Finally, from an Adventist perspective, there is the example of Ellen G. White. Many Adventists have assumed that Ellen White’s words were more directly chosen by God, that she saw clear pictures of actual events in her future. But even with Ellen White the descriptions of the future came in the language of her past. What was the language of her past? The English language of 19th Century America. God met her where she was and worked within that framework.
While Ellen White clearly addressed the future, you will not find a single statement in all of her writings that clearly describes anything that is unique to the 20th Century or beyond. You will look in vain for a description of computers, nuclear war, space travel, the internet, or any explicit description of the details of World War II in her writings. When she describes events that lie ahead of her times, she does so in language that is firmly rooted in her time and place. For example, when she describes the police forces of the world moving in to attack the saints at the very end of time, what weapons do those police carry in their hands? Swords! An 1847 statement on the second coming of Jesus describes the reactions of slaves and their masters at Jesus’ return. These descriptions were appropriate in the middle of the 19th Century, but no longer in today’s world.
I was once challenged on this point. A person stood up and reminded me of Ellen White’s comments regarding balls of fire falling on New York City at the end. He suggested that this could be a description of nuclear war in our future. I thought for a moment, and then asked if he was familiar with the song, “And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there!” He indicated that he knew the American national anthem.
I asked him, “Do you know when that song was written?”
He thought for a moment, “1814?”
“Right,” I said, “Even the language of the fireballs, whatever that will mean when the time comes, is consistent with the language of Ellen White’s past.” So our knowledge of a more contemporary prophet confirms the evidence collected from our survey of fulfilled prophecies throughout the Bible.
In conclusion, I’d like to share a few practical cautions about prophetic interpretation: 1) I think Christians in general and Adventists in particular tend to be a little too certain that we understand exactly what God intends to do before He does it. Perhaps it arises out of the human temptation to play God, Who alone knows the future. But the history of people’s interpretations of Revelation ought to be a warning to us. Time and again, interpretations that made perfect sense at one point in time proved to be dead wrong when the actual fulfillment came. We should not expect point by point correspondence in all details between prophecy and fulfillment. Fulfillments are best recognized when they occur and not before.
2) The primary purpose of prophecy is not to satisfy our curiosity about the future, but to teach us how to live today. God uses a vision of the future to encourage and motivate real people in the real circumstances of everyday life. Although prophecy is predictive, its primary purpose is to teach us something about God and change the way we live long before the fulfillment comes.
3) We tend to read Revelation as though it was written to our own time, place and circumstances. We bring to our reading associations and concepts that would never have occurred to John or His contemporaries. Such readings almost inevitably leads to a distortion of the text and of its original intention. The language of Revelation is the language of John’s past not ours.
But if Revelation was written in the language of another time and place, it raises an important question. How can study of Revelation be relevant to us in our time and place when it was written for people in another time and place? How can we bridge the gap between their day and ours? How can we safely find a word from the Lord for today in the writings of those who lived and wrote in the distant past? By reading these predictions in the light of the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible. This is what I seek to do throughout my commentary on Revelation published at Ministry4Thinking and Thebattleofarmageddon web sites.
Tag Archives: Ellen White and prophecy
How Clear Is Ellen White on Unfulfilled Prophecy?
It is often assumed that when Ellen White makes a “clear” statement about either the meaning of the Bible or about the unfulfilled future, all issues are settled and discussion on the topic should be closed. And statements are often produced that seem to imply that as well. But I would humbly suggest that such statements should be balanced by her own expressions of uncertainty. These are not often given their full weight in the discussion. One example is found in Testimonies for the Church, volume 6, page 17: “The mark of the beast is exactly what it has been proclaimed to be. Not all in regard to this matter is yet understood nor will it be understood until the unrolling of the scroll.” This statement was published in 1900, twelve years after the two key Sunday law statements of 1888. I understand her to be saying that one can have confidence in the broad outline of the mark of the beast, yet allow God freedom of action at the time of fulfillment. Prophecies are most clearly understood at or after the time of fulfillment (John 14:29). What is a little unclear to me in this statement is whether or not she includes herself in the admission “Not all in regard to this matter is yet understood. . . .”
Perhaps clearer is a statement she wrote a year later: “We are not now able to describe with accuracy the scenes to be enacted in our world in the future, but this we do know, that this is a time when we must watch unto prayer, for the great day of the Lord is at hand.” Selected Messages, volume 2, page 35. In describing the great day of the Lord as being at hand, I would understand her to be speaking of the future in the classical sense rather than the apocalyptic sense. In classical prophecy “the Day of the Lord” was always portrayed as near, to motivate earnest faithfulness among those awaiting the End. It seems to me that in using the pronoun “we”, Ellen White is explicitly including herself among those who are not able to describe the future “with accuracy”, as she puts it, or as I have been saying, in every detail. While God is consistent, He is not always predictable, and she seems to allow for that here. The broad outlines are clear enough to live by, especially where they have explicit exegetical support in Scripture, but there are things about the future it would not be good for us to know (Acts 1:6-7) and we should not presume to know them ahead of the fulfillment.
There is one further statement from 1901 that seems pertinent to the principles being outlined here. “It is not (God’s) will that (believers) shall get into controversy over questions which will not help them spiritually, such as, Who is to compose the hundred and forty-four thousand? This those who are the elect of God will in a short time know without question.” Selected Messages, volume one, page 174. In developing a series on the mark of the beast I was seeking to be helpful to those who are confused about the issue. But in responding to requests to present this issue, the topic seems to have produced more heat than light. The details of just how the mark of the beast will work out is not the crucial issue in our walk with God. I believe it is wise for us to become familiar with the way God works in the world, to understand Revelation 13 as far as we can, and to become familiar with what Ellen White has to say about the mark of the beast. But if debating about the exact outcome of these predictions becomes the central focus and divides people into opposing camps, this topic may do more harm than good.
Ellen White and the Beast from the Abyss (EWB 19)
In The Great Controversy, pages 265-288 Ellen White identifies the power which opposed the two witnesses as revolutionary France. She also believed that the ideological forces which shaped the revolution would have a powerful impact again at the end of time: “. . . the world-wide dissemination of the same teachings that led to the French Revolution–all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France.” Ed 228.
Since the power that opposed the two witnesses in Revelation is identified as the “beast which comes up out of the abyss” (Rev 11:7), it is intriguing to suspect that the fifth trumpet, which is concerned with the opening of the abyss and the tormenting powers that are thereby unleashed, may shed some light on the end-time manifestation of teachings that convulsed France some 200 years ago. While this pair of statements provided the intellectual stimulus for the historical application of the fifth trumpet that I currently favor, I must admit that the connections among all these are too tenuous to argue that Ellen White herself held that view.
But since a radical secularism interpretation of the fifth trumpet is plausible, based on the text of Revelation 9:1-11 in its larger context, it is very possible that the secular and post-modern developments of our time can be used by God to further His purposes. So-called post-moderism and related developments offer intriguing possibilities for rethinking how to frame ideas like gospel and church to meet the needs of a new generation. See my book Everlasting Gospel, Everchanging World for an elaboration of these ideas.
Sunday Laws and Bible Prophecy (12): Ellen White and Prophetic Principles
The standard assumption among many Adventists is that every single prediction made by Ellen White must be fulfilled at some point in the future, without conditions. This position is similar to that the Pharisees applied to the Old Testament in Jesus’ day. We all know how that worked out. Considering both the principles of prophetic interpretation of the Bible and the realities of history since the 1880s, I would suggest we exercise a little caution before uncritically embracing the standard assumptions about future Sunday laws in the United States and elsewhere. If Ellen White were alive today, there is at least a chance that her depiction of the End would be somewhat different than it was in the 1880s. Let’s look at the evidence for that caution.
First of all, an unconditional approach to Ellen White’s predictions is contrary to the evidence of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible. We noticed there that (2) God is not always predictable, that (4) God meets people where they are, that (6) God uses the language of the prophet’s past and present to describe the future, and that (7) fulfillments of prophecy are best understand as or after the fulfillment. I would argue that an appropriate interpretation of Ellen White’s unfulfilled prophecies would be and should be very much in line with the biblical evidence.
Let’s look briefly at the context of her most specific statements regarding the national Sunday law in the late 1880s. At that time, both SDAs and many other Americans see three great threats in the public square. The first was the fear of Protestant apostasy; that Protestantism in America would lose focus on the principles of the Reformation, which also undergirded the founding principles of the American nation. The second major threat was the rise of Roman Catholicism in the United States. In 1840 Catholics made up about 5% of the US population. By the mid-1880s, due to massive immigration from places like Ireland, Italy and Poland, Catholics made up 17% of the US population and Catholicism was flexing its political muscles in the US for the first time. This alarmed both Protestants and Adventists. The love for bars and carnivals that Catholics brought with them from Europe caused many to feel that the social order was being undermined. The third major threat was the rise of spiritualism as a major influence in the political discourse of the time. Ellen White’s famous statement about “reaching hands across the gulf” names all three of these threats (GC 588). A union of these three forces was seen as the greatest threat to both Adventism and the American republic.
Protestantism reacted to these developments in two ways, one more popular than the other with Adventists. First was the drive to ban the production and sale of alcohol in the United States, a movement that came later to be called Prohibition. Ellen White found common cause with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union on this issue and she sometimes spoke at their rallies. But the WCTU and other Protestant entities also saw Sunday legislation as a way to preserve America’s character as a Protestant nation. They sensed that the country was changing and felt that Sunday laws was a way to hold back the tide. Ellen White’s most famous statements on Sunday laws were written in the midst of the above developments. Thus, they are to be understood in the light of the biblical principles outlined at the beginning. God was using Ellen White’s past and present language and experiences to paint a picture of the future. Her outline of that future was, therefore, a natural extension of her time and place. Her visions met her squarely where she was. Given how much the world has changed in the last 130 years, it would be surprising if the outcome of the end-time turned out to be more predictable than the prophecies fulfilled in Bible times. “The promises and threatenings of God are alike conditional.” LDE 38.