Seventh-day Adventist belief breakdown: belief 5 of 28
Seventh-day Adventist belief breakdown: belief 5 of 28
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church has 28 fundamental beliefs. I snarkily list the underlying unspoken beliefs. Belief 5 is "God the Holy Spirit".
All beliefs are from the official Seventh-Day Adventist Church website, Adventist.org. https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/
Per their website, Adventists reserve the right to change or update beliefs.
Therefore, this page is archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240127045827/https://www.adventist.org/beliefs/
Links to all prior snarked beliefs are available at the bottom of this post.
Fair warning: The underlying beliefs are myriad in this post! It's looong.
Adventist Belief Five
5. God the Holy Spirit
“God the eternal Spirit was active with the Father and the Son in Creation, incarnation, and redemption.”
First, underlying this is a Christian evangelical worldview that:
The world used to be perfect and now is broken. Two humans broke it. All humans are punished because two humans broke it.
There is a forever alive, nonhuman, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being called god.
This being made the world, perfect, in six days only 6k-10k literal years ago.
All science to the otherwise is from Satan, another immortal who is evil and trying to trick humans into disobeying god, who by the way was made by god. Satan claims humans can’t live sinless lives. This means he’s claiming god is not fair.
There’s a cure for everything wrong in the world, and that’s getting rid of sin, which is what causes everything bad in the world. Everything bad in nature, such as thorns on roses and worms that live in eyes, and everything bad that humans choose to do, is caused by humans disobeying god’s rules. This is called sin. Sin requires a punishment of blood spilled because reasons never stated.
God sent 1/3 of himself to die to the other 2/3 of himself after living a perfect sinless life on earth as the man named Jesus. He was conceived by the holy spirit in the virgin woman called Mary and no penises were involved and that is important. He was crucified on the cross, died, rose again from death. His death paid the blood price for sin if a human wants his blood to pay for their sins. Because Jesus did this, he proves to Satan that a human CAN live a sinless life. This proves god is fair. Why, exactly, only one human’s perfect life and then dying can pay for all the sins committed for all time by all humans is never stated.
Humans overcome sin by “becoming saved”. This means they decide to believe all the things in number 5 and apologize to god for their sins. This is called “being saved” or “redemption”. Once one is saved, one must apologize to god for every next sin ever committed. God forgives that sin, “renewing their salvation”. After one is saved and continues apologizing to god for all sins, one will live forever in heaven, after god brings heaven to earth.
God is coming back to earth with heaven, a perfect place where humans who are saved will live forever immortal with god. God will create a new perfect earth. He will resurrect all humans. Every human who does step 6 will live forever in heaven. And god will burn to death all the other people.
Adventists teach that god is in heaven somewhere in Orion’s Belt, according to their plagiarizing prophetess Ellen White. (“The atmosphere parted and rolled back; then we could look up through the open space in Orion, whence came the voice of God. The holy city will come down through that open space.” https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/3.95#95)
Only this one exact version of God is true: Of all the world religions with gods, only the Protestant Christian one is the correct god. Of all the Protestant denominations, only one has god’s Endtimes Truth, and that's Adventists.
God is three parts: Now this god is made of three parts, called the Trinity, which Adventists decided to believe in in 1957. Before that Adventists argued about it. The Adventist plagiarizing prophetess’ husband didn't believe in the Trinity. https://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/Trinity-in-SDA-History.pdf
So, the remaining 1/3 of god in Adventist beliefs is “God the Holy Spirit”. This 1/3 of god is somehow involved with creating the world; getting Jesus’ mom, Mary, pregnant with Jesus (and no penises are involved in that process and that is important) aka “incarnation”; aaaaaannnnddd the holy spirit is involved in getting people saved from sin.
”He is as much a person as are the Father and the Son.”
Underlying pronouns: This 1/3 of god uses he/him pronouns just like the other 2/3 of god. All three thirds of god is a man, y’all.
Attempted translation: Ok, so this 1/3 of god is called “spirit” but he’s not like, something not-a-person like too much a ghostly wispy immaterial thing, nope. He’s totally a “person” just like the other 2/3 of god. Adventists don’t bother defining “person” here.
“He inspired the writers of Scripture.”
Translation: So here the word “inspired” is straight up from a phrase in the King James Version of the Bible: 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God…”
The remainder of this sentence, that the holy spirit 1/3 of god in particular did the inspiring of the Bible writers, is in 2 Peter 1:21 "For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
Adventists use the vagueness of “inspired by god” to hand-wave away all the contradictions in the Bible. An exhaustive list of such contradictions is here: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2013/08/19/an-incredible-interactive-chart-of-biblical-contradictions/
Adventists blame the human writing the Bible book for errors by saying “The writer was INSPIRED by god. God didn’t tell them the exact words to write” thereby implying “The human did a typo”. Somehow this implies the human did a typo while still claiming the Bible is inerrant. Go figure.
Therefore underlying unspoken beliefs: Of all the world’s holy books and theologies about gods, and of all the Christian versions of the Bible that various Christian denominations have, only the sixty-six book Protestant version of the Bible is the correct Bible.
One can find charts of different Bible books included in different faiths here: https://www.historyinthebible.com/supplementary_pages/books-of-the-bible.html
“He filled Christ’s life with power.”
Attempted translation to plain English: The 1/3 of god that is the holy spirit is the part that gave the 1/3 part of god called “Jesus Christ” the power to do miracles.
Underlying assumptions: Miracles are real. Jesus did them.
“He draws and convicts human beings;”
Attempted translation to plain English: The holy spirit 1/3 of god “draws” humans to himself. “Draws” is here used as an intransitive verb, per DuckDuckGo search, “To cause to move in a given direction or to a given position, as by leading”. So this 1/3 of god leads humans to himself.
“Convicts” is Christianese for “a human feels guilt over an action, thought, feeling, or motive that they believe breaks god’s laws”. This guilt is “god’s convicting” the person. It's a desired thing after being saved, a sign that god is leading that person closer to himself.
Explanation of “holy spirit convicting”: In Adventism (and Evangelical Christianity too), God “convicts” individuals that differing actions, thoughts, desires, or motives—besides the big Ten Commandments laws that every Christian ought to obey—are different sins. This means that what one Adventist “is convicted is a sin” aka “feels guilty over” will wildly vary from what another Adventist feels guilty over. Also in Adventism, if one is not “convicted by god that [thing] is a sin”, then one is free to do, feel, think, believe the thing.
For instance, when I was a young teen girl influenced by Purity Culture, I was “convicted” (read: Young Disciple Magazine and my Purity Culture indoctrinated mom indoctrinated me to feel guilty) that my wearing pants was “a sin” and I should only wear long dresses or long skirts. So I did. Meanwhile if I saw another teen Adventist girl wearing shorts or pants, I was not to judge her. For god had not “convicted her” about whether wearing pants was sinful. Therefore wearing pants was not a sin—for the other girl. But because I felt guilty for wearing pants, I was therefore “convicted by god” so FOR ME wearing pants was a sin.
Leaders use Bible verse phrases to indoctrinate Adventists that things like feeling proud over a job well done, thinking one is a better human than an awful human, eating cheese, wanting to look at porn, women wearing jewelry or makeup or pants, etc., are “sins”. Therefore Adventists can be led in an ever-increasingly conservative lifestyle while feeling constant guilt for things that harm no one.
This teaching causes much unnecessary guilt. Guilty-feeling people are easily controlled to continue Jesusing harder and harder and stay in church and tithe and volunteer and recruit.
“…and those who respond He renews and transforms into the image of God.”
Attempted translation to plain English: “Those who respond” means “those who feel guilty enough to psychically apologize to God for their sins”. “Renews” is Christianese from Bible verses, meaning that once one verbally or mentally tells god that they believe Jesus died for their sins and request forgiveness for their sins, that god “renews” one’s heart by putting a “perfect new heart” in them. Roll To Disbelieve blog calls this “psychically apologizing”.
Adventists, per their plagiarizing prophetess Ellen White, must psychically apologize for every single sin they can possibly remember: “They should not be satisfied until every known sin is confessed; then it is their privilege and duty to believe that Jesus accepts them.”
Source: https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/87.264?hl=Confess+every+sin&ss=eyJ0b3RhbCI6MTE0OSwicGFyYW1zIjp7InF1ZXJ5IjoiQ29uZmVzcyBldmVyeSBzaW4iLCJ0eXBlIjoiYmFzaWMiLCJsYW5nIjoiZW4iLCJsaW1pdCI6IjIwIn0sImluZGV4Ijo1NH0%3D#274
“Transforms” is Christianese from Bible verses that means a Christian is aware of and psychically confessing every sin, trying not to re-do any sin. By repeated psychic apologizing for every sin, an Adventist is told that they will eventually become “more like Jesus” aka “do fewer things that make them feel guilty”.
Underlying assumptions: Sin is real. Psychically apologizing to god gets one’s sins forgiven. Ellen White is an authority to follow.
“Sent by the Father and the Son to be always with His children,…”
Attempted translation to plain English: So there’s the one whole god, the Trinity. 2/3 of said god are NOT on planet earth. Only the holy spirit 1/3 is on the planet. He goes around making humans feel guilty so they convert to Adventism. Then he makes them feel guilty for every wrong thing they do, feel, think, believe, so they psychically apologize for every single sin they ever have done. After THAT impossible task, an Adventist can feel satisfied they “are saved and accepted” by Jesus.
“…He extends spiritual gifts to the church,…”
Attempted translation to plain English: “The church” means “Adventists church leadership, and Adventist people as a theoretic group, and any person that is a True Christian”. Adventists have Ellen White’s writings and she was totally a prophet. Also Adventists have their own interpretation of Bible prophecy. These are the church’s “spiritual gifts”. Sometimes words like “truth, hope, love” are thrown into the mix as “spiritual gifts” by Adventist preachers.
“…empowers it to bear witness to Christ,…”
Snarky plain English: “Empowers” means “makes Adventists able to do a thing”. “Bear witness to Christ” means “recruits people to Adventism”.
It’s totes the holy spirit that makes the Adventist church recruit members. Not because it is a well-funded multibillion dollar institution designed and supported by humans to recruit other humans. Definitely not that. (Read: The Adventist church had $15.6 billion in 1998. They def have more now. Religious organizations with that much money tend to continue existing.)
“…and in harmony with the Scriptures…”
Realistic translation: We Adventists will find Bible verses to justify whatever we say Adventists believe…
“…leads it into all truth.”
Realistic translation continued: …and we Adventist leaders will change our official beliefs as needed to stay socially acceptable enough to recruit and maintain members.
(Gen. 1:1, 2; 2 Sam. 23:2; Ps. 51:11; Isa. 61:1; Luke 1:35; 4:18; John 14:16-18, 26; 15:26; 16:7-13; Acts 1:8; 5:3; 10:38; Rom. 5:5; 1 Cor. 12:7-11; 2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Peter 1:21.)
These are some of the cherry picked Bible verses used by Adventists to virtue-signal that they're definitely a biblical church following the Bible.
End belief five breakdown.
Why The Gentle Author calls Ellen Gould White “the Adventist plagiarizing prophetess”: Test The Prophet shows original Victorian Era books, first defining the Victorian definition of “plagiarize”. Then he shows the original authors’ books with content that Ellen White copied. Ellen White claimed that these texts were her visions from God. https://www.youtube.com/@TesttheProphet
All prior Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, snarked:
Belief 1 is snarked here:
https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief
Belief 2 is snarked here:
https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-91e
Belief 3 is snarked here:
https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-961
Belief 4 is snarked here:
https://talesfromacult.substack.com/p/adventist-belief-breakdown-belief-0d8