The Truth About Dr. Walter Martin and The Seventh-Day Adventist Church by Justyn
A number of sincere Christians are at a lost whether to label the Seventh-day Adventist church[1] as evangelical or cult. If they are blood-washed Christians then we must extend our hand of fellowship with them. If not, then the Christian church is mandated to expose every false doctrines that come against the knowledge of truth. Some sincere Christians and even SDA people are also quoting Dr. Walter R. Martin’s book, The Kingdom of the Cults, to justify that the SDA church is not to be labeled as cult. However, a person can start by reading Dr. Martin's book, The Rise of the Cults, because at start he exposes White’s movement as a cult. But when T.E. Unruh, who was an Adventist official that time, read his book, he contacted the author in Reading, Pennsylvania. He allowed him to conduct a comprehensive and actual research on the SDA church, with the permission of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, editor of Eternity magazine, in the middle of 1950’s. Because of this research, the General Conference with the help of four former SDA church officials[2] printed Dr. Martin's book Questions on Doctrine. However, according to a rare interview done by Douglas Hackleman of Currents[3] during 1983 with Dr. Martin, the latter stated, “After 150,000 copies, Questions on Doctrine was permitted to go out of print.... I believe it was deliberately removed by people who felt that it was a thorn in their theological flesh.” Martin also added, “You have to understand that 30 years ago there was a great confusion. As a matter of fact, today is still in many areas of Adventism. They had strains of Arian Christology; there were men in positions of authority who denied the deity of Christ and the Trinity. For all I know, some of them may still be there today. There were people who were absolute legalists, who believed that any person who kept Sunday - even in good conscience before God - right at that moment had the mark of the beast. And they were printing and distributing it under the official Adventist logos.”
A number of sincere Christians are at a lost whether to label the Seventh-day Adventist church[1] as evangelical or cult. If they are blood-washed Christians then we must extend our hand of fellowship with them. If not, then the Christian church is mandated to expose every false doctrines that come against the knowledge of truth. Some sincere Christians and even SDA people are also quoting Dr. Walter R. Martin’s book, The Kingdom of the Cults, to justify that the SDA church is not to be labeled as cult. However, a person can start by reading Dr. Martin's book, The Rise of the Cults, because at start he exposes White’s movement as a cult. But when T.E. Unruh, who was an Adventist official that time, read his book, he contacted the author in Reading, Pennsylvania. He allowed him to conduct a comprehensive and actual research on the SDA church, with the permission of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, editor of Eternity magazine, in the middle of 1950’s. Because of this research, the General Conference with the help of four former SDA church officials[2] printed Dr. Martin's book Questions on Doctrine. However, according to a rare interview done by Douglas Hackleman of Currents[3] during 1983 with Dr. Martin, the latter stated, “After 150,000 copies, Questions on Doctrine was permitted to go out of print.... I believe it was deliberately removed by people who felt that it was a thorn in their theological flesh.” Martin also added, “You have to understand that 30 years ago there was a great confusion. As a matter of fact, today is still in many areas of Adventism. They had strains of Arian Christology; there were men in positions of authority who denied the deity of Christ and the Trinity. For all I know, some of them may still be there today. There were people who were absolute legalists, who believed that any person who kept Sunday - even in good conscience before God - right at that moment had the mark of the beast. And they were printing and distributing it under the official Adventist logos.”
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REFORMER: The Truth About Dr. Walter Martin and The Seventh-Day Adventist Church by Justyn
