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The Amish Voice 3
Adventism because it sounds like a nice,
peaceful, Biblical religion. Others are
dissatisfied with their current religion full
of rules and law-keeping, and so find a
little more freedom in the SDA church.
However, this may be what the prophet
Amos described:
As if a man did flee
from a lion, and a bear met him; or went
into the house, and leaned his hand on
the wall, and a serpent bit him
(Amos
5:19). It is not beneficial to go from one
man-made religion to another man-made
religion; both are deadly.
Let us look at some of these SDA
teachings and see if they are indeed
Biblical, or if the messages contained in
these alleged visions and messages are
outside of and contrary to the truth of the
Bible.
Investigative Judgment
Even Seventh-day Adventists find the
teaching of the investigative judgment
hard to fully understand, and it is difficult
to explain from the Bible. Simply reading
the Bible, one would likely never think of
such a belief. The official Seventh-Day
Adventism teaching on the investigative
judgment is:
“There is a sanctuary in heaven, the true
tabernacle that God 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 2,300 days, He
entered the second and last phase of His
atoning ministry (
28 Fundamental
Beliefs
, no. 24).”
Now read Daniel 8:13-14:
Then I heard
one saint speaking, and another saint
said unto that certain saint which spake,
How long shall be the vision concerning
the daily sacrifice, and the transgression
of desolation, to give both the sanctuary
and the host to be trodden under foot?
And he said unto me, Unto two thousand
and three hundred days; then shall the
sanctuary be cleansed.
The typical person who reads Daniel 8
would never conclude that those verses
teach that that on October 22, 1844, Jesus
entered the heavenly sanctuary to begin
an investigative judgment and the second
phase of His atoning work. That
interpretation is not found in the Bible.
The typical person who reads Daniel 8:14
would think that 2,300 days means 2,300
days. William Miller, however, read
Daniel 8:14 and concluded that the 2,300
days really meant 2,300 years. To him
that meant Jesus was going to return to
earth 2,300 years after 457 B.C., which
Miller calculated was in 1843. When
Jesus did not return in 1843, Miller did
an “Oops,” said he miscalculated, and
said that Jesus was really going to return
on October 22, 1844. When Jesus did not
return on that date (known as the “Great
Disappointment”), they were not sure
what to do.
Then another SDA man, Hiram Edson,
claimed to have had a vision in which it
was revealed to him that October 22,
1844 was not the day that Jesus was to
return to earth, but was the day that Jesus
was to enter the Most Holy Place in the
heavenly sanctuary for the first time.
Jesus had been in the Holy Place, they
teach, but on October 22, 1844, Jesus
entered the Most Holy Place to begin His
investigative judgment— “the second and
last phase of His atoning ministry.”
In this investigative judgment, the
Seventh-Day Adventists teach that Jesus
is supposedly investigating who among
the dead had trusted in Jesus and who
among the living are abiding in Him, so
one’s eternal fate is not certain until Jesus
finishes His investigation. However, the
Bible tells us that Jesus has already
declared that the thief on the cross would
be with Him in paradise (Luke 22:43),
and also that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
would be in heaven (Matthew 8:11). How
could He already know those things if He
first had to do an investigative judgment?
According to the teaching of investigative
judgment, Jesus begins with the dead
and moves on to the living. We never
know when He will get to us, so we had
better be good so that when our turn
comes up, Jesus will approve of us.
According to Ellen G. White, “Every
name is mentioned, every case closely
investigated. Names are accepted, names
rejected. When any have sins remaining
upon the books of record, unrepented of
and unforgiven, their names will be
blotted out of the book of life, and the
record of their good deeds will be erased
from
the
book
of
God’s
remembrance ” (
The Great Controversy
,
p. 483). One day, Jesus will allegedly
place the confessed sins of the Christians
onto the head of Satan (like the priest did
to the scapegoat in Leviticus 16) who will
be punished for us.
According to Ellen G. White, "When sin
has been repented of, confessed, and
forsaken, then pardon is written against
the sinner's name; but his sins are not
blotted out until after the investigative
judgment " (
The Whole Duty of Man
,
May 16, 1895). God said
: I, even I, am
he that blotteth out thy transgressions
for mine own sake, and
will not remember thy
sins
(Isaiah 43:25).
When one is born
again, his or her