VERITAS: The Restoration Movement

This issue of Areopagus Journal focuses on two of the larger heretical churches—Seventh-day Adventism, and what are most commonly known as the Churches of Christ. The term “heretical” is used to denote a very serious or fatal error, an error that puts these groups outside the Christian faith.

Cults and Justification by Faith Alone
God’s word gives us numerous warnings about the deception of pseudo-Christian groups. God warns about “imposters who will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” He contrasts that with true believers who continue in the faith, convinced of the sacred scriptures which give us “salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3: 13-15). These false teachers present a different gospel, a false gospel, which is based on obedience to the eternal laws of God. Thus, in some measure, they teach that salvation is based on good works rather than on trusting in the finished work of Christ alone (1 Cor. 1:29-30; 2 Cor. 5: 21; 11:3-4, 12-15; Gal. 1:6-9; Rom. 10:1-4; Eph. 2: 4-10).

The nature of the gospel was the centerpiece of the Protestant Reformation, the material principle of sola fide, or justification by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. Pseudo-Christian cults and all false religions require some measure of human works as a requirement to attain eternal life, denying that justification is by faith alone. Paul warns that the agents which teach a “different Jesus” or a “different gospel” or a “different Spirit” can have the appearance of real Christianity. But he goes on that Satan can disguise himself as an “angel of light” (2 Cor.11: 3-4, 13-14).

One can be wrong about numerous doctrines, and everyone is, but the Bible makes it clear that the Person and work of Christ (which includes the doctrine of the Trinity) and the gospel of justification by faith alone are the essential and non-negotiable doctrines of the Christian faith. To reject the revelation of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is to deny the perfection and finished work of Christ on the cross, and to reject His imputed righteousness to us.

This rejection of Christ’s finished work and substitutionary atonement invariably puts man into a system of law-keeping in order to merit eternal life. Works-righteousness and grace alone are mutually exclusive “because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Rom. 3:20). Under the law, God demands perfect obedience or righteousness from mankind (Matt. 5:17 - 28, 48), a standard which no human being can live up to (Rom. 3:10-23). But by grace alone through faith in Christ’s finished work alone, God gives or imputes Christ’s righteousness to mankind as a gift (Rom. 3:21-5:2; Gal. 2:15-3:14; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 2:8-9). The last words of Christ on the cross are a powerful statement of this: “It is finished.” The Greek word here is tetelestai, which means “completed, finished, fulfilled, accomplished.” It was frequently used in Greek commercial life to signify the completion of a transaction by the full payment of a price, that is, “paid in full.” [1] Tetelestai is in the perfect tense which means it represents an action that was completed in the past but has continuing results. What Jesus is referring to is that the work He came to do, “to seek and save those who are lost,” and to shed His “blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” and “to give His life as a ransom (a price paid to redeem captives) for many” was completed in His atonement death on the cross (Mark 10:45; Matt. 20:28; 26:28).

The Scriptures are clear that grace and works are totally incompatible (Rom. 11:6). “For by grace are you saved through faith [in Christ’s finished work], and this is not from ourselves [any works of obedience]; it is a gift—not from works” (Eph. 2:8-9). All who accept this gift are already declared “raised up with Him and seated with Him in the heavens” (Eph. 2: 4-6).

The Restoration Cults
Tragically the two groups of focus in this issue are guilty of producing a counterfeit gospel. Typically, heretical groups originate through the elevation of a human being to the status of a “prophet” or “apostle” (or pope), whose interpretations, decrees, or even additional writings are elevated to be as authoritative as Scripture. In the case of one of the groups exposed in this journal, Seventh-day Adventism, Ellen G. White is considered the prophetess who has restored the authentic Christian Church from the apostasy into which all Christian denominations had fallen. The other group, Churches of Christ/Christian Churches, also claims to have restored New Testament Christianity from apostasy, through the “correct” interpretations of its founders, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, and Walter Scott.

The article on Seventh-day Adventism contains information on their novel doctrines of the “Heavenly Sanctuary” and “Investigative Judgment.” These two doctrines push their followers into a works system of salvation. For example, under the section of “Heavenly Sanctuary” in their authoritative book on their twenty-seven fundamentals, we read there that Jesus is now sitting in a Heavenly Sanctuary, continuing to atone for the sins of professing believers. He is examining their works (Investigative Judgment): “But before the records are finally cleared, they will be examined to determine who through repentance and faith in Christ is entitled to enter His eternal kingdom. . . .Jesus said, ‘He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not [then] blot out his name from the Book of Life.” [2]

What does this overcoming involve? It includes the necessity to obey commands like baptism, and keeping a Saturday Sabbath. As their leadership states, it is a “living faith” that saves, “demonstrated by his obedience” and it is “on the basis of this dynamic faith that we are justified,” which becomes “our fitness for heaven. [3] This is making our “fitness” contingent on our obedience as the basis of our justification. Like all pseudo-Christian cults, it is Christ plus our obedience that justifies, which is a denial of the true gospel (Jas. 2:10; Gal. 1:6-9).

One work of obedience required for salvation that is frequently found in these groups is the necessity to be baptized in order to acquire the remission of sins. As we will see, Seventh-day Adventism and its “prophet” Ellen G. White, as well as the Churches of Christ who follow the legacy of the Stone-Campbell-Scott founders, teach that baptism (by immersion) is one of the necessary steps of obedience in order for God to forgive sins. These groups all use proof texts from the Bible to try to prove the need for baptism for salvation. They basically “cut and paste” the Scriptures to make their case. (One can make the Bible teach just about anything with this approach.) Peter and Paul warn us about the “twisting of Scripture to destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16; 2 Cor. 4:2).

Among the Churches of Christ, in addition to the absolute necessity of baptism by immersion, often with a required intention to have their sins remitted, many in the movement also require the absence of instrumental music in worship, and the partaking of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. These Churches of Christ believe they have restored the gospel through their “plan of salvation,” but their rationalistic approach to Scripture have turned the gospel into merely a programmatic guidebook for their numerous steps to salvation.

Twisting James 2:14-26
All of these pseudo-Christian groups flock to a few specific passages to prove their views, which on the surface may seem to teach the necessity of works of Law to be saved. They base their case on passages like Romans 2:7 which states that “to those who by perseverance in doing good [receive]. . .eternal life.” Or they interpret Matthew 25: 31-46 as teaching that those who do good works for Christ “inherit the kingdom.”

But the centerpiece passage they utilize is James 2:14-26. When I am teaching about pseudo-Christian cults, I typically role play, asking the audience to show me just one verse that explicitly says we are saved (justified) by faith alone. After a few awkward moments, I say, “Don’t fret. There is one. Turn to James 2: 24, where James says, ‘You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.” Does this text contradict the doctrine of justification by faith alone? Not at all. Paul clearly teaches that one is justified by faith apart from works (Rom. 3:28; Gal. 2:16), and the Bible is not contradictory.

The first rule of Bible interpretation is that we start with what a passage says but we then must immediately move to the question of what it means. For example, Jesus said, “If your right hand causes you to sin, then cut it off” (Matt. 5:30). The rule of examining the context and of letting Scripture interpret Scripture are vital for avoiding error here! So let’s look at the context in James 2.

In verses 14-17 James is comparing two kinds of people – one who says he has true faith, and one who demonstrates that he has true faith because he is manifesting a changed life with obedient faith. He adds that one can believe true things about God but even demons do that and they will also face judgment (v. 19). That kind of faith is merely intellectual or cognitive, not saving faith (a surrendered trust). James states, “Can that kind of faith save you?” (v.14). The answer is no—a mere intellectual assent is not saving faith. But then James elaborates on this as he writes that true faith is a living faith where the only evidence of the reality of faith is that it does something—but is not the basis of justification. He, like Paul, points to Abraham, the father of our faith, in Genesis 15:6, where he was declared righteous by faith alone, but then the evidence of his faith was authenticating works consistent with a regenerate and changed life. James could not have meant what the cult leaders say because earlier James wrote, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point is guilty of all” (Jas. 2:10). Repentance and faith in Christ are not doing something to gain salvation. It is the ceasing to do something and surrendering to His grace. Paul, like James, warns about the error of licentiousness. He writes, “Shall we continue to sin that grace might increase? May it never be” (Rom. 6:1-2). Both are opposed to antinomianism (cheap grace – no law).

Do you know anyone in the Seventh-day Adventist Church or the Churches of Christ? Read and digest well the material in this journal. You will then be prepared to provide a corrective apologetic and to offer the wonderful life-giving gospel with clarity. This is the same gospel that Paul celebrates when he wrote, “And may you be found in Him, not having a righteousness of your own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil. 4:9).

Craig Branch is director of the Apologetics Resource Center, Birmingham, Alabama.