So, obviously the angels themselves have (or had) some confusion about just what Jesus was or is. According to these quotes, he was not recognizable as "God" to the angels, since the recognizable "God" had to tell the angels that Jesus was also "God".

Not sure I'm OK with that...

God is outside of time and space and the creator of time and space. A God too big for us to comprehend. The trinity is how God manifests God's self to finite beings, teaching the 3 aspects of God that are both necessary but one or two alone are insufficient manifestations of God.

Revelation 12 and 13 are the aspects of the trinity, only they are independent of each other, or cooperateing for their own selfish purposes instead of the oneness that we see in God's manifestations.

All three members of the trinity took our sins and suffered. Jesus in his humanity died in the process and it is an insult to God to say that there was anything less than he himself that bore the penality of our sins.

When we refuse the trinity, then we are commiting the sin of idolotry because we make one aspect of God to be the WHOLE of God. Yes, God in his unassuming nature allowed our pioneers to question the trinity (however the trinity was an optional doctrine that some members believed)and the church received the natural results: We began preaching the law the law the law until we were as dry as the hills of Gilboah. No others want to bring us back to that point. We see in other groups that reject the trinity this same thing. For example the Jehovah's Witnesses have a governing body that tells the members what to do. If I understand correctly, they are not allowed to just read through the Bible, but they have to read the texts that the governing body tells them they can read in the translation they choose, and they are very focused on works.

Our pioneers had God's leading to show the problems with rejecting the trinity. However since the Lord has lead us through this and there are people now rejecting the trinity, it would be a rejection of the truth and thus setting ourselves up for attacks by Satan.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines self-existent as:

existing of or by itself without external cause or agency

Again, someone who was originated by someone else is not self-existent. Anyway, God was not originated by anyone. Whatever you call that, it's an attribute of God, which, according to antitrinitarianism, is not an attribute of Christ.


???
Nor do the angels.

Rosangela, before resorting to Webster's New World Dictionary, please identify the Bible texts where you have seen Christ's self-existence proclaimed. Then we can stick with inspired sources which will explain themselves.

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Hi Kevin, the Church did not accept the Trinity doctrine until the Dallas General Conference in 1980.

So from the pioneer days until 1980, was true doctrine taught, or not? Were all those leaders & theologians rejecting truth?

(All Protestants come under attack by Satan.)

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I'll help Rosangela, here, but she's welcome to agree. You, gordonb1, and I may not agree on this, though: you may not ignore this text.
Yes, Christ has life in himself as God's Son since eternity. This view of Christ is not shared only among some Adventists - it used to, of course, be the church's general belief, too: other churches and leading individuals hold this view, too.

I could do this, but this is not the point, Gordon. You said:

What I'm saying is that self-existence is one of the attributes of the Father. If this attribute is lacking in the Son, the Son does not have "all the attributes of His Father." And what I'm also saying is that the Father was not originated by anyone (whatever the name you give to this attribute), but according to the antitrinitarian view the Son cannot possess this attribute.

Na! Only the unbalanced antitrinitarians: for correct views, consider our church's early beliefs, officially till 1980, literally till 1930 with several exceptions, including Elders Judson Washburn (d. 1955) and Charles Longacre (d. 1958) as well as many members 'on the ground'.

Basically, we're going off topic here, y'know, as any notion that Christ was created of God and then made into divinity is wrong and excluded as impossible: end of discussion. I don't really want to know who wrote about it, other than to help whomever to sort out his confusion. We have at least two other threads dealing with the trinity debate, remember.

Colin,

Whether Christ would have been created or begotten, it's clear that He would have been originated and brought to existence by the Father. There is no way around this.

Originating his body, not his nature! Don't forget Jn 5:26, after Jn 1:1.

It's only Seventh-day Adventist trinitarianism which denies the begotten Sonship of Christ, among trinitarians, that I know of. Odd, really, of us.

I'm not looking to split hairs with that first line: it's just the teaching & revelation of the Bible.