A recent article on a liberal Adventist website demonstrates both dramatically and painfully just how far current deniers of the Seventh-day Adventist faith are straying into outright infidelity:
It has been said that the Lord does not change (Malachi 3:6). Likely this was an overenthusiastic observation by a “spokesperson” untroubled by putting words in God’s mouth. A different writer credited the same God with pledging to “visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 20:5 KJV). But when the people rebelled against the perceived injustice of this edict, God “changed” his mind. Scripture has him renouncing the idea of generational/corporate sins and transferred accountability because a different time demanded change. And with gusto equal to his original pledge, this same God would embrace the merits of individual responsibility, evidently disavowing his previous stance. Ezekiel would ask on God’s behalf (18:2 NIV): “What do you people mean by quoting this proverb: ‘The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’”
Jeremiah would concur with Ezekiel: “People will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.” (Jer. 31:29–30 NIV) While Ezekiel and Jeremiah’s immediate concerns were the shifting demands from group to individual accountability, the underlying premise remains that the God on whose behalf they spoke is dynamic and “changes” with the times. Therefore, the church should take notice and not be over-reliant on ideological precedence, or that its teachings are steeped in tradition or were augmented by Ellen White’s insights. Rather, we should be open to and welcome change as our knowledge increases; for it is only by updating our beliefs based on the truths of our lived experiences that we fortify our future for the generations after us [1].
Like so many allegations of inconsistency within the inspired writings, this one is easy to settle. The above author would find no conflict within the Biblical text regarding guilt and punishment for sin had he simply allowed the Lord to finish the statement quoted from the Second Commandment:
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate Me (Ex. 20:5).
In other words, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the Second Commandment is describing God’s punishment upon those who hate Him—those who choose to sin. (Remember that Scripture equates hatred of God’s commandments with hatred of God Himself; see II Sam. 12:9-10.) The succeeding generations described in this Commandment as experiencing the visitation of their parents’ iniquity upon themselves are those who hate God through the violation of His law.
In no way does the Second Commandment, or any other Bible passage, ascribe guilt and the punishment for sin to those who have not themselves chosen to transgress the divine requirements. The above author is fabricating an internal contradiction within the Bible that does not exist.
But beyond this author’s failure to consider the context and collective witness of Scripture, his words make plain that he has no respect for the divine origin of Scripture and thus its authority over human opinion, human culture, and human experience. The Bible, in the above author’s view, contains “overenthusiastic observations” [2] and “putting words in God’s mouth” [3]. Moreover, this author seems to forget—or deliberately ignore—the Bible’s testimony that the Ten Commandments are not the product of “a different [Bible] writer” [4], as he claims, but were in fact spoken by God Himself (Ex. 20:1).
This is where theological liberalism has brought its Adventist captives. It’s no longer just Ellen White and our distinctive teachings under attack anymore. It’s the Bible itself—the very foundation of Christian faith and practice—that is now being disputed. Who with such a perspective on the Sacred Text can possibly be expected to tremble at the Word of the Lord (Ezra 10:3; Isa. 66:2)?
Jesus Himself Under Attack
For decades faithful Adventists have contended with the unscriptural efforts of certain ones to distinguish Jesus from the doctrinal and moral precepts of the Bible. But in more recent times, even Jesus has come under attack from so-called “progressive” voices among us. Some years ago the following statement was penned by the executive publisher of a liberal Adventist journal:
Was Jesus 50 percent human and 50 percent divine? Or was it 20 percent and 80 percent? Perhaps 80/20? My own personal favorite is encompassed in the following three faith statements: (1) Jesus was 100 percent human and 100 percent divine; (2) I do not have the slightest idea of what such percentages really mean; and (3) In the final analysis, I don’t think anyone else knows what such percentages really mean.
As far as knowing more in A.D. 2008 (now A.D. 2009) than Jesus did in A.D. 28, I am approaching an understanding of this on the basis that Jesus was 100 percent human. If this is correct, Jesus in A.D. 28 knew nothing about antibiotics, space travel, or the nature of the geological column. He accepted and assumed the common understandings about the world of everyone else who lived in his time and place. Whether Adam and Eve were literal individuals, symbols, or metaphors is hardly worth spending much time worrying or arguing about [##5|Ervin Taylor, letter to Adventist Today, Spring 2009, p. 4.##].
The Not-So-Distant Past
I was a theology student at Pacific Union College during the Desmond Ford controversy of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I remember well the sarcastic, pseudo-scholarly jibes at fundamental Adventism, the episodes of sundered faith and anguished doubt, the heart-wrenching dilemmas faced by students, faculty, trustees, and constituents who knew corrective action was needed but couldn’t quite decide where loving restraint ended and loving discipline began.
During my senior year at the same college, the pro-gay organization SDA Kinship International—then in its infancy—sent a mass mailing to the PUC student body, promoting to the campus their agenda and peculiar approach to Scripture. Even some of the most theologically liberal students—many of whom supported Ford’s theology or at least his right to teach at an Adventist school—were appalled at any professed Christian defending the homosexual lifestyle. One day, in the wake of the mass mailing noted above, one of the liberal students was walking with me back to the dorm alongside his girlfriend, expressing shock that any Christian could defend such practices “since God says tons of things against them.”
We need not pause to consider just how dramatically times, and the thinking of so many among us, have changed.
Reflecting on the battles of those years and the controversy late in the first decade of the present century regarding the teaching of evolution at a North American Adventist university, one blogger (now deceased) wrote:
How the world changes. Years ago, the issue at Southern was over Righteousness by Faith—the same tactics were used, successfully, to remove a President and at least three faculty. Now the issue is diametrically opposed to everything that Adventism believes and holds dear and the tactics are deplored and the teachers defended. . . . It will be interesting to see how this issue is resolved. Imagine a monkey bringing down what a PhD theologian couldn't budge [6].
Not that the origins issue was absent from the struggles of those earlier times; it just wasn’t as prominent on the church’s radar screen. But one thoughtful layman, with uncannily prophetic forebodings, saw clearly the direction so-called “progressive” thinking was taking certain ones within Adventism:
The current agitation and increased attitudes of questioning are well launched. No end of controversy is in sight. However heated the discussions concerning our basic belief become, and regardless of how near some may feel we are to a solution, I find myself backing away from what yawns increasingly as a fearsome black hole. Countless billions have been pulled into such an abyss of no return by the delicious and siren call of reason. The misuse of intellect felled the “light-bearer” so that at the present time the ether is filled with countless individual personalities who out-thought God. To me our present course seems far too pell-mell and hell-bent. The “end” of present historical research and scientific method looms as a certainty.
I do not believe that the Gift of Prophecy or the book of Genesis can stand this exposure. These two witnesses are being done to death and will soon lie in our streets [##7|H.N. Sheffield, letter to Spectrum, vol. 11, no. 3, p. 63.##].
Conclusion: The Downward March
When misguided souls among us depict God’s Word as including “overenthusiastic observations” [8] and “putting words in God’s mouth” [9], even forgetting that it was God—not some human author—who spoke and wrote the Ten Commandments [10], we cannot but recall the following prophetic warning as to the compelling logic that so often attends those whose spiritual pilgrimage parts company with distinctive Adventism:
It is Satan’s plan to weaken the faith of God’s people in the Testimonies. Satan knows how to make his attacks. He works upon minds to excite jealousy and dissatisfaction toward those at the head of the work. The gifts are next questioned; then, of course, they have but little weight, and instruction given through visions is disregarded. Next follows skepticism in regard to the vital points of our faith, the pillars of our position, then doubt as to the Holy Scriptures, and then the downward march to perdition [##11|Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 672.##].
It is not a question of whether the organized church will survive and in the end be victorious. Despite occasional bouts of despair on the part of the striving faithful, the words of our prophet are too clear on this subject to be misunderstood [##12|——Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380; Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 89; The Great Controversy, p. 608; Manuscript Releases, vol. 12, p. 327; vol. 20, p. 320.##]. The real issue is whether you and I will triumph with the church, or whether we will sacrifice our salvation through spiritual cowardice. The words of Mordecai to Queen Esther come pointedly to mind:
For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14).
Mordecai understood that God would not permit the wholesale slaughter of His people. Likely he knew the prophecies of Daniel, how the seventy weeks of years determined for Israel were yet to be fulfilled (Dan. 9:24-27), that until the Messiah arose from Judah’s royal line the Jewish nation could not be destroyed. But in this verse, under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, he admonished his now-royal cousin that if she refused to do her duty, she and her father’s house would face destruction even though God’s people would in fact be saved.
The same is true now. If we fail in our duty to cooperate with God in the cleansing and restoration of His church, He will either find others to do the job or do it Himself. The church will be saved, but if we neglect the divine summons to participate in its purification, we won’t be saved with it.
In one of her signature calls to courage and decisiveness, the servant of the Lord declares:
If God abhors one sin above another, of which His people are guilty, it is doing nothing in case of an emergency. Indifference and neutrality in a religious crisis is regarded of God as a grievous crime, and equal to the very worst type of hostility against God [##13|——Testimonies, vol. 3, p. 281.##].
That all who read these words will vow, by the grace of God, to do all in their power to arrest the downward march of misdirected “freethinkers” within our precious church, is my sincere prayer and earnest plea.
REFERENCES
1. Matthew Quartey, “Why We Should Reform Our Theology After Ted Wilson,” Spectrum, April 20, 2023 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/2023/why-we-should-reform-our-theology-after-ted-wilson
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ervin Taylor, letter to Adventist Today, Spring 2009, p. 4.
6. Tom Zwerner, post on the Spectrum blog site, May 29, 2009
http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2009/05/29/unravaling_witch_hunt_la_sierra_under_seige
7. H.N. Sheffield, letter to Spectrum, vol. 11, no. 3, p. 63.
8. Quartey, “Why We Should Reform Our Theology After Ted Wilson,” Spectrum, April 20, 2023 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/2023/why-we-should-reform-our-theology-after-ted-wilson
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ellen G. White, Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 672.
12. ----Selected Messages, vol. 2, p. 380; Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 89; The Great Controversy, p. 608; Manuscript Releases, vol. 12, p. 327; vol. 20, p. 320.
13. ----Testimonies, vol. 3, p. 281.
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