In our previous post we addressed the issue of the Sabbath, and the Seventh Day Adventist belief that it should be observed on Saturday. As stated, Bible Students do not hold to this belief, but believe rather that every day is holy to the Lord, but we also believe that everyone should worship as they believe to be right, as their conscious so dictates. To violate one’s conscious is a sin to the individual.

We now would like to take a look at another fundamental belief of Seventh Day Adventist one which is shared with most of the professing church. Bible Students as well as several other groups do not share this belief in…

The Trinity:

“Seventh-day Adventist Christians believe there is one God. And that this one God is three co-eternal beings who work together in unity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have always been, and always will be.

There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three coeternal Persons. God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. God, who is love, is forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation.”

As they explain it:

“The Father: God the eternal Father is the Creator, Source, Sustainer, and Sovereign of all creation. He is just and holy, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

God is the Father of Jesus. 

Not only is God the Father your Heavenly Father, He is also the Father of Jesus. According to the Bible, God loved us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for us.”

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).

Here we note how they conveniently chose to use the ESV here, so as to leave out the part about the “only begotten” son. At least the King James states it correctly.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only BEGOTTEN of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

“The Son: The Bible frequently mentions the “Son of God.” But how can God have a “son,” and what should that mean to us?

(1) “Let us keep in mind that Jesus is the Son not in the sense of having been created, but because (2) He partakes of the same divine nature as God the Father. Adventists embrace the belief that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, and is also fully God Himself and part of the Godhead.

(3) God the eternal Son became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Through Him all things were created, the character of God is revealed, the salvation of humanity is accomplished, and the world is judged. Forever truly God, He became also truly human, Jesus the Christ.”

We must respectfully disagree with the underlined parts above, which we have numbered. The Scriptures contradict these.

(1) “These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the beginning of the CREATION of God.” (Rev 3:14)

For more on this see our blog post: Was our Lord a created being?

(2) Although we agree, that our Lord presently partakes of the same divine nature as that of the Father, it was not always so, he did not partake of this nature at his conception nor did he partake of it during all the time intervening up until his resurrection. It was only after having faithfully proven himself “faithful unto the death”, that he was highly exalted to the divine (or immortal) plain of existence, (the same requirements required of all who would receive the “crown of life”, life inherent, immortality, Rev 2:10.

“And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore (or following which), God also has highly exalted Him (To the divine plane, an exaltation never before given to any creature of God), and given Him the name which is above every name.” (Phil 2:8, 9)

Had Jesus been on an equality with God before, how could he have been highly exalted after?

(3) The idea of “incarnation” assumes that God entered a human body and used it in an obsessional sense.

According to this theory one person of the Trinity left heaven, was incarnated, and addressed another person of the Trinity as Father, and prayed to him and not to himself, and declared that the Father was greater than he— though this was not really the truth, since they were all one, (according to the Westminster Confession), “equal in power and glory.” Nevertheless, this view also insists that Jesus, being God, was not made flesh, but merely appeared in flesh in an obsessional sense— in the same sense in which the demons took possession of men.

According to this claim this God obsessed Mary’s babe and dealt in him until he died, performing through him wonderful works and giving forth wonderful teachings, but being God this one could not die, and therefore did not die at Calvary, but merely allowed the obsessed body to die.

The man Christ Jesus” WAS NOT an incarnated being, but was himself the One who had been with the Father, and whose nature as a spirit being had been changed, exchanged for human nature as a fleshly being.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

We will continue with this in our next post.