Ellen White and Her Position on the Godhead
Dr Allan Lindsay
The title of this presentation is an acknowledgment that Ellen White never used the word “trinity” in her extensive writings. We need, however, to be on guard against making more of such an omission that we should, for the absence of the use of a word in inspired writings is not to be interpreted as a condemnation of the biblical teaching represented by that word. Neither the words “incarnation” nor “millennium” appear in Scripture but the truths they teach are clear. Rather, Ellen White uses the word “Godhead” (as found, for example, in Romans 1:20 and Colossians 2:9 NKJV) 265 times in her published writings. She wrote in 1899, for example, that “The Godhead was stirred with pity for the race, and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit gave Themselves to the working out of the plan of redemption.” (Counsels on Health, 222). Her use of the word here and elsewhere makes clear that it is conveying the same idea as is expressed by the word “trinity,” i.e. three living Persons in the Godhead.
At the outset of this paper, it must be stated that any study and analysis of Ellen White’s position on the trinity is not offered as proof for the Trinitarian doctrine. It is set forth merely as evidence for what she believed on the subject. Throughout her life Ellen White consistently appealed to the Word of God as the only authoritative source of truth. In 1890 she wrote, “Let all prove their positions from the Scriptures and substantiate every point they claim as truth from the revealed Word of God.” Evangelism, p 256, Letter 12, 1890). The order should be the study of God’s Word first, for the light it sheds on the subject. We may then turn to discover the “lesser” light she brings to it from the visions God gave her, and this is the purpose of this paper.
The study of Ellen White’s writings should always include an awareness of two important principles. First, we must take into consideration all she has written on the subject under discussion. She warned the delegates to the 1891 General Conference against making their own selection of quotations from her writings to suit their own beliefs, “When it suits your purpose, you treat the testimonies as if you believed them, quoting from them to strengthen any statement you wish to have prevail. But how is it when light is given to correct your errors? Do you then accept the light? When the Testimonies speak contrary to your ideas, you treat them very lightly.” (Selected Messages, Vol. 1, p 43).
Second, we must allow the prophet to grow in her understanding of God’s plans and teachings for His people. Prophets are not granted omniscience. Daniel’s understanding of the vision of Daniel 8 grew over time. (Compare Daniel 8:27 and 9:22,23). The understanding of Peter and the other disciples concerning the salvation of the Gentiles developed slowly. (See Acts 10:17,19,28).
There is evidence that Ellen White’s past personal beliefs changed on a number of issues as the Lord opened further truth to her in vision. She freely acknowledged in the late 1880s that she was not “in the same ignorance, the same mental uncertainty and spiritual blindness, as at the beginning of this experience.” (Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, p 686) For example, after her first vision in December, 1844, she continued as a Sunday keeper for almost three years (Arthur L White, The Early Years 1827-1862, Vol. 1, pp 116, 120,121) and as a pig-eater for nearly twenty years (ibid, pp 382,383). She kept the Sabbath from 6 pm to 6 pm for nine years. It was not until J N Andrews in 1855 demonstrated from Scripture that the biblical Sabbath commenced at sunset did she reluctantly change her view. (J N Andrews, “Time for Commencing the Sabbath,” Review and Herald, Dec, 4, 1855, 76-78 and A L White, Vol. 1:322-325).
Ellen White never held the view that there was no more truth to be discovered, or that all the beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists were unchangeable. In 1892 she wrote, “We have many lessons to learn and many, many to unlearn. God and heaven alone are infallible. Those who think they will never have to give up a cherished view, never have occasion to change an opinion, will be disappointed. As long as we hold to our own ideas and opinions with determined persistency, we cannot have the unity for which Christ prayed” (Ellen G White, “Search the Scriptures,” Review and Herald, July 26, 1892).
In view of the changes we see in the development of her understanding, it is not contrary to the way God works through His prophets for her to demonstrate both development and enlargement in her view of the Godhead. After all we see the same development in the teachings of Scripture concerning God. We must look beyond the Pentateuch and into the New Testament for an ever broadening picture of the nature and character of the Godhead. As Jerry Moon states in his historical overview of the Adventist trinity debate, “Her [Ellen White’s] writings about the Godhead show a clear progression, not primarily from anti- to pro- trinitarianism, but from relative ambiguity to greater specificity.” While some of her early statements are open to different interpretations, “her later statements, 1898-1906, are explicit to the point of being dogmatic.” (Andrews University Seminary Studies, ,Vol. 41, No. 2, p 278)
For example, she wrote in 1870 about the fall of Satan,
“A special light beamed about his [Satan’s] countenance, and shone around him brighter and more beautiful than around the other angels; yet Jesus, God’s dear Son, had the pre-eminence over all the angelic host. He was one with the Father before the angels were created.... The great Creator assembled the heavenly host, that he might in the presence of all the angels confer special honor upon his Son .... The Father then made known that it was ordained by himself that Christ, his Son, should be equal with himself; so that wherever was the presence of the Son, it was as his own presence .... His Son would carry out his will and purposes, but would do nothing of himself alone.” (Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 1, pp 17,18).
If Christ’s equality was a “special honor” conferred upon him, the implication is that he was not equal to the Father before that time. But twenty years later in 1890 in her expanded account of the same incident Ellen White wrote, “He [Satan] was beloved and reverenced by the heavenly host, angels delighted to execute his commands, and he was clothed with wisdom and glory above them all. Yet the Son of God was exalted above him, as one in power and authority with the Father.” (Patriarchs and Prophets, p 37) Two paragraphs further on she adds,
“There had been no change in the position or authority of Christ. Lucifer’s envy and misrepresentation, and his claims to equality with Christ, had made necessary a statement of the true position of the Son of God; but this had been the same from the beginning. Many of the angels were, however, blinded by Lucifer’s deceptions.” (Ibid, p 38. Emphasis supplied)
While this statement clarifies the reason for the conferring of the “special honor” on the Son as a special announcement that was necessary to meet Satan’s threat and that confirmed a standing Christ had had “from the beginning,” it does not address the question of the Son’s origin in the beginning. Its ambiguity in this regard, however, is clearly removed by Ellen White’s statements in the 1890s. It should also be stated here that Ellen White’s numerous references to Christ being “the Son of God” prior to His birth denote that He was “of the same nature as the Father, in unity and close relationship, but it did not imply a beginning, derivation from the Father, or the dependent relationship that a small child has with a parent.” (Woodrow Whidden, Jerry Moon, John W Reeve, The Trinity, Hagerstown: Review and Herald, 2002, p 209). When Jesus was born as a human Ellen White speaks of His gaining “in a new sense the title of the Son of God.” (Signs of the Times, Aug. 2, 1905, quoted in the SDA Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, pp 1114, 1115). For a fair and accurate assessment of what she believed about the Godhead, we must take into account, therefore, both her early statements and those made in the latter part of her life as a result of the considerable amount of information imparted to her through her ongoing Bible study and her visions. See Appendix A for a summary of Ellen White’s unfolding understanding of the Godhead.
The Pioneers and the Trinity
Much has been made of the fact that most of the early pioneers were antitrinitarian. They brought these views with them from the churches with which they were formerly associated, but it is not always recognized that some of the trinitarian concepts they opposed, would also be opposed by trinitarians today. For example, Joseph Bates and others (D W Hall, J N Loughborough, S B Whitney and D M Canright) believed that trinitarians taught that the Father and the Son were one Person, whereas they believed that they were two distinct Persons. Furthermore, though James White was clearly anti-trinitarian early in his life, there appears to be some common ground between his position and his wife’s earliest statements about the person(s) of the Godhead. A Methodist Trinitarian creed of the time stated that “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts.” (Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, NY: Carlton and Porter, 1856, p 15, quoted by J Moon, Vol. 41, No. 2, p280). James and Ellen White and other early Adventists vigorously rejected this Methodist expression of trinitarianism, citing biblical references that supported the idea that God had both “body” and “parts.” (e.g. Ex., 24:9-11; 33:20-23; John 1:18; Heb. 1:1-3. See also Early Writings, pp 54, 77).
Any consideration of the antitrinitarian views of the early pioneers must also take into account that some of them changed their views with the passage of time. James White in 1846 referred to “the old unscriptural Trinitarian creed, viz, that Jesus is the eternal God.” (The Day-Star, January 21, 1846). But thirty years later he wrote that SDAs “hold the divinity of Christ so nearly with the Trinitarians, that we apprehend no trial [controversy] here.” (Review and Herald, October 12, 1876). And in the following year he stated his belief in the equality of the Son with the Father and condemned any view as erroneous that “makes Christ inferior to the Father.” (J White, “Christ Equal with God,” Review and Herald, Nov., 29, 1877, p 72).
Uriah Smith at first believed that Christ had been created, thus taking the Arian view. Later he emphatically repudiated this and adopted the semi-Arian belief that at one point in the eternity of the past Christ had been “begotten” “by some divine impulse or process, not creation.” Uriah Smith, Looking Unto Jesus, pp 3,10,13,17).
W. W. Prescott referred in 1896 to Christ being “twice born, once in eternity, the only begotten of the father, and again in the flesh.” (Review and Herald, April 14, 1896, p 232). But in the 1919 Bible Conference Prescott acknowledged that though he had once taught antitrinitarian beliefs about Christ having a beginning and the Holy Spirit having no personality of His own, he had realized he had been wrong. In one of his comments at the Conference he confessed, “We believed a long time that Christ was a created being, in spite of what the Scripture says.” (1919 Bible Conference Transcripts, July 6, 1919, pp 58,62).
Ellen White and Christ’s Deity
In his review of the Adventist trinity debate Jerry Moon divides the years from 1846 to 1946 into four periods: (1) Antitrinitarian Dominance, 1846-1888 (2) Dissatisfaction with Anti-trinitarianism, 1888-1898 (3) A Paradigm Shift, 1898-1913 and (4) Decline of Anti-trinitarianism, 1913-1946. (J Moon, Vol. 41, No. 1, p 114)
The period of dissatisfaction began in 1888 with the Minneapolis General Conference and its elevation of the cross. E J Waggoner urged upholding the equality of Christ with the Father “in order that His power to redeem may be better appreciated.” (E J Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness, Oakland, CA: Pacific Press, 1890, p 19) While he fell short of teaching Christ’s eternal pre-existence, he rejected the Arian position and taught that Christ had “an equality with God” and possessed “all the attributes of God.” (ibid, pp 22-23,25). The statement by D T Bourdeau in 1890 that “there are as many gods among us as there are conceptions of the Deity” would indicate that there was at that time a significant expression of Trinitarian views in the church. (D T Bourdeau, “We May Partake of the Fullness of the Father and the Son,” Review and Herald, Nov, 18, 1890, p 707). This is confirmed by the publication in 1892 by the Pacific Press of a pamphlet entitled “The Bible Doctrine of the Trinity” by Samuel T Spear as part of the Bible Student’s Library. It corrected the misunderstanding held by many antitrinitarian Adventists that the trinity doctrine believed in three Gods and argued for “the doctrine of one God, subsisting and acting in three persons.” (Samuel T Spear, The Bible Doctrine of the Trinity, Bible Students’ Library, No 9, March, 1892, pp 3-14 reprinted from the New York Independent, Nov. 14, 1889). The fact that this pamphlet was endorsed and distributed by official sources and read by hundreds of ministers and church members points to a wider acceptance of the teaching by the church.
Prior to her startling statements on the eternal pre-existence of Christ that appeared in The Desire of Ages, in 1898, Ellen White had written in 1897 the words that were to produce a paradigm shift in Adventist thinking on Christ: “In Him (Christ) was life, original, unborrowed and underived.” (“Christ the Life-giver,” Signs of the Times, April 8, 1897 and quoted in 1 SM 296). In the same year she had also written, “He was equal with God, infinite and omnipotent.... He is the eternal, self existent Son.” (Manuscript 101, 1897; Evangelism, p 615). But it was in her book The Desire of Ages that she wrote most fully on the deity of Christ and its implications. In the very first chapter of the book and the third sentence she affirmed that, “From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus was one with the Father....” (The Desire of Ages, p 19) It is acknowledged that this statement is capable of being seen as not necessarily supporting Christ’s infinite eternal preexistence. However, more than 450 pages later in her comment on Jesus’ words, ”Before Abraham was I AM” (John 8:58) she said that Jesus was announcing “Himself to be the self-existent One .... ‘whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.’ Micah 5:2 margin.” (Ibid, 469, 470) (The dictionary defines “self-existent” as: “existing independently of any other cause.” See Clarence L Barnhart, Editor in Chief, The World Book Dictionary, Chicago, Ill.;Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1972, Vol. 2, p 1872). Later in the same book Ellen White chose to repeat the significant words published the previous year, that Christ’s life was “original, unborrowed and underived.” (Ibid, p 530).
This was Ellen White’s consistent position for the rest of her life. From the many statements affirming Christ’s full and eternal deity, we select two. In 1900 she wrote, “Christ is the pre-existent, self-existent Son of God .... In speaking of His pre-existence, Christ carried the mind back through dateless ages. He assures us that there never was a time when He was not in close fellowship with the eternal God.” (Signs of the Times, August 29, 1900). And in 1906 in a Review and Herald article entitled “The Word Made Flesh.” she wrote, “Christ was God essentially, and in the highest sense. He was with God from all eternity, God over all, blessed forevermore. The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, existed from eternity, a distinct person, yet one with the Father.”
(April 5). It is significant that she writes these words just before quoting Proverbs 8:2227 which, at times, she applies homiletically to Christ, but she used the text here to support his eternal pre-existence, not his emanation from His Father as some think.
Ellen White’s clear affirmation of the eternal deity of Christ came as a shock to the theological leadership of the church. M L Andreasen who would later become a prominent thought-leader in the church’s theology claimed that the new concept was so disturbing to the antitrinitarian group that some doubted whether Ellen White had written it. Determined to see for himself, he visited Ellen White in her Elmshaven home and was given by her “access to the manuscripts.” He had brought with him “a number of quotations” to “see if they were in the original in her own handwriting.” He recalled that he was sure that Ellen White had never written the statement on p 530 of The Desire of Ages,, but he found it “in her own handwriting just as it had been published. It was so with the other statements.” (M L Andreasen, “The Spirit of Prophecy,” Chapel address at Loma Linda, California, Nov. 30, 1948, Adventist Heritage Center, Andrews University, pp 3-4 and quoted by J Moon 1:121).
Ellen White and the Personality of the Holy Spirit
In harmony with the progression in Ellen White’s understanding of the full and eternal deity of Christ, was her growth in understanding the individuality and personality of the Holy Spirit, yet it came later. While it is true that the place and status of the divine Spirit was not emphasized in her early discussions of the Godhead, as much as the Father and the Son, yet that very fact is in harmony with the Spirit’s role. His work has never been to call attention to Himself, but to highlight the Father though His representation of the Son and thus to “testify” or to “glorify” Christ. (John 16:14)
In 1896 for the first time she referred to the Holy Spirit as the “third person of the Godhead” in a letter addressed “To My Brethren in America” and written from Cooranbong (Letter 8, 1896 and also found in The 1888 Materials, p 1493). This was repeated in 1897 (Special Testimonies to Ministers and Workers, [Series 1], No. 10, Battle Creek: MI, General Conference of SDAs, 1897, pp 25,27) but was given much wider circulation in the following year with the publication of The Desire of Ages. Here she wrote explicitly of the Holy Spirit’s personhood and work. “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.” Having previously affirmed her belief that the Father and the Son were two distinct Persons, her understanding of the threeness in the personhood of the Godhead was now complete. In the years that followed this was to receive strong and consistent confirmation.
Four examples:
“Christ determined that when He ascended from this earth He would bestow a gift on those who had believed on Him and those who should believe on Him. What gift could He bestow rich enough to signalize and grace His ascension to the mediatorial throne? It must be worthy of His greatness and His royalty. He determined to give His representative, the third person of the Godhead. This gift could not be excelled. He would give all gifts in one, and therefore the divine Spirit, converting, enlightening, sanctifying, would be His donation.” (Signs of the Times, December 1, 1898)
“We need to realize that the Holy Spirit, who is as much a person as God is a person, is walking through these grounds. (Manuscript 66, 1899, in a talk to the students at the Avondale School, quoted in Evangelism, p 616)
“The eternal heavenly dignitaries – God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit – arming them [the disciples] with more than mortal energy,.... would advance with them to the work and convince the world of sin.” (Manuscript 45,1901, quoted in Evangelism, p 616)
“The Holy Spirit is a person, for He beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.... The Holy Spirit has a personality, else He could not bear witness to our spirits and with our spirits that we are the children of God. He must
also be a divine person else He could not search out the secrets which lie hidden in the mind of God.” (Manuscript 20, 1906, quoted in Evangelism, p 617)
One statement by Ellen White concerning the relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit should be considered because it has been often misunderstood. In a letter to her son Edson and his wife, Ellen White wrote in February, 1895, (Letter 119, 1895 and also reproduced in Manuscript Releases Vol. 14, p 23),
“Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be in every place personally; therefore it was altogether for their advantage that He should leave them, go to His father, and send the Holy Spirit to be His successor on earth. The Holy Spirit is Himself, divested of the personality of humanity and independent thereof.”
It is claimed that Ellen White is here identifying the Holy Spirit as Christ “himself,” not a separate identity, for it continues by using the word “divested,” which is defined as getting rid of something, stripped off. It is asked, how could the Holy Spirit be divested of humanity? You have to have it to be divested of it, thus this could only be said of Jesus. The Holy Spirit, it is concluded, is therefore Christ.
But the sentences Ellen White wrote just before and after the above quote clarify her meaning. The paragraph commences with, “Although our Lord ascended from earth to heaven, the Holy Spirit was His representative among men. [John 14:15-18 quoted].... He would represent Himself as present in all places by His Holy Spirit, as the Omnipresent.” (Letter 119, 1895. Emphasis supplied). She is expressing the idea, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative. That this was her intended meaning was made clear, when, to avoid any misunderstanding, she changed the wording of Edson’s letter in writing her book The Desire of Ages. On p 669 she wrote,
“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 Holy 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.”
Ellen White and the Three Divine Persons
From the late 1890s Ellen White was clear and explicit in her descriptions of the three divine persons who were one in nature, character and purpose but not in person. Many of her statements in the early 1900s were made in her opposition to the pantheistic crisis promoted by Dr J H Kellogg (1902-1907). Kellogg believed in a triune Godhead, but this, when it was coupled with his pantheistic leanings, brought him into direct and lasting conflict with Ellen White and this serves to remind us, as Jerry Moon has pointed out, (J Moon, 2:284-290) that Ellen White, in the early 1900s, considered two distinct varieties of Trinitarian belief – one she had strongly opposed as early as the 1840s and 50s and particularly again in the early 1900s, and one she promoted as her understanding matured.
The crisis over Dr Kellogg’s pantheistic teaching broke in 1902 with the release of his book The Living Temple, in which he taught that God was “an infinite, divine, though invisible Presence” throughout nature. (J H Kellogg, The Living Temple, Battle Creek, MI: Good Health, 1903, p29). When he later claimed that his teaching concerning the personality of God was in harmony with Ellen White’s, she responded with conviction and forceful clarity. “We need not the mysticism that is in this book. The writer of this book is on a false track.” (Spalding and Magan’s Unpublished Manuscript Releases of Ellen White, 1915-1916, pp 320,321). She said that God was not “an essence pervading nature” but was “a personal being. Christians should bear in mind that God has a personality as verily as has Christ.” (Ibid, p 324)
The conflict continued into 1905 when Ellen White, to meet the growing crisis, wrote her clearest condemnation of Kellogg’s false view of the trinity and in so doing, gave us her most explicit statement on the subject. In this document (Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 7, pp 60-64 and taken from Manuscript 21, 1906) she called his view “spiritualistic, “imperfect, untrue” and the “trail of the serpent.” (Ibid, pp 61,62). Kellogg had described the trinity in these words: “The Father - “the light invisible”; the Son – “the light embodied”; and the Spirit – “the light shed abroad.” He continued: the Father “liked the invisible vapor”; the Son – “the leaden cloud”; the Spirit – “the rain.” Reacting to such expressions, she wrote, “God cannot be compared with the things His hands have made.” (Ibid, p 62). She proceeded by defining her matured understanding of the Godhead,
“The Father is all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.
The Son is all the fullness of the Godhead manifested. The Word of God declares Him to be ‘the express image of His person.’ [John 3:16 quoted]. Here is shown the personality of the Father.
The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to heaven, is the Spirit in all the fullness of the Godhead, .... There are three living persons of the heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit those who receive Christ by living faith are baptized, and these powers will co-operate with the obedient subjects of heaven in their efforts to live the new life in Christ.” (Ibid, pp 62, 63)
In view of the fact that some claim today that Kellogg’s understanding of the Trinity (which Ellen White so strongly condemned) is the view that has been later accepted by the church, it is vital to distinguish between his view that made the Godhead appear distant, mystical, untouchable, impersonal, and ultimately unreal beings, and her view that portrayed God as including three individual divine personalities who are personal, literal and tangible and who are united in nature, character, purpose and above all in love. (For a list of some of Ellen White’s statements, affirming the “three persons of the Godhead” see Appendix B. She uses such expressions as: “the three great powers of heaven,” “the three living persons in the heavenly trio,” “the three highest powers in the universe,” “the three powers of the Godhead,” “the three great powers of heaven,” etc. Practically all of these were written in the first seven years of the 1900s).
Conclusion
This paper has traced the development of Ellen White’s understanding of the nature of the Godhead. One must ask, of course, whether her ultimate trinitarian views were in harmony with the Bible or an apostasy from it. The beliefs we hold on Ellen White’s inspiration and role will affect our answer. The evidence shows that, in spite of the widely held antitrinitarian views adopted by most of the pioneers, she led the church, through her confirmatory visions, to the full acceptance of the biblical concept of the Trinity i.e. that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not three Gods but three divine persons who are one in nature, character and purpose. Each of them has eternally preexisted without a beginning and will continue to exist for all eternity in the future.
If we believe that God is at the head of our church and has been leading it to greater perceptions of Bible truth, then, in the light of Ellen White’s ever broadening trinitarian counsel over fifty years, we must acknowledge the correctness of the decision by F M Wilcox in 1913 to publish in the Review and Herald (of which he was the editor from 1911 to 1944) a summary of “the cardinal features” of Adventist faith, one of which was the “divine trinity.” Two years before Ellen White’s death, he wrote that: “Seventh-day Adventists believe, - 1. in the divine Trinity. This Trinity consists of the eternal Father, ... the Lord Jesus Christ, ...[and] the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead.” (F M Wilcox, “The Message for Today,” Review and Herald, Oct.9, 1913, p 21). (Ellen White’s confidence in Wilcox was demonstrated by her appointment of him as one of the original five trustees to superintend her estate after she died in 1915.)
Some reject the doctrine of the Trinity because they can’t explain it in logical terms. But we must be humble enough to recognize that like the nature of God, and the mystery of the incarnation, the concept of three in one is a mystery and will defy all human attempts to explain it to our satisfaction. Yet enough has been revealed to enable us to stand in awe at what has been revealed to us of a Godhead who are united in their love for the human race and their desire to save it. It has been well stated that “The concept of the Trinity is simply too foundational, too essential, too biblical, and finally too precious to the very nature of our understanding of God to relegate it to a side issue.” (Whidden, Moon and Reeve, p 280). Let us accept the truth expressed in Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever...,” and let us all pray for the wisdom to know the difference and the will to accept and walk in the light of what has been revealed.
December 1, 2005