The Love Of God

Perhaps the central and most comprehensive theme in the writings of Ellen White is that of the love of God. Why do we begin with this theme? The answer is that it is the one she repeatedly treats first and foremost in her major books. A few illustrations of that point will help us grasp the theme’s crucial place in her thought.EWIT 109.4

One of the most forceful illustrations of the centrality of God’s love in Ellen White’s writings is that the phrase “God is love” provides the first three words in the first volume of the Conflict of the Ages Series (Patriarchs and Prophets) and the last three words of the series’ final volume (The Great Controversy).EWIT 110.1

Why is that so? Because, as we shall see below, the fact of God’s lovingness is the central point of the great struggle between good and evil, as portrayed by Mrs. White. As a result, she emphasizes God’s love at every opportunity. “God is love” is the phrase that provides the context for her telling of the massive great controversy story.EWIT 110.2

Another significant illustration of the centrality of the theme of God’s love to Ellen White’s writings is that a discussion of that all-important topic provides the content for the first chapter of Steps to Christ. The book’s opening words are “Nature and revelation alike testify of God’s love.”—Steps to Christ, 9EWIT 110.3

Mrs. White goes on to point out how the natural world “speaks to us of the Creator’s love” and that even in a world of sin the message of God’s love shines through. After all, “there are flowers upon the thistles, and the thorns are covered with roses. ‘God is love’ is written upon every opening bud, upon every spire of springing grass.”—Steps to Christ, 9, 10EWIT 110.4

Yet, she points out, the things of nature in a world of sin “but imperfectly represent His love.” The supreme and clearest illustration of God’s love for us, she emphasizes, is God’s sending Jesus to save us from our sins.—Steps to Christ, 10-13.EWIT 110.5

The chapter closes with the following underlining of the central theme of the book. “Such love [as God had for us in providing for our salvation in Jesus] is without parallel. Children of the heavenly King! Precious promise! Theme for the most profound meditation! The matchless love of God for a world that did not love Him! The thought has a subduing power upon the soul and brings the mind into captivity to the will of God. The more we study the divine character in the light of the cross, the more we see mercy, tenderness, and forgiveness blended with equity and justice, and the more clearly we discern innumerable evidences of a love that is infinite and a tender pity surpassing a mother’s yearning sympathy for her wayward child.”—Steps to Christ, 15EWIT 110.6

A third powerful illustration of God’s love as being the central theme of Ellen White occurs in the opening pages of The Desire of Ages. Jesus, she points out in the book’s first paragraph, “came to reveal the light of God’s love” (The Desire of Ages, 19). On the next page she writes that Jesus’ life demonstrated “that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which ‘seeketh not her own’ has its source in the heart of God” (The Desire of Ages, 20). Her conclusion on the final page is that through Christ “love has conquered.”—The Desire of Ages, 835EWIT 111.1

The love of God is uplifted first, last, and all through Ellen White’s writings. She repeatedly treats it first and last in her most important books, and it provides the beginning and ending words for her treatment of the Conflict of the Ages, with more than 3,500 pages in between. It appears to be the theme that undergirds and provides the context for all other themes in her writings.EWIT 111.2