He Who sits on the heavenly throne is one Being and not a Trinity! We know that the Father is the Ruler of all:
- “And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.” {Revelation 4:2,3}
- “The great Jehovah has proclaimed from His throne, “This is My beloved Son.” {Ellen White: DA, p. 579.4}
- “The Lord’s throne is in heaven” (Psalm 11,4); yet by His Spirit He is everywhere present. He has an intimate knowledge of, and a personal interest in, all the works of His hand.” {Ellen White: Education, p. 132.2 1903}
- “It is not essential for us to be able to define just what the holy Spirit is. Christ tells us that the Spirit is the Comforter, “the Spirit of truth, which PROCEEDETH FROM the Father.” It is plainly declared regarding the holy Spirit that, in his work of guiding men into all truth, “He shall not speak of Himself.” (John 15:26; 16:13)” {Ellen White: AA 51.3}
- “And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.” {Revelation 4:5}
- “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before Histhrone; And from Jesus Christ, Who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,” {Revelation 1:4,5}
- “And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits OF GOD sent forth into all the earth.” {Revelation 5:6}
- “For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.“ {Zechariah 4:10}
From God the Father sitting on the throne come His 7 Spirits, who go to His Son, the Lamb. Jesus then sends them everywhere as the holy Spirit. The lamb has 7 horns and 7 eyes representing 7 spirits. The 7 horns are omnipotence and the 7 eyes are the omnipresence of God through His holy Spirit. The number 7 is used in the Bible as an expression of God’s perfection. When someone sees something with their own eyes, then it means that that person is personally present in that place.
Some advocates of the Trinity, in a desperate search for evidence, even take this description of the 7 eyes as “proof” that the holy Spirit is the third “Being”, which is not logical since those eyes are only part of the body of the Lamb! Besides, does this constellation and division of the holy Spirit suit one Divine Being? Certainly not! When God describes something that belongs to Him and is not Divine, He uses the numbers 7 and 12 in the Bible. He describes perfection with them and emphasises to us, once again, that the holy Spirit is not God. And thus we see that the 7 Spirits represent the perfect and one holy Spirit, just as the 7 horns describe the perfect and one power of God.
Likewise, the 12 tribes describe only one people of God, just as the 7 candlesticks denote one church of God at different stages of time. On the other hand, one symbolic number describes only objects and not individual subjects. The Father and the Son are never and nowhere described with any symbolic number, but only as one God the Father and one Lord Jesus. Below we read words that describe the same constellation in a slightly different way, stating that God the Father is the primary source of the holy Spirit, which He sends to Jesus, and then Jesus to us.
- “A light would come from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the praying company. Then I saw an exceeding bright light come from the Father to the Son, and from the Son it waved over the people before the throne. But few would receive this great light.“ {Ellen White: EW 54.2}
If God the Father is the Primary Source of the holy Spirit, how does Jesus represent an equally independent Source? Jesus is the independent Source of the holy Spirit because He received it fully from the Father:
- “But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit OF TRUTH, which PROCEEDETH FROM the Father, he shall testify of me:” {John 15:26}
- “THE FATHER GAVE HIS SPIRIT without measure TO HIS SON, and we also may partake of IT´s fullness (IT, not him).” {Ellen White: The Great Controversy, p. 477}
- “The holy Spirit, which PROCEEDS from the only begotten Son of God, binds the human agent, body, soul, and spirit, to the perfect, divine-human nature of Christ.“ {Ellen White: Review and Herald, April 5, 1906 par. 16}
Our pioneers, guided by the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, also believed in this, until in 1931 there was a turn to a new “truth”:
- “Again we read of “the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” Rev. 1,4; 3,1; 4,5; 5,6. This is unquestionably simply a designation of the holy Spirit, put in this form to signify its perfection and completeness. But it could hardly be so described if it was a person. We never read of the seven Gods or the seven Christs.” {Uriah Smith, RH, October 28, 1890}
EGW’s final thought on the term:
- “There are many who are in a perilous position spiritually—many who are “ready to die.” The Revelator (John) was bidden to write to the church in Sardis: “These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. There is a censure resting upon those who have heard the truth, received the truth, and who afterward have acted like men spiritually dead. “Remember therefore.” In our work we are not to be drawn into any plausible theories that would lead to adenial of our PAST faith in the truth we have heard and advocated. “If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white: for they are worthy. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” {Ellen White: Letter 230, 5. July 1906}
This Text is part of the book First Commandment OR Trinity? – Encyclopedia of Evidences of the Old Trampled Truths of All Areas