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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   XV

ELLEN G. WHITE ON THE PERSONALITY AND DEITY OF
THE HOLY SPIRIT

Ellen G. White repeatedly affirms that the Holy Spirit is a
Person:

The Holy Spirit is a person, for He beareth witness with our
spirits that we are the children of God. . . .

The Holy Spirit has a personality, else He could not bear
witness to our spirits and with our spirits that we are the
children of God. He must also be a divine person, else He could
not search out the secrets which lie hidden in the mind of
God.l

The Holy Spirit is presented in the writings of Ellen G. White as
God, not an inferior emanation from the Deity, but in every sense
God, as are Christ and the Father:

The prince of the power of evil can only be held in check by
the tower of God in the third person of the Godhead, the Holy
Spirit.2

Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty
agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no
modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. It is the
Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the
world�s Redeemer.3

The Holy Spirit is not spoken of as a subordinate representative,
a tool used by the Father and the Son. As is Christ so is the Holy
Spirit the "fullness of the Godhead:"

The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to
heaven is the Spirit in all the fullness of the Godhead, making
manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe
in Christ as a personal Saviour. There are three living persons in
the heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers—the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—those who receive Christ by
living faith are baptized, and those powers will co-operate with
the obedient subjects of heaven in their effort to live the new
life of Christ.4

The contention of the Adventist Arian to the effect that the Holy
Spirit is a mere influence, not a Person and certainly not a member
of the Deity, is therefore soundly contradicted in the writings of
Ellen G. White.

ENDNOTES

1E.
G. White, Evangelism (Washington, D. C.: Review and Herald
Publishing Association, l946), pp. 616, 617. Citing
Manuscript 20, 1906.

2lbid.,
p. 617. Citing Special Testimonies, Series A, No. 10, p. 37.
(l897)

3E. G. White,
The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Cal.: Pacific Press
Publishing Association, l898), p. 671.

4White, op.
cit., pp. 614 6l5. Citing Special Testimonies, Series B,
No. 7, pp. 62, 63. (l905).

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