Trinity Notes
The first important rule talking about
the Trinity, is that the Bible provides a number of texts, if taken by itself
without context or total book context or total Bible context, would give the
idea that there was polytheism in the Old Testament originally. But, that
theory of Jacques Gerricke is not correct. It is text taken or interpreted out
of context. It is a method that started in the Rationalism period encouraging the
cutting up of the Word of God in pieces so that one piece is not related to
another, and that each piece must be discussed on its own. That is the
methodological flaw of the discussion of these agitators. Judaism, in order to conflate with
Islam dominance in the Middle Ages, strongly insisted that there is only one
God and He is Yahweh and Elohim. Christians agreed but they meant the Triune
God, God the Father, God Jesus and God the Holy Spirit. Says that Bible that the Father gave
the Son of God and the Father gave the Holy Spirit. Christ is a separate person,
why would the Holy Spirit not be a separate person? Some argue it is an it not a he, an
energy or power not a person. But, that theory is not going to go far, and is
again the isolation of texts theory. Same problem as Gerricke above. The so-called polytheism texts were
referring to the Triune God. Psalm 110 and Daniel 7:13 connected are two very
strong witnesses of the Triune God. So parachute organizations originated
even within Adventism that tries to isolate some texts in EGW and isolate some
texts in the Bible to prove either a Binity, Father and Son, or a Unitarian
view like Armstrong and his Church of God theology. James White wrote an article in Review
and Herald of 1863 talking about the Atonement and in one section he was
against the Socinianists. He used the word. They were the precursor of the
Unitarians that proclaimed an anti-trinitarian view. That is why Servetus was
killed in a Calvinistic governed city for his anti-trinitarian views and Socini
or Sozzini and his followers sympathized with him, dying in 1553. In this killing of a heretic there was
not difference between the Catholic Church and the Calvin controlled cities.
Both persecuted the otherwise men. So where is the call for the Pioneers
of Adventism to clung to Unitarianism or anti-trinitarian views? The answer is
that they dropped the idea. As pastor Johan Japp told me in
January of 2019, some of the Pioneers were smoking pipes when they became
Adventists. They had to drop these practices. Soon the 19th of June 2019,
in Florence in Italy the Adventist church will have for three days a discussion
on the Trinity by scholars all over the world. Papers will be read and it will
be a feast of the Trinity. The parachute anti-trinity groups are
very dogmatic, very insistent on their narrow view of situations that they have
selected to be their prooftexts in EGW or the Bible and they do not want to
give it up. No matter how one explains it, they
come up with conspiracy theories like that Froom doctored the Book of Evangelism
of 1946 with the Trio in heaven statements by Ellen White in order to introduce
the Trinity in Adventism. But, Froom only influenced the church
from 1955, according to J. Zurcher in his book of Touched with our Feelings.
Secondly, the original Special Testimonies B no. 7 in 1906 page 63 where the
statement of the Trio in heaven is taken from, is exactly the same in the original.
Nothing cooked. Some argued that the stenographers doctored
the statement. Not true, M. L. Andreasen in his Testimony on Youtube
of 1955 at the Ohio Campmeeting, explains in detail what he saw firsthand how
stenographers of Ellen White worked in her days. She was very careful over her
work and they had to bring it for her to read before they could publish it.
When they changed something, they had to sign their names next to it. He spent
90 days with her because he was very skeptical. He could not believe that she
wrote Desire of Ages. It is a fascinating testimony. So the Trio statement of Ellen White
still stands. More later….