Critique of Dr. Jerry Moon's Adventist Review Trinity Article

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Dear Reader, What follows is a critique of Dr. Jerry Moons article in the Adventist Review, regarding the adoption of the trinity doctrine by the SDA church. A critique of Dr. Moon's statements will be made below such statements of his as we find to be errant and/or misleading. Ron Beaulieu    

Heresy or Hopeful Sign?

Early Adventists' Struggle with the Truth about the Trinity

by Jerry Moon Ph.D. , professor of church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan


"Although we claim to be believers in, and worshipers of, only one God, I have thought that there are as many gods among us as there are conceptions of the Deity," wrote D. T. Bourdeau in the Review in 1890.(1) What could have led Bourdeau, a highly respected evangelist and missionary in Canada, Europe, and the U.S.A., to make such a pessimistic statement about Seventh-day Adventist beliefs regarding God?

Ron B. Commentary: The same pessimistic statement may still be made about current Seventh-day Adventists beliefs, for there is a growing rise of dissension concerning the Trinity doctrine as it relates directly to the Omega Heresy, as defined by Ellen White, when she stated that the Omega Heresy would involve the presence and personality of God. The Trinity doctrine has everything to do with the presence and personality of Christ as regards his pre-Incarnation and post-Incarnation state of being. The trinity doctrine removes the Sanctuary and the Atonement, thus it removes God from the church. Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 202 and 205.

Dr. Moon:

It may come as a surprise to some that the consensus reflected in the 1980 statement of fundamental beliefs didn't always exist among Adventists. The story of how the church came to doctrinal agreement on the Trinity, affords insights into several aspects of how Adventists discovered truth and preserved church unity amid a diversity of viewpoints.

Ron B. Commentary: The church never did come to any doctrinal agreement on the Trinity. The GC Session bulldozed the 27 Articles of Belief through, without giving the constituency proper time to study the issue of the Trinity doctrine. The Trinity doctrine was introduced into the SDA church in the early 1930s by one man, LeRoy Froom, without any GC in Session voice or vote.

Dr. Moon:

Part of the legacy of the Great Disappointment of Oct 22, 1844 was that it taught its survivors a profound distrust of human opinion and tradition concerning the Bible. It instilled in them a fierce determination to test every belief by Scripture and to reject every doctrine not firmly grounded on a "Thus saith the Lord." This meant that virtually everything had to be investigated. The pioneers weren't endowed scholars with unlimited time for study, but people with families to raise and bills to pay. Consequently, the process of reaching doctrinal consensus was a slow and lengthy one.

Ron B. Commentary: Even though the pioneers were not endowed scholars with unlimited time for study, and were indeed people with families to raise and bills to pay, they were taught more by the unction of the Holy Spirit about the errors of the Trinity doctrine, than so-called "full time" scholars of Adventism understand today, and Dr. Jerry Moon is a case in point. Dr. Moon slights the ability of the Holy Spirit to be able to teach us anything it desires, and as fast as it desires, without us having to be full-time scholars of the Word. Ellen White says that the Holy Spirit can teach us more in short time than we could learn in a lifetime without its aid.

Dr. Moon:

The first priority was to solve the problem of why Jesus had not come on October 22, 1844, the end point of the prophecy of Daniel 8:14. Study on this issue led Hiram Edson and Owen Crosier by February 1846 to a fairly comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the Old Testament earthly sanctuary and the New Testament heavenly one where Jesus had been ministering since His ascension.(2)

Ron B. Commentary: Very early, James White was writing anti-trinitarian articles. Proof of this fact that the pioneers had an understanding of the trinity errors even before 1844, was the living fact, admitted later in this article by Dr. Moon, that many of them came out of the Christian Connection Church, which was adamantly against the trinity doctrine and understood the utter despite it did to the Atonement of Jesus Christ. In this regard, they were decades ahead of current SDA thought leaders on the question, such as Dr. Jerry Moon.

Dr. Moon:

Meanwhile, others had been studying the seventh-day Sabbath. The biblical basis for the Sabbath was one issue on which there already existed extensive writings because Seventh Day Baptists had already been observing it for two centuries. But the interconnectedness of Sabbath and sanctuary with the three angels' messages and other end-time prophecies still had to be worked out.

Ron B. Commentary: As stated, the errors of the trinity doctrine were more taken for granted as "givens" than other matters, because many of the early pioneers came from the Christian Connection Church where such "givens" were well understood and believed.

Dr. Moon:

Another example of what seems today as a surprisingly slow discovery of a biblical lifestyle is that more than fourteen years after the Disappointment, James and Ellen White were still apparently using pork.(3) It was not until issues of church organization had been settled in May 1863 that Ellen White received the first comprehensive vision on health reform, which called Adventists to complete abstinence from pork(4) and pointed out the advantages of moving toward a vegetarian way of eating.(5) But what about the other animals listed in Leviticus 11 as inappropriate for dietary use? Another 40 years would pass before Adventists reached agreement that oysters, for instance, were also to be omitted from the diet of Bible-believing Christians.(6)

In view of this lengthy process of doctrinal development in which lay people as well as ministers took an active part, it is not so surprising that some teachings assumed by most Christians were rather late in receiving attention from this small but rapidly growing Christian denomination.(7)

Ron B. Commentary: Teaching on the Godhead was not late. Correct teaching on this point was in effect by SDA pioneers, even before they became identified as Seventh-day Adventists; even before 1844, as witnessed by their Christian Connection Church membership.

Dr. Moon:

The Adventist understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity came about through a long process of scrutiny, initial rejection, and eventual acceptance. The early Adventists had no question about the biblical testimony regarding the eternity of God the Father, the deity of Jesus Christ "as Creator, Redeemer and Mediator," and the "importance of the Holy Spirit."(8) However, they weren't initially convinced that the relation between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is best described by the word "trinity."

Ron B. Commentary: Not only "initially" were the pioneers not convinced of the trinity doctrine, they, including Ellen White, were NEVER convinced of such.

Dr. Moon:

Anyone who has done any reading in theological writings about the Trinity knows that there can be a vast difference between the bare biblical statements about the Trinity and philosophical speculations about it. Some who have encountered the philosophical speculations may be pardoned for questioning whether they really have any biblical basis. The use, however, of extra-biblical words to describe biblical concepts is not inherently wrong. The word "millennium," for example, is an extra-biblical Latin term for a thoroughly biblical concept--the 1000 years of Revelation 20. So "trinity" is a Latin term meaning "triad" or "trio"---three components that make up one whole.

Ron B. Commentary: The issue is not whether or not the word trinity appears in Scripture, but whether or not there were three persons comprising the Godhead before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Before the Incarnation, the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT, the ONE SPIRIT HOLY SPIRIT, was shared in common by the Father and the Son, and was "laid aside" by Christ at His Incarnation to become His Successor, because His humanity cumbered His ability to be everywhere at once which omnipresence was clearly part of His first estate of being--His pure Divinity state not combined with humanity. The notion that three distinct persons comprised the Godhead prior to the Holy Spirit becoming Christ's SUCCESSOR at His Incarnation, when He laid off His Holy Spirit, the Soul of His life, for us, is purely philosophical speculation, without any Biblical support whatsoever, notwithstanding the many references to the Holy Spirit's existence from eternity. That Holy Spirit was the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT shared by the Father and the Son. Shared? Yes, because there was only ONE ETERNAL Spirit according to Scripture, and that Spirit was innate to the Father and Son before Christ's Incarnation.

Another issue with the pioneers was the trinity teaching that there were three persons who were really one. The pioneers believed that there were two distinct persons, the Father and the Son, and that the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT was innate to their Being. Ellen White said that the Holy Spirit became the third person SUCCESSOR to Christ when He laid aside His Royal Robes and Crown at His Incarnation, His very Holy Spirit, His life, soul and breath, as a gift to us. This is when a third person became part of the Godhead, and that third person was non other than the very first estate of Christ's Soul and Breath, His very Personal innate Holy Spirit essence.

Dr. Moon:

The biblical doctrine of the Trinity refers to the concept that God is One (Deut. 6:4), but that the Godhead or Deity (Col. 2:9) is composed of three Persons--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14, etc.).(9) The term Person indicates a Being with personality, intellect, and will. Unlike the multiple gods of polytheism, the three Persons of the biblical Godhead are perfectly united in nature, character, and purpose so that despite their individuality, they are never divided, never in conflict, and thus constitute not three gods, but One God.(10)

Ron B. Commentary: If there is only ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT, then, prior to Christ laying off of His Holy Spirit Soul and Breath at His Incarnation, to be His SUCCESSOR, there were only two persons comprising the Godhead. For if the Holy Spirit was different from the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT, and existing from eternity as especially a different person from the person and soul Holy Spirit of Christ, then there were of necessity four persons comprising the Godhead: 1) God the Father and His Holy Spirit Soul and Breath person. 2) God the Son and His Holy Spirit Soul and Breath person. 3) God the Holy Spirit and His Holy Spirit Soul and Breath person. 4) God the Eternal ONE SPIRIT soul and Breath person.

Dr. Moon:

How this can be explained has been the subject of much thought and speculation over the centuries. But just as the concept of Incarnation---Deity becoming flesh (John 1:14)---defies human ability to fully explain, yet is nonetheless a truth the Bible teaches and Christians accept, so also with the Trinity.

Ron B. Commentary: There is no mystery to the Godhead when one considers the truth of the matter, that the Holy Spirit was Christ's Soul and Breath, and that He laid aside such at the Incarnation to take on another form of Divinity combined with humanity. Thus, the Holy Spirit of Christ became His successor, comprising a third person of the Godhead at the Incarnation and not before. Before the Incarnation, there was God the Father, God the Son, and their ONE ETERNAL HOLY SPIRIT. If the Holy Spirit, Christ's Holy Spirit, sired Christ, then He was Divinity, but not the PURELY DIVINE ONLY form of Divinity He was before taking on a COMBINED form of Divinity plus humanity.

"Let this mind be in you which was IN CHRIST JESUS--WHO, being in the FORM of God, WHO considered EQUALITY with God no robbery,Divested Himself (of His FORM as GOD, and His Equality with God)and took UPON HIMSELF the FORM of a slave, and was made in the LIKENESS of men; and being found in FASHION as a man, HE humbled HIMSELF, and became obedient unto death, even the death upon the Cross." Phil. 2:5-9.

It is the same person, Jesus Christ, throughout this passage. It is Jesus Christ who was in the FORM of God, who was EQUAL with God, but A NEW FORM OF GOD COMBINED WITH HUMANITY. This SAME PERSON, Jesus Christ, DIVESTED HIMSELF of His former FORM and EQUALITY, HIS FIRST ESTATE FORM OF PURE DIVINITY ONLY, and took upon Himself a NEW FORM COMBINED WITH HUMANITY. Remember, it is the SAME PERSON with a NEW FORM -- a slave. This same person WAS MADE in the LIKENESS OF mankind. This SAME PERSON who has a NEW FORM, a NEW LIKENESS, HUMBLED HIMSELF (He subordinated Himself to His Father). This SAME PERSON who previously had the FORM of God, and was EQUAL with God, who NOW has the FORM of a slave, the LIKENESS of mankind, being found IN FASHION as a man, HUMBLED HIMSELF, and BECAME OBEDIENT UNTO DEATH -- EVEN THE DEATH of the CROSS AND EVEN THE DEATH TO, NOT OF, HIS FORMER FIRST ESTATE AS PURELY DIVINE AND NOT COMBINED WITH HUMANITY. Ellen White consistently describes this as Christ CLOTHING HIMSELF with Humanity, thereby VEILING His Divinity. His DIVINITY was NOT LOST, but VEILED, CLOTHED, HIDDEN, etc. Throughout this Kenosis, Christ's DEITY remained HIS OWN; the GODHEAD remained fully and completely His, but in a NEW FORM, that was different from His first estate purely divine form.

Dr. Moon.

Here's where part of the problem occurs. The theological explanation of the Trinity doctrine over the centuries imported analogies and illustrations that made sense to the people of a given time and place and helped make the concept understandable to them. These additions to the Scriptural data, however, sometimes went far beyond the actual statements of Scripture. While they made a certain sense at the time they were written, they sometimes seemed unbiblical or even nonsensical to people of other times and places. Some writing about the Trinity is a curious mixture of Bible, medieval philosophy, and the personal opinions of the writer.

Ron B. Commentary: The Trinity doctrine as held by professing SDAs has "additions" to the Scriptural data, because it cannot be proven from the Bible that the Holy Spirit existed as a separate and distinct person prior to the Incarnation. Oh yes, it can be proven that the Holy Spirit existed contemporaneously from eternity with the Father and the Son, as an innate part of their BEING, but that is all that can be proven from Scripture, and that is all that can be proven from Ellen White. She does not contradict Scripture, even though certain statements by her are strained to try to make her say otherwise--that the Holy Spirit existed as a third person from eternity. She says plainly that the Holy Spirit was Christ's life, soul and breath and became His SUCCESSOR at His Incarnation. There was not a third person until that life, soul and breath of Christ was laid aside at His Incarnation to become his SUCCESSOR--which was merely the continuance of His first estate. Christ's combination with humanity at His Incarnation was His second estate of Being.

Dr. Moon:

This wasn't lost on some Christians of the early 1800's, who associated the doctrine of the Trinity with other traditional beliefs they personally rejected. So it was that an American denomination called the Christian Connection concluded that the doctrine of the Trinity, at least the form of it that they had encountered, was of non-biblical origin. Some prominent Millerites, such as J. V. Himes, and early Sabbath-keeping Adventists, including Joseph Bates and James White, had been members of the Christian Connection.

Either because of the influence of these leaders, or because others had independently come to similar conclusions, the Adventist pioneers who questioned the doctrine of the Trinity included the most influential writers among them, with one major exception---Ellen White.(11)

Ron B. Commentary: Concerning the pioneer belief that the trinity doctrine was non-Biblical, Ellen White was not a major exception. She was not an exception at all. Even the Catholics admit that the trinity doctrine does not have a Biblical basis. Notice:

"Our opponents [Protestants] sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in Scripture (ignoring that it is only on the authority of the Church we recognize certain Gospels and not others as true). But the Protestant churches have themselves accepted such dogmas as the Trinity for which there is no such precise authority in the Gospels..." (Life Magazine, October 30, 1950).

A few Ellen White statements have been wrongly construed by SDA leaders to mean something they do not say when all of them are taken and interpreted so that none of them contradict. For example, when her statements that the Holy Spirit is the life, soul and breath of Christ, which became His SUCCESSOR AT THE INCARNATION, are added to the string of statements that try to make the Holy Spirit a separate and third distinct person from eternity, obviously, there is a failure of interpreting so that nothing contradicts.

Dr. Moon:

Whatever may have been Ellen White's original beliefs, she never expressed anti-Trinitarian views in her writings, and she eventually led Adventists to reconsider and accept a Biblical concept of the Trinity, as we shall see later.

Ron B. Commentary: Ellen White certainly did express the very strongest of all possible anti-Trinitarian views when she said that the Holy Spirit was the life, soul, breath and blood of Christ, rather than a third separate and distinct person from eternity that succeeded Him at His Incarnation. It was not until that Holy Spirit of Christ survived Him to be His SUCCESSOR at His Incarnation that His Holy Spirit became His SUCCESSOR as a third person. Here are the statements that are not factored in by SDA Trinitarians:

"The Holy Spirit is the breath of spiritual life in the soul. The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. It imbues the receiver with the attributes of Christ. Only those who are thus taught of God, those who possess the inward working of the Spirit, and in whose life the Christ-life is manifested, are to stand as representative men, to minister in behalf of the church." Desire of Ages, 805.

"Christ gives them the breath of HIS OWN SPIRIT, the life of HIS OWN LIFE. The HOLY SPIRIT puts forth its highest energies to work in the heart and mind." Desire of Ages, 827.

So to say that the Holy Spirit is an entirely different person from Christ, is just not true. It is Christ's first estate person--Soul, Breath, Life and Blood, before the Incarnation. This was laid aside at the Incarnation as Christ assumed a new form of Being combined with humanity FOREVER. He thus "died" to His first estate of BEING, to assume another state (form) of being. Before His Incarnation, there were only two persons comprising the Godhead--God the Father, God the Son, and their innate, inherent ONE ETERNAL HOLY SPIRIT.

"The Holy Spirit is Christ's representative, but divested of the personality of humanity, and independent thereof. Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally. Therefore it was for their interest that He should go to the Father, and send the Spirit to be His successor on earth. No one could then have any advantage because of his location or his personal contact with Christ. By the Spirit the Saviour would be accessible to all. In this sense He would be nearer to them than if he had not ascended on high.
This promise belongs to us now as surely as it belonged to the disciples.... Let every church member kneel before God, and pray earnestly for the impartation of the Spirit." E.G. White, God's Amazing Grace, 191.

And what is the impartation of the Spirit? Again:

"The Holy Spirit is the breath of spiritual life in the soul. The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. It imbues the receiver with the attributes of Christ. Only those who are thus taught of God, those who possess the inward working of the Spirit, and in whose life the Christ-life is manifested, are to stand as representative men, to minister in behalf of the church." Desire of Ages, 805.

"Before offering Himself as the sacrificial victim, Christ sought for the most essential and complete gift to bestow upon His followers, a gift that would bring within their reach the boundless resources of grace. 'I will pray the Father,' He said, 'and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you" John 14:16-18." Desire of Ages, 669.

Before 1890: Anti-Trinitarian Arguments

Among the reasons given by the early Adventists for rejecting the Trinity was the misconception that the Trinity made the Father and the Son identical. Joseph Bates wrote regarding his conversion in 1827, "Respecting the trinity, I concluded that it was impossible for me to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, was also the Almighty God, the Father, one and the same being." D. W. Hull, J. N. Loughborough, S. B. Whitney, and D. M. Canright shared this view.(12) And they were right in rejecting the concept that the Father and Son are the same person. This is an ancient heresy that denies the three-ness of God and asserts that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are indistinguishable as separate personalities.

Ron B. Commentary: The Father and Son shared the same ONE ETERNAL HOLY SPIRIT. They were not three persons before Christ laid aside His first estate Holy Spirit person at His Incarnation as a gift to mankind.

(13)

Another objection to the Trinity was the misconception that it teaches the existence of three Gods. "If Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are each God, it would be three Gods," wrote Loughborough in 1861.(14)

 

Ron B. Commentary: Since the doctrine of the trinity teaches that the three persons of the Godhead are one, that negates the fact that Christ was the one person of the Godhead that died on the cross. If they are all one, then they all must need to have died on the cross. Ellen White and the pioneers spoke of the person of the Godhead as distinct and separate persons.

A third view was that belief in the Trinity would diminish the value of the atonement.(15) Since the "everliving, self-existent God" cannot die, then if Christ had self-existence as God, He couldn't have died on Calvary, they reasoned. If only His humanity died, then His sacrifice was only a human one, inadequate for redemption. (see sidebar).(16)

The trinity doctrine totally nullifies the Atonement of Jesus Christ because it totally denies that the Holy Spirit was the personal Spirit of Christ, that became His successor when He laid off that first estate of His being FOREVER, at His Incarnation, as a gift for us. This satisfied the necessity of "death" of the Divine Testator, Christ, which was effected by Christ laying off this form of His first estate of existence as pure Divinity without being combined with humanity. This was like "death" to that existence. Christ was not any part human when he testated the Everlasting Covenant. Without the laying off of Christ's Holy Spirit at the Incarnation, there was no Atonement. Without this sacrifice of Christ, which provided a regenerating agency as a gift to us, the Atonement would have been null and void--of no avail.

"The Spirit was given as a regenerating agency, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail." E.G. White, Review and Herald, May 19, 1904, The Promise of the Spirit, pr. 3,

Dr. Moon:

The fact that Christ is called Son of God and "the beginning of the creation of God" (Rev 3:14) was thought to prove that He must be of more recent origin than God the Father.(17) It was also argued that "there are various expressions concerning the Holy Spirit which would indicate that it [sic] couldn't properly be considered as a person, such as its being 'shed abroad' in the heart [Rom. 5:5], and 'poured out upon all flesh' [Joel 2:28]."(18)

What Happened to Christ's Deity When He Died?

Ron B. Commentary: The Holy Spirit could not be "poured out" to us in all its power, until Christ offered it up to us as a sacrifice at the Incarnation, to be sent to us upon His glorification. The Holy Spirit was not a third person until it became Christ's successor at His Incarnation, as a gift to us. It was first given as such at Pentecost. Before the Incarnation, it was merely an influence in the earth; the influence of the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT shared by Christ and the Father. But after the Incarnation, and more specifically after Christ's glorification, we could partake of the Divine Nature of Christ, and have it planted in our hearts.

Dr. Moon:

Most of these objections to the Trinity are either based on misunderstandings of the trinity doctrine, extreme distortions of it, or speculative extra-biblical additions to it. None of them is a valid objection to the true biblical view of one God in three Persons. Yet all of the objections were based on biblical texts. This shows that while misunderstanding or prejudice may have played a part, the pioneers were united in basing their arguments on Scripture. As long as they appealed to Scripture itself rather than to a creed as their rule of doctrine, they were bound to discover the truth sooner or later.

Ron B. Commentary: Because the pioneers appealed to Scripture itself, rather than to a creed compiled according to the intellectual speculations of man, the pioneers were bound to discover the truth, and they did right from the beginning of the SDA Church. They knew the error of the trinity doctrine. Even the Catholics admit that the trinity as defined by the ecumenical Council of Nice, had no basis in Scriptural fact. There are two specific errors of the trinity doctrine:

1. The error that the persons of the Godhead are three persons in one, rather than three persons in purpose and objective.

2. The error that the third person existed from eternity, instead of from the Incarnation.

3. The error that the persons are not separate and distinct persons. This overlaps with point number 1.

1898: Turning Point

Dr. Moon:

The watershed for the Adventist understanding of the Trinity came in 1898. In that year Ellen White published her monumental Desire of Ages, in which she differed sharply with most of the pioneers regarding the preexistence of Christ. She lost no time in bringing up the main point. Her third sentence declared, "From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the Father" (italics supplied). Yet even this sentence was not sufficiently unequivocal to clarify her position regarding the deity of Jesus. Later in the book, writing on the resurrection of Lazarus, she quoted the words of Christ, "I am the resurrection and the life," and followed them with a seven-word comment that would turn the tide of anti-Trinitarian theology among Adventists: "In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived" (p. 530, emphasis supplied). Christ didn't ultimately derive His divine life from the Father. As a man on earth, He subordinated His will to the will of the Father (John 5:19, 30), but as self-existent God, He had power to lay down His life and take it up again. Thus in commenting on Christ's resurrection, Ellen White again asserted His full deity and equality with the Father, declaring "The Saviour came forth from the grave by the life that was in Himself." (p. 785, see also the next two paragraphs)

Ron B. Commentary: The watershed for Adventist understanding of the trinity doctrine came from the pioneers who were part of the Christian Connection Church. That church understood the errors of the trinity doctrine. Certain statements by Ellen White are taken from Desire of Ages, to try to support the trinity doctrine, but other statements from that same book, interpreted so that nothing contradicts, defy the trinity doctrine, and we have cited those statements in a previous section of this document.

These statements came as a shock to the theological leadership of the church. M. L. Andreasen, who had become an Adventist just four years earlier at the age of 18, and who would eventually teach at the church's main North American seminary, said the new concept was so different from the previous understanding that some prominent leaders doubted whether Ellen White had really written it. After Andreasen entered the ministry in 1902, he made a special trip to Ellen White's California home to investigate the issue for himself. Ellen White welcomed him and "gave him access to her manuscripts." He had brought with him "a number of quotations" concerning which he "wanted to see if they were in the original in her own handwriting." He later recalled,

"I was sure Sister White had never written, "In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived." But now I found it in her own handwriting just as it had been published. It was so with other statements. As I checked up, I found that they were Sister White's own expressions.(19)

Ron B. Commentary: Ellen White's statement that "In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, and underived." proves nothing favorable to the trinity doctrine. It does prove everything against the trinity doctrine! It proves that Christ's Holy Spirit, that He laid off at the Incarnation, sired Himself into the womb of Mary. This is how Christ had divine life, original, unborrowed, and underived. This is what Ellen White meant. This statement served two very important purposes:

1. It disproved Arianism. 2. It disproved the trinity doctrine, that the Holy Spirit was a third person existing from eternity. If the sire of Christ at His Incarnation had been a distinct third person of the Godhead, then Christ's life would have been derived, non-original and borrowed from a speculated third person of the Godhead existing from eternity, rather than from Christ's own Holy Spirit at the Incarnation.

Desire of Ages contained equally uncompromising statements regarding the deity of the Holy Spirit. In pages 669-671, Ellen White repeatedly uses the first-person pronoun "He" in referring to the Holy Spirit, climaxing with the impressive statement, "The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent, and without this, the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. . . . Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power" (emphasis supplied).

Ron B. Commentary: It does not take much spiritual discernment to see Dr. Moon's twisted perversion of the above E.G. White statement. What the statement really means in the context of Ellen White's statement that the Holy Spirit was the life, breath, soul and blood of Christ, is that without the sacrifice of that life, breath, soul and blood of Christ, for us, at His incarnation, the Atonement would have been useless--of no avail. Why? Because the Atonement would have insured only one thing--justification for continued sinning. There would have been no gift of a regenerating agency for the purpose of sanctification and overcoming sin and the cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary. Note:

"The atonement of Christ is not a mere skillful way to have our sins pardoned; it is a divine remedy for the cure of transgression and the restoration of spiritual health. It is the heaven-ordained means by which the righteousness of Christ may be not only upon us, but in our hearts and characters.--Letter 406, 1906." E.G. White, SDA Bible Commentary, Vol. 7a, 464.

In denying that sacrificial gift of the very life, soul, breath and blood of Christ, the trinity doctrine says that it was another Third Person that contributes this gift, rather than the very life, soul, breath and blood of Christ. No third person "Holy Spirit" existing from eternity could make the Atonement as the Testator, for it was Christ and His Holy Spirit that made this Everlasting Covenant with the Father. The third person came into play when Christ sacrificed His person Holy Spirit as a gift for us FOREVER.

Dr. Moon:

The result of these and similar statements was a division of opinion among the ministers and leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist church. Some, like General Conference president A. G. Daniells, Review and Herald editor William Prescott, and Andreasen, accepted these statements as inspired doctrinal correction for the church. Others, disbelieving that they could have been wrong for so many years, continued to repeat the old arguments.

Ron B. Commentary:

The old arguments were true, except for any reference to Arianism. The views on the trinity doctrine and the despite it did to the Atonement were and are right on target. Dr. Moon is using the Semi-Arianism of some of the pioneers as a "smokescreen," to try to get you to believe that Andreasen, Daniels, and Prescott, agreed to the trinity doctrine, when all Ellen White's UNDERIVED, UNBORROWED statement did was disprove the notion that Christ's life was borrowed and derived from the Father, and that it was not as ageless (eternal) as was that of the Father, which was Arianism.

Dr. Moon:

Ellen White's testimony, by calling attention to Scriptures whose significance had been overlooked, created a paradigm shift that couldn't be reversed. As Adventists, like the Bereans of Acts 17:11, returned to the Scriptures to see "whether those things were so," they came to a growing consensus that the basic concept of the Trinity was a biblical truth to be accepted and embraced. The change didn't occur overnight, but no new anti-Trinitarian publications came from denominational presses after 1898.(20) Some reprints of older books and articles still contained such views, but these were eventually discontinued or edited to reflect the new understanding.

Ron B. Commentary: This is quite an admittance of Dr. Moon. Yes indeed, books were changed to delete any reference to anti-trinitarian views. This was an abomination that left the church desolate of the presence of God Almighty, because the Omega Heresy, according to Ellen White, has to do with the presence and personality of Christ, Selected Messages, Book 1, p. 202. See page 205, for the words: "God being removed." The trinity doctrine effectually "removes God," by denying the Atonement and the sacrifice made by Christ in the heavenly Sanctuary at His Incarnation. Thus, the Atonement and the Sanctuary are GONE. Did Ellen White envisage this as part of the Alpha and Omega? Notice:

Sanctuary Gone Atonement Gone -- "In a representation which passed before me, I saw a certain work being done by medical missionary workers. Our ministering brethren were looking on, watching what was being done, but they did not seem to understand. The foundation of our faith, which was established by so much prayer, such earnest searching of the Scriptures, was being taken down, pillar by pillar. Our faith was to have nothing to rest upon--the sanctuary was gone, the atonement was gone." E.G. White, The Upward Look, 152.

Dr. Moon:

God seldom gave light by visions until His people had done their best to investigate what the Scriptures had to say on the subject. If Ellen White had corrected every incomplete understanding of truth, some Adventists would have done nothing except sit and wait for her to write.

Why No Correction Till 1898?

Some may wonder, "If the pioneers were wrong about such a basic matter, why didn't God lead Ellen White to correct them right at the beginning?" That question involves three issues: the timing of God's purposes; the method of His working through Ellen White; and the relation of both timing and method to the unity of the church.

Ron B. Commentary: The reason there was no correction till 1898, is because there was never any correction at all, because the pioneers had it right! The trinity doctrine was never supported by Ellen White.

Dr. Moon:

Regarding timing, it's generally recognized(21) that God had a definite order of priority for introducing new truth to the church. Instruction to publish came in the 1840s; the call for "church organization" came in the 1850s; and just two weeks after the conclusion of a long contentious struggle that resulted in the legal organization of the church (May 1863), God sent the comprehensive vision on health reform.(22) Perhaps God saw that the young church could sustain only a certain level of uncertainty and debate without breaking up its unity, so He paced the introduction of new light to not overwhelm the believers.

Timing was important, not only in institutional developments, but in doctrinal development and correction as well. In correcting doctrinal errors, Ellen White was very careful not to unnecessarily disrupt church unity over issues that might need correction but which weren't as essential to practical godliness as some people thought. Even concerning the great issue of righteousness by faith that tore the church apart in the 1880s and early '90s, Ellen White tried initially to keep that from being brought before the church in a contentious disunifying way. Only after both G. I. Butler and E. J. Waggoner had gone into public print with their disagreements did Ellen White concede that since the damage of disunity had already been done, the only way out was by a full discussion in order to discover the truth about the issues under debate.

She never wrote an article directly confronting wrong views about the Godhead. But she published in Desire of Ages and elsewhere statements that couldn't be explained away and that were destined eventually to change the view of the church.

Ron B. Commentary: Dr. Moon, by this statement, demonstrates great ignorance and lack of ability to understand, just as Ellen White remarked about the ministering brethren not understanding (The Upward Look 152), and just as Isaiah 56:10-12 says that ALL of the watchmen cannot understand. Ellen White's statements quoted by Moon and Froom can indeed be "explained away," as interpreted by these ministering brethren. All one has to do is to interpret them with other statements that Moon and Froom ignore in the same book, Desire of Ages. Those statements we have cited previously in this document, and have to do with the Holy Spirit being the life, soul, breath, and blood of Jesus Christ, rather than being a third person BEFORE THE INCARNATION. The Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ did become His SUCCESSOR when He laid it off at the Incarnation, so there have been three persons to the Godhead since the Incarnation, but that third person is not a strictly distinct third person, because it is the Holy Spirit person of Jesus Christ, as that person existed in its first estate of not being combined with humanity, before the Incarnation.

Dr. Moon:

Thus the timing and method of God's leading through Ellen White reflected not only concerns for church unity, but for safeguarding the spiritual life of the church and its foundation in personal Bible study. If every time someone studied the Bible and came to an incomplete understanding of truth, Ellen White had corrected it, soon Adventists would have done nothing except sit and wait for her to write. Historically, the progressive understanding of truth has always involved groping after it, writing partial understandings, to be corrected and advanced by others afterward.

It appears to be a pattern in Seventh-day Adventist history that God seldom gave light by visions until His people had done their best to investigate what the Scriptures had to say on the subject. The few exceptions were cases where perhaps God saw there was too much at stake to wait for the normal process to work itself out. Much more often, He allowed partial truth or outright error to stand for months or even years while people studied it and evaluated it from Scripture. If the error would be refuted from Scripture, God didn't need to send a vision to deal with it.

 

Ron B. Commentary: The error of the trinity doctrine was refuted from Scripture, and God didn't need to send a vision to deal with it. The Christian Connection Church saw the error, and it was not given to them in vision. Remember, even the Catholic church has enough discernment to see that the trinity doctrine cannot be proven from the Scriptures. That is apparently more spiritual discernment than current SDA ministering brethren have, to wit:

"Our opponents [Protestants] sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in Scripture (ignoring that it is only on the authority of the Church we recognize certain Gospels and not others as true). But the Protestant churches have themselves accepted such dogmas as the Trinity for which there is no such precise authority in the Gospels..." (Life Magazine, October 30, 1950).

Just as the Catholics brag about Protestants following their lead in Sunday keeping, in spite of the fact that there is no Biblical basis for such, they also brag about Protestants following their lead in appropriating the trinity doctrine, when Catholics themselves admit that there is no precise authority for that doctrine in the gospels.

Dr. Moon:

While the early Adventists eschewed the term "trinity," much of what they did believe was compatible with Trinitarianism, as they occasionally acknowledged(23) (see sidebar)." The pioneers in the 1840s and '50s were approaching the Bible from the standpoint of other extremely important doctrines, such as the earthly and heavenly sanctuaries, which have everything to do with the character of God. In the divine purpose for this movement, the understanding of the character of God was a higher priority than the understanding of His nature.

Ron B. Commentary: This is some of the worst double-speak I have ever witnessed. Everything in the Sanctuary points to Christ and His character and nature. It is utterly impossible to separate the Atonement, the Sanctuary, and the Human Nature of Christ and pre-Incarnation of His Holy Spirit first estate person from one another.

Dr. Moon:

After extensive Bible study, confirmed by revelation, laid the foundations of the sanctuary and related doctrines, God led Ellen White to invest more and more of her time in studying and writing about the life and character of Christ. In connection with this rediscovery/revelation of the character of Christ, both in his full humanity and His full deity, she was led to correct two errors that had prevailed regarding Christ and the Holy Spirit. Christ had been regarded as less eternal than the Father, and the Holy Spirit had been regarded as merely a power or influence coming from Christ and the Father, rather than as a divine Person, co-equal with Christ and the Father.

Were early Adventists Arians? 

Ron B. Commentary: As proven by the fact that some of the pioneers knew the evils of the trinity doctrine from the pre-Adventist days as members of the Christian Connection Church, they did not have to study those issues. The nature of the Godhead was understood before the Adventist movement in 1844. Ellen White did make clarifications later on, but clarifications away from the trinity doctrine, and not for it, if all extant data is interpreted so that nothing contradicts.

Dr. Moon:

The acceptance of Christ's full eternity and the Holy Spirit as the "Third Person of the Godhead" removed the two greatest reasons for opposition to the doctrine of the Trinity. With the new perspective provided by Desire of Ages, Adventists went back to their Bibles and discovered a whole range of information about the Godhead that they had not noticed before. They became convinced that indeed, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were three divine Persons. Yet they found clear Scriptural teaching as well that these three were one in nature, character, and purpose. Thus they constitute one God, not three gods. The belief in three divine Persons who constitute one God is precisely the concept for which the term Trinity stands.

Ron B. Commentary: The acceptance of the trinity doctrine by SDAs since the early 1930s, is the greatest of all heresies, because it nullifies the Atonement and the Sanctuary Message. It has everything to do with the presence and personality of Jesus Christ, and is thus the Omega heresy prophesied by Ellen White, upon which all other heresies are built, and are nothing but symptoms of that great heresy. Remember, Ellen White says in Selected Messages, Book 1, 202, that the omega would involve the presence and personality of Christ, and on page 205, that the omega would "remove God." Thus the Atonement and the Sanctuary where God resides, has been removed. This issue will grow and proliferate because it is the root of all apostasy in the church. All other abominations are mere symptoms of this greatest of all blasphemic abominations.

Dr. Moon:

For these reasons, leaders from the second generation of the pioneers and many others after 1898 accepted the doctrine of the Trinity as a further unfolding of the biblical truths that the first pioneers had accepted. This unfolding illustrates the divinely-ordained reason the pioneers were reluctant to make official statements of doctrine and absolutely refused to vote a creed---because they recognized there was more truth coming, and they didn't want to hinder it by defining their beliefs too rigidly.

Ron B. Commentary: It has been proven in a Doctoral Thesis by Russell Holt, that none of the pioneers accepted and believed in the trinity doctrine. Even George Knight said that no pioneer SDA would be a member of the church today, because of the anti-trinitarian views they held, and he is right! Dr. Moon is wrong.

Dr. Moon:

Seventh-day Adventists still hold to that principle. Even though they voted in 1980 a Statement of Fundamental Beliefs, they still maintain that the Bible is their only creed. The Fundamental Beliefs can and will be refined as further insights clarify old truths or as new situations necessitate new explanations to the world of what the Bible teaches and what Seventh-day Adventists believe.

Ron B. Commentary: Ellen White said: "Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the NEW MOVEMENT." Selected Messages, Book 1, 205. The omega of apostasy New Movement--New Organization, formed "among" within the current professing SDA church, is the Omega of Apostasy Movement, and nothing will stand in its way. It will never reverse its anti-Christ trinity doctrine by which it has aligned itself with the Central Doctrine of Rome and her daughters. This constitutes the worst abominable heresy known to man, the trinity doctrine that removes GOD, THE ATONEMENT, AND THE SANCTUARY. Beware!

Response to Dr. Moon's Sidebar Comments

What Happened to Christ's Deity When He Died?

One of the early Adventist arguments against the Trinity doctrine was that if Christ had been eternally pre-existent with the Father, He would have been immortal and thus could not have died on Calvary's cross.

In order to protect the reality of His death on the cross, the pioneers felt they had to deny that Christ had pre-existent divine immortality. Ellen White plainly rejected this reasoning, explaining that when Jesus died on the cross, "Deity did not die. Humanity died" (MS 131, 1897). Again she wrote, "Humanity died: divinity did not die" (Youth's Instructor, Aug. 4, 1898; both quotations are in SDA Bible Commentary, 5:1113).

In explaining that only Christ's humanity died, she in no way minimized the divine component of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary. Christ's deity did not die, but suffered something far worse--­the rending of the Trinity. "Christ felt His unity with the Father broken up" (Desire of Ages, 686) and suffered "unutterable anguish . . . at the hiding of His Father's face" (ibid., 755).

Ron B. Commentary: Ellen White said that the Holy Spirit was the life, soul and breath of Christ. She said that this Holy Spirit became the SUCCESSOR of Christ at the Incarnation, because Christ deigned this as the greatest of all gifts that He could bestow upon mankind. She said that the humanity of Christ cumbered His omnipresnece and so He could not be everywhere at once. What can we conclude from the following statements without adding or taking away anything?

"The Holy Spirit is the breath of spiritual life in the soul. The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. It imbues the receiver with the attributes of Christ. Only those who are thus taught of God, those who possess the inward working of the Spirit, and in whose life the Christ-life is manifested, are to stand as representative men, to minister in behalf of the church." Desire of Ages, 805. "Christ gives them the breath of HIS OWN SPIRIT, the life of HIS OWN LIFE. The HOLY SPIRIT puts forth its highest energies to work in the heart and mind." Desire of Ages, 827. "The Holy Spirit is Christ's representative, but divested of the personality of humanity, and independent thereof. Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally. Therefore it was for their interest that He should go to the Father, and send the Spirit to be His successor on earth. No one could then hae any advantage because of his location or his personal contact with Christ. By the Spirit the Saviour would be accessible to all. In this sense He would be nearer to them than if he had not ascended on high. This promise belongs to us now as surely as it belonged to the disciples.... Let every church member kneel before God, and pray earnestly for the impartation of the Spirit." E.G. White, God's Amazing Grace, 191.

We can deduce the following data without adding or taking away from the above statements:

1. The impartation of the Spirit is the impartation of the life of Christ. We know that the life is in the blood.

2. If Christ gives us the breath of His own Spirit, the life of His own life, and the impartation of the Spirit is the impartaion of the life of Christ, then the Holy Spirit is the very life of Christ, and not the very life of a third person that existed from eternity prior to the Incarnation. It is however, the third person of the Godhead since the Incarnation, because it was that person, the Holy Spirit of Christ, that He laid off, and sacrificed in the Heavenly Sanctuary, at the Incarnation as a gift for us to be given after Christ's Glorification. The first manifestation of that gift was at Pentecost.

3. The only reason Christ could not be everywhere at once (omnipresent) was because His Divinity was cumbered with humanity. Ellen White said that Christ assumed that humanity FOREVER. That is why He gave us His Holy Spirit, the first estate of His Being, because that Holy Spirit had omnipresence because it never was cumbered with humanity. It was laid aside at the Incarnation when Christ became combined with humanity. This is a sacrifice that was achieved in the Heavenly Sanctuary at the Incarnation. This is in addition to Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross. This was a type of death to the first estate of Christ's pure Divinity not combined with humanity. This satisfied the Testator requirement that the Testator had to die. Christ died FOREVER to His first estate, but it lived as a Successor to Christ's first estate, as a gift to us. Christ thereby sacrificed His personal Holy Spirit, once shared in common with the Father, as the ONE ETERNAL SPIRIT. But Christ was still DIVINITY, because He used that very Holy Spirit to sire Himself in the womb of Mary. This is why He was also referred to as the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Dr. Moon:

"The withdrawal of the divine countenance from the Saviour in this hour of supreme anguish pierced His heart with a sorrow that can never be fully understood by man." Christ "feared that sin was so offensive to God that Their separation was to be eternal." She explains that "It was the sense of sin, bringing the Father's wrath upon [Christ] as man's substitute, that . . . broke the heart of the Son of God" and wrung from His lips the agonizing cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (ibid., 753-754).

Thus she elevated the sacrifice of Christ far above mere human dying because it involved the rending apart, "the temporary severing of the mysterious unity" of the Trinity (Erwin R. Gane, "The Arian or Anti-Trinitarian Views Presented in Seventh-day Adventist Literature and the Ellen G. White Answer" [M.A. Thesis, Andrews University, 1963], 92, 95).

Ron B. Commentary: Christ did not fear any separation from a Trinity. He feared a separation from His Father. He did not say, My Holy Spirit, why hast thou forsaken me. He said, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.

Dr. Moon:

While Christ's deity could not perish, it suffered the infinite ordeal of being separated from the Father, with whom He had been, until this, eternally One.

Were Early Adventists Arians?

Arianism was a teaching about Jesus that arose in the fourth century. Though rejected at the Council of Nicaea in 325, it was fought over for another half century after that as succeeding emperors enforced Arianism or Trinitarianism as the official view of the church.

The basic teaching of Arius was "that the Son of God was not eternal but created by the Father from nothing as an instrument for the creation of the world; and that therefore He was not God by nature, but a changeable [mortal] creature, His dignity as Son of God having been bestowed on Him by the Father on account of His foreseen abiding righteousness" (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, article "Arianism"). The Adventist pioneers have sometimes been called "semi-Arian" rather than Arian, because while they believed that Jesus had a beginning, they differed somewhat from the second part of the Arian definition. The Adventists believed that Christ did indeed partake of God's own nature and thus was not "merely" a creature, even though they held that at some time in distant eternity past God the Father had brought Him into existence.

Both the Arian and semi-Arian positions, however, were decisively refuted by Ellen White in Desire of Ages. (cf pp. 530, 785; see also E. G. White Comments, SDA Bible Commentary, 5:1113.)


1. D. T. Bourdeau, "We May Partake of the Fullness of the Father and the Son," Review and Herald, 67 (November 18, 1890), 707; in Erwin R. Gane, "The Arian or Anti-Trinitarian Views Presented in Seventh-day Adventist Literature and the Ellen G. White Answer" [M.A. Thesis, Andrews University, 1963], p. 48.

2. O. R. L. Crosier, "The Law of Moses," Day-Star Extra, Feb 7, 1846.

3. Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 1, pp. 206-207.

4. While she strongly maintained the health advantages of abstinence from pork, she consistently insisted that it was not a test of fellowship. Testimonies, 1:206; MS 15, 1889 (in Manuscript Releases, 16:173).

5. Vegetarianism for Ellen G. White meant not habitually using meat, not necessarily total abstinence. (Herbert Douglas, Messenger of the Lord, Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 1898), 316; A. L. White, Ellen G. White,  Volume 4: The Australian Years, (Review and Herald Publishing Association: Hagerstown, Maryland), p.119.

6. See, e.g. S. N. Haskell, The Bible Training School, 1903.

7. Seventh-day Adventists numbered about 3,500 in 1863, 75,000 in 1898, and 10.3 million in 1999.

8. E. R. Gane, "The Arian or Anti-Trinitarian Views Presented in Seventh-day Adventist Literature and the Ellen G. White Answer" (M.A. thesis, Andrews University, 1963), p. 109.

9. See also Seventh-day Adventists Believe . . .: A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines, (Review and Herald Publishing Association: Hagerstown, Maryland), pp. 22-25.

10. Seventh-day Adventists Believe, 23.

11. Gane, 67.

12. Gane, 104.

13. Gane, 3.

14. J. H. Loughborough, "Questions for Bro. Loughborough," Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 18 (Nov. 5, 1861), 184; in Gane, 30.

15. Gane, 105.

16. J. H. Waggoner, The Atonement (Oakland, CA: Pacific Press, 1884), 174; in Gane, 42; Uriah Smith made a similar argument in Looking Unto Jesus (Battle Creek, MI: Review & Herald, 1898), 23; in Gane, 29.

17. Uriah Smith, Thoughts on the Book of Daniel and the Revelation (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1882), 487; Uriah Smith, Looking Unto Jesus (Battle Creek, MI: Review & Herald, 1898), 10; both in Gane, 25, 28.

18. Uriah Smith, "In the Question Chair," Review and Herald, Mar 23, 1897, 188; in Gane, 24.

19. M. L. Andreasen, "The Spirit of Prophecy," chapel address at Loma Linda, California, November 30, 1948, quoted in Russell Holt, "The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination: Its Rejection and Acceptance" (Term Paper, Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, 1969), 20.

20. Gane, 55.

21. Roger W. Coon, "The 'Organization' Message", Final 20 Years," Lecture Outline, Writings of E.G. White, Andrews University; March 5, 1996.

22. Some older sources give June 6, because the vision was given on a Friday night (June 5) after sundown, hence by sundown reckoning was part of Sabbath June 6, 1863.

23. Roswell F. Cottrell, "The Doctrine of the Trinity," Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, June 1, 1869.


" Article previously published in the Review & Herald 1999 "