Adventist teaching: Yes
Biblical teaching: No
Ellen G. White, who the SDA Church upholds as divinely inspired and correcting of inaccurate interpretations of scripture, claimed that part of the reason Jesus incarnated was to silence the accusations of Satan in the great controversy. This accusation allegedly is what started Satan’s rebellion in heaven, prior to the creation of the earth, and ultimately led to the great controversy between Christ and Satan which is what governs the Adventist worldview. They call this the Great Controversy Theme.
Mrs. White claimed that Satan’s accusation was that God was unjust, that His law was faulty, and that, for the good of the universe, it needed to be changed. This charge also included the claim that the law of God (the 10 Commandments) couldn’t be kept and that God was a tyrant—which led to Satan trying to overthrow God’s government and set up his own. To prove that this was false and vindicate the character of God, Jesus offered up a plan to the Father that He would incarnate by taking on fallen human flesh to demonstrate this accusation is false—that fallen man can keep the law of God.
This is the central focus of the Great Controversy Worldview—that God must vindicate His character from these pre-earth accusations of Satan and prove that He can be trusted and is who He says He is.
The Bible nowhere teaches anything about accusations of Satan prior to the creation of the earth, God needing to vindicate His character, or that Jesus incarnated to silence these accusations. The Bible is clear that God’s character was vindicated at Calvary where His love, justice, and mercy were fully displayed in the sacrifice and offering of Jesus Christ (John 3:16, Romans 3:21-6). This was the revelation from God that He is who He says He is and can be trusted because He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:1-2, Hebrews 6:18).
The sad fact is that—in Adventism—it isn’t God who saves man, but man who saves God from the accusations of one of His creatures. Instead of God’s character being fully vindicated at Calvary, the Adventist god is beholden to accusations from one of His creatures and needs your help to prove that he is who he says he is.
Jesus freely incarnated, not to vindicate himself against the Devil, but out of love for the world (1 John 4:9-10). He was not forced to do this to defend Himself or prove that God is who He says He is nor was the incarnation an after thought response to the fall of man that required a counsel between the Godhead to figure out a solution.
This is what we call an “Advent-ism.”
