which Jesus is called God’s “only begotten Son.” But as we have seen, the word “begotten” has a clear meaning within the scope of the Old Testament narrative, which reaches its fulfillment in Christ. He is the only begotten Son of God in the covenant sense, not in the ontological sense. He is the Son of God in the lineage of Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel, David, and Solomon. Along with all the other early Adventist scholars, Waggoner overlooks this biblical material. None of them ever mention, let alone reckon with, the sonship narrative of the Old Testament. It simply never figures into their interpretations. It is as if they are trying to open a locked door without the provided key, which is in their hand while they are kicking the door with their feet.
Next, Waggoner employs Colossians 1:19. But he uses the text to convey something it does not say. Christ “is of the substance of the Father,” Waggoner explains, “so that in his very nature he is God; and since this is so ‘it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.’ Col. 1:19.”
Waggoner thinks this text is saying that the Father was pleased to fill Christ with the fullness of divinity sometime way back in eternity past, the idea being that the divinity of Christ was either conferred upon Him or actualized in Him by the Father, but not innate to Him. The text, however, is talking about the post-incarnate Christ being filled with all the fullness of God as a human being, in the same sense that all mankind was originally meant to be filled with the fullness of God’s indwelling presence. How do we know this is what Paul means? Well, because he explicitly tells us so in Colossians 2:
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. Verses 9-10
Young’s Literal Translation offers an even clearer rendering:
In him doth tabernacle all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are in him made full, who is the head of all principality and authority.
The point Paul is making is that Christ, as the new prototypical human, was full of God’s indwelling presence, so that we, too, may be “made full” of God through Christ. Paul is not telling us that Christ was made divine by an act of the Father. If that were Paul’s point, we would be obligated to believe that we, too, are made divine by the Father. Clearly, this is not what the passage is saying.
Lastly, Waggoner employs Micah 5:2 in an effort to prove that Christ was at some point brought into existence by God the Father. But Micah 5:2 is a prophecy regarding the incarnation of Christ, not His ontological origins. Micah is not telling us about the “goings forth” of Christ from non-existence to existence, but from the realm of eternity past into our world via His incarnation.
Waggoner builds an entire doctrine of a lesser God being brought into existence by a “greater” God, while none of the Scriptures he marshals to support the idea say anything of the sort. It is a teaching void of biblical backing. This highlights the danger entailed in proof-texting our way to the formulation of doctrinal teachings. Waggoner sees the word “begotten” and simply assumes that the word refers to the ancient origins of Jesus. Therefore, he feels obligated to believe that Christ, in some manner, must have been brought into existence by God and, therefore, is not God in the “greater” sense that the Father is God. He sees the phrase “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,” and leaps to the conclusion that this means the Father somehow made Jesus divine, conferred godhood upon Him, or put deity into Him by some kind of mysterious act. He sees the term “goings forth” in reference to Christ and extrapolates the massive notion of God bringing forth (causing to exist) a lesser God. All the while, none of those verses of Scripture mean any of that. To discover what they do mean, one needs to read the immediate context of each text, as well as the larger narrative context of the whole Bible.
But we shouldn’t be too hard on Waggoner. He simply brought to his reading of Scripture an idea he had been taught by the Advent pioneers. So he saw what he was told he would see. He had a blind spot. Waggoner, like the Advent pioneers, was high centered, wheels spinning, on the word “begotten.” But now we know the biblical meaning of the New Testament term, “only begotten Son.” There is simply no reason to continue applying ontological and chronological interpretations to the term. That was an interpretive leap made by the Advent pioneers, but it was a leap in the dark, which we can pardon. For us, it would be a leap into the dark from the light.
Uriah Smith
Uriah Smith is a unique case in Adventist history in a number of ways. Considering the copious corrective correspondence sent his way from Ellen White, it is evident that he was a stubborn fellow with a high opinion of his opinions. He was also a brilliant, systematic thinker who was sometimes inclined to overshoot the mark theologically, pushing some of his ideas to extreme formulations. The stubbornness in his makeup meant he was inclined to take his positions to his death, no matter what evidence to the contrary might be presented, even by Ellen White. This is what he did with his views regarding the Sonship of Christ.
Uriah Smith’s first commentary on the book of Revelation was published in 1865, titled, Thoughts Critical and Practical on the Book of Revelation. At this point in his thinking, he explicitly stated that Christ was a created being:
Moreover, he is “the beginning of the creation of God.” Not the beginner, but the beginning, of the creation, the first created being, dating his existence far back before any other created being or thing, next to the self-existent and eternal God. Uriah Smith, Thoughts Critical and Practical on the Book of Revelation, p. 59 (1865)
The 1881 version of the same book eliminates the explicit statement that Christ was a created being and makes a weak attempt to correct his own previous interpretation:
Moreover, he is “the beginning of the creation of God.” Some understand by this language that Christ was the first created being, dating his existence far back before any other created beings or thing, next to the self-existent and eternal God. But the language does not necessarily imply this; for the words, “the beginning of the creation of God,” may simply signify that the work of creation, strictly speaking, was begun by him. Thoughts Critical and Practical on the Book of Revelation, p. 73 (1881)
I say this was a weak attempt to correct himself, because, while removing the explicit idea that Jesus is a created being, Smith retains the idea that Christ had not existed at some point in eternity past and was then brought into existence by means of the Father begetting Him:
Others, however, take the word ἀρχή to mean the agent or efficient cause, which is one of the definitions of the word, understanding that Christ is the agent through whom God has created all things, but that he himself came into existence in a different manner, as he is called “the only begotten” of the Father. It would seem utterly inappropriate to apply this expression to any being created in the ordinary sense of the term. Uriah Smith, ibid., p. 73 (1881)
Smith simply replaced the word “created” with the word “begotten” with no real explanation as to how there was any essential difference between the two ideas. In both cases, Christ is set forth as a caused or actualized being. Altered nomenclature notwithstanding, in both cases the bottom line in Smith’s thinking was the same: Christ had not existed, and then at some point God brought Him into existence. This appears to be where Smith decided to settle. But he didn’t just settle, he developed the concepts further in a rather odd and speculative direction. In his 1898 book, Looking Unto Jesus, Smith wrote the following:
God alone is without beginning. At the earliest epoch when a beginning could be,—a period so remote that to finite minds it is essentially eternity,—appeared the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1. This uncreated Word was the Being, who, in the fulness of time, was made flesh, and dwelt among us. His beginning was not like that of any other being in the universe. It is set forth in the mysterious expressions, “his [God’s] only begotten Son” (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9), “the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14), and, “I proceeded forth and came from God.” John 8:42. Thus it appears that by some divine impulse or process, not creation, known only to Omniscience, and possible only to Omnipotence, the Son of God appeared. And then the Holy Spirit (by an infirmity of translation called, “the Holy Ghost”), the Spirit of God, the