The Visions of Mrs. E.G. White

OBJECTION 12. — THE SABBATH A TEST

“She teaches,” says the objector, “that the Sabbath was not a test prior to 1844, which is contrary to the Bible.” To this we reply, that she teaches no such thing. What does she say? “I saw that the present test on the Sabbath could not come until the mediation of Jesus in the Holy Place was finished, and he had passed within the second vail; therefore Christians who fall asleep before the door was opened in the Most Holy when the midnight cry was finished at the seventh month, 1844, and had not kept the true Sabbath, now rest in hope; for they had not the light and the test on the Sabbath which we now have since that door was opened.” Experience and Views, page 25. Then what is the test referred to? Evidently the new light that came forth at that time upon the Sabbath question as connected with prophecy. But the objector, by making the Sabbath a test in the same sense in which it is now a test, before the development of the light upon it, not only goes beyond the Bible, but offers no hope to those Christians who have died in the past without observing it. If he wishes to take upon himself that burden he is welcome to carry it. The Bible proportions a man’s responsibility to the light he receives. And what is it that gives the Sabbath doctrine its vitality and aggressive power in the hands of S. D. Adventists, over what it possesses in the hands of S. D. Baptists? It is simply its connection with prophecy and the subject of the sanctuary. And before the truth on these subjects came out, the light that existed on the Sabbath question, even among those who were observing it, was scarcely a tithe of what it is now. Hence the Sabbath question has occupied a place before the world since that time, such as it did not, and could not, before. No S. D. Adventists can consistently deny this. And this is all that can be deduced from the teachings of the visions upon this point. VEGW 54.1