'CHRISTIANS'  ARE NOT SAVED, ACCORDING TO JESUS.

DID ELLEN WHITE OR THE SDA PIONEERS BELIEVE IN THE TRINITY?

 

Clearly not.  Let me give you proof of that.  

 

History of Christianity 1776 Edward Gibbon,

"If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief."       

  

EVIDENCE FROM THE CONFLICT OF THE AGES SERIES

 

In the first book of the Conflict of the Ages series, Patriarchs and Prophets, EGW writes about the Godhead, and its interaction in the Heavenly counsels.  The first part of this book is a parallel of the Book of Genesis.  As Genesis begins with God and creation, so does this book.  In the very first chapter EGW speaks of the Godhead.  The Godhead she describes is not the Trinity.  EGW clear defines the Father as the God of Heaven and earth, with Jesus in second command, and Lucifer third – there is no mention of the Holy Spirit.  There is no co-equal, co-eternal beings to the Father.

 

Great Controversy Chapter 29, “Christ the Word, the Only Begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father,--one in nature, in character, and in purpose,--the only being in all the universe that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God.”  (Jesus, being begotten means that he was somehow brought into existence). Why couldn’t the Holy Spirit enter the counsels of God?

 

The doctrine of the Trinity held by most church denominations, including the SDA Church (after the 1950’s) says that there are Three persons, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – three co-eternal persons, all knowing and all powerful.

 

Yet we see a different picture of God in Patriarchs and Prophets.  On Page 35 we read, “Sin originated with him who, next to Christ, had been most honored of God and was highest in power and glory among the inhabitants of heaven. Lucifer, "son of the morning," was first of the covering cherubs, holy and undefiled”.  It seems that Lucifer was third place in Heaven, behind Jesus, who was second only to the Father God.  If the Trinity was true, The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit would all be co-equals. But none of that is true.

 

Page 35, “And coveting the glory with which the infinite Father had invested His Son, this prince of angels aspired to power that was the prerogative of Christ alone.”  If Jesus was co-equal and co-eternal, the Father wouldn’t need to invest anything with the Son.  And what about the Holy Spirit, why isn’t ‘it’ even mentioned here?  Yahoveh is called 'Father' because He fathered Jesus by bringing him into existence.

 

Page 37, “The exaltation of the Son of God as equal with the Father was represented as an injustice to Lucifer, who, it was claimed, was also entitled to reverence and honor.”  Jesus was exalted to be equal with the Father.  If the Trinity is true, Jesus should have always been a Co-equal from eternity past, since the Three of the Trinity are supposed to be co-eternal and co-equal.

 

Notice; Jesus was called the SON even before the incarnation. Only the Father is referred to as ‘infinite and eternal’.  God the Father ‘invested’ glory in the Son, and the Son was exalted, to be equal to the Father – which means that before that, he was not equal to the Father.  Lucifer was next to Jesus and the Holy Spirit is not even mentioned. Clearly this is not the TRINITY that the SDA Church and Christianity, wants us to accept and worship today.

 

EVIDENCE FROM NON-ADVENTIST HISTORIANS

 

All non-Adventist historians that study Ellen White writings say that she is clearly an Arian or semi-Arian.  An Arian is one who believes that Jesus was not eternal, but at some point in history brought into existence by the Father. 

 

CAN PROPHETS CHANGE THEIR MINDS?

 

I know that some people, who want to support the Trinity, claim that EGW changed her mind in her later years and started supporting the Trinity doctrine.  Displaying one questionably sentence she wrote as proof.  But saying that she later supported the idea of the Trinity is bogus, for someone to change their mind means that they were originally wrong, or in error- is that possible for someone esteemed as a ‘prophet’?  Also, a prophet cannot change his/her mind – if what they write is from God.  We must accept what she wrote in her prophetic role, as written in Patriarchs and Prophets, or reject her Prophetic role in all her writings.  If she was 'wrong' on that, perhaps she's wrong on other issues.

 

EVIDENCE OF WHAT SHE BELIEVED BY HER WRITINGS?

 

In hundreds of volumes of books, messages, period articles about God, the nature of God, the workings of God and ways of God, she did not once mention the words ‘Trinity’ or “Triune’, not even once, nor the phrases ‘God the Holy Spirit’, or ‘God the Son’.  And again, if you hold that EGW was a prophet, then you cannot say she changed her mind.  If she changed her mind, she was not a prophet and we can discard all she wrote.

 

EVIDENCE FROM THE CHURCH’S FUNDAMENTIAL BELIEFS, THE PILLARS OF FAITH

 

Here in one of the SDA 27 Fundamentals of today, the churches teach that there is one God which consists of three persons;  

 

There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons. God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. He is forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation.—Fundamental Beliefs, 2

 

That is the basic Christian understanding of the Trinity. But the 1874 Adventist Statements of Beliefs, or pillars, which appeared while Sister White was still alive, had it like this (This one appeared in 1874 in the Adventist Review):

 

"1. That there is one God a personal, spiritual being, the creator of all things, omnipotent, omniscient, and eternal, infinite in wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness, truth, and mercy; unchangeable, and everywhere present by His representative, the Holy Spirit.

 

"2. That there is one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, the one by whom God created all things, and by whom they do consist;..."

 

This Statement of Beliefs (1874),  or pillars of belief on which the church will stand, put out by the pioneers, teaches clearly that there is one God who is the Father; that Jesus Christ is His Son and the agent through whom God created all things, and that the Holy Spirit is the agency through which God is represented throughout all creation.  This perfectly agrees with the Bible.  Not one hint of a Trinity.

 

Ellen White wrote about the church’s “Pillars of Belief”, set up by the pioneers, about which she said, the ‘Lord has established’.  Yet in 1931 after the death of the last pioneer, the false theory of the Trinity has come into the Church, deception on the nature of God. Read her warning for the church below;

“In the future, deception of every kind is to arise, and we want solid ground for our feet. We want solid pillars for the building.  Not one pin is to be removed from that which the Lord has established. The enemy will bring in false theories, such as the doctrine that there is no sanctuary. This is one of the points on which there will be a departing from the faith. Where shall we find safety unless it be in the truths that the Lord has been giving for the last fifty years?” (Ellen White, Review & Herald, May 25, 1905)

 

Most SDAs do not recognize the subject of the "Godhead" as a Landmark or Pillar doctrine of pioneer Seventh-day Adventism: "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 [Yahuwah] or of Christ, are working as blind men. They are seeking to bring in uncertainties and to set the people of [Yahuwah] adrift without an anchor." (E.G. White, Manuscript Releases 760 9.5)

 

Have our “SOLID PILLARS” which the ‘Lord has established’ Changed?  Yes by ‘blind men’, the original fundamental pillars have been modified several times, most notably in the 1930’s when the concept of the Trinity was added to them.  EGW would be weeping, and the other founders would have left the church.  But we can’t say that we weren’t warned!

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When the SDA Church turned its back on the 'Pillars that the Lord had established', and embraces the Rome Catholic Church's central doctrine of the Trinity, they turned their backs on EJW, the pioneers, Jesus and God.  Then the hypocritical church leaders say they accept EJW as a prophet, and they say they honor the pioneers, believe in Jesus, love him, and trust God.  They are deceived by the deceiver and they are leading others astray.

 

EVIDENCE FROM THE REVIEW & HERALD AND LETTERS

 

“The Eternal Father, the unchangeable one, gave his only begotten Son, tore from his bosom Him who was made in the express image of his person, and sent him down to earth to reveal how greatly he loved mankind.“ (Ellen White, Review and Herald, July 9, 1895, par. 13).   There is one God, the Father, and then there is the son, John 17:3.

 

Adventist P.S. Cottrell wrote in the July 6, 1869, issue of Review & Herald, “ To hold to the doctrine of the Trinity is not so much an evidence of evil intention as of intoxication from that wine of which all nations have drunk.  The fact that it was one of the leading doctrines, if not the very chief, upon which the bishop of Rome was exalted to the popedom, does not say much in its favor . . . .  This should cause men to investigate it for themselves, as when the spirits of devils working miracles undertake the advocacy of the immortality of the soul.”

 

Now there has been a marked change and that this change took place after Sister White died; or, to be more accurate, there was no change in the Statement of Beliefs while Sister White was alive. It was after she died that the change appeared. In 1931, as I said, it was put into the Adventist Yearbook: for the first time the term "trinity" appeared, and history testifies to the fact that this change was widely opposed.

 

In fact, J.S. Washburn, (a retired Adventist minister), opposed this change in the strongest possible terms. Below, are quotations from a letter which he wrote in 1939:  "The doctrine of the trinity is a cruel, heathen monstrosity, removing Jesus from His true position of Divine Saviour and mediator.... Satan has taken some heathen conception of a three-headed monstrosity, and with deliberate intention to cast contempt upon divinity, has woven it into Romanism as our glorious God; an impossible, absurd invention. This monstrous doctrine transplanted from heathenism into the Roman, papal church is seeking to intrude its evil presence into the teachings of the Third Angel's Message."

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT BY A CURRENT SDA HISTORY PROFESSOR

 

George Knight, a Seventh-day Adventist History professor at Andrews University wrote; “Most of the founders of Seventh-day Adventism would not be able to join the church today if they had to subscribe to the denomination's Fundamental Beliefs. 

 

More specifically, most would not be able to agree to belief number 2, which deals with the doctrine of the Trinity. For Joseph Bates the Trinity was an unscriptural doctrine, for James White it was that "old Trinitarian absurdity," and for M. E. Cornell it was a fruit of the great apostasy, along with such false doctrines as Sunday-keeping and the immortality of the soul.

 

In like manner, most of the founders of Seventh-day Adventism would have trouble with fundamental belief number 4, which holds that Jesus is both eternal and truly God. For J. N. Andrews "the Son of God ... had God for His Father, and did, at some point in the eternity of the past, have beginning of days." And E. J. Waggoner, of Minneapolis 1888 fame, penned in 1890 that "there was a time when Christ proceeded forth and came from God,... but that time was so far back in the days of eternity that to finite comprehension it is practically without beginning."

 

Neither could most of the leading Adventists have agreed with fundamental belief number 5, which implies the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Uriah Smith, for example, not only was anti- Trinitarian and semi-Arian, like so many of his colleagues, but also like them pictured the Holy Spirit as "that divine, mysterious emanation through which They [the Father and the Son] carry forward their great and infinite work." On another occasion, Smith pictured the Holy Spirit as a "divine influence" and not a "person like the Father and the Son."

 

George Knight was right.  What the Adventist Church did after the death of the founders was a 180 degree turn to join the Babylonian churches. They embraced what the founders had rejected, they removed a pillar that “the Lord had established”.  Why?  To conform Protestant and Catholic Christianity (The beast and her daughters).  And to avoid being different and being labeled by them as a cult – they clearly feared man more than they feared God.

 

If Ellen White was a prophet, and she said that pillars she left us were ‘established by the Lord’, and they mustn’t be changed, how could we dare remove them or change them?  Was she lying? Confused? Of do we know better than she did, and somehow we don’t care if they the 'Pillars' were established by the Lord?  The SDA church has forsaken the words of the Lord to embrace the doctrine of Rome.

 

“…the development of the Trinity doctrine demonstrates that sometimes doctrinal changes require the passing of a previous generation. For Seventh-day Adventists, it took over 50 years for the doctrine of the Trinity to become normative.”   Samuel Burt, professor at Andrews Adventist University,  2006, Journal of Adventist Theological Society.  Yes, Samuel Burt is saying that church leadership didn’t dare try to bring the doctrine of the Trinity into the church while the pioneers were still alive, for they would have fought it.  That doctrine was intentionally not part of the SDA established by EJW and the pioneers because God led them into truth.

 

“The Adventist understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity came about through a long process of scrutiny, initial rejection, and eventual acceptance”  Jerry Moon, professor Andrews Adventist University  Adventist Review 4/22/99.    How long was the process?  Until all of the pioneers passed away.

 

TRINITY DOCTRINE IS BABYLON TEACHING

 

Ellen White and the Pioneers did not accept the Doctrine of the Trinity, because it is blatantly false, it is not in the Bible, and it is the central Babylonian of Church of Rome.  It is rooted and grounded in the Creed of Nicene, written by the Roman Catholic Church in AD 324.

 

Adventist use quotes for Edward Gibbon’s History of Christianity in their Revelation Seminars, I especially remember the part about how Paganism has entered into the Church, but the last half of this quote is completely ignored…

 

In the preface to Edward Gibbon's History of Christianity, we read: "If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief."  

 

     The Trinity has Pagan roots. It came into the Church at the same time the Sabbath was changed to Sunday.  It has not one credible shrewd of support in the Bible, and the Bible speaks volumes against any such concept.  To worship the Trinity goes against clear teaching and instruction found in the Bible, the very first Commandment forbids worship of anyone other than Yahoveh (Read Exodus 20:2-3).  To worship Jesus is to violate God’s First Commandment and Jesus’ commands.   

 

THE TRINITY IS A CATHOLIC TEACHING

 

“The mystery of the Trinity is the central doctrine of the Catholic Faith.  Upon it are based all the other teachings of the Church.”  Handbook For Today’s Catholic, page 16.

 

THE EARLY SDA CHURCH REJECTED THE TRINITY DOCTRINE

 

Kellogg’s book, “The Living Temple’ was rejected by Ellen White and the Adventist Church as a heresy.  What was it about the book that made it stink in their noses?

 

Letter;   A. G. Daniells (General Conference president} to W.C. White in regards to ‘The Living Temple’ Oct 29, 1903 Page 1,2  “He [Kellogg] then stated that his former views regarding the trinity had stood in his way of making a clear and absolutely correct statement but that within a short time he had come to believe in the trinity and could now see pretty clearly where all the difficulty was and believed that he could clear up the matter satisfactorily.” (Letter, A. G. Daniells to W. C. White Oct 29th 1903)

 

Of the Early Pioneers, two of the principal founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Joseph Bates and James White, were originally members of the Christian Connection Church, which rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. James White was an ordained minister of that church. When he and Bates joined the Advent Movement, they continued to hold the anti-Trinitarian view that they had held in the Christian Connection Church. In 1855 James White published an article in the Review and Herald entitled “Preach the Word.” In dealing with Paul’s statement in 2 Timothy 4:4, “they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables,” he wrote, “Here we might mention the Trinity, which does away the personality of God and His Son Jesus Christ, . . . .”  Joseph Bates wrote in 1868, “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.” Other prominent Adventists who spoke out against the Trinity were J. N. Loughborough, R. F. Cottrell, J. N. Andrews, and Uriah Smith. For example, J. N. Loughborough, in response to the question “What serious objection is there to the doctrine of the Trinity?” wrote, “There are many objections which we might urge, but on account of our limited space we shall reduce them to the three following: 1. It is contrary to common sense. 2. It is contrary to scripture. 3. Its origin is Pagan and fabulous.”

 

One has to ask, did EJW ever rebuke or correct her husband, or any of the other pioneers, for rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity?  NO!

  

JOURNAL OF THE ADVENTIST THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

REVIEW AND HERALD NOV 5.1862  ' QUESTIONS FOR BRO, LOUGHBOROUGH

 

Toted, Ohio.  . QUESTION 1.  What serious objection is there to the doctrine of the Trinity?

There are many objections which we might urge, but on account of our limited space we shall reduce them to the three following : 1. It is contrary to common sense.  2. It is contrary to scripture. 3., Its origin is Pagan and fabulous, These positions we will remark upon briefly in their order.  And 1. It is not very consonant with common sense to talk of three being one, and one being three. Or as some express it, calling God "the Triune God," or "the three-one-God."  If Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are each God, it would be three Gods ; for three times one is not one, but three.  There is a sense in which they are one, but not on person, as claimed by Trinitarians. 2. It is contrary to Scripture.  Almost any portion of the New Testament we may open which has occasion to speak of the Father and Son, represents them as two distinct persons.  The seventeenth chapter of John is alone sufficient to refute the doctrine of the Trinity.  Over forty times in that one chapter Christ speaks of his Father as a person distinct from himself. His Father was in heaven and he upon earth.  The Father had sent him.  Given to him those that believed. He was then to go to the Father.  And in this very testimony he shows us in what consists the oneness of the Father and Son.  It is the same as the oneness of the members of Christ's church.  "That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world may believe that thou halt sent me.  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one."  Of one heart and one mind. Of one purpose in all the plan devised for man's salvation.  Read the seventeenth chapter of John, and see if it does not completely upset the doctrine of the Trinity. To believe that doctrine, when reading the scripture we must believe that God sent himself into the world, died to reconcile the world to himself, raised himself from the dead, ascended to himself in heaven, pleads before himself in heaven to reconcile the world to him- self, and is the only mediator between man and himself…

 

The word Trinity nowhere occurs in the Scriptures. The principal text supposed to teach it is '1 John i, 7, which is an interpolation.  Clarke says, "Out of one hundred and thirteen manuscripts, the text is wanting in one hundred and twelve.  It occurs in no MS. before the tenth century.  And the first place the text occurs in Greek, is in the Greek translation of the acts of the Council of Lateran, held A. D. 1215."—Com. on John i, and remarks at close of chap. 3. Its origin is pagan and fabulous.  Instead of pointing us to scripture for proof of the trinity, we are pointed to the trident of the Persians, with the assertion that "by this they designed to teach the idea of a trinity,  and if they had the doctrine of the trinity, they must have received it by tradition from the people of God.  But this is all assumed, for it is certain that the Jewish church held to no such doctrine. Says Mr. Summerbell, "A friend of mine who was present in a New York synagogue, asked the Rabbi for an explanation of the word ' elokim.'  A Trinitarian clergygyman who stood by, replied, ' Why, that has reference to the three persons in the Trinity,'- -when a Jew stepped forward and said he must not mention that word again, or they would have to compel him to leave the house ; for it was not permitted to mention the name of any strange god in the synagogue."*  Milman says the idea of the Trident is fabulous. j- This doctrine of the trinity was brought into the church about the same time with image worship, and keeping the day of the sun, and is but Persian doctrine remodled.  It occupied about three hundred years from its introduction to bring the doctrine to what it is now.  It was commenced about 325 A. D., and was not completed till 681.  See Milman's Gibbon's Rome, vol. iv, p, 422.  It was adopted in Spain in 589, in Xtig- land in 596z  in Africa in 534.—Gib. vol. iv,  pp.  114, 345 ;  Milner, vol. i, p. 519.

 

EGW GAVE A DIRE WARNING...

 

Selected Messages 1 page 204… “The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced.”

 

It has happen, just as she predicted – the ‘pillars’ have fallen and the great reformation is in ruin.  Other than Sabbath worship, we are very little different from the Lutherans or Baptist down the street.

 

THE EARLY ADVENTIST CHURCH DID NOT ACCEPT THE TRINITY

 

Nearly every Christian Church ascribes to the Nicene Creed, it is actually used as a test of orthodoxy among the churches.  EGW and the Pioneers never adopted that creed. Why?  The Nicene Creed is a Trinitarian Creed – professing belief in the Trinity.   But it would fit in well in today’s SDA church.

 

Hymn No. 73 (Holy, Holy, Holy) This hymn was originally written in 1826 by Reginald Heber. In its original form it was a Trinitarian song, which read at the end of the first and fourth stanzas as follows, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity!”

 

This song was put into the 1909 and 1941 Seventh-day Adventist Hymnals, but the trinity part was changed to: “God over all who rules eternity!” and “Perfect in power, in love and purity.” This song was purposely changed into a non-Trinitarian song by Seventh-day Adventists, reflecting their views on the Trinity at the time of the change.

 

In the new 1985 Adventist Hymnal this song was changed back to its original, reflecting the new views of the Adventist Church at this time. We can only conclude that once it was Non-Trinitarian church but now has changed back into a Trinitarian church.  The Pillars that Ellen White and the Pioneers, said were “which the Lord has established”, were changed. The “solid pillars for the building” have been removed by the ‘enemy’ and the spiritual building is in ruin.  Adventists have departed from the faith as laid out by the pioneers based on the Pillars established by the Lord.

 

Ellen White wrote about this, “In the future, deception of every kind is to arise, and we want solid ground for our feet. We want solid pillars for the building.  Not one pin is to be removed from that which the Lord has established. The enemy will bring in false theories, such as the doctrine that there is no sanctuary. This is one of the points on which there will be a departing from the faith. Where shall we find safety unless it be in the truths that the Lord has been giving for the last fifty years?” (Ellen White, Review & Herald, May 25, 1905)

 

JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

 

What I shared in this page is just the tip of the iceberg of information about the non-Trinitarian roots of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and EGW.  Investigate it for yourself, the Internet is a great tool for that.   In addition, there are a number of good YouTube videos on the SDA Church and the Trinity by SDA Pastors such as Nader Mansour.  Here is one of them...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptml85308bw  there are several good ones on YouTube.  I might not agree with everything Nader Mansous says, but I fully agree with him on the Trinity issue.  Also see http://www.trinitytruth.org/isthetrinityinthebible.html

 

The pastors and the employees of the SDA church must support the doctrine of the Trinity, or lose their jobs – don’t even bother asking them about it.  They will fight tooth and nail to defend this unbiblical doctrine and try to shoehorn it into the Scriptures and EGW’s writings.  Don’t expect any help from them in your study, simply expect them to support the Trinity Doctrine, they must, and they have no choice.  They probably never honestly investigated it for themselves.  They can only offer feeble excuses to try to convince you that EGW changed into a Trinitarian. 

 

There is overwhelming evidence that the founders, pioneers and EGW did not accept the Trinity.  I have just scratched the surface of evidence.  Continue to investigate it for yourself.  But I have showed you from the Bible that God is not a Trinity and to worship God as a Trinity is idolatry.  Do as Jesus said, worship and serve Yahoveh alone.  

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For much more evidence from the Scriptures that there is no Trinity, and that worshiping the Trinity is wrong, see my book, RESTORING LOST TRUTHS,