V.

The Answer Given by the Seventh-day Adventists

(Continued from p. 44.)

To many people Seventh-day Adventism is simply a strange Jewish-Christian sect, composed of well-meaning, earnest people, struggling under the law; failing to distinguish between the dispensation of the grace of God and the dispensation of the legal covenant; under the yoke of bondage as to meats and drinks, and particularly laying stress upon the observance of the Seventh-day Sabbath memorial of the Mosaic age. But their real teachings are far more serious and erroneous than even this brief synopsis would suggest; in fact, so far astray are they as to the great fundamental truths of Christianity, that were it not for the fact that their numbers are constantly being augmented by earnest people who have been brought up in the various Christian denominations and who are seeking fuller light, it is questionable whether the doctrines they preach could ever be the means of converting any soul. Mrs. Ellen G. White, their great prophetess, whose writings are put on a par with the Bible itself, was a neurotic, visionary woman, who gave forth her dreams as the veritable Word of God. She professed to receive a special revelation in regard to what is called "The Sanctuary Theory." This, in brief, involves the amazing conception that our blessed Lord did not enter the Holiest upon His ascension to heaven, but was in the Holy Place until 1844, when, for the first time, He passed within the veil, into the Holiest of all. She taught that Christ's death on the cross did not suffice to put away sin, but that by virtue of His death all who profess faith in Him have their sins transferred to the heavenly sanctuary, and that Christ is now in the sanctuary examining the books of record. Those who have proven unfaithful will have their names blotted out of the books and will eventually be annihilated, while those who have been faithful to all the light given them will be saved eternally on the new earth, and at Christ's return, their sins will be transferred to the Devil, who is pictured as the great scapegoat of the Day of Atonement, who bears these sins away into a land not inhabited. Thus he will be under the curse of them for one thousand years, dating from the rapture of the faithful to heaven, and lasting until the bringing in of the new heavens and the new earth. A weird conception truly! And not only weird but blasphemous, for little as Mrs. White and her followers seemed to realize it, it is a complete denial of the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. What place is there for the doctrine of His vicarious atonement, if Satan is at last to bear the sins of believers?

The position of Mrs. White and her followers as to the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ is equally unscriptural, and positively blasphemous. In years gone by, they taught unequivocally that our Lord was not eternally one with God, but in later years they seem to have accepted His eternal Sonship, though books like Uriah Smith's "Daniel" and "Revelation" are still in circulation, teaching the very opposite. But this by no means entitles them to be considered sound as to the Person of Christ, for they teach the most revolting things as to His humanity. Mrs. White, writing in "The Desire of the Ages," says:"For four thousand years the race had been decreasing in physical strength, in mental power and moral worth; and Christ took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity." "Many claim that it was impossible for Christ to be overcome by temptation …. but our Saviour took humanity with all its liabilities. He took the nature of man, with the possibility of yielding to temptation." She teaches the same thing in her early writings.

That her followers have never repudiated this, but have even added to it, is evident, for in a recent number of "The Signs of the Times," dated March, 1927, L. A. Wilcox writes as follows :"In His veins was the incubus of a tainted heredity, like a caged lion, ever seeking to break forth and destroy. . . . Temptation attacked Him, where by heredity He was weakest-attacked Him in unexpected times and ways; … in spite of bad blood and inherited meanness . . . He conquered." In the issue for December, 1928, the same writer says:"Jesus took humanity, with all its liabilities, with all its dreadful risks of yielding to temptation."

Many similar quotations might be given from Seventh-day Adventist writings. They all unite in proving that these misguided people have no conception whatever of the true nature of our blessed Lord's humanity. What meaning can the angel's words to Mary, "That Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God," have to people who talk of His sin-tainted humanity? Scripture is perfectly plain:He was ever the sinless One. By the Holy Spirit's direct action His humanity was preserved from every taint of inherited sin. His temptation was not to see if He would fall, but was intended to prove that He would not, that He was the unblemished Lamb of God, who because He had never been under the yoke of sin in any sense could redeem those who were under that yoke and set them free.

It is not only the Seventh-day Adventists who hold the blasphemous views intimated here, but there are not wanting many Protestant preachers and teachers to-day who hold the same revolting conceptions of Christ's humanity. How little do such men realize their own desperate condition, when they can suppose that a sinful being like themselves could save them from the ruin that sin has wrought! H. A. I.

(To be continued, D. V.)

Browsings in Ephesians is omitted this month for lack of space and will (D.V.) be continued in the May number.