3306.— Seventh-day Adventists and Universalists
By Editor
Enclosed is an article published in Sent of God in which one calls Seventh-day Adventists "offshoots of Universalists." Please state if this is true. And is it also true that Seventh-day Adventists teach the remarriage of divorced parties without Biblical reason? J. First, if the writer knew anything about Universalism or Seventh-day Adventism, he knew that what he said was absolute falsehood. If he did not know it he ought not to have said it. Seventh-day Adventists have always taught conditional immortality and life only through Christ. This view is abundantly sustained by the Scriptures, and is the only thing that will meet Universalism on the one hand or eternal torment on the other. Universalism sets aside in its ultimate the absolute justice of God, while eternal torment or eternal life in misery makes Him a horrible tyrant without mercy, compassion, or justice, while the Scriptural view is that which appeals to the reason of every true heart. If man does not want life enough so as to use it in the way of the Giver, he is deprived of the precious boon. Second, regarding marriage, Seventh-day Adventists believe the words of our Saviour in Matt. 5: 32, "Every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress: and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery." The same thing is stated in Matt. 19: 9: "Whoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery." It is nonsense to read the text as the above paper presumes: "But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife which can not be except for fornication and marry another committeth adultery." It is a perversion of the scripture. The scripture reads just as clearly to leave out the supplied expression "it be," as in the A.R.V. Man and wife can separate and obtain legal separation for other causes, but divorce to a Christian should be based on the one cause given in the above scriptures.