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Understanding Ellen White

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    Provide a comprehensive biblical worldview

    Perhaps more than ever before we are acutely aware of the numerous natural and man-made disasters, which crowd our news sources daily. Every thinking person struggles to make sense of all this mayhem. This is where Ellen White’s writings show their timeless relevance and answer a real need. Her writings do not provide an explanation of every disaster that affects us on an individual level, but her writings do provide a framework for making sense of all the seemingly random chaos in life. It is the framework of the great controversy between Christ and Satan that has made Seventh-day Adventism “one of the most subtly differentiated, systematically developed, and institutionally successful of all alternatives to the American way of life”7Malcom Bull and Keith Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1989), ix.UEGW 244.5

    This theme informs and determines principles of how we do theology, our philosophy of education, and, on a practical level, even our health. This framework is big enough to provide an understanding of who God is as well as when and why He acts in human history. 8See Herbert E. Douglass, Messenger of the Lord: The Prophetic Ministry of Ellen G. White (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press®, 1998), 256-267.UEGW 245.1

    The great controversy theme also provides the framework for understanding the entire Bible. It shows God to be a God of love. It puts everything into the context of the war between God and Satan. All of humanity is caught up in this war of cosmic dimensions with Satan attempting to misrepresent the loving character of God. 9“Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice—one who is a severe judge, a harsh, exacting creditor” EGW, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press®, 1956), 11. He does this by distorting God’s law and discrediting His love. Arguably, he has been successful in trying to produce a false dichotomy between God’s law and His love. In direct contrast to this dichotomy, which has gained momentum even in Christian circles, Ellen White set out in her writings to show that “the history of the great conflict between good and evil, from the time it first began in heaven to the final overthrow of rebellion and the total eradication of sin, is also a demonstration of God’s unchanging love”10EGW, Patriarchs and Prophets (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press®, 2005), 33.UEGW 245.2

    Although many other writers throughout history have written on the war between good and evil, “no other writer has unfolded the cosmic dimensions and the eternal consequences of the conflict between Christ and Satan as Ellen White has done”11Douglass, Messenger of the Lord, 446. In March of 1858, Ellen White had perhaps her most significant vision in Lovett’s Grove, Ohio. This became known as the great controversy vision, 12Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Early Years, 1827-1862 (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald®, 1985), 1:368. although this was a repeat and amplification of what she had already been shown before. This vision provided the framework and context to all of her many thousands of pages of writing.UEGW 245.3

    So what is the relevance of this great controversy worldview? It shows us that God is not the kind of person that Satan has made Him out to be. He is not arbitrary or unfair. God’s best exhibition of love was sending Jesus. And in response to Satan’s claim, Jesus demonstrated that law of love and that it could be kept. 13EGW, Steps to Christ, 11. Humans were created “in His own image” to communicate with God, and He gives each of us a choice to decide whose side we take in this cosmic battle.UEGW 245.4

    Humans are created as an “indivisible whole wherein such components as the physical body, mind, soul, spirit, emotions, and the will interact, influencing each of the other components. [These] components are interdependent and all are needed for human beings to survive in a healthy state.” 14Douglass, Messenger of the Lord, 258, 259.UEGW 246.1

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