Ellen White’s Integrative Themes

Jesus, The Cross, And Salvation Through Him

Not only did Ellen White picture Jesus as doing battle with Satan in the realm of cosmic controversy, but she constantly set Him forth in a very personal way. From the time of her conversion, she uplifted Jesus as the only hope for every individual. At that point in her life she realized that “it is only by connecting with Jesus through faith that the sinner becomes a hopeful, believing child of God.” All the longing of her heart, she reports, was “Help, Jesus; save me, or I perish.”—Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 23 EWIT 113.3

Ellen White never forgot her early struggles in salvation, when she believed that she had to be good before God could accept her. Finding Jesus and salvation through faith in His merits became a central theme in her writing and preaching ministry all the way from her first vision, in which she saw safety for the Millerites only as they “kept their eyes fixed on Jesus” (Early Writings, 14), up to her death in 1915. EWIT 113.4

A profound sense of human helplessness undergirded her theology of salvation in Jesus. She pointed out that “the result of the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is manifest in every man’s experience. There is in his nature a bent to evil, a force which, unaided, he cannot resist. To withstand this force, to attain that ideal which in his inmost soul he accepts as alone worthy, he can find help in but one power. That power is Christ.”—Education, 29 EWIT 113.5

But in spite of her belief in human unworthiness, Mrs. White’s view of Jesus was one of unlimited hope for a lost world. “In every human being, however fallen, He beheld a son of God, one who might be restored to the privilege of his divine relationship.... Looking upon men in their suffering and degradation Christ perceived ground for hope where appeared only despair and ruin. Wherever there existed a sense of need, there He saw opportunity for uplifting. Souls tempted, defeated, feeling themselves lost, ready to perish, He met, not with denunciation, but with blessing.”—Education, 79 EWIT 114.1

For Ellen White, Jesus was not merely a good friend in time of need; He was a Saviour who died on the cross for each individual. In a favorite passage from The Desire of Ages we read that “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His.”—The Desire of Ages, 25 EWIT 114.2

That Jesus died for our sins, that He paid the penalty for our sins on the cross, was a theme she never tired of repeating. “Christ crucified for our sins, Christ risen from the dead, Christ ascended on high, is the science of salvation that we are to learn and to teach.”—Testimonies for the Church 8:287 EWIT 114.3

Faith in Christ’s salvation (or righteousness by faith) is a teaching that permeates Ellen White’s writings. By faith individuals appropriate the blessings of salvation won at the cross. She uplifted a “faith in the ability of Christ to save us amply and fully and entirely” (The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, 217). That faith extends to Christ’s ministry for His children in the heavenly sanctuary. EWIT 114.4

For Ellen White, the death of Christ on Calvary not only made salvation possible for every individual, but also settled the issue of God’s character in the great controversy. “Christ’s death,” she stated, “proved God’s administration and government to be without a flaw. Satan’s charge in regard to the conflicting attributes of justice and mercy was forever settled beyond question. Every voice in heaven and out of heaven will one day testify to the justice, mercy, and exalted attributes of God.”—MS 128, 1897 EWIT 114.5

In the mind of Ellen White, the life of Jesus, His death on the cross, His ministry in applying the merits of His death in the heavenly sanctuary, and the acceptance of Christ’s work by the believer through faith stands as a great thematic cluster at the center of her understanding of Christianity. Nothing was more important to her than that intimately related complex of ideas. “Lift up Jesus,” she wrote to ministers, “lift Him up in sermon, in song, in prayer.... Let the science of salvation be the burden of every sermon, the theme of every song.... Hold forth the word of life, presenting Jesus as the hope of the penitent and the stronghold of every believer.”—Gospel Workers, 160 EWIT 115.1

Again, she penned, “The sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is the great truth around which all other truths cluster. In order to be rightly understood and appreciated, every truth in the word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, must be studied in the light that streams from the cross of Calvary. I present before you the great, grand monument of mercy and regeneration, salvation and redemption—the Son of God uplifted on the cross. This is to be the foundation of every discourse given by our ministers.”—Gospel Workers, 315 EWIT 115.2