Agreement with the Bible

What a prophet claims to have received from God must be in harmony with the rest of God’s Word, because God doesn’t contradict Himself (see Psalm 15:4; Malachi 3:6). Isaiah wrote concerning claimants of supernatural gifts, “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). The “law” (Heb. torah ) refers generally to God’s revealed will but specifically to the books of Moses, and the “testimony” (Heb. te‘udah) refers to the messages of the prophets.GP 60.2

Every true prophet has made the writings of previous prophets the benchmark for his or her own ministry. The same is true for Ellen G. White. She constantly quoted and referred to the biblical text. Although she wasn’t a trained theologian and she didn’t write an exegetical commentary on the Bible, her messages are in harmony with the messages of Scripture.GP 60.3

Some people have claimed that in a number of cases she contradicts the Bible, but a careful investigation of each of these claims shows that they simply aren’t true. For example, critics sometimes claim that Ellen White contradicts the Bible because she taught that forgiven sins are not blotted out until the time of the final judgment. In the chapter on the investigative judgment, Ellen White wrote, “All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of Heaven; as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal life” (GC 483).GP 60.4

However, critics claim that the Bible teaches that sins are blotted out when they are forgiven, and the critics refer people to Isaiah 43:25, Jeremiah 31:34, Micah 7:19, and Hebrews 8:12. But none of the texts listed tells when the blotting out takes place. In Old Testament times, sins were forgiven immediately, but they remained in the sanctuary until the Day of Atonement. Today, when sinners come to Christ and confess their sins, they are forgiven completely. Their sins are placed upon Jesus, who has become sinners’ Substitute and Surety. And God, in return, “places the obedience of his Son to the sinner’s account. Christ’s righteousness is accepted in place of man’s failure, and God receives, pardons, justifies, the repentant, believing soul, treats him as though he were righteous, and loves him as he loves his Son” (RH Nov. 4, 1890).GP 60.5

But sins are not blotted out immediately. If a righteous man should turn away from God, the book of remembrance, in which all his good deeds were recorded, is not taken into account in the judgment. He is rewarded according to his long catalogue of sins (see Ezekiel 18:24). Not only are sins he has not repented of charged against him, but all those also for which he had earlier obtained pardon. When a man separates himself from God, he rejects His pardoning love and is consequently “in the same condition as before he was forgiven. He has denied his repentance, and his sins are upon him as if he had not repented” (COL 251).GP 61.1

The parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:21-35 clearly teaches this. The master forgave his servant a great debt; but when this same servant threw his fellow servant who owed him only a little into jail, the master ” ‘was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him’ “—all that was already forgiven. And so, says Jesus, ” ‘My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses’ ” (Matthew 18:34, 35). Ellen White taught what Jesus taught.GP 61.2