SDA Issues - Gospel according to Johnsson

Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation,

it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort [you]

 that ye should earnestly contend for the faith

which was once delivered unto the saints. 

For there are certain men crept in unawares,

 who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,

ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness,

and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:3-4

“The common salvation” and “the faith once delivered to the saints” depict a singular gospel for every person and every circumstance.  It does not change with the times or the situation.  Similarly, the Three Angels’ Messages (Revelation 14:6-12), begin with “the everlasting gospel.”

Dr. William Johnsson, who formerly edited the Review for about 25 years, wrote The Fragmenting of Adventism, which he updated in his book Where Are We Headed?  Adventism after San Antonio,

published by the Pacific Union Conference in April 2017.   

Johnsson says that “two radically different versions of Adventism are competing for the future.”
The book infers that entire unions might leave the denomination if pushed to comply against their consciences regarding women’s ordination.

First, let’s consider the gospel according to Johnsson......he essentially reduces the gospel to “Christ died for our sins.”   
In contrast, the Bible says that if Christ were not raised, we would yet be in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:17).  So, obviously, salvation could not be completed at the cross. 

Johnsson does not emphasize the importance of Christ as our example, nor His living

ministry today to empower that example in the lives of believers, nor the fact that, without holiness, no one will see the Lord.  Hebrews 12:14.    
In contrast, the Bible marries the living ministry of Christ to His death on the cross.  Both aspects are essential to salvation, as are justification and sanctification.  

    Limiting saving righteousness to justification apart from regeneration and sanctification is a one legged gospel which has produced the Laodicean condition of false assurance as described in Revelation. 

Years ago, Johnsson’s wife Noelene, helped produce a curriculum called GraceLink for our young people, which has been likewise noted for divorcing salvation/grace from conversion/obedience. 

Just as a false gospel and toleration of immorality were bedfellows at the time Jude wrote his epistle, so they are bedfellows in the church today as exposed in the LGBT agenda ....   However, Johnsson makes no mention of this particular divide in the church.   He also does not mention how the hermeneutics of Dr. Sakae Kubo, which he praises, have led Kubo to publicly advocate the acceptance of gay marriage within the church.

Worse yet, the one-sided picture of grace that many Seventh-day Adventists accept today would qualify as a subtle form of spiritualism according to Ellen White.  She says that spiritualism, in its final disguise, would profess to accept Christ and the Bible, but would dwell on the love of God to the neglect of his holy law, his justice, and His judgment....Spiritualism is not only knocking at our doors.  It has already entered the church, bearing fruit in sanctioned immorality within its borders.   

Furthermore, when sexual immorality came into Israel on the borders of the promised land, Israel received the judgments of God in a plague.  While Moses was weeping and praying for the plague to be removed Zimri, a prince in Israel, strode into the camp with a prostitute on his arm.  The plague was not removed in response to the prayers of Moses until Phinehas executed judgment on the pair in Zimri’s tent.  Likewise, God expects proper church discipline within the church today to avert His coming judgments on our apostasy.

If God abhors one sin above another, of which His people are guilty, it is doing nothing in case of an emergency.   Indifference and neutrality in a religious crisis is regarded of God as a grievous crime and equal to the very worst type of hostility against God.  Testimonies to the Church, Vol . 3, p. 280 E.G.W.".
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