We will see that the SDA Church teaches that Jesus didn’t die on the
cross completely, and they try to use Ellen White’s writing to prove this. I
would like to explore some of Ellen White’s writings on this subject.
“At the time when he was most needed, Jesus, the Son of God, the
world’s Redeemer, laid aside his divinity, and came to earth in the garb
of humanity” (The Signs of the Times, March 18, 1897).
“’God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’
The salvation of souls was the great object for which Christ sacrificed
his royal robe and kingly crown, the glory of heaven, and the homage
of angels, and laying aside his divinity, came to earth to labor and suffer
with humanity upon him” (The Review and Herald, November 21, 1907).
It is clear that Ellen White says that Christ laid aside His divinity
when He came to earth. What could she mean when she talks about His
divinity while He was on earth? Take notice of what she says in the
following statement:
“Jesus Christ ‘counted it not a thing to be grasped to be equal with
God.’ Because divinity alone could be efficacious [influential*] in the
restoration of man from the poisonous bruise of the serpent, God himself,
in his only begotten Son, assumed human nature, and in the weakness
of human nature sustained the character of God, vindicated his holy
law in every particular, and accepted the sentence of wrath and death for
the sons of men” (The Youth Instructor, February 11, 1897, *supplied).
Ellen White says that the Father Himself “in His only begotten Son,
assumed human nature.” It’s evident that she wasn’t indicating that the
Father actually became a man, because she often wrote of Christ as a separate
being who became a man. However, she did teach that the Father
dwelt in His Son, by His Holy Spirit, while Christ was on earth. This is in
harmony with scripture. “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the
world unto Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). So the divinity that Christ had
while He was on this earth was the divinity of His Father dwelling in
Him. So when Ellen White wrote “Humanity died: divinity did not die”
(The Youth’s Instructor, August 4, 1898). She was referring to the
divinity of the Father that was dwelling in Christ. Most certainly that did
not die, nor could it have died.
About Christ’s complete death, Ellen White stated: “Jesus said to
Mary, ‘Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.’ When He
closed His eyes in death upon the cross, the soul of Christ did not go at
once to heaven, as many believe, or how could His words be true—‘I am
not yet ascended to my Father’? The spirit of Jesus slept in the tomb with
His body, and did not wing its way to heaven, there to maintain a separate
existence, and to look down upon the mourning disciples embalming the
body from which it had taken flight. All that comprised the life and intelligence
of Jesus remained with His body in the sepulcher; and when He
came forth it was as a whole being; He did not have to summon His
spirit from heaven” (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol.
5, pp. 1150, 1151).
