History
In the United States in the 1830s and 1840s, a Baptist man, William Miller, thought he had found the key to understanding the prophecies about the end of the world in the books of the prophet Daniel and Revelation. He believed that the second coming of Jesus would occur in 1843. Obviously he was mistaken, and his followers were disappointed.
One day after the Great Disappointment, Hiram Edson, a fervent disciple of Miller, had a revelation in which he understood that Miller had not been wrong about the date, but about the place. He said that Christ had entered the heavenly sanctuary the day before, not the earthly one, to perform a work of purification in it. Since then (1844), Jesus has been offering his blood to the Father for believers. Another member of the group, Joseph Bates, observed Saturday instead of Sunday as the day of rest.
In the group that was beginning to unite around Edson there was a young visionary named Ellen G. White. She claimed to have the spirit of prophecy.
It is important to note that, although they rejected (for obvious reasons) Miller’s belief that Jesus would come in 1843, Adventists continue with the same chronology based on the book of Daniel and other texts interpreted arbitrarily. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ellen White tried to interpret some historical events of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries according to Daniel’s prophecies.
From the beginning of the Sabbath-keeping church, literary work and the system of SELLING THEIR BOOKS have played an important part in the growth of the group. They have nearly 50 publishing houses in more than 220 languages.
Doctrine
This group of people think that the commandment to keep the Lord’s day means keeping Saturday and not Sunday. It is a commandment that never changes, they say.
The Catholic Church, then, because it changed it to Sunday, is the harlot, great Babylon. The “mark of the beast” mentioned in Rev 13:16-17 is this change.
The papal church denies the Bible to the people (White, I, 389)(1).
The first arrogant claims of the papacy were made in favor of Sunday (White, V, 500).
During the Christian dispensation, the great enemy of man’s happiness made the Sabbath of the fourth commandment an object of special attacks. Satan says: I will work contrary to God’s purposes… Through my vicegerent the Pope I will exalt myself. The first day, Sunday, will be exalted… In this way the world will become mine. I will be ruler of the earth, prince of the world. I will so rule the minds that are under my power that God’s Sabbath will be a special object of contempt (White, II, pp. 136-137).
The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty… When this test is finally applied to men, then the line of demarcation will be drawn between those who serve God and those who do not serve him (White, V, 663).
Conditional immortality
Another belief states that man is not a body with a soul inside; rather, he is a living soul. That is, when man dies he no longer exists; his soul is not in heaven (or anywhere else). The final judgment began in 1844. On the day of the Resurrection, God will recreate the righteous to take them to heaven. They will remain there for a thousand years. Afterward, the devil will be released and the wicked will rise. Jesus will destroy the devil and his followers by fire. The righteous—the New Jerusalem—will come down from heaven to live eternally on earth. The wicked will not receive an existence, but will be annihilated. This is conditional immortality. Only the good receive it. Adventists confuse destruction with annihilation, something contrary to the word the Bible uses in Greek. The biblical texts of Mt 8:11-12 and 10:28; Jn 3:36; 2 Thess 1:9; Rev 14:9-11 refute the teaching of eternal annihilation. Adventists have changed the numbering of the Ten Commandments. For that reason, to an UNINSTRUCTED Catholic it gives the appearance that the Catholic Church has changed them.
The Old Covenant
Adventists believe that the food prohibitions in the Old Covenant continue as God’s law today; therefore they forbid eating pork, shellfish, and blood, observe Saturday, and promote tithing. They are not consistent in their obedience to the laws of the Old Testament. For example, they do not practice Passover, which was a law of equal importance to that of the Sabbath.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is one of the few churches and sectarian groups that practice a type of foot washing. Adventists believe that THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL WAS JESUS in angelic form. They—unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses—believe that Jesus is God, that he forms part of the Trinity.
The monthly Spanish-language magazine of the Adventist church is called Enfoque de los Tiempos.
As in the case of other sectarian groups, we must weaken confidence in their religion so that adherents may return to the Bible with greater objectivity. This is achieved by showing them some important reasons not to trust Ellen White. Later we shall find examples of some things that cast doubt on her claims to be a prophet of God.
Tithe-worship?
Something about which Adventists are almost fanatical: the tithe, understood as 10% of salary income, clinging too much to certain Old Testament texts that do not apply under the New.
At the entrance of the Adventist temple in the San Rafael neighborhood (Mexico City), we find envelopes for depositing the money corresponding to the tithe. The Sabbath-keeper writes down the tithe to pay the Firstfruits, plus the combined budget. Then come his name, the signature of the church treasurer, and the signature of the auditor. What strict control they keep! On an envelope found in an Adventist temple in Guatemala, besides noting the normal tithe, it says that the Church suggests donating “another ten percent”!
The law of tithes and offerings is even more urgently needed today than under the Hebrew economy (White, Volume I, 568).
Even overdue tithes: Many persons for a long time have not dealt honestly with God. By not setting apart the tithe each week they have allowed it to accumulate until it has become a large sum, and now they are reluctant to pay it. They keep these back tithes… they are God’s property (Counsels, p. 101).
A brother… said to me: I am glad I heard you speak about tithing. I did not know it was such an important matter. I will not continue neglecting it. And then he began to calculate the amount of tithe he owed during past years, and said he would pay it as quickly as he could, because he did not want the sin of having robbed God, recorded in the books of heaven, to confront him in the judgment (Counsels, p. 102).
God will never accept, in place of the tithe, prayer made frequently and fervently. Prayer will not pay our debts to God (Counsels, p. 104).
Ellen White
According to the official teaching of Seventh-day Adventists published in the official magazine The Adventist Review, Ellen White IS THE KEY to the correct understanding of the Bible:
Today people say: the Bible only, but this deceives. The Bible must be interpreted by God’s prophet Ellen White (The Adventist Review, June 24, 1982, p. 15, under the title All Things Through Christ –All Things Through Christ-).
Ellen White is the infallible interpreter of the Bible and the final court of appeal for God’s people (The Adventist Review, June 3, 1971, pp. 4-6, in the article entitled: Source of Final Appeal (The Source of Final Appeal). See also the book: The Mark of the Beast, The Mark of the Beast by G. A. Irwin, 1926, p. 1).
Ellen White made some prophecies that have been fulfilled and others that are awaiting fulfillment (Seventh-Day Adventist, a Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines by the General Conference of Adventists, Ministerial Association, Washington, D.C.). “The Lord gave her counsels on health, education, family life, diet, medicine, and evangelism…” (p. 226). Her principal role was to guide the understanding of the Bible and confirm conclusions derived from biblical study (p. 227).
The General Conference, the world headquarters of Adventists in Washington, D.C., says that: we must examine and test all her words to verify whether or not she was a prophetess of God (p. 228).
Ellen White’s book, Counsels on Stewardship: It is a broad collection of instructions… proceeding from the spirit of prophecy…(Counsels, p. 5).
The editors, under official direction, speak of the five volumes mentioned: Of volume IV they say that it is an inspired book (White, IV, 6). About the first volume they say that the work sheds light. In volume V they call Ellen White a prophet. At least as far as this author knows, Adventism has not gone against any teaching of Ellen.
By definition, a prophet speaks the words of God, unless he is a false prophet.
She saw herself as a prophetess:
The Lord has spoken to me with respect to the payment of tithes… He has said: Bring all the tithes… Very recently direct light has been given me from the Lord… (Counsels, p. 88).
A clear and well-defined message has been given me for our people (Counsels, p. 107).
I was shown that the recording angel faithfully records… (Counsels, p. 206).
In a night vision God instructed me to say to his people...(Counsels, p. 256). In a night vision recently… (p. 295).
We know that a prophet is false if he presumes to speak in the name of God and THE THINGS DO NOT HAPPEN, as it says (Dt 18:20-22).
Evidence against her:
If the Adventist tells you that the following does not have to be taken as revelation, we can ask him how, then, we can distinguish between White’s works that are revealed and those that are not.
-Ellen White, citing Revelation 12:17, said: Some of those who live today on the earth will see these words fulfilled (White, II, 444). Are there Adventists more than 130 years old so that this prophecy can be fulfilled?
-Another false prophecy: In order to gain popularity and support, legislators will yield to the demand for Sunday laws (White, II, 444). And another: In the movements now in progress in the United States of North America to secure the support of the state for the institutions and practices of the church, Protestants are following in the steps of the papists. Moreover, they are opening the door for the papacy to regain in Protestant America the supremacy it lost in the Old World. And what gives greater significance to this … is the imposing of Sunday observance (White, V, 630. See also III, 778). But the present fact is exactly the opposite. The idea that Sunday is a sacred day has been diminishing. Almost no one in the U.S.A. sets it apart as a special day except as a day of rest in some sectors, and not for religious motives. And even this is disappearing for economic reasons. Nor is the Pope regaining his power in the U.S.A. through Sunday observance, as Ellen prophesied.
-The time is rapidly approaching when God’s tolerance will end… The moment is very near… The Holy Spirit is being withdrawn… soon it will break forth… soon they will happen… The hour of judgment has come… In these final hours… we are about to see the fulfillment… soon our Savior will appear… Soon the battle will have ended and victory will have been won (White,II, pp. 206,207,461,528,540). Sister Ellen, we are still waiting!
-In an appeal made by Mrs. White from Europe in 1886 she wrote: Before long the living and the dead will be judged… (Counsels, 43).
-In 1889, Ellen wrote: Only a little while longer before Jesus comes… (Counsels, p. 365). And many believed her: Poor men and women write to me asking counsel as to whether they should sell their homes and give the money to the cause… Now is the time when our brethren should be reducing their possessions rather than increasing them. We are about to move to a better country, that is, the heavenly one… Soon the decree will be proclaimed that forbids buying or selling to anyone who has the mark of the beast…. In the time of trouble, houses and lands will be of no use to the saints… (Counsels, p. 63). Poor Adventists!
-She said in 1856 that the people would see the last seven plagues and that the living would see the second coming of Jesus. (Testimonies, Vol. 1, Pacific Press Publishing Assoc., 1948, p. 131-132.).
-In 1844 she told Adventists not to have children and that the husband should not live with his wife because Christ was coming soon. That caused many divorces. (White Estate Manuscript No. 34, 1885).
We recall what Dt 18:20-22 says about false prophets. Ellen fits perfectly within this category. She spoke in the name of God and prophesied something that did not happen.
In October of that same year (1844) she taught, according to a vision she had had, that heaven was closed and that no one else could accept Christ or enter heaven until Christ came again. In fact, she also had a vision in which it was revealed to her that it was useless to pray for another person in order to help him after Christ had closed heaven.
There are Adventists who deny that she said the above. Other Adventists admit that she said it but add that she has been misinterpreted. But there is no doubt that she said it. The Bible condemns a prophet because he interprets his own visions: no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation (2 Pet 1:20). But Ellen did interpret her “revelations.” And if the Adventist reasons that her prophecies were not biblical prophecies, then they are entirely false.In contradiction with the Bible
A prophet does not contradict the Bible. This biblical rule was confirmed even by the Adventists’ General Conference (pp. 224-225).
-Ellen White said that Christ’s blood DOES NOT ERASE our sins: (White, I, 371-372). But the Bible says that Christ’s blood cleanses us and blots out everything in 1 Jn 1:7, Rev 5:9; Mt 26:28, Eph 1:7; 2:13; Rom 5:9; Col 1:20, etc.
-She said that God’s ransom was not completed on the cross. In the new covenant, the sins of those who repent are placed by faith upon Christ, and transferred, in fact, to the heavenly sanctuary… the real purification of the heavenly things must be effected by removing or blotting out the sins recorded in heaven. But before this can be accomplished the records must be examined to determine who… are entitled to the benefits of the atonement accomplished by him… In 1844, Christ then entered the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary to accomplish the final work of atonement… When Christ, by virtue of his own blood, removes from the heavenly sanctuary the sins of his people at the end of his ministry… (White, V, 474-475) Christ took 18 centuries to begin the atoning work of the cross! The work of judgment that began in 1844 must continue until the cases of all men, both the living and the dead, have been judged (White, V, 488-89. Emphasis mine)(2). (“Enfoque”, October 1988, p. 17).
This contradicts the Bible in Rom 5:10-11; Eph 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb 9:12-15. The belief that Christ moved from one place in heaven to another contradicts Acts 2:32-36; 1 Cor 15:25-27; Eph 1:26-27; Heb 8:1.
The Bible teaches that Jesus entered the heavenly sanctuary when he ascended into heaven and not in the year 1844 (Heb 6:19-20; 8:1-2 and 9:23-26). The atonement is not continuous but once for all (Heb 10:10-14; 9:11-12).
“Many have come to deny doctrines that are the very pillars of the Christian faith… The fall; the atonement…” (White, II, 461). Exactly, Ellen!
Ellen wrote that the Lord does not love us if we sin. God loves only good children. He does not love bad children (Letter of Ellen White to her son Willie, March 14, 1860).
-The Spirit of God is being withdrawn from the earth (White, III, 590). How can this be if the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus Christ and his representative on earth? Christ said he would be with us every day until the end of the world (Matt 28:20).
“Those who depart from the plain teaching of the Scriptures… are inviting the control of demons” (White, III, 223). What more can be said!
Persons who sincerely desire to do right are led to search the Scriptures diligently… to compare with the Word of God the messages given to them… Those who sincerely seek the truth will make a careful investigation, in the light of the Word of God, of the doctrines presented to them (White, IV,188-189). Very good! Go ahead, Adventist brother/sister!The lies of the prophetess
Prophets have ethical and moral standards. Although they fail (like King David), God corrects them. It was not so with Ellen White.
-Very many of her writings are COPIES of other books. The General Conference admits that 50% of Volume V, The Great Controversy, was plagiarized from other writings. Her most important book is also a plagiarism(3). Including many of her visions! Many of her works were not even written by her but by members of her family. Mr. Robert Olson, the head of The White Estate (the place where the Adventist Church keeps Mrs. White’s works in Washington), admitted this fact. Ellen White even copied from Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons! One of her books was written after her death. (One Hundred and One Questions on the Sanctuary and on Ellen White, Wahington, D.C. Ellen G. White Estate,1981).
-Ellen lied. She denied that she copied from other people. She said that everything she wrote came directly from God. The words are mine but the ideas are God’s (Testimony, No. 31, p. 63.Testimony No. 33, p. 189. Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 37).
-Ellen White told her son not to tell anyone that she copied (The Adventist Review, February 23, 1984, p. 5 in the article Sources of the Great Controversy. Sources for The Great Controversy).
-She admitted that she ate pork until 1890 while scolding church members for eating it. (From a Conference at a Worker’s Meeting in California, January 13, 1981, by the secretary of the White Estate, Mr. Graybill).
-She came from a fishing town in Maine, in the northeast of the U.S.A. In 1882 Ellen wrote to her son asking him to send her cans of oysters and shellfish, while she continued chastising everyone for eating shellfish (Letter from Ellen White to her daughter-in-law Mary, (Willie’s wife) in 1882. How much is spent on food, and often on things that are only a harmful indulgence! How much is spent on gifts that benefit no one! (Counsels, p. 309, under the title: Following Satan’s Suggestions). Were you doing this, Sister White?
“God wants us also to learn how deep is his abhorrence and contempt for all hypocrisy and deceit…. The same God who punished them condemns every lie today …. Let us cling firmly to truthfulness”(White, IV, 62).
-Sister White said that one must give the tithe to the Lord before giving food and maintaining other duties toward one’s children (Counsels, p. 99).
-Ellen White writes that THE ONLY possible WAY we can manifest our gratitude and our love to God is to pay the tithe! (Counsels, p. 21).
Nevertheless, not everything Ellen White wrote was bad. At times she said good things about the Christian faith. But after all there remains the question: If Ellen White was a false prophetess, why must we follow her teachings? (see Jeremiah 23:30-32).
Saturday or Sunday?
At the beginning of the fourth century the emperor Constantine issued a decree making Sunday a feast day throughout the Roman Empire… The day of the sun was… honored by Christians… The bishops of the church, inspired by their ambition and their thirst for dominion, made them act thus. The Holy Scriptures in no way confirm this view: Neither Christ nor his apostles conferred such honor on that day (White, V, 57-58).
According to Mrs. Ellen White, the change from Saturday to Sunday as the day of rest is the mystery of iniquity mentioned in 2 Thess 2. Adventists often cite Gen 31:16, Rev 14:12, and 1 Jn 2:4 to prove that Saturday must be kept and that this is a commandment of God.
They also say that the apostles kept the Sabbath day, citing Acts 13:14, 44; 17:2 and 18, so as not to confront the Jews and thus be able to evangelize them. Of course Paul went to the synagogue on Saturdays when the Jews gathered! If not, where was he going to find them in order to preach to them? The Catholic Church and Sunday (lines for the argument)
· Identifying worship on Sunday as “the mark of the beast” is biblically erroneous. The book of Rev 13:13-16 says that the mark is a number on the forehead or on the right hand of the worshipers of the beast, and that the mark corresponds to a name (v. 17). This name also has nothing to do with the “title” Adventists attribute to the pope: Vicarius Filii Dei, because his title is Vicarius Christi.
· The biblical commandment is rather TO KEEP THE DAY OF REST than to keep Saturday. The first Christians faithfully followed this commandment and, as now, kept this day; THEY ONLY CHANGED THE DAY to Sunday BECAUSE JESUS ROSE ON THIS DAY(4):
· Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the day of rest (Mk 2:28; Lk 10:17; Mt 12:5-8). He allowed his disciples to pluck heads of grain on the Sabbath (Mk 2:23-24), because the day of rest was made for man, and not man for the day of rest (Reina-Valera Bible, v. 27). That is, he can change it. The New Covenant replaces the old one whose sign was the day of rest (the Sabbath). Christ teaches us that the Sabbath exists to meet man’s needs (a day of rest and worship), that the Sabbath can be changed because of human need (such as the hunger of the disciples), and that the Son of Man has the authority to change it. Was this change permanent? The authors of the NT understood that Christ’s teachings about the law of Moses were permanent (Mk 7:19).
We understand the change of the day of rest made by Jesus as a permanent change in Gal 4:10-11: knowing God, or rather, being known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be enslaved? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, lest I have labored over you in vain. Paul is worried that the Galatians keep the calendar of Jewish feasts (which included the Sabbath) because this would cause his work to have been in vain (Gal 5:2-5).
· In his letter to the Colossians Paul names the Sabbath, saying that Christ canceled the record of the decrees that stood against us… Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or with regard to a festival, a new moon or days of rest (Sabbath), all of which are a shadow of what is to come, but the body [the substance] is Christ’s (Col 2:16-17). PAUL SAYS THAT THE WHOLE JEWISH CALENDAR, INCLUDING THE SABBATH, IS ABOLISHED FOR THE CHRISTIAN. It is true that Paul went to the synagogue on Saturdays (Acts 13:14, 44; 18:4) because he tried to convert the Jews and then went to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). Going to the synagogue on Saturday assured him an audience, adapting himself to them: becoming a Jew to the Jews in order to win them, though he himself was not subject to the law (1 Cor 9:19-20).
· When he rose on this day, Jesus changed the day to Sunday, because this day, as we saw, was only a “shadow of what was to come” (Col 2:17). Moreover, it was on Sunday that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles, and thus the Church, “the new people of God,” began. It was also on Sunday—the present and future Lord’s Day (Rev 1:10)—that John had the vision of the heavenly liturgy(5). For all this the Christians celebrated the “breaking of the bread” (the oldest name for the Eucharist) (Acts 20:7) on this day.
· Sunday symbolizes the fulfillment of the promises that the Sabbath prefigured in the Old Testament. These promises are now realized, not in an institution (the Sabbath), but in the person of Jesus. He fulfills the law (Mt 5:17). Have you not read in the Law that the priests work on the Sabbaths in the Temple and yet do not sin? And I tell you, something greater than the Temple is here…. the Son of Man has authority over the Sabbath (Mt 12:5-8).
· For Christians, the fact that Christ’s resurrection took place on Sunday was seen as the “eighth” day in the spiritual sense. (See “Letter of Barnabas,” year 80). It was day one: when God, by raising Jesus, began the “new creation” (Jesus is the FIRSTFRUITS of the new creation, see 1 Cor 15:20, 23); plus day seven: because God-Jesus “rested” from his work of redemption (see the following).
· Sunday is the day on which, with Jesus, we rest because he fulfills the law. In Mt 11:28 he tells us come to me, all of you… and I will give you rest. In him we enter into the Lord’s rest (Heb 4:1-11). Compare Rev 14:3 with Is 25:6-9.
· It was on a Sunday, Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down. Prefigured in the Old Testament, the Jewish feast of Pentecost was the feast of the (7) Weeks, a feast of the Harvest (Dt 16:9-10) and related to the departure from Egypt (Ex 19) when God gave the law of keeping the Lord’s day. Pentecost begins the New Harvest and the new freedom from the “slavery” of sin.
· The Bible came out of the Catholic Church, and not the Church out of the Bible. The Church existed in Corinth before Paul wrote his letter to it. It was the Church that canonized the Bible by choosing the books it would contain (in the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, 393 and 397 A.D.). All this AFTER Emperor Constantine, despite what Ellen White says: Emperor Constantine, in the year 321, was the first to order a strict observance of Sunday… (White, V, 739). And BEFORE Constantine? The truth is that Ignatius of Antioch (year 107 after Christ), disciple of John, in his Letter to the Magnesians said: Those who accept Jesus walk in a new hope, no longer keeping the days of Sabbath rest, but making their life according to the Lord’s Day, on which our life also rose so that we may be found as disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Teacher.
· According to John 2:1 the wedding at Cana happened on the third day from Jn 1:19, where the narration of John the Baptist begins, but at the same time, in a spiritual way, it is the seventh day from the beginning of the Gospel (Jn 1:29). The next day “day two,” plus (Jn 1:35) “day three,” plus (Jn 1:43) “day four,” plus (“on the third day”) equals seven. That is, the miracle of changing the water in six jars represents the (incomplete) baptism of the Jews. Biblically six is an incomplete number; seven is a perfect number. Jesus, to represent the perfection of the New Covenant, changes the water on “day three.” But at the same time it is day seven when we count from John 1:19. The wedding also predicts the wedding of the Lamb in Revelation (19:9; 21:2, 9-10; 22:17), where we shall rest as the bride mentioned there. Jesus is the firstfruits of the new creation.
The first Christians (we have already seen what Ignatius of Antioch said):
The Didache, a book written in the year 90 after Christ (P. 14): The Lord’s day is Sunday, when we celebrate the Mass.
Justin Martyr (I, chap. 67): On Sunday we celebrate the Lord’s day.
Barnabas, Paul’s companion, wrote: Therefore we observe the eighth day with rejoicing, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead (Letter of Barnabas, Collection of Apostolic Fathers II, p. 106).
Dionysius of Corinth wrote in 170 A.D.: Today we observe the holy day of the Lord on which we read your letter.
Victorinus (300 A.D.) said: On the Lord’s day we come to take our bread, giving thanks, so that it may not be thought that we observe the Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, abolished in his body.
In summary:
If the Church, united in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:24-29), could change the law of circumcision, even though it was a perpetual law: And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your descendants after you throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you… This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised as a sign… He who is born in your house must be circumcised… and my covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant (Gen 17:7,10,13), could it not do the same with the Sabbath after reflecting on what happened with Jesus? Jesus had said that the Holy Spirit would lead the Church into the fullness of the truth (Jn 16:13). That is why the Church in Corinth celebrated the breaking of the bread on the first day and, in this liturgy, Paul asked that a collection be made (1 Cor 16:2), as is done in every Mass.
Dialogue with an Adventist brother
Some time ago we were conversing with an Adventist brother (AD) about salvation by faith.
-Are you a Christian? I asked him.
AD: Yes, of course I am a Christian.
-Does that mean that you believe Jesus Christ is our Savior?
AD: Of course, he answered.
-Then, what do you think about a religion whose prophet went around teaching that God does not love all children? What would you say?
AD: That it is very wrong.
-Then I showed him some things Ellen White wrote.
AD: I never thought it was like that…
Conclusion
Is it not blasphemy that these messages are seen as God’s revelation to humanity? What do the Cross and the Blood of Christ mean if they are applied only CENTURIES LATER? They are not Good News if we have to stand before God without a mediator for 1800 years. And perhaps the worst thing is to say that God does not love all children equally, but only the good ones. The Bible warns us against false prophets who, with their revelations, suffocate the Good News of Jesus Christ. Nothing has more meaning and is more urgent in religious faith than the knowledge that in Christ salvation is available to all and that his Heavenly Father loves all equally, because he is love (1 Jn 4). This is the CENTRAL FOCUS OF THE Christian MESSAGE through the centuries. The sad truth is that Adventists cannot be classified as Christians as long as they continue to uphold doctrines against such great truths. (Adventists teach that Jesus is Michael the Archangel). We invite the Sabbath-keeping brother to think again, and thus to appreciate more fully the very important meaning of Sunday as the Lord’s day, as the Early Church saw it.
In the world that professes to be Christian, many turn away from the clear teachings of Sacred Scripture and build a creed founded on human speculations and pleasing fables (White, I, 116).
Finally, we end with the Seventh-day Adventists with one observation. Adventists are divided into: the traditionalists, who faithfully follow (even to fanaticism) the works of Ellen White, and those who are more oriented toward the Gospels and do not pay much attention to Ellen.
A prayerful study of the Bible would show Protestants the true character of the papacy and would make them abhor and shun it…(White, V, 629).
A prayerful study of the Bible—this is what we ask of Seventh-day Adventists!
Author: José María Revuelta
Notes
(1) The quotations come from the works of Ellen G. White in 5 volumes under the title Tesoros de la Vida published by Ediciones Interamericanas. The subtitles of the volumes are number I: Patriarchs and Prophets; II: Prophets and Kings; III:The Desire of Ages; IV: The Acts of the Apostles; V: The Great Controversy. We cite only the volume and page. When we cite Counsels it comes from the book: Counsels on Christian Stewardship by Ellen G. White, Publicaciones Interamericanas, ca. 1970.
(2) She said: “it would not cancel sin; it remains recorded in the Sanctuary of Heaven until the final atonement; … On the great day of final judgment, the dead are to be judged… Then by virtue of the atoning blood of Christ, the sins of all who have sincerely repented will be blotted out… Thus in the final atonement the sins of the repentant are to be blotted out from the heavenly records” (White, I, 371-372). But the Bible says that Christ’s blood cleanses us and blots out everything once for all: 1 Jn 1:7, Rev 5:9; Mt 26:28, Eph 1:7 and 2:13; Rom 5:9 and 1 Pet 2:24.
(3) “The White Lie”, by Walter Rea, M & R Publications, Turlock, Ca. 95381. Judged by the Gospel, by Robert Brimsead, Verdict Publications, Fallbrook, Ca. 92028. “Are Seventh-Day Adventists False Prophets?”, by Wallace Slattery (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Compañy, New Jersey, 1990). Mr. Slattery was an Adventist pastor for 25 years. He and his wife, whose father was a member of the council of 100 of the General Conference, left this church some years ago after receiving permission from the federal court to read Ellen White’s writings that had previously been forbidden by the church.
(4) They did the same with the law of circumcision, which was a perpetual law (Gen 17:7, 10 and 13); it was replaced by baptism, which for Christians is spiritual circumcision (Col 2:11-12).
(5) The Lord’s Day in this verse is Sunday, as all Bible scholars outside these churches admit. Ellen White says that the Lord’s day is Saturday. Unfortunately for her, no biblical scholar of any Christian denomination (non-Adventist) will say this. It is clear that the Lord of Revelation 1 refers to Jesus (vv. 13-18) and not to God the Father. Ellen White (III, 714) says that Jesus rested in the tomb on Holy Saturday, thus respecting the Sabbath. But as we see, his true rest was the day of the resurrection. Sunday.
