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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS: WHAT
DID SHE ACTUALLY WRITE?
By Tim Poirier
Ellen G. White Estate, Inc.
Introduction
Certain opponents of the church’s second fundamental belief
(“The Trinity”) argue that Ellen White’s supportive statements
cannot be trusted as reflecting accurately what she wrote and
taught. These persons claim to accept Ellen White’s prophetic
writings, but they question the authenticity of her statements that
affirm the church’s belief in three distinct, co-eternal, fully divine
persons in the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This
presentation will not attempt to fully define Ellen White’s concept
of the Godhead nor discuss the question of whether there was
any development in her views. Its interest is in the authenticity
of Ellen White’s key statements in the light of available source
documents. It should also be clearly stated that the church’s
fundamental belief in the Trinity is not based on Ellen White’s
writings, but on its understanding of biblical truth.
“Third Person of the Godhead”
For most Adventists, Ellen White’s published statements are
conclusive as to her teaching on this question. In The Desire of
Ages she writes that “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” (p. 671). This is how the text has read since
its first publication in 1898. So how do opponents escape its
natural interpretation that there are three distinct persons in the
Godhead?
First, by suggesting that the expression found its way into The
Desire of Ages through the influence of Ellen White’s assistants
and/or Herbert Lacey or W. W. Prescott.1 Second, by pointing out
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
19
that the words “third person” are not capitalized in the original
1898 printing, signifying to them that the word “person” is used
in a more “general sense.”2 Third, by suggesting that while there
are in reality only two persons in the Godhead, “the net effect for
us is that there are three divine beings,” since the Holy Spirit is
called “another Comforter.” In this view, the Holy Spirit is “the
Spirit (presence) of the Father and/or Christ,” and not in actuality
a distinct third divine person.3
We will not pursue the third interpretation, except to look later
at a further Ellen White statement that speaks of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, as “three distinct agencies” working together
on behalf of humanity. But the first two observations are aimed at
the authenticity of the text—our interest in this presentation.
Can this passage in The Desire of Ages be trusted as
representing what Ellen White actually penned? What does the
original manuscript say?
The White Estate often receives this type of inquiry from
persons who question the reading or teaching of a published
statement. Some are surprised when we tell them that Ellen White
did not write out her chapters by longhand as they appear in books
like Steps to Christ and those in the Conflict of the Ages Series.
She was certainly the author of the text, but most of the material
comprising the chapters as we have them was compiled from her
many earlier works, including her sermons, letters, and articles.4
So to find the original manuscript for any given passage in a book
like The Desire of Ages, we must determine the source document
and whether a handwritten draft of that document is extant.
What, then, is the source for this sentence on page 671 of The
Desire of Ages? We find it in a letter Ellen White addressed to
“My Brethren in America,” dated February 6, 1896. She wrote,
“Evil had been accumulating for centuries, and could only be
restrained and resisted by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, the
third person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified
energy, but in the fullness of divine power.”5 This letter was
copied and sent from Australia to church leaders in Battle Creek,
where the General Conference president, O. A. Olsen, published
it the next year in a pamphlet circulated among church leaders
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
and ministers (Special Testimonies, No. 10, pp. 25-33). This
contemporary publication provides another evidence—beyond
the obvious copyright date—that this passage in The Desire of
Ages reads as it did when first published in 1898.
Exhibit 1 is a scan of the first page of this letter, showing the
key sentence in the second paragraph. The skeptic will ask how
we know that this letter actually came from Ellen White. What
does the handwritten original say? Unfortunately for us who live
in 2006, Ellen White rarely preserved original drafts of her letters
once they had been transcribed and received her approval. We
will see that, in certain other instances, we are fortunate to have
her original drafts, but for this letter the handwritten original is
not known to be extant. But we do have other evidences of its
authenticity. Pages 5, 6, and 7 contain Ellen White’s handwritten
interlineations, which she often added after further reading
of a document. Exhibit 2 is a scan of page 6, showing these
interlineations and providing the evidence that this letter was
indeed reviewed by Ellen White herself. So we are on sure ground
in concluding that this key sentence in The Desire of Ages was not
slipped past Ellen White’s eye into the manuscript of the book
either by her assistants or other church leaders.
What should we make of the second argument, that the words
“third person” were not capitalized in the earliest printings? As
we saw in Exhibit 1, the phrase was also not capitalized in the
original letter. Further comparison between Ellen White’s letters
and her published articles and books indicates that editorial
style, not theological intent, governed such matters as to whether
pronouns referring to deity should be capitalized. If the argument
is to be made that the use of lower case characters in “third person”
shows that Ellen White was not attributing deity-status to the Holy
Spirit, then one has to explain why, in the same earliest printings,
the personal pronoun “He” (referring to the Holy Spirit) is twice
capitalized in the immediately preceding paragraph (671:1), and
elsewhere in the same chapter.
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
21
Exhibit 1. Letter 8, 1896, p.1.
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Exhibit 2. Letter 8, 1896, p.6.
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
23
“Three living persons”
We will look next at a significant statement published in the
book Evangelism. Evangelism is a compilation published in 1946,
a decade before the Adventist-evangelical dialogues that resulted
in Questions on Doctrine. Nevertheless, the cloud associated
with that period has caused some to cast a skeptical backward
shadow on this clearly Trinitarian statement:
There are three living persons of 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 these powers will co-
operate with the obedient subjects of heaven in their
efforts to live the new life in Christ.6
Does this statement accurately represent what Ellen White
penned?
Exhibit 3 is a scan of the title page for the source of the
quotation in Evangelism—Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 7.
Of particular interest is the note at the bottom, “Published for
the Author.” Exhibit 4 is a scan of the page containing the key
sentence. So whatever alleged “conspiracies” led to the wording
that appears in Evangelism, they could not have originated with
the brethren in the 1940s. The passage appeared in print in 1906,
published for the author—Ellen G. White.
Tracing the source of this material, we find that it comes from
Manuscript 21, 1906, written in November 1905 and bearing the
transcription date of January 9, 1906. Exhibit 5 is a scan of page 4
on which this key statement appears. The sentence is identical to
what was published in Series B, except that in the printed version
a semi-colon is substituted for the comma after “heavenly trio.”
Exhibit 6 is a scan of the first page of this manuscript showing
Ellen White’s handwritten interlineations—evidence that she
had personally reviewed the typescript. So we see that what is
published in Evangelism accurately reprints what is published in
Series B, which, in turn, accurately reproduces Ellen White’s
manuscript, as reviewed by her.
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Exhibit 3. Special Testimonies, Series B., No.7 (1906), title page.
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
25
Exhibit 4. Special Testimonies, Series B., No.7 (1906), p.63.
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Exhibit 5. Manuscript 21, 1906, p.4.
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
27
Exhibit 6. Manuscript 21, 1906, p.1, showing Ellen White’s
handwritten interlineations.
We can go one step further, however, in this instance.
Exhibit 7 is scanned from a page in one of Ellen White’s diary/
journals where is found the original unedited handwritten draft
for Manuscript 21, 1906. This is what was transcribed by Ellen
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
White’s secretaries. The key passage, as originally penned by
Ellen White, reads: “Here are the living three personsalities of the
heavenly trio in which every soul repenting of their sins, receiving
Christ by a living faith, to them who are baptized in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost….”
Exhibit 7. Excerpt from handwritten draft of Manuscript 21, 1906.
Now we encounter an interesting question. Putting aside the
routine grammatical improvements Ellen White’s assistants were
instructed to make when transcribing her first draft manuscripts,
what are we to make of her changing “three persons” to “three
personalities”? Here is evidence, non-Trinitarian promoters
argue, that Ellen White was seeking to make a distinction between
“personalities” and “persons,” as the sentence finally reads in the
transcribed manuscript.
Should we read something substantive into this change
from “persons” to “personalities”? A comprehensive study of
Ellen White’s usage of these terms is outside the parameters of
our interest in this presentation, but suffice it to say that, as its
first definition, Webster defines “personality” as “the quality or
state of being a person”; and in its theological usage, “quality or
state of consisting of distinct persons, said of the Godhead.”7 My
own study of Ellen White’s usage is that she used the two terms
interchangeably, which is no doubt why she was quite satisfied
with the final reading of the transcription, as we saw in Exhibits 5
and 6.
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
29
Furthermore, if by writing “three personalities” Ellen White
meant to steer clear of referencing three persons in the Godhead,
we are hard pressed to explain why she clearly wrote “three
persons” in an earlier document, Manuscript 57, 1900, published
in the SDA Bible Commentary:
The work is laid out before every soul that has
acknowledged his faith in Jesus Christ by baptism,
and has become a receiver of the pledge from the three
persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.8
Exhibit 8 is a scan of this manuscript, and as in the previous
example, we are fortunate to have the original handwritten draft
that was transcribed by Ellen White’s secretaries. As we see in
Exhibit 9, there is no question that Ellen White wrote “the three
persons—the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”
Exhibit 8. Excerpt from Manuscript 57, 1900.
Exhibit 9. Excerpt from handwritten draft of Manuscript 57, 1900.
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Ellen White’s use of “third person” and “three persons in the
heavenly trio” plainly indicates her belief that not only are there
three beings in the Godhead, but that they are “persons.” Another
statement published in Evangelism says it in no uncertain terms:
The Holy Spirit is a person, for He beareth witness
with our spirits that we are the children of God.9
Again we are asked, what did Ellen White actually pen?
Exhibit
10 is a scan of the source quoted in Evangelism—
Manuscript 20, 1906, p. 9. Not only does this manuscript bear
Ellen White’s approval at the top of its first page—“I have read
this carefully and accept it”—(Exhibit 11), but we also have the
original handwritten draft that was transcribed by her secretaries.
Exhibit 12 is a scan of the key sentence, “The Holy Spirit is a
person for He beareth witness with our spirit
”
But, say non-Trinitarian promoters, the Father and the Son are
persons. “The reference does not say, “the Holy Spirit is a person,
separate and distinct from God the Father.”10
No, this reference does not. But Ellen White has more to say
on the subject elsewhere. Manuscript 93, 1893 reads:
The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, in Christ’s name. He
personifies Christ, yet is a distinct personality.11
Exhibit 13 is a scan of Ellen White’s original handwritten draft,
backing up the transcription. Manuscript 27a, 1900 adds this
description:
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, powers
infinite and omniscient, receive those who truly enter
into covenant relation with God.12
Note how the attributes of deity are applied to each person.
This is followed by the statement:
Three distinct agencies, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost, work together for human beings.13
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
31
Exhibit 10. Manuscript 20, 1906, p.9.
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Exhibit 11. Manuscript 20, 1906, p.1, showing Ellen White’s approval
at the top of the page: “I have read this carefully and accept it.”
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
33
Exhibit 12. Excerpt from handwritten draft of Manuscript 20, 1906.
Exhibit 13. Handwritten original of Manuscript 93, 1893.
The original handwritten draft for this manuscript is not extant,
but the transcription not only bears Ellen White’s signature but
also her interlineations throughout, as seen in Exhibits 14 and 15.
Is the Holy Spirit “Christ’s representative”
or Christ “himself”?
With Ellen White’s unambiguous statements about the
“heavenly trio” in mind, let us examine another passage relating
to the nature of the Holy Spirit that non-Trinitarian promoters look
to for support. It appears on page 669 of The Desire of Ages:
The Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative, but divested
of the personality of humanity, and independent
thereof. Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be
in every place personally. Therefore it was for their
interest that He should go to the Father, and send the
Spirit to be His successor on earth. No one could then
have any advantage because of his location or his
personal contact with Christ. By the Spirit the Saviour
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Exhibit 14. Manuscript 27a, 1900, p.7.
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
35
Exhibit 15. Manuscript 27a, 1900, p.8,
showing Ellen White’s signature.
would be accessible to all. In this sense He would be
nearer to them than if He had not ascended on high.
The focus of this passage is the presence of Christ through His
representative—the Holy Spirit. The personal distinction between
Christ and the Holy Spirit is carefully expressed in the text, but
non-Trinitarian promoters point to the manuscript source for this
passage. We find it in a letter to Edson White and his wife, dated
February 18, 1895.14 How does it read in the original letter?
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Cumbered with humanity, Christ could not be in every
place personally; therefore it was altogether for their
advantage that he should leave them, go to his Father,
and send the Holy Spirit to be his successor on earth.
The Holy Spirit is himself, divested of the personality
of humanity, and independent thereof. He would
represent himself as present in all places by his Holy
Spirit, as the Omnipresent.15
What is of particular significance to non-Trinitarians is that
where The Desire of Ages reads “the Holy Spirit is Christ’s
representative,” the original letter reads
“The Holy Spirit is
himself.”
The handwritten original is not known to be extant, but the
letter as transcribed by Ellen White’s secretary bears her signature
and other interlineations, signifying her approval of the letter. See
Exhibit 16.
Does the wording of the original letter establish that Ellen
White believed the Holy Spirit and Christ are not distinct
persons?
We have already looked at several Ellen White statements
affirming that there are “three persons” in the Godhead, and that
the Holy Spirit is a “distinct personality.” As these statements
chronologically both precede and follow the writing of this letter,
consistency would lead us to expect that she is not interjecting a
new understanding of the Spirit in this passage. Indeed, we find
the same language of “representation” used in this letter as we
find in The Desire of Ages. The paragraph in the letter where this
sentence appears begins with the statement: “Although our Lord
ascended from earth to heaven, the Holy Spirit was appointed as
his representative among men.”
Ellen White further explains the meaning of her words “the
Holy Spirit is himself” by adding that “Christ would represent
himself as present in all places by his Holy Spirit.”
In the mysterious union that exists between the members
of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit’s presence is synonymous with
the personal presence of Jesus, yet their distinct identities are
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
37
Exhibit 16. Letter 119, 1895, pp1,5,
showing Ellen White’s handwriting.
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
preserved.
The same idea is found in other Ellen White passages, such
as:
When you come to receive Christ as your personal
Saviour, there will be a marked change in you; you
will be converted, and the Lord Jesus by His Holy
Spirit will stand by you.16
and
I testify to my brethren and sisters that the church of
Christ, enfeebled and defective as it may be, is the
only object on earth on which He bestows His supreme
regard. While He extends to all the world His invitation
to come to Him and be saved, . . . He comes personally
by His Holy Spirit into the midst of His church.17
How do we account for the change in wording in The Desire
of Ages? We have only the 1895 letter, no working drafts for
the finished chapter, leaving us with the conclusion that what was
published in 1898 represents the edited reading approved by the
author.18 The language adopted by Ellen White in The Desire
of Ages helps the reader to avoid a misinterpretation that arises
when the sentence as first constructed is isolated from the entire
paragraph of its original context.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we cannot approach the subject of the Godhead
without acknowledging the limitations of human conception and
language. It is one thing to examine what an inspired author has
written, it is quite another to say that we have fully understood it.
Our interest in this presentation, however, has not been
the mystery of the Godhead but the trustworthiness of certain
descriptive statements found in Ellen White’s books. We have
found that the original handwritten manuscripts, her approved
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
39
transcriptions, and/or the first editions of her published works
support the Trinitarian expressions found today in her writings.
Addendum (added May 2012)
Further evidence that Ellen White believed that the Godhead
consists of three beings may be found in a Sabbath sermon she
delivered on October 20, 1906. The full sermon is reproduced
in Sermons and Talks, vol. 1, pp. 360-383. The key statement is
found on p. 367: “You are born unto God, and you stand under
the sanction and the power of the three holiest Beings in heaven,
who are able to keep you from falling.” Some have questioned
the authenticity of the statement because it was not published in
Ellen White’s lifetime. How do we know that we can trust the
reading in Sermons and Talks? The source of the sermon is Ellen
White’s Manuscript 95, 1906, which was a part of Ellen White’s
file ever since the sermon was transcribed in 1906 as evidenced by
other portions of the sermon which Ellen White published in the
December 13, 1906, Review and Herald.
Exhibit 17 is a photograph of Ellen White’s 1906 letter book which
contains Ms 95, 1906, on pages 19-42. Exhibit 18 is scan of the
manuscript’s first page, identifying the document, and Exhibit
19 is a scan of the page containing the “three holiest beings”
statement (in the second paragraph).
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Exhibit 17. Photograph of Ellen White’s 1906 letter book which
contains Ms 95, 1906, on pages 19-42.
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
41
Exhibit 18. Scan of the manuscript’s first page,
identifying the document.
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
Exhibit 19. Scan of the page containing the “three holiest beings”
statement (in the second paragraph).
ELLEN WHITE’S TRINITARIAN STATEMENTS
43
__________________________
1For example, see Rachel Cory-Kuehl, The Persons of God (n.p.:
Aggelia Publications, 1996) , pp. 159-188.
ePioneer.html (accessed 11/14/2005).
3Cory-Kuehl, pp. 187, 177.
4For The Desire of Ages, this process is described in Arthur L. White,
Ellen G. White: The Australian Years, 1891-1900 (Hagerstown, MD:
Review and Herald, 1983), chapter 32, and in greater detail in Robert
W. Olson, How The Desire of Ages Was Written (Washington, DC: Ellen
G. White Estate, 1979), and Fred Veltman, Full Report of the Life of
Christ Research Project (n.p.: Life of Christ Research Project Review
Committee, 1988).
5E. G. White, Letter 8, 1896.
6E. G. White, Evangelism (Washington, DC: Review and Herald,
1946), p. 615, from Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 7, published in
1906.
7Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (Springfield,
MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003); Webster’s New International Dictionary,
2nd Edition, Unabridged (Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam, 1954).
8E. G. White, SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1074, emphasis
supplied.
9Evangelism, pp. 616, 617.
10Cory-Kuehl, p. 177.
11E. G. White, Manuscript
93,
1893, published in Manuscript
Releases, vol. 20, pp. 323-325, emphasis supplied.
12E. G. White, Manuscript 27a, 1900, published in SDA Bible
Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1075, emphasis supplied.
13E. G. White, Manuscript 27a, 1900, p. 7. This portion is not
published in the SDA Bible Commentary.
14E. G. White, Letter 119, 1895.
15Published in Manuscript Releases, vol. 14, p. 93.
16E. G. White Manuscript 13, 1897, published in Mind, Character,
and Personality, vol. 1, pp. 124, 125.
17E. G. White, Letter 2d, 1892, published in Testimonies to Ministers,
p. 15.
18Against the claim that the published reading does not reflect Ellen
White’s teaching is the fact that the text remained unchanged by her for
the next 17 years prior to her death, and that the passage was repeated in
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ELLEN WHITE AND CURRENT ISSUES SYMPOSIUM 2006
an article she supplied for the Week of Prayer Readings published in the
Review and Herald, November 19, 1908.