The Three Angels’ Messages

Historical and Theological Introduction

The messages of the three angels found in Revelation 14 are central to the teachings and counsels of Ellen White. They were not speculative theories to her. She lived them. Her life was “interwoven” with them. ¹ She experienced each message historically as she and her fellow Adventists moved from anticipation to disappointment and then to deeper discovery. 3AM 9.1

The statements brought together in this compilation hang on the framework of the words of Scripture—specifically Revelation 14:6-16 and 18:1-5. The book of Revelation carries great weight for those living in the last days of human history. It unfolds the great cosmic-historical controversy between Christ and Satan from its very inception in the heavenly realms, its development throughout human history (Revelation 12), and the final triumph of Christ and His followers. Ellen White refers to this crucial book as the place where the prophecies of Daniel are “unsealed” ² and where “all the books of the Bible meet and end.” ³ She emphasized that “the solemn messages that have been given in their order in the Revelation are to occupy the first place in the minds of God’s people.” ⁴ 3AM 9.2

Within the book of Revelation, the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6-12 exclaim God’s last warnings to the impenitent world in preparation for the glorious second coming of Christ (verses 14-20). The first message proclaims God’s everlasting gospel in the context of the hour of His judgment, calling people to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (verse 7, NKJV). The second message announces the fall of all false religious systems and ideologies (verse 8). And the third message portrays the final polarization of humanity between “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” and those who follow the teachings of the beast and its image (verse 12, NKJV). 3AM 9.3

Major eighteenth-century events—especially the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 and the imprisonment of Pope Pius VI in 1798—generated a renewed interest in Bible prophecy, with emphasis on the books of Daniel and Revelation. Several contemporary Protestant expositors associated the three angels of Revelation 14 with Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the Church of England. Yet in 1813, the Scottish biblical prophecy expositor William Cuninghame (c. 1775-1849) recognized that those Reformers “did not even preach through the whole of Christian Europe” and thus did not fulfill the worldwide scope of the first angel’s message. While he believed that the first angel had begun his mission through the newly established Bible societies, he saw the messages of the second and the third angels as still in the future. ⁵ 3AM 10.1

In a time when the world was struggling with the lack of religious freedom, North America provided a safe haven for the eschatological fulfillment and proclamation of the three angels’ messages. William Miller (1782-1849) and other believers in the soon coming of Jesus before 1844 saw the first angel’s message as applying to the worldwide proclamation of the gospel, beginning about 1798, at the end of the 1,260 days/years (Revelation 11:3; 12:6; 13:5). The second angel’s message and the fall of Babylon were applied to the papacy. The third angel, Miller wrote, was “the same as the ‘midnight cry,’ giving due notice to the world of the near approach of the judgment day” in 1843 or 1844. ⁶ 3AM 10.2

In the summer of 1843, a division of understanding among Millerites developed when Charles Fitch (1805-1844) presented his sermon titled “Come Out of Her, My People.” Fitch applied both the second angel’s message of Revelation 14:8 and the “loud cry” angel of Revelation 18 not only to the papacy but also to the Protestant churches that had rejected the soon coming of Jesus. ⁷ During this time, many Millerites were expelled or left their Protestant churches. Miller and some of those associated with him took strong exception to Fitch’s view of including any Protestant church as a part of Babylon. ⁸ 3AM 11.1

During the first years after the disappointment of October 22, 1844, Sabbathkeeping Adventists, who later became Seventh-day Adventists, maintained the Millerite view with Fitch’s position that the first two angels of Revelation 14 applied to the Second Advent proclamation leading up to 1844, but that part or all of the third angel applied to the period after 1844, with the proclamation of the Sabbath in the “commandments of God” and the “faith or testimony of Jesus.” ⁹ 3AM 11.2

Joseph Bates’s The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign (1847) first linked Jesus’ heavenly sanctuary ministry in the Most Holy Place with the Sabbath, based on Revelation 11:19 and 14:12, giving the Sabbath eschatological importance. Ellen White’s confirming and enriching “Sabbath Halo” vision confirmed this understanding and added an evangelistic mission emphasis to the Sabbath. She wrote: “We went forth, and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully.” ¹⁰ 3AM 11.3

The linking of the third angel and the mark of the beast to the United States as represented by the lamblike image to the beast (Revelation 13:11-18) was first mentioned in print by G. W. Holt in 1850. Alluding to a Protestant image of the papal beast, he wrote: “He [the lamblike beast] assumes the character of a lamb, (protestant and republican,) yet he is a dragon at heart.” ¹¹ In 1851, J. N. Andrews provided a more complete exposition on the future role of the United States as the lamblike beast that brings about the union of church and state by enforcing Sunday observance. ¹² 3AM 11.4

These developments prepared the way for a dramatic breakthrough in understanding. During 1857 and 1858, Sabbathkeeping Adventists came to see all three messages of Revelation 14:6-12 and the angel of Revelation 18 as being proclaimed since 1844. Elon Everts coined the phrase investigative judgment in a letter referring to the first angel’s message: 3AM 12.1

The question with me is, Where are we? I answer, More than twelve years past the proclamation “The hour of his judgment is come.” Revelation 14:6, 7. We have been the same length of time in the cleansing of the Sanctuary. Dan. viii, 14.... 3AM 12.2

... It appears that the order is, that the righteous dead have been under investigative judgment since 1844. ¹³ 3AM 12.3

James White wrote an expanded article agreeing with Everts’s understanding. “We think the evidence clear, that since that time [1844] the judgment of those who died subjects of the grace of God has been going on.” James White presented a touching picture of those who died in faith: “Jesus smiles; and leaning upon the bosom of his Saviour, the saint breathes his life out sweetly there. His probation is closed, and his case rests till the record of his life is opened, and his case passes in review in the judgment.” This grace-oriented picture is followed with a reference to a future judgment of the living: “The judgment is passing! Very soon will your names either be confessed by Jesus Christ before his Father, or they will be blotted out of the book of life.” ¹⁴ 3AM 12.4

A correct view of the unconscious state of the dead was therefore seen to be closely connected to the biblical concept of a pre-Advent judgment, since eternal rewards are not bestowed at death but at the end of time. “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work” (Revelation 22:12, NKJV). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10, NKJV). 3AM 13.1

Ellen White portrayed the messages of the three angels as three steps of access to the solid platform of present truth, with two distinct groups. The first group were those who went through the Millerite and early Sabbathkeeping Adventist experience and accepted the messages as originally preached. The second group consisted of those who came after the original proclamation of the messages. ¹⁵ Although the three angels’ messages were originally preached in a sequential order, all three were to continue to be preached simultaneously: “The first and second messages were given in 1843 and 1844, and we are now under the proclamation of the third; but all three of the messages are still to be proclaimed.” ¹⁶ 3AM 13.2

An understanding of the post-1844 heavenly investigative judgment led to further study of the “loud cry” of the angel in Revelation 18. Both Elon Everts and James White wrote of its significance, and Ellen White confirmed that this final call out of Babylon was connected to the second angel’s message of Revelation 14:8. ¹⁷ 3AM 13.3

Following the 1888 General Conference Session’s emphasis on righteousness by faith and developments in the United States regarding a national Sunday law, many Seventh-day Adventists looked for the rapid proclamation of the “loud cry” as the gospel went to all the world. Yet Ellen White was careful to never declare that the judgment for the living had begun or that the mark of the beast was being applied. For many years, she would write, “Soon—none know how soon—it will pass to the cases of the living.” ¹⁸ In her 1911 edition of The Great Controversy, Ellen White laid out her most complete explanation of end-time events with the three angels’ messages and the “loud cry.” 3AM 13.4

Sabbathkeeping Adventists saw the proclamation of the three angels’ messages as unfolding a complete system of present truth. While each message is distinct, Ellen White and her contemporaries often referred to the truths of all three messages using the umbrella phrase “the third angel’s message.” In the early days of the movement, two expressions of these messages received special attention. One was “the hour of His judgment has come” (Revelation 14:7, NKJV), which was considered an allusion to the post-1844 phase of Christ’s priestly ministry in the heavenly sanctuary (Daniel 7:9-14; 8:14). The other expression was “the commandments of God” (Revelation 14:12, NKJV), with emphasis on the abiding nature of the Decalogue and the seventh-day Sabbath. This view was grounded on the conviction that saving faith does not make void God’s law (Romans 3:31). 3AM 14.1

Seventh-day Adventists considered themselves to be those described by John as ones who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12, NKJV). They even related several of their beliefs to this doctrinal foundation. For example, after Ellen White’s 1863 health-reform vision, the basic health principles were regarded as expressions of the commandments of God. After the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference, the doctrine of righteousness by faith was seen as a crucial part of the “faith of Jesus.” This perception fostered a Christ-centered preaching of the gospel in the context of “the hour of His judgment” (verse 7, NKJV). Indeed, the message of the three angels begins with the “everlasting gospel” and ends with the “faith of Jesus” (verses 6, 12, NKJV). 3AM 14.2

More recently, Adventist authors and preachers have placed a renewed focus on the Creation emphasis of the first angel’s message (Revelation 14:7). Biblical scholars have recognized that the expression “and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of waters” (verse 7, NKJV) derives not from the Genesis Creation account but rather from the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, which reads, “The LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (Exodus 20:11, NKJV). Special attention is also given to the theme of worship, as evident in the contrast between those who worship God and keep His commandments (Revelation 14:7, 12) and those who worship the beast and his image and receive his mark (verses 9, 11). 3AM 15.1

The three angels’ messages of Revelation 14 may well be the richest and most encompassing cluster of truths in the book of Revelation, if not the entire Bible. It is no wonder that Ellen White described these messages as “the most solemn truths ever entrusted to mortals” and their proclamation as “a work of the most solemn import.” ¹⁹ Emphasizing their enduring relevance, she stated: “The first and second messages were given in 1843 and 1844, and we are now under the proclamation of the third; but all three of the messages are still to be proclaimed. It is just as essential now as ever before that they shall be repeated to those who are seeking for the truth. By pen and voice we are to sound the proclamation.” ²⁰ 3AM 15.2

It is our prayer that a study of the inspired insights presented in this volume will lead to a greater understanding of the comprehensive nature of these last-day messages as well as to a renewed commitment to share them with the world. Together with Ellen White, let us “cry aloud: ‘Homeward bound!’ We are nearing the time when Christ will come in power and great glory to take His ransomed ones to their eternal home.” ²¹ 3AM 15.3

Board of Trustees of the
Ellen G. White Estate, Inc.

Silver Spring, Maryland

September 2021