The long-awaited Answers to Questions on Doctrine, "prepared by a Representative Group of Seventh-day Adventist Leaders, Bible Teachers, and Editors," has come from the press. It is the vindication of the position we have taken in recent months and will soon be recognized as such by all fair-minded Christians.

About three years ago the Editor-in-Chief of ETERNITY approached the Adventist leaders saying that we were assigning the Rev. Mr. Walter R. Martin, a member of the staff of the Evangelical Foundation and Contributing Editor of ETERNITY, to make a study of their doctrines. Never have we seen such cooperation, such willingness to reveal everything, such desire for Christian fellowship, and such kindness and love ,in all relationships.

Mr. Martin prepared scores of questions. Their answers were hammered out with us. They gathered their best teachers and editors and have now published many of these questions with 720 pages of answers! The volume is an authoritative statement of their doctrines. They say that it is not a new statement of faith, but rather "an answer to specific questions concerning their faith." However, it is a definitive statement that lops off the writings of Adventists who have been independent of and contradictory to their sound leadership and effectively refutes many of the charges of doctrinal error that have been leveled against them. The writings of those who have in the past attacked Seventh-day Adventism in those areas are now out of date. From now on anyone who echoes these criticisms must be considered as willfully ignorant of the facts or victims of such prejudice that they are no longer to be trusted as teachers in this field.

At the same time that the Adventists issue their new volume Zondervan Publishing House is releasing Walter Martin's appraisal and criticism of the Adventist position. The importance of this double publication cannot be minimized. It may be the first time in modern church history that two parties with sharp differences have prayed and talked with each other and come finally to a complete understanding of the areas of agreement and disagreement. When Mr. Martin went to the Adventist headquarters in Washington, he was given complete access to all their records. The honesty of the Adventists can be seen in their attitude. When Mr. Martin asked the custodian of their vault to let him see material unfavorable to the Adventists, the man replied, "My instructions are to give you absolutely anything that you ask on this matter." All references in Mr. Martin's volume are paged to this Adventist statement. In the front of Mr. Martin's book is a statement signed by an official of the Adventist denomination that they have not been misquoted or misrepresented by Mr. Martin.

The entire Adventist volume is an expansion of the answer to the first question in the book. We believe it so important that we are reproducing that question and answer here:

"Question 1. What doctrines do Seventh-day Adventists hold in common with Christians in general, and in what aspects of Christian thought do they differ?

"Christians in general are divided into various schools of thought on practically every doctrine of the Bible. On some doctrines Seventh-day Adventists find themselves in one group, and on other doctrines we may be classified quite differently. With some religious groups we hold many doctrines in common. With others we may find little common doctrinal ground. We do not accept certain doctrines held by some Christians because we feel that they are not based on the Word of God.

"Practically all Seventh-day Adventist beliefs are held by one or more Christian groups. A few are distinctive with us. Our beliefs could be classified in relation to the beliefs of other Christians under the following headings:

"I. In Common with Conservative Christians and the Historic Protestant Creeds, We Believe:

"1. That God is the Sovereign Creator, upholder, and ruler of the universe, and that He is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

"2. That the Godhead, the Trinity, comprises God the Father, Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit.

"3. That the Scriptures are the inspired revelation of God to men; and that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and practice.

"4. That Jesus Christ is very God, and that He has existed with the Father from all eternity.

"5. That the Holy Spirit is a personal being, sharing the attributes of deity with the Father and the Son.

"6. That Christ, the Word of God, became incarnate through the miraculous conception and the virgin birth; and that He lived an absolutely sinless life here on earth.

"7. That the vicarious, atoning death of Jesus Christ, once for all, is all-sufficient for the redemption of a lost race.

"8. That Jesus Christ arose literally and bodily from the grave.

"9. That He ascended literally and bodily into Heaven.

"10. That He now serves as our advocate in priestly ministry and mediation before the Father.

"11. That He will return in a premillennial, personal, imminent second advent.

"12. That man was created sinless, but by his subsequent fall entered a state of alienation and depravity.

"13. That salvation through Christ is by grace alone, through faith in His blood.

"14. That entrance upon the new life in Christ is by regeneration, or the new birth. -

"15. That man is justified by faith.

"16. That man is sanctified by the indwelling Christ through the Holy Spirit.

"17. That man will be glorified at the resurrection or translation of the saints when the Lord returns.

"18. That there will be a judgment of all men.

"19. That the gospel is to be preached as a witness to all the world.

"II. On Certain Controversial Doctrines among Conservative Christians, We Hold One of Two or More Alternate Views. We Believe:

"1. That man is free to choose or reject the offer of salvation through Christ; we do not believe that God has predetermined that some men shall be saved and others lost.

"2. That the moral law of ten commandments, or the Decalogue has not been either changed or abolished.

"3. That baptism is to be administered by single immersion; we do not think that it may be administered by sprinkling, pouring or trine immersion.

"4. That man was endowed at creation with conditional immortality; we do not believe that man has innate immortality or an immortal soul.

"5. That the wicked will be punished by suffering and complete destruction in the lake of fire; we do not believe in an eternally burning hell in which souls are tormented without end.

"6. That the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath; we do not believe that the Sabbath has been abolished, changed to the first day, or is merely a seventh part of time.

"7. That the principle of tithing is God's plan for the support of His church; we do not believe that tithing was only for the Jews.

"8. That God created the world in six literal days; we do not believe that creation was accomplished by long aeons of evolutionary processes.

"9. That the correct view of prophetic interpretation is best set forth by what is known as the historical school; we do not accept the systems followed by either the preterists or futurists.

"10. That church and state should operate in entirely separate spheres; we do not believe that in an attempt to control men's religion or religious activities the church should dominate the state, or that the state should govern the church.

"11. That the ordinance instituted by Christ--that of washing one another's feet at the time of the Lord's Supper--is to be practiced; we do not believe that this was merely an accommodation to the customs and necessities of those times.

"12. That we should abstain from such practices as the use of alcohol and tobacco; we do not believe that indulgence in these things is fully representative of the character of our Lord.

"III. In a Few Areas of Christian Thought, Our Doctrines Are Distinctive with Us. We Believe:

"1. That there is a sanctuary in Heaven where Christ, our High Priest, ministers in two distinct phases of His mediatorial work.

"2. That there is to be an investigative judgment in which the destinies of all men are decided before Christ comes in the clouds of glory.

"3. That the Spirit of prophecy, or the prophetic gift, is one of the gifts of the Spirit promised to the church in the last days, and that that gift was manifested to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the work and writings of Ellen G. White.

"4. That the seal of God and the mark of the beast, mentioned in Revelation, are the symbols of the opposing forces of good and evil in the last great conflict before Christ comes the second time.

"5. That the three angels of Revelation 14 represent the proclamation of God's last message to the world in preparation for the coming of our Lord."

Reproduced here are the first few pages of a 720-page book. Any questions about any of these thirty-six statements set forth will be found fully answered in the heart of the volume.

What we set out to say publicly, more than a year ago, has been amply vindicated by the answers given here. I know that there will be prejudiced people who will not want to believe that they have been misinformed and that their favorite allegations have been drawn from quotations from fringe teachers who do not represent the real thought of the Adventist movement.

ETERNITY lost some subscribers by telling the truth about the Adventists. This we regret. We feel sure that this was due to an apparent misunderstanding of the issue. We are delighted, however, that many who cancelled have renewed their subscription because they have come to understand the matter and realized that we were motivated by Christian love.

We would emphasize again, as we did in our first article, that we heartily disagree with the Adventists on many of the doctrines. In fact, as my already heavily burdened schedule allows, we expect to publish biblical expositions showing some of what I hold to be fallacies in the S.D.A. position. Especially do I wish to show the error in their whole idea of conditional immortality, soul sleeping, and annihilation. I wish also to show the fallacy of the day-year theory, which is the theory that first got their forefathers off the track and caused the beginning of the movement. I hope to write on the whole question of the law and the Sabbath.

Let it be said for the very critical that the Adventists have been most careful to spell out their disagreement with the most serious charges which have been leveled against them in the past. They call Ellen G. White, "one of our leading writers" (p. 29). They say, "We test the writings of Ellen G. White by the Bible, but in no sense do we test the Bible by her writings" (p. 90). "While Adventists hold the writings of Ellen G. White in highest esteem, these are not the source of our expositions" (p. 93). And again: "While we revere [her] writings, and expect all who join the church to accept the doctrine of spiritual gifts as manifested in her experience, we do not make acceptance of her writings a matter for church discipline" (p. 96). "The Bible is the sole rule of faith and practice" (p. 22).

The most serious charge ever made against the Adventists has arisen out of a series of booklets written by one of their former workers and disavowed again and again by the responsible leaders of the church. One writer in particular set forth that Jesus Christ had a sinful human nature. The present volume approaches this statement from several different points of view and repudiates it with horror. Because this has been made such a large issue by one "defender of the faith," who has attempted to pin this error on Mrs. White herself, the Adventist leaders in this present volume boldly present thirty-six different quotations from the writings of Mrs. White expressing herself in the strongest fashion in positive statements concerning the eternal Godhead and sinless human nature of our Lord. In another appendix are listed more than fifty quotations concerning the mystery of the incarnation in which Mrs. White expresses over and over the wonder of the Word made flesh and the glory of His sinlessness. The original difficulty arose from the fact that Mrs. White was not a trained theologian and was largely unacquainted with historical theology. She was unaware that some of her terms might be construed against her. In my opinion she lacked profundity, accuracy, and scholarship, but she owned, honored, and taught Jesus Christ as the eternal, sinless Son of God.

While most of our readers may not wish to attempt the 720 pages of the new Adventist volume, though it is illuminating in many areas, I would recommend that they purchase, read, and circulate Mr. Martin's volume,¹ which renders obsolete every other non-Adventist book that has been written on the appraisal and criticism of Seventh-day Adventism.

In deep humility before God I record one final angle of this whole question. The Adventists had been maligned and persecuted for decades. Regardless of whether or not some of this was their own fault, they were hurt by it and withdrew into themselves. One of their foremost leaders (and they have deep men of God, gifted scholars who are humble Christian gentlemen) remarked, the editors of Eternity have communicated more with us in two years than the whole Protestant church did in over one hundred years because they came to us in the spirit of Christian love.'' More than I can say I am glad for this, because this is the crowning desire of my life that liken shall know that we are His disciples because we love one another. (John 13:35).

¹ETERNITY Book Service, 1716 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA $3.50.

In this Brochure, we have brought together all the presently available source documents involved in the Seventh-day Adventist -- Evangelical Conferences during 1955-1956. These documents are from the pens of some of the participants - the chief participants for the Evangelicals, Donald Grey Barnhouse and Walter R. Martin; and for the Seventh-day Adventists, the chairman of the Conferences, T. E. Unruh.

It must be noted that the observations and evaluations of these conferences on the part of the Evangelicals were written immediately at the conclusion of the dialogues, while the summation from the Adventist viewpoint did not come till twenty years later in 1977, and are written as an historical postscript. In fact, it must be remembered that the rank and file of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, including most of its ministry at that time, did not know who all were involved in these conferences, nor who the primary author of the book resulting from these dialogues - Questions on Doctrine -- was, until the article appeared in Adventist Heritage written by T. E. Unruh.*

There remains - still out of reach of research - the original answers given by the Adventist conferees to Barnhouse and Martin. The book -- Questions on Doctrine - while purporting to be those answers, is not, but is rather a revision of what was given to these men. Because of this, we must conclude that what Walter Martin and Donald G. Barnhouse have written is an accurate statement of what the Adventist conferees did say to these men, and what the original answers did read as given to them. A careful evaluation of what T. E. Unruh has written reveals that the highest levels of the Adventist hierarchy were involved in the denial of basic, historic Adventist Christology. The list of names reads like a Who's Who of the executive officers of the General Conference at that time.

Although the book - Questions on Doctrine - is not being reprinted, and is no longer available at Adventist Book Centers, the follow-up book - Movement of Destiny - authored by the primary writer of Questions on Doctrine, is still being promoted. Movement of Destiny teaches the same heresies in Christology as did Questions on Doctrine, and bears the nihil obstat of the present president of the General Conference, Neal C. Wilson, and in the first edition, the imprimatur of the then "first minister" of the Church, Robert H. Pierson. In the second edition, a statement by Elder H. M. S. Richards, Sr., was substituted for Pierson's. Further the Statement of Beliefs voted at the 1980 General Conference reflects these same deviations from the historic teachings of the Church in the areas of the Incarnation and the Atonement. This makes it even more important that we understand what did take place during the Seventh-day Adventist-Evangelical Conferences in 1955-1956. The present theological crisis in the Church is not something that happened over night, nor is it the work of one man, but its roots go back to the betrayal of the trust placed in men who were suppose to stand "as guardians of the spiritual interests" of God's professed people. (See Testimonies for the Church, Vol V, p. 211).

Wm. H. Grotheer, Manager

Publications & Research

Adventist Laymen's Fnd.

Eternity, November, 1957

Postscript on Seventh-day Adventism

by Donald Grey Barnhouse