Seventh Day Adventist: Independent, Historic and Reform Movements
Anyone who turns to Yahuwah with a sincere desire for more light will be led into still greater truth. Many honest-hearted Seventh-day Adventists, concerned with the doctrinal compromises they see creeping into their church, have sought to return to the original beliefs of the Adventist pioneers. They have formed various independent churches espousing doctrines they feel are pure and more true to the original theology of Adventism. Among these sincere believers, the danger is especially great to discount the command to flee Babylon as not applying to themselves since they have already left an organization they see as having compromised on truth.
Scripture provides no exemptions, however. Following are some of the errors based on tradition and assumption still clung to by these earnest truth-seekers:
- Understanding the perpetuity of the divine law, including the fourth commandment, members of the various independent Adventist churches continue to worship on Saturday, the seventh-day of the modern, Gregorian week. This practice is based on the assumption that the modern week has cycled continuously and without interruption since Creation. A careful study of Scripture and history, however, reveals this tradition for the error that it is. Only the luni-solar calendar of Creation can accurately establish the correct and original seventh-day Sabbath of Scripture.
- New Moons are ignored among the majority of these believers, although Scripture classifies them being in a particular class of holy day. Scripture further reveals that New Moons will be observed in the earth made new: “And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Yahuwah.” (Isaiah 66:23)
- The practice of observing the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday is continued by these Sabbatarian truth-seekers. Such a practice, however, is based on an incorrect application of Scripture. The command for a sundown-to-sundown observance was given only for the Day of Atonement. A day beginning at midnight comes from pagan Rome; a day beginning at sundown from pagan Greece. Scripture reveals Yahuwah began the day at dawn.
- Most believers seeking doctrinal purity still cling to belief in a triune godhead. A three-in-one godhead may be traditional, but it is not Scriptural. The trinity is a doctrine that comes from ancient paganism. The Bible makes plain that Yahushua, while born of a virgin, is a human being - not a diety.
- They teach that the redeemed will inherit Heaven. Scripture, however, teaches the immortality in the earth made new is the reward of the saints.
- They believe that the millenium will be spent in Heaven. Scripture, however, teaches that the millennial kingdom will be set up on earth.
- Many former Adventists continue to observe the pagan holidays of Christmas and Easter. They ignore the pagan elements of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but attempt to commemorate the birth, death and resurrection of the Saviour at these times. These practices mingle the holy with the profane. Such observances dishonor the very One they seek to revere. The early Christians continued to worship on all the holy convocations of Yahuwah for hundreds of years after the death of Yahushua. The annual feasts of Yahuwah commemorate important events in salvation history and are as binding today on those who would obey as when the law was given in grandeur from Mt. Sinai.
- Sabbatarian truth-seekers understand to an unusual degree the significance of the three angels’ messages of Revelation in combination with the call to flee Babylon given by another angel in Revelation 18. Without the knowledge of the true Sabbath, however, their understanding has been limited. The mark of the beast is much larger and more comprehensive than Saturday observant Christians have understood. Only those who accept the truth of the ancient Sabbath, calculated by the calendar established at Creation, can understand the full scope of these all-important prophecies.
Yahuwah has promised those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled. All error separates believers from the source of truth. The heavenly Father now invites all the truth-seekers of the independent Adventist churches to lay aside all error and follow the Lamb into all truth.