Ellen G. White and Her Critics

The Sabbath and Sanctuary Tied Together

The next step in the developing theology of the Sabbathkeeping Adventists was the discerning of a relationship between the Sabbath and shut door. And the relationship discovered was such as to give added force to the Sabbath and to provide a way of escape out of the restricted conception of salvation implicit in their first understanding of the shut door. This enlarged understanding came as a result of a vision given to Mrs. White on March 24, 1849. EGWC 188.3

In this vision she “was taken off in the Spirit to the City of the living God.” She saw that “the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, relating to the shut door, could not be separated, and that the time for the commandments of God to shine out, with all their importance, and for God’s people to be tried on the Sabbath truth, was when the door was opened in the Most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary, where the Ark is, containing the Ten Commandments.” She saw, also, that this door was opened in 1844, when Jesus “shut the door in the Holy Place, and opened the door in the Most Holy.” She quotes Revelation 3:7, 8. Since then “the commandments have been shining out to God’s people, and they are being tested on the Sabbath question.”—Present Truth, August, 1849, p. 21. ^* EGWC 188.4

It was this 1849 vision of the open and the shut door that definitely bound together the Sabbath and the sanctuary doctrines in the minds of this little group of Sabbathkeeping Adventists. ^† As they studied the book of Revelation they discovered various references to the sanctuary, or temple, in heaven. They noted that when John describes the very last events of earth’s history, he records, “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” Revelation 11:19. EGWC 189.1