Seventh-day Adventists reject the idea that there are degrees of inspiration. They believe that Ellen White was a messenger of God and that she was inspired like the Old and New Testament prophets. The question, then, is, If Ellen White was as inspired as the Old and New Testament prophets, what authority do her writings have? GP 77.6
Since Mrs. White’s writings are not an addition to the Bible, her books fall into the same category as the writings of the noncanonical prophets. Her writings, therefore, have the same authority that the writings of the noncanonical prophets had for their time. GP 77.7
Ellen White left her readers in no doubt about the source of her writings. There are only two possibilities: ” ‘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’ ” (5T 671). In a letter to the church in Battle Creek, she wrote, ” ‘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’ ” (1SM 27). GP 77.8
Because the source of what she wrote was divine, her words have authority. To those who refused to accept her writings as having divine authority she said, ” ‘when I send you a testimony of warning and reproof, many of you declare it to be merely the opinion of Sister White. You have thereby insulted the Spirit of God. You know how the Lord has manifested Himself through the Spirit of prophecy [a metonym for the writings of Ellen White]’ ” (1SM 27). GP 78.1
At the same time, she emphasized her submission to the Bible, which she called “the greater light” (CM 125). “We are to receive God’s word as supreme authority” (6T 402), she wrote, and “the Holy Scriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative, infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the revealer of doctrines, and the test of experience” (GC vii). Therefore, she said, “the testimonies of Sister White should not be carried to the front. God’s Word is the unerring standard. . . . Let all prove their positions from the Scriptures and substantiate every point they claim as truth from the revealed Word of God” (Ev 256). At a meeting held in the Battle Creek College library on the eve of the General Conference of 1901, she told the leaders, “Lay Sister White to one side. Do not quote my words again as long as you live until you can obey the Bible” (13MR 248). GP 78.2
Yet she didn’t consider these admonitions to have denied the manifestation of the prophetic gift in her ministry. “The fact that God has revealed His will to men through His word, has not rendered needless the continued presence and guiding of the Holy Spirit. On the contrary, the Spirit was promised by our Saviour, to open the word to His servants, to illuminate and apply its teachings” (GC vii). GP 78.3
Some Adventists believe that her authority is only pastoral—faithstrengthening but not faith-building. In other words, they believe that she has no teaching or dogmatic authority. This differentiation between the pastoral and the teaching authority of a prophet, however, is not scriptural. The Bible makes no distinction between a prophet’s pastoral and his or her teaching functions. Prophets are God’s spokespersons whatever the content of the message. “Any claim that Ellen White’s writings carry no teaching authority must fly in the face of her own statements. As we have seen, she declares unequivocally, ‘My commission embraces that of a prophet, but it does not end there.’ She either told the truth or she didn’t. If she didn’t, what further confidence could we have in her even if she honestly but mistakenly thought so?” 3J. J. Robertson, The White Truth (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press®, 1981), 60. GP 78.4
Above all, we shouldn’t forget what the main theme of all her writings was. The first sentence in her book Patriarch and Prophets says “God is love,” and the last sentence in her book The Great Controversy also reads “God is love.” And between these first and the last pages of the whole Conflict of the Ages Series, she revealed God’s love for humanity. Her main theme was always Jesus. Constantly she pointed people to Scripture and Jesus Christ. Her whole life was devoted to making Jesus the center of our faith. GP 79.1
In 1980 a survey was taken among Seventh-day Adventists. Of those who regularly read Ellen White’s writings, 85 percent stated that they had a close personal relationship with Christ. Only 59 percent of those who didn’t read her regularly said the same. Those who said they regularly read her books also stated that they study Scripture daily. Of those who didn’t read her works, only 47 percent said they read Scripture regularly. 4Roger L. Dudley and Des Cummings Jr., “Who Reads Ellen White?” Ministry 55, no. 10 (October 1982): 10. Furthermore, in most churches, it’s frequently the avid readers of her books who are the missionary-minded people. GP 79.2
If the reading of Mrs. White’s books makes people read more in Scripture and makes them more missionary minded, should we not encourage all Seventh-day Adventists to read her books? GP 79.3