stepped out of that firm to embark upon activities necessitated by the Fall.3 Brother White then explains why Christ stepped out from the “firm of equal power.” He did this to become “a mediator between God and man.” And with that, this Adventist pioneer gave us, and his wife, Ellen, the key insight that would make sense of the whole theological conundrum of the Sonship of Christ. Why did one of the members of the “firm of equal power” choose to “step out” and occupy a different position? He did so in order to mediate the knowledge of God to humanity.
Thank you, James White!
With this background, as we will soon discover, Ellen White would proceed to further develop the two crucial ideas set forth by James White and the other pioneers:
the distinct personhood of each of the three members of the Godhead, which renders the relationship between the three to be actual and the love that defines God’s identity real
the identification of the three members of the Godhead as equal and co-eternal “powers” prior to assuming the roles of Father, Son, and Spirit, within the framework of the creation-redemption enterprise
General Church Statement, 1883
Due to the fact that some of the leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church had rejected the doctrine of the Trinity without offering sufficient explanation to clarify their target as modalism, a problem was developing. They had opened the church up to the charge of Arianism—a heresy that denies the essential and eternal divinity of Christ, originating with the Alexandrian priest, Arius (c.250-c.336).
But it was not the intent of the pioneers to deny the divinity of Christ. In fact, they sought to affirm the divinity of Christ more unequivocally than what they believed trinitarianism was achieving with its modalism view of God. So they set out to achieve their goal by affirming the divine personhood of Christ distinct from the Father.
No problem so far.
But they overshot the mark by also suggesting that Christ must have emerged in some manner from the Father in eternity past, equating, at least, to semi-Arianism. They knew this created a problem for them that they did not intend to create, but they did not know how to resolve the problem. This was likely due to the prooftext method of Bible study they were so good at, which has its place when employed with an eye fixed on the bigger story in which all the individual verse of Scripture reside. Nevertheless, by 1883 they found it necessary to clearly affirm the divinity of Christ, even while retaining the unbiblical idea that Christ must have been brought into existence by the Father:
You are mistaken in supposing that S. D. Adventists teach that Christ was ever created. They believe, on the contrary, that he was “begotten” of the Father, and that he can properly be called God and worshiped as such. They believe, also, that the world, and everything which is, was created by Christ in conjunction with the Father. They believe, however, that somewhere in the eternal ages of the past there was a point at which Christ came into existence. They think that it is necessary that God should have antedated Christ in his being, in order that Christ could have been begotten of him, and sustain to him the relation of son. They hold to the distinct personality of the Father and Son, rejecting as absurd that feature of Trinitarianism which insists that God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit are three persons, and yet but one person. S. D. Adventists hold that God and Christ are one in the sense that Christ prayed that his disciples might be one; i.e. one in spirit, purpose, and labor. The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, April 17, 1883
This statement was a helpful clarification for its time, but it was also deficient in its grasp of the issue and came far short of understanding where the theological solution lay. While it clarified the core concern of the Adventist pioneers, it also revealed the blind spot that existed at this stage of the church’s theological development.
On the one hand, the statement insisted that Adventists believed Christ to be God, which was a vitally needed clarification. The statement also made clear that it was precisely because of this belief that Adventists could not accept a “Trinitarianism which insists that God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit are three persons, and yet but one person.” That is, they rightly rejected modalism. So far, so good. But then the statement mistakenly assumes that in order to be true to Scripture—a noble aspiration—they must hold that Christ, while fully God, must have been brought into existence by the Father. This, they felt compelled to believe, due to the fact that He is said to have been “begotten.”
What was going on here?
Well, the Advent pioneers were Bible students in process, part of a young movement that was finding its theological way forward in a world full of bad theology. At this point in their study, they saw the New Testament occurrence of the word “begotten,” but they saw it in isolation from the larger Old Testament narrative. As a result, they felt obligated to interpret “begotten” as a description of Christ’s ontological and chronological origins. The mistake is understandable, given the fact that they did not take into account what the word “begotten” means in the bigger story of the Bible. Due to their blind spot regarding the overall sonship narrative of Scripture, they did not know what to do with the fact that the New Testament designates Christ as the “Son of God.” So they felt, in their loyalty to Scripture, that they must believe that Christ was both fully divine and, yet, somehow had been brought into existence at some “point.” The early Advent pioneers were headed in the right direction, but they still had a ways to go in working out the implications of the divinity of Christ.
The only way to move forward would be to pan out far enough to see the larger biblical picture, which, within its own internal narrative logic, clearly defines what the story itself means by designating Christ as God’s “only begotten Son.” Failing to do so inevitably generates odd metaphysical, extra-biblical, even spiritualistic ideas. This becomes evident as we now consider the strained efforts of Ellet Joseph Waggoner and Uriah Smith.
Ellet Joseph Waggoner
Ellet Joseph Waggoner was a second-generation Adventist physician, preacher, and writer. He is best known for his efforts to introduce the good news of righteousness by faith into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Inheriting Arian leanings from his theological forebears, he also dabbled in trying to defend the idea that Christ, sometime in eternity past, began to exist by some kind of birthing action on the Father’s part. Here’s what he had to say on the matter:
In arguing the perfect equality of the Father and the Son, and the fact that Christ is in very nature God, we do not design to be understood as teaching that the Father was not before the Son. It should not be necessary to guard this point, lest some should think that the Son existed as soon as the Father; yet some go to that extreme, which adds nothing to the dignity of Christ, but rather detracts from the honor due him, since many throw the whole thing away rather than accept a theory so obviously out of harmony with the language of Scripture, that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. He was begotten, not created. He is of the substance of the Father, so that in his very nature he is God; and since this is so “it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.” Col. 1:19. . . . While both are of the same nature, the Father is first in point of time. He is also greater in that he had no beginning, while Christ’s personality had a beginning. E.J. Waggoner, The Signs of the Times, April 8, 1889
All things proceed ultimately from God, the Father; even Christ Himself proceeded and came forth from the Father, but it has pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell, and that He should be the direct, immediate Agent in every act of creation. Our object in this investigation is to set forth Christ’s rightful position of equality with the Father, in order that His power to redeem may be the better appreciated. E.J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness, p. 19 (1890)
The Scriptures declare
