The scrolls of the prophets didn’t come with a label that said, “Inspired.” God’s people had to test the prophets in the context of the times in which they wrote. The character of the messengers needed to be of a character that promoted faith in the message, and the messages themselves needed to pass the test of truth. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 to “Test all things; hold fast what is good.” When we have done that, we can trust the prophetic messages God sends, which are for our good.
In the mid-1800s, God led a revival of understanding of Bible prophecy. Through a simple farmer who left his deistic philosophy to accept a loving God, He revealed the understanding of poorly understood prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, particularly Daniel 8:14. The result of this revival was an expectation that Jesus would return to this Earth on October 22, 1844. The date was right as a fulfillment of prophecy, but the event was not yet rightly understood. The passing of that time is looked back upon as “The Great Disappointment.” Rather than give up hope or confidence in Bible prophecy, a very small group of devoted believers returned to their Bibles. But because the darkness of misunderstanding had for so long covered the Bible, they needed the help that God promises in 1 Corinthians 2:10-12 to understand the Scriptures.
The members of this small group were scattered throughout the northeastern United States, and they sacrificed their time and money and energy to meet together many times to study the Bible. In their Bible study, there were differing interpretations and wrong ideas. It was at this time that God sent messages to confirm that they had not been wrong in their understanding of 1844 and to affirm the truths that they were discovering in Scripture. These hidden truths in Scripture had been there all along, but were just now being understood. The messages God sent through Ellen White were clearly not from her study because she had not finished any schooling beyond the third grade. She was physically weak, and when she was not receiving a message from God in vision, she could not understand or comment on the Scriptures they were studying. God communicates important messages through humble messengers.
The important messages God gave through her were not to be given to all people of the world at that time, or even for all Christians. They were to encourage and direct the Bible students who were longing for an understanding of God’s Word, “…but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe” (1 Corinthians 14:22).
We can’t trust only in someone else’s testimony about the messages shared. To evaluate her writings and her life by the standards God has given, we need to both study God’s Word and read what she has written. When we honestly ask for wisdom, God will give it (James 1:5-6). Her writings lead people to study the Bible and understand its messages. They exalt God’s character which is revealed in His Law, and they give encouragement and timely instruction for God’s people who are preparing for Jesus’ Second Coming.
To be inspired as a messenger from God, she needs to do more than rephrase what God has already spoken through prophets of the past. Preachers do that today, but they are not called to the office of prophet. She needs to have specific messages to guide God’s people through a time when divine guidance is needed. This was the case for God’s prophets of the Bible. They spoke in agreement with God’s Word that was already revealed, but through those Bible prophets God gave specific messages that were directly related to a current crisis or decision or something that was soon to come.
At important turning points in the history of His people, God sent warnings and instructions through prophets. Noah warned about the flood. Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery. Jeremiah called Israel to repent when the Babylonian forces were near. Daniel turned Israel’s eyes to the Heavenly Sanctuary when the earthly Sanctuary was in ruins. John the Baptist heralded the coming Messiah, and Paul instructed the infant church when it was vulnerable to the deception of false teachers. The time of the 1800s was a major fulfillment of prophecy in salvation history when God’s people needed to have their attention turned toward the work Jesus was doing in Heaven. We can expect that God would raise up a messenger as He had done in the past. Ellen White’s messages give specific messages to God’s people who are preparing for the final crisis in the conflict between Christ and Satan.
God’s prophets wrote what God inspired through the Holy Spirit, and their words often had even greater significance than the prophet could then predict. Isaiah’s prophecy of Jesus in chapter 53, for example, would not be fully understood until after Jesus’ death for our sins. Ellen White’s messages explained the future fulfillment of what God had revealed in the Bible about end-time events before Jesus returns. Many of those events are coming to pass before our eyes, but they are not fully fulfilled.
In the Bible, the beginning and ending of the specific time prophecies God gives us is under His control. These time prophecies call the attention of God’s people to the important events of salvation history that God is carrying out in His timing. God sent a prophet to point to the start of each time prophecy, and when the predicted time came to its conclusion, another messenger was sent to turn the attention of His people to its fulfillment. The prophet at the end of each time prophecy leads a righteous remnant, restores obedience to God’s Law and repeats the message given at the start. See the table below.
| Time Prophecy | Bible Text | Prophet at the Beginning | Prophet at the End |
| 400 years until the mistreatment of the children of Israel in Egypt would end | Genesis 15:12-16 | Abraham | At the end of the 400 years, Moses led out a righteous remnant from Egypt, restored obedience to God’s Law and repeated the messages of Abraham |
| 70 years of Israel’s captivity | Jeremiah 25:11-12 | Jeremiah | At the end of the 70 years, Ezra and Nehemiah led out a righteous remnant from Persia, restored obedience to God’s Law and repeated the messages of Jeremiah |
| 490 years until the Messiah would begin His ministry | Daniel 9:24-27 | Daniel | At the end of the 490 years, John the Baptist led out a righteous remnant from Israel, restored obedience to God’s Law and repeated the messages of Daniel |
In Daniel 8:14, a 2,300-year time prophecy began at the same time as the 490-year prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, when Artaxerxes issued the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem in 457 B.C. This prophecy continued until the year 1844. Following His pattern of previous time prophecies of the Bible, we should look for a messenger who led out a righteous remnant, exalted God’s Law and pointed back to the messages of the book of Daniel. There were many people who claimed to be spiritual messengers at this time, but only one person fits the description of a prophet commissioned by God.
There were physical phenomena that attended her visions. She was a sick girl when she began receiving visions. She was 17 years old, 80 pounds, and was expected to die soon from tuberculosis. Instead, God strengthened her little by little. In her visions, she did not breathe at all, her eyes remained open, and she exhibited great strength by carrying an 18-pound Bible above her head for lengthy periods of time, quoting from verses below her finger that she could not see. These are not a guarantee that she was a messenger from God, but they indicated to people that they should investigate further. At that time in her ministry, she did not have a long record of life, writing, or speaking to evaluate. Like Moses who performed miracles when Israel was taken out of Egypt, she exhibited supernatural miracles at the start of her ministry. But also like Moses, it is her written words throughout her life that confirm her as God’s messenger.
In her visions, she was shown things that had not yet taken place or events that were occurring many miles away. Letters God prompted her to write were received at just the right time to address a current concern. She was given a view of specific situations in peoples’ lives that she only recalled when she met them in a public meeting and was prompted to share with them what she had seen for a warning or encouragement to them.
Her messages were timely. She addressed current issues with divine wisdom. Fanaticism that arose, church organization struggles, doctrinal questions, leadership problems, and rebuking hidden sins. All of these issues were addressed to bring about a faithful group of people who God could lead to a correct Biblical understanding of His final messages that must be shared with the world. The time for sharing the Biblically true message before Jesus returns is now.
When early believers returned to time setting, she gave the decided message that a time prophecy would never be a test again. If she were swept along with emotionalism or popular opinion, she would not have spoken out boldly against what older and more educated leaders were saying. Instead, she unwaveringly declared that God had shown her there were no more time prophecies to be fulfilled.
When God gave her visions of a comprehensive plan for preserving health, she shared it without having the peer-reviewed scientific studies that now confirms what she said. Neither did she have the medical terminology available today, but she wrote in simple language about the holistic approach to health that has been confirmed through modern study. People in the 1860s knew they were sick and needed help, and there were many different health ideas that were being proposed at that time. Somehow, Ellen White knew which health reforms to accept and which to reject. Her message didn’t need to be brand new, but it must be correct, which scientific study has proven time and again.
When the early believers who were studying the teaching of the Bible that became the foundation of the Seventh-day Adventist church met together, they knew that Ellen White had no education, was physically weak, and that her mind was unable to comprehend what they were studying at that time. So when she was taken into vision and shown accurate interpretations of the Scriptures they were studying, it was clear that the messages she was shown were from God and not from her own experience. Her messages didn’t preempt Bible study. Instead, they confirmed the truths that were being studied and shed even greater light on the bright truths of the Bible, pointing out unnoticed texts and a right interpretation that fit perfectly with all of God’s Word.
Ellen White was attacked in many different ways during the 60 years of her speaking and writing ministry, but she was never accused of immoral living. Even when being rebuked, church leaders accepted her message with confidence that it came from God. Leaders sought her counsel because they had seen many examples of those who had received her council before and they recognized that she was not speaking from mere human opinion.
Ellen White never set her writing ministry above God’s Word. Repeatedly she directed people to study the Bible. Her messages were not given to replace the Scriptures but to turn people back to texts that they had either overlooked, ignored, or misunderstood.
Addressing the church in 1 Corinthians 1:6-7, Paul writes, “…even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ….” Prophecy is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:22, Romans 12:6). Ephesians 4:11 says there will be “prophets,” so we can expect that God has placed the gift of prophecy in His church that is waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus. According to Paul’s message to the Corinthians, the gift of prophecy is given to confirm God’s leading of His church in the last days.
Speaking of Satan’s wrath toward God’s believers before Jesus returns, Revelation 12:17 says, “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” The Testimony of Jesus Christ is the gift of prophecy that God promised would be present to lead His end-time church in understanding and obeying God’s commandments, “And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’” (Revelation 19:10). One of Satan’s tactics will be to turn our attention away from the last-day messages His people need to hear so that they will be in perfect step with Scripture.
Since we expect to find the gift of prophecy in God’s end-time church, does Ellen White’s life and ministry fill that role? Looking back over the detailed record of her life and writings, Ellen White fulfills each of the Bible’s tests of a prophet.
- She lived a moral life, matching the messages she shared and befitting a messenger of God.
- She pointed people to obedience of God’s Law and confirmed that, like God, His Law cannot be changed.
- Her predictions about events that would come to pass were fulfilled.
- She spoke in agreement with Scripture and did not put her writings in the place of the Bible.
- She uplifted Jesus and pointed others to Him for salvation.
- Her ministry included physical phenomena that indicated her messages were not originate with her.
It is best not to take someone else’s word for it, but to test it yourself. First, give her writings a try. Apply the Biblical tests of a prophet as you read. Many people have been blessed by some of her most popular books, including,
- “Steps to Christ”
- “The Desire of Ages”
- “Ministry of Healing”
- “Christ’s Object Lessons”
- “The Great Controversy”
God has given special instruction tailor-made to the trials of the last days. To ignore the prophets during the time when they spoke and wrote was disastrous. To reject God’s final message would be even worse. “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper” (2 Chronicles 20:20).
Ellen White, herself, made these comments about her ministry
- “Little heed is given to the Bible, and the Lord has given a lesser light to lead men and women to the greater light.”—Colporteur Ministry, pg. 125.
- “The Spirit was not given—nor can it ever be bestowed—to supersede the Bible; for the Scriptures explicitly state that the Word of God is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested…. Isaiah declares, ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.’ Isaiah 8:20.”—Great Controversy, “Introduction,” pg. vii.
- “The written testimonies are not to give new light, but to impress vividly upon the heart the truths of inspiration already revealed. Man’s duty to God and to his fellow man has been distinctly specified in God’s word yet but few of you are obedient to the light given. Additional truth is not brought out; but God has through the Testimonies simplified the great truths already given, and in His own chosen way brought them before the people to awaken and impress the mind with them, that all may be left without excuse…. The Testimonies are not to belittle the word of God, but to exalt it and attract minds to it, that the beautiful simplicity of truth may impress all.”—Testimonies for the Church vol. 5, pg. 665.
- “God is either teaching His church, reproving their wrongs and strengthening their faith, or He is not. This work is of God, or it is not. God does nothing in partnership with Satan. My work …bears the stamp of God or the stamp of the enemy. There is no halfway work in the matter. The Testimonies are of the Spirit of God, or of the devil.”—Testimonies for the Church vol. 4, pg. 230.
For further reading on this topic, you will appreciate the following resources:
- “Understanding Ellen White: The Life and Work of the Most Influential Voice in Adventist History,” by Murlin Burt, 2015, 253 pages (https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/13959/info)
- “Why I Believe in Mrs. E.G. White” by Francis Nichols, 1964, 128 pages (https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/657/info)