day” (Review & Herald, 10-4- 28) ; “ Our position on the Testi monies is like the keystone to the arch. Take that out and there is no logical stopping place till all the special truths o f the message are gone. . . . Nothing is surer than this, that the message and the visions belong together, and stand or fall together” (Review & Herald, 8-14-83). The Seventh- day Adventists to this day rely upon the writings of Mrs. White as their authority, as their official textbook, Questions on Doctrine, published by Review & Herald Pub. Assn., in 1957, clearly indi cates. Outstanding Bible teacher, Dr. W. C. Whitmarsh, stated truly: “ The Bible and early writings of Mrs. White stand in absolute an tagonism one to the other. To ac cept the Bible as the inspired, au thoritative Word of God, is to re ject Mrs. White's ‘inspiration.’ To accept Mrs. White’s ‘inspiration’ is to reject the Word o f God as the source of final appeal” ( Cri teria fo r Prophecy, Oct. 1930). As far as authority on the part of the Seventh-day Adventism is concerned, Mrs. White herself laid down the law which is still very much in force: “ Defining the limits of private independence, Mrs. White says, ‘I have been shown that no man’s judgment should be surrendered to the judgment of any one man. But when the judgment of the Gen eral Conference, which is the highest authority that God has upon earth, (ital. mine), is exer cised, private independence and private judgment must not be maintained, but be surrendered” (From Mrs. White’s Testimonies, Vol. 3, p. 492 — quoted in Re view & Herald, 5-29-69, p. 8). So Mrs. White, ‘being dead, yet speaketh’ which dissident Sev enth-day Adventists learned to their sorrow. When former mem bers saw the error o f this system and godly men like D. M. Can- right and E. B. Jones, dared to contradict Mrs. White’s inspired writings, they were persecuted
and maligned to the day of their deaths. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, with his claim o f infallibility, exercises no high er authority than this. In the same issue of Review & Herald quoted above, occurred this re vealing statement: “A man who thinks that he alone is right, that the church has apostatized, is like a soldier in the ranks who claims that everyone is out of step but him.” Seventh-day Adventism and Christ Mrs. White and Seventh-day Adventism deny the impeccability of Christ. In other words, they teach that He, in His incarnation, took upon Him not only a body in which to die for our sins, but also assumed our sinful, fallen nature. They believe that it was possible for Him to sin. A devo tional book of the sect, re-edited and re-paged over the years, con tains this view: “ On His human side, Christ inherited just what every child of Adam inherits — a sinful, fallen nature” (p. 174, 1916 Ed. Bible Readings fo r the Home Circle). L. A. Wilcox reiterates: “ In His [Christ’s] veins was the in cubus of a tainted heredity, like a caged lion, ever seeking to break forth and destroy . . . Temptation . . . attacked Him where, by he redity, He was weakest . . . with equal tendencies toward evil, in spite o f bad blood and inherited meanness by the same power to which I have access, He con quered” (Signs of the Times, p. 5, col. 2, 3, 1927). In the 240 excerpts from Mrs. White’s writings included in the 1957 SDA book Questions on Doc trine, are many references to this basic teaching; the full text may be found on pages 654-660, of which the following are taken: “ He took upon His sinless nature our sinful nature” ; “ He took the nature of man, with the possi bility of yielding to temptation” ; “ Yet into the world where Satan claimed dominion, God permitted His Son to come, a helpless babe,
subject to the weakness of hu manity. He permitted Him to meet life’s peril in common with every human soul, to fight the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, at the risk of fa il ure and eternal loss” ; “ It was necessary for Him to be constant ly on guard to preserve His puri ty.” This is not the Christ o f the Bible who declared: “ The prince of this world cometh and findeth NOTHING in me” (John 14:30), the One “ holy, harmless, unde filed, s epa r a t e f r om sinners” (Heb. 7:27). We read in James 1:3: “ God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” and Jesus was God. Dr. C. I. Scofield declared: “Were the teaching o f the Sev enth-day Ad v e n t i s t s true, we would have a monstrosity—deity inheriting a fallen nature. I f this could have been so, there could have been no sinless sacrifice, no hope for sinners, no Saviour.” Dr. I. M. Haldeman explained the incarnation: “ He was begot ten of God from the seed of the woman, by and through the Holy Ghost. That which was begotten was not a Person, but a nature— a human nature. This human na ture was holy; Scripture calls it that holy thing. It was the holi ness produced by and out o f God. Since its quality was the holiness of God, there was no sin in it, and no possible tendency to sin. This holy sinless human nature was indissolubly joined to the eternal personality of the Son.” The blasphemous belief that Christ is still engaged in accom plishing the atonement for sins — the unfinished atonement — is a basic Seventh-day Adventist doctrine. In the SDA official Ques tions on Doctrine, many quota tions from Mrs. White on this subject occur on pp. 682-5, of which these are brief excerpts: “ Our Saviour is in the sanctuary . . . making an atoning sacrifice Seventh-day Adventism and the Atonement
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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