Understanding Ellen White

Chapter Seven - Humanity of the Prophets

Alberto R. Timm

Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible and the prophetic writings of Ellen White as fully inspired by the Holy Spirit through a mysterious process of divine-human interplay. ¹ The apostle Peter refers to that process by saying that “no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20, 21). ² The divine-human interplay cannot be limited to the predictive element of the Scriptures. It is of such an all-encompassing nature that Paul could even state that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16). Ellen White sheds light on the topic by suggesting a pertinent analogy between the divine-human nature of Christ and the nature of the Bible. She explains: UEGW 95.1

The Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, presents a union of the divine and the human. Such a union existed in the nature of Christ, who was the Son of God and the Son of man. Thus it is true of the Bible, as it was of Christ, that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” John 1:14. ³ UEGW 95.2

Since the early 1970s there has been an ongoing discussion in some Adventist academic circles about the nature of both the Scriptures and Ellen White writings. ⁴ The argument is that if we accept the fact that all prophetic writings were “given in the language of men,” and “everything that is human is imperfect,“ ⁵ then we have to admit also that such imperfections have distorted, at least to a certain degree, the divine message carried by those writings. After all, does not Paul speak of the gospel message as a divine “treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor. 4:7)? Does not Ellen White mention that in her own writings God was “speaking through clay”? ⁶ By contrast, others counter argue that the whole idea of questioning the prophetic writings is theologically illegitimate, because Ellen White states that “it is not the province of any man to pronounce sentence upon the Scriptures, to judge or condemn any portion of God’s Word.” ⁷ So, to what extent did the human weaknesses of the prophet affect the integrity of the prophetic message? UEGW 95.3

The present chapter considers, initially, the role played by the prophet’s human feelings and personal growth within the inspired writings; then, the issue of the indebtedness of those writings to the general culture in which they came into existence; and, finally, the interrelationship between the unfolding of the prophetic messages across time and their own integrity within this process. Undoubtedly, any attempt to deal with the humanity of the prophet is conditioned largely by the interpreter’s ideological framework. But a special attempt is made here to allow the inspired writings to speak for themselves, avoiding, as much as possible, idealistic and humanistic rereading of the inspired writings. Due to the conciseness of the approach, the study will point out only basic concepts that can be further developed elsewhere. UEGW 96.1