Ellen G. White and Her Critics

The Crucial Question

Let us look, finally, at the closing paragraph of this vision: EGWC 227.4

“My accompanying angel bade me look for the travel ^* of soul for sinners as used to be. I looked, but could not see it; for the time for their salvation is past.” Mrs. White’s critics declare that here is clear proof that she taught that there was no more salvation for sinners after 1844. We believe that the evidence thus far presented shows how uncalled for is this conclusion. The phrase, “the time for their salvation is past,” may properly be understood in the setting of her statements several paragraphs earlier about those “who have rejected the truth, and are given over to strong delusions to believe a lie that they might be damned.” It is clear that Mrs. White in this vision has her eye on the statement of Paul, who describes a company that have rejected truth. Obviously, such persons have sinned away their day of grace. EGWC 227.5

Thus the closing words of this vision, “for the time for their salvation is past,” does not demand that we believe that Mrs. White taught that salvation for all sinners ended in 1844, even though we understand the word “their” to refer back to the word “sinners” in the preceding sentence. EGWC 228.1

However, we think that the whole context requires that the word “their” refer to the false ministers or shepherds who were carrying on the alleged reformations. Who is it that is expected to have “travel of soul for sinners”? And for which Mrs. White in vision “looked, but could not see”? The answer is, of course, the ministers or shepherds. Certainly we hardly look for sinners to have “travel of soul” for themselves. But when we apply the statement to the false shepherds, that is, false ministers, and declare that “the time for their salvation is past,” we find that it harmonizes perfectly with the statement earlier in the vision: “He [Satan] was at work through ministers, who have rejected the truth, and are given over to strong delusions to believe a lie that they might be damned.” EGWC 228.2