An Open Letter to the Nominating Committee and Delegates of the 2022 General Conference Session
The Three Angels or a One-Legged Gospel?
As we approach yet another General Conference session, please remember that the mission and message God has entrusted to Seventh-day Adventists is to take the Three Angels’ Messages to the world. Our global church structure was developed to serve this mission. Both mission and structure are at serious risk.
Today many Seventh-day Adventists, even some leaders and pastors, have gone largely silent about the Three Angels’ Messages and its everlasting gospel. Dr. John Webster of La Sierra University has spoken about four gospels within Adventism. Dr. Herbert Douglass in his book, A Fork in the Road, points back to the 1950s to explain how a different gospel rose within the church. Dr. William Johnsson, who edited the Review for about 25 years, wrote that “two radically different versions of Adventism are competing for the future.”[1] My name for this divide is the Three Angels or the One-Legged Gospel, the subject of this appeal.
One of your tasks will be to vote yet again on our Fundamental Beliefs and possible changes to the Church Manual. May I be so bold as to ask that you please elect to office only those who believe and promote our official teachings?
Officially, according to Fundamental Belief #13,[i] proclaiming the Three Angels’ Messages (Revelation 14:6-12) is the mission of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church. Ellen G. White said it multiple times.[ii]
Actually, various aspects of the Three Angels’ Messages are scattered throughout our Fundamental Beliefs. The call to worship God as Creator takes us back to the Genesis account of Creation. Here we find marriage established as between one man and one woman. Scriptural role distinctions between men and women, in the home as well as the church, are rooted in the original creation. Here we find the literal week and the seventh-day Sabbath.
Here we find the record of humanity created in God’s image, with the natural ability to keep holy God’s Law. We find the record of the fall and God’s response—that God would sacrifice Himself, paying an infinite price, taking in His own Person justice for every sin that would be committed, to make reconciliation possible to heaven only through faith in this sacrifice.
At the fall, human beings lost their natural ability to keep God’s holy law. In fact, it became impossible. That’s why, as part of the gospel, God promised to put enmity between fallen humanity and the god they had chosen at the fall—the old devil. This enmity means humanity would be given power to resist and overcome the devil. This, too, is an essential part of the gospel.
More than this, the everlasting gospel [Revelation 14:6] is connected to the law of God, the Sabbath, and the present reality of the judgment, which started in 1844 [Daniel 8:14; Revelation 14:7]. In the Three Angels’ Messages, the gospel is thus united with the law, faith with works, grace with obedience.
Allow me to summarize the Three Angel’s Messages as they are found in our Fundamental Beliefs:
The everlasting gospel (Revelation 14:6) provides a righteous Sin Bearer, who inspires repentance, provides forgiveness, and empowers heart-obedience to God’s commandments[iii] [iv] so that we might be justified[v] in the judgment.[vi] The original seventh-day Sabbath of creation is a sign of this salvation and of God's faithful end-time Remnant (Ezekiel 20:12, 20; Revelation 12:17; 14:7, 12),[vii] who are prepared to meet Christ when He returns.
Please study the magnificent Scriptures, Ellen White quotes and Fundamental Beliefs references in the endnotes to the paragraph above. May Calvary recapture our hearts, stirring us to revival and a recommitment to the awesome identity, mission and destiny of the Remnant—another one of our Fundamental Beliefs. The Spirit of Prophecy, another Fundamental Belief, is directly attached to our Remnant theology in such verses as Zephaniah 3:13 and Revelation 12:17. These aspects of the Three Angels’ Messages are all interrelated and when they are kept together, have a greater impact than their sum individually. All of the above are contained in our official statements of faith.
But what good does it do to vote statements of faith if we elect leaders, teachers, and pastors who have not promoted and preached the Three Angels’ messages and related doctrines as noted above?
In particular, the North American Division is leading a cultural rebellion against Biblical creation theology—and thus the Three Angels’ Messages—in two ways.
1. Continuing to push for women’s ordination. This denies the role distinctions in both the home and the church as established at creation.
2. Failure to curb, through proper discipline, the growing acceptance in our territory of LGBTQ+ values and practices within the church and its institutions. Every denomination which has accepted same-gender sexual intimacy first accepted interchangeable gender roles in ministry. We are headed in the same direction unless drastic change occurs at this General Conference.
The Church Manual says that baptismal candidates “should be instructed from the Scriptures regarding the Church’s fundamental beliefs and practices and the responsibilities of membership” and “by practice and conduct demonstrate a willing acceptance of Church doctrines and the principles of conduct which are the outward expression of those doctrines . . .” p. 44
Conversely, the first reason listed for removal of members in the Church Manual is “Denial of faith in the fundamentals of the gospel and in the fundamental beliefs of the Church or teaching doctrines contrary to the same” p. 61.
If it is not permissible to accept or retain members who disbelieve our official fundamentals, is it somehow permissible to elect leaders who have gone silent about the essence of the Three Angels’ Messages and related teachings as found in our Fundamental Beliefs?
By policy, every subsidiary of the General Conference is to keep the Three Angels’ Messages in their mission statements. However, the North American Division has removed the Three Angels from their mission statement, as has the Northern California Conference.
How have prospective leaders promoted and preached the vital power of the cross to capture our hearts, our affections, our full loyalties, and to ultimately bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (II Cor. 10:5)? So many of us have gone silent.
Many of us have gone silent about the direct connection of the cross to the Law of God. The cross is the supreme proof that the Law of God could never be done away with to accommodate sin, and also that it remains the standard by which our words and actions will be judged (James 2:10-12). Our only hope in the judgment is the forgiving and empowering grace of God. This is all in the Three Angels’ Messages. Have prospective leaders been preaching this message clearly?
Do Prospective Leaders accept the Prophetic Authority of Ellen White?
If living and believing all our fundamentals is a requirement for membership, and if examination of candidates is part of the process, shouldn’t the same process apply to every candidate for leadership at this very General Conference session?
Has a prospective leader promoted our official gospel: that salvation includes repentance, justification, and sanctification, and that Christ is both our Substitute and Example (II Cor. 5:21; I Peter 2:21-22)? [2]
Should we re-elect Division and General Conference leaders who have stonewalled and rejected accountability measures for themselves and others since the last General Conference session?
A Personal Story
In 1982, I was sitting in a class at Andrews Seminary. My instructor made an observation: “Seventh-day Adventists can believe anything they want as long as they do the right things.” I found his words to be a truthful though tragic generalization of reality during my lifetime of ministry.
Desmond Ford
In 1982 Dr. Desmond Ford had been recently stripped of his ministerial credentials and teaching post at Pacific Union College, over his flagrant and public denial of 1844 and the investigative judgment. However, what many don’t seem to understand is that Ford’s denial of the judgment actually stemmed from his belief about the gospel.
Ford believed that we are saved on the basis of legal justification alone. Christ is our Substitute, but not our Example. Our salvation was finished at the cross. That is why he rejected the judgment and 1844. I call it the one-legged gospel. The other leg contained in our official doctrine of salvation is sanctification.
Ford did not entirely dispense with the Ten Commandments or the importance of obedience. But neither did he teach obedience is a condition of salvation, as does the New Testament (Matt. 7:21; 19:16-26; Luke 10:25-28; Rom. 2:6-10; 8:13; Heb. 5:9). Again, he taught that the essence of righteousness by faith is legal justification/forgiveness.
What happened to Dr. Ford and his influence after he lost his ministerial credentials and teaching post at Pacific Union College? Supported by sympathizers, including the Pacific Union College Church [which failed to discipline him], Ford continued ministry from Auburn, California as a bona fide church member.
While some of his sympathizers rejected the Sabbath and left the church, many who believed his erroneous gospel remained within the church. They carried forward his torch, but were generally silent about personal accountability in the judgment. Ford’s influence was particularly strong within California. That’s where I pastored when I heard the news that his membership was finally dropped at his own request [February 13, 2001].
Chanda Nunes
Fast forward: At the 2016 Pacific Union ministerial convention, Chanda Nunes, a female minister from Sacramento, was preaching. At one point in the sermon, she emphatically stated that Christ is our Substitute but NOT our Example. Roaring and overwhelming applause broke out all over the room among the ministers of the whole Pacific Union. Others heard Chanda say the same thing and spoke to me about it.
Chanda’s statement runs counter to the Bible (I Peter 2:21-22) and our fundamental belief on salvation which explicitly affirms Christ as both Substitute and Example—the two legs of the gospel. Chanda was subsequently ordained and then appointed as the head pastor at the Pacific Union College Church. Three months ago, she was voted in as the Executive Secretary of the Nevada-Utah Conference.
A bigger issue than Chanda is all the ministers who applauded. Why would they applaud a statement that directly contradicts one of our fundamental beliefs? Where were these ministers trained? Where did they learn this “gospel”? On what basis are they are allowed to stay in the ministry if they continue to believe this?
Gerhard Pfandl
Former BRI member Gerhard Pfandl, who considered Ford one of his best teachers, wrote tribute to Ford that was published in Adventist World March 3, 2019. Pfandl wrote:
He [Ford] declared that righteousness by faith is the same as justification by faith. Justification, he explained, is Christ’s work for us — on the cross. It happens outside of us; it is a change of status. Through justification we become children of God. Sanctification, on the other hand, is Christ’s work in us through the Holy Spirit. Sanctification changes us into the likeness of Christ. This ran counter to the general Adventist understanding at that time, that righteousness by faith includes justification and sanctification.
Pfandl went on to claim—that “most Adventist scholars and pastors today have accepted Ford’s definition of righteousness by faith.” If true, this would mean most of our ministry have accepted Ford’s heresy—salvation by justification alone, in contradiction to both Scripture and our official statement on salvation, which includes both justification and sanctification.
Notice carefully, that while Pfandl gives honorable mention to sanctification, he does not include it as part of righteousness by faith, or salvation. Only justification is included.
How did Pfandl become a member of the Biblical Research Institute, the theological watchdog agency of the church, if he harmonizes with Ford and not the church on the subject of salvation and righteousness by faith?
Another question is, how did such an article exonerating Ford ever get into the Review, our official church paper?
George Knight
Among those promoting Ford’s claim that righteousness by faith only includes justification, none has been more colorful and more widely published within the church than retired seminary professor George Knight. He writes of Ford:
. . . he did the denomination a service by highlighting the fact that righteousness by faith in the New Testament is restricted to what Paul calls justification by faith and did not include sanctification.[3]
The one-legged gospel has contributed greatly to the shocking progress of the LGBTQ+ agenda within our North American church. [4] It’s not hard to figure out the connection. If we are saved on the basis of justification alone, without its vital biblical connection to repentance, rebirth, and sanctification, then we are not saved from our sins, as the Bible says (Matt. 1:21), but rather, in our sins.
I hope these examples illustrate the need to apply confessional accountability as you elect leaders at this General Conference session. The first step is to engage in self-examination and repentance personally. Pray earnestly for yourself, the church, and the appointment of new leaders. Please elect loyal leaders who really believe and promote our full message as contained in the Three Angels’ Messages and our Fundamental Beliefs. Pray that God will truly intervene at this General Conference session.
[1] Where Are We Headed? Adventism after San Antonio by William Johnsson Page 3
[2] 10. The Experience of Salvation
In infinite love and mercy God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might be made the righteousness of God. Led by the Holy Spirit we sense our need, acknowledge our sinfulness, repent of our transgressions, and exercise faith in Jesus as Saviour and Lord, Substitute and Example. This saving faith comes through the divine power of the Word and is the gift of God’s grace. Through Christ we are justified, adopted as God’s sons and daughters, and delivered from the lordship of sin. Through the Spirit we are born again and sanctified; the Spirit renews our minds, writes God’s law of love in our hearts, and we are given the power to live a holy life. Abiding in Him we become partakers of the divine nature and have the assurance of salvation now and in the judgment. (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 45:22; 53; Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 33:11; 36:25-27; Hab. 2:4; Mark 9:23, 24; John 3:3-8, 16; 16:8; Rom. 3:21-26; 8:1-4, 14-17; 5:6-10; 10:17; 12:2; 2 Cor. 5:17-21; Gal. 1:4; 3:13, 14, 26; 4:4-7; Eph. 2:4-10; Col. 1:13, 14; Titus 3:3-7; Heb. 8:7‑12; 1 Peter 1:23; 2:21, 22; 2 Peter 1:3, 4; Rev. 13:8.)
[3] George R. Knight, End-Time Events and the Last Generation: The Explosive 1950s (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press Publishing Assn, 2018), p. 84.
[4] For documentation on the gay agenda within the NAD see They Crept in Unawares at https://www.fulcrum7.com/blog/2018/1/4/they-crept-in-unawares. Some of these issues have been resolved, others have not. More issues have appeared since this article was written, as well.
[i] Fundamental Belief #13. All the Fundamental Beliefs cited in this Rationale may be found at https://szu.adventist.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/28_Beliefs.pdf.
[ii] The Three Angels’ Messages as “Mission” in Ellen G. White – An Overview
Fundamental Belief #18 adds another identifying feature of the Remnant, the gift of prophecy as manifested in the writings of Ellen G. White, and it affirms the prophetic authority of her writings.
She said that our work is to give the last warning message to a perishing world by proclaiming the “first, second, and third angels’ messages” and that “there is no other work of so great importance,” and that we “are to allow nothing else to absorb” our “attention.” {9T 19.1} Italics supplied.
The judgment now going on in heaven will close and then human probation will end. So our urgent duty is to make “plain the principles at stake in the great controversy . . . upon which hang the destinies of mankind” “standing on the brink” of “eternal ruin.” { PK 716.1}
One of those principles at stake includes repairing the breach made by man in the Law of God regarding the Sabbath commandment. “In clear, distinct lines” we “are to present the necessity of obedience to all the precepts of the Decalogue.” {PK 678.2}
Ellen White’s warning against spiritualism in its end time Christian disguise especially relates to neglect of some aspects of the Three Angels’ Messages: God’s judgment, justice and His holy Law (The Great Controversy 557.2ff). By including mention of Revelation 14:6-12 in our mission statement we clarify our inclusion of the Law, judgment, and justice in our identity and mission in contrast to Christianized Spiritualism.
[iii] See Fundamental Belief #10 on salvation. It relates to the “everlasting gospel” mentioned in Revelation 14:6. This Fundamental Belief includes Christ as Sin Bearer, the necessity of repentance, confession, being born again, Christ as both “Substitute and Example,” and deliverance “from the Lordship of sin” through Spirit-empowered obedience to the Law of God.
[iv] Since the law is a transcript of God’s character, when Fundamental Belief #7 speaks of restoring “in penitent mortals the image of their Maker” it directly relates to the Three Angels’ Messages and a people who keep the commandments of God.
[v] Justification in the judgment is depicted in Romans 2:13 “For not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.”
[vi] The words “the hour of His judgment is come” (Revelation 14:7) correlate to Fundamental Belief #24 regarding 1844 as the beginning of the investigative judgment in heaven which “makes manifest who among the living are abiding in Christ, keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and in Him, therefore, are ready for translation into His everlasting kingdom:”
[vii] In light of the judgment, Revelation 14:7 calls us to worship God as Creator by keeping the original seventh-day Sabbath of Creation (Genesis 2:2-3; Exodus 20:11)) as the seal of God. Congruently, Fundamental Belief #20 says that the Sabbath “is a symbol of our redemption in Christ, a sign of our sanctification, a token of our allegiance . . . God’s perpetual sign of His eternal covenant between Him and His people” (Ezekiel 20:12, 20).