Messenger of the Lord

Light Was Resisted

In a profound statement to Uriah Smith in 1896, Ellen White put her finger on the open sore that would continue to affect denominational plans and crises until the sore was healed. After reaffirming that the “schoolmaster” in Galatians 3 was the moral law, she wrote: “An un-willingness to yield up preconceived opinions, and to accept this truth, lay at the foundation of a large share of the opposition manifested at Minneapolis [1888] against the Lord’s message through Brethren Waggoner and Jones. By exciting that opposition, Satan succeeded in shutting away from our people, in a great measure, the special power of the Holy Spirit that God longed to impart to them. The enemy prevented them from obtaining that efficiency which might have been theirs in carrying the truth to the world, as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost. The light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory was resisted, and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world.” ²⁴ MOL 197.5

For Mrs. White, the emphasis on salvation by faith during the 1888-1895 period embodied the “third angel’s message,” especially as this message related to Christ’s work in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary. It was more than a mere recovery of “righteousness by faith” as proclaimed by the Reformers. MOL 198.1

The increased light that Bible study had presented to the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference confirmed the linkage between the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus in an inseparable union, a union as efficient and interdependent as two poles of a battery, in the dynamic transformation of human lives. MOL 198.2

In the 1888 emphasis, linkage was further made between the results of a personal application of salvation by faith and the closing work of Christ in the Most Holy Place. For Ellen White, the church will languish until its members understand and experience the truth that seeing Christ in the law enables men and women to be obedient to that law. When people see how Christ truly removes the guilt the law condemns, they will see how He truly enables men and women to become what the law describes. In so doing, such people become what John predicted would exist in the generation that proclaims the third angel’s message (Revelation 14:12). Thus, “Christ Our Righteousness” becomes that “one subject that will swallow up” all others. ²⁵ MOL 198.3

Some of Ellen White’s pivotal contributions to the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference and thus to us today, include: MOL 198.4

Conflicting points of view should be discussed with a proper attitude; improper attitudes may be a sign that the views are deficient.

Wise students of the Bible do not emphasize minor points that distract from the primary issues, such as details on prophetic interpretation.

The essence of the gospel embraces the law and a genuine faith response so that by the grace of Christ, imputed and imparted, the intent of the law and gospel will be fulfilled.

Church leaders should be examples of openness so that “new light” is not kept from the church.

The 1888 “revelation of the righteousness of Christ” was only “the beginning of the light of the angel whose glory shall fill the whole earth” (Revelation 18:1).

Clarifying and restating the principles of the “precious message” that was the beginning of the “loud cry” (Revelation 14:18) will become “the one subject that will swallow up” all others.

This profound endowment to the Adventist Church is on record today in the many documents of that period. It can be strongly argued that, without Ellen White’s prophetic leadership at that time, the Seventh-day Adventist Church would have been mortally wounded. Without her insistence that only a full understanding of what she and others were emphasizing in 1888 and the years soon following, the church today would not know what it means to fulfill its role in proclaiming the “everlasting gospel.” MOL 198.5

The urgency of the messages of this period, 1888-1896, persists today. To be truly informed, a person must re-read the actual messages, not through the eyes of another but directly as if the present reader were an eyewitness hearing Jones, Waggoner, and Ellen White for the first time. ²⁶ MOL 198.6