Recently saw an Advent preacher on the web and had a sound message which made me ask the question; other then holding Ellen Whites Writtings in too high esteem. Are they doctrinally sound?
There founding can be traced back to the prediction of William Miller who stated the Lord would return on 22 Oct, 1844.
Though many returned to their previous churches, the remainder continued with the 7DA.
Actually, they hold her writings as the word of God.
Are they doctrinally sound? Eh, yes and no. On Jesus Christ as Messiah and God, they are right on. On faith alone, not so much. They have an attitude, even if it is not written in any statement of faith of theirs, that if a person has been shown the truth about Sunday worship, or pork eating, etc, and they still continue to do these things, they will not be saved. If you speak with them they will dance around on this, but if you speak with one of them who knows their faith well, you will see the attitude reveal itself. And this is a direct cause of believing in a false prophet, EGW, who has led them down this road of errors. Once you have accepted her as a prophet, you have no choice but to obey her teaching, otherwise, you disobey God.
they have a false prophetess, they hold to soul sleep/destruction of wicked/hold to mark of the beast being Sunday worship, and held that one is saved by grace of god, but need to observe sat worship, hold to SDA beliefs etc, and that God will inveestigate your life after death to see if made it in or not by your devotion totheir cause!
Don't know if cult fits, but definitely legalistic fits the bill. Interestingly, both the SDA and the RCC reject faith alone, so they hold a major doctrine in unity.
I reject the Theory of Ellen White, but believe there were many Sabbathkeepers before SDA.
In some senses Messianic Jews today are the Legalists. But we can confirm that many of them are bornagain believers.
Even in Acts 21:20 we find many Believers of Early Church were legalists.
Also, many Bible verses are mistranslating the verses in NT. For example
Eph 2:15, what was destroyed was not the Law, but the Enmity.
Also, in Col 2:14 many misunderstand the Law was destroyed, but the Letter of Accusation against us was destroyed.
Many translations are misleading today about Romans and 1 Tim1:8-10, Galatians etc.
So, as long as SDA keeps the Holy Spirit, I wouldn't categorize them as cult.
Can you imagine a Baptist askin' if some group is doctrinally sound?
WOW! ... I guess it's possible ... Yup, I just read it.
Just proves ... anything's possible! .
Don't think luther/Calvin any of them holding to orthodox faith held to 'soul sleep!"
they held to absent from the body, present with the Lord!
And SDA denies that we are saved by gave alone, thru faith alone, as MUST hold to their sabbath views, hold to prophetess White, and hold to good works needed to avoid investigative judgement of God!
So meets the test for a bible cult, as do mormons/JW!
The SDAs are in cahoots with RCism on many things and on most important issues.
What is most tragic is that the Sabbath of the LORD GOD is ALWAYS seen and treated as the Day of Worship-Rest of the Seventh-day Adventist 'church', virtually as belonging to them ... exclusively!
Which is EXACTLY WHAT BOTH THE SDAs and the RCs WANT and mutually APPROVED AND AGREED UPON.
Also on the BASIS for the Seventh Day Sabbath's 'remembrance', namely: THE LAW, THE LAW, THE LAW AND NEVER BUT NEVER FOR ITS CHRISTIAN REASON-FOR-BEING, namely: the Resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ, "ON THE SABBATH DAY".
What a pity!
Thus it will stay the status quo until Christ comes again.