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Join Dr. Jud Lake of Southern Adventist University in exploring the life and legacy of Ellen G. White.
 Welcome friends. I wanna say more about the issue of the physicality of God from the Adventist Pilgrimage Podcast, episode 22 titled is Adventism Occult, A Response to Cultish Part two, and my last bonus episode on this subject as well.
Welcome to the Ellen White Podcast.
Here is your host, Dr. Judd Lake.
The claim was made in the cultus interview that the foundation of Adventism is the physicality of God, which according to their narrative, makes God so physical, that he has flesh and blood. Makes him a part of the creation and diminishes his transcendence. This extreme negative interpretation they use to undermine Adventist is incorrect and flat out wrong.
However, they are onto something. In fact, it is not so much the physicality of God that's foundational, but the temporality of God, although the two are related. Let me explain and bear with me. This will be a bit technical concerning the being of God. A discipline called ontology, the study of being or essence, there are two basic interpretations that have continued down through history.
God is timeless and God is temporal. God is timeless, puts God outside of time and God is temporal places. God within time. God as timeless is a presupposition that began with the Greek philosophers, starting with per amenities, who influenced Plato, who influenced Aristotle, who influenced Christian thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin, who have influenced many Christian theologians today as timeless.
God is unchangeable, spaceless, emotionless, and detached from history. God is temporal, however means that God is engaged in human history, acts in space and time, and demonstrates his emotions. The Adventist pioneers rejected the classical understanding of God as timeless, spaceless and immutable. And embrace God as temporal because it fit what they saw in scripture.
They saw a God who was involved in human history and who localized himself in both the earthly sanctuary and the heavenly. This led them to understand the sanctuary in heaven as a L place where God dwells yet stays connected with all of his creation. God was a person, the creator who was. Separate from his creation.
Hence, the pioneers rejected deistic or pantheistic interpretations of God's reality. Roy Graff summarized the pioneer's position well in his doctoral dissertation. He wrote the Adventist pioneers that God was able to experience time and history because he was ontologically temporal. God's temporality was not the same as creation's time.
God was temporal even before creation. Ellen White described God's eternity in terms of everlasting. This temporality of God, however, was different from human or creations, temporality, not only because God is without beginning or in, but because he also was able to know the future exhaustively.
Apparently Ellen White understood that God's experience of time is infinitely superior to the experience of time by his creatures. Still, God's temporality is compatible with one of his creatures. Both God and creatures are temporal at the same time. He transcends his creation in a way not totally revealed to human beings.
In contrast to traditional theology. Ellen White also defined God's immutability in terms of the unchange ability of his character and purpose. Consequently, she did not think of God as impassable. That is emotionless. He does not only have emotions, but can also modify his course of action in order to accomplish his purposes when human beings change their relation to him in the sense God can repent of some specific courses of action.
That's Graf's dissertation, the principle of of articulation in Adventist theology, an evaluation of current interpretations and a proposal, an excellent study. In a classical statement, Ellen White described a personal temporal God quite opposite the view of a timeless God. This is something she herself understood in Ministry of Healing, page 417.
She wrote an often quoted statement. The Bible shows us God in his high and holy place, not in a state of inactivity, not in silence and solitude, but surrounded by 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of holy beings. All waiting to do his will through these messengers. He is in active communication with every part of his dominion.
By his spirit. He is everywhere present Through the agency of his spirit and his angels, he ministers to the children of men above the distractions of the earth. He sits enthroned. All things are open to his divine survey, and from his great and calm eternity, he orders that which his providence sees best.
Now notice. In this statement, God is not in a state of inactivity, like a timeless God, but engage with heavenly beings and events on earth. He's intervening in human history. That's temporal. That's God in time. He intervenes in human history. Notice also her balance of theology. God is localized in his temple, and yet he's everywhere present by his spirit.
This is the view of the biblical God who is temporal. Now, a very important text of scripture with regard to God's being is Exodus three, verse 14 and 50, which shows God revealing himself, his identity as temporal. This is a text that has been studied by Dr. Fernando Canali. An Adventist scholar who wrote a groundbreaking doctoral dissertation on the subject of God and timelessness and temporality, and he concludes that God reveals himself in this text as a being who is temporal in time.
Here's the text. God said to Moses, I am who I am, and he said, say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent you to me. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.
Now, I'm only going to just scratch the surface of this text, but get at the heart of it in terms of its temporality. Canali has a detailed study on it as well as others. But for now, just the, just the basic here. The text states the Lord Yahweh, that is God of your fathers has sent me to you. This place is the I am.
Notice. The I am. That's who God is. His identity, his been this place is the, I am in the past with Moses Fathers in the narrative. God is currently speaking with Moses, which involves the present. Also, verse 15 reads, I am that I am. Is God's name forever. That is his memorial to all future generations. This clearly associates God's name with the future.
Hence Exodus three 14 and 15 grounds the temporal interpretation of God's being the I am is connected with the past, the present, and the future. That's temporality. That's God as a temporal being. That is how he has revealed himself, who he is in Exodus three 14 and 15 as he revealed himself to Moses. So God clearly shows himself as a divine being in time.
He is temporal, and in that context, he's able to interact with you and me on a personal level. Also, it's important to note that God localizes himself in space. He's in space and in time. Let's focus on space. Now. This brings us back to the physicality issue. Let's look at a text that's used to prove God is pure spirit.
John 4 24. Jesus said, God is spirit. In the context, Jesus is talking about moving away from physical worship to spiritual worship. Famous dialogue with the woman at the well. Great story. The Greek God is Spirit indicates that God in his essence is spirit. That's what it's saying. Indeed that is true, but the question is, does Jesus limit God to pure spirit?
We must be careful not to bring any platonic or stoic presuppositions into what Jesus is saying here. Da Carson says of this verse in the pillar commentary. Jesus is not suggesting that God is one spirit among many. Now this is DA Carson, well known New Testament evangelical scholar:
"Nor simply that he is incorporeal, in the stoic sense; nor that spirit completely defines his metaphysical properties. In this context, spirit characterizes what God is like. In the same way that flesh, location, and corporate reality characterize what human beings and their world are like, God is spirit means that God is invisible. Divine as opposed to human life giving and unknowable to human beings unless he chooses to reveal himself. God as God is light and God is love. 1 John 1:5 and 4:8. So God is spirit. These are elements in the way God presents himself to human beings in his gracious self-disclosure in his son."
No statement about God can limit God. We need to set that forward very clearly. Even God is love--1 John 4:8--does not limit God. God is indeed love in his essence, but God is more than love too. He's also, according to Nahum 1 and 2, avenging and wrathful against evil, albeit in a holy and loving way. God is light, but God is also more than light. So with Jesus words, God is spirit. Indeed, God is spirit, but he is more than spirit too.
While God is everywhere by his spirit, he is also simultaneously on the throne in his heavenly sanctuary as often depicted in scripture. Indeed God is spirit, but he is more than spirit too. While God is everywhere by his spirit, he is also simultaneously on the throne in his heavenly sanctuary as often depicted in scripture.
Thus he is Spirit, but more than Spirit Adventist theologian, John Peckham said it well: That God is spirit need not mean that God is excluded from taking form human or otherwise. That God can and does take form is implied in the scriptural data in many instances, not least of which is the incarnation.
Another important point about this text, if Jesus means that God is pure spirit and nothing else, then he cancels out himself. For Jesus spoke as God incarnated in human flesh. Therefore, God was speaking in human form as God about God as spirit. Clearly. Then Jesus was not limiting God to pure spirit.
God is spirit, but more than spirit. The triune nature of God as depicted elsewhere in scripture clarifies Jesus words here. All of the anthropomorphism throughout scripture, such as God's hands, arms, feet, eyes, ears reveal to us important truths about God, but do not limit God. God doesn't have anatomical features exactly like humans because he is beyond human limitations.
Yet he must have some kind of form as he often reveals himself in scripture. Exodus 33:23-24, the classic passage where God passes before Moses. Here's the text:
"But he said, you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. And while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen."
God certainly didn't have a back and a face exactly like Moses yet. Nowhere in the text is there a hint to deny that God is taking a form. God himself is speaking straightforwardly to Moses. Apparently God is taking on some kind of form to reveal himself to Moses. If we couple this with John 5:7, it makes sense. Jesus said: "And the Father who sent me has himself born witness about me, his voice you have never heard. His form you have never seen."
And form there is the word... Greek word indicates a physical form. You could also think of numerous places such as in Daniel 7, when the son of man became, came before the Ancient of Days, that apparently is a localization of the divine being of God before the court of heaven. The Ancient of Days comes and all the heaven, the host sit in the court.
The Adventist pioneers may have pushed it too far. However, when they asserted that God has a body and parts, yet they were moving in the direction of the text when they asserted that God has a form, that form is analogous to but different from any human form, God's form was so glorious that no human could survive seeing him face to face.
But in the larger context of scripture, the canonical context, the hope is that we will one day see God. Two interesting passages are imported here. Job 19:26, where Job said, after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh, I shall see God. His hope was is that one day he would see God, and of course Matthew five, eight.
Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. These texts certainly suggest that in the new Earth we will see God who will dwell with us. With us there. Revelation 21 and 22, that indicates a localization of God, a form of God or God in a form. It is in this context that Ella White's statements about God having a form make the most sense, and they do not limit God, his transcendence in any way.
He is clearly separate from his creation above and apart from it transcendent. Yet according to scripture, he localizes himself as well. I wanted to conclude with a very interesting statement. By Ellen White in Manuscript Releases 14, page 21. She is speaking about God's name: I am. And the temporality of God is in the background here.
It's a statement worth pondering. She wrote: "'I am' means an eternal presence. The past, present and future are alike to God. He sees the most remote events of past history and the far distant future with as clear a vision as we do those things that are transpiring daily, we know not what is before us, and if we did, it would not contribute to our eternal welfare. God gives us an opportunity to exercise, faith and trust in the great 'I am.'"
This is an example of God's perspective in his divine temporality versus our human temporality. He knows the future and always has us in mind.
Thanks for listening, friends, and remember: Always test a prophet by the prophets of the Bible.