Stunned By [Adventists] Ty Gibson and David Asscherick

Stunned By [Adventists] Ty Gibson and David Asscherick

Last weekend I listened, stunned, to two Adventist sermons preached verse-by-verse. One was from the much-beloved 2 Corinthians 3 passage in which Paul contrasts the covenant of death written on stone with the covenant of the Spirit written on the heart of flesh. The second sermon, preached by a different pastor, covered another much-loved passage: Galatians:3:20Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.
See All...–27. 

The sermon on 2 Corinthians 3 was delivered by Ty Gibson, founder of Light Bearers ministry, and the Galatians exposition was given by David Asscherick, a speaker and director of Light Bearers. To understand the fast-paced, evangelistic-style sermons of these two men, it helps to know the mission of Light Bearers: “To vindicate the beauty of God’s character.”

There it is: the core of Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm: God needs US to vindicate HIM.

The two sermons were articulate and intense….The verbal gymnastics were clever, but the central messages Paul intended were lost. In each case the bottom line left the audience with a message that turns biblical reality inside-out. 

Romans:3:9What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
See All...–18 and Ephesians:2:1And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
See All...–3 tell us the truth about ourselves: we are born dead in sin, unable to seek, to please, or to know God; we are unable to do good but are under the power of the spirit at work in the children of disobedience. We are by nature “children of wrath”. 

Yet both of these speakers delivered a message that neglected to tell people the truth about themselves. This lack led, then, to not telling the truth about what Jesus did when He took our sin to the cross, endured the wrath of God, died and was buried, then shattered death on the third day because of His sufficient sacrifice!

“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ [clothed with Christ] (Galatians:3:27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
See All...).

After projecting the text on the screen, Asscherick turned to the mostly-Adventist audience and asked, “How many of you have been baptized?” A few hands went up, and the speaker asked again, “How many of you have been baptized? Keep your hands up!”

Most of the audience raised their hands, and Asscherick responded, “Then you who have been baptized are baptized into Christ, and you are clothed with Christ!”

He then proceeded to exhort the audience, “You just need to believe it!” 

And there it was: Asscherick just endorsed the common Adventist explanation that water baptism is the moment of new birth. Furthermore, he upheld the belief that baptism into Adventism equals the baptism into Christ taught in the New Testament—and he completely ignored the biblical teaching of believers being baptized spiritually into Christ when they are spiritually born again and filled with the Holy Spirit! 

Oh, he said that this new position in Christ is because of what Jesus did, but he never explained what that work actually was. 

In short, the message of these “Jesus-centered” speakers is still “great controversy” Adventism. They do not teach that we are by nature dead in sin. They do not teach that Jesus took our imputed sin to the cross and literally propitiated for it, thus fulfilling the law and shattering death.

Rather, they make the case that Jesus “unmasked” Satan on the cross, revealing that he was a murderer. Thus, this work of Jesus took care of sin, and people simply need to believe and be baptized into Adventism, and they are clothed in Christ. 

In spite of the fact that both of these pastors selected central passages that teach the new covenant, they managed to avoid the clear implications of the text: true trust and belief in Jesus yields a completely new thing: a born again person who is not under the law but answers to the Author of the law instead. In fact, the new covenant of the Spirit is far superior to the covenant of the law written on stone, according to Paul. 

The biblical gospel is actually “good news”—but the reality of good news means that bad news is being addressed. The good news of the gospel is that the bad news of our natural depravity is answered in Jesus! 

Now, our hopeless state of sinfulness and all our sins that our natures propelled us to commit are either on us—or they are on Jesus. 

If we do not understand that we are not born “forgiven” but must acknowledge our sinfulness and entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus who literally shed His blood to pay for us, we remain imprisoned in our own sinful natures.

Jesus didn’t die and set the world free from sin. We aren’t born “saved”, just needing to acknowledge and “believe”. 

No! We are born condemned (Jn:3:18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
See All..., 39). Only when we believe in the Sin Bearer and trust His finished atonement at the cross as the full payment for our sin can we be saved.

And here’s the miracle that happens when we believe: we are literally born again, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3. When we believe, we pass at that moment from death to life as Jesus further stated in John:5:24Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
See All.... 

Adventism does not teach the true gospel. Furthermore, it cannot teach the true gospel because it does not teach or believe the biblical fact of our natural spiritual death. Without the bad news that we are by nature spiritually dead, the good news of Jesus’ completed atonement means very little.

[TBC: for the full text, here is the link to the article:] https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2024/01/18/stunned-by-ty-gibson-and-david-asscherick/