The Gift of Prophecy (The Role of Ellen White in God’s Remnant Church)

Preaching the gospel

The gospel, or good news, is the central message of the New Testament. That “man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28) was also the central message of the Reformers, such as Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli. Ellen White had a tremendous admiration for Martin Luther. The light of the Reformation was for her “the great doctrine of justification by faith, so clearly taught by Luther” (GC 253). GP 66.3

She accepted the gospel as presented by the Reformers and went even so far as to say, “Christ was a protestant. . . . The Reformers date back to Christ and the apostles. They came out and separated themselves from a religion of forms and ceremonies. Luther and his followers did not invent the reformed religion. They simply accepted it as presented by Christ and the apostles” (RH, June 1, 1886). GP 66.4

Ellen White recognized the need of preaching this gospel to our own members. “Our churches” she wrote, “are dying for the want of teaching on the subject of righteousness by faith in Christ, and for kindred truths” (RH, March 25, 1890). GP 66.5

In her proclamation of the gospel, she clearly distinguished the law from the gospel. The law presents the condition of eternal life, and that condition “is now just what it always has been,—just what it was in Paradise before the fall of our first parents,—perfect obedience to the law of God, perfect righteousness” (SC 62). The gospel supplies what the law demands. It directs us to Jesus, who is the perfect righteousness that the law demands. “Every soul may say: ‘By His perfect obedience He has satisfied the claims of the law, and my only hope is found in looking to Him as my substitute and surety, who obeyed the law perfectly for me’ ” (1SM 396). GP 66.6

While Ellen White made a basic distinction between law and gospel, the emphasis in her writings was on the harmony of law and gospel. “We must present the law and the gospel together, for they go hand in hand” (GW 161). Repeatedly she admonished ministers to present both together, because “the law and the gospel, blended, will convict of sin. God’s law, while condemning sin, points to the gospel, revealing Jesus Christ, in whom ‘dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.’ . . . Thus both the law and the gospel are blended. In no discourse are they to be divorced” (Ev 231). GP 67.1

Ellen White also wrote much about sanctification, which she viewed as “the result of lifelong obedience” (AA 560). It is a process of divine grace that restores “in man the moral image of God” (MM 234). It is not the work of a moment, but “a refining process going on day by day, in God’s own way, in doing His will until all true believers are complete in Him” (4MR 354). In proclaiming the gospel, Ellen White conformed very closely to the Protestant tradition. GP 67.2