It is with great joy that I release this large collection of articles by E.J. Waggoner (1855-1916), gathered and grouped according the events in the life of Jesus Christ.
When I first pulled all the articles from the Present Truth periodicals, I was surprised to find how much writing Waggoner had done, little of which had been collected and published. Because the larger historical works of A.T. Jones (1850-1923) had been published, along with some of his other books, I had the impression that Waggoner's written contribution to the Adventist gospel message was smaller. How wrong this has proved to be!
My rough estimate is that Waggoner probably wrote twice as much as Jones, and on a wider range of Biblical topics (although Jones specialized in History and Religious Liberty). Comparing these two men to Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph who shared his rich blessing, Waggoner was the Ephraim--the "more fruitful" one. And like Ephraim, Waggoner was also the younger of the two men.
Initially, I was not sure how to organize the many thousands of pages of articles. Eventually, it became clear that both Waggoner and Jones' articles fit into twelve categories: Gospel, Health, Life/Death/Spiritualism, Money/Work, Religious Liberty, Bible, Church, Holy Spirit, Law/Sabbath, Name of God, Prophetic Word, and Education. And I sorted them accordingly. However, it then became clear that the "Gospel" volume for Waggoner would still extend over many thousands of pages.
I was able to separate some articles out into other books, such as the volumes on John, Romans, Hebrews, Prayer, Psalms, Proverbs, Paul and the Early Church. Another series of articles were collected into the small book, The Miracles of Jesus.
This still left me with thousands of pages of articles. Finally, it occurred to me that the bulk of the Gospel articles that were based on the Four Gospels, could fit into a volume on the Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ, similar to Ellen White's book, The Desire of Ages, though obviously not written in such a chronological fashion. It would be more of a devotional/theological book (sorted chronologically), rather than a chronological history.
And so this book came to be. At around 2000 pages, it is a remarkable collection of Adventist religious thought from the 1888 Gospel era. I have divided it into two volumes to make it more manageable:
• Volume 1: The Gospel Events, Parables, and Teachings of Jesus from His birth to the completion of His ministry in Galilee. The "Declaration" of the Gospel.
• Volume 2: The Final Ministry in Judea, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus. The "Demonstration" of the Gospel.
In placing the articles on the timeline, I have followed the charts on the website, www.gospelparallels.com, and also some materials from our church's Missionary Seminar of 2005 (the charts/maps are by Andreas Dura; the timeline by Günther Cerncic). I believe that the timeline used in the Missionary Seminar charts followed, wherever possible, the chronology used in the book, The Desire of Ages.
I have included a few of the articles from The Miracles of Jesus, and The Lord's Prayer; but in most cases, I have avoided duplicating articles that are already in other collections.
I have not included any of the articles from Waggoner's Studies in the Gospel of John. Although they would have fit within the scheme of this book, since they are complete in themselves (and one article flows to the next), I did not want to break them up. With a few exceptions, I have collected articles in this book that did not belong to a previous series.
The articles chosen for this volume were selected on the basis that they started with a verse from one of the four gospels or were wholly concerned with a Gospel event. There are over 450 articles included, written over a span of about 20 years.
Jesus, as the life and hope of mankind, and especially as the pattern for the final generation, was the burden of Waggoner's writings, and this is the main theme that runs through them all. It is indeed, all about Jesus.
"These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes." (Revelation 14:4)