In the year 1896, Ellen White clarified the "schoolmaster" law. She instructed Marian Davis, her secretary, to send Elder Uriah Smith the most definitive statement on the law in Galatians heretofore. It endorsed E. J. Waggoner's position on the moral law in the Epistle to the Galatians. The statement from Ellen White reads thus in its entirety:
The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." In this scripture, the Holy Spirit through the apostle is speaking especially of the moral law. The law reveals sin to us, and causes us to feel our need of Christ, and to flee unto him for pardon and peace by exercising repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
An unwillingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis against the Lord's message through Brethren Waggoner and Jones. By exciting that opposition, Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world. away from the world.
The first paragraph expounded Galatians 3:24 as Waggoner had explained it from the Bible. The law convicted the guilty sinner. The law then drove the sinner to the only relief possible. Christ's righteousness-justification by faith-the only remedy for the violated law.
Her next statement was much more sobering. It indicated that preconceived opinions of the law in Galatians at Minneapolis excited opposition to Waggoner and Jones' message which would have been accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was the "Lord's message" which the Holy Spirit wanted to use in lighting the whole earth with His glory. The reception of the truth would have been accompanied by the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit as on the day of Pentecost. But the enemy prevented this from happening by stirring up the brethren against the truth that God wanted to go to the world.
Her reference to Revelation 18:1 was unmistakable:
The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world.
It was the message of this mighty angel that joined in with the three angels of Revelation 14 in calling out, preparing, and maturing the harvest of the world for the coming of the Lord. The power of this message was to strengthen the first three angels' messages. angels' messages.
As early as 1856 she had seen the message of Revelation 18:1 coming in the near future as an addition to the third angels' message and affirmed it as the "loud cry." The work of this angel comes in at the right time to join in the last great work of the third angel's message as it swells to a loud cry. . . . This message seemed to be an addition to the third message, joining it . . . .
This was exactly as God had designed it should be.
The message brought by God's messengers was appointed by Him. They were ordained by the Holy Spirit. God came to His friends, the Seventh-day Adventist leadership. He gave them additional light that was absolutely essential to their mission. Had the light been accepted, it would have been accompanied by the power to accomplish the task. However, the "action of our own brethren" had kept it "away from the world" "in a great degree."
Completing the survey of the law in Galatians during the decade of the 1890's it is noted that in 1899 A. T. Jones summarized with these words the reason why Galatians was written:
. . . The book of Galatians was written to set the ceremonial law, the moral law, and the gospel, in their true and relative positions; and to annihilate ceremonialism forever.
In the view of Jones, Galatians dealt with both the moral and ceremonial law. The Galatians were being enticed to add circumcision to the gospel as an additional means of salvation. This legalism or ceremonialism was a substitute for the true heart experience of the everlasting covenant.
Ellen White affirmed the "schoolmaster" to be both the moral and the ceremonial law. Sometime during the year 1900 she said:
I am asked concerning the law in Galatians. "What law is the school-master to bring us to Christ?" I answer: "Both the ceremonial and the moral code of ten commandments."
This was the position which Stephen Pierce had taken "in the 1850s, namely, . . . that the schoolmaster was all forms of law." The law in Galatians 3:24 was both moral and ceremonial.
In this respect both A. T. Jones and E. G. White were building on the foundation laid by E. J. Waggoner, in a manner which did not negate the position she had taken in regard to J. H. Waggoner. E. J. Waggoner had initially limited the "schoolmaster" to primarily the moral law of God, as had his father. No doubt this was what Ellen White's "guide" had in mind back in 1888 when he directed her to write to Elder Butler:
He stretched out his arms toward Dr. Waggoner and to you, Elder Butler, and said in substance as follows: "Neither have all the light upon the law; neither position is perfect."
Waggoner was beginning to receive the rays of light on righteousness by faith and the law which God planned would develop into the complete message God had for His people.