December 26, 2017 Show with Dr. Desmond Ford on “The Investigative Judgment & The Everlasting Gospel”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris.

Arnzen. Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 26th day of December 2017, the day after Christmas.

I am so delighted to have on this program for the very first time Dr. Desmond Ford. Dr. Ford received his BA in Theology at Avondale College in Australia. He has his Master's in Systematic Theology from Andrews University and a PhD in Rhetoric about the Pauline Epistles from Michigan State University here in the United States and another PhD in Eschatology from Manchester University in England.

He is a teacher and minister of the Gospel and has been for over 50 years. He's a former head of the Religion Department at Avondale College in Australia for over 16 years, a former member of the Biblical Research Committee, the Seventh-day Adventist Chief Theological Committee in both Australia, now working independently through a nonprofit ministry for over 20 years in Auburn, California and the USA.

And that is called Good News Unlimited, and today we are going to be discussing Seventh-day Adventism, the investigative judgment, and the everlasting gospel, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron,.

Dr. Desmond Ford. Thank you, Chris. It's my privilege and my honor and I do.

Indeed thank you for this opportunity. Yes, I thank you even more because I know that you had to get up at a ghastly hour of the morning to be on the program. It's right now, just a little past 7 a .m. in Australia, at least where Dr. Ford is in Eastern Standard Time.

And by the way, the church that I am a member of, Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, we were a part of a church plant just recently in Perth, Australia, and I was wondering if you are anywhere near Perth?

It's five hours by plane. Wow. It's the most isolated city in the world, five.

Hours from Sydney. Wow. Well, before I even go into a bit of your own personal testimony, I wanted to get an idea of the kind of religious atmosphere you were raised in, and how the Sovereign Lord drew you to himself, and saved you, and how you believe you had a call to the ministry.

But before we do that, let our listeners know something about Good News Unlimited. Well, Chris, Good News.

Unlimited began when I was exiled from the Adventist Church because of my protests against investigative judgment teaching, which I knew that most of the scholars for 75 years had rejected. So when I was put out of my teaching position at Pacific Union College, hundreds of people around America who had heard me preach of weekends, they got together and formed Good News Unlimited, and it's been going for nearly 40 years.

In Australia, I've probably taken several hundred talks for Good News Unlimited in this country, but I've also spoken in many other countries, Canada, England, Russia, Germany, and so on. As for my Christian background, I was born an Episcopalian.

We call them Anglicans over here, and I was fortunate enough to hear some good preachers as a young boy, probably from what we call the Low Church. Sydney is a center of the.

Evangelical Low Church. Yes, I actually know a minister from that group, David.

Auld. Do you know David? I don't know David, but there are many wonderful men in the Sydney Anglican Church. There were men like Leon Morris and all sorts of men who were very influential. Well, I attended the Anglican Church, but I was challenged regarding the Fourth Commandment, whether it should be taken literally like the other nine, and I believe that the Ten Commandments, as interpreted by the New Testament, was still binding, and as a boy, I could not find anything in the New Testament about a change from the seventh day to the first.

So I became an Adventist at that time, but not long after Chris, in reading Hebrews 9, I got a shock. In Hebrews 9, verses 7 and 8, 12 and 25, as well as Hebrews 10, 1 to 4, and Hebrews 6, 19 and 20, I found the New Testament clearly taught that the Day of Atonement pointed to the cross, whereas Seventh-day Adventists had it pointed to their origin in 1844, and the New Testament said it pointed to Calvary, and I was still only a teenager, 15 years of age, and it gave me a shock, and I worked for years to try and find a way out of that problem, and I failed.

So ultimately, when, because of my emphasis on the evangelical college, I was moved to America to get me out of Australia, there arose a ferment in America among us over 1844 and the investigative judgment, and I was asked by the Forum of PUC if I would speak on the subject at a forum meeting.

This is 1979. I said it will only cause trouble. They said no, you.

Can say anything you like in a forum. And they promised you immunity, didn't they?

That's correct. Well, they were a lovely group of people, and I said yes, because for 30 years, I'd been trying to get the Adventist church to face the problems, especially those in Hebrews, but not only Hebrews.

In Daniel chapter 8, the little horn has its first fulfillment in Antiochus, and it's talking about a wicked power depiling the sanctuary, not the sins of the saints, and then I found out too that the year-date principle wasn't a biblical one.

I think God and his providence used it for centuries when Christians were worried about the delay of the second coming, but an Adventist minister, a conference president for his PhD, wrote a dissertation called The End of Historicism, and that got rid of the year-date principle.

So at Pacific Union College, the forum expected 20 people or 40 or 60, but they came to 100, then 200, then 500, and 1 ,000, and we had to leave our site and go up to Irwin Hall. It was a great sight to see hundreds of people going up to Irwin Hall, and I spoke there for about an hour, and I proclaimed myself a loyal Adventist, but not a traditional one.

I saw things differently to my own people in a number of respects, and I dealt with Daniel 8, and I dealt with Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 6, the year-date principle, the misuse of Ellen White as a Bible instead of as just a pastor, and they asked another man, Dr. Syme, if he would reply to me, but he stood up and said, I mainly agree with Dr. Ford.

I'm not going to say anything negative. Well, this upset the church, and they gave me six months to prepare a document that would be studied at a worldwide committee, and I wrote 1 ,000 pages for it and rejoiced at the opportunity, because here was God's providence giving me a chance to point out the problems of the church, and at Glacier View, everyone was very friendly except the president of the church.

He was not quite so friendly, but everyone else was friendly, and they had all sorts of meetings, but the meetings counted nothing. Finally, they had a consensuous meeting with some very good men, Fritz Guy and Duncan Eve, William Johnson, that's J-O-H-N double S-O-N, very spiritual man, all good men, but the document they came up with in at least seven places, key places, supported what I'd written, but my judges that Friday didn't know enough theology to see that, so I said to my brethren, you've already accepted a large section of what I've said against the investigator, only a few years, and you'll accept it all.

So, Chris, I want to emphasize this. I have nothing but affection for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but my sorrow is that despite the fact the scholars gave it up three quarters of a century ago, there's not been a scholarly book written on investigative judgment for over a century, despite the fact that ministers.

Have given up, the leaders persist in cherishing it. Wow. Now, I think it might be helpful for us to back up and give some basic universal beliefs and practices of the Seventh-day Adventist Church for the listeners that I have that are very unfamiliar with them.

Most people know that Seventh-day Adventists worship on Saturday. In fact, they believe, just as the Jews, that the Sabbath begins sundown on Friday, and I know that many, but not all, Seventh-day Adventists are vegetarians, and I know that they obviously hold a prophetic view of Ellen G. White.

Can you share anything else? And also, I know that there is a unique view of eschatology, if I'm not mistaken, that Seventh-day Adventists hold, but if you could tell us basically what universally.

Are doctrines held by Seventh-day Adventists. Chris, this is an excellent question. Let me say first that James A. Beverley has written a book, Nelson's Guide to Religions, in which he says that Adventists are mainly orthodox.

They are not cultic. Here he is echoing Walter Martin, whom I knew years ago. Walter was a diabetic and died of a heart attack, while still apparently in good spirits and good health, but he and I talked together, and he wrote documents saying Adventists are not cultic, but they hold some views that are pretty close to cultism, in elevating Ellen White against her desires, making her almost a Bible, though she said, never use my writings instead of the Bible.

And Adventists, by a yearday principle, have set a series of dates, every one of which is wrong. 1844 is wrong. 538 is wrong. 1798, even the date they give for Christ's death, 31 AD, is wrong. And they are thus defying Christ, who on Acts 1 -7 said, it's not for you to know the dates.

So the three things that stand out that are heretical in Adventism is this idea that the saints can't have assurance, because they're coming into an investigative judgment before Christ returns, and many who think they're saved will be lost.

There's no assurance if you believe the investigative judgment teaching. And yet John 5 -24 says, you've passed from death unto life. You have eternal life. You're not under condemnation. The Bible repeatedly says that.

1 John 4, these things are written that you may know you have eternal life. The Christian rejoices. He's one with Christ. He was buried with him in baptism. He rose with him on the third day. He died with him at Calvary.

And so he has the verdict of the last judgment. So that's the worst investigative judgment. But the historicist approach to prophecy, trying to interpret the Old Testament prophecies using the year-day principle, is out of date.

An Adventist conference president wrote his PhD dissertation, The End of Historicism, and many Adventist ministers have read it and given up the year-day principle, but the church leaders still cherish it.

Many of them good men, but sadly, many of them ignorant theologically. And then, perhaps in some ways, the worst mistake, Ellen White, who lived to 87 years, who took over 450 public meetings, sometimes to 22 ,000, often just to a couple of thousand, spoke in 82 cities, even in her 80s, travelled across America and back, taking meetings.

A great lady, I've known many who knew her, but Adventists have abused her. They have misused her. They've used her as a Bible, as though every line she wrote was inspired. She said, as for infallibility, I've never claimed it.

I don't honour God by error. Age won't make error into truth. Truth can afford to be fair. Don't think, God, you've believed something for years. Your ideas are infallible. But the church has not obeyed their prophetic leader, and they've used Ellen White as though she was this, and Ellen White was wrong.

In great controversy, there are at least 14 passages where the Bible is exegeted, and every one is wrong. Not one of them is the day in Adventist literature. Not one. And when she wrote Desire of Ages, in the last page of the Calvary chapter, she applied the Day of Atonement to the cross.

And when she wrote Acts of the Apostles, years later, on page 33, she applied the Day of Atonement to the whole atoning ministry of Christ, from his incarnation to his second advent. So there are the three problems with Adventism.

And my problem is, they know it. Many of the leaders know it, but they have not the courage to say, we were wrong. We have dishonoured God. We've brought fear to the hearts of millions of our people by teaching an investigative judgment that doesn't exist.

They're New Testament Christians. There's not a line in the New Testament about the investigative judgment. I've written four or five books on Daniel. There's not a line to support in Daniel.

An investigative judgment. Now, when you wrote the book Daniel 8 .14, the Day of the Atonement and the Investigative Judgment, were you at that time a non-believer in that teaching?

Oh, yes. That book of a thousand pages originally was to show that all the excuses used for the investigative judgment, all the so-called biblical arguments, every one of them was wrong. And the reason the book is so big, I was looking ahead to the future.

Anyone who would criticize, anyone who would try and support, and the fake, dead, passé doctrine, would find the answer in the book you have just entitled.

Now, did Seventh-day Adventism become, over the years, more biblically orthodox since the days that Ellen G. White founded it? Because I've heard, and perhaps you could either confirm or dismiss these ideas, but I have heard that Ellen G. White originally, at least, denied the Trinity and the deity of Christ.

Are those true claims that she denied those two things? And the other thing would be that I have heard that the Adventists and Ellen G. White originally believed that there would be no other professing Christians in heaven other than the Seventh-day Adventists.

In other words, all other denominations were false churches, and worshipping on Sunday is the mark of the beast, and therefore no one who is worshipping on Sunday, at the return of Christ anyway, would be saved.

Are those true statements?

Chris, you are right in saying that those things have been said, but it is not true that those things are found in Adventist literature of the last 60 or 70 years. The idea of the mark of the beast was something that would happen in the future when church and state united to persecute a non-conforming taught by many eschatological scholars on Revelation 13, but they brought in the Sabbath there, and they said whoever obeyed man rather than God then, at the end of time, would get the mark of the beast.

But all those things you have mentioned cannot be found in Adventist writings of the 50s or 60s years before today. Ellen White believed in the Trinity. It is very clear in the first chapter of Desire of Ages.

W. W. Prescott helped to write it. He was very orthodox and a man who had been president of colleges and who gave up the investigative judgment. Ellen White did not believe that people of other churches were lost.

She told Adventist ministers, go and pray with other ministers. Don't speak so much against the Catholics. And Adventists have had a, you know, Adventists have been known as people that hate the Catholics and don't eat meat.

That's a terrible picture, and it's dangerously true for a small minority.

It's not true for the church at large. Well, the not eating meat part, at least that was something that they had in common with the Catholics at one time when they used to forbid it on Friday. But that of course is not anymore, is not a discipline anymore.

Now as far as Ellen G. White's status as a prophetess, do you, did the, well, let me rephrase this. I got the opinion through my friendship with a Seventh-day Adventist pastor years ago that there was disagreement on what level of respect and authority she and her writings had.

You had those that nearly put her writings on par with the scriptures or above it, and you had others who viewed her no more, with no more authority than I would view my hero Charles Adams Spurgeon. Where is the truth in regard to what a Seventh-day Adventist must believe about her?

Well, Ellen White never once said she was a prophet. She wrote about a hundred thousand pages, more than any woman before her or since. Many of those pages are beautiful gospel pages. The book Steps to Christ is a wonderful gospel book.

It's gone to 100 million copies, translated into 165 languages, and I think, Chris, that you'd agree with every page of it. I read it as a boy of 10 before I was an Adventist and found the love of God.

And later on, when I was debating with people about perfectionism, she said, since we're fallen, we cannot perfectly obey a holy law, but our righteousness comes from Christ. So Ellen White, at least in the last 25 years of her life, particularly after 1888, when there was a great among Adventists over the gospel, ever since that time, she made the gospel her main theme.

She said it's the sweetest melody of human lips. She said we don't have to make our peace with God. You never can. You never will. But you're called to accept Christ, who is our peace. She said you don't have to be anxious about what God thinks of you, only what he thinks about Christ.

So she would have agreed with those verses to run and work the law commands, but gives me neither feet nor hands. Better news the gospel brings. It bids me fly and gives me wings. I love that hymn. That's a beautiful hymn.

So she was very much gospel the last 25 years, and she over and over again said don't use my writings instead of or in front of the Bible. I have a book here called Evangelism on page 256. He says let none bring the testamies to the front.

But there are Adventists who are very extreme, but they're in every group. Chris, even where you worship, there'll be some that perhaps you think at times are a little.

Extreme. It's true in every church. Reformed Baptist? Never. I'm just kidding.

Like every individual Christian, we say with Paul, wretched man that I am. Who'll deliver me from this body of death? He said that in the section on sanctification, Romans 6, 7 and 8. It's in the present tense.

It's in the first person. It's 14 years after he was converted, and he said wretched man I am. Was he committing adultery? No. Killing? No. Stealing? No. Why'd he say it? He didn't love enough. He didn't pray enough.

He didn't trust enough. So he said wretched man that I am. There aren't any perfect Christians.

Now, as I told you before the program, I really enjoyed the episodes of the John Ankerberg program that you conducted with Walter T. Ray. That was quite some time ago. Was that in the 80s, 1980s?

I think it was in the early 1980s. Okay. Yeah. That was a fascinating program,.

And you were still, at that time, a Seventh-day Adventist, although...

Yes, I was officially sacked two years later, but one year before, I knew I was sacked, because I offered to give me a job in the health food factory.

And I guess that was a diminishment of your role there.

I did not think God had called me to work in the factory.

And, well, it seemed that you were, at the time, when you were doing the Ankerberg program with the Reverend Walter T. Ray, that you were, although you were agreeing with Reverend Ray on many things, Reverend Ray who wrote the book The White Lie, although you were agreeing with him on many things, there was a bit of mild tension between the two of you.

You were in disagreement. And I was wondering, since then, have you come to be more in agreement with Reverend Ray than you were then? Or what has changed since those John Ankerberg episodes.

In your life? I disagreed with the bitterness, the sarcasm, the approach I felt of Walter, who was my friend, but I felt his approach was not a Christian approach. And I am still opposed to anyone who uses a bitter spirit in their fight against Ellen White or against Seventh-day Adventism.

Our only job is to exalt Christ and to exalt this book. So where have I gone since that time? Well, I'm more and more sure of all the things I wrote in the thousand-page manuscript on Daniel 8 .14 and in Best Go to Judgment.

I'm more sure than ever. And that's why, although I love the Adventist people, I feel somewhat shy in attending their meetings, because I'm not one with them in their intellectual beliefs, because they hold to three dominant heresies that I cannot agree with.

And I'm more there now, even when I was with Walter Ray, although I held those three beliefs at that time, but not in a bitter spirit. By the way, you mentioned Walter Martin.

Earlier. One of my most loyal listeners is his daughter, Cindy. Right. Well, I knew Walter well.

We ate together. We laughed together. We prayed together. We disagreed together. When he and I argued on many things, we came out as one. But when we argued on the nature of man,.

We didn't. He just refused to pursue it. We're going to be going to a break right now, and I'd like to let you know in advance, Dr. Ford, that either mute your microphone on your side during the break or try not to speak, because everything that you say will be heard during my station break.

So I just wanted to warn you in advance about that. I don't want to have you say something that you'd rather not have broadcast over the air. But we're going to be returning in just a minute. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with more of Desmond Ford's Seventh-Day Adventism, the Investigative Judgment, and the Everlasting Gospel. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnsin,.

If you just tuned us in. Our guest today for the full two hours, with 90 minutes to go, is Dr. Desmond Ford of Good News Unlimited. He is a former Seventh-day Adventist, and today we are addressing the theme of his book, Seventh-day Adventism, the Investigative Judgment, and the Everlasting Gospel.

If you have a question you'd like to ask, our email address is ChrisArnsin at gmail .com. ChrisArnsin at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old USA.

And Dr. Ford, I'd like to ask you a question. How much have you retained in your current theological positions and active faith from your Seventh-day Adventist days?

That is a splendid question. I believe wholeheartedly in the inspiration of the Bible. I retain that reverence and respect. I still very much long for the second advent of Christ, from which Adventists took their name.

I am still a Sabbath keeper, but I'm usually worshipping where I preach, and I have taken thousands of meetings since the church said goodbye to me. So in many respects, I still maintain what even non-Adventists call a type of orthodoxy, except for the Sabbath.

I still have found no evidence from the New Testament that said the seventh day was changed to the first. But in most things, I'm very much an orthodox Christian, and therefore in many ways still an Adventist.

But I reject the investigative judgment. I reject the historicist interpretation of prophecy, and I reject the use of Ellen White as a Bible. Chris, before I forget it, can I ask you a question?

Sure.

Is there any chance you have influence in America that I don't have? I long for the day when Christian magazines, perhaps getting it from you, will say, Desmond Ford, as he enters his 90th year, urges the church leaders of Adventism to give up teachings which they know are wrong, especially investigative judgment.

Any hope of that happening?

Only God knows that. I probably have a lot less influence here than you may think I do, but I do have a couple of acquaintances who are Seventh-day Adventist pastors who have had various—or varying, I should say—responses to me when I brought up things like the investigative judgment.

Some held to it firmly, and others have told me that there is prayerful investigation—no pun intended—going on behind the scenes amongst ministers who are questioning things like that. So he told me that he—one of them, anyway, I'm not going to identify him, of course—but one of the Seventh-day Adventist pastors that I spoke with told me that there was a lot more doubting and questioning of some traditional Adventist beliefs that have been viewed by those outside of Seventh-day Adventism as heretical.

So he told you the truth. More and more Seventh-day Adventists refuse to speak on investigative judgment. It's passé. I took a meeting for 350 Adventists about two years ago near Avondale College, and they asked 13 Adventist ministers if they would reply to me.

Not one would accept it.

Well, we have some listeners already who have questions they want you to answer. First of all, we have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, and she says, Our daughter went to an Adventist medical university in Mexico.

She was taught that water baptism was to be done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and in the name of Ellen G. White.

Oh, that's terrible.

And can you ask the question, using my name or not, what does Reverend Ford say about this?

I say that is altogether wrong, and I have never seen an Adventist baptistry cursed by such wrong words. We don't baptize in the name of Ellen White. Adventists never have, do not, and never will. But I can't vouch for things that happen in Mexico.

And we have a listener in Slovenia. His name is Joe. Dear brothers, Chris and Desmond, I'm wondering about what Seventh-day Adventists believe about the human nature of Christ. Do they believe that Jesus Christ possessed a human nature that was not only weakened by sin, but had propensities towards sin itself?

Do they believe that his nature was like that of Adam after the fall? Do they teach that because of his success in overcoming sin, Jesus is primarily our example?

That is a splendid question, and it is true that Seventh-day Adventists too often spoke of Christ having a fallen, sinful nature. But in the last 25 years or longer, the Church has repudiated that, beginning with the book Questions on Doctrine, and ending with the book Seventh-day Adventists Believe.

So we were guilty of it, and it's a terrible teaching, because as far as the New Testament is concerned, Christ is our saviour first, and our example second, and we should never reverse it. I cannot labour with my hands to save my soul.

This the Lord has done. But I would work like any slave for love of God's dear Son. So the questioner is right on the beam. Adventists have been guilty of that, but not since the book Questions on Doctrine.

First appeared some decades ago. So did Ellen G. White teach that, that Jesus had a fallen, sinful nature?

There are some very early statements, very few, but there are a few lines that might indicate that. But never in her last decades of life. In her last decades of life, she said exactly the opposite. Ellen White was like other women.

She changed her mind sometimes.

But unfortunately, as you know, there are people that view her speaking infallibly, which I know that you disagree with.

Definitely disagree with.

Yes, and I guess that also hinges on the controversy over the impeccability or peccability of Christ.

Yes.

And I know that even people from a more mainstream evangelical Protestant background do even disagree on that part.

Yes, much depends on how much we worship John Calvin. He's one of my heroes. But I must say of John Calvin, that even like Spurgeon, who was one of his successors, there's no infallibility in any man that breathes.

Amen.

And there's no theological statement that cannot be questioned. I think that as God, Christ was not peccable.

You cut out, brother. I don't know what you said after you said, as God, he was not peccable. But then...

Yes, yes, that's where I stopped. I do not think that Christ could have chosen to sin. Physically, he could. Physically, he could. Spiritually, he could not. He was God in the flesh.

And we have a listener from Lindenhurst, Long Island, CJ, who says, I saw a documentary on Ellen G. White that seemed to clearly document irrefutably that Ellen White, from her own words, believed in vegetarianism because it was her way of diminishing the male sex drive.

Is this true?

I have probably read more of Ellen White than practically every Adventist who draws breath. I've never read that statement. And I'm rather critical of programs that pretend to speak about reality of over 100 years ago.

So I do have a question regarding the questioner's comment, because I've never read anything in Ellen White that says just that.

And we also have, let's see, B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. B .B. in Cumberland County asks, let me have you clarify something in regard to Ellen White. You appear to still uphold her as a great woman of God, and yet she taught something that annihilated the very gospel itself.

How can you uphold her as a sister in Christ if she has done that? Yeah, let me give you an example. I'm a former Roman Catholic. And although I know that there are Roman Catholics, or should I say, I believe that there are Roman Catholics who are truly regenerate, who I will see in heaven, but it is not because of Roman Catholic dogma.

It's in spite of it. And because of the fact that many Roman Catholics do not believe either consciously or unconsciously, they do not believe in Roman Catholic dogma when it comes to justification and other crucial elements of the faith.

I cannot call a Roman Catholic that says he's faithful to Trent, my brother or sister, for example. But those that I know who say they don't agree with Trent on justification, even though they shouldn't be Roman Catholic by saying that, I have confidence I'll see them in heaven.

Now, how would you view not only Ellen White or anyone else who's an Adventist who seems to eclipse the gospel or deny the gospel by believing.

In this investigative judgment? I would then be tempted to deny anything they said. Ellen White, in her book Selected Messages, a compilation, pages 350 to 400, speaks just on the gospel. And I find every line that she's written in those 50 pages agrees with the many books I have from non-Adventist writers on justification, the gift of the spirit, the forgiveness of sins and repentance.