With regards to THE CHURCH Seventh Day Adventist say:

“The church is the community of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. In continuity with the people of God in Old Testament times, we are called out from the world; and we join together for worship, for fellowship, for instruction in the Word, for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, for service to humanity, and for the worldwide proclamation of the gospel. The church derives its authority from Christ, who is the incarnate Word revealed in the Scriptures. The church is God’s family; adopted by Him as children, its members live on the basis of the new covenant.”

There are three issues here which we would address, 1) Church membership, 2) the (supposed) incarnation of Christ, and 3) the idea that the New Covenant applies to the Church.

Beginning with the first, although we are in agreement with respects to the Church consisting of believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior there’s much more to it than a mere confession of faith in order to be joined to the body of Christ, the true Church. The requirements for membership have unfortunately been so dumbed down by the professing church that not only everyone who professes faith in Christ is saved, but likewise they are all spirit begotten and assured a heavenly reward, however the Lord states the matter altogether differently saying:

“Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord (i.e., not everyone who is a believer, who professes my name), shall enter into the kingdom of heaven (that is the heavenly phase of the kingdom); but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 7:21)

Unfortunately, all this has actually accomplished is to produce more tares, as most of these professed Christians (nominal Christians i.e., in name only) will never go on to “do the will of the Father”, to take the necessary steps to true membership in the body. This of course is not entirely their own fault, but that responsibility lies primarily with the blind guides who lead them (or we should say, “mislead them”). Of such it is written:

“Woe to you lawyers! (The Doctors of the Law then, Doctors of Divinity today, both of course designated by our Lord as the blind guides of the blind) For you have taken away the key of knowledge (the bible; the standard of truth, substituting your own traditions and beliefs, thus not only deluding yourself, but also those who trusted in you as the Lord’s representatives to show them the way) you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were (attempting) to enter in, you hindered.” (Luke 11:52)

In other words, those who guide these people are blind to the way themselves they are ignorant of the true way, because they themselves have chosen to followed the traditions and teachings of men (as taught in their synods and seminaries), rather than considering the true way as outlined in the scriptures (particularly as it is illustrated in the Tabernacle types), and because the vast majority of professed Christian’s place far too much faith in their ministers (in their supposed learning) they too are misled, and fail to enter. Thus, it is that the blind continues to follow the blind.

Note: a distinction here is to be made between entering into the Spiritual or Heavenly Phase of the kingdom by way of the Great Salvation (Heb 2:3; 1 Pet 1:10), and entering into the Earthly Phase of the kingdom, by way of the common salvation (Jude 3). The vast majority of professed Christians (those who fail to go onto the next step of a full consecration) along with the rest of the world will have their share in the earthly phase of the kingdom, despite what they have been erroneously taught by the blind guides.

Seventh Day Adventist say: The church derives its authority from Christ, who is the incarnate Word revealed in the Scriptures.

According to the orthodoxy:

“The incarnation of Christ is a central Christian doctrine that God became flesh, assumed a human nature, and became a man in the form of Jesus, the Son of God and the second person of the Trinity. This foundational Christian position holds that the divine nature of the Son of God was perfectly united with human nature in one divine Person, Jesus, making him both truly God and truly human.”

Incarnation means “to be put into the flesh”.

Adjective: embodied in flesh; given a bodily, especially a human, form:

Verb: to embody in flesh; invest with a bodily, especially a human, form:

Incarnation is the union of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus. Incarnation is a divine being wrapped around with a cloak of flesh.

“The incarnation of God in the person of Christ is a MYSTERY, which lies at the heart of all Catholic belief and the majority of Protestant groups. The concept of incarnation when the Word became flesh has become an ordinance of Orthodoxy. It was a special sanction of Mary that Jesus Christ was conceived. This was the moment of incarnation. The eternal Son of God, second person of the Trinity, assumed the flesh of a human nature uniting it in his person with the divine nature. Christ is, in every sense, God. He is also in every sense, man. This is the MYSTERY of incarnation. As the Trinity is the MYSTERY of the unity in three persons, the incarnation of Christ is a MYSTERY of one person in a dual nature. In this incarnation view, it should be emphasized that it is God who takes on the cloak of flesh. The trinity concept insists that Jesus had to be a God-man to be the Savior. If he were mere man, how could he take upon himself the sins of the whole world? Orthodoxy claims that Jesus must be a god-man in order to erase the sins of the world.”

Of course, we know just how our Lord as an actual man could take upon himself the sins of the whole world, it’s called the ransom. For just how this is accomplished please see our blog posts entitled, “The Divine Economy in the Ransom”.

The failure to rightfully comprehend the Ransom and what it truly implies has led to this erroneous teaching.

If the trinity is supposed to be an un-explainable “MYSTERY,” why do the apostles always talk about revealing mysteries to Christians?

“I would not have you ignorant of this mystery [about Jewish blindness] (Rom 11:25) the revelation of the mystery (Rom 16:25) the mystery hidden God hath revealed (1 Cor 2:7) Behold I show you a mystery (1 Cor 15:51) “having made known the mystery of his will” (Eph 1:9) “to make known the mystery of Christ” (Eph 6:19) “make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27).

So how did the Christian Church accept a mystery of a trinity?

THE DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION IS UN-SCRIPTURAL

There is nothing in the Bible on this subject, and there is no truth in this doctrine.

Nevertheless, in their attempt at finding support for this doctrine they site verses such as Col 2:9 viz.

“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” (NKJV) The true reading is: “Because in him dwells all the fullness of the deity in bodily form.”

The word here translated “Godhead” is theotes, Strong’s 2320: “deity” not “divinity”.

The Apostle here was not saying the fullness of the divinity dwells in him, but that the fullness of the deity , in other words, Jesus is the full expression of all the Divine qualities, the express image (character-likeness) of the Father’s person, full of grace and truth.

We will continue with this in our next post.