In Adventist theology, sanctification is a progressive process of being made more like Christ where one will have to get to a perfectly sinless state before the close of probation in order to stand before Almighty God without an intercessor. They teach that through the help of the Holy Spirit (the Helper), God will impart the righteousness of Christ (His divine merit) to you gradually over time making you more and more like Jesus (see the chart below).
The claim put forth by the SDA Church is that they are essentially Wesleyan in their view. As can be seen in SDA historian George R. Knights book A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs:
Ellen White brought the Wesleyan/Methodist emphases on sanctification and perfection into Adventism (see e.g., Christ Object Lessons, pg. 67-9, cf. Matthew 5:43-48). She tended to use Wesleyan language and its meanings even though she didn’t agree with Wesley that a Christian could be instantaneously perfected at a specific point in time in his or her earthly experience or that such perfected Christians could be conscious of their own perfection.
George R. Knight, A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs, pg. 33
This is the standard appeal from Adventists when critiquing the Adventist position—that Ellen White did not believe in true sinless perfection, but only Wesleyan “character perfection”—that one will gradually become more holy over time. Knight also adds:
As a corrective [to the Reformers], Wesley emphasized sanctification as a process of becoming more like Jesus. To him, justification was the work of a moment while sanctification was the work of a lifetime. Justification came by imputed righteousness, sanctification by imparted righteousness.
George R. Knight, A Search for Identity: The Development of Seventh-day Adventist Beliefs, pg. 33
But this is not the whole picture. Because Ellen White not only claimed a person would need to arrive at the level of perfection that Jesus was, but that this is a must in order to make it through the coming Time of Trouble and be saved. If a single spot or stain was upon one’s character, a person will not recieve the end times seal of God and be saved.
Thus, sanctification in Adventism is a gradual progression of one’s character being made more identical to Jesus’s by way of God “imparting” in small spurts Christ’s righteousness you. Just like in Roman Catholicism, they teach justification is a two tiered system with an initial justification and then a final or “eschatological justification” based on if one’s sanctification gets to a certain point. Both camps teaching an infused form of righteousness in sanctification.
In Adventism, obedience to the law, accompanied by faith in Christ, is the means by which one becomes sanctified. Eventually, you will get to a state where that impartation doesn’t have to happen anymore because you have developed a righteousness that mirrors that of Jesus’s. This is what they mean when they use the phrase “the righteousness of Christ”.
This is central to the SDA Church’s Great Controversy Worldview, which governs how they read and define things in scripture. Statements like George Knight’s are commonplace within Adventism but miss the mark and try to water down the teaching by appealing to John Wesley who did not have a Great Controversy Worldview that defined terms like sanctification. It also isn’t completely forthright to say the SDA model does not teach actual sinless perfection or that Ellen White said one could never “be conscious of their own perfection.”
In the SDA model, arriving at a totally sinless condition is central to the silencing of Satan’s pre-earth accusations against the 10 Commandments that the SDA system affirms. Satan’s charge was supposedly that the 10 Commandments cannot be kept by a fallen human. Jesus then incarnated to silence this accusation, demonstrate that it is false, and as man’s Example, show that he too can keep the law perfectly and silence Satan.
This is also proof that Mr. Knight is incorrect to state that Adventists affirm the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. As their view of justification is also filtered through the Great Controversy Theme. So they may use that term, but have their own unique definition and view, not what the Protestant Reformers meant.
While the Bible does teach that sanctification is a progressive progress, it isn’t a process of Jesus’s righteousness and character being gradually imparted to you by God, gradually over time, based on your obedience to the 10 Commandments. Rather, it is a work of God shaping and molding someone in the mortification of the “old man” that wars with the “new man” (Romans 6:6; Romans 7:14-25; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Corinthians 6:11).
This war will take place the whole life of a Believer who will—eventually—be bodily resurrected and glorified (1 Corinthians 15:42–53). The body at this point will be perfect and free from sinful, fallen defects and any sort of “evil desires” (Colossians 3:5). Until then, the war will rage on as believers keep warring with their sin. Perfection comes in the glorified state, not by having Jesus’s righteousness gradually imparted to you over time based on your behavior.
Believers will naturally have a desire to seek Christ and His desires for His people, this is because they have already been given the foreign, alien righteousness of Jesus entirely by faith (Philippians 3:9-10), not in small parts over time depending on your performance.
