URIAH SMITH’S GODHEAD DOCTRINE WAS

UNDERGOING CHANGE WHEN HE DIED IN 1903!!

[*4th Edition—Edited and Expanded, Oct., 2019]

By Derrick Gillespie

This bombshell revelation will certainly continue to be another “stumper” for the dissident SDA
anti-trinitarians troubling the organized SDA Church about “the Trinity”. This free e-booklet
(now online as a fourth edition) initially came a few months after my already troublesome
“stumper series” e-book was released between late 2016 and 2017. Get your free copy of that
earlier “troublesome” booklet at the link below:
STUMPED- A Pro-Trinitarian Pictorial & Commentary for SDAs

Even after the above linked booklet was released online and has been making the rounds
globally (hopefully helping many Trinitarian SDA members to be prepared to handle the SDA
dissidents in the matter of the Godhead doctrine), I continue to study and daily discover the
areas in which the dissidents have either failed to give the full story, or have denied and twisted
the facts, resulting in widespread deception among growing numbers of our SDA members
worldwide. Recently, as I was reading a magazine put out by one dissident Paul Williams via his
“Theos Institute”, I was amazed to see him making this erroneous statement about Uriah Smith:

“Ellen White did not oppose Uriah Smith’s theology or condemn his explicit statements
regarding Christ’s Son-ship…no words of reproof, censure, or correction came from her pen to
Uriah Smith….Ellen White said nothing to discredit Uriah’s ideas about the “person and
personality of God.” ---Theos Magazine, Vol. 1, pg. 18

Is this true? Certainly NOT!! The dissident author of the above quoted magazine spent much
time in the above mentioned magazine describing how Mrs. White always lauded Uriah Smith’s
theology and his books (especially his famous Daniel and the Revelation commentary) and
never “opposed” his theological views on Godhead issues about the Son, or the Godhead
“personalities”, whether directly or indirectly. This is what I call limited research at best, or, at
worst, a deliberate attempt to keep back some of the real historical facts in order to mislead
the public. Let’s allow Mrs. White own specific 1890 words of rebuke to Uriah Smith to tell
the full story (indicating why Uriah Smith subsequently showed some change in his
theology after 1890 as a direct result). Here is the second half of an 1890 letter to Smith
quoted in part (it was a long letter, and I have quoted key portions to make the point):

“…My brother, *Uriah Smith, whom I have loved and respected in the Lord, you have
been working at cross purposes with God, practicing upon yourself deceptions which,
if you continue as you have done, will be succeeded with deceptions and delusions
which will end in irrevocable separation from God. He calls you. Clear the king’s
highway, remove the stumbling blocks out of the path, dare not to do a surface work here, for
others have looked to you and followed your example far more than they have looked to God
and sought his counsel. They will go no farther than you will go. Confess your mistakes;
confess fully; leave not a stone unturned. The true counsellor is expostulating with you and
entreats you that you cheat not your soul of eternal happiness. …Elder Smith…I know that you
have been walking not in the light. You have had evidence and might have had a much larger
array of evidence if you had any room to receive it. Jesus, the precious Saviour, has again and
again sent you the very light you needed, but you did not place yourself in the channel where
it could be communicated to you. You gathered about your soul the covering of unbelief till
you cannot distinguish light from darkness and error from truth. Never, never will you change
this order of things until you possess the humility of a little child. This will never be until you fall
upon the rock and are broken. Self then dies; new habits are to be formed; strong inclinations
and propensities are overcome. Enemies within and without are ready to spring into life and
overcome you. “

… Your attitude has encouraged a state of things in our churches which you have not
measured. The result of your course and your working on the same line since you left
Minneapolis has made the carrying out of the work given me of God to do fifty fold harder
than it need to have been. You have barred my way, but O, how little did you know the real
result of your work. This has been opened before me. When you have stated that Sister White
was influenced by… A. T. Jones, and E. J. Waggoner, you have planted in hearts infidelity that
has been nourished and has borne fruit.…A lack of faith in the messages God has given me to
bear of the order represented is decided unbelief to all intents and purposes. There is not one
bit of savor in such a faith, and the faith of Elder *Butler is of the same order, valueless,
having no savor, I count nothing upon you or him to harmonize with me in my work given me
of God. …What better course to please the enemy and grieve the Spirit of God could be
pursued than that which has been pursued by you, my brother, a teacher in Israel. You have
had quite a number fully engaged with you in the work, men in responsible positions,
presidents of conferences, ministers and workers, that have formed a confederacy to
question, to criticize…The position these men have occupied and the influence this position
had given them has caused many to doubt, who will never be settled again and the
deceptions and delusions of these last days will overcome them, because heaven’s divine
illumination is powerless to set them in order for they have decided from the example given
them. It makes no difference whether they believe or disbelieve, so if any reproof comes to
them, which they wish not to believe, they will say, “O, Sr. White is influenced…If Elder Smith
who knows all about the testimonies says this is only her own opinion and her own judgment,
and he does not accept the teachings of the testimonies, and he such a good man, I will follow
his example and I will risk it.”

… The office of the Holy Spirit is to take the things of Christ as they fall from his lips and infuse
them as living principles into the hearts opened to receive them. Then we will know both the
Father and the Son… My brethren have trifled and caviled and criticised and commented and
demerited, and picked and chosen a little and refused much until the testimonies mean
nothing to them. They put whatever interpretation upon them that they choose in their own
finite judgment and are satisfied. I would, if I had dared given up this field of conflict long ago,
but something has held me…I now close this letter.”
---Ellen G. White, December 31, 1890

CRUCIAL SIGNALS FROM THE 1890 LETTER OF REBUKE TO URIAH SMITH

The foregoing letter (quoted in part) totally debunk those dissidents who thought and have
been teaching the unlearned that Uriah Smith’s overall theology (and that of most of the other
pioneers) was in agreement with E.G. White’s theology in every way (i.e. in the major doctrinal
fundamentals)…before and after 1888. Notice that Mrs. White was chastising him (and many
others) about newly unfolding ideology in her God-given messages, which he was resisting for
years (despite “evidence”); he along with other leaders (like G.I. Butler) and other members
whom he had much influence over. Notice too she directly named and made reference to “E.J.
Waggoner and A.T. Jones” whom many pioneers then (including Uriah Smith) thought were
influencing E.G. White’s “messages” which bore new light after 1888. And notice as well her
direct reference to “Minneapolis” (i.e. the “Righteousness by faith” Conference in 1888),
where the two main controversial issues which arose out of that famous Conference was the
matter of the full Deity or “Almighty God-hood” of Jesus as one of the “constituent persons of
the eternal Godhead” (as E.J. Waggoner expressed it), and whether the Law in Galatians
(which could not save as a “schoolmaster”) was either the ceremonial or moral law. It is hard
to miss the reality that the only doctrines/viewpoints that underwent key CHANGES in
Adventism right after 1888 and the Minneapolis Conference, which had Mrs. White presenting
new “messages” concerning them, and which many resisted (including Uriah Smith), was the
Godhead doctrine and the fact that not even the Ten Commandments could save…only
“righteousness by faith” in Jesus, who is our Lord and our “Almighty” God, just like the
Father he perfectly reflected as “the one perfect photograph of God” (EGW)!! And it’s rather
easy to prove!!

Here following is a seemingly paraphrased report from an SDA pioneer, who was there on the
scene in the 1890s (i.e. just after 1888), making plain what were the main issues of contention,
which had even Uriah Smith resistant to newly unfolding truth. Note carefully the eye-opening
reported words of SDA pioneer, S.G. Haughey, who lived in the time of the aftermath of the
1888 Conference, and was able to report ‘first-hand’ (inserts in brackets and emphases are
mine). Note carefully:

“Despite the misunderstandings and the polemics [controversies] in the decade FOLLOWING
1888, minds began increasingly to open to a truer and fuller concept of truth as it centered in
Christ*AND HIS FULLNESS [of the Godhead]. The nineties were marked by a succession of
powerful revivals…and confessions, and surrender to truth on the part of a growing majority
of the Minneapolis [Conference of 1888] disputants…from 1888 to 1890 Mrs. White constantly
urged acceptance of the righteousness of Christ as *special light calling for advance to higher
ground… We were to become foremost among all professing Christians in preaching Christ*IN
ALL HIS FULLNESS. However, prior to 1888, with some still holding to a *RESTRICTED concept
of Christ, that call was NOT previously sounded by her. Christ, in all his effulgence [glory], was
now to be made pre-eminent. And Christ is to be lauded, not merely the message” [about His
saving righteousness]. *---As reported by S.G. Haughey, in a Letter, April 13, 1930

That’s telling as to what was being introduced to SDA pioneers after 1888. It was only after
1888 that Mrs. White started to quote Trinitarian authors like Cumming and Boardman to
express truths about Jesus and the Spirit. Only after 1888 did she adopt the previously
frowned upon “heretical” Trinitarian expression “the third person of the Godhead” (i.e.
frowned upon by the earlier pioneers, as reported by W.W. Prescott at the 1919 Bible
Conference), and adopted in order to fully introduce “three living persons” of the “eternal
Godhead”, and to express that the Spirit should be deemed AS “a person AS God is a
person”(EGW; 1899), and that, AS “also a divine person”, he should be “served” and
“worshipped” just like the Father and Son. And only after 1888 did she start to write more
fully on Jesus AS “the Almighty God, who was is, and is to come”, or AS “the Highest”, or AS
“the Blessed and only Potentate who only hath immortality” just like the Father;
emphasizing after 1888 that he existed “from all eternity” AS “the eternal self-existent Son”
and that “there never was a time” in all the “dateless ages” when in his “pre-existence” “he
was not in close fellowship with the eternal God”. These messages were not being fully
presented in Adventism before in those terms (!!!), and it was E.J. Waggoner and A.T. Jones
(before the SDA pioneers even began to countenance a Godhead “Trinity”) who both biblically
established the basic foundation for these later teachings described above to be built upon,
and they did so by using at Minneapolis (in 1888) language (about Jesus) quite similar to (even
if not exactly like) the Trinitarian Nicene Creed and other Trinitarian-type viewpoints. No
wonder they faced so much opposition at the Minneapolis Conference of 1888 and thereafter.
It is plain to me that the opposition in 1888 was not just about the Law in Galatians (as some
would like to think), but was also about Godhead matters concerning Jesus who “many” (not
all) SDAs still felt at the time was “a created being” (as E.J. Waggoner hinted at in his
presentations and W.W. Prescott affirmed at the 1919 Bible Conference); a matter one noted
SDA anti-Trinitarian dissident, David Clayton, finally came to admit publicly on YouTube after
years of denying it!! And it is interesting that right after 1888, SDA pioneers here and there
started to teach Godhead-related things formerly frowned upon by earlier pioneers….all
signaled by the 1891 “Trinity” of “supreme beings” article published by Signs of the Times,
and the Spear’s pro-Trinity article published in 1892 by the Pacific Press publishing house.
Here’s a classic example of what came in the same decade as a brand new development:

"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 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 now have, when we view the Holy Spirit as a person. Satan's scheme
is to destroy all faith in the personality of the Godhead, — the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,—
also in his own personality...Let us beware lest Satan shall lead us to take the first step in
destroying our faith in the personality of this person of the Godhead,—the Holy Ghost.
It was once hard for me to see how a spirit could be a person; but when I saw "that God is a
spirit" (John &: 24), and that he is no less a person; when I saw that the last Adam (Christ)
"was made a quickening spirit" (1 Cor. 15: 45), and that he is a person…. I could understand
better how the Holy Spirit can be a person..."
--- R.A. Underwood – “The Holy Spirit a Person”, Review and Herald, Vol. 75, No. 20,
May 17, *1898, pg. 310
And despite these monumental changes taking place among SDA pioneers after 1888 as it
concerns Jesus’ Deity (capitalized) and the Spirit’s personhood (click links to see more), Uriah
Smith continued to teach (along with his overemphasis on the Law as the source of
righteousness) much of the earlier restricted viewpoints on Jesus never being called “God
Almighty” like the Father, and he having a beginning and not being fully eternal (despite what
Heb. 1:3 and Heb. 7:3 says), about the Spirit not being a person like the Father and Son (despite
contrary biblical evidence, e.g. Acts 13:1-4, and growing E.G. White testimony), and that the
Spirit was not to be worshipped or prayed to alongside the Father and Son as “also a divine
person”, or as a “distinct personality” or as “a person as God is a person”. Only after Mrs.
White rebuked him in 1890, we then certain marked CHANGES appearing in his writings after
1891, but especially after 1896 (despite much remained the same in his non-Trinitarian
ideology). The 1890 E.G. White letter of rebuke tells us Smith was stubborn and reluctant to
makes doctrinal changes, so its not surprising that despite some changes, he still stubbornly
retained some of his anti-Trinitarian sentiments that other pioneers eventually left behind.

WHY DID URIAH SMITH FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN 1896 SUPPORTIVELY SPEAK OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT TO BE WORSHIPPED AS "PART OF THE SAME *TRINITY"?

Notice carefully that the E.G. White letter of chastisement to Uriah Smith came in December
1890. Notice below what he wrote in October 1890, which probably precipitated Mrs. White’s
letter of rebuke to him later in that year in December; mostly regarding (by all indication) his
overemphasis on the Law instead of the righteousness of Jesus, Godhead matters, and his
ungodly treatment of a certain brother (while Smith served as board chairman of a certain SDA
College). If you recall, Smith was one of the most vocal before 1888 in opposing the concept of
a “Trinity” and the Spirit being deemed a real person, or someone to be prayed to, worshiped
and served as a distinct person. And as late as October 28, 1890, he wrote, in opposition to the
new “messages” of Mrs. White beginning to state otherwise (inserts in brackets and emphases
mine):

" Respecting this Spirit [the Holy Spirit], the Bible uses expressions which cannot be harmonized
with the idea that it is a person like the Father and the Son. Rather it is shown to be *A
DIVINE INFLUENCE [a thing] from them both… Usually it is spoken of in a way to show that it
cannot be a person, like the Father and the Son. If it were a person, it would be nothing strange
for it to appear in bodily shape [i.e. like a man’s; since a dove has a body]; and yet when it has
so appeared, that fact has been noted as peculiar. Thus Luke 3:22 says: ‘and the Holy Ghost
descended in a bodily shape like a dove”.
---Uriah Smith, “In the Question Chair”, Review and Herald, Oct. 28, 1890

If from 1881 Mrs. White was ALREADY speaking (in the words of the doxology) of the Spirit as
being worthy of “worship" (Review, Jan. 4, 1881), but more so (probably based on earlier
Trinitarian convictions she held from even before 1844 as a Methodist) she began speaking of
the Spirit in the 1890s as “the third person of the Godhead" of "three persons" (and not just
two) in the "Eternal Godhead", who is "as much a person as God is a person" (E.G. White;
1899), then we can see why Mrs. White would write Uriah Smith in late 1890 to chastise him
that he was working "at cross purposes" with God in Adventism. When we connect the dots it’s
hard not to see certain connections. In 1890 Smith was still rejecting the truth that the Spirit is
a person, and is the “third” person among “three persons” of the Godhead (deeming “it” as
only an “influence” that’s impersonal enough to be “poured out”). And, obviously, any
worship/praise of the Spirit that Smith would allow for the Spirit (as sung in the pre-1888 SDA
doxology “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”) would be only in the sense of the two
divine “persons” of Jesus and the Father being themselves the Spirit *literally. He continued to
deem the Spirit as not a separate personality (or “distinct personality”) as God is a personality,
and as Jesus is a “distinct personality”!! He was an upfront leader with much influence, and that
is why she had to chastise him. And it took time after 1890 for any major change to be seen in
Uriah Smith’s expressions (about either the Law and saving righteousness or about “the Trinity”
he totally opposed in earlier years), since he never always agreed with Mrs. White’s view on
things, even though he accepted her inspiration. Minor changes were seen in his March 1891
sermon (right after the 1890 letter of rebuke) about the Spirit, as he spoke at the General
Conference of that year, where he spoke for the first time of the Spirit being “omniscient”,
and as being “tender”, and can be “insulted” and “grieved” as one of the “three great
agencies” connected to salvation and dispensing grace and gifts to the church. But the major
changes took place only years later. See then why his 1896 first-time confession (all of six years
after 1890) that the Spirit was part of "the same trinity" the Father and Son belonged to, and is
worthy of praise as part of that “trinity”? It did take him a while after 1890 to even bring
himself to admit that the Spirit is in a “trinity”; since he knew full well that the word “trinity”,
when applied to the Godhead, literally means “three persons” (as even J.H. Waggoner
admitted to the true meaning of the word “trinity” in earlier years), and since it was frowned
upon by the SDA pioneers in earlier years as “pagan” and an “unscriptural” word; pioneers
who largely DENIED that a “trinity” of divine persons ever existed (explaining why not before
the 1890s onwards did any SDA pioneer ever venture to supportively apply the word to the
Godhead). See therefore, dear reader, the significance of this monumental 1896 change in
Uriah Smith’s written expression, even while he still continued to be anti-Trinitarian? Hmmmm.
Let’s now examine it in detail.

In 1896, Uriah Smith was the Editor of the Review and Herald (Adventism’s main doctrinal
publishing paper), and, despite some dissidents in Adventism today lamely deny he did pen the
following, but writing as Editor of the same “In the Question Chair” column he penned in 1890,
in answer to the question seen in the quote below, he made plain the following (despite
admitting that no specific Scripture exists commanding the worship of the Spirit):

“Do the Scriptures warrant praise to and worship of the Holy Sprint? ...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 used thus, why could it not properly stand as a part of the same
*TRINITY in the hymn of praise, “Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost”?”
-- Uriah Smith (“U.S.”), In the Question Chair, Review and Herald, 1896, Vol. 73, No. 43,
pg. 685

By 1896, we see Uriah Smith changing significantly with regards to the so-called
“unscriptural” and “pagan” word "trinity" being applied to the Godhead, and as it concerns
praise to the separately listed Holy Spirit in "the same trinity" (considering that this would
immediately imply “three persons” inherently involved). It all seems logically tied together to
the E.G. White letter of rebuke which came six years earlier. Keep in mind that this 1896
“trinity” defense, of sorts, from Uriah Smith was not just Uriah Smith using the word “trinity”
as just an ‘innocent label’ for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as a mere “group of three”, as
some would want to argue, (since he could have used “trio”), but he is using it in the context
of WORHIP DIRECTED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT AS A MEMBER OF “THE TRINITY” …knowing full
well that a “trinity” of the Godhead is “three persons”; not two. Uriah Smith knew full well the
implications of him using this formerly considered “heretical” and “unscriptural” Trinitarian
term directly applied to the Godhead, and the implications of him defending worship of the
Holy Spirit in those Trinitarian-type terms. Was he now leaning in the direction of endorsing
certain aspects (not all) of the Trinity doctrine he had formerly frowned upon (terminology and
all)? You bet! And I KNOW this was the case because this was taking place with Uriah Smith at
precisely the time when other SDA pioneers were adopting Trinitarian sentiments in the late
1890s as well (applying formerly considered “heretical” expressions like “Trinity”, “God the
Son”, “third person of the Godhead”, etc., to their Godhead expressions). Click this link to see
more details on this post-1888 matter; details not easily explained away by the modern
dissidents who fail to study as they should.

Plus with Smith’s Revelation 1:4 comments in his Daniel and the Revelation Commentary ---
that is, with him quoting two pro-Trinitarian authors, Thompson and Barnes, to support the
view of the "sevenfold" Spirit before God’s throne being deemed as equally the source of
grace and blessings, and, more importantly, as a personal “he” equally sending greetings to
the church along with Jesus and the Father--- I do think Mrs. White's earlier 1890 letter of
chastisement was all that was needed to have him make the next monumental step and call
the Godhead a “trinity” (from 1896 onwards). When commenting on Rev. 1:10 in Daniel and
the Revelation, Uriah Smith listed several differing personal beings John the revelator was not
“exiled from” on the Isle of Patmos, and among them he separately listed God the Father,
Jesus, the angels, and, yes, the Holy Spirit (listed separately) …indicating clearly he had
already (from even in the 1880s) deemed them all as distinct, including the Holy Spirit. But
despite he seemed to vacillate in the March 23, 1897 Review and Herald (on page 188), where
he still was reluctant to deem the Spirit a person, but it was only after 1896 he ever ventured
to deem the Father, Son and Spirit as “a trinity” and together deem them (in 1898) as being
“all of Deity” (considering that the word “Deity” when capitalized simply means “God” or
who God is)!! He was still anti-Trinitarian, but had started to accommodate aspects of
Trinitarian descriptions and terminology related to the Godhead. He was slowly but
reluctantly making adjustments leading up to his 1903 death.

In addition, by him making no mention of the Trinity in the entire book of Daniel and the
Revelation as one of the papal “errors” during its reign, despite itemizing and describing over
20 errors of the Papacy in his commentary on the books of Daniel and the Revelation, it is
plain he probably no longer saw it in later years as the chief error of the Papacy (since there is
no way, if he still saw it as the chief “error” of the Papacy, that he could have failed to name
or mention it while describing and commenting on the Papacy’s “errors” in his most noted
and vital book, The Daniel and the Revelation). And one finds that this same total absence of
the Trinity named as the chief “error” of the Papacy is evident in Mrs. White’s most
important work, “The Great Controversy” (another book coming after and revised after 1888
as well). That again is another telling piece of circumstantial evidence which cannot be
ignored.

By 1898 (one year after his 1897 version of Daniel and the Revelation again evidenced the
above described), in his book Looking Unto Jesus, Smith was again willing to indirectly hint at
the Holy Spirit as distinct from the Father and the Son (the same Spirit he by now had admitted
in 1896 and 1897 is part of “the trinity” as both and “it” and a “he”, as an “omniscient”
“agency” among the “three great agencies”, who is “tender” and is capable of being “insulted”
and “grieved”). He did this in 1898 when he (just like Novatian in his pre-Nicean “Treatise on
the Trinity”) spoke of, first, the “beginningless” Father, then the “begotten” Son coming into
existence from him within eternity, and then Smith indicated thereafter the following about the
distinct Holy Spirit (note carefully):

“And then the Holy Spirit (by an infirmity of translation called … the Holy Ghost"), the Spirit of
God, the Spirit of Christ, the divine afflatus and medium of their power, representative of
them both (Ps.139:7), was in existence also.”
---Uriah Smith, Looking Unto Jesus, 1898, pg. 10

Here we see him no longer considering the Spirit as simply co-existent with the beings of the
Father and Son as simply an impersonal “aspect” of them, or a mere “influence” from their
beings, but rather as a distinct personal “representative” with personal characteristics , and
coming into existence, to become, as he earlier admitted in 1896, part of a “trinity” (with him,
am sure, never forgetting that the word, “a trinity”, when applied to the Godhead, always
means “three persons”) . Here in the late 1890s, we see Uriah Smith, who never once said in
direct words that the Spirit is a person (as other pioneers did after 1888; i.e. using the actual
words “the Holy Spirit is a person”), and who never admitted in explicit words to an “eternal
Godhead” of “three persons”, at least he began to tacitly/indirectly admit that the Spirit has a
distinct existence (i.e. with him not only describing him separately as an “omniscient” and
omnipresent “representative” of the Father and Son, but as one coming into existence after
them within eternity as part of a “trinity”). This was the same Holy Spirit SDA pioneers always
deemed worthy of praise and worship in the pre-1888 SDA doxology “Praise God from whom all
blessings flow”, but seen only after 1888 by growing numbers of SDA pioneers as a “living
person” or divine individual of “three living persons” in “the Eternal Godhead”; not just a
mere aspect of Jesus and the Father.

Interestingly Smith came to see the “sevenfold” Spirit being acceptably called a “he” by
Trinitarian authors (of all persons!!!), and as someone sending greetings to the church as the
source of grace and blessings right alongside the Father and Son in Rev. 1:4; an explanation
which he quoted before his death (just like other SDA pioneers, in later years, were beginning
to quote and endorse Trinitarian expressions, Mrs. White included [click the link], from as early
as the 1889 Spear article defending the Trinity), but without the speculative and mystical
considerations involved. But what stands out most of all in all of this for me, is him admitting
for the first time in 1896 that the Spirit is not just worthy of praise (as he had sung for years in
the pre-1888 SDA doxology “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”), but worthy as part of a
“Trinity” (a move which would have been unheard of before 1888, since a “trinity” of the
Godhead is “three persons”). And this fact alone indicate that Uriah Smith was being slowly
influenced by the post-1888 changes becoming evident in Adventism in the 1890s…but notice,
he made this monumental change in his written expression only after Mrs. White’s 1890 letter
of rebuke jolted him somewhat (it was not as a result of the accusative influence of the
apostate D.M. Canright chastising SDA pioneers then for not believing in “the Trinity”, as some
misguided dissidents think today). Uriah Smith did not make a full transition to seeing the
Spirit as a separate person or being, but understandable changes started to be seen in his
theology. If only he had lived longer. Who knows where his theology on the Godhead would
have taken him (considering he showed gradual changes in some aspects before he died). If
only Uriah Smith had lived beyond 1903 to see what eventually developed in his own Church
because of ongoing bible study even before 1915 when Mrs. White died…to the point where
the Christ in Song pioneering denominational hymnal of 1908 had a new section introduced (on
page 6) entitled “Praise to the Trinity”, and by 1913 a fellow pioneer of his (F.M. Wilcox) was
admitting that “SDAs believe in the Trinity” (Review, Oct. 9, 1913), and a Trinity where the
individuality of the three persons involved was not lost!!!
Incidentally, in the 1890 letter of chastisement to Uriah Smith, Mrs. White also mentioned G.I.
Butler who (just like Uriah Smith then) Mrs. Write indicated was working against the present
truth unfolding after 1888. What can we discover about Butler? After the Minneapolis
Conference of 1888, and in the days leading right up to the Kellogg PANTHEISTIC heresy, G.I.
Butler too was opposed to both the ideas of Mrs. White (and Waggoner and Jones)
concerning the Law, as well as the Spirit being deemed a person like/as the Father and the
Son (the latter reality being a matter revealed clearly in later letter exchanges between
Kellogg and Butler). Notice his words to Kellogg:

“It [the Holy Spirit] is not a person walking around on foot, or flying, as a literal being, in any
such sense as Christ and the Father are--at least, if it is, it is utterly beyond my comprehension
or the meaning of language or words." ---G. I Butler, letter to J. H. Kellogg April 5th 1904

He too, like Uriah Smith, would therefore have been among those Mrs. White had to remind
after 1888 that the Law in Galatians which could not save included the Decalogue, as well as
the fact that “We [SDAs] need to realize that the Holy Spirit, who is as much a person as God
is a person, is walking through these grounds. ---E.G. White, Manuscript 66, 1899. But despite
Mrs. White’s 1899 appeal, Butler still stubbornly persisted (even in his 1904 letter to Kellogg)
in denying the fact that the Holy Spirit “is a person as God is a person”; totally contradicting
Mrs. White even saying that as a person “he is walking through these grounds” by instead
saying to Kellogg: “It [the Holy Spirit] is not a person walking around on foot…. as a literal
being”. That’s stubborn denial of the Spirit of prophecy leading!!
And if you recall, when the “alpha heresy” of Kellogg arose, Mrs. White never disagreed with
Kellogg that the Spirit “is a person as God is a person”, or is “the third person” of “three
living persons” of “the eternal Godhead”; she only rebuked him in terms of the inanimate
ways he was depicting the "three living persons" by inanimate things in nature (i.e. light,
dew, vapor, cloud, rain). And never forget that even after Kellogg revised his book "The
Living Temple" to include the person-hood of the omnipresent Spirit, yet he still kept the
inanimate illustrations of the "three living persons"...accounting for why Mrs. White hit out
only against that “PANTHEISTIC” aspect of the book "The Living Temple", which had
remained unchanged in that sense. Keep in mind too she didn't name or hit out against “the
Trinity” of divine “persons” he supported but rather his “pantheism” which is totally
different in definition from a belief in the Trinity .

Clearly the pieces of the puzzle are all MORE THAN coming together…once we begin to realize,
from the evidence before us (correctly analyzed), that even Uriah Smith’s own Godhead
doctrine (just like that of many other SDA pioneers) was beginning to change after 1890 and
before his 1903 death, even if he remained anti-Trinitarin in some things. Who knows what
would have happened to his theology if he had lived beyond 1903? Who knows?

WHAT DOCTRINAL CHANGES DURING MRS WHITE’S TIME DID URIAH SMITH SEE?

1. In 1892 the Signs of the Times SDA magazine defended their 1891 publication of an article
supportively using the term "the Trinity", and where the "supreme *beings" (plural) of the
Father and Son being represented by the "supreme being" of the Spirit, and all three being
deemed "the Deity" is set forth. Keep in mind that “the Deity” (capitalized) is the term for the
Supreme Being or God, and here all three “supreme beings” were deemed “the Deity” in
1891 and 1892!! Mrs. White published in that same paper and never objected to that new
development in Adventism!! She never did thereafter either!!

2. In that same year of 1892, the SDA Church via the Pacific Press publishing house, supportively
published Spears’s non-SDA Trinity article which the SDA pioneers themselves renamed and
entitled it “The Bible Doctrine of the Trinity”…obviously admitting that there is indeed a
biblical version of the Trinity that is acceptable!! In the year 1894 as well, that same Spear
Trinity article speaking supportively of the “triune God”, and which presented a "tri-personal
God" and deemed/defended "bible trinitarians" as "not tri-theists", was again glowingly
endorsed in the following words:

“…It presents the Bible view of the *doctrine of the Trinity [not just the "trinity" group] in the
terms used in the Bible, and therefore avoids all philosophical discussion and foolish
speculation. It is a tract worthy of reading." - Signs of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 29, 1894.

Notice the words "the *DOCTRINE of the Trinity" in the quote above, and recognize the SDA
pioneers were endorsing not just the term "trinity", as some dissidents in Adventism today
would want you to believe; but the "BIBLE *DOCTRINE of the Trinity" when correctly explained
without philosophical and mystical speculations ( as evident in the Spear article). That’s an
irrefutable reality which several dissidents in Adventism go to extreme measures to deny and
cover up!!

3. In 1892, Mrs. White herself made the following statement, indicating clearly why the SDA
Church NEEDED TO ACCEPT CHANGE and this allowed for an SDA Church that was now leaning
in the direction of a new form of or ‘tailored’ Trinitarianism, i.e. separate Godhead beings all
together worshipped and praised as “the Trinity”:

“There is no excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be
revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain
doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas
are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair....There are
those who oppose everything that is not in accordance with their own ideas, and by so doing
they endanger their eternal interest as verily as did the Jewish nation in their rejection of
Christ. The Lord designs that our opinions shall be put to the test, that we may see the necessity
of closely examining the living oracles to see whether or not we are in the faith. Many [i.e. SDA
pioneers in 1892] who claim to believe the truth have settled down at their ease, saying, "I am
rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." --
E.G. White, Review and Herald, December 20, 1892.

Can you imagine, dear reader, Mrs. White is here telling the SDA pioneers just after 1888
(nearly fifty years after the founding of the Advent Movement) that they didn’t necessarily
have everything correctly worked out doctrinally, and that they didn’t necessarily have all
truths already hammered out, but allowance should be made even then for new light to
come. And then notice that it was primarily after that Mrs. White begun to introduce new
light on not just the Law, on salvation through faith, but on the Godhead. It’s as plain as the
nose on your face, dear reader, and as bright as the sun!! No one can cover it up!!

4. In 1896 Uriah Smith himself, as editor of the Review and writer of the “In the Question Chair”
column, for the first time defended song and praise to the Holy Spirit as part of “the same
trinity” the Father and Son belongs to (he actually named them as such; knowing full well that a
Godhead “trinity” means “three persons”; not two), and he defended them as "the same
trinity" who are praised and worshipped together (a first time supportive use of the term “the
trinity” by him in this way). Again, let me underscore the point (for emphasis) that Uriah Smith
fully well knew that “a trinity” when applied to the Godhead means “three persons”; not
two….despite some today desperately want to make a Godhead “trio” mean two, and
likewise a “trinity”. In the same year, 1896, another leading pioneer made plain, going even
further than Uriah Smith had stated in 1891 about the Spirit “emanating” from God:

“From the figures which are brought out in Revelation, Ezekiel, and other Scriptures, and from
the language which is used in reference to the Holy Spirit, we are led to believe he is
something more than an emanation from the mind of God. He is spoken of as a personality
[or individual being], and treated as such. He [the Holy Spirit] is included in the apostolic
benediction [2 Cor.13: 14], and is spoken by our Lord [Jesus] as acting in an INDEPENDENT and
PERSONAL capacity as Teacher, Guide, and Comforter. He is an object of *VENERATION
[worship] and is A [singular] Heavenly INTELLIGENCE, everywhere present, and is always
present [thus was alays in existence; Heb. 9:14].”
---G.C. Tenny- “To Correspondents”, Review& Herald, June 9, *1896, pg. 362

*N.B. “Veneration” – comes from Latin, “venerari” – which means, “to worship”!! The above
quote from the Review to the public in 1896 is self-explanatory…no further comments needed.

4. In 1900 the Review and Herald published the thought that “how surprisingly beautiful are
the blended personalities of our TRIUNE GOD”…”; obviously with separate beings involved and
not the Roman Catholic version, since SDAs have always maintained the existence of separate
beings of divinity). Yes, to the pioneers the “surprisingly beautiful” truth begun to emerge,
after many years of denouncing both the expressions “trinity” and “triune God” when applied
to the Godhead. The very “triune God” expression seen supportively used in the Spear article,
published in 1892, was now being countenanced by SDA pioneers as early as 1900. In 1902,
while still refusing to accept the traditional mystical and speculative explanations about “the
Trinity” in traditional Christendom, and while indicating why SDAs earlier did not teach anything
about the Trinity, E.J. Waggoner was now willing to deem God the following way, showing
further marked changes in pioneering thinking:

"...as to the Being of God,—the Godhead,—Divinity as revealed in the Father, the Word (the
Son), and the Holy Spirit, we [SDAs] believe and teach just what the Bible says, and nothing
else. No man can by searching find out God. No creature can understand the Almighty to
perfection. The finite mind cannot comprehend infinity..."

---E. J. Waggoner, The Present Truth for 1902 - Vol. 18 - No. 06, pg. 83)

It’s interesting that pioneers like E.J. Waggoner (despite still opposing the way Catholics
explained the Trinity), yet they were now deeming the Godhead beings (plural) as “the being
[existence] of God” (proving that using this ‘tri-unitive’ language about the Godhead beings
(plural) was not an idea introduced by Leroy Froom after the 1920s, or by a later generation of
SDAs far removed from the time of the pioneers, as dissidents love to claim).
By 1903 Uriah Smith died, and did not live to see the following taking place before 1915.

5. In 1905, S.N. Haskell published his book “The Story of the Seer of Patmos”, and in the 1908
version he for the first time ever, on page 132, admitted “the great *Trinity” of heaven as
being deemed worthy of the praise of mankind; and notice he used the term in the capitalized
form, and called the group “the great *Trinity”…even though he could have used the expression
“the heavenly trio”. By the way, keep in mind that both Catholics and general Christendom,
and even SDA pioneers, refer to “the Trinity” and the “doctrine of the trinity” both in the
capitalized and non-capitalized form of the expression, so it is no strange thing to see them
use the expression written both ways (despite the denial of this reality by some dissidents in
Adventism today). In 1906 and again in 1909, S.N. Haskell was personally lauded by Mrs. White
for his work as a bible teacher and promoted him as a grounded SDA teacher and
minister…proving he was no heretic drifting off into “spiritualism’ as some dissidents would
want to accuse him of (for admitting worship as acceptable for “the great Trinity” of heaven).

6. In 1908 the General Conference of SDA pioneers (taking counsel together) vetted and passed
the new Christ in Song hymnal, where (on page 6) it had, for the first time ever, songs dedicated
to “the Trinity”, (yes, an entire section directly named as such); where both the Holy Spirit and
the “Eternal Three” were equally praised together in songs listed in that section (and they too
in 1908 know that to refer to the Godhead as “the Trinity” immediately expressed “three
persons; not two). This was while Mrs. White was alive, and she herself would have sung from
that hymnal (yet no objection registered on her part). That’s instructive, but dissidents try to
ignore this GLARING reality! Also in 1907, 1908, and 1909 respectively, other noted SDA
pioneers were on record saying:

"...the Holy Spirit IS A PERSON. This great truth is not recognized, indeed it is NOT believed, by
more than a very few even of Christians [many SDA pioneers at the time included]....The Holy
Spirit is a Person, ETERNALLY A DIVINE PERSON. And he must be ALWAYS RECOGNIZED and
spoken of as a Person, or he is not truly recognized or spoken of at all...the Scriptures make
perfectly plain the truth that the Holy Spirit is, none other than a living, speaking, divine, and
eternal person. Exactly as Christ is a person and as God is a person..."
---A.T. Jones, Medical Missionary, March 27, 1907, pg. 98

“The Person by whom God will judge the world is Jesus Christ, God-Man. The second Person in
THE *Trinity, that same Person of Whom we read in our Bibles...was born of the Virgin
Mary…” ---Present Truth, 1908, Vol. 24, No. 51-52, pg. 812

“…the enemy gladly leads to what appears to be a more rational, though not less erroneous
idea – that there is no trinity, and that Christ is merely a created being. But God’s great plan is
clear and logical. There is a trinity, and in it there are three personalities…We have the Father
described in Dan. 7:9, 10…a personality surely…In Rev. 1:13-18 we have the Son described. He
is also a personality… The Holy Spirit is spoken of throughout Scripture as a personality. These
divine persons are associated in the work of God…But this union is not one in which
individuality is lost…There is indeed a divine trio, but the Christ of that Trinity is not a created
being as the angels- He was the “only begotten” of the Father…”
---Robert Hare, Union Conference Record, July 19, 1909
Thus the pre-1915 evidence of new Godhead-related sentiments and doctrinal changes in
Adventism is overwhelming!! And what then happened in 1913 was only the logical outcome.

7. In 1913, the Church’s leading editor of its publications, F.M. Wilcox, (a man highly regarded
by E.G. White herself; and asked by her, among others, to guard her estate upon her death), he
released in the Review and Herald Seventh-day Adventism’s first Statement of Belief
recognizing “the Trinity” but as separate beings. And that same F.M. Wilcox is on record later
explaining (in a doctrinal book officially published by the Review and Herald) that the Godhead
of three persons/beings have “separate individuality” but was to SDAs unitedly praised as “one
God”; proving this was not (as some like to falsely argue) a sentiment only established in
Adventism in 1980, and only after Leroy Froom so-called ‘introduced” it to and “imposed” it on
Adventism after the 1920s. Leroy Froom inherited all of these previously described realities in
Adventism, when he became active in the 1920s and thereafter!! This again is irrefutable!

And all along the way from 1892, doctrinal books for SDA colleges, bible readings for the SDA
home books, and the like, started from 1892, to insert the term “the trinity”, and deem the
divine group as being worthy of praise as "the trinity" (Uriah Smith himself endorsed this
before his 1903 death); a group of “persons” consisting of the Father, the Son and the *Holy
Spirit (a matter I have a mountain of evidence to prove...xeroxed pages and all). Click this link to
see. And the rest, as they say, is history!! Therefore as I close let me remind the misguided
dissidents refusing to take another look at the story of Adventism:

"When someone who is genuinely mistaken learns the truth, he will either quit being mistaken
or will no longer remain genuine." – Anonymous
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many of the dissidents sadly display the following traits (*quote from Lazarus Castang)

Let’s pray for them that God will humble them and release them from the chains of self-
deception that they have allowed themselves to be in. I am certainly doing so myself (i.e.
praying for them), even as I do what Isaiah 58:1 calls me to do, i.e. lift up my voice like a
trumpet, and, speaking fearlessly and frankly, but with the deepest love for all concerned,
show my people in Zion where they are going wrong….living in denial and refusing to accept
historical and biblical truth when it becomes evident!!!

-----THE END-----

Derrick Gillespie is a trained teacher in the Social Sciences, History, and Geography, and
remains a member of the SDA Church in Jamaica and a lay evangelist for SDAs.
(Contact Info: ddgillespie@live.com OR https://www.facebook.com/derrick.gillespie