Ellen G. White and the Shut Door Question

The Changing Meaning of the Term “Shut Door”

By way of general introduction, and setting the stage for careful examination of the E. G. White statements relating to the shut door, is a statement published July 19, 1946, which accompanied the volume of reprinted periodicals mentioned above, the Present Truth and the Advent Review of 1850. This carried the title of “Historical Setting” and is signed by the Committee on Publication. We give here those parts bearing directly on the question before us: EGWSDQ 9.1

One expression appears often which serves as a key to these frequently misunderstood years—“the shut door.” Considerable misunderstanding and confusion has sometimes arisen over a relatively simple problem. Adventists came up to 1844 expecting that the Lord would then appear and probation close for all mankind. For a brief period following October 22, those who did not at once repudiate their former faith still held that probation had closed and that there was no more mercy for sinners. Two opposite means of emergence from this mistaken position soon developed and divided the advent body into two groups. EGWSDQ 9.2

The Sabbatarian Adventists, as they came to be, were for a time known as the “Sabbath and shut-door” brethren, while the First-Day Adventists were called the “open-door” Adventists. This latter group gave up their former positions by denying that the 2300-year period had not as yet expired. They abandoned their belief that in 1844 prophecy had been fulfilled in any sense. They therefore held that the door of salvation was still wide open to the world at large; and they were constrained to continue the preaching of a modified message, now largely divested of its former prophetic basis. EGWSDQ 9.3

On the other hand, the Sabbatarian Adventists held that the 2300-year period had indeed ended, and that they had rightly sounded the “midnight cry” typified in the parable of the ten virgins. Confident in the integrity of their past experience, they saw themselves in the light of the parable as in the time when “the door was shut;” they believed that to those who had willfully rejected the advent message and had now become embittered, hostile, and adamant, the door had closed. For these they had no burden. Then came the unfolding sanctuary light, and they began to realize that their disappointment was to be accounted for in a misunderstanding of the nature of the event to take place in 1844. EGWSDQ 9.4

They soon came to realize that Christ was now ministering in heaven above in the second phase of His High Priestly ministry—that He had shut the door of the first apartment and had opened the door to the second or Most Holy Place, and they were to announce this grand transition to all who would hear. The door was still open to those who had not willfully rejected the judgment hour message, children who had not then reached the age of accountability, and those in the churches who were still honest in heart. It was much like the initial relationship of the disciples toward the Jews as a whole. The burden was now for honest, individual hearts. Note especially The Present Truth, December, 1849, (volume 1, no. 6), p. 45, last full paragraph of column 2; The Present Truth, May, 1850 (volume 1, no. 10), p. 79, bottom of column 1 and top of column 2; and Edson’s Advent Review Extra, September, 1850, p. 3, bottom of column 1. EGWSDQ 9.5

Therefore, the term “shut door” came to mean to them this new relationship of Christ and His ministry for all whose names were “borne in upon His breastplate” into the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary. It came to supersede the earlier restricted concept. Gradually this fuller light of the final phase of Christ’s ministry in the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, which contains the ark and the ten commandments with their enshrined Sabbath, burst upon their sight with all its implications and obligations. ² They came to sense their new commission for the world, as embodied in the third angel’s message of Revelation 14. EGWSDQ 10.1

Thus it is seen that the term “shut door,” used by our spiritual forefathers for a brief decade following the Great Disappointment in the autumn of 1844, stood first of all for loyalty to the positions of the “midnight cry” movement through which they had just passed, and for loyalty to the integrity of the date October 22, 1844, as the true and demonstrated close of the 2300 years. ³ EGWSDQ 10.2

It came to stand progressively for the acceptance of the Sabbath, the Spirit of Prophecy and its guidance, and the sanctuary truth that explained the nature of the Disappointment and of the actual event of 1844. In time it also came to stand for Christ’s new relationship to both world and church and consequently to His new relationship to the final phase of ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. Thus a transition was effected in the meaning of the term “shut door.”—Facsimiles of the Two Earliest SDA Periodicals, pp. 8-10. EGWSDQ 11.1

We have given space to this background statement for it is quite essential to an accurate evaluation of the statements of our pioneers, including Ellen White, in which the term “shut door” is employed, made within the critical seven-year period of 1844-1851. The entire study of this matter must be made in the setting of the real issue: “Was prophecy fulfilled on October 22, 1844, or was it not.” This was the prime consideration regardless of terms used. EGWSDQ 11.2