Pioneer Views on the GODHEAD

ELLEN G. WHITE

"begotten in the express image of Gods person"(Ellen White, The Signs of the Times, May 30, 1895)

"The dedication of the first-born had its origin in the earliest times. . God had promised to give the First-born of heaven to save the sinner.” (The Desire of Ages, p. 51)

“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.” (E. G. White, Manuscript Release No.760, p. 9 1905)

"But although Christ's glory was for a time veiled and eclipsed by His assuming humanity, yet He did not cease to be God when He became man...The man Christ Jesus was not the Lord God Almighty, yet Christ and the Father are one." (Ellen White SDA Bible Commentary, vol.5 p.1129)...

 "The Scriptures clearly indicate the relation between God and Christ, and they bring to view as clearly the personality and individuality of each. [Hebrews 1:1-5 quoted.] 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." (Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, page 268)

"The Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, is truly God in infinity, but not in personality." (Ellen White UL 367 )

“Christ is one with the father, but Christ and God are two distinct personages”(RH June 1, 1905)

 "Silence fell upon the vast assembly. The name of God, given to Moses to express the idea of the eternal presence, had been claimed as His own by this Galilean Rabbi. He had announced Himself to be the self-existent One, He who had been promised to Israel, “whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.” (The Desire of Ages, 469)

The world’s Redeemer was equal with God. His authority was as the authority of God. He declared that He had no existence separate from the Father. The authority by which He spoke, and wrought miracles, was expressly His own, yet He assures us that He and the Father are one. (The Review and Herald, January 7, 1890, p. 1)

Jehovah, the eternal, self-existent, uncreated One, Himself the Source and Sustainer of all, is alone entitled to supreme reverence and worship. (Patriarchs and Prophets, 305)

Jehovah is the name given to Christ. “Behold, God is my salvation,” writes the prophet Isaiah; “I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day ye shall say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His name is exalted.” “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” (The Signs of the Times, May 3, 1899, p. 2)

The heavenly gates are again to be lifted up, and with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of holy ones, our Saviour will come forth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jehovah Immanuel “shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one.” (Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, 108)

This is the reward of all who follow Christ. Jehovah Emmanuel—He “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” in whom dwells “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:3, 9)—to be brought into sympathy with Him, to know Him, to possess Him, as the heart opens more and more to receive His attributes; to know His love and power, to possess the unsearchable riches of Christ, to comprehend more and more “what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know (S.D.A. Bible Commentary Vol. 7A, Page 439)

“Christ, the Word, the only begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father—one in nature, in character, in purpose—the only being that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God.” (Ellen White PP 34)


PIONEERS

"Here we might mention the Trinity, which does away the personality of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ”(James White, December 11, 1855, Review & Herald, vol. 7, no. 11, page 85, par. 16)

"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, March 6, 1855, Review & Herald, vol. 6, no. 24, page 185)

Regarding Christ’s nature AT Jones says he was by nature God by birth.

“He is the One whom the Lord possessed “in the beginning of His way;” who was “set up from everlasting;” who “was by Him as one brought up with Him.” Proverbs 8:22, 23, 30. He is the one “whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of Eternity.” Micah 5:2, (with margin). He is the only begotten of the Father, and is therefore in very substance of the nature of God; in Him “dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;” He, therefore, by divine right of “inheritance,” bears from the Father the name of “God.” John 3:16; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 1:4-8. Thus Christ Jesus was indeed by divine and eternal right one of God – “equal with God.”"[AT Jones, The spirit of Papacy]

Also EJ Waggoner said similar saying Christ is “of the substance of the Father, so that in his very nature he is God“…In this sense “the word was God”

“In arguing the perfect equality of the Father and the Son, and the fact that Christ is in very nature God, we do not design to be understood as teaching that the Father was not before the Son. It should not be necessary to guard this point, lest some should think that the Son existed as soon as the Father; yet some go to that extreme, which adds nothing to the dignity of Christ, but rather detracts from the honor due him, since many throw the whole thing away rather than accept a theory so obviously out of harmony with the language of Scripture, that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God.He was begotten, not created. He is of the substance of the Father, so that in his very nature he is God; and since this is so “it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.” Col. 1:19 … While both are of the same nature, the Father is first in point of time. He is also greater in that he had no beginning, while Christ’s personality had a beginning (E. J. Waggoner, The Signs of the Times, April 8, 1889


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