Loading…

Ellen G. White and Her Critics

158/552

Doctrine of 144,000 and Enlarged View

Unquestionably, Mrs. White’s vision of the open and shut door was a most important means of leading the Sabbathkeeping Adventists out of their restricted conception of salvation for men. There was evidently another factor also, John’s description in Revelation 7 of an elect company of 144,000 “sealed” in evident readiness for Christ’s Second Advent. As we have noted, the number of Advent believers at the height of William Miller’s preaching was estimated as fifty thousand people. And many thousands of these were now not simply in the lukewarm, Laodicean state, as Bates described the majority of non-Sabbathkeeping Adventists; they had actually gone back into the world. Thus the number of Adventists to whom our fathers could preach the further and climactic message of the third angel was very far short of the prophetic total of 144,000 elect. Bates discusses this point in his 1849 pamphlet, A Seal of the Living God. Says he: EGWC 190.3

“John see[s] that the 144,000 were sealed of all the tribes, &c., and these were the servants of our God, men and women now living. Where are they, say our opponents? Answer, on the earth. Do you know where to find them all? no, not yet, but I believe John saw every one of them, and I had rather believe him, if I should never have the privilege of seeing or hearing from one of them until the resurrection of the just, than to have my part taken from the book of life and out of the holy city, by continually trying to prove that it was not so, because the Sabbath believers could not point them all out, and tell their names.”—Page 38. EGWC 190.4

Toward the end of his pamphlet he makes this observation as to who will constitute the 144,000: EGWC 191.1

“Now all advent believers that have, and do, participate in the advent messages as given in Revelation 14:6-13, will love and keep this covenant with God, and especially his Holy Sabbath, in this covenant; this is a part of the 144,000 now to be sealed. EGWC 191.2

“The other part are those who do not yet, so well understand the advent doctrine; but are endeavoring to serve God with their whole hearts, and are willing, and will receive this covenant and Sabbath as soon as they hear it explained. These will constitute the 144,000, now to be sealed with ‘a seal of the living God,’ which sealing will bear them through this time of trouble. [I think the evidence is pretty clear that a part of the 144,000 will come from the east; the river Euphrates will be dried up for them to cross over at the pouring out of the sixth seal....]”—Pages 61, 62. (Brackets his.) EGWC 191.3

Excluding his mistaken interpretation regarding the Euphrates, we may say that Bates here spoke more accurately than he realized. The logical implication in this statement is that those who are sincere, who are willing to accept truth, no matter where they may be in the world, may still receive salvation. EGWC 191.4

This firm belief that there would be 144,000 elect and that many of these must be found outside the Adventist company, even in far lands, was a leaven working in the minds of our forebears. That belief, combined with Mrs. White’s vision of the shut and open door, * constituted the ferment that was to raise and expand this Sabbathkeeping group above and beyond the narrow confines in which their shut-door belief first found them after October 22, 1844. EGWC 191.5