63. The Law in Galatians

In 1854 J. H. Waggoner took the position that the law of Galatians 3:24 was the moral law alone. Two years later Ellen White was shown in vision that Waggoner was wrong and she wrote and told him so. The Lord did not show Ellen White at that time what the “schoolmaster” in Galatians 3 did represent, but most Adventists felt that the “schoolmaster” must be the ceremonial law since it was not the moral law alone.QSEW 56.1

The subject was not discussed much further until 1884, when Signs editor E. J. Waggoner reopened the matter by advocating his father’s view that the law of Galatians 3 was the moral law alone. Waggoner was strongly opposed in this by Uriah Smith and George I. Butler who were certain that the law in Galatians 3:24 was the ceremonial law.QSEW 56.2

An open confrontation occurred at the 1888 Minneapolis Conference where Ellen White tried to maintain some semblance of harmony. She refused to fully support either group. “I cannot take my position on either side,” she explained, “until I have studied the question.” (See Through Crisis to Victory, Page 292.) While she favored Waggoner’s position over that of Smith and Butler, yet she said that neither of them was completely right. “Neither have all the light upon the law; neither position is perfect” (Letter 21, 1888).QSEW 56.3

Shortly after the Minneapolis Conference she wrote that the question of the law in Galatians “should not be handled in a debating style” and that it was “not a vital question and should not be treated as such” (Manuscript 24, 1888).QSEW 56.4

Several years more elapsed before the Lord gave Ellen White an understanding of the disputed text. In 1896 she declared, “In this Scripture [Galatians 3:24], the Holy Spirit through the apostle is speaking especially of the moral law,” and in 1900 she wrote, “What law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ? I answer: Both the ceremonial and the moral code of ten commandments.” This settled the question for all who believed Ellen White as God’s messenger. It was not just one law or the other. The whole legal system was represented as the schoolmaster, to “bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (See The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 6, pages 1110, 1109.)QSEW 56.5