An Index of SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) Errors

[Alawishis]

It looks like the OP is no longer here. However if you want to tackle the list I would read your post

So it was a dump and run by the OP was it? First, thank you for sticking with us to hear us out. For one open heart yes I'd be glad to go through these. However, that's one big pile that was left on the doorstep, can we break this down a bit? We can start with which item on that list is your biggest concern and we can proceed from there. If that's OK with you. The reason I say that is because some of those items are quite in-depth and take quite a lot to go through.

 

[topcare]

So it was a dump and run by the OP was it?

It appears the OP was put in vacation (banned).

Just feel free to start anywhere The only thing I have against the SDA is that they allow women pastors, that members must follow the Law that Christ already fulfilled, that abortions are allowed at all, and vegetables all the time .

 

[Root of Jesse]

So it was a dump and run by the OP was it?

No, it wasn't. The poster who posted that had personal things to deal with and is no longer here.

First, thank you for sticking with us to hear us out. For one open heart yes I'd be glad to go through these. However, that's one big pile that was left on the doorstep, can we break this down a bit? We can start with which item on that list is your biggest concern and we can proceed from there. If that's OK with you. The reason I say that is because some of those items are quite in-depth and take quite a lot to go through.

Take your pick. The first one is quite a doozy.

 

[NursingNinja]

I am a former adventist myself. For me it was a shock to find out that Christians in the first few centuries actually assembled on Sundays. That in and of itself undoes alot of SDA beliefs surrounding the Sabbath. For their system to work you need 100% uniformity of Sabbath keeping until the "Pope" supposedly changed it hundreds of years later. Without that their eschatology unravels. And without their eschatology they don't have a gospel to preach, because their eschatology is their gospel. (Galatians 1:8-9).

That's not even getting Biblical either. If you do that you see covenants in the Bible. When Jesus gives a new covenant at the Last Supper (Luke 22:20) it makes the old covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). The Sabbath is associated with the old covenant. Even the Ten Commandments are too if you want to get technical, so appealing to that doesn't help either.

I'm not antinomian now mind you, you can catechize the Ten Commandments in the new covenant easily enough. You just don't have saturday sabbath. Instead the Bible teaches that Christ is our true Sabbath rest. If you want support for that last claim let me know I can provide it. But the idea is that we rest in his work on the cross, a rest from the wrath of God. It is a true antitype fulfillment of the shadow of the Sabbath day. (Matthew 11:28)(Colossians 2:16-17) (Romans 14:5)

 

[NursingNinja]

As far as the OP's Trinity comments are concerned, he is more correct than he knows. Although the SDA did claim to believe in the Trinity in the 1940's, and they do have a fundamental belief that purports a belief in the Trinity, SDA are not Trinitarian. Read their fundamental belief carefully, it isn't clear on one being and it leaves out same substance altogether. Without those two theses all you have is Tritheism. Not to mention the fact that it's rather dishonest to change the definition of a word and then use the same word.

The reason they do this is that in Ellen Whites writings she tells stories of heaven. And in those stories Jesus is taught to be "made" by the father and the Godhead is narrated as different bodies interacting in heaven like characters in a play. Its bizarre really. But to hold to that you cannot confess same substance, and one being ends up more like "one in purpose". This is why SDA will often describe the Godhead like a marriage united in Love.

SDA are simply not trinitarian at all, and they should just be honest about it.

 

[mmksparbud]

I am a former adventist myself. For me it was a shock to find out that Christians in the first few centuries actually assembled on Sundays. That in and of itself undoes alot of SDA beliefs surrounding the Sabbath. For their system to work you need 100% uniformity of Sabbath keeping until the "Pope" supposedly changed it hundreds of years later. Without that their eschatology unravels. And without their eschatology they don't have a gospel to preach, because their eschatology is their gospel. (Galatians 1:8-9).

That's not even getting Biblical either. If you do that you see covenants in the Bible. When Jesus gives a new covenant at the Last Supper (Luke 22:20) it makes the old covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). The Sabbath is associated with the old covenant. Even the Ten Commandments are too if you want to get technical, so appealing to that doesn't help either.

I'm not antinomian now mind you, you can catechize the Ten Commandments in the new covenant easily enough. You just don't have saturday sabbath. Instead the Bible teaches that Christ is our true Sabbath rest. If you want support for that last claim let me know I can provide it. But the idea is that we rest in his work on the cross, a rest from the wrath of God. It is a true antitype fulfillment of the shadow of the Sabbath day. (Matthew 11:28)(Colossians 2:16-17) (Romans 14:5)

As far as the OP's Trinity comments are concerned, he is more correct than he knows. Although the SDA did claim to believe in the Trinity in the 1940's, and they do have a fundamental belief that purports a belief in the Trinity, SDA are not Trinitarian. Read their fundamental belief carefully, it isn't clear on one being and it leaves out same substance altogether. Without those two theses all you have is Tritheism. Not to mention the fact that it's rather dishonest to change the definition of a word and then use the same word.

The reason they do this is that in Ellen Whites writings she tells stories of heaven. And in those stories Jesus is taught to be "made" by the father and the Godhead is narrated as different bodies interacting in heaven like characters in a play. Its bizarre really. But to hold to that you cannot confess same substance, and one being ends up more like "one in purpose". This is why SDA will often describe the Godhead like a marriage united in Love.

SDA are simply not trinitarian at all, and they should just be honest about it.

You were SDA---how long??---You do not seem to know or understand much---your first quote is so far off the mark---nobody has ever said that there were ONLY Sabbath keepers before Constantine. It is well known that there were some Christians who did not want to be associated with the Jews who decided to meet on Sundays which is what they had been doing before becoming Christians, it was sun worship they were used to---that is how it started and then Constantine did make it a law in order to bring in the sun worshipers along with the Christians----so I don't know where you get that idea of 100% uniformity of Sabbath keeping. The Sabbath is associated with the week of creation---that is it's origin and as SDA that is what we accept
Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Gen 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

which is why the 4th commandment says "Remember"---the Israelites were observing it before the 10 commandments were given to Moses--the observed it when the manna was given which was before the law was given.


As far as the Trinity is concerned---we most certainly believe in the Trinity. There is God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and yet they are one. How that is accomplished is not detailed and any church that says they have the absolute answer to that is making it up for the bible is not explicit on that point. All we know is they are 3 ---they are one---if there is something that you know different from the word of God then please provide the scriptures for it. It would be best if you provide support for your all your theories-----including those that you claim to be SDA believes.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

Ellen White did far more than suggest that keeping a Saturday Sabbath and worshiping on Saturday was a nice gesture or a way of remembering Old Testament times. Take a look at these two quotes from her writing.



Incidentally, EW refers to the Sabbath commandment as “the fourth commandment,” which it is in Protestant Bibles. Roman Catholic Bibles number the commandments differently, so it isn't the fourth commandment for them. EW is unaware of this.



<< When the foundations of the earth were laid, then was also laid the foundation of the Sabbath. I was shown that if the true Sabbath had been kept, there would never have been an infidel or an atheist. The observance of the Sabbath would have preserved the world from idolatry. The fourth commandment has been trampled upon, therefore we are called upon to repair the breach in the law and plead for the desecrated Sabbath. The man of sin, who exalted himself above God, and thought to change times and laws, brought about the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. In doing this he made a breach in the law of God. Just prior to the great day of God, a message is sent forth to warn the people to come back to their allegiance to the law of God, which antichrist has broken down. >>



Chapter 12, 2nd page

Ellen G. White (2010-12-05). Life Sketches of Ellen G. White (Kindle Locations 1109-1114). Copyright © 2010, Ellen G. White Estate, Inc.. Kindle Edition.





<< I saw that God had not changed the Sabbath, for He never changes. But the pope had changed it from the seventh to the first day of the week; for he was to change times and laws. >>


Last page of same chapter.


These are very extreme statements, not justified by anything in the Bible.

Nor by anything in the actual history of the early Church; the Eastern churches from the start regarded four days as holy: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Sunday being the holiest because it was on this day our Lord rose from the dead.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

As far as the OP's Trinity comments are concerned, he is more correct than he knows. Although the SDA did claim to believe in the Trinity in the 1940's, and they do have a fundamental belief that purports a belief in the Trinity, SDA are not Trinitarian. Read their fundamental belief carefully, it isn't clear on one being and it leaves out same substance altogether. Without those two theses all you have is Tritheism. Not to mention the fact that it's rather dishonest to change the definition of a word and then use the same word.

The reason they do this is that in Ellen Whites writings she tells stories of heaven. And in those stories Jesus is taught to be "made" by the father and the Godhead is narrated as different bodies interacting in heaven like characters in a play. Its bizarre really. But to hold to that you cannot confess same substance, and one being ends up more like "one in purpose". This is why SDA will often describe the Godhead like a marriage united in Love.

SDA are simply not trinitarian at all, and they should just be honest about it.

This is a very interesting post; can you provide sources?

 

[Commander Xenophon]

I apologize for the double post, two posts differing only slightly in content. I tried to delete the first one but the system wouldn't let me.




Mmksparbud:
<< You call that extreme?!! We are not the only Sabbath keeping denomination--didn't you get the memo? >>


Ellen White in Life Sketches, as quoted above:

“The man of sin, who exalted himself above God, and thought to change times and laws, brought about the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week.”


Ellen White is extreme because she repeatedly implies that one of the popes is the antichrist, or maybe that all popes are antichrist. Calling the leader of a rival church the antichrist certainly sounds extreme, particularly when the claim doesn't make sense. EW implies that the pope who supposedly changed the day of worship in the 4th century is the antichrist. But the Beast in Revelation is to come in the end times, just before the Second Coming. How could someone who lived in the 4th century be the antichrist?

Well, to be fair, some people have interpreted the idea of amti-Christ as an "office," so in Martin Luther, we have him repeatedly calling the Popes of his era and of several preceeding centuries anti-Christ. Which I think was a huge error; if the anti-Christ is the person alive most opposed to Christianity, several Islamic rulers fit the bill. Even in the 16th century a case could be made that the Ottoman Sultan was far more anti-Christian than the Pope, that he tolerated Christianity only so he could economically exploit Christians.

I believe Christianity requires solidarity against Islam, Paganism, Communism, and this requires a rejection of the idea that the Pope, any Pope, is or was anti-Christ; if anti-Christ is an office, it was first held by the Roman emperors, then by the Sassanian emperors, then the Saracens, then the Turkish Sultans, and then the Communists; it is now held by the leaders of ISIL.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

It looks like the OP is no longer here. However if you want to tackle the list I would read your post

I myself would also be open to going through any rebuttal you have to offer; the OP did leave CF.com and the Admiralty, and his mother has cancer, so he spends his time taking care of her, and should be in our prayers, but he and all other current and former members of the Admiralty I count as friends, and the subject of Adventism has always been something I have felt especially interested in. I think that several of the items the OP included in his initial post are verifiable matters of fact. For instance, it is a fact that no material change in the power of the papacy occurred in 538 or 1798 that would justify the 1260 years application; it was really with the papacy of St. Gregory the Great in 600 that the Church became the de facto government after Rome was sacked, and it remained the government of Rome, with brief interruptions by Frankish and Germanic rulers, and Napoleon III, until the Risorgimento and the conquest of Rome by the forces of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy around 1670.

The Vatican did not regain its national sovereignity until the Lateran Treaty of the 1920s, but is omce again a sovereign political entity with its own police, courts, passports, citizenship and diplomatic corps, something no other religion has. The only things that come close:

• The Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta has formal diplomatic recogmition by many nations and its own diplomatic corps parallel to that of the Vatican. After World War II it briefly operated its own air force on behalf of the Italian government, which was not allowed to operate its own aircraft. However, the Knights of Malta have had no territory of their own since the conquest of Malta in the 18th century by Napoleon; later it became a British colony and is now a sovereign state with universal recognition.
• His Majesty the Aga Khan, the leader of the Ismaili Muslims, is regarded as royalty, internationally, but is not the sovereign ruler of any country.
• The Government in Exile of Tibet, which is widely recognized as the legitimate ruling regime of Tibet, and not the occupying People's Republic of China, rerepresents a political power controlled by the leader of an anti-Christian religion, which was a regime more brutal than the Papal States (the Papal States were brutal, especially to the Jews, but their law courts did not routinely order people to have their eyes gouged out for minor offenses).

So because of all of that, I find the 1260 years bit particularly hard to swallow.

Then we have the SDA doctrinal error that regards White as the "outpouring of the spirit." If this is the case, what then was Pentecost?

There is also zero Biblical evidence to suggest that Jesus is St. Michael. If we say Jesus is an archangel, that would require him to have three natures, rather than the two natures, human and divine, which can be proven from the text.

 

[Root of Jesse]

You were SDA---how long??---You do not seem to know or understand much---your first quote is so far off the mark---nobody has ever said that there were ONLY Sabbath keepers before Constantine. It is well known that there were some Christians who did not want to be associated with the Jews who decided to meet on Sundays which is what they had been doing before becoming Christians, it was sun worship they were used to---that is how it started and then Constantine did make it a law in order to bring in the sun worshipers along with the Christians----so I don't know where you get that idea of 100% uniformity of Sabbath keeping. The Sabbath is associated with the week of creation---that is it's origin and as SDA that is what we accept

Absolutely incorrect, as to why Christians worshiped (exclusively) on Sundays! They did it to honor the day of resurrection. Thanks.

Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Gen 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

which is why the 4th commandment says "Remember"---the Israelites were observing it before the 10 commandments were given to Moses--the observed it when the manna was given which was before the law was given.


As far as the Trinity is concerned---we most certainly believe in the Trinity. There is God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and yet they are one. How that is accomplished is not detailed and any church that says they have the absolute answer to that is making it up for the bible is not explicit on that point. All we know is they are 3 ---they are one---if there is something that you know different from the word of God then please provide the scriptures for it. It would be best if you provide support for your all your theories-----including those that you claim to be SDA believes.

I don't know if I believe that you believe in the Trinity, since you believe that Christ was a created being...

 

[Root of Jesse]

I myself would also be open to going through any rebuttal you have to offer; the OP did leave CF.com and the Admiralty, and his mother has cancer, so he spends his time taking care of her, and should be in our prayers, but he and all other current and former members of the Admiralty I count as friends, and the subject of Adventism has always been something I have felt especially interested in. I think that several of the items the OP included in his initial post are verifiable matters of fact. For instance, it is a fact that no material change in the power of the papacy occurred in 538 or 1798 that would justify the 1260 years application; it was really with the papacy of St. Gregory the Great in 600 that the Church became the de facto government after Rome was sacked, and it remained the government of Rome, with brief interruptions by Frankish and Germanic rulers, and Napoleon III, until the Risorgimento and the conquest of Rome by the forces of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy around 1670.

This might be the 'official' start of the Pope's taking control of Rome, but I'd have to say that, when Constantine abandoned Rome for Constantinople, he really left the city under the care of the Pope. Just a minor quibble. Other wise, I concur.

The Vatican did not regain its national sovereignity until the Lateran Treaty of the 1920s, but is omce again a sovereign political entity with its own police, courts, passports, citizenship and diplomatic corps, something no other religion has.

Yet we didn't regain the Papal States, alas!

The only things that come close:

• The Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta has formal diplomatic recogmition by many nations and its own diplomatic corps parallel to that of the Vatican. After World War II it briefly operated its own air force on behalf of the Italian government, which was not allowed to operate its own aircraft. However, the Knights of Malta have had no territory of their own since the conquest of Malta in the 18th century by Napoleon; later it became a British colony and is now a sovereign state with universal recognition.
• His Majesty the Aga Khan, the leader of the Ismaili Muslims, is regarded as royalty, internationally, but is not the sovereign ruler of any country.
• The Government in Exile of Tibet, which is widely recognized as the legitimate ruling regime of Tibet, and not the occupying People's Republic of China, rerepresents a political power controlled by the leader of an anti-Christian religion, which was a regime more brutal than the Papal States (the Papal States were brutal, especially to the Jews, but their law courts did not routinely order people to have their eyes gouged out for minor offenses).

So because of all of that, I find the 1260 years bit particularly hard to swallow.

Amen!

Then we have the SDA doctrinal error that regards White as the "outpouring of the spirit." If this is the case, what then was Pentecost?

There is also zero Biblical evidence to suggest that Jesus is St. Michael. If we say Jesus is an archangel, that would require him to have three natures, rather than the two natures, human and divine, which can be proven from the text.

Right.

 

[Dale]

The Seventh Day Adventists keep saying that one of the Popes changed the day of worship to Sunday about 350 AD. Yet Justin Martyr, one of the early church fathers, said that Christians were worshipping on Sunday two hundred years earlier. Justin Martyr doesn't know anything about the day of worship being changed.



Here is an excerpt from the First Apology of Justin Martyr. I have highlighted the sentences where he mentions Sunday but included a longer quote to give the style and flavor.


Scholars date the Apology of Justin Martyr to 156 AD.





“CHAPTER LXVII -- WEEKLY WORSHIP OF THE CHRISTIANS.”



“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read ...”



“But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.”





Link:

Click here: Saint Justin Martyr: First Apology (Roberts-Donaldson)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...stapology.html

 

[Dale]

My goal, in this post, is simply to enumerate all known doctrinal or practical errors taught by the Seventh Day Adventists under the influence of various false prophets.

The format of this post will consist of bullet points expressing the doctrinal statement as they make it. In some cases, where the view is not universally held by all Adventists, this will be noted through a qualification in parentheses:

Theological Errors

• St. Michael and Jesus Christ are the same person.
• Rejection of the Trinity (a belief historically mainstream in Adventism, now a minority view)

Eschatological Errors

• An "investigative judgement" began in 1849
• Annhilationism
• Chiliasm
• Impending enactment of worldwide legislation compelling Sunday worship

Mystagogical Errors

• Ellen G. White is an inspired prophet
• The "outpouring of prophecy" refers not so much to Pentecost as to her

Liturgical Errors

• Sunday worship is an evil Roman Catholic conspiracy. (Minority view)
• Christmas is pagan (Minority view)
• Easter is pagan (Minority view)
• Christians are required to keep the Sabbath

Practical Errors

• Chrisrians may not consume pork or other "unclean" foods
• Circumcision is mandatory An error on my part, the Adventists prohibit this. Mea culpa.

Historical Errors

• The period 538-1798 corresponds to the "1260 days," despite a clear lack of meaning.
• Albigensians, Cathari, Donatists, Montanists, Waldensians et al were good, proto-Protestant, proto-Adventists

There are doubtless several errors I've missed. There are also peculiar Adventist practices like Academy for tweens which are not strictly speaking theological errors, but which are nontheless strange and contribute to a sectarian culture existing in a state of disharmony with the world.

I'm not sure why folks are saying the OP isn't available.
It is showing here and we'll see if this posts.

 

[topcare]

The user name is in pink, it means they are no longer here to respond

 

[mmksparbud]

Absolutely incorrect, as to why Christians worshiped (exclusively) on Sundays! They did it to honor the day of resurrection. Thanks.
I don't know if I believe that you believe in the Trinity, since you believe that Christ was a created being...

I do not believe you were ever an SDA---there is no SDA that believes Jesus Christ was ever created-----I never met one, it was never taught in grade school, nor high school, nor any Sabbath school nor from any pulpit, nor from any SDA book. I asked that if you're going to make pronouncements of what we believe that you please provide the needed citations.

 

[mmksparbud]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_in_Christianity

Corporate worship[edit]
While the Lord's Day observance of the Eucharist was established separately from the Jewish Sabbath, the centrality of the Eucharist itself made it the commonest early observance whenever Christians gathered for worship. In many places and times as late as the 4th century, they did continue to gather weekly on the Sabbath, often in addition to the Lord's Day, celebrating the Eucharist on both days.[13][14][15] No disapproval of Sabbath observance of the Christian festival was expressed at the early church councils that dealt with Judaizing. The Council of Laodicea (363-364), for example, mandated only that Sabbath Eucharists must be observed in the same manner as those on the first day.[15] Neander has suggested that Sabbath Eucharists in many places were kept "as a feast in commemoration of the Creation".[15]

The issues about Hebrew practices that continued into the 2nd century tended to relate mostly to the Sabbath. Justin Martyr, who attended worship on the first day,[16] wrote about the cessation of Hebrew Sabbath observance and, echoing the apostles, stated that the Sabbath was enjoined as a temporary sign to Israel to teach it of human sinfulness (Gal. 3:24-25),[17] no longer needed after Christ came without sin.[18] He rejected the need to keep literal seventh-day Sabbath, arguing instead that "the new law requires you to keep the sabbath constantly."[19] With Christian corporate worship so clearly aligned with the Eucharist and allowed on the seventh day, Hebrew Sabbath practices primarily involved the observance of a day of rest.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

I do not believe you were ever an SDA---there is no SDA that believes Jesus Christ was ever created-----I never met one, it was never taught in grade school, nor high school, nor any Sabbath school nor from any pulpit, nor from any SDA book. I asked that if you're going to make pronouncements of what we believe that you please provide the needed citations.

I have debated on CF.com with @EastCoastRemnant, a member of your church who, if I understood him correctly rejects, or rejected at the time of our debate, the deity of our Lord and the doctrine of the Trinity. It is also a known fact that Arianism was prevalent among Adventist communities prior to Ellen G White; much of the literature Ive read on the subject credits her with the conversion of the Adventists to a predominantly Trinitarian movement or denomination.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

To what end?

How is this not a clear example of lashon hara - the evil tongue? If you have a problem with Adventists - take it to them privately per Matt 15.

The early Church established a pattern of publically rebuking error and those who propagate it; the reconciliation process outlined in Matthew 15 would not apply. We see throughout the New Testament, in Acts, the Pauline and Johannine epistles, amd the Apocalypse, descriptions of the censure and anathematization of people teaching error or causing division (or behaving unethically); this pattern continues in the epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, and in the especially in the writings of some saints known for cataloging errors and various sects, like St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, and St. John of Damascus, as well as other saints who are celebrated chiefly for successfully expurgating from the early church a particular error like Arianism or Nestorianism, saints like St. Athanasius the Great, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Also, the OP edited his post when it was pointed out to him that one of his points was in error.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

So it was a dump and run by the OP was it?

Absolutely not; @Wgw was one of the most learned and distinguished heresiologists and theologians on the forum and his departure was outside of his control, at a time when his mother was undergoing cancer surgery.

@redleghunter, myself, @Root of Jesse, and @Simon Crosby currently represent the leadership of the Admiralty, the apologetics and prayer association he founded, and owing to our great love and personal respect for him we are prepared to continue this discussion on his behalf, bearing in mind that @Wgw expressly stated that he was open to correction if any of the items on his list were shown to be inaccurate, and he was as good as his word on this point.

We also promise to conduct such a debate, if desired, without recourse to any ad hominem attacks, personal insults, or logocal fallacies, so if anyone would like to debate us, if you feel we break the rules of the site, please report us, but if you believe that we have argued our case in a manner that breaks our promises made anove, you can complain to @St_Worm2, who is our independent ombudsman and who enforces our formal debating protocol.