"The angels of God in their messages to men represent time as very short. Thus it has always been presented to me. It is true that time has continued longer than we expected in the early days of this message. Our Saviour did not appear as soon as we hoped. But has the Word of the Lord failed? Never! It should be remembered that the promises and the threatenings of God are alike conditional."
One of the Biblical tests of a prophet is: "When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him" (Deut. 18:20-22). On the other hand, the ability to make predictions is not necessarily a test of a prophet's credentials. For example, Moses in the Old Testament and John the Baptist in the New Testament are not known for their predictions.
The word prophet suggests to modern minds the ability to make predictions. Ellen White never claimed to be a prophet because her work "includes much more than this name signifies." The test of a prophet/messenger lies in another direction than to focus on the number of his or her predictions. Further, the principle of conditional prophecy must be taken into account. This applies to certain comments by Ellen White as it does to Biblical prophets.
Various Civil War Statements
Some have charged that Ellen White made either unsubstantiated or false statements during the Civil War in the United States (1861-1865). But when comparing careful historians of that period, her comments stand today as not only relevant but accurate. From the earliest days of the conflict, she saw clearly the hidden agendas behind the stated causes or objectives of the North.
Shortly after South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860, even before the first shots were fired, Ellen White had a vision at Parkville, Michigan, on January 12, 1861. For the next few years she penned a continuing analysis of the motives and intrigue that characterized both Southern and Northern leaders. At that early date she was shown the naivete of the North, the rapid coalition of the Southern States, and the "terrible war" that would result, and the sober fact that families at that Parkville meeting would "lose sons in that war."
On August 3, 1861, Mrs. White had another vision that revealed further aspects of the pro-slavery factions in the North, even in the highest levels of government. In fact, if everything was known, some leaders would be seen as traitors. She was given the reasons for the mysterious retreat of the Northern army at the first Battle of Manassas (Bull Run).
Her vision on January 4, 1862, in Battle Creek, Michigan, provided the young Seventh-day Adventist Church with additional background and insights regarding the terrible conflict and its impending cost in lives and resources-a picture that no other people had at that early date.
For these divinely given insights, Ellen White has been charged with being anti-Lincoln because, in the early years, he was more concerned about preserving the Union than with abolishing slavery. Because of the national fasts that were proclaimed invoking God to act on behalf of the North when they were more concerned about the rebellion against the Union than about the nefarious slave economy, Ellen White called such appeals to heaven "disgusting."
Other charges are lifted out of context and made to appear contrary to fact. For example, note the reference to an alleged unfulfilled prophecy regarding England: "When England does declare war, all nations will have an interest of their own to serve, and there will be general war, general confusion." When that sentence is read in context, within that same paragraph with all the other conditional statements regarding England, the sense changes from a prediction to a possibility. "If England does declare war . . . ."
On the previous page, Ellen White used the same grammatical construction: "When our nation observes the fast which God has chosen, then will He accept their prayers. . . ." Mrs. White was not making a prediction but a conditional statement. This use of "when" for "if" is a common English practice.
The charge is made that Ellen White thought that the Civil War was a sign that Jesus was about to return from heaven: "The signs of Christ's coming are too plain to be doubted. . . . All heaven is astir. The scenes of earth's history are fast closing. We are amid the perils of the last days." First, those thoughts were not focused on the Civil War specifically but on the world in general. Commenting later on the war, she wrote: "Everything is preparing for the great day of God. Time will last a little longer, until the inhabitants of the earth have filled up the cup of their iniquity, and then the wrath of God, which has so long slumbered, will awake, and this land of light will drink the cup of His unmingled wrath."
Time Is Short
Ellen White had the same urgency that compelled New Testament writers to say: "Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awaken out of sleep; . . . The night is far spent, the day is at hand" (Rom. 13:11, 12); "For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry" (Heb. 10:37, quoting Hab. 2:3, 4); and for Jesus Himself to tell John: "Surely I am coming quickly" (Rev. 22:20).
But since 1844, urgency has had a fresh time frame. Since 1844, Christ could have returned within the generation that saw the heavenly signs and that understood the impact of Christ's ministry in the Most Holy Place as the closing phase of His mediatorial work.
From 1845 onward, Ellen White had strongly counseled against time-setting-a practice that some Millerite Adventists continued after 1844, including Joseph Bates up to 1851. Yet time had always been presented to her as "almost finished."
One charge has been that in 1850 she insisted that Jesus would return "in a few months." The emphasis of the paragraph is on character preparation for the crisis of the last days: "Some of us have had time to get the truth and to advance step by step, and every step we have taken has given us strength to take the next. But now time is almost finished, and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months. They will have much to unlearn and much to learn again."
In 1854 similar counsel was given to a church beset with an adultery problem and neglect of children: "It is too late in the day to feed with milk. . . . Truths that we have been years learning must be learned in a few months by those who now embrace the third angel's message. We had to search and wait the opening of truth, receiving a ray of light here and a ray there, laboring and pleading for God to reveal truth to us. But now the truth is plain; its rays are brought together. . . . It is a disgrace for those who have been in the truth for years to talk of feeding souls who have been months in the truth, upon milk. . . . Those who embrace the truth now will have to step fast."
These references to the apostle's admonition in Hebrews 5:12-16 have always applied to serious Christians, but never more than to those who believe they are proclaiming the messages of the three angels of Revelation 14. Obviously, some day there will be a "last generation." Ellen White links the sealing work of Revelation 7 and 14 with a people who have permitted the Holy Spirit to make them ready for God's seal. This preparation should be the last-day Christian's highest priority. That urgency compelled Mrs. White to urge believers in "present truth" to learn and apply as much of this truth as fast as possible. Christians must mature in the truth and not remain babies who must be spoon-fed and given milk.
Some in 1856 Never to Die
At a Battle Creek conference on May 27, 1856, Ellen White was given a vision of "two ways" and what it means to travel in either: "They are opposite in character, in life, in dress, and in conversation." Then she made an observation that has intrigued church members for more than a century: "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.'"
For those present, these words were solemn. Three days after this vision, Clarissa M. Bonfoey, a close family friend of the Whites, died. At the time of the vision apparently she was in good health. But what should we think of this vision today? All who attended that conference have long been dead. Did Ellen White make a flawed prediction?
Understanding this 1856 prediction requires an understanding of the Biblical principle of conditional prophecy. Those who trust the Biblical accounts of unfulfilled prophecy will have no difficulty understanding Ellen White's 1856 statement. She made frequent reference to the fact that God is not changing His mind about the timing of the Advent; His people have not fulfilled their part of the gospel commission.
In 1901 she summed up her many references to the delayed Advent: "We may have to remain here in this world because of insubordination many more years, as did the children of Israel; but for Christ's sake, His people should not add sin to sin by charging God with the consequence of their own wrong course of action."
Jerusalem Never to Be Rebuilt
Ellen White wrote in 1851 that "old Jerusalem never would be built up." By itself, the statement looks unsustainable. But when the setting is reconstructed, we find Mrs. White counseling the growing Adventist group that both time-setting and the "age-to-come" notion were incompatible with Biblical truth. She emphasized that the Old Testament prophecies regarding the establishment of a Jewish kingdom in Palestine were conditional on obedience and forfeited by disobedience. Unfulfilled prophecies would be fulfilled to "true Israel" as unfolded in the New Testament text.
Thus the popular movement of the 1840s and 1850s to promote a Zionist state in Palestine was not a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and not a quest in which Adventists should become involved. Her warnings and instruction were designed to turn the interest away from Palestine and toward the work God had opened up before them.
In a September 1850 vision she saw that it was a "great error" to believe that "it is their duty to go to Old Jerusalem, and think they have a work to do there before the Lord comes. . . ; for those who think that they are yet to go to Jerusalem will have their minds there, and their means will be withheld from the cause of present truth to get themselves and others there."
Less than a year later, August 1851, she wrote with greater emphasis "that Old Jerusalem never would be built up; and that Satan was doing his utmost to lead the minds of the children of the Lord into these things now, in the gathering time, to keep them from throwing their whole interest into the present work of the Lord, and to cause them to neglect the necessary preparation for the day of the Lord."
How did Ellen White's readers understand this statement? That there was no light in the popular "age-to-come" teaching, that there is no Biblical significance in the Jews returning to Palestine, that Jerusalem will never be rebuilt in a future millennial period. She was not talking about a possible political rebuilding of Jerusalem but of a prophetically significant rebuilding of Old Jerusalem. To continue to think that way, she emphasized, was to sink further into Satan's deceptions and away from present duty.
Concern Over Unusual Statements
Prophetic writings occasionally contain statements that may not be easily understood. Peter once said that Paul had written "some things hard to understand, which those who are untaught and unstable twist to their own destruction" (2 Pet. 3:16).
Ignorant slave not to be resurrected. In 1858 Ellen White wrote that "the slave master would have to answer for the soul of his slave whom he has kept in ignorance. . . . God cannot take the slave to heaven, who has been kept in ignorance and degradation, knowing nothing of God, or the Bible, fearing nothing but his master's lash, and not holding so elevated a position as his master's brute beasts. But He does the best thing for him that a compassionate God can do. He lets him be as though he had not been."
However, a few pages later she reported that she "saw the pious slave rise [in the resurrection] in triumph and victory." In many places she referred to the terrible conditions imposed on slaves in the South, treated "as though they were beasts." Nevertheless, she was equally emphatic that "many of the slaves had noble minds."
In these statements Ellen White was distinguishing between the "pious" slave and the "ignorant" slave who knows "nothing of God." With prophetic insight she stated that the most compassionate act for a just God would be to let such slaves remain in their graves, not to be resurrected for judgment.
Some object to this statement because the Bible says that "all who are in the graves will . . . come forth" (John 5:28, 29). A few chapters later, John quoted Jesus: "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32). Here we have two examples among many where Bible writers used all-inclusive language but with very definite restrictions. No one but Universalists argue that everyone, sooner or later, will be redeemed, regardless of character or desire. Not all people will be drawn to Jesus because not all are willing to be drawn!
Another example of a general, all-inclusive statement is John the Revelator's description of the Second Advent: ". . . every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne'" (Rev. 6:15, 16). Obviously, not all slaves and not all free men are going to be lost!
Prophets, as well as everyone else, use inclusive language at times, and most people understand the implied restrictions. The next question is, How does God deal with those who are neither among those "who have done good," or "those who have done evil" (John 5:29)? The best we can do is to join Abraham, the father of the faithful, and believe with confidence: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25).
God's hand over a chart mistake. In 1850 Ellen White wrote that she "had seen that the 1843 chart was directed by the hand of the Lord, and that it should not be altered; that the figures were as He wanted them; that His hand was over and hid a mistake in some of the figures, so that none could see it, until His hand was removed."
At first glance, one could wonder why God would want to hide a mistake! For those who begin with the presupposition that Jesus did not enter the closing phase of His mediatorial work in 1844, this Ellen White reference is ridiculed.
But those who have found meaning in these events, whether on earth or in heaven, also realize that God's ways are often unexplainable. Further, His ways are often cast in human language where circumstances that God permits are described as events that God causes. When the author of Exodus wrote of God's conversation with Moses, he portrayed God as the Agent who "hardened" Pharaoh's heart (Ex. 10:1). However, the same writer also wrote of Pharaoh's responsibility for hardening his own heart (Ex. 8:15, 32; 9:34).
We think of Biblical circumstances where knowledge was "withheld" from dedicated men and women. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus joined two devastated disciples but they did not recognize Him because "their eyes were restrained" (Luke 24:16). A few hours later, while eating with their traveling Companion, "their eyes were opened and they knew Him" (Luke 24:31). If their eyes had been "opened" prematurely while walking toward Emmaus, they would have missed a great experience that God wanted them to share.
For reasons that God alone can explain best, Biblical students in 1843 needed the experience of 1843-1844. Obviously God could have "stepped in" and guaranteed every date, every line of reasoning, when Fitch and Hale prepared their chart. But that kind of divine intervention has been rare throughout history. Permitting men and women to work through their problems, learning special lessons that would not have been experienced otherwise, seems to have been God's general plan.
What would have happened if William Miller had preached the true significance of 1844? What kind of public response would he have received if he had proclaimed the truth about a change in Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, rather than to emphasize His imminent return? No one would have listened to him; no one would have been stirred to read the Bible. After the disappointment of October 22, a group of his followers restudied their Bibles to discover the real meaning of 1844, an interest that never would have developed if Miller had not focused their attention on the Bible and its prophecies prior to 1844.
Concern Over Ellen White's Scientific Statements
Attention has been called to statements that seem to show that Ellen White made grievous errors regarding scientific issues. Prophets are not called to update encyclopedias or dictionaries. Nor are prophets (or anyone else) to be made "an offender by a word" (Isa. 29:21). If prophets are to be held to the highest standards of scientific accuracy (every few years these "standards" change, even for the experts), we would have cause to reject Isaiah for referring to "the four corners of the earth" (Isa. 11:12) and John for writing that he saw "four angels standing at the four corners of the earth" (Rev. 7:1).
Some point to the phrase, "As the moon and the stars of our solar system shine by the reflected light of the sun," charging that Ellen White was untrustworthy in scientific matters. But most readers would recognize this use of "stars" for "planets of our solar system" as a non-technical description easily understood by laymen.
Some have declared Ellen White was in error when she allegedly said that she had visited a "world which had seven moons," and that the planets visited were Jupiter and Saturn. In point of fact, she never named the "world which had seven moons." But there is more to the story.
Less than three months after she and James were married in 1846, she had a vision at the Curtis home in Topsham, Maine, in the presence of Joseph Bates. Although Bates had seen Ellen White in vision on several occasions, he still had doubts about her prophetic gift; but through the Topsham vision he was convinced that "the work is of God." James White reported that, in this vision, Mrs. White was "guided to the planets Jupiter, Saturn, and I think one more. After she came out of vision, she could give a clear description of their moons, etc. It is well known, that she knew nothing of astronomy, and could not answer one question in relation to the planets, before she had this vision."
What was it that convinced Bates, the old sea captain and amateur astronomer, that Ellen White was "of God"? After the vision, she described what she had seen. Knowing that she had no background in astronomy, Bates said, "This is of the Lord."
Obviously, what Bates heard corresponded to his knowledge of what telescopes showed in 1846. Almost certainly this vision was given in Bates's presence to give him added confidence in Ellen White's ministry. If she had mentioned the number of moons that modern telescopes reveal, it seems clear that Bates's doubts would have been confirmed.
Amalgamation
Critics have charged that Ellen White wrote in 1864 (and republished in 1870) that humans once cohabited with animals and that their offspring produced certain races that exist today. The statement reads: "But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere. God purposed to destroy by a flood that powerful, long-lived race that had corrupted their ways before Him."
No dictionary has ever used "amalgamation" to describe the cohabitation of man with beast. The primary use of the word describes the fusion of metals, the union of different elements such as in making tooth cements. Nineteenth-century usage included the mixing of diverse races.
Granted, her statement could appear ambiguous: Does she mean "amalgamation of man with beast" or "amalgamation of man and of beast"? Often, repetition of the preposition is omitted in similar construction.
On two other occasions, Mrs. White used the word "amalgamation." She used it metaphorically, comparing faithful believers and worldlings. And she used it to describe the origin of poisonous plants and other irregularities in the biological world: "Christ never planted the seeds of death in the system. Satan planted these seeds when he tempted Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge which meant disobedience to God. Not one noxious plant was placed in the Lord's great garden, but after Adam and Eve sinned, poisonous herbs sprang up. . . . All tares are sown by the evil one. Every noxious herb is of his sowing, and by his ingenious methods of amalgamation he has corrupted the earth with tares."
Recognizing that Satan has been an active agent in the corrupting of God's plan for man, beast, plants, etc., we can better understand what Ellen White may have meant when she described the results of amalgamation. That which "defaced the image of God" in man and that which "confused the species [of animals]" has been the handiwork of Satan with the cooperation of humans. Such "amalgamation of man and [of] beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men," becomes understandable.
Mrs. White never hinted of subhuman beings or any kind of hybrid animal-human relationship. She did speak of "species of animals" and "races of men" but not any kind of amalgam of animals with human beings.
We recognize, however, that serious students of Ellen White's writings differ on what she meant by "amalgamation." "The burden of proof rests on those who affirm that Mrs. White gave a new and alien meaning to the term."
Volcanology
Some charge that Mrs. White's statements regarding the cause of volcanoes reflected the myths and fanciful thinking of age-old theories. Her writings contain eight relevant concepts that have been debated since they first appeared in 1864.
This list includes: (1) Formation of coal beds is linked to the Flood; (2) Coal produces oil; (3) Subterranean fires are fueled by the burning of both coal and oil; (4) Water added to the subterranean fires produces explosions, thus earthquakes; (5) Earthquake and volcanic action are linked together as products of these underground fires; (6) Both limestone and iron ore are connected with the burning coal beds and oil deposits; (7) Air is involved in the super heat; (8) Deposits of coal and oil are found after the subterranean fires have died out.
Though similarities exist between Mrs. White's writings and John Wesley's famous sermon, "The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes" (1750), there are striking differences. Contrary to earlier authors, one finds no trace in Ellen White's writings of "eroding streams and violent winds; no vaulted cavities that collapsed and thus caused the Flood; no hollow caverns echoing with subterranean thunder; no fires fueled by underground stores of sulfur, naphtha, or niter. Viewed as a unit, her concept of subterranean fires is unique, and we search in vain to find it lent to her by a single human source."
The next question, of course, is whether one can find scientific confirmation for her "unique" views regarding these violent natural phenomena. Many theories abound as to the causes of volcanoes and earthquakes, and the formation of oil and coal. Most earth scientists base their ideas on the plate-tectonic theory. Nothing in Ellen White's comments rules out that theory. Further, nothing in her writings states that all volcanoes are the product of burning coal fields or that all earthquakes are caused by subterranean fires. When she links earthquakes and volcanoes together, one immediately thinks of the Pacific Ocean "ring of fire" and its high potential for disasters from both.
However, notable scientists have confirmed Ellen White's observations. Otto Stutzer's Geology of Coal documented that "subterranean fires in coal beds are ignited through spontaneous combustion, resulting in the melting of nearby rocks that are classed as pseudo volcanic deposits." Stutzer listed several examples of such activity, including "a burning mountain," an outcrop that "lasted over 150 years," and "the heat from one burning coal bed [that] was used for heating greenhouses in that area from 1837 to 1868." Modern confirmation exists for the igniting of coal and oil with its sulfur constituent "seen around the eruptions of hot springs, geysers, and volcanic fumaroles."
References to rocks "which overlie the coal have suffered considerable alteration because of the fires, being sintered and partly melted," correlate with Ellen White's statement that "rocks are heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted." Further research in the western United States has produced conclusions and language very similar to Mrs. White's writings of a century earlier: "The melted rock resembles common furnace clinker or volcanic lava."
One last charge has been that melted iron ore is not found in connection with burning coal and oil deposits. However, a United States Geological Survey paper records the discovery of hematite (an iron ore) that had been "formed in some way through the agency of the burning coal."
The suggestion that Ellen White was indebted to existing sources for her scientific information is without merit, because some of this verification only became known many years after her death. Further, "It is much more unlikely that she resorted to the published ideas of contemporary Creationists on the subject, since their views were relics of wild cosmological speculations."
Masturbation
Few topics have generated more ridicule from critics than Ellen White's statements regarding "self-abuse," "solitary vice," "self-indulgence," "secret vice," "moral pollution," etc. Ellen White never used the term "masturbation."
Her first reference to this subject appeared in a 64-page pamphlet, An Appeal to Mothers, April 1864, nine months after her first comprehensive health vision. Primarily devoted to masturbation, pages 5 to 34 were from her own pen; the remainder consisted of quotations from medical authorities.
Ellen White did not say that all, or even most, of the potentially serious consequences of masturbation would happen to any one individual. Nor did she say that the worst possible degree of a serious consequence would happen to most indulgers.
Modern research indicates that Ellen White's strong statements can be supported when she is properly understood. The general view today, however, is that masturbation is normal and healthy and thus should be free from guilt feelings.
Two medical specialists have suggested that in "a zinc-deficient adolescent, sexual excitement and excessive masturbation might precipitate insanity," and "it is even possible, given the importance of zinc for the brain, that 18th century moralists were correct when they said that repeated masturbation could make one mad."
Two professionals in the area of clinical psychology and family therapy have compared Ellen White's statements on masturbation with current medical knowledge. Dr. Richard Nies defended Ellen White's general counsel on masturbation, making four main points: