Messenger of the Lord

Why Revisions Were Necessary

The 1883 General Conference resolution endorsed the 1878 vote, noting the circumstances under which the Testimonies had been written: “Many of these testimonies were written under the most unfavorable circumstances, the writer being too heavily pressed with anxiety and labor to devote critical thought to the grammatical perfection of the writings, and they were printed in such haste as to allow these imperfections to pass uncorrected; etc.” ⁵⁸ MOL 118.3

The editors took this task of revision seriously. Mary wrote to her husband, W. C. White: “With regard to changes, we will try to profit by your suggestions. The fear that we may make too many changes or in some way change the sense haunts me day and night.” ⁵⁹ MOL 118.4

But not everyone was enthusiastic about the revision of the published Testimonies. Dark fears arose at the heart of church leadership. W. C. White wrote to his wife Mary from the General Conference session in 1882, alerting her to the resistance: “Butler and Haskell do not find serious fault with Testimony proofs, but say they see no good in about one-third of the changes. They wish you could go with them into meetings and see such men as Mooney [an anti-Adventist polemicist] bring forward one edition and then another and show changes and try to make a point of it. I argue that there is no salvation in bad grammar, etc. A thought grammatically expressed is just as good to reach the hard and sinful heart as if badly expressed.” ⁶⁰ MOL 118.5

Fears came from two directions: Leaders knew (1) that critics of the denomination would jump at the opportunity to show that the Adventist “prophet” was unreliable, that she was manipulated by circumstances and other people; (2) that changes in published writings would unsettle some Adventists, causing them to feel they had been misled and that Ellen White was not a safe guide. MOL 118.6

Were these fears justified? Yes and No. Fears were justified when leaders observed that many people, both Adventists and non-Adventists, held an inadequate view of how God speaks to His human messengers; they believed that God dictated the exact words that prophets used in revealing divine messages. However, fears were unnecessary whenever people understood that God inspired the messenger with thoughts, not words. MOL 118.7

The 1883 General Conference resolution did its best to clarify the truth about the nature of revelation/inspiration: “We believe the light given by God to His servants is by the enlightenment of the mind, thus imparting the thoughts, and not (except in rare cases) the very words in which the ideas should be expressed; therefore— MOL 118.8

“Resolved, That in the republication of these volumes such verbal changes be made as to remove the above-named imperfections, as far as possible, without in any measure changing the thought.” ⁶¹ MOL 118.9

This General Conference resolution became a benchmark for the Adventist understanding of revelation/inspiration. ⁶² MOL 118.10