The subject of assurance has been a longstanding thorn in the flesh of the SDA Church. With their legalistic roots, the subject became an increasingly necessary one to combat the problem this presented for the organization. However, this problem hasn’t been alleviated because the roots of the theology that gave rise to early Adventist’s not having assurance are still the same. And it’s why many former Adventists leave the movement and wrestle so heavily with this subject.
What is Assurance?
As with all things, definitions are key. Historically speaking, and in the context of theology, assurance has been understood to simply mean you know that you will be with your Maker in eternity. It has not been understood to simply mean you have a level of confidence but don’t know for certain. This is because assurance, biblically speaking, is rooted in God and who He is, not man and his own doings. This is absolutely vital to understand and is a fork in the road. Christians can have assurance of their salvation because they can trust that God is who He says He is and that He keeps His promises.
Jesus and John the Apostle plainly taught that you can “know that you have eternal life” (John 5:24; 1 John 5:13). One can actually be certain that they possess this at the present time and that nothing can separate them from the love of God (Romans 8:35-8). When defining eternal life in his high priestly prayer, Jesus said it’s to know the true God (John 17:3). We see the word “know” used in a similar sense by Paul the Apostle who speaks of salvation/eternal life as being “known by God” where he writes:
9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Galatians 4:9
Paul is not saying that God had no mental capacity that the believers in Galatia existed, for God is all-knowing. Paul is using language often used in the Bible to describe God saving a person. When Jesus turns away those on the Final Day who thought they were doing things in His name, he turns them away saying, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:21-3). These people were never saved. They were never actually “known” by God.
Jesus also plainly taught:
35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
John 6:35-40
Again, Jesus shows that nothing can separate a true believer from God and this is because there is a pact between the Father and the Son and the Son does the will of the Father perfectly. Part of that will included coming to save His people from their sins and sins consequences. This pact is between the Father and the Son exclusively, not the Father, the Son, and the individual believer, such that the Father and Son can not fail but the believer could, throwing off the whole thing. All that the Father gives to Jesus, they will most assuredly come to Jesus, and He will—with absolute certainty—save them, and raise them up on the last day.
Simply put, assurance of salvation is knowing that God saved you (1 Peter 1:3-5; Titus 3:4-5) and that He will complete the work that He has started within you (Philippians 1:6)—bringing it to the finish line as the Author and finisher of one’s faith (Hebrews 12:2). Adventist scholarship attributes this belief uniquely to “Calvinism,” which is one of their favorite boogeymen to misrepresent and lay blame upon. It is not only incorrect, but it doesn’t actually alleviate the issue of assurance within Adventist theology. Even if Reformed theology were falsified, that doesn’t prove what needs demonstrated.
Assurance as Defined by SDA Scholarship
In the book Salvation: Contours of Adventist Soteriology, which is a scholastic work put out by the SDA Church’s top scholarship, Richard M. Davidson and Dr. Woodrow W. Whidden try addressing the issue of assurance and how, within the SDA Church’s novel salvific framework of the investigative judgment, one can have it. Closing out his chapter titled Assurance in the [Investigative] Judgment, Richard M. Davidson writes:
The message of the antitypical Yom Kippur—of the whole final judgment including the pre-Advent investigative trial, the millennial review and post-millennial execution of the sentence—swells to a grand climax of assurance. The entire universe will be sure that God is just and true in all His ways, including the saving of His people. Thus, God’s saved people have assurance forever. By means of the entire process of end-time judgment, God fully vindicates His character of love, and thus the universe will be rendered eternally secure. Assurance in the judgement will give way to assurance for eternity!
Richard M. Davidson, Salvation: Contours of Adventist Soteriology, pg. 416
It must be understood that all of Adventist theology is filtered through their extra-biblical Great Controversy Worldview—vestiges of which we see in Davidson’s statement. The idea of God being on trial and salvation being ultimately about God proving that He is who He says He is, is foreign to the Bible. But that is what they teach.
This is ultimately coming from visions allegedly given to Ellen G. White, who the SDA Church claims was divinely inspired and correcting of inaccurate interpretations of scripture. It is within this unique paradigm that Richard Davidson seeks to implore Adventist laity that they can have assurance in salvation. When Richard Davidson, Woodrow Whidden, and other Adventist scholars use the term “assurance,” they mean a person can posses a certain level of confidence. Not that you can know with certainty you are saved.
In typical Adventist fashion, Dr. Whidden blames the Reformed/Calvinists of the Protestant Reformation and props them up as the boogeyman for why the charge has been made that assurance is foreign to Adventist theology. Putting forth the notion, like is often done, that if one embraces a “Wesleyen/Arminian, synergistic tradition” (pg. 375) then one will understand the proper way assurance should be defined. Hence why earlier I said the fork in the road is if God is sufficient and able to be a Savior or if this is something man must empower Him to be.
Dr. Whidden then proceeds to claim that the idea of “once saved, always saved” is the other problem and that when this is eliminated, it’s easy to see how Adventists can truly have assurance.
Speaking on this, Dr. Whidden writes:
The line of argument mounted by the Calvinists [Reformed] attempts to deny the possibility of apostasy. Such a denial simply ignores the question as to whether any given believer can be genuinely converted, and then either heedlessly wander away by careless neglect or be led away by strong temptations and go on to openly renounce the saving power of God in his or her life.
Woodrow W. Whidden, Salvation: Contours of Adventist Soteriology, pg. 387
Not only is this embarrassingly false, but shows a grave lack of understanding with regards to what the Reformed believe about the very vast subject of covenant. The Reformed tradition absolutely affirms apostasy—often embracing the term “covenant breaker” to refer to such individuals. It is Dr. Whidden’s lack of drilling deep enough into terminology which leads to his misrepresentation and why his arguments fall short from sufficient or a valid refutation.
He then continues with the misrepresentations where he claims:
In the face of these persistently common attitudes of “cheap-grace,” antinomian excuses for sin and the self-evident fact that the Calvinists have no real, built-in advantages (either theologically or practically) when it comes to the assurance of salvation, on balance, the Wesleyan/Arminian (and Adventist) version of the personal assurance of salvation is the preferred biblical, theological, and practical route for believers to take in their walk with the Lord.
Woodrow W. Whidden, Salvation: Contours of Adventist Soteriology, pg. 392
This is perhaps one of the biggest tells that SDA scholarship is often ignorant of that which they criticize. The Reformed tradition stands staunchly opposed to both “cheap grace” and antinomianism. Entire Reformed works of the 16th-century were dedicated to refuting and denouncing both ideas. Ironically, this is the same false charge made by the Roman Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation as a whole.
But here you get a glimpse into the false dichotomy that often permeates Adventism and why so many of them operate within this false binary. It’s either the Reformed position or the Arminian position. The Adventist position is allegedly the Arminian one, therefore, whatever they disagree with, misunderstandings and all, is then saddled upon the “Calvinists.” It would do SDA theologians well to realize that Lutherans are neither Calvinists nor Arminian—yet they teach both true assurance of salvation as well as that one can forfeit their righteous standing before God and lose their salvation.
The Lutheran tradition is monergistic like the Reformed tradition. In fact, all of the major branches of the Protestant Reformation were and stood staunchly against the synergism of the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther himself going so far as to say that this was the “hinge upon which the entirety of the Reformation swings” in his notorious Bondage of the Will—a written debate with Desiderius Erasmus, a Roman Catholic theologian. The SDA Church stands firmly on the Roman Catholic side of the Reformation on this issue.
So when SDA scholarship tries pinning the blame on the “Reformed” in this area, they are actually pinning it on the entirety of the Reformation—which was more than just the Canton Region and Swiss Reformations but also the English, German, and Italian. All of these branches were monergists that taught that the Bible teaches God saves people and is able to do so freely and successfully. He actually saves them and finishes the work He starts within them. All the way from predestining them, calling them, justifying them, sanctifying them, and glorifying them (Romans 8:28-30).
But the Question Still Remains: Can SDA’s Have Assurance?
Working off of the biblical definition of assurance, which is knowing that you have eternal life, we can see very clearly why this is not compatible with Adventism.
In the Investigative Judgment model (what the Adventist Church means by the term “atonement” as defined in the same book, Salvation: Contours of Adventist Soteriology, pg. 189), part of why Jesus came to earth was to give man a “second probation.” As the SDA prophetess claims:
Death entered the world because of transgression. But Christ gave his life that man should have another trial. He did not die on the cross to abolish the law of God, but to secure for man a second probation. He did not die to make sin an immortal attribute: he died to secure the right to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. He suffered the full penalty of a broken law for the whole world. This he did, not that men might continue in transgression, but that they might return to their loyalty and keep God’s commandments, and his law as the apple of their eye.
Ellen G. White, Special Testimony to Battle Creek Church, pg. 32 (PHO86 32.1)
As with all things Adventism, in order to understand what’s being said, one must understand the Great Controversy Theme. Ellen White claimed to be shown by God that, prior to the creation of the earth, Satan began attacking the 10 Commandments (ie: God’s government). He was jealous of the exaltation of Jesus to be made equal with God the Father. Thus, he rebelled and started the great controversy.
God’s character is now allegedly on trial and all of earth, heaven, and the intelligent life of other worlds (something else they teach) are looking in on this controversy unsure if they can trust that God is who He says He is or if Satan is correct. Thus, the Adventist god is on trial and needs you, the creature, to get him off the hook.
As a part of this controversy, God allegedly created the earth as a test in the great controversy to see if man would prove that the law can be kept and silence Satan’s accusations, but also show all of the angels and intelligent life on other worlds that this is true. This is initially why Adam and Eve were created and put on probation. As Ellen White also wrote:
The Father consulted Jesus in regard to at once carrying out their purpose to make man to inhabit the earth. He would place man upon probation to test his loyalty, before he could be rendered eternally secure. If he endured the test wherewith God saw fit to prove him, he should eventually be equal with the angels. He was to have the favor of God, and he was to converse with angels, and they with him. He did not see fit to place them beyond the power of disobedience.
Ellen G. White, The Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. I, pg. 23 (1SP 23.1)
Because Adam and Eve fell into sin, the Great Controversy Theme then informs why the Adventist Jesus came—to give man another probation like Adam and Eve were on. And one must get to a point, with Jesus’s help, of total sinlessness through perfect law-keeping. This is because one must demonstrate while on probation that they are “fit for heaven” and can be trusted to not let sin enter again like Satan did.
We are not to settle down, expecting that a change of character will come to us by some miraculous work, when Jesus shall appear in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. No, my young friends, we are judgment-bound, and probation is granted to us here in this life, in order that we may form characters for the future, immortal life.
Ellen G. White, Sons and Daughters, pg. 9 (SD 9.2)
Along the way, when one does commit a sin, it’s transferred to the Books of Record in the heavenly sanctuary where Jesus is supposedly conducting the pre-advent, investigative judgment. If that sin is confessed, the Adventist Jesus will cover it with His blood. If not, that sin will remain on a person’s book as a character blot and will ultimately condemn the person in the end. Unless one is able to vindicate God in the great controversy, they aren’t deemed worthy of inheriting eternal life neither are they considered safe to save by God.
And it’s because of this that one cannot truly have assurance in the SDA framework. Salvation is ultimately upon the creatures shoulders. God has done all that He can and He is trying His best, but at the end of the day, it depends on how well you perform. And since human beings aren’t omniscient and don’t know what tomorrow brings, there is no way an Adventist can truly know that they have eternal life.
This is also why Ellen G. White wrote:
He [Jesus] came to demonstrate the fact that humanity, allied by living faith to divinity, can keep all the commandments of God. He came to make plain the immutable character of the law, to declare that disobedience and transgression can never be rewarded with eternal life. He came as a man to humanity, that humanity might touch humanity, while divinity laid hold upon the throne of God.
Ellen G. White, Mind, Character, and Personality, Vol. 2, pg. 564 (2MCP 564.4)
Eternal life is not a reward. It is a free gift (Romans 6:23; Ephesians 2:8-9). And while Mrs. White is absolutely correct that sin is not rewarded with positive favor, her inability to distinguish between those that war with sin and those that wallow in it was a common cause for her mixing of law and gospel resulting in a false understanding of how a person receives eternal life.
She also wrote:
“Will man take hold of divine power, and with determination and perseverance resist Satan, as Christ has given him example in His conflict with the foe in the wilderness of temptation? God cannot save man against his will from the power of Satan’s artifices. Man must work with his human power, aided by the divine power of Christ, to resist and to conquer at any cost to himself. In short, man must overcome as Christ overcame. And then, through the victory that it is his privilege to gain by the all-powerful name of Jesus, he may become an heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. This could not be the case if Christ alone did all the overcoming. Man must do his part; he must be victor on his own account, through the strength and grace that Christ gives him. Man must be a co-worker with Christ in the labor of overcoming, and then he will be partaker with Christ in His glory.
Ellen G. White, Sons and Daughters, pg. 156 (SD 156.3)
Unless one, with Jesus’s help, gets to a totally sinless condition identical to that of Jesus, they will not be saved. This isn’t simply synergistic theology, this is synergism on steroids. And this is what the organizational source documents, informed and influenced by Ellen White, also state things like:
“And Enoch walked with God : and he was not; for God took him.” Gen. 5:24. It is only a short journey to the heavenly hills, brethren, if we walk with God. In John 15:10, Jesus tells us he kept his Father’s commandments. He did not say, “I am trying to keep” them, but he says, “I have kept” them. So it is not enough that we try to keep the commandments. We must keep them. The character of the saints is not established by their failures to keep the commands of God, but by their success in doing so. Those who simply try to keep the commandments, are moral cripples; they do not walk with God; they simply hobble along after him…
Review & Herald, December 10, 1889
Trying is not good enough in this model, only complete and total perfection. Those who try their best are moral cripples and don’t actually walk with God, they simply hobble along after him. And that really says it all.
The Conclusion
Adventist scholarship loves to try and ride the coattails of John Wesley and Wesleyanism along with Jacob Arminius and Arminianism. But none of those camps had/have a great controversy worldview that informs how they define terms. It is the great controversy theme that informs how Adventist theology is defined and that includes the topic of assurance. While modern SDA scholars like Richard M. Davidson and Woodrow W. Whidden have tried to reframe the system and present it in such a way that sounds good, it doesn’t change the underlying facts and logic.
An Adventist cannot know that they are saved for a variety of reasons:
- They do not know if their name in the investigative judgment has already come up and they failed to pass. This is simply a fact.
- They do not know what tomorrow brings. The Adventist god has already done all that he can by giving humans a second probation and sent the Adventist Jesus to show that the law can be kept, but now the ball is in the sinners court to come alongside the Adventist Jesus and hurry to get to a totally sinless state before probation closes or they die—whichever comes first. Until then, one doesn’t actually know if they have eternal life.
- In Adventism, eternal life does not rest solely on God and what He has accomplished.
- If an Adventist isn’t bold enough and ready to claim they are totally sinless, then they are only on the path to be rewarded with eternal life, but they do not actually possess it yet. It will only be given to them if they successfully achieved sinless perfectionism in this life.
- Adventism teaches a false gospel that is cursed by God and cannot save anyone (Galatians 1:6-9).
- Adventism teaches a false Christ that is not real and is incapable of saving anyone (Matthew 24:24; 2 Corinthians 11:3-4).
Trying to blame “Calvinism” by misrepresenting it does not then prove that the Adventist model correctly defines assurance in light of scripture. What the SDA Church blames on “Calvinism” is actually a universal tenet of the Protestant Reformation as a whole—something the SDA Church shockingly tries to claim they are heirs of. It isn’t unique to Reformed (Calvinistic) theology but was embraced by the Moravian Brethren, Anglicans, the Dutch Reformed, and Lutherans—all of which embrace the biblical teaching that a believer can have assurance based on what God in Christ has accomplished for His people and that He is who He says He is. Not because He is on trial and needs your help to prove that He is who He says He is to silence the Devil. And yes, some of those camps also believe you can “lose your salvation,” which proves the issue isn’t “once saved, always saved” or any of the other models of eternal security, but the SDA church’s entire faulty great controversy model which errantly defines things.
Like Jesus and John clearly taught us—we can know that we have eternal life right now and that nothing can separate us from the love of God. If we have truly trusted in and believed the gospel—that Jesus is who He says He is and that He did what He said He would—God will cause us to be regenerated and His Spirit will testify with our spirits that we are children of God (Romans 8:16). We will stumble along the way, but like any good parent, God chastises those whom He loves and disciplines them (Hebrews 12:6). He doesn’t disown them. This does not mean that God does not sanctify people (which is another charge often made by Adventists for taking umbrage with their model.)
Until the day of resurrection, though, believers will struggle with sin because sin is more than just character flaws. It’s only at the point of resurrection that glorification is applied and a person no longer falls short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But thanks be to God that our salvation is wholly dependent upon what Jesus accomplished and His perfection. Thank God that He is an actual Savior and is free to accomplish His purposes as the Sovereign King—including the salvation of His people to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:11-14). It is because of that and that alone that the born again believer can truly have assurance of their salvation.
