Ellen G. White and Her Critics

No Failure in the Word of the Lord

That Mrs. White clearly understood that there is a conditional quality to God’s promises and threatenings—as Jeremiah declared—and that the conditional feature in forecasts regarding Christ’s Advent involves the state of heart of Christ’s followers, is revealed in these words from her pen: EGWC 109.7

“The angels of God in their messages to men represent time as very short. Thus it has always been presented to me. It is true that time has continued longer than we expected in the early days of this message. Our Saviour did not appear as soon as we hoped. But has the Word of the Lord failed? Never! It should be remembered that the promises and the threatenings of God are alike conditional.... EGWC 109.8

“Had the whole Adventist body [after the disappointment in 1844] united upon the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, how widely different would have been our history! EGWC 109.9

“It was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be thus delayed. God did not design that His people, Israel, should wander forty years in the wilderness. He promised to lead them directly to the land of Canaan, and establish them there a holy, healthy, happy people. But those to whom it was first preached, went not in ‘because of unbelief.’ Their hearts were filled with murmuring, rebellion, and hatred, and He could not fulfill His covenant with them. EGWC 109.10

“For forty years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan. The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. In neither case were the promises of God at fault. It is the unbelief, the worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord’s professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years.”—MS. 4, 1883. Quoted in Evangelism, 695, 696. (See also Appendix F, p. 586.) EGWC 110.1

These words from Mrs. White harmonize with what we have already discovered of the ways of God toward man, that man’s free will plays an awesome part in the operation of the plans of God for this earth. This is one reason why we must give an account for our deeds—the expression of our free wills—in the final day of God! EGWC 110.2

When we examine Mrs. White’s unfulfilled prediction of 1856 in the light of the conditional character of divine predictions and unfulfilled Bible prophecies, how quickly the problem before us disappears. We cannot hold Mrs. White to a more rigid and inflexible standard than we would Bible prophets. EGWC 110.3

In this connection someone may call to mind Deuteronomy 18:22: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously.” This text, taken alone, proves too much; it indicts certain Bible prophets as well. We believe that Deuteronomy 18:22 is to be understood, even as any other lone text, in the context of all Scripture. Other scriptures reveal that there are qualifying factors that operate in relation to a prophet’s predictions, particularly where the free will of man may be involved. That would not be so likely where a prophet is seeking to perform some “sign” or “wonder” to prove his claim to being a prophet. (See in this connection, Deuteronomy 13:1, 2.) We have an illustration of true and false prophets in regard to a “sign” or “wonder” in the case of Elijah and the priests of Baal. The free will of the people was not a factor. Both the priests of Baal and Elijah made claims to represent divinity. But only Elijah could cause to “come to pass” the “wonder,” the appointed “sign.” EGWC 110.4