IN 1844, Ellen G. White, a young woman of 17, received the Gift of the Spirit of Prophecy (Eph. 4:11; Rev. 12:17; 19:10) in an era of America when women were beginning to awaken to the awareness of equal rights with men.
EMERGING from the “dark ages” of their suppression, women began to identify with God’s original plan in creation whereby BOTH male and female were equally authorized (crowned): “God said unto THEM… replenish the earth and subdue it: and have DOMINION (rule) over …every living thing” (Gen. 1:28). 1798 began the time of the end—the time for women’s liberation-restitution, as Jesus had said centuries before that “Elias…would restore ALL things” (Matt. 17:11), even women to their original position of co-rulers “in the beginning.”
THE POWER of the papacy was broken by Luther and the reformers who followed him, and through whom God worked to begin the long road of restoration for women, beginning with the marriage of Luther and “Katie.” Luther’s marriage began the reformation’s “parsonage” by recognizing “the desire of women” to be Queen or co-ruler of the home, whereas the papacy had been foretold by Daniel to “neither …regard the God of his fathers, NOR THE DESIRE OF WOMEN for he shall magnify himself above all” (Dan. 11:37).
“IN Christianity (Roman Catholic) this ONSLAUGHT against women gained such momentum that by the sixth century the church raised the issue of whether or not women WERE HUMAN BEINGS (!) ….Just look at Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel–The Creation. A male god creating man and NO MOTHER to be found in the grand work. And who is the male God’s mother? God, the Father, gives birth to Adam; and Adam the male, with God the Father’s help, gives birth to Eve–a homosexual (see Rom. 1:20-27) liaison…” John R. Thompson, Oberin College, “Christianity and Crisis,” pp. 75,76, April 2, 1980.
AS women’s liberation from the nunneries spread from Germany throughout Europe with the truths of the reformation, it spread upward in time down through the centuries, rushing to the glorious climax of complete restoration!
RUNNING parallel with the gradual restoration of women’s rights was a growing understanding of the Holy Scriptures, also “liberated” from popish bondage by translation into the languages of the people. Truths long forgotten shined forth in brilliance undeniable! Unfolding, were Daniel’s prophecies of how the Roman papacy would “think to CHANGE TIMES AND LAWS” (Dan. 7:25), as the reformers examined the Holy Scriptures and saw that Sunday was the creation of the papacy, that wicked one who would “think to change times and laws.” The Augsburg Confession (prepared by Luther, et al) declared that “They (the Catholics) allege the change of the Sabbath into the Lord’s day, CONTRARY …to the Decalogue…”–The Augsburg Confession, part 1, art. 7.
SECULAR and religious historians reveal that although the seventh-day Sabbath was changed by Constantine in 321 A.D., faithful believers kept the seventh-day Sabbath down through the centuries. “In America the Seventh Day Baptists kept the true Sabbath, (and) had special days of fasting and prayer in 1843 and 1844. They asked God to ‘arise and plead for His HOLY SABBATH’ …. On August 30, 1846, Ellen Harmon and James White were married. Shortly afterward they received a copy of Joseph Bates’ new tract about the Sabbath and studied carefully …. Before the end of the year they were convinced that the seventh day is the Sabbath. In vision she saw…. ‘The fourth, the Sabbath Commandment (with) a halo of glory …all around it.’ ” –Witnesses for Jesus, pp. 323,324,325. Ellen G. White’s vision confirmed the faith and practice of the faithful of all ages that the seventh-day Sabbath was, indeed, God’s original day of rest.
RUNNING parallel with the change of the Sabbath in the early centuries, was another perversion of the truth once held by the saints. “In the third century, that time of developing apostasies (Rome), Paul of Samosatar advanced a theory denying the PERSONALITY of the Holy Spirit, regarding the Holy Spiritmerely as an influence …about the time of the Protestant Reformation two men…revived the theory, and many accepted it. The chilling influence of this concept has told on all the Protestant churches. In our Authorized Version of 1611 (King James) the personal pronoun applied by Christ to the Holy Spirit is translated by the NEUTER (not a person) …in Romans 8:16,26. THIS IS AN INDEX OF THE ATTITUDE OF THE TIME, for Christian people then spoke of the Spirit as ‘it.’ ….the fact that the name Spirit in the Greek, IS NEUTER, and in following precise grammatical construction the impersonal pronoun ITSELF is used in the Authorized Version….has had a large bearing on the popular understanding…” Leroy E. Froom, The Coming of the Comforter, pp. 39,40,56.
AND although Ellen G. White stated “The nature of the Holy Spirit is a MYSTERY …and silence is golden” (Acts of the Apostles, p. 52), she was inspired to reveal a part of the mystery when she wrote that “There are three living PERSONS of the heavenly trio” (Testimonies, Series B, no. 7, pp. 62,63), and that men and women were created not only “in the likeness of God …BUT IN FORM AND FEATURE” (Great Controversy, p. 645). These revelations “were squarely against prevailing sentiment …of some of the pioneers of the Advent movement, who were inclined to this impersonal (neuter) idea of an influence, and discounted …the Trinity.” – The Coming of the Comforter, p. 56.
THAT the dominant theme in Christendom is about the Holy Spirit, is an index to the times and a confirmation that we are in the age foretold by Joel’s vision that “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28). And at what better time to understand the PERSON of the Holy Spirit than when the Spirit is to be received, just as God sent His Son that they might understand His PERSON!
NO SECRET was it with the Jews of the Old Testament or of today that the Spirit of the Old Testament Hebrew Bible, the Shekinah, is FEMININE. NO SECRET is it that the ELOHIM (Hebrew for God in the creation story) is made up of ELOH– the FEMININE singular for goddess–and the masculine plural ending IM! NO SECRET was it with Adam and Eve who passed the knowledge of the Holy Spirit MOTHER to their descendants, even to and past the Tower of Babel; from thence the knowledge of the HEAVENLY MOTHERwas carried to all parts of the earth and incorporated into the perverted (pagan) forms of worship. (See The Two Babylons, by Hislop, pp. 12-21). Notwithstanding the perversion in paganism of the Heavenly Family of Father, Mother, and Son (Trinity), the truth of Their PERSONALITY, nevertheless, was carried on by the chosen of God, and when the Hebrew scriptures were finally written, the SPIRIT appeared AS A FEMININE BEING. “The understanding of the Holy Spirit as a FEMALE is also Jewish or Semitic.” – N.T. Apocrypha, p. 160. “It comes as a SHOCK to find the Jews …with a WOMAN God.” – The Hebrew Goddess, (cover)
Whereas the Old Testament prophets had written about the Holy Spirit Mother, when Jesus stated that the Spirit would come in His name (1 John 14:26), the Holy Spirit began “to acquire personality expressed in MASCULINE terms. FEMININE ELEMENTS IN THE GODHEAD …(were) receding from Christian doctrine …The INSTRUCTRESS of the Old Testament and Apocrypha has become the INSTRUCTOR (Christ), and the LADY WISDOM is now an attribute of the ‘paternal’ Christ ….in the fragmentary remains of the second century Gospel According to the Hebrews …Jesus speaks of ‘My Mother, the Holy Spirit,’ …It is true that the Hebrew word for ‘spirit’ is feminine…” – Margaret Crook, Woman and Religion, pp. 158,159,160. The enemy of Truth tried to cover up the identity of the Holy Spirit Mother by a perverted emphasis of Christ on the part of the theologians, in the early centuries, who disavowed anything Jewish whether the seventh-day Sabbath or the feminine Holy Spirit. Despite this “cover-up,” which did succeed in the greater part of Christendom’s history, some faithful Christians still kept alive the truth of the Heavenly Mother!
“BUT instead of three male personages, as generally represented, a HEAVENLY FATHER, MOTHER, AND SON would seem more RATIONAL. The FIRST step in the ELEVATION OF WOMAN to her true position… is…the recognition… of an IDEAL HEAVENLY MOTHER, to whom their prayers should be addressed, as well as to a Father. If language has any meaning, we have in these texts (Gen. 1:26-28) a PLAIN declaration of the existence of the FEMININE element in the Godhead, equal in power and glory with the masculine. TheHeavenly MOTHER and Father!” – Elizabeth Stanton, Women’s Bible, p. 14.
TRIUMPHANT over attempts to hide the seventh-day Sabbath truth for centuries, the flickering flame of truth began to leap higher as the Reformation progressed and climaxed with the blazing fire of truth when Ellen G. White was shown in vision the validity of the seventh-day Sabbath. Paralleling this was the truth of the Holy Spirit MOTHER, whose earthly children lost sight of HER PERSON until the 19th century when SHE began to send gleams of truth about Herself to Her children, climaxing in a fireball of direct revelation to Lois I. Roden in 1977 that the Holy Spirit is, indeed, our HEAVENLY MOTHER!
THE TRUTH of the seventh-day Sabbath of Creation blended with the truth of the HOLY SPIRIT MOTHER of Creation, stand welded together, emerging as the SABBATH—a symbol of God’s Bride, His Consort, His Heavenly Wife–”…the Sabbath …developed into a FEMALE numen (spirit) and ENDOWED with the character of….bride, queen, and goddess.” –
The Hebrew Goddess, p. 226
AS men and women recognize the Godhead as being an EQUAL TRIO of Father, Mother, and Son, they will cooperate with the Heavenly Family in bringing about the equality of male and female in the human family, reaping the reward of a beautiful relationship with the seventh-day Sabbath, symbol of the Queen of Heaven –”THE BRANCH—SHE” (Jer. 33:15,16) “Of whom the WHOLE FAMILY (Branch, John 15:5) in heaven and earth is named” (Eph. 3:15).
LIVING WATERS
April 1980
