Hello, this is Brother Anderson. I have studied the SDA Quarterly on Ellen White in depth and discovered a very one-sided approach was taken. I can understand this, but at the same time, I feel that information of utmost importance to the reader has been left out of the study. As such, the reader could develop a very distorted view of Ellen White by only looking at part of the evidence. Therefore, I have prepared these studies, which present an alternative viewpoint that will help the reader develop a more accurate and well-rounded view of Ellen White and her ministry. |
NOTE: As an aid, quotes from the Quarterly will be in red and quotes from Ellen G. White will be in brown.
The Seventh-day Adventist Sabbath School Quarterly for the first quarter of 2009 tackles the subject of the "Prophetic Gift". The very first point made by the author, Elder Gerhard Pfandl (of the SDA Biblical Research Institute), is that there are prophets whose writings never appear in the Bible. As an example, he discusses John the Baptist, who never wrote any part of the Bible.
It is fitting that John the Baptist is the focal point of the first paragraph of the study, because Seventh-day Adventists have long believed that they, like John the Baptist, have a special calling to announce the imminent return of the Lord. As Ellen White said,
What is our work? The same as that given to John the Baptist...(Testimonies, vol. 8, p. 9)According to Adventism, this message was first given in the 1840s by William Miller:
As John the Baptist heralded the first advent of Jesus, and prepared the way for his coming, so also, Wm. Miller and those who joined him, proclaimed the second advent of the Son of God. (Spiritual Gifts, vol. 1, p. 129)William Miller promoted a date for Christ to return in October of 1844. However, the movement turned out to be a disappointing failure when Christ failed to return as planned. The movement soon crumbled and Miller admited his message was a delusion. Miller's followers splintered off into several groups, one of which later became the Seventh-day Adventists. This group believed they were to carry on the work of Miller and proclaim the "John the Baptist Message" of Christ's imminent return.
A prophet arose amongst this group, and this prophet's message was the imminent return of Jesus. Ellen White had a "vision" on Nov. 18, 1848, in Dorchester, and Joseph Bates published a transcript of it in his book, The Seal of the Living God. In that vision Ellen White said:
"The time of trouble has commenced, the reason why the four winds have not been let go, for the saints are not all sealed..."In the summer of 1849 a local pestilence struck the region. Mrs. White, seeing this as a fulfillment of prophecy indicating the end of the world, predicts this pestilence will soon become widespread:
"What we have seen and heard of the pestilence, is but the beginning of what we shall see and hear. Soon the dead and dying will be all around us." (Present Truth, Sept. 1849).Not long after this prophecy was penned the pestilence ended and the United States entered a period of relative peace and prosperity that lasted for many years. (The above quote was removed from the article when it was republished in Early Writings in 1882 and few Adventists are aware of its existence.)
By April of 1850 Mrs. White was claiming that the final shaking had begun:
"The mighty shaking has commenced." (Present Truth, April, 1850)On June 27, 1850, Mrs. White wrote that only a few months remained for the people to get ready:
"My accompanying angel said, 'Time is almost finished. Get ready, get ready, get ready.' . . . now time is almost finished. . . and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months." (Early Writings, pp. 64-67).This is a very significant statement. Mrs. White was saying that the truths that she and her associates had spent five years learning would have to be learned by new converts in only a few months. By September of 1850 Mrs. White was warning that Jesus was nearly finished in the Most Holy Place:
"I saw that the time for Jesus to be in the most Holy place was nearly finished, and that time cannot last but a very little longer. ... The sealing time is very short and soon will be over." (Experience & Views pp. 46-47)Perhaps Mrs. White's most infamous prediction of Christ's imminent return was made at a conference of believers in 1856. This statement was later published in the book Testimonies and received widespread attention within the SDA Church. Mrs. White claimed she was shown in vision that some of those present at the 1856 conference would be translated:
"I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: 'Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus.'" (Testimonies, Vol. 1, p. 131)Mrs. White was given a vision showing the fate of those people attending the conference. She specifically states that some of them will suffer the seven last plagues, and some will be alive when Jesus returns. The Whites had such confidence in this "vision" that it was published in Mrs. White's Testimonies to the Church and received widespread distribution. However, by the early 1900s all those who attended the conference had passed away, leaving corporate church executives with the dilemma of trying to figure out how to explain away such a prominent prophetic failure.
One might wonder how the "prophetic gift" could be so wrong about the timing of Christ's return. John the Baptist's message was given within a very few years of its fulfillment, and yet Adventists--165 years after 1844--still insist they are the people, especially appointed by God, to tell the world about Christ's imminent return, as if all other churches were somehow ignoring the subject entirely.
QUESTION: Why would God send a message in the 1840s to warn of His "imminent return" when He knew all along that His return was not imminent at all, and the message would not even see its fulfillment during the lifetimes of the great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren of those who heard it?
Adventists teach that a prophet will arise at the end of time. Pfandl writes in the Quarterly:
In the book of Revelation, God promised that there will be a special manifestation of the prophetic gift at the time of the end (Rev. 12:17; 19:10; 22:8, 9).In a nutshell, Adventists teach they are the special remnant because...
According to SDA eschatology, the timing of the events described in Revelation 12:17 is after the end of the period of papal supremacy in 1798. Since Ellen White arose after 1798, then she fits nicely into the SDA prophetic jigsaw puzzle. Of course, this is all predicated on numerous assumptions, not the least of which is that Ellen White was indeed a prophet!
QUESTION: If we let the Bible interpret itself, does it tell us Ellen White is the "Testimony of Jesus"?
ANSWER:
The Bible tells us the Apostle John had the "testimony of Jesus" (Read Rev. 1:2,9). Obviously John had the "gift of prophecy" because he wrote the book of Revelation. Therefore, we are safe to say that John had the Spirit of Prophecy.
Therefore, if we allow the Bible to interpret itself, the "remnant" of Revelation 12:17 could refer to those who hold onto the prophetic writings of the Apostle John (Testimony of Jesus), particularly the book of Revelation. Therefore, any church that has the prophetic writings of John has the Testimony of Jesus and the Spirit of Prophecy.