In this YouTube video, Seventh-day Adventist Dwayne Lemon answers a question from the audience regarding the Trinity. The transcript of the video with time stamp is shown below. The doctrine of the Trinity is being questioned in the church and it’s important for every person to make intelligent decisions based on the evidence.

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Dwayne Lemon Trinity Q&A Transcript

[0:01] Amen. Any other questions?
[0:02] Who else has a question. Okay. We have a hand here.
[0:04] And then my sister here.
[0:09] Audience: A friend of mine is come to me with the view of the Trinity.
[0:18] Audience: Trinitarian view of the what we believe in the SDA church now
[0:23] Audience: says it’s contrary to what our pioneers believed.
[0:27] Audience: I’m still working on it but what’s the
[0:31] Audience: true position of the trinitarian position?
[0:35] Audience: quoting people like Froom
[0:38] Audience: who was one of us but quoted outside sources
[0:45] Audience: and then linking them to spirit of prophecy
[0:48] Audience: and then coming out with the trinitarian doctrine.

Jets of Light Comments

A brother asks Dwayne Lemon a question about the Trinity.

The brother relays a story about a friend who explained to him that LeRoy Froom a Seventh-day Adventist minister and historian quoted outside sources and then linked them to spirit of prophecy writings.
leroy-froom-helped-sda-belief-in-trinity
Article: 7 Ways LeRoy Froom Helped SDA’s Embrace the Trinity

 

 

[0:51] Of course. Well, number one the first thing that we would have to remember is this:
[0:55] The word Trinity does not mean what a lot of people say it means.
[1:01] That’s the first point.
[1:02] In other words when a lot of people here the word Trinity
[1:04] we often think “oh oh” Roman Catholicism
[1:07] and there’s a hierarchy and all this other stuff
[1:09] where God’s over here, the Son is over here, and the Spirit of God is this that and the other
[1:13] but the word Trinity simply means a group of three.
[1:15] That’s what the word Trinity means simply by definition.
[1:19] A group of three. Okay, so that’s point number one that I want them to undersand.
[1:23] Is did our pioneers and did Ellen White herself acknowledge three eternal persons?
[1:28] Did they acknowledge Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
[1:31] That will be the first point. And the answer is yes.
[1:33] Then secondly, I would say how are you going to use the spirit of prophecy
[1:37] to try to disprove it when Evangelism page 616 clearly says
[1:41] The Holy Spirit is a person with a personality.
[1:46] So I’m like you can’t get away from that.
[1:50] Because the anti-trinitarian movement
[1:51] there not simply against the name there against the concept.
[1:54] and they believe the Holy Spirit not a person or a being
[1:57] but more so a force or an energy that exudes from Christ or the Father.
[2:02] but if they using Ellen White, I just ask them
[2:05] what are you going to do with Evangelism 616
[2:07] Evangelism 616 clearly says the Holy Spirit is a person with a personality.
[2:15] That is a clear direct statement.
[2:16] So for me that shuts it down as far as Ellen White is concerned.
[2:20] The Bible, in Acts chapter 5, one minute they come together in Acts the fifth chapter
[2:25] and they are talking to Ananias and Saphira.
[2:28] Verse four says you have not lied unto men but unto God.
[2:33] Verse five says you have lied unto the Holy Spirit.
[2:37] So the Bible acknowledges the Holy Spirit as God.
[2:40] So when I look at the evidence
[2:43] I then begin to say I don’t think your looking at it balanced.
[2:47] Fourthly, I also consider what the pioneers did say versus what they didn’t.
[2:52] If you look back at Froom. You can look at James White.
[2:55] You can look at several of our pioneers
[2:56] They did speak against the Trinity but
[3:00] it wasn’t the concept of simply the word a group of three
[3:03] there was the principle of the Trinity
[3:06] what was popularly believed in those days was that
[3:11] God was one being that manifested Himself in three ways.
[3:16] And this was referred to as the Trinity
[3:19] You can look at certain pentecostal groups and apostolic groups
[3:21] and they still believe that today.
[3:22] They actually believe that Jesus is the Father
[3:24] He is the Son and then He is also the Holy Spirit.
[3:26] Well that is error. That is completely unbiblical.
[3:29] And you can use the baptism of Christ in Matthew 3 to disprove that
[3:33] Jesus is in the water. The Spirit of God comes upon Him like a dove
[3:36] and a voice from heaven says this is my Son in whom I am well pleased.
[3:40] There were three.
[3:41] So I don’t know how people can say that Jesus is all of them at the same time.
[3:44] So when the pioneers were speaking against it
[3:47] What I would challenge them to do is to go back to the pioneers
[3:50] and look at not so much what they said in word but what they understood in concept.
[3:55] They were not against the fact that there
[3:57] was God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
[3:59] But it was more so that they were against the idea of
[4:03] one being being manifested in three ways.
[4:05] and that is what I kept seeing when I finally said let me look up what the writers were saying
[4:10] Not just the fact that they just said
[4:11] the devilish doctrine of the Trinity.
[4:13] but more so what made it devilish?
[4:15] That to me from what I have seen when I listen to audioverse
[4:18] or whatever these organizations where people have preached on it
[4:21] that’s what I don’t see. I don’t see them qualifying
[4:24] what the pioneers were actually against.
[4:27] Were they against the word or were they against a concept
[4:30] connected with the word.
[4:31] And that for me has been the issue that kind of sealed it.
[4:35] Because when I went to Australia
[4:36] I literally had like anti-trinitarians like surrounding me
[4:39] I felt like a kid in a school fight.
[4:40] Literally it’s just like you know everybody was surrounding me and waiting outside for me.
[4:44] And I was just like “okay”
[4:45] They started “what about this”, “what about that”
[4:48] Because the anti-trinitarian movement was very very large in Australia when I was there.
[4:53] And we just started going by it step by step point by point.
[4:55] And as we did it they got mad.
[4:59] They just started getting mad. It turned into a bad situation.
[5:01] One of them tried to get a little violent but God delivered me from it.
[5:04] No seriously. I was standing here and I was going through my Bible
[5:09] and I was going through it point by point
[5:11] and the guy started talking over me
[5:13] So even when I’m talking, he’s talking over me
[5:15] and I said well I guess if your not going to listen to me then our studies over
[5:18] So then I put my Bible in my bag
[5:20] and then he went to my bag reached in my bag
[5:26] and said you will listen to me. And he stuck his hand in my bag.
[5:29] Now, in my mind I was going through a battle because I’m like
[5:32] Okay, if I try to stop him this is not going to look right and so and so
[5:36] Lord help me. And you ever heard of the Samoans?
[5:40] The Samoan brethren. The Samoans are kind of healthy, big.
[5:45] There was a Samoan brother sitting right there
[5:47] And when that man reached in my bag
[5:50] that Samoan brother looked at him and he got up
[5:53] and he picked that brother up in a bear hug
[5:56] literally wrapped him up. The guy was like this
[5:58] Wrapped him up, carried him to the door and said get out of here and leave that man alone.
[6:02] And I said well praise the Lord. The Lord sent an angel.
[6:05] I was like, praise God. I’ll take it.
[6:09] So the Lord delivered. So I was like amen.
[6:12] So you know again. There are two points on the pioneers
[6:16] Number one, they were growing in understanding
[6:18] Are pioneers use to believe in the 2520
[6:20] and they got to a point that they didn’t advocate it anymore.
[6:22] Our pioneers use to believe that the Sabbath started at six o’clock
[6:26] and then they got to an understanding that was broader.
[6:28] Our pioneers use to go ahead and say
[6:30] Oh the Godhead thing is not true and then later on they progressed.
[6:33] It was progressive for our brethren.
[6:35] We should not build our doctrines strictly off of what the pioneers believed.
[6:38] The pioneers were very much subject to error.
[6:40] And we need to stop treating them like they weren’t. Especially William Miller.
[6:43] That 2520 thing, I’m telling you….why are literally building it seems our
[6:52] teachings off of what pioneers taught. And our pioneers were very progressive
[6:57] and growing. So when I really talk with my brothers and sisters
[7:01] from the anti-trinitarian movement. I’m just like look
[7:05] Do you believe the Bible? Do you believe the Spirit of Prophecy?
[7:07] Do you accept what it says?
[7:08] They try to say that Evangelism 616 was manipulated.
[7:12] My problem with that is, if your saying Evangelism was manipulated
[7:18] or the writings of Ellen White, then how do we know what wasn’t manipulated?
[7:22] So now what you are doing is your putting me in a world that Satan would love
[7:26] which is now I can’t trust the writings anymore.
[7:28] So there’s traps upon traps that alot of these movements setup.
[7:33] I believe if God can show Ellen White that a little girl stole her bonnet
[7:38] then God can help Ellen White know if someone manipulated the writings.
[7:43] You understand that?
[7:44] So that is the position that I hold on it. I have a great study on it
[7:48] that I will send you. We can exchange emails. I will send you the whole thing.
[7:51] It is one of the most thorough studies.
[7:53] The brother that was in Australia and to me he did one of the most thorough
[7:57] studies on the anti-trinitarian movement. He made it really plain.
[8:01] So I would be happy to send it to you.
[8:03] I will send you all the notes on it.

Elder Dwayne Lemon claims the word Trinity simply by definition means a group of Three.
the-word-trinity-means-three-seventh-day-adventist-idea-sm
Article: The Word Trinity Simply Means Three Idea