Most SDAs do not recognize the subject of the Godhead as a Landmark doctrine of pioneer Seventh-day Adventism:
Landmarks: "Those who seek to remove the old landmarks are not holding fast; they are not remembering how they have received and heard. Those who try to bring in theories that would remove the pillars of our faith concerning the sanctuary or concerning the personality of God or of Christ, are working as blind men. They are seeking to bring in uncertainties and to set the people of God adrift without an anchor." {MR760 9.5}
Is it not interesting that Ellen White does not mention the personality of the Holy Spirit in the above statement? The reason she does not is because she elsewhere defines the personality of the Holy Spirit to be that of the life and soul of Christ, and it would thus be redundant to mention the personality of the Holy Spirit as extra to that of God and Christ.
"I entreat every one to be clear and firm regarding the certain truths that we have heard and received and advocated. The statements of God's Word are plain. Plant your feet firmly on the platform of eternal truth. Reject every phase of error, even though it be covered with a semblance of reality, which denies the personality of God and of Christ." {RH, August 31, 1905 par. 11}
What Was the Landmark SDA Teaching Concerning the Identity of the Holy Spirit?
"The Power of God in the Third Person.--The prince of the power of evil can only be held in check by the power of God in the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit.-- Special Testimonies, Series A, No. 10, p. 37. (1897).
Act 3:26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
The Bible says that it is Jesus, God's Son, whom the Father sent to bless us, turning away every one of you from his iniquities. The "power of evil" is synonymous with iniquity, so unless Ellen White disagreed with the Bible, and she did not, we know that the Son is the Holy Spirit--which is the ONLY agency which holds in check the prince of the power of evil or iniquity.
Did Ellen White Say that the Holy Spirit was Christ?
"Christ declared that after his ascension, he would send to his church, as his crowning gift, the Comforter, who was to take his place. This Comforter is the Holy Spirit,--the soul of his life, the efficacy of his church, the light and life of the world. With his Spirit Christ sends a reconciling influence and a power that takes away sin.
In the gift of the Spirit [HIS LIFE--THE SOUL OF HIS LIFE], Jesus gave to man the highest good that heaven could bestow....
The Spirit was given as a regenerating agency, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail....
It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given his Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress his own character upon the church." E.G. White, Review and Herald Articles, May 19, 1904, vol. 5, p. 42.
Thus we have the landmark pillar doctrine teaching of the pioneers concerning the Godhead. It becomes clear that any other doctrine would work total despite to the Atonement and the Sanctuary doctrine as well as the terms of the Everlasting Covenant, which demanded the death of the Testator. James White and J.N. Andrews (and other pioneers) recognized this truth. At His Incarnation, Christ sacrificed (laid aside) His Divine Nature life and soul for us as a regenerating gift. This was like death to that pre-Incarnation life. That satisfied the demand of the Everlasting Covenant that the Testator of that Covenant experience death. Thus, we are invited by Scripture to partake of the Divine Nature of Christ, which He sacrificed (laid aside) as a "crowing--greatest good gift" to us, rather than the Divine--human nature of Christ, which is the nature accrued to Him after the Incarnation. The 144,000 will discern and receive this truth because they will need it in order to reach the standard of overcoming that they reach. One is not necessarily one of the 144,000 because he/she discerns and believes this truth concerning the Godhead, but the 144,000 will certainly do so.
Ron Beaulieu