Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power. Col 2:9, 10.
Introduction
There is a movement within Adventism that, as I write, is growing rapidly and has grown exponentially in the last several years. Those associated with it have never officially given themselves a name because they are not an organized body and there are differences of opinion among themselves on what they believe. At first they were known as anti-Trinitarians but they now prefer to identify as One True God (OTG) believers. I'll refer to them here as such.
The two teachings common to this group are 1) the denial of the Holy Spirit as a separate person, distinct from the Father and Son, and 2) their assertion that Christ originated by an act of the Father at some point in eternity before anything was created.
The two errors are twins in that both diminish the divinity of these two members of the Godhead which, in their minds, is necessary in order to place the Father in the first rank of the deity. Citing Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD”, they reason that since God is one, the Father must be that one and only true God. In doing this they intend to exalt the Father, magnifying His authority and status as the one true God.
The Character of God Revealed in the Godhead
Unfortunately, the result is the opposite. Taken together, these teachings subvert the actual sublime, harmonious relationship between the members of the Godhead revealed in scripture. This holy bond of union between them is the universal model of divine, unselfish love which is the essence of God and His character. As a result, the greatness and majesty of all three members of the deity is diminished, particularly the majesty of the Father who, when viewed through this lens, is diminished to a monolithic, authoritarian entity.
The divine plan to redeem humanity from the grasp of sin is the supreme example of divine, cooperative love. The oneness that Christ, as equal with the Father, experienced in eternity, is the very oneness that Christ prayed for on behalf of His people: “That they may be one as we are one.” John 17:11.
The meekness and mercy of God, on the one hand, and His justice on the other - these twin attributes of His glory - are placed on display for us in the interaction of the members of the Deity in the plan of salvation. Christ, the king of heaven, the equal of the Father, of His own free will, interposed to redeem man by the sacrifice of himself. The Father, not without a struggle, agreed to His Son’s sacrifice. A holy, mysterious compact was made between them from the foundation of the world that the Father would give His only Son as a gift to us. Both acts of the Father and Son are infinite acts, and are the free will of each, the embodiment of divine, infinite love, not only between God and fallen humanity, but also between themselves.
The scriptures leave us in no doubt that God the Father is the final universal authority, the God of all, including even the Son of God, but how and why is that? We will never fully understand this but one reason the Father is God of the Son is that the Son, the equal of the Father, out of love and reverence, gladly, willingly submits to Him.
The Father and the Son are both equally, infinitely loving and humble but we see that manifested in different ways. The humility of Christ is demonstrated in His complete submission and delight in doing His Father’s will from eternity. But, the infinite humility, love and justice of both is most clearly and fully demonstrated in the cross. Like the death of Christ for us, the act of the Father in giving His Son to be abused, tortured and slain was an act of infinite condescension, love and humility.
To human thinking these two dynamics, equality and subordination, are incompatible, but, in reverence, we need to remove the shoes from our feet here and put our hands over our mouths. Our lack of understanding two parallel dynamics, our inability to harmonize them using human logic, is no excuse for choosing one over the other. In faith, we are to accept all scripture on these points and where scripture is silent we are to be silent as well.
The human father-son relationship is a divine window for us on their bond of union but the illustration, in itself, is incomplete. The human relationship is a reflection of a greater reality, the God-Son relationship; and since the reality is infinitely greater than the reflection, it is unsafe and misleading to imply that the human relationship, where the Father pro-creates a Son, is the model or expression of the divine. That goes beyond what's been revealed, which is an infinite mystery.
Adventism and the Trinity
Historically, Adventists have avoided using the term Trinity to define our understanding of the Godhead. Early and modern Adventists have opposed the Catholic concepts of the Trinity which teach, contrary to scripture, that there is a single being with three manifestations. Significantly, in all of the writings of Ellen White she never once used the term Trinity, and neither is the term found in scripture. Unfortunately, beginning in the 1920’s, some Adventist leaders started using it and redefined this word, changing it’s Catholic meaning to fit our understanding. The definitions given in the first five of the 28 fundamental beliefs of the church do actually define the Godhead in scriptural terms but unfortunately the word Trinity is used.
The One True God brethren have asserted that historically, the pioneers did not view the Holy Spirit as a distinct person of the Godhead. That assertion is generally incorrect. But they are correct in asserting that many of the pioneers believed that Christ was begotten in the distant past. With the publication of the Desire of Ages by Ellen White in 1888, however, the doctrine of the eternal deity of Christ became widely accepted. In fact, the first paragraph of the book begins with this description of the eternal nature of Christ:
"His name shall be called Immanuel, God with us." "The light of the knowledge of the glory of God" is seen "in the face of Jesus Christ." From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the Father; He was "the image of God," the image of His greatness and majesty, "the outshining of His glory." (DA 19.)
The Holy Spirit
Regarding the personal presence of the Holy Spirit as the third member of the Godhead, the OTG brethren point out that there is no command in scripture to worship Him. While that is true - there is no direct command - our worship, our prayers and all our acts of devotion to God, are wrought in and through the Spirit. John 4:23, 24; Eph. 6:18; Rev. 1:10. Since the Spirit is the one who facilitates and mediates our worship, the scripture does not command us to worship Him: It would be a command we couldn’t obey of ourselves. It is through the Spirit of God we worship God.
But, when we worship the Father and the Son in spirit and truth, we are, in the very act of worship, also worshiping the Spirit by yielding ourselves to Him. All true acts of worship start here, and it is through the Spirit by the merits of Christ’s righteousness, we offer acceptable worship to God.
This is what God intends every moment of our lives to be: an ongoing act of worship. If we are, moment by moment, yielded to God, we are in the Spirit. And so long as we are in the Spirit we cannot sin. 1 John 3:9. Is that not good news? In our daily work and recreation, we are to yield ourselves to Him and be at His service, worshiping Him by the ongoing submission of our wills to His. If that’s so, then sin will not have dominion over us as our life fulfils the prayer Christ taught us to pray; “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth [in my life], as it is in heaven.”
It is essential to the salvation of the individual that the Spirit forms this personal saving relationship with us. Christ, speaking to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well said: “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” John 4:23.
Significantly, Jesus, in the same interview said to the woman of Samaria; “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.” John 4:22. My appeal to our One True God brethren and all of us is to pause and prayerfully consider whether Christ may be bearing the same testimony to us that He bore to the woman of Samaria, “You worship you know not what”, and take inventory of whether our God is the God of scripture.
The Divinity of Christ
But more troubling to me than the denial of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the deity is the diminishing of the full divinity of Christ. Christ is on an equality with the Father. Philippians 2:6-8. As fully divine, Christ, like the Father, inhabits eternity, a concept our finite minds can't fully grasp. Isaiah 57:15. Christ reveals himself as the I AM, the self-existent One who has life in himself and who is the source of all life and being. Hebrew 1:3.
According to the Apostle John, the spirit of anti-Christ is manifested in the denial that the Son of God has come in the flesh. I John 4:1-3. A denial of Christ’s full divinity is such a denial. Christ affirms today to His people as He did to the scribes and Pharisees who denied His divinity: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” John 8:58. The claim of Christ here is the equivalent of what is written by Isaiah regarding Jehovah, the God who is high and lofty and inhabits eternity. Isaiah 57:15. This is also consistent with Christ being the God of Israel, Jehovah, who parted the Red Sea and manifested himself in the pillar of cloud and fire. I Cor 10:4.
Fortunately, so far, many OTG brethren have not adopted a mindset of total revolt. Some are still hesitant about separating from Adventism and labeling God’s remnant movement Babylon. Others have rashly denied the light and stepped off the platform of truth. Those who’ve taken this step are following their beliefs to their logical conclusions. But God knows who are His. Some of these may yet recover themselves. So far, these cases are rare, but I’ve seen one or two. The last re-baptism I witnessed was one of these and I hope in the near future we’ll see many more.
At the present, however, the leaders of the OTG movement such as Nader Monsour and others are spreading the call for separation, if not from the church, at a minimum from this supposed error, claiming that the church has apostatized into what Ellen White has termed the “Omega of apostasy” and a “deadly error”, descriptors that fit the One True God movement alarmingly well. (Ellen White, Selected Messages, Book 1, 200.) We’ll come back to this in Part 2.
The Eternal Son of Man
As mentioned earlier, OTG brethren, like our friends the Jehovah’s Witnesses, hold that Christ was begotten in the sense that He was the first of created beings. The words of scripture such as: “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” and “Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” and “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” Col 2:9, 10; Phil 2:6; John 1:1, are made of no effect.
From eternity Christ has been the embodiment of truth and righteousness. Christ said of himself, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. The truth is a person, Jesus Christ, the word made flesh. There was never a time when the truth did not exist, nor when Christ was not that word of truth.
As quoted earlier, Ellen White affirms: “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived. The divinity of Christ is the believer’s assurance of eternal life.” Ellen White, DA p. 530.
This understanding of who Christ is, is central and essential to our salvation. In order to enter into a saving relationship with Christ we must claim His original, unborrowed life as ours by faith through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
When Christ was glorified at His transfiguration, the Father said, “This is my beloved Son. Hear Him.” Christ, as the equal of the Father, is the only perfect image of Him. Denying His eternal deity is denying that Christ is an exact image of the Father. It is because He is the unique and only One who is the perfect image of God, the Father endorses Christ with the words, ‘Hear Him’.
Thank you for reading. In Part 2 I’ll cover what the scriptures say about the “begotten Son” and the Omega of apostasy.
Very well said brother Mark, Blessings!
If Jes us was "created", than He could not be my Redeemer. No created being can forgive my sins!