Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents

Messenger of the Lord

 - Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    The Great Controversy Theme

    All significant theologies have an organizing principle. 4John Cobb, among others, recognized “that any developed position is understood best when it is grasped in terms of its essential structure. This structure in turn can be understood only as the immediate embodiment of the controlling principles of a man’s thoughts.” After reviewing several seminal thinkers of the twentieth century, he wrote: “In each case we have seen that the philosophy employed profoundly affected the content as well as the form of the affirmation of faith. Furthermore, the implication of the whole program is that Christian faith depends for its intelligibility and acceptance upon the prior acceptance of a particular philosophy. In our day, when no one philosophy has general acceptance among philosophers, and when all ontology and metaphysics are widely suspect, the precariousness of this procedure is apparent.” Living Options in Protestant Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), pp. 12, 121. Many scholars have identified Ellen White’s unifying principle as the Great Controversy Theme. This provided a coherent framework for her theological thought as well as for her principles in education, health, missiology, social issues, and environmental topics. 5In 1858, H. L. Hastings wrote a book entitled, The Great Controversy Between God and Man, Its Origin, Progress, and End. His theme was to trace the worldwide implications of Jeremiah’s announcement that the “Lord has a controversy with the nations” (Jeremiah 25:31.) Hastings revealed no concept of a cosmic controversy between Satan and Christ with supernatural implications involving the security of the universe. Nor did he depict how the controversy affects the conflict between various theories of salvation and how these theories directly affect their proponents. He reviewed the bleak history of humanity, noting that “reason, philosophy and history can give us no proper solution” to “earth’s long continued rage—its ceaseless din of war, commotion, and strife.” The cause of earth’s prolonged troubles is that humanity has “refused their allegiance to the king of heaven. They set at naught his high authority. Hence he had a controversy with them. Sin was the cause of it.... We are then to regard this controversy as a controversy between right and wrong, between good and evil ... between a just and Almighty ruler and his frail and rebellious subjects.”(Rochester, NY: H. L. Hastings, 1858), pp. 14-17. Joseph Battistone was one of the first in print to recognize the centrality of the Great Controversy Theme in the writings of Ellen G. White. He emphasized how this central theme directly affected her religious teachings in theology, health, education, history, and science. His method was to demonstrate how the five volumes in the Conflict of the Ages series reveal how “the great controversy” engages men and women from Eden to the Second Advent. If Battistone had continued, he probably would have not only described the conflict but also analyzed the theological issues at stake and how this theme contributed to the distinctiveness of Seventh-day Adventist doctrines. This book is a prime source of homiletical gems for those who want the Great Controversy Theme to inform their preaching and teaching.—The Great Controversy Theme (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1978). Not that she single-handedly devised these interacting thought patterns, but she was the conceptual nurturer, urging study, noting errors, always exhorting freshness, not novelty. Along with nurturing, her own writings helped to form a core of Biblical understanding that provided integrity to the development of Adventist thought. 6See pp. 170, 171 for the typical way Ellen White entered into the process of developing core Adventist beliefs: Bible study + confirmation by vision = present truth.MOL 256.4

    George Knight, church historian, suggests that by focusing on the Great Controversy Theme “we can tell when we are on center or chasing stray geese near the edges of what is really important.” In pointing to what Ellen White calls the “grand central theme” of the Bible, Knight wrote that “in such passages we find our marching orders for the reading of both the Bible and the writings of Ellen White.... All our reading takes place within that context, and those issues closest to the grand central theme are obviously of more importance than those near its edges.” 7Knight, Reading Ellen White, pp. 48, 49.MOL 256.5

    The conceptual key. Ellen White defined the Great Controversy Theme as the conceptual “key” to understanding humanity’s greatest questions: How did life begin? Why good and evil, and how does one know the difference? What happens after death? Why suffering and death? The Great Controversy Theme provides the background for the development of evil—the story of Lucifer’s (Satan’s) rebellion against the government of God. The thrust of Satan’s argument is that God cannot be trusted, that His law is severe and unfair, and thus the Lawgiver is unfair, severe, and arbitrary. 8“The central theme of the Bible, the theme about which every other in the whole book clusters, is the redemption plan, the restoration in the human soul of the image of God. From the first intimation of hope in the sentence pronounced in Eden to that last glorious promise in the Revelation, ‘They shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads,’ the burden of every book and every passage of the Bible is the unfolding of this wondrous theme—man’s uplifting, the power of God, ‘which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ He who grasps this thought has before him an infinite field of study. He has the key that will unlock to him the whole treasure-house of God’s word.” Education, 125, 126.
    “The Bible is its own expositor. Scripture is to be compared with Scripture. The student should learn to view the word as a whole, and to see the relation of its parts. He should gain a knowledge of its grand central theme, God’s original purpose for the world, of the rise of the great controversy, and of the work of redemption. He should understand the nature of the two principles that are contending for supremacy, and should learn to trace their workings.... He should see how this controversy enters into every phase of human experience; how in every act of life he himself reveals the one or the other of the two antagonistic motives; and how, whether he will or not, he is even now deciding upon which side of the controversy he will be found.” Education, 190.
    “From the opening of the great controversy it has been Satan’s purpose to misrepresent God’s character, and to excite rebellion against His law; and this work appears to be crowned with success. The multitudes give ear to Satan’s deceptions, and set themselves against God. But amid the working of evil, God’s purposes move steadily forward to their accomplishment; to all created intelligences He is making manifest His justice and benevolence. Through Satan’s temptations the whole human race have become transgressors of God’s law; but by the sacrifice of His Son a way is opened whereby they may return to God. Through the grace of Christ they may be enabled to render obedience to the Father’s law. Thus in every age, from the midst of apostasy and rebellion, God gathers out a people that are true to Him—a people ‘in whose heart is His law’ (Isaiah 51:7).” Patriarchs and Prophets, 338; see also Patriarchs and Prophets, 69, 331, 596; The Signs of the Times, December 1, 1890; Steps to Christ, 10, 11, 116; Prophets and Kings, 311; The Great Controversy, x, 193; Selected Messages 1:34Testimonies for the Church 5:738. See George Knight, Meeting Ellen White, (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1996), pp. 111-113.
    MOL 256.6

    Satan’s initial success in winning the allegiance of one-third of the angels in heaven was followed by his deceiving Adam and Eve (Revelation 12:4, 7-9; Genesis 3:1-16). By so doing, this earth has experienced all the bitter fruit of distrusting God and spurning His will.MOL 257.1

    God’s response has been, not to destroy Satan, but to expose him. God’s long-term interest is to demonstrate how wrong Satan has been to charge Him with being supremely selfish, arbitrary, and unfair. Primarily through the life and death of Jesus, and through His designated people on earth, God has been revealing and demonstrating His side of the story. 9Patriarchs and Prophets, 39-42, 68, 78, 79; The Signs of the Times, December 22, 1914.MOL 257.2

    The controversy ends on this earth only after God’s people give glory to Him (Revelation 14:7) in such a way that all earthly inhabitants can make an intelligent decision as to whether God’s program is something they should choose for themselves. All must decide whether they would be eternally comfortable in keeping “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). After ushering in the return of Jesus, the controversy is reviewed during the millennium and finally settled when the chorus echoes from world to world, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for His judgments are true and just.’ ... ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns, Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory’” (Revelation 19:1-7). The rebellion is over.MOL 257.3

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents