Godhead translated as trinity in French EGW devotional

Posted Jan 29, 2012 by Elisabeth Fury in Worship of True God

Some of the Ellen White devotionals have been translated into French. One day a few years ago I came across a quote. It is taken from the devotional: "My Life Today" and on February 1st, the second paragraph. Here is how it reads in French:

"Le Christ avait décidé que lorsqu'il serait élevé de la terre, il enverrait un don à tous ceux qui avaient cru et qui croiraient en lui. Quel don assez précieux pouvait-il envoyer pour signaler et illustrer son ascension vers son trône de médiateur? Ce don devait être digne de sa grandeur et de sa royauté. Le Seigneur résolut d'envoyer son représentant, la troisième personne de la trinité. Ce don ne pouvait pas être surpassé; il contenait tous les autres et par conséquent l'Esprit divin, cette puissance qui convertit, éclaire et sanctifie, voilà ce que fut le don du Christ."

Here is my translation of this text " Christ had decided that when He ascended from earth, he would bestow a gift on those who had believed on Him, and those who would believe on Him. What gift precious enough could He bestow to signalize and illustrate His ascension to his mediatorial throne? This gift should be worthy of His greatness and His royalty. The Lord decided to send His representative, the third person of the trinity. This gift could not be excelled; it contained all other gifts and therefore the divine Spirit, this converting, enlightening,  and sanctifying power, would be the donation of Christ."

When I read that I was so amazed and since, in the back of the book all the references can be found, I went and checked. For this specific statement, the reference was: " B E, Feb. 27, 1899. Of course, I could find the original in the CD rom in "My Life Today", but I wanted to dig deeper and find the first statement made by Ellen White since this is a compilation.

I searched for this reference, but wasn't able to find it in the CD rom. Even today I checked on the internet in the Adventist Archives (http://www.adventistarchives.org/) but couldn't find it either. Here I am not saying that it doesn't exist, but that with the means I have I couldn't find it.

As I searched a little more I found that this text was found in Signs of the Times, Dec. 1st, 1898. Here is the original:

"Christ determined that when He ascended from this earth He would bestow a gift on those who had believed on Him and those who should believe on Him. What gift could He bestow rich enough to signalize and grace His ascension to the mediatorial throne? It must be worthy of His greatness and His royalty. He determined to give His representative, the third person of the Godhead. This gift could not be excelled. He would give all gifts in one, and therefore the divine Spirit, converting, enlightening, sanctifying, would be His donation.  {ST, December 1, 1898 par. 2}

One thing needs to be known though. In French there is no word that would translate accurately the term "Godhead". The only word that is generally used to translate it is "Divinity". But here they used the term "trinity" - though as you would remark wasn't used with a capital T.

I just went on "egwwritings.org", in the French page to see if they used the term trinity in other texts translated into French, but found only this reference I just shared with you.

I hope this helps. I don't want to lead people astray or to bring shame on God's work, but found this so amazing that I had to share.