The Visions of Mrs. E.G. White

OBJECTION 18. — THE CLOSE OF THE 1000 YEARS

“At the close of the thousand years, Jesus and the angels and all the saints with him leave the holy city, and while he is descending to the earth with them, the wicked dead are raised.” Ex. & Views, p. 34. As a contradiction to this, a quotation is made from Gifts, Vol.1, as follows: “At the end of the one thousand years, Jesus left the city, and a train of the angelic host followed him. Jesus descended upon a great and mighty mountain, which, as soon as his feet touched it, parted asunder and became a mighty plain. Then we looked up and saw the great and beautiful city. * * * And it came down in all its splendor and dazzling glory, and settled in the plain. * * Then Jesus, and all the holy retinue of angels, and all the redeemed saints, left the city. * * * Then Jesus in terrible, fearful majesty called forth the wicked dead. Gifts, Vol.1, p.213. The objector then asks the question, “When did Jesus raise them? While he was descending as first stated, or after the city come [!] down as last stated?” VEGW 72.1

It will be difficult for the reader to understand the dishonest work that has been made in garbling and perverting this testimony, unless he has the books and can refer to them himself. From the manner in which the quotation is given, he would think it was all one connected paragraph, on the same page, and referring to the same subject, instead of a part of it being on another page, and under a new chapter, and on a new subject, as is actually the case! In one instance in the quotation, as the objector gives it, there is nearly a line omitted, with nothing at all to indicate it. Next, three and a half lines are omitted, signified by the insertion of three stars. But where the leaf turns, and a new chapter are introduced, the change is indicated by only two stars! The commencement and close of the quotation is simply the rehearsal of the same facts applied to two different subjects. The subject of chap. 39, of Gifts, Vol.1, is “The Earth Desolated;” and in that chapter we are taken down through the period of its desolation to the time when the city is located upon it. The point in the quotation where this chapter ends is this: “And it came down in all its splendor and dazzling glory, and settled in the [mighty] plain [which Jesus had prepared for it.] Then opens chapter 11, and the subject of that chapter is “The Second Resurrection;” and in the opening of that chapter we are carried right back to the holy city, and to the exit of Christ and his people therefrom before it comes down. The reader would at once have seen this, if the objector had not dishonestly concealed the fact that a new chapter was opened, and then suppressed two lines and a half of the testimony, for which no reason is given. Chapter 40 opens thus: “Then Jesus, and all the holy retinue of angels, and all the redeemed saints, left the city. The holy angels surrounded Jesus and escorted him on his way, and the train of redeemed saints followed. Then Jesus, in terrible, fearful majesty, called forth the wicked dead, etc. “The angels escorted him on his way.” On his way where? we ask, if the city and the heavenly company had already descended. It is on the authority of such garbled quotations as this, that we are asked to discard the visions. We beg to be excused. VEGW 72.2

Perhaps some may refer to Vol.3, pp.83,84, where the same facts are stated, undivided by a chapter; but the same principle will hold good here as in the former case. It is a principle common to all writings, not only the Bible, but to every book in which there are different series of events narrated which synchronize in the time of their fulfillment. We are carried down through one series, and when that is completed, we are taken back to the commencement of another. VEGW 74.1

It is a characteristic of infidelity, that it will not allow us to apply to the Bible the same rules of interpretation that we do to other books; and it is a characteristic of these objections to the visions, that they will not allow us to understand the visions as we do the Bible. VEGW 74.2