By Clete Hux
Over the years the public has received a lot of high gloss full color brochures in the mail promoting prophecy conferences that herald the end of the world and portray certain political figures or spiritual leaders (such as the Pope) as part of an anti-Christ worldly system.
Billboards are seen on highways that read “Saturday is the true Lord’s Day, Sunday will be enforced as the mark of the beast.” No identity accompanies the advertisements. Neither will you find a particular church’s name inside certain children’s Bible story books found in waiting rooms of many doctors’ and dentists’ offices. However, a little research will reveal that these are part of a marketing campaign to introduce the public to the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church.
There are many religious groups whose identities center on an apocalyptic worldview emphasizing the imminent return of a messiah, a kingdom of God, or a rapture event. Many of these have a “one true church” mindset seeing themselves as a faithful “remnant” outside the realm of apostate “orthodox” Christianity. Although the SDA church embraces the aforementioned emphases, their reputation exceeds the sphere of religion. They enjoy an almost worldwide acceptance in the areas of health, medicine, and education apart from their religious influence. With approximately 15 million members and more than 25 million attending worship, represented in over 200 countries, they are one of the fastest growing denominations in the world.1
Adventists are generally known for their strict adherence to vegetarianism, nonsmoking, non-drinking, tithe paying, and keeping the Saturday Sabbath. Less known is their belief in annihilationism and rejection of eternal punishing in hell.
Opinions vary as to whether they should be considered an historical Christian denomination or if they fit the parameters of a heretical group because of doctrines that would seem to place them outside of orthodoxy. Only a few decades ago there were Christian leaders such as counter-cult apologist Walter Martin and theologian Donald Grey Barnhouse who concluded that SDA qualified as more evangelical than a cult. However, many others, such as Anthony A. Hoekema, M. R. DeHaan, John R. Rice, and John R. Gerstner took the opposite position, believing that the SDA church was a cult system.
Additionally, there have been many to leave the beliefs and practices of SDA, having come to see them as a bondage to legalism. One such person is Dale Ratzlaff, a former SDA pastor, who has authored a number of books and articles about SDA doctrine he believes to be cultic. It was his conviction about SDA’s Investigative Judgment (IJ) doctrine in particular that led Ratzlaff out of SDA. We’ll look at this more as we get to their beliefs, but first let’s look at the historical foundations of SDA.
Historical Background
SDA has its roots in the Adventist movement in the 19th century. The church’s two main distinctives are Sabbath observance on the seventh day (i.e., Saturday) and the near future end of the world (Adventism); thus, the name Seventh Day Adventism. Other distinctives include accepting the teachings of Ellen G. White, their prophetess, as authoritative, and various dietary observances rooted in Jewish law.
William Miller
William Miller (1782-1849) never joined the SDA movement, but there can be little doubt that SDA’s history is intertwined with Miller’s prophecies. Miller was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and moved with his family at an early age to Low Hampton, New York, after the War of 1812. Although he grew up in a Christian home, some believe he was originally a deist, while other accounts portray him as a skeptic. While making his living as a farmer, he began to study the Bible on his own and was converted, becoming a Baptist preacher.2
Continuing his personal study of the Bible, Miller came to a conviction: “I was brought, in 1818, at the close of my two-year study of the Scriptures, to the solemn conclusion, that in about twenty-five years from that time all the affairs of our present state would be wound up.”3 He believed the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ would take place sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.4 This conclusion was based on his interpretation of Daniel 8:14 (“And he said unto me, unto 2,300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”) To Miller, the 2,300 days (evenings and mornings) meant 2,300 years. By his calculations, then, Christ would return in 1843 or sometime between 1843 and 1844.
Of course, Christ did not return as predicted, and Miller repented of his date-setting before his death in 1849. However, the practice was continued by Samuel S. Snow, a Millerite leader. Snow adjusted Miller’s dates seven more months, believing that the 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14 were to end not in the spring of 1844, as Miller had taught, but in the fall of that year. He specifically predicted that Christ would return on October 22, 1844, which would coincide with the Jewish Day of Atonement for that year.5 This interpretation gathered momentum among Millerites as they eagerly anticipated Christ’s return. However, when He did not come as expected, many were overwhelmingly disappointed. In SDA history the date is usually referred to as the day of “The Great Disappointment.”6 Many despaired and gave up on the movement. Those that remained faithful to the Adventist movement began to teach that the return of Christ had been fulfilled in a different way than previously expected.
Leading the way with this new emphasis was Hiram Edson, Joseph Bates, and Ellen G. White. From Edson came the concept of Christ’s having entered the heavenly holy of holies and performing its cleansing. Later this would be expanded into the “investigative judgment” doctrine. Joseph Bates was very prominent in SDA’s early development and focused on the seventh day (Saturday) as the proper day for the Sabbath. He also emphasized that the 144,000 spoken of in Revelation 7 were the remnant, which he identified as faithful Adventists.7 (Jehovah’s Witnesses of the Watchtower Society have also claimed the “144,000” for their own, understanding that it refers to faithful JW’s who will go to heaven.)
Ellen G. White
The one who played the most prominent role in SDA’s history was Ellen G. White (1827-1915). She was born Ellen Gould Harmon in 1827 in Gorham, Maine. Her family was Methodist in her younger years. Stories have it that as a child she was hit in the face with a rock thrown by an older girl. Her nose was broken, face disfigured, and she remained unconscious for weeks. Although she finally recovered, the event had threatened her life.8
Greatly influenced by Miller’s teachings, Ellen and her family left the Methodist church. After the Great Disappointment of 1844, Ellen had her first vision. At a friend’s home, while kneeling in prayer, she saw in her vision the Advent believers traveling along a lighted pathway, encouraged on the way by Christ, until they reached the shining City of God. It was only after her second vision, though, that she felt convicted that she had to tell others what God had shown her.9
In August of 1846, James White, an activist in the Millerite movement and a young Adventist preacher, married Ellen. Soon a group of Advent believers near Portland, Maine, began believing that Mrs. White was being uniquely guided by the Holy Spirit. They, in fact, believed her to be a true prophetess, loyally believing her words and visions. James White stated that Ellen had hundreds of visions during the early part of her ministry.10 These visions gave way to messages she received in her waking hours and through dreams. It is believed that almost every aspect of the beliefs and practices of the Adventists was either encouraged or inspired by a vision or word from Ellen White.
After about twenty years the loosely knit group of Adventists was finally formalized as a church. It was established in Battle Creek, Michigan, on May 23, 1863, with a membership of 3,500. The denominational headquarters of the SDA was moved to Silver Springs, Maryland in 1989.11
Through the years there have been offshoots of SDA which differ in some of their teachings. In 1929, a new sect was formed by Victor Houteff called the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists. His group subdivided into other groups including the Students of the Seven Seals, popularly known as the Branch Davidians. This group became widely known in recent years due to David Koresh and the Waco, Texas incident. They have very little in common with the rest of Adventism.
There have been several reform movements which have arisen from within the SDA Church. Two of the more significant members who challenged the status quo were Adventist theologian and professor, Desmond Ford, and former SDA pastor, Walter Rae.
Walter Rae decided to take on some evangelical critics of Adventism who claimed to be able to document many plagiarisms by Ellen G. White who had passed off these writings as inspired prophesies. After examining the documentation in 1982, Rae wrote a book, The White Lie, revealing an even larger percentage of plagiarisms than the critics had found. Rae’s pastoral license was then revoked by the church, but the vast amount of unaccredited material being presented as “prophesy” began to circulate in the public and generated significant debate and attrition.
The largest schism in Adventism centered around the scholarship of Adventist scholar Desmond Ford in the 1980s. Ford began to travel around the world often meeting privately with groups of Adventist pastors in the late 1970s. In 1980 he published a major work titled, “Daniel 8:14, the Investigative Judgment and the Kingdom of God.” He made the convincing case that Ellen G. White’s “prophetic” heavenly sanctuary and Investigative Judgment doctrines were not biblical and they undermined the essential belief in salvation by God’s grace apart from good works.
Ford was then relieved of his ministerial credentials but many Adventists were positively affected by his writings. Today there are three major groupings within the SDA Church – historic, evangelical and liberal.
Historic Adventists continue to hold to the “unique truths” given to Adventism, especially those given by Ellen White. The evangelical Adventists are hopefully growing. They take exception to several key points in the SDA’s 28 Fundamental Beliefs, especially holding to justification by faith alone in Christ and in His imputed righteousness.
In fact, a very recent SDA publication, Signs of the Times ran two articles, “How Perfect Must I Be?”, and “Baptism by the Book,” which would pass evangelical muster12 but their periodical is inconsistent both in other editions and certainly with the edicts of then authority, Ellen White, and other inherent doctrines as you will learn.
SDA Theology
Official teachings of the SDA denomination are expressed in its 28 Fundamental Beliefs which were originally adopted by the General Conference in 1980 with another belief (number 11) being added in 2005. Their teachings seem to be typical of trinitarian Protestant theology, with Premillenialism and Arminianism (an emphasis on the dominance of the human will). They hold to the infallibility of Scripture, the substitutionary atonement, the resurrection of the dead, and justification by faith. However, there are certain distinctive SDA doctrines that would set them apart from the rest of the Christian world.
Source of Authority
To comprehend the distinctive doctrines of Seventh Day Adventism, it is important to understand the degree to which Adventists lean upon Ellen White and her writings for guidance. So, what is the SDA source of authority and where does Ellen G. White figure into this? How this question is answered determines whether the SDA has orthodox legitimacy or whether they are heterodox in their view of biblical authority. When asked if Ellen G. White’s writings are regarded as on an equal plane with the Bible, the SDA church has said no. They have even said that they test the writings of Ellen G. White by the Bible, but they in no sense test the Bible by White’s writings.12
Dale Ratzlaff, however, has a different opinion about this. Even though SDAs say the Bible is their standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested, Ratzlaff believes that historic SDAs put White’s writings on the same level of inspiration as the Bible. The Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh Day Adventists, No. 17, has the following statement: “…As the Lord’s messenger, her [Ellen G. White’s] writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction.”14 White herself indicated that she was a “lesser” light to lead men and women to the “greater” light.15 Adventists believe that she had the gift of prophecy. Thus, they referred to her as the “Spirit of Prophecy” who has the testimony of Jesus, taken from Rev. 19:10.
Distinctive Teachings
1. Remnant Church
In believing that the Holy Spirit manifests Himself in the gift of prophecy and that White had this gift, Adventists conclude that they must be the remnant church of which Revelation 12:17 speaks. Although SDAs would not say she is in the same category as the writers of the Canon of Scripture, she is compared to prophets or messengers who lived contemporaneously with the writers of the two Testaments, whose utterances were never a part of Scripture. However, Adventists insist that the gift of prophecy which White possessed, and with which she therefore enriched their group, is a mark of the “remnant church.” Obviously, this means that this gift sets SDA apart from all other Christian groups. Their Fundamental Beliefs, No. 13, entitled, “The Remnant” reads:
The universal church is composed of all who truly believe in Christ, but in the last days, a time of widespread apostasy, a remnant has been called out to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This remnant announces the arrival of the judgment hour, proclaims salvation through Christ, and heralds the approach of His second advent. This proclamation is symbolized by the three angels of Revelation 14; it coincides with the work of judgment in heaven and results in a work of repentance and reform on earth. Every believer is called to have a personal part in this worldwide witness.17
Ratzlaff reminds us that we are to note that it is the SDA church that claims to be this “remnant.” He says no other church besides SDA holds the message of the 1844 investigative judgment hour. Also, it is interesting that “every believer” is called to have a personal part in this [SDA’s] worldwide witness.18
###2. Investigative Judgment
This doctrine is described in the Fundamental Beliefs of SDAs, No. 24, “Christ’s Ministry in the Heavenly Sanctuary.” It reads,
There is a sanctuary in heaven, the true tabernacle which the Lord set up and not man. In it Christ ministers on our behalf, making available to believers the benefits of His atoning sacrifice offered once for all on the cross. He was inaugurated as our great High Priest and began His intercessory ministry at the time of His ascension. In 1844, at the end of the prophetic period of 2300 days, He entered the second and last phase of His atoning ministry. It is a work of investigative judgment which is part of the ultimate disposition of all sin, typified by the cleansing of the ancient Hebrew sanctuary on the Day of Atonement. In that typical service the sanctuary was cleansed with the blood of animal sacrifices, but the heavenly things are purified with the perfect sacrifice of the blood of Jesus. The investigative judgment reveals to heavenly intelligences who among the dead are asleep in Christ and therefore, in Him, are deemed worthy to have part in the first resurrection. It also makes manifest who among the living are abiding in Christ, keeping the commandment of God and the faith of Jesus, and in Him, therefore are ready for translation into His everlasting kingdom…. It declares that those who have remained loyal to God shall receive the Kingdom.19
Notice that this doctrine declares that Christ’s atoning work has a second phase beyond the cross in which he blots out the sins of those believers who, under his scrutiny, are “deemed worthy” in accordance with their “keeping the commandments of God.” This doctrine strongly points to salvation by works. According to Ratzlaff, there are many SDA theologians and pastors who have admitted privately that there is no biblical support for this doctrine. However, for them to publicly hold this conviction would strike a blow to the very foundation of Adventism and Ellen White who called Daniel 8:14 “the central pillar of Adventism.”20 Very similar to the heresy of Roman Catholicism, Adventism claims that in the heavenly sanctuary, Christ’s mediation, or the application of the merits of His sinless life, progressively is applied to the believer as He follows Christ. Ellen G. White wrote that He [Christ] is still making an atonement for us before the Father.21 She also wrote in The Great Controversy, “…our great High Priest enters the holy of holies and appears in the presence of God to engage in the last acts of His ministration in behalf of man – to perform the work of investigative judgment, and to make an atonement for all who are shown to be entitled to its benefits” (p.480).
In the official SDA book, Seventhday Adventists Believe, it demonstrates the heretical application of heavenly sanctuary and investigative judgment. “The heavenly sanctuary is the great command center where Christ conducts His priestly ministry for our salvation…[in the sanctuary] Christ’s priestly ministry provides for the sinner’s forgiveness and reconciliation….as the believer abides in Christ, spiritual grace is mediated to him by our Lord….The ministry in the holy place brings about the believers justification and sanctification.”22
Also we read that before “the record of sins in the heavenly books” are finally removed, “they will be examined to determine who through repentance and faith in Christ is entitled to enter his eternal kingdom.”23 It is at judgment that ones “sins are blotted out and they are accounted worthy of eternal life. He who overcomes, Jesus said, shall be clothed in white garments.”24 So according to the SDA, Jesus didn’t mean it when He said, “it is finished” (paid in full), Jn 19:30.
3. Seventh-Day Sabbath
Adventists have traditionally held that Sunday-keeping churches are a part of the great “apostasy,” “Babylon,” or the “daughters of Babylon.” Though they would acknowledge that there are believers in other churches, the true remnant church observes the Seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday) as the seal of God. White’s writings have reflected this. She wrote that this observance would be the “line of distinction” in the “final test” which will separate God’s end-time people who “receive the seal of God” and are saved, from those who “receive the mark of the beast”25 and are cast into the lake of fire.
White basically saw the Catholic Church as “Babylon” and the “Harlot” of Revelation. She also saw Protestant churches who did not accept SDA’s teaching on the three angels’messages of Revelation 14 as “fallen churches” and the “daughters of Babylon.”26 So the SDA message is “come out of Babylon (Roman Catholicism) and leave the daughters of Babylon (Sunday keeping Protestant churches) to avoid the mark of the beast.” This must be done if one wants to receive the seal of God and join the SDA church.
4. Baptism
In Fundamental Beliefs, No. 15, SDAs point out that baptism is by immersion. All Baptist believers see immersion as the proper mode, too, unlike other Protestants who believe sprinkling, dipping or pouring to be biblical. Most do not generally teach that a certain mode of baptism is required to be saved. However, in SDA, it appears that immersion is required for salvation. In Seventh Day Adventists Believe, we read the following: “Christ made it clear that He required baptism of those who wished to become part of His church, His spiritual kingdom”; “In baptism believers enter into the passion experience of our Lord”; “Baptism also marks [a] person’s entrance into Christ’s spiritual kingdom. . . it unites the new believer to Christ. . . . Through baptism the Lord adds the new disciples to the body of believers—His body, the church. Then they are members of God’s family.”27
In this light SDA also declares that justification “can be realized only by a genuine faith that works by love (Gal. 5:6) and purifies the soul.” It is also pointed out that “the faith that leads to justification is, therefore, a living faith that works (James 2:24).”28 Though claiming to affirm justification by faith, the SDA makes sanctification a part of justification (the same error as Roman Catholicism). They describe the righteousness by which we are justified as imputed and the righteousness by which we are sanctified as imparted.
But it is explained that the first (imputed) is our title to heaven, while the second (imparted) is our “fitness” for heaven. It is said that ‘in addition to justification, God’s plan of salvation provides through this title a fitness for heaven by the indwelling Christ.”29 These statements are ambiguous at best as to whether or not justification is truly by faith alone. In any case, the SDA beliefs about baptism, Sabbath-keeping, the remnant church, and investigative judgment contradict the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This conclusion is certainly affirmed by Ellen G. White who wrote,
All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven; as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal life.30
5. Christ
In looking at the SDA Fundamental Beliefs regarding Christ, there is nothing that looks unorthodox. There appears to be no difference between their teachings and those of historic Christianity. However, this was not the case in early Adventism. Some earlier Adventist writers had contended that the Son was not equal to the Father (a form of Arianism) and that he must have had a beginning in the past. This would explain why some equated him with Michael the Archangel. Today, Adventists apply the biblical name Michael to the Son of God in His pre-incarnate state. This is different from the Jehovah’s Witnesses who teach that Jesus is Michael the archangel, a creature.
Ellen G. White taught that, in being incarnate, Christ assumed a polluted human nature. She wrote, “Christ took upon His sinless nature one sinful nature. . . .Christ took human nature and bore the infirmities and degeneracy of the race. He took our nature and its deteriorating condition.”31 There has been considerable debate among Adventists and many attempts to clarify what White actually meant. The view most compatible with these contradictory statements is that, while Christ’s human or fleshly nature was that of fallen humanity, His spiritual nature was holy uncorrupted. What Adventists want as to believe is that Christ took on a fallen human nature in every respect except one; he did not have a propensity to sin.
Critics have agreed that Adventists have attempted to remove all ambiguity on the issue. Yet, there was a problem on this when Hoekema wrote his analysis of this issue. He points out on pages 61 and 654 of Question on Doctrine that White is quoted with SDA approval that Christ did take upon His sinless nature our sinful nature.32 Yet, this is precisely what White is supposedly not to have taught. In the final analysis, Christ assumed in addition to His divine nature, a human nature which was sinful. Why couldn’t the SDA church just admit that White was in error? This view is still held today by a fringe minority of “historic” Adventists.
6. Soul Sleep and Annihilation
SDA denies that the whole man or any part of man is “inherently” immortal. This is similar to what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe. They believe in “soul sleep” until the bodily resurrection.33 Until then all people who die are in an unconscious state. This is different from most evangelicals who believe that the souls or spirits of the deceased go immediately to heaven or hell.
Conclusion
Who speaks authoritatively for SDA? This is an important question because the foundational problem in SDA is their source of authority. Unlike orthodox Christianity which sees the Bible as the only source of authority for belief Bible as the only source of authority for belief 21), Adventists really have a dual source: the Bible and Ellen G. White. It is one thing to say that the Old and New Testaments are the authoritative revealer of doctrines (see SDA’s Fundamental Beliefs, no. 1). It is another thing when Ellen G. White’s writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth. From this questionable foundation comes their claim to be the “remnant church.” In the minds of many this is equivalent to a “one true church” claim, which is an exclusivistic and cultic mentality.
This remnant (SDA) and only this remnant has an 1844 Investigative Judgment (IJ) doctrine. We don’t read anything of this doctrine in Daniel 8:14 when we read most translations of the Bible. It simply says, “And he said to me, ‘For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the holy place will be properly restored’.” However, the SDA’s corrupted Clear Word Bible (TCWB) has much more inserted. Without any manuscript support, the theology of the IJ is read right into the text. It says, “He said to him, after two thousand three hundred prophetic days (or two thousand three hundred years), God will step in, proclaim the truth about Himself and restore the ministry of the Sanctuary in heaven to its rightful place. This is when the judgment will begin, of which the cleansing of the early sanctuary was a type.”
A works approach to salvation is inherent in the IJ doctrine. This goes hand-in-hand with the confusion between justification and sanctification, because the IJ is a “work of judgment in heaven.” It is a judgment of believers according to their works in which their characters must demonstrate perfect obedience to the Ten Commandments, especially their version of the Sabbath commandment.
While SDA teaches that only those who have professed belief in God are judged in the Investigative Judgment, the Bible teaches that true believers do not come into judgment. John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
The truth is that no amount of law-keeping (Saturday Sabbath observance or baptism) will save anyone. Romans 3:20 says that “by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified before God.” Jesus performed that which we could not to give us life uninterrupted. He said the one who believes Him has (in the present tense) eternal life and has passed out of death into life. There is no need to be concerned with the prospect of “soul sleep.” Those who die in the Lord will always be with the Lord because we go immediately “to be with the Lord” (Luke 16; John 6:40, 47. Many people who have been convicted of murder have been sentenced to death, 2 Cor. 5:1-10; Phil. 1:21-26; 2 Tim. 1:10; Mark 12:18-27). Whoever has the Son of God has eternal life!
It’s very difficult to know where many Adventists stand in regard to historic Adventism and Ellen G. White. Some have left for more evangelical churches for varying reasons. Others, who realize the doctrinal inconsistencies, are staying in hopes that SDA will one day abandon their dependence upon White’s teachings and influence. If and when this will happen no one knows. Some are hoping that just as the Worldwide Church of God (Armstrongism) made wholesale doctrinal changes toward evangelicalism, so will the SDA. Only time will tell!
Clete Hux is the Counter-cult Specialist for the Apologetics Resource Center, Birmingham, Alabama.
Notes
1 See “Seventh Day Adventist Church” accessed athttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_ Adventist_Church.
2 Anthony A. Hoekema, Seventh-day Adventism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 9.
3 Leroy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of our Fathers (Washington: Review and Herald, 1954), IV, 463.
4 Hoekema, Seventh-day Adventism, 10.
5 Francis D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry (Washington: Review and Herald, 1945), 169.
6 Walter R. Martin, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1960), 29.
7 Hoekema, Seventh-day Adventism, 15.
8 Ibid., 17.
9 Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, IV, 979-982.
10 Francis D. Nichol, Ellen G. White and Her Critics (Washington: Review and Herald, 1951), 178.
11 See “Seventh Day Adventists” at https://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/denominations/seventh_day_adventist.htm.
12 Signs of the Times, Pacific Press, Nampa ID, February 2010, pp. 20,38.
13 See the Seventh-day Adventists General Conference Ministerial Association, Seventh-day Adventists Believe… (Hagerstown: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988), 227.
14 Dale Ratzlaff, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventist “Truth” (Glendale: LAM Publications, 2005), 9.
15Hoekema, Seventh-day Adventism, 24.
16 Ibid.
17 See the Seventh Day Adventist website under “Fundamental Beliefs” at https://www.adventist.org/ beliefs/fundamental/index.html.
18 Ratzlaff, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventist “Truth”, 11.
19 See the Seventh Day Adventist website under “Fundamental Beliefs” at https://www.adventist.org/ beliefs/fundamental/index.html.
20 Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Cal.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), 409.
21 Manuscript 21, 1895, quoted in Questions on Doctrine, p.685.
22 Seventh-day Adventists Believe, pp. 316-317
23 Ibid, p.320
24 Ibid
25 White, The Great Controversy, 605.
26 Ratzlaff, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventist “Truth”, 10.
27 Seventh-day Adventist Believe…, 122.
28 Ibid., 123, 128.
29 Ibid., 182.
30 Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, 483.
31 See Ellen G. White, Ministry of Healing (The Ellen G. White Publications, 1942), 181.
32 Hoekema, Seventh-day Adventism, 37.
33 Ratzlaff, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventist “Truth”, 25.