Thursday, September 26, 2019

Early Adventism and the SDA Rejection of the Trinity Doctrine


"From about 1846 to 1888, the majority of Adventists rejected the concept of the Trinity-at least as they understood it. All the leading writers were antitrinitarian, although the literature contains occasional references to members who held trinitarian views." https://www.andrews.edu/library/car/cardigital/Periodicals/AUSS/2003-1/2003-1-08.pdf

The following are some examples of this anti-trinitarianism:

The way spiritualizers have disposed of or denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ is first using the old unscriptural Trinitarian creed, viz., that Jesus Christ is the eternal God, though they have not one passage to support it, while we have plain scripture testimony in abundance that he is the Son of the eternal God.” (James White, January 24, 1846, The Day Star)

To assert that the sayings of the Son and his apostles are the commandments of the Father, is as wide from the truth as the old trinitarian absurdity that Jesus Christ is the very and Eternal God. (James White, August 5, 1852, Review & Herald, vol. 3, no. 7, page 52, par. 42)

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, February 7, 1856, Review & Herald, vol. 7, no. 19, page 148, par. 26)

Jesus prayed that his disciples might be one as he was one with his Father. This prayer did not contemplate one disciple with twelve heads, but twelve disciples, made one in object and effort in the cause of their master. Neither are the Father and the Son parts of the “three-one God.” They are two distinct beings, yet one in the design and accomplishment of redemption. (James White, 1868, Life Incidents, page 343)

“The inexplicable Trinity that makes the Godhead three in one and one in three, is bad enough; but that ultra Unitarianism that makes Christ inferior to the Father is worse. Did God say to an inferior, “Let us make man in our image?”” (James White, November 29, 1877, Review & Herald)

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. (James White, September 12, 1854, Review & Herald, vol. 6, no. 5, page 36, par. 8)

Here we might mention the Trinity, which does away the personality of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ, and of sprinkling or pouring instead of being “buried with Christ in baptism,” “planted in the likeness of his death:” but we pass from these fablesto notice one that is held sacred by nearly all professed Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. It is, The change of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment from the seventh to the first day of the week. (James White, December 11, 1855, Review & Herald, vol. 7, no. 11, page 85, par. 16)

"A selective list of Adventists who either spoke against the Trinity and/or rejected the eternal deity of Christ include J.B.  Frisbie, [J. B. Frisbie, “The Seventh Day Sabbath Not Abolished,” Advent Review and Sab-bath Herald, March 7, 1854, 50.]  J.  N. Loughborough, [J. N. Loughborough, “Questions for Brother Loughborough,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, November 5, 1861, 184] R. F. Cottrell, [R. F. Cottrell,  “The  Trinity,” Advent  Review  and  Sabbath  Herald, July  6,  1869, 10–11] J. N. Andrews, [“Melchisedec,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, September 7, 1869, 84.] D.M. Canright, [D. M. Canright,  “The  Personality  of  God,” Advent  Review  and  Sabbath  Herald, August  29,  1878,  73–74;  September  5,  1878,  81–82;  September  12,  1878,  89–90;  September 19, 1878, 97] and J. H. Waggoner [J. H. Waggoner, The  Atonement:  An  Examination  of  the  Remedial  System  in  the Light of Nature and Revelation (Oakland: Pacific Press, 1884), 164–179.]. W. A. Spicer at one point told A.W. Spalding that his father, after becoming a Seventh-day Adventist (he was formerly a Seventh Day Baptist minister), “grew so offended at the anti-Trinitarian atmosphere in Battle Creek that he ceased preaching.” ~History of Seventh-day Adventist Views on the Trinity by Merlin D. Burt [Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 17/1 (Spring 2006): 125–139]

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