Open-Door Vision

In her Open Door vision, March 24, 1849, ^{43Early Writings, 42-45, originally a letter to the Hastings family, March 30, 1849.} Ellen White provided further connections in the unfolding, step by step process of integrating vital truths that came to be known as “present truth,” linkages such as: (1) “shut door” (i.e., validity of 1844) with the sanctuary truth; (2) Sabbath and the sanctuary truths “could not be separated“: (3) rise of spiritualism with the evils of Satan; (4) rise of hypnotism with the evils of Satan; (5) Paul’s warning about “strong delusion” and “believe the lie” (2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12) applied to those ministers who were attacking the Sabbath and sanctuary truths. ^{44See Appendix I: “Ellen White Led the Way in Developing a Theological Message for the World.”}MOL 506.1

Here Ellen White emphasized her enriched understanding of the code word, “shut door.” ^{45For a discussion of how Ellen White enriched the term, “shut door,” see Appendix H.} The concepts of “shut door,” the Sabbath, and the sanctuary truth (with its insights regarding Christ’s work in the Most Holy Place) were “not [to] be separated.” Frequently in this 1849 vision-message, she described Jesus as shutting the door of the Holy Place so that He could “open” His work in the Most Holy Place. In her graphic symbolism—one goes through the open door with Jesus after 1844, into the larger view that connects Christ’s Most Holy Place ministry, the sealing work, and the time of His second coming.MOL 506.2

The last sentence of this vision, however, has led critics to contend that Ellen White, even in 1849, held to the extreme shut-door notion—that probation had closed for all the world, except those who had held onto their 1844 experience: “My accompanying angel bade me look for the travail of soul for sinners as used to be. I looked, but could not see it; for the time for their salvation is past.” ^{46Early Writings, 45.}MOL 506.3

Good interpretation connects any disputed passage with its contexts—first, its own letter or manuscript, and then the author’s contemporary documents on the same subject. Even then, perhaps, no single interpretation of these two sentences will satisfy both the affirmers and the critics.MOL 506.4

Affirmers generally find in earlier paragraphs the antecedents to the word their of this last sentence, that is: (1) to the non-Adventist pastors “who have rejected the truth“: (2) to those “professed Adventists who had rejected present truth“: (3) to new converts of the two previous ministers who “appeared to have been really converted ... but if their hearts could be seen they would be as black as ever.” In other words, among those involved in “false reformations” that went “from bad to worse” there was no “travail ... for sinners as used to be.” For these false leaders and their unconverted “converts,” as they continued their evil course, “the time for their salvation is past.” ^{47Damsteegt, Foundations, p. 154. It is more than interesting that Charles G. Finney, one of the leading evangelists in North America prior to 1850, wrote in 1845: “I have observed, and multitudes of others also I find have observed, that for the last ten years, revivals of religion have been gradually becoming more and more superficial.... There is very much less deep conviction of sin and deep breaking up of the heart.” Charles G. Finney, Reflections on Revival (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany Fellowship, 1979), p. 14.}MOL 506.5

Affirmers note further that Ellen White’s messages for some time had been depicting, step by step, an opening door for evangelism for those who had not rejected the light of truth. The wider context for this disputed sentence, they feel, clearly explains what she did not mean.MOL 506.6