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).