The relational goals of covenantal love necessitate that God, who is utterly transcendent to all of creation, become immanent to creation in order that we might come to know Him. With wonder, then, we can think of God as always in the process of coming down to us by ways and means that are innate to His love. God operates, we might say, at the apex of emotional intelligence.

In the previous chapter, we explored how mediation occurs within the realm of the human thinking-feeling process. The inaudible voice of Lady Wisdom is constantly conversing with each of us, and each of us is constantly in the process of agreeing with or silencing her voice. The Word of moral logic is always communicating to us within the realm of conscience, and we are always saying yes or no to that Word.

In this chapter, we will discover that God, the great communicator, has also shown up visibly in human history at strategic points along the way in His quest for covenantal development. These theophanies, too, are forms of mediation between infinite God and finite humanity.

Unapproachable Light

Paul explains that God dwells “in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16). John says, simply, “God is light” (1 John 1:5). In Hebrews 12:29 we are told, “Our God is a consuming fire.” To Moses God said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live” (Exodus 33:20). Whatever else all of this means, at a bare minimum it means that God, in all God’s transcendent glory, constitutes a brilliant reality that we mere mortals cannot encounter without lethal effect.

We need a wire of some kind, a conduit through which the massive energy of God can flow to us in bearable form.

We need a dimming medium between us and God.

We need a mediator.

Two Yahwehs

Throughout the Old Testament, human beings encountered God and did not die. This means, of course, that they did not encounter God as God is in all God’s unapproachable glory, but rather they encountered God in a mediated form. Observing this part of the biblical story, Hebrew scholars have long acknowledged that there are two Yahweh figures brought to view in the Old Testament—one invisible and kept at a safe distance in heaven and the other quite visible and interactive on earth.

A rabbinical scholar by the name of Alan Segal published a book in 1977 with the telling title, Two Powers in Heaven. According to Segal, at least two hundred years before Christ, the Jewish people held that there are two Yahwehs on display in the Torah:

invisible Yahweh in heaven

and visible Yahweh interacting with humans on earth

This was obvious to Hebrew scholars because it is obvious in the text of Scripture, as we will see. But Segal explains that sometime within the second century after Christ, the two Yahwehs doctrine began to be regarded with disfavor. This shift in perspective was likely due to a combination of two factors: the influence of Greek monism on Judaism and the growth of Christianity with its claim that Christ was divine, suggesting that He could have been the second Yahweh figure of the Torah who had been interacting all along with Israel throughout their history.

The book of Genesis tells the story of Creation, the Fall, and the interactions of God with the generations that followed, straight up through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob’s twelve sons, whose descendants would compose the nation of Israel. As Moses tells the story, Yahweh shows up visibly on earth at various points along the way to communicate with the key people who drive the covenant narrative.

First, Yahweh is visibly present throughout the account of Creation and the Fall of Adam and Eve. Yahweh is depicted as “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8), as if it were a normal occurrence. On this occasion, Adam and Eve hid themselves from Yahweh because they had sinned. “Then the LORD (Yahweh) God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” (verse 9). Adam is clearly having a visible and audible encounter with God. As Genesis unfolds, Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, also has personal interaction with Yahweh, until “Cain went out from the presence of the LORD” (Genesis 4:16, italics added). Noah is also depicted as having direct interactions with Yahweh (Genesis 7-9). But recall what Paul tells us: God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.” We must conclude, then, that the seeable, hearable Yahweh of Genesis is God coming to humans in a mediated form that they can bear.

When we come to chapters 11 and 12, the story of Abraham begins to unfold. “Now the LORD (Yahweh) had said to Abram . . .” (Genesis 12:1). Here begins the long narrative of Abraham’s interactions with Yahweh, in which Abraham repeatedly hears the audible voice of Yahweh and has direct, visible encounters with Him:

Then the LORD (Yahweh) appeared to him (Abraham) by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, “My LORD (Adonai), if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant. Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts. After that you may pass by, inasmuch as you have come to your servant.” Genesis 18:1-5

Three men show up unannounced at Abraham’s tent, and the passage explicitly tells us that one of them is none other than Yahweh. “Yahweh appeared to him.” Clearly, it is a visible encounter. Abraham bows to the ground and addresses one of the visitors as “Adonai,” a reverential name for Yahweh used by the Hebrew people. Abraham then brings water and washes Yahweh’s feet. Food is served and eaten. Fellowship is had. The time then comes for the visitors to go. Abraham walks with the three individuals as they depart his camp:

Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on the way. And the LORD (Yahweh) said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” Genesis 18:16-17

As they walk together, Yahweh decides He will not conceal His intentions from Abraham. A conversation ensues between them:

And the LORD (Yahweh) said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I (Yahweh) will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me (Yahweh); and if not, I (Yahweh) will know.” Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD (Yahweh). And Abraham came near and said, “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” Genesis 18:20-23

After Abraham moves through a negotiation process with Yahweh, they part company:

So the LORD (Yahweh) went His way as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham. Genesis 18:33

Clearly, Abraham has been engaged in direct contact with Yahweh in a visible form. As the story progresses, two of the three men, who are angels, arrive in Sodom and explain to Lot what is about to go down:

For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the LORD (Yahweh), and the LORD (Yahweh) has sent us to destroy it. Genesis 19:13

Then, when the account of the destruction of Sodom is given, we have this fascinating explanation of how it happened:

Then the LORD (Yahweh) rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD (Yahweh) out of the heavens . . . And it came to pass, when God (Elohim) destroyed the cities of the plain, that God (Elohim) remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt. Genesis 19:24, 29

Here we see two beings, both bearing the name Yahweh—one on earth and the other in heaven—working together to perform a single act. The Yahweh figure on earth, who has been conversing with Abraham, rains fire on the cities “from Yahweh out of the heavens.” Then the narrator says, God (Elohim, the plural, collective name for God) destroyed the cities.

The two Yahwehs phenomenon is significant because it demonstrates that the knowledge of the plurality of God is embedded within the Old Testament and is not a New Testament innovation. Long before Christ was declared to be God in the flesh in relation to God in heaven, the Hebrew people understood that God existed simultaneously as two beings: the invisible heavenly Yahweh and the visible earthly Yahweh.

In fact, the Old Testament closes with a prophecy that mentions the two Yahweh figures and points to the coming Messiah as one of them:

“Behold, I send My messenger,

And he will prepare the way before Me.

And the LORD (Yahweh), whom you seek,

Will suddenly come to His temple,

Even the Messenger of the Covenant,

In whom you delight.

Behold, He is coming,”

Says the LORD (Yahweh) of hosts.

Malachi 3:1

This prophecy foretells the arrival of the person we encounter in the New Testament, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who bears the name, Jesus Christ. And what does the prophecy say? “The LORD (Yahweh), whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant.” Who is this Jesus? He is Yahweh in the flesh, that’s who. And what is His work? To communicate the covenant. And who is telling us that Yahweh is coming to our world? Yahweh, is telling us. One Yahweh is promising that another Yahweh will be coming to the world as “the Messenger of the Covenant.” The Yahweh doing the speaking in the passage is sending forth another Yahweh distinct from Himself.

The Godhead was stirred with pity for the race, and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit gave themselves to the working out of the plan of redemption. In order to fully carry out this plan, it was decided that Christ, the only begotten Son

of God, should give Himself an offering for sin. What line can measure the depth of this love? Ellen White, The Australasian Union Conference Record, April 1, 1901

Within the intimate inner circle of the Heavenly Trio, it was decided that one of them would be the Mediator to humanity on behalf of the three. Jesus, before He was Jesus, was that Mediator. He has always been the channel of visible and audible communication between God and all created beings. He is that member of the Godhead who, from the moment created beings began to exist, was the designated ontological bridge between infinite God and finite creatures. Because God is God—utterly, completely, transcendently, infinitely other than what we are as created beings—there needed to be some kind of relational overpass by which the massive chasm could be crossed. Jesus is that overpass.

The point is simple and yet significant: even within the monotheism of ancient Hebraism, it was understood that there is an innate plurality to Yahweh’s mono identity. There is One God, but that One divine essence is composed of at least two personal beings, or two Yahwehs. This was not understood to be polytheism, because each of the two are equally Yahweh—two personal beings of one divine substance. This is explicit within the Hebrew narrative.

And this brings us to the most important confession of faith in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The Shema

Moses gave to Israel a confession of faith that encapsulates the eternal identity of God. It became known as The Shema, named such for the first word of the confession, translated into English as “Hear.”

Hear, O Israel: The LORD (Yahweh) our God (Elohim), the LORD (Yahweh) is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5

First, we see that The Shema combines the singular name, Yahweh, with the plural name, Elohim. The crucial juxtaposition of the singular and the plural conveys the idea that God is one and yet more than one.

Secondly, The Shema declares that Yahweh Elohim is something in particular: “one.” The question is, in what sense is God “one”? The word here is echad, which entails the idea of compound unity. For example, the word is used of the union of the man and the woman in marriage: “they shall become one (echad) flesh” (Genesis 2:24). The specific Hebrew word for a simple singularity, or a solitary one, is yachid. In formulating The Shema, Moses could have used yachid, but he did not. He used the word echad in order to convey the idea that God is a relational unity, not a solitary singularity. The Shema literally reads like this:

Yahweh (singular identity) our Elohim (plural identity) is one (seamless union).

Thirdly, it is on the premise that Yahweh Elohim is one that Israel is commanded to love. That is to say, The Shema commands human beings to love God precisely because God is love. God lives out His divine existence in other-centered relational dynamics, so we who are made in God’s image are to live our lives in other-centered relational dynamics. The command would make no sense and have no rational justification if God were an absolute singularity. In that case, the command would have to be something like this: “God is a self-referring being, but you should live with reference to others.” The whole point of The Shema is exactly the opposite train of thought: “God is love, so you should live in love.”

Polytheism is the idea that there are multiple rival gods.

Monotheism is the idea that there is one God.

Trinitarianism is the idea that there are three coeternal persons that compose one God. As such, trinitarianism is really the only coherent monotheism.

But because trinitarianism says there are three divine persons, it presents a logical problem:

Is the doctrine of the Trinity actually polytheism?

How can the Trinity rightfully be called monotheism?

If there are three persons, and each one of the three is God, does that not mean there are three Gods, not one?

No, actually!

The Shema resolves the problem by suggesting that God is more than one and yet one.

The answer to the problem lies in the biblical claim, utterly unique among all the belief systems of the world, that “God is love.” Consisting of three persons, God is one God precisely because love is the reality that defines who and what God is. God does not merely love, God is love. It is other-centeredness itself, which eternally occurs between the three persons of the relational unit, that constitutes God. What God is, is reciprocal love. God’s very being is constituted in the movement of the three persons in constant free relational motion toward one another. God is not, therefore, three Gods. God is three persons who are dynamically constituted as one God by virtue of the love that unifies them as one divine essence. There is one God, and only one God, forever existing in the self-giving love that defines them as one reality. God is God only as a communion of persons. And as a communion of persons, God is one God. And so it is that trinitarianism is monotheism.

A choice must be made:

either monotheism means that God is one in the sense of an absolute singularity

or monotheism means God is one in the sense of a relational unity

In the first case, love is inconceivable as the essence of God’s identity. We can try to imagine God as an absolute singularity and simultaneously as a personal being defined by love, but the idea immediately breaks down. Personhood is self-awareness in relation to others. If God is to be thought of as being a person at all, God must be thought of as existing in relationship. The notion of an ontologically solitary personal being is nonsensical. In so far as we hold that God is a personal being as opposed to an impersonal force, we are logically bound to the necessity of believing that God is a relational union of more than one person. A one-self monotheism is a logically incoherent idea. Third-person consciousness is the only consciousness there is, and third person love is the only love there is. Either God existed in eternity past as a relational dynamic of persons, plural, or God is no person at all, but rather some kind of impersonal power, which equates to pantheism.

The Eternal Sonship of Christ

Ellen White understood that the person known to us in history as Jesus Christ was none other than God in the flesh. She also understood that He was that specific member of the Heavenly Trio who was appointed, from all eternity past, to the task of being the mediator between God and created beings. She did not believe that Jesus Christ was a lesser God brought into existence by a greater God. The following statements are extremely helpful in clarifying her thinking and highlighting the crucial reality of mediation between God and humanity.

The salvation of the human race has ever been the object of the councils of heaven. The covenant of mercy was made before the foundation of the world. It has existed from all eternity, and is called the everlasting covenant. So surely as there never was a time when God was not, so surely there never was a moment when it was not the delight of the eternal mind to manifest His grace to humanity. Signs of the Times, June 12, 1901

The terms of this oneness between God and man in the great covenant of redemption were arranged with Christ from all eternity. The covenant of grace was revealed to the patriarchs. The covenant made with Abraham four hundred and thirty years before the law was spoken on Sinai was a covenant confirmed by God in Christ, the very same gospel which is preached to us. “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” The covenant of grace is not a new truth, for it existed in the mind of God from all eternity. This is why it is called the everlasting covenant. Signs of the Times, August 24, 1891

Notice that the covenant of redemption has “terms” and that these terms were “arranged with Christ from all eternity.” The plan of salvation is called “the everlasting covenant” because it existed in the mind of God for all eternity past. It is eternal in that it was always known to the omniscient mind of God. Therefore, arrangements were made to do it, but not in the sense that it was always an enacted reality. It was not, in fact, enacted until creation became a fact and redemption became a need. Prior to the actual enacting of the plan, the person who comes to be known to history as Christ, was, simply, one of the members of the Heavenly Trio.

But while God’s Word speaks of the humanity of Christ when upon this earth, it also speaks decidedly regarding His pre-existence. The Word existed as a divine being, even as the eternal Son of God, in union and oneness with his Father. From everlasting He was the Mediator of the covenant, the one in whom all nations of the earth, both Jews and Gentiles, if they accepted him, were to be blessed. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Before men or angels were created, the Word was with God, and was God. Review and Herald, April 5, 1906

Here, Ellen White spells out how Christ could be both God and the Son of God in eternity past. Prior to His incarnation, He “existed as a divine being.” That’s who and what He always was, innately, in Himself—none other than God. But in addition to existing as a fully divine being, He “even” existed “as the eternal Son of God.” But in what sense was He “the eternal Son of God”? In the sense that “from everlasting He was the Mediator of the covenant.” The Sonship position and the Mediator position are one and the same. She explains further:

The plan of salvation was designed to redeem the fallen race, to give them another trial. Christ was appointed to the office of Mediator from the creation of God, set up from everlasting to be our substitute and surety. Before the world was made, it was arranged that the divinity of Christ should be enshrouded in humanity. “A body,” said Christ, “hast thou prepared me.” But He did not come in human form until the fulness of time had expired. Then He came to our world, a babe in Bethlehem. Review and Herald, April 5, 1906

Note the insightful articulation: “Christ was appointed to the office of Mediator . . . set up from everlasting . . . But he did not come in human form until” the time appointed. The point is a simple one: as soon as creation was embarked upon, all of God’s governmental systems, social ordering, relational posturing, and plans, were set in motion for the purpose of communicating with His creation. From eternity past, Christ was “set up” in “the office of Mediator.” He was put into a role, a position, an office. That is to say, it was not His native state of being apart from and before creation. He was “set up” in that position for purposes entailed within the creation-salvation enterprise.Jesus Christ, before He was born on earth as Jesus Christ, was the one appointed to the task of mediating all communication between God and humans, and the one who would execute all redemptive deeds on behalf of the Heavenly Trio. And yet, He did not inhabit the role of God’s Son in the flesh until the moment of His incarnation. Prior to His birth via the womb of Mary, for all eternity past, He was already-but-not-yet the “Son of God.” He was already the Son of God in that He had been appointed to that office from eternity past, and He was not yet the Son of God in the fullest sense until He actually became an incarnate member of the human race.

In His humanity He was a partaker of the divine nature. In His incarnation He gained in a new sense the title of the Son of God. Said the angel to Mary, “The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” While the Son of a human being, He became the Son of God in a new sense. Thus He stood in our world—the Son of God, yet allied by birth to the human race. Signs of the Times, August 2, 1905

So, was Jesus the Son of God prior to His incarnation?

Yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that He was appointed to the office of Mediator from the moment the knowledge of God needed to be conveyed to created beings.

No, in the sense that, apart from creation, before there was any need for mediation, all He was, was God.

Said another way: as soon as God created rational beings with whom communication must occur, one member of the Godhead had to be designated as the Mediator. That member of the Heavenly Trio who became known to history as Christ, was the one appointed to that office.

The anti-trinitarians use the above statement by Ellen White to insist that Christ, prior to the creation of humans and angels, had been brought into existence—created or begotten or caused—by the Father, whom they deem to be the one and only uncreated, unbegotten, uncaused God. There are numerous problems with this line of reasoning, not the least of which is the glaring idea that deity, in the anti-trinitarian scheme of thought, is an ontological category of being that can be actualized within beings that are not divine by nature. The idea is that the one and only true God underwent what Uriah Smith described as an evolutionary process that reached its completion with the creation or begetting of Christ as a secondary, lower-level God. And with that, the anti-trinitarian position is, at its core, pantheism, because it opens the door for any created being, human or angel, to imagine that divinity is an attainable state for themselves. But the fact is, no matter how you slice and dice the idea, the notion of “created deity” or “begotten deity” is a contradiction of terms. To be God is to never have been created, and to have been created is to not be God.

But we do not need to take the above statement by Ellen White to mean that the ultimate and innate identity of Christ is one in which He is a created or begotten deity. She is simply employing the language of mediation within the creation-salvation enterprise. Yes, there is a sense in which Jesus was the Son of God before His incarnation, and yes there is “a new sense” in which He became the Son of God at the point of His incarnation. Prior to His incarnation, He was that member of the Godhead that occupied the position of Mediator to all of creation. At the point of His incarnation, He became the Son of God in the “new sense” that He was now an actual member of the human race, occupying the position vacated by Adam.

The one of the three we know as Jesus Christ was always, before His incarnation, operating in the role of Mediator. “From everlasting He was the Mediator of the covenant” (Ellen White, Review and Herald, April 5, 1906). God, as God, completely transcends all creation and pro-generative categories—father, mother, birth, child, son, daughter, offspring, angel. Therefore, in order to be known by created beings, God, necessarily, at the moment of creation, took on the form of those He had made.

By insisting that Sonship is innate to the divine identity of Christ rather than part of His role as Mediator, the anti-trinitarians end up with a massive theological problem—namely, that divinity is a quality of being that can be created. Yes, there are statements in the writings of Ellen White that speak of Christ as the Son of God before His incarnation. Failing to understand the nature of mediation, the anti-trinitarian advocates interpret these statements to mean that Christ must have been brought into existence by God sometime in eternity past.

He was not.

And it is imperative that we understand that He was not.

Why?

Well, because, if the pro-generative category of “Son” is, in fact, descriptive of Christ’s ultimate, intrinsic, ontological, metaphysical identity, apart from and prior to the creation-redemption enterprise, then the anti-trinitarian position is correct in asserting that Christ is not God in the highest sense. And if He is God, but not God in the highest sense, then it is possible for a caused being to be God in a lower sense. And if that’s true, deity is a state of being ontologically accessible to us all.

Mediation is the biblical truth that answers the mystery of the eternal Sonship of Christ. As we developed in The Sonship of Christ, God, as God, necessarily transcends all material, pro-generative categories. To say that Jesus is God and then turn around and claim that He was generated into existence in some manner, is theologically incoherent. To be God, by definition, is to transcend all ontological categories that entail causation. If Jesus is truly and fully divine, then we must hold that He is eternally self-existing. This is what Ellen White was trying to clarify when she said, employing the most unequivocal language she could muster, that “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived” (The Desire of Ages, p. 530).

And this brings us to the place where we can ponder the implications of the anti-trinitarian picture of God with reference to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary.