Adventist Teaching: No
Biblical Teaching: Yes
The Adventist Church, by way of Ellen G. White and their 28 Fundamental Beliefs book, believe that—by incarnating—Jesus chose to limit his omnipresence and has chosen to be present through the ministry of the Holy Spirit quoting John 14:16-18 as support. Ellen White also claimed that The Holy Spirit is Christ’s representative that Jesus is present through. But this passage doesn’t say Jesus is present by way of the Holy Spirit such that He himself doesn’t possess the fullness of omnipresence. He refers to the Holy Spirit as “another” Helper, not His presence in His physical absence. It simply says the Son will send the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Godhead, who is the seal of God (Ephesians 1:13, 4:30, 2 Corinthians 1:21-22) that seals believers, prays on behalf of believers (Romans 8:26-27), and comforts believers. This is the role the Holy Spirit plays in the life of the believer.
Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9), contrary to Ellen G. White teaching that the Father is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is both fully man and fully God (hypostatic union). This means that Jesus possesses all of the divine attributes—which includes omnipresence. Jesus did not limit his divine attributes by incarnating. Proponents of this sort of thinking typically assert this by misinterpreting Philippians 2:6-8 (the Kenosis heresy). This passage does not say that Jesus set his divinity aside and chose to incarnate, but rather that He added unto Himself a human nature by leaving His heavenly abode—His rightful estate—and humbled himself as a servant by subjecting himself to the Law (Galatians 4:4) to redeem creation.
Jesus demonstrates His omnipresence while incarnate to Nathanael in John 1:48-49. Philip, called by Jesus to follow Him, realized Jesus was who the Law and the Prophets foretold of—the Messiah—so he sought out Nathanael to tell him (John 1:43-45).
Upon hearing that this Jesus was the Messiah, Nathanael asks if anything good can come out of Nazareth (John 1:46) in his disbelief. He then finds Jesus and asks Him how Jesus knows him and Jesus tells him he saw Nathanael under the fig tree (John 1:48). Astonished, Nathanael believes that Jesus is the Messiah, King of Israel.
This is because Jesus wasn’t physically present when Nathanael was under the fig tree where Philip found him. Yet He was able to see Nathanael while not being physically present. Jesus even says if that is what won him over he will see things far greater than that (John 1:50). Jesus didn’t claim to just know where Nathanael was (omniscient), but that He saw him. One would have to be present where someone or something is to see it.
Another example is in Mark 7:26-30 where Jesus drives the demon out of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. He honors the woman’s faith that Jesus was capable and able to do so. Without being physically present, Jesus drives the demon out of the woman’s daughter (Mark 7:29). He is the one doing the driving out of the demon, not the Holy Spirit, yet he wasn’t physically present. This shows Jesus’s incarnation did not limit his divine attributes.
A third example, one of the strongest, is the encounter that Jesus has with the Official in John 4:46-54. The man begs Jesus to come and heal his son (John 4:47). Jesus then tells the man to go, his son will live (John 4:50). The man then leaves and, along his journey home, his servants meet him to let him know the boy is living (John 4:51). They tell the Official that it was yesterday at one in the afternoon that the boy was healed (John 4:52). It was in that moment that the Official remembered that was the exact hour the previous day that Jesus said the boy would live (John 4:53). The mans journey was more than a day away, yet Jesus healed the boy at the moment of His declaration without physically being present to do so—demonstrating His omnipresence despite His human body being limited to space and place.
It is Jesus doing these healings and before the Holy Spirit is sent as “another Helper” in John 14:16-18. Jesus would have to be present to do these healings which means His omnipresence was not diminished by incarnating. Scripture is clear that Jesus is immutable and does not change, He is the same today, yesterday, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
The Adventist position contradicts the scriptures and diminishes the nature of Jesus Christ. This, among a host of other issues, is why the SDA Church has a false christ (2 Corinthians 11:1-4).
