The Forgotten Pillar

A Specious Error that Denies the Personality of God

From the Pen of Inspiration

I entreat everyone to be clear and firm regarding the certain truths that we have heard and received and advocated. The statements of God’s Word are plain. Plant your feet firmly on the platform of eternal truth. Reject every phase of error, even though it be covered with a semblance of reality, which denies the personality of God and of Christ.

— E.G. White Review and Herald, August 31, 1905

He who denies the personality of God and of his Son Jesus Christ, is denying God and Christ. “If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.” If you continue to believe and obey the truths you first embraced regarding the personality of the Father and the Son, you will be joined together with him in love. There will be seen that union for which Christ prayed just before his trial and crucifixion.

— E.G. White, Review and Herald, March 8, 1906

From the Pens of Our Dead Pioneers

The doctrine of the Trinity which was established in the church by the council of Nice, A. D. 325. This doctrine destroys the personality of God, and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The infamous, measures by which it was forced upon the church which appear upon the pages of ecclesiastical history might well cause every believer in that doctrine to blush.

— J.N. Andrews, Review and Herald, March 6, 1855

Here we might mention the Trinity, which does away the personality of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ…

— James White, Review and Herald, December 11, 1855

How does Nicene trinitarianism destroy the personality of God? I will let the pioneers speak plainly on it, for these

Five Pioneer Passages Lay It Out Clearly.

Please read these now if you can; they are not that long.

• James White: The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints (1846)
• J.B. Frisbie: The Sabbath God vs. The Sunday God (1854)
• J.N. Loughborough: Is God a Person? (1855)
• James White: The Personality of God (1861)
• W.C. Gage: Popular Errors and Their Fruits, No. 3 (1865)

A Special Note

In the last article (Gage’s), this statement is made:

…Trinitarianism. By this expression we mean the doctrine that the Father, Son and Spirit are united in one and the same person.

This is an important point to be brought out. What does he mean by “one and the same person” when traditional trinitarians, by definition, claim to believe in three persons? Was this a strawman argument? Not at all. What must be understood is that the classic Trinity doctrine—as taught in all the main denominations up to at least about 1970 CE—taught that the three persons did not each have a distinct mind and will, but that there was only one conscious being, hence why singular personal pronouns were used to describe this one God that consisted of three ontological roles. The Latin word ‘persona’—originally used to denote the mask worn by an actor but applied to the role he assumed—is where we derive ‘person’ from; and that is all it really meant: an actor with a distinct role. But this is not how the word ‘person’ is used in modern English. When the pioneers made that argument, they were going by the English definition, not the theological definition equivalent to the Latin ‘persona’. Here it is from the Oxford English Dictionary:

PERSON – Philosophical sense: a self-conscious or rational being. First occurrence: “All which words are … descriptions of a person, a person hearing, receiving, testifying” (Pearson, Creed, 1659).

We will see later in this series that Ellen White used this English definition as well, and it was not until around 1970 CE that some trinitarians adopted a different trinitarian model, which came to be known as the social Trinity, in which the three active roles became individuals with independent minds, which is biblical; but this also meant essentially destroying monotheism. Three conscious divine individuals were now to be worshipped, who were not ontologically related (one begetting, one begotten, and one being sent) but instead having social relationships.

This idea soon entered Adventism, and when it did, it dispensed with the idea of the Son of God truly being begotten; instead, He just played a role of being submitted to the Father as a human as an example for us. But Ellen White never took that departure of faith. In her day it was commonly believed that the Son was begotten of the Father, usually through the idea of being eternally generated, but not so for the personal God believers.

The implications of this are phenomenal. Ellen White made many three-person statements of the Godhead starting in the 1890s, but if she was only using the English definition of ‘person’, then she was opposing the orthodoxy; and in a sermon she even used the phrase “the three holiest beings in heaven” (Manuscript 95, 1906)—heresy to trinitarian orthodoxy, which teaches that there one divine being with one mind, which is not a person (the FATHER) but an immaterial essence.

Later we will see the origin of this teaching of a one-person, one-essence deity, which Plato called “the One”; and, according to Pagan and Platonic theory, “the One” takes multiple forms. This is a false science that we will not try to explain, but we will see who this “one” really is that has very anciently been worshiped, far predating Plato.

The Seventh-day Adventist pioneers well knew that popular trinitarianism was but modalism (one person in three modes, or forms) clothed in the language of ontological distinctions in a vain effort to make it appear they do not hold the error. Recall earlier Ellen White’s statement that we are to “reject every phase of error, even though it be covered with a semblance of reality, which denies the personality of God and of the Messiah.”

Modalism is masked, the error covered by a trinitarian cloak, in the vain effort of trying to maintain a semblance of biblical monotheism and yet preserve Pagan mysticism. No one really believes in the orthodox Trinity creed as it is an impossibility, a cover-up for the fact that Paganism lives on in Christendom. It is only an empty profession of faith.

The Adventist pioneers knew this. They knew the nature of the false doctrine, even better than the ones holding it, because they very well knew the light of the truth, which exposes the counterfeit, which is the only true way to expose all counterfeits.

With that understood, let us now look at this quote by J.N. Loughborough, answering to the question posed to him, “What serious objection is there to the doctrine of the Trinity?”:

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 one 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…
3. Its origin is pagan and fabulous.

— Review and Herald, 11/5/1861

As we will see shortly, Sister White recognized the same reality, just without denouncing the Trinity doctrine by name. One reason for this may be that people would not see the Catholic Trinity doctrine as the fundamental problem but rather any doctrine that denies His personality, for Satan will get us to disbelieve in the personality of God however he can so that we do not relate to God on a personal level and thus become separated from Him. This is so vital to understand, yet it is ignored in the Trinity versus Anti-trinity debates.

The Trinity is not the issue at hand, it is only a mask. J.H. Kellogg taught the error it covers before he ever taught a Trinitarian version of it, and there are many professed Adventist personal God believers today that do the same. Sister White went right to the root issues without going into the confusing mire of Trinitarianism.

The fundamental problem with the Messiah not being properly distinguished from the personality of “God” as a true personality, or personal being, of His own, is that it makes God into a nonentity. It makes “Him” an intangible being consisting of two or three artificial persons, rather than a true personal being consisting of a tangible form—Someone we can have a relationship with, just like His Son. So, here is an example of the many times Sister White rebukes this error, which no one but those clinging to the trinitarian creed were teaching:

The Scriptures clearly indicate the relation between God and Christ, and they bring to view as clearly the personality and individuality of each.

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the Word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son?” Hebrews 1:1-5.

God is the Father of Christ; Christ is the Son of God. To Christ has been given an exalted position. He has been made equal with the Father. All the counsels of God are opened to His Son…

“And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me” (John 17:22-23).

Wonderful statement! The unity that exists between Christ and His disciples does not destroy the personality of either. They are one in purpose, in mind, in character, but not in person. It is thus that God and Christ are one.

— E.G. White, 8 Testimonies, pp. 268-269

Please note how she distinguishes “Christ” from “God” (something she does repeatedly in all her writings but which three-person God adherents avoid doing since they believe that the Messiah is God Himself) as she emphasizes their Father and Son relationship. This relationship maintains both the distinct personalities of each as well as the divinity of the Son. If the Messiah was perpetually being begotten as Nicene trinitarianism teaches, then His life would be derived from the Father and not original, thus destroying His divinity. So, again, what this deceptive doctrine tries to nominally defend, it only destroys. Satan’s original qualm against God’s government and order was that He made His Son divine but not himself or any other of the angels, which he thought was arbitrary; therefore, he hates the truth of the divinity of the Son of God and continues to seek to obscure it in every religion, including Christianity. Every argument that the Son cannot be divine if He has a beginning to His personality is on the side of Satan, for it disparages His divinity that He has as the Son.

Furthermore, in teaching that God Himself exists as three inseparable persons, and cannot otherwise exist, it teaches that the divine Son of God did not die for our sins but that it was only the death of a human body while the Messiah still immaterially existed. Again, this destroys the divinity of our Saviour who died for our sins.

Ellen White and Her Husband in Harmony

James White relates an interaction he had with a trinitarian missionary. Notice both how he describes the high esteem that Seventh-day Adventists had for the divinity of the Messiah versus the strawman that is commonly posed indiscriminately against all non-trinitarians, and then how he describes the same thing that his wife did in the previous quote: the true personality distinction between God and His Son, with the implications of denying it.

This missionary seemed very liberal in his feelings toward all Christians. But after catechizing us upon the trinity, and finding that we were not sound upon the subject of his triune God, he became earnest in denouncing unitarianism, which takes from Christ his divinity, and leaves him but a man. Here, as far as our views were concerned, he was combating a man of straw. We do not deny the divinity of Christ. We delight in giving full credit to all those strong expressions of Scripture which exalt the Son of God. We believe him to be the divine person addressed by Jehovah in the words, “Let us make man.” He was with the Father before the world was. He came from God, and he says, “I go to him that sent me.” The apostle speaks of Christ as he now is, our mediator, having laid aside our nature. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

The simple language of the Scriptures represent the Father and Son as two distinct persons. With this view of the subject there are meaning and force to language which speaks of the Father and the Son. But to say that Jesus Christ “is the very and eternal God,” makes him his own son, and his own father, and that he came from himself, and went to himself. And when the Father sends Jesus Christ, whom the Heavens must receive till the times of restitution, it will simply be Jesus Christ, or the eternal Father sending himself.

— James White, Review and Herald, June, 6, 1871

Now, let’s go back to Ellen White again, as she uses the same words as her husband, just without naming the popular error that denies the truth, for the error is only confusion and she exposed what the error truly is, which is modalism—not the “Trinity” mask that Satan has placed over it.

Every promise is for those who will learn the only true science, which is found in the prayer of Jesus Christ.

“…And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”

In this scripture God and Christ are spoken of separately. They are two distinct persons, but one in mind, one in heart, one in holiness and justice and purity, and one in the work of seeking to save the sinful race. To those who believe in Christ, God will give power to become His sons, even to them that believe on His name. This is the science of the life that now is, and of the life which is to come…

Satan worked in every possible way to come out victorious in standing in the highest place in the heavenly courts. How artful were his contrivances to win the game! He employed every artful intrigue and device to carry his science against God and His Son Jesus Christ. As I am shown these special things of Satan’s science, and how he deceived the holy angels, I am afraid of the men who have entered into the study of the science that Satan carried into the warfare in heaven.

—E.G. White, Letter 311, 1905

This is clearly in opposition to trinitarian orthodoxy when it is understood what trinitarians generally believed in her day, especially when compared with the identical language her husband used in context of an anti-trinitarian article. Trinitarians would not have spoken of God and Christ separately nor spoken of “two distinct persons” in the context that James and Ellen both used.

What was the science that Satan taught in heaven? Exaltation of himself, and we will shortly see how this principle applies to all of us. But first, let us see how he carries this out in the world through his system of Paganism, then we will see clearly how he brought this into Christendom through destroying the personality of God in people’s minds.

The Nature of Idolatry

The following is from an encyclopedia called the “Handbook for Bible Students” (published by Review and Herald in 1922) under the first entry for ‘Idolatry’:

Idolatry, Nature of.—Idolatry is not, as some have supposed, the natural outcome of the pious ignorance of men in a state of barbarism, nor are its different forms the varied inventions of different nations and peoples separated from each other. All are similar in nature and origin, and emanated from the most highly civilized nation of antiquity. For although there is good reason for believing that idolatry first originated in antediluvian times, and brought upon the world the judgment of the deluge, yet it arose again, after that event, with the Chaldeans of ancient Babylon, whose mighty works and wisdom were famed throughout antiquity. “Babylon,” says the prophet, “hath been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord to make all the earth drunken. The nations have drunken thereof; therefore are the nations mad.”

Although the gods and goddesses of the heathen were so numerous, yet “all,” says Faber, “as we are repeatedly informed by the ancient mythological writers, are ultimately one and the same person.” Strictly speaking, they are resolved into one or other of a Trinity, composed of a Father, Mother, and Son, the various attributes of whom were personified and worshiped under different titles, and known under different names in different nations.—”The True Christ and the False Christ,” J. Garnier, Vol. II, pp. 4, 5. London: George Allen, 1900.

Moreover, although it was taught that they were one and the same god, yet, as even the prince of the demons is neither omniscient nor omnipresent, it was necessary that he should be represented at the innumerable temples and shrines, and in the multitude of idols all over the world, by a host of subordinate spirits, the demons over whom he was prince, who personated the various gods.—Id., pp. 20, 21.

It will be noticed that the worship of the pagan gods was always carried on through their idols or images, and that these idols being the characteristic and apparently an inseparable feature of that worship, it had the appearance of being the worship of idols, and is spoken of as “idolatry.” The reason of this has already been alluded to. The demon gods were neither omniscient nor omnipresent, and to have invoked their aid at all times and in all places would therefore have been useless. Hence the necessity for some local habitation for them, such as an image, temple, grove, or sacred symbol, which when consecrated by the priestly adept who had already established communication with them, might become the special abode of some one spirit, who would thus be ever at hand to influence and delude those who sought his aid.—Id., pp. 22, 23.

— Handbook for Bible Students, p. 247

“With many, a philosophical idol is enthroned in the place of Jehovah; while the living God, as He is revealed in His word, in Christ, and in the works of creation, is worshiped by but few … Though in a different form, idolatry exists in the Christian world today as verily as it existed among ancient Israel in the days of Elijah.”

— E.G. White, Great Controversy, p. 583

Christendom’s Idolatry Destroys the Personality of God

Idolatry was brought into Christendom through the Trinity creed, in which people are led to believe in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit as all one person that is essentially everywhere, yet through deceptive language, they are told that they believe in three persons and that it is an unexplainable mystery, making for the subtle lie—the masterful mask. But this same idolatry can enter into non-trinitarianism if the foundational error of God or the Messiah being an essence is not corrected, because then there is still no distinction between God and His Spirit. Thus, the orthodox Trinity doctrine is not the foundational idolatry itself but only what has become the most popular manifestation of it—one that Satan has been very successful with.

Satan is exalted as the one God; this is his false science. He is the god that is honored in this doctrine. He gets people to worship themselves in worshiping an essence god within themselves, and this is what the New Age religion of theosophy openly teaches, which Hollywood dishes to the world in its supposed entertainment, which is really indoctrination. But since Satan is the author of selfishness, he is the ultimate one who is worshiped in all these things. And when he comes to personate the Messiah, He will not merely be worshiped as the Messiah, but as the living God Himself, which the Messiah is believed to be. Thus, Satan hopes to secure his exalted place above the Messiah, taken through deceit. This is really what it is all about in terms of the great controversy. He is the “Sunday god” as the pioneer writer J.B. Frisbie brings out in his article above. Why? Because in Paganism, the ‘sun god’ was the most exalted god in nearly every culture, since it is the most exalted light in the sky, and that is who he wants to be—the light bearer—when he is really the prince of darkness.

But may the true light expose all of his lies…

The Subtle Danger of Panentheism

Satan deceives the world into believing in a god that is in all things, since we know the Spirit of God is in all things. But the Spirit, like the Messiah, is not the personality of God Himself; and that is where the truth lies, hidden beneath the rubbish of lies—originating from Paganism in idolatry, and even before that in Satan who said:

I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation,
in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell,
to the sides of the pit.

— Isaiah 14:13-15

This is the ultimate delusion: It is selfishness. Satan originated it, and it is something we must all daily fight against. The Bible reveals the truth, which exposes all masks and lies. It reveals what is truly behind Satan’s lie that God is not a personal being and that He didn’t really send His only-begotten Son to be our personal Saviour. But that is the Gospel—the only power that will defeat selfishness, which is the root of every sin and error. God gave Himself; and in the person of His Son—the image of Him we are to worship—He has shown us perfect humility. That is the true science—the science of the Gospel. And it also gives us an accurate view of the full divinity of Jehoshua.

But there is one part we have not covered yet. If God Himself is everywhere—as an all-pervading essence—then there is no need for the ministration of angels.