David Stewart's charges

[Gerr]

1. Seventh-Day Adventists (or SDA) are NOT Christians simply because they ADD works to simple faith in Jesus Christ. According to the official Statement on Doctrine by the SDA, accepting Jesus as your personal Saviour is NOT sufficient to be saved. SDA's teach that the life a person lives must be taken into account, even after they have died. SDA's believe exclusively in a doctrine called the "Investigative Judgment" where Christ enters into the Holy of Holies in Heaven to decide whether or not we are "worthy" to enter Heaven. I can answer that question for all SDA's right now...NO!!! According to the Word of God, NO ONE is worthy of Heaven. We are all sinners deserving of Hell-fire and damnation. But thank God the Father, He sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to pay for our sins with His blood. Eternal life is a FREE GIFT (Romans 5:15; 6:23), paid for by the blood of Jesus (Colossians 1:14). Tragically, Seventh-Day Adventists ADD good works to salvation, which is a damnable heresy.

[Gibs]

Gerry you sure are off on a tangent. A Christian is one who follows Jesus Christ. He kept the Law, it was in His heart. It also is in the heart of a Christian, not by name only but by the following.

1Jo 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

1Jo 2:3 ¶ And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

1Jo 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

1Jo 2:5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

1Jo 2:6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

Well, do it, it isn't hard, He in you and you naturally do all things that please Him. Yes even keeping the Sabbath day from polluting it and finding true rest that He intended for that day. He isn't your Sabbath rest if you try to do it on a Sunday for sure, He'd be your Sunday rest.

None of us can have it our way Gerry, it is His way and He expects for all to walk ye in it as it is not a galling way at all but the only way of victory and Life, Life eternal.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Q.E.D.]

Don't really know who David Stewart is. Is he someone really important that I should be concerned about what he says?

Looks like David Stewart is among the millions that are saying the same old things that every hater of the Present Truth says. . .Have you ever read any Church of Christ literature?

Q.E.D.

[skyblue888]

Over the years I have learned that what the Bible and the SoP teach is not necessarily what is taught or understood by the "organized work" of the SDA church.

Upon what exactly is David Stewart basing his conclusions?

As far as I am concerned I understand that the unadulterated adventist teaching is that God receives us unto Himself but only through the merits of His Son. (A.A.333) As to works, even the works that the grace of the Holy Spirit enables us to do, they do not act a part in the salvation of the soul or in merit.

"If you would gather everything that is good and holy and noble and lovely in man and then present the subject to the angels of God as acting a part in the salvation of the soul or in merit, the proposition would be rejected as treason." Faith & Works,24.

"Faith and works go hand in hand; they act harmoniously in the work of overcoming. Works without faith are dead, and faith without works is dead. Works will never save us; it is the merits of Christ that will avail in our behalf." Ibid,48.

"We are accepted through Christ's merits alone; and the acts of mercy, the deeds of love, which we perform, are the fruits of faith; and they become a blessing to us; for men are to be rewarded according to their works. It is the fragrance of the merits of Christ that makes our good works acceptable to God and it is grace that enables us to do the works for which He rewards us. Our works in and of themselves have no merit. When we have done all that it is possible for us to do (through the grace of the Holy Spirit), we are to count ourselves as unprofitable servants. (Luke 17:10). We deserve no thanks from God. We have only done what it was out duty to do and our works could not have been performed in the strength of our sinful natures." E.G. White, 5 B.C.1122. *parenthesis supplied

This should be the official teaching of the Seventh-day Adventist church as far as faith, merits, grace, works, and reward are concerned.

I cannot bring to mind anything outside these writings that would express these truths so clearly.

If David Stewart was aware of these statements and if he understood them he could not believe that Adventism teaches that works act a part in the salvation of the soul or in merit.

sky