The Great Visions of Ellen G. White

Early Opposition

Of all the pillar doctrines, the doctrine of Christ’s high priesthood in the sanctuary above was “especially” validated by the Holy Spirit “over and over again” and “in a marked manner,” more than any of the others. ¹⁴ Also, it alone constitutes the unique contribution of Seventh-day Adventists to the theology of Protestant Christendom, “the very message that has made us a separate people, and has given character and power to our work.” ¹⁵ GVEGW 43.4

This doctrine, of all those held by Seventh-day Adventists, was probably the first to be attacked, initially within the church and later from without. GVEGW 44.1

In the mid-1860s, B. F. Snook and W. H. Brinkerhoff, officers in the Iowa Conference, broke away to form the “Marion Party,” one of the first offshoot movements Adventism would experience. There is some evidence that opposition to the sanctuary doctrine was among their heretical tenets. ¹⁶ GVEGW 44.2

Some 30 years later Dudley M. Canright, one of Adventism’s most effective public evangelists, left the faith to fight it. In his Seventh-day Adventism Renounced, published in 1889, two years after his defection, Canright devoted an entire chapter to attacking our position on the sanctuary. ¹⁷ GVEGW 44.3

Just after the turn of the century Albion Fox Ballenger and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg joined the anti-sanctuary ranks. Both attacked not only the doctrine itself, but also its chief “messenger.” GVEGW 44.4

Ballenger, an Adventist minister who subsequently apostatized to form an offshoot movement, made a frontal attack against the idea that Jesus had a two-apartment post-Calvary ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. His influence was substantial, and Ellen White summoned him to the new Washington, D.C., headquarters of the General Conference for a face-to-face confrontation. ¹⁸ GVEGW 44.5

Dr. Kellogg’s opposition was more indirect and insidious—and therefore the more dangerous. Kellogg, medical superintendent who made the Battle Creek Sanitarium world-famous, was undoubtedly the best-known Seventh-day Adventist around the world in 1903. He was also a most powerful person within the church, second only to Ellen White herself. ¹⁹ GVEGW 44.6

His pet intellectual diversion was pantheism, which he couched in his cleverly crafted book The Living Temple. Ellen White declared that this volume (1) contained the “alpha” of “deadly heresies“: (2) that the “omega” would as surely follow it, being of “a most startling nature“: and (3) she trembled for the Adventist people. ²⁰ GVEGW 44.7

The good doctor did not address the issue of a heavenly sanctuary per se in his work, but the implications of his heresy were enormous. W. A. Spicer, newly elected secretary of the General Conference (April 11, 1903), sat down with Kellogg to discuss the book and its implications. GVEGW 44.8

“Where is heaven?” Spicer asked Kellogg. The doctor then urged him to understand that “heaven is where God is, and God is everywhere—in the grass, in the trees, in all creation.” GVEGW 44.9

“To explain the sanctuary that Scripture declares is to be cleansed,” the doctor pointed to his heart: “The sin is here, and here is the sanctuary to be cleansed.” ²¹ GVEGW 45.1

In another vision of the great “platform” of the truth “as it is in Jesus,” Ellen White saw “one high in responsibility in the medical work” [Kellogg] rummaging around down underneath it, examining the various pillars and ordering his associates to “loosen the timbers supporting this platform.” GVEGW 45.2

Then she heard a voice from heaven rhetorically inquiring if the church were prepared to “permit this man to present doctrines that deny the past experience of the people of God.” GVEGW 45.3

Addressing Dr. Kellogg’s professional medical colleagues, many of whom had adopted his pantheistic views, Mrs. White pointed out the sure result were the church to espouse such views: GVEGW 45.4

“The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles which have supported the work for the past fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced.” ²² GVEGW 45.5

In spite of Ellen White’s clear-cut declarations concerning the heavenly sanctuary and the high-priesthood ministry of Jesus in it, “no sanctuary” views continued to raise their ugly heads past the time of her death. In the 1930s William Warde Fletcher in Australia and L. R. Conradi in Europe continued to espouse such views. In the 1980s Desmond Ford was their most eloquent and articulate spokesman. GVEGW 45.6

The basic thesis of the critics generally revolves around the idea that there really is no objective sanctuary in heaven, that Ellen White’s 1847 visions were merely an allegorical parable in which the great truth of Christ’s atonement was illustrated, perhaps something like the experience of Daniel where he sees four terrifying “beasts” appearing to rise from the sea—to teach a lesson. But those beasts weren’t “real” (though they probably must have seemed so to Daniel, who may even have taken a step backward during the vision to distance himself from them!). GVEGW 45.7