Adventist Teaching: Yes
Biblical Teaching: No
The Adventist prophetess, Ellen G. White, claimed that, in order to be a true Christian, one must be perfect in character before God will accept them. Prior to possessing the same perfect character of Jesus it is impossible for you to be saved. She even went so far as to tell ministers of her day that God showed her that they hadn’t reached the standard of christian perfection and there is no place in Heaven for someone like that. She also stated that, because we don’t know what the future holds, no sanctified tongue would utter the phrase “I am saved.”
Because the Adventist Church upholds the writings of Ellen G. White as divinely inspired and that they correct inaccurate interpretations of scripture, they are stuck with having to affirm this.
This contradicts scripture, though. While it is true that God doesn’t leave believers as they are and sanctifies them over the course of their lives, it isn’t this process that brings them to a place of then being accepted by God. By being “in Christ” a believer is already accepted (Romans 15:7, Acts 15:8-9, Ephesians 1:4-7, Galatians 4:5-7) and adopted into the family of God as a son or daughter. They have already been transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light (Colossians 1:13). The fact that the process of sanctification is taking place is evidence of having already been accepted. Sanctification doesn’t happen to those who aren’t children of God.
In the SDA system, acceptance comes after you attain to a certain standard with the Holy Spirit’s help—namely a perfect character identical to that of Jesus’s. Until then, you aren’t truly converted.
