Where We Disagree with James White

To finally sum up our discussion of James White on the Trinity, I will discuss where we disagree. Before I do, just a reminder that this is one of the few places where we disagree with James, most of what he says is orthodox SDA doctrine.

Where Antitrinitarians disagree with James White but the mainline SDA church agrees:
James White on the Personality of God

• "Personality" means a distinct personage and physical form.
(See Personality of God)

James White on the Holy Spirit
I take the views of The Godhead in Black and White" as the antitrinitarian norm.

• There are two distinct Comforters
• The Holy Spirit is another Comforter, it is not Christ because Christ is absent, after the ascension.

James White in the "Living Voice"

• The "three-one God" is a fallacy, "but that ultra Unitarianism that makes Christ inferior to the Father is worse".

I think I am right in saying that most anti-trinitarians would say that trinity is the worst error.

Where Mainline SDAs Disagree with James, but antitrinitarians agree

• Jesus Christ is NOT the very and Eternal God

So that means that the antitrinitarians disagree with James on four points while the mainline SDA church disagrees on one point, albeit a major point.

James rarely mentions the trinity and he never wrote an antitrinitarian article in his long writing career. This probably indicates the low importance he attached to this doctrine, which goes against the whole tenor of present-day antitrinitarians who hold this area as so important it deserves compilations, websites and separation from the church.

After looking carefully at what James White says on this issue, I agree that he was non-trinitarian but his actions are a far cry from those who claim to follow his beliefs. Not only are they disagreeing with him on a number of points but they are working to pull apart the church that he spent his life and health to build up.

I know this is probably a surprise to most antitrinitarians, it certainly was to me, so I would love comments.

Sanctuary, sanctuary...

Geoff asked why I insisted that the Godhead question be tied to the sanctuary doctrine. The reason is the quote that leads my post True Knowledge of God

..remove the pillars of our faith concerning the sanctuary OR concerning the personality of God or of Christ."

The context is firmly "The Sanctuary" (title of the article) and is largely against Ballanger's attack on the sanctuary. The reason I want 'correlate' the two is that this is the only place I have seen where the Godhead is part of the 'pillars'. So the 'personality' of God and Christ are important present-truth as they relate to the sanctuary.

Geoff comments:

I notice that Waggoner felt that those views destroyed the atonement. It is an area that I have not explored.

That is interesting. (I'm thinking out loud) The atonement... The purpose of the sanctuary was so that God can safely dwell with His people (atonement). The priests and Christ as priest stand between us and the destroying fire or holiness of God. So Christ must be another individual for this to work. "As a personal Saviour He intercedes in the heavenly courts" Ministry of Healing 418.1. The whole system falls if He is not 'personal'.

Christ had to be 'a personal Saviour' to die for us too, He was personal as a human of course, but did He have to have separate divinity to His Father to die for us?

Most Christians, I'm surprised to learn, don't have, or at least haven't thought through, this 'personal' aspect to their religion. I think this message of a 'personal Saviour' makes atonement and the judgement and the sanctuary vivid and full of life. Thanks for leading me to this Geoff.

Geoff then talked about the love of God. I replied:
Thanks for the sharing, Geoff. Yes, of course, you reminded me of the most basic principle of them being separate! If they are sort of "one being" then ANY relationship is simply self love. Love is only possible between individuals in a relationship. So the Father and Christ being separate makes relationship possible. Great!

Victory for the Weak

I've just thought of a whole new reason why the it is important that the Father and Son are separate Persons.

When Jesus was on earth, He lived by faith, that is He didn't use His own divine power to live a victorious life. He depended wholly on His Father's power (John 5:19,30).

If we believed in the nebulous '3 in 1 God' of many churches then there is no separation between the power of God and the power of the Son. So if Jesus trusted "God's power" in this system, He was simply trusting in His own, innate divine power. In other words, unless the Father and Son are different individuals then Jesus was trusting Himself! This is the very temptation that Satan used in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11) and again at the cross (Matt 27:41-43).

So the implications are:

Rev 14:12 says the saints are those who keep the commandments of God and the FAITH of Jesus. - the saints (hopefully us) must trust Jesus the way that He trusted His Father for the power to overcome (John 15:5 and all of ch 15).

Second, and here is the link to the sanctuary: We have a "great High Priest" who can "sympathise with our weaknesses" (Heb 4:14,15) because He was weak too (He willingly became totally dependent). So in v16 He can invite us to come and boldly ask for mercy and grace so we can overcome as He did.

Neither of these things, empowering trust and enabling sympathy, would be possible unless Christ and the Father were separate individuals.

True Knowledge of God

In connection with A.F. Ballenger's sanctuary theory, Mrs White said in Manuscript Releases p. 9. :

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.

Ballenger's attacks on the sanctuary, with the doctrine of universal justification, are still used to denigrate the sanctuary doctrine. I didn't realise that he also attacked the personality of God or of Christ. Even now after thinking about it for some time, I'm just beginning to see how they are linked.

One link I see is that if God is only Spirit and Jesus and the Father are sort of merged into one being, how can any work be done in the sanctuary at all? 'One' being cannot be the mediator between us and Himself. While Christ can be the sacrifice and priest only because he has these functions at different times ie. He was the sacrifice and now He is the priest. But this cannot apply to a priest before the throne of God, as both are present simultaneously.

Geoff mentioned a chapter in Ministry of Healing on worship, chapter 35 "A True Knowledge of God". It was a great reminder to read it again. A few highlights:

p410 We need to study the revelations of Himself that God has given.

413

God is a Spirit; yet He is a personal Being; for so He has revealed Himself:

"The Lord is the true God,
He is the living God, and an everlasting King: . . .
The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth,
Even they shall perish from the earth, and from under
these heavens."

"The portion of Jacob is not like them:
For He is the former of all things."

"He hath made the earth by His power,
He hath established the world by His wisdom,
And hath stretched out the heavens by His discretion."
Jeremiah 10:10, 11, 16, 12.

So we NEED to study that God, though Spirit, is a personal Being

pp 418, 419

As a personal being, God has revealed Himself in His Son... Jesus as a personal Saviour, came to the world. As a personal Saviour, He ascended on high. As a personal Saviour, He intercedes in the heavenly courts. Before the throne of God in our behalf ministers "One like unto the Son of man." Rev 1:13

And it goes on to "He sent His Son into the world to manifest, as far as could be endured by human sight, the nature and the attributes of the invisible God.

We NEED to study God as a personal being revealed in Jesus, a personal Saviour on earth, ascended and as intercessor. Revealer of the nature and attributes of invisible God. Ballenger didn't believe in Christ as High Priest so maybe he couldn't have Him as 'personal' as well.

There are heaps of great quotes about the saved looking upon the face of God (What greater joy..indeed) and personality of the Father and the Son on page 421 and the quotes keep coming, as Geoff pointed out, right to the end of the chapter.

p425 The knowledge of God as revealed in Christ is the knowledge that all who are saved must have.

it transforms character, recreates the image of God in the soul, imparts divine, spiritual power. No wonder she finishes with "beside (this knowledge) all else is vanity and nothingness."

Wow, to see the unity and, at the same time, the person of God revealed in Jesus is amazing and powerful. But I don't think I have seen clearly yet how this relates to the sanctuary.

Two Distinctly Loving Personages

I'm glad God the Father is a Person but much of Christianity, on the basis of John 4:24, 'God is Spirit', would disagree with us and make Him out to be some amorphous being. This, I guess, has something to do with Greek dualism - 'the body is bad and the spirit is good'. A non-Biblical idea.

As Mrs White points out, such a belief takes away the glory of both God and heaven. I know I am dwelling on this, but it IS really important that God and heaven and Christ are all physical.

The fact that the devil attacks at this point, all through Mrs White's ministry and into our time means that it is important. As she summed up in the quote below, men try to make the Son a nonentity by making Him 'one' with the Father.

And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." All through the Scriptures, the Father and the Son are spoken of as two distinct personages. You will hear men endeavoring to make the Son of God a nonentity. He and the Father are one, but they are two personages. Wrong sentiments regarding this are coming in, and we shall all have to meet them.
{Review and Herald, July 13, 1905 par. 3}

Satan would like nothing better than for the Son of God to be a nonentity, a person of no influence. And he will try anything to do it and a 'loose, lax religion' certainly would. As Mrs White points out below, the fact that Christ and the Father are two personages, yet are united, means that we are to be one with Christ. This unity proves God sent his Son to save us.

Christ is one with the Father, but Christ and God are two distinct personages. Read the prayer of Christ in the seventeenth chapter of John, and you will find this point clearly brought out. How earnestly the Saviour prayed that his disciples might be one with him as he is one with the Father. But the unity that is to exist between Christ and his followers does not destroy the personality of either. They are to be one with him as he is one with the Father. By this unity they are to make it plain to the world that God sent his Son to save sinners. The oneness of Christ's followers with him is to be the great, unmistakable proof that God did indeed send his Son into the world to save sinners. But a loose, lax religion leaves the world bewildered and confused.
{Review and Herald, June 1, 1905 par. 14}

This concept of 'oneness yet distinct personalities' lived out by us, makes salvation clear to a bewildered world. The unity of the Father and Son are an example of our unity with Christ. But this sets a very high bar because they were one in spirit, heart and character 'from eternity'. That spirit, heart and character was of unfathomable love.

The love of God was Christ's theme when speaking of his mission and his work. "Therefore doth my Father love me," he says, "because I lay down my life, that I might take it again." My Father loves you with a love so unbounded that he loves me the more because I have given my life to redeem you. He loves you, and he loves me more because I love you, and give my life for you. "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you." Well did the disciples understand this love as they saw their Saviour enduring shame, reproach, doubt, and betrayal, as they saw his agony in the garden, and his death on Calvary's cross. This is a love the depth of which no sounding can ever fathom. As the disciples comprehended it, as their perception took hold of God's divine compassion, they realized that there is a sense in which the sufferings of the Son were the sufferings of the Father. From eternity there was a complete unity between the Father and the Son. They were two, yet little short of being identical; two in individuality, yet one in spirit, and heart, and character.
{Youths Instructor, December 16, 1897 par. 5}

A church united with such love would be a powerful witness indeed. 'Almost identical' in loving, giving and longsuffering. Are we up to this Geoff?

So God and Son must be distinct personages or else 'love' becomes 'self-love'. No wonder Satan wants confusion here. He wants to make God's greatest attribute into selfishness.

I would really like verses that back this concept up. Do you know of any Geoff? From my limited knowledge, a few verses which seem to show the Father as being a Person are the vision of Daniel 7 where the Ancient of Days (v9-10) show Him as an awesome Being seated on a throne. which is similar to "Him who sat the the throne" in Revelation 5:1 with His right hand holding the scroll (v7) and being approached by "One like the Son of Man" (v13). In Revelation He is approached by the Lamb.

The Father's Person

The second truth is another wonderful one:
the Father is a Person and has a form so glorious that we can't see Him yet.

I saw a throne, and on it sat the Father and the Son. I gazed on Jesus' countenance and admired His lovely person. The Father's person I could not behold, for a cloud of glorious light covered Him. I asked Jesus if His Father had a form like Himself. He said He had, but I could not behold it, for said He, "If you should once behold the glory of His person, you would cease to exist...
Early Writings p54

This is Good News, God is 'real'!! We can relate to Him.

Most of the Christian world get themselves tangled up trying to explain the extradimensional, incorporeal and 'entirely simple' (therefore spirit alone). Some Hebrews felt the same, as do the Hindus.

All of these beliefs, seem to me, to have the effect of distancing God from us. Making Him into a distant, incomprehensible, ethereal spirit.

Why is it so important that the Father is a Person? One reason the booklet quotes is:

I have often seen that the spiritual view took away all the glory of heaven, and that in many minds the throne of David and the lovely person of Jesus have been burned up in the fire of Spiritualism...
Early Writings - Experience and Views p77

This seems to indicate that an airy fairy heaven is not a glorious one, I wonder if the usual cloud-sitting, harp-playing heaven has made people think of it as a boring place where people only exist as 'spirits'. It has made them prefer this down-to-earth existence now.

This reminds me of Nirvana where the enlightened Buddhist goes, he becomes one with the universe, so ceases to exist. Isn't it strange that these people spend their whole lives working hard to get to a place that is close to our idea of where the wicked will spend eternity. The devil has fooled so many peoples and religions.

Our job is to tell people that God exists! That heaven is a gloriously real place with a throne and Persons on it.

Won't it be exciting to see the Father for the first time?

God Personified

We are still looking at that first truth, that Jesus is the a person.

In the Review and Herald, January 30, 1900, Christ or Barabbas?, Mrs White says:

The world is not improving. Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. By rejecting the Son of God, the personification of the only true God, who possessed goodness, mercy, and untiring love, whose heart was ever touched with human woe, and choosing a murderer in his stead, the Jews showed what human nature can and will do when the restraining power of the Spirit of God is removed, and men are under the control of the apostate. Those who choose Satan as their ruler will reveal the spirit of their chosen master. {RH, January 30, 1900 par. 6}

From this we see that the Son of God is the personification of the only true God.

Websters 1828 defines personification as: The giving to an inanimate being the figure or the sentiments and language of a rational being.

While the Son isn't inanimate, I think Mrs White wants us to see that the figure, sentiments and language of 'the only true God' are in Christ because she goes on to say "who possessed goodness, mercy and untiring love, whose heart was ever touched with human woe." So not only is He lovely in form, He is lovely in sentiment as well.

We can see this clearly at the cross which surely has to be the greatest demonstration of "mercy and untiring love" that this world has ever seen. Mercy because we were the ones who should be punished but Jesus bore that punishment instead. Untiring love in that He loved us until death, despite all the coercion of Satan to give up on us.

We see this idea of Christ as a person being reflected in Adam and Eve:

Created to be "the image and glory of God" (1 Corinthians 11:7), Adam and Eve had received endowments not unworthy of their high destiny. Graceful and symmetrical in form, regular and beautiful in feature, their countenances glowing with the tint of health and the light of joy and hope, they bore in outward resemblance the likeness of their Maker. Nor was this likeness manifest in the physical nature only. Every faculty of mind and soul reflected the Creator's glory. Endowed with high mental and spiritual gifts, Adam and Eve were made but "little lower than the angels" (Hebrews 2:7), that they might not only discern the wonders of the visible universe, but comprehend moral responsibilities and obligations. {Ed 20.2}

Our first parents reflected the mental/mind and spiritual/soul of the person of their Creator as well and the outward physical form. In other words a 'person' consists of a mind, soul and form. Christ, Even preincarnate Christ had all these features.

As a human, I too, reflect the form and features of my Maker, not as much as Adam and Eve did of course. But with his help I can reflect His mind and soul.

So the truth that Jesus is a complete person means that He has real feelings of mercy and love towards us and we can reflect his thoughts.