The recent departure from Adventism of a prominent figure on one of the church’s media outlets has generated considerable talk on the Internet and social media. This individual raises a number of objections to the church’s doctrines and lifestyle standards, but perhaps the loudest buzz has been ignited by the man’s claim that while a Seventh-day Adventist he did not possess the assurance of salvation. The principal reason for this, or so he claims, is traceable to the doctrine of the investigative judgment.
However, few dangers pose so severe a threat to one’s spirituality as permitting personal experience—ours or that of another—to determine one’s faith or practice. When someone claims a particular theology or religious construct deprived them of the assurance of salvation, it is rarely if ever possible to discern the myriad factors that may or may not have contributed to the state of mind thus described. Personal baggage, doctrinal misunderstandings (often egregious ones), and yes, cherished sins, can play a pivotal role here. As only God knows our hearts (I Kings 8:39), He alone can be sure what is ultimately responsible for bringing either peace or unease to the human spirit.
For the Seventh-day Adventist Christian, all that should matter is the faithfulness of one’s life and witness to the written counsel of God (Isa. 8:20; Acts 17:11). The hidden factors affecting the spiritual journey of those who set aside the demands of Scripture for a more comfortable religion should be left for the Lord to determine. What ultimately matters to the genuine truth-seeker is the testimony of God’s Word.
The video testimony of the one noted at the beginning offers a cluster of objections to Adventist teachings and lifestyle imperatives. However, the present article will focus specifically on what Scripture teaches relative to the role of obedience in passing the test of God’s judgment, and what Scripture says about the basis of Christian assurance. In view of the allegation by this now-ex-Adventist that Ellen White is really the basis of the doctrines to which he raises objection, we will confine our response to the evidence offered by Scripture.
The Bible Doctrine of Judgment
The wisest of kings, reflecting on the follies that had stained his final years, closes his narrative with these words:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil (Eccl. 12:13-14).
Jesus is especially clear regarding the pivotal role played by obedience or the lack thereof in deciding one’s eternal destiny. In the peroration to His Sermon on the Mount, the Lord stated:
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.
Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity (Matt. 7:21-23).
Elsewhere in the same Gospel our Lord noted how even the words we speak will be weighed in God’s final judgment:
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned (Matt. 12:36-37).
In His parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46), the Savior spoke of how inheriting His Father’s kingdom will be determined by how we treat those in material and/or spiritual need.
The apostle Paul echoes the afore-quoted words of Ecclesiastes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every man may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad (II Cor. 5:10).
The apostle James is even clearer than Solomon that God’s Ten Commandments will serve as the standard for this final judgment, and that despite what so many Christians persist in believing, the obedience this law demands is to be perfect:
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty (James 2:10-12).
In the judgment scene shown to the prophet Daniel following his vision of the rise and fall of history’s great powers (Dan. 7:2-8), we witness the following:
I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool: His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire.
A fiery stream issue and came forth from before Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened (verses 9-10).
At the close of Daniel’s prophecy, as the great time of trouble is described to the prophet by his attendant angel, it is declared that “at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” (Dan. 12:1). This is the only other reference in Daniel to heavenly books, the other one being the above passage quoted from Daniel 7:9-10. What we are thus observing in Daniel 7 is an investigation of heaven’s records, to see who in fact is left in the book of life once the evidence considered in God’s judgment has been examined.
This is not, of course, the first reference in the Bible to books in heaven. The first such reference is in Exodus chapter 32, where Moses seeks divine mercy on behalf of Israel following the golden calf apostasy:
Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book (Ex. 32:32-33).
But that leaves us with a problem. The Bible says that “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23; 5:12). How, then, do any of us escape being blotted out of God’s book, which is elsewhere identified in Scripture as the book of life (Phil. 4:3; Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 20:12,15; 21:27; 22:19)?
Revelation chapter 3, verse 5 tells us:
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.
When we consider all these verses, it becomes clear that divinely-empowered obedience, the overcoming of sin made possible through imparted divine grace (Matt. 19:25-26; John 15:5; Rom. 8:13; Phil. 4:13), is what will decide whether or not we pass the test of God’s judgment and enter at last into the joy of our Lord (Matt. 25:21,23). Classic Seventh-day Adventist theology, with its focus on an investigative judgment based on obedience or the lack thereof, is thus firmly based on the collective witness of Holy Scripture in both Old and New Testaments.
Is Biblical Assurance Based On Forgiveness Only?
The departing Adventist whose video is causing such a stir just now claims the Adventist doctrine of the investigative judgment gave him insecurities, with its teaching that the total conquest of sin in the Christian life is imperative in order to be acquitted before the divine tribunal, and that the lives of believers will thus be subjected to careful scrutiny as the judgment proceeds. Like so many others—whether former, current, or non-Seventh-day Adventists—this man appears to believe vindication in God’s judgment is based primarily if not exclusively on God’s forgiveness, as distinct from the work of regeneration and sanctification in the life of the believer.
A favorite text relative to the assurance of salvation is the following:
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God (I John 5:13).
But we need to allow Scripture to define its own language. What, in context, does the apostle John mean when he speaks of having eternal life? A few verses later he writes that “we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (verse 20). Two chapters earlier, the same author defines what it means to be “in Christ”:
And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him (I John 3:24).
So according to these verses, to have eternal life is to be found “in Christ,” and to be in Christ, one must obey God’s commandments. Nothing in these verses or their context teaches that forgiveness is the sole ground of the believer’s assurance of salvation. Nor is such a teaching found anywhere else in the pages of the Bible. God’s forgiveness certainly forms one feature of the believer’s salvation, as the apostle Paul speaks of Christ in one verse as the One “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7; see also Col. 1:14). But the Bible also includes the Holy Spirit’s regeneration and sanctification as part of the means of our salvation, not merely the result thereof:
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (II Thess. 2:13).
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5).
Many may complain that they don’t know their exact progress in sanctification at any given moment, which should leave all but the self-righteous uncertain as to where they stand in relation to the divine law. But the good news is that the God of Scripture “is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9). God wants us in His kingdom more desperately than we want to get there. None need fear that because their progress presently falls short, hope is lost. So long as we continue to hear the Spirit’s call to repentance, hope remains and probation lingers.
Conclusion
Like so many attacks on the classic Adventist investigative judgment doctrine, together with similar attacks on classic Adventist salvation theology, the ex-Adventist testimony under discussion places considerable focus on the writings of Ellen White as the basis of such teachings as the investigative judgment and the uncertainty relative to personal salvation allegedly traceable to this doctrine. But the evidence considered in this article should be sufficient to persuade the honest reader that the measuring of human conduct with the Ten Commandments in heaven’s judgment process, together with the connection between salvation and one’s assurance thereof with sanctified obedience, is firmly grounded in the witness of Holy Scripture.
The ex-Adventist in question spent considerable time in his video testimony attacking Ellen White as a plagiarist. With regard to the judgment and salvation, not to mention a host of other issues, it would seem this allegation must be acknowledged as credible—Ellen White copied her theology straight out of the Bible!
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