Where does the SDA stand with Ecumenicism?

Ellen White is still very much accepted in the SDA church as someone with the valid gift of prophecy as seen in 1Cor 12 and 14 and in Numbers 12. (In fact in my local church - we have some new believers attending Wed night prayer meeting and we are going through the book "The Passion" along with isolated - scenes from the movie "The Passion of the Christ".)

Adventists practice open communion. A Baptist may participate in Adventist communion and Adventists are permitted to attend a Baptist church and participate in communion. (I have done that often myself).

I don't know about official inter-denominational dialoge -- but there is a mechanism for it through the SDA General Conference office in Silver Springs MD.

(You will notice that I use the SDA abreviation for my own church the way I might use IFB or RCC for other churches. I think some Catholics cringe when they see their own denomination's abreviation -- but I have no idea "why".).

In Christ,

Bob

 

Nothing wrong with the use of RCC, if you intend to exclude the eastern rites who are part of the Catholic Church. I doubt if anyone would cringe or even give it a second thought. Feel free to use it anytime you want. Most here would know that it stands for Roman Catholic Church and would take no offense, unless maybe they belong to an eastern rite, and wonder why you are excluding them. I would understand RCC and take no offense as would just about everyone I know.

 

Ok - thanks!

 

Yes it is accepted as a valid spiritual gift. However to be a prophet one must pass the Bible tests of a prophet including the one in Isaiah 8 regarding Bible doctrine (coming from a dream or direct vision) agreeing with the Word of God - and Matt 7 the fruit of the Holy Spirit etc.

Prior to Ellen White - HIram Edson claimed to have been given a vision regarding 1844 while standing in a cornfield. In addition 3 other men were identified prior to Ellen White that had been given the annointing by God for the ministry that she took up - but each of them confessed that they turned it down because they feared the responsibility that it would involve.

(OF course God has absolute foreknowledge and knew all things in advance).

But in general you are right - we don't have typical first-century "pentecostal meetings" like those in 1Cor 14 where each one has a prophecy or a tongue. Nor do we have the modern version of that where people stand up and say whatever they feel as if it was a message given in prophecy.

Ellen White's visions were very supernatural in terms of the way they manifest themsevles during vision. She was taken in spirit to another place (typically heaven) or to another point in time and show events as if she was a first person witness.

It was clearly not a case of "breakfast coming back to remind you of something" on a "hit or miss basis" as some do it today.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Ben - glad to have the discussion. Fire away.

The normal practice is to go through the list of Bible doctrines that the church teaches (27 fundamental beliefs) and if the person agrees to them - they are baptized in to the church.

The 7th-day Baptist denomination is a good example of something that a person might well consider if they accept God's 10 commandments as "valid" but don't agree with Adventists on something like "The dead in Christ" (1Thess 4) and what is happening to them during death.

As for "immediate heaven" - we believe that we are united to be "With Christ" at His coming - but we don't think that the person who dies "sees that waiting period" between death and our "being with Christ" at His coming. Rather from the perspective of the person that dies - it is "immediate heaven" - as though the second coming happened at the moment they died since the dead "do not mark time".

(BTW - One interesting bit of "good news" about this view is that parents that have lost children/infants will be there at the 2nd coming to "raise them in heaven" without missing that event because the child died.)

Thanks for asking about this.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Yes - that is correct. Christ entered His role as High Priest for us when He went to heaven - but His work then was in the mediation ministry of the Holy Place. He added to that work -- the judgment ministry of the Most Holy Place (all within the heavenly sanctuary) in 1844. The judgment seat of Christ was set up and He began to judge the dead with the timeline moving toward the living. When all are judged - the 2nd coming will happen for "His reward is With Him" and the judgment ends the oppression of the saints as Daniel 7 shows.

In Christ,

Bob

 

The condition of the "dead in Christ" (1Thess 4) does not change during the judgment. For the saints - they remains the same until the 2nd coming. Those dead who are not "Dead in Christ" and so not "Blessed and holy" (Rev 20:5) remain in that dormant state until the 2nd resurrection after the 1000 years.

We stand before the judgment seat of Christ in the sense that our names come up in the books of Daniel 7 and "judgment is passed in favor of the saints". Where each deed is considered "whether they be good or evil" (2Cor 5).

The saints will be "Shown to BE saints" by Christ's MAtt 7 method of "validation" and thus "judgment is passed in favor of the saints".

Since God has always been "All-knowing" this judgment is not "for His benefit" or for "Him to learn anything".

In Christ,

Bob

 

In Matt 7 the scenario is the judgment of Rev 20 post-millenium where the wicked are judged according to their deeds. There will be many "church attenders" there and they will argue their case - only to "depart" into the Lake of Fire.

However - prior to that post-millennial judgment (which only goes one way) there is the one in 2 Cor 5 (also described in Daniel 7 and in Rev 14:6-7). Adventists call this the "pre-Advent" judgment. According to Daniel 7 - when that judgment is over the saints take possession of the kingdom and are no longer tormented by the wicked.

In Christ,

Bob

 

All this division among the Christian community is satanic. God's Word doesn't divide. Mans self righteous attempts to help out his fellow believer, and God, is greatly aided (hindered) by demonic forces, bent on distorting the Word.

 

I am not sure what you mean - but lets say for the sake of argument that the Pure NT church was infested with error over time until it emerged into what we know today as the RCC. The reformation of that corrupt system over the last 1000 years has resulted in a lot of Christian "denominations" each taking a stand ever closer to the pure Bible-based church of the first century.

Are you saying that the attempt to reform and return the Christian church to the truths of its origins is "of the devil" or that the initial fall into apostacy was "of the devil"??

In Christ,

Bob

 

BobRyan said

Hi Bob. First let me plead my ignorance. I don't know much if anything about the SDA. So I find this discussion interesting and of course, puzzling. But I won't rip you to shreds just because I see something new here.

Look, my question is this 1844 date. What is that about exactly, I mean, this is obviously some teaching, taken as true as the Bible that is not in the Bible. But how did this teaching come about exactly, and become accepted? I am not ripping you, just seriously asking.

 

I am not sure what you mean - but lets say for the sake of argument that the Pure NT church was infested with error over time until it emerged into what we know today as the RCC. The reformation of that corrupt system over the last 1000 years has resulted in a lot of Christian "denominations" each taking a stand ever closer to the pure Bible-based church of the first century.

Are you saying that the attempt to reform and return the Christian church to the truths of its origins is "of the devil" or that the initial fall into apostacy was "of the devil"??

In Christ,

Bob </font>[/QUOTE]I guess what I was trying to say was that God's word says what it says. But you and I and our neighbor all have a different idea of what God is really saying, or when, or to whom. These differences cause us to spend too much time and resourses worshiping apart, with people of like minded views. I'm sure God had no intention for any division in this Body of Christ.

 

BobRyan said

The 1844 date has two parts to it.

Part A.

The Millerites (pre-SDA) were a loose association of members of different faiths sharing a common conviction about the very unpopular idea of a pre-millennial 2nd coming AND the idea that this was to happen in 1844.

William Miller (never an SDA) taught that the judgment scene of Daniel 7 and 8 (Judgment that takes place before the 2nd coming ) is in fact the 2nd coming and so Christ would come at the end of the 2300 years of Daniel 8.

Well - "that did not happen".


Part B.

As mentioned above - Christ went into the heavenly sanctuary according to Heb 8-10 after His resurrection. The 2300 years of Daniel 8 did end in 1844 but the judgment event that this points to (see Daniel 7) is not the second coming - it is a judgment that happens before the 2nd coming according to "the details" in the Daniel 7 text.

Christ's work in heaven as our High Priest in the Heavenly sanctuary is completing the Lev 16 model of atonement where the "Atoning sacrifice" was completed at the cross (1John 2:2) and the atonement process is completed once the work of the High Priest in the Most Holy Place has ended (as God describes it in Lev 16).

The 1844 message was to highlight a specific "judgment" phase in that ministry - which is in fact the start of the Daniel 7 judgment scenario just before the 2nd coming.

In Christ,

Bob