Chapter 11 — The Reformers and the Gift of Prophecy

Denis Fortin

As mentioned in other chapters in this book, Seventh-day Adventists believe the gift of prophecy is an identifying mark of the end-time remnant people of God. In the introduction to Ellen White’s book Patriarchs and Prophets, in 1890, Uriah Smith, then editor of the Review and Herald, stated, “A number of clear and explicit prophecies [Acts 2:17-21; 1 Cor. 1:7; Rev. 12:17; 19:10] declare that in the last days there will be a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and that the church at the time of Christ’s appearing will have had, during its closing experience, ‘the testimony of Jesus,’ which is the spirit of prophecy.” ^{1Uriah Smith, “Introduction,” in Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Oakland: Pacific Press®, 1890), [20].}GOP 224.1

Adventists understand this end-time manifestation of the gift of prophecy in conjunction with a belief in the perpetuity of the spiritual gifts mentioned in Paul’s epistles (Rom. 12:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:4-11, 27-31; Eph. 4:11). These gifts are meant to benefit the church from the time of the apostles until the second coming of Christ (Eph. 4:12, 13).GOP 224.2

It is this aspect of the perpetuity of the gift of prophecy that this chapter will address from the perspective of the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century. The chapter will explore what the Reformers said about spiritual gifts, visions, and the gift of prophecy in their midst, and it will be obvious that the Reformers came to a very different conclusion than Uriah Smith. A hundred years after Ellen White’s death some of the Reformers’ thoughts on spiritual gifts raise some new challenges to the Adventist understanding of the meaning of the gift of prophecy.GOP 224.3