Last Sabbath a friend of mine shared with me some very sad news. He spoke of another of my dear friends who has chosen to start an independent, so-called “free” Seventh-day Adventist congregation. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen this done, but the logic behind such ventures hasn’t changed during the several decades in which I’ve encountered them.
According to what I was told, the rationale behind this effort goes something like this: (1) spiritual problems in the global sisterhood of General Conference churches, such as drums in the worship service; (2) a desire to keep tithe local; and (3) tales of mistreatment inflicted by officials and others within the mainline Seventh-day Adventist denomination.
A Telling History
Some of us are old enough to remember such experiments in the relatively recent past. Doctrinal error and indifference, worship frivolity, and a general climate of lowered standards were thought by certain ones to be promising means whereby the young could be retained in the church’s fellowship and straying members brought back. Naturally, the striving faithful publicly resisted these compromises, and often faced hostility from pastors and fellow members as a result.
From the present writer’s observation, very few of the faithful in these settings were actually removed from church membership because of their witness against these wrongful trends. Many simply felt so uncomfortable in the churches where they once worshiped that they walked away and started independent congregations, many of which met in private homes.
What became especially troublesome to thoughtful observers was the tendency of some to “go independent” in this fashion merely because a particular Conference church had “problems”—not always specified. One was led to wonder if a church had to be entirely “problem free” from their perspective in order to be worthy of their attendance and commitment. As one could expect, it didn’t take long before many of the independent churches began to develop problems too, with additional splintering soon to follow. As has been the pattern with offshoot movements throughout Adventist history, nearly all these experiments in ecclesiastical autonomy ended badly.
Going Deeper
We could follow this topic in any number of directions, but let us consider just a few salient points which can offer guidance when dealing with persons who pursue the course described above.
1. Membership in God’s organized body of believers is not merely optional. Church membership by itself will save no one, to be sure, but at the same time it is not to be viewed as a discretionary option. The following Ellen White statement spells out this balance:
The advancement of the church is retarded by the wrong course of its members. Uniting with the church, although an important and necessary act, does not make one a Christian nor insure salvation. We cannot secure a title to heaven by having our names enrolled upon the church book while our hearts are alienated from Christ. . . .
We should all feel our individual responsibility as members of the visible church and workers in the vineyard of the Lord [1].
This statement clarifies a number of key points regarding the church and its identity, but for starters, what is notable here is how Ellen White describes uniting with the church as “an important and necessary act,” even if such an act doesn’t assure one of salvation. Church membership, according to the above statement, is not merely discretionary.
2. Only testing truths have the power to annul the divine charter of the faith community. Ancient Israel experienced some of the most degrading and horrific apostasy imaginable during the fifteen hundred years of her tenure as God’s chosen nation. Idolatry, human sacrifice, Sabbath desecration, social injustice in numerous forms—all are recounted by the Sacred Record as marring the moral witness of the Old Testament church. Yet it wasn’t till the great testing truth was presented to Israel—the Person and work of Jesus the Messiah—that the covenant status of the chosen people changed.
It helps to remember that despite unholy traffic and spiritual corruption in the Temple at Jerusalem, Jesus still called that building “My Father’s house” (John 2:16), and later declared to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). Not till the stoning of Stephen did this change (Dan. 9:24). On the cross Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Stephen told the Jewish leaders what in fact they had done. And by stoning the messenger, the leaders of the Hebrew community sealed the corporate fate of the erstwhile covenant community, and the gospel went to the Gentiles. In Ellen White’s words:
The seventy weeks, or 490 years, especially allotted to the Jews, ended, as we have seen, in A.D. 34. At that time, through the actions of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the nation sealed its rejection of the gospel by the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution of the followers of Christ. Then the message of salvation, no longer restricted to the chosen people, was given to the world [2].
Just as the issue of Jesus and His mission as the Messiah was the testing truth that decided the ultimate status of Israel as God’s chosen people, so the choice between the apostate teachings of spiritual Babylon and the restoration of divine truth through the end-time remnant church will offer the final test to God’s people in the closing days of human history. Ellen White, in a rebuke to those in her day who wrongly identified the organized Seventh-day Adventist Church as Babylon, listed the doctrines which in fact identify a spiritual community as belonging to Babylon:
The fallen denominational churches are Babylon. Babylon has been fostering poisonous doctrines, the wine of error. This wine of error is made up of false doctrines, such as the natural immortality of the soul, the eternal torment of the wicked, the denial of the pre-existence of Christ prior to His birth in Bethlehem, and advocating and exalting the first day of the week above God's holy and sanctified day. These and kindred errors are presented to the world by the various churches [3].
The wine of Babylon is the exalting of the false and spurious sabbath above the Sabbath which the Lord Jehovah hath blessed and sanctified for the use of man; also it is the immortality of the soul. These kindred heresies, and the rejection of the truth, convert the church into Babylon [4].
This primary focus on Sunday sacredness and natural immortality is understandable, since Ellen White pinpoints these two errors as being those on which the churches of Babylon will unite in the last days:
Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome [5].
Here we see the testing truths for these last days, just as the Messiahship of Jesus was the testing truth for ancient Israel. While the numerous apostasies in Israel’s history paved the way for the eventual rejection of the mission of Christ, none of those earlier apostasies succeeded in closing Israel’s probation. For the same reason, while the many wrongful teachings and practices we see in contemporary Adventism are likely preparing their adherents for the eventual reception of the mark of the beast, such teachings and practices neither represent the mark of the beast nor signal a corporate close of probation for the Seventh-day Adventist Church because of their presence in the denomination.
In other statements Ellen White speaks of how the message of the Reformers was the testing truth for medieval Catholicism [6], and how a moral fall (though not yet complete) was experienced by the popular churches of Protestantism as a result of their rejection of William Miller’s message and that of his colleagues [7]. Again we see how specific truths have been involved in deciding the corporate spiritual destiny of these bodies.
My friend who has started an independent church is rightfully bothered by such irreverent worship practices as the use of drums, etc. The inspired pen has spoken of such dangers as occurring in the church’s future, in fact, “just before the close of probation” [8]. But nowhere does Ellen White say such practices will in fact close probation for Seventh-day Adventists. According to the Sacred Record, only a testing truth can effect a corporate close of probation. And for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as well as the world beyond, that testing truth will be the Sabbath/Sunday crisis.
3. Until the church experiences the final purification caused by the end-time shaking, evils will persist in her ranks. In Ellen White’s words:
Although there are evils existing in the church, and will be until the end of the world, the church in these last days is to be the light of the world that is polluted and demoralized by sin. The church, enfeebled and defective, needing to be reproved, warned, and counseled, is the only object upon earth upon which Christ bestows His supreme regard [9].
At the time when the danger and depression of the church are greatest, the little company who are standing in the light will be sighing and crying for the abominations that are done in the land. But more especially will their prayers arise in behalf of the church because its members are doing after the manner of the world. . . . They mourn before God to see religion despised in the very homes of those who have had great light. They lament and afflict their souls because pride, avarice, selfishness, and deception of almost every kind are in the church [10].
Mark this point with care. Those who receive the pure mark of truth, wrought in them by the power of the Holy Spirit, represented by a mark by the man in linen, are those “that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done” in the church [11].
Yet, despite the abominations found in the church, that is exactly where the sealed saints are found in Ezekiel 9, on which the above passages are based. The sealing angel in this chapter is commanded to “go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof” (verse 4).
Notice the angel isn’t told to go around the edge of the city and seal the little groups that have separated because they can’t stand the apostasy any longer. Rather, the sighing, crying faithful are found right where all the abominations are found—in the midst of Jerusalem.
But it is during this same time that these abominations, and those who cling to them, are removed from the visible church. The following inspired statements make this clear:
The shaking of God blows away multitudes like dry leaves. Prosperity multiplies a mass of professors. Adversity purges them out of the church. As a class their spirits are not steadfast with God. They go out from us because they are not of us, for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, many are offended [12].
At the eleventh hour the Lord will gather a company out of the world to serve Him. There will be a converted ministry. Those who have had privileges and opportunities to become intelligent in regard to the truth, and yet who continue to counterwork the work God would have accomplished, will be purged out [13].
Some have entered the work with a human commission rather than the divine. . . . In short, they have a theory but not true conversion and sanctification through the truth. The great issue so near at hand will weed out those whom God has not appointed and He will have a pure, true, sanctified ministry, prepared for the latter rain [14].
As the storm approaches, a large class who have professed faith in the third angel’s message, but have not been sanctified through obedience to the truth, abandon their position, and join the ranks of the opposition. By uniting with the world and partaking of its spirit, they have come to view matters in nearly the same light, and when the test is brought, they are prepared to choose the easy, popular side [15].
And then, of course, we have the following well-known statement:
The church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall. It remains, while the sinners in Zion will be sifted out, the chaff separated from the precious wheat. This is a terrible ordeal, but nevertheless it must take place [16].
What is clear from the above statements is that those who leave the church are not true believers giving up the truth, but rather, false believers giving up the church. Any notion that the “church” described as being purified in these statements is a body consisting of true and faithful believers only, is demolished by the above declarations. The church here depicted is a body composed of apostate and true believers alike, with the former abandoning the church in the context of the final crisis.
The Tithe Issue
Few issues have been more divisive in certain circles of conservative Adventism than the question of whether the tithe should always be returned to the organized church. But the practice of withholding tithe from the global Adventist structure as a means of protesting apostasy is most definitely disallowed by the inspired pen in such statements as the following:
Some have been dissatisfied, and have said, “I will no longer pay my tithe; for I have no confidence in the way things are managed at the head of the work.” But will you rob God because you think the management of the work is not right? Make your complaint, plainly and openly, in the right spirit, to the proper ones. Send in your petitions for things to be adjusted and set in order; but do not withdraw from the work of God, and prove unfaithful, because others are not doing right [17].
The tithes and offerings are not the property of any man, but are to be used in doing a certain work for God. Unworthy ministers may receive some of the means thus raised, but dare anyone, because of this, withhold from the treasury and brave the curse of God? I dare not. I pay my tithe gladly and freely, saying, as did David, “Of Thine own have we given Thee.” A selfish withholding from God will tend to poverty in your own souls. Act your part, my brethren and sisters. God loves you, and He stands at the helm. If the conference business is not managed according to the order of the Lord, that is the sin of the erring one. The Lord will not hold you responsible for it if you do what you can to correct the evil. But do not commit sin yourselves by withholding from the Lord His own property [18].
Mistreatment
This really doesn’t merit much comment. Bad treatment at the hands of authority figures in the organized church is hardly just grounds for starting an independent congregation and withholding tithe from the global Adventist body. God’s work is not the captive of capricious or incompetent administrators, and if He wishes a particular person to play a visible role, He will make it happen in His own good time. Pulling away from the denomination is not the answer to any injustice one may have suffered at the hands of those professing to serve God as leaders of His church.
Conclusion—False Freedom
In short, to call oneself a “free” Seventh-day Adventist because of a deliberate choice not to affiliate with the global General Conference sisterhood of churches, is to operate under a delusion. Unless the General Conference in session embraces one or another of the doctrines identified by Ellen White as earmarks of Babylon [19], no inspired justification can possibly exist for separating from the worldwide Adventist body, and anyone who views unity with that body as merely optional is disregarding the inspired injunction that such unity is “an important and necessary act” [20].
Those who rightly deplore the present departures of certain ones from doctrinal and moral integrity are needed more than ever within the organized body. Those who are finally sealed will be found inside that body when the sealing occurs (Eze. 9:4) and the final shaking ultimately accomplished. Until then, our witness, our zeal, and our untiring effort must be devoted to the cause of revival and reformation within the organized church, and to the proclamation of the three angels’ messages to the millions yet unwarned.
REFERENCES
1. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 16.
2. ----The Great Controversy, p. 328.
3. ----Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 61-62.
4. ----Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 68.
5. ----The Great Controversy, p. 588.
6. ----The Desire of Ages, p. 232.
7. ----The Great Controversy, pp. 383,389.
8. ----Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 36.
9. ----Testimonies to Ministers, p. 49.
10. ----Testimonies, vol. 5, pp. 209-210 (italics supplied).
11. Ibid, vol. 3, p. 267 (italics supplied).
12. Ibid, vol. 4, p. 89.
13. ----Manuscript Releases, vol. 20, p. 320.
14. Ibid, vol. 12, p. 327; see also Selected Messages, vol. 3, p. 385; Last Day Events, p. 179.
15. ----The Great Controversy, p. 608.
16. ----Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380.
17. ----Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 249.
18. ----Sermons and Talks, vol. 2, pp. 74-75.
19. ----Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 61-62; Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 68; The Great Controversy, p. 588.
20. ----Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 16.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan