The major tenets of the Adventist doctrine of Investigative Judgment are as follows:

1. In October 1844, Jesus Christ entered the heavenly holy of holies to begin investigative judgment of the records (deeds, thoughts, attitudes, etc.) of those who have professed salvation. "Attended by heavenly angels, our great High Priest enters the holy of holies and there appears in the presence of God to engage in the last acts of His ministration in behalf of man—to perform the work of investigative judgment and to make an atonement for all who are shown to be entitled to its benefits ... in the great day of final atonement and investigative judgment the only cases considered are those of the professed people of God. The judgment of the wicked is a distinct and separate work. ... The books of record in heaven, in which the names and the deeds of men are registered, are to determine the decisions of the judgment. ... The subject of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment should be clearly understood by the people of God ... every individual has a soul to save or to loose. Each has a case pending at the bar of God ... The intercession of Christ in man’s behalf in the sanctuary above is as essential to the plan of salvation as was His death upon the cross" (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, pp. 422-423).

2. The investigative judgment is based on the law of God (the Ten Commandments); the character of each person will be tested by the standard of this law. "Every man’s work passes in review before God and is registered for faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Opposite each name in the books of heaven is entered with terrible exactness every wrong word, every selfish act, every unfulfilled duty, and every secret sin, with every artful dissembling. Heaven-sent warnings or reproofs neglected, wasted moments, unimproved opportunities, the influence exerted for good or for evil, with its far-reaching results, are all chronicled by the recording angel. The law of God is the standard by which the characters and the lives of men will be tested in the judgment. ... Those who in the judgment are ‘accounted worthy’ will have a part in the resurrection of the just. ... Every name is mentioned, every case closely investigated. Names are accepted, names rejected. When any have sins remaining upon the books of record, unrepented of and unforgiven, their names will be blotted out of the book of life, and the record of their good deeds will be erased from the book of God’s remembrance. ... All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven; as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal life. ... Sins that have not been repented of and forsaken will not be pardoned and blotted out of the books of record, but will stand to witness against the sinner in the day of God" (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, pp. 424-425, 428).

3. This judgment determines the eternal destiny of every professing believer. No one can be sure of eternal life until this judgment is complete. "The righteous dead will not be raised until after the judgment at which they are accounted worthy of ‘the resurrection of life.’ Hence they will not be present in person at the tribunal when their records are examined and their cases decided. ... Every name is mentioned, every case closely investigated. Names are accepted, names rejected ... all who would have their names retained in the book of life should now, in the few remaining days of their probation, afflict their souls before God by sorrow for sin and true repentance. ... The work of preparation is an individual work. We are not saved in groups. The purity and devotion of one will not offset the want of these qualities in another. ... Everyone must be tested and found without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. ... When the work of the investigative judgment closes, the destiny of all will have been decided for life or death" (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, pp. 425, 431-432).

4. During this heavenly judgment, God has raised up the Seventh-day Adventist Church to proclaim the ‘eternal gospel’ to all the world. This work allegedly began in 1844 and will continue until Christ’s return to earth. "The picture of the whole prophecy is clear. In the last days, as the closing judgment work began in heaven above, a special movement was to arise on earth, through which the great threefold message of Revelation 14 was to be borne to every nation, and tongue, and people. ... It was following the great Advent awakening of the early decades of the nineteenth century, reaching a climax in the years preceding 1844, that the Adventist Church arose. It has spread to all lands with the definite message of the judgment hour, calling men to the standard of the commandments of God" (The Gift of Prophecy, pp. 9, 12).

5. When the judgment is finished, Christ will return to the earth, destroy the wicked, resurrect the saved believers (who have been sleeping in the grave), and place all sins upon Satan—the Old Testament scapegoat antitype. "When the investigative judgment closes, Christ will come, and His reward will be with Him to give every man as his work shall be. ... Christ will place all these sins upon Satan, the originator and instigator of sin. The scapegoat, bearing the sins of Israel, was sent away ‘unto a land not inhabited’ (Lev. 16:22); so Satan, bearing the guilt of all the sins which he has caused God’s people to commit, will be for a thousand years confined to the earth, which will then be desolate, without inhabitant, and he will at last suffer the full penalty of sin in the fires that shall destroy all the wicked" (Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 427).

WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES: What does the Bible say about this Investigative Judgment doctrine?

1. The vision of Daniel 8:14 has nothing to do with a heavenly investigative judgment. Consider the following excellent commentary on Daniel chapter 8:

Both William Miller and Ellen G. White were wrong. Miller’s assertion that 2,300 days meant 2,300 years, these being ‘prophetic days’ of one year each, is just as much gratuitous speculation as his statement that these ‘days’ were to be reckoned from Artaxerxes’ decree (Ezra’s return to Palestine).

Verse 19 states that ‘‘the time of the end’ refers to ‘the latter time of the indignation,’ God’s indignation revealed in the Babylonian captivity. The vision therefore begins where the Babylonian captivity ends. Hence verse 20 speaks of the Medo-Persian power, which indeed destroyed the Babylonian empire.

In the vision it is therefore stated, verse 4, that the ram pushed westward and northward, and southward: i.e., the Medo-Persian empire conquered Lydia (north, 564 B.C.), Babylon (west, c.a. 554) and Egypt (south, another ten years later).

"Then came the strong he-goat, verse 5, who is the king of Greece, verse 21. Greece defeated Persia in 490 and 480 B.C. When Alexander the Great ‘magnified himself exceedingly.’ verse 8, he suddenly died at the age of 33. His empire was divided into four parts, and out of one of these divisions came ‘a little horn,’ verse 8, ‘in the latter time of their kingdom,’ verse 23; that is, when the four divisions of Alexander’s empire were going down one by one, before the power of Rome. This little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, who marched against ‘the glorious land’ (Palestine, Dan. 11:16, 41). He massacred 40,000 Jews in three days, entered the holy of holies of the Jerusalem temple, and offered a large sow on the altar of burnt offering in the temple court. This put a stop to the regular Mosaic burnt offering. Now Daniel 8:14 states that this burnt offering, which was rendered each evening and each morning, was to be omitted 2,300 times, in the evening and morning. That is to say, 1,150 days.

This prophecy was literally fulfilled: the first heathen sacrifice was offered on December 25, 168 B.C. On December 25, 165 B.C. the holy sacrifice was again offered on a newly erected altar. This is to say, the sanctuary was cleansed (1 Maccabees 1:59; 4:53). That makes exactly three years. Three years, however, equal 2,190 evenings and mornings. However, the divinely ordained regular burnt offerings had been ordered stopped some time prior to the offering of the heathen sacrifices in their stead, which accounts for 2,300 evenings and mornings as stated in the text (J.K. Van Baalen, The Chaos of Cults, p. 233).

2. The believer will not be judged by the Ten Commandments, and will not lose his salvation if his service is unacceptable. The believer has passed from death unto life. He is safe in Christ and stands and rejoices in hope of the glory of God. He has no fear of future wrath, for he is complete in Christ. All punishment for his sin fell on Christ, and he is forever free. The believer’s judgment is an examination of his service to Christ. He is rewarded or suffers loss of reward.

"For other foundation can no may lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved: yet so as by fire" (1 Co. 3:11-15). See also 2 Co. 5:5,9-10.

Note some important differences between the judgment described in these passages and the Investigative Judgment doctrine of Adventism: (1) Christ’s judgment of believers will not determine their salvation. Those who stand at the judgment of 1 Corinthians 3 will be there because they have already been saved, not in order to determine whether or not they will be saved. The ones judged in 1 Corinthians 3 are those who have established their lives through faith upon the solid foundation of Jesus Christ (vv. 11-12). (2) The believer’s judgment will not result in damnation, torment, or separation from God. Believers whose works fail the test will suffer shame and loss of reward, but not loss of salvation. "If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire" (1 Co. 3:15). Words could not be plainer. (3) Notice, too, that the believer shall appear personally before his Lord for judgment. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Co. 5:10). According to Adventist theology, the believer’s judgment occurs in the heavenly holy of holies between 1844 and the Second Coming, and the believer himself is supposedly on earth or sleeping in the grave. This is not what the Apostle Paul taught.

3. The Adventist distinction between forgiveness and blotting out of sin is not taught in the New Testament.

"...the thought that Christ did not blot out sins previous to 1844 is without one shred of Scriptural support. ... In fact, the entire distinction between the forgiveness of sins, and the blotting out of sins—which is basic to Seventh-day Adventist theology—is foreign to the Scriptures. Does David suggest that there is any such distinction when he prays in Psalm 51:1, ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions’? In the New Testament the word commonly used for forgive is aphieemi. The root meaning of this word is to let go or to send away; hence it has acquired the additional meaning: to cancel, remit, or pardon sins. Is there, now, any justification for the view that one’s sin can be canceled without being blotted out? When Jesus, for example, said to the paralytic, ‘Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven’ (Mt. 9:2), did He mean: ‘Your sins are now forgiven, but not yet blotted out; if you do not continue to live up to all my commandments, these sins may still be held against you?’ Why should the paralytic have been of good cheer, if this was the meaning of these words?" (Anthony Hoekema, Seventh-day Adventism, pp. 78-79).

4. It is unscriptural to identify Satan with the scapegoat of Leviticus 16. Both goats of the Day of Atonement—the one slain and the one released into the wilderness—represent the Lord Jesus Christ. The slain goat pictures the act of Christ’s atonement through a bloody sacrifice. The released goat pictures the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement, the blessed fact that it is once for all and forever complete. To interpret the scapegoat as a reference to Satan is blasphemy. Adventism finds confirmation of this doctrine, not in Scripture rightly divided, but in the visions of Ellen White. This is another example of how they have added to Bible revelation concerning the doctrine of last things.