THE UNRECOGNIZED FACTOR!!

How Bible Study and the spirit of the

Reformation Motivated the Adoption of
Revised Trinitarian Theology in Seventh-day
Adventism!!
--A Response to Jason Smith’s Anti-Trinitarian Thesis--
By Derrick Gillespie

A 2019 Expose All Seventh-day Adventists Should Read!

 Introduction:
Jason Smith’s 2018 SDA-university thesis now being sold online in 2019 for US$10.00, is an anti-
Trinitarian thesis, because it was formulated by Jason Smith (see his picture below), an SDA
member who is himself now an anti-Trinitarian, or a non-Trinitarian (if that is the preferred
term he may countenance). He’s a baptized SDA member who was formerly Trinitarian in a
Trinitarian SDA Church, but changed his view since then. He has on the cover of his thesis the
following information:

“The Unaccounted Factor: How Criticism Motivated The Adoption of Trinitarian Theology
Within Seventh-day Adventism
by Jason Smith
A Research Paper Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Bachelor of Arts in
Biblical Studies
Southern Adventist University,
January, 2018”

He personally sent me a Word document of this university thesis for review and consideration
(see the cover of this document below as its being sold online; I will quote from the Word doc).

Upon reading it several times, I have come to the conclusion that it is misleading many
dissident SDAs to think that the reason why SDA pioneers started to adopt and eventually/later
fully adopted Trinitarian-type theology was MAINLY (not only) because of criticisms leveled at
the Church by D.M. Canright (seen pictured), an SDA pioneer who apostatized from Adventism,
and because of the Church's desire to shed the "cult" label and to 'fit-in' with the vast majority
of Trinitarian churches in Christendom. Click the link to learn more about him.
In this my response, we will see the fatal flaws in Jason Smith's thesis, and how he overlooked
or failed to account for and recognize the simple truth that it was ongoing Bible study, and the
spirit of the Reformation which motivated the SDA pioneers themselves, inspired by the Holy
Spirit's leading, to adopt *REVISED Trinitarian theology before 1915 (i.e. while Mrs. White
was alive)…in similar fashion to Jesus’ method of teaching to, in Mrs. White’s own
phraseology , “remove the rubbish which had covered” “old truths”; truths revealed “in new
settings”. The pioneers gradually distinguished genuine truth compared to close imitations,
because often:

“The track of truth lies close beside the track of error, and both tracks may seem to be one to
minds which are not worked by the Holy Spirit, and which, therefore, are not quick to discern
the difference between truth and error.” ---E.G. White, Selected Messages, Vol. 1, pg. 202

My review and response will reveal that D.M. Canright's 1889 book, "Seventh-day Adventism
Renounced", and it's post-1888 accusation that SDAs did not believe in the Trinity or Jesus’ full
divinity, it simply served to draw out and have the pioneers themselves highlight after 1888 the
*revised type of Trinitarian theology that was already emerging among some of the SDA
pioneers even before Canright's post-1888 charges. It will show why, as even Jason Smith
admitted in his thesis, Mrs. White's own Godhead theology "evolved", yes, "evolved" (Jason
Smith’s own expression), to confess (after 1888 and ironically after Canright's 1889
accusations) the “three living persons of the heavenly trio” (here she was using the tailored
extra-biblical Trinitarian language she borrowed from a non-SDA Trinitarian author), and that
the Holy Spirit is the “third” and “distinct personality” or “divine person” of “the eternal
Godhead”, who's himself “a person as God is a person”.

This response will also show Jason Smith's shortsightedness in not recognizing that the Trinity
was not an invention of the Papacy, but rather a truth the 'paganized' Roman Church inherited
from Christians before it's fourth century arrival; an "inherited" truth it sought to counterfeit
with pagan philosophies incorporated with it...and the SDA pioneers simply, wittingly or
unwittingly, gradually sought to untangle the basic biblical Trinity truth from the Papal errors it
became bogged down with over the centuries.

This presentation is part of my new 2019 ministry series on Facebook entitled: "Correcting the
Lies of the Dissident SDA Anti-Trinitarians in Adventism!”
It is meant to be another "stumper" to the misguided dissident SDA anti-Trinitarians either in or
on the fringes of Seventh-day Adventism, and who are troubling our SDA Church with daily
accusations and bewitching falsehoods!! I encourage you to read this free booklet to the end,
along with another FREE eye-opening 2019 booklet (seen linked below), both of which are
telling what many won’t share with you:

https://www.scribd.com/document/418479569/What-SDA-Anti-Trinitarian-Dissidents-Won-t-
Tell-You
Don’t just read, but endeavor to check up on me, by checking out and contemplating the
references I cited throughout booklet, and I hope you will find this review and response
compelling enough to have you feel the need to share it with others. God bless you as you read.
 JASON SMITH’S THESIS STARTED OUT WELL, BUT…

On the very first page of Jason Smith’s thesis, “The Unaccounted Factor”, he unwittingly does
what all anti-Trinitarians in Adventism have always done; show contrasting anti-Trinitarian and
Trinitarian quotes, but contrasted between SDA pioneers who initially rejected that there is a
Godhead Trinity and present/modern SDA Trinitarian authors who accept that a Godhead
Trinity does exist. After doing that contrast, he then says (in part):

“The quotes that oppose the Trinity are from two early Seventh-day Adventist pioneers while the
quotes that are supportive of it are from Adventist authors in more recent times. This is certainly
the quandary isn’t it? Which quotes should we believe? Were the Seventh-day Adventist
pioneers so biased that they did not see the Trinity even though it is explicit in the Old
Testament? Or are modern Seventh-day Adventist scholars reading with Trinitarian goggles and
therefore reaching conclusions based on wishful thinking rather than explicit Biblical data? ….
I shared the quotes above because they are emblematic of a massive shift in Seventh-day
Adventist theology on the nature of God.”
---Jason Smith, The Unaccounted Factor (2018), pg. 3.

While Jason Smith is not like other dissident non-Trinitarians to falsely claim that it was only
after all the SDA pioneers died off that Trinitarian terminology and theology entered Adventism
(*it’s laudable that he was unbiased enough to honestly recognize that it was the SDA
pioneers themselves who introduced both), yet how even much more unbiased it would have
appeared if Jason Smith had shown, to start out, contrasting quotes among the pioneers
themselves while Mrs White was still alive, as for instance:

“The greatest fault we can find in the Reformation is, the Reformers stopped reforming. Had
they gone on, and onward, till they had left the last vestige of Papacy behind, such as natural
immortality, sprinkling, the trinity, and Sunday- keeping, the church would now be free from her
unscriptural errors.”--- James White (pioneer), February 7, 1856, Review & Herald, vol. 7, No.
19, pg. 148

“The Scriptures abundantly teach the pre-existence of Christ and his divinity; but they are
entirely silent in regard to a trinity.”
--- J.H. Waggoner (pioneer), 1884, The Atonement In The Light Of Nature And Revelation, pg.
173

“In the fourth and fifth centuries many absurd views were set forth respecting *the Trinity-
views that stood at variance with reason, logic, and Scripture... [BUT] ...the enemy [Satan]
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 [or three individuals]…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 (pioneer), Australasian Union Conference Record, July 19, 1909
“In the very first chapter of Genesis we have revealed the great *TRIUNE God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. "And let us make man in our image… It needs only the inspired interpretation of
the New Testament to fill out this picture and reveal to us Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working
together to bring light, harmony, and order out of the darkness and chaos of the beginning. See
John 1:1-5; Heb. 11: 3."
---The Oriental Watchman (pioneering SDA periodical) Vol. 13 (No. 12), Dec. 1910, pg.13

Despite Jason Smith did not choose to start out that way (probably because of a past
inherent/latent bias to ‘charge’ modern or the more recent SDAs with the change from the
pioneers’ initial stance of rejecting the Godhead Trinity to an acceptance that there is a
Godhead Trinity), yet I will start out my review of his thesis by saying, that, yes, there has been,
in Jason Smith’s own words, “a massive shift in Seventh-day Adventist theology on the nature of
God” (I give him that), but it was the SDA pioneers themselves (even if not involving all of the
earliest of the lot, but it was several of them who were contemporary with and who even
outlived Mrs. White) who introduced and laid the groundwork for the change.

And of course, if one is going to be consistent and objective, then it would immediately be
self-evident that James White and J.H. Waggoner could not authoritatively speak of the
scriptures being “entirely silent in regard to a trinity” and condemn others for extra-biblical
expressions, if they were to compare the other expressions used by Mrs. White in later years
that the scriptures never once used either, such as, for instance, “trio”, “three living persons
of the heavenly trio”, “the third person of the Godhead”, or “the great threefold power”….all
extra-biblical expressions coined outside the scriptures which can only be deduced as being
present in the scriptures as an implied thought, but not as a direct expression. But, both
James White and J.H. Waggoner died (in 1881 and 1889 respectively) before those Trinitarian
type expressions were fully countenanced by SDA pioneers themselves, including Mrs. White
introducing some of them during the same post-1889 period after D.M. Canright leveled
charges against the SDA Church that the Church then did not believe in the Trinity and Jesus’
full divinity. If the SDA Church’s introduction of these extra-biblical Triitarian type expressions
were mainly “reactionary” or ‘saving face’ type theology ---in order to appear like the other
Trinitarian Churches in Christendom--- then would Mrs. White be also guilty of this “reactionary
type” theology that Jason’ Smith is charging the SDA pioneers with after 1889, since, of course,
ALL her “three persons”, “third person of the Godhead” and “great threefold power’”
statements did come after 1889? This I will delve into later. It will get rather interesting! But
suffice it to say here, that the following is Jason Smith’s own words one year before his 2018
thesis, regarding the introduction of the “trinity” term in Adventism:

“... While it is true that Sister White never used the word “trinity” herself when
speaking of God it is also equally true that she never rebuked or repudiated the
SDA pioneers who used it during her lifetime and there were several of them.
It is unfathomable that she missed all of those references. The truth is that she
remained neutral and thus honest logicality compels the conclusion that there is
a “trinity” that one can hold to which is in no way a salvific danger. I know some
of my SDA anti-trinitarian brethren get upset when I say this but I don't serve them… if there
wasn't an acceptable "trinity" view possible then surely the Spirit of Christ would have
warned us clearly through Mrs. White’s prophetic gift. This is not the case though…"
--- Jason Smith, Facebook discussion, October 2, 2017

It’s self-defeating just one year later to seemingly write in opposition to the term “trinity” that
the pioneers accepted …unless Jason Smith flip-flops in his presentations as a dissident SDA.

JASON SMITH’S OWN LIST OF FACTORS LEADING TO THE DOCTRINAL CHANGE TOTALLY
OMITS “THE UNRECOGNIZED FACTOR” OF BIBLE STUDY (LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT)

Jason Smith himself lists the factors he felt caused the doctrinal change to Trinitarianism in
Adventism, where he said, in part:

“…it is self-evident that God's Word has not changed since the days of our pioneers so how
then did this shift [to Trinitarianism] occur? Logic dictates that the impetus must have been
extra-biblical. [i.e. no internal biblical evidence of a trinity found]. An outside source, or
sources, must have influenced the way that Seventh-day Adventists understand God’s Word. So
what was that source (s)…. The purpose of this paper will be to set forth evidence that a major
factor that caused the introduction of the word “Trinity” into Seventh-day Adventism, in a
positive sense, was reaction to criticism. While there are several other factors of causality for
the eventual adoption of a Trinitarian doctrine by Seventh-day Adventists this particular factor
is frequently overlooked. Yet reactionary theology not only played a major role in the original
positive usages of the word “Trinity” it remained as a factor in both the establishment and
perpetuation of this doctrine within Seventh-day Adventism. There has been a concentrated
effort to appear orthodox in the eyes of Christendom by asserting that Seventh-day Adventists
and other Christians have the doctrine of the Trinity in common. The result of this effort is a
Seventh-day Adventist Trinitarian doctrine with a wax nose that can be turned either way
depending on the circumstance. … The other factors behind the adoption of this doctrine are,
firstly, the “open door” doctrine of Seventh-day Adventist post 1851 and corresponding
successful proselytizing efforts. This appears to have eventually brought in individuals who
might be rightly called closet Trintiarians…. Another causality factor here are the numerous
statements from the pen of Ellen White that taught the Personhood of the Holy Spirit. These
appear to have had an immediate impact on the brethren within the lifetime of Ellen White in
how certain Adventists viewed the Spirit…. The last of the other factors here appears to be the
development of new thoughts in Adventist soteriology that were viewed as necessitating
Trintiarian theology. A key individual in this development was W.W. Prescott.”
---Jason Smith, The Unaccounted Factor (2018), pgs. 9-10

Well, there you have it! Jason Smith not only failed to countenance the impact of Bible study
on the pioneers changing their stance on the existence of a Trinity (even if they continued to
disagree with the way the Roman Catholics explained the Trinity), but he outright says it was
“extra-biblical sources” that influenced the SDA pioneers change of thought on that matter
(like, for instance, R.A. Underwood in 1898, as quoted below). Notice R.A. Underwood’s bible-
based pioneering testimony (especially taking note of him quoting scripture):

"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 4:24), 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

It is simply because Jason Smith is now an anti-Trinitarian in ideology why he makes this claim
regarding so-called “extra-biblical sources” leading to the doctrinal change under consideration,
because to him no Trinity of divine persons whatsoever appears directly or indirectly in the
scriptures (not even the “three beings” version). It’s just like a non-SDA would probably say that
no clear statement is in the Bible that 1844 is was the start of the ongoing Judgment Hour in
heaven (as SDAs believe), but it’s a doctrine that must be deduced after much reading into the
scriptures (with a certain mindset) and after the cumulative interpretation of many scriptures
compared, and hence he rejects that doctrine as valid. Hmmm.
Hence, any claim that the pioneers may have made (as exemplified again below), that they
themselves engaged in BIBLE STUDY to establish, for instance, that the Holy Spirit is indeed a
person, an individual who works along with two other divine individuals (naturally resulting in
an evident Godhead “trio” or “trinity” of divine beings in the scriptures) it would be all phony or
an empty claim to Jason Smith, since it was, in his view, all “reactionary theology” that
influenced the change of perspectives, along with all other “extra-biblical sources” he cited:

--Columbia Union Visitor (pioneer periodical); Vol. 16, No. 27, July 5, 1911, p.6
(*Quoted as seen in the original pioneering documents before 1915)
But it’s simply Jason Smith’s anti-Trinitarian OPINION that it’s “extra-biblical” to arrive at the
conclusion that a Godhead “trinity” or “trio” of individuals exist (the words “trio” and “trinity”
are synonyms; see any good dictionary). He reserves the right to his opinion, but the pioneers
every step of the way (as I will further evidence later) appealed to scripture as the reason for
the change from the earliest pioneering view that the scripture is “entirely silent in regard to a
trinity” (or what they later sometimes called a “trio” of “three living persons”)….despite, yes,
both the words “trio” and “trinity” are nowhere found in scripture directly, just as nowhere do
we see the words “1844” or “the pre-Advent Investigative Judgment” in scripture…ideas which
all must be deduced from scripture. SDAs (including Jason Smith) have no real ground on which
to stand to condemn the use of extra-biblical expressions, when our own SDA theology on
various subjects, including on the subject of the Godhead, is filled with many of them which
must be deduced from scripture, since they cannot be quoted directly from scripture. I always
say, anytime any dissident SDA anti-Trinitarian can show where in scripture he sees, for
instance, “trio”, “three living persons”, “the third person of the Godhead”, “the great threefold
power”, “praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” (terms and expressions he supports because Mrs.
White supportively used them), then he can argue against and have issues with others coining
extra-biblical expressions that are simply deduced from scripture. So Jason Smith is in no
position to authoritatively pontificate that it’s only via “extra-biblical sources” (not based on
scripture) that the SDA pioneers became convinced of a “trinity” (and I would add, one that’s
different in many respects to the Catholic Trinity), when he himself continues to endorse other
extra-biblical expressions seen nowhere in scripture, but he still deems them as valid because
they can be deduced from scripture…unless it is that he wants to give himself a ‘pass’ for
embracing certain extra-biblical terms simply because he can fit them into his personal anti-
Trinitarian view. But “what goes for the goose, goes for the gander”, someone wise once
said…which is quite apt to apply here.

A FATAL FLAW OF JASON SMITH’S “REACTION THEOLOGY” THEORY

“There does not appear to be a single pro-Trinitarian reference in any Seventh-day Adventist
periodical until the year 1890” ---Jason Smith, The Unaccounted Factor (2018), pg. 12

Jason Smith claims right throughout his thesis that it was “reactionary theology”--- trying to
counteract D.M. Canright’s post-1888 charges that SDAs did not believe in the Trinity and Jesus’
full divinity--- why the pioneers felt it necessary to introduce not only Trinitarian terminology,
but also the Trinity doctrine of the “three in one” God, or what is also known as “the triune
God”. But there is simply another major oversight on his part that totally obliterates his theory.
The SDA pioneers started to express the Godhead using/borrowing Trinitarian-type terms and
concepts even BEFORE D.M. Canright’s book was released in 1889, evidencing a gradual
development of the doctrinal shift that was not caused by Canright, but rather Canright simply
caused it to be brought it out into the open that the shift was already happening, though not
yet mature. Proof? As early as 1876, one SDA pioneering article appearing in the Review and
Herald describes God the following way:

"In the former dispensations God was known by such appellations as, The Lord God, The
Almighty God, The I Am, and The Jehovah God. But in the ordinance of baptism (according to
the gospel commission…*He [God] is known as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now if this be
the truth, as it most certainly is, then it follows that to believe and confess this truth is to
answer a good conscience toward God... when we are baptized in the *NAME of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, *AS the true and living God, our Creator, Preserver, and Saviour, we at
once and forever renounce and separate ourselves from every kind and species of idolatry and
false worship."
--Review and Herald, March 16, 1876, pg. 82

That’s Trinitarian-type theology already introduced, even if not yet adopted by all, i.e. to view
God, “the true and living God, our Creator, Preserver and Savior” as unitedly “the Father Son
and the Holy Spirit”, or with all together called a singular “he”!
By 1879, as a recently discovered pioneering letter from J.H. Waggoner to James White has
shown, pioneer J.H. Waggoner (influenced by James White before his 1881 death) was
questioning his earlier stance on the Holy Spirit being called “it”. This 1879 letter by pioneer
J.H. Waggoner was found in the General Conference archives of the SDA Church, and it was
addressed to James White (Mrs. White’s husband) before White’s 1881 death. Pioneer J.H.
Waggoner was one of the main SDA pioneers who did intense studies on the Holy Spirit in the
earlier years before 1888 and before Canright’s charges surfaced in 1889. This letter revealed
how he was in 1879 grappling with the Spirit’s nature in the years before the SDA Church
started to accept the Spirit’s separate personhood among, WHAT WOULD BE LATER ACCEPTED
AS, the “three living persons” or “three beings” of the Godhead. And in the letter he
AMAZINGLY said to James White:

"I have thought considerable about the matter you wrote of, though I have been too busy to
apply my mind to it. But there is one query which will arise in my mind. It is on question of the
personality of the Holy Spirit. The more I think of it the more I am inclined to believe that the
generally received view [i.e. the Trinitarian view] is correct…We know that the word spirit in
Greek is in the neuter gender, and in Hebrew, feminine. The Hebrew has no neuter gender.
But it is generally conceded that the Authorized Version (KJV) is correct in using masculine
pronouns when referring to the Holy Spirit. Instance, John 14:16, 17, 26.
We [Seventh-day Adventists in 1879] ordinarily use *IT instead of he - perhaps it is allowable.
But, to it are ascribed attributes of personality, as power, intelligence, emotions: - it instructs,
guides, moves to speak or do, is grieved, etc. But most of all, we are baptized into name of the
Holy Spirit. ... in the rite of baptism the name of the Holy Spirit is placed with those of the
Father and Son, and to the Holy Spirit is given such prominence in creation, in redemption, in
everything.As much as I have studied on this subject -and you know that for years my study in
the Spirit has not been small- I am not prepared to take a positive position. I am yet a
student, or an inquirer, ready to be convinced by sufficient reasons. I can appreciate this, that
to remove the Spirit from that position assigned to it in the Scriptures, would be no small
error. Perhaps, in the light of Matt. 12:22-37, no greater error could be committed. It is this
which has, for years, prevented my speaking with positiveness on the subject.
But if the Spirit is a personality, and is third in position and power with the Father and Son,
then it would be an offense against the Spirit [not to give him that position]."
----Letter from J.H. Waggoner to James White - July 28, 1879 (*discovered by
Denis Kaiser in the Center for Adventist Research)
Here we see J.H. Waggoner in 1879, grappling with AND HAVING DOUBTS ABOUT his earier
non-Trinitarian SDA view regarding the Holy Spirit, and doing so because of what he saw in the
scriptures; and not because of some “reaction” to D.M. Canright, because Canright was still an
SDA non-Trinitarian member even then, and he had just written one year before (in 1878) his
total rejection of the Trinitarian view that the Holy Spirit is a person as God is a person.

*Seen below is a photocopy of parts of the actual letter from 1879, and so it is
proven to be legitimate.
*Here is what stood out for me in this revealing letter from J.H. Waggoner:

“…if the Spirit is a personality, and is third in position and power with the Father and Son [or
is distinct from but co-equal with them], then it would be an offense against the Spirit [not to
give him that position and recognition]."
----Letter from J.H. Waggoner to James White - July 28, 1879 (*discovered by Denis Kaiser in the
Center for Adventist Research)

Interstingly, it was just over a decade after this J.H. Waggoner letter (i.e. after 1889) that
increasing numbers of SDA pioneers started to adjust their view on the Holy Spirit. And long
before LeRoy Froom even came on the scene (see this link above for details) it became clear
that no longer did all SDA pioneers see the pronoun “it” as any hindrance to understanding the
Holy Spirit as a “co-equal” person/individual of the Godhead, as evidenced below.

--The Present Truth, Vol. 13, No. 1, Jan. 7, 1897, pg. 8

(*Quoted as seen in the original pioneering documents before 1915)
The foregoing 1897 pioneering quote compared with the considerations documented in J.H.
Waggoner’s 1879 letter TOTALLY obliterate the theory that “Leroy Froom first introduced the
personal Holy Spirit and the Trinity doctrine in Adventism”! Remember Leroy Froom is another
‘scape goat’ for the dissident SDA anti-Trinitarians, because they falsely charge him with
introducing Trinity terms and the Trinity or “triune God” doctrine in Adventism for the first time
in the late 1920s, yet all I have described so far (with more to come) preceded Leroy Froom’s
arrival on the scene as a theologian and historian in the 1920s (Leroy Froom was born in 1890;
and so would be just 7 years old when the foregoing 1897 quote was published in The Present
Truth). But back to the pre-1889 period… I was getting a bit sidetracked by the above key point.

Intestingly in 1887, still two years before Canright’s 1889 book was released, in The Present
Truth SDA periodical for April 7, 1887 (Vol. 03, No. 07, pg. 100), "the united force" of "the
*triune God" is spoken of positively as salvational, and this shows a definite trend was
developing among some pioneers. Now if anyone had doubts that the March 16, 1876 Review
and Herald reference I cited earlier was introducing ideas along the lines of the Trinity or “the
triune God”, well, eleven years after, this 1887 Present Truth article NAMED “the triune God” as
he who saves us. So what was happening was that the elements of the Trinity doctrine started
to be introduced and accommodated one by one by some pioneers, and even before Canright’s
1889 book charged SDAs with not believing in the Trinity and Jesus’ full divinity. Never forget
that it’s only the Trinity doctrine that has the following elements:

1. God is deemed as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together, but all seen together as one “he”
2. God is deemed “the triune God” (click the link for more on the pioneers on this)
3. Jesus is deemed “God the Son” as the full equal of God the Father (click the link)
4. The Holy Spirit is ascribed the attributes of personality, intelligence, emotions, and is deemed
a personality (or distinct person), and the third in position and power with the Father and Son

And the pre-1889 evidence is plain that differing SDA pioneers started to discuss among
themselves, introduce/publish, and countenance these as valid ideas, even before Canright’s
apostasy from Adventism and his released 1889 book, “Seventh-day Adventism Renounced”;
with it’s charge that SDAs totally rejected the Trinity and Jesus’ full divinity. Where is the proof
that Jesus was being deemed as “God the Son” even before Canright’s 1889 charges, you may
ask?

“God the Father speaks to *God the Son (!!), and says, “Thy throne, O God,”. And further the
Father says to the Son, “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and
the heavens are the works of thine hands.” And when he brought him into the world, he said,
“Let all the angels of God worship him.” This is he who died for us…the most excellent Saviour of
sinners, “Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:6." --- Signs of the Times, May 28, 1885, pg. 326

The above 1885 quote is plain, as recorded in the Signs of the Times SDA periodical (the
"leading missionary paper" or “periodical", as it was described by the SDA pioneers
themselves).
And of course, we should ever remember that the SDA periodicals don’t always capture fully
what was going on among the pioneers but sometimes they give small snapshots or small
glimpses into what was happening at the time. And so far we see that, Jason Smith’s theory
that “there does not appear to be a single pro-Trintiarian reference in any Seventh-day
Adventist periodical until the year 1890”, it has been proven to be an uninformed, inaccurate
and woefully off-base theory.
Let’s now discover hereafter what took place subsequent to Canright’s 1889 charges being
leveled at Adventism. Were SDA pioneers after 1889 simply “reacting” to his charges without
any biblical foundation or intelligent aforethought about whether a trinity exists? And were
they just blindly introducing Trinity-related expressions for the first time, or were they simply
continuing a trend started before Canright’s charges, while bringing to greater maturity a
doctrinal change already underway, and were simply highlighting their changing views based on
Bible study, even while introducing *revised Trinity views that sought to do away with the
Catholic speculations connected to the threefold Godhead? And with all of Mrs. White’s “three
persons”, “third person of the Godhead”, “three living persons”, “three holiest beings”, “three
personal heavenly dignitaries”, “the three loving agencies”, “the eternal God – the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit”, and “the great threefold power” Trinitarian-type expressions (among
other similar ones) all coming from her during this post-1889 period, are we to think she was
engaging in “reactionary theology” as well, or was she simply led of the Holy Spirit and bible
study to introduce and solidify them as valid even while Canright was making his charges from
1889 right up to her 1915 death?
Read on to discover the explosive truth which many may have not recognized, including Jason
Smith.

SDA PIONEERS AND THE POST-1889 PERIOD UP TO 1915:

JASON SMITH’S THESIS ON THIS PERIOD EXAMINED

After D.M. Canright left the SDA Church in 1887, he released his book “Seventh-day Adventism
Renounced” in 1889 (see the book cover pictured here), and it’s very, very
interesting that it was thereafter that all of Mrs. White’s “three persons”,
“third person of the Godhead”, “the great threefold power”, “the eternal
Godhead---the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”, and similar “threefold”
statements related to the Godhead came out, i.e. within the 1890s and the
first ten years after the 1900s began (she died in 1915). Now this is where it
becomes really interesting. Jason Smith’s thesis did a good job of showing
that the standard pioneering SDA teaching was non-Trinitarian before we
get to 1889 (and the data he supplied to prove same was compelling). And
it is valid that, as Jason Smith postulated, “Ellen White was not [initially]
a Trinitarian and her understanding of God, His Son and the Spirit evolved
over time and she led as she received insight.” (Jason Smith, “The Unaccounted
Factor, 2018, pg. 23). Now it is Jason Smith’s confident argument (and a valid one, I will admit)
that probably all (or at least the vast majority of) the SDA pioneers prior to 1889 were non-
Trinitarian, and were “Arian”, better yet “semi-Arian”, since they taught one God the Father,
Jesus his begotten Son from eternity who is equal with him in every way, and with both being
represented by their Holy Spirit (as seen in their Fundamental Principles from 1872).

They had to have been semi-Arian because many (not all) of them insisted on Jesus being
“begotten” of the Father’s own substance and NOT CREATED from eternity (“Arians” teach
Jesus was “created” from nothing or “ex nihilo” in the beginning), and before 1889 the standard
SDA belief was that the Holy Spirit was not a third being but simply a divine influence. Now, if,
as Jason Smith himself conceded, Mrs. White’s understanding of God, His Son and Spirit
“evolved” as she “received insight”, the question is from what source did she gain this
“insight”? An “extra-biblical” one? And to what doctrine did her understanding “evolve” to,
as coming from a semi-Arian position, since, of course, she never taught the Arian doctrine
that Jesus was created in the beginning, but from early she insisted he was “begotten” and
later (especially after 1889) added that he existed “from all eternity” and was always “in
fellowship with the eternal God”? It is plain, that Mrs. White’s doctrinal position, just like the
other pioneers, advanced from a semi-Arian viewpoint to later adopt a *revised TRINITARIAN
position after 1889, and at precisely the same time the other pioneers started to bring to the
fore their newly acquired acceptance of Trinity-related terms and Trinity-related ideas,
despite always insisting that the Godhead persons are distinct “BEINGS” (plural)…resulting in
a tailored or untraditional Trinity viewpoint being adopted.

Now, Jason Smith would be hard-pressed to disprove the above described, and he would also
be hard-pressed to disprove that only a Trinitarian viewpoint, or one close to Trinitarianism,
would have Mrs. White going to non-SDA Trinitarian authors to borrow their “three living
persons” ideas to explain the threefold Godhead, to explain the nature of the “self-existent”
Jesus as one having “life original, unborrowed and underived” , and to explain the Holy Spirit
being “the third person of the Godhead” (using the very Trinitarian “third person of the
Godhead” expression that --- as revealed by pioneer W.W. Prescott in 1919 --- the early semi-
Arian pioneers frowned upon as being an “heretical” Trinitarian expression, but despite that it
was still borrowed and used by Mrs. White, but only after 1889).

If the historical data proves that when Mrs. White’s doctrine “evolved” it moved her to borrow
and accommodate many of the Trinitarian-type expression from Trinitarian authors, then we
can also see that:
(i) it was only after 1889 that she started to use personal expressions about the Holy Spirit, for
instance, expressions that led other pioneers to feel comfortable to also borrow Trinity-related
terms to express themselves, and
(ii) this in effect countered Canright’s post-1888 charges that SDAs did not believe in the Trinity
and the full divinity of Jesus
There is therefore only one valid conclusion which can be arrived at. Mrs. White and the other
pioneers had together “evolved” in their doctrine, which heavily leaned in the direction of
Trinitarianism, but became a revised version of that doctrine. That is why the pioneers were
NOT LYING that they had come to believe in the Trinity that they (on the whole) did not
formerly believe in, since it’s only an eventual belief in a “trinity” or “triune” Godhead (a trend
which started to emerge among some even before 1889) that can account for all of the
following post-1889 pioneering expressions that contrasted with what most SDAs taught before
1889 (take careful note of the years of the following quotes):

“The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, in Christ’s name. He personifies Christ [or impersonates
him], yet is a distinct personality [or separate individual]. We may have the Holy Spirit if we
ask for it ….” ---E.G. White, Manuscript 93, 1893

“Christ determined that when He ascended from this earth He would bestow a gift on those who
had believed on Him and those who should believe on Him… He determined to give His
representative, the third person of the Godhead.”
---E.G. White, Signs of the Times, December 1, 1898

“We 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 (From a talk to the
students at the Avondale School, Australia.).

“The Holy Spirit is a person, for He beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of
God. When this witness is borne, it carries with it its own evidence… The Holy Spirit has a
personality, [or individuality] else He could not bear witness to our spirits and with our spirits
that we are the children of God. He must also be a divine person….” -- E.G. White, Manuscript
20, 1906.
“When we have accepted Christ, and in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit have pledged ourselves to serve [i.e. reverence, honor, worship and obey; see Joshua
24:15; Psalm 100:2] God, the Father, Christ, *AND the Holy Spirit --the three dignitaries and
powers of heaven--pledge themselves that every facility shall be given to us if we carry out our
baptismal vows to "come out from among them, and be . . . separate, . . . and touch not the
unclean thing.” ----E.G. White, Manuscript 85, 1901

"As the saints in the kingdom of God are accepted in the beloved [or Paradise], they hear:
“Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world.” And then the golden harps are touched, and the music flows all through the
heavenly host, and they fall down and worship the Father and the Son *AND the Holy Spirit."
---E.G. White, Manuscript 139, 1906.

“The Holy Spirit is a person, for He beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of
God. When this witness is borne, it carries with it its own evidence… The Holy Spirit has a
personality, [or individuality] else He could not bear witness to our spirits and with our spirits
that we are the children of God. He must also be a divine person….” -- E.G. White, Manuscript
20, 1906.

"God says, [notice after this whom she means says this] "Come out from among them, and be
ye separate, . . . and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father
unto you *notice hereafter who is speaking as “I” and “the Almighty” here+, and ye shall be my
sons and daughters, saith [or pledges] the Lord Almighty." [Now notice carefully] This is the
pledge of [not one person, but] the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit [i.e. the *pledge to
receive and be a Father to you]; made to you if you will keep your baptismal vow, and touch not
the unclean thing… In order to deal righteously with the world, as members of the royal
family, children of the heavenly King, Christians must feel their need of a power, which comes
only from the [three] heavenly agencies that have pledged themselves to work in man's
behalf. After we have formed a union with the great THREEFOLD POWER [singular; collective],
we shall regard our duty toward the members of God's family with a sacred awe.”
--E.G. White, Signs of the Times, June 19, 1901

All of the foregoing post-1889 first-time quotes from Mrs. White

compares logically with the other post-1889 quotes which came from
other pioneers as seen in the table on the next page:
PRE-1889 ANTI-TRINITY QUOTES
“The Trinity, or the triune God, is
unknown to the Bible; and I have
entertained the idea that doctrines which
require words coined in the human mind to
express them, are coined doctrines.”
— R.F. Cottrell, Review and Herald, June 1,
1869
“It is not very consonant with common
sense to talk of three being one, and one
being three. Or as some express it, calling
God “the Triune God,” or “the three-one-
God.” If Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are
each God, it would be three Gods… The
word Trinity nowhere occurs in the
Scriptures…”
--- J.N. Loughborough, Review and Herald,
November 5, 1861
“The Bible says nothing about the trinity.
God never mentions it, Jesus never named
it, the apostles never did. “Now men dare
to call God, Trinity, Triune, etc… the
Bible never uses the phrases, 'Trinity,'
'triune God,' 'three in one,' 'the holy three,”
'God the Holy Ghost….Trinitarians
contradict this [Mark 2:29-32] by saying
that the Son and Holy Ghost are just as
much the true God as the Father is...”
— D.M. Canright, Review and Herald,
August 29, 1878
“As fundamental errors, we might class
with this counterfeit Sabbath other
errors which Protestants have brought
away from the Catholic church, such as
sprinkling for baptism, the trinity, the
consciousness of the dead and eternal life
in misery… can it be supposed that the
church of Christ will carry along with her
these errors till the judgment scenes
burst upon the world? We think not.”
— James White, Review and Herald,
September 12, 1854, p. 36
POST-1889 AND PRE-1915 QUOTES
"Let Him [the Holy Spirit] make you know,
beloved, how surprisingly beautiful are the
blended personalities of our *TRIUNE God
manifested by the personal presence of the
Holy Ghost.”
---Review and Herald, Vol. 77, April 3,
1900, pg. 210
"The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are
one and receive worship. Each one
represents all the other members of the
*Trinity...[but] Gabriel was only an angel
bearing a message from the great *Trinity of
heaven, and could not receive worship [Rev.
19:10; Rev. 22:8-9]"
---S.N. Haskell, The Bible Training School,
November 1907, No. 6, pg. 94
"...when there were no worlds; no created
being, not even an angel; in fact, there were
only three *beings — God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; these three
persons in the Godhead"
---- Review and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 1. Jan 1,
1901. No., 2409; pg. 2
“In the very first chapter of Genesis we have
revealed the great *TRIUNE God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. "And let us make man in
our image… It needs only the inspired
interpretation of the New Testament to fill out
this picture and reveal to us Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit working together to bring light,
harmony, and order out of the darkness and
chaos of the beginning. See John 1:1-5; Heb.
11: 3."
---The Oriental Watchman (pioneering SDA
periodical) Vol. 13 (No. 12), Dec. 1910, p.13
"...the Creator is the only Being worthy to
receive worship....God is worshipped
because He is Creator; and God means the
Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for all
are mentioned as having part in creation ."
---The Present Truth (SDA periodical), Vol. 29,
No. 48. Nov. 27, 1913, p. 757
“Seventh-day Adventists believe [now] in ...
the Divine *TRINITY. This Trinity consists of
“If Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are each
God, it would be three Gods; for three
times one is not one, but three…”
--J.N. Loughborough, Review and Herald,
November 5, 1861
“Much stress is laid on Isa. 9:6, as
proving a trinity, which we have before
quoted, as referring to our High Priest who
shed his blood for us. The advocates of
that theory will say that it refers to a
trinity because Christ is called the
everlasting Father. But for this reason,
with others, we affirm that it can have no
reference to a trinity. Is Christ the Father in
the trinity? If so, how is he the Son? or if he
is both Father and Son, how can there be a
trinity? for a trinity is three persons. To
recognize a trinity, the distinction
between the Father and Son must be
preserved. Christ is called “the second
person in the trinity;” but if this text
proves a trinity, or refers to it at all, it
proves that he is not the second, but the
first. And if he is the first, who is the
second? It is very plain that this text has no
reference to such a doctrine.”
— J.H. Waggoner, The Atonement In The
Light Of Nature And Revelation, 1884, pgs.
167-169
the Eternal Father… the Lord Jesus Christ…
[and] the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the
Godhead”
---F. M. Wilcox (chief editor), *Review and
Herald, October 9, 1913
“... in the course of the lessons as opportunity
occurs you will impress upon the children the
relation in which they stand to God the Father
as their Creator; to *God the Son (!!!) as their
Redeemer; and to God the Holy Ghost (!!!) as
their Sanctifier."
---E.J. Waggoner, The Present Truth (UK),
February 15, 1894, p. 101
“...God’s great plan is clear and logical.
There is *A TRINITY, and in it there are three
personalities [or three individuals]……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, Australasian Union
Conference Record (SDA pioneering
periodical), July 19, 1909
“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, Who was born of
the Virgin Mary…”
--The Present Truth, 1908, Vol. 24, No. 51-52,
pg. 812
*NOTE THIS 1919 PIONEER CONFESSION:
"I was in the same place that Brother
Daniells was, and was taught
the same things by authority [of the earliest
pioneering SDA Church], that Christ was the
beginning of God's creative work, that to
speak of the third person of the
Godhead or of the trinity was heretical..."
--- W.W. Prescott, July 6, 1919 Bible Conference.
Now, as we already know, it is Jason Smith’s thesis that it was all “extra-biblical sources” that
led SDA pioneers after 1889 to go against the earlier non-Trinitarian position of their earlier
non-Trinitarian Church, and it was mostly “reactionary theology” in response to Canright’s 1889
charges that SDAs did not believe in the Trinity and in Jesus’ full divinity. But it all his OPINION,
since the pioneers themselves point to Scripture as the reason for the change to adopt the term
“trinity”, and to change to the view that the Holy Spirit is the third personal being of the
Godhead, which is the obvious stance needed to subscribe to a true “trinity” of separate beings
(in contrast to the Roman Catholic type of Trinity), since, as one earlier pioneer recognized:

“A Trinity is three persons. To recognize [admit to] a trinity [the true type], the distinction
between the Father and Son must be preserved.”

-J.H. Waggoner, 1884, The Atonement, pgs. 167-169

No wonder later pioneers insisted on separate BEINGS (plural) in that “trinity” they came to
accommodate:

"... as the church on earth is working by the direct command and agency of three distinct
personages [or beings] in heaven for the increase of the heavenly family, in whose name shall
we adopt them into this family ? [i.e. via baptism] "In the *NAME of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost." Matt. 28:19."
---"THE TRINITY", Signs of the Times, October 15, 1890, pg. 315

“We [Adventists] understand the Trinity, as applied to the Godhead, to consist of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit ... These supreme Beings we cannot comprehend or measure…There is
certainly nothing incongruous in the idea of the Spirit being a personal representative, hence
saying that the Spirit' is the representative of the Father and Son does not deny his
personality...He [the Spirit] occupies in our minds an exalted place with Deity …as a supreme
Being” --- Bible Echo & Signs of the Times (Australia), Vol. 7, April 1, 1892, p112

“… the Godhead is composed of three personal *beings, and that these three are one. The
oneness of the Godhead must, then, consist not in personality, but in some other kind of
oneness. Let us apply the Bible idea of oneness of *individuals to the Godhead, and see if it will
contradict the possibility of three or more individuals being called one. We have two visible
institutions in this world that are Bible illustrations of God's idea of oneness, marriage and the
church.”
---“The Trinity”, Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 89;
Dec. 19, 1912; No. 51, pg. 5

And, if you remember, dear reader, it was Jason Smith who said plainly:

TESTIMONY OF THE SDA ANTI-TRINITARIAN, JASON SMITH:

“... While it is true that Sister White never used the word “trinity” herself when
speaking of God it is also equally true that she never rebuked or repudiated the
SDA pioneers who used it during her lifetime and there were several of them.
It is unfathomable that she missed all of those references. The truth is that she
remained neutral and thus honest logicality compels the conclusion that there is
a “trinity” that one can hold to which is in no way a salvific danger. I know some
of my SDA anti-trinitarian brethren get upset when I say this but I don't serve them… if there
wasn't an acceptable "trinity" view possible then surely the Spirit of Christ would have
warned us clearly through Mrs. White’s prophetic gift. This is not the case though…"
--- Jason Smith, Facebook discussion, October 2, 2017

Now if it was only after 1888 that the pioneers, including Mrs. White, increasingly started to
express “three persons” of divinity, then it’s logical why they adopted the term “trinity” or
“trio” thereafter (since the terms are synonymous in basic etymology). But it was the scriptures
they insisted that led them to accept three persons of divinity. Notice more examples of their
bible-based testimony below (take note of their reference to the scriptures):

“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

“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 and Herald, June 9, *1896, pg. 362

"...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 [several 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

“We fear that many have tried to receive the Holy Ghost as an emotion or an influence, when
according to His name and position, given Him by Jesus in introducing Him to the disciples, He
should be received as a person. The Holy Scriptures everywhere attribute to Him all the
characteristics of a person. He has a name, the Holy Spirit, associated equally with the Father
and Son. Matt. 28 : 19. He has a mind. Rom. 8 : 26, 27. He has a good mind, capable of
comprehending "all things" even " the deep things of God." 1 Cor. 2 : 10. He has an excellent
memory, able to recall and bring to our remembrance "all things," said Jesus, "whatsoever
/have said unto you." John 14: 26, This represents perfect knowledge and a perfect memory,
and how much we stand in need of just such help close at hand, even in and through us now. To
be used by such an one is not to be left helpless and weak. John 14 : 18. He is a teacher of the
highest order and qualifications, with the highest recommendations. "He shall teach you all
things," said Jesus. "He will guide you into all truth. He will shew you things to come. He shall
receive of mine and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine." John 14. He
surpasses all others as a linguist, as He is able to speak all the languages and dialects of earth.
Acts 2 : 4-11. He is able to create, which God only can do. Gen. 1 : 2 ; Job 26 : 13. He created us
all. Job 33 : 4. And it is by Him that we are recreated, being born of the Spirit. John 3 : 5, 6, 8 ;
Gal. 3 : 3 ; 4 : 6, 29 ; Rom. 8 : 8-17 ; 1 John 5 : 7. The Spirit is eternal in His existence. Heb. 9 : 14.
"Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God." It was through the Holy
Spirit that Jesus wrought miracles. "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom
of God is come unto you." Matt. 12 : 28. We shall be able to east out devils only by the same
power. Matt. 10 : 7, 8. The Holy Spirit is the greatest power presented in the Word of God. Zech.
4 : 6. The Holy Spirit has a will and exercises it in everything pertaining to the church and work
of God. 1 Cor. 12 : 4-11, "Dividing to every man severally as He will." He directed who should
labor together in the gospel. Acts 13 : 1-5, where they should labor and where not. Acts 16 : 6-
15. The Scriptures teach that there are three persons in the Godhead. Matt. 28 : 19 … Jesus
through the Spirit of Prophecy gives to the Holy Spirit the position of the third person of the
Godhead [Mrs. White was then quoted, but notice, only after an appeal made to the
scriptures]….”

--- The Union Conference Record – Dec. 31, 1906, Vol. 10. No. 26, pgs.1-2

Interestingly, it was after 1889 that Mrs. White, who started thereafter to teach “three
persons” (“three persons” who would logically form “a trinity”, as even J.H. Waggoner
conceded), she said plainly:

“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 formerly semi-Arian 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
the Godhead, expressed for the first time by her as “three persons”. It’s as plain as the nose on
your face, dear reader, and as bright as the sun!! No one can cover it up!!

In fact notice the following 1892 first-time reality in Mrs. White’s writings. In the widely read
book, “STEPS TO CHRIST”, published by Mrs. White in 1892, she makes the following crucial
point for the very first time:
“the unceasing interest of *heavenly BEINGS – all are enlisted in behalf of man’s redemption”
---Steps to Christ, 1892, pgs. 20-21

Who are these “BEINGS” she was referring to as “enlisted on behalf of man’s redemption”?
Considering that usually only separate living persons or personal beings are referred to as
“enlisted”, now notice carefully, in the *lines directly preceding this statement, the list of
“BEINGS” that she intended to highlight (inserts in brackets are mine, for emphasis):

“… [1] The Savior’s *Jesus’+ life and death and resurrection, [2] the ministry of angels, [3] the
pleading of the *SPIRIT, [4] the Father working above and through all…” –Steps to Christ, pgs.
20-21

Notice she listed them separately, by use of the comma, and she wrote about the Spirit
separately in the list of “heavenly beings”!! No one, or no power on earth, can make me
mistake the meaning here!! This was the first time she ever described the Holy Spirit as a
personal “being” among the other personal beings in heaven.

Now, no true Adventist will deny that in Heaven there are *originally two sets of “Heavenly
beings”, namely *1+ angels and *2+ the members of the Godhead. Now notice carefully here that
Mrs. White clearly mentions/lists the Holy Spirit separately from Jesus in the same paragraph,
and as one of the “heavenly BEINGS” showing “unceasing interest” in, and was “enlisted in
behalf of man’s redemption”. Some dissident anti-Trinitarians today in Adventism, faced with
this truth (and convicting piece of evidence), may try to escape it or explain it away. The
question is then, what more evidence do they need? We see her later appealing to the resistant
SDA brethren in 1899 that “we NEED to realize that the Spirit is as much a person as God is a
person”, and thereafter she began to repeatedly list him as a “distinct personality” among
“three living personalities” or among three living individuals (explaining why her 1906 recorded
sermon had her calling them “the three holiest beings in heaven”, since that is what the words
“three living personalities” would literally mean, as seen in the Webster’s Dictionary of 1828
(check each word meaning in that dictionary of her time and see).
No wonder then many of the other SDA pioneers followed suit thereafter to make plain that
God is three beings but not united as the Catholics describe them (i.e. depicted as three heads
of Jesus on one neck; literally three persons in one person):

"...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 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 some dissidents in Adventism love to claim.
E.J. Waggoner did not believe in the Trinity the way the Catholics explained it, but he was still
moved after 1889 to describe the three divine beings with the following Trinitarian-type language:

“.. in the course of the lessons as opportunity occurs you will impress upon the children the
relation in which they stand to God the Father as their Creator; to *God the Son (!!!) as their
Redeemer; and to God the Holy Ghost (!!!) as their Sanctifier."
---E.J. Waggoner, The Present Truth (pioneering SDA periodical), Feb. 15, 1894, pg. 101
Other pioneers after 1889 used the same type of tri-unitive language by saying:

---The Present Truth, Vol. 29, No. 48., Nov. 27, 1913, pg. 757

"Paganism, popery [the Papacy], and infidelity fail entirely to either rightly know or truly
represent the ever-living God. It is left for pure Protestantism to proclaim to the world the true
God consisting of three persons but of one spirit and aim."
----The Signs of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 24, June 12, 1911; p. 371.372

But of course, it would be similar language to Mrs. White saying the following of “the three holiest
beings in heaven” even before she started to explicitly teach them to be “three persons”:

"...let us [SDAs] consecrate to *Him ["the Lord" our God] all that we are, and all that we have,
and then may we all unite to swell the songs, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise *him, all creatures here below; Praise *him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father,
Son, *AND Holy Ghost.” ---E.G. White, Review and Herald, January 4, 1881

This harmonizes nicely with the pre-1889 thought being introduced among some SDAs that:

"In the former dispensations God was known by such appellations as, The Lord God, The
Almighty God, The I Am, and The Jehovah God. But in the ordinance of baptism (according to
the gospel commission), …*HE is known as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Now if this be the
truth, as it most certainly is, then it follows that to believe and confess this truth is to answer a
good conscience toward God... when we are baptized in the *NAME of the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, *AS the true and living God, our Creator, Preserver, and Saviour, we at once and
forever renounce and separate ourselves from every kind and species of idolatry and false
worship." --Review and Herald, March 16, 1876, pg. 82
In the end, we see (by way of their own testimony) that SDA pioneers pointed to the scriptures
as the reason for the changes in their Godhead doctrine which started to emerge even before
1889 and Canright’s post-1888 charges. However their doctrinal change matured and
developed especially at a time when Canright needed to see the truth that the SDA pioneers did
eventually come to believe in the Trinity, but a “Trinity” in which “individuality is not lost” as it
relates to the “three persons” who are our God. Pioneer F.M. Wilcox signalled this change
taking place among several (not all) SDAs before 1915, and he carefully clarified the type of
Trinity they came to beleive:

“Seventh-day Adventists believe [now] in ... the Divine *TRINITY. This Trinity consists of the
Eternal Father… the Lord Jesus Christ… [and] the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Godhead”
---F. M. Wilcox (chief editor), *Review and Herald, October 9, 1913

“…the Godhead, or *TRINITY, consists of the Eternal Father, a personal, spiritual Being,
omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite in wisdom and love; the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of the Eternal Father, through whom all things were created and through whom the
salvation of the redeemed hosts will be accomplished; the Holy Spirit, the third person of the
Godhead, the great regenerating power in the work of redemption…We [Adventists] recognize
the divine Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each possessing a distinct and
separate personality, but one in nature and in purpose, so welded together in this infinite
union that the apostle James speaks of them as "one God." James 2:19. This divine unity is
similar to the unity existing between Christ and the believer, and between the different
believers in their fellowship in Christ Jesus…”
--- F.M. Wilcox, Christ is Very God, Review and Herald

This now leads me to the last half of this presentation. In the last sections seen hereafter I will
prove that to believe in a Trinty was a Christian doctrine that pre-dated the rise of the Papacy
after the fourth century, and the Trinity was not an invention of the Papacy, but rather a truth
the 'paganized' Roman Church inherited from Christians before it's fourth century arrival; an
"inherited" truth it sought to counterfeit with pagan philosophies incorporated with it...and the
SDA pioneers simply distanced themselves from the Catholic version of the Trinity, and
gradually sought to untangle the basic biblical Trinity truth they later accepted from the Papal
errors it became bogged down with over the centuries.

WHY SDAs FIRST REJECTED THE TRINITY, BUT LATER ACCEPTED A TRINITY?

In the 1850s, 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, there was strong opposition to the Trinity and its related
expressions among SDA pioneers, but (as already proven) by the late 1870s sentiments began
to change and especially after 1888 into the 1890s and the first decade of the 1900s WHILE
MRS E.G. WHITE WAS STILL ALIVE, and the pioneers themselves started to accept a “trinity”
or “triune God”, but of separate individual BEINGS ---“God the Father”, “God the Son” and
“God the Holy Spirit”---in contrast to the Roman Catholic Trinity of one Being with three
heads in one, or three persons fused in one undivided substance or undivided organism.
What became clear then was that the real problem the pioneers always had with the Catholic
Trinity (and what they would forever oppose) was the way the Catholics and the other
professing “Protestant” Churches explained the Trinity, *as seen depicted in a Catholic
painting on the left on the next page. Being ALWAYS AND FOREVER OPPOSED TO THIS
EXPLANATION they were careful to ever speak of separate BEINGS when they eventually
accepted (because of Bible study and Spirit of prophecy’s leading) what they themselves called
“the Bible doctrine of the Trinity” (as first seen in the Samuel Spear “triune God”, “tri-personal
God” or “Trinity” document of 1889, which they supportively published and publicly lauded it in
1892 and 1894 respectively).

Here following, in the pioneers’ own words, was their problem with the way Catholics and
others explained the Trinity or the Godhead, despite they themselves accepted a version of
the Trinity later on (as Jason Smith’s thesis did prove).

THE GRADUALLY DEVELOPED PIONEERING SDA CONCEPT OF THE GODHEAD:

To Mrs. E.G. White, the leading SDA pioneer, the spiritual and functional “oneness” of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as “three living persons” comprising the one “eternal
Godhead” was inescapable. But she maintained they were all SEPARATELY “living persons”,
seeing that a living person is always separate from another as an individual, even when
grouped with others. Thus on behalf of true SDAs she clearly expressed what the Godhead is:
Thus to true SDAs (despite all the present-day obfuscations of the dissidents in our midst) the
word “Godhead” is not just a word meaning “divinity”, but it also means the closely knit
GROUP of the three divine persons, and to truly have any one of those divine persons in our
lives is to have all three, and to worship or pray to one was to worship and pray to all three,
since they are “one” in a spiritual and functional way. Proof of this true SDA belief?

“There are three living persons of the heavenly trio. In the name of these three powers [or
rulers],--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, those who receive Christ by living faith are
baptized … "He that believeth in the Son, hath the Father also." He who has continual faith in
the Father and the Son has the Spirit also. The Holy Spirit is his comforter, and he [the true
believer] never departs from the truth.
---E.G. White, The Bible Training School, March 1, 1906

"...let us [SDAs] consecrate to *Him ["the Lord" our God] all that we are, and all that we have,
and then may we all unite to swell the songs, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise *him, all creatures here below; Praise *him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father,
Son, *AND Holy Ghost.” ---E.G. White, Review and Herald, January 4, 1881

"You are born unto God, and you stand under the sanction and the power of the three holiest
*BEINGS in heaven, who are able to keep you from falling… When I feel oppressed and hardly
know how to relate myself toward the work that God has given me to do, I just call upon the
three great Worthies [in prayer], and say: You know I cannot do this work in my own strength.
You must work in me, and by me, and through me… And this is the prayer that every one of us
may offer. *Keeping in mind that it’s only to who is our God or is the Godhead we should pray
to] ---E.G. White, Manuscript, 95, 1906

That’s plain!! To E.G. White (representing true Seventh-day Adventism) the oneness of these
three was so close that the Son was “God himself” in a manner of speaking (just as she spoke of
the Holy Spirit being “Jesus himself”), yet they were separate beings or truly “living persons” all
called “God”; not one undivided being or substance with three heads fused on one body (as
Catholic paintings depicted the Catholic version of the Godhead; *see the painting below).

"It was the Son of God alone who could present an acceptable sacrifice. GOD *HIMSELF
became man, and bore all the wrath that sin had provoked. This problem, How could God be
just and yet the justifier of sinners? baffled all finite intelligence. A divine person alone could
mediate between God [i.e. the divine specie] and man [the human specie]”
---Ellen G. White, The Youth Instructor, Aug. 31, 1887
Other SDA pioneers at the time echoed this unity of thought existing among most of the
pioneers before Mrs. White died in 1915:

“God means the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for all are mentioned as having part
in creation ." ---The Present Truth, Vol. 29, No. 48. Nov. 27, 1913, p. 757

“The Holy Spirit united with the Father and the Son to create the world [see Psalm 104:30] as
He still unites with them to save each soul — three glorious persons in one only God over all,
blessed for ever…” -- The Present Truth, Vol. 16, No. 26, June 28, 1900. pg. 411

"The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and receive worship [see Rev. 14:6-7]. Each
one represents all the other members of the *Trinity... "
---S.N. Haskell, The Bible Training School (pioneering SDA periodical),
November 1907, No. 6, pg. 94

“… the Godhead is composed of three personal *beings, and ….these three are one. The
oneness of the Godhead must, then, consist not in personality [i.e. they being one person or one
personal being], but in some other kind of oneness. Let us apply the Bible idea of oneness of
*individuals to the Godhead, and see if it will contradict the possibility of three
or more *individuals being called one. We have two visible institutions in this world that are
Bible illustrations of God's idea of oneness, marriage and the church.”
---“The Trinity, Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 89;
Dec. 19, 1912; No. 51, pg. 5

"...when there were no worlds; no created being, not even an angel; in fact, there were only
three *beings …. three persons in the Godhead"
---- Review and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 1. Jan 1, 1901. No., 2409; pg. 2

NOTE: The following picture depicting three separate but personal entities of the Godhead is
a reasonable illustration of the SDA pioneer’s post-1888 version of the Trinity of the Godhead
(with the Father and the co-equal Son ---surrounded by angels--- separately seated on the
same throne, and with the “sevenfold” Spirit in the “emblematic” form of a dove being
depicted as ever before God’s throne; ready to be sent out as the omnipresent
Representative of the Godhead).
THE PROBLEM THE SDA PIONEERS HAD WITH THE TRADITIONAL TRINITY EXPLANATION

“Respecting the [Catholic] trinity, I concluded that it was an impossibility for me to believe that
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, was also the Almighty God, the Father, [as] one and
the same being.” — Joseph Bates, The Autobiography Of Elder Joseph Bates, 1868, pg. 204

In the Xeroxed pre-1888 Review and Herald article seen below there we see clearly another
SDA pioneer objecting to the TRADITIONAL Trinity doctrine teaching that the Father, Son and
Spirit are “one person” or one personal Being with no body parts; with all three being non-
individual “persons” united as one undivided substance:

To the Catholics the “three persons” formed one individual God-being, which in effect formed
one person; not three separate beings, and this is further objected to in this pioneering quote:

“To believe that [Catholic] doctrine [OF THREE PERSONS FORMING ONE UNDIVIDED BEING],
when reading the scripture we must believe that God sent himself into the world, died to
reconcile the world to himself, raised himself from the dead, ascended to himself in heaven,
pleads before himself in heaven to reconcile the world to himself, and is the only mediator
between man and himself….This doctrine of the [Catholic] trinity was brought into the church
about the same time with image worship, and keeping the day of the sun, and is but Persian
doctrine remodeled. It occupied about three hundred years from its introduction to bring the
doctrine to what it is now [in 1861]. It was commenced about 325 A. D., and was not completed
till 681.” --J.N. Loughborough, Review and Herald, November 5, 1861
“Is Christ the Father in the [Catholic] trinity? If so, how is he the Son? or if he is both Father and
Son, how can there be a trinity? for a trinity is three [separate] persons. To recognize a [true]
trinity, the [true] distinction between the Father and Son must be preserved…”
— J.H. Waggoner, The Atonement In The Light Of Nature And Revelation, 1884, pgs. 167-169

Notice the consistent SDA pioneering opposition to the “three persons in one person” idea,
since the Catholics insist that the “orthodox” Trinity does not include three separate Godhead
BEINGS, but rather is one Being with three heads in one, as it were, (just as a trident or three-
teeth fork is one fork, but it has three teeth fused). Here following are more eye-opening
quotes from the SDA pioneers, before they accepted the Biblical version of the Trinity later on:

“That one person is three persons, and that three persons are only one person, is the doctrine
which we claim is contrary to reason and common sense. The being and attributes of God are
above, beyond, out of reach of my sense and reason, yet I believe them: But the doctrine I object
to is contrary, yes, that is the word, to the very sense and reason that God has himself
implanted in us. Such a doctrine he does not ask us to believe. A miracle is beyond our
comprehension, but we all believe in miracles who believe our own senses. What we see and
hear convinces us that there is a power that effected the most wonderful miracle of creation.
But our Creator has made it an absurdity to us that one person should be three persons, and
three persons but one person; and in his revealed word he has never asked us to believe it. This
our friend thinks objectionable...” --- R.F. Cottrell, Review and Herald, July 6, 1869

“What a contradiction of terms is found in the language of [the Catholic] Trinitarian creed: “In
unity of this *Godhead are three persons, of one substance [i.e. with three faces fused ON ONE
NECK] power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” There are many things that
are mysterious, written in the word of God, but we may safely presume the Lord never calls
upon us to believe impossibilities. But creeds often do.”
— A.J. Dennis, Signs of the Times, May 22, 1879

*The Catholic Trinity is one personal being operating as three “personas”, or wearing three
“masks”; a concept borrowed from pagan Greek philosophy. This idea SDAs firmly REJECTED!
 NOTICE AGAIN HOW THE PIONEERS DIFFERENTIATED THE TRUE TRINITY AFTER THE 1870s

“In the fourth and fifth centuries many absurd views were set forth respecting *the Trinity-
views that stood at variance with reason, logic, and Scripture... [BUT] ...the enemy [Satan]
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 [or three individuals]…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, Australasian Union Conference Record, July 19, 1909

“We [Adventists] understand the Trinity, as applied to the Godhead, to consist of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit ... These supreme BEINGS [plural] we cannot comprehend or
measure…There is certainly nothing incongruous in the idea of the Spirit being a personal
representative, hence saying that the Spirit' is the representative of the Father and Son does
not deny his personality...He [the Spirit] occupies in our minds an exalted place with Deity …as
a supreme BEING” --- Bible Echo & Signs of the Times (Australia), Vol. 7, April 1, 1892, pg. 112

“A [true] Trinity is three persons. To recognize [admit to] a trinity [the true type], the
distinction [or separateness] between the Father and Son must be preserved.”
-J.H. Waggoner, 1884, The Atonement, pgs. 167-169

“…the Godhead, or *TRINITY, consists of the Eternal Father, a personal, spiritual Being,
omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite in wisdom and love; the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of the Eternal Father, through whom all things were created and through whom the
salvation of the redeemed hosts will be accomplished; the Holy Spirit, the third person of the
Godhead, the great regenerating power in the work of redemption…We [Adventists]
recognize the divine Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each possessing a distinct
and separate personality [or individuality], but one in nature and in purpose, so welded
together in this infinite union that the apostle James speaks of them as "one God." James
2:19. This divine unity is similar to the unity existing between Christ and the believer, and
between the different believers in their fellowship in Christ Jesus…”
--- F.M. Wilcox, Christ is Very God, Review and Herald

Now, in 1892 the pioneers of the SDA Church, via the Pacific Press publishing house,
supportively published a non-SDA Trinity article written by the Trinitarian minister of the
Trinitarian Presbyterian Church, Samuel Spear; the SDA pioneers
themselves renamed and entitled it “The Bible Doctrine of the
Trinity”…obviously admitting publicly that there is indeed a
biblical version of the Trinity that was acceptable to them!!
It was clearly a Trinitarian article penned by Samuel Spear, who preferred to stay away from
certain mystical Catholic speculations about the “triune God”. The sentence reading “or triune
God, which has so long been the faith of Christian Church” the SDA pioneers initially omitted from
the article when first publishing it, because they did not believe in the “triune God” as always
traditionally believed, despite later adopting the “triune” term themselves (but obviously
explained differently); proving that Spear’s article was a Trinitarian article at its core, or at least
in all the basics. The following quote from it is telling (i.e. as taken from the very portions the
SDA pioneers supportively published unaltered in 1892):

"...the Godhead makes its appearance in the great plan for human salvation. God, in this
plan, is brought before our thoughts under the personal titles of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
with diversity in offices, relations, and actions toward men. These titles and their special
significance, as used in the Bible, are not interchangeable. The term “Father” is never applied to
the Son, and the term “Son” is never applied to the Father. Each title has its own permanent
application, and its own use and sense.
The distinction thus revealed in the Bible is the basis of the doctrine of the tri-personal
God...This doctrine... is not a system of tri-theism, or the doctrine of three Gods, but is the
doctrine of one God subsisting and acting in three persons, with the qualification that the
term “person,” though perhaps the best that can be used, is not, when used in this relation, to
be understood in any sense that would make it inconsistent with the unity of the Godhead,
and hence not to be understood in the ordinary sense when applied to men. Bible trinitarians
are not tritheists. They simply seek to state, in the best way in which they can, what they
regard the Bible as teaching.

Our Saviour [Jesus], in prescribing the formula to be observed in baptism, directed that converts
to Christianity should be baptized “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost.” Matt. 28:19. Here we have the distinct element of threeness in 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. The baptismal formula,
as given by Christ, is a strong argument in favor of this distinction; and yet no trinitarian ever
understood Christ as here asserting or implying anything inconsistent with the essential unity of
the Godhead....The exact mode in which the revealed Trinity is ....must be to us a perfect
mystery, in the sense of our total ignorance on the point. We do not, in order to believe the
revealed fact [of there being a Trinity], need to understand this mode...
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity—whether, as to its elements, taken collectively or
separately — so far from being a dry, unpractical, and useless dogma, adjusts itself to the
condition and wants of men as sinners. Paul said to the Ephesians that there is “one Spirit, even
as ye are called in one hope of your calling,” and then added that there is “one Lord,” Jesus
Christ, connecting with him “one faith” and “one baptism,” and then, ascending to the climax of
thought, added again that there is “one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all,
and in you all.” Eph. 4:4-6. What Christian head or heart will object to this statement of the
Trinity?... The truth is that God the Father in the primacy attached to Him in the Bible, and
God the Son in the redeeming and saving work assigned to Him in the same Bible, and God
the Holy Ghost in his office of regeneration and sanctification – whether considered
collectively as one God, or separately in the relation of each to human salvation—are really
omnipresent in, and belong to, the whole texture of the revealed plan for saving sinners….
Content with the revealed facts, and spiritually using them, he has no trouble with them. He
does not attempt metaphysically to analyze the God he worships [as Catholics seek to do] but
rather thinks of him as revealed in His word, and can always join in the following Doxology:
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him, all creatures here below!
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host!
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”
---The Bible Doctrine of the Trinity, No. 90, 1892, Pacific Press

The foregoing quote explains quite nicely what growing numbers of SDA pioneers were
prepared to accept and support after 1888 (and long before 1915 when Mrs. White died), and it
also indicates what the word “trinity” or “trio” when correctly defined truly meant to them
after 1888 (since they used both words interchangeably). And MOST IMPORTANTLY, it
indicates why the Roman Catholic version of the “trinity” doctrine, seeking to explain the
Godhead persons as not being personal individual beings (but rather one three-faced
undivided substance or organism), would forever be a problem to SDA pioneers even when
they eventually accepted the basic truth about “the Bible doctrine of *THE Trinity”.
In the year 1894, this same Spear Trinity article speaking supportively of the “triune God”, or
which presented a "tri-personal God" and deemed/defended "bible trinitarians" as "not tri-
theists", it was again glowingly endorsed in the following words:

“This tract of 16 pages is a reprint of an article in the New York Independent, by the late
Samuel Spear, D.D. 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,
May 28, 1894.

Notice the words "the *DOCTRINE of the Trinity" in the supportive pioneering 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", that is,
only when correctly explained without philosophical and mystical speculations (as was
evident in the Spear Trinitarian article).

But can one really accept a non-Catholic version of the Trinity? Well, the SDA pioneers felt they
could, and this seems plausible, since the Trinity concept in Christianity pre-dated the post-
fourth century arrival of the Papacy (or the Roman Church and Roman State power united after
Constantine). Proof? Feel free to do your own “further study” in the section here following.
 *FURTHER STUDY: WHEN DID THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH REALLY BEGIN?

Many people fail to recognize that the Roman Catholic Church is inseparable from its inherent
nature of being the Papacy, or the political rule of the Pope as the supreme head of what is
considered to be the universal church, but ONLY AS WAS PROPOGATED BY THE POLITICAL
POWER OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE!! Period! Now, why the word "Roman", and why "Catholic"?
Simple. The Roman empire eventually passed on it's political power of dominating the world to
the Roman church after the Roman emperor Constantine became a nominal Christian in the
fourth century (after 312 A.D.). And since the world "catholic" literally means "universal" then it
can be seen why this denomination (for that's what it really is) chose to use "Catholic" when the
Roman empire adopted the Christian religion as the religion of the state, which would
henceforth be imposed even by the power of the sword on all areas the Roman empire
continued to dominate as the “universal” empire at the time. We can see then why the Pope
then became known as the "Pontifex Maximus” or “Pontiff for short, since that actually was
the religio-political title of the Roman emperors of pagan Rome, who eventually passed on their
priestly, so-called “divine” and political prerogatives to the Pope of the church congregation at
Rome.

Before that reality there was no Roman Catholic Church as the Papacy is now known!! Yes,
there was a congregation of Christians at Rome before this, but just as there was equally very
many other Christian congregations at Corinth, Galatia, Phillipi, Ephesus, etc. And, as the New
Testament clearly shows, Paul wrote letters to them all and gave no impression of any one
congregation having any dominance or place of importance above any other, which included,
OF COURSE, the congregation at Rome that Paul wrote the letter of "Romans" to. And so this
proves that the congregation at Rome was not *THE church of Christ, or even its headquarters,
since *Jerusalem was the church's early headquarters (see Acts 15:1, 2), but the congregation
at Rome was simply AMONG the very many congregations of the church as a whole. This is the
inescapable truth of both the Bible, as well as from the unbiased pages of history!!

Now what BIBLICALLY proves the time when the Papacy really began as an *entity is seen in
the crucial prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation. In Daniel 7 and Rev. 13 and 17 the Bible
does show that the pagan Roman power would pass on its power to a church entity
(represented by a "little horn", a multi-bodied beast power, or a harlot woman on a beast).
When did this occur? Only partially after Constantine adopted the Christian religion, but then
FULLY after the pagan empire of Rome collapsed after 476 A.D. Thus the Papacy (an
unprecedented religio-political institution) was conceived when Constantine united Church
and state, but it was fully birthed as a *separate entity only after the line of emperors ceased,
and thus the Roman power was continued through the supremacy of the Roman Popes
(“Pontiffs” or "Pontifex Maximuses"). This then came to be known as "Christendom".

No one can sensibly deny that the Roman Papacy did dominate political and religious life of
much of the world for centuries, thus proving that the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation
did indeed come true!! Now, there are some who would want us to believe that the Papacy did
exist even before church and state united after Constantine, but that is simply nonsense of the
highest order, since there was no Papacy until the Roman Church acquired Roman state power
after Constantine. That's why Daniel 7 spoke of the "little horn" “coming up” after a certain
point in Roman history, and of course only at a certain time do we see a church (woman in
symbol) controlling or riding the "beast" or state power of Rome (as Rev. 17) shows; i.e. IT
HAPPENED ONLY AFTER THE FOURTH CENTURY !!
 DID THE TRINITY DOCTRINE EXIST BEFORE THE PAPACY?

Here are three simple facts which prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is a false notion
that the coining of the word and doctrine of the “Trinity” is a Roman Catholic or Papal
invention.

1. In just the same way there was no Jew until Abraham there was no true “Roman Catholic”
until the conversion of Constantine (after 313 A.D.), and the making of Christianity into the
official state religion of the Roman Empire (thus forming “Christendom”). Before that, all
Christians were just simply that; “Christians”, even being persecuted and martyred by pagan
Rome itself up to Emperor Constantine.

2. Also, the Papacy (the supreme rule of the Pope through the Roman Catholic Church), or the
“little horn” in prophecy, had no real separate existence as a political force until after the
collapse of the political Roman Empire under the emperors, thus “coming up after” the “ten
kingdoms” arising out of the collapsed Roman Empire after 476 A.D. There was therefore no
true Papacy or “little horn” until the emperors all passed off the scene, despite popes (very
important Roman bishops) existed in the Western part of the Roman Empire before this reality.
Constantine joining Church and State after 312 A.D. was just the embryonic stage of the
Papacy’s origin, and the founding of Roman Catholicism as a noted entity.

3. Thus it is not true to say that the trinity doctrine was “invented” by the Roman Catholics
and the Papacy, since many early Christian writers such as Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus,
Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius, Hippolytus, Athenagoras, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Clement
of Alexandria, Tertullian in the West, Origen in the East, etc. (called “Apostolic Fathers” or
“Church Fathers” or "Christian Apologists') existed during the period covering the prophetic
stages of the Christian Church called “Ephesus” and “Smyrna”, from about 60 –313 A.D., and
they wrote the basic truths of the trinity doctrine, if even in rudimentary form, long before
the Roman Catholic system of state religion was founded. See http://www.bible.ca/trinity/ for
the historical facts and the detailed pre-papal documents, writings, etc, on the pre-papal
Trinity. During this time the word “trinity”, and concepts of the “eternal co-existence”, and
unity of “substance” of the Persons of the Godhead already existed alongside basic Arian
concepts (evident in early Christian doxologies and written expressions). The Papacy simply
*inherited these pre-existing Trinitarian teachings, added its own perspectives and
viewpoints, and then brought them together or formulated the pre-existing teachings into
formal creeds, which it then forced upon people (just like it did with the Bible, and the rest of
Christianity itself). Big difference, since this is not the same as INVENTING the doctrine, or
coining the term “trinity”; a word which means the same as “triad” or “trio”!! The doctrine
existed widespread among Christian writers before the Council of Nicea!! This will be proved
hereafter.

The Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) only provided a universal (‘catholic’, not “Roman Catholic”) non-
denominational Christian Conference for the airing of the views of orthodox Trinitarians, semi-
Arians, and Arians alike. A Pope was not even present at Nicea, and those bishops who could be
called Romans of the West numbered less than 10 out of over 300 bishops (pastors) in
attendance. Later, despite Nicea, Arianism even became the official doctrine of the Roman
Empire for a time, after Constantine I died, thus proving the Trinity was not the only
“Godhead” doctrine associated with the Roman Church. And remember, the only way the
Papacy can validly claim, for it's Papal "fathers", the writers who wrote even before it did
historically originate is only if it *really was the Church established by Christ before he left
earth; a matter no Protestant would ever dare agree to, and yet Protestants blindly accept
the false claims of the Papacy about these early writers being the Papal "fathers". It is time
this blatant error is seen for what it really is. And there can be no claim to certain first, second
and third century writers referring to the Christian religion as "catholic" (adjective) to mean
they intended *"Roman Catholic" (proper noun), since:

a) The denomination did not yet exist as the Papacy, to even be written about or in support of,
and

b) The word "catholic" as an adjective (not a proper noun) was a commonly used word
intending to convey the truth that the *whole church body with all its congregations can be
properly, and has been properly refereed to as the "universal" or "catholic" church of Christ.
It is sophistry of the highest order for the Papacy to say the early writers simply meant the
proper noun “Roman Catholic” whenever they used the adjective “catholic”. This falsehood is
usually imposed on first, second, and third century documents by simply capitalizing the word
adjectival word “catholic” (i.e. by adding the capital letter “C”). And many people usually
unwittingly fall for this blatant falsehood.

It is time that this demonic falsehood is laid to rest by informed Christians. Notice how the
Encarta Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Webster’s Dictionary shed light on the much
misunderstood word, “catholic” (THE ADJECTIVE):

“The term catholic (Greek katholikos, “universal,” from katholou, “in general”) was first used in
the letter of Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans (about AD 110). The term was later used by
Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata (Miscellanies)… “That which has been believed
everywhere, always, and by all. This is what is truly and properly catholic.”
----Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

“catholic- Universal or general; as the catholic church. Originally this epithet was given to the
Christian church in general but is now appropriated to the Romish church…” - Webster’s
Dictionary
“ catholic- (from Greek katholikos, “universal”), the characteristic that, according to
ecclesiastical writers since the 2nd century, distinguished the Christian Church at large from
local communities or from heretical and schismatic sects. “ – Encyclopedia Britannica 2007

Please note that this writer is not saying that all the things written by the early Christian writers
are correct, or even that they all said the same things, but what I am saying is that they never
wrote in the context of being any member of the Roman Catholic Church, since it did not yet
exist UNTIL AFTER THR FOURTH CENTURY!! They simply wrote to, or in defense of the
“universal” Christian church as a whole, with all its congregations scattered all over. Period!!

WHAT DID PRE-ROMAN CATHOLIC (PRE-PAPAL) CHRISTIAN WRITERS COMMONLY TEACH

ABOUT GOD, JESUS, AND A TRINITY?

The vast majority of the earliest Christian writers from the first and second centuries revealed
their Bible-based faith in accepting that Jesus was not only distinct from His Father as a person,
or as His only begotten Son before the incarnation, but that He is also our God in highest nature
just like His Father and the Holy Spirit, who all together deserve equal honor in the sense of
highest worship! In addition they fiercely rejected any viewpoint that sought to make Jesus and
His Father the same person as Sabellius did in second century. In addition they showed that the
word "trinity" was not coined by the Papacy that came long after, but was known and
accepted by several of the Christian writers long *BEFORE the Papacy was even conceived.
Here following are just some examples of the occurrence of the teaching and the term written
long before any Roman Catholic existed [emphases supplied]:

100 A.D. “We have also a physician, the Lord our God, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son and
Word, before time began…” – Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians

100 A.D. “I…entreat you to use Christian nourishment only, and abstain from herbage of a
different kind; I mean heresy... For there are some vain talkers and deceivers, not
Christians…some of them say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are but the same person…”
-Ignatius, The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians, Chapter 6

“Wherefore also the Lord, when He sent forth the apostles to make disciples of all nations,
commanded them to ‘baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost,’ not unto one *one person, as in Sabellian ‘modalism’+ having three names, nor into
three [persons] who became incarnate, but into three [persons] possessed of *EQUAL
HONOR”.
- Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 2

150 A.D.
“…with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the
other virtues, who is free from all impurity... both Him [the Father], and the Son …and the
prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing *them in reason and truth, and declaring
without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught.”
- Justin Martyr- First Apology, Chapter 6

“We will prove that we worship him [Jesus] reasonably; for we have learned that that he is
the Son of the true God Himself, that he holds a second place, and the Spirit of prophecy a
third *place+ …”
-Justin Martyr, First Apology, chapter 13

“God begot before all creatures …a certain rational [self willed] power from himself, and
whom the Spirit calls…sometimes the Son, sometimes Lord and Word… this Offspring who
was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures, and the
Father communed with him… Someone [the pre-incarnate Jesus] *numerically distinct from
Himself, and also a rational being…”
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapters 61 and 62

"And of old He [Jesus] appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an Angel to Moses
[hence he pre-existed+… And that which was said out of the bush to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM,
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, and the God of your fathers’
this signified that even though dead *i.e. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob+… they are men belonging to
Christ Himself”
“…the Spirit of prophecy rebukes them *Jews+, and says, "Israel doth not know Me, my people
have not understood Me." And again, Jesus, as we have already shown, while He was with
them, said, "No one knoweth the Father, but the Son; nor the Son but the Father, and those to
whom the Son will reveal Him." The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was
the Father of the universe who spake to Moses, though He who spake to him was indeed the
Son of God [hence he pre-existed], who is called both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged,
both by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ Himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the
Son. For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become
acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also,
being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God [as natural sons are what their father is in
nature]. And of old He [Jesus] appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to
Moses and to the other prophets…”
- Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 63

150 A.D.
“I praise you *the Father+ for all things, I bless you, I glorify you, along with the everlasting and
heavenly Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, with whom, to you AND the Holy Spirit be glory both
now, and to all coming ages. Amen!”

–Polycarp of Smyrna, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Chapter 14

177 A.D.
“Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their
distinction in order, called atheists? Nor is our teaching in what relates to the divine nature
confined to these points…”
-Athenagoras – A Plea for the Christians, Chapter 10, [entitled] *“Christians Worship the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit”

180 A.D.
“The THREE days [separate entities], which were before the luminaries [i.e. the fourth day
Creation of sun, moon, etc.], are types [symbols] of the *Trinity *‘triavdo’- Greek], of God [the
Father], and His Word [Jesus], and His Wisdom [Spirit]. And the fourth [day] is the type [symbol]
of man, who needs light…”
- Theophilus of Antioch, Chapter 15,Of the Fourth Day, To Autolycus, 2:15

N.B. Here the word “trinity” (synonym) is being used by a Christian writer (in Greek
expression) long before the Papacy arrived after Constantine. Hence it is a blatant falsehood
the Papacy ‘coined’ the word as it relates to the Godhead doctrine after the fourth century.
“Triavdo" (Greek for trinity) is the earliest recorded Christian use of this word. The use
Theophilus makes of it is familiar. He does not lug it in as something novel: "types of the
Trinity," he says, illustrating an accepted Greek word being used by several other Christian
writers at the time; he was not introducing a new one.

180 A.D.
“Christ Himself, therefore, together with the Father, is the God of the living, who spoke to
Moses, and who was also manifested to the fathers [thus he pre-existed+”
-Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 5, Section 2

180 A.D.
“No one of the sons of Adam is…*absolutely [in the highest sense] called God, or named Lord.
But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King
Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all prophets, the apostles, and by the
[personal] Spirit Himself…”
- Irenaeus - “Irenaeus Against Heresies”, Chapter 19
“The Father is truly Lord *despite there is ‘one Lord Jesus Christ’+, and the Son truly Lord. The
Holy Spirit has fitly designated them by the title of Lord… Referring to the destruction of the
Sodomites, Scripture says, ‘then the LORD *Jehovah+ rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah
fire and brimstone from the LORD [another Person also called LORD, or Jehovah] out of
Heaven’. For it here points out that the Son, who had also talking with Abraham [Gen 18:1]
had received power to judge the Sodomites… And this *next text also+ does declare the same
truth: ‘thy throne O God is forever *Heb. 1:8, 10+… For the Spirit designates both [of them,
Father and Son+ by the name of God *i.e. Jehovah+”
– Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 6

190 A.D.
“The Divine Word… is truly manifest *DEITY *supremely God+. He is… EQUAL to *with+ the Lord
of the universe, because He was His Son.” –Clement of Alexandria, Fragments, Part 1, section 3
"There was then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as also the Word itself, that is, the
Son of God, who being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and
uncreated."
-Clement of Alexandria, Fragments, Part I, section III

"His Son Jesus, the Word of God, is our Instructor…. He is God and Creator." -Clement of
Alexandria, Instructor, Book I, ch. 11

“*regarding Matt. 28:19+ I understand nothing else than the Holy *TRINITY *Greek, ‘triavdo’+ to
be meant; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were
made according to the will of the Father *the first Person+”.
-Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book 5, Chapter 14

200 A.D.
“See, brethren, what a rash and audacious dogma they *Sabellian ‘modalists’+ have introduced,
when they say without shame, the Father is Himself Christ, Himself the Son, Himself was born…
But this is not so. The Scriptures speak what is right; but Noetus *a ‘modalist’ heretic+ is of a
different mind from them *the Scriptures+… For who will not say that there is one God? Yet he
will not on that account deny the economy (i.e. the number) and disposition of [three]
persons in the *TRINITY *Greek, ‘triavdo’, or Godhead of three+”
- Hippolytus, Against the Heresy of One Noetus

200 A.D.
“That there are two Gods and two Lords, however, is a statement which we will never allow
to issue from our mouth; not as if the Father and the Son were not God, nor the Spirit, God…
[but] when Christ would come, He might be acknowledged as God, and be called Lord, because
He is the Son of Him who is both God and Lord”
- Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 13:6

“All Scriptures give clear proof of the *Trinity *‘trinitas’- Latin], and it is from these that our
principle is deduced… the distinction of the Trinity is quite clearly displayed”
- Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Chapter 11

N.B. Here for the first time the word “trinity” is expressed in Latin by Tertullian (as “trinitas”),
since it was commonly used before in Greek as “triavdo” for “trio”. Thus Tertullian is credited
with first using the Latin form of the word by way of direct translation. He did not coin the
concept/word at all, as is often falsely reported. Big difference!! Others continued making use
of the word in Greek, as seen below.

265 A.D.
“There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is His subsistent Wisdom and Power and
Eternal Image: perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There
is one Lord, Only of the Only, God of God, Image and Likeness of Deity, Efficient Word,
Wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and Power formative of the whole
creation, true Son of true Father, Invisible of Invisible, and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and
Immortal of Immortal and Eternal of Eternal. And there is One Holy Spirit, having His
subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son,
Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or
Leader, of Sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and
God the Son, who is through all. [And] There is a perfect *Trinity, in glory and eternity and
sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in
servitude in the Trinity; nor anything super-induced, as if at some former period it was non-
existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever
wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change,
the same Trinity abideth ever.”
- Gregory Thaumaturgus (of Nazianzus)

*[AND THIS IS JUST A SMALL SAMPLE OF SO MUCH MORE THAT COULD BE FURNISHED]

DID THE EARLY CHRISTIANS BELIEVE JESUS PRE-EXISTED ETERNALLY?

100 AD
"Jesus Christ . . . was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was
revealed. . . . Jesus Christ . . . came forth from one Father and is with and has gone to one
[Father] . . . God, who has manifested himself by Jesus Christ his Son, who is his eternal Word,
not proceeding forth from silence, [thus having no beginning as when a speaker begins a
speech from the point of getting up from his silence] and who in all things pleased him that sent
him" -Ignatius, Letter to the Magnesians, 6-8.

180 AD
"But the Son, eternally *co-existing with the Father, [thus co-eternal] from of old, even from
everlasting, yea, from the beginning, always reveals the Father to Angels, Archangels, Powers,
Virtues..."
-Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book II, ch. 30, section 9

*190 A.D.
“When he *John+ says: ‘what was in the beginning’ *1 John 1:1+, he touches upon the
generation without beginning of the Son, who is co-equal with the Father. *The word+ ‘Was’
therefore is indicative of an eternity without a beginning, just as the Word Himself, that is, the
Son, being one with the Father, in regard to equality of substance, is eternal and uncreated.
That the Word always existed is signified by the saying: ‘In the beginning was the Word’ *John
1:1+”
-Clement of Alexandria (*190 A.D.), Fragment in Eusebius History, Book 6, Chapter 140

N.B.*Thus Origen, 185-254 A.D., who would be just five years old in 190 A.D. when the above
quoted was written, is not properly credited by some theologians for first teaching the truth
of the co-eternality (“same age”) of Jesus Christ with His Father. It was a Bible truth (*Micah
5:2; 1 Jon 1:1, 2) being taught by Christians long before him. Below we see fully what Clement
of Alexandria shared with other Christians long before Origen wrote in the third century:

“That which was from the beginning; which we have seen with our eyes; which we have heard.”
Following the Gospel according to John, and in accordance with it, this Epistle also contains the
spiritual principle. What therefore he says, “from the beginning,” the Presbyter *John+
explained to this effect, that the beginning of generation [of the Son] is not separated from the
beginning of the Creator. For when he says, “That which was from the beginning,” he touches
upon the generation without beginning of the Son, who is co-existent with the Father. There
was, then, a Word importing an unbeginning eternity; as also the Word itself, that is, the Son
of God, who being, by equality of substance, one with the Father, is eternal and uncreated.
That He was always the Word, is signified by saying, “In the beginning was the Word.” But by
the expression, “we have seen with our eyes,” he signifies the Lord’s presence in the flesh, “and
our hands have handled,” he says, “of the Word of life.” He means not only His flesh, but the
virtues of the Son, like the sunbeam which penetrates to the lowest places, - this sunbeam
coming in the flesh became palpable to the disciples…“And we show unto you that eternal life,
which was with the Father, and was manifested unto you.” He *John+ signifies by the
appellation of Father, that the Son also existed always, without beginning.” - ibid

235 AD
"God the Father, found and creator of all things, who alone knows no beginning, who is
invisible, immeasurable, immortal, and eternal, is one God. Neither his greatness nor his
majesty nor his power can possibly be--I should not say exceeded, for they cannot even be
equaled. From him . . . the Word was born, his Son. . . . And the latter, since he [Jesus] was born
of the Father, is always in [eternally united with] the Father. And I indeed say always . . . He
that exists before all time must be said to have been in [eternally united with] the Father
always, for he that exists before all time cannot be spoken of in relation to time. . . .
Assuredly, he [the Son] is God, proceeding from God, causing, as Son, a second person after the
Father, but not taking away from the Father the fact that God is one"- Novatian - (Treatise on
the Trinity, 31).

*Notice Novatian’s title of his early work, appearing long before the Papacy…“Treatise on the
Trinity”]
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN (CONCLUSION)?

Despite the early Christians believed in one God the Father, they saw no conflict in their beliefs
about Jesus being “absolutely” called “God”, “LORD” or Jehovah in name, and “equal” with the
Father as “Deity”, simply because He was, as another separate Person, the Son of God. This is
precisely how the Jews (John 10:30-33) understood Jesus’ Son-ship, that is, it was a claim to
equality with the Father, not a claim to being the Father Himself. The Jews did understand God
the Father to be one person (!!), but never fully understood the fact that God has a distinctly
*divine Son, despite the clear hints given to it in Proverbs 30:4 and Gen. 1:26. But God
revelation was progressive, and so the revelation of Jesus to them in the New Testament
(Heb. 1:1-3) sadly became a “STUMBLING STONE" to many! And until they come to accept the
second step in the revelation of the Godhead they would henceforth forever have a problem
with the Father of the Son they faithfully served as monotheists in the Old Testament
(2 John 2:23; John 17:3).

This new revelation does not in any way destroy what monotheism is, since to be the Son of
God does not make Jesus the Father Himself, or make Him another or second "God the
Father"!! And it is precisely upon this premise that the earliest PRE-PAPAL reference to a
“Trinity” was made; not that Jesus is Himself the Father, or that he and the Holy Spirit is
another independent Almighty God. The ongoing mistake of some anti-Trinitarians (not all)
and, ironically, the mistake of some modern Trinitarians too is failure to recognize this
historical fact. THE TIME HAS COME TO CLEAR THE AIR!! Here is the simple truth.
The One “true God”, the Father, is, by His very nature, revealed in and worshipped through
His Eternal Son, and is present everywhere by His personal Holy Spirit. Think it through
carefully. There is only one (1) God, THE FATHER (a singular "Him"), not two or three of Him,
but He has told us that he is known through and approached through His Son, and is
manifested everywhere by His distinct and personal Spirit. That’s why God spoke as "us" from
the very beginning, since He could not deny whom he is united with in the threefold
Godhead. That's all!!

This was the teaching of the earliest Christians *long before the Papacy and Roman Catholicism
was born in the fourth century after Constantine became “Christian” (signaling the birth of
Roman Catholicism). The historical evidence is undeniable, at least to one who is honest with
himself after reading this!! The Christians nearest the Bible apostles taught a triad, but denied
a plurality of Gods. The idea of ‘gods’ in the Godhead is one of Satan’s first lies told on earth.
This lie, recorded distinctly in Genesis 3:5, because he knew that more than one Person in the
Godhead is properly called “GOD” (Gen. 3:22; 2 Thess.2:4), but also knowing that a
misunderstanding of *the unity is what would cause us to falsely see Them either as separate
‘gods’ or worse, as a monstrous ‘three headed’ individual being (organism). This lie
(counterfeit) is found in almost all ancient religions of the world, simply because, by his
knowledge of the real truth, Satan was able to plant the ‘seed of misunderstanding’.
Why is there such a coincidence of ‘divine threes’ in counterfeit religions? Evidently it was by
Satan’s influence (himself knowing the truth about the true Godhead of “constituent Persons”)
that these ancient pagan religions unwittingly recognized that truly there is a plurality of
persons in the Godhead, but unfortunately the persons are either seen as ‘gods’, or God is seen
as a personal being (personality) with three forms! Why? Satan likes to counterfeit or
caricature the truth to cast doubt, and ridicule it!!
No Christian should therefore seek to promote these pagan lies, or on the other hand go to the
other extreme of unwittingly opposing “all that is called God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4) in the
Persons of the Father, his Son, and their personal Holy Spirit, simply because he cannot
understand how, when the Three are spiritually united in the Godhead, 1x1x1 =1(one) God, and
not 1+1+1=3(three) gods.

Do you notice the plural word “all” in 2 Thess. 2:4? And can you then see why God chose the
human family of two persons initially, but later with the complete family (with offspring from
the unity of the first two persons ; see Gen. 1:26-28), to illustrate the Godhead of one God the
Father, yet inseparably united with His Son, and with both united producing their personal Holy
Spirit? Can you see too why God, who knows that LOVE is a fellowship principle, and also
knowing that for the statement “God is love” to be true then he could not picture Himself in
isolated aloneness as the only divine being, but as working in harmony with others divine like
himself? Thus from the very beginning he said to his Son “let us”; not ‘let me do this or that’, or
‘I will’, etc….even while the Holy Spirit was sent to do the creating (Ps. 104:30 with Gen. 1:2)
And can you then see why God used the threefold human family (Gen. 1:26-29), the first earthly
institution of love, as the model “imaged” after him to demonstrate His love and nature of the
Godhead on earth? This writer can do nothing more than say, Amen!! What you do, dear
reader, with this truth now revealed to you is up to you, but at least you cannot say you were
not exposed to what may just be the real truth about the Trinity in the history of the Church
-----END-----
 ---A PUBLICATION OF DERRICK GILLESPIE’S “REMNANT RESISTANCE” ONLINE MINISTRIES---

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

____________________