The evangelical status of Seventh-day Adventism has been questioned in recent issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Contributors and correspondents participating in the debate voice appreciation of many features of Seventh-day Adventism—zeal of its lay workers, faithful “observance” of the Saturday-Sabbath despite economic disadvantage and cultural pressures, evidence that detailed doctrinal confession and patterns of behavior do not retard church growth or community impact, and tithing of income for support of the ministry before church offerings are given for missions and other purposes. Adventist acceptance of many basic evangelical tenets, moreover, is not in dispute. Even the formal Adventist insistence on the perpetual and universal validity of the moral law as divine standard of conduct is widely regarded as an emphasis unfortunately neglected by many evangelicals. What is in question, however, is the advocacy of certain doctrines peculiar to Seventh-day Adventism. CHRISTIANITY TODAY has correlated these criticisms in the form of specific questions and has addressed them to Dr. Frank H. Yost, formerly Professor of Church History, and of Systematic Theology, at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Takoma Park, Washington, D. C., and Editor of Liberty: A Magazine of Religious Freedom. His reply is printed below.—ED.
1. Is the General Conference the only authoritative voice of Seventh-day Adventists?
Yes, in the ecclesiastical sense. Every Seventh-day Adventist is a free man, answerable to God, walking under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, who illuminates the Scriptures, the norm of his spiritual and moral experience. But the General Conference in session is the highest administrative body, and is alone qualified to speak for the entire body of Seventh-day Adventist believers.
2. Has the General Conference endorsed or approved the views recently enunciated in the publication Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine (Review and Herald Pub. Assn., Washington, D. C., 1957)?
Not in the administrative or creedal sense. The book is not a creed. Seventh-day Adventists purpose to have no creed. In our opinion, creeds tend to limit the spiritual freedom of individuals, or to produce creedal loyalty rather than loyalty to the Scriptures. Both of these, Seventh-day Adventists intend to avoid. But the book has been widely read, both in manuscript form and since publication, by the ministry and the laity, with general acceptance. “The officers of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists felt that the material appearing in this volume would not only be helpful to the members of their own church but that it would also furnish reliable information on Adventist beliefs and teachings to the many inquiries, that, in recent years, have arisen regarding Adventist doctrines. They have therefore requested that this book be published for general use with the fervent prayer and hope that it may be useful in making clearer the way of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Questions on Doctrine, p. 10).
3. (a) Is it acknowledged that Saturday observance lacks precedent in the long sweep of church history until its 19th century introduction by Captain Joseph Bates of New Bedford, Mass.?
No. We have at hand documentary source evidence (in the technical historical sense) that the seventh-day Sabbath has been observed by Christian bodies at many geographic points in Europe and the East, and at many times in past Christian history. We recognize and emphasize that these bodies were the “sects” of Christian history, not the creedal groups. However, history does not establish or validate scriptural doctrine or scriptural observances. It can only illustrate them.
The most marked and significant revival of Sabbath observance in the post-Reformation period was by the Baptists, and it was by Baptists, as well as by individual Bible students, that Adventists of the early 19th century were admonished to follow the Bible in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath. Seventh-day Adventists acknowledge freely their debt to these Sabbath-keeping Baptists in respect to this observance, as well as the practice of immersion baptism.
3. (b) Is it acknowledged that the early Church specially marked the first day of the week, and that the New Testament epistles specifically refer to the seventh day only by way of prohibiting observance of the Jewish Sabbath?
Again, No. The New Testament emphasizes repeatedly the spiritually practical, nonlegalistic observance of the Sabbath, from the example and admonition of Jesus Christ, who asserted his lordship over the Sabbath (Mark 2:28), and rebuked pharisaical Sabbath observance (Matt. 12:1–13), through Paul’s own repeated examples (Acts 13:14–44; 16:12–15; 17:1–4; 18:1–11) to the “Lord’s day” of John’s experience in Rev. 1:10. What our Lord had to say about the keeping of the seventh day was patently not to negate the day, but to rebuke pharisaical interpretation of it, which led to abuses in its observance. “The texts of the New Testament specifically mentioning the first day of the week cannot rightly be construed as enjoining the observance of Sunday, or as transferring the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day” (Questions on Doctrine, pp. 151f.).
As a matter of fact, reliable church historians, falling into the category of historical sources, record that both the seventh-day Sabbath, and the Sunday Sabbath, after its weekly observance was introduced at Rome in the second century, were used by Christians generally for worship, side by side, decade after decade, till as late as the 5th century (Sozomen, Church History, bk. 7, chap. 19, and Socrates, Church History, bk. 5, chap. 22; in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, Vol. II, pp. 390, 132). This historical fact shows clearly, of course, that the rejection of Sabbath [Saturday] observance was not apostolic (cf. Questions on Doctrine, pp. 149–202).
4. Waving aside Seventh-day Adventist adherence to the Arminian view that believers may lose their salvation, the question remains whether the believer possesses salvation—on Adventist principles—on the sole ground of the atonement without any admixture of works. If Saturday-Sabbath observance is the special sign of spiritual obedience by the true saints of God (so that something man does specially qualifies him for heaven), is not the Saturday-Sabbath given a special priority in relation to salvation, and justification specially conditioned on its observance? If men now or in a later age must keep the Saturday-Sabbath to avoid forfeiture of salvation, then is not salvation a matter of both faith and works, since the righteousness of Christ no longer is the sole ground of the sinner’s hope but requires as its correlate an element of salvation by works?
God has a standard for all men to live by, and that is his own holiness and righteousness, as seen in the life of our blessed Lord and expressed in the Ten Commandment law (Rom. 7:12). Failure to meet the terms of his standard is sin (1 John 3:4; Rom. 7:7–14). We are saved from sin by the grace of God alone, through the vicarious sacrificial atonement of Jesus Christ our only Saviour and sinbearer. However, to continue in known sin, or to repeat sin, is to deny or to frustrate the saving grace of God (Rom. 6:1, 2, 11–18). The character of God, the example of the sinless Jesus Christ on earth, the standard of the Ten Commandments, and the will of God as expressed in the life and teaching of our Lord, comprise one holy pattern for the positive godly life, and define conversely the nature of sin. The keeping of the commandments, in any spiritually significant sense, can only be through the power of God. Indeed, only he who has been saved by grace, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, can keep the law of God (Rom. 8:1–9; 1 John 2:3–6; 3:22–24; 5:1–4). An excellent recent presentation of the relation of the Christian to the Ten Commandments is Harold Lindsell and Charles J. Woodbridge’s A Handbook of Christian Truth (published by Revell, Westwood, New Jersey, 1953, chap. 13). All Seventh-day Adventists can subscribe to this statement.
The grace and power of God have created the former sinner into a new-born man, “created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Eph. 2:8–10). The result is a godly life, manifesting obedience, not to be saved, but because salvation has been received. Mrs. E. G. White wrote in the year 1900: “Only the covering which Christ Himself has provided, can make us meet to appear in God’s presence. This covering, the robe of His own righteousness, Christ will put upon every repenting, believing soul. ‘I counsel thee,’ He says, ‘to buy of Me … white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear’ (Rev. 3:18). This robe, woven in the loom of heaven, has in it not one thread of human devising” ([italics added]—Christ’s Object Lessons, Southern Pub. Assoc., Nashville, Tenn., pp. 311f.).
Should the Christian, saved by grace, be honest? The answer is yes. The character of God, the experience of grace, and the eighth commandment all require this. Should the Christian, saved by grace, be truthful? The answer is yes. The character of God, the experience of grace, and the ninth commandment all require this. Then, should that same Christian, saved by grace, keep the Sabbath? Again, the answer is yes, for the character of God, the experience of enabling grace, as well as the fourth commandment, naturally lead him to do this. Seventh-day Adventists believe that if as sons of God they did not observe the fourth commandment along with the other nine, they would be making a false distinction between the commandments, which is a discrimination condemned in the Bible (Jas. 2:8–14).
It is noticeable that all Protestant communions agree as to the applicable function of the eighth commandment in portraying the honest Christian. There might be a more or less sophistical argument as to whether in a given case a man who has appropriated another man’s property without his consent has stolen; but there is no dispute over the fact that stealing is immoral. So it is with the other commandments.
Except the fourth. Here the lines of cleavage are sharply drawn. Either all ten commandments merit a thorough-going application, or only nine of them. We firmly believe that here is a test which will become more and more serious and significant as we approach the time of the parousia of our Lord. In this connection, we are sincerely and deeply concerned in behalf of those who are accepting salvation by grace, but who are not manifesting the full richness of that experience by allowing Christ to work out in their lives, in the power of God’s grace, the revealed terms of God’s will (cf. Questions on Doctrine, pp. 101–145).
5. In view of the Seventh-day Adventist defense of Mrs. Ellen G. White’s teaching as authoritative and of her life as immaculate, does the movement affirm that Mrs. White was sinless? that she was infallible in propounding doctrines not drawn from Scripture? Is she to be believed when she states of her writings: “It is God and not an erring mortal who has spoken?” Are her writings to be considered normative? Questions on Doctrine refers to her words as “inspired counsels from the Lord.” Do her writings share in the inspiration of the biblical writings? Since it is often asserted that “the spirit of prophecy” reappeared in Mrs. White, is it contended that she shared an apostolic gift nowhere else manifested since that era but in Mrs. White? What is its independent authoritative significance for the whole Church? What authority is assigned the extra-biblical elements in her writings?
Seventh-day Adventists believe that Mrs. White was a godly woman like any other godly woman, no better, and no worse. They have never put forth by word, or even by suggestion, that she was “immaculate,” and deny that she was. We believe that the Spirit of God addressed himself to her, and that she put down as accurately as was humanly possible the instruction she received. Use of her writings over the years has led us to recognize her spiritual accuracy.
As to God speaking through her, the quotation here given is exactly what would be expected wherever the gift of prophecy is manifested (cf. A. G. Daniells, Abiding Gift of Prophecy, Pacific Press Pub. Assoc., Mountain View, Calif., 1936). As shown in numerous statements of hers, Mrs. White did not believe herself verbally inspired, nor infallible. Seventh-day Adventists do not attach these qualities to her work (cf. F. M. Wilcox, The Testimony of Jesus, Review and Herald Pub. Assoc., Washington, D. C., printing of 1944, pp. 74–89).
We believe that Mrs. White was in the stream of those who were entrusted with the prophetic gift, but hold firmly to the canonical Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, as our only rule of faith and practice. By this standard, too, we reject all religious rites and observance of “days,” such as Sunday, Easter, Lent, Christmas, and saints’ days which cannot be clearly supported in Scripture, and which are, we believe, condemned as frustrating to grace by Paul in Galatians 4:9–11.
If Mrs. White did not give additional details and instruction for the spiritual guidance of Advent believers, what she wrote would have been a needless if not impertinent repetition of biblical revelation. Her writings do include details shown to her in vision, and practical applications of scriptural principles for current living. But these are always consonant, we believe, with biblical revelation, and they are, at her repeated insistence, always to be tested by Scripture (cf. Questions on Doctrine, pp. 89–98).
6. How can the emphasis that the Bible is the sole rule of faith be reconciled with the lack of a definite biblical basis for the novel Adventist interpretations of the 70 weeks and 2300 years and the cleansing of the sanctuary (that Christ in 1844 entered the heavenly sanctuary and is now carrying on the investigative judgment), which arose after the collapse of 19th century prophecies of the Lord’s return?
“No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation” (2 Pet. 1:20). The understanding Seventh-day Adventists have of the eighth and ninth chapters of Daniel has been held by numerous Bible commentators, some of them noted scholars and churchmen for many centuries. The interpretation is certainly no novelty devised by early Adventists (Questions on Doctrine, pp. 309–316). Actually, the prophecy of the 70 weeks in the ninth chapter of Daniel, clearly understood in parallel with other prophecies and in view of history (Seventh-day Adventists adhere to the historical method of prophetic interpretation as opposed to the “futuristic method, Questions on Doctrine, pp. 296 f.), gives unshakable testimony to the messiahship of Jesus Christ and to the efficacy of his atoning work; and it shows such recent innovations as the teaching of the “rapture” to be unacceptable.
As to our application of the 2300-year prophecy to Christ’s intercessory work in heaven, the meaning of this could scarcely have become clear until the progress of events, including the 1844 “disappointment,” had cleared away the debris of preconceived notions. Remember the disciples’ complete failure to understand Christ’s foretellings of his death and resurrection until after the event. Our Lord laid down this principle of prophetic application: “I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe” (John 14:29) (cf. Questions on Doctrine, pp. 246–249; for a full treatment of this question cf. pp. 205–337).
7. Can the legalistic legislation of details of Christian conduct (not only the prohibition of alcohol and tobacco, but of indulgence in tea, coffee, ham, shrimp, lobster, claims, oysters, and snails!) be reconciled with any specific scriptural requirement binding on the New Testament Church?
The application of God’s standards to Christian living is not legalism. It is the normal life of the child of grace “created unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8–10). Probably a majority of the readers of this journal believe that the habitual use of alcoholic beverages and tobacco is harmful, bodily and spiritually. Seventh-day Adventists agree very strongly with this view, and make the use of either a test of church membership. The sixth commandment calls for the preservation of life. Alcoholic beverages and tobacco are destructive of life. It is not legalism for a man saved by grace to experience the power of God in bringing his life into harmony with the sixth commandment, or the second, or the fourth, or the eighth, or any other of God’s commandments.
The Lord pointed out to Noah, forefather of Jew and Gentile alike, a distinction concerning the creatures of his creative hand, that some were “clean” and some “unclean” (Gen. 6:18–21; 7:1–3, 7–10). This distinction was still there when God instructed the Hebrews in godly living (Lev. 11). Obviously, God had not changed his mind between Noah’s and Moses’ time. We find no biblical evidence that he has changed it since. We eat accordingly. However, since Seventh-day Adventists believe that dietary matters are the concern of the individual conscience, they are not matters of church discipline (cf. Questions on Doctrine, pp. 622–624).
8. Do Seventh-day Adventists regard evangelical believers not in their own ranks as legitimate objects of missionary and evangelistic endeavor?
Yes, they do, as a matter of sharing truth with fellow-believers in Christ. To believe something concerning God or one’s duty to God, and not to share it with others, for the quickening of conscience, for spiritual illumination, and ultimately that such persons may stand acceptably before God in the Judgment, would be a sin of neglect and worthy of reprehension (Ezek. 3:20, 21). We sometimes wonder therefore at Christians today who, unlike their spiritual forebears of a century ago, seem slow to preach the virtue and spiritual importance of such doctrines as immersion baptism at the age of accountability as evidence of the operation of God’s grace in the experience of a convert (Rom. 6:3–6) (cf. Questions on Doctrine, pp. 21–32, 179–202).
