A Response to the Video:
Seventh-day Adventism, the Spirit Behind the Church

by Bob Pickle

Answers to Questions Raised by:
Mark Martin, Sydney Cleveland
Dale Ratzlaff, The White Lie
. . . and Others

Discern Fact from Fiction

The Role of Mrs. White and Her Writings

#24: "To this day official publications of the church have used her writings as the last word on doctrine."—David Snyder.

#24: They're used as the last word on doctrine. This is simply not true. If the Bible is Adventism's "last word on doctrine," how can Mrs. White be?

After the Bible, who has the next-to-the-last word? Some super-smart scholar with seven Ph.D.'s who can quote the Bible from memory in the original languages backwards, or a divinely inspired prophet? The answer ought to be obvious to every Bible-believing Christian.

Having grown up in the wilderness, John the Baptist was considered inferior in education to the rabbis and scholars of his day, yet Jesus declared that there was no greater prophet than John (Mat. 11:11). In the journals of that day, who should have had the next-to-the-last word: the inspired prophet John the Baptist, or Dr. Nicodemus, Ph.D.?

What is really at issue here are two theological points:

1. Were the gifts of the Holy Spirit really to remain in the church till the end of time as Ephesians [p. 30] 4:11-14 and Joel 2:28-31 indicate?
2. Are the writings of one true prophet more inspired than the writings of another true prophet? Was the apostle Paul more inspired than the apostle James or the prophet Amos?

Seventh-day Adventists should not be faulted for taking the biblical position on these points.

No documentation whatsoever is given for this point in the documentation package. However, under "Point 17" is a page from a Ministry magazine article dated October 1981. The first paragraph says:

For Seventh-day Adventists the one standard, rule, and ultimate authority for doctrine is the Bible. All other doctrinal authorities are subordinate. "God will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible, and the Bible only, as the standard of all doctrines and the basis of all reforms," Ellen White wrote (The Great Controversy, p. 595). "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is to be our creed, the sole bond of union. . . . Let us lift up the banner on which is inscribed, The Bible our rule of faith and discipline."—Selected Messages, book 1, p. 416.

Well would it be if those responsible for the content of this video had read their own documentation.

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