My Posting to Seventh Day Adventists (originally for an anti-Ellen White Facebook group)

[Addai]

Straining At Gnat's But Swallowing Camels

I am currently working on doing some Apologetics writing on some hot topics most notably "Why Christians worship on Sunday". But in talking to an active SDA member here, it dawns on me the one sidedness of these kind of conversations. It really is "the pot calling the kettle black", "those that live in glass houses should not throw stones". or in terms of the Bible "The Parable of the man with the mote in the eye correcting the person with a sliver in their eye". But one even better analogy comes to mind, and that is Jesus' saying of the Pharisees "straining at Gnats but swallowing Camels".

 

 

What Are these Camels You Might Ask? They are beliefs you (Seventh Day Adventists) teach with highly questionable Biblical justification. I'm not actually complaining about your worst heresies just the things you accept too easily and things that often are extremely foundational for your unique "Present Truth" doctrines.

 

 

1) Hiram Edson's Cornfield Vision.

All of Adventism is based on this vision, that explains and rationalizes that "The Great Disappointment" of the Millerites was not wrong on the date setting but rather on the thing being predicted rather than Christ return the real supposed event was Christ changing the role he was doing in heaven beginning his work of Judgement.

 

My question is how do Adventists know that is real or legitimate? In the Charismatic movement I have seen lots of teachings that comes from folks that claim revelation that is dubious. I would say, when I look at Adventism and the failed prophecies of Ellen White, I believe the Occam's Razor Explanation for these events is that Adventism is built on a faulty foundation. And it is extremely easy to make this case when you look at passages concerning the nature of Truth in the Bible (stable and eternal), The nature of the Gospel (only one Gospel, taught in the beginning by the Apostles), and the Foundation of our Faith (cannot be re-laid) vs. the Adventist concept of "Present Truth" which contradicts all of that, and by it's own admission!

https://lineagejourney.com/.../hiram-edson-the-farmer-in.../

 

 

2) "The Shut Door" Prophecy / Teaching is another camel. It was around 1844 or so, that the door of heaven was supposedly  shut for folks who rejected the Millerites and got extended to the proto-SDA group after the Millerite movement officially collapsed. (Now  mind you this group was only around 150  people according to one of Ellen White's Letters!)  The Shut door eventually begins to become a thorn in the side of the Adventists, as they add new members, and their members have children. The Shutdoor is the real reason for the extreme Sabbath militancy you guys have because it ends up being the answer for the Shut Door problem (a new vision or visions come speaking of a new door opening and that comes from Sabbath Keeping). Even the Seventh Day Baptists, the people you actually got this distinctive from, are not this extreme. If you consult their actual web site, they are very insistent that Sabbath keeping is not for salvation, but for sanctification. But the whole "Mark of the Beast" teaching on Sunday needs to be biblically justified because I can show lots of scripture why it isn't showing feast days of ancient Israel falling on it, as well as it being important to the NT and Church of the Apostolic Fathers.

 

 

3&4) Two other camels, I will mention in passing are "The Investigative Judgement" in light of historic Christian teaching on Soteriology for over 1800s years or so, and another camel is "The Two Stage Atonement", lots of scripture that Christ dealt with our since once, and that was on Cavalry.

 

 

5)   Ellen White herself is a huge camel. She is treated by the SDA not just a defacto prophet, but some kind of arch prophet greater than all others in the history of the Bible by virtue of the amount of allegedly "inspired material" she has written that comes via visions and other kinds of revelations. In spite of her saying two times "I do not call myself a prophet", the bulk of what she said about herself, and her authority is very grandiose. What I especially find interesting is Adventists accepting her as a great spiritual authority in spite of the words of Saint Paul concerning women teaching in the church, having authority over a man etc. I also find it interesting of Adventist paintings of her in church having visions or preaching, all with her head uncovered which was a big no no in the days of the Bible. Paul insisted women have their heads covered because the hair of woman in ancient times was considered highly erotic, but somehow the extremely Biblically minded Adventists fail to get that!  (smile)

 

 

6)  The Artificial divide in the Torah is another good one. There really is no good reason for trying to talk about "the moral law" aka 10 commandments vs. "the Ceremonial law". All of Adventism needs this for its theology to work because of its "Great Controversy" narrative, but there are a number of bad problems with the eisegesis of Adventists concerning the Tablets of Stone being in the ark of the Covenant vs. The Torah being on the outside.

 

 

7)    Finally, I will end with Satan as the Scape goat (rather than Christ's ministry represented by both goats). This is important to your end times doctrine and theology of salvation, but it actually has a lot of problems, as well as blasphemous connotations as some folks have spent a great deal of time talking about. I will be quoting a lot of Myles Christian for fans of this doctrine. Things get very quicky into minutia of what is going on in heaven, and in all honesty, things get pretty Gnostic, pretty quickly."

Edited November 9, 2023 by Addai

[RV_Wizard]

I would not be entirely surprised to find out when we get to Heaven that the original Sabbath was on a Wednesday and our calendar is all messed up.  Does it matter?  No.  God blessed the Sabbath and made it a holy day.  Whether we honor the Sabbath on a Saturday or Sunday is irrelevant so long as we honor God and follow His commandments.  If Saturday is your Sabbath and you honor it, I'm quite sure it pleases God.  If Sunday is your Sabbath and you don't honor it, you are breaking a commandment.

[FJK]

What is the purpose of our post, what are you intending to accomplish by it?