Transcription
Many have asked me what’s my position when it comes to the trinity doctrine. And I’ve listened to several and read many emails and comments and perspectives on this. Many anti-trinitarian, non-trinitarians, trinitarians in the church—it’s an extremely divisive matter. And I want to speak about this matter with love and tell people my position hasn’t changed, um, in all my study. And I’ve spent hours, hours looking at this stuff and read a number of things, both from what the Bible says, spiritual prophecy, the pioneers’ position. I think Scott Ritzimma, in this video that I’m going to share with you here, is going to articulate my thoughts, because that’s kind of where my position is after all my research, church as well. There’s some things we can learn from each other.
Most of all, one thing I would definitely advocate for is: be Christians in the process of this discussion, whether you are, you know, trinitarian or anti-trinitarian, or maybe you don’t want to use that word at all. We just want to use the word the godhead. And I will agree with you; I would be more along the line of just forget about that word and, you know, its origin and where it came from. At the end of the day, one thing that I would always advocate for is that we got to act right, behave right. Anti-trinitarian, non-trinitarian, I will say you got to be careful with the way you approach this matter and how you talk to the people who may not believe what you believe in. Whether you are, you know, you believe in a in a three-person godhead, right, the heavenly trio, we still have to treat those who have different views than we do, um, according to God’s word and in a Christlike manner.
But at the same time, I think we have to put some boundaries in place, where these boundaries are meant to protect us as well, so we don’t devour each other. If communication cannot take place, if we cannot come together, it’s best we stay separated than to bring about further division and confusion in the body. But at last, I would like to say one last thing: We need to be praying for each other. We need to be praying for each other because ultimately, as we begin to pray for each other and seek to work together on things that really matter, the common issues where we focus on souls and the the preaching of the gospel, this could make a difference. And I think the name-calling, we need to put that aside. I’ve I’ve listened to a lot of name-calling. Uh, people came to me and said some very rude things to me. Some have called me an idolator. Some have called me all kinds of nasty names. I’ve also dealt with some who are very respectful. Uh, I have friends who are of the anti-trinitarian groups, and it is what it is. We we talk, we understand, we hear each other, we have our disagreements, and we can still be Christians at the end of the day. Um, I’m not for the constant fighting anymore. Stuff is getting old. We have we have a work to do. They’re all souls dying all around us. And I think these inward fightings do not always solve the problem. That’s my position when it comes to that. I’m going to let Scott take it from there. And that pretty much—what he’s about to share with you here is a perfect articulation of the way I feel as well. And also in my research, this is the conclusion I came to.
Listen, I’ve listened to both sides. I’ve read articles and things and books from both ends of the spectrum. Um, my conclusion is is exactly what Scott Ritzima is about to share with you here. Anyway, share your thoughts and perspective with me. Belchu link is going to be in the description below. Give him the credit for his work as well. Uh, yeah, let’s have the conversation in the comment below. How about an A minus? You know, one thing I neglected to say last week was: those who hold different convictions on the what I think is a clear teaching in the Bible have my, and hopefully all of our, respect and love. And that’s the same thing today. These are sometimes contentious issues, and I’ll present what I believe from inspiration is uh the clear truth of the matter. Um, but always with proper respect, friendship even, um, and love for every child of God who has different points of view on these or any issues, because that’s an important way to maintain our integrity and affirm the humanity of every human soul.
So having said that, before we dive into our study, it would probably be important to beginning to begin our time asking God to speak, to teach, to clarify, to fill us with his spirit. And so if you’d bow your heads with me as we pray, we’ll begin before the Lord our God, our maker. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the privilege of coming together to explore these themes and seek your will. We want to understand what is truth. We know there are many winds of doctrine and many ideas, uh, causing sometimes trouble. And we just ask for peace, for unity in truth. And we pray for this this evening conversation that it would be glorifying to you, that your spirit would fill each one of us and forgive us for our sins. Lord, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, you’re probably aware that it’s been widely circulated in recent years, especially uh by a sort of a movement within our church, an anti-trinitarian movement within the 7th Day Adventist Church, um, challenging mainly two beliefs about our understanding of the Godhead. Um, one, that the Holy Spirit is a person of the Godhead, and then also the div—the complete divinity of Christ. And the idea is that these these notions only emerged after the death of Ellen White, and they are perversions of the original 7th Day Adventist faith, alleging that since this doctrine of the Trinity was added to the fundamental beliefs in—do you know what year? It’s the year I was born, 1980. Uh, the allegation is since this doctrine wasn’t added to the fundamental beliefs until 1980, that that means that it is a recent belief. And so we’re going to explore mainly in the first half of this message the history of this doctrine within the 7th Day Adventist movement. But first, I want to ask a question: If the doctrine of three persons of the Godhead is indeed a recent belief, does that make it untrue necessarily? No. Recent doesn’t mean bad necessarily. In fact, we know that the Bible says that the light will grow ever brighter unto the perfect day. And that there is no excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed. And that all of our expositions on scripture are without error. This was stated by Ellen G. White. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people is not a proof that that our ideas are infallible. So that should clarify that matter for us that age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation.
So the principle out of that quote and and this one as well, which I won’t read, is the famous John Robinson quotation when he bid the pilgrims farewell. We’re about to celebrate Thanksgiving. By the way, I’ve got a Thanksgiving message that I want to email each one of you. I don’t know if you guys get my—Are you guys on my email newsletter with Belt of Truth Ministries? If you’re not, just send me an email, scottritzma@gmail.com. And I’m going to send you a video, a a lecture that I did at Amazing Facts. It was part of a 14-part series. This is number 11, and it’s about the pilgrims. It’s about the first Thanksgiving, 400-year anniversary of the pilgrims coming to America. But um, John Robinson was their pastor back in the Netherlands. He bid them far—farewell to come to America, and he said there is yet more light to break forth from God’s word. So the principle here is that if it is a recent teaching, speaking of the trinity, the godhead, then that doesn’t necessarily make it untrue, because there are many things, as Sister White here said in Councils to Writers and Editors, many things that we have held for many years which may still have had error to them that need correction, and they are not infallible. So also, secondly, just because it was added officially as a fundamental belief in 1980 doesn’t mean that it was a recently accepted doctrine, because did you know that we had another fundamental belief added recently, just in the last 20 years? Do you know which one it was? It’s it’s devotional—like Growing in Christ is what it’s called. This one was added in 2005. Does that mean that we 7th Day Adventists didn’t believe in growing in Christ until 2005 or the years leading up to 2005? No. This has been part of our belief system going back to prior to the Adventist faith, back to the reformers, the apostles, and all the way back. So, that’s important. Just because it was officially codified, if you will, as one of our fundamental beliefs in 1980 does not even mean it’s a recently accepted doctrine. We’re going to go through that history actually, because the the idea—here’s where—here’s where we’re going to spend our time now. The three-person godhead is actually not a new doctrine as of 1980. It emerged in our movement in Ellen G. White’s lifetime and is clearly present in her writings. So I want to take you all the way back though to the very beginning, 1831 to 1844, the Millerite movement. Do you know who the man on the left is? You know—on the right is William Miller. On the left is Joshua. And these two worked closely together with the important truth of Jesus soon coming. Did you know that they had diametrically—diametrically opposed views on the Trinity? Himes was from a group called the Christian Connection. They were adamantly anti-trinitarian. William Miller was a Baptist minister who held to the view of the Godhead that we hold today. And so I find that interesting that there is that tension within the early Advent movement even before the great disappointments.
But then you get the formation of the actual 7th Day Adventist church doctrines. Those happened in the years after the great disappointment, beginning of course with visions that began of 18—at the end of 1844, Hiram Edson on October 23, 1844, and then especially culminating in the Sabbath conferences in those years on the screen there. And these were important founders, if you will, of the 7th Day Adventist Church: James White, Joseph Bates, and others. Now, those two right there also came out of the Christian Connection. So, at the foundations of our church, there there was that Christian Connection baggage, if you will, of holding an anti-trinitarian position that actually lasted for some time. We’re going to continue to trace the history, but I want to point out that at these Sabbath conferences, the subject of conversation was establishing the pillars doctrinally of what the 7th Day Adventist movement would become: the Sabbath, the sanctuary message, we studied a little bit of that last week, the second coming of Jesus, the three angels’ messages, eventually acceptance of the spirit of prophecy and the state of the dead. These early years were establishing what were the—notice the word—the pillars of the 7th Day Adventist church. They did not dig into establish and proclaim a positions that would be immovably anti-trinitarian forevermore. In fact, nowhere in all of Ellen G. White’s writings from the 1840s, 50s, 60s, all of them, does she endorse that anti-trinitarian position that was predominant among the pioneers—truly, but it was not—it did not receive the validation of the prophetic pen of inspiration. So, it was not a pillar of 7th Day Adventism like the ones that we were naming. In fact, this was a doctrine that was yet in development, and we’ll see that develop as we go forward. But before we do, I I I want to—not—I want to pull back on the shock moment that some of you might have had, because you might have been like, “What? I didn’t know Joseph Bates and James White were anti-trinitarians.” Well, remember these are uninspired men. Remember the quote from earlier about we can’t view our previous position on something necessarily as being infallible. Now, if it comes from the Bible and spirit of prophecy, if it’s an inspired source, I’m going with that. But as truth develops in a movement and light grows ever brighter unto the perfect day, you can’t expect that it was all absolutely final from the very beginning, because it is indeed a movement. So there were errors that were held in those years prior to the great dis—Why were they disappointed? Because they thought the sanctuary was the earth. We covered that last week. They expected Jesus to come in 1844 because they thought the earth was to be cleansed with fire instead of the sanctuary in heaven being cleansed. They ate unclean meat till 1863. So there were errors there. There was no right arm of the gospel whatsoever—such an important part of the 7th Day Adventist identity and mission and movement—until 1866. There was no true education message. Can you imagine that? Decades of Seventh Day Adventism. And there’s not a—there’s not a a ministry of of educational work for our young people. So, does that mean that’s one of the pillars of Adventism? Is that we will not have schools? We will not have true education? Well, no. Of course not. Because we’re growing. There was no foreign mission work until 1874. There was no righteous—Okay, this is an important one. One of the most important movements to come out of the 7th Day Adventist Church was the 1888 message of righteousness by faith. That took half a century to get to. So I think we got to go a little easier on those pioneers. First of all, don’t expect so much from them. Don’t look to them as the final authority on matters and recognize that this was all a work in progress for the latter half of the 19th century. And it continues within each one of us to this day, doesn’t it? Do you remember Uriah Smith in the controversy in 1888? He took the wrong side of the righteousness by faith controversy. Jones and Wagner promoting the idea that we are made righteous through Jesus Christ and him alone. That the law and Galatians is this. Uriah Smith said, “No, the law is that and the law matters more in this way.” And they said, “No, it is by grace yours.” There was this debate. There was this very ugly 1888 Minneapolis General Conference session, and Uriah Smith, a pioneer, an honorable man, somebody who we look to in so many ways with admiration, he got it wrong. He just got it wrong and was rebuked firmly by Ellen G. White over the matter. So the lesson there is, excuse me, just because you were a pioneer doesn’t mean you you were infallible. The progress on the Godhead happens to coincide also with post-1888 period when we’re receiving so much light on righteousness by faith. We also begin to make progress on the truth of the godhead. This is a statement from 1892 in a church publication. It says: Our Savior, in prescribing the formula to be observed in baptism—that’s baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—directed that converts to Christianity should be baptized in those three names. Here we have the distinct element of threeness in three personal titles of the Godhead. Three personal titles of the Godhead. And while this implies some kind of distinction between the persons thus designated, the language places them all on the same level of divinity. This is a church publication already as early as 1892 and not 1980. 1892. Even Uriah Smith in 1896 writes: In the formula for baptism, the name Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is associated with that of the Father and the Son. And if the name can be thus used, why could it not properly stand as part of the same trinity in the hymn of praise, Praise God from whom all blessings flow? Another writer in one of our publications—the editor of this was Uriah Smith, but the writer is R.A. Underwood—he states in 1898: The Holy Spirit is Christ’s personal representative in the field, and he is charged with the work of meeting Satan and defeating his—personal enemy of God and his government. It seems strange—feeding this personal enemy. It seems strange to me now that I ever believed that the Holy Spirit was only an influence in view of the work he does. But we want the truth because it is the truth. And we reject error because it is error regardless of any views we may formerly have held or any difficulty we may have had or may have. Now when we view the Holy Spirit as a person, light is sown for the righteous. So you hear this man saying we used to view the Holy Spirit just—that we might say—just as a force or just as an influence. He says the Holy Spirit is a person is a—is—is—is the Holy Spirit is not just an influence. He is a person. That was the view that that Underwood adopted in Uriah Smith’s publication of Review and Herald in 1898. So you see the transition beginning to happen during this period of time. We fear that many have tried to receive the Holy Ghost as an emotion or as an influence when, according to his name and position given him by Jesus and introducing him to the disciples, he should be received as a person. So remember the two erroneous ideas, the two false ideas that have been promoted heavily lately are that the Holy Spirit is merely just an influence or just an extension of Jesus. It is—he is not a unique individual person of the Godhead. And they believed a hundred years ago, and there were still anti-trinitarians around at this time. It’s not like this just turned over everybody overnight. It’s kind of like how Sabbath to Sunday took some time—took—took a period of time for that movement to change. That one moved in the wrong direction. This one I believe is moving in the right direction. But another writer, R. Hair, wrote this in another church publication: From the confusing idea of one God and three gods—and three gods in one God—the unexplainable dictum of theology. So he’s describing the Catholic view of the trinity there. He says we go from that confusing idea and then the enemy gladly leads to what appears to be—appears to be more rational, but it’s no less erroneous, and that’s the idea that there is no trinity and that Christ is merely a created being. That’s the second error. The first error is the Holy Spirit is not a person. The second error is Christ is a created being. He’s saying we can’t swing away from the Catholic view into this anti-trinitarian view where Christ is just a created being. He says God’s plan is clear and logical. There is a trinity, and in it there are three personalities. These divine persons are closely associated in the work of God. Steven Haskell—I could go on. I’ll I’ll skip through this one because I think you get the idea. In the couple decades after the 1888 General Conference, you get a lot of movement amongst our church leadership in Ellen White’s lifetime. So, we can just add to this list that we just went over. We can just add: Anti-trinitarianism did prevail in our church until post-1888. But isn’t the main question to ask when you’re looking at Adventist history? Well, what about the pen of inspiration on this matter? Um, what—what saith the spirit of prophecy through these years where these other writers like Haskell and Hair and and and Starr and Underwood and Uriah Smith were saying these things? Well, this is an amazing moment in the history of our church: The publication of The Desire of Ages in what year? Do you know what year? It was 1898. And in that year, her book that she published states that in Christ is life, original, unbared, unerived. Think about the meaning of those words. That stands against every idea that could be proposed that Jesus was came into existence at some time in the long distant past. No, in him is underived life. His life was not derived from another source. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And then there was—there was an individual, you know, M.L. Andreas. Some of you maybe are more versant in the history. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know who he is, but when this book was published, The Desire of Ages, he looked at that statement and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He said this—this is—this is out of harmony with still the majority who are anti-trinitarian. Oh, I—I—this can’t be true. Did she really write this? So he says, “I had with me a number of quotations that I wanted to see if they were in the original in her own handwriting. I remember how astonished we were when The Desire of Ages was first published, for it contains some things that we considered unbelievable—among the others, the doctrine of the Trinity, which was not then generally accepted by the Adventists.” So he’s like, “She taught the trinity in…
the desire of ages." And I wasn't happy about it. I was like, "This is not norm. this is not how we view things around here." So that statement might not seem very revolutionary to you. This one you might be like, "Yeah, I know. I believe that. That's in the Bible." And uh, but at the time he says to us, it was a revolutionary statement. We could hardly believe it. I was sure Sister White had never written the passage, but now he he said, "Can I see it? Can I see the original manuscript now?" I had it. I found it in her own handwriting just as it had been published. So it's not just that one statement either. That was Desire of Ages. This is Review and Herald. She says Christ was God essentially.
Now be careful with that word essentially because we kind of use that rhetorically like, you know, "Son, finish your broccoli please." Well, you know, I ate the plate of broccoli essentially. You know, essentially, you know, we kind of mean it like kind of. That's not the meaning of the word in its in its original and literal sense. The meaning is in its essence, in his essence. The essence of Jesus was that he was God. Christ was God in his very essence is another way to explain it. But let's just hear the quote, the rest of the quote. Christ was God essentially and in the highest sense. So what is the highest sense of what you can define as God? Jesus Christ is that he was with God from all eternity. That is so clear, isn't it? God over all. He was with God from all eternity. God over all, blessed forever more. Over all except his father, of course, who is the first person of the Godhead.
Here's another statement: 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. So, the three heavenly dignitaries, the three powers of the Godhead, you know, she didn't use the word trinity. So, when describing this, I prefer to go with the word godhead personally. The three powers of the Godhead have pledged their might to carry out the purpose that God had in mind when he gave to the world the unspeakable gift of his son.
Now, I got to just pause in the middle of this quote and make sure that analyzing the data in the quotes about the definition of the Godhead doesn't cause us to lose sight of a bigger, better, more glorious, more redemptive, and more important truth that Jesus Christ was sent as the unspeakable gift to redeem us from our sins. This is an important exercise we're doing tonight, but not nearly as important as hitting that one again and again. Every morning on my knees, every time that I doubt myself, every time that I'm convicted of sin, every time that I have a spare moment to just reflect on the goodness and character of God, I had the privilege the last few days of recording just reading Steps to Christ. I thought, what, you know, I do a lot of videos, make videos for our YouTube channel and stuff. I was like, this is the best thing I can do. How many Bible verses are in here? How beautifully is it put together? And so I just read. That's all I do. Record, read. No commentary, just start to finish. And it's been such a delight to go through that again and again and again. And I've been telling my family, we got we do it for worship. A Steps to Christ is just the best book. You know, it's the second best-selling non-fiction Christian book in history. It's second to Fox's Book of Martyrs. That was non-fiction Christian books. And I'm not counting the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. That's a lurggical book distributed to every member of the British Empire and the Anglican Church for hundreds of years. That's just a, you know, lurggical book. I'm talking non-fiction books that people read. It's the second best-selling ever printed. Isn't that amazing? And we, it happens to be ours. We get the privilege of sharing it with the world.
So, there are more quotes. I mean, you got there. It was the three powers of the Godhead. So, we have three three powers in the Godhead. She says there are three living persons in the heavenly triel. So, the Holy Spirit would be a person. Of course, Jesus is a person, but we also know Jesus' life is unbared. He was God over all from eternity. God in the highest sense. And then um there are three living persons in the heavenly trio. And the names 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 cooperate with the obedient.
Now, of course, there's the conspiracy theory. Have you heard the idea? You know, Andreas was skeptical. I get it. You could be skeptical and then then look into it and discover the answer and you know debunk the conspiracy theory or confirm the conspiracy theory if it's true. In this case, it's not true. The idea that her writings were changed after her death. And I I want to point out that that's not only an attack on the Bible truth of the Godhead, but that's an attack on the spirit of prophecy across the board. So in in an effort supposedly to reestablish one of the lost pillars of early Adventism, you tear down one of the pillars, which is the validity of the spirit of prophecy, saying they cannot be trusted. These writings cannot be trusted. It says in the councils that the very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the spirit of God. And you expect that to come from the skeptics and the high-minded, you know, uh, critical theorist, uh, from an intellectual school of, you know, sort of liberal theology is going to be the one tearing down the the validity of the testimonies. It's kind of the the obvious, uh, you know, route that you'd expect the devil to take there. But then it's a it's an end run. It's like, let's use this pillars of foundational Adventism movement to actually tear down the testimonies that supposedly we are building up. Oh, that's a that's a subtle one.
So, here's how it's debunked. Um, this is the original manuscript from 1896 that the statement in Desire of Ages was taken from where she calls the Holy Spirit the third person of the Godhead. And to me, I thought about doing, you know, you you want you're invited to do a talk on these type of things. I thought, you know what? I could just do the whole trinity godhead controversy in five words: Third person of the Godhead from spirit of prophecy. Right now, if you're coming at this, you're not from a 7th-day Adventist perspective. We do Bible studies on this. We are Bible alone, solo scriptor. I'm doing a history of how these developed within our movement, who some of the key players and leaders were. But for a 7th-day Adventist audience who believes in the spirit of prophecy, I've got you've got in your Desire of Ages for the last 126 years that the Holy Spirit is a person and that there is a three-person Godhead, the third person of the Godhead in those five words. And there it is in her manuscript. This is her actual manuscript. Do you see it there? By the way, I should have underlined it. Evil has been accumulating for centuries and could only be restrained and resisted by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead. There it is, zoomed in from the middle of that page. And this is page six from that manuscript that was mailed from Australia to the brethren in uh in in Battle Creek. And um you can see the reason I show you page six is because you can see her own handwriting on it. So she personally went through the typed out manuscript that her assistant typed out and she made some additional marks. So this is not like you know this snuck in there. She had this manuscript in her hand carefully going through it, writing on it. So that's in there and we can't just say you could posit a theory. You can hypothesize maybe her writings have been manipulated, but then when you can validate them and then that that's put to rest.
She says, "By the way, regarding the Holy Spirit, I think when when it comes to um discussing the Godhead, we've got to have a lot of humility. I'm not going to come tonight and be like, 'And this is exactly how you describe the Godhead precisely,' because if I can reduce God, the living God, the creator of the universe with with eternity past, if I can reduce him to a set of verbiage and ideas that I can fully comprehend, then that then he ceases to be the great and almighty God. I've brought him down to my level. The nature of the Holy Spirit is a mystery. Men cannot explain it because the Lord has not revealed it to them. Men having fanciful views may bring together passages of scripture and put a human construction on them. But the acceptance of these views will not strengthen the church. Have you noticed that the last few years regarding such mysteries which are too deep for human understanding? Here are the words: Silence is golden. I'm going with just what's written here. The Holy Spirit is a person of the Godhead. I'll go with that. and I'll find out more if I can in heaven what that means. And if I can't find out any more than that, God wants me to just know of his love. He wants me to know of the plan of redemption. He wants me to stand at my post of duty and do the work of winning souls unto Jesus and not getting sidetracked on some tangent that the devil would be delighted to have us on.
Here are some more in her u manuscripts. You can see again her handwriting on there where she says there are there are three living persons of the heavenly trio. That one's 1905. Here's another one from 1899. You can see again her handwriting. She refers to the Holy Spirit who is as much a person as God is a person. So as much as the father is a person, the Holy Spirit is a person. In her own manuscripts, here's another one from 1906. The Holy Spirit has personality. Must also, sorry, be a divine person. This one you, by the way, you know her history as a child. She she couldn't attend school past the third grade because she was so sickly. She'd been hit by a rock and stuff. So, if you have a hard time reading the handwriting, I've typed it out here for you. Evangelism page 616. And does this this by the way when you see her handwriting doesn't it show how divinely led the truths were because this is not somebody with high intellectual attainments and that that has been written the most elevating and beautiful things and so true and biblical things not through personal study not through man's efforts but through divine aid the Holy Spirit is a person for he breathes witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. His faith in Jesus Christ by baptism has become a receiver. So the person's faith in Jesus Christ when you're baptized, you receive of the pledge from the three persons, the father, the son, and the holy spirit. I don't know if you're keeping track, but there's quite a few times the Holy Spirit is referred to as a person here, right? This is very very abundant with the with the evidence. And then another handwritten statement in manuscript release volume 20. Holy Spirit is the comforter in Christ's name. He personifies Christ yet is a distinct personality. Beautiful how clear this is, right? [Music]