In our podcast this week, Nikki Stevenson and I discuss who we understood Jesus to be when we were Adventists and who we know Him to be now. Because Adventists have learned “normal” Christian words to describe Jesus, they don’t realize that their Jesus is not the same as the Jesus of Scripture. For example, they learned that Jesus is “fully God”, but they don’t believe He has all the same attributes as the Father. Rather, they believe that whatever or whoever Jesus is, that is “fully God”, like a slice of apple is “fully apple”.
Ellen White, though, established the Adventist belief that Jesus is not Almighty God. In her 1903 Manuscript 140 she wrote these words which have been quoted in two later compilations of her work as well: “The man Christ Jesus was not the Lord God Almighty, yet Christ and the Father are one.” In fact, Ellen White insisted that the three persons of the Trinity were three separate beings. She established the Adventist belief that the Trinity does not share substance, and she called them “The Three Worthies of Heaven” and “The Heavenly Trio”.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Adventism denies that Jesus shares the attribute of omnipresence with the Father and the Spirit. Because He now has a body, they teach, Jesus cannot be present everywhere at all times. I learned, in fact, that God sent the Holy Spirit because Jesus could not be present everywhere.
A few weeks ago we received an email from a man who was struggling with the identity of Jesus. He wrote that he had been watching the videos on the Former Adventist YouTube channel and was enjoying them. However, he was concerned because Colleen Tinker “repeatedly says that Jesus is ‘almighty God’. Is there scriptural basis for this? Are there Scriptures to back this up? Could you please kindly point me to a couple of scriptures that confirm that Jesus is the almighty God?”
Following is my answer to him:
I Am
The Scripture reveals Jesus to be the I AM of the Old and New Testaments. The book of John specifically reveals His identity as being one with the Father (Jn. 10:30). In fact, verse one of chapter one says, “the Word was God”.
As an Adventist I understood the phrase “Jesus is fully God” to mean that his identity was “all God”, sort of like a piece of pie is “all pie”, not a mixture of pie and ice cream. But when I understood that He could not be God if he did not have all the attributes of the Father, I realized that the Jesus I understood as an Adventist was not really “God”.
To expand the pie metaphor, Jesus is not one-third of “God”, as one-third of an apple pie is “all pie”. An apple pie may contain a stray seed or a piece of peel, but those items would not be present in each third of the pie. Consequently, one third of the pie might contain that seed; another third might have the peel, and the final third might have neither.
I thought of Jesus being “all God” as one-third of a pie is “all pie”. That idea was wrong. For Jesus to be “all God”, He must share the same substance as the Father and the Spirit. Every single attribute of the Father must be shared by Jesus and must be shared by the Holy Spirit. If any attribute is missing, that person is not God.
Thus, each person of the Trinity must share the attributes of eternality, omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience. To lack any attribute would be to NOT be GOD.
The Adventist Jesus is not omnipresent. If He is not omnipresent, however, He is NOT GOD. What I now understand is that Jesus, in spite of His having taken a body, is still omnipresent because He IS GOD. Colossians 1:16, for example, says that Jesus created all things. Verse 17, however, reveals something even more surprising for an Adventist: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
In other words, Jesus’ role within the Trinity is Creator and the One who always holds all creation together. This fact means that He was holding all things together even when His body was lying in the tomb and when He was in His mother’s womb. He has never stopped being almighty God who is omnipresent and holding all things together, even when He took on flesh.
This is a mystery we cannot explain, but the Bible reveals it is true.
Jesus also identified Himself as Yahweh, the I Am who revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush. In John 8:58 Jesus said to the Jews who mocked him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, “I am.”
“I Am” is the name with which God identifies Himself. Jesus declared to the angry Jews that He claims that name for Himself. He shares the name I Am with His Father.
In fact, Jesus used “I Am” to identify Himself as all the things the Jews understood God to be: I Am the light of the world (Jn. 8: 12), I Am the bread of life (Jn. 6:48); I Am the resurrection and the life (Jn. 11:25).
I suggest that you read the gospel of John, asking the Lord to teach you what He knows He wants you to learn. It is a surprising book that clearly reveals Jesus’ identity as almighty God! He is God the Son who shares the same substance as the Father and the Spirit. The three persons all share substance; there is one God expressed in three persons. This is a mystery we cannot explain, but Scripture is clear that Jesus has every attribute the Father has. If he did not, He would not be God. †
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