In his book, Kingdom of the Cults, Walter Martin wrote:
The saving grace of the entire situation is that the Adventists fortunately deny the logical conclusions to which their doctrines must lead them; i.e. a negation of the full validity of the atonement of Christ, which validity they absolutely confirm, and embrace with considerable fervor – a paradoxical situation at best!
And:
It is often charged that inherent in SDA theology is the unbiblical teaching that ‘the atonement was not finished on the cross of Calvary.’ [examples given from Uriah Smith, J.H. Waggoner, C.H. Watson]. … However, a little investigation of those writings would show that Smith and Waggoner wrote eighty years ago. As demonstrated elsewhere in this book this concept has been repudiated by the SDA denomination. The current position of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination – not the opinions of a few scattered writings over a hundred-year period – should be considered in judging this charge of ‘incomplete atonement.’
Here is a website that completely rejects Questions on Doctrine, a publication produced by Adventist theologians to explain Adventist terminology and doctrine in terms that Evangelicals would recognise as compatible with Christianity.
I don’t consider Adventism to be a cult – but that is a subjective thing, and the label is often applied by the big congregation to the little congregation.
But this article shows that there is a big divide in the Adventist church, one part of which would, by Evangelicals such as Walter Martin, be classified as a cult. See the post below in the blog on modern vs post-modern Adventism – although many modern Adventists would also accept Questions on Doctrine.
It also relates to what I mentioned in the post on Bacchiocchi’s recent newsletter, where I describe how Adventists felt they needed to rediscover biblical truths – which they had obviously lost. The difference here is that they had quickly adopted a new terminology that confused other Christians into thinking their beliefs were vastly different – that is, assuming Questions on Doctrine was correct about Adventist theology. If not, then Adventism adopted a whole new set of beliefs never before encountered in Christian thought. This was likely due to the untrained writings of Ellen White making their way into Adventism as their guide to the Bible. And one result – and this does have cult-like aspects – was to make them feel different, persecuted, and therefore the true remnant, holding a unique knowledge apart from historical Christianity, which was called out of the Babylon of early Christianity into a new form founded, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Questions on Doctrine book can be found here.
There is one, large category here called QOD: 1957 This entire category is contains all of the verbatim text of the original QOD book for your enjoyment and study. You will find that the original pagination is clearly marked in red fonts, wherever a new page would have begun in the original text.
