The redeemed will meet and recognize those whose attention they have directed to the uplifted Saviour. What blessed converse they have with these souls! “I was a sinner,” it will be said, “without God and without hope in the world, and you came to me, and drew my attention to the precious Saviour as my only hope. And I believed in Him. I repented of my sins, and was made to sit together with His saints in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Others will say: “I was a heathen in heathen lands. You left your friends and comfortable home, and came to teach me how to find JESUS AND BELIEVE IN HIM AS THE ONLY TRUE GOD. I demolished my idols and worshiped God, and now I see Him face to face. I am saved, eternally saved, ever to behold Him whom I love. I then saw Him only with the eye of faith, but now I see Him as He is. I can now express my gratitude for His redeeming mercy to Him who loved me and washed me from my sins in His own blood.”{6T 311.1}
QUERY – JESUS THE ONLY TRUE GOD: PART 1 OF 3
To understand what God has revealed through Ellen White we need to have an understanding of a BROAD SPECTRUM OF HER WRITINGS AND NOT JUST ACCENT ON ONE PARTICULAR QUOTE. This is why we should not read EGW as contradicting the words of Jesus – AT LEAST NOT DELIBERATELY. I believe that would be a wrong use of her words. CHRIST IS VERY CLEAR THAT THAT HIS FATHER IS THE “ONLY TRUE GOD” (John 17:3). Here Christ was dealing with separate personalities. In other words, He was distinguishing between two divine persons.
There is much we cannot explain about God and Christ but what we do know, from the Bible and the SOP, is that Christ is God in the person of the Son. This is why it would be true to say that CHRIST IS THE TRUE GOD – IN THE PERSON OF THE SON THERE IS NO OTHER HUMAN BEING WHO IS GOD. He is not though the ONE TRUE GOD IN PERSONALITY. IN PERSONALITY HE IS THE SON OF THE ONE TRUE GOD. I have noticed that there are some non-trinitarians who place such an emphasis on Christ being the only begotten Son of God that they miss the point that He is God. To me, the begotten concept means that Christ is God. There can be no mistaking that EGW clearly distinguishes between the personages of God and Christ. She even says that after the fall of man, the Father could no longer communicate directly with mankind. All the communication therefore between God and fallen humanity has been through Christ. all of us are on one big learning curve and the one thing I have learned in my FEW years of the study of the SOP is not to use statements made by Ellen White to give an explanation of something she did not intend it to explain.
QUERY – JESUS THE ONLY TRUE GOD: PART 2 OF 3
In the statement QUOTED {6T 311.1}, Ellen White was not attempting to differentiate between the two divine personages of God and Christ. She was saying WHAT OTHER PEOPLE WOULD say to Christ. The comparison here (the context) IS THAT CHRIST IS THE TRUE GOD AS COMPARED TO THE HEATHEN GODS that these people (who are saying these things) once worshipped. The context is very important. ELLEN WHITE WAS NOT REFERRING TO THE PERSONS OF THE GODHEAD IN A THEOLOGICAL SENSE BUT TO A COMPARISON BETWEEN IDOL WORSHIP AND THE WORSHIP OF THE TRUE GOD.
To see how she differentiates between God and Christ in a theological sense then we must use statements of hers that she intended for them to do so. This is like this one
- “The Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, is truly God in infinity, but not in personality.” (Ellen G. White, Ms 116, December 19th 1905, ‘An Entire Consecration’)
Now that’s plain and simple. She is saying that Christ is NOT God in personality although He is truly God in infinity. This is what I believe. It is the begotten concept. This is in keeping with where Jesus said
- “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. John 17:3
- Hebrews 1:8: But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. 9: Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
This shows the difference between the two personalities of the Father and the Son. Jesus (the Son of God) said that His Father is “the only true God”. Christ really is the Son of God – which means, as far as I am concerned, that Christ is God begotten, or as Ellen White puts it He is God “in the person of His Son”. This also means of course that both God the Father and Christ can properly be referred to as the “I am” or Jehovah etc yet Christ is not the “one true God” – at least not as the Supreme Being. This latter designation belongs to the Father alone but with all prerogatives and names inheriting from the Father.
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QUERY – JESUS THE ONLY TRUE GOD: PART 3 OF 3
We can only ‘go back’ into eternity as far as God reveals. How God had His existence prior to the begetting of the Son has not been revealed therefore we should not conjecture. All that we know is that the Father is the “one true God” whilst Christ is the only begotten of God. This is where we must leave it. To go further would be to speculate. The point I am making is that God and Christ are two different persons. In personality they cannot both be the same person, which in turn means they cannot both BE THE ONE TRUE GOD. This is no more than they can both be the TRUE SON OF GOD. It is just not possible. WE SHOULD B GUARDING THESE POINTS CAREFULLY LEST WE FIND OURSELVES ADVOCATING MODALISM WHILE ON THE SURFACE SEEMING TO REJECT IT.
REITERATION
The Only True God of our salvation is Christ. That is the context of {6T 311.1}. It does not deal with John 17:3. Jesus is the only true God in salvific context. Context is the King. In the OT there are lots of passages where the Father says “I am the only saviour”, “no god with me”, etc… these don’t mean Jesus is not the saviour nor does it deny that Jesus was with Him. Remember all titles Christ has received it’s by inheritance. When Jesus says that there is only one true God in John 17:3 it does not mean Jesus is a false God.
