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The Arian or Anti-Trinitarian
Views Presented in Seventh-day Adventist Literature and the Ellen G.
White Answer

by Erwin Roy
Gane

C H A P T E R   XI

WASHBURN ATTEMPTS TO REVIVE OLD POSITION

On October 14, 1939, W. W. Prescott preached a sermon in the
Takoma Park Church on the subject, "The Coming One." He took the
position that Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New
Testament. He urged that the three persons of the Godhead cannot be
regarded as separate personalities in the same sense as human
beings, because there is a mysterious union between them which is
dissoluble.1

OPPOSES PRESCOTT SERMON

J. S. Washburn took exception to the Prescott sermon, and
produced twenty typed pages in answer to the Trinitarian position.
The first section consists of a polemical attempt to refute
Trinitarianism, particularly as represented by Prescott�s sermon,
and the second section comprises a personal attack on Prescott.
Washburn exposes himself throughout as a testy supporter of a dying
cause. He describes the doctrine of the Trinity as "a cruel heathen
monstrosity removing Jesus from the true position of Divine Saviour
and Mediator."2
Trinitarianism is of pagan origin and it is characteristic of Roman
theology. In fact it is "Satan�s crowning masterpiece of apostate
counterfeit Christianity."3

HIS VIEW OF CHRIST

Washburn�s depiction of Christ was identical to that of the older
Adventist writers. Christ was brought into being, begotten of the
Father. The Father is Jehovah and the Son Adoni.4
He accuses Prescott of teaching that the Father and the Son are one
person. His illustrations of the absurdity of that view are
practically identical to those used by the early Adventist writers.
The unity between the Father and Christ Washburn sees as entirely
analogous to that between Christ and His disciples. If Prescott is
correct then, says Washburn, the Father was born of the Virgin, and
He hung on the cross and died. Obviously the basis of his anxiety is
the old problem of J. H. Waggoner and others that the divine in
Christ died, but he says the Trinitarian teaching renders this
impossible. Then the sacrifice was not an adequate atonement.5

HE CONTRADICTS HIMSELF

Washburn attempts to explain the Ellen G. White statement, "Deity
did not sink and die, that would have been impossible."6
He quotes Job 34:12, 14, 15 and Ps. 36:9 as evidence that when a man
dies God simply takes back the life He has previously given. Just
so:

When Christ was begotten of the Father, He received the life of
God, His Father. When Jesus died on the cross, he said, "Father
into thy hands I commend my spirit," (or life), and the life of
God was given back to the Father, and for a time, three days and
nights, that life was with the Father from whence it had come. In
the resurrection that life of God is restored to the one who died.
Ps. 104:30. But between his death on Friday afternoon, till Sunday
morning, the Son of God was dead.7

Thus Washburn reduces the life of Christ, the pre-existent,
divine Christ, to the level of human existence, derived from the
Father in the same sense, re-called at death and re-bestowed in the
resurrection, in the same sense. Then Washburn proceeds to quote a
Spirit of Prophecy statement which contradicts the argument he has
just presented. The statement he quotes is as follows:

When he closed his eyes in death upon the cross, the soul of
Jesus did not go at once to Heaven�. All that comprised the life
and intelligence of Jesus remained with his body in the sepulchre.
And when he came forth it was as a whole being. He did not have to
summon his spirit from heaven.8

Washburn confidently affirmed, "This squarely contradicts the
teaching of Elder Prescott."9
But what he had overlooked was that it squarely contradicted J. S.
Washburn. He had just announced that "the life of God was given back
to the Father�"  But the Ellen G. White statement, which he
quoted as supporting evidence, has the life of Jesus remaining in
the sepulchre.

The remainder of Washburn�s attack on Trinitarianism in general,
and Prescott�s sermon in particular, consists of a piling up of
reasons as to why the Godhead could not be one person. As were the
early Adventist Arians, Washburn is opposing Monarchianism. Thus he
exposes his misunderstanding of what Trinitarians teach. He
concludes, "The whole Trinity doctrine is utterly foreign to all the
Bible and the teachings of the Spirit of Prophecy. Revelation gives
not the slightest hint of it."10

So dies the fading splendour of
Seventh-day Adventist anti-Trinitarianism!

ENDNOTES

1J. S.
Washburn, "The Trinity." (Paper filed in Office of the Dean, Andrews
University, Theological Seminary. [n.p., n.d.]), p. 2.
(Mimeographed)

2Ibid., p. 1.

3Ibid.

4Ibid., p.2.

5Ibid., p.5.

6Ellen G.
White, Letter 280, 1904, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible
Commentary, ed. Francis D. Nichol, V (1956), 1113.

7Washburn,
op. cit., p. 6.

8Ellen G.
White, The Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. III (Battle Creek, Mich.:
Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association,
1878), pp. 203, 204.

9Washburn,
loc. cit.

10Ibid., p.
8.

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