Ellet Joseph Waggoner:
The Myth and the Man
David P. McMahon

Waggoner the Pantheist

The General Conference of 1897

E. J. Waggoner first expressed his pantheistic ideas in 1894. In 1895 and 1896 he did not significantly develop these ideas but repeated his thoughts on justification, the atonement and the incarnation. Then in 1897 Waggoner returned to the United States from England for the General Conference session. (1) Here he presented a series of studies on the book of Hebrews. He ignored those chapters so vital to Adventist theology—apparently because he no longer believed in a literal sanctuary in heaven nor in its "cleansing" through the intercession of Christ. (2) Rather than provoking a confrontation on something so vital to historic Adventism, however, Waggoner focused on the earlier chapters of Hebrews. We are tempted to say he used this scripture to promote his pantheistic sentiments.

Amazingly, none of the General Conference delegates or leaders of the church protested Waggoner's pantheism. In fact, his remarks were apparently well received. Furthermore, Robert Haddock is the only scholar we know who has detected Waggoner's pantheism at the 1897 General Conference session. Froom notes that Waggoner spoke at the session but makes no mention of his pantheism. He accuses Kellogg, however, of then introducing the theories which later had their effect on Waggoner.

In his lecture on February 11, 1897, Waggoner said:

All things stand by his Word. He spoke, and it was. So when we look abroad on the things of nature, we see evidences of his power. When we look over the meadow, we see the Word of God made grass. God spake, and, lo! that Word appeared as a tree, or as grass.....

As the last act of creation, God made man. And as in all creation we see the Word of God made trees, grass, etc., in man we see the Word of God made flesh....

So just as God made man, and crowned him with glory and honor, we now see the man Jesus, that Man who is in every man crowned with honor and glory; and he added all things unto him. (3)

In his following address Waggoner continued:

When God made Adam by his Word, the Word was made flesh. As God spoke all things into existence, his words went forth, and, lo! the earth appeared. His Word went forth; he spoke; he said, Trees, and they were there; he said, Grass, and it was; so that all these things that grow over the ground are visible manifestations of the Word. It is the Word of life, and these are simply some of the various forms of the life of the Word. And so with man formed there in the beginning. There we see the Word manifested as flesh. The power by which this was done was God's power, and so God was in the Word, and the Word was in Adam, so that this power could be manifested in him, God dwelling in him and working in him; God taking this dust and using it to do these wonderful things. It is God that worketh in you to will and to do his good pleasure. Now, if God is there, and I am here, that is altogether too far away. It is God that worketh in me. The Word was made flesh, and the life of Adam was the life of God. He has no other life. Now the blessedness of this is, when man fell, the Word was made flesh. But suppose God had forsaken him, and had not been willing to make the Word flesh; what would have become of him? — He would have returned to dust. But God continues his life to man. So when man fell, God goes right down there with him. Is that so, or is it some fancy? Did God continue life to man, notwithstanding he had sinned? We are here, are we not? We are sinners. We are living, are we not? Whose life is it manifested in us?—It is God's life. Then God continues his life to sinful men. When sin entered, death came; so when man sinned, death came upon him. God stayed with him; therefore, in that he stayed with man, although man had sinned, God took upon himself sinful flesh. And so he took upon himself death, for death had passed upon all the world.

Now, let us see further. All creation is continued until now "by the same Word." Everything in this world is kept by the same Word. Although everything is cursed, and everybody can see that, it is yet a fact that it continues; it is an evidence that God is there, Christ is there, the divine Word is there bearing the curse. But in what thing does Christ endure the curse? Where is that point where the curse falls upon Christ?—Sinful flesh. Not only sinful flesh, but that which stands as the symbol of the curse that falls upon Christ—the cross. What is the evidence that he bears the curse?—' 'Accursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." Death and the cross both together mean the curse; therefore wherever there is anything, there is the curse. Nevertheless, wherever there is anything, there is Christ. Wherever there is anything, then, that exists and bears the curse, there is Christ. But where Christ has the curse upon him, he bears the cross. Then do you not see the truthfulness of that statement which appeared from Sister White about a year ago, that "the cross of Christ is stamped upon every leaf in the forest?" And a little later than a year ago there appeared in a first-page article of the Review and Herald a statement that the very bread we eat is stamped with the cross. There is something wonderful in that. Perhaps when you read that in every blade, and every leaf, there is the cross of Christ, some of us read it over without thinking about it, and some of us simply said, with Nicodemus, how can this be? How soon do we find Christ crucified, then?—Just as soon as there was any curse. And he is risen again as well, because if you preach Christ crucified, his resurrection necessarily goes with that.

Now, see how God has proclaimed the gospel for our encouragement everywhere. People are inclined to get discouraged; Christians are likely to think, Well, the Lord has forgotten us. Did you ever think that way, as though the Lord didn't care for you;—that he has left you alone? Is there any one who has not felt that way, discouraged, in short? I am not of much importance in this world, we sometimes say; I am of no consequence; I am only one very insignificant and despised, and justly despised; I could drop out, and it wouldn't make any difference. He said that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without his notice; and why?—Because the life of God is there, and there is nothing that can come upon anything in this world that God does not feel. It touches him personally, because his life is all the sensibility that there is in this world. You are struck, you are beaten; you feel it. What makes you feel it? If you were dead you wouldn't feel it. Why do you feel it?—Because you are alive. Where do you get life?—It comes from God. It is God's own life isn't it? Then is it possible for a human being to be touched, just touched—not beaten, bruised, or despised—and the Lord not feel it? Can it be so, whether saint or sinner? Can anything happen to any creature in this world does God not feel? Whither shall I go from his presence, and where shall I go to be away from the presence of God? We cannot get away, because God's power is in everything; and therefore a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without the Lord knowing it. We live with all these infirmities. That is Christ in the flesh, then. Do you suppose that Christ would have endured all this, and stayed here all these years, with all this infirmity and wickedness and weakness and sin upon him, and then by and by step out and let it all drop? If he was to do that, he would have let it drop in the beginning; but the fact that he came in fallen humanity is an evidence of God's presence, and his presence to give life. And so God on everything has put the stamp of the cross,—upon every leaf, upon every blade of grass, upon everything that we have to do with. He simply means that everywhere we go, and everything we have to do, and everything we eat, and the air we breathe,— through these he is simply preaching the gospel to us, giving the gospel to us. Encouragement, strength, salvation! (4)

Waggoner's presentation on February 15 revealed the link between his pantheism and his view of the incarnation. He said:

Christ has come in the flesh, my flesh. Why? Is it because I am so good?—O, no; for there is no good flesh for Christ to come into. Christ has come in the flesh, in every man's flesh. "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." The life is the light, and lights every man. In other words, every man in this world lives upon the grace of God. "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed;" and that is true of the man who blasphemes God. Where did that man get his breath?—From God. God continues breath to him in his wickedness, in order that the gift may reveal God's goodness and he repent: for it is the goodness of God. He is kind to the evil and the good; he sends rain upon the just and the unjust; that is God. (5)

Waggoner then removed the distinction between the Holy Spirit and the breath from God given to all mankind in creation.

Now, there is one thing we need all the time to keep our lives going. It is air. Did you make this air? Where did you get the air you breathe? It is God's air; it is the breath of God.

God put his own breath into man's nostrils, in order that he might live. That is the way we continue to breathe. It is the breath of God that keeps us alive, the Spirit of God in our nostrils. Well, that man must acknowledge what is so patent that he cannot help but acknowledge it; namely, that he did not bring himself into existence, and that he cannot perpetuate his existence for one instant. He is brought face to face with the power of God in him, keeping him alive. It is Christ in fallen man, it is Christ in cursed man, it is Christ with the curse on him, it is Christ crucified. Christ taking fallen, sinful humanity upon him, is Christ crucified. Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend up into heaven to bring Christ down to me, that is to be crucified? No; he is here in the flesh.

"If thou wilt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus." What is it to confess him? To confess a thing is not to make it so, but it is to acknowledge that the thing is so. Now the fact that we are to confess is, that Christ is come in the flesh. 0, let me read a word here. Rom. 1:18-20: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness." What is the truth? Christ says, "I am the truth." Thus the truth that is stated is that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" who hold back Christ in them. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them;" for ever since the creation of the world, the invisible things of God are clearly seen, "being understood by the things that are made."

Look at the trees; we see the power and the divinity of God in the trees and grass, and in every thing that God has made, and see it clearly, too. But I read that text for years, and forgot that I was one of the things that God made. Am I not one of the things of the creation, just as well as a tree? Then what is seen and understood in the things that God has made, even man not excluded?—His eternal power and divinity. So we are without excuse. Now if thou wilt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, that he is in your flesh,—but do not stop with that confession,—"and shalt believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead," lifted him up to his own right hand in the heavenly places, "thou shalt be saved." That is Christ crucified, and raised in every man. When he will confess the truth, and believe the truth, then he has Christ in him, crucified and risen, with the resurrection power, to do whatsoever God says. (6)

The next day Waggoner continued:

Yes, believe on the Lord. But, what? Where is he? Where may I find the Lord? How can I know about Christ crucified and risen? It does not say that. The Word is Christ. Now do not say, Who came to bring the Word to us, or Christ to us, in order that we might be made righteous to keep the law. No; what saith it?—The Word is in them. It is in thy mouth. Or, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, literally.

What is the word of faith which we preach?—"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Now, what is the great fact, the great truth, about the Lord Jesus that is to be confessed with the mouth? Why, that the Word was made flesh—that is the thing to be confessed, Confess the Lord Jesus. Why confess Christ?—Because to confess a thing is to say it is so. To confess the Lord Jesus in the flesh, is to confess that Christ is the power of God; and that is to confess that this is not of men at all. This life I have is not my life. It is God's.

It is God's in the most absolute sense. The breath of God, and the Word—these are even in thy mouth. It is the manifestation of God's power. Then when a man confesses that, he simply gives up, he renounces all his assumptions to power, and of right to rule; all ownership of himself that he has claimed to have, he gives up, and he is the Lord's because this life is the life that God has given. It is the breath that God has lent. I am living upon his bounty; not only so, but it is his life within.

Knowing that fact—that Christ, the Lord, the power of God, is in my flesh—now I will believe in my heart that God has raised him from the dead; that is, gives him the victory over the infirmity of the flesh, even over death. Then I have Christ crucified and risen again in the flesh, and when I believe in that Christ risen to the right hand of God, that lifts me up so long as I believe. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness....

We often speak of the third angel's message going with power, or with a loud voice, "the loud cry." What have we here?—"Lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid." Then this is the loud cry of the third angel's message. This is what we have here in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. It is the last message going with a loud cry, saying, "Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God." Where? says one. I cannot see him; where is he? Get your eyes open then. That is the last message, Behold your God. Where? — In the things which he has made.

We may learn lessons from the grass. How often we have gone out just as the grass or the Indian corn was beginning to spring forth, and as we passed along we noticed a big clod of earth detached and rising up. It might weigh several pounds. And then we had the curiosity to look under it; and what did we see?—just a little blade of grass, perhaps a blade of wheat, so tiny and small it had no color to it yet;—just a little white mass of fiber and water; that is all, nothing to it. It was just standing upright, and not only standing upright under that clod of earth, but it was steadily pushing it out of the way, and was just keeping its place and going right along, regardless of this clod. It is safe to say that a blade of grass pushes away a weight ten thousand times its own weight. If a man had as much power according to his size and weight, he could lift a mountain; he could take up Pike's Peak, and throw it off as a lad would a football.

But when you take it out of there, it will not hold itself up. It just yields—it is gone. If you even remove the clod, it cannot stand. That blade of grass is not such a little thing after all, but it is undeniable that there was a wonderful power manifested in that blade of grass. But what was that power?—God's own life, his own personal presence there, doing in the grass just what he designed for the grass; it was God that was working in it, both to will and to do of his own good pleasure....

What life therefore is manifested everywhere in the universe?—The life of Christ. Christ in the flesh crucified and risen, Christ in the flesh crucified in me, because if Christ is crucified some distance from me, even though it be close beside me, it is far away. I cannot make the connection. But when I know that that life which was offered, and which was powerful enough to gain the victory over sin and death, that very same life is in me, and confess it and believe it, everything that that life can do is mine....

So we see that the law is one, and that it is God's life, and it is not an arbitrary arrangement, but God is the author and source of life, and his life works in all his creatures so far as they let him. (7)

On February 17 Waggoner completely dehistoricized the atonement and replaced it with the sin bearing of Christ in every man.

Now what we want is to stop trifling. If the Lord is so near, and to be found, we want to find him; and he says: Seek ye the Lord while he is near. While he may be found, call upon him. While he is near, 0, so near that you do not have to go across the room; you do not have to go anywhere at all but here; he is within you. He was so near me all those years that I did not know anything about him, and he was bearing my sin. Why?—Because the Lord Jesus is in everything that he has made. He upholds all things, because he is in them. He is cohesion even to inanimate nature. It is the personal, powerful presence of God that keeps the mountains together, and the stones from crumbling to pieces; because God is there with his personal power. And we saw yesterday about the grass, and the trees, and the rootlets,—that they take up the nourishment that is adapted to them, and leave to one side that which is not fitted for them. That fine discrimination which takes what is necessary for them, and leaves the other aside, we saw was nothing but the power of God doing for them just what we say is instinct in the animals; and when it comes to man, we call it reason. That is God's personal presence. Now if we acknowledge that he is in us, that we are as grass and plants, and acknowledge that as truly as the grass itself does, then this power of God will lead us to make just the same right choice as does the grass, the rootlet, and the tree, in choosing that which is necessary for them....

When we believe that all flesh is grass, we simply allow God in us to choose for us as he chooses in the rootlet and the plant, to select that thing which is necessary. The rootlet will go a long distance in search of what it needs, and will find it every time. It will go a long distance to find moisture, and leave the dry place alone. It is passive in the hands of the Lord, and the Lord chooses for it, and it is simply right.

We are to learn this truth, to behold God in the things he has made. Thus we are to behold God in us....

Crucified and risen in the flesh, in every man's flesh, I carry to the people that message, Behold your God, crucified and risen, not far from you, but in your mouth and heart; believe that he is your life, that he was crucified and has risen to deliver you from death and sin. When we recognize that, then he will fill us. (8)

What is air, then?—It is God's breath. If we knew this not only physically, but spiritually, we should be much more alive than we are....

The life that God breathed into man was God, and so long as man continued to acknowledge that his life, his breath, came from God, he remained good. (9)

Waggoner logically combined his pantheism with his view of sanctification.

What is righteousness? Doing right. Then many shall do right; that is clear. And how will many do right?—By the obedience of One. Well, then, if I am made righteous by his obedience, if I do right by his obedience, where does he obey?—In me. What am I doing?—Letting him, submitting to the righteousness of God....
Then, when Christ in us obeys,—mark, when Christ in us obeys,—how much power has the devil against us?— None. When we allow Christ to fill us through the Spirit, so that we are filled with all the fullness of God, then we have power "over all the power of the enemy." What is our part? — Submission.

Now, that same work of submission is enough for you and me all the rest of our lives. To submit, to give up, and to keep giving up, or rather, to keep given up, as new experiences arise, is all we have to do; and it will occupy all our time. There is work enough for us, then, to hold still, and let the Lord fill us with his Spirit, and work us. That does not mean laziness; it is passive activity, if you please; it means being just as active as the Lord himself was; because Christ himself living in us will be just the same as he was when he was here on the earth..

Then God will live in us, and will choose for us just the same as in the tree. We do not know anything, but he will think for us....

... but he will think in us everything that he desires us to think, and will work in us perfectly to will and to do his good pleasure. Then we will be organized, reorganized, made new. It is God thinking and acting in us. (10)

His victory is our victory, because he gained it for us, and we get the benefit of it by allowing him to dwell in us in his fullness. The enemy is just as powerless against Christ in us, as he was against Christ eighteen hundred years ago. (11)

Waggoner expressed his pantheistic perfectionism in a sermon to the conference on Sabbath morning, March 6.

If anything less than the fullness of God be in us, we cannot witness for him. God's faithful witnesses, seen in the starry heavens, bear continual testimony to his glory; but they speak no word. So with us. The strongest witness we can bear to the character of God, is a life that is consistent with that character. And this is not true of the preachers only, but of every child of God. And this life can only be lived through the power of the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us....

The power of God is in the truth. We do not seek for miracles, but we should seek for the transforming power of the Spirit of God. The power of God in us seeks for utterance and expression. It has been too long repressed. The Lord still waits for us. He does not become impatient with us; and bears with us because he has his character at stake. The only way in which he can demonstrate the perfection of his character, and take away his reproach, is in perfecting a people to his praise. He is able to accomplish this in us. Shall we let God have a chance? Shall we let the people know that God is with us, that they may see him and know him? (13)

Just as you can not conceive of Jesus' losing a day's work from sickness, so it ought not to be conceivable of Seventh-day Adventists' losing a day's work from sickness.... Then if the life of Jesus is manifest in our mortal flesh, we shall be in this world the same as he was. (18)

There was One about whom the devil could not taunt God, and that was Jesus Christ. When we ourselves see, and get other people to see, that this is God's life,—that it is his Spirit which fills all space; that air is a means of conveying his Spirit to us; and that it is God's own life,— then we see that air is the power of God to purify, to give life. You take in the life, and live by it; thus we see the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses from all sin. He gives us life, to keep us going. So then, if we shut out the air, we shut out, unconsciously, the fullness of the Spirit of God. But if we receive it,—let the air come in full and free, and take it as the gift of God,—we get life. It is God that gives us this life, and we live by him. It is the same with eating. We live by the food that he gives to us; but it is his own life that he gives to us, and there is no other. If we take that by faith,—and "the just shall live by faith,' '—we are receiving the life of God. (19)

A voice: Is the life of God in the bread?

E. J. Waggoner: Yes.

A voice: What is the difference, then, between this and the position taken by the priest?

E. J. Waggoner: They are diametrically opposite. Christ said, when he took bread, and broke it, "This is my body;" but the priest says, "I will take this bread, and make it the body." The priest denies the truth of God. The Lord's Supper is simply the model meal. Christ is the bread of life,—the bread that came down from heaven. But when I said that, I was not speaking of manna. The Jews said: "Our fathers had manna." What did God say before he gave the Israelites manna?—He said, "I will rain bread from heaven for them." "I am the bread that came down from heaven." Yet in that day they said to Jesus, We would like to see a miracle. What had he done?—He had brought the bread from heaven for them. He had given them bread,—himself,—and they had all been feeding upon spiritual meat.

Christ took the piece of bread, and said, "This is my body." Whoever really recognizes Christ in the bread, ought to cut off everything from his table that which is not purely of Christ, and that does not have the pure life of Christ in it. He should cut off everything from it that is corrupted, because Christ is a Lamb without blemish or spot.

Then we are to take that by faith unto life. Are we to live by faith?—"This is my body." But let every man stop, and examine himself. "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." What was the trouble with the Jews in the desert?—They had spiritual meat; but the very best food in the world will not save a man if he does not see the Lord in it. The infidel can not preach the gospel of health, because when one takes these things apart from Christ, he is not made the underlying principle.

What do we put into the ground when we want corn?— We plant the seed. But what did God put there to bring forth the first corn? "The seed is the word of God." He sowed the seed of his own word. Now when you have a handful of good seed, that seed has the life of God in it.

You have got the same thing that God put into the ground when corn first grew. When this is made into bread, life is in it still. We do not see the life, but it is there, and it is the life of God. It is his body, and we take his body and get life. But if we take it, not discerning his body, we reject that, and really say we can live without him. We do not pay attention to his laws, and so die. But if you see in it his body, then in every meal to which we sit down, we see the body of Christ; and we take it, and we live by it. In every meal we eat without recognizing the Lord's body, we eat and drink condemnation to ourselves. (20)

Thank the Lord that the river of God is full of water, and never runs dry. It is always running. Do you not see? The rain comes down from heaven, filters down from the river of God. You and I have drunk from the rock, and have forgotten God the Rock. We have been drinking from the life of God all our lives, and have not known it. . .

We have a drink of water here,—living water. Where does it come from?—The throne of God, where Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain, is. It flows from his heart. It is the blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin. The blood of Christ is a real thing.

That water which flows from the throne of God is his life, and his life is the light. "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another; and the blood of the Son of God cleanses us from all sin." Is that a real thing? or is it only a figurative expression,—a mere form of words? Can we actually bathe in the blood of Christ, and live by it?—Yes; for what is the blood?—It is the life. The life is in the blood. By whatever means Christ conveys the life to us, that is the blood, the life. He gives it to us. It does not necessarily have to be always in one form. There are innumerable forms in which life is conveyed to us; but it is all the one life. Remember, the Spirit and the water and the blood agree in one; they all come to one.
Water is life, and it has life-giving powers. (22)

O, I delight in drinking water, as I never have before; I delight in bathing. Why, I come right to the throne of God. A man may get righteousness in bathing, when he knows where the water comes from, and recognizes the source. The world is a good deal nearer the gospel than it knows anything about when it says that "cleanliness is next to godliness." Ah, but cleanliness is godliness. "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might purify it and cleanse it by a "water-bath in the word." That is the way it reads in the Danish, and that is literal, too. Just bathe in the word. That is not figurative, that is not sentimental; God wants his people to live now as seeing the Invisible, so that they will walk in the sight of the river of God, and drink from the throne of God, and all they do will be eating and drinking in his presence....

Let us drink in the water every day. Then we are living in the presence of God. (23)

Where is heaven? I was asked. I had my idea of the center of the universe, with heaven and the throne of God in the midst, but disclaimed any attempt to fix the center of the universe astronomically. But I was urged to understand that heaven is where God is, and God is everywhere in the grass, in the trees, in all creation. There was no place in this scheme of things for angels going between heaven and earth, for heaven was here and everywhere. The cleansing of the sanctuary that we taught about was not something in a far-away heaven. The sin is here (the hand pointing to the heart), and here is the sanctuary to be cleansed. To think of God as having a form in the image of which man was made, was said to be idolatry....

It seemed to me these ideas set all earth and heaven and God swirling away into mist. There was in it no objective unity to lay hold of. With scripture terms and Christian ideas interwoven, it seemed the old doctrine of the Hindus—all nature a very part of Brahma, and Brahma the whole. (27)

Let us see some of the ways in which this life is manifested, so that we can lay hold upon it. Right here in this chapter, we have it, "God is light." I believe that. I do not have any explanation to make; I do not trouble my brain in thinking about "spiritual" or "literal" or figurative language, or anything of that kind. The Bible says, "God is light," and I believe it. Believing that to be so, has revealed to me many things that I never would have known if I had not believed it. Is it the glory of God that he has placed upon the heavens? The heavens declare it. The sun, the moon, and the stars give light to this earth; but whose light are they giving?—The light of God. Christ is the light of the world, and when, on one occasion, he made that statement, he immediately demonstrated it so that we can see how real his light is, because he found a man born blind, and made him see. Then when your eyes look out on such a day as today, and see the light covering the whole earth as with a garment, what are you looking at?—Life. Whose life?—Why, the only life there is—God's life; we are seeing his life. We are too much afraid of coming into touch with realities. Let it be fixed in our minds everlastingly, that when we look out and see this glorious light, we are seeing God's face,— really seeing the light that shines from God's face.

Light is one manifestation of God's life, but in the first chapter of John we have reference to a cleansing fluid as well. We have something that cleanses us from all sin, and that is the life of the Lord, for we are "saved by his life." Turn to the thirty-sixth psalm: "How excellent is thy loving kindness, 0 God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasure. For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light."

So here we have water, the fountain of life. But life is light, and the river of life, clear as crystal, that flows sparkling from the throne of God, is but another manifestation of that life which is light. And so we have water as a manifestation of that one life. Water cleanses impurity; and by the daily washing of our hands, by the washing of our clothes, by the water that washes the impurities from the earth and carries them away to the sea, by that running water which will take impurities that are cast into the stream and swallowing them up, so that in the course of a few miles' running, the water will be pure again, the Lord is showing us the cleansing power of his life, so that we may know that if we simply let ourselves be lost in that life, we shall be cleansed and kept free from sin. This is a reality. (29)

Some time ago, when I was out taking my morning walk, and the soft refreshing breeze was fanning my cheek, I remembered that the breeze that blew was the breath of God's nostrils. He was blowing his own breath upon my face. You have often thought of the wind kissing the cheek, and then that scripture came to my mind, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine." What a grand thing to know that one is in such close connection with it. [Voice: Amen!] This is happiness. To awaken in the morning, and to feel that life through the whole body, and to know that I am in personal connection with it, to know that God is not only in that room, round about me, but that his life is in me. (30)

What is man made for?—For the dwelling-place of God.

When man, who is the throne of God, has the Spirit of God fully dwelling in him, that one universal, undivided Spirit thinks God's thoughts in him, just the same as when my brain thinks, my foot moves....

The perfect man is the man who does not think for himself, but lets God do his thinking for him. (35)

When God has given this witness to the world of his power to save to the uttermost, to save sinful beings, and to live a perfect life in sinful flesh, then he will remove the disabilities and give us better circumstances in which to live. But first of all this wonder must be worked out in sinful man, not simply in the person of Jesus Christ, but in Jesus Christ reproduced and multiplied in the thousands of his followers. So that not simply in the few sporadic cases, but in the whole body of the church, the perfect life of Christ will be manifested to the world, and that will be the last crowning work which will either save or condemn men; and greater testimony than that there is not, and can not be, because there is none greater than God. When God is manifest among men, not simply as God apart from man, but as God in man, suffering all that man suffered, subject to everything that man is subject to, what greater power can be manifested in the universe than that? (37)

Before the end comes, and at the time of the coming of Christ, there must be a people on earth, not necessarily large in proportion to the number of inhabitants of earth, but large enough to be known in all the earth, in whom "all the fullness of God" will be manifest even as it was in Jesus of Nazareth. God will demonstrate to the world that what he did with Jesus of Nazareth He can do with anyone who will yield to Him. (55)

Truth is implanted in the heavens and earth; it fills the stars, and keeps them in their places; it is that by which the plants grow, and the birds build their nests; it is that by which they know how to find their way across the sea. When Moses broke the tables of stone, the law was just as steadfast as it was before. Just so, though all the record of all our sin, even though written with the finger of God, were erased, the sin would remain, because the sin is in us. Though the record of our sin were graven in the rock, and the rock should be ground to powder,—even this would not blot out our sin. (60)

The Closing Years

In 1903 Mrs. White expressed the hope that Waggoner would escape the snare of pantheism and regain his former power. There is no evidence he did so. Neither theology nor human life can be in harmony with God unless it preserves the distinctions ordained by God. One of the vital distinctions in human existence is the distinction between male and female. And along with that, there is the distinction between a man's relationship to his wife and all other women. Tragically, Waggoner lost that distinction too.

When Waggoner attended the General Conference of 1901, he apparently voiced certain views on "spiritual affinity" which he had espoused earlier in Great Britain. In essence these views stated that although one is not rightfully a marriage partner in this life, a present spiritual union is allowed on the basis that he or she might be married in the life to come. Later, in 1908, Ellen
G. White called these views "dangerous, misleading fables" she had been forced to confront following 1844. She clearly recognized that "Dr. Waggoner was then departing from the faith in the doctrine he held regarding spiritual affinities." (61)

We do not sit in judgment on Waggoner's character or destiny. To his credit he behaved himself like a gentleman in the face of bitter opposition. He never showed bitterness against the church or his former brethren. Waggoner appeared to be a humble man, and his last Confession is written in the spirit of a Christian believer. His faith was certainly not perfect, but we fondly believe he died trusting in a perfect Saviour. If that be the case, Waggoner's decline was not the end of the story. Although his great enemy must have rejoiced at his fall, that fall was not the final end. "Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise" (Micah 7:8, NIV).

———————————

1. Held in College View, Lincoln, Nebraska.
2. E. J. Waggoner, A "Confession of Faith, "pp. 14-15.
3. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews," no. 3, General Conference Daily Bulletin 1, no. 3 (16 Feb. 1897): 345.
4. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews," no. 4, General Conference Daily Bulletin 1, no. 3 (16 Feb. 1897): 45-6.
5. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews," no. 6, General Conference Daily Bulletin 1, no. 5 (18 Feb. 1897): 70-71.
6. Ibid., pp. 71-2.
7. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews," no. 7, General Conference Daily Bulletin 1, no. 6 (19 Feb. 1897): 85-9.
8. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews," no. 8, General Conference Daily Bulletin 1, no. 7 (22 Feb. 1897): 101-2, 104.
9. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews," no. 9, General Conference Daily Bulletin 1, no. 10 (25 Feb. 1897): 158.
10. Ibid., pp. 156-57, 159.
11. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in the Book of Hebrews," no. 10, General Conference Daily Bulletin 1, no. 13 (2 Mar. 1897): 210.
12. E. J. Waggoner, "Studies in Hebrews," no. 18, General Conference Bulletin 2, no. 1 (First Quarter, 1897): 13.
13. E. J. Waggoner, "Witnesses for God," General Conference Bulletin 2, no. 1 (First Quarter, 1897): 55, 57.
14. Held in South Lancaster, Massachusetts.
15. E. J. Waggoner, in Daily Bulletin of the General Conference 8, no. 5 (21 Feb. 1899): 42.
16. E. J. Waggoner, in Daily Bulletin of the General Conference 8, no. 6 (22 Feb. 1899): 53.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid. Cf. "Suppose a man recognized that fact, and therefore let God have his own way in controlling the human body, so that he might fill it with his life. What disease could affect him? Would he not ward off all disease, as he did in Christ himself?—Certainly (E. J. Waggoner, in Daily Bulletin of the General Conference 8, no. 7 [23 Feb. 1899]: 58).
19. Waggoner, Daily Bulletin, 8, no. 7. p. 58.
20. Ibid.
21. E. J. Waggoner, "The Water of Life," Daily Bulletin of the General Conference 8, no. 8 (24 Feb. 1899): 79.
22. Ibid., p. 80.
23. Ibid.
24. W. W. Prescott, in Daily Bulletin of the General Conference 8, no. 7 (23 Feb. 1899): 58-60.
25. Albion F. Ballenger, in Daily Bulletin of the General Conference 8, no. 7 (23 Feb. 1899): 58.
26. Ellen G. White, "Special Testimony,' Daily Bulletin of the General Conference 8, no. 16 (6 Mar. 1899): 157-60.
27. W. A. Spicer, "How the Spirit of Prophecy Met a Crisis," p. 20; cited in Robert Haddock, "A History of the Doctrine of the Sanctuary in the Advent Movement: 1800-1905," pp. 335-36.
28. E. J. Waggoner, "Bible Study," General Conference Bulletin 4, no. 10 (14 Apr. 1901): 220-24.
29. Ibid., p. 221.
30. Ibid., p. 222.
31. Ibid., p. 223.
32. E. J. Waggoner, "Sermon," General Conference Bulletin 4, no. 6 (9 Apr. 1901): 145-50.
33. E. J. Waggoner, "Sermon," General Conference Bulletin 4, no. 17 (22 Apr. 1901): 403-8.
34. Ibid., p. 404.
35. Waggoner, "Sermon," General Conference Bulletin 4, no. 6, p. 148.
36. See Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 466.
37. Waggoner, "Sermon," General Conference Bulletin 4, no. 17, p. 406.
38. "The meaning of the word 'justified' is 'made righteous.' This is the exact term that appears in other languages, which are not composed of foreign terms. The Latin word for righteousness is justitia. To be just is to be righteous. Then we add the termination fy, from the Latin word, meaning 'to make,' and we have the exact equivalent of the simpler term, 'make righteous"' (E. J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, 1900 ed., p. 77).
39. "Christ alone is righteous; He has overcome the world, and He alone has power to do it; in Him dwelleth all the fullness of God, because the law—God Himself—was in His heart; He alone has kept and can keep the law to perfection; therefore, only by His faith—living faith, that is, His life in us—can we be made righteous. . . "It follows, then, as a matter of course that, believing in Christ, we are justified by the faith of Christ, since we have Him personally dwelling in us, exercising His own faith. All power in heaven and earth is in His hands, and, recognizing this, we simply allow Him to exercise His own power in His own way" (ibid., pp. 80-81).
40. "To believe on His name means simply to believe that He dwells personally in every man—in all flesh. We do not make it so by believing it; it is so, whether we believe it or not; we simply accept the fact, which all nature reveals to us" (ibid.).
41. "'Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?' Eph. 4:9. The risen Saviour is the crucified Saviour. As Christ risen is in the heart of the sinner, therefore, Christ crucified is there. If it were not so, there would be no hope for any. A man may believe that Jesus was crucified eighteen hundred years ago, and may die in his sins; but he who believes that Christ is crucified and risen in him, has salvation. "All that any man in the world has to do in order to be saved, is to believe the truth, that is, to recognize and acknowledge facts, to see things just as they actually are, and to confess them. Whoever believes that Christ is crucified in him, which is the fact in the case of every man, and confesses that the crucified Christ is also risen, and that He dwells in him by and with the power of the resurrection, is saved from sin, and will be saved as long as he holds fast his confession. This is the only true confession of faith. "What a glorious thought that, wherever sin is, there is Christ, the Saviour from sin! He bears sin, all sin, the sin of the world. Sin is in all flesh, and so Christ is come in the flesh. Christ is crucified in every man that lives on earth. This is the word of truth, the Gospel of salvation, which is to be proclaimed to all, and which will save all who accept it.... "He is not our substitute in the sense that one man is a substitute for another, in the army, for instance, the substitute being in one place, while the one for whom he is substitute is somewhere else, engaged in some other service. No; Christ's substitution is far different. He is our substitute in that He substitutes Himself for us, and we appear no more. We drop out entirely, so that it is 'not I, but Christ.' Thus we cast our cares on Him, not by picking them up and with an effort throwing them on Him, but by humbling ourselves into the nothingness that we are, so that we leave the burden resting on Him alone. Thus we see already how it is that He came" (ibid., pp. 87-8, 169).
42. Robert J. Wieland, Foreword to E. J. Waggoner, The Glad Tidings, 1972 ed.
43. See Lowell C. Green, "Faith, Righteousness and Justification: New Light on Their Development under Luther and Melanchthon," Sixteenth Century Journal 4, no. 1 (Apr. 1973): 65-86. Also deserving of careful study is Uuras Saarnivaara, Luther Discovers the Gospel. A weakness of this work, however, is its attempt to identify Luther's evangelical discovery with the problematic "tower experience." Green's article offers a more plausible solution.
44. "Before I ever opened the cover of The Glad Tidings back in 1938, I had been warned by my teacher that there was pantheism in it" (Wieland to Lowell Tarling, 14 July 1977).

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