal Security. This doctrine is the one you hear people say “once saved, always saved”.
This is a baptist doctrine that we hold in that we have a free-will to receive the gospel and based on that choice to receive the Jesus Christ as Savior we are eternally secure in Him since salvation is not based off our works or righteousness it is based off Jesus Christ and His righteousness and works on the cross.
This is a highly debated theological topic.
Adventists believe that no one will basically know if they are saved until they stand before God at the time of judgment. They will say they believe they are saved by faith but that they must live a holy life without sin because no on really knows whether they are truly saved or not.
I want to say, that all of us here should be living a life that is holy, not solely out of duty as a chore but out of heart of love for what God has done for you.
Our desire for a holy life should stem from the desire to express our adoration, love, and gratitude for what Jesus Christ has done for us and nothing else.
However Adventists believe that no one here can know until judgment. This teaching came from one of Ellen Whites books “The Truth as it is in Jesus” published in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald. 17 June 1890, p. 369.
“We are never to rest in a satisfied condition and cease to make advancement, saying, "I am saved. . . No sanctified tongue will be found uttering these words till Christ shall come, and we enter in through the gates into the city of God.”
The idea Ellen White is teaching here is that we should never say “I am saved” and have cause a lack attitude about salvation but she extends this further by teaching that we won’t know until we are at the judgment.
Ellen White also taught “Investigative Judgment” based off her revelation.
This doctrine splits the Atonement into two parts. The Atonement began when Jesus died on the cross. Then, a second phase of the Atonement—the Investigative Judgment—began in 1844 when Christ supposedly entered the Most Holy Place. During this investigation Christ examines the life of each believer.When He is finished with their cases, He will begin judging the living believers who are alive near the end of time. During this Investigative Judgment God makes a decision on every case. He either blots out the sins of the believer from the heavenly sanctuary, or else he removes the name of the believer from the Book of Life. When His judgment has been completed, the door of probation will be shut and Jesus will return to earth to reward those whose names remain in the Book of Life.
Investigative Judgment teaches that Christians will be assessed for suitability for eternal life based primarily on their adherence to the Ten Commandments with a special emphasis on the fourth commandment (observe the sabbath day).
There is no assurance of salvation at all in the SDA belief.
In her alleged revelation ““Investigative Judgement” began at that time. According to her doctrine, Christians will be assessed for suitability for eternal life based on their adherence to the Ten Commandments (with special emphasis on their group’s obsession with the Fourth Commandment). So not only is there no ““once saved always saved”, there is no iron clad assurance of salvation at all in SDA theology. They bring some comfort to the situation by teaching that after death, the wicked will not be subject to eternal torment, but rather be destroyed in the lake of fire.
Many modern SDA believers have distanced themselves from the Investigated Judgment doctrine, but stop short of embracing full assurance of salvation by faith through grace alone.
Adventists believe that ‘once saved, always saved’ is an umbilical teaching and use the verse Matthew 7:21 as their evidence for their stance.
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Where does the bible teach eternal security?
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
We should still continually examine ourselves making sure we are living a life that is holy and honoring to God.
There is a warning about adding to the bible or scripture, this should also serve as a warning of us adding any other text or book to follow or honor above God’s word. To add anything more onto what God has given would be a slap that God’s Word is insufficient for us.
We believe in Sola Scriptura which is latin for ‘by scripture alone’.
Simple put we believe that
The bible is our only rule for faith and practice.
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. 20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: