"From Controversy to Crisis: An Updated Assessment of Seventh-day Adventism"
Sabbatarianism.
SDA teaches that the keeping of the Seventh-day Sabbath, as a perpetual memorial to creation, is obligatory for all Christians as a mark of "true obedience" to the Lord. Unlike some extreme Adventists, however, the Adventist scholars at the conference asserted that the keeping of the Sabbath did not procure salvation, and that non-Adventist Christians who observed Sunday in good conscience were not excluded from the body of Christ.
Though Sabbath-keeping has never been the official position of historic Christianity, the evangelicals concluded that to keep, or not keep, a Sabbath was permissible within the context of Romans 14:5-6. Other Christian denominations, such as the Seventh-Day Baptists, had taken this position as well. The evangelicals vigorously disagreed with the Adventists' conclusion regarding the Sabbath, but they did not see this as an issue which should divide them.
Ellen G. White and the Spirit of Prophecy. The development and very existence of Adventism is literally incomprehensible apart from Ellen White and her voluminous writings. No Christian leader or theologian has exerted as great an influence on a particular denomination as Ellen White has on Adventism. During her lifetime, Mrs. White is credited with writing over 46 books totalling some 25 million words, which touched virtually every area of Adventist belief and practice.
SDA believes that the gift of prophecy mentioned in I Corinthians chapters 12 and 14 was uniquely manifested in the life and writings of Ellen White. Her alleged visions and words from the Lord were interpreted as being an identifying and qualifying characteristic of God's remnant church. The writings of Ellen White have often been described, as she herself put it, as "a lesser light" pointing to "the greater light" of Scripture.[4]
Because SDA considered the writings of Ellen White as "inspired counsel from the Lord," the evangelicals were concerned about what relationship her writings had to the Bible. The question put to the Adventist scholars was: "Do Seventh-day Adventists regard the writings of Ellen G. White as on an equal plane with the writings of the Bible?"[5] The Adventist leaders gave the following reply:
1) That we do not regard the writings of Ellen G. White as an addition to the sacred canon of Scripture.
2) That we do not think of them as of universal application, as is the Bible, but particularly for the Seventh-day Adventist church.
3) That we do not regard them in the same sense as the Holy Scriptures, which stand alone and unique as the standard by which all other writings must be judged.[6]
While the evangelicals openly rejected the Adventists' view of Ellen White's writings, they concluded that as long as her writings were not viewed as 1) being on a par with Scripture, 2) infallible, or 3) a test of Christian fellowship, this issue need not be divisive.
The Sanctuary Doctrine/Investigative Judgment. Perhaps the most distinctive of all Adventist beliefs is their doctrine of the sanctuary. This doctrine came about as an explanation for the failure of the Millerite movement in 1844. Baptist minister William Miller (1782-1849), using the day-year interpretation of Daniel 8:14, predicted that Jesus Christ would literally return to earth 2300 years after the beginning of Daniel's 70 weeks (Dan. 9:24-27), which he interpreted as being the time span of 457 B.C.-1843 A.D. When 1843 passed without seeing the Lord's return, the Millerite movement made a minor adjustment and declared that October 22, 1844, would be the date of Christ's second advent. When this prediction also failed the Millerite movement suffered what is known historically as the "Great Disappointment." For many this spelled an end to the Advent movement, but for a few it had just begun.
In the wake of the Great Disappointment, another individual, Hiram Edson, reexamined the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 after allegedly receiving an illuminating vision about this matter in a corn field. Edson, with help from O.R.L. Crosier, concluded that Miller's error rested in the nature of the event, rather than the calculation of time. Miller had interpreted the "cleansing of the sanctuary" (as referred to in Dan. 8:14) as a prophecy that Jesus Christ would return to the earthly "sanctuary", that is, to the earth itself. Edson, in light of his vision, came to believe that Christ, rather than returning to earth in 1844, actually entered for the first time into the second compartment of the heavenly sanctuary. Edson believed that there existed a heavenly sanctuary which had been the pattern for the Old Testament earthly sanctuary, complete with the dual compartments known as the holy place and the most holy place. 1844, according to Edson, marked the beginning of the second phase of Christ's atoning work.
The work which Jesus was to perform in the most holy place was later developed into the doctrine of the investigative judgment. Early Adventists understood Jesus' atoning work to be accomplished in two phases. This two-phase ministry of Christ could best be understood as an antitype of the work of the Old Testament priests.
Under the old covenant, they argued, the daily priestly duties were confined to offering sacrifices within the holy place (forgiving sin), but once a year on the day of atonement, the high priest entered the most holy place and cleansed the sanctuary by sprinkling the blood of a slain goat on the mercy seat (blotting out sin). After the cleansing of the sanctuary, the sins of the people were on the scapegoat who was banished into the wilderness.
According to Adventism, Jesus had been forgiving sin since His vicarious death on the cross; however, on October 22, 1844, Jesus began His work of blotting out sin. From His ascension until 1844, Jesus had been applying the forgiveness He purchased on the cross in the first compartment of the sanctuary, but in 1844, He entered the second compartment and began to investigate the lives of those who had received forgiveness to see if they were worthy of eternal life. Only those who passed this judgment could be assured of being translated at His coming. This doctrine gave rise to what later became known as the sinless perfection teaching (perfect commandment-keeping in order to find acceptance in the judgment). Following the investigative judgment, Christ would come out of the heavenly sanctuary and return to earth bringing to every man his reward, and ushering in the great and terrible day of the Lord. It is 1844, and the events described above, which mark the beginning of SDA.
Upon hearing of this peculiar doctrine, Barnhouse described the sanctuary doctrine as nothing more than a face-saving device that was created to bail them out of the Millerite error. The evangelicals repudiated these two doctrines as having no biblical support. The question remained for the evangelicals however, whether these two doctrines stood in the way of genuine fellowship. The primary concern was whether these doctrines minimized Christ's atoning work, or reduced it to an incomplete atonement. After a critical evaluation, the evangelicals concluded that this doctrine of the investigative judgment "constitutes no real barrier to fellowship when it is understood in its symbolic meaning and not in the materialistic, and extreme literalistic sense in which some of the early Adventist writers set it forth."[7] They stressed that in contemporary SDA thinking the doctrine did not imply a dual or partially-completed atonement, but rather that the once-for-all atonement is being applied by Christ as our High Priest in heaven.
As far as the evangelicals were concerned, the three doctrines of Sabbatarianism, Ellen White's authority, and sanctuary/investigative judgment, though erroneous, if properly interpreted would not prevent fellowship between the two camps.
Other distinctive Adventist doctrines such as conditional immortality, annihilation of the wicked, health reform, and the remnant church concept were discussed and evaluated by the evangelicals. Their conclusion was that though these doctrines were out of the evangelical mainstream, and in some cases without any clear biblical support, the explanation given by these Adventist scholars would not prevent them from being genuine followers of Jesus.
After evaluating thousands of pages of documentation, and participating in extensive question and answer sessions with several of Adventism's most competent scholars, Walter Martin, speaking for the evangelicals, concluded that SDA "is essentially a Christian denomination, but that in the overall perspective its theology must be viewed as more heterodox than orthodox, and that its practices in not a few instances might rightly be termed divisive."[8]