Are you Ready and Willing to Die for What you Believe on the Godhead?

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Dear Reader,

One of the most serious issues that has or ever will befall professing Seventh-day Adventism, is the Godhead issue or what you believe about God and the Atonement. This issue will continue to swell as THE MAJOR ISSUE in Seventh-day Adventism. Why? Because it is intrinsically contingent with the Lord's supper and the Transubstantiation belief by the Catholics that the wafer partaken of in the Mass service is the actual body of Jesus Christ. What does this have to do with the Trinity and the Godhead issue? Everything! All who do not believe in the trinity doctrine as taught by Catholicism and current New Movement Seventh-day Adventism (Selected Messages, vol. 1, 204-5), are anathema to Catholics. Just as little children died by being drowned right in front of their parents for denying that the wafer partaken of in the Mass is the actual body of Christ, but rather a symbol of His broken body, professing Seventh-day Adventists will someday have to die for their belief that the trinity doctrine is false.

The Tie-in Between the Trinity Doctrine and Transubstantiation

As most Adventist's know, Transubstantiation is the Catholic doctrine that the wafer partaken of in the Mass is the actual body of Christ, rather than a symbol of that body. What is the tie-in with that belief and the erroneous trinity doctrine? Just this friend:

The Sanctuary Service teaches that the Lamb offered in sacrifice was to be perfect and without broken bone. In fulfillment of that prophecy, not a bone of Christ's body was broken on the cross. His body was not broken in any wise. It was pierced, but not broken asunder in any way.

The breaking of Christ's body so that it could be shared with us, occurred in the heavenly sanctuary at the Incarnation, where Christ died and laid aside His First Estate Being as a gift to be given (broken and shed abroad) in the sense of being shared with all of us in the form of His Holy Spirit as a regenerating agency. The life is in the blood. Ellen White says that the Holy Spirit is the life (blood), breath, and soul of Christ. The Testator of the Everlasting Covenant, which covenant appropriated what was to be exacted by that covenant, prescribed the death of the Testator. The Testator, the Son, was PURELY DIVINE when He negotiated the Everlasting Covenant that pertained to how sin would be dealt with. That means that a PURELY DIVINE BEING, namely the Son, (at His Incarnation) would have to die to something eternally. Since Ellen White says that Divinity cannot die, we must interpret the Son's death in some other way that is tantamount to death.

Note: The Son, at His Incarnation, died an eternal death to His pre-incarnation existance as pure divinity. He did this when He commended His Spirit to His Father. He could have taken back that existence until He again commended His Spirit to His Father just before dying on the cross. How could He have so commended His Spirit twice? Because it was given back to Him as it descended in the form of a dove at His Baptism by John. Also, in Acts 10:38, we are told that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost (the Ghost person of His former existence before Incarnation) and power. After He again commended His Spirit to the Father, just before dying on the cross, He could never again return to his former pre-incarnation Being. Thus, Christ died an eternal death to that former existence as pure divinity. This satisfied the terms of the Everlasting Covenant requiring the death of the Testator. This is what constituted payment as eternal death for the wages of our sin, Early Writings, p. 218.

How the Son Died an Eternal Death for Our Sins

At His Incarnation, the Son laid aside His PURELY DIVINE life as it was before the Incarnation, and bequeathed it to us as His "crowning gift" to mankind. This gift enabled mankind to partake of His purely divine nature, as the Bible solicits. This laying aside of His Royal Robes and Scepter, constituted a certain FOREVER, ETERNAL death to that state of the Son's Being or existence for eternity. After His Incarnation, He became admixed with humanity forever. He was not then just purely divine only. He was then fully divine and fully human. Christ could have returned to that fully divine state of being at any time before His death on the Cross. However, when He said: "Luke 23:46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost," He could not thereafter return to the original pure state of Divinity ONLY. He then "died" to that original state of Being. He thus died an eternal death for our sins. What is/was the wages of sin? Eternal death, and the Son paid that price. Did He die an eternal death on the cross--even from His human nature? Absolutely not! He arose three days after His human death on the cross. But what most professing Christians do not know is that when Christ died on the Cross, He died eternally to His former (pre-Incarnation) life, giving that life to us in the form of His Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, as a regenerating agency. Thus, Ellen White could say:

"He (Christ) suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which WAS His." Desire of Ages, p. 25; 1 Cor. 11:24-265, cf. John 6:53, 54, Titus 3:5, 6.

When Christ gave up the "Ghost" as stated above, He gave up His Holy Spirit FOREVER, as a gift to us. He gave it up in heaven at His Incarnation. It returned at His baptism in the form of a dove. It was again commended to the Father for the last time just before Christ died on the Cross. Thereafter, there was no turning back to His former life Being as a purely Divine personage. Henceforth, He would be purely divine and purely human forever.

What death was ours? Was it three days in a Tomb and then eternal life? Absolutely not! The death of the sinner was eternal death. The wages of sin is death, not three days in the Tomb and then eternal life. Only Christ had eternal life.

"The soul that sinneth, it shall die an everlasting death--a death from which there will be no hope of a resurrection; and then the wrath of God will be appeased." E.G. White, Early Writings, 218.

Christ did not die the everlasting death of the sinner, from which there is no hope of a resurrection, and then take back His eternal life in the same way that He had it before. He gave His life to His people. When and where did the Son of God die the eternal death of the sinner? At the Incarnation and on the Cross. He gave His eternal life to His people at His Incarnation, when He then commended His Spirit to His Father and bequeathed it as a regenerating gift to us in order that we might be regenerated into the image of God.

Christ commended His Holy Spirit to His Father again on the Cross, just before He died. At that point, He died an eternal death to His former (pre-Incarnation) existence. That was the death that satisfied the Testator Covenant between the Father and the Son, which covenant demanded the ETERNAL death of the Testator, not three days in a Tomb, and then all returned to normal as it had been before the Incarnation. Christ's body was FIRST broken apart (laid aside) from His original PURE DIVINE BEING, when He was Incarnated in heaven. He then willingly volunteered to lay down His life for two purposes: 1. As a regenerating gift to us. 2. To satisfy the eternal death requirement of the Everlasting Covenant that was designed to deal with sin, the wages of which is death, eternal death. The "breaking" of His body, was His separation from His original Being prior to His Incarnation--which was eternal, as well as His "sharing" that Divine Nature BODY AND MIND with all who would accept it.

Another In-Depth Similitude on the Breaking of the Son's Body

Christ became the head of the body. The rest of the body is His people. Christ does not get back His fully body until He receives His bride, the 144,000. Thus, Christ is part (the Head) of the body that was broken until He gets His full body back in the form us those who make up the rest of His body. That is another concept to the broken body of Christ, and even when He receives those who comprise the rest of His body (besides Himself the Head), His body will still not be the same PURELY DIVINE ONLY body that He had before the Incarnation, because we will never be purely divine.

The Great Trinity Error That Does Total Despite to the Atonement

The Trinity doctrine denies everything I have just enumerated. That abominable, from the pits of hell, Satanic doctrine, teaches that Divinity could not die, and if some form of eternal death of the Testator's pure Divinity did not die eternally, then there was no Atonement for sin. That is why Ellen White could further say that the gift of Christ's Holy Spirit (His former, pre-Incarnation Life) was just essential as His death on the Cross, because without that sacrifice, His death on the Cross would have been 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.

If the Son had not died an eternal death to His former life in satisfaction of the Testator Covenant agreement, His sacrifice on the cross would have been of no avail, because that sacrifice did not involve any semblance of eternal death to anything as far as the death of the Testator was and is concerned:

Death of the Testator

Hbr 9:16 For where a testament [is], there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.

Hbr 9:17 For a testament [is] of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

The Son Died an Eternal Death in the Heavenly Sanctuary and on the Cross

Remember, yes, Christ died on the Cross! But did He die the eternal death of the sinner on the Cross? Not if He was resurrected in three days! But the wry twist is that He did die the eternal death of the sinner at His Incarnation and on the cross when He (both times) commended His Holy Spirit to His Father as a gift for us. When Christ did that, it meant eternal death to His experiencing His former existence as pure divinity only, and meant that He would henceforth always be fully human as well as fully divine. That was an eternal death as far as His former first estate Being was concerned. That eternal death satisfied the terms of the Testator's agreement as regards The Everlasting Covenant.

This issues will continue to swell as the greatest shaking issue possible. It will have to be addressed by the so-called "Independent Ministries," such as Our Firm Foundation, and Hartland Institute. Hal Mayer, a worker at Hartland Institute, was arguing for the trinity doctrine on an Internet SDA chat group. Beware of so called "independent ministries" which have adopted this second of the 27 fundamentals of belief error as adopted into the SDA church 27 fundamentals in 1931 and again in 1980 and on. In so doing, the New Movement SDA Church, adopted the central doctrinal error of the Roman Catholic church. Why it is that current day leaders in the SDA church cannot discern these eternal verities? Here is why:

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.

"His WATCHMEN are blind: they are all ignorant, the are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and THEY ARE SHEPHERDS that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant." Isaiah 56:10-12.

"The Bible Prophets Wrote for Our Time.--Never are we absent from the mind of God. God is our joy and our salvation. Each of the ancient prophets spoke less for their own time than for ours, so that their prophesying is in force for us. 'Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come' (! Cor. 10:11). 'Not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into' (1 Peter 1:12).'" E.G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 3, p. 338.

"Here we see that the church--the Lord's sanctuary--was the first to feel the stroke of the wrath of God. The ancient men, those to whom God had given great light and who had stood as guardians of the spiritual interests of the people, had betrayed their trust. They had taken the position that we need not look for miracles and the marked manifestation of God's power as in former days. Times have changed. These words strengthen their unbelief, and they say: The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. He is too merciful to visit His people in judgment. Thus 'Peace and safety" is the cry from men who will never again lift up their voice like a trumpet to show God's people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins. These dumb dogs that would not bark are the ones who feel the just vengeance of an offended God. Men, maidens, and little children all perish together." E. G. White, Testimonies, Vol. 5, 211.

"Study the 9th chapter of Ezekiel. These words will be literally fulfilled; yet the time is passing, and the people are asleep. They refuse to humble their souls and to be converted. Not a great while longer will the Lord bear with the people who have such great and important truths revealed to them, but who refuse to bring these truths into their individual experience. The time is short. God is calling; will YOU hear? Will YOU receive His message? Will YOU be converted before it is too late? Soon, very soon, every case will be decided for eternity. Letter 106, 1909, pp. 2, 3, 5, 7. (To "The churches in Oakland and Berkeley, September 26, 1909.)" E. G. White Manuscript Releases Volume One, p. 260.

"A new order of things has COME INTO the ministry. There is a desire to pattern after other churches and simplicity and humility are almost unknown. The young ministers seek to be original, and to introduce new ideas and new plans for labor. Some open revival meetings, and by this means call large numbers into the church. But when the excitement is over, where are the converted ones? Repentance and confession of sin are not seen. The sinner is entreated to believe in Christ and accept Him, without regard to his past life of sin and rebellion. The heart is not broken. There is no contrition of soul. The supposed converted ones have not fallen upon the Rock, Christ Jesus." E.G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 2, pp. 18, 19.

Yes George Knight, you are correct in your Review article assessment that if Ellen White and the pioneers were alive today, they would not join New Movement Adventism, as you have. They were most astute in the study of the Word. They had the gift of prophecy in their midst. They knew and taught that the trinity error did total despite to the Atonement, and how it did so. That is more than you discern George Knight! That is more than all of your colleagues discern.

Ron Beaulieu