WHO ALONE IS TO BE EXALTED?

-AN S.D.A. PERSPECTIVE-

By Derrick Gillespie
The Bible distinctly says:

“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve”.
“As for me [Joshua] and my house we will serve the LORD”

How should Adventists understand these Biblical statements? Does it mean

that literally only the Father (and not Christ or the Holy Spirit) deserves
highest reverence and awe and it is only the Father that is to be “served” in
the highest sense, or prayed to even? Does this exclude Christ and the Holy
Spirit from being “served” in the highest sense? To some who lack spiritual
insight, and who do not compare Scripture with Scripture it so appears to
them. But TRUE Adventists recognize that not only does this passage relate
to the Father, but indeed to all members of, or (using an E.J Waggoner
phrase) to all the “constituent persons” of the Godhead. Notice now how
Adventism’s main writer and chief pioneer, Mrs. E.G. White, speaks in
context of, first, how this applies to God (the Father) alone, at other times to
Christ alone, at other times to both Christ and the Father alone, and then
climaxes the full truth by showing how this applies to all three--- Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit!!

“God alone should be exalted. God alone has done it all.

- E.G. White, Testimonies Vol. 2, pg. 52

“It is not men whom we are to exalt and worship; it is God, the only true
and living God, to whom our worship and reverence are due”
– E.G. White, Sons and Daughters of God, pg. 58

Now, it should be observed that if the above two statements should have
been literally taken at face value (without the full teaching of Mrs. White
based on Scripture be considered as a whole), then no other being in the
universe in the entire universe except the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
could/should be considered as worthy of worship and exaltation, or to put it
another way, or could/should be “served” in the supreme religious sense (i.e.
prayer directed to, etc.). But as we shall plainly see hereafter, as it concerns
the three members of the Godhead, who are all spiritually one, and who are
all divine persons/personalities, and who are even called “the three holiest
beings in heaven” by Mrs. White herself, what applies to the Father equally
applies to the others. They are the “three Great Worthies” Mrs. White
emphasizes (notice “three”); “worthy” of religious service and exaltation just
like the Father (a matter SDA anti-Trinitarians today find hard to truly come
clean with as it concerns the full written record). See now how the same
reality about the Father first of all equally applies to Jesus, the Son of the
Father:

“Christ alone is to be exalted. "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in His own blood," let every eye be directed, and praise from
every heart ascend. (Rev. 1:5.)”
- E.G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pg. 161

Clearly this could not be taken literally at face value or at the exclusion of
the Father because here again we see her saying that:

“The Father and the Son alone are to be exalted.”

– E.G. White, Sons and Daughters of God, pg. 58

This perfectly illustrates the divine unity of the two, but what about the unity
of the Holy Spirit with these two? Does he two demand consideration in
terms of religious service, and respect, and in a separate way? Well the
records speak plainly for itself:

“When we have accepted Christ, and in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit have pledged ourselves to serve [i.e. reverence,
honor and obey] God, the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit--the three
dignitaries and powers of heaven--pledge themselves that every facility
shall be given to us if we carry out our baptismal vows to "come out from
among them, and be . . . separate, . . . and touch not the unclean thing."
When we are true to our vows, He says, "I will receive you"
E.G. White, Maniscript 85, 1901

“God says, [notice after this whom she means says this] "Come out from
among them, and be ye separate, . . . and touch not the unclean thing;
and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my
sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." This is the pledge of [not
one person, but] the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit [i.e. the *pledge
to receive and be a Father to you]; made to you if you will keep your
baptismal vow, and touch not the unclean thing… In order to deal
righteously with the world, as members of the royal family, children of
the heavenly King, Christians must feel their need of a power, which
comes only from the [three] heavenly agencies that have pledged
themselves to work in man's behalf. After we have formed a union with
the great THREEFOLD POWER [singular; collective], we shall regard
our duty toward the members of God's family with a sacred awe.”

-E.G. White, Signs of the Times, June 19, 1901

“You are baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost. You are raised up out of the water to live henceforth in
newness of life--to live a new life. You are born unto God, and you
stand under the sanction and the power of THE THREE HOLIEST
*BEINGS IN HEAVEN, who are able to keep you from falling…When
I feel oppressed, and hardly know how to relate myself toward the work
that God has given me to do, I just *CALL UPON THE THREE
GREAT WORTHIES, and say; You know I cannot do this work in my
own strength. You must work in me, and by me and through me,
sanctifying my tongue, sanctifying my spirit, sanctifying my words, and
bringing me into a position where my spirit shall be susceptible to the
movings of the Holy Spirit of God upon my mind and character. And
this is the prayer that every one of us may offer [i.e. while invoking all
three in prayer]. . .”
-E.G. White, Manuscript Release, Vol.7, pgs. 267, 268 (Ms
95, 1906, pp. 8-12, 14-17; "Lesson from Romans 15," October 20, 1906.)

Notice carefully how Mrs. White climaxes her understanding that all
three (whom she collectively calls “God”, and not because they are one
being, mind you) pledges to be “a Father” to us, and hence why all three
are to be “served” (not just the Father alone), and she was even on
record even directing prayer to all three (not just the Father alone).
This means that for the TRUE Adventist the Three CANNOT be
separated generically or relationally, and in our worship and salvation
experience!! This means that if the true God of the Bible is to be known
and worshipped, one Person of the Godhead cannot be known without
accepting and “serving” the others. That is why the Christian
experience of God MUST be through the recognition of a ‘TRI-UNITY’
(i.e. the unity of a “Trio” of Persons) in the Godhead. Clearly “GOD” is
the Father, “Jehovah” or the “I AM” by name, but is eternally and
inseparably united with His Spirit and His Son, who are also “GOD” in
nature and authority, and all three share the same “name” (Matthew
28:19. That’s why we have the “name” (singular) of all three stamped
(as it were) upon our persons at baptism!!
No wonder then that by 1896 Adventists begin to fully recognize and
give respect to the following truth (as recorded in our Review and
Herald publication):

“He [the Holy Spirit] is included in the apostolic benediction [2 Cor.13:

14], and is spoken by our Lord [Jesus] as acting in an INDEPENDENT and
PERSONAL [thus individual] capacity as Teacher, Guide, and Comforter.
He is an object of *VENERATION [honor, reverence, service], and is A
[singular] Heavenly INTELLIGENCE, everywhere present, and is always
present [Heb. 9:14]. But as limited beings we cannot understand the
problems, which the contemplation of *the DEITY presents, to our minds.

-G.C. Tenny- “To Correspondents”, Review & Herald, June 9, *1896, pg.
362