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ANDREWS GSEM 534 - The “Sacred” and the “Common”

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GSEM 534 January Lecture Outline Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University The “Sacred” and the “Common”: Ellen White’s Concept of Revelation-Inspiration Jerry Moon The purpose of this presentation is to explore (1) Ellen White’s concept of inspiration–how God conveyed truth to her mind and worked with her to insure that her writings conveyed the same truth to her readers; and (2) the role of uninspired information in her writings. Fortunately she provides both explanations and examples, so we need not speculate. (All emphasis is my own unless noted otherwise.) I. Ellen White’s Concept of Inspiration. Drs. David and Mary Paulson were co-founders of the Hinsdale Sanitarium and Hospital and colleagues of J. H. Kellogg. In 1906, during the Kellogg crisis, David Paulson wrote Ellen White some pointed questions about inspiration. Here is her reply: “Dear Brother: . . . In your letter, you speak of your early training to have implicit faith in the Testimonies, and say, ‘I was led to conclude and most firmly believe that every word that you ever spoke in public or private, that every letter you wrote under any and all circumstances, was as inspired as the ten commandments’ [italics hers]. My brother, you have studied my writings diligently, and you have never found that I have made any such claims. Neither will you find that the pioneers in our cause have made such claims. “In my preface to ‘Great Controversy, pages c and d, you have no doubt read my statement regarding the ten commandments and the Bible, which should have helped you to a correct understanding of the matter under consideration. Here is the statement:— “The Bible points to God as its Author; yet it was written by human hands; and in the varied style of its different books it presents the characteristics of the several writers. The truths revealed are all `given by inspiration of God' (2 Tim. 3:16); yet they are expressed in the words of men. The Infinite One by his Holy Spirit had shed light into the minds and hearts of his servants. He has given dreams and visions, symbols and figures; and those to whom the truth was thus revealed, have themselves embodied the thought in human language. “The ten commandments were spoken by God himself, and were written by his own hand. They are of divine, and not of human, composition. But the Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, represents a union of the divine and the human. . . .” (RH, August 30, 1906 pars. 2-6). “God has been pleased to communicate his truth to the world by human agencies, and he himself, by his Holy Spirit, qualified men and enabled them to do this work. He guided the mind in the selection of what to speak and what to write. The treasure was entrusted to earthen vessels, yet it is, none the less, from heaven. The testimony is conveyed through the imperfect expression of human language; yet it is the testimony of God; and the obedient, believing child of God beholds in it the glory of a divine power. . . . In perfect harmony with this, are my statements” [in 5T 62-84, from which I quote]: (ibid., par. 9-10) Ellen White’s parallel experience. “When I went to Colorado, I was so burdened for you, that, in my weakness, I wrote many pages to be read at your camp-meeting. Weak and trembling, I arose at three o'clock in the morning, to write to you. God was speaking through clay. You might say that this communication was only a letter. Yes, it was a letter, but prompted by the Spirit of God, to bring before your minds things that had been shown me. In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper, expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision--the precious rays of light shining from the throne” (RH, Aug. 30, 1906 par. 14). In RH October 8, 1867, she wrote: “Although I am as dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord in writing my views as I am in receiving them, yet the words I employ in describing what I have seen are my own, unless they be those spoken to me by an angel, which I always enclose in marks of quotation” (1SM 37; cf. 2SG 293). In 1902 she explained, “While I am writing out important matter, He [God] is beside me, helping me. He lays out my work before me, and when I am puzzled for a fit word with which to express my thought, He brings it clearly and distinctly to my mind. I feel that every time I ask, even while I am still speaking, He responds, ‘Here am I’” (Lt 127, 1902, in 2MR 156-157). “When, as I write, a new thought comes into my mind, I reverentially thank God for the appropriate word or sentence brought to my mind” (Lt 260, 1903, in 5MR 142). Her classic statement on inspiration was written in 1886: “It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired. Inspiration2acts not on the man's words or his expressions but on the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual [human] mind. The divine mind is diffused. The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God” (1SM 21). God gave concepts; but the words used to express them were her own words. God assisted her in choosing those words, especially when she was consciously “puzzled” about a word choice, “yet,” as she explained above, “the words I employ in describing what I have seen are my own.” (The context shows that she means words of her own choosing, not necessarily of her own origination–see lecture on literary borrowing.) Required to use her own words. As Raymond Holmes so aptly observes: “She is saying that she is required by the Holy Spirit to explain divine truths within her own verbal structure. When she said the words she uses are her own, she meant they were not dictated by the Holy Spirit. That would not preclude borrowing them from another literary source if they accurately portrayed what she saw in vision.” After quoting Letter 127, 1902, “when I am puzzled for a fit word with which to express my thought, He brings it clearly and distinctly to my mind,” Dr. Holmes comments, “This is not dictation, it is choice assistance of the highest order. The Spirit may bring a word to mind, but the choice of


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